Speaker 1: Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies
Speaker 1: and Gentlemen, Welcome to QLs Classic Episode twenty four with
Speaker 1: Persuer May twenty seventeen. He's one of the brightest stars
Speaker 1: of the post MJ generation and we get to chop
Speaker 1: it up with Usher about his life growing up in
Speaker 1: the spotlight, not to mention to the pressures of keeping
Speaker 1: that light bright. We get confessional about doing it his way.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy Usher QLs Classic.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Supremo Supremo. Roll Call, Suprima Supremo. Roll Call, Suprima, Supremo.
Speaker 2: Roll Suprima, supremos Que.
Speaker 1: Yeah, st yeah, l O v E Yeah, roll roll
Speaker 1: the name. I got so many tricks.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I should have won that oscar for in the mix.
Speaker 4: Some real.
Speaker 1: Sugar, Sugar Steve. Yeah, this is my confession. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love we already that st roll call Supremo Supremo. Role
Speaker 1: this boss Bill. Yeah, I'm about to have some fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've been away for a while. Yeah, I had to
Speaker 1: get the guns roll.
Speaker 4: Bill.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what's the deal. Yeah, I've been watching The
Speaker 5: West Wing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's real Supreme.
Speaker 2: Supreme roll Supremo, Supremo roll.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm already caught up. Yeah, my bo was Usher. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't give a fun.
Speaker 2: Supremo roll.
Speaker 3: Okay, Suprema, Yeah Supremo. My name is Yeah, I'm here
Speaker 3: with Team Supreme.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What y'all doing in here? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Man, I don't know what the hell.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, Suprema.
Speaker 4: So Supremo. Role called Supremo, Supremo roll call Supremo.
Speaker 1: Hey, Supremo roll. That was cool. Yes, we made it,
Speaker 1: We did it. I'll admit that Usher is the first guess,
Speaker 1: of course Love Supreme to actually have known of the
Speaker 1: theme before it was unleashed. You know, for those that
Speaker 1: are wondering about the themes, we never tell our guests
Speaker 1: what the theme is, like, we just you know, I was.
Speaker 3: Trying to think some funny ship to say the whole time,
Speaker 3: wrote down a whole bunch of shit that I didn't
Speaker 3: use them.
Speaker 1: Like you, just writing words like maybe if I just
Speaker 1: have a few catch words, it'll just come to me somehow,
Speaker 1: some way. Some of the best moments of quest Love
Speaker 1: Supreme is when we mess up. Well, in case you
Speaker 1: haven't guessed, ladies and gentlemen, uh, in the ongoing tradition
Speaker 1: of adding members to the roots as if they're not
Speaker 1: enough uh members already. I think ushers is going to
Speaker 1: be probably remember number seventeen were still yeah growing out.
Speaker 7: I want residuals on everything.
Speaker 1: In line with the rest of the roots. Son. No,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Friend of the show, uh,
Speaker 1: friend of the roots, friend of of music, music, Yeah,
Speaker 1: of music, Usher, Aloisious Raymond the Fourth. What's your middle names?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, you know, like they're killing
Speaker 1: they're killing all my Cosby dreams, But I don't know,
Speaker 1: like Field's middle name, Aloisious Huxtable. Really you didn't know that?
Speaker 7: What's what's the symbolic meaning or word that wording?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just means that you put a
Speaker 1: lot of thought into the middle name if you need.
Speaker 7: That's what I mean I'm saying it.
Speaker 3: Could it could be like attached somewhere to like the
Speaker 3: family roots or something.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, if I don't know the person, I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that you. I mean, you're first of all. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, please welcome Usher Ring.
Speaker 7: We got right, so you said it just as it is.
Speaker 3: I don't have a middle name for real. No, I
Speaker 3: don't have a middle name, Usher, Raymond, the four.
Speaker 1: I not know how many people our fourths there you go,
Speaker 1: let's talk about it, like, yeah, that means you're you're
Speaker 1: your grant, your whole linears escaped. Hell, I know, I know, yeah, joking,
Speaker 1: but serious? Who your son is five?
Speaker 6: Who was the first usher?
Speaker 7: What did he do first? I mean he worked in
Speaker 7: the theater, I guess.
Speaker 6: I don't know theaters back then.
Speaker 3: In my mind, I'm like, obviously, no, we all were
Speaker 3: obviously given names by our slave owners, so you know,
Speaker 3: or either within the trade of what it is that
Speaker 3: was significant in that time. So I think that maybe
Speaker 3: it had something to do with, you know, being a
Speaker 3: server or something.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 6: But late on that joke, like.
Speaker 1: I don't even have a sound effect.
Speaker 7: So my entire career, you thought it was a joke,
Speaker 7: Like my name really wasn't.
Speaker 9: No, No, No, I knew Usher was your name, but I
Speaker 9: didn't think about Usher being a given name and it
Speaker 9: really being like maybe it was somebody who was the
Speaker 9: usher in church from back in the day, or we.
Speaker 7: Just know they were having church back then.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, They're using.
Speaker 6: That's how we found Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so, even though your freestyle on this, I
Speaker 1: would almost lean towards believing that's.
Speaker 7: Probably how that's some truth to it. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I become curious within the last two years.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, I did I did, like
Speaker 7: about to say you did, I.
Speaker 3: Did the twenty three and me and also to have
Speaker 3: been doing a lot of you did that? Yeah, why
Speaker 3: not necessarily with you knowet it. But but the point
Speaker 3: is just to understand where I come from.
Speaker 1: What are you?
Speaker 3: I'm West African? We all are, isn't that true? I
Speaker 3: mean the research that comes back on every person that
Speaker 3: I've had, like West or either you.
Speaker 7: Haven't chosen to look have you?
Speaker 1: I have not not yet yet.
Speaker 7: That's good because that gives you an opportunity to do something.
Speaker 10: The initial I'm scared of giving DNA like it just
Speaker 10: feels like I feel like I've given DNA.
Speaker 1: And opportunity to kill the next I'm kind of fucked up,
Speaker 1: But but I have looked at it. I'm you got
Speaker 1: some kids off the books, you know, did.
Speaker 5: You give DNA to make money many years ago?
Speaker 10: At some point I give DNA I gave plaid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was real. It was a rough time, but
Speaker 1: you know I got it back. You know, I got
Speaker 1: the blood. You got a TV back center. It was real.
Speaker 1: Bumpings his first album on my Way to the Clinic, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that test and uh I found out they
Speaker 1: told me that both my parents were from Sierra Leon.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna I'm gonna do Skip. Gates is one.
Speaker 1: Uh he had a show on PBS.
Speaker 9: I guess Henry Lewis Gates Henry Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, or to.
Speaker 3: Just kind of at least have some track. I mean,
Speaker 3: none of us are, you know, pure blood from Africa.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of different places that kind of
Speaker 3: were mentioned in My My Pie Tricks, because there's like
Speaker 3: a pie trick that they give you and you kind
Speaker 3: of look and then you can determine, like where you
Speaker 3: want to go from there with it, Like, say you
Speaker 3: decide you want to go back to that village, what's
Speaker 3: the truth?
Speaker 7: What's what is? What truth?
Speaker 3: Will you find there? Where you find the village that
Speaker 3: you were originally from. A lot of those places, a
Speaker 3: lot of the places that we would go, they've now
Speaker 3: adopted the idea of being modernized and being colonized, so
Speaker 3: English is now applied. The true tongue of the place
Speaker 3: is not there. So I'm, if anything, I'm hoping that
Speaker 3: I'll go back there and there will be some facial
Speaker 3: features that I could see of.
Speaker 7: You know, potential people.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, they also to have been
Speaker 3: mixed so many times that they're not the original.
Speaker 7: Right, it's been cut well.
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend that you need to cut it. I
Speaker 1: know this way too well, you need to cut it.
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend that you contact Henry Lewis Gates because
Speaker 1: like the level, the thorough level of research they do.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna like for those who don't know, like, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess for four or five seasons they were doing
Speaker 1: like all the black celebrities because of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a glorious story out of that. But
Speaker 1: then when they did the Afflecks, once they started doing
Speaker 1: white people, Henry said that we're gonna have to to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth of yes, yes, yeah, And it
Speaker 1: was just that Ben Affleck in casey Afflecks family, they
Speaker 1: came from a lineage of like some probably the meanest
Speaker 1: slave owners on They ran Candyland, for real and real Candyland.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, you know, they didn't want that
Speaker 1: information getting out, and then controversy happened, so SKIP was
Speaker 1: just like, well, I'm canceling the show then if you
Speaker 1: guys are going to censor me, and you know PBS
Speaker 1: didn't want to broadcast that episode. Now it's bad.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the fact that technology has now allowed
Speaker 3: us to investigate our own lineage.
Speaker 7: And that's good.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying schools because schools back when
Speaker 3: I was in high school or middle school or elementary school,
Speaker 3: we were immigrants in the.
Speaker 7: Books, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So still, but I'm saying, like the gross perpetuation of
Speaker 3: what has going on in this country has just continued
Speaker 3: to just cycle and to the point where it's like
Speaker 3: you can't even really get it education about who you are,
Speaker 3: You can't who's gonna talk to you? Or we should
Speaker 3: talk about it doing Black History Month? Well, why the
Speaker 3: fuck should we relegate our entire history to a fucking month?
Speaker 1: You serious? Enough? Like, how about how about how about.
Speaker 3: We take the time to get the information ourselves, or
Speaker 3: either at least do some investigation along the lines, even
Speaker 3: just giving people an idea of what their lineage is.
Speaker 7: Who knows it might it might or might not be true.
Speaker 3: But the point is it's information, and I'm happy. I'm
Speaker 3: happy that somebody decided to do that. But why is
Speaker 3: it that we as black people didn't come together and
Speaker 3: figure the shit out by ourselves, Because and say, listen,
Speaker 3: let's put let's put this money together to begin, like,
Speaker 3: let's do a collective, right, We'll go around, You'll go
Speaker 3: to any motherfucking church in the world, and there's a
Speaker 3: collection plate there to keep that stopicility going. But we
Speaker 3: don't figure out a fund for ourselves to begin to
Speaker 3: even understand our lineages and begin to like build ourselves up,
Speaker 3: build our state.
Speaker 1: That's that's why I asked you, how did you feel
Speaker 1: when you got the information back? I felt great. I
Speaker 1: felt great. I released like, oh I came from somewhere.
Speaker 1: Because I don't think people understand the fact. That's what
Speaker 1: I was about to say. I don't think people I
Speaker 1: was over it is you know, I was overwhelmed the
Speaker 1: most because I grew up in a time period where
Speaker 1: if you called me African African booties crab, that was
Speaker 1: like you get to class, not really so no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that in the early seventies when you
Speaker 1: called somebody African, like on the playground, I got that.
Speaker 3: Hip hop though, because hip hop made me appreciate Africa.
Speaker 3: That's because you were born what you was born seventy eight.
Speaker 3: So in the eighties, see.
Speaker 1: That five year gap, that five year I was born
Speaker 1: in seventy more made different? Ye different? See me being
Speaker 1: born in seventy one and being of age at nine
Speaker 1: and like eighty eighty one. That's how shame we were
Speaker 1: to even be called that because but you know you
Speaker 1: you became of age at eight or nine in eighty five,
Speaker 1: eighty six, eighty seven.
Speaker 3: Well by that they were manipulating your mind to celebrate
Speaker 3: everything but who you were, right, But.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that those seven years between you and
Speaker 1: I of the seventies, that's a generation different of thinking.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, but everything you become of age when
Speaker 1: public enemy is.
Speaker 3: Like, but did you travel to Africa when you were
Speaker 3: that age? No, did you see pictures of Africa when
Speaker 3: you were when.
Speaker 1: You were but they are like the world, the world.
Speaker 7: So my point is you were being manipulated.
Speaker 1: You know this.
Speaker 3: I'm just I ain't telling you nothing that's rhetorical, but
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, like, to be perfectly honest with you,
Speaker 3: it was hip hop that basically decided to use that
Speaker 3: as a form and it spoke to us. Was it relevant,
Speaker 3: you know enough to be like, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 3: lift up from this and continue to keep it going. No,
Speaker 3: y'all were They were courageous as hell to even have
Speaker 3: the conversation. And what happened after that was, Okay, we
Speaker 3: can continue to talk about Africa and talk about the
Speaker 3: things that are gonna lift us up and talk about
Speaker 3: being connected as the community.
Speaker 7: Then it was drugs. Then it was the opulence of drugs.
Speaker 3: Then it was the disconnect from anything that had anything
Speaker 3: to do with being smart at all.
Speaker 7: So now here we are.
Speaker 9: And then some of our artists that came from that era,
Speaker 9: like the whole even with the whole collective of Daylight
Speaker 9: and everybody else, Like people got older, they got into.
Speaker 6: Making money and brands things like that too.
Speaker 3: So as we have so clearly noticed within our generation
Speaker 3: that we don't live long enough in order to celebrate
Speaker 3: what we started fighting for the most of the most
Speaker 3: of the people who were advocating before they got official jobs,
Speaker 3: so now they're insult ferment they got they got government jobs,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, and they're trying to survive.
Speaker 3: And then whatever the hell they got they trying to
Speaker 3: hold on to. So it's like they can't go too deep.
Speaker 10: And then they realized, oh man, this is a trap, which.
Speaker 6: Is the not to not for nothing.
Speaker 9: But that was the argument with some of the public
Speaker 9: and the Grammys versus Golden Globes, because it was like, oh,
Speaker 9: we show we is quiet.
Speaker 6: We got to protect dog brand. But meanwhile it was
Speaker 6: at the other one and.
Speaker 9: It was like, ah, but I'm just it's just interesting
Speaker 9: in that way, very.
Speaker 7: Interesting protecting if you want to talk.
Speaker 6: About that, I mean, if you want to talk about.
Speaker 1: It being as though you're you're in Atlanta Native Okay,
Speaker 1: as we get further into your story, I'm curious to
Speaker 1: ask you how your your current mind state, your evolution
Speaker 1: correlates with the culture that Atlanta has now as far
Speaker 1: as hip hop culture is concerned. But okay, great, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sound like the cliche, but I want to
Speaker 1: start back in the beginning. Let's go back.
Speaker 7: You're gonna take you way back.
Speaker 1: So were the hits. So you were born in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 3: I was born in Dallas, Texas. Really, I was born
Speaker 3: in Dallas, Texas. Fort Worth, Yes, fort Worth, Texas, which is.
Speaker 1: Dallas, Dallas, Texas on usher Riem in the fourth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How long did you live in Dallas?
Speaker 7: A year?
Speaker 1: I don't count.
Speaker 3: I mean that's why a lot of people were born
Speaker 3: and you were actually went to military brats. But my
Speaker 3: father and my mother, they they left Chattanooga, Tennessee, which
Speaker 3: is where I would ultimately end up.
Speaker 7: So and that's where I was actually from.
Speaker 3: But my mother and father went to Dallas, Texas to
Speaker 3: really started, you know, to start a new life.
Speaker 7: He played basketball.
Speaker 3: She you know, she was she played basketball as well,
Speaker 3: but she was an intelligent woman your mind.
Speaker 1: Played ball.
Speaker 7: Yeah, my mother played basketball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean in a college way, like, oh, neither
Speaker 3: of them made it to college because they had me,
Speaker 3: so they kind of that kind of was the rude
Speaker 3: of waken it for both of them.
Speaker 7: High school, high school. My father would have.
Speaker 3: Went on to have played basketball. He was an incredible
Speaker 3: basketball player, noteworthy to this day, like everybody still remember
Speaker 3: Urkie that was his name.
Speaker 7: But they moved to Dallas. They had me.
Speaker 3: Relationship was obviously, you know, not able to survive. And
Speaker 3: they broke up. They broke up. She brought me back
Speaker 3: to chatting Tennessee and that's where I'm from.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, were any of them musically inclined or it
Speaker 1: was just a matter of just playing you a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff in the house.
Speaker 3: And I think my mother is the person who's most
Speaker 3: responsible for introducing him, introduced me to music. But after
Speaker 3: I met my father, I heard him and I realized
Speaker 3: he had a voice. He was a man of conviction,
Speaker 3: but not he couldn't get the shit together, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. He spent most of my childhood high
Speaker 3: and a substance abuser, and he never was around, never anything, never,
Speaker 3: no connection, nothing Until I think I was like maybe
Speaker 3: thirteen or fourteen years old, did I really make a
Speaker 3: connection with him where I could see him in a
Speaker 3: positive like he was a pastor for like that time
Speaker 3: that summer and then he disappeared again.
Speaker 7: But which is most which is the case?
Speaker 3: So that that's another story about we're talking about history.
Speaker 3: We're talking about Africa and the idea what that was,
Speaker 3: but also too, fathers of that time, like most of
Speaker 3: the people, my peers that I talked to, they felt,
Speaker 3: you know, some of the same reality. And then for
Speaker 3: those who didn't, you know, they became kind of the reference.
Speaker 3: Like I was one of those kids who hung out
Speaker 3: with my friends to see how you know that his
Speaker 3: relationship was with his father as an idea what I
Speaker 3: was or either it was The Cosby Show or something
Speaker 3: like that, or Fresh Prince of bel Air.
Speaker 1: It kind of figure at least between like up to ten,
Speaker 1: who was the guy you could talk to you about
Speaker 1: my grandfather.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of uncles, so my uncle Darryl,
Speaker 3: my uncle Bruce, uncle Gary.
Speaker 7: He lived in DC. I didn't really talk to.
Speaker 3: Him that much, but he wasn't my mother's brothers, but Bruce,
Speaker 3: Darryl O'Neill. I never met my grandfather, which I felt was,
Speaker 3: you know, looking at pictures in him, you knew his
Speaker 3: name was John Henry.
Speaker 1: That's a hard black name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but but yeah, man, you know, I didn't really
Speaker 3: I ain't have a reference. I just kind of looked
Speaker 3: around and it was a collective of people that kind
Speaker 3: of just invested into me because they realized I ain't
Speaker 3: have a dad either. And I mean I turned out
Speaker 3: pretty much, you know, all right, But you know, it
Speaker 3: wasn't like I was pulling from the source.
Speaker 7: I was actually pulling from the lack thereof.
Speaker 3: So not having a dad made it like a task
Speaker 3: for me to you know, know, to be in my
Speaker 3: child's life, to be there for them to understand who
Speaker 3: they are.
Speaker 7: And I'm telling me raptors around, So you understand.
Speaker 3: Part of the reason, one of the reasons why twenty
Speaker 3: three and meters was so important is there was a
Speaker 3: lot of things that were kind of like egging me on,
Speaker 3: like about not knowing who I was and not and
Speaker 3: us not knowing you know, you know, being introduced. When
Speaker 3: I went over the overseas to different you know, types
Speaker 3: of spirituality, Yoruba century and all these other things that
Speaker 3: I just saw it was just around.
Speaker 7: I was like, man, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: All these people who my great from Africa to these
Speaker 3: neighboring islands.
Speaker 7: They preserved the idea of what.
Speaker 3: Our original spirituality was or our connection to spirituality was.
Speaker 7: So I went to.
Speaker 3: School and they and they wanted to do a lineage,
Speaker 3: like they wanted our kids to offer something from a
Speaker 3: place that they were from. So you have kids who
Speaker 3: were from Italy. You have kids who are from all
Speaker 3: these you know, this is a school in Atlanta.
Speaker 7: I don't want to. I don't want to.
Speaker 6: That's so interesting.
Speaker 3: They know, they no, but they but okay, so this
Speaker 3: is not a public school. It's a private school, and
Speaker 3: it's for all the right reasons, right. And when I
Speaker 3: asked my son where he was from, he said, I'm
Speaker 3: from Atlanta.
Speaker 7: I'm Georgia. I was like, actually, so you're not from Georgia. Yeah,
Speaker 7: i am. I'm from Africa and I ain't from Africa.
Speaker 7: And that was the beginning. And it was like, you
Speaker 7: know what, this matters.
Speaker 3: This matters, and I got I gotta, I gotta go
Speaker 3: ahead and go through do with this, and I've been
Speaker 3: talking about it. And I went ahead and they did
Speaker 3: the swab and went through the whole process of giving
Speaker 3: him like and that that that was just like the
Speaker 3: I gotta get this right.
Speaker 1: So what's his mentality? Now? Does he have a deeper understanding?
Speaker 7: He has eight? He has a deeper understanding.
Speaker 3: And even even though he does, we actually, you know,
Speaker 3: we put to the following year, because they have it
Speaker 3: every year. We put together his thing and that was
Speaker 3: all these things that you know, they made from West
Speaker 3: Africa or Mali, which is where we kind of claim.
Speaker 3: But he still wanted to bring macaron and cheese to school.
Speaker 6: That's part of it though.
Speaker 3: And by the way he showed it to me said no,
Speaker 3: this is actually something that was made there.
Speaker 7: I was like, all right, okay, cool A teaching you?
Speaker 1: So at what point are you finding your your voice,
Speaker 1: your your actual singing? Boys? Like, were you raised in
Speaker 1: the church or was it?
Speaker 3: It was my mother, My mother, she was a you know,
Speaker 3: she was a youth director of her choir in church.
Speaker 3: So outside of listening to what was on the radio,
Speaker 3: and you know, just the same the same way as
Speaker 3: you know, y'all had ciphers in hip hop or either
Speaker 3: had bands and shit like that, right, we had ciphers
Speaker 3: to a singing. So if you came to school and
Speaker 3: you couldn't sing like what was on the radio, then
Speaker 3: you was kind of whack, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So so I to listen to the radio, and I
Speaker 3: listened to how people were singing and what that reaction was.
Speaker 3: And then you know, I was listening to my mother
Speaker 3: preparing her you know, whatever she had to do to
Speaker 3: teach her students and I asked her, I said, you know,
Speaker 3: can I be in your you know, choir? She was like,
Speaker 3: you can be in my choir, but if you act up,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna kick you out. So don't think that I'm
Speaker 3: gonna give you any like I'm gonna lay off you
Speaker 3: just because you know you my son. Of course, I
Speaker 3: got kicked out the choir about two three times, but
Speaker 3: you know, she let me do my solo, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean every so often?
Speaker 10: One question, ohld you talk about just singing a question?
Speaker 10: Your first vocal coach? Yeah, apparently she had break down
Speaker 10: like certain songs and you have to learn the harmonies
Speaker 10: and it was like really advanced.
Speaker 1: Yeahuff talk about that all right.
Speaker 3: So she made me listen to Take six.
Speaker 1: And she would say, how old are you at this point?
Speaker 1: I'm about well, the first Take six record came out
Speaker 1: that was eighty eight.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I'm fourteen.
Speaker 3: I'm fourteen, And I mean I didn't have a vocal
Speaker 3: coach as an artist until I was signed, right, That's
Speaker 3: when it really started. But before I didn't really need one,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 3: I was perfect, but singing all the time repetition basically
Speaker 3: began to prepare me for it, and anything that was
Speaker 3: on the radio, I would try to beat it so
Speaker 3: if I could sing better than it or either ad
Speaker 3: libbing between little spots to kind of make it my own.
Speaker 3: I do that, but I was singing it to the
Speaker 3: tune like exactly the way that it was.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. You know what, I have a theory about Usher,
Speaker 1: which is it was there was I think this is
Speaker 1: when you make me want. A video came out and
Speaker 1: we were like we were in the studio recording and
Speaker 1: the video came on the monitor, like the volume was
Speaker 1: down whatever, and my manager rich Uh said that you
Speaker 1: know what you're watching is He said that Usher was
Speaker 1: the beneficiary of the first of the what I call
Speaker 1: the VCR generation. And I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what he meant, and he was like, you see the
Speaker 1: mechanical way he's dancing, And I was if you remember
Speaker 1: the way, like how mechanical the dancing Wasn't you make
Speaker 1: me wanna? He was basically explained to me that Usher
Speaker 1: grew ut and like did that is what I always
Speaker 1: wanted to ask. Did Motown twenty five have an effect
Speaker 1: on you? Did you see it? The first time he
Speaker 1: came So, I mean it came on in eighty three,
Speaker 1: so I guess you were like five or six, Like,
Speaker 1: did that performance mean anything to you? Because basically what
Speaker 1: he was trying to say was that in your formative
Speaker 1: years of getting entertainment, you had a VCR to keep
Speaker 1: rewinding and watching over because it.
Speaker 3: Was more important to my cousins and my older.
Speaker 1: Trickle down, Like it wasn't a first thing with you
Speaker 1: with No, I wasn't it. But I would have never
Speaker 1: guessed that in the skillion years.
Speaker 3: Well, everybody loved Michael Jackson, but that was that was
Speaker 3: just off of you know, Off the Wall and all that.
Speaker 3: So I could appreciate Off the Wall a little bit
Speaker 3: later in my life, and he wasn't really the person
Speaker 3: who influenced me. Michael Jackson overall was as a presence
Speaker 3: because he was the biggest, right, But it was guys
Speaker 3: like Bobby Brown that connected.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And yes, looking back at that, it was special to me,
Speaker 3: but it was like I can't I can't obtain that,
Speaker 3: I can't reach that. That's not that that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: I can emulate it. I love thrillers. I was deal
Speaker 3: with everybody watching thriller right, and that that phase, Yes,
Speaker 3: everybody was completely crazy fanatic over Michael Jackson.
Speaker 7: But even still, I was trying. I was trying.
Speaker 3: I tried to emulate what I knew I was, and
Speaker 3: I was more of a street dancer and a singer.
Speaker 3: And I listened to New Audition Bobby Brown and in
Speaker 3: that world.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, just saying from the fact
Speaker 1: that no, I'm just saying that you none of your
Speaker 1: experiences are firsthand church you know, uh, talent shows.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, that started.
Speaker 1: Well, I just meant in terms of like radio plays
Speaker 1: a big part of your experiences, whereas like a lot
Speaker 1: of the people that traditionally.
Speaker 7: Start my ship was Donnie Simpson.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, so it's like that was my generation, right,
Speaker 3: I'm from Yeah, Sherry Carter and Donnie Simpson. That was
Speaker 3: my generation. And that's basically how I made the connection.
Speaker 1: But dance was it the thing like mom, I want
Speaker 1: to sing and all this thing. It was just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could do that. I can dance. But I mean,
Speaker 1: were you thinking, like eleven, that's what I want to
Speaker 1: be when I grow up?
Speaker 3: Like it was Michael that made me feel like, that's
Speaker 3: what I want to do. It was Bobby Brown that
Speaker 3: made me feel like that's what I can do.
Speaker 1: So Bobby Brown was more accessible to you everybody, So
Speaker 1: he's your hero. Yeah, wow, damn. Now I want to
Speaker 1: get your feelings on the New Edition movie. So at
Speaker 1: what point are you, I mean, at what point does
Speaker 1: this become a thing where you become serious about it?
Speaker 1: Because you you the first group was when you were
Speaker 1: like eleven, right, eleven and twelve. I was twelve, Well,
Speaker 1: talk about that experience.
Speaker 3: So there was a they were youth anti uh, they
Speaker 3: were anti youth drug group who came to high schools
Speaker 3: to talk about drug abuse, gang violence.
Speaker 7: And stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Right, And this is back in the time when I
Speaker 3: was like in talent shows, just trying to find my way.
Speaker 3: So if I wasn't singing in church, I was singing,
Speaker 3: you know in the yard. You know, in my neighborhood.
Speaker 3: You know, my cousin he used to dance, so he
Speaker 3: would battle and stuff, and he had me come in
Speaker 3: like like the little kid from you know, b Street
Speaker 3: and breaking and I'd be like the special guest, the
Speaker 3: cat who would come in and just slaughter because you know.
Speaker 1: No one expected you and you right, so I like
Speaker 1: three card the dancer versus like the random person in
Speaker 1: the crowd.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 3: It was more Bobby Man. It was more Bobby Brown
Speaker 3: than anything. But finding my way to my voice. It
Speaker 3: was just kind of try to never listen to that
Speaker 3: damn radio and then watching those videos. And then I
Speaker 3: met this manager by the name of Darryl Wheeler, right,
Speaker 3: and he was like, I really want you to be
Speaker 3: in it. I want you to, you know, audition for
Speaker 3: the group, and he said, I want you to come
Speaker 3: to the show. And we just so happened to be
Speaker 3: in the talent show. Me and another cat, another two cats,
Speaker 3: and the talent show was over and then they were
Speaker 3: to perform. So while they started their gig, I was
Speaker 3: in the back of the room just kind of looking,
Speaker 3: you know, looking, and I'm and I'm watching all these
Speaker 3: people go crazy over these guys. So I just got up,
Speaker 3: ran to the middle of the floor, like, ran all
Speaker 3: the way down the island, just started dancing in the
Speaker 3: middle of the shit.
Speaker 7: He just jacked rude. Yeah, I mean, but.
Speaker 3: That was it was like I wanted it I wanted to.
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a part of it, and him
Speaker 3: leaving that little door open, which was my It was
Speaker 3: my best friend named Damikus who introduced me to Darryl
Speaker 3: at in our auditorium at my my elementary school or
Speaker 3: middle school something like that now elementary school. But after that, man,
Speaker 3: I just kept I just kept, you know, going wherever
Speaker 3: they were they had to, you know, performance downtown.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Eventually they start having rehearsals in the gymnasium in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: So I started coming in and just kind of trying
Speaker 3: to look looking at what they were doing to try
Speaker 3: to figure out what their dance steps and things were.
Speaker 3: And I would just sing. I would just I used
Speaker 3: to sing ready or not after seven, remember that. And
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, just use my use my talent.
Speaker 3: Let me figure out how to get in whatever I
Speaker 3: gotta do. They run heels and have all these drills
Speaker 3: that they would do, you know, to kind of prepare
Speaker 3: themselves and make themselves better performers so they could, you know,
Speaker 3: not they wouldn't be tired on stage or whatever.
Speaker 7: So I did it. I was like, all right, I'll
Speaker 7: do all of that. That's what.
Speaker 3: I think the oldest oldest guy in at Anthony Bird
Speaker 3: was he had to be like sixteen or seventeen, maybe seventeen.
Speaker 3: So there was three other guys, Adrian Red and another
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Chocolate, So they were all
Speaker 3: in this. We were in this group together and it
Speaker 3: wasn't really going because the reality was they were built
Speaker 3: to be what they were and you.
Speaker 6: Were meant to be so low.
Speaker 7: No, it didn't.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen until little bit later. Actually it was
Speaker 3: I'll tell you my mother was the reason that it happened.
Speaker 3: But we then became a real group and we went
Speaker 3: to Forsyth County in Florida, and we signed with this
Speaker 3: record company for Side Records, and we started, you know,
Speaker 3: building songs. So I had this song dream Girl. That
Speaker 3: was the first record that I ever had in that group.
Speaker 7: So then it.
Speaker 3: Gave me like a voice, because otherwise I was just
Speaker 3: trailing trailing behind playing or and dancing to the records
Speaker 3: and shit that they had. And every so often I
Speaker 3: kind of you know, up to try to upstate somebody else.
Speaker 7: Just doing riffs and ship like that.
Speaker 3: But my mother was like, you're not really getting to
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not my son's not getting the benefit
Speaker 3: because he's never on stage. You keep putting in, putting
Speaker 3: him in the back, and you know she just wasn't happy,
Speaker 3: you know, So he tried to do whatever he could. Eventually, I,
Speaker 3: you know, I left the group. She wanted me to
Speaker 3: get out of group. Of course I didn't want to
Speaker 3: get out of it. I actually ran away.
Speaker 7: It's crazy shit.
Speaker 10: Ever, I ran right away from from.
Speaker 1: Run away from home, but never do it.
Speaker 7: I tried to run away from my own.
Speaker 1: Oh, black kids don't run away from all.
Speaker 6: I think we all do.
Speaker 10: You get to ask me when you come back to
Speaker 10: our black parents, they be like, good.
Speaker 6: All that ship in there is mine.
Speaker 1: Exactly what you're talking about, Bill Steve Yard. Ever run
Speaker 1: away from to run away from my sister.
Speaker 5: My sister ran away from hom like all the time.
Speaker 1: So she'll be back tomorrow. Yeah yeah, See, like benches
Speaker 1: are crazy.
Speaker 10: Hey, man, come on, So what year was that when
Speaker 10: you old you you ran away?
Speaker 3: I mean I was twelve thirteen, and this is around
Speaker 3: the time that my mother had moved me to Atlanta,
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know, you destroyed my world, man,
Speaker 3: this is everything to me.
Speaker 6: To see what your mother said oh, I just look
Speaker 6: forward to it.
Speaker 7: She was like, I hear you.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, She's like, but she said, you're not going
Speaker 3: to go where you want to go in this group.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna I promise you, I'm going to put
Speaker 3: you in every situation that I can to be able
Speaker 3: to help you, to show you that you're worth it,
Speaker 3: that you are a solo artist. So she started me
Speaker 3: and entering me into talent shows, auditioned for the Apollo
Speaker 3: audition for a Star search. I got into a talent search,
Speaker 3: a talent show by the name of Atlanta Talent Search.
Speaker 3: In Atlanta, I was recognized by Ali Reach's brother, Brian Reid,
Speaker 3: who then introduced me to l a guy by the
Speaker 3: name of A. J. Alexander. He was kind of all
Speaker 3: in the middle of this shit. Who actually was a
Speaker 3: bodyguard for Bobby Brown. So Bobby Brown, he saw.
Speaker 1: Me Brown's bodyguard situation. Yeah, it's serious, Sue Knight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So wait, why did she move to Atlanta from Chattanooga.
Speaker 3: She moved because just you know, they she wanted more man,
Speaker 3: she wanted more out of her life.
Speaker 1: What was in Chattanooga, Like, what was your observations of
Speaker 1: Chattanooga was there.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not much different now than it was
Speaker 3: then in terms of opportunity for you know, advancement, Like
Speaker 3: it's very that there's if you have the confidence that
Speaker 3: comes from elsewhere, you will wander into other areas. But
Speaker 3: if you don't, black people stay away from white people,
Speaker 3: and as a black side of town, damn near in
Speaker 3: a white side of town or a progressive side of town.
Speaker 3: And whenever I'm there, I kind of go with between
Speaker 3: them both, and I'm like, Yo, have y'all ever been there, like,
Speaker 3: we don't go over.
Speaker 1: There with you? Have you you returned to Chattanooga to
Speaker 1: do so? Since?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, I've returned to Chattanooga to do do you
Speaker 3: know philanthropic work?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's what area is that in?
Speaker 3: It's in front of the school that I was telling
Speaker 3: you about. Deal would It's like, it's like right down
Speaker 3: right in front of it.
Speaker 1: Now. I want to know if he had his Chris
Speaker 1: Rock sign moment y'all all of us before? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So she went to Atlanta just to get you a
Speaker 1: better opportunity?
Speaker 3: Was you went to Atlanta because it offers something better
Speaker 3: for her? My stepfather at the time, he worked for
Speaker 3: this trucking company and it was better for him to
Speaker 3: be there, and also too, it was an opportunity for
Speaker 3: her to be able to move forward.
Speaker 1: So what were you when you moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I was eleven eleven twelve, so I was kind of
Speaker 3: going back and forth from Chattanooga to Atlanta working with
Speaker 3: the group. And when we worked on that album, you know,
Speaker 3: it's you know, I was kind of just moving wherever
Speaker 3: I could, man, because I at the age of eight,
Speaker 3: that's when I decided what I was going to do.
Speaker 3: I had this vision and from that vision, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I want to be an entertainer. I want to I
Speaker 3: want to be on stages. I want to perform for people,
Speaker 3: and that's what I want to do. I don't want
Speaker 3: to play football. I know all y'all played football and
Speaker 3: basketball and baseball, because my entire family is comprised as
Speaker 3: like all star athletes. My uncle played for the Kansas
Speaker 3: City Chiefs. My my cousin he played at Duke. You know,
Speaker 3: all these guys that kind of gave me some kind
Speaker 3: of idea where I wanted to go. And I was like, Nah,
Speaker 3: that's not me. I want to I want to perform.
Speaker 3: I want to entertain.
Speaker 9: But how problem must they have been when you did
Speaker 9: the Cavaliers move, because that's like the perfect combination, like
Speaker 9: they must have been.
Speaker 6: Oh that's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah that was That was pretty cool, right, like
Speaker 3: you even you did it either way? Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: oddly enough, man. You know, once my grandmother passed, we
Speaker 3: don't really get together the way we used to, and
Speaker 3: I wish that we did more. But everybody's growing up.
Speaker 3: Either they have kids, there's some of them back in Chattanooga,
Speaker 3: some of them moved to other you know states, some
Speaker 3: people got married, you know, some people live in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Some people you know, move and moved to d C.
Speaker 3: But we don't talk as much as we used to. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I gotta work on that.
Speaker 7: I work on that.
Speaker 1: Big Mama's the one that keeps the family together always.
Speaker 1: She goes.
Speaker 6: You can't go all the way to West Africa and
Speaker 6: I go to Chattanooga, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: You got to get there.
Speaker 3: Somebody gotta pick up a few people anyway.
Speaker 1: So okay, so by the time you're eleven, it's like
Speaker 1: the nineties, early nineties, ninety two, I guess by this point,
Speaker 1: I mean Atlanta's officially put its stamp on being a
Speaker 1: black music mecca. I mean, is that fact lost on
Speaker 1: you or is that something you're not thinking about, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this could be a better opportunity for me because.
Speaker 3: No part of my mother's plan. It was a part
Speaker 3: of my mother's plan. She even mentioned she says, you
Speaker 3: know that La Reading babyface. You know, they just started
Speaker 3: a record label in Atlanta, and you know, I hear that.
Speaker 3: You know you could get you know, if we put
Speaker 3: you in talent shows, you can get recognized. So she
Speaker 3: put me in this That was his brother's a distinction.
Speaker 3: I think it was the name of the name of
Speaker 3: the group that was putting together this thing. And somehow
Speaker 3: La Read's name was attached to it. A Bryant Reid's
Speaker 3: name was attached to it. And that's I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: that's why I made a connection. But it was really
Speaker 3: aj Aj Alexander the that's the dude who discovered me. Man,
Speaker 3: out of all the people who could claim and say,
Speaker 3: you know, I found him, I saw him first. That
Speaker 3: was a dude who really recognized my talent and was like, yo,
Speaker 3: let work with me, he tweet. Man, this dude took
Speaker 3: me everywhere. Man this dude took me to meet Bobby
Speaker 3: for the first time. I thought I was gonna be
Speaker 3: Bobby Brown's artist. That didn't happen, I said, I mean,
Speaker 3: I may dodge the bullet you definitely, but also too man,
Speaker 3: And I can remember way back he'd had me in
Speaker 3: the parking lot of one twelve Keith Sweat coming out.
Speaker 3: I have to perform for him right there in the
Speaker 3: middle of the parking lot, Dallas, Austin in the parking lot, Jamaine,
Speaker 3: all of these people like just trying to get Yeah
Speaker 3: that on another level, where is is he still? He's
Speaker 3: in Atlanta. He goes in between Miami and in Atlanta. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: so you were he's a photographer now, man, that's dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah so you were allowed out after hours to sort
Speaker 1: of casey spots and perform.
Speaker 3: And without a doubt, I was not the kid that
Speaker 3: you told no, because I wouldn't accept it. I'd say, Okay,
Speaker 3: if you don't want me, if you don't want me
Speaker 3: to do what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: It, guess what should You're still I much job. Your
Speaker 1: favorite least word is no. For those For those of
Speaker 1: new context, you know usher in the roots are working
Speaker 1: together now so whenever I want usher to do something,
Speaker 1: I now have to present it in a positive context
Speaker 1: just so he can say no. And that can be like,
Speaker 1: but I guess I've been that now, thank you.
Speaker 7: Now I know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You know what? Yeah, I'm sure you're right. We should
Speaker 1: we should do a twelve minute version of you got
Speaker 1: it bad right? You are so right, man.
Speaker 9: But this must have been a really hard job for
Speaker 9: your mom because like your mom evolved into like supermanager,
Speaker 9: like she was like Matthew Knowles before Matthew Knowles. And
Speaker 9: at the same time she had to keep you confident
Speaker 9: as an artist but humble as a man.
Speaker 6: How why did y'all?
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what kept you out of trouble?
Speaker 9: Because say that again, I said, confident as an artist,
Speaker 9: but kind of like humble as a man, like not not.
Speaker 6: A dickhead, because as.
Speaker 9: We're sitting here talking to you, and I've seen throughout
Speaker 9: the years, you're not a dickhead, Like you're a very
Speaker 9: humble individual. But like a ma just said, you know
Speaker 9: what you want, you won't say no, but you know
Speaker 9: it's a fine line.
Speaker 3: The confidence was the confidence came for me, right, and
Speaker 3: it came from the security of having someone who I
Speaker 3: knew had my back, which was my mom. So as
Speaker 3: long as she was able to focus on the business,
Speaker 3: I could focus on the art and the creative part
Speaker 3: of it right, which made it all right. And then
Speaker 3: the rest of it was like I just never wanted
Speaker 3: to be in some ship that I felt like that
Speaker 3: I couldn't control.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I never wanted and so many people were getting caught
Speaker 3: out there, So those references was like, I'm not I
Speaker 3: can't let none of that ship be the reason that
Speaker 3: I don't make it to where I want to be.
Speaker 3: And I'm definitely not gonna let you know I'm not
Speaker 3: going to because and I had so many little heels
Speaker 3: to climb, Like I lost my voice as soon as
Speaker 3: I got signed, Like imagine that right when you signed
Speaker 3: the first deal, when I signed, when I signed a
Speaker 3: deal to the Face Records, I lost my voice.
Speaker 6: For how long?
Speaker 1: I lost my voice like puberty or like PUBERTYOC puberty
Speaker 1: for about two muths. It was like that, and you
Speaker 1: didn't know what, you know, what the hell was getting
Speaker 1: ready to go on? The label was talking about dropping
Speaker 1: me before this was after Portos, I couldn't perform the record.
Speaker 1: They put the record on had Yeah, they had a
Speaker 1: showcase for me, and I couldn't perform the record at all.
Speaker 7: Puff Puffy was there. I think it was entertaining.
Speaker 3: Him, him being my my executive producer at the time.
Speaker 7: But yeah, man, it just it went away. What was it?
Speaker 1: Wow? Okay, because nothing I have Wait, can I I
Speaker 1: know what you say?
Speaker 11: I know, I know sabotage, that's his favorite theory for everything.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying like black people rarely delve into psychological
Speaker 1: matters or whatever. Like I know that me personally. For
Speaker 1: anything that I'm trying to overcome, you know, and something happens,
Speaker 1: like an injury or something, it's you know, I'm sometimes
Speaker 1: I think like, Okay, how do you really feel about
Speaker 1: are you scared at this moment? Whatever? Like the mind
Speaker 1: does have a way of crippling you and while you're
Speaker 1: facing the exactly now in theory, was it eight weeks
Speaker 1: laryngitis or did you feel afraid in theory? What do
Speaker 1: you think in theory?
Speaker 7: Did I feel afraid? I felt like it was over.
Speaker 3: And I felt like okay, if I just I mean,
Speaker 3: I did what I knew to do at the time,
Speaker 3: which was prey.
Speaker 1: Did you feel it with psychosomatic Yeah, well I subconsciously.
Speaker 7: No, I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't sabotage myself. It wasn't fear or something like that. No,
Speaker 3: you mean in terms of just having to go through
Speaker 3: that at that moment, because sometimes your body can do No,
Speaker 3: it had nothing to do with that. I was working
Speaker 3: my ass off and I wanted it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Okay, there's an un there's an artist that
Speaker 1: I can't name right that so it's the same artists.
Speaker 6: I just figured it out.
Speaker 7: Everybody in the room can know, but me.
Speaker 1: No, it's not that artist. It's not it's not the
Speaker 1: fourth letter alphabet.
Speaker 12: Yeah no, it's hell No, it's you know, okay, yeah,
Speaker 12: because that's always him. Okay, yeah, I keep racking him
Speaker 12: under the No, there's okay. There was there was an
Speaker 12: artist that uh we were working with and a situation happened.
Speaker 1: Oh god, these are so good. Okay, a situation happened
Speaker 1: in which, let's play guess there. Always get so frustrated.
Speaker 1: I know, because I'm not I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: gossipy or ride somebody on the bus. But I think
Speaker 1: this is a classic case of their teeth started to
Speaker 1: fall out. Now, it wasn't like, oh they've got like
Speaker 1: literally they're.
Speaker 7: Saying that the truth.
Speaker 3: There's a pressure that comes with No, that is a pressure.
Speaker 3: You're right, Okay, so now i'll follow you what you're saying.
Speaker 3: But I had a different destiny and I was connected
Speaker 3: to it, and the moment that I decided that that
Speaker 3: was what I was going to do, I wouldn't let
Speaker 3: anything come in between me and that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But you're right, there are tons of people who sabotage themselves,
Speaker 3: who got caught up on you know, and drinking and
Speaker 3: then eventually you know, moved an upgraded to you know, heroin.
Speaker 1: But I don't even think that's thinking like, Okay, a
Speaker 1: big moment's about to happen for me tomorrow, Let my
Speaker 1: teeth fall out right now, or you know. But I
Speaker 1: do believe that subconsciously we are able to create obstacles
Speaker 1: without even purposely wanting to do that. Yeah, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm away with.
Speaker 6: First of all, how was he she?
Speaker 7: She?
Speaker 1: You know the story? You like? Yah?
Speaker 6: I mean I'm putting some things together.
Speaker 1: Ooh damn.
Speaker 3: Mid twenties, so that's far more advanced than a child.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying so the reality of probably
Speaker 3: the disappointment that led up to that moment had everything
Speaker 3: to do with the pressure that was going on with her.
Speaker 10: So like so when you so you lost, so you
Speaker 10: cut y'all cut, uh call me a back, and then
Speaker 10: you lost your voice because that point that.
Speaker 1: Was what ninety three three nine? Ye was ninety three?
Speaker 1: So how did you get on that soundtrack? Because that
Speaker 1: wasn't even the face related.
Speaker 7: It was no La reading baby face.
Speaker 13: They actually it was on Epic but like till C
Speaker 13: was on the soundtrack too, So oh okay, I mean.
Speaker 1: But was that a face slash Epic thing or.
Speaker 7: It was an LA reading baby face thing?
Speaker 3: I think I think they had something to do with
Speaker 3: the like organizing of the album.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, gotcha.
Speaker 3: They didn't produce all the songs like Boomerang and all
Speaker 3: this shit. But yeah, man, that was that was kind
Speaker 3: of like my lunch. But at the rate that I
Speaker 3: was working my voice, I mean, I had saying till
Speaker 3: I actually you know, lost my voice plenty of times,
Speaker 3: but this time when I woke up the next day, that.
Speaker 7: Shit just didn't come back.
Speaker 3: It was so the next day came and then the
Speaker 3: weekend was there, and then it was the next week.
Speaker 7: I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: How did you feel?
Speaker 3: I mean, I felt like my window of opportunity was closed,
Speaker 3: and I felt like, Okay, what.
Speaker 1: Were people saying around you at that point? Like tisk? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like, Okay, well, what what's gonna happen now?
Speaker 3: Because you know this kid, he's lost his voice and
Speaker 3: he can't perform this song, so we'll just kind of
Speaker 3: ride it out with him. You know, I signed a
Speaker 3: contract with him, so at least I had the you know,
Speaker 3: the length of the deal, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But at that point, the fear of man, they're not
Speaker 3: gonna put any more money into me if I don't
Speaker 3: get if I don't do my part. So I had
Speaker 3: to do whatever I could to try to fix a
Speaker 3: remedy the problem.
Speaker 7: This was before you even started recording the fast album
Speaker 7: I had.
Speaker 3: I had well, I went through a stint where I
Speaker 3: worked with the Dungeon family and I worked with these
Speaker 3: producers out of Detroit by the name of Tim and Bob.
Speaker 1: That's when oh my god, oh wow, Okay, so I
Speaker 1: don't know that.
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry about Tim and Ted. Tim and Bob
Speaker 3: Are from peoriah.
Speaker 1: Tim and Ted the Characters. Yeah so Characters, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was Troy Taylor.
Speaker 3: Faith Anyway, Tim said they worked on a couple of
Speaker 3: records with me and I lost my voice, man, and
Speaker 3: I just it just went away.
Speaker 7: And I had to figure that shit out.
Speaker 3: So now I'm dealing with the fact that the label
Speaker 3: was getting ready to drop me, and Puff was like, nah,
Speaker 3: y'all can't do this kid like that.
Speaker 7: Let me take him to New York. So he took me.
Speaker 3: He started putting, He put me with vocal coaches out
Speaker 3: here to try to, you know, kind of change the
Speaker 3: direction of it. And then his idea wasn't about me
Speaker 3: being this perfect singer, even though I had like, you know,
Speaker 3: Kenny from uh Intro and Missy and I mean like
Speaker 3: great singers, Faith Evans, all these great singers around me,
Speaker 3: you know, and they were supporting me too, like now
Speaker 3: you're gonna be alright, just keep going. I'll be sure.
Speaker 3: He worked on my first album. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So wait, so Puffy took an interest in your career
Speaker 1: even though you weren't signed the bad Boy or his
Speaker 1: management company.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, So the reality of how the business
Speaker 3: works is odd. Right, So if you have an artist
Speaker 3: like me, there's an open budget, and if you're attempting
Speaker 3: to establish a record company, that damn Nick gives you
Speaker 3: free range to do whatever you want to do doing
Speaker 3: them sessions.
Speaker 7: So so I was not, but.
Speaker 3: By the way, a genuine relationship was bond was was
Speaker 3: built in that.
Speaker 7: But don't get it sucked up. I knew what was
Speaker 7: going on.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying, Like, if Craig Mack is walking out
Speaker 3: of my walking out of my session, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: like no, But I mean, but by the way, that
Speaker 3: was what it was in that time. That's the nineties,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So budget played for some bad boys stuff. Boy, So
Speaker 1: like what was that like?
Speaker 10: Because from what I understand what I read before, that
Speaker 10: was like Boot like for you, like he had you,
Speaker 10: And like what was that ship like with Puff during
Speaker 10: that time?
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, to say the least, did you
Speaker 1: moved to New York by yourself or like your mom
Speaker 1: came with you? I moved to New York with my
Speaker 1: cousin and shortly after that, Puff was like I got him,
Speaker 1: my cousin left, and that's what No, Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: how old were you at this time.
Speaker 7: Around this time, I'm fifteen.
Speaker 1: Oh, how going we're living with puff?
Speaker 7: Hey man, listen, what were your mother's rules?
Speaker 6: What was her did she?
Speaker 3: I mean, thank god she raised a sensible child, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Because it was readily available whatever
Speaker 3: you wanted to do. You know what I'm saying. It was,
Speaker 3: it was, it was. It was pretty crazy and for
Speaker 3: the average kid, they would look at it like, Yo,
Speaker 3: this is the greatest shit ever. But for me, man,
Speaker 3: I was a bit sheltered, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like I really hadn't been exposed to sex and ship.
Speaker 7: Like that like I was. I'm from the South, you
Speaker 7: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I came in with a fucking ruffled jacket on, looking
Speaker 3: like I was an earth wind and fire.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So and Mark Pitts picked me up from the airport
Speaker 3: and was like, Yo, we got you.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Here on out, we gotta.
Speaker 3: Get this fucking jacket off you.
Speaker 1: Youre just wrong with the bad boy posse like it was. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I was with you, Biggie new Yep. Yeah, how did
Speaker 1: he have you?
Speaker 10: Working like what was the I guess the boot camp,
Speaker 10: Like what was that training regiment?
Speaker 1: Like we take your budget. He's ready to die now.
Speaker 3: But he but he had me in the studio with Davante.
Speaker 3: I worked with I'll be sure. I worked with Kenny
Speaker 3: from Intro. I worked with be Heaven.
Speaker 1: You gotta tell the story. I don't mean like a
Speaker 1: slation story.
Speaker 10: But it's like no, because like faced backgrounds on that
Speaker 10: app like she's nuts.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah it was crazy.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 7: What did I teach? Yeah?
Speaker 6: I'm like, y'all got questions? What did I'll teach you?
Speaker 7: When you're talking about Whispers? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 7: He said, that's one of your favorites.
Speaker 1: No, that's my favorite.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that was my favorite on that album, Whispers Final Goodbye.
Speaker 10: I'll show yeah, because at the time, think of you.
Speaker 10: We like to think of you because that was Junkie.
Speaker 10: He flipped the who got the problem Ronnie Ronnie Loss
Speaker 10: So it was like I was like, oh, he's singing
Speaker 10: over the black woman ship.
Speaker 3: But but yeah that record because I was and I'm oblivious.
Speaker 3: I don't know none of you. I'm just that album
Speaker 3: spoke to you.
Speaker 8: What too Yeah, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: That's another generational thing between the two of you and
Speaker 1: me because again I assume were seventy eight seventy nine.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm seventy eight and Bill again that that that
Speaker 10: difference like pre seventy five, seventy one to seventy five cats,
Speaker 10: we have a chip on our shoulder about R and
Speaker 10: B you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So we're not that receptive. Like even when I'm at D'Angelo,
Speaker 1: I was like dismissive, like R and B cat whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just a Nazi that way, So
Speaker 1: I would have been more dismissive to it, whereas we were.
Speaker 10: Hops flew out on the R and B tip with
Speaker 10: felippeel to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because y'all were sixteen when it came yea were
Speaker 1: open and at the time, I mean, because I always
Speaker 1: thought was strange at that record, uh, in hindsight like
Speaker 1: it kind of you know, people thought that he was
Speaker 1: that you were too young to be singing.
Speaker 7: About singing mature ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but but it was right in time where we
Speaker 3: were developing, right exactly, That's what was going on record.
Speaker 10: That was my cake. It's time for you give me
Speaker 10: give me a doing it? Did you get whispers? Look man,
Speaker 10: the run? Look man, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: The run. So if the love was here.
Speaker 8: The Many Ways, The Many Way Calm Crazy, that is
Speaker 8: pham Bone Gold taking my apron is on making right now,
Speaker 8: let me all right?
Speaker 1: And was on my tape. Okay, if you're just joining
Speaker 1: us at the right time. If you're just joining us,
Speaker 1: we're talking to Usher him in the fourth and uh
Speaker 1: Fante's phone Boom Classics on his first record, which apparently
Speaker 1: as a guy who studied all his music, I need
Speaker 1: to revisit. So if if you're in the audience watching
Speaker 1: the the Usher Room, uh yeah, yeah, the experience. What
Speaker 1: song you like? Yo? That's my y'all gotta do this one.
Speaker 1: They're gonna determine the last two.
Speaker 10: I mean something of the first record, The Many Ways
Speaker 10: was I think that one was dope? Uh, what's trying
Speaker 10: to think another one that people would like that well?
Speaker 10: Because I'm trying to think of like songs that were
Speaker 10: like good, but now even now I think we appreciate
Speaker 10: it more. The Many Ways is just a gorgeous song,
Speaker 10: Like I just I just think that's just a very.
Speaker 1: Well right, can I can I rock many hit the post,
Speaker 1: Hit the post. This question Love Supreme with Foam Boom
Speaker 1: Classic number one by Usher Raymond the Fourth. That's right,
Speaker 1: it's gonna make you say. This is the many ways
Speaker 1: you need to work on that. I'm disappointed.
Speaker 9: Only herd was Usher moaning anyway, love.
Speaker 4: That you're more baby? What's going on?
Speaker 7: I've seen you around my way a couple of times.
Speaker 7: You message just moving around the.
Speaker 6: Way, right, I see all the fellow's my personally for
Speaker 6: your number. I like to get your number.
Speaker 4: So you do this with some time.
Speaker 7: I'm sten talking to phone or something.
Speaker 4: Anyways to say anyways, soup bad you're surprised. I got
Speaker 4: conse shin.
Speaker 6: She ain't shacking for the kids, I swing.
Speaker 4: We no can wait? Please get past depression?
Speaker 1: What a few for you?
Speaker 4: Swell slunchy, your girls sell your watching me say Ochi
Speaker 4: and bread they don't know well, well Jesus.
Speaker 1: Want That was the Many Ways by Usher Rim and
Speaker 1: our special guests on Questlove Supreme. So are you are
Speaker 1: you one of those people that cringe when you hear
Speaker 1: your older material or the people salivating over stuff that
Speaker 1: you made fifteen years ago like here, yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I record now it's like it's it's nice, Like what
Speaker 1: are you thinking of when you I'm gonna like you
Speaker 1: could have spilled pizza on your shirt and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: that's when I wore you know, Like, what are you
Speaker 1: thinking of when you hear.
Speaker 3: That one that I had lost my voice? Because I
Speaker 3: can hear it. I'm like, damn, I was fighting trying
Speaker 3: to get through that ship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what.
Speaker 1: Was it like when you finally got full control of
Speaker 1: your voice back? And it was like, oh I can
Speaker 1: talk again?
Speaker 7: Oh shit, yeah, like it was actually after I left
Speaker 7: New York.
Speaker 3: When I left New York, then I began to slowly
Speaker 3: but surely get.
Speaker 7: It getting back.
Speaker 1: Came to New York to record this record.
Speaker 7: I recorded that new and you didn't have your voice, fully,
Speaker 7: did not have my voice.
Speaker 1: So how long could you sing before the crack starts?
Speaker 1: The cracks in your voice?
Speaker 7: No, ladies and gentlemen, I have never done crack.
Speaker 3: I think it, you know, because I started trying to
Speaker 3: promote the album.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying. I was there's another time
Speaker 7: that you got which will bring you the new edition.
Speaker 3: But I was being managed by Brooke Payne, Whoa and
Speaker 3: Jeff Dison at the time.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, you are a brook Paen student. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, that's that's that explains a lot.
Speaker 6: I wonder if that was doing the break Wait when
Speaker 6: was that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, So so now I started performing the records, but
Speaker 3: every time I hear them songs, I'm like, damn, that's
Speaker 3: just crazy. You know, how how how far that? Because
Speaker 3: you're living all of it, you know, and my voice
Speaker 3: has changed about five different times throughout the entire process.
Speaker 7: Can't tell you some funny that you don't know?
Speaker 1: Tell me, all right.
Speaker 3: So when I first signed on the First Records, I
Speaker 3: wanted to do an album with Babyface and La Reed. Right,
Speaker 3: I signed specifically for the reason why, because of End
Speaker 3: of the Road, because of Bobby Brown. The hero that
Speaker 3: I my hero was produced by these two dudes, right.
Speaker 1: So you didn't see him as like older Calder Bobby Brown,
Speaker 1: that's it, that's not Bobby.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he like they made that music.
Speaker 7: They made that music.
Speaker 3: So that's all I knew. And I knew that Babyface
Speaker 3: was still doing it La Red. I didn't know if
Speaker 3: he was in the studio. I didn't know that he
Speaker 3: had stopped completely producing. But I was like, as long
Speaker 3: as I can get a record by y'all. So La
Speaker 3: Reid wanted Babyface to work on me, and they were
Speaker 3: going through, you know, a lot of drama at the time.
Speaker 3: They were kind of severing their ties or either he
Speaker 3: just didn't want he wasn't comfortable and Atlanta and.
Speaker 7: By the way, we talked about this ship. So it's cool.
Speaker 3: I can I can tell you this, but it was
Speaker 3: it's kind of like private. Anyway, he got mad and
Speaker 3: he built an entire album with an artist that we know.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and he built an entire album for me,
Speaker 3: and he gave the entire album to that dude.
Speaker 1: This is okay, let's guess it's like a mirror moment.
Speaker 1: Who got mad? This is this is baby Face?
Speaker 3: Baby Face was upset and gave the whole album.
Speaker 1: It's not Dremine Jackson.
Speaker 7: Another one young guy period in that time.
Speaker 1: What year I'm saying, what is this? Three ninety three?
Speaker 1: I can't even around the face.
Speaker 7: I'll just tell you on the face he was. It
Speaker 7: was Tevin Campbell.
Speaker 1: That can we talk exclusive?
Speaker 6: Its just me and this is a.
Speaker 1: Song for your settlers right there?
Speaker 10: Take it back some reclaiming. Can we talk take that
Speaker 10: song back? Can we talk? Yeah, don't take a bad girl?
Speaker 10: Always in my heart, always in my heart, damn all
Speaker 10: those Yeah.
Speaker 1: He got mad. He was there.
Speaker 3: They were just they was fighting in puff in him.
Speaker 3: They had words or something like that. And then you
Speaker 3: know whatever, Can I ask because he couldn't understand, like
Speaker 3: why why wouldn't you do? Why would you give an
Speaker 3: album like that to this dude? You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like you got your own artists and they was having
Speaker 3: this ship. So he was like, I do his album?
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Wow, all right? Can I ask? Okay? Wait? Did because hold?
Speaker 1: Did you record the songs? And then like just.
Speaker 3: I never got in the studio with him, and I
Speaker 3: couldn't understand. It wasn't until Bedtime. That's that was my
Speaker 3: first record with him. That was the next album. That
Speaker 3: was My Way.
Speaker 1: So, okay, was Bedtime presented to you already and it's
Speaker 1: completed for him?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: It was. It was primarily worked on the spot right
Speaker 1: in front of you.
Speaker 3: It was worked on in the studio and I was
Speaker 3: there and then I came, I went into booth and
Speaker 3: there and cut it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm doing it.
Speaker 7: I don't think it was a song like that he
Speaker 7: just pitched me. Now, Wasn't that.
Speaker 1: Because I'm doing a journalistic no, no, But I have
Speaker 1: a theory because I'm very obsessed with the process of
Speaker 1: how the water just went dry for Babyface after two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, really nineteen ninety eight. You know, they're like,
Speaker 1: there's the period the of La Babyface, and then there's
Speaker 1: the ninety five Babyface by himself shit, and then it's like,
Speaker 1: oh he with the neptunes like that, just hanging on.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that I had a theory
Speaker 1: that the real La and Babyface was as yet Okay,
Speaker 1: because what many people don't know is that again, these
Speaker 1: are all my theories. I'm not trying to throw last
Speaker 1: Night this song like the group yet exactly, but I'm
Speaker 1: saying that what many people don't know, especially people not
Speaker 1: involved in the industry, is that a lot of these times,
Speaker 1: when you're working with these super producers, you're really just
Speaker 1: leasing their name workers. Really, I mean a person that
Speaker 1: we know is for the terrible Doctor d Right, So
Speaker 1: when you're when you're giving Doctor Dre a quarter of
Speaker 1: a million dollars for Dr Dre song, chances are is
Speaker 1: that he has minions and people working, like, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: there to instruct that, but as far as actually doing
Speaker 1: the layman's work, I always felt you're crushing me right now, Well, no, no, no, again.
Speaker 1: These are my theories. These are my theories, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to put you in the position where you
Speaker 1: have the confirmer deny it. But I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: when you are between nineteen ninety four, in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Babyface Ling, Babyface combined or solo had at least ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen bangers per per year, and then everything stopped,
Speaker 1: and then a scientific life and everything and then hip
Speaker 1: hop happen, life happen.
Speaker 7: Now, life happen.
Speaker 3: He got a divorce, he got married, all of that shit,
Speaker 3: and then he probably just wasn't as hungry for it.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm weally great friends now, right,
Speaker 3: He's the guy that I can call at four o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning, He'll pick up the phone, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, right, And I've asked I'll go back,
Speaker 3: and I'm listening to all of those old school like
Speaker 3: well what is old school now? But listening to those records,
Speaker 3: I'm like what the hell were y'all doing? Like like this,
Speaker 3: there's a feeling of this shit in the mixture, like
Speaker 3: the like the science of what this was, Like, how
Speaker 3: y'all were mixing shit together?
Speaker 7: What were y'all thinking?
Speaker 3: He was like, man, we had that song for like
Speaker 3: six years that was just sitting in there, like Ronnie
Speaker 3: that had just been sitting in there. I'm like, for real,
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, man, way before we gave it to Bobby.
Speaker 1: But next to Prince's genius streak of eighty two to
Speaker 1: eighty seven eighty eight, I felt like Babyface's output of
Speaker 1: songs was unparallel and then it just stops like that.
Speaker 7: So what do you think it was?
Speaker 1: Well, I kind of want you to insinuate or not insinuate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fuck just because I I I know that Pharrell writes
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and does his work alone. I
Speaker 1: know Premiere produces all this stuff, like really just solo
Speaker 1: by himself. I can't even imagine that Babyface had the
Speaker 1: work ethic where he's up night and day, just effortless
Speaker 1: churning out hit hit after hit like he has thirty
Speaker 1: five to forty Like, oh, I'm invest I'm invest on.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying, is once as yet left the
Speaker 1: premises and the divorce and the yab young versus face
Speaker 1: whatever went down today. Man, come on, man, you're the
Speaker 1: cat of the Canary. I did tell me You're not
Speaker 1: gonna tell me, are you?
Speaker 7: Nah?
Speaker 3: I mean I'm saying that, By the way, at that age,
Speaker 3: I don't think I was thinking of any of that shit.
Speaker 3: I was just like, I want to get in the
Speaker 3: studio and actually get one out of him, because I
Speaker 3: haven't had any record period it.
Speaker 1: So did you physically see him work? Like does he
Speaker 1: have a paper? And I did? That's all I wanted.
Speaker 1: That's all I wanted. I didn't know if I didn't
Speaker 1: La La and Babyface was a bit like did they
Speaker 1: just come to you with these songs or was it
Speaker 1: like you saw them sitting there or discord that chord?
Speaker 1: And what do you think? I just can't I never
Speaker 1: got the now Rogers and that wards like it wasn't that.
Speaker 3: He presented the one that I can tell you that
Speaker 3: was one record that he presented to me, And that's
Speaker 3: I think that that's what kind of like really made
Speaker 3: him not funk with me at all period or l
Speaker 3: A read with regards to me because he also too
Speaker 3: he didn't believe in me as He's like, I don't really,
Speaker 3: I don't really lac la red babyface. He was like,
Speaker 3: I don't really, I don't get him. And he presented
Speaker 3: a record and Puff he he rejected the record and
Speaker 3: that was it.
Speaker 7: It was like, all right, well then I'm not gonna
Speaker 7: have nothing to do with it at all.
Speaker 1: How did you feel?
Speaker 7: I was devastated it.
Speaker 3: I actually signed the deal to work with those two producers,
Speaker 3: and I to this day still ain't got to wring
Speaker 3: it from him.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying? Like so together, So.
Speaker 1: Puff oversaw the first time he made the call in
Speaker 1: terms of what was.
Speaker 7: He ep the first album?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Gotcha? Gotcha? How now how did it go from?
Speaker 10: Because you know you were talking about when you lost
Speaker 10: your voice, they were thinking of dropping you. So then
Speaker 10: the first album comes out and it doesn't do you know,
Speaker 10: it doesn't sell. I guess you know whatever, what did you?
Speaker 1: What did the first album wind up doing?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think and it's probably greatest. It maybe
Speaker 3: got up to about maybe gold maybe like now yeah
Speaker 3: maybe it might be gold?
Speaker 6: Really that single carry that joint?
Speaker 10: Okay, So how did you go from that to my
Speaker 10: getting dropped, yeah, to my way, like, how did you.
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I started working with Dallas Austin on my next album,
Speaker 3: and you know, I bought him lamberg because that was
Speaker 3: what the exchange.
Speaker 7: For doing my album.
Speaker 1: Damn, how did you guy?
Speaker 7: They was killing my budget?
Speaker 4: Bro?
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 7: I was of that of that group of artists who.
Speaker 1: Really you know, the hype Williams budgets.
Speaker 7: Nah, but it wasn't that. It was that. That was
Speaker 7: that was that time.
Speaker 3: So they had to find ways to kind of move
Speaker 3: and work their own ship. And the artists they just
Speaker 3: had to absorb that. And plus I knew what it was.
Speaker 3: We understood and if you think about what you're gonna
Speaker 3: end up paying a producer, it would be the equivalent
Speaker 3: of that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So he made money too, right, No, he did the
Speaker 1: album for Lamborghini.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well he was. It didn't happen.
Speaker 3: So wait, it didn't happen because he and I didn't
Speaker 3: We didn't blend. So I was gonna work on this
Speaker 3: album called A Book of Love with him and this
Speaker 3: is with Dallas awesome, and the motherfucker just wouldn't show
Speaker 3: up to the studio. I'll be sitting there for hours.
Speaker 3: I'd come there be sitting in the front. Then eventually
Speaker 3: I started picking up instruments and start trying to build
Speaker 3: the album of damnselfs was this amount of time when
Speaker 3: he was he was playing with it around that time.
Speaker 3: I think it was yeah, yeah, But I just think
Speaker 3: that he really didn't. He didn't He ain't believe in
Speaker 3: me like that, you know what I'm saying. I think
Speaker 3: it was more or less of a favor for l A.
Speaker 3: And I wasn't a priority and he's trying to get
Speaker 3: his label off the ground to run that yeah illegal
Speaker 3: illegal yeah, and Monica Yeah he was. He really just
Speaker 3: wasn't focused. So instead of us continuing to do that,
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just disrespectful, like he wouldn't show
Speaker 3: up to the studio, like hey man, the session starts
Speaker 3: at this time, and he was like, Yo, man, you
Speaker 3: gotta get this dude to chill out. Like you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, I'm a vibe or dude, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Like I like to just do things
Speaker 3: in the club. I'm like, funck that, man, We're gonna
Speaker 3: work on that. We're gonna work on the home. Let's
Speaker 3: do it, you know what I'm saying. So I was like, fucking,
Speaker 3: I'm not coming to the studio.
Speaker 7: I'm done. And that was it. That was the history
Speaker 7: of that.
Speaker 1: And you know that's like in my mind, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: like you're in Atlanta. I imagine how to funk out
Speaker 1: feel the climax of like the Atlanta movement. Like I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: like it's like the New Motown where you know, TLC's
Speaker 1: in the house and all these accounts and everyone's family
Speaker 1: that happened.
Speaker 3: All of that is still true, but the reality is
Speaker 3: like certain things ain't meant to happen.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 3: I mean, I seen this guy and I was the fuller.
Speaker 3: I was a very very special artist, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. Like back then, I had the confidence of
Speaker 3: like ten billion people.
Speaker 1: No, I'm in up stop.
Speaker 3: So look the dude passed up on me, man, like
Speaker 3: he's seen me before. I performed for him and he
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, give me a call tomorrow, man. You
Speaker 3: know like that, I was like, all right, cool, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, I see you again, man, damn.
Speaker 3: And you know, so I'm still holding on a little
Speaker 3: bit of that by you know, sitting in that lobby.
Speaker 3: You know, I was like, man, fuck it, I'm not
Speaker 3: coming back to dude.
Speaker 1: This explains everything because I'm seeing I'm getting to know
Speaker 1: you as a person and as an artist, and really,
Speaker 1: you know, I purposely especially for this interview. Normally, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm Google and start renal interviews just to see where
Speaker 1: you're want. But I know that you have this tireless
Speaker 1: work ethic about you, and now this is starting to
Speaker 1: make sense because now I feel like you really got
Speaker 1: something to prove. Even though yeah, you might be cool
Speaker 1: with Face and Dallas now and you'll see each other
Speaker 1: give each other pound or whatever. But now I'm feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh way, they get a load of me because you
Speaker 1: want I'm just feeling like the joker, Like now you're feeling.
Speaker 3: That's another chapter to that that we haven't got to yet.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying, because oh ship, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even I wasn't even trying to go there
Speaker 1: you want, No, No, let's go there anyway. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that as an artist, I'm thinking that you now, oh.
Speaker 6: Wow, you sound like me over there.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: No, we're not trying to turn this into that.
Speaker 3: No, it's not the Gossip Hour or not not that,
Speaker 3: but you know, I mean, but there's certain truths that
Speaker 3: actually make it fun, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: And we all grown.
Speaker 3: We passed it now, but we've passed it. So I
Speaker 3: mean the reality is yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: Ship embrace the pity. Yeah. Okay, So how did so
Speaker 1: how did you come across the high hat king? You mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, so think for the record, Rick Rubin has
Speaker 1: the loudest scratches on hip hop records, but bar none, uh,
Speaker 1: Jermaine Dupriez high hat high hats, Like when you're spending
Speaker 1: records sometimes your needle can be sensitive to grooves on
Speaker 1: the record and his Germaine dupre Yeah, it's like it
Speaker 1: could affect He has the loudest hip hop high hats
Speaker 1: of all time. I mean, I respect it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean back then was frustrating his health to spend
Speaker 1: because the high hats will always skip the records sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well anyway, so how did you wind up with Jermaine Dupree.
Speaker 3: He did a remix for Think of You and that
Speaker 3: was the that was the beginning of me kind of
Speaker 3: working with him. And he was like, you know, if
Speaker 3: you work you know, let's work together. I was like, man,
Speaker 3: I really do.
Speaker 7: I think it was like, you really did a great job.
Speaker 3: He came in the studio, he produced it from scratch
Speaker 3: and said we created it right there. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, And he he was just dope. I was like, man,
Speaker 3: when I work on my next album, I really want
Speaker 3: you to I really want you to be a part
Speaker 3: of it. And you know l A Reid put us
Speaker 3: together after Dallas and that was when you were working
Speaker 3: in l A.
Speaker 1: Right that we did any songs with Dallas?
Speaker 7: None?
Speaker 1: Damn okay?
Speaker 7: Yeah none that came out? You mean like did we
Speaker 7: actually the song?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I had a song called water Falls versus whatever?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, did you ever work in a song
Speaker 1: with Dallas?
Speaker 3: I think he was working with Deborah kill Feel Debora Cox.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of records on Debor Cox. They
Speaker 3: probably slid from my project to her to her project,
Speaker 3: and I think it was that Montel.
Speaker 1: Baby you have the first.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't do the record, but I'm saying I
Speaker 3: would have potentially had had that song if I weren't
Speaker 3: around them. And not to say that it wouldn't you know,
Speaker 3: he had his process man, it just didn't work with me,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Anyway, So so I I ended up, you know, being
Speaker 3: put with j D and we just started working. I
Speaker 3: just started kicking it with and we worked on it
Speaker 3: in Atlanta in his basement.
Speaker 10: Oh wow, okay, yah about that man, you will Seal
Speaker 10: talk to me about him because he was like I
Speaker 10: would always see him working with j D. He was
Speaker 10: like one of my favorite songwriters and what was his process?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: So j D had a manual still working at the time,
Speaker 3: and Kawan Prayer the k Yeah, KP.
Speaker 1: That's the name, Kawan Prayer. Yeah, he's uh, he's KP.
Speaker 7: You know, KP. He's independent. He works with for real now,
Speaker 7: but he he he worked with Parental Advisory at the time.
Speaker 7: P A right, I got the official name he was.
Speaker 6: He was R Kelly. Thank you, okay, God, I'm back
Speaker 6: to my quiet place.
Speaker 7: That's our first lady over there.
Speaker 1: No, that was put p a yard in the graveyard
Speaker 1: pepitone the I think the.
Speaker 7: R Kelly.
Speaker 1: That's correct, Kelly.
Speaker 6: That's so sorry.
Speaker 3: Nah. So KP he was over there with me and
Speaker 3: we just started working on the album. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, and the rest is kind of like it
Speaker 3: became history. I just worked day in day, but JD
Speaker 3: had such a weird fucking way of working. And after
Speaker 3: dealing with uh Dallas Sauce and it was like, you
Speaker 3: want me to come to the studio and sit and
Speaker 3: watch you playing video games. I can't do that, man,
Speaker 3: I don't play that. I just didn't play video I
Speaker 3: just wasn't a kid who played video games. I stopped
Speaker 3: and was like, I can't catch back up. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I put I put the joystick down, so I'm here
Speaker 3: to work. I was that serious, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I was like, you know, let's pay pool, man.
Speaker 3: You know, at least that's a game that I can play.
Speaker 3: So we started playing Pool for push ups and ship
Speaker 3: like that, and then before you know it, I was
Speaker 3: doing crunches and ship and I just third forming God
Speaker 3: damn six packs.
Speaker 7: So that became apply.
Speaker 1: Trying to get you in shape all of that ship
Speaker 1: but his is missing a good one. So what was
Speaker 1: the first song y'all worked on?
Speaker 7: First record we worked on?
Speaker 3: Oh man, what was the first one. I don't think
Speaker 3: it was a song that made the album, And I
Speaker 3: don't think it was a record that made it. I
Speaker 3: don't even remember the damn name of it.
Speaker 1: Man, uh okay. I was like, well, the album is
Speaker 1: called My Way.
Speaker 3: The first album we worked on was called My Way.
Speaker 3: But the first song, the first song I do not remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember my Way that hit my That was
Speaker 1: my freshman year of college, and you make me want
Speaker 1: to like it was like.
Speaker 7: The last record of the entire album.
Speaker 1: Why is that always because it's always like we're missing
Speaker 1: we need, we need to sing, we need a single.
Speaker 1: Was it was that thing someone like we're missing something?
Speaker 7: I think it was. No, I think it was.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite joining was one Day He'll be Mine,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't because of the Iley sample. But just
Speaker 1: like Me.
Speaker 7: I think just like Me was the first record that
Speaker 7: we worked on.
Speaker 1: But what was the song that you were like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm bad now now I'm forced to be reckoned with or?
Speaker 1: I think it was nice and Slow. That was the
Speaker 1: one that was like, oh shit, we got something, but
Speaker 1: come back. It was another record that we worked on.
Speaker 1: And so, how how's JD directing this? Because I mean,
Speaker 1: at that point, I'm thinking of a strictly from hip
Speaker 1: hop context. So as a producer. What is his process
Speaker 1: in the studio. He's sitting there coaching you on vocals. Yo,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. Look, I hate vocals. I will be like,
Speaker 1: all right, he does back at this point. Now he does.
Speaker 7: Now he'll actually sit in the studio with me. Now.
Speaker 7: But back then you had to literally like sit.
Speaker 3: In the living room or like his little living room
Speaker 3: area downstairs in the basement, and they would just play
Speaker 3: video games for hours.
Speaker 1: So who's coaching your vocals on this stuff?
Speaker 7: Eventually it was Emmanuel and a guy this is back
Speaker 7: with Phil Tan, who was his his engineering engineers.
Speaker 1: Always the vocal coach.
Speaker 3: He would he would actually go through a vocal production
Speaker 3: with me, but it was mostly emmanual because he would
Speaker 3: he would put it down piece by piece.
Speaker 7: And then I kind of go in and and work
Speaker 7: on it. We wrote certain things.
Speaker 1: Were you guys, were you guys co writing together or yeah?
Speaker 3: I would basically, you know, talk to JD about just
Speaker 3: different ship and before you know what, he started writing.
Speaker 7: I hadn't I hadn't developed my my writing. I hadn't
Speaker 7: picked up a pen yet.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of like talking about things and he's
Speaker 3: taking it in writing it and before you know it,
Speaker 3: I'll come back to the studio. He'll hit me at
Speaker 3: three o'clock in the morning, like, come to the studio.
Speaker 6: I'm like.
Speaker 3: Sleepy, I've been I was out there all day waiting
Speaker 3: on you Todamn to do something, and then you didn't.
Speaker 1: Now you are you a daytime studio person.
Speaker 7: At that time?
Speaker 3: I was, because I mean if I was still in school, man,
Speaker 3: like I'm still I'm still in school, trying to figure
Speaker 3: out how to balance between two worlds. And you know, I,
Speaker 3: uh yeah, I come out there three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 3: tired his hell, and he wanted to work.
Speaker 7: I had to start to go.
Speaker 1: So you went to physical school like you weren't tutor
Speaker 1: and the the celebrity.
Speaker 7: Now wait, man, I'm fucking up. No, I was out
Speaker 7: of school then I was taking my nineteen.
Speaker 3: But the craziest shit is I was the family driver
Speaker 3: in addition to being a nighttime artist.
Speaker 7: So I had to drive my.
Speaker 3: Mom to work, drive my girl to Wait, was your
Speaker 3: mom still working? My mother was still working. I had
Speaker 3: to drive my mom to work. I had to drive
Speaker 3: my girlfriend to Spelman and then drop my brother. Girl, yeah,
Speaker 3: drop my brother off, and then get my ass back
Speaker 3: to the house for just a second. Go pick my
Speaker 3: little brother up, Go pick my mom up, bring them
Speaker 3: back home, Go pick my girlfriend up, come back home,
Speaker 3: and then drive to the studio.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the story I was the original. You just
Speaker 1: wanted to show you just want more chauffeur than Usher. Wow,
Speaker 1: she's the original, yo. I'm actually glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because even as at least I'm even as the as
Speaker 1: an established artist, at least in the eyes of people
Speaker 1: that don't know the industry, you're still blue collar with it,
Speaker 1: and you're still like your mom's still keeping the job.
Speaker 1: She's not like, Okay, I'm managing full time or none
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Wait, is Brooke still in the picture?
Speaker 7: Brook is no longer in the picture. I now am.
Speaker 3: I'm just working on the album, so I really need
Speaker 3: a manager. My mother she basically, you know, helped me
Speaker 3: find an attorney that then kind of handled my business
Speaker 3: or whatever per album to album and you know, just
Speaker 3: kind of focused on once again getting that album, getting
Speaker 3: that I'm done.
Speaker 1: Can you describe Brooke as a person, because for those
Speaker 1: that don't know, you know, thank god the New Edition
Speaker 1: movie went down and I love the way like he
Speaker 1: was my favorite character in a New Edition movie only
Speaker 1: because of at least the lesson that he taught New Edition,
Speaker 1: which was basically, I'm gonna teach you how to be professional.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make you stars, but i will
Speaker 1: teach you how to be professional.
Speaker 3: He's like that uncle or that granddad that makes you
Speaker 3: scared because you don't know what the fuck he's thinking
Speaker 3: good and you're like, I just don't want them to
Speaker 3: be disappointed in me.
Speaker 1: No, look, dude, I spoke to him about that whole process,
Speaker 1: and he like confirmed that he he was, like, not
Speaker 1: exactly the black version of what's his name in Whiplash,
Speaker 1: but he did believe. He believed. I know that Brook
Speaker 1: told me that he he's a too much praise is
Speaker 1: almost damage into an artist because that'll make them relaxed.
Speaker 1: And it's weird that I'm not saying that slave mentality
Speaker 1: like the like to keep keep the workers uh in
Speaker 1: in in a plot. Yeah, but I mean, but it
Speaker 1: keep it makes them work harder, and you know, next
Speaker 1: to like Charlie Atkins, like I consider Brook paying one
Speaker 1: of the greatest uh or yeah, proprietors of of just
Speaker 1: that spirit of like when he's working with you, is
Speaker 1: he strictly just a manager from a manager center, or
Speaker 1: is he working with you on dance moves?
Speaker 7: And at that time, he wasn't working on choreography anymore.
Speaker 1: So were you asking him to work with you?
Speaker 7: Or I'm always meeting people, you know, when they just
Speaker 7: step in out of their space.
Speaker 3: I can't get a fucking record from babyfacing in LA,
Speaker 3: can't get the pain that goddamn teach teach me a
Speaker 3: step now.
Speaker 1: But I mean he had wisdom, at least I hope
Speaker 1: he had wisdom.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he had man wisdom his record. It wasn't that. No,
Speaker 7: I didn't leave him.
Speaker 3: What happened is new addition they got back together was
Speaker 3: home again and and this is right before everything happened
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I'm like, and he's like, you know, I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 3: you can't leave man, And he and Jeff Dyson was like,
Speaker 3: we got to go back and work on this project.
Speaker 7: I was like, well, maybe I can open up for
Speaker 7: y'all or something like that.
Speaker 3: He's like, nah, I gotta give it my undivided attention
Speaker 3: as I would if it were you. So I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know what, I gotta respect that and
Speaker 3: if there's an opportunity for us to work again.
Speaker 7: And that's when my mother became my manager.
Speaker 1: Now what is that like because you're approaching adulthood? Like,
Speaker 1: is it easy the Joe Jackson Matthew Knowles of it all, Like,
Speaker 1: is it easy to separate the hats of the two
Speaker 1: when your mom's your manager? Like? Is she traveling on
Speaker 1: the road with you as your managers are? Like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how hard is that? Because you're I mean, you're
Speaker 1: becoming of age.
Speaker 7: I'm a grown man in theory because I've always been
Speaker 7: the manager.
Speaker 1: You're driving people to work, so how now?
Speaker 7: But in my mind i'm also too.
Speaker 3: I've elected to be the provider of the family, even
Speaker 3: though my mother is the protector, right, And in many
Speaker 3: ways I think that she kind of she crippled me
Speaker 3: a little bit for a minute because my focus wasn't
Speaker 3: it had nothing to.
Speaker 7: Do with business, had everything to do with art.
Speaker 3: And think I thank her for that because I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have I wouldn't have established the focus that I have
Speaker 3: now if I couldn't have just focused on music, music, music, music, dance, dance, dance, dance.
Speaker 7: Performance, performance, performance performers.
Speaker 3: If I was always kind of going to figure out
Speaker 3: who's trying to take money, where the money is coming from,
Speaker 3: I would have been petty, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I would have I would have lost sight of what
Speaker 3: what the goal was. And you know another thing, my
Speaker 3: mother never My mother was never the extremely. You know,
Speaker 3: I can't do anything. I can't go anywhere, you can't.
Speaker 1: She let me.
Speaker 7: I got into ship, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 7: she understood that's just things.
Speaker 3: That's what men do. Boys do that, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But if you're going to do it, do
Speaker 3: it in the safety of your house. Be protected, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like, Okay, yeah, wow, I'm trying to go here.
Speaker 6: Home, pull up. Don't make me go.
Speaker 1: There, not right now. Okay. So when you finished the
Speaker 1: record and you're mastering your sequence, and at this point,
Speaker 1: are you like, Okay, this is it. I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: everyone that I'm the ship or.
Speaker 3: No, it's just the work. I ain't even about to
Speaker 3: accolade at that point. I just want to work.
Speaker 7: I want to get back on the road, I want
Speaker 7: to get back out there and perform. I want to
Speaker 7: just continue to grow. You know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 7: like it ain't got nothing to do with showing nobody up.
Speaker 7: I'm better than anybody.
Speaker 3: But it's like, no, it's not over for me, and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep working because I got more to do.
Speaker 1: I still ain't.
Speaker 7: I still haven't fulfilled what I saw when I was eight.
Speaker 1: Well, MTV like grasped oranty like crazy, because I mean
Speaker 1: everything every video that I know was played ungodly doing
Speaker 1: that point. I think by this point, you're this this
Speaker 1: the well?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: No, is this the Merry Usher tour? Was that during
Speaker 1: that period.
Speaker 7: Or seven to one?
Speaker 1: Okay? So what is what is the what is your
Speaker 1: live show like now?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, my way was like I had a little bit
Speaker 3: of Philly with me. I had, you know, let me see,
Speaker 3: that's when I brought it was a little bit of Detroit.
Speaker 3: You remember, you know Kerran and Voudas Brinley, they had
Speaker 3: of Detroit. That's who played with Mary.
Speaker 7: The current kurrent was EP for, I mean was MD for.
Speaker 1: They work with the Dream as well.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure if they do or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm trying to figure out who else they worked with.
Speaker 3: Okay, but anyway, so I had a band, and I
Speaker 3: was comfortable with performing with a band.
Speaker 1: Now are you like you are?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 1: Like you're aware and you know what you want to convey?
Speaker 1: Like who's conveying your ideas?
Speaker 7: Hearing me? That's it seeing me?
Speaker 1: And is he listening to you a way I don't
Speaker 1: listen to you? And we won? So what what are
Speaker 1: you trying to? What are you trying to convey as
Speaker 1: an artist? By this by this time period? Like what
Speaker 1: are you at this point?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to live out everything that goes with this
Speaker 3: album because it is the first time that I've actually
Speaker 3: made songs that are relative to my life, what I've
Speaker 3: gone through, what I've experienced. So now I'm trying to recreate,
Speaker 3: recapture those moments that you know, that idea.
Speaker 7: It's a little bit it's.
Speaker 3: A little bit country, you know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 3: and I had to deal with what I had access to.
Speaker 3: But you know, you know, when I came on stage,
Speaker 3: I had a tribute to Bobby that I did every night.
Speaker 1: Now you you you do you have a close relationship
Speaker 1: to Bobby Brown? Or was it like, oh you're mind
Speaker 1: or a nice kid like the knowledge Joe Green commercial.
Speaker 7: Now we were cool.
Speaker 3: We're cool now, you know, there was a moment where
Speaker 3: we weren't cool and it was because he was he
Speaker 3: was really, he was really just like he was on
Speaker 3: the drugs.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 7: It was just too much.
Speaker 1: But okay, So what I'm saying is is we had
Speaker 1: a follow out. So he tried to fight me in
Speaker 1: the club and it was and I was thinking, I
Speaker 1: was going to ask you, what do you feel threat?
Speaker 3: And you think he felt I wasn't a threat though,
Speaker 3: I think it was just the drugs. It's just, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Sometimes you know, sh it just happened.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about meeting your artists? Because I
Speaker 1: have never meet your idols, never meet them because was crushed.
Speaker 7: I was crushed, and I think that he just read
Speaker 7: me wrong. I never give my birthday.
Speaker 3: He showed up to this birthday party that I had
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles and I introduced him my first time.
Speaker 3: I knew him when I was a kid because because
Speaker 3: of a j Alexander so he I spent time at
Speaker 3: his house.
Speaker 7: I spent time at Boston. Time he cooked for you.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, But for the record, Bobby Brown was
Speaker 1: like one of the best cooks of all time all
Speaker 1: right back to the show.
Speaker 3: So now I knew him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I drove driven in car with him a kind of
Speaker 3: sad well. I was kicking it with him, you know
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And when I got signed to the Face Records.
Speaker 3: You know, I was always like a part of the crew.
Speaker 3: I was a part of the you know betwn crew.
Speaker 3: And plus his kid, uh hakem with his nephew. He
Speaker 3: went to school with me, so I would always kind
Speaker 3: of be around with them. But anyway, I had a
Speaker 3: birthday party and he was in the house, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So I got on the mic and
Speaker 3: I was like, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce
Speaker 3: you to the original King of R and BR and B.
Speaker 3: I said, the original King of R and B in
Speaker 3: respect and at the time sarcasm.
Speaker 7: I think he thought I was trying. It was out there.
Speaker 1: I was like, you the original, but I'm the new king, right.
Speaker 7: So he caught me in.
Speaker 3: He was like, it's like that little nigga, he said,
Speaker 3: for real, nigga, don't get He was like, don't get
Speaker 3: sucked up or something.
Speaker 7: I was like, yo, hold up, man, for real like that,
Speaker 7: So you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We you know, so I.
Speaker 3: Yikes, I kind of liked this, and then he kind
Speaker 3: of squared up with me and then they jumped in between.
Speaker 7: It was crazy, man, And I'm looking at them like,
Speaker 7: but I idolize you, you my idol like real, so
Speaker 7: you remember that, Like I don't think you remember that.
Speaker 1: I'm celebrating he and my mother and them.
Speaker 3: They trying to pull me out of the place, and
Speaker 3: he like fuck, he like he going off on me.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, Bobby is me?
Speaker 1: Like come on, man, and what year is this? What
Speaker 1: year is that when that happens? What year is this?
Speaker 1: August seventh?
Speaker 7: This was this was after My Way.
Speaker 1: It had to have been at least two years after
Speaker 1: My Way, so I predict it's August seventh. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was after my damn man, this after Candy Girl too, right,
Speaker 1: like decades. I can't feel you.
Speaker 10: Wow, you can join us? So My Way with that record?
Speaker 10: When just My Way happens and then you do the record,
Speaker 10: how did you know?
Speaker 1: Like when did you know?
Speaker 10: Did you said that you make me want it was
Speaker 10: the last one you did? Did you know that that
Speaker 10: one was the hit? It was like, Okay, this is
Speaker 10: the one or did that just happen?
Speaker 1: Later?
Speaker 3: It just happened, you know what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 3: for me, it was never about a hit record. It
Speaker 3: was about getting back to the stage.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 7: You will get back. I need to get back to it.
Speaker 7: I need to get back to the stage.
Speaker 1: That was it gotcha.
Speaker 7: Rather it was a hit record or not. You know,
Speaker 7: La Reid, he had a job, you know, KP.
Speaker 3: They had a job to bring me the best records
Speaker 3: and help, you know, kind of tell my story because
Speaker 3: they knew that I really wasn't allowing just anybody to
Speaker 3: just kind of write, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Like we got getting the studio and got to work
Speaker 7: on it.
Speaker 1: But let me ask, I mean, before my before you
Speaker 1: make me want to when you're listening to the album
Speaker 1: in progress, what's Ellie retain?
Speaker 7: We just need that one, that one, that last record.
Speaker 1: So even with nice and Slow and My Way, so
Speaker 1: I was established hits.
Speaker 3: So now we wanted to come out with My Way.
Speaker 3: We wanted to come out with nice and slow. My
Speaker 3: Way wasn't even on this.
Speaker 1: You want to nice and slow first.
Speaker 7: I wanted nice and slow first. So he was like,
Speaker 7: now you got to have an up tempo.
Speaker 1: So JD.
Speaker 7: He produced his beat and I just rolled with the beat.
Speaker 7: Roll with the beat.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, because I can now. At
Speaker 3: that point, I was like, I'm all right, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, because it just take him. It just
Speaker 3: take him a minute to get to it. And he
Speaker 3: was going through some ship. I was going through some
Speaker 3: shit in relationship. Were talking it up, and then one
Speaker 3: day at three o'clock in the morning, he hit me
Speaker 3: up and I came over and the rest is history.
Speaker 10: After that record, when you went into eighty seven old one,
Speaker 10: that was that was the one that came after that one.
Speaker 1: How did the Neptunes come into the picture?
Speaker 3: For I think so, I've seen for Real a lady
Speaker 3: by the name of Candy Tooks. She introduced me to
Speaker 3: for Real when he back when they were on Future.
Speaker 3: I think it's the name of that uh, when they
Speaker 3: were with Teddy so they were they was like studio producers,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And I met him, but
Speaker 3: there was no connection. I actually worked on a couple
Speaker 3: of songs. I think, yeah, I think it was my
Speaker 3: I think it was before My Way and I had
Speaker 3: seen him, but I didn't necessarily at the connection, so KP.
Speaker 3: He began to you know, he came in with these
Speaker 3: records and I was like, okay, you know, let's let's
Speaker 3: try to get in with them.
Speaker 7: Let's try to you know whatever. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 7: I think I got I got something, and I think it.
Speaker 1: Was I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm not sure if fronting was
Speaker 3: out or not. He was trying as hard as to
Speaker 3: get that record. He's China's hardest to get that record.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, because it was one I think I
Speaker 10: think it was for eighty seven on one that didn't
Speaker 10: make it Sweet Lies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like ten I love two songs. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I still love that song.
Speaker 10: Yeah, man, was it is it? Was it any truth
Speaker 10: that you don't have to call? Was originally for Mike
Speaker 10: or was that just is that fan fix that I
Speaker 10: don't know.
Speaker 3: All I know is when I got it, l A
Speaker 3: went crazy and he was like, you gotta cut this record,
Speaker 3: and I was like, all right, I cut it, no problem.
Speaker 1: Are you easily. The thing is because the the the
Speaker 1: folklore of the Neptunes, especially when they're in glory in
Speaker 1: their glory period everybody wanted the Neptunes cut. But you know,
Speaker 1: initially hearing the Neptunes, it was a hard pill for
Speaker 1: me to swallow. No, it was a hard pill for me.
Speaker 1: I think the first beat I heard was I Can't Make.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about s W. I mean, I knew nah,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't like behindset Tunes. It was I can't Make.
Speaker 1: The mistake was the first Neptune sounding song, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, My first one was Mace. They was
Speaker 1: looking at me, You're right, okay, looking at him. I
Speaker 1: was like, what in the hell is it? And it's
Speaker 1: really sparse, you know, like it it's weird because for
Speaker 1: all for the for the folklore of how it took
Speaker 1: music listeners uh a minute to accept and digest when
Speaker 1: doves cry, like you'll you'll hear people in hindsight speak
Speaker 1: of like Warner Brothers was upset that Prince took the
Speaker 1: baseline out of it. D D D. I mean, when
Speaker 1: doves Cry didn't feel that foreign to me. But yet
Speaker 1: when I heard the Neptune stuff, I was just like,
Speaker 1: something's missing, like it, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of drums and they were using
Speaker 1: and like the stocks that keyboard sounds. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: just like I not a kind of plastic between them
Speaker 1: and Swiss like the era of the keyboard beats.
Speaker 7: It sounds like demos, like how to.
Speaker 1: Hit demo on the Casio is like, right, that's it.
Speaker 1: So how are they convincing you?
Speaker 6: Yo?
Speaker 1: This is the ship?
Speaker 7: They didn't.
Speaker 3: I got it from KP. So I was using KP's
Speaker 3: ears and when you don't have to call came on.
Speaker 7: It was it was hard that beat was They played
Speaker 7: it loud for you tell man, that ship was hard.
Speaker 1: Another thing Pharrell's world famous for how he sells you
Speaker 1: a song.
Speaker 3: No he did, He wasn't there. KP played the record.
Speaker 3: He I didn't meet them until after in the studio,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And then that's when they
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, we met you before we met.
Speaker 1: You back in lyrics on the original memo before you
Speaker 1: got it, he did, So I seen it.
Speaker 7: It was real like straight Way shines well rise in
Speaker 7: our life, but.
Speaker 1: Real simple.
Speaker 10: Was that Around the same time, it was another record,
Speaker 10: It's a Sweet Lies Certified, Certified happened after that?
Speaker 1: Okay? That was that? Okay, okay, give you three hundred.
Speaker 3: That was back when he started working with Robin Thick,
Speaker 3: because Robin and him worked on that record, and me
Speaker 3: and Robin had always been like this.
Speaker 7: Because I met him, I did it.
Speaker 3: That's back when I was like interviewing people and ship
Speaker 3: on MTV and I interviewed and introduced him to to
Speaker 3: the to the world.
Speaker 7: I was like, and he had long he looked like Jesus.
Speaker 7: I was like, man, you look like Jesus what they
Speaker 7: told me. He looked like, yeah, man, so well.
Speaker 1: Also, we should know that uh eighty seven on one
Speaker 1: also contains the most unlikely departure sound of Jam and Lewis.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, yeah, what uh you remind me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you remidy Yeah, because I almost feel like you remind
Speaker 1: me starts the period of them. I call it witness
Speaker 1: protection Jam and Lewis.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 7: Okay, no, no, no, no, let me go back.
Speaker 1: Y'all.
Speaker 7: Y'all getting this all wrong because Terry's.
Speaker 1: Wrong.
Speaker 7: You're getting this all wrong. Nope, you're getting this all wrong.
Speaker 7: I gotta stop you. School is bro okay.
Speaker 3: So a guy by the name of butter it Is
Speaker 3: who produced You Remind Me, and he wrote it, and
Speaker 3: he wrote it with his sister. So he wrote it
Speaker 3: with his sister in mine and I got that record. Wait, yeah,
Speaker 3: this one, Mark, this one, Mark.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you didn't write it, So I'm sorry on
Speaker 1: another level. Now, yeah, the boss Bill want to sack
Speaker 1: the Black Coffee right now, go ahead tell you.
Speaker 7: But it wasn't. But it wasn't.
Speaker 3: Necessarily it was his production from the aspect of producing
Speaker 3: my vocals and also to kind of leading the record.
Speaker 7: But the record was pretty much what it was.
Speaker 3: I just it was so comfortable working with him as
Speaker 3: a vocal producer that I wanted him to be a
Speaker 3: part of that song. Okay, yeah, so that's the truth
Speaker 3: about the record. Butter is the original producer of that record.
Speaker 13: Wow, there was an album before eighty seven to one
Speaker 13: that got scrapped because I guess it got leaked on
Speaker 13: the internet. How much did that actually wound up on
Speaker 13: eighty seven on one and how much of it the
Speaker 13: rest of it's just kind.
Speaker 7: Of eighty seven o one.
Speaker 1: Because there was a single, was a poppy collar that
Speaker 1: came out and then.
Speaker 3: It was back when you could actually put out of
Speaker 3: and then just scrapping an entire album, right right, So
Speaker 3: that was a single that came out eighty seven, Yeah,
Speaker 3: eighty seven on one right. So I had worked on
Speaker 3: a gangastan Ganga songs I worked on.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that popul Collar was an official It
Speaker 1: was official.
Speaker 3: This is back when you could send a record overseas,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And then that was the
Speaker 3: they and then they worked it from overseas and you
Speaker 3: just kind of got off of it in America. So
Speaker 3: it came out here in America and they just deaded
Speaker 3: it real quick and it became a record. It's huge overseas.
Speaker 3: It's crazy when I whenever I play that record, how
Speaker 3: they go crazy. I'm like, I hate this song really yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I love it for the idea of what
Speaker 3: it represents in my career, but I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to sing this song ever.
Speaker 1: Are there any other songs like that you just don't want? Nah?
Speaker 3: Not really, I mean I'm cool, but I mean that's
Speaker 3: there's certain things that I have tried that works, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, why the fuck did this song work?
Speaker 7: Because now I got to perform it forever, you know
Speaker 7: what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: It was a short lived term popular college feel like
Speaker 9: it didn't last long enough.
Speaker 7: Yeah, people didn't want to hear that. They didn't they
Speaker 7: didn't want to hear that one. Here.
Speaker 10: I was going to ask you talk about songs that
Speaker 10: you never want to perform again, and I was looking
Speaker 10: one of those songs.
Speaker 3: No it's not oh no, no, you know, and you'll
Speaker 3: be happy to hear this, you know. I love that record.
Speaker 3: I think I think that's the one record that I'm like,
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 7: It's cool.
Speaker 10: I heard a story that apparently it was similar to
Speaker 10: I Guess what you make you want to wear? Y'all
Speaker 10: had finished Confessions and that was the last one that
Speaker 10: you felt it didn't fit the record. Yeah, ain't have
Speaker 10: shit to do with that whole album. But they was like,
Speaker 10: this is a hit. Fuck it, like you got to
Speaker 10: keep this shit.
Speaker 3: Well, they brought me to record. It was Shakir and
Speaker 3: La Reid at the time. Yeah, and they were working
Speaker 3: with Sean Garrett at the time. So they bring me
Speaker 3: the record and I'm like, Yo, this record don't sound
Speaker 3: shit like my record. And I I spent an entire
Speaker 3: however long it took six seven months working on this album.
Speaker 3: You want me to just throw this song on there?
Speaker 3: And he was like, yeah, it's a hit. I'm like, so,
Speaker 3: I took the record and I played it for KP.
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, man, I don't want to do
Speaker 3: this song. I said, but tell me what you think
Speaker 3: I should do. He was like, man, you crazy, he said,
Speaker 3: you're crazy if you don't cut this record. I said,
Speaker 3: you think so. He's like, yeah, man, you should cut
Speaker 3: this record.
Speaker 1: It's a hit.
Speaker 3: It's a smack. I was like, but doesn't it sound
Speaker 3: like he trying to be Michael Jackson, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And he's like, don't sing it like him, sing.
Speaker 1: It like you? So who who did the demo vocal?
Speaker 1: Who was singing one?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sean was singing that's right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he was killing me, dude.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we're skipping records. But I will say
Speaker 1: that when I listened to Confessions, well, I mean eighty
Speaker 1: seven on one questions, I said, but I'm just saying
Speaker 1: that the way that I hear Confessions, Yeah, to me,
Speaker 1: it's almost like the movie preview, Like in my mind
Speaker 1: the album still with throwback Yeah. Yeah, so just like, okay,
Speaker 1: you put a little preview at the top, kind of
Speaker 1: like snoops record. The Doggie style with rage starting off yeah,
Speaker 1: like okay, there's a little preview what you're gonna get,
Speaker 1: and then it really starts with the juice. That's how
Speaker 1: I always felt that year was like.
Speaker 3: The sequencing on it was perfect, right because it didn't
Speaker 3: make sense in theory to have a song like that
Speaker 3: that had nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Speaker 3: And I was so like theme oriented because I kind
Speaker 3: of got into like I really want to say this,
Speaker 3: like I want us to talk about real hard shit,
Speaker 3: Like let's talk about all the shit that nobody will
Speaker 3: talk about. It was eminem. I was listening to his
Speaker 3: albums and listening to his records, and I'm like, how
Speaker 3: is it that he can take the liberty to just
Speaker 3: say whatever the fuck you want to say on the record,
Speaker 3: and it worked.
Speaker 7: I was like, I want to do that, and I
Speaker 7: was one lot of guess.
Speaker 1: I got one guess.
Speaker 3: But so then I was listening to country music to it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's honesty in country music, the honest, So
Speaker 3: let's tell stories. I was like, let's just let's just
Speaker 3: sit around all five of us and let's just talk
Speaker 3: about all of the ship that has happened to us
Speaker 3: and We was all just putting it in the pot
Speaker 3: and it was like that's a song, this is a song,
Speaker 3: right then we're gonna do this. We say this, and
Speaker 3: then you know, we and a lot of it was shared,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, because a lot of them
Speaker 3: stories weren't necessarily mine, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you to talk about John Tay,
Speaker 1: Austin man like him as a writer.
Speaker 7: So Johntay as an artist.
Speaker 3: We worked together when I was younger and you know,
Speaker 3: kind of making that round circle back and you know,
Speaker 3: just just finding our way, uh, you know, through through
Speaker 3: whatever it was. Rather it was a contribution as a
Speaker 3: motivation or either vocal production or whatever it may have been.
Speaker 3: We really didn't make our connection until until here I stand.
Speaker 3: It was on here I stand that we really like
Speaker 3: he did this song for me called something Special that
Speaker 3: I mean it might not be a hit, but it
Speaker 3: really is something special. Like you gotta go back and
Speaker 3: listen to that album like people people I want to skip,
Speaker 3: but yeah.
Speaker 10: Right, just give to the ship. No, No, well two things. One,
Speaker 10: it's listen to you like describe your stuff. I'm now
Speaker 10: realizing most of my favorite usher songs are always the
Speaker 10: jams that like were not singles.
Speaker 1: So like my favorite jam off Confessions.
Speaker 10: Is follow Me. Yeah, Like that's the fucking one. Yeah,
Speaker 10: I mean, I mean the other songs. I mean it's
Speaker 10: so follow me is.
Speaker 1: That's a marker for true artists though, like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: never the hits, it's the filler that yoh, but it
Speaker 1: was the jam.
Speaker 3: It was so strategic, you know what I'm saying. La
Speaker 3: was a master at that ship rather it was in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: or rather was record man. He's the greatest record man.
Speaker 1: And is it because but you're also on Arister Records,
Speaker 1: So do you have any relationship to Clive Davis? What's
Speaker 1: at that time? I'm a period, I mean you were
Speaker 1: on arrest to that.
Speaker 7: I was on Arister Record at that time, but I
Speaker 7: was La Reid's artists, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So, so there's not a point where as to remove La.
Speaker 7: And here's the great here's the greatest reality.
Speaker 3: That was the greatest moment and the worst moment that
Speaker 3: could ever happen to La Reid because why because La
Speaker 3: Reid's ambition was to come to New York and to
Speaker 3: leave the legacy of what Atlanta had created, and while
Speaker 3: there was some there was some great shit that happened
Speaker 3: in it. I think that that legacy belonged to him,
Speaker 3: and I think that he should have never left Atlanta,
Speaker 3: because Atlanta lost everything when it lost to La Reid.
Speaker 3: It gained a lot in terms of confidence because Atlanta
Speaker 3: ain't ever lacked in confidence in being able to kind
Speaker 3: of be installated by its own world. And it's just
Speaker 3: this this inflated sense of delusion that that that comes
Speaker 3: from that place that makes whatever you say the shit.
Speaker 7: Now you believe it, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I'm saying, Well, being as though he believed
Speaker 1: in you from the very beginning. Like what is your
Speaker 1: relationship with him? Like? Is he the Barry Gordy father
Speaker 1: figure that you kind of didn't have or like, or.
Speaker 7: Is he just really it really depends on what day,
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But he's but he's when he's mad at you, Like,
Speaker 1: what is it?
Speaker 7: He's He's never.
Speaker 3: Really mad at me. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 3: don't really give you a reason to be upset with
Speaker 3: me and then hold on to it, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. I just seen him in a spin class,
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. He sat next to me. I was
Speaker 3: busting his ass. But you know, we have a real
Speaker 3: odd relationship because you know, in his transition, I've always
Speaker 3: wanted to be supportive him, and I've always listened him
Speaker 3: up because I believe in supporting you know, black executives
Speaker 3: and also to being supportive.
Speaker 7: Now I had a deal.
Speaker 3: This is the crazy, This is how much I believe
Speaker 3: in supporting black like business and also to black entrepreneurs.
Speaker 7: So I had to deal with Clive Davis.
Speaker 3: Like I actually formed my own relationship with Clive, and
Speaker 3: he actually supported a lot of my business, a lot
Speaker 3: of my business venture. You know, I wanted to have
Speaker 3: a record label, of course, I mean, who wouldn't give
Speaker 3: me a record label with all the money that I
Speaker 3: made for him?
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But but the point was he he probably should have
Speaker 3: been the person to have collected or either been the
Speaker 3: recipient of Justin Bieber. But I took him to La
Speaker 3: Read because the legacy of what that represents needed to
Speaker 3: stay intact, you know what I'm saying. So wow, so
Speaker 3: but but but greater than that, It's like I just
Speaker 3: think he should have never left Atlanta. Man you know,
Speaker 3: and I know it's hard because Atlanta's you know, if
Speaker 3: you look back at it now, it's like, damn, well,
Speaker 3: I want to be able to do more, so I
Speaker 3: got to go to La I gotta move other places Miami.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but he had it.
Speaker 1: Confession is the last thing he worked on.
Speaker 7: That was the last record he worked on.
Speaker 1: It should be noted that Confessions also represents to me,
Speaker 1: probably the last product that people purchased, the last blockbuster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean at this what was the final numbers?
Speaker 1: Like eleven million? Okay, okay, okay, I know in hindsight
Speaker 1: it probably sold eleven twelve million.
Speaker 7: But in the States, right, nigga, I'm not talking about.
Speaker 1: All right, list Okay, I'm just saying that at the
Speaker 1: time Wing Confessions is out in you know, on Wax
Speaker 1: two thousand three, two thousand and four, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a nine next to that triangle in Billboard, which
Speaker 1: you know, after that period, after two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: it's a wrap like people are now like the internet
Speaker 1: is well with uh Spotify.
Speaker 7: You know, I think maybe it was Nelly and me
Speaker 7: that was it. That was the last time.
Speaker 1: But did you expect for you to be the final
Speaker 1: that final like in the final tornado of what we
Speaker 1: know as the music business, the old music business, like
Speaker 1: you're the you're the period at the end of that sentence.
Speaker 3: Straight up, I think that all things right are inevitably
Speaker 3: going to come to an end. Nothing is going to
Speaker 3: last forever. And I think that record companies really did
Speaker 3: take it, take for granted.
Speaker 7: The the potency of what was getting ready to happen.
Speaker 3: I think they looked at it as, all right, we'll
Speaker 3: give you these free goods because it just gives us
Speaker 3: an opportunity to exploit and promote, you know, our product.
Speaker 3: But they ain't realize that, you know, and they this
Speaker 3: was crazy. I can remember the time when they were
Speaker 3: taking the meetings to go to go to Arista and
Speaker 3: other record companies to try to partner with them.
Speaker 1: In front of it.
Speaker 3: They wanted to partner with them, and they were like, Nah,
Speaker 3: we don't want to partner with you. We have our
Speaker 3: own solution. We know we're going to continue to create content.
Speaker 3: You guys, just do your thing. You know, it's just
Speaker 3: a little server, what you got. Whatever, it's done, it's
Speaker 3: gonna die right fifteen years later, right, it's like, nowad
Speaker 3: it's done. Okay, So now how do they feel to
Speaker 3: be the last? That's the question you asked, right.
Speaker 1: Well, not that, but like at the rate where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: it was seven million, nounced nine million. Oh shit, now
Speaker 1: it's eleven crap, now it's thirteen million. What are you feeling?
Speaker 7: Pressure? Pressure to live back up to me? What is
Speaker 7: that like the pressure of living up to that?
Speaker 1: Like did you expect this album to sell thirteen million?
Speaker 3: I didn't expect to sell thirteen million, you know, but
Speaker 3: I but I expected to, you know, try to speak
Speaker 3: to the next chapter of what my life was, because
Speaker 3: everything had been about creating the chapters of what it was,
Speaker 3: not to go back to what worked before, you know,
Speaker 3: and even that meant, you know, not working with some
Speaker 3: of the same producers, you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 3: leaving the door open for a new opportunity, a new
Speaker 3: a new story.
Speaker 10: So when you have a record like that, one thing
Speaker 10: I've always wanted to ask, like, there's you talk about
Speaker 10: the pressure, but is there a point where you just
Speaker 10: have just like I guess, kind of common sense where
Speaker 10: it's just like, you know what, this is never gonna
Speaker 10: happen again, like kind of like you know, we talk
Speaker 10: about Prince a lot where he had purple rain and
Speaker 10: he's performing for like a bunch of white audiences and
Speaker 10: like he's doing stadiums and you know, all this shit
Speaker 10: and he tells his man like listen, y'all, just soak
Speaker 10: this up.
Speaker 1: Now, come a little hippie. Yeah, Like this shit is
Speaker 1: never gonna happen again.
Speaker 10: Like, do you have that thought of like there's no
Speaker 10: way artistically I may top this album, but sales wise,
Speaker 10: like who the fuck is gonna sell thirteen million albums twice?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If there's anything in hindsight that I do wish is
Speaker 3: that I would have exploited at that moment a little
Speaker 3: bit more why it was happening.
Speaker 1: How so what would you doing?
Speaker 7: I mean, just more a business more.
Speaker 3: I was trying my hardest to just kind of build
Speaker 3: a conglomerate around me, you know, and probably made some
Speaker 3: decisions being overly ambitious and losing people who were very,
Speaker 3: very important in the structure of who I was. But
Speaker 3: also too, I was moving into a space where I
Speaker 3: began to care more about business and I had a
Speaker 3: better understanding and comprehensive, comprehensive, you know, idea of how
Speaker 3: the industry was growing and I needed like my thinkers
Speaker 3: or people around around me, and you know, I you know,
Speaker 3: I just but I would have.
Speaker 7: Man. I can remember the last show, the last show
Speaker 7: for Confessions.
Speaker 3: I was on the Truth Tour. I had Kanye West
Speaker 3: opening up for me and I I was in Puerto
Speaker 3: Rico and I had this promoter. It was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: you got to come to South America.
Speaker 1: You got to go.
Speaker 3: You know, You've done Europe, You've done America, you know
Speaker 3: you got to do Australia. You gotta do South America,
Speaker 3: Gotta do Asian. I was like, man, I'm really tired,
Speaker 3: Like I really have like bust my ass and I
Speaker 3: work hard. So I was having really really, really really
Speaker 3: bad back problems. So I was like, I gotta just
Speaker 3: I gotta go sit down. And the day that I
Speaker 3: don't wish I would have kept going like shit, but
Speaker 3: I mean, and my numbers are good, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But but but that moment and what that meant,
Speaker 3: you know, it was it's it's actually it's my personality,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like I'm I'm never the
Speaker 3: guy who is going to rest in the success of
Speaker 3: the moment. I just can't do it, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. I'm not I'm never. I don't want to
Speaker 3: be complacent. I have become a little bit complacent in
Speaker 3: times around you know, the type of the type of
Speaker 3: work and focus that I put around what I was
Speaker 3: doing and used other aspects to just kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: do creative ship.
Speaker 7: But for the most part, I never. I can't just
Speaker 7: rest in a moment.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, so what's next, Like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: let's exploit the ship out of this moment. This moment,
Speaker 3: let's let's go build a fucking clothing line was too
Speaker 3: close Confession Fragrance.
Speaker 1: By Calvin Corr. But wait, I mean, how much more
Speaker 1: could you exploit it? Because the confessions with six singles?
Speaker 1: Seven singles?
Speaker 3: I mean in terms of music, yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to create another album, but I could have.
Speaker 7: I could have went to I never. I have never
Speaker 7: toured South America.
Speaker 4: Never.
Speaker 7: I have never to this day.
Speaker 1: Hey, I suld guess what, let's go to South America?
Speaker 1: Have you ever?
Speaker 6: So what are the continents that you haven't Australia either?
Speaker 7: Still? Yeah, done Australia to time and then you went
Speaker 7: to Man.
Speaker 6: I know you went for your own but have you've done.
Speaker 7: Africa at all?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did Africa. I did tour Africa. I'm not
Speaker 3: really toured Asia.
Speaker 1: What's your what's your favorite places to travel? Like as
Speaker 1: far as like you get excited to go, Like, what's
Speaker 1: a good city? Like, I mean major city.
Speaker 7: Suck, major city suck well.
Speaker 1: And kind of get off cities are the best cities
Speaker 1: you can experiment? I think the roots, don't overthink it,
Speaker 1: and we just have fun.
Speaker 3: There's something really incredible about Paris, man, Like, I really
Speaker 3: do enjoy Paris. And once I got married, man, I
Speaker 3: begin to enjoy all the places that I that I
Speaker 3: go more because now I got a significant other that
Speaker 3: really does understand how to enjoy life and how to
Speaker 3: make sure that I am my kids enjoy life.
Speaker 1: So your family travels with you on the road, now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well they did. They don't need more.
Speaker 3: I actually haven't traveled in a long time, brou Like,
Speaker 3: it's been a minute since I've been on tour.
Speaker 7: Uh And the last one that I went on they
Speaker 7: were with me.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, it's it's there's a handful of places
Speaker 3: like and I'm really looking forward to going to Zanzibar.
Speaker 3: I love Africa. Let me see, uh Marrakesh, really, I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed there.
Speaker 1: Cuba, Cuba, Son, Cuba, now, not later, right now always,
Speaker 1: I mean even then, there's so much.
Speaker 6: I know, but I mean like now, not later, right yeah, now, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right now. If you're just joining us, we're talking to
Speaker 1: Usher Raymond, the family man who is here to go
Speaker 1: to Now I'm playing, I feel like I would be remissed.
Speaker 1: Uh if remiss I'm sorry. There's no tea on remiss
Speaker 1: boss Bill so Bro, we got you. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: remissed by cal said she missed me. Put that she
Speaker 1: missed me. I left her again, I was remissed. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was fantastic. Knew it about your your spouse any
Speaker 1: anytime I'm in Gracie's presence, there's not twenty people that
Speaker 1: i'd run to in point that your wife is Benita Applebum.
Speaker 1: Absolutely she hates great, great, great Gracie used to be
Speaker 1: my product manager at Universal. Come on, dude, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a badge of honor as far
Speaker 1: as being I mean so so just playing. She was
Speaker 1: the one is literally yes, she's literally the person who
Speaker 1: inspired Apple.
Speaker 9: She has a lovely backside. Well as a woman, I
Speaker 9: would just like to say, I know you removed the pic,
Speaker 9: but I saw the pick. I appreciate it, help could
Speaker 9: help it and wow.
Speaker 1: But she obviously she's artistic.
Speaker 7: It was artistic.
Speaker 6: It wasn't the fool.
Speaker 3: So what's crazy is that I got all that that
Speaker 3: that grief behind it. But you know it's it's okay.
Speaker 6: We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not even playing like no, I've worked
Speaker 1: with Gracie for the longest and she's one of the Like,
Speaker 1: I think she's one of the best things to happen
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 7: I'm in love with my wife.
Speaker 1: We love your wife too, respect.
Speaker 10: For Yeah, man, I'm in what did you learn from
Speaker 10: the first marriage going into the second marriage?
Speaker 1: And this is also the divorce clubs here, so you're
Speaker 1: your monks? Yeah, brother, yeah, we got to come home?
Speaker 7: What did I learn?
Speaker 3: I mean paying this is my next album now. But
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like you can't write a book on
Speaker 3: that ship.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: No, I heard Raymond versus Raymond. You know, I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you get too confessional? Like, now, what does here
Speaker 1: my deear mean to you?
Speaker 3: As far as everything, everything, the honesty and the music
Speaker 3: is beautiful. I mean, it's it's the it's the curator
Speaker 3: and the holder of our greatest emotions. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, both good and bad, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of people are hurting and a
Speaker 3: lot of people that are looking for guidance in music,
Speaker 3: and we don't realize how much like one simple message,
Speaker 3: you know, not it might not sell a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of albums, but it could be one person's life that
Speaker 3: that shit just you know says, or one person that's
Speaker 3: just like trying to figure.
Speaker 7: Out, Man, should I do this? Should I be here?
Speaker 7: How should I be living my life?
Speaker 1: And that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 7: But yeah, man, you can't. You can't overdo it at all.
Speaker 7: Be honest, be truthful. You got to kill the truth.
Speaker 10: Well you talk about you know in papers. He was like,
Speaker 10: you know, I damn near lost my mama. What did
Speaker 10: your mom think about your first wife? You get And
Speaker 10: it's the reason I'm asking this. Did she give you
Speaker 10: the like, no, don't do this, Like what does she mean?
Speaker 7: Much? The funniest ship in the world is how we
Speaker 7: could go through all this ship?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: My mom?
Speaker 3: She she wouldn't show up at my first wedding that
Speaker 3: I canceled. She wouldn't show up at the second when
Speaker 3: she didn't fuck with my ex wife. She didn'ton't have
Speaker 3: nothing to do with her, but she didn't want to
Speaker 3: have something to do with the kids, of course, and
Speaker 3: then they fuck up, and they fucking up best friends.
Speaker 1: I'm like, so, your mom and the ex wife for
Speaker 1: now cool? Nah, they cool.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they they got their own odd relationship,
Speaker 3: but they but they but their friends from the from
Speaker 3: the perspective that she at least talks to her now
Speaker 3: and they actually are cool, which which is healthy.
Speaker 7: I mean some progress. I mean that's a lot for
Speaker 7: her too. Man, She like she like nails, you know
Speaker 7: what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Boy, Yeah, funny. I always wonder who's hard, like who
Speaker 6: she is?
Speaker 7: Absolutely who she is?
Speaker 1: Your mom?
Speaker 7: What was she very much? I mean, I'm a grown
Speaker 7: ass man. Now she can't really you.
Speaker 1: Know, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, no matter.
Speaker 3: But yeah, she's gonna always be extremely protective of me,
Speaker 3: probably too.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Well, I know your pen
Speaker 1: game is okay, not to play on the pun of confessional,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure by this period at least between a
Speaker 1: period of here I stand Raymond Versus Raymond Versus and
Speaker 1: and the four albums.
Speaker 10: That uh that just real quick, here I stand, I'm
Speaker 10: may you know, I'm making like a big these are
Speaker 10: big words to me.
Speaker 1: That is his secret life of plans.
Speaker 10: Like yes, I agree, yeah, like that was, And so
Speaker 10: I wanted to hit on that a little bit because
Speaker 10: to me, that was the record and this is just
Speaker 10: from ours and I appreciate it like you because you
Speaker 10: kind of did like you were doing like some E
Speaker 10: d M stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that was. I think before that you
Speaker 1: had a couple that DJ No, that was it was
Speaker 1: after that it.
Speaker 7: Was there was none of that that That record was
Speaker 7: pure right, and there's any.
Speaker 1: Did you rush it? Because when I first got I
Speaker 1: think I got service with the white label. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this ain't sex or I got service with
Speaker 1: the white label.
Speaker 3: This ain't sex was on it, right, And then that
Speaker 3: got camp And it's not that I rushed it. It's
Speaker 3: like they had an idea and you get right first.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they understood what it was that worked.
Speaker 3: I was being honest in where I was so not
Speaker 3: being considerate of what I knew would work, I went
Speaker 3: with what I knew was real.
Speaker 7: So I mean that's a compromise.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it didn't sell as many albums, but it's
Speaker 3: the most truthful album that I think I have in
Speaker 3: terms of a cohesive thought from top to mottom. It's honest,
Speaker 3: it's like and it's probably my vulnerable it's my most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Title track as a mother. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, man, that's the one.
Speaker 6: When you were talking about songs and lyrics moving people,
Speaker 6: I thought about here.
Speaker 1: I stay in was like, so was that your It
Speaker 1: wasn't clear P in terms of.
Speaker 3: It wasn't cool to have a wife, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And at that time, and I was like,
Speaker 3: but I do. And if y'all fuck with that, then
Speaker 3: that's cool, you know what I'm saying. But eventually you're
Speaker 3: gonna get it. You're gonna get that party because you
Speaker 3: can't party forever. You're gonna eventually have to go home,
Speaker 3: and you want to go home with somebody that you
Speaker 3: want to be with. The ladies got it because they
Speaker 3: wanted it, well, some some of them, and then some
Speaker 3: of them just was like, I don't want you to
Speaker 3: be married.
Speaker 7: Us especially to her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know the reality of it that you
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 3: That marriage and that relationship you know, was gonna come
Speaker 3: to an end or what was. But it served its
Speaker 3: purpose in my life, and I think I became appreciative
Speaker 3: of that, you know what I'm saying. And no matter
Speaker 3: what my mother was attempting to tell me, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people were trying to tell me about that,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 3: my lack there of a father, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Like when I got into the idea of what I
Speaker 3: didn't want to be, I did not want to be
Speaker 3: a person who would just you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: just roll out, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, anybody
Speaker 3: could do that. But you know, and I tried, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. I tried everything that I could
Speaker 3: before I decided to, you know, throw in the towel.
Speaker 3: I mean, should I even tried afterwards, probably broke a
Speaker 3: lot of girl's heart still fucking around, but you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: But you know, it's it it, Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 7: was a phase that that needed to happen.
Speaker 3: So part of it was a part of the evolution
Speaker 3: and then in that I begin to understand what I
Speaker 3: really wanted and the kind of partner that I needed
Speaker 3: and the kind of support that I needed for my life.
Speaker 3: She showed up, Yeah, showed her when I wasn't even
Speaker 3: looking to. It's just you ain't even asked for I pray,
Speaker 3: this is here's the reality.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: I was going through a lot, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I was like, here's at the point where I was
Speaker 3: like living out of my office, Like I ain't never
Speaker 3: want to go home.
Speaker 7: I just wanted to just like just there. You know
Speaker 7: what I'm saying.
Speaker 10: I didn't want to go home because what you just
Speaker 10: didn't want to face that like being alone or.
Speaker 3: It's just I just I ain't want to Yeah, I
Speaker 3: didn't know. I didn't want to be there. I just
Speaker 3: did not want to be at the crib by myself.
Speaker 3: I just was fucked up.
Speaker 7: Man. I wasn't even working at that time.
Speaker 1: I was like I was just Raymond was out.
Speaker 7: So yeah, but but then you know, after.
Speaker 3: I got a divorce, it was like, man, like I
Speaker 3: put it all on the line, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: and this is the right thing to do. I did
Speaker 3: it for all the right reasons. I wasn't trying to
Speaker 3: get like some odd respect for what I was doing.
Speaker 3: I was just doing what was honest and what was
Speaker 3: about the art. And I begin to understand the idea
Speaker 3: of the art at that moment.
Speaker 7: But I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 7: I didn't want it, you know what I'm saying. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to face none of it because I
Speaker 3: felt like, I don't know, man, I felt like, should
Speaker 3: I just put my.
Speaker 7: Neck out there way too much?
Speaker 3: It didn't work. We did in jail really public. It
Speaker 3: was really really public, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 3: it was what it was. But anyway, I tell my story.
Speaker 3: So my grandmother was like, you know, you should just
Speaker 3: you should pray. I was like, what did I pray for?
Speaker 3: She was like, I want you to pray for grace.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, I'm gonna just pray for
Speaker 3: grace because this moment is just hard to get through this,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like, I just it's a lot.
Speaker 7: And I prayed and she showed up.
Speaker 1: I don't have a good sound effect for that.
Speaker 7: That's all I got.
Speaker 1: That's all I got loaded. I can't. Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 7: Oh god, I got why they don't make a sound.
Speaker 1: Well here you go, by Kelly, Well you you will
Speaker 1: destroy you. You mentioned him earlier, but you know, I
Speaker 1: feel the significance of you being behind uh want to
Speaker 1: want to pop music's biggest stars and the route that
Speaker 1: you took him biber Velly, I mean not since Marie
Speaker 1: starred taking new kids on the block, the orchestrating their career.
Speaker 1: How did you manage to gain the trust of the
Speaker 1: beavers and have them listen to you and for you
Speaker 1: to take them because you know, sometimes when you get
Speaker 1: an artist, it doesn't necessarily you know, workout as planned.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you can look at all the
Speaker 1: artists that have, oh I have a new protege and
Speaker 1: you're going to you know, sometimes it just doesn't work.
Speaker 6: And there was a war from what we heard between
Speaker 6: you and Justin Timberlake to where is he going to go?
Speaker 7: Where's he going to go?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, Timberlake was in the picture.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's a lot of people who I did not
Speaker 3: know this. There were a lot of people who had
Speaker 3: interest in Justin. I think that you know Scooter, you know,
Speaker 3: once he found Justin online, he began to kind of
Speaker 3: shop him around Atlanta, you know, because he wanted to
Speaker 3: get with the specific type of artists from Atlanta. He
Speaker 3: wanted to have like some credibility, and I was at
Speaker 3: the top of the list. But he and I were
Speaker 3: at odds.
Speaker 1: He and I. We had had.
Speaker 7: Me and Scooter.
Speaker 3: I ain't no Justin yet, so he and I were
Speaker 3: at odds. But there was a conversation about this kid
Speaker 3: that Scooter was shopping around.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: You know they say success has a million fathers.
Speaker 3: There ain't enough people that I could think, you know, failures,
Speaker 3: write and failures and orphan.
Speaker 1: It's not enough people. I never heard of that idiom
Speaker 1: in my life.
Speaker 7: Oh, success has a million fathers and failures and orphan.
Speaker 1: This is literally the first time I ever heard that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris Love Supreme open doors.
Speaker 7: Wow, got a sound effect for that.
Speaker 1: Someone failed. I feel like someone failed me by not
Speaker 1: giving me that I learned. So wait, what is it
Speaker 1: one more time?
Speaker 7: Success as the main fathers and failure as an orphan?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll marinate on that.
Speaker 7: No, but you know, he and I really didn't.
Speaker 3: We went we want seeing eye to eye and it
Speaker 3: was over some It was like fifteen thousand dollars, some shoots,
Speaker 3: some stupid ship like that.
Speaker 7: It happened back in the day when he was promoting clubs.
Speaker 1: And so you had a relationship with Scooter before.
Speaker 7: I had a relationship with Scooter way before.
Speaker 1: Oh what was he like?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 7: He worked with Jamain dupri and he also to work
Speaker 7: with Ludacris and go back and look at it.
Speaker 1: So he's from Atlanta.
Speaker 7: He was in Atlanta. I think he was at Emory
Speaker 7: at the time.
Speaker 1: I've only heard of Scooter once Justin came on the scene,
Speaker 1: so I didn't realize that he existed as a business
Speaker 1: person before. You know, yep.
Speaker 3: So, but he was actually managing an artist by the
Speaker 3: name of Asher Roth at the time.
Speaker 1: So I loved College Pennsylvania. But still I claim him.
Speaker 3: So he introduced Asher Roth, and he had this kid
Speaker 3: that he was interested in, but he didn't really know
Speaker 3: what to do with him.
Speaker 7: So he was, you know, kind of shopping him around.
Speaker 7: He had Justin intro interested in him.
Speaker 3: You know, they were trying to get the kid, and
Speaker 3: he was like, but I really want to you know,
Speaker 3: I really want to fuck with Usher. So I think
Speaker 3: that it was Terrence Carter, who was my road manager
Speaker 3: at the time. My homeboy was with me, Keith Thomas,
Speaker 3: Sherry Hughgley or Sherry Riley. Now, by the way, incredible
Speaker 3: book Exponential Life. She just introduced that book. I wrote
Speaker 3: the ford and it, so y'all, y'all checked that out.
Speaker 3: But Exponential Life anyway, No Exponential Living, my bad. So anyway,
Speaker 3: all of these people are like, you need to meet
Speaker 3: this kid, and I'm like, well, who is he? They're like,
Speaker 3: you know, he's he's just a special kid and everybody's
Speaker 3: trying to get at him. He's you know, he's a
Speaker 3: little white kid that school to guy and everybody love him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, man, look I said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm cool, man, I'm just I don't want to be
Speaker 3: in business with dude because I'm just you know, we
Speaker 3: we just had words. We almost came to blows one
Speaker 3: time because we just can't. We angry at each other.
Speaker 3: So I decided that I was going to know. I
Speaker 3: was going to studio, and this little kid comes out
Speaker 3: of the studio at JD's studio and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: what's up. There's like, I'm the kid they've been telling
Speaker 3: you about. I'm justin Bieber. I'm like, well, nice to
Speaker 3: meet you.
Speaker 1: Justin.
Speaker 7: He said, can I sing for you? I was like, no,
Speaker 7: you can't.
Speaker 1: See that's how it always it should work. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I said no.
Speaker 3: I said, but what I will do is I'll reach
Speaker 3: out to your manager and make some time maybe to
Speaker 3: meet you sometimes.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 7: He was like yeah, I said, if it's meant to happen,
Speaker 7: then i'll see you again. He's like, okay.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 7: So I went to the studio and.
Speaker 1: Did you have inten on really seeing him again? No? Yo,
Speaker 1: that's real.
Speaker 6: Yo.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I did.
Speaker 3: I didn't because I still was like, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to. I don't even want to invest in it.
Speaker 3: But it was it was two things even no. It
Speaker 3: It wasn't that I didn't plan on seeing him again.
Speaker 3: I didn't plan on rushing to hit uh to call Scooter.
Speaker 3: Because I seen him and I saw it, I was like,
Speaker 3: I was like, na, this kid got something. So I
Speaker 3: was like, but I'm good. So I went in the
Speaker 3: studio and I was like, you know, I mean it
Speaker 3: was that kid and they were like, oh man, that's
Speaker 3: some some artists a Schooter guy.
Speaker 7: I was like, y'all gonna do anything? With that kid,
Speaker 7: and they were like, nah, man, it just I was
Speaker 7: like cool.
Speaker 3: So then I walked out after my session and I
Speaker 3: played because I then looked on Once I saw the kid,
Speaker 3: I went and looked them online. I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this kid he got something. So then I called my homie.
Speaker 3: I was like, yoh, y'all right, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I went home, showed it to my wife at
Speaker 3: the time, and Perry Reid was there. She was like
Speaker 3: pebble pebbles. She was like, are you crazy? Have you
Speaker 3: lost your mind? I was like, I don't really fuck
Speaker 3: with him like that. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 3: just I don't even want to get into business because
Speaker 3: it's gonna be She's like, if you don't sign this artist,
Speaker 3: you are the stupidest person ever.
Speaker 1: Are you crazy?
Speaker 7: So I was like for real?
Speaker 5: She was like yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like I get it.
Speaker 3: She said, yeah, you can get past all that. You
Speaker 3: should get pasted all that for this artist because he
Speaker 3: needs you. So I then reached out to Scooter. He
Speaker 3: was like, all right, cool, we had to fly fly
Speaker 3: his mom, him and his mom back down to Atlanta.
Speaker 3: He came to my studio the next day he sang
Speaker 3: for me, and I was like, you know, let's take
Speaker 3: a picture because it's be a part of history.
Speaker 7: If it was intended for it to happen, then it
Speaker 7: will happen, right. He was like yeah, cool.
Speaker 3: So that night I was like, listen, ain't nobody else
Speaker 3: that you could have this artist work with this artist
Speaker 3: with I'm the guy period, you know if you He
Speaker 3: was like, well, I got Justin and you know interested
Speaker 3: they put, you know, put the on the there.
Speaker 7: I said, I'm not gonna put nothing on the table.
Speaker 7: I said, it's on you to make the right decision,
Speaker 7: but be clear that can only be one Justin.
Speaker 1: Oh up, Shade. Wait can I ask? But no, that's
Speaker 1: really and I'm I'm I'm literally going against my rules
Speaker 1: of this show to not be sensationalists and gossipy. But
Speaker 1: I never asked, like what is your standing with your contemporaries,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just saying with us, It's like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: down with common, I'm down with most and you know
Speaker 1: my contemporaries like are you you beefing with Chris Brown?
Speaker 7: I got beef with How could I be?
Speaker 1: He's yeah, I'm about to say, I mean, come on, like,
Speaker 1: who else is singing and dancing like usher? I just
Speaker 1: meant like, I don't know what you're I've never seen
Speaker 1: you and together or so.
Speaker 3: There's there's always those stories, those things that people say, well, damn,
Speaker 3: I wish I had had you been smarter, been the
Speaker 3: right time, not passed up on this artist, not do
Speaker 3: this thing, not do that right. So there's one thing
Speaker 3: in my career that I definitely regret one thing, and
Speaker 3: to this day I battle with it, which is why
Speaker 3: I always show support for this artist whenever he asks,
Speaker 3: and I've always kind of like it ended up being
Speaker 3: more of a relationship. There's a reason why I'm drawing
Speaker 3: it out like this anyway.
Speaker 7: But so.
Speaker 3: Mark Pitts comes to me and he's like, I got
Speaker 3: this artist. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm just
Speaker 3: really focused on myself and he's like, I know that,
Speaker 3: but I got this artist that I really think you
Speaker 3: should see and I want him to be your first artist.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, all right, well, let me see him.
Speaker 3: So his manager comes in, they have him, you know,
Speaker 3: they show him to me.
Speaker 7: I meet him.
Speaker 3: I was doing this album at the time. They want
Speaker 3: him to perform on this album. I was like, okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's cool. But I just I didn't get it. It
Speaker 3: wasn't that I didn't get it. I was I was
Speaker 3: a bit like, I'm gonna be honest. I was intimidated.
Speaker 3: Let me get these sound listen. I was intimidated by
Speaker 3: what it meant to move to the place of mentoring
Speaker 3: artists and not be the artist. So I felt like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to fuck that up, and I don't
Speaker 3: want to stop what I think I'm doing right now
Speaker 3: and do it too early. It was a it was
Speaker 3: a mature thing, but not clear, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And then I went to I went to my team
Speaker 3: and I was like, I really want to work with
Speaker 3: this artist, and they was like, I don't think you
Speaker 3: should do it.
Speaker 7: I don't think you should. You know you you should
Speaker 7: work with this artist. And then he left.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, whoa all right? I got my sound effect? Ready?
Speaker 7: Who Chris Brown?
Speaker 1: Wait? He's Mark Pinson's artist.
Speaker 3: He was, He was a Mark Pitts artist at the time.
Speaker 3: But I just think it's like when I think about
Speaker 3: all if.
Speaker 1: You had a chance to do you even think you
Speaker 1: would have had an impact. I'm just trying to tell
Speaker 1: you if yeah, well that makes sense because Chris Brown,
Speaker 1: really it was like the next in lineage of Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1: He Bobby Bage, so it's like he's the next. No
Speaker 1: that would make no, it makes sense why they would
Speaker 1: reach out to you too. I get it. Wow, but
Speaker 1: I passed man. So if so, had you, well, okay,
Speaker 1: Now in hindsight, do you feel you were why? Because
Speaker 1: here's the thing.
Speaker 3: I think that every artist has something to go through,
Speaker 3: all right, because if you even look at the success
Speaker 3: of what Justin is right because they went through similar ship.
Speaker 3: But the reality is having the right people around, having
Speaker 3: the right support, that changes the dynamic of how it
Speaker 3: pans out.
Speaker 1: You're an anomaly though, because I just I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't believe it. I don't believe in
Speaker 1: the artists being I don't believe in artists being their
Speaker 1: own managers. And I know there's a git. I know
Speaker 1: there's a grip of artists that are in my inbox,
Speaker 1: in my DM, on Twitter and all over.
Speaker 7: There's a ton of shit that I I wasn't the.
Speaker 1: Four things in my life and I got lucky with it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I'm responsible for Jill whatever. But
Speaker 1: it's like Jill's slum village. Blow. I don't. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: one Cody, I guess, but I've made a life of
Speaker 1: avoiding that moment.
Speaker 6: While you smiling, I'm smiling at Bill, Please don't look
Speaker 6: at me.
Speaker 1: You're just like, I guess, Yeah, because.
Speaker 7: Cody was a real person.
Speaker 6: We were just like, yes, Cody, Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know what the level of it's intimidating to get out
Speaker 3: of the comfort zone to where you are and begin
Speaker 3: to have the responsibility of other people.
Speaker 7: Man, it's a lot of Man.
Speaker 1: I just think artists make horrible business, Like you're either
Speaker 1: going to be a business person or you're going to
Speaker 1: be an artist.
Speaker 3: And listen off the heels of having three artists that
Speaker 3: didn't necessarily fly, you know what I'm saying. You know
Speaker 3: I was, I had it was an artist by the
Speaker 3: name of Melinda Santiago, a group by the name of
Speaker 3: One Chance in Rico Love.
Speaker 7: Those were my first three.
Speaker 1: Artist I was about to say I knew that.
Speaker 3: And think I mean that ended up panning out to
Speaker 3: be a great investment because I felt something different than him.
Speaker 3: I was like, I just think that you're an incredible writer, Like,
Speaker 3: and this is not a discredit to who you are,
Speaker 3: but you you really do know your way around melodies
Speaker 3: and you know your way around storytelling, so you should
Speaker 3: be a writer. He was like artists, it's like, let's
Speaker 3: let's just let's focus on so we got him a
Speaker 3: publishing deal and yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So that's why I feel like, had you take it on, Chris,
Speaker 1: do you think he would have listened to you? I
Speaker 1: do you know? Prince actually went on record to you know,
Speaker 1: and and Loeus death. Uh, he kind of sort of
Speaker 1: went public and saying that he really wanted to mentor
Speaker 1: Chris Brown, and you know, but I don't know.
Speaker 10: I don't think Prince would have I don't think that's
Speaker 10: too far.
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's a difference between generations and
Speaker 1: the post can't tell me nothing syndrome would have would
Speaker 1: have would have been like his Bobby Brown. I mean,
Speaker 1: like that would have been you know, I still think
Speaker 1: I am, but I think Bobby Brown was the aggressive.
Speaker 7: It ain't a matter of was. I still am.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm consistent and I am a great
Speaker 3: friend of his, even through the complication and all of
Speaker 3: this ship.
Speaker 1: So do you mentor him now, I mean.
Speaker 7: As much as he'll alive.
Speaker 1: Like, who are you close to now that you're not
Speaker 1: to business wise that they you know you're there one
Speaker 1: am call like yo, man, like I need some advice
Speaker 1: on some like who?
Speaker 3: I mean it could be it's a ton of like
Speaker 3: business people and young entrepreneurs, people whom I just make
Speaker 3: myself available for. Here's the reality, right, if we really
Speaker 3: want to begin to remedy some of the issues that
Speaker 3: we have, we got to be more discipline ourselves to
Speaker 3: be people who share our information. I had this conversation
Speaker 3: with everybody, and I ain't talking about just mentoring people
Speaker 3: in your company or because it's a company duty and
Speaker 3: responsibility to do that shit. No, find people to mentor
Speaker 3: and talk to them, bring them together, create groups, talk
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 7: As a collective because you got insight and off of that.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, I'm I'm really tired of
Speaker 3: the reality of what we are, what we are, and
Speaker 3: how behind we are, and the fact that we don't
Speaker 3: allow ourselves to come together because we just don't come together.
Speaker 7: We're not community, We're not community or oriented.
Speaker 1: We don't share.
Speaker 3: We think that it's better to continue to climb individually
Speaker 3: and not as a collective.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think now I will insert the modern day
Speaker 1: atl question that it was kind of saving us a
Speaker 1: snowball earlier. But the climate that is Atlanta now which
Speaker 1: very very active almost at its at least it's commercial peak.
Speaker 1: I don't know about creative peak. Of course, that could
Speaker 1: be agism old agism me speaking. But are you are
Speaker 1: you the character and things fall apart, that is, looking
Speaker 1: at the land and kind of have a single tear
Speaker 1: in your eye, like what's going? Are you a stranger
Speaker 1: on a strange land? Which is your Yeah? You see
Speaker 1: the environment that is Atlanta now? Like are you relating
Speaker 1: to the stuff? Do you want to be politically correct
Speaker 1: and be like, well, Quincy Jones, is you know has
Speaker 1: embraced another generation? Or like what is your feeling towards
Speaker 1: at least Atlanta?
Speaker 7: Why don't you just say it exactly?
Speaker 1: What say it?
Speaker 7: Niggas like just what he does?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 1: What he like?
Speaker 7: Just say it, like I'm an answer to how do.
Speaker 1: You feel about the ever changing environment of what Atlanta
Speaker 1: is now compared to what it was twenty years ago?
Speaker 3: By the way, it's always been that it's just needed
Speaker 3: a curator, a person who could bring it all together
Speaker 3: and create some integrity in it.
Speaker 1: And what I was leading to is, are you now
Speaker 1: La Reid and are you realizing that you now need
Speaker 1: to be La Read of Atlanta? Or is that too
Speaker 1: a lofty of an idea.
Speaker 3: It's not too lofty of an idea because in theory, yeah,
Speaker 3: that might, that might have some I may there may
Speaker 3: be some influence in that to the people who are
Speaker 3: looking at what my career is. But what I'm talking
Speaker 3: about is more significant than just being one man who
Speaker 3: comes and takes advantage of all of the talent that's
Speaker 3: there and brings it together.
Speaker 7: I'm talking about a collective.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about a group of people who decide that
Speaker 3: our business is important, of a group of people who
Speaker 3: understand that our culture is important, and as a way
Speaker 3: to introduce it. And yes, it does take it right,
Speaker 3: but no, but it starts with a collective of people
Speaker 3: being on the same page because it ain't nothing worse
Speaker 3: than having a plan. And then you have other people
Speaker 3: compromising your efforts, which is going to be the case period,
Speaker 3: But it can't happen from inside.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: If you have if we can just come together, man,
Speaker 3: and just start like supporting each other, not just getting
Speaker 3: on the record with each other, but like really helping
Speaker 3: and engaging in each other and understanding that the idea
Speaker 3: of growth isn't sharing. If you guys, if you got
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand dollars and two million dollars, that ain't shit. Man,
Speaker 3: Gotta you gotta tell these kids like, look, you think
Speaker 3: you got something, but you ain't got nothing yet. It's
Speaker 3: not until you begin to bring all that shit together,
Speaker 3: aggregate and then and then build.
Speaker 1: Are they listening to you?
Speaker 3: They slowly but surely listening. But I'm only one person trying.
Speaker 3: I'm only one person doing my part in it and
Speaker 3: in a perfect world, but you need who you need
Speaker 3: to gathering. Who are you gathering too in a perfect world?
Speaker 3: Who what figures are you gathering at least locally to
Speaker 3: at least make this a sembilance of a reality. It's
Speaker 3: a common conversation with everybody that I come in contact with.
Speaker 3: It ain't just one person, it's people who are in business.
Speaker 3: That's the one thing that Atlanta has to have right
Speaker 3: in order to be respected as a major city and
Speaker 3: in business and culturally, it has to bring all of
Speaker 3: those elements together in order to make it. And that's
Speaker 3: oddly what La Reed was able to do at that time.
Speaker 3: The dynamic of what it is and what success is
Speaker 3: it's changed.
Speaker 7: It's changed. So now you got to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 7: you know, do you get politics.
Speaker 3: So it's a matter of getting cashm read in the room,
Speaker 3: you know, managing to get.
Speaker 9: Oh wait a minute, that was a paradigm because it's
Speaker 9: a lot of property he has speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is he a presence or is he just a
Speaker 1: studio in Atlanta?
Speaker 7: Nah, Tyler Perry is most certainly a presence, but there's.
Speaker 1: More active in the community.
Speaker 7: Or you don't know, I'm he know who? No, I
Speaker 7: ain't gonna bite my tongue. I'm not that guy. No, no,
Speaker 7: I ain't that guy.
Speaker 6: And you're in the community, So.
Speaker 1: I ain't looking at the right to make sure the
Speaker 1: job is not going to stop it?
Speaker 7: No, No, it's not that.
Speaker 3: There's a certain expectation that comes with stepping into that
Speaker 3: space and no one wants to compromise what they have
Speaker 3: in order to do it. So it's like we were
Speaker 3: talking about it, Yeah, getting people to understand that as
Speaker 3: a collective, if you come together if you bring it
Speaker 3: all together, you're stronger and then you don't have to
Speaker 3: compromise anything, right, But it's.
Speaker 9: That one person who's going to step out and take
Speaker 9: the chance with the other person and who's But why
Speaker 9: not it be Atlanta's the home of like black wealth
Speaker 9: right now in that entertainment?
Speaker 1: Does it still?
Speaker 6: And I just mean an entertainment type way it is?
Speaker 3: Is not in an opportunistic way because you see a
Speaker 3: city that's growing like we can.
Speaker 1: I mean, but is it really you feel there's really
Speaker 1: in Atlanta right now? As it? At least I was perceived.
Speaker 1: I thought between between eighty four with people Bryson and Cameo,
Speaker 1: that class of Atlanta and Brick like the Arm, between
Speaker 1: that first migration between seventy nine and eighty four of
Speaker 1: all these artists moving to Atlanta and two when you
Speaker 1: guys were the new Jacks between eighty eight and ninety five.
Speaker 1: I always felt that there was a community Like Eric Simmons, like, yo,
Speaker 1: so I'm moving to Atlanta like everybody was moving to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Is there a community still or is it just like
Speaker 1: every man for hisself and every.
Speaker 7: Man for himself because there's no formula, there's no business.
Speaker 7: There's no Clarence Avon in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Mhmm, okay, I'll straight up ask you, do you desire
Speaker 1: the stress and the headaches and the gray hair and
Speaker 1: the sacrifice of your personal career to try to be
Speaker 1: that clar.
Speaker 7: I'm not trying to be Clarence Aan, though I want
Speaker 7: to explain who Clarence is.
Speaker 1: Clarence A Taboo Records, This is your show too, and
Speaker 1: Clarence Avant was the guy who go ahead and finish no.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, you know, my regret about.
Speaker 5: Records Records.
Speaker 1: My regret about him is that I feel as though
Speaker 1: the way he was painted in the documentary uh, Searching
Speaker 1: for sugar Man, Searching for Sugarman really painted him in
Speaker 1: a bad which I feel his you know, when we
Speaker 1: get to the Jam and Lewis episode, you know you'll
Speaker 1: see how important next to Don Corneli's and Barry Gordy,
Speaker 1: he was like one of the most important in stan Lathan, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's part of the power for that actually
Speaker 1: had power and resources in the sixties and seventies to
Speaker 1: make shit happen. And so you know, if you had
Speaker 1: a problem, you went to Clarence Avons to smooth it out.
Speaker 1: You know, he's almost like music industries Jesse Jackson or
Speaker 1: Al Sharton like be to go to guys to smooth
Speaker 1: ship out.
Speaker 3: But everybody comes to Atlanta to take the peace of it,
Speaker 3: but they don't leave the structure that helps to continue
Speaker 3: to build it.
Speaker 1: He's learning the black lily lesson, He's learning the black lily.
Speaker 6: At least more people.
Speaker 9: At least more people stay and build their wealth in Atlanta,
Speaker 9: because that's like one of the you know, that's the
Speaker 9: difference between in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Because now I'm here in North Carolina might be the
Speaker 1: new spot for sports people. It's Phoenix, like I'm here,
Speaker 1: I now Like there was a point where Atlanta was
Speaker 1: like the place to move, but then you know, it
Speaker 1: got overpriced and now it's hard to maintain a life
Speaker 1: there now here Atlanta. People going elsewhere to the Carolinas too,
Speaker 1: you know, to start again. So you know, it's I know,
Speaker 1: I know it's sacrificial. So in some sense, yeah, where
Speaker 1: do you where do you see? What's your next step?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying your last step, but what's your next step?
Speaker 7: Are really do want to make an album with y'all?
Speaker 1: Quest loves to problem about it? Yeah, I feel okay
Speaker 1: for those that don't know. When when the Roots do
Speaker 1: the Roots Picnic, our annual festival in Philadelphia, we like
Speaker 1: to do collaborative, community based projects because you know, we
Speaker 1: feel as though that's really the spirit of Philadelphia, the
Speaker 1: collaboration spirit, that's where the Roots really shine. We're working
Speaker 1: with other people. And I'll say that all the collaborations
Speaker 1: that we've done year after year, like we've done John
Speaker 1: Legend one year, we did Naughty by Nature, one year,
Speaker 1: we did Public Enemy, we did not as we did
Speaker 1: Wu Tang. I mean, we did the usual suspects. When
Speaker 1: we did our ninth year, we wanted to I wanted
Speaker 1: to pull kind of a non predictable move, and for me,
Speaker 1: that move was to you know, I was like, we
Speaker 1: should get a singer. You should just shock everyone, like
Speaker 1: who's that singer that people be like, wait, what the
Speaker 1: hell is this like? And we realized that Usher is
Speaker 1: really the voice of I mean kind of the voice
Speaker 1: of his generation that really speaks to people. And so
Speaker 1: it seemed kind of weird on site, but then it
Speaker 1: started to make sense, and you know, I just feel
Speaker 1: like there there was race. I mean, you even kind
Speaker 1: of reached your eyebrother, like, what's I did?
Speaker 9: I was like, sure, had the roots picnic, but then
Speaker 9: when the when when the music started rolling, everybody was
Speaker 9: like it was like a shock to your system.
Speaker 10: Like, oh, yes, now that makes sense me because usher
Speaker 10: got jams, you know what I mean? And I ain't
Speaker 10: saying that just because you know you're sitting here.
Speaker 3: I just think that there's a revolutionary sound that compliments
Speaker 3: all of what you've been building and I really feel
Speaker 3: like I'm the voice to carry it out. Wow, I
Speaker 3: feel like there's a mission that is bigger than all
Speaker 3: of the ship that I've done in the past.
Speaker 1: Damn. Now I feel like.
Speaker 3: But it's not it's not pleasure, it's not pressure, it's pleasure.
Speaker 3: Like you really should understand that it took all of
Speaker 3: that to get to this place where I'm open enough
Speaker 3: and I'm capable of carrying out what needs to be
Speaker 3: done and said both as a standard of business and
Speaker 3: also to a standard of music that leads to the
Speaker 3: next chapter. It has textures of our roots, Africa, Cuba,
Speaker 3: percussions music tying the reality of all of what that
Speaker 3: is and then also to the truth. And it's almost
Speaker 3: like a project that's liked the songs and songs in
Speaker 3: the Kia Life like it. It's gonna be something incredible.
Speaker 7: I believe it.
Speaker 1: This is the record.
Speaker 3: I think it's a record that I think it's a
Speaker 3: record that we're gonna work on. I mean, but it's
Speaker 3: gonna happen naturally. I think that we've been we've been working,
Speaker 3: you know, working together, rocking together. But and now we
Speaker 3: get into a place where we're communicating. This is communicating community.
Speaker 3: We're communicating in a in a way that you know,
Speaker 3: what I'm saying gets us down in the space of
Speaker 3: just being creative if you're.
Speaker 1: Just join us. In the final minutes of The Usher Raemen,
Speaker 1: the fourth episode of Quest Love Supreme, U, Usher Raemon
Speaker 1: is now proposing that the Roots and the Usher do
Speaker 1: an album together, and everyone seems pretty.
Speaker 9: Much excitedly what he's saying, like if.
Speaker 7: You go back to the Root, what he's like that
Speaker 7: it's all of it, though you no I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew from the gate it was going to lead
Speaker 1: to this, but part of me is like scared out
Speaker 1: of my mind, Why.
Speaker 7: What do you want?
Speaker 1: But you can't.
Speaker 7: But you can't look at it that way because it's
Speaker 7: something that Okay, let me give you the reality.
Speaker 3: The reality is in the process of making all of
Speaker 3: the albums that I have and having the platform I've
Speaker 3: been I've been living vicariously through a lot of other
Speaker 3: people's reality. So even though they've been telling my story,
Speaker 3: I've been helping the world through like poems and through
Speaker 3: like the ideas of things, and then I've lived things.
Speaker 3: But I also to need to support musically to be
Speaker 3: able to tell that story and it not feel like
Speaker 3: it's just a product for sale, even though it may work,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, But being able to understand
Speaker 3: somebody who understands all those textures, you get it, you understand,
Speaker 3: but you can't be afraid.
Speaker 7: You gotta just allow us to just go in it
Speaker 7: and just and get it going. Because he's around, like
Speaker 7: this is a fucking intervention.
Speaker 1: We have a plane ticket ready for you to go. Literally,
Speaker 1: the entire room is looking at me at this point in.
Speaker 10: Your in both of y'all's careers, right, But I mean,
Speaker 10: you know, with you like you, this is in my opinion,
Speaker 10: you know, you really have nothing else to prove, so
Speaker 10: to speak. So it's like, if you want to make
Speaker 10: that quote unquote art record with the roots, which I
Speaker 10: don't think I'm just using that term loosely, but you
Speaker 10: have nothing else to prove, Like we know you can sing,
Speaker 10: we know you can dance, we know you can make hits.
Speaker 3: And it ain't about it's like, understand that it's not
Speaker 3: a It's about including all of the different textures in
Speaker 3: places that we both have gone to make it. It's
Speaker 3: not like just one specific thing, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 3: use all of it. You see all of the examples
Speaker 3: of things that I've been able to do and you
Speaker 3: guys have been able to do. Let's bring it all
Speaker 3: together and bring the textures because there's a story that's
Speaker 3: way deeper. I may not even figure out what the
Speaker 3: actual words to articulate it right now are, but I
Speaker 3: hear you out and clear when you hear the textures
Speaker 3: of what you know is relevant in the sound and
Speaker 3: the energy of what it is, and then you can
Speaker 3: go and put the soul behind it and then go
Speaker 3: also to put the right production behind it and the
Speaker 3: right ideas and the right ears on it. We know
Speaker 3: that we understand that, and we understand it in a
Speaker 3: way that they need to be taught.
Speaker 1: You know what it is though, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: coming forward. I see Bill looking at me because he
Speaker 1: knows I'm about to reintroduce the self sabotaged uh analogy,
Speaker 1: self sabotaged analogy coming up? No, okay, you know, like
Speaker 1: when and I had to place this old woman. You know,
Speaker 1: like when women choose a toxic relationship, Like it's easy
Speaker 1: to choose a toxic relationship because you know subconsciously it's
Speaker 1: going to fail and not going to go anywhere, so
Speaker 1: you don't have that expectation. That's accountability on your right.
Speaker 1: But if you choose a real relationship, it's going to
Speaker 1: hurt some work.
Speaker 3: And thank you for doing the work already, because you
Speaker 3: were already doing it. We wouldn't even be in this
Speaker 3: fucking room right now if you weren't doing.
Speaker 6: The work fucking right Thank you for doing the work
Speaker 6: so we could be in this fucking room.
Speaker 3: I just thought, tell where you're at, you're doing it,
Speaker 3: you're doing it, and the and the reality is it's
Speaker 3: gonna it has to organically.
Speaker 1: This really became a freaking mirred intervention. That's what every show.
Speaker 5: But you always preface that you're afraid of something. That's
Speaker 5: we've had this discussion number of times books. Man, I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: I know, but I don't know. I don't feel like
Speaker 5: knowing you as a person, would think that you're afraid
Speaker 5: of anything. Yeah, it just seems like more of like
Speaker 5: an opportunity that you.
Speaker 7: Just need to think of a more competent person to
Speaker 7: carry that out.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid a lot, I but I'm also wise enough,
Speaker 1: as I've staying in other episodes, I'm wise enough to
Speaker 1: listen to my ledge talkers, you know, and despite whatever
Speaker 1: the fault leader jokes that you guys have, I mean,
Speaker 1: so wait a minute, the reason why Bill is here
Speaker 1: leading as a producer, even though you know he's a
Speaker 1: musical genius and all that stuff and his organization, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that I trust you enough and your musical
Speaker 1: wisdom to also not kiss my I mean, because it's
Speaker 1: easy to have some employees that I have employees that
Speaker 1: will just that are afraid of me and like I
Speaker 1: want to make me upset. But I'm just saying that.
Speaker 7: So then we need to write.
Speaker 3: So we need to write ears and the right coaches
Speaker 3: around us to manage our expectations.
Speaker 1: That's how you said you just need you need in it.
Speaker 10: You need what I call in life, you need as
Speaker 10: oh what what's that? A non nigga advice? You need
Speaker 10: some when you there you just write, you just need
Speaker 10: when you're like, yo, son, what you think, nigga? You
Speaker 10: need your nigga advises to keep it with you?
Speaker 1: Did you come up with that on your own? Sous?
Speaker 4: We have?
Speaker 1: All right? Quick? What good kissing man? I wouldn't I
Speaker 1: sh on the album? What is up? All right? All right? Record?
Speaker 1: What is that? With a string of singles that you
Speaker 1: put It's almost like Gangster with BBD, like these really
Speaker 1: good singles that didn't quite make the record, like.
Speaker 7: Okay, well, what happened was good?
Speaker 1: Canser was a great I love that.
Speaker 7: What had happened was this.
Speaker 3: I started working on the album and my son almost
Speaker 3: drowned the day that I started working on it. Right,
Speaker 3: So the album that I was working on then stopped,
Speaker 3: and then I started back up, and then I had
Speaker 3: to shoot a movie. And then in the middle of
Speaker 3: shoot Roberto durm movie, right, and then I decided to
Speaker 3: take a quick moment and I went to the voice
Speaker 3: and I did I did that. So all of these
Speaker 3: moments that stopped in between created like a different spot.
Speaker 3: I couldn't just pick back up where I was from
Speaker 3: the from the aspect of building the music.
Speaker 7: Rather I write it, or rather I collaborate and write it.
Speaker 3: Because the second single was she Came to Give It
Speaker 3: to You with with for Real, and I performed that
Speaker 3: record on MTV. You know, part of it was I'm
Speaker 3: not I'm not sure. I'm not sure it was. It
Speaker 3: was the record that everybody wanted.
Speaker 1: Right that one was to me, that one felt like
Speaker 1: a post blurred lines.
Speaker 10: It was kind of like that was It felt like
Speaker 10: for real, kind of hell I left in the tank.
Speaker 1: That's weird because as a DJ, I cherish any song
Speaker 1: in the key of E minor that's one hundred and
Speaker 1: nineteen bpms. That's very.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: But that's how things okay. It's like, she came to
Speaker 1: give it to you is my okay, I need a
Speaker 1: one to twenty year that's an E minor that will
Speaker 1: lead me to a different Well, long story short, I
Speaker 1: still spent it to that.
Speaker 3: That was such a that was such a disconnecting between
Speaker 3: the work that I was working on there and then
Speaker 3: where the album went. That in telling that story, it
Speaker 3: just felt like it stuck out like a sore thumb.
Speaker 3: It had already served its purpose. It was a hit record.
Speaker 3: People liked it, it did get I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: know if it was as big of a hit as
Speaker 3: I wanted it to be, but it was a number
Speaker 3: one record.
Speaker 1: And what is a hit for you? Now in light
Speaker 1: of in the age of like, does confessions even exist
Speaker 1: to you anymore?
Speaker 7: Is it just like what do you mean which aspect
Speaker 7: of confession?
Speaker 1: Well, I just feel now that you're about making artistic
Speaker 1: statements more than dealing with man, I got it.
Speaker 3: The only way to make a cohesive Okay, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna answer your question. It does not matter to
Speaker 3: me to make a record that is like confessions, like
Speaker 3: I need to have confessions because confessions is never going
Speaker 3: to happen again.
Speaker 7: It is what it is.
Speaker 3: It was for that moment. Jermaine Dupree and all of
Speaker 3: the producers who were part of it were right where
Speaker 3: they needed to be and right at that moment. And
Speaker 3: I can't go back and get that. But what I
Speaker 3: can do is move to the next chapter and do
Speaker 3: something that feels like a cohesive body of work, that
Speaker 3: is valuable, that feels musical, that feels like it's leading
Speaker 3: that feels like it's.
Speaker 7: It's pushing the lines.
Speaker 8: It is.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the idea of what music is
Speaker 3: for me now has expanded. Like, Okay, some people may like,
Speaker 3: you know, the older records that I did, but then
Speaker 3: there's some people that like some of the new shit
Speaker 3: that I do too. They like DJ got Us, fall
Speaker 3: in Love, they like OMG, and they like the original
Speaker 3: version of it too, of Quesse, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it's like shots fire, shots fire.
Speaker 3: So but my point is it's like, so now I'm
Speaker 3: forced with the reality that I have a stadium of
Speaker 3: people waiting to come, and I don't have music to
Speaker 3: serve everybody.
Speaker 7: Right now.
Speaker 3: I only have one record that works here, one record
Speaker 3: that works there. And while we're in a time where
Speaker 3: I can't put out a song here, a song there,
Speaker 3: and it's fragmented. That's the reality of where we are,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Like, Unfortunately, even if people
Speaker 3: have an entire holbum, the people listen to a single
Speaker 3: they like this song, that song, and you don't even
Speaker 3: know what album it comes from. So what's necessary, what's
Speaker 3: necessary to create a cohesive body of.
Speaker 7: Work that from the beginning of the beginning to end.
Speaker 7: You feel the connection.
Speaker 3: It might feel like it's a little bit rocky and
Speaker 3: all over the place, and text is taken from all
Speaker 3: over the place, but it's a cohesive body of work,
Speaker 3: meaning we need to go get in the studio, lock
Speaker 3: the door, bring in our interne what do you say,
Speaker 3: bringing your inna board. And it's just because there's a
Speaker 3: couple of them, you know what I'm saying. Because there's
Speaker 3: a lot of perspectives to be considered, and it is
Speaker 3: a progressive sound. It ain't gonna sound and feel like
Speaker 3: anything but it, but it requires everything to make it happen.
Speaker 1: Well, mister Raymond the fourth, I know this was painful. No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
Speaker 7: Actually I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: You must have because from yeah, I'm sorry, I lie
Speaker 1: to you time of the time of the hour. I
Speaker 1: told you how it's gonna be like forty five minutes
Speaker 1: to an hour. Nothing.
Speaker 6: He'sbing his head. He's not looking at you right now,
Speaker 6: attention his head.
Speaker 1: No, but thank you very much. I share I hope
Speaker 1: for a great fruitful relationship, uh in which we listen
Speaker 1: to it is like speed dating.
Speaker 6: Wait to see what y'all do.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, come on, man, it's not pressure. It's
Speaker 1: like it's just well I can imagine.
Speaker 10: I won't say it's not pressure, but we have confidence
Speaker 10: that this ship would be dope based on your record
Speaker 10: and your record.
Speaker 1: It's not like y'all going to make a just good friends,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? It's that should be the
Speaker 1: closing song, right right? Or get it? I like getting no, No,
Speaker 1: you don't like get it? Hell no, there we go.
Speaker 10: Like Michael Jackson, Steve never made record toge besides help it,
Speaker 10: they knocked it out the part, but get it and
Speaker 10: just good friends.
Speaker 7: It takes a little bit more discipline on your part,
Speaker 7: right to just.
Speaker 3: Get prepared and then and then you know, let it
Speaker 3: happen because I can carry it out, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 7: I can carry it away.
Speaker 3: And some of the ideas and the things that I
Speaker 3: think we should add in are gonna be foreign to people.
Speaker 3: It's gonna feel odd when they first hear. It's gonna
Speaker 3: feel they're gonna feel some connection to it, but they're
Speaker 3: not gonna know what it is. They're not gonna know
Speaker 3: why they are moving the way that they're moving. They're
Speaker 3: not going to understand that it's something different. It's something
Speaker 3: that's intended to nurture their soul. They don't get it.
Speaker 6: Nurture soul. I love those two words together.
Speaker 1: Uh this this is the wrap of the show.
Speaker 7: But I'm telling you because I'm speaking into existence until
Speaker 7: it happens.
Speaker 1: It's what did you learn? Brother?
Speaker 8: Yo?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: I learned as a real dude. Man.
Speaker 10: One last question your studio session residents, No no, no question,
Speaker 10: your real question, your food exit shot my man exit
Speaker 10: mark exit good child.
Speaker 1: Uh a record engineer.
Speaker 10: He was telling me about your studio session rider and
Speaker 10: what you eat in the studio, Like like apparently your
Speaker 10: ship is like crazy discipline.
Speaker 1: Like what do you eat? We just stopped by dunking
Speaker 1: dinners before the interview ahead now, but.
Speaker 7: I eat fruit. I like vegetables. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, beats. Uh Like yeah,
Speaker 3: it's boring and ship, but but what's crazy is that
Speaker 3: that keeps you. It's a lot, man, and you get
Speaker 3: beneath the apple bam.
Speaker 7: Hey, but I've learned that's the best dessert.
Speaker 1: Anywhere.
Speaker 10: I've learned that usher is like, you know a real
Speaker 10: dude and listens to his story, there's a lot of
Speaker 10: similarities and my story as a young kid growing up
Speaker 10: in the South, and I'm just happy to just be
Speaker 10: able to see a job of that with you.
Speaker 1: I'm a fan and you know, always support what you
Speaker 1: do with it. He appreciate your brother for real.
Speaker 7: Thank you man.
Speaker 1: What did you learn?
Speaker 9: It's been an amazing ride growing up with you number one,
Speaker 9: because that's how it feels that way, uh, and to
Speaker 9: see your evolution. But I also learned that, like Usher,
Speaker 9: is not only hella woke, but hella up to doing
Speaker 9: something about it. And I know that you're very community active,
Speaker 9: but you just took it to another level tonight.
Speaker 6: And so I'm just letting you know with some soldiers
Speaker 6: out here, be ready.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's what I learned to I'm going to
Speaker 1: move my money to a black bank as well.
Speaker 6: Well fine is in industrial. Would you need some suggestions?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Wait, why are you looking at me like.
Speaker 6: You said you needed back bank. I was just saying,
Speaker 6: I got some suggestions.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I'm going to take your suggestions when we
Speaker 1: off the air. So these niggas don't know what my money.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Bill? Oh what did I learn? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what did you learn today?
Speaker 13: I hate I don't want to say that I learned something,
Speaker 13: But it's just always refreshing when you meet somebody like Usher,
Speaker 13: someone in his status, and you realize that they're not
Speaker 13: crazy and they're not they're actually down to earth, and
Speaker 13: you know, like.
Speaker 10: Every reason not to be Yeah, it has everything, like
Speaker 10: a million records, like, yeah, i'd be completely You wouldn't
Speaker 10: want to be around me. If I sold thirteen million
Speaker 10: or thirteen million rerecord, I couldn't.
Speaker 1: Tell you nothing. Six now, you couldn't you. You couldn't
Speaker 1: tell me if I sold six hundred rerecor now sixty
Speaker 1: eight sixty eight eight million, million, sixty eight million worldwide.
Speaker 9: He is one of the top Billboard artists up the
Speaker 9: center something like that. I know it's twenty five something.
Speaker 1: The numbers don't lie. Yeah, so that's how do you
Speaker 1: stay humble? Man? This is I couldn't do it. I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it.
Speaker 7: Ain't doing it?
Speaker 1: Fired all right, unpaid bill?
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 5: I think Usher and I are about the same age,
Speaker 5: and I was just sort of wondering the whole time
Speaker 5: what the hell I was doing. I was fifteen, right,
Speaker 5: and uh and Uh, it wasn't that. It wasn't what
Speaker 5: Usher was doing. And Usher, I don't know if you
Speaker 5: know this. We've worked tangentially on a number of different
Speaker 5: things Sesme Street and the otherwise, and we've never actually
Speaker 5: met Street. He was He's sang the ABC's like motherfucker.
Speaker 5: It's one of the coolest things in many years i've
Speaker 5: worked there.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, but on paid Bill has a lot
Speaker 1: of jobs to one of them is being a key
Speaker 1: Sesame Street songwriters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that sounds terrible, I would get but it makes
Speaker 5: sound like I have an ego. So that's great. Thank
Speaker 5: you very much for that. But it's it's very humbling
Speaker 5: to beach as well.
Speaker 7: All Right, the ABC, the movie you should it should
Speaker 7: definitely have wanted something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sugar Steve, what did you learn? Bro?
Speaker 1: First of all, I think I know better.
Speaker 11: I think I worked with him had electrically back in
Speaker 11: the early two thousands. I can't I'm trying to remember
Speaker 11: what project it was. But it's a terribly interesting story
Speaker 11: starting so young. And you know, I've I've come to
Speaker 11: I've come to respect your music and you from working
Speaker 11: on all this, on all this stuff with the roots
Speaker 11: and I think I think a collaboration with the Roots
Speaker 11: would be a great idea, and I think it falls
Speaker 11: in line nicely with the rest of their collaboration albums,
Speaker 11: you know, as far as I think it would work, well,
Speaker 11: it sounds like.
Speaker 13: A lot of work, but just to add on something
Speaker 13: after seeing the Roots in Usher perform at Brooklyn Bowl, Like, however,
Speaker 13: many months ago, i'd buy an album of just you guys,
Speaker 13: you know, doing the old thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was that was my question, that can be
Speaker 1: is it gonna be? I was going to say, I
Speaker 1: felt like we always cut me off when I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 4: No, I was.
Speaker 11: I was wondering, if you imagine you're clearly imagining original
Speaker 11: material for the for an album.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gotta be original, you know.
Speaker 3: And maybe there are moments where maybe there's a song
Speaker 3: that that's so significant that we have to remake it
Speaker 3: and do it in a way that makes it feel
Speaker 3: like it was done for the first time by us.
Speaker 11: But it would be nice to have to have didn't
Speaker 11: you record that Brooklyn Bowl show? Like yeah, yeah, be
Speaker 11: nice to you want to put that out available, But
Speaker 11: we could in case we get we can.
Speaker 6: Set the stage similar to the Picnic, which did brook Ball.
Speaker 7: It was tighter though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well well okay we might leave with a taste
Speaker 1: of what we're doing. Let's do that. Yes, but yes,
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's the stuff is properly recorded on
Speaker 1: two inch tape. And you know, I have to say
Speaker 1: that what you what you won't know about Boss Bill
Speaker 1: or Frante is that, you know, we all come from
Speaker 1: the Okay player community and uh, you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of felt that Bill was losing losing faith in us
Speaker 1: for a good decade or so. But in the roots,
Speaker 1: well yeah, I mean, it's not like we could surprise
Speaker 1: you anymore. Like you know, I was, I was, I was,
Speaker 1: I was with y'all up until undone. Okay, well that's
Speaker 1: that's way, that's that's way more than I expect. No,
Speaker 1: that's only one record. His cousin was undone and cousin
Speaker 1: record it's only Yeah. Well okay, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: I was shocked that you really liked the Brooklyn Bowl shows.
Speaker 1: So that was my Richard Nichols moment, like, oh it
Speaker 1: didn't suck like the Dame Dash. Oh it's not whack.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I still got a future here.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should investigate this. I should think I learned
Speaker 1: a lot. I learned that you're probably the most thoughtful
Speaker 1: singer I've ever meant, because I'm not saying most singers
Speaker 1: are clueless. They're clueless. Yeah. I meet a lot of
Speaker 1: clueless singers that rely on their management and and uh
Speaker 1: there there weed carriers to kind of advise them on
Speaker 1: what to do. And you you clearly have a mission.
Speaker 1: I do believe that you are going to be the
Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta, Georgia musically speaking. Uh not now, maybe
Speaker 1: when you're sixty or seventy, I don't know, but uh,
Speaker 1: I feel that you will take that leadership role. That's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope politically a little bit. Oh yeah, I could
Speaker 1: totally see Usher being a politician. I mean Russia. Oh no,
Speaker 1: you're gonna come back on you anyway. Going that note
Speaker 1: on behalf of Sirtain Steve and Unpaid Bill and bost
Speaker 1: Bill and Liah and fn Tigelow and Usher even the
Speaker 1: fourth uh. This quest Loves signing off of West Love
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production iHeart Radio. This classic episode was
Speaker 1: produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.