Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Left Show. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Quest Love. I became familiar with our guest
Speaker 1: I want to say two thousand and four, two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, back when.
Speaker 2: Air quote that site was in full bloom.
Speaker 1: Her demo was making the rounds and I forgot who
Speaker 1: put me onto it, And all I can say is
Speaker 1: that I when I was flabbergasted. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: she did a majority of the production, the writing, the
Speaker 1: recording by herself, so instantly, like my antennas went up,
Speaker 1: and you know, I listened to it. I mean, now
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're in an age where everything is
Speaker 1: streamed and there's SoundCloud, and there's ways to access records
Speaker 1: without the help of a major label. But you know, before,
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand and seven, that was hard. So
Speaker 1: you know, basically I just had a burnt CD and
Speaker 1: I mean I would sleep to it. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: my obsession to it. Of course, when I heard from
Speaker 1: her next her debut LP, She's part of the Stone's
Speaker 1: Throw community. Since then, she has literally collaborated with I'll
Speaker 1: be here all day if I'd say the artist I
Speaker 1: mean either Brittany Howard, Brian Jackson, Anderson Pac, Lotus Badu,
Speaker 1: Yasim Bay, everyone, everyone but the roots.
Speaker 2: And I gotta change that quickly.
Speaker 1: And I'm certain that she's tired of hearing this, but yeah,
Speaker 1: she's the pioneer of the term stay woke. As we
Speaker 1: celebrate Women's History Month, this is a person who makes
Speaker 1: history every day. You can check out her new album,
Speaker 1: Electrical Field of Love by her band Harriet Tubman, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that and her journey, she
Speaker 1: what makes her tick. Georgia and Moldrew, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm related quest Love. We've known each other a long
Speaker 3: time and I love you. I love your sister, don Tie.
Speaker 3: She's the GM of a being. Yes, she's just a
Speaker 3: wonderful big sister to have, So thanks for sharing her
Speaker 3: with me, you know, I mean, just thank you for
Speaker 3: you know, when I think about just the roots, you know,
Speaker 3: like when I think about just I can't tell you
Speaker 3: how many permission slips I got from listening to you
Speaker 3: guys about you know how to mix creatively? Really, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I think so for sure. I remember, like
Speaker 3: listening to you guys records and going like I'm anna
Speaker 3: note in people. Those are my people. I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: that's my family. I'm ready to listen and be like, no,
Speaker 3: I know, I'm going to talk to them one day.
Speaker 3: I want to speak with these people. Are gonna understand
Speaker 3: what it did I'm doing. And it was never like
Speaker 3: nothing ambitious. It was like really from like the glow
Speaker 3: of It's like that native tongue's glow.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you're a manifesto.
Speaker 3: Yeah you knew you was a part of the music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. It's weird, you know. I listen.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have over twenty albums and probably more
Speaker 1: than twenty albums, and it's a lot. I listened to you,
Speaker 1: and I don't feel like I'm doing enough, like I'd
Speaker 1: like to think that I'm a hard worker, but you're
Speaker 1: definitely leading that charge. So I got to learn from you.
Speaker 1: So my first question to you is what is your
Speaker 1: first musical memory.
Speaker 3: My first musical memory is honestly hearing my dad play
Speaker 3: Giant Steps on guitar every morning, so it was like
Speaker 3: my ABC's and depending on how he played, let me
Speaker 3: know if I should stay in a corner somewhere, so
Speaker 3: I don't get like, like himmed up you feel me
Speaker 3: or like I can tell he if he's jovial or
Speaker 3: if he's upset, or if he's angry.
Speaker 1: Or is you know, based on how he solo.
Speaker 3: So it was I had to understand because like, you know,
Speaker 3: the song b like but on the jazz guitar, not
Speaker 3: plugged into nothing, so you got to listen in close,
Speaker 3: so like you know, it's like a you know, like
Speaker 3: a big body. You know the L five, you know
Speaker 3: with Gibson Joint and you know the West Montgomery Special,
Speaker 3: and you know, my dad's really from south side Chicago. Really,
Speaker 3: you know, listen to me. Listen to West Montgomery, you know,
Speaker 3: and that gen Ammons you feel me like all of it.
Speaker 3: And that's my first memory is listening, okay, to see
Speaker 3: see what kind of day we're gonna have as a whole,
Speaker 3: to see what kind of day we're gonna have.
Speaker 1: What does your house look like as in your childhood?
Speaker 1: Do you have siblings your domestic situation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I got older brother, Stephen. Like my early
Speaker 3: childhood is my mom, my dad, and my brother. Okay,
Speaker 3: small little house in La.
Speaker 1: What does your mom do my mom's.
Speaker 3: A singer songwriter too. She's amazing, you know. Actually her
Speaker 3: first record was on Music Records and it's called slow
Speaker 3: Down Baby. Yeah, what did this come out? I think
Speaker 3: in seventy life.
Speaker 1: Seventy five and what's her name.
Speaker 3: At that time? It said Ricky Boga Okay, Ricky bo Yeah,
Speaker 3: Ricky Boga. And but you know, you'll see it. It's
Speaker 3: a big old fro somebody who looked like kind of
Speaker 3: look like me. I think that that's an important record
Speaker 3: to check out quest because I didn't hear this till
Speaker 3: after all the worth nothing stuff and all this kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. But it's like real epigenetic stuff because the
Speaker 3: way she's taking like she's banking all the chords and
Speaker 3: it's like too many chords for one song, and like
Speaker 3: time stops and all this kind of stuff in her arrangements.
Speaker 3: And it's produced by Howard Johnson who played Toogle with
Speaker 3: mingas Lot. Yeah, yeah, real for real, My mom's actually
Speaker 3: go there. Like actually like she played in Rollanhanna New
Speaker 3: York Jazz Quartet. She played with Pharaoh Sanders, played keys
Speaker 3: with Pharaoh like and for the record, like with Philis
Speaker 3: Simon on it. Because when she didn't feel like touring
Speaker 3: almost playing Yeah, she's playing keys and the ensemble everything,
Speaker 3: singing and playing keys with Pharaoh. So it's just like
Speaker 3: on both sides, it's like that, you know. And I
Speaker 3: think another thing too is just like my mom just
Speaker 3: with the Women's History Month of black Stuff. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just like the fallout from the disco era, how
Speaker 3: that affected a lot of black singer songwriters, you know,
Speaker 3: where it's like you have people like lower Nero, she
Speaker 3: could break through, but then there was a lot of
Speaker 3: people like the songwriting sisters was kind of co worse
Speaker 3: to make dance records or they was gonna get signed.
Speaker 3: I mean like getting literally told during those years, you know,
Speaker 3: we're not signing nobody who's thinking right now it's love
Speaker 3: to love you baby, or you need to like go
Speaker 3: work at a at a restaurant. So my mom, my
Speaker 3: mom didn't respond to that was be like a piano
Speaker 3: bar hustler, you know, and you know do it like that.
Speaker 3: M h.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was gonna say for that time period, probably
Speaker 1: an occasional Joan armor trading could get inside miracle.
Speaker 3: It's a miracle, but yeah, I mean Joan arbitrating is
Speaker 3: like parallel universe. Right, occasionally the Russell is a miracle
Speaker 3: at this point, like as far as like when you
Speaker 3: talk about racism and the used to business and things
Speaker 3: like that. You know, it's like have you heard Jones
Speaker 3: latest record?
Speaker 1: You know what people are talking about this and I
Speaker 1: have to peep it. Yes, No, she went in.
Speaker 3: She got some stuff on there. You know, I love
Speaker 3: Joning a lot. I'm seriously a Jon Chad family real.
Speaker 3: I love her work.
Speaker 2: Wait where are you right now?
Speaker 1: Like I love the blue red juxtaposition of this interview.
Speaker 3: It's funny because whatever's happening in the camera is making
Speaker 3: its own decision about what it wants you to see.
Speaker 3: So right now I'm in my avatar, I'm my avatar era,
Speaker 3: but it's still just the red lights above. So it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, something shifting gotch but yeah, but this
Speaker 3: is this is my mom's arriety. This is where I
Speaker 3: record at. This is my little, my little two door
Speaker 3: recording studio. It's a little ten of love. You know.
Speaker 2: The lights are always this moody so that you can create.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, I need the disco light because
Speaker 3: it's my favorite color is disco lights.
Speaker 2: Nice your whole house is designed like this.
Speaker 3: Nope, okay up here, but gotch you Diceral lights is
Speaker 3: like it's where my I could hear all the music.
Speaker 3: It's like because I'm synesthetic very much, and it works
Speaker 3: in reverse too, so like when it's going around, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: and you're like reverse engineering, you know, you know it's.
Speaker 1: Like and you know, I always wanted to take this
Speaker 1: test with a fellow because I'm also synesthesia and I
Speaker 1: see songs in colors when I hear.
Speaker 2: Them, So I want to try this test on you
Speaker 2: to see if we see it the same.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to pick the most common album
Speaker 1: of all time, which I would like to think that
Speaker 1: you've heard Thriller at least five times in.
Speaker 2: Your life, have you?
Speaker 3: Of course? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So what color is going to be starting something to
Speaker 1: you when you hear it?
Speaker 3: I have to go through a little bit. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 3: I'm definitely getting like these colors, the blue, like definitely,
Speaker 3: it's it's definitely cool neon greens, but when the guitar
Speaker 3: comes in, it's more like there's more neon reds.
Speaker 2: And then when different parts come in, you see different colors.
Speaker 3: Yes, And with that pepper into the landscape because what
Speaker 3: happens to me is that there's a whole sonic image
Speaker 3: that begin to create. So the first thing I see
Speaker 3: is a mirrored floor, like first, okay, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of black toobes. It's like black with illumined It's like tron.
Speaker 2: It's like, really, okay, I see light blue for some reason.
Speaker 1: I see it as a daytime light blue, like the
Speaker 1: sky blue.
Speaker 3: That's really good. That's really good for.
Speaker 1: The song after Baby be Mine. What color do you see?
Speaker 3: Definitely pink? Orange, pink?
Speaker 1: Get it's weird. Do I see orange? Okay, only because
Speaker 1: I see rock with view as orange and that's the
Speaker 1: second so I say that, all right, So the girl
Speaker 1: is mine? What color do you see?
Speaker 3: I don't nothing, just that I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know what song with color. That song is white. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I just oh the song white.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I.
Speaker 3: See I don't believe. I don't know, like because it's
Speaker 3: weird because with my synesthesia it's like it's land too.
Speaker 3: It's like I see objects, you know, like yeah, so
Speaker 3: like say like a certain snare like I started I
Speaker 3: started seeing like if it sounds metallic, like a certain
Speaker 3: kind of snare, like you know, like the hip hop
Speaker 3: head style. You know, yes, it'll be like a whole
Speaker 3: gauntlet like you know, like and then like the I
Speaker 3: had to be like swords like that. So it's like
Speaker 3: it all depends. Sometimes it's sometimes a high hat is
Speaker 3: like a scimitar, that's like an age rest you know. Color.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's like a bright you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's like it's those kinds of things too. I
Speaker 3: really do get objects too. I think Baby Be Mine
Speaker 3: would probably, I don't know. It's just white too. It's
Speaker 3: just khaki. I don't know how I feel.
Speaker 1: The girl's mind is the girl of mine.
Speaker 3: Not baby Mine. I like Baby be Mine, but it's
Speaker 3: just khaki pants.
Speaker 1: See. I see Grace Skies only because because I was
Speaker 1: alive in real time when that album came out, I
Speaker 1: was coming on from school and it was raining, and
Speaker 1: they premiered it on the radio.
Speaker 2: So I forever with that.
Speaker 1: So when you hear Thriller the title cut, what color
Speaker 1: do you see?
Speaker 2: Or does the video already influence what you see?
Speaker 3: No, Because the first time I heard Thriller was at
Speaker 3: my Grandmama's house on vinyl. I was like I had
Speaker 3: nothing to do, so like video, the videos didn't mean
Speaker 3: nothing because you know, I was in North Carolina at
Speaker 3: my grandma's house and just like in the corner. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I don't know the go go go Google. Interesting,
Speaker 3: all of them have this neon thing to him. To me,
Speaker 3: just because of Cozy Jon mixing, like the profile he
Speaker 3: had on his production. It's like there is very much
Speaker 3: everything is like on Thriller. I feel like the cover
Speaker 3: matches the way it sounds so well, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, because like cover, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the white, the black and the.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of black. It's like a lot of black.
Speaker 3: But then just these like the airbrush you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, airbrush glow in the dark like and so
Speaker 3: I think Thriller the goo goo gee goos.
Speaker 1: Have you ever spoken to Jill Scott about music? Jill
Speaker 1: Scott is the only other person I know that will
Speaker 1: literally describe like she'll go up to a musician.
Speaker 2: Be like mm mmm, I need more more blue, give me.
Speaker 1: Blue, yeah, and like what the hell's blue?
Speaker 3: So I've definitely done that in a gig. I've definitely
Speaker 3: done that in a gig where I just call out
Speaker 3: start calling out colors, definitely do that. But I but
Speaker 3: I find that it's better to call out weather than
Speaker 3: colors because whether it's like more of a collective thing,
Speaker 3: you know, like the milanocytes have it give you some
Speaker 3: type of like measuring tool with milanocytes and and such.
Speaker 3: You know. But but with synesthesia, there's people who I
Speaker 3: know who are synesthetic, but the way they see colors different.
Speaker 3: Like a perfect example is L's e. He's synesthetic and
Speaker 3: that's why he's like completely really anal about his takes
Speaker 3: because he wants to make sure all the colors match,
Speaker 3: and he wanted to make sure that the contrast that
Speaker 3: he has even his vocal range, like the melody he
Speaker 3: finds over the beat is like creating enough compliment. He's
Speaker 3: serious about that. And he was one of the people
Speaker 3: that we see the same. He's like, yo, most of
Speaker 3: your So that was a mad orange yoke. I was like,
Speaker 3: I know, he's like, you got any more blue songs?
Speaker 3: And say, yeah, a few of them, but those are
Speaker 3: the ones that tend to be more of the techno
Speaker 3: like like kind of like as of house sonic value,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. But I love to have
Speaker 3: a lot of rais in my music, like solar, the
Speaker 3: solar sound, you know, And the perfect example for like
Speaker 3: a solar sound would be ray a is anything exactly okay,
Speaker 3: you know, like everybody loves the sunshine. The reason why
Speaker 3: I work, I think the reason why the song works
Speaker 3: so well is because it sounds like the sun. You know.
Speaker 3: George Duke has a lot of solar jams too. Very solar,
Speaker 3: you know, like so prepare yourself, you know, or mint tests,
Speaker 3: you know, whichever one. It's like, it's just very this
Speaker 3: rays of sun, you know, Earth wind and fire is
Speaker 3: very solar, you know.
Speaker 2: I see that.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna skip thriller and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you a deeper question, what is your favorite key?
Speaker 3: Haa? It changes, it changes, and then it's funny because
Speaker 3: people wrote to me like, Okay, she's gonna jam and
Speaker 3: D again.
Speaker 2: Z your go to DZ, your go to thing.
Speaker 3: I jammed in D for so long. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think right now. I love G. I love G,
Speaker 3: I love F Shop, I love I love F for
Speaker 3: a lot. I don't know. It just kind of tilt
Speaker 3: the head forward a little bit.
Speaker 1: I have a least favorite key I want to know
Speaker 1: if this is the same. You know what C sharp
Speaker 1: minor is one of the hartists. Okay, So the way
Speaker 1: that I DJ is I DJ every song in Keys.
Speaker 3: Yeah you do the keys, yeah, uh huh.
Speaker 1: And for some reason I noticed that the songs that
Speaker 1: people do the key and the least is in C
Speaker 1: sharp for some reason, and prop like, my favorite all
Speaker 1: time C sharp minor song is seven seven seven ninety
Speaker 1: three eleven, but it's rare.
Speaker 2: Besides that, I don't know it's for me.
Speaker 1: I feel like C sharp minors is the redheaded stepchild
Speaker 1: of Keys.
Speaker 3: So I think you ain't never lied. I think you
Speaker 3: ain't never lie, you know. I feel like people like
Speaker 3: Solami Rose Joe Lewis definitely lives there, like she really
Speaker 3: be composed there. But that's why she starts from I think.
Speaker 3: And then also you're reminded me of Pocket Queen how
Speaker 3: she plays the mess out of that pattern. Pocket Queen
Speaker 3: played it, and she played it her own way. I
Speaker 3: feel like that's so difficult to do.
Speaker 1: It took me the longest and then you know, I
Speaker 1: mastered it at eleven and then my dad's bass player
Speaker 1: told me that that's a drum machine and I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, what's a drum machine?
Speaker 2: I had no clue. We mutate speak on it, we do.
Speaker 3: Just I mean, I just love that. I mean I
Speaker 3: really absolutely love that. Like there's it's almost like when
Speaker 3: Jimmy he and Jix was like, yo, man, they playing
Speaker 3: my mistakes. Man, I don't know they even copying the
Speaker 3: mistakes I made. You know, It's like I feel like
Speaker 3: that's the thing where it's just like if you take
Speaker 3: everything at face value and you say, well, that's what's
Speaker 3: going on. Like for me, like when I first heard
Speaker 3: Public Enemy, I thought that I didn't know about sampling
Speaker 3: at all. All I knew was musicians. So I was
Speaker 3: thinking at that.
Speaker 2: You thought that was real?
Speaker 3: That was yeah, Like because I was little like you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, I'm going any three like I
Speaker 3: was going to ask.
Speaker 2: I was like, I hope you don't mind me asking
Speaker 2: what you were you?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: So you experienced Public Enemy at like five and.
Speaker 3: Six as a musical like, and I'm going like, that's
Speaker 3: how music should sound, you know what I mean, Hank Shock,
Speaker 3: I'm going like, this is amazing. And they got somebody going,
Speaker 3: they got somebody in it and go whoa like it's
Speaker 3: just like all this is I'm thinking like it's Duke
Speaker 3: Ellington or something. I'm thinking like it's like you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. Like, but if that didn't hit me
Speaker 3: like that, I wouldn't be this kind of musician. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be this kind of composer.
Speaker 1: You spoke of your grandmother's house in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Where were you born?
Speaker 3: I was born in Los Angeles, California. Okay, I'm a
Speaker 3: child in mid city.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you would visit your grandma? Okay, I thought
Speaker 2: you were my grandma.
Speaker 3: My MAM's North Carolina. Ye city, Charlotte, Okay, Charlotte, No Carolina, Yeah, Charlotte,
Speaker 3: North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I almost feel as though you're so musically immersed that
Speaker 1: this might be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway.
Speaker 3: Okay, there's not no dumb questions, just the one you
Speaker 3: don't know answer to.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what TV show would you say to find
Speaker 1: your childhood?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean definitely Reading Rainbow, Reading Rainbow.
Speaker 3: I'm PBS baby for show b p b ask. So
Speaker 3: this is like definitely mysterizes, definitely all the loving kindness,
Speaker 3: but also there's a video I kept I would rint
Speaker 3: all the time, and it was be somebody or to
Speaker 3: be somebody's food by mister T. And I feel like
Speaker 3: mister T is like my hero role model. He's really
Speaker 3: my role model for real, for real.
Speaker 1: Like you purchased the Mister T Commandments album in eighty four.
Speaker 3: The nope, I was only one years old time out.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I didn't know you have a record.
Speaker 3: Like now I'm about to lose my mind, Like what
Speaker 3: do you mean. I have an at I have an
Speaker 3: eighteen shirt, but I don't have no Mister T record.
Speaker 3: There's more my mother, no other.
Speaker 1: He performed the T's Commandment on Soul Train, Yes I was.
Speaker 2: I'll send it to you, Yes, I'll send it to you.
Speaker 1: I often find that people born after me, like eighties
Speaker 1: babies and on. If I say to them like you,
Speaker 1: they'll say, oh, but I was two years old then,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, man, when I was born, I had
Speaker 1: to listen to Duke Ellington records at the age of
Speaker 1: two and study them things.
Speaker 3: But I did too. I did too. But I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: like my parents, I was the vanguard of the Mister
Speaker 3: T aesthetic in my home. You feel me?
Speaker 2: Uh, They weren't into that.
Speaker 3: They wasn't on that, like like the only rap song
Speaker 3: my dad can condone was the message. He was like,
Speaker 3: now he's rapping for his life. Now that that's a
Speaker 3: rap record. Now that and puts they loved jigs Chase
Speaker 3: it all like all that shit, you know what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 3: Like I inherited who DENI like we're on the side
Speaker 3: of who DEENI we had beef with drun DMC as
Speaker 3: a home like that. I knew that from like the
Speaker 3: musicians side of stuff.
Speaker 2: What's your age difference between you and your brother?
Speaker 3: A year? A year and some change, like a year
Speaker 3: and a few months, like yeah, like seventeen months apart.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you have like an older cousin or someone
Speaker 1: older that put you onto Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: All the way. So like my cousin DJG he like
Speaker 3: I call him like bumble Bee from like you know,
Speaker 3: the Transformers. So his mixtapes were very neurosaucy. So it's
Speaker 3: like every other second like he used the records to
Speaker 3: actually say what he wanted to say, you know, DJ
Speaker 3: and behind the back all that kind of stuff, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So I definitely had a plug
Speaker 3: into like hip hop and stuff like that. But as
Speaker 3: far as getting exposed to like music outside of Canniball,
Speaker 3: Adelie Art, Blake Key or my mom at the time
Speaker 3: was just so into her own compositions, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, or outside of train. My mom's ear was
Speaker 3: very eclectic. So it'd be like Biden mcfharri and Sally
Speaker 3: Kate to Diane Reeves, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Mahelia Jackson
Speaker 3: kind of thing, like a mixed bag of like a
Speaker 3: very limited amount of records that we listened to all
Speaker 3: the time. And then like my dad would be like
Speaker 3: a more extensive collection of music that'd be like very
Speaker 3: straight ahead like post bop. And then you know him
Speaker 3: playing with Eddie Harris and everything for such a long time.
Speaker 1: What was your father's name, Ronald Muldrow? Okay, and he
Speaker 1: played with Eddie Harris.
Speaker 3: Uh huh yeah, like part of the usual suspects game,
Speaker 3: you know, playing all the guitar like from records like
Speaker 3: Turbulence to his Hand to Carnival like I need some money,
Speaker 3: you know, all those records. Yeah, word, he's on all
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 1: Wait, what year didn't they join join?
Speaker 3: Like I think it was shortly after the last McCann,
Speaker 3: like right after I think it was right after the
Speaker 3: Swiss movement. Then he was in there, so like they innovated,
Speaker 3: like the funk jazz stuff together. So my dad was
Speaker 3: playing all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I have your dad playing live on Soul Train in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four with Eddie.
Speaker 2: Harris and they did this incredible dance thing.
Speaker 1: They do this African Oh my god, okay, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I had to take it.
Speaker 2: When she mentioned her father, I was like.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, you can tell her with my dad, right,
Speaker 3: you could.
Speaker 1: Tell Oh, my god, that is your father. Shit, that
Speaker 1: is crazy.
Speaker 2: Okay the last time. Okay, So this is what you're
Speaker 2: gonna know about me.
Speaker 1: Soul Train is the air I breathe and the blood
Speaker 1: in my veins. I religiously watch this show and being
Speaker 1: as though I have a new form of expression that
Speaker 1: people have just discovered in the last five years. One
Speaker 1: of the myths that I would like to dispel about
Speaker 1: Soul Training is the fact that they're like, well, people
Speaker 1: don't play live on there. People do play live on
Speaker 1: Soul Train. Probably one of the rarest moments where a
Speaker 1: jazz group gets to flex their muscles on Soul Train
Speaker 1: is where Paddy Harris was on Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can't believe that you're f okay yeah man.
Speaker 3: And the guitar gan it's something that he had invented,
Speaker 3: like you know, so they were like tinkerers, like you
Speaker 3: know him and like that was really Eddie Harris is
Speaker 3: like the fairy god father for me. He was like
Speaker 3: a very grandfather. I grew up knowing him and what
Speaker 3: were like, you know, that's why we would talk, you know,
Speaker 3: he'd be like, what about you know.
Speaker 1: This explains everything about you now everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you when you said epigenetics, Now I get it.
Speaker 3: They get it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm so glad. This is how I'm
Speaker 2: finding out.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you one thing, to ask you what's
Speaker 3: your favorite soul chain thing?
Speaker 1: The only answer and shout out to uh dj Nick Fresh,
Speaker 1: who hates when I say this.
Speaker 2: O'Brien's nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh Baker, no no, no, no, no, you're doing the Hollywood,
Speaker 1: you're doing the disco.
Speaker 3: Okay, So O'Brien didn't want yes, yes, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's my favorite too, O'Brien. O'Brien did it. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: this is my second. That's the second one.
Speaker 2: I like, got you, got you.
Speaker 3: My second, but my favorite O'Brien too.
Speaker 1: You're alright, all right, yeah, you are right to tell
Speaker 1: me this much. What is your morning routine? What's the
Speaker 1: first thing you do in the half hour of your
Speaker 1: day every morning?
Speaker 3: I go like, I kind of gasp because I got
Speaker 3: another one. Yeah, okay, it's not over yet. And then
Speaker 3: I take time that that blow my mind in a while. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: thank god, I feel. I take time to feel life
Speaker 3: online around me, you know, I could feel the network
Speaker 3: of life. And then by that time, you know, it's
Speaker 3: tea time, so I have some a nice cup of tea.
Speaker 3: I spend most of my morning pretty much non vocal
Speaker 3: if I can, and I find that when I do that,
Speaker 3: I'm better regulated for the all the way into the evening.
Speaker 3: But if I start talking too soon, I become very
Speaker 3: oversimilated for most of the day. So it's definitely I
Speaker 3: take time to just cool and hum. And even as
Speaker 3: we talk right now, it's like, Bebop's my first language,
Speaker 3: you know, just because of all of the giant step stuff,
Speaker 3: it's actually my first language. So like, I take time
Speaker 3: just to be bop. You know, just to be bop,
Speaker 3: just to be, and that's how I pray and be bop,
Speaker 3: you know, And yeah, I just be, you know, take
Speaker 3: time to just be that way and then that way.
Speaker 3: It might be like there's going to be a current
Speaker 3: that takes me east west, north south, you know, then
Speaker 3: I'm like ready, I'm prepared for it. But if I
Speaker 3: don't take time to calibrate my heart, mind equipment, then
Speaker 3: it comes to be a very confusing day. So my
Speaker 3: routine is based in more of a spiritual discipline. My
Speaker 3: minurosis is more on the spiritual side, whereas there's just
Speaker 3: certain things that have to take place, like spiritually in
Speaker 3: for you to you know, in order for me to
Speaker 3: flow with where I'm like supposed to be at the
Speaker 3: right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. So, before the age of ten, what were your
Speaker 1: desires in terms of what you wanted to do when
Speaker 1: you became an adult. Did you come out the moon
Speaker 1: wanting to do music or did you have other fantasies
Speaker 1: or to do something else.
Speaker 3: By the time I was nine years old, I had
Speaker 3: completed the autobiography of Asada School and I was already
Speaker 3: playing in a dazz ensemble. I was playing drums and
Speaker 3: jazz ensemble. I was, you know, yeah, I like I
Speaker 3: was kind of raised serious. So it was my dream
Speaker 3: was total total black liberation. Total liberation for black people
Speaker 3: was already my goal because I was like maybe three
Speaker 3: years old, because that's when I learned about the trans
Speaker 3: Atlantic slave holocausts. So I was definitely raised to be
Speaker 3: an RBG assassin. And so that's the undercurrent there, you know.
Speaker 3: But the beautiful thing about that is that it encouraged
Speaker 3: me to it encouraged me in the things in my abilities,
Speaker 3: that there was a purpose behind my abilities. So like
Speaker 3: if you're reading all the hotepie and books, you know,
Speaker 3: like as a child, they used to glow in the
Speaker 3: dark for me, Like you know, so like Soling Legacy,
Speaker 3: George GM James. You you haven't seen family Guy that cartoon. Yes,
Speaker 3: I was like Stewie that baby, like I was thinking
Speaker 3: of a master plan. So I see George GM james
Speaker 3: Stolen Legacy the book, right, and it's like this glowing
Speaker 3: you know, some of my odd roster Tevin rows on
Speaker 3: the book, you know, and like or Ramsey's the second
Speaker 3: as y'all would say, Right, so you have this other
Speaker 3: children's book and you go like, I have to figure
Speaker 3: this out to get over there. So like I'm like
Speaker 3: the cat in the hat. That's what you're saying, right,
Speaker 3: d Cat.
Speaker 2: And I'm.
Speaker 3: Reading like Doctor Seuss, but I'm looking at George gm Jans,
Speaker 3: like how do I get over there? So just like
Speaker 3: I think I've been like since I was nine, I
Speaker 3: think it was absolutely had something to do with the
Speaker 3: liberation of black folks to know that they're free, to
Speaker 3: know that they're for them to have successful lives, for
Speaker 3: them to have full and happy lives.
Speaker 2: Age nine.
Speaker 1: Yes, Jesus Christ, I'm so ashamed because it took me
Speaker 1: why I didn't read ASADA's book until when we were
Speaker 1: working on Commons like Water for Chocolate record.
Speaker 2: They had just started.
Speaker 1: Lifting the like embargoes for visiting Cuba and whatnot, and
Speaker 1: so Common was like, I'm gonna go down there to
Speaker 1: you know, because he shout out to Dreamhampton, who had
Speaker 1: Black August Organization take us down there, like we were
Speaker 1: like one of the first American hip hop people. I
Speaker 1: think The Roots was like maybe the second or third
Speaker 1: show down there. But it's so weird because we went
Speaker 1: down there to meet her and like when you go there,
Speaker 1: usually they tell you like to bring things that you
Speaker 1: don't need anymore for people there. Yeah, And for some reason,
Speaker 1: I just I was like, you know what, I know,
Speaker 1: being here all this time, I wonder if she will
Speaker 1: like something simple like Essence magazines or Vibe magazine, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like just to catch.
Speaker 2: Up on black pop culture.
Speaker 1: And I gave her bag of just like and it's
Speaker 1: like all these magazines throughout the years that I found
Speaker 1: that like thrift stores like across America and whatnot. And
Speaker 1: she was like so beautiful. Yeah, that was so beautiful.
Speaker 3: And I mean, look and you being able to meet
Speaker 3: her because of because of music, Like that's that's very intense.
Speaker 3: That's that's very beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: She knew we all were like she was very much
Speaker 1: hipped to everything music was happening. So that was right.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that mister T was kind of the first
Speaker 1: entity that you yourself uniquely brought in that how so
Speaker 1: not like from someone inherited me? But can I ask
Speaker 1: was on my own, dad?
Speaker 3: Like I was on my own with mister T. Like
Speaker 3: like I was on my own with it?
Speaker 1: What was the first record that you yourself purchased? Not that
Speaker 1: was in the household already. But what's the first right now?
Speaker 3: Oh? I know, because I had you know what, I
Speaker 3: had to wait to give them some lunch money because
Speaker 3: we used sometimes we packed lunches school, so I literally
Speaker 3: had to earn from like not eating like And the
Speaker 3: first was a cassette single. It was and oh my god,
Speaker 3: it was they saw me, myself and I and Tom
Speaker 3: to be Hippie on the other side. That's my first
Speaker 3: cassette ever. I bought it with my own money, from
Speaker 3: my well, my parents money, but it was from the
Speaker 3: food money that I had saved to the side so
Speaker 3: that I could buy you.
Speaker 2: Two, your sister, yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was like, I want to buy us.
Speaker 3: I want to buy a cassette.
Speaker 2: So you brought the K single instead of the twelve inch.
Speaker 3: They had no record player.
Speaker 2: Ah damn, because here's the thing.
Speaker 3: It plus a twelve inch cost more than a dollar.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, all right.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you know this, but what
Speaker 1: what makes that twelve inch very unique? They did something
Speaker 1: really innovative, which was, you know, side one was regular
Speaker 1: me myself and I. Side two they did something really innovative,
Speaker 1: which is they did a three sided record, so you
Speaker 1: would start the record and get the remixes to me
Speaker 1: myself and I, but then you started again and it's
Speaker 1: too labeled to be a hippie. What's more And the
Speaker 1: brainwash flower where they meet the kid Jeff and he's
Speaker 1: making fun of their shit, you know, like it's Yes,
Speaker 1: it's basically hidden grooves, hidden grooves on the twelve inch
Speaker 1: and yeah, I two purchased that in twelfth grade.
Speaker 3: And but it was the person of my own. It
Speaker 3: was like the first this is my, this is mine.
Speaker 3: So when I put it out, I know they hate
Speaker 3: it and everything, but I have to say, it's the
Speaker 3: best neuro divirgin anthem. It's the best about like like Normanies,
Speaker 3: like I hate you Normanies, Like I don't have to
Speaker 3: fit in with none of you guys. I don't want to.
Speaker 3: I don't want to. I'm different and it's okay and
Speaker 3: I'm on my own world and I don't. And because
Speaker 3: at that point I think that I was getting sent
Speaker 3: to office every day, I.
Speaker 1: Was gonna say, what were you like in school?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, do like militant? So like in public school,
Speaker 3: I'm getting I'm getting sent to jail every day I'll
Speaker 3: get I have a political prison at school. What because
Speaker 3: my mom said, don't you pleasure at least is anohing?
Speaker 3: But god, I was like okay, So it's like now
Speaker 3: we're going through a pledge at least, I said, And
Speaker 3: you know, I'm that one.
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia.
Speaker 3: Go to the office, okay every day. So it was
Speaker 3: just like me and schools. It's like it was really hard.
Speaker 3: It was very hard because like, where did you go
Speaker 3: to school? I went to Community Magnet, which was in
Speaker 3: mid City and it's also the same I think it
Speaker 3: was saved it the school. There was a few folks
Speaker 3: that went there. But anyway, it was after the first
Speaker 3: school I went to ruined me for every school, which
Speaker 3: was Huru shoe Le, lived by amazing matriarchs of Sister
Speaker 3: Carry who was an amazing, amazing, amazing pillar of the
Speaker 3: black Garvyait community in Los Angeles, alongside with Sister Lola
Speaker 3: Comen and all of this stuff. And and I mean,
Speaker 3: these are the people who really held up the underground
Speaker 3: hip hop community, the folks from the Black consciousness movement.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm not surprised that aside of New Year music,
Speaker 3: because for instance, ex clan would be another early influence
Speaker 3: because Brother J literally hand delivered the tapes like Black
Speaker 3: Watch literally hand delivered the tapes to Marcus Garbage School
Speaker 3: for African Minds United Children's Program, So like I could
Speaker 3: talk to Brother J and be like, yo, I learned
Speaker 3: about yourself. He's like, oh, oh yeah, I delivered that
Speaker 3: over there, sister, yes, And I'm like, I'm the demographic
Speaker 3: that you read, like if it wasn't for him, like
Speaker 3: sending something by hand. And at that time, mind you,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking everybody's playing everything from scratch, so it's like
Speaker 3: I'm chripping out like this is the best. Like, so
Speaker 3: that's another Like that was the first time I saw
Speaker 3: other mister T adjacent people too. Was like through the
Speaker 3: hip hop world, everybody had different kind of names like
Speaker 3: that superhero aesthetic thing.
Speaker 1: So hip to ask in yeah California, Okay, okay, yeah
Speaker 1: wait you said other notable people went to your school?
Speaker 2: Who else went to your school with you?
Speaker 3: There was Marcus Houston. We went to the school and
Speaker 3: then like like the group kind of got together at
Speaker 3: the school, at the Magnet School, and that's like a
Speaker 3: whole nother story's Bless the Hearts of all.
Speaker 1: So what would you say was your first real creative
Speaker 1: project like that you did as a I don't know
Speaker 1: if you created as a kid or made demos as
Speaker 1: a kid, but what was your first.
Speaker 2: Creative project mixtapes? What will be on these mixtapes?
Speaker 3: A man? Like? I mean, I was a mixtape queen,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Like so just like that's
Speaker 3: why I just I was so fond of y'all because
Speaker 3: y'all sound like my mixtapes. So it'd be like like
Speaker 3: my guy name god mother gave me all these fail
Speaker 3: like Coutie records, you know, So I had failah and
Speaker 3: then I have had some boy modeling school, and then
Speaker 3: I would have a freestyle fellowship. Then I would have
Speaker 3: I definitely have like some like fantastic part one, and
Speaker 3: then I have just I mean staying up so late,
Speaker 3: I never got no sleep because like you know, can't
Speaker 3: tell you KPFK, you know, k CRW staying up so
Speaker 3: late to hear all of the independent musicians. And I
Speaker 3: would make that and then I would add it with
Speaker 3: my eyes a k, add it with my nina to
Speaker 3: my own record, add it with my bad brains. But
Speaker 3: everybody would tell me fast forward through that. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: learned about it. I learned about bad brains through the
Speaker 3: bargain binch. I learned about bad brains and Sun rather
Speaker 3: the same day, because I would go to the warehouse
Speaker 3: like the music store, but I noticed, if you get
Speaker 3: what they're promoting, you have to pay, like so much
Speaker 3: money you have to pay. It costs you like twenty
Speaker 3: dollars anth change. Whereas if I went to the bargain bend,
Speaker 3: I could get like three, I could get three or four.
Speaker 3: So I would look and then they'd be looking back
Speaker 3: at me, so it'd be like muddy water. I'm like
Speaker 3: Johnny Hooker, I'm like, who's that? You know? I'm a
Speaker 3: bargain bin child, Like I really am, Like the reason
Speaker 3: why of all that ecollected kind of things, like before
Speaker 3: the iPod shuffle is really bargain bin surfing, and I
Speaker 3: would just be getting like Errol Garner Ero Garner needed
Speaker 3: some own the same day, Ero Garner needed some own,
Speaker 3: and Isaac Hayes the same day.
Speaker 1: Okay, so name me five unskippable perfect albums that you
Speaker 1: cannot live without, and they cannot be box sets and they.
Speaker 3: Cannot be great like a record of day made.
Speaker 1: It cannot be greatest hits or box sets. I might
Speaker 1: let you have with live because live is different. But
Speaker 1: namely five perfect.
Speaker 3: Album, see you five perfect album? Okay. One perfect album
Speaker 3: is salif Kta Sorrow. It's perfect sally K I grew
Speaker 3: up with Darek salif Kta is in from nineteen eighty eight. Like,
Speaker 3: that's the record I grew up with.
Speaker 2: You spell that for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. S l I f k e I t A
Speaker 3: is produced by Ibraheim Sillah okay. And and then the
Speaker 3: name of the record called s O r O Yes Sorrow, Yes,
Speaker 3: I know this is it's an amazing he's we called
Speaker 3: me and my my homegirl Malaika Eagle Nebula. We call
Speaker 3: him the West African Frankie Beverley.
Speaker 2: I see sorrow, Yes, okay, I know this.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, what's your next album?
Speaker 3: The next album is bib mcfair and Medicine man Ah.
Speaker 2: Man Sweet in the Morning. Yep, Amelue put onto that.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, like, I'm not skipping past none of those.
Speaker 3: I'm in each one like yes, yes you I like
Speaker 3: I'm angry as he ran all the way.
Speaker 1: And in high school, emmel Rue put me on to
Speaker 1: that record, and then I went through his entire discography amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like yeah, that one. I mean, you just it's
Speaker 3: just not it's not it like each one is amazing,
Speaker 3: and you just follow him through the whole thing, like
Speaker 3: no discipline is pressent, Like like when he started just
Speaker 3: going off, like on his guitar solo at the end,
Speaker 3: I was just like, those are such golded scat solos,
Speaker 3: Like I'm saying, like, that's the goals.
Speaker 1: The scariest job ever did in my life, you know,
Speaker 1: because there's a period where the family lived in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: and Madison hit me up and was like, yo, Dad said,
Speaker 1: stop ducking him and let's do the two man chill already.
Speaker 1: And you know, it took me about a year to
Speaker 1: agree because I was scared, like because I know, I.
Speaker 3: Know what you mean, and I've been there. I've been there,
Speaker 3: i know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And so I called him. I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: so should we rehearse to do something. He's like no,
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, well let's go to soundcheck
Speaker 1: or whatever. He's like, no, need I said, huh. And
Speaker 1: then we got there and I'm like, well let's map
Speaker 1: it out. He says, nope, let's not map it out.
Speaker 1: And I said, what are we going to do? He said,
Speaker 1: We're going to walk on stage and we're going.
Speaker 2: To create for two hours.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It was the fastest my heart has ever beaten. That's
Speaker 1: true artistry and vulnerability when you work it out in
Speaker 1: real time on stage. And he yeah, man, I mean
Speaker 1: here's the thing, like I'm a deciphle Jade Diller and and.
Speaker 2: And you know, mistakes were a really that was part
Speaker 2: of their their fiber.
Speaker 3: You know, mistakes, right, that's it, come on, but that's
Speaker 3: what you think.
Speaker 1: To embrace it live like literally, McFerrin said, hey, if
Speaker 1: you make a mistake, I want you to repeat it
Speaker 1: four times. And I was like, okay, that's why I
Speaker 1: love him that.
Speaker 3: I think you you're summing up all the reasons why
Speaker 3: I love Bobby mcfair and so much. I mean, he
Speaker 3: just that raw. You know, he's just wrong. That's raw,
Speaker 3: like to be like that, like yeah, no, okay, now
Speaker 3: mean it because it came out of you. So how
Speaker 3: do you honor the things that you wouldn't? You know,
Speaker 3: how you honor the things that are happening from you?
Speaker 3: Like how you do that? I mean I say my
Speaker 3: style is completely ninety generated from era. Really like, if
Speaker 3: not percent, we had to be up in the eighties,
Speaker 3: you know what. My whole stylet even the composing melodies
Speaker 3: and stuff. I mean like even just like and vibing
Speaker 3: out on loops and stuff. Because that Jamie Abersol. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be able to be the musician I
Speaker 3: need to be. I need to make I need to
Speaker 3: throw out some other chords. I need to have some
Speaker 3: other stuff like cycling around and if I can find
Speaker 3: a melody in there, then I'll be doing something. So
Speaker 3: I need to make my mistakes in a different way
Speaker 3: because it's two five to one thing. I'm like, this
Speaker 3: is boring because you know, I got raised with the
Speaker 3: Giant Steps. So it's just like when I heard the
Speaker 3: Abra Salt record, I wanted to die. It was horrible.
Speaker 3: So shout out to Jamie Abrassold, that's where the jazz
Speaker 3: heads out there. But got one, two, three, I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh god, this is horrible.
Speaker 1: This is wait. This is one question I didn't ask
Speaker 1: you well, knowing that you played any and everything, what
Speaker 1: is your preferred weapon of choice as far as one
Speaker 1: instrument only?
Speaker 2: What is your instrument?
Speaker 3: Wow, I'd have to say, hm hmm, Kazoo, what down
Speaker 3: I begin, I get begin my Henry Threaguil impersonations. I'd
Speaker 3: be I'll be on it. I'd be because I like it.
Speaker 3: Because it's like I could get in there, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. I'm holding something and then I have
Speaker 3: my little microphone up there and I'm like, you know, now,
Speaker 3: I got my dazzy Gillespie angle. I got my little
Speaker 3: but I think I want a kazoo to have a
Speaker 3: bell on it so I could really, like, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, be tripping, you know, a little bit more
Speaker 3: the enjoy that got the bill that go like this.
Speaker 3: I think they have a marching bank. But I mean
Speaker 3: to be honest, Yes, Kazoo. Tamboo Marine, I like it
Speaker 3: a lot. Tam Marine is like this Doppler device of
Speaker 3: like it's dope. It's dope. It's like it's it's like
Speaker 3: a graphic instrument. It's like a radar instrument. So I
Speaker 3: like a tambourine a lot. My approach to tambourine is
Speaker 3: like a mix of motown and and like just Negro,
Speaker 3: like you know, ancient Negro spirits, you know, so It's
Speaker 3: like that's how I like to play, you know, like
Speaker 3: play odd time on it and but with the motown,
Speaker 3: you know, flip over this play. You know, those are
Speaker 3: my favorite right now. But piano, of course, because I
Speaker 3: love to do sound design, love synthesizers very much. I'm
Speaker 3: definitely a synthesizer person, and I feel as though I'm
Speaker 3: more of a roads pianist. I'm not a grand pianist.
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, with pianos that they should
Speaker 3: be like needed out, just like how horns are. Like
Speaker 3: you have a buried saxophonist, a soprano saxophone, alto saxophone.
Speaker 3: I feel like they're grand pianists their upright pianiss roads
Speaker 3: because somebody who plays on grand don't necessarily say great
Speaker 3: on the roads facts, or they don't necessarily sound great
Speaker 3: on upright either, Like there's some people that compose for upright,
Speaker 3: like you know, you have your the Loneliest Monk. It's
Speaker 3: not to say that he doesn't sound at home on
Speaker 3: a grand piano, but for how he the angularity of
Speaker 3: the cordal structures, like how it sustains Baby Grants is
Speaker 3: his grand piano. So it's like I think that those
Speaker 3: things are very interesting. I've been discussing that more like
Speaker 3: largely just about like the different types of pianos as
Speaker 3: being classified as different instruments instead of as piano being
Speaker 3: one thing that when you lift the hood on it,
Speaker 3: you have all these different shapes and all these different
Speaker 3: string lengths and all these different like cabinets. Right when
Speaker 3: that happens with any other instrument, it's like a different instrument.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So I'm definitely a roads girl. I'm a roads upright.
Speaker 3: But I think even before all of that, because of
Speaker 3: the mentorship I received from one of the original synthesized
Speaker 3: players of Mothers of Invention. His name is Don Preston.
Speaker 3: So he intervened in my life when I was like
Speaker 3: about like fifteen, and he started like giving me see
Speaker 3: these of like moonscapes of Jupiter and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So like the wind Greases has been with me the
Speaker 3: whole time, Like I really like it's really my thing,
Speaker 3: you know. It's like and Ducal Chancelly taught me cloud
Speaker 3: he interrupted, he interrupted Sunday school and said, George you ready,
Speaker 3: And it was like these big old, obnoxious white cloves
Speaker 3: and He's like, George, you ready, and I'm like, uh huh,
Speaker 3: this cloud a get get get get get clap it out.
Speaker 3: I clapped it. He's like, good now that this reverse
Speaker 3: get get get get get clap it out. Got it
Speaker 3: all right, y'all have a good day and left.
Speaker 2: Wait time out, time out.
Speaker 1: All right. So you just said two mind blowing facts.
Speaker 1: One that you were in proximity of somebody that went
Speaker 1: at the school of Frank Zappa. Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 3: Thing, like original, the original man, the original, like the criminal.
Speaker 1: Like Preduin yea. And but then on top of that,
Speaker 1: and Dougu was one of your teachers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I didn't have no choice, you know, because
Speaker 3: he played with my mom at church, so like.
Speaker 2: He just casually just played drums on Sunday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then when he would play, he would be
Speaker 3: making eye contact like this is timing. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, I would do anything to have known what that
Speaker 1: felt like.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm an artifact collector. And the last time I
Speaker 1: saw in Dugu before he passed away. Every time I
Speaker 1: see him, I beg him and Dougu, where is the
Speaker 1: Billy Jean Snare?
Speaker 2: And he claimed that he knew and I, ah, that
Speaker 2: means the.
Speaker 1: Holy Grail finding the dude Chandler Billy Jean Snare drum.
Speaker 1: But the fact that he was just her Sunday school
Speaker 1: church drummer is no.
Speaker 3: I mean, but he no, he interrupted. He completely interrupted
Speaker 3: Sunday school like he was like, Georgie.
Speaker 2: Ready and we'll just teach you right there.
Speaker 3: Wow, and then and then left like that and then
Speaker 3: lee like he knew. He knew that, like somehow there
Speaker 3: was enough in my spirit and now I can see
Speaker 3: that and in kids too. But like it was, he's like, no,
Speaker 3: that's a percussion in there. That's percussion in there, you know,
Speaker 3: And so he gets he get everybody on water bottles
Speaker 3: and give me the most hardest part to learn of
Speaker 3: the ensemble, like we like I had to learn. He
Speaker 3: taught me percussion.
Speaker 1: That means he respected you. If he challenges you, that's
Speaker 1: that's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he put me through it though, And that was
Speaker 3: on the other side of you know, I guess he
Speaker 3: when my mom told him I was playing drums, so
Speaker 3: that my nine year old life, you know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: she playing jazz er, Okay, well then get with it.
Speaker 1: Here you go. Wow, when you write lyrics, walk me
Speaker 1: through what your creative process is oh.
Speaker 3: Man, every song is so different. Sometimes the general aspect,
Speaker 3: do you want to know.
Speaker 2: The like does it hit you in a dream? Does
Speaker 2: it hit you at night?
Speaker 1: Does it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like one of two things that's going on. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's one of two things that's going on. So like say,
Speaker 3: if it's like a nonlinear kind of compositional thing, like say,
Speaker 3: if it's just something that's moving forward, if it ain't
Speaker 3: like a loop, so to speak, or something like this,
Speaker 3: if it's just like something that's happening, I'm literally translating
Speaker 3: the changes into backend to English that Sometimes that's what
Speaker 3: I'm doing that as a personal growth exercise, to do
Speaker 3: the thing that my dad maybe couldn't. Well.
Speaker 2: What comes first for you?
Speaker 1: Music or lyrics, It all depends like it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the lyrics come first. Sometimes I'll be sitting outside
Speaker 3: and the sunshine will give me a song like love
Speaker 3: light you know, yeah, and I write it down because
Speaker 3: that's how it told me, or the sunshine wrote the
Speaker 3: wrong way, you know, and the love light within will
Speaker 3: live on forever because like a lessie, there was a
Speaker 3: three song, three different songs that the sunshine wrote. I
Speaker 3: just like just took it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then there's other times where it's like because the
Speaker 3: way I hear overtones are very pronounced. So sometimes I
Speaker 3: say like I'm living in my own little cathedral because
Speaker 3: I hear overtones very very pronounced. So like say, if
Speaker 3: y'all was playing and I go into the next room,
Speaker 3: I might hear the whole thing transposed a fifth up
Speaker 3: because it's like, depending on the size of the room,
Speaker 3: I hear the overtones more loud, you know. So because
Speaker 3: of that, if I have a disco like I start
Speaker 3: to hear, you know, it's a melody sweller up here,
Speaker 3: the whole song come to me, and it's like I'm
Speaker 3: looking into a spoon kind of like, and the melody's there,
Speaker 3: like the song's already kind of complete. It's just taking
Speaker 3: time to like pan for the gold. Sometimes writing lyrics,
Speaker 3: it's something that happens in real time, and I just
Speaker 3: hyper zumem into each moment. I hypersume into each pulse
Speaker 3: of each moment, and time flows down and I'm in
Speaker 3: the booth already, and that's how the record is.
Speaker 1: We now live in the age of the iPhone, which
Speaker 1: I guess you can go to voice memo and hum
Speaker 1: an idea, and you know, I hate doing that process
Speaker 1: because you hear the entire arrangement outline, keyboard line and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and then when I revisited three weeks later,
Speaker 1: it's nothing. It's like it's like wait a minute, I knew,
Speaker 1: So how do you channel it from space to your
Speaker 1: chakra to your mouth to tape? Like how do you
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 3: It's really interesting, right, because that is the question. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I think being a sound designer helps me
Speaker 3: very much in that gotch because then I can start
Speaker 3: to trace the environment that it's coming from. You know.
Speaker 3: Now I'm just dealing with sound waves and stuff. So
Speaker 3: like people don't know, but like you know, black Men,
Speaker 3: I'm going off of O lesson because it's like the
Speaker 3: twentieth year anniversary, right, so it's like like black Men,
Speaker 3: I did that in garage band.
Speaker 2: You know, like you told me that and I didn't believe.
Speaker 3: Yes, But the dealing is that I'm like the mod
Speaker 3: wheels and I'm going to make it sound like what
Speaker 3: it is that's going like this. I'm doing all the things.
Speaker 3: I'm turning all the knobs, doing all that I can
Speaker 3: so that it is echoing what I am hearing, you know,
Speaker 3: So sound design helps a lot for me to take
Speaker 3: a snapshot of a atmosphere.
Speaker 2: You know black Man's on the second album, right, the Fragments.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, yeah yeah. So it's like that's
Speaker 3: like sound design. You know, sound design is amazing as
Speaker 3: a compositional tool because you know the way a signal
Speaker 3: enters the room. So that's the beginning of the song.
Speaker 3: Like it's a fractal image of what a song is
Speaker 3: going to do as a whole. So it's like it's
Speaker 3: the little blocks of these things. It's the letters that
Speaker 3: make the words, that make the sentence. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 3: like if you see it in that kind of way,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll do that first. So sometimes I hear
Speaker 3: the baseline, I hear everything, but I know if I
Speaker 3: lose the sauce that all of it's suspended in, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna lose it. So I go for the sauce that
Speaker 3: it's all suspended in. First, the setting, I think about,
Speaker 3: like where is it? Is it in a force? Is
Speaker 3: this a forest? What is this? I keep asking questions
Speaker 3: of the song that's there, and then I'm like, definitely
Speaker 3: by Aluminescent forests.
Speaker 1: Are you able to answer your question?
Speaker 3: I know that's wild, but it's dude.
Speaker 1: I'm near a diversity, so I totally. But what is
Speaker 1: the percentage of you executing that to completion? And has
Speaker 1: there ever been moments where you lost it? I eat,
Speaker 1: you know, last night I had a great idea and
Speaker 1: I think I gave up midweight, Like what is in
Speaker 1: my head? I couldn't accurately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you. I'll tell you when it happens.
Speaker 3: And you know what's funny, It's the wildest thing because
Speaker 3: I usually my best kept secret is that I know
Speaker 3: how to read music. I don't want nobody to know.
Speaker 3: I want people to treat me like I can't read.
Speaker 3: Treat me like the niggas think Dianoni because it's racist,
Speaker 3: because like, well, no, it's not that. Well. This is
Speaker 3: my thing is if say, y'all read invented written music?
Speaker 3: Right the Ethiopian monk, He invented the systems of writing
Speaker 3: for music. It comes from Africa, right this brother? Like
Speaker 3: you know the mesmer is like it sets the tone
Speaker 3: for medieval music as we know it. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. The way that one note we'll go to
Speaker 3: another had something to do with the group that was
Speaker 3: going to perform it. It had. It was a more
Speaker 3: dynamic notation, so that it was a better like let's
Speaker 3: stick a pin in this, and then we get here
Speaker 3: when we're ready, and then we get here when we're ready,
Speaker 3: and this is where the tone is going to shift
Speaker 3: into this and all this kind of stuff. But at
Speaker 3: the rate of agreement. I think now people think that
Speaker 3: they can write themselves to a beautiful place, and I
Speaker 3: don't think this too. So you got to learn it
Speaker 3: the way I did it. You know. I remember when
Speaker 3: I go, like for piano lessons and stuff, and I
Speaker 3: look at the music, but then I look at her hands.
Speaker 3: I go like, that's not on there. What you're doing
Speaker 3: with your hands is not on there. I learned it.
Speaker 3: I said, that's not on there. And so it wasn't
Speaker 3: until I learned about MIDI with the one twenty seven
Speaker 3: of the velocity and things like that, I was like,
Speaker 3: now that's on there. Like when I look at a
Speaker 3: piano roll, I like, it's on there, you know, Like
Speaker 3: how did you play each note? Like I understand where
Speaker 3: the note's supposed to be. I understand where it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Rhythmically, but how I was going to say, I almost
Speaker 1: feel like your father kind of well, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: he invented middy, but I mean to incorporate these things.
Speaker 1: That's basically yeah, it's basically many and so so it's
Speaker 1: like those kinds of things, those messages.
Speaker 3: When I learned those messages, I felt free to like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is I need to explore it is more. And
Speaker 3: so I use the NPC as a mini production center
Speaker 3: for real. So like I feel like, you know, I
Speaker 3: love that because now I can record, like how it's
Speaker 3: coming to me, I can record all those messages. When
Speaker 3: I forget a song, it's because I've tried to write
Speaker 3: a chart.
Speaker 1: Ah, So the second you start, you're ama, dais process
Speaker 1: of writing it, That's.
Speaker 2: When you lose it.
Speaker 3: It just don't. It doesn't work that way. It does
Speaker 3: not work that way. It's like slash chord. At the
Speaker 3: slash chord, I'm here, I'm here today there, and I'm
Speaker 3: doing it and it's like, yeah, but there's another piece
Speaker 3: of information that is not there that I feel like
Speaker 3: I freeze it, like I feel like somehow it gets cryogenic,
Speaker 3: it gets so cold and ice. Yes, I just That's
Speaker 3: the way I lose songs is when I write them,
Speaker 3: Like when I write them down, it's better that I
Speaker 3: complete them and then I can write them.
Speaker 2: I feel like they come back to you eventually, I mean.
Speaker 3: I hope. So I got so many songs I finished.
Speaker 3: I don't have to be stingy. Some of them can
Speaker 3: go back to the wind, you know, like I don't
Speaker 3: have to.
Speaker 2: I'll take them them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: So here's a question.
Speaker 3: What is.
Speaker 2: Or who is your longest friendship?
Speaker 3: Who my longest friendship? Yes, it had to mean Ego Nebula, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Ego Nebula? Who is who is the incredible MC with
Speaker 3: Rog's African Space program? Yes, but I know her as
Speaker 3: more like a jewels. We've been tight since I was fifteen,
Speaker 3: you know, and we're still like the same level of
Speaker 3: friendship that we are today. But there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people I'm meeting, like like day one isseris there coming
Speaker 3: back in which I'm happy to see them too. But
Speaker 3: as far as like consistent friendship all the way through it,
Speaker 3: it's Malaika. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We have a record called Cosmic Headphones that's really wild,
Speaker 3: Like if you like km D like that record, it's like, Wow.
Speaker 1: I believe that I probably have listened to every one
Speaker 1: of your projects at least five to ten times each.
Speaker 1: So dude, I look, we met once when you first,
Speaker 1: like before you got a record deal, and I tried
Speaker 1: not to scare you with my fandom. So you know, yes,
Speaker 1: I know that could be overwhelming to be like, okay, stranger,
Speaker 1: get out of the way.
Speaker 2: But I mean, like, I know, you know what.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time, it'd be like it's funny
Speaker 3: because I don't find out till later on, you know.
Speaker 3: But it's a positive thing for me because somehow it's
Speaker 3: like I don't know, it's I love y'all, you know.
Speaker 3: And when I hear the stuff that you guys do,
Speaker 3: I like when I hear you know, catch's ill fifth dynamite.
Speaker 3: When I hear that, I'm like, they know, Like for me,
Speaker 3: it hits me in a whole other place because of
Speaker 3: that's my first language. I hear that, you know or
Speaker 3: like or that scat and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, there's so many different there's so many
Speaker 3: different records that I just like, wow, you know that
Speaker 3: they have painted the backdrop, you know, honestly, you know,
Speaker 3: what I mean. And I think the other thing I
Speaker 3: loved so much was I love the Due operas. I'm
Speaker 3: a fellow Due opera too, you know, no matter how
Speaker 3: avant garde things get on my end, I'm still still
Speaker 3: very much a Due opera you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have something to ask about your vocal style. Okay,
Speaker 2: and this is.
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So when I first got the demo, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I played it all of the usual suspects, and when
Speaker 1: I played it for d he got real quiet, and
Speaker 1: he was like, she wants some ship.
Speaker 2: So this is what I have to ask you because
Speaker 2: I know, Wow, that's real deep. That's really deep.
Speaker 1: That's deep. He has the gift of analyzing who you
Speaker 1: are as an artist based on your your vocal textures.
Speaker 1: These kind of parallel thing with Marvin Gaye is the
Speaker 1: fact that both these artists and this is something I
Speaker 1: noticed with your your music is and when you explained
Speaker 1: public enemy being in your life at the age of.
Speaker 2: Five, I was like, that's where the dinsness.
Speaker 1: Even though you're using all of these like h light
Speaker 1: colors to paint, and the thing is you have you
Speaker 1: have different genres like uh, I won't say Dandira, but
Speaker 1: I'll probably say like vocally, like what you do on
Speaker 1: the Seeds album whatever. But it's so much texture that
Speaker 1: I actually feel as though there's comfort in hiding behind
Speaker 1: it because there's so much going on that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to concentrate on your face and but you're you're you're
Speaker 1: throwing all these things at me.
Speaker 3: Do you everywhere in one time? Well?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it's either being omni pressent or it's also
Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 2: So this is what I'll ask you.
Speaker 1: All right, So I don't know if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: this method, but the Danish have invented this filmmaking style
Speaker 1: called Dogma ninety five, which is basically it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of limitations. It's like a challenge to each other, like
Speaker 1: you could only use natural light, you can't score it,
Speaker 1: like there's there's there's like fifty rules, and they all
Speaker 1: challenged each other to try to make movies with very
Speaker 1: limited resources, like you can't use a cry so for you, like,
Speaker 1: have you ever tried considering like the opposite of what
Speaker 1: you do, like a straight up I mean, I forget
Speaker 1: what the disco record that you did?
Speaker 3: Okay, the opposite of what I do. You're gonna have
Speaker 3: to really walk me through that, like, well, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, because you do everything. You do everything.
Speaker 3: I'm saying like, I feel like this Harriet Tubman record
Speaker 3: is like definitely a different a different zone, but but
Speaker 3: I feel like it is I feel you know what,
Speaker 3: you know what opposite of what I do. I feel
Speaker 3: like that got nominated for sure, like with the exercise
Speaker 3: and Restraint and like Overload, I feel like Overload was
Speaker 3: definitely like and you know, so wild. It was like
Speaker 3: I did Overload was actually a joke. It was like
Speaker 3: how fast can I ride it? Like a cut like this,
Speaker 3: like just live in a cliche?
Speaker 2: All right, here's the thing about Overload.
Speaker 1: Were you shocked that of all your work, that that's
Speaker 1: the one that like got nominated for Grammy And like
Speaker 1: what was your.
Speaker 2: Reaction to that?
Speaker 3: I was like that stuff had me laughing because I
Speaker 3: was like, don't like there was some songs like like
Speaker 3: Canadian Hill really. I called it Canadian Hill really because
Speaker 3: I'm like, how do I make a Drake song? Like
Speaker 3: the song as long as it takes to play twice,
Speaker 3: That's how long it took to make it like that?
Speaker 3: On that is I think the thing I'm most impressed
Speaker 3: with with that song is how I have a synthesizer
Speaker 3: with the symbols, like like if that's all built in,
Speaker 3: Like that's my pride of that. But for me, those
Speaker 3: kind of lyrics, for me, I feel like a definite
Speaker 3: I'm also doing my personal growth with that, right, Like
Speaker 3: what if a very successful musical life has something to
Speaker 3: do with you not thinking much at all?
Speaker 2: The Bobby farn method.
Speaker 3: Right, But but but then there's this other side. Right
Speaker 3: if before I could afford therapy, this was my personal
Speaker 3: growth gym, and this is my shit, and I'm a
Speaker 3: ship junkie, and I want to see how fast I
Speaker 3: can step in easily step into another world. This is
Speaker 3: my this is my time machine, my spaceship, you know,
Speaker 3: my musicianship is like places. It's something I used to travel,
Speaker 3: like a literal vehicle through time space. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 3: like when it's all of those things you start bringing
Speaker 3: into account and not to get heavy in like two seconds, right,
Speaker 3: but like you, but you get in you bring into
Speaker 3: account your friends who have overdosed because they couldn't be
Speaker 3: themselves in their music, so they had to go and
Speaker 3: textra curricular things so that they could experience the thrill
Speaker 3: of walking on that knife edge on stage, so they
Speaker 3: could experience certain things. So I feel like some of
Speaker 3: the sacrifices I have made have contributed to my life quality.
Speaker 3: I didn't have to go do coke to do things.
Speaker 3: I could just say, Okay, today's set list is trust God.
Speaker 3: And then also I can get the data. I can
Speaker 3: see where people can be blocked up and like you
Speaker 3: know somebody who say, oh, this person is killing But
Speaker 3: it's like, trust God, and then by the end of
Speaker 3: the game you had you would have worked through something.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's like those kind of things. I
Speaker 3: don't have to do no cocaine, because I'm already like feeling.
Speaker 2: Like you're channeling.
Speaker 3: If the gig camp, if the gig cake one hundred
Speaker 3: percent completely fail at any second, I'm not having fun.
Speaker 3: Like it's the reason you want.
Speaker 2: To you want to be a daredevil?
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you scaring me? I'm in a place now,
Speaker 1: and I think this is where I am in my
Speaker 1: fifties where let me let me explain something to you.
Speaker 1: One time I asked George Clinton about first meeting Prince
Speaker 1: and he joked. He says, man, I never met a
Speaker 1: cat like so intense on rehearsing his spontaneity. He's like,
Speaker 1: Prince is the only cat I know that rehearses his spontaneity.
Speaker 1: And I had to think about that, and for me,
Speaker 1: I do find there is a comfort that I find
Speaker 1: when it's so tightly like the wheel is so tightly operational,
Speaker 1: that I don't have to think about it and I
Speaker 1: actually have I have fun and relax because I know
Speaker 1: the machine is going to work. But then will come
Speaker 1: a moment where I remember once and I know the
Speaker 1: only reason why I tell this story is because I'm
Speaker 1: so embarrassed of how I acted one time, Glasper. After
Speaker 1: years and years and years of my schedule not working out,
Speaker 1: I finally agreed. I said, Okay, I'm gonna do your
Speaker 1: October thing. I'm a jam with you. And you know
Speaker 1: again I got on my McFerrin thing. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, so when we rehearse, what are the setlist?
Speaker 2: What can I study?
Speaker 3: And you know, he's like, NA, like, right, well.
Speaker 1: We made a plan and initially we were going to
Speaker 1: do something that we did like a month before. It's
Speaker 1: like cool, I know that, and then maybe like four
Speaker 1: days before I hit him up. I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: so what's the deal. And he's like, oh no, no, Instead,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this, that, this that, and this that,
Speaker 1: and the way that I panicked.
Speaker 3: And everybody got different ways that that they hooked up.
Speaker 3: Like sometimes to be prepared is like that. That is that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like everybody has different ways. If they know what they're
Speaker 3: walking into, then they're not going to be like just
Speaker 3: embattled with a panic attack. Like that's just real, man,
Speaker 3: It's a different But the.
Speaker 1: Reason why I was angry at it because it's like, damn,
Speaker 1: I'm petrified. I don't want to let him know I'm
Speaker 1: petrified because then he'll go back and be like, hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: Chris Love was petrified and he want rehearse and you know,
Speaker 1: and I was angry because glasper forced me to the
Speaker 1: place where I should be, which is season of day,
Speaker 1: ready for a new challenge.
Speaker 2: And what you said is correct.
Speaker 1: If you're just in a place where it's well rehearsed
Speaker 1: and runs like a machine, that's not where you are
Speaker 1: you want. You want to be in a place where
Speaker 1: it's like you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know it's Swallo, though, I think it's
Speaker 3: wild because if I'm playing a song that i've current
Speaker 3: like that wrote prior, right, it's never like what cored
Speaker 3: is this? I'm thinking about the system behind everything, Like
Speaker 3: every song has a system of its own, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's how I can remember what my right hand's
Speaker 3: doing with my with my left hand, you know, and
Speaker 3: like its systems. So like what I find is I
Speaker 3: think the a one like the sweeting spot between these
Speaker 3: two different philosophies, right, is if there's this over it's
Speaker 3: understanding of who you're playing with, like an understanding of Okay,
Speaker 3: this is the harmonic ranges that everybody's in. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. I know you're gonna be in this range.
Speaker 3: I know you're gonna be in this range, and then
Speaker 3: you can take your liberties within different ranges. But it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, to know what the expectations are, but that
Speaker 3: you're free. If you get struck with Holy Gooes, then
Speaker 3: you can like like let that out, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. As opposed to it's so rigid and it's
Speaker 3: so on a train track that it wouldn't matter if
Speaker 3: you were just playing a tape and everybody was fake playing.
Speaker 3: That's got to be crazy. Like, you know, there's technology
Speaker 3: that solves for some of these things that have caused
Speaker 3: a certain amount of of problems off of the stage,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yes, so if you're not gelling with your collaborators.
Speaker 3: The musicians are playing your work. I'm saying from a
Speaker 3: composer's point of view, right, because I mostly identify, like
Speaker 3: when I think about instrumentation, I mostly identify as a composer.
Speaker 3: I think, like through all of it, through and through,
Speaker 3: I mostly identify as a composer, you know, as a composer. Right,
Speaker 3: I've done the song as the producer, I did the
Speaker 3: record right, Yes, Basically I went through so much trouble,
Speaker 3: Like when I did the work, nothing is I had
Speaker 3: to wait for people to be able to play it,
Speaker 3: like because Uncle Doogle wasn't around the corner like he could,
Speaker 3: like I didn't have like he wasn't right around the corner.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she's playing the gym based stuff. I know.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she's doing that. She's doing that. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: I know. This is you know, so like the kind
Speaker 3: of musicianship that I needed, like from such an early age.
Speaker 3: It took a while for people to rehearse it. But
Speaker 3: then I could go to like Soul Village, Eric Rovers
Speaker 3: and Soul Village and like s Obs, you know, and
Speaker 3: then there'd be Daniel Jones there rest in peace, you know,
Speaker 3: my beautiful Like we were very much like twinsis like
Speaker 3: that was my other Like like we'd be very much
Speaker 3: you know. He had such rock and roll jams songs
Speaker 3: in like fifteen rock and rock and roll songs in
Speaker 3: fifteen and just punk funking odd meters and like we
Speaker 3: be and I'll be like, Okay, I'm gonna write to that.
Speaker 3: I want to write to that Daniel, you know. But
Speaker 3: like now I think about it like that they do
Speaker 3: not hear no more, you know, like because and I'm
Speaker 3: saying it wrong because it's like, yes, this fool was
Speaker 3: like I'm a Dais Mozart when it comes down to
Speaker 3: making arrangements for Janet Jackson, like everything's gonna hit, this
Speaker 3: is hitting now, this is it? I mean, and he
Speaker 3: could do that ship in fifteen minutes. Yes, I just
Speaker 3: this is my thing. Quiz It's like it you can
Speaker 3: do that in fifteen minutes. I want to know what
Speaker 3: you sound like when nobody's telling you what to do.
Speaker 3: What do you sound like when you're just like unbridled
Speaker 3: unhands Like, what does that sound like?
Speaker 1: You know you've had so many collaborators. What is the
Speaker 1: choice of knowing? You know your Kendrick Spirits? How do
Speaker 1: you choose collaborators? How do you know if a person's
Speaker 1: gonna work as opposed to like we're five of like
Speaker 1: my go to I know I'm gonna have some shit
Speaker 1: with these collaborators.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't you know. I love collaborate. I
Speaker 3: just love collaboration so much. It's like I love it
Speaker 3: because I get a chance to just enjoy it. I
Speaker 3: don't have to carry all the weight. It's not just
Speaker 3: my job by myself, you know, to do everything. I love.
Speaker 3: Let me see my top five collaborators because sometimes collaborating
Speaker 3: be remote though I still have to like turn in
Speaker 3: something from where I'm at. But I think from being
Speaker 3: in the studio with Michelle and Degiell Cello's definitely like
Speaker 3: mmm her as a producer, it's like a dream.
Speaker 1: What is she like?
Speaker 2: She's so quiet when we talk.
Speaker 3: She got I felt like I was talking to myself.
Speaker 1: It was weird.
Speaker 3: It was weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I she'll loosen up sometimes, but look like I
Speaker 1: get shy Michelle. I get very quiet, very reserved Michelle,
Speaker 1: and I want to know what she's like when she's
Speaker 1: running the ship.
Speaker 3: But it's so cool, you know, it's so cool. You
Speaker 3: feel taken care of, man like because she's her ears
Speaker 3: are like impeccable. It's just really refreshing when you have
Speaker 3: a producer that doesn't use the term vibe as a cliche.
Speaker 3: They're using the term vibe because they're a satellite that
Speaker 3: she understand me, like they're getting radio waves, you know,
Speaker 3: you know they hear radio Wait, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You know, some people say vibe and it's just like
Speaker 3: nondescripted and it's like falling apart and they're like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. Like Michelle is like there's a hand on
Speaker 3: the hip, there's a hand out here, and she's listening
Speaker 3: and the hands out there, and then she'll ask God,
Speaker 3: like why that child sounds so old? She's like she's
Speaker 3: talking about Jermaine Paul, like why Jamaine sound like an
Speaker 3: old man? But it's while she's producing, and it's just
Speaker 3: like to be there, like hearing her listening, I think,
Speaker 3: is like that's an honor that that was an honor
Speaker 3: just as a fellow producer to see her producer. Like
Speaker 3: she's like, I got I've been a fan of her
Speaker 3: work so I was ten years old. Like she's like
Speaker 3: I'm swimming her water, Like are you serious? Like that's crazy. So, like,
Speaker 3: you know, Michelle is definitely a highlight with I think, well.
Speaker 1: Wait, let me ask you who is who's the collaboration
Speaker 1: that was the most challenging. And I'm not saying your
Speaker 1: least favorite. I'm not saying the one that you didn't
Speaker 1: vibe with.
Speaker 3: No, you're talking about the one that say, can you
Speaker 3: try that take again? Like I think you can get
Speaker 3: it better?
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? Or just some does something
Speaker 1: a little different than how you would normally do it,
Speaker 1: But you're you know, who's a challenging collaborator?
Speaker 2: Who challenges you?
Speaker 3: I feel like the challenging collaborator would probably be I'd
Speaker 3: have to say Keith Rice from Little Black Kids, because
Speaker 3: like he's the one that would be like, I think
Speaker 3: you can get that take a little bit better, And
Speaker 3: I said I think I can too, you know, instead
Speaker 3: of like somebody's going like okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nope, Nope,
Speaker 3: that's it. That's it just in comparison to other people,
Speaker 3: because I have a different sound, you know, but somebody
Speaker 3: who could hear intil it's down and be like, now
Speaker 3: let's get that one more time. I let's see who
Speaker 3: else is like the challenge to collaborate. I think because
Speaker 3: everything he's doing what was very intentional. I'd say Adrian
Speaker 3: Young because of all of the of all the equipment
Speaker 3: that's rolling. Then he wants to videotape everything, and then
Speaker 3: he has like he's cleaning while he cooks, like in
Speaker 3: a multi media expressive.
Speaker 2: I've worked with him before. Yeah, that's definitely Adrian.
Speaker 3: He's very particular about this chord and he's very going
Speaker 3: in and I you know, I think it's very whimsical.
Speaker 3: I think because he's like that, it makes the experience
Speaker 3: like even more whimsical.
Speaker 1: Got you. I love all your projects. He is probably
Speaker 1: my favorite.
Speaker 3: What is.
Speaker 2: What was the most fun album to make?
Speaker 3: The most fun album to make has been Jo t
Speaker 3: Oko Taya. It was the first time where I was
Speaker 3: just like, you know what, you know, because there was
Speaker 3: other influen We're gonna say, other voices in the sauce
Speaker 3: saying like no experimental music. Oh and I'm going like,
Speaker 3: but I'm raised by experimental people. Yeah. The first the
Speaker 3: first one, ok Taya, it was fun because it was
Speaker 3: this unbridling thing where I'm just like, nah, I think
Speaker 3: I'm going to just turn the feedback up on that.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I think I'm gonna just turn this. I
Speaker 3: want the feedback to just hang out on this little
Speaker 3: stereo delay.
Speaker 1: Nah.
Speaker 3: I think I wanted to be everywhere. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: I want to just drag this snare through this like
Speaker 3: through like maybe probably eighteen bars and see what happened. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And Oktaya was the moment where because I first started
Speaker 3: out on like the vsaad e X, like the digital
Speaker 3: the digital recorders, you know where you could burn a
Speaker 3: TD on there. So I'm like this weird hybrid eyz.
Speaker 3: Like the technology I had was very like when they
Speaker 3: had this term semipro, you know, but I think.
Speaker 2: Everyone uses when I asked them, like, what's your weapon
Speaker 2: of choice?
Speaker 1: Like what are you using? And I see what they
Speaker 1: work with the best people work on the most limiting
Speaker 1: kind of Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think like Okota was like I took
Speaker 3: myself like, yeah, I'll show you like but for Okotaya,
Speaker 3: it was just like just to finish. The thought was
Speaker 3: like it was the time where I just press record, gotcha,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yo, I'm just checking. I'm just checking out,
Speaker 3: and like I turned everything on for every noad just
Speaker 3: record everything. I'm turning just record. And I had so
Speaker 3: much fun because I never knew that after I did it,
Speaker 3: you know, and I brought that into like all the
Speaker 3: music I would do after. It's like nah, like automation
Speaker 3: is like, you know, taking a bigger role, you know,
Speaker 3: and like returning it as like a real important quality
Speaker 3: instead of just like I need to bang and be
Speaker 3: you know, like doing record hello, record for MC's you know.
Speaker 1: Which record of yours you kind of see as a
Speaker 1: redheaded step child. Like I loved making my very first record,
Speaker 1: but I don't listen to it because we sound like amateurs.
Speaker 3: But like, for you, what album is that for the
Speaker 3: longest time, it was my first one for the longest song,
Speaker 3: the longest time, because yeah, because like my first record,
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about words nothing, I'm talking about my
Speaker 3: first record, the one that the demo, yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 3: one that you listened to though, the demo one that
Speaker 3: was the one that Venus Brown heard that and he
Speaker 3: wanted to clean it up. He was like, Okay, let's
Speaker 3: polish this. Oh yeah, it was a little all famous performance. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but what ended up getting released was the one from
Speaker 3: the VS A eighty e X, which is just me
Speaker 3: singing off key like you know. And so because of that,
Speaker 3: because I'm such a shit junkie, because like a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't know, like I really have like an
Speaker 3: instrumental approach to my vocalizations and stuff, like I really do,
Speaker 3: you know, So it'll just be like ah. But then
Speaker 3: like I think, now I could appreciate it, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like, now I could appreciate it after
Speaker 3: all this time, be like, wow, at least I had
Speaker 3: the gut to sing my reparations, Like at least that's there.
Speaker 3: But I think also I think definitely another Step Child
Speaker 3: record at EP would definitely be Sogala Patti Bling Sgala
Speaker 3: because it's such a regional record, Like it's like when
Speaker 3: I go to d C, the black people know that
Speaker 3: Patti Bling records, so like it's so weird, like it's DC.
Speaker 3: It's like like Washington DC, Black DC, very very different
Speaker 3: vibrated with that with that record, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe because I call Laren Bush an apathetic hole, like
Speaker 3: I don't know why. But on the other side, it's
Speaker 3: like it wasn't like the conversation that you hear a
Speaker 3: lot now where it's like, oh, turnative black people. Oh
Speaker 3: you know, it's just like I'm just tuning into my
Speaker 3: punk funk. I got my punk funk on and I'm
Speaker 3: just going for whatever it is. I'm like smoking like
Speaker 3: so much weed, you know, I'm just making a record,
Speaker 3: you know. So I think that's I think that's really
Speaker 3: the Redheaded step Child, not in the sense that I
Speaker 3: don't like it, but in the sense that it's just
Speaker 3: like it's a strange like, yeah, it's super strange. But
Speaker 3: I think I think but for the longest time, like
Speaker 3: the one that you're talking about, like the one where
Speaker 3: you feel like it's almost a thrown in your side,
Speaker 3: like what in the world it was? It was that
Speaker 3: early album cause it's just like but then I had
Speaker 3: to give myself credit, that's what I'm talking about. That
Speaker 3: was the record because it was my first thing I
Speaker 3: ever made, So it was just like, but that's the song.
Speaker 3: But that's the records that most everybody everybody loved the record,
Speaker 3: but for me, I just felt like I sound so inexperienced,
Speaker 3: and I felt so, you know, all these different things,
Speaker 3: you know, So yeah, I mean, in that interesting. But
Speaker 3: now I can appreciate it because I'm like, dude, I
Speaker 3: was a child. My brain wasn't even done developing when
Speaker 3: I made that record. You know, I wasn't even twenty
Speaker 3: years old. I wasn't even like I was. I was
Speaker 3: a teenager making that record.
Speaker 1: So it's like, all right, So one of my least
Speaker 1: favorite Prince records was Diamonds and Borrels, right, Diamonds and Pearoles.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay was and then like you know, like, well.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, and Prince fans get angry when I
Speaker 1: say this. So between seventy eight and eighty eight, Prince
Speaker 1: recorded in a very like, uh kind of it's a
Speaker 1: method that's it's mostly like it's it sounds demoi like
Speaker 1: he recorded in his bedroom. He recorded in a warehouse
Speaker 1: with no padding at all. So Princess sound. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the thing is is that Diamonds and Pearls suddenly was
Speaker 1: this elegant, pretty sounding record.
Speaker 3: That also you felt like it was less pump, it
Speaker 3: had less punk punk values.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing, though, I maintained that for the
Speaker 1: thirty plus years it was out, and then two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing is is that the fact that
Speaker 1: we can carry our entire record collection inside this phone.
Speaker 3: Is that's so great.
Speaker 1: And so the thing is is that he released a
Speaker 1: five hour box set of Diamonds and Pearls with like
Speaker 1: outtakes and remixes and a live show, and and I
Speaker 1: had it was one of them days where it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a snowstorm or whatever, and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, you know what, I'm gonna sit
Speaker 1: here and listen to this five hour record. And when
Speaker 1: I listened to the outtakes, right, but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When I listened to the outtakes, I realized that he
Speaker 1: demoed the album first, and then he went in the
Speaker 1: studio and did the pretty professional adult contemporary record.
Speaker 2: But man, those demos.
Speaker 3: Do you like their demo? Did you like the demo?
Speaker 1: I made a fourteen song compilation of outtakes that would
Speaker 1: have probably been my top five prints record because it's.
Speaker 3: Man, it made that much of a difference, exactly.
Speaker 1: And we get embarrassed by the blemishes and the not
Speaker 1: readiness of a record. But I now I now understand
Speaker 1: why it's important to keep the blemishes in the spots
Speaker 1: and where you're green.
Speaker 2: And that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I definitely want to talk Harry Tubman now. I mean
Speaker 1: to me, it's not lost on me that Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: represents freedom and Liberation's something that I know that you
Speaker 1: are experiencing in various ways in your life, your entire
Speaker 1: life as a restart, as a redo and whatnot. So
Speaker 1: talk about just talk about the genesis and the seeds
Speaker 1: of how this album came to be and.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's my dream gig. Actually this is
Speaker 3: like actually if it's like you know, you know, when
Speaker 3: like most Death had director when he had the band
Speaker 3: with like it was it was like Bernie Waring Doug
Speaker 3: went with like all of the sugar Hill realness, what
Speaker 3: like Jack Johnson. It was all of that all Sugarhill
Speaker 3: wish with Bernie Warril. And that's how I feel like
Speaker 3: as far as working with Harriet Tubman, because like God
Speaker 3: led me to this band. I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: and I just went out. I went out because I
Speaker 3: just had to. Yeah, and it's like make a left
Speaker 3: hand ter, make a right hand tern. I ended up
Speaker 3: at this place that it was like they had a
Speaker 3: lot of this is place called Galavagos. It's not there,
Speaker 3: not no more. But basically I happened upon the spot
Speaker 3: like I let myself be led to this sign on
Speaker 3: the sidewalk that says Harriet Tubman playing now. And I
Speaker 3: was like what I was like twenty years old. I
Speaker 3: go in there. I had just finished like worth nothings
Speaker 3: and all this, like like I'm myfulilosophies all the way
Speaker 3: together at this point. It's like it's all the way together.
Speaker 3: And I hear these cats that like live there, like
Speaker 3: they live there. I'm like they understand what it is
Speaker 3: I'm doing. I'm like, oh, I understand them. I'm one
Speaker 3: of them. And I remember being there and getting againnes
Speaker 3: stout for dinner and like tripping out like they had
Speaker 3: a month residency, and I went every day like I
Speaker 3: went every week that they were playing, because it felt
Speaker 3: like this alternative if there was a jew joint for
Speaker 3: somebody like me, this would be the Blues that would
Speaker 3: be playing on stage.
Speaker 2: Where can I find this.
Speaker 3: Harriet Tubman? You better do the knowledge. The terror end
Speaker 3: of Beauty is an incredible record. I mean they've been
Speaker 3: jamming since ninety eight, Like Melvin gives the bass players
Speaker 3: one of the founding members of the Black Rock Coalition.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean JT's liminal thrash Monster. I mean, as a drummer
Speaker 3: is one of the most genius drummers I've ever heard
Speaker 3: in my life as far as like being able to
Speaker 3: play not not much up above a hush and all
Speaker 3: this shit man like like like tumbling, like it's almost
Speaker 3: like a ninja that's like can hop on like the
Speaker 3: roof and you don't hear him land. You know. It's
Speaker 3: like these cats is musical ninjas, you know. And I've
Speaker 3: been a fan of them since I was twenty years old,
Speaker 3: like so like to be forty two. This is the
Speaker 3: dream gig. And so what happened is that we had
Speaker 3: both had the same booking agent. I was playing at
Speaker 3: the Detroit Jazz Festival and Maurice, the booking agent, was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Harriet Tubman's gonna be playing there too, and
Speaker 3: I represent them as well, and uh, what do you
Speaker 3: think about playing with her? I said, you don't know
Speaker 3: about Harriet Tully too st to know about some harrytails,
Speaker 3: like what youre talking about, but don't talk about my
Speaker 3: don't talk about my band. You don't know about Harry
Speaker 3: telling you know what you know about. No, I'll have
Speaker 3: them call it, you know. And so I was like,
Speaker 3: He's like, would you want them to? Because He's like,
Speaker 3: you're already because during the time where I'm like politically
Speaker 3: digging in, like as far as like music as our language,
Speaker 3: you know that we can have accents like you know,
Speaker 3: And I'm going like, I'm playing in the moment because
Speaker 3: coming out of the pandemic, I wanted a place for
Speaker 3: musicians to be able to acknowledge that we can't move forward.
Speaker 3: I wanted so I used my band staying as a
Speaker 3: place for advocacy for musicianship. So I was like, we're
Speaker 3: playing in the moment.
Speaker 2: What did you do?
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty was the year where I probably played drums
Speaker 1: the least. Was the year that I've I've never not
Speaker 1: been on a stage, like eight months in a row
Speaker 1: and not had a show, not been on a stage,
Speaker 1: not seeing an audience eight months.
Speaker 2: What did you do during the pandemic?
Speaker 3: I put out a record that was wild and it
Speaker 3: did well. I put out a record during the pandemic
Speaker 3: that that's wild, but I did, yeah, and it was
Speaker 3: called Momy. You can bet it's like my favorite record
Speaker 3: I made. It's my favorite one, you know, because it's
Speaker 3: like where Jot goes completely like vocal, Like there's vocal
Speaker 3: jams like you know.
Speaker 1: But so creativity didn't wane or change much in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: like and I mean, like what did you do? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you've released records, but like for you, was
Speaker 1: creativity or just how you channeled different than it?
Speaker 3: I mean, I definitely it allowed me to rest a
Speaker 3: lot more because I have been working, and you know,
Speaker 3: when you worked so hard, I've been worked so hard
Speaker 3: for so long. I was able to really key back
Speaker 3: into like getting spiritually buffed, like you know, having meditate
Speaker 3: elongated meditation time and understanding the benefit of you know,
Speaker 3: spiritual spiritual activities you know, like things that help you
Speaker 3: to evolve, you know, breathing and meditation and prayer and
Speaker 3: you know, journaling and understand why what am I doing
Speaker 3: this for?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: You know, you get a chance to like take personal
Speaker 3: inventory and I feel like as I did that, I
Speaker 3: became very much magnetic, even like magnetizing certain songs at
Speaker 3: that time where social media really had like a height.
Speaker 3: I think it was a balloon that was growing, like
Speaker 3: I think it balloon during the pandemic because it was
Speaker 3: something still like so much real about it as far
Speaker 3: as like I could put out a song to help
Speaker 3: people feel good about themselves, or like putting out songs
Speaker 3: would be like just something that loops around and like
Speaker 3: help people to stay in a positive state of mind.
Speaker 2: You know, how do you deal with stress or what's
Speaker 2: your self cared routine?
Speaker 3: Well, God told me something about stress. And what God
Speaker 3: told me was that stresses. This is literally the veneration
Speaker 3: of a strange God. You know, before people start to
Speaker 3: like judge other people right, like to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, yo, Jesus, don't look like he the Beg's
Speaker 3: from Australia, Like before all that happens, you know, or
Speaker 3: you know Christianity, Jesus, you know all that before all
Speaker 3: of this starts happening, right, Well, the strangest God is
Speaker 3: the one that that terrifies your nervous system. The strangest
Speaker 3: God is the one that actually like raises cortisol in
Speaker 3: your in your being that you know, like the Cortisol's
Speaker 3: alarm system to say that, hey, you haven't released this.
Speaker 3: You're not trusting that life has you in the call
Speaker 3: of its hand. You you're not trusting that that you
Speaker 3: are not just your own consciousness.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we all do.
Speaker 3: God wouldn't have told me nothing if I didn't, if
Speaker 3: I didn't need to get told, He got me told.
Speaker 3: So it was just like, stress is the veneration of
Speaker 3: a strange God, the one that doesn't come through, the
Speaker 3: one that doesn't keep the promises, the one that lies
Speaker 3: to you about everything. And when it was reframed as worship,
Speaker 3: that's when I could get really tight, you know. And
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm stressing non vocally, you know, just because of
Speaker 3: my neural sauce. Sometimes sometimes my fist will just be
Speaker 3: balled up kind of and I have to like remember
Speaker 3: it go, you know, and open up and be okay,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think a lot of the time too,
Speaker 3: because I'm a helper be you know, I love to
Speaker 3: help people so much that sometimes I do it to
Speaker 3: my own self because I just want to be help.
Speaker 3: I love solutions that I hear solutions so fast that
Speaker 3: I can like, oh, oh, let's try this, let's try it. Oh,
Speaker 3: and then when the level of engagement isn't met, then
Speaker 3: a stress can can happen. So now before I do
Speaker 3: those things, I can have an idea and I know
Speaker 3: that I can write it down somewhere as a prayer,
Speaker 3: and if it comes back up to me, if somebody
Speaker 3: asks me for my help, then I can say, oh,
Speaker 3: I was thinking about this. I have this for you,
Speaker 3: instead of going like taking on everyone's problems, you know.
Speaker 3: But for me, what I do with stress is that
Speaker 3: I go outside and I do this deep bent as
Speaker 3: if like you know, a moonwalk, like you know the
Speaker 3: astronaut like when they land, I do a deep slow
Speaker 3: motion BND like I just landed back on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: And when I get back up like this, somehow the
Speaker 3: trees begin to lay hello, and I start over, and
Speaker 3: then I remember the trees are holding hand beneath my feet,
Speaker 3: you know, they're holding their hands right under my feet,
Speaker 3: and I could feel that, you know, and I could
Speaker 3: listen like when I'm stressing out, it's because I'm jumping
Speaker 3: to conclusions about every passing moment. I'm jumping to these
Speaker 3: conclusions that are poisonous, you know, instead of going like,
Speaker 3: don't jump there yet, just listen, Just listen here, let
Speaker 3: your heart beat a few more times. You're not gonna
Speaker 3: die from letting your heart beat few more times. You're
Speaker 3: gonna die from not doing that. You're not gonna die
Speaker 3: from taking one more breath before you come up with
Speaker 3: an answer. You're gonna die from not taking a breath
Speaker 3: before you come up with another answer. So it's just
Speaker 3: those kind of things, you know. And then also music.
Speaker 3: I like, I'll turn on the mog, you know, I
Speaker 3: have a grandmother mog, and I'll I'll do the win
Speaker 3: grease man. I'll get start greasing the wind man. I'll start.
Speaker 3: I turn a knob intil the part of my spine,
Speaker 3: like relax, you know, And I use my I use
Speaker 3: my discomfort as a map for what sounds gonna come
Speaker 3: up next. I'll do that. And I'll do that with
Speaker 3: one speaker on. It don't even matter. I just funk
Speaker 3: in Monel right there. And then I'm like, then keep
Speaker 3: that on, right, I've done that for other folks. There's
Speaker 3: some other folks that I was supposed to produce their record, right,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep them anonymous to protect them, you know.
Speaker 3: But like there's people that was in such a world.
Speaker 3: It wasn't about making no music. It was about hearing
Speaker 3: what the problem was, turn it on that mode Model
Speaker 3: D and recording that and they can go home with that,
Speaker 3: go play that so that you can come on back,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. You know, sometimes it just
Speaker 3: takes one tumb before it before somebody had to be
Speaker 3: working at something. It's just be like, well, take two
Speaker 3: of ease and call me in the morning for real,
Speaker 3: you know. So I've done that as a producer, like
Speaker 3: send somebody home, like just chill with that, and it'll
Speaker 3: be like, thank you so much, because it'd be like, yo,
Speaker 3: I feel like I went swimming or something, you know.
Speaker 3: And then of course I've had a lot of guinea
Speaker 3: pigs like tests on.
Speaker 1: People where do you feel it?
Speaker 3: Where do you feeling you know, like like and then
Speaker 3: when everybody's doing the same thing, you know, yeah here,
Speaker 3: you know. But the way that I answer stress is strategy.
Speaker 3: You know. Strategy helps me like mitigate stress, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's like it'll be like a whole sequence of
Speaker 3: some kind. Maybe it's me landing slow motion back on planet,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's you know, toning into my lumbard so
Speaker 3: that it loosens up. You know. Sometimes it's cooking, you know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a pot of black eyed peas. You know,
Speaker 3: you know Collin Greens, you know, make some candy ams
Speaker 3: just because just make them, you know, make some candy. Hm.
Speaker 3: That's what's wrong with you. You ain't had no home cooking,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Question what other talent do you possess that we are
Speaker 2: unaware of?
Speaker 3: What other I don't know. I don't know, because if
Speaker 3: you it depends. I think it's regional because we're on town.
Speaker 3: Like I got the best black eyed peas in town.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's just the truth. That's just the truth,
Speaker 3: you know. And if and if they taste.
Speaker 2: Good, it's the way, go ahead, finish.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, it's all right. No, I mean no,
Speaker 3: they're gonna be the best. I'm trying to tell you,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Like I think people judge
Speaker 3: because my wrists.
Speaker 1: Look like this.
Speaker 3: They'd be like, you don't be cooking. They'd be like,
Speaker 3: oh no, I don't see, No, you ain't got nothing
Speaker 3: going on right there, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 3: really do cook. I really, I actually really cook. I
Speaker 3: love to cook. I cook for the community. It's part
Speaker 3: of my spiritual path. It's like it's my spiritual It's
Speaker 3: like for me cooking as martial arts because I think
Speaker 3: one day it's gonna be a day where we love
Speaker 3: ourselves more as a people and we can value more
Speaker 3: things about how we go about stuff. When soul food
Speaker 3: can be like a whole. Like the way people teach
Speaker 3: yoga's way, they'll teach culinary arts. Like you know, everybody
Speaker 3: sit down and be like now, if you feel like
Speaker 3: yelling at somebody, you need to chill. Okay, take a breath.
Speaker 3: You know first of all that we don't want none
Speaker 3: of that in our food. That's nasty. Don't put that
Speaker 3: in our food, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But it's funny.
Speaker 3: But with the sisters, like we are like that anyway
Speaker 3: when you talk, when sisters talk to this other and
Speaker 3: be like good every day. I don't cook cookies when
Speaker 3: I got to work through it with this attitude, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, Like that kind of stuff, Like
Speaker 3: I feel like I don't know the arts and sciences
Speaker 3: where they kind of like collide is through those kinds
Speaker 3: of conversations. So I'm always very interested in that. In cooking.
Speaker 3: I love cooking I love art. I'm an avid water colorist.
Speaker 3: Our water color every day. I love it like it's
Speaker 3: I love it. I mean, I have so much art
Speaker 3: to the point where I'm gonna have to figure out
Speaker 3: storage in a second. It's I do textile, al right.
Speaker 3: I love to quach. I love to I love to paint.
Speaker 3: And one of my favorite pieces in acrylic is called
Speaker 3: Father water Malone and it's like a like five feet
Speaker 3: by three feet, you know, like I'll be painting. So
Speaker 3: I love to paint. And I feel like.
Speaker 1: Who knew?
Speaker 3: I knew because that was like the first conversation we
Speaker 3: had back in the day, my first my first conversation
Speaker 3: with but I was like, do you paint?
Speaker 1: And he was like, yeah, everybody that paints. Chuck D's
Speaker 1: one of them. George Clinton is one of them.
Speaker 2: I collect.
Speaker 3: He's a beat us a beat yo.
Speaker 1: George Chuck D and I were talking last week about uh,
Speaker 1: I believe otis Redding And as we were talking, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize he did a full blown sketch. I guess
Speaker 1: he just does that as a therapeutic thing. And to
Speaker 1: here bono from you two also the same. I want
Speaker 1: to collect some of your work this conversation could have
Speaker 1: been more timely, and I'm also kicking myself that it's
Speaker 1: taken twenty plus years for us to really talk and
Speaker 1: have this conversation. But I'm actually glad I got to
Speaker 1: witness you from demo to where you are now. You're
Speaker 1: metamorphosis and yeah, man, you're just really You're so channeled.
Speaker 2: I have hope for the future because of your creative
Speaker 2: Thank you, and I want to.
Speaker 3: Thank you doing my podcast for me, Yo, thank you,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your love of music. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for letting me know I could be
Speaker 3: expressive and be I just love how much you love music. Man.
Speaker 3: I love that, I love your I love how detail
Speaker 3: gets for you and it doesn't, you know, for me.
Speaker 3: I'm just happy that we can just see that we've
Speaker 3: been each other all along as people, that this is
Speaker 3: the time where we can draw nearer. And I'm so
Speaker 3: looking forward to all the rest of the things that
Speaker 3: you'll do to enjoy yourself even more and more all
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking forward to my play The Black Eyed Piece,
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna remind you of that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. Once again, Georgia and Mandureau.
Speaker 1: There are twenty three plus albums that you can immerse
Speaker 1: yourself in and really and I never do this. I
Speaker 1: never have to sell an artists on the show, but
Speaker 1: we owe it to ourselves to I don't know, go
Speaker 1: go high vibrational and you know, and this is what
Speaker 1: and you know again, I've never been to the person
Speaker 1: and been like hey, like and subscribe like, but I
Speaker 1: want you guys to really support, like if you're here
Speaker 1: at this point of this interview, I want you to
Speaker 1: because we don't get to hear your words and this
Speaker 1: is what you know. And I'm a doom score like
Speaker 1: the rest of them, and I shouldn't be as much.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I need to hear artists that are divinely
Speaker 1: inspired to remind me why artists are so important.
Speaker 2: And I thank you for that.
Speaker 1: And so till the next episode of People, this is
Speaker 1: the Quest Love Show and once again the Great Georgia A. M.
Speaker 1: Moldrew by all of our records, purchase, go and sound,
Speaker 1: get all of our shit.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is hosted by me Amir quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Sean G. Brian Calhoun and Me.
Speaker 4: Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart
Speaker 4: by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Connelloy. iHeart video support
Speaker 4: by Mark Canson, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Lowe.
Speaker 4: Additional support by Lance Colpan. Special thanks to Kathy Brown.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review,
Speaker 4: and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast,
Speaker 4: make sure you follow us on socials.
Speaker 1: That's at QLs. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes,
Speaker 1: including the Quest Love Supreme Shows and our podcast archives.
Speaker 1: The Quest Love Shows the production of iHeartRadio