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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. How are

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Speaker 1: you guys, Steve?

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Speaker 2: I realized in the last five episodes you hardly said

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Speaker 2: a word.

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Speaker 1: What are you? Okay? Yes, there you go? All right?

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Speaker 1: Uh you're in a purple room now, all right?

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Speaker 2: My fault still the after effects of the studio.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, man, I just you know, I feel like

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Speaker 3: I get y'all a little a little green light.

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Speaker 4: Uh, the core to day, little YouTube makeup artist vibe.

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Speaker 5: I got you, I got what's except we're getting today, sir.

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Speaker 4: Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner, and.

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Speaker 2: I like you.

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Speaker 1: How's it going with you? Oh? It's going good.

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Speaker 5: I'm on an eye list somewhere hoping my WiFi don't.

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Speaker 6: Ship on y'all.

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Speaker 1: Nice on vacation. Good to hear case?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Now I can introduce to our our guest,

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Speaker 2: our Guesterday is of course, she's an award winning author, novelist, journalist,

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Speaker 2: magazine editor from the Ya area, The Yay I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't even know if people in the.

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Speaker 2: Bay Area call it the Yay Area, but I'm going

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Speaker 2: on a limb and calling it the Ya Like Northia.

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Speaker 1: No one calls it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, no one calls it that.

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Speaker 2: Except for the roots when they're on stage. Will I

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Speaker 2: will say that I got to know and subsequently feared

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Speaker 2: this woman Uh when she was the first black editor

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Speaker 2: in chief at the much loved Vibe magazine starting in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. I believe you replaced Alan like correct

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Speaker 2: I did?

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Speaker 6: In fact, yeah I did.

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Speaker 4: In fact.

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Speaker 2: If ever, you guys wondered why is Amir obsessed with

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Speaker 2: journalists more than he's obsessed with his fellow peers in

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Speaker 2: the music business, I will honestly tell you it starts

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Speaker 2: with this woman because I only realize the power of

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Speaker 2: the pen when it came from our guest. Today, she's

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Speaker 2: released an awesome book, and if you're a fan of

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Speaker 2: the show, and if you're a fan of just inside

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Speaker 2: speak of a music genre that you don't love, but

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Speaker 2: things that you might not have known, I highly recommend

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Speaker 2: you get Shine Bright, a very personal history of Black

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Speaker 2: women in pop where literally not only does she reveal

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Speaker 2: her awesomely kind of adventurous journey and life with her

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Speaker 2: family coming up from the Bay Area, Los Angeles and

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Speaker 2: of course uh living all over and navigating through music,

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Speaker 2: but she even manages to uh break down and share

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Speaker 2: stories of of just the intricate stories that of artists

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Speaker 2: that you love but you really don't know about, like

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Speaker 2: from the Dixie Cups of the Charells to shit, I

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Speaker 2: didn't even know Leon Teine Price was related to war

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Speaker 2: Work and with you know, Sissy and Whitney Houston, and

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Speaker 2: you know, just drawing the parallels of how they you know,

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Speaker 2: those those four generations between Leon team Price and Sissy

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Speaker 2: Houston and dr Work and Whitney Houston and what they've

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Speaker 2: done in breaking barriers for just basically progressing for it,

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Speaker 2: but not to mention, you know, Diana Ross, name it,

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Speaker 2: glads night, Diane, Donna Summer Merlin McCoo. Even, ladies and gentlemen,

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Speaker 2: please welcome to Couestlim Supreme.

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Speaker 1: Daniel Smith, thank you, a how are you? Oh?

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Speaker 6: I mean I'm doing good because I'm over here with y'all,

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Speaker 6: so it feels it just feels really good and really special.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Where are you just

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Speaker 1: speaking to us right now? From? Where are you from?

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Speaker 6: My home in southern California, specifically in Venice, California.

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Speaker 2: Hey, aw, nice, Okay, I didn't know, I see, I

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Speaker 2: didn't know if you were in East Coast or West Coaster.

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Speaker 6: I mean, I'm I feel pretty equally both. Over the

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Speaker 6: course of my life at this point, I mean, I

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Speaker 6: think I did twenty three years on the on the

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Speaker 6: East Coast between most of it in Manhattan, most of

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Speaker 6: it in Brooklyn, some of it in Manhattan, some of

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Speaker 6: it in Washington, d C. But I'm back home in

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Speaker 6: my in the in the great country of California. So

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Speaker 6: it's good to be here.

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Speaker 1: Good to have you. Okay.

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Speaker 2: So the thing is, you're shigned Bright book. It's almost

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Speaker 2: like Jeopardy where your shine Bright Book? In my opinion,

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Speaker 2: it's almost like an episode of Quest of Supreme without

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Speaker 2: us asking the ques questions, you know. So it's almost

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Speaker 2: like if I were to go, well, no, literally she

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Speaker 2: you know.

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Speaker 5: It's it's a good cheat sheet.

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Speaker 2: Especially in the first chapter where you're breaking down your journey.

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Speaker 2: It's almost like, I feel like it's the service to

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Speaker 2: even recap that. So I kind of want to take

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Speaker 2: a different route with this episode than I would normally

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Speaker 2: do if you were a recording artist and well, you know, one,

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Speaker 2: I want to just ask the obvious, why did you

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Speaker 2: feel the need to construct this book and tell these stories.

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Speaker 2: Why did you feel the need to sort of construct

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Speaker 2: the story and the manner that you did, and why

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Speaker 2: was it so long overdue?

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Speaker 6: Well, let me answer the the second question first, Why

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Speaker 6: was this so long overdue? It's a combination of on

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Speaker 6: my part timing combination, add to that a lot of

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Speaker 6: second guessing myself, add to that a little bit of fear,

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Speaker 6: and add to that I hadn't quite figured out the

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Speaker 6: best way to tell it. It just hadn't. I had

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Speaker 6: to get to that place. I had to get really strong,

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Speaker 6: I think, a way that I hadn't felt, probably, I

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Speaker 6: don't know, in a half a decade by the time

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Speaker 6: I finished Shine Bright. So it's it's all my fault.

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Speaker 6: It's not my editor's fault. It's not anybody I interviewed.

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Speaker 6: It's not their fault. It's it's it's my fault, just

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Speaker 6: being uncharacteristically slow and missing of deadlines. Which, oh now,

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Speaker 6: let me tell you something. If my husband was here,

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Speaker 6: he would say, it took me eight I feel like

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Speaker 6: I've been writing it since I was eight years old,

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Speaker 6: but I think technically it took me six years.

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Speaker 2: All right, You speaking of your husband loved Elliott Wilson

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Speaker 2: why in yeah.

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Speaker 6: Why these seventeen years? Seventeen years?

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Speaker 1: That's awesome and hip hop?

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Speaker 5: That is it?

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Speaker 4: Right? Like straight up and down.

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Speaker 6: I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, so it's

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Speaker 6: it took me too long. I'm not gonna lie, but

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Speaker 6: you know it just the timing was right. It was

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Speaker 6: the reason why I wanted to do it is you know,

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Speaker 6: long story short, when Whitney Houston died in twenty twelve,

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Speaker 6: which she shouldn't have, but when she did die in

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Speaker 6: twenty twelve, you know, people approached me and said, could

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Speaker 6: you just write a bio off her really quickly? And

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Speaker 6: you know, let's go heavy on the drugs, let's go

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Speaker 6: heavy on the bad marriage. You know.

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Speaker 7: I was just like, i'll tell you that, yes, and

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Speaker 7: a sentence and one sentence.

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Speaker 1: Yes, what oh my god?

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Speaker 6: Like what like drugs? Bobby, Like, let's go how fast

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Speaker 6: can you get it done? And I was like, I'll

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Speaker 6: have it to you on the twelfth of never like,

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Speaker 6: I'm not doing that. So so I came back to

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Speaker 6: some folks with an idea about doing the history of

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Speaker 6: black women in pop I sold that and I was

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Speaker 6: never finishing that, and then I left that publisher and

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Speaker 6: I went back home so to speak to Chris Jackson.

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Speaker 6: In one World Chris Jackson published. I have two novels

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Speaker 6: from the early two thousands, more like Wrestling in Bliss,

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Speaker 6: that Chris Jackson published, and so I wanted to go

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Speaker 6: back home with him, one because he's a genius and

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Speaker 6: two because I trust him deeply. And he just said,

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Speaker 6: you know, eventually, he said, You're going to have to

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Speaker 6: put yourself in the book. I'm eternally grateful to him

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Speaker 6: for saying that. And then I spoke to my sister,

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Speaker 6: who's so much a part of shine Bright, And my

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Speaker 6: sister was like, are you asking me if you could

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Speaker 6: tell my story? She was basically like, b I tch,

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Speaker 6: you should have been told it so and so then

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Speaker 6: we were off to the races, you know.

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Speaker 2: At the top of the the introduction, you know, I

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Speaker 2: was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that.

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Speaker 1: That I loved and feared you only because I.

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Speaker 2: I realized I mean for starters, you know, with the

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Speaker 2: source that with vibe and at least the first wave

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Speaker 2: of late eighties early nineties journalism being sort of in

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Speaker 2: a serious form and not just like and this is

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Speaker 2: not to take away from Cynthia Horner or black Beat

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Speaker 2: or Steve Iberry or those guys. But you know, there

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Speaker 2: really hasn't been black critical writing. And although I've seen

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Speaker 2: it with rock journalism, like I've never seen a takedown

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Speaker 2: article or anything of that level from the black side

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Speaker 2: of things. And you know, you ran it very tight,

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Speaker 2: like your version of Vibe magazine, which I guess is

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Speaker 2: ninety four.

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Speaker 1: When did you leave Vibe ninety eight?

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Speaker 6: I started as I started as music editor in ninety four.

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Speaker 6: I was there in ninety six, went back to school

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Speaker 6: for a year to ninety seven, came back and got

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Speaker 6: promoted to Vib to be the first black and first

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Speaker 6: woman editor in chief of Vibe in ninety seven. I

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Speaker 6: left in ninety nine. Then I came came back in

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Speaker 6: six and was editor in chief of Vibe again six

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Speaker 6: O seven o eight, two years, two years.

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Speaker 2: Every time I would say that, you know, your era

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Speaker 2: was way different, I noticed immediately your era from say

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Speaker 2: Allen Light's period. I guess the trench issue was what

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Speaker 2: ninety one I believe ninety.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, ninety two to ninety four.

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Speaker 2: And not to say that, you know, because I'm friends

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Speaker 2: with Alan, like I'm not saying it was light in

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Speaker 2: the ass, but I definitely saw a noticeable difference between

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Speaker 2: both those issues. And that said, I don't know in

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Speaker 2: my mind, and I think this is often.

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Speaker 1: Of how the world will see black women.

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Speaker 2: As you know, we always use these words like strong,

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Speaker 2: you will use fierce and all those sort of colloquially

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Speaker 2: describe them. And so I was a bit taken aback,

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Speaker 2: you know, at how vulnerable you got, especially in the

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Speaker 2: first chapter speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like,

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Speaker 2: you know, because it was kind of like whoa like

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Speaker 2: you don't see a human side, Well, I'm a Journalists

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Speaker 2: often don't insert themselves or that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: So I was really just I was I was pleasantly surprised.

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Speaker 2: Of how you weave your your life in music, like

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Speaker 2: I love those type of things. Whereas not that I'm

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Speaker 2: just learning a lesson of the artist, but I'm also

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Speaker 2: learning the effect that it had on you, because your

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Speaker 2: writing career also had an effect on artists as well.

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Speaker 6: I learned a lot from Alan. Alan first gave me

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Speaker 6: my first album review when he was editing the review

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Speaker 6: section at Rolling Soon as my first Rolling song in Vogue.

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Speaker 6: The second Yes give It Stars, Yeah, I did.

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Speaker 1: I did it.

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Speaker 6: I didn't come on it. I was. I was a

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Speaker 6: big homer at that time. And if I'm not still

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Speaker 6: just to be home. Come on, man, you know they

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Speaker 6: were gonna call me to do in Vogue weird.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so two stars, I don't know.

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Speaker 6: Don't listen. Don't listen to me.

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Speaker 1: Don't know. I'm gonna tell you some Danielle, you can't.

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Speaker 2: You can't debate me on this when I tell you,

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Speaker 2: like in the order of me, I can't, like Fante well,

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Speaker 2: study MC, study production whatever. I don't know, Like I

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Speaker 2: study record reviews, I study journalists, like I study the

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Speaker 2: people that determine whether or not.

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Speaker 1: Now I'm it's gonna have shelf life or not. I

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Speaker 1: very much.

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Speaker 7: No.

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Speaker 2: Here's the thing, though I actually agreed with you. I

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Speaker 2: didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that.

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Speaker 1: And to be fair, did I give it two stars?

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Speaker 2: Well, I was gonna say, to be fair, you don't

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Speaker 2: determine how many stars it gets.

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Speaker 1: I don't the publication publish it.

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Speaker 6: By the way, that's always the case. That was the

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Speaker 6: case at the source too, and that was the case

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Speaker 6: that Vibe and we used to give our little red

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Speaker 6: light green light, yellow light or whatever we.

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Speaker 1: Used to do, right, the music editor determines it.

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Speaker 5: But somebody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that weight.

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Speaker 5: I'm a fan.

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Speaker 7: Hold On, I'm listening to what y'all saying. Hold On,

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Speaker 7: I'm a fan. What you're saying is the person who

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Speaker 7: wrote that whole review doesn't have anything to do with

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Speaker 7: those stars.

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Speaker 5: Now, how so how do they come up with them stars?

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Speaker 6: The music editor the music you determined.

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Speaker 7: Yes, so it's not even based on what you wrote.

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Speaker 7: It's just based on what the music editor thinks.

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Speaker 6: Now, it's kind of based on what you wrote, and

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Speaker 6: it's based on whatever their chase is also.

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Speaker 2: But okay, so since you're kind of doing this in

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Speaker 2: the nineties and I will see that you know post

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Speaker 2: Karis one PM Dornish confrontation levels. I mean, you worked

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Speaker 2: at Vibe where it is, and you worked at Vibe

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Speaker 2: during one of the most dangerous issues, of which is

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Speaker 2: the death row issue.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't your music other Dore's at least want.

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Speaker 2: To give you warning if they're going to give it

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Speaker 2: a less than savory uh rating.

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Speaker 6: Knowing I could never answer that question except for on

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Speaker 6: a case my case basis. Honestly, it was, as you said,

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Speaker 6: it was a very wild time. And when you say

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Speaker 6: you know I worked that vibe during the most dangerous time,

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Speaker 6: during the death Row issue, I mean I really honestly

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Speaker 6: have to look at the dates one because I blocked

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Speaker 6: so much of that trauma.

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Speaker 1: Out of I remember everything.

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Speaker 8: I'm sorry because because what I think people tend to forget,

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Speaker 8: at least with me, is that, especially with regard to

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Speaker 8: death Row when Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity MC for me,

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Speaker 8: He's actually a good friend of mine from Oakland, and

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Speaker 8: so I recused myself from a lot of the coverage

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Speaker 8: of Tupac almost until after he passed.

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Speaker 6: It was such a complex time time, such a time

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Speaker 6: when I always say that Vibe called upon the strongest

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Speaker 6: part of me and that it got it. It got it,

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Speaker 6: it got it, and it did wear me out, which

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Speaker 6: is why you know, your music editor for two years

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Speaker 6: at least talking about me a music editor for two

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Speaker 6: years and then I get a fellowship and I go

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Speaker 6: to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted out

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Speaker 6: for a while, you know, I wanted out for a while.

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Speaker 6: And while I was gone, while I was in Chicago

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Speaker 6: or in Evanston. Both Biggie and Tupac were murdered while

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Speaker 6: I was not even working ad Vine. I ended up

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Speaker 6: writing the obituary for Biggie for the for the Village Voice,

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Speaker 6: but I wasn't even working at that time. I was

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Speaker 6: trying to, Okay, I wasn't And then I came back

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Speaker 6: in ninety seven. Everybody had died, and I put Kurt

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Speaker 6: Franklin on the cover because he was number one was

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Speaker 6: Stump with the Stomp remix, And I felt like that

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Speaker 6: was the second line. I felt like we had been

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Speaker 6: mourning for a while. We had thought that hip hop

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Speaker 6: was going to We thought that everything that the mainstream

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Speaker 6: had said about it was going to be true, that

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Speaker 6: it was just a fat it wasn't real. We was

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Speaker 6: all going to kill each other. And then you know,

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Speaker 6: you began to feel it rising from its ashes. You know,

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Speaker 6: you got to remember, like that's when Miseducation came out. Really,

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Speaker 6: Laurence Hill doesn't get the credit she deserves or helping

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Speaker 6: bring hip hop back to life after the death of

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Speaker 6: Tupac Shakor and then Notorious Big, and then you add

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Speaker 6: Kirk Franklin and Salt. They don't also get the credit

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Speaker 6: either one of them for helping bringing hip hop back

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Speaker 6: to life. And that was actually my first cover as

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Speaker 6: editor in chief of Vibe was Kirk Franklin and the Family.

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Speaker 6: That's how I came back in ninety seven. And believe me,

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Speaker 6: my publishers and the business people were like, this's a

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Speaker 6: soft cover. It's never going to sell. It's not gonna sell,

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Speaker 6: it's not gonna sell. And I wasn't really that person

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Speaker 6: that was always bragging about, like, I know what the

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Speaker 6: streets is fell in. I was not always that girl.

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Speaker 6: I'm very much a pop girl. Pop is in the

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Speaker 6: title of My Shine Bright. But it's like I didn't

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Speaker 6: know what the hell was going on, and I knew

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Speaker 6: that there's no way that a song was going to

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Speaker 6: number one R and B. I believe top ten pop

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Speaker 6: for the Stamp remix, and it wasn't like having a

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Speaker 6: major impact on the culture. I also knew that because

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Speaker 6: gospel never gets the credit that it's due for it's

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Speaker 6: impact on culture period, and it had never there had

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Speaker 6: never been a gospel artist on the cover of Vibe

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Speaker 6: that that the gospel fans, the church folks were gonna

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Speaker 6: go out and buy two and three issues and they did,

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Speaker 6: and they did.

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Speaker 2: Aren't people more or less investing in the Vibe brand

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Speaker 2: like I'm going to buy a new Vibe.

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Speaker 6: That's true. There are issues of Vibe that did not sell.

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Speaker 6: There are issues, there's there's a thing like this. You

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Speaker 6: have a you have a subscriber base, right, that's your

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Speaker 6: small money. But that's your loyalists me. They keep they

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Speaker 6: keep up paying that thirteen ninety nine a year, twelve

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Speaker 6: ninety nine a year, lights on, that's keeping the lights on.

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Speaker 6: But the money money is that the news stand back

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Speaker 6: when the news stand mattered, Because that's two fifty three

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Speaker 6: dollars a pot. Whether you're buying it at Bond, Safeway,

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Speaker 6: Key Food, Barnes and Noble back in the day, Walden

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Speaker 6: Books or whatever, that's where the money was. And that's

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Speaker 6: an impulse buy. And that's what I was judged on.

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Speaker 6: That's what any editor in chief really is judged on

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Speaker 6: at the end of the day period, end of story.

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Speaker 7: Either to imply anything different when the kind of lesson

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Speaker 7: the work that you put into figuring out who you

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Speaker 7: was gonna put on this cover and then the content.

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Speaker 6: No, you don't even know what's science and The thing

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Speaker 6: about me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I

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Speaker 6: took Billboard into consideration because I had been an R

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Speaker 6: and B editor at Billboard.

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Speaker 1: Did you replace Nelson when he left or.

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Speaker 6: No, it's Jenny McAdams that I replaced McAdam, So wow, yes,

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Speaker 6: Jenine's between us, so yeah.

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Speaker 7: No.

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Speaker 6: I I was a person that always took Billboard into

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Speaker 6: consideration because I worked at Billboard, and because even before

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Speaker 6: I worked at Billboard, I studied Billboard like a maniac,

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Speaker 6: which is why I got the job at Billboard. But

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Speaker 6: it's like, no, I was the one that was like,

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Speaker 6: if it's bubbling under, it deserves this. If it's doing

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Speaker 6: this on the charts, if it's number eight with a

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Speaker 6: bullet or blah blah chart, then it deserves this. Now,

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Speaker 6: people always wanted to argue with me, and we had

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Speaker 6: the best arguments in the world that vibe. But I

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Speaker 6: was the one who always took Billboard into consideration. Not

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Speaker 6: everybody's like that. Wow, I think, by the way, can

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Speaker 6: I just say this too. I think it's so crazy

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Speaker 6: that I just learned right now that y'all thought every

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Speaker 6: issue of five sold. When I got to Vibe a no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 6: we didn't think that.

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Speaker 7: I thought, oh, I thought you were just asking a question.

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Speaker 7: I thought you were asking a question mere like was

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Speaker 7: it the brand that sold?

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Speaker 2: I mean it's just I mean Circle Out with its

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Speaker 2: vibe and the source was like a religion and straight.

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Speaker 6: Up thank God for y'all.

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Speaker 3: But we were the ones keeping the lights on though

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Speaker 3: we weren't Impulse buys.

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Speaker 5: It's like podcasts.

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Speaker 7: It's just like music, right, like we want new podcast.

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Speaker 2: So can I ask you this because I didn't know

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Speaker 2: this first of all, what is expected for Vibe in

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Speaker 2: terms of going platinum? Like how many issues have to

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Speaker 2: sell for your whoever the the higher ups are at

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Speaker 2: the publishers to say, hey, they're doing well.

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Speaker 6: It depends on It depends on the year. It depends

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Speaker 6: on the year because you know magazines, you know, magazines

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Speaker 6: are pretty much gone now for all intents and purposes.

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Speaker 6: There's not really a news stand that you can depend on.

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Speaker 6: But let's just say, at the height of things, it's

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Speaker 6: always a percentage, it's not a it's not an exact number.

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Speaker 6: So at the height of Vibe, you just never really

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Speaker 6: want to be belie fifty fifty percent and and you

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Speaker 6: figure your circulation like the height of the circulation for

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Speaker 6: for me, man I got I got a vibe of

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Speaker 6: it up to I don't know, eight nine hundred thousand.

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Speaker 6: So you wanna you wanna? You want to sell through

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Speaker 6: a fifty plus percent? Now, that's high, But I have

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Speaker 6: an ego that's b plus. The best selling issue a

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Speaker 6: vibe in history is the master p issue. Make them say, wait,

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Speaker 6: what I hate to blow y'all up?

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Speaker 7: No, I hate now the South is buying Now the South.

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Speaker 7: That's exactly what is region.

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Speaker 6: That's exactly what it is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would have put my publishing and my cribs.

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Speaker 2: I could have sworn that that that Depth Row issue

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Speaker 2: was the greatest selling against you of all time.

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Speaker 6: The thing about that make them say it was it was?

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00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:58,199
Speaker 6: It was a it was a perfect cover. Wow, it

401
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,440
Speaker 6: was everybody, It was your X. It was a mystical

402
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 6: It was everybody and we and we had a tank

403
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 6: in it. We had a tank and everybody had on camel.

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00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:17,160
Speaker 6: And so basically the whole cover was green and shades

405
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 6: of black and white. But we did what's known as

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Speaker 6: a fifth color in the magazine business, which means basically

407
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,680
Speaker 6: a fluorescent or a or a glitter and we made

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Speaker 6: the orange fluorescent. That episode left left off. And I'm

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Speaker 6: not gonna say how many issues Pee bought, but because

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Speaker 6: the world would, the world will never know. But it

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Speaker 6: was huge. And you gotta remember too. Master P has

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Speaker 6: a huge contingency of fans in the Bay Area too,

413
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Speaker 6: out from Richmonds, so he was all over Yeah, So

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Speaker 6: it was that's really the biggest selling, you know issue.

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Speaker 6: I would never say the lowest issue because it's people

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Speaker 6: that we all know and love, but it would surprise you,

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Speaker 6: I would. Y'all gonna have to get that someplace else.

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Speaker 1: Man, it's twenty years ago.

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Speaker 6: Twenty years it feels like yesterday to me, though. I

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Speaker 6: feel like I'm on my way to an editorial meeting

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Speaker 6: right now. Y'all like gonna get me out here like

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Speaker 6: this A damn it.

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Speaker 1: Now now I'm gonna go. I literally have issues in

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Speaker 1: the room to see it. If I text you got

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Speaker 1: to verify.

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Speaker 6: It, I will, I will, but I can't because it's

427
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 6: like it's mean, man, And it doesn't necessarily sometimes even

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Speaker 6: have to do with the person.

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Speaker 1: It's me.

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Speaker 6: It could be the photography, it could be anything. It

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Speaker 6: just doesn't necessarily it could be the truck was late, man.

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Speaker 1: Please tell me what it was, Yode.

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Speaker 6: You don't get it from me. No, and you talk

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Speaker 6: about you fear me. You see how easy I'm scary.

435
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 6: I'm scary, Like I can't say that that's so mean?

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Speaker 6: What if I just said, yes.

437
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 1: It's not mean. Particular facts in business, This particular.

438
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 6: MC has the lowest selling issue in the history of Vibe.

439
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:07,399
Speaker 6: That's hardcore. It's definitely ja I will say that from

440
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 6: the south though. Just to show you how things change.

441
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 7: Is somebody is it somebody who has a career or

442
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:15,880
Speaker 7: they considered a legend still they do.

443
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 6: They have a career rapping? Or do they just have

444
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 6: a career.

445
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 5: Do they have a career, Do you have a career.

446
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 6: They have a career, but they don't necessarily have a

447
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 6: career in rapping.

448
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I got it anyway, So I do

449
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 2: want to know what what was the first or at

450
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 2: least national Well, you said that is the very first

451
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 2: time that your work appeared.

452
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 6: In a national magazine. I would say, no, that's not

453
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 6: the case. I would say the first time I had

454
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 6: a national story was in spind magazine. There was a

455
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 6: column there called Dreaming America.

456
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: Yep.

457
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 6: That was my first national Uh, that was my first

458
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 6: national thing. And I always remember that I couldn't believe

459
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 6: I was getting paid a dollar a word?

460
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: Was that standard or was that like that was.

461
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 6: A standard for mainstream people don't even get that now,

462
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 6: And it's like I was made. I was now hope listen,

463
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 6: you used to be able to make a living as

464
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 6: a writer. It's very difficult to do so now. Even

465
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 6: in the Bay Area, I was getting ten, fifteen twenty

466
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 6: cent a word. If I wrote a fifteen hundred word piece,

467
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 6: I was getting one hundred and fifty dollars. But when

468
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 6: when and at Craig Marks, he's the he's actually the

469
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 6: music editor of the La Times right now. Craig was

470
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 6: music editor of Spend back then. And when he said

471
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 6: it was a dollar a word and eight hundred eight

472
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 6: hundred words, I just remember thinking, so, that's that's pretty

473
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 6: much rent in Oway back then. And I felt like

474
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 6: and I felt like I felt like back then, and

475
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 6: I felt like I could stay in this. I could

476
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 6: stay in this. But yeah, I wrote it. I think

477
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 6: my first one was about Yo Yo Okay, Yes, Black

478
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 6: Pearl Forever. Yeah, I wrote about DJ Quick for Spin,

479
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 6: who's also a favorite still And then it was out

480
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 6: of those Spin clips and a couple of things I

481
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 6: did for The Village Voice that brought me to the

482
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 6: notice of Allen Light and Anthony de Curtis are Rolling Stone.

483
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 6: And then I was only really R and B editor

484
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 6: at Billboard for like six or eight months something to

485
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 6: outline and shine Bright. But then Vibe lunched and Allen

486
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 6: had gone over there as music editor, and when he

487
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 6: was promoted to editor in chief because Jonathan Van Meterer left,

488
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 6: then Alan asked me to come over as music editor

489
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 6: and it was it was a wild two years.

490
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: In that job.

491
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 7: I always thought Spend was the weird cousin to Vibe magazine.

492
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 7: I thought they were weirdly related, like they had some

493
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 7: kind of similar.

494
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 6: I mean, at the beginning we didn't. But then like

495
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 6: in the I guess late nineties two thousands, Yeah, we

496
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 6: were owned by the same company and we were in

497
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 6: the same building.

498
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 2: What was the company Adventures?

499
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: Oh so okay, theyve.

500
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 6: Ventures owned Vibe and Spin and BLA and Blaze at

501
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 6: that time too.

502
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 3: A Blaze man, I forgot about remember that Blaze battle.

503
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 3: It was mainly just primarily hip hop, but I remember

504
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 3: it was like pre complex real.

505
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 6: Journalism though it was. It was Jesse Washington was the

506
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 6: editor in chief. I was the editorial director. Jesse Washington

507
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 6: is actually at espn Z Undefeated.

508
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 2: Now, okay, yeah, we we we had our umatic rating

509
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 2: moment with Blaze like things fall apart, like got a

510
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 2: perfect five rating there in that in the jay Z.

511
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 6: The monitoring these reviews about about right now does my

512
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 6: heart good. Though. It does my heart good to know

513
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 6: that somebody of your stature and talent and genius is

514
00:27:55,680 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 6: paying attention like that, because we really tried, like we

515
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 6: weren't up there like pooling around like we were about passion,

516
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 6: but we were about rigor. We were about facts, and

517
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 6: we were about deep and strong opinions. We were about design, photography,

518
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 6: We're about fashion, style, all of it. And so the

519
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 6: fact that you being you were paying attention that hard, honestly,

520
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 6: it doesn't matter good. And anybody that listens to this,

521
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 6: that used to work at Vibi source XXL, any of it,

522
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 6: rahap sheet, all of it, honey, honey.

523
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 4: All of it, it matters.

524
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 6: I mean I could take it to Ego Trip, I

525
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 6: could take it to one network. I could take it

526
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 6: to for yately, I could keep going, like I could

527
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 6: keep going the fact that any of us that worked

528
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 6: in those spaces were being paid attention to, that our

529
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 6: work was being monitored or enjoyed or even it matters

530
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 6: a lot to us.

531
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 2: Look all right, So the deal is, I think in

532
00:28:56,440 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 2: that Princess you if you guys remember the Prince Vibe issue,

533
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: the Prince Vibe Coup issue.

534
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a write up for zing Lamadoony.

535
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 2: That single handedly like if you want to know the

536
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 2: beginning of Questlove's micromanage era of like I must write

537
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: all the liner notes. I must no, I must do

538
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 2: all the interviews I must like no article ever scared

539
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 2: me more.

540
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that you know, now I

541
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: live in.

542
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: An era where you know, I mean you know I

543
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 2: read the New York Times now just read like this year,

544
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 2: everyone's celebrating the fact that New York Times gave like

545
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 2: eleven Madison a two star review, which is like soccers

546
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 2: or you know, I mean, there's been like sort of

547
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 2: like crazy reviews, like Miles Davis is on the corner

548
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 2: for Downbeat magazine like throughout history. You know, it's different

549
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: now because in the Internet I sort of feel like

550
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 2: artists write for each other like hey, check this out,

551
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 2: you know that sort of thing, like when they're really

552
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 2: going to go.

553
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: But to me, when I read your.

554
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 2: Arrested development Zingle Lamaduni feature, to me, that was like,

555
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 2: it was literally like watching the Apocalypse now documentary or

556
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 2: Amir is also known for good hyper bowl quotes. No,

557
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 2: but it's it was And it wasn't even you didn't

558
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 2: even have to do anything. You didn't It wasn't a

559
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: takedown from your point of view, Like literally, speech was

560
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 2: kind of sleep at the Wheel and the entire band

561
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 2: decided they're going to do a mutiny in this article.

562
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 2: And at that point I realized, like, oh man, a

563
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 2: career could be made or or dead it in one

564
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 2: fell swoop with just one article running.

565
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 6: Point for me. Okay, so long story, I guess. Long

566
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 6: story short, It's like I didn't even work at Vibe

567
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 6: at that point. I was functioning as a freelance writer,

568
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 6: but I had a reputation in the business for being

569
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 6: on point, on time and thorough and more than that,

570
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 6: I had written a piece for a magazine that doesn't

571
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 6: exist anymore and hasn't for years, called Request magazine that

572
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 6: you used to be able to get at Tower Records.

573
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, I love the Requests.

574
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 6: It's a great magazine. And if you count that as national,

575
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 6: which I don't always, just because it was given away

576
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 6: for free at Tower and you didn't pay for it.

577
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 6: But that was probably really my first national look was

578
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 6: in Requests. So I did a cover story on Arrested

579
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 6: Development when they launched.

580
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay, So.

581
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 6: It was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee, you know

582
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 6: what I mean? You talking about all of that. I

583
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 6: fell in love with them, man, I fell in love

584
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 6: with them, they fell in love with me. It was

585
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 6: a Carver story. And this was back before I had

586
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 6: been in the business long enough to realize it's not

587
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 6: always wise to fall in love with groups, and it's

588
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 6: not always wise to allow groups to fall in love

589
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 6: with you. I didn't know. I was a child. I

590
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 6: was in my early twenties, mid twenties something like that.

591
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 6: I didn't know you live and learn. So then when

592
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 6: there's second album is coming out, it was emi am

593
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 6: I right?

594
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 4: Yeah.

595
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 6: So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey,

596
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 6: you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want

597
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 6: to go, you know, go back and talk to Speech

598
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 6: and everybody in the group. Yes, definitely, I was freelancing too.

599
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 6: It was just like, it sounds exciting, you gonna send

600
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 6: me to Atlanta. So I went down there and my

601
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 6: first conversation was with Speech, as it should be, and

602
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 6: I have a lot of respect for him, but you

603
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 6: could tell from the moment that I got in a

604
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 6: car with him that things weren't okay with the group,

605
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 6: and it seemed like something he didn't want to get

606
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 6: into detail about. But you know, as a reporter, I

607
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 6: have my instincts, I have my feelings, and so when

608
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 6: I began to talk to the other members.

609
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: Of the group and you were allowed to, Yes, this was.

610
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 6: A different time, y'all. There was no internet.

611
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: Interview, no evidence.

612
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,719
Speaker 6: And what's so wild though, it was like at a

613
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 6: certain point I wasn't even going to people to talk

614
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 6: to them, and were coming to me. And listen, I

615
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 6: remember that group so well, man, and it's it's heartbreaking

616
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 6: to me because there's such a like the music isn't

617
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,239
Speaker 6: necessarily necessarily always so like wildly optimistic. But it's just

618
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 6: like I've been around Public Enemy. Those are my guys.

619
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 6: They're not the most optimistic group of brothers. You know,

620
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 6: not like but but but with the group of rest

621
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 6: of Development, they came back. They were taking us back

622
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 6: to the South, like they were reminding us of our groups.

623
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 6: Everything was like, you know, the blood in the in

624
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 6: the dirt, like we was all in the red class,

625
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 6: like we was all in it, like everybody from the

626
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 6: Northeast used to go back south in the summertime. Like

627
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 6: all of that feeling was there. But then, you know,

628
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 6: I remember that DJ's name was Headliner, right, Dion Ferris.

629
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 5: Was coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back, all right, and.

630
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,760
Speaker 6: You know, things just weren't going well. It's so hard.

631
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 6: And I know, Quest knows this hard to keep a

632
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 6: band together. Anybody watched the Metallica documentary knows that. And

633
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 6: it's like, it's hard to keep a band together. And

634
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 6: you could ask, you could ask, you could ask the Supremes,

635
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 6: you can anybody the comress like it's hard to keep

636
00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 6: a band together. Yes, and everybody was mad, and everybody's

637
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 6: talking into the tape recorder and.

638
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: They let her know. I went.

639
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 2: If you remember Ursula Smith, who was my publicist at

640
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 2: the time, set the run, No no, no, no, She

641
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 2: left set the run and started her own. I forget

642
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 2: her and Amy Mars had their own thing, and I

643
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 2: came in the following Monday like shake it in my

644
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 2: boots because I was just like, oh, man, like they're

645
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 2: done with, They're over with, And if they're that easy.

646
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 1: To get, like what does that mean for us?

647
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 2: And like the amount of talking me off the ledge

648
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 2: for like two days straight because I don't know. In

649
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,240
Speaker 2: my mind, I just felt like arrest development had reached

650
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 2: the mountaintop. They've reached the mountaintop that day. Yeah, that

651
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 2: Daylight Tribe, like a lot of those acts couldn't get

652
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 2: to But.

653
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 7: They didn't come up together though, right, Like did they

654
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 7: come up together like that all of their Yeah, I

655
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 7: mean people.

656
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 6: Of them had with a lot of other groups like

657
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 6: that didn't. Once Speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come

658
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 6: with mad ambition. Some people just want to make a

659
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 6: record and get it out there. Some other people have

660
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 6: mad ambition, and Speech had that. It was a very

661
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 6: difficult piece to write, a very difficult piece to publish.

662
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 6: It was fact checking, went through the lawyers and went

663
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 6: through all of that, and it was very difficult to publish.

664
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 6: And guests, the publicists wildly mad at me. Some in

665
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 6: the group were wildly mad at me. Some in the

666
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 6: group were so happy and grateful to me. Some were

667
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 6: we're grateful to me. But I just want to say

668
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 6: as well, it just basically outlined that the group was

669
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 6: not happy and was probably not going to stay together.

670
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Okay, check it out. I don't know. Have you

671
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 1: have you read Murray's White's autobiography.

672
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 4: I have not yet.

673
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of the structure where wait, we

674
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 2: just recently did and interview with someone.

675
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:03,280
Speaker 4: He was Larry Blair.

676
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: Black said.

677
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 2: Larry Blair said it was a democracy. Uh uh, what

678
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 2: do you call it? Dictatorship? It's like it's like a

679
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 2: democracy dictatorship where I guess it's the I I think

680
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 2: it's the the idea of, hey, we're a community where

681
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 2: all these things. But really, I mean, the decision falls

682
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 2: on one person, that person's.

683
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 6: Speech and about a lot of groups like that.

684
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 2: So that's why I'm saying with the with the Earth,

685
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: Wind and Fire book, No, not even that, I mean

686
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 2: Marius White, I mean Philip Bailey. He went into heavy

687
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 2: with Oh, okay, Maurice is sort of the state of Earth,

688
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 2: would and Fire.

689
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: We're just people for higher.

690
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 2: And as as I'm certain that you know Fonte, you

691
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 2: know absolutely as an artist about being blue collar. Like

692
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 2: often we get in this game because we you know,

693
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: we we see these slow motion william shots and it's

694
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,280
Speaker 2: like we get our Bentley moment and it never happens

695
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 2: that way. And it's just that this time headliner was

696
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 2: just mad about his money, mad about like the situations.

697
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: But it was very much like you know, the rest

698
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: of the band.

699
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 2: Was explaining how unsatisfied they were with the situation that

700
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 2: they were.

701
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 6: But I can see how it could have an effect

702
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 6: on you as it had an effect on a lot

703
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 6: of people that piece because one it said that Vibe

704
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 6: was going to do stuff like that.

705
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 2: That's the first thing Black people never seen something to

706
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: that level.

707
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 6: No, because this is the thing because because the media

708
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 6: that is considered to be ours right have any essence,

709
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 6: you know, going back to the to the black newspapers

710
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 6: that came out of Reconstruction all the way up through

711
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 6: the fifties and through the civil rights movement and everything else.

712
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 6: Like the reason that these things came to be is

713
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 6: because we were treated so unfairly by the mainstream media,

714
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 6: or we were just erased or not even considered. You know,

715
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 6: you would talk about music in a certain town and

716
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 6: you would just talk about all the white artists and

717
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 6: never talk about the black artists. Or you would talk

718
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 6: about all the male artists and not talk about the

719
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 6: women artists.

720
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 7: So it's like.

721
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 6: Vibe existed in a space of like, well, of course

722
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 6: this is going to always be a place of celebration.

723
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 6: But the thing that I always did learn from Quincy

724
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 6: Jones is that Vibe was to be a place of

725
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 6: celebration and interrogation. That no one would trust us on

726
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 6: the celebration if we didn't also do the interrogation. And

727
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 6: so I felt supported by Quincy by Alan in doing that.

728
00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 6: And honestly, it was a very difficult piece for me

729
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 6: to write for the for the magazine to publish, and

730
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 6: also it set the industry back on his heels a

731
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 6: bit that it's like, we love Vibe, but you just

732
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 6: don't know. You still kids don't know. Yeah, And so

733
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 6: to some that was great because it meant that we

734
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 6: weren't like a pamphlet, or we weren't just like it

735
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 6: meant that, yes, you got to remember one of the

736
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 6: first pieces, and Bob, I think it's in the Treasch

737
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 6: issue right that the test issue in which Trench was

738
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 6: on the cover, and there's a big piece by the

739
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 6: great Scott Posts and Brian in that piece and the

740
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 6: and the headline is one for all time about Sean Colmes.

741
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 6: The headline is this is not a puff piece right right,

742
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 6: So it's something for so many meanings and so and

743
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 6: so we were always on that, even with all the

744
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 6: Death Row stuff. It's like, are you know? People were like,

745
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 6: are you guys contributing to it? It's like are we?

746
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 6: But are we reporting as any other culture would report

747
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 6: on its culture? And is that also new and different

748
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 6: for black and multi the black and multicultural audience vibe

749
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 6: to hear and see. So it was it was very.

750
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 5: Hard for most black women.

751
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 7: At some point you feel that protect the moment where

752
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 7: you're like, you know, do you have to fight that

753
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 7: protect the moment and go with more of your journalistic

754
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 7: mind or does that not.

755
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 5: Even ever come into your head?

756
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 7: There's this and it's funny because I was like, I

757
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 7: wonder if she writes it, I haven't gotten to that

758
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 7: point if you write about this and shine bright, But

759
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 7: I was like, you know that protector moment where you

760
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 7: go this could maybe hurt this feeling, you know, so

761
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 7: maybe I won't do that.

762
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 5: Did you ever have that moment?

763
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 6: I have that moment every day of my career?

764
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, I thought that to tell I look at

765
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 5: your face. I was like, am I saying something born?

766
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 6: I know every every every every day of my career,

767
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 6: and especially as editor in chief of Vibe. It's it's

768
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 6: even different as being editor of Billboard. Talk about that. Wow,

769
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,919
Speaker 6: it's a trade magazine. It's it's all, it's all, it's

770
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 6: all genres. I gotta know about what's going on in country, classical,

771
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 6: adult contemporary bubbling under, like I gotta know about what's

772
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 6: going on everywhere, what's going on with pop singles, pop albums,

773
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 6: like I know R and B this, R and B that.

774
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 6: I gotta know what's going on in Latin music. I

775
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 6: gotta know what's going on globally, Like I gotta know

776
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 6: what's going on everywhere and make decisions based on all

777
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 6: of that. But you know, when you're a Vibe, you're

778
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 6: covering black culture for a multi for a black and

779
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 6: multicultural audience. It's not even used to being covered all

780
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 6: the time with rigor and passion. It's like it's like

781
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 6: even like in history, if you look at Ebony at

782
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 6: the very beginnings of Abnuye, it's like James Ball when

783
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,439
Speaker 6: and everybody's in there. It's a different situation. But then

784
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 6: to me, you took pressures from the community. It just

785
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,879
Speaker 6: became more and more like you can always expect good

786
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 6: and proper news from Ebanue.

787
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 2: Until that Cosby issue. Well, no, no, it hats off

788
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: to Kiaran for that. Yes, that's the first.

789
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 6: Time that from what generation, the hip hop generation.

790
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, yes, And.

791
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 6: So that's what I'm saying. It just it's it's hard,

792
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 6: you know, it's hard when I can think of even

793
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 6: small things like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for

794
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 6: the cover of That's my first Vibe cover.

795
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that issue.

796
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 6: That was a great issue. Man. My mom drove me

797
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 6: to his house in Venice. He was going through it.

798
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 6: And that also that movie wasn't good, which it was Demolition.

799
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 4: Man, The Blind Hair.

800
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:49,879
Speaker 1: Hot.

801
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 6: It was a hot mess and the movie the film was,

802
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 6: but Wesley himself wasn't and it never has been. So

803
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 6: to me, it's one of the more under rated these

804
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 6: actors in the history of cinema. Like he's so good.

805
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 6: I'm not saying he's made all the proper moves and

806
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 6: all of that. But but my thing is, how do

807
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 6: you how do you say that? But then how.

808
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: Do you say in a way that's not how do

809
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: you say that?

810
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 6: And that's the work for me, That's the work in

811
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 6: shine bright for me, Like how do I how do

812
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 6: I talk about Whitney Houston's mom?

813
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: Sure you handled that awesomely, by the way.

814
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 6: Oh thank you? Who to me is it's just like

815
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 6: she's so important to the history of American populic she

816
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 6: literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind Elvis Presley,

817
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 6: she literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimmy Hendris, everybody. And

818
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 6: it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for

819
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 6: all of this big pop and she trained Whitney. At

820
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 6: the same time, she just didn't accept her daughter for

821
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 6: who she was.

822
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: Yo.

823
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:57,080
Speaker 7: And can I just say on that note, it's so

824
00:44:57,200 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 7: funny you say that, because as we're going through all

825
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 7: the these different lenses and filters for people these days

826
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 7: when it comes to the music business, I find it

827
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 7: harder and harder to apply those filters if you really

828
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 7: want the true story about things, or you really want

829
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 7: to talk to people like if we really we I mean,

830
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 7: we've had these moments where, you know, even talking to

831
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 7: me and a miryor Well and Jake will talk about

832
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 7: people and we'll be like, yes, they were significant, they

833
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 7: are historical. These conversations should be had. However, but this

834
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 7: little thing had happened. And so I'm so curious, Danielle,

835
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 7: how you navigate that? Like, because even in a situation

836
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 7: like I can't even say names because you feel guilty.

837
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 7: But no man who was doing business in the sixties,

838
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 7: seventies and eighties is fucking straightforward has no shit with

839
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 7: them basically, right, there's no man.

840
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:46,320
Speaker 5: There's no man.

841
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 6: So how do you like navigate that?

842
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 5: That's it'sious.

843
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 1: Well, I don't be canceled culture was I think then

844
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right as wes as it

845
00:45:58,040 --> 00:45:58,359
Speaker 1: is now.

846
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, I guess that's why less get paid less and

847
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 7: less they can hardly write well.

848
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 6: It's also because artists have so many other avenues in

849
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 6: which to tell their story. It used to be that

850
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 6: the only place that you had to know. Yeah, you

851
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 6: just go on I Live. You can go right to

852
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 6: your Twitter feed, your ig feed, and some of that.

853
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 6: I have to say, I am not.

854
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: Mad at like I I miss it, even if it's

855
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:29,280
Speaker 1: the judgment of your.

856
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 6: Do I miss it? Yes? Do I miss being? Like

857
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 6: you have to go through vibe essentially you got to

858
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 6: go through me and my cord, right, So do you

859
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 6: miss that feeling of like, oh my god, yeah, this

860
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 6: is we're vibe? But yeah, of course. But you know,

861
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 6: to everything, there is a season we were we were

862
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 6: we were needed for that at that time, we were

863
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 6: desperately needed. But I can just give you an example.

864
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 6: So I'm doing this. I'm doing this, Uh this picture

865
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 6: me doing a talking head moment for a Michael Jackson documentary.

866
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you, come on, yes and.

867
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,919
Speaker 6: So and so no, and not even to get into

868
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 6: the complexities of Michael situation, but just to say this,

869
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 6: just to talk about the Internet part of it. So

870
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 6: the person that's directing her answered asking me the question, says,

871
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 6: don't you just find the Internet to be totally overwhelming

872
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 6: and ridiculous? Like you can just put Michael Jackson's name

873
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 6: into into a Google search bar and then like eight

874
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 6: million pictures come back about Michael Jackson, twelve million stories headlines,

875
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 6: everything in the world is just so overwhelming and terrible.

876
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 6: Isn't that just cheapening Michael's legacy? This, that, and the third?

877
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 6: And I was like, not, actually I don't because see,

878
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 6: I grew up a Michael Jackson fan, and I couldn't

879
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 6: find anything about Michael Jackson when I'm nineteen eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,

880
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 6: fifteen years old, and all I wanted to know about

881
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 6: was Michael Jackson. If I didn't have Cynthia Horner's right

882
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 6: on magazine, what really would I have?

883
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: Right?

884
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:07,439
Speaker 6: I said, I was insatiable when you're thirteen year old

885
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 6: as a fan. Oh my god, was insatiable. And I

886
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 6: couldn't find anything. And I told him, I said, so,

887
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 6: I actually feel flush man with joy that I can

888
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 6: put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search and just

889
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 6: see every million, even if the news is bad, even

890
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 6: if the news is ugly. I I would rather that

891
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 6: than to have, like to be searching and thirsty to

892
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 6: know something about being one. Yes, So that's why go ahead?

893
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question? All right?

894
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you what was the hardest

895
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 2: issue for you to execute? However, I wanted to take

896
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:49,720
Speaker 2: a while guess how hard was that Michael Jackson issued

897
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: to put together.

898
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 6: Of course, you know what I mean? What year was that?

899
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 4: Was?

900
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:53,839
Speaker 6: I there?

901
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 2: Ninety five Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe

902
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 2: magazine dressed very uncharacteristically. He was I think Cadata had

903
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 2: dressed him in Tommy. Wait, you don't remember this.

904
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 4: I don't remember he had a kango on.

905
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: He got a kango remember Michael Jackson.

906
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 6: I remember it. I remember it. Wait a minute, let

907
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 6: me let me take me into my memory. Whoever just

908
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 6: looked it up? What are the cover lines on there?

909
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 5: Reading Michael makes history?

910
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 7: Uh the King of Pop strikes a pose, Easy E's

911
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 7: Final Days, Notorious Big Smokers smokes Cali into the Wu

912
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 7: Tang clan with uh oh, I can't read the name

913
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,920
Speaker 7: something uhlone.

914
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 1: That was ninety five.

915
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 6: Barely have any memory of that except for Easy.

916
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: Damn. That's a flex. That's a flex. Michael Jackson, don't

917
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: remember that ship.

918
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:46,959
Speaker 4: What do you remember about Easy? What do you remember

919
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:47,760
Speaker 4: about the Easy interview?

920
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 6: This is Easy?

921
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:51,839
Speaker 4: Well, this is this is post he had died.

922
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what that was. That's what

923
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 6: That's what I remember about that about that particular issue

924
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 6: because ninety so I'm music editor. I just remember that.

925
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 5: Well.

926
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 6: One, I just remember that it was you remember from

927
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 6: the Bay Area, So I had been known about dealing

928
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 6: with AIDS, probably in a closer proximity than a lot

929
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 6: of people. It was very entwined in our lives, and

930
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 6: so I don't know the tragedy of that man. And

931
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 6: I will say this, I'm not even the biggest Easy

932
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 6: E fan, but just as a human being, man, it

933
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 6: was just too much. And also the way hip hop

934
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:37,439
Speaker 6: was dealing with it was crazy. That's what I really

935
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 6: remember most about that. And I also remember just not

936
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 6: liking the cover image or the design, which is rare

937
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,319
Speaker 6: for me, which is rare because it doesn't really even

938
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 6: look to me like a classic Vibe cover, which we

939
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 6: were very meticulous about on most issues. But you also

940
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 6: gotta believe too. Again, I don't know even know if

941
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 6: I was in those conversations, but I do know this,

942
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 6: if Michael Jackson was involved in Michael Jackson had probably

943
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 6: had final say on what the cover looked like. Because

944
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 6: you understand too, and in that era, Quincy Jones had

945
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 6: a lot more to do with the day to day

946
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 6: than he did. By the time I became properly editor

947
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:18,040
Speaker 6: in chief.

948
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: I don't know.

949
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: I just was always just the impressions, like, okay, he

950
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 2: started this magazine and I'll see y'all later.

951
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: Oh but he was day to day No, okay, he was.

952
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 6: He was not day to day, but he was like,

953
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 6: if it had something to do with something that Quincy

954
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 6: had something to do with, then mister Jones was involved. Absolutely.

955
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: I don't know.

956
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:42,919
Speaker 6: I don't know if I talk about it in Shine Bright,

957
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 6: but my first experience, so I did her Franklin and

958
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 6: then let me not get my dates mixed up. But

959
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 6: I feel like I was called to the phone and

960
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 6: I was told that Quincy was on the phone with

961
00:51:56,920 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 6: Joe Jackson because oh wow, because it was it was

962
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:06,960
Speaker 6: Janet had an album coming out and so we needed

963
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 6: to get that together. And I was on the phone

964
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 6: with Quincy and he is they've known each other since

965
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 6: the dawn of time, and I was the sitting editor

966
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 6: in chief, and I was just like, why am I

967
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:25,399
Speaker 6: even on the call? Hello? Yeah, And they were just yeah,

968
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 6: just hash and stuff out. And then I was like,

969
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,359
Speaker 6: they asked me, like, who who should the writer be?

970
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 6: They asked I think Joe asked Quincy that and then

971
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 6: Quincy finally said, Damne, like this is your moment, like

972
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:45,439
Speaker 6: speak up, like this is your area or whatever. Yes,

973
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:47,440
Speaker 6: And I was like, well, you know, I think it

974
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 6: should be me. And they were like, Joe was like, really,

975
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,919
Speaker 6: why I said, And I said, simple reasons. I said,

976
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:01,280
Speaker 6: because I saw her before at the Circle Star Theater

977
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 6: than Carlos, California when I was eight years old for

978
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 6: my birthday, so bo I probably had the longest relationship

979
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 6: with her out of anybody here but y'all. And then also,

980
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 6: we're both really pretty much the same age. We're both

981
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 6: really black California girls at the end of the day.

982
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,319
Speaker 6: And I mean, we could go through the catalog thus far.

983
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 6: We could go back to Dreams Street if you want to.

984
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 6: We could do what you want to do. And so

985
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 6: that's when Joe said, it seemed like you should be

986
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 6: the person.

987
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: Wow.

988
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 6: I mean I probably my voice was a little bit

989
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 6: more shaky back at those times. Yes, let me not

990
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 6: act like I was coming with all the like the

991
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 6: all the full confidence. But it's just when Quincy Jones

992
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 6: shoots you to Rondo Pass, it's like you better just

993
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 6: act like Kevin Garna.

994
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 7: Yeah.

995
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:49,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for Sean Bright, what was probably the most

996
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 2: surprising revelation in constructing this and also was there anyone

997
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 2: that you had to leave on the side of the

998
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 2: road that you wanted to include.

999
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 6: The most crazy thing to me about Seine Bright is

1000
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:08,319
Speaker 6: just how much music comes out of segregated times. Oh

1001
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 6: my god, it's it just never would just cease to

1002
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 6: amaze me. And you keep thinking that as the decades

1003
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 6: go by, that it's going to be different, and then

1004
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 6: it just isn't. I mean, even if it's like somebody

1005
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 6: from younger than me who got bussed, you know what

1006
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 6: I mean, and from a segregated situation. And I think

1007
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 6: people don't just talk about that enough. Like everyone decides

1008
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 6: like we're just all out here going to school together

1009
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 6: and you know, being friends together, and out of that

1010
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 6: comes multi Out of that multicultural stew comes this amazing

1011
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 6: thing called pop. Well now, well, absolutely no. So that

1012
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 6: was the fact that it just kept coming up, and

1013
00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:53,359
Speaker 6: I just got to be very nosy about it too.

1014
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 6: I wanted to know the details off and I'm like,

1015
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 6: so you're on the back of the bus, what's going on?

1016
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1017
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 7: When you were talking to the Dixie Clubs at one time,

1018
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 7: it seemed like one is the sisters was like, okay, Dan, they.

1019
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 6: Were but they got they really at first they were

1020
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 6: like mad at me, and then they really had to

1021
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 6: say you really don't know though.

1022
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 7: Because the fact that you dropped after that was something

1023
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 7: that I didn't know.

1024
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 6: You said.

1025
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 5: The thing about the screen.

1026
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a metaphor. I didn't know.

1027
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 6: It's a screen, like an actual real hard screen with

1028
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 6: peg holes, like it had pegs on it and then

1029
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 6: there were holes in the back of each seat and

1030
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 6: you could just move it and just put the screen

1031
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 6: up in the pegs. And they made them and they

1032
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 6: made and they made the black person do it.

1033
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 2: So basically there's there's a part in telling the Dixie

1034
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 2: Cup story which their single was going to the.

1035
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: Chapel single, number one, number one single, right.

1036
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 2: So there, I guess you could say the real first

1037
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 2: ring of of.

1038
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 7: Girl.

1039
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 1: I mean they.

1040
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 6: Let me do like they love me do out of

1041
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 6: number one.

1042
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 2: So the Dixie Cups is going to the Chapel Yes,

1043
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 2: you know, they're the first black group to to hit

1044
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 2: number one. Yes, And so she starts with them and

1045
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:17,120
Speaker 2: they're telling a story about just segregation and bussing and whatnot,

1046
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 2: and the fact that customers and Bush writers would often

1047
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 2: tell and I'm saying, tell very lightly, uh, black people

1048
00:56:28,560 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 2: to move to the back of the bus, and they

1049
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 2: would put a I guess there is a disposable screen

1050
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 2: that you can put up, a movable screen, a movable screen.

1051
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,840
Speaker 5: To it should have been in the same regulated place.

1052
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 6: I always thought, that's no, okay. So this is the

1053
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,759
Speaker 6: thing that is what I thought. I always thought, and

1054
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:50,879
Speaker 6: this is how you know that segregation never really gets

1055
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:53,480
Speaker 6: discussed in detail. And I am committed always to not

1056
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:57,000
Speaker 6: talking about black people or black women in summary, but

1057
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:01,359
Speaker 6: in detail, because this is my thing. I always imagined

1058
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 6: that the bus was kind of split into like two

1059
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 6: like into thirds, and that the white people had the

1060
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 6: first two thirds and then the black people have the

1061
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:14,719
Speaker 6: area like from the back door of the bus on.

1062
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 6: But see, no, this is what's crazy. They moved the goalpost. Essentially,

1063
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:25,080
Speaker 6: the more white people that got on, the smaller the

1064
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 6: black area would get because this screen was movable. And

1065
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 6: I asked Rosalie Hawkins and Barbara Hawkins, I was like,

1066
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 6: so when would it be the driver or the people?

1067
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 6: And she said whichever, And then I said, would they

1068
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 6: ask you nicely? Or were they or were they mean?

1069
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 6: And this isn't New Orleans, Louisiana. And I told her,

1070
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 6: I said to her, I know I'm asking stupid questions,

1071
00:57:55,560 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 6: but I literally don't know. And she said, well, then

1072
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,400
Speaker 6: I will tell you. The way they asked depended on

1073
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 6: the way they woke.

1074
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:02,920
Speaker 1: Up that morning.

1075
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 6: She did, and I said, we don't know how segregation

1076
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 6: really was functioning. It wasn't separate but equal.

1077
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:14,680
Speaker 5: It wasn't separate, but it.

1078
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 6: Was really going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings

1079
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 6: when black people were allowed and stuff like. It was

1080
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 6: really there's a thing I write about my grandmother telling

1081
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 6: me one time, my god, and we all know about

1082
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 6: these black nights. I mean, you know, we do the

1083
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 6: way my grandmother was just like, oh my god. You

1084
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 6: know how conceited you are as a girl when you're

1085
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 6: like nineteen or twenty and you think you're cute and

1086
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 6: you're really in the mirror and you really get that Messcara, right,

1087
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,959
Speaker 6: this is before lashes and you're really the pre lash

1088
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 6: era and you're really what you're mabling getting right, and

1089
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 6: your grandmother's irritating you because your tights, your top is

1090
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 6: too tight and your skirt is too short. So my

1091
00:58:57,600 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 6: grandmother is really giving me that look, like, so where

1092
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:02,000
Speaker 6: are we going? And I was like, I'm going to

1093
00:59:02,040 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 6: the spot, Grandma. It's like Thursday nights or Tuesday nights

1094
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 6: or whatever it was, and and she was like, oh, okay,

1095
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:11,920
Speaker 6: where is it? I said, Grandma, it's just at this

1096
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 6: cool spot, like all the black people in Oakland get together.

1097
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 6: Like it's really weird. It's organic. It's just like we

1098
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 6: all just hang out there and it's just so cool.

1099
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 6: It's like a lounge and drinks is amazing. It'said, okay,

1100
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 6: where is it? And I told her the place. She said, oh,

1101
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 6: I know that place because my granda, my grandmother, is

1102
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 6: born and raised in Oakland. I said, Grandma, you could

1103
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 6: not know the place, like you're one hundred, I'm twenty.

1104
00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 6: Like stop, Grandma, I love you, but no, she said, ma'am, listen,

1105
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:47,520
Speaker 6: we used to go to that place. And if it

1106
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 6: wasn't that place, it was owned by the same people.

1107
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:51,880
Speaker 6: And the thing is we went there because that was

1108
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:53,720
Speaker 6: the only night that we were allowed to go to

1109
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 6: that club. It wasn't it was like Tuesday nights, so

1110
00:59:58,560 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 6: we all had to get up to go to work

1111
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 6: morning on Wednesday, so we just had to go on

1112
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 6: Tuesday and on Saturday and Sunday and Friday, or on

1113
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 6: Friday and Saturday, when when it's a normal time for

1114
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 6: people to party. It was only white people that were

1115
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:14,040
Speaker 6: allowed in there. So that's why she's like, yes, that's

1116
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 6: why it's organic mechanically on a Tuesday, that is that

1117
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 6: is Black Nights. And so my grandma, I was like,

1118
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,720
Speaker 6: I couldn't even have a good time at the set

1119
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 6: any more. I'm like, I'm living what.

1120
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 5: You blew my mind with that, because I was like,

1121
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 5: that's nationwide.

1122
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 6: There's always a week night. It's always on a weeknight.

1123
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 6: Black night is always on a weeknight.

1124
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 1: You're you're right about that.

1125
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 6: And yeah, when I love writing about I love writing

1126
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 6: about like I said, specifics, and I like writing about culture,

1127
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 6: and I like writing about something and powers who's ahead

1128
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 6: of music at MPR and was music editor s F

1129
01:00:57,280 --> 01:00:59,400
Speaker 6: Weekly and I became music edit of SF Week San

1130
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 6: Francisco right after and and really handheld me into that job.

1131
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 6: And something that Anne taught me was this is back

1132
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 6: in the nineteen ninety one nineteen ninety two, she said,

1133
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:14,280
Speaker 6: no one's writing about people are writing about hip hop

1134
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 6: as a music no one's writing about the scene and

1135
01:01:18,200 --> 01:01:22,240
Speaker 6: what the scene is like. And I was enraptured by that,

1136
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 6: and I still am. I still am. I take notes

1137
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,600
Speaker 6: in my head on a pad or on my notes

1138
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 6: app when I'm out, just because the scene matters. It matters,

1139
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 6: it's culture, and that Tuesday night thing is the scene.

1140
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 2: So in your history, what will you say is your

1141
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:47,040
Speaker 2: three definitive pieces of work.

1142
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 6: One of the most important pieces to me, and one

1143
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 6: that continually gets good notice from people, is the piece

1144
01:01:53,160 --> 01:01:55,280
Speaker 6: that I wrote as the forward to the collection of

1145
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 6: essays about Chupac Shakr that if I put together in

1146
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 6: a book called tubakshak Kor, and you can find it

1147
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 6: at just google New York Times Daniel Smith tupakshak Or,

1148
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 6: And it's about a forty five hundred word piece that

1149
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:13,960
Speaker 6: basically just takes his career and life into consideration. And

1150
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 6: so that is one for me. The second one is

1151
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 6: for much later in my career. Six years ago, I

1152
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 6: think now, I wrote a piece for ESPN, the magazine

1153
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 6: about Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at Super Bowl.

1154
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 6: I just really felt like, and my editor really felt like,

1155
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 6: and in fairness ESPN really felt like it hadn't really

1156
01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 6: been written about at the intersection of culture sport and

1157
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 6: just like American history. I put so much work into

1158
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 6: that Whitney Houston piece and it paid off in won awards.

1159
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:53,640
Speaker 6: Like it's really one of my favorite pieces probably that

1160
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 6: I ever wrote. And you know, I think I'm very

1161
01:02:58,280 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 6: smart in that piece.

1162
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 1: Can you give a summary of that, because I'm curious.

1163
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 6: It's just very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country

1164
01:03:05,800 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 6: on her bag because war had just been declared. This

1165
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:12,480
Speaker 6: was in the pre security era and Super Bowl was

1166
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:15,280
Speaker 6: a soft target. So I wrote about everything. I wrote

1167
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 6: about what was going on with the war. I wrote

1168
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 6: about what was going on with the NFL commissioner. I

1169
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:22,240
Speaker 6: wrote about her pre recording the song. I wrote about

1170
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 6: the I covered her performance in a second by seconds way.

1171
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 6: I covered every single second of her performance, and that's

1172
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 6: what I wanted for my conclusion, and that's what we had.

1173
01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:37,400
Speaker 6: And I just talk about her at the end, just

1174
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,200
Speaker 6: you know, with the with the what do they call it,

1175
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 6: the fighter pilots or whatever, the jet planes or whatever,

1176
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:47,720
Speaker 6: the military planes going off her head, and really, to me,

1177
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 6: I was trying to say how inappropriate, it is, but

1178
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 6: the way she sings free is so important to me.

1179
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:57,040
Speaker 6: How she owned that word in that in the Star

1180
01:03:57,080 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 6: Spangled banner. So many singers run from that word. Are

1181
01:04:00,440 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 6: they shorten that lyric? And Whitney put a whole curly

1182
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 6: qu at the end of it. She went up higher

1183
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 6: than she even normally goes. She went up into Mariah's

1184
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:15,600
Speaker 6: territory at that moment. She stood there in an at

1185
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 6: ease like kind of stance. She was in a sweatsuit.

1186
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 6: When do you see what do you sit in a sweatsuit? Yes,

1187
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 6: and she had a headband and some Nike corteses. I

1188
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 6: was like, who is that lady?

1189
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:38,480
Speaker 1: To me, you're ninety five Kel's piece, which.

1190
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 6: We'll see that's blocked.

1191
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 1: But you're like the one that literally broke the story.

1192
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:46,480
Speaker 6: Yes, we did. It was it was a team effort,

1193
01:04:46,480 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 6: but we did.

1194
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:48,960
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, I didn't know what's the team effort.

1195
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 6: The team effort comes in I'm on the road with

1196
01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 6: Dana Luxemburg. We're chasing him down. But the reporting of

1197
01:04:56,520 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 6: Dana Luxemburg's a photographer that shot him for the cover.

1198
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:02,920
Speaker 6: The cover it is, And I'm happy you brought that up. Honestly,

1199
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 6: because because really the headline is for all time, the sex,

1200
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:10,720
Speaker 6: the soul, the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage

1201
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:14,200
Speaker 6: superstar Alia. And the thing that made it what it

1202
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 6: was was the fact that Dana got the shot. I

1203
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:21,760
Speaker 6: got the story, and Robert was so awful that day

1204
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 6: and we didn't even know what we didn't know at

1205
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 6: that time. And so me and Dana are on the road.

1206
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:33,240
Speaker 6: This is Allanson and Me and Dana Lixemburg on the road.

1207
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 6: Dana shot so many great shots of low Kim Chupac Shakor.

1208
01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:42,440
Speaker 6: But so our goal is we got to get the story,

1209
01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:45,280
Speaker 6: and we need him to speak. And also I got

1210
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 6: to report. I gotta find his teacher. I gotta find

1211
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:51,080
Speaker 6: you know, I got to interview all types of people.

1212
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:54,960
Speaker 6: His bodyguard let me in. We were at the what

1213
01:05:55,120 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 6: was it, what was it called the arena and Philly

1214
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 6: Beck then the Spectrum or therum, the spectrum, so I'm

1215
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:04,400
Speaker 6: in the bowels of the spectrum. It wasn't Fuzzy, but

1216
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:07,720
Speaker 6: it was another radio DJ that when I saw him,

1217
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 6: he was It wasn't Fuzzy, but it was somebody that

1218
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:13,240
Speaker 6: reminds me of Fuzzy. And they were standing on stage

1219
01:06:13,280 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 6: in soundcheck that we had snuck into, and I told

1220
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:18,800
Speaker 6: him my situation and he was like, you can have

1221
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:19,880
Speaker 6: my backstage fast.

1222
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 7: I never like if that was cosmic kass right, And

1223
01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:27,480
Speaker 7: I was like, man, you making my whole life.

1224
01:06:28,080 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 2: You were doing the story and you weren't officially traveling

1225
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 2: with the camp.

1226
01:06:35,160 --> 01:06:37,360
Speaker 6: Not at all. We got on Amtrak from New York

1227
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:42,280
Speaker 6: to the filling and they weren't super No. They were

1228
01:06:42,320 --> 01:06:46,920
Speaker 6: literally signs up backstage at the Spectrum that said, if

1229
01:06:46,920 --> 01:06:51,040
Speaker 6: you see anybody from Vibe here, escort them off the premises.

1230
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:52,480
Speaker 4: Wow.

1231
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:54,920
Speaker 6: Wow, And so we were like wow what. He just

1232
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:58,920
Speaker 6: felt like public enemy number one because we had a

1233
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:01,040
Speaker 6: story on the This was my thing when I was

1234
01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:03,680
Speaker 6: at by music editor or editor in chief. If you

1235
01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 6: said you were gonna do it, I'm holding you to

1236
01:07:06,560 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 6: your word like I really believed that. And it was

1237
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:13,400
Speaker 6: very childish almost the way I would really hold on

1238
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:15,920
Speaker 6: to that like I would. My thing was very much

1239
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 6: like you promised no.

1240
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 7: No.

1241
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 6: A person could be like yes, but I know somebody

1242
01:07:20,880 --> 01:07:22,600
Speaker 6: can easily be like my fingers are crossed when I

1243
01:07:22,640 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 6: said it, like that's how, that's how, but that's how.

1244
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:28,840
Speaker 6: That's how serious. I was about it though, I was

1245
01:07:28,880 --> 01:07:30,720
Speaker 6: just very like, no, they promised, so they're going to

1246
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:34,800
Speaker 6: be held to that, and so Jive and and and

1247
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:38,520
Speaker 6: and mister Kelly had promised we were doing this cover

1248
01:07:38,560 --> 01:07:41,840
Speaker 6: story and then because the Aliyah stuff broke, then they

1249
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:46,120
Speaker 6: said no. So my thing is no. Then we're gonna

1250
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:48,280
Speaker 6: find you and we are going to get the story.

1251
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:51,360
Speaker 6: I'm gonna come to Philly and I'm gonna figure something out.

1252
01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:53,600
Speaker 6: If I have to interview everybody in Philly, how do

1253
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:56,560
Speaker 6: you feel about this concept in this situation, I'm going

1254
01:07:56,600 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 6: to do it. If Danta has to shoot you with

1255
01:07:58,800 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 6: the telephoto limbs from the back at the stadium, then

1256
01:08:01,480 --> 01:08:04,040
Speaker 6: that's what we're gonna do. But the thing is he

1257
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 6: he let us in because of Dana. Dana's beautiful woman,

1258
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 6: white woman from South Africa and very just low key

1259
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 6: with it, very very not like giving you sex, not

1260
01:08:17,240 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 6: very not giving you sexy, but just giving you like Frank,

1261
01:08:21,080 --> 01:08:25,759
Speaker 6: you know what, this disarming disarming so so so Robert

1262
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:27,599
Speaker 6: said she could come in.

1263
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 5: That's because you.

1264
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 6: Right, listen, listen. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, but listen.

1265
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:41,719
Speaker 6: So then Dana said, because we were really ganggang Dana said, okay,

1266
01:08:41,760 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 6: but I'm not coming in without Danielle. So then Robert said,

1267
01:08:49,400 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 6: if you because he knew I was. I had covered

1268
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:54,880
Speaker 6: him before. I had been in London with him all

1269
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:57,840
Speaker 6: types of stuff on junkets as people used to do

1270
01:08:57,880 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 6: back in those days. So he said, you can come in,

1271
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:04,960
Speaker 6: but you can't write anything down with a he said,

1272
01:09:05,040 --> 01:09:09,880
Speaker 6: with a pin. Okay, okay, but see I had a pencil.

1273
01:09:10,240 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 6: So it was like a man. Listen. It was so crazy.

1274
01:09:16,040 --> 01:09:18,680
Speaker 6: I can't even tell you how crazy that was. But

1275
01:09:18,720 --> 01:09:21,839
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, why was such a team effort aside

1276
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:24,280
Speaker 6: from the fact that I had Allan advising me, that

1277
01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 6: Dana had George Pitts, the photo director, advising her because

1278
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:30,559
Speaker 6: we didn't know what to do. Also, you guys got

1279
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:36,559
Speaker 6: to remember we were kids. I was twenty eight. I

1280
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:40,320
Speaker 6: was a child, like I mean I was. I was

1281
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 6: young in the game, but was just on it. And

1282
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:48,679
Speaker 6: so while Alan was advising me and George Pitts, who's

1283
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 6: gone now God blessed dead, was advising Dana, then Carter

1284
01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:58,600
Speaker 6: Harris and Rob Kenner and the whole Vibe team was

1285
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:03,040
Speaker 6: back there trying to find him. Mayor that was the goal.

1286
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:06,800
Speaker 6: That was set and we refused not to meet that challenge.

1287
01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 5: Wow, how do you do that?

1288
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:09,840
Speaker 4: That's what I might say, how do you do that?

1289
01:10:09,920 --> 01:10:10,800
Speaker 4: In ninety five?

1290
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:14,840
Speaker 6: Let me tell yourself that it was work and we

1291
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:20,479
Speaker 6: had we had contacts, We were reporters, We knew people,

1292
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:23,280
Speaker 6: who knew people who knew people. I mean, we were

1293
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:27,200
Speaker 6: the ones that reported the fact that how Aleiah climbed

1294
01:10:27,200 --> 01:10:29,479
Speaker 6: out of the window and got with the bodyguards and

1295
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:31,800
Speaker 6: they got on a private plane down to Florida, Like

1296
01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:34,559
Speaker 6: this is because we know people who know people.

1297
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 1: Yes, you guys have to be Google.

1298
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:40,439
Speaker 6: We had to be and so and so Carter and

1299
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:43,519
Speaker 6: then found that mairor certificate and we ran it. And

1300
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:46,599
Speaker 6: that's also another one of those to go back quest.

1301
01:10:46,600 --> 01:10:48,360
Speaker 6: So what you were talking about with the rest of development,

1302
01:10:48,640 --> 01:10:52,720
Speaker 6: that was another time when people said, oh, Vibe is serious,

1303
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:57,479
Speaker 6: because you got to understand. I remember to see one

1304
01:10:57,479 --> 01:11:00,840
Speaker 6: of the higher upset Vibe calling me either on that

1305
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:02,760
Speaker 6: issue or the next time we put him on the

1306
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:06,160
Speaker 6: cover when we had even more evidence about his doings.

1307
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:08,680
Speaker 6: I remember just putting it on a speaker and just

1308
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:12,040
Speaker 6: allowing people to walk into my office hearing that man

1309
01:11:12,120 --> 01:11:16,920
Speaker 6: call me. Every type of bi tch lowlife, who re

1310
01:11:18,120 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 6: Vibe being fish Wrap Vibe being? I was leading, who

1311
01:11:22,240 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 6: is this?

1312
01:11:22,760 --> 01:11:23,439
Speaker 1: This is?

1313
01:11:23,720 --> 01:11:27,000
Speaker 6: This is like someone very high up at Jive Records.

1314
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:29,000
Speaker 6: Does he still have a job? Does he to have

1315
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:31,200
Speaker 6: a job to have a job, Yes, he does. So

1316
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:33,839
Speaker 6: I'm just sailing. And then I remember too that Robert

1317
01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 6: was saying he was going to sue Vive. He was

1318
01:11:37,360 --> 01:11:41,120
Speaker 6: going on I guess it was hot ninety seven saying that,

1319
01:11:41,680 --> 01:11:44,880
Speaker 6: and I went on the radio because they'd be like, well,

1320
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:46,639
Speaker 6: do you want to respond? This is how the internet

1321
01:11:46,760 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 6: used to work in the pre Internet era. And I

1322
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 6: was like, I'll take that, babe. And I went up

1323
01:11:53,080 --> 01:11:54,720
Speaker 6: there and they were like, well, are you concerned that

1324
01:11:55,280 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 6: you guys are going to get sued? And Robert Kelly

1325
01:11:57,840 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 6: said he's going to put Vibe out of business? And

1326
01:12:00,120 --> 01:12:01,519
Speaker 6: I said, what was in true? I used to feel

1327
01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:05,240
Speaker 6: so confident in our which people don't have anymore in journalism.

1328
01:12:05,479 --> 01:12:07,920
Speaker 6: I used to feel confident in our reporting. I used

1329
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:10,680
Speaker 6: to feel confident in our fact checking, and I used

1330
01:12:10,680 --> 01:12:13,400
Speaker 6: to feel confident in the fact that every single solitary

1331
01:12:13,400 --> 01:12:16,720
Speaker 6: page of Bob magazine went by lawyers before it went

1332
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:19,280
Speaker 6: to press. Every single month that I was ever working

1333
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 6: there as music editor or editor in chief. So my

1334
01:12:22,479 --> 01:12:24,839
Speaker 6: thing was I was able to say on the radio,

1335
01:12:25,320 --> 01:12:28,800
Speaker 6: I think that he's just like profiling, as we used

1336
01:12:28,840 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 6: to say in Oakland. He's just side busting because if

1337
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:37,920
Speaker 6: he wanted to sue, then he would, but he would

1338
01:12:38,040 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 6: have to prove one that we were wrong in too,

1339
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:43,200
Speaker 6: that we had malicious intent, and we have neither.

1340
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:46,519
Speaker 3: So when you run that piece about you know, him

1341
01:12:46,800 --> 01:12:49,160
Speaker 3: doing all the abuse and just all the fuck shit,

1342
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:52,040
Speaker 3: how do you then reconcile when it's time to review

1343
01:12:52,120 --> 01:12:53,360
Speaker 3: his next album?

1344
01:12:53,840 --> 01:12:58,160
Speaker 6: So I was there for two stories, two cover stories

1345
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:03,120
Speaker 6: of our healing, and I don't I mean, the short

1346
01:13:03,160 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 6: answer is, I don't know what we actually did. I

1347
01:13:07,280 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 6: would have to look at the timeline, but if I

1348
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:13,840
Speaker 6: had to guess, I would say that the discussion went

1349
01:13:13,960 --> 01:13:17,799
Speaker 6: like this, And this is purely me guessing. The record

1350
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:23,360
Speaker 6: is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything, and

1351
01:13:23,400 --> 01:13:26,559
Speaker 6: so we have to cover it. I'm not saying that

1352
01:13:26,560 --> 01:13:29,920
Speaker 6: that is what happened, but just knowing how things tended

1353
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:33,320
Speaker 6: to happen when I was there, that sounds like the

1354
01:13:33,360 --> 01:13:36,240
Speaker 6: way a conversation might have gone.

1355
01:13:36,479 --> 01:13:39,760
Speaker 7: Do you think that's how it should in twenty twenty two,

1356
01:13:39,800 --> 01:13:42,639
Speaker 7: with all the lenses. Is that how the conversation should

1357
01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:43,000
Speaker 7: still go.

1358
01:13:43,360 --> 01:13:47,599
Speaker 6: I think once a person is convicted of something, then

1359
01:13:47,800 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 6: the conversation changes because a thing too particular too the

1360
01:13:52,840 --> 01:13:57,800
Speaker 6: black community is this, There's so many times when black

1361
01:13:57,800 --> 01:13:59,880
Speaker 6: people are accused of things that they did not do.

1362
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:05,439
Speaker 6: There's so many times in history where people are Black

1363
01:14:05,479 --> 01:14:09,000
Speaker 6: people was getting canceled before canceling was a word because

1364
01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:12,160
Speaker 6: of things that they did, I mean things that they

1365
01:14:12,200 --> 01:14:15,800
Speaker 6: didn't do. And so we also had to walk a

1366
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:19,200
Speaker 6: very fine line of like, well, what do we know,

1367
01:14:20,479 --> 01:14:23,200
Speaker 6: what has what is legally I remember there was a

1368
01:14:23,240 --> 01:14:26,400
Speaker 6: whole thing at Vibe that that happens at all places

1369
01:14:26,439 --> 01:14:29,960
Speaker 6: of reputable places of journalism, is that you can't just

1370
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:34,640
Speaker 6: go around saying that someone was murdered before there is

1371
01:14:34,680 --> 01:14:37,280
Speaker 6: a conviction. To that point, you have to say that

1372
01:14:37,320 --> 01:14:39,799
Speaker 6: they were killed killed.

1373
01:14:39,880 --> 01:14:42,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, murder is murder is.

1374
01:14:42,120 --> 01:14:46,200
Speaker 6: A legal term. It's a legal term, and so these

1375
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:46,400
Speaker 6: are that.

1376
01:14:46,520 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: So you would have to say Stupak is killed. You

1377
01:14:48,920 --> 01:14:50,920
Speaker 1: couldn't say that it was a murder. You could not

1378
01:14:51,120 --> 01:14:53,799
Speaker 1: until well I'm being hypothetical when I asked, yes.

1379
01:14:53,640 --> 01:14:57,320
Speaker 6: But but yes, yes, And I do believe if you

1380
01:14:57,400 --> 01:15:00,800
Speaker 6: go back, you will see that I remember that being

1381
01:15:00,840 --> 01:15:04,200
Speaker 6: struck out of many a piece that he was, that

1382
01:15:04,280 --> 01:15:08,439
Speaker 6: he was not murdered until someone had been convicted of

1383
01:15:08,520 --> 01:15:16,240
Speaker 6: having murdered him.

1384
01:15:16,439 --> 01:15:20,719
Speaker 2: In your I guess, in your your tenure there, who

1385
01:15:21,400 --> 01:15:25,719
Speaker 2: were some of the writers that you helped usher into

1386
01:15:25,760 --> 01:15:30,240
Speaker 2: the game? People that kind of started off as interned

1387
01:15:30,240 --> 01:15:32,440
Speaker 2: to it now, like, man, listen.

1388
01:15:32,240 --> 01:15:33,639
Speaker 5: Look at your phone, look at your phone.

1389
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:36,200
Speaker 6: I know at first, well, let me just say this,

1390
01:15:36,360 --> 01:15:38,840
Speaker 6: I don't know who all I ushered in, but I

1391
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:42,320
Speaker 6: do know that I've worked with some amazing people. I mean,

1392
01:15:43,760 --> 01:15:46,240
Speaker 6: when I got there, you know, Allan and Jonathan van

1393
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:50,880
Speaker 6: Meder had already hired people like Joan Morgan, who's doctor

1394
01:15:50,920 --> 01:15:55,360
Speaker 6: Joan Morgan now, Scot Scott Polson, Brian who's doctor Scott Pulsing,

1395
01:15:55,400 --> 01:16:01,160
Speaker 6: Bryan now, people like that, like okay, and then when

1396
01:16:01,160 --> 01:16:05,679
Speaker 6: I when I got there, I mean, Karen Rene Good Marrable,

1397
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:06,960
Speaker 6: I was gonna.

1398
01:16:06,800 --> 01:16:12,440
Speaker 2: Say, Karen Good was just starting out like she was

1399
01:16:13,760 --> 01:16:15,639
Speaker 2: as I did.

1400
01:16:15,960 --> 01:16:17,640
Speaker 6: I mean, Karen and I are girlfriends. Karen was at

1401
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:20,040
Speaker 6: my wedding, Like that's how you know we're girlfriends? Like

1402
01:16:20,080 --> 01:16:24,360
Speaker 6: that so obviously Karen Good Marrable, who writes a lot

1403
01:16:24,439 --> 01:16:27,600
Speaker 6: now so much beautiful stuff for the Oxford American, but

1404
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:34,640
Speaker 6: also Sasha Jenkins, Jeff mal also I think, yeah, I

1405
01:16:34,640 --> 01:16:36,360
Speaker 6: always gotta be careful talking about who I get a

1406
01:16:36,439 --> 01:16:41,519
Speaker 6: start to, right, yes, but but no, Rockelcipated definitely is

1407
01:16:41,520 --> 01:16:43,760
Speaker 6: the genius. And she wrote for a Vibe when I

1408
01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:47,799
Speaker 6: was there. And also that's I met Elliott Wilson, my husband,

1409
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,959
Speaker 6: and then I signed him his first Vibe record review also.

1410
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:54,639
Speaker 4: First five record review.

1411
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:59,559
Speaker 6: You remember, no, but he was he does, but but

1412
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:02,120
Speaker 6: there was way before we started dating. I was actually married.

1413
01:17:02,160 --> 01:17:04,400
Speaker 6: Elliot's my second husband. In case people don't know.

1414
01:17:04,400 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 5: No, really didn't.

1415
01:17:05,520 --> 01:17:09,519
Speaker 6: How long was your first your first short and sweet? Nice?

1416
01:17:09,800 --> 01:17:10,479
Speaker 5: How old were you?

1417
01:17:11,040 --> 01:17:13,240
Speaker 6: I got married at like twenty two?

1418
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 4: Oh yeah that was yeah?

1419
01:17:15,560 --> 01:17:17,920
Speaker 2: Is it hard when well, I mean at one point

1420
01:17:17,960 --> 01:17:22,599
Speaker 2: both of you were editor in chiefs of Competing. We

1421
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:27,679
Speaker 2: were so because you guys were married and you're editor

1422
01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:32,280
Speaker 2: in chief of Competing not had Phil McCoy level.

1423
01:17:32,720 --> 01:17:36,800
Speaker 1: It was competition, it was yeah. So how does that work?

1424
01:17:36,920 --> 01:17:40,400
Speaker 2: Like how do you find what separation of church and

1425
01:17:40,479 --> 01:17:43,479
Speaker 2: state when both of you are fishing for like the

1426
01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:44,280
Speaker 2: same story.

1427
01:17:44,640 --> 01:17:47,559
Speaker 6: Well, we had a history of it already. Elliott want

1428
01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:50,320
Speaker 6: to become when we were back when we were just colleagues,

1429
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:54,040
Speaker 6: Elliott stopped writing for Vibe and he went on to

1430
01:17:54,040 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 6: become music editor of the Source. All right, So I

1431
01:17:58,160 --> 01:18:02,519
Speaker 6: was feeling competitive at that time before we ever were dating.

1432
01:18:03,560 --> 01:18:08,200
Speaker 6: So but I had to respect the skill.

1433
01:18:07,920 --> 01:18:12,160
Speaker 5: Set and sounds like that's one of y'all love languages.

1434
01:18:12,600 --> 01:18:15,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then when I was when I was in

1435
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 6: grad school by this time, he was at it in

1436
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:19,559
Speaker 6: chief of XXCEL and this was around the time when

1437
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:22,760
Speaker 6: we started dating. I had to respect it. Like that's

1438
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 6: when he put a feenie on the cover, and that

1439
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:28,960
Speaker 6: was just such a courageous moment, like I could only

1440
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:31,000
Speaker 6: I wasn't even like we weren't even in each other's

1441
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:32,760
Speaker 6: phones during it. I didn't even know if we had

1442
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:35,960
Speaker 6: phones back then. But I just remember saying to people, like,

1443
01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:39,320
Speaker 6: I know he had to fight to get that done.

1444
01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:41,120
Speaker 6: I know what that fight must have been like. And

1445
01:18:41,160 --> 01:18:44,160
Speaker 6: I respected it. So then when we got married, I

1446
01:18:44,360 --> 01:18:49,120
Speaker 6: was in grad school, so and it's like a nine

1447
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:51,519
Speaker 6: ten months after we were married where I went back

1448
01:18:51,560 --> 01:18:55,880
Speaker 6: to Vibe and we went into it real really very

1449
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:59,160
Speaker 6: willy nilly. We thought it was going to be very

1450
01:18:59,280 --> 01:19:06,080
Speaker 6: easy to man, it's just facient and after and after

1451
01:19:06,200 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 6: our first issues. I don't know if people know my husband,

1452
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:16,880
Speaker 6: but he's not known for like his calm and it's

1453
01:19:16,920 --> 01:19:19,519
Speaker 6: such a it's such as such a sweetheart. But he's

1454
01:19:19,600 --> 01:19:22,320
Speaker 6: just not really known for, you know, taking things lightly.

1455
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:23,920
Speaker 6: He's a very passionate individual.

1456
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:25,439
Speaker 1: So he found him down.

1457
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:29,960
Speaker 2: I will say the Elliott now is way more calm,

1458
01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:34,240
Speaker 2: and I actually credit that to you because just his

1459
01:19:34,720 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 2: his nerdy ego trip like days of yeah.

1460
01:19:38,960 --> 01:19:40,880
Speaker 6: Yeah, those are my guys, though all of them tore

1461
01:19:40,920 --> 01:19:44,320
Speaker 6: one but it's like but but no, So we really

1462
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,439
Speaker 6: after the first issue, it just was bad, like the

1463
01:19:47,520 --> 01:19:53,080
Speaker 6: way things went down. Yeah, and so and also you

1464
01:19:53,120 --> 01:19:56,240
Speaker 6: have to understand that we had staffs of people that

1465
01:19:57,520 --> 01:19:59,960
Speaker 6: Elliott the whole staff of people that already believed in him,

1466
01:20:00,280 --> 01:20:03,439
Speaker 6: and I was a brand new second time editor in

1467
01:20:03,479 --> 01:20:06,800
Speaker 6: chief of Vibe that wanted a staff to believe in me.

1468
01:20:08,479 --> 01:20:11,160
Speaker 6: So we had to establish some as we call them

1469
01:20:11,160 --> 01:20:14,240
Speaker 6: back then, the rules and regulations and some times and conditions.

1470
01:20:14,240 --> 01:20:15,639
Speaker 5: Come on, now, you got to give us a couple

1471
01:20:16,280 --> 01:20:18,080
Speaker 5: I got to know, well, I.

1472
01:20:18,040 --> 01:20:20,519
Speaker 6: Mean if I'm honest. The main one was just that

1473
01:20:21,160 --> 01:20:26,600
Speaker 6: you could not discuss in any way at home anything

1474
01:20:26,920 --> 01:20:30,720
Speaker 6: that was going on with the issue at work. But

1475
01:20:30,960 --> 01:20:33,599
Speaker 6: you could say somebody was getting on your nerves or

1476
01:20:34,320 --> 01:20:36,320
Speaker 6: I don't know why they don't have Coca colas and

1477
01:20:36,360 --> 01:20:39,519
Speaker 6: the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't. You couldn't come

1478
01:20:39,520 --> 01:20:41,400
Speaker 6: home and say, like, I'm really trying to get this

1479
01:20:41,479 --> 01:20:42,519
Speaker 6: cover with a B or C.

1480
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:45,240
Speaker 4: No, gotcha, got you, gotcha?

1481
01:20:45,400 --> 01:20:45,960
Speaker 1: Let me ask.

1482
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:51,280
Speaker 2: Only because again, like you and him are to me

1483
01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:56,760
Speaker 2: the most courageous power couple of journalism, only because both

1484
01:20:56,800 --> 01:20:59,760
Speaker 2: of you had your feet in the fire again at

1485
01:20:59,760 --> 01:21:05,200
Speaker 2: a time time in which and I'm using more hyperbole

1486
01:21:05,240 --> 01:21:09,519
Speaker 2: when I say dangerous, I'll say more like exciting times,

1487
01:21:09,800 --> 01:21:14,000
Speaker 2: but I'll also say serious times. Like you you were,

1488
01:21:14,320 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 2: you were definitely around during like the what they would

1489
01:21:17,439 --> 01:21:21,680
Speaker 2: call the danger era of the East and West thing.

1490
01:21:21,840 --> 01:21:25,000
Speaker 2: But you know, for also him as as a wife,

1491
01:21:25,560 --> 01:21:29,519
Speaker 2: were you concerned about his situation at the source, because

1492
01:21:30,360 --> 01:21:34,360
Speaker 2: he too was sort of in a word pickled situation.

1493
01:21:36,800 --> 01:21:39,760
Speaker 6: I mean, he was at XXL at that time, but yeah.

1494
01:21:39,600 --> 01:21:43,639
Speaker 2: Right, and like, was there just any just general worry

1495
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:49,240
Speaker 2: for safety coming for your end, like, Okay, don't don't

1496
01:21:49,280 --> 01:21:51,880
Speaker 2: write that op ed because you know good and well

1497
01:21:51,960 --> 01:21:54,519
Speaker 2: that this is gonna or for you. It's just like

1498
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:57,800
Speaker 2: Church and State were never talking about what our work

1499
01:21:57,880 --> 01:21:59,800
Speaker 2: is and bringing it into the home.

1500
01:22:00,120 --> 01:22:03,280
Speaker 6: When Elliott was going through the most terrible stuff, we

1501
01:22:03,280 --> 01:22:07,280
Speaker 6: were not dating. We weren't. Okay, yeah, we weren't. We

1502
01:22:07,320 --> 01:22:09,519
Speaker 6: started dating at the I think the end of three.

1503
01:22:09,600 --> 01:22:11,599
Speaker 6: But let me not let me not put too fun

1504
01:22:11,640 --> 01:22:15,960
Speaker 6: a point on it, because Elliot. Elliott was away in

1505
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:17,599
Speaker 6: the streets at the time when we were dating.

1506
01:22:17,640 --> 01:22:21,559
Speaker 2: So just for our listeners, Elliott was at Exxcel right

1507
01:22:21,720 --> 01:22:26,320
Speaker 2: during the height of I guess the Eminem versus ben

1508
01:22:26,400 --> 01:22:30,760
Speaker 2: Zeno wars, and.

1509
01:22:30,040 --> 01:22:32,480
Speaker 1: It would get very serious, very serious.

1510
01:22:33,320 --> 01:22:35,040
Speaker 6: As I said, at the time, when he was going

1511
01:22:35,080 --> 01:22:37,240
Speaker 6: through the very worst of it. We weren't dating. I

1512
01:22:37,320 --> 01:22:40,960
Speaker 6: knew him at I knew him as a as a colleague.

1513
01:22:41,160 --> 01:22:45,559
Speaker 6: And you know, there's a certain scene of writers and

1514
01:22:45,600 --> 01:22:48,320
Speaker 6: stuch in New York at that time, Black writers and

1515
01:22:48,320 --> 01:22:49,840
Speaker 6: stuff where we all kind of knew each other, would

1516
01:22:49,840 --> 01:22:51,280
Speaker 6: see each other out and that kind of thing. And

1517
01:22:51,760 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 6: I always knew Elliott, like I said, he used to

1518
01:22:53,520 --> 01:22:55,719
Speaker 6: write for me when I was a music editor at Vibe,

1519
01:22:55,720 --> 01:22:58,160
Speaker 6: and he was always supportive of me. I remember when

1520
01:22:58,160 --> 01:22:59,960
Speaker 6: my book came out and Know Three, my first novel,

1521
01:23:00,479 --> 01:23:02,880
Speaker 6: he came into because he was bawling. He came into

1522
01:23:02,880 --> 01:23:05,680
Speaker 6: Barnes and Noble, brought like fifteen books and he was

1523
01:23:05,760 --> 01:23:08,439
Speaker 6: just you know, he was that type of dude. But

1524
01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:12,759
Speaker 6: even from Afar and through my friends on the scene

1525
01:23:12,800 --> 01:23:15,760
Speaker 6: and people who were publicists and other writers, I mean,

1526
01:23:15,800 --> 01:23:18,559
Speaker 6: they would say that Elliott was going through it. You know,

1527
01:23:19,160 --> 01:23:21,920
Speaker 6: people that saw him. I mean, these are his stories

1528
01:23:21,920 --> 01:23:24,960
Speaker 6: to tell, but people that saw him more than I did.

1529
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:28,720
Speaker 6: And I also know, just now being his wife for

1530
01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:31,760
Speaker 6: these many years, you know, the health issues and stuff

1531
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:34,600
Speaker 6: that came out of that era, like it's you know,

1532
01:23:34,640 --> 01:23:37,360
Speaker 6: stuff that he still manages to this day. So I mean,

1533
01:23:37,400 --> 01:23:39,679
Speaker 6: he's a brave dude though, but none of us are

1534
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:44,160
Speaker 6: like superhuman, you know, and there was some real scary

1535
01:23:44,240 --> 01:23:46,280
Speaker 6: stuff that we all went through. Some of it is

1536
01:23:46,320 --> 01:23:49,920
Speaker 6: in Shine Bright were just you know, threats were made

1537
01:23:50,040 --> 01:23:53,400
Speaker 6: and it's like I remember my mom coming to see

1538
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:56,719
Speaker 6: me in New York from California, and she really did,

1539
01:23:56,720 --> 01:23:59,200
Speaker 6: but she did a couple of times, and she's at

1540
01:23:59,240 --> 01:24:01,320
Speaker 6: the office and I was just going about the business

1541
01:24:01,320 --> 01:24:05,479
Speaker 6: of my day. And then she said, like, who is

1542
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:08,360
Speaker 6: this how it always is? And I was like what

1543
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:11,000
Speaker 6: And she was like, just the way you're it was

1544
01:24:11,040 --> 01:24:12,800
Speaker 6: a different error. She's like, just the way you're talking

1545
01:24:12,840 --> 01:24:14,439
Speaker 6: to people. I said, how am I talking to people?

1546
01:24:14,880 --> 01:24:18,240
Speaker 6: She's like just cursing and stuff. And I was like,

1547
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:22,120
Speaker 6: am I cursing? She's like, yes, you're cursing a lot

1548
01:24:22,400 --> 01:24:25,639
Speaker 6: on the phone to people. And I was like, that's

1549
01:24:25,640 --> 01:24:27,320
Speaker 6: because people are trying to back out of the things

1550
01:24:27,360 --> 01:24:29,200
Speaker 6: that they said they were going to do. That's because

1551
01:24:29,240 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 6: of this. That's because of that. And my mother said, Okay,

1552
01:24:33,160 --> 01:24:34,720
Speaker 6: but like are you running to stab or are you

1553
01:24:34,800 --> 01:24:38,639
Speaker 6: running the game? Like what's going on? But see the thing? Yeah,

1554
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:41,400
Speaker 6: but see because the thing is we it was you.

1555
01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:45,800
Speaker 6: I mean, I was only there for about five more

1556
01:24:45,840 --> 01:24:51,559
Speaker 6: months because we were scared. And also, you guys understand

1557
01:24:51,600 --> 01:24:56,200
Speaker 6: how invested we were in Vibe success, how much responsibility

1558
01:24:56,360 --> 01:25:00,919
Speaker 6: we felt to the community and to our elves and

1559
01:25:00,920 --> 01:25:04,559
Speaker 6: and just the music into hip hop culture. Like we

1560
01:25:04,560 --> 01:25:08,519
Speaker 6: were obsessed. There's not a better word for it. I

1561
01:25:08,520 --> 01:25:10,920
Speaker 6: would say this about just most everybody on the staff,

1562
01:25:10,960 --> 01:25:12,280
Speaker 6: down to the receptionists.

1563
01:25:12,920 --> 01:25:14,439
Speaker 7: They had to be a lot of pressure because you're

1564
01:25:14,760 --> 01:25:16,080
Speaker 7: top of that food chain.

1565
01:25:16,479 --> 01:25:22,000
Speaker 6: Yeah, and people were people were attacking us physically. People

1566
01:25:22,040 --> 01:25:27,000
Speaker 6: were getting guns pulled on them in the studio overmember

1567
01:25:27,200 --> 01:25:29,439
Speaker 6: record reviews and stuff, and so it's.

1568
01:25:29,360 --> 01:25:32,519
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, would you change anything?

1569
01:25:33,360 --> 01:25:39,439
Speaker 6: I would change everything up here. No, not everything, But

1570
01:25:39,520 --> 01:25:42,040
Speaker 6: you know what if I just as I said, we

1571
01:25:42,040 --> 01:25:46,800
Speaker 6: were all we were young, man, I think about think

1572
01:25:46,800 --> 01:25:49,240
Speaker 6: about your think about I call them my baby cousins

1573
01:25:49,240 --> 01:25:51,400
Speaker 6: and stuff like, think I think about my baby cousins

1574
01:25:51,400 --> 01:25:53,559
Speaker 6: that are like twenty five years old right now. They

1575
01:25:53,640 --> 01:25:56,400
Speaker 6: come over and ask me the most ridiculous stuff and

1576
01:25:56,439 --> 01:25:59,040
Speaker 6: I'm like, aren't you grown? And They're like no, And

1577
01:25:59,080 --> 01:26:01,559
Speaker 6: I'm like, I was a whole Like I thought that

1578
01:26:01,680 --> 01:26:04,240
Speaker 6: was right. I was a whole R and B editor

1579
01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:06,200
Speaker 6: of Billboard at that at your age, man.

1580
01:26:06,120 --> 01:26:06,280
Speaker 7: Like.

1581
01:26:07,800 --> 01:26:11,160
Speaker 6: What like I was? I was? I was editing Haveloc

1582
01:26:11,240 --> 01:26:13,120
Speaker 6: Nelson when I was like twenty five.

1583
01:26:14,520 --> 01:26:15,640
Speaker 5: That's not fair to put that.

1584
01:26:15,920 --> 01:26:19,080
Speaker 3: Now, their age, their age like a twenty four, you know,

1585
01:26:19,240 --> 01:26:21,559
Speaker 3: in ninety five, and a twenty four in twenty twenty

1586
01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:22,160
Speaker 3: two or two.

1587
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:25,680
Speaker 6: Completely very different. It's very different. I'm not saying I

1588
01:26:25,760 --> 01:26:28,200
Speaker 6: wasn't mature, but I'm just saying I was still I

1589
01:26:28,200 --> 01:26:30,800
Speaker 6: didn't have a lot of it. I was learning how

1590
01:26:30,840 --> 01:26:33,960
Speaker 6: to manage on the job. And then all of a sudden,

1591
01:26:34,000 --> 01:26:36,120
Speaker 6: you tell me you're coming to my office and say

1592
01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:40,400
Speaker 6: I was at the studio and such and such didn't

1593
01:26:40,400 --> 01:26:42,559
Speaker 6: like the review, and I told him I was I could.

1594
01:26:42,680 --> 01:26:44,280
Speaker 6: I didn't know what to say to that, and then

1595
01:26:44,360 --> 01:26:47,840
Speaker 6: they just pulled out a gun. Now, I'm not going

1596
01:26:47,840 --> 01:26:51,400
Speaker 6: to act like I'm not from East Oakland, because I

1597
01:26:51,439 --> 01:26:53,400
Speaker 6: am mm hmm.

1598
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:55,240
Speaker 1: But that was statement.

1599
01:26:55,640 --> 01:26:59,400
Speaker 6: Well, it's it's loaded from a native yeh, I feel,

1600
01:26:59,520 --> 01:27:03,080
Speaker 6: but that's still shouldn't be. No, it's not normalized. But

1601
01:27:03,160 --> 01:27:07,719
Speaker 6: in the nineteen late nineteen eighties in Oakland and East

1602
01:27:07,760 --> 01:27:10,040
Speaker 6: Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland.

1603
01:27:09,680 --> 01:27:12,719
Speaker 5: Too, in your office and I'm talking about this storied

1604
01:27:13,160 --> 01:27:13,680
Speaker 5: no no, but.

1605
01:27:13,640 --> 01:27:16,800
Speaker 6: I'm saying that, you know, and you just kind of

1606
01:27:17,240 --> 01:27:19,799
Speaker 6: kind of had to be about it in East Okland.

1607
01:27:20,439 --> 01:27:23,360
Speaker 6: And so did I bring some of that being about

1608
01:27:23,400 --> 01:27:28,240
Speaker 6: it to the offices of Vibe. I probably did. I

1609
01:27:28,320 --> 01:27:29,160
Speaker 6: probably did.

1610
01:27:29,920 --> 01:27:33,360
Speaker 2: When you are running a ship like that, is there

1611
01:27:33,479 --> 01:27:38,439
Speaker 2: pressure that you felt that your male contemporaries wouldn't have

1612
01:27:38,479 --> 01:27:46,920
Speaker 2: had that have gone through yes, like timeout with Salan

1613
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:50,240
Speaker 2: and jonathanis screamer? Were they screamers or not at all?

1614
01:27:50,360 --> 01:27:50,720
Speaker 1: Not at all.

1615
01:27:51,360 --> 01:27:55,360
Speaker 2: I almost think Alan's like not passive aggressive, but.

1616
01:27:55,360 --> 01:27:57,840
Speaker 6: Like, no, Allan's is a very soft spoken dude.

1617
01:27:58,280 --> 01:27:59,360
Speaker 1: Right, That's what I'm saying.

1618
01:27:59,400 --> 01:28:03,280
Speaker 6: So people deal with white men differently than they deal

1619
01:28:03,360 --> 01:28:08,320
Speaker 6: with black women, all positions of power. And as much

1620
01:28:08,360 --> 01:28:10,559
Speaker 6: as I'm saying that, you know, I brought some of

1621
01:28:10,560 --> 01:28:15,320
Speaker 6: my East Oakland nests to the editor in Chief's chair,

1622
01:28:15,360 --> 01:28:18,360
Speaker 6: I'm also sitting front row in Milan at you know,

1623
01:28:18,400 --> 01:28:21,599
Speaker 6: the Jill Sanders Show and things like that, and trying

1624
01:28:21,680 --> 01:28:24,439
Speaker 6: to give all of that energy before I even knew

1625
01:28:24,439 --> 01:28:26,960
Speaker 6: how to get that kind of energy. But if you're

1626
01:28:27,000 --> 01:28:31,520
Speaker 6: asking me, was it hard because I was a black woman. Absolutely,

1627
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:36,160
Speaker 6: And this is the thing I'm not guessing because I

1628
01:28:36,360 --> 01:28:40,800
Speaker 6: know the men that ran other magazines and that ran

1629
01:28:40,800 --> 01:28:44,360
Speaker 6: a vibe after me, and I know what their experiences

1630
01:28:44,439 --> 01:28:48,160
Speaker 6: were like as compared to my experiences. I know how

1631
01:28:48,240 --> 01:28:51,519
Speaker 6: much money they made as compared to how much money

1632
01:28:51,680 --> 01:28:55,000
Speaker 6: I made. I know all of these things. Also just

1633
01:28:55,040 --> 01:28:57,800
Speaker 6: because I'm nosy and I'm a reporter, So it's like,

1634
01:28:58,800 --> 01:29:02,920
Speaker 6: was it harder for me? Yeah? Were there times when

1635
01:29:02,960 --> 01:29:06,400
Speaker 6: it was easier for me maybe, but not enough.

1636
01:29:06,720 --> 01:29:08,000
Speaker 4: It didn't balance out the hard shit.

1637
01:29:08,240 --> 01:29:12,760
Speaker 2: No, as an artist, I wanted to study who the

1638
01:29:12,800 --> 01:29:17,640
Speaker 2: gatekeepers of reviews and words were when at the well

1639
01:29:17,680 --> 01:29:19,519
Speaker 2: I'm still making records, but the time when I was

1640
01:29:19,560 --> 01:29:27,280
Speaker 2: making products. But for you, do you have hope for

1641
01:29:28,080 --> 01:29:32,200
Speaker 2: what counts for journalism today? Because I will say that

1642
01:29:32,240 --> 01:29:35,759
Speaker 2: there's like a level of thoroughness that is kind of lost,

1643
01:29:35,760 --> 01:29:39,240
Speaker 2: and there's also just technique and and I'm not saying that.

1644
01:29:39,160 --> 01:29:40,439
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a lost art.

1645
01:29:40,520 --> 01:29:43,360
Speaker 2: Like there's definitely some writers that I feel like are

1646
01:29:43,400 --> 01:29:46,320
Speaker 2: super smart and super insightful. But for the most part,

1647
01:29:47,120 --> 01:29:49,320
Speaker 2: I think now it's like the wild wild West where

1648
01:29:49,439 --> 01:29:53,880
Speaker 2: just you know, there's there's just people that aren't that

1649
01:29:54,000 --> 01:29:58,000
Speaker 2: knowledgeable about their subjects. They run on Wikipedia real quick

1650
01:29:58,640 --> 01:30:02,480
Speaker 2: or run to your old articles and add to it,

1651
01:30:01,200 --> 01:30:07,280
Speaker 2: do you feel like your era of the NBA or

1652
01:30:07,320 --> 01:30:10,519
Speaker 2: the new era of the NBA is can hold a

1653
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:13,200
Speaker 2: candle to your era of it?

1654
01:30:13,200 --> 01:30:17,479
Speaker 6: It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. For

1655
01:30:17,520 --> 01:30:22,040
Speaker 6: the most part. If there's differences in quality, it's not

1656
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:23,920
Speaker 6: the fault of the writer.

1657
01:30:24,840 --> 01:30:26,280
Speaker 1: It's also what they have to write about.

1658
01:30:26,600 --> 01:30:29,320
Speaker 6: No, it's the fact that there's no budgets for anything.

1659
01:30:29,640 --> 01:30:32,679
Speaker 6: There's no If you're writing right now for twenty cents

1660
01:30:32,680 --> 01:30:35,200
Speaker 6: a word, how much are you putting into it? I

1661
01:30:35,240 --> 01:30:36,920
Speaker 6: was writing for twenty cents a word when I was

1662
01:30:36,960 --> 01:30:39,439
Speaker 6: in my early twenties. If you were, I turned stuff

1663
01:30:39,479 --> 01:30:41,719
Speaker 6: down now because I'm just like, it's just not worth

1664
01:30:41,800 --> 01:30:45,040
Speaker 6: it for me to do that, because I'm not even

1665
01:30:45,080 --> 01:30:48,720
Speaker 6: contributing to my household well on what you're trying to

1666
01:30:49,080 --> 01:30:53,599
Speaker 6: pay me. And so then you have kids who aren't

1667
01:30:53,640 --> 01:30:58,719
Speaker 6: getting fact checked. You have kids that aren't not even kids,

1668
01:30:58,720 --> 01:31:02,439
Speaker 6: but adults who aren't edited by people that no one

1669
01:31:02,560 --> 01:31:05,880
Speaker 6: understand the culture and who they themselves are being paid

1670
01:31:05,880 --> 01:31:08,519
Speaker 6: well enough to put their heart and soul into the work.

1671
01:31:09,120 --> 01:31:12,320
Speaker 6: You have people that are only doing email interviews because

1672
01:31:12,320 --> 01:31:15,800
Speaker 6: no one wants to pay somebody's cab across town, let

1673
01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:19,000
Speaker 6: alone a plane trip. I remember when I sent Michael Gonzalez,

1674
01:31:19,040 --> 01:31:22,520
Speaker 6: another great writer from the Vibe era, shout Michael Gonzalez,

1675
01:31:22,800 --> 01:31:27,400
Speaker 6: Gonzo Mike it. It's like I remember Barry White had

1676
01:31:27,400 --> 01:31:29,240
Speaker 6: an album coming out that was the Practice What You

1677
01:31:29,280 --> 01:31:33,599
Speaker 6: Preach album, and they were like, well, I wanted a story,

1678
01:31:33,680 --> 01:31:35,879
Speaker 6: Like I just wanted the story. I wanted the story.

1679
01:31:36,200 --> 01:31:38,519
Speaker 6: I think I was music editor at the time, and

1680
01:31:39,600 --> 01:31:41,240
Speaker 6: they were like, well, we can't do it, we can't

1681
01:31:41,240 --> 01:31:43,000
Speaker 6: do it, we can't do it. But if you want

1682
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:46,160
Speaker 6: to send somebody to Brussels right now, then we can

1683
01:31:46,200 --> 01:31:48,760
Speaker 6: do it. I went to my boss whoever it was

1684
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:51,160
Speaker 6: at the time and told them the situation and they said, welly,

1685
01:31:51,160 --> 01:31:53,840
Speaker 6: I'm gonna taket to Brussels and they went. And it's

1686
01:31:53,880 --> 01:31:57,519
Speaker 6: a great, great story from Michael on the headline is

1687
01:31:57,600 --> 01:32:01,759
Speaker 6: BlackBerry Jam and it's an a amazing it's an amazing

1688
01:32:01,800 --> 01:32:04,600
Speaker 6: story and amazing photographs and it's like, where is that

1689
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:06,479
Speaker 6: going to happen? Now? That's not the that's not the

1690
01:32:06,520 --> 01:32:09,479
Speaker 6: fault of the writer. That's the thing that's heartbreaking to me.

1691
01:32:09,600 --> 01:32:11,959
Speaker 6: One of the great things about me going to ESPN

1692
01:32:12,520 --> 01:32:16,519
Speaker 6: was because ESPN has budgets. As I said, they sent

1693
01:32:16,600 --> 01:32:19,840
Speaker 6: me to Katar to do someone boles. When is that happening?

1694
01:32:20,280 --> 01:32:23,439
Speaker 6: They can afford to to to take care of people

1695
01:32:23,520 --> 01:32:27,400
Speaker 6: like Justin Tensay, like David Dennis like so Ria like yeah,

1696
01:32:27,560 --> 01:32:30,760
Speaker 6: like you know, like so that people can make a

1697
01:32:30,800 --> 01:32:33,880
Speaker 6: living and have a life. There's not even that many

1698
01:32:33,960 --> 01:32:36,559
Speaker 6: places right now where you can go where that's okay.

1699
01:32:36,600 --> 01:32:38,759
Speaker 6: So when I say I have hope, I do believe

1700
01:32:38,760 --> 01:32:40,559
Speaker 6: that the pendulum is going to swing back, but it's

1701
01:32:40,560 --> 01:32:43,919
Speaker 6: going to take some footstopping and maybe even some swinging

1702
01:32:43,960 --> 01:32:46,519
Speaker 6: on the part of the journalists themselves. That's when I

1703
01:32:46,560 --> 01:32:50,000
Speaker 6: say yes, Like I don't know what a general strike

1704
01:32:50,120 --> 01:32:51,840
Speaker 6: is called for, I don't know, but.

1705
01:32:51,880 --> 01:32:54,760
Speaker 2: Something that I give, Okay, are you going to write

1706
01:32:54,800 --> 01:32:57,200
Speaker 2: any more fictional novels?

1707
01:32:58,360 --> 01:33:02,439
Speaker 6: Whether yes, I love fiction and my MFA is in fiction,

1708
01:33:03,200 --> 01:33:06,320
Speaker 6: I may, God willing, in life is long, I may,

1709
01:33:07,040 --> 01:33:09,519
Speaker 6: but I will admit that the things that I'm thinking

1710
01:33:09,560 --> 01:33:12,040
Speaker 6: about with regard to fiction now would probably be more

1711
01:33:12,040 --> 01:33:16,360
Speaker 6: scripts maybe the novels. Yeah, it's what I'm into right now,

1712
01:33:16,400 --> 01:33:19,160
Speaker 6: and thinking about how to maybe even look at my

1713
01:33:19,240 --> 01:33:21,719
Speaker 6: first two novels and how those things might turn into

1714
01:33:22,160 --> 01:33:25,000
Speaker 6: things that exist in other spaces, whether that's audio, whether

1715
01:33:25,080 --> 01:33:27,920
Speaker 6: that's you know, filmic or whatever. So those are the

1716
01:33:28,000 --> 01:33:30,679
Speaker 6: kind of things that I'm thinking about a lot, trying

1717
01:33:30,720 --> 01:33:33,080
Speaker 6: to learn about taking a page out of your books,

1718
01:33:33,120 --> 01:33:36,320
Speaker 6: are just trying to look at what could happened it? Yeah,

1719
01:33:36,320 --> 01:33:39,519
Speaker 6: what can happen in documentary spaces and things like that.

1720
01:33:40,560 --> 01:33:45,400
Speaker 2: I'm actually, you know, I guess by the time this airs,

1721
01:33:45,520 --> 01:33:48,400
Speaker 2: will already made an announcement like I'm a Freddy Cat

1722
01:33:48,439 --> 01:33:51,920
Speaker 2: in terms of I never make an announcement until the

1723
01:33:51,960 --> 01:33:56,519
Speaker 2: project is finished, okay, when it comes. But the probably

1724
01:33:56,520 --> 01:33:59,120
Speaker 2: the biggest secret I've been keeping under my hat for

1725
01:33:59,160 --> 01:34:00,840
Speaker 2: the last two years is I too, have.

1726
01:34:00,880 --> 01:34:02,559
Speaker 1: Written a fictional book.

1727
01:34:03,800 --> 01:34:06,680
Speaker 2: And well, well, I will assume that this will come

1728
01:34:06,680 --> 01:34:11,360
Speaker 2: out by next week. So I'm I've been a junkie

1729
01:34:11,400 --> 01:34:14,439
Speaker 2: of time travel and I'm one of my favorite writers,

1730
01:34:16,040 --> 01:34:20,639
Speaker 2: a gentleman named s A. Cosby who he's written many

1731
01:34:20,640 --> 01:34:23,960
Speaker 2: a New York Times bestseller. So he and I sort

1732
01:34:23,960 --> 01:34:28,920
Speaker 2: of came friends over the pandemic, and I guess, you know,

1733
01:34:29,320 --> 01:34:32,400
Speaker 2: taking a break from doing the movie, I would DJ,

1734
01:34:32,640 --> 01:34:35,040
Speaker 2: but then taking a break from DJ and I would

1735
01:34:35,120 --> 01:34:39,640
Speaker 2: journal and wrote my other music book. But then my

1736
01:34:39,760 --> 01:34:44,320
Speaker 2: fourth pivot was I always wanted to write kind of

1737
01:34:44,880 --> 01:34:45,800
Speaker 2: the books that I.

1738
01:34:45,720 --> 01:34:47,240
Speaker 1: Didn't get to read as a kid.

1739
01:34:47,360 --> 01:34:51,120
Speaker 6: So it's and are those books like black people traveling

1740
01:34:51,160 --> 01:34:52,720
Speaker 6: in Time? Is that? What is?

1741
01:34:52,800 --> 01:34:55,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's two kids. It's it's it's middle school books.

1742
01:34:55,720 --> 01:34:57,080
Speaker 1: So it's it's two kids.

1743
01:34:56,800 --> 01:34:59,040
Speaker 4: That are as a yo novel.

1744
01:34:59,280 --> 01:35:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's two kids that are.

1745
01:35:01,040 --> 01:35:04,040
Speaker 6: Are are I love to hear it.

1746
01:35:04,280 --> 01:35:07,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, a grown up boy. They're both fourteen and fifteen.

1747
01:35:07,920 --> 01:35:10,720
Speaker 2: And the girl she's like a science wizard and she

1748
01:35:10,840 --> 01:35:14,439
Speaker 2: invents a time travel device and he gets the bright

1749
01:35:14,479 --> 01:35:16,720
Speaker 2: idea to try to save one of his groups that

1750
01:35:16,760 --> 01:35:20,960
Speaker 2: he admired, uh from breaking up and the butterfly effect

1751
01:35:21,040 --> 01:35:23,160
Speaker 2: of Yeah, of that anyway.

1752
01:35:22,920 --> 01:35:25,800
Speaker 6: Sounds really good. That's like I remember I used to

1753
01:35:25,800 --> 01:35:28,200
Speaker 6: read all those Madelin Lingo books like Wrinkling Time and

1754
01:35:28,280 --> 01:35:31,280
Speaker 6: all that. All the time those folks were white in

1755
01:35:31,320 --> 01:35:33,439
Speaker 6: the book. I love the books, but I didn't see

1756
01:35:33,439 --> 01:35:34,200
Speaker 6: myself in them.

1757
01:35:34,880 --> 01:35:35,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1758
01:35:35,280 --> 01:35:37,519
Speaker 2: I kept that one and then under Wraps only because

1759
01:35:37,600 --> 01:35:43,559
Speaker 2: like again, I have like nine projects on the back

1760
01:35:43,600 --> 01:35:46,559
Speaker 2: burner and maybe only four of them will actually make

1761
01:35:46,560 --> 01:35:49,599
Speaker 2: it to fruition and the other five sort of fall

1762
01:35:49,600 --> 01:35:51,200
Speaker 2: out the wayside, and then I got to figure out

1763
01:35:51,200 --> 01:35:51,800
Speaker 2: what to do with it.

1764
01:35:52,120 --> 01:35:54,479
Speaker 6: But this sounds really exciting. It sounds so excited.

1765
01:35:55,080 --> 01:35:56,280
Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm excited.

1766
01:35:56,920 --> 01:35:58,640
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, damn before we break up.

1767
01:35:59,200 --> 01:36:02,000
Speaker 3: So were you editor and vibe was this like eight

1768
01:36:02,160 --> 01:36:03,840
Speaker 3: ninety nine? Were you still there at that time.

1769
01:36:04,520 --> 01:36:06,320
Speaker 6: I was there from ninety seven to ninety nine.

1770
01:36:06,920 --> 01:36:09,439
Speaker 4: Nice nine. Okay, there was a review.

1771
01:36:10,360 --> 01:36:13,960
Speaker 3: It was the Lee review for the for the Revolution's

1772
01:36:14,280 --> 01:36:18,679
Speaker 3: Record review section. That was a four Heroes, two pages album.

1773
01:36:18,840 --> 01:36:22,479
Speaker 3: I don't know if you even remember this, but it

1774
01:36:22,560 --> 01:36:27,280
Speaker 3: was the Lee review and that was just if you

1775
01:36:27,280 --> 01:36:27,840
Speaker 3: you were there.

1776
01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:32,519
Speaker 4: I just want to thank you for that. Man ever

1777
01:36:32,560 --> 01:36:37,519
Speaker 4: wrote it. Ever, God, don't get me the line don't

1778
01:36:37,560 --> 01:36:39,040
Speaker 4: get me to line. I can't. I have to look

1779
01:36:39,040 --> 01:36:39,280
Speaker 4: it up.

1780
01:36:39,320 --> 01:36:41,360
Speaker 6: I don't recall it off the rip, but I wish

1781
01:36:41,360 --> 01:36:43,120
Speaker 6: I did, because you guys are making me feel like

1782
01:36:43,160 --> 01:36:44,439
Speaker 6: I should go back and find it.

1783
01:36:45,240 --> 01:36:47,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, that review just opened me up.

1784
01:36:47,280 --> 01:36:49,280
Speaker 3: I mean I never would have found that album had

1785
01:36:49,280 --> 01:36:52,800
Speaker 3: I not saw that, and it just just completely Yeah. Yeah,

1786
01:36:52,840 --> 01:36:55,120
Speaker 3: that was my first time ever hearing reading review.

1787
01:36:55,240 --> 01:36:55,799
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

1788
01:36:56,439 --> 01:36:58,640
Speaker 4: I mean, you've been living in London for years, so

1789
01:36:58,760 --> 01:37:00,400
Speaker 4: it was whatever to you.

1790
01:37:00,120 --> 01:37:03,320
Speaker 2: Well, no, they're the reason why I did the German

1791
01:37:03,360 --> 01:37:05,360
Speaker 2: based thing at the end of You Got Me. Yeah,

1792
01:37:05,280 --> 01:37:08,960
Speaker 2: when forign hero got that leave review even, I was like,

1793
01:37:09,040 --> 01:37:11,120
Speaker 2: oh God, damn, Like, finally.

1794
01:37:10,880 --> 01:37:11,840
Speaker 6: Did Greg Tate red.

1795
01:37:14,080 --> 01:37:15,960
Speaker 1: I bet you any money and money it was probably great.

1796
01:37:16,439 --> 01:37:18,000
Speaker 1: I bet you it sounds like it.

1797
01:37:18,439 --> 01:37:20,400
Speaker 6: That's one of the owners of my life too, is

1798
01:37:20,840 --> 01:37:22,840
Speaker 6: editing Greg. But at that time I was editor in chief,

1799
01:37:22,880 --> 01:37:25,479
Speaker 6: so I wouldn't have been editing him one on one.

1800
01:37:25,560 --> 01:37:27,280
Speaker 6: But the way it used to work it vibe was

1801
01:37:27,520 --> 01:37:30,960
Speaker 6: the writer filed to their editor and then that piece

1802
01:37:31,000 --> 01:37:33,360
Speaker 6: then would go from they go back and forth with it,

1803
01:37:33,400 --> 01:37:35,040
Speaker 6: and then that would go to what was called the

1804
01:37:35,040 --> 01:37:37,320
Speaker 6: top editor, which was the senior editor, and then the

1805
01:37:37,360 --> 01:37:39,519
Speaker 6: senior editor would get it right, and then it would

1806
01:37:39,520 --> 01:37:42,479
Speaker 6: go on page and usually then the editor in chief

1807
01:37:42,600 --> 01:37:44,880
Speaker 6: would read it at that point, and then it would

1808
01:37:44,920 --> 01:37:48,599
Speaker 6: go from approval by the editor in chief to fact

1809
01:37:48,640 --> 01:37:50,840
Speaker 6: checking to make sure every fact was correct, and then

1810
01:37:51,000 --> 01:37:53,559
Speaker 6: after fact checking, it would go to copy editing to

1811
01:37:53,600 --> 01:37:55,880
Speaker 6: make sure every period and comment everything was in the

1812
01:37:55,920 --> 01:37:58,200
Speaker 6: right place, and then at that time it would go

1813
01:37:58,200 --> 01:38:00,240
Speaker 6: to photo, and then after it would go to auto

1814
01:38:00,240 --> 01:38:02,280
Speaker 6: win design, and then at that point it would go

1815
01:38:02,280 --> 01:38:04,559
Speaker 6: to production and be made into a real page. And

1816
01:38:04,600 --> 01:38:08,640
Speaker 6: that's when I say, when you talk about budgets, you're

1817
01:38:08,680 --> 01:38:12,360
Speaker 6: talking about paying every single person at at every single stage,

1818
01:38:13,040 --> 01:38:14,559
Speaker 6: and that just doesn't exist anymore.

1819
01:38:14,760 --> 01:38:17,960
Speaker 1: Just me, I forgot. I believe if you were there

1820
01:38:18,000 --> 01:38:19,519
Speaker 1: in ninety Were you there in ninety.

1821
01:38:19,360 --> 01:38:20,880
Speaker 6: Nine a part of it?

1822
01:38:21,479 --> 01:38:24,240
Speaker 1: You guys actually let me write my own Vibe feature.

1823
01:38:24,479 --> 01:38:28,360
Speaker 6: That's all right, that sounds right, wrote it naked.

1824
01:38:29,240 --> 01:38:31,000
Speaker 1: No, that was such a moment.

1825
01:38:31,240 --> 01:38:34,599
Speaker 6: It would like Chris rock is guest editing. I think

1826
01:38:34,600 --> 01:38:37,320
Speaker 6: that was almost my last too. Yeah, that was. I

1827
01:38:37,320 --> 01:38:41,120
Speaker 6: feel like that was my second to last issue. And

1828
01:38:41,160 --> 01:38:44,160
Speaker 6: then maybe there was the j cover where he has

1829
01:38:44,200 --> 01:38:46,599
Speaker 6: his hands in front of him like this the whites

1830
01:38:46,720 --> 01:38:49,040
Speaker 6: in a white suit. But that was kind of the

1831
01:38:49,120 --> 01:38:50,839
Speaker 6: end of my first editor in chief era.

1832
01:38:51,080 --> 01:38:54,479
Speaker 1: The j LO, the very first j LO cover in

1833
01:38:54,840 --> 01:38:56,320
Speaker 1: ninety nine, that.

1834
01:38:56,280 --> 01:38:58,320
Speaker 6: Was I don't think I was there for that though.

1835
01:38:58,720 --> 01:39:00,960
Speaker 2: You guys didn't send a writer so literally, I just

1836
01:39:01,040 --> 01:39:03,719
Speaker 2: had to diary touring Europe and.

1837
01:39:04,120 --> 01:39:05,639
Speaker 6: That sounds like an amazing thing though.

1838
01:39:06,240 --> 01:39:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely one of the probably the

1839
01:39:09,120 --> 01:39:12,760
Speaker 2: second major features I wrote, like, I enjoyed it all right.

1840
01:39:12,800 --> 01:39:16,479
Speaker 2: My last question, because you are from Oakland, I am,

1841
01:39:17,280 --> 01:39:20,000
Speaker 2: but to be of age in Oakland at the time

1842
01:39:20,040 --> 01:39:23,160
Speaker 2: when that first generation of hip hop was coming out,

1843
01:39:23,240 --> 01:39:29,479
Speaker 2: are there any notable like for you moments of growing

1844
01:39:29,600 --> 01:39:32,400
Speaker 2: up in Oakland that you can share as far as

1845
01:39:32,560 --> 01:39:36,800
Speaker 2: like the culture of it in terms of shows that

1846
01:39:36,840 --> 01:39:38,440
Speaker 2: you saw when you were younger.

1847
01:39:38,280 --> 01:39:40,679
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, because it's such a musical town.

1848
01:39:40,760 --> 01:39:43,479
Speaker 6: Man. I mean, I don't know if I have how

1849
01:39:43,479 --> 01:39:46,240
Speaker 6: many Oakland tales I have. I can just tell you.

1850
01:39:46,160 --> 01:39:47,480
Speaker 1: That your best one.

1851
01:39:48,080 --> 01:39:50,160
Speaker 6: What do I have? I mean, I told you I

1852
01:39:50,200 --> 01:39:52,800
Speaker 6: saw the Jackson five nearby in San Carlos at the

1853
01:39:52,800 --> 01:39:56,800
Speaker 6: Circle Star Theater, and it's like, I don't know, Like,

1854
01:39:57,400 --> 01:39:59,720
Speaker 6: let's just pass by the childhood stuff and get back

1855
01:39:59,760 --> 01:40:02,439
Speaker 6: to me moving to the Bay Area as a college

1856
01:40:02,439 --> 01:40:04,759
Speaker 6: student at UC Berkeley. So now you have to understand

1857
01:40:04,760 --> 01:40:08,680
Speaker 6: too that the Barry is a huge touring stock. I mean,

1858
01:40:08,720 --> 01:40:11,200
Speaker 6: you know this, and so I'm seeing anybody from a

1859
01:40:11,240 --> 01:40:14,080
Speaker 6: flock of Seagulls to Frankie Beverly and Mats and Ziggy Marley.

1860
01:40:14,479 --> 01:40:16,719
Speaker 6: I'm seeing all of that. And then when I decide

1861
01:40:16,720 --> 01:40:18,439
Speaker 6: I want to be, like I'm really going to become

1862
01:40:18,439 --> 01:40:21,639
Speaker 6: a writer, then it's like EMC. Hammer's blowing up in vogues,

1863
01:40:21,640 --> 01:40:24,559
Speaker 6: blowing up two shorts, blown up, Tony Tony, Tony's blown up.

1864
01:40:24,560 --> 01:40:27,559
Speaker 6: And these are just the folks that invoked the TIMEX

1865
01:40:27,600 --> 01:40:30,240
Speaker 6: Social Club. These are just the folks that got famous

1866
01:40:30,280 --> 01:40:32,880
Speaker 6: we're not even talking about Paris is blown up. We're

1867
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:34,880
Speaker 6: not even talking about Kate Cloud and the crew, you

1868
01:40:34,920 --> 01:40:36,960
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. We're not talking about MC, and

1869
01:40:37,200 --> 01:40:40,080
Speaker 6: we're not talking about what about Conscious Daughters.

1870
01:40:40,479 --> 01:40:41,920
Speaker 4: Obviously, you don't.

1871
01:40:41,720 --> 01:40:46,960
Speaker 6: Forget about the the was right there, like we were

1872
01:40:47,000 --> 01:40:51,599
Speaker 6: all coming up together. And then and then when when

1873
01:40:51,680 --> 01:40:53,920
Speaker 6: the tour happened, the tour that I was out a

1874
01:40:53,960 --> 01:40:57,880
Speaker 6: lot on the Public Enemy tour with Heavy D and

1875
01:40:57,920 --> 01:40:59,800
Speaker 6: the Boys, Queen La Chief and the so.

1876
01:40:59,800 --> 01:41:05,240
Speaker 1: Far Digital on the ground had those masks on. Yes, yes,

1877
01:41:06,000 --> 01:41:06,639
Speaker 1: one of the best.

1878
01:41:06,680 --> 01:41:09,560
Speaker 6: One of the best hip hop tours in history, and

1879
01:41:09,520 --> 01:41:12,120
Speaker 6: a kid and play. Depending on the day, it would

1880
01:41:12,120 --> 01:41:14,200
Speaker 6: be MC Breed. Depending on the day, it would be

1881
01:41:14,640 --> 01:41:17,720
Speaker 6: Luke Skywalker two Live Grew, depending on the place, it

1882
01:41:17,760 --> 01:41:20,599
Speaker 6: would be certa mix, a lot trouble. T Roy died

1883
01:41:20,640 --> 01:41:24,439
Speaker 6: on that tour, just like those Tupaca was on their tour,

1884
01:41:24,520 --> 01:41:29,400
Speaker 6: dancing background for Digital those moments and the way that

1885
01:41:29,479 --> 01:41:33,400
Speaker 6: Oakland hip hop will Coles obviously Chuck D I don't

1886
01:41:33,400 --> 01:41:36,479
Speaker 6: even know how I can explain. It's just and then

1887
01:41:36,520 --> 01:41:39,080
Speaker 6: it would be in the studio sometimes the digital because

1888
01:41:39,840 --> 01:41:42,280
Speaker 6: those are my guys and I was dating a road

1889
01:41:42,360 --> 01:41:44,479
Speaker 6: manager back then, all the wild stuff we was doing,

1890
01:41:44,560 --> 01:41:47,840
Speaker 6: and shout out to nilslis Johnson, who's an amazing guy.

1891
01:41:47,920 --> 01:41:50,479
Speaker 6: Still we're friends to this day. You know, we'd be

1892
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:53,840
Speaker 6: in the studio and in in Marine County or in

1893
01:41:53,920 --> 01:41:56,400
Speaker 6: Richmond and be like, you know, gold records from like

1894
01:41:56,439 --> 01:41:58,640
Speaker 6: platinum records from like Huey Lewis in the News and

1895
01:41:58,760 --> 01:42:02,400
Speaker 6: Journey and Frankie Beverly and the Whispers and all Pointer

1896
01:42:02,560 --> 01:42:06,000
Speaker 6: Sisters and all this grace of tower power from Oakland history,

1897
01:42:06,040 --> 01:42:09,200
Speaker 6: and it's like we felt like we were Yes, we

1898
01:42:09,200 --> 01:42:11,800
Speaker 6: felt like we were in the righteous space. Man. It

1899
01:42:11,880 --> 01:42:14,320
Speaker 6: felt good, and honestly it still feels good.

1900
01:42:14,880 --> 01:42:17,640
Speaker 1: I had to get it out, Daniel. I thank you

1901
01:42:17,760 --> 01:42:18,080
Speaker 1: very much.

1902
01:42:18,120 --> 01:42:20,439
Speaker 2: I know we had a few false starts and trying

1903
01:42:20,439 --> 01:42:21,639
Speaker 2: to do this, but thank you.

1904
01:42:21,720 --> 01:42:25,920
Speaker 4: I was just say. Mark Weingarten wrote that four Hero review.

1905
01:42:26,360 --> 01:42:28,800
Speaker 6: He wrote that review that you're talking Yeah, I.

1906
01:42:28,760 --> 01:42:32,160
Speaker 4: Remember, yes, okay, but I just wanted to thank you

1907
01:42:32,200 --> 01:42:32,479
Speaker 4: for that.

1908
01:42:33,000 --> 01:42:37,160
Speaker 6: Oh well, of course we were happy to be of service.

1909
01:42:37,200 --> 01:42:39,759
Speaker 6: We really are, and we really were, and like I said,

1910
01:42:39,840 --> 01:42:43,000
Speaker 6: all of us that worked there over the time. I'm

1911
01:42:43,000 --> 01:42:45,800
Speaker 6: not saying we have our bad times, but if you

1912
01:42:45,840 --> 01:42:47,880
Speaker 6: are a part of Vibe, ex Excel, to Source and

1913
01:42:48,040 --> 01:42:54,439
Speaker 6: those big magazines Essence, Latina, all those King Latino, Yeah,

1914
01:42:54,680 --> 01:42:58,160
Speaker 6: you know, King Magazine, Slam, all that stuff. It's like

1915
01:42:58,200 --> 01:43:00,880
Speaker 6: it's a certain fraternity slash sorority that we're all in.

1916
01:43:01,560 --> 01:43:04,880
Speaker 6: And everything wasn't perfect, we didn't do everything right, but

1917
01:43:04,920 --> 01:43:06,800
Speaker 6: we are most most of us are pretty proud of

1918
01:43:06,840 --> 01:43:08,960
Speaker 6: the stuff that we did there. And if it wasn't

1919
01:43:08,960 --> 01:43:10,880
Speaker 6: for that, would there be shine, right, No, would there

1920
01:43:10,920 --> 01:43:14,280
Speaker 6: be black girls on book right? Not at all.

1921
01:43:14,760 --> 01:43:17,559
Speaker 2: So yeah, again, I really want to thank you, and yeah,

1922
01:43:17,960 --> 01:43:20,840
Speaker 2: I highly recommend to our audience who religiously listens to

1923
01:43:20,880 --> 01:43:25,120
Speaker 2: our podcast you definitely want to get the book, get

1924
01:43:25,120 --> 01:43:29,280
Speaker 2: the hard copy and actually, you know the audiobook where

1925
01:43:30,320 --> 01:43:37,200
Speaker 2: I've just never heard someone so emotionally Yeah, because no, No,

1926
01:43:37,320 --> 01:43:39,360
Speaker 2: the days I couldn't read it, I would drive to it.

1927
01:43:39,400 --> 01:43:41,960
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a few times we had to

1928
01:43:41,960 --> 01:43:44,000
Speaker 2: break down and catch some tears for a second, and that,

1929
01:43:44,120 --> 01:43:49,120
Speaker 2: to me, I was just an awesome level of vulnerability.

1930
01:43:49,120 --> 01:43:50,799
Speaker 1: And I really loved the book.

1931
01:43:50,640 --> 01:43:53,439
Speaker 2: And it sets a lot of light on a lot

1932
01:43:53,479 --> 01:43:57,920
Speaker 2: of unsung heroes that we didn't So thank you very much.

1933
01:43:58,360 --> 01:43:59,880
Speaker 1: Daniel. I appreciate it.

1934
01:44:00,040 --> 01:44:02,160
Speaker 6: Thank you all. Thank you Quest so much. It's the

1935
01:44:02,240 --> 01:44:04,679
Speaker 6: honor and thank you everybody on this team. It's amazing

1936
01:44:04,720 --> 01:44:06,280
Speaker 6: to see and meet everybody.

1937
01:44:06,320 --> 01:44:09,400
Speaker 2: All right, when you have a Layah and Fon, Tickeolo

1938
01:44:09,600 --> 01:44:10,519
Speaker 2: and Sugar Steve.

1939
01:44:11,840 --> 01:44:13,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. There you go.

1940
01:44:13,160 --> 01:44:15,160
Speaker 4: The journalism and episode are my favorite.

1941
01:44:15,479 --> 01:44:19,559
Speaker 1: Unpaid bills back whatever you said, you're mute right now.

1942
01:44:20,000 --> 01:44:22,200
Speaker 4: I'll speak for you said, give me a baby.

1943
01:44:22,479 --> 01:44:24,760
Speaker 2: All right, great, great, all right, this is Quest Love

1944
01:44:24,840 --> 01:44:26,200
Speaker 2: and we'll see you over the next go around.

1945
01:44:26,240 --> 01:44:40,679
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Quest Love Supreme is a production

1946
01:44:40,880 --> 01:44:42,080
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio.

1947
01:44:46,880 --> 01:44:50,160
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

1948
01:44:50,360 --> 01:44:53,760
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.