Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up Everybody?
Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve from Quest Love Supreme as we
Speaker 2: celebrate the holiday season. This felt like a worthy two
Speaker 2: part classic revisit. Here is Mariah Carry. We recorded this
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, but it was worth it.
Speaker 2: Mariah was promoting her book and she was an open
Speaker 2: book to us. This is a really free and fun
Speaker 2: conversation with one of the biggest superstars of music. Part
Speaker 2: one originally air January thirteenth, twenty twenty one, but this
Speaker 2: is timeless. Enjoy everybody and happy holidays and a healthy
Speaker 2: new Year from Team Supreme and everybody at Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Happy twenty twenty one. Let me just
Speaker 1: start a preface that this intro might be twelve minutes,
Speaker 1: but I'll cut to the chase. I consider all Quest
Speaker 1: Left Supreian episodes to be top notch, some of my
Speaker 1: favorite guests ever, but a few guests might shine a
Speaker 1: little bit brighter. I won't even say the most, but
Speaker 1: few of our guest on the shows sign just a
Speaker 1: little bit brighter. As our fortune have it in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, this particular episode will shine very bright. Notice
Speaker 1: the holiday Christmas motifs I'm using. I will say that
Speaker 1: for the last three decades, our guest has been Music
Speaker 1: Royalty out the Gate, fifteen studio albums, seventy two singles,
Speaker 1: over two hundred million records sold globally. I will say
Speaker 1: that for of those records, Riot, Daydream, Music Box and
Speaker 1: Emancipation have sold one hundred million copies combined. Just those
Speaker 1: four she is the best selling female artist globally. And
Speaker 1: she practically, she literally owns Christmas. Her her recordal All
Speaker 1: Want Yes Christmas is twelve months away, but still she
Speaker 1: owns Christmas. Her All I Want for Christmas is the
Speaker 1: biggest selling song in the world and all parts of
Speaker 1: the globe, not even just the United States for the
Speaker 1: second time already. It is broken crazy records. It's the
Speaker 1: all time biggest selling streamed song. I didn't even know that,
Speaker 1: at seventeen point two million for streams in one day.
Speaker 1: It's the first single by a female artist in history
Speaker 1: to be certified five times platinum in the UK, which
Speaker 1: is not an easy feed at all. She's the first
Speaker 1: artist to rank number one on the chart for distinct decades,
Speaker 1: For distinct decades. She reached number one this year, officially
Speaker 1: on the UK Singles charts, after twenty six years a
Speaker 1: gap in between. It's the first holiday song in history
Speaker 1: to be number one in the US and the UK
Speaker 1: at the same time. So Fuck White Christmas by bing
Speaker 1: Crossby Her Apple specials number one and more than one
Speaker 1: hundred countries across the world. Her book is a New
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller and number one on Audible. I have
Speaker 1: to say I'll be here all damn day, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: How did we get the one and only Mariah Carrey
Speaker 1: on quest of supreme Please welcome? Thank you?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you officially made it.
Speaker 3: We've arrived.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have made it.
Speaker 4: No, I listen, I've been stressing out about this because
Speaker 4: I know that I am not queen of technology, nor
Speaker 4: am I queen of musical technical moments of discussion.
Speaker 1: Look we are we are.
Speaker 3: I swear.
Speaker 1: We are four nerds that just like music. Like, trust me,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to okay, I do. Your first question
Speaker 1: is okay, so you're Yamaha Dix seven patches on your
Speaker 1: first album, right, like, please don't ask me those nerdy
Speaker 1: stuff that you ask about, like keyword patches and all this.
Speaker 5: Oh thank god. I mean, you know, that's cool, that's it.
Speaker 1: She hates that as well. How how are you today,
Speaker 1: I'm good.
Speaker 4: I'm good. Actually, it's we're having a little celibratory moment.
Speaker 4: So you mentioned Christmas, and I just want to say
Speaker 4: this is totally off topic, but I'll just say it anyway.
Speaker 4: So we had an incredibleness this year and all the things,
Speaker 4: all the things, but because it's COVID and I can't
Speaker 4: really I haven't gone anywhere in months, almost a year,
Speaker 4: just at a paranoid about the whole thing. And it's
Speaker 4: not paranoid, it's just being saved. But yeah, so so
Speaker 4: here I am enjoying like my first little party and
Speaker 4: cheers to you guys. So cheers you have me flash
Speaker 4: as we talk. But I did want to say thank
Speaker 4: you for having me. And yeah, I was a little
Speaker 4: bit like, clearly I know Greg filling games by any expect.
Speaker 1: Nice one.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I did hear when he when
Speaker 4: you said, oh, the Mariah Carey Boys to men elevator
Speaker 4: and he was like, well, that's the Greg filling games
Speaker 4: later and I'm like that's cool, but can they pay
Speaker 4: me back, like, can can they hit battery give me
Speaker 4: those millions of dollars back that I used to cost
Speaker 4: to record it. I'm sorry real for them. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: It is how we need to keep it. This question
Speaker 3: of Supreme talk that sh.
Speaker 4: No, it's nothing, it's nothing. It's just that. Really, I
Speaker 4: can't even imagine how much money people used to spend
Speaker 4: in on recording, you know, to record their albums or
Speaker 4: whatever they recording in these major studios, Like just to
Speaker 4: be in a big studio. I know how I felt,
Speaker 4: because come on, just to be there, just to say
Speaker 4: I'm at the Hit Factory on blah blah blah blah Street,
Speaker 4: I'm at right Track, I'm at Quad, I'm at whatever.
Speaker 4: But here I'm know for like I'm at Quad, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Just wait, did you ever record a Quad?
Speaker 4: Of course I have.
Speaker 1: Yes, you went to Tupac Central.
Speaker 4: Wow, I lived at Tupac Central. Yes I did, and.
Speaker 5: We recorded there too. Couest love Supreme.
Speaker 1: I know that, but I would expect us to be there.
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 4: That's the same type of thing that goes on in
Speaker 4: terms of people's perception of me, Like yeah, I went
Speaker 4: to Quad. Yeah, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1: Say, I'm not saying that recording at uh something high
Speaker 1: level like Sony or D and D studios is beneath you,
Speaker 1: but yeah, even I would prefer to be at at
Speaker 1: its time when Sony was a great studio record at
Speaker 1: or Electric Lady as opposed to D and D or
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: Like Electric Lady. We love Electric Lady, of course, and
Speaker 4: the history and the whole thing of it all, and
Speaker 4: I need to be the give the utmost respect to this.
Speaker 4: The history of it all is everything, and we know
Speaker 4: the room and the way it sounds in the rooms
Speaker 4: and the way they sound and everything. We'd love that.
Speaker 4: But yes, the glitzy and glamorous new like they're not
Speaker 4: new now, but like you know, the head factories of
Speaker 4: the world give you a different type of thing.
Speaker 1: So can I ask now that you know, for the
Speaker 1: last thirty years you've been recording at studios and they were,
Speaker 1: you know, plentiful. In the last three decades now they're
Speaker 1: almost like far and few between. I know Manhattan, there's
Speaker 1: probably maybe seven left that are still up and running
Speaker 1: and in good condition. Does that wear you little bit
Speaker 1: that or have you adjusted already? Like have you made
Speaker 1: music on your laptop yet. Have you you know Allah,
Speaker 1: you know Kanye and jay Z making watch the thrown
Speaker 1: in a hotel room in bathrooms, Like, have you adjusted
Speaker 1: to that yet?
Speaker 4: Or I absolutely have and not because they did it.
Speaker 4: I started doing this. I'm going to say probably the
Speaker 4: Rainbow album. Actually I'm trying to think that far back. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so that's ninety nine, but yeah, I started. So I
Speaker 4: went to Randy Jackson, not of the Jackson five, but
Speaker 4: Randy Jackson. Randy, Yeah, Randolphin and we love him, I said, Randy,
Speaker 4: I love going other places I'm recording. So me and
Speaker 4: my engineer, Brian Garton, we would go wherever. We would
Speaker 4: just go. He would set up a room, even if
Speaker 4: I literally sang in the bathroom, he would set up
Speaker 4: a soundproof situation and we would run the wires at
Speaker 4: that point through he would I didn't. I didn't run
Speaker 4: the wires, but if he would, you know, figure it out,
Speaker 4: and we would record that way. Because I wanted to be,
Speaker 4: whether it's Puerto Rica, wherever I wanted to be from
Speaker 4: my own peace of mind. And like Amir, we've talked
Speaker 4: about this, where you're like, I don't want to be
Speaker 4: in a comfortable environment. I like to feel like that criminess.
Speaker 4: And I understand that too. I don't know that I'm
Speaker 4: not speaking for you and saying exactly what you said,
Speaker 4: but I think I'm on the same page as what
Speaker 4: you were saying.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's exactly what you were saying.
Speaker 4: Forward to studio, Yeah, exactly. But I spent I feel
Speaker 4: I've spent enough years in uncomfortable studios, starting from when
Speaker 4: I was eighteen years old, sleeping in the floor, sleeping
Speaker 4: on the floor in the little studio behind it in
Speaker 4: the back of the woodshed, which I talk about in
Speaker 4: my book, but on the floor sleeping there because I
Speaker 4: had no money to have a real studio situation. So anyway,
Speaker 4: cut to ninety nine and I started kind of like
Speaker 4: traveling in order to record. Actually it happened right after
Speaker 4: the Butterfly album, which is like the year before, because
Speaker 4: I was just trying to figure out, like where can
Speaker 4: I do this, How can I do this? And then
Speaker 4: I connected with my couple different engineers I was working
Speaker 4: with and we figured it out. So Randy Jackson back
Speaker 4: to that, he said, damn, man, I have this studio
Speaker 4: that you would love and capri and it's on top
Speaker 4: of a mountain. And blah blah blah. It was like
Speaker 4: please like anything you have. So I ended up falling
Speaker 4: in love with this studio called Capri Studios and another
Speaker 4: Italian word that I can't pronounce, but anyway, I slept
Speaker 4: in a little room next to the live room and
Speaker 4: I would actually recorded several songs there, and then when
Speaker 4: we were doing the immense I did the Chombracet album
Speaker 4: there and other places. Basically we just traveled. It was
Speaker 4: a traveling studio, so it was you know, pro tools
Speaker 4: and just a setup on his laptop and then you know,
Speaker 4: making the room so it's not super for Yeah, so
Speaker 4: we had all of that, like we had we had
Speaker 4: all of that together, and then I would just love
Speaker 4: it because honestly, like and this is a total sidebar,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure you're going to edit this however or
Speaker 4: maybe not. But one of the things I learned early
Speaker 4: on from Luther when we did our for our collaboration
Speaker 4: on Endless Love we make yes and he was one
Speaker 4: of my all time favorite people and tones like just vocal,
Speaker 4: just the texture, and he felt that there was a
Speaker 4: similar type of this is what he said to me,
Speaker 4: type of like when you hear the harmonics sometimes within
Speaker 4: the breathy tone. And he was telling me in order
Speaker 4: to preserve that with that haven't always listened to and
Speaker 4: have gotten back into it now. But he was like,
Speaker 4: you need to be in a place like a very
Speaker 4: warm and humid climate in order to preserve that. The
Speaker 4: desert la everywhere else is really really bad for you.
Speaker 4: Just always remember, like if you are in those places,
Speaker 4: make sure you have like humidification, like all the humidifiers
Speaker 4: in the land, like you need to have it. And
Speaker 4: I have that.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Okay, I have a question, Okay, okay, so secretly, yeah,
Speaker 1: behind all of your backs and by all of you
Speaker 1: or I'm talking about singers. I I quasi eye roll
Speaker 1: because I always thought that that was psychosomatic. So let
Speaker 1: me let me ask the question first, okay, is okay?
Speaker 1: So is that whole thing now? Just to give it
Speaker 1: a little backstory, You're at the tonight show. Okay, when
Speaker 1: Aretha Franklin was alive, she would only agreed to come
Speaker 1: on this show if we killed all of the air
Speaker 1: conditioning in thirty Rock. And the thing is, it's not
Speaker 1: like one particular floor can control the temperature. So if
Speaker 1: we turn off the air condition for Aretha Franklin that
Speaker 1: affects like seven floors, which basically says that we should
Speaker 1: modernize and update our temperature system. But whenever Aretha comes,
Speaker 1: it would be a nightmare because then it would be
Speaker 1: ninety eight degrees in this building and they would have
Speaker 1: to turn off the air at two in the morning
Speaker 1: the night before, and then her guy would come in
Speaker 1: test it, and then she'd would you know, she'd come in.
Speaker 1: So it's said that her voice, her throat would closed
Speaker 1: or whatever and that sort of thing. Is that really true?
Speaker 4: I believe it to be true, and particularly for Ritha. So, Amir,
Speaker 4: you have me laughing because I know you read my
Speaker 4: memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey shameless plug. But I'm
Speaker 4: going to say it because we talk about Aretha and
Speaker 4: when we were doing what was the Devis Live? Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so she and Ken Rlick, we love Ken r Lick. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And knowing that if I say something negative, he's gonna
Speaker 4: be pissed off of me like he always gets. But
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just being I'm just keeping in one hundred.
Speaker 1: This is what happened, Supreme, trust me.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, you're not. But he has a way
Speaker 4: of hearing. So I love Ken, you love him, he
Speaker 4: did my first naked show. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we love Ken. So but here's what was happening. So
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm in a pop culture spiral right now,
Speaker 4: and I can't even believe this. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 4: and you know, I already know because I just told
Speaker 4: you about Luther and the recommendations like that was not
Speaker 4: in front of any camera. That was not for any
Speaker 4: reason other than he was like, preserve the tone, right,
Speaker 4: He was like, just do these things. And I never
Speaker 4: knew anything about the humidity blah blah blah. Anyway, so
Speaker 4: when I first sang with Aretha that night, obviously I
Speaker 4: was completely intimidated and flipping out and scared and everything else. Right,
Speaker 4: So we're getting ready to go on the stage and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, there's this whole hoopla happening, and
Speaker 4: I hear, you guys are are we just really pissed
Speaker 4: off Ken? Ken Carl comes by and he's like, she's
Speaker 4: not happy. I don't know what's going to go on.
Speaker 4: I'm right just gonna say, you know, wait and see
Speaker 4: what happens. Right, So I'm like, this is a big
Speaker 4: moment in my career, Like it's right at the beginning
Speaker 4: of Butterflies, all this and all that. But again, Wreatha
Speaker 4: is the queen, so everybody's waiting. We were basically you're
Speaker 4: all there in reverence. I know I was in reverence
Speaker 4: of the queen. So so yeah, so I said, well
Speaker 4: maybe because he said she always does this, she always
Speaker 4: does this, and he's like, oh, I don't worry, she
Speaker 4: always does this. And I'm like, okay, I go, can
Speaker 4: I just maybe rehearse with her? Because I don't know
Speaker 4: what this, what's gonna this is gonna be, So I
Speaker 4: just just want to have a little moment so you know,
Speaker 4: and also you want to be I had met her before,
Speaker 4: and we had had, you know, our moments and great moments,
Speaker 4: and but never this type of thing. So anyway, I
Speaker 4: guess I'm not. I don't remember exactly how it happened,
Speaker 4: but she ended up saying, okay, we can rehearse in
Speaker 4: her tripper. So I walk into the trailer and she
Speaker 4: goes Mariah, they're playing games and I'm not having the game. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so we won't so we won't be rehearsing tonight and.
Speaker 1: Saying with the frank, yeah that was a great How
Speaker 1: long did it take you to nail that?
Speaker 4: No? Honest, So you know my friend Treyla Wrenz, right,
Speaker 4: he was just saying yes, yeah, yes, Florence, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Home Florence.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: He talked about fish sandwiches in all right, South Carolina.
Speaker 4: He told me he just texted me tonight. He's like,
Speaker 4: he's like, I love him. He asked me about the fish. Sam.
Speaker 6: Yes, we're all but anyways, so yes, Be and Trey
Speaker 6: always you know, we Revere a lot of singers, and
Speaker 6: we don't do it to be funny, like we're not impersonating,
Speaker 6: and it's just you sort of embody them when you're
Speaker 6: telling the story because this is how it happened.
Speaker 1: So you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I kind of do impersonations on the side, not really,
Speaker 4: but it's not an impersonation. It's just me telling exactly
Speaker 4: how it happened. So anyway, back to the story, so
Speaker 4: we won't be rehearsing tonight, and I'm like, so anyway,
Speaker 4: we work where they got her. And here's one thing
Speaker 4: that I always say, and this is not that musicians
Speaker 4: don't know. This or people like you guys who are
Speaker 4: like professors of it all. But being that Big Jim Right,
Speaker 4: the late Big Jim Right who we love, my former
Speaker 4: musical director who passed the way I believe it's almost
Speaker 4: three years ago now, but he was her musical director,
Speaker 4: Miss Franklin's musical director as well, so he was just like,
Speaker 4: this is prior to me working with Big GYM. I
Speaker 4: don't even know how I got on this tension, but
Speaker 4: he was just like, you know, she takes that queen
Speaker 4: stuff very, very seriously, so it's a real thing. So
Speaker 4: he would say, you know when it's she's such a
Speaker 4: such a brilliant musician and her play her skills as
Speaker 4: a piano player were insane and people don't even they
Speaker 4: don't even realize that. So anyway, that's one of the
Speaker 4: things that I revere her the most about, like that
Speaker 4: musicality she had, and I wish people and I know
Speaker 4: it's a female thing, and I know it's because her technical,
Speaker 4: her vocals and her whole thing was so incredible and
Speaker 4: the whole diva persona that they don't even they didn't
Speaker 4: even look at it, like, look at this woman plays
Speaker 4: the musician ship and obviously when you watch, like, I'm
Speaker 4: trying to think, was it don't play that song or
Speaker 4: the one where she did. She she's playing live and
Speaker 4: it's the black and white video and you see her
Speaker 4: playing from back in the day with the whole ensemble. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what it is. But anyway, you see that
Speaker 4: only in certain moments. Anyway, so they so cut too
Speaker 4: Deevi's live back again. So they got her a keyboard,
Speaker 4: put it in her in her trailer and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you guys can go rehearse this right now. So she
Speaker 4: had wanted to do dream Lover. We had a little
Speaker 4: rehearsal I guess the day before or something, and then
Speaker 4: she got out of there because it wasn't the air
Speaker 4: conditioning situation wasn't right. So she was like, I really
Speaker 4: liked what you did. I really like your sean Dreamlover.
Speaker 4: I think that would be a wonderful way to go.
Speaker 4: And I was just like, oh my god, she goes
Speaker 4: dream Lover. Anyway, I was like, can we just do
Speaker 4: Chain of Fools? Because I just couldn't. It was too
Speaker 4: much from my heart to actually here were song and
Speaker 4: try to do it. So anyway, tailor she she played
Speaker 4: the song. She played, Uh, we figured out the key
Speaker 4: and what we're gonna do and stuff, and we kind
Speaker 4: of went back and literally five minutes or maybe maybe
Speaker 4: ten and a couple of little moments. I never knew
Speaker 4: she was an Aries. I'm an Ares. We're born two
Speaker 4: days apart from each other, different years. But she I
Speaker 4: said something she would like us. So a few more
Speaker 4: typical larries. I she Knowlemon Areas so, and you know
Speaker 4: Diana ross Is in those few couple of days of
Speaker 4: Billie Holliday, Sarah vond there's a lot of these divas
Speaker 4: that I grew up idol Shaka Khan and other areas idolizing.
Speaker 4: And I found this out from Maretha Franklin. I never
Speaker 4: even knew anyway. So we rehearsed a little bit and
Speaker 4: and the thing is, there was a huge, huge issue
Speaker 4: about the AC and she goes like this. At one point,
Speaker 4: in front of like my whole crew, she goes, what
Speaker 4: are these people doing that's making them so hot? Why
Speaker 4: do we need it?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 4: And it just I was just like, Wow, it's really
Speaker 4: real for her. And if you ever saw when she did,
Speaker 4: I believe it was for Barack Obama. She did something
Speaker 4: for the second term, and she was out of window
Speaker 4: and it was cold and it was freezing, and she sang,
Speaker 4: I don't remember what the song was. I believe it
Speaker 4: might have been the star slang, but I don't remember
Speaker 4: the one of the inaugurations, like yeah, but she wasn't outside.
Speaker 4: She she actually apologized on Larry King Live. She went
Speaker 4: and she apologized because she had to. And by the way,
Speaker 4: obviously it was more than fine. She just wasn't up
Speaker 4: and down the scale doing a million whatever. It was great,
Speaker 4: but she felt the need to tell people that the
Speaker 4: cold air had foiled her. And I get it because
Speaker 4: I know I've been that hell with that type of
Speaker 4: thing and way worse. But the thing is that level
Speaker 4: of like she knew that she wanted to actually in
Speaker 4: her mind kill it, and that cold air was messing
Speaker 4: with her. So you have to to me whatever somebody says,
Speaker 4: like if you told me I can't play drums when
Speaker 4: they don't have like a specific light shine, like it
Speaker 4: is what it is, like that was her thing, But
Speaker 4: I do believe it's an actual it's an actually it's
Speaker 4: a physical situation where the throat the cords do tighten.
Speaker 1: Up, so let me ask, because uh, obviously you're you're
Speaker 1: world famous for your active range. What is your active range?
Speaker 1: You're five to six?
Speaker 4: I don't know, and neither do you say one of
Speaker 4: our favorites, it's going to happen. Here's the truth. You
Speaker 4: would know better than me, Like I don't know. I've
Speaker 4: told people know this, some people do, some people don't.
Speaker 4: My mind other was sang with City Opera. She was,
Speaker 4: you know, she had a wonderful and still does to
Speaker 4: this day, range and beautiful depth of her voice. She
Speaker 4: wasn't a color to a soprano at stuck a metsa soprano,
Speaker 4: but she has this range. So she would look at
Speaker 4: me with my little moments and be like, you're gonna
Speaker 4: hurt yourself. What are you doing?
Speaker 3: Like what is this?
Speaker 4: What? I was the opposite, and so I, you know,
Speaker 4: we have our issues and blah blah blah blah. But
Speaker 4: I do appreciate the fact that she didn't force me
Speaker 4: to try to become an opera singer because first of all,
Speaker 4: I don't think I have that in me, And second
Speaker 4: of all, because I respect that level of what that
Speaker 4: takes to be that and to understand that and then
Speaker 4: to interpret really like you have to really stick to
Speaker 4: the composer and do exactly what it is. There's not
Speaker 4: much room for, you know.
Speaker 3: Impro conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I love feeling like you're channeling and doing whatever
Speaker 4: you want, particularly with writing and melodies and having those
Speaker 4: flow through you. So I would have been stifled had
Speaker 4: I had I tried to do what she did, because
Speaker 4: I'm not that disciplined. I'm just not that disciplined.
Speaker 1: So let me ask, because I know that your high
Speaker 1: register is world famous. I know that in your your
Speaker 1: Christmas special, especially with the Misty Copham portion, you're singing,
Speaker 1: You're you're singing. Uh, I don't know if it's Carol
Speaker 1: the Bells or or the Nutcracker.
Speaker 4: It's a shape, there's an there's an exact title. But
Speaker 4: the sugar Plump Fairies.
Speaker 1: Yea, the sugar Okay, So you're doing you're doing your
Speaker 1: your trademark what we call the Mariah whistle. How how
Speaker 1: how long can you instantly turn that on at any
Speaker 1: time of the day or do you have to like
Speaker 1: seth Riggs work your my sole before you can reach
Speaker 1: those levels? Like can you just turn that on at
Speaker 1: any given moment of the day, twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: Uh, it depends, like honestly, all of it depends, like
Speaker 4: all the different ranges depend on sleep and humidity, mainly sleep,
Speaker 4: but sometimes it's it's a weird thing. So I've kind
Speaker 4: of studied it. And sometimes even if I'm completely hoarse,
Speaker 4: the whisper as they call it, the whisper register is
Speaker 4: even more strong and clear then if I'm not horse
Speaker 4: because it's the it's the the upper register is sort
Speaker 4: of like that was where it's just sort of like
Speaker 4: when you're closing the vocal cords and it's the very
Speaker 4: very tippy top of what you're using in terms of
Speaker 4: those that upper upper register. But if I'm just sitting around, yeah,
Speaker 4: I can access it. But when I'm on, when I
Speaker 4: feel like pressure, it's less accessible than when I'm just
Speaker 4: sitting around the house, you know and just playing around
Speaker 4: and singing. However, like when I'm under pressure, it's always
Speaker 4: screwed up every part of my voice, so was screwed up.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there because my nervousness takes over and I
Speaker 4: really am more of a quote unquote studio rat where
Speaker 4: I love to play around with it, experiment, do whatever,
Speaker 4: create it as part of the melody. You know what
Speaker 4: I mean, whether it's upper registered, lower mid, background vocals,
Speaker 4: layering of background vocals, whatever, it is, all of that.
Speaker 4: Even when I do the background vocals and the upper
Speaker 4: register as a part. For me, that's my instrument. That's fun. Actually,
Speaker 4: one time James Brown told me the only first and
Speaker 4: only time I ever met him back in the days
Speaker 4: at the American Music Awards, the first time I was
Speaker 4: ever there, and they were, can I give you this
Speaker 4: segue because everybody else, Yes, we believe.
Speaker 1: You're already my favorite guest on.
Speaker 4: No. No, I'm just like, this is how I talk.
Speaker 4: We're back and forth with things, so I don't want
Speaker 4: to be like.
Speaker 1: All over the place, you know, you know, like when
Speaker 1: black people eat and they don't say nothing at Mama's
Speaker 1: house because the food are good. Like this is ues
Speaker 1: right now, Like we're not talking over you or anything.
Speaker 7: We're just like and these stories are our time capsules.
Speaker 7: This is good too, you know, to remember this and
Speaker 7: have these James Brown. Yes, let's talk about James Brown.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about James Brown. I don't know a mirror.
Speaker 4: If you've got the message before. When I was playing, yeah,
Speaker 4: I was, I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's make Christmas mean something this year.
Speaker 4: Which is one of my favorite Christmas songs, but it's
Speaker 4: on my loop of Christmas music. We have that, and
Speaker 4: we have Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto, and
Speaker 4: then many other James Christmas quote unquote hits that I've
Speaker 4: made Christmas hits in my household because I just played
Speaker 4: the round and then we get stuck on the James
Speaker 4: my phone. I'm like, I love you, James Brown, but
Speaker 4: I need to hear like a little mixed street. And
Speaker 4: so when I had never met James Brown, obviously, it
Speaker 4: was my first year in the industry, and somebody said
Speaker 4: to me, I'm in I'm in my trailer. And this
Speaker 4: is when I was very much sequestered under that sony
Speaker 4: world of whatever. Yeah yes, prior to singing thing and
Speaker 4: all of that, but anyway, under that thing. And then
Speaker 4: so I'm shocked that they even told me that James
Speaker 4: Brown wanted to meet me. They're like, James Brown wants
Speaker 4: to meet you. So that's a huge thing. So I want,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, okay, let
Speaker 4: me go to his trail, Let me do the respectful thing.
Speaker 4: Let me walk in see what it is. So I'm
Speaker 4: sitting there and and we just meet and whatever, and
Speaker 4: I'm just like shocking off, shocking off, and he's like,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna do an impersonation of him.
Speaker 3: But he was like this, I was waiting for that.
Speaker 1: Everyone.
Speaker 4: You guys can do it when I'll tell you the text.
Speaker 4: But he was like, this is no surprise to me.
Speaker 4: This is no surprise to me. This is basically the
Speaker 4: success is no surprise to me. He's like, you use
Speaker 4: your voice as an instrument. You use your voice as
Speaker 4: an instrument. So that was a humongous compliment because I
Speaker 4: know what he's talking about, because you can hear what
Speaker 4: he does those like this, this screw. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: how we how we categorize what he does with it
Speaker 4: did with his voice. No, he knew that, Like, using
Speaker 4: that upper register is a thing, whether you're doing it
Speaker 4: as to accentuate something like he would do, or whether
Speaker 4: you're doing it like you were talking about a mirror
Speaker 4: with the car not the caroll the bells, the sugar
Speaker 4: plung ferry. Yeah, did that as an acapella moment for
Speaker 4: the album. Prior to this past year, which was just
Speaker 4: a reissue of some Christmas songs, but I said, let
Speaker 4: me do something new, and I did like that little
Speaker 4: acapella acapella part with and the high parts on top
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 1: What is your, uh, at least your warm up ritual?
Speaker 1: Like as far as like, is it a lot of tea?
Speaker 1: Is it a lot of Usually if I do shows
Speaker 1: with other guest or whatever, like, I'll look in their
Speaker 1: dress room to see what their writer is, so I'll
Speaker 1: see like Stevie Wonder's thing is, you know, two giant
Speaker 1: te's and all these honey's and then Shaka Khan has
Speaker 1: a thing where it's Aca Nation and whatever. Like what
Speaker 1: before live performances, not before your studio stuff? What is
Speaker 1: your ritual?
Speaker 4: Can I just say that I used to have a ritual,
Speaker 4: and I've been through many facets of that ritual. It
Speaker 4: started when I was a background singer and I was
Speaker 4: looking at what the other like the background singers that
Speaker 4: I really looked up to, I e. Cindy, Myzell and
Speaker 4: many other.
Speaker 1: You know, and Lisa and all their crew, the whole crew.
Speaker 4: But I really spent the most time around Cindy before
Speaker 4: I even had a deal. And I talk about this
Speaker 4: a record deal in my book I haven't even heard
Speaker 4: from her, but I did a whole like basically like
Speaker 4: almost a whole chapter about how much I revered her
Speaker 4: just from looking at the credits when she would be
Speaker 4: when she and Audrey Wheeler would do like a lot
Speaker 4: of these background parts, and I could tell on like
Speaker 4: many of these hop records where it clearly wasn't the
Speaker 4: lead singer doing these parts, right, but it was with
Speaker 4: these incredibly beautifully sacked backgrounds, and I was like, oh
Speaker 4: my gosh, Cindy myself. So I wind up in a
Speaker 4: session for TM Stevens. Right, I'm like eighteen years old.
Speaker 4: I'm at this session. I know we just totally went
Speaker 4: off topic again, but do you want to hear this story?
Speaker 3: The on topic go on? We want all the stories.
Speaker 1: That's my man.
Speaker 4: It's the topic is relevant because the question was about
Speaker 4: my writer. But I'm telling you where I got this
Speaker 4: thing from.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we are the Where the Rabbit Hole show?
Speaker 1: So you're you're right on top of.
Speaker 4: Okay, cool. So so I'm at this This is prior
Speaker 4: to anyone ever hearing of me. I had a dollar
Speaker 4: a day. I had to choose between the subway and
Speaker 4: the H and H bagels when I'm living uh yeah,
Speaker 4: for real, and I'm on above. I was living above
Speaker 4: you know where Rascals. You guys know where Rascals on
Speaker 4: fourteenth Street is on the on the east side.
Speaker 2: No, but I know H and H Bagels and and
Speaker 2: I hope you chose bagels over subway every time.
Speaker 4: Because when I lived, when I would go to the
Speaker 4: H and H Fagels is when I lived closer to
Speaker 4: the Upper west Side. So the H and H Bagels
Speaker 4: that I used to go to was the one on
Speaker 4: seventy ninth Street, right is that that was that where
Speaker 4: that one is?
Speaker 1: I went to the one on the upper upper east side.
Speaker 4: I don't know it's gone, it's gone, it's not even there.
Speaker 4: I know they got shut or whatever. But back then
Speaker 4: that was my meal for the day. So it was
Speaker 4: either way subway. And I used to work at this
Speaker 4: place called Sports Broadway on seventy seven and so I
Speaker 4: would take the subway back and forth. But anyway, I
Speaker 4: had to decide whether it was walking or eating a bagel.
Speaker 4: So that's why I was when I first came out
Speaker 4: to the public as a singer. Anyway, back to the story,
Speaker 4: So prior to all that, I was well, during that time,
Speaker 4: I started getting background vocal gigs or whatever, and so
Speaker 4: I wound up after being a huge fan of Cindy
Speaker 4: as a background singer and a ranger, and whenever, I
Speaker 4: wound up working doing a session for TM Stevens. And
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there next to Cindy myself, so I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, this is Cindy, So mind you. I'm there.
Speaker 4: My shoes have holes in them. I'm in like one
Speaker 4: little It probably looked like pretty much like this today
Speaker 4: but a little bit different, but.
Speaker 1: Anyway, like a million bucks, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 4: My stomach was rumbling.
Speaker 5: We're on the mic.
Speaker 4: She's hearing my stomach rumbling. She's looking at my shoes
Speaker 4: and she's like, you know, beautiful and perfect and everything,
Speaker 4: and she's like, what you know, you got to get
Speaker 4: something to eat. I'm like, yeah no. And then she
Speaker 4: just like we're doing the thing, and I'm telling you
Speaker 4: I did not have it together. She was such a
Speaker 4: professional in terms of stacking vocals, getting it perfect. The
Speaker 4: next one has to line up perfectly. You know, I'm figuring,
Speaker 4: I'm not in the pocket. I'm all over the place.
Speaker 4: After that session, I really like learned a lot and
Speaker 4: learned a lot from her. But anyway, that was that
Speaker 4: first song with Tim Stevens, and she was and Cindy
Speaker 4: was like, just call me. And I talked about this
Speaker 4: in the book, to just call me, you know, whenever,
Speaker 4: if you wantnother you know, if you need anything. And
Speaker 4: I never want to bother people. So I never ended
Speaker 4: up calling her. Then I saw her for another session.
Speaker 4: She was like, she said, why didn't you call me?
Speaker 4: I said, well, I just I didn't know, you know.
Speaker 4: She's like, no, You're supposed to call me. And I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: I don't know the etiquette. I don't know why we
Speaker 4: ended up working together over the years, but I will
Speaker 4: say to answer the question and to circle all the
Speaker 4: way back, I believe that back then it was the
Speaker 4: maybe the Red Singer tea Celestial Seasonings tea.
Speaker 5: I love Red Zinger.
Speaker 4: With the Honey Honeybear and like a ton of the honey.
Speaker 4: There was a ton like Debora Cooper and a lot
Speaker 4: of other singers I was working with. They would do
Speaker 4: Depra Cooper sang on a lot of the CNC Music
Speaker 4: Factory stuff way back when. Okay, really nice person and anyway,
Speaker 4: they used to do cayenne pepper. Do you ever hear
Speaker 4: singing that do cayenne pepper to like clear if you're sick.
Speaker 3: If you're sick, it gets it clears.
Speaker 1: Like I know, Eric do use this cayne pepper a
Speaker 1: lot in her that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I would respect that, you know, but I don't.
Speaker 4: That doesn't help me. I need like I even drink
Speaker 4: like tea with milk sometimes, like English breakfast.
Speaker 1: You drink milk. I thought, milk is wow.
Speaker 4: That sometimes for me it's a coating and and it's
Speaker 4: different than the lemon stripping stuff, so I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's really it's really whatever. And right now we're drinking
Speaker 4: this and it's absolutely spectac yes.
Speaker 1: And that far I use cream cheese.
Speaker 3: He to my My go to would be for vocals
Speaker 3: out Always tell people mys, it saved me so many times.
Speaker 3: Coconut water with pineapple juice.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That shit has saved me.
Speaker 3: So many times.
Speaker 1: Cocaine water.
Speaker 3: I don't like the taste of it, but that shit works.
Speaker 4: It's the coating and the pineapples really good too. I agree.
Speaker 4: It's just I feel like you try all different things,
Speaker 4: and I've been through ups and downs with it all. Honestly,
Speaker 4: for me this whole year with COVID and everything, not
Speaker 4: to sing for my supper and travel around and not
Speaker 4: get the right sleep or you know, just be put
Speaker 4: on this thing where there's a certain amount of stress
Speaker 4: for me that takes away a lot of stuff. So
Speaker 4: I'm just like emotionally like that's where I need to
Speaker 4: be centered or whatever. But it's being off kind of
Speaker 4: like taking off work has really helped my voice, I
Speaker 4: think in a lot of ways, just being able to
Speaker 4: have like stress free And so I'm just like saying
Speaker 4: and everyone's like, oh, you got to get back in
Speaker 4: the studio, like you got to get back to singing,
Speaker 4: And I'm like.
Speaker 3: I know, do you feel like getting back into it?
Speaker 3: I know you just put out Caution, you know, in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, but are you kind of feeling like it's
Speaker 3: to drop some new shit?
Speaker 4: Yes, but honestly a different approach. And I don't even
Speaker 4: want to go into what it is, because when I
Speaker 4: did Caution, I loved some of the songs from Caution,
Speaker 4: but I don't think I was at the place vocally
Speaker 4: where I could be now. Also, it was rushed, not
Speaker 4: that it was rushed and I look at my best,
Speaker 4: most critically acclaimed album, and you know, I think that's
Speaker 4: because the critics have changed and shifted since back in
Speaker 4: the days, like believe it or not. If you look
Speaker 4: at those things, it's the most favoric thing in the album.
Speaker 4: But what I was going to say is that I
Speaker 4: didn't have the time time I would normally take, and
Speaker 4: I really wish I did have that time to do
Speaker 4: a few more records on that album to just, you know,
Speaker 4: fully have that expression. But what are you going to do?
Speaker 4: Like it was a much more of like, oh, we
Speaker 4: got to get her back and have people know she
Speaker 4: put out a studio, And then they screwed that up
Speaker 4: with the way they gave away these instant grats. Oh
Speaker 4: we're gonna do instant grats? Why just for this?
Speaker 3: What is what's the instant grat?
Speaker 4: What is that instant grat is when they give away
Speaker 4: a song rather than have it be a part of
Speaker 4: an album. So and I just learned about this two
Speaker 4: years ago too.
Speaker 8: So like yeah, gangster bbdes wait, I'm sorry, man, that's yeah,
Speaker 8: I'm sorry for that reference.
Speaker 3: Wait for record.
Speaker 1: I love that song. I know they're trying to hide
Speaker 1: it like a red hitad Stepschild, but I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't remember that.
Speaker 3: I remember.
Speaker 1: Video. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: like their big comeback single. But because it kind of tanked,
Speaker 1: then they try to act like we never did.
Speaker 3: It, like and then they came back with Above the Rim,
Speaker 3: and it was like, yeah, y'all could have just rolled
Speaker 3: with Gangster.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. Yeah, but yeah, labels start putting out red
Speaker 1: carpet records or red carpet singles just to announce and
Speaker 1: album that's coming out without putting it on the record
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the thing, if you do for your actual fans, right,
Speaker 4: because my the lamily, they don't care about getting an
Speaker 4: instant grat. They just want to see the record do
Speaker 4: well like and they want to music. So these stupid
Speaker 4: instant grats and this is no shade to anybody. We know.
Speaker 4: They didn't have to do it like that. So like
Speaker 4: the instagrats here, let's get on instagrat. Then they got
Speaker 4: on another Instagrat. So at that point, you're like three
Speaker 4: singles in that you gave away for free, when you
Speaker 4: could have just had a whole experience with your fans
Speaker 4: like this here product that's what I'm saying. So it
Speaker 4: just came like, that's why when you ask the question
Speaker 4: about like caution and vocally, No, I mean I recorded
Speaker 4: that at home as well. I walked back and forth
Speaker 4: and basically I have my own little vocal booth. That's
Speaker 4: a really cute vocal booth that they made for me.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't name check the company, but right now I
Speaker 4: can't remember the name. And we take it wherever and
Speaker 4: it's really cute. It's black and pink and don't inside there.
Speaker 5: And we're obo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my little booth. But I recorded most of all
Speaker 4: of that album pretty much there. And what's the studio Henson? Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're the world in.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's one of my favorite places.
Speaker 4: Synchronicity and didn't record there too. We recorded, yeah, and
Speaker 4: it's Michael Jackson room right where Michael like supposedly laid
Speaker 4: on the floor and listened to those speakers. I don't
Speaker 4: know they tell many a story.
Speaker 1: No, no, No, he did record at Hintson, but I
Speaker 1: gotta I don't know which project it was for. But yes,
Speaker 1: Famous We Other World.
Speaker 4: Was made there, Yes, and have that picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the thing you know, when you talk
Speaker 3: about caution, you know you saying that you didn't feel
Speaker 3: like you were vocally kind of where you want to be.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The reason I think that record was so well received,
Speaker 3: and what I liked about it was that you were
Speaker 3: It's very hard, you know, for artists that you know,
Speaker 3: if you know, have been in the game, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, as long as you have, and I
Speaker 3: sold as many records when they quote unquote come back,
Speaker 3: they end up trying to just copy what the youngest
Speaker 3: is doing, and that ship up sound to corny, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. But I like the way that
Speaker 3: you were able to kind of do you know, to
Speaker 3: compete with what you know, the contemporary artists were doing,
Speaker 3: but it still sounded like you. And that was the
Speaker 3: thing I really liked about that record. It was it
Speaker 3: was Mariah, but it was like, yeah, this is her
Speaker 3: in this context, like you had the record with Dollar
Speaker 3: and Gunna and you know what I'm saying, but it
Speaker 3: was like, she's still doing Mariah. And I think that
Speaker 3: you know, for your fans, you know, particular my generation,
Speaker 3: we just you know, appreciated the way you came back
Speaker 3: and was showing like yeah, I'm you know, I'm Mariah.
Speaker 3: But I can still bang with you, motherfuckers.
Speaker 9: I'm not.
Speaker 4: This is And by the way, my fans get really
Speaker 4: mad when I they think I shaved my own albums
Speaker 4: or songs. That's not what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And I appreciate you saying those things about Caution the album,
Speaker 4: because I really do like it as an album. But
Speaker 4: I'm saying it to put it up against like and
Speaker 4: this is not even a fair analogy, but like Butterfly,
Speaker 4: I had all the time in the world I had.
Speaker 4: I went in there and did what I wanted. I
Speaker 4: worked in Florida, I worked in New York, I worked
Speaker 4: wherever I wanted, and really put the time into it.
Speaker 4: But with Caution, and with the way the record industry
Speaker 4: is now, we don't have that luxury of time, like yeah,
Speaker 4: like some people do.
Speaker 1: So do you believe in deadlines as in like okay,
Speaker 1: well do you like plan the tour first? And okay,
Speaker 1: I got to finish this album four months? Or is
Speaker 1: the album done when you say it's done, then we
Speaker 1: move on with the campaign. I don't know how it
Speaker 1: is for Upper Echelne. Yeah, is it like if you
Speaker 1: agree like, okay, we're going to tour the summer from
Speaker 1: May to September. Then I gotta have this record out
Speaker 1: by March. So do you are you a deadline sticker
Speaker 1: no matter what? Or is it like, this album's not
Speaker 1: coming out unless I'm goosebump happy about it?
Speaker 4: Okay? So I would say that that's how it should be,
Speaker 4: and that's and that's how it used to be. But
Speaker 4: one also one thing that I do want to your
Speaker 4: point about touring, I was never touring artist, and that
Speaker 4: was a deliberate choice I think on behalf of certain
Speaker 4: CEOs of Sony. Okay, because there was a conscious effort,
Speaker 4: and I have no problem with this looking back at it.
Speaker 4: I'm very grateful for it now on some levels, and
Speaker 4: on other levels I'm like, I didn't get to kind
Speaker 4: of like, what's the thing called when you cut your
Speaker 4: teeth and record?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I because what's the reason, Because what's the reason.
Speaker 5: Why wouldn't they why wouldn't they want you to dour?
Speaker 4: Because it was more financially beneficial for me to continue
Speaker 4: to make album after album after album. Yeah, to record.
Speaker 4: So if you look at it, and then you look
Speaker 4: at my first album through when I left, Wow, I
Speaker 4: was still on Sony, but like through Rainbow, like I
Speaker 4: just did, and Rainbow was because I wanted to get
Speaker 4: off the label. So I just did that album in
Speaker 4: three months. And I still love some of the songs.
Speaker 4: But I did that like super fast because I was like,
Speaker 4: I got to get the hell out of this toxic situation.
Speaker 4: Not because it's sony, but because of the professional intertwinement
Speaker 4: that was going on with that situation. Yeah, sing sing,
Speaker 4: But but in the beginning, it was like, just make
Speaker 4: the records, make the records, make records, sing sing like
Speaker 4: right right, you know all this stuff. And if I
Speaker 4: didn't want to write, I would have. I'm sure life
Speaker 4: would have been easier, but I have the need. I
Speaker 4: love writing. To me, I'm a writer first and and
Speaker 4: and I love being in the studio. But I never
Speaker 4: The first tour I did was really aside from like
Speaker 4: promo tours, from the very beginning with just the incredible
Speaker 4: Richard T and you know Trey and Patrick McMillan and
Speaker 4: the old.
Speaker 1: Time Richard T was your touring keyboard player.
Speaker 4: Richard T played on song Vanishing from my first.
Speaker 1: Album as in studio, yeah, I love okay and that.
Speaker 4: Is the and then he was an incredibly I mean
Speaker 4: just mammoth in terms of his legendary status, and we did.
Speaker 4: He did come out and do some shows with me,
Speaker 4: and then it wasn't t obviously Yeah, but these were
Speaker 4: this is before there was like people filming. There were
Speaker 4: people filming and that type of thing, like I he
Speaker 4: and then I don't know if you ever saw this America,
Speaker 4: the beautiful performance that I did for the NBA playoffs.
Speaker 4: I know nothing about sports, so I'm saying it wrong.
Speaker 1: But like my first first time that you debuted before
Speaker 1: I went.
Speaker 4: On our senior Hall, which was my first like TV appearance.
Speaker 1: Yea, the entire world saw that.
Speaker 4: Every the NBA thing where if you look it up,
Speaker 4: and it's not only my real fans know it, but
Speaker 4: Richard T did the piano track. I went there with
Speaker 4: a track to Detroit. I know nothing about sports whatever
Speaker 4: in record respect him, like, oh, those kids they said
Speaker 4: I would not map tied nothing. They were watching those
Speaker 4: jocks from the school they were watching. So I had
Speaker 4: I had to do my own hair and makeup. I
Speaker 4: had my one black dress. I walk in on the
Speaker 4: thing and it's Richard T's piano track. You can find
Speaker 4: it right now. I'm here and I found it on
Speaker 4: the piano and we worked it out together. I sang
Speaker 4: it with him prior to going there and performing it,
Speaker 4: but we like did it together in terms of the arrangement.
Speaker 4: And then I had his piano track and that was it,
Speaker 4: and I had to go sing and nobody knew who
Speaker 4: I was, and they introduced me ladies and gentlemen, uh
Speaker 4: Columbia recording artists Mariah Carrat to like and then but
Speaker 4: then at the end of it, it's the Shining Sea
Speaker 4: and the note, and it was like the most of it.
Speaker 4: Who was the man? I love him. I don't even
Speaker 4: want him to ever hear this and think I don't
Speaker 4: remember his name, but I'm so bad with sports. The
Speaker 4: announcer and you'll see it if you look it up,
Speaker 4: and he's like lo Palace, Now, how's the Queen? And
Speaker 4: the goosebumps will continue? And I talk about in the book,
Speaker 4: but I didn't. I would love to name check him.
Speaker 4: I'm just so bad with sports that I always forget.
Speaker 5: Marvin probably.
Speaker 1: Probably mar Alt, Yes, I think I.
Speaker 4: Know that's not his same, but he's famous. I can't
Speaker 4: think of it now. But anyway, that was Richard T
Speaker 4: and Richard T played a really big part in that
Speaker 4: early part of development.
Speaker 1: That's that's impressive company. Because Richard t' is a legend.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask, did you have to fight
Speaker 3: to write your own material? Because that was something that
Speaker 3: pop singers, you know, they damned they weren't permitted, you know,
Speaker 3: to write their own stuff. So what was that like
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so that was to me, that was the
Speaker 4: one thing that I really held tight onto starting out
Speaker 4: as like having my first demo. So my first demo
Speaker 4: and some of these songs are not my favorite, and
Speaker 4: I just I like the demos better. But I was
Speaker 4: always writing songs from the time I was a little love,
Speaker 4: I vote poetry, I heard melodies, I did all that.
Speaker 4: But so when I got my after like working with
Speaker 4: a few different people and I started working on my
Speaker 4: first demo. By the time it got into Tommy Mottola's hands,
Speaker 4: that demo had well, it ended up the demo ended
Speaker 4: up being Vision of Love. The demo version Someday Alone
Speaker 4: in Love and ultimately vanishing like the original demo had
Speaker 4: had at least had one number one song, which ended
Speaker 4: up being some Day. But you know, that's like my
Speaker 4: least favorite song. But I like the demo, I hate
Speaker 4: the record.
Speaker 1: I told her. I told her this last night. Some
Speaker 1: day might be inadvertently responsible for my career.
Speaker 5: Oh Chocolate, No, No, yeah, exactly, no, I kind of.
Speaker 1: Well no, Well, in short, uh, I was auditioning for Tarika,
Speaker 1: and I went to New York to audition. I went
Speaker 1: to audition for colleges to uh Julliard and the News School,
Speaker 1: And on the train ride home, some girl thought that
Speaker 1: I was Chocolate playing the bucket drummer.
Speaker 3: That Chocolate ride had the bucket drummer on the video.
Speaker 1: Right, and also in Spike Lee's well you know, he
Speaker 1: was also in Spike Lee's Levi's commercial, so she thought
Speaker 1: I was the Levi's guy, when actually I was the
Speaker 1: Motown Philly guy. So the next the next day, Tarik
Speaker 1: is in my living room and after a commercial, uh,
Speaker 1: we're watching Soul Train and when that Levi's commercial comes on,
Speaker 1: Treik was like, yo, that girl thought he was the
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey guy anyway, so we might as well just
Speaker 1: do that. And then wow, four hours later, the Roots
Speaker 1: are doing their first show on South Street. So yes,
Speaker 1: thank you to Someday. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I used to always tell people y'all came first.
Speaker 3: All right, so you talk about those demos? How did
Speaker 3: you cut those original demos? Because you if you was
Speaker 3: couldn't afford, you know, to eat, How did you How
Speaker 3: did you afford it? And how did you meet Walter?
Speaker 4: Walter came later. Walter was I met through Naught and
Speaker 4: Michael Walden and was doing a lot of production for
Speaker 4: him in that I'm trying to think of the name
Speaker 4: of the actual area and it's like in the Bay
Speaker 4: Area kind of up in that San Francisco, but beyond Thomas,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of the name of the studio.
Speaker 4: You could, you could find out what it is. But anyway,
Speaker 4: so Walter was working in that world but prior to that, way,
Speaker 4: prior to that, and also Randy Jackson was around there.
Speaker 4: Like that's how I met.
Speaker 1: Everybody that started his whole crew.
Speaker 4: Yet his whole crew, and he had a lot of
Speaker 4: really great people, musicians, support system, whole thing. But anyway,
Speaker 4: that's like when I first before my first record, everybody
Speaker 4: was like, oh, she would go work with an order
Speaker 4: now in order to answer the question to preserve my
Speaker 4: ability or to ensure my like just being able to
Speaker 4: be a writer, and not to be forced to do
Speaker 4: other people's songs. When I saw my idea, like I said,
Speaker 4: I already had that demo that had, you know, songs
Speaker 4: that people could look at and go, oh, she's she
Speaker 4: wrote this, Okay what I worked with? At first, I
Speaker 4: met Gavin Christopher, who did I'm coming wanstead up.
Speaker 1: I've had I've had three legendary arguments with singers on
Speaker 1: the internet, and Gavin Christopher is one of them.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I haven't seen him since way back then. I
Speaker 4: haven't seen him since way back then. And he wasn't
Speaker 4: even really like She's the next star, Da da da,
Speaker 4: but he was cool enough to work with me and
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. And then from him, because I was
Speaker 4: in high school, I was like sixteen years old, So
Speaker 4: then from him I met this guy named Ben Marca.
Speaker 4: Lee's blah blah blah. It's all in the book. But
Speaker 4: we worked in his dad's studio, which for the time,
Speaker 4: I was lucky to be at any studio. But it
Speaker 4: was a small studio in the back of a woods shop.
Speaker 4: And you know, they I guess they must have had
Speaker 4: some money, because I surely didn't. They were like twenty five,
Speaker 4: twenty six, and I was a kid in high school,
Speaker 4: so I was just happy to be there working and writing,
Speaker 4: and then I would get up. I would stay there,
Speaker 4: and then I would try to drive back to the island,
Speaker 4: try to drive back to Long Island, which I hated
Speaker 4: that whole experience, but whatever, I would wind up lost
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn by myself. You know, it's no cell phone
Speaker 4: people at cell phones.
Speaker 9: And GPS, and I was just like in this piece
Speaker 9: of crap cutless Supreme from like whatever, nineteen eighty or something,
Speaker 9: and I'm sitting there driving getting lost everywhere.
Speaker 4: But it was worth it because I would get there.
Speaker 4: I would always be late to school. I would you know,
Speaker 4: make my fake forged notes and get to school. But
Speaker 4: really the reason I was late I could do my
Speaker 4: mother's signature perfectly. The reason I was late is because
Speaker 4: I was working in a studio. But that's so I
Speaker 4: started working with Ben and we made this demo with
Speaker 4: a lot of songs that we wrote. And this year
Speaker 4: when we released the Rarities, there's a few of the
Speaker 4: song well really one song that we wrote together called
Speaker 4: here We Go Around Again, which back then I love
Speaker 4: the demo, but when we went on to make the album,
Speaker 4: they just tried to reinvent the wheel because the demo
Speaker 4: was better anyway. So I had these songs and people
Speaker 4: felt that they could be hits. The label felt they
Speaker 4: could be hits. So when I was signing my deal,
Speaker 4: even though I signed it like the worst deal in
Speaker 4: history because it was through that production company, the PA,
Speaker 4: I don't know if it the worst deal in history
Speaker 4: is pretty bad. But the one thing, thank god, I
Speaker 4: didn't do was sell my publishing for five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: That was yeah, that was presenting me as an option.
Speaker 4: So five thousand dollars sounded like five one hundred million
Speaker 4: dollars to me at that point. And luckily I didn't
Speaker 4: because I had seen a documentary on the Beatles and
Speaker 4: their whole thing, okay, yeah, and what they gave away,
Speaker 4: so I knew better than to do that. But when
Speaker 4: I did sign my ideal, the one thing I said
Speaker 4: to the lawyer because I knew I was kind of
Speaker 4: giving away a lot, but you don't know, as a
Speaker 4: broke kid that grew up with nothing, you don't know what.
Speaker 3: You don't have leverage to negotiate for anything better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And plus I was too young to even be
Speaker 4: signing my own record deal anyway. So I was like,
Speaker 4: you know, and my mother didn't know. She came into
Speaker 4: the room and just trying to help. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: here as the guardian, but she didn't know. So I
Speaker 4: just said to the lawyer, I said, the one thing
Speaker 4: I want to make sure is that nobody can force
Speaker 4: me to do somebody else's song, Like, I just have
Speaker 4: to make sure that they can't force me to do that.
Speaker 4: So even when they would direct me to work with
Speaker 4: producers over the day that they wanted me to work
Speaker 4: with for whatever Warren or.
Speaker 7: No or.
Speaker 1: A name at the time, they.
Speaker 4: Didn't force me to work with any songwriters. They they
Speaker 4: suggested that I work with, be it Rett Lawrence or
Speaker 4: not to Michael Walden or Rick Wake or whoever it was.
Speaker 4: It was like, you know, work with these people because
Speaker 4: we believe this is going to happen. But then the
Speaker 4: ones that I loved the best were like the Richer
Speaker 4: t Moment or do you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 4: things where it was a collaborative musical experience and where
Speaker 4: people of that statue were giving me as a kid,
Speaker 4: as a young woman, which is really difficult, you know,
Speaker 4: really difficult, particularly being female. To get any kind of
Speaker 4: respect and all the obstacles, you know, just to be
Speaker 4: able to be like, okay, I don't I'm not being
Speaker 4: forced to work with writers. So that was one thing.
Speaker 4: Nobody ever submitted songs to me, and if they did,
Speaker 4: I didn't hear them. So that was one thing that
Speaker 4: was grateful for you.
Speaker 5: Now I was going to ask it they ever.
Speaker 7: Did they ever ask that you write songs for some
Speaker 7: of the other ladies coming through or anyone. No.
Speaker 4: At that point I think it was like, you know what,
Speaker 4: this is our we believe in this girl being me.
Speaker 4: Let's get done. So it took like a year to
Speaker 4: actually take what were demos and then the new songs
Speaker 4: that I would write or do to be this finished product.
Speaker 4: And there was a conscious effort like because I was
Speaker 4: sitting like when is this going to be done? Like
Speaker 4: you know, it's just like that, and they're like, it's
Speaker 4: fine because we and there was a vision that it
Speaker 4: would happen and begin in the nineties, not like before that.
Speaker 4: So that whole year of figuring it out, I do
Speaker 4: think it was a smart move to not have it
Speaker 4: out until that decade began.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask, does when you were working
Speaker 1: with Narada. Does he always talk in that mystical voice? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: any anytime Narda, anytime he talks to me, I always
Speaker 1: feel like I'm being hypnotized at the moment.
Speaker 4: You know, he he's very said, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like he's.
Speaker 1: Too saying I get scared Narada and Eric about your
Speaker 1: two people, and I don't want to look in the
Speaker 1: eye for more than five seconds.
Speaker 4: So as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Eric Erica has a very hypnotic quality that will
Speaker 1: have you wearing crosy pants in about a year or so.
Speaker 4: Stop that he's an artist and she's sensitive. Word.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask what was working with Walter a fantasy?
Speaker 3: Like what was he like in the studio? I always
Speaker 3: admire like one of my favorite, my favorite songs of
Speaker 3: yours is Can't Let Go, And I just thought that
Speaker 3: that's just that sound that you and him had together.
Speaker 3: It was just a very pop like super clean and
Speaker 3: you know, just just the sine that he would have
Speaker 3: on those records. Like when I heard God this the
Speaker 3: Bruno Mars record the Vasati on the floor on right,
Speaker 3: I was like, Yo, this is him doing Walter. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, but but nah, I just want to
Speaker 3: know what was he like in the studio, because he's
Speaker 3: not someone i've you know, really read or know much about.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, first of all, thank you. We can't let
Speaker 4: go that. Walter was a great writing partner. I would
Speaker 4: always try to sneer thing more and they can't let
Speaker 4: go direction because because it was a little bit slightly
Speaker 4: more R and B than black other things translation black,
Speaker 4: so slightly more than that more there. But you know,
Speaker 4: we could also do these big sweeping things like till
Speaker 4: the End of Time, which only like the Lambs would know.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was it was the next the last song
Speaker 3: going your first album, the.
Speaker 1: End of Time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that part, that was when I got to really
Speaker 4: express myself on the outros, on the on the you know,
Speaker 4: doing the background vocal parts, like doing those arranging that stuff.
Speaker 4: But I really liked working with him in that way.
Speaker 4: There were some uh, incestuous situations where let's just call
Speaker 4: it the record company and the publishing situations where I
Speaker 4: don't want to get into this various specifics. This is
Speaker 4: not i' to say it, but really it was too
Speaker 4: how do you call it? It was? It was a
Speaker 4: bit incestuous because people were like, how do I say
Speaker 4: it oh loood?
Speaker 3: Was it was? It like the label had a piece
Speaker 3: of Walter So like baby.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't want to go saying that because I don't know
Speaker 4: for sure, but I'm just saying certain people in my
Speaker 4: life had that other connection and so there was extremely
Speaker 4: talented but some but for the most part, when I'm
Speaker 4: coming up with melodies and I'm singing it to somebody
Speaker 4: like hey, can you play this? That happened on several songs,
Speaker 4: and then we would take it to another place because
Speaker 4: I won't think of if someone plays accord, I'll be
Speaker 4: like no, like I hear it in my head and
Speaker 4: then I'm like, that's not it. I don't know how
Speaker 4: to articulate it. I'm not there going can you really inverted?
Speaker 4: Like I don't know how to say that. I just
Speaker 4: know how to hear it. So so I'll be hearing
Speaker 4: something and until somebody gets it where I'm hearing it,
Speaker 4: I'll be like no, no, no, no, and then we
Speaker 4: get there and then from there he and I I
Speaker 4: will say I had a really good flow with putting
Speaker 4: stuff together. So it's no shade towards him. I wish
Speaker 4: him well whatever, but I will say, like, you know
Speaker 4: that was a that was a moment in time, and
Speaker 4: I'm very thankful for it. And also talking about people
Speaker 4: that have been great writers writing partners with me, Big
Speaker 4: Jim Wright with Fly like a Bird and Circles and
Speaker 4: all those songs for me. Me also James Poyser. Now
Speaker 4: everybody says it's poisoning that we actual pronunciation of his name,
Speaker 4: and I don't understand it, but I love him and
Speaker 4: so when we I love working with incredibly talented musicians
Speaker 4: because when I can sing back and forth to them
Speaker 4: and we can figure things out together and then we
Speaker 4: can go to another place, that's something that I feel
Speaker 4: is a gift. When I'm sitting there coming up with
Speaker 4: stuff by myself, I love it, but I know that
Speaker 4: I need to articulate it to somebody to put it
Speaker 4: down unless I'm playing, which is the worst thing ever,
Speaker 4: although sometimes it's turned out to be to my own
Speaker 4: benefit because I don't know the rules, so I don't
Speaker 4: have to follow them.
Speaker 2: So besides big joy question, can I just say I
Speaker 2: love working with James Poyser?
Speaker 3: James, I said.
Speaker 5: Poiser, Okay, his name, Mariah, say his name.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, I said, James Poyser because everybody else
Speaker 4: goes it, says Poisoner, and then they and make me
Speaker 4: feel like I'm a stupid one.
Speaker 1: It's pains. I created James Poisoner Twitter account just a computer.
Speaker 3: The real the real secret is James Poyser is just
Speaker 3: Nelson George's side project.
Speaker 4: No comment, no comment. But When Christmas Comes, which we
Speaker 4: wrote together, is one of my favorite Christmas songs and
Speaker 4: I really have I really feel like it's a much
Speaker 4: more look we love. All I want for Christmas is
Speaker 4: you and I thank the Good Lord above. I really
Speaker 4: sat there coming up with a like And then when
Speaker 4: I did sing that to walderhat and he's been on
Speaker 4: record as saying it, why are you trying to do
Speaker 4: scales as a song?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 4: Why is that? Why would you want to do that?
Speaker 4: Like he didn't hearly as a thing.
Speaker 1: How long did it take to record that?
Speaker 4: Which fire?
Speaker 3: No the song?
Speaker 1: I have a theory about mega songs. Every mega song
Speaker 1: that's larger than life take seconds to do. So like
Speaker 1: how long did it take to write, not executing record,
Speaker 1: but just to write the general song that we know?
Speaker 4: So the idea, So there was an idea do a
Speaker 4: Christmas album and at that point at twenty two or whatever,
Speaker 4: I was like lily little early and then I said, Okay,
Speaker 4: well I love Christmas. I always have, you know, let
Speaker 4: me think about it. So you you know, I was
Speaker 4: sitting in this house in the Hillsdale, New York as
Speaker 4: I came at hills Jail, and just started thinking, like,
Speaker 4: what are the what are the things that I loved
Speaker 4: as a kid with Christmas songs? And what are all
Speaker 4: the things that made me feel christmasly even amidst the
Speaker 4: bleakness of my childhood. So I started sitting there and
Speaker 4: there was this keyboard. I believe it was some sort
Speaker 4: of some sort of really really cheap like CASSIEO keyboard
Speaker 4: or something. And again I'm I'm not playing, I just
Speaker 4: write a lot. So I was in there and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I just started like channeling and trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to play it. So by the time I brought
Speaker 4: it to Walter, I had done everything but the bridge.
Speaker 4: Oh lots of USh shining, you know, because I honestly
Speaker 4: couldn't probably do that transition like as a as a
Speaker 4: keyboard player, which I'm still not. But so we did
Speaker 4: that part and then we brought it back to the oh,
Speaker 4: so I would say the writing my part. I had
Speaker 4: the lyrics done except for the bridge. I had everything
Speaker 4: done really quick, like it was just immediate, you know.
Speaker 4: It's it's like with Hero. I had a They explained
Speaker 4: the song that I'm sorry the movie there was a
Speaker 4: movie by Dustin with Dustin Khoff and whatever. Tommy Mitella
Speaker 4: came in, Hey, Luther's doing a song for this movie.
Speaker 4: They want you to write this song for Glorias to Find.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's about a guy that says people on a plane.
Speaker 4: That's pretty much what I heard, right, And I was
Speaker 4: never alone at that point in my life, and I'm
Speaker 4: pretty much I rarely still am. But anytime I would
Speaker 4: walk to the bathroom and I wouldn't be followed by
Speaker 4: somebody's goons or whatever, I would walk in. I had
Speaker 4: two minutes. I go in there and I'm and I
Speaker 4: start hearing that, and then here comes along like the
Speaker 4: melody and the piano part, right, and so then I
Speaker 4: walked back and like, well this is how it goes. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: carry me on, right. So I'm like I'm like all excited,
Speaker 4: like just write this, dude, this dude. And then I'm
Speaker 4: like I'm like, so, wait, who do they want this for?
Speaker 4: They wanted for Glorias to right, and Tommy's standing there
Speaker 4: and he's like, I think you need to keep this
Speaker 4: one for yourself. So it was a similar thing with
Speaker 4: All I Want for Christmas is You, except that I
Speaker 4: was by myself in the room at first, and then
Speaker 4: wrote those lyrics down and then went and sang it
Speaker 4: to Walter and we finished it from there. But the
Speaker 4: actual recording of the record took a while, and it
Speaker 4: was a collaboration, and you know, I'm not taking anything
Speaker 4: away from him, but there was a concerted effort to
Speaker 4: make it feel like a classic, which I've noticed people
Speaker 4: have adapted that type of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like the phil Spector, I love the Phil
Speaker 1: Spector ones of it. But I would like to note that,
Speaker 1: you know, when I woke up this morning to prepare
Speaker 1: for this interview, I was listening to it. All I
Speaker 1: Want for Christmas is You is probably the happiest song
Speaker 1: with the most minor note keys in it. Like there's
Speaker 1: so much dark chords and minor chords in the song, but.
Speaker 4: Like, because people don't expect it to go.
Speaker 1: There exactly like it's it's it's a very unlikely because
Speaker 1: usually Christmas is associated with I mean, every Christmas song
Speaker 1: practically has like happy chords, happy major chords. And I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how did this song manage to
Speaker 1: jump over the pack because it's it's there's so many
Speaker 1: chromatic and and and dark chords in it that are
Speaker 1: more blues based or black, you know, like black chords,
Speaker 1: yet it works and I'm trying, like that's a hard
Speaker 1: thing to achieve because you know, I know that most
Speaker 1: pop hits have some sort of major chord element that
Speaker 1: feels inviting. And not to say that blues chords don't
Speaker 1: work and aren't successful, like you know, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: them out there, but usually in Christmas songs it's like that,
Speaker 1: like as far as like structuring the song where they're
Speaker 1: back and forth and sort of you know, conflict as
Speaker 1: in to how bright the song should be as opposed
Speaker 1: to how it came out, because it's it's an achievement
Speaker 1: that is such blues based. But still I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm saying it the right way. I know what
Speaker 1: you mean.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because Mark Shaman, when we the incredible
Speaker 4: Mark Shaman or Kestel Genius, who I worked with.
Speaker 3: Starting on he wrote the south Park movie. That's like
Speaker 3: my favorite thing he's ever done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love him and he is.
Speaker 4: The most irreverent, just hilarious person and super talented and everything.
Speaker 4: But when we first got together, he was like, don't
Speaker 4: think I didn't hear. I just want like, you know
Speaker 4: that little that was hot. Yeah, but I don't think
Speaker 4: I didn't hear that. So so here's the thing, because
Speaker 4: like I said before, I don't know the rules. I
Speaker 4: don't follow the rules. I just know what I hear,
Speaker 4: and specifically on that one, it was just like like
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just heard it, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, I didn't do it like here, I am
Speaker 4: trying to be bloozy here, I am trying to I
Speaker 4: don't know. And I think that's why Walter was like,
Speaker 4: well why and that he said in that interview, which
Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm sure it can be geguiled, but
Speaker 4: you know, it was like these scales and she's trying
Speaker 4: to this. I wasn't trying to do anything like that.
Speaker 4: I don't even know how to break it down and
Speaker 4: explain that. I just know that that's what I heard,
Speaker 4: and I heard it with the with you know, the lyrics,
Speaker 4: and then wrote them down. But it was very specific
Speaker 4: to me, and I recorded it on my little tape
Speaker 4: recorder that I had that you know, the mini tape
Speaker 4: recorder and you just help it kind smaller than an
Speaker 4: iPhone but like thicker, and so I had that and
Speaker 4: I recorded it on there, and I don't know, like
Speaker 4: I agree the when it gets poppy is the oh
Speaker 4: name made? You know what I mean? Like that part's
Speaker 4: poppy because the backgrounds were such incredible singers, and because
Speaker 4: the way we range it, like you're fine with the
Speaker 4: poppiness of at that point, the whole thing, unless we're
Speaker 4: getting analytical about it, is pop. But you're right, those
Speaker 4: changes came from me because I didn't know any better.
Speaker 4: I didn't know. Oh, let me just make this like
Speaker 4: oh and happy and festive and we won't darker. Course,
Speaker 4: But like in the book I talk about how my
Speaker 4: Christmas is as a kid, I always wanted them to
Speaker 4: be perfect. I always wanted them to do great, and
Speaker 4: I have these ex family members who really destroyed every year.
Speaker 4: So I think when writing the song just by myself
Speaker 4: in the room, not dissimilar to where I'm at right
Speaker 4: now looking at the Christmas Tree by myself, just thinking
Speaker 4: about stuff, kind of feeling whatever's happening in the air.
Speaker 4: And I do feel like when you're writing, if it's
Speaker 4: a real, if it's a connected moment, you are channeling,
Speaker 4: you know. And I know that's that's we know that,
Speaker 4: but not everybody understands that. I'm not saying with some
Speaker 4: genius revelation, but that's what happened. So it was just like,
Speaker 4: this is what I'm hearing, you know, and this is
Speaker 4: what I think would be good. I never was like,
Speaker 4: oh and then blah blah blah, you're so now we're
Speaker 4: going to break the Spotify record.
Speaker 1: So I've learned ever since I've gotten to know you,
Speaker 1: I know that there's a term called Mariah hours, which
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen out there. This is the one of
Speaker 1: the first episodes that we've taped, the only the only
Speaker 1: most of our episodes are done.
Speaker 7: And I'm sorry and listen not to not to be
Speaker 7: your daddy, but even when we did Quincy Jones, Oh Jesus.
Speaker 5: Christ, it was out of respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Quincy was just was in this late like right now,
Speaker 1: it's it's two in the morning where we are. But hoologizing. Nah,
Speaker 1: it's all good. We on COVID time anyway. Ain't nobody sleeping? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a new job. What what I want to have?
Speaker 1: You always kept Mariah, like when do you wake up?
Speaker 1: When do you wake up in the morning, Like what
Speaker 1: is your daily routine? Because I know like three in
Speaker 1: the morning is sort of like you're twelve in the afternoon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, And I don't have. I don't have
Speaker 4: when I'm working, which when I say working, I need tramo,
Speaker 4: not in a studio. When I'm in the studio, you know,
Speaker 4: And the best place for me to be in the
Speaker 4: studio is wherever feels the best. So, like we said,
Speaker 4: Capree the Bahamas, wherever, it's just on the schedule of
Speaker 4: when now I'm not I don't mean writing. If there's
Speaker 4: like a whole like what I would love to do again,
Speaker 4: there's a whole bunch of writers get together. We're in
Speaker 4: a place, we work at a respectable hour, whatever that
Speaker 4: is for everybody, a little the better, But you know,
Speaker 4: we all get together. We come up with stuff. If
Speaker 4: we're doing that, like I did that on this song
Speaker 4: called Subtle Invitation in the Bahamas. We're working at Compass
Speaker 4: Points Studios, and.
Speaker 1: You know one of them still around.
Speaker 4: I don't know this is back. This is early mid
Speaker 4: two thousands of the Chambre.
Speaker 1: Compass Point world famous. We're Sli and Robbie and Grace Jones.
Speaker 4: Everybody record Club Tom Tom Club, and I.
Speaker 1: Believe anybody on island records like practically recorded down there.
Speaker 1: So continue.
Speaker 4: So you're there, and you know whatever you're working on,
Speaker 4: whatever the time schedule is.
Speaker 5: And now what I've.
Speaker 4: Realized with recording vocals, so that's the only thing for writing,
Speaker 4: but recording vocals, I just have to get up and
Speaker 4: luckily my engineer is cool enough to be like, okay,
Speaker 4: we're working on MC time. Okay we do. I drink coffee,
Speaker 4: like give me two hours, lea, you know, heads up,
Speaker 4: I'll get my two three hours. You know, we'll do
Speaker 4: a thing where it's like not before ten, so we
Speaker 4: know that usually means midnight, but you know, we know
Speaker 4: it's not gonna be more tense. So he sleeps, I sleep,
Speaker 4: and we just get up when my voice is ready
Speaker 4: to work. But in terms of like Mariah hours, this
Speaker 4: started for me when I was six years old because
Speaker 4: my house felt very unstable and there was always like
Speaker 4: teenage people and whatever happening, you know, freaking seances, whatever
Speaker 4: the hell was going on was happening, and it felt unsafe,
Speaker 4: and so I would lay in bed and kind of
Speaker 4: be scared and I wouldn't be able to sleep. So
Speaker 4: over the years it just became like I stayed up
Speaker 4: because I had to develop this kind of like person
Speaker 4: in charge, like here's my reflexes, like in case something
Speaker 4: has to happen.
Speaker 1: This mechanism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, defend, I'm the grown up in this scenario, like
Speaker 4: something may happen and I'm going to be awake to
Speaker 4: handle it. So that started as like a six year
Speaker 4: old kid, and it's all detailed in the memoir. But yes,
Speaker 4: that's what happened. The reason I say that is because
Speaker 4: I'm not explaining it as eloquently as I would like
Speaker 4: for people to hear it and to understand, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. But answer the question.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to get on that next because
Speaker 1: I didn't even start with the book yet.
Speaker 7: But but wait, can I ask about the time things
Speaker 7: that she did mention the time, because I mean, You've
Speaker 7: been mentioned in the book a little bit, but in
Speaker 7: the book you do talk about like your whole concept
Speaker 7: of time and acknowledging and whatnot, and not to go
Speaker 7: over it because, like you said, it's in the book,
Speaker 7: but I was curious. I was, like, the one thing
Speaker 7: you didn't mention was when you developed this concept of
Speaker 7: not acknowledging time. It reminded me of something my grandmother
Speaker 7: used to say, because people would always ask her how
Speaker 7: old she was, and she would say, I'm too too
Speaker 7: old to be young, too young to be old, and
Speaker 7: that's it.
Speaker 5: Don't ask me anymore.
Speaker 4: But oh.
Speaker 7: But but that being said, like when did that concept
Speaker 7: to you start developing? Like I don't need to acknowledge
Speaker 7: this time thing at all.
Speaker 4: Let's just I turned when I when I was eighteen,
Speaker 4: prior to getting my record deal. Right, Yeah, I had
Speaker 4: a I guess it's a boyfriend. It wasn't really like
Speaker 4: that deep of a thing. There was no actual whatever.
Speaker 4: La la la lah. You'll you'll get to know. I'm
Speaker 4: very prudish. I'm very prudish. People don't know, but I
Speaker 4: don't talk about certain things. That's just how I am.
Speaker 4: But you know, and then that's really as a response
Speaker 4: to like people I saw growing up that were the opposite,
Speaker 4: that were very promiscuous that had all these situations going on,
Speaker 4: and I just never wanted to be like them. But anyway,
Speaker 4: so when I so when I was eighteen, I cried
Speaker 4: and my boyfriend, you know, god lesson for tolerating my prudences.
Speaker 4: But he was like, why are you crying? And I'm like,
Speaker 4: because I didn't. I don't have a record deal yet,
Speaker 4: like this is supposed to be happening. When I was, well,
Speaker 4: what is going on? And I didn't understand it? And
Speaker 4: I was I was so my work ethic was insane.
Speaker 4: People don't understand. Yes you can be borned, Yes you
Speaker 4: can be born with whatever the look is or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. But if you don't have that work ethic,
Speaker 4: unless you have somebody that shines down upon you from
Speaker 4: above and does all the work for you, it's really
Speaker 4: not most likely not going to happen because you just
Speaker 4: have to have that Like I'm going to do this regardless.
Speaker 4: I believe in it and I know it is going
Speaker 4: to happen. So in terms of like doing it, when
Speaker 4: I was young, like I was, I just had this
Speaker 4: thing where oh my gosh, like this is supposed to
Speaker 4: be happening. This is a young person's industry, like and
Speaker 4: this is me as a kid knowing this. So I'm
Speaker 4: very thankful though that it didn't happen when I was
Speaker 4: much younger, like that, I that I didn't get those
Speaker 4: Broadways show things I wanted to be in as a
Speaker 4: ten year old because I was quote too tall. But
Speaker 4: we know, we know someone it was.
Speaker 1: You, you see, that was like one of their excuses.
Speaker 4: That was from Annie. Let's face it.
Speaker 5: We know I wasn't Oh no, you wasn't sorry boo no.
Speaker 3: Not life for real?
Speaker 4: No, no too dall. But I but I realized, like
Speaker 4: in retrospect, like I mean, I'm not putting myself in
Speaker 4: this category in terms of talent of God getting talent,
Speaker 4: but when you look at Michael Jackson and you look
Speaker 4: at how he really never had a childhood, like and
Speaker 4: then he became this hugely you can't even call it
Speaker 4: what it was. But I mean, like I was just
Speaker 4: thankful at least I had somewhat of a childhood dysfunctionalised
Speaker 4: it was that wasn't a famous person's childhood, because I
Speaker 4: feel like that really screws people up beyond repair sometimes.
Speaker 4: But in terms of like how did it make me
Speaker 4: feel to just not acknowledge time. I just decided, you know, anniversaries,
Speaker 4: no birthdays is what it is. Keep a pushing. I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Mariot, I guess I should say. I was
Speaker 1: about to say, I guess that's to start with, but
Speaker 1: it's ninety minutes into it. So our good friend Eleana
Speaker 1: Diaz of Rock Nation former Fallon Night now she's probably
Speaker 1: going to be president in ten years, sent me a
Speaker 1: box with your book in it, and it came with
Speaker 1: tissues and I was like, okay, that's interesting. What am
Speaker 1: I supposed to cry when I read this book? Whatever?
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 1: I took the book home, and this is like prime COVID,
Speaker 1: where like one of the one thing I stuck to
Speaker 1: was my promise to read more books, Like I just
Speaker 1: stopped reading books pre like March twenty twenty. Maybe I
Speaker 1: did like one of two books a year, and this
Speaker 1: year I'm like, okay, I'm gonna just run everything dust off,
Speaker 1: you know, sixteen books whatever. So you know, I said,
Speaker 1: all right, let me let me read the first three
Speaker 1: chapter see if I'm gonna learn anything about it about her,
Speaker 1: And you know, about chapter three, I was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: just engaged and I'm let me, let me see what
Speaker 1: the next three year into. So when I got to
Speaker 1: the fifth chapter, I crept in your DMS and I
Speaker 1: was like, yo, you you write a good book. And
Speaker 1: the thing that in Laya actually texted me this last
Speaker 1: night she said, and I sent you what she said,
Speaker 1: uh Liyah said that the way that Mariah describes food
Speaker 1: is making me hungry. And I was like, yo, And
Speaker 1: I showed Layah my first text to you, which is
Speaker 1: basically I was like, yo, I've written two books about food,
Speaker 1: and no one has described Ritz crackers so eloquently that
Speaker 1: you have.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, all right, well I had
Speaker 1: to take this like long trip to Philadelphia, and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, let me get the audiobook listen
Speaker 1: to it in the car, and hearing you narrate this
Speaker 1: audio book was almost like your own podcast. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, now I got to start at the
Speaker 1: beginning again. And I had to say that this was
Speaker 1: for me like sleeper Surprise of the Year, Like this
Speaker 1: book has humanized you in a way I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was possible, not that I thought that you were
Speaker 1: subhuman or supern like most most black people, especially black
Speaker 1: achieving people. They're either like, you know, on the high
Speaker 1: level of you know, credit to their race and they're superhuman,
Speaker 1: or there's up human blake. We're never like, we're never neutral.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that this book puts you
Speaker 1: as a black person in a space where black people
Speaker 1: are rarely allowed to bleep be which is human? First
Speaker 1: of all, I would like to know, because most most
Speaker 1: memoirs are autobiographies, I don't trust them. That's why, like
Speaker 1: oral history is better because you at least get a
Speaker 1: taste of everyone's opinion. But what made you want to
Speaker 1: be so transparent and blatantly honest in this book? Because
Speaker 1: that's what I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 4: Well, I've been wanting to write this book for years,
Speaker 4: Like I think, first of all, I just wanted when
Speaker 4: I when I first so I had the opportunity to
Speaker 4: work with a very big like probably the biggest publishing
Speaker 4: house that there is, when I was pregnant, Right, that's
Speaker 4: what I wanted to write the book. I'm like here,
Speaker 4: I am, I can't go anywhere. It's basically like COVID,
Speaker 4: but it's not COVID. But you're pregnant with twins and
Speaker 4: you're on bedrest, and and I was like, all this
Speaker 4: all my life, Oh my life. I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 4: write this, write my book, write my story. So I
Speaker 4: so I wanted to do it at that point. And
Speaker 4: I really had this great relationship, very just beginning on
Speaker 4: a relationship, but I felt a kinship with Mikayla Angela Davis,
Speaker 4: who I wanted to work on the book with. Right
Speaker 4: and then this publishing house, the person at the top,
Speaker 4: she was the editor in chief, and she said, I
Speaker 4: don't want you to collaborate with anybody because I believe
Speaker 4: that your voice is going to transcend. You know, you
Speaker 4: need to have it be your voice. I'll be your
Speaker 4: editor and you just do it. And I was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, that's huge, and I thank you for
Speaker 4: believing in me on that in that way. But I
Speaker 4: really want to work with Mikayla. And so I didn't
Speaker 4: do the book at point, but I started just putting together,
Speaker 4: like some of the stories and whatever.
Speaker 7: Can you just tell us I'm sorry, I don't mean
Speaker 7: to apolog you, but can you just tell people because
Speaker 7: I'm a big fan of hers, but can you tell
Speaker 7: everybody why you were so adamant about Mikayla.
Speaker 4: Well, we okay. So michaela Angela Davis is a brilliant
Speaker 4: writer and she we first met when I did The Essence,
Speaker 4: my my first and only Essence magazine cover, which ended
Speaker 4: up myself just to make that happen at that point,
Speaker 4: because there were so many quote unquote issues with my
Speaker 4: image and how black women would perceive me and how,
Speaker 4: you know, could it happen and is this gonna happen
Speaker 4: and whatever, And it was a really important thing for
Speaker 4: it to happen for me because being black and of
Speaker 4: mixed race, there's always been this, you know, the stigma
Speaker 4: that that white people have. But then there's this thing,
Speaker 4: this thing where the lightness is perceived as privilege, privilege.
Speaker 4: But really, if you were put in the situations that
Speaker 4: I was put in as a kid, where you're only
Speaker 4: in white neighborhoods and this is nothing, they can't help it.
Speaker 4: You're put in this situation where you're not you're not
Speaker 4: dark enough to scare them into not saying anything, or
Speaker 4: even remind them, oh, let me not say this because
Speaker 4: it might offend this person because they're strictly looking at
Speaker 4: it like that. But then when they're all around you,
Speaker 4: like I talk about it in the book. Whatever you do.
Speaker 4: I think it's important that people hear it in the
Speaker 4: way that it's described in the book, because to just
Speaker 4: flippantly talk about it, it's why people were like, oh,
Speaker 4: what did you take so long? And know you're embracing
Speaker 4: your blackness, and like there was never a non embracing that.
Speaker 4: What did you expect to do?
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 4: I can't tattoo it on my fore I guess I
Speaker 4: could have. I mean, maybe I should have. I don't
Speaker 4: really want to attach it.
Speaker 1: On my forehead, but you know, like you have the
Speaker 1: vision to collaborate with old dirty bastard. That's the black
Speaker 1: move ever.
Speaker 7: But it was an interesting question as you listen to
Speaker 7: your story in the book though, because that's what I
Speaker 7: kept thinking to myself as I listened to you talk
Speaker 7: about how like your dad and you didn't really talk
Speaker 7: about that kind of stuff that much as I know
Speaker 7: about like your mom didn't talk about that stuff that much.
Speaker 7: And it's getting to know you and understanding that, like
Speaker 7: this has been an interesting journey for you in that
Speaker 7: way of that side of your life. So I always
Speaker 7: wondered as I was listening, I was like, so, I
Speaker 7: wonder what was that moment because I haven't gotten to
Speaker 7: it yet in the book where you were like maybe
Speaker 7: it was then the Bronx cousins or whatever, when you
Speaker 7: were like, this is me.
Speaker 1: I'm proud.
Speaker 5: I see it, you know, and there's a pride there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what happened was there was never a lack of
Speaker 4: I see it, I'm proud. It was always you take
Speaker 4: a child, you don't explain to them how to understand
Speaker 4: who they are. Right, you have a bour family with
Speaker 4: a black father and a white mother who was from
Speaker 4: the whitest place where the KKK born in Springfield, Illinois,
Speaker 4: and you have her family that had disowned her. Well,
Speaker 4: her family didn't even know she married my father. Only
Speaker 4: her mother knew, so she didn't tell anybody. And that
Speaker 4: imagine how you feel like because of who my father is,
Speaker 4: and ultimately that means because of who and what I am,
Speaker 4: and my siblings who went on to talk to whatever,
Speaker 4: because of what we are, we are considered sub human
Speaker 4: to them, so we don't exist and they don't even
Speaker 4: know that we exist. Actually, because that's how big of
Speaker 4: a that's how big of a thing it was that
Speaker 4: my mother did this. So it was the ultimate sin
Speaker 4: against her whiteness to her family and to her world.
Speaker 4: So to be honest with you, like she was very
Speaker 4: into civil rights, according as the story go, and she
Speaker 4: marth with doctor King before all these things, but which
Speaker 4: I heard more about that from her than I really
Speaker 4: heard from my father, because I feel like my father
Speaker 4: was always trying to in his own way assimilate understand
Speaker 4: who he was and what he went through because he
Speaker 4: was very like he you know he was. He just
Speaker 4: didn't really feel like he fit in it in any
Speaker 4: place either. So we never had a conversations till he
Speaker 4: was on his deathbed. But back to the thing about
Speaker 4: the book and why I felt I wanted to write
Speaker 4: with Michael was because we had these conversations in a
Speaker 4: way that I never had a conversation with another, certainly
Speaker 4: not a writer previously, and we connected on that level,
Speaker 4: and we couldn't get into every detail. How can you talk?
Speaker 4: How can you encapsulate a lifetime of experiences in a
Speaker 4: twenty minute interview with the magazine where the editor is
Speaker 4: going to then give you what they wanted to look like?
Speaker 4: How they what's the angled? You know? What I mean?
Speaker 1: Is Mikayla is she mixed race?
Speaker 4: As well, I'm down the line. But she's you know,
Speaker 4: her family's black. She likes them, She's very Mikaela Angela David.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, like she yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 4: It's a different struggle when you're placed in an environment
Speaker 4: that you don't belong in, so you're you're like fish
Speaker 4: out of water and with people saying stuff around you
Speaker 4: that they would neverver say, and you have to figure
Speaker 4: out you have to figure out how do I handle this,
Speaker 4: how do I how do I come back this, how
Speaker 4: do I exist? How do I survive? Without anybody giving
Speaker 4: you the talk, without anybody you know, and so.
Speaker 3: There was never a discussion about racing your house. There
Speaker 3: was never no one ever set you down and was like,
Speaker 3: you know, listen, you are a black girl and this
Speaker 3: is what that entails. Wow.
Speaker 4: No, No, it was your intucial and that's what you
Speaker 4: tell everybody. I'm like, but we don't know what that means.
Speaker 3: What is that mean?
Speaker 4: They don't know what this means. That's why, Yes, my
Speaker 4: cousins were always like when they were my cousins from
Speaker 4: the Bronx CC and Chris who we love, you know,
Speaker 4: on the few occasions when I'll be at my grandfather's
Speaker 4: house in Queen's and the kids would be like, that's
Speaker 4: not your cousin. She's white, and they would stick up
Speaker 4: for me and they would be like, no, she's not white,
Speaker 4: this is our cousin. She's black. She's our cousin. Like
Speaker 4: that was the only time there was like that unified,
Speaker 4: like we got you type of a thing, you know.
Speaker 4: But it was difficult because there's also the thing about
Speaker 4: money and not having money. So I think if it
Speaker 4: was like a family unit where the parent don't forget
Speaker 4: my parents divorce when I was like three or four
Speaker 4: years old, So there's that, and there's my father living
Speaker 4: in the neighborhood and me and my mother living in
Speaker 4: like fourteen different places without the siblings, without anybody else
Speaker 4: to connect to say we got you, like no matter
Speaker 4: what these other people are saying. And again they didn't
Speaker 4: know how to interpret it. They also it was considered
Speaker 4: their biggest insult to say to someone it's your father black,
Speaker 4: like this was they would say behind my back and
Speaker 4: then ultimately took my face when you you know, in
Speaker 4: a different way, when you read the book, did you.
Speaker 7: Ever play again with that little girl? Becky that ran
Speaker 7: crying when she saw your dad. Did you guys ever
Speaker 7: meet again?
Speaker 4: No, m.
Speaker 3: There was a girl named Becky, and I'm sure she
Speaker 3: was white. So what your name? Becky saw your dad
Speaker 3: started running?
Speaker 1: Oh I believe that Becky knows who Mariah Carey is.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I'm sure that incident really impacted upon her,
Speaker 4: like it was literally she had never seen a black
Speaker 4: person in her life before. So yeah, So when we're
Speaker 4: in this lily white neighborhood that my mother chose to
Speaker 4: live in, and then this was my friend and there
Speaker 4: were no questions asked like what are this and that
Speaker 4: I think that's before my hair retext yourized, so I'm
Speaker 4: still really you and you know, we go to my
Speaker 4: dad house and I talk about it in the book obviously,
Speaker 4: but she just was frozen and then she just broke
Speaker 4: down and then my mother like escorted her. For some reason,
Speaker 4: my mother knew to like linger. My mother escorted her out,
Speaker 4: and it was just like, I'll never forget it. I'm
Speaker 4: sure she probably remembers it, but maybe she blocked it out.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Darling, how much control or well, well,
Speaker 3: from from the context of what you said earlier, so
Speaker 3: you had like really no control. But you know, when
Speaker 3: you're when you first signed to Columbia, who or how
Speaker 3: did you decide or what role did you play in
Speaker 3: your imaging in your package because they marketed you very
Speaker 3: much as you know, like just the pop kind of girl,
Speaker 3: and like, you know, they kind of just marked you
Speaker 3: as a white woman, not us. You know, we could
Speaker 3: look at you and we knew you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like we was like I hear what y'all saying.
Speaker 5: But you know, like so like we knew something smells familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I see, I see them curls, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 3: I see?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So yeah, what was what took us through that process?
Speaker 3: Like just kind of your identity being formed for you
Speaker 3: in a way that maybe you didn't have any say
Speaker 3: so over, I would.
Speaker 4: Say that the marketing is its own thing. If you
Speaker 4: look at the actual first album cover in the back
Speaker 4: of the first album cover, my first album cover Marine Kerry, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: what you have time to display my blackness differently? Just
Speaker 4: tell me, like visually it was just your face because
Speaker 4: it was just your face in black and white. Yes,
Speaker 4: it was my natural hair, you know, additional curls put
Speaker 4: in it and then the black cover it curvature and
Speaker 4: stuff like that. Like I'm just trying to asked, like,
Speaker 4: how do you think that I could have made it
Speaker 4: more clear other than telling people that my father was
Speaker 4: black my mother? How how could we have unless it
Speaker 4: was should I have adapted a different hairstyle?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't be.
Speaker 5: No, that's that's deep. No, you're right, you're right. No,
Speaker 5: you're right, that's deep.
Speaker 3: And then asking that question, I wasn't like it wasn't
Speaker 3: a blaming of you or anything like that. I was
Speaker 3: just it was just something that like we all just
Speaker 3: kind of notice it's a conversation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because people did, but you you're right, Like I
Speaker 5: was just me.
Speaker 4: No, I was me honestly. It wasn't even like on
Speaker 4: that album cover, I had like straight hair and blue
Speaker 4: contacts and you know, none of that, Like it's the
Speaker 4: same nose. It's the seem like you I can't help.
Speaker 4: But I talked about in the book, I don't have
Speaker 4: an upper lift that you know they told me. The
Speaker 4: black people would be like, oh, your lip is too small,
Speaker 4: but white people were like, your lip is really full,
Speaker 4: and I'm like yeah, but you know, I think the marketing.
Speaker 4: Marketing wise, they definitely skewed it pop. They definitely wanted adult,
Speaker 4: temporary pop. There's no question in my mind. But at
Speaker 4: that point, how the hell do I know the different charts?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, by the way, Vision of
Speaker 4: Love was number one on the quote unquote R and
Speaker 4: B charts before the pop charts, So I often refer
Speaker 4: to that because that makes me feel a sense of right.
Speaker 7: But there wasn't like a black music department at that point,
Speaker 7: with black music department thing a thing, or it wasn't even.
Speaker 4: At your point. They really skewed me away from that.
Speaker 4: But I did work with the Black Music Department, and
Speaker 4: that was when Rodriguez was running Oh Ruben.
Speaker 1: Ladies and Gentlemen and lambs. That concludes part one of
Speaker 1: our special two part terview with the One in the
Speaker 1: for Ria Carrey. Make sure you come back to part
Speaker 1: two of the Question of Supreme special with the One
Speaker 1: and Riah carry all right, see Oven, Hey, this is
Speaker 1: Sugar Steed.
Speaker 2: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 2: QLs and let us know what you think and who
Speaker 2: should be next to sit down with us.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe.
Speaker 3: To our podcast.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.