00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio. 00:00:21 Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? This is the Quest Love Show. This is the Double Love Show. I guess where this is the love I mean, yeah, I'm meeting the love Kate right now. We're talking to the Love Kate. What can I say, Ladies and gentlemen from the d m V. All right, So, whenever I mentioned the d m V, it's like, only DMV people know what that means. 00:00:46 Speaker 3: Anywhere else that's the department vehicle. 00:00:49 Speaker 2: But I'm like, is it a thing where it's just like, is that really your tri state area? 00:00:53 Speaker 1: Like do people call that area of the d m V. 00:00:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I would never say it on the record. 00:00:59 Speaker 2: God, because everyone thinking of the Department of the got you got. 00:01:04 Speaker 3: The DMV for life? 00:01:06 Speaker 2: Well, you know, our guest today is a singer, songwriter, activists, a legendary radio show host. I'm an hr I'm I'm secretly jealous when I heard you got that gig man. I'm like, he has worked with a lot of our favorites, of course, start with Jazz, Jeff Body, James, Jill Scott, my own band The Roots. Actually, you're the last voice on the last official Roots album so much. Of course, we know him as the Love King, so I respect that title. His latest EP, of course, is The Quiet Storm Lover Own. Yes, right now, he's a part of what I'm am sure is going to be like one of the top tickets of twenty twenty six they say Yes tour with Flower Tree and Teacher Moses representing the Department of Motor Vehicles to the fullest right here, welcome, all right. 00:02:02 Speaker 1: So I have to ask you this question. What is love truly? 00:02:09 Speaker 4: Oh man, I'm gonna ask you a lot of weird questions. It's a connection spiritually with the Creator. It's God for me. It's a connection to community. It's random acts of kindness in it's prayers form when nobody's watching. Besides this, you know the universe and the Creator and got that part. Yeah, When it's not performing, it's not When it's not performative, yeah, you know, it's painful. It's a brutal truth and looking yourself in the mirror, diving deep within. 00:02:39 Speaker 2: You're saying that to the dark places. 00:02:40 Speaker 3: In your mind and shadow work and a lot of things. 00:02:44 Speaker 1: All right. 00:02:45 Speaker 2: So yeah, again, you're you're taking the Love King title because I think there's too much pressure on me. But to be the love king, I think that one should be able to name for me five songs that must be on every mixtape. Like for me, my first job as like a mixtape master is the roots tour bus, especially in the lean years when like nineteen of us had to be on a tour bus really just made for like thirteen again, I'm talking about like us living on the road. The mixtape was always just like the moment of relief. Initially, Hub, our bass player, was the king of what we called the mellow tapes, where he'd be the first on the bus and he would have like at least six or seven ninety minute tapes of like what we call the Sunday afternoon cleaning music Royers Steve like the usual Suspects and whatnot. And then like I took over once I realized, like, oh well, I'm tired of hearing everybody that was sunshine every time I get on the tour bus. So what five songs do you think must be on every mixtape of love? 00:04:03 Speaker 3: Stevie wonder? 00:04:05 Speaker 2: What's on ass as? 00:04:08 Speaker 1: Okay, you're going fast? Are we going faster? Slow? 00:04:14 Speaker 4: Let's lets let's go, Let's go, let's go slow, let's go Joinie. I get five sons to Stevie wanted to joy inside my tears. Shot a cherished today, okay. Marvin Gaye distant Lover. 00:04:26 Speaker 1: Okay, that's my that's three three. 00:04:28 Speaker 3: And three, Luther van Dross. 00:04:32 Speaker 2: Which one house is not a home? 00:04:34 Speaker 1: Okay? All right? And I got my one? 00:04:37 Speaker 4: I got my one left right, yep, I'm gonna go with uh Prince Darling. 00:04:42 Speaker 1: Nikki. Damn what that's the record? 00:04:53 Speaker 2: Scrashsmas, my camera, touch yourself? 00:05:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not expected. 00:05:02 Speaker 2: In my mind, I'm like, okay, well he scandalous when you are in love or do me? 00:05:06 Speaker 1: Baby? You went there? All right? 00:05:09 Speaker 4: Of course I have to have some other things there to make it, to make it, to make it click, to make it all work. 00:05:16 Speaker 2: You see what happens, It happens, all right. So what was your first musical memory in life? 00:05:23 Speaker 1: Oh? 00:05:23 Speaker 4: Man, it was Green Hill Preschool and there's this photo of me conducting. I think it was like it was like the kids choir. 00:05:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. 00:05:35 Speaker 4: So it's just like this photo, this nostalgica photo of my mother, you know the photos we have on the wall, right, Yeah, you know it's like twenty photos of it in. 00:05:44 Speaker 1: The whole wall. 00:05:45 Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so I would probably say that. And then my dad was always on the road. So there was one night he was like in town. I literally got to see him for like five minutes. It was like the beast five minutes of my life. See my dad every day, So different household, but my life. And he was actually on tour with Stevie this particular time, and I just remember like, ooh, this is amazing, like the concert and walking into this concert hall, Camember we were we went in DC. If this is in DC, like around nineteen eighty an he wanted was he on tour Gil Scott heron or because I know that he did a series of shows in d C. 00:06:25 Speaker 3: Gil might have been on that show. 00:06:27 Speaker 2: So initially, the whole history of Master Blaster Jamming is that Stevie was a big giant Bob Marley fan, and they decided in nineteen seventy nine, after like the Secret Life of Plants sort of settled now it's hotter than July time, and him and Bob Marley going to go on tour together and Bob had cancer complications and whatnot, and so then Gil Scott Heron filled in for him, but I know he did a slew of a lot of shows in the DMV era, mainly to garner up support for King's birthday. Like, so your father is a do Okay, the cellis yep Okay. 00:07:05 Speaker 1: Who else? Do you know who he played with. 00:07:07 Speaker 4: Or Julius Hempfield, A couple of different I know he played with David Murray, all different different trios. 00:07:13 Speaker 2: Okay, give me your your fondest memory of growing up in d C. 00:07:20 Speaker 4: Probably just hearing like the Go Go, Like Go Go was always in the midst of things. But I wasn't outside, you know what I mean, Like as you know, I was outside as a kid, But like you know, I didn't jump off the poort. I didn't go to my first go go to. I was like maybe like twenty twenty, twenty one, nineteen, you know what I mean. So I didn't get the experience like going to the Go Go at fifteen fourteen, sixteen seventeen, you know. 00:07:43 Speaker 1: All right, So I caught rare essence. 00:07:46 Speaker 2: We just we happen to be in DC one night and it was like a three show thing we were doing, and like we were there for four days, so we had like one of these nights off and I realized I'd never been to a go go show before. And I was like, all right, well, let me go to my first go go experience because my manager went to college and the DMV area, you know, Layah, like we know everyone in the you gotta go to a go go show. And this is this is definitely after the pandemic, so maybe like twenty twenty one. Oh wow, okay, and so there's this new wave of go go like whatever trap and drill are to boombat hip hop, Like it's a whole nother bounce beat. The bounce beat, Yeah, it was a whole nother rhythm, and like I didn't realize that the heartbeat of go go, which you know hates when I say this because we always argue. I argue and say that, you know, go Go's based off of Grover Washington Juniors, mister Magic Dun Dunk Dun Dunk, Yeah. 00:08:50 Speaker 1: And I would say, where's that from? Layah? Anyway, So the whole. 00:08:54 Speaker 2: Point is they didn't play that bounce Like I was like, wow, I never went to a go go show, which just the prime rhythm of go go was never played, like it was a whole another and I was like, oh, okay, so now there's a transition period where that rhythm where they slowed it down way down, almost like halftime exactly. So like when did you go to your first go go show? 00:09:20 Speaker 4: And my first go go experience was Rare Essence at the time. I was a writer at that period of my life and Droopy Rest in Peace, Droopy and he had his hit or Sam. They took me to my first rare essence go go experience. 00:09:35 Speaker 1: Miss Kim was in the. 00:09:36 Speaker 4: Band at the time, was there? It was I think Mickey was there at the time. They were taking me to me white Boy and to write for you know, white Boy took a liking to me and my penmanship, and the goal was for me to write for Kim and write records for the band. But that was my first experience. I think it was that. I think we did the Black Hole. Okay, maybe black Hole or Tunnel. I can't remember what venue was, but I just remember like going and instantly being like it was turned out. 00:10:09 Speaker 2: Can one make a good living as a go go musician playing in the absolutely? 00:10:15 Speaker 4: I mean it was you got to remember at this stage it was already a national, global thing, you know what I mean, because you know. 00:10:21 Speaker 2: But for the most part, I know that they stick to DC. Yeah, I mean, I mean maybe Virginia, Yeah yeah, yeah. 00:10:28 Speaker 4: But like you talk about the success of of EU, you know, school Days and that whole movement on top bands making seven figures six figures a year, not having to leave the city or leave it, you know. Besides, when you want to do a destination trip or you know, what's unique about the go Go community is that your super fans they follow you. So you have go go live in Miami. You got you know, there are annual trips that have been happening for. 00:10:59 Speaker 2: So they do come outside. 00:11:01 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been I mean, they have a go Go, Go Go night in Japan. I went to my first time going to what my first time going to Japan as Raheem Devna Artists. We were coming in and I ran into Sweet Shari and Chuck Brown, like Chuck was leaving Japan from playing and had been there maybe two three weeks. Sold out every night, Like it's a phenomenon. 00:11:25 Speaker 1: You know, Go Go. 00:11:26 Speaker 4: I would say, go Go is equivalent to what for DC to what you know, Big Trombone Shorty is to New Orleans, you know what I mean? And to see how you know some of these bands been together, you know, rare essence is what fifty years and maybe you know Backyard Band with Big G. 00:11:45 Speaker 3: I think they got thirty forty years in now. 00:11:48 Speaker 2: Like So as far as like music venues are concerned, yeah, like right now, would you say that DC is still strong in the game as far as having music outlet because the thing is is that the reason why the Roots really existed, or at least to the to the the fast lane that we got ushered in on, was that there were no music venues in Philly. So it was like you had the creative, let's go on the streets now. I meant, had the Roots come out fifteen twenty years later, we would have probably been like, all right. 00:12:26 Speaker 1: Let's get a YouTube page and do that. 00:12:30 Speaker 2: But you know, we only played the streets and busks because there was no place to play. And only then people were like, you know, they did did the whole thing like, well, you know, you know, we're not into rap music, but we like you guys, and we were suddenly like the first rap group to play like all these if we were a rock band. 00:12:50 Speaker 4: Y'all to hip hop rolling Stones and me, oh man, thank you, like straight up, like I appreciate, Like this is you know, before the world knew my name. I was at the nine to thirty Club in the front row at the Roots con service. I remember the night where y'all came out with the what was it, the mister Miyagi joints and like walk through the whole crowd like yeah, so you know what I mean? So like that, you know, I was at the Black Lilies and the Cut with nobody, you know, just just you know, it's part of my story. 00:13:18 Speaker 1: I talk I talk about it often. 00:13:20 Speaker 2: You know, DC is our number one market. 00:13:23 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And the reason why DC loves you guys so much is the connection of like live music and what it's the live exchange of energy live like there's nothing like it. There's nothing like seeing your top go go bands in DC or anywhere and hearing the music is nothing like a roots experience, you. 00:13:42 Speaker 1: Know, thank you. I appreciate that. 00:13:45 Speaker 2: Is there any unspoken pressures as a native. 00:13:51 Speaker 1: There to represent go go or nah? Not at all? 00:13:56 Speaker 4: I mean you know it's funny man, you know now and that half a century living out my childhood, drunitless like my bucket list stuff like I'm you know, from doing a Choiet Storm to I have a go go band. 00:14:09 Speaker 1: It's called the Crank Crusaders. I didn't know this. 00:14:12 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:14:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:14:13 Speaker 4: We do a First Sunday's event at the conver Station Tavern every first Sunday unless I'm on the road, you know, on tour, and we'll kind of either navigate around and take the month off or you know, pick another Sunday, which we may be increasing the Sundays. 00:14:26 Speaker 1: Right, you know, but I've been in a go go band. 00:14:28 Speaker 4: We've been you know, shout out to Bootsy Vegas, Yazra who I know, you know, yaz was on the front line, you know what I mean, like all the rest of the guys in the band, and it's been an experience like the first this band has actually been together since like twenty nineteen. You know, we've talked about principal members and going through different you know, musicians. Our big show was like twenty nineteen at the Kennedy Center. It was it was Raheem DeVaughn and Backyard Band right New Year's Eve, And I use that as an opportunity to introduce Crank Crusaders to DC. 00:15:07 Speaker 3: You know, and then boom covid hit. 00:15:09 Speaker 1: So that was your last creative product. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: I was so said I was the last. 00:15:12 Speaker 4: We were still figuring out the records and creating and you know, and you know, we're building a catalog or we haven't put out official album yet, which is in under the you know, in the works right now, and uh, you know, we just lost one of our main producers. Rest in peace that I can and uh, you know, but from the minute I saw a rare essence, I always wanted to be part of. 00:15:32 Speaker 1: A go go band, you know. 00:15:33 Speaker 2: Okay, So, and I'm mainly just I'm not even asking us for interview, like because I just I'm so obsessed. 00:15:41 Speaker 1: With that culture. 00:15:42 Speaker 2: But I wouldn't even know I'm gonna get us. I see it almost like as akin to jazz or another genre where a lot of times, I mean I've. 00:15:51 Speaker 1: Seen cats, I've seen non jazz cats like Okay, well, I can sold it good, so let me. 00:15:56 Speaker 2: But there's there's a whole nother nuance that you have to know about that culture. And for go go at least, I know, it's it's groove, its format, it's cover songs, it's a lot. 00:16:08 Speaker 1: Of those things. 00:16:08 Speaker 4: So when you are and it's letting the beat ride, Like that's what That's what I want to know. How do you know one of the main things I had to learn and I'm still and it's still a learning process for me. Like like sometimes my you know, my my band members, you know, my front line member, he gets pssed with me because you know me because he's like, I'm so used to being a conductor, right, and being the orchestrator and being the leader. What I do love about being part of the Crank Crusaders is and being in this go Go band is like, you know, the pressure is not on me to always lead, and it puts me in a position to follow, which makes me a student to have to learn, you know where we're in rehearsals and you know, we rehearsed once a week literally. 00:16:52 Speaker 1: Like you know what I mean. 00:16:54 Speaker 4: Like it's just it's just a discipline, right, and uh so we're always experimenting with the different you know, whether it's bounce beat or you know, the first time I heard them saying like, all right, we're gonna do this record, and Bootsy's communicating with like the drummer he's like and they're saying Oh yeah, we're gonna do the mister Magic beat, or we're not gonna do the mister magic. Like, let's do the mister magic. I didn't get it, now, you know, right high sight twenty twenty. 00:17:18 Speaker 2: Now I get it. So when you said it, I just kind of like chuckle. But in other words, like I listen to mixtapes and the leader won't say anything for like thirty two bars and just let the beat right. And I'm trying to you know, I'm not watching on videotape, but I'm just imagining, like, so what does the rest of the band do? They just what you know, what it is, But it is to be in the room and the experience, because what you're probably hearing is a lot YEA. Remember you're probably hearing a live recording aka to PA tape right right, And what's happening in that moment is the walls are sweating, it's packed wall to wall. 00:17:53 Speaker 4: The ladies, you know, are doing a thing. You know, it's it's a party, man, it's a vibe. It's not it's not just you're hearing the after effect of a night that can't be duplicated, you know, thinking, you know, I will compare it to like a theater theatre of Broadway, right, versus doing film and television, which I've done both right, and theater is very improvisational. Like theater is very much read the room in the moment, because I remember resting the Love Jones musical years back, and literally a fight broke out because there was some guy there on a date with his wife. When his lady came in, he was, he was on a date, he was, you know what I mean. It was a situation and I think you're so. 00:18:48 Speaker 2: So we're doing light and so MC light is. 00:18:51 Speaker 4: Doing your line and we're doing our lines, and literally a fight breaks out or something, and it's just like it became and we turned it into a moment because the show bus go on. 00:19:13 Speaker 1: What is your shout out getting? Like? Because I know that any effective go go vocalists has to know all the areas. 00:19:20 Speaker 4: Yet I get to be a team member and not have to, Like you don't have that pressure. 00:19:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know Boosey does. He's a lead talker of the band. 00:19:27 Speaker 4: So it's just his job is to conduct the band, communicate with us, lead us. You know, read the room, know who's in the room. Sometimes you know, you work the room before you get to know your fans. I mean, I'm sure that even if you don't know the names, I'm sure that that with the super fan cult following Basic y'all have, like you, it's people that y'all have been coming to see y'all for since the beginning. Like you know what I mean, you don't there's no way you don't, you know, unless you just in it for the wrong reasons that you don't connect or no, you know, and you have boundaries. But sometimes that's that's right though, no doubt, because you have to have you know, their boundaries. 00:20:03 Speaker 1: You know. 00:20:04 Speaker 4: Fan is short for fanatic, you know what I mean. So you know, but I watched like the communities and all these bands have different communities, which is you know, you have some of them where they share certain communities, right, but Backyard has a very distinct crowd that comes to see them, right, right, and they might come to see them four or five nights a week. And that's what the vibe is, you know, It's all I've never seen anything like it, you know what I mean, other than you know, how I would describe you know, say, like social media now or Instagram, right how you know, we build these communities and people support them, and you know, they can never get enough of what you put out. 00:20:44 Speaker 2: You know, I'm asking a lot of this simply because for those that you know don't get access to the roots as much as you know, we went from two hundred nights on the year. Yeah, we do normal now we probably do maybe fifty shows a year like a regular group. But a lot of these gigs we've been doing, we've been on the jam band circuit. 00:21:06 Speaker 4: Yeah, And for me, like I know that Go Go is Black people's jam band circuit. 00:21:12 Speaker 2: And a lot of these like especially in the Northeast, like above Connecticut, above New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts and Maine and whatnot, Rhode Island. 00:21:23 Speaker 1: They have like a lot of these. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: Festivals, like hippie festivals for jam bands all day long. And for me, I don't know how it's going to happen, but I'm trying to figure out, like between New Orleans and d C. Wondering how come the two worlds have never collided to at. 00:21:43 Speaker 4: Least it's happening organically. And that's why why you know, we we know myself in Bootsy. First of all, this is it's a little it's more personal for us. Bootsy was experiencing you know, he was he had a he had a death date, like stage four cancer and it was a phone conversation like, hey man, you beat the cancer. Man, You're gonna start a gogle band. And he's been cancer free for some years now, and he was like I remember when he rang the bell and I'm like, all right, well time start the band. Figure ot, we're gonna name it. And you know here we are the crank Crusaders. 00:22:15 Speaker 1: You know, so ill to see this. I can't wait to see this. 00:22:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, speak of which, what was the first live show that you ever attended? 00:22:23 Speaker 3: Okay it was New Year's Eve? Okay, Whitney Houston. 00:22:28 Speaker 1: That's impressive. 00:22:30 Speaker 4: Wait was Whitney there? Did she perform? I feel like she performed. I can't remember she was on a ticket, but Bobby was there. I think maybe it's a new addition. I know it was Whitney. 00:22:39 Speaker 1: Bobby. 00:22:40 Speaker 2: Wait, it became an item in ninety one. Well, you were like twenty when. 00:22:44 Speaker 4: You saw your first contract, so it had this is like maybe they weren't a thing then, Okay, you know what I mean. But it was it was like, uh, when you leave in DC, which is also like kind of destination. Definitely a teenager though I was in high school because I remember miss pat was the one that took us to see this particular concert. Really yeah, she was like the neighborhood mom. You know what was the impact of you seeing this concert. It's one thing to I guess hear the music live and hear the records and you know, and sing them in the shower, And there's another thing like to see the artist. So the only thing I probably could have wished for was better seats. But like tripping off that as a kid, you're like at the concert, you know what, I'm. 00:23:27 Speaker 1: Happy to be there. 00:23:28 Speaker 2: I always ask what television show or movie would you say best describes what your childhood experiences were like growing up? 00:23:38 Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I can't say that. I can't say that there was one really yeah. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: All right, there's no character that you wish you were like watching TV or any of those things. 00:23:49 Speaker 2: Absolutely. 00:23:49 Speaker 4: I mean I would probably say good times because I spent the school years with. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: My mom did the DNVA my dad was in. 00:23:57 Speaker 4: My dad was in Jersey in Newark, Jerseys between East East Orange and Newark, so when he was in it but he was in the Newark Okay, so it's kind of like I should just say middle class, you know. But I would go spend time with Dad and it would end up in backsin terrist projects. So I got a chance to see like which was like walking distance from the Colonnades where when he moved back into Newark, Like, you know, I spent a lot of time. Even when he lived in East Orange, we spent a lot of I spent a lot of time with my cousins. And you know that's in the housing projects. Yeah, so so you know I saw that whole crack era. I saw light, you know what I mean, eighty eight or I would see you know, you see different you see different rappers and you know Caine and you know back then you know coming through you know what I mean. And I saw my first shootouts there, you know, as a kid, you know what I mean. But most important, I saw a lot of love in those housing projects. I saw a lot of love. I saw a family, you know, and it's and it's something I just always look forward to, you know what I mean. So it wasn't nothing to play hoop hoops on the I mean I played basketball on the regular basketball court. But when we were when I was there, we played the hoops on the crates. 00:25:03 Speaker 2: The crates. 00:25:04 Speaker 4: They try to take the crates right, cut the bottom out real good, you know, and then you know. 00:25:13 Speaker 1: I'm gonna create. I'm gonna creat Master. 00:25:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know you're Michael Jordan at that point. 00:25:17 Speaker 1: Can you name me three albums that changed your life? 00:25:21 Speaker 4: Quincy Jones, it's Cusey Jones' album Saved the Which album was that, Marvin's album or Quincy's Save the Children? 00:25:29 Speaker 1: All right? 00:25:29 Speaker 2: So Save the Children was a It's funny you mentioned this, yeah, because. 00:25:33 Speaker 1: I don't think the world news about it. 00:25:36 Speaker 2: For all of you that have showed me love for Summer Soul, there's a film that was directed by sons father Stan Lathan, and it's called Save the Children, and it's basically Jesse Jackson's operation Push Expo in Chicago. This is nineteen seventy two, and pretty much all the luminaries were there, the Jackson five, Marvin Gay. There's a very curious moment where you know, times haven't changed much. Sammy Davis Junior decided, I guess the mind stage. James Brown did the same thing, like they were coming from the mind state of like, Okay, well we're trying to get a seat at the table, so let me endorse Nixon so that way I have I can have influence on him. And you know, I mean, their intentions were good, but it's also like, clearly that was just for the other side. 00:26:34 Speaker 1: It was for the photo op of it and got it. 00:26:36 Speaker 3: That's when they label him to uncle Tom right exactly. 00:26:40 Speaker 2: And so Sammy Davis Junior shows up and I'm telling you, that was the most I mean, the way he ate that bullet, like imired him for it. 00:26:52 Speaker 1: That was the hardest seven minutes to watch. 00:26:54 Speaker 2: He walked on that stage and like the Jackson five just came off and they are losing and everything, and so you know, and then I remember that and he's like he let it calm down, and then he and he's and then he's sing the most defiant version of I Gotta be Me. 00:27:09 Speaker 1: And it kind of went from this. 00:27:13 Speaker 2: To this too, like he he really sold it. But yeah, Saving Children was It was on Motown, so that's yeah, it was. It was a great live. 00:27:22 Speaker 4: Record, I would say, Saving Children Michael Jackson thriller album and a two way tie self titled earth Wind and Fire album, Okay, And I wasn't supposed to be listening to it, but Prince Purple ring, I would think I was just drawn to to the movie, to the film, to the like you know. 00:27:42 Speaker 3: It was there were things that they were. 00:27:44 Speaker 4: Going on that what I was seeing as a child, that I could identify to you know, that that he was going through as you know. 00:27:51 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just it was just everything to me. 00:27:54 Speaker 2: Like you know, so as far as singers are concerned, who's your north star? Who is the singer for which you I want to know the moment that it was like the calling of this is what I want to do? 00:28:07 Speaker 4: Three way time Marvin Princeton and Michael Jackson right around at nineteen eighty four eighty five, Yeah, you know what I mean, Like I remember seeing the Award Show and just like definitely Michael and seeing him on when in American Musical. Yeah, and like that's what I got the bug I want to do that, Like I could not remember where I was, what I had on, you know what I mean? 00:28:34 Speaker 3: And that's where I caught the like the bug. 00:28:36 Speaker 1: All right, So this is what I'm curious about. 00:28:38 Speaker 2: So my early friendship with DiAngelo was based on the trauma that we had over Marvin Gay. So you know, before April first of eighty four, I pretty much you know, I lived in a very large record house, and Dad's records was just old people's stuff, and my records was the cool stuff. And so I always looked at Marvin kind of with an eye roll like old people like aunt comes over and start playing the OJ's and Marvin Gay and stuff, and I'm just like And when he passed away, when he was murdered by his dad in eighty four, I mean, one of that gave me nightmare effects because I'm twelve at the time, and I'm trying to wrestle with the fact that, like, wait, your. 00:29:25 Speaker 1: Father's allowed to kill you? Like I didn't learn about that part. 00:29:28 Speaker 2: I was heartbroken. 00:29:30 Speaker 3: I remember that. I remember it distinctly. 00:29:32 Speaker 1: I want no, no, no, no, but go ahead. 00:29:33 Speaker 2: But I want to know what was it about, because when I finally came to Marvin, there was a lot of fear there, you know. And how did you come to Marvin, Like was there any fear or knowledge of like what happened to his life or. 00:29:49 Speaker 4: Oh absolutely again, parallel things that I saw, you know, one degree separation in my family that I've experienced as an adult now, you know, from childhood into adulthood. 00:30:03 Speaker 3: But I just revered them. I like, I thought it was just so brilliant how. 00:30:07 Speaker 4: He could go from the from the bedroom to you know, speaking as a you know, social activist, you know, musically, I was drawn to him. I was drawing to Bob Miley for the same reason, you know, knowing that he started out as a top forty artist and then transitioning into strictly socially conscious music. It's something earlier in my career that I just proud of myself in doing and saying that that's what I would I had to do that, you know. I remember the night that Marvin Gaye passed. I remember the night that melvill Linzy like announced it. I remember being heartbroken. I remember that defect the Red Fiat that I rode in with my mother. We were just leaving the movie theaters. I can't remember what we saw, but coming out of the movie it was it was it. 00:30:47 Speaker 1: Was an eerie night. 00:30:48 Speaker 4: It had rained, had just finished raining, so there was a light rain and it was just like hearing Melvilenzi say it on the airwaves, like I'll never forget it like you know, and during COVID kind of giving you an exclusive here me. During COVID, me and Kenny Dope Cazales came up with the craziest idea to remake the entire to remake an entire Marvin Gaye album, which which will be coming out. 00:31:19 Speaker 3: I want to say, we. 00:31:21 Speaker 4: Have remade an entire Marvin Gaye album. I sang all the vocals over. And this was during COVID, So this was my first time. So imagine COVID going on and then taking your first ride to the studio and being outside and getting gas. 00:31:36 Speaker 3: And like being living. 00:31:39 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, like you know, being super annoyed about what you're touching, and then going and being around like shit down and other human people, like a cough is like a gun. Yeah, I remember, this is like a uzzi. Like my first interaction and hugging. So I hugged someone and then being like it was intense, you know what I mean. Shout out to Raquel rob Brown that you know we we she came to the studio and it was like we're not supposed to hug, right, but I remember like a freedom in doing that, right and and yes, over the course of a few days. It was deep man to remake these records and to because you know, we didn't have all the masters. You know, we didn't have everything's not split up, you know, but you know, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of masters and things floating around out there there. So so Kenny gave me what he had access to and then the master master. Yeah, and then I had to do all of these things. I had to do this shiit off the ear, you know what I mean. And in that process of recording it, it was like wow, like I felt like I said, I would never say this publicly, but I felt like it was left behind for me to do it. 00:32:51 Speaker 1: Like in the moment, it was like really like like eerie, you know, what did you learn about that process? 00:32:57 Speaker 2: So even even in listening to some of the reels that I got probably the best example. I don't know if you have access to any of the Hear My Dear reels, but you know, we acknowledge that Marvin's like the well the someone will say the background master. I will actually say he's the master at hiding plaining sight. Oh absolutely. And when you listen to if you ever get a chance to hear Sparrow. 00:33:29 Speaker 1: A cappella. 00:33:31 Speaker 4: Once you take the music away, I'm like, wait, this clashes. But he is a very unique way his time. His timing is crazy. Yeah, it's correct. Like his timing was crazy, Like I have no formal training, right, and I remember I did. It was a record I did in particular with Frederico from DC I want Butcher of Frederico's last name, but it's this record we did called Never Never Land right ever And he says to me, like, yo, how did you do what you did on this record? The way he was explaining it was like scientifically or like musically as it relates to like musical theory, it ain't supposed to be able to be done or feel like the way it feels. Like the timing and just like my choice of where I laid the vocal and what I heard over top of it, And I thought I was the ship until I set out to remake these songs and like start listening to the timing and wanting to honor still making it mine, you know what I mean, and breathing life into it right in hopes that you know it'll be received. How that was received, But it just man the timing and then the relevancy more importantly of where they've been, meaning you know, our parents and our grandparents and where we y are now and at the stage we were when I we made these songs, you know, at the stage of where we were when I set out to do my version of a uh you know, of a socially conscious record, and you know, like like bulletproof, you know, and how I fought for that. 00:35:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:35:15 Speaker 4: I think that there are certain things that there are certain records that are out there that shouldn't be touched. And then I think that there's certain things that are like left behind for us to make sure that we breathe life into them so that it's never a race from history. 00:35:28 Speaker 1: When do you think the project will be finished? 00:35:31 Speaker 4: The project is finished the right time. It's going to be coming out on bbe okay and I'm in it talks about some visual stuff with Cootie and cheek, you know what I mean. 00:35:42 Speaker 1: So, what was the. 00:35:55 Speaker 2: Journey that led to you getting a record deal on Jive? Like getting inside the system. 00:36:01 Speaker 3: I always wanted to be a artist, you know. 00:36:05 Speaker 4: I always found myself wanting to be part of things, right, So I did different groups and things that was part of they swing. 00:36:12 Speaker 3: All in the Mind was the first group. 00:36:15 Speaker 4: All in the Mind was the first group that was kind of formed out of like comp and State University. So we're taking you back to like nineteen ninety three and like going to Coppin and ninety three summer. 00:36:27 Speaker 1: Of ninety three. Where'd you go to high school? 00:36:28 Speaker 3: I went to High Point in Beltsville, Maryland. 00:36:30 Speaker 2: You're the first DC person that I know with talent that didn't say Duke Ellington, Oh wow, yeah, did you want to go there? 00:36:37 Speaker 1: Or like, were you pursuing music in high school? 00:36:40 Speaker 3: I totally didn't. 00:36:41 Speaker 1: Wait, you didn't have what did you realize we had a voice? I was. 00:36:44 Speaker 4: I realized I had a voice in the elementary school. But I was just you know, there was ever things going on. Life was life, and I was very shy, you know, stand offish, and I mean, of course like once I'm like, man, if I know what I know now, and I would been singing in high school. So no church, no little church background, but definitely had the voice. I remember I remember distinctly being sixth grade, Calventon Elementary. Don't remember the music teacher's name, but we were having one on one she was going up the scales, and she just was like, Yo, your voice, you're special. 00:37:19 Speaker 1: You're gonna do something one day. But did your family know you other voice? 00:37:24 Speaker 4: Nah? When I when I when I told my dad and my mom, you know, first year of college that I'm dropping out after three semesters, They was like, you're doing what? 00:37:33 Speaker 3: Like what like you're going to do music? 00:37:35 Speaker 2: You know? 00:37:35 Speaker 1: Do we have the same story, Like you're gonna do what? 00:37:38 Speaker 4: I mean, it was a whole thing, Like I couldn't you know, it was a whole thing, dude. I retreated to grandma's. Grandma, Yeah, Grandma's gonna God blessed her soul. But that you know, I didn't. And I slept on some couches too, because you know, I grew Grandma's you know what I mean? 00:37:56 Speaker 1: You know this audience knews. 00:37:58 Speaker 2: The inside joke is my dad didn't know about the Roots until our second album. 00:38:02 Speaker 1: Wow do you want more? Because look, my dad was like a singer. I think we've had the same Yeah. 00:38:09 Speaker 2: Man, it's crazy that we're just chopping it up now after like being in circles. 00:38:14 Speaker 4: But so I drop out in the process of like being there for three years. I befriend people in because I was going to Coppon State. So I'm in Baltimore City, so I'm in the war working baker. I'm like spending time like a couple of blocks down from the school, and had a buddy that wrapped and we would we had to make shift studio. 00:38:33 Speaker 3: We're doing the tricks with the. 00:38:35 Speaker 4: Tapes and just all the things that drop out. 00:38:40 Speaker 3: Moved back to Grandma's in Hyattsville. 00:38:43 Speaker 4: Always was a kid though in high school that would read the credits and stuff. 00:38:48 Speaker 3: So I'm singing around the house and that type of thing. 00:38:51 Speaker 4: So I'm a huge fan of Chuckie Thompson, like I like, and then when I found out he was from DC, I'm like, I gotta, I gotta. I got to find him right all right, and ended up infiltrating chuck Life. 00:39:05 Speaker 1: You know. 00:39:05 Speaker 2: There was some girls I used to hang out with that went to Howard University. 00:39:09 Speaker 1: They went, you know, they went to. 00:39:11 Speaker 3: Howard McDonald, right. They had a crib at this time. 00:39:16 Speaker 4: By Dude's album just hits, right, So yeah, yeah, so her album just hits. That's like the whole Like I'm kind of hanging out this crib. One of the girls happens to work as an intern at Chuck Life at Chucky Studio, which he has in Southeast at the time, and I get over there one day and never Guru was there at the time, Young and Google's there kind of you know Tracy Leaves popping Nonchalant early in my you know, songwriting career, and like Nam was one of those people who took an interest in me. 00:39:53 Speaker 3: I used to roll with not like heavy shout out to Nonchalant. 00:39:57 Speaker 4: We just kind of just like we like reached out recently on like social media. But she was just like somebody was just like always in my corner, would pick me up and dropped me off, and she had access to studios, let me come in there and record, and but I was over there where Chucky was at and just like just engulfed myself in that situation. 00:40:18 Speaker 2: How were you trying to enter the game as a songwriter as a singer. 00:40:22 Speaker 4: As a songwriter first to then get in there as the singer, right, gotcha? 00:40:28 Speaker 3: Always part of different little quirky groups and things. 00:40:31 Speaker 4: And then I went to a place called bar Nunne one night, okay, and bar nunn changed my life because that's where I started to go in bar None was our version of Black Lily, but it happened like once a week, okay, right, and bar none. The list was ran by Roquel rob Brown, who's a poet who I reconnected with Sacksville, Philly, and I reconnected with her a few years back and she's, you know, to to say, hey, like you need to do your first album, and you know he's often doing her thing now, right, Yeah, So I do part none. I end up winning this contest. In the process, I've become part of a group called Urban AF thirty one, which was like we put out that was my first official album. It's a project out called The Healing that You Can Find, and then we did a follow up project called The Antidote. I connect with Hilton Felton's son, w Ellington Felton, you know West. Some of us call him dub l. He has many many attributes. We form a group called The Crossroad. So now I'm in like two groups in DC. I'm in the Urban AF thirty one is like DC Wu Tang kind of vibes, but very high level socially conscious. It's like a fusion of like Dad preis Wu Tang and I'm like the only singer and these guys which is some of the members of that group. They went on to be a man shout out to why you Diamond? Yeah is that Yeah? So he's one of the original members of They had their whole crew called the Remains Super Talented man. It's just you know, we didn't have the outlets in the city. Bar None is another place where I met. Two guys pulled up on me one night by the name of keV. 00:42:21 Speaker 1: Brown and Cy Young, legendary keV Brown. 00:42:24 Speaker 4: So keV Brown and so Young put me to the sign and say, hey, we want to take to Philly to meet DJ Jazz Jeff. 00:42:32 Speaker 1: That's tally made. 00:42:33 Speaker 4: And now now, prior to that, I got so englfed in the open mic scene. I would do none on Monday nights. I would do warm Wednesdays in Baltimore. And then I found out about Black Lily, so I'd come to Black Lily because I feel like Black Lily was like once a month or I could only get out there. 00:42:48 Speaker 3: Once a month. 00:42:49 Speaker 2: No, we were weekly, but it was something that was it was like, well, there was a New York one and a Philly one. I was coming to the Philly one at the five Spot. 00:42:57 Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was just like, oh man, it was like, hey, okay, so let me I want your perspective this all right. 00:43:04 Speaker 1: This is you're saying this, yes. 00:43:06 Speaker 2: Because for me this two Faces of Black Lily pre things fall apart Black Lily, which was basically in my crib. 00:43:15 Speaker 1: And yeah, pretty much every one in that room eventually got a record record deal. Like you know, Jasmine was like, yeah, nine years old. Hell's this nine year old game my crib. 00:43:24 Speaker 2: And you know, by the time Malik started bringing beans in them around like my bucks, burning beadies on my couch and whatever, and beer on the floor whatever, Like I was like. 00:43:34 Speaker 1: Get out. 00:43:34 Speaker 2: So then that's how once it came to the five spot, we had to go on tour and just basically fund it. 00:43:44 Speaker 1: But occasionally if we're home. 00:43:46 Speaker 2: Or whatever, play a song or two whatever, just to you know, keep up appearances. But I mean, for the outsider coming in, is this like a game of double Dutch in which you're trying to figure out it was like game with Thrones? 00:44:02 Speaker 1: Okay, tell me it was. Everything was cutthroat. 00:44:05 Speaker 2: Oh man. 00:44:06 Speaker 4: It was just like, first of all, it's very intimidating to be out of your element, right, I'm like jumping on the Amtrak hiding in the restroom to get. 00:44:17 Speaker 1: Everyone, hides in the restaurant. 00:44:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean ship man, That's how he did it. You know, you did what you had to do. And then you know, finding my you know, I'm in I'm out of my element. I'm in Philadelphia, like you know what I mean. But I found the spot. This is a nostalgic spot. Then the getting in and then and just the vibe. But like I think I might have got on the mic once or twice, but it would be like at the end people walking now like like who are you? Like? But it was, oh, every time I went, it was like something nostalgic happening. And it was like and then and then if you're lucky you come. I come on a night like you're there, or like some of the guys from the band are actually there, or like I remember hearing Jasmine there for the first time. I want to say, like she was like how did she even get in the club? 00:45:04 Speaker 2: She used to sleep in the back of the car with her dad, and it's time for her to do her three songs? 00:45:11 Speaker 3: And yeah, and then like how does how does this? Who is this little girl? 00:45:14 Speaker 4: And how would she who ends up being my label mate later on Jive Records, and like, you know, I knew her mom, her first manager. 00:45:23 Speaker 2: It was just dope. 00:45:24 Speaker 4: Like I remember seeing Kendrick there for the first time. It was a lot of talent man and you know, again, I was one of those guys that was like reading the credits. I was a Roots fan anyway, so I'm like it was it was a vibe, you know, so when you're there, are you like, who do I connect with to get to the next time. 00:45:42 Speaker 3: I'm totally just trying to figure it out. 00:45:44 Speaker 2: It was a it was a meat market because literally, once it really started to catch on, like it started getting ridiculous where like one night, like Janet would come with her musical director, Yeah, and then we come back the next week and like, oh, seven musicians aren't here, and then someone else comes, yeah, and they take three musicians yeah, Mary J. Block Like literally started becoming like almost a market. 00:46:07 Speaker 4: So what ended up happening was because I had the Urban AF thing, Urban AF thirty one thing going on that started to kind of like really start thanks to d Chase and started get popping and move around doing colleges, and my end for Philly was Jen Bragg and what's the brother her part They to do a lot of parties. It was Jen and uh ah man, forgive me forgiving a name. That's where I started to kind of like learn like. 00:46:34 Speaker 1: Philly, you know what I mean. And because actually I thought you were from Philly. 00:46:38 Speaker 2: Nah. 00:46:39 Speaker 4: I was going to Philly and Baltimore. And like I said, I was doing that circuit so much Monday's bar none Wednesdays Wednesdays in Baltimore and Philly that people started to think that I was from Philly. People thought that I lived in Baltimore. But when I met keV Brown and Cy Young that night and they took me to Jeff Morpheus, Jeff Morpheus Professor X, you know, like that's. 00:47:05 Speaker 1: Where it all opened up, you know what I mean. 00:47:07 Speaker 4: That's where he had the studio for Fourth Street and you know all the rooms going. That's where I met Eric Roberson for the first time. You know, he has this story he tells where he feels like I was writing the songs with the two pins, but I didn't use a pen. 00:47:22 Speaker 3: I was just doing everything off the brain, and. 00:47:24 Speaker 2: It was just it was like a kid. 00:47:25 Speaker 4: It's just a kid in a candy store, you know, at that point, I haven't physically sat down and written a song pinned the paper in a very in decades. 00:47:33 Speaker 2: That's literally was my next question. I was like, what is your songwriting process? Yeah, it's just to sit there and channel with it. 00:47:39 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's improvisational, like I sit there and it's having a great engineer, you know, shout out the face. 00:47:45 Speaker 1: You know. 00:47:45 Speaker 4: I prefer to like record one place or you know, or I've grown into the understanding like the vibe is in you. You should be able to you know, if you have people that are there in the room that are professional and know what to do, the vibe is in you. So I'll meet an engineer in LA and like insane, Okay, like I'm he reminds me of my engineer, and we'll lock in and then when I need to do things in LA, I'm known for doing recording after concerts and going to the studio and. 00:48:10 Speaker 1: And vibing out right. 00:48:12 Speaker 4: And but yeah, my process is very improvisational. I would describe it as like a you know, it's like a download. You know, it doesn't necessarily come I've heard Al Green, I think describe it the same way, where it doesn't come from me. But through me, and I just I honor it. To borrow a quote from Eric robertson, you know, I know that every time I write a song, I know that God is real. 00:48:37 Speaker 3: Is this, you know, the Creator is as a real. 00:48:40 Speaker 4: Thing, and it makes you really want to respect the gift even more so to make sure that you use it for the right reasons. 00:48:47 Speaker 1: You know. 00:48:48 Speaker 2: So there's a real I forget what song that Stevie Wonder is doing, but because he doesn't traditionally write lyrics down or whatever, usually when he's tracking, so you listen to like some of those reels or whatever, he'll get to the end of the song and then it's always like, oh garyl keep the tape rolling, and he'll just sit there and he'll be on the roads, and then suddenly you'll hear things like. 00:49:19 Speaker 1: You got it, you got that real quick. 00:49:22 Speaker 3: Another one comes to me. 00:49:24 Speaker 2: You always hear like a sparkling like keep the tape on, I got an idea like it's But I admire that process more than anything because and I do think that writing on the spot is probably the most honest way to channel what you feel. So you'll say that eighty ninety percent of the time it's yeah, ninety nine percent. 00:49:49 Speaker 4: You know, there's records where different stages of my career with somebody delivered me a record like a neo record and that you know that I love and traditional. Yeah, I'm like, I want to cut this, you know, I mean right, but and even then, like you know, they're not there, so I got to do it off the ear and and and figure it out. 00:50:08 Speaker 2: That said, because I think anyone else would have just chosen the number ten. How hard was it to construct the twenty. 00:50:17 Speaker 1: Lessons of Love? Then? 00:50:19 Speaker 2: What in terms of well, I mean, because the thing is is that you're giving twenty lessons of love. But oh, it was just a concept thing. 00:50:28 Speaker 4: So twenty Lessons of Love came about, you know, shout out to my business partner, Tone Walters back and forth talking and you. 00:50:36 Speaker 1: Know, I know too in a long time, you know. 00:50:38 Speaker 4: He Groove Gumbo is where we first like met, right, and we were bouncing ideas for the tour, and he said at this point, I'm like, you know, I'm at a stage in my life where I like input and I've realized you can't do it all and figure out everything, right, So he's like, yo, twenty lessons of love and I was like, yo, I love that because you know, he was coming off the twenty year anniversary of The Love Experience. Yes, and I said, the only thing is missing is not it's not there's no record. 00:51:03 Speaker 1: I got to do that. 00:51:04 Speaker 3: That's an ill record right there, you know. And that's how it happens. 00:51:07 Speaker 4: Once that right one thing, Now, Nah, once that happens, I'm a hell been on getting it done. So I immediately called my man KP from the colleagues, who's in Atlanta, and said, Hey, I wanted to feel like this, you know, I want to honor I feel like the nineties for R and B was the best, one of the best errors ever. Maybe it's just because that's where I you know, I feel like that birthed me, It raised me, you know, so many ways, right, And I told him what I wanted it to feel like, and he sent me the track. And you know, we communicate well together musically, so he sends me the track, and like once he sent it, I went to the studio and just like it just it really came out. I probably cut that record in like three four hours and then like revisited, you know what I mean, And then I'll be on to the next thing, or you know, I'm definitely in a space of like being a perfectionist at what I do now, where you know, I can walk away from it and go back to it and hear it, and you know, try different things, and you know, ask myself what's missing or what's too much? 00:52:05 Speaker 1: Right? Great? 00:52:06 Speaker 2: Good at editing, Oh yeah for sure, Yeah that's what where I'm weak. 00:52:10 Speaker 1: I got to have everything but the kitchen sinking. 00:52:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, you're so dense, yeah yeah, yeah, so so so and just you know, and just understanding sound and where I am as where I've grown and continue to grow as a vocalist and as a writer. But even like back when I really started locking in with Jeff before the deal at Jive, I just realized that how important time is, and it's nothing. There's no worse feeling than being an artist and wanting to be in the studio and knowing you have to leave because your time is up. 00:52:42 Speaker 3: Right, you know what I mean? Like that right there? 00:52:45 Speaker 4: So I always told myself and have myself had it in my mind that like whenever the opportunity presents itself, that doesn't have to be like that, that I'll just be in there as much as I want, you know, so by the time, you know, when I got to deal with Job Records back in two thousand and you're like, I. 00:53:01 Speaker 1: Did that right. 00:53:01 Speaker 3: I'm just finishing answering your question when I got. 00:53:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know. 00:53:06 Speaker 4: So when I got the deal back in two thousand and two, I had so much going on Urban after thirty one, the Crossroads with West Felton. At that stage, the Magnificent had already came out from meeting Jazzy Jeff, I met Kenny and Louis for the first time. We were working on V's album at the time. 00:53:25 Speaker 1: You know what I mean. 00:53:26 Speaker 4: Jeff sent me out on a mission to go work with Kenny to write a record for V. It was like a house record that I did and went to just make, you know, just kind of produce the vocal on it. And then I'm like working with V and I'm like, man, he don't need me to do nothing. 00:53:40 Speaker 1: Is just dope, right. 00:53:43 Speaker 2: And Kenny, that's my big bro, Like we got what was it like working with Kenny. He's so legendary. 00:53:49 Speaker 4: Kenny and his guys at the time diego with them. Kenny was the first person to show me my worth and value. Okay, as an artist and where I went to go. You know, I went out there to go do the thing that Jeff sent me out there to do. And then he was like blown away and was just like, yo, yo, you just did that at the top of your head and da da da da, and he was like yo. He pulled up some stuff and was like, yo, can you I think it was kind of like let me see what you do with this. 00:54:19 Speaker 3: And it was like oh, and I was like boom, and I was like you got another one? 00:54:23 Speaker 2: And then you know what I mean. 00:54:24 Speaker 4: And then we started it and I started to go back and forth and do things. And the first the thing I did for him I came up with it was but he was like, yo, how much you need for this or whatever? And I probably was like give me like two three hundred or whatever. And Kenny was like nah be he was like and he set me down and the like, I feel like he was the first one, one of the first to it was like three maybe three. 00:54:52 Speaker 1: Four five bands. 00:54:54 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. 00:54:54 Speaker 4: I ain't never seen that, and I ain't never had nobody like sit me down and like and it wasn't like I'm giving you three four bands and I'm finna take advantage of you or hey, along with just three four bands, I need you to sign this paperwork right here, and they taking half of your publishing. And just like it was, it was just never no weird business. It was just like big homie brotherhood love and the same thing with Jeff, you know what I mean? 00:55:16 Speaker 1: And why got all this going on? 00:55:18 Speaker 4: I still got managers down and I have already been on the road and left and quit from working with genuine. Genuine was my first introduction to the industry in terms of superstar status, like and this. 00:55:35 Speaker 1: Is a songwriting with them or singing background, singing. 00:55:37 Speaker 4: Background, okay, you know which he had this? I met Cliff and Jerry. So because I was still in DC and I still was doing things, I still was working on wanting to be that independent artist. But there's all these part of different things. I just had multiple things going on. 00:55:53 Speaker 2: So what was that like in your version of twenty Feet from Stardoms? So do you learn? 00:55:57 Speaker 4: So I got these managers, is in my ear who who I'm loyal to at this point? And they and they you know, and they're actively shopping a record deal for me with these records that I've done with Jeff Right Records, I've done with them right stuff I've done with Kenny Right. But they're also kind of like probably on pins and needles because they've had other artists that they've worked with who are not loyal, Like I. 00:56:23 Speaker 2: Am gotcha, you know what I mean. 00:56:24 Speaker 4: So I'm going, I'm going like so I think I'm probably you know, maybe every time I go to Philly out of New York, they don't know if I'm going to you know, it gets a little convoluted. 00:56:33 Speaker 1: I got all this going on. 00:56:35 Speaker 4: And what are you doing with the you know, you're doing the head wrap stuff? It's the Urban A thirty one and you know heving help us all. 00:56:44 Speaker 2: And you know, for us it's always the backpack versus ya in commercial so. 00:56:49 Speaker 4: And my thing it's like I do it, and my thing is like I do it all. You know, I had to figure it out. 00:56:53 Speaker 2: You know, are they looking down on head wrapping? Like I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna say they're looking down on it. 00:56:58 Speaker 4: It's just like it's that era where that's where you know, I think me and West with the Crossroads was made us so unique is that you know we would come up with different turn jiggy conscious or you know what I mean. It's like, you know what I'm like, Why can't I have my v's on and my you know, my role like that my mama gave me. 00:57:19 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. 00:57:20 Speaker 4: Why can't I have a love for R and B the same way that I do for soul music right or rock? And you know when you listen to my first album, it's a fusion of a lot of different things. 00:57:31 Speaker 3: It's kind of fast forwarding. 00:57:32 Speaker 4: I knew that the love experience could be received a lot of different ways and it could be confusing. And that's where really the R and B Hippie Do Soul rock Star title came from. And they when people I came up with that because I knew that if I couldn't explain it or formulated into words, and I didn't just want to be like neo soul like I knew where that came from. And it was nothing wrong with that, right, but I knew that that was like I come from an era of like and grew up like where you don't bite somebody's titles or you know what I'm saying phrases you know or sound right. So I feel like there was a time period with that started. I'm not gonna say who I feel like started that, but. 00:58:15 Speaker 3: It was that was it, But it was. 00:58:18 Speaker 4: And I sample things too, So I love sampling, right, But there's nothing more dope and original than like original music, gotcha right? And I was drawn to both, right, So I figured out a way to diffuse it too. So being on the road with like Genuine, which is more like a conventional R and B but also futuristic. You gotta remember G's first two three albums like he was part of He was part of a movement that changed music sonically. That don't happen every day, right, that don't happen every decade. Yeah, you know what I mean. So like that whole Missy player, you know what I mean. So I was getting I was in the best of worlds because I get to be kind of like underneath that experience that and sing the songs that you know that I loved singing, and you know that I was. 00:59:10 Speaker 3: I was a genu Wine fan when I got the gig, you know. 00:59:13 Speaker 4: And you know, he don't get the credit and the roses and his prom and I think he was like, yeah, all the all them cats was like wanted to beg or if they never said it or whatever, but like before there was a Chris Brown, before there was you know, and and while there was this they were like, but G was like that guy, like I was. I was there before differences, I was there after. I was there you know when before he met so late after like on tour with him with Janet Jackson and Backstreet Boys and in sync, Like what's bigger at the time? 00:59:43 Speaker 1: What was that like? 00:59:44 Speaker 3: Oh, it was crazy. 00:59:46 Speaker 4: It was crazy, like it was it was It was like it let me know that I had to quit because I could. I had to make a decision because I would you know, people give their lives to artists, you know what I mean, Like, you know a lot of times we don't look at the fact that the people who helped be helped shape it right. And so although I enjoyed that and I loved that, I remember distinctly like the last gig I did was in Vegas, and I made a decision on that ride back that like I wanted to be, I wanted more. I knew that it was out there was something out there, There was a driving force still was out there for me. 01:00:20 Speaker 1: A lot of people would get stuck. We comforted living and. 01:00:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was actively, you know, always coming back and forth to New York and doing showcases and things like that, and Cliff Jones Jerry Vonn shout out to Cliff and Jerry Cliff was shopping songs and shopping artists. 01:00:37 Speaker 3: He went into Job Records to shop. 01:00:39 Speaker 4: A totally different artist that he was hell bent on getting in the record deal for and played a couple of my records and they were like, what's that? 01:00:47 Speaker 2: Go back to that, who's that whatever? 01:00:50 Speaker 4: And then you know, they started doing their homework and I had a buzz and we got They said they wanted me to come to Jive Records to do a showcase, which was supposed to be for fifteen minutes and it ended up being like an hour and a half that I performed and yikes, they were, you know, this is this is like this is right after like the whole r Kelly and the Olympics and the tape and you know what I mean, And this is kind of the kind of like everybody's wasn't there but everybody Pete at THEIA Parry might have. 01:01:22 Speaker 2: But no, no, no, I mean physically there was He's still it was oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. 01:01:27 Speaker 4: So I remember feeling like though in the process, you know, Jeff, this was Jeff's old label though, right, and I feel like I was concerned about it, like sucking up the relationship, you know what I'm saying. 01:01:37 Speaker 3: I had a lot of respect for him. 01:01:39 Speaker 4: He told me to What I don't think he knew was that he had equipped me for to kind of go in there to know what I needed to do. So I already knew I was going to be there for a good time, not a long time, gotcha, right, And you know high Sight twenty twenty, I was, you know, I was only I did my first deal in two thousand and two. The album came out in two thousand and five. That right there, that three year span showed me everything I needed to see to know. Okay, because you get the deal and then you get in the building and then you realize, like, oh then it starts. This is just the this is just the start. 01:02:25 Speaker 2: Once you knew you were getting a deal, how long was it before you realized, Okay, now this ship is real. Because there was a point where for us, you know, we got our advanced and started acting. 01:02:38 Speaker 3: It was real when I got the advance. 01:02:39 Speaker 4: But I got the advanced, and I ain't tell nobody first move I made. Somebody put me on the Tarry Reid hmm. And I got with Terry Read and I put the money up or whatever. But then, but what I would do, though, is I would always go to the like I was. I had that club, like going to the club, and like I started and started to deal with trying to dibble and dabbling bottle service and how fast were you broken? Oh man, nah, it ain't get not because I did have some put up over there with Terry, like it ain't you know what I mean. Like I was able to hold on to what I got for the you know, a couple of years. But it was just it was, you know, I had a I had a little green camera ninety six camera that I bought. I didn't like, I didn't realize, like you know, back then, I really had to. I had a financial literacy, so I didn't know about you know, the taxes and all like you know, and or to get the car, like I remember Cliff and Jerry telling me like man, you gotta you gotta you can't be riding around here and that you gotta look you gotta look the part, you know what I'm saying. And that's when I went and got like a truck, like we got my avalanche. But like that three year span out went through two mergers and one selling of the company, you know what I mean. So just just that boom that happens right after I do the deal. 01:03:53 Speaker 3: So you don't even know. 01:03:54 Speaker 4: So you hear the whispers, but you don't know if you're. 01:03:57 Speaker 3: Gonna even stay, you know what I'm saying. 01:03:59 Speaker 4: And if you got to management or teams like keeping it funky with you, they gonna let you know, so they which they did, you know, and they let me know and then and then and then they had a split, you know, the managers had to split and not like right after you know what I mean, Like I had to just choose a side. I had to pick a side that which which I had never been in that situation before things, you know, learning about loyalty, you know, being paranoid about the money and not at how it can change you or change the people around you. 01:04:28 Speaker 3: It was like bet on you. 01:04:29 Speaker 4: And that's you know, that's where I started doing the mixtapes, you know what I mean. And I was the first you know, the first singer soul, R and B singer to make to make to make mixtapes. And I did that because of that's coming back and forth in New York seeing what fifty was doing with g Unit, right, and that's where I got the whole blueprint, watching fifty with g Unit and watching Mike Jones, and I had, you know, and the mixtapes with is what you know and getting them out to the DJs, and then got the burner and burning and burning the tapes and selling them out the trunk and out the north face and the winter and going in the club. 01:05:07 Speaker 3: It was a period of time. I go in the club and like you. 01:05:10 Speaker 4: Got Gilbert's arenas by getting a couple and throwing me a stack. 01:05:14 Speaker 3: Real quick, you got you know what I mean. 01:05:15 Speaker 4: I leave the club with like like a dope man, like the dope man with you know, five six, you know, thousand dollars like and not in in a half an hour, I just posts up at the bar and you got that value one, you got that value two. I didn't realize what I was doing at the time, but I was creating my own destiny. I was creating an ownership. I was doing album I was doing Street Team promo. I didn't realize that, you know, I was providing. It was like, you know, merch in its own cool way. 01:05:41 Speaker 3: But I learned that. 01:05:42 Speaker 4: I mean, I learned that from like bar None and and like my guy Wes Felton, you know what I mean, and seeing him have something that was you know, I realized early I'm doing open mics. People want to take you home with them. Have something that that people can that's tangible. 01:05:58 Speaker 2: So that lead me to like at the time when I was on a major, like I would have nightmares about us getting dropped and no, I'm not going back on to my mama, you know that whole thing, which I'll say that a lot of that sort of just the fear of getting dropped back when you just have one thing to do, which you know, now I have options, So like I'm now creating from my heart and not from out of fear. How liberating did it feel or how frightening was it once you were without the backing of a major and now you're deciding I'm gonna do this on my own as an independent. 01:06:41 Speaker 3: That started in twenty ten, and it was cool. It was never no fear factor. 01:06:46 Speaker 4: It was the fact that I already at that stage, I already knew I had built something. I had already built something prior to getting signed a job. 01:06:53 Speaker 1: Yay, like you know what I mean? 01:06:54 Speaker 4: So you know I mean, I guess that's why I worked the way that I work now. I never want to go back to that that fear, like it's still lingers, like you know what I mean, especially if you don't have like the financial literacy and to know, you know, it's one thing to make the money, it's another thing to know how to you know, be able to touch it when you need it. And then you know, wise manager once told me, when you make the decision based upon money, you're going to always make the wrong decision typically you know you know so. But yeah, I feel like at that point I had the matrix figured out. 01:07:28 Speaker 3: I got out of my deal. I didn't get dropped. 01:07:29 Speaker 4: I got out of the deal because they didn't want to honor the next period that I would have been going into, which would have been a seven figure period. 01:07:36 Speaker 1: You know, if you. 01:07:37 Speaker 4: Talk about the advance and then the promo budget and the album budget and all the things. And I distinctly remember Peter Thea sitting me down and saying like, hey, like, we're not selling the records we used to sell it anymore. 01:07:50 Speaker 1: If we got our. 01:07:51 Speaker 4: Hands on you five years prior to when we did, you would be huge. You would be a household name more than what you are now, Like you would be huge. But the reality is people aren't being by records like they used to. 01:08:07 Speaker 3: The business model is changing. 01:08:09 Speaker 4: I know we're supposed to do give you this, and do this, but did you think you could do an album three hundred thousand And I'm sitting across from them, like absolutely I could do that. You know, I probably just might do the whole album for twenty bands fifty bands, and then use a portion of it to get the radio record going and you know what I mean, and all the things. But it was like, nah, I want which I was supposed to give me though, right, like right, And it was just that thing like, well, we can't do that, so we'll give you to December thirty first, two. 01:08:41 Speaker 3: Thousand and nine to this side. 01:08:44 Speaker 4: But I think I told them, like, I'll give you to the side and if it don't play out, then I'll go my separate weight. 01:08:51 Speaker 3: I mean, they gave me a release and then you know what I. 01:08:53 Speaker 4: Mean, and I think the biggest lesson in that was not being prepared and not having a plan, like, well, what's gonna be my plan? 01:08:59 Speaker 3: So I kind of like dormant for three years. 01:09:03 Speaker 4: I started doing what was a podcast before it was called the podcast where I did the Raheem Devan Show every Sunday and that like blew up. But the business wasn't right on that and in terms of the monetization of it for me. But I sat down with everybody from Kendrick Lamar to t I, the Bony James too, you know, Marsha came through Spike Lee. I mean like it was, it was. It was an incredible time. And so now when I see like the podcasting and I'm like, wow, man, I was I've been a blueprint for a lot. 01:09:36 Speaker 3: I didn't understand it. It didn't click. 01:09:38 Speaker 4: Until after I left one of those Jazzy Jeff Secret retreats. Yes, one of the playlists, Yes, one of I was like an early playlist attender, and he has me on this my trailer that was staying in in my trailers. Dj Z Trip, yeah, the cat who started GoPro and dj Eddie. Oh you know how Jeff like labels names that I should said the blueprint nice, but I didn't. It ain't clicked to like years later, like right, and I started thinking about like the innovative stuff that i've you know, done or been part of, you know what I mean, from being you know, doing the mixtapes or you know, to having a podcast before the podcast, you know, from twenty ten to twenty thirteen. But I needed that time to grow, to learn to you know, end up, you know, changing management. You know, we all grew the relationship, but were still the best of friends and do business. You know, I can put them on the business moves now, they can put me on the business moves now, but I never stopped. 01:10:41 Speaker 2: What's the process now? Okay, so if you're as an independent, yeah, what are. 01:10:48 Speaker 1: The new rules? 01:10:50 Speaker 2: What's the new lay of the land as far as knowing how to successfully roll out? You know, the thing was, for a long time, I still thought you were on a major because, like you one of these video of rollouts you had was was crazy and I was just like damn, like I'm want a major and they're not even rolling out like this. 01:11:11 Speaker 1: Maybe you were just in my algorithm like crazy. 01:11:14 Speaker 3: What's the rules? The first rule is you gotta be prepared to spend your own bread. 01:11:19 Speaker 4: You gotta you know what I mean, yourself. You gotta bet on yourself. You gotta you know, know not. You gotta be self contained. You gotta be able to spend your own bread, you know, and and and then and allow of times to do that. As an independent artist, you you may find yourself and you have to be uncomfortable in other areas. You gotta have to sacrifice in other areas. 01:11:38 Speaker 1: You know. 01:11:39 Speaker 4: As an ending, you can hire the same team that the major's higher. It ain't, but there's so many people that they can use for you know, radio promotion, it's not so many. 01:11:49 Speaker 1: It's radio still priority to you now. 01:11:51 Speaker 4: Absolutely radio still pays the biggest payout. Radio is relevant. Who cares about radio Live Nation? No, who cares about radio Black Promoter Collective. And I know this because that's where they where they're going to go to do the advertisement for the show you ain't popping on the radio and they got an ad running for you the radio for people to come see you, like, who's going to come? 01:12:14 Speaker 1: Who? You know? 01:12:14 Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Now, do you need radio to create a movement? Absolutely not can be you can be. 01:12:21 Speaker 1: You know, if you. 01:12:22 Speaker 4: Look at one of our hometown heroes, Brent Fires for example, right, who's from PG County, Right, huge fan of what he's done with his movement. If you look at like an artist like logic, who I discovered by the way, and drop the ball on that right? 01:12:39 Speaker 1: Wait what I was about? Seriously? 01:12:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, explain previous manager still big homie. Jerry Vons reaches out. Well, actually, Jerry and my previous partner Dreda Mayor. You know, I had a label at one point three since say music group say, oh we got this kid, and you know at the time, we didn't know he was you know, he's a black wizard. Yeah, it was a wizard, right right, And and so they're like, we got this white boy we want you to meet. And I instantly fell in love with him as an artist, like he reminded of me. 01:13:14 Speaker 3: He reminded me. 01:13:14 Speaker 4: Of me so much, like like his passion for it, his hunger for it, his humility, you know, not knowing how dope he he always knew he was dope, but just to see him growing to the confidence. And you know, ultimately we didn't sign him to our label because we had an artist that we you know, we felt like when my partner had an artist that we felt like it was too you know, it was it was in the same space we'd be you know, yeah, and we you know, it wouldn't be fair to our artists, you know what I mean. But I can wholeheartedly say it. It's not the first time I would say it or the last that had we done that, it might not even pad out for him the way it was supposed to play out. It played out how it was supposed to play out for him, and I'm like super proud of him and happy for him, you know. But yeah, I got stories like that for days, you know what I mean of like different you know, hey, can you pull up to the radio station. We got somebody we want you to meet and just kind of like put some words of encouragement on them. Looking back on it, I could have been involved while a you know what I mean, like different things, you know, But again, everybody has their their path and the course to take, you know what I mean. So I've always taken even now, like the big homie approach in terms of like like Jazzy Jeff and what Kenny and them have like you know, taught me and and you know the Cliff Jones and jer like anybody who's ever been like I take the good, the bad, the ugly and and and be able to apply that to you know, that next artist out there that is I want to come up that you know that I repost or they I slide in the DM just to say, hey, you're dope. 01:15:01 Speaker 2: Who is there an artist right now that we might not be aware of that we should be looking out for someone that's bubbling under. 01:15:08 Speaker 1: I mean there's so many. 01:15:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so many. Man, I want to get you in trouble because if you name one, like what did you No? No? 01:15:14 Speaker 1: No? 01:15:15 Speaker 4: I mean of course, like I'm gonna always shout out you know my you know people that I work with in real time. You know like Yasarah, Who's who's on another run right now? 01:15:26 Speaker 2: Grenek? 01:15:27 Speaker 4: You know who put out a project on Grenek. We did a project. Chose the collaborators. When you do like collaborative records, usually like it's friends, man, it's friendships. Its organically happens, you know what I mean. Like I don't really push you know what I mean. Shout to Brendla McKinney in Houston, Neptune twenty one, Who's Crazy Neptune? 01:15:47 Speaker 3: I introduce you to Neptune. 01:15:48 Speaker 4: When we did the rehearsal for oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's Yeah, she's super dope. She currently lives in Philly, but it's originally from you know, from the DC area. Gotcha, it's so many man, Kennedy ryne In who I'm a super fan, you know. Shout to her and her manager, like they get it obviously. You know, I've been following and watching Larrussell for a very long time. I started using even do biz directed Consumer because of Larussell. Okay, right, and you know, yeah, those are the artists. And to bring it full circle, like be willing to spend your own bread, you know, be frugal about it. You're gonna need a team. You know, it's gonna be a lot of You're gonna have to work ten times. It's harder, right, and understand that we are in a director consumer era now, you know what I mean? Like, you know, this is an NFC card right here, like on the back, it's got like the stats and that's that's you. 01:16:40 Speaker 3: By the way, you can do it? Yeah, I was like, oh yeah, you can. 01:16:45 Speaker 4: You tap that to your phone, unlock your phone and just tap it and you can pull up literally and enjoy the entire album. You know, on even die Biz, you know I did. We're approaching like forty thousand mark right now on even Do Big is. You know, the first three weeks of me putting out the album, from three four weeks from February thirteenth into you know, rolling over into the you know, the fourth week, I did over twenty five thousand Director consumer you know, only a little over six hundred fans at the time had supported the platform. When we do our roots album, I know you guys, when we do our roots album Manifest, Yeah, yeah, the Roots featuring Rye. When we do the album, let me just say this man, as a diehard, I'll stand on this ten toes down. The roots are the are the hip hop rolling stones, and we want more music. 01:17:37 Speaker 2: We want more albums. I promise you and. 01:17:41 Speaker 4: You guys would do very well in the director consumer space. You know what I mean, y'all would do very well the director consumer space. Like you know, it's so many things that you can do. You know, I'll give you all this one for free. Just do the album and just put it on vinyl. Do an album where you can only get it on vinyl, like every this should be doing. I'm going to do it. Do it, run with it. Can everybody can do it? Like you know what I mean? 01:18:04 Speaker 2: Like Vinyl is back, take Cassetta back. 01:18:07 Speaker 1: Yes they are. 01:18:08 Speaker 2: They just did it. 01:18:09 Speaker 4: Vinyl just did a billion dollar evaluation this year, like you know what I mean, Like just in Vinyl, like if I never went away though, you know what I mean, I'm just finding I just ordered a batch of heavy you know, CDs as you know, and recently and bought burners and all the things right and disc Makers, which is right there, and what's like right outside Philly. They've been in business for eighty years. I get on the phone and get to talking to the guy on the phone and he's like, yeah, I've been here. 01:18:36 Speaker 1: I've been here. 01:18:37 Speaker 3: He's been there longer than I've been on job, you know, like. 01:18:40 Speaker 2: He's been there before. 01:18:41 Speaker 4: I was with Job Records, right of us, and I said and I said, I said, hey, are you seeing a resurgence? And he was like in CDs and he was like yeah, I said, I'm thinking it's like right now. 01:18:52 Speaker 3: He's like, oh no, it started during COVID. 01:18:55 Speaker 4: We had to literally make space and create another room where we could to be able to do with the supply and demand of. 01:19:01 Speaker 2: CD CD collecting. 01:19:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, CDs are I just yo, it's crazy. 01:19:07 Speaker 4: I just did a show prior to going, you know, last one of the last shows I did. 01:19:12 Speaker 3: It was the last show I did for twenty Lessons of Love tour in Augusta. 01:19:16 Speaker 4: And literally I was the headliner, so I only had like this very small window of time to do meet and greet like literally five to ten minutes, and we did like six hundred dollars in like CDs like that quick. 01:19:32 Speaker 3: And I'm like, ah, man, if we was out. 01:19:34 Speaker 2: Here for a good hour, yep, oh, it'd. 01:19:37 Speaker 4: Been crazy, you know. And cassettes. This project is out right now. Quad Storm lover to may own dm me if you want, I'll send you personally, send you the link all right on Instagram, Uh, Facebook, hit me up. That's that's my version of j Cole being outside, right, Yeah, I'm outside digitally. 01:19:58 Speaker 2: I mean I'm in that. I'm I'm in the DMS. I'm heavy, you know what I mean. Oh, I mean you talked about CDs having a resurgence during COVID twenty twenty was definitely a Mason Dixon line if you will. Yeah, of life lessons, we either that's involved or devaulved. 01:20:27 Speaker 1: What did you learn in twenty twenty? 01:20:29 Speaker 4: That's where director consumer began, right, I learned to stay ready so you don't have to get ready. 01:20:34 Speaker 1: Man. 01:20:34 Speaker 4: I did WRINT parties. I did mortgage parties during you did Good Times WRINT parties. But I did online mortgage parties during COVID, you know what I mean? That was my stage it it was it was a platform called stage it okay, and I found out about Yeah, I would do it. I would literally do a concert on stage it. It still exists agent dot com. 01:20:56 Speaker 2: You can go there. 01:20:56 Speaker 4: You can literally set up in here, put a concert up on stage and set a date. They can pre sell tickets the whole thing and do a concert and you know, be safe and not have to worry about contact. 01:21:12 Speaker 3: That was you know back then, that was the thing. 01:21:14 Speaker 1: The first time you did the rollout, Like what was that? Like? 01:21:17 Speaker 4: I mean, it's always a nervousness of like, is anybody going to like trust the process of this? And then you start seeing people buy tickets and then you know, you do you know I'm in there doing everything myself because it's COVID, so I'm you know, I'm like down to the you know, troubleshooting they got, I got somebody on the phone. I'm doing the whole thing, and then it's a countdown the show's about to start, and then boom and then I'm. 01:21:40 Speaker 3: Like ticking the tracks. 01:21:41 Speaker 4: And I would do that like once a month, and it was like, you know, it's my sanity. 01:21:45 Speaker 1: And are they're giving you live feedback as yeah, you're there. 01:21:47 Speaker 3: In the chat. They can tip. It's a tip, they can tip you. 01:21:51 Speaker 4: So I already bought a ticket, So you got like five hundred people in there who bought a you know ticket for twenty dollars, right, and then they tip you on top of that. 01:21:59 Speaker 2: And then after you. 01:22:01 Speaker 4: Log off the after parties on Instagram and then and I'm playing and I'm playing music, you know, like d Nights, but I'm not I'm not DJing. I'm just I'm just triggering songs. Like I didn't realize that when I was doing you know, mixtape Mondays or Woke Wednesdays or sage and slow jams on a clubhouse before it was public that I was preparing myself to have the number one night time music show, the original choirt story that Melvillnzy used to do. 01:22:28 Speaker 1: That's what I'm leading to. 01:22:29 Speaker 2: What is it like to inherit such a like a landmark institution as the Quiet Storm. 01:22:37 Speaker 4: It's I'm humbly saying this like I didn't feel any pressure, but it is a lot of pressure though, Like it's like I know what's on the line, so I respect it, I honor it. 01:22:49 Speaker 3: I always try to move with authenticity. 01:22:54 Speaker 1: Of what it means. 01:22:56 Speaker 3: Gotcha what it means to the d m V Right. 01:22:59 Speaker 4: I respect what it means because I grew up listening to it. It's the most trippy thing to be able. I mean, I'm sure it was your first day like taking the rings. Oh man, it was just like I cried. I cried when I saw my contract. I had my holy ghost moment in the car, you know. I went to my mama's crib to go listen to it, you know, the first night. And yeah, man, I never take for granted even this moment right here, because I'm a huge roots fan. 01:23:29 Speaker 1: You wouldn't know if you know, you're not specificated. 01:23:32 Speaker 4: And so I remember getting a call one time for my manager that it was almost opportunity where I don't know if it was like Martin Luther was going to sit it out or Belloud was going to sit it out. 01:23:45 Speaker 3: Remember this, and I was supposed to go. I was supposed to go overseas with y'at. 01:23:49 Speaker 4: I remember I've been singing all the singing prods and then it fell through it. 01:23:54 Speaker 1: The loud was crushed. 01:23:55 Speaker 4: Sorry, man, I was like, but but yeah, like to break it full circle. There's moments that you have where you're blessed if like the people who who you like grew up listening to they become like your friends, are your associates or your mentors, you know what I mean. And you know when that happens, it's just like ah, man, it's just like so cool. That's what I you know, that's the feeling of like being at HU. I had to go by there, you know, yesterday obviously I'm in New York, so I pre recorded my show for tonight, right and I'm pre recording doing a tour, and you know. 01:24:32 Speaker 3: Like that's the other thing. 01:24:34 Speaker 4: I haven't missed a beat, like you know what I mean, Like I'm you know, I'm hey, I'm live, I'm remote from from this spot and that spot. And it's interesting man to see that this is overwhelming, like to be able to I've done numbers, and I've been you know, number one, and like I went from having the number one urban show to the number one night time show and like time with like white contemporary Christian radio or talk radio, like things that they told me, like it would happen. 01:25:00 Speaker 2: Right Because I don't live in the DMV area, I haven't heard it. 01:25:04 Speaker 1: The cool thing is. 01:25:05 Speaker 4: They got to have a free app, you know for Android iPhone, just download the ninety six point three w h U R app and you know tap in. 01:25:13 Speaker 2: So format wise, do you ever say and the songs that are chosen, I actually do. 01:25:17 Speaker 4: Like It's it's cool, like to be able to make suggestions and they actually be honored or to be able to be like they actually loved with us saying, Hey, I got. 01:25:26 Speaker 3: A record I did last night. Can I just play it? 01:25:28 Speaker 2: I was gonna say, can you can you? It was there was a point where I think when Busy Body came out, Luther Vandros would do a tour. He would do w D A. 01:25:39 Speaker 1: S Howard state, he would do all the black. 01:25:42 Speaker 2: Stations and sing live on the air, like three songs each now, haven't I haven't took it there yet. I've had guests. 01:25:50 Speaker 4: You know, people already know what I do when I'm not on air. So my thing is, like I want to church and state. Yeah, it's cool to be able to break the Kindred record though, got you what I'm saying last year, you know what I mean? Or like, you know, to break the new Eric Roberson record Every Sunshine Sweeter than You, Like I broke that record in DC. It's what Melvin was known for doing, so, you know, traditionally, and you know, it's one of the things I love about being at h u R, you know, in particular because the legacy, you know, fifty years plus of what they've created. And of course we got to give the legendary the Queen, you know, Kathy. 01:26:24 Speaker 2: Hughes or Roses, Yeah, for being. 01:26:25 Speaker 4: The brainchild of you know, having a vision and you know, and whispering that into breathing life into Melvin like that. You know, It's been great, man, and it's a new career path for me. I know at some point I will be syndicated and we need that. 01:26:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, like when I was of course, like you know, Philly had quiet storm like when I was like ten eleven twelve and I wasn't in the slow jams at ten eleven twelve, but now I can appreciate it. 01:26:52 Speaker 1: But yeah, it needs to be sitting there. 01:26:55 Speaker 2: It's interesting. 01:26:57 Speaker 4: I get stopped in the street at that venue, in the grocery store and just like different places. And it's not about being Rahiem Devin the artists. It's about being Raheem Devine the radio guy and radio to rest. Your radio will always exist, it will always matter. 01:27:16 Speaker 1: One. 01:27:16 Speaker 4: It's free, you don't have you don't need a subscription right right and it just connects you to community in a different way. With all this going on in the world, in the country, on the planet, Monday through Friday, from seven thirty to midnight, it's my opportunity to remind people that you know that five twenty eight mega hurts. 01:27:36 Speaker 3: Energy is a real thing. It's a frequency. Love is the answer. 01:27:41 Speaker 4: You're not alone, even if you are if you feel like you're alone, no matter you know what you went through today, Like this is a safe space to unplug and the hill and to just you know, and just and just be on the vibration of what we all love. You know, good, bad, are and different. We got to slow jam for every occasion and it's great man, you know. And I'm doing serious XM on the weekends now too, you know. 01:28:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:28:08 Speaker 4: H U R h U R Voices Channel one forty one. Yeah, from ten from ten pm to twelve midnight. It's a quick two hour show. 01:28:16 Speaker 1: Thing, you know. Wow, you are the love king. 01:28:19 Speaker 4: Thank you, my brother, Thank you you are quest Love. Thank you so much man, thank you. 01:28:22 Speaker 1: For us showing us love, brother, and I appreciate it. Wait, I have one question. 01:28:26 Speaker 2: What's that? 01:28:27 Speaker 1: So? 01:28:28 Speaker 2: When I first met you and I know you get this a lot, I don't know if you get this a lot. I just naturally thought the way that epigenetics work. 01:28:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, oh. 01:28:36 Speaker 2: That must be William Devon's son or nephew. How many times? How many times do you get that? But more importantly, have you ever covered be thankful for what you got? I get it? 01:28:46 Speaker 3: I get it a lot? 01:28:47 Speaker 1: Okay say that for us? 01:28:49 Speaker 2: Yeah? 01:28:49 Speaker 1: Where your band for that? 01:28:50 Speaker 4: But hey, say say say say no more. Let's let'st the circle we got We got a lot of work to do. 01:28:55 Speaker 1: Got you for sure? Well? This is a Quest Love show. And I'll see our next go around ya. 01:29:06 Speaker 2: Quest Love Shows hosted by me Amir quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Paine. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conwoy. iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Lowe. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Quest Love Show wherever you stream the podcasts, make sure you follow us on social That's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Quest Loves pre shows and our podcast archives. 01:30:04 Speaker 1: Mustlam Shows. The production of iHeart radioh