Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club, Good morning.
Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ Envy, Jesse Hilarious, Charlamagne the Guy.
Speaker 1: We are the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: We got a special guests in the building, YESTERD. We
Speaker 3: have Britney Spencer. Welcome baby Baltimore's own.
Speaker 2: Yes, y'all, how are you, Brittany?
Speaker 4: I am good. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 5: I'm a little nervous because I've just been watching y'all
Speaker 5: for years and so, like, you know, this is fire.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: That's a name, Baltimore, y'all.
Speaker 2: Don't get nervous about nothing.
Speaker 4: That's a lot. Do you get nervous.
Speaker 7: I get nervous when I'm there. I get nervous when
Speaker 7: I'm here. I get nervous everywhere.
Speaker 4: I get nervous when I breathe. Yeah, I am a
Speaker 4: nervous wreck.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm just not very reactive, you know. I just be
Speaker 5: like chilling and doing my therapy.
Speaker 6: You know, what part of bottom are you from?
Speaker 5: I've lived everywhere. Like to give context, I went to
Speaker 5: four elementary schools. Yeah, so I've lived gosh, my family
Speaker 5: live in like Randallstown and locker rooms.
Speaker 4: Yeah I know, yeah, yeah, I went to school in Towson.
Speaker 5: I could sing, and so it let me go to
Speaker 5: like magnet schools all through middle and high school, and
Speaker 5: so I could sing opera and so that kind of
Speaker 5: like I didn't have to go to my zone school
Speaker 5: and so we moved around like a bit quite a
Speaker 5: bit sometimes, but I just didn't have to like change schools.
Speaker 7: But I've been everywhere. What made you How did you
Speaker 7: end up in Nashville? From Baltimore, Baltimore, all around Baltimore
Speaker 7: to Nashville.
Speaker 5: People always ask me that. I mean, I found out
Speaker 5: about country music because of the radio. My friend Keisha
Speaker 5: at church was like, you need to listen to the chicks.
Speaker 5: Back then they with Dixie. Yeah, they were the gateway.
Speaker 5: I feel like they always the gateway everybody meet. They're
Speaker 5: just the gateway. That's how me and Rain and Roberts
Speaker 5: connected the first time because we were like just loving
Speaker 5: Dixie Chicks. Yeah, but my friends they told me to
Speaker 5: listen to them, and I did, and I just fell
Speaker 5: in love. I feel like Baltimore was like very like
Speaker 5: it's very musical, you know, like you can you can
Speaker 5: go and you can sing in church, but also you
Speaker 5: can go and listen to music down at Peabody.
Speaker 4: You got a lot of art schools there. You got
Speaker 4: like harverd and Baltimore School for the Arts.
Speaker 5: But also country radio is consistently the highest ranked in Maryland,
Speaker 5: so you got a lot of everything. Feel like people
Speaker 5: kind of appreciate it, you know, it's a lot of
Speaker 5: different sides of Baltimore, and so that was kind of
Speaker 5: my introduction to it, and I kind of just fell
Speaker 5: in love and kept going and finally decided years later
Speaker 5: to make the move and at least give it a try.
Speaker 5: I had no idea if this thing was actually gonna work,
Speaker 5: but I was like, it's worth a try. Might as
Speaker 5: well feel as something that I actually really like, as
Speaker 5: opposed to like succeeding at doing something I don't want
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 3: Were you nervous to do country because you said Baltimore
Speaker 3: and Baltimore Teeter is on everything right cause you got
Speaker 3: club musing in Baltimore. Of course, hipopp An R and B.
Speaker 3: Do you get like a touch of Go Go because
Speaker 3: DC is right there? And you went country. You totally
Speaker 3: went against everything you know that people.
Speaker 1: Were listening to. So how did that happen?
Speaker 3: What made you say this is what I want to
Speaker 3: do as a professional, and I'm going to take the
Speaker 3: jump and go to like she said, Nashville.
Speaker 4: I mean it was a lot.
Speaker 5: I felt like I really loved country music, and I've
Speaker 5: like I've like sat and like thought for a long time,
Speaker 5: Like back in the day, I would be like, Yo,
Speaker 5: why do I love this? Like everything around me was
Speaker 5: church was gospel was I mean my family up bringing
Speaker 5: like R and B, hip hop like that was that's
Speaker 5: like that's my family. My father is a DJ, you know,
Speaker 5: it's so like and he spent hip hop and R
Speaker 5: and B all the time. And I'm like, what is
Speaker 5: this thing? And I couldn't ever point my finger on it,
Speaker 5: but I decided that it was. It was just what
Speaker 5: it was supposed to be for me, and I got
Speaker 5: the nerve. It was something about Taylor Swift, you know,
Speaker 5: like I mean y'all know like in New York, y'all
Speaker 5: are real close to Baltimore, so like the Northeast is
Speaker 5: like it's mad close in proximity, and she's from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: She didn't have a twang, like she was really poetic.
Speaker 5: It was just something about her that just made me
Speaker 5: feel like maybe I could do this and then Riba.
Speaker 4: I love Reba.
Speaker 6: We all like her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what did your dad say, being a DJ, especially
Speaker 3: hip hop and R and B DJ When you said, Dad,
Speaker 3: I want to do country like that ain't in my serato?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was like, nah, you ain't moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 6: I was okay.
Speaker 5: I know he was nervous, and my whole family was
Speaker 5: kind of nervous actually, but but he got it, you know,
Speaker 5: and especially like now, like my family, like honestly, sometimes
Speaker 5: they be just as shocked as I am, like, oh
Speaker 5: my god, this is actually like happening and working. I'm like,
Speaker 5: I never knew for it actually really work. I just
Speaker 5: kind of decided I wanted to try and just give
Speaker 5: it a real shot. Like I was prepared to for
Speaker 5: it to not work, I guess in a sense, but
Speaker 5: also I mean, preparing for it to work is a
Speaker 5: whole other conversation.
Speaker 4: But you know, they just they're on board. They love it.
Speaker 5: They love what I'm doing, and I mean, I think
Speaker 5: what I do is kind of much bigger than myself,
Speaker 5: you know, and uh, and I kind of take that
Speaker 5: responsibility seriously, but like it's been very real for me
Speaker 5: for a long time.
Speaker 4: Like you just didn't know why everybody from Baltimore.
Speaker 8: Daddy of DJA, your daddy DJ.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, yeah, that's why I'm so music link.
Speaker 7: I love music, but I don't want but like you,
Speaker 7: you know, I don't only listen to hip hop, rap
Speaker 7: and you know R and B. I have I delve
Speaker 7: in rock, heavy metal, everything like country pop, everything is
Speaker 7: every genre of music that makes accept opera.
Speaker 6: I ain't gonna hold you. I will be sleep if
Speaker 6: I had to do that.
Speaker 4: I want no hot season in the morning. You don't
Speaker 4: want to hear that?
Speaker 7: No, I mean, of course, if you if you make
Speaker 7: it interesting, because girl, I just be on it, that's what.
Speaker 6: But but that my dad is DJ. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 8: Well, it's tough being accepted in the country community as
Speaker 8: a black female country artist.
Speaker 5: I think, I mean for a lot of us, I
Speaker 5: think it's challenging, like trying to get people to understand
Speaker 5: sometimes what we're doing. But I feel like there are
Speaker 5: a lot of creatives that are really open to kind
Speaker 5: of this this reformation happening in Nashville. I mean, in
Speaker 5: addition to like just what we look like we're bringing
Speaker 5: our culture to like just like how you said, you
Speaker 5: listen to everything like I do too, and that you
Speaker 5: can hear that in my music.
Speaker 4: Too, especially when I get closer to home.
Speaker 5: It's just like it's like pulled out of me because
Speaker 5: I've been to Nationville for eleven years, so like sometimes
Speaker 5: it's a little twangy like just because I've been there
Speaker 5: for so long. But but yeah, I mean, I just
Speaker 5: I feel like we're bringing a lot of the styles
Speaker 5: and influences that we've kind of like had around us.
Speaker 5: You know, our family at a cookouts, we listen to
Speaker 5: music where we see ourselves, where we see ourselves reflected.
Speaker 5: And so we're coming into country, but we're bringing R
Speaker 5: and B, and we're bringing rock, and we're bringing opera.
Speaker 5: There is actually a country record that starts off with opera.
Speaker 5: Like people who are just you know.
Speaker 6: That's I'm just kiding.
Speaker 7: Thinking of opera, I just think of sitting in the
Speaker 7: symphony and they just down there, you know, doing the
Speaker 7: It's different. I'm pretty sure it's different types of opera.
Speaker 7: But that's the only thing my mind goes to is
Speaker 7: that the regular symphony I get when you're sitting in
Speaker 7: the big semony hall and they just think screaming from
Speaker 7: water wall.
Speaker 5: And a lot of it being like uh in like
Speaker 5: other languages, and so you don't always know what's going on.
Speaker 4: You gotta kind of read and stuff. I did it.
Speaker 6: I did it.
Speaker 1: Why do people have to go to Nashville?
Speaker 3: Because it reminds me of when when hip hop was
Speaker 3: big in New York and everybody had they felt like
Speaker 3: they had to move to New York to get that sound,
Speaker 3: Like why.
Speaker 1: Why do you have to go to Nashville?
Speaker 3: Why artists have to go to Nashville and kind of
Speaker 3: get it started and come Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean I don't know. Probably because of the resources.
Speaker 5: That's where the industry is, Like Nashville is built like
Speaker 5: with an infrastructure. That's where the labels are, That's where
Speaker 5: the ros are, a lot of the publishing companies are there,
Speaker 5: a lot of the producers are there. I mean, there
Speaker 5: are plenty of places, like in Texas, Like there are
Speaker 5: plenty of Texas artists that are like they're not moving
Speaker 5: to Nashville, or they'll come to Nashville and record, but
Speaker 5: they'll stay in Texas. So there are some places it's
Speaker 5: just I don't know, Nashville's just kind of built like yeah,
Speaker 5: like it's just kind of built for that. And I mean,
Speaker 5: the radios are there, and so it's just I don't know.
Speaker 5: I feel like it's just if you want to do
Speaker 5: it outside in Nashville, I feel like you can, especially now,
Speaker 5: you know, with like the Internet. But ultimately I feel
Speaker 5: like a lot of people end up feel like they
Speaker 5: got to move to Nashville.
Speaker 4: I felt like I had to move to Nashville.
Speaker 5: I remember watching like documentaries with like Riba and Taylor
Speaker 5: back when I was a kid and just being like, oh,
Speaker 5: they both said they had to get to Nashville, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, my ass need to get to Nashville, and so, like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's me a few years to kind of
Speaker 5: get the nerve to do it. But I don't know.
Speaker 5: I feel like I feel like I meet more and
Speaker 5: more artists that are not in Nashville, but they always
Speaker 5: end up having to come back to Nashville a lot,
Speaker 5: you know, like you have to kind of just get there.
Speaker 4: Everybody is kind of there.
Speaker 2: It's country music more racist and sexist.
Speaker 4: M gosh.
Speaker 5: I think radio right now like ten percent of their
Speaker 5: airplay is women right right now. But I don't think
Speaker 5: they're playing black women right now much so I don't
Speaker 5: I don't know both of them is just a struggle.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 5: I don't know, and I don't I feel like the
Speaker 5: industry is kind of pushing for change in that department,
Speaker 5: but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's kind of in need of a little a.
Speaker 5: Little overhaul in a lot of departments, and I'm in
Speaker 5: the middle of that, like I feel.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I feel like even as I make music like that
Speaker 5: sits on my brain sometimes but I try to.
Speaker 4: I don't know, you can't really get away from it.
Speaker 5: It comes out even in the creative process, like you
Speaker 5: know this, I would say, I feel like I feel
Speaker 5: like people speak probably more about race right now, or
Speaker 5: people who are experiencing it, like people who are black
Speaker 5: are talking about it more than probably women are sometimes.
Speaker 4: And so I don't know. I mean, I have a
Speaker 4: lot of questions.
Speaker 5: I don't have a lot of answers, though I'll be trying,
Speaker 5: but I don't know. I'm just hoping to see that
Speaker 5: something changes. But in the meantime, my black women asks
Speaker 5: right here, that's right, I got a little album, you
Speaker 5: know whatever.
Speaker 7: How heavily do you go into it on your in
Speaker 7: your album? Like you know, the speaking about race? What
Speaker 7: you were talking about, Like do you speak about it
Speaker 7: heavily in your album?
Speaker 4: Not so much.
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like it's not that I don't
Speaker 5: want to, because I feel like I talk about this
Speaker 5: stuff all the time, Like I don't shy away from
Speaker 5: the conversation at all. I feel like I just try
Speaker 5: to put my lived experience, my life experience in the
Speaker 5: song and hopefully that attracts, you know, people who kind
Speaker 5: of have that experience as well. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 5: really do try to just show up as myself and
Speaker 5: try to show up as black and as authentic and
Speaker 5: as woman and as Baltimore as I am, you know,
Speaker 5: and as country as I am. And so I kind
Speaker 5: of leave that sometimes for the conversation because I feel
Speaker 5: like I don't know if I write a song about it,
Speaker 5: like I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't oversaturation.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, this is.
Speaker 7: About my story, which country it really plays off, is
Speaker 7: about the experience and your stories.
Speaker 6: So why is it called my stupid life? I want
Speaker 6: to and is it stupid like or you know what?
Speaker 4: Why why you call it it's called my stupid life?
Speaker 5: Probably because in part because I'm from Baltimore, Like we
Speaker 5: read each other like what's up, dummy? Probably like that
Speaker 5: we say it's it's love you, and if you from
Speaker 5: somewhere else, you can't sing it that tell that every
Speaker 5: day girl.
Speaker 6: So your Stupid Life.
Speaker 5: It's because I feel like life is uh, you know,
Speaker 5: it's wonderful, it's highs, it's lowses, up and downs. It's like,
Speaker 5: it's a lot of things. And ultimately, when I'm thinking
Speaker 5: about just the things that make me feel most present,
Speaker 5: I'm just I don't know, like the best and worst
Speaker 5: things happen at the same time sometimes, and for me,
Speaker 5: that's kind of how I think about my stupid life.
Speaker 4: And with the album, it's.
Speaker 5: Just no one song sounds like the other, and that
Speaker 5: was on purpose, like and so it's just I don't know,
Speaker 5: it just felt like a conglomerate. But also, I mean, really,
Speaker 5: I wasn't trying to name the album that. I was
Speaker 5: really just kind of figuring out which song title off
Speaker 5: of the album was the most appealing to me. And
Speaker 5: when I was writing the song my Stupid Life, I
Speaker 5: just kind of I.
Speaker 4: Was like, oh, this is actually kind of cool.
Speaker 5: I would listen to an album called My Stupid Life, right,
Speaker 5: But also, I mean I come from that era of
Speaker 5: like my so called life and like stuff like that,
Speaker 5: and so it was I don't know, it just felt
Speaker 5: like nostalgic to me in a way.
Speaker 8: I saw you say that the album cracked you wide
Speaker 8: open and it allows you to open up emotionally in
Speaker 8: a way that you really hadn't before.
Speaker 2: And you said, I really don't like feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 5: Therapy has helped me a whole lot with that, and
Speaker 5: I have a lot of feelings. I love therapy too,
Speaker 5: and I love what you be saying about therapy. I
Speaker 5: love that, Like I feel like you've been like at
Speaker 5: the helm of making it almost normalized a lot more
Speaker 5: so thank you for that.
Speaker 4: I feel like, I don't know.
Speaker 5: When you have feelings, knowing what to do with them
Speaker 5: is just hard, and it takes a certain level of
Speaker 5: emotional intelligence and also just guidance and knowing how to
Speaker 5: navigate what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and.
Speaker 4: What to do with it.
Speaker 5: You know, Like, I'm not a very reactive person. I'm
Speaker 5: very sensitive and I feel a lot of things, and
Speaker 5: I've learned that if you don't let yourself feel what
Speaker 5: you're feeling and go through the process, it just comes
Speaker 5: out in other ways. You know, you wake up one
Speaker 5: day you realize you're detached from everything. You feel, you
Speaker 5: feel numb, You feel like like why do I feel
Speaker 5: so distant from people?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 4: Why don't I know this about myself? Like there were moments.
Speaker 5: Where I was just like just almost oblivious to parts
Speaker 5: of myself. And I think that played a part. And
Speaker 5: why when I started having momentum in my career and
Speaker 5: I started touring a lot, I start having like panic
Speaker 5: attacks and anxiety attacks, and I'm like on the road
Speaker 5: and I'm like, what is going on? Like your body remembers,
Speaker 5: you know, and your mind remembers even the stuff that
Speaker 5: you thought you forgot, and so it's I don't know.
Speaker 5: I just think it's important to at least start the
Speaker 5: journey of, you know, understanding your feelings, you know, and
Speaker 5: figuring out the origin of it, you know, figuring out
Speaker 5: why you do something, figuring out why does this thing
Speaker 5: trigger you?
Speaker 4: It's a much deeper thing.
Speaker 5: You thought you forgot about it because you were eight
Speaker 5: years old, But your body remembers, and it developed a
Speaker 5: habit of coping mechanism. And the thing that I've learned
Speaker 5: from me in my career is that it's it really,
Speaker 5: it really does not do well if you are just
Speaker 5: living in survival mode. Like my survival tactics like crumbled,
Speaker 5: they crumbled like when I started touring, and just slowly
Speaker 5: and it's like the the just the faintest thing like
Speaker 5: can kind of like set you off a little bit
Speaker 5: and you don't know what's going on internally. You don't
Speaker 5: realize you're still dealing with stuff from childhood. You're still
Speaker 5: dealing with all kinds of stuff, Like you're still dealing
Speaker 5: with rejection issues that really, I mean, you get rejected
Speaker 5: a lot in this industry, you know, but my rejection
Speaker 5: and issues didn't start with this industry.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It just exacerbates everything, and it's a it's a lot
Speaker 5: of highs and a lot of those. I mean, y'all
Speaker 5: know this in your career, Like you know, you can
Speaker 5: be on the mountaintop and your mind or your career
Speaker 5: and your psyche one day and and uh and be
Speaker 5: in the valley the next and like, I just feel
Speaker 5: like a lot of real life don't doesn't really prepare
Speaker 5: you for that. And if you already got stuff, you know,
Speaker 5: with you, it just brings it all to the forefront,
Speaker 5: and that's what happened to me.
Speaker 8: Not good for you in that point, because you didn't
Speaker 8: creating poster syndrome. Oh gosh, when you get the posit
Speaker 8: syndrome stuff, feel like you should even be here, that
Speaker 8: everything haply for you because you're a performer.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, it was so bad, moom. One time, I
Speaker 5: was having this anxiety attack. I didn't even know it
Speaker 5: was an anxiety attack during the show. All I knew
Speaker 5: is that I was so excited to open up for
Speaker 5: Shania Twain. But I like ran off stage. I ran
Speaker 5: off stage before I could even bow out, because I
Speaker 5: literally just started, this is gonna be so gross. But
Speaker 5: I just started literally having anxiety vomit, like in front
Speaker 5: of the dozens of people backstage. I don't know I'm
Speaker 5: running off stage. My band is still playing. Thankfully I
Speaker 5: made it to the last song. But I'm just like,
Speaker 5: what is going on? And I'm like, I'm having a
Speaker 5: whole anxiety attack right now. And I started noticing when
Speaker 5: I got off stage, I did the thing. My body
Speaker 5: was doing the thing when I'm having a panic or
Speaker 5: really bad anxiety attack, and I'm just like, this is crazy,
Speaker 5: and it wasn't the first time it happened. I was
Speaker 5: just like, this is insane and so and I was
Speaker 5: in therapy at that point, and so I went back
Speaker 5: to therapy and we talked about it more, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: holy crap, I still have some more stuff to work out.
Speaker 5: And this is true, Like you have to. I feel
Speaker 5: like this life is. It's very fast paced. Things change
Speaker 5: at the drop of a dom and and that's what
Speaker 5: I try to put That's what I try to put
Speaker 5: in my songs. That's what I try to put in
Speaker 5: my talking and my speech and the way that I
Speaker 5: articulate what I'm feeling like that's my lived experience.
Speaker 4: I try to put that out there.
Speaker 5: Like like I'm saying, like I hate feelings is like,
Speaker 5: you know, that sounds like the artest thing I think
Speaker 5: for an artist to say. We live in our feelings
Speaker 5: and I do feel them, and I'm learning how to
Speaker 5: navigate them better. But feelings are gosh, man, they are
Speaker 5: Sometimes it feels like a rock in a hard place.
Speaker 5: But if you can learn how to navigate it, it's freedom.
Speaker 3: Now you spoke about, you know, the industry. He asked
Speaker 3: you if it was more racist or sexist, how do
Speaker 3: you deal with performing for people that's not necessarily majority
Speaker 3: looking like you?
Speaker 1: Right, Like, I look at it like if.
Speaker 3: I had the white people in Naville, because I mean
Speaker 3: most of the people that she's performing Shania Twain, I'm
Speaker 3: sure is when you're looking at crowd, you don't see
Speaker 3: too many people that look like you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, when.
Speaker 3: Es does the show, she sees more people that look
Speaker 3: like It makes you feel comfortablekes you feel warm. You're
Speaker 3: gonna see auntie, You're gonna see Grandma's, you're gonna see cousins.
Speaker 3: So how is it dealing with with you're not seeing
Speaker 3: an auntie, your cousin of people that look like if
Speaker 3: you're not necessarily getting that warm feeling at first.
Speaker 6: Every white people can come into my shoes.
Speaker 1: I just said the majority.
Speaker 6: Because these people think they know me so much.
Speaker 4: They can't discredit your fans. They can't. I got they can't.
Speaker 4: It sounds just like my sister, this is so wild.
Speaker 4: Shout out, Bria, shout out.
Speaker 5: I feel like, I don't know, I feel like, gosh,
Speaker 5: what's the best way to describe it? Like like, I
Speaker 5: don't feel a way about it. I just feel like
Speaker 5: I feel like I just it pushes me to show
Speaker 5: up as myself even more, like I really just don't
Speaker 5: be hot and nothing like I remember like it was
Speaker 5: a very distinct moment where I remember being on stage
Speaker 5: and being like, I'm gonna start running as much as
Speaker 5: I want to because that's what the that's what I
Speaker 5: like to do.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I can cuss on this, I
Speaker 4: can do the thing. Okay, that's what the fuck I
Speaker 4: want to do.
Speaker 5: So I just remember, like I just I don't know,
Speaker 5: I'm just more myself and I just I feel like
Speaker 5: in my head, I am building something, you know, in
Speaker 5: this moment with this, with particularly with black country music,
Speaker 5: I feel like like the people that are for us
Speaker 5: are finding us, you know, our people, our crowd are
Speaker 5: they're finding us. And the people who want to celebrate
Speaker 5: all of who we are, they're finding us. And so
Speaker 5: when I'm singing to crowds that in a majority of
Speaker 5: them don't look like me to me, in my head,
Speaker 5: I'm like, it's okay because I'm not opening act right now,
Speaker 5: you know, Like I'm excited. I love opening up for
Speaker 5: the people that I'm opened up for. That's the part
Speaker 5: of my career where I'm at right now, and in
Speaker 5: my head, I'm just like, you're going to be a
Speaker 5: part of this thing. When I'm headlining the show, you know,
Speaker 5: you're going to be part of the demographic because I really,
Speaker 5: I really want to make me music for everybody, Like
Speaker 5: I really want to make universal country music, Like I
Speaker 5: want something for everybody, and everything ain't gonna be for everybody,
Speaker 5: but like maybe there's a song or two that's down
Speaker 5: your row, you know, and I feel like more.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't say more than ever.
Speaker 5: I hate people say that like we weren't here, you know,
Speaker 5: before our time, but it feels like right now more
Speaker 5: than ever. People enjoy authenticity, like whoever you are is enough,
Speaker 5: Like whatever your story is, it doesn't need to be mine,
Speaker 5: it just needs to be real. And that's what drew
Speaker 5: me to country music. I love that people put themselves
Speaker 5: in their songs, and I love that people tell the truth,
Speaker 5: or at least try to. And if you can't tell
Speaker 5: the truth because it ain't yours, you at least have
Speaker 5: a high level of empathy to be able to put
Speaker 5: yourself in somebody else's shoes well enough to articulate that story.
Speaker 5: And for me, that's what draws me even to performing,
Speaker 5: and so I kind of I kind of keep that
Speaker 5: the forefront of my brain and and it comes with challenges,
Speaker 5: of course, it definitely comes with challenges. Like I mean,
Speaker 5: even though in creating process, like having people that understand
Speaker 5: a black girl from Baltimore City who want to do
Speaker 5: country music. You know, that's that's interesting. You know, what
Speaker 5: does a right like that look like? You know, what
Speaker 5: does a session like that look like? And it's a
Speaker 5: it can be. It's a lot of exploring and it's
Speaker 5: a lot of open mindedness. And like I said, I
Speaker 5: feel like in addition to bringing my complexion, I'm bringing
Speaker 5: my culture, you know. And I feel like right now
Speaker 5: in country music, it's a great time to be able
Speaker 5: to explore what that sounds like, not just what it
Speaker 5: looks like, but and that's important too, but also what
Speaker 5: does it sound like? You know, Like I'm not coming
Speaker 5: and assimilating. I'm bringing, you know, my eight years of
Speaker 5: singing opera. I'm coming and I'm bringing like just listening
Speaker 5: to the Chicks as a kid, and listening to to
Speaker 5: Anina Simone and listening to Beyonce, and listening to shah
Speaker 5: Dei and listening to the Clark sisters, Like I'm bringing
Speaker 5: all of that, Like what does that sound like?
Speaker 4: Because I come from.
Speaker 5: A place where we listen to everything, and it's so
Speaker 5: nice to be able to talk to Baltimore person who's
Speaker 5: just like that too, because that's that's not a me thing.
Speaker 5: And I'll be trying to explain that the people on
Speaker 5: NAT show like, yo, that is not.
Speaker 4: A me thing.
Speaker 5: I come from a very musically eclectic place where there
Speaker 5: isn't one genre associated with us. We got Hairspraady, musical,
Speaker 5: Billie Holiday and Tony Braxton like that's that's very those
Speaker 5: are very different things. And Tupac lived there for like
Speaker 5: a little while.
Speaker 7: Yesterday, Girl, Tim Trees, Girl, you remember bank rolls? You
Speaker 7: think you getting half of my dough? You wink dough?
Speaker 4: Please tell me I don't, but I wish I did.
Speaker 6: Girl, I'm gonna send it to you. Girl, it got
Speaker 6: too crazy.
Speaker 4: I wish I knew. I'm sorry, I wish I did.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, don't wish because after this yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 7: but honestly, that's what like, that's what drew me to you.
Speaker 7: I have a best friend who likes country music as well,
Speaker 7: but I I I delve in country music, but it's
Speaker 7: not like something that I will play every day. But
Speaker 7: her telling like, Yo, it's this girl from Baltimore who
Speaker 7: do country, and she sent she sent me your stuff,
Speaker 7: you and and Rainy because she's into that. She's into
Speaker 7: country more than I am. And so she sent me
Speaker 7: rain and she sent me here, she sent me a
Speaker 7: couple other girls, and I was like, dang, Like Shorty,
Speaker 7: you can really sing, you know, and your voice is
Speaker 7: very soothing as well. And then you mentioned Beyonce like
Speaker 7: something like that is just interesting coming from where I'm from,
Speaker 7: because you don't see country singers that's coming out of
Speaker 7: our city, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Every day or or even every year.
Speaker 7: This is not this is something that you see every
Speaker 7: once in Honestly, I think you're probably the only one
Speaker 7: so like to be honest, and so I know even
Speaker 7: a Beyonce would take a liking to that, Like hold up,
Speaker 7: like you know, so how did that even happen? Like
Speaker 7: how did that link up happen? Because you're on Blackbird
Speaker 7: on the Cowboy called an album.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how did that happen?
Speaker 5: I don't actually know, Like all I know is is
Speaker 5: that I'm there, and I it's wild. It's insane, Like
Speaker 5: being on that record, I feel like one is just
Speaker 5: breaking a lot of musical boundaries, like for what kind
Speaker 5: of music people can make.
Speaker 4: It's kind of.
Speaker 5: Disrupting I think a lot of the industry and also
Speaker 5: disrupting like just even the creative process. I think, like
Speaker 5: I feel like creatives might take the boxes off a
Speaker 5: little bit, you know, and not you know, be as
Speaker 5: you know, I don't think we've been rigid, but like
Speaker 5: will be even more explorative and also not feel like
Speaker 5: in order to be marketable you have to be this
Speaker 5: one thing. Yeah, you know, that's always a huge thing.
Speaker 5: Like I mean, like, am I marketable in my commercial
Speaker 5: will people like this? You know, especially if you want
Speaker 5: to be a commercial artist, and it's I don't know,
Speaker 5: I feel like it's taking a limits off of that
Speaker 5: and being a part of that record, like I was.
Speaker 5: I was just telling Kevin the other day, Kevin Lows
Speaker 5: over here, I was just telling him. I was like, yo,
Speaker 5: I just realized my album I put it out. Put
Speaker 5: my album out in.
Speaker 4: January, and it opens up with birds.
Speaker 5: Chirping, and it opens off with this I know right,
Speaker 5: And it opens up with this song called new to
Speaker 5: This Town and it's in the same key as Blackbird,
Speaker 5: almost the same tempo, and like I'm just like this
Speaker 5: is this is wild, this is beautiful, it's it's it's
Speaker 5: like you can't orchestra stuff like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I talk about Beyonce on my album.
Speaker 2: Like and a Raven is a Blackbird Baltimore Ravens.
Speaker 3: I don't know know it is, but why it happened
Speaker 3: is did she call you?
Speaker 1: Did somebody call you? Was the record? Like how did
Speaker 1: the record come together?
Speaker 4: I didn't already talk about that yet. I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 5: I mean I feel like, uh, like I feel like
Speaker 5: as an artist, like I want to respect like her
Speaker 5: creative process, and I feel like whenever she's ready to
Speaker 5: talk about this, she will and I want to.
Speaker 4: Leave that for her. I love her, I admire her.
Speaker 5: And also she's Beyonce and like you know she'll she'll
Speaker 5: tell the story you won't. Yeah, I mean that and
Speaker 5: all I mean, but also like for real, like on
Speaker 5: a very hard level, like I mean, I don't know
Speaker 5: people have plans for how they want to like reveal stuff,
Speaker 5: and I just want to wait, like I just make sense, Yeah,
Speaker 5: like I want to and plus I want to cherish this.
Speaker 5: Like I'm also the same person who like will hold
Speaker 5: on to something for a long time and like not
Speaker 5: share with nobody, and like I don't know, even with
Speaker 5: my album, I had like the little leather keychain that
Speaker 5: had the title of it on there. I mean I
Speaker 5: had it around people have my keys, I lose my
Speaker 5: keys all kinds of stuff and go back to the
Speaker 5: store to get it. I've had my stupid life written
Speaker 5: on all kinds of things for a year. I had
Speaker 5: it on like engraved on one of my shirts. Like
Speaker 5: nobody saw it, nobody knew, but like it was just
Speaker 5: like my little thing. And so I respect the creative
Speaker 5: process and so.
Speaker 7: But it's just you because you're young, you know what
Speaker 7: I'm saying, even just for you, like later on maybe
Speaker 7: that's maybe you'll write a book or maybe you'll.
Speaker 6: Do it like you know, like a memoir or like a.
Speaker 7: Documentary where that will be something for later. You get
Speaker 7: what I'm saying, like for you to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like everything is so instant right now
Speaker 5: with like social media, and I'm like, yo, have a
Speaker 5: like having a thought out play, and I get it.
Speaker 4: I understand urgency.
Speaker 5: I understand like or at least, I'm starting to understand
Speaker 5: just immediacy. I struggle with social media that is not
Speaker 5: my four today, Like I'll be talking about I'll be
Speaker 5: online talking to people about how I don't want to
Speaker 5: be online. I'm like, this is like what am I doing?
Speaker 5: Like I made a whole song the other day and
Speaker 5: was like, I tiktokd someone please tell my team my label.
Speaker 4: I tiktoked.
Speaker 5: I did the thing like please, like just know that
Speaker 5: I'm trying today, like I can't account for tomorrow, but
Speaker 5: this week I'm bored. So I'm actually doing an experiment
Speaker 5: where I'm posting like two or three tiktoks a day
Speaker 5: because I'm kind of just bored. I just want to
Speaker 5: try something now. I don't know what I'm looking for,
Speaker 5: but I'm just having fun talking to people. But I
Speaker 5: forgot what I was talking about just now. That's how
Speaker 5: this works in my brain.
Speaker 7: Basically, he was askingly, like trying to get your business
Speaker 7: about how to be linked up, and you say you're going.
Speaker 6: To talk about it later maybe later. Urgency is not
Speaker 6: for thank you all that.
Speaker 7: Like I got to start about how you know, when
Speaker 7: me and Michael Jackson was cool, I'm gonna tell that later,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, because that that's a story
Speaker 7: for later.
Speaker 4: You know that, you know, I was just going with it.
Speaker 4: I'm here for it.
Speaker 8: The best thing to do when you're talking to somebody
Speaker 8: from Baltimore to go whatever they're saying. I'm just listen
Speaker 8: the other black female country artists. You mentioned Rainer, but
Speaker 8: then there's a Tanner Dale, Tierraic Kennedy where y'all all
Speaker 8: familiar with each other and cool with each other before y'all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So in a sense, I, me and Raina have
Speaker 5: been really good friends for a few years. Me and
Speaker 5: Raina we met back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: and Tanner we met. I want to say, we met
Speaker 5: like last year for the first time. I've literally only
Speaker 5: been around her a handful of times, but we've like
Speaker 5: been just really friendly. We have like a common interest
Speaker 5: in edible glitter.
Speaker 2: Edible glitter, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Put it in your drinks. You don't put in it?
Speaker 5: I'm like, mind, but but that's no. I don't have
Speaker 5: TC in it. It just I put the thing, you know,
Speaker 5: I do the thing. Yeah, but no, it's just regular
Speaker 5: just Amazon edible glitter. And so that was something that
Speaker 5: we just kind.
Speaker 1: Of literally in drink.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it makes.
Speaker 6: A drink really pretty edible, got you a little.
Speaker 5: Gold dust on your like something, I mean anyway, but
Speaker 5: then we connected with that online and so like it's
Speaker 5: just been I don't know, it's just been mutual respect
Speaker 5: and just like little things like that. I've known Tier
Speaker 5: for a few years. We work together back in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one, and so yeah, I mean I feel like
Speaker 5: we all kind of like started meeting each other when
Speaker 5: life got busy, like around twenty twenty and when the
Speaker 5: conversation around Black Country really kind of started ramping up,
Speaker 5: and so I don't know, I feel like artists are
Speaker 5: just kind of like passing ships through the night, and
Speaker 5: so it was it's really cool to be able to
Speaker 5: kind of like have a moment with an artist because
Speaker 5: I mean, the beautiful and also sad part is that
Speaker 5: like you've really got live in that moment when you're
Speaker 5: with somebody that is in the same field as you,
Speaker 5: because once this moment is over, like you might not
Speaker 5: see each other for a really long time. Like I
Speaker 5: have friends that I've connected with so deeply, like over
Speaker 5: tour or something. And it was two months and I
Speaker 5: haven't seen him in two years now, and so I
Speaker 5: know I'll be going through withdrawals. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: my friend, we shared such a beautiful moment. And also
Speaker 5: now we only see each other anymore right now, because
Speaker 5: life is justic it's hard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, y'all know about that more than me.
Speaker 8: Was there a country music before Beyonce and after Beyonce?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, like how the things changed?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Oh in that sense?
Speaker 8: Have how have you benefited from her being in the
Speaker 8: country music space now?
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, I mean even just some of the stuff
Speaker 5: that I was saying, like with a kind of breaking
Speaker 5: those musical barriers and and kind of like who gets
Speaker 5: to represent the South or like or or just the
Speaker 5: stories that get to be told or the way that
Speaker 5: it's told, Like even just sonically, I feel like people
Speaker 5: might even be a little more explorative on their albums.
Speaker 5: Like my personal favorite album is Lemonade, Like of all time,
Speaker 5: that's my album. When I heard that album, it like
Speaker 5: no one song sounded like another, and it was it
Speaker 5: was really like it shook up my head a lot.
Speaker 5: And I feel like if people listen to my album
Speaker 5: My Stupid Life, like you can hear that you can
Speaker 5: hear where I just wanted to have storytelling and in
Speaker 5: country music at its core, just be the thread through
Speaker 5: each song. But sonically it's gonna be a little rock
Speaker 5: and country. It's gonna be a little a little R
Speaker 5: and B and country, it's gonna be a little pop
Speaker 5: in country. Like it's it's like, I feel like I
Speaker 5: have that thread, and I feel like, gosh, I feel
Speaker 5: like we're gonna hear more albums like that, you know,
Speaker 5: but my lot is inspired by an album that she made,
Speaker 5: you know, years ago, and so I feel like, right
Speaker 5: now people just gonna be more explorative, like creatively, but
Speaker 5: also I feel like she's also bringing a really interesting
Speaker 5: fan base to country music, and and the talent is there,
Speaker 5: and and it's our job to.
Speaker 4: Keep them here. You know.
Speaker 5: I have no idea what her next record is gonna be,
Speaker 5: but hopefully, you know, the people that are here and
Speaker 5: interested in in what this whole moment is because of Beyonce,
Speaker 5: hopefully they, you know, wanna stick around because there's some
Speaker 5: incredible talent here, and I think she's done an incredible
Speaker 5: and and generous thing in spotlighting a lot of it.
Speaker 3: On Cowboy Carter, I was gonna ask you. You know
Speaker 3: a lot of artists are doing country now right. We
Speaker 3: heard I think he Sha Cold said she's doing a
Speaker 3: country album.
Speaker 2: Doing a country album, Hey, Michelle been doing it.
Speaker 3: So do you think it might take away from like
Speaker 3: it might be somebody These artists might be doing it
Speaker 3: as a quote unquote fatty type of thing, and it
Speaker 3: can hurt or help country music because people are not
Speaker 3: you know a lot of people will go because they
Speaker 3: feel like it's a check right and not not do
Speaker 3: it because they feel it in their soul.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, I don't think I care, like and
Speaker 5: I know that people that are care. I don't think
Speaker 5: I do because I feel like people just do that
Speaker 5: across the genres all the time.
Speaker 4: Like they just do it.
Speaker 5: People go and they make a pop record or they
Speaker 5: make a rock album where they make you know, they
Speaker 5: make a gospel record, like people do that all the time.
Speaker 5: And even country artists they make gospel records or a
Speaker 5: Christian record or something like that.
Speaker 2: Do a rap album.
Speaker 6: It's the poet department.
Speaker 2: Shut up, it's tortured poets.
Speaker 1: A rap album.
Speaker 6: He is.
Speaker 7: A all right, everybody wait, But I like your perspective
Speaker 7: on I've never heard nobody say was just believing him.
Speaker 7: I was like, oh really, because you come up with you,
Speaker 7: I have to realize what you're walking into.
Speaker 1: That's right, girl. No, he'll be serious, face serious.
Speaker 7: But you know that's why I'm like, I'm so glad
Speaker 7: that he advocates for therapy because he does.
Speaker 6: Need it, you know, true?
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, But I love your your take on how
Speaker 7: you broke down why you like Lemonade. A lot of
Speaker 7: people they like it for the surface reason. Oh she
Speaker 7: that's what she was betting about being che didn't all that.
Speaker 7: I like it because the same reason is so many
Speaker 7: different genres of.
Speaker 6: Music and the like she did rock, you know that
Speaker 6: she did.
Speaker 7: She had her ballad, then the country, she had her country.
Speaker 7: So somebody dad, right, daddy lessons that was on Lemonade
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 6: I never heard.
Speaker 7: Nobody say that, But that's why I like that. That's
Speaker 7: why Eliminade is my favorite album of hers because of
Speaker 7: it's no it's a no skip, because it sounds like
Speaker 7: so many different genres. Just understanding because I you know,
Speaker 7: i'd be in my little music a little bit you do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, just a little bit. You I'm like Okay,
Speaker 6: she want me over with that.
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like the average listener like listens
Speaker 5: to a little bit of everything, you know. I feel
Speaker 5: like country is first of all, it's the way of life.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a it's a lifestyle. It's kind of
Speaker 5: how how uh? In this case, I'm a transplant, Like
Speaker 5: I'm from Baltimore, like I'm from I'm from Randallstown, like
Speaker 5: I'm from over like over by Morgan State, Like that's
Speaker 5: that's where I grew up.
Speaker 4: That's where I lived. And so I I feel like
Speaker 4: I just fell in love with it.
Speaker 5: My family we went down south every summer to something
Speaker 5: South Carolina. Oh yeah, my mother's husband is from there.
Speaker 5: And every year somebody die every summer, some to South Carolina.
Speaker 5: Like Jesus I could like it was almost like clockwork,
Speaker 5: like I just knew. I mean, God rest all of
Speaker 5: this souls. And also it was a nice time driving
Speaker 5: in South Carolina. That's that was my introduction to the South.
Speaker 5: It wasn't the music at all, Like it wasn't country music.
Speaker 5: It was going down South and just getting acclimated to
Speaker 5: everything down there and watching people fight over whether to
Speaker 5: put cheese or salt and pepper in your grits, like
Speaker 5: that was that was my introduction and so, you know,
Speaker 5: and so I feel like it is a way of life,
Speaker 5: and you know, it's it's not just sonically like what
Speaker 5: you hear, it's not just instrumentation. It's the way you
Speaker 5: tell a story. And it's the stories that you tell,
Speaker 5: and it's your ability to be honest about it, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the ability to connect with people through the lyrics.
Speaker 5: Nashville is a song town, you know. And I think
Speaker 5: it was Hank Williams that said something I'm a paraphrase.
Speaker 5: He says something like, a you ain't got to be
Speaker 5: from the South to do country. You just gotta be real.
Speaker 5: And that's true, Like you just gotta be real with
Speaker 5: you shit. You just you have to be honest. And
Speaker 5: that's what I try to do, you know. And I
Speaker 5: feel like when I listen to a lot of these albums,
Speaker 5: like a lot of these pop stars that are doing
Speaker 5: country albums, I'm like, go for it. Tell your truth,
Speaker 5: you speak your shit, you know, talk do your thing.
Speaker 5: Also disrupt the industry because all of it needs overhaul anyway.
Speaker 5: So I'm interested Whenever label execs are like no, no, no,
Speaker 5: I'm like, yep, that's the one.
Speaker 4: That's what we need. That thing right there.
Speaker 8: I think that's what that's what's making people gravitate towards
Speaker 8: country because, like you said, country music is all about
Speaker 8: the storytelling, Like it's the great stories. I don't know
Speaker 8: if they feel like they can necessarily tell those stories
Speaker 8: and whatever they're doing because.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of glitz and glam and a lot
Speaker 5: of polish. Yeah, But the thing that's like connecting with
Speaker 5: people like is people just being honest about how they
Speaker 5: feel and the stuff that they've been through. Like I
Speaker 5: was reading something a few weeks ago that I was
Speaker 5: talking about how we've been in the loneliness epidemic for
Speaker 5: like a few years now, especially since like the pandemic,
Speaker 5: And I'm like, that's why people love introspective music right now,
Speaker 5: where people are just like just spilling their guts and
Speaker 5: just telling the truth about how they feel, the dark,
Speaker 5: the ugly. They're not trying to be perfect, they're not
Speaker 5: just trying to give you like a like a cliche
Speaker 5: love song. They're trying to like they're trying to be honest.
Speaker 5: And I feel like that's happening a lot across a
Speaker 5: lot of genres. But it's beautiful when I in country music,
Speaker 5: especially pair it with like the instrumentation that I love,
Speaker 5: give me like some heartbreaking lyric with like a steal man.
Speaker 5: And growing up in church, I didn't have like, we
Speaker 5: didn't hear steel guitar I equated to like an organ.
Speaker 5: It was a friend of mine who told me he
Speaker 5: was like, the steel guitar to country music is the
Speaker 5: organ to gospel. And I was like, oh man, that's
Speaker 5: so true. It's a long, sad, extended note. You just
Speaker 5: hold it down and you just I don't know. It's
Speaker 5: a little shaky, you know, and it's I just I
Speaker 5: feel it. I feel that I feel that lyric and
Speaker 5: when you pair it with the right instrument and the
Speaker 5: right production, I mean, I just feel like that could
Speaker 5: unlock a soul.
Speaker 8: I love what you said about the loneliness, and it's
Speaker 8: like my last question, but because it made me think
Speaker 8: of this quote, I saw you said what you said.
Speaker 8: If I could go back when you first moved to Nashville,
Speaker 8: if I could go back, I would tell myself to
Speaker 8: use that time to find more of myself. If you're
Speaker 8: not finding your people, at least find yourself expound on
Speaker 8: that a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, finding yourself is hard, Like knowing who you are,
Speaker 5: it's hard, and I think half of the battle is
Speaker 5: figuring out what you're not, you know, and that's that's
Speaker 5: a little easier. At least that came a little easier
Speaker 5: for me. But just figuring out who you are, it'll
Speaker 5: help attract the right people, you know, Like I feel
Speaker 5: like sometimes I've spent so much time in life like
Speaker 5: not knowing who I am or what I want to
Speaker 5: do or knowing my worth, and I attracted people who
Speaker 5: weren't interested in finding that out either, And that's I
Speaker 5: feel like how I got a lot of my my
Speaker 5: heart broken. Sometimes I feel like that's where I got
Speaker 5: like let down and just opening up to people who
Speaker 5: can only meet you as far as they've met themselves too.
Speaker 5: You just have two broken people just just trying to
Speaker 5: figure out why you keep crashing and not just I
Speaker 5: feel like, know who you are, it'll save you and
Speaker 5: a lot of people a whole lot of time. Like
Speaker 5: it's okay, everybody ain't for everybody, and you don't need
Speaker 5: to do everything, you know, like people pleasing and just
Speaker 5: all that stuff. It's just a lot of that is
Speaker 5: just not know who you are, and I don't know.
Speaker 5: I wish I could go back in time. I mean,
Speaker 5: I won't say I have regrets. I don't really have regrets.
Speaker 5: I just have like if I could have a little
Speaker 5: do over, you know, I do that, But like I
Speaker 5: just I don't know. I would I would go back
Speaker 5: and just try to figure out who I am a
Speaker 5: lot sooner. Because also the other part of it is
Speaker 5: if you don't know who you are, there's somebody who
Speaker 5: probably knows that, and they will use that against.
Speaker 4: You, like that is a weapon.
Speaker 5: Like whatever you are ignorant here, you feel me whatever
Speaker 5: you are ignorant to about yourself, Like you don't see yourself,
Speaker 5: you know, I don't see what I look like right now,
Speaker 5: but you can tell if there's a twitch in myles something,
Speaker 5: if I'm uncomfortable. You can see probably more about me
Speaker 5: sometimes than I can. And I feel like somebody look
Speaker 5: at you long enough, they'll learn, they'll learn. And if
Speaker 5: you are if you're around the wrong people, that becomes
Speaker 5: their weapon, you know.
Speaker 4: And so I feel I don't know. I just I
Speaker 4: want to I.
Speaker 5: Would like to protect I mean, like I said, I
Speaker 5: don't have no regrets. You know, but if I could
Speaker 5: go back in time, I would have protected myself a
Speaker 5: lot more. But then again, I wouldn't be who I
Speaker 5: am right now, for we wouldn't have this conversation. I
Speaker 5: probably wouldn't be asympathetic. I probably wouldn't be as vocal
Speaker 5: as I am. Like even as I talk about the
Speaker 5: things that I feel need to change in country music,
Speaker 5: like I'm not talking about it from like a place
Speaker 5: of like like you know, like y'all doing this, y'all
Speaker 5: like it ain't like that. I'm actually saying like this
Speaker 5: is an invitation. Hey, there is a much bigger story
Speaker 5: happening here and history will be told. You know which
Speaker 5: side of it are you going to fall on? Because
Speaker 5: we're going to talk about like this is a movement
Speaker 5: that we're seeing like sonically, like even musically, racially musically,
Speaker 5: this is a movement like we're watching a shift. Like
Speaker 5: you know, when we talk about it in ten years,
Speaker 5: were you forward thinking or were you trying to gatekeep
Speaker 5: you know, a future that could actually that could actually
Speaker 5: be really dope? You know, Yeah, it makes the whole
Speaker 5: genre bigger and that and that's so really hard thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, you from the South, you know, like the
Speaker 5: idea of something becoming bigger and having more people like
Speaker 5: that can be really scary, you know, if you're from
Speaker 5: a small town or if you're like because Naturale feels
Speaker 5: like a big small town, it can feel really scary,
Speaker 5: you know, like you know, getting ah, getting a bigger infrastructure,
Speaker 5: that can feel really scary, finding feeling like you're you're
Speaker 5: losing your bearings or you know, but it's actually just
Speaker 5: an invitation to explore something else, you know, and to
Speaker 5: let something else in. There could be something really sweet
Speaker 5: happening right now. And I feel like we watch it
Speaker 5: so often in a lot of genres where there's shifts,
Speaker 5: you know, musical shifts where something happens and a whole
Speaker 5: new genre is made. Honestly, for me, the biggest like
Speaker 5: like cultural difference for me, even in country music is
Speaker 5: Black music is by nature very innovative, Like we abandon
Speaker 5: genres and create a whole new and we've done that
Speaker 5: like consistently, and so that was that's a that's a
Speaker 5: that's a cultural thing for me, Like, if I'm honest,
Speaker 5: but I feel like I feel like the industry is
Speaker 5: going to continue to shift, and I hope that people
Speaker 5: feel this invitation for me and all anybody else speaking
Speaker 5: out about this to just be like, Hey, something news
Speaker 5: gonna happen. Let these pop artists come and do their thing.
Speaker 5: You know, I want to hear what they got to say.
Speaker 5: I want to hear their country album.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 5: Because I want to hear your gospel album. And I
Speaker 5: want to hear the song that you do with that
Speaker 5: pop artist that you're featured on, and when you go
Speaker 5: to that pop festival, like I want to hear I
Speaker 5: want to hear it, and so and I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people do. And I think the fans want
Speaker 5: to hear that as well, and so why not give
Speaker 5: it to them, give them a show on the stage.
Speaker 7: This is my last question speaking of when you were
Speaker 7: talking about sweet things happening. You're going on tour with
Speaker 7: Willia and Bob Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5: Girl, I've been on the road with really for three years,
Speaker 5: and it just it never ceases to amaze me that,
Speaker 5: like I get to do this, like the amount of
Speaker 5: people like I'm excited to be on the rod. Really,
Speaker 5: I've never toured with Bob before Bob Dylan, and I
Speaker 5: think I don't know, like you know, nah, but I've
Speaker 5: have had.
Speaker 4: Some of his weed.
Speaker 5: He got this this company called Willy's Reserves, and they
Speaker 5: like they just be pulling up on you in your
Speaker 5: dressing room. They just like knock on the door, you know,
Speaker 5: and they just be like, I got you something.
Speaker 4: They got They got the canister. The cancer is fire.
Speaker 4: I keep the canister.
Speaker 6: Yeah I got.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've ran out of that weed. But free rolls.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, so you ain't like falling asleep, you know.
Speaker 5: And so and so I love Willie. I did meet him.
Speaker 5: I sang with him, like he always invites like everybody
Speaker 5: that's like that's been on the stage before him to
Speaker 5: come and sing with him at the end of the night.
Speaker 4: And he just like he's the sweetest, Like he blew
Speaker 4: me a kiss one time in the middle of the song.
Speaker 4: He was like what I was like, Willie, I love
Speaker 4: you so much.
Speaker 5: And so it's just it's an honor, like especially when
Speaker 5: an artist is ninety years old, like to be able
Speaker 5: to do this in their lifetime, Like that's how I
Speaker 5: feel like. And uh, I mean I've gotten to do
Speaker 5: this a few times, like three years with Willie. I've
Speaker 5: toured with Uh. I mean, she's not at his age yet,
Speaker 5: but Riba I've toured with her, opened up for Springsteen
Speaker 5: last year. I'm excited about Bob Dylan this year. Gosh,
Speaker 5: like I just I don't know. I get excited. I
Speaker 5: get excited.
Speaker 4: But also about the younger ones too. Yea open up
Speaker 4: for Megan A Stallion. That was fun. First of all, yeah,
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 5: That was fun. I love touring, I really do. I
Speaker 5: love touring and it now yeah, I loved it before too.
Speaker 5: That was the hard part.
Speaker 7: I was like, Yo, why am I none of that?
Speaker 6: No, because Bob and really don't want to.
Speaker 5: I go up to c on the last song and
Speaker 5: I'm just, you know, just projectile, and then he kissing's.
Speaker 6: Talking about like don't don't do that.
Speaker 1: I can't do that, you know.
Speaker 8: Roberts She said that whenever you are doing something new,
Speaker 8: you're going to have some form of anxiety because you've
Speaker 8: never been in that space before. Yes, so it's just
Speaker 8: like you kind of got to just embrace it, you know.
Speaker 8: Of course, we all got our techniques, you know, to
Speaker 8: breathe next feelings and medication things like that, but you're
Speaker 8: going to feel.
Speaker 4: Something, Yeah, you are. Feelings, they're so hard. New things
Speaker 4: are hard.
Speaker 5: I love touring, having a great time, and like I said,
Speaker 5: I'm the opening act right now, and I'm having a
Speaker 5: great time because people have been very kind and embracing me.
Speaker 5: And it's cool to like even just watch the stages
Speaker 5: that have let me on, like just as a country
Speaker 5: artist being able to say, like, in the same year
Speaker 5: you opened up for Reba and Megan Thee Stallion and
Speaker 5: Marion Morris and a Shiryl Crow, like that's that's an
Speaker 5: eclectic like lineup of people. Like. But I like being
Speaker 5: the kind of artist that has songs for all those
Speaker 5: stages and I'm gonna keep doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm so proud, Brittany.
Speaker 6: We appreciate you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: My stupid life is out right now.
Speaker 1: Pick it up.
Speaker 8: Britney Spencer listening to Blackbird on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter.
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's The Breakfast Club. Good morning, thank you,
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club
Speaker 7: Sa