Speaker 1: Request Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio, Ladies
Speaker 1: and Gentlemen.
Speaker 2: I will say that James Todd Smith famously yelled in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety don't call it a comeback. Our guest today
Speaker 2: has probably been hearing that term for at least the
Speaker 2: last ten years, which means it really isn't a comeback.
Speaker 2: She's had quite the journey in her music career. She
Speaker 2: rose to fame in the late nineties under her birth
Speaker 2: name Nicole Ray. Of course we all remember make It
Speaker 2: Hot top five hit with Missy Elliott's gold Mine imprint.
Speaker 2: She experienced the challenges of navigating the music industry, including
Speaker 2: shifts and label support and evolving musical landscapes. We are
Speaker 2: definitely gonna get into that, and after a period of
Speaker 2: personal reflection and growth, she basically returned to her roots,
Speaker 2: embracing her authentic, soulful self and redefining her sound, starting
Speaker 2: with twenty sixteen's mind blowing Queen alone album. There's also
Speaker 2: Piece of Me in twenty twenty two, and now her
Speaker 2: new album entitled Cover Girl, which is on Big Crown Records.
Speaker 2: I can personally attest that her discography might be the
Speaker 2: unofficial roots background Dressing Room soundtrack. I've been a longtime
Speaker 2: fan and I would like to welcome Lady Ray to QLs.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 3: Today, I'm great, Thanks Ques for having me. I'm a
Speaker 3: longtime fan of you guys and of you as well.
Speaker 3: This is just a pleasure today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, there's a difference between the two
Speaker 2: dressing rooms of the Roots and usually before a show,
Speaker 2: I wanted real quiet and zen and in the opposite
Speaker 2: room where the rest of the guys are, you know,
Speaker 2: they gotta it's almost like a football atmosphere where they
Speaker 2: got to get each other hype. And I remember sometime
Speaker 2: like maybe two or three years ago, I popped my
Speaker 2: head in but there was something different about this was soulful,
Speaker 2: but it was almost like this one sounded young. I
Speaker 2: was like, yo, who the hell is that? And they
Speaker 2: were like Lady rayn. I was like I never heard
Speaker 2: of her. He's like, oh, you remember Nicole Ray from
Speaker 2: Da Da Da Da Dad, And I was like, no,
Speaker 2: there's no way that. Like I was flabbergasted and shocked
Speaker 2: that I wasn't up on your your pivot, get your
Speaker 2: information or like what I feel is like really your
Speaker 2: your true arrival. And so yeah, I will say that
Speaker 2: Tariq pretty much keeps you in rotation for like the
Speaker 2: last two years, like.
Speaker 3: Just kind of love to love to reak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's an honor to talk to you. Okay,
Speaker 2: So my first question to you, in the first twenty
Speaker 2: minutes of your day, what is your routine?
Speaker 3: Wow, first twenty minutes of my day routine?
Speaker 1: Well, specifically this.
Speaker 3: Morning, well this morning it does not include my daughter
Speaker 3: because she's at home with family and I'm here in
Speaker 3: La getting ready, gearing up for my tour. So this
Speaker 3: morning I kind of slept in late because I was
Speaker 3: out a little late last night in a writing session
Speaker 3: which I had a great time worked with Raymond Nominee
Speaker 3: Josh Grant, and I think I slept a little late
Speaker 3: this morning. I skipped breakfast, and when I did wake up,
Speaker 3: I immediately reached out to my husband and told them,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm getting ready to get myself together, you know,
Speaker 3: and did my makeup of my hair because I knew
Speaker 3: I was going to see you today. So I was like,
Speaker 3: I can't go in there looking busted. I gotta get
Speaker 3: myself together. And it always takes me a minute to
Speaker 3: get the eyebrows. I'm not like a professional makeup artist,
Speaker 3: but I mean, you know, doing makeup for myself on
Speaker 3: tour for the last two years, I kind of like
Speaker 3: perfected the eyelashes and the eye brows. So that takes
Speaker 3: me a good little minute to get that perfected, because
Speaker 3: without that, my day is not It's going to be off,
Speaker 3: especially if I have to do it like interviews and
Speaker 3: to actually be seen. Got myself together. Listen back to
Speaker 3: the song that I created last night, which is a
Speaker 3: Monster A Beast. Kind of got hyped for the day
Speaker 3: and got some lunch and got my room cleaned and
Speaker 3: kind of got ready to get all t minutes.
Speaker 1: I was like, you did all that in twenty minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it now.
Speaker 3: That was your day, Yeah, that was my day.
Speaker 2: If I were to ask you pre tend like, what
Speaker 2: is a typical memory of your childhood? I never know
Speaker 2: that you were born in California but later moved to Virginia.
Speaker 2: Give me a picture when I ask you, like, just
Speaker 2: give me a random memory of your childhood. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be something like monumental, like the time that
Speaker 2: you know they took us to see the Victory tour
Speaker 2: or something like that. But right no, give me a
Speaker 2: happy moment of your childhood.
Speaker 3: Happy happy moments are church, church, church, church, church, birds,
Speaker 3: a lot of doll I had a lot of dogs
Speaker 3: growing up. My three my two siblings, my oldest brother
Speaker 3: and my youngest sister, us just hanging out outside all
Speaker 3: day and toil. My mom would yell our names to
Speaker 3: come in. We would ride our bikes, we would go
Speaker 3: to church. We had like an apple tree. We had
Speaker 3: a great tree. My brother would flip learn he was
Speaker 3: learning how to do backflips in the yard, and we
Speaker 3: just we had each other. So those were my best
Speaker 3: memories as a kid growing up. Would be church. Baptist
Speaker 3: church with my grandmother.
Speaker 1: What's your denomination, Well, it was.
Speaker 3: Pentecostal and Baptist. My grandmother, she was devoted to the
Speaker 3: Baptist church. And then my mother and father, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of grew out of that and we went we
Speaker 3: started the Pentecostal church. Yeah. Yeah, So it felt like
Speaker 3: every day we were in church, and we did vacation
Speaker 3: Bible school, like the summer, being in a choir, and
Speaker 3: just growing up in the church background.
Speaker 1: Roots for me.
Speaker 3: It's always been something that I can look back and
Speaker 3: smile and I could be anywhere, and I will hear
Speaker 3: these lyrics from so many years ago that I didn't
Speaker 3: even think that I was listening to as a child,
Speaker 3: like these old like gospel lyrics which just come in
Speaker 3: my head. I could be like cleaning up. I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I did a lot of church, so
Speaker 3: it's there.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 2: The song that first brought you to my attention, it
Speaker 2: was your twist on Sunshine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Everyone always asks you about this, right yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was explaining to my friends when I
Speaker 2: was playing it for them. You know the story behind
Speaker 2: that was even an artist loved this. Stevie Wonder wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed in the Clark household because it was secular mm hmm,
Speaker 2: devil's music. So thus they would have to disguise their
Speaker 2: fandom for you know, regular songs and put a twist
Speaker 2: on it. But I want to know for you, was
Speaker 2: outside music allowed in your everyday week life or was
Speaker 2: it also a strict Christian music only household.
Speaker 3: It was not only strict Christian music household. My father
Speaker 3: welcomed Jackson, Five, Whitney, Houston, Aretha Franklin, Marvel, Gay, Sam Cooke.
Speaker 3: The list goes on. But my pastor in the Pentecostal
Speaker 3: church would not have agreed. I remember being fourteen years old,
Speaker 3: after my mom and dad got a divorce, we still
Speaker 3: would go to the family church, and I remember my
Speaker 3: mom asked for prayer. You know, the lady with the
Speaker 3: big flower hat. You put your name in the thing
Speaker 3: and she gets up there and say, sister.
Speaker 1: Every report card Monday, I'd ask for prayer and get
Speaker 1: born again.
Speaker 3: Yeah before yeah, yeah, but my pastor was not having it.
Speaker 3: He was not having it. My pastor, he had these
Speaker 3: like gazelles and he got up. All he heard was Jimmy,
Speaker 3: Jame and Terry Lewis, and he stood up. He says,
Speaker 3: disregard the prayer. They're serving the devil. And I was
Speaker 3: like fourteen, about to be fifteen, and I was shattered.
Speaker 3: I think right there was a pivotal moment for me
Speaker 3: in my career. That's probably why I never went gospel.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel welcome as a teen, and I really
Speaker 3: wanted to be a gospel singer and my pastor was
Speaker 3: not having it, and it just pushed me into secular music.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but yeah, it was not a thing to
Speaker 3: not listen to second music in my house.
Speaker 2: The elders once asked me once we got a record
Speaker 2: deal in a kind of backwards way.
Speaker 1: They were like, so are you uplifting the Lord in
Speaker 1: your music or are you uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I never went back after that after twenty.
Speaker 2: Years, right, what three songs would you say is the
Speaker 2: soundtrack to your first ten years of life?
Speaker 3: Tony Braxton for sure, Baby Breathe Again. Mary J Blige
Speaker 3: was the four to one one okay, and Wu Tang
Speaker 3: Clan for sure. That's in the whole, like mixture of
Speaker 3: you got some hip hop, you got some and probably
Speaker 3: a little bit of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. But
Speaker 3: I know you asked me for three bus.
Speaker 1: Everyone who would you say your north star was? As
Speaker 1: far as your craft.
Speaker 3: Is concerned, I'm gonna tear up my idol has and
Speaker 3: always will be married j Blige. She was the soundtrack
Speaker 3: to my my ten their youth, me being inspired, me
Speaker 3: learning things for the first time, me having boyfriends for
Speaker 3: the first time, getting yelled at by my mom, running
Speaker 3: into my room with my radio that she would sometimes
Speaker 3: pawd for to pay a light bill, and I would
Speaker 3: come home like, where's my radio? She said, don't worry
Speaker 3: about it, We're gonna get it back, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I have my Mary J. Blige cassette in there. But
Speaker 3: we did get my radio player back. But it was
Speaker 3: always Mary J. Blige in my life and my world
Speaker 3: as a young girl growing up in Portsmouth, Virginia, it
Speaker 3: was always Mary. And I had an opportunity to meet her,
Speaker 3: and nobody believed me because when I met Missy Elliott,
Speaker 3: you know, she was hanging out with Mary, and I
Speaker 3: met Mary at a young age. I was still a
Speaker 3: young teen when I met Mary. So I was like
Speaker 3: sitting there like shaking inside, like I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: And she said, oh my god, I love you. She
Speaker 3: told me she loved me. She had heard my music,
Speaker 3: she knew who I was, and I almost like fainted,
Speaker 3: like I was like, oh my god. So it's always
Speaker 3: going to be Mary J. Blige for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my life was like your ear.
Speaker 3: That was my soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you were open, like one of the percent open.
Speaker 3: And one open. I think the drink back then was
Speaker 3: gin and juice because I think Snoop Dogg and we
Speaker 3: were young and we were like trying to, you know,
Speaker 3: sneak around and you know, but it was always my
Speaker 3: life listening to those songs. I was young, and I
Speaker 3: just some of those lyrics when I was young, and
Speaker 3: I didn't understand, but I think it hit different for
Speaker 3: me because my mom was a single mom and my
Speaker 3: brother was holding down the household, and just those lyrics
Speaker 3: just resonated in my soul as a young girl.
Speaker 2: I specifically remember the day that that album came out.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like ninety four and we're in DC
Speaker 2: and we were like doing promotion around the Howard area
Speaker 2: and our label rep haded and started playing it, and
Speaker 2: it's so weird.
Speaker 1: We sat there frozen in the car. Now, had he said, yo.
Speaker 2: Like I got the new NAS album, or here's the
Speaker 2: new Brand Nubian album, or here's the you know, yeah right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it would have just been like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: open for business. But I remember by the time we
Speaker 2: got to the title track, when we got to My Life,
Speaker 2: I noticed that we were all looking at each other
Speaker 2: the way that our parents looked at us listen to
Speaker 2: hip hop, because we said.
Speaker 1: She's a singer, like she's not allowed to sing over samples?
Speaker 1: Like it was hard.
Speaker 3: It was so hard.
Speaker 2: Well, I will say that I was maybe for like
Speaker 2: four months, like I didn't realize that this new movement,
Speaker 2: this this bad boy movement was coming in kind of
Speaker 2: a lot of the traditional unspoken rules of what we thought,
Speaker 2: like singers should never sing over a sample, like you
Speaker 2: can sing anything, make up your own melody like rappers
Speaker 2: gotta have.
Speaker 1: So for me at.
Speaker 2: Least, like I was arms crossed only because I was like, well,
Speaker 2: if singer is gonna make me music like rappers, dude,
Speaker 2: then who's going to make the music that we're going
Speaker 2: to sample in the year two thousand or two thousand
Speaker 2: and five or two Yeah. But you know, also as
Speaker 2: a DJ, I'm seeing the effect that this this new
Speaker 2: style of music's coming, and so I gave in.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course now it's classic.
Speaker 3: We just you welcomed it.
Speaker 1: We played with her a.
Speaker 2: Week ago and it was where her band like one
Speaker 2: show a year where she'll join us and we're her
Speaker 2: band for that show.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: I love that you you guys and Mary, Oh my,
Speaker 3: I gotta get a ticket. I gotta get there to
Speaker 3: see that.
Speaker 1: So wait, we're in California. Were you born?
Speaker 3: I was born in Selinas, California, on an army base.
Speaker 3: My dad was an army so they traveled a lot,
Speaker 3: and I was born here and then raised Enforcemouth.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you came to Virginia.
Speaker 3: I was a baby. Yeah, I was still a baby. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was a.
Speaker 1: Baby from Virginia. Okay, yeah, I'm from Virginia.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now where does Portsmouth fall into the proximity of you know,
Speaker 2: I know di'angelo like his Richmond and Virginia Beach and well,
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: Definitely part of the d MV. It's like right near
Speaker 3: like Norfolk. It's like right under the water. It's under
Speaker 3: the bridge like as a tunnel that always for years
Speaker 3: it's like how do they build this? It's like under
Speaker 3: it's water under there, it's it's it's so wild. But
Speaker 3: it's like it's right like next door to to Norfolk,
Speaker 3: Newport News, bad News where Alan Iverson is from. So
Speaker 3: we're kind of like right next door. And Portsmouth is
Speaker 3: has always been known for its a lot of talent
Speaker 3: that gets unseen, got it? Like they say something's in
Speaker 3: the water that's everywhere in like kind of like Norfolk, Hampton,
Speaker 3: Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Newport News.
Speaker 1: So okay, I know for like a New Yorker.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Anything south of Philadelphia and their eyes is down south.
Speaker 2: Like I know people that actually think that DC and
Speaker 2: Maryland are that's down south even though southern.
Speaker 1: No, are you more northeast or north of North Carolina?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like growing up when I say Wu tang,
Speaker 3: we will always like connect ourselves to New York. Like
Speaker 3: we would go to New York when the Timberlands would
Speaker 3: come out and the music would come out, we would
Speaker 3: always go. I mean I have family members that would
Speaker 3: just go and drive to New York and say, I'm
Speaker 3: in Brooklyn, I'm going to get some jewelry. I'm going
Speaker 3: to get the front somewhere in Brooklyn at this big mall.
Speaker 3: And we will always like just go back and forth
Speaker 3: to New York. So I feel like we're close more
Speaker 3: close to you know, a lot of people say that
Speaker 3: I sound like I'm New York. I sound kind of
Speaker 3: like country. My accent is all over the place. I
Speaker 3: will tell you that.
Speaker 2: So when you first came out, of course you've been
Speaker 2: on Missy's label. I was like, Oh, she must be
Speaker 2: from VA.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: The irony of this story is that the second album
Speaker 2: didn't come out but I will say that the street
Speaker 2: promoters when you signed to Rockefeller were like heavy on
Speaker 2: me as far as like spinning you.
Speaker 1: So then I thought, well, well, damn, maybe she's.
Speaker 2: From Philadelphia like I right, right, no, because I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I thought she was down with them.
Speaker 2: So first of all, I want to know for you,
Speaker 2: what were the first steps and you wanting to pursue
Speaker 2: music as a career, Like was there another option? Did
Speaker 2: you have another passion or desire when you were younger.
Speaker 3: My story for wanting to embark in this crazy music
Speaker 3: business has always pointed at my dad. My dad was
Speaker 3: a singer in the church. You had inspirations to be
Speaker 3: an R and B singer, Like my dad's voice was
Speaker 3: similar to my Gay and Sam Cook. He had a
Speaker 3: strong voice. And then his life kind of took a
Speaker 3: turn and he kind of he was homeless for about
Speaker 3: twenty years and he had a drug addiction. And I
Speaker 3: think as a young child when my mom and dad
Speaker 3: got a divorce, I think for me it was like
Speaker 3: this hunger to find my dad. And when I did
Speaker 3: find my dad, I wanted him to hear me sing,
Speaker 3: and so I was always singing loud and until he
Speaker 3: came home, and he didn't come home to like maybe
Speaker 3: like over twenty years, he didn't come home and get
Speaker 3: himself cleaned and off drugs and homeless. It felt like
Speaker 3: two lifetimes. And I think that was the goal for me,
Speaker 3: is to sing as loud as I could and so
Speaker 3: my dad would hear me and come back into my life.
Speaker 3: And it didn't work right away because he was out
Speaker 3: there in the streets and I was trying to focus
Speaker 3: on my career. When I met Missy Elliott, I kind
Speaker 3: of started young in the music business. I got my
Speaker 3: deal when I was I think just turning like seventeen
Speaker 3: years old, and my dad was out there and I
Speaker 3: was trying to focus on my career. Helped my dad
Speaker 3: get his life back together. And I think for me,
Speaker 3: initially in the beginning, it was me calling out to
Speaker 3: my dad and for him to, you know, come back
Speaker 3: into my life and to know that I'm pursuing the
Speaker 3: same dreams that he had. So that was my ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: What would you say your first creative project was, and
Speaker 1: this way before the record deal, but like when did
Speaker 1: you discover that you were at creative Like what was
Speaker 1: the first real creative project that you put together.
Speaker 3: I had quite a few. My mom was like my
Speaker 3: manager many years ago. She was the momager. And I
Speaker 3: had like a few, like producers that are no longer
Speaker 3: living that I worked with when I was young, anywhere
Speaker 3: from twelve to fourteen, and I would go in the
Speaker 3: studio and make records and sing, but I wasn't writing.
Speaker 3: I think the beginning creative thing for me was when
Speaker 3: I was eight and I had to learn lyrics to
Speaker 3: a song. I was eight years old, one year older
Speaker 3: than my daughter is now, and I could imagine her,
Speaker 3: you know, the age that I was in the room
Speaker 3: listening to a gospel song and write. I wrote them
Speaker 3: down and nobody helped me. And that Sunday I got
Speaker 3: up there and I sung that song by myself because
Speaker 3: I had been practicing.
Speaker 1: That was lyrics. When you performance eight, Walk me through that?
Speaker 1: What was it like?
Speaker 3: I remember getting to choir rehearsal early Saturday, maybe like
Speaker 3: we got there maybe like around eleven. I think rehearsal
Speaker 3: started about twelve, And I remember it was a group
Speaker 3: of all of us little kids. We were all little,
Speaker 3: and my brother was in the choir with us as well,
Speaker 3: and I remember the choir director was like, anybody want
Speaker 3: to lead a song, raise their hand. And I was
Speaker 3: standing there like I knew I could sing, but I
Speaker 3: didn't have the nerves too, And my friend just raised
Speaker 3: my hand up. She was like, Nicole wants to sing,
Speaker 3: and she's like Nicole and she says, come over here.
Speaker 3: And I remember the name of the song was titled
Speaker 3: I might as well Think Big, and I remember, like,
Speaker 3: I have to sing this song in front of the
Speaker 3: whole congregation. But the lyrics of that song, it hits
Speaker 3: crazy today because I've been thinking big ever since I
Speaker 3: was like eight years old. And that was the moment
Speaker 3: that I knew I was gonna be a singer, that
Speaker 3: this is gonna be the love of my life and
Speaker 3: I would be doing this for a while.
Speaker 2: So kind of without knowing it, you subconsciously manifested where
Speaker 2: you are right now. Correct, There is no trepidation or
Speaker 2: nervousness about it at all.
Speaker 3: I still get nervous today, Like when I was eight
Speaker 3: years old. My dad used to tell me, I still
Speaker 3: get nervous, and everybody like why they come to see
Speaker 3: you do what you do? And I just feel like
Speaker 3: I am a ball of nerves, like I can be
Speaker 3: backstage and I'm like, I'll ask the band, I'm like,
Speaker 3: how's it looking out there, and they're like, they're out there,
Speaker 3: they're rated for you. And then my stomach will just
Speaker 3: get it still like I'm eight years old. Like my
Speaker 3: dad will say this. When I was younger, he would say,
Speaker 3: look up at the clock, just don't look at the crowd.
Speaker 3: But I can't do that now. I'm gonna grown up,
Speaker 3: and you know, you gotta engage with the crowd. But
Speaker 3: sometimes I get so nervous. I just kind of look
Speaker 3: above the crowd until I get in my zone and
Speaker 3: the energy is there and the vibe is there, and
Speaker 3: then I'm in it and I feel great. But initially
Speaker 3: going out there, I'm nervous. As I'm so nervous.
Speaker 1: How did you get the attention of Missy Elliott?
Speaker 3: Well, this is like a story from out of one
Speaker 3: of those movies like Ray Charles, Like, I've always been
Speaker 3: an artist that like looking at those enjoy looking at
Speaker 3: the bios of the artists, how they got started and
Speaker 3: their journey. I think for me this was in the
Speaker 3: late nineties. I don't even know if they do this
Speaker 3: anymore because artists kind of get famous off TikTok YouTube.
Speaker 3: This is like organic, the most organic of organics. Missy
Speaker 3: Elliott lived right down the street from me. I had
Speaker 3: no idea who she was in Portsmouth. She lived in
Speaker 3: the house and I lived in apartments right and she
Speaker 3: lived across from my middle school. My brother went to
Speaker 3: a talent show that Missy. She graduated from Churchland High
Speaker 3: School and she was a judge at the school. And
Speaker 3: my brother was in a singing group, a boys group.
Speaker 3: They sung, they won. They met Missy and she says,
Speaker 3: I I like you guys. You guys sound amazing, but
Speaker 3: I need a girl artist. And my brother goes, He's like,
Speaker 3: I got a sister she can sing, and she goes okay,
Speaker 3: And so he gave her our house number, our landline,
Speaker 3: and she calls our house and talks to my mom
Speaker 3: and I think I had a little key. She was
Speaker 3: not Missy Ellie by then. She was working with Jodysy
Speaker 3: Timberland and all of those guys. And so my mom
Speaker 3: paged me and says, is a girl over here, she
Speaker 3: wants to meet you. I walked over, came to the
Speaker 3: house and walked in. Missy's there. She had her finger
Speaker 3: waves and she has a magazine and she's like, she's
Speaker 3: telling me all about who she is, what she does,
Speaker 3: her group sister, she knows Jodasy. She told me I
Speaker 3: worked with TLC and that was like my favorite group,
Speaker 3: like back in the day. And she's like, sing something
Speaker 3: for me, and I sung week by s w V.
Speaker 3: I get so, and she says, you remind me of Mary.
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody was always comparing me to Mary J.
Speaker 3: Blige as a young girl. And when she saw it,
Speaker 3: she's like, I'm taking you with me. And my mom
Speaker 3: was like, just make sure she's okay. My mom would
Speaker 3: let her drive the car. We would drive to Philly
Speaker 3: in the snow.
Speaker 2: Wait, I got a question. So I kind of wound
Speaker 2: up going backwards. I'm also friends with the Skills, okkk yeah,
Speaker 2: And so the thing one is I wasn't aware of
Speaker 2: the mixtapes that they were making in the basements, yeah Davante, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was fully of board by the time one
Speaker 2: of the million came out, Like once Elia's record came out,
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, and go backwards like, oh, it's a.
Speaker 1: Guy named similar, Missy.
Speaker 2: But when I got wind of those mixtapes that they
Speaker 2: were making, like were you ever eyewitnessed or worked in
Speaker 2: that basement.
Speaker 3: I didn't work in that basement. I think Missy was
Speaker 3: on her way out. She had told me so many
Speaker 3: horrible stories, and she was kind of like becoming stronger
Speaker 3: as a writer, as an individual, as an artist. And
Speaker 3: I think she took all that thissh she learned from
Speaker 3: that and put it into herself, into her career and
Speaker 3: all the other artists like myself that she began to
Speaker 3: work with. But I remember her telling me the wild
Speaker 3: stories about those days in the basement, and I'm kind
Speaker 3: of glad I did not kind of come up in
Speaker 3: that because I would probably not be here talking to
Speaker 3: you today from some of the things that I've heard
Speaker 3: that she told me that was going on back then,
Speaker 3: which is horrible. But look where she is now. You know,
Speaker 3: she's you know, she is on top of her game,
Speaker 3: a trendset of icon iconic. Yeah. So I think when
Speaker 3: I met her, she just wanted to get out of
Speaker 3: that and pull her her talents into you know, something
Speaker 3: else and something fresh. And I was I was like
Speaker 3: her little sister. I went everywhere with Missy, everywhere, like
Speaker 3: I said, would we would drive to Philadelphia and it
Speaker 3: would be cold, like on the weekend, my mom would
Speaker 3: let her take the car. We would drive and we
Speaker 3: would go in the studio and just sit there all
Speaker 3: night and just I mean I was the like studio rat,
Speaker 3: like lab like muse. Like she would write songs. I
Speaker 3: would sing them, pumping them out, singing them, pumping them out,
Speaker 3: singing them.
Speaker 1: How are songs crafted back then?
Speaker 3: Yeah, back then it is, So it's not quite as
Speaker 3: similar as it is now, Like more like now writing
Speaker 3: is more of a jam Like back then, you would
Speaker 3: get the.
Speaker 1: Stand in the room and just add to the pot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like this was not what Missy was like or
Speaker 3: creative on her own. She would get in there and
Speaker 3: make like beats with the producer and sit in there
Speaker 3: and write songs like all day. Like her, she would
Speaker 3: get the track and sit in there and like listen
Speaker 3: to the actual track and write lyrics. Like now it's
Speaker 3: more kind of jamming and organic and you're coming up
Speaker 3: with the track all together and not like kind of
Speaker 3: like sitting there listening to the production and coming up
Speaker 3: with lyrics. That takes a lot today to sit I
Speaker 3: mean some artists do it. I kind of got out
Speaker 3: of that writing style because it's that was a little.
Speaker 3: It seemed like it took so long for me to
Speaker 3: kind of I think I wanted the music to speak
Speaker 3: to me as it's happening and in real time, and
Speaker 3: that's how I write now. But for me, I learned
Speaker 3: the importance of melody and harmonies working with Missy. She
Speaker 3: could come up with harmonies, I mean, like stacking vocals,
Speaker 3: and I learned all of that from her. Like today,
Speaker 3: I can't be I mean, I could work with artists
Speaker 3: now and they're like, wow, like you helped me. But
Speaker 3: that's what Missy was doing and preparing me as a
Speaker 3: you know, a songwriter today. And I look back on
Speaker 3: those experiences as well.
Speaker 2: I know it's really weird to say, but I realized
Speaker 2: in the pandemic, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: How to write a song.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, Tarka and I started well when we
Speaker 2: started in high school. So our high school experience was
Speaker 2: basically just limited to beating on the desks, right, do
Speaker 2: an occasional talent show and when you do someone else's
Speaker 2: song and he rhymes over it. And then when we
Speaker 2: really got serious as the roots, we were like busking.
Speaker 1: On the street corners m hm.
Speaker 2: And you kind of have to think off the top
Speaker 2: of your head, whatever's happening. And so it wasn't until
Speaker 2: when I started DJing in the pandemic in which I'm
Speaker 2: spinning records that I'm not spinning in nightclubs. It's not
Speaker 2: like I'm spinning records to make you dance. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, we're locked in our houses. Son think I'm
Speaker 2: like a radio station. So I'm like doing an hour
Speaker 2: of Marvin Gaye, an hour of Bill Withers. And suddenly,
Speaker 2: in subjecting myself to five hours a day DJ online,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh now, and reading the comments that
Speaker 2: are coming up, that was a backwards way for me
Speaker 2: to learn how a song works actually in the pandemic
Speaker 2: where you know, I mean there was a point where
Speaker 2: I play a radio hit song people are like yo,
Speaker 2: like crying, and yeah, I'm seeing like what emotionsly touch,
Speaker 2: like what touches them emotionally and hour shot day and
Speaker 2: somehow I realized maybe like by July twenty twenty, oh snap,
Speaker 2: I know grooves and I know like the backdrop of rhythm, right,
Speaker 2: but never once did I think can you whistle this song?
Speaker 2: And there's a melody to it? And I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my God, like for seventeen albums. I don't wait,
Speaker 2: it like, how do we get here?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: How do we get here?
Speaker 1: Now? I know the importance of it. So that's that's
Speaker 1: basically what you learned.
Speaker 2: Like when you're crafting making Hot the record, how much
Speaker 2: agency are you given as far as like what your
Speaker 2: vision is for this record? Or was it just like
Speaker 2: all right, I'm open and I'll listen to whatever you
Speaker 2: say and I'll do what's necessary.
Speaker 3: I think back then you had to do what was necessary,
Speaker 3: you know, being a new artist and coming up under
Speaker 3: Missy Elliott and Timberland, and I like, I had no voice.
Speaker 3: I was young, I was new, I was fresh, I
Speaker 3: had no story. I wasn't a writer. I hadn't been
Speaker 3: through I had been through stuff. But I think at
Speaker 3: the time, I think they were trying to mold me
Speaker 3: as what they saw me to be.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So Make It Hot was a song that was written
Speaker 3: by me and had vocals that was already in there.
Speaker 3: And I remember when I first heard it, I didn't
Speaker 3: like the song. It was just like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I liked this song. That wasn't the last song
Speaker 3: that I made you that was.
Speaker 1: A hit single. It was always the last song, the
Speaker 1: last three songs, but it was.
Speaker 3: Not that everybody was excited. I remember Sylvia Rown being
Speaker 3: in a studio. I remember Timbaland being there and Missy
Speaker 3: and I come in the studio. I flew to New
Speaker 3: York from Virginia, and I get to your studio and
Speaker 3: everybody's excited about this record, because Missy would get so excited.
Speaker 3: And I get in there, I'm like, I'm ready to
Speaker 3: hear some you know, And I'm like the tone was
Speaker 3: like very like outte and I kept trying to get it,
Speaker 3: and I remember Missy said, you take this to your
Speaker 3: hotel room and you listen to this song over and over,
Speaker 3: and when you come back tomorrow, you're gonna have it.
Speaker 3: And I remember getting back. I was just like I
Speaker 3: remember telling my mom. I was like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if this is the one, but it's probably all. Always
Speaker 3: that second guess in yourself is always that hit record,
Speaker 3: you know. Like I wasn't bonded to it, but after
Speaker 3: it was recorded and I heard everything that they had
Speaker 3: done to it, and Timbland added some more stuff to it,
Speaker 3: and I was just like, oh my, when it was
Speaker 3: all said and done, I just fell in love with it,
Speaker 3: but initially I did not like it.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, you know, Neptunes also
Speaker 2: do this as well. There are songs that sound like
Speaker 2: the Neptunes, like off right, that's the Neptunes. Timbaland had
Speaker 2: a rept like whoa, that's instantly Timberlin. It's almost like
Speaker 2: they were crafting a new sound also, right, And I
Speaker 2: actually went through this with the Neptunes because you know,
Speaker 2: we finally went down there to the studio. So in
Speaker 2: your mind, you're like, you're thinking of like your top
Speaker 2: ten Neptune songs and this is what this has to match, right,
Speaker 2: and then he gives you some of the total opposite
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: You're like, wait a minute, that's not Nord's nothing like
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: In your mind, all of your expectations, their hopes for
Speaker 2: to receive, like what was your tip.
Speaker 3: I wanted something like sw V. I wanted some more
Speaker 3: like more singing, less, less breathy songs because I always
Speaker 3: had a voice. They didn't let me flex ever, and
Speaker 3: I was all And that's probably what you hear today
Speaker 3: when you said I didn't know I had that in me.
Speaker 3: It was always there, but I was being molded and
Speaker 3: created the way what they saw for me. But inside
Speaker 3: it was a girl that just wanted it just belt
Speaker 3: out and just singing some like Mary and just sing
Speaker 3: like Keisha Cole when she first like, they wouldn't kind
Speaker 3: of let me go off like that. It was always
Speaker 3: kind of like just relaxed, breathy, and then every time
Speaker 3: I would try to, they like, that's not the vibe.
Speaker 3: That's not the vibe for this song. So it's always
Speaker 3: been living inside of me to just bring out those
Speaker 3: strong roots and kind of write my own story and
Speaker 3: sing the songs that I've always wanted to sing, not
Speaker 3: no shade to them, because I wouldn't be here today
Speaker 3: without that make it hot so and being able to
Speaker 3: even sing that tone and have that breathy, almost Tony
Speaker 3: Braxton tone, because that's what I was listening to a
Speaker 3: lot of Tony Braxton and Mariah has that like low
Speaker 3: key tone as well. So I've always could do it,
Speaker 3: but Missy kind of pulled it off, and I always
Speaker 3: really wanted to go in there and sing some like
Speaker 3: SWV stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, when you get this deal, what was your
Speaker 2: definition of making it like right when you get your
Speaker 2: record deal, not like once you're in it, but before,
Speaker 2: like for me, it was like having eight pairs of
Speaker 2: Puma sneakers in every color.
Speaker 3: It was never money for me because that money was
Speaker 3: not there. For some it was. It was not there
Speaker 3: for me. I think it was being around the other
Speaker 3: artists I would meet, go on to meet Jana Jackson,
Speaker 3: I would go on to meet Buster Rhymes and Mary J.
Speaker 3: Blige and some members of TLC, and just to be
Speaker 3: in the room with these artists. That was the definition
Speaker 3: of me making it, because I never thought a little
Speaker 3: girl from Virginia Concrete Jungle that would be sitting in
Speaker 3: the room next to Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson's sister and
Speaker 3: having a conversation and she's looking That's how I knew
Speaker 3: I made it, because Misi had took me in that
Speaker 3: room with these artists that had already been made it,
Speaker 3: and they've already like they were already millionaires. And to me,
Speaker 3: I felt like, I'm here, I must have made it
Speaker 3: because I'm not sitting at home anymore. I'm in this
Speaker 3: room with Jane Jackson, or I'm sitting right next to
Speaker 3: Mary J. Blige and or Beyonce Destiny's Child. I'm here
Speaker 3: so it wasn't money, and it wasn't closed. It wasn't fame.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like fortune. It was just it was fame.
Speaker 3: It was like, I'm around surrounded by my peers, and
Speaker 3: that's what let me know I may had made it.
Speaker 2: How does your life change in terms of like having
Speaker 2: made it? How jarring was it to your personal circle?
Speaker 2: Your high school friends, your cousins.
Speaker 1: Mm family.
Speaker 3: I had a long talk with an old friend that
Speaker 3: had she passed away about I want to say seven
Speaker 3: years ago, and she and I before my career were
Speaker 3: really tight growing up in the concrete jungle of Portsmouth.
Speaker 3: She was really like a friend to me. I was
Speaker 3: the girl that everybody like, they liked me, but they
Speaker 3: couldn't understand, like how is she Like she's pretty, but
Speaker 3: she's like hard and she she's like us, but she's
Speaker 3: something about her. She was at gap in between, like
Speaker 3: don't mess with her. She is special. And I think
Speaker 3: when I talked to her after my career, she kept
Speaker 3: asking me why didn't I come back? When I got
Speaker 3: out of school and I moved and it was just
Speaker 3: on tour, right and I wasn't home for a while,
Speaker 3: so I missed a lot of engagements that was happening
Speaker 3: around my way, and I was just suddenly pulled out
Speaker 3: of this zone to like this famous thing that I
Speaker 3: had no idea about. And I'm still trying to be
Speaker 3: I'm hard. I'm from Portsmouth, you know, I'm this girl.
Speaker 3: And she would always say, I wish, you know, you
Speaker 3: would have came back or came back to visit. So
Speaker 3: it broke my heart that my peers were looking for
Speaker 3: me to come back and I didn't make it back
Speaker 3: in time. And then by the time I made it back,
Speaker 3: she wasn't around long enough for us to kick in
Speaker 3: and hangout and for me to tell her my experience
Speaker 3: and my journey coming from Portsmouth and being in the
Speaker 3: industry to share that with her, and that kind of
Speaker 3: broke my heart just to hear that they were rooting
Speaker 3: for me. They were rooting for me, and they didn't
Speaker 3: understand why I didn't make it as far as they
Speaker 3: thought that I should make it.
Speaker 1: How hard is.
Speaker 2: It to explain or convey to them what it is
Speaker 2: that you're in because again, like when people see from
Speaker 2: a far they're like, well, damn, she's not with them,
Speaker 2: and then where's your maid back at.
Speaker 1: Where's your you know, your beach house. Where's your and
Speaker 1: how did you deal with the stress of trying to
Speaker 1: maintain it once you got your foot in the door.
Speaker 3: I asked myself that a lot. And I think for me,
Speaker 3: I started writing. I started cooking. I know it sounds
Speaker 3: really strange, but that's what's happening. I met this lady
Speaker 3: and she was like a mother to me, and we
Speaker 3: would talk and I would see her. We would be
Speaker 3: talking and she's cut up onions and she's got the
Speaker 3: seasonings and she's we're talking, and she came like a
Speaker 3: mother to me. And I saw how effortless it was
Speaker 3: for her to just cook and talk to me, and
Speaker 3: it started to calm me. I just started doing what
Speaker 3: I saw her doing and that really eased my and
Speaker 3: everybody like, how can you cook so good? And you're
Speaker 3: so young, and where did you learn this from? And
Speaker 3: it's so crazy. I didn't even know that was That
Speaker 3: was my like therapy, cooking and bringing people together. That's
Speaker 3: what it was for me, because it was very stressful.
Speaker 2: It was if you are creative nine times out of ten,
Speaker 2: just to stay creative, you sometimes have to do creativity
Speaker 2: in other areas, like God right, there was one point
Speaker 2: where I started taking up photography. There was a point
Speaker 2: when I started doing artwork, and yeah, so for you,
Speaker 2: it was the culinary arts.
Speaker 3: It was culinary arts. I was even thinking about going
Speaker 3: to culinary art school, and at the time, my boyfriend
Speaker 3: which is now my husband, he was taking me while
Speaker 3: I needed to go to get the credentials and everything
Speaker 3: that I was going to do to join to be
Speaker 3: into culinary school. But then they were like, let's get
Speaker 3: you here and work on this music again. See, I
Speaker 3: keep getting pulled out of something that I really want
Speaker 3: to do for this music, and it's just like wow,
Speaker 3: I was really about to go to culinary art school
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, Georgia, and I got pulled out to work
Speaker 3: on Queen alanaw them Oh man, Okay, what.
Speaker 1: Is your go to dish?
Speaker 3: What is your I love a roasted chicken and I
Speaker 3: have so many ways of did I do it? And
Speaker 3: I'm working on a cookbook as well. And I'm also
Speaker 3: into interior design. So those are things that calmed me
Speaker 3: down and my mind goes somewhere else with color and
Speaker 3: fabrics and just putting things together and just seeing something
Speaker 3: from nothing and turn into like so whimsical and colorful.
Speaker 3: That makes my heart smile outside of doing music.
Speaker 1: What is your go to comfort food at two in
Speaker 1: the morning.
Speaker 2: Artists are always eating at odd hours.
Speaker 3: For me, it'll probably be shrimping grits because it's so fast,
Speaker 3: and I've always got some oats somewhere for the grits.
Speaker 3: I always have grit somewhere, and I'll always make a
Speaker 3: nice route very fast, and I have shrimp, so I
Speaker 3: do it shrimp and grit like really quickly, or maybe
Speaker 3: a taco.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know why you tiele your album electric Blue.
Speaker 3: My brother and I are huge outcast fans, right got it,
Speaker 3: And it's this song and one hundred three thousand is
Speaker 3: yelling something something in the sky is electric Blue, and
Speaker 3: he's yelling it, yelling it, yelling it, and we were
Speaker 3: just like, this would be so cool as an album title.
Speaker 3: And what my brother was like, what you're going through
Speaker 3: right now because he always felt like I was kind
Speaker 3: of like this voice and this like meling infinite sadness.
Speaker 3: That was a young girl trying to get everybody to
Speaker 3: understand who I was. And then because I had hip
Speaker 3: hop living inside of me, I had church living inside
Speaker 3: of me, and he would be like, you know, this
Speaker 3: would be so dope if you name your album electric Blue,
Speaker 3: and we just named it Electric Blue and for all
Speaker 3: my Electric Blue fans. One day, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 3: release this album.
Speaker 1: How many songs were done?
Speaker 3: At least? I have about fourteen songs on there? Go ahead, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: about fourteen songs and I don't know I have it
Speaker 3: and they really want me to release it. So I
Speaker 3: got to figure out what I need to do to
Speaker 3: release this album. Some songs already have been released on YouTube.
Speaker 3: I don't know who released them, but I need to
Speaker 3: do it professionally and get it out there for my fans.
Speaker 1: After the Rockefeller situation didn't work out.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, that broke my heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, can you walk us through what
Speaker 2: you felt your world was going to be like this?
Speaker 2: Where you like, I got to be a civilian again.
Speaker 2: I gotta like, what's the journey of dealing with it
Speaker 2: and then what was the journey in picking up the
Speaker 2: pieces and starting all over again from scratch?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. I think when I first had the
Speaker 3: idea that I wanted to be part of Rockefella, I
Speaker 3: thought it was Gonna. I thought, I that light bulb
Speaker 3: went off in my head. One night I had was
Speaker 3: I was back at home. I wasn't doing too good
Speaker 3: and I was staying over at my for a while
Speaker 3: and I remember I think BT was on late night
Speaker 3: and they were showing like some hip hop videos and
Speaker 3: I was like, I want to be signed to Rockefeller Records.
Speaker 3: It was that light bulb that went off, like I
Speaker 3: don't think they have any like girls singers that you
Speaker 3: know that's kind of got a little hip hop, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of thing going on. And I just manifested that.
Speaker 3: And then it happened. I was working with Kenny Barnes.
Speaker 3: He introduced me to Damon Dash and they loved me
Speaker 3: over there. They were like, we got you, don't worry
Speaker 3: about it. And then I started working on music and
Speaker 3: the music was great. I made all these great relationships
Speaker 3: and I get home, I'll go back to Virginia and
Speaker 3: I read on the internet that Rockefella is splitting up,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I felt shattered. I was like, here
Speaker 3: we go again. I'm just like, what is happening with
Speaker 3: my luck? You know? And I just wasn't feeling what
Speaker 3: they wanted to continue to do. Like I was cool
Speaker 3: with Damon Dash and we were like, you know, he
Speaker 3: was like, I got something else I want to do
Speaker 3: with you, and I just felt like down. I was
Speaker 3: just like I'm back at home again, and I don't
Speaker 3: know where to pick up the pieces from. But I
Speaker 3: do know. I kept my relationships with Damon Dash and
Speaker 3: he would call me maybe a few years later and say,
Speaker 3: I got another situation for you. And this was the
Speaker 3: Black Key situation, which opened up a.
Speaker 1: Whole nother How did that even come to be?
Speaker 3: The Damon Dash called me and like I said, I'm
Speaker 3: glad I project. Yeah, he was doing nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was part of.
Speaker 3: The black rock I was the girls singer that was
Speaker 3: doing all that's me. Yeah. And and then the Black
Speaker 3: Keys asked me to come to Muscall Shows, Alabama to
Speaker 3: work on the Brothers album. And then that's where the
Speaker 3: thought of this soul thing that was always living in
Speaker 3: me it just woke up. It just woke right on up,
Speaker 3: and I was like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1: What was it like to be.
Speaker 2: In the studio, the same studio that I believe Aretha
Speaker 2: Franklin created her Landmark never loved demand the way I
Speaker 2: loved you, respecting all those classic songs like Muscle Shoals
Speaker 2: is probably haunted, legendary, legendary.
Speaker 3: It is legendary, it is. It had its moments. It
Speaker 3: felt a little creepy, but you can feel the vibe
Speaker 3: of they left. I mean, everything is still the way
Speaker 3: it is. They have the old pictures, they have Atta James,
Speaker 3: they have Aretha, they have Sonny and Share even record
Speaker 3: there and it's given this ghost there for sure, it's giving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's a fun fact that not many people know.
Speaker 2: George Michael wrote Careless Whisper mm HM in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: two and right before whim becomes an idea.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, I believe that.
Speaker 2: Jerry Wexler, you know, Riata Franklin's producer, decided to fly
Speaker 2: George over to America to record some demos, and the
Speaker 2: original Careless Whisper was recorded in Muscle Showl's studio as
Speaker 2: a you know, a totally different song, like different than
Speaker 2: the saxophone thing that we know, right, but yeah, he
Speaker 2: not many people know that that's like one of the
Speaker 2: uh that's where kind of where Careless Whisper was born.
Speaker 2: But for you, how did you in terms of joining
Speaker 2: the well what I call the dap King cult of Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: How familiar were you with those guys as far as
Speaker 2: their vindage?
Speaker 1: Shund was concerned and I.
Speaker 3: Had no idea about dep Tones, deb King, Sharon Jones,
Speaker 3: Lee Fields, Charles Bradley. When I heard Charles Bradley and
Speaker 3: Sharon Jones for the first time, I thought that they
Speaker 3: were artists of yesteryear. I was like, who is this?
Speaker 3: And this song is hitting me, It's bringing out all
Speaker 3: these emotions. It was like, no, he's alive and he
Speaker 3: just recorded this last I'll say, get out of here.
Speaker 1: Who put.
Speaker 3: One of the girls that was hanging out with Damon Dash?
Speaker 3: She put me on because I think Dan from Black
Speaker 3: Keys have put her on because they were huge fans
Speaker 3: of Lee Fields. And it's so crazy because it's parallel
Speaker 3: because I met Leon Michaels, who produced Lee Fields, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know Leon when I was working with the
Speaker 3: Black Keys, so it's kind of parallel. And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I think it was all meant to be. It was
Speaker 3: all manifested in itself, and they are still working together
Speaker 3: today and we all know each other, we all work together,
Speaker 3: and it's just like, I don't know It's just so
Speaker 3: crazy that when I first heard Lee Fields and then
Speaker 3: I met him and then Leon asked me if I
Speaker 3: would come and write on his album Faithful Man, I
Speaker 3: was just like, nobody has ever asked me. Everybody always,
Speaker 3: you know, when I was coming up, like you need writers,
Speaker 3: you need help, and he let me do my thing.
Speaker 3: And I take my head off to him, because I
Speaker 3: think initially Michael Blue Williams, who managed Outcasts, once told
Speaker 3: me the best advice that I ever could have gotten
Speaker 3: in my career, was like, Nicole, what you need to
Speaker 3: do is get a pin and get some paper and
Speaker 3: start writing. And I was like, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: What does that look like? For me? When I think
Speaker 3: about it now, I just look around and observe everything,
Speaker 3: my feelings, my emotions, my family, my friends, out of
Speaker 3: my window. Whatever I see, I put it on paper
Speaker 3: and it's my heart and my emotions. And I think
Speaker 3: that's what kind of saved my career, is becoming a songwriter.
Speaker 2: What was it like at least the beginning of presenting
Speaker 2: this live presentation like the Soulful Live thing.
Speaker 3: I think presenting the Soulful Live Show was something new
Speaker 3: for me because I had been singing for many years,
Speaker 3: and I didn't really perform as much as I felt
Speaker 3: like I should as an artist. I kind of was
Speaker 3: always like put in the background somehow. I'm like, why
Speaker 3: am I alway back here? I would always ask myself.
Speaker 3: I would see other artists doing a lot of things
Speaker 3: and performing and all over the place, and I was
Speaker 3: always this girl that was eager to just get and
Speaker 3: do the music and not always be in the studio.
Speaker 3: I would write a lot of music, but a lot
Speaker 3: of that music would never see the light of day.
Speaker 3: You know. I have a lot of music that it's
Speaker 3: somewhere in a laptop, somewhere on a dat somewhere that's somewhere,
Speaker 3: or it's just lyrics and a notebook. So when it
Speaker 3: was time for me to do a live show, like
Speaker 3: I said, I get really nervous because it starts first
Speaker 3: with the writing and you got to write these songs
Speaker 3: that are you know, transparent, and I felt like I've
Speaker 3: been doing that for the last five years. It's just
Speaker 3: writing stuff that people want to hear, because I'm actually
Speaker 3: a living proof and that's living these things, right. And
Speaker 3: so when you get the ticket sales and you get there,
Speaker 3: you get the outfit, you get the rehearsal, and then
Speaker 3: you get out there on that stage and it's like
Speaker 3: and I I'm overwhelmed because I, like I said, I
Speaker 3: have never really experienced it until now, the love that
Speaker 3: people have for me as an artist. And they're singing
Speaker 3: these not they're not singing they know, make it hot,
Speaker 3: but they're singing songs after make it hot? What was made?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? I feel like I'm blessed
Speaker 3: of a blessed artist to not be still singing the
Speaker 3: same tune as some I see some artists that I
Speaker 3: came up with, they're still singing the same songs. And
Speaker 3: I don't know if me being such a creative person,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I gotta do something new always, I
Speaker 3: gotta have something fresh, and to see these even when
Speaker 3: I go overseas and it's like hitting me that I'm
Speaker 3: in another country. I'm not singing make it Hot. I'm
Speaker 3: singing maybe guilty, and these people are yelling these lyrics
Speaker 3: back at me. And I'm overwhelmed because I wasn't the
Speaker 3: artist that was getting the love and the platform that
Speaker 3: I should have been getting many years ago to perform
Speaker 3: at places and to do shows I was always kind
Speaker 3: of like in the background, So it makes me feel.
Speaker 2: Great that said in your live presentation, do you now
Speaker 2: present your second act? Mm hmm, like the Make It
Speaker 2: Hot the album, Like, do any of those songs ever find
Speaker 2: their way back in the set list sort of refiltered
Speaker 2: and oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, we do like a mash up. We
Speaker 3: do like a sort of a mash up of the nineties.
Speaker 3: I let people know I'm about to take you on
Speaker 3: a journey from the nineties, and they get so excited
Speaker 3: because they know what that means. Because you have some
Speaker 3: people that are there that has no idea that I'm
Speaker 3: Nicole Ray Cole Ray, and they're like they're trying to
Speaker 3: like connect the dots, like is that her or I
Speaker 3: don't know? And then when I'm start saying I see
Speaker 3: people kind of like confused and they're like, oh, Mike,
Speaker 3: that is her.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It always makes me smile and laugh that I have
Speaker 3: my older fans and I have new fans that are
Speaker 3: they know I'm Lady Ray, but then when they find
Speaker 3: out I'm the Cold Ray, It's a whole nother like
Speaker 3: thing happening.
Speaker 1: What would you say that cover Girl represents in terms
Speaker 1: of where you are now today.
Speaker 3: I think Cover Girl is that little girl that was
Speaker 3: so eager and bright eyed, ready for the business, ready
Speaker 3: for the music business without getting my heart broken, and
Speaker 3: just brave right that I felt like I was so
Speaker 3: brave before any of all of this, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to bring that spirit back into the music and my
Speaker 3: church roots and how I preach about, you know, self
Speaker 3: care and taking care of yourself. And I think that's
Speaker 3: how Cover Girl was born. Like I'm like, I need
Speaker 3: to get back to where I was because Peace to
Speaker 3: me was so serious. I was pregnant with my daughter.
Speaker 3: I was about seven months pregnant with her when I
Speaker 3: was working on that album, and I didn't know what
Speaker 3: I was gonna do, but she gave me everything that
Speaker 3: I needed to give for that album, and I felt
Speaker 3: like I'm raising a young child. I'm a new mom.
Speaker 3: And I think now with Cover Girl, she's here, my daughter,
Speaker 3: she's seven, she's my inspiration, she is the light of
Speaker 3: my life. She's given me all the courage and everything
Speaker 3: that I need, and that little girl that lived inside
Speaker 3: of me is her And so I wanted to kind
Speaker 3: of just pay homage back to that and get back
Speaker 3: to that free vibe, being brave, not caring about anything,
Speaker 3: and just looking right at myself and saying this is
Speaker 3: who I am.
Speaker 2: Is she putting two and two together of what you
Speaker 2: do and what you do for a living.
Speaker 3: Yeah. She took one of my albums the other day
Speaker 3: and put it in her book bag and she's like, Mom,
Speaker 3: can you sign this? This is for my teacher? And
Speaker 3: I signed it for her, she said, and I was like,
Speaker 3: she got home, she said, my teacher said she's going
Speaker 3: to listen to this on the weekend. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: so she knows. She see my merch. She sees the merch.
Speaker 3: She sees me like rehearsing my songs. She's even been
Speaker 3: on tour on the tour bus and got on stage
Speaker 3: and sang with me. So she's putting too one two together.
Speaker 3: A voice, she has a voice, she is, Oh, I
Speaker 3: can't believe it.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously if she has a voice, then you know
Speaker 2: she'll follow the lineage, what was the best advice that
Speaker 2: you were given and what was the worst advice you
Speaker 2: were given?
Speaker 3: Hmm. The best advice that I was given was to
Speaker 3: become a songwriter, and the worst advice I was given
Speaker 3: was to to It's kind of crazy because it kind
Speaker 3: of is in the same vein as being a songwriter,
Speaker 3: Like take your artist out of being a songwriter and
Speaker 3: be a songwriter, and I'm like, I'm still an artist,
Speaker 3: got you know? So it was the first advice, the
Speaker 3: best advice was to be a songwriter, and that's what
Speaker 3: you need to do. And then as I, you know,
Speaker 3: start writing and I was writing so good, everybody's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're a good songwriter, but you need to
Speaker 3: take your artist. Just take your artist out of being
Speaker 3: a songwriter. And I'm like, I can write songs all
Speaker 3: the time. I want to give the artist the best
Speaker 3: song that I can give them, not because I'm trying out.
Speaker 3: I want to not be an artist. So it's just strange. Yeah,
Speaker 3: got itself.
Speaker 2: For your daughter, do you have dreams or wishes for
Speaker 2: her to also follow in your footsteps if that's what
Speaker 2: she wants to do, or.
Speaker 3: I want her to be free at whatever it is
Speaker 3: that she does. And I would not be a mom manger.
Speaker 3: I would if she was to get in the industry,
Speaker 3: I would find her the best team that she could
Speaker 3: ever have. But I think for me, I want her
Speaker 3: to be happy and whatever it is she wants to
Speaker 3: be a neuroscientist. She wants to be a veterinarian. And
Speaker 3: if that's what she she wants to get on stage
Speaker 3: with her old mom when I'm about sixty seventy and
Speaker 3: come and sing with me. She can, and that would
Speaker 3: make my heart smile. But I want her to be
Speaker 3: happy and to do what makes her happy in life.
Speaker 3: I would not stop her, but I would encourage her
Speaker 3: to do whatever makes her happy.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
Speaker 2: What I like about your projects is that you're able
Speaker 2: to somehow musically astro travel to different eras you know,
Speaker 2: sounds like the sixties, late sixties, seventies, hearing traces of
Speaker 2: disco and whatnot.
Speaker 1: What is your life like?
Speaker 2: Dream conquering kind of mountain to climb as far as
Speaker 2: your creativity is concerned.
Speaker 3: I think for me, my first love would be hip hop, right,
Speaker 3: so I think next I'm definitely going on this hip
Speaker 3: I am. I. I am a very secret MC and
Speaker 3: a lot of people they like, I want to see
Speaker 3: what you do, and I'm like my brother, you know.
Speaker 3: He he was the man of the house for a
Speaker 3: long time as a kid, and he was the one
Speaker 3: who put me onto like leaders of the new School
Speaker 3: and Wu Tang and like Heavy D and the Boys
Speaker 3: and and all of these artists. I think Pete Rock
Speaker 3: can see smooth like I'm a rap head, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think next for me is like going back
Speaker 3: to my hip hop roots for sure. That's that's what
Speaker 3: I That's what I really would love to do. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: that would be beautiful.
Speaker 1: When you get in mind. Because you know is a
Speaker 1: big fan of yours.
Speaker 2: I really want to thank you for taking the time
Speaker 2: out and speaking to us here at the Quest Love Show.
Speaker 1: And I'm such a fan of yours and I love
Speaker 1: a good pivot.
Speaker 2: To me, that's one of the main subjects that I
Speaker 2: try to convey with every episode that I do to
Speaker 2: the audience, which is basically oftentimes we might hit a
Speaker 2: dead end wall or a street and just be like, well,
Speaker 2: that's it, it's over.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you didn't give up.
Speaker 2: And I love your your your patience, and I love
Speaker 2: the pivot that you've done with your creativity.
Speaker 1: And forever fan of yours and I thank you, oh, thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you. I'm a forever fan of you guys,
Speaker 3: and you thanks for having me. This has made my week.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. I was so excited about this, and I
Speaker 3: would love to work and do some music with you.
Speaker 3: I would love to It would just be an honor.
Speaker 1: Yes all right, Lady ray Ladies and gentlemen, see I
Speaker 1: almost Sittingnicole ring. Lady Rayleies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Quass West Love Show is hosted by me a Mere
Speaker 2: quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian
Speaker 2: Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jacob Payne.
Speaker 1: Produced for iHeart.
Speaker 2: By Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart Video support
Speaker 2: by Mark Canton Locals Graphics and animation by Nick Lowe.
Speaker 2: Additional support by Lance Coleman.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Kathy Brown.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, break review,
Speaker 2: and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast.
Speaker 2: Make sure you follow us on socials That's at the
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Speaker 1: The Muslim Shows a production of iHeartRadio