Chante Moore

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaks to the planning.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I go by the name of Charlamagne of God, and
guess what, I can't wait to see y'all at the
third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming
back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poleman
Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions Decisions,
Mandy B and Wheezy. Okay, we got the R and
B Money podcast with taking Jay Valentine. We got the
Woman of All podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts. We got

(00:22):
Good Mom's Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be there with
her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast with
more to be announced. And of course it's bigger than podcasts.
We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black owned businesses,
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you visit us. All right, listen, you don't want to
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Speaker 3 (00:47):
R and B Money, Honey were saxon Take Valochi.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
We are the authority on all R.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
And B ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank Valentine
and this is the R and B Money Podcast, the
authority on all things.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
R and B.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Come on, talk to him, talk to him.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
I'm sick of your shiit.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
What the hell is going on?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I want to hear your vocal if they got them,
I want to hear your train.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Raw fleck footed, turn the machines.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Off, Darphin though Daulphin.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Vocal.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
They know who are today?

Speaker 5 (01:49):
They know yeah, yeah, because I got the same clothes twice.
They I don't do that, only do that when we
gotta double up.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Have not seen a combination of beauty and gift and
intellect ever.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Standing on that. She's in the building.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
My my mind, Chante, it's in the building, damn it, Shante.
You can fucking sing and no fucking sing, no question,

(02:41):
no questions.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
We're gonna get into the history of it. But we
we were on the show. I think this was the
b T war like to look at her like tumble
as well. But you you're an athlete too. I didn't
know you had that. You put that one hand down

(03:05):
and it's still carrying them and you proceed what was
this twenty twenty two? You proceeded to show us the
difference man.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
That remember is like its yesterday.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I was like, you hear this and it was like
the room was even even the room was confused, like
what the fuck is going on right now? Yeah, that's
what's going on right now.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
And it was like, let's do it again.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
Because I fell down and listen.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Cool, cool, no problem, no problem.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Oh you want it again.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
You do this all day.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I can do this all all night because this is
what I do.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, I just I just I You're You're you are,
you are what you are, You're you're a really you're gifted,
of course by immeasurably right. But the work that you
have put into your gift speaks volumes because every time

(04:25):
you open your mouth, it is like see and I listen,
and I've known you for such a long time, you're
like you're like you're like the coolest, nicest person. And
maybe Stephen feels differently, maybe you show him another side,
but maybe you can tell us about the stories. Man,

(04:48):
I'm telling you, bro, he was in the crowd other night.
But it's like that gift, that beauty, that everything that
comes along with you for you to have always been
as gracious and welcoming and awesome of a person that
you are every time that I've come in contact with
you for the last fifteen, twenty years, whatever, it's just incredible,

(05:10):
just incredible. Like I come from a place where, you
know what I'm saying, if you got all the tools
as a woman, oh you stuck all the way up?

Speaker 4 (05:19):
What you know?

Speaker 3 (05:20):
You're hey girl, hey whatever, you're like.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
I come I come from.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
That, no super turned up and you've just with with
everything that you have, but all the gifts God has
given you, you've never been that and that's I think
that's that's the other layer that's even more awesome about you.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
So I just I just wanted to.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Make sure we throw those flowers at you at the
top of the pod so people can understand who and what.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Is sitting in the.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Hot seat now high school?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Where is this?

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Like, it's kind of I feel like you've been singing
since you were like one and a half.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
That's just my guess.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
If I had to guess, I would say she was
holding harmonies it too.

Speaker 6 (06:12):
Well. I love to see First of all, thank you
for having me here.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Course course you're telling people I used to be chasing
you down.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
I wondering I'm just offing to a boulevard I'm like, what's.

Speaker 6 (06:30):
Up, and we were like, yes, yes, so thank you
for having me here. I appreciate that singing. I love music,
So it's always been something that I played. It was
on a little phonograph, it was on the little album
thing my godmother got me, uh to play records on

(06:52):
and I play them and sing and dance. And what
is not commonly known is that my family was all music.
My mother saying. My father's a pianist, he's still living.
My mother's passed on. My sister is the most talented
out of all of us. She sings and plays guitar,
she plays the piano, she can play the drums, She writes,
she draws, she does everything. She told her sister kind.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Of like that.

Speaker 6 (07:18):
It was a lot, and that's what it was when
I was growing up. My brothers was a drummer. He
passed on as well, but he's played with DJ Rogers
and the guys from Crouches, all the Crotches anyway, Yeah,
he was yeah, yeah, And so I was the baby
of the family, and so the it was just you know,
shut up, just shut up, chante because I was always

(07:39):
running with the camera and running. I want to play.
I want to, I'll sing it. They're like, baby, just
bet So. My mother got me a tape recorder when
I was about seven. She was like, this is so
you can hear how bad you sound, baby wow. And
it's okay because I never took offense to any of it.

(08:00):
They were like shout up. I was like, I'll just
go to my room. You got to I don't, I
don't care. And so I went, and there's tapes of
me actually on one of my albums. I have this
thing where I'm talking in the middle. I shot he's
got a man whatever album that is smums Mine and
you've seen said Chantette seven. It was literally me going
so you were the only thing I could talk to
was you, And so I'm just talking into my papercorder.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
And I still had that tape.

Speaker 6 (08:26):
I still yeah wow. But I wasn't the singer. I
was in the choir. At twelve, they let me be
in the choir, but I was just in the choir.
I wasn't the soloist. My sister was the one who
would sing and slay them. My mom sang before my
dad preached, and she'd slay it. And it was.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Just like, yeah, I didn't know we really followed that
saying all these years, I didn't know that like we
followed that same.

Speaker 6 (08:57):
Either.

Speaker 4 (08:58):
I couldn't play my cousin's.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Drum, get off that piano drill like and my cousin Keisha,
my first cousin, she was the soloist.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
She was the one that got all the solos.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
My mama sang, my grandmama sang all my big cousin,
she has all of them, was saying becausein father, they
was the singers, and I was the kid trying to
just get a little She's get a little peace, like
you could just get here.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
I'd sneaking to the what they was saying.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
And as you said that that, like here, how bad
you sound? I had a solo one time. I had
fought for this solo. My grandmother fought for this solo
for me, and and I sang this solo, Jesus are
the center of my joy in front of the whole
state Congress, which my grandmother was the diana, and I'm
singing my lead, and the two other older guys singing

(09:50):
lead with me, and and toward toward the middle of
the song, I just felt like I was getting boxed
out from the microphone. You know, ain't know what that was.
I was like, well, let me just sing to their
shoulders and maybe they'll get through. And after that, you know,
were walking to the car with my anti Betty got
arrest her soul. She was the one who was teaching
us how to sing Junior Crawle. I was like, anti, baby,
I'll sound. She said, you was off, Baby was real.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
Honest, okay.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
Didn't deter me when okay, all right, and I went
back and I kept doing.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Until I figured it out. Same thing, the process, the process, it's.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
The love for the music. For me, it's not about
I didn't think I was going to become a singer.
Well that wasn't even if it was going to be
a ballerina. And then I thought I was going to
be a gymnast, and then I thought, oh, I'll just draw.
I didn't know. I didn't think singing was an option
at that point. And where you were you from the
baby the family in.

Speaker 5 (10:49):
San Francisco, Come on, yeah, come on, okay, so I
see it.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
I see man, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Singers like you know, we got right. That's good stuff.

Speaker 6 (11:11):
I love it. And that was the thing that they
didn't deter me from loving the music. I could only
listen to gospel music as a kid because my dad
and mom were like not having it. And then when
my brother turned eighteen, he had a drum set already
in the garage, but when he turned eighteen he could
play other music. So we just started going into the
garage and I can play the drums, which I haven't
done a lot of, but because he said, don't touch

(11:32):
them neither time you left home out So but that
was just where the love came from. And then hearing
Mini Ripperton eventually realizing other people did the thing I
thought was a broken part of my voice. I thought
it was broken me because Tremaine couldn't sing you know
that that, you know, the real and I would try

(11:54):
to do that with Walter and her and Andree Crouch
and all those people. I love singing with singers, and
I couldn't do that full voice. And I didn't have
anybody to ask because they weren't gonna tell me how
to do it, because they were like, you just be caiet.
And one of my aunties used to say, good thing,
you cute because the singing were singing I words now

(12:17):
though I wait, yeah, But my point was what oh,
I would go over the note like if they do
that and they went at full voice, I would just
up on top of that because that was all I knew,
and so I thought that was broken, so I would
I didn't even let anybody know I could do that
because I didn't think it was something to be proud of.

(12:37):
It was just what I did to get through the
song with them.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
What.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
Yeah, I didn't know that, so wid discovery. Yeah, just
to do that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (12:50):
I didn't know. So yeah, that was it.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
That's where happened. So that was Anne.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
And when do you get a chance at least to
where the film is like, all right, go ahead saying
something me, let me hear what you're doing to me.

Speaker 6 (13:12):
I sang background with my sister and my mom, like
as we sang before my dad would preach, we would
do that. I was the alto, but alone. A lady
asked me to be Dorothy in a stage production college production,
and I was Dorothy and she asked me to do it,
and I was like, everybody always mixed me and my

(13:32):
sister up, it's Laton. I'm chante you Laton. She was like, no, no,
I know who I'm asking. I was like you want
me to do. I never scared. I was like, yeah, okay, sure,
So I said yes to being Dorothy and we learned
all the lines and singing in my mother played the

(13:53):
what is Auntie Auntie m? She played auntiem in the beginning,
and my sister was part of the Yellow Brick Road.
And so I'm doing rehearsals and We're all sitting on
the floor in this college whatever replace. We were just
sitting on the floor and the guy's playing the piano
and I'm singing with him, and my sister and my
mother looking me in and it started looking at each
other and I was like, what's what I'm singing? Like

(14:15):
home or whatever the B line. I don't even remember
what the song it was. And they were like, when
did you learn how to sing? I was like, I
can sing? I was sixteen. I was like, I can
do it. I can okay. So that was the moment
I realized that they thought I could sing. And then
performing the end the Home at the end is when

(14:38):
I got bitten with the bug, the performance bug, and
they clapped. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna deal
with that.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
I can do it like this And you had just
been in your shed just working on it.

Speaker 6 (14:53):
Well, I didn't know I was working on it.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
You know, you didn't know you were working on it.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
But there's there's maybe this unconscious thing where you know,
you're just waiting for this approval. Like I wanted Auntie
Betty to say I could I could finally sing so bad,
like you know what I mean? Like I loved it,
so that's why I was doing it. But at the
same time we're looking for that. Auntie Betty was the

(15:19):
barn Right and she.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
And your mother and your your for you.

Speaker 6 (15:24):
I mean, I thought it was the approval of that
I can carry a note. It still wasn't the I'm
going to do this for a living.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
Well no, not even with it, just love it.

Speaker 6 (15:33):
I was like, oh, I'm on good yeah, all right,
all right, two thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
I didn't know did you did you? Did you kill it?

Speaker 6 (15:42):
You know what? There was a tape of it a
long time ago, and I don't know if I did
or didn't. I think I did good enough?

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, good enough?

Speaker 6 (15:51):
They did. They clapped, and it was it was the
moment I thought this could be something I could do
for a living. But I thought, you know, one song
don't make an.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Artist, right, because you also like, it's not one of
the million outletsible.

Speaker 6 (16:07):
It was not even in my realm, you know, I
didn't even think yeah like that.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
The other part about that too, and it may be
a little different for you tank where most people don't
realize how small San Francisco is and the small community
of black people. So we like, we don't even have athletes,
especially when we were coming up that made the NFL

(16:32):
or the NBA or the major like, we don't We
definitely don't know singers.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
We don't have no artists really.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
I mean we have a couple, we have gospel artists, yes, but.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
We don't have we don't have Marvin gay If you're
from DC or the Maryland area, you're like Marvin.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Gaye was, you know, he used to be right over
here doing that.

Speaker 5 (16:52):
So it almost seemed and I'll just give my own experience,
it almost seemed impossible when my father would be talking
to us about what we were going to be in
music and how we were going to have careers in
music and were like, I'm probably gonna end up selling.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
I didn't make that.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
I'm difference when you when you do to use and
take out different type of church. So, but did you
see that for yourself at all, Like you're like, I'm
going to make this a career for myself, like once
you started to do it while you're in San Francisco.

Speaker 6 (17:36):
No, I didn't. I didn't. I I I knew I
felt special. I don't think I thought turn it into
this or that. I love to dance and perform, and
you know, whether anybody was paying attention or not, it

(17:57):
was what my joy was. I acted songs out and
the songs said knocked me down to the ground. I'll
be on the floor and then I like you picked
me up, oh you know, and just whatever I was
singing and doing the song.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
So did you did you have to leave? Leave what
san Francisco?

Speaker 6 (18:16):
Well, we moved to San Diego. We moved to San
Diego when I was twelve, so that was already a change.
So San Diego was when I joined the choir and
middle school, and I don't know, I don't know when
it changed so much. Modeling Key Key Shepherd and her

(18:39):
mother Kekey and von Gretchen was a Miss Black America.
They I don't remember. Oh, I know. I was in
a beauty pageant called MS Bronze and I was fourteen.
I was fourteen and I run one first runner up

(19:00):
and miss Bronze and that's what made me meet Kiki
and Vaughn and they just loved on me. They really
made me feel like family and they said how special
I was. And I started modeling as soon as the
pageant was over. I was in clubs and modeling with
them and doing all that. I don't know, it was
just interesting how that just unfolded into just walking and

(19:22):
performing and clothes and you know, they were like, keep
your head up and just there were certain things that
just came with being around them. Just crazy. I forgot
about them, but yeah, they put me in the mindset
of being in front of a crowd, right, more so
than just you know, being a goofy kid somewhere.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
But are you singing it still?

Speaker 4 (19:43):
At the now?

Speaker 6 (19:44):
I'm modeling at this point, I mean in my room, right.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
But you're fully focused on.

Speaker 6 (19:50):
I'm in high school and I'm just, yeah, not really
thinking of what could be. By seventeen eighteen, I started
thinking about, maybe it's what I can do because modeling
is out. I'm only five four, so you know, petite
modeling did not take off like I thought it would.
And so my mother was always thinking out of the box.

(20:13):
So she was like, what do you want to do?
Whatever that is, let's work on that. So modeling was
it for a long time, just going out on catacauls
and trying to make it. I don't know. She always
made me think of any moment could be the moment
for whatever it is. When I would go to the
grocery store, I'd be full on made up, and anywhere
I go it was just makeup and hair and shoes, nails,

(20:37):
and it was just this thing. My mother always was
always about presenting myself a particular way, and it's good.
It was too much, but it was good to at
least have the bar. And then once I realized you
didn't have to work that hard at being pretty, you
know what I mean. It's not like you have to

(20:58):
have on a bunch of makeup. Sometimes natural is good.
My mother was always about just extra stuff, and I
call it. She was so guardy. She always had a
bunch of bracelets, earrings and lips. She was doing a lot,
and I think that makes me not want to do
it as much. And her always feeding me and loving
me so and pumping up and all of that. I

(21:19):
was like, okay, okay, because if I'm not on stage,
I don't really really I don't need all attention. I
don't need it. And I think there is something in
people who are performers that are that is there's a
there's a monster that gets fed on stage, and that

(21:41):
what they want to feed that monster all the time.
And I'm just like, can we go home? And I'm
being a bed can I'll watch it on TV? But
I don't know's some and maybe that's from not being
the center of attention as a kid, or when my
mother did pay attention, it was a whole and it

(22:01):
was like, oh Chante and Chantey is Chante was like yes, Mama,
over here is a Laton and here's Kilvin and here's
the other people. I just I don't know. So I
kind of have a thing that is there when I sing,
which is what I try to make it about when
I'm in concert is my voice. And I don't know,

(22:22):
I have a thing where I gotta like let myself
go and be able to jump off of the cliff
a little bit more often sometimes. So yeah, I don't
even know if I answered your question, But I'm back, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
For the journey.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
We want people to understand how people get to the
success and the process and the other things, you know
what I mean. Most people probably don't know that you
were a model at fourteen. They don't know that you
know what I'm saying. So it's like for us, that's
that's a big part of our show. So we would
we love those type of answers.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
We would have thought you were winning every talent show.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, we thought you were singing in high school.

Speaker 6 (23:10):
I did sing in the Beauty Pageant though. I sang brown.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Baby, you got to do It.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
I did do that, and I sang to a little
big doll in the Swaddling Clues, and I sang the
brun baby rum Baby. So that was the only time
I had really sang anything that is crazy.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
I was in high school. I was singing my face
off everywhere, and you just.

Speaker 6 (23:39):
And I wish I would have youthing's better. But I
think when I when I came out, I wish I'd
had more preliminary work on performing live what to do
with my hands because at first this arm here was

(24:01):
like it was like you never watched the Flintstones and
the hands are always down here one hand, just one arm.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
It was.

Speaker 6 (24:08):
I was one it was and I went, I'd be
like and lift it and then it would go back.
It's not cute. It's really not cute.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
I know the group I'm trying to think of the
group that was before the flints are out of space and.

Speaker 6 (24:31):
The one they wouldn't move, the arm that's my it
was paralyzed. And so I wish that I'd had more
work on how to present myself when I watch. And
the thing about it is, I started. I knew how
to do my hair and my makeup, and so they
were cheap. They were like, oh, you do your hair

(24:53):
and you make up. Once I said I knew how,
they were like, oh, you're not even gonna have nobody
do that. So you see me looking like me would
me would look, but not like I should have been styled.
I should have been make up and people should have
done those things. And I was doing it. I look
like church girl because that's why I was so my hair.

(25:15):
I just finished doing it and then I'd be on
showtime to the Apollo and the dress topic. That's crazy,
and you know, I just feel like I wish somebody
would have done.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
You would do all of those things for sure. But
I'll just tell you outside looking at and we're going
to go back to finish the story we did. We
did not notice, We didn't know. We just like, right,
she's incredible. That's that's all we So I get it.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, to give me the moment where.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Where you now believe where you know this this you
as a solo artist, singer, like you circle. When you
finally circle back to your both.

Speaker 5 (26:03):
Of those, it's like, oh, yeah, you know what, I
can't model. Maybe'll so we never get shun to say more.
If you go to five nine or five.

Speaker 6 (26:12):
Ten, No, you probably wouldn't. Probably not. That would have
been nice, would be nice to be taller.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
The things that happened your legs stop.

Speaker 6 (26:25):
Bro, I thought of it, but that's so painful.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
And when it looked like it took him a year
to get his walking back, I said, now I'm.

Speaker 6 (26:30):
Good, Like that's be grateful moment.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Take this five ten and deal with it.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
Yeah, five ten, I'm gonna deal with that. Seventeen eighteen eighteen,
I met a guy I was modeling at these clubs.
We had these modeling groups, and we were midling. I

(26:58):
got the name of the club. But we were modeling
my and this one football player saw me and started
buying all the outfits that I was in, and.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
You what do you mean?

Speaker 6 (27:12):
And people could auction. We auction the clothes like if
they go, oh, twenty five dollars, I was, you know,
through somebody go oh thirty dollars, okay, when I turn
and poth and okay. And then whenever they get the
last bid, you give him the card and they get
that dress. And so he started buying the dresses I

(27:33):
was in. And after the Momming show, this is so bananas.
I haven't eve thought it was forever h and uh.
So afterward I was like, oh, you know, here's all
your cards and you know, outfits go to He was
like you. I'm like, oh, shoot, okay. I don't remember
what happened after that, but after that he wanted me

(27:57):
in those outfits of course, and he heard some of
my songs that I just was doing at home, and
I told him I wanted to sing, and he was like, well,
I'm going to build a place in my house that
you've just come over and sing. So I would go
to his house and sing, and I don't know how

(28:20):
this happened. This sounds so bizarre because I haven't talked
about this in a long time. This is weird. But
I had a keyboard and a four track which turned
into a six track recording thing, and I started just
trying to create songs. And wow, seventeen eighteen, I wrote

(28:40):
a song that's on my first album and it was
called Listen to My Song. And Darryl Sutton was in
San Diego, and I don't know how it got connected,
but he had a person who knew had a studio,
and I went in the studio and I sang some
songs and Daryl's and connected me to some girl. Forgot

(29:03):
his name, her name right now, but she was an
assistant to Benny Medina, and somehow that connection happened and
they got my demo and they said yes, and Bennie
Medina signed me to Warner brother Records when I was eighteen,
and I recorded an entire album and after I finished it,
he dropped me, and then.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
You did the whole album, though I did full project.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
Full project, and he dropped me. And I met Eldbarche
here in La at a stage production. I forgot where
it was, though it's in Culver City, because when.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
You signed the Warner Brothers, you moved to LA.

Speaker 6 (29:45):
I what did I do? I did not move to LA.
I was still in San Diego. I recorded my album
in Sacramento. I got connected to Jay King and they said,
they said, you know, work with him and he'll produce
your record. He's hot right now whatever, and I'm like, okay.
So I did an entire project. And then actually I

(30:07):
met Brian Morgan during that time because he was in
the group Cachet Deuvois and so that was he was
signed to Jay as well. And after I finished, Yeah,
I did a stage production met El DeBarge. Chased El
DeBarge because he was just like the most talented and
you know, the light skinned thing was really really in

(30:28):
at that time, and so I talked to his manager
more than I talked to him, because l it was
just like everywhere. And his manager was Fred Moultrie, who
was Prince's accountant and so he had all these things
in Lucas said he was representing him. It was a

(30:49):
whole bunch of people on the wall. And I called
him to find out how do I get a manager?
How do I get somebody who actually would take me
where I need to go because I don't know how
to I don't know how to do this. And he
was like, i've heard your demo, I'll represent you. And
I was like, get the heck out, and so we
took the album I made for Warner Brothers, condensed it

(31:11):
and that was my demo. We went to La Face
MCA and it seemed like one other place, but it
was the battle between La Face and MCA Records, and
Tony Braxton had just signed with La Face and Louil
was just so gung ho. Loul called La and Face

(31:32):
and ask him not to sign me because we were
going to go with them because of the songwriting, and
they said okay, And that's how I ended up at
MCA Records.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
And this is after stay right week about You?

Speaker 6 (31:51):
Yes, that was the time where I was in Takama,
That's where I met him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
How did you feel the first time you heard that?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Did you even know it was about you at first?

Speaker 6 (32:04):
I did? I remember the day. I don't know who's
whose apartment it was it could I think it might
have been Brian's. I'm not really sure, but we were
sitting and he was because I dated Jay King, which
is well known because I rarely mentioned his name, but
nevertheless he said, whenever I see you with him, I

(32:27):
hear this, And he wrote that. He said it was
a circus. And he said, and you when you're not
with him, right, I hear this the little that's the
first I heard. He didn't play the whole thing, but
that was the part. He said, that was what I

(32:49):
make him think of. And then he wrote the song
and did he definitely did play for me.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
But that is so great.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Did you think it was a hit when you heard it?

Speaker 6 (32:59):
You know, I like the song, but I like Brian's songs.
He I love what they did well. He had songs
that never came out. It was a song called wrong,
just like five and five just don't make nine. I
was like wrong. So he always had songs that were great.
But I didn't know it to be a hit or
not a hit. I think music is what I love,
and so I didn't know if it was a hit

(33:21):
or not.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
M So you get the little silence, Yeah, yeah, and
he's cracking at this time. Yeah, And you had been
signed to you know, the Bennymdenny thing and all this,
and and now you're here with Louil, what is what
do you feel like? Is the difference in this opportunity
versus that one.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
His excitement, his knowing what he wanted from me. He
wasn't trying to make me something else. He heard my
voice and he wanted me to be the next with Houston,
the k next Mariah care You are mine, wouldn't you?
You are mine, Mariah? You are going to be the
biggest thing better. So I love that he had such
vision and he was so excited. You can't buy people

(34:04):
being excited about you, especially in the music industry. Everybody's
always thinking of the next something else other than you.
So it was nice to be to have his excitement
about me. I didn't have to hype him up for me. Yeah,
it was just my dreams coming true. And what was

(34:25):
interesting because he signed me to MCA Records, and that
was just the Lord protecting me from what was going
to happen, because my career would have been over after
one record. Because he signed me to MCA and then
asked me to be his first release off Silas Records

(34:46):
and then Silace Records was really a setup for a
little to go down. They were tired of his antics.
He was a lovely person, but he was a bulldog
and he always is was cussing and yelling and screaming
and popping veins at people, and.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Maybe the record man. He was a record man, he was, but.

Speaker 6 (35:09):
He burned some bridges with that attitude he had. He
made a lot of things wonderful, and his era was
just ending when he met me, when I met him.
So then they gave him the label to sink him right.
So once that happened, then I was right on the

(35:29):
NCAA Records again after that went away.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
So once once they dissolved Silence Records, then they picked
you back up, though.

Speaker 6 (35:37):
They never let me go. As their point, we want
her what's.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
The what's the what's the terms? No, there's there's a
there's a term in the contract where once where all
the artists.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
Revert back to Yeah, I know you're talking about I
can't think of the name. It's kind of just a
absorbing absorb it, but it's in the contract.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
But they move if we don't fuck with that no more,
we still need those.

Speaker 5 (36:06):
Back no, because I think, and this is a really
important part to talk about during the show too, is
that most of these labels aren't actually labels.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (36:19):
They're production companies, and they don't have true ownership in
their companies, and their masters are still owned by and
still you know, promoted and licensed and distributed by this
parent company.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
So the artists aren't their actual artists.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
And you young executives and you young brothers who are
starting your labels and doing your thing, make sure that
your artists are your artists, not the distributors artists, not
the parent companies artists, because they will sink your company
and absorb your artists.

Speaker 6 (36:56):
But I was directly signed first third. I will say
that that is not exact actly how it went, but
I do understand what you're saying to teach the audience,
teach artists that that does happen. But I literally was
signed to because he.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Was an executive there. First they gave him.

Speaker 6 (37:10):
Then the label happened. So then he asked me to
just wait, and I waited.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
So did you drop on your initial did you come
out on your initial deal with MCA? Yeah, when the
first first.

Speaker 6 (37:21):
Precious came out, Precious was on Silas, So I waited
because they were building Silas when I got signed in
ninety one. And then he wanted me to wait till
ninety two to come out so that I could be
on his label. And in between that, I did the
song with eld Barge you know what I Like? And
that was how I met the director. Ant He did

(37:44):
that you Know What I Like video, which is why
Antoine Fuquad did Loves taking Over video in Paris, which
is why Ntwine Fuqua did It's all Right video.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
And that's just a bar nex suerbar, that's a super.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Bar because now he's doing a Jackson movie. He's doing
a Michael Jackson movie now too?

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Are you kidding your Jesus Christas?

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Were you thinking that this is Banana's.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
At the time, not that he was.

Speaker 6 (38:11):
I had no idea, but but it was just my
dreams were coming true. That's for sure. Mind blowing. Going
to Paris in the first place. I'm like, we're going,
we get to go. We went in two days and
shot it. It was just Banana.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Had you ever been overseas before that?

Speaker 6 (38:25):
I went to London, but that was it.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, shooting your video, yeah.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
In Paris used to be first single.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
First single, that's disrespect.

Speaker 6 (38:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Now when you look at Louell, that
was what it was about. Louil was about making epic
things happen. The stuff he did, I mean, if we
look back at his track record, it's amazing. I mean,
just one group, and then how we were talking about
you as about different artists stemming from those other all

(39:02):
those groups, and then all the people who came after that,
and then that producing all the people that came after that.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
I'm a product of Blue gave me my first record
here as a kid ten years old, no side as junior, Like.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
There's so many the tree.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
Of the people that he's worked or worked with, and man,
it's vision vision.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
As we talk about like a lot of the record
company men and women who were shall we say, boisterous, yes,
and big in personality, I just don't feel like and

(39:50):
it gets to a point to where, yes, a lot
of these guys end up getting pushed and phased out,
for sure, But I feel like, as you guys say
you're connected to that kind of guy, I'm connected to

(40:11):
that kind of guy who was not shy about telling
the motherfucker.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
If you're not doing your job. Try, I mean, because
that's the other thing. Try sitting in those meetings and
you got a table full of people who are just
trying to get a two week check, and you are
a record man. When passion who wants to take his
brand new artist who's never saw a record to Paris,
come on.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
You're gonna have to jump on the table.

Speaker 5 (40:41):
You're gonna have to You're gonna have to do some
screaming because you have to make people see the vision
because everyone is not a visionary, no matter. You may
be in the music business, but that does not make
you a visionary. So being a visionary is really tough because.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
You got to be able to articulate it. You gotta
be able to show it to the people.

Speaker 6 (41:01):
Champion, champion.

Speaker 5 (41:03):
But then you gotta gotta be a little boisterous about it.
You gotta fight tooth and fucking you gotta make it.
You gotta make somebody feel like if I don't do that,
I'm fucking up.

Speaker 6 (41:14):
Yeah, she do need to go to Paris because you
put this song, that beautiful artist in his voice.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
You gotta put it in parents.

Speaker 5 (41:24):
But the person that's looking at the bottom line, looking
at the P and L, they're like.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
That's it's gonna be a line on that. Well, we're
gonna make a superstar.

Speaker 6 (41:34):
When you get the person who is in power, who's
behind you, and that was at that time Louell was
that person. So he did I'm sure have to have
something brewed by a d or whoever it was in
charge of whatever. But he was mainly the one like, Okay,
this is our budget, right, let's make this part happen.
We'll cut back on this and do that, and we'll
travel here and we'll do so he was making stuff

(41:55):
happen that that's what you want to happen. When the
Special Union.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
If you believe, you believe, listen, I spent I spent
five hundred thousand on the first video, seven hundred on
the second. Like this is like black dar little boutique label.
Barry Hankinson, Joe will Say. Hankerson said, we are not
gonna fucking lose. We're gonna bet the ranch. He had

(42:22):
actual and I watched him call everybody all sorts of motherfuckers, sons.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
In my honor, like all those men like that shot up.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Uh goanna say many, many blessings and prayers to the
Gotty family.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Earth Gotti, who was another.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Guy like that recordmen who called me out of the
blue one day, dank, I'm riding my fucking jeep.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
You know it's fucking R and B shit. I like.
I like some of the R and B shit.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
I like it. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie.
But all that fucking lovey duffy. You know I'm a
streak guy, but that fucking maybe I deserve, not the
fucking record I'm playing it right now, Like that energy
for an artist's.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
Everything made me feel like a conquer the world.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
When I hear motherfucker saying, motherfucker on my behalf, you
played this motherfucking record, but we're gonna kill you.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
That's the far they can't say. They can't say that,
that's that part.

Speaker 5 (43:40):
You gotta omit that we're gonna break you.

Speaker 6 (43:45):
This like, yeah, that's why.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
That's why ninety eight percent of us are here because
of that fight. It wasn't an analytic it was a feeling.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Gonna fight for this feeling that I had. This Shante
More is something fucking special. You better fucking play this
record or I'm coming out there.

Speaker 6 (44:13):
But you know what also happened in the middle of
that time period, right in the middle of my record,
my first record going up the charts. It was this
shift that happened. It was a Paola first and then
it began to be what is the thing when they
had the no it was like or your records were

(44:33):
here if you played that many of them. There was
as a word for it, and I can't remember the
name of it. BDS and sound Scan, and so when
that happened, it was like the shift happened. And it
was interesting as I was paying attention to s WV
at the time and because of knowing Brian and him
producing them and their first song and mine was here,

(44:56):
and then BDS and SoundScan took over and mine ended
up there hmmm, because they were getting more airplay being that,
you know, so you and my song I guess wasn't
as much as that, and so it got switched. And
I just saw how it was so hard to quote
unquote work the charts after that, and not that things

(45:18):
didn't do well, it was fine. I just think that
I don't know, I'm the kind of artist everybody's always like, oh,
you're so underrated and you should have and you could have,
and know we hoped you would, and I don't know,
I just feel like it's always been this almost made
it kind of thing, and I'm grateful. Don't let me
make it something that I'm thinking that I haven't had

(45:39):
a successful career. I have, and I feel like sustaining
is even better than being a shooting star and then
disappearing because a lot of people came out around my
time and they're gone and I can't even remember their
names or their songs. I remember one song and you're like,
who's sang that?

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Again?

Speaker 6 (45:56):
I forgot what the girl was?

Speaker 4 (45:57):
That what happens?

Speaker 6 (45:58):
And so I'm really really grateful to have had this
almost under the radar career where I've been honing my
craft still and still performing and still trying to get
better and still paying attention to the audience and feeding
them and them feeding me and making me feel loved.

(46:20):
That's been a roller coaster ride, but it's been good.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
The shooting star thing, I mean, I was that haunted
me for a long time. It's like, I'm better than
that motherfucker. And I was like, I was like, I
just really want to do this for a really long time,

(46:54):
and I just kind of got I got settled in.
I was like, what is what is my reason for
being here? What is what is what is my purpose?
What is my design? And it was it was. It
was a guy by the name of Jamie Fox saying, man,
I study you. I love what you're doing. Like, Wow,

(47:16):
you're you're the blueprint man. Keep doing that. It was
a guy my name of Chris Brown said, oh my god,
bro that sex, love and pain. I changed my freaking life.
Oh Trey songs, I can't believe. Like jojoh I singing
no for No, it goes and I'm like, h h,
That's what I'm here for. And I settled out of

(47:39):
the the wanting the shooting star moment, and I said,
I just I just want my start to shine constantly.
And that's what I feel like. You are, like you're
you're You're You're You're timeless. No matter when or how
we see you, you always shine.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
See you guys are like the nurse star.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
People who can people who can sing right, people are
musically inclined.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Are your way to freedom?

Speaker 3 (48:14):
No, who know exactly who in the fun Jane Moore is.

Speaker 5 (48:20):
Absolutely absolutely, it's not even a quest. That's not even
the question the question.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
And so some of some of some of our gifts,
some of us gifted, we are relegated to inspire and
and push and and help and serve.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
The gifted and our audience. I've seen you live and
that's when I really really became a fan. I saw
you move around that stage. I saw you play and
sing and move all of the women that were in
the audience, and no, for real, like really just be

(49:02):
sexy and you know it, and and there was like, yeah,
their minds about you and I you know, you can't
get that from the album. You can make moments personally
with your album is very sexy, but you don't know
who you are as an artist until you see you.
Like I feel like it's like seeing Patti LaBelle lives.

(49:25):
You can't contain her voice, and I feel like that's
the thing that you are as well. I feel like
that's where I can shine and have fun and fall
down and get back up again, and it's all right
because because what you're gonna do and a real concert,
you can't. You fall down and you sing from floor
or you get back up. Whatever you're gonna do, you

(49:46):
do it. And that's the mindset that I had already
figured out, is that I'm not about the perfection. If
I mess up my own, so I'm like, oh, I
messed up the words. Let's get back to it and
then you know, sing what it comes to mind.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
That's another part of your gift where you're you know,
you're just you're resilient in that.

Speaker 6 (50:06):
That is one of my words that describe myself as resilient,
resilient in that.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Now.

Speaker 5 (50:11):
But you bring up also with and I feel like
with both of you where the whole shooting star thing.
But you guys did get success out the gate too,
though It's not like it was like Okay, well it's
a sputter a little bit, but like get a gold album.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
You got cracking, you know what.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
I mean, Like you hit records from the beginning, so
you know, I think it's now and people having an
understanding of that, like now it's maintaining it.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, now it's maintaining it.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
And like the next projects and the you know, the
label things and all the other things that happened that.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
The public usually does not know.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
The public don't know that the parent company is trying
to sink the smaller.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Label and that you're just kind of collaboral damage.

Speaker 6 (51:00):
Nobody cared, and that nobody cares about that. What they
care about is what they hear on the radio. What's
interesting is I remember some of the questions you all
sent us ahead of time. Made me think of a
situation that puff Daddy was in the studio and I
had already done a record with Rodney Jerkins, and my

(51:22):
song was called If I Gave Love. Hers was if
You Had My Life, same song. Puff Daddy heard my
song and said, I want that song for j Lo.
And Roddy was like that that Chante's song, and he said,
I want that song. So powerful people get what they want,

(51:42):
and so they made their own song that they made
for me for her same song. And that's a thing
I wish that I would have been more aggressive and
been more like, well, let's put them both at the
same time.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Then I was all about to say that, and we.

Speaker 6 (52:00):
Did, but we did, and I was like, how can
I compete with j Lo money? They were coming so
high and I had already just I just had Jantie's
Got a Mantle. That was my one two punch. That
was the two and I just feel like we just
like b After that, I'm like, okay, well uh yeah,

(52:22):
so we'll see you know, it's all good. What's wonderful
is that learning the lessons and understanding which purpose is.
My purpose is to sing and inspire the audience, not
necessarily other artist. I think that when you sing for

(52:43):
the people who support you, the people who show up,
especially being a believer, these are the things that move me.
Is when I move my audience, when I encourage them
and let them know they're not alone, and they get
into this thing because you know, people see the look
of things and I'm like, yeah, no, the glitter, lipstick

(53:03):
and makeup and all this stuff comes off. I'm really
just a girl. And it really is true because heartbreak comes,
sadness comes, depression comes, not knowing my worth, all of
the things, jealousy, everything comes as a human and then
being a woman on top of that, and you have
to deal with it whether or not you sing for

(53:26):
a living or if you're working at Target. So that
is what I realized through the years that I am
made to do is inspire and talk about who God
is when I'm on stage and try to encourage somebody
to believe when they don't believe. No more. Yeah, that's

(53:48):
what I'm supposed to do. I love it.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Give me a moment when you were on stage and
you realize for the first time you had a hit record.

Speaker 6 (54:02):
Yeah, well, yeah, well it's funny because I did Soul
Train and don Cornelius, Cornelius, Cornelius, I'm gonna say, Cornelius asked.
He asked, Liul, did we pay people in the audience
to get excited about that song? And Loul was like,

(54:23):
who's having done that? He was like, but people are
really reacted to that immediately, and he was like, what
do you want me to do? So that was one
moment I was like, people really must like the song.
And then I did a show, a radio show with
Destiny's Child, and I remember uh singing on that caliber

(54:45):
of a show and the people were singing so loud
I couldn't hear myself and little white girls and that
I had never had that before because you know, we're black,
and they played black music on black radio. Unless you
cross over, nobody's gonna nobody in another race is going
to really So that song was doing so well. I
was on a radio show with Destiny's Child, so I

(55:07):
was out there and I watched the people sing it back,
and it did take me aback, like I was like,
what y'all, Oh, y'all noticed? Okay, So it was a
radio show, and then what's interesting is after that show
is what is even more memorable. Beyonce was like, huh,
your somethach smaller than mine? You had a baby, yes,
something smaller than mine. Okay. She was like, I'm gonna

(55:27):
have to get to work and latch there, Hippa. I
watched her and I love it. I loved it and
I hated it at the same time because it was
just like wow, like how a career can just and
I and I love it because I love the She

(55:48):
was a star then, and we you know, in the
group of all of them, it was beautiful and we're
all were like group, group, group. We were like our eyes,
we're not leaving her. I think that's when you see
the actor in a group.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
But then the work she put.

Speaker 6 (56:03):
In, yeah, to maintain it and still a whole another level.
But that was one of the moments. And I still,
honestly every time they say Shanta more ninety five percent
of the time they say my name backstage when I'm
about to go on, and I go, shoot, that's me,

(56:28):
Like it's me because that's my name since a kid.
I was not like it's another name. I'm not like, yeah,
that lady.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
I was taking a baby too well.

Speaker 6 (56:39):
But you know it's a weird thing.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
How you mentioned the record.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
How do y'all come up with that with saying like, Okay,
this is what we're going to call the song Shantees
got a man.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Jimmy and Terry and I were sitting in the studio
writing many songs because.

Speaker 4 (56:59):
Still stop there.

Speaker 6 (57:02):
Yeah, it was just a studio in Minneapolis, but it
was incredible. Honestly, we had been in the studio for
almost a year and a half. It had taken to
make this record. It was a long time. Every time

(57:22):
we came home they were little, was like yeah, no,
I mean it's good, but we need we need that song.
And I remember Jimmy jam said you need a ghetto song,
like you need John Day's ghetto song, and so we
all went huh. And he was like, you know, like
that Kelly Price kind of thing, you know that thing?

(57:44):
And I was like, okay, so big jim I rest
his soul. He started playing something on the keys and
I was talking about how my friends all were upset
in the mad and their boyfriends were cheating and beating
them up literally uh, And I was like, sorry, I'm
really happy. I don't know what to say to you.
I'm sorry your man ain't home, really feel bad for you,

(58:07):
but I was so giddy and happy that I couldn't
I could I could uh empathize because everybody's had the heartbroken,
everybody had somebody cheat, everybody's had the man who's not
at home with you when you want to be. But
I had my man at home. And it was that
moment that we were like, huh, Shaanta's gettle song, that's
what it was called before Shant's got Yeah, And I

(58:32):
have the cassette Jimmy Jam's c G Shahntay's Ghettle song
CGS on a cassette with the first music of that song.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Happened that great. I'm just jealous. I'm just jealous, everybody said.
And I'm gonna make it a point to work with
Jimmy Jam.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
And I'm about to give you another one. She had
some more bart.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
I don't even know, because I don't think a lot
of people talk about You're amazing song, which is a
different type of song on the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Oh, like that is such a bar.

Speaker 5 (59:20):
Because baby Face decided he's going to write all these
songs for all these great women, for this great movie soundtrack.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Like, but.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
He sends you a song, or you go to the
studio and you talk out the words.

Speaker 6 (59:37):
No words, scat song.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
It has no words, man, baby Face, the king of words.

Speaker 6 (59:46):
Can I tell you how mad little was? I can
I tell you how much he does.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
That's one of the story.

Speaker 6 (59:55):
So I don't know how it ended up being my song.
I think he. I think he genuinely was a fan
of my voice and thought.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
I could pull it off because in it ly they
wanted to sign you.

Speaker 6 (01:00:09):
They did. I didn't think about that at that moment,
but yes, so I was always yes because it's face,
you know, and how do you not work with baby Face?
So my thing is, you know, be kind and do
your best and be grateful, you know for what doors

(01:00:32):
are opened for you, because I know doors don't open
for everybody. And being on the album that I knew
was produced all by him. I knew Aretha was on it,
I knew Whitney was on it, I knew CC Winings,
I knew Brandy was on it, I knew Tony Braxton
was on it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So my answer was yes, yes, you hear anything.

Speaker 6 (01:00:56):
And I sank background. I think on like five of
those songs, I think I'm on Shoot, definitely on uh,
Tony's definitely on Paddle La Bells. And it seemed like
it was a couple of other people. One girl was
singing rapping, and I was singing the background. Face was like,

(01:01:17):
just please come plase sing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
I love to sing.

Speaker 6 (01:01:20):
I love singing background.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I loved I say songs on Wait Next Cooking.

Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
So I did. And that's just so.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
When you first heard it, though, what do you what
do you come on? Because we hear now it was beautiful.

Speaker 6 (01:01:34):
I just thought it's just an extra song.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Did you think that?

Speaker 5 (01:01:38):
Okay, well, maybe he's just playing me the melody and
he's gonna he's gonna feel in work.

Speaker 6 (01:01:43):
He told me it was this. I probably have the
cassette somewhere, but I don't remember. Oh his version of
him singing it, Yeah, I think so, or maybe I
don't know. He might have just did it then. I
I but yeah, I knew even.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
When I was young and I heard, I was like,
this sounds like jungle.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
Look, but it's the song that if I'm on an
airplane and somebody black says, oh my god, I love you.
I love you, Oh my god, blah blah blah. Because
black people they love me. They always show me love
everywhere I go always, but it's the white person that's
next to me that goes, Okay, so I don't know you,

(01:02:19):
and I'm really sorry, but I don't know the excitement
and all that, but like, what do you do? And
I'm like, oh, I'm singer, you know, oh what, I
know your stuff and I don't know how to point
them to me. And I say, well, have you ever
seen waiting to exhale? And they go, oh, yeah Houston
and blah blah. I was like, yeah, So the very
first song in Whitney Houston has a convertible first song

(01:02:42):
that's plane when her hair is blown in the wind.
That's me, the first voice she hears me. That's how
I explain myself to the Caucasian persuit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
That's actually a great how do you explain yourself to
the white people?

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
I oh, I can't make you love me? Sometimes I
use that or I say I say, They're like they
so you sing that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
I'm like, yeah, sing. It's like, well, what I know
any of your songs? And I'm like, do you do
you like sexy time.

Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
What record do you put on?

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
Do you.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
Like sexy?

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
Do you pro create? Because my music is of the
pro creation?

Speaker 6 (01:03:21):
That really is that album is? Really?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
What song would you say? I said, you really want
to get nasty? I got a song called when weed
it get you pregnant? I'm just throwing it out there.
You know, I don't want to put too much on you.
But do you want your legs to go up high?

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
That got them?

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I got them going to it right now?

Speaker 6 (01:03:45):
She cuts the pearls. Why are you talking about I
would never I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
I remember I told yes, some white people like almost
like a little family or whatever. My husband was saying this, yeah, man,
my wife's looking at your chest.

Speaker 6 (01:04:02):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
This is just because it's like, I'm sorry, What can
I do?

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Somebody got to come up with a show explaining black music?

Speaker 6 (01:04:16):
How do you connect the dots?

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
So in in all of this, and when we talked
about purpose, and we talked about you know, the people
and all of these twisting turns, right, what is the
thing that you want to be remembered for.

Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
Inspiring love and evolving? Like I started here and I
think I was pretty good. And then I started looking
at what I had done performances and you have to
own them differently if you want to make a statement.

(01:05:06):
And I think I know, I was afraid. I still
have jitters before I go on stage. But I was
afraid because I didn't have enough practice doing what I
did for a living. The first time I performed live
before our audience, that was my own stuff, and like
I sang this place called the moon Glow in San

(01:05:27):
Diego with the Baha strings and we sang top forty.
I sang everything from part time Lover to shibop whatever.
I sang all that stuff. And I wasn't even twenty
one yet, but I sang three shows two three shows
a night, three nights a week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, one
hundred and fifty dollars a night. But the first time

(01:05:51):
I ever sang my music, I was singing in front
of MCA Records, doing the you Know show in my
new music before I went to with George Duke over
to Montroe Jazz Festival. That was the next time I
sang I Know, and I knew where I was going,

(01:06:15):
and I knew it was crazy, and I wasn't prepared.
I wish I felt more confident and prepared and practiced,
and I think people were so excited about the tone
of my voice, and I understand now that that's something special.

(01:06:37):
When Layla Hathaway comes up and goes, girl, your tone,
let me tell you that your tongue. I'm serious.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
That's what she did. And it's like you.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
She said, you must know you, you must know honey.
And I'm like said the woman with the tone, her
daddy and herself morphed into one amazing voice. So I
kind of go, huh. Some people make you go well,
maybe I'm not so bad because of what I think

(01:07:14):
of them. But the thing is, you can't get confused
when somebody goes before you and somebody goes singing a
different way than I sing. The church vocals can be
misleading or your ego starts to jump in and go,
well they singing like this, let me and you have

(01:07:39):
to stay in your lane. That's the thing I've learned
is stay in your lane. You can only be you
and I can only be me. But I am taking
voice lessons. I just started taking voice lessons. I've had
two and I'm repeating those over and over until you
come back to me. But that is what I want
to do is get better. There's stuff I want to

(01:08:00):
know how to do. There's stuff when I get sick
that I want to be able to just do some technique,
make me go and get over it. It's changing the
entire you know, melody.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
That's so cool to hear you say that, though, Man,
you're still taking vocalists.

Speaker 6 (01:08:19):
No, I've never taken. It was Robert Stevens. He is amazing.
I think he's Robert rab in some circles, but he.
I was sitting next to him by chance on a
flight from Atlanta last month and he noticed me sniffing
and put my bag up for me and whatever. So
we chatted the whole time, and it was weird that

(01:08:41):
I don't usually talk on the airplane. I'm usually, you know,
like hi, good night, okay, and I go to sleep
or watch a movie. But somewhere in there we started
chatting and and I was like, yeah, and I want
to take voice lessons. And he was like, you don't
realize that that's what I do. And I know exactly
who you are, and blah blah bl and by the end,
I was just like this was a I think because
I didn't know who he was at all. But usually

(01:09:03):
those people are behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 (01:09:08):
Robert, Yes, so that's who I'm gonna start.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Taking get out.

Speaker 6 (01:09:16):
He is so amazing, Like it's so weird and wonderful
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
We just made.

Speaker 6 (01:09:31):
I met him with Justin Biber Timberlake. I knew that
that's the I think of first. Yes, sorry, the original, Yes,
I'm sorry, just keep moving.

Speaker 4 (01:09:49):
But I was like I was out there with with
with Justin.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
I'm like, bro, you like Crispy every night He's like
brom Ashley, Like, I'm fucked up right now. Like vocally
he's like, you know, my guy. He keeps me. I
was like, Who's who's the guy? Who's my guy? Big
Jason was like, trust me, he's always wants to meet
the guy. I want to meet the guy. He's like,
you need to you need to work with this nigga.

(01:10:15):
And I was like, and I had been procrastinating on
it for I would say years, and then finally not
too long. I was like, I need your help. Man.
I sing pretty good, but you know, I just want
my conditioning. I want my stamina, I want my height back.

(01:10:36):
Like I listened to like a lot of my old
songs and I'm like listen to that young vocal. You
gotta I gotta get back in the gym. I used
to sing every day, every day, all day working at
you watch watch this new thing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:55):
I can do like every day.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
And as you get older in his family and and
and kids, and you can you just you just can't.
And so you just you you You're You're not the
same conditioned hooper you used to be when you were
jumping every day.

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
You know what I'm saying. You're not.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
You're just not the same. And I'm like, I just
want to get some of that back. And I know
if I do the work with the right person, I
can do that. So it's funny that you said his
name and I'm like, are you serious? And when you
were saying you were on a plane with him to Atlanta,
he was probably telling me, yeah, I'm on the way
to LA for a few days.

Speaker 6 (01:11:35):
Let me know if you want to get Yeah, my
first lesson two weeks ago, maybe maybe three, maybe yes, yeah, no,
it's amazing. I have never known a warm up or
a warm down. I don't even I don't trust it
because I'm like, I'm gonna be tired trying to.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Do a warm up.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
What I'm gonna do is wait.

Speaker 5 (01:11:53):
And saying when I get on, I'm saying practice pretty much.

Speaker 6 (01:12:05):
I can't. I do hot water and honey. It's my
doctors like, you have high cholesterol. I was like, that
is impossible. You are pre diabetic. Yeah, and I said,
how in the world I don't eat if you looked
at me and I work out, especially when the first
they first said it it's because I have hot water
and honey all the time. Honey is just sugar, just sugar,

(01:12:28):
just sugar ate some cakes. No, but yeah, but the
hot water and honey is what does it for me?
And like during the show, Yeah, it's what I do.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
They got sugar free honey.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
I don't know if you can.

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
You know, I don't know if you can.

Speaker 6 (01:12:50):
It's smell of funny.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:12:51):
I think it's just something's turned into shaketh. Yes, but
sugar free.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
Like I'm just it's just interesting how we parallel.

Speaker 6 (01:13:05):
Yeah, like just the journey and I have another I
have a song I want you to sing. I have
a new record coming. And somebody was listening, Actually cook
you cook Coo career, you know what, I don't never
know his last name. He works with Laney and Tricky.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Okay, so coach and producer.

Speaker 6 (01:13:23):
I didn't. Yeah, so he was I don't know who
he was. I forgot who was named. But Cook was
listening and Cook and then did can't Lighten You time
ago for so first album for me was Laney and
Tricky and and uh Laney and what's his name? Can't
think of it right now, it's okay, But AnyWho, he

(01:13:47):
was listening to one of the songs and he said,
I love this. This sounded like a Tank song. And
I was like, oh my god, it made me like
the song even more thinking about you singing and I
was like, oh, Tank gotta be oh my, that would
make that record even hotter. But anyway, so we'll talk
about that.

Speaker 4 (01:14:08):
People know how funny you are.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
This is great.

Speaker 6 (01:14:12):
I'm a goofball, That's what I am. But that was
the thing I was as a kid is I was
the comic relief. I was always trying to make everybody happy,
make you smile. If mom and my sister were having
problems with it normally, dude, I was trying to go, Mama, listen.
She said not to say what's And then I said, listen, Mama,
love you and just just don't talk back. That would

(01:14:34):
be good, not to talk back time you lie your eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
I can imagine doing this at like years old.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
That's what makes me funny, negotiating.

Speaker 6 (01:14:48):
I was just come to Tom and my sister and
I are thickest because she knows she can always count
on me. I know she is my sister. Like I'm like,
You're the closest thing that will ever come to me
because we got the same mom and same daddy. You
could have been me, I could have been you. I

(01:15:09):
don't know, but we just I just a lover.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Speaking of coming together.

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
So every.

Speaker 5 (01:15:20):
In Tank this because Tank is part of my family.
My family comes together, right and we we we all
get together and gather in the kitchen as my sister cooks.
And there is a song that we sing as a
family at every family event.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
It is called Contagious. All the men in the family.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
We take.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
Yes, ma'am, and all the women wait for.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Please please give me the story behind this record, because
it was so un expect it for you to pop
up on that song.

Speaker 6 (01:16:03):
Yes or to the world it was no, no, no.
It was to me too. So I knew r Kelly
through Cheryl Cobb she's a fan. She's a friend first friend,
then fan. Uh and then she always was like trying
to push no matter what happened, she was trying to
connect me with someone she has always connected me to.

Speaker 4 (01:16:23):
Robert.

Speaker 6 (01:16:23):
Robert was like, well, r who is really a good guy,
like really a nice person, really funny. And so I
hung out with him and her and he was like,
I'm gonna write you a song. I'm gonna write you
a song. He had a song he was gonna call
Capital Love Capital l oh the e Capital love was

(01:16:43):
Capital love. You never got to that Capital Love. But
one day out of the blue he called and said,
I want you to do something for me. Go would
you go in the studio and I want you just
to sing this party goes, but I want you sing
it just like I tell you. And I was like, sure,
I'll do it. So Robert, I, mister Issley and I

(01:17:05):
never were in the same place.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
The way they make records now, uh huh people make
records now.

Speaker 6 (01:17:13):
Right, yes, But yeah, so he just told me when
to sing my part, Frank, So I just had to
do my part.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Talking.

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
Yeah, Well, I just did what he told me to do.
And then all at the end of it. It just
was a song.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
But had you heard it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:37):
After it was done he sent it, yeah, probably probably
when he mixed it. And then uh we did the
video and we had to make out in the video.
So Robert was like, we should practice that scene. I

(01:18:00):
was like, I think, I think we'll know how to
do it when.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
I believe that we.

Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
Practice. The connection has to be statistic.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
It's like when you hoop it, like you know, you
got to practice, you know first, and then you got
then you know, then you played the game, So we
need to practice.

Speaker 6 (01:18:33):
I didn't need practice. I did not. I did not
need practice. Now he can kiss, so I don't know
why he don't. He was practice. But what's interesting is
after that I can't be around because it was just

(01:18:55):
it was too much.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Mhmm.

Speaker 6 (01:18:57):
It was too much. They said that out Soria mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:19:07):
So no other songs came after that, and I don't
think it as often as I probably should.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
So it's not in your show.

Speaker 6 (01:19:15):
It was for a little while, and I think it's
harder when it comes back up and he's in the
news again and all that stuff. It's just a lot.
But I mean when it comes on, I just do doom, doom, doom,
and then what the hell is doing that comes on?
And then everybody and I start doing what you and
your family do. So yeah, then they go, right, that

(01:19:39):
was shotting.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
So you've been part of some really dope, really dope moments.
I'm bad, some really dope moment And I think it's
like the power of those moments and how you showed
up in those moments that that is what has sustain you.
And like people people like like let's say hit records, right,

(01:20:07):
like hit like life changing records. Right. I don't have
that many, but the few that I have, oh, I.

Speaker 6 (01:20:19):
Know, I need to learn how to do that more.

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
I get the milk, Yeah, I get the milk, all
the milk. Like people like this, oh you, you.

Speaker 6 (01:20:39):
And the fing some crazy people get to have the
most fun.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
And it's it's it's it's using those great moments, you
know what I mean, and and and letting them carry
you through because of how you showed up in those moments.

Speaker 6 (01:21:02):
But you have to know that they are and I
think that's something that being the underdog of the family
or you know, the baby and the grunt, you know,
just like you know the one that it's I'm used
to minimalizing some things, and so I didn't get it

(01:21:22):
when some of those fantastic moments happened that they were significant.
I when I sing some songs like Way You and
My Show, but I was thinking because of our because
the way loul was like, ah, I can't believe you
did that. And it didn't even my norminal lyrics on it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
So I never say it you sing it at first.

Speaker 6 (01:21:47):
No, lately I have because of Stephen, not because well.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
Way way way wait wait, this was not part of
you show.

Speaker 6 (01:21:55):
Always no, no, mm hmm. It was like a thumb.
It was the thing that baby Face said he would
do a song because I had done so much for
that album and you know, I'm gonna and it never happened.
And that's why you got to keep relationships though and
not be bitter, you know, because it really is about

(01:22:17):
the rhythm of life. It is life that has to
continue to happen, relationships that connect old to the new.
And this is a perfect setup for the new album.
I have a record with Lady and Tricky and and
uh Babyface and it's about to be We're Taken and

(01:22:41):
Jim and Terry and you know, it's a it's a
body of work, and it's called evolved because that's what
I really feel like I've been doing is just evolving.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
Yeah, and I love it.

Speaker 6 (01:22:51):
I love it. I have a song with Bennett and
it's pretty good. And that's the thing is, I don't
watch the charts.

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:23:03):
I don't even watch where it's going because it is
what it is or it isn't. My life has not
been based on charts. It's been based on people showing
up to my shows. That's how I make a living.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
I'm happy that you are making new music because you
should make new music. Your voice should be heard on
new shit.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:28):
Why the fuck not?

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
How many?

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
How many shows do you do a year? Even do
you try to keep it to a certain number?

Speaker 6 (01:23:35):
Oh no, last year I worked a lot. Year before
I worked a whole I worked a whole lot in America,
and I spoke this that I want to be, you know, overseas.
I think there's a market for me overseas, and there
still is. I believe there's more things that I need
to work, places I need to go. I've been in
America and Aii, I've been around America. Last year I

(01:23:59):
went to China and just spent three months there and
say three months, three months, you do. I was in
a singing competition, Chinese singing competition called Singer twenty twenty four.
I didn't know was that at first, and they said
will you go there? And I said yes, and they
said okay, And it's a competition, singer competition with other

(01:24:21):
Chinese artists. So these other people have been in the industry.
They're not like noviced novices, uh, but they are really entertainers.
And so we battled ere free week what yeah, wait,
wait for thirty fourteen fifteen fifteen week.

Speaker 3 (01:24:40):
Huh?

Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
But mind you.

Speaker 6 (01:24:44):
The first day I was no, but the but it
was different because the movie.

Speaker 5 (01:24:52):
You know as a movie, because you're getting off the
place niggas getting knocked out by vocals.

Speaker 6 (01:24:59):
Thinking what it was a great opportunity. I got there
and I didn't know what cause I found out about
it when I was on tom Join a cruise and
I was not singing that week, and they called and
Joey Fleming, Joseph Fleming, I think they call Joey now,
but he called and said that somebody I sang Happy

(01:25:20):
Birthday at his birthday party. Last year, and then he
said this lady Chinese lady came up to me afterward
and she was like I would like to. She was
all close and all in my space. I was like,
she's weird. I don't think i'm and so I gave
her my other phone number because I was like, this
is a business call and I didn't even pay attention.

(01:25:40):
And then Joey called and was like, hey, you know
this lady. Her name is Tay and she wants you
to do La bla that. I was like, Oh, this
is for real, real, So I said yes and I
went and a week later I landed. Then that night
I did a sound check and the stage was incredible.
The sound was incredible, the band was incredible, the orchestra

(01:26:02):
was incredible, the lights, everything was amazing. And then the
next day I got I put my clothes on and
that night I sang and I won first prize. That
first night, I sang Alicia Keys if I Ain't Got You,
and two hundred and fifty million people watched in China.
What two hundred and fifty million people?

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
Oh, we dropping this outum in China.

Speaker 5 (01:26:27):
No, I'm about to figure out how to put your assarate.

Speaker 4 (01:26:32):
We need to put this single out in China.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
And it's not racist that I said that. So I
missed me with that bullshit.

Speaker 4 (01:26:41):
I need to get I have not been and I'm
going with you. I'm gonna say.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
I'm with you.

Speaker 6 (01:26:47):
You know, no, it's it's it was. It was life changing.
Days later, I was walking on the street with Steven,
my husband, and people going the trip them all, and
they started calling me Momo. Now I am Momo in
China fifteen weeks, singing everybody else's song from Wrecking Ball

(01:27:11):
to Alicia Too. Everybody, I am Momo.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
If you don't get back over, I'm going. I went.

Speaker 6 (01:27:18):
I went a few times last year, which is what
we were talking about. But I I'm singing a lot,
but I'm gonna go back. We don't have the times
set right now. I did the Chinese version of Tiny Desk,
which I haven't doing American. I haven't done American yet,
but I don't want to until the record comes out.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
But AnyWho, uh, Yeah, your album has to be released,
and it has to be a thing. It has to
be you present to release your album. Momo has to
be in China to release her album.

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Yeah, because you have you performed your records over there
too at this point or not yet.

Speaker 6 (01:27:54):
I only have done one. One concert I did was
one of a few, but it was a stadium of people. Yeah, no,
it was. It's mind blowing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
But I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:28:10):
But I uh, I've done their TV show there and
I've done two concerts there, but I intend to go
back because yeah, because momos.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
Got I'm going to say this before I had the
honor the honor of standing next to you singing backgrounds with.

Speaker 4 (01:28:33):
You know, with mister talk about it, talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
Me and you Avery Wilson, and I will I will
say we might be the coldest background unit of all times,
all times. Anybody want to challenge that? We do want smoke.
That's a lot of smoke, super smoke.

Speaker 5 (01:28:57):
As a fan, as a fan, I'm saying it as
a fan. Y'all were all their cooking.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
And and I say this because I just want to
speak this, you know, this this piece to other artists
out there. For me, I'm not too big for any
moment in music. Like when I came to rehearsal and
I saw you with your iPad and your like you

(01:29:26):
were you were background singer. I locked and low and
I was like, I fuck what, Like, I am of
the mind of whatever. Wherever I'm at, I'm going to
go crazy in my spot. I'm going to live and

(01:29:50):
enjoy my and and we were having the time of
our lives being background singers, as elite lead singers. We
were having the time of our life being background singers
and and that type of thing, that type of love
for the sport. Yeah, like.

Speaker 4 (01:30:12):
I appreciated.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):
I appreciated having that camaraderie with you and Avery and
and sharing.

Speaker 4 (01:30:20):
That because that was it was a team.

Speaker 6 (01:30:22):
We were in the car, we were like we.

Speaker 4 (01:30:34):
Was like and I was like, you wrote that.

Speaker 6 (01:30:35):
Oh my god. All the songs. We could not say
his hits.

Speaker 4 (01:30:41):
Oh man, we had jakes. He was cutting sounds.

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
We were like, no, no, But I really appreciate it
and have fun standing beside you songs like you You're
You're the ship.

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
You're the ship, and so are you.

Speaker 6 (01:31:00):
And that's one of the most watched things that I've
ever done, is that Tiny Desk and the Soul Trade.
Those are the two biggest things that I think have
gone like viral.

Speaker 3 (01:31:10):
Because because because you're really good, God damn it. Ship
your top five R and B singers.

Speaker 6 (01:31:22):
Singers. First, let me say one thing first, is that
two of the sexiest albums ever Marvin Gaye Tank. I
just want to say that out now we're going, that's
what the first thing. I just want to say, sexiest,
like full on sexy and you knew and sexy what

(01:31:45):
So just saying that, I'm just looking at.

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
The cameras so they can so they know I'm standing
on what you said.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Here is the truth. It really is like the whole Yeah,
that's what we got you Now you're done.

Speaker 4 (01:32:00):
Okay, you are.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
Saying got okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:32:10):
Favorite artist period, it's got to be Prince. Just love him,
Just love his style, his versatility, his ability to sing
everything that sounded like rock and roll or UH or Elvis,
it didn't matter, you know it. Just I loved just

(01:32:32):
growing up having him musically. Michael Jackson, I think is
a given for everybody, So I kind of stuck him
in there because he is Michael Jackson. Tina Marie is
one of the people that I grew up listening to.
My mom used to go, you think she seemed better
than you when she was on Then once they told me,

(01:32:52):
I was saying she was really pumping, and so she said,
you think Tina sing better than you? And I was like,
well yeah, She was like she it's just more daring
than you, and I was like you So anyway, Uh,
the system, I absolutely love them. I love them and

(01:33:14):
I'm just gonna say it real fast as if it's
more than five. It's really just just moves them together.
So shock up Marvin voiceing me a new edition. So
just in there because Shaka's voice is just like a trumpet.
That's the stuff I want to learn how to do that.
That full mouth wide just she just got.

Speaker 3 (01:33:36):
A different throat. She is afferent throat.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:33:41):
Tremaine Hawkins was the other person that I was listening
to that I was trying to do what she did
and that's how I got But see, all things work
together for my good because if I could do that,
I wouldn't do the high stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:33:52):
You know, as you say that, because you know God
by the name of Sean Stockman. He told me one day,
He's like, he's Tank, I don't sing hard. I was like,
what do you mean? He said, I don't sing hard
and I don't try to. Why you do that? Yeah?
I do what I do and I stay there, and

(01:34:14):
I was like, you do you do? And as you said,
like chasing all those other things when you are you
have your own uniqueness. It's right there.

Speaker 6 (01:34:28):
Yeah, So we don't always appreciate ourselves. And I think
that's a thing that even the Night of Soul Train
Escape went before me and I thought they did a
really good job. And I was listening to them and
I was like, oh, this girl's a saying yeah. And
I had to go, excuse me, ma'am. Do you don't

(01:34:48):
listen to them and try to change how you approach
your songs tonight? So I literally had to pull myself
back and put me back in my own pocket. You
can get, you get lost because there's so many different voices.
And what's beautiful about boys to men is you have Sean,
you have wan Ye, you have all all they have

(01:35:08):
all the voices that when you can't do something, you
just say you And you can't do that with yourself
unless you have some other tools, which is what we
would both be learning. So that was my list of
top nine.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
Okay, that's your top five R and B songs.

Speaker 6 (01:35:28):
Hm, oh wait, let me do what I want to
say to uh new artists, newish artists love money long,
love money long. So love her style, her voice, the
way she executes just mic is on. I love it, Uh, Vienna,
she just knows who she is, and I love the

(01:35:48):
way her voice is mixed. She's always mixed on the top.
I always refer to her whenever anybody's doing any songs
for me, I'm like, mix me where they put Rihanna.
I don't care what song it is. It could be
a song that you bouncing to or a song that
you're like rocking to. She's right here, right there, and
then the music and that's better for my voice. So
I love her usher killing it already, Bruno Mars, we

(01:36:12):
already know that wonderful Beyonce. I love. I love how
she's evolved, and it's just she's trying to preach anything
I did in Perison. How about that the first night
that Homegirl her daughter was dancing, we were there, We're like,
oh my god, we were laughing. I know that's only

(01:36:36):
because with Stephen, it's not because of me. I would
have been at home literally shout out.

Speaker 3 (01:36:41):
To Steve and.

Speaker 4 (01:36:43):
To turn up himself.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:36:46):
And actually I believe r Kelly should be in that
list no matter what he has come R and B
straight right in the middle of the eyes. So he
shouldn't did what he did. But that's not nothing to
do with the music, all right, what else do your Okay?
I had to put Shanta's Got a Man at home
because I wouldn't have a real long career without that.
I don't think I put while we're here, That's what

(01:37:10):
I'm saying. Still love it in my system one of
my favorite songs. I love that, Prince, I love everything.
These are songs that I think make me want to
get up and dances, which is what I think what
made me think of them.

Speaker 3 (01:37:24):
D M S R.

Speaker 6 (01:37:24):
I love Prince, D M s R dance music. Okay,
just making sure you.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
Knew, Uh, don't do this here at the R and B,
R and B and early.

Speaker 6 (01:37:35):
In the morning. I love it. Uh? How does it feel?
I love that?

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:37:43):
And then I put on airs where I put not
to make sexiest CD Tank and Marvel Gato where I
put up there, but I did the other one first.
And wait, let me tell you how gigantic they.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
Know you got fought, you got, you got big because these.

Speaker 6 (01:37:58):
Eyes, I mean they eight I am. I'm not even talking.

Speaker 3 (01:38:02):
About it big, fun, big, and it was old. It
was thick letters.

Speaker 6 (01:38:10):
I like when they go smaller. But if you keep
saying in the one, it makes like a thing in
the top. If you keep texting in this regular bread
and then there's brio.

Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
So you got you got that.

Speaker 6 (01:38:28):
It's true. I've embraced my eyeballs can't see, so I
have glasses everywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:38:32):
Miss Shante Moore, Let's build a voltron. You're super R
and B artists. Who are you going to get the
vocal from the performance style, the styling of the artists,
the passion of the artist. And since you just you
like to write songs with Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis,
who's gonna write the write, Let's start with the vocal.

Speaker 4 (01:38:52):
One vocal for your super R and B artist.

Speaker 6 (01:38:57):
I'm gonna say, shakak she can do it all is
pretty awesome, amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:39:04):
Range off the chart in the chest on here and
you tell Miss Shaka Khan to come to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
Can you call it?

Speaker 6 (01:39:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:39:14):
You know that's that is, you know because be thinking,
you know people I do that. I know she kicked
me out of the section one time. Try to see
and we and we've been coating cool after that, that's
the way you gotta kick me out. I do that.

Speaker 4 (01:39:36):
She needed a place to sit. Tell lem niggas to move.

Speaker 6 (01:39:42):
Everybody had a moment.

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
I'm a move but playing talk to me nice. The
performance style.

Speaker 6 (01:39:55):
In my dream, this is a dream.

Speaker 4 (01:39:57):
This is your super R and b R is yours.
However you want it.

Speaker 6 (01:40:05):
Sink like Shaka, dance like Beyon m hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:40:10):
Yeah, and beyones be cutting up on stage, cutting up,
hard work, dedication, all of it, all night with the fan.

Speaker 4 (01:40:22):
With the fans. Yeah do that. Oh my god, our
conditioning is graz night tonight. Styling mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (01:40:37):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:40:39):
I'm gonna say my style work it working really nobody
but always always class. If I could sing like that
and still be me.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
Yeah, yeah, well done. They knew, they knew earlier. You
could style yourself. Hit your own care, hit your will
give you know. But listen, st figured out what I
need the budget for shan, grab yourself some if you

(01:41:10):
will go back to grab yourself something.

Speaker 6 (01:41:16):
Just see my little church haircut and let's go back
to the showtime with the Apollo.

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
I'm sure it's just me.

Speaker 3 (01:41:22):
Just pull up a picture the little screen shot the
passion of the artist, the heart of the artists. Who
means it?

Speaker 6 (01:41:31):
Mm hmm, passion and heart.

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:41:40):
Tina Turner ship yes sing anime. Yeah, because she sang
everything from the from the guts of guts. I wouldn't
want every single song, but everythingle song to be that
guts because sometimes you got to relax a little bit.
But still, if you have the option be in shockup,
you can do what you do.

Speaker 3 (01:42:01):
I love that that's worked. There's Tina and then there's
b Yes, that is why that, that's why that is.
And who's writing for this artist? Yeah, that's a hot
see question. And you friends and every single everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
Great song.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
He's written a song for you.

Speaker 6 (01:42:26):
Man, don't get mistarted.

Speaker 3 (01:42:28):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:42:29):
The thing, the hardest song the song I was pressed
more to work past my own limits that song. I
think it took me over a couple of months to
sing Shanta's got a man, I got horse and got tired.

(01:42:51):
Jimmy and Terry were like, go home, baby, we'll see
it today. You think you need a couple of go
home and go rest and then come back because we
didn't get the vocal and I'm singing and they're going
imagine Mariah Carey is in the audience. You are at
the award show and you're singing some of the year go.

Speaker 3 (01:43:11):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:43:12):
I was like, I don't want to sing during that
kind of pressure. So I would say Jimmy and Terry
because they worked me the singing hard, melodic, soft, the backgrounds, harmonies.
They want it all. Some are some producers get stuck

(01:43:35):
on the tone and they don't press for go singing,
go try harder ye, and then some just want that
and they don't understand there has to be a finesse
to get to So Jimmy and.

Speaker 3 (01:43:51):
Terry, Yeah, you don't pick somebody. Some of the greatest
songwriters and producers of all time and they are so
friends they are.

Speaker 6 (01:44:06):
Isn't that awesome? That's awesome. So I of course married
Stephen Hill, and I know Stephen absolutely loves Jimmy and Terry.
He loves music period, but he especially has an affinity
for Jimy and Terry. So I asked them to co

(01:44:28):
write the song I walked down the aisle to him
on so they did. So that was the song that
is on my record that it's going to be on
the new record.

Speaker 1 (01:44:40):
You've got it Forever in love, we are pouring champagne.

Speaker 6 (01:44:50):
What's funny is he is the most supportive, Like he
just gets overwhelmed with the love and the joy and
I'm like, cry more about it than I do. It's
just He's like, it's just swarm up, yes, baby, it is.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
It is.

Speaker 6 (01:45:07):
But I am. I am so grateful to have some
someone who who does appreciate and value absolutely not just
chant on stage, but me at home for real, literally.

Speaker 3 (01:45:22):
At home about my god.

Speaker 4 (01:45:27):
Bro.

Speaker 5 (01:45:29):
So we're here now at the very important part of
the show. Will you tell us a story? Funnyer fucked up?
A funny and fucked up? The only rule to the
game is shante.

Speaker 3 (01:45:42):
Can you say no? No.

Speaker 6 (01:45:45):
I have two stories that come to my One is
I was on this show and I had this full
length mink coat on and I was supposed to come
down the stairs and then start talking to the host.
And I was coming down the stairs and I stepped
on my own coat, and so I just rolled up
into the coat and I couldn't get up because every

(01:46:09):
step I made was on the coat that was on me.
And I sat there and everyone the guys came and
they lifted me up, and this particular person which is
really not like a bad thing. But she was like, oh,
so you're just gonna lay there like a diva and
late till they pick you up. And I was like,
I didn't mean to, but I couldn't get up so
that a funny story couldn't get it. I couldn't get

(01:46:34):
my arm. So that's one. The one is another is uh,
somebody I worked with said I couldn't get a record
unless I slept with them, and so I said no,
and that was the end. I never got the record.

(01:47:00):
H Are there any others? There's probably a bunch of them.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
You really tell the.

Speaker 4 (01:47:07):
Ship.

Speaker 3 (01:47:09):
Mm uh.

Speaker 6 (01:47:12):
Someone who's gonna sign me before I got signed and
they said, uh, we'll take your songs, but not you.
You're not that special, but we'll take your songs. Though
I was like, well they come with me, so no.
That was long before I signed.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
Will take your song?

Speaker 6 (01:47:29):
Mh. They were like, you want to be a writer, Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
It's tough this businesses.

Speaker 6 (01:47:41):
And keep a soft inside.

Speaker 3 (01:47:44):
That's the problem because because because you're going to get judged.

Speaker 4 (01:47:50):
Both ways.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
You're going to be judged for giving in and you're
also going to be judged or standing firm on your morals,
and so even in your nose, you have to figure
out a way to make your no pleasant.

Speaker 6 (01:48:12):
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (01:48:13):
Which is no, which I mean, I'm just saying to.

Speaker 6 (01:48:15):
People that are in power, no is no. They don't
get what they.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
Want so exactly, but just just giving the nuance of
how it works a lot in entertainment for women, that
balance of saying no and still being able to get
an opportunity.

Speaker 6 (01:48:34):
I would have a different career if I said yes
for four or five times, I'd have a completely different group,
completely different And I'm okay with not having that.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
I mean, listen the the chante more you are, uh,
we love and revere understanding that, and we appreciate those choices.
That is why you are who you are.

Speaker 6 (01:49:05):
Yes, getting proud of yourself. Nobody else gonna be proud
of you. That part I have to stand in.

Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
My shoes, stroll up, talk about it.

Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
You do. I think we are just, you know, we
are just fans. We are just I mean, I feel
like we're family members, so that goes without saying. But
you know, I think we're we're We're always of the
mind of understanding and appreciating the value of the people

(01:49:48):
that we rock with and never letting, never taking that
for granted, and never losing that that respect for it.
You know what I'm saying, Like seeing you here, you
being here with us means something to us, because to
us you are chante more. Like that name means something

(01:50:09):
that mother But listen, my great grandfather to say Paul
lewis home now, it's a big motherfucking difference. And when
you say chante more, it just gets different because chante more.
And that'll never change for us. This will always be

(01:50:29):
a place where if you lose a little bit of
self esteem, self esteem, you come onto the R and
V Money Pod, you call one of us. We're gonna
let you know exactly who and what you are, how
important and how powerful and how impactful you are, and
how needed you are. Your voice, your stories, your courage,

(01:50:53):
your willingness to stand ten toes down on who you are,
your comedy on now come on now.

Speaker 4 (01:51:03):
Like incredible.

Speaker 6 (01:51:08):
I feel the same way about both of you. Thank
you for doing this. I'm just so proud of you
all from moving out of what's your comfort zone as
well and doing something completely it's outside of that, it's
inside R and B. But it's still different.

Speaker 4 (01:51:19):
Than what.

Speaker 6 (01:51:23):
Amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:51:24):
Yeah, and it's like and it's it's it's it's how
can we be of service? Yeah? How can we?

Speaker 3 (01:51:31):
How can we help?

Speaker 2 (01:51:33):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:51:33):
And in the universe will take care of the rest.
We'll take care of the rest. But how can we
how can we have something that that we all can
stand on, that we all can be proud of, that
we all can say, hey, we we all collectively because
I mean me and him can sit there and talk
by hours, but we we need special people in this

(01:51:55):
seat right here.

Speaker 6 (01:51:56):
Well, maybe R and B money has to be the
new Yar City your hall. I'm just saying, we got
married to the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:52:06):
That you're married to.

Speaker 4 (01:52:07):
The guy can consult us all the way you need
to go see.

Speaker 3 (01:52:13):
You know your wife, you heard your wife always.

Speaker 6 (01:52:21):
But the thing is, I remember on b T before
he was there, I was the first person to sing
live on b E T tabot a live singing like
doud camera first time. That's all.

Speaker 3 (01:52:37):
As as we continue to talk, you're just you're just
more core, more more, which.

Speaker 4 (01:52:44):
Which speaks to why you are.

Speaker 3 (01:52:48):
More.

Speaker 4 (01:52:49):
Thank you incredible. My name is Tank Valentin.

Speaker 3 (01:52:57):
This the Everybody Podcast, the authority of all things R
and B and apparently stand up as well. And you know,
this has just been for us a special episode with
a very incredible, special gifted, beautiful, amazing human being. And
she goes by the name of Chante more discre

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Tank

J. Valentine

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