Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: My name is Questlove. That this is q LS classic.
Speaker 2: When we look back at classic Quest Love Supreme episode,
Speaker 2: this one was a doozy. This is from December seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. However, the night that we've recorded this was
Speaker 2: the night of the presidential elections. Kind of came to
Speaker 2: the door thinking that then Senator Hillary Clinton had it
Speaker 2: in the bag.
Speaker 1: And midway through the episode you.
Speaker 2: Just hear are yeah, And that's because, yeah, we found
Speaker 2: out whose winner was going to be that night, and
Speaker 2: we didn't know what America was in for anyway. Stephen Hill,
Speaker 2: a good friend of the show, per former, et executive
Speaker 2: and now you know general Love of Music, shares this
Speaker 2: journey with us and it's an amazing show.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: This is Stephen Hill or Quest Love Supreme Classic from
Speaker 2: December seventh, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Suprema Su Su Suprema Roll Call, Suprema.
Speaker 1: Sun Sun Supremo.
Speaker 4: Role Call.
Speaker 3: Suprema Sun Sun Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Supremo
Speaker 3: Roll Call.
Speaker 1: My name is Quest Love. Yeah you're resident. Yeah nothing
Speaker 1: the President.
Speaker 3: Sun Suprema Roll call Suprema Sun Sun.
Speaker 1: Suprema roll call. My name is Fonte. Yeah. My style
Speaker 1: so elegant. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Some even say, yeah, I'm too intelligent, right, Suprema.
Speaker 1: My name is Stephen. Yeah, just like I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the only difference, Yeah, he's more well dressed.
Speaker 3: Supremo Supreme roll call Supreme Suprema.
Speaker 6: Ro still is my first name. Yeah, my middle name
Speaker 6: is Earl. Yeah, waiting for some reruns yea of Cedar's World.
Speaker 3: Supreme Supreme roll called Supreme son So Supremo roll.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I'm a little sad, Yeah because Obama gone. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I miss her.
Speaker 3: Roll call Supremo something Supreme roll call Supremo Supreme roll.
Speaker 8: My name is Stephen, Yeah, I got that base.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm about to put Yeah, Supreme Supreme Suprema roll
Speaker 4: Supreme Suprema roll.
Speaker 1: Give yourself? How you doing? Still ain't got fired yet?
Speaker 1: Now we're still here. I'm shocked we are still here
Speaker 1: after all this time. Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? Welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Amir quest Lov Thompson, and we have another great show
Speaker 1: for you this week. On the show, today, we have
Speaker 1: the president of Programming at BT Networks, mister Stephen Hill.
Speaker 1: We'll bring him on in a minute, but before we
Speaker 1: do that, let's check in quickly with Team Supreme. How
Speaker 1: you doing.
Speaker 5: Man, I'm good man. I had some foolish to jump
Speaker 5: off at the crib. Yeah, some foolish to jump off
Speaker 5: at the crib the day my uncle got shot. Whoa,
Speaker 5: and so I gotta I gotta go home and like,
Speaker 5: see what's up? He was shot in the stomach exit
Speaker 5: through his back, and so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just another day in the life, my brother. How
Speaker 1: y'all doing? Forget about how are you doing? How's your
Speaker 1: uncle doing? Right?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I mean he's he's well, he's in critical condition and
Speaker 5: he's he's on a respirator I think. And so he
Speaker 5: had a surgery and now he has I have another
Speaker 5: surgery because it got h What was it hit is
Speaker 5: it took some of his They had to take some
Speaker 5: small intesting I think, and it hit some of it.
Speaker 1: But it exit, which is a good thing if it exits.
Speaker 5: But if it stays, that's like you're totally fucked if
Speaker 5: it stays.
Speaker 1: But they had to take something small Intestine.
Speaker 5: But he's sixty four five and he already has like
Speaker 5: some other health issues, so it's a lot so but
Speaker 5: uh but no, but no that I mean, you know
Speaker 5: this praise up for my uncle, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And but but I'm good man. Everything else is everything
Speaker 5: else is cool.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just that Fante is still spot on with
Speaker 1: his dead pan humor. If you were just.
Speaker 6: Waiting for the punch on, my first response was to laugh. Yeah,
Speaker 6: my uncle got shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, no, I mean
Speaker 1: you got no laughter.
Speaker 5: But but nah, man, he's uh, praise up for him.
Speaker 5: But other than that, I'm cool, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I'm in New York City. How's your family, Steve.
Speaker 1: They're not shot. I've not been shot, okay, No, just
Speaker 1: you know, I want to make sure everyone's family. That's good.
Speaker 1: It's good, Bill, you gouts.
Speaker 7: Yeah, everybody is alive, you know, and excited about this
Speaker 7: new year.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what it is. That's what we call it
Speaker 1: new year.
Speaker 7: And I'm excited.
Speaker 1: What is this new year going to bring us? We
Speaker 1: don't know. No, I'm just saying, you know, January special
Speaker 1: for you. Well, it's you and I that's right, it's
Speaker 1: special for you and I yeah.
Speaker 7: Well it's not here because as a woman when you
Speaker 7: turn babies and no husband, it's a little different. But
Speaker 7: quest love what your birthday?
Speaker 1: What was you gonna be like how I'm always out
Speaker 1: of the country the way anybody wants to say gifts.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing though, because usually around inauguration time, Uh,
Speaker 1: my birthday falls on MLK Day and Inauguration Day, so
Speaker 1: people just naturally forget it's my birthday. And uh, one
Speaker 1: time when I turned thirty, I thought, oh, okay, you remember, okay,
Speaker 1: light and I go way back to Philadelphia. So the
Speaker 1: tasty treats collective, Yes, I thought, like, y'all mean and
Speaker 1: Stacey were like, set me up for like a thirty birthday,
Speaker 1: bast They were like, yeah, we used to spend next
Speaker 1: next Sunday because you know, special night on Monday. And
Speaker 1: you know, I thought it was my birthday, so I
Speaker 1: wore suit, I was all happy, walked in the room
Speaker 1: like surprise, there's no one in the room to embarrass
Speaker 1: myself in front of my girls. I was just like
Speaker 1: they so let's go and we went to VIP and
Speaker 1: then I was like, oh, y'all really wanted me to
Speaker 1: DJ tonight and there was like three people there, and I.
Speaker 7: Was like, that's the story of January twentieth, and our
Speaker 7: birthday is what it is.
Speaker 1: Even even when Obama got inaugurated, not one person remembered
Speaker 1: it was my birthday except for my mom my mom. No,
Speaker 1: But I mean it was a historic day. So I forgive.
Speaker 5: That's almost like you know what, man, I had something
Speaker 5: similar heavening to do me. That was almost like I
Speaker 5: was married once in a former life, and our anniversary
Speaker 5: just so happened to fall on the same day that
Speaker 5: Michael Jackson died. Oh no, And so we went out, Yeah,
Speaker 5: we went out. And we went out one night. I
Speaker 5: used to throw a party downtown Raleigh and it was
Speaker 5: just a regular, just just a dance party. And so
Speaker 5: Mike died that day, and so and my party was
Speaker 5: on Thursday. It was always on Thursday night. And so
Speaker 5: Mike died that day, and so it was also our anniversary,
Speaker 5: and so my wife at the time wanted to go out,
Speaker 5: and she wanted to come with me to the party.
Speaker 5: I said, Okay, cool, we'll come out, we'll celebrate whatever.
Speaker 5: But Mike had died, and so I'm fucking Bill boss Bill.
Speaker 5: He had a gig somewhere in Atlanta. He was in Atlanta,
Speaker 5: and so he damn crying and shit, I'm in the phone.
Speaker 5: I'm on the phone fucking like just cry. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 5: why am I crying over Michael Jackson? But I was
Speaker 5: fucked up? So we go out. Now, So we come
Speaker 5: to the party. Everybody shows up. They got the Black
Speaker 5: high Waters on with the white socks and the loafers
Speaker 5: and everything, and so we just playing Mike all night
Speaker 5: going in and my wife didn't really get that much attention.
Speaker 5: So then later on as we divorced, as you probably
Speaker 5: could gather, later on, she brought that up as a
Speaker 5: bone content. She was like, I remember we went out
Speaker 5: that night and it wasn't even our anniversary. Y'all was
Speaker 5: celebrating Michael Jackson. And I just remember telling her. I
Speaker 5: was like, yo, she tried to blame. She was celebrating
Speaker 5: the Michael's life as well. No, no, it's not that that
Speaker 5: was a callisquar divorce, but just as to say, well,
Speaker 5: I f I wasn't. I didn't get my attention that night,
Speaker 5: and I was and I was just like, listen, that's
Speaker 5: Michael Jackson like, I mean we will hopefully have other anniversaries.
Speaker 5: I mean we're not, but there's only one Michael Jackson like,
Speaker 5: are you fucking kidding me? Like you didn't make Thriller?
Speaker 5: I mean you brought me a son into the world.
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 7: Cool?
Speaker 5: Like right, you brought you gave me a son, all right?
Speaker 5: That ship wasn't off the wall though, so that was
Speaker 5: kind of you know, you could see why Barrys maybe
Speaker 5: didn't last.
Speaker 1: But we're great friends now and it's cool. But but nah,
Speaker 1: I hear you.
Speaker 5: Whenever big events happened, you kind of can't compete with that,
Speaker 5: and you just got to accept it.
Speaker 1: Wait, I didn't know that I can compare real life
Speaker 1: relationship matters with our classic albums. Look at my face
Speaker 1: light up right now? I had kind of this dinner
Speaker 1: was okay, but you know it wasn't no purple. You
Speaker 1: know it might have been love sex. You know, chicken
Speaker 1: was real love. Joe.
Speaker 7: Wait, you you gotta announce this, this amazing laugh that
Speaker 7: we got in the room because I don't think we
Speaker 7: didn't said about our guest is up in here with us?
Speaker 1: Listen, yes, where is Yes, let's do it? Like, well,
Speaker 1: since you.
Speaker 7: Oh, don't make me do it.
Speaker 1: The man, because I know you're like ladies and.
Speaker 7: Gentlemen, boys and girls. The man who has shaped the
Speaker 7: narrative of one of the first black TV channel in
Speaker 7: our nation. The man that gave us the Real Prince Tribute.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 7: The man that kept Team some of the life for
Speaker 7: a little bit, because I'm sure he was there for
Speaker 7: that long, gave us Sita, the man, Rap City, Joe Claire,
Speaker 7: Chris Thomas, Rachel Caribbean rhythms, jam b E t So
Speaker 7: Uh real husbands of Hollywood. Uh, step Hills here, y'all? Wow,
Speaker 7: I mean see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can we call you mister president?
Speaker 8: So you got to call me something because there's another
Speaker 8: step in here. So we got to figure out sugar Steh,
Speaker 8: Sugar Steve.
Speaker 9: You want to know why we can hold on to
Speaker 9: that name tightly?
Speaker 1: Do you want to know why we call short version
Speaker 1: short version? He has diabetes? There you go, so he's down.
Speaker 1: You can laugh, we laugh about it.
Speaker 8: Okay, Okay, all right, We're five minutes in and so
Speaker 8: far we have a guy who has diabetes and somebody
Speaker 8: whose uncle got shot this.
Speaker 7: And might I just say, mister Hill, congratulations on being
Speaker 7: the most successful radio person ever to go to TV,
Speaker 7: like I mean, I you know, people have dreams, some
Speaker 7: of us and you have lived it. So congratulations, we're
Speaker 7: making out the radio story.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that's a hard transistion.
Speaker 7: Yep. That excuse excuse me for calling you this when
Speaker 7: niggas say they have successful TV careers. I can't wait
Speaker 7: to get back to radio.
Speaker 1: Really, you want to go back to radio?
Speaker 8: I love rate.
Speaker 1: Come on, I've loved no no.
Speaker 8: I grew I grew up. I wanted to be Donna
Speaker 8: Simpson when I grew up. I I grew up in
Speaker 8: d I grew up in DC.
Speaker 1: I go back to the idea of radio. I want
Speaker 1: to go back.
Speaker 8: I want to have listen to Deven Love Supreme. That's
Speaker 8: what I like to have at some point in time.
Speaker 8: So the idea of radio, the idea of music and
Speaker 8: personality and having discussions about music. That's what it was
Speaker 8: when I was in radio. I loved that.
Speaker 1: You want to know something, I'd spent two days in
Speaker 1: d c UH previously. You know. I love the fact
Speaker 1: that Howard station is still.
Speaker 7: The best station in the world. Yes, I said it loud.
Speaker 7: W h u R is the best every radio station
Speaker 7: in the work.
Speaker 8: That's because it's it's independent. Independent, it's not it's not
Speaker 8: owned by one of the Kings.
Speaker 1: Are they the last Mohican in a black music in
Speaker 1: the United States? Close to it or besides Steven st Stevie.
Speaker 7: Stevie's that has such good positioning on your radio dial.
Speaker 7: I feel like everybody else is eighty something when that's college.
Speaker 8: College is when you're below ninety two point three. If
Speaker 8: you're below ninety two point three, you're you're either publicly
Speaker 8: funded or college above that is where you start playing
Speaker 8: with the money.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so h R hu R. But HUR is not
Speaker 8: owned by any of the big you know people who
Speaker 8: own five hundred radio stations so they can channels.
Speaker 1: Yep, they aren't.
Speaker 8: So they aren't beholden to any contracts to play this
Speaker 8: certain song this many times a day so the artist
Speaker 8: will show up at their station.
Speaker 1: Why do you have these romantic visions of radio as
Speaker 1: it was in your childhood.
Speaker 8: Because it was that way when I was in radio.
Speaker 1: That's all like I missed.
Speaker 8: It's like it'd be like the Rip van Winkle of radio,
Speaker 8: Like I got out of it a certain time then
Speaker 8: fell asleep for twenty some id years and then go
Speaker 8: back and expect it to be exactly the same.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't be right.
Speaker 8: First of all, my voice would be a tape another city.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, yeah, you be in a computer.
Speaker 1: What is the question?
Speaker 6: Would you go back to terrestrial radio or would you
Speaker 6: try satellite or a pandora?
Speaker 8: I would try anybody who would have me and be
Speaker 8: playing great music and talk to great folks.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, well what is great music? Stephen Hill. That's
Speaker 7: a fascinating statement you made there.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing, because I know the thing
Speaker 1: is is that you know I understand that it's I mean,
Speaker 1: this is almost like a relationship like do you think
Speaker 1: with your heart or do you think with your brain?
Speaker 1: And you know, lately I've been accused of this like
Speaker 1: cats always kind of joke like, oh, you know, you're
Speaker 1: such a suit your suit meaning really.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, just well i'll tell you why
Speaker 6: after you after you do you think I'm a suit?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think you think like a suit?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Oh okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's whear that my suit is accusing me of being
Speaker 1: a suit.
Speaker 7: In a suit the same sweatshirt on.
Speaker 1: Wow, So you get the suit say, where does that
Speaker 1: come from? What do they mean by that? Here's the thing, Well,
Speaker 1: number one, I'm I see I don't I get offend.
Speaker 1: The idea of me being over calculating or overthinking really
Speaker 1: didn't come into play until, like I think, like a
Speaker 1: Pitchwork review of the Tipping Point. Ok. And then slowly,
Speaker 1: and only because Pitchfork was such the Emperor's new clothes
Speaker 1: of record criticism, that other critics would see what Pitchfork
Speaker 1: was saying and then they would start that was like
Speaker 1: the forecast, right, And then slowly, between like two thousand
Speaker 1: and five and two thousand and eight, I started seeing, well,
Speaker 1: you know, he overthinks everything and da da da da
Speaker 1: da da da, which I mean, Okay, granted, like it's
Speaker 1: that's lazy journalism when you just see what they say
Speaker 1: and then you paraphrase it. But then I personally got
Speaker 1: offended because I just felt like, why does the black
Speaker 1: guy like, why do I have to be accused of
Speaker 1: thinking too much? But the thing is that I feel
Speaker 1: like life is science. Like you're either going to go
Speaker 1: on science or you're going to go on faith. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're even Christianity or science. And I'm not saying I
Speaker 1: don't believe in faith, but I believe in science. I
Speaker 1: believe in numbers, and I believe in occurrences, and I
Speaker 1: believe in circles, and I believe in patterns. Yeah, patterns,
Speaker 1: And somehow I don't know. I feel as though it
Speaker 1: might read less authentic if it's planned ahead of time
Speaker 1: as opposed to people, just like the narrative of the
Speaker 1: spontaneity of magic happening, and it does have flat like
Speaker 1: a guy like Prince. And this is from a coming
Speaker 1: from a scientist that is listened to at least I'll
Speaker 1: say that I put in a good one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty hours of listening to Prince rehearsals. And I mean
Speaker 1: stuff that the average guy would run out of patients
Speaker 1: of listening to. I mean George Clinton's greatest quote about
Speaker 1: princes like damn man, even that cat rehearsals is spontaneity,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's just like to me, I mean
Speaker 1: that might seem sudi like the the idea of over
Speaker 1: preparing and that sort of thing. So it reads less
Speaker 1: authentic because it's scientific and not.
Speaker 5: Just I think it would be that doesn't read scientifically
Speaker 5: that just the reason of a person just putting into
Speaker 5: work for the craft.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I think Sudi would be all right, We're gonna get
Speaker 5: Max Martin to produce the new Roots album, Like that
Speaker 5: would be a suit thing, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Let's get Scott Storts to do the first single for
Speaker 1: our next record. That happened. Scott Storch was a member
Speaker 1: of the Roots, right, But Scott stor did the first single,
Speaker 1: things Fall Apart, But he hadn't been a member a
Speaker 1: member of the Roots for yeah, but Scott Storch did
Speaker 1: the most loved all the time.
Speaker 6: But okay, Scott Storch being considered a member of the Roots,
Speaker 6: I'm trying to think of a great analogy. Is it's
Speaker 6: like he never left, Like the thing is that you
Speaker 6: never leave the Roots, Malik, Okay, So is Kalie still
Speaker 6: a Route?
Speaker 7: Kalise? Was she a Root?
Speaker 1: She was like six months? But I thought, all see,
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that the Roots are like
Speaker 1: Steely Dan, you know it's it's it's fake session and
Speaker 1: then a bunch of session players. But I but I
Speaker 1: understand the romantic attachment to members, like why do I
Speaker 1: love the Revolution? Like Princess had better more technical musicians.
Speaker 1: But my heart's always with the revolution. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: understand people's attachments to it, but I mean on the
Speaker 1: real like I mean, James Poyser has been a route
Speaker 1: since Do You Want More, but really hasn't been officially
Speaker 1: what I said.
Speaker 6: Scott wasn't hasn't been a root for a long time.
Speaker 6: It's like he wasn't really a constant presence on the records.
Speaker 1: He's always been just his Yeah, but I mean Scott
Speaker 1: was Therefore it ain't saying nothing new and you got
Speaker 1: me and then adrenaline. Scott Storte is all over things
Speaker 1: fall apart.
Speaker 7: Just formulas. You're basically saying that you're not a suit
Speaker 7: just because you have a formula. Did you think would work? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But I never went out like, hey, let's get it
Speaker 1: hit with Scott storage. It was just like the sooth
Speaker 1: thought concerning the tipping point. The sooth thought was fall
Speaker 1: back a mirror and let's do something well, let's do
Speaker 1: something normal. Only because Jimmy and Ivean was like he
Speaker 1: really didn't get and didn't have the time to absorb
Speaker 1: and come and observe and all that stuff, Like he's
Speaker 1: dealing with nineteen other platinum artists, so it was just like,
Speaker 1: let's just do the most normal. I got to put
Speaker 1: my two cents on Star and maybe like which was
Speaker 1: my favorite song, some other joints. But really it was
Speaker 1: just like that was my most hands off. Okay, what
Speaker 1: do I do? And let you guys do the work.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't think there's anything calculating on that level.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Stephen, I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: I'm still trying to fgure out who the Jeff Skunk
Speaker 8: Baxtra of.
Speaker 1: The Roots is. A man that would be uh would
Speaker 1: it be Kurt?
Speaker 7: Did I figure out what Jeff Skunk Baster is.
Speaker 1: Or brother effort? Steely Dan had at least nineteen revolving
Speaker 1: musicians around the planets of Fagin and Becker and a
Speaker 1: few other people.
Speaker 7: But when you learn you're just a surface Steely Dan fan. Okay,
Speaker 7: thank you guys.
Speaker 1: No, but this is what the show watch, y'all.
Speaker 7: Watch Michael Jackson tapes over.
Speaker 8: All, right, I could do that for Eff you know
Speaker 8: I could do that?
Speaker 7: Is he your favorite?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 8: It's tough when you have it's tough when it's princes
Speaker 8: in the room.
Speaker 1: It's tough. It's tough.
Speaker 8: You talk about practicing spontaneity. I didn't know that much
Speaker 8: about Prince, but Michael Jackson felt like he rehearsed a
Speaker 8: lot of spontaneity, Like there was whatever it was like.
Speaker 1: Can I come down there and sing? You know, it
Speaker 1: was the same point at the same show. I assure
Speaker 1: you everyone probably maybe George Clinton's p funk mom because
Speaker 1: they were too hard to control. But I assure you
Speaker 1: I've seen repetition even with like listen, Coltrane outtakes his
Speaker 1: entire Temple University series of like nine shows right after
Speaker 1: Love Supreme came out. Even his his his scaling of
Speaker 1: solos were the same level. So it's like, I think
Speaker 1: anyone that great just you know, has a pattern they
Speaker 1: follow due to hours of practice.
Speaker 7: But that's funny because anybody that great, most fans just
Speaker 7: don't know that they have a pattern. And so maybe
Speaker 7: the people who call you a suit they just you know,
Speaker 7: know you behind the scenes so well.
Speaker 1: But I don't mind being called to suit old suit
Speaker 1: or wait, I had to look to the left to
Speaker 1: see what Bills response was. So Steve back to you
Speaker 1: and your your humble beginnings in radio, Can I can
Speaker 1: I assume that you, uh, kind of your curiosity about
Speaker 1: radio started with like making up your own radio programs
Speaker 1: at the house and tape recorders.
Speaker 8: And absolutely absolutely, I just same thing. I was grew
Speaker 8: up in d C, where I thought the radio. I
Speaker 8: didn't realize it then, but the radio there was so
Speaker 8: crazy great, the w p g C, which eventually came
Speaker 8: an urban station, but it used to be a station
Speaker 8: where you'd hear earth wind and fire next to Barry
Speaker 8: Man a low next to the Jackson five like it was.
Speaker 1: It was just all this is is a pop station?
Speaker 1: Was this like pe D Green, Dewey Hughes, was this? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Ol Oil is the station I listened to in the
Speaker 8: car in my dad's Mustang when you drive drive through Southeast,
Speaker 8: you know, during the weekend.
Speaker 7: Melvin Lindsay was a little later.
Speaker 8: I think Melvin Lindsay a little later. Yeah, But Peter Green,
Speaker 8: Peter Green was around.
Speaker 1: Bobby.
Speaker 8: I can't think of Bobby's last name, Bobby Burner. I
Speaker 8: can't think Bobby Burner something Burner.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, explain where did you grow up? Was
Speaker 1: it DC? Southeasts you were.
Speaker 7: Born in d C, Yo, that's the only part of
Speaker 7: DC that's still not one hundred percent gentrified.
Speaker 8: Yet they're getting close, tough, getting very they got as
Speaker 8: an acostia bridge. It's gonna be an issue.
Speaker 1: Describe specifically what black radio was like.
Speaker 8: It was AM, It was w O L.
Speaker 1: It was AM.
Speaker 8: It was am w ok.
Speaker 1: Your visions and romantic visions of what radio was has
Speaker 1: an AM frequency to it. Yeah, I mean not at
Speaker 1: the beginning, at the beginning. Now it's now it's FM.
Speaker 8: At the beginning where I learned to love music, it
Speaker 8: was absolutely AM radio w O L, w OK, w
Speaker 8: E E M for a pop station PGC, I think
Speaker 8: was FM by then it was actually AM and FM,
Speaker 8: but it was. It was It was sound coming out
Speaker 8: of my father's nineteen sixty six Mustang fake convertible, you
Speaker 8: know they had it had like the cool green color,
Speaker 8: but there was a black but it wasn't really a convertible.
Speaker 8: It made it look like it convertible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just kind of the Chrysler three hundred of
Speaker 1: its exactly exactly. This is Quest Love, Supreme, Wor and
Speaker 1: Pandua And if you're just tuning in, we're chatting with
Speaker 1: our guests. The head of programming at BT Networks. Stephen Hill. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess you're the first guest that was born on
Speaker 1: the far east of the United States, where a lot
Speaker 1: of our Midwestern guests told stories of just being one
Speaker 1: radio station and maybe two hours of soul music. Whereas
Speaker 1: Plus it's.
Speaker 7: Still the stop. Remember DC's below the mazing Dixon line
Speaker 7: and very black. So it was one of those rare
Speaker 7: cities four black radio stations. It still does.
Speaker 8: Yes, Okay, So WEIM wasn't their black station. WPGC wasn't
Speaker 8: black then that was the pop station. But that's the
Speaker 8: one that would play Barry man Low and Earth wind
Speaker 8: Fire and Wild Cherry and O L and Okay, We're
Speaker 8: am and then okay became FM one hundred point three.
Speaker 1: You could trust radio back then?
Speaker 8: Oh yes, absolutely. I trusted it with my heart absolutely.
Speaker 1: So were you DJ at heart or just like you
Speaker 1: wanted to be a personality?
Speaker 8: I just wanted to be around music as much as
Speaker 8: I possibly could, Like there was I'm sure everybody had
Speaker 8: that experience of getting in the car and like the
Speaker 8: first thing you do is turn on the radio, like
Speaker 8: the biggest, the biggest thrill I ever had. When we
Speaker 8: got a car that we could turn the radio on
Speaker 8: before the engine came on. I remember that there was
Speaker 8: a Volkswagen that came out of Mom got a Volkswagen. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and the radio would turn on. Now this caused challenges,
Speaker 8: of course, when you go to listen to the radio
Speaker 8: in the car. Sometimes I would just look outside and
Speaker 8: listen to radio in the car without going anywhere, and
Speaker 8: then leave the radio on and the battery be out
Speaker 8: and but yeah, so that that's the first part of music,
Speaker 8: and it was motown. It was James Brown. James Brown
Speaker 8: was my first, uh, musical crush ever, like that was
Speaker 8: my first idol, like that when we saw James Brown
Speaker 8: on TV move and he was in the middle of
Speaker 8: his going from process to Afro phase. So say it,
Speaker 8: say that Loud's transition. He was transitioning. Say it Loud
Speaker 8: was I think I was like seven or eight years old,
Speaker 8: but that meant something to me. I didn't know what
Speaker 8: I didn't know what black and White was at that
Speaker 8: point in time, but I knew something about that song
Speaker 8: spoke spoke to me.
Speaker 1: Were you attending concerts by this point or.
Speaker 8: First concert was July second, nineteen seventy Temptations. Temptations right
Speaker 8: after the right after Psychdelic. Yeah, it was after one
Speaker 8: album after that. Ballic Confusion was on the album That's
Speaker 8: Skyt's limmit right.
Speaker 1: I got a check to get I have to check
Speaker 1: was that?
Speaker 7: Like, Howard did you go see that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 8: No, I was actually came out to My dad had
Speaker 8: to work in LA for the first half of that year,
Speaker 8: so we came out at the end of June.
Speaker 1: I remember this very well. What did your parents do?
Speaker 1: My dad worked with the Census Bureau.
Speaker 8: He was a statistician for years and mom was a mom,
Speaker 8: raised us and then was a part time teacher, music teacher. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so that was my That was my parents there.
Speaker 1: But your mom was a music teacher.
Speaker 8: She was that explained teacher. She was a taught piano.
Speaker 1: Sop to me. But did you ever want to learn?
Speaker 1: Or did? But I had never had the patience for it.
Speaker 8: That was the problem, and it's I have very few
Speaker 8: regrets in my entire life. That's the biggest regret. We
Speaker 8: didn't stay with the piano that I didn't stay with
Speaker 8: the drums. I tried, but I just didn't have the
Speaker 8: patience at eleven and twelve years old to stick with it.
Speaker 8: It's the biggest regret, but I learned how to play
Speaker 8: some things about my own, right, So I can play
Speaker 8: first part of Purple Rain on a piano.
Speaker 1: I can play MacArthur Park. Oh oh wait a minute, really.
Speaker 8: I can play I can play the first part of
Speaker 8: MacArthur Park on a piano. And I used to be
Speaker 8: able to play father song.
Speaker 1: Really, I used to be able to play father song. Well.
Speaker 1: But the first part of MacArthur's part, that's hilarious record
Speaker 1: shopping Steve and I discovered on the forty five we
Speaker 1: had a radio promo of MacArthur's part. What you have
Speaker 1: to know about MacArthur's Park is that by Donna Summit
Speaker 1: or no no, no, no, no, Richard Arthur.
Speaker 8: Oh there is Richard Harris.
Speaker 1: Richard Harris, right, yeah, So MacArthur's Part is sort of
Speaker 1: like a hell Mary throw into the world of radio,
Speaker 1: which each song should be about three minutes and thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: and the idea of telling radio programmers to let this
Speaker 1: seven minute.
Speaker 8: It's about seven it's seven seven seven seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like seven oh two or something like that. So
Speaker 1: it's very unusual one for a forty five to have
Speaker 1: a seven minute song. But the actual artwork of the
Speaker 1: forty five of MacArthur's Park. It's more about the record
Speaker 1: label telling you the listener that you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to let songs breathe and get to you. And
Speaker 1: you know, what's a seven minute song? Sit down and
Speaker 1: absorb this music like I've never seen a selling point
Speaker 1: of such an epic song. And and and of course
Speaker 1: you know what is MacArthur's part really about. I mean,
Speaker 1: just the idea of wasting cake in the ring. You've
Speaker 1: heard MacArthur's part.
Speaker 7: Like you know, I haven't. You know you hear me
Speaker 7: being quiet over here. I was just gonna act like
Speaker 7: I did.
Speaker 1: Well, you've heard the Melting and the Dog. It's the
Speaker 1: same as the summer version.
Speaker 7: I got it because I was sweating over year written.
Speaker 8: By Jimmy Jimmy Webb.
Speaker 7: Okay, if not, I'm going to google it now.
Speaker 1: My dad used to do that song in the show.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just wondered about leaving Cake out and
Speaker 1: the Raine.
Speaker 9: And so it's funny think about that every time because
Speaker 9: it was my mother's favorite song for a very long time.
Speaker 8: Something about that song really talk to her, and I
Speaker 8: try to figure out what it was. I couldn't figure
Speaker 8: with it, but I always had the idea of a
Speaker 8: cake out in the rain, and I could see it
Speaker 8: vividly that there's lime green. It's lime green with some
Speaker 8: kind of strawberry, and then was just melting down. It's
Speaker 8: such a visual to me.
Speaker 5: But that's the song though, I mean, Jimmy Webb, I think,
Speaker 5: if I'm not mistaking, I think he's just saying got
Speaker 5: a wrote Witchity Lineman.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's like one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 1: He's a great songwriter.
Speaker 8: I don't think did Richard Harris ever sing any song
Speaker 8: beside that, Like Richard Harris the actor. By the way,
Speaker 8: Richard Harris the actor sang MacArthur parkon problem was that
Speaker 8: was on a forty five and trying to get seven
Speaker 8: minutes worth a sound of the forty five if you.
Speaker 6: Wrong all of a sudden, Yeah, I remember my mom
Speaker 6: had a Dell Stany in my corner and that was
Speaker 6: like six sixty.
Speaker 4: Boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, how they get on? So it's
Speaker 1: here for long forty five? Good mastering? All right? So Steve,
Speaker 1: where do you at least get the curiosity on how
Speaker 1: to enter radio? Like was this dreams you had as
Speaker 1: a kid or just this come to you as a
Speaker 1: teenager or an adult, or.
Speaker 8: Mostly as a teenage. But really, I mean it really
Speaker 8: it turned around in my first year in college. My
Speaker 8: first year I went to Brown and oh, because it's
Speaker 8: so tied back. So Brown University had a radio station
Speaker 8: has a radio station, sorry WBRU, but it is ninety
Speaker 8: five point five. So even though it is a college
Speaker 8: radio station, it is in the it is in the
Speaker 8: you got to make that money sector of the spectrum, right,
Speaker 8: It is not a college below ninety two point three.
Speaker 8: So it was a commercial radio station and it was rock, alternative, rock, away,
Speaker 8: whatever you call it back in eighty four, but on
Speaker 8: Sunday it was a three hundred and sixty degree black
Speaker 8: experience in sound. If you hashtag that you've used up
Speaker 8: all one, it's done.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you a story about BRU. It's a
Speaker 1: little dishonest, but I'll say that after a few a
Speaker 1: lot of root shows at Brown University, because we would
Speaker 1: frequent a lot of the upper echelone colleges and get
Speaker 1: that money. Sometimes at these radio interviews, the DJs would
Speaker 1: sort of just let me rummage through.
Speaker 8: No I know where this is going, by the way,
Speaker 8: because it's still on it's still in the I know
Speaker 8: where this is going.
Speaker 1: I know where it's going. Okay, I'll say that I
Speaker 1: have a lot of wbr U records in my possession.
Speaker 8: So if there if they are BRU records in the
Speaker 8: upper left corner, it says R and B you wrote
Speaker 8: it has a date on them. If you turn them around,
Speaker 8: you'll see the writing on the back and they'll say.
Speaker 8: We used to call it marketing records. And so we
Speaker 8: just go through like one, you know, the side one
Speaker 8: side too, and so you probably have some.
Speaker 1: Of the market records, like what the good joints were.
Speaker 8: Like Mark, and we always try to figure out like, okay,
Speaker 8: that's a single, so we're gonna mess with what that happened,
Speaker 8: but here's what should be the next single. And so
Speaker 8: we would go through every like all the.
Speaker 1: Like imagine that because that doesn't happen today in the
Speaker 1: cutting piece. So all right, what is the process of
Speaker 1: Because I know how important college radio was to the
Speaker 1: development of a new artist, especially in the eighties and
Speaker 1: in the nineties, so you know, they would try to
Speaker 1: woo you just as important or as much as a
Speaker 1: top five station or you know, like the local conglomerates
Speaker 1: so give us an example of an unheard of talent
Speaker 1: coming to you first at at Brown You okay.
Speaker 8: All right, A rather a rather greasy haired gentleman came down.
Speaker 8: I can see I can see it. It came down.
Speaker 8: I don't know. I still to this day don't know
Speaker 8: how he got into the studio. But he's like, hey,
Speaker 8: I got this group. I got this group right, and
Speaker 8: he like, I got this group and this record, and
Speaker 8: you know the Jackson five was Thursday fart, but they're
Speaker 8: just like the Jackson five.
Speaker 1: They're just like the Jackson five. I think the blow
Speaker 1: up good for you.
Speaker 8: You know exactly where it's going. And I swear to
Speaker 8: god he came in on a Sunday because it was
Speaker 8: that was that was three hundred sixty degree black experience
Speaker 8: of sound. And I'm like, okay, we'll give it a shot.
Speaker 8: We'll give it a shot, because you know people would
Speaker 8: do that if you if you can get through and
Speaker 8: you you're not gonna kill us, we'll play the record.
Speaker 8: We're good, and we put and it was a it
Speaker 8: was a new edition candigir it was it was.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking Michael Johnson.
Speaker 8: Maurice, Yeah, well, what I can't think it was a
Speaker 8: real name. That was no, Johnson's the last name, because.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking of Michael Johnson john Johnson Crew. That was
Speaker 5: his partner, was it not? Okay?
Speaker 1: Brother? In this day and age, a lot of people
Speaker 1: approached me about, you know, check this out. This this
Speaker 1: gentleman included, you know, and maybe my record is probably
Speaker 1: zero and nine million for at least the patients to
Speaker 1: actually take said product and press play and listen to
Speaker 1: it and absorb it. Like but in radio, I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you know who's worth listening to? Or I
Speaker 1: mean do you have to accept everyone's Like if a
Speaker 1: person comes to you and they seem rather shady or whatnot,
Speaker 1: do you still give that product a chance? And so
Speaker 1: I try to.
Speaker 8: Again, I'm big on that not getting killed thing, right,
Speaker 8: because it's happened when people walk in like, yo, man,
Speaker 8: you won't listen to what?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say, Like what if you
Speaker 1: don't like a product.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. You try to never listen to it in
Speaker 8: front of them. You always try to get it like, hey,
Speaker 8: can't listen to it now, I'll listen to it later.
Speaker 8: You avoid that danger, right, then? Seriously, you try to
Speaker 8: You try to unless you know the person, If you
Speaker 8: know somebody and you can give honest feedback, you want
Speaker 8: to be able to absorb it because we've all heard
Speaker 8: things where the first time we hear it is like, eh,
Speaker 8: that's not working. But by the third time you understand
Speaker 8: or you feel, you feel a different way about it.
Speaker 1: And if you really.
Speaker 8: Respect them, music gonna get You're gonna give it that
Speaker 8: two or three times before you before you come to
Speaker 8: that judgment, before you're ready to share that judgment. That's
Speaker 8: probably the best way to put it. And so even
Speaker 8: in college, we'd sit around, well, it was more like
Speaker 8: there are more people, there'd be a music meeting. We
Speaker 8: take all the albums and everybody was a sign, like
Speaker 8: two or three albums and they come back and say, okay,
Speaker 8: here here's the cuts we should play on three hundred
Speaker 8: and sixty Black Experienced It sounds okay. We did call
Speaker 8: it three sixty. Just sometimes it's funny. Just keep running
Speaker 8: it all the way down.
Speaker 1: Who's who did?
Speaker 8: Don't go dun dunkan no no, no, no no. They
Speaker 8: tried to be like the time right after Time came out,
Speaker 8: Oh o zone no no no dum dream Boy, dream boy, Yeah,
Speaker 8: dream Boy, dream boy, So I'm you can.
Speaker 1: Hear the activator dripping on the floor.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, there were a couple of groups that came out,
Speaker 8: like the Time That Struck My Head because that's one
Speaker 8: of those songs I remember that. That was that that
Speaker 8: we played on like WBR. You was one of the
Speaker 8: first people to play that song and it.
Speaker 1: Was you gave them a chance.
Speaker 8: It was huge, It was huge.
Speaker 1: We're here with our guest president of Programming Beach Heat Networks,
Speaker 1: Stephen Hill. We're talking about as humble beginnings going to
Speaker 1: college radio back in the eighties.
Speaker 7: Did y'all have like any bear like no hose barges whatever,
Speaker 7: black soul or what was okay so whatever?
Speaker 8: Yes, which was yeah, we go. Yeah, it's college radio,
Speaker 8: but it was real radio. But it was college radio.
Speaker 8: But we can play whatever we wanted to as long
Speaker 8: as getting curse obviously.
Speaker 7: So did it hurt when you had to leave that situation.
Speaker 7: I guess it didn't hurt because you you know, more
Speaker 7: money and commercial radio, but uh, that life is different
Speaker 7: college radio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you only get three to four years to run it.
Speaker 8: Right, you do. Yeah, I was there for I did
Speaker 8: it all for you because it was one of the things.
Speaker 8: You go on campus. You go on campus, like in
Speaker 8: the back then they had all the come join the
Speaker 8: press club, right for the paper, come join the you know,
Speaker 8: the poker club.
Speaker 1: And what year? What period was this between what brown
Speaker 1: was eighty to eighty four? From me?
Speaker 8: Wow, okay at eighty four, so I remember where so
Speaker 8: the cool thing is like I remember, like, I remember
Speaker 8: where I was when nineteen ninety nine came out.
Speaker 1: The day that, the day that, the day that Thriller
Speaker 1: came out. Oh man, November thirtieth, nineteen absolutely two.
Speaker 8: I went straight from there to music one forty two
Speaker 8: with Professor Kleman was her name. I remember just having
Speaker 8: to the album just like this. I'm like, I'm gonna
Speaker 8: try to pay attention to this class. I'm gonna try.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you were one of those people that
Speaker 1: were like cut school for a record or loose sleep
Speaker 1: the night before for a record.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah. I remember being mad because because do
Speaker 8: you know the date? What day did Triumph come out?
Speaker 8: Became a fall of eighty. I don't know the dated.
Speaker 1: It was September because I remember being in in fifth grade.
Speaker 1: It was definitely September of right, So.
Speaker 8: I had just gotten to Brown. I remember going to
Speaker 8: like my first or second dance and Shannon Harris. I
Speaker 8: remember how fun find Shannon Harris. She had I saw
Speaker 8: an album. I say, wait, is that Mike hold On?
Speaker 8: She had the Triumph album. I left the party. Really,
Speaker 8: I left the party to try to go to the
Speaker 8: record store before because it was it was early. I
Speaker 8: left to try to get to the record store before closed,
Speaker 8: like one o'clock in the morning, two I could get Trump.
Speaker 8: I was mad that somebody had a Jackson all before
Speaker 8: I did.
Speaker 1: When someone had a record before you did. Oh oh man,
Speaker 1: you just took me back with you. You described my
Speaker 1: wife right there. I used to cry. My aunt had
Speaker 1: asked Rufus by Rufus and for some reason, even there's
Speaker 1: like an asterisk mark when I think of the Rufous discography.
Speaker 1: Even though I was six, I was still musically an
Speaker 1: adult in that household. So she flawing it like like
Speaker 1: what twenty three year old person, It's like a mere
Speaker 1: luke what I got. And she put on that midnight,
Speaker 1: and I was like mad. I was angry see them
Speaker 1: with anger like she would flaunt when she got records
Speaker 1: before I did. I hate it. Yeah, when some one got.
Speaker 8: Family is worse. The worst trick I ever played with
Speaker 8: my brother because I loved my brother more than cook food. Right,
Speaker 8: my brother is my guy. But when I was nine
Speaker 8: and he was six. So we got the first two
Speaker 8: Jackson five records on the same day, right, Dania Ross
Speaker 8: presents an ABC and I because I wanted the newer one,
Speaker 8: wanted ABC. I wanted ABC. I wanted so, so we
Speaker 8: go into the record store. I can remember this, I said,
Speaker 8: what I god nor exactly what was? It was panmar
Speaker 8: in Southeast DC, on on Pennsylvania Avenue up near the
Speaker 8: near the Maryland line. We go in there and my
Speaker 8: little niney old self goes, hey, okay, let's go try
Speaker 8: to find them. And we were both trying to find ABC.
Speaker 8: I said, hey, maybe if yould go look under it's
Speaker 8: fouled under the under ABC.
Speaker 1: We're the artists.
Speaker 8: We're the artists, are looking at ABC, and I feel daughter.
Speaker 8: I said, you go look over there.
Speaker 1: That's bad, that's bad, that was wrong. But you misled
Speaker 1: your brother. I did. I did. I did, just so
Speaker 1: he had his own collection. You had your own.
Speaker 8: Now he stopped after that one. He's stopped like like
Speaker 8: that was just like, I don't know's brother competitive, but
Speaker 8: he wasn't me. He's the sports guy. He loves sports. Okay, uh,
Speaker 8: you know he's just now like he's the guy I
Speaker 8: uses a test to find out what songs are really
Speaker 8: good and really gonna hit because the idiot factor all
Speaker 8: completely and I don't know.
Speaker 1: You never tell the idiot factor the idio factor.
Speaker 8: And I keep him away like he you know, he
Speaker 8: wants to take us shows and stuff. I can get that,
Speaker 8: but but I don't want him to get anywhere close
Speaker 8: because I used him as the is the test? Like
Speaker 8: is this you know, he's the guy who's sitting in
Speaker 8: the back of the car with the kids singing happy
Speaker 8: like he's he's the guy. He's he's that guy. I
Speaker 8: know if it you know, always be my Baby is
Speaker 8: his favorite Mariah Carey song, Like that's the that's the
Speaker 8: that's the he's the he's the pop guy.
Speaker 1: Your litmus test. Like what do you think about this? Listen?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so I'm starting to use his kids.
Speaker 1: Now, no kids are your an rs? That's like that's
Speaker 1: the kids are yes?
Speaker 5: No, Well, I want when I say an RS, it
Speaker 5: just means if your kids can sing it. That's when
Speaker 5: you know, it doesn't mean if they don't like it
Speaker 5: that it's not good or it still won't jam.
Speaker 1: But if your kids are singing it, yeah, that's the way.
Speaker 8: I won't to go back to. Which, So do you
Speaker 8: remember any of the any of the albums you took
Speaker 8: from you took from I'm sorry you borrowed from Brown University? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: no no no, just curious, you know what?
Speaker 1: Because I was heavily looking into samples and things, I
Speaker 1: believe that I was more given access to the jazz.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sort of the seventies jazz stuff. So I know,
Speaker 1: like there's I think maybe the Virgo Red album from
Speaker 1: roy Aers, you know what, Tony Williams Ego, those two records.
Speaker 1: Like I took a lot of the seventies jazz jazz
Speaker 1: stuff like that's in my collection.
Speaker 8: And then and there's still The cool thing is I
Speaker 8: go back and visit every once in a while, just
Speaker 8: and sometimes it let me go on the air for
Speaker 8: a minute, which is just I have such a rush
Speaker 8: after that. But the album is still on the wall.
Speaker 8: The albums are they still have the album on the
Speaker 8: wall haven't been used for years.
Speaker 1: They still keep up there. I love that really, Wow,
Speaker 1: I gotta make a return, find a new home for it.
Speaker 5: So how do you go from how do you use
Speaker 5: a person like that loves music, you know, wanting to
Speaker 5: be on radio?
Speaker 1: How do you get from radio to TV?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 1: How did you?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you go there? Your major? I assume
Speaker 1: that was your major.
Speaker 8: My major was applied math in economics. Applid math and economics, brilliant.
Speaker 8: I spent more time at the radio station. Love you mom,
Speaker 8: love you dad. But yeah, I got out, but I
Speaker 8: did graduate. I good, I could graduate. Go ahead, ask it.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 7: I was just gonna say, don't you find because people
Speaker 7: are always I was a communications major, So it's not like
Speaker 7: you really wanted to switch play with me because I
Speaker 7: always tell people, young people, you know what, take be
Speaker 7: a business major economics and then just have an internship
Speaker 7: learn radio that way because you're really not going to
Speaker 7: learn a lot of it in the classroom. So you perfect, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was communications major too. I was communications major too.
Speaker 1: I'd say the same thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, internships is where you learn everything.
Speaker 1: Because but isn't that FV like fall back on this
Speaker 1: just in case it doesn't. No, which one for communications majors?
Speaker 6: Really, I mean you do a lot of stuff in class,
Speaker 6: but really the only way to learn how to do
Speaker 6: to do it, you have to.
Speaker 9: Actually do it and be around people who would right right.
Speaker 9: So like I was a communications major, Yeah, I do
Speaker 9: the thing of it, so was to Yeah. I did
Speaker 9: three and a half years at the college radio station.
Speaker 9: You know, I worked on television shows at the campus
Speaker 9: TV station. And that was the only way we could
Speaker 9: learn how to do stuff because it was to actually
Speaker 9: do it.
Speaker 1: So what was your major?
Speaker 10: Steve Journalism? Actually interned at DC one on one I
Speaker 10: went to Maryland, So I was interned.
Speaker 8: Well, you got DC route was how it was starting
Speaker 8: there when you were there?
Speaker 1: No, No, I was with the grease Man.
Speaker 8: Okay a long time.
Speaker 1: Who's the grease man?
Speaker 10: He knows the Howards turned down in d C. Basically
Speaker 10: in the Lady Wild Morning Guy. Well it wasn't the
Speaker 10: morning show, but he was just like he was just
Speaker 10: that you know.
Speaker 8: Crazy Greechman, at least in some circles, is best known
Speaker 8: for the horrible, horrible joke that I will tell if
Speaker 8: you want me to. But it's really it's a horrible,
Speaker 8: originally offensive please please offensive. It was around the time
Speaker 8: that they were talking about m l K getting a holiday.
Speaker 1: I remember, okay, remember that?
Speaker 8: Do you remember? So it was like, uh so, let
Speaker 8: me get the straight m OK is going to get
Speaker 8: all we get a holiday for m OK. If I'd
Speaker 8: known that, I'd have shot four more and gotten a
Speaker 8: whole week off.
Speaker 1: That was the grease Man.
Speaker 7: That must have been. That must have been a day
Speaker 7: Donnie Simpson got his fifty million dollar contract.
Speaker 8: DC Radio, DC Radio has it was was was was,
Speaker 8: There was the variety.
Speaker 1: Howardzs.
Speaker 8: Thurne was on DC one on one before he went national,
Speaker 8: before he came to New York, like he cut his
Speaker 8: teeth there. Greaseman was kind of like Howard's thurnish as
Speaker 8: you can probably tell them by that.
Speaker 10: And by the time I got there, I don't know,
Speaker 10: eighty nine or something like that, and it was all
Speaker 10: computer generated playlists and you know nothing. I was like, well,
Speaker 10: I'm too late to this game.
Speaker 8: It was past my romanticized version of radio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what was your first radio station outside.
Speaker 8: Of wild Boston? It was an AM daytimer station. What
Speaker 8: an AM daytimer station is? We just call it solar powered.
Speaker 8: There's this crazy. There's this crazy rule. The SCC had
Speaker 8: that certain because they were trying to make when radio,
Speaker 8: they were trying to make radio grow. People were allowed
Speaker 8: to have local stations, but there were these superstations that
Speaker 8: went everywhere at night, like WOWO out of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Speaker 8: I don't know how I remember that WBAL out of Baltimore.
Speaker 8: There were these superstations that jacked their power up at
Speaker 8: night so they could be heard nationwide. Because radio, you know,
Speaker 8: when they were trying to build the radio business really
Speaker 8: and so every other every other if you were on
Speaker 8: that frequency, you had to get off that frequency at night.
Speaker 8: So WBAL had the frequency ten nine to zero out
Speaker 8: of Baltimore, and so at night we were wild.
Speaker 1: We had to get off.
Speaker 8: So we were only allowed to be up from sunrise
Speaker 8: to sunset.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 8: Right, So that was my first radio station. And the
Speaker 8: short version of how I got there. I got out
Speaker 8: of Brown University. I tried to get a job in radio.
Speaker 8: I couldn't do it. I failed miserably. A year and
Speaker 8: a half later, a guy named Robert Hartley was sick.
Speaker 8: He was during cristification at WBRU. They called me said,
Speaker 8: can you come fill in for four hours. I said, sure,
Speaker 8: I have been on the radio on a year and
Speaker 8: a half. I'll come down. But as I did always,
Speaker 8: I prepared and made sure I knew what was going on.
Speaker 8: When did a four hour show, thought nothing of it,
Speaker 8: went back to my job where I was teaching at
Speaker 8: Groton School. Two months later, I get a call saying,
Speaker 8: is this Stephen Hill. Yes. I happened to be driving
Speaker 8: through Providence, Rhode Island a couple of months ago heard
Speaker 8: you on the radio, and I wanted to know if you
Speaker 8: want to come in. And I got a part time
Speaker 8: gig at w I l D. El Roy Smith, who
Speaker 8: was is a wonderful program director, wonderful program former boss.
Speaker 7: He was your he was my boss when he left Chicago,
Speaker 7: he came to Field, I was morning show.
Speaker 8: El Roy Smith was the program director. Yeah, Elroy Smith
Speaker 8: was after Kobe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, at w I l D. And so I always
Speaker 8: I tell people like my career, like if if Robert
Speaker 8: Hartley doesn't get sick, if I'm not home to answer
Speaker 8: the phone because there were no cell phones at the time, right,
Speaker 8: if I if I don't you know, if I can't
Speaker 8: go down there and do those four hours, we're not
Speaker 8: sitting here because I found out el Roy only did
Speaker 8: that drive twice in five years. Man, And it just happened,
Speaker 8: and it happened to me. I hadn't been on the
Speaker 8: radio for a year and a half. I was on
Speaker 8: there those four hours. He happened to be driving through
Speaker 8: track me down and hips is not for that. I'm
Speaker 8: somewhere either teaching or applying math and economica.
Speaker 1: Now, as as a DJ, did you have total control of.
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: No college is over?
Speaker 1: Is this?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 1: What year is this? What year is this? Is a
Speaker 1: this is a spring of eighty six? Okay, spring of
Speaker 1: eighty six? At this point, the WYLD this is.
Speaker 8: Like wild is it now? Even though it's a daytime station,
Speaker 8: it's a real money, real money commercial radio.
Speaker 1: Stak got back up a little bit because you said
Speaker 1: your previous experience was a fail? How was that a fail?
Speaker 1: Which one you said? When you?
Speaker 8: Oh, what I tried to get I tried to get
Speaker 8: a job in a radio when I left Brown in
Speaker 8: eighty four. But I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I could you could like it was just a bad experience, DJ.
Speaker 8: I couldn't get a job I was. I couldn't get
Speaker 8: a job in radio radio or or record labels or anyplace.
Speaker 1: Man back then, what were the requirements to to woo
Speaker 1: over a radio programmer that would bring you aboard? Like
Speaker 1: what was required?
Speaker 8: I don't know, because I didn't get a job. Seriously,
Speaker 8: I don't know. I thought, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 8: I think it was just talking on the air naturally
Speaker 8: that appealed to l Roy. Like I knew the music
Speaker 8: back then, it was good to have some kind of
Speaker 8: radio voice. And thanks to my mother, who has the
Speaker 8: deeper voice of my parents, I happened to get it.
Speaker 8: So I think it's just that and being able to
Speaker 8: relate and being able to and he didn't know that
Speaker 8: that I knew or was obsessed with music, but I
Speaker 8: think that helped in the interview and as I got
Speaker 8: to grow at WLD.
Speaker 1: I mean I would think, at least in my head
Speaker 1: or you know, this is a very naive you know,
Speaker 1: thought like I would figure that, okay, well, I would
Speaker 1: want people to be knowledgeable about music and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: because I don't even know what the criteria for today is.
Speaker 1: But I would think like there were least some standards
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, whereas like, you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny I think went to that era and where the
Speaker 1: radio DJ was well, what you're saying when it end.
Speaker 8: I think the real challenge was when they changed the
Speaker 8: ownership rules of radios, right, it was ninety six. They
Speaker 8: changed it two fms, two ams, that's all you can own.
Speaker 8: That's all you can own, even in the market, right,
Speaker 8: And so now people were buying radio stations. They had
Speaker 8: to service all this debt. And so to service that debt,
Speaker 8: you got to play commercials, and to play more commercials
Speaker 8: you have to have less talk. And so the less
Speaker 8: talk you have, the more commercials you can play. And
Speaker 8: so you play the music and you play just a
Speaker 8: little bit. Hey, that was the That was the jacks
Speaker 8: was chaking about it down the ground right back after this,
Speaker 8: you get in and out, so you play more music,
Speaker 8: like it was just servicing debt. It feels like the
Speaker 8: way record companies with like Warner Brothers was It seemed
Speaker 8: to be about like an artist development and movement, and
Speaker 8: then all of a sudden, you know, you got to
Speaker 8: service your debt. So you got to sell more records.
Speaker 8: And sometimes you don't get two or three shots at
Speaker 8: it make it, making it big.
Speaker 1: So quest Love Supreme would be their worst nightmare because
Speaker 1: we're more talk less music now.
Speaker 8: So so when you know when I listened to this,
Speaker 8: I'm going to laugh because my speech pattern, even in
Speaker 8: this broadcast has slowed down once I realized your pace,
Speaker 8: which is a good thing because my radio kicks back
Speaker 8: in and like you're supposed to get in, get out
Speaker 8: to go and so so in. So even in these
Speaker 8: this time we've been on, I've slowed it down and
Speaker 8: I can go with the conversation and the speed, y'all go.
Speaker 1: I want to go to a song and have Steven
Speaker 1: introduce it. Okay, radio style, radio style, all right, I
Speaker 1: want you to introduce the Jackson shake your body down
Speaker 1: to the ground now. Just no, there's a rule where
Speaker 1: you have to do it before like the lyrics starting
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 8: It's called hitting the Post. It's called hitting the Posts.
Speaker 8: The best song ever Hit the Post two Anita Baker
Speaker 8: sweet Love. Yeah, and you talk about your radio station,
Speaker 8: You talk about what the sunshine is outside and having
Speaker 8: to make it We love on w I L dude.
Speaker 1: We're going to have your intro that one. So wait,
Speaker 1: what is what is what is a nightmare song? Then?
Speaker 1: Like a song that would let us short intro.
Speaker 8: Yes, either got no intro. I'm trying to think that
Speaker 8: there was this song that that just would come in
Speaker 8: with the vocals and they edited and.
Speaker 1: Get down on it. Is an example of a song
Speaker 1: that crazy crazy by a crazy uh Barkley, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah boom boom, yeah boom.
Speaker 8: You can't talk of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a three snare hit. And then right
Speaker 1: and the rules of.
Speaker 7: Radio, you have to pray that the song before had
Speaker 7: a long outro.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: But at the radio station, you see like a reverse time.
Speaker 1: You get to see the clock of No. I would
Speaker 1: not that was my you look you.
Speaker 8: I would research, I would time it myself. I would
Speaker 8: tie it myself, not much. And then certain songs us
Speaker 8: new the feeld like for me you got to feel.
Speaker 6: I mean, oh yeah, back to day, like well back
Speaker 6: in the day, like on the promo forty five, on
Speaker 6: the timing you would have the intro seven second intro,
Speaker 6: you know, it would tell you, yeah, you would still.
Speaker 7: Have your body rip like he's a rhythm. You would
Speaker 7: just know the records and it feels better when you
Speaker 7: know the rhythm.
Speaker 1: Which when we're doing five Sweet Love four three two
Speaker 1: man I am so happy to be here on Quest
Speaker 1: Love Supream this.
Speaker 8: Man, Stephen Hill, this is my girl, Anita Baker. I
Speaker 8: hope everything's going well in your world today and that
Speaker 8: you have exactly what she's talking about in this song
Speaker 8: from the Fantastic nineteen eighty six c D Rapture, This
Speaker 8: is a Needy Baker with sweet love Yo Yo. That
Speaker 8: is the best of all the songs I've ever heard
Speaker 8: in my entire life. It's absolutely my favorite song.
Speaker 1: Why do you think have doom rhymes over that?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: Wow? So man, I was really.
Speaker 7: American shock because he doesn't know that there's a method
Speaker 7: to radio madness.
Speaker 1: I respect that. I respect that. This is what I've
Speaker 1: been trying to impart upon him for the last several
Speaker 1: months in our fiftieth episode.
Speaker 8: But it's different. Now you don't have to do that anymore,
Speaker 8: inspite me thirteen nah, But but I think it's different.
Speaker 8: People want the information. Like when we when we talked
Speaker 8: through don't go. Then my first visual reaction like, oh,
Speaker 8: you can't do that, well, you can't do that. But
Speaker 8: then when you know we're in a culture where you
Speaker 8: want to hear the information, and there you know, you know,
Speaker 8: kind of pop up video started started that where you
Speaker 8: want the information during the middle of the song because
Speaker 8: you've heard the song, you know, countless times before. So
Speaker 8: if you can get something new while you're listening to it,
Speaker 8: that's that's great. But viscerally when you when.
Speaker 1: You what are you doing talking over the song? I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's times where you made a mistake and maybe
Speaker 1: played a radio editing Oh yeah, well, like if the
Speaker 1: vocals coming, do you still continue or is it like, uh,
Speaker 1: let me cut off?
Speaker 8: You go straight to the call letters?
Speaker 11: What caut cool sting outside of WB are you once
Speaker 11: you hear a voice?
Speaker 1: It's just like and was your boss always on you
Speaker 1: about back selling and front selling?
Speaker 8: And ye, no, look absolutely yeah it was part of
Speaker 8: the format you either. I always thought it was cool
Speaker 8: to backsell a song because when I listened to a song,
Speaker 8: when you listen to a song and you like it,
Speaker 8: you you listen to the end and you'll pay attention
Speaker 8: because you're looking to find out what that is. I'll
Speaker 8: never forget the first time I heard another one bites
Speaker 8: the Dust by Queen Right. It was on w k
Speaker 8: Y S and Washington d C. It was on w
Speaker 8: k Y. Yes, I'm like, oh, this sound is this
Speaker 8: song is fantastic, sounds a little bit like she but
Speaker 8: I'm good. And I waited for them to back sell
Speaker 8: and they didn't. I called the radio station. I called
Speaker 8: the radio station. What's that song? It's I know there
Speaker 8: has the lyrics? Another one bites the dust? Who's that buye? Like?
Speaker 8: And somehow I don't know how I got through the studio.
Speaker 8: I remember.
Speaker 1: Song, there's another one? What do you call another one?
Speaker 8: Yeah? It's my queen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But there was a there was an excitement about like
Speaker 8: first of all hearing the song, but then getting through it,
Speaker 8: like yeah, but like like I knew it before the
Speaker 8: DJ did, because the DJ whoever's coming on next didn't
Speaker 8: know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm learning now that about back selling and front selling. Words.
Speaker 1: I never heard of my life yet until this radio
Speaker 1: show started, and I didn't know the importance of doing that.
Speaker 1: You know, So to you, that's not a nightmare or.
Speaker 8: Enjoy it, because look, the reason I loved radio was
Speaker 8: a lot of it was because you play music and
Speaker 8: you hope they're really attracted to it, so you want
Speaker 8: them to go out. And then it was that you
Speaker 8: want to go out and buy it. But not because
Speaker 8: I didn't profit from it. I just like I liked
Speaker 8: being responsible for you discovering something you dug right, and
Speaker 8: so w ild is urban or as black but straight
Speaker 8: up kind of R and B not go outside the lines.
Speaker 8: It could be before I got there, And then you know,
Speaker 8: Seal had the nerve to put out a record when
Speaker 8: I was there, so the Living Color head Head and
Speaker 8: Tracy chap Tracy Chapman came up with the original personal
Speaker 8: Baby Can I Hold You Right? And I remember I
Speaker 8: would play these songs and the record. The labels themselves
Speaker 8: would be like, that's not the single. Why are you
Speaker 8: playing this? Or you're not playing our song by the
Speaker 8: other rack, but you're playing this. I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 8: the that's the They wouldn't want you to play no, no,
Speaker 8: it was like, that's not the single we're working. Oh
Speaker 8: oh please, oh please, that's not that's not the single working.
Speaker 8: But the reason why you playing the second cut.
Speaker 6: But the reason why I used to listen to radio
Speaker 6: was to hear all the stuff, you know that wasn't
Speaker 6: on everything.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I loved when they would play all the album cuts,
Speaker 6: so you know, I would love when they would dig
Speaker 6: out the twelve inch versions of songs and let the
Speaker 6: whole seven minute version of Kids play on the radio.
Speaker 1: So when Sign of the Times comes out, you're not
Speaker 1: looking to play House Quake.
Speaker 8: And we heard how the exact song you picked, the
Speaker 8: exact song that I once on a Saturday played and
Speaker 8: got a call on the hotline from El Royd. I
Speaker 8: want to be clear, I don't want to be clear.
Speaker 8: I followed the rules pretty well. This is I'm sorry
Speaker 8: I forgot to say so wild. Either was eighty six
Speaker 8: to eighty eight when I was a weekend DJ and
Speaker 8: I filled in in the mornings and stuff, and then
Speaker 8: in eighty eight to ninety three I was the program director,
Speaker 8: so I was the boss then, but in eighty seven,
Speaker 8: when the Times came out, I was.
Speaker 1: Not the boss.
Speaker 8: I was the weekend guy. But I still followed the
Speaker 8: rules have decently, so much so that when I played
Speaker 8: house Quake and I got a call on the hotline,
Speaker 8: which doesn't ring you're in the radio studio. So just
Speaker 8: the big bright red light goes and there's like two
Speaker 8: people who have that phone number too, here's the program
Speaker 8: director and the owner. And when that goes off when
Speaker 8: you're playing, there's no good news coming. There's just no
Speaker 8: and you know you did something wrong, so you.
Speaker 1: Just know it.
Speaker 8: So I was hoping he wasn't home or listen, he
Speaker 8: wasn't in the car yet. But Housequake was the exact
Speaker 8: song that I played in eighty seven.
Speaker 1: How old is Erroy at this point?
Speaker 8: Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 7: Oh it's got a big difference between the two.
Speaker 8: Oh no, No, I was twenty seven, so he was maybe
Speaker 8: thirty two, maybe thirty.
Speaker 1: Two, and he didn't get it.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, no, Elroy's that he's the format guy. He's
Speaker 8: he's he's got success because of this.
Speaker 1: So what's his mind?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: Process of Okay, he hears house Quake and it was.
Speaker 8: Not on his list. He knows, he knows that that
Speaker 8: is not in the cards, but.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know that some fifteen year old at the
Speaker 1: laundry Matt is hearing this for the first sign and
Speaker 1: going out of his mind and no, I gotta buy
Speaker 1: that record. No, he don't care.
Speaker 8: No, it's not the format.
Speaker 1: So what does he want? What is he in? What
Speaker 1: is his what is his idea of success? In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven?
Speaker 8: No, I want to say it because Elroy was really
Speaker 8: good at playing album cuse that he thought were good.
Speaker 8: That just wasn't one of the ones that he picked out. Really,
Speaker 8: that was right, That just wasn't he That wasn't when
Speaker 8: he that wasn't That wasn't.
Speaker 1: So he questioned some Prince's artistic integrity. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no no no.
Speaker 8: Part of it was playing the singles game that every
Speaker 8: radio station was playing then. But for example, he was
Speaker 8: into let's chill and I like while the record company
Speaker 8: was still doing groove me forgot forgot right. He had
Speaker 8: no problem digging into some stuff, just not everything and
Speaker 8: how And Prince wasn't his thing. Prince was when it
Speaker 8: came to that station, I was. Prince was completely my thing.
Speaker 7: And that was the art of the PD too, right,
Speaker 7: don't you think like the RT, the PD was when
Speaker 7: you went outside the box you usually and you picked
Speaker 7: something that popped, the record company would go, oh, well
Speaker 7: maybe Steve and you have something yes, And let me
Speaker 7: remind you that el Roy Smith is the same person
Speaker 7: that almost fired me for an interview on Rafael's Deep Live.
Speaker 7: He didn't play that shit really, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh that's very fun. Well, you didn't clear it through
Speaker 1: him first?
Speaker 7: All I mean, I cleared it. They just want the
Speaker 7: true story. They wanted me to pre record it. We
Speaker 7: Rafael agreed to do a music conference with us. This
Speaker 7: is when his Stacks album came out, remember like that,
Speaker 7: and they did the radio line to me. They were
Speaker 7: like like, okay, so record the interview and we're gonna
Speaker 7: play it. After we start playing the record, and my
Speaker 7: life your mine went, y'all ain't never playing this shit.
Speaker 7: This is we are hot hot one old you know whatever.
Speaker 7: So when he walked in the door late, I was like,
Speaker 7: this is the god Rafael Sadik, let's go. And it
Speaker 7: was a really great interview.
Speaker 8: But it just gets the rules, that's it. And sometimes
Speaker 8: in management you just gotta you just have to manage
Speaker 8: in the rules or else everybody will break the rules.
Speaker 8: The reason I knew I could play House Quake is
Speaker 8: because I managed myself within the rules for like a
Speaker 8: full year and I was I was a good I
Speaker 8: was a good employee because I didn't want to lose
Speaker 8: that gig.
Speaker 1: I loved that gig. So wait, since we have two
Speaker 1: d C elites of radio, I interned at DC one
Speaker 1: on one three and a half.
Speaker 8: We got to cover up.
Speaker 1: All I want to I want to go off script
Speaker 1: for a second and do the radio introduction contest between
Speaker 1: set this out.
Speaker 5: No, no, you already I was not on the air, that
Speaker 5: was getting coffee.
Speaker 1: I was in charge of the prize room.
Speaker 8: And what's the introduction contest?
Speaker 4: Was this?
Speaker 7: I don't know?
Speaker 1: All right, we will start with Stephen Hill. You're doing
Speaker 1: an introduction, okay, okay, when we let people know that
Speaker 1: I have no idea. What song about this?
Speaker 8: Okay, we should, we should set let's set the expectation.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 8: Hi, my name is Stephen Hill. You are listening to
Speaker 8: the best music in the world on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 8: Yes you should have this song. Just no two ways
Speaker 8: about that.
Speaker 4: Flashback?
Speaker 1: Who's that?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah? Oh all right, that was good. I knew
Speaker 6: that was coming too.
Speaker 1: I knew that was coming. Okay, here we go. This
Speaker 1: is for you, like here we go?
Speaker 7: Heyes, Love Supreme. I'm like EO on your Sunday afternoon
Speaker 7: and what better way to cruise through the road with
Speaker 7: a little marry on your mind?
Speaker 1: So no, oh ship, oh red light, red light red,
Speaker 1: it's say it's fake, it's faces can do over, it's
Speaker 1: fain avoid to avoid Stephen won, even the engineers, even
Speaker 1: the engineers at the studio.
Speaker 7: Life, So does that mean we're even though? Since we
Speaker 7: both sucked up?
Speaker 1: That was the one? Is that?
Speaker 7: Zero zero zero zero?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 1: I want to crack it this. Give me say I
Speaker 1: did college radio for three years. All right, so you
Speaker 1: all right, if you were on a radio program, will
Speaker 1: probably the Friday night rap gyms? Maybe wait, do the
Speaker 1: same rules? The same rules apply for all fourmats, Like,
Speaker 1: were you guys more lenient on? Absolutely the midnight wrap show?
Speaker 8: So it wasn't midnight because remember we're a daytimer, so
Speaker 8: our midtime is like six pm, so midnight is six pm.
Speaker 1: No save Harbor hours.
Speaker 8: You Max Mix? I had Max Mix doing the thunderstorms.
Speaker 8: Well actually one of the first first mix shows where
Speaker 8: I gave I said, like, dude, just don't get us arrested. Right,
Speaker 8: it was like an hour at the end of the day,
Speaker 8: nineteen eighty six, eighty seven. That's pretty early for that's
Speaker 8: pretty early for hip hop hip hop show.
Speaker 1: All right? So in Boston you ready, you're ready? Y
Speaker 1: yea yeah, yeah, let's get it. You're ready? Here we go, yo, yeah,
Speaker 1: y'oll what up?
Speaker 5: This man Fonte font ticlet ticttle ticleo right here on
Speaker 5: Quest Love Supring, be gonna get into.
Speaker 1: Something real fun. You know what I'm saying, Some real fly,
Speaker 1: some real funking. This is some randow music, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And I'm gonna just play it and I'm gonna come back
Speaker 5: and I'm a back.
Speaker 1: Seller because I just want to get into this record.
Speaker 5: I've been playing this ship right here on Quest Springs.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 7: The audience. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be like the people.
Speaker 7: I don't know what a backsell? What is a back sell?
Speaker 1: I was like, I was waiting. I was like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck is this from the Bob Power episode? That's
Speaker 1: a sentence.
Speaker 7: Did you not get the song right?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: I didn't know, but I didn't get it wrong. I
Speaker 1: sure was. I didn't get it wrong.
Speaker 8: Something new you could back sell something, so try.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, all right, all right, I got
Speaker 1: one for you all sook and sooking. Now you're listening
Speaker 1: to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 6: This is Boss Bill coming into you Live.
Speaker 1: Ship red Light. We're gonna get into some oj.
Speaker 7: Are you trying to figure out what the artist was? No?
Speaker 1: I just got lost in my words. Scott coming, Scott,
Speaker 1: how you doing? You're there? Yes, I'm here. What's up?
Speaker 1: All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is Scott yayo or
Speaker 1: our boss boss, Bill's boss. Uh. And also deep in
Speaker 1: the radio. Uh do you do? You do? You know
Speaker 1: what we're doing? I do?
Speaker 12: Yeah, better be alternative these early two thousands. Alternative would
Speaker 12: be helpful, really well, put.
Speaker 1: Some silver, put some cake on it.
Speaker 6: I think, yeah, yeah, you're going disc well, no, because
Speaker 6: that one starts straighten writ in the Lyric't but I'm.
Speaker 1: Saying that I'm not. Object isn't stumping you with the song?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Object is seeing how quick you adjust to whatever.
Speaker 12: To be clear, you if you were DJ, and you
Speaker 12: wouldn't be a just you would know what it was.
Speaker 12: I would listen to it beforehand. I would know my
Speaker 12: run up.
Speaker 8: Time well, to be fair. To be fair, I think
Speaker 8: rock radio had a different rules as well, Like you
Speaker 8: didn't want to step on the music as much as
Speaker 8: you didn't want to talk over the music as much
Speaker 8: as as much as you did in like an R
Speaker 8: and B. No, the music a lot of us started cold,
Speaker 8: at least in radio stations.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you.
Speaker 12: If you were as good as Steven was earlier when
Speaker 12: he hit that post, we'd call him a postmaster general.
Speaker 1: Nice, okay, postmaster in general.
Speaker 7: You're right, you do know you'll be doing this last, right, boss?
Speaker 1: I'm doing this too. Yeah, yeah, I'm doing this as well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you thought you were going to get away,
Speaker 1: get away? Yeah? I thought I was going to get
Speaker 1: away with this? All right? You ready? Yeah? Here we go?
Speaker 8: Red light, red light, red light?
Speaker 1: What's going on? It's Scott Riggs. How you doing?
Speaker 12: It's crazy Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you.
Speaker 12: The weather out there is nuts. But we've got some
Speaker 12: good music for you. It's Quest Slap Supreme. Here is
Speaker 12: the Gorillas.
Speaker 8: Red light, red light that he's picking your songs?
Speaker 1: All right, bottle?
Speaker 7: Who's doing it right now?
Speaker 1: Because I give him blur song too?
Speaker 13: Actually I'll say give him blur song too, or give
Speaker 13: him or give him Peter Murphy cuts you up, which
Speaker 13: is about a three minute leading for him.
Speaker 1: No, that's hard. Like, if anything, I think the the
Speaker 1: longer the show is you have to talk.
Speaker 8: There's a perfect there's a there's like a ten to
Speaker 8: twelve like a perfect there's a perfect amount of time
Speaker 8: like it's too short, it's too bad, too long, it
Speaker 8: is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But do you have to talk until the vocals start?
Speaker 8: You don't have to, but you want you want to
Speaker 8: be post master general. Yeah, post master General comes with
Speaker 8: a star.
Speaker 1: And so do you practice this at home? Do you
Speaker 1: practice this at home? There who teaches you this?
Speaker 12: No in between songs when you're playing music.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you did the show because I forgot
Speaker 1: you are post master general, Like, yeah, you hit that post,
Speaker 1: your yoda of postmaster in general.
Speaker 12: Well, and by the way, you also, it gets hard
Speaker 12: to make it interesting every time, right, Like you can't
Speaker 12: throw out the weather every time. You can't throw out
Speaker 12: the time every time. Sometimes you're pulling facts about the band.
Speaker 12: Sometimes you're saying what's going on in the city, But
Speaker 12: you got to fill that with something interesting.
Speaker 8: And also you got to know the music. But you know,
Speaker 8: part of the reason I got hired when when word
Speaker 8: was driving through is because I'd gone through the paper,
Speaker 8: like I loved hitting the post. That was one of
Speaker 8: the things I love doing. And to your point, you've
Speaker 8: got to think of different thing. So I had to
Speaker 8: know what was going on, something about the music. And
Speaker 8: so you kind of plan on what you're gonna say,
Speaker 8: or the you don't you don't script it out, but
Speaker 8: you know here the here a the beats I want
Speaker 8: to hit in this intro, or before I start this intro, or.
Speaker 7: You got a little note right there, a couple of
Speaker 7: little things you want to say, or.
Speaker 8: Giving away tickets to the circus.
Speaker 7: It's really easy. This is I got a liner.
Speaker 1: I gotta give away a liner.
Speaker 7: A liner is Uh. Quest Love is being brought to
Speaker 7: you by boost Mobile.
Speaker 1: Oh where you is?
Speaker 7: It's like it's like the station business is like, Uh,
Speaker 7: don't forget. We got this festival coming up and we'll
Speaker 7: be having tickets in the next hour.
Speaker 12: Make sure we got free comedy tickets to the show
Speaker 12: coming up this weekend. Come out to NAPA Auto Parts
Speaker 12: on Saturday, right right, we'll give you some stickers.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm ready, I got you ready. You let
Speaker 1: me meditate?
Speaker 7: All right?
Speaker 1: Okay, bring on the panic. That's right, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: this is Quest Love of quest Love Supreme. It is
Speaker 1: the midnight hour, and we are paying tribute to the
Speaker 1: great Broad Temperton. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, free
Speaker 1: hot dogs to the ninth caller, who can guess some
Speaker 1: of the greatest music. This is love, Time's love? All right?
Speaker 1: That wass that was? That was c minus? That was minus.
Speaker 7: All of us who went to school.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, radio is my school. I have a question. Yes,
Speaker 10: that's sort of philosophical question. Almost now, the intro to
Speaker 10: a song and theoretically the fade out are those specifically
Speaker 10: meant for radio, for a DJ to be posting up
Speaker 10: or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1: Do I think that?
Speaker 8: Do I think that some creators went into the studio
Speaker 8: to so that that could happen.
Speaker 10: I'm saying, if you're making a song that you want
Speaker 10: to be on the radio, do you create intros specifically
Speaker 10: for so for what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Right now I'm going to talk about.
Speaker 8: I have no idea because I've never created a record,
Speaker 8: but I would not be surprised if, like, maybe that's
Speaker 8: some people out, if there were there were people I
Speaker 8: want to I almost want to think of the Motown area, right.
Speaker 8: I almost think Barry Gordy, sitting there with the with
Speaker 8: the transistor speaker in his office is thinking like that
Speaker 8: intro is too long? Like that were the interests too long?
Speaker 8: Or the intro is just right. They'll they'll talk about
Speaker 8: my record going right up to it. But by the way,
Speaker 8: But then I thought I was stopping the name of love,
Speaker 8: and I was like, probably not.
Speaker 12: Well, posting is all about it's something like that was
Speaker 12: invented by DJs, because your board as hell when you're
Speaker 12: in that studio for fourner.
Speaker 10: Once it was invented, then we're people who are making.
Speaker 8: Songs, specifically, specifically.
Speaker 10: Creating intros with that kind of time, I wouldn't they
Speaker 10: probably could be.
Speaker 12: I know that at least an alternative and rock they
Speaker 12: started telling us to step out. They were like, don't
Speaker 12: even talk even if there is an intro, just let
Speaker 12: it go, or we'll get edit and I'll chop that
Speaker 12: off and it'll just start with the vocals.
Speaker 1: So yeah, was there because I grew up or at
Speaker 1: least became of age where I started hearing you know,
Speaker 1: more music, let's talk, or there was a I remember
Speaker 1: an issue in Billboard magazine like during the George Michael
Speaker 1: faith period, so like eighty eight eighty nine where it
Speaker 1: was like the pay to play thing or like pay
Speaker 1: us to sell your song, or I remember this issue
Speaker 1: coming up like eighties, near early nineties so dependent promoters. Well,
Speaker 1: just the idea of like, you know, we're not going
Speaker 1: to back sell or front sell the song anymore. Was
Speaker 1: there a period in which you got a memo which
Speaker 1: was like, okay, you no longer have to sell the song.
Speaker 8: Or no, no, I've but I you know, I was
Speaker 8: at a kind of a black man owned station that
Speaker 8: daytime in Boston. They would have said no to that
Speaker 8: any other because there's no way they would have not
Speaker 8: try to promote promote the music, right, And I think
Speaker 8: there were some people who were trying to figure out
Speaker 8: we'll call them more shady ways of getting paid around
Speaker 8: the music. And so that's what that sounds like. And
Speaker 8: so ken Nash was never about that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So again this is me asking from the most
Speaker 1: naive standpoint whatever, because I really never spoke to a
Speaker 1: seasoned radio person. Is radio's existence or is its purpose
Speaker 1: to promote music? No? What is radios? What is radio's purpose?
Speaker 8: It is to increase shareholder wealth. That's what it's there for.
Speaker 8: That's what it's there for. Okay. Now, so there are
Speaker 8: people who are in radio who love music, who want
Speaker 8: to make sure that music thrives and gets a thrill
Speaker 8: out of finding the new and exposing to other folks.
Speaker 8: But radio's purpose itself is to increase shareholder wealth, and
Speaker 8: it became more and more of that as more of
Speaker 8: these conglomerates popped up, and they found wonderful ways of
Speaker 8: doing it, and there's some cool creative stuff that's come
Speaker 8: out of it, but that's not what they're there for.
Speaker 1: So the cheery on top is that you know, a
Speaker 1: cat like you and I can discover Return to Forever,
Speaker 1: or weather report or craft work you know along the way.
Speaker 1: But radio is really about how Chrysler or Toyoda or
Speaker 1: whatever company it is can sell their products now for
Speaker 1: a kid. For me, listening to radio at thirteen is
Speaker 1: the object that you'll play the songs that I love
Speaker 1: so much that I'll control the dial in the car
Speaker 1: so that when Dad hears that cool in the Gang
Speaker 1: Slitch Want Liquor commercial, He'll like, yeah, I want some
Speaker 1: you know, some beer or whatever like.
Speaker 8: So it depends depends on the station. Das was probably
Speaker 8: trying to appeal to your dad. You can da, You're
Speaker 8: probably trying to appeal to your dad at the right.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is that is the radio targeting
Speaker 1: a twelve and thirteen year old depends on station. I mean,
Speaker 1: well today, I know they're because of the artists that
Speaker 1: are winning now. I mean, I'm sure the Rihanna's of
Speaker 1: the world and the Tailor Swifts of the world are
Speaker 1: hitting the eleven year olds in the twenty but.
Speaker 8: I guarantee you they're trying to hit eighteen to twenty four.
Speaker 8: Maybe sixteen, but that's not one of the sellable demos.
Speaker 8: But eighteen to twenty four is probably as low as
Speaker 8: you're going. And they believe that, you know, the song
Speaker 8: appeal to a thirteen or sixteen can can travel upward
Speaker 8: as well.
Speaker 1: So your sweet spot is the sixteen to twenty five.
Speaker 8: Year old for certain stations. For other for like adult contemporary,
Speaker 8: it's older.
Speaker 1: What's the station that was your highest listenership? Who had
Speaker 1: the biggest audience?
Speaker 8: WBRU On Sundays we were in Providence, Rhode Island, and
Speaker 8: no one else was playing black music at all. On
Speaker 8: Sundays we would kill it.
Speaker 1: But you weren't thinking about demographics then, were you.
Speaker 8: We always think about demographics. We were ninety five point five,
Speaker 8: so therefore we were on a commercial part of the dial.
Speaker 8: We were always thinking about demographics always and we were
Speaker 8: selling eighteen to thirty four at that time, so we
Speaker 8: really wanted to make sure that we were hitting eighteen
Speaker 8: to thirty four.
Speaker 1: We were.
Speaker 8: That's I mean, that's one of the great things about
Speaker 8: that station. We had to think like a professional radio station.
Speaker 8: But in doing that, we still did you have a
Speaker 8: much looser format?
Speaker 1: Did you play candy Girl? If that's the case, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but eighteen and thirty.
Speaker 8: Four the great here's the thing, here's the thing. So
Speaker 8: we were able to cheat a little bit because there
Speaker 8: was no other competition, so we had a we had
Speaker 8: a captive audience and a loyal audience in a in
Speaker 8: a good way. And you can kind of sell anything, right,
Speaker 8: So for example, for for Candy Girl, we would go
Speaker 8: on there and say, hey, I know you missed the
Speaker 8: Jackson five or having these talented brothers out of Boston,
Speaker 8: so you hit on the emotion of they used to
Speaker 8: like their local and you hope they do well. So
Speaker 8: that's the way you make something like Candy Girl work,
Speaker 8: even though it's not necessarily for eighteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: So just was about, hey, this is a really good song, and.
Speaker 8: That as well. You want to find a really good song,
Speaker 8: but you also want to find a way that did
Speaker 8: it make it relevant, to make it relevant and make
Speaker 8: it attach them to.
Speaker 7: They stay and don't turn the channel because they don't
Speaker 7: recognize the song.
Speaker 1: So if thirty four is the closing get then for
Speaker 1: for b are you at the time. But I would
Speaker 1: think the older you are, the more you control the
Speaker 1: purse strings in the house. So are you not thinking
Speaker 1: a forty five year old, like if you're in a
Speaker 1: household the dad who might be forty two, forty three
Speaker 1: years old.
Speaker 8: So there's money at every level, Okay, there's there's just
Speaker 8: you know, there's money at every level because especially eighteen
Speaker 8: thirty four, you're controlling your own per springs, even though
Speaker 8: it's not as much as the older, older audience, but
Speaker 8: that's why they have I can't think of any station
Speaker 8: that's a that's ah like the light stations. Yeah, like
Speaker 8: anything that says light FM.
Speaker 7: You can just you just tattoo fifty four.
Speaker 1: I live there all right. The radio edumacation portion of
Speaker 1: the show, I can stay on forever, but we kind
Speaker 1: of have to go to DC a little bit and
Speaker 1: go to BET. So what did you make your excess
Speaker 1: from radio to television.
Speaker 8: Said ild I left IOD in ninety three. I went
Speaker 8: to Dallas to go work at the Tom Joining Morning Show.
Speaker 8: Was the first executive I was the first executive producer
Speaker 8: of the Tom join of Morning Show for a year
Speaker 8: and then was that like.
Speaker 1: It was what I learned.
Speaker 8: I learned. I learned how to do Selector, which is
Speaker 8: a great, great music program one select Selector is a
Speaker 8: music programming well I use it as a warehouse some
Speaker 8: people use to program their stations. Like it's like you
Speaker 8: put all of your songs in a computer in different
Speaker 8: categories and then most people ask the computer to spit
Speaker 8: out right.
Speaker 1: So you in categories in different categories.
Speaker 8: So in an hour, if you play twelve songs, you'll
Speaker 8: play five heavies, four mediums, one brand new and one classic.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Oh no, that's how fradio has
Speaker 1: been formated. Did you feel conflicted, Like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: So what you do is you put in all the
Speaker 8: number of heavies you have, which is probably which is
Speaker 8: maybe ten, I'm way off of the numbers. But the
Speaker 8: idea is you put in the computer and then it'll
Speaker 8: spit out in the order that you asked wanted to
Speaker 8: be in music, and most programmers program their stations that way.
Speaker 1: So when you say heavies, are you talking about heavy rotation?
Speaker 8: Yes, heavy rotation.
Speaker 7: It minds you. Every radio station uses this, saying.
Speaker 1: Program so ninety four, if you're talking about five heavies
Speaker 1: in a month's time, are you singing that this song
Speaker 1: will get played thirty times a day? And no?
Speaker 8: Okay? So can I do it differently? Once every two hours?
Speaker 8: So once every two hours are heavy would get played?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 8: And then now a heavy gets played like what once
Speaker 8: every thirty five minutes?
Speaker 1: Like I could hear Marias Fantasy at least three times
Speaker 1: in a two hour period on radio or belief.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's true. I mean that that's probably about the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe two hours, right, maybe twice yep.
Speaker 8: But now it's like it lives won every thirty five minutes,
Speaker 8: once every forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: Yikes.
Speaker 8: Because the measure the way they measure it is how.
Speaker 1: Did you feel about that? Like did you feel as
Speaker 1: though the was it just like let's go with the
Speaker 1: times or was it.
Speaker 8: Well, in ILD when I was a programmer, it was
Speaker 8: you still had to do that because we still wanted
Speaker 8: to keep the audience. But the fun wasn't the two
Speaker 8: new records you got to play, right, because right, the
Speaker 8: fun was the two.
Speaker 1: The fun was the new you want to play with hour.
Speaker 8: It's true, like so you know, and when you pick,
Speaker 8: especially when it's either an album cut that nobody else
Speaker 8: is playing or like still Seal and Tracy Chapman and
Speaker 8: like Living, that was like it was like putting on
Speaker 8: something that the other won't dare right, right, That's what
Speaker 8: it was like.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here's a question. How long would a song
Speaker 1: have been on the station before it hits heavy rotation?
Speaker 8: Oh my gosh, you to test my memory. Ten weeks?
Speaker 1: Okay, so ten weeks?
Speaker 8: What works itself up from light medium to heavy rotation?
Speaker 1: And it would stand for heavy rotation for like on average.
Speaker 8: If it was what was the Tony Terry song with
Speaker 8: You With You Tony Terry stayed on for like half
Speaker 8: a year. Oh my god, Tony Terry till to this
Speaker 8: day is that song would not need to put bullets
Speaker 8: in that thing, and it would not it would not
Speaker 8: go down.
Speaker 1: Well, who determines the life of a heavy rotation?
Speaker 8: So you do research once you once you have a
Speaker 8: song on there you no more call out research. You
Speaker 8: call different people and play hooks for them over the phone,
Speaker 8: and you find out how it's selling down at a
Speaker 8: Nubian Notion UH in Dudley Square in Boston and find
Speaker 8: out how it's selling its strawberries and town and so
Speaker 8: you find out how people are engaging with the song.
Speaker 6: So, if you've ever gotten a promo seating and wondered
Speaker 6: why call out research, hook was tracks two and three
Speaker 6: and they were only seventeen seconds song, that's why.
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, So because.
Speaker 8: We always want to find out, like we're playing this stuff,
Speaker 8: but do they like it? Do they not like it?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I can't get off radio acause I.
Speaker 7: Was about to ask a radio but kind of still
Speaker 7: transitioning your career question. So once you became a producer
Speaker 7: for the Tom join and Morning Show, were you feeling
Speaker 7: a little bit more? Is it more free less stress situation?
Speaker 7: Because no more boss.
Speaker 8: But ninety four it was more stress around music because
Speaker 8: if you remember, a lot of people do it now,
Speaker 8: but back then, only Howard Stern was doing multiple shows,
Speaker 8: multiple stations in multiple cities. Right, Tom Joyner was the
Speaker 8: first black shock to do it. So it was really pioneering.
Speaker 8: And what you have to do is we started off
Speaker 8: from twelve stations, if I'm not mistaken, So on those
Speaker 8: twelve stations, what you have to do is take all
Speaker 8: the music from those twelve stations and you have to
Speaker 8: find a common denominator for those twelve stations, which is
Speaker 8: just a very very small subset of the music that's
Speaker 8: being played or the music that's out that time. So
Speaker 8: being the music person or one of the people put
Speaker 8: together the music for that was stressful for the times
Speaker 8: on the show because I would get a call from
Speaker 8: who are programming Miami because we put on a song
Speaker 8: that Chicago like, but they don't like it. So it
Speaker 8: was really a restricted, restricted playlist, and when it came
Speaker 8: to uptempo songs, it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was difficult. Sounds like a headache.
Speaker 8: It sounds like twelve headaches.
Speaker 7: So then you were ready for b ET because.
Speaker 8: So yeah, anyhow, so I was there for a year
Speaker 8: and then I got an opportunity to go to MTV
Speaker 8: because MTV was hiring people who did radio. They like,
Speaker 8: we don't care if you don't have any TV experience.
Speaker 8: We're looking for people who know how to program radio.
Speaker 1: So when were you at.
Speaker 8: I was an MTV ninety five to ninety nine. February
Speaker 8: ninety five to April ninety.
Speaker 1: Nine, Oh right, when were you there doing Fred's period?
Speaker 1: Fred got us? He did?
Speaker 8: He did?
Speaker 1: He did? Fred he did? Fred was Fred Jordan.
Speaker 8: Of course, of course I'm not. I'm not never mind,
Speaker 8: I was not connecting that very obvious dot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fred Jordan was Fred Jordan, the late great Fred Jordan.
Speaker 1: Like one of his last acts of greatness was I'm
Speaker 1: not just babing, I'm like, please play my video. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Fred got you got me on like medium MTV rotation.
Speaker 8: Well you're instantly nineteen ninety nine, and it's hard one
Speaker 8: nine trying to think I was there everywhere.
Speaker 1: It took MTV a second. By April of nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: they finally jumped aboard and that really that started. That's
Speaker 1: when we were like, oh my god, like five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people brought this record like we couldn't believe it.
Speaker 8: Like I'll tell you the record where I realized the
Speaker 8: power of MTV.
Speaker 1: What Skilo I Wish.
Speaker 8: Oh Man, ski Loo I Wish was shortly after I
Speaker 8: got there.
Speaker 1: I still love this song. I love that song.
Speaker 8: I was like, oh my Like it was just fun.
Speaker 8: It was everything a video should be like it was.
Speaker 8: And one of the things I loved it was inexpensive
Speaker 8: right now was that was the time when when budgets
Speaker 8: on videos were starting to go up. And what I
Speaker 8: loved about it, I was like, no, no, no, show
Speaker 8: people that if you just have a great concept, the
Speaker 8: cool song, you can spend little money, don't have to
Speaker 8: spend crazy money. I love that about it. And Skilo
Speaker 8: went gold, like Skilo I Wish went gold, and I
Speaker 8: was like, Oh, that's that's what MTV can do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Shortly after I got there, during that time period,
Speaker 1: I mean, MTV gave you regular rotation for at least
Speaker 1: two or three months. Your life literally literally changed. But
Speaker 1: what was it like in that system once you got there?
Speaker 1: What was your position once you.
Speaker 8: I was a director of music program. Yes, I was
Speaker 8: director of music, not the director because there was there
Speaker 8: was a bunch of us, myself, Lewis Largent, Kurt Stephik,
Speaker 8: Fred Jordan was a manager. Patti Galuzzi ran the rand
Speaker 8: the apartment along with Andy Shown was there when I
Speaker 8: was there.
Speaker 7: So were you the black guy?
Speaker 8: I was the black guy? I was a black guy, Yes,
Speaker 8: but I was. I was like the black scenior.
Speaker 1: Were you the ear to the streets?
Speaker 8: No? Fred was always the ear to the streets, right,
Speaker 8: I was the streets?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, Baltic Avenue. Yes.
Speaker 8: And Jack Benson to Jack Benson, who was a producer,
Speaker 8: he wasn't on the music team Jack Jack Benson. Jack
Speaker 8: Benson as well, was like, yeah, yeah, Jack is Jack was.
Speaker 8: Jack was fighting the good fight long before I got there.
Speaker 1: How would you guys arm wrestled space of what got
Speaker 1: to I haven't thought about this at all, like the
Speaker 1: Motown system where the whole staff sits there and watches
Speaker 1: the video. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, Monday we'd have the video meetings. We'd see what
Speaker 8: got accepted, like this is for yo, this is for
Speaker 8: one hundred and twenty minutes, this is for regular rotation.
Speaker 8: And on Tuesday we'd have the music meeting. Fred eventually
Speaker 8: came into the meeting. FREDA wasn't in the meeting when
Speaker 8: I first got there. Kurt Lewis, Paddick Lutzi, Sherry Howe
Speaker 8: and we'd all kind of have it out for what
Speaker 8: what music should be where, and it wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 8: unlike radio, and that's why they I think it had
Speaker 8: had radio folks come in and do a lot of
Speaker 8: work on MTV, especially when it came to programming the music.
Speaker 8: There are some great ones. I thought we'd you know,
Speaker 8: there's some real misses we had, and one mentioned. Julie
Speaker 8: Greenwald from Atlantic Records, who formerly of Deaf Jam, mentioned
Speaker 8: one at the Revolte conference the other day and she
Speaker 8: put on Instagram and actually commented behind it.
Speaker 1: Wait, I want to guess good because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the mine of Julie.
Speaker 8: It was a miss.
Speaker 1: It was on Atlantic. No, no, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 8: Remember she was Deaf Jam at the time, and they
Speaker 8: really wanted to come on the MTV. I remember New
Speaker 8: York's Times called it the love song of.
Speaker 1: The of the Summer els. What year is this? I
Speaker 1: think it was ninety five. N one sweet Day. Nope,
Speaker 1: method of Mary Oh, okay, the method of Mary Oh.
Speaker 1: I need to get by it. Wow.
Speaker 8: And they brought that video up. They tried to get
Speaker 8: on regular rotation and I was brand new, so I
Speaker 8: didn't know my way around. One of the stories of the
Speaker 8: biggest regrets, and I remember somebody on the team said,
Speaker 8: I remember these words, it's too.
Speaker 1: Dark in street. Oh my god.
Speaker 8: I was like, I didn't know what to do with
Speaker 8: at the time.
Speaker 1: I just I was brand new.
Speaker 7: You didn't know what to say in that room at
Speaker 7: the time, right, Like what do you say to that?
Speaker 1: Too early to raise my fist? Like so and so
Speaker 1: we it was.
Speaker 8: It was in yo MTV, but it never really got
Speaker 8: on a full rotation that it deserved while it was
Speaker 8: on there.
Speaker 1: But but remember it being played a lot. But you're
Speaker 1: saying that it could have been. It could have been
Speaker 1: played more, could it wasn't?
Speaker 8: It really was that it wasn't. You didn't get played
Speaker 8: on regular rotation that much on MTV.
Speaker 6: How many how many videos would MTV keeping in heavy
Speaker 6: rotation at the time.
Speaker 8: I can't remember. It's somewhere in the low teens, I think.
Speaker 8: I don't think of because Cake was one of those.
Speaker 8: Something about that video and about that.
Speaker 1: Song was great. Yeah, I love that song and video.
Speaker 1: So you weren't dealing with just quote urban videos as well.
Speaker 1: You you were dealing.
Speaker 8: With absolutely yeah, with all formats, all formats.
Speaker 1: How did labels feel about that?
Speaker 8: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: Well, Sylvia Rone told me some stories about how Metallica
Speaker 1: felt about being their boss. But you know, what's what
Speaker 1: a label feel about you if you don't think that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily working. They kind of want to be like, uh, well,
Speaker 1: let me see what I think. So they they call, uh,
Speaker 1: who's the president?
Speaker 8: Was not Andy Shoon was running at them. Judy Judy, Judy,
Speaker 8: Judy McGrath was kind of overdall and.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: your boss and see what she thinks.
Speaker 8: And that happened every once in a while, but it
Speaker 8: wasn't It wasn't a regular occurrence. And I think people
Speaker 8: understood and respected all different types of music. I think
Speaker 8: people were surprised that I was that that the black
Speaker 8: guy like stuff other than black and music as well.
Speaker 8: I think that came to a shocker to some folks
Speaker 8: at first of the labels. But that was that was
Speaker 8: short lived. It was a great time. That was a
Speaker 8: great time, and at a time when music was was
Speaker 8: was was kind of booming. It was it was you know,
Speaker 8: post Nirvana. But uh but read how Chili Pepper is
Speaker 8: still going and so but how is it dealing?
Speaker 1: I mean, how's that for you? Personally? At least trying
Speaker 1: to not speak two languages. I know, like as a
Speaker 1: black person. Yeah, I mean everyone has to naturally know
Speaker 1: two languages. The Great Dave Chappelle says that you know
Speaker 1: black men speak uh English, Well no, we and yeah
Speaker 1: job interview. So I mean you found yourself often in
Speaker 1: positions in the boardroom having to prove your pedigree as
Speaker 1: far as your music knowledge is just well beyond knowing,
Speaker 1: you know what what the black artists are doing, and.
Speaker 8: Just with anything in any job, you just got to prove.
Speaker 8: You got to prove that you belonged there. It wasn't
Speaker 8: I don't felt like. I don't think it was. I
Speaker 8: had to prove myself anymore, just had to prove that
Speaker 8: I belonged there. I had to talk the language that
Speaker 8: like I know my music. I know I know my rock,
Speaker 8: I know my I know my you know my hip
Speaker 8: hop thinks to and some of that was like I
Speaker 8: also knew what I didn't know, right, And that's why
Speaker 8: I have such a such a place for Fred, because Fred,
Speaker 8: Fred got it, Fred got stuff.
Speaker 1: Fred was.
Speaker 8: It hurts to talk about him sometimes he was just
Speaker 8: he was other not otherworldly, but he was just a
Speaker 8: very special guy. And that artists loved him, and he
Speaker 8: understood music, and he knew what was the next trend
Speaker 8: was he called he called cash money like a good
Speaker 8: year and a half before it really popped off. He
Speaker 8: called master p before that popped off. He was DiAngelo
Speaker 8: long before d popped off.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: And I know they had a very very very special relationship.
Speaker 8: And so also so part of what was me knowing
Speaker 8: knowing what I didn't know. But so sometimes Fred would
Speaker 8: Fred would come with the Uh. Fred would come with
Speaker 8: the knowledge, and I'm like, great, I'm gonna take this
Speaker 8: in the meeting and and let's see, let's see what
Speaker 8: we can do with it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 8: Favorite thing is that Fred Fred I'm the guy who
Speaker 8: liked the slow version of him my Bed by Drew Hill,
Speaker 8: and Fred was like, nah, dude, the remakeer.
Speaker 1: So how at this level? Now got to ask, at
Speaker 1: this level, how do artists handle rejection at this level
Speaker 1: of your career, people that know that you're connected to
Speaker 1: the label. I'm not asking for Suge Night stories. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that, you know, by this point in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, there's definitely a more hostile environment, especially with
Speaker 1: the uprising of hip hop and where it's come to
Speaker 1: where you know, it's about dollars and cents in the
Speaker 1: popularity of you know, are you allowed to express I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm feeling this video or not. And
Speaker 1: you know, then you're somewhere at dinner in lam and
Speaker 1: you have to see an executive and you know, how
Speaker 1: come you ain't playing it? Like how do you because
Speaker 1: you were so active between that period in the mid
Speaker 1: to mid ninety to the early arts, like how did
Speaker 1: you handle the juggling act of artists and executives egos?
Speaker 8: So two things I think One is that MTV we
Speaker 8: always try to find a place for something, even if
Speaker 8: it was just one spin on MTV on YOUO, MTV raps,
Speaker 8: the weekend version, right, we always try to find a
Speaker 8: place for something that was that was that was our
Speaker 8: that was our mantra, that was our mindset, like there's
Speaker 8: got to somebody's gonna love this. You know, an alternative
Speaker 8: rock could get a play one hundred and twenty minutes.
Speaker 8: So I think people understood were always trying to find something.
Speaker 1: That's one.
Speaker 8: Two is that I found it was advantageous to establish
Speaker 8: very early that this is a long game. I know,
Speaker 8: I plan on being around for a while, so we
Speaker 8: not we're not going to have this conversation. We're gonna
Speaker 8: have this conversation, but we're not gonna lose our relationship
Speaker 8: over one song because you're gonna come back again and
Speaker 8: you know, so we're let's let's do this dance for
Speaker 8: a long term, because there's sometimes we're gonna be able
Speaker 8: to do stuff, do stuff the way you want it,
Speaker 8: and other times we're not gonna. We're not going to
Speaker 8: So I think, and I think everybody.
Speaker 1: I think. So you're saying that they knew not to
Speaker 1: bite the hand that feeds them.
Speaker 8: I don't see I mean I don't.
Speaker 1: Think.
Speaker 8: I don't I don't see it that way because it's
Speaker 8: not a matter of biting the hand, Like what what
Speaker 8: could they do, like, you know, not give us the
Speaker 8: videos or we were especially then you know, there was
Speaker 8: still a lot of music being played on m t V.
Speaker 8: And so it just didn't make it didn't make any
Speaker 8: and can't remember it came. It came, but.
Speaker 1: Someone's ego had to get shattered. That was that big.
Speaker 1: I mean at some point.
Speaker 6: Like if Kanya had been around, no, I mean, okay,
Speaker 6: let's take uh okay.
Speaker 1: You weren't you were going by the time Forever came out.
Speaker 1: Uh when when when the Puffies Forever album come out?
Speaker 1: I want to say, no, what came up?
Speaker 8: Which is, uh, did Forever have a which was hate
Speaker 8: Me Now?
Speaker 1: That was? That was But do you have a hate
Speaker 1: Me Now story?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 7: That was a Stout?
Speaker 1: So is there a good.
Speaker 8: Steve Stout story, Steve Stout story I think has been
Speaker 8: told that.
Speaker 1: Is there a good Puffy story? Well, my last week.
Speaker 8: My last week get MTV, there was an executive from
Speaker 8: Bad Boy that while puff was going his route, they
Speaker 8: were right across the street, actually in the building that
Speaker 8: we exist in right now, and came across to fifteen
Speaker 8: fifteen Broadway with a couple of very very large gentlemen. Uh,
Speaker 8: to facilitate his movement. Executive came over to try to
Speaker 8: you know, to intimidate, to intimidate people in the music department.
Speaker 8: Now I don't want to use any proper nouns, but
Speaker 8: there was there was a guy will we'll call him Bob,
Speaker 8: Bob who was who was new and was running the
Speaker 8: department and and wasn't used to this type type of activity,
Speaker 8: right was used the.
Speaker 1: Type of activity and so.
Speaker 8: I and Fred understanding that this activity was not going
Speaker 8: to bode well for the long term. Again, this is
Speaker 8: about a long term play. Yes, there was a mistake
Speaker 8: made about playing and this was about playing the video
Speaker 8: with Nas and Puff and someone he was on a
Speaker 8: cross and they weren't supposed to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say the controversy was the
Speaker 1: fact that Puffy didn't want to be seen as on
Speaker 1: the cross. That is correct, That is that was controversy.
Speaker 1: That was the controversy.
Speaker 8: He did not want to be seen on the cross.
Speaker 1: Why did you shoot it?
Speaker 8: Well, because by the way, and I support that, you
Speaker 8: don't edit in the field. You edit in the room, right,
Speaker 8: and you make so you can make decisions' You can't
Speaker 8: go like, oh we should have shot that.
Speaker 1: So he didn't get final say he did.
Speaker 8: There was a mistake, There was an there was a
Speaker 8: there was a so there were standards issues where standards
Speaker 8: means like, oh, you can't do that because that's going
Speaker 8: to get us, you know, in trouble, and there's creative issues.
Speaker 8: So in that all the standards issues were taken care
Speaker 8: of in the edit. Puff being on a cross wasn't
Speaker 8: a standards issue. It was a creative issue. The creative
Speaker 8: issue didn't get taken care of, and so it aired
Speaker 8: with puff on the cross, you know, right, the puff
Speaker 8: stouts thing. I don't I can't talk about that because
Speaker 8: I wasn't there that that's documented, But a couple of
Speaker 8: folks came across the street and.
Speaker 1: Like what went on.
Speaker 8: Now, the part the problem, of course, was there's nothing
Speaker 8: that could have been done. You can't untake it off,
Speaker 8: you can't have un people unsee it. So that wasn't
Speaker 8: really that wasn't a good use of force. It just
Speaker 8: wasn't a smart use of force. It was just a
Speaker 8: use of force out of anger, not out of intelligence
Speaker 8: or thinking it.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, why were the unsavory
Speaker 1: gentlemen at fifteen to fifty Broadway and not at the
Speaker 1: editor's post or.
Speaker 8: Closer access?
Speaker 1: So are you saying that they called you guys and
Speaker 1: said stop playing the video, and you guys said nope.
Speaker 8: No, that's the point. The point is all they had
Speaker 8: to do is say, don't play the video. Wouldn't play
Speaker 8: the video again the first The fact they played in
Speaker 8: the first place was a mistake. We knew that it was.
Speaker 8: It was out of emotion, So it was Sonny qualleone,
Speaker 8: not Michael. That's the best way to put it.
Speaker 6: So the video came had the video had to have
Speaker 6: come from the label, right, yes, So somebody at the
Speaker 6: label screwed up so or in a way yes, so
Speaker 6: like did the label does not have the right they
Speaker 6: did not have the final version?
Speaker 1: Or did they said too?
Speaker 8: I think if I remember correctly, you test my memory,
Speaker 8: I think we had two versions. The wrong one got
Speaker 8: played because I remember it was a creative issue, not
Speaker 8: a standards issue. So we had the one that that
Speaker 8: and the one that got played was the one that
Speaker 8: took care of all the standards issues. And so that's
Speaker 8: how the that's how the wrong got played. But I
Speaker 8: think that was the one and only time it was played.
Speaker 8: There was no there was actually nothing to be gained
Speaker 8: by coming over and doing that, right because except and
Speaker 8: and sure enough I've talked about it. You know, you
Speaker 8: play for the long you play for the long ball.
Speaker 8: That damaged the relationship. And that was literally my last
Speaker 8: week at MTV. Not because of that, it was just
Speaker 8: it was scheduled at all. We're rid of the last
Speaker 8: week and I've always I'll take this moment and say
Speaker 8: I was I loved MTV and being there.
Speaker 1: It was very cool.
Speaker 8: Even after I announced where I was leaving and where
Speaker 8: I was going, they let me stay, like I remember,
Speaker 8: let me finish out the week. It wasn't like close
Speaker 8: up your laptop and close computering to leave right now.
Speaker 8: And I've always I was. I always had a loft
Speaker 8: foot up for that.
Speaker 1: So at the time, was BT part of the uh
Speaker 1: Viacom conglomerate over the independent.
Speaker 8: BT was independently owned, was privately owned. Bob Johnson, of course,
Speaker 8: is the person who founded it. He had taken it
Speaker 8: public and then taken it private again, so he he
Speaker 8: was the major shareholder or it was. It was privately
Speaker 8: owned at that point in.
Speaker 1: Time, and you felt like that was a better move
Speaker 1: or a better at that's what you know.
Speaker 8: I I here's where I put it. I put I
Speaker 8: decided to put my job where my mouth was right.
Speaker 1: I looked at it.
Speaker 8: I looked at it and said like, oh, maybe could be
Speaker 8: a little bit better or do a little bit different.
Speaker 8: And I knew that there was some different ways that
Speaker 8: labels were treating BT and and MTV at the time,
Speaker 8: and so there was just an opportunity to to make
Speaker 8: a change and so it was some of the in.
Speaker 1: The beginning, what were your thoughts of BT, Like, did
Speaker 1: you see it as the kind of the kid redhead
Speaker 1: step style of the videos.
Speaker 7: Showing immediately say I have to change that, or.
Speaker 1: Like we can step this up a little bit or
Speaker 1: that sort of.
Speaker 8: I think it was more we can we can step
Speaker 8: this up? You know, I knew it was it was.
Speaker 8: It was handcuffed by being in d C. Being in
Speaker 8: DC was a great thing for because when Bob needed
Speaker 8: to get stuff done on Capitol Hill, that was the
Speaker 8: perfect place to be. But to be to really be
Speaker 8: an entertainment a player in the entertainment world, it was
Speaker 8: tough being in DC.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of the motown Detroit.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, but except except the talent lived in Detroit,
Speaker 8: so that was great. The talent coming to d C
Speaker 8: was always a bit of a challenge, like it was,
Speaker 8: you know, it's out of the way, right and so
Speaker 8: one of the first things in my interview I was like,
Speaker 8: but what do you think about moving some parts of
Speaker 8: your stuff to New York?
Speaker 1: And so were they receptive or yeah?
Speaker 8: Within within a year we I got there and I
Speaker 8: got there in June April April May of ninety nine
Speaker 8: and we kicked off one of six park on September
Speaker 8: September eleventh, two thousand. I was in the room, like
Speaker 8: there was a bunch of us but yeah, but but yeah,
Speaker 8: there was a.
Speaker 1: I remember there was talk amongst us, you know, my peers,
Speaker 1: that you know, they're going to have a black TRL.
Speaker 1: I was like, how is that going to work? And
Speaker 1: you know I could have I couldn't imagine such a thing,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, yeah, it actually worked.
Speaker 8: It was. It was yeah, it was. It was live
Speaker 8: TV New York.
Speaker 1: A J and Free a J.
Speaker 8: Was actually supposed to be a J was actually we
Speaker 8: were we were getting a J to help us find posts.
Speaker 8: And then I saw how we how we how we
Speaker 8: work with people and how people reacted to him. I'm like, no,
Speaker 8: that that's.
Speaker 7: You because AJ and he went to like Howard is
Speaker 7: stuff because I J and ali Al used to work
Speaker 7: against the wall right on Howard Who's yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 7: used to go in high school. We went to Bannkers,
Speaker 7: so we would go down there. But he would make
Speaker 7: us laugh.
Speaker 8: Yeah he's still doing it. He's still doing that today.
Speaker 8: And then Free Free actually was a Free was an
Speaker 8: intern at w I L d in Boston. I know,
Speaker 8: I knew free Seen she was fifteen, sixteen years old,
Speaker 8: oh wow, and always had that personality. She was down
Speaker 8: with the qua clefs.
Speaker 1: Clue with it. She was, yes, she was, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: she was marine. That's right, Mariet, that's right. Yeah, the free.
Speaker 3: Girl.
Speaker 8: WPGC sister absolutely absolutely shout to a j N free Wow,
Speaker 8: what damn?
Speaker 7: There must be something, you know what, you must be
Speaker 7: very proud. You have some some great talent that's come through.
Speaker 7: And all my kids like AJ has really done it, Rocky.
Speaker 8: Has done it, Roxy, Terrence is killing Terrence is killing it.
Speaker 7: I mean really Tickets killing it on his own little
Speaker 7: way too, you know what I'm saying. So wow, yeah, a.
Speaker 1: Lot so where kids? So at this point, like how
Speaker 1: do you besides the New York recommendation, Like what's the
Speaker 1: reception to you kind of coming in shaking things up?
Speaker 1: Or was it it was Jed read like the art
Speaker 1: of war to figure out? Like can you even talk
Speaker 1: about this?
Speaker 8: I can't because because it was it was people wanted
Speaker 8: to you know, Deborly and and and and and Bob
Speaker 8: Johnson really wanted to want to change. They wanted to
Speaker 8: be a kind of a. They want to be bigger player,
Speaker 8: bigger players in the game, and so they were absolutely
Speaker 8: open to change and and and and and and uh
Speaker 8: you know, for example, there only used to be like
Speaker 8: like six months a year, and the rest of them
Speaker 8: were repeats throughout the summer, so you could you could
Speaker 8: change the videos, but the but the but the interviews
Speaker 8: were sometimes like four months old. And so one of
Speaker 8: the first things we did was was, Okay, was going
Speaker 8: to keep some of the music up all year. Get
Speaker 8: great personalities, Hits from the street, you know, Hits from
Speaker 8: the Streets still one of my favorite people in the world.
Speaker 8: Hits from the Street literally came from like second week there.
Speaker 8: I'm having meetings with people and have this meeting with
Speaker 8: a group of people and uh, everybody leaves accept him.
Speaker 8: I'm like, oh, you in this department saying no, I
Speaker 8: just came in for the meeting. I heard you knew,
Speaker 8: I'm your guy. I'm funny, and I do this and
Speaker 8: I'm like, and somebody's told me not to kick him
Speaker 8: out of the office. And so I said, Okay, here's
Speaker 8: what I need you to do. I need you to
Speaker 8: take get a cam quarter, big ass cam quarters in
Speaker 8: the day and just go somewhere and for half an hour,
Speaker 8: just play with people, right, just just just get's interact
Speaker 8: with people. He said, I don't have a camcram quarter,
Speaker 8: And I said, if you really want this gig, you'll
Speaker 8: find a cam quarder, right, And so he went and
Speaker 8: got a cam quarter and went down to Union Station.
Speaker 8: And I don't remember every one of his bits. Number one,
Speaker 8: I never watched the whole tape. Number two, one of
Speaker 8: his bits was going to somebody, you know, play listen,
Speaker 8: I'm getting I'm getting the I'm getting my friend a
Speaker 8: birthday gift. You look about the side, would you mind
Speaker 8: trying it on for me? Just see see if it fits.
Speaker 8: There's no problem, and he pulls out a condom and
Speaker 8: so literally the first fifteen minutes, first fifteen minutes of
Speaker 8: that tape were so fun. I never looked at the
Speaker 8: last fifteen minutes and we we Oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 8: just remembering. So when I came there, they had already
Speaker 8: ad sales. The ad sales team had already sold the
Speaker 8: titles of the shows, and so I was stuck with
Speaker 8: the titles of the shows. But I could do whatever
Speaker 8: I wanted to with them, right, So Hits from the
Speaker 8: Street was a title I had to had to use.
Speaker 8: It didn't matter what the show was. The show had
Speaker 8: to be called Hits from the Streets. And so since
Speaker 8: I had that title, I just called him hits. We
Speaker 8: just called him hits. The show hits from the streets,
Speaker 8: And so we sent him on the streets and so
Speaker 8: we becme Hits from the Streets. Ceta's original name was
Speaker 8: jam Zone Jam Zone Time. It was way ahead of
Speaker 8: her time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was like the black Max head Room yet
Speaker 1: of Okay, bad reference, but okay, I always watch your
Speaker 1: face to see if it was too.
Speaker 7: No, I agree, but she's a little bit more comfortab.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she got she she got away with saying stuff that, like,
Speaker 8: you know, a live person couldn't have done, couldn't have done,
Speaker 8: couldn't have done because there was somebody coming and break
Speaker 8: the mystery.
Speaker 7: Who was she?
Speaker 1: I met her, you know, Troy. Her name is Cally Troy.
Speaker 1: She told me close my eyes and then she started
Speaker 1: talking like yeah, but her voice is like nothing like that.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 8: The name Ceda came from the person who actually drew
Speaker 8: the design for the for for the character Cita.
Speaker 1: That was her name it's time for a Cedar revival.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I wouldn't look.
Speaker 8: Different more like you saw, by the way, and it
Speaker 8: was I thought it was brilliant the person somebody put
Speaker 8: together the B T Harlem shake when that was the
Speaker 8: big thing, and all of a sudden, the dude the
Speaker 8: Harlem shake and Ceda comes in going from left and right.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's championship move right there.
Speaker 7: Yo, I gotta ask you because one thing about you.
Speaker 7: I mean, people watch BT, they see you periodically, but
Speaker 7: you always look like you are having a ball. Like
Speaker 7: when was the first time and this gig when it
Speaker 7: was like official, you were having a ball. You were
Speaker 7: loving this job.
Speaker 1: This is it. He's always like always from the beginning,
Speaker 1: because I always see you at concerts. Yes, yes, even
Speaker 1: at the Police when the Police reunited. That's right, when
Speaker 1: the police, Yes, two black guys in the audience jumping
Speaker 1: their asses off and the whole audience was like too
Speaker 1: cool for school, And that's right. And by the way,
Speaker 1: and man, because because Stuart Copeland wasn't playing it like
Speaker 1: you did on the record, I know, but they were,
Speaker 1: you know, these something they I was waiting for that
Speaker 1: just for the fact that they were there. That was
Speaker 1: enough for me.
Speaker 8: It was so how do you do this?
Speaker 7: Steve? And this is interesting because you have such a
Speaker 7: dynamic like music taste and now you're at BT Like
Speaker 7: it was different when you were a MTV you had this,
Speaker 7: you had that. Now it's a little bit more of
Speaker 7: a box. It's just a big box, but it's a
Speaker 7: little bit more. But how do you survive in that?
Speaker 7: And then at the same time you have to create
Speaker 7: standards for what you're going to do in that box
Speaker 7: because it wasn't like it was like your college show
Speaker 7: where you just played black music, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: You had standards. So how did you survive with this
Speaker 7: mentality of free music life in this box?
Speaker 8: I'm not sure I understand.
Speaker 5: I think he's trying to ask, like, how do you
Speaker 5: reconcile the ship you like versus the ship you have?
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was trying to make it sound real pretty.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of there's a lot of people who
Speaker 8: who have to work. Now, that's not gonna sound right
Speaker 8: like I love this music thing. I love this music,
Speaker 8: I love I love television, but my heart is my
Speaker 8: heart is in music. And so the fact that I
Speaker 8: get to work in music at all is just the
Speaker 8: greatest thing in the world. I still have hobby, you know,
Speaker 8: I'm still going to go see you know, Radiohead. Traveling
Speaker 8: around the world to see Radiohead is my thing.
Speaker 1: That's my thing.
Speaker 8: It will never be my it won't be my job anymore.
Speaker 8: It was when as an MTV I could make that
Speaker 8: that but but it's I just love doing it.
Speaker 7: So so you're really living still living your life. Like
Speaker 7: basically I feel like like a black radio person whereas
Speaker 7: like we do have other tastes. But however, at my job,
Speaker 7: this is what you do.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely, But also you try to you
Speaker 8: try to try to put not my taste but part
Speaker 8: of the cool thing. I never never lose the desire
Speaker 8: and the love of like, oh shoot this brand new
Speaker 8: like Anderson pack on the on the BET Awards year,
Speaker 8: not painting many people who knew who Anderson.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was thankful for Thank you for that.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, no, that it's the It's the thing
Speaker 8: we love to do. Do we put on the BT
Speaker 8: Awards like we want to find two people that nobody
Speaker 8: knows about and hopefully people will put people will people
Speaker 8: will pick up on it.
Speaker 5: Do you think that you know, because uh, I had
Speaker 5: a group at one time, Little Brother, not ringing ringing, uh,
Speaker 5: you know use and at the time there was a
Speaker 5: we had a video and it was.
Speaker 1: The rumor was that it was we we got from
Speaker 1: BT that was too intelligent for the listeners.
Speaker 8: I spent years trying to track that down, like like
Speaker 8: literally they just did no joke, no, no, for real,
Speaker 8: because that made no sense to me because given and
Speaker 8: I don't remember the exact time period, but like this
Speaker 8: part about always wanting to expose and go new directions
Speaker 8: of music is not new, and so for us to
Speaker 8: anybody say that's too intelligent just flies in the face
Speaker 8: of everything that I had done in my career and
Speaker 8: that that our team wanted to do. So and I
Speaker 8: swear to go except like, who said to anybody on
Speaker 8: the team that was too intelligent? I never found out
Speaker 8: who that was.
Speaker 5: No, I mean we didn't either, And I mean after
Speaker 5: a while, it was just whatever on the internet. It
Speaker 5: really could have just been something that came out of
Speaker 5: a fucking internet form or form or whatever. Yet, right,
Speaker 5: so my question was, do you think now you know
Speaker 5: a group like a Little Brother. I mean, it's not
Speaker 5: about me, but just like a group like that, do
Speaker 5: you think they have more because from what I've seen,
Speaker 5: it seems to me like y'all have more leeway now
Speaker 5: in terms of like getting the Anderson Park and the
Speaker 5: stuff y'all doing with the Ciphers, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: It seems like y'all have more leeway now to really
Speaker 5: put new people on than you did, say ten years ago,
Speaker 5: like when we were kind of doing I mean, that's
Speaker 5: how it seems to me.
Speaker 8: So we have to do it in a different form
Speaker 8: because again, like like radio, when we were doing you know's,
Speaker 8: there's tons of videos that I've loved that we just
Speaker 8: couldn't play there. There's far more good music than there
Speaker 8: are slots to put it in when you're trying to
Speaker 8: programming it on radio. You know, I saw, I saw
Speaker 8: you crinkle your eyebrows when I say like twelve and
Speaker 8: twelve specific an hours, five heavies. But that's that's just
Speaker 8: the reality of the business. But on the Ciphers, on
Speaker 8: those music matters slots that we that we did, that
Speaker 8: we do on the BT Awards, that's when we get
Speaker 8: to like, Okay, we can't do it repeatedly like we
Speaker 8: do with videos, But we can show people like this
Speaker 8: is some dope stuff. You should know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you should you should know this. What is the
Speaker 5: challenge for y'all in terms of like staying relevant which
Speaker 5: is a word that I hate, but I think you
Speaker 5: understand the context of what I mean. You know, in
Speaker 5: a in an era where we live in where you know,
Speaker 5: videos and stuff are pretty much on demand now and
Speaker 5: you know, just the way that people consume music is
Speaker 5: totally different, and there's so much more. You know, you're
Speaker 5: a network, but you're competing with celebrities on Snapchat, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: How how do you adapt to that? We've had?
Speaker 8: I mean, when it comes to music, there's there's the
Speaker 8: music on BT right now is really it's in our
Speaker 8: It's our tempoles and our award shows, a lot of
Speaker 8: there's some stuff on Centric. We have BT Jams, which
Speaker 8: is still completely video uh BT Soul as well. But
Speaker 8: the idea of playing videos on on BET propers is
Speaker 8: it's a tough thing to do now. We don't have
Speaker 8: any video shows on on BT like V Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: because because to your point, everything's moved online. You know,
Speaker 8: you used to sit around with man Man when that
Speaker 8: new Little Bow Wow video comes on, We're sitting right
Speaker 8: in front of that TV. I'm gonna be right there,
Speaker 8: and now it's like, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I can use exactly you see it. There's there's
Speaker 1: no As a result, you lose some of the discovery
Speaker 1: that comes along with.
Speaker 8: But I'm fascinated by folks like like like Chance the Rapper.
Speaker 8: I love seeing here what I love. I love seeing
Speaker 8: Chance the Rapper at the top of the this thing
Speaker 8: comes out that you know, the top songs being played
Speaker 8: at radio, and it has the name the song and
Speaker 8: the artist and the number of weeks it's been on.
Speaker 1: And the label it's on. Right.
Speaker 8: I love seeing Chance the Rapper and having no late label.
Speaker 1: That was That was fantastic.
Speaker 8: The last thing I remember that happening was Drake, the
Speaker 8: best I ever had before before he signed. Right, that's
Speaker 8: the last number one without a label. So there's just
Speaker 8: different ways, you know. I think somebody's going to make
Speaker 8: a whole bunch of money when they figure out how
Speaker 8: to harness that. Okay, how do you how do you
Speaker 8: reach critical mass at the same time on the internet.
Speaker 8: I don't think anybody's really done that successfully repetitively yet.
Speaker 8: But there's these things that break through and it's just
Speaker 8: it's fantastic to see hurts our business as a music lover,
Speaker 8: and I'd love to have more music on B E
Speaker 8: T proper. You know it's above for me, but I
Speaker 8: love but for the game I love the people can
Speaker 8: do that. I love the people don't have to be
Speaker 8: dependent on a distribution source to get their music.
Speaker 1: Hurt So in your world, what is the perfect what
Speaker 1: what's the what's your vision of Okay, now, especially now
Speaker 1: that you're president, Like, what is the vision two? Make
Speaker 1: it perfect? Like what is your perfect vision of B
Speaker 1: E T? It's good to.
Speaker 8: Make to make entertaining programming. The people are either doubled
Speaker 8: over in laughter with or all up engaged in the drama. Right,
Speaker 8: if I can do being married Jane times three and
Speaker 8: Real Husbands of Hollywood times four while doing things like
Speaker 8: Charged the DA versus Black America, which we did last night,
Speaker 8: you'd be stunned how many people don't know what a
Speaker 8: DA does, who their d d A is or or
Speaker 8: or how they can elect them.
Speaker 1: Right, and yet the DA.
Speaker 8: Has more to do with how people, how people go
Speaker 8: to get charged and go to jail than the police.
Speaker 8: Everybody's focused on the police. And for an American interaction,
Speaker 8: it's all about the DA. All the police do is
Speaker 8: deliver you to the door, right. The DA decides whether
Speaker 8: what you have in your pocket is going to get
Speaker 8: you probation or a twenty year or get charged for
Speaker 8: twenty years. And so when we get to do programs
Speaker 8: like that, I love that as well. We did we
Speaker 8: did I think a great show on on OJ Simpson
Speaker 8: when we talking about OJ Simpson and we went back
Speaker 8: to the hood where O. J. Simpson came from and
Speaker 8: went from that perspective. So if you can get people
Speaker 8: to think about your programming plus double over laughter and
Speaker 8: be involved with the drama, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: And then of course the big award show.
Speaker 7: So how do you on a smaller note, I'm just curious,
Speaker 7: how do y'all decide what you're gonna syndicate because I
Speaker 7: know you guys have like Wendy Williams and I think
Speaker 7: you do scandal.
Speaker 8: I thought you used to do scan.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but that's just interesting too, because I always thought
Speaker 7: it was interesting what shows you decide to do that,
Speaker 7: which is BT now had so many original programming, But.
Speaker 8: How did you There's a lot of hours in the
Speaker 8: day and you gotta fiell. I think every kind of
Speaker 8: all cable stations are building that model of you. You
Speaker 8: you you syndicate a bit, you do a little bit
Speaker 8: of original programming, and then sometimes you do do some
Speaker 8: tenpoles and so you know, with that same thing we wanted,
Speaker 8: you know, we got scandal because that was drama that
Speaker 8: everybody was all up in at the time.
Speaker 6: Uh yeah, I thought that was really soon that that
Speaker 6: started was being syndicated because it was like.
Speaker 1: One of the Yeah.
Speaker 8: But but but that's the way, that's the way it's happening. Now,
Speaker 8: things are coming on, things are coming on getting syndicated sooner.
Speaker 8: But but there's challenges around that because now you can
Speaker 8: find almost like with with videos, you can find them
Speaker 8: wherever you want to on your device or wherever. Yeah,
Speaker 8: well I would have lost that. I don't have lost
Speaker 8: that fight. I would I would have lost that beat.
Speaker 8: Ten years ago, someone said, ten years ago, I'm gonna
Speaker 8: give you something the size of your phone, and you're
Speaker 8: gonna watch a video, not just a video, but you're
Speaker 8: gonna watch something for in half an hour, two hours
Speaker 8: straight on this No, no, no, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: But I lost that I lost that I lost that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like scandal you did.
Speaker 7: It's not an original program in Steve, you gotta.
Speaker 1: It's syndicated, alright, he likes it. Hey, Mikey, be like,
Speaker 1: so I would be remiss if I didn't bring up
Speaker 1: kind of the the the contra well not the controversy,
Speaker 1: but I mean, obviously in some people's eyes, they you know,
Speaker 1: there's people that like, Thank God for BT, and they
Speaker 1: focus on stuff I want to see, and then there's
Speaker 1: another Yeah, the critics, the criticism.
Speaker 5: First of all, I hate that BT Young Cut went away, know,
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna tell you why.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm just keep on hunting with you.
Speaker 5: I like BT Young Cut because it came on at
Speaker 5: a time when no children should be up anyway, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, And so like it came on.
Speaker 1: So I was one of the supporters, you know, regardless
Speaker 1: of whatever.
Speaker 5: I was one of the people that defended BT for
Speaker 5: I'm like, listen, we all watch these songs.
Speaker 1: It birthed us some of the greatest songs. What that
Speaker 1: Thing Smell Like? Come On by Black Jesus On the
Speaker 1: personal favorite of mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: They had a whole open episode about y'all like, that's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean they brought on the.
Speaker 6: Girls, and there was there was a rumor, like I
Speaker 6: guess a year or so ago that BT.
Speaker 1: Cut was coming back.
Speaker 8: April Fool's joke. But it split between people who are like, ah,
Speaker 8: that's very funny, people like I can't believe way back.
Speaker 6: But wait, wait, wait the way cable television is now
Speaker 6: actually because I mean, like the Fax and A, A
Speaker 6: and E are being very very more relaxed about language nudity.
Speaker 8: It would never work because you get it online right now.
Speaker 8: That's that's the only reason it would never work. It's
Speaker 8: it's available everywhere now. That's that's the that's the you know,
Speaker 8: it wouldn't be a surprise now, it wouldn't be a
Speaker 8: shock now if it were on, But it just wouldn't
Speaker 8: rate well.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Look.
Speaker 8: Bt Uncut was created because there were all these videos
Speaker 8: we were editing, and and again I come from place
Speaker 8: on I want people's artistics. They're right, I don't know
Speaker 8: if the laughter is about them.
Speaker 5: No, No, I'm thinking about you because I had a
Speaker 5: vision in my head of you editing Neddy Nellie's tip
Speaker 5: to video.
Speaker 8: We'll come back to Nellie tip. But the idea was like,
Speaker 8: there's all these videos coming, we have to edit them
Speaker 8: so people can watch them during the daytime. But you
Speaker 8: want to say they have artistic, artistic expression and then
Speaker 8: to your point, like, let's put them on later so
Speaker 8: they're just uncut. Right, this is just it that you know,
Speaker 8: we can't put porn on but but but but you know,
Speaker 8: we don't want to. But so it was for videos
Speaker 8: that it kind of existed but in there and we
Speaker 8: play them in the natural form during uncut and then
Speaker 8: the edited form during the day. The challenge came when
Speaker 8: people started making videos for specifically for uncut, and so
Speaker 8: that was the that was the challenge that people were like, oh,
Speaker 8: that's the way we're going. We're not even gonna work
Speaker 8: because everybody wanted to get on daytime. People were like, no,
Speaker 8: worried about daytime. I just want to get on cut
Speaker 8: and uncut was it whatever, it was a rating success,
Speaker 8: it was a rating.
Speaker 1: It was it happened.
Speaker 8: That was great. But so Chip Drill is the one
Speaker 8: that looks at as the is the video that was
Speaker 8: kind of made for uncut, and and it was and
Speaker 8: that kind of.
Speaker 1: That kind of it was the point it was.
Speaker 8: But the other point was when I realized how popular
Speaker 8: it was. Was on one O six in Park, Peddler
Speaker 8: Bell came on one O six and Park and said,
Speaker 8: my favorite show was B T and cut and we shot.
Speaker 8: We thought she was doing as a joke, and and
Speaker 8: so I forget what she I think she just offered
Speaker 8: and said, oh yeah, I watched that.
Speaker 1: My favor what was her favorite jam favorite?
Speaker 8: My favorite video is what that thinks about?
Speaker 1: Won't be right back commercial, right back?
Speaker 7: We can get all ages. Man.
Speaker 1: That was the Negro Spiritual. I love it from Indiana,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 8: But I think, you know, people people have criticized BT
Speaker 8: in the past, and I gotta say that when people
Speaker 8: bring up BT, I'll cut them like we took that
Speaker 8: off like eight years ago, seven years ago. And usually
Speaker 8: when it comes to people that things that people criticize,
Speaker 8: it's things that like we're seven or eight years ago.
Speaker 8: So it's telling, you know, you know, I think people
Speaker 8: who watch it now and that may be when people
Speaker 8: checked out, so I don't I don't follow them. If
Speaker 8: you check out at a certain time, then that's you know,
Speaker 8: I checked out a radio twenty years ago. I still
Speaker 8: think I can play whatever I want to and.
Speaker 7: Y'all diversified too, So now I don't have to watch
Speaker 7: Bett proper. I can watch BT jams.
Speaker 8: Or if you want videos, you've got we got them.
Speaker 8: You know, if you want you hip hop, you want
Speaker 8: BET jams. You got your soul for BT soul. Black
Speaker 8: woman who got the black got Centric?
Speaker 7: Congratulations about can you can we just have a moment
Speaker 7: for Centric when you just I'm guessing when you decided
Speaker 7: to really make it the Black woman channel, Like that's
Speaker 7: it's only.
Speaker 1: Like a year ago.
Speaker 8: Wi y'all did a year and a half, year and a.
Speaker 7: Half fantastic campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, I try to get a job there, auditioned and everything,
Speaker 7: but that's a whole other thing. But I want to
Speaker 7: hear now you're here and now I'm here, thank you, mister.
Speaker 7: But why but explain?
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, because because there's no there's no
Speaker 8: other entity out there really focused on black women exclusively. Right.
Speaker 8: So the point is for Centric is whenever you go
Speaker 8: to Centric, no matter what time of day it is,
Speaker 8: no matter when it is, if you're a black woman,
Speaker 8: you're going to go go there and find something that
Speaker 8: appeals to you. And while there's other shows on different channels,
Speaker 8: you know, every once in a while, like you go
Speaker 8: to Centric and you're gonna find that hopefully twenty four
Speaker 8: hours a day. That's the that's the goal behind Centric.
Speaker 7: I appreciate that. I'm glad y'all made to switch.
Speaker 8: So you know, anybody who's who you know, bashes bat
Speaker 8: I think or or criticizes. I love criticism. I want
Speaker 8: to be clear, like honest criticism. You you get sharper,
Speaker 8: you understand what people folks. I love that. But if
Speaker 8: it's from eight or seven years ago, seven eight years ago,
Speaker 8: I'm just like, well watch it now. If you still
Speaker 8: have the same criticism, let me know.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna say I used to be one of the
Speaker 6: heavy criticizers of BET. Still I'm but I've started watching
Speaker 6: a lot more recently because I got cable again and gradulations, Yeah,
Speaker 6: thank you.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. I got a job.
Speaker 6: The programming definitely has changed quite a bit, and I
Speaker 6: think the big difference is just the music videos aren't there,
Speaker 6: and I think that actually might have made the channel better.
Speaker 8: Well if you don't, yeah, that's hard, that's hard.
Speaker 1: That wasn't a question. So I don't feel like that
Speaker 1: was called gotcha compliments.
Speaker 6: I'm saying that because you know, you would turn on
Speaker 6: BT all times a day and it was just almost
Speaker 6: always all music video.
Speaker 1: So now there's a lot more variety of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to listen to music all the day,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know I can turn on Catch
Speaker 1: the House Painting Run.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and two I think too it was something to
Speaker 5: be said, you know, like a Buddy Man, you know
Speaker 5: we were talking.
Speaker 1: He has the theory of like.
Speaker 5: How you kind of just grow out of things, right,
Speaker 5: So it's it's a funny thing with BT where it
Speaker 5: was for me. It was a thing where when I
Speaker 5: was a kid, I watched BT like all day like
Speaker 5: that was I mean I was Rap City Video, LP Video,
Speaker 5: Vibrations Midnight like our screen scene, screen scene, Oh my god.
Speaker 9: I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't want to even take it back for you
Speaker 6: remember telling me something good was that it was a
Speaker 6: game show.
Speaker 1: It was a game show where people would call in.
Speaker 1: You know I missed that. Yes, this was like eighty
Speaker 1: seven eighty talking about this is this is late.
Speaker 7: I'm passing Angel Stripling.
Speaker 1: This is Angel Stripling years yea Robin Breeden.
Speaker 7: Who was back on the radio.
Speaker 5: The radio, they would show the reruns of the show Desmonds,
Speaker 5: There's the Jamaican I have like four seasons, but it's syndicated.
Speaker 5: Some of it's on DVDs. So yeah, it was, Yeah,
Speaker 5: it was from back in the day. But I will
Speaker 5: watch it as a kid, and like that was all
Speaker 5: I would do. But then it got to a point
Speaker 5: where I kind of just grew out of it, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. But now as an adult, like
Speaker 5: in my you know, thirties, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Now I watch it again. So it's like there's content
Speaker 5: for me there. But it was just that middle fund,
Speaker 5: that funny part like hunting in your twenties, where it
Speaker 5: kind of it kind of lost me. Maybe it's kind
Speaker 5: of us just growing out of it and you know
Speaker 5: just what he just.
Speaker 1: Said, growing up.
Speaker 5: But then you.
Speaker 7: Is it because your video has never really played on
Speaker 7: there too?
Speaker 1: Or no, I didn't. I don't want to watch the
Speaker 1: ship just to watch, you know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have any regrets of the Tortoise in the Hair Journey
Speaker 1: only because like you know, I look at all my
Speaker 1: peers that did get instant rotation, love and they're kind
Speaker 1: of on the side of the road, broken down vehicles,
Speaker 1: and it's about the longest admire Well yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: the your your your, your, your, childlike enthusiasm for uh
Speaker 1: music when I see you in concerts and everything all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But having witnessed you at several BT Awards,
Speaker 1: I wonder how you keep so cool, especially this year. Now,
Speaker 1: hold on this. I was.
Speaker 6: I was randomly on Facebook the other day and somebody
Speaker 6: posted a video of Actually the Jackson's posted a video
Speaker 6: of their performance at the their final performance at Michael's
Speaker 6: fiftieth anniversary thing, and halfway halfway way through, halfway through,
Speaker 6: there is the clearest day shot of.
Speaker 1: Stephen Hill just going crazy in the crowd.
Speaker 7: I remember that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I always know you are because you're
Speaker 1: the most enthusiastic audience member ever. It's true. But okay,
Speaker 1: now this is where the suit and me wants to know. Like,
Speaker 1: when you're at the BET Awards, I would be losing
Speaker 1: my mind every second only because it's like it's such
Speaker 1: a down to the wire. Is this going to work?
Speaker 1: Is this not going to work? Because you know you
Speaker 1: can't be there as a fan watching this this performance.
Speaker 1: You have to trust in your director. You have to
Speaker 1: trust in the creative people. You have to trust the talent.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you not have anxiety on whether or
Speaker 1: not blah blah blah made their plan or not, or
Speaker 1: if there's a Plan B or Plan C, or you know,
Speaker 1: we got to cut this part of the show. We
Speaker 1: have to edit that part of the show. Like just
Speaker 1: the things that I now know in television production that
Speaker 1: drive proprietors and bosses crazy. You never have that on
Speaker 1: your face.
Speaker 8: But I know for this year, anybody, anybody, anybody.
Speaker 1: Who works with me or who's hearing this is like,
Speaker 1: perhaps he doesn't know who Stephen Hill is.
Speaker 8: Maybe he's looking at somebody else's face.
Speaker 1: No, no, because it's always it's always poker face time.
Speaker 1: Now for instance, now this year with the with the
Speaker 1: passing of our king, mister Hill, you you took a
Speaker 1: very no, I mean you took a very bold stance
Speaker 1: with the tweet. That was the best thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the shade. But here's the thing.
Speaker 7: Mirror was on stage.
Speaker 8: You know, he was off, he had cleared the stage.
Speaker 1: And the way you insinuated that, I just meant it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't on stage with them. I introduced them, and
Speaker 1: can we not say what this is in regards to oh,
Speaker 1: are we allowed to? I don't know. I'm asking you.
Speaker 7: It's in the past, isn't.
Speaker 1: It because he's my manager. No, we're referring to the
Speaker 1: Madonna performance.
Speaker 8: Of perform Stevie. Can I clear something up. I wasn't
Speaker 8: talking about the Madonna No no, no, no no no
Speaker 8: no no no, no, no no no. What I was
Speaker 8: talking about is if you're going to you're gonna be
Speaker 8: really honest about it, if you're gonna, if you're gonna
Speaker 8: tribute Prince, if Madonna.
Speaker 1: Had been, I'm gonna give myself in trouble.
Speaker 8: If Madonna had her tribute, But it would be awesome
Speaker 8: to have someone else cover another aspect and has to
Speaker 8: have someone else cover another aspect.
Speaker 1: Okay, now here's this thing that's so so so.
Speaker 8: People took it it was me against another person. It
Speaker 8: was just like as a tribute as a whole we
Speaker 8: got you it was it was it was really liked.
Speaker 8: That's that's how that came out.
Speaker 1: I didn't take I didn't take your tweet as something
Speaker 1: to Madonna or Stevie, but I understood where you were going.
Speaker 1: But Here's the thing though, and you know, I know
Speaker 1: the timing was Uncan you know Prince well in the audience?
Speaker 1: You know Prince well? You know what I mean, you
Speaker 1: know his music well? And being as though it's slim
Speaker 1: Pickens out there, when you said we got you, I
Speaker 1: instantly got worried because it was like, wow, okay, now
Speaker 1: the pressure's on and everybody is betting on Black and
Speaker 1: now all I'm thinking is who who do you have
Speaker 1: in mind that can even come close to what Prince
Speaker 1: really means? Fourth letter of the alphabet.
Speaker 8: In nineteen sixty one or sixty two, John F. Kennedy
Speaker 8: went to Rice University gave a speech said, guess what,
Speaker 8: by the end of this.
Speaker 1: Decade, We're gonna put a man on the moon. Cheer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 8: People at NASA were like, what, we don't have the technology,
Speaker 8: we don't have the capability, we don't have the people.
Speaker 8: We cannot get a man on the moon by by
Speaker 8: by by sixty nine. But sure enough, in faith and
Speaker 8: like you believe in your people, that that happened. I
Speaker 8: had a feeling that you would be.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I had a feel no, I had
Speaker 1: a feeling that you'd be on board.
Speaker 7: That's that's that's the We all had that feeling.
Speaker 8: That's the that's the and that was the that was
Speaker 8: the that's the foundation. I'm serious, that's true. The foundation
Speaker 8: was was that I had a feeling that some other
Speaker 8: people would come on board, and with our knowledge and
Speaker 8: our respect for that guy and knowing how much our
Speaker 8: audience was going to want it, I just we just
Speaker 8: we didn't have the tools at the time, but we
Speaker 8: knew what we knew that it existed, right, and so.
Speaker 1: Janelle we knew would be on board.
Speaker 8: Right. We knew Janelle would be on board.
Speaker 7: So are you saying none of these people working firm?
Speaker 8: When you said no, no, no, no, no, no, nobody
Speaker 8: was confirmed. We had our first conversation. No, we you were.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even board. But the thing was when he
Speaker 1: did that, I just I sat in my room for
Speaker 1: like almost two days, like I was like wow, like
Speaker 1: you just thought you weren't asked who? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to be part of it.
Speaker 1: I instantly got an m D mode, which was like who.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is is that the people that I
Speaker 1: feel that are close to Prince's talent aren't names and
Speaker 1: as a suit. The suit in me was like, who
Speaker 1: has a name that will really bring him justice? He
Speaker 1: was just so obvious, right, But it was itself. It
Speaker 1: was a risky all right. When I brought the laud
Speaker 1: to it was. I didn't bring him to you personally,
Speaker 1: but I brought him to the producers and everything. But
Speaker 1: was it a Okay, he's going to hit out the
Speaker 1: park or was it a I don't know if our
Speaker 1: audience is ready for him yet, or like, what what
Speaker 1: are you thinking in your head as we're bringing this? How? Okay,
Speaker 1: Dangelo was a part of this?
Speaker 8: Okay, how how.
Speaker 1: Deep do you want to forgot?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about it. Okay, we're good, We're good.
Speaker 8: Sure, yeah, okay, alright, that's why we had we had,
Speaker 8: we had, we had, we had, we had we and
Speaker 8: so Dianzel couldn't couldn't make it. And so there was
Speaker 8: I remember exactly where it was. We were on the
Speaker 8: phone having this call. Let me, let me, let me,
Speaker 8: let me, let me back up. I love that John F.
Speaker 8: Kennedy story because it's just a story of faith and
Speaker 8: a sort of desire and like, if you can get
Speaker 8: people together, you can go towards that goal, and I
Speaker 8: knew enough people loved Prince that we would be able
Speaker 8: to go towards that goal. And and the Prince was
Speaker 8: the star.
Speaker 1: Faith versus science. By the way, fair enough, now I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of calculations or or believing.
Speaker 8: That the science exists, we just haven't found it yet, right, right,
Speaker 8: And that's what it was. That's exactly what that was.
Speaker 8: I'm glad you phrased it that way. It was having
Speaker 8: the faith that the science is going to follow that faith, right,
Speaker 8: And that's exactly what this was with with with the
Speaker 8: Prince thing. But knowing that you were on board, I'm
Speaker 8: not true. Was it was a big part of the
Speaker 8: foundation and that Prince was the star and that we
Speaker 8: knew you No, I'm not picking my words. It's just
Speaker 8: it's just watch happy, happy, and I'll say this now
Speaker 8: a happy accident. Look, the tweet was we had a
Speaker 8: feeling that that it was going to be that the
Speaker 8: that the that that tribute was going to be was
Speaker 8: not going to be fulfilling. It was not going to
Speaker 8: fulfill all the things that you want around that. So
Speaker 8: we thought that maybe to get a little air press,
Speaker 8: Prince is the star. And now you just got to
Speaker 8: find people who love and respect them enough to pull
Speaker 8: off the to pull it off. They don't have to
Speaker 8: be that. They don't have to be We didn't need
Speaker 8: the biggest names in the world, right, We need the
Speaker 8: people who respected their music. We started that tribute with
Speaker 8: and I love that people picked up on it. We
Speaker 8: started that tribute with Ballad of Dorothy Parker, right.
Speaker 1: Which is as an album.
Speaker 8: It's an album. It's a deep album cut. There wasn't
Speaker 8: any history onics around it, like Erica just saying, sat
Speaker 8: there and did it. Because we were setting like, Okay,
Speaker 8: this is going to be a Prince View for real,
Speaker 8: this is for real Prince fans, but we're still going
Speaker 8: to get deliver you top notch talent. And you were
Speaker 8: the person who I never thought of it before. You know,
Speaker 8: it's just one long verse.
Speaker 1: There's no curve.
Speaker 8: There's just that's the thing. By the way, Well you
Speaker 8: said that, I was like, I had known this song
Speaker 8: for freaking thirty years and I've never thought about that.
Speaker 8: It's just one long verse.
Speaker 1: I was the suit and he was the greated one.
Speaker 1: Because when they said yeah, let's do Ballad Dorothy Parker,
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, there's no hook to it, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: part do I take? You guys won't let me do
Speaker 1: three minutes. I know, like I'm instantly thinking in suit
Speaker 1: television producer mode and not in creative mood. So it
Speaker 1: was just but you were so cool about it.
Speaker 8: Like break the rules for that one. And then and
Speaker 8: then once once was the Angelo left out. We actually,
Speaker 8: if I remember correct, we we both came to blow
Speaker 8: independently and we're surprised that the other one was going
Speaker 8: to co coke.
Speaker 1: It was I was shocked that you were going to
Speaker 1: let me do it, and you were like.
Speaker 7: Great, And is that what a revolution took the league
Speaker 7: because ever since then has been doing like gigs.
Speaker 8: Oh no, no, we knew that. We knew that was
Speaker 8: gonna change it.
Speaker 1: We knew the second that happened. Then every member of
Speaker 1: the revolution uh minus Brown Mark uh hit me up
Speaker 1: and was just like.
Speaker 7: That was so dope, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: And I felt like super justified and at least like
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it like I wanted to
Speaker 1: dodge the bullet. I wanted to hit the target.
Speaker 7: But y'all felt the whole country go yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 7: but it.
Speaker 1: Was risky because the thing is is like I'd rather,
Speaker 1: in my mind, I would have rather done non popular
Speaker 1: print standards so that I wouldn't get judged. Like it's
Speaker 1: hard for you to have an opinion about slow love
Speaker 1: of ort.
Speaker 6: Just stop trying to impress the orders the Prince orger
Speaker 6: people man, not even I.
Speaker 1: Mean, but yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean, but I
Speaker 1: think it's harder if you just say, all right when
Speaker 1: doves cry in nineteen ninety nine, like I felt more
Speaker 1: for Shila than anything because she was going for the hits.
Speaker 1: She was going for the juggernauts, so.
Speaker 8: She and Janel and Janel put that. I thought she
Speaker 8: put great artistry and great show personship to it as well,
Speaker 8: uh with costumes and danced across the stage and you know,
Speaker 8: it's great music performed by it, like when Blaud did
Speaker 8: Beautiful Ones and got down on that floor, like we
Speaker 8: knew vocally, well you know what.
Speaker 1: I really, you knew it, but America didn't know. America
Speaker 1: didn't know.
Speaker 8: Yes, but but but but And that's the point of
Speaker 8: the cool thing is we talk about exposing new artists
Speaker 8: like he's not a new artist, but like people understood
Speaker 8: who he was that night, right the same way, you know,
Speaker 8: Candley the year before it was Tory Kelly. Tory Kelly
Speaker 8: was the one no one knew, and then she stepped
Speaker 8: out to saying Who's loving You were like, oh got it?
Speaker 1: Yo?
Speaker 7: Is it getting more challenging because you know, the one
Speaker 7: of the things that people look forward to with the
Speaker 7: BET Awards are the tributes, not so you have pretty
Speaker 7: much like I mean, I just remember the year you
Speaker 7: had Alexander O'Neill come out with sharl S. Is it
Speaker 7: getting more challenging or is it getting more fun? Or
Speaker 7: is it more is it combo of both trying to
Speaker 7: decide who are you gonna do and then who's going
Speaker 7: to sing?
Speaker 8: It's always fun, It's always fun. It gets a little
Speaker 8: more challenging. We love the you know, we love the
Speaker 8: reunions get.
Speaker 1: But surely you're planning it now, Like how far in
Speaker 1: advance do you you have to plan seven months in.
Speaker 8: The yeah, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, there's conversations being had already.
Speaker 1: Here's here's a good idea.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna give you way the biggest secret more than
Speaker 8: anything else, more than anything else on that show You
Speaker 8: Know what You Know? And we mentioned him earlier or
Speaker 8: a member of the band earlier. Uh, in this conversation,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna get Tony Tony Tony back together.
Speaker 1: It's the thing.
Speaker 8: It's the thing. It's please the thing.
Speaker 1: It's the thing.
Speaker 8: It's not worked out yet, and I don't give away secrets,
Speaker 8: but but if if anybody out there, if you can
Speaker 8: get Tony to help me get Tony Tony Tony together,
Speaker 8: I'm all the way, all the way. I want to
Speaker 8: pick the step list too.
Speaker 7: Is that it you got?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 7: You got three of those?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 7: Is it Tony Tony Tony?
Speaker 1: Is it gonna play my ex girlfriend? Oh? My god,
Speaker 1: girl friend, it's a whole Sorry, Steve, you have to
Speaker 1: be there. Wait a minute, you don't know that?
Speaker 7: Is that before Walter?
Speaker 13: That?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, no, I know you didn't just look at.
Speaker 4: Me like that.
Speaker 1: That was that was the album with Anniversary. I know
Speaker 1: you know that one.
Speaker 7: Do you gotta play me with a single?
Speaker 1: Yoke? Because she was six years old when it came
Speaker 1: out sixteen.
Speaker 7: But I know all the Lucy Pearl album. I'm just joking.
Speaker 7: That's a joke. I'm just I'm I said, hey, little
Speaker 7: Walter Jail, give me.
Speaker 1: Some credit a joke, if anything, or who else would
Speaker 1: you like to reunite? Is it too way for Ready
Speaker 1: for the World?
Speaker 7: Yes, that sight like Ready for the World with like surface.
Speaker 1: Well it's gonna be the thirtieth anniversary of New Jack Swing,
Speaker 1: so I would imagine can we talk.
Speaker 6: About New Jack Swing for a second. Yeah, let's do it,
Speaker 6: because I feel like the John or that period of
Speaker 6: music has been.
Speaker 5: Sorely overlooked. I think it was something that you had
Speaker 5: to be there for. Like it's a hard sell to
Speaker 5: people in twenty sixteen, you know what I'm saying. Because
Speaker 5: the music was great, but like I mean, it was
Speaker 5: kind of hockey, you know what I mean it now,
Speaker 5: like listen to the baselines and the drum program like
Speaker 5: I mean, like for example, like the Foreign Exchange, the
Speaker 5: cover we did of Steve on the If She Brickshard.
Speaker 5: One of the main reasons why I wanted to do
Speaker 5: that song was because I thought it was a great song.
Speaker 1: Took the New Jackie out. Yeah, just take the Chunkle Fever,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 5: But those are great songs, but just the production of
Speaker 5: the time, it you know, it didn't serve them well,
Speaker 5: didn't It didn't age well?
Speaker 1: Side note. Yeah, that's the one thing I big from
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder's people, like, can I have the masters to
Speaker 1: jungle feeble just so I can take the drums away
Speaker 1: and put what I think he would do in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three to it.
Speaker 5: Lighting up the candles could be God lighting up the
Speaker 5: candles without jack drums.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like all so effect get back together. We could
Speaker 7: just make the new jack swings we got.
Speaker 8: We got them back together for the soul training wars
Speaker 8: att while yeah, we didn't make for the soul trains.
Speaker 1: How do you determine what soul train will get versus what?
Speaker 1: Very good, very good question? It's a very good And
Speaker 1: what is your Are you allowed to say what your
Speaker 1: your what your baby is, and what your step son
Speaker 1: is in terms of war shows? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Because then hip Hop Honors is my.
Speaker 8: Favorite, my favorite, I don't mean disrespect my favorite celebration
Speaker 8: of gospel because if you can't sing, don't come.
Speaker 1: Oh wait a minute, I don't come. That was the
Speaker 1: fourth category. I wasn't even thinking celebration of gospel.
Speaker 8: If you can't sing, don't come anytime.
Speaker 1: I actually, yo, wait has got well into the room
Speaker 1: where we might lose good singers. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: love God. You heard that song. No, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 8: It was a choice by a good singer to do
Speaker 8: a song that I respect that that's fine, but but
Speaker 8: you got to sang got celebration of gospel, right, That's
Speaker 8: that's we just called.
Speaker 1: I just want to call it.
Speaker 8: Landa Adams shown so. But to my eye when when
Speaker 8: I when I see Elanda Adams walk into a room,
Speaker 8: my eyes smile because I know my ears are next.
Speaker 1: She is. She just is just a gift to sound.
Speaker 1: So between BT Awards and Soul Train Awards, how do
Speaker 1: you and both of them are your responsibility?
Speaker 8: Yes, but shout out to I'm going to say this
Speaker 8: earlier we all you talked about how to keep calm head.
Speaker 8: We have the best production crew in the business with
Speaker 8: Jesse Collins Entertainment and Jay and Knyie Orlando who.
Speaker 1: Oversees it for most directly for for for B E T.
Speaker 8: It's just the best in the business. Like so when
Speaker 8: I'm not worried about people missing flights because if they do,
Speaker 8: Jesse will find a way to rends a prop plane
Speaker 8: to go pick him up.
Speaker 1: You got to get a I forgot who he did
Speaker 1: that to, but he told me a story of getting
Speaker 1: someone last minute.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, they get it private, they get it done. No
Speaker 8: crop dusters, I said, I said properly, I say private,
Speaker 8: I said, prop.
Speaker 1: Back.
Speaker 8: But soul Training. Here's what trying to do with Soul Train.
Speaker 8: Soul Train is really about it the soul like it's
Speaker 8: it's it's it's pretty hip hop free and it should
Speaker 8: have a groove. That's why I rote. James worked so
Speaker 8: well on it this year. Anderson Pack, who's kind of
Speaker 8: in between, works on it. Una worked on it. Drew Hill,
Speaker 8: We're yep, Eric, I do get it.
Speaker 7: I don't know how.
Speaker 8: Oh my god. This year we had Drew Hill. We
Speaker 8: had a tribute to Teddy Riley uh Yuna Rode, James,
Speaker 8: Eric Bennet because that song Sunshine is just.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which Okay, I kind of know the answers
Speaker 1: since I'm working for them, But is there any chance
Speaker 1: in hell, even if it's not on BT proper, for
Speaker 1: you to really develop I want you to develop a
Speaker 1: midlife crisis BT channel for me.
Speaker 8: All right, what are the elements of that show?
Speaker 1: Well, I just I need living single reruns. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget the rerun list that we have that's endless.
Speaker 1: But I need the anxiety of eleven fifty eight am
Speaker 1: on a Saturday, no one in two minutes that the
Speaker 1: Soul Trained animations coming on is one of the most
Speaker 1: thrilling moments of my childhood. And I know twelve occasionally
Speaker 1: twelve sometimes one in the morning, But yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I need a a What VH one was to MTV
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, what it was meant to be?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, can you imagine that? Like one time
Speaker 1: VH one.
Speaker 7: When playing Paul Simon and it was the video Hits
Speaker 7: one was the Chevy Chase video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the conservative White Guys channel.
Speaker 7: Now it's like, don't worry, be happy all the time.
Speaker 1: That's funny. Yeah, But I just I don't I feel
Speaker 1: like Soul Train and the interests of Soul Trained could
Speaker 1: still have life into it.
Speaker 8: It's possible, And I know you, I knew I was
Speaker 8: not going to escape without having that question answered. But
Speaker 8: it is possible, as you know that b ET and
Speaker 8: Soul Training are joined joined. Now, yes, you need anything,
Speaker 8: let me know.
Speaker 7: So we're talking about new episodes of soulcirating and if
Speaker 7: you're talking about classics, do you stop at them more
Speaker 7: years or where do you stop.
Speaker 1: Soul Trained to Me is nineteen seventy one to the
Speaker 1: last episode The Commodore's episode of nineteen ninety three, which
Speaker 1: was Don's last show. The Commonists were still around in
Speaker 1: ninety three, What.
Speaker 5: Was the jog?
Speaker 1: What was their last song? Their last song was.
Speaker 5: I Think I'd locked off Breakouse nineteen ninety Oh it
Speaker 5: was a very don't play it, Please don't play it, No,
Speaker 5: please play it.
Speaker 1: I've never heard this song on my life.
Speaker 7: You can't find it.
Speaker 8: Just played night Ship Please say yeah. A by the
Speaker 8: Commodore was yeah, So I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't mean for my personal collection though I'm talking about.
Speaker 6: I still think there should be a Soul Trained app
Speaker 6: for for Apple TV and Roku and smart till.
Speaker 8: You're exploring all sorts of opportunities with Soul Trained brand
Speaker 8: or do you understand how i it is and how
Speaker 8: much it means to so many people who only experienced it,
Speaker 8: but I just heard about it from.
Speaker 1: Their their their elder generation.
Speaker 7: So there's there's, you know, nice statement, mister President.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately Don didn't have clearances.
Speaker 7: Or or you know, so there's licensing issues.
Speaker 1: We've been working on it. It's like four years already.
Speaker 1: I think maybe wonder years of black television, maybe like
Speaker 1: three hundred some some episodes have been totally cleared. But
Speaker 1: I think the whole goal is just to have the entire.
Speaker 8: We would be great to have the whole entire catalog cleared.
Speaker 7: But after the Soul Train episode goes off on your
Speaker 7: Midlife Crisis channel, what's what those you just I think
Speaker 7: he just wants you just want all soul trained all
Speaker 7: the time. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: Just two episodes of Soul Training a week, that eye
Speaker 1: program and then what else is.
Speaker 7: On the channel?
Speaker 1: Right? What else? Whatever? Y'all want kung fu flicks and
Speaker 1: you know, so basically you want it to be Bounced TV.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but like that. I can get that.
Speaker 7: I can get you know, has has a Viceland and
Speaker 7: Revolt had any effect on I mean, I don't want
Speaker 7: to say effect or impression or have you guys, it's
Speaker 7: a matter is it an your peripheral at all? Does
Speaker 7: it matter? Is it anything that they're doing that you like?
Speaker 6: I would suggest you watched Jesus and Mirro on Viceland?
Speaker 6: What Jesus and Miro on Viceland? Yeah, it's a future
Speaker 6: of black comedy right there.
Speaker 1: He's actually telling the truth.
Speaker 7: So has Viceland or revolt question?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was getting that because I appreciate a vice's
Speaker 8: different approach to media, and I'm hoping, you know, to
Speaker 8: freshen things up. I think they freshened things up to
Speaker 8: use that term revolt is. I think it's an awesome
Speaker 8: exhibition around music.
Speaker 1: We just not do that.
Speaker 8: We do that on kind of jams and soul, but
Speaker 8: not the main one anymore.
Speaker 7: I was just curious. It is funny because we were
Speaker 7: talking about Noisy the other day and it's it's funny.
Speaker 7: It's a really great show in a way. However, as
Speaker 7: my mother said, when she walked in and then walked
Speaker 7: out when she saw what was going on, it feels like,
Speaker 7: what do you call that? Cultural tourism? So I was
Speaker 7: just asking because there are some things that you know,
Speaker 7: we could do without it.
Speaker 8: Feeling that way. We we we you know, we we
Speaker 8: over use this term, but you know, absolutely authentically black
Speaker 8: as what we what we are? We we we we
Speaker 8: are we are the culture folks other folks read about it.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, you went to the White House this year? Yes, actually, yes,
Speaker 1: I forgot we Okay, I was talking about going you know,
Speaker 1: us going to the world, but then I forgot you
Speaker 1: were actually there to witness everything. Okay, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the actual production of the show, but I really want
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about the afterwards after Love and Happiness.
Speaker 1: Did they approach you or how did you? How did you?
Speaker 13: So?
Speaker 8: Shout to Janine Library from b E two, who really
Speaker 8: has been who's been working with the White House? Look
Speaker 8: the White House. You may not, I guess you can.
Speaker 8: You believe it now, but White House has this great
Speaker 8: collection of Black women who work there.
Speaker 7: I've seen the article.
Speaker 8: Is a great collection of black women with whom like
Speaker 8: a bunch people woul be to your friends, especially Janine,
Speaker 8: And so it was like, look, we really want to win,
Speaker 8: you know, the thick of the election is over. We
Speaker 8: want to air something. It's like just a great goodbyeparty,
Speaker 8: just a throw down. There's no there's no rhyme or
Speaker 8: reason to it. Just just have fun. And so two
Speaker 8: years in the making, they were like yes, and so
Speaker 8: we were honored to go to the White House to
Speaker 8: be part of the last musical celebration they've had them
Speaker 8: over the years for Country and I think they're going
Speaker 8: from from from Memphis, from Memphis, and you know backrack
Speaker 8: and how David had won and so this was just
Speaker 8: one for for for be eating and so a man
Speaker 8: it was was on board Roots and and Jane Monet.
Speaker 1: And and and Soul.
Speaker 8: They lost Soul requested by the President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Crazy.
Speaker 7: I think almost a tear when I told him that
Speaker 7: who else was requested?
Speaker 1: Well, we all were requested, but this okay. So I
Speaker 1: guess the rumor is that you know what's on his iPod,
Speaker 1: and you know he wanted to see that come to life.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of weird knowing that the leader of
Speaker 1: the free world has a Roots song on his iPod
Speaker 1: when he works out at the gym in the morning.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to figure that one out because I'm like,
Speaker 1: probably aren't we aren't we the Sunday Sunday afternoon, I
Speaker 1: can count maybe four songs that are over like one
Speaker 1: hundred bpms, like I thought were the relaxing evening songs kind.
Speaker 8: Of maybe maybe part of his cool down, maybe on
Speaker 8: this on the on the tape of part of.
Speaker 1: Maybe who Knows? Yeah, who knows? Who knows? Yeah?
Speaker 8: But we were there and we had a good time.
Speaker 8: We had a good time. It was one of the
Speaker 8: last He said he wasn't going to sing, and then
Speaker 8: he sang. At the end, I think he grabbed somebody's mike.
Speaker 8: Mike like love it happiness.
Speaker 1: Wait. My favorite moment though, was Okay, So I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in this section with de La Soul and with Common
Speaker 1: and we're watching BBD do Poison and so at the
Speaker 1: White House at the White House, and like all seven
Speaker 1: of us are collectively looking at each other like, well,
Speaker 1: we know there isn't a radio edit version of this,
Speaker 1: so how are they going to handle the low pro hope? Dog?
Speaker 7: Oh, that's the only one I was watching.
Speaker 1: I was watching first Lady. Oh, I know, she said, Dog.
Speaker 1: It was the most magical moment of my life.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of watching her.
Speaker 7: It was our movements too, right, the local host she
Speaker 7: cut afro Like, all.
Speaker 1: I know is that obviously in nineteen ninety that must
Speaker 1: have been their jam when they were dating each other
Speaker 1: in Chicago, because there was this levels of Roger Rabbit Thom.
Speaker 7: Going on that I like doing the did he get
Speaker 7: on the back? Did he get on it?
Speaker 1: Let's not make it do a comedy moment, but not
Speaker 1: a comedy moment. Yeah. Look, I'm just saying that that
Speaker 1: was the realest moment I've ever seen Potus and Flotus.
Speaker 1: And she mounted the words and I was just.
Speaker 7: Like, did she like let me ask? I'm sorry, I
Speaker 7: just have many questions. So she mounted the words so
Speaker 7: mouthing the whole song she was, she's singing the song,
Speaker 7: and then she just.
Speaker 1: Mounted The crew used to do it right. So you
Speaker 1: will never see it on TV. You will never see it.
Speaker 8: You will never see that on TV.
Speaker 7: But you guys filmed it.
Speaker 8: You will never see it on TV.
Speaker 7: You will film what I meant to stay with y'all.
Speaker 7: I mean, we saw us, we saw on social media, so.
Speaker 8: There was so much energy around that. You know, you
Speaker 8: were like it was it was it was palpable, it
Speaker 8: was undeniable, it was I think you're right. That hadn't
Speaker 8: been their song at some point in time, and that's
Speaker 8: why that was their song. We kind of introduced this like, well,
Speaker 8: you know, the first movie was do the right thing,
Speaker 8: but you know, we imagine at some point in time,
Speaker 8: you guys dance to this and they jumped up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so y'all had a full I'm sorry, So y'all
Speaker 7: are not telling this story, you know, and listen your turns.
Speaker 7: So let me ask you said you introduced it. So
Speaker 7: you introduced BBD to the crime out like they're literally
Speaker 7: you're on the stage and you're like, okay, coming up next.
Speaker 1: We got a song. I thought that was obvious.
Speaker 7: No, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, yeah yeah, because we said it, Yeah they said.
Speaker 7: It, but I didn't believe that you said it like that, like, yes,
Speaker 7: that's exactly how you said it.
Speaker 1: We talked about their first date and then we imagine
Speaker 1: that at sometime doing your courtship, this was your song,
Speaker 1: and but we didn't know it was true because because
Speaker 1: once it happened, because the tone of the night was
Speaker 1: like yes Jill, Yes, yes you're the yes John l
Speaker 1: and yes yes common yes think you know. It was
Speaker 1: a very positive and then when them snare drum hit,
Speaker 1: it was like like a pajama Jimmy jim.
Speaker 7: So am I to understand there is going to be
Speaker 7: a televised part of this which which will have the
Speaker 7: Jill and all of that and stuff. And then that
Speaker 7: other stuff was like their after party.
Speaker 1: For later there were there was the after party.
Speaker 7: Was not the after party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, BD was the.
Speaker 7: Okay, so you say, that's why you're saying that she
Speaker 7: didn't see that.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, you really couldn't figure that out.
Speaker 7: I really did not. I love you, Layah, thank you,
Speaker 7: because somebody at home is with me, aren't you. That's okay? No,
Speaker 7: you'd be safe in your zone. Another dumb question. No,
Speaker 7: I'm talking to the people right now.
Speaker 1: Or it's fevers at an all timeline. But my point
Speaker 1: is that there were three versions of that performance. There
Speaker 1: was BET's uh, there was BBD's performance of it, which
Speaker 1: was flawless, and there was us looking at each other.
Speaker 1: I wish there was a camera just looking a reaction
Speaker 1: camera at between pass mace me, treak, common, uh, Dave,
Speaker 1: true boy, everyone spouses, everyone's like. We were just looking
Speaker 1: at each other like is this supposed to happen? Are
Speaker 1: they allowed to say it? And then looking at her,
Speaker 1: is she she's mouthing at work? Oh my god? They
Speaker 1: no poison? Like it was just it was the craziest
Speaker 1: moment I've ever seen in my life. Thanks, thanks, No,
Speaker 1: it was bedtime. It was BT and cut time. About
Speaker 1: the video, it was a video vibrations.
Speaker 7: Yes, the fact that Usher did not have to take
Speaker 7: that video down just show the rest of the world
Speaker 7: that you know what he.
Speaker 1: Read to go and he don't give a what he
Speaker 1: gonna be audited next year, But let that happen, all right,
Speaker 1: So Fante, man, I learned that what do we learned?
Speaker 5: Man? I learned Stephen Hill as a lot more musical
Speaker 5: uh appreciation than I realized.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: This is the first time that me and you have
Speaker 5: ever really have to have a conversation and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's always funny.
Speaker 1: And again you know you answered earlier.
Speaker 5: Just you know, the people who are in position, who
Speaker 5: are in power in their program and it's like the
Speaker 5: things that they have to program a lot of times,
Speaker 5: it's very different from the stuff that they appreciate in
Speaker 5: their real lives, you know what I'm saying. So I just,
Speaker 5: you know, really appreciate the opportunities to sit and uh
Speaker 5: clear the air and just to really just talk about
Speaker 5: music just as fans.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. When you talked about going
Speaker 1: to see Radiohead, I mean, dude, like.
Speaker 8: Bruh England Aly fourth and July fifth, Oh.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, yeah, you got your tickets already. Wow.
Speaker 8: No, I'm sorry, No, I'm gonna get them.
Speaker 6: I hope you have better luck than I did with
Speaker 6: the New York shows. Oh they sold out, like I
Speaker 6: think the server crash or something and by the time
Speaker 6: it was back up, it was sold out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So no, man, no, no, no, I want to
Speaker 1: be clear.
Speaker 8: I got online. That's why I want to go see
Speaker 8: him in Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: Oh so you don't know pros and that.
Speaker 8: Takes the fun out of it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Getting free tickets is the fun part for me.
Speaker 8: You trying to tell me sometimes you're just a fan though, right,
Speaker 8: So sometimes I was online at four because.
Speaker 1: They went on to say at ten am in every place,
Speaker 1: So I was up at four a m.
Speaker 8: On Wasiste dot org? I think.
Speaker 1: Waiste dot org get.
Speaker 8: My tickets for Radiohead for Amsterdam last May. Absolutely, But dude,
Speaker 8: sometimes you do it as a fan. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 8: a fan of music. Like, there's sometimes I'm not going
Speaker 8: to say, like I never dial in for tickets. I'm
Speaker 8: going to see Maxwell and Mary. I'm dialing in for tickets, right,
Speaker 8: But there's sometimes you just want to have the entire
Speaker 8: fan experience, and with Radiohead, you know.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 8: I do, absolutely, But.
Speaker 1: If it sells out, you're gonna call them, right.
Speaker 8: If stub Hub and everything else fails and I really
Speaker 8: want to go, then I will, but that last resort.
Speaker 1: That's last.
Speaker 8: But that's last resort because there's with them. It's just
Speaker 8: like I'm a fan, Damn.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned. I learned that Stephen Hill really
Speaker 1: is a fan.
Speaker 10: Wants to pay for it? Uh, Sugar, Steve, how you doing?
Speaker 10: I learned a lot about Stephen Hill, learned a lot
Speaker 10: about radio. I learned a lot about pet. What I
Speaker 10: found interesting was your It seems like from day one
Speaker 10: you got this charge out of breaking new artists or
Speaker 10: new songs or new music from your college radio days,
Speaker 10: and now still even up until now, it sounds like
Speaker 10: you're doing that still and still getting that same rush
Speaker 10: from it.
Speaker 1: So I found that cool and interesting. That's that amount
Speaker 1: of breath amazing. Okay, I'm gonna save Laya for last,
Speaker 1: because no, you'r DC's finest, you know, So, boss Bill? Yes,
Speaker 1: what did you learn today? Bruther?
Speaker 6: I learned about hitting the post. I didn't know there
Speaker 6: was a term for that. I did not know there's
Speaker 6: a term for that, and postmaster general, yeah, post master.
Speaker 6: So miir is going to be hearing a lot about
Speaker 6: hitting the post in the future. I can't be FedEx
Speaker 6: or no, he can't work in the mail room hitting
Speaker 6: the posts. Hitting the post.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Steve for introducing. You got another task
Speaker 1: for me to master.
Speaker 8: You got my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Gosh, all right, Layah, let's have it.
Speaker 7: You do such a build up that if I don't
Speaker 7: do something, I feel like an idiot. I was gonna say,
Speaker 7: I'm learning. I'm learning that you can leave radio and
Speaker 7: go to greater and better things. However, I'm still learning
Speaker 7: how to do that, because it's interesting. It was when
Speaker 7: you said it was a time when like people really
Speaker 7: appreciated radio, people's opinion like MTV, and those times have change.
Speaker 7: So I am learning that I am appreciating quest love.
Speaker 7: I think that that was leaving radio and transitioning to
Speaker 7: something better. That's what I meant.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, you met me as the radio show, not
Speaker 1: me as an Emir Thompson.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I learned you should never lose your passion
Speaker 7: and your spirit about radio about music in that way,
Speaker 7: because most radio people we start out that way, but
Speaker 7: you know, sometimes the business jade you a little bit,
Speaker 7: and you know you don't listen to music for a while,
Speaker 7: and that's what I've been doing. So you kind of
Speaker 7: encourage me to.
Speaker 1: Like the music.
Speaker 7: Yeah, in the music business. Then you've been hurt and
Speaker 7: fired a couple of times. As you know, you're like,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna take a break, but no, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 7: it going.
Speaker 1: I learned the importance of front selling. I learned the
Speaker 1: importance of that. Finally, finally I learned that all of
Speaker 1: my authority figures at at Pandora are relieve that I've
Speaker 1: learned those things. I've learned that this too shall pass
Speaker 1: word and we will have a prosperous New Year's and
Speaker 1: we will have a prosperous year and a prosperous decade
Speaker 1: and a prosperous life. And you know, life goes on.
Speaker 1: Life ain't over. Which is still in with all right?
Speaker 6: By Kendrick, I was gonna say, outcast, hold on, be strong,
Speaker 6: word up?
Speaker 1: Can we who are we going to throw? Just a
Speaker 1: inter wait? Do me favorite?
Speaker 4: Can you?
Speaker 1: Can you front? All right? You want me to hit
Speaker 1: try and hit the post? I want you because that
Speaker 1: one start it fades in. Okay, here we go. You're
Speaker 1: gonna front and back Celle outcast, hold On Be Strong.
Speaker 6: That'd be like one of the same thing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: you gotta by the time, minute twelve seconds, you ready?
Speaker 1: Why tell me front, tell me it's plain. It is.
Speaker 6: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, you're tuned in the Quest
Speaker 6: Love Supreme. As we wrap up this fine, fine episode
Speaker 6: with our guest Stephen Hill, tonight, we want to leave
Speaker 6: you with some uh some uplifting words from the cast
Speaker 6: about outcasts.
Speaker 1: This is hold On Be Strong on Pandora. That was
Speaker 1: out hold On Be Strong, and I'm taking over. Join
Speaker 1: us next week for another episode of Quest Supreme. Yes,
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed us. Thank you very much, Stephen Hill.
Speaker 1: This has been a black Thank you very much. Bus
Speaker 1: hold body up, hold On Be Strong, hold On Be Strong.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.