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Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up?

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Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve from Questlove Supreme. Anybody who knows

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Speaker 2: this podcast is well aware that our interviews can last

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Speaker 2: for hours, so often we split them into two parts.

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Speaker 1: It also gives listeners.

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Speaker 2: A suspenseful reason to come back next week or check

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Speaker 2: their podcast feed for more episodes. Back in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 2: we sat down with la Reid for what became a

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Speaker 2: rare three part interview. In part two of La Read's

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Speaker 2: comprehensive interview at Questlove Supreme, he recalls working with the Whispers,

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Speaker 2: Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson. Please rate, like, and subscribe

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Speaker 2: to this on your podcast feeds, check back for new episodes,

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Speaker 2: and follow our new YouTube page at QLs.

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Speaker 3: This is a question that I tried to asking Jimmy

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Speaker 3: jam and I still wasn't satisfied with the answer. Now,

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Speaker 3: I owned Eyes of a Stranger. I mean, I've owned

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Speaker 3: all your records. But when Eyes of a Stranger came out,

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Speaker 3: and I always have this question, I will ask you.

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Speaker 1: I will ask that s O s Ben.

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Speaker 3: I will ask boys to men, how bold do you

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Speaker 3: have to be in order to start your first three

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Speaker 3: songs on the album with ballads, especially in this mind

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Speaker 3: state where you're like we got to grab them by

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Speaker 3: the collar right in your mind, you were like, two

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Speaker 3: Occasions is so damn tef line, we better open with

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Speaker 3: this joint, Like, are you guys not thinking?

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Speaker 4: I gotta look at the track list and if the.

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Speaker 5: First records the first record on.

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Speaker 4: The list, let me see some eyes.

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Speaker 1: With my eye, like literally.

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Speaker 5: And they back to back. That's interesting.

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Speaker 3: And the thing is the way the way that I

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Speaker 3: see records and building records and like the drama and

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Speaker 3: the up and like two Occasions to me was always

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Speaker 3: either the fourth song on side a wow, the second

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Speaker 3: song on side to y'all. To me, it's almost like

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Speaker 3: opening thriller with human nature.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe.

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Speaker 4: I just this doesn't make sense to.

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Speaker 3: Me, I think in terms of albums, and this also

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Speaker 3: explains why you have way more hits than I do.

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Speaker 4: Right, No, I think that's a reseequence.

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Speaker 3: Man, Okay, you have you have the actual vinyl or

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Speaker 3: cassette or something, because not there, I don't expect you

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Speaker 3: to have it there.

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Speaker 1: But I'm saying.

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Speaker 4: I can't believe that. I thought, can you dance was

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Speaker 4: the first song on the album.

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Speaker 3: Hang on second, I'm now checking on the street.

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Speaker 6: Well on Apple Music it is yeah, you' all right,

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Speaker 6: it's one and two and can you dance?

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Speaker 5: This is five?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what came. Okay, it's the record and.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean obviously worked because I think when anyone

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Speaker 3: thinks of the deal, it two occasions and at that it's.

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Speaker 1: Right a rush. All right, all right, so this is

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Speaker 1: that wasn't even our first single.

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Speaker 4: Hold up?

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Speaker 5: What was what was the person? Two occasions was?

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Speaker 1: Well, damn sure it was to shoot him up?

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Speaker 4: No, no, hold, I'm gonna tell you. Okay, where's that album?

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Speaker 1: Where's that album? Is a stranger? Okay? Why he's looking

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Speaker 1: for it? This reminds me, shit, man, you're right again.

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Speaker 1: Hold up now I'm on discouds looking at it. It's

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Speaker 1: straight up.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is But listen, and this really brings

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Speaker 3: about full circle because when I don't know if you

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Speaker 3: remember this conversation, like you the day that Things Fall

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Speaker 3: Apart came out February twenty third, nineteen ninety nine. The

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Speaker 3: next day I spoke to you because you were telling

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Speaker 3: me about like you know, you you were on the

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Speaker 3: radio and all that stuff, and you gave me a

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Speaker 3: message from your mom, and your mom said, why would

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Speaker 3: they bury that Erica Badu's song at the end of

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Speaker 3: Side Too, Wow, Yes, why do we have to sit

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Speaker 3: through that and time album to get to it? Which

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Speaker 3: was kind of like my plans, Like, okay.

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Speaker 1: Because that's the same I heard that already. Yah, y'all

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Speaker 1: heard that one.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, making them listening to it Okay.

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Speaker 3: Y'all would have never gotten through the rest of the

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Speaker 3: record to see who we were before we got you.

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Speaker 5: But you did the opposite of what LA did.

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Speaker 1: Wow. I know, but that's that's why he's La.

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Speaker 3: Stop now maybe kind of open when you got.

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Speaker 4: I swear I don't remember. I really don't remember.

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Speaker 7: But the only logic that I can come up with

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Speaker 7: is put the hits up front.

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Speaker 4: That's the only thing I can think of, is put

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Speaker 4: the hits up front.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 7: But we put out Yeah, we put out can You Dance?

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Speaker 7: And we thought we kind of gotten it right, Okay,

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Speaker 7: we got it right now, now we got it. This

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Speaker 7: is better than this is better than material things. Sonically,

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Speaker 7: it's better. Got a right engineer. Tom's not over shadowing everything,

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Speaker 7: you know, And it didn't work at all we got nowhere,

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Speaker 7: and then Dick Griffy came.

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Speaker 1: And this is what Dick stepped in.

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Speaker 7: He said, he says, comes to the studio, play me

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Speaker 7: all the records. He's mean about it too, like that's

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Speaker 7: like that, I played me all the records, like sick

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Speaker 7: of you, you know, because because by the way, I

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Speaker 7: forgot to tell you I picked another stiff, not a stiff,

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Speaker 7: but Babyfaces first solo album was called Lovers and I

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Speaker 7: Love You, and I know I.

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Speaker 3: Picked you make Me Feel brand New to cover that's

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Speaker 3: the same. And when that came out before I Love

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Speaker 3: You Baby yeah, yeah, and I remember that and it

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Speaker 3: was cute, but that was me thinking that that I

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Speaker 3: didn't know.

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Speaker 7: And Dick Griffy was like, you just you just think

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Speaker 7: you know everything, don't you. I mean, that's how we

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Speaker 7: talked to me, like let me tell you them. This

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Speaker 7: is my record company and this is my studio, and

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Speaker 7: we're doing that no more.

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Speaker 4: So he picked the hits, all the wrong songs I picked.

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Speaker 7: I picked You Made Me Feel brand New for Babyface,

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Speaker 7: and I picked can We Talk for the Deal?

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Speaker 3: Both wrong comes back and picks two occasions and shoot

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Speaker 3: him up movie movies.

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Speaker 4: He gave me that song. Wow, he gave me the

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Speaker 4: song another guy.

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Speaker 7: It's the only time my band ever did a song

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Speaker 7: that we didn't write or co write. He gave me

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Speaker 7: that song and said, this might be good for you.

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Speaker 7: So Kenny and I went and we produced it. But

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Speaker 7: did you like his song? I did like it. I

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Speaker 7: liked it, liked it, but my band hated it.

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Speaker 5: Wait, which, what are we talking about?

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Speaker 1: Movies? Like the cover Shoot Them Up Movie?

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Speaker 6: Wait?

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Speaker 1: Who did the cover? Did the cover?

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Speaker 8: Bobie Dick from on No Limit Records? He he covered

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Speaker 8: Shoot him Up movies and like nine Yeah lit the

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Speaker 8: movie you love wanted to be.

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Speaker 1: Cleared by the way.

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Speaker 4: We only did.

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Speaker 7: We did it because Dick wouldn't make He wouldn't let

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Speaker 7: us have music videos.

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Speaker 4: He said we weren't pretty enough.

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Speaker 3: So really, so I figured if I'm due to occasion,

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not too occasional. We do Shoot them

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Speaker 3: Up movies, which is a song he gave us.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we might get a music video. Y'all have not

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Speaker 1: done music videos.

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Speaker 3: We don't have no music videos. Yeah, but everybody else

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Speaker 3: on the list. Charlama had the music videos and.

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Speaker 1: The weirdest music videos of all time. Right, but we

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Speaker 1: don't care videos. We're so their videos were so off kilter, man.

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Speaker 5: But y'all are so pretty. That's so odd.

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Speaker 1: All right. So here's the deal.

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask you a question as a CEO about

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Speaker 3: your artist self and hopefully because I think you're one

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Speaker 3: of the first major CEOs we had on the show

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Speaker 3: and I needed explained to me, like I'm a twelve

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Speaker 3: year old okay, now, an out of the box hit

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Speaker 3: like two Occasions. Now as a person who has not

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Speaker 3: had a lifespan, and I'm talking about myself as a

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Speaker 3: singles artist, you know. I mean, I've had many top

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Speaker 3: ten albums, you know whatever. I make my living on

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Speaker 3: the road, but as a singles artist, I'm not. I'm

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Speaker 3: led to believe that hits are manufactured, not in that

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Speaker 3: sort of organic way that we're led to believe it is,

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Speaker 3: where it's like you're just suddenly singing and you know,

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Speaker 3: I like that two Occasion song by the Deal, and

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Speaker 3: then you called the radio station and you request it

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Speaker 3: and then it becomes a hit. I'm led to believe,

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Speaker 3: especially now, that deals are already made and I'm not

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Speaker 3: asking about the process of how deals get made, but

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Speaker 3: is two occasions a hit because it just organically.

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Speaker 1: Spread that way or was the solar muscle again.

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Speaker 3: I'm not gonna give up until I get it Dick

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Speaker 3: Griffy's story behind.

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Speaker 1: It to make it a hit.

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Speaker 4: Okay, So what I think poor is.

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Speaker 3: It a meet you halfway thing? Give us a song

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Speaker 3: we could work with, and then we'll ram it.

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Speaker 4: I am shamelessly commercial.

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Speaker 7: Let me just put that out there, right, I'm you

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Speaker 7: and I are opposites in that regard, like I am.

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Speaker 7: I am like so singles oriented like like, especially like

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Speaker 7: the first two songs I picked or Stiff's, so I

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Speaker 7: became like I'm gonna get the singles thing down right.

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Speaker 3: So I before let me interrupt you real quick, and

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Speaker 3: I want to use this opportunity to actually the spell

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Speaker 3: a myth. Okay, I am not anti singles. I actually no, no,

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Speaker 3: I don't think anti single anti and I is good.

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Speaker 3: I will freely admit. I mean this might be captain

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Speaker 3: obvious to you know, Fonte, whatever is I think for

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Speaker 3: half the people that just pose like a man, I

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Speaker 3: ain't with that bubblegum pop shit.

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Speaker 1: It's I believe that pop songs.

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Speaker 3: Are the hardest things, right right, you give me a

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Speaker 3: free jazz song, I'll knock that shit. It'll be on

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Speaker 3: the next Robert Glasper record, you know, instantly. But I

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Speaker 3: don't know, you know, And I think since I've put

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Speaker 3: in twenty thousand hours of DJing hard DJing between the

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Speaker 3: last Roots album, yeah, now there's like nine years of that,

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Speaker 3: I'm I'm hyper aware of what songs work and don't

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Speaker 3: work that I didn't have in my first Now, I

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Speaker 3: guess my job is to not make it so.

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Speaker 1: You know, now that I know the secrets or the codes.

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Speaker 3: Or whatever, to figure out how to nuance by none

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Speaker 3: and not just make it like okay, now that I

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Speaker 3: know we need hit singles like, I know what our

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Speaker 3: fan base expects of us. However, I just want to

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Speaker 3: say that I'm not anti pop because I did.

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Speaker 1: I think it's you know, kid music. I just never

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Speaker 1: knew how to.

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Speaker 4: Do it right, right. I completely get that. Listen I have.

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Speaker 7: This may be a fair or unfair comparison, but first

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Speaker 7: version of Cooling the Gang and then the pop version

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Speaker 7: Opion right they made they made too Hot and all

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Speaker 7: those songs they were great, But I hated that band

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Speaker 7: like I loved the original.

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Speaker 3: But how do you feel now about looking back as

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Speaker 3: an executive looking back on it.

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Speaker 1: But that was me.

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Speaker 7: That was me before record companies, before anything. It was

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Speaker 7: just a preference. I'm like, y'all soft, that's soft, like,

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Speaker 7: that's like what is come on? What's Hollywood swinging? And

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Speaker 7: those crazy intros in the like those are just songs.

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Speaker 7: I didn't like it at all. Right now, I understand

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Speaker 7: the difference. I still prefer the first version of.

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Speaker 1: Cool in the gang.

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Speaker 7: So what I'm saying is you and your band can't

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Speaker 7: really afford to do it. Man, If y'all really, if

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Speaker 7: y'all really did it.

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Speaker 3: Like what happens is that you disappoint a lifetime of fans,

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Speaker 3: and no matter how you feel about it, at that point,

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Speaker 3: maybe for the first time, you're going to be really

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Speaker 3: criticized for trying to get hit.

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Speaker 1: So it's that is it will be the first time because.

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Speaker 7: But you're you're so successful at what you do that

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Speaker 7: that would be a mistake.

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Speaker 4: My opinion is that that would be a mistake, right

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Speaker 4: unless it will.

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Speaker 7: Completely organic, completely like nothing changes except this song just

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Speaker 7: happened to catch, right, But because if you give anything

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Speaker 7: to to if you look like you're trying, you can't

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Speaker 7: do that like you're you're you're a savior, you could

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Speaker 7: you can't do that.

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Speaker 1: I'm not doing that.

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Speaker 3: However, I am so aware that, wow, we never We've

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Speaker 3: had grooves, but we never had a melody line.

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Speaker 1: There's never a part of the song that you can

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Speaker 1: whistle and it sticks with you.

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Speaker 5: That's not true. And also, isn't there a gray in there?

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Speaker 6: Isn't it a fact then that maybe y'all were just

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Speaker 6: missing an la ear when it comes to singles, because

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Speaker 6: for me, as the radio girl listened to all these

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Speaker 6: records that y'all put out, at times, I just felt

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Speaker 6: like y'all didn't hear the single, y'all put out the

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Speaker 6: wrong song, like what about the gray?

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Speaker 5: And there?

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Speaker 3: As of this conversation two days ago, I'm talking right

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Speaker 3: now from New Orleans. We just did the Essence Festival

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Speaker 3: and for the first time we've played with Little Kim, and.

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Speaker 1: Of course the subject of Lighters Up comes up now.

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Speaker 3: For those that don't know, Little Kim's Lighters Up song

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Speaker 3: was a root song.

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Speaker 1: That I don't know.

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Speaker 5: Love Supreme Hill answer Scott.

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Speaker 3: All I can say was, when Tarika and I went

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Speaker 3: to Florida, we made lighters up. We took a three

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Speaker 3: hour dinner break by the way, having dinner with O. J. Simpson,

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Speaker 3: a bust of rhymes. Long story, yeah, long story, come

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Speaker 3: back to the studio, finish the music of what you.

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Speaker 1: Know is Lighters Up.

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Speaker 3: Came back, you know, pretty confident, like, hey, we're gonna

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Speaker 3: have a good first single for our Tipping Point record.

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Speaker 3: And next thing, I know, like a month later, I

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Speaker 3: hear that song with Little Kim on it, and I

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Speaker 3: was just like, what the fuck? O Wow, Scott, Well,

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Speaker 3: I mean, no, Scott obviously gave it to Kim, but.

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Speaker 1: Oh, Scott stores you know original root. Scott was the roots. Yes, yeah, so.

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Speaker 3: Even then, My whole point was that, And you know,

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Speaker 3: we joked about it, like, you know, this is our

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Speaker 3: song first or whatever.

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Speaker 1: She was surprised.

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Speaker 3: She's like, she like, I heard you play drums on it,

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Speaker 3: but no, I if you remember and do the right

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Speaker 3: thing when Samuel Jackson does the Senior Love Daddy the

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Speaker 3: all thing, Yes, if you listen to that music in

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Speaker 3: the background, I was do the right thing was on

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Speaker 3: in the break room, and I remember that. I was like, hey,

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Speaker 3: let me see if I can make a song without

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Speaker 3: a snare and just with high hats and symbols. That's

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Speaker 3: what I was. Wow, that's what I was making. Then

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Speaker 3: Scott put piano on top of it, and it was like,

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Speaker 3: all right, this this could work. But my whole point

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Speaker 3: is that even if we kept that song, I'm not

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Speaker 3: even certain that he would have done to that song

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Speaker 3: what she did to So it's almost like, yes, it

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Speaker 3: went with this rightful owner. Again, we don't have have

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Speaker 3: a filter in us that knows how to not flex

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Speaker 3: our intellect, Like Treik has to be the smartest guy

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Speaker 3: in the room, right instead of the most relatable guy

300
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Speaker 3: in the room lyrically, and they're rich.

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Speaker 5: Ever, let anybody else help pick a single?

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Speaker 1: Rich was brilliant too, Yeah, definitely, but.

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Speaker 3: Just got made it up to us by doing don't

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Speaker 3: say nothing. But then that's when our fan base sort

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Speaker 3: of clap back, Like I thought, don't see nothing with

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Speaker 3: Quebla because I like the fact that Treek was saying

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Speaker 3: something nonsensible.

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Speaker 7: Here's my take on it. There's two kinds of stars.

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Speaker 7: There's the artist and there's the song. Right, songs can

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Speaker 7: be stars, right, and artists can be stars. And when

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Speaker 7: the two collide, you get with In Houston, I don't know, right,

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Speaker 7: you get you know, the big whoever you might like

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Speaker 7: Michael Jackson, you know, but sometimes the artist is the star,

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Speaker 7: but not necessarily the song. And sometimes the song is

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Speaker 7: a star, but not necessarily the artist. Big facts, right,

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Speaker 7: That's how I wo. So I separate those two, right,

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Speaker 7: turning the back, that song is, yeah, that song as

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Speaker 7: a jail.

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Speaker 3: There's many of those, but there's also there's also very

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Speaker 3: very talented artist Tory Amos.

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Speaker 7: You don't know if you listen, a hit maker, but

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Speaker 7: she's incredible, right, and you know, and and there are others,

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Speaker 7: you know. But so I separate the two. That's how

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Speaker 7: I That's how I look at it.

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Speaker 3: So do you think that the industry as it is

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Speaker 3: now makes space for those kinds of artists? Do you

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Speaker 3: think there's a space for those artists to exist, like

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Speaker 3: on major labels where it's like, Okay, you may not

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Speaker 3: have the hit record or the TikTok song that is

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Speaker 3: going off, but you just are an amazing artist, and

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Speaker 3: I think there's an audience for that.

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Speaker 4: You're not gonna like my answer.

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Speaker 3: I'm trouble, and I got a tag on top of

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Speaker 3: Fante's question. My answer to that is not if you no.

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Speaker 1: Hit, that's that's that's that's true.

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Speaker 3: If you if you got a hot garage band that

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Speaker 3: don't make his don't no problem.

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Speaker 4: We'll just put you on the road. Just stay on

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Speaker 4: the road un till you.

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Speaker 3: Get a hit, or you better be the band that's

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Speaker 3: on a label that believes in that, which definitely and

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Speaker 3: literally I don't even know if I told people this.

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Speaker 3: The only reason why The Roots lasted that long is

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Speaker 3: because it was in our contract. If you have album

345
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Speaker 3: number one, we have to make three albums. If you

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Speaker 3: have album number four, we have to make three albums.

347
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Speaker 3: If you have album number seven, you have to make

348
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:57,760
Speaker 3: so we couldn't get dropped. That was the only way

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Speaker 3: that we never got we would have gotten dropped.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise.

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Speaker 3: Wait, I have to ask this because I heard all right,

352
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Speaker 3: so post and I'm so jumping ahead in the future.

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Speaker 3: But since you brought it up, I believe the story

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Speaker 3: that was told to me was back when I think

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Speaker 3: this was eighty not eighty, This was either nineteen ninety

356
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Speaker 3: nine or two thousand. I believe you guys signed an

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Speaker 3: artist named Stephanie Jerreman Nada to the label, who that

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Speaker 3: would have been probably a little later than that, probably.

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Speaker 1: Six. Okay, all right. My whole point is that.

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Speaker 3: The Fiona Apple incarnation of Lady Gaga was, to my knowledge,

361
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Speaker 3: on a deaf jam artist, or she was signed to

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Speaker 3: the label, and.

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Speaker 4: Yep, I signed her.

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Speaker 3: Right, what do you see in that artist that later

365
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Speaker 3: morphed into what we know.

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Speaker 4: Now The day she came in.

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Speaker 7: She plays rock and roll piano, first of all, and

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Speaker 7: she's incredible at it.

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Speaker 4: And she came in and she had on the white Go.

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Speaker 7: Go boots and and she was like justroducing the piano.

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Speaker 7: I mean, you know, she gets in it, she's inside

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Speaker 7: the keys, right, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Right, I'll say that.

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Speaker 7: But you know, Tori Amos, that's what I saw in

375
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Speaker 7: her prime show. Yeah, that's what I saw, and I

376
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Speaker 7: thought she was incredible. And I remember saying to her that,

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Speaker 7: and she reminded me of this, because my memory is

378
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Speaker 7: not that good. She told me that in that room.

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Speaker 7: I told her that she would likely change music. That's

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Speaker 7: how passionate I was. So we signed her and then

381
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Speaker 7: they started to bring me demos. And when I heard

382
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Speaker 7: the demos, like, I didn't hear that same thing that

383
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Speaker 7: I saw, and I didn't like it. And I had

384
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 7: Rihanna and Justin Bieber and Kanye and the Dream and everybody,

385
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Speaker 7: and I was feeling myself way too damn much, right

386
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:18,680
Speaker 7: note your self, like, don't go feeling yourself, and they were,

387
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Speaker 7: and I was like, this is I don't want to

388
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Speaker 7: put this out, like, this is not it, this is

389
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Speaker 7: not the girl I signed, this is not this isn't

390
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Speaker 7: moving me.

391
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Speaker 4: And I let her go before we ever released the record.

392
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Speaker 7: And then she found Acon Red One and ultimately Jimmy

393
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Speaker 7: Ivy and she put out Just Dance and it started

394
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Speaker 7: blowing up in Canada.

395
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Speaker 1: I was watching it because I didn't want to be embarrassed.

396
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Speaker 7: I was like, that's just Canada. Then I started seeing

397
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 7: it blow up in Miami. That's just Miami, that's just

398
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Speaker 7: the clubs. Then it started blowing up in the Bay.

399
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Speaker 7: Then it charted man and then god god, I was like,

400
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Speaker 7: you stupid.

401
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,400
Speaker 1: You feel like wow yo?

402
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Speaker 8: So okay, So question so in that situation and your

403
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 8: role as an executive, how much of it is putting

404
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 8: out or putting out things that you like versus a

405
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 8: record may come to you and it's like, Okay, I

406
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:28,040
Speaker 8: personally don't like this, but I know that it will

407
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 8: work with this audience.

408
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Speaker 1: Like how much of it is like your personal taste

409
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Speaker 1: versus the market.

410
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:32,880
Speaker 4: It's a little bit of both.

411
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Speaker 7: First of all, I will stand even in that case

412
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 7: I clearly blew it. But for the most part, I'll

413
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:42,199
Speaker 7: stand by other people that work at the label. If

414
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Speaker 7: they say they're passionate about something, I'll give it a shot.

415
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 7: It doesn't have to just be my thing, right, But

416
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 7: if it's something that I signed, that I personally endorsed,

417
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 7: then I want to feel good about it. In those cases,

418
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,479
Speaker 7: I'm kind of listening to me, right, But I just

419
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 7: blew it, Man, I just completely blew it.

420
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Speaker 3: I have to appreciate. But here's the thing I appreciate

421
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 3: about this story. We've had three artists on the show

422
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 3: that told us the story of where it wasn't working

423
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 3: out with their label staff right, and and instead of

424
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Speaker 3: just being like, you know what, you're right, let's let's

425
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 3: let's call it the other day and let you go,

426
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Speaker 3: I learned that the label will sometimes just freezing artists

427
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Speaker 3: out just to avoid the embarrassment.

428
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Speaker 1: In case that happens, Yes.

429
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Speaker 7: For sure, people hold on. They don't want to be

430
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 7: wrong or they don't want to make a decision. But

431
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 7: I don't respect that like I'd rather like, listen, I

432
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 7: blew it, and I tell you I blew it, and

433
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 7: and while it while it, it pains me and it's embarrassing.

434
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Speaker 4: I'd rather live in that truth than to.

435
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 7: Have shelved her and just made her keep going back

436
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 7: and going back and going back when I knew I

437
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 7: didn't like it.

438
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 4: I didn't like it.

439
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 7: It wasn't for me, right, So if it's not for me,

440
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 7: perhaps she could have a life somewhere else. And I'm

441
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,680
Speaker 7: actually okay with that, as embarrassing as it is.

442
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 3: How different was the music that she presented to you?

443
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 3: How different was it than what she presented.

444
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:18,359
Speaker 1: To the world.

445
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 7: It was very different because if you know her, you

446
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 7: know she's diverse and she could do many things. And

447
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 7: the kind of music she made on the first album

448
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 7: and a little bit on the second album, she's never

449
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 7: revisited that. So she's clearly able to do a lot

450
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 7: of different kinds of music. And it wasn't that was

451
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 7: like like dance pop or that's what I called it,

452
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 7: you know, it wasn't ediom yet or no, it wasn't

453
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 7: that flavor at all. It was kind of piano based

454
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 7: a little bit, jamming a little bit, yeah, but it

455
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 7: just can they.

456
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: Didn't feel like it.

457
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 3: All right, we gotta get back at the time Machine

458
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 3: because I'm not trying to coll.

459
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 1: Well.

460
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 3: I want to know what touring with the Deal was

461
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 3: like across the States as opposed to just you guys

462
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 3: being in one environment as a club band.

463
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 1: Like your first, your first touring.

464
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 7: Oh my god, our first the first show we had

465
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 7: as the Deal with body Talk as a hit, we

466
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 7: opened for the DeBarge and Luther.

467
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 6: Vandros Oh that sounds familiar, life changing moment.

468
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: Right.

469
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 7: First show is at uh in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena.

470
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 7: So now now we have a band that's gone from

471
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 7: playing club that could barely hold two hundred people to

472
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 7: Market Square Arena and we hit that stage and we

473
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 7: would open the act. So we got a line check

474
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 7: but not a sound check. And I like to use

475
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 7: that as an excuse why we were so bad.

476
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 4: But we were horrible.

477
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 7: I mean were so horrible when we got off stage,

478
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 7: like we didn't even you know, we're supposed to be excited.

479
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 4: That's our first show is.

480
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 7: In a big arena and a major tour, and we

481
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 7: should have been like really happy, and excited and slapping

482
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:16,199
Speaker 7: each other five and and having a celebratory moment. But

483
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 7: we were really embarrassed by it. Uh, we didn't have

484
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 7: we were not built for that big stage. We didn't

485
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 7: know what we were getting into. And and we overdid

486
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 7: our We overdid our our gimmick too much, makeup, too much.

487
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 5: Everything for all the cities or for certain cities.

488
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 7: No, this was just this one show.

489
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: So the show is.

490
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 7: Over and I'm in the hotel room. My road manager,

491
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 7: his name is Leon Burnett, wonderful man. He comes, Dick

492
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 7: Griffy wants to talk to you. I'm like, oh, and

493
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 7: I don't remember the conversation that well, but I remember

494
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 7: being a little bit frightened and not threatened, but warned

495
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 7: if we come out like that again, we're off the show.

496
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 4: And I remember him saying something.

497
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 7: About Sylvester, right, like we don't want no more Sylvester's

498
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 7: we don't want to know something like that.

499
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 4: Like it was something like that.

500
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 7: And anyway, we cleaned up our act and the next

501
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 7: night we were a lot better. Right, But the first night, man,

502
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 7: we blew it so badly. It was just really bad.

503
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 7: And then we got a little used to it. Luther

504
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 7: embraced us, El debarsed embraced us, and we all kind

505
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 7: of became friends. And then they started, you know, we

506
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 7: got treated a little bit better, and we got better

507
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 7: and we had some nights when we actually really caught

508
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 7: a good rhythm.

509
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 3: But I've heard stories of Luther's restrictions. Again, I'm also

510
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 3: a good friend with a friend of the show is

511
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 3: Sheep Gordon, who would say, how ain'tal retentive.

512
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: Luther was with the lights you can use or the

513
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: colors you can wear.

514
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 4: Yes, we never heard about colors.

515
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 7: Definitely the lights and how many channels on the mixing console.

516
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:11,640
Speaker 4: And things like that.

517
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 7: But like Luther and I were buddies, you know, and

518
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 7: and Kenny because like he has so much respect for

519
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 7: Kenny as a songwriter, because we used to give Luther

520
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 7: demos when we were on the road. Uh So we

521
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 7: just kind of built a relationship and we never felt

522
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 7: like there was a lot of restrictions there. As a

523
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 7: matter of fact, he wouldn't even make us leave backstage.

524
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 7: He would let us state, you know, because there used

525
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 7: to be this when the superstar comes out of the

526
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 7: dressing room.

527
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 6: All.

528
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: Right.

529
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 6: Now it's definitely still happens one of those people is

530
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 6: going to jail for thirty years. But he used to

531
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 6: do that all the time, right, it was the same.

532
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 7: But Luther didn't do that to us. He let us

533
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 7: hang right and oh, did you.

534
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: Know the drummer? Yes? I own a snare drummer? You do.

535
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: I got lucky someone had.

536
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 4: I'm sorry sidebar? How good was he?

537
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: Like? I want to know what you thought? I loved

538
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: your guests.

539
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 3: Actually one of the very first instructional one of the

540
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,959
Speaker 3: first instructional drum things. I used to my teacher used

541
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 3: to make me watch Yogi did one before he passed away?

542
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: Wait, can I ask? Did he pass away while on tour?

543
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 4: Yes, but not that tour.

544
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: Were you guys on the tour or we.

545
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 7: Weren't on the tour that he passed away on It

546
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 7: was two years later, okay.

547
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know how how did Luther recovered?

548
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 3: Like finding another drummer and that sort of I wasn't.

549
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 7: Around, but we were on the tour when Marvin passed away.

550
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 7: We were on tour with Luther when Marvin passed. I

551
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 7: remember us having a prayer moment backstage, completely quiet. Everybody

552
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 7: on the tour holding hands and Luther. Yeah, it was

553
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 7: really it was really moving. It was really something. Luther

554
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 7: was really torn, right, all of us were. I didn't

555
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 7: know Marvin personally, but obviously was touched by his music.

556
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 7: But Luther must have been very close to him because

557
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 7: he assembled everybody, every truck driver, everybody backstage right.

558
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 4: Oh really it was really special, really special.

559
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 3: The reason why I'm asking you about tour life is

560
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 3: because I know eventually you're going to morph into just production,

561
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 3: which of course means that you're going to have to

562
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 3: leave the band in your mind? Is it like, okay,

563
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 3: there has to be something else other than this, Like

564
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 3: where's the point where suddenly the wheels are turning and

565
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 3: you're like, okay, we have to be a team, we

566
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 3: have to write hits? Like how does that happen for me?

567
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: It was.

568
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 7: We enjoyed being on the road. I enjoyed it. On

569
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 7: the very first tour that we did and the second album,

570
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 7: as we talked about material, things didn't work, so we

571
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 7: didn't have as much work, but we still did some

572
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 7: some gigs here and there.

573
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 4: We worked, and then the third album took a while.

574
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 7: So between our second album and the third album, we

575
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 7: started to develop as songwriters.

576
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: And producers a little bit better, and.

577
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 7: Because the second album wasn't a success, we.

578
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 4: Had a little more time on our hands.

579
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 7: So when we went back to do the tour with

580
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 7: two occasions, I was over it, like seriously was over it,

581
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 7: like before the tour started.

582
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 4: And because I couldn't play anymore, man, I lost.

583
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: I didn't.

584
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 7: I don't know what happened, but maybe I started thinking

585
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 7: about it or I don't know, but something got into

586
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 7: me and I just couldn't play anymore. And my hands

587
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 7: were hurting, like I felt like I had arthritis in

588
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 7: my hands, and I just I lost it.

589
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: I mean at.

590
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 7: Sixteen, I thought I was really good, you know, at

591
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 7: twenty one, I thought I was really good. And by

592
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 7: my mid twenties, man, it just started to go away

593
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 7: and really never got it back. So like I, I

594
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 7: still have this, and that didn't upset you, Yes, it

595
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 7: really upset me except one thing. I took that drum machine,

596
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 7: and I'm a master that thing I was.

597
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't care who you are, Jimmy

598
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 3: jam Teddy Riley, I'm challenging anybody.

599
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: I could do this better than anybody, right, And so

600
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: I switched what was your choice.

601
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 7: I have every drum machine they made, Man Drum, the DMX,

602
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 7: the eight Away everything.

603
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 3: For me, I have to say, you do you do

604
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 3: have a trademark. It's I don't know how you did

605
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 3: it or why you did it, but I noticed it.

606
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 3: Every fourth, maybe every eighth class, you will put extra

607
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 3: emphasis on the refer right, like.

608
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: Some class would be normal. I got that from Jimmy Jam.

609
00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 7: I straight stole that from Jimmy Jam because control bom

610
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 7: right and I loved it so much, so it was

611
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 7: really Jimmy's signature.

612
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 4: I borrowed it with friends.

613
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: But every it wouldn't be every clap, it would be everyone.

614
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: It was strategically placed.

615
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 3: And for me, when I think of the sound of classic,

616
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 3: like when I think of Jimmy, Jame, Terry Lewis, it's

617
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 3: like the sound of the classic gate Away, right, the

618
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 3: sound that old boy who produced loosenslly oh, Nick Marnelli,

619
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 3: that's right, that's right, five star like anything that sounds

620
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 3: like Jam and Lewis, Like that's their trademark.

621
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: But for you, it's always.

622
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 3: Right to this day, like no one has mastered that

623
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 3: level of gated reaverb better man than you did.

624
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: But was that. Okay, you say you took it.

625
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 7: From him, I mean, but still, you know, we learned

626
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 7: from each other and then you know, you're in bella

627
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 7: ship and do things with it.

628
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 4: But but I would spend hours.

629
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 7: Hours and hours and hours and hours playing with those

630
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 7: drum machines and playing with rhythms and taking Kenny's keyboards

631
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 7: and muting them and putting them through filters and playing.

632
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 7: I just played with the sound, you know, a lot,

633
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 7: and that became my new passion. So that and a

634
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 7: lot of that was because, by the way, I never

635
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 7: actually played live on a recording session. Really really I

636
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 7: did when I was young, Like when I was young,

637
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 7: I did some records, but like after we had the

638
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 7: deal and when we be came uh and started making records,

639
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 7: like I never actually played a live kit on a

640
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 7: drum on a record, Like never never on a hit record, right, uh.

641
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 3: Hey, you know what it's called for, right I was.

642
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 3: And then I heard you and then I was like, oh,

643
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 3: get out.

644
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: I remember I heard about new record. I was like, yo,

645
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: my son telling me. I was like, I was like,

646
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: who is that?

647
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 3: And then I read about your Rolling Stone magazine and

648
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 3: with your dad and all think I'm gone from me anyway,

649
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 3: So can you talk to us about the conversation that

650
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 3: leads to you and Kenny like really making this official?

651
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 3: Who was the first outside non deal artist that the

652
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 3: La and Babyface that we know of.

653
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 7: Let's see, the very first one was when we officially

654
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 7: did it together. That would have been the whispers rock Steady, Yeah,

655
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 7: rock Steady. That's when we did it together and they

656
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 7: hired Kenny. They called Kenny, they didn't call both of us,

657
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 7: and Kenny said, I have to have La with me,

658
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 7: so he pulled me along.

659
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: Okay, right, And.

660
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 4: It was really special.

661
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 1: It was really good.

662
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:49,720
Speaker 4: Looking out and we had a comfort level working.

663
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 7: But Kenny was obviously really famous and at Solar as

664
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,439
Speaker 7: a songwriter more so than like the two of us,

665
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 7: you know, and because of Yeah, that's kind of what happened,

666
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 7: and we went in, we made rock Steady and then

667
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 7: it became official.

668
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 3: You know, did you know there was a pop hit

669
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 3: or immediately did it become about it?

670
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 6: No?

671
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 4: I knew it immediate, I swear to you.

672
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:15,839
Speaker 1: I did.

673
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 7: Like when what when we were writing it? I knew

674
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 7: when we were we were in an apartment on we

675
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 7: lived on Highland Avenue in Hollywood, and when we were

676
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 7: writing it, I had a really good feeling about it.

677
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 7: But then when we got in the studio and we

678
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 7: laid it down and we put the Whispers on the

679
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 7: background vocal before they sang lead. I remember, I'll never

680
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 7: ever forget that moment. I was like, oh my god,

681
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 7: this is a smash. I knew it, and people in

682
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 7: the studio knew it. Like in other rooms, people would

683
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 7: come around while we were working on it and hang

684
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:52,919
Speaker 7: out in the doorway and watch.

685
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 4: It was just something special going on in that room,

686
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 4: and we knew it right.

687
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: Uh.

688
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 7: And then when you know, Scottie and walk from the

689
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 7: Whispers put their vocal on it, they just that was

690
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 7: icing on the cake. But I swear to you I

691
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 7: already felt it was a hit. And that goes back

692
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 7: to your other question, like our.

693
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: Hits manufactured or factored? Is it organic?

694
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 4: I think that it's a little bit of both.

695
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 3: Anytime I see the Whispers sing, both Scotty twins sing

696
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 3: in tandem, right, who's doing the singing?

697
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: Because that sounds like one verse, it's Scotty.

698
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 7: Scotty is the one, okay, Walter Walter is a lighter version,

699
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 7: same same, a very similar tone, very similar, but but

700
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:42,280
Speaker 7: Scotty has more power.

701
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:48,760
Speaker 3: Oh so when is it when it's guage time, that's

702
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 3: that's Scotty that we know Scotty.

703
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: That's Scotty.

704
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 6: Man.

705
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: It just gets better with time and Scotty. That's right. Yeah,

706
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 1: in the mood, Scotty move, that's Scotty. Okay, Oh wow,

707
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: Sorry for.

708
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 4: Telling the truth, y'all.

709
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, but I just always wanted to know

710
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 3: why when they sing. I've never seen just one person

711
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,279
Speaker 3: sing that song. It's always both of them together, I.

712
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 7: Know, right, Yeah, that's the show show.

713
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what that is.

714
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 5: Dick Griffy was that did he re react to when

715
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 5: you got that big hit?

716
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:25,760
Speaker 6: Did he say something to you about I was curious

717
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 6: because you was hitting some duds, so it's according to him.

718
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't remember.

719
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 7: I really don't remember it though, because we had another

720
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 7: hit at the same time that he wasn't.

721
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 4: Very happy about what girlfriend.

722
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 7: It was called Girlfriend, and it was on and it

723
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 7: was on a competing label, m c A, and I

724
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 7: felt more. I felt more shade from Dick about doing

725
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 7: that than I did. Congratulations for making rock steady, damn.

726
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.

727
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 7: As a matter of fact, I remember him coming to

728
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 7: visit me once and I was like, Hey, just made

729
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 7: this record on Paul.

730
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: I do I want to hear No, I actually I don't.

731
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 3: I love you, man, And I don't say that like

732
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be protective of reputationally or anything.

733
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 5: Like.

734
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 7: I really loved the man because he was the first

735
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 7: record executive I ever met, So the whole idea of

736
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 7: being a record executive. I was heavily influenced by him,

737
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 7: right and watching him make decisions and kind of how

738
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 7: and why, and you know some of the things he

739
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 7: would say to me, you know, say it was really

740
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 7: it was really a good and he was impressionable.

741
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:41,879
Speaker 4: But we had a really good relationship.

742
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 5: Do you remember I was thinking about this today about Dick.

743
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 6: Do you remember something that you took with you from

744
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 6: being with him that you learn and something that you said,

745
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 6: I ain't taking that with me when I do what

746
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 6: I do.

747
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 4: Wait, as far as.

748
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 3: The things I didn't, if you have to hear you

749
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:57,479
Speaker 3: hang somebody out the window, yeah I don't.

750
00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: I didn't.

751
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 4: If there's a lot I didn't take, okay, you know.

752
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 7: Answer, Yeah, there's there's some things that I definitely, uh

753
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 7: took with me. He called me once and he said,

754
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 7: let me ask you something. Seem to know everything. Why

755
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 7: are you still living in Cincinnati? I said, it's our hometown.

756
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:19,800
Speaker 1: You still living in Cincinnati?

757
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 4: I was living in Cincinnati when we made our first two.

758
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 7: Albums, right, And he said, you can make more money

759
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 7: by accident in Los Angeles than you can make on

760
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 7: purpose in Cincinnati.

761
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: Two weeks I lived in.

762
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 5: La Oh my god, now I know why you why

763
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 5: you left? It went to Atlanta. Okay, we're now going

764
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 5: that far yet, just in.

765
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 3: That initial period, how are Because the thing is, it's

766
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 3: like the deal guys never truly left us, because I

767
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 3: see different combinations of their names as songwriter, y or musicians.

768
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:07,919
Speaker 3: So how what is what is the adjustment of sort

769
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 3: of dissolving the deal and you and you and Babyface

770
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 3: starting your own unit and like it is a church

771
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 3: and state?

772
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: Do you guys have your own management?

773
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 3: Your own Like are you now prioritizing working in the

774
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 3: studio with these artists and then the group later?

775
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: Like how's how's this working out?

776
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 7: When I think back on it, And maybe I've never

777
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 7: thought about it this way, but when I think back

778
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 7: on it, I can see how the other members of

779
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 7: the group could really be unhappy with the choices that

780
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 7: we made, right although they ultimately benefited everybody, in that moment,

781
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 7: I could see how the other members of the group

782
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 7: weren't very happy because one one of the things was

783
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 7: they liked Cincinnati. My other guys and it's still my

784
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 7: friends to this day, right, but they liked Cincinnati, and

785
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 7: Keny and I didn't. We had no desire to be

786
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 7: since Cincinnati. And Kenny didn't even like Atlanta that much, right,

787
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 7: I mean he liked it, but like he didn't he

788
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 7: didn't live there very long. Uh, he preferred living in

789
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 7: Los Angeles, and you know, and he was a very

790
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 7: ambitious and very talented man and is is and you know,

791
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 7: but the other guys kind of were a little bit

792
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 7: more homebodies, so they weren't as ambitious.

793
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 3: Was there an opportunity for them to join the fray?

794
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 3: Like who's coming with me? Who's coming with me?

795
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 1: Or was it?

796
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 7: Sort of like I think after I'm trying to remember

797
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 7: exactly how it took place, but I feel like after

798
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 7: the last tour, Yeah, the last tour we did, everybody

799
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 7: kind of went their separate ways without a conversation Keny

800
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 7: and I. After the tour was over, we decided to

801
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 7: move to Atlanta with my was my girlfriend at the time, right,

802
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 7: And we all decided and Darryl Simmons, who is Kenny's

803
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 7: best friend and a gally really talented songwriter and producer, Yeah,

804
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 7: he decided to move to Atlanta with us. And Ko

805
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,399
Speaker 7: went to Atlanta with us, but Carlos and d who

806
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 7: were our.

807
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 4: Other lead singers, they went back to Cincinnati.

808
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:28,680
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, I'm so okay, so worded that you're

809
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 3: telling the story, because when I was watching a new

810
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 3: addition headline the Essence Festival, I was sitting there just

811
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 3: marveling at the fact that the Michael of the group,

812
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 3: the leader of the group, really didn't get his moment

813
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:47,879
Speaker 3: in the Sun the way that it should have been, right,

814
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:50,359
Speaker 3: you know, because even in the way that they craft

815
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 3: their show, it's literally like just the best mixtape ever

816
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 3: right there, forty years and you know, not not even

817
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 3: throwing shape. But yes, Sensitivity was probably the slowest part

818
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 3: of the night, even though it was a straight up hit, right,

819
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 3: but no, no, no no, But by that point it was

820
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 3: like nineteen hits. They already did nineteen hits. It was like, damn,

821
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 3: I gotta go to bathroom sensitivity. All right, right, let

822
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 3: me take you like sensitivity as the time, it was like,

823
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 3: all right, let me sit down because I know poisons

824
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 3: about to come up.

825
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: I gotta rest my linight right right.

826
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 3: But I was like I was trying to wonder in history,

827
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:28,320
Speaker 3: was there ever a case where the lead singers sort

828
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 3: of faded in the background while everyone else in the

829
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 3: unit got to do that? So I always wanted to

830
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 3: know what did what did they do once like in

831
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety, like, did they try their

832
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:43,439
Speaker 3: hand that song?

833
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: Righted? Did they try producing?

834
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 7: They made a couple of records as the deal because

835
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 7: although we all went our separate ways, they did keep

836
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 7: the unit together and they toured some. Uh, they did

837
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:01,760
Speaker 7: some dates in Japan, and they did a few dates

838
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,359
Speaker 7: here and there. They would work on weekends at least

839
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 7: that's what I understand. And they went out and found

840
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,360
Speaker 7: a couple of guys that could do the job, you know,

841
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 7: and they worked.

842
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 4: They've been working. But they also they took ninety five jobs.

843
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 7: Yeah, but then D got very lucky because d D

844
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 7: D Bristol, he actually is the guy that wrote the

845
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 7: chorus I only think of you on two occasions that

846
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 7: day and night.

847
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 4: He wrote that, so years later Mariah Carey.

848
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 7: Used it on We Belong Together, so he saw money

849
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 7: money still comes in.

850
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, just in general, between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen

851
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 3: ninety one, I mean, god damn.

852
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 5: You.

853
00:45:54,640 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: Had at least like sixty plus hits top forty hits.

854
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 3: What is like is what is the not even the

855
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 3: division of labor, but just in terms of that much.

856
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: Volume, what does your life look like? Right? Yeah?

857
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 3: Like how to me? Are you bespoking these songs? Is

858
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 3: it like Jermaine comes to town and you're like talking

859
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 3: to him. Okay, here's a song called Don't Take It Personal.

860
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 3: You're meeting TLC for the first time. It's like, okay,

861
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 3: well let me see a baby baby. Like are these

862
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 3: songs sort of like in the stash somewhere in the

863
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 3: back and you're like, would you like this?

864
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: Would you like this?

865
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 7: Or are you custom making these songs? Some of those

866
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 7: songs were custom made? Some of those songs. You gotta remember,

867
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 7: first of all, Kenny Evans is one of the most

868
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 7: prolific songwriters ever, so he has a war chest of

869
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 7: material that's unreal, Like I you know, sometimes I want

870
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 7: to call and say, man, let me just go through

871
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 7: the tapes, like really, because he's so prolific. That's that's

872
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 7: the first thing. So he always had something. But then

873
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 7: when we like if it were Bobby Brown, sometimes we

874
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 7: would start things from scratch, Whitney Houston, we would start

875
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 7: songs from scratch where we were thinking about the artists.

876
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 7: But then every now and then he would pull a

877
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 7: song out that he'd had for a long time, and

878
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 7: I'm Ready he gave to Tevin Campbell, which is one

879
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:24,840
Speaker 7: of my favorite songs, and it had been around for

880
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 7: like ten years or better.

881
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 4: I think he met her. He might have had that

882
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 4: song when I met him.

883
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 7: Seriously, like I remember that long ago, like in the

884
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:39,360
Speaker 7: first the first chapter of our relationships as musicians and friends.

885
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 7: I remember hearing I'm Ready on a demo, so there

886
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 7: was a backlog of material, but then we would work

887
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 7: on things. End of the Road was I don't think

888
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 7: End of the Road was written for boys to man,

889
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 7: but once it was done, it was pretty obvious.

890
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 4: So I knew who to call.

891
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: Or I remember, you know, how to match a song

892
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: to an artist? I don't know I.

893
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 7: Don't really know, but I think that that's what A

894
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 7: and R really is. It's artist and repertoire, right, finding

895
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 7: the artist and the repertoire to match it when it's

896
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 7: particularly when it's people that maybe either they don't write songs,

897
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 7: or they collaborate, or they accept outside songs, and we

898
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 7: tended to work with people who accepted outside material. We

899
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 7: didn't like it that much working with people who could

900
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 7: also write, because it always changed how we would write. Right,

901
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 7: And we had a thing that we liked to do,

902
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 7: and we thought of ourselves as we thought we were.

903
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 4: The deal and whoever was singing was the lead singer.

904
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 7: Right, But it was like every song was I'm your

905
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 7: Baby tonight is the deal feature in Whitney Houston. That's

906
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 7: how we always looked at right, or my My Mine

907
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 7: is the deal feature Johnny gill or you know, because

908
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 7: me and Kenny and Ko and Darryll basically played on

909
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 7: everything you know or programmed or how we want to

910
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 7: look at it.

911
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: We created all of the.

912
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 7: Music for it, and we didn't really like tampering. So

913
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 7: I remember once we were doing Jermaine Jackson and we

914
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 7: we finished some records and then he brought in his

915
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 7: keyboard player to like reproduce all the songs, and we

916
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 7: were like, what's this and the dudes and and I

917
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 7: forget his name. Now he's really talented, but it was

918
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 7: just changing everything, and it was it was like, now

919
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:28,399
Speaker 7: this doesn't work.

920
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 4: No, no, I said, we'll keep that solo.

921
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: We did.

922
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 4: That's the best we could do the rest of it.

923
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 3: You know, at work at Saturday Night Live, whenever comedians

924
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 3: stand up comedians host the show, they try to bring

925
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 3: their team in to try to write for them right,

926
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 3: and it never works. It's always best when you just

927
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 3: trust the system and let the producers or let the

928
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 3: writers do it. So for that initial gust of Eli

929
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 3: face La faced them, what song.

930
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: Almost didn't make it? Oh? Man, let me see at

931
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: least a staple that we know. I don't know.

932
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 4: I think we were way too greedy and ambitious.

933
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 7: Man, we're trying to get everything out, Like I don't

934
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 7: I don't recall that one.

935
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 4: I don't have a good answer to that one.

936
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 3: Okay, you guys produced Pebbles, and you also produced Karen

937
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 3: White's first record, right, first album, Amazing Results, second album?

938
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: Why didn't Karen White?

939
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,760
Speaker 3: Now I knew at the time she's dating Terry Lewis.

940
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 3: Why didn't you guys work on the second Karen White record?

941
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: Or is that a Benny Bendina thing?

942
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 7: Oh No, that definitely wasn't a been anything.

943
00:50:53,560 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, it was.

944
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 3: Okay, wait wait, let me ask fante. For the life

945
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,319
Speaker 3: of you, can you sing the first And I know

946
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 3: jam Is gonna kill me for this, but even I

947
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,160
Speaker 3: gotten to admit this. Can you name can you sing

948
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 3: the first verse of a Romantic?

949
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: No? Dude, do you know that Romantic actually went to

950
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:22,919
Speaker 1: number one? Yeah?

951
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 5: I believe that was on the radio hard though.

952
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah it was number one hop hit.

953
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 1: Yes, look at space right now? Exactly, yeah, exactly, I

954
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: remember the host exactly.

955
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 3: Y'all all singing the wrong Romantic. My whole point is that, yes,

956
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 3: even though they managed to get a number one pop

957
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 3: single off that Karen.

958
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: White record, there was no impact. I couldn't name no

959
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 1: cut for the life of me. And my thing is like,

960
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 1: if it's not broken.

961
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 3: Now again, my assumption is she married Terry Lewis, so

962
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,760
Speaker 3: it's sort of like just bring your husband the workday

963
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 3: or whatever.

964
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't.

965
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 7: No, I think it was I think you nailed it, okay,

966
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 7: So for entertainment, I have to tell you this story

967
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 7: just for entertainment's sake, and I'll go quickly.

968
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 1: No, we love this.

969
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 7: So we're in New Orleans where you are now. There

970
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 7: used to be a show called the Budweiser Superfessed. Yes, yes,

971
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 7: we're on the tool, thank you, And we're on the

972
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 7: package doing our final tour with two occasions, and Pebbles

973
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 7: is with us. She's not on the tour, but she's

974
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 7: hanging out with me. Her tour ended, she's just hanging

975
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 7: with me. Benny Medina invites us to a Warner Music

976
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 7: conference that they're having in New Orleans, right, and all

977
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 7: the labels like Warner Electra, Atlantic, all the labels and

978
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 7: all the big executives who I didn't know at the time,

979
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,600
Speaker 7: Steve Ross and Bob Kratz Now and David Geffen and

980
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:10,280
Speaker 7: Quincy Jones and Doug Morris and Jimmy I all these

981
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 7: I didn't know any of them anyway. So Benny invites

982
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 7: us because we happen to have one of their hottest records,

983
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 7: Superwoman with Karen.

984
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 1: White at the time.

985
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 7: So he invites Babyface and I to the conference.

986
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:28,399
Speaker 4: So we're like, great. So we go to.

987
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 7: The conference and we walk in and it's baby Face

988
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 7: Pebbles and myself and I don't know record company politics

989
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 7: or anything like that.

990
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 4: Benny comes running over to us and.

991
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 7: Says, I invited you, and I invited you, and he

992
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 7: points to Pebbles and he says.

993
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 1: But I did not invite her.

994
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 7: And I'm like, well, if she can't come, then I

995
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:57,279
Speaker 7: don't want to be here because and I don't get it.

996
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 7: I don't And we turn around and leave, and we

997
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 7: and and we fall out, and Ben and I don't

998
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 7: speak for a decade, right, wow. And ten years later

999
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 7: he told me it was because la I was seating

1000
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,879
Speaker 7: you guys with Karen White and it's her moment and

1001
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 7: her competition is Pebbles, and you bring Pebbles in and

1002
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 7: you know, at the same table, like and I was like, oh,

1003
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:20,880
Speaker 7: I thought you wuld just being an asshole.

1004
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I was. I was. I was wrong here.

1005
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:24,759
Speaker 4: I didn't know.

1006
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: I didn't know.

1007
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 7: So so I didn't speak to Benny for a decade

1008
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 7: and we never worked with Karen again.

1009
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1010
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 3: Wow, finally an answer I'm satisfied with, be cause it's like,

1011
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 3: why ruin the formula, why ruin the formula exactly?

1012
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 7: And we loved working with Karen, like loved it and

1013
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 7: we had.

1014
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 4: Fun doing it.

1015
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: Right.

1016
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:47,760
Speaker 4: She was fun. She could sing.

1017
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 7: She had a great tone, great voice, and she was

1018
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 7: like a real musician type of singer.

1019
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 4: You know, she had some you know, she knew music.

1020
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 7: She knew about, you know, sliding the family Stone, things

1021
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 7: that we liked, she knew about. By the way, the

1022
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:05,720
Speaker 7: end of Superwoman ever so slightly like Purple Rain.

1023
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: With the strings and the slightly nice the stories. I like,

1024
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 1: got that.

1025
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:24,919
Speaker 3: Okay, So you know we were first introduced to you

1026
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:28,839
Speaker 3: as kind of solar house producers.

1027
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: Yes, one how did that phase?

1028
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 3: And it almost looked like you had a universal mc

1029
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 3: A situation about to happen. And then the next thing,

1030
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 3: I know, everything's happening on Arista. Now when you're doing

1031
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,320
Speaker 3: a roster, when you're when you're producing for these artists,

1032
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 3: is it a contractual thing?

1033
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to do other people or is it like,

1034
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 1: once you.

1035
00:55:56,120 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 3: Start the Arista phase, you must stick to Aristat and arrist.

1036
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 7: Only it wasn't exactly that. It started out that we

1037
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 7: were solar in house producers for sure, and after after

1038
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 7: the Whispers took off and the deal and Babyface had

1039
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:18,280
Speaker 7: his little Silas. We became friends with Lowell and Cheryl

1040
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 7: Dickerson at both of them and Jeryl Busby. We became

1041
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 7: friends with the MCA crew and we went over and

1042
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:28,120
Speaker 7: started helping them. We did the Mac Band for them.

1043
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 7: One of my favorite songs we ever did was Roses

1044
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 7: Already Yeah and feel Underrated. It feels like no one

1045
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 7: knows it, you know, but I really dig that. And

1046
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,879
Speaker 7: we ended up doing Pebbles for them, and he did

1047
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 7: the Boys as well, and we did the Boys, and

1048
00:56:46,719 --> 00:56:50,399
Speaker 7: later when it became Motown, we did Boys to Men.

1049
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 3: No label CEO is making you guys sound an exclusive

1050
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 3: contract to stay, which is like it never occurred to

1051
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 3: Dick Griffy to say, you guys are my house only.

1052
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,440
Speaker 7: I think I did sign a contract with with Solar

1053
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:07,840
Speaker 7: for to be an exclusive in house producer, but I

1054
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:10,439
Speaker 7: never got I never got the money, so I never

1055
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 7: honored it. Okay, cool, Yeah, you know, Uh, he didn't

1056
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 7: hold me to it. I didn't hold him to it,

1057
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 7: and it wasn't for that much money.

1058
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1059
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 7: So so we worked with with Louis for a while

1060
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 7: and then Benny Medina called. No, someone called us and

1061
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 7: asked us to meet Benny Medina. So we went over

1062
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 7: and we met him and we said who's on your roster?

1063
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 7: And he named al Chi Role. We were like, nah,

1064
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 7: Chaka Khan, who was my favorite singer. But I was like,

1065
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 7: I don't know how we could do any better than

1066
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 7: I feel for you. No, And then he said Karen

1067
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 7: White and I remember hearing her on the radio singing

1068
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 7: these are the facts of we and I was like, oh,

1069
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 7: we could do something with that, right, And so that's

1070
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,840
Speaker 7: how it worked out. So, yes, we were supposed to

1071
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,600
Speaker 7: do Leface Records with MCA.

1072
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 1: It wasn't universal yet.

1073
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 7: It was MCA and Irving azof ran the company and

1074
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 7: uh Gerald Buzzby had already departed to start Motown to

1075
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 7: take over Motown, and uh Louiel was still there.

1076
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 8: Also, what was Lo Solace Junior? Like just as an executive,

1077
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 8: a lot of energy.

1078
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:21,080
Speaker 7: He knew his records like you know, he was a

1079
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 7: he was a DJ too, you know. Uh, and he

1080
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 7: remixed every song that came out, like every single song

1081
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 7: that came out at that time, he would remix.

1082
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,840
Speaker 4: He would remix guy records anything.

1083
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: I thought.

1084
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 3: He was just slapping his name on those productions. I

1085
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 3: didn't realize that he had a crew. We had a

1086
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 3: team of people.

1087
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 7: He had an engineer, he had a programmer, and it

1088
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 7: was him and he would take all the records that

1089
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 7: he liked and he would take him in and do the

1090
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 7: remix of them, you know, And and sometimes they'd be

1091
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 7: harder when he's done with them, like not every time,

1092
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,120
Speaker 7: but sometimes they would be hard. But he was a

1093
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 7: lot of fun, really competitive and at that time and

1094
00:58:56,960 --> 00:59:00,880
Speaker 7: in black music in LA they were like these three

1095
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 7: superstar an R guys. One of them was Liuil Silas Junior.

1096
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 7: The other one was John McClain who was at A

1097
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 7: and M. That's our dream interview. We can't find him

1098
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 7: for he's the greatest. And then there was Bennie Medina

1099
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 7: who was at Warner right. But these are like the

1100
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 7: three stars in town and you know, and they I

1101
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 7: became friends with all of them and it was really great.

1102
00:59:25,400 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 4: But Louis was great man. He was fun. He was great,

1103
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 4: great dude.

1104
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: At the time.

1105
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 3: When I first I think when I heard, uh, Donnie

1106
00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 3: seems to make the announcement that Whitney Houston is going

1107
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 3: to work with Elien face, I got slightly nervous.

1108
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: Wow, rightly, because.

1109
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:48,120
Speaker 3: The thing is that, you know, the Whitney train was,

1110
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm not saying anything that that isn't facts.

1111
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: You know, she definitely it was. It was overkilled.

1112
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 3: We all know about the booing up, the Soul Train

1113
00:59:58,520 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 3: awards and all those things.

1114
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 1: Right, And.

1115
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:07,360
Speaker 3: I often wondered if placing her in your hands was

1116
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 3: almost a setup for a disaster, because the thing is like,

1117
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 3: the first album sells twelve million, and the second album

1118
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 3: sells fifteen million, So there's like, in meeting with Clive Davis,

1119
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 3: is he saying to yourself like, don't fuck up, like

1120
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:30,600
Speaker 3: y'all better give me another ten to fifteen million? And

1121
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 3: how how was the general what was the general consistence

1122
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 3: when I'm your baby, Team night only did again, I

1123
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 3: don't consider it fil It did a solid five million, right,

1124
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 3: that's right, But it wasn't what the first two albums were.

1125
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:46,520
Speaker 3: And actually I'm glad it wasn't what the first two

1126
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 3: records were. But just can you walk us through that

1127
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 3: whole What was the what was the pressure?

1128
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 7: I think that didn't feel pressure, first of all, did

1129
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 7: not feel any pressure, didn't approach it that way. He

1130
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 7: was very clear that Whitney had a black problem. So

1131
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 7: his goal wasn't I want to sell fifteen million. His

1132
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:11,960
Speaker 7: goal was ingratiate my artists with the black community, please

1133
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 7: like stand beside her, work with her, because they don't

1134
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:21,840
Speaker 7: think she's cool, right, And so success was simply black

1135
01:01:21,920 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 7: people saying, okay with me.

1136
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 4: She need a jam, right, that's all of us.

1137
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 7: That's all of us. And so we didn't feel any pressure.

1138
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 7: And we knew we couldn't. I'm being honest. We knew

1139
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:35,959
Speaker 7: we couldn't make those kinds of records, like those those

1140
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 7: big records that she had, Like well, yeah, okay, I

1141
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 7: get that, you know, like we didn't write like that,

1142
01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 7: we didn't produce like that. I think through a ballot

1143
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 7: you could have reached those heights, probably right. But my

1144
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:53,919
Speaker 7: thing is that in that time in nineteen ninety when

1145
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 7: you jack swing is going GGA and you guys are

1146
01:01:57,600 --> 01:02:00,560
Speaker 7: actually the proprietors. I mean, the entire Don't Be Cool

1147
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 7: record is a tutorial.

1148
01:02:02,720 --> 01:02:07,000
Speaker 3: And you jack swing them right, But next to the

1149
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 3: eyes of a Stranger record, I was so confused as

1150
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 3: to why a shuffle song was her first statement and

1151
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:20,120
Speaker 3: claiming her throne.

1152
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: But it worked. Yeah, it was perfect.

1153
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I think it worked because the powers that

1154
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 3: be made it work. Everyone knew who La and Babyface were.

1155
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 3: Everyone knew who Whitney Houston was, so it was like.

1156
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:35,920
Speaker 1: And it was a great song. Let's be it was

1157
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:38,360
Speaker 1: a great song. Yeah, yeah, like this ship was a

1158
01:02:38,440 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 1: jay okay, but it was just an unusual risky.

1159
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:44,440
Speaker 5: Song Okay, all right, risky.

1160
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 3: It was risky, like because could DJs have played that

1161
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 3: in the nightclub like that? That level of shuffle and

1162
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:56,320
Speaker 3: twelve eight meter was like HARKing back to like Luther

1163
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 3: Vandroz's bad Boy having a party, which it's more barbarians.

1164
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 1: You watch out now, like.

1165
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:11,560
Speaker 3: Not every little step, not on our own, not girlfriendad No, No,

1166
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:14,880
Speaker 3: it's a risk. In the hindsight, I will say it's

1167
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 3: the best move because I love when risks work. But

1168
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 3: damn yo, like whoy.

1169
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 4: We also you know what else?

1170
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 7: It was we had played ourselves out, like not to

1171
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 7: the public maybe, but we had played ourselves out with

1172
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 7: that sound, and we we had moved to Atlanta and

1173
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 7: we were experimenting because we were trying to rEFInd ourselves

1174
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 7: and we couldn't do the down my heart again. We

1175
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,680
Speaker 7: couldn't do you know, we just couldn't do it anymore,

1176
01:03:43,720 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 7: like we had done it so much on so many songs,

1177
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:50,640
Speaker 7: Like every song had had that that kind of groove

1178
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 7: on it, and it was it just got tired, you

1179
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:56,680
Speaker 7: know for us. And so I'm here Baby to Night

1180
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 7: was it was. It was a little bit of us

1181
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 7: reinventing us as much as it was trying to give

1182
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 7: Whitney Houston something that we thought was.

1183
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 3: That I would have thought Susan would have probably well,

1184
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 3: if Susan didn't have a direct, proper nown attached to it,

1185
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 3: I would have thought, like my name is not Susan

1186
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:15,920
Speaker 3: would have been.

1187
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, But I think that was what she needed.

1188
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 8: It reminded me a lot of Jimmy Jam's story of

1189
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:24,600
Speaker 8: like doing with Janet and like, you know, if was

1190
01:04:24,640 --> 01:04:27,080
Speaker 8: the one on the Janet album, that was the one

1191
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:29,800
Speaker 8: that was like Janet the gimme just you know go,

1192
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:32,400
Speaker 8: but that's the way Love Golds was the one that's like,

1193
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 8: ohle ship, I mean it's you know, it's a different thing,

1194
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 8: you know, And that's what that was for me.

1195
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 1: First, Let's turn it.

1196
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 6: Around and to be honest, not to be that radio

1197
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 6: girl us this old you know logic, but they both

1198
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,160
Speaker 6: sound like more female records like I'm Your Baby to Night,

1199
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:52,880
Speaker 6: it's way more female, just like Janet.

1200
01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just it's just when heard.

1201
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 4: And it was like, I was really proud of it.

1202
01:04:56,960 --> 01:04:59,160
Speaker 7: I was so proud of that record when we finished it,

1203
01:04:59,160 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 7: because it was we had never done a shuffle, we

1204
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:05,920
Speaker 7: hadn't did it with no songs like that, and I

1205
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 7: was proud of I was just proud of it, and

1206
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 7: it didn't matter to me.

1207
01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 1: The success of it.

1208
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 7: And I know that sounds like I'm being a little

1209
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 7: bit frivolous about it, but it was more like, can

1210
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:22,080
Speaker 7: we tackle Whitney Houston and do something with Whitney that

1211
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 7: hasn't been done already because we can't do what she's

1212
01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:27,840
Speaker 7: done better than she's done it, So can we do

1213
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:32,000
Speaker 7: something that's just our take on it? And we did

1214
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:36,960
Speaker 7: that successfully and I was very happy with it.

1215
01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 4: And don't even lie, I really do like the drum

1216
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 4: feels on it.

1217
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 3: In hindsight, I think it's a great normalizing. It normalized her,

1218
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 3: made her relatable and down the earth, and you know,

1219
01:05:51,560 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 3: because the joints I liked on the first record were

1220
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 3: like the Sheep records and that that's what man, and

1221
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 3: it didn't happen. It didn't have any sugar pop on it,

1222
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:06,439
Speaker 3: which right, I'm glad. We had a little problem that

1223
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 3: we never discussed. I never talked to Kenny about it.

1224
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:13,160
Speaker 7: But we did Whitney and we did Michael, and our

1225
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:16,000
Speaker 7: Michael stuff never came out because we couldn't nail it.

1226
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 7: We spent a lot of time with Michael and we

1227
01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 7: just couldn't nail it. And we spent a lot of

1228
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:24,680
Speaker 7: time with Whitney and we were able to get a

1229
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 7: little bit off. But for some reason, those big stars,

1230
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,120
Speaker 7: because that wasn't our thing. Our thing was the artist

1231
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:35,160
Speaker 7: of our generation. Like that's what we were great at.

1232
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 7: If we were great at anything, it was like, let's

1233
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 7: work with Bobby Brown, you know, let's work with Pebbles,

1234
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 7: Let's do Babyface, let's do you know, Karen White, Let's

1235
01:06:43,840 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 7: do our crew after seven even like our crew. But

1236
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 7: when we went outside of our circle and tried to

1237
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:55,000
Speaker 7: do those superstars, the truth is we did not nail it.

1238
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 4: We did not nail it.

1239
01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:59,640
Speaker 7: Now, we got something off with Whitney and we developed

1240
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:02,160
Speaker 7: an in were out of a relationship with her. That

1241
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:05,520
Speaker 7: would last for many years, but none of those. It

1242
01:07:05,560 --> 01:07:09,240
Speaker 7: didn't resemble the success that we'd had, not sound wise,

1243
01:07:09,320 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 7: not signature wise, not impact wise. And it was the

1244
01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 7: first and you're right because it was the first time

1245
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 7: that you could criticize whether it was actually the right thing.

1246
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:21,400
Speaker 4: And after that we did Michael.

1247
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 7: I mean, we couldn't even get out of the studio

1248
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:28,200
Speaker 7: with a song man. And we knew how to write,

1249
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 7: and we knew how to produce, but there was something

1250
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:34,600
Speaker 7: about being in that room with Michael that we just

1251
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:39,600
Speaker 7: were overshooting it and trying too hard and just could

1252
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 7: not get any nothing felt natural.

1253
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:49,560
Speaker 3: So how hard was it to walk away from the

1254
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 3: dangerous record knowing that damn we couldn't do it.

1255
01:07:55,160 --> 01:07:57,160
Speaker 7: We just knew it, Like when we went home, when

1256
01:07:57,160 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 7: we left the studio after being in there for a month,

1257
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:00,960
Speaker 7: and when we were.

1258
01:08:00,960 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it was a month. Yeah, and one song. No.

1259
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 7: We attempted to write several songs and he and he recorded,

1260
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:14,760
Speaker 7: He recorded background vocals on one, never finished it, and

1261
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 7: he completed one, never mixed it.

1262
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:20,160
Speaker 1: The Slave to the Rhythm song right, Slave to the Rhythm.

1263
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:23,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, So did anything happen to those other songs that

1264
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 3: were meant for him.

1265
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:26,720
Speaker 1: No, they're just sitting.

1266
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:31,440
Speaker 7: There, sitting somewhere. I think they might be in my vault.

1267
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:33,519
Speaker 7: I think it might be in my vault because that's

1268
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 7: where I found Slave to the Rhythm that you know,

1269
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:38,439
Speaker 7: I because we didn't do Slave to the Rhythm with Sony.

1270
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:40,360
Speaker 7: We did that with Michael. We didn't do it as

1271
01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:43,760
Speaker 7: a higher fight of record label. That was a relationship

1272
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:47,160
Speaker 7: just between us and Michael. Uh So we all kept

1273
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 7: we kept our tapes.

1274
01:08:48,520 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 1: So was that a teachable lesson in or make you

1275
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:53,479
Speaker 1: leary of those A list stars?

1276
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:53,600
Speaker 6: Like?

1277
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:57,320
Speaker 3: Because I'm certain by that point everybody was calling you like,

1278
01:08:57,560 --> 01:08:58,200
Speaker 3: who did you?

1279
01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 1: Who would you say no to A list?

1280
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:05,679
Speaker 7: Well, Kenny became much better at it, right, because he

1281
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:11,799
Speaker 7: did Madonna successfully and he did Eric Clapton successfully, and so.

1282
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:13,280
Speaker 4: He became he nailed it.

1283
01:09:13,920 --> 01:09:17,160
Speaker 7: I went the other way, which was I only wanted

1284
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:18,920
Speaker 7: to work with the artist that was signed that we

1285
01:09:18,920 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 7: were signing.

1286
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: I didn't want to work with anybody else.

1287
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 3: You signed, You're like, I'm going to manufacture the next

1288
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 3: ten millions.

1289
01:09:24,240 --> 01:09:26,799
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm doing that. So I just went into that mode.

1290
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:31,240
Speaker 3: And so what was the realization point where it's like, hey,

1291
01:09:32,520 --> 01:09:35,920
Speaker 3: office life like who does that?

1292
01:09:36,120 --> 01:09:40,759
Speaker 1: Who wants? Who? Who wants to be a rock star?

1293
01:09:41,040 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 3: And then says, or did you realize earlier that all

1294
01:09:44,360 --> 01:09:47,040
Speaker 3: of the power and the money and the success and

1295
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 3: the magic is behind.

1296
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:51,360
Speaker 7: It wasn't that, you know what it was for me?

1297
01:09:51,479 --> 01:09:53,880
Speaker 7: It was it was really the love of music, man.

1298
01:09:53,920 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 7: It was because I loved music, not only the music

1299
01:09:58,040 --> 01:10:00,719
Speaker 7: that Kenny and I made, but when I met people

1300
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:04,640
Speaker 7: like Dallas Austin, or when I met like not just

1301
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:07,520
Speaker 7: people I work with, but when I would meet other producers,

1302
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:10,080
Speaker 7: I would love their music, like I love Jimmy jam

1303
01:10:10,160 --> 01:10:12,879
Speaker 7: and Terry Lewis, I like my favorite producers. Leon Silvers

1304
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:16,240
Speaker 7: is my favorite, you know, amongst my favorite producers. And

1305
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:19,320
Speaker 7: when when Nellie Hooper did Sold the Soul, Like I

1306
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:23,240
Speaker 7: met him and I was like taking and Martinelli I

1307
01:10:23,240 --> 01:10:24,759
Speaker 7: met him, McClaren, Savons, Howison.

1308
01:10:24,840 --> 01:10:27,120
Speaker 4: I just I love the people that made music.

1309
01:10:27,240 --> 01:10:30,200
Speaker 7: So I didn't want a career that was based on

1310
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:31,960
Speaker 7: the music that I made.

1311
01:10:32,080 --> 01:10:33,800
Speaker 4: I didn't think I was good enough for that.

1312
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,840
Speaker 7: I wanted to be a career that I could work

1313
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:42,120
Speaker 7: with people that I thought were immensely talented. So my

1314
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:45,519
Speaker 7: career decisions had only to do with music. It had

1315
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:47,880
Speaker 7: nothing to do with power, It had nothing to do

1316
01:10:47,920 --> 01:10:51,880
Speaker 7: with money. It was a pure love of Damn. I

1317
01:10:51,920 --> 01:10:54,920
Speaker 7: love how Dallas does this. I love how Jermaine Dupre

1318
01:10:55,080 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 7: does that. Oh my god, these kids organize noise, they

1319
01:10:58,479 --> 01:11:01,280
Speaker 7: do this, and they do it. Was purely my love

1320
01:11:01,320 --> 01:11:05,040
Speaker 7: of music and my love of artistry, right, and I

1321
01:11:05,240 --> 01:11:08,400
Speaker 7: liked the idea of like when we met Pebbles, no

1322
01:11:08,400 --> 01:11:11,200
Speaker 7: one knew who she was, and we made her record

1323
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:14,760
Speaker 7: and it worked, and so and when we did Karen White,

1324
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:16,280
Speaker 7: no one knew who that was. I mean, she had

1325
01:11:16,360 --> 01:11:18,680
Speaker 7: one song on the radio, but she wasn't famous, so

1326
01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 7: to speak, or or or our own band, The Deal,

1327
01:11:22,240 --> 01:11:23,720
Speaker 7: or Babyface or so.

1328
01:11:23,920 --> 01:11:25,360
Speaker 4: I was so into.

1329
01:11:25,280 --> 01:11:29,160
Speaker 7: Homegrown and I felt comfortable and homegrown, and I felt

1330
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:33,760
Speaker 7: uncomfortable having to measure up two stars.

1331
01:11:34,080 --> 01:11:37,760
Speaker 3: But you realized that once you get behind that desk,

1332
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:43,240
Speaker 3: your Jedi mind trick knowledge has to go into overdrive.

1333
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,439
Speaker 3: Because I'm certain by that point, like when you're having

1334
01:11:47,479 --> 01:11:50,439
Speaker 3: your own label, you're trying to you got to talk

1335
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 3: people out of a lot of bad decisions, right like

1336
01:11:53,160 --> 01:11:55,120
Speaker 3: you you got to take meetings and you got to

1337
01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:59,799
Speaker 3: remember names and go to things like Jack the Rapper

1338
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:04,240
Speaker 3: and whatever, shake hans and kiss babies, like who would trade?

1339
01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:07,559
Speaker 8: I think it's for the stage or in your life

1340
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:09,559
Speaker 8: like I had, like I was my group little brother

1341
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:13,439
Speaker 8: were signed to UH Atlantic, you know years ago and

1342
01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:16,880
Speaker 8: UH and you know, Julie Greenwall we would have conversations

1343
01:12:16,960 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 8: and you know, she would say, like, you know, we

1344
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:20,599
Speaker 8: had to come up with recently. She was just talking

1345
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:24,440
Speaker 8: about how at this point in her career she enjoys

1346
01:12:24,560 --> 01:12:26,800
Speaker 8: kind of being in the stage kind of you know

1347
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:29,040
Speaker 8: where you are, and just all the OG's in the

1348
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:31,479
Speaker 8: game where they're able to kind of sit back and

1349
01:12:31,560 --> 01:12:33,920
Speaker 8: see the whole big picture and kind of direct from

1350
01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:36,400
Speaker 8: that standing where it happens is more.

1351
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:39,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like that's yeah, that's the thing. And I get it.

1352
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:42,040
Speaker 3: It makes total sense, you know versus when you're you know,

1353
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:44,880
Speaker 3: in your LA and Babyface days where you're actually kind

1354
01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:46,599
Speaker 3: of in the field so to speak, like when you're

1355
01:12:46,640 --> 01:12:49,200
Speaker 3: in the studio you're programming the drums whatever. Now you

1356
01:12:49,200 --> 01:12:50,760
Speaker 3: get to kind of be the big picture guy in.

1357
01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:51,799
Speaker 1: A single, all the pieces.

1358
01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:54,000
Speaker 7: There's one thing I learned about it that I that

1359
01:12:54,080 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 7: I do love and being being an executive And it

1360
01:13:00,439 --> 01:13:03,920
Speaker 7: had to do with choices about artists.

1361
01:13:03,600 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 4: And records and like the great the ones.

1362
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 7: I love that I considered the great Barry Gordy obviously

1363
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 7: being number one on that side of the lecture right

1364
01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:17,040
Speaker 7: as an executive Clive Davis, I obviously love and respect

1365
01:13:17,120 --> 01:13:21,000
Speaker 7: Jimmy Ivan, I'm urt again, and there are others, you know.

1366
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:26,879
Speaker 7: But what I loved is if they were passionate about something,

1367
01:13:27,960 --> 01:13:31,400
Speaker 7: they could drive it and to your point, right, like

1368
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:34,439
Speaker 7: I think you kind of called it manufacturing, but it

1369
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:37,920
Speaker 7: was more like, if you have this intuition or this

1370
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:41,680
Speaker 7: instinct that this gut that something is the thing, and

1371
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:45,120
Speaker 7: to just drive it through, right, we believe it. I

1372
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:48,680
Speaker 7: believe that belief thing I liked. I like that I

1373
01:13:48,680 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 7: don't see much of that these days. I really don't

1374
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:54,960
Speaker 7: like what I see people really having to have data

1375
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:59,720
Speaker 7: to back up their decisions. I like the fact that

1376
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:03,559
Speaker 7: you know, we did it with our gut, and we

1377
01:14:03,560 --> 01:14:05,360
Speaker 7: were wrong a lot of times, but we were right

1378
01:14:05,520 --> 01:14:08,240
Speaker 7: enough times that we are considered successful, right.

1379
01:14:09,400 --> 01:14:10,439
Speaker 4: And I liked that.

1380
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:16,240
Speaker 7: And I liked that particularly for black artists, because black

1381
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:20,559
Speaker 7: artists don't often get an opportunity to get a crossover shot,

1382
01:14:21,040 --> 01:14:25,160
Speaker 7: a shot to the mainstream. That is all because like

1383
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:28,040
Speaker 7: Whitney Houston is because Clive Davis said this is for

1384
01:14:28,160 --> 01:14:31,479
Speaker 7: the masses, Rihanna is because I said this is for

1385
01:14:31,560 --> 01:14:32,160
Speaker 7: the masses.

1386
01:14:32,479 --> 01:14:36,360
Speaker 3: When you signed Rihanna, I mean she's now god status,

1387
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:39,840
Speaker 3: like there's yeah, she's literally.

1388
01:14:40,960 --> 01:14:43,200
Speaker 1: Past She's past the vanguard level.

1389
01:14:43,479 --> 01:14:45,519
Speaker 3: Like in my mind, Rihanna would have just been like

1390
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:50,599
Speaker 3: maybe Janet Jackson level where she just has twenty hits

1391
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:53,960
Speaker 3: under her belt, but she's now past that point.

1392
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:55,639
Speaker 4: I can't say I knew all that.

1393
01:14:55,720 --> 01:14:58,040
Speaker 7: Maybe j Brown knew it, maybe Jay Z knew it

1394
01:14:58,160 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 7: right because obviously all of us we're involved together, I

1395
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:02,920
Speaker 7: can't say that when.

1396
01:15:02,760 --> 01:15:06,160
Speaker 4: I first saw her and I heard her first Ponder replay,

1397
01:15:06,280 --> 01:15:09,000
Speaker 4: Jay Brown brought it to me one night in the office,

1398
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 4: was really late at night, and I was like, I

1399
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:13,320
Speaker 4: guess that was my reaction.

1400
01:15:13,840 --> 01:15:14,439
Speaker 1: Yes, all right.

1401
01:15:16,800 --> 01:15:18,880
Speaker 3: This is also the period where we were about to

1402
01:15:18,880 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 3: sign to the label. I remember once. I remember once

1403
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:26,280
Speaker 3: going to a j show. Rihanna was there and you

1404
01:15:26,439 --> 01:15:28,639
Speaker 3: signed what's your name?

1405
01:15:29,960 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 1: No, no, no, not Rita or.

1406
01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 4: Ti Marie.

1407
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:38,160
Speaker 3: Now, the energy that I felt in the room when

1408
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:42,640
Speaker 3: I was backstage was Tierra Marie was going to be

1409
01:15:43,560 --> 01:15:44,880
Speaker 3: out of the smash.

1410
01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:49,240
Speaker 1: And Rihanna got the cute little hit and she'll probably

1411
01:15:49,280 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: get on like now.

1412
01:15:51,560 --> 01:15:52,519
Speaker 5: Her song and playing the mall.

1413
01:15:52,960 --> 01:15:55,000
Speaker 1: Yes, I thought she's gonna be on that now.

1414
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 3: That's what I call music volume thirty seven, and the

1415
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:04,960
Speaker 3: opposite happened. Yeah, So how how does it again? Is

1416
01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:07,320
Speaker 3: that Jedi mind tricking where you have to know who

1417
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:08,080
Speaker 3: your artist is?

1418
01:16:08,439 --> 01:16:08,479
Speaker 1: Like?

1419
01:16:08,600 --> 01:16:14,160
Speaker 3: How long do you get to absorbing artists to know

1420
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:18,160
Speaker 3: what they need in order to make it happen? I

1421
01:16:18,280 --> 01:16:21,719
Speaker 3: think it's just like, okay, so, especially when they self

1422
01:16:21,760 --> 01:16:25,760
Speaker 3: sabotage a lot, right, So I.

1423
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 7: Think this first of all, I think this helps answer

1424
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:31,120
Speaker 7: one of your other questions. Yes, we really believed in

1425
01:16:31,360 --> 01:16:32,320
Speaker 7: Tia Marie.

1426
01:16:32,080 --> 01:16:32,519
Speaker 1: All of us.

1427
01:16:33,280 --> 01:16:37,400
Speaker 7: She got the Rockefeller chain, all of it. Yeah, it

1428
01:16:37,479 --> 01:16:39,960
Speaker 7: didn't work. I love her as a person, I saw

1429
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:42,679
Speaker 7: her not long ago, but it didn't. It didn't connect

1430
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:46,120
Speaker 7: at all. The songs didn't connect, the artists didn't really connect.

1431
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:52,439
Speaker 7: And so no, you can't force it. You could, you can,

1432
01:16:52,600 --> 01:16:55,960
Speaker 7: you can prioritize it, and you can try, but you can't.

1433
01:16:56,200 --> 01:16:58,080
Speaker 7: You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot

1434
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:00,720
Speaker 7: make them drink, right, it doesn't It didn't work.

1435
01:17:01,479 --> 01:17:01,919
Speaker 4: Rihanna.

1436
01:17:02,120 --> 01:17:06,679
Speaker 7: On the other hand, I grew. I grew into it personally,

1437
01:17:06,920 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 7: Like I remember when it hit me. I remember really

1438
01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:13,080
Speaker 7: well when it hit me, sitting in the house one

1439
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:18,760
Speaker 7: night and listening to the demos and you know, Jay Brown,

1440
01:17:18,880 --> 01:17:22,479
Speaker 7: Ti those guys they were making her records like, and

1441
01:17:23,439 --> 01:17:26,040
Speaker 7: they were giving them to me to listen to. And

1442
01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:28,880
Speaker 7: I remember sitting at home listening to Good Girl Gone

1443
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:32,519
Speaker 7: Bad and all these songs. I came back and said,

1444
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:35,160
Speaker 7: wait a minute, guys, she called an album that what

1445
01:17:35,240 --> 01:17:37,120
Speaker 7: should call an album? Good Girl Gone Bad?

1446
01:17:37,640 --> 01:17:37,800
Speaker 1: Right?

1447
01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:42,320
Speaker 7: And it was like it was a statement. Anyway, My

1448
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:46,479
Speaker 7: point is it all of a sudden hit me that

1449
01:17:46,720 --> 01:17:49,720
Speaker 7: she was it. And then she did this song called

1450
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:52,759
Speaker 7: so Os, and I watched the video for so Os

1451
01:17:53,520 --> 01:17:56,759
Speaker 7: and I took it home. I told my wife Erica.

1452
01:17:57,680 --> 01:17:59,080
Speaker 7: I was like, this girl is about to be the

1453
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:02,960
Speaker 7: biggest star in the if not the world, watch this video.

1454
01:18:03,560 --> 01:18:07,360
Speaker 7: And we watched the video and it was like, Okay,

1455
01:18:07,400 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 7: I get it. And then she made Umbrella. And when

1456
01:18:13,240 --> 01:18:18,960
Speaker 7: she made Umbrella, then do I know Do I have

1457
01:18:19,040 --> 01:18:22,719
Speaker 7: an instinct? Do I have an intuition in those moments? Yes,

1458
01:18:23,320 --> 01:18:25,200
Speaker 7: because I knew that was out of here.

1459
01:18:25,240 --> 01:18:28,720
Speaker 3: I was like, yep, she's gone right, Okay, you get

1460
01:18:28,880 --> 01:18:34,120
Speaker 3: a song like Umbrella, you get jay Z on that song.

1461
01:18:35,120 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 3: Can he walk us through the process of what it

1462
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:40,360
Speaker 3: takes to make that song connect with an artist, Like,

1463
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:42,200
Speaker 3: how do do you play it?

1464
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:43,920
Speaker 1: Who do you play it for? First? Who gets there?

1465
01:18:44,040 --> 01:18:46,919
Speaker 5: Did the dream just bring it in the dreams processed?

1466
01:18:47,400 --> 01:18:47,599
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1467
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 3: So no, no, no, I mean creatively, I'm talking about

1468
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:53,000
Speaker 3: once you have album in hand, how do you make

1469
01:18:53,080 --> 01:18:57,600
Speaker 3: sure that people around the world know what Umbrella is?

1470
01:18:58,800 --> 01:19:01,439
Speaker 4: At the time? It's certainly it's there.

1471
01:19:01,600 --> 01:19:05,360
Speaker 7: There are more avenues now, it's the game has gotten

1472
01:19:05,400 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 7: pretty complicated, and it's and it's flooded, flooded with stuff

1473
01:19:09,320 --> 01:19:14,080
Speaker 7: right from all these platforms and all this d I

1474
01:19:14,320 --> 01:19:17,439
Speaker 7: Y and every very low barrier to entry.

1475
01:19:17,720 --> 01:19:21,000
Speaker 4: So there's a lot more stuff than there are than

1476
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 4: than there is special stuff, uh in the game. Back

1477
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:30,840
Speaker 4: in those days, a record executive can make a record

1478
01:19:30,880 --> 01:19:36,200
Speaker 4: of priority and and and put it on radio all

1479
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:39,000
Speaker 4: radio and people will hear it.

1480
01:19:39,960 --> 01:19:44,680
Speaker 7: And video video mattered, right, and MTV matter, and b

1481
01:19:44,840 --> 01:19:47,600
Speaker 7: E T matter and VH one matter right, and so

1482
01:19:47,920 --> 01:19:52,120
Speaker 7: all of our all of our avenues and our platforms, Uh,

1483
01:19:52,320 --> 01:19:55,759
Speaker 7: we had enough influence that we could get it a shot.

1484
01:19:56,800 --> 01:19:59,120
Speaker 7: It still had to take off, but our job is

1485
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:01,720
Speaker 7: just to get it in front of the people, and

1486
01:20:01,960 --> 01:20:03,400
Speaker 7: that's what we did. We got it in front of

1487
01:20:03,400 --> 01:20:04,439
Speaker 7: the people and it took off.

1488
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:07,640
Speaker 3: So does that also mean that your relationship has to

1489
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:12,200
Speaker 3: be intact with I don't know who like ran Empty

1490
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 3: or Viacom at the time, or your relationship with the

1491
01:20:16,360 --> 01:20:18,120
Speaker 3: whoever runs Clear Channel.

1492
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:22,320
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, it absolutely means that. Yes, yeah, absolutely, those

1493
01:20:22,439 --> 01:20:24,639
Speaker 7: contacts are golden.

1494
01:20:25,120 --> 01:20:25,720
Speaker 1: They really are.

1495
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:28,719
Speaker 7: I mean we try to always keep them and even

1496
01:20:28,760 --> 01:20:32,639
Speaker 7: with the changing of guards, right we we're right there too,

1497
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:36,400
Speaker 7: you know, hail the new King, held the new Queen.

1498
01:20:37,120 --> 01:20:40,200
Speaker 7: But the relationships are golden. But it's also the artist

1499
01:20:40,400 --> 01:20:44,200
Speaker 7: relationships with these people and with these gatekeepers, you know,

1500
01:20:45,000 --> 01:20:47,320
Speaker 7: they also have to have their own They have to

1501
01:20:47,360 --> 01:20:49,760
Speaker 7: do the work. We can't do the work for an artist,

1502
01:20:49,840 --> 01:20:51,720
Speaker 7: and an artist has to do that, you know. So

1503
01:20:52,720 --> 01:20:56,479
Speaker 7: it's you knowing Tom you know Poeman, It's you knowing

1504
01:20:56,640 --> 01:20:59,000
Speaker 7: John Sykes, and it's it's you know what I mean,

1505
01:20:59,080 --> 01:21:03,400
Speaker 7: it's it's you Stephen hill A calderoona the MTV or

1506
01:21:03,479 --> 01:21:07,720
Speaker 7: Jessic Collins or whoever in my it's you knowing everybody also, uh,

1507
01:21:07,840 --> 01:21:08,080
Speaker 7: and that.

1508
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:09,760
Speaker 4: Has a lot of I think that has a lot

1509
01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:10,719
Speaker 4: of weight.

1510
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:15,200
Speaker 3: So even now, like, does it get tiring to have

1511
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:18,679
Speaker 3: to know names and what they represent?

1512
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:20,680
Speaker 1: And how do you keep up? La?

1513
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:21,959
Speaker 4: It's exciting.

1514
01:21:22,000 --> 01:21:23,519
Speaker 1: I'm the worst at that, sho Okay.

1515
01:21:24,120 --> 01:21:27,320
Speaker 7: Exciting though not love that. I absolutely love the challenge

1516
01:21:27,360 --> 01:21:30,120
Speaker 7: of that, like I and and my memory is horrible.

1517
01:21:30,240 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 7: I mean, you can ask me anything about the eighties.

1518
01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:36,080
Speaker 7: I remember it, but anything from like twenty eleven forward

1519
01:21:36,120 --> 01:21:39,080
Speaker 7: I barely remember. I don't know why, but I really

1520
01:21:39,479 --> 01:21:41,479
Speaker 7: liked the idea of it. I mean, once I embraced

1521
01:21:41,520 --> 01:21:44,320
Speaker 7: being an executive, I did have a goal, and my

1522
01:21:44,400 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 7: goal was to be the best.

1523
01:21:47,720 --> 01:21:50,040
Speaker 1: Yeah you know it, so check it.

1524
01:21:50,600 --> 01:21:53,560
Speaker 3: La only wanted to do about an hour, but you

1525
01:21:53,840 --> 01:21:55,760
Speaker 3: know that we couldn't let you go. So once we

1526
01:21:55,840 --> 01:21:59,320
Speaker 3: got him rolling, he just wouldn't stop talking. So basically

1527
01:21:59,400 --> 01:22:01,160
Speaker 3: that's it for part too. And I want you to

1528
01:22:01,280 --> 01:22:04,240
Speaker 3: check back for our third and final QLs episode with

1529
01:22:04,320 --> 01:22:06,680
Speaker 3: Eli Red. And while you're at it, definitely check out

1530
01:22:06,720 --> 01:22:09,040
Speaker 3: our qs episodes with Babyface as well.

1531
01:22:09,240 --> 01:22:11,639
Speaker 1: You know, go ahead at hand, All right, see y'all

1532
01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:22,320
Speaker 1: next time. Thank you West. Love Supreme is a production

1533
01:22:22,560 --> 01:22:30,400
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1534
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:33,679
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.