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Speaker 3: This is a question that I tried to asking Jimmy
Speaker 3: jam and I still wasn't satisfied with the answer. Now,
Speaker 3: I owned Eyes of a Stranger. I mean, I've owned
Speaker 3: all your records. But when Eyes of a Stranger came out,
Speaker 3: and I always have this question, I will ask you.
Speaker 1: I will ask that s O s Ben.
Speaker 3: I will ask boys to men, how bold do you
Speaker 3: have to be in order to start your first three
Speaker 3: songs on the album with ballads, especially in this mind
Speaker 3: state where you're like we got to grab them by
Speaker 3: the collar right in your mind, you were like, two
Speaker 3: Occasions is so damn tef line, we better open with
Speaker 3: this joint, Like, are you guys not thinking?
Speaker 4: I gotta look at the track list and if the.
Speaker 5: First records the first record on.
Speaker 4: The list, let me see some eyes.
Speaker 1: With my eye, like literally.
Speaker 5: And they back to back. That's interesting.
Speaker 3: And the thing is the way the way that I
Speaker 3: see records and building records and like the drama and
Speaker 3: the up and like two Occasions to me was always
Speaker 3: either the fourth song on side a wow, the second
Speaker 3: song on side to y'all. To me, it's almost like
Speaker 3: opening thriller with human nature.
Speaker 1: I can't believe.
Speaker 4: I just this doesn't make sense to.
Speaker 3: Me, I think in terms of albums, and this also
Speaker 3: explains why you have way more hits than I do.
Speaker 4: Right, No, I think that's a reseequence.
Speaker 3: Man, Okay, you have you have the actual vinyl or
Speaker 3: cassette or something, because not there, I don't expect you
Speaker 3: to have it there.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I can't believe that. I thought, can you dance was
Speaker 4: the first song on the album.
Speaker 3: Hang on second, I'm now checking on the street.
Speaker 6: Well on Apple Music it is yeah, you' all right,
Speaker 6: it's one and two and can you dance?
Speaker 5: This is five?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what came. Okay, it's the record and.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean obviously worked because I think when anyone
Speaker 3: thinks of the deal, it two occasions and at that it's.
Speaker 1: Right a rush. All right, all right, so this is
Speaker 1: that wasn't even our first single.
Speaker 4: Hold up?
Speaker 5: What was what was the person? Two occasions was?
Speaker 1: Well, damn sure it was to shoot him up?
Speaker 4: No, no, hold, I'm gonna tell you. Okay, where's that album?
Speaker 1: Where's that album? Is a stranger? Okay? Why he's looking
Speaker 1: for it? This reminds me, shit, man, you're right again.
Speaker 1: Hold up now I'm on discouds looking at it. It's
Speaker 1: straight up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is But listen, and this really brings
Speaker 3: about full circle because when I don't know if you
Speaker 3: remember this conversation, like you the day that Things Fall
Speaker 3: Apart came out February twenty third, nineteen ninety nine. The
Speaker 3: next day I spoke to you because you were telling
Speaker 3: me about like you know, you you were on the
Speaker 3: radio and all that stuff, and you gave me a
Speaker 3: message from your mom, and your mom said, why would
Speaker 3: they bury that Erica Badu's song at the end of
Speaker 3: Side Too, Wow, Yes, why do we have to sit
Speaker 3: through that and time album to get to it? Which
Speaker 3: was kind of like my plans, Like, okay.
Speaker 1: Because that's the same I heard that already. Yah, y'all
Speaker 1: heard that one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, making them listening to it Okay.
Speaker 3: Y'all would have never gotten through the rest of the
Speaker 3: record to see who we were before we got you.
Speaker 5: But you did the opposite of what LA did.
Speaker 1: Wow. I know, but that's that's why he's La.
Speaker 3: Stop now maybe kind of open when you got.
Speaker 4: I swear I don't remember. I really don't remember.
Speaker 7: But the only logic that I can come up with
Speaker 7: is put the hits up front.
Speaker 4: That's the only thing I can think of, is put
Speaker 4: the hits up front.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: But we put out Yeah, we put out can You Dance?
Speaker 7: And we thought we kind of gotten it right, Okay,
Speaker 7: we got it right now, now we got it. This
Speaker 7: is better than this is better than material things. Sonically,
Speaker 7: it's better. Got a right engineer. Tom's not over shadowing everything,
Speaker 7: you know, And it didn't work at all we got nowhere,
Speaker 7: and then Dick Griffy came.
Speaker 1: And this is what Dick stepped in.
Speaker 7: He said, he says, comes to the studio, play me
Speaker 7: all the records. He's mean about it too, like that's
Speaker 7: like that, I played me all the records, like sick
Speaker 7: of you, you know, because because by the way, I
Speaker 7: forgot to tell you I picked another stiff, not a stiff,
Speaker 7: but Babyfaces first solo album was called Lovers and I
Speaker 7: Love You, and I know I.
Speaker 3: Picked you make Me Feel brand New to cover that's
Speaker 3: the same. And when that came out before I Love
Speaker 3: You Baby yeah, yeah, and I remember that and it
Speaker 3: was cute, but that was me thinking that that I
Speaker 3: didn't know.
Speaker 7: And Dick Griffy was like, you just you just think
Speaker 7: you know everything, don't you. I mean, that's how we
Speaker 7: talked to me, like let me tell you them. This
Speaker 7: is my record company and this is my studio, and
Speaker 7: we're doing that no more.
Speaker 4: So he picked the hits, all the wrong songs I picked.
Speaker 7: I picked You Made Me Feel brand New for Babyface,
Speaker 7: and I picked can We Talk for the Deal?
Speaker 3: Both wrong comes back and picks two occasions and shoot
Speaker 3: him up movie movies.
Speaker 4: He gave me that song. Wow, he gave me the
Speaker 4: song another guy.
Speaker 7: It's the only time my band ever did a song
Speaker 7: that we didn't write or co write. He gave me
Speaker 7: that song and said, this might be good for you.
Speaker 7: So Kenny and I went and we produced it. But
Speaker 7: did you like his song? I did like it. I
Speaker 7: liked it, liked it, but my band hated it.
Speaker 5: Wait, which, what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Movies? Like the cover Shoot Them Up Movie?
Speaker 6: Wait?
Speaker 1: Who did the cover? Did the cover?
Speaker 8: Bobie Dick from on No Limit Records? He he covered
Speaker 8: Shoot him Up movies and like nine Yeah lit the
Speaker 8: movie you love wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Cleared by the way.
Speaker 4: We only did.
Speaker 7: We did it because Dick wouldn't make He wouldn't let
Speaker 7: us have music videos.
Speaker 4: He said we weren't pretty enough.
Speaker 3: So really, so I figured if I'm due to occasion,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not too occasional. We do Shoot them
Speaker 3: Up movies, which is a song he gave us.
Speaker 1: Maybe we might get a music video. Y'all have not
Speaker 1: done music videos.
Speaker 3: We don't have no music videos. Yeah, but everybody else
Speaker 3: on the list. Charlama had the music videos and.
Speaker 1: The weirdest music videos of all time. Right, but we
Speaker 1: don't care videos. We're so their videos were so off kilter, man.
Speaker 5: But y'all are so pretty. That's so odd.
Speaker 1: All right. So here's the deal.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask you a question as a CEO about
Speaker 3: your artist self and hopefully because I think you're one
Speaker 3: of the first major CEOs we had on the show
Speaker 3: and I needed explained to me, like I'm a twelve
Speaker 3: year old okay, now, an out of the box hit
Speaker 3: like two Occasions. Now as a person who has not
Speaker 3: had a lifespan, and I'm talking about myself as a
Speaker 3: singles artist, you know. I mean, I've had many top
Speaker 3: ten albums, you know whatever. I make my living on
Speaker 3: the road, but as a singles artist, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 3: led to believe that hits are manufactured, not in that
Speaker 3: sort of organic way that we're led to believe it is,
Speaker 3: where it's like you're just suddenly singing and you know,
Speaker 3: I like that two Occasion song by the Deal, and
Speaker 3: then you called the radio station and you request it
Speaker 3: and then it becomes a hit. I'm led to believe,
Speaker 3: especially now, that deals are already made and I'm not
Speaker 3: asking about the process of how deals get made, but
Speaker 3: is two occasions a hit because it just organically.
Speaker 1: Spread that way or was the solar muscle again.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna give up until I get it Dick
Speaker 3: Griffy's story behind.
Speaker 1: It to make it a hit.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what I think poor is.
Speaker 3: It a meet you halfway thing? Give us a song
Speaker 3: we could work with, and then we'll ram it.
Speaker 4: I am shamelessly commercial.
Speaker 7: Let me just put that out there, right, I'm you
Speaker 7: and I are opposites in that regard, like I am.
Speaker 7: I am like so singles oriented like like, especially like
Speaker 7: the first two songs I picked or Stiff's, so I
Speaker 7: became like I'm gonna get the singles thing down right.
Speaker 3: So I before let me interrupt you real quick, and
Speaker 3: I want to use this opportunity to actually the spell
Speaker 3: a myth. Okay, I am not anti singles. I actually no, no,
Speaker 3: I don't think anti single anti and I is good.
Speaker 3: I will freely admit. I mean this might be captain
Speaker 3: obvious to you know, Fonte, whatever is I think for
Speaker 3: half the people that just pose like a man, I
Speaker 3: ain't with that bubblegum pop shit.
Speaker 1: It's I believe that pop songs.
Speaker 3: Are the hardest things, right right, you give me a
Speaker 3: free jazz song, I'll knock that shit. It'll be on
Speaker 3: the next Robert Glasper record, you know, instantly. But I
Speaker 3: don't know, you know, And I think since I've put
Speaker 3: in twenty thousand hours of DJing hard DJing between the
Speaker 3: last Roots album, yeah, now there's like nine years of that,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm hyper aware of what songs work and don't
Speaker 3: work that I didn't have in my first Now, I
Speaker 3: guess my job is to not make it so.
Speaker 1: You know, now that I know the secrets or the codes.
Speaker 3: Or whatever, to figure out how to nuance by none
Speaker 3: and not just make it like okay, now that I
Speaker 3: know we need hit singles like, I know what our
Speaker 3: fan base expects of us. However, I just want to
Speaker 3: say that I'm not anti pop because I did.
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, kid music. I just never
Speaker 1: knew how to.
Speaker 4: Do it right, right. I completely get that. Listen I have.
Speaker 7: This may be a fair or unfair comparison, but first
Speaker 7: version of Cooling the Gang and then the pop version
Speaker 7: Opion right they made they made too Hot and all
Speaker 7: those songs they were great, But I hated that band
Speaker 7: like I loved the original.
Speaker 3: But how do you feel now about looking back as
Speaker 3: an executive looking back on it.
Speaker 1: But that was me.
Speaker 7: That was me before record companies, before anything. It was
Speaker 7: just a preference. I'm like, y'all soft, that's soft, like,
Speaker 7: that's like what is come on? What's Hollywood swinging? And
Speaker 7: those crazy intros in the like those are just songs.
Speaker 7: I didn't like it at all. Right now, I understand
Speaker 7: the difference. I still prefer the first version of.
Speaker 1: Cool in the gang.
Speaker 7: So what I'm saying is you and your band can't
Speaker 7: really afford to do it. Man, If y'all really, if
Speaker 7: y'all really did it.
Speaker 3: Like what happens is that you disappoint a lifetime of fans,
Speaker 3: and no matter how you feel about it, at that point,
Speaker 3: maybe for the first time, you're going to be really
Speaker 3: criticized for trying to get hit.
Speaker 1: So it's that is it will be the first time because.
Speaker 7: But you're you're so successful at what you do that
Speaker 7: that would be a mistake.
Speaker 4: My opinion is that that would be a mistake, right
Speaker 4: unless it will.
Speaker 7: Completely organic, completely like nothing changes except this song just
Speaker 7: happened to catch, right, But because if you give anything
Speaker 7: to to if you look like you're trying, you can't
Speaker 7: do that like you're you're you're a savior, you could
Speaker 7: you can't do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that.
Speaker 3: However, I am so aware that, wow, we never We've
Speaker 3: had grooves, but we never had a melody line.
Speaker 1: There's never a part of the song that you can
Speaker 1: whistle and it sticks with you.
Speaker 5: That's not true. And also, isn't there a gray in there?
Speaker 6: Isn't it a fact then that maybe y'all were just
Speaker 6: missing an la ear when it comes to singles, because
Speaker 6: for me, as the radio girl listened to all these
Speaker 6: records that y'all put out, at times, I just felt
Speaker 6: like y'all didn't hear the single, y'all put out the
Speaker 6: wrong song, like what about the gray?
Speaker 5: And there?
Speaker 3: As of this conversation two days ago, I'm talking right
Speaker 3: now from New Orleans. We just did the Essence Festival
Speaker 3: and for the first time we've played with Little Kim, and.
Speaker 1: Of course the subject of Lighters Up comes up now.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know, Little Kim's Lighters Up song
Speaker 3: was a root song.
Speaker 1: That I don't know.
Speaker 5: Love Supreme Hill answer Scott.
Speaker 3: All I can say was, when Tarika and I went
Speaker 3: to Florida, we made lighters up. We took a three
Speaker 3: hour dinner break by the way, having dinner with O. J. Simpson,
Speaker 3: a bust of rhymes. Long story, yeah, long story, come
Speaker 3: back to the studio, finish the music of what you.
Speaker 1: Know is Lighters Up.
Speaker 3: Came back, you know, pretty confident, like, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 3: have a good first single for our Tipping Point record.
Speaker 3: And next thing, I know, like a month later, I
Speaker 3: hear that song with Little Kim on it, and I
Speaker 3: was just like, what the fuck? O Wow, Scott, Well,
Speaker 3: I mean, no, Scott obviously gave it to Kim, but.
Speaker 1: Oh, Scott stores you know original root. Scott was the roots. Yes, yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Even then, My whole point was that, And you know,
Speaker 3: we joked about it, like, you know, this is our
Speaker 3: song first or whatever.
Speaker 1: She was surprised.
Speaker 3: She's like, she like, I heard you play drums on it,
Speaker 3: but no, I if you remember and do the right
Speaker 3: thing when Samuel Jackson does the Senior Love Daddy the
Speaker 3: all thing, Yes, if you listen to that music in
Speaker 3: the background, I was do the right thing was on
Speaker 3: in the break room, and I remember that. I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: let me see if I can make a song without
Speaker 3: a snare and just with high hats and symbols. That's
Speaker 3: what I was. Wow, that's what I was making. Then
Speaker 3: Scott put piano on top of it, and it was like,
Speaker 3: all right, this this could work. But my whole point
Speaker 3: is that even if we kept that song, I'm not
Speaker 3: even certain that he would have done to that song
Speaker 3: what she did to So it's almost like, yes, it
Speaker 3: went with this rightful owner. Again, we don't have have
Speaker 3: a filter in us that knows how to not flex
Speaker 3: our intellect, Like Treik has to be the smartest guy
Speaker 3: in the room, right instead of the most relatable guy
Speaker 3: in the room lyrically, and they're rich.
Speaker 5: Ever, let anybody else help pick a single?
Speaker 1: Rich was brilliant too, Yeah, definitely, but.
Speaker 3: Just got made it up to us by doing don't
Speaker 3: say nothing. But then that's when our fan base sort
Speaker 3: of clap back, Like I thought, don't see nothing with
Speaker 3: Quebla because I like the fact that Treek was saying
Speaker 3: something nonsensible.
Speaker 7: Here's my take on it. There's two kinds of stars.
Speaker 7: There's the artist and there's the song. Right, songs can
Speaker 7: be stars, right, and artists can be stars. And when
Speaker 7: the two collide, you get with In Houston, I don't know, right,
Speaker 7: you get you know, the big whoever you might like
Speaker 7: Michael Jackson, you know, but sometimes the artist is the star,
Speaker 7: but not necessarily the song. And sometimes the song is
Speaker 7: a star, but not necessarily the artist. Big facts, right,
Speaker 7: That's how I wo. So I separate those two, right,
Speaker 7: turning the back, that song is, yeah, that song as
Speaker 7: a jail.
Speaker 3: There's many of those, but there's also there's also very
Speaker 3: very talented artist Tory Amos.
Speaker 7: You don't know if you listen, a hit maker, but
Speaker 7: she's incredible, right, and you know, and and there are others,
Speaker 7: you know. But so I separate the two. That's how
Speaker 7: I That's how I look at it.
Speaker 3: So do you think that the industry as it is
Speaker 3: now makes space for those kinds of artists? Do you
Speaker 3: think there's a space for those artists to exist, like
Speaker 3: on major labels where it's like, Okay, you may not
Speaker 3: have the hit record or the TikTok song that is
Speaker 3: going off, but you just are an amazing artist, and
Speaker 3: I think there's an audience for that.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna like my answer.
Speaker 3: I'm trouble, and I got a tag on top of
Speaker 3: Fante's question. My answer to that is not if you no.
Speaker 1: Hit, that's that's that's that's true.
Speaker 3: If you if you got a hot garage band that
Speaker 3: don't make his don't no problem.
Speaker 4: We'll just put you on the road. Just stay on
Speaker 4: the road un till you.
Speaker 3: Get a hit, or you better be the band that's
Speaker 3: on a label that believes in that, which definitely and
Speaker 3: literally I don't even know if I told people this.
Speaker 3: The only reason why The Roots lasted that long is
Speaker 3: because it was in our contract. If you have album
Speaker 3: number one, we have to make three albums. If you
Speaker 3: have album number four, we have to make three albums.
Speaker 3: If you have album number seven, you have to make
Speaker 3: so we couldn't get dropped. That was the only way
Speaker 3: that we never got we would have gotten dropped.
Speaker 1: Otherwise.
Speaker 3: Wait, I have to ask this because I heard all right,
Speaker 3: so post and I'm so jumping ahead in the future.
Speaker 3: But since you brought it up, I believe the story
Speaker 3: that was told to me was back when I think
Speaker 3: this was eighty not eighty, This was either nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine or two thousand. I believe you guys signed an
Speaker 3: artist named Stephanie Jerreman Nada to the label, who that
Speaker 3: would have been probably a little later than that, probably.
Speaker 1: Six. Okay, all right. My whole point is that.
Speaker 3: The Fiona Apple incarnation of Lady Gaga was, to my knowledge,
Speaker 3: on a deaf jam artist, or she was signed to
Speaker 3: the label, and.
Speaker 4: Yep, I signed her.
Speaker 3: Right, what do you see in that artist that later
Speaker 3: morphed into what we know.
Speaker 4: Now The day she came in.
Speaker 7: She plays rock and roll piano, first of all, and
Speaker 7: she's incredible at it.
Speaker 4: And she came in and she had on the white Go.
Speaker 7: Go boots and and she was like justroducing the piano.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, she gets in it, she's inside
Speaker 7: the keys, right, thank you.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll say that.
Speaker 7: But you know, Tori Amos, that's what I saw in
Speaker 7: her prime show. Yeah, that's what I saw, and I
Speaker 7: thought she was incredible. And I remember saying to her that,
Speaker 7: and she reminded me of this, because my memory is
Speaker 7: not that good. She told me that in that room.
Speaker 7: I told her that she would likely change music. That's
Speaker 7: how passionate I was. So we signed her and then
Speaker 7: they started to bring me demos. And when I heard
Speaker 7: the demos, like, I didn't hear that same thing that
Speaker 7: I saw, and I didn't like it. And I had
Speaker 7: Rihanna and Justin Bieber and Kanye and the Dream and everybody,
Speaker 7: and I was feeling myself way too damn much, right
Speaker 7: note your self, like, don't go feeling yourself, and they were,
Speaker 7: and I was like, this is I don't want to
Speaker 7: put this out, like, this is not it, this is
Speaker 7: not the girl I signed, this is not this isn't
Speaker 7: moving me.
Speaker 4: And I let her go before we ever released the record.
Speaker 7: And then she found Acon Red One and ultimately Jimmy
Speaker 7: Ivy and she put out Just Dance and it started
Speaker 7: blowing up in Canada.
Speaker 1: I was watching it because I didn't want to be embarrassed.
Speaker 7: I was like, that's just Canada. Then I started seeing
Speaker 7: it blow up in Miami. That's just Miami, that's just
Speaker 7: the clubs. Then it started blowing up in the Bay.
Speaker 7: Then it charted man and then god god, I was like,
Speaker 7: you stupid.
Speaker 1: You feel like wow yo?
Speaker 8: So okay, So question so in that situation and your
Speaker 8: role as an executive, how much of it is putting
Speaker 8: out or putting out things that you like versus a
Speaker 8: record may come to you and it's like, Okay, I
Speaker 8: personally don't like this, but I know that it will
Speaker 8: work with this audience.
Speaker 1: Like how much of it is like your personal taste
Speaker 1: versus the market.
Speaker 4: It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 7: First of all, I will stand even in that case
Speaker 7: I clearly blew it. But for the most part, I'll
Speaker 7: stand by other people that work at the label. If
Speaker 7: they say they're passionate about something, I'll give it a shot.
Speaker 7: It doesn't have to just be my thing, right, But
Speaker 7: if it's something that I signed, that I personally endorsed,
Speaker 7: then I want to feel good about it. In those cases,
Speaker 7: I'm kind of listening to me, right, But I just
Speaker 7: blew it, Man, I just completely blew it.
Speaker 3: I have to appreciate. But here's the thing I appreciate
Speaker 3: about this story. We've had three artists on the show
Speaker 3: that told us the story of where it wasn't working
Speaker 3: out with their label staff right, and and instead of
Speaker 3: just being like, you know what, you're right, let's let's
Speaker 3: let's call it the other day and let you go,
Speaker 3: I learned that the label will sometimes just freezing artists
Speaker 3: out just to avoid the embarrassment.
Speaker 1: In case that happens, Yes.
Speaker 7: For sure, people hold on. They don't want to be
Speaker 7: wrong or they don't want to make a decision. But
Speaker 7: I don't respect that like I'd rather like, listen, I
Speaker 7: blew it, and I tell you I blew it, and
Speaker 7: and while it while it, it pains me and it's embarrassing.
Speaker 4: I'd rather live in that truth than to.
Speaker 7: Have shelved her and just made her keep going back
Speaker 7: and going back and going back when I knew I
Speaker 7: didn't like it.
Speaker 4: I didn't like it.
Speaker 7: It wasn't for me, right, So if it's not for me,
Speaker 7: perhaps she could have a life somewhere else. And I'm
Speaker 7: actually okay with that, as embarrassing as it is.
Speaker 3: How different was the music that she presented to you?
Speaker 3: How different was it than what she presented.
Speaker 1: To the world.
Speaker 7: It was very different because if you know her, you
Speaker 7: know she's diverse and she could do many things. And
Speaker 7: the kind of music she made on the first album
Speaker 7: and a little bit on the second album, she's never
Speaker 7: revisited that. So she's clearly able to do a lot
Speaker 7: of different kinds of music. And it wasn't that was
Speaker 7: like like dance pop or that's what I called it,
Speaker 7: you know, it wasn't ediom yet or no, it wasn't
Speaker 7: that flavor at all. It was kind of piano based
Speaker 7: a little bit, jamming a little bit, yeah, but it
Speaker 7: just can they.
Speaker 1: Didn't feel like it.
Speaker 3: All right, we gotta get back at the time Machine
Speaker 3: because I'm not trying to coll.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I want to know what touring with the Deal was
Speaker 3: like across the States as opposed to just you guys
Speaker 3: being in one environment as a club band.
Speaker 1: Like your first, your first touring.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, our first the first show we had
Speaker 7: as the Deal with body Talk as a hit, we
Speaker 7: opened for the DeBarge and Luther.
Speaker 6: Vandros Oh that sounds familiar, life changing moment.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: First show is at uh in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena.
Speaker 7: So now now we have a band that's gone from
Speaker 7: playing club that could barely hold two hundred people to
Speaker 7: Market Square Arena and we hit that stage and we
Speaker 7: would open the act. So we got a line check
Speaker 7: but not a sound check. And I like to use
Speaker 7: that as an excuse why we were so bad.
Speaker 4: But we were horrible.
Speaker 7: I mean were so horrible when we got off stage,
Speaker 7: like we didn't even you know, we're supposed to be excited.
Speaker 4: That's our first show is.
Speaker 7: In a big arena and a major tour, and we
Speaker 7: should have been like really happy, and excited and slapping
Speaker 7: each other five and and having a celebratory moment. But
Speaker 7: we were really embarrassed by it. Uh, we didn't have
Speaker 7: we were not built for that big stage. We didn't
Speaker 7: know what we were getting into. And and we overdid
Speaker 7: our We overdid our our gimmick too much, makeup, too much.
Speaker 5: Everything for all the cities or for certain cities.
Speaker 7: No, this was just this one show.
Speaker 1: So the show is.
Speaker 7: Over and I'm in the hotel room. My road manager,
Speaker 7: his name is Leon Burnett, wonderful man. He comes, Dick
Speaker 7: Griffy wants to talk to you. I'm like, oh, and
Speaker 7: I don't remember the conversation that well, but I remember
Speaker 7: being a little bit frightened and not threatened, but warned
Speaker 7: if we come out like that again, we're off the show.
Speaker 4: And I remember him saying something.
Speaker 7: About Sylvester, right, like we don't want no more Sylvester's
Speaker 7: we don't want to know something like that.
Speaker 4: Like it was something like that.
Speaker 7: And anyway, we cleaned up our act and the next
Speaker 7: night we were a lot better. Right, But the first night, man,
Speaker 7: we blew it so badly. It was just really bad.
Speaker 7: And then we got a little used to it. Luther
Speaker 7: embraced us, El debarsed embraced us, and we all kind
Speaker 7: of became friends. And then they started, you know, we
Speaker 7: got treated a little bit better, and we got better
Speaker 7: and we had some nights when we actually really caught
Speaker 7: a good rhythm.
Speaker 3: But I've heard stories of Luther's restrictions. Again, I'm also
Speaker 3: a good friend with a friend of the show is
Speaker 3: Sheep Gordon, who would say, how ain'tal retentive.
Speaker 1: Luther was with the lights you can use or the
Speaker 1: colors you can wear.
Speaker 4: Yes, we never heard about colors.
Speaker 7: Definitely the lights and how many channels on the mixing console.
Speaker 4: And things like that.
Speaker 7: But like Luther and I were buddies, you know, and
Speaker 7: and Kenny because like he has so much respect for
Speaker 7: Kenny as a songwriter, because we used to give Luther
Speaker 7: demos when we were on the road. Uh So we
Speaker 7: just kind of built a relationship and we never felt
Speaker 7: like there was a lot of restrictions there. As a
Speaker 7: matter of fact, he wouldn't even make us leave backstage.
Speaker 7: He would let us state, you know, because there used
Speaker 7: to be this when the superstar comes out of the
Speaker 7: dressing room.
Speaker 6: All.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: Now it's definitely still happens one of those people is
Speaker 6: going to jail for thirty years. But he used to
Speaker 6: do that all the time, right, it was the same.
Speaker 7: But Luther didn't do that to us. He let us
Speaker 7: hang right and oh, did you.
Speaker 1: Know the drummer? Yes? I own a snare drummer? You do.
Speaker 1: I got lucky someone had.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry sidebar? How good was he?
Speaker 1: Like? I want to know what you thought? I loved
Speaker 1: your guests.
Speaker 3: Actually one of the very first instructional one of the
Speaker 3: first instructional drum things. I used to my teacher used
Speaker 3: to make me watch Yogi did one before he passed away?
Speaker 1: Wait, can I ask? Did he pass away while on tour?
Speaker 4: Yes, but not that tour.
Speaker 1: Were you guys on the tour or we.
Speaker 7: Weren't on the tour that he passed away on It
Speaker 7: was two years later, okay.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know how how did Luther recovered?
Speaker 3: Like finding another drummer and that sort of I wasn't.
Speaker 7: Around, but we were on the tour when Marvin passed away.
Speaker 7: We were on tour with Luther when Marvin passed. I
Speaker 7: remember us having a prayer moment backstage, completely quiet. Everybody
Speaker 7: on the tour holding hands and Luther. Yeah, it was
Speaker 7: really it was really moving. It was really something. Luther
Speaker 7: was really torn, right, all of us were. I didn't
Speaker 7: know Marvin personally, but obviously was touched by his music.
Speaker 7: But Luther must have been very close to him because
Speaker 7: he assembled everybody, every truck driver, everybody backstage right.
Speaker 4: Oh really it was really special, really special.
Speaker 3: The reason why I'm asking you about tour life is
Speaker 3: because I know eventually you're going to morph into just production,
Speaker 3: which of course means that you're going to have to
Speaker 3: leave the band in your mind? Is it like, okay,
Speaker 3: there has to be something else other than this, Like
Speaker 3: where's the point where suddenly the wheels are turning and
Speaker 3: you're like, okay, we have to be a team, we
Speaker 3: have to write hits? Like how does that happen for me?
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 7: We enjoyed being on the road. I enjoyed it. On
Speaker 7: the very first tour that we did and the second album,
Speaker 7: as we talked about material, things didn't work, so we
Speaker 7: didn't have as much work, but we still did some
Speaker 7: some gigs here and there.
Speaker 4: We worked, and then the third album took a while.
Speaker 7: So between our second album and the third album, we
Speaker 7: started to develop as songwriters.
Speaker 1: And producers a little bit better, and.
Speaker 7: Because the second album wasn't a success, we.
Speaker 4: Had a little more time on our hands.
Speaker 7: So when we went back to do the tour with
Speaker 7: two occasions, I was over it, like seriously was over it,
Speaker 7: like before the tour started.
Speaker 4: And because I couldn't play anymore, man, I lost.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 7: I don't know what happened, but maybe I started thinking
Speaker 7: about it or I don't know, but something got into
Speaker 7: me and I just couldn't play anymore. And my hands
Speaker 7: were hurting, like I felt like I had arthritis in
Speaker 7: my hands, and I just I lost it.
Speaker 1: I mean at.
Speaker 7: Sixteen, I thought I was really good, you know, at
Speaker 7: twenty one, I thought I was really good. And by
Speaker 7: my mid twenties, man, it just started to go away
Speaker 7: and really never got it back. So like I, I
Speaker 7: still have this, and that didn't upset you, Yes, it
Speaker 7: really upset me except one thing. I took that drum machine,
Speaker 7: and I'm a master that thing I was.
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't care who you are, Jimmy
Speaker 3: jam Teddy Riley, I'm challenging anybody.
Speaker 1: I could do this better than anybody, right, And so
Speaker 1: I switched what was your choice.
Speaker 7: I have every drum machine they made, Man Drum, the DMX,
Speaker 7: the eight Away everything.
Speaker 3: For me, I have to say, you do you do
Speaker 3: have a trademark. It's I don't know how you did
Speaker 3: it or why you did it, but I noticed it.
Speaker 3: Every fourth, maybe every eighth class, you will put extra
Speaker 3: emphasis on the refer right, like.
Speaker 1: Some class would be normal. I got that from Jimmy Jam.
Speaker 7: I straight stole that from Jimmy Jam because control bom
Speaker 7: right and I loved it so much, so it was
Speaker 7: really Jimmy's signature.
Speaker 4: I borrowed it with friends.
Speaker 1: But every it wouldn't be every clap, it would be everyone.
Speaker 1: It was strategically placed.
Speaker 3: And for me, when I think of the sound of classic,
Speaker 3: like when I think of Jimmy, Jame, Terry Lewis, it's
Speaker 3: like the sound of the classic gate Away, right, the
Speaker 3: sound that old boy who produced loosenslly oh, Nick Marnelli,
Speaker 3: that's right, that's right, five star like anything that sounds
Speaker 3: like Jam and Lewis, Like that's their trademark.
Speaker 1: But for you, it's always.
Speaker 3: Right to this day, like no one has mastered that
Speaker 3: level of gated reaverb better man than you did.
Speaker 1: But was that. Okay, you say you took it.
Speaker 7: From him, I mean, but still, you know, we learned
Speaker 7: from each other and then you know, you're in bella
Speaker 7: ship and do things with it.
Speaker 4: But but I would spend hours.
Speaker 7: Hours and hours and hours and hours playing with those
Speaker 7: drum machines and playing with rhythms and taking Kenny's keyboards
Speaker 7: and muting them and putting them through filters and playing.
Speaker 7: I just played with the sound, you know, a lot,
Speaker 7: and that became my new passion. So that and a
Speaker 7: lot of that was because, by the way, I never
Speaker 7: actually played live on a recording session. Really really I
Speaker 7: did when I was young, Like when I was young,
Speaker 7: I did some records, but like after we had the
Speaker 7: deal and when we be came uh and started making records,
Speaker 7: like I never actually played a live kit on a
Speaker 7: drum on a record, Like never never on a hit record, right, uh.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know what it's called for, right I was.
Speaker 3: And then I heard you and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: get out.
Speaker 1: I remember I heard about new record. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: my son telling me. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: who is that?
Speaker 3: And then I read about your Rolling Stone magazine and
Speaker 3: with your dad and all think I'm gone from me anyway,
Speaker 3: So can you talk to us about the conversation that
Speaker 3: leads to you and Kenny like really making this official?
Speaker 3: Who was the first outside non deal artist that the
Speaker 3: La and Babyface that we know of.
Speaker 7: Let's see, the very first one was when we officially
Speaker 7: did it together. That would have been the whispers rock Steady, Yeah,
Speaker 7: rock Steady. That's when we did it together and they
Speaker 7: hired Kenny. They called Kenny, they didn't call both of us,
Speaker 7: and Kenny said, I have to have La with me,
Speaker 7: so he pulled me along.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, And.
Speaker 4: It was really special.
Speaker 1: It was really good.
Speaker 4: Looking out and we had a comfort level working.
Speaker 7: But Kenny was obviously really famous and at Solar as
Speaker 7: a songwriter more so than like the two of us,
Speaker 7: you know, and because of Yeah, that's kind of what happened,
Speaker 7: and we went in, we made rock Steady and then
Speaker 7: it became official.
Speaker 3: You know, did you know there was a pop hit
Speaker 3: or immediately did it become about it?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: I knew it immediate, I swear to you.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 7: Like when what when we were writing it? I knew
Speaker 7: when we were we were in an apartment on we
Speaker 7: lived on Highland Avenue in Hollywood, and when we were
Speaker 7: writing it, I had a really good feeling about it.
Speaker 7: But then when we got in the studio and we
Speaker 7: laid it down and we put the Whispers on the
Speaker 7: background vocal before they sang lead. I remember, I'll never
Speaker 7: ever forget that moment. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: this is a smash. I knew it, and people in
Speaker 7: the studio knew it. Like in other rooms, people would
Speaker 7: come around while we were working on it and hang
Speaker 7: out in the doorway and watch.
Speaker 4: It was just something special going on in that room,
Speaker 4: and we knew it right.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 7: And then when you know, Scottie and walk from the
Speaker 7: Whispers put their vocal on it, they just that was
Speaker 7: icing on the cake. But I swear to you I
Speaker 7: already felt it was a hit. And that goes back
Speaker 7: to your other question, like our.
Speaker 1: Hits manufactured or factored? Is it organic?
Speaker 4: I think that it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 3: Anytime I see the Whispers sing, both Scotty twins sing
Speaker 3: in tandem, right, who's doing the singing?
Speaker 1: Because that sounds like one verse, it's Scotty.
Speaker 7: Scotty is the one, okay, Walter Walter is a lighter version,
Speaker 7: same same, a very similar tone, very similar, but but
Speaker 7: Scotty has more power.
Speaker 3: Oh so when is it when it's guage time, that's
Speaker 3: that's Scotty that we know Scotty.
Speaker 1: That's Scotty.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 1: It just gets better with time and Scotty. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the mood, Scotty move, that's Scotty. Okay, Oh wow,
Speaker 1: Sorry for.
Speaker 4: Telling the truth, y'all.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, but I just always wanted to know
Speaker 3: why when they sing. I've never seen just one person
Speaker 3: sing that song. It's always both of them together, I.
Speaker 7: Know, right, Yeah, that's the show show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what that is.
Speaker 5: Dick Griffy was that did he re react to when
Speaker 5: you got that big hit?
Speaker 6: Did he say something to you about I was curious
Speaker 6: because you was hitting some duds, so it's according to him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 7: I really don't remember it though, because we had another
Speaker 7: hit at the same time that he wasn't.
Speaker 4: Very happy about what girlfriend.
Speaker 7: It was called Girlfriend, and it was on and it
Speaker 7: was on a competing label, m c A, and I
Speaker 7: felt more. I felt more shade from Dick about doing
Speaker 7: that than I did. Congratulations for making rock steady, damn.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 7: As a matter of fact, I remember him coming to
Speaker 7: visit me once and I was like, Hey, just made
Speaker 7: this record on Paul.
Speaker 1: I do I want to hear No, I actually I don't.
Speaker 3: I love you, man, And I don't say that like
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be protective of reputationally or anything.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 7: I really loved the man because he was the first
Speaker 7: record executive I ever met, So the whole idea of
Speaker 7: being a record executive. I was heavily influenced by him,
Speaker 7: right and watching him make decisions and kind of how
Speaker 7: and why, and you know some of the things he
Speaker 7: would say to me, you know, say it was really
Speaker 7: it was really a good and he was impressionable.
Speaker 4: But we had a really good relationship.
Speaker 5: Do you remember I was thinking about this today about Dick.
Speaker 6: Do you remember something that you took with you from
Speaker 6: being with him that you learn and something that you said,
Speaker 6: I ain't taking that with me when I do what
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 4: Wait, as far as.
Speaker 3: The things I didn't, if you have to hear you
Speaker 3: hang somebody out the window, yeah I don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 4: If there's a lot I didn't take, okay, you know.
Speaker 7: Answer, Yeah, there's there's some things that I definitely, uh
Speaker 7: took with me. He called me once and he said,
Speaker 7: let me ask you something. Seem to know everything. Why
Speaker 7: are you still living in Cincinnati? I said, it's our hometown.
Speaker 1: You still living in Cincinnati?
Speaker 4: I was living in Cincinnati when we made our first two.
Speaker 7: Albums, right, And he said, you can make more money
Speaker 7: by accident in Los Angeles than you can make on
Speaker 7: purpose in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Two weeks I lived in.
Speaker 5: La Oh my god, now I know why you why
Speaker 5: you left? It went to Atlanta. Okay, we're now going
Speaker 5: that far yet, just in.
Speaker 3: That initial period, how are Because the thing is, it's
Speaker 3: like the deal guys never truly left us, because I
Speaker 3: see different combinations of their names as songwriter, y or musicians.
Speaker 3: So how what is what is the adjustment of sort
Speaker 3: of dissolving the deal and you and you and Babyface
Speaker 3: starting your own unit and like it is a church
Speaker 3: and state?
Speaker 1: Do you guys have your own management?
Speaker 3: Your own Like are you now prioritizing working in the
Speaker 3: studio with these artists and then the group later?
Speaker 1: Like how's how's this working out?
Speaker 7: When I think back on it, And maybe I've never
Speaker 7: thought about it this way, but when I think back
Speaker 7: on it, I can see how the other members of
Speaker 7: the group could really be unhappy with the choices that
Speaker 7: we made, right although they ultimately benefited everybody, in that moment,
Speaker 7: I could see how the other members of the group
Speaker 7: weren't very happy because one one of the things was
Speaker 7: they liked Cincinnati. My other guys and it's still my
Speaker 7: friends to this day, right, but they liked Cincinnati, and
Speaker 7: Keny and I didn't. We had no desire to be
Speaker 7: since Cincinnati. And Kenny didn't even like Atlanta that much, right,
Speaker 7: I mean he liked it, but like he didn't he
Speaker 7: didn't live there very long. Uh, he preferred living in
Speaker 7: Los Angeles, and you know, and he was a very
Speaker 7: ambitious and very talented man and is is and you know,
Speaker 7: but the other guys kind of were a little bit
Speaker 7: more homebodies, so they weren't as ambitious.
Speaker 3: Was there an opportunity for them to join the fray?
Speaker 3: Like who's coming with me? Who's coming with me?
Speaker 1: Or was it?
Speaker 7: Sort of like I think after I'm trying to remember
Speaker 7: exactly how it took place, but I feel like after
Speaker 7: the last tour, Yeah, the last tour we did, everybody
Speaker 7: kind of went their separate ways without a conversation Keny
Speaker 7: and I. After the tour was over, we decided to
Speaker 7: move to Atlanta with my was my girlfriend at the time, right,
Speaker 7: And we all decided and Darryl Simmons, who is Kenny's
Speaker 7: best friend and a gally really talented songwriter and producer, Yeah,
Speaker 7: he decided to move to Atlanta with us. And Ko
Speaker 7: went to Atlanta with us, but Carlos and d who
Speaker 7: were our.
Speaker 4: Other lead singers, they went back to Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, I'm so okay, so worded that you're
Speaker 3: telling the story, because when I was watching a new
Speaker 3: addition headline the Essence Festival, I was sitting there just
Speaker 3: marveling at the fact that the Michael of the group,
Speaker 3: the leader of the group, really didn't get his moment
Speaker 3: in the Sun the way that it should have been, right,
Speaker 3: you know, because even in the way that they craft
Speaker 3: their show, it's literally like just the best mixtape ever
Speaker 3: right there, forty years and you know, not not even
Speaker 3: throwing shape. But yes, Sensitivity was probably the slowest part
Speaker 3: of the night, even though it was a straight up hit, right,
Speaker 3: but no, no, no no, But by that point it was
Speaker 3: like nineteen hits. They already did nineteen hits. It was like, damn,
Speaker 3: I gotta go to bathroom sensitivity. All right, right, let
Speaker 3: me take you like sensitivity as the time, it was like,
Speaker 3: all right, let me sit down because I know poisons
Speaker 3: about to come up.
Speaker 1: I gotta rest my linight right right.
Speaker 3: But I was like I was trying to wonder in history,
Speaker 3: was there ever a case where the lead singers sort
Speaker 3: of faded in the background while everyone else in the
Speaker 3: unit got to do that? So I always wanted to
Speaker 3: know what did what did they do once like in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety, like, did they try their
Speaker 3: hand that song?
Speaker 1: Righted? Did they try producing?
Speaker 7: They made a couple of records as the deal because
Speaker 7: although we all went our separate ways, they did keep
Speaker 7: the unit together and they toured some. Uh, they did
Speaker 7: some dates in Japan, and they did a few dates
Speaker 7: here and there. They would work on weekends at least
Speaker 7: that's what I understand. And they went out and found
Speaker 7: a couple of guys that could do the job, you know,
Speaker 7: and they worked.
Speaker 4: They've been working. But they also they took ninety five jobs.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but then D got very lucky because d D
Speaker 7: D Bristol, he actually is the guy that wrote the
Speaker 7: chorus I only think of you on two occasions that
Speaker 7: day and night.
Speaker 4: He wrote that, so years later Mariah Carey.
Speaker 7: Used it on We Belong Together, so he saw money
Speaker 7: money still comes in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just in general, between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety one, I mean, god damn.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 3: Had at least like sixty plus hits top forty hits.
Speaker 3: What is like is what is the not even the
Speaker 3: division of labor, but just in terms of that much.
Speaker 1: Volume, what does your life look like? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Like how to me? Are you bespoking these songs? Is
Speaker 3: it like Jermaine comes to town and you're like talking
Speaker 3: to him. Okay, here's a song called Don't Take It Personal.
Speaker 3: You're meeting TLC for the first time. It's like, okay,
Speaker 3: well let me see a baby baby. Like are these
Speaker 3: songs sort of like in the stash somewhere in the
Speaker 3: back and you're like, would you like this?
Speaker 1: Would you like this?
Speaker 7: Or are you custom making these songs? Some of those
Speaker 7: songs were custom made? Some of those songs. You gotta remember,
Speaker 7: first of all, Kenny Evans is one of the most
Speaker 7: prolific songwriters ever, so he has a war chest of
Speaker 7: material that's unreal, Like I you know, sometimes I want
Speaker 7: to call and say, man, let me just go through
Speaker 7: the tapes, like really, because he's so prolific. That's that's
Speaker 7: the first thing. So he always had something. But then
Speaker 7: when we like if it were Bobby Brown, sometimes we
Speaker 7: would start things from scratch, Whitney Houston, we would start
Speaker 7: songs from scratch where we were thinking about the artists.
Speaker 7: But then every now and then he would pull a
Speaker 7: song out that he'd had for a long time, and
Speaker 7: I'm Ready he gave to Tevin Campbell, which is one
Speaker 7: of my favorite songs, and it had been around for
Speaker 7: like ten years or better.
Speaker 4: I think he met her. He might have had that
Speaker 4: song when I met him.
Speaker 7: Seriously, like I remember that long ago, like in the
Speaker 7: first the first chapter of our relationships as musicians and friends.
Speaker 7: I remember hearing I'm Ready on a demo, so there
Speaker 7: was a backlog of material, but then we would work
Speaker 7: on things. End of the Road was I don't think
Speaker 7: End of the Road was written for boys to man,
Speaker 7: but once it was done, it was pretty obvious.
Speaker 4: So I knew who to call.
Speaker 1: Or I remember, you know, how to match a song
Speaker 1: to an artist? I don't know I.
Speaker 7: Don't really know, but I think that that's what A
Speaker 7: and R really is. It's artist and repertoire, right, finding
Speaker 7: the artist and the repertoire to match it when it's
Speaker 7: particularly when it's people that maybe either they don't write songs,
Speaker 7: or they collaborate, or they accept outside songs, and we
Speaker 7: tended to work with people who accepted outside material. We
Speaker 7: didn't like it that much working with people who could
Speaker 7: also write, because it always changed how we would write. Right,
Speaker 7: And we had a thing that we liked to do,
Speaker 7: and we thought of ourselves as we thought we were.
Speaker 4: The deal and whoever was singing was the lead singer.
Speaker 7: Right, But it was like every song was I'm your
Speaker 7: Baby tonight is the deal feature in Whitney Houston. That's
Speaker 7: how we always looked at right, or my My Mine
Speaker 7: is the deal feature Johnny gill or you know, because
Speaker 7: me and Kenny and Ko and Darryll basically played on
Speaker 7: everything you know or programmed or how we want to
Speaker 7: look at it.
Speaker 1: We created all of the.
Speaker 7: Music for it, and we didn't really like tampering. So
Speaker 7: I remember once we were doing Jermaine Jackson and we
Speaker 7: we finished some records and then he brought in his
Speaker 7: keyboard player to like reproduce all the songs, and we
Speaker 7: were like, what's this and the dudes and and I
Speaker 7: forget his name. Now he's really talented, but it was
Speaker 7: just changing everything, and it was it was like, now
Speaker 7: this doesn't work.
Speaker 4: No, no, I said, we'll keep that solo.
Speaker 1: We did.
Speaker 4: That's the best we could do the rest of it.
Speaker 3: You know, at work at Saturday Night Live, whenever comedians
Speaker 3: stand up comedians host the show, they try to bring
Speaker 3: their team in to try to write for them right,
Speaker 3: and it never works. It's always best when you just
Speaker 3: trust the system and let the producers or let the
Speaker 3: writers do it. So for that initial gust of Eli
Speaker 3: face La faced them, what song.
Speaker 1: Almost didn't make it? Oh? Man, let me see at
Speaker 1: least a staple that we know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think we were way too greedy and ambitious.
Speaker 7: Man, we're trying to get everything out, Like I don't
Speaker 7: I don't recall that one.
Speaker 4: I don't have a good answer to that one.
Speaker 3: Okay, you guys produced Pebbles, and you also produced Karen
Speaker 3: White's first record, right, first album, Amazing Results, second album?
Speaker 1: Why didn't Karen White?
Speaker 3: Now I knew at the time she's dating Terry Lewis.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you guys work on the second Karen White record?
Speaker 1: Or is that a Benny Bendina thing?
Speaker 7: Oh No, that definitely wasn't a been anything.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, it was.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait wait, let me ask fante. For the life
Speaker 3: of you, can you sing the first And I know
Speaker 3: jam Is gonna kill me for this, but even I
Speaker 3: gotten to admit this. Can you name can you sing
Speaker 3: the first verse of a Romantic?
Speaker 1: No? Dude, do you know that Romantic actually went to
Speaker 1: number one? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I believe that was on the radio hard though.
Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah it was number one hop hit.
Speaker 1: Yes, look at space right now? Exactly, yeah, exactly, I
Speaker 1: remember the host exactly.
Speaker 3: Y'all all singing the wrong Romantic. My whole point is that, yes,
Speaker 3: even though they managed to get a number one pop
Speaker 3: single off that Karen.
Speaker 1: White record, there was no impact. I couldn't name no
Speaker 1: cut for the life of me. And my thing is like,
Speaker 1: if it's not broken.
Speaker 3: Now again, my assumption is she married Terry Lewis, so
Speaker 3: it's sort of like just bring your husband the workday
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't.
Speaker 7: No, I think it was I think you nailed it, okay,
Speaker 7: So for entertainment, I have to tell you this story
Speaker 7: just for entertainment's sake, and I'll go quickly.
Speaker 1: No, we love this.
Speaker 7: So we're in New Orleans where you are now. There
Speaker 7: used to be a show called the Budweiser Superfessed. Yes, yes,
Speaker 7: we're on the tool, thank you, And we're on the
Speaker 7: package doing our final tour with two occasions, and Pebbles
Speaker 7: is with us. She's not on the tour, but she's
Speaker 7: hanging out with me. Her tour ended, she's just hanging
Speaker 7: with me. Benny Medina invites us to a Warner Music
Speaker 7: conference that they're having in New Orleans, right, and all
Speaker 7: the labels like Warner Electra, Atlantic, all the labels and
Speaker 7: all the big executives who I didn't know at the time,
Speaker 7: Steve Ross and Bob Kratz Now and David Geffen and
Speaker 7: Quincy Jones and Doug Morris and Jimmy I all these
Speaker 7: I didn't know any of them anyway. So Benny invites
Speaker 7: us because we happen to have one of their hottest records,
Speaker 7: Superwoman with Karen.
Speaker 1: White at the time.
Speaker 7: So he invites Babyface and I to the conference.
Speaker 4: So we're like, great. So we go to.
Speaker 7: The conference and we walk in and it's baby Face
Speaker 7: Pebbles and myself and I don't know record company politics
Speaker 7: or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Benny comes running over to us and.
Speaker 7: Says, I invited you, and I invited you, and he
Speaker 7: points to Pebbles and he says.
Speaker 1: But I did not invite her.
Speaker 7: And I'm like, well, if she can't come, then I
Speaker 7: don't want to be here because and I don't get it.
Speaker 7: I don't And we turn around and leave, and we
Speaker 7: and and we fall out, and Ben and I don't
Speaker 7: speak for a decade, right, wow. And ten years later
Speaker 7: he told me it was because la I was seating
Speaker 7: you guys with Karen White and it's her moment and
Speaker 7: her competition is Pebbles, and you bring Pebbles in and
Speaker 7: you know, at the same table, like and I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: I thought you wuld just being an asshole.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I was. I was. I was wrong here.
Speaker 4: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 7: So so I didn't speak to Benny for a decade
Speaker 7: and we never worked with Karen again.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, finally an answer I'm satisfied with, be cause it's like,
Speaker 3: why ruin the formula, why ruin the formula exactly?
Speaker 7: And we loved working with Karen, like loved it and
Speaker 7: we had.
Speaker 4: Fun doing it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: She was fun. She could sing.
Speaker 7: She had a great tone, great voice, and she was
Speaker 7: like a real musician type of singer.
Speaker 4: You know, she had some you know, she knew music.
Speaker 7: She knew about, you know, sliding the family Stone, things
Speaker 7: that we liked, she knew about. By the way, the
Speaker 7: end of Superwoman ever so slightly like Purple Rain.
Speaker 1: With the strings and the slightly nice the stories. I like,
Speaker 1: got that.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you know we were first introduced to you
Speaker 3: as kind of solar house producers.
Speaker 1: Yes, one how did that phase?
Speaker 3: And it almost looked like you had a universal mc
Speaker 3: A situation about to happen. And then the next thing,
Speaker 3: I know, everything's happening on Arista. Now when you're doing
Speaker 3: a roster, when you're when you're producing for these artists,
Speaker 3: is it a contractual thing?
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to do other people or is it like,
Speaker 1: once you.
Speaker 3: Start the Arista phase, you must stick to Aristat and arrist.
Speaker 7: Only it wasn't exactly that. It started out that we
Speaker 7: were solar in house producers for sure, and after after
Speaker 7: the Whispers took off and the deal and Babyface had
Speaker 7: his little Silas. We became friends with Lowell and Cheryl
Speaker 7: Dickerson at both of them and Jeryl Busby. We became
Speaker 7: friends with the MCA crew and we went over and
Speaker 7: started helping them. We did the Mac Band for them.
Speaker 7: One of my favorite songs we ever did was Roses
Speaker 7: Already Yeah and feel Underrated. It feels like no one
Speaker 7: knows it, you know, but I really dig that. And
Speaker 7: we ended up doing Pebbles for them, and he did
Speaker 7: the Boys as well, and we did the Boys, and
Speaker 7: later when it became Motown, we did Boys to Men.
Speaker 3: No label CEO is making you guys sound an exclusive
Speaker 3: contract to stay, which is like it never occurred to
Speaker 3: Dick Griffy to say, you guys are my house only.
Speaker 7: I think I did sign a contract with with Solar
Speaker 7: for to be an exclusive in house producer, but I
Speaker 7: never got I never got the money, so I never
Speaker 7: honored it. Okay, cool, Yeah, you know, Uh, he didn't
Speaker 7: hold me to it. I didn't hold him to it,
Speaker 7: and it wasn't for that much money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So so we worked with with Louis for a while
Speaker 7: and then Benny Medina called. No, someone called us and
Speaker 7: asked us to meet Benny Medina. So we went over
Speaker 7: and we met him and we said who's on your roster?
Speaker 7: And he named al Chi Role. We were like, nah,
Speaker 7: Chaka Khan, who was my favorite singer. But I was like,
Speaker 7: I don't know how we could do any better than
Speaker 7: I feel for you. No, And then he said Karen
Speaker 7: White and I remember hearing her on the radio singing
Speaker 7: these are the facts of we and I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: we could do something with that, right, And so that's
Speaker 7: how it worked out. So, yes, we were supposed to
Speaker 7: do Leface Records with MCA.
Speaker 1: It wasn't universal yet.
Speaker 7: It was MCA and Irving azof ran the company and
Speaker 7: uh Gerald Buzzby had already departed to start Motown to
Speaker 7: take over Motown, and uh Louiel was still there.
Speaker 8: Also, what was Lo Solace Junior? Like just as an executive,
Speaker 8: a lot of energy.
Speaker 7: He knew his records like you know, he was a
Speaker 7: he was a DJ too, you know. Uh, and he
Speaker 7: remixed every song that came out, like every single song
Speaker 7: that came out at that time, he would remix.
Speaker 4: He would remix guy records anything.
Speaker 1: I thought.
Speaker 3: He was just slapping his name on those productions. I
Speaker 3: didn't realize that he had a crew. We had a
Speaker 3: team of people.
Speaker 7: He had an engineer, he had a programmer, and it
Speaker 7: was him and he would take all the records that
Speaker 7: he liked and he would take him in and do the
Speaker 7: remix of them, you know, And and sometimes they'd be
Speaker 7: harder when he's done with them, like not every time,
Speaker 7: but sometimes they would be hard. But he was a
Speaker 7: lot of fun, really competitive and at that time and
Speaker 7: in black music in LA they were like these three
Speaker 7: superstar an R guys. One of them was Liuil Silas Junior.
Speaker 7: The other one was John McClain who was at A
Speaker 7: and M. That's our dream interview. We can't find him
Speaker 7: for he's the greatest. And then there was Bennie Medina
Speaker 7: who was at Warner right. But these are like the
Speaker 7: three stars in town and you know, and they I
Speaker 7: became friends with all of them and it was really great.
Speaker 4: But Louis was great man. He was fun. He was great,
Speaker 4: great dude.
Speaker 1: At the time.
Speaker 3: When I first I think when I heard, uh, Donnie
Speaker 3: seems to make the announcement that Whitney Houston is going
Speaker 3: to work with Elien face, I got slightly nervous.
Speaker 1: Wow, rightly, because.
Speaker 3: The thing is that, you know, the Whitney train was,
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm not saying anything that that isn't facts.
Speaker 1: You know, she definitely it was. It was overkilled.
Speaker 3: We all know about the booing up, the Soul Train
Speaker 3: awards and all those things.
Speaker 1: Right, And.
Speaker 3: I often wondered if placing her in your hands was
Speaker 3: almost a setup for a disaster, because the thing is like,
Speaker 3: the first album sells twelve million, and the second album
Speaker 3: sells fifteen million, So there's like, in meeting with Clive Davis,
Speaker 3: is he saying to yourself like, don't fuck up, like
Speaker 3: y'all better give me another ten to fifteen million? And
Speaker 3: how how was the general what was the general consistence
Speaker 3: when I'm your baby, Team night only did again, I
Speaker 3: don't consider it fil It did a solid five million, right,
Speaker 3: that's right, But it wasn't what the first two albums were.
Speaker 3: And actually I'm glad it wasn't what the first two
Speaker 3: records were. But just can you walk us through that
Speaker 3: whole What was the what was the pressure?
Speaker 7: I think that didn't feel pressure, first of all, did
Speaker 7: not feel any pressure, didn't approach it that way. He
Speaker 7: was very clear that Whitney had a black problem. So
Speaker 7: his goal wasn't I want to sell fifteen million. His
Speaker 7: goal was ingratiate my artists with the black community, please
Speaker 7: like stand beside her, work with her, because they don't
Speaker 7: think she's cool, right, And so success was simply black
Speaker 7: people saying, okay with me.
Speaker 4: She need a jam, right, that's all of us.
Speaker 7: That's all of us. And so we didn't feel any pressure.
Speaker 7: And we knew we couldn't. I'm being honest. We knew
Speaker 7: we couldn't make those kinds of records, like those those
Speaker 7: big records that she had, Like well, yeah, okay, I
Speaker 7: get that, you know, like we didn't write like that,
Speaker 7: we didn't produce like that. I think through a ballot
Speaker 7: you could have reached those heights, probably right. But my
Speaker 7: thing is that in that time in nineteen ninety when
Speaker 7: you jack swing is going GGA and you guys are
Speaker 7: actually the proprietors. I mean, the entire Don't Be Cool
Speaker 7: record is a tutorial.
Speaker 3: And you jack swing them right, But next to the
Speaker 3: eyes of a Stranger record, I was so confused as
Speaker 3: to why a shuffle song was her first statement and
Speaker 3: claiming her throne.
Speaker 1: But it worked. Yeah, it was perfect.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I think it worked because the powers that
Speaker 3: be made it work. Everyone knew who La and Babyface were.
Speaker 3: Everyone knew who Whitney Houston was, so it was like.
Speaker 1: And it was a great song. Let's be it was
Speaker 1: a great song. Yeah, yeah, like this ship was a
Speaker 1: jay okay, but it was just an unusual risky.
Speaker 5: Song Okay, all right, risky.
Speaker 3: It was risky, like because could DJs have played that
Speaker 3: in the nightclub like that? That level of shuffle and
Speaker 3: twelve eight meter was like HARKing back to like Luther
Speaker 3: Vandroz's bad Boy having a party, which it's more barbarians.
Speaker 1: You watch out now, like.
Speaker 3: Not every little step, not on our own, not girlfriendad No, No,
Speaker 3: it's a risk. In the hindsight, I will say it's
Speaker 3: the best move because I love when risks work. But
Speaker 3: damn yo, like whoy.
Speaker 4: We also you know what else?
Speaker 7: It was we had played ourselves out, like not to
Speaker 7: the public maybe, but we had played ourselves out with
Speaker 7: that sound, and we we had moved to Atlanta and
Speaker 7: we were experimenting because we were trying to rEFInd ourselves
Speaker 7: and we couldn't do the down my heart again. We
Speaker 7: couldn't do you know, we just couldn't do it anymore,
Speaker 7: like we had done it so much on so many songs,
Speaker 7: Like every song had had that that kind of groove
Speaker 7: on it, and it was it just got tired, you
Speaker 7: know for us. And so I'm here Baby to Night
Speaker 7: was it was. It was a little bit of us
Speaker 7: reinventing us as much as it was trying to give
Speaker 7: Whitney Houston something that we thought was.
Speaker 3: That I would have thought Susan would have probably well,
Speaker 3: if Susan didn't have a direct, proper nown attached to it,
Speaker 3: I would have thought, like my name is not Susan
Speaker 3: would have been.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, But I think that was what she needed.
Speaker 8: It reminded me a lot of Jimmy Jam's story of
Speaker 8: like doing with Janet and like, you know, if was
Speaker 8: the one on the Janet album, that was the one
Speaker 8: that was like Janet the gimme just you know go,
Speaker 8: but that's the way Love Golds was the one that's like,
Speaker 8: ohle ship, I mean it's you know, it's a different thing,
Speaker 8: you know, And that's what that was for me.
Speaker 1: First, Let's turn it.
Speaker 6: Around and to be honest, not to be that radio
Speaker 6: girl us this old you know logic, but they both
Speaker 6: sound like more female records like I'm Your Baby to Night,
Speaker 6: it's way more female, just like Janet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just it's just when heard.
Speaker 4: And it was like, I was really proud of it.
Speaker 7: I was so proud of that record when we finished it,
Speaker 7: because it was we had never done a shuffle, we
Speaker 7: hadn't did it with no songs like that, and I
Speaker 7: was proud of I was just proud of it, and
Speaker 7: it didn't matter to me.
Speaker 1: The success of it.
Speaker 7: And I know that sounds like I'm being a little
Speaker 7: bit frivolous about it, but it was more like, can
Speaker 7: we tackle Whitney Houston and do something with Whitney that
Speaker 7: hasn't been done already because we can't do what she's
Speaker 7: done better than she's done it, So can we do
Speaker 7: something that's just our take on it? And we did
Speaker 7: that successfully and I was very happy with it.
Speaker 4: And don't even lie, I really do like the drum
Speaker 4: feels on it.
Speaker 3: In hindsight, I think it's a great normalizing. It normalized her,
Speaker 3: made her relatable and down the earth, and you know,
Speaker 3: because the joints I liked on the first record were
Speaker 3: like the Sheep records and that that's what man, and
Speaker 3: it didn't happen. It didn't have any sugar pop on it,
Speaker 3: which right, I'm glad. We had a little problem that
Speaker 3: we never discussed. I never talked to Kenny about it.
Speaker 7: But we did Whitney and we did Michael, and our
Speaker 7: Michael stuff never came out because we couldn't nail it.
Speaker 7: We spent a lot of time with Michael and we
Speaker 7: just couldn't nail it. And we spent a lot of
Speaker 7: time with Whitney and we were able to get a
Speaker 7: little bit off. But for some reason, those big stars,
Speaker 7: because that wasn't our thing. Our thing was the artist
Speaker 7: of our generation. Like that's what we were great at.
Speaker 7: If we were great at anything, it was like, let's
Speaker 7: work with Bobby Brown, you know, let's work with Pebbles,
Speaker 7: Let's do Babyface, let's do you know, Karen White, Let's
Speaker 7: do our crew after seven even like our crew. But
Speaker 7: when we went outside of our circle and tried to
Speaker 7: do those superstars, the truth is we did not nail it.
Speaker 4: We did not nail it.
Speaker 7: Now, we got something off with Whitney and we developed
Speaker 7: an in were out of a relationship with her. That
Speaker 7: would last for many years, but none of those. It
Speaker 7: didn't resemble the success that we'd had, not sound wise,
Speaker 7: not signature wise, not impact wise. And it was the
Speaker 7: first and you're right because it was the first time
Speaker 7: that you could criticize whether it was actually the right thing.
Speaker 4: And after that we did Michael.
Speaker 7: I mean, we couldn't even get out of the studio
Speaker 7: with a song man. And we knew how to write,
Speaker 7: and we knew how to produce, but there was something
Speaker 7: about being in that room with Michael that we just
Speaker 7: were overshooting it and trying too hard and just could
Speaker 7: not get any nothing felt natural.
Speaker 3: So how hard was it to walk away from the
Speaker 3: dangerous record knowing that damn we couldn't do it.
Speaker 7: We just knew it, Like when we went home, when
Speaker 7: we left the studio after being in there for a month,
Speaker 7: and when we were.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it was a month. Yeah, and one song. No.
Speaker 7: We attempted to write several songs and he and he recorded,
Speaker 7: He recorded background vocals on one, never finished it, and
Speaker 7: he completed one, never mixed it.
Speaker 1: The Slave to the Rhythm song right, Slave to the Rhythm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So did anything happen to those other songs that
Speaker 3: were meant for him.
Speaker 1: No, they're just sitting.
Speaker 7: There, sitting somewhere. I think they might be in my vault.
Speaker 7: I think it might be in my vault because that's
Speaker 7: where I found Slave to the Rhythm that you know,
Speaker 7: I because we didn't do Slave to the Rhythm with Sony.
Speaker 7: We did that with Michael. We didn't do it as
Speaker 7: a higher fight of record label. That was a relationship
Speaker 7: just between us and Michael. Uh So we all kept
Speaker 7: we kept our tapes.
Speaker 1: So was that a teachable lesson in or make you
Speaker 1: leary of those A list stars?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: Because I'm certain by that point everybody was calling you like,
Speaker 3: who did you?
Speaker 1: Who would you say no to A list?
Speaker 7: Well, Kenny became much better at it, right, because he
Speaker 7: did Madonna successfully and he did Eric Clapton successfully, and so.
Speaker 4: He became he nailed it.
Speaker 7: I went the other way, which was I only wanted
Speaker 7: to work with the artist that was signed that we
Speaker 7: were signing.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to work with anybody else.
Speaker 3: You signed, You're like, I'm going to manufacture the next
Speaker 3: ten millions.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm doing that. So I just went into that mode.
Speaker 3: And so what was the realization point where it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: office life like who does that?
Speaker 1: Who wants? Who? Who wants to be a rock star?
Speaker 3: And then says, or did you realize earlier that all
Speaker 3: of the power and the money and the success and
Speaker 3: the magic is behind.
Speaker 7: It wasn't that, you know what it was for me?
Speaker 7: It was it was really the love of music, man.
Speaker 7: It was because I loved music, not only the music
Speaker 7: that Kenny and I made, but when I met people
Speaker 7: like Dallas Austin, or when I met like not just
Speaker 7: people I work with, but when I would meet other producers,
Speaker 7: I would love their music, like I love Jimmy jam
Speaker 7: and Terry Lewis, I like my favorite producers. Leon Silvers
Speaker 7: is my favorite, you know, amongst my favorite producers. And
Speaker 7: when when Nellie Hooper did Sold the Soul, Like I
Speaker 7: met him and I was like taking and Martinelli I
Speaker 7: met him, McClaren, Savons, Howison.
Speaker 4: I just I love the people that made music.
Speaker 7: So I didn't want a career that was based on
Speaker 7: the music that I made.
Speaker 4: I didn't think I was good enough for that.
Speaker 7: I wanted to be a career that I could work
Speaker 7: with people that I thought were immensely talented. So my
Speaker 7: career decisions had only to do with music. It had
Speaker 7: nothing to do with power, It had nothing to do
Speaker 7: with money. It was a pure love of Damn. I
Speaker 7: love how Dallas does this. I love how Jermaine Dupre
Speaker 7: does that. Oh my god, these kids organize noise, they
Speaker 7: do this, and they do it. Was purely my love
Speaker 7: of music and my love of artistry, right, and I
Speaker 7: liked the idea of like when we met Pebbles, no
Speaker 7: one knew who she was, and we made her record
Speaker 7: and it worked, and so and when we did Karen White,
Speaker 7: no one knew who that was. I mean, she had
Speaker 7: one song on the radio, but she wasn't famous, so
Speaker 7: to speak, or or or our own band, The Deal,
Speaker 7: or Babyface or so.
Speaker 4: I was so into.
Speaker 7: Homegrown and I felt comfortable and homegrown, and I felt
Speaker 7: uncomfortable having to measure up two stars.
Speaker 3: But you realized that once you get behind that desk,
Speaker 3: your Jedi mind trick knowledge has to go into overdrive.
Speaker 3: Because I'm certain by that point, like when you're having
Speaker 3: your own label, you're trying to you got to talk
Speaker 3: people out of a lot of bad decisions, right like
Speaker 3: you you got to take meetings and you got to
Speaker 3: remember names and go to things like Jack the Rapper
Speaker 3: and whatever, shake hans and kiss babies, like who would trade?
Speaker 8: I think it's for the stage or in your life
Speaker 8: like I had, like I was my group little brother
Speaker 8: were signed to UH Atlantic, you know years ago and
Speaker 8: UH and you know, Julie Greenwall we would have conversations
Speaker 8: and you know, she would say, like, you know, we
Speaker 8: had to come up with recently. She was just talking
Speaker 8: about how at this point in her career she enjoys
Speaker 8: kind of being in the stage kind of you know
Speaker 8: where you are, and just all the OG's in the
Speaker 8: game where they're able to kind of sit back and
Speaker 8: see the whole big picture and kind of direct from
Speaker 8: that standing where it happens is more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like that's yeah, that's the thing. And I get it.
Speaker 3: It makes total sense, you know versus when you're you know,
Speaker 3: in your LA and Babyface days where you're actually kind
Speaker 3: of in the field so to speak, like when you're
Speaker 3: in the studio you're programming the drums whatever. Now you
Speaker 3: get to kind of be the big picture guy in.
Speaker 1: A single, all the pieces.
Speaker 7: There's one thing I learned about it that I that
Speaker 7: I do love and being being an executive And it
Speaker 7: had to do with choices about artists.
Speaker 4: And records and like the great the ones.
Speaker 7: I love that I considered the great Barry Gordy obviously
Speaker 7: being number one on that side of the lecture right
Speaker 7: as an executive Clive Davis, I obviously love and respect
Speaker 7: Jimmy Ivan, I'm urt again, and there are others, you know.
Speaker 7: But what I loved is if they were passionate about something,
Speaker 7: they could drive it and to your point, right, like
Speaker 7: I think you kind of called it manufacturing, but it
Speaker 7: was more like, if you have this intuition or this
Speaker 7: instinct that this gut that something is the thing, and
Speaker 7: to just drive it through, right, we believe it. I
Speaker 7: believe that belief thing I liked. I like that I
Speaker 7: don't see much of that these days. I really don't
Speaker 7: like what I see people really having to have data
Speaker 7: to back up their decisions. I like the fact that
Speaker 7: you know, we did it with our gut, and we
Speaker 7: were wrong a lot of times, but we were right
Speaker 7: enough times that we are considered successful, right.
Speaker 4: And I liked that.
Speaker 7: And I liked that particularly for black artists, because black
Speaker 7: artists don't often get an opportunity to get a crossover shot,
Speaker 7: a shot to the mainstream. That is all because like
Speaker 7: Whitney Houston is because Clive Davis said this is for
Speaker 7: the masses, Rihanna is because I said this is for
Speaker 7: the masses.
Speaker 3: When you signed Rihanna, I mean she's now god status,
Speaker 3: like there's yeah, she's literally.
Speaker 1: Past She's past the vanguard level.
Speaker 3: Like in my mind, Rihanna would have just been like
Speaker 3: maybe Janet Jackson level where she just has twenty hits
Speaker 3: under her belt, but she's now past that point.
Speaker 4: I can't say I knew all that.
Speaker 7: Maybe j Brown knew it, maybe Jay Z knew it
Speaker 7: right because obviously all of us we're involved together, I
Speaker 7: can't say that when.
Speaker 4: I first saw her and I heard her first Ponder replay,
Speaker 4: Jay Brown brought it to me one night in the office,
Speaker 4: was really late at night, and I was like, I
Speaker 4: guess that was my reaction.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right.
Speaker 3: This is also the period where we were about to
Speaker 3: sign to the label. I remember once. I remember once
Speaker 3: going to a j show. Rihanna was there and you
Speaker 3: signed what's your name?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, not Rita or.
Speaker 4: Ti Marie.
Speaker 3: Now, the energy that I felt in the room when
Speaker 3: I was backstage was Tierra Marie was going to be
Speaker 3: out of the smash.
Speaker 1: And Rihanna got the cute little hit and she'll probably
Speaker 1: get on like now.
Speaker 5: Her song and playing the mall.
Speaker 1: Yes, I thought she's gonna be on that now.
Speaker 3: That's what I call music volume thirty seven, and the
Speaker 3: opposite happened. Yeah, So how how does it again? Is
Speaker 3: that Jedi mind tricking where you have to know who
Speaker 3: your artist is?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: How long do you get to absorbing artists to know
Speaker 3: what they need in order to make it happen? I
Speaker 3: think it's just like, okay, so, especially when they self
Speaker 3: sabotage a lot, right, So I.
Speaker 7: Think this first of all, I think this helps answer
Speaker 7: one of your other questions. Yes, we really believed in
Speaker 7: Tia Marie.
Speaker 1: All of us.
Speaker 7: She got the Rockefeller chain, all of it. Yeah, it
Speaker 7: didn't work. I love her as a person, I saw
Speaker 7: her not long ago, but it didn't. It didn't connect
Speaker 7: at all. The songs didn't connect, the artists didn't really connect.
Speaker 7: And so no, you can't force it. You could, you can,
Speaker 7: you can prioritize it, and you can try, but you can't.
Speaker 7: You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot
Speaker 7: make them drink, right, it doesn't It didn't work.
Speaker 4: Rihanna.
Speaker 7: On the other hand, I grew. I grew into it personally,
Speaker 7: Like I remember when it hit me. I remember really
Speaker 7: well when it hit me, sitting in the house one
Speaker 7: night and listening to the demos and you know, Jay Brown,
Speaker 7: Ti those guys they were making her records like, and
Speaker 7: they were giving them to me to listen to. And
Speaker 7: I remember sitting at home listening to Good Girl Gone
Speaker 7: Bad and all these songs. I came back and said,
Speaker 7: wait a minute, guys, she called an album that what
Speaker 7: should call an album? Good Girl Gone Bad?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: And it was like it was a statement. Anyway, My
Speaker 7: point is it all of a sudden hit me that
Speaker 7: she was it. And then she did this song called
Speaker 7: so Os, and I watched the video for so Os
Speaker 7: and I took it home. I told my wife Erica.
Speaker 7: I was like, this girl is about to be the
Speaker 7: biggest star in the if not the world, watch this video.
Speaker 7: And we watched the video and it was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: I get it. And then she made Umbrella. And when
Speaker 7: she made Umbrella, then do I know Do I have
Speaker 7: an instinct? Do I have an intuition in those moments? Yes,
Speaker 7: because I knew that was out of here.
Speaker 3: I was like, yep, she's gone right, Okay, you get
Speaker 3: a song like Umbrella, you get jay Z on that song.
Speaker 3: Can he walk us through the process of what it
Speaker 3: takes to make that song connect with an artist, Like,
Speaker 3: how do do you play it?
Speaker 1: Who do you play it for? First? Who gets there?
Speaker 5: Did the dream just bring it in the dreams processed?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So no, no, no, I mean creatively, I'm talking about
Speaker 3: once you have album in hand, how do you make
Speaker 3: sure that people around the world know what Umbrella is?
Speaker 4: At the time? It's certainly it's there.
Speaker 7: There are more avenues now, it's the game has gotten
Speaker 7: pretty complicated, and it's and it's flooded, flooded with stuff
Speaker 7: right from all these platforms and all this d I
Speaker 7: Y and every very low barrier to entry.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot more stuff than there are than
Speaker 4: than there is special stuff, uh in the game. Back
Speaker 4: in those days, a record executive can make a record
Speaker 4: of priority and and and put it on radio all
Speaker 4: radio and people will hear it.
Speaker 7: And video video mattered, right, and MTV matter, and b
Speaker 7: E T matter and VH one matter right, and so
Speaker 7: all of our all of our avenues and our platforms, Uh,
Speaker 7: we had enough influence that we could get it a shot.
Speaker 7: It still had to take off, but our job is
Speaker 7: just to get it in front of the people, and
Speaker 7: that's what we did. We got it in front of
Speaker 7: the people and it took off.
Speaker 3: So does that also mean that your relationship has to
Speaker 3: be intact with I don't know who like ran Empty
Speaker 3: or Viacom at the time, or your relationship with the
Speaker 3: whoever runs Clear Channel.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, it absolutely means that. Yes, yeah, absolutely, those
Speaker 7: contacts are golden.
Speaker 1: They really are.
Speaker 7: I mean we try to always keep them and even
Speaker 7: with the changing of guards, right we we're right there too,
Speaker 7: you know, hail the new King, held the new Queen.
Speaker 7: But the relationships are golden. But it's also the artist
Speaker 7: relationships with these people and with these gatekeepers, you know,
Speaker 7: they also have to have their own They have to
Speaker 7: do the work. We can't do the work for an artist,
Speaker 7: and an artist has to do that, you know. So
Speaker 7: it's you knowing Tom you know Poeman, It's you knowing
Speaker 7: John Sykes, and it's it's you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: it's it's you Stephen hill A calderoona the MTV or
Speaker 7: Jessic Collins or whoever in my it's you knowing everybody also, uh,
Speaker 7: and that.
Speaker 4: Has a lot of I think that has a lot
Speaker 4: of weight.
Speaker 3: So even now, like, does it get tiring to have
Speaker 3: to know names and what they represent?
Speaker 1: And how do you keep up? La?
Speaker 4: It's exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm the worst at that, sho Okay.
Speaker 7: Exciting though not love that. I absolutely love the challenge
Speaker 7: of that, like I and and my memory is horrible.
Speaker 7: I mean, you can ask me anything about the eighties.
Speaker 7: I remember it, but anything from like twenty eleven forward
Speaker 7: I barely remember. I don't know why, but I really
Speaker 7: liked the idea of it. I mean, once I embraced
Speaker 7: being an executive, I did have a goal, and my
Speaker 7: goal was to be the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know it, so check it.
Speaker 3: La only wanted to do about an hour, but you
Speaker 3: know that we couldn't let you go. So once we
Speaker 3: got him rolling, he just wouldn't stop talking. So basically
Speaker 3: that's it for part too. And I want you to
Speaker 3: check back for our third and final QLs episode with
Speaker 3: Eli Red. And while you're at it, definitely check out
Speaker 3: our qs episodes with Babyface as well.
Speaker 1: You know, go ahead at hand, All right, see y'all
Speaker 1: next time. Thank you West. Love Supreme is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.