February 6, 2024 • 52 mins
Episode 305 - "The Baller Alert Show" Feat: Ferrari Simmons & You Know BT Produced by: Octavia March
Topics include: Growing Up On A Farm, Dealing With Lupus, Going Viral On TikTok, Hookah in ATL & More.
The Baller Alert Show
Featuring @FerrariSimmons @Youknowbt @iHandlebars
":The Culture Deserves It"
IG: @balleralert
Twitter: @balleralert
Facebook: balleralertcom
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Word with me here you know, bt know how it goes,
shout out oct no real color, what we see? Whole game?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Wait, the Butler book something.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Oh, you can't stand on their ownsle see I already
know you can't with me because with the squad on me,
they get a little They called me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He love by love he love her.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Ball of Alert.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the ball Alert Show.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Podcasts available everywhere you get your podcast. Please continue to like, subscribe,
and share our YouTube page at baller Alert Tv. I
go by the name of Ferrari Simmits.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I'll go on to name you know bt C t.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Of that money log in the building, grab me with it?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, I love that for me.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I love that for you too, cause you've been you
have a journey you've been on I have. You know
what I'm saying, How are you feeling though? Like I
know you been diagnosed and you know you just recently
said you had autism, Like.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
How is that? How's how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I mean, I'm still doing me. You gotta keep you pushing,
you know. I think one thing that keeps me on
the right path is just like knowing that everybody has
their own journey and their own unique experience and it's
my life and it's my responsibility to make the best
of it. Sometimes it does get a little tough because
(01:28):
it's like I have so much success based on like
the standard right status quo that when I have my
moments when I am down, it's hard for people to
relate and so they be like girl. So I have
to kind of struggle through those moments on my own sometimes.
But God don't give you more than you can carry.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, And I've learned a lot through about loopus, through
like Tony Braxton and people who have it, like those
type of celebrities, and they say it inflame, like if
you're if you're worked up or if you're you know,
too excited.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Have you had any flirps do to things like that?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Absolutely? Mostly mine are like in my hands and joints,
so sometimes I can't really like open things as you saw.
But Yeah, it's funny because it's like it's a cash
twenty two because with something like an autoimmune that is
stress related, it's best if you don't talk about it.
(02:29):
But yet if you don't talk about it, there's no representation,
you know, So it's tough. I gotta choose moments when
when I'm feeling good, when there is anything happening like
right now where I'll share, and sometimes I'm just like, yeah,
you know, I don't really want to talk about it
right now because I'm kind of going through it. But
(02:49):
I think, you know, keeping your stress level of down,
stand positive, eating right, getting sleep, and just not putting
yourself in scenarios where you could be triggered, that's really
the key. Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
You have a lot of support from your family and husband.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. I mean I don't really ask for much, very
self sufficient, independent. I like to be by myself. So
when I do, they just give it to me. You know,
it's like dad, can you make me a gro cheese?
You know? So yeah, I'm very I'm very blessed.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Now, if we could take it back a little bit.
You're from Gifford, Florida, which is right by Vero Beach,
a little bit south Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
They pushing, they pushing the boundary to border.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
What do you say you from?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You say you're from, Yeah, it's becoming smaller and smaller.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm a Florida guy And I literally had to look
that up. I was like, yeah, Florida from Okay, because
I've been to Vio, but I didn't know right on
top of Zo.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So we like a train track community, you know, like
they put the MLK train tracks and the you know,
Dollar General in the hood, and then right across the
train track is the beach. So there's literally people from
where I'm from that have never been to the beach
(04:18):
ten minutes down the street because it's not it's a
different neighborhood, you know, it's literally like driving driving hood
hood hood, section eight housing, you know what I'm saying,
and then train track and then boom mansions.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So how was it like for you growing up on
your side on that side of the tracks? Was because
I know somebody saying in the.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Family mom My mom saying yeah, in the navy, my
biological father, my stepfather worked for the Sheriff's department for
many years, I think twenty plus. He still teaches in
the town. Yeah, I I don't know. I was very
so I actually grew up all over the United States
(05:06):
in my younger years. It wasn't until I was about
fourteen that we moved to give For which my mother's
hometown where she was raised as Wabasso, was twenty minutes
down the street. And I grew up on a farm,
and I was very much like if I was hungry,
you just go pick an orange off the tree. So
(05:26):
I didn't really have an actual concept of like status
or like we struggling because we literally lived off the land.
But you know, I didn't have no Jordan's or nothing
like that. Like we didn't have designer clothes. You know.
We definitely was shopped at J. C. Penny, you know,
buy one, get one for eighty eight cents jeans. So
(05:50):
I don't know, I was very oblivious. It wasn't until
I got older that I realized, like, wait a minute,
that's not right, you know, I was. I wasn't. My
mom did a good job with keeping us, keeping us
shielded from that. Yes. I have two brothers, yeah, older
one older one younger, and I had a step brother
(06:11):
he passed away years ago. Uh so yeah, I'm the
only girl.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh wow, So you was out there you know with
your milk and cows and stuff too.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
We had no cows, but I did feed the chickens.
We used to fish in the pond. We had geese.
I had a pet hog.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah they are pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, well they killed them and broasted them. Yeah you do.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You s.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No, I don't slaughter chickens when we don't do that.
I did have to learn how to gut fish when
I was younger, because again, we live off the land,
so you wasn't allowed. You have to eat what you kill,
so if you kill it, you got to eat it.
I do and I don't particularly. Yeah, a long time ago,
(07:03):
we used to shoot squirrels. I'm just throw it on
the grid.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
But like you said, once you you know, hit your
teenage years and stuff like that, you was in like
a sheltered space with your parents and at home and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
But then you got on the internet and you.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Started to do your thing in two thousand and four, right,
two thousand and four was my first video.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yes, wow did your research?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, like you said, you were sheltered. So it's like,
you know, I don't think many people you did sleepovers or.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Seminaris something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You know, people on the internet now have friends like
fans who are online, and that's kind of like what
you kind of started doing at that time. You know,
how did that shape you as far as doing your
music in two thousand and four, I think it's kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Like two separate things. I think one my mom didn't
let me do nothing, did lease squat. I remember one
time this boy asked me to the movies for Valentine's Day.
And we've known him, we've known each other since we were
like seven, and he finally was like, yo, can you
like can we go to movies? So I told my mom.
I got all dressed out on my pink and red.
(08:13):
She drove me to the movie theater. The boy came
up to the car. He had chocolate to bear, flowers, balloons,
whole nine yards like you know, miss Sheila. I was
just gonna let her pick the movie, and my mom
was like, okay. One second she rode the windor she said,
y'all think y'all sleep, you know, and mind you. I'm
(08:36):
so like not even I'm so green. I was just
excited that she was lett me do something telling me
about this lady rode down the window and said, you
at the movies. Tell him by and all. I drove
off and the boy was standing there like with the flowers,
(08:57):
like oh, and I was just one little tear coming
down my eye. It's literally for real. And I was
so upset and so hurt. But that was my life.
She didn't let me do nothing. So I think the
computer became my escape right because I could talk to people,
I could make videos and respond to comments, and I
(09:18):
did develop relationships with some of my supporters I still
talk to to this day from years ago. It's one
girl named Liquida. She's buying me gifts and stuff. I'll
invite her to my shows. You know. It's just like
we do create a genuine bonding connection with our fans sometimes,
(09:38):
and it's hard to do that now because people be
like pushing it a little bit, like tellate what I
need to do and talk it to me crazy and
you forget. Like somebody said something like I was gonna
beat your ass if you didn't. I said, who was
gonna be? What?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You know what I'm saying, like my favorite song? She said.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
They really they pushing it. They be pushing it. So
sometimes I'd be having to like go in, like I
went on on, went in on this girl on TikTok
the other day. She couldn't take it, though, so I
had to erase what I said because I'm like, okay,
people are laughing at her a little too much, and
you know, I know how that feels, so I'm gonna
just take it down and give her a break. But
I have to do that sometimes to let people know.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
She's like.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
She was just like, girl, you being you're doing too much.
You're a celebrity. People gonna tell you what to do,
you know, And I was like, so, I'm not gonna
say what I said, but I basically gave her a
taste of her own medicine gotch and she couldn't. She
couldn't handle it.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
Most fans can.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
A lot of people just Internet people, and they just.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Calm, you know, and a lot of people probably don't
think that you're actually gonna see their comment.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
They don't. They don't. They don't think that I'm gonna
say anything back. They expect me to be scary. They
also don't expect me to have the personality that I
have because you know, I'm from Florida. Like we we
can't nobody talk junk like somebody from Florida. If you
pissed me off, If you piss me off, I'm calling
you all types of roly poly nick turtlehead.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
You know, if I'm Whitney, I'm Bobby and Whitney Whitney
minus all the extra, you know what I mean. I'm
very much like somebody asked me the other day, like
what R and B songs am I listened to in
my car? I'm like, I'm listening to Big Dude, I'm
listening to money Bag, I'm listening to Key Clock. I
ain't listening to it. I make R and B I
(11:30):
don't listen to it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Is that like a cleanse for your ears? Sometimes you
just hear it, you write it.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No, I just want to jump on my bed and
throw things like everybody else, you know what I'm saying.
Like I used to remember, for like a year straight,
I would put on bmf Rick Ross and that was
my alarm. Literally, like I'll be in the bed asleep
and all of a sudden, it's like boom boom. I think, oh,
(11:56):
big bitch every morning.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And that's how people you know her Joe's story, Like
as far as you're growing up, you was outside, you know,
skinning fish, you know, playing with hogs. You know, you.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Had a pet hog and then they killed it and
ate it.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Damn so that he was my pet. But they tricked
me it into feeding it and fattening it up and
making me feel like you know, I used to come
home every day from school and be like, hey, Powder,
talk to him. And he was a wild hog, so
he used to he was he was, he was. It
(12:36):
was a big freaking animal. And he would like he
would charge at the fence for anybody else, but for
me he was nice. He would walk over and like,
you know, you talk to and he had these big tusks,
and I would go in the house and get there.
We had an empty chipling bucket that we used to
(12:57):
put our scraps in, so I get the slop bucket,
put it in the traw and sit there and talk
to him. And one day I came home and the
cage was empty. And mind you, my my grandparents lived
on four acres, so it was huge. So I walk in.
I go straight to the cage. He's not there. I
go in the house. I'm like, Granddaddy, what powder. He
(13:21):
took me to the window. It was a big, long
window in the front of the house, and he pointed
to the edge of the yard. So his cage is
over here. He poured it over here, and powder was
there roasting on the spit. And I just remember falling
out and being like and I remember calling my mama,
(13:44):
like mama daval and she said, we don't eat. I
didn't the first day, I did not eat that second
day it was so good. Yeah, he's with me forever.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Did you ever write a song about powder?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I didn't know too much.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We'll be right back with more of the Baller Alert Show.
You're listening to a special edition of The Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
What's Up?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Is your Girl? Money Long?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And you are now tuned into the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I do want to acknowledge the fact that you were
doing all this and this was dope left well, I
don't want to say it's dope eating powder or dope.
You know, your mom leaving to board the young man
at the movie theater. So when did music come into play?
Was mom singing all the time in the house and
then as we started singing too, and she was like,
oh god, you can sing, or she.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Says she knew I could sing at two years old. Really,
we used to living in Connecticut and there was this
commercial that used to play. I actually remember this too,
and it would go Spirit of Hampton Roots like you know,
it was like a airport commercial or something like that.
And so yeah, and she says she heard me doing
(15:00):
that one day and she looked with the TV was off,
so she knew that it was me nice. And there
was always music in the house. My biological father played
the trumpet. We had pianos in every house that we
were in, upright piano. My mom was always singing. There
was always music playing. She used to have like those
CD towers full. She had like three of them, so
(15:22):
it was like always music every get in the car.
She had the CD book. So, I mean, it was
just kind of like I thought everybody could do it
because that's just how we were in our house, even
my grandma be you know, humming and cooking. My biological
father also could sing. He had like one of those
like high pitch temptations, you know, yes yes, and then
(15:50):
even writing songs like I wrote my first song when
I was eight, and I remember I was vacuuming and
just walking down the hallway. I'm looking at the skyllay
and my brother was like, what song is that. I
was like, I made it up. He's like, no, you didn't,
and I was like, yes, I did. We started arguing,
so we went to my mom and my mom was like, well,
(16:11):
I never heard it before, and then she bought me
a composition notebook, and I started making my own songs.
I just thought everybody did that, And it wasn't until
I started sharing it online, like fifteen sixteen years old
that people were like, will you be making that stuff up? Really?
Even now, people still do that to me. When I
(16:32):
come up with something, they'd be like, you just wrote
that right now. So it's just my gift. Everybody's not
very talented.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So you're writing the songs. You know, you're on the internet.
Two thousand and eight, you decided to go to La?
What decided that in your mind? I'm going to go
to LA and do this thing?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I think I had reached the ceiling here in Atlanta
my first record deal. The guy who signed me, him
and his lawyer made more money than me on the
first record deal I had, and so eventually that money
ran out very quickly actually, and I was like, well, damn,
you know what am I going to do? I found
(17:13):
out about songwriting and I was like, well, I don't
want to go back to Gifford because he need nothing
to do there. But you know, have babies and so yeah,
and get married. I have babies and you know, be
a mom, which there's nothing wrong with that, but that's
not what I wanted, and so I was like, well,
let me go to La do some sessions. I had
(17:37):
no idea that I was going to grow in notoriety
so fast as a songwriter. But when I got out there,
I was doing like five sessions a day every day,
two songs minimum in every session. My first session, I
got a placement with this UK artist named Cheryl Cole
(17:58):
that went number one over there, and then after that
it was just like Selena Gomez who says Chris Brown
doing me at Rihanna, it was like boom boom boom,
you know. But I think it was just because I
was working so much that I had so it's like
a you know, the ratio of songs I had to
choose from made it possible for me to have that
(18:20):
kind of like Snowball.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Are you married at this time? A relationship and get married?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, I've been married for nine years.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Okay, So so you got married when like where were fifteen?
Where were you then? In Florida?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Uh, California.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You're in California. So how was that like? Because you know,
being married is not easy, that's a whole different job. Yes,
definitely happily married, but she crazy and I'm crazy, so.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
It's a little lift.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So I'm just saying marriage is a job. It's so
much communication that needs to be happening, and someone will
like you that has a crazy schedule, and then I'm
not sure you know who your husband is, but how
is that conversation with him when you guys communicating like, hey,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I have to go to the studio and you might
be on all day. I think there has to just
be a mutual respect, right because it's like this, I've
been working to get to this moment for seventeen years.
You know, you wouldn't want to stop the person that
you love from doing something that they're obviously, you know,
(19:25):
blessed with that is my gifting. But I definitely made
it very clear like you're not stopping nothing. I'm gonna
I'm gonna work, That's what I'm gonna do. And I
think also too, it's just like there's no formula, there's
no one size fit all. You have to communicate, you
have to make time for what's important to you, and
(19:46):
you can't be prideful, which I think that stops a
lot of people sometimes from thriving into relationships because you know,
you don't want to admit when you mess up. You
don't want to be soft, be vulnerable. And also the
death of relationships is trying to please anybody else outside
of the two of you. You know, if you're doing
(20:07):
things for you boys, if you're doing things for the
general public, the perception you already lost. It has to
be a real genuine respect, mutual connection, respect, communication, maturity,
all that.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
An he seems supportive of you.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
He named your label, he came up with the name. Yeah,
but also too, I think that's part of it, right,
Like sometimes it's just kind to like allow your partner
to feel as if yeah, like of course I don't
(20:46):
need anyone to name anything or write anything, but you know,
if he comes up with a name and it's cool,
why not use that thank you? You know what I'm saying,
like versus being like no things like it's just it's
there's it's not it's kind of productive. There's no purpose
for me to do that. And that's with anything like hairstyle, nails, outfit,
(21:12):
you know, video treatment, Like if you have a dope idea,
why not share?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Do you guys have fun? Time to date each other.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's a little tough, but I mean again, every day
is what you make it, you know what I'm saying.
I'm happy with walking around the block like I'm happy
with that that, you know, or just sitting outside looking
at stars or Netflix and Jill like, I'm very simple.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
How did he get you or how did you get him?
How did y'all get each other?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know, I honestly don't even I just remember liking,
uh no, That's why I thought he was going to no.
I just remember liking the fact that he was taking
care of me, like health wise, so you know, we
(22:04):
were working out a lot. I had like holistic medicines
and stuff. He was making sure I would take it
because sometimes I don't. I'm not the best way remembering
to take my medicine. So those are the things that
made me be like.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Hmm, you really care about me.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, they're really love me.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I know you mentioned in one of your interviews about
industry grooming and things like that.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Can you just shed light on.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think as I grow, just like as a woman
in maturity, as a creative, I realized that every single
thing I went through was tempering me. You know for
the for where I'm at now, like I was not
prepared at any other time or moment before now, I
wasn't ready. And also as I grow in wisdom, I'm
(22:55):
able to see people, like really see them, and I
can tell like who knows themselves, who's being authentic, who
is being led by an external locus of control meaning
you are moved by outside opinions other than your own
(23:17):
that do not originate f himself. And then internal locus
of control meaning you get your guidance from your intuition,
your gut, what's on your heart. I call it the
God whisper. You know, when you get that instinct to
like grab your coat before you walk out the door,
and then you grab it and then it rains, or
you know, you get the instinct like I don't know
(23:38):
why someone telling me to bring these flip flops, but
I'm gonna bring them, and then you end up needing it.
That's the God whisper. That's what I call it. A
lot of times people ignore it, but when you get
to a certain place of like trusting that and understanding
those are little taps from God, from the universe, from
your angels. You in the right direction. You learn how
(24:03):
to operating that, and so I can recognize when somebody
is doing that. I think when I was younger, I
didn't have that, so I was trusting and putting my
faith in other people. So appreciate you, Shay.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
You are signed now rights or deal.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I have a partnership with Definitely me, I'm signing myself.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Partnership is dope.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
I know that Hours and Hours helped that, right the single.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think the Hours and Hours was a tipping point.
But I had already built a catalog, a nice little
like catalog about thirty songs, and a bunch of them
were doing really well in terms of independency, Like I
had multiple songs that were hitting a million.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
For your Yourself under your Name, My Moneymoon.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And so hours and Hours obviously that's my biggest song.
I think it's got half a billion streams, which is
amazingaire Right, Well, I ever see the other one too?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Me too?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, So I think it was definitely Hours and Hours.
But I think what the reason why I was able
to get what I was able to get as far
as partnership and revenue share and all that is because
they saw, like, it's not just one. It's not just
a one hit of quitter like she has built. She's
going somewhere with her brand. She has identity. And I
(25:36):
think the true test came recently with like can she
do it again? You know? Is it? Was it just
lightning in a bottle? Was it just luck? And I
think what made for me now is doing the same thing.
Is going viral on TikTok. We got number one at
urban radio. We just released a video yesterday, so if
you haven't seen that, go check that on YouTube, featuring
(25:58):
Lou James, directed by Trinidad James, and that's gray and
I think they're seeing like, oh wow, she does know
what she's talking about. She does know what she's doing.
And it's not any specific formula. It's just the relationship
that I have created with my supporters. It took a
lot more on groundwork, right. I actually have to, like individually,
(26:21):
like every comment, respond with a genuine response, not just
like a mooji like yeah, like I have to actually
right now, I mean just this is just real, like
this is this is how I'm doing it. I'm actually
imagine this is what I was saying to my manager Shaka,
he's over there. I was like him and Jeff. What
(26:45):
the music industry has done in essence is put the
power in the hands of the creator, demographic, your niche.
It's not you the creator. You don't have the power
and neither does the label. Where you get the power
is Imagine if you're in a stadium and it's the
(27:06):
field is crowded, Imagine you the star player walking through
that crowd and not getting attacked, not getting touched, not
getting hounded. If you can do that, then you are
the captain of the ship. There's not a lot of
artists who can do that. Nicki Minaj can do it,
you know, Kanye. Kanye can do it. But it's very hard,
(27:30):
and it's like you have to be so like confident
in who you are to be able to control that space.
You're at a spiritual level. You got to be able
to push your aura out to let people know like, yes,
I'm here, I'm with you, we're in this together. Hey,
how are you? You're beautiful? Oh my gosh, like and
(27:51):
you really it has to be genuine because people can
smell the fear. You can't fake it. So I think
think where my power comes from is I really know
my audience. I really know what they want to see
for me, what they want to hear, and I protect it.
I do not let you know. Sometimes people at the
label will be like, oh, can you do this? And
(28:12):
can you do what this? And can you make a
post about this. I'm like, that's whack. They're gonna know
you know that it's not me. And it's not to
say that people's ideas are whack. It's just they know
my voice and they can tell when I'm trying to
sell them something or when I really am genuinely like, y'all,
I found his lotion, you know what I'm saying. So
(28:33):
it drives my value up because I'm only going to
advertise and stand behind things that I actually believe in.
So when I do speak about something, you know, oh,
I'm gonna go get that because she don't. She don't
just be feeding us, you know, force feeding us stuff.
But it takes longer because I have to actually vet
these things and you know, try things out and spend
(28:55):
my own money, and you know, before I bring it
to my people, I have to have warned, you know.
So it takes longer, it takes more resources, and it's
not like the cool route, you know what I'm saying
where like a lot of these influencers, they're wearing and
testing the hottest stuff as it's you know, blowing up
(29:19):
is about timing for me and finding the right partnerships.
But in the end, at the end of it, I'm
creating this foundation that is very strong, and you can't
it's not shakeable. It's unshakeable. So like if I do
mess up and I have a moment that isn't so great,
(29:39):
it's overshadowed by all the times that I made the
right choices, and I'm fine with that. Like my goal
was never to be uh famous. It's to be able
to express myself at a high level for a very
long time until I get tired of it. And of
course being successful in having brand recognition and people knowing
who I am visually and knowing who I am as
(30:02):
a personality helps to be able to do that to
bring in more opportunities, But that's not the goal. So
I think, as I said before, I wasn't ready before
and now I wouldn't have been able to understand that.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
You know, ten years ago, do you think this power
came from when you stepped out of priscillating into money
long I.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Think it so in that transition period, yes, but it
didn't have anything to do with music. It was just
I had asked an old friend of mine, Wilmer Valdorama.
I don't know if you guys watched our seventies show.
He's a fez for an exchange student, and of course
he's grown, he's done, he's on like ncis now. But
I asked him a long time ago. I was like, Wilmer,
(30:43):
how do you know when it's time to grow up?
I think I was like twenty when I asked him this,
and he was like, when you get tired of making
the same mistakes over and over, you start changing things
and tweaking things and doing things differently. And that really
hit me. I had to think about it for a
long time, like what do you mean? What do he
mean by it? And so I started watching how I
talk about myself, watching how I talk about others, watching
(31:08):
when you get that little envious feeling when you see
somebody doing something that you wish you were doing, changing
the momentum of that thought into like, so now instead,
when I see somebody doing something that I want to
be doing, I don't even feel envy anymore. I'm remembering
to say, that's for me. I would love to experience that,
you know, and so you're calling these things into your
(31:29):
experience with a positive polarization versus like the opposite of
that would be dang, how come it? You know it's
never works out for me, mag get right there. It's
always something you gotta watch that. You can't talk like that,
and it takes literally you have to brainwash yourself. So
(31:50):
I was listening to self help books, meditations ask formations,
so basically affirmations in the form of a question, like
why am I so successful? Why does it everything always
happened for me so easily? Why is my bank account
so full? You know, things like that. Before I go
to sleep, first thing in the morning, I'm listening to
my books. I'm turning on It's so much stuff on YouTube,
like for free therapy rey key. Yeah. So, like I
(32:15):
did a very holistic like rebranding as well internally, and
then what you guys see is the product of that
very surface level. You know, how I address how I talk,
my music, my videos, But there's there's so much more
deeper work that I've been doing.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
You said you had that conversation with fez. Well, he's
never really fizz.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
But at twenty and twenty one, you became a millionaire
or he made the first million.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
This is the Bler Alert Show. And just to touch on.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
The financial aspect of it, can you just shed some
light on financial decisions and when you get into making money.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I mean, I think I've seen so many interviews where
like people will share when they first started get and money,
they blew it. And I definitely blew a lot, not
understanding just how business works and taxes and what you
can write off and what you can't, and rent and
loaning people money and you know, thinking you're going to
(33:17):
get it back and you never, you never will. You
don't get it back, They don't give it back.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
We just had Atl Jacob and he blew his money,
like told him he was gonna blow it. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Atl Jacob said that Future said, every every person in
the industry that makes a lot of money goes broke
the first time.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Around second third because it's like you think that when
you get this amount of money, it's gonna change your life.
When you get this car, when you get this jewelry,
when you get that's what you think. And then when
you get it you realize like, oh, hey, you know
that has nothing to do with it, and that's why
(33:56):
you like, you know, you'll see people who are really
wealthy weren't flannel shirts and birkenstocks because it's like none
of that stuff really matters. Money is just a means
to be able to maneuver in the world. So like,
if I want to get up at two am and
fly to Dubai, I need to make enough money where
I can. I can do that and the rules do
(34:16):
not apply to me because I make my own magic.
And the only reason why I understand that is because
I've tried it every other way. Right, So like, as
much as you don't want your baby, I don't know
if you have kids, as much as you might not
want your baby to touch that hot stove, they gotta
touch it to see. See, that's why you don't do that,
(34:36):
you know. And so like, there is something very in
the humanness of like existence, right if that doesn't even
make sense, but you get what I'm saying. There is
just something about us where we gotta see for ourselves
and experience it for ourselves. There is no better teacher
than experience. It doesn't matter how much I tell you
(34:58):
that that's not gonna out good. You're not gonna really
understand it. Yeah, you're not until you you know it,
don't matter how much your mama tell you, or your
sister or whoever, be like, man, treat that girl right,
do the right thing. Until you lose her, You're not
gonna get it. You're not gonna understand. And so I
(35:20):
would just say, man, like, if you plan on being
really successful, plan on losing, plan on losing, you will,
but get back up, Like, get back up, don't let
that stop you. I failed. I can't even tell you
how many times, but I got back up, and I'm like, well,
(35:41):
you know what else am I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Is that why you made your name? Money long?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Money long? It's definitely an affirmation for sure, because it
looks like when you look at it, you say, it's
oh it's mooney long, but it's money long.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, why am you?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
And I you know it's gonna be different. Also, there
was nobody else with that name. It was nowhere. It
did not exist when I've heard first changed my name.
Now you go online, there's a bunch of I googled it.
I always do that. I do that with like song titles,
any ideas I might have. I Google to make sure
(36:18):
that it doesn't exist exist so that I can own it.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
But yeah, I just, uh, there's a bunch of money
loans on the internet.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Now, Yeah, I want to know, how do you how
do you approach a song when you're writing, good question.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I'm channeling so almost like a freestyle most of the time.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Do you have to be there with the producer making
it from scratch too?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Or I don't have to that's ideal though, that's the ideal.
So that's what I've been doing on this project. But
now I could do it to a track like with
Hours and Hours. That was a beat I found on YouTube.
I was just I was washing dishes and I was like,
extremely bored. I hate cleaning up.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Found that beat.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Found that beat. That's a long story, yeah, because I
bought it, but the producer didn't actually have the right
to sell it to me. So it turned into it.
It turned to do a huge thing. We're not gonna
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I got flowers on that song because that's a very
slow song on the DJ and in Atlanta, you had
to play that in the club and.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's the slow you know. I still haven't heard that
song in the club. You haven't heard the song I
heard of the Magic City. But even when you went
to Ladies of R and B, of course, But I
mean like in the club, like everybody's singing it long.
I've never because during the peak of it, it was
COVID and I was not going outside Atlanta. I was
in l A compromised at all. I was not going outside.
(37:43):
I got people are trying to book me. It was
getting mad, like, yo, we got this money for you,
Like you also have to co you know you can't.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
You can't play with lupis. That's an auto immune disease.
Like you can'tnot do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That, yes, because then I'll be in the hospital bed
and you knows all I was trying to do is smoke.
Hookah is not Atlanta has a hookah problem. I'm sorry. Listen,
I've seen somebody at the bus stop with a hookah
at the bus stop. No, it wasn't a portable one
(38:17):
was the glass with the whale at the bus that's
the home. That's the whole Atlanta. Mind you, I live
in l A. I've been there for a decade. And yes,
it is in the sense that you would go to
like the Mediterranean spower the spot and then you could
do hookah at night. They give it to you with
(38:38):
like milk to make it smoother. They put like the
fruit around the rims, and it's the it's the sheisha,
which is like the jelled tobacco. Bro they not giving you.
You're getting regular tobacco and a hookah, and it's not
the coal. They're supposed to come around and tap that
coal every few you know, thirty minutes to tap off
(38:59):
all the soot. So next time when y'all go do
hookah and you pay attention, they're not doing that. But
the call is getting smaller and smaller, so it's not
it's going in the air. So like if you're in
the hookah spot and your throat is burning, when you
go home and you blow your nose and see how
much soot is in your nose, it's so unhealthy. And
(39:20):
then you're not supposed to be smoking out the plastic
because that plastic, all the microplastic is going in your throat.
It's supposed to be a wooden nozzle.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Teach them.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So I'm just like y'all not doing y'all are doing
spook up. That's not who spooky. Yeah, that hooka is
killing young.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
When you need to do some some jingles you got,
can you jingle us to a break?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Baller Alert Baller Alert, We'll be right back.
Speaker 6 (39:49):
We'll be right back with more of the Baller Alert Show.
You're listening to a special edition of the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
What's Up? It's your girl money Long and you are
now watching the Baller Alert Show on what do you want?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
On the Bowler Alert Show? Made for Me? Where did
you come up with this?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So I did on the bet Soul Train Awards this
past November, I did a rendition of May for Me
that had a bridge which featured vocalists choir vocalists of
my favorite vocalist, and I did the arrangement for that
with a young man named Juwan who was also singing,
and walteron Millsap and I just wanted, like, sometimes choirs
(40:31):
can be a little cringey, right, but I felt like
this song gave, especially those core changes on the bridge.
It definitely gave like praise and worship because I used
to lead the praise and worship team like when I
was heavy in the church, because that's all my mama
would let me do. Uh. So I decided like, okay,
let me go back to my roots and bring that
into the performance. And it was also probably one of
(40:53):
my more simpler performances I've ever done, because I'm like, Okay,
you know, the only thing you can do is if
you keep going I want up, up and up, you
gotta bring it back down to bring it back up.
Otherwise it's just as you gonna end up like hanging
off the roof by your pinky toe, so you know
what I'm saying. So I had to bring it back
down do something a lot more simple. And then for
(41:14):
the music video, I wanted to do something around Halloween
where it was like Frankenstein kind of I lose my
lover and then I go to the morgue and I
get all these body parts and sold them together and
make my perfect person. But that was a little bit
too gory. And also like sometimes as a black female artist,
you have to understand that while you might not be
(41:36):
because black women are not a monolith. There's email girls,
there's luxury girls, there's the hood girls, there's the bookworm,
nerdy girls, city girls, city girls, you know, so it's
like there's so many different kind of Black women but
what the general public wants to see from a black
woman is a small set of things that they will accept.
(42:00):
And so I kind of understood that, like, Okay, even
though that is going into like the sci fi anime bag,
everybody don't want to see that from me, So let
me just temper it and like turn it down a
little bit. So I teamed up with Trinidad James and
Des Gray and they tweaked my treatment to make it
be AI robot, black people in text, black people in tech,
(42:24):
and so without giving you too much, basically, the concept
was that maybe if you you know, when you think
about the conversation on Twitter and Spiritual World posts a
lot about relationships and the arguments that are happening between
black men and black women and how people feel like
the dating pool is pissed. Thank god, I don't have
to do it, but you know, if you listen to
(42:47):
what the streets are saying, it's hell out here. And
so I remember maybe twenty years ago, thinking, wouldn't it
be cool to see the person that you're talking to
you on the phone and then boom, we have his time,
And so I'm wondering, you know, just putting it out
there especially. I don't know if you guys follow like
any AI pages on Instagram, you're already using it.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
No, I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
AI is going to take everybody job you're already using.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
It's already talking about the AI that they're trying to
prove and the entertainment business to where they trying to
license our voices and face and all this stuff too.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I mean that just becomes a human rights issue, right,
But you're using AI every day, Okay.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
I like AI in their term, not the terms where
they trying to legalize.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I will say, Luke James played a good AI at
the end when you yeah put him back together?
Speaker 6 (43:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, did that James come from too. I've known him
for a while. I was working with him as a
songwriter producer, and I saw that he was doing a
lot of sexy red stuff. So he transitioned from just
being an artist and being you know, the representative to
now assisting other people when it comes to like style,
(44:03):
creating content, shooting videos and so saw him doing this
thing with sexy read and I was like, man, that's
good for you. And one thing about me, I never
like to engage or reach out to people until I
actually got something for you to do. So I put
it on my list of like I really want to
work with him on something, and I hit him and
he was like, let's go. I'm ready. And when I
(44:25):
tell you like they really like delivering on everything that
they said they was going to do. Because that's another thing,
is like, it's priceless when you can find someone who
can do what they advertise right. And in this business,
there's a lot of people who will say one thing
and then as soon as you get a little cloud,
get some success, they switch it up and then you
(44:45):
know they want to own everything. They want to take
credit for everything. That's whack. It's very whack. But then
there are some people, very few and far between, that
if they say I can get you this, they get it.
They deliver, sometimes they over deliver, they deliver on time,
they do it without complaint. Those are the people that
you want to surround yourself with, and Trinidad is definitely
(45:05):
one of those people.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Okay, is this a song leading into a project?
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Absolutely? I have album. I just finished it. Actually, That's
what I'm here for in Atlanta to finish my project.
I'm working with Tricky Stewart Ricky. Yeah, he's executive producing it.
I got songs with Tommy Brown and mister Franks who
did a lot of the Ariana Grande hits that we
know and love. Toron Thomas who did like a bunch
(45:31):
of the stuff with Lizzo about them. Tommy one Record
of the Year, Song of the Year last year, he's
nominated Rock City. He's nominated for Songwriter the Year this
year at the Grammys. I've known him for years. He's amazing.
And then the dream worked with him, and then Ku Carell,
who does all like my background vocals and my vocal production.
(45:54):
He also is part of the reason why I feel
like we won Best R and B Performance for hours
and hours after Grammy's last year.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
So Dream Team, I'm excited. Man, you're excited about this
because I love your voice. I like your style, like
you have nostalgia in your voice too, you know, And
I even like watching your perform like that that one
performance that went viral when you're like, what did I do?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I just love having fun, man, being silly and is like,
I gotta always keep that. I gotta always keep that
because you know, people like they turn into it now,
mind you if it's funny. I'm gonna laugh. It was
just one dude that he took that sound and he
made it like when you get in the car and
you'll see hot. Yeah it was.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
That was funny that you can laugh at yourself though,
because I feel like a lot of artists do not
like the antics on social media.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
But that's just because I know who I am. It's
like that ain't it ain't or nothing.
Speaker 5 (47:02):
But you know, when a song came out, I was like, man,
y'all are wearing this song the haters.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
I makes me think about my wife.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I love that song, but I did wear it out.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
I'm one of those people that would listen to a
song twenty times and one day when I first hit
and what, I really like it, But I don't want
the internet to be playing it too, Like I don't
want to get on the internet. I didn't listen to
this twenty times in my car.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, I mean it's, you know, blessed in a curse
because while I'm super grateful and a lot of times
to the way the industry set up. Now, if your
song is not doing that on the internet, they won't
even pay you dust. So it's like you kind of
need it. But I only I only truly appreciate it
when it's organic, Like you know, I did not pay people.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Like the maid for me is like organic because I
think a girl in some blue pants, blue.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Girl in the blue pajamas. It's a lot of beef
going on on TikTok out there because it's two creators
that one guy, one guy named Reuben J. He did
he made a parody making fun of my soul Train performance,
just like walking in the wind because it was crazy
cold and wendy. So you know, his wig is like
doing like this. You know, it's super funny, super funny,
(48:21):
and like he made it like kind of like the
good Christian Sancti Vibe version. And then the young girl Marie,
she took it to the hood. You know, she was
in what was it, TJ Max or something like that,
and some pajamas. I almost bought those same pajamas from Target.
I got the green ones and she was in there,
you know, just like she nugged it out a little bit.
(48:43):
And that's what people are arguing about, like, oh, she
started it first. He started first, Like guys, we all
win it. You know, I'm not mad. I'm not mad.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I do got a question. So when did this guy
Shata come into the picture. Man, it's a good guy,
a good guy.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I've been working on Chaka for maybe like
six eight months now, I don't know, I'm like six yeah.
Always obviously been a fan from a distance, and he
him and Jeff really like take care of me. And
it's hard for me right to listen to other people
(49:22):
because I'd be worried, like you're just trying to benefit,
you know in some way, like what's the catch. But
they're not like that at all. It's like they can
actually give me advice and give me the reason why
I shouldn't be doing it or I should go this
way versus this way. And we have a great chemistry
(49:42):
where I trust them, you know, And that's like it's
very Yeah, it's very important, especially being a woman, right,
you know, them working with Luda for all these years
is totally different.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I gotta get hair and make up styling before I
do anything. I gotta I gotta be looking right. I
cannot go outside without makeup on or people are like,
well she looks sick, you know what I'm saying, And
I just look regular. So they understand that they fight
for me as a performer. There are certain things that
I need. Like I went to the Chantey Mor concert
(50:17):
last night and she said it was hot in their
and I was like, this is just me, and then
she said it. She was like, thank y'all for boiling
for me, because I can't sing with the air on,
you know, just certain things like that, or like you
going too a venue and they don't want to cut
the air condition off, so they're blowing all this dust
and cold, they're into your lungs, and then they expect
you to go out there and sing for an hour
(50:39):
and hit these you know, vocal cords. Is that why
she said, shyn your vocal cords. But also like when
you warm up, you're literally imagine like you know, you're
a runner, you're an athlete, and you warm up, you
run around the track, and then you sit in the
cold for twenty minutes, so now you're tight again and
you can hurt yourself that way, you know. So it's
like it's the same thing with a singer. I do
(51:01):
all those warm ups and then you get ready to
go perform on these award shows and right before you
walk on stage, there's the air blowing right on top
of your head. You know, and they got to keep
all those lights cool. So you understand that. But at
a certain point, you know, you need people back there
like Shaka fighting for you to be like, hey, cut
that air off five minutes. You know what I'm saying.
(51:23):
It's very important, man. It's like just those little things
because those womans live forever. It's like, you know, it
might only be a four minute performance, but they're gonna
watch it over and over for years to come. It's
got to be right, you know, it's your legacy.
Speaker 5 (51:39):
I gotta say a shout out to J D and
B cox Man because when I tell you every Wednesday
at Ladies of R and B, your songs are in rotation.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
You're part of keeping alive. Thank you for real.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Rotation.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Powder Wow, what out it to you?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
That's why he said, well y'all to cast out with.
I was like, it's okay, oh yeah, money Line on
the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Before we get out of here, we do have to
ask you for a pep talk.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
What's up, y'all? It's your girl money long and my
little piece of motivation for you is get up out
that bed. Ain't no money in that bed. Get out
there in them streets, line them pockets.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Can't get enough of baller Alert. Follow us on all
social media platforms at baller Alertlog on the baller alert
dot com
Word with me here you know, bt know how it goes,
shout out oct no real color, what we see? Whole game?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Wait, the Butler book something.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Oh, you can't stand on their ownsle see I already
know you can't with me because with the squad on me,
they get a little They called me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He love by love he love her.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Ball of Alert.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the ball Alert Show.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Podcasts available everywhere you get your podcast. Please continue to like, subscribe,
and share our YouTube page at baller Alert Tv. I
go by the name of Ferrari Simmits.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I'll go on to name you know bt C t.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Of that money log in the building, grab me with it?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, I love that for me.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I love that for you too, cause you've been you
have a journey you've been on I have. You know
what I'm saying, How are you feeling though? Like I
know you been diagnosed and you know you just recently
said you had autism, Like.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
How is that? How's how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I mean, I'm still doing me. You gotta keep you pushing,
you know. I think one thing that keeps me on
the right path is just like knowing that everybody has
their own journey and their own unique experience and it's
my life and it's my responsibility to make the best
of it. Sometimes it does get a little tough because
(01:28):
it's like I have so much success based on like
the standard right status quo that when I have my
moments when I am down, it's hard for people to
relate and so they be like girl. So I have
to kind of struggle through those moments on my own sometimes.
But God don't give you more than you can carry.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, And I've learned a lot through about loopus, through
like Tony Braxton and people who have it, like those
type of celebrities, and they say it inflame, like if
you're if you're worked up or if you're you know,
too excited.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Have you had any flirps do to things like that?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Absolutely? Mostly mine are like in my hands and joints,
so sometimes I can't really like open things as you saw.
But Yeah, it's funny because it's like it's a cash
twenty two because with something like an autoimmune that is
stress related, it's best if you don't talk about it.
(02:29):
But yet if you don't talk about it, there's no representation,
you know, So it's tough. I gotta choose moments when
when I'm feeling good, when there is anything happening like
right now where I'll share, and sometimes I'm just like, yeah,
you know, I don't really want to talk about it
right now because I'm kind of going through it. But
(02:49):
I think, you know, keeping your stress level of down,
stand positive, eating right, getting sleep, and just not putting
yourself in scenarios where you could be triggered, that's really
the key. Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
You have a lot of support from your family and husband.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. I mean I don't really ask for much, very
self sufficient, independent. I like to be by myself. So
when I do, they just give it to me. You know,
it's like dad, can you make me a gro cheese?
You know? So yeah, I'm very I'm very blessed.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Now, if we could take it back a little bit.
You're from Gifford, Florida, which is right by Vero Beach,
a little bit south Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
They pushing, they pushing the boundary to border.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
What do you say you from?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You say you're from, Yeah, it's becoming smaller and smaller.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm a Florida guy And I literally had to look
that up. I was like, yeah, Florida from Okay, because
I've been to Vio, but I didn't know right on
top of Zo.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So we like a train track community, you know, like
they put the MLK train tracks and the you know,
Dollar General in the hood, and then right across the
train track is the beach. So there's literally people from
where I'm from that have never been to the beach
(04:18):
ten minutes down the street because it's not it's a
different neighborhood, you know, it's literally like driving driving hood
hood hood, section eight housing, you know what I'm saying,
and then train track and then boom mansions.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So how was it like for you growing up on
your side on that side of the tracks? Was because
I know somebody saying in the.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Family mom My mom saying yeah, in the navy, my
biological father, my stepfather worked for the Sheriff's department for
many years, I think twenty plus. He still teaches in
the town. Yeah, I I don't know. I was very
so I actually grew up all over the United States
(05:06):
in my younger years. It wasn't until I was about
fourteen that we moved to give For which my mother's
hometown where she was raised as Wabasso, was twenty minutes
down the street. And I grew up on a farm,
and I was very much like if I was hungry,
you just go pick an orange off the tree. So
(05:26):
I didn't really have an actual concept of like status
or like we struggling because we literally lived off the land.
But you know, I didn't have no Jordan's or nothing
like that. Like we didn't have designer clothes. You know.
We definitely was shopped at J. C. Penny, you know,
buy one, get one for eighty eight cents jeans. So
(05:50):
I don't know, I was very oblivious. It wasn't until
I got older that I realized, like, wait a minute,
that's not right, you know, I was. I wasn't. My
mom did a good job with keeping us, keeping us
shielded from that. Yes. I have two brothers, yeah, older
one older one younger, and I had a step brother
(06:11):
he passed away years ago. Uh so yeah, I'm the
only girl.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh wow, So you was out there you know with
your milk and cows and stuff too.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
We had no cows, but I did feed the chickens.
We used to fish in the pond. We had geese.
I had a pet hog.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah they are pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, well they killed them and broasted them. Yeah you do.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You s.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No, I don't slaughter chickens when we don't do that.
I did have to learn how to gut fish when
I was younger, because again, we live off the land,
so you wasn't allowed. You have to eat what you kill,
so if you kill it, you got to eat it.
I do and I don't particularly. Yeah, a long time ago,
(07:03):
we used to shoot squirrels. I'm just throw it on
the grid.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
But like you said, once you you know, hit your
teenage years and stuff like that, you was in like
a sheltered space with your parents and at home and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
But then you got on the internet and you.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Started to do your thing in two thousand and four, right,
two thousand and four was my first video.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yes, wow did your research?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, like you said, you were sheltered. So it's like,
you know, I don't think many people you did sleepovers or.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Seminaris something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You know, people on the internet now have friends like
fans who are online, and that's kind of like what
you kind of started doing at that time. You know,
how did that shape you as far as doing your
music in two thousand and four, I think it's kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Like two separate things. I think one my mom didn't
let me do nothing, did lease squat. I remember one
time this boy asked me to the movies for Valentine's Day.
And we've known him, we've known each other since we were
like seven, and he finally was like, yo, can you
like can we go to movies? So I told my mom.
I got all dressed out on my pink and red.
(08:13):
She drove me to the movie theater. The boy came
up to the car. He had chocolate to bear, flowers, balloons,
whole nine yards like you know, miss Sheila. I was
just gonna let her pick the movie, and my mom
was like, okay. One second she rode the windor she said,
y'all think y'all sleep, you know, and mind you. I'm
(08:36):
so like not even I'm so green. I was just
excited that she was lett me do something telling me
about this lady rode down the window and said, you
at the movies. Tell him by and all. I drove
off and the boy was standing there like with the flowers,
(08:57):
like oh, and I was just one little tear coming
down my eye. It's literally for real. And I was
so upset and so hurt. But that was my life.
She didn't let me do nothing. So I think the
computer became my escape right because I could talk to people,
I could make videos and respond to comments, and I
(09:18):
did develop relationships with some of my supporters I still
talk to to this day from years ago. It's one
girl named Liquida. She's buying me gifts and stuff. I'll
invite her to my shows. You know. It's just like
we do create a genuine bonding connection with our fans sometimes,
(09:38):
and it's hard to do that now because people be
like pushing it a little bit, like tellate what I
need to do and talk it to me crazy and
you forget. Like somebody said something like I was gonna
beat your ass if you didn't. I said, who was
gonna be? What?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You know what I'm saying, like my favorite song? She said.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
They really they pushing it. They be pushing it. So
sometimes I'd be having to like go in, like I
went on on, went in on this girl on TikTok
the other day. She couldn't take it, though, so I
had to erase what I said because I'm like, okay,
people are laughing at her a little too much, and
you know, I know how that feels, so I'm gonna
just take it down and give her a break. But
I have to do that sometimes to let people know.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
She's like.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
She was just like, girl, you being you're doing too much.
You're a celebrity. People gonna tell you what to do,
you know, And I was like, so, I'm not gonna
say what I said, but I basically gave her a
taste of her own medicine gotch and she couldn't. She
couldn't handle it.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
Most fans can.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
A lot of people just Internet people, and they just.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Calm, you know, and a lot of people probably don't
think that you're actually gonna see their comment.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
They don't. They don't. They don't think that I'm gonna
say anything back. They expect me to be scary. They
also don't expect me to have the personality that I
have because you know, I'm from Florida. Like we we
can't nobody talk junk like somebody from Florida. If you
pissed me off, If you piss me off, I'm calling
you all types of roly poly nick turtlehead.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
You know, if I'm Whitney, I'm Bobby and Whitney Whitney
minus all the extra, you know what I mean. I'm
very much like somebody asked me the other day, like
what R and B songs am I listened to in
my car? I'm like, I'm listening to Big Dude, I'm
listening to money Bag, I'm listening to Key Clock. I
ain't listening to it. I make R and B I
(11:30):
don't listen to it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Is that like a cleanse for your ears? Sometimes you
just hear it, you write it.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No, I just want to jump on my bed and
throw things like everybody else, you know what I'm saying.
Like I used to remember, for like a year straight,
I would put on bmf Rick Ross and that was
my alarm. Literally, like I'll be in the bed asleep
and all of a sudden, it's like boom boom. I think, oh,
(11:56):
big bitch every morning.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And that's how people you know her Joe's story, Like
as far as you're growing up, you was outside, you know,
skinning fish, you know, playing with hogs. You know, you.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Had a pet hog and then they killed it and
ate it.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Damn so that he was my pet. But they tricked
me it into feeding it and fattening it up and
making me feel like you know, I used to come
home every day from school and be like, hey, Powder,
talk to him. And he was a wild hog, so
he used to he was he was, he was. It
(12:36):
was a big freaking animal. And he would like he
would charge at the fence for anybody else, but for
me he was nice. He would walk over and like,
you know, you talk to and he had these big tusks,
and I would go in the house and get there.
We had an empty chipling bucket that we used to
(12:57):
put our scraps in, so I get the slop bucket,
put it in the traw and sit there and talk
to him. And one day I came home and the
cage was empty. And mind you, my my grandparents lived
on four acres, so it was huge. So I walk in.
I go straight to the cage. He's not there. I
go in the house. I'm like, Granddaddy, what powder. He
(13:21):
took me to the window. It was a big, long
window in the front of the house, and he pointed
to the edge of the yard. So his cage is
over here. He poured it over here, and powder was
there roasting on the spit. And I just remember falling
out and being like and I remember calling my mama,
(13:44):
like mama daval and she said, we don't eat. I
didn't the first day, I did not eat that second
day it was so good. Yeah, he's with me forever.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Did you ever write a song about powder?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I didn't know too much.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We'll be right back with more of the Baller Alert Show.
You're listening to a special edition of The Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
What's Up?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Is your Girl? Money Long?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
And you are now tuned into the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I do want to acknowledge the fact that you were
doing all this and this was dope left well, I
don't want to say it's dope eating powder or dope.
You know, your mom leaving to board the young man
at the movie theater. So when did music come into play?
Was mom singing all the time in the house and
then as we started singing too, and she was like,
oh god, you can sing, or she.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Says she knew I could sing at two years old. Really,
we used to living in Connecticut and there was this
commercial that used to play. I actually remember this too,
and it would go Spirit of Hampton Roots like you know,
it was like a airport commercial or something like that.
And so yeah, and she says she heard me doing
(15:00):
that one day and she looked with the TV was off,
so she knew that it was me nice. And there
was always music in the house. My biological father played
the trumpet. We had pianos in every house that we
were in, upright piano. My mom was always singing. There
was always music playing. She used to have like those
CD towers full. She had like three of them, so
(15:22):
it was like always music every get in the car.
She had the CD book. So, I mean, it was
just kind of like I thought everybody could do it
because that's just how we were in our house, even
my grandma be you know, humming and cooking. My biological
father also could sing. He had like one of those
like high pitch temptations, you know, yes yes, and then
(15:50):
even writing songs like I wrote my first song when
I was eight, and I remember I was vacuuming and
just walking down the hallway. I'm looking at the skyllay
and my brother was like, what song is that. I
was like, I made it up. He's like, no, you didn't,
and I was like, yes, I did. We started arguing,
so we went to my mom and my mom was like, well,
(16:11):
I never heard it before, and then she bought me
a composition notebook, and I started making my own songs.
I just thought everybody did that, And it wasn't until
I started sharing it online, like fifteen sixteen years old
that people were like, will you be making that stuff up? Really?
Even now, people still do that to me. When I
(16:32):
come up with something, they'd be like, you just wrote
that right now. So it's just my gift. Everybody's not
very talented.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So you're writing the songs. You know, you're on the internet.
Two thousand and eight, you decided to go to La?
What decided that in your mind? I'm going to go
to LA and do this thing?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I think I had reached the ceiling here in Atlanta
my first record deal. The guy who signed me, him
and his lawyer made more money than me on the
first record deal I had, and so eventually that money
ran out very quickly actually, and I was like, well, damn,
you know what am I going to do? I found
(17:13):
out about songwriting and I was like, well, I don't
want to go back to Gifford because he need nothing
to do there. But you know, have babies and so yeah,
and get married. I have babies and you know, be
a mom, which there's nothing wrong with that, but that's
not what I wanted, and so I was like, well,
let me go to La do some sessions. I had
(17:37):
no idea that I was going to grow in notoriety
so fast as a songwriter. But when I got out there,
I was doing like five sessions a day every day,
two songs minimum in every session. My first session, I
got a placement with this UK artist named Cheryl Cole
(17:58):
that went number one over there, and then after that
it was just like Selena Gomez who says Chris Brown
doing me at Rihanna, it was like boom boom boom,
you know. But I think it was just because I
was working so much that I had so it's like
a you know, the ratio of songs I had to
choose from made it possible for me to have that
(18:20):
kind of like Snowball.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Are you married at this time? A relationship and get married?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, I've been married for nine years.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Okay, So so you got married when like where were fifteen?
Where were you then? In Florida?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Uh, California.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You're in California. So how was that like? Because you know,
being married is not easy, that's a whole different job. Yes,
definitely happily married, but she crazy and I'm crazy, so.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
It's a little lift.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So I'm just saying marriage is a job. It's so
much communication that needs to be happening, and someone will
like you that has a crazy schedule, and then I'm
not sure you know who your husband is, but how
is that conversation with him when you guys communicating like, hey,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I have to go to the studio and you might
be on all day. I think there has to just
be a mutual respect, right because it's like this, I've
been working to get to this moment for seventeen years.
You know, you wouldn't want to stop the person that
you love from doing something that they're obviously, you know,
(19:25):
blessed with that is my gifting. But I definitely made
it very clear like you're not stopping nothing. I'm gonna
I'm gonna work, That's what I'm gonna do. And I
think also too, it's just like there's no formula, there's
no one size fit all. You have to communicate, you
have to make time for what's important to you, and
(19:46):
you can't be prideful, which I think that stops a
lot of people sometimes from thriving into relationships because you know,
you don't want to admit when you mess up. You
don't want to be soft, be vulnerable. And also the
death of relationships is trying to please anybody else outside
of the two of you. You know, if you're doing
(20:07):
things for you boys, if you're doing things for the
general public, the perception you already lost. It has to
be a real genuine respect, mutual connection, respect, communication, maturity,
all that.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
An he seems supportive of you.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
He named your label, he came up with the name. Yeah,
but also too, I think that's part of it, right,
Like sometimes it's just kind to like allow your partner
to feel as if yeah, like of course I don't
(20:46):
need anyone to name anything or write anything, but you know,
if he comes up with a name and it's cool,
why not use that thank you? You know what I'm saying,
like versus being like no things like it's just it's
there's it's not it's kind of productive. There's no purpose
for me to do that. And that's with anything like hairstyle, nails, outfit,
(21:12):
you know, video treatment, Like if you have a dope idea,
why not share?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Do you guys have fun? Time to date each other.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's a little tough, but I mean again, every day
is what you make it, you know what I'm saying.
I'm happy with walking around the block like I'm happy
with that that, you know, or just sitting outside looking
at stars or Netflix and Jill like, I'm very simple.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
How did he get you or how did you get him?
How did y'all get each other?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know, I honestly don't even I just remember liking,
uh no, That's why I thought he was going to no.
I just remember liking the fact that he was taking
care of me, like health wise, so you know, we
(22:04):
were working out a lot. I had like holistic medicines
and stuff. He was making sure I would take it
because sometimes I don't. I'm not the best way remembering
to take my medicine. So those are the things that
made me be like.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Hmm, you really care about me.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, they're really love me.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I know you mentioned in one of your interviews about
industry grooming and things like that.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Can you just shed light on.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think as I grow, just like as a woman
in maturity, as a creative, I realized that every single
thing I went through was tempering me. You know for
the for where I'm at now, like I was not
prepared at any other time or moment before now, I
wasn't ready. And also as I grow in wisdom, I'm
(22:55):
able to see people, like really see them, and I
can tell like who knows themselves, who's being authentic, who
is being led by an external locus of control meaning
you are moved by outside opinions other than your own
(23:17):
that do not originate f himself. And then internal locus
of control meaning you get your guidance from your intuition,
your gut, what's on your heart. I call it the
God whisper. You know, when you get that instinct to
like grab your coat before you walk out the door,
and then you grab it and then it rains, or
you know, you get the instinct like I don't know
(23:38):
why someone telling me to bring these flip flops, but
I'm gonna bring them, and then you end up needing it.
That's the God whisper. That's what I call it. A
lot of times people ignore it, but when you get
to a certain place of like trusting that and understanding
those are little taps from God, from the universe, from
your angels. You in the right direction. You learn how
(24:03):
to operating that, and so I can recognize when somebody
is doing that. I think when I was younger, I
didn't have that, so I was trusting and putting my
faith in other people. So appreciate you, Shay.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
You are signed now rights or deal.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I have a partnership with Definitely me, I'm signing myself.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Partnership is dope.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
I know that Hours and Hours helped that, right the single.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think the Hours and Hours was a tipping point.
But I had already built a catalog, a nice little
like catalog about thirty songs, and a bunch of them
were doing really well in terms of independency, Like I
had multiple songs that were hitting a million.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
For your Yourself under your Name, My Moneymoon.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And so hours and Hours obviously that's my biggest song.
I think it's got half a billion streams, which is
amazingaire Right, Well, I ever see the other one too?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Me too?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, So I think it was definitely Hours and Hours.
But I think what the reason why I was able
to get what I was able to get as far
as partnership and revenue share and all that is because
they saw, like, it's not just one. It's not just
a one hit of quitter like she has built. She's
going somewhere with her brand. She has identity. And I
(25:36):
think the true test came recently with like can she
do it again? You know? Is it? Was it just
lightning in a bottle? Was it just luck? And I
think what made for me now is doing the same thing.
Is going viral on TikTok. We got number one at
urban radio. We just released a video yesterday, so if
you haven't seen that, go check that on YouTube, featuring
(25:58):
Lou James, directed by Trinidad James, and that's gray and
I think they're seeing like, oh wow, she does know
what she's talking about. She does know what she's doing.
And it's not any specific formula. It's just the relationship
that I have created with my supporters. It took a
lot more on groundwork, right. I actually have to, like individually,
(26:21):
like every comment, respond with a genuine response, not just
like a mooji like yeah, like I have to actually
right now, I mean just this is just real, like
this is this is how I'm doing it. I'm actually
imagine this is what I was saying to my manager Shaka,
he's over there. I was like him and Jeff. What
(26:45):
the music industry has done in essence is put the
power in the hands of the creator, demographic, your niche.
It's not you the creator. You don't have the power
and neither does the label. Where you get the power
is Imagine if you're in a stadium and it's the
(27:06):
field is crowded, Imagine you the star player walking through
that crowd and not getting attacked, not getting touched, not
getting hounded. If you can do that, then you are
the captain of the ship. There's not a lot of
artists who can do that. Nicki Minaj can do it,
you know, Kanye. Kanye can do it. But it's very hard,
(27:30):
and it's like you have to be so like confident
in who you are to be able to control that space.
You're at a spiritual level. You got to be able
to push your aura out to let people know like, yes,
I'm here, I'm with you, we're in this together. Hey,
how are you? You're beautiful? Oh my gosh, like and
(27:51):
you really it has to be genuine because people can
smell the fear. You can't fake it. So I think
think where my power comes from is I really know
my audience. I really know what they want to see
for me, what they want to hear, and I protect it.
I do not let you know. Sometimes people at the
label will be like, oh, can you do this? And
(28:12):
can you do what this? And can you make a
post about this. I'm like, that's whack. They're gonna know
you know that it's not me. And it's not to
say that people's ideas are whack. It's just they know
my voice and they can tell when I'm trying to
sell them something or when I really am genuinely like, y'all,
I found his lotion, you know what I'm saying. So
(28:33):
it drives my value up because I'm only going to
advertise and stand behind things that I actually believe in.
So when I do speak about something, you know, oh,
I'm gonna go get that because she don't. She don't
just be feeding us, you know, force feeding us stuff.
But it takes longer because I have to actually vet
these things and you know, try things out and spend
(28:55):
my own money, and you know, before I bring it
to my people, I have to have warned, you know.
So it takes longer, it takes more resources, and it's
not like the cool route, you know what I'm saying
where like a lot of these influencers, they're wearing and
testing the hottest stuff as it's you know, blowing up
(29:19):
is about timing for me and finding the right partnerships.
But in the end, at the end of it, I'm
creating this foundation that is very strong, and you can't
it's not shakeable. It's unshakeable. So like if I do
mess up and I have a moment that isn't so great,
(29:39):
it's overshadowed by all the times that I made the
right choices, and I'm fine with that. Like my goal
was never to be uh famous. It's to be able
to express myself at a high level for a very
long time until I get tired of it. And of
course being successful in having brand recognition and people knowing
who I am visually and knowing who I am as
(30:02):
a personality helps to be able to do that to
bring in more opportunities, But that's not the goal. So
I think, as I said before, I wasn't ready before
and now I wouldn't have been able to understand that.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
You know, ten years ago, do you think this power
came from when you stepped out of priscillating into money
long I.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Think it so in that transition period, yes, but it
didn't have anything to do with music. It was just
I had asked an old friend of mine, Wilmer Valdorama.
I don't know if you guys watched our seventies show.
He's a fez for an exchange student, and of course
he's grown, he's done, he's on like ncis now. But
I asked him a long time ago. I was like, Wilmer,
(30:43):
how do you know when it's time to grow up?
I think I was like twenty when I asked him this,
and he was like, when you get tired of making
the same mistakes over and over, you start changing things
and tweaking things and doing things differently. And that really
hit me. I had to think about it for a
long time, like what do you mean? What do he
mean by it? And so I started watching how I
talk about myself, watching how I talk about others, watching
(31:08):
when you get that little envious feeling when you see
somebody doing something that you wish you were doing, changing
the momentum of that thought into like, so now instead,
when I see somebody doing something that I want to
be doing, I don't even feel envy anymore. I'm remembering
to say, that's for me. I would love to experience that,
you know, and so you're calling these things into your
(31:29):
experience with a positive polarization versus like the opposite of
that would be dang, how come it? You know it's
never works out for me, mag get right there. It's
always something you gotta watch that. You can't talk like that,
and it takes literally you have to brainwash yourself. So
(31:50):
I was listening to self help books, meditations ask formations,
so basically affirmations in the form of a question, like
why am I so successful? Why does it everything always
happened for me so easily? Why is my bank account
so full? You know, things like that. Before I go
to sleep, first thing in the morning, I'm listening to
my books. I'm turning on It's so much stuff on YouTube,
like for free therapy rey key. Yeah. So, like I
(32:15):
did a very holistic like rebranding as well internally, and
then what you guys see is the product of that
very surface level. You know, how I address how I talk,
my music, my videos, But there's there's so much more
deeper work that I've been doing.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
You said you had that conversation with fez. Well, he's
never really fizz.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
But at twenty and twenty one, you became a millionaire
or he made the first million.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
This is the Bler Alert Show. And just to touch on.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
The financial aspect of it, can you just shed some
light on financial decisions and when you get into making money.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I mean, I think I've seen so many interviews where
like people will share when they first started get and money,
they blew it. And I definitely blew a lot, not
understanding just how business works and taxes and what you
can write off and what you can't, and rent and
loaning people money and you know, thinking you're going to
(33:17):
get it back and you never, you never will. You
don't get it back, They don't give it back.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
We just had Atl Jacob and he blew his money,
like told him he was gonna blow it. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Atl Jacob said that Future said, every every person in
the industry that makes a lot of money goes broke
the first time.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Around second third because it's like you think that when
you get this amount of money, it's gonna change your life.
When you get this car, when you get this jewelry,
when you get that's what you think. And then when
you get it you realize like, oh, hey, you know
that has nothing to do with it, and that's why
(33:56):
you like, you know, you'll see people who are really
wealthy weren't flannel shirts and birkenstocks because it's like none
of that stuff really matters. Money is just a means
to be able to maneuver in the world. So like,
if I want to get up at two am and
fly to Dubai, I need to make enough money where
I can. I can do that and the rules do
(34:16):
not apply to me because I make my own magic.
And the only reason why I understand that is because
I've tried it every other way. Right, So like, as
much as you don't want your baby, I don't know
if you have kids, as much as you might not
want your baby to touch that hot stove, they gotta
touch it to see. See, that's why you don't do that,
(34:36):
you know. And so like, there is something very in
the humanness of like existence, right if that doesn't even
make sense, but you get what I'm saying. There is
just something about us where we gotta see for ourselves
and experience it for ourselves. There is no better teacher
than experience. It doesn't matter how much I tell you
(34:58):
that that's not gonna out good. You're not gonna really
understand it. Yeah, you're not until you you know it,
don't matter how much your mama tell you, or your
sister or whoever, be like, man, treat that girl right,
do the right thing. Until you lose her, You're not
gonna get it. You're not gonna understand. And so I
(35:20):
would just say, man, like, if you plan on being
really successful, plan on losing, plan on losing, you will,
but get back up, Like, get back up, don't let
that stop you. I failed. I can't even tell you
how many times, but I got back up, and I'm like, well,
(35:41):
you know what else am I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Is that why you made your name? Money long?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Money long? It's definitely an affirmation for sure, because it
looks like when you look at it, you say, it's
oh it's mooney long, but it's money long.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, why am you?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
And I you know it's gonna be different. Also, there
was nobody else with that name. It was nowhere. It
did not exist when I've heard first changed my name.
Now you go online, there's a bunch of I googled it.
I always do that. I do that with like song titles,
any ideas I might have. I Google to make sure
(36:18):
that it doesn't exist exist so that I can own it.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
But yeah, I just, uh, there's a bunch of money
loans on the internet.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Now, Yeah, I want to know, how do you how
do you approach a song when you're writing, good question.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I'm channeling so almost like a freestyle most of the time.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Do you have to be there with the producer making
it from scratch too?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Or I don't have to that's ideal though, that's the ideal.
So that's what I've been doing on this project. But
now I could do it to a track like with
Hours and Hours. That was a beat I found on YouTube.
I was just I was washing dishes and I was like,
extremely bored. I hate cleaning up.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Found that beat.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Found that beat. That's a long story, yeah, because I
bought it, but the producer didn't actually have the right
to sell it to me. So it turned into it.
It turned to do a huge thing. We're not gonna
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
I got flowers on that song because that's a very
slow song on the DJ and in Atlanta, you had
to play that in the club and.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's the slow you know. I still haven't heard that
song in the club. You haven't heard the song I
heard of the Magic City. But even when you went
to Ladies of R and B, of course, But I
mean like in the club, like everybody's singing it long.
I've never because during the peak of it, it was
COVID and I was not going outside Atlanta. I was
in l A compromised at all. I was not going outside.
(37:43):
I got people are trying to book me. It was
getting mad, like, yo, we got this money for you,
Like you also have to co you know you can't.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
You can't play with lupis. That's an auto immune disease.
Like you can'tnot do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That, yes, because then I'll be in the hospital bed
and you knows all I was trying to do is smoke.
Hookah is not Atlanta has a hookah problem. I'm sorry. Listen,
I've seen somebody at the bus stop with a hookah
at the bus stop. No, it wasn't a portable one
(38:17):
was the glass with the whale at the bus that's
the home. That's the whole Atlanta. Mind you, I live
in l A. I've been there for a decade. And yes,
it is in the sense that you would go to
like the Mediterranean spower the spot and then you could
do hookah at night. They give it to you with
(38:38):
like milk to make it smoother. They put like the
fruit around the rims, and it's the it's the sheisha,
which is like the jelled tobacco. Bro they not giving you.
You're getting regular tobacco and a hookah, and it's not
the coal. They're supposed to come around and tap that
coal every few you know, thirty minutes to tap off
(38:59):
all the soot. So next time when y'all go do
hookah and you pay attention, they're not doing that. But
the call is getting smaller and smaller, so it's not
it's going in the air. So like if you're in
the hookah spot and your throat is burning, when you
go home and you blow your nose and see how
much soot is in your nose, it's so unhealthy. And
(39:20):
then you're not supposed to be smoking out the plastic
because that plastic, all the microplastic is going in your throat.
It's supposed to be a wooden nozzle.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Teach them.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So I'm just like y'all not doing y'all are doing
spook up. That's not who spooky. Yeah, that hooka is
killing young.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
When you need to do some some jingles you got,
can you jingle us to a break?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Baller Alert Baller Alert, We'll be right back.
Speaker 6 (39:49):
We'll be right back with more of the Baller Alert Show.
You're listening to a special edition of the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
What's Up? It's your girl money Long and you are
now watching the Baller Alert Show on what do you want?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
On the Bowler Alert Show? Made for Me? Where did
you come up with this?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So I did on the bet Soul Train Awards this
past November, I did a rendition of May for Me
that had a bridge which featured vocalists choir vocalists of
my favorite vocalist, and I did the arrangement for that
with a young man named Juwan who was also singing,
and walteron Millsap and I just wanted, like, sometimes choirs
(40:31):
can be a little cringey, right, but I felt like
this song gave, especially those core changes on the bridge.
It definitely gave like praise and worship because I used
to lead the praise and worship team like when I
was heavy in the church, because that's all my mama
would let me do. Uh. So I decided like, okay,
let me go back to my roots and bring that
into the performance. And it was also probably one of
(40:53):
my more simpler performances I've ever done, because I'm like, Okay,
you know, the only thing you can do is if
you keep going I want up, up and up, you
gotta bring it back down to bring it back up.
Otherwise it's just as you gonna end up like hanging
off the roof by your pinky toe, so you know
what I'm saying. So I had to bring it back
down do something a lot more simple. And then for
(41:14):
the music video, I wanted to do something around Halloween
where it was like Frankenstein kind of I lose my
lover and then I go to the morgue and I
get all these body parts and sold them together and
make my perfect person. But that was a little bit
too gory. And also like sometimes as a black female artist,
you have to understand that while you might not be
(41:36):
because black women are not a monolith. There's email girls,
there's luxury girls, there's the hood girls, there's the bookworm,
nerdy girls, city girls, city girls, you know, so it's
like there's so many different kind of Black women but
what the general public wants to see from a black
woman is a small set of things that they will accept.
(42:00):
And so I kind of understood that, like, Okay, even
though that is going into like the sci fi anime bag,
everybody don't want to see that from me, So let
me just temper it and like turn it down a
little bit. So I teamed up with Trinidad James and
Des Gray and they tweaked my treatment to make it
be AI robot, black people in text, black people in tech,
(42:24):
and so without giving you too much, basically, the concept
was that maybe if you you know, when you think
about the conversation on Twitter and Spiritual World posts a
lot about relationships and the arguments that are happening between
black men and black women and how people feel like
the dating pool is pissed. Thank god, I don't have
to do it, but you know, if you listen to
(42:47):
what the streets are saying, it's hell out here. And
so I remember maybe twenty years ago, thinking, wouldn't it
be cool to see the person that you're talking to
you on the phone and then boom, we have his time,
And so I'm wondering, you know, just putting it out
there especially. I don't know if you guys follow like
any AI pages on Instagram, you're already using it.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
No, I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
AI is going to take everybody job you're already using.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
It's already talking about the AI that they're trying to
prove and the entertainment business to where they trying to
license our voices and face and all this stuff too.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I mean that just becomes a human rights issue, right,
But you're using AI every day, Okay.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
I like AI in their term, not the terms where
they trying to legalize.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I will say, Luke James played a good AI at
the end when you yeah put him back together?
Speaker 6 (43:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, did that James come from too. I've known him
for a while. I was working with him as a
songwriter producer, and I saw that he was doing a
lot of sexy red stuff. So he transitioned from just
being an artist and being you know, the representative to
now assisting other people when it comes to like style,
(44:03):
creating content, shooting videos and so saw him doing this
thing with sexy read and I was like, man, that's
good for you. And one thing about me, I never
like to engage or reach out to people until I
actually got something for you to do. So I put
it on my list of like I really want to
work with him on something, and I hit him and
he was like, let's go. I'm ready. And when I
(44:25):
tell you like they really like delivering on everything that
they said they was going to do. Because that's another thing,
is like, it's priceless when you can find someone who
can do what they advertise right. And in this business,
there's a lot of people who will say one thing
and then as soon as you get a little cloud,
get some success, they switch it up and then you
(44:45):
know they want to own everything. They want to take
credit for everything. That's whack. It's very whack. But then
there are some people, very few and far between, that
if they say I can get you this, they get it.
They deliver, sometimes they over deliver, they deliver on time,
they do it without complaint. Those are the people that
you want to surround yourself with, and Trinidad is definitely
(45:05):
one of those people.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Okay, is this a song leading into a project?
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Absolutely? I have album. I just finished it. Actually, That's
what I'm here for in Atlanta to finish my project.
I'm working with Tricky Stewart Ricky. Yeah, he's executive producing it.
I got songs with Tommy Brown and mister Franks who
did a lot of the Ariana Grande hits that we
know and love. Toron Thomas who did like a bunch
(45:31):
of the stuff with Lizzo about them. Tommy one Record
of the Year, Song of the Year last year, he's
nominated Rock City. He's nominated for Songwriter the Year this
year at the Grammys. I've known him for years. He's amazing.
And then the dream worked with him, and then Ku Carell,
who does all like my background vocals and my vocal production.
(45:54):
He also is part of the reason why I feel
like we won Best R and B Performance for hours
and hours after Grammy's last year.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
So Dream Team, I'm excited. Man, you're excited about this
because I love your voice. I like your style, like
you have nostalgia in your voice too, you know, And
I even like watching your perform like that that one
performance that went viral when you're like, what did I do?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I just love having fun, man, being silly and is like,
I gotta always keep that. I gotta always keep that
because you know, people like they turn into it now,
mind you if it's funny. I'm gonna laugh. It was
just one dude that he took that sound and he
made it like when you get in the car and
you'll see hot. Yeah it was.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
That was funny that you can laugh at yourself though,
because I feel like a lot of artists do not
like the antics on social media.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
But that's just because I know who I am. It's
like that ain't it ain't or nothing.
Speaker 5 (47:02):
But you know, when a song came out, I was like, man,
y'all are wearing this song the haters.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
I makes me think about my wife.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I love that song, but I did wear it out.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
I'm one of those people that would listen to a
song twenty times and one day when I first hit
and what, I really like it, But I don't want
the internet to be playing it too, Like I don't
want to get on the internet. I didn't listen to
this twenty times in my car.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, I mean it's, you know, blessed in a curse
because while I'm super grateful and a lot of times
to the way the industry set up. Now, if your
song is not doing that on the internet, they won't
even pay you dust. So it's like you kind of
need it. But I only I only truly appreciate it
when it's organic, Like you know, I did not pay people.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Like the maid for me is like organic because I
think a girl in some blue pants, blue.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Girl in the blue pajamas. It's a lot of beef
going on on TikTok out there because it's two creators
that one guy, one guy named Reuben J. He did
he made a parody making fun of my soul Train performance,
just like walking in the wind because it was crazy
cold and wendy. So you know, his wig is like
doing like this. You know, it's super funny, super funny,
(48:21):
and like he made it like kind of like the
good Christian Sancti Vibe version. And then the young girl Marie,
she took it to the hood. You know, she was
in what was it, TJ Max or something like that,
and some pajamas. I almost bought those same pajamas from Target.
I got the green ones and she was in there,
you know, just like she nugged it out a little bit.
(48:43):
And that's what people are arguing about, like, oh, she
started it first. He started first, Like guys, we all
win it. You know, I'm not mad. I'm not mad.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I do got a question. So when did this guy
Shata come into the picture. Man, it's a good guy,
a good guy.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I've been working on Chaka for maybe like
six eight months now, I don't know, I'm like six yeah.
Always obviously been a fan from a distance, and he
him and Jeff really like take care of me. And
it's hard for me right to listen to other people
(49:22):
because I'd be worried, like you're just trying to benefit,
you know in some way, like what's the catch. But
they're not like that at all. It's like they can
actually give me advice and give me the reason why
I shouldn't be doing it or I should go this
way versus this way. And we have a great chemistry
(49:42):
where I trust them, you know, And that's like it's
very Yeah, it's very important, especially being a woman, right,
you know, them working with Luda for all these years
is totally different.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I gotta get hair and make up styling before I
do anything. I gotta I gotta be looking right. I
cannot go outside without makeup on or people are like,
well she looks sick, you know what I'm saying, And
I just look regular. So they understand that they fight
for me as a performer. There are certain things that
I need. Like I went to the Chantey Mor concert
(50:17):
last night and she said it was hot in their
and I was like, this is just me, and then
she said it. She was like, thank y'all for boiling
for me, because I can't sing with the air on,
you know, just certain things like that, or like you
going too a venue and they don't want to cut
the air condition off, so they're blowing all this dust
and cold, they're into your lungs, and then they expect
you to go out there and sing for an hour
(50:39):
and hit these you know, vocal cords. Is that why
she said, shyn your vocal cords. But also like when
you warm up, you're literally imagine like you know, you're
a runner, you're an athlete, and you warm up, you
run around the track, and then you sit in the
cold for twenty minutes, so now you're tight again and
you can hurt yourself that way, you know. So it's
like it's the same thing with a singer. I do
(51:01):
all those warm ups and then you get ready to
go perform on these award shows and right before you
walk on stage, there's the air blowing right on top
of your head. You know, and they got to keep
all those lights cool. So you understand that. But at
a certain point, you know, you need people back there
like Shaka fighting for you to be like, hey, cut
that air off five minutes. You know what I'm saying.
(51:23):
It's very important, man. It's like just those little things
because those womans live forever. It's like, you know, it
might only be a four minute performance, but they're gonna
watch it over and over for years to come. It's
got to be right, you know, it's your legacy.
Speaker 5 (51:39):
I gotta say a shout out to J D and
B cox Man because when I tell you every Wednesday
at Ladies of R and B, your songs are in rotation.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
You're part of keeping alive. Thank you for real.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Rotation.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Powder Wow, what out it to you?
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
That's why he said, well y'all to cast out with.
I was like, it's okay, oh yeah, money Line on
the Baller Alert Show.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Before we get out of here, we do have to
ask you for a pep talk.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
What's up, y'all? It's your girl money long and my
little piece of motivation for you is get up out
that bed. Ain't no money in that bed. Get out
there in them streets, line them pockets.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Can't get enough of baller Alert. Follow us on all
social media platforms at baller Alertlog on the baller alert
dot com
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