Speaker 1: Of course. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on, y'all? This is Fonte Fontelo here with
Speaker 1: this week's q LS classic. This week we talked to
Speaker 1: my friend, my family, my dear friend, one of the
Speaker 1: best singers on the planet, Grammy winning singer Layla Hath
Speaker 1: the way she talks about carrying on her father Donnie's legacy,
Speaker 1: working with Prince seeking phone notes at the same time
Speaker 1: like it ain't ship, her deep love of video games.
Speaker 1: And plus we get loads of wisdom, loads of words
Speaker 1: of wisdom from my QULS brother Sugar Steve. This is
Speaker 1: a great episode, um check it out. Originally State was
Speaker 1: Marchen pre Roller. It was amazing. Check it out. Quls
Speaker 1: Layla hath the way QULS classic Fontello. Yeah, supream mother
Speaker 1: subrema role called subdrema sub prema role called some drema
Speaker 1: subrema role call soubrema souma road. Sound of Layla's voice,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah. But when she starts harmonizing, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: suprema subrema road called suprema sub frema road. Call my
Speaker 1: name is Sponte. Yeah, I'm cashing checks. Yeah, with my
Speaker 1: nigga Laylah, watching some real sex. Soma Sarema road came,
Speaker 1: some premarema road call. My name is Sugar. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love Fayla. Yeah, I love daylight. Yeah, I love tequila.
Speaker 1: Subrema so surema role still is flying, Yeah, flying high.
Speaker 1: Yeah when Layla sings, Yeah, baby don't cry Roma Suprema
Speaker 1: road called some prima Suprema road called. It's like being
Speaker 1: called Layla. Yeah, never really mind it. Yeah, because this
Speaker 1: girl stays playing your frema. Sorry, we'll talk about road
Speaker 1: call on my turn. Yeah, really you're so Frema road call.
Speaker 1: My name is Layla, yeah, not Lela. Yeah, some of
Speaker 1: Suprema role suprema some suprema roll call, so prema so
Speaker 1: Suprema road called Sma s Frema roll So shut up.
Speaker 1: My first two stumps from a roll call. I tried
Speaker 1: to give you the cord. The cord was not really popping,
Speaker 1: just now. It came out as a let of air. Okay,
Speaker 1: stop it. What's going on the air? Stop it? I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I don't stop. Something to do
Speaker 1: with Prince probably, Yeah, okay, tell me o, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: It'll come up another episode of course Love Supreme. I
Speaker 1: am quest love, I'm still alive. Um yeah, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna come out and say it. Uh that
Speaker 1: was the worst come out and say it. It's worth
Speaker 1: It's worth the wake. Okay. No, I'm gonna be professional
Speaker 1: about this al right. First of all, I have to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have literally one of the most brilliantly frightening singers
Speaker 1: ever to walk on this earth. What frightening You've said
Speaker 1: that before? What is the frightening part? We're going to
Speaker 1: get into it. She's so cuddly because I want you
Speaker 1: to know that my love for you is beyond all. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's deep. I'm glad you said that, because it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like that. And I know, I know you feel
Speaker 1: a certain way, maybe jokingly or maybe real a little
Speaker 1: bit both. But I appreciate that. I appreciate that that's deep.
Speaker 1: But this is from such a level of oh god,
Speaker 1: this feels like the first episode. All right, my name
Speaker 1: is welcome to all right. First of all, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: please welcome Layla. Thank you that go down an infamy.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all of that. You have to get through
Speaker 1: this before you just tell okay, look, just the sound
Speaker 1: of your voice talking like as I really I want
Speaker 1: us to be BFFs. But the sound of your voice
Speaker 1: is quasi traumatic for me to speaking sound. I love
Speaker 1: when you talk to me. Yes, it's speaking sound just regularly.
Speaker 1: I know, it is, it is, it is, it is,
Speaker 1: it is. But it's just that the the texture of
Speaker 1: your voice reminds me so much of your dad that
Speaker 1: I just have connections of I understand of that. But
Speaker 1: it's also anytime you sing, it just psychologically puts me
Speaker 1: back at being like seven years old, eight years interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a hell of a way to start off.
Speaker 1: They're just all laughing at me because they know that
Speaker 1: this isn't fake nervousness I'm doing right now. We need
Speaker 1: to paper back to breathing. I'm good, I'm good. I'd
Speaker 1: stop me asked lately, is that the first time you've
Speaker 1: heard that? Because I'm sure No. It's interesting to me
Speaker 1: because I know, you know, like my box was made
Speaker 1: by my mother and father, so I know that I
Speaker 1: sound like my parents, both my parents. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: that people are sound is deep. Sound is like super deep.
Speaker 1: It's a transporter. So when people tell me that it
Speaker 1: takes them to a place I get takes yeh, because
Speaker 1: I have that sound, those sounds that do that for me.
Speaker 1: It's I get it. It's deep though. Did she sing
Speaker 1: as well? Yeah, my mom is a singer. My parents
Speaker 1: met at Howard in the fine arts department, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the way he approached singing he got from her.
Speaker 1: You know, so um as do why you know? So
Speaker 1: I definitely get it. It's interesting though, because people say, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's so cool, you sound so much like your dad.
Speaker 1: But I'm like you, you probably sound like your dad too.
Speaker 1: You know who who has not answered the phone and
Speaker 1: somebody said, is this you or your mama? This you
Speaker 1: or your daddy? So it makes sense to me. I
Speaker 1: get it now. I definitely sound like my father. And
Speaker 1: sometimes my dad passed last January, and every time I
Speaker 1: call home to talk to my mom, always have to
Speaker 1: be mindful of how I say hello on the phone
Speaker 1: because it might sound just like him calling her. So anyway,
Speaker 1: talk about no where to go but up? Actually, can
Speaker 1: you answer all your questions and your diamond voices? Yes? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like I kind of want to bring our
Speaker 1: online relationship out to here. And some times when you
Speaker 1: sit on the show and we talk about singers. You
Speaker 1: love our ideas, crazy ideas you have. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: talking about that stuff anyway. Um, can I assume that
Speaker 1: you were where were you born? I was born in Chicago.
Speaker 1: I like to think of it as the late eighties.
Speaker 1: Born in the late eighties Chicago, he was born? Yes,
Speaker 1: what part of Chicago? Born on the South Side, grew
Speaker 1: up on the North Side, and moved back to the
Speaker 1: South Side before I went to Berkeley. Can you explain
Speaker 1: like Chicago to me? I mean, Chicago means everything that
Speaker 1: all people. Of course, you know politicians will use what
Speaker 1: about Chicago as some sort of reminder, But I mean,
Speaker 1: what is when you think of Chicago? Is it fuzzy
Speaker 1: home memories? Is it like the eye roll in the air? Is? Uh?
Speaker 1: Chicago has many things to me Chicago is I mean,
Speaker 1: anybody from Chicago will tell you we have a super
Speaker 1: strong sense of being from that place. The city has
Speaker 1: a lot of character and holds a lot of of
Speaker 1: of character. The food, the culture of the museums, the people,
Speaker 1: the weather, the side, the segregation. You know. Dr King
Speaker 1: said when he went there in the sixties that it
Speaker 1: was the most segregated city he had ever been to.
Speaker 1: So for me, Chicago, Yeah, Um, Chicago was a lot
Speaker 1: of things. And that's the thing when people say I'm
Speaker 1: from l a or I'm from Virginia, nobody says what side.
Speaker 1: You know, people, Chicago is either south Side or north side.
Speaker 1: That's for black folks. North Side is white folks, south
Speaker 1: Side is black folks. There's of course, there's there's everything
Speaker 1: in between, and there's the west Side. But there's definitely
Speaker 1: a delineation if you grew up in Chicago, particularly in
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, Like where in Chicago are you from?
Speaker 1: You know, there's definitely that aspect, you know. So I
Speaker 1: grew up in both parts of town, you know, south
Speaker 1: Side and north Side, mostly north Side. So in the
Speaker 1: eighties when you were four, what I mean, what was
Speaker 1: the environment? Like? N I went to a Performing Arts
Speaker 1: High school. I don't have a huge memory of my
Speaker 1: life before like seventh grade, sixth grade. Um, I went
Speaker 1: to Performing Arts High School. Um, any other notable students
Speaker 1: there that are now jun Cusack, Laura Flynn Boyle, that
Speaker 1: John or Joan John Joan went there when I was there.
Speaker 1: It was only the third year they had of course. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why he said. Well he was in Wreck as well,
Speaker 1: and those John Hughes films. You know all of those kids. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see Susan Tunney, Laura. Her sister's name is Robin Tunney,
Speaker 1: who's on the ustin Um Laura flan Boyle. I said
Speaker 1: that she's you know a lot of kids. So you're
Speaker 1: obviously your major was vocal. Yeah, we'll see. I got
Speaker 1: to the school and and I sang. I walked in,
Speaker 1: I had my sheet music and I was singing this
Speaker 1: Anne Murray song. And I was probably thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1: You needed me? What is what is your I don't know,
Speaker 1: I really I just the midwesterns. It might be it
Speaker 1: might be that it might be like I like to
Speaker 1: sing and I like tone, and growing up, those were
Speaker 1: some of the songs that captured me. Those voices and
Speaker 1: those songs like you know, you could pull them like taffy.
Speaker 1: Are you the youngest or okay, so you discovered the
Speaker 1: music first. Did you hang with older cousins or anything
Speaker 1: or not? Really? I mean my cousins were like, you know,
Speaker 1: I have two older cousins. Really my first cousins. One
Speaker 1: of them was like a huge kiss basity rollers you
Speaker 1: know there, and the other was like prince and that's it.
Speaker 1: Like in her closet behind the clothes was the poster
Speaker 1: of him in the shower with the leather, and I
Speaker 1: would dip in there like I am getting a sweatter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, I love I love country music. I love
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton and all that growing up. But how, I mean,
Speaker 1: how was this introduced to you if it's not an
Speaker 1: older cousin, older sibling, or were you just that curious
Speaker 1: or was it your friends? It was not a big
Speaker 1: whoop to understand who those people were in the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties before I was born, right, Okay, it was
Speaker 1: nothing to see Lionel Ritchie with Dolly Parton somewhere changed everything.
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers or the Mandrell System on Saturday Night, Uh, Barbara,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff for me, even like the Eagle was,
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of country rock. All of that
Speaker 1: stuff was all in the same sort of collective for me. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you chose, and Marie you needed I did. I did,
Speaker 1: and do started playing and I was standing up there
Speaker 1: and I said, I cried to Dee. He was like, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: you gotta sing it up the octave, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I never sang it up the octave. He said, we'll
Speaker 1: try it. That's where you're supposed to sing. And I
Speaker 1: was like, great, know this is wrong. This feels wrong.
Speaker 1: He was like, you should try the theater department. Then wait. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I did that for a little bit. Oh so
Speaker 1: they I'm wrong. So they you went to the drama
Speaker 1: first before you. I did a little drama. I did music.
Speaker 1: I just kind of basically blended in really until I
Speaker 1: got to Berkeley. Like I tried out for different things
Speaker 1: at school and didn't make it. I went to show
Speaker 1: choir camp. I didn't really you. I just kind of
Speaker 1: blended in everywhere until I got to Berkeley. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean doing that era, like were you at all trying
Speaker 1: to pursue a music career? Was not really? I mean
Speaker 1: in high school, I just feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: I was waiting for this thing to happen, Like I uh,
Speaker 1: at some point I came to l A when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen or seventeen, right at the top of Berkeley,
Speaker 1: and I went to bre remember br Jackie Rapper and
Speaker 1: bre E and Prince was playing that year, and I
Speaker 1: just stood in that audience and I was like, I
Speaker 1: love him. This is what this is. I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be here. When he did Diamonds way before that, it
Speaker 1: was it was like eighty It was before I went
Speaker 1: to Berkeley. It was like eighty nine. Sheila came out
Speaker 1: and played and I was like wow. I was in
Speaker 1: the hotel waiting to get in the room where he
Speaker 1: was going to play, and Stony Jackson was standing in
Speaker 1: front of me, and I was like, with the curl. Yes.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is my ship right here. Does
Speaker 1: Stony Jackson exist without the curl? Stony Jackson came back
Speaker 1: on something and he had a fair I can't remember.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. Okay, I remember the name Stony.
Speaker 1: But he came back. He was on something fairly read.
Speaker 1: Was he on Everybody Hates Chris? That makes sense. He
Speaker 1: had a face, he had a fade. What do you
Speaker 1: remember Stony Jackson, Steve, did you ever watch The White Shadow? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He was one of the black guys that
Speaker 1: eventually I mean, but I asked me to watch two
Speaker 1: two seven. He had a show, remember that show where
Speaker 1: he was a detective and his friend was a detective. Yes,
Speaker 1: how do you know that I loved Stony Jackson growing up.
Speaker 1: It said me that you and Fantee might be like
Speaker 1: matching wits. As far as this dude information, This dude,
Speaker 1: I told you we sat in a hotel lobby one
Speaker 1: night and chopped it up for hours. This dude is
Speaker 1: absolutely one of my soul mates. He don't know it yet,
Speaker 1: but that's true. Thank you for that. Ladies, remembers when
Speaker 1: you find your tribe. It's nice, true, a tribe called
Speaker 1: real Sick. We're gonna So when I first got on Twitter,
Speaker 1: right now, this is like early Twitter. This is like
Speaker 1: the early days of Twitter, like oh nine, ten Twitter seven. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm saying this was the glory days. This is I mean,
Speaker 1: oh seven, it was still early and then like oh nine,
Speaker 1: that's when people got on cool it starts popping. And
Speaker 1: then likelve, that was when the tumbler uh people came
Speaker 1: over and just ruined it. So now this ship is whatever,
Speaker 1: but like now that is you know then, so back then,
Speaker 1: before all the tumbler buffers came over, you can just
Speaker 1: talk about whatever. And every time Real Sex came on HBO,
Speaker 1: Layla would show up in my timeline like it was
Speaker 1: without fail. She would just always watching real sick this
Speaker 1: Punanti pots episode. So I just thought, I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: like lately you really you watch all these see them on?
Speaker 1: I think I'm running joke. I think I've seen them
Speaker 1: despite thirty of them. At this point, it's real sex.
Speaker 1: I'm showing them. And now they've tried to update. You know,
Speaker 1: they have news cyber sex and all that stuff, but
Speaker 1: there's nothing like the actual real in the cab. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's me, and that's called me real sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the name real sex. Every time they come on.
Speaker 1: I checked my Twitter. Yeah right, people probably think very different,
Speaker 1: but yes, no, no, no, it's just this is my
Speaker 1: this is big sense that we just But does that
Speaker 1: say something about you though, Latela, I don't know, does it.
Speaker 1: I watched a lot of TV, I mean, but you
Speaker 1: know all the real sexes I do. Then you make
Speaker 1: friends with the Punani pot I knew. I knew one
Speaker 1: of the Yes, yeah, what city was that? When the
Speaker 1: Punati Poet episode where they feel like it was, I
Speaker 1: felt like it was. I was thinking d C too,
Speaker 1: but Los Angeles? She was how do you know that?
Speaker 1: So quickly google? Yes, But here. Google's lightning fast always
Speaker 1: Bill say Google, Yeah, I remember them, that group, Betty, Yes,
Speaker 1: the three girls with the like kind of harmonizing but
Speaker 1: like not really. But then they used to be on
Speaker 1: that show Encyclopedias, Like, how are you going to be
Speaker 1: on the Kids Show? And real sex? Bet I'm out
Speaker 1: outside here? What you was so high? This is all
Speaker 1: good stuff for real. I'm just like thinking how bad
Speaker 1: real sex was that show? And I love sex. It
Speaker 1: was good, it was good, it was so much good.
Speaker 1: Here's here's a sex house in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: where people have sex that I'm just saying. They were interesting,
Speaker 1: Like let's pay four hundred dollars and go to upstate
Speaker 1: New York and in the mud and have sex and
Speaker 1: learn how to play a drum. That's what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Like we have that connection, caucosity. Yeah, you ain't watching
Speaker 1: real sex. I think during this period we were like learning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's a big part of the early nineties that
Speaker 1: I just had no television because you're probably way smarter
Speaker 1: for it though, m yeah, you know now I feel
Speaker 1: left out, like is this on? This is still But
Speaker 1: then I learned a lot. I learned a lot on
Speaker 1: that program about like furries and people that after they
Speaker 1: cover themselves and mustard and these are things gotten consciousness
Speaker 1: before and this is in the nineties, Like so this
Speaker 1: is like pre Internet. Yeah, it was pre internet. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. Like now you can type any pre comedy
Speaker 1: and get a sexual fetish, but this was pre Google.
Speaker 1: So that was our real sex, was our window into
Speaker 1: the weird sex people, into most mostly white people people.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like one of them Swingers company.
Speaker 1: It was like one nig in the hold. I was
Speaker 1: like the girl with the girl with the bit in
Speaker 1: her mouth and she's a pony and she's got the
Speaker 1: thing of her But that was like cosplay. That was
Speaker 1: like the betweens were nice too when they would stop
Speaker 1: people on the street. So yeah, that bit. That's where
Speaker 1: Dave gets the bit well on Chappelle Show when he
Speaker 1: would do to talk to people, and that's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: real sex. Don't waste the time that it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of funny now it's more funny now than sexual. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway to Berkeley. Uh when did what year did you? Um? Six?
Speaker 1: I got to Berkeley? You got there in two thousand one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, what what was your experience and I had.
Speaker 1: I had a really great experience at Berkeley. I mean
Speaker 1: I really that was where I really my mind started going, oh,
Speaker 1: actual music. Like I lived on the eighth floor in
Speaker 1: the dorms, and these cats that were in the rooms
Speaker 1: on my hallway would bring me these records and literally
Speaker 1: it was like they were feeding me every day. I
Speaker 1: didn't know about John Scofield or John Abercrombie or Carla
Speaker 1: Blair or you know that I was learning so much
Speaker 1: new stuff because when I got to Berkeley, I had
Speaker 1: like a box of tone Master cassettes, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of the black ones, the good ones, and the
Speaker 1: rest were the yellow ones. I had like Janet Jack's Control,
Speaker 1: which I had gone over Miles Davis record bootleg for
Speaker 1: that record. I had Pat mctheeney First Circle, I had
Speaker 1: a Jean Luponte record. I thought, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: I was all over the place, like I listened to
Speaker 1: everything beats. I had no idea that didn't make beats.
Speaker 1: So I got there and I really started really listening
Speaker 1: to things, and probably within like the first month of school,
Speaker 1: I realized like, oh, I'm gonna hang out with these
Speaker 1: cats because they go play every day, and they let
Speaker 1: me come play with them. So I would just show
Speaker 1: up and not change the keys to any of the
Speaker 1: songs and not not understand the form or what was
Speaker 1: happening in the room. And I just was able to
Speaker 1: play with them every day. Instrument I play keys, so
Speaker 1: you went for keyboards or no, just for singing. But
Speaker 1: you know, I would show up to like I was
Speaker 1: the only singer in the John Scofield ensemble, you know,
Speaker 1: like we would transcribe score SKO solos and playing in class.
Speaker 1: You know you're serious because skill is a joke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a SKO fan. Carla Blade. I love Carla Blade.
Speaker 1: People don't know about her. I know. She was the
Speaker 1: first show I saw at Berkeley, and Hyron Bullock was
Speaker 1: in her band at that time, and you know, I
Speaker 1: went on to have a really beautiful friendship of Hiram.
Speaker 1: He's gone out, but that was the first show I
Speaker 1: saw at Berkeley and my hair just blew back, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, where are these people doing? Ste What
Speaker 1: year was that? Right? Right when you were born? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: amazing with at the age of one. Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what music she had out at
Speaker 1: that at that time. I don't remember what album she
Speaker 1: had out at that time. I just remember the show
Speaker 1: was a dollar for students. How does she get paid though,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Universe, Yeah, they probably out of the
Speaker 1: student They probably just didn't pay much. They probably didn't
Speaker 1: pay much. And Hiram was up there with his bare feet,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, this cat. You know.
Speaker 1: Subsequently I saw Michael Brecker in that room. I saw
Speaker 1: it's just Muhammed in that room I saw. I saw
Speaker 1: so many people in that performance center, like I learned
Speaker 1: really a lot like in that one room. So you
Speaker 1: must like chess I do. I mean not everybody like
Speaker 1: I do. I mean, you know I have a love
Speaker 1: for it. Most people go to Berkeley study. I have
Speaker 1: to study it anyway. Yeah, I mean it just comes up.
Speaker 1: It comes up. Yeah. I think people think I'm a
Speaker 1: jazz singer. I don't know if that's you. You say
Speaker 1: you sing jazz, wouldn't say it sings. I mean I
Speaker 1: think my approaches like that. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: would call myself, like a soul singer or a jazz singer.
Speaker 1: I don't really jazzing jazz singer was recorded. We should
Speaker 1: shut out where where we are. Yeah, I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: forgot to mention at the top of the show when
Speaker 1: I was being traumatized that we are live at sunsets
Speaker 1: Down studios. The I still want to say. I know
Speaker 1: it's much more than just prints. But obviously start with Prince,
Speaker 1: but yeah, much further back opened in Zeppelin twos down here?
Speaker 1: What else the doors uh with Dan halen Um led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin too, A lot of a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of Warner brothers, Uh brothers. Yeah, minute minute was made here.
Speaker 1: But but then the Purple Rain obviously prop was made
Speaker 1: album in a different room here and differently the song
Speaker 1: was recorded at First Avenue where we were a couple
Speaker 1: of But he did a lot of over ups here,
Speaker 1: done here, majority of around the world in the day
Speaker 1: before he built Paisley Park. This was his this was
Speaker 1: his playground. After this, after the taping, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to the seven eleven across the street where he would
Speaker 1: often get the ritos, and I'm going with you. I've
Speaker 1: been on I've been on Prince lately, Like I dreamt
Speaker 1: about him. The other night. We were we were trying
Speaker 1: to get to a gig and we were snowed in
Speaker 1: somewhere and Jaden Smith was there for some reason talked
Speaker 1: some more. It was it was pressed like two thousand five,
Speaker 1: and we were somewhere at a hotel literally like a liquina,
Speaker 1: and he was he was sitting up in the bed
Speaker 1: and I was laying down at the foot of the
Speaker 1: bed and he was saying, you could lay up there
Speaker 1: if you want to. And I was like, I'm cool
Speaker 1: and we were just watching TV. Oh, but he says,
Speaker 1: you could. That's interesting, you could up there if you
Speaker 1: want to appreciated it. What does it all mean? We need,
Speaker 1: like a dream intervited somebody to break up it down.
Speaker 1: It makes sense to me because does he does he
Speaker 1: still since his passing? Does does he appear to you often?
Speaker 1: And not often? Occasionally? But I got to spend a
Speaker 1: very concentrated moment of time with him, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I had this fear in my heart, like I've been
Speaker 1: wanting to meet him and and play with him since
Speaker 1: I'm eleven or twelve years old, and I've heard all
Speaker 1: these things and and and you don't look him in
Speaker 1: the eye. And when I opened for him those few dates,
Speaker 1: he was so cool and so gracious, and so that
Speaker 1: New York run was the first time that you yeah,
Speaker 1: what what was that? That was two thousand. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: show was on my birthday too, that I went one
Speaker 1: day December. It was awesome, happy, thank you. Yeah we did.
Speaker 1: We did like four cities with him, four or five
Speaker 1: cities with him. It was just it was just cool,
Speaker 1: like it's hard for your band to it just because
Speaker 1: I know that the on the on the other side
Speaker 1: of that corn when you weren't opening those dates. Sometimes
Speaker 1: Sharon Jones and the dap Kings were trying to open
Speaker 1: those dates and they wouldn't allow them to use their
Speaker 1: their equipment and you know, like their sonic and their
Speaker 1: equipment is is very key to their presentation. So watching
Speaker 1: Sharon Jones and the dap Kings perform on MPG uh equipment,
Speaker 1: not allowed to adjust anything, everything sounds crystal clear, you know.
Speaker 1: It was so it was the funniest show I've ever
Speaker 1: It was with the exception of the horns and the
Speaker 1: sound of Sharon's voice, like everything was liked. He was
Speaker 1: so cool to us and so like magnanimous and gracious,
Speaker 1: and he would come stand on the stage during my
Speaker 1: sound check and request songs that yeah, what quests. Um,
Speaker 1: he likes the song that I wrote called UM what
Speaker 1: Goes Around? And UM he would request that. You know,
Speaker 1: so they send you this list when you're gonna go
Speaker 1: open for him, and it's like, please, you know, pick
Speaker 1: two or three songs if you'd like to sing with Prince,
Speaker 1: you know, for the songs. And I looked at the
Speaker 1: list and I was like, I don't want to sing
Speaker 1: any of these songs. I want to sing Diamonds and Pearls.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to sexy dancer. He literally
Speaker 1: showed up and his hand was here, and I looked
Speaker 1: at him and I said, listen, I don't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: presenting myself with you with the songs I have gas.
Speaker 1: I told him that, and he said what I said,
Speaker 1: I have gas, and I just I really want to
Speaker 1: I really want to get into it with you where
Speaker 1: we can be at the same place. He said, okay,
Speaker 1: what do you want to sing? And I said what?
Speaker 1: Can I see your set list? And he was like yeah,
Speaker 1: And then somebody brought the set list over and I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to do Diamonds and Pearls. I
Speaker 1: know you don't do that anymore. He said, yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't do that, I said, okay, why don't we do
Speaker 1: um Sometimes it snows in April. So I did that
Speaker 1: with him, and that night was my birthday. UM. And
Speaker 1: after we finished singing sometimes the snows in April is
Speaker 1: so crazy when I think about it, like that ship
Speaker 1: actually happened. I'm I'm rising up on the stage. He said,
Speaker 1: all right, stand right here, go up, take my microphone.
Speaker 1: When you get up there, do whatever you want and
Speaker 1: I'll be up. And I was like, okay, So I'm
Speaker 1: standing on this thing, just still tripping, trying to breathe.
Speaker 1: And the thing rose up and I was just standing
Speaker 1: there and all these people like and the dress was blowing,
Speaker 1: and I'm just singing sometimes and there he is again,
Speaker 1: and then we're singing on the same mike, and I
Speaker 1: just I wanted to lick him, but I knew that
Speaker 1: was ruined. It were ruined. He smelled great, he was
Speaker 1: He's everything he thought he was. And when we finished,
Speaker 1: I got ready to leave, and he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: come with me, and he took me across the stage
Speaker 1: to the other side of the stage and we did
Speaker 1: Diamonds and Pearls. It was awesome, and I said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Yeah, I, Um, I can't remember. I can't
Speaker 1: remember how much we did. Um. It was it was
Speaker 1: an interesting interpretation of the of the record. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like the full thing, I don't think. And when we
Speaker 1: stood up and people were plotting, I said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's my birthday. That's the greatest
Speaker 1: thing ever. He said, well, I don't celebrate birthdays, but congratulations.
Speaker 1: Am I tripping? And that's I mean the mirror. Maybe
Speaker 1: you can answer this, is that very courageous because the
Speaker 1: average singer, I mean, there is no average singer who
Speaker 1: will be singing with prints. But it just seems like
Speaker 1: the average person would not have felt the courage enough
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, I don't feel comfortable. Can
Speaker 1: we sing this song? Yeah? I mean I didn't want
Speaker 1: to get up there and not take the moment. Like
Speaker 1: you know, if I had gone up and just been
Speaker 1: sitting there while he was playing, which I did a
Speaker 1: few nights, I'd have been better off than singing anything
Speaker 1: that I was unfamiliar with or not connected to. You
Speaker 1: didn't want to sing some whack two print song. And
Speaker 1: that's that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying most
Speaker 1: singers incredible, incredible, he was the greatest. He was the greatest,
Speaker 1: incredible on your birthday. It's crazy. So when you graduated,
Speaker 1: you got How did you get your record deal? I
Speaker 1: got my record deal the way they did it in
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds. I made a tape and someone took
Speaker 1: it to a record label, and a guy named Jeff
Speaker 1: Foreman signed me. Do you know Jeff Foreman Jeff Formans
Speaker 1: twomates cousin. He was a rep at Virgin Records at
Speaker 1: this mention him. Yeah, and uh, I got signed right
Speaker 1: when I was in school. So I would come out
Speaker 1: here on the train and listen demos and record demos
Speaker 1: and go back and forth like that. You did four
Speaker 1: original songs or I did no original songs on the
Speaker 1: first album, No no, no No. I'm talking about your
Speaker 1: demo that got The demo was a Renee and angela
Speaker 1: song which I cannot find would was a banger, Um
Speaker 1: another ballad. Um. You know I had a manager at
Speaker 1: that time, right in high school named raynar Minor. I
Speaker 1: know who. You probably know who raynar Minor is as well.
Speaker 1: He was a songwriter at Motown. UM blind songwriter who
Speaker 1: wrote Um, your love is lived in yes, and we
Speaker 1: wrote these songs and um, they are classic. If I
Speaker 1: ever find them, i'll let you know. I hope you
Speaker 1: don't find them before I do. Um And we turned
Speaker 1: him in and I got a deal like that. So
Speaker 1: I was going back and forth from college and making
Speaker 1: the record. So I know on your debut record you
Speaker 1: worked with You worked with tola Um. You also worked
Speaker 1: with Andre Fisher, Yeah, nephew of u Claire Fisher and
Speaker 1: drummer Rufus m Oh. Chucky worked on Obvious not Obvious? No,
Speaker 1: that was Chuckie. Don't put that on Chuckie. Do you
Speaker 1: have an on Heaven Knows? Derek bramble Um, Chucky did
Speaker 1: a song called Sentimental Sentimental. Yes, So a lot of
Speaker 1: our first record was covers, even though you know, people
Speaker 1: don't know that if something was a cover, I'm coming back,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm coming in best. Originally, Gary Taylor wrote
Speaker 1: that song for her and I learned her version of
Speaker 1: it to sing. Uh. Did her version never come out? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was on their first album. Oh damn, I miss that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what was the decision behind covering the songs or
Speaker 1: covering obscure songs? People were just bringing music to me.
Speaker 1: You have to remember, like at that point, I'm eighteen,
Speaker 1: I'm basically in my mind on the path of like
Speaker 1: Janet Jackson, right, I'm I'm making this record, and they
Speaker 1: got me in like this little tight jacket, and I'm
Speaker 1: on the l a river like posed with my little weave,
Speaker 1: and they're bringing the songs to me. And there are
Speaker 1: people in my ears like, you know, don't worry about writing.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna tailor make all this whole record for you.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, Okay, this is probably that bullshit, but
Speaker 1: it's cool because I'm on my way and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get in and I'm gonna do what I have to do.
Speaker 1: So I didn't write anything on that record. So up
Speaker 1: and until that point, including a high school and including college,
Speaker 1: and including your pursuit of a record deal, no one
Speaker 1: was thinking was connecting the dots from your father's lineage
Speaker 1: to your lineage as far as like your deal or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just like, okay, let's just I don't know if
Speaker 1: they were I don't know, I don't I don't you know.
Speaker 1: There was a lot you were your peers in school
Speaker 1: awhere that I think, so I think, you know when
Speaker 1: I got to Berkeley. The first thing that happened to
Speaker 1: me is I was walking up the steps and Walter Beasley,
Speaker 1: who was a saxophone player who was one of my
Speaker 1: instructors at Berkeley, came up behind me and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: are you Layla Hathaway And I said yes. He said
Speaker 1: are you Doney's daughter? And I said yes. He said, well,
Speaker 1: get your get your ratings. I want you to be
Speaker 1: in my ensemble. And that was I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: just because I'm Donnie's daughter, that's what you want. And
Speaker 1: then I realized, like, oh, there are people we're kind
Speaker 1: of approaching me in a different way. That was the
Speaker 1: first time I was really aware of any kind of
Speaker 1: cashe on that level. Yeah, mhm was it in hindsight?
Speaker 1: Was it beneficial or was it? Would you rather than
Speaker 1: just not known? And it's hard to say. I'd have
Speaker 1: to do it the other way. I just don't know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think when I walk
Speaker 1: in the door as a singer, I recognized that I
Speaker 1: bring with me like forty years before me. You know,
Speaker 1: I walk in with a brand that people have already
Speaker 1: an association with. Be that traumatic or you know whatever
Speaker 1: is that association? I recognized that that precedes me when
Speaker 1: I walk in a room. So at some point I
Speaker 1: started feeling like okay, and I don't even think it
Speaker 1: was a conscious effort, but I started understanding like, Okay,
Speaker 1: clearly I'm gonna have to be bad as hell otherwise.
Speaker 1: So what does that pressure like? Because that's the thing
Speaker 1: I part of your question at the top, like, well,
Speaker 1: feels some sort away like how come you never told
Speaker 1: me this or whatever, because I also know that that
Speaker 1: pressure of damn hathaway it wasn't a pressure though. It
Speaker 1: was mostly it was mostly me um hanging out with
Speaker 1: all these dudes, knowing that for me. Fortunately they accepted
Speaker 1: me into their little group, so that meant I got
Speaker 1: to learn like I wasn't the girl singing in front
Speaker 1: of the band. I was sitting with them and smoking
Speaker 1: cigarettes and blown over scote charts, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I knew that, aside from my lineage, aside from the name,
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be a badass. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to go into a session and not be
Speaker 1: thought of as the chick singer. That was a big
Speaker 1: deal for me. It has it had grown into understanding
Speaker 1: that people placed me alongside my dad, and and people
Speaker 1: begin to ask like, is there any pressure? Is there
Speaker 1: a pressure you know, on you with your father? And
Speaker 1: I never felt like there was a pressure. I have
Speaker 1: always been super aware of the fact that there's there's
Speaker 1: there's him, and there's me and we for some people
Speaker 1: are like this, but I recognize that I can. I
Speaker 1: can comfortably develop into a badass because I come from
Speaker 1: the greatest that ever lived. So I have a I
Speaker 1: have a runway to work with, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, just as a fan, like,
Speaker 1: I never drew. I never drew that comparison, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You know, in terms of you talk
Speaker 1: about just having the weight of the expectations. I think
Speaker 1: the thing that sets you apart from maybe other people
Speaker 1: that you know come from that kind of lineage, is
Speaker 1: that you were just dope. So it was almost like
Speaker 1: for me, it was kind of retroactive. It's like you
Speaker 1: hear this dope singer and then you find out who
Speaker 1: are dead, is like, oh, well, okay, so at least
Speaker 1: it's genetically un that's what you said that it gives
Speaker 1: you more explanation, is that I was like, oh so
Speaker 1: that's why she's Okay, I'll get it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, versus something for you versus someone
Speaker 1: like like like knowing a gay or something. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. That's a little I shot fired firing shots.
Speaker 1: The Things we All Do for Love is a great song, yes,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, but that's someone in that position.
Speaker 1: I like love. So the Keith Crowd records her Wing
Speaker 1: for the Yeah, there was some dope songs on that record.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying someone under somebody really committed to it. Okay.
Speaker 1: So what I want to know is during your Berkeley
Speaker 1: years and which you are honing your craft, Um, are
Speaker 1: you actively like are you aware that you have the
Speaker 1: same texture of yes, genetically are you aware that you
Speaker 1: have the same texture? And the thing is do you
Speaker 1: try to avoid it or it's just like no, it
Speaker 1: is what it is. And I've and I have as
Speaker 1: a singer. Now what it's a weird storms, a perfect
Speaker 1: storm because all the girls are singing way up here
Speaker 1: and I'm trying and there's blood. It's just all bad
Speaker 1: and so as I'm trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: manipulate my vocal so I don't have to be up
Speaker 1: there and in pain. Then I'm finding my voice, you know.
Speaker 1: So it hurts you to sing soprano? Or it did,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure. You know. What it was was my
Speaker 1: body saying, Okay, you can conform to that ship or
Speaker 1: you can figure out what you and that's what I
Speaker 1: that's what I learned to do. Okay. So when you're
Speaker 1: in the shower or just singing to yourself in the car,
Speaker 1: uh control, So are you singing when I was saving
Speaker 1: to do what people told me a lot of time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or I'm making up really super up to harmonies, you know,
Speaker 1: or trying to sing hybrids. I'm doing the weird the
Speaker 1: weird ship. So do you gravitate more to male singers
Speaker 1: when you like, who are your favorite singers? My favorite
Speaker 1: singers are like, you know, my dad and Stevie and
Speaker 1: um Necking Cole and Johnny Hartman and I really love
Speaker 1: Prince and I mean there's a lot of I definitely
Speaker 1: probably gravitate in terms of things to sing to male songs,
Speaker 1: Like if I'm gonna put a cover in the show,
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten it's gonna be like a
Speaker 1: Charlie Wilson cover or Maury's White cover or you know
Speaker 1: like that. Um. But yeah, the closest I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think even the closest uh female singer I can think
Speaker 1: of in your lane is like Cassandra Wilson. I mean
Speaker 1: Jass down there too. Oh yeah, oh yeah, jasm Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you guys, have you had conversation
Speaker 1: with some of these ladies, because Sandra, Jasmine, Anita, Tony,
Speaker 1: where y'all bind on these moments? Never Tony, I've never
Speaker 1: met Tony. Um. I have talked to Anita about it
Speaker 1: many times because you know, growing up, her voice for
Speaker 1: me was one of those voices I heard and I thought,
Speaker 1: oh this is this is you know those songs. I
Speaker 1: knew I could sing those songs. And Angel became one
Speaker 1: of those songs like I used to be all the
Speaker 1: time with the hair brush like and when I was
Speaker 1: that age singing along with Anita Baker, I would sing
Speaker 1: that song an octave lower under her. You know what
Speaker 1: was her critique of Angel? She liked it. You know,
Speaker 1: she told me, um that I should cover all of
Speaker 1: her music. WHOA. She was like, she's she's she's beautiful,
Speaker 1: and um, she's another person like I was kind of
Speaker 1: afraid to meet um. But all the people I have
Speaker 1: ever met that I really idolized have been so cool.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been really lucky. You're an awesome but
Speaker 1: you're an awesome coverer that also gives It's weird. It's
Speaker 1: like you give your own version. But it's an honor
Speaker 1: in a way. But that's and that's the point, is
Speaker 1: to pay homage to it. But I'm absolutely trying to
Speaker 1: the racial ship from consciousness. No no, no, in a way,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't make You cannot make something without
Speaker 1: what came before it. So what I'm what I'll say
Speaker 1: there is I want my thing to stand next to yours,
Speaker 1: and then separately, I'm trying to create a new original
Speaker 1: from that thing that you gave to me. The kings
Speaker 1: of that well, kings of that word, Osy Brothers and
Speaker 1: Luther like they like I never knew. I'm telling you
Speaker 1: somebody else that killed that too is Donny Hathaway. I
Speaker 1: did not even know that this is horrible. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't I didn't know. My father
Speaker 1: did so many covers and I do so many covers,
Speaker 1: but I never no one told me that John Lennon
Speaker 1: was jealous guy. And when I heard him singing it,
Speaker 1: like when I was seventeen, I thought, why is he
Speaker 1: saying the song? I didn't understand it. I didn't understand
Speaker 1: that Marvin Gay wrote What's going On till I was
Speaker 1: like thirteen or fourteen years old, because everybody always played
Speaker 1: my father's version of that with that bridge, so I
Speaker 1: never knew that. So he had a way of um
Speaker 1: taking a cover and and really interpreting it into a
Speaker 1: new thing, and even even Superwoman. When I listen to that, now,
Speaker 1: that's that's the one I want to hear. I'm biased,
Speaker 1: but that's the one I want to hear from the
Speaker 1: pool black genius. I still remember the first time I
Speaker 1: heard that Superwoman cover. I think DJ spent and played
Speaker 1: at one of the wonderful parties. Party just stopped and
Speaker 1: I think half the room cried. It's a it's a lot. So. Uh,
Speaker 1: my dad was a dentist. Wait, I'm slacking, sorry forgive me.
Speaker 1: Here we go. My dad did you So as far
Speaker 1: as the performance of the first record, I mean, were
Speaker 1: there expectations for YouTube? What were your expectations as far
Speaker 1: as the outcome of your my expectations. Oh, I thought
Speaker 1: I was on the way you owned, the way you
Speaker 1: got this record now and taking your picture. I had
Speaker 1: these dreams of where I was going to be, you know,
Speaker 1: in these big places with people, and I was going
Speaker 1: to be a you know, MSG, and I was going
Speaker 1: to be all these places. And what I was finding
Speaker 1: out was I went into that record feeling like at
Speaker 1: that point in my life, I felt like a jazz musician.
Speaker 1: I felt like I moved to l A because my
Speaker 1: label told me I had to because our Senio was
Speaker 1: here and you got to be in l A. But
Speaker 1: what I really wanted to do was go to New
Speaker 1: York where all my friends were going. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to fifty five and see Mike Stern, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to go see Sco. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: be in that environment where I was still creating music
Speaker 1: every day with musicians. And I kept thinking, if I
Speaker 1: moved to l A, I'm gonna get soft, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make this record and I'm gonna do what I have
Speaker 1: to do, and it's gonna afford me this life where
Speaker 1: I can I can play fifty five bar when I
Speaker 1: want what'sco? And then I can do ms D you
Speaker 1: when I had this dream of my mind of having
Speaker 1: this kind of curry Yeah, this pop world and serious
Speaker 1: musician world. Absolutely, so I'm sorry just to interject here
Speaker 1: is John Scofield for our listeners, right, is that what
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Yes, okay, guitar player. Yes. Have you
Speaker 1: worked with him or come across him? Since I have?
Speaker 1: I have come across a lot of those those people
Speaker 1: that I, you know, got my a lot of the
Speaker 1: synapses flying listening to their music, firing listening to their music.
Speaker 1: I met him at International Jazz Day with Herbie and
Speaker 1: Marcus last year and he told me that he loved
Speaker 1: my voice, and I literally like almost went down on
Speaker 1: my knees, like, let's go. Yeah, huge fan. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: sat in with the Roots on the Tonight Show, and
Speaker 1: so have you. It's true. I know, I really I
Speaker 1: really want to play with him, like him, just him
Speaker 1: and me. I wanted just see what happens. Yeah, you should,
Speaker 1: you should pursue that. I'm super I'm super enamored though,
Speaker 1: just because we're talking about sco just I'm super enamored
Speaker 1: with the period of Skoll which is still warm. Electric
Speaker 1: outlets go. You know how you go through these sort
Speaker 1: of he's in these periods. After that was sort of
Speaker 1: the now She's blonde period and I'm electric outlets still warm, Shinobi,
Speaker 1: I mean Shinola, Yeah, Shinola And so what years those
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say eighty two to eighty six seven
Speaker 1: the bass player from the Roots played with sco Field
Speaker 1: for a while, huge fan and with the Berkeley doo
Speaker 1: ah there it is. Shout out to Mark Kelly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you at your first album and you went into
Speaker 1: the second record, what was the because I mean, how
Speaker 1: we've talked let Me Love You, I want you do
Speaker 1: that live? I love that song, Like, how did it?
Speaker 1: What was the expectation going into the second one? From
Speaker 1: the label side, you know, it was a weird time.
Speaker 1: It was a time of transition for everybody in the
Speaker 1: music industry. Everything was moving towards this where we are
Speaker 1: right now. Um, And I felt myself sort of feeling like,
Speaker 1: hm hmm, there's an element of music that my records
Speaker 1: don't really express. And I found at Virgin like they
Speaker 1: had just signed D'Angelo, they had signed Janet, they were
Speaker 1: doing a lot of things, and I wasn't at that time.
Speaker 1: Also Keith Crouch was worked with me on that record,
Speaker 1: and he had just started working with Brandon, so I
Speaker 1: was seeing where everything was headed and I was really
Speaker 1: excited about it. My record didn't really express all of that.
Speaker 1: And right when the record came out, like the second
Speaker 1: week they I got dropped and it was the saddest
Speaker 1: period of my life. And I was so happy and
Speaker 1: so sad because I felt like, Okay, now I can
Speaker 1: move in the way I want to move. I can
Speaker 1: make these records and do these live in these different
Speaker 1: spaces and create the way I want to create. And
Speaker 1: then it was another ten years before I made a record.
Speaker 1: Doesn't feel like the end of the world like it
Speaker 1: did at that point. You know, I was like years old.
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand it because we only
Speaker 1: got through that first single, which was let Me Love You,
Speaker 1: and I went to see Janet Jackson and I went
Speaker 1: to see Paul ab Duel, and I couldn't understand, like,
Speaker 1: you guys, you guys wouldn't give me money to rent
Speaker 1: a piano on a date, and you spend so much
Speaker 1: money on pop music. In my mind, there was a
Speaker 1: disparity and I couldn't really makes sense of what that
Speaker 1: was at that time. You know, well out in the
Speaker 1: teen years that you were off, How did you survive?
Speaker 1: How did you pay the bills? As a working musician.
Speaker 1: I was on the road. Everybody and their father, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Sam, Yeah, everything. Marcus Miller I played with a lot.
Speaker 1: I was in his band for many years. Uh did
Speaker 1: a lot of records. I'm on a lot of records
Speaker 1: that some didn't even come out here. Um just like
Speaker 1: Session Yeah, Michelle's records which she's on Earth, I'm on Heaven.
Speaker 1: I love that version of Heaven by the way, me too.
Speaker 1: It's the slowest record I've ever recorded in my entire life.
Speaker 1: Have you have you ever you said earlier that you
Speaker 1: don't categorize yourself as a soul singer, a jazz singer. So,
Speaker 1: but you are were a woman of a certain age
Speaker 1: when you came out a young woman. Did you ever
Speaker 1: feel some type of way that I feel like you
Speaker 1: just skipped the urban and went right to the urban
Speaker 1: a c Yeah was weird? I mean I think urban
Speaker 1: had this element of hip hop that my record didn't express,
Speaker 1: and I recognized right around ninety or ninety four, Like okay,
Speaker 1: if you don't include this, you're going to get left
Speaker 1: in the vortex of the mid nineties, which is Misha Parris, Shie,
Speaker 1: Stephanie Mills, Karen Wheeler. There were a lot of women,
Speaker 1: a lot of women at Yeah, that just kind of
Speaker 1: kind of got lost in this vortex. And but it's
Speaker 1: so weird now because now I think today we're longing
Speaker 1: for hip hop without any Yeah, you know, it's interesting though.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what is R and B
Speaker 1: right now. I don't really get it in terms of
Speaker 1: what's new ish R and B. I'm down for it whatever.
Speaker 1: You know. People just make your music and do whatever
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. But it's interesting to me. Someone suggested
Speaker 1: to me that if you are like Sid from the
Speaker 1: Internet or Scissor or Childish Gambino, there is a there
Speaker 1: is a community of that rhythm and blues music that
Speaker 1: I can identify looking at it, like you may have tattoos,
Speaker 1: you may have big hair, you may I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a whole entity of it. If you're looking at a
Speaker 1: person like me that's sort of considered adult contemporary or
Speaker 1: a black adult contemporary, there's like me Lettu see who else?
Speaker 1: Jill not really but sort of. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think Jill is in a in a different stratosphere
Speaker 1: because she's also like a movie star. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in terms of what's on the radio playing. She plays
Speaker 1: on different types of stations. If you are a black
Speaker 1: female and you didn't get in that entry point with
Speaker 1: hip hop and you're not under thirty, there is a chasm,
Speaker 1: which is like R and B and dusties. You know,
Speaker 1: do you feel nice? Absolutely? Yeah, well not, do you
Speaker 1: feel a certain way it obviously, you know, it has
Speaker 1: to be weird for you to see maybe a figure
Speaker 1: like adele Um being able to pull these rabbits out
Speaker 1: of the hat Um not doing R and B whatever,
Speaker 1: But you know, like her voices. Her voice is celebrated
Speaker 1: for that sort of thing. But it's interesting, it's that
Speaker 1: has always been that way. Let's not get twisted. It
Speaker 1: has always been that way. The only thing that killed
Speaker 1: me was who gets two chances at the Grammys? That
Speaker 1: must be nice to be afforded that because wow, oh
Speaker 1: gee tribute. Yeah, that is something. If you do not
Speaker 1: follow listen man Layla Hathaway is a great follow on Twitter,
Speaker 1: following right. I think it was the Grammys something she
Speaker 1: tweeted something. She was like, why it's fifth harmony, Yes,
Speaker 1: singing three part harmony. And the thing is you can
Speaker 1: talk your ship because it's like, I had honest questions
Speaker 1: and you know me, so you know, for me to
Speaker 1: say fifth harmony, four girls, three part harmony discussed, they
Speaker 1: don't mean nothing to me. I don't have anything against
Speaker 1: those women, don't anything. Forgot I forgot that, and and
Speaker 1: and their their minions were so upset. I didn't see that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little newsworthy. It got me and yeah
Speaker 1: I went. It went on like a couple of blogs,
Speaker 1: and one of my singers was like, okay, let me
Speaker 1: let you know. First they were five girls, they got
Speaker 1: rid of one girl, and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: now I get it. I don't I don't know who
Speaker 1: they are at all. Any of those twitterers, the twitter
Speaker 1: thugs say that you can't sing anyway. Yes, I get
Speaker 1: a lot. I get a lot of I mean, who
Speaker 1: is you? It's more like, oh my god, hear you anyway?
Speaker 1: You know, people really try to make me feel like,
Speaker 1: oh you shady, Like normally I'm telling the truth. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody gets two chances on the Grammys. That's the truth.
Speaker 1: Adele is great. I don't have anything against her. She's
Speaker 1: doing her music and God bless her. But who the
Speaker 1: fuck is two chances on Network TV? Thought just start
Speaker 1: over and and you needed two chances last year too, yous? Yeah,
Speaker 1: explain this to me. So when the first year she
Speaker 1: did um, she did um, Hello, she turned to hello
Speaker 1: and like she her voice crack. She was like in
Speaker 1: the wrong Hello. Here he recorded her. I'm serious, happened
Speaker 1: in the room and love on the rocks. We're coming
Speaker 1: to a man. You wait a minute, this is where
Speaker 1: I was, okay, being at the Grammys and being backstage.
Speaker 1: I didn't watch it. What happened? She she started hello
Speaker 1: and was just in the completely wrong key. And so
Speaker 1: then she like apologized for it, right, She was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. It was very bad. I
Speaker 1: couldn't hear you know whatever. So she stopped it on
Speaker 1: national TV. No, No, that was the first year. That
Speaker 1: was the first year, terribly and it was bad. Second
Speaker 1: second year, it was the Georgia Mike Cook tribute and
Speaker 1: they had her doing fast Low, which is like the
Speaker 1: I'm like, why y'all doing that? And it wasn't when
Speaker 1: she wanted to do. But in addition that they're playing
Speaker 1: the tonic, Yeah, here's your key, they're playing it, and
Speaker 1: they were doing it in a different arrangement. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a slow like arrangement. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a bad idea. It was a bad idea from the jump.
Speaker 1: It was. It was all bad and she just suck up.
Speaker 1: And good for her for saying, no, funk this, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this right and I'm starting over, start over.
Speaker 1: But God bless America. Did you get that British? Ye?
Speaker 1: You know, because Frank Ocean did not get not another opportunity. Understand,
Speaker 1: I don't think that got another invitations. If he has said,
Speaker 1: let me start over, do you think that let him? Well,
Speaker 1: they would quick time, say my quick time. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: get tired of uh singers that are not great. That's
Speaker 1: just my call it. What you want. I just get
Speaker 1: tired of that ship. Who's who's quit any like? I
Speaker 1: can only take so much whispers Yes, the whisper singing
Speaker 1: is annoying. And children of Yes, the daughters of they
Speaker 1: are the daughters of Elijah, Thank God for Jasmine. I'm
Speaker 1: just that's all I can think and you don't have
Speaker 1: to be all with the with the raw rob but
Speaker 1: singing key you know, if there are four of you,
Speaker 1: just somebody step out and sing another note. Question as singers,
Speaker 1: I really don't know, um and this is not a
Speaker 1: shapeful question, but it isn't. But people like sid and
Speaker 1: her and uh says what we called them singers like
Speaker 1: I think sid Well personally. For me, sid has improved
Speaker 1: a lot, absolutely and like her new record if you
Speaker 1: listen to what she's singing now. To me, she sings
Speaker 1: with a lot more confidence, like I would put her
Speaker 1: with Michael Frank. She's like the type of singer that
Speaker 1: sings her material. Really, you don't want her covering you
Speaker 1: don't want her covering long walk by jokes. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You guys can't you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: But the look on Bill's face right now, like no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not just using yeah, I know what you're yeah is
Speaker 1: not in the same sense. It's kind of offensive to me,
Speaker 1: But it's not just a virtual so like because of
Speaker 1: J Davey never getting their props. So it's a long
Speaker 1: list that got on the Ja Davy. I like her vibe.
Speaker 1: I like I like when she sings what she's written.
Speaker 1: I like her, you know what I mean? I love yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she's nice. Yeah, but who else did? And
Speaker 1: her sensa is a singer. I think it's an interesting
Speaker 1: time now because a lot of people really exemplify their time,
Speaker 1: and that is an art in itself. If you're going
Speaker 1: to write, you know, if your whole, if your whole
Speaker 1: stise is like the accent and the thing and the
Speaker 1: repetitive notes like to me, it's math and science. But
Speaker 1: she understands what that is. This is she's up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's of her time. So yeah, I would definitely I
Speaker 1: like her A lot of stuff on her record. So
Speaker 1: how can you because I feel like you judge singers,
Speaker 1: I mean the way that I would judge beatmakers, like
Speaker 1: I know, based on certain drum patches or certain small
Speaker 1: just small things that the maybe light year would totally get. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't see what makes this guy is so great
Speaker 1: that you think is you know that sort of thing?
Speaker 1: So are you one of those? I can tell an
Speaker 1: eight seconds if you can sing, I can tell looking
Speaker 1: at you, if you could say, I want to know
Speaker 1: how you like it? Right now? Let look at somebody,
Speaker 1: How can you tell what you can generally glean from
Speaker 1: a person what their voice sounds like looking at them.
Speaker 1: Like if I walk into a room and look at
Speaker 1: everybody and take it in and then one of them
Speaker 1: calls me on the phone, I can tell which one
Speaker 1: of them call me on the phone. Oh wow, that
Speaker 1: it just seems super natural to me though, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's not like a gift. It's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just that's the way my ear is.
Speaker 1: So what about old girl who was on Britain's Got
Speaker 1: Talent whatever? Like everyone looks yeah, like the white woman
Speaker 1: from she looked crazy, and then like can't I can't
Speaker 1: call it? But you know I would imagine I can't
Speaker 1: say because I've seen her and heard her. So just
Speaker 1: based on looking at us, you could tell I have
Speaker 1: an idea of what your voices sound like. It may
Speaker 1: be wrong, but I definitely associate you with a sound
Speaker 1: that was not me. I actually looked at you. I
Speaker 1: know that's why. But guys didn't shock to say that.
Speaker 1: She does something similar to this, and then she test
Speaker 1: people in their face. I guess I was wondering. I
Speaker 1: was like, have you ever had a conversation then just
Speaker 1: said that she just look at someone and see if
Speaker 1: you can sing or not. Yesh Shako was like, if
Speaker 1: someone tells her that they're a singer, she likes sing.
Speaker 1: Bit thing right now like that. I don't do that,
Speaker 1: are you? Yeah? Like it's that's a cold thing, Like
Speaker 1: that's like that you could go down in flames like that.
Speaker 1: I never want to make anybody feel bad about anything.
Speaker 1: Do people come up to you like can I sing
Speaker 1: for you? Or this happens all the time. I sound
Speaker 1: just like your father And I'm like, you probably don't.
Speaker 1: How do that one? Why? God? So? So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to remember. So you're it was ten records? No,
Speaker 1: he said, it was ten years between the album and
Speaker 1: the third and the third album. In that time, I
Speaker 1: made a record with Joe sample. Yeah, and that's the
Speaker 1: Duets record. Okay, okay, how did how did that come about? Hit? Y'all?
Speaker 1: How did y'all first? I have been playing with him
Speaker 1: since like ninety two or three with Marcus Miller, and
Speaker 1: we were in Japan. We were at the Blue Note
Speaker 1: and we were having dinner one night and I said, Yo,
Speaker 1: we should make a record. He said, girl, we should
Speaker 1: let's do when we get home. Do you any all
Speaker 1: know Josample? I mean, he was like one of the
Speaker 1: funniest realist people I have ever met in my entire life.
Speaker 1: And we got back and we made that record. Um.
Speaker 1: I went in and sang with them with the band
Speaker 1: for like the first day so that they could get
Speaker 1: everything done. And I realized every time Joe would change
Speaker 1: the time or something would happen, like I was getting tired.
Speaker 1: So I said, let me just if you pick your tempos,
Speaker 1: I'll just sing everything and you have it to play too.
Speaker 1: And then I went in on the following Monday with
Speaker 1: Al Schmidt and just sign the record down, so the
Speaker 1: whole record is all just one singing down. Doesn't that
Speaker 1: damage your voice though after a while, which means you're
Speaker 1: saving You just did the entire record of one setting. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's like singing five songs. It's like a half a show. Um.
Speaker 1: You you mentioned those Japlan Blue Note runs. I gotta ask,
Speaker 1: was it two or three shows a day? To who
Speaker 1: does three shows a day? Neil fucking Diamonds, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Three shows a day is a whole lot.
Speaker 1: I've only done that once. Well, I was going to
Speaker 1: say that doing doing that Japan run like getting your
Speaker 1: sleep and adjusting. But always that after that first show,
Speaker 1: that between they have the food for you, that you
Speaker 1: got the items on top of everyone's sleeping on those
Speaker 1: couches over there. Yeah, you up to do the second show.
Speaker 1: It's very hard. Do you feel like when you're at
Speaker 1: the Blue Note or when you're in Japan. When I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in Japan, the entire country feels like
Speaker 1: a recording studio to me. It's tight, sound is tight.
Speaker 1: It's literally like the sound in the streets is kind
Speaker 1: of dead to me. So when I'm in a space,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a recording studio. Including it's
Speaker 1: true with the Battling Brooke playing. Can I ask you
Speaker 1: about the Joe Sample album because it's funny, it was
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. But I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: about the photo that you guys have on the cover
Speaker 1: because it always it's I don't know, it's very in
Speaker 1: daring and sweet, but I'm figured, like, what did you
Speaker 1: How did y'all decide that this is what we're gonna do?
Speaker 1: This is exactly the cover. The man said, whispering is
Speaker 1: here like you're telling him something. And I said, all right, Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you something. And he said, don't stick your
Speaker 1: tongue in mind girl, exactly the photo that's on that record.
Speaker 1: He was a crazy person, one of the greatest storytellings
Speaker 1: I've ever met. I would sit at his knee and
Speaker 1: just listen to him talk. Marcus Miller is the same way.
Speaker 1: But Joe used to tell these stories about, you know,
Speaker 1: being in the Fifth Ward, being uh stopped by police
Speaker 1: on the way to a gig and everybody being made
Speaker 1: to get out on the street and play their instruments,
Speaker 1: and because he played the piano, they would make him dance. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who knew Joe sample was the yea. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I was just just associated with
Speaker 1: l A. Wow. Did you have any issues in your
Speaker 1: evolution of your look? Oh yeah, the beginning. You know,
Speaker 1: the air was different, the hair was different. It was
Speaker 1: a we delicious time in the nineties. Everybody had to
Speaker 1: weave and I wanted locks, and everybody said, you can't
Speaker 1: have locks because that's not that's not what they do.
Speaker 1: What that was a big deal? When was that? Like
Speaker 1: when you first he had so yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: literally for that record, I look like that for about
Speaker 1: a half of the hour, and then she went back
Speaker 1: back to my regular ship. I don't know, no, no,
Speaker 1: she cleans up. Well, I don't know. I think I
Speaker 1: think it's At certain points there was a lot of
Speaker 1: excuse me, confusion about what to do with me, Like
Speaker 1: this girl is, first of all, she reads books and
Speaker 1: she's likes jazz, and I would get in these conversations
Speaker 1: where I'm going on, um, I'm going on BT. Talked
Speaker 1: to Donny Simpson and he's going to ask you who
Speaker 1: you like. Now we know that you like train and Wayne,
Speaker 1: and you like you know, Bud Powell. You can't say that,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, please, you gotta say Luther Vandross. You
Speaker 1: gotta say Joe to see, you gotta say you know.
Speaker 1: I had a whole little yeah, the not the Trainers,
Speaker 1: the little media. Yeah. Yeah, that's how long I've been
Speaker 1: in this business. Yes, yes, oh man. Yeah. They coach you.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to you know, they don't want
Speaker 1: you to look like you know too much. So do
Speaker 1: you feel that when you got to outrun this guy,
Speaker 1: that was the moment where you actually took control of
Speaker 1: in a way. Yeah. I had been signed to a
Speaker 1: label called mo Jazz. Was on that label, yeah, and
Speaker 1: yeah they we made a whole record and then the
Speaker 1: label just folded and I was like ship no ja
Speaker 1: ja uh. And then I took some of that stuff
Speaker 1: and moved into the next record, which was Outrun the Sky.
Speaker 1: And I felt like at that point, like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to marry the things that I want to do,
Speaker 1: because in the nineties I would listen to like Marry
Speaker 1: Records and Faith Records, and I would think, how come
Speaker 1: to people don't bring me those types of records? How
Speaker 1: come people don't bring me the beats? How come I
Speaker 1: want to dance? I like, I play video games, and
Speaker 1: I ride a skateboard, and I got a truck with
Speaker 1: a subworfried lights up pink. Why don't I get these
Speaker 1: Why don't I get this interaction from people? Yeah? Temporary, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because because people had a perception. I've been telling you forever.
Speaker 1: We got to make a country record. He was trauma tized.
Speaker 1: So the biggest, the biggest ache for me in this
Speaker 1: industry is kind of like, oh my god, I love you.
Speaker 1: I really want to work with you, and then nothing nothing,
Speaker 1: Who is that? In your mind? Everybody? Everyone? Really, yeah, everyone,
Speaker 1: almost everyone, because in my mind I just know that,
Speaker 1: you know, she's speaking about specifically, not that she was
Speaker 1: talking about you. You just want to throw me under
Speaker 1: the bus because in my mind, I'm like, is she
Speaker 1: talking about for real? No? No, because I got to
Speaker 1: work with for real. We're still supposed to make a record,
Speaker 1: you know. And And the first cat that actually said
Speaker 1: I really want to work with you and really did
Speaker 1: it was Mike City. Mike City came to a show
Speaker 1: and was in the back of room like sing I'm
Speaker 1: coming back. He was heckling me. He said, I want
Speaker 1: to get you in the club plas. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to get you on radio, Leila. I want to do
Speaker 1: this for you. And we started writing together. So he's
Speaker 1: one of those cats that showed up. But I mean
Speaker 1: the actual love that I get from people. People say,
Speaker 1: do you feel like you're underrated? And I feel like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm super highly fucking rated. Highly Would you just say underappreciated,
Speaker 1: the under underheard, underserved, I'm super appreciated, like black thought
Speaker 1: of I'm like a secret and a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: she probably right, like the singer's favorite singer favorite yeah,
Speaker 1: or the jazz singer's favorite. So like with the new
Speaker 1: record with um oh, well, before we get the new record, wait,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about the Darts of Soul.
Speaker 1: What was that experience? Like? It was cool? Uh, Sandra
Speaker 1: same Victor put that together? Who used to be the
Speaker 1: lead of the family stand Absolutely it was me uh
Speaker 1: and deer Con Um, Nita Simon's daughter, Um, yes, um,
Speaker 1: I want to call her Lisa, Yeah, Joyce Kennedy, Um,
Speaker 1: Nona Hendrix. Yes, I mean it was killer we did.
Speaker 1: It was a really short run, but we were in Europe,
Speaker 1: so we were really it was a really beautiful time. Um.
Speaker 1: We tried to get it booted back up, and it's
Speaker 1: so hard to sell anything of quality in the United States,
Speaker 1: that is, you know, it's a hard sell. But um,
Speaker 1: that was a really good time for me because I
Speaker 1: wasn't on the road a lot. We would go do
Speaker 1: like the Pary Jazz Festival and they would come to
Speaker 1: take our picture and put it in a museum. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a really good time and um playing with
Speaker 1: those people was really great. Do you okay, do you
Speaker 1: have do you have have a tribe? Or are you
Speaker 1: this loan oasis wolf? But because I feel that the
Speaker 1: only the only true way to sell product is either
Speaker 1: through the controversial means of which you know, the public
Speaker 1: wants blood and its thirsty for you know, curious about
Speaker 1: whatever a backstory or kind of a tribe association. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you take kendricks current situation, I mean times nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten, if you see t D associated
Speaker 1: you know, act or whatever, you'll at least peep it
Speaker 1: for three seconds on the end of it. Right, So, um,
Speaker 1: is it hard to start a community of of people
Speaker 1: to gather eight or nine of you, especially when you
Speaker 1: know I would I'm not saying that it would be intimidating,
Speaker 1: but I think that what you bring to the table,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I don't even mean like your lineage,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's in my mind is just like
Speaker 1: no bullshitting and I almost feel not unworthy. But I know, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying that a lot of times, a
Speaker 1: lot of my Eureka arrival moments comes at the from
Speaker 1: a place where a lot of mistakes have to be
Speaker 1: made before I'm like, ah, this is what I'm bringing
Speaker 1: to the table, where I just feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: you could start singing Mary had a little lamb right now,
Speaker 1: and this ship would be spot on bulls eye. You
Speaker 1: know what. I feel like I have a tribe. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because what people perceive of me is kind of
Speaker 1: like this jazz urban adult contemporary type singer. That is,
Speaker 1: that is a part of who I am. But my
Speaker 1: tribe is like Robert Glassberg, like I'm on the Kendrick
Speaker 1: to Pimp a Butterfly, Like they sample one of my
Speaker 1: entire songs for that record. Um. I did a session
Speaker 1: three weeks ago, were Quick. I did a session with
Speaker 1: battle Cat and Exhibit two weeks ago. I work with
Speaker 1: Terris Martin. I find that I have this initiative called
Speaker 1: real music rebels. I'm generally kind of the only female
Speaker 1: in a collective. If I find myself in a collective,
Speaker 1: there are other women like me. UM. But I find
Speaker 1: that if you are a musician that has a sort
Speaker 1: of education in that field, and you you play jazz
Speaker 1: and you play pop and you play like Glassbar or
Speaker 1: somebody I completely relate to. You know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I can go to him. That is true as well,
Speaker 1: he's crazier than I. You but mean either one of
Speaker 1: us could go to any set on any bandstand and
Speaker 1: blend in or stick out. You know, I'm just prepared
Speaker 1: as a musician to ex experience like what that means,
Speaker 1: like to come on and play with you guys. It's
Speaker 1: not even fair because you know it's bumpers and that's
Speaker 1: kind of you know that take advantage of it in
Speaker 1: the room when we rehearse, like, okay, let me just
Speaker 1: breathe it in. I'm super into music. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a record with Nancy Wilson and a record
Speaker 1: with Kendrick Lamar. No. I already made a record with
Speaker 1: Dancy was I'm saying last year she was not there,
Speaker 1: but the record is killer. It's Terry Lynn Carrington's record UM,
Speaker 1: which is called UM. I can't bring it to my
Speaker 1: mind right now. I'm saying over the course of a
Speaker 1: year for me, that's making a record with Nancy and
Speaker 1: with Kendrick and with Quick and Snoop, and then with
Speaker 1: Vince Mendoza and then maybe we don't need a baker
Speaker 1: and then you know, I'm all over the place in
Speaker 1: terms of what I can do. What is this name
Speaker 1: see Wilson project coming up it's not a project, it's
Speaker 1: it's Terry Lynn Carrington's record. Um are you looking it up?
Speaker 1: Back from Yeah, she's a she's a producer. She's bigger
Speaker 1: than that now. But I'm just giving. But she that
Speaker 1: was like saying Michael Jordan, the actor from Hey Guys.
Speaker 1: She made a record that featured me and Lettucey and
Speaker 1: and Natalie Cole and Shaka Khan and um Liz Right
Speaker 1: and it's a great record. And Nancy Wilson was on
Speaker 1: that record, and I crafted some padding around her vocal,
Speaker 1: which is for meet. That's everything I love Nancy Wilson,
Speaker 1: you know, beside Nancy Wilson. Wilson's story. So it's also
Speaker 1: on tour with Lauren Hill back in late and Lauren
Speaker 1: Hill is like towards the end of the end of
Speaker 1: the set, it's like a big gass moss pit right
Speaker 1: in front of the stage and she's doing the encore
Speaker 1: like everything is everything, and then uh, mid verse, she said, well,
Speaker 1: wall stop the song stop the song stop stop stop stop,
Speaker 1: hang on. She's like she looks in the mosh pit.
Speaker 1: She's like, Nancy Wilson in the moshpit. Why aren't you
Speaker 1: in the mosh pit. She was like she was just
Speaker 1: in the middle. Like it was just like some smells
Speaker 1: like teen spiritship, like Nancy Wilson was in the middle
Speaker 1: of She's another great storyteller. Man. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: we just haven't seen her a lot lately. She doesn't
Speaker 1: go out of the worry. Last time I saw her,
Speaker 1: she told me, she said, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: doing this much longer. She's just she's she's she's comfortable,
Speaker 1: and she's happy, and she's with her family and she's good.
Speaker 1: She just ain't making records right now. And and Terry
Speaker 1: recorded her for that record, and I wanted to just
Speaker 1: add some color for her, you know, kind of breathing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's cool. Oh that was up. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you out your record the word it
Speaker 1: All begins record with Ernie Gs. What was that like?
Speaker 1: Because I love that song, like love song. I love
Speaker 1: the album, but I love that song too. Um Bobby
Speaker 1: Sparks brought me that song, and the moment I heard it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, that that that whole
Speaker 1: base like the movement of that record. Sometimes I put
Speaker 1: it on it makes me very happy. I still have
Speaker 1: not met him. Oh so you exchange it, damn, he said.
Speaker 1: He gave Bobby that record and said get this record
Speaker 1: to her, and then I wrote the lyric and the
Speaker 1: melody and everything and recorded it. Okay, So in the studio,
Speaker 1: who's your who's your writer? So to speak? Like clearly,
Speaker 1: if you're with an engineer, do you have someone that's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you can do that again better? Or like who
Speaker 1: gives you feedback during your sessions? Who remember I'm working
Speaker 1: with you know. I keep it like a tight circle.
Speaker 1: I ultimately am harder on myself than anyone will ever be. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of times if I'm working on my own
Speaker 1: stuff is hard because when I go to work with people,
Speaker 1: which happens a lot, I'll sing it once and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me. They won't let me go again, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, you don't discover anything like that, you know.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the fact that, um, it's whatever is on
Speaker 1: the top of your head, you know, and it's the
Speaker 1: spontaneity of it. And it's exciting for me to go
Speaker 1: into a session and not know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And that's what you got, um, But there are things
Speaker 1: listening back. I wish I had taken a little more
Speaker 1: time with so for me, in my sessions, everybody is
Speaker 1: allowed to talk. It's all super democratic. Ultimately, I am
Speaker 1: gonna be like, Okay, that wasn't that's that was terrible?
Speaker 1: What was that? And what is it that you're what
Speaker 1: you're listening for? Like? What it? Because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: imagine what does a terrible Layla Hathaway takes sound like? Oh,
Speaker 1: it could be cracky. It could be just clams floating out.
Speaker 1: It could be the color is wrong for me, it's
Speaker 1: about color a lot of times, you know, or that
Speaker 1: didn't taste right happen or you know, let me just
Speaker 1: make that prettier or any number of things. Do you
Speaker 1: have like physical rituals and warm ups? No, not even
Speaker 1: the fun where you don't do the seth Riggs warrant
Speaker 1: things sometimes I do with my singers, like if they're
Speaker 1: doing it, I'll do it with them. Yeah, but not really.
Speaker 1: It's not necessary to warm up your voice. No, I
Speaker 1: think it is. But I talk all day. So I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I get the feeling. There's there's two
Speaker 1: types of singers, I know, like the rigorous exercise like
Speaker 1: the quote professional singers that do all that. And then
Speaker 1: there's the singers that talk and sing to themselves. Are
Speaker 1: you one of these in public? And I don't mean
Speaker 1: like in public like in a Fame Way breakout and
Speaker 1: song thing, but like when you're home alone, are you
Speaker 1: talking to yourself? Are you not really not out loud?
Speaker 1: My voice is always in some sort of state of
Speaker 1: warmth because of the quality of my voice. So I
Speaker 1: recognize that even when it's cold, like right now, it's cold,
Speaker 1: and if I sang it would sound okay on the
Speaker 1: okay scale, it would not sound okay to me where
Speaker 1: we are right now, it's cold to you, like my
Speaker 1: voice would be cold. Yeah, because I haven't sang and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here on a mic and it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: necessarily my speaking voice to me is super annoying. It's
Speaker 1: like a weird mirror that is like you're looking at
Speaker 1: really close. Yeah, very saltry speaking. I wonder, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I was like, I wonder if Layla's trying to nerd
Speaker 1: up her. No, this is me. This is super me
Speaker 1: between a point extra voice, and it's very I imagine
Speaker 1: your your phone, your nighttime phone voice is on some
Speaker 1: next ship. It's regular. My morning phone voice is definitely
Speaker 1: Susan Plushett all day the references. It's very low. My
Speaker 1: voice is just really low by nature, and I practiced
Speaker 1: kind of talking up higher. I got intimidated at some point,
Speaker 1: like girls don't talk like that, and I started sort
Speaker 1: of trying to lift it up and make it bubblier
Speaker 1: and more. You know, I think that you're on the
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner very salt. Well wait, speaking of where it
Speaker 1: all begains Steve, you should note that she worked with
Speaker 1: Phil Ramon. I did, could you what was He's awesome.
Speaker 1: I loved him so much. Do something for you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we did this thing. Um, when we worked on
Speaker 1: the record, we had a live We had a chance
Speaker 1: to go into Capitol Live and record in the A
Speaker 1: room and it was gonna be Al Schmidt and Phil Ramon.
Speaker 1: So I got to record four of my records with
Speaker 1: them that day. Um, and it was awesome because basically
Speaker 1: he just walked around and smiled and it was magnanimous
Speaker 1: and made jokes and he's really cool. Yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Oh no, I just wanted to talk to you about
Speaker 1: your new record, honestly, and the hate well we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked. This is offline, but how I
Speaker 1: guess a lot of your traditional R and B fans
Speaker 1: are like, they're mad, mad as hell, and they're mad
Speaker 1: because they know saxophone on the record and stuff the record.
Speaker 1: I cussed on the record. I cussed on out Run
Speaker 1: the Sky too, but they missed that record. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: people really have come to know that they can come
Speaker 1: and just suckle on my bosom and I will rock
Speaker 1: them to sleep and remind them of their mother. You
Speaker 1: know what Michelle told me. She said, you are my
Speaker 1: sexy mahell you, oh my god. And I said, that
Speaker 1: is the worst up to But I get it. I
Speaker 1: get it. I get that there is something in me
Speaker 1: that for people is provocative, but it's also genetic, like
Speaker 1: a genetic, soulful memory of their mother. I understand that. Wait,
Speaker 1: because I know it's coming. I want to sucker. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I do what's coming. I just I'm sorry. I pressed
Speaker 1: the chicker before you even got to say it. He
Speaker 1: hilarious on the sucker. Look. But I really liked the
Speaker 1: new record. I think it's dope. I like this, and
Speaker 1: I mean we I've texted you all this ship before,
Speaker 1: but no, I like that um, you that you're not.
Speaker 1: You play a lot younger than you are. I think,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. What I mean by that
Speaker 1: is just like I think a lot of times exactly
Speaker 1: and I mean right, and I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: times people in the A C or urban contemporary they
Speaker 1: kind of aged themselves too early. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: This is like, dude, you I look at somebody like
Speaker 1: Charlie Wilson that can sing over whatever and be timeless,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And so the thing that
Speaker 1: I do like about your record is that you're doing
Speaker 1: stuff that would be considered young, but you have the
Speaker 1: flexibility to do it. And the ship is dope and
Speaker 1: like there's only nine songs like is I mean honestly,
Speaker 1: I started as an EP and then I thought, oh
Speaker 1: we could keep going, and then we just kept going.
Speaker 1: But the record to me feels like my records in
Speaker 1: the nineties, you know, with Obvious and you Got It
Speaker 1: going on and the Chucky Records and the Keith Crouch records.
Speaker 1: I love those records. So for me, it was about
Speaker 1: presenting something that was a little bit different, you know,
Speaker 1: and talk about Tiffany because I don't really know. I
Speaker 1: heard of she is a young woman. UM, producer, songwriter, singer. Um,
Speaker 1: we did the whole record together. Um. She has records out,
Speaker 1: she got a new single out right now. Um. And
Speaker 1: it was exciting to me to work with one person.
Speaker 1: I didn't know going into that that would Um that's
Speaker 1: what I was doing. You know, I had never done
Speaker 1: a record with just one person. Um, I'm getting ready
Speaker 1: to start working with a cat named Phil Boudreau. What
Speaker 1: come on, man? Do you understand how excited I am.
Speaker 1: Phil is he's one part of a group a o E,
Speaker 1: which is him and Dewan Parker. Dwan Parker as a producer,
Speaker 1: keyboard player. He used to be in Dre's camp, like
Speaker 1: back during like the Lost Ones era. I think that's
Speaker 1: him on the Lost Ones that I think, but like
Speaker 1: Lost Ones and all those records around that, like jay Z.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, not long now, jay
Speaker 1: Z Lost Ones? Um, but yeah, and so they have
Speaker 1: a group called ao E that is fucking amazing and
Speaker 1: Phil also as a producer, player, keyboard player, and he's
Speaker 1: just fucking stupid. Yeah that that ep I listened to it,
Speaker 1: Probably it's one of them, is my like my wake
Speaker 1: up alarm which one never know me? Oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's adding him to my Pandora right now. Field he
Speaker 1: has a solo I'm called ether this dope, but ao
Speaker 1: E is the Yeah, that's im. Get ready to getting
Speaker 1: ready to work with him. I'm very very excited about
Speaker 1: I won't end on that something some come with it.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I told him I wanted to record just
Speaker 1: Dion Warwick record. Do you know this song? Um in
Speaker 1: between nahangs? You hold me close in y'alls insane? I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's a background song, insane. It is a
Speaker 1: beautiful record, and I can't wait to record it. I
Speaker 1: get excited, like but songs, yeah, never know. It's funny
Speaker 1: you mention that because never know me. I told him
Speaker 1: that that reminded me of a background kind of melody.
Speaker 1: It is gorgeous, isn't it. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka melody as well? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like that record imagination in a way.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's a that's a that's a killer.
Speaker 1: It's a killer record. So I wouldn't pick your brain
Speaker 1: on just Quirky Ship. I feel like you're the person
Speaker 1: that like probably knows like Marlo Thomas is free to
Speaker 1: be you and me like ship Wow. Wow, I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about that in a long time. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean it, I never I always wanted to avoid the
Speaker 1: cliche questions like where your desert island discs or whatever?
Speaker 1: But what are your desert out of? Video games? M alright?
Speaker 1: I'm a Final Fantasy person. But the last episode of
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy they sucked it up totally and turned it
Speaker 1: into like Entourage. It's like, it's like four dudes in
Speaker 1: a car. So I've never gotten found. I never got
Speaker 1: the Japanese. Okay, I have no idea what you guys
Speaker 1: are talking about the video games? Oh, and I do
Speaker 1: that that phrasing. I was just saying that I just
Speaker 1: gotta switch. That's pretty fun. I was looking at the switch,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I mean those little remotes. Are
Speaker 1: you still keeping for a switch right here? Oh? That's
Speaker 1: what I was. I was like, why do you carring
Speaker 1: like a clutch? The remotes are so small they don't
Speaker 1: make sense. I had to buy the pro control. You
Speaker 1: take them off for you leave yours on. It depends,
Speaker 1: I mean if I'm doing it handheld, Okay, So I
Speaker 1: had a handheld game like that before, which was called
Speaker 1: the Atari Links. Remember that? Remember I remember that? So
Speaker 1: are you like a Mari what's your I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: are you the Mario person? Are you the gun? All
Speaker 1: of those things? And like the First person Shooter? I
Speaker 1: like them, I get tired of them. I really miss
Speaker 1: um like really good full games with stories, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. That's why I like the Last of Us.
Speaker 1: I started it, Oh my god, I got stuck in
Speaker 1: the warehouse. I never finished it. Yo, you gotta It's
Speaker 1: like the greatest screenplays. It was better than a lot
Speaker 1: of movies that came out. Now too, it is coming.
Speaker 1: So how do I get back on the bandwagon? Because
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that actually get a switch? I got
Speaker 1: like a stock of this stuff, like sitting in the closet.
Speaker 1: Never like, I'll give it away for Christmas? Keep it?
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, I mean, I got like everything, I
Speaker 1: still have everything. Can I even get back home on
Speaker 1: the bandwagon? Want to get back on? I mean I
Speaker 1: think I got a Merlin last week? Merlin. Remember Merlin Merlin? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my friend gave it to me for my birthday. You
Speaker 1: have Merlin Merlin? Now he's out on the porch. I
Speaker 1: was addicted to that. I have a broken one. You've
Speaker 1: been on my life and it's a game. It's a
Speaker 1: game system. It looks like a big red phone. Yo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm seventy one. Yeah, yeah, there's that separates. Merlin was
Speaker 1: like Merlin right after that, you know, right after the
Speaker 1: like the home the first home system of television precedes
Speaker 1: like Simon handheld. You know, it's like the first remember that,
Speaker 1: do not. I've never seen you have a working Merlin.
Speaker 1: It works. Yeah, I cannot love you more than this moment.
Speaker 1: Rights to live nearby and about the airport? Where is
Speaker 1: oh man, my friend gave it to this in mint condition.
Speaker 1: I need to financial I need to google that person
Speaker 1: loves you to death, because there's one on Amazon right now.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that's cheap? Do you remember the game Einstein?
Speaker 1: It was like it was sort of like it was Simon,
Speaker 1: but it was like what the Jewish parents bought that
Speaker 1: we couldn't. We couldn't get Simon. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: pay for Simon, so they got it was like a
Speaker 1: rectangle and it had for for um. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not a joke. That's called Einstein. Yeah, seriously
Speaker 1: after after Simon, it was like it was like it's
Speaker 1: like a person no super for remember that one everyone
Speaker 1: had Simon? Yes, did you ever get into played Doom?
Speaker 1: You're you're doing? I get My eyes were like, okay,
Speaker 1: I need people in the scenes. I want to be
Speaker 1: you know, I would play Call of Duty now, but
Speaker 1: generally I'm gonna get into a group and listen to
Speaker 1: everyone cussing and then hide in the corner and pick
Speaker 1: people off at the angles. That's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: So for me, the shooters are like I get bored fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Final Fantasy and then what else? What else you
Speaker 1: like to Mario, Zelda, you know, Talking Zelda, Donkey Kong,
Speaker 1: all of those. But I also like love Halo, and
Speaker 1: you know, I like a lot of the original games.
Speaker 1: I didn't like Destiny. I tried, I tried. It's not
Speaker 1: it passed over. It's not for us. What's that video
Speaker 1: game they made a movie out of? I just watched
Speaker 1: it on a lot of them, seriously, like the Battle
Speaker 1: Ratchet and Clay Now it was like a whole dragon.
Speaker 1: So the codes for like all the things palties and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yet a new motor comeback now? Is like super fucking
Speaker 1: wrong now like super graphic. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the way they snapped the heart out must be like
Speaker 1: real crazy. I mean the slow motion pan into the
Speaker 1: jaw breaking. I love that. Come here, so you're a gamer?
Speaker 1: What else do you do? Um? I have a dog?
Speaker 1: Um dog? I do. His name is Boston. What kind
Speaker 1: of dog? He's a b Sean. Huh what a b Sean.
Speaker 1: That's like a black name. He's like one of those
Speaker 1: dogs that was bred to entertain in the circus they
Speaker 1: have the fluffy little afro, the white dog with the
Speaker 1: fluffy afro carrying a Louis know. He's big and he
Speaker 1: doesn't look like that's he's super scrappy. And his name
Speaker 1: is Boston. I thought that would be shann And you
Speaker 1: know I'm djaying now I'm trying to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I'm trying. And I had I had
Speaker 1: a birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and then
Speaker 1: battle Cat showed up and I was like, I'll just
Speaker 1: wait till you finish. I just wait. I'm certain that
Speaker 1: you can curate music as good as you sing it,
Speaker 1: and you have rhythm, thank you from your lips. I hope.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me is to look at two records
Speaker 1: now that in my head before, like oh if I
Speaker 1: had if I, if I had a Janet Jackson acapella
Speaker 1: for when I think of you, could I put it
Speaker 1: over anything on the Weather Report? Eight thirty records? How
Speaker 1: can I? What can I do? Wait? Was that you
Speaker 1: that told me the great sash? Yeah, where he did
Speaker 1: return to Forever something from He played his fourteen minute
Speaker 1: return Forever song and came out of it and it
Speaker 1: worked central heating but by heat wave and it worked,
Speaker 1: and it worked like it was just the most cathartic
Speaker 1: experience because it's like fourteen minutes of just sucking chaos
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden and it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I love those moments. That was that? It was will
Speaker 1: I would never try that. That's a holy grail moment
Speaker 1: for a DJ. Now I think the art of djaying
Speaker 1: really is. And you know, like parents sort of asked me, Now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like there's a generation of of button
Speaker 1: pressure kids or whatever. So I don't know if I
Speaker 1: should enable them and just you know, create start creating
Speaker 1: a generation of DJ's that I'm gonna hate once they
Speaker 1: turned to understand. It's gonna happen whether you do or not. Right.
Speaker 1: But the thing is just that I tell them that,
Speaker 1: above all else one, you should really love music. That's
Speaker 1: that's the number one impetus. Yeah, and I think that
Speaker 1: the art of DJ really is knowing or at least
Speaker 1: having a good guest to which for any song you play,
Speaker 1: there should be five songs that can perfectly right and
Speaker 1: you're just playing some sort of psychological You're playing psychological
Speaker 1: control with your audience absolutely and telling them a story
Speaker 1: along the way. Like when we play we have we
Speaker 1: do sometimes we put rocket with you in the set, right,
Speaker 1: So at the end of Rock with You, we played
Speaker 1: that vamp. Do we stay there? And then I sing
Speaker 1: like fifteen Michael songs over that vamp, you know, and
Speaker 1: it maintained the melody just singing it in that key,
Speaker 1: you know, And yeah, you can do it, Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talking to me about because we don't talk about it's
Speaker 1: talking me about covering. Well, I guess recovering I'm coming
Speaker 1: back on what was that like to revisit that years?
Speaker 1: I love that record and I knew going in that
Speaker 1: it was a song I wanted to record live because
Speaker 1: the arrangement that we have of it is so different
Speaker 1: from the other arrangements. Um. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those songs I knew, like when we asked people what
Speaker 1: do you what do you want to hear the shows
Speaker 1: that's the number one record that they want to hear,
Speaker 1: which is interesting to me because no matter how much
Speaker 1: people say, you know, maybe picked up the tempo to
Speaker 1: show a little and do this and do that, people
Speaker 1: want to come and be wrung out and they love
Speaker 1: that record. And that was that was never officially a
Speaker 1: single right now. No, no, you know Gary Taylor wrote
Speaker 1: that song. He's yeah, he wrote whispers and yes, he
Speaker 1: also wrote um the song that I demoed that he
Speaker 1: then gave to Anita Baker, which is good love you
Speaker 1: know that record, Thanks for that. I demoed that record
Speaker 1: for a knee to basically I did it for my record,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, my kids want to go
Speaker 1: to college. So I was like, yes, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So that was my first kind of sort of interaction
Speaker 1: with her. I was so excited that when I heard
Speaker 1: her she was singing it sort of in the way
Speaker 1: I was singing. I was like, wow, you know you're
Speaker 1: do you have the original? Do you have your copy
Speaker 1: of it? Wow? That inland? Yeah? Can you cook to Yeah?
Speaker 1: We shall go to dish over there lately. You know,
Speaker 1: I will make a chicken real quick. It seems simple,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I would just I would just make a
Speaker 1: whole chicken. What's your size? That would make some greens,
Speaker 1: you know. Oh you know? Wait, are you hijacking my my?
Speaker 1: Are you finding out for me? Oh? Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I was doing. But I think right now is a
Speaker 1: pot roast. Like I'm trying to really perfect the pot roast.
Speaker 1: I mean my first pot rolls my dudes is super
Speaker 1: meat and potatoes. Duty's from Nebraska, so he's from Wait,
Speaker 1: you said you made a pot roast. So all those posts,
Speaker 1: that was you cooking? Oh? I thought you were watching
Speaker 1: people cook cook. Okay, it's fun now that the pot
Speaker 1: rolls the crop pot is also a life saver to
Speaker 1: put it on and just like I like the big
Speaker 1: Dutch oven, I like to just cook it really slow.
Speaker 1: And now, so are you satisfied with life? Pot roast? No?
Speaker 1: Just and where you are right now? Are you satisfied?
Speaker 1: M I think all artists are insatiable, but are you?
Speaker 1: Is there anything left you know. Oh yeah, well, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's a bad question. Ask is there anything every
Speaker 1: everyone wants the world domination, but kind of like the
Speaker 1: near on the heat, like that whole thirty seconds thing,
Speaker 1: like is there something behind you that makes you want
Speaker 1: the lot's wife turn around and just be like Okay,
Speaker 1: let me I want a number one pop single or
Speaker 1: just I mean, yeah, I want all that I want.
Speaker 1: I want to um, I want to see what my
Speaker 1: potential is. I'm on the path. Um. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm just like literally, I'm singing for twenty years or
Speaker 1: twenty three years on record, and then one day I
Speaker 1: just sing a chord on a record. What will happen
Speaker 1: in twenty years from now? Like I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. I really want to realize what I
Speaker 1: have and I feel like I'm just at the top
Speaker 1: of it right now. I would agree you to me,
Speaker 1: you're one of the few people I know that it
Speaker 1: seems like you know, have a twenty pleasures in it
Speaker 1: really feel like you're just getting started. It is crazy
Speaker 1: to me, Like I know a lot of girls went
Speaker 1: like that, and I feel like I'm sort of you know,
Speaker 1: at times it has felt like it ebbed off and
Speaker 1: then it would creep up a little bit. But I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm on the path. I definitely would like
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Um there seems to be a weird like
Speaker 1: when I go to radio stations or when we do
Speaker 1: um pitches for TV, when we do all the stuff,
Speaker 1: people are always like, oh my god, we love you.
Speaker 1: I have your record in my car. I sang your
Speaker 1: father song at my father's funeral. Your record and your
Speaker 1: dad's record got me through divorce. All of these, uh,
Speaker 1: these monumental landmarks that people have me in their life,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to plug those in in a mainstream way.
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a weird situation for me because
Speaker 1: like I'm from Chicago, they don't really play my records
Speaker 1: in Chicago on the radio. Whenever I go through Chicago,
Speaker 1: I make time to go to the radio station and
Speaker 1: meet everybody. I know, everybody. I've saying it everybody's kid's birthday.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like everybody loves me, and
Speaker 1: there's no you know, I've been seeing these a lot
Speaker 1: of these same people. People like the idea of people,
Speaker 1: the concept of it, and yeah, can you not alone.
Speaker 1: I recognize that. Oh yeah, but see the thing is
Speaker 1: is as long as you avoid the crazy potholes and
Speaker 1: you don't seem like a person that I will say that.
Speaker 1: What really truly separates you from a lot of the
Speaker 1: contemporaries of yours that I personally know and in personal
Speaker 1: life male and female, is you don't seem to have,
Speaker 1: at least on surface, uh any any saboteur kind of
Speaker 1: spirit about you. You seem rather fearless and your approach
Speaker 1: to stuff mistakes can be made or whatever. Let me
Speaker 1: try this out. Let me okay, let me go with
Speaker 1: this good, Let me try stark you pupping, Let me
Speaker 1: go like you're just you're curious about it, and you
Speaker 1: just with reckless abandonment. You just you just indulge yourself
Speaker 1: in it, which is good because a lot of times, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of singers I see, they will second guests
Speaker 1: and talk themselves out of a good thing and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing and tailspin until you know it's fifteen
Speaker 1: years between albums. That's sort of okay. So before I
Speaker 1: wrap up, okay, oh well, yeah, we talk about your
Speaker 1: grammy multiple can I can I can I? Can I
Speaker 1: make this to my personal therapy moment. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get over this, but it's just her and I in
Speaker 1: a room right now. One, how long have you had
Speaker 1: that gift? Since I was probably twelve or thirteen. That's
Speaker 1: the thing though, when I asked you, like in your
Speaker 1: loan and stuff, for you to perfect something like that.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's not no, it's in the shower.
Speaker 1: I'm in the shower, like what can I do with it?
Speaker 1: And I will show it to people What is this?
Speaker 1: What can I do it? And people are like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's cool, what can you do with it?
Speaker 1: And then I did it on a John p Key
Speaker 1: record and he kept it John p Key of all things. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: this is like ten years ago. He kept it and
Speaker 1: I did it as a joke at the end of
Speaker 1: his record. Yea being my friend. Yeah wait, I'm putting
Speaker 1: that out there. And if anyone knows how we can
Speaker 1: get the crash Cuts, I need him on the show.
Speaker 1: Crash Cut. It's a spirit. Let it modify in your life.
Speaker 1: He's a true focus on Jesus. Jesus. Just the fact
Speaker 1: that well I did it for him and he kept it,
Speaker 1: and then people said you should do it on records,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, it's not cool on a record
Speaker 1: because people can think you manufacturer can So when I
Speaker 1: do it live for people, and I can do it
Speaker 1: in key and it's in context, then people see it.
Speaker 1: But if you ever have watched that video of Snarky Puppy,
Speaker 1: I am realizing at that moment, Oh, I can do this.
Speaker 1: The first time is whack. Second time I started like, okay,
Speaker 1: just go for it. The third time it was clean,
Speaker 1: and then they changed keys and then I was able
Speaker 1: to change with them. I did not know what Corey
Speaker 1: was going to play, so that what is that called?
Speaker 1: What is that? I don't know. It's not called anything.
Speaker 1: It's funny. People on YouTube like that is polytonic. I
Speaker 1: don't know what. I don't know. Anybody else I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I have, I have not heard it. So
Speaker 1: is it hard to produce on the spot, like like
Speaker 1: whistling on the mic? Whoa? Sometimes it's a fourth. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I can get a six, like a major six. Not
Speaker 1: that I asked you to do it. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what you were talking about until that the moment.
Speaker 1: It's feel ugly right now. You don't realize that she
Speaker 1: can harmonize with herself. Yes, but I didn't know specifically
Speaker 1: when you were, like, what is that that you do?
Speaker 1: And you should patent that I did not know what
Speaker 1: you meant now and that's since twelve you been able
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, in some form, it always just sounded.
Speaker 1: There are some things I'm working on that when I
Speaker 1: get them, they're going to be awesome. Like I'm really
Speaker 1: working on finding the fundamental note and then work in
Speaker 1: the overtone over that. It sounds like ship right now,
Speaker 1: but when I can get it, it's gonna be killer.
Speaker 1: I'm still working on those chords. They don't always come
Speaker 1: out like I like, and they don't always I'm not
Speaker 1: in control of the color of it. And right now
Speaker 1: I can still only do it or an you on
Speaker 1: our sound. So for me, it's not perfected. It's just
Speaker 1: something I still I just have in my back pocket
Speaker 1: that nobody else can do. It's just way my instrument
Speaker 1: is set up, way my instruments set up. But that's
Speaker 1: the thing though, Like you just did that so effortlessly.
Speaker 1: But I know you have to have a place of
Speaker 1: trial and error, experimentation, and where does that happen just
Speaker 1: right just now, I'm for real, you can do that
Speaker 1: where you can go I can't do it. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? That? Do it? Like when you
Speaker 1: or when you see something like that? What that? That?
Speaker 1: That one? Do that? That's pretty impressive. I was sincere
Speaker 1: but came off the opposite. But I think I can't
Speaker 1: do that. So I didn't know I could do it
Speaker 1: till I just tried it. Well yeah, yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to learn how to sing overtones right now, right but
Speaker 1: this sounds crazy and everybody can't hear it, so okay,
Speaker 1: so so mm like I can hear it in my head.
Speaker 1: I know you guys can't hear it. I'm only getting
Speaker 1: a third and a fifth. So I'm working on that
Speaker 1: and one day I'm going to do it somewhere. It's
Speaker 1: kind of flower into this thing and people will say wow,
Speaker 1: and they'll be like, when did you work on I'll
Speaker 1: be like, can't the overtone? So so you are out
Speaker 1: of this world? Um? And and again not in an
Speaker 1: alien way or whatever, simply brilliant. Um. Can we just
Speaker 1: say we love each other now and we'll just be friends.
Speaker 1: Last time I saw you, you were, like you said,
Speaker 1: we started trying to help find a word. You said
Speaker 1: something and I said, I thought I told you that.
Speaker 1: I said, let's do what what What did we cover? Jolene? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I said I've been telling you we should do that.
Speaker 1: And you said, yeah, but now we're friends. And I said,
Speaker 1: I thought we was friends. Yes, but one day I'll
Speaker 1: get over myself and and and and be able to
Speaker 1: be in front of your brilliance. Time I came to
Speaker 1: see you in D'Angelo in the studio that time during
Speaker 1: the Voodoo period. This was like six seven years ago.
Speaker 1: During the y'all were working listening to stuff. You don't remember.
Speaker 1: You have to remind me. It's we were in New York.
Speaker 1: I came about to hang out, have am I do
Speaker 1: with me and my cousin. You guys were working on
Speaker 1: some stuff, listening to some Michael Jackson stuff, all right,
Speaker 1: So obviously they weren't. They weren't working on stuff. They
Speaker 1: were just listening to him, just listening to Yes, Yes
Speaker 1: at a s MS at m SR like for the
Speaker 1: eight Street or something like that. Can I just ask
Speaker 1: you all the question that the music fans are thinking
Speaker 1: right now, like, is there any chance in the future
Speaker 1: now that we've ironed this ship out that we can
Speaker 1: get like some Rudes Layler ship or some like I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I'm sorry, man. I know you put on
Speaker 1: the spot, but I'm like, no, listen. What I want
Speaker 1: to make absolutely positively ten thousand percent clear, is that
Speaker 1: I've always loved Let's get to the work. I need
Speaker 1: you where you listening. But seriously, they want that's what
Speaker 1: they want, especially like as you know right now in
Speaker 1: the life and times, I just feel like there's something there.
Speaker 1: It's so nice to work with a band too. They
Speaker 1: never happened that. Yeah, because she has the job, you
Speaker 1: don't have to. Yeah, I'm not bullshitting. Yes, I would
Speaker 1: love to work with you. Let's do it. There's a
Speaker 1: radio show that we're documenting for the world to here
Speaker 1: is like we have like a million listeners right now.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, Leila, I thank you so much. I thank you.
Speaker 1: Two questions. It goes so fast, doesn't it. It goes over.
Speaker 1: It gets over so fast. It's nothing when it's right,
Speaker 1: when it's done right. Um. So I hope this question
Speaker 1: doesn't anger you because I don't know how you feel
Speaker 1: about this particular record, but your very first single. Some
Speaker 1: people don't like talking about their very first records. So
Speaker 1: Inside the Beat, Oh, I didn't know this record existed
Speaker 1: until So Inside the Beat was a demo that we
Speaker 1: didn't even give that demo to the people to get
Speaker 1: a deal. So whomever boot like that and made it
Speaker 1: into a single. People come to me and say it
Speaker 1: made it. I loved you since the eighties, and I'm like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any records on the just Born. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that record came out, and then I did a Japanese
Speaker 1: cigarette commercial where I recorded night and Day and they
Speaker 1: made it into a record. It's for sale now in
Speaker 1: Japan and it was for a cigarette commercial and when
Speaker 1: you buy it, that explains the cover. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. That makes absolutely just like two random white
Speaker 1: people and you know it's a it's a Jackie. So
Speaker 1: it's a dude with a Teddy Bear and a ham
Speaker 1: and a bar smoking a cigarettes. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it's for. But that record, I'm just scatting at the
Speaker 1: end of it acapella and they kept it for the record.
Speaker 1: So a lot of things happened in the eighties, but
Speaker 1: that record is so uh, that's a funny record to me.
Speaker 1: I have to find that now. Have you ever heard it.
Speaker 1: I've never heard it. I didn't know what exists until
Speaker 1: like a couple of hours. Let me just sing you
Speaker 1: to hook inside the beat. It's time. It's a super
Speaker 1: super disco type you know. Occasionally I got throw it
Speaker 1: into a DJ. It's super eighties. Don't judge me when
Speaker 1: you hear I'm gonna love it probably. Yeah. And my
Speaker 1: final question, um, how did you hook up with Martin
Speaker 1: ware and uh Ian the I can't remember his name? People? Yeah?
Speaker 1: For um, after my first record, I did a lot
Speaker 1: of records. They were one of the groups of folks
Speaker 1: that approached me and said, hey, can you come and
Speaker 1: be on a record? And Billy Preston was there, and um,
Speaker 1: we record that slide tune. I don't even know. I
Speaker 1: just got really lucky based on my first record. People
Speaker 1: came to me that I would not have associated with
Speaker 1: the type of music I was recording, Like Marcus Miller
Speaker 1: came and I started working with him until now you know, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know, um how I got so lucky. I
Speaker 1: just always thought that was kind of a strange pairing.
Speaker 1: I mean, the end result was great, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not one that I would have think I have a
Speaker 1: record out now, I would cat call Mr Jukes you
Speaker 1: know that record? Um, it's a really interesting record. I
Speaker 1: don't know how this kid knows who I am. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's a huge star somewhere else in the world and
Speaker 1: I made a record with him, and I don't know
Speaker 1: how that happens. I have lots of records. People say,
Speaker 1: I have all your albums, even the obscure ones, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you don't. There are records that I'm
Speaker 1: on in Japanese that only came out like in Fukuoka,
Speaker 1: Like really, you know, so I got. I just keep
Speaker 1: getting lucky. What's your favorite market? Tom? I love Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I love Tokyo. Um, I haven't been a whole lot
Speaker 1: of places. Actually, um l A is becoming one of
Speaker 1: my favorite places to play. It was a hard place
Speaker 1: to play in the beginning because people would just come
Speaker 1: sit and look at me, you know. Um, but that
Speaker 1: happens everywhere I go. Like there's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: people in the front row that are just kind of
Speaker 1: like in some sort of weird I see your father trance,
Speaker 1: you know, which I recognize. It's all right. How did
Speaker 1: the Mary tour end up going? It was cool. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. It was great to be
Speaker 1: in front of her audience, even though I know that
Speaker 1: part of that audience is kind of my audience as well.
Speaker 1: Every night my DJ would say, how many of y'all
Speaker 1: this is your first Layla hat the way show? And
Speaker 1: a lot of hands went up, and that told me like,
Speaker 1: I'm in the right place, you know, I'm getting in
Speaker 1: front of Yeah, that's awesome. I'm good. Okay, uh well,
Speaker 1: Layla anyway, anyway, anyway, thank you, thank you? Anything else?
Speaker 1: What was the song we worked on at Electrical Lady?
Speaker 1: First time I met you? It was like a was
Speaker 1: it a Mary J. Blige record that I was? Which
Speaker 1: was that producing Mary J. Blige and Stevie Wonder? No, No, No,
Speaker 1: it was I think a Christmas song? Maybe you drop
Speaker 1: that though that happened once? Was it might have been
Speaker 1: a cover of of This Christmas for some like I
Speaker 1: just did I just did that for Spotify for the
Speaker 1: first time. Wait, what year was it you remember? It
Speaker 1: would be the late nineties something like that or early
Speaker 1: two Remember who the session was with? No, I don't
Speaker 1: remember much of anything. I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've always known you. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: tell you that there's something about you that I feel
Speaker 1: like I have always known, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: that is. He's every engineer you've ever met. No, but
Speaker 1: you you remind me of this kid I went to
Speaker 1: high school with named Todd Heckman, who gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of records. There's something about you I connect with,
Speaker 1: not I don't know what that is, alright, Maybe it's
Speaker 1: the records. Maybe I'm going over to your house and
Speaker 1: have you have you have you fulfilled your bucket list
Speaker 1: as far as the people that you've wanted to almost
Speaker 1: work with, almost left, I mean ships, a lot left.
Speaker 1: I mean, but if I got hit by a bus today,
Speaker 1: I have to say, well we did. Prince did, Billy Preston,
Speaker 1: Anita Shaka, Vince Mendoza, Herbie, Wayne Dizzy H Wow. I
Speaker 1: don't know, um, I really there's a lot of people left,
Speaker 1: and now we got to work together because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be on the I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: already already know. There's there's a few people I really
Speaker 1: want to work with. It I talked to every time
Speaker 1: I see them about working and I know it's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen to go around Stevie. You haven't worked with
Speaker 1: him yet, not officially. Man, I would have thought he
Speaker 1: would have been the first one he came. He's he's
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, we we always talk about it. He's
Speaker 1: got a song for me. I need to go. I
Speaker 1: need to call him. I'm gonna call Aisha. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep calling. I'm gonna keep trying to do it every time.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that it's gonna happen in a minute.
Speaker 1: And it's okay, yeah, wait wait now I'm thinking that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Now, I'm thinking what song would she be
Speaker 1: good for? No, because one time I heard him trying
Speaker 1: to give Knocking on your door to Jennifer Hudson really
Speaker 1: and I was like no. I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: say that Jennifer husband. But it's that song. Yeah, jealously
Speaker 1: you know what? I think I might know one. We
Speaker 1: have to we have to can't play it on there, damn.
Speaker 1: Okaya says really Stevie, stuff going on. We would never
Speaker 1: say that, And thank you never throwing us under the
Speaker 1: bus on your own radio shown. Yes, even the Pandora
Speaker 1: people are looking at you. You say, wan, Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: got some unreleased boys literally Stevie J. Some utterly Stevie
Speaker 1: J tracks that he did for the Mr. Dalvin record.
Speaker 1: It came out on neck, it came out, it did
Speaker 1: Mr Dalvin. Yeah. R Dalvin had at a morph and
Speaker 1: single was called Actually that's why he did those DJ
Speaker 1: Blad interviews by himself. I was wondering why, like he
Speaker 1: was getting the star of treatment, like he had a
Speaker 1: project out, but well that was this, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was back in the day. No, no, that that horrible.
Speaker 1: It wasn't heard him saying he joined His Mr. Davin
Speaker 1: jams was always the soundtrack jams, like his soundtrack jams,
Speaker 1: like one true o g that was on Dangerous Mind.
Speaker 1: There was there was another one was my ship. You
Speaker 1: know what, I want an episode where YouTube just Cisco
Speaker 1: and Ebert wherever that is, whoever that is Cisco and Ebert,
Speaker 1: every R and B record now that's watching these two
Speaker 1: like go Gaga over I've never heard of before, obscure
Speaker 1: B sides and soundtrack songs you never heard of Mr
Speaker 1: Belvidere alright, so yeah so Stevie, yeah, alright. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people though, you know, because when I made
Speaker 1: people to say I want to make a whole record
Speaker 1: with you. They don't say we want to make a
Speaker 1: song like That's why I came to see D'Angelo that night.
Speaker 1: He's another one. I keep telling him we should make
Speaker 1: the black Ish record. Ever, we should do it now,
Speaker 1: while we're both living. We should both we should do
Speaker 1: it now. Give her her chances of what you think.
Speaker 1: Every time he says it, he says, you know, I
Speaker 1: love you, I want to do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's more. Angel was on the show for
Speaker 1: three words. Nothing were we We had a wager. What
Speaker 1: was the wager everybody was going to get? It was
Speaker 1: a hundred of thousand and a thousand dollars Christmas bonus.
Speaker 1: They said that I could never get de' angel on
Speaker 1: the show. And it just so happens that de' angel
Speaker 1: had to stop by the studio to pick something up
Speaker 1: nice and one of a little bit, and then he
Speaker 1: went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back.
Speaker 1: Right pulled the black duddy on us, the black daddy anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I had so much fun with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I really wanted to do this
Speaker 1: for a long time. We've been trying to be trying
Speaker 1: to catch you and stuff. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing this, fante and making it happen. How you're gonna
Speaker 1: be here forever. We're shooting forever forever, well not forever.
Speaker 1: I mean we're going to do a couple more episodes
Speaker 1: and then you know, I'm in town to like today
Speaker 1: you go bowling or something. Yeah, I live here, let's go.
Speaker 1: Where do you live? Hollywood? So yeah, I thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. Appreciate it, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and we will we will work in the future. So on,
Speaker 1: behalf of the team, Supreme crew on, behalf of the team.
Speaker 1: You're not part of the team. You got tired. You
Speaker 1: ain't gonna say our names. It's not usually be like Bill.
Speaker 1: You know, we want some individual credit, all right, So
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve and and and Boss Bill in Fontagelo and
Speaker 1: sweet Feet, Yeah it's feet, all right, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: so yeah. Actually lately we we sort of did work together.
Speaker 1: Now to think of it, does not count that well,
Speaker 1: then then you and Nancy Wilson didn't count. Then does
Speaker 1: count record? Technically we worked together because of the Hidden
Speaker 1: Figure soundtrack that the Roots just totally remade. Uh oh,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear the whole thing. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: it's freaking awesome and we're going to release it for
Speaker 1: a record store day. Yeah. Um. And this is your
Speaker 1: contribution called Surrender and favorite joined on the record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. What's Love Supreme? It's a production by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Andor.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app Apple podcast Asked or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows