Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, do not attempt to adjust your dial.
Speaker 1: I'm so old school, of course, I would say a
Speaker 1: dial as if it was a radio. We learned on
Speaker 1: a previous episode of Quest Love Supreme you gotta file
Speaker 1: the light. And so we're doing something rather different. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a one on one interview, and
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes we just have to you know what, Okay.
Speaker 1: Normally I would do my normal jargon of you know,
Speaker 1: we have greatness in the room and da da da da,
Speaker 1: But I feel that's a lot of pressure. Sometimes, oh,
Speaker 1: I will just simply say that there is an episode
Speaker 1: of two friends, two colleagues having a conversation with each other,
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know it's happening, Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: there's a conversation with the one and only. How do
Speaker 1: I describe Andre Lauren Benjamin aka three stacks shit, he's
Speaker 1: so enlightened he might be four stacks right about now
Speaker 1: aka Johnny Vulture, Sunny Bridges.
Speaker 2: I forgot about.
Speaker 1: Just chipped out the nicest Gemini I know, like he's
Speaker 1: the acceptance of my new Gemini's rule.
Speaker 2: Sorry, about that. Come on, now, you're man.
Speaker 1: You're made Gemini though, So you know, I like to
Speaker 1: think you're more tarist adjacent than Junie Geminis.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't. I don't get along with
Speaker 3: many June Geminis.
Speaker 2: So Gemini is crazy, man, like exactly.
Speaker 4: Yes, you are all crazy, but so crazy that you
Speaker 4: just into it. Like whatever we're into, we're crazy about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, you guys are bold. I mean, look, dude, our
Speaker 1: hero Prince is a Gemini. Yeah, so many Geminis out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I want to do something a bit different
Speaker 1: because I know you're on a press run and I
Speaker 1: know when an artist does a press run where you're
Speaker 1: just doing an interview at the interview, at the interview
Speaker 1: to interview, the muscle memory kicks in. You're answering the
Speaker 1: same exact questions over and over again. And I kind
Speaker 1: of want to use this as an opportunity to actually
Speaker 1: to get to know you as a human.
Speaker 2: All right, let's stretch Dan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I'm yeah, I'll say that I'm taking
Speaker 1: a three thousand approach in quest love Supreme Land, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw out questions that I wouldn't typically ask
Speaker 1: on AQLS episode.
Speaker 2: And no, no, no, this is gonna get fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I assure you, I assure you it's that. So
Speaker 1: my first question to you is what time do you
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, just automatically, not like on
Speaker 1: the clock that I got to get to the airport,
Speaker 1: but what's your body clock?
Speaker 2: When do you wake up?
Speaker 4: About about eight eight am? Maybe like naturally about eight am?
Speaker 1: Naturally eight am? Okay, do you have a morning routine?
Speaker 1: What do you do in the first half hour of
Speaker 1: your day?
Speaker 4: Like, I've never used social media, so I've never had
Speaker 4: a Twitter account. I only have an Instagram account now
Speaker 4: to preserve my name, but I've never ever posted anything
Speaker 4: in my life. So it's funny that when I see
Speaker 4: most people in the world and they're constantly checking their Instagram,
Speaker 4: like you know, kind of going through these little things.
Speaker 4: So when I get up in the morning, I have
Speaker 4: my TV set up to like I'm a YouTube person, man,
Speaker 4: Like YouTube is my university. So I just watch a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of shorts, just random, random shorts. I guess
Speaker 4: the same thing someone would do scrolling through Instagram. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I kind of get thrown stuff from the youtubel.
Speaker 2: Alga, Okay, where do you live?
Speaker 4: I live in Venice Beach. I live a few blocks
Speaker 4: up from here. I live in Venice Beach, California. How
Speaker 4: long have you lived out in Venice?
Speaker 2: About four? Four or five years now? Maybe?
Speaker 3: So was there every time you lived in New York?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I lived in New York for four years before I
Speaker 4: came here. So I lived in Atlanta, lived in Dallas
Speaker 4: for two years. Then I moved to New York for
Speaker 4: about three years maybe, and then then moved here.
Speaker 3: I heard a crazy room. Are you a fishing a fishonado?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: I started going deep sea fishing, like my family took
Speaker 4: me dee deep sea fishing, and I enjoyed. And I
Speaker 4: invited a big boy on a on a couple of them,
Speaker 4: and big boy like he's been running with it, Like
Speaker 4: big boy goes out in deep sea fishes all the time.
Speaker 2: So I think you may be confusing me with big boy.
Speaker 1: Well, I heard that someone told me like in Long
Speaker 1: Island once that you like I saw one hundred and
Speaker 1: three thousand like going fishing in Long Island.
Speaker 2: I was like, Long Island, he's not from New York.
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, he's from New York.
Speaker 4: So now what do young people say? That's cal Okay,
Speaker 4: that's a good room. I mean, fishing is awesome, you know, now,
Speaker 4: just I've never done it in Long Island.
Speaker 2: Though, okay.
Speaker 3: And these are also non sequitur and random questions.
Speaker 4: No, I love these kind of questions, like you're interviewing me, like, like, well,
Speaker 4: when we go to Europe, they asked different questions.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you know what I mean. I like figure you're
Speaker 2: just tired of asking the same thing. Where have you been?
Speaker 2: You know? How many instruments do you play or can
Speaker 2: you play?
Speaker 4: I can mess around with maybe four or five to
Speaker 4: get a sound out of them. But I don't even
Speaker 4: consider myself a musician in that way, Like I can't
Speaker 4: even claim that.
Speaker 2: I know real musicians, you know. But I can write.
Speaker 4: I use them as kind of like writing to sometimes
Speaker 4: I can record myself doing it, but I'm not proficient.
Speaker 4: I'm probably more proficient on flute than I am on
Speaker 4: any of them.
Speaker 2: So in a world full of instruments, why.
Speaker 4: The flute natural? How I got there? How I discovered it?
Speaker 4: With instruments, you kind of you pick them up and
Speaker 4: you mess around with them, and you start to see
Speaker 4: where am I spending most of my time, and it
Speaker 4: ended up being the flute. But then I go through
Speaker 4: phases too, because I I did it with guitar for
Speaker 4: a little bit, then I did it with bass for
Speaker 4: a little bit, and then flute just happened to be
Speaker 4: the thing that I think stuck. And because I think
Speaker 4: the mobileness of a flute too, because I mean, right
Speaker 4: now I'm holding the flut. I cared it kind of everywhere,
Speaker 4: So any inspiration I get, I just pick it up
Speaker 4: and start messing around.
Speaker 2: I can't do that with a bass guitar. I can't
Speaker 2: do that with a piano.
Speaker 4: You can do it with a guitar acoustic maybe, but
Speaker 4: this is so unassuming and you just kind of carry
Speaker 4: it like you know. So I think that the portability
Speaker 4: of a flute probably made it my favorite. How many
Speaker 4: do you own about thirty thirty flutes?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 4: So you have thirty versions of that, No, and they're
Speaker 4: all from different makers. But this style of flute I
Speaker 4: probably owned more vse and my double flutes than any
Speaker 4: other style because it's kind of the flute that I
Speaker 4: really fell in love with the first which is based
Speaker 4: in like meso American culture, you know Mayan and Nastec flutes,
Speaker 4: and now this is the Native American version of them,
Speaker 4: made by Gearmore. They were made of clay originally, but
Speaker 4: I own a lot of these. But I think once
Speaker 4: I started to go on the flute path, I started
Speaker 4: to get schooled by uber drivers because I play all
Speaker 4: the time, So I play in ubers, I play, I
Speaker 4: play in the back word yeah. And so if I'm
Speaker 4: playing and it's a Chinese driver, he'll turn around like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: that reminds me of my country. Or if it's Japanese,
Speaker 4: oh that reminds me.
Speaker 2: Oh, it reminds me.
Speaker 4: So everybody I'm playing the same flute, but every nationality
Speaker 4: of driver will turn around and tell me it reminds
Speaker 4: them of their country. So that let me know that culturally,
Speaker 4: every culture has a flute and a and a dram
Speaker 4: of course. But yeah, but I started to get schooled
Speaker 4: on the street and by uber drivers while people asking
Speaker 4: me about things like I was in Philly shooting the film,
Speaker 4: and I spent a lot of time in Philly and
Speaker 4: I would just walk and play, and this dude comes
Speaker 4: up to me and he's like, oh, you're doing that
Speaker 4: Japanese thing, and I was like, what Japanese thing are
Speaker 4: you talking about? And then he schools me and tell
Speaker 4: me that there was a whole shakahachi culture where you know,
Speaker 4: these Japanese players will walk around with baskets on their
Speaker 4: head to have no identity and no ego and just
Speaker 4: play for people.
Speaker 2: That was the thing.
Speaker 4: End. I would just walk around in public and play.
Speaker 4: So he was asking me was I doing that? Which
Speaker 4: I had no idea what that was, and went to
Speaker 4: research that and learned about that.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, there's a show that came
Speaker 1: on h in the seventies called Kung Fu Yes, and
Speaker 1: of which David Carodine's character is sort of and he
Speaker 1: Tarantinas sort of alluded to that and Kill Bill in
Speaker 1: which he played the same exact flute, like just walking
Speaker 1: around and start playing and okay, so yeah, I was wondering, like, wow,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's in his kung fu face.
Speaker 2: It's it's just I'm being taught.
Speaker 4: I'm learning, and I see now that anything that I
Speaker 4: can blow when through and manipulate the notes with my fingers,
Speaker 4: I want to play it. So if I'm turned onto
Speaker 4: Persian nay flute or Indian bun story flute or like
Speaker 4: a gore a Chinese go Like, I just like discovering
Speaker 4: things that I can blow, you know, and it's and
Speaker 4: it's fun, you know, paulse.
Speaker 3: How long did it How long did it take?
Speaker 1: How long did it take you for muscle memory to
Speaker 1: I get the feeling you're going to say, I have
Speaker 1: yet to master the flute, but oh yeah, man, I mean,
Speaker 1: but you do know, Like and right now when you're playing,
Speaker 1: are your hands telling you what to do?
Speaker 2: Or do you.
Speaker 1: Know that this particular position will yield this note and
Speaker 1: that note?
Speaker 4: And no, that's the fun and scary part about how
Speaker 4: I play, like when people hear the record, like we
Speaker 4: made it up as it was going So I'm discovering
Speaker 4: that melody as is going along, but I don't know
Speaker 4: what I'm doing until I do it. So like I
Speaker 4: couldn't like if you played a note for me right
Speaker 4: now on a keyboard, I cannot tell you what that
Speaker 4: note was. If you played a chord, I couldn't tell you. See,
Speaker 4: I understand when musicians talk about a key center or
Speaker 4: you know the bottom of this chord, but I don't
Speaker 4: know what that is.
Speaker 2: None of that.
Speaker 4: So for me it's all physical and it's all shapes.
Speaker 4: So I do know if I take one finger and spread,
Speaker 4: I can't say it on the microphone or how to
Speaker 4: say it, but do these et kind of fingers. I
Speaker 4: know that gives me an odd note. That's all I know.
Speaker 4: I know it's odd, which may be of I don't
Speaker 4: know a flat or something. And I know if I
Speaker 4: put all my fingers down, I get a certain thing.
Speaker 4: So when I'm playing, I'm actually responding to what note
Speaker 4: I just played before, not knowing what that note is.
Speaker 4: So everything is on a tight rope. See, you take
Speaker 4: one step at a time, purely one step at a time,
Speaker 4: but it is it is very physical. It is very
Speaker 4: physical because I'm trying to wheel something out because I
Speaker 4: know I never trained, so I have to find another way,
Speaker 4: another route to get to it.
Speaker 2: How often do you practice to day?
Speaker 4: I wouldn't even call it practice, which I'm now getting
Speaker 4: into practice, like because I started playing flute, Like I'm
Speaker 4: actually meeting like kick ass flute players, Like someone introduced
Speaker 4: me to shabaka and so Shebacca will show me exercise like,
Speaker 4: but I've never done that before, and so I'm learning
Speaker 4: how to practice. I never went to college or anything,
Speaker 4: so I don't even have like the I just never
Speaker 4: had to study, so I don't have that. Emmy, It's
Speaker 4: all for me. It's always playing. I just try to
Speaker 4: play as much as possible, which ends up being studied.
Speaker 4: So even before I'm just always out playing. But I
Speaker 4: don't know, I don't have a regimen really, you know.
Speaker 1: Fun fact that's you're speaking for at least seventy percent
Speaker 1: of all musicians out there, Like I play by ear, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've just recently, maybe in the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: and only because like some of the more intellectual roots
Speaker 1: will eye roll because I don't know. I didn't know
Speaker 1: previously how to say, like play a C sharp sus.
Speaker 4: I know those words, but that's so that's foreign to me, right.
Speaker 4: But for the majority of creatives there there's.
Speaker 1: Two types of musicians, technical musicians and musicians that feel
Speaker 1: I'm a field musician. Totally feel like if you were
Speaker 1: to put notaate notes in front of me, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: know what the hell is in front of me.
Speaker 4: So I got to go feel Yeah, that's all I have, man,
Speaker 4: That's all I kind of and and the thing about
Speaker 4: hip hop too, hip hop forces you.
Speaker 2: To do the immediate thing. I don't know, it's just
Speaker 2: a certain energy that Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: We just kind of have this kind of flying by
Speaker 4: the seat.
Speaker 2: Of our parents kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And so when I put it towards an instrument, I'm
Speaker 4: kind of transferring in that way of like we just
Speaker 4: try stuff, like we pick up something that's not supposed
Speaker 4: to be for a thing and make it for something else,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: So I'm using a lot of that.
Speaker 1: How did you assemble the musicians for New Blue Son?
Speaker 1: How did it come together?
Speaker 4: It naturally came about by me meeting Carlos. Carlos Nino.
Speaker 2: We met. It's such a Venice Venus story. We met
Speaker 2: in airwine no joke, no joke, we met it. We
Speaker 2: met like.
Speaker 4: And actually, uh, Mike d from Beastie Boys was there
Speaker 4: at the meeting because I saw him in line checking
Speaker 4: out and I went up.
Speaker 2: To him something man, you know, and then Carlos comes up.
Speaker 4: So there's three of us standing right here at the
Speaker 4: cash register, right and Carlos invites us out to an
Speaker 4: event that he's doing at night, and yeah, we kind
Speaker 4: of started hanging out since then he had heard that
Speaker 4: I was in town in Venice, and people were like,
Speaker 4: I think y'all need to meet, you know, and some
Speaker 4: people would say that to Carlos, and Carlos was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna meet him, you know at some point, you know.
Speaker 4: And we finally ended up meeting and he invited me
Speaker 4: over to his house. We recorded in his garage, and
Speaker 4: that was kind of like our first kind of getting
Speaker 4: into it. And I knew I wanted to work on
Speaker 4: this Wind project, and I knew a lot of the
Speaker 4: sounds that I was looking for.
Speaker 2: Uh that's what That's what Carlos does.
Speaker 4: And so when he was brought him to the Fold,
Speaker 4: He's like, man, I know a lot of people I
Speaker 4: could bring, you know, to help.
Speaker 2: And so we tried out a lot.
Speaker 4: Of different outfits, you know, different situations, and the core
Speaker 4: four of us ended up kind of ended up being Yes,
Speaker 4: Aihen Nate, and but that ended up being the core,
Speaker 4: and then we would invite just anybody in to come
Speaker 4: and you know, hang out. But yeah, this album definitely,
Speaker 4: it couldn't have been made without Carlos Nino, like Nino is.
Speaker 4: What I love about Nino is he reminds me of
Speaker 4: when I was producing earlier on for outcasts, Like there's
Speaker 4: a certain excitement, like he's more concerned with what's the
Speaker 4: most interesting thing?
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, and I love that. It's like kind
Speaker 2: of kid spirit, you know. So okay.
Speaker 1: In the credits of the album, under Carlos's title, there's
Speaker 1: also play like It's listed as gongs, various instruments, and
Speaker 1: then there's plants. How are plants a part of the
Speaker 1: instrumentation of this album?
Speaker 2: I mean, you will see when we when we play live.
Speaker 4: But sounds are everywhere, man, like anything is anything is
Speaker 4: a sound. You know, We've only settled on certain instruments
Speaker 4: because we're used to them. But like Colos may just
Speaker 4: grab a palm leaf off the side of the road
Speaker 4: and shake it.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I see, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: So I get anything like it could be a beanstalk
Speaker 4: or drive anything, you know, just whatever makes a cool
Speaker 4: noise that you like.
Speaker 2: And Colos has, like.
Speaker 4: Man and a myriad of sounds of stuff anything like yeah,
Speaker 4: and plants happen to be one of them.
Speaker 1: So what's the division of labor as far as the
Speaker 1: technical aspect. I'm only asking this because when I read
Speaker 1: the credits to your album, there's a name. There a
Speaker 1: legendary Philadelphia name, gentleman named Andy Kravitz.
Speaker 2: Andy mastered this album.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now, Andy Kravitz to me is a very legendary
Speaker 1: Philadelphia native.
Speaker 2: Trauma.
Speaker 1: We got our record deal in nineteen ninety three. I
Speaker 1: used to intern at Ropoul's Records, and so Andy Kravitz
Speaker 1: was sort of like a house producer at Studio fifty four.
Speaker 1: So I'm there like when he's working with ten Dog,
Speaker 1: He's played on Steady be stuff and so I you know,
Speaker 1: he was like really the first hip hop drummer I've
Speaker 1: seen with my own eyes. Nothing sorry Bobby Simmons of
Speaker 1: steps to signing forgive me, but yeah, Andy Kravits like
Speaker 1: and then he just disappeared off the radar for like
Speaker 1: twenty and I always wondered what happened to him.
Speaker 3: So he's mastering.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so cool that the relationship, Like Carlos has
Speaker 4: worked with him before, and so his mastering studio is
Speaker 4: in Venice, so it was all in the neighborhood. So
Speaker 4: like his mastering studio is right by the beach, and
Speaker 4: we just kind of go to his house and he
Speaker 4: got like crazy equipment like knee.
Speaker 2: Boards and a little bit of ass apartment. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: Like so basically I have to move to Venice. Why Venice?
Speaker 4: I have no idea, man, like I got here havingstance,
Speaker 4: like I wasn't even supposed to be living in Ventage.
Speaker 4: And then this real estate agent lady and she was like, hey,
Speaker 4: check out this little house I got in Venice. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just check it out. And all my friends in
Speaker 4: LA they were like, please, man, don't move to Venice.
Speaker 4: Like all right, LA people be like, man, we'll never
Speaker 4: see you because that's on the west side.
Speaker 2: That's way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's beautiful, but then I was
Speaker 1: like a man so much on sunset and all my
Speaker 1: favorite restaurants I would never know.
Speaker 4: But I never get back on that side though, Like
Speaker 4: everything I need is pretty much over here. And I
Speaker 4: think all of that, like me moving to Venice, catapulted
Speaker 4: me in the direction I needed to go. And I
Speaker 4: will say that because I met I went to a
Speaker 4: breathwork class in Venice. That's when I first heard this
Speaker 4: certain kind of flute.
Speaker 2: That I love. And it was all because of Venice.
Speaker 4: So I have to say, sometimes them certain breadcrumbs.
Speaker 2: Or wherever you're wherever you are.
Speaker 4: Are for a reason and you may not even know
Speaker 4: it at the time. But if I didn't move to Venice,
Speaker 4: this album probably wouldn't have been made.
Speaker 2: Okay, not in this way.
Speaker 1: What was the batter year or the starting year of
Speaker 1: your flute curiosity?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: The actual starting year, but I will say because it's
Speaker 4: me and college was just talking about it the other day.
Speaker 4: Since the love below, I've been interested in wind instruments,
Speaker 4: like I've messed around with saxophone, even though like and
Speaker 4: she lives in my life at the end, the horrible saxophone,
Speaker 4: that's me messing around on saxophone.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you had a free jazz saxophone player.
Speaker 2: That's me, That was you. Yeah, that's me playing. I
Speaker 2: have to listen to that. Okay, it's horrible.
Speaker 4: It's horrible, but it was like, I don't believe in
Speaker 4: wrong notes and I love Now.
Speaker 3: I got to go back and listen again.
Speaker 2: You're here, you're here. The thing is if you do
Speaker 2: with a straight face and confidence.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, Oh, it's always for real. Now it's serious,
Speaker 4: even if it's horrible, you don't believe.
Speaker 1: It, Okay, I just thought you had some free jazz. Okay,
Speaker 1: now I have to revisit that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I started wanting to play saxophone first tenor
Speaker 4: saxophone because of John Coltrane. I mean because I was
Speaker 4: a fan of John Coltrane, and me reading bios of
Speaker 4: John Coltrane, I learned that he played clarinet in school
Speaker 4: first before he switched over to so I was.
Speaker 2: Like, well, let me give me a clarinet.
Speaker 4: So I bought a clarinet straight B flat, the straight
Speaker 4: one be flat clarinet, and I played around with for
Speaker 4: a few months. And then we were on tour and
Speaker 4: I went to a pawn shop in New York and
Speaker 4: there was this Selmer bass clarinet. I don't know why
Speaker 4: I was there, and I was like, this, it looked
Speaker 4: cool A lot of time. I'm gonna track it to
Speaker 4: an instrument because the way it looked. And so I
Speaker 4: saw it and it was in its case, it was open,
Speaker 4: and it happened to be like a nineteen sixty seven
Speaker 4: Selmer bass clarinet. Bought it and as soon as I
Speaker 4: started playing it, like and the thing is with wind players,
Speaker 4: it's a thing called armbiture. It's kind of like how
Speaker 4: your mouth fits over the tip of the the read
Speaker 4: and all that kind of stuff. It's weird, but I
Speaker 4: was just blessed to immediately have an amatry. Like my
Speaker 4: first time picking it up and putting my mouth on,
Speaker 4: it was like, I'm getting a good tone, like a
Speaker 4: good sound. So it motivated me to even want to
Speaker 4: play more, you know. So from there, once I hit
Speaker 4: the bass claerinet, I noticed that I love the deeper
Speaker 4: tones and I love wind on wood compared to metal,
Speaker 4: which is you know, soprano or but you I tried
Speaker 4: a little soprano too, okay.
Speaker 2: So from there it's just.
Speaker 4: Me loving what I could get out of wind instruments.
Speaker 4: So I even got into Obo, which is the hardest
Speaker 4: one to play, like I love the Obo sound, got
Speaker 4: into Obo, went into Obo Day, Obo Day, which yeah,
Speaker 4: Obo Day. At the new School, they have like Obow Day. Okay,
Speaker 4: see what I'm saying, like dre D but Obo Day
Speaker 4: all right?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I was like, is that a pun or no?
Speaker 2: Get it?
Speaker 4: So yeah, when I moved to New York, I would
Speaker 4: just kind of look at the school schedule of whatever
Speaker 4: performances were at the New School because I always like
Speaker 4: to go where the youth is performing.
Speaker 2: New music. I don't care.
Speaker 4: Like there's something about that college age where you're dumb
Speaker 4: enough to try new things but you're developed enough to
Speaker 4: do them well, and that it's about that that period,
Speaker 4: And so I would just go to the new school
Speaker 4: and see whatever recital as a plan. I don't care
Speaker 4: if piano one night, it could be the soon it's
Speaker 4: another night, or whole orchestra, and I just sit there
Speaker 4: and listen and.
Speaker 1: Side question, are you freaking people out as you're like
Speaker 1: just wandering into their school?
Speaker 4: Not really, because we're no. I just you know, talk
Speaker 4: to the students. You know, they'd be like, oh, he
Speaker 4: came to the show, but it would be maybe fifteen
Speaker 4: people in there, like ten people just sitting, So it
Speaker 4: was it was not like a big production or anything,
Speaker 4: so I could easily just slip in and slip out.
Speaker 4: But just my interest and when instruments just kept growing,
Speaker 4: and so I would just collect different wind instruments, and
Speaker 4: then I discovered the Guiermo the Maya double flute, which
Speaker 4: is kind of what really pushed me into wanting to
Speaker 4: play it all the time.
Speaker 2: And maybe like.
Speaker 4: Even with the bass claierinet, you have to it's like
Speaker 4: a gun you have to construct it, put it together,
Speaker 4: put it back in the case, clean it. You know,
Speaker 4: with these it was so instant. I can just carry
Speaker 4: it around, So it was very instant. I think because
Speaker 4: I could carry it, I kept it with me longer
Speaker 4: than any other instrument. So yeah, I've been interested in
Speaker 4: win for a long time.
Speaker 1: But okay, yeah, so this album Marks have returned to
Speaker 1: the spotlight for you for the first time and as
Speaker 1: of this recording, seventeen years basically meaning you haven't released
Speaker 1: product with your name on it since two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: my own product yet, your own product yet, even though
Speaker 1: you've done things here and there. Could you describe if
Speaker 1: you can go back that far two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: like a year after two thousand and seven, well, a
Speaker 1: year after two thousand and six where you know you're
Speaker 1: starting your I'm sure then you didn't think of it
Speaker 1: as I'm gonna start my exile or my rest from
Speaker 1: my day job that people know me from. But like
Speaker 1: a year or two after it, when you're not in
Speaker 1: daily motion of gotta have an amount, got to figure
Speaker 1: out a tour, got it? Like, yeah, what was two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven like for you, you were thirty two
Speaker 1: years old.
Speaker 4: I don't remember, but that's cool too, Yeah, because it's
Speaker 4: harked me to place the dates, like I you have
Speaker 4: to give me kind of like a like a marker,
Speaker 4: like that was a year after the leve Blow came
Speaker 4: out or a year before Idlewow, or like I kind
Speaker 4: of have to mark I think a year after Idawoa
Speaker 4: came out in two thousand and six, So I say
Speaker 4: a year after Idlewold, then.
Speaker 2: Uh, you have to Idlewow.
Speaker 4: I'm at home, and I was blessed to start getting
Speaker 4: asked to be on remixes, okay, and that was a
Speaker 4: blessing for me because it gave me a chance to rap,
Speaker 4: you know, after all that had, So you see it
Speaker 4: as a blessing now because it feel good to wrap.
Speaker 4: So whenever you get to like the opportunity to do
Speaker 4: it and you in it, I know.
Speaker 1: But like, okay, So I remember once when you appeared
Speaker 1: on the remix of Walk It Out, Walk It Out Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and the so I.
Speaker 3: Know you're not on social media, so.
Speaker 1: To see the social media reaction to you even being
Speaker 1: on that remix one was a shocker, Like wait, one
Speaker 1: hundred and three thousands on a walk it out song
Speaker 1: and with Jim Jones whatever. So but it was such
Speaker 1: a mind blowing thing. But in my mind I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he notices like.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: And again, I mean, this was no pressure, new intent
Speaker 1: of pressure, like you're kind of holding the world's oxygen supply,
Speaker 1: you know, hostage, because you can spit a verse and
Speaker 1: it's guarantee that at least three things that you say
Speaker 1: in that verse will be like holy shit, here are
Speaker 1: a couple of those words together, like it's it's an
Speaker 1: event I've seen people like, for instance, the verse on
Speaker 1: the Rick Ross thing, like I didn't think i'd ever experience.
Speaker 3: Coming from a place where we.
Speaker 2: Would have daily meetings about wait, what about this.
Speaker 3: Start doing your PowerPoint thing?
Speaker 2: And the way he does supposed these words together.
Speaker 1: But man, so it's just weird to hear you say like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just so blessed to be able to get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to.
Speaker 4: Do that, And I'm like no, and when you are
Speaker 4: the opportunity, no, But when I say blessing, you got
Speaker 4: to understand too, this is a town, a town creating
Speaker 4: a new sound too. So dj unk like that actually
Speaker 4: came through another DJ friend of mine. That no unt
Speaker 4: just saying, Hey, asked Andrea here you to get on
Speaker 4: this beat, and it came that way. It was no,
Speaker 4: it was nothing, no big production, Like I don't even
Speaker 4: know if I got paid for the song, like I
Speaker 4: think I think the trade off was, hey, can you
Speaker 4: do a couple of beats that we scratched between in
Speaker 4: the background of my cartoon, That'll be the payment class
Speaker 4: for class of three thousand. So I think it was
Speaker 4: set up that way. But the beat was so jamming
Speaker 4: that you just want to get on it. So I
Speaker 4: say the blessing because any rapid just want to be
Speaker 4: on a good beat and beat in the city, you know, you.
Speaker 2: Just want to be out. You want to be heard.
Speaker 4: So if producers are making new sounds or even like
Speaker 4: even later like new artists. So even if a Frank
Speaker 4: Ocean says, hey, get on my song. Frank Ocean a
Speaker 4: new artist, I don't know him, like, get on my song.
Speaker 4: But when I say a blessing, that reintroduced me to
Speaker 4: a whole nother generation too, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: That were following that, you know, so I do look
Speaker 4: at it as blessings. Am I say blessing because we
Speaker 4: had just come off of Speakerbox Cluve Below Idle Wow,
Speaker 4: which was a musical, more focused, melodic kind of thing,
Speaker 4: And so I didn't rap a lot, okay, and those
Speaker 4: offerings a little bit. So when I say a blessing,
Speaker 4: it gave me another opportunity to do what I enjoyed doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what five albums can you not live without? What
Speaker 1: five albums can you not live without? That's a hard pressure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you should have gave me some time before we
Speaker 4: got on the microphone.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, I think oftentimes when you when
Speaker 1: people are in this high pressure situation of like, I
Speaker 1: gotta give the most intellectual answer, Like sometimes I listen.
Speaker 2: To boring as shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm on an Elvis kick right now because i just
Speaker 1: saw the Lisa Marie biopic and I'm interested in that
Speaker 1: sixty eight comeback Black Leather, so i'm and plus you
Speaker 1: know the recond Crew were playing on that record. So
Speaker 1: right now I'm on an Elvis kicking okay for some
Speaker 1: strange reason, but it doesn't have to be five.
Speaker 4: I've gone through that Elvis kick too, really, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: like E was a bad motherfucker man?
Speaker 3: Or what five albums would you not expect us.
Speaker 2: To think that you're into hmm, not think that I'm into.
Speaker 4: That's another thing because when you say your five albums,
Speaker 4: it's almost like I'm trying not to give you the
Speaker 4: ones that everybody's going to say too.
Speaker 2: So I'm double thinking.
Speaker 4: Like if I say, you know, you know Love Supreme,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, that's everybody's you know what
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to figure out that's a good question.
Speaker 1: What okay, So everyone has a go to song that
Speaker 1: they put on to just.
Speaker 3: Calm them down.
Speaker 1: And you know, when the album came out, I hit
Speaker 1: you with twelve paragraphs. I'm certain the whole world was
Speaker 1: hitting you with paragraphs. But you know, okay, I won't
Speaker 1: say an album because what's an album in twenty twenty three?
Speaker 2: What music? What's your go to music that you escape to.
Speaker 4: It's different phases, man, And just like you're saying right now,
Speaker 4: you're into Elvis phase right now, I'm into like a
Speaker 4: kind of classical Steve reikish.
Speaker 2: Kind of Oh okay.
Speaker 4: It's very repetitive, calming and meditative at the same time,
Speaker 4: but at the same time like very complex and moving.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 4: And it's rhythmic, you know, it's tight, you know, so
Speaker 4: I guess I'm into that.
Speaker 2: And I listened to.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of native drum circle music like Cree
Speaker 4: Indian cre Nation kind of drumming the way they sing. Man, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that just that just blows my mind some very powerful
Speaker 4: okay about that?
Speaker 1: Is there any lyric that is ever stuck in your head?
Speaker 1: A stanza or a lyric of any song or I've
Speaker 1: been I've been working on a slide documentaries for so
Speaker 1: long that I think almost every day here the last
Speaker 1: line of Family Fair like you can't cry because you
Speaker 1: look broke down, but you're cry anyway because you're all
Speaker 1: broke down.
Speaker 2: So that's that's stuck in my head?
Speaker 1: Like are there lyrics that are often just stuck in
Speaker 1: your head even if it's dumb?
Speaker 3: I met her in a hotel lobby, like anything like the.
Speaker 4: Song fast Card by Tracy Chapman, Like it's one of
Speaker 4: those songs that I wish you know how people ask you, man,
Speaker 4: what song.
Speaker 2: Do you wish you wish you wrote? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like, as a child hearing that song, it introduced me to, oh,
Speaker 4: you can you can actually hit people in the heart
Speaker 4: with words you know and when she when she said
Speaker 4: the line, uh, something like the body is too young
Speaker 4: for bodies too old for working, but bodies too old,
Speaker 4: too young to look like his. My mama went off
Speaker 4: and left him. She wanted more than he could give.
Speaker 4: Somebody's got to take care of him. So I quit school.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, you wish she wrote that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was like we were like we were we were
Speaker 4: listening and watching a real life Like it's almost like
Speaker 4: the black, the black kind of trailer park story, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like you and you were on
Speaker 4: the ride the whole time, like these big dreams of
Speaker 4: hurting this dude.
Speaker 3: And someone running away from a past life.
Speaker 4: And it went full circle like she had these big
Speaker 4: dreams just like a mama did. Then at the end
Speaker 4: she got to keep moving like WHOA right hard?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyone that has ever asked me like what song that
Speaker 1: I wish I wrote or a part of I will
Speaker 1: never hesitate to say.
Speaker 3: I think will ever.
Speaker 1: Beat the moment in which we were in our tour bus.
Speaker 1: We had one week to finish our Things Fallow Apart album.
Speaker 1: We were coming back from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: And this is.
Speaker 1: August of ninety eight, and you know back in the day,
Speaker 1: of course your album had to be done like three
Speaker 1: months ahead of.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So somehow my publicist was connected to Drew Dixon at
Speaker 1: Arista and had a copy of Equimini and The Feeling
Speaker 1: of Fear. When Spotioli Doplicious came on, I was like, fuck,
Speaker 1: they sound like a better band than we do, like
Speaker 1: and instantly I knew, like every black university marching ben like,
Speaker 1: this was gonna be something I heard like forever. And
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, how come ideas don't come to
Speaker 1: me like that? Man, Like, what the fuck you know?
Speaker 1: And plus it's very rare. It's it's it's rare in
Speaker 1: what you hear stream of conscious thinking, black people thinking.
Speaker 1: And man, that paralyzed me so goddamn much, man like
Speaker 1: I wish I don't know if I should say thank
Speaker 1: you or sorry? You know, made it made me try harder,
Speaker 1: man like, and I've yet to still create that, so
Speaker 1: like in my mind, that's that's what I'm doing. What's
Speaker 1: the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 2: It?
Speaker 4: Actually the best piece of advice I would say came
Speaker 4: from Erica's grandmother. Erica would all Erica's grandmama would always
Speaker 4: say anything, any problem in the issue that come up,
Speaker 4: she'd be like, keep on living.
Speaker 2: It happened to you. That was it.
Speaker 3: Did you know what you meant?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, Yeah, keep on living. It'll happen to you. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: And it's as simple as that, it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Keep on living. It'll happen to you.
Speaker 1: If you can astro travel. If you can astro travel
Speaker 1: back to nineteen ninety two, and you were allowed you today,
Speaker 1: were allowed a twenty second window to disrupt the timeline
Speaker 1: and talk to yourself. And I believe you were seventeen
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two. What would you tell yourself in
Speaker 1: those twenty seconds? This is like before first album ninety two.
Speaker 4: I consider that at the beginning of the podcast, what
Speaker 4: would I tell myself? Get ready for the ride, man,
Speaker 4: get ready for a ride that you don't even know
Speaker 4: how to hold on because you can't even fathom what's
Speaker 4: going to happen, you know. So I don't know if
Speaker 4: there's any any more advice than that, just to get
Speaker 4: ready for the ride and just yeah, yeah, because there's
Speaker 4: nothing to prepare you for. Because we can have plans
Speaker 4: like as humans, we you know, you just want to
Speaker 4: wrap okay, but those are kind of on the ground,
Speaker 4: you know, goals. But then there's a higher force that
Speaker 4: takes you further that things that I couldn't even imagine,
Speaker 4: that I couldn't even think about. So really, just get
Speaker 4: ready for the rode.
Speaker 1: Most people, when they dream, they often have themes that
Speaker 1: occur all the time. Yep, trains are always in my dream.
Speaker 1: For the least, the last thirty year of trains are
Speaker 1: always in my dream. What is the prevalent theme of
Speaker 1: all of your dreams?
Speaker 2: Flying?
Speaker 1: You're always on a plane? No, I'm always flying no plane.
Speaker 1: Do you have a fear of flying?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Besides trains.
Speaker 2: And this is weird.
Speaker 3: I live.
Speaker 1: I live in an apartment in New York and I'm
Speaker 1: on the seventy third floor and people always.
Speaker 2: Ask all the time, wait, aren't you a free to
Speaker 2: be up here?
Speaker 3: You know that that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But yet when I sleep, because I often believe that
Speaker 1: times your brain can't register a fantasy in real life.
Speaker 1: So I tried an exercise where, you know, I was
Speaker 1: watching somebody on YouTube and they said, like, imagine yourself flying,
Speaker 1: and when I close my eyes to mat like to
Speaker 1: stand on a ledge to make that leap. I get
Speaker 1: that I can't imagine myself even in my dreams. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine myself flying over like it's it's the same
Speaker 1: fear as if I were on the ledge and want
Speaker 1: to hang on to deer life. M So in your dreams,
Speaker 1: you have the ability to just transport and fly.
Speaker 4: Yes, And it was from wherever I am, like not
Speaker 4: a I have to be on the top of a
Speaker 4: building like I can be on the ground. And I
Speaker 4: start to do this type it's almost like a a
Speaker 4: hover like it's like a floating kind of thing, and
Speaker 4: you're kind of like it's not like it's not like
Speaker 4: direct control. It's almost like you're drifted and you're able
Speaker 4: to manipulate the drift a little bit, but not fast.
Speaker 2: So if I want to make a turn, I got
Speaker 2: to start drifting a little.
Speaker 4: But yeah, like I'm always flying, I'm looking down on
Speaker 4: the world like I'm looking down on mountains, I'm looking
Speaker 4: down on things. But here's the craziest thing. Whenever I
Speaker 4: try to show my friends, like I remember when one
Speaker 4: of dream I was trying to trying to show sea
Speaker 4: law like see look man check this out and I
Speaker 4: tried to do it for him. It didn't work, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like it's almost like you wanted
Speaker 4: to share and you were planning it, you couldn't do it.
Speaker 4: But it's when I was by myself and it was happening,
Speaker 4: I was like, whoa, look at this flying thing. And
Speaker 4: now at this point I want to show people. You're
Speaker 4: almost like I almost want to show off the trick, like, oh,
Speaker 4: check this out, and whenever I try, it just doesn't work,
Speaker 4: which is which is weird, you know. But I have
Speaker 4: that dream a lot and it's the same flying style,
Speaker 4: which is and it's kind of like it's a really
Speaker 4: awesome style because it's.
Speaker 2: Because even in your dreams, you're cool shit.
Speaker 4: Because it because it's so it's so floaty. It's so floaty.
Speaker 4: It's not like a plain ship. Well I'm able to
Speaker 4: make quick rights or anything. So it's almost like it's hard. Okay,
Speaker 4: I guess how to describe dreams on a microphone.
Speaker 2: It's hard. It's hard.
Speaker 1: Who are three of the most in your career? Who
Speaker 1: are three of the most important people that you've met?
Speaker 2: La Reid who signed this.
Speaker 4: Big Boy and I just I say third, I'd have
Speaker 4: to say collectively, the Dungeon, those are the most important, okay,
Speaker 4: you know, because because and for for different reasons, but well,
Speaker 4: la read. Of course, he gave us our first opportunity,
Speaker 4: you know, so he he saw enough in us to
Speaker 4: sign us, to give us an opportunity to do something.
Speaker 4: Big Boy, because he's my high school friend that started
Speaker 4: this whole thing with me that oh we can do this,
Speaker 4: you know, and not only not only that just contributing
Speaker 4: and like a music form, but in a motivational form too,
Speaker 4: because Big Boy knows me more than anybody, and he knows,
Speaker 4: you know, when I'm not feeling a certain thing or
Speaker 4: you know, when I've given up in a way. And
Speaker 4: Big Boy's always been kind of like the Chileader. Like
Speaker 4: I remember before we even first our first album came out,
Speaker 4: our first showcase, people didn't like us, you know, and
Speaker 4: we got the feedback from that showcase when all labels
Speaker 4: were coming you would do your acting.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of funny thing about it now,
Speaker 2: but we.
Speaker 4: Got word that, you know, some feedback was they're okay,
Speaker 4: they're not stars, you know. That's that was the feedback.
Speaker 4: And so at that point, I remember we were kind
Speaker 4: of sad. We were at the Dungeon and I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: well shit, man, I'm gonna go ahead and do this
Speaker 4: art thing like I always like, I thought i'd be
Speaker 4: drawing and paint like that's why I started doing so
Speaker 4: I was the plan was like, all right, well we're
Speaker 4: just going to our school now. You know, this rap
Speaker 4: thing is not working so big boys kind of a
Speaker 4: person like, no, man, we don't came this far.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 4: So that value importance in my life and career the
Speaker 4: Dungeon because they created an environment to show me to well,
Speaker 4: to make me feel comfortable enough to do all the
Speaker 4: things that y'all are seeing now, Like you have to
Speaker 4: have a good ground to to feel comfortable enough to
Speaker 4: try stuff, you know. If yeah, I mean you've seen
Speaker 4: a year, your producer, you've been in the studio, Like
Speaker 4: you've gotten certain things out of artists when they're opening
Speaker 4: and you know, freer than if they're you know, nervous
Speaker 4: or you know they're scared to fuck up, you know,
Speaker 4: or scared.
Speaker 2: To not be great.
Speaker 4: You know, you got to create that environment, and I
Speaker 4: think the Dungeon created that environment for me to yeah,
Speaker 4: for me to know how to dream like they taught me, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: they taught me how to get out.
Speaker 1: You know, what's the hidden talent that you possess that
Speaker 1: the world doesn't know about drawing paint? You're still actively
Speaker 1: paint right now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Are you into selling your work?
Speaker 2: Yes, very soon, stay tuned, very soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to be for because that's I collect
Speaker 1: works from different artists.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, So finally George Clinton gave an official piece.
Speaker 4: And yeah, man, I can't wait to share it because
Speaker 4: it's a whole nother thing. And I've been I've been
Speaker 4: sharing it a little bit, but only like on outcast CDs.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, although our sketches a little quick. And that's that's
Speaker 4: another thing that was. That was a big boy thing,
Speaker 4: like I did it one time for the first album
Speaker 4: and then big boys like you're gonna do another one
Speaker 4: for the next one.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, sure, why not? So it became
Speaker 2: a thing because he you've done all that artwork of
Speaker 2: on the AC Yeah, that's your work. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I'm I'm I call myself more of a like
Speaker 4: a classroom drawer more than anything. I wouldn't say I'm
Speaker 4: you know, full fledged, I'm learning how to paint now.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I've been doing it for a while now
Speaker 4: and I'm loving that I'm finding what. I am loving
Speaker 4: that I'm finding my style and can't wait to share it.
Speaker 4: But that I cook how good I have to cook it?
Speaker 4: You have to tell me, Like, but people that have
Speaker 4: had food, they enjoy it. And I really be doing
Speaker 4: the same thing that my mom and my daddy showed me,
Speaker 4: just recipes they showed me. So it's like Jim Salmon
Speaker 4: Patti's and cheese grits or fried fish. My dad had
Speaker 4: a fish shop on Riverdale Road, Okay, and my mom
Speaker 4: taught me, you know, recipes. I'm only child, so I
Speaker 4: cooked for myself a lot, so I had that skill
Speaker 4: to do it. So okay, other talents. I can make
Speaker 4: water noises with my mouth. Okay, you want to hear them?
Speaker 2: Hit me. What's the greatest cereal of all time?
Speaker 4: I would have to say, you gotta eat it quick
Speaker 4: with them fruit the pebbles though.
Speaker 2: Like oh before yeah super sivvy.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, them fruity pebbles. Man, they something else.
Speaker 1: The story that you told me before we started taping
Speaker 1: about Coachella at night one, Yeah, yeah, man, could you
Speaker 1: share that story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, and it's funny for a long time.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't sure if you know, when people pass away,
Speaker 4: you just want to kind of respect. But I think
Speaker 4: I think Prince would. I think he would enjoy it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, like I don't, I don't. I've met Prince
Speaker 4: in passing. Like when I was finishing up The Love Below.
Speaker 4: I lived in LA and I remember being a homie
Speaker 4: going out to a club on sunset, normal night, and
Speaker 4: I go, I say, hey, I'm going to use the
Speaker 4: bathroom and walking away use the bathroom and this big,
Speaker 4: huge bodyguard dude comes and grabbed me, and you say, hey,
Speaker 4: Prince is in the corner.
Speaker 2: He wants to meet you. And so that was my
Speaker 2: first time meeting Prince when I got a pee.
Speaker 4: Man, this was making Love Below. So no, actually this
Speaker 4: was Hey, y'all was already out. Hey, y'all was out. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's the only like the whole album.
Speaker 2: You were just meeting him.
Speaker 4: No, the album had just come out. Yeah I hadn't
Speaker 4: met him before.
Speaker 2: Crap.
Speaker 4: Yeah okay, yeah, all my friends had met him, you know,
Speaker 4: Erica told me stories. You know, I never met him,
Speaker 4: but so his bodyguard, I never mind you I still
Speaker 4: got a pee, right, So I go over to this
Speaker 4: booth and this prince and he's sitting and uh, I'm
Speaker 4: very nervous, and he, you know, motions his hand like
Speaker 4: sit down, sit down, man, you know. So I go
Speaker 4: and sit down and I just I didn't know what
Speaker 4: to say, and he could he could tell that I
Speaker 4: didn't know what to say, right, so he was like,
Speaker 4: it's all good.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: He didn't say all good, but he was like it's
Speaker 4: okay or something like that. He's like, it's okay. He's like,
Speaker 4: we don't have to talk about everything now. That's what
Speaker 4: we said. We don't have to say everything now. It's like,
Speaker 4: you can come out to Paisley Park, you know. He
Speaker 4: invite it in, which I've never been to Paisley Park.
Speaker 4: But and so I'm sitting there and I didn't So
Speaker 4: he starts talking about hey, y'all, and I didn't.
Speaker 2: Know if it was did that freak you out? It?
Speaker 2: Did that?
Speaker 3: He knew you were alive, that.
Speaker 4: You existed, yes, But what he said I didn't know
Speaker 4: how to take it. I didn't know if he was
Speaker 4: taking a dig at.
Speaker 2: Me or what. Because he said, yeah, I liked that song. Hey, y'all. Man.
Speaker 4: He was like, I thought I was the only person
Speaker 4: that did songs in those tempos. That's what he said
Speaker 4: to me. And I didn't know if he was like,
Speaker 4: take that, nigga, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: take it. You know, this is my hero.
Speaker 3: I think he considered, did you appear like I don't know?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And so naturally, the album had just come out and
Speaker 4: we were trying to figure out what's the next single,
Speaker 4: and so I didn't know what to say to him,
Speaker 4: and I just said, hey, have you heard the album?
Speaker 4: He's like, yeah, I've heard it. Then and I said, well,
Speaker 4: what do you think the next single should be? Then
Speaker 4: he said another Prince thing. He said in my day,
Speaker 4: we only had one shot. So basically he was saying,
Speaker 4: it don't matter now, whatever you do, it don't matter, right,
Speaker 4: And I know how to take that either, you know,
Speaker 4: It's like okay, okay, cool. The next time I saw Prince,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm and it's always random. So I'm walking down
Speaker 4: the street like close to Rodeo by myself and a
Speaker 4: limo pulls up close to me.
Speaker 2: I'm not I swear to all the gods.
Speaker 4: Man. No, dude, every Prince story is this rand Yes,
Speaker 4: I know because I've heard him too.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: And so he so this window rolls down and his
Speaker 4: little head pops out and his prince and.
Speaker 2: He said, what's up man? I was like, what's up man?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: And then he was like, you heard about this something.
Speaker 4: I can't say I remember which magazine, but they were
Speaker 4: they opposed the thing, or we want to put you
Speaker 4: in prints on the cover of a magazine together.
Speaker 2: And Prince said, you heard about that. Uh.
Speaker 4: I don't know if a rap paid, I don't know
Speaker 4: what complex. I have no idea which magazine was, but
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I heard about it. And I
Speaker 4: was asking him like what do you what do you think?
Speaker 4: And he said don't let them do you like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I still.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't know, but but now, like in retrospect,
Speaker 4: I think what he meant was don't let them boil
Speaker 4: you down to being next to me, right, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. That's that's what I got from it, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, you know what I mean, and people will
Speaker 4: try to put you in them boxes, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean? And I respected that from him. You know
Speaker 4: what I mean, he was like, you're more than whatever
Speaker 4: people are saying, you know what I mean, And that's
Speaker 4: what I that's what I took. So so fast forward.
Speaker 4: I hadn't talked to him and seen him that whole time.
Speaker 4: Big Boy done toured ten years, So we have this
Speaker 4: Coachella opportunities outcast twenty years.
Speaker 1: Wait, you must really be off the radar because Prince
Speaker 1: is super like I will see him in the most
Speaker 1: random situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So you're saying ten years went by before you saw
Speaker 3: him again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was seven to ten years. Damn.
Speaker 4: Okay. I'd moved from LA too, so I only saw
Speaker 4: him in LA. I think he was hanging out right
Speaker 4: here a lot. So the Coachella opportunity comes up, I
Speaker 4: was kind of like whatever about it, Like you know,
Speaker 4: I was there were certain times I didn't even remember
Speaker 4: my raps, you know, I was kind of all right, whatever,
Speaker 4: let's go.
Speaker 2: I hadn't do it.
Speaker 4: So the first night of the first weekend of Coachella,
Speaker 4: nerves like I hadn't been on stage, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Like, that's not my normal every day anymore.
Speaker 4: Big Boy does it every night, so this is normal
Speaker 4: to him. So I'm coming out the dressing room. They
Speaker 4: start the show. I'm walking to the stage and I
Speaker 4: see Paul McCartney. Wow, no, walk to the left side
Speaker 4: of the stage and sit. I saw Prince walk to
Speaker 4: the right side of the stage, and.
Speaker 5: Oh god, I'm sorry. And you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Tyler the creator just met us backstage. Tyler is new,
Speaker 5: He's sorry. We were talking. He came backstage. We tripping.
Speaker 5: I'm nervous as fuck. I'm walking to the stage and
Speaker 5: I see these gods standing on both sides of the stage.
Speaker 2: Mind you.
Speaker 4: My whole career, I've never used in ears. You know,
Speaker 4: the monitors. We always just worked out for whatever speaker
Speaker 4: was on stage. My first time ever using in the ears,
Speaker 4: and they're acting up, so they're clipping out. I'm him
Speaker 4: people voices I don't even know talking in my ear.
Speaker 4: I'm like, what the fuck? So it was a disaster
Speaker 4: to me, Like I was trying to get through it.
Speaker 4: I didn't know how to do it anymore, Like it
Speaker 4: was just a new awakening for an old thing that
Speaker 4: I used to do.
Speaker 2: So halfway through the show.
Speaker 4: I'm checked out, Like I'm already just trying to get
Speaker 4: through it.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to get through the night. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm already in my bed.
Speaker 4: So as soon as I walked off stage, I went
Speaker 4: home and went straight to sleep. When you crash, you
Speaker 4: go straight to sleep, like it's like a bad night.
Speaker 4: So you just let me go to sleep and you know,
Speaker 4: wake up in the morning. So when I woke up
Speaker 4: and I'm driving back to LA, my manager called and said, hey,
Speaker 4: Prince wants to talk to you. So he calls. I
Speaker 4: don't know where he got the number from. Yeah, he
Speaker 4: should work for like the secret Service, right exactly. But
Speaker 4: he calls and it's Prince on the phone. I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I don't even know, like I
Speaker 4: got prints on the fucking phone, right. First thing he says,
Speaker 4: he says, you know what your problem is? He digs,
Speaker 4: he goes in straight like that. He said, you don't
Speaker 4: understand how big y'all are. And of course I'm telling
Speaker 4: him my sob story, like, yeah, man, you know, I
Speaker 4: ain't really been wanting to do it anymore, like I
Speaker 4: don't like doing old.
Speaker 2: So he was like, and this is him.
Speaker 4: He's saying, I've been there, man, like I know exactly
Speaker 4: what you mean, I've been there where I don't want
Speaker 4: to do those songs.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. But he said, but you're a grown man.
Speaker 4: You signed up to do these shows, so do them.
Speaker 2: Just like that.
Speaker 4: And so that conversation made me have to re figure
Speaker 4: out how can I make these shows exciting to me?
Speaker 4: You know, how can I be in it? And that's
Speaker 4: when the idea to try to put messages on my
Speaker 4: uniform every night where That's what got me excited.
Speaker 3: Where are those uniforms.
Speaker 2: We have them in storage, all of them, all of them.
Speaker 4: So my biggest excitement of that tour was figuring out
Speaker 4: what I was going to say that night, because I
Speaker 4: was trying to say something new, like I love I mean,
Speaker 4: here's my thing. I love the blessing of the songs
Speaker 4: that we've been given. I don't like performing old songs, really,
Speaker 4: I just I just don't because I'm in a whole
Speaker 4: nother space and I have to kind of get back
Speaker 4: and remember what that felt like to do that, and
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily like doing that. It's almost like playing
Speaker 4: dress up to an eighth grade picture that you saw
Speaker 4: and now you're trying to rebe that person again. And
Speaker 4: so I was trying to figure out how do I
Speaker 4: make this exciting this tour, and so the messages on
Speaker 4: the suits were just fun to me. It was just hilarious.
Speaker 4: What can I do to make it fun? That's that's
Speaker 4: how I got through it. And that gave me something,
Speaker 4: an entry way to make this exciting and that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh oh.
Speaker 2: But but back to back to Prince another thing.
Speaker 4: So when I was telling him about, you know, how
Speaker 4: I felt, and he was like, yeah, I've been there.
Speaker 2: I've been there. He's like, but you got to do
Speaker 2: these shows.
Speaker 4: You're grown man. And then he said, oh oh, so
Speaker 4: back when he was like, you got to remind people
Speaker 4: who you are. It's like when you've been gone for
Speaker 4: a long time, you have to remind people who you
Speaker 4: are every time. He's like, you got to do that first.
Speaker 4: This is him telling me, like, you got to do
Speaker 4: that first, and then you can do whatever. He actually said,
Speaker 4: if you remind people what you do first, you can
Speaker 4: shave off all your hair and tell them to do
Speaker 4: it and they will do it. This is what this is.
Speaker 4: These are his words, and he said, I learned that
Speaker 4: from Mary J.
Speaker 2: Blige.
Speaker 4: This is Prince telling me I toured I did a
Speaker 4: couple of shows with her, and I'm trying to do
Speaker 4: all this new stuff and she's doing what people know.
Speaker 4: And he said, I learned that from Mary, to give
Speaker 4: the people what they want first, then you can do
Speaker 4: whatever you want after that. And him trying to, I guess,
Speaker 4: plead his case about reminding people who y'all are. He
Speaker 4: started naming artists and I won't name the names because
Speaker 4: I don't think it's about these names. But he was like,
Speaker 4: this person, this person, this person. None of these people
Speaker 4: would be here if it wasn't for y'all. And you
Speaker 4: have to remember that, and you have to remind people
Speaker 4: of that all the time. So and then he said,
Speaker 4: and this is I guess the musician. And he was like,
Speaker 4: and why you didn't play your guitar on hey y'all
Speaker 4: on stage? Why you didn't do it? I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm not like a great guitarist or anything.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like, I know how to play a
Speaker 2: couple of chords. He's like, but you're good enough. You
Speaker 2: should have played it. So, you know, he digging it.
Speaker 4: And then I didn't tell everybody at the time because
Speaker 4: I wanted to keep the momentum together. But he totally
Speaker 4: dissed our band. Right, Yeah, He's like, and what's up
Speaker 4: with that fucking band? This is Prince saying, what's up
Speaker 4: with that fucking band? And at that point I was like, ah, man,
Speaker 4: you know, I really didn't want a band, you know,
Speaker 4: I was trying to find a new way to be
Speaker 4: modern looking on stage or something like that. Anyway, I said,
Speaker 4: but you know, I'm in a group, and you know,
Speaker 4: we have to be fair about decisions, and I'm telling
Speaker 4: Prince about my inner you know, right, and a decision
Speaker 4: with me and Big, you know, Big like I want
Speaker 4: the band, the band, you know, shit, that's you know,
Speaker 4: these are folks who support our band, which I'm with
Speaker 4: on that, but I wanted to do something new. But
Speaker 4: we are together in this thing, so we had we
Speaker 4: made decisions to do the band, and it was our
Speaker 4: first night, so we're trying to get as tight as
Speaker 4: we can be. But anyway, he was like, what's up
Speaker 4: with that band? They sound horrible?
Speaker 2: Yeah that's all I remember from that conversation.
Speaker 1: But yeah, brother, you know, I just want to say
Speaker 1: that I've been a long time, long, long, long.
Speaker 2: Time fan of yours.
Speaker 1: One of my prime career regrets in the in the
Speaker 1: early start is that we never got to shop it
Speaker 1: up or or like work together.
Speaker 2: Then in the.
Speaker 1: What I call the fossil years, we started our careers
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, folks. But man, you know, but you're
Speaker 1: an inspiration in terms of like pushing boundaries because you
Speaker 1: know a lot of us are walking out here sort
Speaker 1: of mired and self doubt, you know, thinking of survival first.
Speaker 1: All right, I gotta get I gotta bring this money
Speaker 1: in so I can, you know, help my mom out,
Speaker 1: and obligations and stuff like that. And we never allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to like break free and dream and take risks
Speaker 1: and do these things. And you know, you've proven time
Speaker 1: and time again that there is a payoff when you
Speaker 1: do listen to your heart.
Speaker 3: And I'm a brain person.
Speaker 1: I used to be a brain person where I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking of fight or flight survival first, that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and not what.
Speaker 2: Do I really feel? And yeah, man, with New Blue Man.
Speaker 1: Dude, it couldn't have come at a better time in
Speaker 1: my life because that's the type of music I always
Speaker 1: listen to just to calm down. Just a twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven, that's all I listened to. It listen like
Speaker 1: tones and all those things.
Speaker 2: Man. So no, man, thank you man.
Speaker 4: I'm glad that it's useful for you. Man, Like I'm
Speaker 4: just happy to be a part of that this time.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: You said an attention and you never know where it's
Speaker 4: gonna land. Like my idea of what people are calling
Speaker 4: the Flute album, which I think it's I think it
Speaker 4: belittles it to call it a flute album, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, It's not just a flute. I do
Speaker 4: play flute on it a bit. I play electronic flute
Speaker 4: on it. But it's it's just it's just music, man,
Speaker 4: It's just music.
Speaker 1: But can I ask you something, Have you heard from
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder yet? Because no, I haven't. To me, this
Speaker 1: reminds me so my father and I, our bond was
Speaker 1: always been shopping records. I grew up in a household
Speaker 1: like three thousand records. So once a month we just
Speaker 1: go been chopping everything. And one day in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: he comes home with Stevie Wonder's Journey through the Secret
Speaker 1: Life of Plants album, which is like a three year
Speaker 1: follow up to Songs in the Key of Life. Songs
Speaker 1: in the Key of life was like one of those
Speaker 1: events like Thriller. You know, everyone had to have it
Speaker 1: in the household, and we're listening to it together as
Speaker 1: a family.
Speaker 3: Brought the family together, and so.
Speaker 1: We're waiting three years for this follow up record and
Speaker 1: the look of utter disappointment on my dad's face where
Speaker 1: he's like Stevie Wonder doesn't even sing until like the
Speaker 1: fourth song and he couldn't get it. Now, I'm eight
Speaker 1: years old and seventy nine, so I've never had a
Speaker 1: Dark Side of the Moon psychedelic experience. So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm putting my headphones on and I'm like imagine in
Speaker 1: space and all these things. So I totally took that
Speaker 1: record different. I think that for a new generation that
Speaker 1: this is going to be that for them. Like for me,
Speaker 1: I use it for meditative and sleeping purposes.
Speaker 2: Because I've heard a lot of that. Man, Like I.
Speaker 1: Used to sleep to the news, especially with the past administration,
Speaker 1: and it's just unhealthy to have that.
Speaker 3: On like twenty four to seven and all that bad news.
Speaker 1: So then I started sleeping to that and when you're soundtrack,
Speaker 1: oh man, that to me, that was everything.
Speaker 2: So I thank you for that. Man.
Speaker 4: Man, I'm so happy that you're finding use and people
Speaker 4: are finding use in it, like it's it's become a
Speaker 4: thing that people are actually using, like it's a tool,
Speaker 4: like I have.
Speaker 2: To be in traffic.
Speaker 4: So I put this album on, and I'm not mad anymore,
Speaker 4: you know, Like, so I'm happy that I'm a part
Speaker 4: of something that can contribute positively.
Speaker 2: To somebody's life, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like, and the sleep thing is really important because I've
Speaker 4: read like a lot of people like man, I don't
Speaker 4: really sleep, and I've gotten the best sleep in the
Speaker 4: last three days after listening to the album. So to me,
Speaker 4: I'm just happy that it's it's working in that in
Speaker 4: that way too, and not just on a you know,
Speaker 4: Oh this is a moment and he's a rapper and
Speaker 4: he made this flute thing, you know, like beyond that,
Speaker 4: you know, And I'm kind of I'm upset that people
Speaker 4: are upset, but I understand because if you've been waiting
Speaker 4: for a thing for seventeen years, which I haven't been
Speaker 4: waiting for a thing, that's the that's the difference. I've
Speaker 4: never said, hey, I'm about to put the solo albm ount,
Speaker 4: Hey I'm about to put this solo albm ount, But
Speaker 4: I didn't do that for seventeen years, so I didn't
Speaker 4: see it the same as like when I put it out,
Speaker 4: I forgot, oh it has been seventeen years, so I
Speaker 4: didn't see it as hey, fuck y'all listen to this.
Speaker 2: I just saw this. This is where I am right now.
Speaker 4: You know, put it out, I didn't think that it
Speaker 4: would have as wide of wings as it's had.
Speaker 2: Are I'm happy for it?
Speaker 1: Are you planning on the visual aspect of it now?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to figure out how to present this live?
Speaker 1: Either by film or some sort like what salons used
Speaker 1: to do take over museums and.
Speaker 4: Both both both We we did shoot a film to
Speaker 4: it that's going to be playing mid December, very simple
Speaker 4: kind of thing. It's gonna be an IMAX theaters, so
Speaker 4: you'll have a visual to it. But live, man like,
Speaker 4: that's what I'm really looking forward to, because that's honestly,
Speaker 4: that's the kind of jew and the magic in it.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like the feeding off of each other
Speaker 4: and making that thing, you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 4: watching a formation like and we don't know, especially I'm
Speaker 4: not a trained musician, so it's even more surprising to
Speaker 4: me when a note comes out or something falls a
Speaker 4: certain way, you're like when right, and you don't and
Speaker 4: you don't know it, Like I don't know like music
Speaker 4: theory wise to make something land. I only know how
Speaker 4: to land because I jumped up before it, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. So that's that's the only way that
Speaker 4: I know. So doing it live and actually doing music
Speaker 4: with these brothers, like that's the fun and out and
Speaker 4: I can't wait for people to experience in a room
Speaker 4: watching us do it do it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So that's yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 1: Well, let's have it, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of
Speaker 1: my fellow Quest Love Supremes Layah and Fonteglo and Humpey
Speaker 1: Bill and it's your birthday to day as we do this.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Shout to Brian and cousin Jake.
Speaker 3: And Brittany as well on the home front.
Speaker 2: Uh. Once again the Great Andre three thousand on Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: Uh and we'll see you in the next go round.
Speaker 3: Thank you, brother.
Speaker 2: Apreate now, thank you man, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme hosted by
Speaker 1: Amir Quest Love, Thompson, Why You Saying, Claire Fonte, Coleman, Sugar,
Speaker 1: Steve Mandell, and unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: a mere Quest, Loved Thompson, Sean che.
Speaker 2: And Brian Calhoun.
Speaker 1: Produced by Brittany Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Liiah Saint Clair,
Speaker 1: edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown
Speaker 1: and Mike Johnson.
Speaker 2: This episode was engineered by Trevor Young. What's Love Supreme
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.