Bilal

Today, we’re joined by one of the most inventive and electrifying vocalists in modern soul music: Bilal. 

Since the release of his debut album 1st Born Second in 2001, Bilal has defied categorization by design and by circumstance. With a voice that shifts effortlessly from a whisper to a wail, and from jazz to gospel to outer space, he’s carved a singular path through the world of music. Whether lending hooks to Kendrick Lamar or collaborating with Erykah Badu, Bilal has long been your favorite singer’s favorite singer.

Now, he’s back with a brilliant new project: Adjust Brightness. Bold, cinematic, and emotionally raw, it’s his most cohesive work since his debut—a swirling, psychedelic blend of soul, jazz, hip-hop, and feeling. And as if that weren’t enough, Bilal has also just released Live at Glasshaus, an intimate and explosive set that captures the unpredictable energy of his live shows.

Today, Bilal opens up to Justin Richmond about the making of Adjust Brightness, how he prepares for those electrifying live performances, and why chasing musical and spiritual freedom has always been his true north.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Bilal songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Ballah has a brilliant new project out called as Brightness.
It's bold, cinematic, and his most cohesive project since his debut.
And if that one't enough, he's also just dropped Live
at Glasshouse, an intimate live recording that captures the magic
of his performances where the band is tight, the vocals

(00:36):
are loose, the energy is electric, and anything can happen. Today,
ball talks about the making of a Just Brightness, how
he prepares for his explosive live performances, and why chasing freedom,
both musically and spiritually, has always been his north star.
This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my

(01:03):
conversation with blaw. Your high school is pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I went to a performing in ours high school too.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
We had everybody, well, boys, the men, the roots, a
mill of the room, Chris McBride, yup, christmacbride, Joey d Francesco.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Joey Diferen, RP Man. He was phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
But yeah, we had some cats. None of them was
there when I was there.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
But the roots and boys to men are kind of
like I guess I'm not infamous, but for lack of
a better word, the infamous class from your your high school.
But you were, you were a good deal younger man.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
So yeah, I'm like, geez, I don't know what year
they graduated, but I think we were like maybe almost
ten years, if not ten years apart.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, were you aware of them growing up?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I was aware of them just in the school. The
teachers that would brag about them. Man, some of them
would still come up to the school like jam with
jam with us. I remember Chris mas Bride used to
come up and jam with our our jazz band all

(02:19):
the time. And at the I think that was right
the year before our like big I guess mister King.
He was like our big time choral teacher. So boys
and men used to come all the time and just
hang out with him. So we see boys and men
all the time.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's insane because that means they were as big as
he could get at that time.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, and he used to always say they still used
to still like he would always rag on them, but
they loved it. They you know, like y'all still don't
sing the harmony like I tort you. But we all
hated mister King, but we loved him. No, he's passed,

(03:05):
he passed, but you know, he was just one of
those strong minded Germans, German men, German guy. Yeah, but
he was so soulful and just like I learned a
lot from him and just about emotions and the music
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
And man, he.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Was just really into the music. You know, he didn't
care that we were kids. He would cuss and everything,
but it was music first over everything.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I learned that from him. And he's passion.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Like I didn't even know music could give you goose
bumps or you should be in search of the goose
bump effect as a musician until mister King. You know,
he taught us all about that, like how to truly
get emotion out of out of music or to draw
an emotional reaction out of the listener.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Like how would he teach that?

Speaker 3 (04:00):
He was just look for a certain tamper of the
voice or a certain dynamic of the music, like certain dynamics,
like something going from extremely loud to soft automatic light
abruptly it does something emotionally to the listener, and then
if it goes big again and then you know, you play,

(04:22):
you play with volume.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
It kind of like it has an emotional play.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
That explains a lot about about your your music. And
your approach to music one because I was thinking about, like,
I've seen you many many times and your I mean,
it might it might sound kind of tripe to sort
of say that it appears to me that you treat
your voice almost more like an instrument. But anytime I'm

(04:49):
going to see you live, as opposed to any other singer,
it always feels much more like an improvisational thing, in
search of like a really high high or in search
of a moment. And sometimes I've been to the shows
where like that moment is like it's it's there, and
sometimes that you could tell us that you didn't quite
find it, or was it or the audience to find it,

(05:09):
or there was some disconnect. But it's one of the
things that is addicting about going to see you is
just like what's it going to be tonight? It's almost
like going to see you know. I just kind of
got around to finally seeing The Grateful Day a few times,
and I'm like, I get why people follow them, because
at night to night, it's like what's it going to be?
You know?

Speaker 3 (05:28):
I love that. I mean, that's the whole jazz thing
for me. I got that out of going to school
for jazz, hanging out with all jazz cats my whole life.
You know, Improvisation was just a big deal for me
early on. So when I would go to write my music,

(05:52):
I always try to leave little pockets and spaces that's
like unknown and you have to like kind of make
it up when you get there. So every night when
we play, it's just it just so happens to be different,
and I think that's a cool thing. It makes it
fun for me, you know, playing these songs over and

(06:13):
over again.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah. Do you do you have a do you have
a reliable way at this point of like a routine
or anything that you can do to sort of get
you closer to achieving something than.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Not like to start to like get ready for the show.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, I start to get ready for the show. Is
there anything you can do that you feel like, even
if it's just like you know, like an athlete might
have like a like a little ritual that's like might
not even be real, but like I gotta wear my
green socks or whatever. It's just or it might not
be that silly. But no, I don't. I don't I
think I should.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
I think I started off having one, but then it
just tanked. I used to try and have a little ritual,
but I think I just keep forgetting the ritual.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
So my ritual is no ritual.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
What were you trying to implement as like.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
No, because I used to be like, yeah, before the show,
I'm gonna do some push ups, you know what.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I'm gonna just get my jump rope that I'll leave
my jump rope at the hotel.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
We don't have enough time to do push ups or
I'm like out of breath, so I'm like, I'm not
doing that no more. So I'll just try to get
into a little common space, like before the band goes out.
Maybe I'll just sit there a little longer with my
sunglasses on.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Maybe I don't know.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
I just try to get into avoid place where I
don't really care no more.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
You know, And what does what do you think that
brings to the what you do?

Speaker 3 (07:51):
It just takes away from the expectations and.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Trying to prove something or.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Really caring to you know, and just get up there
and do do what I do. I see myself as
a channeler, you know. When I'm going up there, I'm
kind of channeling from my higher self or like my
perfect self. So I kind of like try to forget

(08:23):
my hurtfully self, you know what I mean? Yeah, try
to forget everything.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, so it helps bring you into the get rid
of the expectation and bring it to the moment.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, when it works, sometimes I literally forget everything and
then I forget the words, and but when it's right on,
you know, I forget all of the negative stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
That's great. Is it a similar approach in the studio
when you go into the studio. No.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
In the studio, I want to feel everything, you know,
I want to be open to every everything in the room,
everything that's coming to me, so I can try and
make the studios where I try to make sense of everything.
So I'm just overanalyzed. And sometimes I have to stop
myself from overanalyzing because that's just what happens in is

(09:18):
you can stop, think, take a break, come back to it.
But on stage it's just all go, you know.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Is it too many inputs live? Is that kind of
why you maybe have to blunt some of that or
try to block it out versus in the studio, where's
a little more controlled and.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
A little more well.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
In the studio, I think that's where a lot of
the input most especially if people like if I'm working
with other people, because you know, it's just everybody's giving input,
everybody's giving them opinions, like all in real time, just oh,
maybe do that again or you you know, I might
think I just nailed something like that's that's something.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Like what I gotta like, I gotta battle my ego,
Like all right, I'll do it again, you know what
I mean? So uh, in the audience, if somebody says
it sucked, I'd be.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Like, great, let's let me let me stay on that
note even more like it's like I'm the smartest suck
shit in your face now, you know what I mean.
I turned it to the villain maybe on stage, but
in the studio, I'm just very analytical of everything.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
You know, I'm like, I sit with everything.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Has that been true your entire recording career too, you think?
Or is it has that changed a bit from when
you first got in the studio? But the first album, Firstborn,
second too, just brightness.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Now I think it's changed as far as like who
I bring in the studio to give me that their opinions.
You know, when I first started off, like I didn't
have to say who was in there, giving me their opinions.
You know, everybody felt like they were there to mold me,
and you know I was just too listen, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, so that's gotta be a weird position too.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
It took some getting used to, especially when I first
started recording, because I came straight from university college, you know,
just straight artsy kind of thing, and I was I
think when I first started off, I was a lot

(11:36):
more defensive because of that, because I was just very
militant on what I wanted to do, how I wanted
to do it. And I was like that in school,
you know, like I went to a I went to
a music conservatory and all I did was argue with
the teachers all day.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
So they were happy to see me go.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
You know, do you ever did you keep up with
any of them or not? Was it really?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
One of my one of my like most infamous teachers,
we wounded up being really close, Janet Loss, and she
passed not too long ago, but we started off really
rocky because she was like a vocal teacher. And my
whole thing was I don't want to study with no singer.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Singer suck, you know, I don't want to study with
nobody that sings jazz.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Like and she kind of had that same mentality. But
jazz musicians it's almost like athletes. I look at jazz musicians.
They have the same sensibility of athletes, you know, and
they will sit there and argue with each other and
just I always want to one up, or let's battle.

(12:55):
You're not playing changes quite right. But so that's what
me and her would get into the arguments of I
don't like the way you sing over that, and I'm like,
this is jazz. I can sing it over all ever
I want. And she's like, yeah, but you're not singing
the chort changes. And it's like my whole thing was
I would go to jazz theory class and be like, yeah,
but you do know this is theory, so you're just

(13:19):
telling me your theory of how to do it. I
don't have to do it like that, though, And that
would just whoa.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Kick off.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
That would kick off, especially for like the older jazz musicians.
Oh man, it will almost be like, all right, let's
in the class and go out and take this outside then,
young man.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
But they remember me because of that.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
You know, a lot of times in university, the students
don't really challenge the teacher, you know, and when they are,
they're like shut down.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
So I just refused it.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
I didn't really want to do vocals anyway, you know,
and I felt like I want to do I wanted
to be a musician, but the musicians do want it
wouldn't want to accept me. I was just like a
mad villain, just walking around, this grumpy.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
That's painful man, Like.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Hey guys, I can scat.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
No.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It wasn't until I really started like, man, I'm gonna
I'm gonna start learning change it, just like the cats,
you know.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Where it started to work out for me.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
And then I when I discovered Bobby McFerrin, it was.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Over, Yo, tell me about that.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Man, Like Bobby McFerrin was just he didn't even use
words much and I was like, that's that's that's my
stick right there, Like I don't he really turned his
voice into an instrument and that really like it turned
the light on in college for me.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Man, I gotta I gotta digg into some Bobby.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yeah, he did a whole album that the one that
really like got me. He did a whole album with
Chick Area, just him and Chick Area what and it
was just magic. And my friend of mine, well, Robert Glasper,
we went to we went to college together and we
got to see chick Corea and Bobby do duet at

(15:33):
the Blue Note and it was boom, just like.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Wow, wow, wow, when did when did you get put
onto him?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
In college? Right?

Speaker 3 (15:45):
I knew I knew Bobby being fair and from the
you know, don't worry, be happy. But in college I
would hang out at the the Vinyl library a lot
and just listen to vinyl all day.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Is that that was at your square, to vinyl library
at your school. That's really cool.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
That's another place to like really like did something to
me musically?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
You know. It wasn't really the classes. It was like
developing arguments and then going to the vital.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Library to prove my theories. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, so yeah, I felt that. I was like, yeah,
this is it, Like he was really even the way
he was getting he was like challenging chit, you know
even and that's like chick Rea like wow, Biden fairness,
nasty nasty.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Word, that's really wild, because yeah, all I knew him
for was I don't want to be happy as well,
and I love that as a kid by the way, right,
I mean I still love it now, but it's great.
I mean even though you know, man another the number
one jam you know, I mean public enemy kind of
turned me off for a minute, but still still.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Not only not only in the jazz world, but also
even in a classical world. He's like an accomplished uh.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
For the you yeah really high up?

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Wow? Have you gotten to hang with him? No?

Speaker 3 (17:17):
But I know his his children, his his his daughter
Maddie mc ferrence, Madison, uh Madison. I known her for
a minute. I know him his tailor, Taylor for a
long minute. So yeah, I'm gonna Taylor from like when

(17:39):
I first moved to New York. Really m h no,
I didn't even know that that was his dad was
Bidy mcpherrins, So.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
That like blew my mind when I found out about that.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, that's pretty.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Because he when I met Taylor, he was doing interesting
stuff like that through the beat boxing and he would
be boxing then be playing keys at the same time school.
So it was almost like on that same kind of
thing but taking it to another level.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
This message is brought to you by Starbucks. Years before
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(18:34):
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(18:55):
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can probably imagine the sound driven by acoustic instruments, relaxed

(19:18):
vocals drawing from folk and jazz influences, lyrics so personal
they sound like they'd been written in a journal an
hour before recording. What we know is coffee house music
has a deep history, and to understand the sound, we
have to start with the space. If you were a
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coffee houses. You had folk singers, poets, and visionaries passing

(19:39):
around guitars and exchanging ideas in equal measure. Bob Dylan
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The list goes on. They were all fixtures in coffee
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proving grounds, no backing band, no effects, just a guitar
and a voice and of course a delicious beverage on hand.

(20:03):
Over time, its sound has evolved from folk to indie
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(20:24):
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(20:47):
conversations and the creativity, the rhythm of espresso being pulled,
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(21:09):
free at that time, like when you were developing, like
vocally was or not even vocally, just whether it's vocal
a vocalist and instrumentalist. Who was who was like pouring
into at that time, like in that vinyl library? What
were you? Do You think that still sticks with you
even maybe too?

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Oh well, I got into Indian music like Robbie Shankar was.
I was deep into Robbie Shankar because I started to
try and try to figure out my own like special
phrasings or special vowels for scatting.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
So I went down this school like uh rabbit hole
of Japanese throat singing and uh and in Indian music.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
And that would help you change, like think about how
to approach vowels.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, because a lot of their the throat singing they
could they had this method. The only other person I've
seen that has mastered it is uh Layla Hathaway's.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
She can sing like three notes at once like a
chord like be like a minor chord like what Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
She can like separate her vocal corus to play three
notes at once.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
And she can do it.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Like how you learned that?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
I don't I keep it. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
I asked her how. She said she was born knowing
how to do it. Wow mm hmmm, Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I don't know how.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
I don't know how she did it, but I know
there's it's a genre.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
It's definitely a genre.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
So that and Robbie Shanekarr and his daughters and dope
Indian music. They they get into NBA two between notes,
so our scals like eight notes or like seven notes,
and then it goes into that octive note. They have

(23:20):
this thing called ghost notes where there's like semi tones,
small middle or ascending tones in between the actual tone
that we claim.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So between like an E and and F there's like something.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Else, there's like three other tones that they know of. Wow.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
So yeah, can you hear those?

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
And no, it depends on the setting, Like it in
a drone situation where it's like.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
You can kind of hear the those type of things.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
But if it's something where the core changes is moving
around a lot, you can't, well I can't you know.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's like in the B box that it would be impossible.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, but if you were to listen to.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Coltrane when he would get into like a lot of
his Love Supreme stuff, or you could hear those those
semi tony he was doing it. Wow, he was deep
into Robby Shankar and those whole He started making up
all different types of scales to kind of like buying
those in between notes.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Right, Yeah, I've seen some, like i've seen pictures. I
haven't studied them or anything, but I've seen like copies
of like journals he would write, and you see these
really bugged out diagrams he would draw somehow connecting this
note to that, no, to that. You know, I don't
know that circle.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
It was like a circle of fifth thing. I think
I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, but it was a little different than a circle
of fist maybe or something like. I mean, it's just
seem a little like more intense, like the basic circle
of fists kind of thing. But yeah, like it seemed
like he was really searching.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
For he unlocked something, and it was like based off
of that those in between notes.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
We would like any of the classics that resonated with you,
like you scouting, like I always think of like elphanz
Gerald as a scatter, Did any of that resonate with
you or less?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Was dope?

Speaker 3 (25:18):
She I definitely started by checking out a lot of LA,
a lot of serv On. Then I got into Betty Carter,
and Betty Carter is like my favorite. I met Betty
Carter when I was a kid. I sang for her.
She told me I sucked, and that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
What was the what was the context of this?

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh man, it was, uh Jazz I was a part
of this like after school program and in high school,
Settlement at Settlement Music School, and she would come to
a lot of the school programs back in the day
and jam with the kids. And we had a big

(26:06):
assembly and uh, everybody was like, go up there.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Sing for Betty, sing, sing, sing, So I was like.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Oh, yeah, you know, and I really thought I was
like killing him on the scag game.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
And she she sang, that's not it, that's not it.
You singing too many notes. You're not giving the people
a chance to reminisce. He said, people reminisce when you
when you're actually not singing. And she was singing all
of this, but like she was trashing you washing because

(26:42):
I went up there shout it up beat my.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
I was going in and she was like, nah, baby,
it's too many notes. He's like, and I never forget that.
She said, you know, you gotta watch how many notes
you sing? Or where you place the notes, because you
got to give the listener time to catch up and
to reflect, because that's what draws people to the music,

(27:09):
when they have something that reminds them of their own life,
you know, and you got to give them an opening
for that, you know. And the music is really a
portal for the listener's memories to like take place.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
What do you what do you think about that?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
As a I didn't know what she was talking about
as a kid, but like like now, I don't know,
I never forgot that and now and as a as
a writer, as a producer, that's like the main thing
I'm thinking of when I'm in a studio, Like I
want the listener this song to be some type of
a time capsule for them, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, I was thinking about when you first came out,
how we were kind of in an era where people
didn't really respect virtuoso virtuosic talent, you know, Like I
don't even know if Kendrick Lamar could have been as
Populus is now then.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
What and not you think so hm hmm, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Not in about but in the sense of and I'm
gonna say this, but I love I love no limit
and I love all I love all of No Limit,
But it feels like that was a different a different
thing happening then. No.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, but I think it was like it's still like
a counter culture from like what the Roots was doing
or a slum village. There was like counter culture of
of of music.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
It definitely feels counter it felt, That's what I guess,
And that's what I mean, is it felt at that
time like a counter culture, whereas now it feels like
it could be of the culture same way that like
a lot of the stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
I guess it's biggest Kendrick is now back then, I
don't know, because I look at the way kendred it's
very intentional about the art and very you could tell
he thinks about it.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I see that.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
The way Outcast was dropping those records back then, you know,
it was like wow, artistically like they were like stepping
it up every record and it was like wow, and
it was accepted and it was crossing over.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
You know, they were they were doing their thing.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm happy.
I'm happy to be wrong on the point. Happy to
be wrong. It just felt like all the ship I
like back then was more subculture more for sure, like
you know, like the way like you know, like in
the nineties, like alternative music had its like it crossed
over finally and it was like all the ship from

(30:02):
the Ramones through like whatever. All of a sudden, it
was like it was in like Bagel bytes commercials or whatever,
like wait, why didn't one and like this in like
nineteen seventy eight, you know or not no One? But
why didn't you know what I mean, Like you couldn't
get this on like CBS in nineteen seventy.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, I don't know what this era of the cool
kids is, but I feel like that's because I'm older.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
But also it seems like people really at a well
yes and no, maybe musically at least except like I
think about like how a Thundercat has, Like it seems
like the fact that a critical massive people can accept
that level of talent is a good sign to me,
you know what I mean. And so it does feel

(30:44):
like we're in an era of people really recognizing musically
at least like superb supreme talent, you know, even the
back like I don't know whatever. Not to get controversial,
but the backlash against Drake or whatever. You know, it's like.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Music.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
But that's but it is also in some way a
positive sign, you know, and there's not a lot of
positive things, you know, there's not a lot of things
pointing towards the post is the future so much necessarily always,
But that feels like one of those things where you're like, oh,
it's like a cool bell weather for what could could be.
You know.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, I think that is dope. You know that.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
For a minute there, I thought all of society could
be programmed to like one thing and then that was it,
you know, But that did like put in my head that, yeah, well,
you know, the people can speak, you know, and the
people like a variety of things, and they should have

(31:44):
that lead way in the marketplace to like a variety
of things instead of just this is what's dope and
anything outside of that it's not dope, you know. I
think that's I don't know if that's only in America though,
you think what.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Seems like outside of America people have always been a
little more open, you know, I don't know, right like.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
And I think that's just a marketing thing.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Definitely think it's the market I think people, including Americans,
think Americans are stupid. So I think then we market
ourselves like we're idiots, you know what I mean, Like
we can't we can't make decisions, you know, like we
find boxes for things because we're fucking idiots.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Because it's a marketplace. Everything is a marketplace.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Everything is to be sold. You know, you just got
to find the right marketing pitch. I can pick up
a piece of dirt off the floor, and you know,
if I got that gift of gab, I'm gonna make
some money.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yes, Yes, it's funny. Like I got to put out
an interview with Daryl Hall and they got a bunch
of pickup because, like I asked himself. You know, it's
interesting to me when I go when I listened, I
wasn't around when Holland Oas was was hitting in the
late seventies and eighties, or when the Dubie Brothers were
But you know, I listen to that stuff now and
you're like, this is clearly just white dudes that love

(33:08):
R and B, R and B. And you know, I
was like when I was talking to Michael McDonald once,
he was like, yeah, like Warner Brothers didn't know what
to do with us because we're white dude. So they
wanted to market us to rock radio, but Rock Ray
didn't want to play us because we sounded like like
R and B like black dudes. But like they, Warner
couldn't get it in their head to like play us
on black radio. But finally some black radio promoter at

(33:28):
Warner was like, this guy to go to black radio.
Black radio started playing it. But then you know, the
labels just started calling it adult contemporary or soft rock
or whatever you know, AO or I oriented rock, like
they would have these phrases for it. So I was asking,
I was asking about that. He's like, yeah, well, fuck
yacht rock like they you know, they're trying to like
and You're like, I I kind of see his point.

(33:50):
Like he's a dude. He just loves Philly dude, Philly dude.
I know he can't. He kept it wrong rock, you know,
he just love R and B and before a guy
has to get a label yacht rock or whatever, you know.
And I felt this pain, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, man, that's the way I felt about Neil Soul.
What is that?

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Like it's just a marketing term, Like I felt like
we were just cats that loved hip hop, but found
those seventies uh instruments from the that were used from
those records that we were sampling, and was like, well,
let's just use those.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Instruments, yeah, instead the sampling, let's just pull out of
roads in.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Right, instead of getting sued on every instead of not
making no money from the track, because it's they're taking
all of the publishing, Like, let's make up our own loops,
you know, yeah, and use those instruments. So try to
figure out how how they recorded it to get that sound.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
I thought that's what we were doing.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
But it still had it had the integrity of soul music,
so it still had that soul in it. Yeah, so
why say it reminds you of soul?

Speaker 1 (35:03):
You know, that's a good call. Yeah, it did have
the to your point, it had the feeling of you know,
whether it's like an send it's like a soul man.
Like what it was like you felt when you when
you heard the term soul man. You feel like that's
a stand up brother, who's gonna you.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Whatever they have that like, these are these are these
are these are people really serious about their what they do,
Like it's no joke. So I have that, but yeah,
to just call it Neil Soul and and then for
that to become like a thing of you guys just
making derivative music, like that's that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I think this labels on music sucks because it's just
it keeps you in a box. It keeps the listener
in the box, and then it forces the artists into
a box because they want to still try and make
money and they think that that audience wants to hear

(35:54):
whatever is in that box.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
So there's they don't want to go out of that box.
So it just.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Everything in that box. If it gets played out, nobody
wants to hear it no more. The whole box gets
just thrown out.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah. Absolutely, I don't know how we got it. But
that brings me back to what I was gonna say,
which is that this album is cool because it sounds
in a lot of ways like almost like what would
have been like the natural progression for like maybe like
your third album if your second album hadn't gotten shoved.
But it also is very in so many ways also

(36:26):
like out of the box.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
For for what we think of as a ball record,
like like this like Sunshine, which is is like I
don't think I've ever heard anything like that from you,
and it's incredible, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, Well, like I said, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
I mean when I go into the studio, I'm just
making stuff that I like, that feels good, and you
know that I'm challenging myself. Yeah, I call them beautiful mistakes.
Especially with this album. We were just doing a bunch
of accidents or in the studio, like doing something and

(37:03):
then out of nowhere, like something will fall on the
keyboard or like the guitars will be playing the kick
accord and something to go. We're like, whoa, but what
was that? Like erase everything, but keep that part.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Let's start from there, you know, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
And from that it would turn into something else. It
was like just a bunch of adventures that kind of
happened by accident, just like this little inquisitive kids.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
You know, after this last break, we'll be back with
the rest of my conversation with the law. Who are
you in the studio with? On some album?

Speaker 3 (37:45):
On this album, I worked with you know, Robert Robert
glassfer On on a track.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I worked with.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
My core, my core people that I've been playing with
in my band free years Tony Whitfield and Simon. I
always forget Simon's producer's name, so he's going to smash
me or Flana Flanna fly, but incredible.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
This is a young all young music year.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
He's a guitarist.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, you're a guitarist, yeah, and guitarist, phenomenal producer. I
worked with Kareem Riggins. It's amazing, uh man wonder it's
also an awesome producer from Philly. I think he's out

(38:43):
here in l A now. And Jeriy Khan who's a
producer in Brooklyn. So this is just all my friends.
Really forget Simon's last name, but he plays in Hyat's Coyote.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marvin.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Simon, Marvin Simon, if you watch this, dude, I love you. Man.
I just don't on anybody's last names. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
And was a lot of the writing done in studio
or did you? Did? You have a lot going there?

Speaker 3 (39:19):
On some of the songs, I would write alone, but
I also worked with my two writer friends, Hezekiah he's
a MC from Philly and MC from Philly under the
name Chemists.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
He's really dope. Hezekia has been uh.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Working with me as far as lyrics, go for maybe
since all the way back to my second my second album,
air Tys Revenge from air Tys Revenge all the way
up till now, and I produced and wrote a lot
of that out of Philly and my old collaborator that

(40:01):
I used to work with in the in that second album,
Steve McKee Steve Steve Udo was right, Steve McKeith and
Hezekia had their studios kind of in the same building.
So I would just hang out at everybody's face and

(40:21):
we would call has to come up just to hang
and then you know, like I said, when I'm in
the studio and everybody's in the room, I asked everybody
to be involved. Yeah, if my wife came to the studio,
I would ask her to be involved somehow. Like my
wife has written lyrics, written lyrics to some some songs.

(40:43):
Like I'll write some stuff and be like this sounds stupid,
what would you think? And because my wife is a
good writer, U but she writes, like really writes like
essays and books and stuff like that. But I ask anybody,

(41:03):
so now, if I don't have anybody to bounce stuff off,
I make colachas And that's how I, uh, the latter
part of the record. I just started getting really uh
into these collages.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
How are you making these collages? How do how do
they start? How do they sound?

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh? Well, it's like a word collage.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
So I'll write something down and if I'm not really
like sure what it is, I'll i'll put it. I'll
put it aside and I'll start writing something else that
don't have nothing to do with it, just without the
music on, and I'll just start writing writing, and then
I'll I'll take the other paper that I was trying

(41:50):
to write lyrics to.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
And you're writing to the music to that one.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
And I'll cut it up, like with some scissors, cut
it up, cut up, and then I'll take the other
page that I was just writing random stuff on.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
I'll cut that up and I'll just paste them all together.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Like lines, full lines, but I'll.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Cut it down and i'll just you know, pace them back.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Together and just kind of move him around.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Until I got that idea from Donald Fagan. Like I
was reading an article. Donald Fagan said that's how he
wrote his lyrics and Big Black Cow. I was like,
what I'm gonna do that?

Speaker 2 (42:26):
And it worked.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
That's crazy, No wonder Steally Dan lyrics. It kind of
makes sense though.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
The lyrics kind of make sense, but don't.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Onder like I Sometimes I just feel like, I know
those guys are genius, and sometimes I'm like, I'm stupid.
I don't I kind of get where he's going one
hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
See, Yeah, man, I want to sit down with with
with ghost Face and ask him because I feel.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Like he's doing the same thing.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, yeah, ghost Face might get it. Ghost Face is
on that level. He's the best man. Earlier, you were saying, like,
early on in your career, you felt very much like
dictated to in a sense, very much like like like
you couldn't maybe you were hemmed in and unable to
make a decision on decisions for yourself or maybe I'm

(43:14):
extrapolating too far.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes and no.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
You know, I felt like it started off as you know,
we want you to just get in here, do something different,
do something crazy. But then they were like, wow, that's
too crazy. We need to figure out how to like
bring it in the real it ends. You know, this

(43:39):
is and this is like interscope as a interscope or
like I wasn't designed direct to interscope, so it was
like production. I was under like a production company, so
it was kind of who are you under? It was
a production company called more Yo Music, So it was

(44:00):
it's like three people where they were James and Too
May's sons. No Way, yeah, and so these cats that
I respect their musicianship, Yeah, but it was just I
don't think they were telling me like we need to
dumb you down to make you pop. They were just like,
this is so wild.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
How are we gonna sell this? Man? Know?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
What is there a version of your first album that
is a little like are there versions of those songs
or other songs that are a little more.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, it's a there's lots of song. We did so
many songs. I do so many songs for records, and
then I just sit back like we what of this
is a record?

Speaker 2 (44:42):
You know?

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Especially for that first record, it was we did so
many songs, work with so many people. Wow, Like I
did like four songs with Dyla, but we only yeah,
well we only chose one. So that and then when
I went to do my second album, I was I

(45:03):
came to the label to have Dyla do the whole album.
So before Dyla passed, we were working like I was
at it at his house it's like we did like
six songs in Detroit and then he moved out to La.
It was like got to be like six unfinished tunes.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Wow. So the version that got leaked wasn't necessarily like.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Those songs that got leaked were like the songs that
I produced.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
So that wasn't like the album as it was gonna
come out the way that it was.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Just whoever was working with the people that were mixing
the album, they just like some of the stuff that
like the unfinished mixes of the because Dyla didn't Dyla
mixed all his stuff itself. So like I said, he
had started getting six So we just went in and

(46:03):
started mixing the songs that I had produced, and those
were the ones that got leaked.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Sorrow, Tears and Blood. That was that you and Dilla.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
No, that was just me.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
That was just you, Okay because someone online someone said
that it was Dylan and I was always.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
No, No I produced that, but I had I was
bringing in a lot of different people like to kind
of be a part of it, like Za Mama Calm
and came and he wrapped on the last half of it.
But it was it was for a sorrow, cheers and

(46:39):
Blood project. They were doing a Feila Cootie project that
wasn't even for my second album. Really around that time
that that's what had happened. I had I convinced the
label to allow me to produce six songs by myself
and then let Jay Dilla come in and produce six

(47:01):
songs and then we make an album.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
And they were in on that.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
They were in on it until they heard what I
was doing.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Did they hear the stuff that was leaked?

Speaker 2 (47:13):
That's when they leaked it.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
What didn't they like about it?

Speaker 3 (47:16):
They didn't like it, But then when it got leaked, ironically,
they came back and was like, this stuff's amazing.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I was like, what the yeah, this.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Is amazing, like incredible cuts a. I me what was
Jimmy ivying?

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Like, oh man, that's hilarious. Jimmy didn't know what to
think about it. He was just like, this is not
R and B. So then I was like, well, what's
R and B? Then, Jimmy so you would be like, okay, okay,
you want to play that game. Let's get doctor dre
in here.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
So Doctor j was like, this ain't this ain't R
and B.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
It's a hybrid. I know, exactly what it is, so
signing me and I was like.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Okay, how do I do this.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
In the midst of that, I guess somebody that I
you know, I don't want to out anyone, out anyone,
but when they heard the people that they thought would
say it sucked, was like, actually, I could do something
with this.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
It got the leaked.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
So someone blocked you from signing to DRE.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
I don't think somebody blocked me from signing and Dre.
I just think once I started working the project with Dre,
the music that I had already worked on got leaked.
I guess in an effort to have me just start
from scratch, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Damn, that's the way it came to me.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
It was like, oh, everything's leaked, so I guess we
gotta start from the top.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
I was like, what, but theoretically you could have started
from the top, but you said fuck that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
I mean I tried, man, but I was just I
felt like I was doing a whole new album. I
just kind of lost what I would wear. I was
what was happening? Yeah, yeah, you know. And in the
in the middle of that, like the business side just
went into estellemate I think the the production label that

(49:22):
I was under kind of changed homes. They went to
another label, So it was just a bunch of label
stuff started happening. And at the same time that the
record was bootlegs, so it was just everything was up
in the air.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Drey must have loved you, though, I imagine, right.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still I still talked to Dre
every now and then.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Yeah, so you guys made music. Still.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
I don't know what Dre's doing, but I know maybe
one day. Still, I loved Dre.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
I love everything he's doing, and I think the last
time I saw him, we would I went into the
studio to hang out with Anderson Pack and he came
through when we was just hanging Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
Were you when you went into the stew with him
to do stuff? H firstborn? Second, I guess you would
have in a high school when Chronic came out or
close to Was that like in your or did you
kind of some some of these some people on these coasts.
I feel like I missed that a bit. You know.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
When I was in high school, I knew of the
Chronic because my brother was big in hip hop. But
when I was in high school, I was kind of
like a jazz snob, Like I was like, nah, man,
you know, only through that I really like was like, oh.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
THATX kind of hip is like.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Tropical quest because I knew the jazz samples, you know,
I was kind of approude. But by the time I
got to the second Chronic, I was already in in college,
you know, I was loving it.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
So by the time I got to the studio, I
was full on like.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
A static yeah something there with Doctor Dre And it's crazy.
You know they always say you really want something to happen,
you write it down, and I literally wrote down all
the people that I wanted to work with and I
worked with all of them.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Wow, And so that was crazy. It was in there.
I was just like, this is magic, This is magic.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
And I felt at home because Scott Storch was there,
and Scott Storch from Philly.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
So Philly got another Philly guy right of course.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
So we were just in there high five and it
was just it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Damn it. Did he did he had he heard of
you by that point, like Scott or what did he
know you from Philly?

Speaker 2 (51:44):
I knew Scott from Philly.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
So it was it was great.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
That's amazing. Questlove tells a great story about how Sometimes
came to be in this in the glasshouse record or
live session. I don't know how you want to frame that.
Which is an incredible I mean it's it's streaming. People
should listen to and watch it on YouTube. It's phenomenal,

(52:11):
so well done well, i mean, directed, well performed everything.
That's an incredible piece than you. Uh, But Questum tells
us a pretty pretty funny story about how Sometimes came
to be. Can you tell that from your perspective?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Well, by the time I had came to the studio,
they were kind of like already joking around, playing playing
the record in the way our mirror and James produced.
It's kind of like just one big jam session. So
they were just in there laughing, joking, and I came in,
just got on the mic and just started freestyling over

(52:51):
top their joke, their banter.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
They're poking fun at comn from missing out on the road.
Maybe the most death y'all seen Bay. Yeah, And.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
You know, it was just a bunch of bunch of
laughing and joking coming, you know, and different switch ups
in the music they would do as jokes.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
You know, they'll play a ton of different shapes and
then at the end they was like, all right, you
picked from that and then we'll come back and make
it a whole track. But when I heard them, I
didn't know it was a joke. I just went in
right in there and started singing along. They were like, hey,
what is this this working? And some of the freestyle.

(53:37):
I changed some of the lyrics, but most of sometimes
was just right off. Sometimes I wish I was with me,
sometimes I wish I was a drug free I was
just I thought I was just going going in with
the bands back, you know.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
So, Yeah, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
It's like a freestyle song.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
It's insane, says. It's at the end of the story.
He says it to where he's like, y'all were mixing up.
Umi says, to make fun of comment with with Bill's
bills bills I think from Destiny's Child because it was
the car Man movie. D just started. Yeah, so but
he said then at that he says, yeah, it was
one take.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
The core of it, most of it, and then I
just went back in and uh, put backgrounds vocals on there,
and then just like some of the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
I changed some of the lyrics, but like I said,
most of it.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Was just that was it much longer and you guys
had to like trim it down.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah. Yeah, it was like, man, it was almost like
eight minutes just and then going into other stuff.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
But it didn't have a base on it. It was
just our mere playing drums and James on the keyboards.
And then later on they had Pino Palladino come in
and that was one tape.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Pino didn't even Pino didn't even know what was going on.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
It was it was just like, all right in two
in two more bars, we won't go It's gonna go
to another.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
It's gonna go on another gourd rady go New York
and it kept everything.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
I loved it, or as on the spot as it
could get.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
As far as the music, that's an amazing story, man,
that's an amazing story.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
I love it like I love it when it's like that,
you know, that's just the music just comes out of you.
When I was working with Dla, a lot of the
music happened the same way.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Really.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah, we did a song we just I did a
song with Guru on his Jazmine task album.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
On volume one of that, right yeah, right, And.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Me and Guru went out to Detroit and Del it
was just in the studio. It was quiet, just like this,
and he was just like and we was like, so,
where's the music. He's like, oh, I was waiting for
y'all to get here. Let me, let me put something together.

(56:10):
And he did that whole everything. He just walked around
collected like twenty vinyls and just all while we're talking
and he's rolling blood on the vinyl just like yeah,
so we oh man seen a minute and then he
would just keep like one headphone on the whole time
is just quiet and we just in there.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
He got games, so we playing games and stuff and
then he's just like.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
And then like literally, I think that beat took him
like not even ten minutes, because he was just boom,
next record ten minutes. And then he would just turned
their beat up just like that, and he's like whoa,
And I was like, Yo, that's a lie. You you

(56:59):
had this beat made? This was just a performed Like
come on.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
He was like, nah, were there beats he took longer
to make?

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Like?

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Were there? I know?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Every time I worked with him, he made it from nothing,
damn even the drum sound.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
He was never struggling with anything like, oh I got
this thing, I don't know what to.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Do with nah.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Even when he was like not feeling well, it was
the same. His creativity didn't go nowhere.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
I thought.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
The last time I worked with him, he messed my
head up the most because we were having a problem
with some of the samples. It was one of the
an rs from the label had came with me that
time and we were like talking about some of the

(57:55):
stuff and like clearing the samples, and he.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Was like, what, I replay all this.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
He programmed, he knew, programmed all of the moves in
the crib, replayed everything. What And I was like, what,
I don't know your play bass? What the hell is
going on?

Speaker 2 (58:19):
And he said, I don't know how to play?

Speaker 1 (58:21):
So so did he actually know or did he just
had he just listen enough that he knew, Like he just.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
He said he didn't know, but I was like, yo,
you're playing that and you killing it. He was like,
I just know how to find the sounds that I want.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Damn, man, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
And the crazy thing was the label had flew James
Boyster out the next day to kind of replay the
stuff that he sampled.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
And me and James was in there like what is
going on? Like how did you? James was like I'm out, I'm.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
It's like he because we thought James was like the
man at finding programming the moves, was like, wow, got
the exact sounds like from.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
You know on the move. It's just that one noise.
He blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Jesus, that's wild and did it just as fast as
he would do chopping the beat.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I was done.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
That's really wild. I'm gonna go back to the idea.
Early on you were talking about your what was your
high school teacher's name, mister King, Mister King, you're talking
about how he also introduced you to the idea of
dynamics and music essentially, and that's so present in your music.
And you do a version of Since I've Been Loving

(59:55):
You by Zeppelin. That's like that song has always floored
me because again the dynamics where they go up and
down with that song is and then the version you do,
and there was one you did at like a root
jam something you do since I've Been Loving You into
everything in this right place, some believer, I think at

(01:00:16):
the Cork this morning because I was like, dude, y'all
are ridiculous. Man. Oh yeah, you guys are ridiculous. Man.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
That's a good The cool thing about the Roots say,
they encompassed so many.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Styles of music.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
I was always inspired by them, you know, Like I said,
coming up in Philly, I would search out the Amyre
jam sessions, you know, because he would have these impromptu
jam sessions around the city and I would just try
and find them. And ironically, like that's where I met

(01:00:56):
some of the cool musicians that I know to this day. Like,
I was just always, uh, I think drawn to that,
and I always try to keep that element. And I
always saw what the Roots was doing. It's like kind
of the blueprint of what I wanted to do. I
felt like it was the gateway to push what I

(01:01:20):
had absorbed from college and jazz and how I like
fused that in to uh, you know, the the popular culture.
I would say, you know what I'm saying. I felt

(01:01:40):
like they really were doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Man. It was just inspiring to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Yeah, man, I got I gotta put in requests that
you and Kurt do a project together. Man. There's also
another video. I can't find it anymore, man, but I
ripped it so somewhere in my having in my heart
drive somewhere. You guys on Falling when it was still
the Late Show doing the roots on the other side
ten years or so ago. Oh yeah, with the the strings.

(01:02:08):
But there's a bit of where you and and Captain
Kirk just go like just trading back and forth, and
I've never seen anything like it. It's like chills.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's cool when there's musicians for
me that can.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Set up that environment where you feel like, wow, I
can jump off this cliff and I'll be fine, yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
And then nobody's going no, don't jump.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
You find it hard to find musicians because I mean, like,
you are a guy. You just strike me as a
guy just from listening to you and seeing you, like
it's like I feel like you'll go further off the
cliff than anybody, you know what I mean. Like, it's
hard for you to find people that like, I'm like
the Lenny Bruce Yeah for the yeah, yeah, for the

(01:03:05):
young hands. Yeah, they won't get that reference, but yes,
you're the Lenny Bruce of RB. You're getting arrested on
stage for taking it too far.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Man, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
I mean that's like I said, that's the jazz thing,
and then it's also the punk rock thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
Bad Brains is like my favorite, one of my favorite
groups of all time. And I mentioned my boy Chuck
Trees because he used to play drums and the Bad
Brains and he's like my old g I met Chuck
we uh at our mere's house, but then we got
really close when we were roommates Uh in d'angelo's band

(01:03:46):
Wow and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
For a summer. Then I got fired.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
But what you get fired for?

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
I couldn't. I was just a horrible background singer, man.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
I seen, but I was.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
I was like so into what everybody else was doing.
I kept missing my parts.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
It wasn't that I couldn't sing the parts, but it's
like our mirrors on drums. H roy Hard goes on
in the trumpet section. D'angelo's playing keys, and this is
like me right out of high school. I'm just looking.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Around at everybody, like, oh my god, this is so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
And then I look and d'angelo's giving me the deaths
there like you missed your note again, and I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Like, oh yo. He was like, yeah, who fires you
out of Dangelo's band? Like, how does that work?

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
D'Angelo fired me, man, But it was very friendly. He said,
you need to go get a record. You too much
about the music, man, he was looking at everything.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Not doing your job, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
About the music. You fucking mind you that's crazy. Did
did you process it as like a blow or you're
just like, nah, you're probably right man, Like no, I was.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
I took it as wow, you think I could get
a record? Hell? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Is that? Is that? How you knew Keytar Boston Bird?

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
I met Keytar?

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Yeah, from that process because I started putting together a
demo with.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
The guy from but the drummer from the Spin Doc
which I never I gotta said, I never knew that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Yeah. We went to the same college.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
The drummer from the Spin Doctors, Aaron Comas two Princes
Spin Doctors produced on your first record and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Ironically, we went to the same college and we were
playing in the same.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Dive bar jazz band.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Uh like three in the morning at this place called
Sidewalk Cafe, and me and Rob were having a hard
time stay and walk to make the gig. So Aaron
was like, YO, just come to my house, and you know,

(01:06:29):
I got some instruments there. We could kind of like
jam until the gig we go there. He lives in
a man like straight up like I'm like, what do
you do mean?

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
You're so rich?

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Because I didn't know anything about the spin doctors and
then he was like, dude, I'm about He didn't even
tell us until like, I don't think he ever told me.
I just kind of found out about that myself.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
He didn't have like records on the wall.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
No, it's just like a regular house. But he had
an ill studio. Wow, just like wow, like how you
got all this stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
And that I wrote.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
A lot of h like my first uh songs on
on on our air, on my first album at his crib,
like when you call Queen in Sanity love poems, all
of those.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
That's that's the sequence, right, that's in sequence on the
album too. That's a those are great songs man, And
he's playing drums on those, yep.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Except he's playing drums on all of those except for
Queen Insanity. Because I mirrored I marreor did a uh
a mere move. I was just like, let me try something,
and I think, uh, you know, I was just like wow,

(01:07:59):
we kept. We kept a lot of it, the integrity
of it, but that was the only one that we
kind of re recorded. But everything else it was just
like it was at this spot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
I think it was another tune too. We had this so,
like I said, I had did a whole.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
Record alone at Aaron's and then we just picked some
of those and shopped it too for late You.

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Know, you got still cool.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Yeah, we're still cool. I just haven't spoken to him
in a while, but yeah, Aaron, Aaron, we had a
whole album. I thought it was kind of like a
rock album almost like not rock. It was like kind
of rock, kind of Jameric.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Why ish?

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
But I was gonna ask, I mean, we sped past
the Zeppelin, but like the way you, I mean, like
the way you do a Zeppelin song, man, Like that's
really it's it's really, first of all, a lot of
the any cover I've really heard of yours, whether we
just Sarrotares and Blood or Can't High Love or Hide

(01:09:04):
and Dry or since I've been loving you, it's like
you definitely bring something to I want to ask you
more about just what you the way you might interpret
the song, But have you ever thought about like it's
it's I can't think of anyone who can do a
Zeppelin song justice the way that you did on that. Like,
have you thought about just forming a rock band, like

(01:09:25):
putting a band like I mean, and I guess your
second album is a little.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Were very hard hard rock. I think the band everybody
in my band thinks there rock musician anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
But yeah, I was sort of making My kids asked
me that too, you know. My son asked me, why
don't you make another type of band when y'all doing
But I'm just like we what I do is I
try to shove everything in the world into one burrito.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Yeah. Yeah, but it's just so fun to hear you
do that genre because it's.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Like, yeah, there's a I would love to go full
on into that genre, into the jazz world too.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
You know, like a lot of people don't even know
that I sing jazz.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
We would like to do like a straight up like
a like a I.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Used to, But then I'm like, what the hell is
jazz now?

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
It's a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
It's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Yeah, it's kind of what you're doing now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
So I don't know rock would be cool though.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Yeah, is there a party that wants to the amount
of the amount of time between this record and your
last records, almost the amount of time between yeah, the
first and second album. Do you is there a party
that is happy to just put stuff out when every
so often? Do you? Is there a party that wants
to it? Sounds like you have a lot of stuff too,

(01:10:53):
like something you can be releasing regularly, not to I
could put it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
I could put out an album every two years. I could.
I got so much music.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Why are you depriving us?

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
I mean, I just wanted to be done right. You
know I've been doing putting music out. You're not satisfied
with the way I put it out that. I'm just like, man,
I wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
To be done the right way. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
With this album, I put my own money into it
to make sure I kind of like did it how
I was envisioning it and make it kind of work.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
But I don't want to go bro, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Definitely not. But it's a good album though.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
That's sure. I insisted on it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
It almost feels like the most even including the one
that I guess like at leads. But that's not fair
because that wasn't really what it was intended to be.
But it does feel like the most cohesive project in
a sense, you know, where it's like it just feel
like there's a through line and you could just start
right back at one like like you could just loop
it and it's like it feels like it's like a circle.
It just doesn't stop. You know. It has that real

(01:12:04):
complete feel to it, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Yeah. I mean this record was definitely a labor of love.
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
A lot of it was done in my own like
personal studio, and just it wasn't a label for I'm
doing this, so I can kind of because the label
like signed me to do it. It was just something
I was doing. And then I was like, I want
this to come home. Let me go fish for somebody
to help me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
You know what I'm saying. But I don't want to
do that no more. Man. I feel like.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
I put together good projects and I just have to
find a good home for it, you know, to so
that I can just put it out. But like I said,
I got mad ship, dude, mad shit.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Man, we got I want out there. I mean, I
hope you put it out.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
It just has to be it has to be right.
And that's the way I feel like because I put
a lot into stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
You know, can I I won't keep you here forever?
But can I ask you about Morocco? Oh yeah, I
would love ask one. What's some of my number one
destinations to go to? Man?

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
I love Morocco. The people are very It's almost like
a competition. Like I'll go to a woman my wife's
aunt's house, and then she'll find out her sister I went,
you know, her the other I know find out that
I went there, and then it's like oh yeah, And
then I'm in my mind. I'm like, we going there,

(01:13:33):
We're going to her house, and she goes, really, so
what'd you eat over there?

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Well, now you're gonna have this.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
It's like everything is great if you're a visitor, because
everybody's like you, you have never had hospitality like this.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
He come to my house and give you the best.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
So I'm like raiding. Everybody's green, everybody's a mentee.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
It's one of those doesn't sound too different from like
just like a black family that Auntie's house, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Okay, come and visit me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, Like oh man, you know, like
I can't visit no one you know, and.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Then they feed you and feed you and feed you,
and you're like, I'm none. And if you don't know
how to say this one word, you have to learn
this word or else you will you your stomach will
bust open and you'll just die in somebody's dinner table.
You have to learn this word called safi, saffi safi
that means enough, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Enough, because they will just keep feeding you and feeding
you like no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
No, because I mean they don't make us spread like
you've never seen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Wow and yeah, so wow.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
And the awesome thing about it, I didn't gain no weight,
and I ate so much food. I felt like I
was getting stronger. That's when I knew like there was
some something, something's up with.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
The food here. Yeah, because.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
I was eating late at night. Oh man, just some
of these leftovers, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
My I might move there. I was eating later night
last night. I feeling guilty, like a month, I gotta move.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
And the scenery, you know, I got into painting out there,
like really into painting because of so much scenery.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
And you had never done that really before.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
I always kept like a sketch book, but I never
like set up an easel and it was just like
I'm gonna paint like I'm gonna make a painting. I
always had like painter friends, so I watched them and
how they put and it was always similar to me
the way I put my songs together, just like a

(01:15:47):
bunch of collages. And so that was like my approach
to my paintings. And now I think that's kind of
what changed on this last album, because I approached it
just like I was doing those paintings, like just throwing

(01:16:07):
shit against the wall and see what sticks, you know,
or waiting around for something random that happened that we
didn't know how we did it. And then now I
was like, that's thetart, you know. Now let's see what
we can do around that. And I think I learned
that from from the painting.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
That's incredible. Yeah, And are you living in Morocco? Morocco
or like kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Like off and on?

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
I still my family still has a property out there
and I'm playing on. I'm actually on my way back
out there in July. So the plan is to live
here and and Morocco.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
It's really cool, man. I heard Hendricks back in the
day used to go through Morocco.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
I swear, I swear.

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
There's so many mountains and waterfalls. Morocco is I think
the only place in Africa where they have all of
the seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Really there's snow. There's that wind like a winter with
snow out there.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
Well, you go up these mountains and there's snow up there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Wow, and what's the music? I out there?

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Incredible? I got into this. It's this transient music that
they play called Ganawa.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
I heard of it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
Ganawa music is music based off of this instrument called
the gimbrii, which is they make it out.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Of the actual throat of.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
The of a goat, like and it's a base and
they make it from the the skin of the throat
and they use the strings the intestines because they have
this thing where if they slaughter animal, they have to
you have to use the of the entirety of the animals.

(01:17:59):
So they do other things with like they'll make if
after they eat all of the meat, they'll use the skin,
they'll use the bones. They you know, nothing goes away.
So they've made this instrument in Ghanawa was basically kind
of birthed out of the slave tree, the Islamic slave tree,

(01:18:20):
the sub Saharan slave trade.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
A lot of.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
The slaves came together, and the way they would remember
their heritage or where they came from, they would make
they through these songs they would create from this gimbi.
But when I tell you, it was like I was
at a Pentecostal church. Dude, it was I didn't know

(01:18:44):
what nobody was saying, but cats up. They're singing songs
about Allah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
But it's like we're at a Pentecostal church.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
Cats is passing out, their little cat's getting laid hands
on and they sacrificed the chickens. Wow, it's like a
full on Southern Baptist. And I was just in there
like wow, Like I feel like a little boy again.

(01:19:12):
And they start these they start these seances. I call
them at like five in the afternoon and then it's
over at five in the morning. And I mean, just this,
it's like a trance. Like you go into this music
and it's like you leave this planet. And I'm actually

(01:19:35):
going out there in July to play with.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
A Ganawa band.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
That's amazing, like a band from out there, and you're
gonna sing.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
I don't know what I'm gonna saying, but it's gonna
be awesome. You know it's a live thing. Are you're
gonna of course live? Yeah, at the festival. They have
a Ganala Festival. They have lots of festivals, music festivals,
Man and Hendricks. That's what Hendricks will be. He would
go to those festivals. But it's this I really can't
describe it other than it's like it feels like Delta

(01:20:10):
blues Wow mixed with riggy Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
I'm excited to check that out that part of Africa.
It just seems like incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Like I would.

Speaker 3 (01:20:20):
I would try to record them, but they don't let you,
Like if they see your phone, they'll be like, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Like I pulled it out at one of the everything stopped.

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
I felt like. I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I just had to get some of this groove. I
had to get some of this groove down the chickens.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
But we had them come.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
We had them come to my house and they I
have a rooftop, built a tent on the roof and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
They played the whole thing on the roof.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Did you record that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
They couldn't tell me no that. I was like, y'all, no,
I can record. Now you're out there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
You're like like Alan Low Max and Morocco or some
ship man.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
Oh man, they they called me the America honey black man.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
They're going another country. I guess I am. Goddamn yeah.
But the.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Really really good people, beautiful people.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
That's great man. Well, ship man, I'll come check you
out there with these groups.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
That's how yeah. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Fortunately have to miss you in l A bock at
you hey, thank you for thanks for taking all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
I really appreciate having its cool conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
In the episode description, you'll find a link to a
playlist of some of our favorite songs and features from
the law. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com
slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews,
and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at
Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,

(01:22:07):
with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our
engineer is Ben Tollinay. Broken Record is a production of
Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
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ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple

(01:22:29):
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
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Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.