Speaker 1: R and B Money, Honey, we are thanks take MATOCHI.
Speaker 1: We are the authority on all things R and B
Speaker 1: ladies and gentleman. My name is Tank Time, and this
Speaker 1: is the R and B Money Podcast. The authority. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying on all things, all things, all,
Speaker 1: every last one of them. R and B.
Speaker 2: Is it in your blood? Did you come from it?
Speaker 1: Did you come from it?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Did you get it out of the womb?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 1: Are you on a level of perfection? That are you
Speaker 1: will be studied?
Speaker 2: How many grammy is you got?
Speaker 1: How many grimes do you have? Yeah? Yeah? Have you
Speaker 1: perfected you'll game? Have you putting in hours to understand?
Speaker 1: Can you say more than one voice with one throat?
Speaker 1: That's all I'm asking you.
Speaker 2: She can and she's here.
Speaker 1: About it?
Speaker 3: Fie, Hello, thank you?
Speaker 1: Something wrong with you?
Speaker 3: No, it's all right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. I have I have. I have
Speaker 1: two perfect vocals. I have two perfect vocals. There's Eric
Speaker 1: Dawkins in their shoe.
Speaker 3: I fully agree with you on the Eric Dawkins fully perfect.
Speaker 3: He's in my top ten of all time voices.
Speaker 1: No flaws.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with.
Speaker 1: You, and I've seen you live, I've heard you on record.
Speaker 1: You don't miss sometimes I miss I haven't heard it.
Speaker 3: I covered good. That is the gifts to understand. There's
Speaker 3: no such thing as a miss. But yeah, I usually
Speaker 3: don't miss them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what I'm doing, what I'm doing, you won't
Speaker 1: catch me missing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you fix it somehow.
Speaker 2: You're just vocal. Steph Curry, oh man. Every time you shoot,
Speaker 2: we think it's going in every time.
Speaker 1: A word.
Speaker 3: That's the other part. It's the expectation though. That's if
Speaker 3: you think, you know how you like you see a
Speaker 3: girl on Instagram and she looks away that when she
Speaker 3: walks in front of you. You might she don't look
Speaker 3: that way, really, but you're so used to looking at
Speaker 3: that other way that that's what you see.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, let me ask you a question. And
Speaker 1: normally we started to beginning, but you just played us
Speaker 1: your new project. I did, yeah, and thanks for listening please.
Speaker 1: And I feel like you're taking like jazz soul, and
Speaker 1: I want to mix in something else in there? What
Speaker 1: can I mix? What else can I mix it?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: Pop, blues, alternative, mets.
Speaker 1: I want to say alternative. Yeah, I want to add alternative.
Speaker 1: So R and B R and B got some house,
Speaker 1: so I feel like you're you're I feel like you're
Speaker 1: somewhere we're not yet really, I feel like you're in
Speaker 1: the future. And it's because and it's because like this
Speaker 1: is how I see it like for me, like listening
Speaker 1: to it, I'm about to I'm about to study it
Speaker 1: to apply it to future work.
Speaker 3: Interesting to me, it feels like I'm in the real, good,
Speaker 3: good past of me because in nineteen ninety when I
Speaker 3: started making records, I wanted to make records that had
Speaker 3: all that stuff on them, Like I had Shakakhan records
Speaker 3: that had Beatles covers and duets with Rick James and
Speaker 3: our Reef margin like these whole designed Bebop Medley things
Speaker 3: on them. So I grew up with records where people
Speaker 3: were stretching across the whole records. That's always what I
Speaker 3: have tried.
Speaker 1: To do, and it's like there's no boundary, which is
Speaker 1: what I love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like to stretch.
Speaker 1: And so when we were having that conversation, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, if you don't put this tempo on
Speaker 1: their head and keep hitting them with it, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel you, I feel you, I feel you
Speaker 3: on the sequencing.
Speaker 1: No, noss, I'm sorry. I wasn't talking about sequencing. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about singles.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I agree, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about singles. They need to feel that of you, right.
Speaker 3: But the concept of a single, though, like they're gonna
Speaker 3: feel everything. We're gonna do what we can do for everything.
Speaker 3: But the concept of the single is like, what is
Speaker 3: that anymore?
Speaker 1: It's just a lee record. It's just a record that
Speaker 1: you're putting emphasis on at the moment. Yeah. Right, And
Speaker 1: so but if we if we're dialing into single single
Speaker 1: and we started talking radio, then that space is still
Speaker 1: very much a viable space for what you do.
Speaker 3: But where would you like, what radio? Would you go to?
Speaker 1: ARMB radio? Off top?
Speaker 3: What R and B radio?
Speaker 1: Army radio?
Speaker 3: Is that a thing?
Speaker 1: Oh we changed that, Yeah, Army radio is a whole thing.
Speaker 3: Is that a thing for that kind of.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely a thing. Chris Brown is on R
Speaker 1: and B radio. Yeah, it is a thing. C B
Speaker 1: as you call them, c B see Breezy Team Breeze Radio.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a thing. Sissa is on R
Speaker 1: and B radio.
Speaker 3: Not with tempo.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Sissa doesn't do tempo, does she?
Speaker 2: I think you're looking at it from like, you know,
Speaker 2: yours is Yours is just more upbeat. I think Scissa
Speaker 2: does more of a down beat type of record, and
Speaker 2: I agree with that. But I think what he's saying
Speaker 2: is that it's now the format is just opened up
Speaker 2: to more.
Speaker 3: That's good to know because I am a person that
Speaker 3: is not in my car all the time listening to
Speaker 3: the radio, So I get my music from all kinds
Speaker 3: of sources. Some from the radio, some from the satellite radio,
Speaker 3: a lot from friends.
Speaker 1: Let me help you. Number Number two on R and
Speaker 1: B radio, Tyler Water, Number one on the R and
Speaker 1: B radio Usher Good Good Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Number three on R and B Radio Victorium Money, Oh
Speaker 1: my mama.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Also though still not tempo urgency, but not
Speaker 3: tempo tempo.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely tempo. If Bloodlines came out right now,
Speaker 1: it'll be on R and B.
Speaker 3: Radio, Well, yes, that's for not for tempo though the temple.
Speaker 3: I hear you, Yes, absolutely, I feel.
Speaker 1: You, because because now R and B radio is in
Speaker 1: a place where it is it is being competitive with
Speaker 1: mainstream radio, it's trying to mirror it in a sense,
Speaker 1: and so the only thing that only place where I
Speaker 1: think R and B radio is now is now starting
Speaker 1: to pivot to catch up. Is for an artist to
Speaker 1: be able to have multiple records at the same time
Speaker 1: and a great charge some of them do. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's the that's the next change revolution to RMB radio.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the tempo and even the subject matter,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's wide open now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I have been at radio stations where,
Speaker 3: you know, like I had a new record out and
Speaker 3: the program director said, we just can't stop playing Forever
Speaker 3: for Always for Love. And that record came out in
Speaker 3: the early aughts, So I recognize that things have changed
Speaker 3: since I put a record out. Things have changed absolutely
Speaker 3: with me, and things have changed in the in the
Speaker 3: the scope of what black radio is. So I'm that's
Speaker 3: exciting to know if you feel like something that's for
Speaker 3: on the floor can live in that way, particularly from
Speaker 3: someone like me that they really just want to hear
Speaker 3: like the blues and the ballads from, then yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: go for that.
Speaker 1: I am you and I are mirrored in the blues
Speaker 1: in the ballad box. We are in there, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And and we just said, man, I'm
Speaker 1: a fine one. And when I find it's going yeah,
Speaker 1: and we found it and it's going yeah, and so likes.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a concise. It's like a very
Speaker 1: mean decision. This is it. You just pick it and go,
Speaker 1: this is it. What y'all doing, This is what we all.
Speaker 3: I'm going to show this to my whole team today.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell them all about it. That's all
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: That's the that's what we're in like we're we're not.
Speaker 1: We just can't let them dictate it no more. And
Speaker 1: I say that for you because you have so so
Speaker 1: much to offer in terms of creativity, you should not
Speaker 1: be limited. I agree with you for no reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I know an artist like me, I
Speaker 3: can just speak for myself. I fall into that paradigm
Speaker 3: of like being one foot in what is the traditional
Speaker 3: part of this business, and then both the other feats
Speaker 3: in the future of where I want to go and
Speaker 3: what I want to be able to do.
Speaker 2: Because musically you're doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and I feel like I have been doing
Speaker 3: it musically. But it's just it's always been a it's
Speaker 3: always been a thing. It's always been like this is
Speaker 3: what you do, and you kind of stay in that box.
Speaker 3: Which is why I apploud a lot of these young artists,
Speaker 3: particularly women, who understand their power and understand that whatever
Speaker 3: they decide to do is what's going to get done.
Speaker 3: It's not even like a radio thing. It's deciding what
Speaker 3: you want to get to people.
Speaker 1: And it's also a testament to you know, now social media,
Speaker 1: whereas like I'll talk to you, I'll tell you and
Speaker 1: they'll talk to you. And for someone like yourself, your
Speaker 1: fan base is so vast, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: You've been building your fan base and you have so
Speaker 1: many people who just love you and what you decide
Speaker 1: to give me right, And I think sometimes with artists
Speaker 1: you you fall into, like you said, you fall into
Speaker 1: some of those boxes of oh, well this is just
Speaker 1: what they expect. Well that's what they expected, that's all
Speaker 1: you're giving them. But you're giving them and you've been
Speaker 1: giving them multiple things. Now what you decide to push
Speaker 1: the button on that's amongst yourself and love.
Speaker 3: The temple, because I think the biggest misconception about me
Speaker 3: is that you know, like I'm somewhere sad singing the blues.
Speaker 2: You're clearly not. You're clearly not. That's that, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: That I'm not like a vibrant person that has joy,
Speaker 3: and it's it's definitely not that I love the ballance
Speaker 3: and I love to sing and I love to ring
Speaker 3: people out emotionally, but I also like to have fun.
Speaker 1: I like it, you know, have fun.
Speaker 2: But it's another thing too of are you willing? And
Speaker 2: I'm using you as an example, but just as an
Speaker 2: artists period, like are we willing to take that chance?
Speaker 2: Because every artist isn't willing to take that chance. Some
Speaker 2: are is just like, listen, this is what they like
Speaker 2: me for. I love me for. That's what I'll make
Speaker 2: other than being like, you know what, this is what
Speaker 2: I love and hopefully you love it with me. And
Speaker 2: some people just aren't willing to make that sacrifice and
Speaker 2: have people be like, ah, that ain't.
Speaker 3: What I want it from you track them at thirteen.
Speaker 2: But there's so many people, especially now with social media
Speaker 2: and how fast the music business moves. It's people all
Speaker 2: over the world that hear your song as soon as
Speaker 2: it comes out. Absolutely so for those those other millions
Speaker 2: that want a certain thing, is a billion people out
Speaker 2: here that just like, oh my god, I've never heard
Speaker 2: of Laylor Hathaway, right.
Speaker 3: And everybody has access to the same stuff.
Speaker 2: Everybody got access.
Speaker 3: So the whole point for me is to be able
Speaker 3: to on every record, is to be able to capture
Speaker 3: the base and give them a loving hug and let
Speaker 3: them sing the blues and then expand the tour the
Speaker 3: territory past that. And that's always what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: And this drops when this album drops. Win.
Speaker 3: This album drops June fourteenth, in time for your June
Speaker 3: teenth celebration.
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to get this at the top of
Speaker 1: the episode to make sure that they understand that June fourteenth.
Speaker 1: In the name of the album, Vana Black, van to Black,
Speaker 1: and what is van to black?
Speaker 3: It's like the blackest black, even though you know, I
Speaker 3: found in the last few years that like I'm super black,
Speaker 3: Andy black, and I was always, but now I'm extra
Speaker 3: I got extra black. In the last ten ten years or.
Speaker 2: So, you've gotten blacker.
Speaker 3: Come blacker.
Speaker 2: I think I've got what.
Speaker 1: We've just settled into all the plant.
Speaker 3: Like two thirteen fifteen, I started looking around and really
Speaker 3: evaluating my life in this country and my life like
Speaker 3: on the planet as a as a black woman, and
Speaker 3: understanding that just from all of this is where all
Speaker 3: of this comes and the culture that we dictate is
Speaker 3: just dictated to the whole, the whole, Like everything I do,
Speaker 3: me as in the body me, all of us is
Speaker 3: studied throughout the no matter what corner you go in
Speaker 3: in the world black black, there's some black andy black
Speaker 3: stuff there, and we're like a small newish group of people.
Speaker 3: Really if you look at it in the history of peoples,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Black Americans, But we have
Speaker 3: spoken to every society in the world and influenced it
Speaker 3: with our culture, with our songs, with their hair, their asses,
Speaker 3: with our lips, with the way we talk and the
Speaker 3: way we walk and all of that. So it's just
Speaker 3: it has been sinking into my brain through osmosis in
Speaker 3: the last ten fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Van to Black, the title cut is absolutely out of
Speaker 1: this world. You out of it. I'm just still like
Speaker 1: listening as we're talking. So I'm gonna get through it.
Speaker 1: Because it was some earth went and fire in there.
Speaker 1: It was like it was just so many things throughout
Speaker 1: the project that I was just like, and then you
Speaker 1: went into some crazy time signatures, which was very disrespectful,
Speaker 1: very disrespectful. Some people are gonna be very confused.
Speaker 2: I'm sure she sang very easy.
Speaker 1: Easy, like it was nothing. No one's going to know
Speaker 1: where they snapped their fingers. I'm a drummer, so I was.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you cannot do that.
Speaker 1: I told you can't do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell me that you admonished me on my own ship.
Speaker 1: Okay, listen, what we love to do. We love to
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning, like Chicago shut down, like
Speaker 1: where it.
Speaker 2: Chicago black.
Speaker 1: I just I mean the question I normally asked is
Speaker 1: when did somebody say or identify that you had it
Speaker 1: in you were special? But I just feel like, for
Speaker 1: some reason, were born as soon as when you were born,
Speaker 1: like when they cut the cord you hit a note. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I feel like that happened.
Speaker 3: No, I don't you know what. It's funny. I think
Speaker 3: that from the time I was very little, you know,
Speaker 3: like I have perfect pitch. My parents have perfect pitch,
Speaker 3: and both your parents have perfect Yeah. I think that
Speaker 3: My mother said that the elevator would come down and
Speaker 3: it would whistle. Dad will say what notice that? And
Speaker 3: I was able to say it, which seems like a
Speaker 3: big deal. No, no, no, what I'm saying is when
Speaker 3: you listen to music all the time, you develop a
Speaker 3: memory for music. And for a lot of people that
Speaker 3: that muscle memory of hearing a song and knowing what
Speaker 3: key to sing it in. Like my best friend is
Speaker 3: pretty tone deaf, but when she starts a record, when
Speaker 3: she starts singing a record acapella, she normally starts it
Speaker 3: in the right key. It's a memory, do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's still.
Speaker 2: If you can't sing, you got a bad memory. That's
Speaker 2: just like, oh you all right, bro has a horrible memory.
Speaker 1: It's not that you're not gifted, bab you have a
Speaker 1: bad memory.
Speaker 3: Memory. It's the same way you learn to talk. It's
Speaker 3: the same way you follow whomever's teaching you to talk,
Speaker 3: how to talk, the inflections, the way you go down,
Speaker 3: the way it's up as briten, down as no. It's
Speaker 3: all of that. We unlearned that as we get older.
Speaker 3: But that's the same way you learn to talk. Is
Speaker 3: where you learn.
Speaker 1: Let me try some. I was a whole step down,
Speaker 1: so I have relative pitch.
Speaker 3: What are you singing?
Speaker 1: I was? I was? I was singing? How excellent?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So that's so like I can hold up me trying
Speaker 1: to Uh.
Speaker 3: These are good exercises for your ear. These are good
Speaker 3: ear training exercises down okay, so you know you're within it.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm microtonally off nowadays sometimes okay. But Claire Fisher
Speaker 3: told me that the world is not vibrating at four
Speaker 3: forty anymore like it was.
Speaker 1: That is a fact.
Speaker 2: So the world change, I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Wasn't me fact.
Speaker 3: I'll take it.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, you don't hear spinning bars, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's at she did?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: It's just okay? And then and then I want to
Speaker 1: ask you this, and then we'll go back to the
Speaker 1: we go back to the beginning. What made you say
Speaker 1: there's a chance I can sing two notes at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know what?
Speaker 3: It just happened, and then I thought, oh, and then
Speaker 3: I kept trying it, and then I would show it
Speaker 3: to people and say what can I do with this?
Speaker 3: And people were like hmmm. And then I did it,
Speaker 3: and I did it on a John p Key record
Speaker 3: as a little joke, and he kept it on the record,
Speaker 3: and then I started doing it more often, and then
Speaker 3: I did it for that Snarky Puppy record and people
Speaker 3: were able to see it actually happening because there were
Speaker 3: people floating around on the internet like watch this, but
Speaker 3: it was not real. And so when people could see
Speaker 3: it happening and watch watch me working it out like changing,
Speaker 3: you know, singing over changes with it, which I didn't
Speaker 3: know I could do either until that moment. Then it
Speaker 3: became like, oh, well that's a phenomenal thing. But I've
Speaker 3: been doing it since I was like thirteen.
Speaker 2: Did you want to be in a group person instead
Speaker 2: of having imaginary.
Speaker 3: Free normy imagining group?
Speaker 2: What does this come from? No?
Speaker 3: I just I just make a lot of I make
Speaker 3: a lot of sounds. I'm just into sound.
Speaker 1: Okay, you hit an elevator, your pop says what key
Speaker 1: is that? And you can say the key and what
Speaker 1: age is this?
Speaker 4: Two?
Speaker 3: Two three? I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not normal.
Speaker 3: It's it's normal. If you grew up in the house
Speaker 3: of music, it's normal.
Speaker 1: Like it's not. I don't want you to believe that
Speaker 1: isn't it. I do not want you to get here.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it is.
Speaker 1: No, it's pretty sure it's normal.
Speaker 2: No, looking in the camera deeply, it is not going
Speaker 2: anymore normal.
Speaker 3: Normal, Like you know how you grew up with kids
Speaker 3: that have musician parents or big brother and sister parents,
Speaker 3: and they know a lot of music. I just grew
Speaker 3: up in a house full of music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's like, you know, there are people who
Speaker 1: are what we call not geniuses, but when they're early,
Speaker 1: when they came in their kids, when they prategies like
Speaker 1: you're you're you're clearly a prodigy because the gift resonated
Speaker 1: so different at an early age, Like that's a thing
Speaker 1: that you know you ask an adult, okay, or or
Speaker 1: going into your adult years like very skill, got it,
Speaker 1: but this is something that you're like, you know, like
Speaker 1: like a twenty royster doing uh doing clinics at ten
Speaker 1: in front of grown men, Like this is how you
Speaker 1: play the drums? Like that type of thing is what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to explain that you had them telling you
Speaker 1: it's not normal and you can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that part is not normal. And I was a
Speaker 3: piano players kid, and I traveled and played piano, and
Speaker 3: I played, you know for my mother, like for her
Speaker 3: voice lessons. I would play piano for her. My sister
Speaker 3: and I both grew up doing music like from day one,
Speaker 3: from literally from day one, and so that was just
Speaker 3: the the regularity of my life. I don't really It's
Speaker 3: hard to see it any other way because I felt like,
Speaker 3: whose parents don't do music? Everybody does music. It's everywhere.
Speaker 1: It was, it's normal for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it wasn't even about making a decision about it.
Speaker 3: It just it just was, yeah, well there was never.
Speaker 3: I mean, the only time my mother ever threatened me
Speaker 3: was like I would want to go outside and she said,
Speaker 3: you don't want to, you don't want to play piano.
Speaker 3: And I'd say, no, I want to go outside, and
Speaker 3: she say, okay, I'm gonna call miss Bion Kenni now
Speaker 3: and tell her you don't want to take lessons anymore.
Speaker 3: And I say, no, I'll do it. That's the only
Speaker 3: pressure I ever got.
Speaker 1: So you were in you were in lessons as well, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because I know you were study. I did you know
Speaker 1: how earlier you started.
Speaker 3: Started like three four like that at the American Conservatory
Speaker 3: of Music. So my my thing is like the nature
Speaker 3: that I had, and then also the nurture which my
Speaker 3: parents also had. They were born musicians, but they met
Speaker 3: at Howard at the Fine Arts School.
Speaker 1: Shout out the Define Arts Department at Howard University that
Speaker 1: developed me absolutely in that basement of the Fine Arts Building,
Speaker 1: the musicians shedding yes in them rooms and the drum rooms,
Speaker 1: and oh my god, I saw something from Gordon to
Speaker 1: Marlon Saunders to Chris Daddy Dave, Like, so.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so many and your parents met there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: it all makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so as you're developing your tone, are you are
Speaker 1: you emulating Pops at this time? Are you like saying
Speaker 1: okay that is or it's just you were just born
Speaker 1: with that, just singing.
Speaker 3: And I didn't even really I knew I was a musician.
Speaker 3: I used to tell my mother I wanted to be
Speaker 3: a magician, and she'd say, no, you mean musician. But
Speaker 3: I actually wanted to do magic. So I tried theater.
Speaker 3: I tried, you know, I tried desperately the dance department,
Speaker 3: which did not work out for me at all. But
Speaker 3: it was not a thing until you really.
Speaker 1: Don't you do it? I can dance, don't you.
Speaker 2: Oh you've met your twin? Yeah no, so okay you didn't.
Speaker 2: It didn't work out.
Speaker 3: I mean it worked out over time, but I didn't
Speaker 3: really even start. I feel like I started coming into
Speaker 3: my instrument like in college. You know, I got to
Speaker 3: college and people started coming up to me on the
Speaker 3: stairs like, hey, are you done? You have to Pay's daughter?
Speaker 3: And I was like yeah, say, oh we want you
Speaker 3: to come come sing with us, or come be in
Speaker 3: my ensemble or come, you know, make music with us.
Speaker 2: That group that she was preparing for.
Speaker 3: Girl, that's where I discovered like my sound and I'm
Speaker 3: still I'm still discovering it.
Speaker 2: And you went to Berkeley was prestigious, is it?
Speaker 1: My cousin went to Berkeley, the one who inspired me
Speaker 1: to do all this? Oh yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I applied to like two schools. I knew I
Speaker 3: wanted to go to Berkeley because I had these friends
Speaker 3: in high school that were guitar players and they said
Speaker 3: they were going to Berkeley. They gave me my Pat
Speaker 3: Metheni records. They gave me my Jean leue Ponti records,
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh, it's not a classical school. No
Speaker 3: one will judge me for the breathiness of my voice
Speaker 3: or make me try to sing and a register that's
Speaker 3: not comfortable. That's where I want to go.
Speaker 1: That's just crazy that like, as you say this right,
Speaker 1: because you know when we listen when when I heard you,
Speaker 1: when I discovered you, I was like, oh, that's that's perfect,
Speaker 1: that's incredible. But there were people early on.
Speaker 2: Yeah that didn't Yeah, that didn't get it. I never
Speaker 2: thought you.
Speaker 1: I never thought you would say that.
Speaker 3: There's people that still don't get it.
Speaker 1: Impossible.
Speaker 3: It's a true thing. Everything is not for everybody.
Speaker 2: But in a subjective business, subjective is one thing, but
Speaker 2: right and wrong or another right now for someone to
Speaker 2: that's a crazy statement in my opinions before. So at
Speaker 2: no point did you did you ever have the you know,
Speaker 2: I no, okay, use that everage relax, hath the way?
Speaker 1: No? Okay no, no, people make it.
Speaker 3: No, I never had that.
Speaker 1: You guess that.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: It built my character, built me into deciding like, okay,
Speaker 3: I can't sing like those girls. How what is the
Speaker 3: way that I sing? What is my sound? What is
Speaker 3: the what is the characteristic? What are the characteristics of
Speaker 3: my instrument that make it singular? Because I can't do
Speaker 3: what those girls can do. I can't belt, I can't
Speaker 3: sing high, I can't you know all those things that
Speaker 3: I used to go to a show and see these
Speaker 3: women singing, particularly women women singing, and feel like, oh,
Speaker 3: I wish I could do that, and I still have
Speaker 3: those things I want to be able to do. But
Speaker 3: I have always more connected with the men that I
Speaker 3: listened to because I was always in that register. So
Speaker 3: I'm twelve years old at the roller RNK singing yearning
Speaker 3: in the original key, you know.
Speaker 1: So it is that death in your voice though, that
Speaker 1: makes it, that makes you special, singular and makes it
Speaker 1: special because I've seen you live. Go to go to
Speaker 1: that basement and everybody just like.
Speaker 3: Aalvo. He said, if you go any lower, you'll need
Speaker 3: an exorcism.
Speaker 1: But it's so rich and and like it's so rich
Speaker 1: and right. I'm still not connecting with that. We got
Speaker 1: to shout those people out who didn't get it. What
Speaker 1: were you thinking?
Speaker 3: It was a European you know, everything is kind of European.
Speaker 3: And that's another one.
Speaker 1: Of those things in the kind of the studied space.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, when you're singing carolmeo Ben, there's only you know,
Speaker 3: seven ways you can really sound on it.
Speaker 2: And there's a difference in music is the one thing too,
Speaker 2: where it's most of the things that are quote unquote
Speaker 2: supposed to be right usually don't work in the business right,
Speaker 2: like it is very much, you know, with all due respect,
Speaker 2: like this is a business that of where if you
Speaker 2: can't do you teach mm hm, well you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like most people that can really do this
Speaker 2: aren't teachers, not not in not in music, because it's
Speaker 2: just it's something else, is something else that connects to
Speaker 2: the audience. And maybe that's the.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we're past the time right, because there
Speaker 1: was a time where right was right.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think there was a time where
Speaker 1: right was right. When you where when you heard a
Speaker 1: young Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you there were some people that had an
Speaker 2: opinion about my.
Speaker 1: But I'm just talking about the effect of it. It
Speaker 1: still was like that's right when you heard when they
Speaker 1: heard Ray Charles, like, oh yeah, when they heard Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 3: There is a there is an undeniable quality about greatness
Speaker 3: that's always going to rise. Period. I like the way
Speaker 3: you said there's an undeniable the cream will always like
Speaker 3: you said, but there was somebody in the corner like
Speaker 3: you sing too raspy.
Speaker 1: Y, doing that your hair right?
Speaker 2: Something to say in the music.
Speaker 3: Everybody has something to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so get me to It's college discovering the
Speaker 1: vocal many groups. Remember I was not in any groups.
Speaker 3: I was in Vocal Summit. That was just like an
Speaker 3: apella type of situation, like.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, yeah, the movie is pitch perfect. Pitch perfect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of like that got it. Yeah, we were great.
Speaker 3: We were actually really good.
Speaker 1: So full like sixth part, like the whole. I know
Speaker 1: that was crazy. Yeah, because I love to take six.
Speaker 3: About like I like, I like to think of them
Speaker 3: as take seven because you.
Speaker 1: Can.
Speaker 2: I just you know, we're in Jodysy. Oh yeah, we're
Speaker 2: in Josy. I don't know if they know it, but
Speaker 2: we're in Josey.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take six to.
Speaker 3: About to go on the road again, aren't they we are?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course we're of course word book books. You
Speaker 2: take six too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but see she can be an extra number because
Speaker 1: she knows what she knows what the other notes are.
Speaker 2: And I did the talking parts, and boys.
Speaker 3: You are busy so many.
Speaker 1: Because you no girl, you're just running around with that
Speaker 1: other fella. You're definitely not gonna be able.
Speaker 2: To do that line.
Speaker 1: I didn't mind.
Speaker 2: I didn't I.
Speaker 1: Get me, to get me to a discovery to where
Speaker 1: it becomes like now it's about a record company and
Speaker 1: in a budget, in a project.
Speaker 3: So I got signed to Virgin when I was probably
Speaker 3: seventeen or eighteen. I was in school. I used to
Speaker 3: get on an Amtrak and come from Boston out here.
Speaker 2: Wait, you were taking the train from I'm not just
Speaker 2: gonna say, oh, I was going up to New York,
Speaker 2: Boston to LA.
Speaker 3: I was coming to LA and demo Wing Records.
Speaker 1: And how long I just was seventeen years?
Speaker 3: Hold long?
Speaker 1: How long did it take for you to get.
Speaker 2: From three days? Are you seeing the country? Was looking
Speaker 2: out of the window, I've.
Speaker 3: Been everywhere, I have, I have. I used to come
Speaker 3: back and forth. My mother was not flying at that point,
Speaker 3: and so I would get on the train and come
Speaker 3: back and forth three and make my rade. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was fun.
Speaker 1: I can imagine it. At seventeen years old. It was
Speaker 1: exciting that can I can no not you, not you.
Speaker 3: It was always fun on the way on the way back,
Speaker 3: and the way back.
Speaker 2: You wish you could fly, but your mom didn't fly.
Speaker 3: Not at that point. We had a little hiatus of
Speaker 3: her saying like I'm not messing with these aeroplanes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we would amtrak everywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow. And so you can sign the Virgin.
Speaker 3: I got signed the Virgin. Jeff Foreman signon. You know him,
Speaker 3: Jeff Foreman is in two May's cousin. He was a Virgin.
Speaker 3: I got signed there there.
Speaker 1: But we were there in nine two thousand and that's
Speaker 1: what black ground was that in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: I got signed there. I don't know what year it was.
Speaker 3: Now its it's becoming a blur, which is a little.
Speaker 1: Bit scary it happens to me.
Speaker 3: But it was before Janet was there, before Lenny was there,
Speaker 3: before D'Angelo was there.
Speaker 1: So that was way early because because we got offered
Speaker 1: a deal. When Janet was there, I was in tenth grade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, gotcha, you were in the tenth grade.
Speaker 6: Gosh.
Speaker 1: But we were singing for Jesus, and we said we
Speaker 1: just gonna sing for Jesus. And look at me.
Speaker 3: Now I understood.
Speaker 1: I could have took that Virgin.
Speaker 2: Been a lot been signed to Sir Richard Branson.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: Well, I was there when Paul Abdua was there and nice,
Speaker 3: you know, it always was perplexing to me that I
Speaker 3: was trying to be on the road like with a band,
Speaker 3: and no one could figure that out. And then I
Speaker 3: would go to these big pop shows and it'd be like,
Speaker 3: no musicians anywhere. So I was still in such a
Speaker 3: music mindset at that point, like I'm gonna make records,
Speaker 3: but I'm an actual jazz musician. That's really what I
Speaker 3: thought about myself at that point in life. So I
Speaker 3: got signed and made that first record and wanted to
Speaker 3: move to New York so that I could uh keep
Speaker 3: my chops up and hang with other musicians and play.
Speaker 3: And they were like, no, you've got to move to
Speaker 3: l A. You got to come to LA.
Speaker 1: So I came to LA so you could be on
Speaker 1: the scene or the LA scene.
Speaker 3: This one lady told me, she said, you've got to
Speaker 3: come to LA because our senior Hall is here. We're
Speaker 3: not going to be flying you back and forth to
Speaker 3: do our senior hall. That was her whole reasoning for me.
Speaker 3: I was on it like six times.
Speaker 2: I never sat, never sat on the couch.
Speaker 1: No never, what do you mean you?
Speaker 3: I was always there just I did with my band.
Speaker 3: I was on with Gerald Albright, I was on with
Speaker 3: Joe Sample, I was on Yeah, I was on a
Speaker 3: bunch of times. Never sat on the couch, but you
Speaker 3: sang a bunch of times. I'll take it all right.
Speaker 3: Hall Show used to sound good. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you remember. They had a cracked team of sound engineers
Speaker 3: and that show sounded great top to bottom. Absolutely it absolutely.
Speaker 1: We need that back.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 1: We need it. I need a place to go, I.
Speaker 3: Agree on it's a shame that we don't have.
Speaker 1: That because a lot of what are are a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that may resonate what our culture may
Speaker 1: not make it to the charts. And only we understand that.
Speaker 3: Well most things there, yeah, are not going to make
Speaker 3: it to the chart.
Speaker 1: You need a place. First record, first record?
Speaker 3: When was that? Nineteen seventy, nineteen ninety, That's my first record, Hathaway.
Speaker 1: I'm still going on my notes. He's got notes, he
Speaker 1: has notes. I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: That was a good little record.
Speaker 2: I listen to record.
Speaker 3: When you go back and listen to your old record.
Speaker 1: Lailah Hathaway live? Is that just Leila Hathaway? And that
Speaker 1: was what when?
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety nineteen ninety?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jesus Christ, how were you then we put that out?
Speaker 1: You know, young, you know, you can't ask what are
Speaker 1: you doing because it's a younger age, but it was
Speaker 1: it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I'm not even married, and I know not it was
Speaker 2: a long time ago because.
Speaker 1: She said, so you were youthful, Yeah, he was just
Speaker 1: born and record.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I put that record out and uh, Luckily people
Speaker 3: that I was wanting to work with and associate with
Speaker 3: were able to feel my intent through that record because
Speaker 3: the record, to me, is a great record. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff on that record that is great. Smile
Speaker 3: I'm coming Back, which is obviously like a great song
Speaker 3: that I've recorded for three records in the last thirty
Speaker 3: five years, stay Home Tonight. It's Something, which is another
Speaker 3: record that I recorded for that record that I want
Speaker 3: to Grammy for twenty years later?
Speaker 2: Are you went to Grammy for twenty years later?
Speaker 3: So It's Something is a record that I recorded on
Speaker 3: my first album. I was working with Andre Fisher, who
Speaker 3: was a drummer for Rufus, and he took me to
Speaker 3: get this record that Brenda Russell had written called It's Something.
Speaker 3: It's a Brenda Russell David Foster record, and so I
Speaker 3: recorded it from my first album and then I recorded
Speaker 3: it from my live album, but I also recorded it
Speaker 3: with this band called Snarky Puppy and we want a
Speaker 3: Grammy for it, and that was it's like twenty years apart.
Speaker 1: How crazy is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Have you done that multiple times? Where you do a
Speaker 2: rerecord of something later on?
Speaker 3: I do a lot of covers. I do a whole
Speaker 3: lot of covers.
Speaker 2: What's the method behind that for you?
Speaker 3: For me, it's really making a love letter for the
Speaker 3: person that recorded that song originally, So for Forever, for Always,
Speaker 3: for Love or Loves Holiday by Earth Wind and Fire
Speaker 3: or Angel with Anita Baker or I mean a lot
Speaker 3: of those records on it Joe sample record are obviously
Speaker 3: covers their standards. Heaven Knows was my first single ever
Speaker 3: that was a cover. You know, Jackie Graham had recorded
Speaker 3: that in London a couple of years pror of that.
Speaker 3: A lot of the records that people know me for
Speaker 3: much like my father, are not my original records.
Speaker 2: Were you purposely doing that though?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, you just you love the song.
Speaker 3: You just like Yeah, I like to sing stuff that
Speaker 3: I like. I mean again, as a sometimes as a
Speaker 3: recording artist, they want you to, you know, make a
Speaker 3: record that people know you know what's the cover gonna be?
Speaker 3: You know, that's a conversation a lot of times, particularly
Speaker 3: in the part of the recording world that I was
Speaker 3: in at the time. But I mean, I was seventeen
Speaker 3: or eighteen years old. I always say, until I before
Speaker 3: I realized that my father didn't write What's going on?
Speaker 3: I didn't know, not because I wasn't a Marvin Gay fan,
Speaker 3: but because everyone and I saw play that record, played
Speaker 3: his arrangement of it, and so I thought he owned
Speaker 3: everything he sang. I did not know. John Lennon wrote
Speaker 3: jealous guy. You know, so a lot of the records
Speaker 3: that he performed, he did not write. A song for
Speaker 3: you is not his song, but people credit him for
Speaker 3: that song. So who what.
Speaker 2: You just? I mean, I only know.
Speaker 3: Look, well there is there is only one definitive version,
Speaker 3: which is his, and I believe that that's my own
Speaker 3: biased opinion, but not his record. Yes, it's yours and
Speaker 3: my you and me together.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's not I did not know that.
Speaker 3: You've got a friend. Obviously he didn't write. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of records that my dad stole from people.
Speaker 1: Cap Jesse Campbell, Willy Nelson, Who Who's.
Speaker 3: Who's a writer for a song for you, you know
Speaker 3: who it is.
Speaker 2: You're looking it up, I am, I don't.
Speaker 3: You're gonna know it when when he says it, I
Speaker 3: just can't call it up right now because I haven't
Speaker 3: had any breakfast. That's why Leon Russell, Leon Russell, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I did not know that.
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, even the arrangement, like the piano, that's Daddy's arrangement.
Speaker 3: He's playing it. But yeah, but it's a it's a
Speaker 3: it was an already recorded song. Wow, for all we know,
Speaker 3: that's an old standard.
Speaker 1: H you know that one? I know the song. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that it's an old standard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an old standard. And even for when he's
Speaker 3: playing it on that record, I think the story is
Speaker 3: that ROBERTA is telling him the lyrics in his ears.
Speaker 2: He's no way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But that's the approach to us to a to
Speaker 3: a standard or cover is to first internally is to
Speaker 3: own it in some way, but but mostly it's to
Speaker 3: stand beside the thing that gave you the impetus to
Speaker 3: create that thing, like a love letter to that impetus.
Speaker 2: That I mean one of your favorite I mean one
Speaker 2: of one of my favorite songs of yours? Is not
Speaker 2: your song? Technically?
Speaker 3: Which one?
Speaker 2: I can't make you love me?
Speaker 1: And I used to go through like singing that song
Speaker 1: at colleges and those kids started was my song?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I run into people all the time.
Speaker 3: A lot of people think that as a Chris Brown song.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you do when you put out this first album,
Speaker 1: are you now starting to make the connection with with
Speaker 1: a lot bunch of the artists that you see and
Speaker 1: look up to and that kind of thing or does
Speaker 1: that take time?
Speaker 3: That takes time?
Speaker 1: I mean because I say that because you come from Royalty,
Speaker 1: are they are they picking up on it and saying
Speaker 1: we gotta.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is, you know, I'm very young, but there
Speaker 3: are people reaching out to me like Marcus Miller, Joe
Speaker 3: sample Gerald Allbright. You know, I got to go Dave Samborn,
Speaker 3: I got to go play with legends based on that record,
Speaker 3: which is funny because the record is not like a
Speaker 3: jazz record by any stretch of the imagination, but people
Speaker 3: could hear I guess the intent, and I started to
Speaker 3: work like kind of constantly with people of that ilk
Speaker 3: of that elk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're at Berkeley at this time or you're you're
Speaker 2: still in that.
Speaker 3: I graduated when the record came out.
Speaker 2: Ok, yeah yeah baby, and everybody's now reaching out.
Speaker 3: Yeah not everybody, not everybody, but.
Speaker 2: The people you wanted, my peers, that's.
Speaker 3: Immediate peer. I mean I did some work on of course,
Speaker 3: I draw all kinds of but I mean I've done
Speaker 3: a lot of work. I had done a lot of
Speaker 3: work at that point with people sort of in my
Speaker 3: immediate circle. But then I started working with jazz musicians
Speaker 3: a lot, and I think it became complicated for the
Speaker 3: label because it was like, well, where do we put you?
Speaker 3: You know, the nineties also is a vortex in terms
Speaker 3: of rhythm and blues music, particularly for black girls. Like
Speaker 3: a lot of the girls that were coming up with me,
Speaker 3: like Seannese and Karen Wheeler and Jeanne and do you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of women trying to find their place
Speaker 3: in that industry at that point, and there's a bit
Speaker 3: of a vortex happening, like the whole you know, like
Speaker 3: one day I went into Virgin after the second record
Speaker 3: came out, and the whole black department was gone. They
Speaker 3: had fired everyone, you know, so it kind of like
Speaker 3: was that in the top of the nineties for black
Speaker 3: music in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was because, like, your gift was
Speaker 1: just mature? But so, yeah, it was old.
Speaker 3: It was it was old and mature. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So did they sign you as a jazz artist or
Speaker 2: did they sign as an R and B artist?
Speaker 3: They signed me as an R and B artist because
Speaker 3: I had I had these cool demos that Renee and
Speaker 3: Angela have written in one of them songs I can't
Speaker 3: find and it's so good. I don't know whatever happened
Speaker 3: to it, but they signed me to make what ended
Speaker 3: up being what was supposed to be like an R
Speaker 3: and B pop record, I believe. But when we got
Speaker 3: working then it became like, oh, this is what this is.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: I used to have conversations with them about what to
Speaker 3: say on video soul. We would we would prep for
Speaker 3: interviews and they would say, who are you listening to?
Speaker 3: And I would say, oh, I just got a new
Speaker 3: one Shorter album and I got a John Coltrane record
Speaker 3: that I really like, and they'd say, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: don't say that.
Speaker 2: So you tricked them, trick them, just like, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna take this R and B Monday you know when
Speaker 2: we had this conversation with Robert Glass where he was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're gonna get twelve hundred jazz album absolutely or twelve thousand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but so yeah, he was out here with a big budget.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a big budget. No, it wasn't a big
Speaker 3: bugy No. No, I don't think so, I don't know what,
Speaker 3: but you know that when you really reflect on it,
Speaker 3: what would have been a big budget in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Nineties was rocking maybe good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we spent a lot of money because I was
Speaker 2: in a kid group. Oh, we were on MCA and
Speaker 2: we probably we probably spent about seven to fifty yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow. So there's a there's a part of my career
Speaker 3: which again mirrors my father's career, which is that I'm
Speaker 3: never not going to make records or or continue to
Speaker 3: be a musician and make music. But there is a
Speaker 3: commercial element to that part of the R and B
Speaker 3: money that missed me in the nineties because I was
Speaker 3: off doing other things.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense it being talented?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's off.
Speaker 2: Being talented inigent you know, because we are in this business,
Speaker 2: we all have to find that happy medium at some point.
Speaker 2: At some point, like you have to you know, as
Speaker 2: gifted as you are, you have to find that space
Speaker 2: to say, Okay, is this thing going to take care
Speaker 2: of me? And how am I going to start putting
Speaker 2: myself into space where it takes care of me other
Speaker 2: than it just takes care of you know, just my
Speaker 2: ego or what i've.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I'm great, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I see so many artists along the way, we've
Speaker 2: all been in this business for you know, many years,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, the artist is really really talented
Speaker 2: or they can really sing, or great performer, all these things,
Speaker 2: and me and him have these conversations and he'll be Jason, what,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that ain't gonna make no money.
Speaker 1: Doug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, yeah, but I don't think that's gonna
Speaker 2: make no money because this, this, this, this, And I
Speaker 2: don't think that the artist wants to I don't even
Speaker 2: know what the word would be.
Speaker 3: Like capitulate to what is the thing that.
Speaker 1: Would at least kind of to where there it's a
Speaker 1: compromise the digestible in a sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I have followed the advice of many
Speaker 3: people over you know, the years, and people said I've
Speaker 3: had conversations where people say, oh, it's got to be
Speaker 3: this many beats per minuted, that's the only way you're
Speaker 3: gonna break radio, or it's got to be it's got
Speaker 3: to be a lifestyle record. You know, there's people always
Speaker 3: there's always like a man at a label that has
Speaker 3: an idea of what you need to do for your life.
Speaker 3: But ultimately, like I have never really wanted for anything.
Speaker 3: I have never I have always been a musician. I
Speaker 3: have one job in college. I used to work at
Speaker 3: Star Market in Boston. That's the only other job I
Speaker 3: ever had.
Speaker 2: You do a star Market, that's the grocery store. Imagine
Speaker 2: she's checking out summer.
Speaker 3: I did it. I worked at the Shari Movie Theater
Speaker 3: for two months. Those are my only jobs I've ever
Speaker 3: done other than music. So I have been okay on
Speaker 3: my path. Yes I would like some g wagons and
Speaker 3: houses and all that ship, but ultimately, the legacy, the
Speaker 3: thing that I have inside of me is so important
Speaker 3: to me that it has to be good and I'm
Speaker 3: never gonna want for anything. I know that.
Speaker 2: Because he can play this is awesome.
Speaker 3: I wish you had two keyboards. I would have played
Speaker 3: song with you. I also stop at singing the wrong
Speaker 3: note at any given song.
Speaker 1: That I don't even know what she expects.
Speaker 2: See you pop up on this podcast.
Speaker 3: That's too close, that's still too close. Get all the ways,
Speaker 3: just get out out, go ahead, just ahead, change.
Speaker 1: No, I want to hear the audience is going to
Speaker 1: be man, that's fun.
Speaker 3: That is fun, is fun.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to go somewhere.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: What do you find more offensive? Flat or sharp?
Speaker 1: Flat?
Speaker 3: I agree, because the plan is.
Speaker 1: Like you didn't even try, You gave it no effort.
Speaker 1: If you overshoot a rock with you sharp make his records,
Speaker 1: it really does.
Speaker 2: Last night, we want to know something later.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 1: Your top f.
Speaker 5: Your top five? Rock at you?
Speaker 2: We all know?
Speaker 1: All right? No, why do you.
Speaker 3: Sound like a Bugwiser commercial right now?
Speaker 2: Because that's what it is?
Speaker 3: You five show top five. I hate these questions?
Speaker 1: So what top five? Hate these R and B singers? Okay,
Speaker 1: right now, please.
Speaker 3: Let me just name five because top five is so hard.
Speaker 3: Tony Hathaway is number one.
Speaker 2: Start there all times, all time.
Speaker 3: There's just no there's no about really, there's no tone
Speaker 3: like that. Nope, make you laugh, makes you cry.
Speaker 1: Look drus very clean, very clean.
Speaker 3: I try not to think about these questions because I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you that I probably have one as well,
Speaker 3: one of the top five of all time zones.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: I just got to that in the last year and a.
Speaker 1: Half to shout out to myself.
Speaker 2: You haven't been the only person who named yourself. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: people name you. People people named you.
Speaker 3: I've watched many of your I'm gonna have to go
Speaker 3: through Thank you for those that name me. I appreciate
Speaker 3: it's their mamas that like my record hard shaka Stevie
Speaker 3: Michael top eight. It's very hard. I'm not even scratching
Speaker 3: the surface. I'm at the top. That's that's why five
Speaker 3: is hard.
Speaker 1: That's that's why we make it five, to make it hard.
Speaker 3: But if you get the same five people all the.
Speaker 2: Time, no't know you don't, we don't, we don't, we don't.
Speaker 3: Who have you got is.
Speaker 2: A staple obviously is like Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 1: Your dad, Michael Shock is actually not not not on
Speaker 1: that not in everyone's whitney.
Speaker 2: And it depends and it depends on the age demographics
Speaker 2: to you know what I mean, Like some people come
Speaker 2: in and have a younger top five. Some people have
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like it just it just depends.
Speaker 2: You might get an elephant. Gerald. No, that's what I'm
Speaker 2: just saying.
Speaker 3: What was the question though? Top five singers Singers of
Speaker 3: all Time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've been answering something.
Speaker 6: I was trying to sing it and tell you, Oh, okay,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Then my list is not much different. I'm gonna say
Speaker 3: my dad and I'm just gonna get up under his
Speaker 3: coat and save me because I just I take that. Now,
Speaker 3: I can do that. Singers of all Time. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 3: Nat King Cole. It's a hard one. I don't I
Speaker 3: played the fifth.
Speaker 1: I can't do it, can't do it.
Speaker 3: It's hard. Okay, you know earlier Aretha cannot be beat.
Speaker 1: Imagine.
Speaker 3: I'm really into Eric Dowkins, particularly right now too. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put him in there.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: It's excellent? Is that fine?
Speaker 2: Hard?
Speaker 1: Five has got here before? Five sod R and B songs.
Speaker 3: Songs I knew. I knew this was coming, and somehow
Speaker 3: I'm still yet unprepared. You know what I was listening
Speaker 3: to on the way over here, Circles by Atlantic Star.
Speaker 3: I love that record. All right, let's move on from
Speaker 3: that that's one. Okay, you know any Chaka console.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's one. This is Chaka Khan Essentials, Essentials, Value
Speaker 1: one and too. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Top five R and B records of all time.
Speaker 1: No, just your your favorite listen.
Speaker 3: I don't. I am bifurcated all over the place. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: it is so hard.
Speaker 1: What type of education? What did you major in music?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: But where are the words coming from? I'm sorry?
Speaker 2: Did you go to the penitentiary for that's the that's
Speaker 2: the real question.
Speaker 3: All right, let me think the discipitation. Herbie Hancock, come
Speaker 3: running to me, Herbie, all the Donny Hathaway songs. It's
Speaker 3: so hard, Mountains, Joni Mitchell, both sides. Now, do you
Speaker 3: know Glenn Rafferty.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Glen.
Speaker 2: Put us up on something.
Speaker 3: Glenn Rafferty songs. I like it's been you wo right
Speaker 3: down the line. Do you know that song? Yeah, Baker Street?
Speaker 3: Maybe that's song Baker Street. I love that song, Whining
Speaker 3: your Way down and bays. Then why don't we now
Speaker 3: go to Stevie Wonder or you know, any songs on it's.
Speaker 1: Just top twitter.
Speaker 3: To choose. It's very bad.
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, let's build your voltron. Okay, your your
Speaker 1: your super R and B artist, It's going to be
Speaker 1: easy to do. Okay, who are you going to get
Speaker 1: the vocal from the performance style? The styling performance style,
Speaker 1: let me announce it my performance style, the passion of
Speaker 1: the artists. And then since you are a song or,
Speaker 1: who's gonna write for this artist? Number one? Where you're
Speaker 1: gonna get the vocal from for this super R and
Speaker 1: B artist? Got it easy? Not even worried about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's tempo, that's ballad, that's whatever you need. Heart felt
Speaker 1: that you said, laugh and cry. The performance style on stage?
Speaker 3: Do you mean like dancing around style?
Speaker 1: If that's what you want performance? If you just want
Speaker 1: somebody who can stand and get your presence, your world way,
Speaker 1: your world. It's your artists.
Speaker 3: I'm just really micro sometimes it's your artist.
Speaker 1: What do you want your artists to do on stage?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna okay, the performance style I want is gonna
Speaker 3: be like my friend Hiram Bullock. He's no longer with us.
Speaker 3: He's a guitar player, but he I just watched him
Speaker 3: electrified people all over the world for years and years
Speaker 3: and years. He would just start playing and people would
Speaker 3: just their.
Speaker 1: Hair would blow back on some rock star type.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was. He was a jazz kind of
Speaker 3: jazz guitarist.
Speaker 1: How guitarists do they face beat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a thing, you know what those faces are?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, Styling the drip of.
Speaker 3: The artists, that's a hard one because you know, I
Speaker 3: like to be cute, but I also really liked to
Speaker 3: wear a T shirt and jeans and just be out there.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna choose like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like Rihanna or.
Speaker 1: Probably be which one.
Speaker 3: She's Beyonce. She's always super hella together.
Speaker 1: It's always customed, absolutely and get that at the stove.
Speaker 3: You can't buy that everywhere.
Speaker 1: Somebody has to make that thing. Someone would imported fabrics.
Speaker 3: Okay, imported hands, mhm.
Speaker 1: The passion of the artist, the heart.
Speaker 2: Of the artist.
Speaker 3: That's Donny Hathaway or me.
Speaker 1: A Hathaway.
Speaker 2: A Hathay half the way she would have told that,
Speaker 2: Damn teacher, I'm a Hathaway, nigga.
Speaker 1: You know who I know? I know Leila Hathaway.
Speaker 3: This is only in the last ten fifteen years. I
Speaker 3: mean every year somebody says to me, I not this dude,
Speaker 3: sounds just like your father. Every year. Have you heard
Speaker 3: such and such? Have you heard this one? Have you
Speaker 3: heard that one? He sounds just like your father.
Speaker 2: Have you heard anyone that sounded close.
Speaker 3: I've heard a lot of people to sound else. Nobody
Speaker 3: sounds like him. You know what I mean? I don't.
Speaker 1: And it's There was a guy who in DC sing
Speaker 1: in a group with Cliff Jones. I got Cliff. I
Speaker 1: think it might have passed. I cannot think of his
Speaker 1: name right now, to save my life, I know they'renna
Speaker 1: kill me. He sounded like your pops. Yeah, like we
Speaker 1: were in there like and it was like it was
Speaker 1: the patience that he had with his movement now that
Speaker 1: it was just like.
Speaker 3: A lot of the people that that sound like him
Speaker 3: or want to sound like him can capture the part
Speaker 3: of the color spectrum. They cannot capture the pain. And
Speaker 3: that's a big part of what his sound was.
Speaker 1: I hear exactly what you're saying. I hear a thousand
Speaker 1: persons now.
Speaker 3: In the last fifteen years. People walk up to me
Speaker 3: and say, like, I sound just like your father. I
Speaker 3: sound just like that.
Speaker 2: I say that to you, Yes, wow, said thought it is.
Speaker 2: That's wild and I.
Speaker 3: Always say I am Donny Hathaway.
Speaker 2: And there's that, so welcome to me, and so stop running.
Speaker 1: Up on please for the love about you cut.
Speaker 3: It top or someone's telling me someone on the voice
Speaker 3: sounds just like you, like no they didn't, but okay,
Speaker 3: that's fine. Why do you want to sound just like
Speaker 3: Donny Hathaway. Well, figure out what you sound like, incorporate that,
Speaker 3: that's part of that's part of the seed of what
Speaker 3: you sound like, and then what is your sound?
Speaker 1: And then what is your sound? Who's writing for this artist?
Speaker 3: Songwriters?
Speaker 2: It's making your day hard.
Speaker 3: So it's terrible. I mean, are they songs? Are they
Speaker 3: writing songs or tracks?
Speaker 2: Writing song tap line?
Speaker 3: Top line, the top line being melody Again. I've been
Speaker 3: doing some stuff with E. Dawkins and he's killing it.
Speaker 2: Or we wrote a lot of records with the Egg.
Speaker 1: So we.
Speaker 3: Stevie wonder in his prime, I mean Mitchell, I wonder
Speaker 3: what Stevie's records sound like right now, like just the
Speaker 3: records he's writing.
Speaker 2: I would love to know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but how can you?
Speaker 3: I mean, so many decades, so many songs like he
Speaker 3: did not miss, like entire albums of masterpieces.
Speaker 1: He also made difficult, he made impossible sound easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I would just love to hear though, because
Speaker 2: of like a Babyface, like baby Face still writing songs
Speaker 2: absolutely and hit records for himself for other people. Like
Speaker 2: So when you have someone like Stevie, wonder you just like,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better term, you wonder what the
Speaker 2: music still is? Yeah, what it would sound like if
Speaker 2: you just pull up on Stevie was playing working? Can
Speaker 2: you imagine that saying that to Stevie, wonder.
Speaker 1: What work she's working on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You hear something I would love to know because that's
Speaker 3: music I grew up with. So that music has accompanied
Speaker 3: me at every step of life. So I want to
Speaker 3: know what's it? How is it now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, we should start doing that. We started pulling
Speaker 2: up on it on jeez man, like fun for reason.
Speaker 2: We got that work out for it.
Speaker 3: It sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: We might get cussed out a couple of times, but whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1: Good stuff that.
Speaker 3: Was ugly, wasn't it like mustard? Like mustard?
Speaker 4: It's like all three of them.
Speaker 1: What I both try to do something.
Speaker 3: The look that you give me, one out of every
Speaker 3: three looks is like huh.
Speaker 1: Because that's what you be doing. You be doing hun stuff.
Speaker 3: I understand.
Speaker 1: Now. I'm gonna try to get through this song because
Speaker 1: in this song are the instructions for the next segment.
Speaker 2: The last one. You didn't know the last when you
Speaker 2: didn't listen to instruction.
Speaker 3: I'm paying attention. I'm fully aware of let's go.
Speaker 1: I ain't saying no nicks. I ain't saying no names.
Speaker 1: I ain't saying no names.
Speaker 2: Ain't saying no niggs.
Speaker 1: Who he was? What you did? Don't say she? Ain't
Speaker 1: saying no names.
Speaker 2: Hey, they very important segment of the show. I ain't
Speaker 2: saying no names. Tell us the story funny and fucked
Speaker 2: up a funny and fucked up the to the game.
Speaker 2: You can't say no name?
Speaker 3: Sure one. So I was doing a session with a
Speaker 3: friend who was working with these legendary singers, and my
Speaker 3: friend that was producing said, please come because one of
Speaker 3: these singers is I don't know how to communicate with
Speaker 3: her what I'm trying to get, And so I showed
Speaker 3: up and it was cool, but then the producer was like, hey,
Speaker 3: can you get them to do that thing that they do?
Speaker 3: And I was like, they said, they don't want to
Speaker 3: do that and now you pushing it. And so at
Speaker 3: some point the producer was like, please help me. They'll
Speaker 3: listen to you. So I got out of Mike and said, hey,
Speaker 3: can you do that? Do the thing? Do that thing
Speaker 3: you do? And she was like, I'm done. I'm done
Speaker 3: for the day. So that to me is not so funny.
Speaker 3: You had you had to you had to be there.
Speaker 3: She just came out studio like I'm done. I tried
Speaker 3: to help her. These stories are lame now because the
Speaker 3: fact that you can't say.
Speaker 1: Who it is gets great.
Speaker 3: I did tell Prince Ones that I had gas. That's
Speaker 3: kind of a funny story.
Speaker 1: You just said the name.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, because of course she was hanging out with him.
Speaker 1: Hey, Prince I got.
Speaker 3: I'm a very honest girl. What can I say that?
Speaker 3: The story I was talking about before, though, was harrowing
Speaker 3: because it was somebody that I held in very.
Speaker 1: High esteem and they canceled you off.
Speaker 3: They canceled a whole lot of things, They canceled a
Speaker 3: whole lot of people, and I just happened to be
Speaker 3: quietly in that line. But the reason it hurt was
Speaker 3: because it was somebody that I had really been trying
Speaker 3: to lift up and really been trying to support not
Speaker 3: in the way that they need what I have, but
Speaker 3: in a way that is how you support legends.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, absolutely, Yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the worst. Like when the legendary talent and
Speaker 3: then the legendary attitude don't.
Speaker 1: I've been there. It happens.
Speaker 2: It happens more than people know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been there.
Speaker 3: Some of the greatest musicians that I've ever met, though,
Speaker 3: are so cool.
Speaker 1: Most I think the thing that I've experienced is like
Speaker 1: the guys on a really really high level are the
Speaker 1: nicest people.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, they don't have anything to prove.
Speaker 2: It's the mids, some scanless midscanless.
Speaker 1: Mids, scandless mids like that. You know you mad, right?
Speaker 1: Are you walking like that? You can't be mid and
Speaker 1: walk and talk like that. I respect your confidence. Relax, relax, Well,
Speaker 1: well we got to pack your bags. Is you know,
Speaker 1: you got to get on that road. Get on tonight.
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to a new album.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm so excited. It's probably the best record
Speaker 3: I've made.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for the album too, and I'm excited because
Speaker 1: of the layers and you know, I'm gonna continue to
Speaker 1: encourage you to have fun. Yeah, you've you've You've more
Speaker 1: than earned that Black Black album. Have a ball. The
Speaker 1: intro is so crazy, Thank you, But have a ball.
Speaker 1: That temple there, that's that's yours, and have a good time.
Speaker 1: Because I was just like, literally when you were playing
Speaker 1: a couple of those songs, I was like this, ooh
Speaker 1: you and you and black Coffee. That would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he's legendary. You're legendary. That that mesh of your
Speaker 1: vocal and that tempo you would ride in that space.
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing that out there in the world in
Speaker 1: either to see what happens.
Speaker 3: When are we going to do something?
Speaker 1: Whenever you want to quit plan I'm the only thing
Speaker 1: I'm doing right now.
Speaker 3: This is my worst pest peeve in this whole business.
Speaker 3: I really want to do something with you. Oh, I'll
Speaker 3: call you Thursday.
Speaker 1: I'll give you my address. All right then, and you've
Speaker 1: you've been here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know you live here.
Speaker 1: So we work here and I work and I work
Speaker 1: at home and to guess wherever you feel comfortable. My
Speaker 1: wife to cook something I.
Speaker 3: Don't eat when I'm working. But yeah, that's be fine.
Speaker 1: We have some snacks on deck. Snacky Robinson got to
Speaker 1: keep snacks on deck snacking call.
Speaker 3: All right, well you said it. Now people know I'd like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we should, we really should, we actually should.
Speaker 1: I might have something.
Speaker 2: Casey came out here and said the same thing, same thing.
Speaker 1: Now I'm about to mix it single.
Speaker 3: But that's excellent.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, here's here's a good story, shady story about somebody
Speaker 3: I thought was sucked up. But I met this person.
Speaker 3: He's a legendary kind of songwriter dude. And I walked
Speaker 3: up to him. I was, you know, probably twenty five
Speaker 3: years old, and I said, I love your work. It
Speaker 3: has so much depth and color. I just I would
Speaker 3: love to work with you or write a song, or
Speaker 3: if you could write something for me. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you're familiar with what I do, but I just
Speaker 3: I think that what you do is for everyone. I
Speaker 3: would love to be involved. And he said, oh, I
Speaker 3: got two three hundred songs in the can. I could
Speaker 3: just give you one of those.
Speaker 2: He didn't eat and what I didn't, I.
Speaker 3: Don't want one of your songs in the can. It
Speaker 3: might have been, but I'm interested.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was coming to him. I think you're great. Can
Speaker 3: we make something bespoke for for both of our levels
Speaker 3: of great bespoke. And he said, I'm busy. I got
Speaker 3: ship I made for other people six weeks ago. Why
Speaker 3: don't you just sip through that and find it?
Speaker 1: Can you some of this meal? Prep?
Speaker 3: Just get that?
Speaker 1: No, no freshly cooked meal?
Speaker 2: Yeah you kind of said, come get this hit.
Speaker 3: He has no more hits. He's had no more hits.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yea, no, Mas, that statement really bad. Then
Speaker 1: if you don't have live the way I know you don't,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you don't feel like you have
Speaker 1: the perfect vocal. I I feel like you have the
Speaker 1: perfect vocal.
Speaker 2: You are.
Speaker 1: I never I never get the fan out, you know,
Speaker 1: when we're around each other, I never get to like
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. We just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: what you doing? Like you know, we were just kind
Speaker 1: of being passing. But I'm thankful for this moment to
Speaker 1: where I really get to actually sit and fan out
Speaker 1: over you and give you some flowers and let you
Speaker 1: know that like, yes, we're listening and we're studying. Thank you, yes,
Speaker 1: so thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you.
Speaker 1: We appreciate.
Speaker 2: Valentine.
Speaker 1: This is the rby Money podcast. You authority on all
Speaker 1: things R and B because they gotta know.
Speaker 2: Its gonna wake the ass up.
Speaker 1: They gotta know your ass up because in the building
Speaker 1: is the COVID. R and B Money.
Speaker 2: R and B Money is a production of the Black
Speaker 2: Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and Radar Show,
Speaker 2: and you can connect with us on social media at
Speaker 2: Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode,
Speaker 2: subscribe to YouTube dot com, forward Slash, R and B
Speaker 2: Money