Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: So at the end of this month May thirty, first,
Speaker 2: we have Music Soul Child celebrating twenty five years of
Speaker 2: I Just Want to Sing at the twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: Moots Picnic. We still have some tickets ability, but as
Speaker 2: you gear up for that, listen back to twenty twenty
Speaker 2: for this interview. It's two hours long and covers all
Speaker 2: the damn basis. All right, So to keep it a
Speaker 2: buck with you in the history of this podcast, you
Speaker 2: know that meme where people are just they look each
Speaker 2: other in the eye and you already know, like, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell y'all of all the episodes of Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme, if one of them embodies the meme brugh bruh,
Speaker 2: then it's the Music Soul Child episode.
Speaker 1: That's all we can say.
Speaker 2: Anytime we mentioned the Music Soul Child, oh music was
Speaker 2: on the q LS. Fante will be the first of
Speaker 2: beak bruh. This This is a certified five star.
Speaker 1: Bruh m hm.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of q LS.
Speaker 2: What's Love Supreme? I me know what's love with us today?
Speaker 2: Of course, ladies, person yeah, hello.
Speaker 1: Hey Brown, we got sugar, Steve or sugar.
Speaker 3: We also got about you.
Speaker 1: Know, y'all can't see him right now, but fresh cut
Speaker 1: fake man. I'm happy. I'm happy too. I'm happy too.
Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm gonna get the next because
Speaker 4: the numbers keep going up, but I'm gonna just hold
Speaker 4: on the one as long as i can. Shout out
Speaker 4: to the states Man and we were doing good.
Speaker 1: I ain't about to put his own good.
Speaker 4: We was holding we was doing I and then it
Speaker 4: just this ship is all helped.
Speaker 2: Then celebration. No, you can't celebrate too early. Bill, how's
Speaker 2: it going?
Speaker 1: Fantastic? Now here's the Hamptons with the children. That's good.
Speaker 2: I will say that, you know, especially based on the
Speaker 2: the buzz of the Jill Scott episode, that these Philadelphia
Speaker 2: conversations couldn't have come at a better time.
Speaker 1: It's only a matter of.
Speaker 2: Time before we dip back into the pool of neo
Speaker 2: genius for another go round. And our guest today he
Speaker 2: burst upon the scene back in two thousand, probably with
Speaker 2: the most unlikeliest, charmingest platonic black anthem of all time,
Speaker 2: and the hits kept rolling and rolling.
Speaker 1: Uh nine or ten albums Deep.
Speaker 2: I believe it's nine albums Deep, thirteen Grammy nominations, and
Speaker 2: I gotta stay okay. This this is the college word
Speaker 2: drop of the day, probably the man that has done
Speaker 2: the most for Manda Green spelling.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh that's what that's called.
Speaker 2: It's called Manda Green. Yes, it's based on a poem.
Speaker 2: I forget the person did a poem. But when you
Speaker 2: when you spell and jumble words together, it's mondagree, so.
Speaker 1: Monda Green King.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to quest Love Supreme Music, Soul,
Speaker 2: the soul child.
Speaker 1: What's up? Brother?
Speaker 4: Where are you?
Speaker 1: Where are you right now?
Speaker 4: I'm in the A. I'm in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: How long have you been in Atlanta? When did you
Speaker 1: do us? When did you leave Philly?
Speaker 4: I left, y'all? You said it right, I don't hear either.
Speaker 4: I love you, shut up.
Speaker 5: I know when I was alonging to both of y'all.
Speaker 1: You don't even claim Philly. You claim everywhere but Philly.
Speaker 5: That's not true. I claim Philly. Do you claim Philly music?
Speaker 4: I claimed Philly when it's appropriate. I claim Philly when
Speaker 4: it's appropriate, because it's true. It's part of my timeline.
Speaker 4: It's not anything that I can get away from or
Speaker 4: even want to get away from. However, it's very real
Speaker 4: that I left for a lot of reasons. You know,
Speaker 4: I love my people, but my people ain't all the where,
Speaker 4: all the way together. Philadelphia is not necessarily the you know,
Speaker 4: as a timeline of mental health.
Speaker 5: We're about to tell it today, okay.
Speaker 4: And I I just thought the property value was better
Speaker 4: in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm about to learn a lesson.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know what I'm saying. Well, I can only
Speaker 4: speak for my timeline. I can't speak for the whole city.
Speaker 4: I can only speak for my timeline, my immediate circle.
Speaker 4: What was happening in my world and what infiltrated my world,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So according to that, I
Speaker 4: had to make decisions that I thought was better for me,
Speaker 4: for my peace of mind and my mental health. And
Speaker 4: you know, but you can't say that in interviews because
Speaker 4: they like music. You're like, no, that's not what's happening.
Speaker 4: It's just that I'm just being honest with my reality,
Speaker 4: you know. And I had to make sense of it,
Speaker 4: especially being thrusted into the music business with no real guidance,
Speaker 4: no real backup. No real support, no real nurturing, no
Speaker 4: real nothing, and I have to figure it out on
Speaker 4: my own. And then, you know, I can't be bothered
Speaker 4: with people tracking me down and like being on my
Speaker 4: doorstep like like.
Speaker 3: No, I gotta go, that's you, I gotta go. I'm
Speaker 3: never whome that that was, you know, everyone living in
Speaker 3: my house but me.
Speaker 1: So no, I understand that very much. So like sometimes
Speaker 1: you gotta go.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been I've been in New York for
Speaker 2: ten years now, and I'm only just getting comfortable with
Speaker 2: letting Philly know that I do not live.
Speaker 1: In Philly anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, there's always this thing that you know, this
Speaker 2: invisible you can't leave.
Speaker 4: Well Philly put to you. But I think it's a
Speaker 4: But I think it's a different thing for you, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, And and and your entire crew,
Speaker 4: particularly you and and Reap. But it's y'all represented Philly,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I think it's it's y'all.
Speaker 4: Had to be a little more cautious because people associated
Speaker 4: Philly with y'all. People didn't necessarily associate Philly with me.
Speaker 4: They knew I was from Philly, but that wasn't such.
Speaker 1: It wasn't on your sleeve.
Speaker 4: It wasn't on my sleeve. Y'all put to sleep, y'all
Speaker 4: put Philly on y'all back, y'all carried Philly. You know what,
Speaker 4: I understand your position is different than mine. Like I
Speaker 4: can slip away and be like, hey, ain't you from Philly? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm from Philly, you know. But then it's a different
Speaker 4: conversation where it's like, bro, you are Philly. Where are you?
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
Speaker 4: What part of Philly I was born in? I don't
Speaker 4: want to say it, no please, Yeah, in West Philadelphia?
Speaker 1: So where's I wait? Where in West Philly? I never
Speaker 1: knew that. I've known you for the longest, and did
Speaker 1: I know you were a.
Speaker 4: West Philadelphia That's another conversation for another day. Uh, I'm here, okay,
Speaker 4: I love you though. I love you though fifty second
Speaker 4: in Gerard that area, yeah yeah. And my people's actually
Speaker 4: didn't find out about So this is about to be
Speaker 4: a rabbit hole, but I'm gonna sent it up.
Speaker 1: That's what we're for.
Speaker 4: And there's my dad's side, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: My mom's side is actually from North Philly. My mom's
Speaker 4: side is from you know, seventeenth Jefferson nineteenth and Master
Speaker 4: Dolphins or Squehanna, all of that. My dad is also
Speaker 4: around from their twenty first and Woodstock, all in that area,
Speaker 4: which is funny how they met, you know, because and
Speaker 4: they're both last names of Johnson. Like anyway, But my dad,
Speaker 4: Dad's side, you know, he's from you know, as far
Speaker 4: as I know, he's from fifty fifth and popular, you know,
Speaker 4: around in that area.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So I was actually raised when I was a kid
Speaker 4: over near Gerard and popular, but like on fifty second.
Speaker 4: But then as I got older, I started moving around
Speaker 4: to my other family, my aunts and uncles and cousins
Speaker 4: and them and all of that. That's why when people
Speaker 4: ask me what part of phil are you from? I
Speaker 4: can't necessarily claim one part because I spent a substantial
Speaker 4: amount of time in multiple places where I can't say
Speaker 4: that I'm I'm strictly west Philly, was strictly south, was
Speaker 4: strictly north. I can't say that because I spent way
Speaker 4: too much time all over Philly, Wow, Germantown, nice town,
Speaker 4: like I spent Philly, you know, all over the place.
Speaker 1: I am I'm fifty second of no sage.
Speaker 4: Hey, yeah you move?
Speaker 1: Actually did you? Did you?
Speaker 2: Did you know that it's been re christened as Chestnut
Speaker 2: Not I'm sorry Walnut Hill.
Speaker 1: Gentrification. Why why why why? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I uh I did my uh my, my drive through
Speaker 2: the old spot. I'll say that every June. Speaking of which,
Speaker 2: big big up on doing the picnic with us.
Speaker 4: Oh so yeah, yeah, thanks for thinking of me. Thank
Speaker 4: you appreciate that will come.
Speaker 2: And I know I'm just but I'm just saying that
Speaker 2: when we were scouting looking at when we were headed
Speaker 2: to do our part of the picnic at the man. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I do my usual two hour drive through
Speaker 2: the old neighborhood, ghosts and whatnot. Yeah, and that's when
Speaker 2: I discovered it, Like I discovered No, you look for
Speaker 2: those sit and you want to see what's still standing
Speaker 2: and what's not standing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well of course, you know, fifty second Street was
Speaker 2: hit badly by the riot. So this is the most
Speaker 2: dilapidated I've ever seen that block in my in my
Speaker 2: fifty yeah, no, I.
Speaker 4: Saw it on instant. I was like, y'all just go
Speaker 4: and treat fifty second Street like that, bro, But yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know it's for me though.
Speaker 2: I even I wasn't discouraged, only because, like I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a personal dream, Like I think my life
Speaker 2: cooled dream is to pull a Kenny Gamble, like refurbish
Speaker 2: it and.
Speaker 1: That thing. So I think this is.
Speaker 4: Leg Philly legacy.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, I dream of I've always dreamed of that,
Speaker 2: and we've actually had our first me to reakan my manager,
Speaker 2: Sean had a kind of like our first conversation of now.
Speaker 4: That if anybody would be perfect for that, it would
Speaker 4: be y'all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well so so we're we're talking about our our
Speaker 2: third phase. Now what's our legacy? But so, well, it's
Speaker 2: good to know that we share a fifty second street
Speaker 2: in common.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I still I still have my dad, my stepdad
Speaker 4: used to have a table there on on market second Market.
Speaker 2: You know, yo, listen, No, No, it's only because you
Speaker 2: just said a lot.
Speaker 4: Just's you just said a whole lot, bro.
Speaker 2: It's only because I just recently, so as of the speaking,
Speaker 2: I've been DJing a lot of Jackson's on my DJ sets,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to explain to people that I feel
Speaker 2: as the Thriller did so much for the street vendor
Speaker 2: in a way that I never saw street vendors ever
Speaker 2: in my life until the phenomena of Thriller.
Speaker 1: So like.
Speaker 4: Sold itself. It was like crack bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know there was just a point where
Speaker 2: I mean, after Thriller, then it came like the boot
Speaker 2: leke tapes and the oils and everything.
Speaker 1: The idea to.
Speaker 4: Answer your question, h.
Speaker 6: He's so well, he didn't sell incense and oils. He
Speaker 6: sold Michael Jackson stuff.
Speaker 4: No lady, So okay, that's what you do. But along
Speaker 4: with the you know, the pirated you know, a couple
Speaker 4: of tapes.
Speaker 1: Ready you know you guys.
Speaker 7: License and he had that, he had that blue Now
Speaker 7: look for an.
Speaker 4: Expect you and you gotta break the table down because
Speaker 4: you know you're not all the way legit because was crazy.
Speaker 4: It's a whole I've been hustling since, been hustling.
Speaker 5: Bro, hustling. That's right. You had the name.
Speaker 4: Oh we don't we don't want to piss off, so
Speaker 4: let's not have that. Want to talk about whatever we
Speaker 4: talk about it, let's do that was a shot. Listen,
Speaker 4: you completely missed it, but it was collected towards I
Speaker 4: was like a little love jab you know. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: was the Hustle. It was he had his record, the Hustle.
Speaker 4: I was not a fan of the Hustle. However, you
Speaker 4: know what you want to wait what I was a
Speaker 4: fan of that? I thought you would it went harder on?
Speaker 4: Was the Purple one Purple one music? One second? One second?
Speaker 4: So we're confusing the whole chat right now. So let's
Speaker 4: like thecket one thing at all time. Okay, okay, you
Speaker 4: want to know why you didn't fool with the hustle.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure that that's it's mildly rhetorical because
Speaker 4: I know, I know you know why you did it.
Speaker 4: But let me tell you the other side why you
Speaker 4: did it. Okay, all right, it's it's like you hating
Speaker 4: on a baby for not knowing how to drive. Oh,
Speaker 4: it wasn't anything yet.
Speaker 5: But the baby shouldn't be listen.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, okay, So very spicy episode. The baby
Speaker 4: wants to drive, The baby doesn't understand, it doesn't have
Speaker 4: the wherewithal to manage that machinery.
Speaker 1: But the baby wants to drive.
Speaker 4: What the baby did and if if you can follow me,
Speaker 4: if you can pass what a baby did would say, hey,
Speaker 4: can someone help me learn how to drive? And everybody
Speaker 4: and their mama was like no, get the fuck out
Speaker 4: the car, and all.
Speaker 5: The professional drivers like yourself. Fonte was like.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no, no, no no to In their defense,
Speaker 4: they should have been like that, like, fam, this is
Speaker 4: not your space. I'm not feeling this. You should stick
Speaker 4: to what you're good at, right, But you can't tell
Speaker 4: a creative person who has a natural motivation to want
Speaker 4: to get into something else. I've been trying to get
Speaker 4: into that and then move in to Atlanta and that's
Speaker 4: all you here. So I wanted to try my hand
Speaker 4: in it. Okay, I'd be the first one to tell
Speaker 4: you it was trash, but I didn't know that it
Speaker 4: was trash at the time because I really want to
Speaker 4: do it, you know what I'm saying. And he's not
Speaker 4: the only person that was like no, I'm not feeling that.
Speaker 4: A lot of people told me no. That's why you
Speaker 4: don't really hear about it that much, because I sinsed
Speaker 4: and desist. I'm a you know, gather the data, and
Speaker 4: I'm a I'm a figure out and if I can
Speaker 4: find a way how to represent it.
Speaker 6: I'll represent it, but for people to cucle back to
Speaker 6: you though, and no matter what, like you were allowed
Speaker 6: to make if you want to call it the mistake.
Speaker 6: And still people was like, but I foxed with him,
Speaker 6: so yeah, he'sace.
Speaker 4: I didn't take it. I didn't take it no way
Speaker 4: in general. In the moment though, it was so crushing
Speaker 4: because of how much I looked up to the homie
Speaker 4: and in the moment, I didn't think about it in
Speaker 4: the way that I'm communicating it right now. I looked
Speaker 4: at it as yoah fam hayten. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I thought we was boys, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: not realizing that in his own respective way, it was
Speaker 4: like tough love, Like no, that's why I but I
Speaker 4: fox with this, you know what I'm saying. But I
Speaker 4: was in my emotional space that I was like, man,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So that's all that was.
Speaker 4: I was just kind of like spoke since then, so
Speaker 4: this is the first time we're actually even interacting with
Speaker 4: each other comments you know, yeah, this is now. This
Speaker 4: was the first time that like we like like taught
Speaker 4: each other, like seeing each other since at all that's
Speaker 4: been years, man, Like, I mean when we went out
Speaker 4: to dinner, like that was forever ago. We went out
Speaker 4: to dinner, it was like what thirteen twelve or thirteen
Speaker 4: something like that, something.
Speaker 1: Like that, that was a minute ago. But yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 4: The Hustle records, I mean, I didn't like them, but
Speaker 4: I understood, like you were saying, like, you just have
Speaker 4: different outlets of yourself you want to express. So the
Speaker 4: Hulso I didn't like. But the Purple Wonderulf I heard that.
Speaker 4: I was like, dude, you could just put this out
Speaker 4: as music because that living life and man's gorgeous, like
Speaker 4: I love the words are free like all that. I
Speaker 4: was like, thank you, But I like, like, Nigga, this
Speaker 4: is it. I know. But but the equivalent of people
Speaker 4: telling me that just calling music, it's like saying, like
Speaker 4: you have another kid and say, why don't you just
Speaker 4: call them the same name you gave the other.
Speaker 1: Kids to you?
Speaker 2: You felt like a difference. I felt likeage. You felt
Speaker 2: like you would damage your not damage the brand, but
Speaker 2: at least that the portal.
Speaker 1: That was music.
Speaker 4: I wanted to leave it alone. I didn't want to
Speaker 4: confuse the narrative because I want to be creative because
Speaker 4: I had, because you got to remember, you got to
Speaker 4: think about it. Actually, Rather at that time, I was
Speaker 4: getting so much pushback, you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 4: so much feedback and so much shit. This is before
Speaker 4: social media was really popping popping, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: This is just all radio. So these were my relationships
Speaker 4: with people and promoters. These are my relationships with people
Speaker 4: that I engage with for the bag. So I don't
Speaker 4: personally care about what y'all think, but I have to
Speaker 4: professionally care about what y'all think because it affects my
Speaker 4: bottom line. So to not be the dude that's like, man,
Speaker 4: y'all don't know what y'all talking about, because you do.
Speaker 4: It's literally your job, you know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 4: I have to respect it to some degree. But at
Speaker 4: the same time, I got to stand on my own
Speaker 4: like I gotta stand on my shit, like I gotta
Speaker 4: stand on like I know what I'm talking about. At
Speaker 4: that time, I've been added for about a good, cool,
Speaker 4: you know, decade and change, So you mean to tell
Speaker 4: me I don't know what I'm talking about. So I
Speaker 4: didn't have the wherewithal to figure that out. So just
Speaker 4: to answer your question, so, yeah, there is some element
Speaker 4: of Okay, I'm not even gonna mess with what's already established,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I'm just gonna focus on
Speaker 4: trying to which I wasn't really there yet because I
Speaker 4: was really on some fuck I don't want to do
Speaker 4: this no more because so I had to work through
Speaker 4: that and that took me years, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But in the meantime, since I'm in Atlanta, I'm being
Speaker 4: constantly influenced by the sound of Atlanta, which was that
Speaker 4: turned up you know, trappy whatever, whatever, And people kept
Speaker 4: asking me like, yo, what you think about this? What
Speaker 4: you think as if to say, but like baiting me
Speaker 4: for confirmation that I'm supposed to say, Yeah, that's trash.
Speaker 4: These kids shouldn't be doing that. That's not real music.
Speaker 4: Why they use an auto tune like that? But I
Speaker 4: was like, no, not only am I I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: not do that. I'm actually doubled down, and as a
Speaker 4: show of solidarity, I'm gonna try my hand in it
Speaker 4: because I can't speak on something that I don't do.
Speaker 4: So I said, let me go ahead and do it.
Speaker 4: You know now, I had a whole lot of things
Speaker 4: working against me, because one, I couldn't talk the same
Speaker 4: talk that they talk because I don't I don't walk
Speaker 4: that wall.
Speaker 1: You don't live that life.
Speaker 4: I don't live that life. But I have lived a life,
Speaker 4: and you have lived a life. And that's where the
Speaker 4: name hustle comes from, because regardless of what you're doing,
Speaker 4: you're on your hustle. It's a hustle one way or another.
Speaker 4: So I have that and said, okay, not to say
Speaker 4: that I'm on the streets, you know, you know, with
Speaker 4: freaking work and whatever like. That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's a grind, bro. So I'm gonna talk about that,
Speaker 4: but I'm gonna talk about it from a from a
Speaker 4: general perspective. Whatever you about, you have to have this mindset.
Speaker 4: Little that I realized is that I was actually self
Speaker 4: therapratizing myself. I was I was actually talking myself out
Speaker 4: of the rut that I was in. And the same
Speaker 4: thing with Purple that was keeping me zin because that
Speaker 4: many times I wanted to turn up on folks because
Speaker 4: I was that I was very I had no filter,
Speaker 4: I was very short tempered, like I was snapping off
Speaker 4: like in my shows and my my MD be like yo, bro,
Speaker 4: like that. It's like, it's not I'm cussing out my fans,
Speaker 4: Like this ship is frustrating, Bro. These people don't know
Speaker 4: what the fuck they want and I'm giving them what
Speaker 4: they're asking for and they're not satisfied. So when did
Speaker 4: you start to feel like your fans weren't satisfied with
Speaker 4: your output? So again it was again again, it was
Speaker 4: a it was a misunderstanding. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: When you do stuff long enough, I'm sure that you
Speaker 4: know each of we can attest to it, particularly you know,
Speaker 4: uh questions. When you do stuff along long enough, stuff
Speaker 4: just changes, bro. It just changes. The people that show
Speaker 4: up changes, their palette changes, they expectation changes. It just
Speaker 4: is what it is, man. And it's people that's in
Speaker 4: that crowd that work. They're not today one. They literally
Speaker 4: just got here. But that doesn't make them any less
Speaker 4: of a supporters of a fan And.
Speaker 5: It was a vivor though.
Speaker 6: That's the ill part about this is looking at it
Speaker 6: from the outside end, because you're on the inside of yourself.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's of an era like that and still
Speaker 4: being able to but now when you add to it
Speaker 4: that you you personally feel meat it's talking about me now,
Speaker 4: when you personally feel that you haven't even gotten started yet,
Speaker 4: because everyone to be done was request based and you
Speaker 4: were just living up to it because you just wanted
Speaker 4: to stay in the game and get to the bread
Speaker 4: and you didn't want nobody to not include you because
Speaker 4: you didn't want to do that thing. You didn't want
Speaker 4: to do that no one else wanted to do, but
Speaker 4: you wanted to do it though, because you wanted to
Speaker 4: get put on, because you just wanted to feel accepted.
Speaker 6: Can we please talk about these beginning like now I've
Speaker 6: got it, we gotta can we get Mere? I know
Speaker 6: Mere about to get into it, but the beginnings like watching.
Speaker 2: This, no, this is not this is you know it's
Speaker 2: gonna go like this.
Speaker 4: So well, I was gonna ask you, so I remember
Speaker 4: the last conversation we had, it was, I mean, this
Speaker 4: is a minute ago, but I commended you. And I
Speaker 4: was even talking to my wife the other night about
Speaker 4: when I told him he was having we were having
Speaker 4: you on the show, about how you were always one
Speaker 4: of the people that I admired because you were able
Speaker 4: to play the major label game you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: Like you were you know what I mean, just straight
Speaker 4: up one hundred percent. And you always one of those
Speaker 4: dudes that I admired because I'm like, you know what
Speaker 4: music like, he's on the label, and I'm sure he
Speaker 4: got his shitty go with, but every album he come
Speaker 4: with his jams like he's consistent. He keep a jam
Speaker 4: on the radio and even just his radio jam, but
Speaker 4: then he still got his album cuts to be hard too.
Speaker 1: So to me, you were an example of someone and
Speaker 1: an artist.
Speaker 4: In you know, quotation marks, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: that was actually playing the major label game, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: you could navigate it. So what when was the point
Speaker 4: where it started to turn Like, Okay, I'm playing the game,
Speaker 4: but now I'm feeling like this shit is starting to
Speaker 4: play me because the other shoe never dropped. And what
Speaker 4: was the other shoe me being able to do what
Speaker 4: I want so to speak, and not one because you
Speaker 4: can do whatever you want whenever you want to do it.
Speaker 4: It's it just hits different when you do what you
Speaker 4: want and it's being supported.
Speaker 2: Okay, educate me because right now I'm a blank slate.
Speaker 2: On the last twenty minutes, of conversation. So break it
Speaker 2: down to me like a kindergarten. So when you're in
Speaker 2: a creative space, which I would assume, it starts with
Speaker 2: the song.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just starting.
Speaker 4: It's starting with yeah, yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the song. Who or what was or
Speaker 2: who was the inner circle of support? Then that would
Speaker 2: metaphorically block down a shot or say nah, I don't
Speaker 2: think you should go this direction or do it that way?
Speaker 2: Like was it a was it a was it a
Speaker 2: circle of producers? Was it whoever your manager was?
Speaker 1: Was it exact?
Speaker 2: Or just like you're doing a show or maybe it's
Speaker 2: only seventy percent full? Or like what what? What's the
Speaker 2: process that leads you to the beginning of where you're
Speaker 2: talking about. You're not being able to express yourself.
Speaker 4: Here's what's interesting. You can't imagine how complex.
Speaker 5: That question is.
Speaker 4: You cannot imagine how complex that question is. And I
Speaker 4: will do my very best to be PC. No, fuck PC,
Speaker 4: thank you, thank you, tell you truth. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to be PC. I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying to
Speaker 4: not be long winded.
Speaker 1: Have you met that wind? Questions will you best love when.
Speaker 4: You just want a blamers, go ahead and say, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say this, get your stick about me. I have
Speaker 4: lecture esque answers go in. So all right, yours said.
Speaker 4: I can say whatever I want, Hey, whatever I want.
Speaker 4: I can say whatever I want, say whatever you want,
Speaker 4: whatever you want. So to answer your question, we have
Speaker 4: to start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 5: Thank you what I wanted you to do.
Speaker 4: Please, I like, I like how excited y'all are due yo,
Speaker 4: because some of us.
Speaker 5: Know a little bit of your story. So I'm like,
Speaker 5: this is.
Speaker 1: This is that we are? We're in the pandemic.
Speaker 4: Of course you would because you were actually part of
Speaker 4: my story. So yeah, I'm here. I mean, no, the
Speaker 4: one above are well to me? It's no.
Speaker 5: Oh ship all right, I hope it's a good part.
Speaker 4: But you always thought it the good part. What do
Speaker 4: you make it's a good part too?
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 4: The only one that was the bad part was was
Speaker 4: was anyway? It wasn't even bad.
Speaker 5: We're making it better. So that's that's a new day.
Speaker 4: It wasn't even bad. That's the thing. It wasn't even bad.
Speaker 4: So let's start from the beginning. I'm gonna get I
Speaker 4: promise you it's it's it's relevant. Just let me start
Speaker 4: from the beginning. So my home life was ship. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. I didn't get along with my
Speaker 4: parents at all for a lot of reasons. That's very
Speaker 4: unnecessary to get into at this point in time. But
Speaker 4: we didn't see at all. I didn't understand how detached
Speaker 4: we were at the time. It was just instinctive, like
Speaker 4: I just was like, I need to get the fuck
Speaker 4: out of this house. Here. Are you an only child?
Speaker 4: You have siblings or anything? Oh no, I'm the oldest
Speaker 4: of nine.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so there's a whole dynamic with that that
Speaker 4: I'm like, these ain't my kids. So we're not gonna
Speaker 4: get into that.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: I brought that up to say that I willfully left
Speaker 4: the crib, which left me with nothing. So you have
Speaker 4: to understand I've been sheltered most of my life.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: There was a cult element that's associated with that. Again,
Speaker 4: unnecessary right now. So I didn't want to be associated
Speaker 4: with nothing that came from that space at all. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, I didn't have the luxury of
Speaker 4: building a relationship with anyone outside of my immediate life.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Like, for instance, you know
Speaker 4: you said the thing about the thing with the words,
Speaker 4: the collegiate word that you used or whatever. There was
Speaker 4: no way of me knowing that because I never got
Speaker 4: to college. I never even feelished high school, went to
Speaker 4: UNI for one year, didn't even pass freshman year.
Speaker 5: That's freshman year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's because I didn't do the work because
Speaker 4: I thought school was dumb. But you know, disenfranchised community, poverty,
Speaker 4: marginalized education. Ou da da da da da da da.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, okay, well what do I do with
Speaker 4: the rest of my life? My stepdad said, well, you're
Speaker 4: not going to just be at the crib. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: put you to work. Here comes in fifty second in
Speaker 4: the market. So I'm learning about life in traffic commerce.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. That was the beginning of
Speaker 4: the hustle. So then fast forward, you know, I started
Speaker 4: making a little bread. You know, I'm working fast food joints.
Speaker 4: You know, somebody you know did me a solid a
Speaker 4: week before my eighteenth birthday, gave me a gig. Was
Speaker 4: like teching me, I'm not supposed to hid in seventeen
Speaker 4: year olds. But you know you're about to be eighteen
Speaker 4: in a week or so. You know the process that's
Speaker 4: gonna take the process here, you might as well start today.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna tell on who that was because you know, well,
Speaker 4: the business not even up anymore, so it doesn't even
Speaker 4: matter again, irrelevant. So I started working. I made that
Speaker 4: point to say, I started making money. I started making money.
Speaker 4: I started moving around. I started moving around. I start
Speaker 4: going to places. One of my favorite places was sixty
Speaker 4: ninth Street. I used to go to sixty ninth Street
Speaker 4: to go watch movies at United Artists Movie Theater. Whenever
Speaker 4: that my movie didn't start yet, I would go to
Speaker 4: the Coconuts record store right next door to it, which
Speaker 4: is where I met my manager. Okay, still, well, I
Speaker 4: didn't want my manager at the time, and I met
Speaker 4: and I met him through the people that were working there.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, because you know, we would
Speaker 4: go over I would go over there, and because they
Speaker 4: were working at a store, a music store, I you know,
Speaker 4: was obviously into music, and we would just you know,
Speaker 4: shoot the shit a buy music. You know, people that
Speaker 4: came out, what you think about this and what you
Speaker 4: think about that. Yo, this group is cool. And it's
Speaker 4: around the time Brian McKnight was popping One twelve was popping.
Speaker 4: They did that that whole era. You know, I'm saying
Speaker 4: ninety year. I'm just saying, just to place the time. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's all I'm doing. You know what I'm saying. Oh
Speaker 4: you mean like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: Okay, because you not say beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: I got you. Okay. Yeah, so you know we're talking.
Speaker 4: We're talking. Then they collectively said, yo, you should meet
Speaker 4: our manager. The manager of the store. He was moving
Speaker 4: around because he managed multiple stores. I forget what his
Speaker 4: actual title was, but he was in and out basically
Speaker 4: because the one of the dudes that was there was
Speaker 4: actually the manager of the store, but he was the
Speaker 4: manager of that region I guess, you know, the multiple
Speaker 4: stores of the whatever. So so then he's like, okay, cool.
Speaker 4: So I finally meet him, and then he's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: you need to meet my partner who was working for
Speaker 4: Universal I think at the time. And they, I guess
Speaker 4: both of them collectively decided, you know, you gotta understand,
Speaker 4: like I'm I'm speculating because I wasn't part of those
Speaker 4: kinds conversation. But if you put it together, like obviously,
Speaker 4: this is what happened. They talked, said, Yo, we got
Speaker 4: a situation where we can help this dude out here
Speaker 4: it is and enter a Touch of Jazz Studios. I
Speaker 4: started working at a Touch of Jazz Studios. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. Actually, I came in as a background
Speaker 4: singer on a song for for another group who was
Speaker 4: a duo. I will say yes, I will say their name, yeah,
Speaker 4: because I got nothing beloved for them.
Speaker 2: Girls.
Speaker 4: Man, I got nothing beloved for them girls. Bro to
Speaker 4: this day, we haven't talked and connected in a while,
Speaker 4: but I have nothing beloved them. Cool, that's what's up.
Speaker 4: And I need to find a way to reconnect with them.
Speaker 5: But can you extinguish this this rumor? So were you homeless?
Speaker 4: Are not?
Speaker 5: At the time?
Speaker 4: So when I the part when I said I left the.
Speaker 5: Crib, yeah, yeah, okay, so you were home, I.
Speaker 4: Was definitely homeless, well homeless by technicality being of no home. However,
Speaker 4: you know, dependent on the kindness of nomadic. I was nomadic.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that from now on.
Speaker 5: That's why I don't feel bad because he didn't go
Speaker 5: to college either.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 5: He's used the word no.
Speaker 4: No, I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel
Speaker 4: bad about it. I just think that it's an important
Speaker 4: piece of detail to help understand who you know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think that a lot of people don't take
Speaker 4: into consideration. Put in their defense, I don't really like
Speaker 4: talk about it like that either, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So it's very easy for people to perceive me as, oh,
Speaker 4: you're that guy. He's like, no, I'm actually a person,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: But I apologize that it's okay you No at Black
Speaker 2: Lily always knew he is the pizza.
Speaker 4: Guy, I know, which is one of the jobs that
Speaker 4: I had so good so as it was so eloquently
Speaker 4: written in his uh, just.
Speaker 1: Like that, it was just like.
Speaker 4: All so, but but so before we continue, you have
Speaker 4: no idea the navigation that I had to do to
Speaker 4: show up to those events. What do you example exactly?
Speaker 1: What not to not go there?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I used to it was my crib.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be calling police doing all right, can I
Speaker 2: get these people out of my own?
Speaker 1: I mean, now that everything worked out, I'll.
Speaker 4: Be like, yeah, department shows up, yo, beat and yo,
Speaker 4: I call the cops.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Yo, get these s thugs out of my crib.
Speaker 4: Now there were some real ones, bro, the burning beats
Speaker 4: out on my rug. There was there were some real ones, bro.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. So I'm gonna get back
Speaker 4: to the you know, the timeline. But just at the time,
Speaker 4: you know, you have you have black Lily, you had
Speaker 4: Willem meanings, you have worse and sounds. You know, he
Speaker 4: had multiple other offshoots and whatever. And I would here's
Speaker 4: how my day would go. Okay, So I would be
Speaker 4: at whatever job at the time. It could have been
Speaker 4: burger king McDonald's, Boston Market, the piece of joint, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, which ras should comment saw me there?
Speaker 4: Because I saw him about to get in the cabin.
Speaker 4: I ran. I was like, yo, comment he saw me,
Speaker 4: he saw me standing outside. I don't think he made connection.
Speaker 4: I did, and I was like, yo, he was you know,
Speaker 4: hit me with the you know, I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: sore he saw me still doing that? That was yo.
Speaker 4: That day was lit. I was like, that made my day.
Speaker 4: He's a home you know what I'm saying. And whenever
Speaker 4: I would get discoveraged of like whether what will whatever
Speaker 4: happened for me, you know what I'm saying. Stuff like
Speaker 4: that would happen, and I'd be like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 4: I must be on the right track if he's part
Speaker 4: of my day. Okay, cool. Anyway, So I would work
Speaker 4: a job in whatever bread that I would get or
Speaker 4: whatever I would have to but I would have to
Speaker 4: wait till the weekend because I had a homegirl that
Speaker 4: I was rolling with that would get tips because she
Speaker 4: would work at the Hardshell Cafe. I don't know where
Speaker 4: it inspired with the hard Rock Cafe now downtown. I
Speaker 4: don't know what it's called market. Yeah, they used to
Speaker 4: call it the hard Shell Cafe and they used to
Speaker 4: sell seafood and stuff, and she would get tips every day.
Speaker 4: This is around the time when when I Lost Ones
Speaker 4: came out, and I remember because I was like, yo, girl,
Speaker 4: you gotta listen. Yo, you got to listen to this
Speaker 4: record because she was come to doing this whole poet thing.
Speaker 4: I was like, dude, you got to listen to this record.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny how money changed she went. I
Speaker 4: was like, yo, this is a genius. All these Asians.
Speaker 4: I didn't know it was so many Asians you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. Anyway, she would make tips every day
Speaker 4: and if she could get like fifty dollars that day,
Speaker 4: she could work up fifty dollars that day. We would both,
Speaker 4: you know, bust down on a room because she ain't
Speaker 4: had nowhere to stay. Oh wow, say somewhere in the
Speaker 4: downtown there we would pick one which everyone had a
Speaker 4: vacancy because at the time, I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: like that now, there were places that would sell off
Speaker 4: rooms for at night, not down okay. So and it
Speaker 4: got kind of sketchy because you know, it's a very
Speaker 4: interesting name, so you know what I'm saying. But you know,
Speaker 4: but she was about that life. But you know, I
Speaker 4: had to use whatever because I was a very resourceful dude,
Speaker 4: and we was cool. So she got a room and
Speaker 4: you know, and I would be like you good, you said, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: I'm about to run down to the to the me.
Speaker 4: And this was like weekly. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't tell nobody that I was, you know, huh nomadic,
Speaker 4: but I would just show up. You know what I'm saying, people,
Speaker 4: Oh there you go where you bet? I'm like, not nothing,
Speaker 4: I'm here. Now let's go. You know what I'm saying, Oh,
Speaker 4: fire and ice at Willhelminas, you know with with uh
Speaker 4: uh uh Jeff Bradshaw. You know what I'm saying, old
Speaker 4: boy with the trumpet. No, Jafar, Yeah, Jafar played trumpet
Speaker 4: and and uh and uh Jeff played the trombone. Shouts
Speaker 4: out to them. So that that was I was just
Speaker 4: saying that to say, like my daily life in trying
Speaker 4: to show up to all of those spaces. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, what's interesting. But anyway, that's part of
Speaker 4: the timeline as well. So fast forward to me recording
Speaker 4: all through ninety eight, right, I'm recording all of these songs,
Speaker 4: none of these songs.
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: You can't fast forward because what was the moment from
Speaker 2: this everyday existence of finding a place to live and
Speaker 2: all those things to finding your voice? Yeah, finding a
Speaker 2: voice and singing.
Speaker 4: And I'm trying to answer that question.
Speaker 1: All right, My bad, My bad, Okay, Okay, No, he's
Speaker 1: in ninety eight. Okay, God wow.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to I'm trying to answer the question. This
Speaker 4: is the things that a lot of people do. They
Speaker 4: try to rationalize the timeline when I when I tell
Speaker 4: it to them, because they're like, this doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 4: and I'm telling you it doesn't, but it happened. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 4: So I haven't recorded in the studio prior to them.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: It was this one time somebody introduced me to their
Speaker 4: dad crib and he had a console in his living
Speaker 4: room and the closet was the booth. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying that we did like one song that I
Speaker 4: cannot ever remember with that song.
Speaker 6: But you had sang before? That's the question I think
Speaker 6: a mirror was trying to say, like you had known what.
Speaker 5: You can sing.
Speaker 4: I've always sang what do you mean my whole life?
Speaker 4: My whole life? I remember, for instance, okay, let's go back.
Speaker 4: I remember I went to Heston Elementary and our graduation
Speaker 4: song was Man in the Mirror. They have a person
Speaker 4: that was supposed to sing the lead. He wasn't singing
Speaker 4: it right. I kept correcting him, like, no, it doesn't
Speaker 4: go like that. You got to sing it like this.
Speaker 4: And my teacher was like, you're the one that I
Speaker 4: always could sing. But I thought that there was something
Speaker 4: that everybody could do. You could ride a bike, I
Speaker 4: can ride a bike. Yeah, you could ride a bike.
Speaker 4: I climbate tree. You can climbate tree. I could backflip.
Speaker 4: You could backflip. I could sing. You could sing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't. I didn't understand. I didn't. I didn't understand
Speaker 4: that it didn't quite work like that.
Speaker 5: When you figure that out, when you figured ou out,
Speaker 5: it didn't work like.
Speaker 4: When people when people when you hurt it back like
Speaker 4: I guess, I guess we all we are all not
Speaker 4: the same, you know what I'm saying. And I was
Speaker 4: always supportive, like yeah, you know, no, just keep going.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you know, I know, you know. And then
Speaker 4: I started getting with different squads and crews that would
Speaker 4: go to you know, creative and performing arts schools. You know.
Speaker 4: I would hang out with the church kids cause I
Speaker 4: wasn't raised in the church, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: But I hung around a lot of church kids, the
Speaker 4: p ks. They would tell me about the experiences. I'd
Speaker 4: be like, wow, that's interesting, like won't you just leave?
Speaker 4: And it's like, it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work like that. It doesn't it doesn't work
Speaker 4: like that, because you know, I'm like, I left. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. You know, it don't work like that.
Speaker 4: So I learned how to sing through being around singers,
Speaker 4: being around musicians, Like I would go to jazz clubs.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. This is around the time
Speaker 4: where I met Balaud. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 4: will go to the Fun. Fact I wanted to be
Speaker 4: in the group and somebody suggested Blaud and somebody gave
Speaker 4: me his phone number and I called him. He cold
Speaker 4: call him, yeah, and I was like, ask him about
Speaker 4: it if he remembers. And I was like, you know, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, what's up is music? And he asked me
Speaker 4: one of the most obscure questions ever, something like I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 4: you would have to ask him for the details. But
Speaker 4: it hit me. I was on the phone like the
Speaker 4: Fun and it was something like who was the first
Speaker 4: person that to call music music?
Speaker 8: I was like, yeah, how is you coming at me
Speaker 8: like this like from a grouper?
Speaker 4: No? You know, And he would help Daz so you know,
Speaker 4: later on, you know, we eventually started to get to
Speaker 4: know each other. He invited me to his crib. I
Speaker 4: would have invited him to mind if I had one.
Speaker 4: But I met his mom, I met his brother. I
Speaker 4: think I met his brother. No, it was I ain't
Speaker 4: meet his brother at the time. No, I didn't. I
Speaker 4: thought it was his brother. But it was just a
Speaker 4: dude that he went to school with that played trumpet
Speaker 4: or trombone or whatever. And so I met his crib
Speaker 4: and he was like he sat down. He was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: go ahead, sing something. I was like, uh, I didn't
Speaker 4: know that this was an audition but or whatever. So
Speaker 4: I'm like okay, uh. And and this is the time
Speaker 4: where I had a whole lot of hair, but you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't like have it like whatever. So I just
Speaker 4: you know, we have a whole lot of hair, you
Speaker 4: just stuff it in a hat, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: He was like, take take your head off. I was like,
Speaker 4: the fuck is this nick? Fuck? You know what the hell?
Speaker 7: My hat gotta be being on. Gotta do with the
Speaker 7: way that that sound, bro. And It's like I never
Speaker 7: thought about this since then until just now. So you know,
Speaker 7: I'm like, okay, whatever, I take my head off.
Speaker 4: So now I'm awkward and uncomfortable because I have, you know,
Speaker 4: insecurity issues and self esteem issues. Because I come from
Speaker 4: a fucked up, non nurturing, neglectful background. But he doesn't
Speaker 4: know that I'm triggering in trauma, traumatized. But you know,
Speaker 4: I want this dude to be part of my group.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna do whatever he say. Plus I'm in
Speaker 4: his house. His mom's is cool. I'm I'm I'm gonna
Speaker 4: take my hat off, you know what I'm saying. He
Speaker 4: all like, and plus you know, he looked like a
Speaker 4: super like, clean cut jazz guy, you know. So I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna disrespect his dude in his own home.
Speaker 6: Bro.
Speaker 4: So okay. So I think I sung up Brian McKnight
Speaker 4: song or whatever, and I think his reaction was like, okay,
Speaker 4: all right, And I think he made reference to the
Speaker 4: fact that I did a whole bunch of runs and
Speaker 4: stuff or whatever, and that was that. And then I
Speaker 4: probably saw him like maybe like once or twice since
Speaker 4: then or whatever. But not too long after that, I
Speaker 4: heard I was looking for him and somebody was like, yo,
Speaker 4: he moved to New York. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm like, damn, Like, so now you know, I ain't
Speaker 4: never got my chance to like put the group together.
Speaker 4: Or whatever, so that kind of the next time I
Speaker 4: saw him, the dude have full ahead of locks. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. He was looking like a nomad,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, Totally different than how I
Speaker 4: met him, you know what I'm saying. And you know,
Speaker 4: he's just he looked way more relaxed, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. I was like, Oh, that dude probably found
Speaker 4: his shit. You think about me, okay, But.
Speaker 2: One question, Uh, the group that you were trying to
Speaker 2: form in your mind, what what was the level group
Speaker 2: you were trying to performs like modern R and B
Speaker 2: group like I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Well, obviously that because that's what I was inspired by,
Speaker 4: But ultimately it would have been something in the realm
Speaker 4: of hip hop soul, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 4: I wanted all three of us to be independently dope.
Speaker 4: I didn't want it to be a thing where all
Speaker 4: three of us, you know, one of us was dope
Speaker 4: and then the other carrying the other two kind of situation. No,
Speaker 4: this is nobody if that's your dynamic in your group,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, situation. But I was heavily
Speaker 4: inspired by one twelve because to me, they were all leads,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I was like, it
Speaker 4: would be dope to be in a group where all
Speaker 4: but I'm not gonna do four people, but you can't
Speaker 4: do just two, so let's do three. That's a nice, cool,
Speaker 4: easy number, you know what I'm saying. So nobody could
Speaker 4: direct me to, nobody that was interested or even you know,
Speaker 4: able to, but some everybody kept saying, yo, blive bliah
Speaker 4: blah balah, blah blah blah, and I'm like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. It's just like ninety six,
Speaker 4: ninety seven something like that.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad that didn't happen. You don't even as
Speaker 6: a fan, you don't even understand. We got so much
Speaker 6: more music. Y'all be in the park.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I'm saying, which is why I'm
Speaker 4: grateful that to happen. So again, me seeing him coming
Speaker 4: back from from New York, because apparently he was going
Speaker 4: to university for that, go to school for that, I
Speaker 4: was like, Damn, I probably should have stayed in school
Speaker 4: because if I stayed in school, I probably would have
Speaker 4: been I probably would have had a better chance at
Speaker 4: being better educated in music and out of that, I
Speaker 4: was supposed to go to Overbrook, but because where I
Speaker 4: was living, I wasn't eligible to go to Overbrooks, so
Speaker 4: they sent me to, you know, this other school. So
Speaker 4: I'm sure if I would have went to Overbrook, h
Speaker 4: then I would have I probably would have kept up
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 2: Overbrook is Will Smith's sorry, just explained to our listeners
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were at a touch of jazz and we
Speaker 5: didn't even get there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we we We're coming back to that.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: So while I'm being a nomad so to speak, I'm
Speaker 4: I'm I'm I'm finding myself in all of these weird
Speaker 4: spaces of you know, feeling inadequate, not feeling good enough,
Speaker 4: not knowing what I'm doing, not having the support, not
Speaker 4: having nobody to guide me, help me, teach me, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. But at the same time, I'm
Speaker 4: constantly being inspired by everybody around me. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. There's blood, there's jail, there's there's there's now,
Speaker 4: there's flower tree. You know what I'm saying, all the
Speaker 4: way from freaking Europe. You know what I'm saying, Uh,
Speaker 4: there's there's the Jaguar right Kindred the family. So there's
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, Glenn Lewis from Canada, There's there's,
Speaker 4: there's there's you guys. You know what I'm saying. Like
Speaker 4: I've been I've been on you guys since since ninety three,
Speaker 4: ninety four, you know what I'm saying, Like, like, what
Speaker 4: is nobody is saying? Who is these people? You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying? And this is when I was really
Speaker 4: getting into hip hop because I never really got into
Speaker 4: hip hop because I never could completely identify with the
Speaker 4: with the aggression, you know what I'm saying, conversation right, No,
Speaker 4: But it's like the reason why, the reason why is
Speaker 4: because I get that every day, Like I don't want
Speaker 4: to hear that in music that I'm trying to like,
Speaker 4: you know, you're trying. So when so when you know
Speaker 4: I'm hearing you know, reek over real live drums, I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is amazing. I've never heard this before. I mean,
Speaker 4: yeah it was tried, Yeah, there was daylight. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: we talk about Philly now like and they right down
Speaker 4: the street, like this hits different, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 4: and that's around the time where I got up with
Speaker 4: my with my dad's family out fifty fifth and Populace.
Speaker 4: I was going through it, bro, like I was, that's
Speaker 4: a whole nother story. It is like my whole life.
Speaker 4: And he decided to tell me today, Okay, you're in.
Speaker 5: The book, in a book. It's gonna be a book.
Speaker 4: There's a book you need.
Speaker 1: There's a book.
Speaker 5: Book, write a book.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to your life one day.
Speaker 5: No, no, what are you saying?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 5: It was a shot okay because you because.
Speaker 4: Like it would have to series. It would have to
Speaker 4: be a series, bro, And I just ain't got that
Speaker 4: kind of time right now. Maybe later, at some point,
Speaker 4: you know, if the universe allows it, it'll happen. You're
Speaker 4: just gonna tell me, okay. So all of this, in
Speaker 4: all of these compromising, unstable spaces, I'm still looking for
Speaker 4: who who am? I? So I begin recording still having
Speaker 4: found that out, Which is why I said this request
Speaker 4: based because back to Touch of Jazz, I got called
Speaker 4: in as a you know, to sing background, and ultimately
Speaker 4: started recording songs because the person that I was working
Speaker 4: with was like, yo, you're a open uh we should
Speaker 4: do something about that. So now and who was that
Speaker 4: you were working? Was it a producer? It was it
Speaker 4: was the engineer at the time, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because he would get the off hours, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So he would get the off hours and
Speaker 4: he could do whatever you want. You locked up, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And who was that? Whoe was that?
Speaker 4: Carvin Hagen's his name is got you and he was like, yo,
Speaker 4: I gotta I got a producer. You know who got beats?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. If you want to start
Speaker 4: working on some ship, you know what I'm saying, then
Speaker 4: you know we can get into that. And so Carvin says,
Speaker 4: you know, I have this producer that you got these
Speaker 4: beats or whatever. So now by then I'm already back
Speaker 4: and forth between Philly and Atlanta. So everybody, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't understand, like I didn't just decide Atlanta, you know,
Speaker 4: out of a pick of a hat, like I already
Speaker 4: have a relationship with the city, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So when it came time to think about where am
Speaker 4: I going to go, well, I know people in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: and let me just start there. So that's how that
Speaker 4: move was that place was decided. If it was l
Speaker 4: A would have been la for which would have been Chicago.
Speaker 4: If it was New York, it would have been New York.
Speaker 1: But for Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, yeah, I haven't. That's why. That's why I
Speaker 4: said that, you know what I'm saying. So you know,
Speaker 4: Pop would be asking, you know, why Atlanta because I
Speaker 4: got people in Atlanta, you know. And I'm bringing it
Speaker 4: up to say I was back and forth and I
Speaker 4: would take Greyhound because I've never known before. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 4: I know, I understand. How how how how how infinitely
Speaker 4: dangerous that trip was. I couldn't ever imagined, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And it takes the bus like more than tuesdays.
Speaker 4: And the time that I was going was I had
Speaker 4: to go, and I had to go in the peak
Speaker 4: hours because you know, I had no bread, so I
Speaker 4: had to go. I would leave at night and I
Speaker 4: would get to Atlanta in the morning.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is it called a red eye on a bus?
Speaker 1: Well? Then, so you and Maka moves to Georgia even
Speaker 1: when making Mama Mama, I want to sing, I just
Speaker 1: want to say.
Speaker 5: That was a play.
Speaker 1: I just want to sing.
Speaker 4: Sorry, yeah, exactly exactly, and it's a funny uh reason
Speaker 4: reasoning behind that the name that name I just want
Speaker 4: to say, but it's not really that funny. Uh, it's
Speaker 4: interesting anyway.
Speaker 1: Let that deep.
Speaker 4: So, yes, I'm back and forth. I'm saying that to
Speaker 4: say because the recording process of what ultimately became, I
Speaker 4: just want to sing what's during me commuting back and forth,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying between Philly and Atlanta, because
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure my life out. I don't know
Speaker 4: where to stay. Like you know, it's the one time
Speaker 4: I was doing the open mic you know, situation and
Speaker 4: there was some some college kids that was kind of
Speaker 4: like running the situation and I was there and they
Speaker 4: were They was like, Yo, so what you about to
Speaker 4: do now? And I'm I'm like, man, I don't know, bro,
Speaker 4: just trying to figure out where I'm living, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, Just trying to figure that out. They're like,
Speaker 4: what what you mean? Figure out where you're living? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't have no place to stay, So you know,
Speaker 4: I'm just I got to figure it out because I
Speaker 4: had was I had just was living with somebody and
Speaker 4: his mom was paying his rent. But then she was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: this is your last month, so you can come live
Speaker 4: with me, but your friend, all your little friends, they're
Speaker 4: gonna have to like figure that out, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So he hit me with that, and I
Speaker 4: was like, wow, Now here's what's interesting. They lived on
Speaker 4: forty fourth and Pine.
Speaker 1: I know where that is my neighborhood.
Speaker 4: Cool exactly College area, blah blah blah. Yeah, the people
Speaker 4: that I did the open mic with, they lived on
Speaker 4: forty fifth and what was that old sage? I think, well,
Speaker 4: what was it? It? Sage? It was? It was what's
Speaker 4: the next block over from Pine?
Speaker 1: Locus Locus? Spruce?
Speaker 4: No, you're right, Scruce, My bad, my bad, spruce, spruce, Spruce,
Speaker 4: forty fifth and Spruce literally on the same block. You
Speaker 4: just bust the corner and walk up, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: y'all can't live here. I've been living here this whole
Speaker 4: year and I never seen y'all what you mean, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we live right here. Wow. So I essentially didn't have
Speaker 4: to move anywhere. I just went around the block. So
Speaker 4: it's like a lot of little things like that that's
Speaker 4: happened in my life that I'd be like, I don't
Speaker 4: know what that is? I didn't. I didn't do that,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. And that's where I get
Speaker 4: my sense of you know, faith if you will, from
Speaker 4: because my spirituality is already it was it was, it
Speaker 4: was my sense of spirituality was tainted basically, So God, God,
Speaker 4: who and what is that? Now?
Speaker 1: I'm open and over another thing? Were you assuming your Philly?
Speaker 2: It's damn near impossible to live in Philly and not
Speaker 2: at least have like twelve like Muslim relatives like deep
Speaker 2: in were you? Did you start in a Muslim community
Speaker 2: or like a Southern Baptist very much Muslim?
Speaker 4: You got a mus very much Muslim, but not. I
Speaker 4: don't think it's the Muslim that people identify with. It
Speaker 4: was a different Muslim. Actually, that Muslim had beef with
Speaker 4: the Muslims that people identify with.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, the ones that I know
Speaker 2: is like Tarik's family, which is more like junior black
Speaker 2: manfa you esque.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wasn't a different.
Speaker 1: What was your what was your set?
Speaker 4: Fam? I really don't want to have that conversation never mind.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: The reason why I don't want to have that conversation
Speaker 4: is I know, for a certainty y'all don't have enough
Speaker 4: time for that.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's a ill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know for a certainty, y'all don't have enough
Speaker 4: time for that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: And because of the cult that I was raised in,
Speaker 4: my my perspective of spirituality is literally all over the place,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I had to start hacking
Speaker 4: people's sense of spirituality. The reason I'm bringing that up
Speaker 4: is because you know, you get lost in this, in
Speaker 4: this navigational process of emotions and creativity, being an impath,
Speaker 4: and you feel everything, but everybody looks at you like
Speaker 4: a weirdough when the things that are real to you
Speaker 4: are non existing to everybody else, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: and not knowing how to articulate that in a way
Speaker 4: that doesn't make you look like somebody you can check
Speaker 4: on him, you know what I'm saying. So I'm having
Speaker 4: to navigate through that, and you know, I've had to
Speaker 4: like reconcile a lot of relationships with people because they
Speaker 4: just clearly didn't understand what was happening. And there was
Speaker 4: no way that I can make that make sense because
Speaker 4: I'm dealing with it. I'm literally in the middle of it.
Speaker 4: So I can't help you right now. If you see
Speaker 4: something that you can help once you reach in and
Speaker 4: pull me out. But as of right now, like this
Speaker 4: is just gonna be weird, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: until I can find the words and I'll see you
Speaker 4: in the traffic and be like Yo at that time
Speaker 4: when yeah, yeah that was crazy, right, I didn't mean that,
Speaker 4: But what I actually meant was, you know, but you.
Speaker 6: I'm literally going back to like just old conversation and
Speaker 6: our interactions and just being like, man, I wish yeah, man, reference, text,
Speaker 6: context is everything.
Speaker 4: So here's the context. So I'm working at this uh
Speaker 4: this studio off and on, back and forth from Philly
Speaker 4: to Atlanta, and I'm literally working on songs that are
Speaker 4: just coming up now. For for you know, Carving, they
Speaker 4: may have been ideas that, but for me, it's like,
Speaker 4: oh so it's cool, Okay, what do what? What can
Speaker 4: I do with this? Okay? Uh? Here? Yoh that's dope. Cool.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you like that?
Speaker 1: What else you got?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. So when people are like, yo,
Speaker 4: your first album, you know, I know, your first album.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about having your first album that
Speaker 4: wasn't my first album. That was Carvin's first album, that
Speaker 4: was my thesis, that was my That's something I was
Speaker 4: just working on. You know what I'm saying, Not to
Speaker 4: take nothing away from it, but you know, I got
Speaker 4: to be mindful of how I talk about it because
Speaker 4: people get offended. They're like, my nigger, that shit over
Speaker 4: this life, this ner.
Speaker 2: I don't know many artists that hold their first to
Speaker 2: the three records, Near and Deer.
Speaker 4: Now, hey watch this? What's this? What if that's your
Speaker 4: entire career.
Speaker 5: And I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: That's your entire career.
Speaker 5: Your first three albums?
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no no. The way that he's just said,
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody would. What if you feel that way,
Speaker 4: end up feeling that way about everything that you ever
Speaker 4: put out?
Speaker 2: Oh shit, that's now I feel you because oftentimes half
Speaker 2: television world.
Speaker 4: And pretend like it's the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 6: And also because your album lyrically, these albums lyrically mean
Speaker 6: so much to your fans, like and.
Speaker 4: Don't get me wrong, I meant it, but that's me
Speaker 4: doing what I did with.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you for this conversation.
Speaker 4: To this day, the only time that I've ever done
Speaker 4: something out of my own mind was my last album,
Speaker 4: and feel the Real then feel the real? Don like that.
Speaker 4: I was no, no, no, no, no, no, me let me.
Speaker 4: He was like, nigga. I'm like, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 4: don't get me wrong. I have to say this because
Speaker 4: it is true, and I kind of want to like
Speaker 4: kind of quell whatever kind of feelings of animosity that
Speaker 4: some people may have for me. Right now. With that said,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't release or do anything that I don't have
Speaker 4: any kind of emotional connection to because then I can't
Speaker 4: perform it. Like y'all will sniff that out, like we
Speaker 4: don't believe you. You need more people bro do it better,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I gotta believe it
Speaker 4: to some degree. But when you want to talk about
Speaker 4: authenticity and being genuine, like I can't fully accept credit.
Speaker 4: I gotta give it to the people who also were
Speaker 4: a part of it. That's not me. That was the producer,
Speaker 4: that's not me. That was me, and the songwriter that's
Speaker 4: not me. That was the label that that was the
Speaker 4: management's idea. I just went along with it. So when
Speaker 4: y'all were giving me mineus As far as playing the game, oh,
Speaker 4: it's a fucking game, but no one tells you about
Speaker 4: the fallout. The fallout is you have a timeline of
Speaker 4: yeah yes, sir, no, sa yes, sir, No sir, yes no,
Speaker 4: sa yes sir. And as a grown ass man, that
Speaker 4: ain't a legacy that you could be proud of. I'm
Speaker 4: proud of the positive impact that what I've decided to
Speaker 4: do ultimately, of how that ultimately affected people, I'm grateful.
Speaker 4: I'm eternally grateful for that. I'm not ever gonna take
Speaker 4: that away from people. You know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 4: it's actually their reaction that made me have a connection
Speaker 4: to it. I have their their relationships with the songs,
Speaker 4: because on this side, it's hello, traumatic.
Speaker 1: God, wow. Oh Now I gotta ask, like, so what
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: I haven't finished what I'm saying earlier about the first
Speaker 2: three records, like oftentimes, you know, like uh okay, when
Speaker 2: I when I convince people that a particular television show
Speaker 2: is dope, and usually they'll tell me a man, I
Speaker 2: saw the first episode, like the pilot, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: feeling it, and I was like, I don't know, most right,
Speaker 2: and people get into there, I mean very rarely, maybe
Speaker 2: like Atlanta and uh the sopranos like they're rarely shows
Speaker 2: whose first episode is like that hoigh Ward excellent.
Speaker 1: And with albums, yeah, I mean I in my mind,
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 2: Assume that people just have an emotional sentimental connection to
Speaker 2: their college years when they first discovered Do you Want More?
Speaker 1: Or like, I know, I'm going to live this life.
Speaker 2: Where my first four records are going to be the
Speaker 2: be all and the end all to certain people. Oh
Speaker 2: man odella yo, man thinks all apart, you know, an
Speaker 2: occasional phrenology to yo.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I'm about to, like, you know, contradict myself
Speaker 4: by being that guy.
Speaker 1: I'm used to. I'mflying to it now.
Speaker 5: Mhm.
Speaker 4: When y'all dropped Hot Music, the Hot music me that
Speaker 4: that wasn't my song. I'm literally walking things fall apart
Speaker 4: was my soundtrack when I first heard that song. If
Speaker 4: I had any freaking doubt that I had a life
Speaker 4: of music ahead of me, that's said. That was my
Speaker 4: Superman music. So much so that on my album I
Speaker 4: had a song called Ella's Gone. I know that's not
Speaker 4: the original, that's not the original beat. The original beat
Speaker 4: sounded more like, you know, got a story to tell Biggie,
Speaker 4: they sound more like it sounded like that.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: After I got off tour, really immediately after I got
Speaker 4: off tour, because we started doing that song to that,
Speaker 4: I said, where we I know, we're in the middle
Speaker 4: of mixing. Where we recording that song?
Speaker 5: Okay, so your finger is on that album a way, That's.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying. Okay, But I had to put myself
Speaker 4: in it enough to feel like, Okay, I can promote
Speaker 4: this baby.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I wasn't at the time when you
Speaker 2: were recording this record, because I think, come on, come
Speaker 2: on's on that right?
Speaker 4: Like I think, so yeah, everyone but means on a song.
Speaker 4: Hub is on a whole nother song that I did, right.
Speaker 2: I here's the thing Rich never told me about the
Speaker 2: ella's going. So we were in we were in Cleveland
Speaker 2: and your album and shy Day's album whatever she released
Speaker 2: in two thousand.
Speaker 1: I forget the name of.
Speaker 4: It was Lovers Lovers, Yeah, right, so I remember Lovers
Speaker 4: Rock and I just want to see him coming out.
Speaker 2: At the same time, I'm on touring Voodoo m HM
Speaker 2: and we're in Cleveland.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to get into doodle because that's a whole.
Speaker 4: That's a whole other conversation, shouts out to the homie.
Speaker 4: But we're in Cleveland.
Speaker 2: And Joel LeVert pulls up backstage and I'm hearing the
Speaker 2: next movement but done in a really different way.
Speaker 1: And I go to this car, I'm like, what's that
Speaker 1: the CD case? Wait, that's how I first heard that
Speaker 1: is so dope, so so.
Speaker 4: Because what happened was my managers probably hit Rich up
Speaker 4: and probably got the got the green light from from
Speaker 4: old board.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I just didn't know about so
Speaker 1: I heard was blasting that was with.
Speaker 2: Gerald and I to his car like yoah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's how I heard the.
Speaker 5: Joint circle considering break you off, ye.
Speaker 4: Bring dude. I would tell you I was kind of hot.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 5: I was gonna wanted Gerald Avert to do it that.
Speaker 4: It would have been dope. But that's not the point.
Speaker 4: That's the one point I had. I had a huge
Speaker 4: grievance with y'all.
Speaker 5: With the whole your grievous what is it music?
Speaker 1: Like I was this is where Mereon finds out that
Speaker 1: people over.
Speaker 4: So you're good, no, no, all right, music that you
Speaker 4: you didn't funk me over? It was. Didn't this ship
Speaker 4: start with us?
Speaker 5: He was picked last. I shouldn't have been.
Speaker 1: The third choice, all right, So check it out. So
Speaker 1: check it out.
Speaker 4: If I'm about to tell to break you off story
Speaker 4: right now, stop doing run DMC poses like I'm giving
Speaker 4: you you wanted this thing.
Speaker 2: So I will start off this story the same I
Speaker 2: started off Jill Scott's You Got Me story for the
Speaker 2: record with communication records, not the roots is forte for the.
Speaker 4: Record, I'm completely over it, just to let you know.
Speaker 4: I'm I was over it after we did the video,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But prior to then, yeah,
Speaker 4: I was in my feelings.
Speaker 2: All right, so check it. So here here's my side.
Speaker 2: Here's my side of what happened. Was okay, So the
Speaker 2: story break you off?
Speaker 1: Is that? Okay?
Speaker 2: Who is the promoter that is, uh the proprietor of
Speaker 2: the Kings of Comedy, not Stanley Fan but uh.
Speaker 1: Not ol Hayman. But he's in that circle.
Speaker 2: He's the he's the executive producer of the Kings of
Speaker 2: Comedy movie that Spike shot. God, hang on, Walter is
Speaker 2: it Walter Walter is something? Wal I wonder if Walter
Speaker 2: is related to stan Leatham. All right, So in two thousand,
Speaker 2: Walter Latham, comedy promoter who's making billions off the Kings
Speaker 2: of Comedy franchise, you know, with Cedric and Steve and everybody. Uh,
Speaker 2: he decides that he wants to do well. You know
Speaker 2: at the time, I said, oh, it's sort of like
Speaker 2: Living Color. He's like, no, this is a black SNL
Speaker 2: and we were all okay, So we shot a pilot
Speaker 2: of a black SNL with like Earthquake like luminaries. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm certain that if I saw the lineup, at least
Speaker 2: seven of them be like household names now. But the
Speaker 2: only person I knew personally back then was Earthquake. But
Speaker 2: it was a sketch comedy show, just like SNL. And
Speaker 2: we were the SNL band and that's why. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: were the SNL band.
Speaker 1: And they wanted to have like guests sitting with us,
Speaker 1: so they chose music and.
Speaker 4: Kik Wyatt Wyatt.
Speaker 2: Try, wait, were you backstage when she tried to set
Speaker 2: her off from Rique?
Speaker 1: Were you backstage with us? Now?
Speaker 2: This is like two weeks this is this is two
Speaker 2: weeks after.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that stabbing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we all did. This was two weeks after drawing
Speaker 2: like she fresh out of jail all that stuff. Okay,
Speaker 2: So all I remember was all right, So there was
Speaker 2: an incident backstage where you know, I wasn't paying attention,
Speaker 2: but Tariq obviously said something that upset Keky White.
Speaker 4: Yeah I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't there either, but
Speaker 4: I but you know, I right about it.
Speaker 2: So all I know was that she took her shoes off,
Speaker 2: and she took her ear rings off, and like.
Speaker 1: I just remember, Rich had to get in between.
Speaker 2: Oh, like she was trying to set her off from
Speaker 2: some ship, like gonna talk to me fucking like that,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: And she's really about that life back then, Brog, I
Speaker 4: don't think it's bad. It might it might still be popping.
Speaker 5: It's like later.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, she said it off
Speaker 4: all of them kids. Yeah, that's a lot. Dude, shouts up,
Speaker 4: same husbands out, shouts out, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: but shouts out, man.
Speaker 5: There's a couple, but the numbers are good, they're.
Speaker 4: Low, okay, shouts out to her. That's what she and
Speaker 4: g for that No real all jokes as that that's
Speaker 4: a lot. I come from your family, so that's.
Speaker 1: A lot.
Speaker 5: Right now.
Speaker 2: So the whole point is that, Okay, the old point
Speaker 2: is that really not being familiar with this situation and
Speaker 2: like having prepared music and all that stuff, we were
Speaker 2: just jamming. So uh yeah, five minutes into it, you know,
Speaker 2: Kamal was playing some ship and next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: like the seeds that break you off was sort of
Speaker 2: in the air, and.
Speaker 4: Because it was, it was a few joints. It was
Speaker 4: a few joints you know, your songs, knowing bumps and stuff,
Speaker 4: you know, in a commercial and whatever and saying like
Speaker 4: like like the fallon gig, y'all been training for that.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, I don't understand like since
Speaker 4: since then then, So that's why when it came full
Speaker 4: circle with the fallon ship, I was like, that.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, right.
Speaker 2: So the thing was when I think we just made
Speaker 2: a break you off, just have an extra song for
Speaker 2: an extra bumper. I didn't think about it any further
Speaker 2: till after that. So what I didn't know was that
Speaker 2: Comal come on, you go in the studio to to
Speaker 2: he went, I know, he went in on fire like
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make this a join and I was just like,
Speaker 2: all right, cool, Like I.
Speaker 4: I didn't hear about it that it was gonna be
Speaker 4: a thing until way after and then I was privy
Speaker 4: to all the demos, so check music.
Speaker 1: Eleven.
Speaker 4: So the deal with music, So you're gonna learn, just
Speaker 4: like you're gonna learn, just like with the with the
Speaker 4: you Got Me story, So we have the sing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was for me. It was
Speaker 1: a cool song just for that space.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was like, oh, we're really going
Speaker 2: to do a song called coming to Break You Off?
Speaker 4: Like that wasn't even but even in the inception of it,
Speaker 4: that wasn't even the what was being said. I was
Speaker 4: doing song Marvin Gay, you know, process through the Angelo,
Speaker 4: mumbling like I don't even know what I was saying.
Speaker 2: Which I think the words coming to Break You Off
Speaker 2: was was formed or something like that that I heard, right.
Speaker 1: But well, I'm just giving my side of the story, and.
Speaker 4: I'm hearing you, bro, I'm listening right.
Speaker 2: So after after that, after we shot that pilot, I
Speaker 2: wasn't thinking about that song come on, went and shot
Speaker 2: a crude demo of it, and then I guess at
Speaker 2: that point, I think Rich and I were just like,
Speaker 2: all right, so.
Speaker 1: Are we going to make this the anti Roots album?
Speaker 1: Like let's just let's just.
Speaker 2: Do a whole bunch of songs that don't sound like
Speaker 2: the Roots and that sort of thing, and Rich was like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: I was kind of being like bitter, sarcastic, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're doing R and B songs now, and he was
Speaker 2: just like, now the ship works.
Speaker 1: And so then I was like.
Speaker 2: So when I got aboard, I don't know, I know
Speaker 2: the first contestant was Alicia.
Speaker 1: Wow. I don't know how it came to be.
Speaker 2: I know that The Roots and Alicia keyshould do a
Speaker 2: song together.
Speaker 4: Was she was on the rocket ship at the rocket
Speaker 4: ship at the time? Why not?
Speaker 2: Well, she and I were friends. She and I have
Speaker 2: been friends since when she was on Columbia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: She was Alicia James, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I forgot damn.
Speaker 4: Because I had to join on the Riot soundtrack.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, that was what's your name of
Speaker 1: the Afro? This is like that thread.
Speaker 4: With James.
Speaker 1: So Alilah James was.
Speaker 4: Alisha James originally, right, right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: I met Alicia was when I was tracking most for
Speaker 2: Double Trouble. Alisa was next door. That's how first met her.
Speaker 2: She was next door at Battery Studios working on her
Speaker 2: Columbia debut record, which never came out. She was on
Speaker 2: Columbia Records first. Michael Malton, that's a Jermaine DePriest. Father
Speaker 2: signed her to Columbia like she was fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 5: So she shouldn't have been singing coming to breaking.
Speaker 4: She knew me way back then. Yeah, I'm thinking like
Speaker 4: ninety seven talking about when she was breaking up.
Speaker 2: No, no, but I'm saying ninety seven ninety seven. She
Speaker 2: was like seventeen eighteen. That's when I first met her
Speaker 2: working on a Columbia.
Speaker 5: Join to break you off with a little.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, whatever the case was.
Speaker 2: She famously stood us up four times like I'm coming,
Speaker 2: and then like Steve wakes me up, like I mean
Speaker 2: she hear yet, and Steve's like it's four in the morning.
Speaker 1: No next time.
Speaker 9: So it went from it went from her to blow
Speaker 9: that one Jill Scott.
Speaker 2: Now do you know that when Jill Scott did it,
Speaker 2: she turned into the magic stick. What she wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about Jek's man.
Speaker 1: Okay, all I know is that Jill's we have Joe
Speaker 1: quest love supreme. We are we are on the magic
Speaker 1: stick of right. No, no, no, but this is the
Speaker 1: thing though.
Speaker 5: We're only at four.
Speaker 2: She wrote, you kind of wrote the hook that's the
Speaker 2: bridge to break you off.
Speaker 5: She gonna come get this check, amir, She's gonna come
Speaker 5: get this check.
Speaker 2: Carmon changed the words, but that what that bridge that
Speaker 2: he sang was an idea that Jill had wrote for
Speaker 2: break you Off. And then Gerald heard and then I
Speaker 2: swear to your music. I was after Lisa had stood
Speaker 2: me up the second time because I'm the one that
Speaker 2: had to wait the studio, Steve can testify me sleep
Speaker 2: on the couch and she here yet?
Speaker 1: No, she here yet, no calling her.
Speaker 2: After that, I was, I was like, fuck this song
Speaker 2: like it's not and the Angelo.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe she showed up and I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't hear the doorbell or something.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, she just she just and even what's
Speaker 2: her name, Claudette Ortiz. Yes, that's what I never forgive
Speaker 2: Steve Stout for. We cleared silent treatment for that that
Speaker 2: damn City High song.
Speaker 4: What's it called a caramel? That was a good right,
Speaker 4: but we cleared it singing that all right back, and
Speaker 4: I knew was the song about child abuse. You remember
Speaker 4: Caramel What would you do? Yeah? No, there was a
Speaker 4: traumatizing song, no know, what do we do anyway? So
Speaker 4: based doing the Caramel song, I thought that.
Speaker 1: Sing on our joint and that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: So literally twelve people later, I remember Comal saying, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, y'all started with music is getting worse? No, no, no,
Speaker 2: come on, said wait a minute, y'all. This started with music.
Speaker 2: Why don't we just have music do it? And then
Speaker 2: we were all like, oh, yeah, you're right, we forgot.
Speaker 1: So it was I just don't want you to.
Speaker 2: Think that we were like, damn, that's like he whacked.
Speaker 2: Let's not put him on the record. It wasn't even that.
Speaker 4: It was just like I didn't even I didn't even
Speaker 4: take it like that per se. There might have been
Speaker 4: some element of that adjacent to my feelings, you know,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, right, but I'm just like
Speaker 4: my ego wouldn't allow me to believe it can't be
Speaker 4: because they think I'm whack.
Speaker 1: Right, It was never that.
Speaker 4: It was just like it was like glasses on your forehead,
Speaker 4: like you tear the room before glass glass my glass. Yeah, man,
Speaker 4: you in your car, you in your car at night
Speaker 4: looking for your phone with the flash that on, I
Speaker 4: know exactly, like where the is my phone?
Speaker 1: So come all? Said, right, right, come all?
Speaker 2: Said dude, y'all, y'all going to jump through all these
Speaker 2: hoops trying to get people seeming so on, why don't
Speaker 2: we just go to music? It felt right, and then
Speaker 2: it was like, oh ship, we never thought of that, duh.
Speaker 1: And then it happened.
Speaker 4: Sad story, bro, that's a sad story. I love you
Speaker 4: though through it all. I still love you, man, I
Speaker 4: still love I still love you. That's all good. I
Speaker 4: never I never, I never, you know, I never let
Speaker 4: it interfear like you know, it's a whole lot of stuff,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, that I can get into
Speaker 4: that I constantly feel slighted, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 4: by y'all. But I'm sure it has a lot to
Speaker 4: do with, you know, miscommunication, lack of communication. Just I
Speaker 4: never came up. It might never may have never came up,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. It's cool, Yes, our our
Speaker 4: years and for years I used to be like, yo,
Speaker 4: I rapped so hard for these idiots. They don't never
Speaker 4: shout me out or look out or nothing that. But
Speaker 4: it's like you can't take it that way man, Like
Speaker 4: them dudes, they're they're like you.
Speaker 5: Shout out nobody shut up.
Speaker 1: Anyway anyway.
Speaker 4: But I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 2: Like you know, well, just just I always do my
Speaker 2: communicated once.
Speaker 4: It never me I just want I just wanted to
Speaker 4: make a point to say that despite all of the
Speaker 4: spaces I found myself in, whether here or they're about y'all,
Speaker 4: I always find a way to reconnect to you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. My initial affinity for y'all. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, it's bigger than the individual people. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, y'all represents something so huge that
Speaker 4: you can't let your personal feelings for individuals to get
Speaker 4: in the way of that. Like I was hot with
Speaker 4: Frank for a second, you know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 4: when y'all was on voodoo. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: I wanted to go say with something d and he
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, now he's not seeing no people right now.
Speaker 4: I was like, well, can you let me know when
Speaker 4: he's seeing people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, now now this is now. Let
Speaker 4: me tell you, I only went to two concerts before
Speaker 4: before I Pop. Right it was it was when it
Speaker 4: came to Philly. It was DiAngelo and it was Lauren Hill. Right,
Speaker 4: that's it, because those are two that was even interested.
Speaker 4: And I love Joab, but I'm like, I could see
Speaker 4: y'all whenever. You know what I'm saying. Might have not
Speaker 4: been a cool thing to do, to be so dismissive,
Speaker 4: but I'm like, I'm gonna see them, like now we
Speaker 4: mad easy son, you know what I'm saying. So I'm
Speaker 4: literally after after the Voodoo and they did how to Feel,
Speaker 4: everybody walk off. I was like, this is amazing. It's epic,
Speaker 4: bah blah blah. So I'm walking back because I'm like,
Speaker 4: I literally really know like seventy five percent of everybody
Speaker 4: on that stage, you know what I'm saying. Let me
Speaker 4: just go say what's up?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: And Frank caught me at the door and was like, ooh,
Speaker 4: what's something. I'm tapping over the So so it's a prove.
Speaker 4: I go back and was like, ah, I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't think he's seeing anybody. Right now. I was like,
Speaker 4: but it's me, oh me, but can we don't mean anything?
Speaker 6: Can we all agree I'm about to give a compliment
Speaker 6: in a backwards way, but can we all agree that
Speaker 6: as much as this lighting that you may have felt
Speaker 6: from like any any Roots Crew situation, the circle back
Speaker 6: is amazing because even if you just think about like
Speaker 6: you headline and the Roots Picnic, it's just always it's
Speaker 6: always a circle back. So I just to their credit,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you know that's all a little slightly triggering.
Speaker 4: So I did it because I needed well back on
Speaker 4: my own. You have to understand something I did the
Speaker 4: Roots Picnic or the earlier what I decided to do
Speaker 4: when before COVID pre COVID, which is why I was
Speaker 4: grateful that it came back around and I was thought of,
Speaker 4: which is why I met. I met them like, thanks
Speaker 4: for thinking of me, because y'all could have been like,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, I don't know. So I
Speaker 4: did that for me because I needed to get past that.
Speaker 4: What I needed to get past was was Thepelle Ship.
Speaker 5: What the fuck.
Speaker 4: Here? Exactly? Oh my god, that exactly.
Speaker 1: I didn't put that together.
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not coming you. I was literally right with.
Speaker 1: The Chippell party and also that photo.
Speaker 4: Okay, aquarium, let's not even get into you're in it. Okay,
Speaker 4: all right, it's okay, it's okay. This is what I'm saying. Okay,
Speaker 4: I need to get past it. So every opportunity that
Speaker 4: comes up with me explain the context of just the
Speaker 4: ancillary events. But I'm constantly being I'm sure that you
Speaker 4: probably don't even know about.
Speaker 1: I don't know about, and I don't organize all.
Speaker 4: Of these things. It's okay, it's okay, But in my mind,
Speaker 4: because I don't know the inner dynamics of y'all situation,
Speaker 4: I think I'm doing this for the light.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 5: You gotta communicate, man, this could have cut this ten
Speaker 5: years ago.
Speaker 4: So I did the I did the Roots picnic because
Speaker 4: I needed to get over my own issues surrounding y'all,
Speaker 4: because I didn't want to have no issues. But I
Speaker 4: didn't know how to interact with any of y'all like that.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. Yeah, there's the ways I
Speaker 4: can get folks number, but I'm not gonna cold call
Speaker 4: nobody like you know. It's cool, it's no beef. It's
Speaker 4: not an on site situation. But I'm not going to
Speaker 4: act like we interact all like that. Either you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, you understand what you understand? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What what?
Speaker 2: I'm slowly realizing No, And this is the first time
Speaker 2: like i've I've heard that. Even this week cosmic keV
Speaker 2: was like, I feel a certain way, y' ask me
Speaker 2: nothing certain.
Speaker 5: Way, don't.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, no, no, old boy what's his name? Uh?
Speaker 1: While I was partner.
Speaker 2: Gilly also the same thing, which no, it's it's never
Speaker 2: like we're never like, let's not ask them. A lot
Speaker 2: of times it's either like finances or a lot of
Speaker 2: these things we do is by the skin of our
Speaker 2: teeth or a.
Speaker 4: Favor for favor, Like I keep saying, so.
Speaker 1: We love everyone is so not not.
Speaker 4: I don't want to keep making it a point to
Speaker 4: say that I love you, man. This is why. It's
Speaker 4: because I'm not saying it just to be saying it
Speaker 4: like I have, because that's something that I have to
Speaker 4: know and feel in myself. That's the only reason why
Speaker 4: I did the failin situation. I wouldn't have did that
Speaker 4: shit because I'm like, for what they never asked me
Speaker 4: to do nothing for what But I was like, nah,
Speaker 4: it's the roots, like they're on an elass platform. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, And stop acting like you don't
Speaker 4: want to be a part of that.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of our stories. I just need you
Speaker 5: to know this.
Speaker 4: Like it's so No, it's cool, it's cool.
Speaker 5: But yeah, even even even I.
Speaker 4: Don't, I'm not gonna be in people's faces talking right now.
Speaker 4: Unbeknownst to y'all, I'm in a very weird emotional, psychological
Speaker 4: and emotional space. It's to the point where I got
Speaker 4: to tell my my my, my publicist family, you might
Speaker 4: want to chill on the interviews because I'm spilling my
Speaker 4: guts too much, bro, And don't nobody want keep hearing this, Like,
Speaker 4: let me deal with my stuff, man, Like, let me
Speaker 4: get into a better place so that I can be
Speaker 4: the person that people are kind of sort of looking for.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, call when he send it
Speaker 6: to you, because if that's the case, if you try
Speaker 6: to be progressive and be better, then I don't want
Speaker 6: to hear that black man.
Speaker 5: Whatever. I don't want to hear that black man.
Speaker 4: What's what's progressive?
Speaker 5: Progressive. You do what I'm at.
Speaker 4: I met.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying, don't be all black man nineteen eighties,
Speaker 5: Like I don't do.
Speaker 2: That before it serves a nine hour conversation. How have
Speaker 2: you been adjusting? How have you been how have you
Speaker 2: been adjusting to life pre COVID Like for a lot
Speaker 2: of us, this is the first extended break that we've
Speaker 2: ever gotten.
Speaker 1: And a chance to recap and reconnect with our families.
Speaker 1: And like I've been.
Speaker 4: Saying, which is which is? Which is? What has like
Speaker 4: uh instigated at least for me to get into the
Speaker 4: minutes of my timeline, which I still haven't finished because
Speaker 4: I'm literally still at the beginning. Yeah, keep going, Yeah,
Speaker 4: We're still at the beginning. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But I'm making a point to say that is all
Speaker 4: of these all of this baggage. I can't run away
Speaker 4: from unpacking now. I used to be able to hide
Speaker 4: behind working. I don't have the luxury of doing that anymore.
Speaker 4: It meets me when I wake up, it's there. Even
Speaker 4: when I go to sleep, I wake up in pain,
Speaker 4: like physical muscle pain, because I know that in my sleep, I'm.
Speaker 5: Like hell a trigger and you tense because you got.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Man, my jaws be hurting because I know I
Speaker 4: clinch at night. I know that. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: I know because I have a lot of unpacked shit,
Speaker 4: man that I'm dealing with, like and then I have
Speaker 4: new ship comes to me, Like I'm dealing with a
Speaker 4: whole situation that I don't even talk about. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. It's people don't know. And I know
Speaker 4: they're like, wait, now is it gonna say anything? Is
Speaker 4: gonna Is he gonna say anything? You know, it's a
Speaker 4: personal situation concerning personal situation. Okay, Okay, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying that this person whole it's a whole person
Speaker 4: that's on a whole different wave that I can't even
Speaker 4: understand right now, you know, and I'm trying to manage that.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, What the fuck.
Speaker 5: Is the last thing that made you smile? Like, what's
Speaker 5: what's bringing joy in your life?
Speaker 4: I mean, my son does it? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm grateful for him. He has little things that he
Speaker 4: do in moments that I have with him. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying that be like you funny bro, You
Speaker 4: know but like it's I said it to one of
Speaker 4: my brothers, well my only brother that I really fool
Speaker 4: with like that, Like it's so fun to be a
Speaker 4: part of a tension oh shit moment and be like
Speaker 4: I love you, little homie, Like I actually love you, dude.
Speaker 4: I'm a clean this up, but I love you, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, rather than what the book you know,
Speaker 4: Like that's fun. I love being a part of that,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Emotionally nurturing this dude, Like
Speaker 4: I love that, Like that that brings me joy.
Speaker 5: Being something that you didn't have, right, Like you know
Speaker 5: that you didn't have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, So to answer your question like immediately, the
Speaker 4: short answer is you know things like that, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, but trying to like go back to
Speaker 4: the story. So a touch of jazz, so you know
Speaker 4: I'm already you know, I know, I know the story.
Speaker 4: You know, touch of jazz, jazzy, Jeff Fresh friends out
Speaker 4: of that, you know what I'm saying, Like I didn't
Speaker 4: sit the kool aid, bought the kool aid, bought the recipe,
Speaker 4: tried my own version of it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: Like I'm all the way in, but my relationship never
Speaker 4: actually gets a stabis. I see him every now and again.
Speaker 4: It's all love. Actually. Funny enough, it was because of
Speaker 4: Jazzy Jeff that I was introduced to Dylan, So that's
Speaker 4: a whole nother right. I still speak to T three.
Speaker 4: By the way, Me and T three are a group
Speaker 4: called trace on ninety eight. We put a song out
Speaker 4: call Once upon a Time. You might want to go
Speaker 4: check that out anyway. Yeah, yeah, tray so t R
Speaker 4: A s o U L ninety eight. T R A
Speaker 4: s o U L ninety eight. So back to touch
Speaker 4: of Jet. So me and Carbon working on joints. We
Speaker 4: come up with just friends, we come up with seventeen,
Speaker 4: we come up with Girl next Door. Funny enough, Jill
Speaker 4: Scott actually wrote the girl part on on Girl next Door.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: But I don't know what the details went into her actually.
Speaker 5: Being she didn't get that money.
Speaker 4: She didn't get that money, oh okay, And we've never
Speaker 4: talked about it since, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 4: she actually wrote that part.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But that's another story. There's a lot of strong man
Speaker 4: stories that that I can get into, but I want
Speaker 4: to stay focused. I'm working on all of these songs,
Speaker 4: and in my mind, I'm not thinking, yeah, this is
Speaker 4: gonna be my album. I'm like, oh, these are some
Speaker 4: cool songs that I could play for people to show
Speaker 4: them what I can do. So here it is December
Speaker 4: of ninety nine. I'm in Georgia, and these my managers
Speaker 4: at the time, it's like, yo, where you at. We
Speaker 4: got gotta be in New York, you know what I'm
Speaker 4: saying tomorrow or the next day or whatever the day was.
Speaker 4: And I was like, for what And it was like,
Speaker 4: because we got a deal on the table for you.
Speaker 4: I was like, wow, what you mean what does that mean?
Speaker 5: Oh God, you didn't know nothing, Like I'm.
Speaker 4: Fresh off the streets, like I don't. There's no conversation
Speaker 4: of deals, you know, there's no conversation of you know,
Speaker 4: we're shopping you to this place in that place. If
Speaker 4: there were, like I don't remember right right, you know,
Speaker 4: And they definitely weren't extensive. They were you know, we're
Speaker 4: gonna play something for these people or whatever if that was.
Speaker 4: But I'm I'm so not dialed then I'm just recording. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And they're like, wait, a minute, where are you? I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm in Atlanta? What you mean? Why are you out there? Like? See,
Speaker 4: this is how much we don't like.
Speaker 5: Community communicate all of us.
Speaker 4: Yes, y'all just expected me to just be damn around
Speaker 4: Like well, it doesn't help that the fact that I
Speaker 4: was always around the point is, you know, if y'all
Speaker 4: was more invested in a nigga personal life, you know,
Speaker 4: we wouldn't get so.
Speaker 5: Confused right now, No nigga, you're a worker.
Speaker 4: So they're like, well, we need no nah fam, we
Speaker 4: need we gotta get back out. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: well you know if you could, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: throw need some bread so I can get a get
Speaker 4: a greyhound ticket. I'll be there, you know, you know
Speaker 4: tomorrow sometimes like greyhound, Like what do you mean greyhound?
Speaker 4: Nah man? We need we need you back, like now,
Speaker 4: like we get you a plane ticket. Plane Nah, bro,
Speaker 4: I'm not getting on a plane. That's not that's not happening.
Speaker 4: That's not happening. I'm not I'm not doing that. You're
Speaker 4: what's the shut up and fish? All right? Yes?
Speaker 5: Sorry I finished, that's whole sales.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, thank you. Anyway, before I really interrupted, I
Speaker 4: love you like I love you too.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, oh wow, I'm in love with you.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's pause.
Speaker 4: That's not different at all.
Speaker 1: No, I don't know why I was so good. I
Speaker 1: don't know why it would be creepy so awkwards. That
Speaker 1: was so.
Speaker 5: Like, you don't know, not creepy as in.
Speaker 4: The lecturous way, just creepy as in a way you're
Speaker 4: just going to hijack our moment right now. That is fun.
Speaker 4: It's about me now, Okay, it's all love, bro. So
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, I'm not getting on no plane like
Speaker 4: I know Greyhound. I know that we're gonna do the
Speaker 4: bus route. We're not getting on a plane. It was like,
Speaker 4: you gotta be kidding me, dude. I'm like yeah, no.
Speaker 4: And I thought I was, you know, I had I
Speaker 4: ain't had no leverage. I thought I was negotiating. I
Speaker 4: was negotiating because I came anyway like you. It's not
Speaker 4: like you wasn't gonna come like right. So, And I
Speaker 4: was in a mood because I had just cut my
Speaker 4: lots off because I couldn't get a job in Georgia
Speaker 4: with my lots for whatever weird reason, I don't know, Maybe.
Speaker 5: With I don't know it's because of Raco.
Speaker 4: I'm already I'm already in a mood. I'm in a
Speaker 4: whole mood, you know what I'm saying. And then I
Speaker 4: lost my job two weeks later, Like wow, okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: this sucks. Life pretty much sucks. Yeah, And and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm not having to deal with the fact that, you know,
Speaker 4: even though I'm in Georgia, I still don't have a
Speaker 4: good relationship with my parents, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So that was still sucking with me. I don't know
Speaker 4: my brother's and sistans. Yeah I know them physically know them,
Speaker 4: but I don't. I don't know that, and you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. And there's a whole lot of them
Speaker 4: weirdness that was going on at the time. But so
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, whatever, I'm literally not
Speaker 4: doing anything else with my life. I'm getting up another
Speaker 4: get it again. I'm living off of this. So this
Speaker 4: is dude. The h was selling rooms for like fifty
Speaker 4: dollars a week. I was like, well, that's a come
Speaker 4: up in fifty dollars a night, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So cool, I'll take this, But no plumbing, no no window.
Speaker 4: It was literally just a space. It was the coming
Speaker 4: to a complex basicly. Yeah, So like you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. But I got at least I had the
Speaker 4: luxury of living by myself, you know, and to live
Speaker 4: on top of nobody progress. So I thought I had
Speaker 4: a little independence, you know what I'm saying. And that
Speaker 4: was at the time where I was. I think, I was, No,
Speaker 4: I was, I was, I was. Where was I working?
Speaker 5: You're still working?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I forgot where. I've been worked at
Speaker 4: so many places, bro, you're still working. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: This is right at the time where yeh, So I
Speaker 4: found my way back to Philly, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And the dudes that I told you that I met
Speaker 4: at the open mic situation that let me stay at
Speaker 4: their crib because it was right around the corner. Now
Speaker 4: what it was was it was a bunch of college
Speaker 4: kids that lived in this really expensive three story, four
Speaker 4: of the canter basement house that I'm assuming their parents
Speaker 4: paid for. And it was like, you know, you could
Speaker 4: just stay here for free, just pick up picker room.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter, like picker room. And I was like, bruh,
Speaker 4: this is dope, you know what I'm saying. They always
Speaker 4: had food in the fridge. It wasn't that deep. But
Speaker 4: you know, I didn't go hungry. You know, if they
Speaker 4: felt inclined to, they would throw me a couple of dollars,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. And it was cool, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And I started doing music with
Speaker 4: a couple of them, but we kind of like went
Speaker 4: in a different direction. I actually did a whole project
Speaker 4: with a whole bunch of stuff on it, and I
Speaker 4: got one of them on it. I did like a
Speaker 4: Fayla inspired song and I got you know, I got
Speaker 4: them on it, you know what I'm saying. But that
Speaker 4: project never came out because when I ran it by
Speaker 4: the label, it didn't sound like music job. So you know,
Speaker 4: it was a whole proj I might need to relive
Speaker 4: it. It was called Universal.
Speaker 1: Where is it now?
Speaker 4: That's just somewhere. I gotta find it. It's sill on
Speaker 4: CD somewhere. I did a song with Frank McComb is
Speaker 4: pretty cool, and on it I did a song I
Speaker 4: did a song with with I did a song with
Speaker 4: Lil John. It was like a punk rock punk punk,
Speaker 4: black punk afro punk kind of song or whatever. That's
Speaker 4: pretty cool.
Speaker 6: John Roberts, Okay, yeah, I'm glad you was right because
Speaker 6: the other would have been a problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, little John Roberts. You know, I did a record
Speaker 4: with him. I was supposed to do a song with Rick.
Speaker 5: But you know, oh Lord, you just called Lord.
Speaker 4: Okay, No, I'm not saying this to just call people out.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you about my timeline. These are the things that.
Speaker 5: So this is still before you signed the deal.
Speaker 4: No, this is afterwards. I just brought that up to say.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. These people that I lived with,
Speaker 4: you know, I tried to, you know, bring them up
Speaker 4: with me, but you know, opportunities just never like came
Speaker 4: to fruition. So now I'm back in Philly and i'm
Speaker 4: living I'm just staying with one of my managersers. I
Speaker 4: didn't have nowhere to stay, but I knew that I
Speaker 4: could stay with these guys if I can get in
Speaker 4: contact with But he was like, Noah, stay with me tonight.
Speaker 4: So I didn't know where you are right now, We're
Speaker 4: going to all go to New York together, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. So that was the first time ever No,
Speaker 4: I didn't get on the plane. Then I got on
Speaker 4: the plane when I had to do the show up
Speaker 4: to the premiere of The Nutty Professor too, because I
Speaker 4: was on the soundtrack in LA. That's when I showed up.
Speaker 4: That's when I actually took a plane. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, freak.
Speaker 5: You out because that's a five hour Yeah, there really was.
Speaker 4: It really, it really did freak me out, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying at the premiere. And at the premiere
Speaker 4: I ran into biblical thoughts while she was eating. I
Speaker 4: was so starstruking. I wanted the picture. She was like, sir,
Speaker 4: I'm eating. I was likepoint left. Sorry, she was cute anyway.
Speaker 4: I know I'm like going off on tangents, but this
Speaker 4: is you know, yeah, so but New York. So I'm
Speaker 4: sitting in front of Kevin Lows. That's so with a
Speaker 4: fresh haircut. Well it's not not. It was a fresh haircut.
Speaker 4: It was just freshly cut. Okay. I didn't have time
Speaker 4: to get a cut up. So I'm wolfing. I don't
Speaker 4: have no coat.
Speaker 2: That's how I know you from Philly.
Speaker 4: So I got to borrow my manager's coat, who was
Speaker 4: what six six and telling stories.
Speaker 5: Okay, yes you're figuring it out.
Speaker 4: But let's I'm in this big bubble coat, this big
Speaker 4: brown bubble coat. I think it was fat Farm. I
Speaker 4: don't know. And I'm sitting there, you know, red Man
Speaker 4: is sitting on the table. I'm talking to this dude
Speaker 4: I never met before, ever heard of, Kevin Lewles because
Speaker 4: I'm thinking because when I asked him on the phone,
Speaker 4: I was They was like, yeah, we got a deal
Speaker 4: for you on the table. I was like deal, what
Speaker 4: you mean? Like what does that mean? No, we got
Speaker 4: we signed your record deal. I was like, well, who
Speaker 4: with depth? Jam? Give me like with Russell Simmons in them.
Speaker 4: They was like, no, man, Russell Simmons is not over
Speaker 4: depth jamm. And I was like, I don't know. I
Speaker 4: just you said depth Jam Russell Simmons, It's all I know.
Speaker 4: He was like, nah, it's just dude, that Kevin Lews.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, like Kevin lows Like. I was like, damn,
Speaker 4: I don't hear the bell, bro. Sorry, it was a virgin.
Speaker 4: People don't understand how a virgin how like not knowing
Speaker 4: that I was, you know what I'm saying, super agreed.
Speaker 4: I was vegan damn anyway, not technically, but anyway, so
Speaker 4: you get it. So I'm in I'm in Kevin Law's
Speaker 4: office and they're talking to me about all of this stuff.
Speaker 4: That's like, bruh, I have no idea what any of
Speaker 4: you are talking about. Right now, here's what I proposed.
Speaker 4: Since you like to work so much, won't you give
Speaker 4: me the break and let me go back in the
Speaker 4: studio and work on what I want to work on. No, Nah,
Speaker 4: these songs are great, bro, These songs are great. You
Speaker 4: should put these out. I don't want to put these
Speaker 4: out because these don't represent how I feel about presenting
Speaker 4: myself as mind you music. Soul Child wasn't even the name.
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 4: People knew me as music? Technically it is, but people
Speaker 4: knew me as music. But if I but I told myself,
Speaker 4: if I ever became a thing, I would call myself.
Speaker 4: Soul Child got because I represented the thing that I
Speaker 4: was trying to do. But I got the No, bro, like,
Speaker 4: people already know you as music, so why would you
Speaker 4: do No nobody know me, but.
Speaker 1: You got the compromise.
Speaker 5: You got the compromise.
Speaker 4: So I said, you know what, how about we do this?
Speaker 4: How about we put it together. We got music soul
Speaker 4: chouts like it's like bust rhymes. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: a try call question the whole thing, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So they was like, cool, fuck it whatever,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, as long as we get
Speaker 4: the music. I was like, okay, that's why they were
Speaker 4: was a discrepancy around like my second album, because I
Speaker 4: was like, I don't feel authentic with this name, like
Speaker 4: it would be different. No no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 4: it will be different if I was actually living up
Speaker 4: to the name. But I don't feel like I'm living
Speaker 4: up to the name. So until I do, I don't
Speaker 4: think that is it's it's authentic, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: For me to call myself the full name, let me
Speaker 4: focus on it because, as it turns out, y'all have
Speaker 4: been running this show. Music is y'all's thing. Somehow along
Speaker 4: the line broken telephone, everybody got the word you better
Speaker 4: not call them soul child. So people will be like,
Speaker 4: so is it music? Is it? Like why y'all keep
Speaker 4: asking me this question? No, because we keep getting told.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, like, you know we better
Speaker 4: enough because you would get mad or some shit, some weird.
Speaker 4: I'm like, dude, whoa, oh, y'all doing way too much.
Speaker 4: And that's why after the third album, I was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, let me help y'all out. Let's bring
Speaker 4: it back to me because apparently I can't get around it. Okay, cool,
Speaker 4: let's go back to music. Soul Child. But then even
Speaker 4: more confusion, you know what I'm saying, because they couldn't
Speaker 4: deny that they were basically being browbeaten by I don't know,
Speaker 4: the death Jangoons to you know, fall in line and
Speaker 4: now mind you. I'm not a part of none of this,
Speaker 4: but I gotta get in front of it. Though again communication,
Speaker 4: no one's talking to me about any what you want?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: And then they got moved over to Atlantic and they
Speaker 4: kept going. So when I tell people in twenty what fifteen,
Speaker 4: I haven't even gotten started yet, They're like, what are
Speaker 4: you talking about? You're like, ain't you you?
Speaker 5: They don't know.
Speaker 4: How can I communicate that to the How can I
Speaker 4: make this make sense to people? It's gonna have fifteen years.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have to ask Deanna, like, a, you.
Speaker 4: Know, it's been fifteen years and I still feel like
Speaker 4: I haven't. I haven't done me yet. You didn't feel
Speaker 4: like feel the real was doing you. That's in that's
Speaker 4: in seventeen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh you you're talking about But to.
Speaker 4: Answer your question, but you answer your question, yes, but
Speaker 4: before we got signed, but before you got to that then,
Speaker 4: But even then, that was me doing me with things
Speaker 4: that probably wouldn't have seen the light of day. So
Speaker 4: you think of it, think of feel the rails like
Speaker 4: a like a lost tapes, so to speaks. Now it's
Speaker 4: just lost tape. That's what that feels like to me,
Speaker 4: because that wasn't me going in the studio and actually
Speaker 4: working on things from the ground up. That was like
Speaker 4: stuff that I had around that I thought was doper
Speaker 4: than anything. Like a lot of those songs are like
Speaker 4: ten years old, wow almost you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: or at least the concepts of it. I just pulled
Speaker 4: back from the vault. You know what I'm sayingybe not
Speaker 4: ten years old. Maybe that's putting extras on it, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. But I'm like way older than Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. What life on Earth was different?
Speaker 4: Because that was all Warren Campbell. Literally every song is
Speaker 4: Warren Campbell. Now there is a song on there that
Speaker 4: is like about ten years old. It's called Alive and well,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying that I did way way
Speaker 4: way back. Fiel the Real actually played one of the
Speaker 4: songs and for Benefits. I played that for all for Knife. Okay,
Speaker 4: I played Benefits for Knife and Knife was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: so what we doing? Like we're trying to sign the
Speaker 4: Jamler Like I'm like, like, it's not that simple. Like
Speaker 4: I have a engagement with a whole other company that
Speaker 4: I have a contract with. I love you that right now.
Speaker 4: We can have a conversation later. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's why Rap is on it. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because I give him for Rap because I'm like, yo,
Speaker 4: I need Rap on my ship, like I need her,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So, yeah, that's why she's
Speaker 4: on the on the on the Life on Earth. Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: she's on the She's on a joint called far Gone
Speaker 4: uh on Life on Earth. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's how she got on here. But and I actually
Speaker 4: wanted to do a whole project with Rap, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. But I think you know, you know,
Speaker 4: the communication got got broke down. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: We got a whole talk about it, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, at least me and him, Me and Rap
Speaker 4: didn't really talk about it. I told her that it
Speaker 4: was something that I wanted to do, but we didn't
Speaker 4: really like discussed disgusted it, but I disgusted it with
Speaker 4: him like yo, and the whole ship could be produced
Speaker 4: by all Jambler producers, like I don't care, Like I
Speaker 4: wouldn't go right now. You know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 4: know you got you got Jones, you got Crisis, you
Speaker 4: got you know, you know what I'm saying, You got
Speaker 4: all these people that does mad good ship. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. You got you you know, let's go.
Speaker 4: But you know, it just never happened. So hopefully, you know,
Speaker 4: a music and rhapsody produced by you know, all GAM
Speaker 4: producers might happen. Might not. I don't know that would
Speaker 4: be dope.
Speaker 5: But you just getting started so ship like yeah, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I'm saying, It got so bad. I literally
Speaker 4: just started starting up groups with everybody. That's why me
Speaker 4: and two three are a group. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because I was like, I need to start doing me now,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, and I want to work
Speaker 4: with everybody. I actually was talking. I don't know how
Speaker 4: realistic it is, but I was talking to Robert. I
Speaker 4: was like, yo, I think me bellowing Jazzman need to
Speaker 4: be a group and you should produce the whole thing.
Speaker 6: She's aloud and I talked to Jazz about it.
Speaker 4: She was like, you did you? Did you talk to Blon?
Speaker 4: It was like, right, no, I didn't. Actually now I
Speaker 4: don't have his number and I have no way of
Speaker 4: contacting him. You know what I'm saying. I used to
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, But he would just you.
Speaker 5: Know, it's so funny.
Speaker 4: Because you know, stop taking my calls after a while.
Speaker 4: I don't know why, but I don't know. People just different.
Speaker 4: People just move. I guess, you know whatever. I just so,
Speaker 4: I just stopped. I just stopped calling.
Speaker 1: You know, isn't called social media, right.
Speaker 4: Oh you have to you're under the impression that I
Speaker 4: frequent those.
Speaker 5: I don't at all A new phone number.
Speaker 1: One's number. I just DMS.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even I don't DM. I don't ain't
Speaker 4: gonna be no music versus probably not.
Speaker 5: I'm literally enjoy it anyway.
Speaker 4: I literally literally literally yes, that would sugar fest for me.
Speaker 5: You're so right.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry that would be a versus you would be.
Speaker 1: I figure be quite the opposite.
Speaker 4: Then somebody needs to be represented on my behalf because
Speaker 4: I'll just be there like well, my question is is.
Speaker 1: There a part of you?
Speaker 4: Is there a part of you even in the midst
Speaker 4: of you know, feeling like you know when you talk
Speaker 4: about not being able to really represent yourself and kind
Speaker 4: of what those early records represent, is there a part
Speaker 4: of you that does feel like you did in many
Speaker 4: ways get the last laugh because of everyone that, yeah,
Speaker 4: nigga like because in the midst of that soul carrying photo,
Speaker 4: you're the one that had the most like chart success,
Speaker 4: the most long don't even think about that.
Speaker 5: Because of it, because of the check, because they don't even.
Speaker 4: Think about winning. You gotta understand, I don't see if
Speaker 4: I want, I don't even see the win. Guess why
Speaker 4: I don't see the.
Speaker 5: On But you're not working at the piece of spot.
Speaker 4: Perception. It's everybody loves citing my timeline to me like
Speaker 4: I'm not me, like I get it. I get it.
Speaker 5: That's not that people's way. I'm trying to make sense.
Speaker 4: No, no, And like I always say, people always try
Speaker 4: to rationalize it, you know what I'm saying, because they
Speaker 4: don't want to contend with the reality that everything that
Speaker 4: I've done up until now is was per request. So
Speaker 4: even if the fact that it was successful doesn't mean
Speaker 4: anything to you, it's like, no, no, no, it was us.
Speaker 4: But which But if you want me to be all
Speaker 4: up at arms about how great I did, I didn't
Speaker 4: do great. It was a collective effort, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, And it was, but it was it was.
Speaker 4: It was a collective effort, but it was It was
Speaker 4: essentially under the rest, you know what I'm saying. Not
Speaker 4: that nobody was putting a gun in my head, but
Speaker 4: I didn't really have any other opportunities. So my best bet.
Speaker 4: There was a whole span between my third and my
Speaker 4: fourth album that I was on the phone with members
Speaker 4: of the label and they were trying to explain to me,
Speaker 4: like Sam, if you don't move in this direction, it
Speaker 4: could very well be over for you. Yeah, And I
Speaker 4: had to sit with that.
Speaker 2: Like it's not good with Lee or or Julie or
Speaker 2: any of that.
Speaker 4: Oh, I ain't got no beef with le Or and
Speaker 4: Julie like that. I never really dealt with them directly, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: in passing. I would see them in passing and it
Speaker 4: was all up. Like I have literally truly no beef
Speaker 4: with either one. I don't have a relationship with them,
Speaker 4: more so with Julie than lee Ark. But even then
Speaker 4: it's like it's touch and go, Like I don't you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. It was. It was I went
Speaker 4: to work, you know those doors we work together, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. My relationship was directly with Kevin Lyles,
Speaker 4: and even sometimes not even with him. It was on
Speaker 4: at the behead stuff Kevin Lyles, you know what I'm saying. Right, So, yeah, Like,
Speaker 4: and it's hard, And that's why I don't talk about
Speaker 4: it because I know how much it undermines people's relationship
Speaker 4: with my music and the expectations they have of what
Speaker 4: they gonna get. So I try. I do my best
Speaker 4: to live up to it. But when you start getting
Speaker 4: older and you start looking yourself in the mirror after
Speaker 4: you just did you know, some shucking and driving, you
Speaker 4: don't feel good on the inside. So yeah, even though
Speaker 4: I can account for the successes and I'm eternally grateful
Speaker 4: for the blessings that came from it, because I wouldn't
Speaker 4: even have an name of credibility or way to provide
Speaker 4: for myself and loved ones. That's not lost on me
Speaker 4: at all. It doesn't take away the real reality though,
Speaker 4: that my time Bruh is with hell wow.
Speaker 1: So let me ask, how would you explain.
Speaker 2: Your twenty year experience as far as your creative output,
Speaker 2: your your actual albums, your art. How do you explain
Speaker 2: that to your son? How do you break it down
Speaker 2: to him? How do you present it to him?
Speaker 4: He doesn't care. That's the that's the that's how I
Speaker 4: get off. He doesn't care. He doesn't even know what's
Speaker 4: the thing, but he will. It's not part of his day.
Speaker 1: He literally has no clue that you're this music icon.
Speaker 4: Has He literally not just me, his mom.
Speaker 5: I was about to say his mom too.
Speaker 4: You don't know he gets it. He gets an honest
Speaker 4: both ways, and he literally has no clue. He isn't
Speaker 4: even like a singing to him. He gets emotional. Wow
Speaker 4: Lively starts crying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, crazy, I mean, but
Speaker 4: you know he has his challenges. You know, he's not
Speaker 4: he's not really good at communicating his emotions and his thoughts.
Speaker 4: Like that's a challenge. So we don't know whether that's
Speaker 4: a police stop or please don't know what's going on,
Speaker 4: like you know, so we're still we're still managing that,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But I don't take it
Speaker 4: away like I actually preferred that he doesn't know, so that,
Speaker 4: you know, all he sees is Daddy, That's all he sees.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't want to better. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. I better, you know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 4: I want I want him to like dude.
Speaker 2: See see often the QLs family will do this to
Speaker 2: me because I hate the idea of roses or taking
Speaker 2: roses or accepting compliments or uh.
Speaker 4: But I mean, let me just say, you know, okay,
Speaker 4: were about to get super you know, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: In it is now he's.
Speaker 5: That it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: Take a paw ta take this good ship music right now.
Speaker 6: Don't make me call you by your government. Take this
Speaker 6: good ship go ahead of mirror.
Speaker 1: No dog, I'm just saying that you have done.
Speaker 2: A great service. You have, Dude, you you've made at
Speaker 2: the definitive. You made a definitive wedding song.
Speaker 4: That's hard not a wedding song. It's not a wedding song,
Speaker 4: no matter what. Wait wait, wait, which one are you
Speaker 4: talking to? I've been at least to wedding really do
Speaker 4: the two.
Speaker 1: I've been to ten weddings where love is the new
Speaker 1: you and I you know how?
Speaker 4: No, No, it's an emo song? You know emo? That
Speaker 4: song is?
Speaker 1: Oh? Wait? Is this another reasons?
Speaker 4: An inside joke with earthwinder Fire reason not being the
Speaker 4: song that black people mean it for. But I didn't
Speaker 4: know that and funny enough and that you brought that up.
Speaker 4: I actually remade that song with Warren Campbell. It's pretty lick.
Speaker 4: You want to go check it out. So, man, speaking
Speaker 4: of Warren camp So you talk about, you know, songs
Speaker 4: not representing you, please tell me is until one of
Speaker 4: the songs that represents Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got the.
Speaker 4: Pleasure of perform the radio station in l A A
Speaker 4: K K J L H by Stevie Wonder and Stokely
Speaker 4: Williams called in and was like brodition. That was what
Speaker 4: like a freaking highlight okay, and that's why I was produced.
Speaker 4: That was produced by Warren Campbell with a gap band
Speaker 4: really Charlie Wilson sample in it, and I'm also referencing
Speaker 4: Marvin Gay like I can't make that up. No, I
Speaker 4: love that song Ago and the resident DJ. I can't
Speaker 4: make that up, bro, Like that was a highlight of
Speaker 4: my life. And then Stephen decides to get on the
Speaker 4: Keys Live on Radio, has to get on radio Live
Speaker 4: Live on Radio and place Keys. You're like egging me
Speaker 4: to sing love, you know what I'm saying, Like like
Speaker 4: Stevie is literally the God, like literally for me, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. So just to wrap up the
Speaker 4: question that you asked me.
Speaker 1: I asked I'm trying to give you a compliment, but.
Speaker 4: The previous question, the previous question, the previous question, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And also to sew up a
Speaker 4: lot of loose ends for Tiger because he keeps asking
Speaker 4: me certain things and I'm not. I'm not. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: at least tell me blah blah. Yeah. So when but
Speaker 4: that's when it changed. It changed with Life on Earth.
Speaker 4: But even still it was a Warren Campbell production. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I loved it and we
Speaker 4: kind of had our falling out in the process. We
Speaker 4: since made up. I called him, was like, bro, I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna walk around with shitting in my chest for you.
Speaker 4: I'm letting it go. We cool. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because it wasn't even him, it was ancillary individuals in
Speaker 4: the midst well an individual so we're not even gonna
Speaker 4: get into that. But I love that project. And that
Speaker 4: was when I was like, That's when I was really
Speaker 4: definitively like I'm done. That's why my first single I Do.
Speaker 4: I went to that and he thank you. I went
Speaker 4: to LA and he was like, yo, I got this
Speaker 4: joint I want you to be. I was like, dude,
Speaker 4: I'm not even feel I don't even feel like. He's like, dude,
Speaker 4: just get in there and sing whatever you want to sing, Like,
Speaker 4: just do you. So the first thing that came out
Speaker 4: of my mouth was sometimes I don't like you. You
Speaker 4: always got a problem with anything that I do. I
Speaker 4: don't know, always understand everything about you. And I was like,
Speaker 4: better shu up, but I know, I just live with
Speaker 4: that out here. Clean it up. I do, I do,
Speaker 4: I do? I do? And you know, and then I
Speaker 4: fell out of it. Again. But then I ran into
Speaker 4: this dude named Jay Reil from Atlanta and we did
Speaker 4: five records together on Field the Real. You know that
Speaker 4: dude literally brought me out and we're a group called
Speaker 4: Denham Road. So yasha about that, damn.
Speaker 1: Sugar Steven.
Speaker 4: I'm literally legit in three functioning groups right now. It's
Speaker 4: Denham Rolls with j Rell. He's my producer that we
Speaker 4: work together, did five records on Field the Real. It's
Speaker 4: Loonie Trice, you know what I'm saying with two guys
Speaker 4: from Atlanta, one from Alabama, and you know it's actually
Speaker 4: more it's like a singer's version of a of a
Speaker 4: trip called quest type situation I'm trying to do. We
Speaker 4: put two singles out called Same Way and in p
Speaker 4: d A. PDA is actually pretty fresh. You might want
Speaker 4: to go check out PDA And it's Loomy Trice, l
Speaker 4: U and my t R I CE and and I'm
Speaker 4: in a group with uh uh with T three Yes
Speaker 4: Trace ninety eight. We got a song called one one
Speaker 4: More Time, I mean once once upon a time, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And that's that's the ones that
Speaker 4: are functioning. There's other ones that I'm still waiting on somebody,
Speaker 4: you like, pick it up and help me, because I
Speaker 4: can't do it by myself if we're in a group.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. But I don't want to
Speaker 4: pressure nobody to like, you get to it whenever you
Speaker 4: get to it, you know what I'm saying. But in
Speaker 4: the meantime, so fast forward to today, the most on
Speaker 4: brand music soul child project I've ever done. M It's
Speaker 4: called Do It for Dilla The Soul Brothers Series, Volume one. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's available. It's available on bank Camp. I literally took
Speaker 4: Villa beats and I did remakes of Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson, Marvin Gay, and Prince. That is the most
Speaker 4: on the brand music so thing that I've ever done
Speaker 4: in my entire career because it's literally me going back
Speaker 4: to where it started from for me, because I got lost.
Speaker 4: I couldn't see the road no more. So something in
Speaker 4: my head said, dude, just start from the beginning. Why
Speaker 4: are you even doing this? Dude? Like what got you
Speaker 4: into what made you want to do this was because
Speaker 4: you know, I'm listening to all of these people that
Speaker 4: I felt like was super dope, and they helped me
Speaker 4: learn how to find my voice in music, so let
Speaker 4: me honor them. And then I've always been trying to
Speaker 4: like you, remember I mayor, I've been trying to do
Speaker 4: this diller thing I did. Ah. He actually sent me
Speaker 4: a chop up of dancing machine and I did a
Speaker 4: record over and I played it for you because we
Speaker 4: were supposed to work on some stuff, but that got weird.
Speaker 2: You played you the first supposed to work on some
Speaker 2: stuff and it got weird.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no no no no to work go
Speaker 4: yeah yeah yeah, but me and my mayor was supposed
Speaker 4: to work on stuff, but I moved and we lost communication.
Speaker 4: And you know they're they're the roots and he's show.
Speaker 5: Plus you need some things from him right now.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna like this compliment so I can wrap up.
Speaker 2: God, God, damn it, thank you to wrap it up, though, brouh.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your artistry. I love you, brother. These aren't empty,
Speaker 1: meaningless brown nowsy.
Speaker 5: Words, platitudes.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but you are.
Speaker 2: Yes, you are appreciated. No seriously, man, yeah for real,
Speaker 2: And sometimes we just forget to tell each other. Hey man,
Speaker 2: we are for real.
Speaker 1: You just forget.
Speaker 4: That's that's the crime, and that's how I forget taking away.
Speaker 4: It is what it is.
Speaker 6: But understand, nobody else's voice could have sang those songs
Speaker 6: and made us feel the way we feel, regardless of
Speaker 6: whose pen exactly.
Speaker 4: Okay, now there we go. No, I'm just saying I
Speaker 4: just in honor of that. I just want to be
Speaker 4: more authentic. That's why I'm always we welcome that do me.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. I'm tired of doing other
Speaker 4: people stuff. Thank you for throwing me the ball. I
Speaker 4: get it, but I want I want to. I want to.
Speaker 4: I want to feel like, did you feel did you
Speaker 4: believe that her the record with you and ad Keys.
Speaker 1: Was that you?
Speaker 4: Do you feel like that was you? Because that's another
Speaker 4: one of my favorite in there stuck in there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because because I wasn't confident that the label would have
Speaker 4: allowed it to have its own I d You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. The only reason why they let me
Speaker 4: do the whole bloud thing was because Blave was a
Speaker 4: blild thing, you know what I'm saying. And plus it
Speaker 4: was epic. That's why I intro the song the way
Speaker 4: that I did, like I don't care if anybody agreed
Speaker 4: with me. This is a monumental epic moment, me and
Speaker 4: this dude on the same song Eat it is. I
Speaker 4: don't understand how huge this is.
Speaker 5: We got it, We got it, we we got it.
Speaker 5: We've been watching we fans don't do that.
Speaker 2: No for real jokes aside, man, We we love you, man,
Speaker 2: we appreciate you, and we well we we will do.
Speaker 2: I will do better personally to stay in cont because
Speaker 2: I'm also I'm mister hermit.
Speaker 1: No, it's not what it is.
Speaker 2: It's it's the change that can be for real, for real.
Speaker 2: Thank you all right, so on behalf of quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Uh fon Tigelo uh unpaid Bill went up in.
Speaker 1: The rapture maybe and Sugar Steve and music, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us. My name is quest Love.
Speaker 1: We will see you on the next go round. West
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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