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
Speaker 1: Ladies and Gentlemen. This is QLs classic from May seventeenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen. We talked to our old pal
Speaker 1: Nellie for Time about our Poortuguese Canadian roots and her
Speaker 1: work with Templand and the ups and downs of touching
Speaker 1: a career, motherhood, squashing beef and normalcy. We hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode of Course Love supreame with Nelly for Time.
Speaker 1: Here we go Sumo Sabrema, roll call, Sama son Son
Speaker 1: Safrima roll call, ro call Some Sabrimo roll call, twenty
Speaker 1: dollar Challenge. Yeah, we're you, Supreme fam nerds whose opening
Speaker 1: bars don't rhyme war promiscuous, our bird, I got your
Speaker 1: Frema roll call. My name't is Fonte on this instrumental
Speaker 1: yea my whole family with jam to Nelly on Dance Central.
Speaker 1: Roll Callama, roll call, my name is Sugar, say it right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Nellie for Tito, turn off the light rolling roll call.
Speaker 1: I'm paid Bill, I can't take no more. Yeah, Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll go knock yeah on a hundred doors roll call srimo,
Speaker 1: roll call, frima roll builds my nombre. Yeah. For goodness sakes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Canada does not only Yeah that young boy Drake roll
Speaker 1: roll roll. I'm like, yeah, well is number one fan
Speaker 1: Nellie po Tito's here? Yeah, I'll begot him, man Nellie,
Speaker 1: That's who I am excited to rock with questions because
Speaker 1: he's my chama roll primo rolla sorimo rolla roll ro
Speaker 1: so I so I one, two, three, four five A
Speaker 1: hundred dollars? Wait a minute, no, because like you said,
Speaker 1: whoall number one fan? I didn't rhyme it with woda.
Speaker 1: You're saying that that deserves the black guy thinking pointing
Speaker 1: to us, that's what that belongs to. Welcome, ladies and
Speaker 1: gentlemen to another a new edition of course, Love supremem
Speaker 1: Course love this team Supreme. Say what's up? Yes too poor? No,
Speaker 1: course Love Supreme our guest with us today. She is
Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air. I shall say I've been
Speaker 1: a longtime admire of this. Uh. I'll say Songbird h
Speaker 1: for a voice or music, her artistry. She came out
Speaker 1: the gate and two thousand as a solo artist with
Speaker 1: her debut will Nelly kind of captured our hearts and
Speaker 1: our minds and our ears with hits like turn off
Speaker 1: the light. Uh ship on the radio, and I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't say ellipsus, ellipsus on the radio. Uh. And
Speaker 1: of course like a bird. She won multiple Juno Awards,
Speaker 1: Grammy Awards. Uh. Not stopping there, she collaborated with uh
Speaker 1: mega star acts like any r D, Missy Elliott and
Speaker 1: the Roots. Yeah, all sacrifice. I forgot that she collaborated
Speaker 1: on my own, so I appreciate that. Uh. There's also
Speaker 1: nas Jurassic five s to well remembers. Uh, chaos can on,
Speaker 1: it just goes on in Norm Paulok and Fieltisto. Probably
Speaker 1: our most important collaboration I was in two thousand six
Speaker 1: with her, uh, her third album which is loose uh
Speaker 1: with Templand, and she didn't stop. Yeah, twelve million amazing.
Speaker 1: If I sold twelve million copies, wouldn't anything? Twelve A
Speaker 1: T shirt and it's over. She did you stopped there?
Speaker 1: She released in all Spanish record in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: with me. I'm not used to mirror the Wikipedia. Man,
Speaker 1: this is this is well. I'm trying to cook. This
Speaker 1: is let him cook. This is great. You don't understand
Speaker 1: how much I change. This is. This is I thought
Speaker 1: I thought I was coming in like I just thought
Speaker 1: I wasn't used to it. I was appreciating this is
Speaker 1: great yourself anyway, thank you all for interrupting me. Guys
Speaker 1: some no problem here, Yeah, anyone else in engineers in you? Uh?
Speaker 1: She's offering us her six studio album entitled Well, he
Speaker 1: missed the part about my Latin grammy I mentioned I'm
Speaker 1: mentioned that, but talk about me some more. Yes, I
Speaker 1: covered your whole life. Thank you. I know that was good.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's your social security Ladies and gentlemen's
Speaker 1: childhood memory. Yes, and she's also heading up the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump Russian Gate investigation. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nellyford.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks. I was such a nice intro. It
Speaker 1: was my first. Did I see you again? It's great
Speaker 1: to see you too. What the hell? Yeah, man, it's
Speaker 1: it's we occasionally send tweets. Okay, so you guys are close.
Speaker 1: I guess we've been. I've been to Philly, that's legit.
Speaker 1: I've been there in their old studio. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I know before then it was joint. He's
Speaker 1: even in that studio forever. When have you ever seen
Speaker 1: a stripper into Yes, yeah, that was so long ago.
Speaker 1: That was like in two thousand one when we went
Speaker 1: and went together in Philly and you guys like had
Speaker 1: the whole thing written already, the chorus, and I was
Speaker 1: bummed outcause I thought I'd get to co write with
Speaker 1: you because I don't think sacrifices. I'm like, okay, like
Speaker 1: this is cool and right now, like yeah, you should
Speaker 1: have done that. It was vocals. It was fun though,
Speaker 1: I like, look, I mean that album is amazing, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was just happy to be there. It was fine.
Speaker 1: You felt like Missy, like I'm gonna be on your
Speaker 1: record just singing no hooks. That's kind of it. Like well,
Speaker 1: because I always wrote my own song, so I had
Speaker 1: actually that was the first time someone had written a
Speaker 1: thing for me to sing, So I was like, but
Speaker 1: it's the roots. So I was like, of course, like
Speaker 1: I'm just happy to be here on be on your album.
Speaker 1: And I sang fun to get that potion check next time,
Speaker 1: and I just want to that. I was happy to
Speaker 1: be there. There's always the future exactly. There's always the
Speaker 1: future exactly. Yeah, you know what when I when I
Speaker 1: first met you, Um, I think the very first time
Speaker 1: we opened for you, we walked no this we we did.
Speaker 1: We also sang together a bunch on Area one tour. Yea,
Speaker 1: even before A performed, there was there was a show
Speaker 1: we did together, and I know that we you came
Speaker 1: on first and then we came on. But I came
Speaker 1: in right when you were dancing to BBDs Poison. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like you know that I did in my head,
Speaker 1: I already had it picked out that you were just
Speaker 1: a pop show on Tuesday that I saw on t
Speaker 1: r L and you know, like like a bird leads
Speaker 1: you to believe, at least at that time when the
Speaker 1: single was just out, and we all looked at each other, Wait,
Speaker 1: who is this on stage? Likely for t is the
Speaker 1: same person, Like she was doing the dance that they
Speaker 1: were doing in the video in the video, and so
Speaker 1: it was like it was a well Nelly moment, like
Speaker 1: we already knew you ll cool J and Mary and
Speaker 1: one other act something Pepper on the same little routine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, but then you explained to me about
Speaker 1: your days even before your solo career with Nail Star
Speaker 1: and that stuff. So Yeah, there's always so much, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that you're an artist, so it's
Speaker 1: like there's so much that goes into who you are
Speaker 1: that people don't see when you make like a product
Speaker 1: or a packaged thing and you just roll with it.
Speaker 1: It's okay, you know, but but the people you know
Speaker 1: who end up like digging deeper and so maybe what
Speaker 1: you do we're going to see. I make the same
Speaker 1: mistake today, Like I judge artists all the time and
Speaker 1: then I listened to their catalog and I feel so
Speaker 1: guilty or see the show, you know, and I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: I should never judge an artist until i've actually, Like
Speaker 1: the last night, I was listening to the new Drake
Speaker 1: album because I'm like, well, let me just put this
Speaker 1: on and listen to it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So like you can't speak on something unless you listen
Speaker 1: to unless you go to the show. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know what's fair, he took you to South Africa
Speaker 1: right now, she's making South Africa House. No, But like, honestly,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I really feel like you can't
Speaker 1: judge an artist until you listen to something a whole
Speaker 1: album of one album at least and you go to
Speaker 1: their live show or watch like YouTube livel clips or something.
Speaker 1: But is it fair to listen to the first album
Speaker 1: because sometimes not, it's not fair always listened to the
Speaker 1: first one, because you know, sometimes you have to dig deeper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to dig a little deeper. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, but anyway, thanks for for talking about that,
Speaker 1: because I mean, well, I wanted to know what what
Speaker 1: you're beginnings. I said the word what they were that
Speaker 1: at least led you to wanting to start a music career. Um, God,
Speaker 1: I was young. I was young. Like I was, there
Speaker 1: was no Mickey Mouse Club. I was from a small
Speaker 1: town out of Victoria, BC, but there weren't even any
Speaker 1: talent shows. But I had a church. I had a
Speaker 1: Portuguese church community, so like I got to sing there.
Speaker 1: I got to sing at church. Um at our festival
Speaker 1: as we call them fastas where at the Fashta U
Speaker 1: s And I sang with my mom in Portuguese. And
Speaker 1: I was four years old, and I got up on
Speaker 1: the stage and I just knew that I loved it.
Speaker 1: I just knew that I wanted to be doing that
Speaker 1: because I felt like I was spreading joy and love
Speaker 1: and good vibes, and I just I felt that at
Speaker 1: the age of four was really kind of weird. Um.
Speaker 1: But I'd always sing songs like I would make up
Speaker 1: songs on the spot from when I was apparently I
Speaker 1: was two or three no around the house and my
Speaker 1: sister would literally be like sing sing, make up a
Speaker 1: song because my eyes would well up with tears and
Speaker 1: I'd get super emotional. So it was always inside of me.
Speaker 1: I didn't experiment at um moment PS one in the fall.
Speaker 1: I didn't installation where I wrote songs with a hundred
Speaker 1: strangers in the course of three hours, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to explore this connection. We have to like the
Speaker 1: source and why we write songs and why it comes
Speaker 1: to you, and how we can tap into that and
Speaker 1: prove that it's an empathic thing and prove that like
Speaker 1: a song can prove how we're all similar rather than different. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, without me making any Houston references, you there
Speaker 1: are a hundred people in the room. No, okay, so
Speaker 1: it was anywhere from like one person. The smallest group
Speaker 1: was one person, and then the largest group was ten
Speaker 1: people and a dog. The last group and the moment
Speaker 1: passed one had this back to school fundraiser and I'm
Speaker 1: friends with this performance. Aren't his name Ryan McNamara, And
Speaker 1: he told me I could do anything with the one room.
Speaker 1: He's like, do you want to room with this thing?
Speaker 1: And I was like I do because I had this
Speaker 1: idea I want to do this experiment where I sit
Speaker 1: with my guitar. And this started in I used to
Speaker 1: do songwriting workshops where ongoing, like in this place called Narrow,
Speaker 1: Kenya and with these girls at this high school called Alisha.
Speaker 1: So I go there all the time, made a bunch
Speaker 1: of friends are over years working with this nonprofit. And
Speaker 1: what I do is do a songwriting workshop and we
Speaker 1: write a song, but it just exists in that moment
Speaker 1: and then it's over, you know. So I'm very into
Speaker 1: this idea that a song is just this expression. And
Speaker 1: because you know as well as I, we don't record
Speaker 1: everything we write. We just do it to do it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I wanted to in
Speaker 1: that room like okay, so like one person would walk
Speaker 1: in and sit down, I'd have my guitar. I'd tape
Speaker 1: tape on tape recorder because I didn't want it to
Speaker 1: be like this branded moment that was videotaped. I wanted
Speaker 1: it to exist in that moment. Yeah, And so they'd
Speaker 1: come and sit down and I'd be like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: did you dream last night? And they tell me about
Speaker 1: their dream the night before, or I'd be like, what
Speaker 1: was your favorite childhood vacation? And then I started singing
Speaker 1: a song and they would contribute, sometimes if they had
Speaker 1: any musical ability or not. And by the end, after
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, someone would knock on the door when I
Speaker 1: had two minutes left. Then I would record the thing.
Speaker 1: Then I would wrap the kissette in the paper with
Speaker 1: all our lyrics, and usually there were different reactions. Some
Speaker 1: people would cry, there were two people fighting because some
Speaker 1: people didn't know each other in the groups, because everybody
Speaker 1: was trying to get think of the thing, and they
Speaker 1: do like some people didn't like each other. But then
Speaker 1: there was a lot of laughter. Um, and I felt
Speaker 1: great because sometimes you wonder like will your inspiration ever
Speaker 1: run out? You know what I mean? Will it ever
Speaker 1: just like end? And then the tooth is more is
Speaker 1: more like the more you share with people, like the
Speaker 1: more you get how's it? I mean, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out the logistics, like if I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of Nellie for Tato, Like, wouldn't you be freaking out?
Speaker 1: And like, how do you just calm them down? Just
Speaker 1: to get to the point of the experiment. I think
Speaker 1: they saw how chill I was, and Ryan had let
Speaker 1: the room in this like really moody orange light, and
Speaker 1: it was like, um back to school theme that night
Speaker 1: at the museum. So it was almost like I was
Speaker 1: a teacher. So you were coming into a classroom, it
Speaker 1: was maybe just one or two people, maybe you were
Speaker 1: with a friend, and so some people, yeah, maybe I
Speaker 1: got them in this weird, vulnerable moment where they're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is weird and why is she so chill and peaceful?
Speaker 1: And they're probably like the version of me in that
Speaker 1: room is nothing like anything they've seen in a video
Speaker 1: or something. So I'm just like, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: started writing, because you know, it's a different vibe when
Speaker 1: you write a song. It's nothing like your stage persona
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and it's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: So most people were pretty calm. Some people, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Some people were songwriters aspiring songwriters, and they would they
Speaker 1: were just enjoying it. They're like, sweet, this is so cool.
Speaker 1: Were there any particular moments in that experiment that stood
Speaker 1: out to you, like, Um, these two people were arguing because, like,
Speaker 1: the lady didn't like the lyrics this younger guy was
Speaker 1: writing because they were kind of goofy. They had like
Speaker 1: some like Prince Arthur reference or like something something crazy
Speaker 1: or perverted or something. And then and then the lady
Speaker 1: was all like, I don't like those, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? We had to agree, so it was like, oh, um,
Speaker 1: there were some people who weren't really participating. They were
Speaker 1: just staring at me. But I was still I know
Speaker 1: you would have been. You would have been like, show
Speaker 1: me how you're going to do this if I don't participate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you asked me. You asked me. And then I
Speaker 1: wrote this whole statement about it. And the whole point was,
Speaker 1: since I was little, I never understood where the songs
Speaker 1: came from. I was like, where is this words coming from?
Speaker 1: The melodies? Blah blah blah the music in my head?
Speaker 1: I never really understood it. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: explore that a little bit more, I guess. But the
Speaker 1: answered your question is I eventually moved to Toronto after
Speaker 1: I graduated high school from Victoria, a very small small town,
Speaker 1: and I moved to Toronto and I got immersed in
Speaker 1: the scene. There was an urban scene that was burgeoning,
Speaker 1: and so I started a trip hop group with my
Speaker 1: friend Talas and we called it nel Star and I
Speaker 1: just kind of did my thing. And I was seventeen,
Speaker 1: eighteen years old. I missed my parents. I moved back home.
Speaker 1: I went to college for a year in Victoria about
Speaker 1: a guitar. I started playing it like coffee shops and
Speaker 1: trying to get my songwriting better. And then but right
Speaker 1: before I left, I sang in a talent show called
Speaker 1: the Honey Jam. I was eighteen, and it was mostly
Speaker 1: rappers and R and B singers, all female. And then
Speaker 1: I kind of came up there and did this like
Speaker 1: weird little trip hop song. And my manager at the
Speaker 1: time was there and he met him that night and
Speaker 1: sort of kept in touch and ended up this is
Speaker 1: It was like a Cinderella type thing. It was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're getting flown to New York because they like your demo.
Speaker 1: I think the reason why I was because do you
Speaker 1: remember back in the day when people had professional writers
Speaker 1: right there bio and you got a professional head shot
Speaker 1: for your photos. So when you had a demo and
Speaker 1: you were an artist who wanted a record deal, you
Speaker 1: like would have a professional photo and a pio. So
Speaker 1: I said, I don't want that. I want to stand out.
Speaker 1: So I went to the local like gallery of mall
Speaker 1: photo booth, like down the street from my aunts wher
Speaker 1: I was staying on her sofa bed, and I took
Speaker 1: strip mall photos of myself. I scanned them at work
Speaker 1: because I had a job doing customer service at an
Speaker 1: alarm company. I was like snuck into like the room
Speaker 1: with the scanners and the computer, and I made friends
Speaker 1: with the systems guy who worked there, let music and Peuter,
Speaker 1: and I photocopied my own like strip mall photo like
Speaker 1: cool crazy background, like did you have like dude Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: like coming out of a war? Not the Tupac background
Speaker 1: wasn't like no, and like a dusty like orange curtain
Speaker 1: behind your blue and I just made it look all
Speaker 1: like trippy. And then I wrote not a bio. I
Speaker 1: wrote like a weird mantra, like I just did like
Speaker 1: a journal entry style bio. And at the time nobody
Speaker 1: was doing that. Yeah, I was like, what made you
Speaker 1: do that? I don't know. My manager was cool. He
Speaker 1: was just like, this is great, this will make you
Speaker 1: stand out. That's cool that you did this right down
Speaker 1: what you said to me in your office that day,
Speaker 1: you know where I said some super like megalamaniacal stuff
Speaker 1: like I want to be Gandhi and mother like you
Speaker 1: have that ambition that burning like kept me out of
Speaker 1: my circumstance ambition, And you're just like, I wrote this
Speaker 1: bio myself. I wrote some crazy like mantra journal entry
Speaker 1: style bio and people were like, who's this girl? We
Speaker 1: want to meet her? And I had a demo to
Speaker 1: go with it. That was I should have done that. No,
Speaker 1: because the protocol, at least that I learned is whatever
Speaker 1: critic um pans your album the most, when when it's reviewed,
Speaker 1: you get that person to write to write your bio,
Speaker 1: so that way it's a conflict of interest from them
Speaker 1: reviewing your album again. Black Man, music industry had the
Speaker 1: same ones. The same ones will get you again. I'm
Speaker 1: saying they don't like you. They'll continue to writer blah
Speaker 1: blah blah has written your bio, your record, He'll pass
Speaker 1: at Rolling Stone from giving you another you know. Mundane
Speaker 1: three star writing. But yeah, yeah, yeah, black black Man.
Speaker 1: If you I think, can we just say then that
Speaker 1: the reviews all us artists when we're like we don't care,
Speaker 1: so care it hurts when someone writes a bad review,
Speaker 1: I think. But I'm saying that was it came out
Speaker 1: the gate as in I mean, everyone universally agreed that
Speaker 1: it was an unusual record for starters. I the thing
Speaker 1: that impressed me about it the most was well, as
Speaker 1: as Bill and I were noting before I realized that
Speaker 1: your production team, uh was definitely into quote unquote real
Speaker 1: hip hop. This is when I say real hip hop,
Speaker 1: it's it's from the when the old guy, the old
Speaker 1: hip hop fances real hip hop. Um. But it's just
Speaker 1: certain nuances, certain snares used that I realized, like, oh,
Speaker 1: whoever's producing this record really is dipped in the hip
Speaker 1: hop culture because but it wasn't done in a way
Speaker 1: where it exploits it, like you didn't come out the
Speaker 1: gate or you weren't marketed as a hip hop artist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of that come to us. It
Speaker 1: was it was probably the most pure, you know, because
Speaker 1: at least in between like you know, people's version of
Speaker 1: hip like hip hop being infused inside the pop music
Speaker 1: was like all right, let's steal my sunshine. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: get the in Peace to Presidents there, like the theme
Speaker 1: the Scrubs or or you know Atlantis Mars Set using
Speaker 1: in Piece the President, or George Michael using Funky Jump
Speaker 1: and Missing Without Prejudice album. Yeah, it's just like okay,
Speaker 1: like you know, let me just put this loop there.
Speaker 1: But your people were using like some obscure ship and
Speaker 1: using it the right way that real hip hop heads
Speaker 1: were like, okay, cheat, she she just isn't the average
Speaker 1: Oh god, the culture vulture. Yeah, yeah, like you're coming
Speaker 1: on some real ship. So what was the process like
Speaker 1: doing the first record? I'm glad you asked me that. Um,
Speaker 1: so we we started with a demo and we did
Speaker 1: it and Brian West's like attic studio. Three of us me,
Speaker 1: Gerald Eaton and Brian West. They were part of an
Speaker 1: R and B group called The Philosopher Kings. Um kind
Speaker 1: of like what used to be called acid jazz pop,
Speaker 1: like that kind of band. They're really good live and
Speaker 1: really talented musicians. They've all gone on to have their
Speaker 1: own production and writing careers. But anyway, I got two
Speaker 1: of them. I got Brian West and Gerald Eaton, who
Speaker 1: was a singer in the band. That was really key
Speaker 1: because Gerald Eaton was such a good singer that he
Speaker 1: really knew how to vocal arrange me. He really knew
Speaker 1: how to like make sure that the vocals were interesting
Speaker 1: and make sure that my harmonies were interesting on the album. Um.
Speaker 1: Because there's a lot of ideas floating around. Yeah, I have.
Speaker 1: The three of us we co produced the album together.
Speaker 1: We actually worked as a team and we UM. I
Speaker 1: actually programmed like the baseline on turn Off the Line, like,
Speaker 1: I just like actually played it on the keyboard, and
Speaker 1: ship on the radio. I wrote on guitar, um, I
Speaker 1: played the guitar on the record. UM. And I think
Speaker 1: that the three of us were so invested in just
Speaker 1: having fun. You know. Pro tools had just been invented,
Speaker 1: so the actual process was interesting. Um. We were working
Speaker 1: in this really cold had no heating, this like studio
Speaker 1: place in Toronto in a warehouse building, and pro tools
Speaker 1: kept crashing because Brian didn't fully know how to use
Speaker 1: it yet and it was bugging out. So in the
Speaker 1: long spells of time, yeah, looking at me, like, no,
Speaker 1: it still crashes all the time, but like imagine like
Speaker 1: when it first like literally, but you know, like when
Speaker 1: it first came out, there were like a lot of
Speaker 1: glitches and like he was trying to merge them. He
Speaker 1: was trying to merge the middy with it um all
Speaker 1: the sounds, and that was causing problems for us. UM.
Speaker 1: And so I just like take naps and stuff. So
Speaker 1: I'd wake up and Gerald will be like, your voice
Speaker 1: sounds so cool right now. You gotta sing the vocal
Speaker 1: for this song right now. And it'd be three in
Speaker 1: the morning. I'd be like really be like yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'd sing this this like hook or whatever. Um. The
Speaker 1: other thing we were doing is we're one of the
Speaker 1: records store a lot we were going to our friend
Speaker 1: Aki Aki store called Cosmos in Toronto. Even that one's
Speaker 1: the best we should go um anyway, So we we
Speaker 1: would go there and get a lot of Brazilian music
Speaker 1: and stuff like that and just kind of listen and
Speaker 1: get inspired. Um, you know, everything from milch and cemented
Speaker 1: to like Martino de Villa or whatever, and we would
Speaker 1: sample it and and kind of create things that way. UM.
Speaker 1: Un vocally too, I had experimented with a lot of
Speaker 1: things in Nell Star that I kind of like ended
Speaker 1: up kind of bringing that kind of like that sort
Speaker 1: of uh sort of scat like singing, you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of sing rap type of when you started when
Speaker 1: you do, I don't know what you call. It was
Speaker 1: very influenced by like Brazilian vocal percussion. Um, but the
Speaker 1: process was long. So the reason, well, Nelly, that first
Speaker 1: record sounds like that and it sounds like this crazy
Speaker 1: postiche is because, um, it was very conscious the making
Speaker 1: of it. Like I brought in albums that I love,
Speaker 1: Like I was really into corner Shop at the time
Speaker 1: when I was born for the seventh time. Yeah, first
Speaker 1: groups to really merge pop with like cultural music, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. A lot of Indians. Yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you for seeing me on that. Yeah. Yeah. But we'd
Speaker 1: find like street busker street musicians in the subway, like
Speaker 1: pillion vibraphone or sitar, and we'd be like, can you
Speaker 1: come to the studio today, Like we had lots of
Speaker 1: people come play and we just sample them. And well
Speaker 1: we'd not sample them, like we wouldn't pay them. We'd
Speaker 1: pay them for their session and then we would use
Speaker 1: it in different ways. Um. But there's even Brazilian Baronbow.
Speaker 1: There's some quirky instruments on there. So anyway, all that
Speaker 1: hard work and time and energy and technical difficulties lead
Speaker 1: to the sound of the album technical. So you saying mistakes, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: like pro tools crashing, you know, and things like taking
Speaker 1: longer to like one, there's a song on that album
Speaker 1: that took one month to record, and I mean we're
Speaker 1: in the studio everyday experimenting. Um it's called trying to
Speaker 1: find a Way. Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense that Okay,
Speaker 1: it's somewhere that one. Yeah, so were you How did
Speaker 1: you feel about the reception of the record. In the
Speaker 1: first album, it was weird because I wanted it on
Speaker 1: the radio to be the first single. I'm glad. I
Speaker 1: just want to say, how do you represent that idea?
Speaker 1: Like as I'm going to criticize the radio and to
Speaker 1: be like, hey at me. But I don't think you
Speaker 1: came off the gate thinking, oh it was you know
Speaker 1: what it was? It was my friend, like you know,
Speaker 1: your friends and then your real friends. So it's like
Speaker 1: there's always like the Peanut Gallery who's like too cool
Speaker 1: for everything, and it's like, oh, I feel like it
Speaker 1: was a random conversation in a car and somebody said, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean us as if we are too cool and
Speaker 1: we're snobs, and yeah, but that's cool. You can do that,
Speaker 1: but not to your friends. So like someone in a car, no,
Speaker 1: but like shoot on the radio happened because I was
Speaker 1: in a car with a friend from back home. It
Speaker 1: was a group of people and someone said to me, hey,
Speaker 1: it was like more like an acquaintance, was like, you
Speaker 1: signed a record deal. Make sure you don't make cheesy music,
Speaker 1: make sure you don't make bad music, make sure you
Speaker 1: make cool music. And I was like, excuse me, Like
Speaker 1: that was like it's like really hating before you even
Speaker 1: had a chance to do anything, and people just hate
Speaker 1: just to hate, and so she read it was about that.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know what, I don't need to
Speaker 1: prove myself to you or anyone. I can just like
Speaker 1: do what I want to do and I don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about shoegazing, you know. And so yeah, so anyway,
Speaker 1: so presenting to a record label, Yeah, Mo Austin, I
Speaker 1: don't know, do you know, Mo Austin? Y? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: like he worked at DreamWorks, like my label had like
Speaker 1: Lenny wear Onker and Moe Austin and like, oh really
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, they were like the classic Yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: real lucky. You know. I had these amazing seasoned people
Speaker 1: behind me and they believed in everything I did. And
Speaker 1: Lenny Waronker came to the studio when we're almost done,
Speaker 1: wee Nelly, and he go he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he goes, savor this moment. You will never make music
Speaker 1: like this again because you're just starting out, and your
Speaker 1: impression and the way you think and the way you
Speaker 1: create will never be the same again. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say that innocence and you can you can feel and
Speaker 1: hear that innocence, like the boundaries of they're not being boundaries,
Speaker 1: you cut coloring outside the lines and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: You sort of you get the sense of that like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a person that's just discovering their body parts
Speaker 1: metaphorically speaking, like you know, like, oh, the limited power
Speaker 1: I have. And then it's almost like you get tainted
Speaker 1: or uh, you know, there's there's there's a pressure on
Speaker 1: your hands when you work upon following material like did
Speaker 1: you how did you feel afterwards? Like I know exactly
Speaker 1: what you mean because I hear that records when I
Speaker 1: listen to them now, you know what I mean? So
Speaker 1: like I heard I think I heard Drums album and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I love how he doesn't care
Speaker 1: and it just seems so you know, like there's an
Speaker 1: intentional and it will never happen again. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so beautiful because it's so free,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like, oh, this is so free,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, but anyway, um myself, yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you kdding me pressure. Plus I was a girl. I
Speaker 1: was like a twenty twenty one year old girl all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like what like I'm nominated for Grammy
Speaker 1: and like my mom's sitting next to me and we're
Speaker 1: at the Grammys and I went to Grant like it
Speaker 1: was all surreal. How do you feel when they announced
Speaker 1: your name at night? I think I was there that
Speaker 1: night when you one year Ye yeah you were probably there.
Speaker 1: Yeah back in the good old days. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: it was amazing. I was like, what you kind of
Speaker 1: I mean you expected to win. I mean you were unstoppable.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it's still cool, like it's still
Speaker 1: but the funny thing that happens is afterwards, I remember
Speaker 1: I was living in I remember actually exactly, because I
Speaker 1: was living in l A for like a year. I
Speaker 1: remember you invited me to a party one night and
Speaker 1: I couldn't go, And I don't remember why. I couldn't
Speaker 1: convince my friend to come out with me, and I
Speaker 1: didn't go my roommate my friend. But um, around that time,
Speaker 1: I remember starting to feel like, oh, I gotta deal
Speaker 1: with all the other ways I actually feel about this business,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? The starry eyes are gone.
Speaker 1: I'm now wondering does it all come down to wearing
Speaker 1: a pretty to us on the red carpet? And that
Speaker 1: really messes with you when you're only twenty two. This
Speaker 1: is before the second album. Yeah, it was right when
Speaker 1: I was about to record You're worrying that you might
Speaker 1: become the establishment that you were. Yeah, and that's why
Speaker 1: my first single on Folklore is called Powerless. We're a
Speaker 1: magically sign of the times. It asked me to sing
Speaker 1: it tomorrow in the Today Show. I was like, is
Speaker 1: this a typo? Do you risk you? What? Like? Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like? People want to hear
Speaker 1: songs like Powerless now, which was a like kind of
Speaker 1: like a protest song, at the time. The first line says,
Speaker 1: look at the time we're in I think I know.
Speaker 1: But it's amazing to me that music can live on
Speaker 1: in that way and still inspire people. Because the first
Speaker 1: line says, paint my face in your magazines, make it
Speaker 1: look whiter than it seems. Paint me over with your dreams.
Speaker 1: Shove away my ethnicity because its life is too short
Speaker 1: to live it just for you. But if you feel,
Speaker 1: when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do? Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta learn lyrics before tomorrow, are you? Yeah, gonna do?
Speaker 1: So say what you want? But does that true now? Like, really,
Speaker 1: at some point somebody because you're part of Yeah, somebody
Speaker 1: really came at a label type of that way in
Speaker 1: photo shoots. Yeah, I felt like there was an anglizations, anglicization, Yeah,
Speaker 1: anglicization on me. I've always had all of skin, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I was aware of that because
Speaker 1: I grew up in a small town British colony. I
Speaker 1: was like the only ethnic kid in my class in kindergarten,
Speaker 1: so it's all relative. And then I and so by
Speaker 1: the time I was done with my first record and
Speaker 1: I was doing Powerless, I was like well what about
Speaker 1: who am I really? You know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: what what am I really about? And what do I
Speaker 1: want to say on this next record? So I started
Speaker 1: talking about the next record. I have a song called
Speaker 1: like Fresh off the Boat. You know my parents are immigrants,
Speaker 1: um I was born in Canada. I have a song
Speaker 1: called picture Perfect about my dad's like immigrant dream of
Speaker 1: like coming to Canada and how everything looks so good
Speaker 1: in the old seventies photographs when you look at it.
Speaker 1: Um So anyway, yeah, that's that's what happened. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: I would feel like there was a paradigm you needed
Speaker 1: to fit into at the time actually didn't always match
Speaker 1: how I felt, do you know what I mean? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I have a theory about folklore, which is, you know
Speaker 1: how like Weezer fans well now swear by Pinkerton, right,
Speaker 1: like that's their pickets. I actually think that you're You're
Speaker 1: folklore could be your Pinkerton moment because even though it's again,
Speaker 1: you could tell that you were older, wiser, sort of
Speaker 1: cynical eyes even based on the album cover, because when
Speaker 1: I copped the record, that's the first thing I noticed.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you you've always kept your
Speaker 1: logo the same, but based on the album cover even
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, Nellie, it's serious here, like my tone,
Speaker 1: my face, right, So I got little Nevus in my
Speaker 1: belly too, about four months five months there. But I
Speaker 1: also I also know that, I mean, what we also
Speaker 1: have a common is that, um, well both of us
Speaker 1: got shipped to Geffen. Oh my god, you were in
Speaker 1: that crazy well yeah, because every before well we were
Speaker 1: on m c A and when they announced in two
Speaker 1: thousand three, like you know, we're getting rid of the
Speaker 1: following eleven labels, such a weird feeling. We all got
Speaker 1: shipped and it was like the racial draft, like why
Speaker 1: is a cooler company buying me? It was the it
Speaker 1: was the racial draft of all the black ones. Black
Speaker 1: arts pretty much went over to Geffen, right, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it was it was a weird process like Dr dre
Speaker 1: told Uh, I mean Dr dre K kind of you
Speaker 1: know told u uh president of Interscope Jimmy. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: told Jimmy like, okay, here's the cool artist and wow,
Speaker 1: doctor what yeah he comes through because he picked you,
Speaker 1: but him not, you know what I'm saying, Like that's
Speaker 1: so I'm just saying that Unfortunately, a lot of notable
Speaker 1: records got overlooked in the shift of getting to that moment.
Speaker 1: So I mean, how did you how did you personally feel,
Speaker 1: uh when that album sort of got lost in translation
Speaker 1: as far as the commercial it was kind of weird
Speaker 1: because like I felt like, because always like kind of
Speaker 1: playing guitar, more songs and kind of be more I
Speaker 1: guess traditionally what you would see like more like a
Speaker 1: rock aesthetic. I felt like it wasn't accepted because people
Speaker 1: just wanted me be that girl with the pigtails and like,
Speaker 1: you know, like the fun ethnic girl with hoop darres
Speaker 1: bouncing around and it's like she was so happy. Why
Speaker 1: is she mad? Wait? Because it's your freaking came at
Speaker 1: what point in the middle early? Yeah? Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? That's how I organically felt, Just
Speaker 1: to be completely honest with you, I felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to be angry, okay, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to like be sing my truth. I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to be more emo? Why are you putting like why?
Speaker 1: I'm like, you mean, it's that first feeling of like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 1: I'm in a box. Yeah. I just kind of blame
Speaker 1: it on like just people and perceptions, and luckily the
Speaker 1: album took off in some markets. Thank god, it really
Speaker 1: took off established in other markets. Yeah, like I think
Speaker 1: the song was number one in Canada and like Germany
Speaker 1: and some other places. And I've really felt love on
Speaker 1: many levels, so it was okay. But um yeah, in
Speaker 1: the U S. I was kind of like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess nobody wants to hear me singing about stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't like inviting the hand that aren't we America.
Speaker 1: It's just weird interesting. So I never really thought it
Speaker 1: was about the label folding. Really, maybe I was wrong.
Speaker 1: Maybe it helps, it helps. That's a really good song.
Speaker 1: Try could have maybe been on the radio. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it helps to have I don't know your label
Speaker 1: intact during the six or seven months. It would have
Speaker 1: helped a bit. Yeah, probably because the same the same
Speaker 1: happened with Comic Electric Circus, and then the transition happened
Speaker 1: before because I was in here thinking Electric Circus that
Speaker 1: might have been Actually when Nellie thought about like Folklore
Speaker 1: was maybe a little bit of a went did the
Speaker 1: same thing. She released it, and then DreamWorks sort of imploded.
Speaker 1: This was all happened to simultaneously but it's still a
Speaker 1: different project. So it's kind of like you'll never really
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, if it was a lefty type project.
Speaker 1: And you know, you bring up an important point because
Speaker 1: I think it's perception too, so you as an artist,
Speaker 1: you start to believe the type of like that album
Speaker 1: wasn't as commercial and then you forget that. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: other people to blame I focused on people will say
Speaker 1: the same thing about Electric Circuits. They won't remember that
Speaker 1: the label folded. They'll be like, uh, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: right because it still had life and oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: loved it. I mean, but again, for common core fans
Speaker 1: it might have. But then if Woe Nellie never beloved,
Speaker 1: they could have been like, well Nellie, her debut was
Speaker 1: a little bit weird, so it never connected. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say. It's weird how that works.
Speaker 1: But a second is always weird when it don't say that,
Speaker 1: you know, it always getting weird title, you know, when
Speaker 1: it don't say yeah people, yeah, weird. The thing was
Speaker 1: I think well Nellie was. I think the charm of
Speaker 1: well Nellie was the weirdness of it. It was a
Speaker 1: weird record, but this one was more focused, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it had more of a concept straighthead, which really leads
Speaker 1: to it was like an exploration of identity really, but
Speaker 1: that leads to when Loose came out paid Dirt, what's
Speaker 1: the mouth? My introduction to Loose though was when you
Speaker 1: did SNL and right and Google. Seriously, but I always
Speaker 1: showed my midriff on tour. You remember you with Moby
Speaker 1: with like a Borghini top on. You were like hippie
Speaker 1: Molly like. That's why I was used to I more
Speaker 1: than I've seen it in shoes, So what was okay?
Speaker 1: Did you feel it? I've never seen your feet in
Speaker 1: high heels. I saw them in sneakers. Yeah. Yeah, Sometimes
Speaker 1: you just walk around beer with your beer feedback stage.
Speaker 1: But with Loose, was it just all systems go and
Speaker 1: let me just I had to you said him the Internet,
Speaker 1: that's what you typed. Oh my god, that's so funny. No,
Speaker 1: but you're right. It's a far cry from like my
Speaker 1: like moon boots and crazy like raver pants. The first
Speaker 1: time I did as a son, I mentioned that you
Speaker 1: did work on get your Freaking Uh remix, which was
Speaker 1: a full tomboy like no, no, no, but that was
Speaker 1: that was That was a crucial old summit meeting between
Speaker 1: you and the Timberland group. It was, and everybody forgot
Speaker 1: about it because they were like, how did you meet Timberland?
Speaker 1: There was actually didn't forget about it. There was actually
Speaker 1: you guys. You guys worked together now the hip hop
Speaker 1: people and not the black they know what's going on.
Speaker 1: You guys. You worked with tim before before that remix.
Speaker 1: The Right did a remix. We did three things before
Speaker 1: loose Like, we did three things like the radio and
Speaker 1: turn Off Light remix. We toured together on that tour.
Speaker 1: We toured together. He was He came on the road
Speaker 1: with Miss Jade for at least six or seven show
Speaker 1: I forgot about because I was on ching and then yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So Jimmy Ivan actually told me to go
Speaker 1: work with Timberland again, and he's like, of course, why
Speaker 1: don't I think of it? Yeah? He was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys made a promise with the work you've done
Speaker 1: together and you haven't fulfilled on it. I think you
Speaker 1: should go to Miami. Timberland's in a really great creative
Speaker 1: space right now. And I was like sure. At that point,
Speaker 1: I had already worked with Pharrell Scott Storge Nellie Hooper
Speaker 1: in England. I was just like enjoying my record contract,
Speaker 1: flying around with my daughter recording recording with people. So
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, sure, and so because she's a toddler,
Speaker 1: not in school yet or anything, he's not just having fun.
Speaker 1: So we flew to Miami and worked with tim first
Speaker 1: day speaker cot Fire straight up, we did man Eater
Speaker 1: and the speaker caught fire. Yes to be a good
Speaker 1: sign sounds bad. Heeded speaker's card on fire when uh
Speaker 1: Eddie Van Halen did his solo and yeah, notable hits
Speaker 1: have had burning speakers. Michael Jackson's hair actually live on
Speaker 1: fire because the commercial was so hot, and Cameron was
Speaker 1: actually covered by fire on the Confessions of Fire everyone. So,
Speaker 1: so Ana was the first song you guys worked on? Yes,
Speaker 1: what is the process or was it glow? You know
Speaker 1: when you got your a game on and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull out all the tricks in this first session.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna knock his socks off Timberland and Timberland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was all like, like, do you write this
Speaker 1: top with my vocals? Like in this on Glow that's
Speaker 1: on the record. And then we did Man eat Her
Speaker 1: that same day. So what is he one of those? Sorry?
Speaker 1: Is he one of those? Is he one of those
Speaker 1: work from scratch producers or is it, like yeah, work
Speaker 1: from dance wooth. So if he's dancing and he's hearing
Speaker 1: the beat and his hand wants to do something different,
Speaker 1: like the body's missing something, he'll add a sound so
Speaker 1: that he can complete that physical physical connection. And it's
Speaker 1: all vibe. It's all vibe. He's I don't know, he's
Speaker 1: just powerful. He has this he has this connection. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's neat. And him and I are weird,
Speaker 1: Like when we get together, we hardly see each other.
Speaker 1: I just saw him because he invited me to come,
Speaker 1: like meet some kids he was mentoring on a show
Speaker 1: called The Pop Game HLN or something. I think. I
Speaker 1: hope that's a network. But we get together, we tell
Speaker 1: talk like old people. Like we're talking. We don't talk
Speaker 1: about life, death, love, marriage, divorce, and we talk about
Speaker 1: big things. There's no small talk with Timberland. Timberland doesn't
Speaker 1: do small talk, and um right, you know yeah, no,
Speaker 1: Tim doesn't do small talk. So it's the same approach
Speaker 1: to music. There's no small talk, it's either good or
Speaker 1: it's over and I don't care, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's either popping. It's either I'm moving and I'm loving
Speaker 1: it or for lost interest, you know, so you're constantly
Speaker 1: trying to get his interest back when you're writing. So
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, you didn't feel like you're like
Speaker 1: at the World series and you you gotta like, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta knock it out of the part. But if
Speaker 1: you're if you're building a song from scratch, yeah, which
Speaker 1: I imagine. He came up with the cadence the flow
Speaker 1: for man Eater. He was like men, guns and roses
Speaker 1: at all, like welcome to And then I wrote the hook,
Speaker 1: and then he wrote the cadence for that, and then
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics. And then we had an amazing vocal
Speaker 1: producer named Jim Bean's in there and he was just
Speaker 1: coming up with really cool like harmonies and things like
Speaker 1: say it right. Half the reason it's cool is because
Speaker 1: there's all those little from about it. I can tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, like all those little like call and responses.
Speaker 1: That's what I think it takes it to the next level.
Speaker 1: We were watching a Pink Floyd movie that day when
Speaker 1: we did say it, right, I put an alien effect
Speaker 1: on my voice to inspire myself and then I was
Speaker 1: kind of like m hm hmm, you know, I just
Speaker 1: started singing that and then uh yeah, him and I
Speaker 1: just kinda just like ping pong, you know, in that type.
Speaker 1: But Nate Dan Johns was in that session, like Nate Hills,
Speaker 1: who's an incredible programmer and producers. So and I was
Speaker 1: early days when they just started working together. This is
Speaker 1: before right before they did justin Timberlake's album. We had
Speaker 1: finished our album, so okay, Well, in that type of
Speaker 1: collaboration process um where it's it's you and him Loan
Speaker 1: working and with danger as well. Uh and you're kind
Speaker 1: of building this Jenka game piece. Has there ever been
Speaker 1: a time where you build something and the idea doesn't work?
Speaker 1: Like how do you distingu or is it just everything
Speaker 1: you work on adjusted until until it works. Because usually,
Speaker 1: like in in a band scenario, like if I'm if
Speaker 1: we're if me and the guys are playing a groove
Speaker 1: and maybe it could stale out to forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: or I could clearly see that the client isn't feeling this,
Speaker 1: then I'll just throw it away and then we'll start
Speaker 1: all over again. But because of the intricacy of Timberland's production,
Speaker 1: you know, does every song have to be take no prisoners? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: does it have to be finished to completion or do
Speaker 1: you have like five songs that we worked on that
Speaker 1: didn't make the record. And you know, just in him
Speaker 1: and I had a really cool experience with Loose because
Speaker 1: every single song we made was on the album. That's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to know. Everything made it. It was
Speaker 1: nothing left over. Okay, there were two things that didn't
Speaker 1: end up getting completed. Um one was a song I
Speaker 1: started with justin timber Lake and it was called crowd Control,
Speaker 1: but that was late in the game because I was
Speaker 1: almost done. And then there was like a song that
Speaker 1: some other weird song. I just remember it feeling like
Speaker 1: a Shakira song. I don't remember what it was, but
Speaker 1: it was like it just had that feel, but I did.
Speaker 1: We never finished it and and then we just it
Speaker 1: just fell to the wayside, you know. But it was
Speaker 1: very um potent our time together in that particular wave,
Speaker 1: and we just finished all the songs all in the
Speaker 1: same section of time. Now, did you feel nervous? And
Speaker 1: it's like we couldn't make a bad song at that
Speaker 1: time or something. It was weird. It's easy to be
Speaker 1: in the zone. And at the time, like kids met too,
Speaker 1: you know, because like Chris Martin from Coldplay was in town,
Speaker 1: so we invited him. I knew him. Timberlin did not
Speaker 1: know him, but admired him. And it was a big
Speaker 1: cold Play wave at the time. I invited Chris In
Speaker 1: and he wrote the hook All good Things Coming to
Speaker 1: an End? Would you End? Have been a huge hit
Speaker 1: around the world. So things like that happened to like
Speaker 1: it was just a wave. It was just a moment
Speaker 1: were you at all worried about not the label, but
Speaker 1: in terms of your original, everyone has their original in
Speaker 1: my In my case, it's almost like the barbershop theory.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if you ever have the
Speaker 1: your barbershop thoughts, like Terik has barbershop thoughts. This verse,
Speaker 1: I gotta face the dudes in the barbershop when this verse,
Speaker 1: which is like his his sounding his sound board, which
Speaker 1: could be an okay thing, and sometimes it can also
Speaker 1: be a handicap And I see it more as a
Speaker 1: handicapped than anything. What what why is it a handicapped
Speaker 1: for you, well, I see it because it's a handicap
Speaker 1: because if your initial say, if her crew of six
Speaker 1: has those thoughts about if that's echo in her head,
Speaker 1: like yo, don't make shift on the radio or keep
Speaker 1: it real or what you know whatever music fans be like,
Speaker 1: you know the side I ready for you? Are you thinking?
Speaker 1: You know? What? Is my original crew back at home
Speaker 1: going to think? When I dropped this record with Timberland,
Speaker 1: which has the potential to sell the jillions, which it did,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's also a risk because it's such
Speaker 1: a one eighty from how you started, Like were you
Speaker 1: worried it all? I was really just kind of with Loose.
Speaker 1: I just kind of well two things. I came up
Speaker 1: with the title Loose about two years before I got
Speaker 1: into studio with Timberland. I wanted to make a more
Speaker 1: broad project because I found that my early material didn't
Speaker 1: translate well to larger arena festival shows because of the sounds.
Speaker 1: So I really dreamed of playing arenas with a broader
Speaker 1: sounding album. So I wanted to also prove to myself
Speaker 1: that I can make a big, shiny pop album like
Speaker 1: any other pop star. And I just set myself to
Speaker 1: that challenge because I'm really challenge motivated, So I just
Speaker 1: set that goal for myself. I was like, I want
Speaker 1: to make something huge ship because to see if I
Speaker 1: can do it. You know, I admire because I know
Speaker 1: that most people, especially that are hip hop based, are
Speaker 1: so again, so at least my generation was so keep
Speaker 1: it real and anti pop that well, then I know
Speaker 1: I could do in a way that I still loved. Right,
Speaker 1: But I'm saying that I think it's actually I think
Speaker 1: it's I think pop is is noble, which I know
Speaker 1: it's weird to say. I'm not saying that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm the world's biggest tailors with him, but I kind
Speaker 1: of you, I respect her stee. It's like kind of
Speaker 1: like a fifty million of his fans can't be wrong
Speaker 1: with anything, not even that, not even that. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not even that. It's just that I feel like with
Speaker 1: pop music, it's hard to write a song that millions
Speaker 1: and millions and millions of people who all feel is great.
Speaker 1: At the same I think it's harder to like. Okay,
Speaker 1: some of the producers that we've interviewed on the show
Speaker 1: have made some of their best work with limited materials
Speaker 1: and then or even with like princes or whatever. Like
Speaker 1: when you have limited materials, you're your most creative. But
Speaker 1: when you're giving the world then suddenly like results are
Speaker 1: if you as best. I think it's harder to write
Speaker 1: simple pop songs. I agree. If again, I always say,
Speaker 1: like phrenologies water like eleven minutes, I had the whole
Speaker 1: diagram out. Okay, so minute number seven, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to you know, free jazz here, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: pant the left and right and do all this crazy ship.
Speaker 1: I could do ship like that my sleep. I could
Speaker 1: never do a three minute It's like a It's like
Speaker 1: you could just throw colors up against the canvas and
Speaker 1: call the ship abstract. But it's harder to draw a
Speaker 1: perfect circle, you know what I mean? Accident no, no,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's the beauty's I think it's hard
Speaker 1: to ship. It's hard to be disciplined. It's hard to
Speaker 1: be disciplined. It's hard to bull's eye something that can
Speaker 1: can translate two millions. But oh no, I would just saying.
Speaker 1: I do think once you find out what that formula is,
Speaker 1: it's easy to replicate it though, like if you but
Speaker 1: the hard thing is finding it and caring about it
Speaker 1: because you know it, but you just don't feel like
Speaker 1: doing it sometimes. Know. I think that's because at the
Speaker 1: time you always give us a girl record. On the
Speaker 1: Roots album, we talked about like you but no. But
Speaker 1: that's the thing though. I think the misperception, especially with
Speaker 1: the Roots, is that, oh, you guys are artists. You
Speaker 1: don't want to sell, you don't want to get play.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do it. But you knew
Speaker 1: Water was not gonna be a pop record. You understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, Oh, I know, I know how
Speaker 1: to do what I do well, which is the opposite.
Speaker 1: But until I became a DJ in the last five
Speaker 1: years and really understand what people respond to, now I
Speaker 1: know what the answer is. I still don't know if
Speaker 1: I know album no, I don't know how to execute it.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying that I know what the answer
Speaker 1: is now. Back then, I thought, hey, just put a
Speaker 1: girl on the hook, then it will be a hit. No,
Speaker 1: man so much more than there's so much of his image,
Speaker 1: And I think in like lifestyle, because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not really you selling the music like you're selling the lifestyle.
Speaker 1: You're selling you know, it's like some kind of cold
Speaker 1: personality ship, you know what I mean. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's way different now. Yeah, you gotta be a personality
Speaker 1: for your even talented. So it's because like I could
Speaker 1: make a future record, but like I'm a dad of two.
Speaker 1: I mean not the futures out of dad, but the
Speaker 1: dad of six. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, who's gonna believe that? Is?
Speaker 1: Like mother, Well, let me ask because by that time
Speaker 1: you had a daughter, Like, yeah I did. Having kids
Speaker 1: changed you. Yeah, a few things, like I feel like, okay,
Speaker 1: So my inspiration for Luce was definitely like a look
Speaker 1: to albums like like Madonna Ray of Light. Right, it's pop,
Speaker 1: but it had so much artistry and direction, and it
Speaker 1: had a sheen and a kind of mystery too to it.
Speaker 1: I thought, um, and then Janet Jackson's album when she
Speaker 1: came out as Janet, when she had the photo, the
Speaker 1: photo with someone holding her one behind my eye was
Speaker 1: so inspired by that album. As a I guess fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen year old, my friends and I they called us
Speaker 1: the Janets. We all had very curly, long hair, and
Speaker 1: I really wanted Loose to be like my Janet album.
Speaker 1: I did, and it was yeah, my version right five
Speaker 1: vanilla version, and um yeah, and so would Promiscuous. I
Speaker 1: had trepidations. I was like, wow, I've never seen a
Speaker 1: song like this before. Um, but well, I'll say you
Speaker 1: sold it well because when I saw SNL, I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: I hardly knew you. Yeah, you must have been like
Speaker 1: that because you had known me like real early days,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and no, it's not even criticism. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm with this, but it came from my
Speaker 1: heart because I always I did grow up an R
Speaker 1: and B and hip hop music, so for me, it
Speaker 1: was very natural to sing that way. It was very
Speaker 1: natural to sing that type of music. You know, I
Speaker 1: was in my heart. So I just you know what
Speaker 1: I really think it is. I think my musical vocabulary
Speaker 1: is large, So that's why I can't. I don't fit
Speaker 1: into a box. And every album is different because I
Speaker 1: just I didn't like to speak the language in different ways,
Speaker 1: the music musical language. You know, when you grow up
Speaker 1: playing instruments, you play the black notes on a page
Speaker 1: like there's no genre. You know, it should be a
Speaker 1: democratic thing. I think music, you know, do you feel freedom?
Speaker 1: And that because you know a lot of artists don't
Speaker 1: really have that at the end of Like some people
Speaker 1: would want to do other things, but I feel like,
Speaker 1: what you you can do so many things because you're
Speaker 1: not in a box. But do you feel that privilege
Speaker 1: in that way? I guess so, because I don't know
Speaker 1: how to do it any other way. Like I don't
Speaker 1: know how to adhere to a genre. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that is. I don't I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Or if I did know,
Speaker 1: I would get bored after doing it once I get
Speaker 1: so bored, I get bored. And that's pretty much. That's
Speaker 1: all it is. I just very curious person. I just
Speaker 1: led by my curiosity and if I can be interested
Speaker 1: in something, then I'll do it, you know. But if
Speaker 1: I have no interest, I just can't. I just can't
Speaker 1: do it. Well. The success of Loose was really impressed
Speaker 1: in it, Like did you expect especially coming off of Folklore?
Speaker 1: Was it just like let me throw the spaghetti on
Speaker 1: the wall and see what happened and nothing to lose? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But then sadly it's like, I mean, twelve millions note
Speaker 1: in the scoff at. Yeah, it was crazy. So at
Speaker 1: the height of the madness of you surpassing even your
Speaker 1: debut record. I mean, what was what was it like suddenly,
Speaker 1: like especially were you having to be an artist, having
Speaker 1: to be a mommy, to be a songwriter, like wearing
Speaker 1: all these heads? Where does that? You know? What does
Speaker 1: ten million feel like? At the height of the madness,
Speaker 1: it was exhausting. I was so tired because I was
Speaker 1: traveling with my daughter around the world. Um I two years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I toured, like I was making the record when
Speaker 1: I made Loose she had she was almost two. Who
Speaker 1: were you on tour with at the time? Okay, so
Speaker 1: I made the record. Then it was like, I guess
Speaker 1: she was three when I brought her on the road
Speaker 1: because by the time we went on the road, I
Speaker 1: was just like three, three years four years old anyway,
Speaker 1: So I was really tired. I was on the road.
Speaker 1: It was amazing because I got to play these arena
Speaker 1: shows that I had dreamed of, right, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: these songs sound great in an arena. This is cool,
Speaker 1: and now fit in all the old songs too, and
Speaker 1: it was like really fun. Um, but yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure because this okay, this is what I
Speaker 1: will tell you and I sympathize when I see pop
Speaker 1: stars with these huge careers because I know what they're
Speaker 1: really thinking, and what they're really thinking is, wow, I
Speaker 1: had two number ones. Why was my third single not
Speaker 1: number one? I feel like a failure. I have an
Speaker 1: arena tour. Why isn't Hamburg sold out? I have a
Speaker 1: sold out arena tour. Why didn't we sell out Hamburg
Speaker 1: and Munich? So you're one of the people that if
Speaker 1: a people loveeople in the room love you, you only
Speaker 1: care about the one that's like indifferent. It's the nature
Speaker 1: of the business because all all business models are based
Speaker 1: on growth and yeah, so that's the problem with the
Speaker 1: music business is because you can never stay on top.
Speaker 1: So it's like you're on top and all your worried
Speaker 1: about and every single person who's number one right now,
Speaker 1: all they're worried about is this album gonna hit? Is
Speaker 1: this gonna hit? Like? Am I gonna like? That? Never
Speaker 1: goes away? Like I was at a sting concert and
Speaker 1: like somewhere strange like Latvia. I ended up there because
Speaker 1: I had a show and he saw me. He was
Speaker 1: going to his car and goes, oh, thank god, I
Speaker 1: didn't know you were here, I would have been so nervous,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking it's never good enough for these positive artists.
Speaker 1: You're still that nerd who like nobody likes me crazy,
Speaker 1: or you're worried that you don't have credibility, or you're
Speaker 1: worried that the Peanut Gallery doesn't like you anymore because
Speaker 1: she's like you know what I'm saying, like you're here's
Speaker 1: always somebody to prove something too. It's never perfect. There
Speaker 1: is no yellow people to keep me in line. Yes,
Speaker 1: but that's why. But no, no, no, that that happens
Speaker 1: a lot. Like you'll you'll find out that you do
Speaker 1: your best shows ever in obscure towns that you know,
Speaker 1: industry people aren't watching you. Like have you ever had
Speaker 1: a really really good l A show, really good New
Speaker 1: York show? A handful? You know, like no, I can
Speaker 1: remember maybe one. You know, yeah, it's it's always a fail.
Speaker 1: But yet you know, Montana the best show ever because yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's no pressure of of of people watching you.
Speaker 1: You know, the people there are actually want to be there.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, when you have radio singles, you
Speaker 1: think people are just there to be cool and they're
Speaker 1: just there because your thing is the cool thing to
Speaker 1: do that night. It's very different than when you have
Speaker 1: an album that's less successful and you know everybody who's
Speaker 1: there they actually want to be there, not because the
Speaker 1: radio had commercial. Your friend invited you. You like my
Speaker 1: outfit in the video, you know what, it's real stuff.
Speaker 1: It's real stuff you think about. So okay, So how
Speaker 1: do you do you think I'm crazy? Right? I don't
Speaker 1: think what is she? Because I'm on I was on
Speaker 1: the other side of radio for the last two years,
Speaker 1: So I'm just really thinking about it in an artist way.
Speaker 1: I never thought about that, like that's true. Okay, cool, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think you're crazy. That's my workshop. That would be good.
Speaker 1: You would fit right in at the songwriting workshop. I
Speaker 1: want to see one of these Montana roots ships, Steve whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So with with. But that's so self defeating. It's a
Speaker 1: horrible attitude to be like they're only here because because
Speaker 1: they're they're following a wave. That's that's not me. I
Speaker 1: don't think that happens. Don't. You don't come out of
Speaker 1: the house just because your outfit was keeping in the video.
Speaker 1: You come out of house at least I like one
Speaker 1: to two songs like not it totally happens. It does
Speaker 1: and the thing is, okay, an obscure way to look
Speaker 1: at it. But if your breakout, if your true breakout
Speaker 1: arena album is your third record, and you know you
Speaker 1: had some heat on the first, like, how do you
Speaker 1: if you have a lot of broth and very little chicken?
Speaker 1: Yeah meat, did you ever have moments where you're like
Speaker 1: that's amazing, Okay, well yeah, a lot of strange uh
Speaker 1: here right, so good on the radio broth. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that if you're there because you know
Speaker 1: a particular fan, it's really there for like oh, they're
Speaker 1: gonna come in live when I start or whatever, then
Speaker 1: it's like how do you past your show? Then? Like okay,
Speaker 1: well do you want to get the die hards? And
Speaker 1: it's hard. You know what I used to do on
Speaker 1: the Looster, I play parties. Just begun this track from
Speaker 1: my first albums like bad, He's just being gun and
Speaker 1: I do this whole like you know, yeah, like this
Speaker 1: like did I do this all like vocal percussion thing?
Speaker 1: And that kind of got my jolly's off in that song,
Speaker 1: like I was like, okay, I'm being artistic in this
Speaker 1: song and any as my old fans might know this one.
Speaker 1: And I enjoyed all that. I love playing that role.
Speaker 1: I love putting all the fancy ball down and singing
Speaker 1: show time like it was fun but you know, it
Speaker 1: was fun times. I enjoy it all. It's fun learning
Speaker 1: a new skill. It's fun learning how to act on
Speaker 1: stage and do choreography. And that was cool. I liked it.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Oh, wait a minute, Wait a minute. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I said a moment. I just had a
Speaker 1: moment that I totally forgot about. Okay, Damn, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm about to have a lie you moment. Okay,
Speaker 1: And I'm also gonna mirror it up because I gotta
Speaker 1: be sort of ambiguous with the question. I love these
Speaker 1: because I don't want to be still disclaiming. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of I would be more prefaced than
Speaker 1: it is. S Okay, did you really hit t L
Speaker 1: seat Now I'm playing, don't playing and play? That was
Speaker 1: us your question? Okay, Um, I have a question about
Speaker 1: give it to me. Okay, Yeah, now we know who
Speaker 1: Timberland was brushing shots at the purple guy. That was
Speaker 1: That was justin? That was justin? Oh, and tim Oh
Speaker 1: Timberland particularly, that was a story and we know that
Speaker 1: Justin was, okay, you're just laying all the teams because
Speaker 1: because people listen, they don't all the give it to me.
Speaker 1: Was just just established this show as a common denominator, alright,
Speaker 1: But everybody asked to listen to contact. So Justin was
Speaker 1: talking about Prince Timberland was distin Scott stories. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you? Can ask you a question? Can I ask
Speaker 1: you a question? And we don't have to mention the
Speaker 1: name a disclaimer? So my disclaimer is it? Let me
Speaker 1: just say it was like at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: it's like the thoughts and feelings of the artists did
Speaker 1: not reflects because nobody we We recorded the verses separately.
Speaker 1: I was there to help write the hook, right, and
Speaker 1: I wrote my verse, but I was not present when
Speaker 1: Justin recorded his verse, and I was not present when
Speaker 1: Timberlin recorded his question. My question is just yes or no? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Were you uh bucking at some I okay because I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm also here's the thing that egged on Though I
Speaker 1: was egged on in the studio and I name names,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily simple. In secondly, um Yeah. Secondly, here's
Speaker 1: the bad story because we're made up. We've made up
Speaker 1: because there's a thing. But I was honest with her
Speaker 1: about it when she was hired. I was hired by
Speaker 1: that person to do their birthday party and I didn't
Speaker 1: know nothing about it. The record, who is it? Dude?
Speaker 1: Not only did I play the record, I don't know
Speaker 1: who it is? That who it played twice? No, he's
Speaker 1: given us context clues. This is like how many years
Speaker 1: ago was it? Like dog, No, no statue of limitation.
Speaker 1: I'm establishing a precedence of the show that I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not throwing people under the bus. No, we're not history.
Speaker 1: I will tell you off air, I will tell you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. This is where I got a quest of
Speaker 1: supreme the moment I got set the president. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: was hired by this particular person to do their birthday party,
Speaker 1: not knowing the history of the song. And this is
Speaker 1: just when the ship came out. So this was like,
Speaker 1: usually my first five records, two of those records are
Speaker 1: going to be the song of the moment. And I
Speaker 1: played this ship and goddamn, the whole party just looked
Speaker 1: at me and ran up to me like are you crazy?
Speaker 1: And I was like uh, and then finally the person
Speaker 1: came to me and someone explains. Someone explained to me,
Speaker 1: and then I was I just trying to just sadly
Speaker 1: took the record off and put Billy geno. We made up.
Speaker 1: We made up at Princess Diana's memorial show at Wembley
Speaker 1: Arena in London, England, and it was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: I'm glad right now. Yeah, I'm thinking about the rest
Speaker 1: man making a dissong. Ever, bad Karma, Bad Karma came back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's bad Karma, bad Karma. Wait, what do you mean
Speaker 1: it came back? Well, it was a number one song.
Speaker 1: So at first you're like, you know, and it was fine,
Speaker 1: you know, like the hook, you know that that's just
Speaker 1: like the little things we said in our verses, but
Speaker 1: like we didn't need to do that. We could have
Speaker 1: probably done it without it being like that, Like that
Speaker 1: was just a subplot and you didn't even know about
Speaker 1: it when you played it at the show. And I
Speaker 1: ret net out real slowly. It's never a good thing, um,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, it was a good experience. It
Speaker 1: was a good experience, and I was, I was, I
Speaker 1: guess as honorable as one could be doing that type
Speaker 1: of thing. Like she asked me about it to my
Speaker 1: face at an event, and I actually said, yes, it is,
Speaker 1: and this is why, and it's so polite. Though I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know. I was ready to say, that's awfully considered
Speaker 1: of you. And she didn't agree, and she didn't agree
Speaker 1: with what I said. Um the lyrics if you don't know.
Speaker 1: But it was fine. We kind of worked it out likely,
Speaker 1: you know, out We thought it had a happy and
Speaker 1: I was in the wrong. You ever publicly talked about this, um,
Speaker 1: like really detailed? No, Actually, oh my god, that trick.
Speaker 1: It's I'm not going to be pumped on my own show.
Speaker 1: We're not. We're talking about history. If I bring up
Speaker 1: the Holocaust and that the womanly thing that was interested
Speaker 1: in that, you admitted that it was your fault. No, well,
Speaker 1: I think so there was no real reason for me
Speaker 1: to just go on that. No, no, no, It's like
Speaker 1: it would only do much if she was continuing, is
Speaker 1: all it was. But it was like I was definding
Speaker 1: my creativity, or that's how I saw it. And I
Speaker 1: might have been wrong about the things I was kind
Speaker 1: of thought, the things that motivated it um and she
Speaker 1: kind of also like explained that, and it was still
Speaker 1: kind of heated at that moment, but we made up,
Speaker 1: which was so closed. Yeah, we made up. Let's move on. Listen,
Speaker 1: if we can, if we can talk to listeners, Google,
Speaker 1: if we if we can talk to Prodigy about the
Speaker 1: jay Z beef, how about all of it, because the
Speaker 1: world knows there was a prodigy, Jason. I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: I google Nelly for child Old Beef and her name
Speaker 1: was came up immediately that I just don't want to say.
Speaker 1: I never went down beef lane again. You know, I
Speaker 1: learned my lesson. You've been down beef Lean. I just
Speaker 1: want to talk about the Holocaust. The Holocaust on question.
Speaker 1: That was an unnamed dictator, a little mustache. We don't
Speaker 1: want to say his name because you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want to roughly the feathers or to bring up you know,
Speaker 1: google it, but Google you do it didn't really just
Speaker 1: compare that. I'm taking my show back, damn it. Did
Speaker 1: this Aprison from you watching some old Wild Orchid videos? Okay,
Speaker 1: I liked it. I liked Wild orchis stop Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I really regret. Please Hitler, this is so funny can
Speaker 1: please Yes, I feel like you're the most proudest of
Speaker 1: this record. I love that record because it's hard to
Speaker 1: like sing like properly in another language. I mean, when
Speaker 1: I was little, I learned Portuguese first. Um, Spanish came
Speaker 1: easily by, like grade nine. I guess I was fourteen
Speaker 1: when I started to learn Spanish. When I came out
Speaker 1: with Wolly, this amazing artist from Colombia named Juanas invited
Speaker 1: me to sing on this song that became an international
Speaker 1: hit called photo Raphia. So it was a big song,
Speaker 1: big duet. And after that I just kind of got
Speaker 1: embraced by the Latin community and so I decided to
Speaker 1: do a full album in Spanish. But I did it.
Speaker 1: Did It wasn't translations. It was like I had had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do like a translations album of blues,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't feeling it, so I waited till I
Speaker 1: could do it right. I hooked up with a great
Speaker 1: co writer named Alex Cuba, who was based in Toronto,
Speaker 1: and we started a Spanish alp Them in the Snow
Speaker 1: in Toronto, and it ended up way bigger than I
Speaker 1: ever thought, because um, all these artists really just joined
Speaker 1: onto the you know, onto the project, and it featured
Speaker 1: seven or eight really great collaborations and work with my
Speaker 1: favorite Salam Salam. I love Salon. Do you guys ever
Speaker 1: get together here? Ah? He is currently working on the
Speaker 1: never Ending Roots album that you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: that he's on the project with you. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: that guy. I love so much. She even like he
Speaker 1: embraced the opportunity to do Spanish records, you know, so
Speaker 1: we worked on that. Why not Portuguese? Just curious because
Speaker 1: first I know, see there's me again doing idiosyncratic and
Speaker 1: I'm like everybody asked me that, They're like, why why
Speaker 1: not Portuguese? And I'm just like, I don't know. I started.
Speaker 1: I like Latin pop markets, you know, and if I
Speaker 1: did Portuguese would probably be more um um boutique, like
Speaker 1: Photto music or something, because they don't get nominated for
Speaker 1: Latin Grammy that they do actually to make matters more confusing.
Speaker 1: So like Laudo Pusins Italian, she's one of Latin Grammy,
Speaker 1: cut Ton of A Loso's Brazilian, he's one of Latin Grammy.
Speaker 1: It's kind of broad the whole genre, but like um
Speaker 1: Portuguese is Hispanic on the U S census form. Very confusing,
Speaker 1: very confusing, very confusing, And so I decided to sing
Speaker 1: a Latin pop album, kind of like a very inspired
Speaker 1: by like rock and Espanio stuff like that. You know.
Speaker 1: Julia to Venegas, she co wrote a couple of tracks.
Speaker 1: She's a Mexican artist, had a rapper named Mala Lama,
Speaker 1: she's from Spain. I had like a proper Mexican runcherro singer,
Speaker 1: Jandro Fernandez week Flamenco. I really went there with it.
Speaker 1: I had fun with it, and I collaborated a lot,
Speaker 1: and honestly, the Latin world, the Latin world of music
Speaker 1: is far larger than I ever imagined, and it was welcoming.
Speaker 1: I felt a sense of community that I really really,
Speaker 1: really really was about to say, did you go to
Speaker 1: the Latin Grammys and like, how did you feel in
Speaker 1: that community? Amazing? Yeah I did. Yeah, I felt um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was all felt humbled by it too,
Speaker 1: right because yeah, here I am this English singer. And
Speaker 1: then I decided to make a Spanish album and it
Speaker 1: gets embraced. So it was like, wow, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 1: But I also feel indebted to the artists have collaborated with,
Speaker 1: like on ess Right, it takes people to kind of
Speaker 1: bring you in, right, like with any genre, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need somebody to vouch for you. Yet he's right,
Speaker 1: not not right now? I motherfucking for the squad in
Speaker 1: good times in bad time. Josh Groban's on my Spanish album,
Speaker 1: so he like, I want to sing in Spanish and
Speaker 1: I was like, great, I sent him the song and um,
Speaker 1: well no, I invited him and he said, oh, that
Speaker 1: would be a good opportunity. And he's saying, so there
Speaker 1: was both of us like singing the Spanish song together.
Speaker 1: But you forgive me for asking this question, cause I'm
Speaker 1: about to go listen to the album, but I haven't.
Speaker 1: Are there? Yeah? Is there are there any like samba
Speaker 1: sasa nova type influence in the samba? I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: it's side. Yeah yeah, um not really. The closest thing.
Speaker 1: There's a Flamenco song there's like a real like like ah,
Speaker 1: salm did that truck? That's my favorite. I think that's
Speaker 1: a probably the best track. It's called Strong and is
Speaker 1: this amazing Flamenco singer for this really throaty, powerful voice
Speaker 1: she's Uh, she's amazing. Wait. Salam also worked on the
Speaker 1: next Joe to a Spirited Salam and I did a
Speaker 1: song called something which features nas and uh another track
Speaker 1: that Salam did on Spirit Wash. He did more than
Speaker 1: one that ended up on the record. He did some
Speaker 1: B sides too. Um, why did you write a lot
Speaker 1: together Rodney Jerkins? Yeah, Dark Child, let me tell you
Speaker 1: what amazing. I'll tell you what he does. You want
Speaker 1: to know? And how many Michael Jackson stories did you
Speaker 1: get to hear? This is what he's like when you
Speaker 1: write with him. So he'll sit behind the keyboard and
Speaker 1: he looks at you when he's writing. So he'll be
Speaker 1: like and he's like he's moving and he's looking in
Speaker 1: your eyes while he's writing. And um, I loved working
Speaker 1: with Rodney. Actually, Rodney is a very good vocal arranger.
Speaker 1: As we all know. He produced Say My Name, He
Speaker 1: produced The Boy is Mine Like Hello. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I was in the studio. I walked around and
Speaker 1: I had this crazy moment where I realized he had
Speaker 1: produced all my favorite nineties R and B records, And
Speaker 1: that's why we did the song Big Hoops and we
Speaker 1: reference all my favorite nineties artists on that song because
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess I was in that that
Speaker 1: energy was the last record I made with Interscope, and
Speaker 1: I actually, I don't know. There was a bit of
Speaker 1: pressure to make something big and bouncy again because it
Speaker 1: was my next English project after Loose Um. But I
Speaker 1: was just having fun. Like Rannie and I had a
Speaker 1: genuine connection. We had genuine connection and and vibe together. Um.
Speaker 1: I did enjoy making that album as well, which which
Speaker 1: leads us to the right now. The thing is when
Speaker 1: I saw the cover. When I saw the cover to
Speaker 1: the right, I was like, why did you drop your logo? Who?
Speaker 1: Who designed your logo? I'm a I'm a font nerd
Speaker 1: by the way, so I know, do you know it's
Speaker 1: like a sacred geometry logo and my friend from It's
Speaker 1: called Create. It's like a media company and I'm trying,
Speaker 1: I know, and they did, um yeah, they did a
Speaker 1: new logo for me. And it's basically based on all
Speaker 1: these like mathematical equations of like space and um angles
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And I just really liked, I know,
Speaker 1: I get so bored to drop your your classic psychedelic logo.
Speaker 1: I think so I just got so sick of seeing
Speaker 1: that big old thing on every cover. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: not a game, it's I just looked like I had
Speaker 1: all the same album cover every time. Like I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh this this I know, but I'm independent
Speaker 1: now so I don't care. And I was like whatever,
Speaker 1: I know. It's just it's just so rare. As as
Speaker 1: a lover of record collecting, it's so rare. Define product
Speaker 1: with good consistent logo has their consistent logo. Chicago. Chicago
Speaker 1: has theirs. Uh well, Uta has more of a local
Speaker 1: than like fonts associated. I mean you know, I mean
Speaker 1: the Roots have kept are are are boring? Uh blue
Speaker 1: not Vitica American typewriter. Yeah. But when you when you
Speaker 1: when you be thrown off if you saw a Roots
Speaker 1: album in any font other than what you're used to seeing.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize what you said that, but I
Speaker 1: guess something because you don't like the Roots. I love them.
Speaker 1: But Netley's album looks like it reminds me of like
Speaker 1: those eighties albums. Everybody goes to that stage of like
Speaker 1: the secret life of plants when you put the picture
Speaker 1: inside the block of color and I lost everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want you for that. Thank you did everybody did
Speaker 1: anything that way? Yeah, but with my friend on it. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to capture the energy space of mine
Speaker 1: that I was in when I recorded. And I did
Speaker 1: that photo shoot for Internet stuff and I ended up
Speaker 1: using it for the album cover because it was like
Speaker 1: snapshot of kind of the week. I finished the album
Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas, and the artwork features local Dallas artists
Speaker 1: and visual artists. The artwork on the fronts by Samantha mccurity.
Speaker 1: You can't see the whole thing, but you buy the vine.
Speaker 1: I should have brought you a vinyl. Why the hell
Speaker 1: did I not bring this final to you? It's so
Speaker 1: cool but you open it up and it's just has
Speaker 1: a sense of community. Just I met a lot of
Speaker 1: cool people in Dallas and I ended up working on
Speaker 1: all these projects with them, the video directors from Dallas.
Speaker 1: There's a good musical community down there. Did you stop
Speaker 1: Bob Parks Jr. You ever met him? I've not met him.
Speaker 1: Really talented uh keyboardists, Clabinett, he plays it all on
Speaker 1: my album. There's a really cool I don't know if
Speaker 1: you go to record stores a lot, but I used
Speaker 1: to work at my friends store in Toronto a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. One of the after selling millions of
Speaker 1: records did I did for fun? The key the key
Speaker 1: to uh? I forget? This is the leader, the leader
Speaker 1: of Polyrhythmic Spreeic Spree owns like one of the coolest
Speaker 1: record stores, mom and pop spots in Dallas. Right now.
Speaker 1: It's escaping me, is it? No, Cliff, don't, don't give
Speaker 1: me to quote it, but it's it's a really John
Speaker 1: Congleton produced all the records Polsonic Spree, who did my record? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. In that area of Dallas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a vibe. It's like you know what it is,
Speaker 1: It's like that whole like like artists and then like
Speaker 1: the patriots of the arts, you know, and then there's
Speaker 1: this great divide, and I think it creates this wildness
Speaker 1: to like the left side, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it just creates this more you have to kind
Speaker 1: of you got to be even weirder in Dallas to
Speaker 1: be weird, you know what I mean. So you gotta
Speaker 1: gotta really how do you how do you feel to
Speaker 1: be How does it feel to be on your own
Speaker 1: and truly independently, without without label of labels. Well, I
Speaker 1: really followed my heart. I really wanted to work with
Speaker 1: John Congleton, and Annie from St. Vincent introduced me to him.
Speaker 1: We clicked, and I just in my heart thought, I
Speaker 1: want to know what it's like to work with like
Speaker 1: an alternative producer, Like I want to see what that's like.
Speaker 1: I want to see if I could do it. And
Speaker 1: when I met him, we started working and interscope. I
Speaker 1: was still with them, but I always kind of go
Speaker 1: off and do my own thing and don't really tell
Speaker 1: them what I'm doing. But eventually I did, and it
Speaker 1: felt like they were kind of like, yeah, well maybe
Speaker 1: we could do this or that or this, and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, I really want to finish this album
Speaker 1: with John Congleton. So I was able to get my
Speaker 1: album back from them. Wow, I owned this album masters.
Speaker 1: Wait wait out, wait a minute, you had a conversation
Speaker 1: with them. No, my manager helped me, Like I haven't literally,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying that they were willing two amicably
Speaker 1: part with you. Um yeah, yeah, they gave me my
Speaker 1: my master. They gave me them like I got to
Speaker 1: keep the masters in of this new record, and um,
Speaker 1: it was a blessing because I was able to make
Speaker 1: this beautifully produced album essentially independently, you know, which is
Speaker 1: you're not usually able to do that, you know, because
Speaker 1: John's are really in demand producer. So um, it took.
Speaker 1: We took our time with it because we're both really busy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, you know, sometimes it's just time to
Speaker 1: move on. Really confused. I need this. That's the sound
Speaker 1: of my brain right now. Which you have to do
Speaker 1: more with relationships, Like there's there's a lot of old
Speaker 1: relationships in the music business, like the people you don't
Speaker 1: see on TV. I guess, I guess if you ask,
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, like between business relationships like
Speaker 1: sometimes like there are certain people who know how to
Speaker 1: get stuff done quickly. I'm just lucky enough to be
Speaker 1: working with some of them at the time. The only
Speaker 1: reason why mind bloom is because now that I think
Speaker 1: of it, I think I did the same thing. Good
Speaker 1: it happens. We know what j I asked Jay, like, YO,
Speaker 1: take us with you to death Champ and he's like,
Speaker 1: that's I want to get involved in Jimmy's business. And
Speaker 1: I simply just asked him. But my my selling point
Speaker 1: was I was like dude, you have seventeen mega platinum
Speaker 1: artists on interscope. I said, are we doing is wasting
Speaker 1: your money? You won't miss us? And he sat and
Speaker 1: thought about it. It's like, okay, thanks and that was it.
Speaker 1: And I because you were respectful, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I think even when I presented what I was
Speaker 1: working on with John, I was just it. Did you
Speaker 1: get saying if you sell, if you wrote a handwritten note,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you sell twelve million units,
Speaker 1: I'd be yeah, I kind of want to make sure
Speaker 1: you're good to the last drop. Okay, Okay, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it's always risk involved, I guess, but like they
Speaker 1: still get the got some Jordan five time left in you.
Speaker 1: So it's like that to me, That to me is
Speaker 1: an amazing like I can't believe that happens. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a kind of like a little mini miracle. I
Speaker 1: guess I felt it grateful. But then when I signed
Speaker 1: those documents, I said, wow, I signed this record contract.
Speaker 1: Nine is a long time ago because I take too
Speaker 1: much time in between albums. So for me signing a
Speaker 1: six album deal like at that age and have a
Speaker 1: new you don't think right when you signed it first
Speaker 1: record catch You're like yeah, like it's an album. You
Speaker 1: read it. I was always smart about reading my paperwork.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you're not really processing, like
Speaker 1: how much time? You don't know that it's going to
Speaker 1: take that long to record six records, you know? So
Speaker 1: what do you? What do you? It happens something I wanted?
Speaker 1: I mean you've you've taken. I mean you're kind of
Speaker 1: taken the dream. As far as an evolution is concerned.
Speaker 1: He made all types of records, done, all types of
Speaker 1: collaborations and musical experiments like what what I never believe
Speaker 1: in happy, I believe in satisfied. So what yah? When
Speaker 1: at what point are you satisfied? Like can if you
Speaker 1: were to stop now you are you Like, okay, you
Speaker 1: have a beautiful daughter. You pretty much lived in the dream,
Speaker 1: Like what is what is the satisfaction destination for you? Um?
Speaker 1: For me? Um? Okay? If I had to stop today
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, I'm gonna quit now, I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna make music again. Um, I might regret like
Speaker 1: never doing like a Portuguese language album. Actually I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to put that on you, no, but it's no,
Speaker 1: it's not you. Um, yeah, so so that that could
Speaker 1: be cool at some point, but again I won't know
Speaker 1: until across that bridge. But yeah, generally speaking, I just
Speaker 1: wanted this time. This time. It's been really cool. Like
Speaker 1: a week after I got out of my record contract,
Speaker 1: like like I think a month later, I was rehearsing
Speaker 1: with Dev Hines because we were going to sing together
Speaker 1: at his charity show he did. Did you go to
Speaker 1: that at the Harlem Apollo? Was really cool? It was
Speaker 1: for It's a fundraiser um, And so I said to him, Hey, Dev,
Speaker 1: you know I'm not with my label anymore, so we
Speaker 1: could put out our new song on cassette like and
Speaker 1: sell it at the merch table for charity. So that's
Speaker 1: the type of stuff you can never do if you're
Speaker 1: on a major label. Who is who has a cassette player?
Speaker 1: Don't know right now? Get a boom buxa. And also
Speaker 1: I did an installation at Art Basil this year with
Speaker 1: my friend who's a photographer. So normally, like you can't
Speaker 1: just do that stuff when you're signed to a contract.
Speaker 1: Um sound art installations, songwriting and you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: It's just a different flow in your brain and it's
Speaker 1: really nice. I've been experienced inventing with that, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna see where that takes me. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: really know. I just wanted to keep asking questions. You know,
Speaker 1: I took a playwriting class last year at university that
Speaker 1: was fun. So maybe writing arrangements or something for like
Speaker 1: a different type of like paradigm may be theatrical. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. See, I get the feeling that you know,
Speaker 1: the the ongoing, the ongoing evolution. Well, you know, she'll
Speaker 1: probably prime minister. Well, I was gonna ask you, like,
Speaker 1: musically Toronto has been put on the map since you
Speaker 1: first stepped on to feel like a collaborations coming up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel cool, um because I watched the
Speaker 1: scene grow and I stayed in that city. I've stayed
Speaker 1: in Toronto my whole life and career wow from age
Speaker 1: eighteen owt. But like I've watched it grow urban scenes
Speaker 1: finally on the international map. I mean, we were just
Speaker 1: doing our thing time. Thanks, But I mean I need
Speaker 1: to know did my stro my stroke frash West let
Speaker 1: your backbone slide? Was that a hit over here back? Okay?
Speaker 1: Because I wouldn't know because we play can con in
Speaker 1: Canada growing up sot of everything you see and listen
Speaker 1: to his Canadians. It's called cancan. Yeah, it's a government rule.
Speaker 1: Yeah before Clear Channel took Yeah. So so basically speaking, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so nice to meet these new artists that are
Speaker 1: coming out and they have an appreciation for what happened
Speaker 1: in the past, but then they're moving things forward. So,
Speaker 1: like my favorite from Toronto was his name is River
Speaker 1: tiber and Record. Yeah. Man, he's based in Toronto. New
Speaker 1: new artists, you got to look out for Mustafa Ahmed.
Speaker 1: I've known I'm say and he was fifteen. He sings,
Speaker 1: he's a spoken word poet. I really got to look
Speaker 1: out for him. He's making his UM. He's managed by
Speaker 1: Doc actually and he's making his for his debut right now.
Speaker 1: Thanks No. I was literally going to ask you to
Speaker 1: put us on to some new Canadian act Also, I
Speaker 1: really like Charlotte day Wilson's EP. Have you heard it? Yeah, manager,
Speaker 1: she's on She's on bad, bad, not good new album
Speaker 1: as well. Fonts are and I feel irrelevant because i
Speaker 1: Q is stuff coming out. Fonte's Drake's Spirit Animal. Really,
Speaker 1: Drake is going on record to say that this man,
Speaker 1: I can see animal Yeah yeah, yeah, he said that
Speaker 1: and um yeah on he dedicated his um, he dedicated
Speaker 1: his he want a b M I ward I think,
Speaker 1: and he dedicated it to me. Really, he dedicated it
Speaker 1: to me. He dedicated to me Andre and uh Kanye,
Speaker 1: and they asked me what I thought about it, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I think it's great, but I wish
Speaker 1: you would have dedicated time to do a verse from
Speaker 1: my album. And we haven't speake since you don't love
Speaker 1: the brother It's all good, you know, get that gun
Speaker 1: sign yea, I have a soft shots fired in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done. We worked early early on in his career
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean he's always didn't know you did.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, find out to later that he
Speaker 1: was on the Loose tour because he's saying backgrounds for
Speaker 1: Soccrates On a couple of shows tour he sang background first,
Speaker 1: got to start somewhere, he did, that's all start on
Speaker 1: the bottom. He did double No, he did doubles for Soccrates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on like I think three or four shows on our
Speaker 1: Canadian tour of Loose. Yeah, but I didn't know at
Speaker 1: the time, Like I just found this out recently. But
Speaker 1: everybody loves Drake. Everybody's so proud of him, right, right, y'all,
Speaker 1: she said, She said, everybody loves right. It was for
Speaker 1: the Cean Tower to be on the cover of an album.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful Bill Well, Nellie, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us today at the Qua ls Peanut Gallery.
Speaker 1: Give it up for now. Everybody needs the Peanut Gallery
Speaker 1: album Rounded. Please get the new album. Ride the Ride,
Speaker 1: the Ride. I'm sorry. You got to enjoy it or
Speaker 1: get off of it? Yes, yes, you've been thinking that
Speaker 1: all day. Haven't you just enjoyed? Get off? Anyway, We're
Speaker 1: getting off the ride. Behalf Fantigolo and Sugar Steve and
Speaker 1: Boss Bill and I'm paid Bill and yat it Off
Speaker 1: the ride. This is Question Love Quest Love Supreme. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Nellie. I appreciate it. Cors Love Supreme
Speaker 1: is a production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at and Door. For more
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