April 4, 2025 • 58 mins
In this soulful and inspiring episode, Brandi Harvey sits down with Grammy Award-winning artist Estelle to talk about music, reinvention, and owning your voice in every season of life. 🎶From global hits to personal growth, Estelle shares her journey of breaking barriers, staying authentic, and navigating the ever-evolving entertainment industry.
Whether you're an artist, entrepreneur, or just looking for a dose of motivation, this episode is packed with wisdom and empowerment!Tap in and get ready to be inspired! 🎤
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Whether you're an artist, entrepreneur, or just looking for a dose of motivation, this episode is packed with wisdom and empowerment!Tap in and get ready to be inspired! 🎤
Watch the full episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/6lRfg3pUN58?si=x9zx7E8TL7ragA2I
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Stay connected with Brandi Harvey ⬇️
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Move to the state to twenty six, get a Grammy
at twenty eight years old, and at thirty eight you
finally say I can sing.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It took switching off and practicing the switch off. And
what's God telling me right now? What's the Holy Spirit
telling me right now? Because the Holy Spirit is talking
to me?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, let me know we have the magic. We have it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You have everything you need. Everything is his between you
and God.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
What are you doing? You said, I'm gonna win a Grammy,
and I'm gonna do it in the States. I'm gonna
take my talents to a whole nother country and build
a life for myself. I think there are so many
people out here right now who are listening who are
so afraid to take the leap. We wouldn't be seeing here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
If I wasn't, like, let me sell these shoes now,
let me get rid of these bags.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That is so good. People have to know that when
they're talking about building the thing that they want, you're
gonna have to give up some stuff along the way,
go for it.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Move towards it, and agine being fifty five or seventy
five saying.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I could have there was this moment that you have
with an a Andrson. She said to you, you should
stop begging. Before I was very much like, what can
you do for me? Baby? Choose me? Why am I
not the one? I started to check myself and wonder
if I would stand outside in the rain with a
boombox for myself.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Ooh, I would in torrential rain with electricity because I'm worthy.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Welcome to Vaught Empower's Talk. So we don't just scratch
the surface. We dive deep into the lives of some
of the world's most interesting change makers. I'm your host,
Brandy Harvey. Y'all, this is gonna be so amazing. Today
we got the beautiful and talented Estelle a Stelle is
a Grammy Award winning international artist that has released five
solo albums, countless features and collaborations that have crossed multiple genres.
(01:55):
A Steale sore to international prominence in two thousand and
eight with her Hitch. The lead single American Boy featuring
Kanye West, won a two thousand and nine Grammy. In
twenty fifteen, her album True Romance yielded the Anthem Conqueror
guest starring in a popular episode of Fox's Empire. It
stood out as one of the show's highest charting songs
(02:17):
and fueled the original soundtrack to a number one on
the Billboard Top one hundred. Estelle joined the Apple Music
Radio family and brought the world The Estelle Show. Within
a year of the show's debut, a Stelle won the
Esteemed Gracie Award for Women in Media. A Stelle voiced
a lead character by the name Garnet on Cartoon Network's
(02:38):
Emmy nominated hit show Steven Universe, giving the cartoon world
another superhero of color. A Stille believes time flies when
you are consistently living on purpose. Bought in Power's Talks,
Welcome singer, songwriter, radio show host, and actress Estelle to
the show. Wow that is you. Look at you looking
(03:04):
out regal with your gold on child, your fly like
you said, listen, write me down. You know, Estelle, you
are so so spoken. I feel like I'm giving you
all this Atlanta loudness right now. Okay, I am so
glad that you have joined me. I mean five solo albums.
(03:28):
You were on the road to your six debuting this month.
How do you feel at this stage in your career? Oh? Accomplished.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, everything you mentioned was just like wow, wow, yeah,
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. And six is six
is a good number? Yeah, six number.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It's taking you seven years to write this album? Seven years?
What's been going on these last seven years? Some gotta
feel complete, some gotta feel like you don't done something
in seven years.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, I've been living between every album I lift.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You know, I'm not the girl.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That's like next year there's another album, because what am
I singing about? All of my songs are deeply me,
and every single album has been about my life and
what I've had to surmount or you know, like what
I've had to like get beyond. And so this album
I needed to I was going through some very real
life awakening scenarios. Yeah, one of a better phrase, And
(04:26):
I had to take a minute and really figure out
what I wanted it to look like moving forward in yeah,
my period. Yeah, you said this album was a reawakening.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You had to give yourself a soul hug? What did
that mean? I had to just be.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Nice to myself extensively for a while. I realized that
I was making every album for something or someone else,
you know, whether it was my family, whether it was
other people's expectations, whether it was what I thought I
should be doing. And then it came maybe twenty seventeen,
I started working on this album. I didn't even know it,
(05:03):
maybe in twenty twelve, but maybe twenty seventeen. After I
put Our True Romance and I was getting ready to
go with Lovers Rock, I was having these conversations with
my mum and my dad, and the more I had
these conversations with them, the more I realized the things
that I were raised on were not true, and they
(05:24):
were clearer and telling me everything. They were just like, yeah,
so I had for the first time, I had the
courage to just ask, like, so, you guys been married.
So the short version of the story as I get
ready to release Lover As Rock is, my mom and
dad met, had me and my two sisters separated kind
of by force family stuff, and then got back together
(05:49):
when I was twenty three as a for real couple.
They got married when I was thirty three.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, they real Wow your parents as wow. Their journey was.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I thought it was incredible but beautiful, but there's yeah,
And I was taken on their journey with all of
my decisions from day to you know, I was taking
on essentially the sins, all the stuff that my family
had charged me with, you know, to that I felt
like they had charged me with. They didn't they didn't
tell me I had to do anything. And you know,
(06:21):
I believe that your parents do the best. They came
and what they got. Yeah, And I was, you know,
using that as.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
More like escape.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You know, it's kind of like escapegoat eat scenario for myself.
And I was like, you know, this isn't doesn't feel good,
my body don't want it X.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
My breakouts were becoming.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Way frequent, and you know, I felt like I got
rid of them when I was in my late twenties
and they started coming back with the force.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
My voice went.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I was sick every time, like it just got It
was one thing after the other, back to back to back.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So I kept.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Asking my mom questions and my dad. Eventually, and as
I started to wrap up the whole cycle of Lover's Rock,
I realized I'd written that album about them. It wasn't
that actually about me and my feelings. It was like
rewriting their story.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And so I dedicated to them as like a cycle,
a chapter closing, but knowing the things I knew, was like,
oh well, now I can't sit hear it act like
that was okay or this is all right to keep
moving forward with. So when found some therapy and went
and spoke to people frequently.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Before you get into what you had to kind of
unpack in therapy, though, I really want to go back
to the story with your parents, because I want to
know what did you feel was heaped on you? Because
you're the second oldest, firstborn girl, You're one of nine,
and so I can imagine that you felt a lot
of pressure to perform, to succeed, to be perfect, to
(07:46):
kind of set this example.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Set The example is the quote, and for me, it
left no room for error. And even if you were
you did something that was slightly weird, it was still
like before anybody could critique me, I would talk crazy
to myself, you know, before anyone could tell me how
bad I sounded this week, I already told myself I
sounded crazy, you know, before anybody could tell me, oh,
that's going to reflect baddy, I already told myself and
(08:09):
beat myself up about it. And I believe your body
here is when you say that, you know, the body
keeps school. Yeah, So it was a lot of that
going on and imagine doing that for thirty something years
to yourself. My body was like, I'm good, it's enough.
Stop cut it out.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean so so much of this was the self
talk that you were doing to yourself, and.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It was it was it was. It wasn't How would
I say this.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
My parents.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I never want to paint them as villains, but again,
I had to stop the buck somewhere with them.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I had to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Me and my mom had real, real frank conversations about everything,
and to the point where I'm like, I'm very proud
to say I can tell her like, no, don't call
me with that today.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, you know you have tools, Go use them. I
don't want to hear you complain about so and so
and so and so. You let them talk to you
like that, Go handle that. I'm not your parent. You know,
We've had conversations like that, you.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Know what I mean, because that's part of like when
you're the oldest, I mean, because we were kind of
having this before we started being the oldest. Yeah, you
become the parentified child exactly, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I just wanted to not be that for my
whole life and not be that for like this next version,
this next chapter, this next act that I got going
that I you know that I enjoy is freedom here
and I felt like I couldn't do it back then.
I felt like I'd always be holden to somebody's version
(09:40):
of who they think I should be. And well it
doesn't track for the family for you to behave like that?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And why you do? Who told you to behave? And
it was just like me, it's so many women who
feel that way. Though, was still like, it's so many women,
I mean, because I know I've walked around with that.
And of course when you come from a family where
you have a parent who's well known and around the
globe and you cannot go anywhere without being associated with
(10:06):
your parents, you know, like everywhere I go, I'm so
I'm Steve, you know, And so that comes with expectation,
and that comes with a level of I have to
be a certain way and it's very performative.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I feel like I feel like the word autonomy is
underused when we talk about just that whole experience, like
we're I think it and then take it out of
just like our shared experience of being the oldest doors, right,
people feel like and I was having a discussion this weekend,
people feel like, well, the Internet told me I'm supposed
(10:43):
to do this by this time. The Internet told me
that if I'm not washing my face this way, told me,
if I don't put this thing on my mouth and
this thing on my nose and show the world the
morning minute I get up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
There ain't that the new thing? Girl?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I just I just think I don't want to see
you all doing.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I don't want to see you brush your teeth and
how you pout your water on your glass in the
morning and put.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Banana pills on your face.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I want to see none.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Of it, like the banana peals. What what am I doing?
Do I need to put banana pills on my face
to bath? You probably don't take my mouth to go
to bed. I probably don't know it's it's glorious.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Now why would you? Why would you do that?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But to me, it took switching off and practicing the
switch off, practicing the how do I feel in my body?
And what's God telling me right now? What's the Holy
Spirit telling me right now? What's what's the thing that's
burning in myself? Like I would ask for physical cues
because I think sometimes your mind is calibrated to work
(11:44):
in a certain way, and so until you uncalibrate it
for whatever be that makes sense. Yeah, it's gonna immediately
take you there. So what else the physical cues? I
would be like, God, when I'm doing something crazy, make
my left knee ache, or when if i'm if I'm
doing if this is the right task, Holy Spirit, it
let this burn, Let let my stomach, let my chest go.
(12:04):
Every time. Wow, it's on the one like if I'm
speaking and I feel like we're in right here, Yeah,
it's almost like it's not it's not almost, it's the
Holy Spirit is talking to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, let me know. We have the magic. We have it. Yeah,
we do.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So until I got you know, I feel like until
I started to like feel and get into that space
with myself, I was, you know, I wasn't able to
flip my way of thinking. Now I get it. Now
I can do it. It's almost like, okay, well I
know these cues means something, So now I can tell
my body and my brain. Yeah, you're doubting yourself, don't
(12:41):
worry about it. Stop doing that. You're right, You're correct.
And I give that to people like turn off, turn
the TV off and the words of Kendrick turn it off.
You are correct. Nothing outside of you is Nothing outside
of you is right to a degree, you know, like
if you understand in this scenario, you are you have
(13:02):
everything you need. Everything you're everything is his between you
and God.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What are you? What are you doing? Yeah, you have
everything you need. I mean, I think that that's the
part of the unlearning, right, because when we start to
talk to ourselves properly, right, we start to tell ourselves
to things that we need to hear that make the
(13:26):
path straight and make the vision clear and playing. And
I think you've been able to do that. But I
think the writing has has been helpful for that. Write
in music right in.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Like it's it's the most my normal way of writing songs.
Would we used to be getting there and overthink it,
get in there and allow people to tell me this
is not right, this is not how English works.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh you and art it's objective.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
So but it was like for one of a beat phrase,
it was that it was like, this is not how
this word. She's got to be this way, this is
not that doesn't make sense or you know, and I
would I would do that myself, Like this doesn't make sense,
don't You shouldn't write songs like that, not understanding that.
Sometimes it's just energy. It's the intent in the way
that you sing something or the way that you say
(14:16):
something on the record that makes it makes sense to somebody.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And then with this album, I just stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I stopped all of it and I would just walk
around the house singing and that a doing and put
it on my phone, go into the studio, and four
hours later we came out with a record. Every single
time I was like, all right, so four is the number?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Cool?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
All right?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And I would pray before I.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Went in every time, like would you want me to
say on this just let me flow, get me out
the way. If I begin to get in the way,
please thank you Holy Spirit, And to the point where
me and the producer would get in.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
A work Wait, wait, wait, I need you to rewind.
I needed to go back because everybody be talking about
DC era prayers and praying for a minute, some of
y'all gotta be praying and how to get your purpose aligned? Okay,
and you just gave us the prayer right there.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
What would you go into the studio and prayer? I
would pray, like what do you want me to say?
And like I said, like what you want me to say?
I would say, so I should probably say it, did
God give me what you want.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Me to say? Let it flow through me, let me
get out the.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Way, and not judge it in Jesus name, thank you,
and not judge it to.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You know, I'm rereading right now was I have it
on audio right now, The Game of Life and How
to Play It by Florence Scovelshan And that is so
much of the book right now is blessing the things
that we want to see, right, blessing those things before
they happen. Like I'm already blessing it. I was doing
it earlier. They don't know. It was like, we're gonna
(15:43):
bless the space. Lord, We're gonna bless it because we
notice our first day up in here today it's perfect. Yeah.
I think that that's the part that we we want
things to be perfect. But if we just allow ourselves
to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Stop judging what you have. There's something, There is an entity,
There is God, there is someone that has laid this
whole path out for you. And you're here, Nikki Picket
in then at and stuff like, well, in my mind's eye,
based on all the trauma and all the things that
I got passed down through my jeans, this ain't right.
And I was like, how dare you? Like I start
(16:18):
looking at myself. When I do that, I'm like, how
dare I let me chill out? Like my ego Let
me and my ego chill out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's so good?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
This enough, like get out of the way, how dare you?
And when I do that, I'll tell you the path
is laid out so flawlessly. I couldn't even dream it up,
Like how do you want a Gracie in the first
year that arguably when you started, I was I wasn't sure.
I just knew I had to do it. And so
for me, like whenn in the gracy is like something
(16:48):
that you put some five ten years and that like
in the very first year, in the middle of pandemic,
God was like, no, here go.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Just if I had had my if at the point
in time, if I'd had my way, I'd have been
so picky. I'd have been pulling this thing apart. I'd
have been like, they sain't right. I didn't say the
word right, But thank God He moved me out of
that space in my life, and he was like, you're
gonna learn to surrender. And in surrendering every single time,
(17:20):
everything we've had to do is just been like beyond
my wildest dreams.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
From the person who didn't I think they were a
singer until they were thirty eight years old, you win
a Grammy at twenty eight years old, move to the
state to twenty six, get a Grammy at twenty eight
years old, and at thirty eight you finally say I
can sing.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, it's because so again, this was the release of
expectations and the release of caring too much and putting
that block on myself. But no one had put a
luck on me.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I thought that I had to get my mom's permission
or her certification that I could do this. She had
already given it to me years ago. Wow, she had
a really told me, you're good, you don't have to
do nothing. I release you, like in so many words,
in so many ways she said it. But in my
head I needed her to tell me I could sing
(18:20):
in order for me to believe I could sing. And
it came from being maybe twelve and her my un
cried for joy but not not for sadness, because I'm
just like, oh, it was such a release. Her and
my Auntie were in the house and I was off
school for some reason, and I remember being singing in
the bathroom one of Mary J. Bliger's songs, and I
just started singing really loud, but to see if they
(18:41):
could hear it, see if they would like it. And
I'll tell you about And this is the part where
you understand familiar stuff has sometimes nothing to do with
a kid, but then they can be impacted. My mom
and my auntie had a very interesting relationship. And my
Auntie starts laughing, and my mom laughed along with her,
like you know you laugh at your kids, like what
(19:02):
are you doing? Like, But for me that was a
huge ego knock, a huge like I don't they think
I'm shit? Oh wow, oh they think I can't sing.
And then I had the other cousins who could sing.
I have my sisters who could sing, really sing like SWV.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Sing was the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
You know, we love them, their legends, but I don't
have that high voice. My voice is deeper and raspia
even back then, and I just felt like, if I
don't sound like them, then I don't, you know. And
that was that was ruminating and growing. And so I've
sang these songs. I go on stage and I do
my best, and every time i'd be in any scenario,
(19:40):
I'd look for the person who was gonna sense it.
Can I curse a little bit? Yeah, I'd look for
the person who was gonna show me subconsciously, and I'd
find them to like angle towards. I realized my patterns
and I was just like, I'm befriend and the person
who I thought was way better than me. For them
to look down on me, it wasn't about me liking them.
It was more just me calling in that energy and
(20:01):
they would do it every time.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And so when I realized that.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Was what it was, Wow, Yeah, there was a lot
of that going on. I called my mom and I
was like, I was frying fish. It was Easter and
I started frying this fish and.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Pop bubbled over it. It wouldn't stop.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
How the spirds like, call your mom and cleared up,
Call your mama, cleared up, And I was just like, nah,
call out after I know, sleep over there, turn upon
and start frying my fish.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
The pop bubbles over.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
It's like, nah, call your mom right now, I said.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So this was the symbolism. This is how you always
looking for these signs. You know it needed to bubble up.
Your some is bubbling over and it's the pot. And
now you gotta call your mama.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So I called her. Turn avoided the fire.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Avoiding the fire artists to sell subliminal All these messages
are there, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And that's my point where I'm like, sometimes your brain
will send you someplace the spirits like clear this up.
This is the thing you need to reroute, this is
the thing you need to try. And so all the
things were there and I listened. I called her and
it was wild because it was the middle of the
night and her and my dad were up. We got
on FaceTime. She's like, what's up. She's like, I couldn't sleep,
(21:13):
what's going on. I was like, funny enough, so let.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Me tell you this thing I got clear up. And
I tell her.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
She just sits there listening to me and never forget
her face, and she was just like, I'm sorry, as
maybe the first time she directly looked at me, listened
to me and just said I'm sorry. And then she said,
I thought you knew you could say I thought you
knew you sounded great. I was like, like I didn't
know how to respond to it, like I thought you knew,
(21:41):
like I thought I'd given you that already in my head,
and I was just like, well, this just hurt my feeling.
And I felt like a twelve year old again in
that moment, and it was just like, get it all out,
get it all out, put it all out, you cry,
do all the things, say thank you, and then it
was the have to put the phone on.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It was like, you didn't even need that.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Look at all of that, and you didn't even you
spend your whole life sabotaging yourself every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You didn't even need it. So many people are still,
I mean, because we get stuck in the where like
at the age where the trauma happened, right, we get stuck.
So I know that there are so many moments where
I've been stuck at the eight year old little girl.
I've been stuck at that eleven year old girl, like
I've been stuck there. And sometimes she'd be showing up
(22:29):
to the party, she'd be coming up with her party clothes,
one baby, ready, ready, ready to speak trum at this
big age. Baby, she still be throwing tantrums, and sometimes
I have to be like, well, wait a minute, met Fred,
you got to relax, I got you.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You're safe, yeah, And I literally tell myself that you're safe,
where you are, you belong, you are little girl, little
You're good. Like I have to like imagine myself in
those moments and literally speak to her like out loud
and to myself, and again immediately after that, it's like
it's almost like, yeah, okay, let's go play. Like I
(23:05):
you know, I imagine myself back then and I speak
to myself in terms and it's like again, it's a
physical release, it's a mental and emotional release, and I
just get on with my day. And it's not often.
It's not just it's not in the big moments of
therapy or the release of.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
The your parents. It's in the mundane. It's in the mundane.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's in the It's in the Oh, I
didn't like when I didn't like the way that you
made I made the bed this morning, and it upset
me because I felt like I needed to get it
right for you know, or someone spoke to me crazy and.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I felt like I felt threaten. Baby honey, don't catch
me wrong in that, because fourteen year old Brandy be
showing up work and you're like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
It's nothing to do with you. Yeah, everything is working
for me. Yeah, And so most of the times it
ain't nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
All of the time.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Pretty much, how I react to it is my to carry.
And so a lot of that self work, a lot
of that talking to myself nicely, a lot of that
like maybe they're having a shit day and it's not you,
and you're just in their line of fire this week,
and how can you how can you react in the
(24:20):
way that brings you less Calma?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, that's the real thing, is how can I so?
So this don't boomerang back to me. But this is
the thing that I loved about your story and your
evolution and this loving yourself better and talking nicely to yourself,
because there was this moment that you had with an
A and R person, Drew Dixon, and she said to
(24:45):
you that one day that you should stop begging. She
said stop begging. Before I was very much like, what
can you do for me? Baby? Choose me? Why am
I not the one? As I got older, I started
to check myself and wonder if I would stand outside
in the rain with a boombox for myself.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Oh, i would in torrential rain with electricity because I'm
worth it. Okay, it will never be that terrible, but
you feel the extremes. I would go too for Yeah,
I love myself.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, it was really that.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
There were moments throughout making all of the albums where
people Drew Dixon are making shine. She was like, I
don't like that record. You're begging too much. And it
was a record written with a guy. Of course, you know,
I let him take the lead on the writing, doubting
myself thinking okay, you got it, let me, let me
just try me be open. Yeah, you know, She's like,
I don't like that record, don't put it on it.
(25:43):
I'm you're begging too much on that. And I was
just like, okay, you know, I'm like, I'm in my twenties.
She's grown at this point, and she was just like,
you know, you don't have to beg for love. You
shouldn't have to beg for to be wanted. You shouldn't
like it's enough of that in our industry. It's enough
of that in our songs. And I was like, it
was a reminder that the words that we sing, the
(26:04):
words that we put in the world, mean things to people.
And I'm a stickler for that now, Like I understand
the turn off, I understand, like I understand everybody's version
of artists subjective.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But where I a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I don't like to beg I don't like to I
love vulnerability. I don't like laying myself down for the
sake of I don't like I enjoy being who I
am with all of myself instead of the opposite at present.
But it took me a minute to kind of realize, like, yeah,
like why why a why baby baby pleasing? Well, it
(26:41):
came from family stuff. I was comfortable singing it because
that was the example I'd seen looking up. It was
a lot of like with matriarchal, it was a lot
to choose me. There's a lot of like ooh stufferent things, yeah, stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like that in our family, and coming from a matriarchal family,
it was a lot to choose me here. Yeah, too
many marriages.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And then what I did see in the marriages my
stepdad and my mom.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I'm so happy she managed to get out of and
she's with my dad, so at my actual.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Data original Nelly, I have nothing to say about when
people spin the block.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Because I'm like, yeah, my mom and dad did it.
Like to me, they're the original to spend the blockers.
Yeah it is, yeah, but I don't have any I
don't have as much judgment. But I understand what was
toxic in certain parts of it, and I understand what
I don't want to do, and I understand what I
had nothing to do with me, and I understand what
(27:43):
I was just present for, and I understand that I
don't have to carry any of it moving forward. And
that means in my songs, that means in my daily interactions,
that means in my life. I don't have to do
this for the next forty five years of my life
because it's what my family did.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I don't like.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
My journey is mine and literally mine. So now it's
just me, you know, and my choices, and so I
ask for guidance in all those choices because I ain't
been here before, I ain't been me before.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I love that because I think that you said it earlier,
and I think that this is like the common thread
of your conversation right now, even in this new album,
because it's all about the joy, it's all about the love,
it's the freedom though freedom enjoy.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I discovered that I'm one of these people that enjoys.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Being happy like people say, like I love being I
enjoy it like I like being with people who are smiling,
who having fun, who I don't have to perform around,
who are comfortable in their skin. And I know that
the more I'm like that, the more that they come,
the more those people come around me.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And so I aim to.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
My consistent goal is to be that, like, get all
the stuff out the way that hampers your joy, you know.
And so this whole album, like I said, going in
asking to write, God was like, let me help you
write your joy.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Let me help you write your future.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Because so every song is intentional about joy. Every single
melody is something that I was in the studio bopping
a two step and.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Like where did this? Who wrong this me? You know?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And if I didn't have that reaction, I'll be like
scrap it. But there wan't too many scrappits because you know,
God shows up when you're ask him.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That's good, because he sure does. He shows up when
we ask him what are you asking God for in
this season? More joy?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I want to be able to sustain the joy. You know,
I don't think that joy is the thing that you
can cut off at will. But well, hold on now,
let me say that again. You can choose to not
be enjoy I think you can choose people that you know.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
It's your journey.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not able to, but I would love to be
able to physically sustain it. Yeah, you know, so I'm
asking him for sustan and like to be able to
sustain it.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's what I'm asking for.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, to stay in that pocket, to stay in that bag,
and the opportunity to learn how to to keep being that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I've been miserable. I've been living in somebody else's stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I was just about to go there, you know, I
pulled out my You know, when I put out my means,
I got a I got from you. I mean you,
you said that, you said you have a divinely orchestrated life.
You ask yourself all the time, what do I have
to be miserable about?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Couldn't make it up. It doesn't make sense that I'm
from West cam in London, which is it's just a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
It's a hood in London.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I lived in my parents' garage because we were trying
to figure out how to like not.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Get us all evicted. Okay, because after a.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Certain amount of years, you know, the kids can't live
at home anymore, they start charging you are didn't like
it's a way like you know, like sec hushle to
a degree.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Oh okay, I lived.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm from I'm from humble beginnings for a better phrase.
I didn't know we were broke, but we were broke
and didn't come from and there's not a lot of
people in London, and well, everybody has their journey, but
my journey was we lived in the States. We had
to figure it out. There's nine of us, you know.
I used to live in the garage. I made my
(31:29):
own money enough to get out and rent a place nearby.
I made enough money to buy a house. I made
enough money to be able. And even in the middle
of that, through ups and downs, through money being mismanaged
and going super broke, I was able to still find
ways to record and fly and foster the relationships that
were going to get me to be able to come
to America and do this. I was able to meet
(31:51):
John and sustain like, there are so many things in
my life that shouldn't have happened based on what I
look cat is my past and what everyone in the
family was thinking that was gonna happen with my mum
and her nine kids, you know, like having a lot
of kids as a as a young woman in West
(32:12):
London at the time, it wasn't the thing like I heard,
I'm the oldest daughter. You hear people's talk, you're hearing
people talk.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Well, then they got a TV at the house.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
They like rabbits and that's crazy, Like people had no respect,
and I watched her be nice about it. Wow, And
you know, so I look at all of those things,
and I look at what my trajectory was supposed to
be based on me being privy to those conversations, me
(32:40):
watching her struggle. They expected all of us to turn
out the exact same way and it to be terrible. Now,
some of my brothers and sisters have had kids and
they own their houses and there my brother's a chartered
account and my sister's are like they're all in.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
My sister has a master's.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And like they're all they all do so freaking well
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I mean, you're so proud, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And so that was part of the release, you know,
it was a part from me as part of the release.
But I wasn't supposed to be here, you know, and
then take it out of family as a black woman
in London in the UK, starting from a rap background.
Who do you think you are to go and do
all of that to have your dacity to say you
about to win a Grammy?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Who does that? Me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Because I'm not here for you people.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I didn't start this. You didn't give my joy. You
didn't start this off with me. It weren't me you
and me, you and God in the garage, it was
me God, Yeah, in the garage, Me and the Holy
Spirit praying at that age. And even when I veered
and I left and I was like thinking I was
doing this by myself, he was like, I come bring
your book home. Yeah every time. And so that's why
(33:48):
I say, Divine the Orchestra couldn't make it up. It
doesn't make any sense. The people I've walked into, the
people that have believed and trusted and you know, giving
me a leg up or see me and said you
should do this Yep, doesn't make any sense about.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Here we are. I mean, I want you to talk
about the leaps that you've had to take, because you
you just talked about it and telling the story of
your upbringing. You know, you grew up in the UK.
You started off as an MC, and you have this
dream and you said, I'm gonna win a Grammy and
I'm gonna do it in the States. I'm gonna take
(34:26):
my talents to a whole other country and build a
life for myself. I think there are so many people
out here right now who are listening who are so
afraid to take the leap because they are they're afraid
of the unknown. But the unknown has their destiny.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Imagine that you said, yeah, you're afraid of something, but
that's something that you're afraid of has your destiny and
it's in its space.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, you'll come back around in another lifetime and do
it again. And I pray that you're more your fraver,
you know, But you're here, now, what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Go for it?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I had people be like, well you you was ready
to start in London. Yeah, I had my career in
London and I went to almost flat zero when I moved, Like,
it wasn't like, oh, I had all this money. I
had my things, and I had a sale at my
house with all my things before I left to make
some extra money to be able to live for a
couple of weeks out there and to get it going
(35:30):
before I like, So it wasn't like I just came
with all my well, she had a record, She's no,
like I spent all my money recording records to be
able to get the deal, to be able to move,
and then had to sell all my shoes and then
I had to sell over my.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Bags and the shoe game. I see. It is crazy,
do you know what I'm saying? Like we're still here
still it's giving all the things. You know what I'm saying,
But you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The money isn't the thing to me. It's it's go
for it. It's moved towards it. And they say when
you take a step, the pouf becomes clear or the
path lays out in front of you.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's that.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Imagine being fifty five or seventy five saying I could
have you know when I was I had met when
I like, imagine be imagine that, you know how.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Regret for those people see. I mean, I was literally
at a basketball game a few weeks ago, and it
was at the Swag Tournament here, which is HBC tournament.
And I'm sitting waiting on the person I was with,
and I'm waiting for him to get done, and this
older gentleman is talking to me, and he's talking to
(36:37):
me and girl, when I tell you, he was telling
me about his Heyday regrets and nineteen sixty three and
this and that and went through his phone and still
to then showed me. I mean, he was standing there
for a long time to go through this phone to
show me these pictures of him from nineteen sixty three.
And I was like, how many of us are standing
(37:00):
there right now in the present, going back to bring up.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
All the things with the past you could have? Yeah,
And I feel like there's so much more in front
of you you just have to be with and you
are you have it in you.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
I like to leave people with the courage. You have
it in you?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Is this worth the camera? You have it in you
to go for it. I don't believe in telling people
like do you know maybe you shouldn't know? Find a way,
find a way like get get humble, find a way,
not humble. Get out of your ego and find a way. Yeah,
you know, humble is it's a derivative of the word nice.
(37:40):
Per I learned this from Juran Bernard's derivt of the
word nice and.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh dur that's our friend over here. He came into
Oh god.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
He dropped this Juely show and I was just like, oh,
told the world, you told me this. He said, like,
deriv humble is a derivative of the word nice, and
nice comes from naive, right, I don't believe in yeah,
not even you know. So I'll say, get up your
ego and go for your dreams like it will lay
out in.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Front of you.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And that moment is that moment. But imagine if I'd
have said, I can't go to New York and say
it so and So's friends house and you never know
who I am today, you never have a clue about
we wouldn't be saying here, Yeah. If I wasn't like,
let me sell these shoes now, let me get rid
of these bags.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That is so good, okay, because I think that that
has to people have to know that when they're talking
about building the thing that they want, the dream, the
dreamfe You're gonna have to give up some stuff along
the way, for sure.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, And I've had when I tell you, I sold
the bags and I thought that that was my thing.
And when I tell you I am, I am severely
never at a lack. I live in the abundance when
it comes to clothes, shoes, bags, food, things like God
make sure that I am good, and I'm never. I
(39:02):
don't take it for granted. I'm not the girl to say, wow,
I'm a good steward of my money. I'm not the
girl that's irresponsible with it. But if I need something,
and if I want to get something, I'm grateful that
I'm able because I remember having to sell pretty much
everything I own and take like maybe a forty by
(39:22):
eighteen bucks and those are my things, and then had
to borrow money to get that shipped. And that was
twenty six years old. And at forty five, I'm just
like aymen, I would do it again if I needed
to leave this whole thing over because I had this immaterial.
This is not what I'm here for to have all
the things, you know. And I make donations and I
(39:43):
do that now as a routine, like I go through
my closet I gift and I've done it my entire
rotation because it keeps me present that this.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Isn't the thing. Yes, know what you're here for. So
what would the forty five year old of Stelle tell
the twenty five or thirty five year old style, I
would tell her where all the belly tops? One now
one where all the belly tops? Like live your best
(40:11):
life you really don't have.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Your sisters are gonna be okay, and your brothers are
gonna be all right. So be the be the fun,
adventurous joy for you. Like stop being the proper one
all the time. Stop taking care of everybody and they
auntie all the time. You go be tipsy for three
days straight. Baby, absolutely not cut it out. Your body's
(40:39):
gonna tell you now.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Your body is gonna tell you now you can do
it now listen, do it now? Yeah, do it?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Did because baby, now one glass is gonna take you
out top red shoe. Baby, I have one drink that
I can drink and I'm so happy with myself it
out because do it. Do it like the physical part it,
do it all and stop again, like just live. Know
everything that you thought was going to bring shame to
(41:05):
the family, they don't care.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I would. I would, honestly I would. I would tell
myself the same thing at forty two, right the twenty two,
the thirty two year old version of me, I would
definitely say, be adventurous, take the leap, go forward, you know,
I tell my little cousin this. I was just like,
I wish there was somebody in my ear at that age.
(41:29):
I was telling me that there was a whole world
out here, right, not just the United States. If there's
an opportunity, go to London, to go to Dubai, go
to Singapore, go to Johannesburg, go to Cape Town, Go
take the opportunity, live and go live, spend some time.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I would say this to people, Go like, even if you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Can't like.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Do the backpacking thing for a minute, if you can't
afford the whole expensive holiday, all these hostels use your
brain comes send do things, but like go travel, like
do some stuff that's not natural to you or in
your upbringing.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Go go see the world.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Go touch grass in another city, in another state, in
another continent, and go and see that the world is
bigger than what your people's told you it was. Go
and see that the world is bigger than what you
see on the television. I've lived in I've lived in
the UK, and I've lived here, and we're more like
with all of our things and all of our fears,
but we're also more.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Like with all the brilliance that we have.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And then I've traveled to pretty much every city, country,
bar country, bar Antarctica and the South Pole. Literally I've
been to every.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Single one of them.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
In Russia, Thailand, India, China, Korea, like, we've been everywhere
with music and I'm great.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
That was one of my prayers. I was like, I
want to go all over the world.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, you know, when I was doing my prayers, doing
my prayers, I mean, it's me and I want to
go all over the world and music's taking me there.
I tell the team, give me a couple of days
either side, or make sure that I have some time
to go explore, and I will go with my camera
and walk around the city like no one knows me
and just be outside, whether it's shopping or it's just like,
(43:16):
let's take me to a temple, or let's go, let's
go India, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
To the market. We're talking about our India experience. Let's
go to the market. I want to see you. Let
me get some God bracelets.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, I want to see it. And the thing I
find is again, we are just like each other. There's
so much more that pulls us together as people. And
once you have that perspective, there's no one that's going
to come and tell you what you know to be different,
you know anything different than what you know, what you've seen,
what you felt with your eyes and with your spirit
(43:47):
and your body.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, no one can come and tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Well, the people in China, Well I saw it for myself,
were not like that.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I'll tell you what it was like.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Have you been, Yeah, you know. And you can stand
in that confidence. It puts you in a whole difference
been you don't feel the need to explain yourself too
much to people. Your presence, it changes its the way
you walk in a room.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Just go go see. So this version of a Stille
in this season, what is life teaching you right now?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
It's teaching me that this season is going to require
different physical version of me, and it's and it's bringing
back up personally, and this week is bringing back up
a lot of the old negative self talk I would
give myself.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So this week, this week, this week is what makes yeah,
what makes this week different.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I've never been forty five and this many months old before,
and it's next week.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
It would be for you.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Five and that many months old. And every week it's
something different. And it's not physical. It's not like, oh,
my body's breaking down, but it's like, oh, I require
strength training now. Oh, I need to eat more protein now.
Oh and and I can't do this now, and I
have to do that now. And why might need more
sleep now?
Speaker 1 (45:01):
It's the sleep is important. I'm not a good person
if I'm not sleeping.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And I'm clear about that. Yeah, I don't force it.
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Good night, I'm going to be here. Yeah, I'm going
to be I'll be over there. Sleep. Yeah, I'm going
to sleep. My friends last because they're like you are
the nap queen. I will sleep everywhere. I'm the queen
of a nap girl. Pass out. Yeah, you're talking to me,
mm hmm, that's me. There are some nights I am
(45:30):
a thirty in the bed. That's a good time, like
I am in the bad. People like my sister will
call me and be like you can't be serious. I'd
be like, girl, I am so serious. Showered baby scarf,
all honey, happy with that extended cord listen scrolling A
(45:53):
thirty and those nights, I am so happy because then
I'm waking up at four in the morning and I'm
ready doing what you need to do, Yeah, for your life,
for your journey.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And I find like and I was able to get
that clarity in the pandemic too. I turned forty in
twenty twenty, and so like that year of like if
I was, I was ready. It was like January, I
was ready, my was gonna be up. I was gonna
have a great year. My sister came up, my birthday.
It was wonderful, and then everything went so it's just
(46:22):
me myself and I.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, that's got to be that. That is everything. I
turned forty and twenty two. Yeah, and I just I
know if I would have turned forty in twenty I
would have just been like, I redid it. I redid
my birthday.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
You did say I redid my birthday At forty four,
I was like, listen, in the day day, I didn't
get this off, but I redid it in forty four. Yeah,
but it was just a moment of clarity. And sometimes
that early morning bed or that I need to my
body feels uneasy. In this scenario, it's nothing to do
with me. But what can I do to make my
(47:01):
body feel at ease? And I'll put on Megahotz and
play it real low in a room and no one's
bothered by it, and my body feels good. I carry
my jewels, my crystals, my things with me, and it's
the half of us, the reminder, half of its energy absorption,
you know.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
It's like I keep it on me on purpose.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, and those things help me, you know. An the
other half is being in continual conversation with God and
sometimes get into it, you know, like I understand that
I like to be busy, and I understand that that
clashes with what my body needs. So I learned to
I want this to continue for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
So I'm learning to listen to them more. Yeah, when
you talked about the self talk and you have relearned
some things that unlearned, some things in your past and
how you're moving forward. Have there been any books that
have been like essentral to the journey one I'm reading
right now or listening to right now is Mel Robbins,
(47:59):
let them okay me, that's a popular book right now,
like every it's what everybody's show radar because it's and
will I resisted it.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I've been resisting because I'm like everybody on the clips,
Oh yeah, I don't want to do it because everybody yeah.
And then I was doing the Big D Club or
in reset in one of my houses is I put
it under the house. I'm listening in one of my
in one of my rooms, I was like.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
It's the hype. The hype is real. The hype is real.
This is a girl reminder everybody who reads it and
posts like this right here. And I have been resisting
in the stall because everybody been on it.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
I do the same, but you go cust me out.
I may have seen like two episodes of Game of Thrones,
too violent for me.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Don't like it. Not my hype. Everybody can. Everyone that's
seen it is like this is I'm just like, yeah,
I'm that girl, I'm Game of Thrones. I'm House of Dragons,
the dragon or you know, I say it like yeah,
I say it like the black people like, how's the dragons?
It's probably not that right.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
But I'm the opposite of all the hype, but this one,
I feel like sup feels like I was like, all right,
so I put it on as I've been cleaning the house,
and some of the things she's had in that book
were just reminded, because one is about grace.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
It's about grace.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
It's about you've been living this way longer than you've
been trying to live this way. So give yourself a second,
you know, like if you slip, if you forget, or
if you talk crazy to yourself, all right, you can
you can, you know, you can figure that out.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
You can apologize and keep it moving.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
But part of the let them that she said that
that people are going to miss is to let me
of it. And she keeps your minding you throughout the book.
Let me what are you going to do? Let them
do that? Let me do this?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And I'm telling you, even in the past few weeks
with me.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Being like you want to do that? Cool?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Let me go over here, my mom, the Shannon sharp
of it all none with me.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I let people.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I'm reminded to let people do them. Yeah, you know,
and that book has been a, you know, a very
good reminder and like why would you talk to yourself
like this, like, why don't you let me talk to
myself nicely? Like I reflected to myself, let them talk
to you crazy still and talk to yourself nicely. You know,
if that's the thing that comes out of someone's mouth
(50:22):
about you, why would you take all that on? Why
when you flip that around and tell yourself how incredible
you are, how your body's healthy and getting you where
you need to go.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
You're so proud of your body.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You're so you know, like, thank you so much, every cell,
every single thing forgetting me where I need to go
and keep you safe today.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
I have to do that sometimes too, seriously, Like I
have moments when when I do when I'm riding in
a car or even when I'm in the gym in
the mornings, and I have to like, come on, like,
I am so grateful for you. You have carried me
this far, that's far, Like you have gotten me to
this point. I am so grateful. Yeah, you think.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
About everything you've you've done and how you you you
come here in the morning at nine am through and
you said you get at four no no, no, no,
no no. Imagine that sometimes that was very rare very
even if you do right, but five thirty, at five thirty,
(51:21):
that's that's the that's the miracle to some people to
be able to get up at five thirty because and
then it told them that they're supposed to. But this
is something that you do.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, and your buddy in the gym at seven, training
at seven. Yeah, your brain function is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Your your body says you get up, go do this
thing to take care of me today, and you do it. Yeah,
you know, and you have discipline and you and it's
not just the outside. It's the it's the way that
your body moves because you decided and it obeys you
and it listens to you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
So I talked nicely to myself because I think to myself, like, wow,
this this is this bag of meat that I'm in.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
It's pretty pretty not just bag of meat. Yeah, she's
pretty one. It's not terrible, you know. You know. I
feel like that's such because the world can be so hard,
and especially to black women, especially to black women who
are not racially ambiguous, who look very African, who look
(52:17):
very much like these these features came from the continent.
You're like someone said, it was like listen, to us
all of the things right, and how difficult it can
be sometimes to talk nicely to yourself when the world
does not.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
See you as being an example. Yeah, and that's the
main thing. There's never been an example, And in most
of all lineages, it's never a thing that our parents thought.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
To tell us.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
FYI, you're incredible, you lookute. My mom was very clear
about that. But yeah, my mom wants to Yeah, my
mom will go out in the world, and that's not
your mom. Yeah, so you forget you're supposed to say
nice things to yourself. But again it comes down to that,
like who told you that? And why would you be
crazy to yourself? Like I think I'm cute, I think
(53:10):
I'm beautiful. I mean, I've been telling people to see
my baby tell me I'm not okay, and I know
you ain't gonna do it, so somewhere let them let
me okay. And I never I never, really, I don't
understand that. I never understood the idea that somebody else's
(53:34):
opinion of you meant more than your own to yourself.
I had again this weekend conversation. I was like, talk
to some my young younger friends, and I was like,
you understand how brilliant you are. Aside from your accomplishments.
Every single thing you say goes into the history books
and into lifestyle and into the into the world's lexicon
as the thing to be as a black woman. Do
(53:57):
you understand how your existence feels the few cure of
the world and you want to pick yourself apart because
the internet said so this week.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
That's a word. You're outside of your mind.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
I'm gonna to stop, like I was, just like like you,
you are young, and you are this accomplished, you are brilliant.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
You pull up and what are you talking about? Like?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
What do we stop it around me? Don't do that
because I'm gonna caust you out. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm
gonna say something to you.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
And still I am very I'm very much myself on
this on this, but but the language definitely is more
colorful off of this microphone.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
That's okay, Yeah, yeah, is I believe in I believe
in words meaning things, And I don't like it when women,
especially black women, talk crazy about themselves in order to
identify or to make camaraderie, Like what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (54:55):
Is there an affirmation that has helped you or a mantra.
Everything is perfect.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Everything is perfect, everything is lined up exactly it's meant
to be, and it's gonna work out beyond your wildest dreams.
I have so much evidence of that in my life.
So when I say everything is perfect, I ain't stressing
about it. Yeah, somebody's gonna catch it if it's not
and it will be perfect. And if it if it
seems imperfect in the moment, I guarantee. And every time
(55:20):
when I see it back, I'm just like, what wasn't
so bad, It wasn't terrible. I was just all in
my mind.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Okay, okay, okay, you know, is there something that you
want to do that you haven't done yet. I want
to act. I want you to know I consider you
an actress already because you're a voice actress.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I want to act in an Oscar winning movie.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Okay, this is you're hearing get here first.
Speaker 2 (55:46):
This is this is like a this is like a
in the air, God make this happen. I want to
act in an Oscar in the movie, and I want
to have people will be like, oh for the starting row.
I want to have best the point role. And I
want to be a comedic like I really want to
do that, Like, because for me, when I watch movies,
the person that like this seems.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Out like this is outside of you.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yes, this comedy like a comedic role.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Yes, I feel like it'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
But the people that I tend to love and I
like to watch comedies and romances, and I'm that girl.
I careful what I put into me because I will
dream about it and freak out, freak myself out in
the middle of the night. But I like to watch
those kinds of movies, and the characters that I tend
to lean towards loving the most are the funny ones.
And you know, my friends are always like if you
(56:36):
just leave you in a room and you go and
we're just talking shit, like people don't know this about you. Yeah,
it's like really and they're like, no, you're just saying
things sight. So I feel like I want to ask
her Oscar Award winning so the next time you come back,
we'll be talking about your Oscar Award winning performance, Award winning.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Performance and whatever movie. Yes, Okay, So, as we begin
to close out this interview, Grammy Award winning future Oscar
Holder winner, what's one word you're committed to in the
season of your life. More joy. That's good. More joy. Yeah,
(57:17):
everything comes from that. Everything comes from joy. If you
could leave your audience with one thing that they should
do in their life, what would it be.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
One thing that was tell people in your life is
to recognize that it is your life. It's great that
you were born into a family. It's great that you
were raised in a certain part.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
But this is your journey on this earth with your
spirit and God, however you classify him, wherever you help
him it, however, whatever the entity is for you, it
is your journey.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
It's okay, live your life. Live your life, Estelle. It
has been a pleasure. I have enjoyed you so much
with your soft spoken self.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
I turned my volume down one time or sell that's okay.
I love I love your voice.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
You have a great voice. Thank you. You heard it
from the Grammy Award. Wind the von IMpower Saws another
good one for the book. Send it to somebody who
needs a little more joy, but to live their life
the way they are supposed to live it. I'm your God,
Brandy Harvey. Until next time, eat well, give a damn
move your body every single day. Peace,
Move to the state to twenty six, get a Grammy
at twenty eight years old, and at thirty eight you
finally say I can sing.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It took switching off and practicing the switch off. And
what's God telling me right now? What's the Holy Spirit
telling me right now? Because the Holy Spirit is talking
to me?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, let me know we have the magic. We have it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You have everything you need. Everything is his between you
and God.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
What are you doing? You said, I'm gonna win a Grammy,
and I'm gonna do it in the States. I'm gonna
take my talents to a whole nother country and build
a life for myself. I think there are so many
people out here right now who are listening who are
so afraid to take the leap. We wouldn't be seeing here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
If I wasn't, like, let me sell these shoes now,
let me get rid of these bags.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That is so good. People have to know that when
they're talking about building the thing that they want, you're
gonna have to give up some stuff along the way,
go for it.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Move towards it, and agine being fifty five or seventy
five saying.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I could have there was this moment that you have
with an a Andrson. She said to you, you should
stop begging. Before I was very much like, what can
you do for me? Baby? Choose me? Why am I
not the one? I started to check myself and wonder
if I would stand outside in the rain with a
boombox for myself.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Ooh, I would in torrential rain with electricity because I'm worthy.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Welcome to Vaught Empower's Talk. So we don't just scratch
the surface. We dive deep into the lives of some
of the world's most interesting change makers. I'm your host,
Brandy Harvey. Y'all, this is gonna be so amazing. Today
we got the beautiful and talented Estelle a Stelle is
a Grammy Award winning international artist that has released five
solo albums, countless features and collaborations that have crossed multiple genres.
(01:55):
A Steale sore to international prominence in two thousand and
eight with her Hitch. The lead single American Boy featuring
Kanye West, won a two thousand and nine Grammy. In
twenty fifteen, her album True Romance yielded the Anthem Conqueror
guest starring in a popular episode of Fox's Empire. It
stood out as one of the show's highest charting songs
(02:17):
and fueled the original soundtrack to a number one on
the Billboard Top one hundred. Estelle joined the Apple Music
Radio family and brought the world The Estelle Show. Within
a year of the show's debut, a Stelle won the
Esteemed Gracie Award for Women in Media. A Stelle voiced
a lead character by the name Garnet on Cartoon Network's
(02:38):
Emmy nominated hit show Steven Universe, giving the cartoon world
another superhero of color. A Stille believes time flies when
you are consistently living on purpose. Bought in Power's Talks,
Welcome singer, songwriter, radio show host, and actress Estelle to
the show. Wow that is you. Look at you looking
(03:04):
out regal with your gold on child, your fly like
you said, listen, write me down. You know, Estelle, you
are so so spoken. I feel like I'm giving you
all this Atlanta loudness right now. Okay, I am so
glad that you have joined me. I mean five solo albums.
(03:28):
You were on the road to your six debuting this month.
How do you feel at this stage in your career? Oh? Accomplished.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, everything you mentioned was just like wow, wow, yeah,
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. And six is six
is a good number? Yeah, six number.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It's taking you seven years to write this album? Seven years?
What's been going on these last seven years? Some gotta
feel complete, some gotta feel like you don't done something
in seven years.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, I've been living between every album I lift.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You know, I'm not the girl.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That's like next year there's another album, because what am
I singing about? All of my songs are deeply me,
and every single album has been about my life and
what I've had to surmount or you know, like what
I've had to like get beyond. And so this album
I needed to I was going through some very real
life awakening scenarios. Yeah, one of a better phrase, And
(04:26):
I had to take a minute and really figure out
what I wanted it to look like moving forward in yeah,
my period. Yeah, you said this album was a reawakening.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You had to give yourself a soul hug? What did
that mean? I had to just be.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Nice to myself extensively for a while. I realized that
I was making every album for something or someone else,
you know, whether it was my family, whether it was
other people's expectations, whether it was what I thought I
should be doing. And then it came maybe twenty seventeen,
I started working on this album. I didn't even know it,
(05:03):
maybe in twenty twelve, but maybe twenty seventeen. After I
put Our True Romance and I was getting ready to
go with Lovers Rock, I was having these conversations with
my mum and my dad, and the more I had
these conversations with them, the more I realized the things
that I were raised on were not true, and they
(05:24):
were clearer and telling me everything. They were just like, yeah,
so I had for the first time, I had the
courage to just ask, like, so, you guys been married.
So the short version of the story as I get
ready to release Lover As Rock is, my mom and
dad met, had me and my two sisters separated kind
of by force family stuff, and then got back together
(05:49):
when I was twenty three as a for real couple.
They got married when I was thirty three.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, they real Wow your parents as wow. Their journey was.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I thought it was incredible but beautiful, but there's yeah,
And I was taken on their journey with all of
my decisions from day to you know, I was taking
on essentially the sins, all the stuff that my family
had charged me with, you know, to that I felt
like they had charged me with. They didn't they didn't
tell me I had to do anything. And you know,
(06:21):
I believe that your parents do the best. They came
and what they got. Yeah, And I was, you know,
using that as.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
More like escape.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You know, it's kind of like escapegoat eat scenario for myself.
And I was like, you know, this isn't doesn't feel good,
my body don't want it X.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
My breakouts were becoming.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Way frequent, and you know, I felt like I got
rid of them when I was in my late twenties
and they started coming back with the force.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
My voice went.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I was sick every time, like it just got It
was one thing after the other, back to back to back.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So I kept.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Asking my mom questions and my dad. Eventually, and as
I started to wrap up the whole cycle of Lover's Rock,
I realized I'd written that album about them. It wasn't
that actually about me and my feelings. It was like
rewriting their story.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And so I dedicated to them as like a cycle,
a chapter closing, but knowing the things I knew, was like,
oh well, now I can't sit hear it act like
that was okay or this is all right to keep
moving forward with. So when found some therapy and went
and spoke to people frequently.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Before you get into what you had to kind of
unpack in therapy, though, I really want to go back
to the story with your parents, because I want to
know what did you feel was heaped on you? Because
you're the second oldest, firstborn girl, You're one of nine,
and so I can imagine that you felt a lot
of pressure to perform, to succeed, to be perfect, to
(07:46):
kind of set this example.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Set The example is the quote, and for me, it
left no room for error. And even if you were
you did something that was slightly weird, it was still
like before anybody could critique me, I would talk crazy
to myself, you know, before anyone could tell me how
bad I sounded this week, I already told myself I
sounded crazy, you know, before anybody could tell me, oh,
that's going to reflect baddy, I already told myself and
(08:09):
beat myself up about it. And I believe your body
here is when you say that, you know, the body
keeps school. Yeah, So it was a lot of that
going on and imagine doing that for thirty something years
to yourself. My body was like, I'm good, it's enough.
Stop cut it out.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean so so much of this was the self
talk that you were doing to yourself, and.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It was it was it was. It wasn't How would
I say this.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
My parents.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I never want to paint them as villains, but again,
I had to stop the buck somewhere with them.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I had to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Me and my mom had real, real frank conversations about everything,
and to the point where I'm like, I'm very proud
to say I can tell her like, no, don't call
me with that today.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, you know you have tools, Go use them. I
don't want to hear you complain about so and so
and so and so. You let them talk to you
like that, Go handle that. I'm not your parent. You know,
We've had conversations like that, you.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Know what I mean, because that's part of like when
you're the oldest, I mean, because we were kind of
having this before we started being the oldest. Yeah, you
become the parentified child exactly, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I just wanted to not be that for my
whole life and not be that for like this next version,
this next chapter, this next act that I got going
that I you know that I enjoy is freedom here
and I felt like I couldn't do it back then.
I felt like I'd always be holden to somebody's version
(09:40):
of who they think I should be. And well it
doesn't track for the family for you to behave like that?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And why you do? Who told you to behave? And
it was just like me, it's so many women who
feel that way. Though, was still like, it's so many women,
I mean, because I know I've walked around with that.
And of course when you come from a family where
you have a parent who's well known and around the
globe and you cannot go anywhere without being associated with
(10:06):
your parents, you know, like everywhere I go, I'm so
I'm Steve, you know, And so that comes with expectation,
and that comes with a level of I have to
be a certain way and it's very performative.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I feel like I feel like the word autonomy is
underused when we talk about just that whole experience, like
we're I think it and then take it out of
just like our shared experience of being the oldest doors, right,
people feel like and I was having a discussion this weekend,
people feel like, well, the Internet told me I'm supposed
(10:43):
to do this by this time. The Internet told me
that if I'm not washing my face this way, told me,
if I don't put this thing on my mouth and
this thing on my nose and show the world the
morning minute I get up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
There ain't that the new thing? Girl?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I just I just think I don't want to see
you all doing.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I don't want to see you brush your teeth and
how you pout your water on your glass in the
morning and put.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Banana pills on your face.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I want to see none.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Of it, like the banana peals. What what am I doing?
Do I need to put banana pills on my face
to bath? You probably don't take my mouth to go
to bed. I probably don't know it's it's glorious.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Now why would you? Why would you do that?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But to me, it took switching off and practicing the
switch off, practicing the how do I feel in my body?
And what's God telling me right now? What's the Holy
Spirit telling me right now? What's what's the thing that's
burning in myself? Like I would ask for physical cues
because I think sometimes your mind is calibrated to work
(11:44):
in a certain way, and so until you uncalibrate it
for whatever be that makes sense. Yeah, it's gonna immediately
take you there. So what else the physical cues? I
would be like, God, when I'm doing something crazy, make
my left knee ache, or when if i'm if I'm
doing if this is the right task, Holy Spirit, it
let this burn, Let let my stomach, let my chest go.
(12:04):
Every time. Wow, it's on the one like if I'm
speaking and I feel like we're in right here, Yeah,
it's almost like it's not it's not almost, it's the
Holy Spirit is talking to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, let me know. We have the magic. We have it. Yeah,
we do.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So until I got you know, I feel like until
I started to like feel and get into that space
with myself, I was, you know, I wasn't able to
flip my way of thinking. Now I get it. Now
I can do it. It's almost like, okay, well I
know these cues means something, So now I can tell
my body and my brain. Yeah, you're doubting yourself, don't
(12:41):
worry about it. Stop doing that. You're right, You're correct.
And I give that to people like turn off, turn
the TV off and the words of Kendrick turn it off.
You are correct. Nothing outside of you is Nothing outside
of you is right to a degree, you know, like
if you understand in this scenario, you are you have
(13:02):
everything you need. Everything you're everything is his between you
and God.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What are you? What are you doing? Yeah, you have
everything you need. I mean, I think that that's the
part of the unlearning, right, because when we start to
talk to ourselves properly, right, we start to tell ourselves
to things that we need to hear that make the
(13:26):
path straight and make the vision clear and playing. And
I think you've been able to do that. But I
think the writing has has been helpful for that. Write
in music right in.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Like it's it's the most my normal way of writing songs.
Would we used to be getting there and overthink it,
get in there and allow people to tell me this
is not right, this is not how English works.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh you and art it's objective.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
So but it was like for one of a beat phrase,
it was that it was like, this is not how
this word. She's got to be this way, this is
not that doesn't make sense or you know, and I
would I would do that myself, Like this doesn't make sense,
don't You shouldn't write songs like that, not understanding that.
Sometimes it's just energy. It's the intent in the way
that you sing something or the way that you say
(14:16):
something on the record that makes it makes sense to somebody.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And then with this album, I just stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I stopped all of it and I would just walk
around the house singing and that a doing and put
it on my phone, go into the studio, and four
hours later we came out with a record. Every single
time I was like, all right, so four is the number?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Cool?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
All right?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And I would pray before I.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Went in every time, like would you want me to
say on this just let me flow, get me out
the way. If I begin to get in the way,
please thank you Holy Spirit, And to the point where
me and the producer would get in.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
A work Wait, wait, wait, I need you to rewind.
I needed to go back because everybody be talking about
DC era prayers and praying for a minute, some of
y'all gotta be praying and how to get your purpose aligned? Okay,
and you just gave us the prayer right there.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
What would you go into the studio and prayer? I
would pray, like what do you want me to say?
And like I said, like what you want me to say?
I would say, so I should probably say it, did
God give me what you want.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Me to say? Let it flow through me, let me
get out the.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Way, and not judge it in Jesus name, thank you,
and not judge it to.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You know, I'm rereading right now was I have it
on audio right now, The Game of Life and How
to Play It by Florence Scovelshan And that is so
much of the book right now is blessing the things
that we want to see, right, blessing those things before
they happen. Like I'm already blessing it. I was doing
it earlier. They don't know. It was like, we're gonna
(15:43):
bless the space. Lord, We're gonna bless it because we
notice our first day up in here today it's perfect. Yeah.
I think that that's the part that we we want
things to be perfect. But if we just allow ourselves
to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Stop judging what you have. There's something, There is an entity,
There is God, there is someone that has laid this
whole path out for you. And you're here, Nikki Picket
in then at and stuff like, well, in my mind's eye,
based on all the trauma and all the things that
I got passed down through my jeans, this ain't right.
And I was like, how dare you? Like I start
(16:18):
looking at myself. When I do that, I'm like, how
dare I let me chill out? Like my ego Let
me and my ego chill out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's so good?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
This enough, like get out of the way, how dare you?
And when I do that, I'll tell you the path
is laid out so flawlessly. I couldn't even dream it up,
Like how do you want a Gracie in the first
year that arguably when you started, I was I wasn't sure.
I just knew I had to do it. And so
for me, like whenn in the gracy is like something
(16:48):
that you put some five ten years and that like
in the very first year, in the middle of pandemic,
God was like, no, here go.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Just if I had had my if at the point
in time, if I'd had my way, I'd have been
so picky. I'd have been pulling this thing apart. I'd
have been like, they sain't right. I didn't say the
word right, But thank God He moved me out of
that space in my life, and he was like, you're
gonna learn to surrender. And in surrendering every single time,
(17:20):
everything we've had to do is just been like beyond
my wildest dreams.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
From the person who didn't I think they were a
singer until they were thirty eight years old, you win
a Grammy at twenty eight years old, move to the
state to twenty six, get a Grammy at twenty eight
years old, and at thirty eight you finally say I
can sing.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, it's because so again, this was the release of
expectations and the release of caring too much and putting
that block on myself. But no one had put a
luck on me.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I thought that I had to get my mom's permission
or her certification that I could do this. She had
already given it to me years ago. Wow, she had
a really told me, you're good, you don't have to
do nothing. I release you, like in so many words,
in so many ways she said it. But in my
head I needed her to tell me I could sing
(18:20):
in order for me to believe I could sing. And
it came from being maybe twelve and her my un
cried for joy but not not for sadness, because I'm
just like, oh, it was such a release. Her and
my Auntie were in the house and I was off
school for some reason, and I remember being singing in
the bathroom one of Mary J. Bliger's songs, and I
just started singing really loud, but to see if they
(18:41):
could hear it, see if they would like it. And
I'll tell you about And this is the part where
you understand familiar stuff has sometimes nothing to do with
a kid, but then they can be impacted. My mom
and my auntie had a very interesting relationship. And my
Auntie starts laughing, and my mom laughed along with her,
like you know you laugh at your kids, like what
(19:02):
are you doing? Like, But for me that was a
huge ego knock, a huge like I don't they think
I'm shit? Oh wow, oh they think I can't sing.
And then I had the other cousins who could sing.
I have my sisters who could sing, really sing like SWV.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Sing was the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
You know, we love them, their legends, but I don't
have that high voice. My voice is deeper and raspia
even back then, and I just felt like, if I
don't sound like them, then I don't, you know. And
that was that was ruminating and growing. And so I've
sang these songs. I go on stage and I do
my best, and every time i'd be in any scenario,
(19:40):
I'd look for the person who was gonna sense it.
Can I curse a little bit? Yeah, I'd look for
the person who was gonna show me subconsciously, and I'd
find them to like angle towards. I realized my patterns
and I was just like, I'm befriend and the person
who I thought was way better than me. For them
to look down on me, it wasn't about me liking them.
It was more just me calling in that energy and
(20:01):
they would do it every time.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And so when I realized that.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Was what it was, Wow, Yeah, there was a lot
of that going on. I called my mom and I
was like, I was frying fish. It was Easter and
I started frying this fish and.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Pop bubbled over it. It wouldn't stop.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
How the spirds like, call your mom and cleared up,
Call your mama, cleared up, And I was just like, nah,
call out after I know, sleep over there, turn upon
and start frying my fish.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
The pop bubbles over.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
It's like, nah, call your mom right now, I said.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So this was the symbolism. This is how you always
looking for these signs. You know it needed to bubble up.
Your some is bubbling over and it's the pot. And
now you gotta call your mama.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So I called her. Turn avoided the fire.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Avoiding the fire artists to sell subliminal All these messages
are there, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And that's my point where I'm like, sometimes your brain
will send you someplace the spirits like clear this up.
This is the thing you need to reroute, this is
the thing you need to try. And so all the
things were there and I listened. I called her and
it was wild because it was the middle of the
night and her and my dad were up. We got
on FaceTime. She's like, what's up. She's like, I couldn't sleep,
(21:13):
what's going on. I was like, funny enough, so let.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Me tell you this thing I got clear up. And
I tell her.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
She just sits there listening to me and never forget
her face, and she was just like, I'm sorry, as
maybe the first time she directly looked at me, listened
to me and just said I'm sorry. And then she said,
I thought you knew you could say I thought you
knew you sounded great. I was like, like I didn't
know how to respond to it, like I thought you knew,
(21:41):
like I thought I'd given you that already in my head,
and I was just like, well, this just hurt my feeling.
And I felt like a twelve year old again in
that moment, and it was just like, get it all out,
get it all out, put it all out, you cry,
do all the things, say thank you, and then it
was the have to put the phone on.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It was like, you didn't even need that.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Look at all of that, and you didn't even you
spend your whole life sabotaging yourself every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You didn't even need it. So many people are still,
I mean, because we get stuck in the where like
at the age where the trauma happened, right, we get stuck.
So I know that there are so many moments where
I've been stuck at the eight year old little girl.
I've been stuck at that eleven year old girl, like
I've been stuck there. And sometimes she'd be showing up
(22:29):
to the party, she'd be coming up with her party clothes,
one baby, ready, ready, ready to speak trum at this
big age. Baby, she still be throwing tantrums, and sometimes
I have to be like, well, wait a minute, met Fred,
you got to relax, I got you.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You're safe, yeah, And I literally tell myself that you're safe,
where you are, you belong, you are little girl, little
You're good. Like I have to like imagine myself in
those moments and literally speak to her like out loud
and to myself, and again immediately after that, it's like
it's almost like, yeah, okay, let's go play. Like I
(23:05):
you know, I imagine myself back then and I speak
to myself in terms and it's like again, it's a
physical release, it's a mental and emotional release, and I
just get on with my day. And it's not often.
It's not just it's not in the big moments of
therapy or the release of.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
The your parents. It's in the mundane. It's in the mundane.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's in the It's in the Oh, I
didn't like when I didn't like the way that you
made I made the bed this morning, and it upset
me because I felt like I needed to get it
right for you know, or someone spoke to me crazy and.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I felt like I felt threaten. Baby honey, don't catch
me wrong in that, because fourteen year old Brandy be
showing up work and you're like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
It's nothing to do with you. Yeah, everything is working
for me. Yeah, And so most of the times it
ain't nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
All of the time.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Pretty much, how I react to it is my to carry.
And so a lot of that self work, a lot
of that talking to myself nicely, a lot of that
like maybe they're having a shit day and it's not you,
and you're just in their line of fire this week,
and how can you how can you react in the
(24:20):
way that brings you less Calma?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, that's the real thing, is how can I so?
So this don't boomerang back to me. But this is
the thing that I loved about your story and your
evolution and this loving yourself better and talking nicely to yourself,
because there was this moment that you had with an
A and R person, Drew Dixon, and she said to
(24:45):
you that one day that you should stop begging. She
said stop begging. Before I was very much like, what
can you do for me? Baby? Choose me? Why am
I not the one? As I got older, I started
to check myself and wonder if I would stand outside
in the rain with a boombox for myself.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Oh, i would in torrential rain with electricity because I'm
worth it. Okay, it will never be that terrible, but
you feel the extremes. I would go too for Yeah,
I love myself.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, it was really that.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
There were moments throughout making all of the albums where
people Drew Dixon are making shine. She was like, I
don't like that record. You're begging too much. And it
was a record written with a guy. Of course, you know,
I let him take the lead on the writing, doubting
myself thinking okay, you got it, let me, let me
just try me be open. Yeah, you know, She's like,
I don't like that record, don't put it on it.
(25:43):
I'm you're begging too much on that. And I was
just like, okay, you know, I'm like, I'm in my twenties.
She's grown at this point, and she was just like,
you know, you don't have to beg for love. You
shouldn't have to beg for to be wanted. You shouldn't
like it's enough of that in our industry. It's enough
of that in our songs. And I was like, it
was a reminder that the words that we sing, the
(26:04):
words that we put in the world, mean things to people.
And I'm a stickler for that now, Like I understand
the turn off, I understand, like I understand everybody's version
of artists subjective.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But where I a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I don't like to beg I don't like to I
love vulnerability. I don't like laying myself down for the
sake of I don't like I enjoy being who I
am with all of myself instead of the opposite at present.
But it took me a minute to kind of realize, like, yeah,
like why why a why baby baby pleasing? Well, it
(26:41):
came from family stuff. I was comfortable singing it because
that was the example I'd seen looking up. It was
a lot of like with matriarchal, it was a lot
to choose me. There's a lot of like ooh stufferent things, yeah, stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like that in our family, and coming from a matriarchal family,
it was a lot to choose me here. Yeah, too
many marriages.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And then what I did see in the marriages my
stepdad and my mom.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I'm so happy she managed to get out of and
she's with my dad, so at my actual.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Data original Nelly, I have nothing to say about when
people spin the block.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Because I'm like, yeah, my mom and dad did it.
Like to me, they're the original to spend the blockers.
Yeah it is, yeah, but I don't have any I
don't have as much judgment. But I understand what was
toxic in certain parts of it, and I understand what
I don't want to do, and I understand what I
had nothing to do with me, and I understand what
(27:43):
I was just present for, and I understand that I
don't have to carry any of it moving forward. And
that means in my songs, that means in my daily interactions,
that means in my life. I don't have to do
this for the next forty five years of my life
because it's what my family did.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I don't like.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
My journey is mine and literally mine. So now it's
just me, you know, and my choices, and so I
ask for guidance in all those choices because I ain't
been here before, I ain't been me before.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I love that because I think that you said it earlier,
and I think that this is like the common thread
of your conversation right now, even in this new album,
because it's all about the joy, it's all about the love,
it's the freedom though freedom enjoy.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I discovered that I'm one of these people that enjoys.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Being happy like people say, like I love being I
enjoy it like I like being with people who are smiling,
who having fun, who I don't have to perform around,
who are comfortable in their skin. And I know that
the more I'm like that, the more that they come,
the more those people come around me.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And so I aim to.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
My consistent goal is to be that, like, get all
the stuff out the way that hampers your joy, you know.
And so this whole album, like I said, going in
asking to write, God was like, let me help you
write your joy.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Let me help you write your future.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Because so every song is intentional about joy. Every single
melody is something that I was in the studio bopping
a two step and.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Like where did this? Who wrong this me? You know?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And if I didn't have that reaction, I'll be like
scrap it. But there wan't too many scrappits because you know,
God shows up when you're ask him.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
That's good, because he sure does. He shows up when
we ask him what are you asking God for in
this season? More joy?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I want to be able to sustain the joy. You know,
I don't think that joy is the thing that you
can cut off at will. But well, hold on now,
let me say that again. You can choose to not
be enjoy I think you can choose people that you know.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
It's your journey.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not able to, but I would love to be
able to physically sustain it. Yeah, you know, so I'm
asking him for sustan and like to be able to
sustain it.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's what I'm asking for.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, to stay in that pocket, to stay in that bag,
and the opportunity to learn how to to keep being that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I've been miserable. I've been living in somebody else's stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I was just about to go there, you know, I
pulled out my You know, when I put out my means,
I got a I got from you. I mean you,
you said that, you said you have a divinely orchestrated life.
You ask yourself all the time, what do I have
to be miserable about?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Couldn't make it up. It doesn't make sense that I'm
from West cam in London, which is it's just a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
It's a hood in London.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I lived in my parents' garage because we were trying
to figure out how to like not.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Get us all evicted. Okay, because after a.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Certain amount of years, you know, the kids can't live
at home anymore, they start charging you are didn't like
it's a way like you know, like sec hushle to
a degree.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Oh okay, I lived.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm from I'm from humble beginnings for a better phrase.
I didn't know we were broke, but we were broke
and didn't come from and there's not a lot of
people in London, and well, everybody has their journey, but
my journey was we lived in the States. We had
to figure it out. There's nine of us, you know.
I used to live in the garage. I made my
(31:29):
own money enough to get out and rent a place nearby.
I made enough money to buy a house. I made
enough money to be able. And even in the middle
of that, through ups and downs, through money being mismanaged
and going super broke, I was able to still find
ways to record and fly and foster the relationships that
were going to get me to be able to come
to America and do this. I was able to meet
(31:51):
John and sustain like, there are so many things in
my life that shouldn't have happened based on what I
look cat is my past and what everyone in the
family was thinking that was gonna happen with my mum
and her nine kids, you know, like having a lot
of kids as a as a young woman in West
(32:12):
London at the time, it wasn't the thing like I heard,
I'm the oldest daughter. You hear people's talk, you're hearing
people talk.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Well, then they got a TV at the house.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
They like rabbits and that's crazy, Like people had no respect,
and I watched her be nice about it. Wow, And
you know, so I look at all of those things,
and I look at what my trajectory was supposed to
be based on me being privy to those conversations, me
(32:40):
watching her struggle. They expected all of us to turn
out the exact same way and it to be terrible. Now,
some of my brothers and sisters have had kids and
they own their houses and there my brother's a chartered
account and my sister's are like they're all in.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
My sister has a master's.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And like they're all they all do so freaking well
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I mean, you're so proud, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And so that was part of the release, you know,
it was a part from me as part of the release.
But I wasn't supposed to be here, you know, and
then take it out of family as a black woman
in London in the UK, starting from a rap background.
Who do you think you are to go and do
all of that to have your dacity to say you
about to win a Grammy?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Who does that? Me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Because I'm not here for you people.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I didn't start this. You didn't give my joy. You
didn't start this off with me. It weren't me you
and me, you and God in the garage, it was
me God, Yeah, in the garage, Me and the Holy
Spirit praying at that age. And even when I veered
and I left and I was like thinking I was
doing this by myself, he was like, I come bring
your book home. Yeah every time. And so that's why
(33:48):
I say, Divine the Orchestra couldn't make it up. It
doesn't make any sense. The people I've walked into, the
people that have believed and trusted and you know, giving
me a leg up or see me and said you
should do this Yep, doesn't make any sense about.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Here we are. I mean, I want you to talk
about the leaps that you've had to take, because you
you just talked about it and telling the story of
your upbringing. You know, you grew up in the UK.
You started off as an MC, and you have this
dream and you said, I'm gonna win a Grammy and
I'm gonna do it in the States. I'm gonna take
(34:26):
my talents to a whole other country and build a
life for myself. I think there are so many people
out here right now who are listening who are so
afraid to take the leap because they are they're afraid
of the unknown. But the unknown has their destiny.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Imagine that you said, yeah, you're afraid of something, but
that's something that you're afraid of has your destiny and
it's in its space.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, you'll come back around in another lifetime and do
it again. And I pray that you're more your fraver,
you know, But you're here, now, what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Go for it?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I had people be like, well you you was ready
to start in London. Yeah, I had my career in
London and I went to almost flat zero when I moved, Like,
it wasn't like, oh, I had all this money. I
had my things, and I had a sale at my
house with all my things before I left to make
some extra money to be able to live for a
couple of weeks out there and to get it going
(35:30):
before I like, So it wasn't like I just came
with all my well, she had a record, She's no,
like I spent all my money recording records to be
able to get the deal, to be able to move,
and then had to sell all my shoes and then
I had to sell over my.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Bags and the shoe game. I see. It is crazy,
do you know what I'm saying? Like we're still here
still it's giving all the things. You know what I'm saying,
But you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The money isn't the thing to me. It's it's go
for it. It's moved towards it. And they say when
you take a step, the pouf becomes clear or the
path lays out in front of you.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's that.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Imagine being fifty five or seventy five saying I could
have you know when I was I had met when
I like, imagine be imagine that, you know how.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Regret for those people see. I mean, I was literally
at a basketball game a few weeks ago, and it
was at the Swag Tournament here, which is HBC tournament.
And I'm sitting waiting on the person I was with,
and I'm waiting for him to get done, and this
older gentleman is talking to me, and he's talking to
(36:37):
me and girl, when I tell you, he was telling
me about his Heyday regrets and nineteen sixty three and
this and that and went through his phone and still
to then showed me. I mean, he was standing there
for a long time to go through this phone to
show me these pictures of him from nineteen sixty three.
And I was like, how many of us are standing
(37:00):
there right now in the present, going back to bring up.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
All the things with the past you could have? Yeah,
And I feel like there's so much more in front
of you you just have to be with and you
are you have it in you.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
I like to leave people with the courage. You have
it in you?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Is this worth the camera? You have it in you
to go for it. I don't believe in telling people
like do you know maybe you shouldn't know? Find a way,
find a way like get get humble, find a way,
not humble. Get out of your ego and find a way. Yeah,
you know, humble is it's a derivative of the word nice.
(37:40):
Per I learned this from Juran Bernard's derivt of the
word nice and.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh dur that's our friend over here. He came into
Oh god.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
He dropped this Juely show and I was just like, oh,
told the world, you told me this. He said, like,
deriv humble is a derivative of the word nice, and
nice comes from naive, right, I don't believe in yeah,
not even you know. So I'll say, get up your
ego and go for your dreams like it will lay
out in.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Front of you.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And that moment is that moment. But imagine if I'd
have said, I can't go to New York and say
it so and So's friends house and you never know
who I am today, you never have a clue about
we wouldn't be saying here, Yeah. If I wasn't like,
let me sell these shoes now, let me get rid
of these bags.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That is so good, okay, because I think that that
has to people have to know that when they're talking
about building the thing that they want, the dream, the
dreamfe You're gonna have to give up some stuff along
the way, for sure.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, And I've had when I tell you, I sold
the bags and I thought that that was my thing.
And when I tell you I am, I am severely
never at a lack. I live in the abundance when
it comes to clothes, shoes, bags, food, things like God
make sure that I am good, and I'm never. I
(39:02):
don't take it for granted. I'm not the girl to say, wow,
I'm a good steward of my money. I'm not the
girl that's irresponsible with it. But if I need something,
and if I want to get something, I'm grateful that
I'm able because I remember having to sell pretty much
everything I own and take like maybe a forty by
(39:22):
eighteen bucks and those are my things, and then had
to borrow money to get that shipped. And that was
twenty six years old. And at forty five, I'm just
like aymen, I would do it again if I needed
to leave this whole thing over because I had this immaterial.
This is not what I'm here for to have all
the things, you know. And I make donations and I
(39:43):
do that now as a routine, like I go through
my closet I gift and I've done it my entire
rotation because it keeps me present that this.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Isn't the thing. Yes, know what you're here for. So
what would the forty five year old of Stelle tell
the twenty five or thirty five year old style, I
would tell her where all the belly tops? One now
one where all the belly tops? Like live your best
(40:11):
life you really don't have.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Your sisters are gonna be okay, and your brothers are
gonna be all right. So be the be the fun,
adventurous joy for you. Like stop being the proper one
all the time. Stop taking care of everybody and they
auntie all the time. You go be tipsy for three
days straight. Baby, absolutely not cut it out. Your body's
(40:39):
gonna tell you now.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Your body is gonna tell you now you can do
it now listen, do it now? Yeah, do it?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Did because baby, now one glass is gonna take you
out top red shoe. Baby, I have one drink that
I can drink and I'm so happy with myself it
out because do it. Do it like the physical part it,
do it all and stop again, like just live. Know
everything that you thought was going to bring shame to
(41:05):
the family, they don't care.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I would. I would, honestly I would. I would tell
myself the same thing at forty two, right the twenty two,
the thirty two year old version of me, I would
definitely say, be adventurous, take the leap, go forward, you know,
I tell my little cousin this. I was just like,
I wish there was somebody in my ear at that age.
(41:29):
I was telling me that there was a whole world
out here, right, not just the United States. If there's
an opportunity, go to London, to go to Dubai, go
to Singapore, go to Johannesburg, go to Cape Town, Go
take the opportunity, live and go live, spend some time.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I would say this to people, Go like, even if you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Can't like.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Do the backpacking thing for a minute, if you can't
afford the whole expensive holiday, all these hostels use your
brain comes send do things, but like go travel, like
do some stuff that's not natural to you or in
your upbringing.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Go go see the world.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Go touch grass in another city, in another state, in
another continent, and go and see that the world is
bigger than what your people's told you it was. Go
and see that the world is bigger than what you
see on the television. I've lived in I've lived in
the UK, and I've lived here, and we're more like
with all of our things and all of our fears,
but we're also more.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Like with all the brilliance that we have.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And then I've traveled to pretty much every city, country,
bar country, bar Antarctica and the South Pole. Literally I've
been to every.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Single one of them.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
In Russia, Thailand, India, China, Korea, like, we've been everywhere
with music and I'm great.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
That was one of my prayers. I was like, I
want to go all over the world.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, you know, when I was doing my prayers, doing
my prayers, I mean, it's me and I want to
go all over the world and music's taking me there.
I tell the team, give me a couple of days
either side, or make sure that I have some time
to go explore, and I will go with my camera
and walk around the city like no one knows me
and just be outside, whether it's shopping or it's just like,
(43:16):
let's take me to a temple, or let's go, let's
go India, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
To the market. We're talking about our India experience. Let's
go to the market. I want to see you. Let
me get some God bracelets.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, I want to see it. And the thing I
find is again, we are just like each other. There's
so much more that pulls us together as people. And
once you have that perspective, there's no one that's going
to come and tell you what you know to be different,
you know anything different than what you know, what you've seen,
what you felt with your eyes and with your spirit
(43:47):
and your body.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, no one can come and tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Well, the people in China, Well I saw it for myself,
were not like that.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I'll tell you what it was like.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Have you been, Yeah, you know. And you can stand
in that confidence. It puts you in a whole difference
been you don't feel the need to explain yourself too
much to people. Your presence, it changes its the way
you walk in a room.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Just go go see. So this version of a Stille
in this season, what is life teaching you right now?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
It's teaching me that this season is going to require
different physical version of me, and it's and it's bringing
back up personally, and this week is bringing back up
a lot of the old negative self talk I would
give myself.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So this week, this week, this week is what makes yeah,
what makes this week different.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I've never been forty five and this many months old before,
and it's next week.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
It would be for you.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Five and that many months old. And every week it's
something different. And it's not physical. It's not like, oh,
my body's breaking down, but it's like, oh, I require
strength training now. Oh, I need to eat more protein now.
Oh and and I can't do this now, and I
have to do that now. And why might need more
sleep now?
Speaker 1 (45:01):
It's the sleep is important. I'm not a good person
if I'm not sleeping.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And I'm clear about that. Yeah, I don't force it.
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Good night, I'm going to be here. Yeah, I'm going
to be I'll be over there. Sleep. Yeah, I'm going
to sleep. My friends last because they're like you are
the nap queen. I will sleep everywhere. I'm the queen
of a nap girl. Pass out. Yeah, you're talking to me,
mm hmm, that's me. There are some nights I am
(45:30):
a thirty in the bed. That's a good time, like
I am in the bad. People like my sister will
call me and be like you can't be serious. I'd
be like, girl, I am so serious. Showered baby scarf,
all honey, happy with that extended cord listen scrolling A
(45:53):
thirty and those nights, I am so happy because then
I'm waking up at four in the morning and I'm
ready doing what you need to do, Yeah, for your life,
for your journey.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And I find like and I was able to get
that clarity in the pandemic too. I turned forty in
twenty twenty, and so like that year of like if
I was, I was ready. It was like January, I
was ready, my was gonna be up. I was gonna
have a great year. My sister came up, my birthday.
It was wonderful, and then everything went so it's just
(46:22):
me myself and I.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, that's got to be that. That is everything. I
turned forty and twenty two. Yeah, and I just I
know if I would have turned forty in twenty I
would have just been like, I redid it. I redid
my birthday.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
You did say I redid my birthday At forty four,
I was like, listen, in the day day, I didn't
get this off, but I redid it in forty four. Yeah,
but it was just a moment of clarity. And sometimes
that early morning bed or that I need to my
body feels uneasy. In this scenario, it's nothing to do
with me. But what can I do to make my
(47:01):
body feel at ease? And I'll put on Megahotz and
play it real low in a room and no one's
bothered by it, and my body feels good. I carry
my jewels, my crystals, my things with me, and it's
the half of us, the reminder, half of its energy absorption,
you know.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
It's like I keep it on me on purpose.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, and those things help me, you know. An the
other half is being in continual conversation with God and
sometimes get into it, you know, like I understand that
I like to be busy, and I understand that that
clashes with what my body needs. So I learned to
I want this to continue for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
So I'm learning to listen to them more. Yeah, when
you talked about the self talk and you have relearned
some things that unlearned, some things in your past and
how you're moving forward. Have there been any books that
have been like essentral to the journey one I'm reading
right now or listening to right now is Mel Robbins,
(47:59):
let them okay me, that's a popular book right now,
like every it's what everybody's show radar because it's and
will I resisted it.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I've been resisting because I'm like everybody on the clips,
Oh yeah, I don't want to do it because everybody yeah.
And then I was doing the Big D Club or
in reset in one of my houses is I put
it under the house. I'm listening in one of my
in one of my rooms, I was like.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
It's the hype. The hype is real. The hype is real.
This is a girl reminder everybody who reads it and
posts like this right here. And I have been resisting
in the stall because everybody been on it.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
I do the same, but you go cust me out.
I may have seen like two episodes of Game of Thrones,
too violent for me.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Don't like it. Not my hype. Everybody can. Everyone that's
seen it is like this is I'm just like, yeah,
I'm that girl, I'm Game of Thrones. I'm House of Dragons,
the dragon or you know, I say it like yeah,
I say it like the black people like, how's the dragons?
It's probably not that right.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
But I'm the opposite of all the hype, but this one,
I feel like sup feels like I was like, all right,
so I put it on as I've been cleaning the house,
and some of the things she's had in that book
were just reminded, because one is about grace.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
It's about grace.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
It's about you've been living this way longer than you've
been trying to live this way. So give yourself a second,
you know, like if you slip, if you forget, or
if you talk crazy to yourself, all right, you can
you can, you know, you can figure that out.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
You can apologize and keep it moving.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
But part of the let them that she said that
that people are going to miss is to let me
of it. And she keeps your minding you throughout the book.
Let me what are you going to do? Let them
do that? Let me do this?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And I'm telling you, even in the past few weeks
with me.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Being like you want to do that? Cool?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Let me go over here, my mom, the Shannon sharp
of it all none with me.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I let people.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I'm reminded to let people do them. Yeah, you know,
and that book has been a, you know, a very
good reminder and like why would you talk to yourself
like this, like, why don't you let me talk to
myself nicely? Like I reflected to myself, let them talk
to you crazy still and talk to yourself nicely. You know,
if that's the thing that comes out of someone's mouth
(50:22):
about you, why would you take all that on? Why
when you flip that around and tell yourself how incredible
you are, how your body's healthy and getting you where
you need to go.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
You're so proud of your body.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You're so you know, like, thank you so much, every cell,
every single thing forgetting me where I need to go
and keep you safe today.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
I have to do that sometimes too, seriously, Like I
have moments when when I do when I'm riding in
a car or even when I'm in the gym in
the mornings, and I have to like, come on, like,
I am so grateful for you. You have carried me
this far, that's far, Like you have gotten me to
this point. I am so grateful. Yeah, you think.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
About everything you've you've done and how you you you
come here in the morning at nine am through and
you said you get at four no no, no, no,
no no. Imagine that sometimes that was very rare very
even if you do right, but five thirty, at five thirty,
(51:21):
that's that's the that's the miracle to some people to
be able to get up at five thirty because and
then it told them that they're supposed to. But this
is something that you do.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, and your buddy in the gym at seven, training
at seven. Yeah, your brain function is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Your your body says you get up, go do this
thing to take care of me today, and you do it. Yeah,
you know, and you have discipline and you and it's
not just the outside. It's the it's the way that
your body moves because you decided and it obeys you
and it listens to you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
So I talked nicely to myself because I think to myself, like, wow,
this this is this bag of meat that I'm in.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
It's pretty pretty not just bag of meat. Yeah, she's
pretty one. It's not terrible, you know. You know. I
feel like that's such because the world can be so hard,
and especially to black women, especially to black women who
are not racially ambiguous, who look very African, who look
(52:17):
very much like these these features came from the continent.
You're like someone said, it was like listen, to us
all of the things right, and how difficult it can
be sometimes to talk nicely to yourself when the world
does not.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
See you as being an example. Yeah, and that's the
main thing. There's never been an example, And in most
of all lineages, it's never a thing that our parents thought.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
To tell us.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
FYI, you're incredible, you lookute. My mom was very clear
about that. But yeah, my mom wants to Yeah, my
mom will go out in the world, and that's not
your mom. Yeah, so you forget you're supposed to say
nice things to yourself. But again it comes down to that,
like who told you that? And why would you be
crazy to yourself? Like I think I'm cute, I think
(53:10):
I'm beautiful. I mean, I've been telling people to see
my baby tell me I'm not okay, and I know
you ain't gonna do it, so somewhere let them let
me okay. And I never I never, really, I don't
understand that. I never understood the idea that somebody else's
(53:34):
opinion of you meant more than your own to yourself.
I had again this weekend conversation. I was like, talk
to some my young younger friends, and I was like,
you understand how brilliant you are. Aside from your accomplishments.
Every single thing you say goes into the history books
and into lifestyle and into the into the world's lexicon
as the thing to be as a black woman. Do
(53:57):
you understand how your existence feels the few cure of
the world and you want to pick yourself apart because
the internet said so this week.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
That's a word. You're outside of your mind.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
I'm gonna to stop, like I was, just like like you,
you are young, and you are this accomplished, you are brilliant.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
You pull up and what are you talking about? Like?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
What do we stop it around me? Don't do that
because I'm gonna caust you out. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm
gonna say something to you.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
And still I am very I'm very much myself on
this on this, but but the language definitely is more
colorful off of this microphone.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
That's okay, Yeah, yeah, is I believe in I believe
in words meaning things, And I don't like it when women,
especially black women, talk crazy about themselves in order to
identify or to make camaraderie, Like what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (54:55):
Is there an affirmation that has helped you or a mantra.
Everything is perfect.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Everything is perfect, everything is lined up exactly it's meant
to be, and it's gonna work out beyond your wildest dreams.
I have so much evidence of that in my life.
So when I say everything is perfect, I ain't stressing
about it. Yeah, somebody's gonna catch it if it's not
and it will be perfect. And if it if it
seems imperfect in the moment, I guarantee. And every time
(55:20):
when I see it back, I'm just like, what wasn't
so bad, It wasn't terrible. I was just all in
my mind.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Okay, okay, okay, you know, is there something that you
want to do that you haven't done yet. I want
to act. I want you to know I consider you
an actress already because you're a voice actress.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I want to act in an Oscar winning movie.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Okay, this is you're hearing get here first.
Speaker 2 (55:46):
This is this is like a this is like a
in the air, God make this happen. I want to
act in an Oscar in the movie, and I want
to have people will be like, oh for the starting row.
I want to have best the point role. And I
want to be a comedic like I really want to
do that, Like, because for me, when I watch movies,
the person that like this seems.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Out like this is outside of you.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yes, this comedy like a comedic role.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Yes, I feel like it'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
But the people that I tend to love and I
like to watch comedies and romances, and I'm that girl.
I careful what I put into me because I will
dream about it and freak out, freak myself out in
the middle of the night. But I like to watch
those kinds of movies, and the characters that I tend
to lean towards loving the most are the funny ones.
And you know, my friends are always like if you
(56:36):
just leave you in a room and you go and
we're just talking shit, like people don't know this about you. Yeah,
it's like really and they're like, no, you're just saying
things sight. So I feel like I want to ask
her Oscar Award winning so the next time you come back,
we'll be talking about your Oscar Award winning performance, Award winning.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Performance and whatever movie. Yes, Okay, So, as we begin
to close out this interview, Grammy Award winning future Oscar
Holder winner, what's one word you're committed to in the
season of your life. More joy. That's good. More joy. Yeah,
(57:17):
everything comes from that. Everything comes from joy. If you
could leave your audience with one thing that they should
do in their life, what would it be.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
One thing that was tell people in your life is
to recognize that it is your life. It's great that
you were born into a family. It's great that you
were raised in a certain part.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
But this is your journey on this earth with your
spirit and God, however you classify him, wherever you help
him it, however, whatever the entity is for you, it
is your journey.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
It's okay, live your life. Live your life, Estelle. It
has been a pleasure. I have enjoyed you so much
with your soft spoken self.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
I turned my volume down one time or sell that's okay.
I love I love your voice.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
You have a great voice. Thank you. You heard it
from the Grammy Award. Wind the von IMpower Saws another
good one for the book. Send it to somebody who
needs a little more joy, but to live their life
the way they are supposed to live it. I'm your God,
Brandy Harvey. Until next time, eat well, give a damn
move your body every single day. Peace,
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