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, Welcome to QLs Classic Episode twenty four
Speaker 1: with Persha, made two thousand seventeen. He's one of the
Speaker 1: brightest stars of the post MJ generation, and we get
Speaker 1: to chop it up with Usher about his life growing
Speaker 1: up in the spotlight, not to mention the pressures of
Speaker 1: keeping that light bright. We get confessional about doing it
Speaker 1: his way. We hope you enjoy Usher QLs Classic. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Roll Call Rogue Rogue q u E Yeah, st yeah,
Speaker 1: l O v E. Yeah, tell what you wanted to
Speaker 1: Roma Rogue, I taste the name. Yeah, I got so
Speaker 1: many tricks. Yeah, I should have won that Oscar yea
Speaker 1: for in the nick some ground Premar Sugar Sugar Steve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my confession. Yeah, I love we We already
Speaker 1: greet roll Prima Prima Rogue. This this boss Bill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got to have some fun. Yeah, I've been away
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, I had to get the guns
Speaker 1: something Rogue. Plus I'm paid Bill. Yeah, so what's the deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been watching the West Wing. Yeah, pretending it's real
Speaker 1: roma Roadma rogue, It's yeah, I'm already called up. Yeah
Speaker 1: was usher? Yeah, I don't give a fun pre roll okayma,
Speaker 1: yeah my name is Yeah, I'm he with Team Supreme. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What y'all doing in here? Yeah? Man, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the hell oh Rima roll, Suprima rogue, Suma subprimo roll.
Speaker 1: That was cool, Lead you survive. I'll admit that uh
Speaker 1: US is the first guests, of course Love Supreme to
Speaker 1: actually have known of the theme before it was unleashed.
Speaker 1: You know, for those that are wondering about the themes,
Speaker 1: we never tell our guests what the theme is, like,
Speaker 1: we just you know, I was trying to think some
Speaker 1: funny shi to say the whole tel wrote down a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of ship that I didn't use them, like
Speaker 1: like maybe if I just have a few catch words,
Speaker 1: it'll just come to me somehow, some way. Some of
Speaker 1: the best moments of Quest of Supreme is when we
Speaker 1: mess up. Well, in case you haven't guest, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: UH In the ongoing tradition of adding members to the roots,
Speaker 1: as if there's not enough UH members already, I think
Speaker 1: users is going to be probably remember number seventeen. Still
Speaker 1: ye figrowing out I want residuals on everything in line
Speaker 1: with the rest of the Root's son. No, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Uh please uh welcome uh friend of the show, Uh,
Speaker 1: friend of the roots, friend of of music. Music was
Speaker 1: yeah of music, um usser Aloisious Raymond the Fourth? What's
Speaker 1: your middle name? Alois I don't know. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're they're killing they're killing all my Cosby dreams.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like Field's middle name Aloisious Huxtable
Speaker 1: that you didn't know that? What's the what's the symbolic
Speaker 1: meaning or word that wording? I don't know. It just
Speaker 1: means that you put a lot of thought into the
Speaker 1: middle name. If you name that, it could be like
Speaker 1: attached somewhere to like the family roots or something. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I don't know the person, I'm just saying that you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're first of all, ladies and gentlemen, please
Speaker 1: welcome us. We got right into so you said it
Speaker 1: just as it is. I don't have a mindal name. No,
Speaker 1: I don't have a name Usher Raymond. How many people there?
Speaker 1: You go, there you go, let's talk about it, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that means you're you're you're grant your whole lineags escaped
Speaker 1: Hell make serious? I know, I know, yeah, joking, but
Speaker 1: serious when your son is five, right, he's the fist
Speaker 1: And who was the first usher? What did he do?
Speaker 1: I mean he worked in the theater, I guess, I
Speaker 1: don't know with theaters back then. Understand, you are obviously
Speaker 1: now we all were obviously given names by our slave owners,
Speaker 1: so you know, or either within the trade of what
Speaker 1: it is that was significant in that time. So I
Speaker 1: think that maybe it had something to do with you know,
Speaker 1: being a server or something. I don't know, snap, but
Speaker 1: I'm so late on that joke. Yeah, like I don't
Speaker 1: even have a sound effect. So my entire career, you
Speaker 1: thought it was a joke, Like my name really wasn't. No, No,
Speaker 1: I knew I should was your name, but I didn't
Speaker 1: think about us your being a given name and it
Speaker 1: really being like maybe it was somebody who was the
Speaker 1: ushered church from back in the day, or we just
Speaker 1: were having church back then. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: they're using that's how that's how we found Jesus. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So even though your freestyle on this, I would almost
Speaker 1: lean towards believing that's probably how there's some truth to it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, but I become curious within the
Speaker 1: last two years. You know what I did. I did
Speaker 1: like you did? I did, and also to have been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of us Yeah why not necessarily with
Speaker 1: you know, get but but the point is just to
Speaker 1: understand where I come from. Where are you? I'm West African?
Speaker 1: We all are, isn't it true? I mean the research
Speaker 1: that comes back on every person that I've ever asked
Speaker 1: that West or either you haven't chosen to look have you?
Speaker 1: I have not not yet yet. Well that's good because
Speaker 1: that gives you an opportunity to do something to the
Speaker 1: initial I'm scared of giving DNA like that just feels
Speaker 1: like I feel like I'm giving DNA and opportunities to
Speaker 1: this skill the next I'm kind of sucked up. But
Speaker 1: but I have looked at it. I'm you got some
Speaker 1: kids on the books. You know, did you give DNA
Speaker 1: to make money many years ago? At some point did
Speaker 1: I give DNA? Gave play? She was real. It was
Speaker 1: a rough time, but you know, and I got it.
Speaker 1: Bet you know, I got my blood, you got the
Speaker 1: TV back ship was real. His first album on My
Speaker 1: Way to the Clinic. Well, yeah, I did that test
Speaker 1: and I found out what they told me that both
Speaker 1: of my parents were from Sierra Leo. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do Skip Gates is one. Uh he had
Speaker 1: to show on PBS, Henry Lewis Gates, Henry Skow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, yeah, just kind of at least have
Speaker 1: some track. I mean, none of us are, you know,
Speaker 1: pure blood from Africa. There were a lot of different
Speaker 1: places that kind of we're mentioned in my um my
Speaker 1: pie chart, because there's like a pie chart that they
Speaker 1: give you and you kind of look and then you
Speaker 1: can determine like where you want to go from there
Speaker 1: with it, Like say you decide you want to go
Speaker 1: back to that village, what's the truth? What what's what is?
Speaker 1: What truth? Will you find there? Where you find the
Speaker 1: village that you originally from, a lot of those places,
Speaker 1: a lot of the places that we would go, they
Speaker 1: now adopted the idea of being modernized and being commonized,
Speaker 1: so so English is now applied. The true tongue of
Speaker 1: the place is not there. So I'm, if anything, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that I'll go back there and there will be
Speaker 1: some facial features that I could see if you know,
Speaker 1: potential people, but for the most part they also to
Speaker 1: have been mixed so many times that they're not it's
Speaker 1: the original, right, it's been cut. I strongly recommend that
Speaker 1: you need to cut it. I know you need to.
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend that you contact Henry Lewis Gates because
Speaker 1: like the level, the the thorough level of research they do.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna like for those they don't know,
Speaker 1: like uh, I guess for four or five seasons they
Speaker 1: were doing like all the black celebrities because of course,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna get a glorious story out of that.
Speaker 1: But then when they did the Afflecks, once they started
Speaker 1: doing white people, um, Henry said that we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to to tell you the truth of yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was just that been Afflecks and Casey Afflecks family.
Speaker 1: They came from a lineage of like some probably the
Speaker 1: meanest slave owners or they ran candy Land for real
Speaker 1: and the real candy Land. You know, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't want that information getting out and then controversy happened,
Speaker 1: so skipped just just like well, I'm canceling the show.
Speaker 1: Then if you guys are gonna censor me, and you
Speaker 1: know PBS didn't want to broadcast that episode. Now it's bad.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the fact that technology has now allowed
Speaker 1: us to investigate our own lineage. And that's good. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, schools, because schools. Back when I
Speaker 1: was in high school or middle school or elementary school,
Speaker 1: we were immigrants in the books, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So but but I'm saying, like, the gross perpetuation of
Speaker 1: what is going on in this country has just continued
Speaker 1: to just cycle and to the to the point where
Speaker 1: it's like you can't even really get an education about
Speaker 1: who you are. You can't who's gonna talk to you?
Speaker 1: Or we should talk about it doing Black History Month? Well,
Speaker 1: why the funk should we relegate our entire history to
Speaker 1: a month? Like how about how about how about we
Speaker 1: take the time to get the information ourselves, or either
Speaker 1: at least do some investigation along the lines of even
Speaker 1: just giving people an idea of what their lineage is.
Speaker 1: Who knows it might it might or might not be true,
Speaker 1: But the point is it's information and I'm happy out
Speaker 1: I'm happy that somebody decided to do that. But why
Speaker 1: is it that we as black people didn't come together
Speaker 1: and figure to shoot out by ourselves. I say and say, listen,
Speaker 1: let's put let's put this money together to begin like,
Speaker 1: let's do a collective right. We will go around, You'll
Speaker 1: go to any motherfucking church in the world, and there's
Speaker 1: a collection plate there to keep that establishment going. But
Speaker 1: we don't figure out a fund for ourselves to begin
Speaker 1: to even understand our lineages and begin to like build
Speaker 1: ourselves up, build our stags. That's why I asked you,
Speaker 1: how did you feel when you got the information back?
Speaker 1: Felt great? I felt great, released, like, oh I came
Speaker 1: from somewhere, because I don't think people understand the fact.
Speaker 1: That's what I was about to say. I don't think
Speaker 1: people you know. I was overwhelmed the most because I
Speaker 1: grew up in a time period where if you called
Speaker 1: me African, African booty scraps, that like not really so no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that in the early seventies, when you
Speaker 1: called somebody African, like on the playground, I got think
Speaker 1: hip hop though, because hip hop made me appreciate Africa.
Speaker 1: That's because you were born seven eight, so in the
Speaker 1: eighties see that five year Yet that five years I
Speaker 1: was born in seventy different see me being born in
Speaker 1: seventy one and being of age at nine and like
Speaker 1: eight eighty one. That's how shame we were to even
Speaker 1: be called that because but you know you you became
Speaker 1: of age at eight or nine in eighty five, eighties,
Speaker 1: six eighty seven. Well, they will manipulating your mind to
Speaker 1: celebrate everything but who you were? Right? But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that those seven years between you and I of
Speaker 1: the seventies, that's a generation different of thinking. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: but everything you become of age when public enemy is like,
Speaker 1: but did you travel to Africa when you were at age? No?
Speaker 1: Did you see pictures of Africa when you were when
Speaker 1: you were So my point is you would being manipulated.
Speaker 1: You noticed. I'm just I ain't telling you nothing. It
Speaker 1: was rhetorical, but I'm just saying, like, to be perfectly
Speaker 1: honest with you, it was hip hop that basically decided
Speaker 1: to use that as a farm, and it it spoke
Speaker 1: to us. Was it relevant you know enough to be like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna lift up from this and continue
Speaker 1: to keep it going. No, they were y'all were they
Speaker 1: were courageous as hell to even have the conversation. And
Speaker 1: what happened after that was, Okay, we can continue to
Speaker 1: talk about Africa and talk about the things that are
Speaker 1: gonna lift us up and talk about being you know,
Speaker 1: connected as a community. Then it was drugs. Then it
Speaker 1: was the opulence of drugs. Then it was the disconnect
Speaker 1: from anything that had anything to do with being smart
Speaker 1: at all. So now here we are. And then some
Speaker 1: of our artis that came from that era, like the
Speaker 1: whole eating with the whole collective of Daylight and everybody else.
Speaker 1: Like people got older, they got into making money and
Speaker 1: brands things like that. As as we have so clearly
Speaker 1: noticed within our generation that we don't live long enough
Speaker 1: in order to celebrate what we started fighting for the
Speaker 1: most of the most of the people who were advocating
Speaker 1: before they got official jobs. So now they're in South
Speaker 1: from they got they got government jobs, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and they're trying to survive, and then whatever
Speaker 1: the hell they got they're trying to hold onto. So
Speaker 1: it's like they can't go too deep. And then they realized,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is a this is a trap which
Speaker 1: is not to not for nothing. But that was the
Speaker 1: argument with some of the public and the Grammys versus
Speaker 1: Golden Globes, because it was like, oh, we show me
Speaker 1: as quiet. We got to protect our brand. But meanwhile
Speaker 1: it was at the other one it was like, uh,
Speaker 1: but I'm just it's just interesting in that way, very
Speaker 1: interesting protecting if you want to talk about that, if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about it, I don't mind being
Speaker 1: as though you're you're an Atlanta native. Okay, as we
Speaker 1: get further into your story, I'm curious to ask you
Speaker 1: how your your current mind state, your evolution correlates with
Speaker 1: the culture that Atlanta has now as far as hip
Speaker 1: hop culture is concerned. But okay, great, Now, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sound like the cliche, but I want to start back
Speaker 1: in the beginning. Let's go back. You're gonna take your
Speaker 1: way back. So, so you were born in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I was born in Dallas, Texas. Really, I was born
Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas. Fort Worth, Yes, fort Worth, Texas, which Dallas, Dallas,
Speaker 1: Texas on US and the fourth Yeah, how long did
Speaker 1: you live in Dallas? A year? I don't count. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why a lot of people were born and you
Speaker 1: were actually went to you know, military brats. But my
Speaker 1: father and my mother, um, they left Chattananooga, Tennessee, which
Speaker 1: is where I would ultimately end up. So and that's
Speaker 1: why I was actually from. But um, my mother and
Speaker 1: father went to Dallas, Texas to really start, you know,
Speaker 1: to start a new life. He played basketball. She you know,
Speaker 1: she was she played basketball as well. But she was
Speaker 1: an intelligent woman. Yeah, my mother played basketball. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean neither of them made it to college because they
Speaker 1: had me, so they kind of that kind of was
Speaker 1: the route of awakening for both of them. High school.
Speaker 1: My father would have went on to have played basketball.
Speaker 1: He was an incredible basketball player. Uh, noteworthy to this day,
Speaker 1: like everybody still remember Archy that was his name. But um,
Speaker 1: they moved to Dallas, they had me. Um relationship was obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, not able to survive, and they broke up.
Speaker 1: They broke up. She brought me back to Chatting, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: And that's where I'm from. Okay, Yeah, we're any of
Speaker 1: them musically inclined or it was just a matter of
Speaker 1: just playing. You a whole bunch of stuff in the house.
Speaker 1: And I think my mother is the person who was
Speaker 1: most responsible for introducing him, introducing me to music. But
Speaker 1: after I met my father, I heard him and I realized.
Speaker 1: I realized he had a voice. He was a man
Speaker 1: of conviction, but not you couldn't get a ship together,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. He spent most of my
Speaker 1: childhood high and a substance abuser, and he never was around,
Speaker 1: never anything, never, no connection, nothing until I think I
Speaker 1: was like maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, that I
Speaker 1: really make a connection with him where I could see
Speaker 1: him in a positive light. He was a pastor for
Speaker 1: like that time that summer, and then he disappeared again.
Speaker 1: But um, which is more? Which is the case? So
Speaker 1: that that's another story about we're talking about history, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about Africa and the idea of what that was,
Speaker 1: but also two fathers of that time. Like most of
Speaker 1: the people my peers that I talked to, they felt,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the same reality. And then for
Speaker 1: those who didn't, you know, they became kind of the reference.
Speaker 1: Like I was one of those kids who hung out
Speaker 1: with my friends to see how you know that his
Speaker 1: his relationship was with his father as an idea what
Speaker 1: or either it was a Cosby show or something like
Speaker 1: that or first Prince of bel Air. It kind of
Speaker 1: at least between like up to ten, who was the
Speaker 1: guy you could talk to you about my grandfather. I
Speaker 1: had a lot of uncles, so my uncle Darrel, uncle Bruce,
Speaker 1: uncle Gary, he lived in um d C. Didn't really
Speaker 1: talked to him that much, but he's in my mother's brothers.
Speaker 1: But Bruce Darrell O'Neill. I never met my grandfather, which
Speaker 1: I felt was you know, I'm looking at pictures in him.
Speaker 1: You knew his name was John Henry Hard Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he yeah, But but yeah, man, you know I didn't
Speaker 1: really I i't have a reference. I just kind of
Speaker 1: looked around and it was a collective of people that
Speaker 1: kind of just invested into me because they realized I
Speaker 1: didn't have a dad either. And I mean I turned
Speaker 1: out pretty much, you know, I right, But you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I was pulling from the source. I
Speaker 1: was actually pulling from the lack thereof. So not having
Speaker 1: a dad made it like a task for me to,
Speaker 1: you know, no, to be in my child's life, to
Speaker 1: be there for them to understand who they are. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling me to wrapped this around just so you
Speaker 1: understand part of the reason one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: twenty three and me was so important. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of things that were kind of like egging me on,
Speaker 1: like about not knowing who I was and not and
Speaker 1: us not knowing you know, you know, being introduced. When
Speaker 1: I went over the overseas, two different you know, types
Speaker 1: of spirituality Aruba, um um century and all these other
Speaker 1: things that I just saw. It was just around. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, it's crazy. All these people who my
Speaker 1: it from Africa to these neighboring islands. They preserved the
Speaker 1: idea of what our our original spirituality was, or our
Speaker 1: connection to spirituality was. So I went to school and
Speaker 1: they and they wanted to do a lineage, like they
Speaker 1: wanted our kids to offer something from a place that
Speaker 1: they were from. So you have kids who were from Italy,
Speaker 1: you have kids who are from all these you know,
Speaker 1: this is a school in Atlanta. I don't want to
Speaker 1: want school. That's how interesting. Like they know, they know,
Speaker 1: but they but okay, So this is not a public
Speaker 1: schools to private school, and it's for all the right reasons,
Speaker 1: right And when I asked my son where he was from,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm from Atlanta. I'm Georgia's like, actually, so
Speaker 1: you're not from Georgia. Yeah, I'm from Africa. Now, A'm
Speaker 1: from Africa. And that was the beginning. And it was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, this matters, This matters, and I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta go ahead and go do with this.
Speaker 1: And I've been talking about it. And I went ahead
Speaker 1: and they did the swab and went through the whole
Speaker 1: process of giving him like and that that that was
Speaker 1: just like the I gotta get this right. So what's
Speaker 1: his mentality now? Does he have a deeper understanding? He
Speaker 1: has eight he has a deeper understanding. And even even
Speaker 1: though he does, we actually, you know, we put the
Speaker 1: following year because they have it every year. Um, we
Speaker 1: put together his thing and that was all these things
Speaker 1: that you know, they made from West Africa or Mali,
Speaker 1: which is where we kind of claimed. But he still
Speaker 1: wanted to bring macron and cheese. That's part of it though,
Speaker 1: that's the African And by the way he showed it
Speaker 1: to me said no, this is actually something that was
Speaker 1: made there. I was like, all right, okay, cool, all right.
Speaker 1: Teaching you So, so at what point are you finding
Speaker 1: your your voice, your your actual singing boards, like, were
Speaker 1: you raised in the church or was it? It was
Speaker 1: my mother, My mother she was you know, she was
Speaker 1: a youth director of her choir in church. So um,
Speaker 1: outside of listening to what was on the radio, and
Speaker 1: you know, just the same the same way as you know,
Speaker 1: y'all had ciphers and hip hop or either was had
Speaker 1: bands and ship like that, right, we had ciphers to
Speaker 1: a singing. So if you came to school and you
Speaker 1: couldn't sing like what was on the radio, then you
Speaker 1: was kind of whack, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: so I would listen to the radio and I listened
Speaker 1: to how people were singing and what that reaction was.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I was listening to my mother
Speaker 1: preparing her, you know, whatever she had to do to
Speaker 1: teach her students. And I asked, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: can I be in your you know, a choir? She
Speaker 1: was like, you can be in my choir, but if
Speaker 1: you act up, I'm gonna kick you out. So don't
Speaker 1: think that I'm gonna give you any like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: lay off you just because you know you're my son.
Speaker 1: Of course, I got kicked out the choir about two
Speaker 1: or three times. But you know, um, she let me
Speaker 1: do my solo you know what I mean, every so often?
Speaker 1: What question you talking about just singing? Uh? A question?
Speaker 1: Your first vocal coach? Yeah, apparently she had break down
Speaker 1: like certain songs and you have to learn the harmonies
Speaker 1: and it was like really advanced. Talk about that all right. So, um,
Speaker 1: she made me listen to take six and she would say,
Speaker 1: how how old are you at this point? Um, I'm
Speaker 1: about for the first take six, So I'm fourteen. I'm fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I mean I didn't have a vocal coach as
Speaker 1: an artist until I was signed, right, That's when it
Speaker 1: really started. But before I didn't really need one, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Like, I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: I was perfect, but singing all the time, repetition basically
Speaker 1: begin to prepare me for and anything that was on
Speaker 1: the radio, I would try to beat it so if
Speaker 1: I could sing better than it or either add live
Speaker 1: in between little spots to kind of make it my own.
Speaker 1: I do that. But I was singing it to the
Speaker 1: tune like exactly the way that it was. You know what,
Speaker 1: I have a theory about usher, which is it was
Speaker 1: it was. I think this is when I'm the you
Speaker 1: Make Me Want A video came out and we was
Speaker 1: like we were in the studio recording and the video
Speaker 1: came on the monitor, like the volume was down whatever,
Speaker 1: and my manager, rich Uh said that you know what
Speaker 1: you're watching is He said that Usher was the beneficiary
Speaker 1: of the first of the what I call the VCR generation.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to figure out what he meant,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you see the mechanical way he's dancing,
Speaker 1: And I was if you remember the way, like how
Speaker 1: mechanical the dancing Wasn't you make me wanna? He was
Speaker 1: basically explained to me that, and like did that? Always
Speaker 1: wanted to ask did motown have an effect when you?
Speaker 1: Did you see it the first time? He came? So,
Speaker 1: I mean Kim on an eight three, so I guess
Speaker 1: you were like five or six, Like did that performance
Speaker 1: mean anything to you? Because basically what he was trying
Speaker 1: to say was that in your formative years of getting
Speaker 1: entertainment you had a VCR to keep rewinding and watching
Speaker 1: over because it was more important to my cousins and
Speaker 1: my older trickled down like it wasn't the first thing
Speaker 1: with you, but now I wasn't it but I would
Speaker 1: have never guessed that in the skillion years. Well, everybody
Speaker 1: loved Michael Jackson, but that was that was just off
Speaker 1: of you know, Off the Wall and all that, so
Speaker 1: we be I could appreciate Off the Wall a little
Speaker 1: bit later in my life, and he wasn't really the
Speaker 1: person who influenced me. Michael Jackson overall was as a
Speaker 1: present because he was the biggest, right, But it was
Speaker 1: guys like Bobby Brown that connected, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: say And and yes, looking back at that, it was
Speaker 1: special to me, but it was like, I can't I
Speaker 1: can't obtain that, I can't reach that. That's not that
Speaker 1: that unnecessarily I can emulate it. I love Thriller. I
Speaker 1: was there where everybody watching Thriller, right, and that that phase, Yes,
Speaker 1: everybody was completely crazy fanatic over Michael Jackson. But even
Speaker 1: still I was trying. I was trying. I tried to
Speaker 1: emulate what I knew I was, and I was more
Speaker 1: of a street dancer and a singer. And I listened
Speaker 1: to New Edition Bobby Brown and in that world from
Speaker 1: the fact that no, I'm just saying that you none
Speaker 1: of your experiences are firsthand church, you know, talent shows. Yes,
Speaker 1: that started in talent. I just meant for in terms
Speaker 1: of of like radio plays a big part of of
Speaker 1: of your experiences, whereas like a lot of the people
Speaker 1: that traditionally start my ship was Donnie Simpson. What I'm saying,
Speaker 1: So it's like that was my generation. I'm from that
Speaker 1: I'm from, Yeah, Sherry Cardon and Donnie Simpson. That was
Speaker 1: my generation. And that's basically how I made the connection.
Speaker 1: But dance was it the thing like, mom, I want
Speaker 1: to sing and all this things. It was just like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah I could do that. I can dance. But
Speaker 1: I mean, were you thinking, like eleven, that's what I
Speaker 1: want to be when I grow up? Like it was
Speaker 1: Michael that made me feel like that's what I want
Speaker 1: to do. It was Bobby Brown that made me feel
Speaker 1: like that's what I can do. So Bobby Brown was
Speaker 1: more accessible to you. He's your hero. Wow, damn, I
Speaker 1: want to get your feelings on a New Adition movie. Um,
Speaker 1: So at what point are you? I mean, at what
Speaker 1: point does this become a thing where you become serious
Speaker 1: about it? Because you you the first group was when
Speaker 1: you were like eleven, right, twelve? Well, talk about that experience. So, um,
Speaker 1: that was a they were youth anti Uh, they were
Speaker 1: anti youth drug group who came to high schools to
Speaker 1: talk about drug abuse, um, gang violence and stuff like that. Right,
Speaker 1: And I it is back in the time when I
Speaker 1: wasn't like in talent shows, just trying to find my way.
Speaker 1: So if I wasn't singing in church, I was singing,
Speaker 1: you know in the yard, you know, in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You know, my cousin he used to dance, so he
Speaker 1: was battle and stuff, and he had me come in
Speaker 1: like like the little kid from you know, b Street,
Speaker 1: uh and breaking and I'd be like the special guest,
Speaker 1: the cat who come in and just slaughter because you know,
Speaker 1: no one expected you and your like three carc like
Speaker 1: the random person in the crowd. But um, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was um, it was. It was. It was
Speaker 1: more Bobby Man. It was more Bobby Brown than anything.
Speaker 1: But finding my way to my voice. It was just
Speaker 1: kind of try to never listen to that damn radio
Speaker 1: and then watching those videos. And then I met this
Speaker 1: manager by the name of Darryl Wheeler, right, and he
Speaker 1: was like, I really want you to be and I
Speaker 1: want you to you know, audition for the group and um,
Speaker 1: he said, I want you to come to the show,
Speaker 1: and we just so happened to be in the talent show.
Speaker 1: Me and another cat, another two cats, and the talent
Speaker 1: show was over and then they were to perform. So
Speaker 1: while they started their gig, I was in the back
Speaker 1: of the room just kind of looking, you know, looking,
Speaker 1: and I'm and I'm watching all these people go crazy
Speaker 1: over these guys. So I just got up, ran to
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor, like, ran all the way
Speaker 1: down the island, just started dancing in the middle of
Speaker 1: their ship. Yeah, I mean, but that was it was
Speaker 1: like I wanted it. I wanted too, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a part of it. And him leaving that little
Speaker 1: door open, which it was my It was my best
Speaker 1: friend named Demikus who introduced me to darrel um at
Speaker 1: in our auditorium at my um my elementary school or
Speaker 1: middle school something like that now elementary school. UM. But
Speaker 1: after that, man, I just kept I just kept, you know,
Speaker 1: going wherever they were they had to, you know, performance downtown.
Speaker 1: You know. Eventually they start having rehearsals in the gymnasium
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. So I started coming in and just
Speaker 1: kind of trying to look looking at what they were
Speaker 1: doing to try to figure out what their dance steps
Speaker 1: and things were. And I would just sing. I would
Speaker 1: just I used just saying um ready or not after seven,
Speaker 1: remember that, right, man? And I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: just use my use my talent, and let me figure
Speaker 1: out how to get in whatever I gotta do. They
Speaker 1: run heels and have all these drills that they would do,
Speaker 1: you know, to kind of prepare themselves and make themselves
Speaker 1: better performers so they could, you know, not they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be tired on stage or whatever. So I did it.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'll do all of that.
Speaker 1: That's what I think. The oldest oldest guy in it,
Speaker 1: Anthony Byrd was he had to be like sixteen or seventeen,
Speaker 1: maybe seventeen is uh. There's three other guys, Adrian Read
Speaker 1: and another guy by the name of Chocolate, So they
Speaker 1: were all in this. We were in this group together
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really going because the reality was they
Speaker 1: were built to be what they were and you were
Speaker 1: meant to be. So no, it didn't had. That didn't
Speaker 1: happen U till a little bit later. Actually, it was
Speaker 1: I'll tell you My mother was the reason that it happened.
Speaker 1: But we then became a real group and we went
Speaker 1: to ForSight County and UM in Florida, and we signed
Speaker 1: with this record company, ForSight Records, and we started, you know,
Speaker 1: building songs. So I had this song dream Girl. That
Speaker 1: was the first record that I ever had in that group.
Speaker 1: So then it gave me like a voice because otherwise
Speaker 1: I was just trailing trailing behind playing or dancing to
Speaker 1: the records and ship that they had UM and every
Speaker 1: so often I kind of, you know, up to try
Speaker 1: to upstage somebody else. He was just doing riffs and
Speaker 1: ship like that. But um, my mother was like, you're
Speaker 1: not really getting there. You know, I'm not. My son's
Speaker 1: not getting the benefit because he's never on stage. You
Speaker 1: keep put him in, putting him in the back, and
Speaker 1: you know, she just wasn't happy, you know. So he
Speaker 1: tried to do whatever he could. Eventually, you know, I
Speaker 1: left the group. She wanted me to get out of group.
Speaker 1: Of course I didn't want to get out. I actually
Speaker 1: ran away. It's crazy, ever, I ran right away from
Speaker 1: from never to run away from home, but never do it.
Speaker 1: I tried to run away from home. Oh black kids
Speaker 1: don't run away from I think when you come back
Speaker 1: to our black parents, they'd be like, good exactly time,
Speaker 1: I'll bill Steve Yard ever run away from home to
Speaker 1: run away from my sister. My sister ran away from
Speaker 1: home like all the time. So she'll be back tomorrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's seeing like bentures are crazy? A man, Come on,
Speaker 1: So what year was that when you ran away? I
Speaker 1: mean I was twelve and this is around the time
Speaker 1: my mother had moved me to Atlanta, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you you destroyed my world. Man, this is
Speaker 1: everything to me. You said, I just look forward to it.
Speaker 1: She was like, I hear you. Okay, She's like, but
Speaker 1: she said, you're not gonna go where you want to
Speaker 1: go in this group. So I'm gonna, I promise you,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put you in every situation that I can
Speaker 1: to be able to help you, to show you that
Speaker 1: you're worth it, that you are a solo artists. So
Speaker 1: she started me and entering me into talent shows, auditioned
Speaker 1: for the Apollo addition for a star search. I got
Speaker 1: into a talent search, a talent show by the name
Speaker 1: of UM Atlanta Talent Search in Atlanta. UM. I was
Speaker 1: recognized by Ali Reich's brother Brian Reid, who um then
Speaker 1: introduced me to a guy by the name of A. J. Alexander.
Speaker 1: He was kind of all in the middle of this
Speaker 1: ship who actually was a bodyguard for Bobby Brown. So
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown Brown's bodyguard situation. Yeah, night night. Yeah. So wait,
Speaker 1: why why did she move to Atlanta from Chattanooga? She
Speaker 1: moved because just you know, they she wanted more man,
Speaker 1: she wanted more out of her life. What was like,
Speaker 1: what was your observations of Chattanooga was there? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not much different now than it was then in
Speaker 1: terms of opportunity for you know, advancement, Like it's very
Speaker 1: there's if you have the confidence that comes from elsewhere,
Speaker 1: you will wander into other areas. But if you don't,
Speaker 1: black people stay away from white people. And as a
Speaker 1: black side of town, damn near in a white side
Speaker 1: of town or a progressive side of the town. And
Speaker 1: whenever I'm there, I kind of go with between the both,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yo, have y'all ever been it? Like,
Speaker 1: we don't go over there? You have you you returned
Speaker 1: to Chatto No, no, no, I've returned to Chattanooga to
Speaker 1: do do you know philanthropic work back to you? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's what area is that it's in front of the
Speaker 1: school that I was telling you about Dalewood. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like right down, um, right in front of it.
Speaker 1: And I want to know if he had this Chris
Speaker 1: Rock sign moment. Fo. Yeah. So she went to Atlanta
Speaker 1: just to get you a better opportunity was she went
Speaker 1: to Atlanta because it offers something better for her. My
Speaker 1: stepfather at the time, he worked for this UM trucking
Speaker 1: company and it was better for him to be there,
Speaker 1: and also too, it was an opportunity for her to
Speaker 1: be able to move forward over you. I was eleven
Speaker 1: eleven twelve, so I was kind of going back and
Speaker 1: forth from Chattanooga to Atlanta working with the group and
Speaker 1: UM when we worked on that album. You know, it's
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of just moving wherever I could. Man,
Speaker 1: because I at the age of eight, that's when I
Speaker 1: decided what I was gonna do. I had this vision
Speaker 1: and from that vision it was like, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to be an entertainer. I wanna I want to be
Speaker 1: on stages. I want to perform for people, and that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do. I don't want to play football.
Speaker 1: I know all y'all played football and basketball and baseball,
Speaker 1: because my entire family it's comprises let's like all star athletes.
Speaker 1: My uncle played for the Kansas City Chiefs. Um My,
Speaker 1: my cousin, he played a duke, all these guys. That
Speaker 1: kind of gave me some kind of idea where I
Speaker 1: wanted to go. And I was like, no, that's not me.
Speaker 1: I wanna I want to perform. I want to entertain.
Speaker 1: But how problem must they have been when you did
Speaker 1: the Cavaliers move, because that's like the perfect combination, like
Speaker 1: they must have been. Oh that's great. Yeah yeah that
Speaker 1: was That was pretty cool, right, yeah, like you even
Speaker 1: did it either way? Yeah yeah, you know, Um, Ali
Speaker 1: enough man. You know, once my grandmother passed, we don't
Speaker 1: really get together the way we used to, and I
Speaker 1: wish that we did more. But everybody's growing up. Either
Speaker 1: they have kids that some of them back and shouting with.
Speaker 1: Someone moved to other you know states, some people got married,
Speaker 1: you know, some people live in Atlanta. Some people you know,
Speaker 1: moving moved to d C. But um, we don't talk
Speaker 1: as much as we used to. Yeah, yeah, I gotta
Speaker 1: work on that I work on that. Big Mama is
Speaker 1: the one that keeps the family together. You can't go
Speaker 1: all the way to West Africa and I go to Chattanooga.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. You gotta get that something.
Speaker 1: You gotta picked up a few people. So okay, So
Speaker 1: by the time you're eleven, it's like the nineties, early nineties,
Speaker 1: I guess, um by this point, I mean, Atlanta's officially
Speaker 1: put a stamp on being a black music mecca. I mean,
Speaker 1: is that fact lost on you or is that something
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about, like, oh, this could be a
Speaker 1: better opportunity for me, because it was part of my
Speaker 1: mom's plan. It was a part of my mother's plan.
Speaker 1: She even mentioned she says, you know that L. A.
Speaker 1: Read and Baby Face, you know, they just started a
Speaker 1: record label in Atlanta, and you know, I hear that.
Speaker 1: You know you could get you know, if we put
Speaker 1: you in talent shows, you can get recognized. So um,
Speaker 1: she put me in this. That was his brother's A
Speaker 1: distinction I think was the name of the name of
Speaker 1: the group that was putting together this thing. And somehow L. A.
Speaker 1: Read's name was attached to with A. Bryant Read's name
Speaker 1: was attached to it. And that's I'm telling you, that's
Speaker 1: what I made a connection. But it was really a
Speaker 1: j A J. Alexander the Deaths, the dude who discovered me. Man,
Speaker 1: out of all the people who could claim and say,
Speaker 1: you know, I found him, I saw him first. That
Speaker 1: was a dude who really recognized my talent and was like, yo,
Speaker 1: let's work with me. He to man, this dude took
Speaker 1: me everywhere. Man, this dude took me to meet Bobby
Speaker 1: for the first time. I thought I was gonna be
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown's artist. That didn't happen. I said, I may
Speaker 1: have dodge the bullet you definitely, But also to man,
Speaker 1: and I can remember way back, he'd had me in
Speaker 1: the parking lot of one twelve Keith Sweat coming out.
Speaker 1: I have to perform for him right there in the
Speaker 1: middle of the parking lot, Dallas, Austin in the parking lot, Jamaine,
Speaker 1: do put all of these people like just trying to
Speaker 1: get Yeah, I have on another level where he's in.
Speaker 1: He's in Atlanta. He goes in between Miami and uh
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. Yeah. So you he's a photographer now, man,
Speaker 1: Oh that's dope. Yeah. So you were allowed out after
Speaker 1: hours to sort of case these spots and and perform
Speaker 1: and without a doubt. I was not the kid that
Speaker 1: you told no, because I wouldn't accept it. I'd say, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to, if you don't want me
Speaker 1: to do what I'm doing it, guess what I should.
Speaker 1: He's still I was your Your favorite least word is no,
Speaker 1: like for those for those of the new context, you
Speaker 1: know I shouldn't. The roots are working together now, so
Speaker 1: whenever I want I should do something, I now have
Speaker 1: to present it in a positive context just so he
Speaker 1: can say no. But I guess had been that now,
Speaker 1: thank you? Now I know what you're doing. You know what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, you're right, we should we should do a
Speaker 1: twelve inted version of you got it bad. But this
Speaker 1: must have been a really hard job for your mom
Speaker 1: because like your mom evolved into like supermanager, like she
Speaker 1: was like Matthew knows before Matthew knows, And at the
Speaker 1: same time she had to keep you confident as an
Speaker 1: artist but humble as a man. In how why did
Speaker 1: I want to know what kept you out of trouble?
Speaker 1: Because that again I said, confident as an artist, but
Speaker 1: kind of like humble as a man like, not not
Speaker 1: a commercial, not a not a dickhead, not because as
Speaker 1: we're sitting here talking to you, and I've seen we
Speaker 1: throughout the years, you're not a dickhead, like you're a
Speaker 1: very humble individual, but like a mirror just said, you
Speaker 1: know what you want, you won't say no, but you know,
Speaker 1: fine line. The confidence was the confidence came for me, right,
Speaker 1: and it came from the security of having someone who
Speaker 1: I knew had my back, which is my mom. So
Speaker 1: as long as she was able to focus on the business,
Speaker 1: I could focus on the art and the creative part
Speaker 1: of it right, which made it all right. And then
Speaker 1: the rest of it was like I just never wanted
Speaker 1: to be in some ship that I felt like that
Speaker 1: I couldn't control. You know what I'm saying. I never
Speaker 1: wanted as in so many people were getting caught out there.
Speaker 1: So those references was like, I'm not had. I can't
Speaker 1: let none of that ship be the reason that I
Speaker 1: don't make it to where I want to be. And
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not gonna let you know. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: because and I had so many little heels to climb,
Speaker 1: like I lost my voice as soon as I got signed, Like,
Speaker 1: imagine that right when you signed the first deal. When
Speaker 1: I signed, when I signed a deal to the Face Records,
Speaker 1: I lost my voice? How long I lost my voice?
Speaker 1: Puberty or like puberty for about two months. It was
Speaker 1: like that, and you didn't know what. You don't know
Speaker 1: what the hell was getting to go on. The label
Speaker 1: was talking about dropping me. This was after port I
Speaker 1: couldn't perform the record. They put the record on, had
Speaker 1: a yeah, they had a showcase for me, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't perform the record at all. Puff Puffy was there.
Speaker 1: I think it was entertaining him, him being my m
Speaker 1: my executive producer at the time, but um man, it
Speaker 1: just it went away. What was it? Wow? Okay, because nothing.
Speaker 1: I have favorite theory for everything. But I'm saying like
Speaker 1: black people rarely delve into psychological matters or whatever. Like
Speaker 1: I know that me personally, for anything that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to overcome, you know, and something happens like an injury
Speaker 1: or something, it's you know, I'm sometimes I think like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do you really feel? Are you scared at this moment? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Like the mind does have a way of crippling you
Speaker 1: and while you're facing exactly Now, in theory, was it
Speaker 1: eight weeks laryngitis or did you feel afraid in theory,
Speaker 1: what do you think in theory that I feel afraid.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was over and I felt like,
Speaker 1: okay if I just I mean, I did what I
Speaker 1: knew to do at the time, which was prey. Did
Speaker 1: you feel a psychosomatic Yeah, well I I subconsciously. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't sabotage myself. It wasn't fear or
Speaker 1: something like that. No, you mean in terms of just
Speaker 1: having to go through that at that moment, because sometimes
Speaker 1: your body can know. It had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: I was working my ass off and I wanted it. Yeah, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's an there's an artist that I can't name right
Speaker 1: that it's always the same artist out everybody in the
Speaker 1: room can know. But no, it's not that artist. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not the fourth letter of yeah. No, it's
Speaker 1: hell no, it's you know, okay, yeah, because that's always him. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I keep dragging him under the No, there's okay. There
Speaker 1: was there was an artist that uh we were working
Speaker 1: with and um, a situation happened. Oh god, Okay, the
Speaker 1: situation happened in which lets there, you always get so frustrated,
Speaker 1: I know, because I'm not I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: gossipy or ride somebody on the bus. But I think
Speaker 1: this is a classic case of it. Their teeth started
Speaker 1: to fall out. Now, it wasn't like oh, they got
Speaker 1: like literally they're saying, there's a pressure that comes with you. No,
Speaker 1: that is a pressure, you're right, Okay, so now I'll
Speaker 1: follow you what you're saying. But I had a different
Speaker 1: destiny and I was connected to it, and the moment
Speaker 1: that I decided that that was what I was gonna do,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let anything come in between me and that. Right,
Speaker 1: But you're right, there are tons of people who sabotaze themselves,
Speaker 1: got caught up on you know and drinking and then eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, moved on upgraded to you know, heroin. But
Speaker 1: I don't even think that this thing like, okay, a
Speaker 1: big moment about to happen for me tomorrow, let my
Speaker 1: teeth fall out right now, or you know. But I
Speaker 1: do believe that subconsciously we are able to create obstacles
Speaker 1: without even purposely wanting to do that. Which yeah, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: First of all, how was he she she? You know
Speaker 1: the story you la ya? I mean, I'm putting some
Speaker 1: things together. Oh damn. Um mid twenties, so that's far
Speaker 1: more advanced than a child, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So the reality of probably the disappointment that led up
Speaker 1: to that moment had everything to do with the pressure
Speaker 1: that was going on with her. So like so when
Speaker 1: you so you look so you cut, you'll cut, uh
Speaker 1: call me a mac and then you lost your boys
Speaker 1: because this point it just that was what n three
Speaker 1: three ninety? How did you get on that soundtrack? Because
Speaker 1: that wasn't even face related. It was no l A
Speaker 1: reading baby face. They actually it was on the soundtrack too,
Speaker 1: So okay, I mean, but was that a face slash
Speaker 1: epic thing or was it was a l A reading
Speaker 1: baby face thing? I think I think they had something
Speaker 1: to do with the like organizing of the album. They
Speaker 1: didn't produce all the songs like Boomerang and all that
Speaker 1: ship but um, yeah, man, that was that was kind
Speaker 1: of like my lunch. But at the rate that I
Speaker 1: was working my voice, I mean I had saying till
Speaker 1: I actually you know, lost my voice plenty of times,
Speaker 1: but this time when I woke up the next day
Speaker 1: that ship just didn't come back. So the next day came,
Speaker 1: and then the weekend was there, and then it was
Speaker 1: the next week. I'm like, what's going on? How did
Speaker 1: you feel? I mean, I felt like my window of
Speaker 1: opportunity was closed? And I felt like, Okay, what were
Speaker 1: people saying around you at that point, like um tisk, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, well, what what's going to happen now?
Speaker 1: Because you know this kid, he's lost his voice and
Speaker 1: he can't perform this song, so we'll just kind of
Speaker 1: ride it out with him. You know, I signed a
Speaker 1: contract with him, so at least I had to you know,
Speaker 1: the length of the deal, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But at that point, the fear of man, They're not
Speaker 1: gonna put any more money into me if I don't
Speaker 1: get if I don't do my part. So I had
Speaker 1: to do whatever I could to try to fix or
Speaker 1: remedy the problem. And this is before you even started
Speaker 1: recording the factblem I hadn't I had well, I went
Speaker 1: through a while. I worked with the Dungeon family, and
Speaker 1: I worked with these producers out of Detroit by the
Speaker 1: name of Tim and Bob. That's when I want my guy.
Speaker 1: So from the idn't know that. No, I'm sorry not
Speaker 1: to me about Tim and Ted, Tim and Bober from
Speaker 1: Peh Tim and the Characters. Yeah, yeah, so characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were on that Taylor and Ted. Anyway, Tim and
Speaker 1: said they worked on a couple of records with me
Speaker 1: and I lost my voice, man, and I just it
Speaker 1: just went away, and I had to figure that sh
Speaker 1: it out. So now I'm dealing with the fact that
Speaker 1: the labels getting me to drop me. And Puff was like, now,
Speaker 1: y'all can't do this kid like that. Let me take
Speaker 1: him to New York. So he took me. He started putting,
Speaker 1: He put me with vocal coaches out here to try to,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of change the direction of it. And
Speaker 1: then his idea wasn't about me being this perfect singer,
Speaker 1: even though I had like, you know, Kenny from uh
Speaker 1: Intro and um Missy and I mean like great singers,
Speaker 1: Faith Evans, all these great singers around me, you know,
Speaker 1: and they were supporting me to like, now you're gonna
Speaker 1: be all right, just keep going. I'll be sure. He
Speaker 1: worked on my first album. Yeah. So wait, so Puffy
Speaker 1: took an interest in your career even though you weren't
Speaker 1: signed the bad Boy or his management company. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: so the reality of how the business works is I right.
Speaker 1: So if you have an artist like me, there's an
Speaker 1: open budget, and if you're attempting to establish a record company,
Speaker 1: that damn Nick gives you free range to do whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do during them sessions. So so I
Speaker 1: was not. But but by the way, a genuine relationship
Speaker 1: was bund was was built in that. But don't getting
Speaker 1: funked up. I knew what was going on. Like if
Speaker 1: Craig Mcki is walking out of my walking out of
Speaker 1: my session, you know, I'm like no, But I mean,
Speaker 1: but by the way, that was what it was in
Speaker 1: that time. That's the nineties, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: for some bad boys stuff. Boy, So like, what was
Speaker 1: that like? Because from what I understand what I read before,
Speaker 1: that was like book like for you, like he had you,
Speaker 1: And like what was that ship like with Puff during
Speaker 1: that time? I mean like, yeah, to say the lead
Speaker 1: you moved to New York by yourself or like your
Speaker 1: mom came with you. I moved to New York with
Speaker 1: my cousin and shortly after that, Puff was like I
Speaker 1: got him, my cousin left and that's way. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: How old were you this time? Around this time, I'm fifteen.
Speaker 1: Oh hey man, listen, what were your mother's rules? What
Speaker 1: was her she? I mean, thank god she raised a
Speaker 1: sensible child, you know what I'm saying. Because it was
Speaker 1: readily available whatever you wanted to do. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It was it was, it was. It was
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. And for for the average kid, they would
Speaker 1: look at it like, Yo, this is the greatest ship ever.
Speaker 1: But for me, man, I was a bit sheltered, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like I really hadn't been exposed
Speaker 1: to sex and ship like that. Like I was. I'm
Speaker 1: from the South, you know what I'm saying. I came
Speaker 1: in with a ruffle jacket on, looking like I was
Speaker 1: in Earth Winning Fire, you know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So and Mark Pitt's picked me
Speaker 1: up from the airport and was like, Yo, we go,
Speaker 1: we got you. You know what I'm saying. You know
Speaker 1: on out we gotta get this jacket off you guys.
Speaker 1: So you was just wrong with the bad boy posse
Speaker 1: like it was like yeah, yeah, man, I was really
Speaker 1: a biggie new Yeah. Yeah, how did he have you working?
Speaker 1: Like what was the I guess the boot camp? Like
Speaker 1: what was that training regiment? Like we take your budget
Speaker 1: and he was ready to die now but he but
Speaker 1: he had me in the studio with Davante. I worked
Speaker 1: with I'll be sure. I worked with Kenny from um Intro.
Speaker 1: I worked with you. Gotta tell the story. I don't
Speaker 1: mean story, but it's like no because like faces backgrounds
Speaker 1: on that app like she's nuts, Oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it was crazy. Man, what the I'll teach See,
Speaker 1: I'm like, y'all got questions what I'll teach you? When
Speaker 1: we're talking about Whispers? You know what I'm saying? Like, man,
Speaker 1: she said, that's one of your favorites. No, that's my
Speaker 1: favorite ran Yeah, that was my favorite on that album,
Speaker 1: Whispers Final Goodbye. I'll show yeah because at the time
Speaker 1: I think of you, we like think of you because
Speaker 1: that was chucky. He flipped the who got the problem
Speaker 1: Ronnie Ronnie laws So it was like I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's singing over the black woman Ship. But um but
Speaker 1: yeah that record because I was and I'm oblivious. I
Speaker 1: don't know nothing. I'm just uh that album spoke to
Speaker 1: you when you yeah, okay, I get it. That's another
Speaker 1: generational thing between the two of you and me because
Speaker 1: again I assume were seven, I'm seven eight. Again that
Speaker 1: that that the difference, like pre seventy five, seventy five cats,
Speaker 1: we have a chip on our shoulder about R and B.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So we're not that receptive.
Speaker 1: Like even when I'm at D'Angelo, I was like dismissing,
Speaker 1: like R and B cat whatever. I mean. I was
Speaker 1: just a Nazi that way, So I would have been
Speaker 1: more dismissive to it whereas we were because y'all were
Speaker 1: sixteen when it came were open and at the time,
Speaker 1: I mean, because I always thought was strange that that record, uh,
Speaker 1: in hindsight like it kind of you know, people thought
Speaker 1: that he was that you were too young to be
Speaker 1: singing about Yeah, but but it was right in time.
Speaker 1: But where we were developing right exactly. That was my
Speaker 1: wh It was time for can you get it? Just
Speaker 1: get whispers? Look man, the run, Look man, let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. The run. So if the love was here,
Speaker 1: the many way come crazy. That is phone Bone gold
Speaker 1: taking my apron is on making the best take right now, alright,
Speaker 1: and yours on my tape. Okay, if you're just joining us,
Speaker 1: just joining us, we're talking to four and uh Frante's
Speaker 1: phone Boom Classics on his first record, which apparently as
Speaker 1: a guy who studied all of his music, I need
Speaker 1: to revisit. So if if you're in the audience watching
Speaker 1: the the Usher Root, uh yeah, yeah, experience what's on
Speaker 1: you like? Yo? That's my y'all gotta do this one. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're going to determine the last two. I mean
Speaker 1: something of the first record many ways? Was I think
Speaker 1: that one was dope? Um uh. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: another one that people would like that well, because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of like songs that were like good.
Speaker 1: But now even now I think we appreciate it more.
Speaker 1: The many ways it's just a gorgeous song, Like I
Speaker 1: just I just think that's just a very well can
Speaker 1: I can I rock many get the post? Hit the post?
Speaker 1: This is a question of supreme with phone Bone Classic
Speaker 1: number one by Usher Raymond the fourth That's right, it's
Speaker 1: go to make you sire. This is the many ways
Speaker 1: you need to work on that. All I heard was
Speaker 1: Usher mownin anyway. I love to drinking baby scorn. I've
Speaker 1: seen you around my way a couple of times. You
Speaker 1: must just moving around the way right. I see all
Speaker 1: the phones my person move for your number. I'd like
Speaker 1: to get to night so long you do this miss.
Speaker 1: Some times I'm talking to phone of something anyways to say,
Speaker 1: I love it. Anyways, girl, you so bad? Yeah, you're surprized.
Speaker 1: I got commsation. She ain't shacking for the kids that
Speaker 1: sweetwee can't I swear you're watching? They don't know? Well.
Speaker 1: That was the Many Ways by ussher Rim and our
Speaker 1: special guests on Quest Love Supreme. So are you are
Speaker 1: you one of those people that cringe when you hear
Speaker 1: your older material or people salibrating over stuff that you
Speaker 1: made fifteen years ago, like yeah, yeah record now It's
Speaker 1: like it's not like, what are you thinking of when
Speaker 1: you I'm gonna like you could have spilled pizza on
Speaker 1: your shirt and you're like, man, that's when I word,
Speaker 1: you know, like, what are you thinking of when you
Speaker 1: hear that one that I had lost my voice? Because
Speaker 1: I can hear it. I'm like, damn, I was fighting
Speaker 1: trying to get to that ship. Yeah. So What was
Speaker 1: it like when you finally got full control your voice back?
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I can talk again. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was actually after I left New York.
Speaker 1: When I left New York, then I began to to
Speaker 1: slowly but surely get it get back. Came to New
Speaker 1: York to record this record. I've recorded that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have your voice fully, did not have my voice. So
Speaker 1: how long could you sing before the crack starts? The
Speaker 1: cracks in your voice? You know, ladies and gentlemen, I
Speaker 1: have never done crack? Um I think you know. Because
Speaker 1: I started trying to promote the album. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I was there's another time that you got
Speaker 1: you put your bring you the New Edition. But I
Speaker 1: was being managed by Brooke Payne and whoa Jeff Dyson
Speaker 1: at the time. Wait a minute, you are a Brook
Speaker 1: Payne student. Yeah, Jesus Christ, that's that's I wanted. That
Speaker 1: was doing the break? Wait when was that? No? Okay?
Speaker 1: So um so now I started performing the records, but
Speaker 1: every time I hear them songs, I'm like, damn, that's
Speaker 1: just crazy. You know, how how how far that? Because
Speaker 1: you're living all of it, you know, and my voice
Speaker 1: has changed about five different times throughout the entire process.
Speaker 1: Can't tell you something funny that you don't know, tell
Speaker 1: me all right. So when I first signed on the
Speaker 1: first record, I wanted to do an album with baby
Speaker 1: Face and l A Read, Right, I signed specifically for
Speaker 1: that reason. Why, Because of End of the Road, because
Speaker 1: of Bobby Brown. The hero that I my hero was
Speaker 1: produced by these two dudes, so you didn't see him
Speaker 1: as like older Bobby Brown. That's it, that's yeah. But
Speaker 1: they music. They made that music, so that's all I knew.
Speaker 1: And I knew that baby Face was still doing it.
Speaker 1: L A Read I didn't know if he was in
Speaker 1: the studio. I didn't that he had stopped completely producing,
Speaker 1: but I was like, as long as I can get
Speaker 1: a record by y'all. So l A. Reid wanted baby
Speaker 1: Face to work on me, and they were going through,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of drama at the time. They
Speaker 1: were kind of severing their ties or either he just
Speaker 1: didn't want he wasn't comfortable in Atlanta. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we talked about this ship. So it's cool. I can
Speaker 1: just I can tell you this, but it was it's
Speaker 1: kind of like private anyway, Um, he got mad and
Speaker 1: he built an entire album with an artist that we know,
Speaker 1: and he built an entire album for me, and he
Speaker 1: gave the entire album to that dude. This is like
Speaker 1: a mirror moment. Who got mad? This is this is
Speaker 1: baby face was upset and gave a whole album and
Speaker 1: it's not the other one young guy period in that time?
Speaker 1: What year I'm sae I can I'll just tell you
Speaker 1: on the face he was. It was Tivin Campbell was
Speaker 1: that Can we talk? It was just me And there's
Speaker 1: a song for your Setler's right there. Take it back
Speaker 1: to reclaiming. Can we talk? Take that song back? Can
Speaker 1: we talk? Yeah, don't take about girl Always in my heart,
Speaker 1: Always in my heart. Damn all those Yeah, he got mad,
Speaker 1: he was they were just they was fighting in puff
Speaker 1: and him. They had words or something like that. And
Speaker 1: then you know whatever, can I ask because he couldn't understand,
Speaker 1: like why why wouldn't you do Why would you give
Speaker 1: an album like that to to this dude? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, you got your own artist and
Speaker 1: they was having their ship, so he was like, I'll
Speaker 1: do his album. You know what I'm saying. Wow, all right,
Speaker 1: can I ask, okay, do you because did you record
Speaker 1: the songs? And then like just I never got the studio.
Speaker 1: I never got in the studio with him, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't understand. It wasn't until um Bedtime. That's that was
Speaker 1: my first record with him. That was the next album.
Speaker 1: That was my way. So okay, it was Bedtime presented
Speaker 1: to you already and it's completed for him. No, it was.
Speaker 1: It was probably worked on on the spot right in
Speaker 1: front of you. It was worked on in the studio um,
Speaker 1: and I was there, and then I came, I went
Speaker 1: in the booth in there and cut it. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. I don't think it was a song like
Speaker 1: that he just pitched me. Not. I wouldn't that because
Speaker 1: I'm doing a journalistic no. No. But I have a
Speaker 1: theory because I'm very obsessed with the process of how
Speaker 1: the water just went dry for baby Face after two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. Really, you know, they're like there's the
Speaker 1: period the clap with of l a baby Face, and
Speaker 1: then there's the baby Face by himself ship and then
Speaker 1: it's like, oh he with the neptunes like And the
Speaker 1: thing is is that I had a theory that the
Speaker 1: real l A and Baby Face was as yet because
Speaker 1: what many people don't know is that, again, these are
Speaker 1: all my theories. I'm not trying to throw last night,
Speaker 1: that's exactly, But I'm saying that what many people don't know,
Speaker 1: especially people not involved in the industry, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of these times, when you're working with these super producers,
Speaker 1: you're really just leasing their name. They at workers really
Speaker 1: mean a person that we know for the right So
Speaker 1: when you're when you're giving Dr Dre a quarter million
Speaker 1: dollars for Dr Dre song, chances are is that he
Speaker 1: has millions and people working like he's there to instruct that.
Speaker 1: But as far as actually doing the layman's work, I
Speaker 1: always felt you're crushing me right now. Well no, no, no, again,
Speaker 1: these are my theories. These are my theories, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to put you in the position where you
Speaker 1: have to confirm or deny it. But I'm just saying
Speaker 1: that when you are between in Baby Face, Ellen, baby
Speaker 1: Face combined or Solo had at least ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: bangers per per year, and then everything stopped, and then
Speaker 1: a scientifically life and everything, but life happens, not life happened.
Speaker 1: He got a divorce, he got married, all of that ship,
Speaker 1: and then he probably just wasn't as hungry for it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm really great friends now, right,
Speaker 1: He's the guy that I can call at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. He pick up the phone, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And I and I've asked, like I'll
Speaker 1: go back, and I'm listening to all of those old
Speaker 1: school like well what is old school now? But listening
Speaker 1: to those wrecks, and I'm like, what the hell are
Speaker 1: y'all doing? Like like this, there's a feeling of this
Speaker 1: ship in the mixture, like the like the science of
Speaker 1: what this was, Like, how y'all were mixing it together?
Speaker 1: What were y'all thinking? He was like, man, we had
Speaker 1: that song for like six years that was just sitting
Speaker 1: in there, like RONI that had just been sitting in there.
Speaker 1: I'm like, for really, He's like, yeah, man, way before
Speaker 1: we gave it the Bobby. But next to Prince's genius
Speaker 1: streak of eighty two, eighties seven eight, I felt like
Speaker 1: baby Faces output of songs was unparalleled and then it
Speaker 1: just stops like that, So what do you think it was? Well?
Speaker 1: I kind of want you to insinuate or not insinuate,
Speaker 1: just because I I know that Farrell writes all of
Speaker 1: his stuff and does his work alone. I know Premiere
Speaker 1: produces all this stuff and like really just solo by himself.
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine that baby Face havy work ethic
Speaker 1: where he's up night and day, just effortless turning out
Speaker 1: hit after hit after like he has thirty five to forty,
Speaker 1: Like I remember that song. Remember. So what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is once as yet left, the premises and the divorce
Speaker 1: and the yeah young versus the Face sword and whatever
Speaker 1: went down. Come on, man, you're the cat of the Canary.
Speaker 1: I did tell me. You're not gonna tell me, are
Speaker 1: you not? I mean I'm saying that, by the way,
Speaker 1: at that age, I don't think he was thinking of
Speaker 1: any of that ship. I was just like, I want
Speaker 1: to get in the studio and actually get one out
Speaker 1: of him, because I haven't had any record period it.
Speaker 1: Did you physically see him work? Like does he have
Speaker 1: a paper independence? That's all I wanted, That's all I wanted.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if l A baby Face was a
Speaker 1: like did they just come to you with these songs
Speaker 1: or was it like you saw them sitting there or
Speaker 1: this chord? That chord? What do you think? I just
Speaker 1: I never got the now Rogers and BERNARDA was like
Speaker 1: it wasn't that he presented the one that I can
Speaker 1: tell you that was one record that he presented to me,
Speaker 1: and that's I think that that's what kind of like
Speaker 1: really made him not funk with me at all period
Speaker 1: or l A read with regards to me, because he
Speaker 1: also too he didn't believe in me as nar Ae.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't really, I don't really l A
Speaker 1: l A read baby face He was like, I don't really,
Speaker 1: I don't get him, and um he presented a record
Speaker 1: and Puff he he rejected the record and that was it.
Speaker 1: It was like, all right then I'm not gonna have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it at all. How would you feel?
Speaker 1: I was devastated it. I actually signed the deal to
Speaker 1: work with those two producers, and I to this day
Speaker 1: still ain't gotta from him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So together, so Puff oversaw the first album. He made
Speaker 1: the call in terms of what when EP the first album? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Got you got? How now how did it go from?
Speaker 1: Because you know you were talking about when you lost
Speaker 1: your voice, they were thinking of dropping you. So then
Speaker 1: the first album comes out and it doesn't do you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sell. I guess, you know whatever, what what
Speaker 1: did the first album end up doing? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think and it's probably greatest. It maybe got up to
Speaker 1: about maybe gold maybe now, yeah, maybe it might be gold.
Speaker 1: Really that single carry that joint? So how did you
Speaker 1: go from getting dropped to my way? Like, how did you? Well?
Speaker 1: I started working with Dallas Austin on my next album,
Speaker 1: and you know, I bought him a lamber Any because
Speaker 1: that was with the exchange for doing my album. Damn,
Speaker 1: how did they They was killing my budget? Bro? I was.
Speaker 1: I was of that of that group of artists who
Speaker 1: really you know now, but it wasn't that. It was
Speaker 1: that that was that was that time. So they had
Speaker 1: to find ways to kind of move and work their
Speaker 1: own ship and the artists they just had to absorb that.
Speaker 1: And plus I knew what it was. We understood and
Speaker 1: if you think about what you're gonna end up paying
Speaker 1: a producer, it would be the equivalent of that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So he made money too, right now?
Speaker 1: He did the album for Yeah, well he was. It
Speaker 1: didn't happen. So wait, wait, it didn't happen because he
Speaker 1: and I didn't. We didn't blend. So I was gonna
Speaker 1: work on this album called a Book of Love with
Speaker 1: him and with Dallas Auser, and the motherfucker just wouldn't
Speaker 1: show up to the studio. I'll be sitting there for hours.
Speaker 1: I'd come there and be sitting in the front. Then
Speaker 1: eventually I started picking up instruments and start trying to
Speaker 1: build the album a damnself. This time when he was
Speaker 1: he was playing with it around that time. I think
Speaker 1: it wasn't Yeah, but I just think that he really didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't he didn't believe in me like that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I think it was more or
Speaker 1: less of a favorite for l A. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: a priority, and he was trying to get his label
Speaker 1: off the ground to around that yeah illegal, yeah, um
Speaker 1: monica he was. He really just wasn't focused. So instead
Speaker 1: of us continuing to do that, I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just disrespectful, like he wouldn't show up to the studio, like,
Speaker 1: hey man, the session starts at this time, and he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, man, you gotta get this dude to
Speaker 1: chill out, like you know what I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: viber dude, you know what I'm saying, Like I like
Speaker 1: to just do things in the car. I'm like, fun that, man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work on that. We're gonna work on the album.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 1: was like, funking, I'm not coming to the studio. I'm done,
Speaker 1: and um that was it. That was the history of that.
Speaker 1: And you know, like in my mind, I'm thinking, like
Speaker 1: you're in Atlanta. I imagine how the funk I feel,
Speaker 1: I say, the climax of like the Atlanta movement. Like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like it's like the new Motown where you know,
Speaker 1: TLC is in the house and all this and everyone's
Speaker 1: that happened. All of that is still true, but the
Speaker 1: reality is like certain things ain't meant to happen, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen this guy and I was the fuller.
Speaker 1: I was a very very special artist, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like back then, I had the confidence of
Speaker 1: like ten billion people. So I'm in, I'm in shut
Speaker 1: up man. So look he do passed up on me, man,
Speaker 1: like like he's seen me before I performed for him,
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, give me a call tomorrow, man.
Speaker 1: You know like that, I was like, alright, cool, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, I see you again, man, and um,
Speaker 1: you know so I'm still holding on a little bit
Speaker 1: of that by you know, sitting in that lobby. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, man, I'm not coming back to This explains
Speaker 1: everything because I'm seeing I'm getting to know you as
Speaker 1: a person and as an artist. And really, you know,
Speaker 1: I purposely, especially for this interview. Normally, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: Google and start renal interviews just to see where you mind.
Speaker 1: But I know that you have this tireless work ethic
Speaker 1: about you. And now this is starting to make sense
Speaker 1: because now I feel like you really got something to prove.
Speaker 1: Even though yeah, you might be cool with Face and
Speaker 1: Dallas now and you'll see each other give each other
Speaker 1: pan or whatever. Um, but now I'm feeling like, oh, way,
Speaker 1: do they get a little to me. I'm just feeling
Speaker 1: like the joker now, by the way or what That's
Speaker 1: another chapter to that that we haven't got to yet.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying because I didn't know, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I was. I wasn't even trying to go there. You No,
Speaker 1: let's go there anyway. I'm just saying that as an artist,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that you now, oh wow, you sound like
Speaker 1: me over there. Go. No, we're not trying to turn
Speaker 1: this into that. No, it's not the Gossip Hour, it's
Speaker 1: not not that. But you know, I mean, but there's
Speaker 1: certain truths that actually make it fun. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that we all grown. We've passed the now,
Speaker 1: but we've passed it. So I mean the reality is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Ship embraced the pity. Yeah, okay, so how
Speaker 1: did so how did you come across the high hat king?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, so thanks for the record. Rick Rubin has
Speaker 1: the loudest scratches on hip hop records, but bar none. Uh,
Speaker 1: Jermaine dupris high hat that like when you're spending records
Speaker 1: sometimes your needle can be sensitive to grooves on the record.
Speaker 1: And Jermaine Duprit, Yeah, it's like it could affect He
Speaker 1: has the loudest hip hop high hats of all time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I respect it, but you know, I mean
Speaker 1: back then was frustrating his health to spendine because the
Speaker 1: high hats will always skip the records sometimes as well. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So how did you wind up with Jermaine Dupris. He
Speaker 1: did a remix for Think of You and that was
Speaker 1: the that was the beginning of me kind of working
Speaker 1: with him, and he was like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: were you know, let's work together. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I really do. I think it was like, you really
Speaker 1: did a great job. He came in the studio, he
Speaker 1: produced it from scratch and said, we created it right there,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And he he was just dope.
Speaker 1: I was like, yea, man, when I work on my
Speaker 1: next album, I really want you to I really want
Speaker 1: you to be a part of it. And you know
Speaker 1: l A read put us together after Dallas and that
Speaker 1: was when you were working in l A. We did
Speaker 1: all that? Any songs with Dallas? None damn okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: none that came out. You mean like, did we actually
Speaker 1: eventually I've had a song called Waterfalls versu or whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, did you ever work? I think he
Speaker 1: was working with Debor Kilt, not no debl Cox. So
Speaker 1: there's a couple of records on deborl Cox. They probably
Speaker 1: slid from my project to her to her project, and
Speaker 1: I think it was that Montel do do do the babies? No, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't do the record, but I'm saying I would
Speaker 1: have potentially had had that song if I weren't around it.
Speaker 1: And not to say that they wouldn't. You know. He
Speaker 1: had this process. Man, it just didn't work with me,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Anyway, So so I I
Speaker 1: ended up, you know, being put with j D. And
Speaker 1: we just started working. I just started kicking it with it.
Speaker 1: We worked on it in Atlanta in his basement. Oh wow, okay,
Speaker 1: ye about that manual Seal talking to me about him
Speaker 1: because he was like I would always see him working
Speaker 1: with j D. He was like one of my favorite
Speaker 1: songwriters and what was his process like? So j D
Speaker 1: had a Manual Seal working at the time, and Kawan
Speaker 1: Prayer there KP. That name Kawan. Yeah, he's uh, he's KP.
Speaker 1: You know, not KP. He's independent how he works with
Speaker 1: for real now but um he um. He worked with
Speaker 1: Parental Advisory at the time p A. Right. I got
Speaker 1: their official names. He was the JR. Thank you, okay guy.
Speaker 1: So I'm back to my quiet place. That's our first
Speaker 1: lady over there. No, that was gonna be in the
Speaker 1: graveyard Pepperton, weren't they a R Kelly? Sorry just now
Speaker 1: so KP. He was over there with me and we
Speaker 1: just started working on the album, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And the rest is kind of like it became history.
Speaker 1: I just worked day in day now. But j D
Speaker 1: had such a weird fucking way of working. And after
Speaker 1: dealing with um Dallas Austin, it was like, you want
Speaker 1: me to come to the studio and said, why you
Speaker 1: play video games? I can't do that, man, I don't
Speaker 1: play in that. I just didn't play video I just
Speaker 1: wasn't a kid who played video games. I stopped and
Speaker 1: was like, I can't catch back up. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: put I put the joystick down, so I'm here to work.
Speaker 1: I was that serious, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: I was like, miss, you know, let's pay pool man.
Speaker 1: You know, at least that's a game that I can play.
Speaker 1: So we started playing Pool for push ups and ship
Speaker 1: like that, and then before you know it, I was
Speaker 1: doing crunches and ship and I spurred for him and
Speaker 1: got damn six packs so that when we're trying to
Speaker 1: get you in shape of that ship. But here's this
Speaker 1: missing good one. So what was the first song y'all
Speaker 1: worked on? First record we worked on? Um? Oh, man,
Speaker 1: what was the first one. I don't think it was
Speaker 1: a song that made the album And I don't think
Speaker 1: it was a record that made I don't even remember
Speaker 1: the damn name of it, man, uh the name Okay.
Speaker 1: I was like, the album is called my Way. The
Speaker 1: first album we worked on, what's called my Way? But
Speaker 1: the first song, the first song I do not remember. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember my Way that hit my that was my
Speaker 1: freshman year of college and you make me want to
Speaker 1: like it was like the last record of the entire
Speaker 1: Why is that always because it's always like we're missing something,
Speaker 1: we need, we need to single, we need a single.
Speaker 1: Weed was was that thing with someone like we're missing something?
Speaker 1: I think it was? No, I think it was. My
Speaker 1: favorite dram was one Day You'll be Mine And it
Speaker 1: wasn't because the Osley sample. But just like Me? I
Speaker 1: think just like Me was the first record that we
Speaker 1: worked on. But what was the song that you were like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm bad now now I'm forced to be
Speaker 1: record with or I think it was nice and slow.
Speaker 1: That was the one that was like, oh shoot, we
Speaker 1: got something, but comeback there was another record that we
Speaker 1: worked on, and um, so, how how is JD directing this?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, at that point, I'm thinking about strictly
Speaker 1: from hip hop context. So as a producer, what is
Speaker 1: this process in the studio? Just hes saitting Mary coaching
Speaker 1: you on vocals? Yo, I'm so glad. Look I hate vocals.
Speaker 1: I would be like, all right, he does play games
Speaker 1: back at this point. Now he does. Now he'll actually
Speaker 1: sit in the studio with me now, But back then
Speaker 1: you had to literally like sit in the living room
Speaker 1: or like his little living room area downstairs in the basement,
Speaker 1: and they would just play video games for hours. So
Speaker 1: who's coaching your vocals on this stuff? Eventually it was
Speaker 1: Manuel and a guy. Uh. This is back when Phil Tan,
Speaker 1: who was his his engineer. He would he would actually
Speaker 1: go through a vocal production with me, but um, it
Speaker 1: was mostly e manual because he would he would put
Speaker 1: it down piece by piece and and I kind of
Speaker 1: going and then work on it and we wrote certain
Speaker 1: things together or yeah, I would basically you know, talk
Speaker 1: to j D about just different ships and before you
Speaker 1: know what, he started Right now, I hadn't I hadn't
Speaker 1: developed my my writing. I hadn't picked up a pen yet.
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of like talking about things and he's
Speaker 1: taking it in, writing it, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: I'll come back to the studio. He'll hit me at
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning, like, come to the studio.
Speaker 1: I like, savy, I've been. I was out there all
Speaker 1: day waiting on you to day and produce something. And
Speaker 1: then you didn't. Are you a daytime studio person at
Speaker 1: that time? I was, because I mean, if I wasn't
Speaker 1: still in school, man, like I'm still I'm still in
Speaker 1: school trying to figure out how to balance between two worlds,
Speaker 1: and um, you know I yeah, I come out there
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the morning, tired as hell, and
Speaker 1: he want to work. I had to start to go.
Speaker 1: So you went to physical school like you weren't tutoring
Speaker 1: the the celebrity. Wait, man, I'm sucking up. No. I
Speaker 1: was out of school then I was taking But the
Speaker 1: craziest ship is I was the family driver in addition
Speaker 1: to being a nighttime artist. So I had to drive
Speaker 1: my mom to work, drive my girl to wait, was
Speaker 1: your mom still working? My mother was still working. I
Speaker 1: had to drive my mom to work. I had to
Speaker 1: drive my girlfriend to Spellman and then drop my brother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: drop my brother off, and then get my ass back
Speaker 1: to the house for just a second. Go pick my
Speaker 1: little brother up, Go pick my mom up, bring them
Speaker 1: back home, Go pick my girlfriend up, come back home,
Speaker 1: and then drive to the studio. I'm glad the story
Speaker 1: I was the original. You just want to show. You
Speaker 1: just want more show than uber o. Yo, I'm actually
Speaker 1: glad you said that because even as at least I'm
Speaker 1: even as the as an established artists, at least in
Speaker 1: the eyes of people that don't know the industry, you're
Speaker 1: still blue collar with it, and you're still like your
Speaker 1: mom's still keeping the job. She's not like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: managing full time and none of that stuff. Wait's Brooke
Speaker 1: still in the picture. Brooke is no longer in the picture.
Speaker 1: I now am Um, I'm just working on album, so
Speaker 1: I don't really need a manager. My mother she basically,
Speaker 1: you know, helped me find an attorney that then kind
Speaker 1: of handled my business or whatever her album to album
Speaker 1: and um, you know, just kind of focused on once
Speaker 1: again getting that album, getting that album done. Can you
Speaker 1: describe Brooke as a person because um, for those that
Speaker 1: don't know, um, you know, thank god the New Edition
Speaker 1: movie went down. And I love the way like he
Speaker 1: was my favorite character in the New Edition movie only
Speaker 1: because of at least the lesson that he taught New
Speaker 1: Edition was was basically, I'm gonna teach you how to
Speaker 1: be professional. I'm not going to make you stars, but
Speaker 1: I will teach you how to be professional. He's like
Speaker 1: that uncle that all that granddad that makes you scared
Speaker 1: because you don't know what the funk he's thinking good
Speaker 1: and you're like, I just don't want to be disappointed
Speaker 1: in me, No, little dude. I spoke to him about
Speaker 1: that whole process, and he like confirmed that he he
Speaker 1: was like not exactly the black version of what's his
Speaker 1: name and whiplash, but he did he believed. I know that.
Speaker 1: Brooke told me that he he's a too much praise
Speaker 1: is almost damaged into an artist because that'll make them lax.
Speaker 1: And it's weird that I'm not saying that slave mentality
Speaker 1: like that like to keep keep the workers uh in
Speaker 1: in in a post, Yeah, but I mean, but it
Speaker 1: keeps it makes them work harder, and you know, next
Speaker 1: to child like Charlie Atkins, like I consider brook Paying
Speaker 1: one of the greatest or yeah, proprietors of of just
Speaker 1: that spirit of like when he's working with you, is
Speaker 1: he strictly just a manager from a manager sent or
Speaker 1: is he working with you on dance moves? At that time,
Speaker 1: he wasn't working on choreography anymore. So were you asking
Speaker 1: to work with you? Or I'm always meeting people, you know,
Speaker 1: when they just stepping out of the space. I can't
Speaker 1: get a fucking record from baby Faces in l A,
Speaker 1: can't get pain that goddamn teach me a step now.
Speaker 1: But um, I mean he had wisdom, or at least
Speaker 1: I hope he had wisdom. Yeah, he had man wisdom,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't that. No, I didn't leave him. What
Speaker 1: happened is new addition. They got back together and and
Speaker 1: this is right before everything happened for me. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'm like, and he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, you can't leave man, And he
Speaker 1: and Jeff Dyson was like, we gotta go back and
Speaker 1: work on this project. I was like, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: can open up for y'all or something like. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: I gotta give it my undivided attention as I would
Speaker 1: if it were you. So I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: you know what, I gotta respect that and if there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us to work again. And that's when
Speaker 1: my mother became my manager. Now, yeah, what is that
Speaker 1: like because you're approaching adulthood? Like, is it easy the
Speaker 1: Joe Jackson Matthew knows and of it all, Like is
Speaker 1: it easy to separate the hats of the two when
Speaker 1: your mom's your manager? Like? Is she traveling on the
Speaker 1: room with you as your managers are? Like? So, how
Speaker 1: hard is that? Because you're I mean, you're becoming of age.
Speaker 1: I'm a grown man in theory because I've always been
Speaker 1: the manager you're driving people? So how now? But in
Speaker 1: my mind I'm also too, I've I've elected to be
Speaker 1: the provider of the family, even though my mother is
Speaker 1: the protector, right And in many ways I think that
Speaker 1: she kind of she crippled me a little bit for
Speaker 1: a minute because my focus wasn't had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with business, had everything to do with art. And thank
Speaker 1: I thank her for that because I wouldn't have I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have established the focus that I have now. If
Speaker 1: I couldn't have just focused on music, music, music, music, dance, dance, dance, dance, performance, performance,
Speaker 1: performance performance. If I was always kind of gonna figure
Speaker 1: out who's trying to take money, where the money is
Speaker 1: coming from, I would have been petty. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I would have I would have lost sight
Speaker 1: of what what the goal was. And um, you know
Speaker 1: another thing, my mother never My mother was never the
Speaker 1: extremely Um, you know, I can't do anything. I can't
Speaker 1: go anywhere you can't. She let me. I got into ship,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and she understood that's just things.
Speaker 1: That's what men do, boys do that, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But if you're gonna do it, do it
Speaker 1: in the safety of your house. Be protected, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Like, Okay, yeah, I'm home, pull up
Speaker 1: trail what yeh? Don't make me not right now? Okay.
Speaker 1: So when you finish the record and you're master and
Speaker 1: your sequence and at this point, are you like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is it. I'm gonna show everyone that I'm the
Speaker 1: ship or no, it's just the work. Ain't even about
Speaker 1: to accolade at that point. I just want to work.
Speaker 1: I want to get back on the road. I want
Speaker 1: to get back out there and perform. I want to
Speaker 1: just continue to grow. You know what I'm saying, It's
Speaker 1: like it ain't it ain't got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: showing nobody up. I'm better than anybody. But it's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not over for me, and I'm gonna keep working
Speaker 1: because I got more to do. I still I still
Speaker 1: haven't fulfilled what I saw when I was eight. Well,
Speaker 1: MTV like grasped orty like crazy, because I mean everything
Speaker 1: every video that I know of was was played ungodly
Speaker 1: during that point, and I think by this point, you're
Speaker 1: this is the well no, no, it's just the Merry
Speaker 1: Usher tour. Was that during that period? Not that? Okay?
Speaker 1: So what is what is the what is your live
Speaker 1: show like now? Like? Yeah, my way was like I
Speaker 1: had a little bit of Philly with me. I had
Speaker 1: you know, um, let me see that's when I brought
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of Detroit, remember you know
Speaker 1: Kern and um vout asked Brittley, they had a Detroit
Speaker 1: that's some played with Mary A current current was EP four,
Speaker 1: I mean was m D for um what do they
Speaker 1: work with the dream as well? I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: they do or not. Okay, I'm trying to getting figure
Speaker 1: out who else do they work with? Okay, But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I had a band and I was comfortable with
Speaker 1: performing would have band? Um, now are you like you are? Now?
Speaker 1: Like you're aware and you know what you want to convey?
Speaker 1: Like who's conveying your ideas? Hear me? That's it? Is
Speaker 1: he and me? And is he listening to you? And
Speaker 1: we were in a way I don't want to listen
Speaker 1: to you and we won. So what what are you
Speaker 1: trying to? What are you trying to convince? An artist?
Speaker 1: By this? By this time, feriold, like, what do you
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm trying to live out everything that
Speaker 1: goes with this album because it is the first time
Speaker 1: that I've actually made songs that are relative to my life,
Speaker 1: what I've gone through, what I've experienced. So now I'm
Speaker 1: trying to re recapture those moments that you know, that
Speaker 1: idea it's a little bit it's a little bit country,
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying, because and I had to deal
Speaker 1: with what I had access to. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: when I came on stage, I had a tribute to
Speaker 1: Bobby that I did every night. Um, now you you
Speaker 1: you have Do you have a close relationship to Bobby Brown?
Speaker 1: Or was it like oh your mind on, hey nice
Speaker 1: kids like the commercial kids. Now we were cool, were cool?
Speaker 1: Now you know that was a moment where we weren't
Speaker 1: cool and it was because he was. He was really,
Speaker 1: he was really just like he was on the drugs. Man.
Speaker 1: It was just too much. But okay, So what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is is we had a falling out. So he
Speaker 1: tried to fight me and the club and it was
Speaker 1: and I was thinking, I was gonna ask you, what
Speaker 1: do you feel threatened you? I wouldn't a threat. I
Speaker 1: think it was just the drugs. It's just you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Sometimes you know, it just happened. You know,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about meeting your artist? Because I
Speaker 1: have never meet your idols, never meet them, because that
Speaker 1: was crushed. I was crushed. And I think that he
Speaker 1: just read me wrong. I'll never forgive my birthday. He
Speaker 1: showed up to his birthday party that I had in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and I introduced. I knew him when I
Speaker 1: was a kid because because at aj Alexander so he
Speaker 1: I spent time at his house. I spent time at
Speaker 1: Bostown for you no, no, no, But for the record,
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown was like one of the best cooks of
Speaker 1: all time all right back to the show. So now
Speaker 1: we I knew him, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: drove driven in car with him all kind of when
Speaker 1: I was kicking it with him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And when I got signed to the Face Records. You know,
Speaker 1: I was always like a part of the crew. I
Speaker 1: was a part of the you know, be town crew.
Speaker 1: And um plus his kid uh Hakim, when his nephew,
Speaker 1: he went to school with me, so I would always
Speaker 1: kind of be around with them. But anyway, Um, I
Speaker 1: had a birthday party and he was in the house,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I got on the
Speaker 1: mic and I was like, ladies and gentlemen, I want
Speaker 1: to introduce you to the original King R and B.
Speaker 1: I said, the original King R and B in respect
Speaker 1: and at the time scasm. I think he thought I
Speaker 1: was trying and it was out there like you the
Speaker 1: original but um, the new king right. So he called
Speaker 1: me and he was like, it's like that little nigger,
Speaker 1: he said, for real, you don't get he was like,
Speaker 1: don't get sucked up or something. I was like, hold up, man,
Speaker 1: for real like that, so you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: we you know? So I y I kind of like
Speaker 1: just and then he kind of squared up with me
Speaker 1: and then they jumped in between. It was crazy, man,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at the like, but idolize you. You're
Speaker 1: my idol, like for real, so you remember that? Like
Speaker 1: I don't think you remember that. I'm celebrating and my
Speaker 1: mother and then they trying to pull me out of
Speaker 1: the place and he like he like he going off
Speaker 1: on me, and I'm like, Bobby, it's me, like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: and what years this? What years that when that happens?
Speaker 1: What year is this? Seventh th this was? This was
Speaker 1: after My Way. It had been at least two years
Speaker 1: after My Way, so I predict it's allus seventh Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was at the Mother damn it after Candy Girl too, right,
Speaker 1: like decades you can join us, so my Way with
Speaker 1: that record when just My Way happens and then you
Speaker 1: do the record, Um, how did you know? Like when
Speaker 1: did you know you said that you make me want
Speaker 1: it was the last one you did. Did you know
Speaker 1: that that one was the hit. It was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the one or did that just happen? Later?
Speaker 1: It just happened, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: for me, it was never about to hit record. It
Speaker 1: was about getting back to the stage. That's it. You
Speaker 1: would get back to get back to it. I need
Speaker 1: to get back to the stage. That was it. Rather
Speaker 1: it was a hit record or not. You know, l
Speaker 1: A read he had a job, you know, KP. They
Speaker 1: had a job to bring me the best records and help,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of tell my story because they knew
Speaker 1: that I really wouldn't allowing just anybody to just kind
Speaker 1: of write, you know what I mean, Like we got
Speaker 1: getting the studio and gotta work on it. But let
Speaker 1: me ask, I mean, before my before you make me
Speaker 1: want to when you're listening to the album in progress,
Speaker 1: what's Ellie Reid saying? We just need that one, that one,
Speaker 1: that that last record. So even with nice and Slow
Speaker 1: and in My Way established hits. So now we wanted
Speaker 1: to come out with My Way. We wanted to come
Speaker 1: out with nice and slow. My way wasn't even on
Speaker 1: this you want a nice and slow first. I wanted
Speaker 1: nicest slow first. So he was like, no, you gotta
Speaker 1: have an up tempo. So j D he produced this
Speaker 1: beat and I just rolled with the beat, road with
Speaker 1: the beat. You know what I'm saying because I can.
Speaker 1: Then at that point I was like, I'm a right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because it just take him.
Speaker 1: It just take him a minute to get to it.
Speaker 1: And Um, he was going through some ship. I was
Speaker 1: going through some ship in the relationship. We're talking it
Speaker 1: up and then one day at three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: he hit me up and I came over and the
Speaker 1: rest is history. After that record when you went in
Speaker 1: the eight seven old one that was that was the
Speaker 1: one who came after that one. Um, how did the
Speaker 1: Neptunes come to the picture? For um? I think so.
Speaker 1: I've seen for Real lady by the name of Candy Tooks.
Speaker 1: She introduced me to for Real when he backed when
Speaker 1: they were on Future I think it's the name of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: When they were with So they were Um, there was
Speaker 1: like studio producers. You know what I'm saying. That I
Speaker 1: met him, but there was no connection. I actually worked
Speaker 1: on a couple of songs. Um. I think yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it was my I think it was before my way,
Speaker 1: and I had seen him, but I didn't necessary him
Speaker 1: at the connection, so KP. He began to you know,
Speaker 1: he came in with these records and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's try to get in with them.
Speaker 1: Let's try to you know whatever. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I got I got something and um, I
Speaker 1: think it was I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm not sure front was was out of now, but
Speaker 1: he was trying as hard to get that record. He's
Speaker 1: China's hard to get that record. Yeah, you know, because
Speaker 1: it was one I think I think it's for eight
Speaker 1: seven on one that didn't make it sweet Lies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like two songs. Yeah, yeah, I still love that songs. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: was it is? It wasn't any truth that you don't
Speaker 1: have the call was originally for Mike or was that
Speaker 1: just is that fan fixed that. I don't know. All
Speaker 1: I know is when I got it, l A it
Speaker 1: crazy and he was like you gotta cut this racord
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right, I cut it, no problem,
Speaker 1: are you easily? The thing is because the the folklore
Speaker 1: of the Neptunes, especially when they're in glory and their
Speaker 1: glory period, everybody wanted Neptunes cut. But you know, initially
Speaker 1: here in the Neptunes it was a hard pill for
Speaker 1: me to swile. No, it was a hard pill for
Speaker 1: me to I think the first beat I heard was
Speaker 1: I Can't Make. I didn't know about s W. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew no, but that wasn't like it was I
Speaker 1: can't make. The mistake was the first Neptune sounding song,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, my first one was Mace.
Speaker 1: They're looking at me, kay, looking at me. I was like,
Speaker 1: what in the Hill is like? And it's really sparse,
Speaker 1: you know, like it it's weird because for the for
Speaker 1: the folklore of how it took music listeners uh a
Speaker 1: minute to accept and digest when doves cry, like you'll
Speaker 1: you'll hear people in hindsight speak of like Warrener Brothers
Speaker 1: was upset that Prince took the baseline out of it.
Speaker 1: Na Da da da. I mean, when doves cry didn't
Speaker 1: feel that foreign to me. But yet when I heard
Speaker 1: the Neptune stuff, it's like something's missing, like it's I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. It's like a lot of
Speaker 1: drums and they were using and like the stocks that
Speaker 1: keyboard sounds. Yeah. It was just like I'm not a
Speaker 1: kind of plastic between them and Swiss like the era
Speaker 1: of the keyboard beats. It sounds like demos, So like
Speaker 1: how hit demo on the cassio. It's like, that's so,
Speaker 1: how are they convincing you? Yo? This is the ship?
Speaker 1: They didn't. I got it from KP, so I was
Speaker 1: using KPS ears and when you don't have the call
Speaker 1: came on. It was it was hard. Pete was got.
Speaker 1: They played it loud for you. Oh man, that that
Speaker 1: ship was hard. Another thing for LL's world famous for
Speaker 1: how he sells you a song. No he did, He
Speaker 1: wasn't there. KP played the record. He I didn't meet
Speaker 1: them until after in the studio and I'm saying and
Speaker 1: then that's when they were like, yeah, we met you
Speaker 1: before we met you back. So the lyrics on the
Speaker 1: original memo before you got It, he did it was
Speaker 1: real like straight shins with little rise in our lives
Speaker 1: but simple was that. Around the same time, it was
Speaker 1: another record, Uh, it's sweet Lies certified, Certified happened after that? Okay?
Speaker 1: That was that? Okay, okay, now, um that was back
Speaker 1: when he started working with Robin thick because Robin and
Speaker 1: him worked on that record, and me and Robin had
Speaker 1: always been like this because I met him, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was back when I was like interviewing people and
Speaker 1: shipped on MTV, and I interviewed and introduced him to
Speaker 1: to the to the world. I was like, and he's
Speaker 1: had long he looked like. I was like, man, you
Speaker 1: look like Jesus what they told me. He looked like, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: So um well, also we should um know that uh
Speaker 1: eight seven on one also contains the most unlikely departure
Speaker 1: sound of Jam and Lewis. I was about to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you remind me meeh, because I almost feel like you
Speaker 1: remind me starts the period of them. I call witness
Speaker 1: protection Jam and Lewis. Oh no, no, no, let me
Speaker 1: go back. Y'all. Y'all getting this all wrong because Terry's
Speaker 1: get this all wrong. Nope, you're getting this all wrong.
Speaker 1: I gotta stop you. Okay. So a guy by the
Speaker 1: name of butter It's who produced you Remind Me, and
Speaker 1: he wrote it, and he wrote it with his sister.
Speaker 1: So he wrote it with his sister in mind. And
Speaker 1: I got that record. Wait, this is this is one.
Speaker 1: This is one Mark, I'm sorry. I'm sorry on another
Speaker 1: level now, Bill want to smack the black off me
Speaker 1: right now. But it wasn't but but it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: Um it was his production from the aspect of producing
Speaker 1: my vocals and also to kind of leading the record.
Speaker 1: But the record was pretty much what it was. I
Speaker 1: just it was so comfortable working with him as a
Speaker 1: vocal producer that I wanted him to be a part
Speaker 1: of that song. Ok. Yeah, so that's the truth about
Speaker 1: the record. Butter is the original producer that record. There
Speaker 1: was an album before eighty seven one that got scrapped
Speaker 1: because I guess it got leaked on the internet. How
Speaker 1: much of that actually wound up on eight seven on
Speaker 1: one and how much of the rest of It's just
Speaker 1: kind of one, um, because it was a single, was
Speaker 1: a Pope Colo that came out and then it was
Speaker 1: back when you could actually put out of and then
Speaker 1: just scrapping the entire album, right, right, So so that
Speaker 1: was a single that came out eight eight seven O one. Right,
Speaker 1: So I worked on a gang of gang of songs
Speaker 1: I worked on. I didn't know that popp your Collar
Speaker 1: was an official it was, it was official. This is
Speaker 1: back when you could send a record overseas, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and then that was the they and
Speaker 1: then they worked from overseason. You just kind of got
Speaker 1: off of it in America, so it came out here
Speaker 1: in America. They just dated it real quick and it
Speaker 1: became a record. It's huge overseas. It's crazy. When I
Speaker 1: whenever I played the record, how they go crazy. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I hate this song really, yeah, I mean I love
Speaker 1: it for the idea of what it represents in my career,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I don't want to sing this song ever.
Speaker 1: Are there any other songs like that you just don't want? No?
Speaker 1: Not really, I mean, I'm I'm cool, but I mean
Speaker 1: that's there's certain things that I have tried that works.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, why the fund did this song work?
Speaker 1: Because now I got to perform it forever, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm It was a short lived term. Pop your
Speaker 1: college feel like it didn't last long enough. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: don't want to hear that. They didn't they didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear that one. Here. I was gonna ask you
Speaker 1: to talk about songs that you never want to perform again,
Speaker 1: and I was one of those songs. No it's not
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, you know, and you'll be happy to
Speaker 1: hear this. You know. I love that record. I think
Speaker 1: I think that's the one record that I'm like, you do, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. It's cool. I heard
Speaker 1: a story that apparently it was similar to I Guess
Speaker 1: what what you make? You want to wear? Y'all had
Speaker 1: finished Confessions and that was the last one, and you
Speaker 1: felt it didn't fit the record. You ain't have shipped
Speaker 1: to do with that whole album. But they was like,
Speaker 1: this is a hit. Fuck it, like, you gotta keep
Speaker 1: this ship. Well, they brought me the record. It was
Speaker 1: Shakir and l A. Reid at the time. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they were working with um Sean Garrett at the time.
Speaker 1: So they bring me the record and I'm like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this record don't sound ship like my record. And I
Speaker 1: spent an entire however long it took six seven months
Speaker 1: working on this album. You want me just throw this
Speaker 1: song on there? He was like, yeah, it's a hit.
Speaker 1: I'm like, So I took the record and um I
Speaker 1: played it for KP. I was like, yeo, man, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this song, I said, but tell
Speaker 1: me what you think I should do. He's like, man,
Speaker 1: you're crazy if you said you're crazy if you don't
Speaker 1: cut this record. I said, you think so he was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you should cut this record. It's a hit, it's a smack.
Speaker 1: I was like, but it didn't it sound like he's
Speaker 1: trying to be Michael Jackson. You know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: that I don't. He's like, don't sing it like him?
Speaker 1: Sing it like you? So who did the demo vocal?
Speaker 1: Who was singing on? That's right? He was killing me, dude.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we're skipping records. But I will say
Speaker 1: that when I listened to Confessions, well, I mean seven
Speaker 1: oh one questions I saw. But I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: the way that I hear Confessions Yeah, to me is
Speaker 1: almost like the movie preview, Like in my mind that
Speaker 1: I'm stills with throwback. Yeah, so just like okay, you
Speaker 1: put a little preview at the top, kind of like
Speaker 1: Snoop's record, the with Rage starting off, Yeah, like okay,
Speaker 1: there's a little preview what you're gonna get, and then
Speaker 1: it really starts with That's how I always felt that
Speaker 1: year was like the sequencing on it was perfect, right
Speaker 1: because it didn't make sense in theory to have a
Speaker 1: song like that that had nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: I was talking about, and I was so like theme
Speaker 1: oriented because I kind of got into like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: really want to say this, like I want us to
Speaker 1: talk about real hard ship, Like let's talk about all
Speaker 1: this ship that nobody will talk about. It was eminem.
Speaker 1: I was listening to his albums and listening to his records,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how is it that he can take
Speaker 1: the liberty to just say whatever the funk you want
Speaker 1: to see on the record and it worked. I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to do that, and I was a lot
Speaker 1: of I got one guest, but so then I was
Speaker 1: listening to country music to and I'm like, it's honesty
Speaker 1: in country music. They so let's tell stories, like let's
Speaker 1: just let's just sit around all five of us and
Speaker 1: let's just talk about all of the ship that has
Speaker 1: happened to us. And we was all just putting it
Speaker 1: in the pot, and it was like, that's a song.
Speaker 1: This is a song, right, then we're gonna do this.
Speaker 1: We say this, and then you know, well and a
Speaker 1: lot of it would shared, you know I'm saying because
Speaker 1: a lot of them stories weren't necessarily mine. You know,
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you to talk about John T.
Speaker 1: Austin man like him as a writer, so John Te
Speaker 1: as an artist. We worked together when I was younger
Speaker 1: and um, you know kind of making that round circle
Speaker 1: back and um, you know, just just finding our way,
Speaker 1: uh you know through what whatever was Rather it was
Speaker 1: a contribution as a motivation or either vocal production or
Speaker 1: whatever it may have been. We really didn't make our
Speaker 1: connection until um until Here I Stand. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: on Here I Stand that we really like he did
Speaker 1: this song from me cause something special that I mean,
Speaker 1: it might not be a hit, but it really is
Speaker 1: something special. Like you gotta go back and listen to
Speaker 1: the album like people people. Yeah, so just give the no.
Speaker 1: Well two things. One it's listened to you like describing stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm now realizing most of my favorite Usser songs are
Speaker 1: always the jams that like, we're not singles. So like
Speaker 1: my favorite jam of confessions is followed Me, Like that's
Speaker 1: the fucking one. Yeah, I mean I mean the other songs.
Speaker 1: I mean it's so follow me is Um that's the
Speaker 1: market for two artists though, Like yeah, it's never the hits,
Speaker 1: it's the filler that, but it was j It was
Speaker 1: so strategic, you know what I'm saying that in l
Speaker 1: A was a master at that ship, rather it was
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, or rather it was put record man. He's
Speaker 1: the greatest record man? And is it? Because but you're
Speaker 1: also on Arista Records, So do you have any relationship
Speaker 1: to Clive Davids what's whatever at that time? I mean
Speaker 1: you were on that was the record at that time,
Speaker 1: But I was L A. Reid's artist, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So there's here's the great here's the greatest reality.
Speaker 1: That was the greatest moment and the worst moment that
Speaker 1: could ever happen to L. A Read because because L.
Speaker 1: A Read's ambition was to come to New York and
Speaker 1: to leave the legacy of what Atlanta had created. And
Speaker 1: while there was some there was some great ship that
Speaker 1: happened in it, I think that that legacy belonged to him,
Speaker 1: and I think that he should have never left Atlanta
Speaker 1: because Atlanta lost everything when it lost L. A Read.
Speaker 1: It gained a lot in terms of confidence because Atlanta
Speaker 1: ain't ever lacked in confidence and being able to kind
Speaker 1: of be installated by its own world. And it's just
Speaker 1: this this inflated sense of delusion, that that that comes
Speaker 1: from that place that makes whatever you say the ship,
Speaker 1: then you believe it, you know what I'm saying, being
Speaker 1: as though he believed in you from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Like what is your relationship with him? Like is he
Speaker 1: the Barry Gordy father figure that you kind of didn't
Speaker 1: have or like, or is he just really it really
Speaker 1: depends on what day, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: he's but he's he's not. He's never really mad at me.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I don't really give you
Speaker 1: a reason to be upset with me and then hold
Speaker 1: onto it, you know what I'm saying. I just seen
Speaker 1: him in a spin class and in Los Angeles, he
Speaker 1: sat next to me. I was busting his ass. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we have a real odd relationship because
Speaker 1: you know, in his transition. Um, I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: be supportive him, and I've always listened him up because
Speaker 1: I believe in supporting you know, black executives and also
Speaker 1: to being supportive. Now I had a deal. This is
Speaker 1: the craziest. This is how much I believe in supporting
Speaker 1: black like business and also to black entrepreneurs. So I
Speaker 1: had to deal with Clive Davis, like I actually formed
Speaker 1: my own relationship with Clive, and he had actually supported
Speaker 1: a lot of my business, a lot of my business venture.
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to have a record label, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, who wouldn't give me a record label with
Speaker 1: all the money that I made for him? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But but the point was he he
Speaker 1: probably should have been the person to have collected or
Speaker 1: either been the recipient of Justin Bieber. But I took
Speaker 1: him to l A Read because the legacy of what
Speaker 1: that represents needed to stay intact, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So so but but but greater than that, it's like,
Speaker 1: I just think he should have never left Atlanta, man,
Speaker 1: you know, and I know it's hard because Atlanta's you know,
Speaker 1: if you look back at it now, it's like, damn, well,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to do more, So I
Speaker 1: gotta go to l A. I gotta move other places. Miami. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he had it the last thing he worked on.
Speaker 1: That was the last record he worked on. It should
Speaker 1: be noted that Um Confessions also represents to me, probably
Speaker 1: the last product that people purchased the last blockbuster, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean at this what was the final numbers?
Speaker 1: Like eleven million? Okay, okay, okay. I know in hindsight
Speaker 1: it probably sold eleven twelve million, but in the States.
Speaker 1: All right, listen, I'm just saying that at the time
Speaker 1: Wing Confessions is out in you know, on wax with
Speaker 1: two thousand three, two thousand four, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a nine next to that triangle in Billboard, which you
Speaker 1: know after that period, after two thousand four, it's a
Speaker 1: rap like people are now like the internet is or
Speaker 1: with uh Spotify, and you know, I think maybe it
Speaker 1: was Nellie and me that was it. It was the last.
Speaker 1: But did you expect for you to be the final?
Speaker 1: That final, like in the final tornado of what we
Speaker 1: know as the music business, the old music business, like
Speaker 1: you're the you're the period at the end of that sentence,
Speaker 1: straight up, I think that all things right are inevitably
Speaker 1: going to come to an end. Nothing is gonna last forever.
Speaker 1: And I think that record companies really did take take
Speaker 1: for granted the uh, the potency of what was getting
Speaker 1: ready to happen. I think they looked at it as
Speaker 1: all right, we'll get you these free goods because it
Speaker 1: just gives us an opportunity to exploit and promote, you know,
Speaker 1: our product. But didn't realize that, you know, and they
Speaker 1: this was crazy. I can't remember the time when they
Speaker 1: were taking the meetings to go to go to Aristair
Speaker 1: and other record companies to try to partner with them
Speaker 1: in front of it. They wanted to partner with them,
Speaker 1: and they were like, no, we don't want to partner
Speaker 1: with you. We have our own solution. You know, we're
Speaker 1: going to continue to create content. You guys, just do
Speaker 1: your thing. You know, it's just a little server, what
Speaker 1: you got, whatever it is, it's done. It's gonna die,
Speaker 1: right right. It's like now it's done. Okay, So now
Speaker 1: how do they feel to be the last? That's the
Speaker 1: question you asked? Right, Well, not that, but like at
Speaker 1: the rate where it's like, okay, it was seven million nounced,
Speaker 1: not million ounce eleven or crap, now it's thirteen million.
Speaker 1: What are you feeling pressure? Pressure to live back up
Speaker 1: to What is that like the pressure of living up
Speaker 1: to that? Like did you expect this album to sell
Speaker 1: thirteen million? I didn't expect to sell thirteen million, you know,
Speaker 1: but I but I expected to you know, try to
Speaker 1: speak to the next chapter of what my life was,
Speaker 1: because everything had been about creating the chapters of what
Speaker 1: it was, not to go back to what worked before.
Speaker 1: You know, even that meant that meant you know, not
Speaker 1: working with some of the same producers, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and leaving the door open for a new opportunity,
Speaker 1: a new a new story. So when you have a
Speaker 1: record like that, one thing that I've always wanted to ask, like,
Speaker 1: there's you talk about the pressure, but is there a
Speaker 1: point where you just have just like I guess, kind
Speaker 1: of common sense where it's just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is never gonna happen again, Like kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about prints a lot where he
Speaker 1: had Purple Rain and he's performing for like a bunch
Speaker 1: of white audiences and like that, he's doing stadiums and
Speaker 1: you know, all this ship and he tells his band
Speaker 1: like listen, y'all just soaked this up now, hippie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this ship is never gonna happen again. Like do
Speaker 1: you have that thought of like there's no way artistically
Speaker 1: I may top this album, but sales wise, like who
Speaker 1: then is gonna sell thirteen million albums? Twice. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: there's anything in hindsight that I do wish is that
Speaker 1: I would have exploited at that moment a little bit
Speaker 1: more why I was happening. How so, what would do
Speaker 1: I mean, just more business more. I was trying my
Speaker 1: hardest to just kind of build a conglomerate around me,
Speaker 1: you know, and probably made some decisions being overly ambitious
Speaker 1: and losing people who were very, very important in the
Speaker 1: structure of who I was. But also too, I was
Speaker 1: moving into a space where I begin to care more
Speaker 1: about business, and I had a better understanding and comprehensive,
Speaker 1: comprehensive you know, idea of how the industry was growing,
Speaker 1: and I needed like mine thinking thinkers or people around
Speaker 1: around me, and you know, you know, I just but
Speaker 1: I would have. Man. I can remember the last show,
Speaker 1: the last show for Confessions. I was on the Truth tour,
Speaker 1: had Kanye West opening up for me, and I um,
Speaker 1: I was in Puerto Rico and I had this promoter
Speaker 1: he was like, Yeah, you gotta come to South America.
Speaker 1: You gotta you know, you've done Europe, You've done America.
Speaker 1: You know you gotta do Australia. You gotta do South America.
Speaker 1: Gotta do Asian and I was like, man, I'm really tired,
Speaker 1: Like I really have bust my ass and I work hard,
Speaker 1: so you know, I was having really really, really really
Speaker 1: bad back problems. So I was like, I gotta just
Speaker 1: I gotta go sit down in the data. I don't
Speaker 1: wish I would have kept going ship, but I mean,
Speaker 1: and my numbers are good, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But but but that moment and what that meant, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it's it's actually it is my personality, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like I'm I'm never the guy
Speaker 1: who was going to rest in the success of the moment.
Speaker 1: I just can't do it, you know. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm never. Um, I don't want to be complacent.
Speaker 1: I have become a little bit complacent in times around,
Speaker 1: you know, the type of the type of working focus
Speaker 1: that I put around what I was doing and used
Speaker 1: other aspects to just kind of you know, do creative ship.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, I never I can't just
Speaker 1: rest in a moment. I'm like, Okay, so what's next,
Speaker 1: and like, wait a minute, let's exploit the ship out
Speaker 1: of this moment, this moment. Let's let's go build a
Speaker 1: clothing line. And it wasn't two infessions by Calvin ConA, Right,
Speaker 1: but wait, I mean how much more could you exploit it?
Speaker 1: Because the Confessions six singles? Seven singles? I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of music, yeah, I mean I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: create another album, but I could have. I could have
Speaker 1: went to si I never I have never toured South
Speaker 1: America never. I have never. Guess what, let's go to
Speaker 1: South America? Have you ever sold? What are the continents
Speaker 1: that you haven't done? Having to Australia either stay don
Speaker 1: Australia tons of time and then you went to Man.
Speaker 1: I know you went for your own but Jeff, you've
Speaker 1: done Africa at all? Yes, I did Africa. Did to Africa. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not really toured Asia. Um what's your what's your
Speaker 1: favorite places to travel? Like as far as like you
Speaker 1: get excited to go, like, what's a good city? Like me?
Speaker 1: Major cities suck? Major cities suck? Well, I know that
Speaker 1: simply these you can kind of get cities are the
Speaker 1: best cities. I think the routes, don't overthink it and
Speaker 1: we just have fun. That's something really incredible about Paris, man, Like,
Speaker 1: I really do enjoy Paris, And once I got married, man,
Speaker 1: I begin to enjoy all the places that I that
Speaker 1: I go more because now I got a significant other
Speaker 1: that really does understand how to enjoy life and how
Speaker 1: to make sure that I am, my kids enjoy life.
Speaker 1: So your your family travels with you on the road, now, yeah,
Speaker 1: well they did, they don't anymore. I actually haven't traveled
Speaker 1: in a long time, bro, Like it's been a minute
Speaker 1: since I've been on tour. Uh And the last one
Speaker 1: that I went on, they were with me. But um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's there's a handful of places like and I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to going to Zanzibar. I love Africa. Um,
Speaker 1: let me see, uh, Marrakesh, I really I really enjoy
Speaker 1: it there, Cuba, Cuba, Son, Cuba later right now always,
Speaker 1: I mean even then, there's so much I know, But
Speaker 1: I mean like now, not later, right because yeah now, yeah,
Speaker 1: right now. If you're just joining us, we're talking to us,
Speaker 1: your Ramond, the family man who is here to go
Speaker 1: to Now I'm playing, Um, I feel like I would
Speaker 1: be remissed if remiss, I'm sorry, there's no tea on remiss,
Speaker 1: boss Bill, So good, bro, we've got you. I was
Speaker 1: remissed she missed me, that she missed me, I left again.
Speaker 1: I was remissed. Okay, that was fantastic side side and
Speaker 1: knew it about your your spouse. Um, any anytime I'm
Speaker 1: in Gracie's presence, there's not twenty people that I run
Speaker 1: to and point that your wife is Benita apple Bum.
Speaker 1: Absolutely she hates great, great, great Gracie used to be
Speaker 1: my product manager at Universal, and come on, dude, I
Speaker 1: mean I feel like it's a badge of honors. As
Speaker 1: far as being I mean so so just playing. She
Speaker 1: was the one. Literally, yes, she's literally the person inspired.
Speaker 1: She has a lovely backside well as a woman. I
Speaker 1: would just like to say, I know you removed the pick,
Speaker 1: but I saw the pick. I appreciate it. And but
Speaker 1: she obviously she's artistic. It was artistic. I'm saying it
Speaker 1: wasn't the fool. So what's crazy is that I got
Speaker 1: all that's that, that grief behind it, But you know
Speaker 1: it's it's okay, we appreciate it. I mean, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not even playing the just but like no, I've worked
Speaker 1: with Gracie for the longest and she's one of the like,
Speaker 1: I think she's one of the best things to happen
Speaker 1: to you. I'm in love with my wife. We love
Speaker 1: your wife too. Respect Yeah, man, what did you learn
Speaker 1: from the first marriage going into the second marriage? And
Speaker 1: this is also the divorced clubs here, so you yeah,
Speaker 1: we got to come on. What did I learn? I
Speaker 1: mean my pay as this in my next album. No,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's like you can't write a book
Speaker 1: on that ship, you know what I'm saying. No, I
Speaker 1: heard Raymond versus Raymond, you know, I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you get too confessional? Like now, what is here
Speaker 1: my dear mean to you? As far as everything, everything,
Speaker 1: the honesty and the music is is beautiful. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's the curator and the holder of
Speaker 1: our greatest emotions, you know what I'm saying, Both good
Speaker 1: and bad, you know what I'm saying. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people are hurting or and a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are looking for guidance in music, and we
Speaker 1: don't realize how much like one simple message. You know, No,
Speaker 1: it might not sell a whole bunch of hours, but
Speaker 1: it could be one person's life that that ship just
Speaker 1: you know, says or one person that's just like trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, Man, should I do this? Should I
Speaker 1: be here? How should I be living my life? And
Speaker 1: that you know? But um, yeah, man, you can't. You
Speaker 1: can't overdo it at all. Be honest, be truthful, the
Speaker 1: truth when you talk about you know, in papers. He
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I damn lost my mama. What
Speaker 1: did your mom think about your first wife? Did you
Speaker 1: get And it is the reason I'm asking this. Did
Speaker 1: she give you the like, no, don't do this? Like
Speaker 1: what did she mean much? It's the funniest ship in
Speaker 1: the world. Is how we could go through all this ship? Right?
Speaker 1: My mom? She she wouldn't show up at my first
Speaker 1: wedding that I canceled. She wouldn't show up at the
Speaker 1: second when she didn't sunk with my ex wife. She
Speaker 1: don won't have nothing to do with her, but she
Speaker 1: didn't want to have something to do with the kids.
Speaker 1: And then they fuck up and they fucking end up
Speaker 1: best friends. I'm like, so your mom and the ex
Speaker 1: wife are now cool. Now they're cool. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they best. They got their own odd relationship, but
Speaker 1: they but they but their friends from the from the
Speaker 1: perspective that she at least talks to her now and
Speaker 1: they actually are cool, which which is healthy. I mean
Speaker 1: some progress. I mean that's a lot for her too. Man.
Speaker 1: She like she like nails, you know what I'm saying, Like, boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was funny. Always wonder who's harder? Like she is?
Speaker 1: Absolutely your mom? Was she very I mean I'm a
Speaker 1: grown ass man. She can't really you know, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, no better. But yeah, she's gonna always
Speaker 1: be extremely protective of me, probably too. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Well, I know you, I know your opinion
Speaker 1: game is okay, not to play on the punt of confessional,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure by this period at least between the
Speaker 1: period of Here I Stand, Raymond Versus Raymond Versus and
Speaker 1: and the four albums that uh that just real quick
Speaker 1: here I Stand, I'm you know, I'm making like a
Speaker 1: big these are big words to me. That is his
Speaker 1: secret life of plans. Like yes, I agree, yeah, like
Speaker 1: that was And so I wanted to hit on that
Speaker 1: a little bit because to me, that was the record
Speaker 1: and it's just from outside appreciate like because you kind
Speaker 1: of did like you were doing like some E d
Speaker 1: M stuff. Well, I think that was. I think before
Speaker 1: that you had a couple that DJ no, that was.
Speaker 1: It was after that it was there was none of that.
Speaker 1: That record was pure. And if there's any did you
Speaker 1: rush it? Because my when I first got I think
Speaker 1: I got service with the white label. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this ain't sex or I got service with the
Speaker 1: white label. This ain't sex was on it, right, and
Speaker 1: then that got can't. And it's not that I rushed it.
Speaker 1: It's like they had an idea and right first correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they understood what it was that worked. I was being
Speaker 1: honest and where I was so not being considerate of
Speaker 1: what I knew would work. I went with what I
Speaker 1: knew was real. So I mean that's a compromise. And
Speaker 1: and yeah, it didn't sell as many albums, but it's
Speaker 1: the most truthful album that I think I have in
Speaker 1: terms of a cohesive thought from top to bottom. It's honest.
Speaker 1: It's like and it's probably my vulnerable it's it's my
Speaker 1: most vulnerable title track as a mother. Yeah. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that's the one where you were talking about songs and
Speaker 1: lyrics moving people. I think I thought about here I
Speaker 1: stay in. I was like, it wasn't in terms of
Speaker 1: it wasn't cool to have a wife, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And at that time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: but I do. And if you're don't funk with that,
Speaker 1: then that's cool, you know what I'm saying. But eventually
Speaker 1: you're gonna get it. You're gonna get that party because
Speaker 1: you can't party forever. You're gonna eventually have to go home,
Speaker 1: and you want to go home with somebody that you
Speaker 1: want to be with. The ladies got it because they
Speaker 1: wanted it, well some some of them, and then some
Speaker 1: of them just was like, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: be married usher, especially the herd. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 1: the reality of it that you know that that marriage
Speaker 1: and that relationship you know was going to come to
Speaker 1: it in or world was but it served this purpose
Speaker 1: in my life, and I think I became appreciative of that,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying that no matter what my
Speaker 1: mother was attempting to tell me, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people were trying to tell me about that, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it had to do with my lack
Speaker 1: there of a father, you know what I'm saying. Like,
Speaker 1: when I got into the idea of what I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be. I did not want to be a
Speaker 1: person who would just you know, I'm saying, just roll out,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, anybody could do that.
Speaker 1: But you know, and I tried. You know I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I tried everything that I could before I decided to,
Speaker 1: you know, throw in the towel. I mean, should I
Speaker 1: even try it? Afterwards? Probably broke a lot of girl's heart.
Speaker 1: Still sucking around, but you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's it. Yeah, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: phase that that needed to happen. So it was a
Speaker 1: part of the evolution. And then in that I begin
Speaker 1: to understand what I really wanted and the kind of
Speaker 1: partner that I needed and the kind of support that
Speaker 1: I needed for my life. She showed up. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: I wasn't even look into it. It's just as I
Speaker 1: prayed this, here's the reality. You know. I was going
Speaker 1: through a lot, you know what I'm saying. I was like,
Speaker 1: here's at the point where I was like living out
Speaker 1: of my office, like I never want to go home.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to just like just eat there. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I didn't want to go home
Speaker 1: because what you just didn't want to face that, like
Speaker 1: being alone or it's just I just I didn't want to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't want to be there. I
Speaker 1: just did not want to be at the crib by myself.
Speaker 1: I just was fucked up, man. I was like, I
Speaker 1: wasn't working at that time. I was like just out
Speaker 1: so yeah. But but then you know, after I got
Speaker 1: a divorce, it was like, man, like I put it
Speaker 1: all on the line, you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: and this is the right thing to do. I did
Speaker 1: it for all the right reason. I wentn't trying to
Speaker 1: get like some odd respect for what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I was just doing what was honest and what was
Speaker 1: about the art. And I began to understand the idea
Speaker 1: of the art at that moment um. But I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I didn't. I didn't want it, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I didn't. I didn't want to face
Speaker 1: none of it because I felt like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I felt like, should I just put my neck out
Speaker 1: there way too much? It didn't work, we didn't jail.
Speaker 1: It was really really public, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And it was what it was. But anyway, I see
Speaker 1: my story. So my grandmother was like, you know, you
Speaker 1: should just you should pray. I was like, what I
Speaker 1: pray for? She's like, I want you to pray for grace.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna just pray for
Speaker 1: grace because this moment is just hard to get through this,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, I just it's a lot,
Speaker 1: and I pray. And she showed up. I don't have
Speaker 1: a good sound effect for that. That's all I got.
Speaker 1: That's all I got loaded. I can't. Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: Oh god, um I got what. They don't make a sound? Well,
Speaker 1: here you go. Um Kelly, well you will destroy you.
Speaker 1: You mentioned him earlier, but you know, I feel the
Speaker 1: significance of you being behind uh want to want to
Speaker 1: pop music's biggest stars and the route that you took
Speaker 1: him bieber Velly, I mean not since Marie started taking
Speaker 1: new kids on the block in working straining their career.
Speaker 1: How did you manage to gain the trust of the
Speaker 1: beavers and have them listen to you and and for
Speaker 1: you to take them because you know, sometimes when you
Speaker 1: get an artist, it doesn't necessarily you know, work out
Speaker 1: as planned, Like if you if you could look at
Speaker 1: all the artists that have Oh, I have a new
Speaker 1: protegee and you're gonna you know, sometimes it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And there was a war from what we heard between
Speaker 1: you and Justin timber Lake to where's he gonna go?
Speaker 1: Where is he gonna go? Right? Yeah, wait, Timberlake was
Speaker 1: in the picture. There's a lot of people who I
Speaker 1: did not know this. There were a lot of people
Speaker 1: who had interest in Justin. I think that you know Schooter,
Speaker 1: you know, once he found Justin online, he began to
Speaker 1: kind of shop him around Atlanta, you know, because he
Speaker 1: wanted to get with the specific type of artists from Atlanta.
Speaker 1: He wanted to have like some credibility. And I was
Speaker 1: at the top of the list. But he and I
Speaker 1: were at odds. He and I. We had had just
Speaker 1: me and Scooter. I ain't no Justin yet, so he
Speaker 1: and I were at odds. But there was a conversation
Speaker 1: about this kid that school was shopping around. You know.
Speaker 1: You know, they say success has a million fathers. There
Speaker 1: ain't enough people that I could think, you know, right,
Speaker 1: and failures an orphan. It's not enough people. I never
Speaker 1: heard of the idiom and my wife, Oh, success has
Speaker 1: a million fathers and failures Orphan. This is literally the
Speaker 1: first time I ever heard that term. Yeah, because something
Speaker 1: you gotta sound effect for that someone feel I feel
Speaker 1: like someone failed me by not giving me that I
Speaker 1: learned on. So wait, what is it? One more times
Speaker 1: as fathers and he he is an offer? Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: marinate on that. No, but um, you know, he and
Speaker 1: I really didn't. We went, we went seeing eye to
Speaker 1: eye and it was over some sis like fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and some shooting, some stupid ship like that. It
Speaker 1: happened back in the day when he was promoting clubs
Speaker 1: and so you had a relationship with Scooter before. I
Speaker 1: had a relationship with Scooter Away before. Oh what was
Speaker 1: he like? Who? He worked with your main dupri and
Speaker 1: he also to work with Ludicrous go back and look
Speaker 1: at it. So he's from Atlanta. He was in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I think he was at Memory at the time. I've
Speaker 1: only heard of Scooter once Justin came on the scene,
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize that he existed as a business
Speaker 1: person before. You know, yep, so, but he was actually
Speaker 1: managing an artist by the name of Asta Roth at
Speaker 1: the time. So little College Pennsylvania. But still so he
Speaker 1: introduced Asta Roth and he had this kid that he
Speaker 1: was interested in, but he didn't really know what to
Speaker 1: do with him. So he was, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: shopping him around. He had justin in interested in him.
Speaker 1: You know, they were trying to get the kid, and
Speaker 1: he was like, what I really want to you know,
Speaker 1: I really want to funk with usher. So I think
Speaker 1: that Um it was Terrence Carter, who was my road
Speaker 1: manager at the time. My homeboy was with me, Keith Thomas. Um,
Speaker 1: Sherry Hughley or Sherry Riley. Now, by the way, incredible
Speaker 1: book Exponential Life. She just introduced that book. I wrote
Speaker 1: the ford and it to y'all. Y'all check that out.
Speaker 1: But um, exponent Exponential Life anyway, Um, no, Exponential Living,
Speaker 1: my bad anyway. Um, all of these people are like,
Speaker 1: you need to meet this kid, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: who is he there? Like, you know, he's he's just
Speaker 1: a special kid and everybody's trying to get at him.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's a little white kid that school
Speaker 1: to guy and everybody love him. I'm like, all right, man,
Speaker 1: look I said, you know, I'm cool, man, I'm just
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in business with dude, because
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, we we just had words. We
Speaker 1: almost came to blows one time because we just kind
Speaker 1: of were angry at each other. So, um, I decided
Speaker 1: that I was going to know. I was going to
Speaker 1: studio and this little kid comes out of the studio
Speaker 1: at j D's studio and I'm like, okay, what's something.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm I'm the kid they've been telling you about.
Speaker 1: I'm Justin Bieber. I'm like, We're nice to meet you, Justin?
Speaker 1: He said, can I sing for you? I was like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't. See that's how it always should work. So
Speaker 1: I said no. I said, but what I will do
Speaker 1: is I reach out to your manager and make some
Speaker 1: time maybe to meet you sometime. Cool. He's like yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, if it's meant to happen, then I'll see
Speaker 1: you again. He's like okay, cool. So I went to
Speaker 1: the studio and UM, you on really seeing him again? No? Yo,
Speaker 1: that's real? Yo. I did. I didn't because I still
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I don't want to. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to invest in it. But it was it
Speaker 1: was two things. No, it was it wasn't that I
Speaker 1: didn't plan on sing him again. I didn't plan on
Speaker 1: rushing to hit uh to to call Scooter. Because I
Speaker 1: seen him and I saw it, I was like, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, this kid got something. So I was like,
Speaker 1: but I'm good. So I went in the studio and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I mean it was that
Speaker 1: kid and they were like, oh man, that's some some
Speaker 1: artists and Scooter guy. I was like, y'all gonna do
Speaker 1: anything with that kid? And the like no, man, just
Speaker 1: I was like cool. So then I walked out after
Speaker 1: my session and um I played because I didn't looked.
Speaker 1: Once I saw the kid, I went and looked him online.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this kid he got something. So
Speaker 1: then I called my homie. I was like, yeah, y'all
Speaker 1: all right, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: went home showed it to my wife at the time,
Speaker 1: and Perry Reid was there, so she was like pel
Speaker 1: She was like, are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't really with him like that,
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying, I just I don't even want
Speaker 1: to get in the business because it's gonna She's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't sign this artist, you are the stupidest
Speaker 1: person ever. Are you crazy? So I was like for real?
Speaker 1: She was like yeah. I was like, I get it.
Speaker 1: She said, yeah, you can get past all that. You
Speaker 1: should get past out that for this artist because he
Speaker 1: needs you. So I then reached out to Scooter Um.
Speaker 1: He was like, all right, cool, we had to fly
Speaker 1: fly his mom, him and his mom back down to Atlanta. Um.
Speaker 1: He came to my studio the next day, he saying
Speaker 1: for me, and I was like, you know, let's take
Speaker 1: a picture. Because it's be a part of history. It
Speaker 1: was intended for it to happen, then it will happen, right.
Speaker 1: He's like yeah, cool. So that night I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: the ain't nobody else that you could have this artist
Speaker 1: work with this artist with I'm the guy period. You
Speaker 1: know if you it was like, well, I got Justin
Speaker 1: and you know interested they put, you know, put something.
Speaker 1: The day I said, I'm not gonna put nothing on
Speaker 1: the table. I said, it's on you to make the
Speaker 1: right decision, but be clear, that can only be one
Speaker 1: justin straight up? Wait can I ask? But no, that's
Speaker 1: really and I'm I'm I'm literally going against my my
Speaker 1: rules of this show to not be sensationalist and gossipy.
Speaker 1: But I never asked, like, what is your standing with
Speaker 1: your contemporaries, Like I'm just saying with us, just like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm down with common, I'm down with most and
Speaker 1: you know my contemporaries like are you are you beating
Speaker 1: with Chris Brown? I gotta beet with How could I be?
Speaker 1: He's I was about to say, I mean, come on, like,
Speaker 1: who else is singing and dancing like Usher? Not just
Speaker 1: like I don't know what you're I've never seen you
Speaker 1: and together or so there's there's always those stories, those
Speaker 1: things that people say, but damn, I wish they had
Speaker 1: had been smarter, been at the right time, not passed
Speaker 1: up on this artist, not do this thing, not do
Speaker 1: that right. So there's one thing in my career that
Speaker 1: I definitely regret, one thing, and to this day I
Speaker 1: battle with it, which is why I always show support
Speaker 1: for this artist whenever he asked, and I'm I've always
Speaker 1: kind of like it ended up being more of a relationship.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why I'm drawing it out like this anyway.
Speaker 1: But um so um Mark Pitts comes to me and
Speaker 1: he's like, I got this artist uh, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just really focused on myself and he's like,
Speaker 1: I know that, but I got this artist that I
Speaker 1: really think you should see and I want him to
Speaker 1: be your first artist. So I'm like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let me see him. So his manager comes in. They
Speaker 1: have him, you know, they showed him to me. I
Speaker 1: meet him. I was doing this album at the time.
Speaker 1: They want him to perform on this album. I was like, okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. But I just I didn't get it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that I didn't get it. I was I was
Speaker 1: a bit like I'm gonna be honest. I was intimidated.
Speaker 1: I want to get the sound hold on listen. I
Speaker 1: was intimidated by what it meant to move to the
Speaker 1: place of mentoring artists and not be the artist. So
Speaker 1: I felt like I don't want to funk that up,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to stop what I think I'm
Speaker 1: doing right now and do it too early. It was
Speaker 1: it was a mature thing, but not clear, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And then I went to I went
Speaker 1: to my team and I was like, I really want
Speaker 1: to work with his arts, and he was like, I
Speaker 1: don't think you should do it. I don't think you should.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't think you should work with this artist?
Speaker 1: Um and then he left. Wait whoa, all right, I
Speaker 1: got my sound effect? Really who Chris Brown? Wait, he's
Speaker 1: Mark Pitson's artist. He was, He was a Mark Pitts
Speaker 1: artist at the time. But I just think, like, when
Speaker 1: I think about all that, if you had a chance
Speaker 1: to do you even think you would have had an impact.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to tell you if yeah, well that
Speaker 1: makes sense because Chris Brown really was like the next
Speaker 1: and thenage of Bobby Brown. He Bobby Bage, so it's
Speaker 1: like he's the next No. That would make you know,
Speaker 1: it makes sense why they would reach out to you Tube,
Speaker 1: I get it. Wow, but I passed man, So if so,
Speaker 1: had you Okay? Now in hindsight, do you feel you
Speaker 1: were why? Because here's the thing. I think that every
Speaker 1: artists has something to go through, all right, because if
Speaker 1: you even look at the success of what Justin is right,
Speaker 1: because they went through similar ship. But but the reality
Speaker 1: is having the right people around, having the right support
Speaker 1: that changes the dynamic of how it pans out. You're
Speaker 1: an anomaly though, because I justly it does. But it's
Speaker 1: one more I don't believe. I mean, I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I don't believe an artists being I don't believe an
Speaker 1: artist being their own managers. And I know there's a bit.
Speaker 1: I know there's a grip of artists that are in
Speaker 1: my inbox, in my d M, on Twitter and all over.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of ship that I do. I wasn't
Speaker 1: the four things in my life, and I got lucky
Speaker 1: with it. And I'm not saying I'm responsible for Jill whatever,
Speaker 1: but it's like Jill slum village below. I don't Maybe
Speaker 1: there's one Cody, I guess, but I've made a life
Speaker 1: of avoiding that moment. Why are you smiling? I'm smiling
Speaker 1: at Bill. Please don't look at me like yeah, because
Speaker 1: Cody was a real person. We were just like yess Cody, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what the level of it's
Speaker 1: intimidating to get out of the comfort zone of where
Speaker 1: you are and begin to have the responsibility of other people. Man.
Speaker 1: It's as I just think, artists make horrible business Like
Speaker 1: you're either going to be a business person or you're
Speaker 1: going to be an artist and listen off off the
Speaker 1: heels of having three artists that didn't necessarily fly. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I you know, I was I
Speaker 1: had it was an artist by the name of Melinda Santiago,
Speaker 1: a group by the name of Um One Chance, Enrico Love.
Speaker 1: Those are my first three artis. I was about to
Speaker 1: say I knew that and think I mean that that
Speaker 1: ended up paying out to be a great investment because
Speaker 1: I felt something different than him. I was like, I
Speaker 1: just think that you were an incredible writer, Like, and
Speaker 1: this is not a discredit to who you are, but
Speaker 1: you you really do know your way around melodies and
Speaker 1: you know your way around storytelling, so you should be
Speaker 1: a writer. He was like a set of artists, It's like,
Speaker 1: let's let's just let's focus on So we got him
Speaker 1: a publishing deal and yeah, okay, So that's why I
Speaker 1: feel like, had you taken on Chris, do you think
Speaker 1: he would have listened to you? I do you know
Speaker 1: the Prince actually went on record to you know, and
Speaker 1: and and Louve his death. Uh, he kind of sort
Speaker 1: of went publican saying that he really wanted to mentor
Speaker 1: Chris Brown and you know, but I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't think Prince would have. I don't think that's too far.
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's a difference between generations, and
Speaker 1: the post can't tell me nothing. Syndrome would have would
Speaker 1: have would have been like his Bobby Brown. I mean,
Speaker 1: like that would have been you know it was, I
Speaker 1: still think, but I think Bobby Brown was the aggressive.
Speaker 1: It ain't a matter of was. I still am And
Speaker 1: that's why I'm consistent, and I am a great friend
Speaker 1: of his even through the complication and all of the ship.
Speaker 1: So do you mentor him now? I mean as much
Speaker 1: as he'll allow, Like who are you close to now
Speaker 1: that you're not attitude business wise? That they you know
Speaker 1: you're there? One am called like yo man, like I
Speaker 1: need some advice on something like who? I mean it
Speaker 1: could be as a ton of like business people and
Speaker 1: uh young entrepreneurs, people whom I just make myself available
Speaker 1: for his reality, Right, if we really want to begin
Speaker 1: to remedy some of the issues that we have, we
Speaker 1: got to be more disciplined ourselves to be people who
Speaker 1: share high information. I had this conversation with everybody, and
Speaker 1: I ain't talking about just mentoring people in your company
Speaker 1: or because it's a company duty and responsibility to do that.
Speaker 1: Ship No, find people to mentor and talk to them,
Speaker 1: bring them together, create groups, talk to them as a
Speaker 1: collective because you got insight and off of that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, I'm I'm really tired of the
Speaker 1: reality of of what we are, what we are, and
Speaker 1: how behind we are, and the fact that we don't
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to come together because we just don't come together.
Speaker 1: We're not community, We're not community or oriented. We don't share.
Speaker 1: We think that it's better to continue to climb individually
Speaker 1: and not as a collective. Okay, I think now I
Speaker 1: will insert the modern day a t L question that
Speaker 1: I was kind of saving as a snowball earlier. But
Speaker 1: the climate that is Atlanta now which very very active
Speaker 1: almost at it's at least it's commercial peak. I don't
Speaker 1: know about creative peak. Of course that could be agism,
Speaker 1: old ages and me speaking. But are you are you
Speaker 1: the character and things for all apart that is looking
Speaker 1: at the land and kind of have a single tier
Speaker 1: in your eye, like what's going Are you a stranger
Speaker 1: on the strange land which is euro Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: see the environment that is Atlanta now, like are you
Speaker 1: relating to the stuff. Do you want to be politically
Speaker 1: correct and be like, well, Quincy Jones, uh, you know
Speaker 1: has embraced another generation, or like, what is your feeling
Speaker 1: towards at least Atlanta? Why don't you just say it exactly?
Speaker 1: What say it? Nig? What does this? What? Like? Just
Speaker 1: say it? Like? I answer to how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the ever changing environment of what Atlanta is now
Speaker 1: compared to what it was twenty years ago? By the way,
Speaker 1: it's always been that it's just needed a curator, a
Speaker 1: person who could bring it all together and create some
Speaker 1: integrity in it. And um, well, what I was leading
Speaker 1: to is are you now el A Reid and are
Speaker 1: you realizing that you now need to be l a
Speaker 1: read of Atlanta? Or is that too a lofty of
Speaker 1: an idea. It's not too lofty of an idea, because
Speaker 1: in theory, yeah, that might, that might have some I
Speaker 1: may there may be some influence in that to the
Speaker 1: people who are looking at what my career is. But
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about is more significant than just being
Speaker 1: one man who comes and takes advantage of all of
Speaker 1: the talent that's there and brings it together. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about a collective. I'm talking about a group of people
Speaker 1: who decide that our business is important, of a group
Speaker 1: of people who understand that our culture is important, and
Speaker 1: there's a way to introduce it. And yes, it does
Speaker 1: take right, but no, but it starts with a collective
Speaker 1: of people being on the same page, because it ain't
Speaker 1: nothing worse than having a plan. And then you have
Speaker 1: other people compromising your efforts, which is gonna be the
Speaker 1: case period, But it can't happen from inside. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. If you have, if if we can
Speaker 1: just come together, man and just start like supporting each other,
Speaker 1: not just getting on the record with each other, but
Speaker 1: like really helping and engaging each other, and understand that
Speaker 1: the idea of growth isn't sharing. If you got five,
Speaker 1: if you've got five hundred thousand dollars or two million dollars,
Speaker 1: that ain't ship. Man, Gotta you gotta tell these kids, like, look,
Speaker 1: you think you got something, but you ain't got nothing yet.
Speaker 1: It's not until you begin to bring all that ship together,
Speaker 1: aggregate and then and then build. Are they listening to you?
Speaker 1: They slowly but surely listening. But I'm only one person.
Speaker 1: I'm only one person doing my part in it. And
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, but you need gathering. Who are
Speaker 1: you gathering two in a perfect world? Who what figures
Speaker 1: are you gathering at least locally? Two? At least make
Speaker 1: this a semblance of a reality. It's a common conversation
Speaker 1: with everybody that I come in contact with. It ain't
Speaker 1: just one person. It's people who are in business. That's
Speaker 1: the one thing that Atlanta has to have right in
Speaker 1: order to be respected as a major city and in
Speaker 1: business and culturally. It has to bring all of those
Speaker 1: elements together in order to make it. And that's oddly
Speaker 1: what l A. Read was able to do at that time.
Speaker 1: The dynamic of what it is and what success is
Speaker 1: it's changing. It's changed. So now you gotta figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, do you get politics? So it's a matter
Speaker 1: of getting Cassine Read in the room, you know, managing
Speaker 1: to get yeah. Oh so wait a minute. That was
Speaker 1: a paradigm shifting. Because there's a lot of property he has,
Speaker 1: spig Yeah, is he a presence or is he just
Speaker 1: a studio in Atlanta? Not? Tyler Perry is most certainly
Speaker 1: a presence, but there's a more active in the community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or you don't know, I'm he know who, No, I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna buity my tongue. I'm not that guy. I no, no,
Speaker 1: I ain't that guy in the community. So looking at
Speaker 1: the right to make sure your jaw is not going
Speaker 1: to stop it. No, no, it's it's not that there's
Speaker 1: a certain expectation that comes with stepping into that space,
Speaker 1: and no one per someone wants to compromise what they
Speaker 1: have in order to do it. So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: getting people to understand that as a collective, if you
Speaker 1: come together, if you bring it all together, you're stronger
Speaker 1: and then you don't have to compromise anything, right, But
Speaker 1: it's that one person who's going to step out and
Speaker 1: take the chance with the other person and who's But
Speaker 1: why not it be? Atlanta is the home of like
Speaker 1: black wealth right now in that entertainment still and I
Speaker 1: just mean in the entertainment type way it is is
Speaker 1: not in an opportunistic way because you see a city
Speaker 1: that's growing like we we can. I mean, but is
Speaker 1: it really you feel there's red the in Atlanta right now?
Speaker 1: As it? At least I was pid. I thought between
Speaker 1: between eighty four with people Bryson and and and Cameo
Speaker 1: and that class of Atlanta and brick like the arms
Speaker 1: between that first migration between seventy nine and eighty four,
Speaker 1: of all these artists moving to Atlanta and too when
Speaker 1: you guys were the new Jacks between eight and I
Speaker 1: always felt that there was a community like Eric Sermon's like,
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm moving to Atlanta like everybody was
Speaker 1: moving to Atlanta. Is there a community still or is
Speaker 1: it just like every man for itself and every man
Speaker 1: for himself because there's no formula, there's no business. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no Clarence Avon. Mhm. Okay, I'll straight up ask you,
Speaker 1: do you desire the stress and the headaches and the
Speaker 1: gray hair and the sacrifice of your personal career to
Speaker 1: try to be that Clarence. I'm not trying to be Clarence.
Speaker 1: We can explain who Clarence avan is Taboo Records, This
Speaker 1: is your shlf too, and Clarence Avant was the guy
Speaker 1: who was ahead and finish. No. I mean, well, you
Speaker 1: know my regret about my my regret about him is
Speaker 1: that I feel as though the way he was painted
Speaker 1: in the documentary uh Searching for Sugarman, Searching for Sugarman,
Speaker 1: really painting him in a bad which I feel his
Speaker 1: you know, when we get to the Jam and Lewis episode,
Speaker 1: you know you'll see how important next to Don Cornelis
Speaker 1: and bad Berry, Gordy he was like one of the
Speaker 1: most important and stan Lathan like, you know, he's part
Speaker 1: of the power four that actually had power and resources
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies to make ship happen. And
Speaker 1: so you know, if you had a problem, you went
Speaker 1: to Clarence Avons to smooth it out. You know, he's
Speaker 1: almost like music industries Jesse Jackson or Al Sharton like
Speaker 1: be to go to guys to smooth ship out. When
Speaker 1: everybody comes to Atlanta to take the piece of it,
Speaker 1: but they don't leave the structure, it helps to continue
Speaker 1: to build it. He's learning the Black Lily lesson. He's
Speaker 1: at least more people at least more people stay and
Speaker 1: build their wealth in Atlanta, because that's like one of
Speaker 1: the you know, that's the difference between in Atlanta, because
Speaker 1: now I'm here in North Carolina might be the new
Speaker 1: spot for sports people, it's Phoenix, like I mean, I now,
Speaker 1: like there was a point where Atlanta was like the
Speaker 1: place to move, but then you know it got overpriced
Speaker 1: and now it's hard to maintain a life there now
Speaker 1: here Atlanta, people going elsewhere, to the Carolinas too. You know,
Speaker 1: to start this is happening? Does that happening? So you
Speaker 1: know it's I know, I know it's sacrificial. So in
Speaker 1: some sense, yeah, where do you where do you see?
Speaker 1: What's your next step? I'm not saying your last step,
Speaker 1: but what's your next step? Uh? Are really do want
Speaker 1: to make an album with y'all quest lost about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I feel okay for those that don't know. Um, when
Speaker 1: when the Roots do the Roots picnic uh our annual
Speaker 1: festival in Philadelphia, UM, we like to do collaborative, community
Speaker 1: based projects because you know, we feel as though that's
Speaker 1: really the spirit of Philadelphia, the collaboration spirit. That's where
Speaker 1: the Roots really shine. We're working with other people. And UM,
Speaker 1: I'll say that all the collaborations that we've done year
Speaker 1: after year, like we've done John Legend one year, we
Speaker 1: did Naughty by Nature, one year we did Public Enemy.
Speaker 1: We did not as we did Wu Tang. I mean
Speaker 1: we did the usual suspects. Um, when we did our
Speaker 1: ninth year, we wanted to I wanted to pull kind
Speaker 1: of a non predictable move, and for me that move
Speaker 1: was too you know, I was like, we should get
Speaker 1: a singer. You should just shock everyone, like who's that
Speaker 1: singer that people be like, wait, what the hell is
Speaker 1: this like? And we realized that Usher is really the
Speaker 1: voice of I mean kind of the voice of his
Speaker 1: generation that really speaks to people. And so it seemed
Speaker 1: kind of weird on site, but then it started to
Speaker 1: make sense and you know, I just feel like there
Speaker 1: was there was raised I mean, you even kind of
Speaker 1: reached your eye brothers like what I did. I was like,
Speaker 1: I should had the roots pick nap. But then when
Speaker 1: the when the when the music started rolling, everybody was
Speaker 1: like it was like a shock to your system, like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: me because us you got jams, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I ain't saying that just because you know you're
Speaker 1: sitting here. I just think that there's a revolutionary sound
Speaker 1: that compliments all of what you've been building, and I
Speaker 1: really feel like I'm the voice to carry it out.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a mission that is bigger than
Speaker 1: all of the ship that I've done in the past. Damn. Now,
Speaker 1: I feel like but it's not it's not pleasure, it's
Speaker 1: not pressure, it's it's pleasure. Like you really should understand
Speaker 1: that it took all of that to get to this
Speaker 1: place where I'm open enough and I'm capable of carrying
Speaker 1: out what needs to be done and said, both as
Speaker 1: a standard of business and also to a standard of
Speaker 1: music that leads to the next chapter. It has textures
Speaker 1: of our roots, Africa, Cuba, percussions, music, time, the reality
Speaker 1: of all of what that is, and then also to
Speaker 1: the truth in it. It's almost like a project that's
Speaker 1: like the songs and um uh songs in the key
Speaker 1: of Life, like it's it's gonna be something incredible. I
Speaker 1: believe it. This is the record. I think it's a
Speaker 1: record that I think it's a record that we're gonna
Speaker 1: work on. I mean, but it's going to happen naturally.
Speaker 1: I think that we've been we've been worked, you know,
Speaker 1: working together, rocking together. But and now we get into
Speaker 1: a place where we're communicating. This is communicating. We're communicating
Speaker 1: in a in a way that you know, what I'm
Speaker 1: saying gets us down in the space of just being
Speaker 1: creative if you're just joining us. In the final minutes
Speaker 1: of The Usher Reman, the fourth episode of quest Love
Speaker 1: Supreme Usher Rieman is now proposing that the Roots and
Speaker 1: the Ussher do an album together, and everyone seems pretty
Speaker 1: much excited what he's saying, Like if you go back
Speaker 1: to the what he's like, like that it's all of it.
Speaker 1: Though I knew, I knew from the gate it was
Speaker 1: gonna lead to this, but part of me is like
Speaker 1: scared out of my mind. Why, um, but you but
Speaker 1: you can't. But you can't look at it that way
Speaker 1: because it's something that Okay, let me give you the reality.
Speaker 1: The reality is in the process of making all of
Speaker 1: the albums that I have and having the platform i've
Speaker 1: I've been I've been living vicariously through a lot of
Speaker 1: other people's reality. So even though they've been telling my story,
Speaker 1: I've been helping the world through like poems and through
Speaker 1: like the ideas of things, and then I've lived things.
Speaker 1: But I also to need to support musically to be
Speaker 1: able to tell that story and did not feel like
Speaker 1: it's just a product for sale, even though it may work,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, But being able to understand
Speaker 1: somebody who understands all those textures, you get it, you
Speaker 1: understand what you you can't be afraid you gotta just
Speaker 1: allow us to just go in it and just get
Speaker 1: it going because around like this is a intervention. We
Speaker 1: have a plane ticket ready for you to go. Literally
Speaker 1: the entire room is looking at me at this point
Speaker 1: in your in both of y'all's careers, right, But I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, with you as you like you, and this
Speaker 1: is in my opinion, you know, you really have nothing
Speaker 1: else to prove, so to speak. So it's like, if
Speaker 1: you want to make that quote unquote art record with
Speaker 1: the roots, which I don't think I'm just using that
Speaker 1: term loosely, but you have nothing else, Like we know
Speaker 1: you can sing, we know you can dance, we know
Speaker 1: you can make hits. And it ain't about it's like,
Speaker 1: understand that it's not a it's it's about including all
Speaker 1: of the different textures in places that we both have
Speaker 1: gone to make it. It's not like just one specific thing,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, use all of it.
Speaker 1: You see all the examples of things that I've been
Speaker 1: able to do and you guys have been able to do.
Speaker 1: Let's bring it all together and bring the textures because
Speaker 1: there's a story that's way deeper. I may not even
Speaker 1: figure out what the the actual words to articulate it
Speaker 1: right now are. But I hear you out and clear
Speaker 1: when you hear the textures of what you know is
Speaker 1: relevant in the sound and the energy of what it is,
Speaker 1: and then you can go and put the soul behind
Speaker 1: it and then go also to put the right production
Speaker 1: behind it and the right ideas and the right ears
Speaker 1: on it. We know that we understand that, and we
Speaker 1: understand it in a way that they need to be taught.
Speaker 1: You know what it is though, And maybe this is
Speaker 1: coming forward. I see Bill looking at me because he
Speaker 1: knows I'm about to reintroduce the self sabotage uh analogy,
Speaker 1: self sabotage analogy coming up? No, okay, you know, like
Speaker 1: when and I had to place this old women, you know,
Speaker 1: like when women choose a toxic relationship, Like it's easy
Speaker 1: to choose a toxic relationship because you know subconsciously it's
Speaker 1: going to fail. I'm not going to go anywhere, so
Speaker 1: you don't have an expectations accountability on your bright. But
Speaker 1: if you choose a real relationship, it's gonna hurt some work.
Speaker 1: And thank you for doing the work already, because you're
Speaker 1: already doing it. We wouldn't even be in this fucking
Speaker 1: room right now if you weren't doing the work fucking
Speaker 1: right Thank you for doing the work so we could
Speaker 1: be in this room. I just got actually where you
Speaker 1: doing it? If you're doing it, and the and the
Speaker 1: reality is it's gonna it has to organically. This really
Speaker 1: became a freaking a mirror intervention. But you always preface
Speaker 1: that you're afraid of something that We've had this discussion
Speaker 1: a number of times. I'm sorry, I know, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't feel like knowing you as a person,
Speaker 1: would think that you're afraid of anything. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: seems like more of like an opportunity that you just
Speaker 1: think of a more competent person to carry that out.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid a lot. I but I'm also wise enough,
Speaker 1: as I've seen staying in other episodes, I'm wise enough
Speaker 1: to listen to my ledged talkers, you know. And despite
Speaker 1: whatever the pocket called leader jokes that you guys have,
Speaker 1: I mean, wait a minute, the reason why Bill is
Speaker 1: here leading as a producer, even though you know he's
Speaker 1: a musical genius and all that stuff, and his his
Speaker 1: organizational I'm just saying that I trust you enough and
Speaker 1: your musical wisdom to also not kiss my mean, because
Speaker 1: it's easy to have some employees that I have employees
Speaker 1: that will just that are afraid of me and like
Speaker 1: I want to make a mir upset. But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that we need so we need to right ears
Speaker 1: and the right coaches around us to manage our expectations.
Speaker 1: You just need you need in it. You need what
Speaker 1: I call in life. You need an in a's Oh,
Speaker 1: what's a non nigga advice? You need to love when
Speaker 1: you're in there, you just right. You just need when
Speaker 1: you're like, yo, something what you think? No nigger, you
Speaker 1: need you no Nike advisor. Keep it fun with you?
Speaker 1: Did you come up with a year old that was
Speaker 1: so genious? We have all right quick good kissing man?
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that show on the album? What is all all right?
Speaker 1: What is that? With a string of singles that you
Speaker 1: put it's almost like Gangster with BBD, like these really
Speaker 1: good singles that didn't quite make the record, Like okay,
Speaker 1: well what happened was cook was? What had happened was this? UM.
Speaker 1: I started working on UM the album, and my son
Speaker 1: almost drowned the day that I started working on it. Right.
Speaker 1: So the album that I was working on then stopped,
Speaker 1: and then I started back up, and then I had
Speaker 1: to shoot a movie, and then in the middle of
Speaker 1: durm movie right, and then I decided to take a
Speaker 1: quick moment and I went to the voice and I
Speaker 1: did I did that. So all of these moments that
Speaker 1: stopped in between created like a different spot. I couldn't
Speaker 1: just pick back up where I was from the from
Speaker 1: the aspect of building the music. Rather I write it,
Speaker 1: or rather I collaborate and write it. Because the second
Speaker 1: single was she Came to give It to You with
Speaker 1: with for Real, and I performed that record on on MTV.
Speaker 1: Um you know part of it was I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not sure it was it was
Speaker 1: the record that everybody wanted. That one was to me,
Speaker 1: that one felt like a post blurred lines. It was
Speaker 1: kind of like that was see. It felt like for real,
Speaker 1: kind of he didn't have a lot left in the tank.
Speaker 1: That's weird because as a DJ, I cherished any song
Speaker 1: in the key of E minor, that'sm that's very But
Speaker 1: that's how I think she came to give it to
Speaker 1: you is my Okay, I need a one twenty year
Speaker 1: that's in the minor that will lead me to a
Speaker 1: different long story short I still spent it to. That
Speaker 1: was such a that was such a disconnecting between the
Speaker 1: work that I was working on there and then where
Speaker 1: the album went. That in telling that story, it just
Speaker 1: felt like it's stuck out like a sore thumb. It
Speaker 1: had already served this purpose. It was a hit record.
Speaker 1: People liked it. It did get I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was as big of a hit as
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be, but it was a number
Speaker 1: one record, and um, what is it hit for you? Now?
Speaker 1: In light of this, Confessions even exist to you anymore?
Speaker 1: Is it's just like, what do you mean which aspect
Speaker 1: of confession? I just feel now that you're about making
Speaker 1: artistic statements more than dealing with man. I gotta the
Speaker 1: only way to make a cohesive Okay, no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna answer your question that it does not matter to
Speaker 1: me to make a record that is like confessions, like
Speaker 1: I need to have confessions because confessions is never gonna
Speaker 1: happen again. It is what it is. It was for
Speaker 1: that moment, Jermaine Duprie and all of the producers who
Speaker 1: were part of it were right where they needed to
Speaker 1: be and right at that moment, and I can't go
Speaker 1: back and get that. But what I can do is
Speaker 1: moved to the next chapter and do something that it
Speaker 1: was like a cohesive body of work that is valuable,
Speaker 1: that feels musical, that feels like it's leading, that feels
Speaker 1: like it's it's pushing the lines it is And by
Speaker 1: the way, the idea of what music is for me
Speaker 1: now has expanded. Like, Okay, some people may like, you know,
Speaker 1: the older records that I did, but then there's some
Speaker 1: people that like some of the new ship that I
Speaker 1: do too. They like DJ got Iss, fun in Love,
Speaker 1: they like on them g and they like the original
Speaker 1: version of it too. Question, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it's like shots fired, shots fired. So but my
Speaker 1: point is it's like, so now I'm forced with the
Speaker 1: reality that I have a stadium of people waiting to
Speaker 1: come and I don't have music to serve everybody right now.
Speaker 1: I only have one record that works here, one record
Speaker 1: that works there. And while we're in a time where
Speaker 1: I can't put out a song here, a song that
Speaker 1: and it's fragmented. That's the that's the reality of where
Speaker 1: we are, you know what I'm saying. Like, Unfortunately, even
Speaker 1: if people have an entire album, the people listen to
Speaker 1: a single, they like this song, that song, and you
Speaker 1: don't even know what album it comes from. So what's necessary?
Speaker 1: What's necessary to create a cohesive body of work that
Speaker 1: from the beginning of it, beginning to end, you feel
Speaker 1: the connection. It might feel like it's a little bit
Speaker 1: rocky and all over the place and text is taken
Speaker 1: from all over the place, but it's a cohesive body
Speaker 1: of work, meaning we need to go get in the studio,
Speaker 1: locked the door, bring in our internet. What do you say,
Speaker 1: bringing your internet board? And because there's a couple of them,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: perspectives to be considered, and it is a progressive sound.
Speaker 1: It ain't gonna sound and feel like anything, but it's
Speaker 1: but it requires everything to make it happen. Well, Mr
Speaker 1: Raymond the Fourth, I know this was painful. No I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Actually I've really enjoyed it. Must have because form Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I lied to you. Top of the top
Speaker 1: of the hour, I told you You're just gonna be
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes to an hour or nothing. He's
Speaker 1: rubbing his head. He's not looking at you right now.
Speaker 1: Pay attention. He's rubbing his head. No, but thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Uh I. I hope for a great fruitful relationship,
Speaker 1: uh in which we listened to it like speed dating
Speaker 1: or something. Wait to see what yall do? Come on, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not pressure. It's like it's just I
Speaker 1: will I can imagine. I won't say it's not pressure,
Speaker 1: but we have confidence that this ship would be dope
Speaker 1: based on your record and your record. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're gonna make a just good friends, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? That should be the closing song, right or
Speaker 1: get it? I like get it? Not no, you don't
Speaker 1: like get it? Hell no, here we go like Michael Jackson. Besides,
Speaker 1: can't help it. They knocked it out the part, but
Speaker 1: get it and just good friends there. It takes a
Speaker 1: little bit more discipline on your part, right to just
Speaker 1: get prepared and then and then you know, let it
Speaker 1: happen because I can carry it out, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I can carry it a weight. And and
Speaker 1: some of the ideas and the things that I think
Speaker 1: we should add in are gonna be foreign to people.
Speaker 1: It's gonna feel odd when they first hear. It's gonna
Speaker 1: feel They're gonna feel some connection to it, but they're
Speaker 1: not gonna know what it is. They're not gonna know
Speaker 1: why they're moving the way that they're moving. They're not
Speaker 1: going to understand that it's something different. It's something that's
Speaker 1: intended to nurture their soul. They don't get it. Nurture soul.
Speaker 1: I love those two words together. Uh. This this is
Speaker 1: the wrap up of the show. But I'm telling you
Speaker 1: because I'm speaking into existence until it happens, it's no
Speaker 1: one's happening from you. Into existence. What did you learn,
Speaker 1: bro man? I learned us as a real dude. Man.
Speaker 1: One last question your studio session resident. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: just question your question your food? Uh? Exit shot my man,
Speaker 1: exit mark exit good child. Uh At record engineer, he
Speaker 1: was telling me about your studio session writer and what
Speaker 1: you eat in the studio, like like apparently your ship
Speaker 1: is like crazy discipline. Like what do you eat? We
Speaker 1: just stopped by dunking doing this before the interview. No,
Speaker 1: but um, I eat fruit. I like vegetables. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's like bell peppers, broccoli, spinach um beats. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's boring as ship. But what's crazy is that that
Speaker 1: keeps you. It's alive, man, and you get a need
Speaker 1: to apple bomb hey everywhere like you know, a real
Speaker 1: dude and listen to a story. Is a lot of
Speaker 1: similarities and my story as a young kid growing up
Speaker 1: in the South. And I'm just happy to just be
Speaker 1: able to say a drop up with you. I'm a
Speaker 1: fan and you know, always support what you do and
Speaker 1: appreciate your brother for real. Thank you? Man? Um, What
Speaker 1: did you learn? It's been an amazing ride growing up
Speaker 1: with you number one, because that's how it feels that way,
Speaker 1: uh in the CR evolution. But I also learned that
Speaker 1: like Usser, is not only hella woke, but hella up
Speaker 1: to doing something about it. And I know that you're
Speaker 1: very community active, but you just took it to another
Speaker 1: level tonight. And so I'm just letting you know with
Speaker 1: some soldiers out here, we're ready. That's all. That's what
Speaker 1: I learned. I'm gonna move my money to a black
Speaker 1: think as well. Well. I mind is in industrial. Would
Speaker 1: you need some suggestions Harver Downtown? Call? Wait, why are
Speaker 1: you looking at me like you said you need back bank.
Speaker 1: I was just saying I got some suggestions, okay, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to take your suggestions when we off the air.
Speaker 1: So the nigs don't know what my money bill. Oh,
Speaker 1: what did I learned? Yeah? So what did you learn today?
Speaker 1: I hate I don't want to say that I learned something.
Speaker 1: But it's just always refreshing when you meet somebody like Usher,
Speaker 1: someone his status and you realize that they're not crazy
Speaker 1: and they're not they're actually down to earth and um,
Speaker 1: you know, like every reason not to be Yea has
Speaker 1: everything million records. Yeah, I'd be completely You wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be around me. If I sold thirteen million, thirteen million,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you nothing. Six times. You couldn't you.
Speaker 1: You couldn't tell me if I sold sixty eight million worldwide.
Speaker 1: He is one of the top Billboard artists up the century.
Speaker 1: Something my dad. I know it's something. The numbers don't lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's how do you stay humble? Man? This is
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: eat doing it. You're fired, all right, I'm paid bill uh.
Speaker 1: Usher and I are about the same age, and I
Speaker 1: was just sort of wondering the whole time what the
Speaker 1: hell I was doing when I was fifty and uh
Speaker 1: and uh, it wasn't that. It wasn't what Usher was doing.
Speaker 1: And Usher, I don't know if you know this. We've
Speaker 1: worked tangentially on a number of different things, Sesime Street
Speaker 1: and the otherwise, and we've never actually met. He was
Speaker 1: He's saying, The ABC is like, motherfucker, it's one of
Speaker 1: the coolest things in many years i've worked there. That's great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm paid. Bill has a lot of jobs to
Speaker 1: one of them is being a key Sesame Street songwriting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That sounds terrible, he I cat, but it makes sound
Speaker 1: like I have an ego. So that's great. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for that. But it's it's very humbley to
Speaker 1: meet you as well. Man. Alright, the ABC, the movie
Speaker 1: you should you know it should definitely have wanted something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: sugar Steve, what did you learn? Bro Um? First of all,
Speaker 1: I think I know Butter. I think I worked with
Speaker 1: him at Electrically back in the early two thousand's. I
Speaker 1: can't I'm trying to remember what project it was, but
Speaker 1: um Um, it's a terribly interesting story. Starting so young,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I've I've come to I've come
Speaker 1: to respect your music and you from working on all
Speaker 1: this on all this stuff with the Roots, and um,
Speaker 1: I think I think a collaboration with the Roots would
Speaker 1: be a great idea. And I think it falls in
Speaker 1: line nicely with the rest of their collaboration albums, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: as far as I think it would work, well, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of work, but just to add
Speaker 1: on something after seeing the Roots and I should perform
Speaker 1: at Brooklyn Bowl. Like however, many months ago, I'd buy
Speaker 1: an album of just you guys, you know, doing the
Speaker 1: old Yeah, I was that was my question, is that
Speaker 1: can be? It? Is it gonna be? I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I felt like we always always cut me off. What
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say. I'm sorry, No, I was. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you were imagining you're clearly imagining, um
Speaker 1: original material for the for an album with the Roots. Yeah, yeah, UM,
Speaker 1: it's it's gotta be original, you know. And maybe there
Speaker 1: are moments where maybe there's a song that that's so
Speaker 1: significant that we have to remake it and we can
Speaker 1: do it in a way that makes it feel like
Speaker 1: it was done for the first time by us, But
Speaker 1: it would be nice to have it to have didn't
Speaker 1: you record that Brooklyn Bowl show? Like yeah, recorded those? Yeah,
Speaker 1: be nice you want to put that out available, but
Speaker 1: we could in case we get we can set the
Speaker 1: stage similar to the Roots picnic with he was tighter though.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean we'll well, okay, we might leave
Speaker 1: with a taste of what we're doing. Let's do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: but yes, I mean there's there's the stuff is properly
Speaker 1: recorded on two inch taping. You know, my tired I
Speaker 1: have to say that. Um what you what you won't
Speaker 1: know about Boss Bill or frant is that you know,
Speaker 1: we all come from the Okay player community and uh,
Speaker 1: you know I kind of felt that Bill was losing
Speaker 1: losing faith in us for a good decade or so.
Speaker 1: But in the Roots, well yeah, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: like we could surprise you anymore. Like you know, No,
Speaker 1: I was, I was, I was, I was with you
Speaker 1: all up until undone. Okay, Well that's that's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's way more than I expect. No, that's that's only
Speaker 1: one because his cousin was undone. It in cousin record.
Speaker 1: It's only two. Yeah, well, okay, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: I was shocked that you really liked the Brooklyn Bowl shows.
Speaker 1: So that was my Richard Nichols moment like, oh it
Speaker 1: didn't suck like the Dame Dash. Oh it's not wet.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I still got a future here.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should investigate this exter thing. Um. I learned
Speaker 1: a lot. I learned that you're probably the most thoughtful
Speaker 1: singer I've ever met. Because I'm not saying most singers
Speaker 1: are clueless, They're fucking clueless. Yeah. I meet a lot
Speaker 1: of clueless singers that rely on their management and and
Speaker 1: uh there there we'd carriers to kind of advise them
Speaker 1: on what to do. And you you clearly have a mission.
Speaker 1: I do believe that you are going to be the
Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta, Georgia musically speaking, uh not now maybe
Speaker 1: when you're sixty year seven. I don't know, but uh
Speaker 1: I feel that you will take that leadership role. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: out politically a little bit, Oh yeah, I can totally
Speaker 1: see us should being a politician. I mean, oh no,
Speaker 1: you're gonna come back anyway. Calling that note on behalf
Speaker 1: of Steven Unpaid Bill and Boss Bill and Layah and
Speaker 1: Montigelow and us your Raven The fourth Uh This Question
Speaker 1: Love signing off of Wess Love Supreme is a production
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the
Speaker 1: team at Pandora. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.