July 19, 2023 • 53 mins
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of hip hop, a genre that has transcended time, age, and language barriers. As we celebrate some of our favorite artists – from the Lauryns, to the Missys, to the Cardis – we also want to spend some time highlighting the Black women executives who work behind the scenes, changing the game one move at a time.
Joining us for today’s conversation is Tracey Waples, a former senior music executive who has architected the sale of over 100 million albums and the success of a host of major stars. Her resume includes names like Rihanna, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Method Man, and more. In 2014, she founded the music consulting firm DNA Creative and continues to mentor young women in music. During our conversation we discussed how she kicked off and navigated her career in the music industry, reconciling with hip-hop’s complicated relationship to sexism and misogyny, and the importance of including women’s stories and contributions in the history of hip-hop.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, Doctor Joy Harden Bradford, a
licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to
(00:32):
find a therapist in your area, visit our website at
Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love
listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not
meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a
licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for
(00:57):
joining me for Session three sixteen of the Therapy from
Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. Twenty twenty three marks the
fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, a genre that has transcended time, age,
(01:21):
and language barriers. As we celebrate some of our favorite artists,
from the Laurens to the Missy's to the Cortis, we
also want to spend some time highlighting the black women
executives who work behind the scenes, changing the game one
move at a time. Joining us for today's conversation is
Tracy Waples a former senior music executive who has architected
(01:45):
the sale of over one hundred million albums and the
success of a host of major stores. Her resume includes
names like Rihanna, jay Z, Mariah Carey, method Man, and Moore.
In twenty fourteen, she found the music consulting firm DNA
Creative and continues to mentor young women in music. In
(02:06):
our conversation, Tracy and I discussed how she kicked off
and navigated her career in the music industry, reconciling with
hip hop's complicated relationship to sexism and misogyny, and the
importance of including women's stories and contributions in the history
of hip hop. If something resonates with you while enjoying
(02:28):
our conversation, please share it with us on social media
using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over
in the sister circles Let's talk more about the episode.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for
(02:49):
joining me today, Tracy, Thank.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
You for having me. Doctor Jod is an absolute pleasure
to be on this Therapy for Black Girls podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yes, I'm very excited to chat with you as we
sawlebrate fifty years of hip hop and you have definitely
been a force in the industry. So I'm very excited
we can celebrate this with you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you. It is definitely a milestone. And I turned
fifty last year, so it's like I'm growing up with
hip hop in that respect for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I love that. I love that. So you have worked
with some incredibly big names. You've worked with jay Z,
Kanye Wes, Rihanna, But I want us to go back
to young Tracy mean tap into her for a little bit.
So you had dropped out of Hostra. How did your
entertainment career actually begin?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So I dropped out of Hostra because I couldn't afford
it anymore. Actually, I was putting myself through school and
pretty much learned early on the sort of personality type
I was going to be, which was fully committed to
one thing and not really feeling confident that I'd be
able to like split the difference and give two things,
(03:57):
meaning having to work and pursue an education the same
level frankly of commitment. And so I had reached out
to a good friend, a dear friend would become a
family friend, of ours, Andre Herrel, who was definitely my
music business mentor, again such a close friend to me
(04:17):
and my family. And when I met him when I
was even younger than college years, he was like, you
should be in the record business, and I was like,
what are you crazy? Like I have to pursue my
education like my parents aren't having it. And fast forward
to I ended up calling him and saying, remember what
you said to me when I was in my teenage years.
(04:39):
I was like, well, I'm calling to cash in on
that because I explained to him what my family was
going through and what I was going through and finance wise,
and he understood. He adored me, he adored my family,
and so I think there was a sense of urgency
in him to help find a solution for me. And
I also think he was happy to know that I
(05:02):
was ready to do it, even though I, honestly, Doctor Jorge,
I didn't give it much thought. It was just a
job to me. To be honest with.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You, What do you think he saw on you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think fearlessness and being bold. Even the way I
met him, I was really underage in a nightclub that
I know business being in, and I saw him holding court,
if you will, and I just belined over there to
ask him, like I literally said, what is your name
and what do you do? And he was tickled by it.
(05:32):
You know, he wasn't offended. I was fifteen, j justhy
my sixteenth birthday and I'm sure I looked all of twelve.
And he was like, what is your name and what
do you do? And how did you get here? And
how are you getting home? And I think again, he
wasn't offended. I think he saw something in me which
was youth, fearlessness, and interestingly enough, he also saw something
(05:57):
that should be protected right even as a young person
meeting for the first time, because he asked me how
I got there and I said, oh, my dad dropped
me off in the city to meet up with friends.
And he said, well, how are you going to get home?
And I said, I'm going to call my dad and
He's like, I'm going to bring you home and he did,
and he met my parents that night, like in the
wee hours of the morning. And I think the second
(06:19):
part of what he saw in me was the stability
of family life. My parents and my siblings. We were
living in the suburbs, and I think Andre took a
liking to the level of structure, and also he got
to talking with my dad and started to see what
he perceived I think as this upper middle class family
(06:42):
that had grounding and rearing and Andre was super educated.
My dad was super educated. I think he appreciated that,
and from that day forward he really became like a
fixture in our family.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So once you started working in the entertainment business, what
do you think your early goals were once you figured
out like, okay, this is something that I could do,
What were some of your early goals and motivation?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, for starters, not to mess it up, right. I
was very aware, very quickly on what sort of opportunity
that this was, because again, upon meeting Andre, we didn't
know sort of what level of fame or prestige he
had in the business. He was just like a good
man first getting somebody's daughter home, right, But it became
(07:27):
very apparent of how serious he was in the music
business as a fixture and as an executive. And so
knowing that one he believed in me enough to recommend
me and get me an opportunity, so I didn't want
to mess that up, And two I didn't want to
mess up the opportunity to be able to start making
money to help offset some of the financial hardships my
(07:49):
family was going through.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Got it. So what do you feel like has sustained
your career in the business.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think that same sort of fearless attitude, dude. I
think the committing to something. I think going all in,
And most importantly, once I sort of got the rhythm
of what I was called to do, I think that
I took on that mantle as a responsibility of other
(08:16):
people's lives. Like even though the artists that I worked with,
we were peers essentially, right, young black starting out on
these new endeavors. Again, I was nineteen, so that's still teenager,
and so were the artists that I was being entrusted
to work with. And I took that really seriously. I
think those are the three things that were motivating me, Like,
(08:38):
you can't mess this up, Like the opportunity because Andre
put you in place. Your family isn't a place where
they need help, and other people are like entrusting you
with their children, so you have to man up and
grow up and try to be as mature as one
could be at that age.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So you worked with both Rihanna and Methimn very early
in their career is can you tell us how you
were introduced to them and what role you played in
their careers in very early days.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, so method Man, which came before Rihanna. I had
found out about him, because interestingly enough, I was on
a tour bus with three or four actually def jam acts,
three of which we broke that year Onyx, Redman and
Boss and Nikki d was on there too, and we
were on the Chronic tour. So we were on a
(09:26):
tour bus. And I say that because contrary to I
think this belief that there was always this immense amount
of beef and static between the East Coast and the
West Coast, we were extended family in the early nineties
in very many ways, and doctor Dre even inviting us
to go on tour with them is an example of that.
(09:46):
And one night, everybody on the bus was pretty much
sleeping except myself, frederal Star from Onyx, and the bus
driver pretty much. And I was sitting closer to the
bus driver in the front and Freddie was in the
back and he had a light on and I don't
know if it came from a phone or maybe it's
a little overhead flashlight, but he had this light on
(10:08):
so I could spot him in the back. But what
caught my attention was what he was listening to. I
could hear it over and over and over again on repeat,
and it was just an instrumental with no lyrics, and
it was so infectious that it got me up out
of my seat and I walked back there and I
was like, what are you listening to? What is that?
Who made that? What is that? And he was tickled
(10:30):
by just how excited I was, and he was like, Oh,
it's my man's in them. And they're this hip hop
group out of Staten Island called wool Tang Clan. And
I was like, what are they Chinese? Are they Asian?
And he's like no, no, and he's like it's so
many of them, they're my dudes. And I was like
Staten Island, huh and he was like, yea stat n Island.
(10:52):
And at that moment, Doctor Joy I made it about
face and walked back to my seat, and all I
could think about was how was I going to get
back to New York first thing smoking in the morning,
and I was like, oh, we have an emergency travel phone.
Number for deaf jam. I'm going to call them get
a flight because I have to get to Staten Island.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Wow, so you sought them out.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I did. I did just off of an instrumental. I
didn't even hear any raps. I just was like, I
have to get back to New York to start really
doing better due diligence than I could being disconnected on
the road. Because again, unlike today, we just didn't have
the luxury of like tapping into laptops and dialing up
(11:36):
social media to see if anybody's posting about these Wu
Tang people. It was literally an analog life, doctor Joy.
It was like, you know, hitting out the mud and
the grit and grinding and having the like physically scout
artists and that was a huge part of what an
R was. Back then. It was artist and repertoire, but
(11:56):
you were like scouting for talent. I got myself together
and made a couple of calls. I literally left on
a flight I think at six in the morning. I
think by the time they came down and did lobby call,
I wasn't part of the role call. They were like,
where's Tracy. You know, I was already back in the
City trying to figure out how to get access to
the guys into the group, and then with Rihanna it
(12:20):
was very different and unique in the situation. So my
method Man experience was what I call my deaf Jam
one point zero experience, and my Rianna experience is what
I call my def Jam two point oho experience, which
was easily a gap of probably like fifteen years even
more maybe. And so at this particular time, I had
(12:42):
went over to deaf Jam two point zero with a
small group that was centered around Jay Z becoming president,
and la Reid was already there as the chairman, and
so bringing over J meant bringing over a few other
executives that had been working with J my self included.
And now I'm not doing A and R anymore, so
(13:04):
I guess I should say that for the record. Also
now I'm being brought in to head up the marketing
department at def Jam two point zero. And I think
Jay Brown was connected to Rihanna's then lawyer, a gentleman
named Scott Felcher, who as an A and R person
I had also known in that capacity from my history
in the music business. So I think Scott had good
(13:26):
prowess and felt like, this is a solid team to
introduce an artist, of which obviously everybody in her camp
believed in a great deal. But also there's that youth
factor again, right like she was literally fifteen about to
turn sixteen, and so they brought her into the office.
Scott did, along with the manager at the time who
(13:49):
I'd known from Columbia named Mark, and they had done
a showcase with the guys that I wasn't in Jay's
office for and then jay Z said to Jay Brown,
my nickname was Wop back then, and he was like,
somebody go get Wop, somebody go get Wap, bring Wop
in here. And so she ended up pretty much having
(14:09):
to perform all over again from the top. And Doctor
Joy not only did it not phase her, I think
it phased me. Her performance was so intense and her
commitment to what she was doing was so intense. I
don't think I'd ever seen an artist that young like that.
(14:32):
And prior to Rihanna, the only other female artist that
I had worked that had that same sort of intensity
to how much they were committed was Mariah Carey, and
I knew immediately she was gonna be big like thatiately
it didn't looked like a superstar at all. She was
naturally stunning. I mean, she was tall and lanky, and
(14:53):
she had these piercing green eyes, but she hadn't been
through any sort of tuning and retooling in terms of
image and stuff like that. So you're seeing someone at
sort of their most raws moments when they can be
pretty vulnerable. But she was tiger focused and strong and smart.
(15:17):
Smart in the sense that she had just obviously had
to showcase for everyone else in the room. She was
smart enough to realize that if I was brought into
this room and she has to redo this for me,
then she knew she had to sell me. She did
not take her eyes off of me. There was very
many other people in the room. She was so locked in,
(15:40):
and I was like, oh, this is it. We can't
let her leave. And they ended up doing the deal.
Kept everyone in the office who was centered around this deal,
the lawyers till four o'clock in the morning to get
it done. Wow, like you just knew it when you
saw it. And again, it's interesting when it comes to
(16:02):
I think superstar talent and just signing artists or any
superstar talent of any kind, even in sports now with
metrics and analytics and all of these things, I think
people sometimes stray away from, like those gut tests. It's
like the eye test, the gut tests. There are certain
sort of intangibles and nuanced things and things that computers
(16:26):
they can't spit that information out to you. You have
to be in there in those moments. It's an energy
and it's palpable, like you know, you just you can't
avoid how intense it is. And again for someone to
be as young as she was and have that, it
was like it was a no brainer for our group
to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, so La La Anthony actually portrayed your character or
you were portrayed on Wu Tang, an American saga show.
How authentic do you feel like that portrayal was?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
To be quite honest with you, it was really authentic.
I give Lala a great deal of credit because we
hadn't really talked that much before she did it, but
we knew each other. We knew each other from her
days as a VJ at MTV for TROL and so
she would see me in my work mode and just
(17:19):
being busy and orchestrating and wrangling and doing those sorts
of things or communicating with producers in a certain way.
So she knew me and had seen me in real
time in that way, but not a great deal. So
for her to have delivered on those things so incredibly,
I was like, oh girl, you really did that. That's amazing.
(17:42):
I think the only thing that they didn't get with
too much accuracy is the fact that back then I
wasn't corporatized yet, Like I was still super young, living
the culture every day, dressing that same way, which I
think was a lot of my appeal to the artists
that we were interested in signing and working with because
(18:04):
it was more relatable. And even though I had to
be the business person in the room, I think that
people knew that I cared about their lives and their livelihoods,
being one of them in that way. And so that
was the only thing that they didn't nail too much,
because I definitely wasn't wearing like blazers or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So what was it like for you to see your
career portrayed on TV in that way?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I mean it was super super super humbling, very surprising,
if I'm being one hundred percent honest, because there's so
many instances where a plethora of women, myself included, like
our story don't get told. We aren't really recognized for
our contributions like that. And it's interesting because it's never
(18:52):
bothered me. For me, it started to bother me as
hip hop is turning fifty. For all the droves of
other women that I've worked with, I always say, I
really believe that I belonged to this unsung group of
sheroes and that we were like our own sort of
sorority in a way. And hopefully, God willing, some of
(19:15):
the things that I am embarking on right now will
help turn the spotlight around on that.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Can you tell us who some of those other people are?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh? My god? Yes. So. One of the very first
women that I connected with in the music business is
a woman named Kim Lumpkin, who is a very dear
sister friend of mine to this day. We work together
in Eddief's basement. This is back in the Heavy d
and the Boys days and the Pete Rock and Cel
Smooth days, and he had a house in New Jersey
(19:45):
and that was the first job that Andre put me in. Actually,
and Kim is an incredible woman and we're still very
close to this day, she manages a series of great
producers from Rodney Jerkins to q Tip to salam Remi.
And there was a woman named Angela Thomas who was
an executive at Columbia actually, and in my early days
(20:08):
at Deaf Jam, walking into her office and she was
responsible for our Deaf Jam as a label, because a
lot of times labels at our boutique have joint ventures
with bigger corporations and at the time, it wasn't even
Sony back then, it was CBS. And I just remember
like walking into her office and just seeing how busy
(20:28):
she was and just all of the things that she
was doing and had her hands in. And I owe
a great debt of gratitude to her because when I
was working at Eddiev's house before I even made it
to Deaf Jam, she allowed me to come to her
apartment and literally I asked her so many questions. She
answered everything, and she was like giving me marketing plans
(20:51):
and things that I could review. And I talked to
her so much to the point where I sat on
the end of her bed till she got in her
pajamas and fell asleep, and she just engaged me the
entire time. I had never worked in the business before,
and you know, she was an exemplary executive throughout her
tenure in the business. And then fast forward to the
(21:13):
other companies that I worked at. Whether it was Bad Boy,
which was also a boutique company, and though it was
Puffy's company, the truth is the majority of the company
was being run by women. Kim Lumpkin ended up being
at Bad Boy with me again. My dear friend Ronda Cowan,
who was a first friend that I made at def
Jam one point zero, ended up being with me a
(21:34):
Bad Boy again. Gwen Niles Bad Boy, Francesca Spiro, God
rest her soul. She's passed on. But there's so many
women that were running things. And then you had the
hip hop scene in Atlanta and Falana Williams and I
ended up being able to work together, and there's just
so many Lisa Cambridge, I mean, I could go on,
(21:55):
and Maria Davis, who is just an exemplary woman who
was around in our early days in hip hop and
was really like the first big club promoter that gave
jay Z his breakout start at Mad Wednesdays, which was
a club night she was promoting in New York City
and she went on and she's an AIDS advocate now
and I recently did a panel with her on spirituality
(22:18):
and hip hop for Martin Luther King Junior Weekend in Charlotte,
and I was so pleased to be reunited with her.
And Denise Brown, who's an incredible attorney, lives right across
the street for me now, and she started a prayer
line on Sundays every first Sunday of the month, so
we do that now. And it's just such a blessing
(22:40):
to still have the relationships with these women and have
really thirty years in some cases thirty plus year friendships,
and to have matured with each other and gone through things.
And even if you don't go through things by working
at the same companies, you're going through things as the
(23:03):
business of hip hop is evolving, right, because what started
out is something in street corners and parks and neighborhoods
is a multi billion dollar business.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And so many of you were on the ground floor
a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and women, we were the engine and still are
in very many ways, because again, you know, there's a
music side to it, and then there's a humanity and
a human side to it. So your level of support
and pouring into these young black men whether they're going
to become mature black business owners, and understanding what sort
(23:38):
of feet is in front of you in order to
do that, because we're all starting out sort of in
these white corporate structures and not really being prepared for
all those twists and turns. You know, you end up
really relying on women pouring into you and building you
up when the world is trying to tear you down.
(24:00):
So it's a lot of wear and tear, I think
personally and being committed to that. It takes valiant efforts
to do that, and I think that's every black woman's story.
I don't think that's specific to the music business.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
More from our conversation after the break, so we've already
talked about hip hop celebrating fifty years this year. What
is one of the most profound ways you've seen the
genre grow during this time.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I think just all of the touch points. I don't
think there's anything that exists in any crevice of the
entire world that hip hop hasn't touched. I mean, it's
one of those things where and I say this in
my book which I'm writing right now, that for me,
hip hop was like big tech before big tech. Right,
(24:57):
it's a communication tool, it's a language tool. It reaches
everybody from eight to eighty. It's like there are definitely
Apple products, and hip hop was its own technology in
that way, it crossed language barriers, ethnicities. I mean, there
are people that don't even speak good English that could
wrap a jay Z verse in Saudi Arabia today, Sometimes
(25:20):
I turn on the news or I have done this
before and seen the local meteorologists rapping Biggie lyrics while
he's delivering the weather report. What else is doing that?
I don't know. I can't think of anything you.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Talked about already being at some just very defining labels
like def jam and bad boy. How do you feel
like those experiences have shaped you?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
That's a good question. Well, I think they've amplified something
that was already innate to me, which is that black
people are important to me. Black people having success and
not being perceived as dead or in jail by the
time you're thirty, particularly black men. I think I've always
(26:04):
been motivated to defy those sorts of statements that have
been societal norms, if you will, which are horrible, but
we have to live with our reality, and I think
working at those companies and being able to nurture and
foster something that was for us by us a very
(26:24):
foobu approach, if you will. I don't think there's been
anything more meaningful to me other than obviously my brother
and sister in law having children and stuff like that.
But that has never sort of fallen soft on me,
knowing that one it's a privilege too, it's a responsibility.
And three I think I was just always mission oriented
(26:46):
and working at labels like that just amplified those sort
of virtues, if you will. One because the leadership right
puff is young, he's black, jay Z young Black LA
started when he was younger and black and knowing that
there are opportunities for us to bring other young black
(27:09):
people along and into this frame and not just on
the mic or in front of the camera, but for
me personally, it was the whole I think language and
love language for me of being an executive and being
respected even though we're not paid and respected the same
way as our peers. We're in the rooms and you
(27:31):
have to deal with us, and we're not ignorant, and
we do have business acumen and decorum, and there's nothing
that we can't do.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So you talked a lot about how women really were
the engine in many of these labels, but you know,
you've also shared how many of their stories have not
gotten the same shine as men. And when you think
about hip hop, I think, even still today, it feels
like a very male dominated genre. Talk to me a
little bit about what that was like working as a
black woman in the entertainment industry and maybe how you've
(28:03):
seen women kind of grow in the genre of hip hop.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think it's so weird because I say this statement,
and really I've never really worked in any other industry,
but I've certainly have had access to other industries and
access to other Black women in them. I think our
plight is our plight, and it's sad. It's a universal
sort of plight that goes beyond the borders of vocation
or industry. And I hate that I'm even doubling down
(28:30):
on this statement, but it's true. It's like we are
always thought about last, and I don't think that working
in hip hop and committing yourself and pouring into black
men to help them become the best that they can
be at what they're doing, and knowing that you're playing
an important role on that journey. Is probably equally as
(28:52):
similar to me watching like my mom and my aunt
and my grandmother sort of rally around my dad. And
I think there's this innate thing with black women where
we are nurturers and we almost find that it's our
role to support these black men in their endeavors and
(29:15):
to make sure that they don't fall victim to these
stigmas that are always put on them. And as a
result of that, I think we get lost in the shuffle.
I think we kind of allow ourselves to take the
back seat for that reason and work really hard at
sort of propping them up in that way. And I
(29:38):
think it's awful that once they are empowered in a
certain way, I think I'd like to see more of
the generosity of that come back to women's stories being told.
Right If we're still sort of knocking on those doors
and they're not opening for us, then at least a
(29:59):
lot of the men that we helped power or be
the engine behind at these smaller companies back in the
day would leverage and use their power bases to open
that up a little bit more so women's stories can
be told and to make sure of that. I think
it's great when people acknowledge people, even like with what
Riza did for me, huge, right, huge, to even not
(30:23):
write me out of the story and incorporate me into
the story. And so now I don't have to maybe
wait around for a guy to do the next step.
Hopefully I can leverage that in a way to do
some things and open some doors and bring some other
women with me. I mean, I'm certainly going to do that.
And I think that the more and more we stay unified,
(30:46):
because there's power in numbers, right. I think sometimes we
get caught up waiting a little bit like hoping and
expecting these guys to do for us what we did
for them, and then that doesn't come about, and it
leaves some people bitter and understand that, but you got
to kind of let go of that and know that
you know our work was not in vain. God certainly
(31:07):
knows what we did for his male children. And I
think our rewards are in us not letting go of
that same sort of fearless, bold spirit and not taking
no for an answer when we were supporting them for ourselves.
And it's hard, doctor Joy. Sometimes it's just hard to
be your own warrior, your own shier princess. You know,
(31:31):
you have to remember you still have those inate qualities
and to do them for yourselves and for some of
your fellow sisters.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I'm curious to hear what it has been like with
some of the lyrics. It feels like there's a very
complicated history, you know, with hip hop and some of
the sexism and misogyny. What was it like for you
as a black woman executive who's also a fan of
the genre, but also you know, understanding like, okay, what
kinds of things are selling? How did you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
That's a great question and probably hard for people to tackle.
But the truth of the matter is that I wasn't
as mature clearly as I am today. So how I
view those things today is certainly different than how I
viewed them then. I mean, I was all the way
in it, so I was reciting them right along with it.
(32:20):
They were hitting me in ways that were mind blowing
and fascinating and all of those other things. And I
think I, like probably many other women, had the same mindset,
which is like, well, they're not calling me a B
word or I don't carry myself like that, So that
doesn't apply to me, and so you sort of like
(32:42):
distance yourself or remove yourself from it in that way.
And then I think you double down on the distancing
and removing yourself with it by saying, I know some
chicks like that too, And I think that was probably
the rationale back then, and that was I would say,
as much of a framework or scope that would even
(33:04):
have been considered right. It was so selfish, it was
so self involved. Nobody was really thinking about, oh, this
could impact our community negatively because we were just young
and rebellious, and I don't think we saw the potential
damage or potential harm in it. And again because your
scope at that point is I know some girls that
(33:26):
act just like that, you know what I mean. And
that's a very myopic and immature way to look at things.
I think now that I'm older, and now that there
are younger children in my family, two of which are
young ladies, it's like, oh my God, like I don't
want them rapping along with this craziness and YadA, YadA, YadA.
(33:47):
But I can't be hypocritical in that way, and not
because I was involved in executiving and promoting and being
behind some of it. But because I was their age
and I was singing it too, and I enjoyed it
while I was singing along with it. And so if anything,
I think for me now at this particular age, I'm
(34:08):
always there to be wisdom for someone who's gone through
some things. But I won't sit in a seat of
scorn or judgment. I just won't do it. And I
guess if I had to look back on my life,
then I don't have regrets about it at all. I'm
definitely like girl, you was a piece of work.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
More from our conversation after the break. Unfortunately, we've seen
it feels like a disproportionate number of stars we've lost
from the hip hop community. So going back to like
Biggie and Pack, but even more recently with people like
(34:53):
Nipsey Hustle and Pop Smoke, I'm curious if you can
share how people behind the scenes, like the executives and
people in the offices that we don't see in the
videos and stuff, how are they impacted when losses like
this happened in the industry.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
It's extremely devastating. I mean, there are many of us,
myself included, we never really got over Biggie and Pak
we're reminded of it all the time, and I think
fast forward to what we've seen now. It really bothers
me so much because we can't turn a blind eye
(35:32):
to knowing that our era, the nineties era, we ushered
a lot of this in now we didn't necessarily want
it to take up the kind of residency that it did,
But I don't know if we ever did a good
enough job of curtailing it from getting out of control
(35:54):
the way we see it now. And I think again,
it's that fine line you have to walk because be
a hypocrite. Right, Like what I would have thought and
hoped would have happened is once people saw the level
of danger, you don't want to perpetuate the stereotype, and
you certainly don't want to become the stereotype. And I
(36:16):
think there's always been a very fine line with that.
But it's also you don't want to censor people who
are living through this all the time. And I think
what needs to happen is that there needs to be
a better degree of balance. There has to be some
(36:38):
way where people are letting people know that I don't
live this though. I like go home to a nice
home and I'm looking to change my life and my
lifestyle to evolve away from that, and I think there
needs to really be real dialogue about that. I think
(37:00):
ignoring it is not going to do anything but allow
us to continue to see these things. And I think
people need to be mindful also now that we're older
in sort of what things are going on in the country,
in the world. Right now, we are really in a
state of inflation and impoverished situations that we haven't really
(37:22):
seen since the eighties. Right It really feels like that
in a lot of ways. So I think rather than
sitting in our ivory towers where life is good now,
there has to be some sort of communication. And back
in those days we did see things like that. Sadly,
not too long before the East Coast West Coast situation happened,
(37:46):
Quincy Jones and Clarence Avon they did bring us into
a huge meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York
and everybody was there. Shat Him and Latifa were there
representing Flavor Unit. Puff was in there representing early stage
bad Boy sug was there, Death Row I was there
(38:08):
as an executive. April Walker was there. Who's another woman
that I adore who I came up with in the
hip hop business, who is a female designer of men's
street wear. And you need governance around some of these things,
and sometimes you do need elder statesman leadership. And I
would love to see our generation do a better job
(38:31):
of becoming that for this generation and bridging that gap
by having some of these tough conversations again and just
have real talk, right, because you can't come off like
you're a get off my lawn or sitting in judgment
because we lived it too, and look what happened to us.
Now we've seen this to your point, doctor Joy happen
(38:52):
at a rate that's even more expedient and a vast
more amount of young people being killed like this. And
then you have to have like conversations with the managers.
And that's what Quincy in them did. There were managers
in the room, there were label heads in the room,
there were producers in the room, there are artists in
the room. Because the community can only heal the community itself.
(39:15):
It has to be from the inside out, not any
other way around. And sometimes you need leadership and guardrails
and experience is the best teacher. I think knowing that
we went through it and we didn't get it all
the way right. And I think starting the conversation for
hitting that note out the gate, I think that can
(39:36):
neutralize that energy of a boy here come to old
heads trying to tell us what to do and they
didn't even do it. No, we owe you an apology.
We owe you an apology.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
What has self care looked like for you as you
have been in the industry, and how has that evolved
during your time?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Well, really staying on social media, Like I was so
committed and lived so much of my life at a
j traveling studios Da da Da, Da da, that I
think on the other side of the zeitgeist of my career,
self care was really about just detaching, taking time to breathe, read,
(40:17):
walk Where I live. I live on the water, and
I lived down here for so long, but I was
always traveling, never home, always driving to appointments in and
out of the city, flying all around. And God's beauty
of nature has been sitting in my backyard for all
these years, and I just finally started like enjoying it
and going for runs and walks and just being reminded
(40:41):
that one we're not as important as we think we
are because we can't do any of this. We can't
create an ocean, we can't create a sky, And I
think just getting back to a very granular level of
appreciating the most remarkable things that we just take for
granted so much, and forgiving my younger self for making
the mistakes that I made. You hold yourself to such
(41:04):
high standards, and when you fall short, you don't realize
that everybody falls short, right, and that being able to
free yourself from that. I think people would agree that
they probably felt like I was hard on them at
many times, just wanting the best for them, one of
the best for myself, one of the best for our people,
(41:24):
and it's okay, you're gonna make mistakes and you're not
gonna get everything right, and if God gives you grace
to come back from mistakes, then you have to be
able to give yourself the grace.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
So you've already kind of started talking about this a lot.
But we've seen some new stories being told from women
in hip hop right. So we had the on the
Record documentary with Drew Dixon detailing, you know, her experiences
with sexual assault, and then we saw rap Caviar Presents
talking all about the city girls and like their kind
of experiences in the field. What stories of women in
(41:57):
the industry have not been told yet.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I think that the stories that you know I had
mentioned beforehand, which is like the executive prowess of a
lot of the women in the music industry, and really
the stories of business women. Right there are so many
things that business women or women sorry in the business
(42:19):
that have done to upgrade things about the business for
hip hop artists. I mean, my good friend Ronda that
I mentioned earlier, I remember MTV like would it play
a jay Z video? And what it meant for her
to have to go over there and convince them otherwise,
(42:41):
because I mean, again, this is a network that didn't
originally play a Michael Jackson video either, So that dialogue
continued as it related to hip hop, and I think
just breaking down a lot of those barriers and being
able to have seats at tables and leverage things and
and create a bigger footprint for hip hop as a
(43:04):
business had a lot to do with conversations that women
were having, because what happens a lot of times at
these organizations is that there is a female counterpart that
does what you do that is probably a white woman,
but she's a woman nonetheless, And I think that there's
something to be said about fostering and nurturing those relationships
(43:28):
because then you can have someone who might not be
a person of color like you, but being a woman
and you're a woman. There's an appreciation, I think of
what it is that you're up against and what it
is that you're trying to do. So it's great to
have an advocate within these scenarios. And I think those
sorts of stories need to be highlighted because I think
(43:51):
people are oftentimes really surprised when they hear about a
woman being behind a signing method, man or engineering a
hip hop record that went on to be a classic,
or managing the producers that produced these classic beats of
these classic albums. I think there is so many amazing
(44:13):
stories like that, and I think it would encourage women
in the business that are maybe looking to get into
it and start out, encourage them and create a little
bit of a road mapping and a blueprint, because one
thing I learned very long ago from doing A and
R was that everybody is not intended to grab a
mic or be on a video or sing or rap
(44:35):
or dance, and there's a whole gene pool and community
of opportunities for women behind the scenes, in and around
the scenes, and I think there needs to be an
elevated discussion around that, more access and more storytelling, for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Can we expect some of that in your book?
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
We'll be on the lookout for when comes out. So
I want to wrap up with some rapid fire questions
from you because I feel like these will be such
great answers. So this is called what are you listening to?
Hip hop? Addition, which nineties are two thousands female hip
hop artists? Would you like to see release an album
this year or next year?
Speaker 2 (45:16):
What nineties?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Lauren Hill Ooh, okay, that's a good one. That's a
good one. What's a song that brightens up your day?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Sounds of Blackness Optimistic?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Oh, that's one of my favorites too. Do you like
the remake with Brandy and I think some other people? Yeah,
but the original is a good one too. What's a
project that you worked on that you describe as foundational
to your career?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Hmmm, I would say Rihanna's first project, Music of the Sun.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Okay, Okay, So what do you feel like makes a
hip hop album culturally and artistically significant? And based on
your answer to that, what is the greatest hip hop
album of all time?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Okay? The authenticity of it? I think the authenticity of
the narrator or the author of said story, and the
ability to tell the story and connect with people who
have similar stories or similar things that they're experiencing. So
(46:19):
it's authenticity and storytelling.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
So based on those qualities, then what would be your
choice for greatest hip hop album of all time?
Speaker 2 (46:32):
See Doctor Joy? We done hit a cog in the wheel.
I can't It's such a difficult thing for me to do. Like,
there's so many.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Okay, top three, Doctor Joy, you can't choose. It's like
choosing a favorite.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Child that you already know that if you have three kids,
you're already out the game trying to figure out, you know,
narrowing it down. I will say that albums hip hop
albums that impacted me. I mean, obviously I'm gonna echo
my very first answer of wanting Laurence Hill to do
another album. But the Miseducation of Laurence Hill was everything, everything, everything.
(47:14):
I don't think there's any girl that grew up hip
hop in the nineties, that would argue that Tripo Quest,
the low End Theory, Wu Tang, thirty six Chambers, the
Great Adventures of Slickeric. There's so many monumental giant hip
hop albums. Speaker Box and A Love Below a Quemini,
(47:35):
I mean, both of Outcasts albums are just so signature
and so rich. The Far Side had a Dope album.
I mean, there's so, so, so, so, so many, and
that is the beauty that is hip hop, right because
sonically and dynamically they're all very, very different and very nuanced,
(47:57):
because they're true to each and every artist who made
them and where they came from, whatever sector of the
globe that they came from, and you feel that. And
even if you didn't grow up in that era in Atlanta,
you could listen to those albums and have that experience.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So yeah, Okay, so that was a beautiful list. That
was a great list. So who is an artist in
the bad Boy family you'd love to work with? Again?
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Ooh, that is a good question. I adored working with
Faith Evans. I love me some Dune Away, got it.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
That's a good choice. And then a bit of a
throwback to Love Jones, When did you fall in love
with hip hop?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Honestly, as a youngster, I think I must have been
maybe eleven or twelve years old, because I grew up
in Teaneck, New Jersey, and a neighboring town for us
was a town called Angle with New Jersey and the
sugar Hill Gang and the sugar Hill Records and the
family were neighbors and became family friends of ours. So
(48:57):
I remember, I think, going to their studio on West
Street in Englewood with my dad, who was going to
see mister Robinson. And I remember seeing missus Robinson in
a studio room sitting behind a console. And it's not
like I was like, Oh, I want to be like
(49:19):
her one day. Immediately, I think I was fascinated by
seeing this office, this studio local to me in New
Jersey in the suburbs, that was behind like Rapper's Delight
and the message. And I think what it did say
to me is if I wanted to do this, I
could do this one day because of her.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I love that. I love that. Thank you for that, Tracy.
This has been such an incredible conversation. I know people
are going to want to stay connected with you and
like pick up their copy of the book once it
comes out. Where can we find you online? What is
your website? As well as any social media handles you
want to share.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
So it's interesting. I'm not like personally on social media
by choice. But what I did do is I started
an Instagram page called Face the Music. So it's face
face the thche music mus dot ic right the music,
(50:18):
get it, Muse, we're music. They might not tell you
that we are, but we are. And that actually is
the title of my memoir. It's called face to Music.
So I'm trying, doctor Joy.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yes, you got to give the people somewhere to go.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
The marketer in me is like, all right, girl, now
you know you're gonna have to get with the times
for that aspect of it. But yeah, I just got
real low, doctor Joy, after committing almost thirty years to
that business, I got real low. But I am very
excited about the things that we're doing on our page.
And it's a community page, which is amazing because again
(50:54):
the best thing about being in hip hop is being
a part of the hip hop community.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
We would be sure to include that in the show notes.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us today, Tracy.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
It is my absolute pleasure. I love what it is
you're doing. I think there's nothing more important than therapeutics
mental wellness, psychological and emotional health, and strength and stability,
and it has to get destigmatized in and around hip
hop and music, and there needs to be more people
(51:26):
that are incorporating that almost as a prerequisite to staffing
and personnel within these labels. These are human beings, they
have human frailties, They come with their own traumas, sometimes
from childhood, and it cannot be ignored anymore.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Thank you so much for that, Tracy. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Thank you, doctor Joy. This has been absolutely one of
the highlights for me ever. I love what you're doing
so much.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Thank you, Thank you for spending some time with us.
I want to thank Tracy once again for joining us
for this episode. To learn more about her and the
work she's doing. Be sure to visit the show notes
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session three sixteen,
and be sure to text two of your girls right
now and encourage them to check out the episode. If
(52:15):
you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out
our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory.
And if you want to continue digging into this topic
or just be in community with other sisters, come on
over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our
cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
(52:37):
dot com. This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis,
and Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank
y'all so much for joining me again this week. I
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care. But what
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, Doctor Joy Harden Bradford, a
licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to
(00:32):
find a therapist in your area, visit our website at
Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love
listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not
meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a
licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for
(00:57):
joining me for Session three sixteen of the Therapy from
Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after
a word from our sponsors. Twenty twenty three marks the
fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, a genre that has transcended time, age,
(01:21):
and language barriers. As we celebrate some of our favorite artists,
from the Laurens to the Missy's to the Cortis, we
also want to spend some time highlighting the black women
executives who work behind the scenes, changing the game one
move at a time. Joining us for today's conversation is
Tracy Waples a former senior music executive who has architected
(01:45):
the sale of over one hundred million albums and the
success of a host of major stores. Her resume includes
names like Rihanna, jay Z, Mariah Carey, method Man, and Moore.
In twenty fourteen, she found the music consulting firm DNA
Creative and continues to mentor young women in music. In
(02:06):
our conversation, Tracy and I discussed how she kicked off
and navigated her career in the music industry, reconciling with
hip hop's complicated relationship to sexism and misogyny, and the
importance of including women's stories and contributions in the history
of hip hop. If something resonates with you while enjoying
(02:28):
our conversation, please share it with us on social media
using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over
in the sister circles Let's talk more about the episode.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for
(02:49):
joining me today, Tracy, Thank.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
You for having me. Doctor Jod is an absolute pleasure
to be on this Therapy for Black Girls podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yes, I'm very excited to chat with you as we
sawlebrate fifty years of hip hop and you have definitely
been a force in the industry. So I'm very excited
we can celebrate this with you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you. It is definitely a milestone. And I turned
fifty last year, so it's like I'm growing up with
hip hop in that respect for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I love that. I love that. So you have worked
with some incredibly big names. You've worked with jay Z,
Kanye Wes, Rihanna, But I want us to go back
to young Tracy mean tap into her for a little bit.
So you had dropped out of Hostra. How did your
entertainment career actually begin?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So I dropped out of Hostra because I couldn't afford
it anymore. Actually, I was putting myself through school and
pretty much learned early on the sort of personality type
I was going to be, which was fully committed to
one thing and not really feeling confident that I'd be
able to like split the difference and give two things,
(03:57):
meaning having to work and pursue an education the same
level frankly of commitment. And so I had reached out
to a good friend, a dear friend would become a
family friend, of ours, Andre Herrel, who was definitely my
music business mentor, again such a close friend to me
(04:17):
and my family. And when I met him when I
was even younger than college years, he was like, you
should be in the record business, and I was like,
what are you crazy? Like I have to pursue my
education like my parents aren't having it. And fast forward
to I ended up calling him and saying, remember what
you said to me when I was in my teenage years.
(04:39):
I was like, well, I'm calling to cash in on
that because I explained to him what my family was
going through and what I was going through and finance wise,
and he understood. He adored me, he adored my family,
and so I think there was a sense of urgency
in him to help find a solution for me. And
I also think he was happy to know that I
(05:02):
was ready to do it, even though I, honestly, Doctor Jorge,
I didn't give it much thought. It was just a
job to me. To be honest with.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You, What do you think he saw on you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think fearlessness and being bold. Even the way I
met him, I was really underage in a nightclub that
I know business being in, and I saw him holding court,
if you will, and I just belined over there to
ask him, like I literally said, what is your name
and what do you do? And he was tickled by it.
(05:32):
You know, he wasn't offended. I was fifteen, j justhy
my sixteenth birthday and I'm sure I looked all of twelve.
And he was like, what is your name and what
do you do? And how did you get here? And
how are you getting home? And I think again, he
wasn't offended. I think he saw something in me which
was youth, fearlessness, and interestingly enough, he also saw something
(05:57):
that should be protected right even as a young person
meeting for the first time, because he asked me how
I got there and I said, oh, my dad dropped
me off in the city to meet up with friends.
And he said, well, how are you going to get home?
And I said, I'm going to call my dad and
He's like, I'm going to bring you home and he did,
and he met my parents that night, like in the
wee hours of the morning. And I think the second
(06:19):
part of what he saw in me was the stability
of family life. My parents and my siblings. We were
living in the suburbs, and I think Andre took a
liking to the level of structure, and also he got
to talking with my dad and started to see what
he perceived I think as this upper middle class family
(06:42):
that had grounding and rearing and Andre was super educated.
My dad was super educated. I think he appreciated that,
and from that day forward he really became like a
fixture in our family.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So once you started working in the entertainment business, what
do you think your early goals were once you figured
out like, okay, this is something that I could do,
What were some of your early goals and motivation?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, for starters, not to mess it up, right. I
was very aware, very quickly on what sort of opportunity
that this was, because again, upon meeting Andre, we didn't
know sort of what level of fame or prestige he
had in the business. He was just like a good
man first getting somebody's daughter home, right, But it became
(07:27):
very apparent of how serious he was in the music
business as a fixture and as an executive. And so
knowing that one he believed in me enough to recommend
me and get me an opportunity, so I didn't want
to mess that up, And two I didn't want to
mess up the opportunity to be able to start making
money to help offset some of the financial hardships my
(07:49):
family was going through.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Got it. So what do you feel like has sustained
your career in the business.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think that same sort of fearless attitude, dude. I
think the committing to something. I think going all in,
And most importantly, once I sort of got the rhythm
of what I was called to do, I think that
I took on that mantle as a responsibility of other
(08:16):
people's lives. Like even though the artists that I worked with,
we were peers essentially, right, young black starting out on
these new endeavors. Again, I was nineteen, so that's still teenager,
and so were the artists that I was being entrusted
to work with. And I took that really seriously. I
think those are the three things that were motivating me, Like,
(08:38):
you can't mess this up, Like the opportunity because Andre
put you in place. Your family isn't a place where
they need help, and other people are like entrusting you
with their children, so you have to man up and
grow up and try to be as mature as one
could be at that age.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So you worked with both Rihanna and Methimn very early
in their career is can you tell us how you
were introduced to them and what role you played in
their careers in very early days.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, so method Man, which came before Rihanna. I had
found out about him, because interestingly enough, I was on
a tour bus with three or four actually def jam acts,
three of which we broke that year Onyx, Redman and
Boss and Nikki d was on there too, and we
were on the Chronic tour. So we were on a
(09:26):
tour bus. And I say that because contrary to I
think this belief that there was always this immense amount
of beef and static between the East Coast and the
West Coast, we were extended family in the early nineties
in very many ways, and doctor Dre even inviting us
to go on tour with them is an example of that.
(09:46):
And one night, everybody on the bus was pretty much
sleeping except myself, frederal Star from Onyx, and the bus
driver pretty much. And I was sitting closer to the
bus driver in the front and Freddie was in the
back and he had a light on and I don't
know if it came from a phone or maybe it's
a little overhead flashlight, but he had this light on
(10:08):
so I could spot him in the back. But what
caught my attention was what he was listening to. I
could hear it over and over and over again on repeat,
and it was just an instrumental with no lyrics, and
it was so infectious that it got me up out
of my seat and I walked back there and I
was like, what are you listening to? What is that?
Who made that? What is that? And he was tickled
(10:30):
by just how excited I was, and he was like, Oh,
it's my man's in them. And they're this hip hop
group out of Staten Island called wool Tang Clan. And
I was like, what are they Chinese? Are they Asian?
And he's like no, no, and he's like it's so
many of them, they're my dudes. And I was like
Staten Island, huh and he was like, yea stat n Island.
(10:52):
And at that moment, Doctor Joy I made it about
face and walked back to my seat, and all I
could think about was how was I going to get
back to New York first thing smoking in the morning,
and I was like, oh, we have an emergency travel phone.
Number for deaf jam. I'm going to call them get
a flight because I have to get to Staten Island.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Wow, so you sought them out.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I did. I did just off of an instrumental. I
didn't even hear any raps. I just was like, I
have to get back to New York to start really
doing better due diligence than I could being disconnected on
the road. Because again, unlike today, we just didn't have
the luxury of like tapping into laptops and dialing up
(11:36):
social media to see if anybody's posting about these Wu
Tang people. It was literally an analog life, doctor Joy.
It was like, you know, hitting out the mud and
the grit and grinding and having the like physically scout
artists and that was a huge part of what an
R was. Back then. It was artist and repertoire, but
(11:56):
you were like scouting for talent. I got myself together
and made a couple of calls. I literally left on
a flight I think at six in the morning. I
think by the time they came down and did lobby call,
I wasn't part of the role call. They were like,
where's Tracy. You know, I was already back in the
City trying to figure out how to get access to
the guys into the group, and then with Rihanna it
(12:20):
was very different and unique in the situation. So my
method Man experience was what I call my deaf Jam
one point zero experience, and my Rianna experience is what
I call my def Jam two point oho experience, which
was easily a gap of probably like fifteen years even
more maybe. And so at this particular time, I had
(12:42):
went over to deaf Jam two point zero with a
small group that was centered around Jay Z becoming president,
and la Reid was already there as the chairman, and
so bringing over J meant bringing over a few other
executives that had been working with J my self included.
And now I'm not doing A and R anymore, so
(13:04):
I guess I should say that for the record. Also
now I'm being brought in to head up the marketing
department at def Jam two point zero. And I think
Jay Brown was connected to Rihanna's then lawyer, a gentleman
named Scott Felcher, who as an A and R person
I had also known in that capacity from my history
in the music business. So I think Scott had good
(13:26):
prowess and felt like, this is a solid team to
introduce an artist, of which obviously everybody in her camp
believed in a great deal. But also there's that youth
factor again, right like she was literally fifteen about to
turn sixteen, and so they brought her into the office.
Scott did, along with the manager at the time who
(13:49):
I'd known from Columbia named Mark, and they had done
a showcase with the guys that I wasn't in Jay's
office for and then jay Z said to Jay Brown,
my nickname was Wop back then, and he was like,
somebody go get Wop, somebody go get Wap, bring Wop
in here. And so she ended up pretty much having
(14:09):
to perform all over again from the top. And Doctor
Joy not only did it not phase her, I think
it phased me. Her performance was so intense and her
commitment to what she was doing was so intense. I
don't think I'd ever seen an artist that young like that.
(14:32):
And prior to Rihanna, the only other female artist that
I had worked that had that same sort of intensity
to how much they were committed was Mariah Carey, and
I knew immediately she was gonna be big like thatiately
it didn't looked like a superstar at all. She was
naturally stunning. I mean, she was tall and lanky, and
(14:53):
she had these piercing green eyes, but she hadn't been
through any sort of tuning and retooling in terms of
image and stuff like that. So you're seeing someone at
sort of their most raws moments when they can be
pretty vulnerable. But she was tiger focused and strong and smart.
(15:17):
Smart in the sense that she had just obviously had
to showcase for everyone else in the room. She was
smart enough to realize that if I was brought into
this room and she has to redo this for me,
then she knew she had to sell me. She did
not take her eyes off of me. There was very
many other people in the room. She was so locked in,
(15:40):
and I was like, oh, this is it. We can't
let her leave. And they ended up doing the deal.
Kept everyone in the office who was centered around this deal,
the lawyers till four o'clock in the morning to get
it done. Wow, like you just knew it when you
saw it. And again, it's interesting when it comes to
(16:02):
I think superstar talent and just signing artists or any
superstar talent of any kind, even in sports now with
metrics and analytics and all of these things, I think
people sometimes stray away from, like those gut tests. It's
like the eye test, the gut tests. There are certain
sort of intangibles and nuanced things and things that computers
(16:26):
they can't spit that information out to you. You have
to be in there in those moments. It's an energy
and it's palpable, like you know, you just you can't
avoid how intense it is. And again for someone to
be as young as she was and have that, it
was like it was a no brainer for our group
to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, so La La Anthony actually portrayed your character or
you were portrayed on Wu Tang, an American saga show.
How authentic do you feel like that portrayal was?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
To be quite honest with you, it was really authentic.
I give Lala a great deal of credit because we
hadn't really talked that much before she did it, but
we knew each other. We knew each other from her
days as a VJ at MTV for TROL and so
she would see me in my work mode and just
(17:19):
being busy and orchestrating and wrangling and doing those sorts
of things or communicating with producers in a certain way.
So she knew me and had seen me in real
time in that way, but not a great deal. So
for her to have delivered on those things so incredibly,
I was like, oh girl, you really did that. That's amazing.
(17:42):
I think the only thing that they didn't get with
too much accuracy is the fact that back then I
wasn't corporatized yet, Like I was still super young, living
the culture every day, dressing that same way, which I
think was a lot of my appeal to the artists
that we were interested in signing and working with because
(18:04):
it was more relatable. And even though I had to
be the business person in the room, I think that
people knew that I cared about their lives and their livelihoods,
being one of them in that way. And so that
was the only thing that they didn't nail too much,
because I definitely wasn't wearing like blazers or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So what was it like for you to see your
career portrayed on TV in that way?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I mean it was super super super humbling, very surprising,
if I'm being one hundred percent honest, because there's so
many instances where a plethora of women, myself included, like
our story don't get told. We aren't really recognized for
our contributions like that. And it's interesting because it's never
(18:52):
bothered me. For me, it started to bother me as
hip hop is turning fifty. For all the droves of
other women that I've worked with, I always say, I
really believe that I belonged to this unsung group of
sheroes and that we were like our own sort of
sorority in a way. And hopefully, God willing, some of
(19:15):
the things that I am embarking on right now will
help turn the spotlight around on that.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Can you tell us who some of those other people are?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh? My god? Yes. So. One of the very first
women that I connected with in the music business is
a woman named Kim Lumpkin, who is a very dear
sister friend of mine to this day. We work together
in Eddief's basement. This is back in the Heavy d
and the Boys days and the Pete Rock and Cel
Smooth days, and he had a house in New Jersey
(19:45):
and that was the first job that Andre put me in. Actually,
and Kim is an incredible woman and we're still very
close to this day, she manages a series of great
producers from Rodney Jerkins to q Tip to salam Remi.
And there was a woman named Angela Thomas who was
an executive at Columbia actually, and in my early days
(20:08):
at Deaf Jam, walking into her office and she was
responsible for our Deaf Jam as a label, because a
lot of times labels at our boutique have joint ventures
with bigger corporations and at the time, it wasn't even
Sony back then, it was CBS. And I just remember
like walking into her office and just seeing how busy
(20:28):
she was and just all of the things that she
was doing and had her hands in. And I owe
a great debt of gratitude to her because when I
was working at Eddiev's house before I even made it
to Deaf Jam, she allowed me to come to her
apartment and literally I asked her so many questions. She
answered everything, and she was like giving me marketing plans
(20:51):
and things that I could review. And I talked to
her so much to the point where I sat on
the end of her bed till she got in her
pajamas and fell asleep, and she just engaged me the
entire time. I had never worked in the business before,
and you know, she was an exemplary executive throughout her
tenure in the business. And then fast forward to the
(21:13):
other companies that I worked at. Whether it was Bad Boy,
which was also a boutique company, and though it was
Puffy's company, the truth is the majority of the company
was being run by women. Kim Lumpkin ended up being
at Bad Boy with me again. My dear friend Ronda Cowan,
who was a first friend that I made at def
Jam one point zero, ended up being with me a
(21:34):
Bad Boy again. Gwen Niles Bad Boy, Francesca Spiro, God
rest her soul. She's passed on. But there's so many
women that were running things. And then you had the
hip hop scene in Atlanta and Falana Williams and I
ended up being able to work together, and there's just
so many Lisa Cambridge, I mean, I could go on,
(21:55):
and Maria Davis, who is just an exemplary woman who
was around in our early days in hip hop and
was really like the first big club promoter that gave
jay Z his breakout start at Mad Wednesdays, which was
a club night she was promoting in New York City
and she went on and she's an AIDS advocate now
and I recently did a panel with her on spirituality
(22:18):
and hip hop for Martin Luther King Junior Weekend in Charlotte,
and I was so pleased to be reunited with her.
And Denise Brown, who's an incredible attorney, lives right across
the street for me now, and she started a prayer
line on Sundays every first Sunday of the month, so
we do that now. And it's just such a blessing
(22:40):
to still have the relationships with these women and have
really thirty years in some cases thirty plus year friendships,
and to have matured with each other and gone through things.
And even if you don't go through things by working
at the same companies, you're going through things as the
(23:03):
business of hip hop is evolving, right, because what started
out is something in street corners and parks and neighborhoods
is a multi billion dollar business.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And so many of you were on the ground floor
a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and women, we were the engine and still are
in very many ways, because again, you know, there's a
music side to it, and then there's a humanity and
a human side to it. So your level of support
and pouring into these young black men whether they're going
to become mature black business owners, and understanding what sort
(23:38):
of feet is in front of you in order to
do that, because we're all starting out sort of in
these white corporate structures and not really being prepared for
all those twists and turns. You know, you end up
really relying on women pouring into you and building you
up when the world is trying to tear you down.
(24:00):
So it's a lot of wear and tear, I think
personally and being committed to that. It takes valiant efforts
to do that, and I think that's every black woman's story.
I don't think that's specific to the music business.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
More from our conversation after the break, so we've already
talked about hip hop celebrating fifty years this year. What
is one of the most profound ways you've seen the
genre grow during this time.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I think just all of the touch points. I don't
think there's anything that exists in any crevice of the
entire world that hip hop hasn't touched. I mean, it's
one of those things where and I say this in
my book which I'm writing right now, that for me,
hip hop was like big tech before big tech. Right,
(24:57):
it's a communication tool, it's a language tool. It reaches
everybody from eight to eighty. It's like there are definitely
Apple products, and hip hop was its own technology in
that way, it crossed language barriers, ethnicities. I mean, there
are people that don't even speak good English that could
wrap a jay Z verse in Saudi Arabia today, Sometimes
(25:20):
I turn on the news or I have done this
before and seen the local meteorologists rapping Biggie lyrics while
he's delivering the weather report. What else is doing that?
I don't know. I can't think of anything you.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Talked about already being at some just very defining labels
like def jam and bad boy. How do you feel
like those experiences have shaped you?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
That's a good question. Well, I think they've amplified something
that was already innate to me, which is that black
people are important to me. Black people having success and
not being perceived as dead or in jail by the
time you're thirty, particularly black men. I think I've always
(26:04):
been motivated to defy those sorts of statements that have
been societal norms, if you will, which are horrible, but
we have to live with our reality, and I think
working at those companies and being able to nurture and
foster something that was for us by us a very
(26:24):
foobu approach, if you will. I don't think there's been
anything more meaningful to me other than obviously my brother
and sister in law having children and stuff like that.
But that has never sort of fallen soft on me,
knowing that one it's a privilege too, it's a responsibility.
And three I think I was just always mission oriented
(26:46):
and working at labels like that just amplified those sort
of virtues, if you will. One because the leadership right
puff is young, he's black, jay Z young Black LA
started when he was younger and black and knowing that
there are opportunities for us to bring other young black
(27:09):
people along and into this frame and not just on
the mic or in front of the camera, but for
me personally, it was the whole I think language and
love language for me of being an executive and being
respected even though we're not paid and respected the same
way as our peers. We're in the rooms and you
(27:31):
have to deal with us, and we're not ignorant, and
we do have business acumen and decorum, and there's nothing
that we can't do.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So you talked a lot about how women really were
the engine in many of these labels, but you know,
you've also shared how many of their stories have not
gotten the same shine as men. And when you think
about hip hop, I think, even still today, it feels
like a very male dominated genre. Talk to me a
little bit about what that was like working as a
black woman in the entertainment industry and maybe how you've
(28:03):
seen women kind of grow in the genre of hip hop.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think it's so weird because I say this statement,
and really I've never really worked in any other industry,
but I've certainly have had access to other industries and
access to other Black women in them. I think our
plight is our plight, and it's sad. It's a universal
sort of plight that goes beyond the borders of vocation
or industry. And I hate that I'm even doubling down
(28:30):
on this statement, but it's true. It's like we are
always thought about last, and I don't think that working
in hip hop and committing yourself and pouring into black
men to help them become the best that they can
be at what they're doing, and knowing that you're playing
an important role on that journey. Is probably equally as
(28:52):
similar to me watching like my mom and my aunt
and my grandmother sort of rally around my dad. And
I think there's this innate thing with black women where
we are nurturers and we almost find that it's our
role to support these black men in their endeavors and
(29:15):
to make sure that they don't fall victim to these
stigmas that are always put on them. And as a
result of that, I think we get lost in the shuffle.
I think we kind of allow ourselves to take the
back seat for that reason and work really hard at
sort of propping them up in that way. And I
(29:38):
think it's awful that once they are empowered in a
certain way, I think I'd like to see more of
the generosity of that come back to women's stories being told.
Right If we're still sort of knocking on those doors
and they're not opening for us, then at least a
(29:59):
lot of the men that we helped power or be
the engine behind at these smaller companies back in the
day would leverage and use their power bases to open
that up a little bit more so women's stories can
be told and to make sure of that. I think
it's great when people acknowledge people, even like with what
Riza did for me, huge, right, huge, to even not
(30:23):
write me out of the story and incorporate me into
the story. And so now I don't have to maybe
wait around for a guy to do the next step.
Hopefully I can leverage that in a way to do
some things and open some doors and bring some other
women with me. I mean, I'm certainly going to do that.
And I think that the more and more we stay unified,
(30:46):
because there's power in numbers, right. I think sometimes we
get caught up waiting a little bit like hoping and
expecting these guys to do for us what we did
for them, and then that doesn't come about, and it
leaves some people bitter and understand that, but you got
to kind of let go of that and know that
you know our work was not in vain. God certainly
(31:07):
knows what we did for his male children. And I
think our rewards are in us not letting go of
that same sort of fearless, bold spirit and not taking
no for an answer when we were supporting them for ourselves.
And it's hard, doctor Joy. Sometimes it's just hard to
be your own warrior, your own shier princess. You know,
(31:31):
you have to remember you still have those inate qualities
and to do them for yourselves and for some of
your fellow sisters.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I'm curious to hear what it has been like with
some of the lyrics. It feels like there's a very
complicated history, you know, with hip hop and some of
the sexism and misogyny. What was it like for you
as a black woman executive who's also a fan of
the genre, but also you know, understanding like, okay, what
kinds of things are selling? How did you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
That's a great question and probably hard for people to tackle.
But the truth of the matter is that I wasn't
as mature clearly as I am today. So how I
view those things today is certainly different than how I
viewed them then. I mean, I was all the way
in it, so I was reciting them right along with it.
(32:20):
They were hitting me in ways that were mind blowing
and fascinating and all of those other things. And I
think I, like probably many other women, had the same mindset,
which is like, well, they're not calling me a B
word or I don't carry myself like that, So that
doesn't apply to me, and so you sort of like
(32:42):
distance yourself or remove yourself from it in that way.
And then I think you double down on the distancing
and removing yourself with it by saying, I know some
chicks like that too, And I think that was probably
the rationale back then, and that was I would say,
as much of a framework or scope that would even
(33:04):
have been considered right. It was so selfish, it was
so self involved. Nobody was really thinking about, oh, this
could impact our community negatively because we were just young
and rebellious, and I don't think we saw the potential
damage or potential harm in it. And again because your
scope at that point is I know some girls that
(33:26):
act just like that, you know what I mean. And
that's a very myopic and immature way to look at things.
I think now that I'm older, and now that there
are younger children in my family, two of which are
young ladies, it's like, oh my God, like I don't
want them rapping along with this craziness and YadA, YadA, YadA.
(33:47):
But I can't be hypocritical in that way, and not
because I was involved in executiving and promoting and being
behind some of it. But because I was their age
and I was singing it too, and I enjoyed it
while I was singing along with it. And so if anything,
I think for me now at this particular age, I'm
(34:08):
always there to be wisdom for someone who's gone through
some things. But I won't sit in a seat of
scorn or judgment. I just won't do it. And I
guess if I had to look back on my life,
then I don't have regrets about it at all. I'm
definitely like girl, you was a piece of work.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
More from our conversation after the break. Unfortunately, we've seen
it feels like a disproportionate number of stars we've lost
from the hip hop community. So going back to like
Biggie and Pack, but even more recently with people like
(34:53):
Nipsey Hustle and Pop Smoke, I'm curious if you can
share how people behind the scenes, like the executives and
people in the offices that we don't see in the
videos and stuff, how are they impacted when losses like
this happened in the industry.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
It's extremely devastating. I mean, there are many of us,
myself included, we never really got over Biggie and Pak
we're reminded of it all the time, and I think
fast forward to what we've seen now. It really bothers
me so much because we can't turn a blind eye
(35:32):
to knowing that our era, the nineties era, we ushered
a lot of this in now we didn't necessarily want
it to take up the kind of residency that it did,
But I don't know if we ever did a good
enough job of curtailing it from getting out of control
(35:54):
the way we see it now. And I think again,
it's that fine line you have to walk because be
a hypocrite. Right, Like what I would have thought and
hoped would have happened is once people saw the level
of danger, you don't want to perpetuate the stereotype, and
you certainly don't want to become the stereotype. And I
(36:16):
think there's always been a very fine line with that.
But it's also you don't want to censor people who
are living through this all the time. And I think
what needs to happen is that there needs to be
a better degree of balance. There has to be some
(36:38):
way where people are letting people know that I don't
live this though. I like go home to a nice
home and I'm looking to change my life and my
lifestyle to evolve away from that, and I think there
needs to really be real dialogue about that. I think
(37:00):
ignoring it is not going to do anything but allow
us to continue to see these things. And I think
people need to be mindful also now that we're older
in sort of what things are going on in the country,
in the world. Right now, we are really in a
state of inflation and impoverished situations that we haven't really
(37:22):
seen since the eighties. Right It really feels like that
in a lot of ways. So I think rather than
sitting in our ivory towers where life is good now,
there has to be some sort of communication. And back
in those days we did see things like that. Sadly,
not too long before the East Coast West Coast situation happened,
(37:46):
Quincy Jones and Clarence Avon they did bring us into
a huge meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York
and everybody was there. Shat Him and Latifa were there
representing Flavor Unit. Puff was in there representing early stage
bad Boy sug was there, Death Row I was there
(38:08):
as an executive. April Walker was there. Who's another woman
that I adore who I came up with in the
hip hop business, who is a female designer of men's
street wear. And you need governance around some of these things,
and sometimes you do need elder statesman leadership. And I
would love to see our generation do a better job
(38:31):
of becoming that for this generation and bridging that gap
by having some of these tough conversations again and just
have real talk, right, because you can't come off like
you're a get off my lawn or sitting in judgment
because we lived it too, and look what happened to us.
Now we've seen this to your point, doctor Joy happen
(38:52):
at a rate that's even more expedient and a vast
more amount of young people being killed like this. And
then you have to have like conversations with the managers.
And that's what Quincy in them did. There were managers
in the room, there were label heads in the room,
there were producers in the room, there are artists in
the room. Because the community can only heal the community itself.
(39:15):
It has to be from the inside out, not any
other way around. And sometimes you need leadership and guardrails
and experience is the best teacher. I think knowing that
we went through it and we didn't get it all
the way right. And I think starting the conversation for
hitting that note out the gate, I think that can
(39:36):
neutralize that energy of a boy here come to old
heads trying to tell us what to do and they
didn't even do it. No, we owe you an apology.
We owe you an apology.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
What has self care looked like for you as you
have been in the industry, and how has that evolved
during your time?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Well, really staying on social media, Like I was so
committed and lived so much of my life at a
j traveling studios Da da Da, Da da, that I
think on the other side of the zeitgeist of my career,
self care was really about just detaching, taking time to breathe, read,
(40:17):
walk Where I live. I live on the water, and
I lived down here for so long, but I was
always traveling, never home, always driving to appointments in and
out of the city, flying all around. And God's beauty
of nature has been sitting in my backyard for all
these years, and I just finally started like enjoying it
and going for runs and walks and just being reminded
(40:41):
that one we're not as important as we think we
are because we can't do any of this. We can't
create an ocean, we can't create a sky, And I
think just getting back to a very granular level of
appreciating the most remarkable things that we just take for
granted so much, and forgiving my younger self for making
the mistakes that I made. You hold yourself to such
(41:04):
high standards, and when you fall short, you don't realize
that everybody falls short, right, and that being able to
free yourself from that. I think people would agree that
they probably felt like I was hard on them at
many times, just wanting the best for them, one of
the best for myself, one of the best for our people,
(41:24):
and it's okay, you're gonna make mistakes and you're not
gonna get everything right, and if God gives you grace
to come back from mistakes, then you have to be
able to give yourself the grace.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
So you've already kind of started talking about this a lot.
But we've seen some new stories being told from women
in hip hop right. So we had the on the
Record documentary with Drew Dixon detailing, you know, her experiences
with sexual assault, and then we saw rap Caviar Presents
talking all about the city girls and like their kind
of experiences in the field. What stories of women in
(41:57):
the industry have not been told yet.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I think that the stories that you know I had
mentioned beforehand, which is like the executive prowess of a
lot of the women in the music industry, and really
the stories of business women. Right there are so many
things that business women or women sorry in the business
(42:19):
that have done to upgrade things about the business for
hip hop artists. I mean, my good friend Ronda that
I mentioned earlier, I remember MTV like would it play
a jay Z video? And what it meant for her
to have to go over there and convince them otherwise,
(42:41):
because I mean, again, this is a network that didn't
originally play a Michael Jackson video either, So that dialogue
continued as it related to hip hop, and I think
just breaking down a lot of those barriers and being
able to have seats at tables and leverage things and
and create a bigger footprint for hip hop as a
(43:04):
business had a lot to do with conversations that women
were having, because what happens a lot of times at
these organizations is that there is a female counterpart that
does what you do that is probably a white woman,
but she's a woman nonetheless, And I think that there's
something to be said about fostering and nurturing those relationships
(43:28):
because then you can have someone who might not be
a person of color like you, but being a woman
and you're a woman. There's an appreciation, I think of
what it is that you're up against and what it
is that you're trying to do. So it's great to
have an advocate within these scenarios. And I think those
sorts of stories need to be highlighted because I think
(43:51):
people are oftentimes really surprised when they hear about a
woman being behind a signing method, man or engineering a
hip hop record that went on to be a classic,
or managing the producers that produced these classic beats of
these classic albums. I think there is so many amazing
(44:13):
stories like that, and I think it would encourage women
in the business that are maybe looking to get into
it and start out, encourage them and create a little
bit of a road mapping and a blueprint, because one
thing I learned very long ago from doing A and
R was that everybody is not intended to grab a
mic or be on a video or sing or rap
(44:35):
or dance, and there's a whole gene pool and community
of opportunities for women behind the scenes, in and around
the scenes, and I think there needs to be an
elevated discussion around that, more access and more storytelling, for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Can we expect some of that in your book?
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
We'll be on the lookout for when comes out. So
I want to wrap up with some rapid fire questions
from you because I feel like these will be such
great answers. So this is called what are you listening to?
Hip hop? Addition, which nineties are two thousands female hip
hop artists? Would you like to see release an album
this year or next year?
Speaker 2 (45:16):
What nineties?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Lauren Hill Ooh, okay, that's a good one. That's a
good one. What's a song that brightens up your day?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Sounds of Blackness Optimistic?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Oh, that's one of my favorites too. Do you like
the remake with Brandy and I think some other people? Yeah,
but the original is a good one too. What's a
project that you worked on that you describe as foundational
to your career?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Hmmm, I would say Rihanna's first project, Music of the Sun.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Okay, Okay, So what do you feel like makes a
hip hop album culturally and artistically significant? And based on
your answer to that, what is the greatest hip hop
album of all time?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Okay? The authenticity of it? I think the authenticity of
the narrator or the author of said story, and the
ability to tell the story and connect with people who
have similar stories or similar things that they're experiencing. So
(46:19):
it's authenticity and storytelling.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
So based on those qualities, then what would be your
choice for greatest hip hop album of all time?
Speaker 2 (46:32):
See Doctor Joy? We done hit a cog in the wheel.
I can't It's such a difficult thing for me to do. Like,
there's so many.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Okay, top three, Doctor Joy, you can't choose. It's like
choosing a favorite.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Child that you already know that if you have three kids,
you're already out the game trying to figure out, you know,
narrowing it down. I will say that albums hip hop
albums that impacted me. I mean, obviously I'm gonna echo
my very first answer of wanting Laurence Hill to do
another album. But the Miseducation of Laurence Hill was everything, everything, everything.
(47:14):
I don't think there's any girl that grew up hip
hop in the nineties, that would argue that Tripo Quest,
the low End Theory, Wu Tang, thirty six Chambers, the
Great Adventures of Slickeric. There's so many monumental giant hip
hop albums. Speaker Box and A Love Below a Quemini,
(47:35):
I mean, both of Outcasts albums are just so signature
and so rich. The Far Side had a Dope album.
I mean, there's so, so, so, so, so many, and
that is the beauty that is hip hop, right because
sonically and dynamically they're all very, very different and very nuanced,
(47:57):
because they're true to each and every artist who made
them and where they came from, whatever sector of the
globe that they came from, and you feel that. And
even if you didn't grow up in that era in Atlanta,
you could listen to those albums and have that experience.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So yeah, Okay, so that was a beautiful list. That
was a great list. So who is an artist in
the bad Boy family you'd love to work with? Again?
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Ooh, that is a good question. I adored working with
Faith Evans. I love me some Dune Away, got it.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
That's a good choice. And then a bit of a
throwback to Love Jones, When did you fall in love
with hip hop?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Honestly, as a youngster, I think I must have been
maybe eleven or twelve years old, because I grew up
in Teaneck, New Jersey, and a neighboring town for us
was a town called Angle with New Jersey and the
sugar Hill Gang and the sugar Hill Records and the
family were neighbors and became family friends of ours. So
(48:57):
I remember, I think, going to their studio on West
Street in Englewood with my dad, who was going to
see mister Robinson. And I remember seeing missus Robinson in
a studio room sitting behind a console. And it's not
like I was like, Oh, I want to be like
(49:19):
her one day. Immediately, I think I was fascinated by
seeing this office, this studio local to me in New
Jersey in the suburbs, that was behind like Rapper's Delight
and the message. And I think what it did say
to me is if I wanted to do this, I
could do this one day because of her.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I love that. I love that. Thank you for that, Tracy.
This has been such an incredible conversation. I know people
are going to want to stay connected with you and
like pick up their copy of the book once it
comes out. Where can we find you online? What is
your website? As well as any social media handles you
want to share.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
So it's interesting. I'm not like personally on social media
by choice. But what I did do is I started
an Instagram page called Face the Music. So it's face
face the thche music mus dot ic right the music,
(50:18):
get it, Muse, we're music. They might not tell you
that we are, but we are. And that actually is
the title of my memoir. It's called face to Music.
So I'm trying, doctor Joy.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yes, you got to give the people somewhere to go.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
The marketer in me is like, all right, girl, now
you know you're gonna have to get with the times
for that aspect of it. But yeah, I just got
real low, doctor Joy, after committing almost thirty years to
that business, I got real low. But I am very
excited about the things that we're doing on our page.
And it's a community page, which is amazing because again
(50:54):
the best thing about being in hip hop is being
a part of the hip hop community.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
We would be sure to include that in the show notes.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us today, Tracy.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
It is my absolute pleasure. I love what it is
you're doing. I think there's nothing more important than therapeutics
mental wellness, psychological and emotional health, and strength and stability,
and it has to get destigmatized in and around hip
hop and music, and there needs to be more people
(51:26):
that are incorporating that almost as a prerequisite to staffing
and personnel within these labels. These are human beings, they
have human frailties, They come with their own traumas, sometimes
from childhood, and it cannot be ignored anymore.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Thank you so much for that, Tracy. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Thank you, doctor Joy. This has been absolutely one of
the highlights for me ever. I love what you're doing
so much.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Thank you, Thank you for spending some time with us.
I want to thank Tracy once again for joining us
for this episode. To learn more about her and the
work she's doing. Be sure to visit the show notes
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session three sixteen,
and be sure to text two of your girls right
now and encourage them to check out the episode. If
(52:15):
you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out
our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory.
And if you want to continue digging into this topic
or just be in community with other sisters, come on
over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our
cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
(52:37):
dot com. This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis,
and Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank
y'all so much for joining me again this week. I
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care. But what
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