Speaker 1: And Money. We all take val. We are the authority
Speaker 1: R and B. I'm just starting off with the closs clap,
Speaker 1: starting off with the class. We don't started show off
Speaker 1: with the clown. I don't know, we don't do it,
Speaker 1: but talking to didn't clap. But my name is Dank,
Speaker 1: I'm Jay Valentine and this is R and B Money,
Speaker 1: The arm by Money Podcast is the authority kind nobody
Speaker 1: say say, nobody saying that, but we are no the
Speaker 1: official authority on all things. Are in a god boy,
Speaker 1: we would. We're having a building um, and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna labor long the intro. I'm just gonna say, the
Speaker 1: greatest singer, songwriter producer of all times, all times, all times,
Speaker 1: it's the Kinneth baby Face Edmonds in the building. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I like who y'all talking about. You know who we're
Speaker 1: talking about. You're walking here with that kind of sweater,
Speaker 1: and I know who got label owner label Yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta gotta. It's gotta sound better than the Lady Mogul.
Speaker 1: I mean we are, we are following in giant footsteps.
Speaker 1: You understand what I'm saying. And so this moment right
Speaker 1: here is like um surreal and in real life and
Speaker 1: we've we've we've we've had our moments in our relationship
Speaker 1: for a long time. But um, for you to come
Speaker 1: here and sit with us, man, we are I mean
Speaker 1: truly beyond honored. Well, I was honored to come and
Speaker 1: see with you guys. Thank you, bank you. Why why
Speaker 1: wouldn't I I'm a major fan so and have been
Speaker 1: for years. But you know that, sir, So it's a
Speaker 1: I think it's wonderful what you guys are doing and
Speaker 1: what you do and what you bring to the culture
Speaker 1: and to R and B and keeping in your lives.
Speaker 1: It's it never died in the first place. So and
Speaker 1: uh so I'm honored to be here. I want to
Speaker 1: start off with a story and then we'll come we'll
Speaker 1: get into the the nuts and bolts and the nicks
Speaker 1: and crannies. Um, you called me one day and you said, Tank,
Speaker 1: I'm doing a Christmas party pretty you know, pretty huge
Speaker 1: deal for some cool people, and I'm going to play
Speaker 1: and sing, and I'd like you to play for me
Speaker 1: and sing as well. And excuse me. The way I
Speaker 1: translated that to my mom was baby Face just called me.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm the greatest. He said, I'm the most
Speaker 1: special artist, singer, songwriter, producer he's ever seen in his life.
Speaker 1: And he can't do this without me. That's how it translated.
Speaker 1: Don't or if that um And he's the baby, I'm
Speaker 1: the face. That's basically what he said. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the story I told. And so we
Speaker 1: get into rehearsal over at the amazing studio that we
Speaker 1: should have a room in and we should have a
Speaker 1: room there, and and and I don't know why. I'm
Speaker 1: a pocket I'm a pocket player when it comes to,
Speaker 1: you know, being a musician playing people. I'm a pocket guy.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that holds down the fort. It's always
Speaker 1: been my role in a in a band since I
Speaker 1: was a kid. And for some reason, I just felt
Speaker 1: the need to dazzle you with my with my piano
Speaker 1: and takes and my dexterity and all of my information
Speaker 1: within the one key you had me playing it. And
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just tickling the ivory while you're you're singing,
Speaker 1: and you're just kind of looking like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking it's like, yeah, he's killing it. I'm thinking that's
Speaker 1: the look you're giving me. And then finally you're like, God,
Speaker 1: we said bah, right, right, do the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: then you look at me You're like, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think less of you more of me. And
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, yeah, that's the that's a that's about rights.
Speaker 1: That's what you heard. Remember that, those those were the
Speaker 1: real words. But even in that moment, man, it was
Speaker 1: like you know, it was school was in session pretty much,
Speaker 1: and we got there and we did that event, man,
Speaker 1: and I think I saw Dustin Hoffman. I was like,
Speaker 1: where are we? And I appreciate you, but just even
Speaker 1: thinking of me in that moment, man, and not firing
Speaker 1: me that you weren't fired. There were that night. There
Speaker 1: was Warren Batty, there was a Barbra Streis saying, uh,
Speaker 1: everybody was in that audience. And I have to tell
Speaker 1: you that, um, because I've done it a couple of
Speaker 1: times with them, because I'm a friend of Carol Bear Sager,
Speaker 1: that's who we did the party for it. So but
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that to this day, Um,
Speaker 1: they still talk about that night that you performed and
Speaker 1: how beautiful your rendition of the Christmas song that we
Speaker 1: don't remember which Christmas song we did, but um, they
Speaker 1: still Carol still talks about whoever that guy was, he
Speaker 1: had the most amazing voice, and I said, that's why
Speaker 1: I brought him, because the emotion that these things with,
Speaker 1: it's not just not just moving the notes, but it's
Speaker 1: how you approach it. And from from being able to
Speaker 1: say sing any word or or any lyric, if the
Speaker 1: melody and the emotions out there, then you can just
Speaker 1: write right, you know, go right back by you. And
Speaker 1: you did not disappoint that night. I still get browning
Speaker 1: points from years ago from bringing you to that spot,
Speaker 1: so I appreciate a little more you. It's about you.
Speaker 1: I don't remember saying those works more me. That's not
Speaker 1: even in my vocabulary more me. But that's how you
Speaker 1: heard it. I probably I probably just said maybe don't
Speaker 1: play as much, and you took it as like you no,
Speaker 1: brother face, you definitely say no, that's how you remember those.
Speaker 1: Those words aren't in my vocabulary more me. We were
Speaker 1: in a very complied face. I understand, I understand, but
Speaker 1: more met. So again, when I tell this story, he's
Speaker 1: the baby on the face. I'm the greatest ever. Um
Speaker 1: we we we we love to we love to start
Speaker 1: at the beginning, face like we love to say or
Speaker 1: love to ask, when was the first time someone said
Speaker 1: to you or that you realized that you had something special,
Speaker 1: something special? The gift. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: thought of it as a gift. It's just something that
Speaker 1: you do in terms of like even just picking up
Speaker 1: a guitar and then and then kind of singing and
Speaker 1: doing it kind of just what comes natural, not necessarily
Speaker 1: being a piano star guitarist, just kind of like learning
Speaker 1: enough to play to accompany myself. UM, singing in um
Speaker 1: m hm um in high school, like when I was
Speaker 1: in sixth grade, we had a singing group in sixth grade. Um,
Speaker 1: nobody else could sing, but she still had a group.
Speaker 1: It was like give me in the hole still, Michael Trust,
Speaker 1: Teddy Gaines and um, um McClure something Larry McLure and uh,
Speaker 1: and we sung. We sung Smokey Robinson's uh saw you
Speaker 1: there m in front of our our class and um
Speaker 1: and I'm a Girl Watcher and those were two songs
Speaker 1: that we were singing right there and exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We tried to get We tried to get Kim Cunningham
Speaker 1: to walk by when you do the whistle farce, She
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that. I still remember these names. I know
Speaker 1: the names are there. But so that was the first
Speaker 1: time we stood in front of the I stood in
Speaker 1: front of the crowd, the class, and they thought we sucked,
Speaker 1: So I won't say that. I felt like I had
Speaker 1: a gift at that point. Um. And then the second
Speaker 1: time that I remember standing in front of an actual
Speaker 1: audience was at my brother's high school. Melvin he was
Speaker 1: he had a group at the time called the Soul
Speaker 1: Innovations and they were there was a good band, and uh,
Speaker 1: they were going to do this homecoming thing and right
Speaker 1: the Jackson five had just come out, so you had
Speaker 1: I Want You Back and Who's Loving You? And they
Speaker 1: wanted to do one of those songs, but nobody had
Speaker 1: the voice, so we had to. So Melan brought myself
Speaker 1: and Kevin in the living room two you know, go
Speaker 1: for who could sing Mike's part, Michael's part, and so
Speaker 1: we had to sing Who's Loving You? And Cavn sing first,
Speaker 1: and he walked out room and I came and sang,
Speaker 1: and unbeknownst to me, I won. And I would not
Speaker 1: win with giving on today period because given voices, crazy
Speaker 1: super high, super high, crazy and um but um, I won,
Speaker 1: and so I got to go sing at the home
Speaker 1: coming and I got to sing Who's Loving You? And
Speaker 1: this was like, I'm in sixth grade at this point,
Speaker 1: we sing my high school girl. High school girls were
Speaker 1: scared to death. But um but I I know. They
Speaker 1: used to play I want you back. When I walked
Speaker 1: up to the stage, they would play I want you back.
Speaker 1: And I remember just being so nervous and so scared
Speaker 1: that when I hear when I would hear that and
Speaker 1: walking up there. And I walked up there and sung
Speaker 1: the song, and you know, people gave me love and
Speaker 1: and I can't believe that I actually did that because
Speaker 1: I was way too shy to everything. I could do
Speaker 1: anything like that and to this. For the longest time,
Speaker 1: every time I would hear I Want you Back, I
Speaker 1: get nervous again. Nervous. It's like, you know, just this thing.
Speaker 1: They would kick you off, like oh, and then your
Speaker 1: heart starts going. And every now and then, if it
Speaker 1: hits me right, you could do the same thing. But
Speaker 1: that first time, I'm just getting on the stage. So
Speaker 1: did I feel special? I don't know that I felt
Speaker 1: special yet then neither um until a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: this kid I'm named Emmanuel came up to my house
Speaker 1: knocking on the door. I asked, my mom, just a
Speaker 1: kid that sounds just like Michael Jackson, but only better
Speaker 1: live here and live here in this house. Because he
Speaker 1: was trying to start a band. And so the rumor
Speaker 1: was there was his kid that sung just like Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: but only a little better, you know, and was out,
Speaker 1: and so he came to see if, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I could join the group. At that point, my voice
Speaker 1: had changed, you know, and I couldn't sing like Michael anymore.
Speaker 1: And uh, I went an audition for them, and they
Speaker 1: laughed at me because I had and had the voice anymore.
Speaker 1: But I could write songs. And I had a little
Speaker 1: song that I wrote, and I started singing this when
Speaker 1: I wrote, And then the dad came down upstairs and said,
Speaker 1: who's that singing? And he goes up, whoever that is,
Speaker 1: y'all need to y'all need to get him, because he
Speaker 1: better than all y'all. So then I got in the group.
Speaker 1: At that point, to the father, sometimes you ain't got it,
Speaker 1: he got maybe you can manage you. So, but all throughout,
Speaker 1: when you sit there and ask the question when you
Speaker 1: feel like you have a gift, I don't know that
Speaker 1: when when your basic personality is being humble and not
Speaker 1: not not being about you, you don't ever think of
Speaker 1: it as a gift till till much later to where
Speaker 1: you where everybody recognizes what you've done and you and
Speaker 1: you look back at and you say, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I thank God that I had this gift. But I
Speaker 1: wasn't walking around thinking that I had something. I just
Speaker 1: was doing what I love to do. Um, and it
Speaker 1: was and it came natural for me to do it,
Speaker 1: and I always wanted to be better. I didn't never
Speaker 1: felt like I was the best at everything. Uh. I
Speaker 1: always felt like I had to work harder. I didn't
Speaker 1: try to be you know, to to compete with other people.
Speaker 1: But I never felt like I was like the best
Speaker 1: one in the room. Wow. So so you're going through
Speaker 1: high school and are you are you making records at
Speaker 1: this time that you you know, you can write, you
Speaker 1: know you can sing, you got the instrumentation. See that's
Speaker 1: a different time. That's like, you know, um, back then
Speaker 1: when I was going to you weren't really making records
Speaker 1: at that point, and you weren't even doing demos. You
Speaker 1: had to get in the studio, and that was a
Speaker 1: real unreally, that wasn't reality to get in this to
Speaker 1: you know, you could you you could write songs and
Speaker 1: put them on a little tape recorder, you know, little cassette.
Speaker 1: And I had a lot of little ideas on cassettes,
Speaker 1: you know that I would do write songs. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was writing songs throughout high schooling, you know, because
Speaker 1: I kept on falling in love and then write a song.
Speaker 1: But the girl on you know about that all the time.
Speaker 1: I used to always fall in love in the strip club.
Speaker 1: That was where I fell in love. I wasn't falling
Speaker 1: in love though I was falling I mean, like, so
Speaker 1: T Payne wrote Your Life, he wrote My Life? Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? I would fall in love? When does
Speaker 1: the professional call come? The professional professional call? Where somebody
Speaker 1: became somebody you know somewhere A and R somebody this point,
Speaker 1: you're still in Indian app I'm Indian, I'm they're in Indie.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. There were so many little things
Speaker 1: that happened that are kind of hard to believe that
Speaker 1: they happened. Even in that time period where you would
Speaker 1: meet somebody or like Um. I told this story once before,
Speaker 1: but when I was in eighth grade, UM, I met Michael,
Speaker 1: I met the Jackson five. But I made that happen, um,
Speaker 1: because they come to town and I saw them when
Speaker 1: I was in sixth grade. I saw them do that
Speaker 1: going back to Indiana concerts and saw them. I was
Speaker 1: at that at that concert and blew my mind, and
Speaker 1: that's what I knew that that's what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: because I could see these kids on stage doing music
Speaker 1: and it was crazy. I had a terrible seat. I
Speaker 1: was sitting in the back. I could only see their
Speaker 1: face with if they spend other than that, and I
Speaker 1: missed it off. I saw afros the whole time. But
Speaker 1: it blew me away that that they could do that,
Speaker 1: and so in my head I thought, one day I
Speaker 1: want to meet them. And so a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: this thing popped up where they were coming to town again,
Speaker 1: and I was talking to myself, I gotta meet him,
Speaker 1: and so I saw it in the newspaper where they
Speaker 1: were coming to the State Fairgrounds and the promoter's name
Speaker 1: was Charles Williams. So I looked in the phone book
Speaker 1: up very Charles Williams that I could call. And I
Speaker 1: called Charles and I put on this voice like I
Speaker 1: was an adult. I used to have this. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you knew this actor named Jimmy Stewart. I
Speaker 1: used to have a Jimmy Stewart. UM used to impersonate
Speaker 1: his voice, and so I used his voice as my
Speaker 1: adult voice and called, uh, called Charles and told him that,
Speaker 1: you know, my name was Mr Clayton. I'm a journalist
Speaker 1: teacher at Westland Junior High School. And uh, I heard
Speaker 1: that you have some checks and kids some kind of
Speaker 1: play like you don't even know who you took the
Speaker 1: whole thing totally. They're coming to town and and uh,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know if uh I thought it
Speaker 1: was I'm gonna have a journalist class and I want
Speaker 1: to have some kids, so my kids interview your kids.
Speaker 1: And he goes he said that's a great idea. Um, so,
Speaker 1: Mr Clayton, so how do I how do I reach you?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, no, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: do it that way. I said, I one of my students,
Speaker 1: Kenny Etmond's I want to give you his phone number.
Speaker 1: I want you to call him and and he will
Speaker 1: do the interview. I want him to do it like
Speaker 1: he's a real reporter. And he said, okay, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: So you know, he took my number down. He hung up,
Speaker 1: and he called me about five minutes at my house.
Speaker 1: I picked up the phone because if my mom had
Speaker 1: got that, that would have been in trouble. So just
Speaker 1: from Lions and she just would have got me and
Speaker 1: so um I picked up the phone. He goes, uh,
Speaker 1: can you EV's place? Says this is He says, this
Speaker 1: is Charles Williams. I said yes. He goes, so I
Speaker 1: talked to you, Yes, Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles doesn't bring
Speaker 1: a Charles. Yes, and he goes, So, I just talked
Speaker 1: to your teacher, Mr Clayton, I said, Mr Clayton. Yes,
Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, I just talked to me. He talked
Speaker 1: about you interviewing the Jackson Pie. Are you serious? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, are you really? He said, yes, this is good.
Speaker 1: This gonna happen. I'm gonna I'm gonna check with it,
Speaker 1: the security and check with everybody, see if we can
Speaker 1: make it happen. I'm gonna call you back in about
Speaker 1: a week. I'll let you know whether it can happen.
Speaker 1: And UH. A week later he called me and said,
Speaker 1: you got an interview with the Jackson five. And so
Speaker 1: in eighth grade, I went down to uh the Hilton
Speaker 1: Hotel on Swealth floor and walked in and interviewed Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson and the brothers were all there. And I actually
Speaker 1: walked in there in eighth grade. Wow. I couldn't believe it. Scammers,
Speaker 1: one could see it. We don't we don't have baby
Speaker 1: face if you don't do that, get it. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I figured out how to get in there, and it
Speaker 1: was just to just to be in the in their space.
Speaker 1: And um, and I couldn't even believe I did it. Um,
Speaker 1: but I did it, and um it was it was
Speaker 1: just all part of the whole journey. Because the thing
Speaker 1: is what was special about Indianapolis. There was so much
Speaker 1: music around and there's so many bands. They were like
Speaker 1: a thousand bands, and so there was always someone to
Speaker 1: play with, someone, some band that you could join. At
Speaker 1: even at a very young age in high school, junior
Speaker 1: high school, we had bands you know that doesn't exist
Speaker 1: today whatsoever at all, um, in any kind of even
Speaker 1: when they were doing you know, like the Voice Men
Speaker 1: where people are doing groups, we had bands. Everybody was
Speaker 1: playing you know um yeah so um, and that was
Speaker 1: so even with that, in ninth grade, I had a
Speaker 1: band called The Elements and we auditioned for this concert
Speaker 1: that was coming in town that they were laying all
Speaker 1: the local bands figure out who could open up for
Speaker 1: this big concert that was coming in town. And that
Speaker 1: concert was Curtis Mayfield when he had super flyouts. And
Speaker 1: we're kids. So I'm in ninth grade and we opened
Speaker 1: up for curs Mayfield. I played some originals, playing original songs,
Speaker 1: not original songs, but playing X. I think we played
Speaker 1: for once in my life Steve Wonder um. And so
Speaker 1: there were moments of things that would happened. We think, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is it. We're gonna make it, you know, and
Speaker 1: everybody in music business we've all experienced that. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: there were there were so many moments and so and
Speaker 1: we so bad wanted to make it. I remember we
Speaker 1: used to Um, We'd be walking down the street and
Speaker 1: say they'd be like a stop side. So if everybody
Speaker 1: runs goes, if this car gets if this, if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you don't hit that stop side before this car hits,
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna never make it. So we run with
Speaker 1: our life, you know, to get there, so we make it.
Speaker 1: But what it making it mean? Making it at that
Speaker 1: point meant that you that your record was on the
Speaker 1: radio and that people knew that you you know, that
Speaker 1: you were on it. It didn't mean buying a big
Speaker 1: counsel or getting a car or anything else like that,
Speaker 1: because we didn't know that you really made money at it.
Speaker 1: We just wanted to be on the radio and recognized
Speaker 1: for your organized and that was that was making it. Um.
Speaker 1: Didn't know anything else about it other than just wanting
Speaker 1: to be no, have a herd out and and be
Speaker 1: on radio, be on the radio, on radio. So it
Speaker 1: was a different time there, you know, UM, music didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean money, and that was probably probably something that
Speaker 1: we should have known would have helped later it always
Speaker 1: but but there's something kind of nice about the the
Speaker 1: innocence of it at that point that it wasn't about
Speaker 1: anything but the music. UM. And where that's become a
Speaker 1: different thing today, I think, completely different. I literally have
Speaker 1: had to have the conversation with my son about they're
Speaker 1: not that rich because you know, it's it's this is
Speaker 1: it's part of that the promotion. I'm like deuce. They're
Speaker 1: showing you this so that they that you can help
Speaker 1: them eventually get that if you can get a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of your friends to believe that this guy has
Speaker 1: a watch on that's worth three hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: tho hollars and it's only three of them made in
Speaker 1: the world, but he has one. Yeah out making Georgia
Speaker 1: this new rap kid, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But you know I get it, and that's part of
Speaker 1: the promotion. And obviously those things didn't exist at that point.
Speaker 1: And like you said, that making it was turning that
Speaker 1: radio down and hearing your song. So does the Elements
Speaker 1: does that lead to the deal. There's so many little groups.
Speaker 1: I was in. The first group was five, second was UM,
Speaker 1: Jim and I eight. Jim and I eight. We performed
Speaker 1: one UM a local TV show called Clover Power, which
Speaker 1: David Letterman was the host. He was the guest host.
Speaker 1: That was like in eighth grade. UM. From there, UH,
Speaker 1: Jim and I ate two LC so unlimited. Then there
Speaker 1: was the Elements, and then it was Tarnish Silver and
Speaker 1: then I joined UM Tarnish Silver Turn Silver. That was
Speaker 1: the high school band. We played all the all the
Speaker 1: gigs in high school, so we went did colleges as well.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I didn't want to be silid go no
Speaker 1: tarnish Silver, that's gonna kill. What about this we're walking
Speaker 1: on buffed buff It's gonna be a problem. Thank you
Speaker 1: for that. Gotta come from somewhere. Yeah, um no. But
Speaker 1: Turn we we did well. We you know, I from
Speaker 1: like my high school years, from like through um eleventh
Speaker 1: g you know, to Turn through my senior year. We
Speaker 1: played all the gigs there. And the cool thing about
Speaker 1: when you're playing in those bands, that's the whole things
Speaker 1: that it's, um, it's preparing you for later, preparing you
Speaker 1: for his shows and you know, um and the things
Speaker 1: that you things that you think you know, like when
Speaker 1: we were when we were in Turning Silver, we played
Speaker 1: our own original songs, we played stuff on the radio,
Speaker 1: but it was mostly we are the school that was
Speaker 1: mostly white, so it was probably tempercent black people and
Speaker 1: mostly white. So a lot of the shows that we
Speaker 1: as you go to North Central High School because my
Speaker 1: brothers went to Arlington. Yeah we lived out there for
Speaker 1: a high second. Yeah yeah, North Central was that street
Speaker 1: at that time, and uh so most of the gigs
Speaker 1: we would playing when we go to colleges. We were
Speaker 1: playing like our original songs and and playing maybe the
Speaker 1: b GS and you know, um the blackest thing we
Speaker 1: would play with the Earth Went Fire and um. I
Speaker 1: remember the first time we actually played for um it
Speaker 1: wasn't Arlington, but I'm forget something like Arlington. Uh check,
Speaker 1: I'm getting the name right now. But we played for
Speaker 1: their homecoming All Black UH school, and we went out
Speaker 1: there and start playing our stuff because we always you know,
Speaker 1: we would always be great people. They'd be dancing right
Speaker 1: right right, always doing the double class different way different,
Speaker 1: And so we got out there started playing and they
Speaker 1: were just looking at us like that. I remember I
Speaker 1: had one friend from Pambrewer, she was from North Central.
Speaker 1: She was up there looking like and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's had embarrassment. It was like I could see that
Speaker 1: share looking like I'm so sorry. Yeah. I asked y'all
Speaker 1: to do this because we were just they just did
Speaker 1: not care. Because as we stopped playing in the then
Speaker 1: the uh they put on record and then we go
Speaker 1: back up and and then so I remember me and
Speaker 1: Daryl and our conversation it was like we ain't black enough.
Speaker 1: We just you know, we don't know nothing. This is
Speaker 1: terrible and and they and we knew the songs, but
Speaker 1: we didn't play any of those songs. Uh, so we're like,
Speaker 1: we knew we had to start changing the game because
Speaker 1: we thought we was on killing with earth Fire. We
Speaker 1: played Devotion earth Wing Fire wasn't black enough yet, so
Speaker 1: killing with Devotion it wasn't. They wasn't inis different. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: You have to be like you have to be funk
Speaker 1: yeah different. Yeah, I mean you know that because you've
Speaker 1: been through there. But I'm just saying it's black. It's
Speaker 1: black not yet, not yet. They hadn't until Reasons came
Speaker 1: from birth. Fire didn't really kick in, you know, till
Speaker 1: Reasons happen. But other than that, it was like but
Speaker 1: not like it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough for us that night,
Speaker 1: and uh but we failed. We learned from it. And
Speaker 1: then um, when you said Darryl Simmons, yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: what I'm absolutely know who that is. You just said
Speaker 1: the first name, so something like, wait, you're in a
Speaker 1: high school band. Yeah yeah, okay, okay, so me and
Speaker 1: Darryl Simpson and then um, in Turning Silver, we got
Speaker 1: this opportunity to go to this club called the in Crowd,
Speaker 1: and we opened up for this group called man Child
Speaker 1: and Man Child was like the funkiest group ever and
Speaker 1: they were they look like giants and they and they
Speaker 1: were also um very talented where they played Return to
Speaker 1: Forever and they and they could play they could play jazz,
Speaker 1: they could play funk, they could play everything. They could
Speaker 1: play Teddy Pendergras. It was like, let me, what's the maybe, No,
Speaker 1: that was oh, Jess, I think so it was like
Speaker 1: und nothing. Yeah, So they was they was killing and
Speaker 1: and so once again we went in there thinking that
Speaker 1: we was gonna like kill it because we learned a
Speaker 1: couple more earth win Fire songs um and they were
Speaker 1: very kind to us. That audience was very kind to us.
Speaker 1: And like I said, okay, we thought we won until
Speaker 1: Man Shot came out. There was smoke and they came
Speaker 1: out uh doing uh Checkerkan song I'm a I'm a woman,
Speaker 1: but they call I'm a man Shot. Yeah, they was
Speaker 1: already doing the remixed ye with the name and yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a man Shot and I'm a motherfucker. That's what
Speaker 1: they were and that's what that's what followed up they
Speaker 1: came after us and just killed us, and exactly that
Speaker 1: is what it felt like. And but it was a
Speaker 1: learning experience, and it was like, Okay, I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta start learning some other stuff. I gotta, you know,
Speaker 1: because I, you know, I would play my coustal guitar
Speaker 1: and played pretty songs and and that's kind of like
Speaker 1: that was my whole thing. And then from watching that,
Speaker 1: I said, I need to learn how to, you know,
Speaker 1: play some funk. I need to learn how to do
Speaker 1: do those other things. And because I loved it when
Speaker 1: I heard it, but I just had never heard it
Speaker 1: in that way. And so, um, when I finished high school,
Speaker 1: just before I graduated, I got a call to join
Speaker 1: Manschoud really so that funk group that I that blew
Speaker 1: me away. I actually joined that band right out of
Speaker 1: high school. And that was my learning ground for so
Speaker 1: many things, um, in terms of musically, um, being able
Speaker 1: to learn to so many different genres. So I would
Speaker 1: preparing me for today and for the rest of you know,
Speaker 1: the rest of my life in music, all those things.
Speaker 1: And then out of Man Child Man shot and lasted
Speaker 1: for a while. Then I ended up leaving Manshot and
Speaker 1: I joined this group called the Crowd Pleaser just and
Speaker 1: the Crowd Pleas was strictly a Top forty band playing
Speaker 1: out of Michigan most of the time, and we played
Speaker 1: all these places in Michigan just playing Top forty, which
Speaker 1: was like the best. That was the best education I
Speaker 1: could get because when every when you're playing these Top
Speaker 1: forty songs nightly, you're learning how songs are supposed to feel,
Speaker 1: and you're you're learning watching the crowd what they react
Speaker 1: to and when you hit hit the right kind of hook,
Speaker 1: the versus everything that she is helping your songwriting and
Speaker 1: songwriting completely. I'm able to learned so much more from
Speaker 1: that thing how songs actually work, you know, you know
Speaker 1: where you're actually applying them in front of people to
Speaker 1: see it. So that was like the best learning ground
Speaker 1: and from there that was right after that is when
Speaker 1: I ultimately joined the deal because I had written this
Speaker 1: song uh slow Jam and slow Jam Um Midnight Start.
Speaker 1: I kind of had met Midnight Ster before Midnight Star
Speaker 1: wanted to record the song slow Jam. So when I
Speaker 1: went down to kind of help them demo the song,
Speaker 1: that's when I ran into l a read for the
Speaker 1: second time, and uh l a um we met at
Speaker 1: that point, and that's when they decided that, you know,
Speaker 1: I should maybe kind of help out with the help
Speaker 1: out make some demos for the deal. Play another slow
Speaker 1: jam is your first placement? Yes, wow, oh man, that's
Speaker 1: lost Champagne West this time, make it sweet, that's out
Speaker 1: of control. That's amazing that you kick all this off
Speaker 1: with a smash. How does that work for you like
Speaker 1: at that time, because obviously, like you said earlier, you
Speaker 1: didn't understand the business share. You weren't fully doing it
Speaker 1: for that yet when you write a record like that,
Speaker 1: when you write a record like that, you don't you
Speaker 1: still don't the weather. It's a smash and it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily single and it was it was something that was
Speaker 1: that midnight start did and and mind you so at
Speaker 1: this point twenty something, and I've been in been in
Speaker 1: it for a while at this point, you know, was
Speaker 1: in another group. Man. We had a regional record out
Speaker 1: and it did okay, especially for you with the with
Speaker 1: the song and so where we thought we were gonna
Speaker 1: make it and it was gonna happen, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: So you have all these points where you think it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen in the bam and and and it's a road.
Speaker 1: It's a rocky road the whole way. It's never just
Speaker 1: straight up. Um. So when when they ultimately did the song,
Speaker 1: you didn't know what's gonna happen with it. And I
Speaker 1: was just a writer, one of the writers on the
Speaker 1: song goes by the time my hand didn't, then the
Speaker 1: other people wrote on it. You know how that story goes,
Speaker 1: and so um the only thing I can remember about
Speaker 1: Slow Jam is hearing from Solo Records that, um, I
Speaker 1: was gonna get a check it and they called me
Speaker 1: and told me that I was going to like get
Speaker 1: a check for five grands. I said, what you actually
Speaker 1: get paid for this stuff, you know? And I was
Speaker 1: like so excited. And I went out and got me
Speaker 1: a Shield of Toast card and got me an American
Speaker 1: Express card, and you just start ordering credit card. I
Speaker 1: got some credit cards. I've never heard what do you
Speaker 1: do with your first check? I got ten credit cards
Speaker 1: with the check I got. I got the credit cards.
Speaker 1: But the problem is I spent on the credit cards
Speaker 1: before that check ever came, because they said that check
Speaker 1: was coming, and they check that check didn't come for
Speaker 1: about eight months. Take a minute, mom, They told me
Speaker 1: it was coming in and took eight months before I
Speaker 1: got it. Should have got to me sooner than but
Speaker 1: I was. But it sound of Los Angeles Records. I
Speaker 1: was already you know, so my creator was already messed
Speaker 1: up at the early age um, you know. And but
Speaker 1: I saw that there was there was that you could make,
Speaker 1: you know, some money, and that was a great check
Speaker 1: at first, you know, thinking that was amazing, and and
Speaker 1: all those things that happened before you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a long journey that that gets you there, and all
Speaker 1: the other songwriting and all the playing in the bands
Speaker 1: and all that stuff is what helps make the difference.
Speaker 1: It makes a difference in terms of even to this
Speaker 1: day for when I do a show, you know, everything
Speaker 1: I can pull on to pull from all those things
Speaker 1: to you know, figure out from in front of a
Speaker 1: crowd that's kind of funny. Then I know how to
Speaker 1: work it to when a mover call that audible, you
Speaker 1: gotta work you gotta call the audible. I've been in
Speaker 1: front of a crowd where you know, there's some nice
Speaker 1: looking young ladies in the front, and I was doing
Speaker 1: what was supposed to be my hit record at the
Speaker 1: time when I was on a hit, but I thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be hit. And they looked at each
Speaker 1: other and said whack. And it was that tape at
Speaker 1: the time can't audible on the Dad and I still
Speaker 1: had a verse, two hooks and a bridge, and the
Speaker 1: hook should kicked over the speaker. He should have kicked
Speaker 1: over with his speaker. Four valley state of coming back
Speaker 1: to redeem myself. I gotta come back to you. But
Speaker 1: you know, a growing pain of learning how to figure
Speaker 1: out how to make those audibles depending on what kind
Speaker 1: of crowd you're I'm a church kid, so I'm coming
Speaker 1: from you know, you know what all church and what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I know what to do in that space,
Speaker 1: but now thrust it into this R and B space
Speaker 1: on a Dirty South show. Yeah I didn't win that one,
Speaker 1: he was, Yeah, I didn't win that. Yeah, you figured
Speaker 1: out how to win it. Oh you damn right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: two girls, I need your front row when I come
Speaker 1: to somebody, mama alone, man, come on out. I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I want to see you. I got audibles like a motherfucker.
Speaker 1: So you right, mhm, slow jam And then is the
Speaker 1: next Bachelor of Records? Is that sweet? November and two
Speaker 1: occasions and yeah shoot him Up movies like those came
Speaker 1: a little bit later. But Sweet November was, um, it
Speaker 1: ended up being part of the Deal second album. But
Speaker 1: I actually had written that, Um, I've written that almost
Speaker 1: right out of high school. Um, and before I even
Speaker 1: got there. So that song was sitting around for a
Speaker 1: while before I actually did that. And so that's after
Speaker 1: a while before I got to the Deal, sitting around
Speaker 1: on the cassette cassette and you know, I just remember
Speaker 1: something I didn't I never recorded other than just you know,
Speaker 1: just playing the piano and just kinda during that week
Speaker 1: because I hadn't for some no, I think I did
Speaker 1: ultimately record that on my fortress because I got really
Speaker 1: good on the Ford track. And that's kind of like
Speaker 1: what also got me the job with the Deal, because
Speaker 1: I figured out how to do really good backgrounds on
Speaker 1: the four track by yourself and um from bouncing and everything.
Speaker 1: And so Jeff Cooper from Midnight Start he asked me
Speaker 1: to come and helped the Deal to the to the demos.
Speaker 1: And I actually had talked to l A before I
Speaker 1: got down there because there was a guy named Hollywood.
Speaker 1: He was in the crowd pleases and Hollywood was good
Speaker 1: keyboard player. And Hollywood was talking to l A on
Speaker 1: the phone one day and uh um. I had met
Speaker 1: l A at the Soda Club a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: maybe a year or so before that, And this was
Speaker 1: before I was in the Cry of Pleasers. And when
Speaker 1: I met them, they had already done the switch over
Speaker 1: where they were already getting like turning like the time
Speaker 1: and stuff. And so they had and prince. They had
Speaker 1: like leggings and makeup and and they was like they
Speaker 1: was all the way in and I was like, wow, Nick,
Speaker 1: and they were a little freer than make it. But
Speaker 1: but but it was like and this was in the zodiac,
Speaker 1: and I was like, dang, they bowled, you know, but
Speaker 1: they had all the girls was there and they was
Speaker 1: like they was with them. So I was like, that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And then I met l A then, And
Speaker 1: when l A met me, I was probably a member's
Speaker 1: only jacket. So you know, I had no vibe whatsoever
Speaker 1: I was from Man. You know, I wasn't vibeing anymore.
Speaker 1: So I met them and he said hey, and uh
Speaker 1: but he had no not knowing me being in man shot.
Speaker 1: At least he had saw me playing with man Shot,
Speaker 1: so he knew I had some talent. But when I
Speaker 1: saw them, I said, it's a great group. And then
Speaker 1: when I was in Michigan much later with Hollywood, Hollywood
Speaker 1: goes up. He's on the phone with him and he says,
Speaker 1: listen to this because l A's playing in the music
Speaker 1: and it was some song called in it up Um
Speaker 1: and it was ko is Ko playing a lick Doom
Speaker 1: Doom Do Doom Doom Doom dig. I still remember the
Speaker 1: lick and I was like, oh my god when the
Speaker 1: singing on the air, but the track was just like
Speaker 1: just so hard and so like it was like the
Speaker 1: Time and French mixed together. And I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I would I'd love to be a part of that
Speaker 1: because I'm like in a group the crowd pleasers, and
Speaker 1: they were cool, but they were all older guys. I
Speaker 1: mean even at that time, they was sixty something years old,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, so it wasn't ever gonna
Speaker 1: be anything else but the top forty bands and me
Speaker 1: and so I asked Hollywood said, asked them if they
Speaker 1: need a guitar player, if they need to need somebody else,
Speaker 1: you know, to play with them, and Hollywood said he
Speaker 1: would ask. So I wasn't sure Hollywood asked, because I
Speaker 1: never heard anything. Then I finally asked, Hollywood said, so
Speaker 1: did you ever ask l A if I could join
Speaker 1: the band? And he said yeah. I talked to him
Speaker 1: about that and he said, you can't join the band.
Speaker 1: And I said why. He said, because you're not breed enough.
Speaker 1: And so being breed enough was you know, having the look,
Speaker 1: having having the whole Prince looking the whole time. It
Speaker 1: was breed because Prince had a song called the New Breed,
Speaker 1: So um, it was. It was all about being breed enough.
Speaker 1: But they didn't know I had already gonne breathe. I
Speaker 1: breed it myself up while I was in the crowd
Speaker 1: and I was totally breathed. I might have been more
Speaker 1: breathed than them because I think I had a coat,
Speaker 1: had I had a you know coat, and everything. The
Speaker 1: hair was dripping, and you know it was it wasn't
Speaker 1: Jerry curl because Jerry curls go back. Um, it was
Speaker 1: California curls. Thank you California. The differences with the Jerry
Speaker 1: curl they dry up really quickly and your hair goes bad.
Speaker 1: California girl, you don't have to put as much so
Speaker 1: it doesn't look greasy. He was much smoother that That's
Speaker 1: the whole idea about California Girl. Thank you. That is
Speaker 1: the difference in a whole another thing, that whole other thing.
Speaker 1: That's a whole another thing. The the California Girl did
Speaker 1: not require as much liquids. So that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So it looked natural, looked like you was born there.
Speaker 1: We was trying were It should be good for you
Speaker 1: to know that we was all trying to look like you.
Speaker 1: I'm breathe, I put my rag on face. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get these j ways. I promise you that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get them. So did he? So he did he? Ever?
Speaker 1: Did he really say that to him? Yeah? He said
Speaker 1: so really did? It was true? I wasn't I wasn't
Speaker 1: pretty enough. And I understood because the last time he
Speaker 1: saw me, I was in the Member's only Jackie, So
Speaker 1: it was fair. But wile Hollywood was saying that, but
Speaker 1: I'm breathe now and uh, but he didn't know that.
Speaker 1: And so when I went down to Cincinnati, I was
Speaker 1: inside the booth singing slow jam, putting the demo down.
Speaker 1: So l A come there because Midnight Star was producing
Speaker 1: their their demos to try to get them a record there.
Speaker 1: And so I was in the booths singing. Then l
Speaker 1: A walked in and he goes, so, who is that
Speaker 1: in the booth? He said, this Kenny Evos? Is that
Speaker 1: Kenny Evans? Really he sounds good? And then I walked
Speaker 1: out and I was so brief. Well he's breathed now.
Speaker 1: And so that's when Jeff Cooper asked if I would
Speaker 1: stay because the four tracks I would do, And he said,
Speaker 1: can you just come down and help put the demos together?
Speaker 1: And Uh, that's where songs like just My Luck and um,
Speaker 1: crazy about You. I had already written those songs before
Speaker 1: you even gotten the group. Before I had even got
Speaker 1: those songs were already written um um before at least
Speaker 1: the tracks were no. Actually like crazy Bouts I was
Speaker 1: written and then I got down there. Then D helped
Speaker 1: me finish writing them, and that's how I played songs
Speaker 1: on the deal. So initially I placed the songs. I
Speaker 1: wasn't in the group when they went to get their deal.
Speaker 1: Um here in l A. I wasn't in the group.
Speaker 1: I had gone back to Michigan. I was back in
Speaker 1: the crowd pleasers and uh, then I got in a call.
Speaker 1: I was there for about a month or so and
Speaker 1: I got in a call from l A and then
Speaker 1: I called to say, hey, just once you know that,
Speaker 1: you know, we got a record deal. We end up
Speaker 1: getting a record here. And I was like, good for y'all.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy for you. That's amazing. Um and uh
Speaker 1: and you know, at least I got a couple of
Speaker 1: songs placed in there, you know. And I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, happy, and then he said, also
Speaker 1: one other thing. Talked to the guys and they want
Speaker 1: to know if you want to, we'd like you to
Speaker 1: join the group. And it's it's saved my life at
Speaker 1: that point, and that's why that's how I joined the deal.
Speaker 1: Were you singing on the demos? The uh? No? I
Speaker 1: I was not. Um. I might have the backgrounds, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't there to be a singer. And I was
Speaker 1: asked to join to be guitar and man help write songs,
Speaker 1: but I was there to be a musician. Carol was
Speaker 1: the least singer not a singer. Uh. Um. The least
Speaker 1: singer was was d and Carlos Carlocolos, d and Carlos,
Speaker 1: and that's how it was supposed to be. And I
Speaker 1: didn't sing to the second album, and that almost didn't
Speaker 1: happen because we ultimately we're supposed to um. Our second
Speaker 1: album was supposed to be produced by Reggie Callaway, but
Speaker 1: some things went wrong with their management, and you know,
Speaker 1: so our management and which was Pablo Davis at the time,
Speaker 1: he was managing Midnight Star and they had some problems
Speaker 1: and we got caught up in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: and so Reggie uh decided that he was not going
Speaker 1: to produce our second album, and so we were like,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? Then did Griffy called and
Speaker 1: said you and l A should produce it, you know,
Speaker 1: so we were like, I don't know, but we're kind
Speaker 1: of scared because hadn't done it before, and this time
Speaker 1: we were in like real studios, you know, going there
Speaker 1: to do it. But I always written these songs, and
Speaker 1: that's when I had Sweet November that I dimm well
Speaker 1: and so I had actually done Sweet November by I
Speaker 1: sent Sweet November in for the Whispers. I was hoping
Speaker 1: that the Whispers would do that song, and Dick Griffy
Speaker 1: heard the demo and he goes, why aren't the deal
Speaker 1: doing this song? Why don't y'all do this song? And uh,
Speaker 1: it goes because we don't have anybody that can sing it,
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, who's singing this? He said, well,
Speaker 1: Kenny singing And he said, well why why how come
Speaker 1: he's not singing? He said, because he's not one of
Speaker 1: the singers in the band. He said, well, that doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense, so why ain't he singing it? Because that's
Speaker 1: that's not it. I'll have to talk to the guys
Speaker 1: and see whether that's okay. So he said, we need
Speaker 1: to talk to the guys. So, um, we were in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and he had a meeting with the guys about it
Speaker 1: whether I should sing, and they voted me not to sing.
Speaker 1: And mind you, I didn't have a problem with it
Speaker 1: because I wasn't trying to sing. I didn't. That was
Speaker 1: not my thing. I was. He was good with just
Speaker 1: being playing guitar and writing songs. That was that was
Speaker 1: fine me. Um, but Dick took a position, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if he don't sing, then you don't have a record deal.
Speaker 1: So um, so Dick forced it and forced it so
Speaker 1: that I hope to me end up being having a
Speaker 1: chance to sing on the album. Some people see the future.
Speaker 1: Is that crazy? And he also pushed the fact for
Speaker 1: me to be an artist in the first place. He's
Speaker 1: the one that suggested that I do a solo album.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me. I wouldn't. This was not something that
Speaker 1: I was ever trying to go out to be, you know,
Speaker 1: as a solo artist. It just kind of all happened
Speaker 1: with the journey. It wasn't something that I was like,
Speaker 1: one day, I want to be that guy. You know.
Speaker 1: Everything was always for me, always about the song. If
Speaker 1: I could place the song, if I had to sing it, whatever,
Speaker 1: then that's fine. But I just wanted the songs to
Speaker 1: come out. So did Robert Townsend right the duck character
Speaker 1: after you? Then? Was it just about the music? Was up?
Speaker 1: He's a crumpled up paper mess up music. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it was that was always my thing. And I might
Speaker 1: maybe it was security blanket so I wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: be up in front of everybody and stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: Wressure it was. It was easy, and so how I
Speaker 1: justified doing the album myself? I said, well, this is
Speaker 1: just I'm a songwriter first. Any if it don't work,
Speaker 1: so what I'm doing everything else, you know, so I
Speaker 1: could always I feel like I didn't fail, you know. So,
Speaker 1: so is that the introduction to you as a solo artist,
Speaker 1: or within that same time frame you in l A
Speaker 1: figuring out how to be partners into what becomes one
Speaker 1: of the greatest labels ever. The beginning of that was
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of that, but the whole
Speaker 1: label idea, yeah. And I can't say whether l A
Speaker 1: always had it, that dream of owning a label, of
Speaker 1: being a Berry Gordy. I don't know that for sure,
Speaker 1: but I know that what gave him the confidence was
Speaker 1: that when we were doing this early stuff and placing
Speaker 1: these songs on we start with start with the Whispers,
Speaker 1: and then we went to Karen White, and then we
Speaker 1: had he had Pebbles, and we had Um the Boys.
Speaker 1: So you guys aren't Lafacia. So all these things that
Speaker 1: that's what gave us, gave us the confidence. And I
Speaker 1: know what's that's what put the idea and LA said,
Speaker 1: if we can do all this here, why can't we
Speaker 1: do this ourselves? You know, because we had had such
Speaker 1: success with Bobby Brown and with Johnny gil and with Pebbles,
Speaker 1: and with um all these artists that beforehand that we're
Speaker 1: having success the MacMan, everything kind of happened before, but
Speaker 1: no true ownership in it. No ownership, just just you
Speaker 1: know as a as a producer or a songwriter, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was it was that and I think for
Speaker 1: l A not necessary being the song writer. He was like,
Speaker 1: let me figure this out, you know, we should have
Speaker 1: more ownership. And and so l A was definitely an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur in that way, trying to figure out how do
Speaker 1: we make this so this is this is ours, you know,
Speaker 1: And that hence came the moved to Atlanta, you know,
Speaker 1: to try to search for that, try to make at
Speaker 1: We had looked at a couple of points. We looked
Speaker 1: at Uh, we looked at New York, thought about New York,
Speaker 1: We thought about Houston. UM, we were in l A
Speaker 1: at the time. And the whole idea was that we
Speaker 1: didn't want to be um little fish in a big
Speaker 1: you know, in the sea. We wanted to be a
Speaker 1: big fish in a little pond. And that's it. That's
Speaker 1: what Atlanta represented. And also UM, when we looked at
Speaker 1: what the affordability that we get nice homes for far
Speaker 1: less and too, um, you know to start down there
Speaker 1: and try to figure it out down there. Um and
Speaker 1: we just we just kind of went for it. So
Speaker 1: just to touch on that backtrack just a little bit,
Speaker 1: did you realize that you guys were the go to
Speaker 1: guys for big records, life changing records before or just
Speaker 1: like it was going on, is it's happening, like what record?
Speaker 1: So here the landscape was this Jimmy jam and Terry
Speaker 1: Lewis were in control, you know, cooking, you know. So
Speaker 1: we when we first started producing, we were trying to
Speaker 1: be Jimmy and Terry. We imagine we were Jimmy and Terry.
Speaker 1: Remember the first time we got on a flight to
Speaker 1: come out to l a um To for a producing thing,
Speaker 1: it was for carry Lucas, which was Dick Griffy's wife.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter that it was her, is the fact
Speaker 1: that we was on a plane going to go produce.
Speaker 1: So we Jimmy and Terry now so yeah, so flying coach,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. It was like you know, we were rolling,
Speaker 1: we jet set us um and it was the feeling
Speaker 1: of producing and doing something other than just yourself with
Speaker 1: doing someone else. So our whole that whole movement at
Speaker 1: that point it was something that we didn't know that
Speaker 1: we could really do. We were just kind of in it.
Speaker 1: Everything was was um. There's a learning curve to everything
Speaker 1: that you do, UM, and you get, you get, you
Speaker 1: get better as it goes. Initially, when we came out
Speaker 1: to l A, which was in five, you know, to
Speaker 1: think about eighty five, wasn't until seven that anything started happening.
Speaker 1: So it was a couple of years here trying to
Speaker 1: play songs, trying to be stuff done, and nothing was happening. UM.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting um at Warner Brothers, saying for an
Speaker 1: hour waiting for Benny Medina so that he would just
Speaker 1: listen to one of the you know, some of my tracks,
Speaker 1: and and then the guy coming out, he's not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to see you today, after you waited, After
Speaker 1: I waited an hour, and then I left and night
Speaker 1: that I came back another day. I think I did
Speaker 1: that three times and finally he came to listen, and
Speaker 1: he listened and he said, no, I don't hear anything,
Speaker 1: and so walked away. So there was so many more
Speaker 1: times of placing music that you you know that you
Speaker 1: that people weren't weren't taken and some of those things
Speaker 1: were things that ultimately got placed later. Um. They might
Speaker 1: not have been all the way ready yet could have
Speaker 1: been tracks that were almost there. Are songs that were
Speaker 1: almost there but not all the way there. You you
Speaker 1: tweak them when you get in the studio. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's all stuff that you learned in the process. But UM,
Speaker 1: that's why I never had an ego about somebody that
Speaker 1: if they turned the song down, you know, then then
Speaker 1: you'd be mad at him, like, all right, you ain't
Speaker 1: gonna get none of my songs. It wasn't that because
Speaker 1: I always felt like, well, probably they probably could have
Speaker 1: been better. We probably could have you know, for some reason,
Speaker 1: they didn't hit you because we didn't do something right
Speaker 1: about it. So um. And you feel that when you're
Speaker 1: sitting inside of the the room and you're listening to people.
Speaker 1: When you watch people listen to something, you hear it
Speaker 1: a lot differently than when you're listening to yourself. So um.
Speaker 1: And that's you gotta watch the body language. You gotta
Speaker 1: watch everything. So that's how you produce. Many times as
Speaker 1: you play for other people and see how they're reacting.
Speaker 1: If they're not giving you the right reaction, Okay, that
Speaker 1: even if they're saying yeah, I like that, Nah, your
Speaker 1: body wasn't saying you like so I gotta way because
Speaker 1: you can't control yourself when it's when it's that and
Speaker 1: you hear it, you can't control yourself. So you're still
Speaker 1: going through this after writing ultimately and performing a smash
Speaker 1: like two occasions, you're still happen to go through the
Speaker 1: same process even with two occasions. Even even once you
Speaker 1: head it out, you still understand that it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how big you are, songs still have to make people,
Speaker 1: have to move people because they can think that you're
Speaker 1: just giving them a crap song. And that's the last
Speaker 1: thing I would ever want to do is give somebody
Speaker 1: something that they're not happy with. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it. Then I'd rather not I'd rather not work.
Speaker 1: And that's in that case, when you're giving away, giving
Speaker 1: somebody something that they don't like, it's then that's not
Speaker 1: a fun process. And sometimes you might give someone something
Speaker 1: that they might not like, but well you should like
Speaker 1: this one. You know, this one, this one is actually good,
Speaker 1: and especially if you know the people that are saying it.
Speaker 1: And there's been a couple of times there were things
Speaker 1: like that. Not a lot, but a couple of times. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: can I skipped the Tender Lover? Is that? Is? Am
Speaker 1: I moving too fast? If I skipped a Tender Lover,
Speaker 1: the Tender Lover album can for sure go straight to it. Um. Please,
Speaker 1: I'm a church kid church and you know I'm in
Speaker 1: high school and and the women folk are are taking
Speaker 1: a liking to me. Um because I can sing. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if my outfits were really lining up. Um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't breed. I wasn't breed. Probably worked out for
Speaker 1: you that um. And as a church kid, girls would
Speaker 1: say sing something, and I would sing church songs because
Speaker 1: that's all I knew. Tender Lover album drops. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: now this church kid has songs to sing. So what
Speaker 1: do you sing? I'm singing Sunshine, I'm singing where would
Speaker 1: You Go? I'm singing all of it. And at this
Speaker 1: time now my mom has brought me this synthesizer, this
Speaker 1: p v D p M four, and so I'm trying
Speaker 1: to emulate all of the tracks and the feeling. I
Speaker 1: only have eight tracks, eight music tracks. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: emulate the feeling of what I hear of the Tender
Speaker 1: Lover album. That's my start in trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to produce and write good songs. So that was
Speaker 1: like my formula. What do you feel about? What did
Speaker 1: you feel about when the Tender Lover album dropped? Where
Speaker 1: were you the Tender Lover album was? I did an
Speaker 1: album before that, I thing. It was just called Lovers,
Speaker 1: and it was all over the place, trying to figure
Speaker 1: out who I could be as an artist because I
Speaker 1: didn't because I didn't believe I was an artist. So
Speaker 1: I did the song called I Love You Babe, and
Speaker 1: then there was a song called if We Try, and
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of things. That's even a song
Speaker 1: called take Your Time that probably should have been for
Speaker 1: like a new edition, a very young new edition. It
Speaker 1: was everywhere and hadn't figured out who baby Face is,
Speaker 1: who baby Face should be. And then on the Tender
Speaker 1: Level album, somewhere I started to get the sense of,
Speaker 1: okay it was, it was a thing of after two occasions,
Speaker 1: it was starting to figure out, Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: who they think baby faces um and so kind of cool,
Speaker 1: suave and romantic and and so these are the kind
Speaker 1: of things that I can do and and probably make
Speaker 1: a becoming an artist in that way. But initially some
Speaker 1: of those songs like Tender Lover. Initially when I wrote it,
Speaker 1: Dick Griffy tried to give it to um, um Monel
Speaker 1: Richie m hmm, and Linel Linel turns it down. Um,
Speaker 1: but I wrote it for Linel Richie and I got
Speaker 1: a lot of turned downs like that. So um, that's
Speaker 1: a very fun fact. And um, so end up doing
Speaker 1: it anyway, and then it's no crime. I was figuring
Speaker 1: out how could I do How could I do a tempo,
Speaker 1: you know? And so that was like I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out that thing because I couldn't do I
Speaker 1: couldn't do any funk up temples, not with my voice.
Speaker 1: I had to figure out something. And um, and Crime
Speaker 1: was the one that you know that Okay, it was different,
Speaker 1: you know, on a different program that drum track, on
Speaker 1: the drum track that it would have been l A.
Speaker 1: I would do. I would write every thing first, I'd
Speaker 1: have the drum tracks down and stuff like could then
Speaker 1: l A would come down and come and then add
Speaker 1: up the rest of the percussion stuff and make that happen.
Speaker 1: And Jill Simmons was writing with you, Darryl Simmons what
Speaker 1: he was writing, not on everything, but some things that
Speaker 1: I would pull him in on. Um. Most in most cases,
Speaker 1: I was like I was the songwriter. I started out
Speaker 1: and then I would pull somebody in, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a question that I needed help,
Speaker 1: but just it's just you know, you wanna write this
Speaker 1: with me. Um. That's kind of how I get on
Speaker 1: all the songs and Tank it's just like get finished here,
Speaker 1: glad you guys, buddy, right, thank you for that. So
Speaker 1: but so for the most part, I would just kind
Speaker 1: of the songs will kind of be there, and then
Speaker 1: I kind of finish it out. And usually if it
Speaker 1: was co writing, it would be Darrel that would come
Speaker 1: in help with whether it's a melody or a lyric
Speaker 1: called idea, and that would be there. On and l
Speaker 1: A was strictly really about the production music side, production
Speaker 1: and with the drums, and and I'll give it like
Speaker 1: credit in terms of for the whole the production side,
Speaker 1: because by the time him and John Gass finished mixing it,
Speaker 1: they take it to another level. So John Gass was
Speaker 1: a bad bad boy, and so that was as much
Speaker 1: as the sound, no question. Um. And so but I
Speaker 1: think that ultimately when when I think of Tender Lover
Speaker 1: and I think about that, that whole album, I mean
Speaker 1: certain songs that happened, you know, from whip Appeal to
Speaker 1: to Sunshine to where will You Go? Um to give
Speaker 1: it a chance. The album is perfection to me, they don't.
Speaker 1: That album is absolute a couple of things, and I
Speaker 1: have a question, I'd have to not me, we'd have
Speaker 1: to go through it. But um, but I mean my
Speaker 1: kind of girl. Um, Yeah, they were good. There are
Speaker 1: things that felt good. I was at it. I was
Speaker 1: at a space where I was it was I was
Speaker 1: trying to just make this whole feeling of love on
Speaker 1: a whole the whole whole album just feel like love,
Speaker 1: you know, from a happy experience to sad to wherever
Speaker 1: and um, and those songs were. It wasn't from personal
Speaker 1: experience or anything. It was just me just kind of
Speaker 1: get into that whole love zone, you know. And from
Speaker 1: Whipper Phil, Whipperhill being really just the idea coming coach
Speaker 1: PEPs mentioned Whipperphil one day. I said, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: good title, and I went and wrote it. And because
Speaker 1: she said it, I gave her a percentage. Winding about
Speaker 1: that did they gotta start. I gotta start just throwing
Speaker 1: words out it at you more airport Feakase. Here's a question, right,
Speaker 1: just real quick, whipper Peel comes out. Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how sexy you were before then, but when Whooper
Speaker 1: Pip comes out, you're extremely sexy. Okay, how do you
Speaker 1: handle that? Here's the thing? I missed that whole section? Um,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? See? See I was I was
Speaker 1: around people that were blowing up, like crazy Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1: This is on the same time period, So I'm watching
Speaker 1: Bobby Who where Bobby? We do this record of Bobby
Speaker 1: and I watched Bobby who was you know what? What?
Speaker 1: May be interested in Bobby in the first place because
Speaker 1: he was crazy and I heard Bobby on the Uh.
Speaker 1: We had met with Little Silas and something you should
Speaker 1: do yes, no question, and we we said, he said
Speaker 1: you can do uh, you can do the um Bobby
Speaker 1: Brown and uh. And then Cheryl Dickerson, she said, you
Speaker 1: should go meet Pebbles and you should meet um and
Speaker 1: looking through the boys and but check out Bobby too.
Speaker 1: And we were unsure about Bobby because he had that
Speaker 1: song called girlfriend. Yeah did you right? Now? He started
Speaker 1: with a spot and so wasn't. I didn't love that song.
Speaker 1: But I remember riding the car and listening to the radio.
Speaker 1: Driving the car, listen to the radio, and then Bobby goes,
Speaker 1: he's he's on their live and he's he's doing girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and he goes for the note that he wouldn't go
Speaker 1: and he didn't get it, and then he goes, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to saying that song anyway on the radio.
Speaker 1: I said, whoa, I love it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say that song in the first place. And so it
Speaker 1: was amazing and I thought, yeah, we need to work
Speaker 1: with him because his energy. I felt that. I felt
Speaker 1: that energy and so and so from these songs from
Speaker 1: Don't Be Cruel to Every Little Step to Rock with
Speaker 1: You and and um and roni um those songs. You know,
Speaker 1: they found a home with him, and we watched him
Speaker 1: go from here. Oh unbelievable. It was like his performing
Speaker 1: hit him on stage. Nobody could touch him. Nobody to
Speaker 1: this day, I don't know that anybody still had that energy.
Speaker 1: They might be better dancers, that may be all those things.
Speaker 1: But Bobby Brown in his prime, when he's honest, he
Speaker 1: was untouchable and so so to be around that and
Speaker 1: also to be around other stars that were clearly bigger.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was okay. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like I didn't ever have that moment where I
Speaker 1: felt like that. There were moments where it started. I
Speaker 1: do remember doing whip a Pill we did. I did
Speaker 1: a couple of dates with with Pebs because I did
Speaker 1: a do it with her, and then I do whipper
Speaker 1: Pill right after. And I have this actually on video
Speaker 1: uh at the time doing some butd fest And so
Speaker 1: sometime in nine doing whipper Pill with this crowd, and
Speaker 1: I looked at that like, damn, I messed up. I
Speaker 1: should have kept going or something, because it was it
Speaker 1: was huge. It was like and and I had an
Speaker 1: experience it before, except you know, the only time I've
Speaker 1: seen that like it was when when we were out
Speaker 1: with the barge and the bars was killing us nightly.
Speaker 1: You know, with Luther, we just died every night. You know,
Speaker 1: it was death. It was I mean, we only time
Speaker 1: we at at that time was body talking that and
Speaker 1: that was good, but you know, we do body talk.
Speaker 1: And then as soon as we finished, then you know,
Speaker 1: next s up is the bars place be rumbling, and
Speaker 1: and then we just had to put our heads down
Speaker 1: in warfack, you know, and and we had never experienced that.
Speaker 1: And the first time we experienced that was when UM,
Speaker 1: I know, we're running out of time, but I just
Speaker 1: have to tell that the creation, this is what I
Speaker 1: believe with the creation of baby Face, where it happened. Um,
Speaker 1: we were doing we were on tour. Uh this time,
Speaker 1: I forget who we were with, but um, at this
Speaker 1: point we had two occasions out and we were doing
Speaker 1: body talk and we were we were doing the tour
Speaker 1: and everything was going okay. And then um, we played
Speaker 1: Indianapolis and my wisdom teeth started acting up and I
Speaker 1: went to they were like really hurting, and so I
Speaker 1: went to the Dennis and then it says, oh, they
Speaker 1: looked like impacted, so we're gonna have to take them out.
Speaker 1: So they took out two and they said we might
Speaker 1: as well take them all take them out. So I
Speaker 1: ended up getting four Wisdom to Youth taken out, and
Speaker 1: I was like, so the next night we had a show.
Speaker 1: He showed two nights and they asked me to performer.
Speaker 1: There's no way I can perform, So I didn't perform,
Speaker 1: and my brother Melvin took my place that night. Um,
Speaker 1: and they did a show. And then so the next
Speaker 1: show that we had that I could do was in
Speaker 1: New Orleans and at the what's the big building Superdome,
Speaker 1: super Dome. Everybody's there and so and it's a big
Speaker 1: show and I'm still messed up. I can't even when
Speaker 1: I walk it hurts, you know. And so but we decided,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't go to the Superdome and you
Speaker 1: can't not you need to be up there to do
Speaker 1: two occasions. So everybody they did the whole show, and
Speaker 1: then when they got to the end, before they did
Speaker 1: two occasions, they said, look, guys, you know, um my
Speaker 1: brother baby Face, he's been sick and he's not feeling
Speaker 1: well at all, but he didn't want to disappoint you guys.
Speaker 1: So he's gonna come out here and try its best
Speaker 1: to perform for you anyway. And they give me, give
Speaker 1: me a little bit of love. And I started. I
Speaker 1: put on this white suit and I walk across the
Speaker 1: stage and I'm actually in pain at this point, walking
Speaker 1: across the slates ship was hurting bad. I'm like barely
Speaker 1: open my mouth. So I go and I sit at
Speaker 1: the piano and I go Boom doom, doom, doom, the
Speaker 1: place goes crazy. I'm feeling like Elder Barge for the
Speaker 1: first time. It's like, I'm like, what the and so?
Speaker 1: And then because every time I close the eyes, I
Speaker 1: think they go and the bed, everybody in the bed
Speaker 1: is that point. They were like what and we do
Speaker 1: the song the place loses it and um, so the
Speaker 1: rest of the tour I was sick. Um that was
Speaker 1: the I wasn't but I was sick the rest of
Speaker 1: the and then everybody's like, now he needs to do
Speaker 1: the whole show? Was it now? I got it was
Speaker 1: a moment and it kept on being a moment, and
Speaker 1: but it was. It was what finally, Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: shed a light put a light on baby Face in
Speaker 1: a different way. Um that made it look like, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a career here. People actually people actually like you,
Speaker 1: you know, and they like what you do and they
Speaker 1: like what you bring to the table. So it became, um,
Speaker 1: it became a moment that helped me figure out how
Speaker 1: to do to the lover, help me figure out how
Speaker 1: to um craft that for the artist baby Face, that
Speaker 1: the person that didn't really want to be an artist,
Speaker 1: but a little by little was figuring out how to
Speaker 1: be because of the kind of songs that I could
Speaker 1: do and songs that came natural for me to do.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing is being an artist. You got you
Speaker 1: want to do something that feels organic, and when you're
Speaker 1: doing something that's not, they figure it out and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna last long. So if you can do something
Speaker 1: that's really close to you and it comes from you
Speaker 1: then and they love it, then you have a chance
Speaker 1: of having a career and people will follow you. But
Speaker 1: the moment they why would you feel fake, then that's
Speaker 1: the moment they'll they'll probably dismiss you. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for being an artist, man, Thank you for being an artist.
Speaker 1: Thank that Dennis for putting out your wisdom to stars
Speaker 1: born moments. Star is born like this is because if
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen, like you said, you may never walk
Speaker 1: into that and then I have a confidence to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know. I just love the fact that you
Speaker 1: also spoke about the journey and about not being an
Speaker 1: overnight success because a lot of the new artists don't
Speaker 1: understand what it takes to where you are. Songwriters, producers,
Speaker 1: artists like you've lived at all, executives I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You have you have your bumps
Speaker 1: in the rotors and all of those things. It's, um,
Speaker 1: it does happen fast for some and and and it
Speaker 1: is sometimes that's a blessing, but most of the time
Speaker 1: not because they don't they don't realize that this isn't forever.
Speaker 1: You know, um, it can come and it can go.
Speaker 1: And UM, my blessing has been is that I didn't
Speaker 1: have depend depend on just myself as an artist, but
Speaker 1: my artistry is through um writing music for other people
Speaker 1: where they could have my artists lived, my my art
Speaker 1: lived through them. So when people are singing, when I
Speaker 1: hear can we talking? Thank you for that? By the way,
Speaker 1: that was that was amazing and and um it you
Speaker 1: know it's shined the light on songs that can you
Speaker 1: know that I had no idea that it had touched
Speaker 1: people that way, you know, And that was that was
Speaker 1: the best gift you could ever give me, was showing
Speaker 1: showing me that people loved something that I did like
Speaker 1: that that much. I had no idea. And so when
Speaker 1: you when you're sitting and watching you know, schools, and
Speaker 1: everybody's singing that sing that lyric and and and that melody.
Speaker 1: You know, when I wrote that, I didn't think of
Speaker 1: it as being that incredible. I thought it was good,
Speaker 1: this is this is nice, just feels good. But not
Speaker 1: I don't think you know when you write one of those.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Yeah, I agree, I haven't written, but
Speaker 1: I've written, but that for sure, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: others which we could really and literally talk about for
Speaker 1: the next five days. Um have just lasted and will
Speaker 1: last forever stand in real test of time, real music,
Speaker 1: real feeling, real lyrics, um, real vocals, real musicianship, like
Speaker 1: the chords, like y'all y'all wouldn't you weren't staying safe?
Speaker 1: Some real stuff happening that we would use in church too,
Speaker 1: We would Still, I didn't. I didn't know that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I went to church, but I wasn't a church boy,
Speaker 1: so to say. And so you're proba like the first
Speaker 1: guy that sits on this side of the room with me,
Speaker 1: because everybody else can bring on here full church. Well tank,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, yeah, so what's your do to church? No,
Speaker 1: I'm right on your side. Watch it a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I watched and listen to the choir, and then well,
Speaker 1: then I go to the car and listen to you know,
Speaker 1: listen to the radio. Well, but a go ahead. But
Speaker 1: I think just in general, I always played the chords
Speaker 1: I can figure out, and like, I'm not the kind
Speaker 1: of uh keyboard player where I can sit down and
Speaker 1: just start playing. I have to remind myself and go
Speaker 1: through it again. And because I'm it's pretty simple, I
Speaker 1: can usually figure it out once I start playing. Then
Speaker 1: the then the muscle memory comes back. But it's not
Speaker 1: like I'm not really a keyboard player. I'm more of
Speaker 1: a guitar player than a keyboard player. So everything that
Speaker 1: I that I figured out it was it was just
Speaker 1: kind of like I'm a keyboard player. No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I just playing all of that stuff you produced. No,
Speaker 1: it was no because because if I was a real
Speaker 1: keyboard player, I could sit down there and play it
Speaker 1: for you right now. I'd have to sit there and
Speaker 1: figure it out again and go again. Because I wrote,
Speaker 1: I was I was a writer, so I was writing
Speaker 1: for that moment to do it. And and even even
Speaker 1: at the time, I could learn it right there and
Speaker 1: then I'd forget it exactly of what I would do.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, what's interesting is that there
Speaker 1: are certain things like with roni Um, the way that
Speaker 1: is played. Real keyboard players could not I didn't have
Speaker 1: the feel that that that was for this non keyboard
Speaker 1: player because you would either do too much or not enough.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, exactly, okay if you ever learned anything, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm learning. I'm still learning that because your your and
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get these other things real, real fast.
Speaker 1: Your keyboard playing was about voicings. It wasn't about being
Speaker 1: the best keyboard player in terms of putting ten fingers
Speaker 1: on the keyboard. It was about the voicings that you
Speaker 1: would choose, Like your voicings were a highlight for me
Speaker 1: before the music even started. Dude, do like what that's
Speaker 1: that's monstrous for you to say you're not already player.
Speaker 1: I'm already yeah, and we're gonna play it in church
Speaker 1: right before offre um. Your your history is fast, bro um,
Speaker 1: your success is I mean, it's it's endless. With all
Speaker 1: of that, we have a couple of questions and we're
Speaker 1: not gonna take up too much of your time, Mr Face,
Speaker 1: Mr baby face, but have questions for you. First question
Speaker 1: being top five R and B artists male or female
Speaker 1: anytime my top five top five it's very hard, um,
Speaker 1: because I'm it's at different periods when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing when you're when you're a songwriter, you
Speaker 1: have people you choose people based off because they're songwriters,
Speaker 1: and some people just from the voices. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about voices alone. It's so hard because I know, because
Speaker 1: I know so much about music everywhere, So like, um,
Speaker 1: what things that blew me people that blew me away?
Speaker 1: James Brown blew me away because because he could actually
Speaker 1: sing to and and um. And then of course Stevie wondered,
Speaker 1: that goes without saying Donny Hathaway. Um, Aretha Franklin, Uh,
Speaker 1: clearly the best, Clearly Aretha Franklin, clearly the best of
Speaker 1: all time. UM. I was able to be in room
Speaker 1: with her and work with her and and see her
Speaker 1: genius and and hear her genius and to be there
Speaker 1: and um, even when she was you know, before she
Speaker 1: left us, you know it was I was. I had
Speaker 1: for farm with her, actually did a concert with her
Speaker 1: in Oakland. I I opened up for Aretha Franklin, and
Speaker 1: I was like, WHOA, I never saw that coming in
Speaker 1: And I opened up for her and she knew me.
Speaker 1: She like, you know, face, come on back here, I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you. And I'm like, Rita Franklin
Speaker 1: has called me in her dress and men to talk
Speaker 1: to her. Just and what you want to talk to me?
Speaker 1: She said, I saw you upon that face, I saw
Speaker 1: you doing whip a pill you had you had that
Speaker 1: crowd going all right, all right? And I'm like, she
Speaker 1: just said, all right, all right in my head, you know.
Speaker 1: And then she's and and and then she talks to
Speaker 1: me face coming, I'm gonna talk to you about something.
Speaker 1: I said, So what's up? She goes, So, I'm dating
Speaker 1: this guy. Come on, and I want to I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you the story about him because I want to
Speaker 1: know if you think he's serious or not. So she was.
Speaker 1: She was giving me this whole story what he does
Speaker 1: and everything he asked me. You know, so, what do
Speaker 1: you think is this? Is he? Is he for real?
Speaker 1: And then I said, I don't think he's for real.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you know. I'm gonna let you know.
Speaker 1: Then I talked to her another time. You know, he
Speaker 1: was right, he wasn't serious, but she was already whatever
Speaker 1: eight or you know, she was she was still living
Speaker 1: and at the point she had cancer at that point,
Speaker 1: but she was still living her life and and still
Speaker 1: singing and still um, just not giving up. She if
Speaker 1: anybody can inspire you, you know, in terms of people
Speaker 1: that don't give up and and keep going or read
Speaker 1: the Franklin. There's no better story than to read the Franklin.
Speaker 1: So when I say Franklin, RUTHA Franklin in the top five,
Speaker 1: I put her at number one because of how she
Speaker 1: lived her life and how she and she lived to sing,
Speaker 1: and that was it that it was all about. She
Speaker 1: was a queen because she was queen worthy, you know,
Speaker 1: um and uh and and everything that she did. So
Speaker 1: there was a point, if I'm if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: there was a point where I had Whitney above her
Speaker 1: because when I when I was Whitney, and Whitney was
Speaker 1: because Whitney moved me so much. That's like Whitney, no
Speaker 1: question the best. But I M hmm, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: listened to the old stuff, the Writha did you know,
Speaker 1: the older songs and listening to the young Aritha untouchable nobody.
Speaker 1: So then Whitney rounds out the five then yeah, Whitney
Speaker 1: G five. Okay, al right, okay, this was gonna be
Speaker 1: tough for you. Oh man, it's gonna be tough for
Speaker 1: him not to name it. I'm not to get in
Speaker 1: his own band. Your top five R and B songs, songs, songs,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna forget your mind. Um, I don't want to, Okay, Um.
Speaker 1: I can only name them based off of how they
Speaker 1: hit me, and they're the top five at this moment
Speaker 1: you asked me tomorrow it might be you know. Um,
Speaker 1: When I first heard Luther Superstar mm hmm, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't just hearing it, but when I heard him do
Speaker 1: it on stage and how he um, how how he
Speaker 1: did that, I thought that was the one for me
Speaker 1: until I heard Houses Not at Home mm hmm. And
Speaker 1: then I was confused about which one it was, and
Speaker 1: ultimately it was which Your House Is Not at Home
Speaker 1: is not necessarily an R and B song, but it
Speaker 1: is by Tip Luther finished, um, and it was the
Speaker 1: set up doom Doom, Doom, doom doom. And when he
Speaker 1: do that live, they're losing, losing. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: round and Carl, So for Luther, House is Not at
Speaker 1: Home um, elder barge time where reveel? I heard that
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati? Uh, I heard the same time I heard
Speaker 1: Chaka Khan. Ain't nobody? Um? And then we were in
Speaker 1: a in a club and I never went to clubs.
Speaker 1: While was at the club and and ain't nobody almost
Speaker 1: got me on the dance floor. I almost did, but
Speaker 1: I never get on the dance floor. And so at
Speaker 1: the end of it, this girl grabs me. Come on,
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, I'm out there dancing.
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody, look like, why am I here? And then
Speaker 1: doo doo doo doo dude, and I was like old
Speaker 1: ship And the first first time I'm dancing, I'm slow down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what a hunt she was, but I
Speaker 1: was more like this. Um. But no, I didn't hunt,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know, you know, I needed I needed
Speaker 1: young Jerry Kurl back there. Um. But but that song,
Speaker 1: I was just the chords and and the voice and everything.
Speaker 1: I was just I was flabbergasted. And the whole time
Speaker 1: we were doing the tour with oh, I kept on
Speaker 1: trying to go up to him and tell him with
Speaker 1: that song, many how did you do that? And um,
Speaker 1: and I never got the chance to go up to
Speaker 1: him while he was onto because he would always I
Speaker 1: was like I was a hood and walking really fast
Speaker 1: making sure people like me couldn't come up and talk
Speaker 1: to him. But I was. I was just blown away
Speaker 1: by that. And that sounds to this day every time
Speaker 1: I hear it's still it still touches me that way. UM.
Speaker 1: I can't really think of much more, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give you talk two because like I
Speaker 1: can there there aren't songs right at the moment that
Speaker 1: I think that just kind of like blew me away. UM,
Speaker 1: like those at at the moment that unless we're going
Speaker 1: back even back further to where we go back to
Speaker 1: the um the Jackson five and one that hit me
Speaker 1: there isn't there isn't one of the popular songs, but um,
Speaker 1: but it meant something to me the end of the time,
Speaker 1: which was looking through the windows, Um, looking through the
Speaker 1: windows Maybe tomorrow. I think it's called maybe tomorrow. Look
Speaker 1: it up and they're like, what's that one? Um? But
Speaker 1: it what hit me about that is how musical it was.
Speaker 1: And and you know, there's always I'll be There and
Speaker 1: all the other ones, but for me. What what I
Speaker 1: love so much about the Jackson five are the producers
Speaker 1: of them that they were. They were taking them everywhere musically,
Speaker 1: and and that gave me ideas that I could two
Speaker 1: songs are freedoms go beyond you know. Um there, Um,
Speaker 1: it's an easy one top R and B. It's R
Speaker 1: and B, but it's not R and B but it's
Speaker 1: but it's and put it. We put it in so
Speaker 1: food because it's the best wedding summer uh summer song,
Speaker 1: um barbecue song. Uh, it's just the best black celebrated
Speaker 1: celebratory song ever. No, not celebration from cooling the game,
Speaker 1: but um, September, September. It's it's like a perfect song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I copied that song a million times.
Speaker 1: I must have written that song so many times back
Speaker 1: in the day where I copied it and wrote me,
Speaker 1: you know a few September songs, just trying to get
Speaker 1: that filled in. Um, where's that three four four? Good? Um?
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, trying to pick a funk song one
Speaker 1: of the funkiest songs that um not not with p
Speaker 1: funk with cameo ummed contumed. I can't even think of that.
Speaker 1: I only know the lick gumed. I guess I like
Speaker 1: what you do, dude. Mm hm mum mum m mmmmm
Speaker 1: m So I can't think you know, somebody will let
Speaker 1: us know. But I can't think of its title of
Speaker 1: it right now either. Uh feels like it starts with
Speaker 1: the K. But but funkiness, you know, just when I
Speaker 1: saw Cameo, the first time I saw Cameo, and and
Speaker 1: for for a funk group, they were just the funkiest
Speaker 1: group ever. They used to they walked like they intimidated you.
Speaker 1: You know, they're very great. You know, they walk into
Speaker 1: the walk into the arena were like it was wearing
Speaker 1: athletic cups over the pa and this was and but
Speaker 1: they carried it, you know, and so like and you
Speaker 1: didn't want to play a show with them because because
Speaker 1: they they kill you know. Um. And and that was
Speaker 1: so you know for me coming from that world and
Speaker 1: learning it, it was it's something that I respected. So
Speaker 1: asked me a getting tomorrow gonna be a different type
Speaker 1: of fair. Um, We're gonna build your R and B
Speaker 1: singer called it R and B Voltron. Where do you
Speaker 1: get the vocals, the performance style, the styling, and the
Speaker 1: heart the passion who do you get your vocals from?
Speaker 1: For this artist? I don't understand what you're saying. So
Speaker 1: out of all the vocalists you know, all the vocalists
Speaker 1: you've heard, whose vocal would you use to build the
Speaker 1: perfect R and B singer? Pick It'll be a combination. Face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want. We're not fighting you
Speaker 1: on nothing. Usually I'll be over here going crazy. People
Speaker 1: observe the rule. M Um, it's still not It's so
Speaker 1: easy somebody, um mm hmm. I don't know. That's a
Speaker 1: very hard one to pick because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people in terms of today, even with kids today. That
Speaker 1: voice of voices that I love, some voices that I
Speaker 1: think are are great. That really blown smoke. But you
Speaker 1: have a great voice, tank Uh. You have a smoothness
Speaker 1: um to your voice. I love the love the smoothness
Speaker 1: of it. Um. I think sometimes I think range is important,
Speaker 1: but then not always because it depends on how you
Speaker 1: use it. Um. I love um. I'm putting all these
Speaker 1: voices together. But I love Daniel Caesar's voice. Kyle, I
Speaker 1: love um. He's Kyle. You're different. Huh, He's different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and he's he's own. He's his own difference, you know. So,
Speaker 1: and I wonder where he gets where, where that happened
Speaker 1: for him. Um. I love the uniqueness of Gibeon, of
Speaker 1: his voice. I think there's something that's not it's not traditional.
Speaker 1: So I'm into this. He's like a he's like a
Speaker 1: he's looking the new evolution of Keith Staton. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: almost a little jazzy. You know. You can move from
Speaker 1: very but but identific and identifiable these guys a little
Speaker 1: bit of a little bit but but emotion though, for sure.
Speaker 1: So I leaned towards voices that are emotional. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not so. I used to be really into the movement
Speaker 1: how much you can do that, But I don't know
Speaker 1: that that's important anymore. He used to impress me. But
Speaker 1: it's not what I look for at this point. I
Speaker 1: look for emotion. I look for even if it's a
Speaker 1: holding a note and if it's crack at the right place,
Speaker 1: that it's something that we were delivers this. The main
Speaker 1: thing that we want that I think that we need
Speaker 1: is just emotion. Um, so that you can sing something
Speaker 1: that that connects and it's not about Um, it's not
Speaker 1: about so much about church anymore. Because I used to me,
Speaker 1: hands down, if your church, if you could go like,
Speaker 1: so that's what that's the thing. I know, I'm jumping
Speaker 1: around and moving around like that. But one voice I've
Speaker 1: always said I wanted if I had that voice. Uh,
Speaker 1: if I had that voice, I'd be a hell of
Speaker 1: a R and B dude. If I had BB whinding voice.
Speaker 1: You know, he can say anything if I had his voice.
Speaker 1: Like It's like I used to say that to Johnny
Speaker 1: if I had your voice, boy, and he's not know
Speaker 1: what to do. You only knew what you could do,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But it's a little hard for me
Speaker 1: to build the the R and B singer that you
Speaker 1: want to go because I'm everywhere. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: because who got styled? Who's performance style? Did you? Performance style?
Speaker 1: Performance style? When you look on stage? Who Who's that today?
Speaker 1: A lot of the in terms of R and B
Speaker 1: is is it's more about the females. They're the ones
Speaker 1: that have this flavor. They're cooking us. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: from from Jasmine Too to Summer to a lot of
Speaker 1: the girls that I've worked with on this album for
Speaker 1: Girls Night Out talking about it, it is like, um,
Speaker 1: people that I have was surprised with because I didn't know.
Speaker 1: So Rica had introduced me to a lot of these
Speaker 1: girls that I wasn't really aware of, and like one
Speaker 1: of them being Tiana Major nine. Oh we love her.
Speaker 1: And I had no idea that she had the presence,
Speaker 1: Oh my God in her vocal and she I had
Speaker 1: no idea. And when when we got her in and
Speaker 1: she started saying said, whoa men you you really you know?
Speaker 1: And then um, another pleasant surprise. I mean, look, we
Speaker 1: at our Lennox come on special. What can I say? Um?
Speaker 1: And you know the Queen, I call her the Queen.
Speaker 1: Kailani has always the most recognizable just feel good ship period.
Speaker 1: She's just she just lands what what she lands. And
Speaker 1: I love the career that she's built for herself. She
Speaker 1: don't care about what nobody else but what she does
Speaker 1: and how she roseen and she's selling out places everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I love that. I love that she didn't care
Speaker 1: about radio. She ain't gotta care about radio because their
Speaker 1: fans love her and that's very pure. So, um, another
Speaker 1: voice somebody like that threw me? That didn't throw me,
Speaker 1: But I was just so impressed. Coco Jones. I had
Speaker 1: no idea we got she did a song simple on
Speaker 1: the album. Ain't that simple about that? Um? So, so
Speaker 1: I feel like for this record that I've worked on
Speaker 1: and these artists that I've been working with, I've been
Speaker 1: I've been inspired to see that these young girls, they
Speaker 1: can sing, and they're also very independent in the sense
Speaker 1: that they like to When when we worked on this record,
Speaker 1: we wrote this together. It wasn't like xl UM where
Speaker 1: I wrote everything, handed it over. We wrote it all together,
Speaker 1: so we have one day to sing it, to write
Speaker 1: it and sing it on this whole album, and and
Speaker 1: so everybody came to the table and we and we
Speaker 1: only did it if we did it together. And so
Speaker 1: it was it was impressive to see their independence and
Speaker 1: see um independence in the sense like they it had
Speaker 1: to be had to mean something to them. Um. They
Speaker 1: weren't just gonna sing anything that you gave to them. Um.
Speaker 1: And they had a you know, had an opinion. And
Speaker 1: that wasn't always the case before and in all the
Speaker 1: years I've been doing it, somebody they just whatever you got,
Speaker 1: just give it to And that's cool, but it's always
Speaker 1: nice when someone is invested in it. And uh, and
Speaker 1: they kind of know themselves and I think that's there.
Speaker 1: There was. The surprise is that most of these are
Speaker 1: all the artists that they did know themselves. It's different
Speaker 1: when you get with one that wants to be something,
Speaker 1: but it's not that. But they actually knew themselves, so
Speaker 1: it made the process easier. Since you know, the name
Speaker 1: of the album is Girls Not Out, Girls Night Out,
Speaker 1: So you're gonna do a male version for the guys too,
Speaker 1: You're gonna do a series. Come on, man, you only
Speaker 1: the young fellas being with the young fellas. The young
Speaker 1: right there were available. It's something, it's something that you know,
Speaker 1: I could say, we'll see, we'll see with this rose.
Speaker 1: I had had a good time doing this and it
Speaker 1: was fun too, as I say, work with these girls,
Speaker 1: and I've always traditionally just worked better with the women. Women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: amazing success. So don't forget about Bobby Brown Camble. I
Speaker 1: mean it happened. They were there up. I guess they
Speaker 1: were the end of the road. Hey, man, go ahead
Speaker 1: and do another challenge to make him do the album
Speaker 1: with the young man I got you. Yeah, start some
Speaker 1: ship off tomorrow. He likes to go into that. Um,
Speaker 1: you messed up my whole voltron. You just yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you you've talked about all the things I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about, putting so many artists, I talk a lot something. No,
Speaker 1: it's I love it. We need we needed that held vote.
Speaker 1: But speaking of of you know what, we got got
Speaker 1: a segment of the show for brother Face. Come. It's
Speaker 1: called I ain't saying on that sing and we need
Speaker 1: a baby Face version because we've had today. We've had
Speaker 1: all versions of our questions and are you know what
Speaker 1: I mean in our list? Baby Face? We know you.
Speaker 1: We you're gonna give us your versions. You're gonna remix
Speaker 1: all of our stuff, even though on the verses you
Speaker 1: said you didn't do remixes. That what your thing? Because
Speaker 1: you know, baby you ain't got do remixes. It's a
Speaker 1: great stunt. I was at the house cracking up. Oh
Speaker 1: so we're doing remixes, got it? Oh my god? I
Speaker 1: can't say that to Riley. But did you do y'all
Speaker 1: think I was like really going after him? Well I
Speaker 1: know you, so, yes, yeah, I wasn't. Okay, you're touching him?
Speaker 1: Sound like it wasn't full left hooks. What's the first job?
Speaker 1: What's the first job y'all think I did to me?
Speaker 1: The job, like I said, that's the job for me.
Speaker 1: Is that like remixing baby face something? I mean, you
Speaker 1: didn't have to say the full thing, but it's like
Speaker 1: we knew what it was. I have originals. Honestly, God,
Speaker 1: you how didn't do that? But it wasn't me. It
Speaker 1: wasn't meant that way. It was like because when he
Speaker 1: it felt like the rules changed suddenly because when he
Speaker 1: played the one song that it wasn't remix that wasn't
Speaker 1: something he produced. I was like, are we doing remixes?
Speaker 1: Because I was thinking, all right, but that's Jimmy and
Speaker 1: Terry so and then I said, well that's I don't
Speaker 1: do remixes. So I don't know if that but that
Speaker 1: came off like I was like, I don't even do
Speaker 1: remixes yea or no. That came off like I don't
Speaker 1: need to do right well, and that was not what
Speaker 1: it was. Honest answer, I don't do remixes because I
Speaker 1: didn't do remixes. It was it was back to the
Speaker 1: bless you more. Me commented, you didn't listen, man, you
Speaker 1: got your way of pooring champagoe. That brand is way
Speaker 1: wall playing on the wall inspiration is what I call
Speaker 1: all right, you got your way upoint Champagne. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna stop what you are. There was no harm in anyway.
Speaker 1: So this was baby faces. I ain't saying names, ain't
Speaker 1: saying Oh this gotta could. The story can be funny
Speaker 1: or fucked up. Are funny and fucked up. I just
Speaker 1: can't say their names. Um, somebody tore up. I can't
Speaker 1: do that. You can't. You can't do it. You can
Speaker 1: do it? Can we could tell him you could do it? Um? Somebody,
Speaker 1: I heard somebody tore up a hotel room because I
Speaker 1: left the message to say congrats, and because they left
Speaker 1: them because I left that message to say congrats. The
Speaker 1: person tore up the room because they thought something was
Speaker 1: going on with that someone. You left congratulations to somebody
Speaker 1: getting married. No, that's all I'm saying. And you said
Speaker 1: still say no names them? Congratulations is different. I wish
Speaker 1: baby Face would wish me a congratulations on my whatever,
Speaker 1: because he don't want to tell us what whatever is. Hey, girl,
Speaker 1: you know him with your woman? Hey, you know sorry
Speaker 1: we didn't work out. I'm sorry we didn't work out.
Speaker 1: Looks like you really found love because it just wasn't
Speaker 1: just so congratulations. We hm it was a congratus. It
Speaker 1: should have been us. But I just want to let
Speaker 1: you know I'll always love you and if you ever
Speaker 1: need a home, I have plenty. Where would you go?
Speaker 1: You will come to me because I thought only thought
Speaker 1: you with my sunshine. You remember the Whipperfield, don't you
Speaker 1: signed the ps? Don't forget about those two occasions. Now
Speaker 1: that we've come to the end of the room, we
Speaker 1: could go all night, ladies and gentlemen. Um man um uh.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest inspirations for me and my career
Speaker 1: um from singing, songwriting to producing and now to us
Speaker 1: building a label, um and taking those steps. We are,
Speaker 1: like I said, we're following in some big footsteps and
Speaker 1: we are we're doing our best to make you proud.
Speaker 1: You've already may be proud, no, and we just in
Speaker 1: it you coming here and being on the podcast. For
Speaker 1: both of us, it's just like I said, this is
Speaker 1: a full circle moment. You might not even know it,
Speaker 1: but you're the first person that I worked or when
Speaker 1: I came here. Obviously you know I was working with
Speaker 1: Damon Thomas and you know what I mean. But like
Speaker 1: as far as like an artist, producer, writer, just the
Speaker 1: whole thing. And I never had a chance to tell
Speaker 1: you back then. I'm young and I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: boisterous and the whole thing. But you've been my favorite
Speaker 1: artist since I was a little kid. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: had a natural crack in my voice, something like alay.
Speaker 1: But you coming here today it means the world to us, man,
Speaker 1: because we truly celebrate a people who have inspired us
Speaker 1: and people who have continued to do it. Just like
Speaker 1: you said with your conversation with Aretha Franklin. Yeah, us
Speaker 1: seeing you still have a putting out more projects. You
Speaker 1: gotta put out nothing. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: You've earned that in this in this life and in
Speaker 1: this business. Your success have put you in a position
Speaker 1: to do whatever you want. But the fact that you
Speaker 1: will still give back to the culture and still make
Speaker 1: these albums and still I know you don't like to
Speaker 1: say this, but give us your gift that means the
Speaker 1: world to us, man, And thank you, Thank you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. I'm tanking. I'm Jay Valentine and this
Speaker 1: has been, um, in my opinion, the most special Army
Speaker 1: Money Podcasts episode today. UM, I love everybody who's been on.
Speaker 1: But the God it here, so man for get its
Speaker 1: baby face, Okay. R and B Money. R and B
Speaker 1: Money is the production of the Black Effect podcast Network.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the ir
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows, don't forget to subscribe to and rate
Speaker 1: our show, and you can connect with us on social
Speaker 1: media via at R and B Money podcast or at
Speaker 1: the Real Tank or at j Valentine