Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right, people,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Quest Love Supreme. It's me Quest Love
Speaker 1: you know. A few times this season, me and Team
Speaker 1: Supreme often do these special one on one episodes. Today's
Speaker 1: guests Sananda Montoya. It wasn't planned as a one on one,
Speaker 1: but do just scheduling and life and whatnot, just having
Speaker 1: to turn out that way. Of course, I was thrilled
Speaker 1: about it because it allowed me to have a discussion
Speaker 1: with someone that I admired and called an inspiration. And
Speaker 1: in this interview we learn that we have a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in common. And this is part two, so
Speaker 1: if you haven't, please check out Part one, where we
Speaker 1: speak about Sonondas growing up, his appreciation for Rod Stewart,
Speaker 1: even his time as a boxer. All right, enjoy. I
Speaker 1: always wanted to know when you're turning in the tapes
Speaker 1: for Neither Fish or Flesh, which I feel is your
Speaker 1: real first album, because your your first album is this
Speaker 1: your life experience up until that point, and you're you're
Speaker 1: feeling your way out and yeah, of the two, I
Speaker 1: choose the latter when you're turning that in. What is
Speaker 1: Donnie's response? What is Tommy's response, What is the Brass's response?
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, let this let me say this
Speaker 2: some interesting things that goes down with this. First of all,
Speaker 2: it's uncanny because in fact, I mentioned that quite a
Speaker 2: few times for this particular project as I was promoting it.
Speaker 2: That and it's the truth. The first album felt like
Speaker 2: the finale of a life that I was meant to.
Speaker 3: Finish your old life. Yes, let me just like specific.
Speaker 3: I can explain this if you can keep track. For me,
Speaker 3: I do believe in doesn't matter what we call them.
Speaker 3: I do believe in spares of angels and other things.
Speaker 2: I do believe we're in this multi dimensional, interactive experience,
Speaker 2: overlapping dimensions and all kinds of stuff, and of course
Speaker 2: which our radio has got all of this capacity, but
Speaker 2: we're only focused on where it is on the dial
Speaker 2: right now, and that's how frequency we focused, so we
Speaker 2: are not aware that there's all these other frequencies going
Speaker 2: on as well. So for me, that's important because when
Speaker 2: I was eighteen years old, I had an experience where
Speaker 2: I was home from basic training from the military, and
Speaker 2: my old room obviously had been moved into and taken
Speaker 2: over by a younger sibling. So I slept in the den,
Speaker 2: the TV room, and I had a dream that night
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. It was December eighth, I was home
Speaker 2: for two weeks from basic training before getting reassigned to
Speaker 2: my first posting in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and I had
Speaker 2: this dream that like I said, my very first movie
Speaker 2: I can remember seeing was Breakfast of Tiffany's. And in
Speaker 2: the dream, the age I was eighteen, I'm standing in
Speaker 2: front of Tiffany's department store in New York. Ear it's
Speaker 2: really early morning, and I see this figure, familiar figure
Speaker 2: walking towards me, and as he gets closer to me,
Speaker 2: I recognize more and more, and his smile gets bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger and bigger, and at one point I go,
Speaker 2: oh shit, that's John Lennon. And I'll never forget. He
Speaker 2: was wearing a white shirt, some blue jeans, and his
Speaker 2: hat and his granny glasses and he get close to me.
Speaker 2: Is he looked like he was so happy to see me.
Speaker 2: He stuck out his hands and as I stuck out
Speaker 2: my hand, he went straight through me. Okay, these were
Speaker 2: my first, first first heroes with Fould influence. So I
Speaker 2: get up that morning and my mother says to me
Speaker 2: when she sees me that morning, did you hear what happened?
Speaker 2: I said, what she says, John Lennon was killed last night. Oh,
Speaker 2: I said what she said? Yeah, he was shot, And
Speaker 2: I said, I said, Mom, I dreamt he walked into me.
Speaker 2: So again, here's my take on these these things. If
Speaker 2: I agree to take some of your what you're leaving behind,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there were quite a few people on his
Speaker 2: list day. I'm going to leave you a little bit
Speaker 2: of this beetle magic. I'm gonna leave you a little bit.
Speaker 2: But you can't take that without taking the burden as well.
Speaker 2: So he had issues with his mom, He had issues,
Speaker 2: a lot of issues. You have to take some of
Speaker 2: that shit on as well, because that was also what
Speaker 2: made him him. So I say that because, first of all,
Speaker 2: I believe that these overlapping experiences where that first album
Speaker 2: felt like me and John were finishing something. Okay, his car,
Speaker 2: something maybe he or whatever. I like your filter, I
Speaker 2: would like to work through you perfect, I'm your pin.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. And it felt like I had stepped
Speaker 2: out of something that I was just always destined to
Speaker 2: start step out of and into and out of. But
Speaker 2: I agree with you that neither officih no flesh for me.
Speaker 2: And it was the most exciting time I've ever had
Speaker 2: making a record because I could just feel in retrospect
Speaker 2: the roots of postalem rock agans there, and finally I
Speaker 2: was able to to you know, Mozart. The last thing
Speaker 2: he said was he he'd gotten a commission to be
Speaker 2: a church compel meister, and all they commissioned from him
Speaker 2: with like two or three pieces a year, so he
Speaker 2: would have had all of his chance, all this time
Speaker 2: to compose, and he said something to affect Damn. I
Speaker 2: was just getting ready to compose the music I really
Speaker 2: wanted to make. And you think, like, fuck if Mozart
Speaker 2: feels that way or hiden Heyden's last words being I
Speaker 2: was finally learning how to write for horns. You mean
Speaker 2: I mean that words apparently, you know, apparently, so you.
Speaker 1: Know I'm not done yet.
Speaker 2: Just yeah. So I do agree with you that it
Speaker 2: felt like the breakthrough that that that was. Now Here's
Speaker 2: another situation was that before I went into the studio
Speaker 2: to make that record, the president of Columbia, a CBS
Speaker 2: England Russell, put me into his office and wanted to
Speaker 2: show me all these demographic surveys that basically said that
Speaker 2: though I hadn't sold as many records as Michael or
Speaker 2: anyone else, that I had ticked literally every demographic box
Speaker 2: that they even keep track of, and that they had
Speaker 2: never seen that before and it freaked them out. So that,
Speaker 2: let me know one thing right there, I was seen
Speaker 2: as a political figure because, as you know, I don't
Speaker 2: have to be singing about politics if my music is
Speaker 2: bringing people together across the divides that are placed there
Speaker 2: artificially to keep people from me. So if I'm bringing
Speaker 2: in bikers and grandmothers and thirteen year olds and academics
Speaker 2: and all these people that they keep, people start in
Speaker 2: power start to look at that and go hmm okay.
Speaker 2: Plus they didn't have enough time to vet me. I
Speaker 2: just shot off like a rocket.
Speaker 1: You didn't think that was just due to let's maximize,
Speaker 1: if anything, like I could have sworn that. They were like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is someone that will I don't want to say
Speaker 1: the word replaced, but you know, record execs feel like,
Speaker 1: of course, this is the person that Michael as connected.
Speaker 2: That's all connected. So that's why this is very intriguing
Speaker 2: because you know, when we do the book. I'll have
Speaker 2: time to extrapolate, you know, all of this information, look
Speaker 2: at it in depth, because everything is connected, and I'm
Speaker 2: trying to keep it, you know, a hold over their
Speaker 2: thread myself. The point is that they knew who Michael was,
Speaker 2: so whatever he was guilty or not guilty of, they
Speaker 2: would have known. They knew who he had been vetted
Speaker 2: his whole life. He had been vetted. They knew who
Speaker 2: he was. They knew where to take to motivate him,
Speaker 2: they knew where to take to manipulate him. They didn't
Speaker 2: have that info me yet because I came up too quick.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: You know, the corporation is not going to get in
Speaker 2: found of money while the money's printing itself. They wait
Speaker 2: for the money to reset before they go, Okay, now
Speaker 2: do we want to continue? Who is this mollfucker? Who
Speaker 2: is this kid? Okay? But Paul Russell brought me into
Speaker 2: his office and he said, I just want you to
Speaker 2: know that the first two million records you brought when
Speaker 2: you sold were genuine to genuine music fans. He said,
Speaker 2: after this, you become a cultural phenomenon, and people are
Speaker 2: not buying the record for the music. People are buying
Speaker 2: the record because it's part of their cultural identity of
Speaker 2: the moment that you can't say you're cool if you
Speaker 2: don't have this on your coffee table. If someone walks
Speaker 2: into your to your living room, have you heard the song,
Speaker 2: say oh yeah, yeah, I've been there, done that. It
Speaker 2: becomes that kind of thing. He actually said to me,
Speaker 2: don't expect your next record or next couple of records
Speaker 2: to follow the same formula. It won't, he said, because
Speaker 2: you'll those people will come back to you, But the
Speaker 2: history of England especially, they won't come back to you
Speaker 2: to your third or fourth project. Okay, because you're gonna
Speaker 2: have to pay for this success.
Speaker 1: Hey, was he telling you that you were too successful?
Speaker 2: He was basically saying I wasn't going to have that
Speaker 2: type of success again anytime soon, because at one point
Speaker 2: it went beyond being a musical thing and became becoming
Speaker 2: a cultural phenomenon that then developed steam is that that
Speaker 2: it goes beyond the music. So those people the next
Speaker 2: time you don't get those people to come right back.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you an important question then, and this
Speaker 1: is kind of the theme of the slide film. Is
Speaker 1: success as traumatic or more traumatic than failing?
Speaker 2: Is look, the bottom line is this. We all have
Speaker 2: to be responsible for the energy that we create. There
Speaker 2: are no exceptions. Society may give us a free pass
Speaker 2: based on its affection for us or our image, but
Speaker 2: karma is real and law is simple. We all have
Speaker 2: to be responsible for the energy we create those who
Speaker 2: are capable of creating energy. That's just the way the
Speaker 2: universe polices itself. So the bottom line is I was
Speaker 2: going to have to pay for that sojourn, regardless of
Speaker 2: whether I had wound up on this side or that side,
Speaker 2: because there is no free lunch. Everything has a price,
Speaker 2: and you either pay in advance or you pay on
Speaker 2: the back end. I didn't have to pay in advance, well,
Speaker 2: at least far as the industry was concerned. So I
Speaker 2: had to pay on the back end. But there was
Speaker 2: also genuine fear. Because I was genuine. I really believed
Speaker 2: that I was given the power of transformation and I
Speaker 2: could help. As George Harrison said, people say, you know,
Speaker 2: think for yourself. We understand that the state moun Olympus
Speaker 2: creates us demi gods in order to program the people
Speaker 2: as to what is expected of them or how they
Speaker 2: expected to be. In order to be members of a society,
Speaker 2: a governed society, a civilization, a community. So obviously it
Speaker 2: is not in the best interest of any kind of
Speaker 2: organization with power to promote the power of someone who
Speaker 2: was not, in turn promoting them a team player. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know that makes sense. I mean, I can't be
Speaker 2: that naive like they came up against me. I wasn't
Speaker 2: trying to bring down the building, you know. I was
Speaker 2: just saying, look, I'm who I am, and I'm not
Speaker 2: changing for some bullshit. I'm not going to become a
Speaker 2: black artist for you bitches. I won't. You can argue
Speaker 2: for days how black a person and I am. I
Speaker 2: have no beep but none of that whatever. But I
Speaker 2: will never consent to be on a black artist because
Speaker 2: you know, and I know what that means. And you
Speaker 2: know that unless you was Stevie Wonder and you had
Speaker 2: all of motime telling you do what the hell you
Speaker 2: want it, you know exactly how limiting and handcuffing that was.
Speaker 2: So I was never interested in being a black artist.
Speaker 2: I was never interested in helping the establishment restabilize the image.
Speaker 2: They were comfortable black people emulating black guys emulating. You
Speaker 2: don't want black dudes is the Maverick. And plus we
Speaker 2: only pay lip service to the Maverick because it's a
Speaker 2: useful promotional image. We don't really support mavericks, but will
Speaker 2: support the image of one as long as we can
Speaker 2: control or we can collaborate on what it is you're doing.
Speaker 2: But that's not a question for everyone questioning. Not everybody
Speaker 2: gives a shit. Everybody has any ambition other than to
Speaker 2: be famous, make great music and whatever, And I don't
Speaker 2: hold them responsible for anything that I feel responsible for.
Speaker 2: But for me, I understood that I was not going
Speaker 2: to be yet the next card in a machine. You
Speaker 2: know that determines how people are to behave to respond,
Speaker 2: what parts of themselves are acceptable, what parts are unacceptable,
Speaker 2: and what the establishment is comfortable embracing you. As I
Speaker 2: just I felt like I had many ancestors saying, you
Speaker 2: don't have to do that. We did that, We were
Speaker 2: not happy. This is why we are pushing you, you
Speaker 2: stubborn asshole. This is why we've made you so stubborn,
Speaker 2: because it's imperative that now as you have a chance
Speaker 2: to turn this wheel, you must turn this wheel. Because
Speaker 2: what we do is of consequence. You don't know the
Speaker 2: people born the people might not even be born who
Speaker 2: you're setting up their life for, but you must do
Speaker 2: this because I was enamored of the belief that if
Speaker 2: I didn't do it, the music that I've been able
Speaker 2: to contribute wouldn't possibly be made by anyone else in particular,
Speaker 2: but as that which came through my particular filter. And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm grateful that you mentioned even D'Angelo, who
Speaker 2: I have to say that I'm extremely proud of, a
Speaker 2: few years ago, I was in Sweden and the Swedish
Speaker 2: journalist reminded me that I said to him twenty five
Speaker 2: thirty years ago what I was going to do, and
Speaker 2: he said, my god, you've done it. You've done it,
Speaker 2: and he mentioned another artist. He said, another artist, He
Speaker 2: mentioned D'Angelo. He said, D'Angelo has also continued to resist
Speaker 2: caricaturing himself and just continuing to grow and expanding that thing.
Speaker 2: Because again, I don't care how many credentials you have
Speaker 2: or what kind of journalists you call yourself. You don't
Speaker 2: tell the music what it is. The music tells you.
Speaker 2: You don't say, oh, this isn't jazz. Fuck you. Jazz
Speaker 2: isn't dead. Nothing's dead. Jazz is still writing chapters and verses.
Speaker 2: Rock is still saying none on this hip hop is
Speaker 2: You're clear, it's still ever expanding, you know, saying no,
Speaker 2: that's not hip hop, that's not country to me. No
Speaker 2: it's not country to you, but country tells me what
Speaker 2: country is. I understood that it was imperative that one
Speaker 2: of us, one of us had to get out ahead
Speaker 2: of that thing this time and not feel the burden
Speaker 2: that Prince and Michael felt and others felt to maintain
Speaker 2: that other pillar that they represented. And you know, this
Speaker 2: is why I've also set to people as well as
Speaker 2: much of a pain in the ASCID was to come
Speaker 2: behind Michael and Prince. What a stroke of tremendous fortune
Speaker 2: to be as creatively inspired and curious as I have
Speaker 2: been blessed to be, and to be behind two bona
Speaker 2: fide fucking geniuses. These cats were for real. These guys
Speaker 2: were giants. And you were either gonna shrink like you know,
Speaker 2: coming after the Beagles, or you saw it as your license.
Speaker 2: There's no excuse not to just keep pushing this thing
Speaker 2: when you've come behind to groundbreaking lifetime achievement type dudes
Speaker 2: like Prince and Michael. But Michael was involved, in this
Speaker 2: because also by the time he inherited the Beatles catalog.
Speaker 2: Another great irony is that the very music that woke
Speaker 2: me up in this life, the Beatles, when Michael got
Speaker 2: a hold of it, that was the very music that
Speaker 2: kind of killed the battery charge on that life as well,
Speaker 2: like okay, boom.
Speaker 1: Ah, too much power?
Speaker 2: Well, who am I to say? Too much power? He
Speaker 2: had power. And then of course the game began when
Speaker 2: he got the catalog because Sony knew they want to
Speaker 2: go in business with him. So basically, whatever you want, Michael,
Speaker 2: fuck you want this guy? Is this guy paying your ass?
Speaker 2: No problem? Because before he bought the Beatles Catalog, the
Speaker 2: question they had to ask him was okay, but Michael,
Speaker 2: can you replace his sales and yours? I don't know.
Speaker 2: But when he had that catalog and Sony's half, even
Speaker 2: in the nineties, was already over half a billion, yeah
Speaker 2: a year, And forgetting that it wasn't just in not
Speaker 2: forgetting It wasn't just the Beatles catalog. The Beatles songs
Speaker 2: were the jewel of that catalog. He also had all
Speaker 2: the sly stuff, had all the little richer stuff. He
Speaker 2: had one hundred country music number one hits. That was
Speaker 2: a copiously fat, thick docket. You mean, so from that
Speaker 2: point onwards, you know, it was like, yeah, they gave him.
Speaker 2: He wasn't very comfortable with me.
Speaker 1: I promised to wrap this up because trust me, like
Speaker 1: Jimmy Jam gave me seven hours. It was only supposed
Speaker 1: to be one hour, and Jimmy Jam gave me seven.
Speaker 1: So I will pull out every story, but I will
Speaker 1: I will be sustinct and wrap this up because I'm
Speaker 1: also got a chance.
Speaker 2: To work with jelly Bean on this. On this project,
Speaker 2: I did this song with jelly Bean. Really yeah, I
Speaker 2: can't remember what is his name, walk On walk On?
Speaker 2: His name he approached me last year and said he
Speaker 2: wanted me to participate with him if I would, I
Speaker 2: told him, look, just on principle alone, you guys were
Speaker 2: such a huge part of you know, my situation and
Speaker 2: the time in various projects you guys worked on. So
Speaker 2: I said sure. So basically we wound up collaborating on
Speaker 2: this on this piece, and it was really cool because
Speaker 2: it was also the very last session of Ronnie Drayton
Speaker 2: because on us Yeah, I was gonna play the guitar
Speaker 2: solo and then.
Speaker 1: See, I don't have liner notes. So thus, damn, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: We'll get you whatever you need because, uh, there's a
Speaker 2: gentleman named Oscar Derrek Brown. He was a very very
Speaker 2: good friend of Ronnie's, and so when he told Ronnie
Speaker 2: what I was doing, Ronnie said, oh, I want to
Speaker 2: play the solo. I want to And when I heard,
Speaker 2: I was like, please, please, I will be honored. So
Speaker 2: it was apparently the last thing he kind of did
Speaker 2: professionally that were aware of, and I feel blessed to
Speaker 2: have participate with him because you know, he's he's definitely
Speaker 2: one of the unsung heroes of the time. I was
Speaker 2: coming through with his work with like Vernon in the
Speaker 2: Black Rock Coalition and all of that.
Speaker 1: Yes, the legendary Ronnie Drayton by the way, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't even get to this new album, but literally like
Speaker 1: nice things cam Town, Yeah, like those are my that's
Speaker 1: my ship, man. I love that.
Speaker 2: You know that The moonishment about being careful of meeting
Speaker 2: your heroes. Bruce Springsteen has been like a big brother
Speaker 2: to me. Prince was is still I'm still close to him,
Speaker 2: and Miles played a pivotal role in my situation. Michael
Speaker 2: wasn't just one of those situations. It was just one
Speaker 2: of those things.
Speaker 1: Where he was competitive.
Speaker 2: I want to make this clear. Not only was he
Speaker 2: a competitive but but you know, in a perfect world,
Speaker 2: he would have seen me as like a gold like okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going sure this month right, and we'd have done
Speaker 2: that Beatles Stones who thing where we just try to
Speaker 2: top each other.
Speaker 1: You know, I would have been here for it. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I would have been here for it.
Speaker 2: But you know by that time he was maybe just tired,
Speaker 2: like look whatever. But the point I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: is this, he didn't know me a damn thing. His
Speaker 2: life provided for my life exactly what it was meant
Speaker 2: to provide. And there's also a very very good chance
Speaker 2: that by getting in my way, he might have spared
Speaker 2: me his faith.
Speaker 1: You literally just answered the question that I was going
Speaker 1: to ask.
Speaker 2: Yes, he might have saved my life and getting in
Speaker 2: front of me giving me more longevity because you know,
Speaker 2: I was even asked earlier in an interview with your
Speaker 2: voice you still sound the same as four years ago
Speaker 2: and how compared to whatever? And I said. But you
Speaker 2: know the truth is they didn't burn me out. I didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't have a chance to burn me out. And
Speaker 2: I said, so many of my colleagues were just burned out,
Speaker 2: and it was just doing what they could to keep
Speaker 2: up with it. And you know, when Whitney lost her
Speaker 2: voice at the end, I was so moved because I realized,
Speaker 2: you know, singers aren't mature to their forties anyway, they
Speaker 2: look out themselves even moderately well. But I realized she
Speaker 2: hadn't lost her voice. With the sound of what you
Speaker 2: were hearing was a woman who had lost her heart
Speaker 2: because she was all hard and the voice is just
Speaker 2: a conduit. It's just an amp. It's not the guitar.
Speaker 2: The guitar is the guitar. The voice is the amp. Okay,
Speaker 2: if your guitar is fucked, the strings are broken, your
Speaker 2: heart is broken, and you don't really want to be
Speaker 2: doing that anymore. Obviously, it's gonna show and what comes
Speaker 2: through you what comes out of you. And I felt
Speaker 2: that the thing was she wasn't just trying to destroy
Speaker 2: her voice. She was trying to destroy that life that
Speaker 2: held her in bondage and just became too much. And
Speaker 2: you know, from our Native American heritage, we don't believe
Speaker 2: in death anyway. The way it's taught in the West,
Speaker 2: and so you know, she wasn't obliged to be with
Speaker 2: us raggedy motherfuckers one minute past realizing she had done
Speaker 2: what she had come to do. She had blessed the
Speaker 2: souls and the lives. I just saw her movie. I
Speaker 2: had on a carousel for two years. Question yet and
Speaker 2: I just because I had her in Aretha's life stories
Speaker 2: on the to watch list, because I knew those lives
Speaker 2: reverberated so close to my own that I have to
Speaker 2: be ready and prepared psychologically to digest those stories because
Speaker 2: those stories are my stories as well. So you know,
Speaker 2: I had forgotten how many like just groundbreaking records, WOULDN'TY had,
Speaker 2: you know, broken and and just like wow. But it's
Speaker 2: the same with Prince. You know, you do what you
Speaker 2: come to do, and sometimes spirit says, I will not
Speaker 2: let you be abused one second long because a life
Speaker 2: is easy to replace, a soul is a little harder,
Speaker 2: So you know what I'm saying to you. So I
Speaker 2: feel like those were taken from us to preserve what
Speaker 2: they were and for further service. Because the angels recycle.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like only twelve these motherfuckers and they
Speaker 2: play all the roles they're necessary play is MENI roles
Speaker 2: needed like traveling Shakespearean troupe, where this time you're the dad,
Speaker 2: next time imbi popper. But we all travel together because
Speaker 2: we all know each other and we all trust each
Speaker 2: other to play these roles for us. So I have
Speaker 2: no doubt that me and Michael were very, very very close,
Speaker 2: and that's perhaps why he fucked my shit up, because
Speaker 2: it was in so doing he spared my life. And
Speaker 2: I'm able now to have this conversation twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: with you, another person whose life has been greatly touched
Speaker 2: by the magic Joll's geniuses laid down by the way.
Speaker 2: I also am happy to hear that you I had
Speaker 2: some influence because when you guys first came through, it
Speaker 2: was same with Erica. You're not always sure if it's
Speaker 2: your vanity or your pride, but sometimes you can feel
Speaker 2: like when your spirit is a part of somebody else,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be anything specific, it's just a
Speaker 2: vibe and you go like, yeah, I think these guys
Speaker 2: might have been listening to my records, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. You think it's always really short, and when
Speaker 2: you find out that yes, there is a family, and we,
Speaker 2: like I said before, we do travel together, and we
Speaker 2: perform the works and the miracles that we're here to perform,
Speaker 2: and we pack up the caravan and we move on
Speaker 2: to the next performance.
Speaker 1: I swear to God man if allowed to at least
Speaker 1: refer to that other non diplume of yours, which was
Speaker 1: e G. O'Reilly, like I was your number one disciple,
Speaker 1: like literally for that. My closing question is your rebirth
Speaker 1: with angels and vampires. Yes, where you're on your own
Speaker 1: and you're out of the system. Can you just walk
Speaker 1: me through kind of your caterpillar to butterfly transition to
Speaker 1: where you are now? Because the thing was is that
Speaker 1: I just thought after well, Vibrator Wildcart was the last
Speaker 1: Sony record Vibrator Vibrator Okay. So Wildcourt was your first
Speaker 1: project on your own correst okay, And.
Speaker 2: It was actually created, It was created. This is an
Speaker 2: interesting story if I can. Yes, it was created for
Speaker 2: capital because I had ten years I had spent trying
Speaker 2: to get off of the Sony arrangement. The English had
Speaker 2: let me go. The Americans had been hanging on to it,
Speaker 2: but the English were very reluctant. It was a messy situation,
Speaker 2: but finally I got out of it. Then I was
Speaker 2: supposed to do Sam Cook that the family. I was
Speaker 2: extremely flat aby the family said that was the only
Speaker 2: person they wanted to play Sam. But I couldn't wrap
Speaker 2: my head around the fact that I don't care how
Speaker 2: flattered I am that you think my voice can replace Sam.
Speaker 2: If the movie is about a legend, why would you
Speaker 2: not want to expose his voice? And I also knew that,
Speaker 2: and Sony had made the mistake of saying to my
Speaker 2: manager at the time, why is he coming all this
Speaker 2: in their minds, all this innovative shit. All he has
Speaker 2: to do is make Sam Cook records and we'll promote
Speaker 2: him for life.
Speaker 1: Shut up and sing and make the hits and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as much as I idolized Sam Cook, I
Speaker 2: don't want to be buried in his grave. And those
Speaker 2: things can be pyodic victories where you have success. Direcord
Speaker 2: Company pushes it. And now every gig you show up,
Speaker 2: if you don't do some Sam shit, you know they're
Speaker 2: yelling at you're throwing shoes, right, So it was a
Speaker 2: tough decision. But then I had been approached to play
Speaker 2: Sam in the Muhammad Ali film. So I had agreed
Speaker 2: because Michael Mann had really talked me into it. The director.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of time for him, Michael, and
Speaker 2: I was going to do it. And then I get
Speaker 2: a call from Michael Mann saying do me a favor.
Speaker 2: This was a couple days before I was supposed to
Speaker 2: start shooting. He said, I needed to talk to Tommy
Speaker 2: Mottola because Tommy Mottola is trying to fuck with the
Speaker 2: soundtrack because I didn't know that they had the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: So basically I had spent ten years trying to get
Speaker 2: away from Tommy Mottola in that situation, only to find
Speaker 2: out the last minute that if I had song on
Speaker 2: the soundtrack, it would have belonged to Sony and Tommy
Speaker 2: get me to sign another option that he wasn't going
Speaker 2: to release the soundtrack rights to the film until I
Speaker 2: did something for him, And so I basically said to
Speaker 2: Michael Man, I said, well, I thank you very much
Speaker 2: for this opportunity. I would rather go to hell, literally
Speaker 2: with gas strapped to my back than than to deal
Speaker 2: with this guy again. So I bout out of the film.
Speaker 1: Do you believe when I think he said this in
Speaker 1: this book? But before I read his book. He was
Speaker 1: a guest on The Tonight Show, and you know, just
Speaker 1: casual three minute conversation, you know, I kind of always
Speaker 1: ask like, is there an artist that got away or
Speaker 1: like a regret or something like that, and he said
Speaker 1: that it wasn't close to like we could have done
Speaker 1: done better by him. Yeah, but he kind of and
Speaker 1: he said in a very non industry you know, when
Speaker 1: someone has a prepared answer, I.
Speaker 2: Move that you say that, because I get my guides
Speaker 2: if you will. My spirit tells me all the time
Speaker 2: that there was a price that everyone had to pay
Speaker 2: who consciously went into it knowing that they were trying
Speaker 2: because they got caught up to try to teach me
Speaker 2: a lesson. It was like, plus, the other young ones
Speaker 2: are watching, so we have to use him as an
Speaker 2: example of you know, don't cross us. We're the biggest
Speaker 2: record corporation in the world. You do. And you know,
Speaker 2: CBS Columbia were, relative to that situation, a bit more
Speaker 2: left liberal and artist friendly. Sony came in with a real,
Speaker 2: if not necessarily politically right wing attitude, socially right wing.
Speaker 2: The artists do what the fuck we tell them, you know,
Speaker 2: listen to the artists. We're not mow Austin a Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: This isn't right. You know, we're not virgin records. The
Speaker 2: artist listens to Sony, we tell them, So it started
Speaker 2: off the wrong foot. There was also the fact that
Speaker 2: like were going back to the official flesh. If I
Speaker 2: could go back and do it over again, I would
Speaker 2: probably delay the release by six months because it fell
Speaker 2: in the cuffs between the old regime leaving and being
Speaker 2: taken over by the new incoming Sony regime. So it
Speaker 2: was also one of those situations where the timing. Nothing
Speaker 2: about that situation was friendly. But as I said to you,
Speaker 2: Paul Russell went run. The English company had already told
Speaker 2: me to expect some different shit. But here's also another
Speaker 2: reality question that most guys people don't realize, artists don't realize.
Speaker 2: And your manager for sure is not going to tell you.
Speaker 2: So you go back and you renegotiate your contract. Now
Speaker 2: you get what you should have gotten in the first place,
Speaker 2: as far as you're concerned. But what you don't realize
Speaker 2: is that part of the reason your record was so
Speaker 2: enticing is because they got it for nothing. I was
Speaker 2: signed at the lowest legally binding contract. I was literally
Speaker 2: thirty thousand pounds was the lowest limit that I got
Speaker 2: signed at the time, might have been fifty forty grand
Speaker 2: forty dollars, And so what I didn't realize is it
Speaker 2: was all gravy. We didn't spend a lot on the
Speaker 2: record because the record was pretty much me re recording
Speaker 2: the demos, and so it was just all found money.
Speaker 2: What they don't tell you is you come back now
Speaker 2: you're making serious, serious boom boom. They got to share
Speaker 2: a lot more at overhead. And now I realize to
Speaker 2: get that same money they got before, this is how
Speaker 2: much they're gonna have to spend to get there. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: what they're gambling on is that, as you've alluded to before,
Speaker 2: there's a new group, a new act that's on their
Speaker 2: first deal. That this is why in the NFL they
Speaker 2: try to maximize that rookie quarterback contract to get the team,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever they need. And it's the same. So
Speaker 2: your manager's not gonna say, no, I'm gonna forfit this
Speaker 2: big alimony check you're about to give me the pass
Speaker 2: it on to my situation. I'm gonna you shouldn't do this.
Speaker 2: You should stay on the same thing, but you should
Speaker 2: instead just up your points. They don't tell you that
Speaker 2: that basically you can become a victim of your success.
Speaker 2: Where among the other machinations that were happening around it,
Speaker 2: the perfect storm that I walked into, you've basically made
Speaker 2: yourself less financially viable and exploitative simply because you're getting
Speaker 2: now a bigger piece of the pie for you.
Speaker 1: What is a good takeaway? Because I know they're pros,
Speaker 1: and I know that they're cons to the situation.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me just say this about
Speaker 2: the Tommy regime. First of all, I was a yetnikov guy.
Speaker 2: I idolized Walter Yetnikoff because I grew up reading books
Speaker 2: that backed into I grew up reading Billboard magazine in
Speaker 2: the school library, and not even walti yet Nicoff. So
Speaker 2: I knew he was. I knew his storm, I knew
Speaker 2: his history. I knew he had succeeded Clive Davis. He
Speaker 2: was a rock star to me. We hit it off
Speaker 2: like he was my Brooklyn Jewish uncle. He was that dude.
Speaker 2: He was moved that I spoke Yiddish, that in the German.
Speaker 2: We just had a vibe that he just never had.
Speaker 2: Now here's the irony. It did occur to me later
Speaker 2: that once again it could have been because of Michael
Speaker 2: and getting Michael's attention that Walter decided to really pushed
Speaker 2: me because I was I had broken all over the world.
Speaker 2: And to be fair to Tommy Matola, he wasn't that
Speaker 2: enthusiastic about me at any point in my career. He
Speaker 2: just thought I was his hype. So really, well, he
Speaker 2: wasn't a big no. He was never there. He always
Speaker 2: thought Walter was over indulging me, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: That was Walter's guy, not my guy. So okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And plus when he took over, see the thing
Speaker 2: is between again my first and second records, Walter was
Speaker 2: in rehab. So Walter was in Minnesota drying out at
Speaker 2: John Hopkins. The Japanese get a call from Tarry Mottola. Hey,
Speaker 2: your boy's coked out of his mind. He's in reality,
Speaker 2: he's loose mining the store. Me, Tarry Mattola, I'm minding
Speaker 2: the store. Basically, Mattola was yet Nikoll's fined. He was
Speaker 2: his lieutenant. He was the one who put him in
Speaker 2: that situation. So when Motola turned around and did what
Speaker 2: he did to basically bust yet Nikov that got the
Speaker 2: Japanese to replace him. From that point anyway, I was
Speaker 2: I'm a loyal dude. I mean, that was my guy man, right,
Speaker 2: and now you want me to switch my loyalty to you.
Speaker 2: And you wear like short black socks with your like
Speaker 2: hair sticking out between your pants leg and your socks
Speaker 2: and shit, looking like some southern black dudes from the fifties.
Speaker 2: And I remember him giving me a letter, a little
Speaker 2: letter that Michael had written to me to get gave
Speaker 2: to him to give to me, and I could already
Speaker 2: see the writing on the wall, okay, because Tommy would
Speaker 2: have still had to have support from somebody artists to
Speaker 2: get the Japanese to part ways with Yetnikov, because that
Speaker 2: was Yetnikov's strongest suit, his relationships with the artists. So basically,
Speaker 2: you know, once he had secured a certain group of
Speaker 2: artists support, he didn't. I was expendable. I was expendable
Speaker 2: to cause, as they would say. But so in all
Speaker 2: fairness to him, we never really hit it off. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, when I saw what he did
Speaker 2: to Walter, I just thought, Nah, this guy gives me
Speaker 2: the he used to say in German, gives me the agel.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel comfortable with him, and of course he
Speaker 2: fell out with Michael later as well. All that, but
Speaker 2: my take on it was this, that regime that featured
Speaker 2: Donnie Einer, Michelle Anthony, those three, they were the three
Speaker 2: big hanchos. I was struck by how they had bigger
Speaker 2: egos than the artists, that they wanted to be the
Speaker 2: rock stars, and in fact that was the journal With
Speaker 2: all due respect to him because he's worked his ass
Speaker 2: off and I know he's a great musician, but Randy
Speaker 2: Jackson belonged to that whole regime as well, and then
Speaker 2: Randy wound up being bigger as a celebrity, you know.
Speaker 2: So the point is, but that was the ethos that
Speaker 2: I was dealing with, that I had never had a
Speaker 2: meeting with Donnie Einer. Well, this motherfucker wasn't talking more
Speaker 2: about himself and what he had done, then why we
Speaker 2: were there to have the meeting in the first place.
Speaker 2: And Michelle used to take me for limo rides when
Speaker 2: I would come to New York from London and just
Speaker 2: impress upon me how important a jewel I was in
Speaker 2: the crown. The sony crown, right, So one point I
Speaker 2: get annoyed. Will hear her saying this? And I said, well, Michelle,
Speaker 2: which one of the diamonds am I? And by one
Speaker 2: of them like pave diamonds on the back, you know
Speaker 2: that gets caught underneath the neck like you can't see
Speaker 2: them because the neck hairs, the nappy hairs get all
Speaker 2: like you mean, I'm that part of the crown, you know?
Speaker 2: Or am I one of these jewels at the middle
Speaker 2: where no matter what your hair looks like, you can
Speaker 2: see that's this motherfucker right here, you know. And it's
Speaker 2: point she got embarrassed and stopped dropping Atlanta because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to hear that. Right, They didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do with me, and no matter in which Walch did,
Speaker 2: but what they did that different than Walter was Walters.
Speaker 2: I trust this guy's Benji. He just proved something out
Speaker 2: of nowhere to left field. I had Doug Morris, who
Speaker 2: used to run Atlantic, who up until that point when
Speaker 2: he was trying to talk me to come in with
Speaker 2: his company, he said, I had been in the business
Speaker 2: for forty years. I've never seen anybody, even Elvis, Nobody
Speaker 2: came through the way you did. He said, yeah, well
Speaker 2: I pay for that because it freaked people out, and
Speaker 2: so I had to answer for all of that. And then,
Speaker 2: like I said, when they find out that you're not
Speaker 2: interested in just representing a bunch of bullshit, they're not
Speaker 2: going to be comfortable sharing their power with you because
Speaker 2: they can see who you are and nobody's trying to
Speaker 2: upset the status quo. That's not their job. So it's
Speaker 2: not like I don't understand. It's not like I can't
Speaker 2: come to terms with the fact that I was an
Speaker 2: inconvenient man for the time and the place. But I
Speaker 2: did what spirit asked me to do. I laid the
Speaker 2: seeds in the ground, and I'm still reaping the whorldwind
Speaker 2: and the benefits of them close to forty years later.
Speaker 2: And it's what allows me to talk to you and
Speaker 2: have this conversation without having had to sell more than
Speaker 2: I was capable of remanifesting, if you will.
Speaker 1: What's your relationship with the material? Though, like, because there's
Speaker 1: two sides of you and is a Burnham sum of
Speaker 1: a fan is yelling out like.
Speaker 2: No, no c or seven more. You know, at this point,
Speaker 2: at this point, about five or six, seven years ago,
Speaker 2: I opened the whole thing back up. It was imperative
Speaker 2: upon me to lock out that part and focus on
Speaker 2: growing the garden of post millium Rock. The other guarden
Speaker 2: didn't need my help. They already had a major corporation
Speaker 2: who co sponsors those first four records with me. They
Speaker 2: were taking care of that. I didn't have to do
Speaker 2: that work. I just had to work the fields that
Speaker 2: I was preparing for where I am now. So for
Speaker 2: a long time I made every sacrifice necessary to not
Speaker 2: burden people with that reality that you're coming to see
Speaker 2: me under a false impression. I made it clear even
Speaker 2: the venues that I chose to play were deliberately intended
Speaker 2: that I didn't have to feel extra burden of pressure
Speaker 2: to sell out a place ten thousand people or whatever.
Speaker 2: If you know, I can only realistically get, you know,
Speaker 2: five hundred people in this place based on what this
Speaker 2: town is based on this blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: I'm more than willing to do that while taking advantage
Speaker 2: of the fact that the first time around, I didn't
Speaker 2: spend enough time in these places anyway. So it was
Speaker 2: kind of a way for me to kill two birds
Speaker 2: at one stone. But then of course the time when
Speaker 2: even Sony came back and said, we already if you
Speaker 2: were willing to work with us and collaborate with us
Speaker 2: on your first four projects that we co own with you,
Speaker 2: we are willing to do whatever it is that you
Speaker 2: deem necessary. And I said, well, the message has been consistent.
Speaker 2: You change everything to annda my fare, or I have
Speaker 2: no interest in working against my own interest. You know
Speaker 2: that's already been established. So we came to those conclusions.
Speaker 2: The bottom line of changing it was simple. At some
Speaker 2: point you realize that the name you created, the identity
Speaker 2: that you've created, you don't want anymore. And when you're
Speaker 2: going through these struggles with them, they were never an
Speaker 2: artist friendly company, the ones that I had these tumultuous
Speaker 2: dealings with. So they let you know, hey, you're just
Speaker 2: that's our property, and we're not the vision you have
Speaker 2: of postmanin and rock. That's not black artists music that
Speaker 2: we the way we see and we want to support you.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is any industry, whether it's a
Speaker 2: film industry or music industry, is going to be hard
Speaker 2: pressed to promote and continue to promote what they don't
Speaker 2: think they can easily replace. So if you're if you're
Speaker 2: seen as a paradigm shifter. Fine, that's all well and
Speaker 2: good from the artistic side of it. But from the
Speaker 2: industry out of it. Can we duplicate this monk and
Speaker 2: we now mint and print this bitch? If you can't,
Speaker 2: it's not in their best interest, you know, for them
Speaker 2: to promote Citizen King as a film when they've got
Speaker 2: nothing else the next two years in their catalog, in
Speaker 2: the pipeline that looks anything like Citizen King. So you
Speaker 2: learn all these lessons, and you learn that if you
Speaker 2: want to go forward after two years of meditation, where
Speaker 2: I was in a state of dissociation in order to survive,
Speaker 2: where to the point where if you called me that
Speaker 2: old name, it might take a few seconds for me
Speaker 2: to register that you were actually talking to me. In
Speaker 2: meditations and prayers, I asked the way forward, and I
Speaker 2: was given in a series of dreams. I'm a pis
Speaker 2: sing and I've always placed a lot of stocking dreams
Speaker 2: in a series of dreams. Three to be exact, I
Speaker 2: kept hearing the name Sananda called out by a group
Speaker 2: of angels that I were always traveling behind, walking behind.
Speaker 2: By the third time, this name, which was in every
Speaker 2: dream to me like this is Solanda. I would always
Speaker 2: look around like, hey, who's Sonanda. Who's going to answer
Speaker 2: to this? The third time was the time where I realized,
Speaker 2: oh shit, I'm Sonanda. I'm Sonanda. That's me. And literally
Speaker 2: the angels who would never who never faced me in
Speaker 2: any of the three dreams, literally turned around and faced
Speaker 2: me and started applauding life. Ah, there you gets it.
Speaker 2: And that was the beginning of that. That was and
Speaker 2: I was given, you know, to understand, if you have
Speaker 2: the courage of heart to take this, this is the
Speaker 2: answer you've been waiting for, looking for, and it will
Speaker 2: even resurrect the other name that they're now suppressing to
Speaker 2: keep control of you. So that was the path I
Speaker 2: had to take. I was ridiculed, of course, as you
Speaker 2: as you would expect. I was. So that was absolutely nuts.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, just because I'm nuts doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's not a great idea.
Speaker 1: How hard was that transition professionally speaking? Because I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know you existed until two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: you know, So I was wondering, like, wait, what happened
Speaker 1: between ninety four? Like where's he?
Speaker 2: I had to give you time to do your other shit,
Speaker 2: because you were playing your foundation for a culture that
Speaker 2: you're just a very, very huge part of. Okay, but look,
Speaker 2: the bottom line was, for a long time, I had
Speaker 2: to dissociate myself with that life, that world. So I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to be performing those songs anyway, got it.
Speaker 2: Creating a new catalog gave me something to do. For
Speaker 2: eight years, I was in a trio. I've still played
Speaker 2: everything myself on the record, but I went for a trio,
Speaker 2: which means that I arranged everything with a view towards
Speaker 2: when you play this live, you're just gonna have three instruments.
Speaker 2: As an arranger, that was a great, great challenge. I
Speaker 2: loved it. Arrangers loved Now you got right for twelve pieces,
Speaker 2: Now you got right for four pieces. You know, we
Speaker 2: love that.
Speaker 1: At one point, weren't you Were you considering being the
Speaker 1: new front man of n X or was that just
Speaker 1: a one off thing or that it.
Speaker 2: Was another very interesting story that came about because I
Speaker 2: had heard a rumor from a couple of people, Hey,
Speaker 2: what's this about you joining Excess? I had absolutely no
Speaker 2: idea whether this even started. Okay, it was in addressing
Speaker 2: the rumor through the media that they heard that I
Speaker 2: was saying or that they got the idea to ask
Speaker 2: if I would do it. So it was actually me
Speaker 2: the It was while I was debunking rumor that in
Speaker 2: the process of debunking the room, and they heard the
Speaker 2: rumor and then said, here, let's take a gamble and
Speaker 2: ask if you'll do it. I was very good, good
Speaker 2: friends with Mike Hutchins, Michael Hutchins, and so yeah, that's
Speaker 2: how that happened. It was strange. And then of course
Speaker 2: we did the opening of the Olympic Stadium in Sydney
Speaker 2: in the year two thousand and that's what led them
Speaker 2: to invite me the next year to be Jesus and
Speaker 2: god Spell. And I was really excited about that because
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, I grew up doing gospel
Speaker 2: in junior high school, so I knew that like the
Speaker 2: back of my hand, and they asked me to play
Speaker 2: the Jesus character. I was like, dude, that's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: the Australians loved these bitches. Yeah, man, it's about time,
Speaker 2: because you know, I always felt like he probably looked closer
Speaker 2: to me than he did to Chris Sarandon or whoever
Speaker 2: plays motherfucking the movies anyway, when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: you know. But the irony is the very day I
Speaker 2: was meant to get on the plane, the producer and
Speaker 2: the director got into a huge fight because the director
Speaker 2: had prompted, in order to get me on board, promised
Speaker 2: I could contribute a song to the situation, to give
Speaker 2: me another song to sing, and they were already problems
Speaker 2: doing But I guess that was the straw that broke
Speaker 2: the camels back. And literally got a call an hour
Speaker 2: before I was going to leave for the airport that
Speaker 2: they had postponed it until they sorted out all this
Speaker 2: other stuff, which by which when I had moved on.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that rumor was true, and that rumor led
Speaker 2: to some other stuff, and then eventually they asked if
Speaker 2: I want to be a permanent member. But that was
Speaker 2: in the very beginning of me going into the transition
Speaker 2: full time in earnest and realized it wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: in my best interest to have lent my energy to that.
Speaker 1: So the way you create now is it when the
Speaker 1: spirit moves you, or like, are you your your final say?
Speaker 1: Are you your boss? Are you like okay? Are you
Speaker 1: in an ideal place now creatively.
Speaker 2: I've been in an ideal place creatively since the very
Speaker 2: very beginning, because I was spoiled that I've always had
Speaker 2: creative control and the first record was the only time
Speaker 2: I've ever even made demos. But my answers is like this,
Speaker 2: I'm sixty two years old. I've been doing this my
Speaker 2: entire life. Else should I be listening to? But but me,
Speaker 2: I I've always believed in my taste as an artist,
Speaker 2: meaning that you know, if I can tell someone else
Speaker 2: has made great music. I don't see why all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it's impossible for me to know that I've
Speaker 2: done something tasteful or or captured something. It is just.
Speaker 2: It is just and the energy that I inherited back
Speaker 2: into the process of creating when I no longer have
Speaker 2: to defend myself and answer questions, why are you starting
Speaker 2: the wild card with this? This kind of banjo? We
Speaker 2: kind of why why are you doing why? I just
Speaker 2: got time all that. Look.
Speaker 1: I love when you go dirty, like the dirtier shit
Speaker 1: dound the most, the SETTI just drums untuned. I love
Speaker 1: that shit like, yeah, I love it soone look, brother,
Speaker 1: I cannot emphasize enough how much of a profound I
Speaker 1: didn't even get into you did a show the CA
Speaker 1: had me in music one night in Philadelphia and I'm
Speaker 1: walking home from school and only because I know the baseline,
Speaker 1: like the back of my hand, your band is soundchecking
Speaker 1: Wiki Wacky by Fat Back Band. Yeah, because I heard
Speaker 1: that booby doo boom boooo, boom boom boom boom boom
Speaker 1: b And there was half a second where like one
Speaker 1: of the side doors was open at the Academy of
Speaker 1: Music and me like, I'm walking home from school and
Speaker 1: you guys are sound checking at the Academy of Music.
Speaker 1: I went to perform an art school like across the
Speaker 1: street from that school and would often walk by it.
Speaker 1: And I didn't even know the Fat Back version that well,
Speaker 1: but I knew that baseline and watching you guys for
Speaker 1: like three minutes, like and then security kick this out,
Speaker 1: but we snuck in the sound check. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was such a profound effect on my life and of
Speaker 1: And I know I sound like a broken record on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I've been doing this for seven years. I've
Speaker 1: I've I didn't know this is the interview I always
Speaker 1: wanted in this ideal situation, and I thank you so
Speaker 1: much for granting me the one man audience to just
Speaker 1: nerd out and give you your flowers.
Speaker 2: Man, I really appreciate the opportunity. When you your people
Speaker 2: contacted us a few weeks ago, I was really like
Speaker 2: it was a kind of feeling like finally, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like, you know, I see you, I
Speaker 2: see you. I swear it.
Speaker 1: I just didn't think you knew, Like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: you all over the place, but I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I think when you're in it, you're not like.
Speaker 2: No, I'm into the culture. I mean basically I should
Speaker 2: own shares on YouTube this moment at this point. So
Speaker 2: you know, whatever you're doing, you know, I'm catching it.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing it, you know. And the fact that you
Speaker 2: got the gig with Falling and all of that, man,
Speaker 2: it's just like, you know, your your imprint has been huge.
Speaker 2: Your footprint has been huge, and we've really really needed
Speaker 2: it because that thing you established, which was kind of
Speaker 2: in its own way, you taking over from who are
Speaker 2: we referencing before that whole whoever we were we were
Speaker 2: referencing before that, they basically had a whole thing. You
Speaker 2: also put out an umbrella and brought in a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff that you nurtured and was really really important
Speaker 2: for the culture. And I just I just thank you,
Speaker 2: I just really do because you've made excellent, excellent music
Speaker 2: and work. The productions are an excellent you know, and
Speaker 2: I want you to pass on my love to a
Speaker 2: young brother D'Angelo and to Erica as well.
Speaker 1: The's gonna be my first phone call like right after now,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just bursting as.
Speaker 2: I'm particularly I'm proud of him, and you know that
Speaker 2: he's He's everything you kind of suspected he had in
Speaker 2: him when you first heard Brown Sugar. He's definitely going
Speaker 2: beyond that. And like I said, he's even got Scandinavian
Speaker 2: bitches and in Sweden talking about how probably are of him.
Speaker 2: So you know, just past okay, and I want us
Speaker 2: to stay in contact. We know we might do this.
Speaker 1: We will. I'll slide in your d MS and give
Speaker 1: you my information. Brother. Thank you for listening to Quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme Coast by Amir quest Love Thompson. Why You
Speaker 1: Saint Clair Fonte, Coleman, Sugar, Steve Mande, An unpaid Bill Sherman,
Speaker 1: executive producers are a mere Quest Love Thompson, Sean che
Speaker 1: Brian Calhoun produced by Britney Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne. Why
Speaker 1: is Saint Clair? Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart
Speaker 1: by Noel Brown. Much Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.