Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. How are
Speaker 1: you guys, Steve?
Speaker 2: I realized in the last five episodes you hardly said
Speaker 2: a word.
Speaker 1: What are you? Okay? Yes, there you go? All right?
Speaker 1: Uh you're in a purple room now, all right?
Speaker 2: My fault still the after effects of the studio.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, man, I just you know, I feel like
Speaker 3: I get y'all a little a little green light.
Speaker 4: Uh, the core to day, little YouTube makeup artist vibe.
Speaker 5: I got you, I got what's except we're getting today, sir.
Speaker 4: Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner, and.
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 1: How's it going with you? Oh? It's going good.
Speaker 5: I'm on an eye list somewhere hoping my WiFi don't.
Speaker 6: Ship on y'all.
Speaker 1: Nice on vacation. Good to hear case?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Now I can introduce to our our guest,
Speaker 2: our Guesterday is of course, she's an award winning author, novelist, journalist,
Speaker 2: magazine editor from the Ya area, The Yay I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if people in the.
Speaker 2: Bay Area call it the Yay Area, but I'm going
Speaker 2: on a limb and calling it the Ya Like Northia.
Speaker 1: No one calls it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no one calls it that.
Speaker 2: Except for the roots when they're on stage. Will I
Speaker 2: will say that I got to know and subsequently feared
Speaker 2: this woman Uh when she was the first black editor
Speaker 2: in chief at the much loved Vibe magazine starting in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. I believe you replaced Alan like correct
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 6: In fact, yeah I did.
Speaker 4: In fact.
Speaker 2: If ever, you guys wondered why is Amir obsessed with
Speaker 2: journalists more than he's obsessed with his fellow peers in
Speaker 2: the music business, I will honestly tell you it starts
Speaker 2: with this woman because I only realize the power of
Speaker 2: the pen when it came from our guest. Today, she's
Speaker 2: released an awesome book, and if you're a fan of
Speaker 2: the show, and if you're a fan of just inside
Speaker 2: speak of a music genre that you don't love, but
Speaker 2: things that you might not have known, I highly recommend
Speaker 2: you get Shine Bright, a very personal history of Black
Speaker 2: women in pop where literally not only does she reveal
Speaker 2: her awesomely kind of adventurous journey and life with her
Speaker 2: family coming up from the Bay Area, Los Angeles and
Speaker 2: of course uh living all over and navigating through music,
Speaker 2: but she even manages to uh break down and share
Speaker 2: stories of of just the intricate stories that of artists
Speaker 2: that you love but you really don't know about, like
Speaker 2: from the Dixie Cups of the Charells to shit, I
Speaker 2: didn't even know Leon Teine Price was related to war
Speaker 2: Work and with you know, Sissy and Whitney Houston, and
Speaker 2: you know, just drawing the parallels of how they you know,
Speaker 2: those those four generations between Leon team Price and Sissy
Speaker 2: Houston and dr Work and Whitney Houston and what they've
Speaker 2: done in breaking barriers for just basically progressing for it,
Speaker 2: but not to mention, you know, Diana Ross, name it,
Speaker 2: glads night, Diane, Donna Summer Merlin McCoo. Even, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: please welcome to Couestlim Supreme.
Speaker 1: Daniel Smith, thank you, a how are you? Oh?
Speaker 6: I mean I'm doing good because I'm over here with y'all,
Speaker 6: so it feels it just feels really good and really special.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Where are you just
Speaker 1: speaking to us right now? From? Where are you from?
Speaker 6: My home in southern California, specifically in Venice, California.
Speaker 2: Hey, aw, nice, Okay, I didn't know, I see, I
Speaker 2: didn't know if you were in East Coast or West Coaster.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm I feel pretty equally both. Over the
Speaker 6: course of my life at this point, I mean, I
Speaker 6: think I did twenty three years on the on the
Speaker 6: East Coast between most of it in Manhattan, most of
Speaker 6: it in Brooklyn, some of it in Manhattan, some of
Speaker 6: it in Washington, d C. But I'm back home in
Speaker 6: my in the in the great country of California. So
Speaker 6: it's good to be here.
Speaker 1: Good to have you. Okay.
Speaker 2: So the thing is, you're shigned Bright book. It's almost
Speaker 2: like Jeopardy where your shine Bright Book? In my opinion,
Speaker 2: it's almost like an episode of Quest of Supreme without
Speaker 2: us asking the ques questions, you know. So it's almost
Speaker 2: like if I were to go, well, no, literally she
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 5: It's it's a good cheat sheet.
Speaker 2: Especially in the first chapter where you're breaking down your journey.
Speaker 2: It's almost like, I feel like it's the service to
Speaker 2: even recap that. So I kind of want to take
Speaker 2: a different route with this episode than I would normally
Speaker 2: do if you were a recording artist and well, you know, one,
Speaker 2: I want to just ask the obvious, why did you
Speaker 2: feel the need to construct this book and tell these stories.
Speaker 2: Why did you feel the need to sort of construct
Speaker 2: the story and the manner that you did, and why
Speaker 2: was it so long overdue?
Speaker 6: Well, let me answer the the second question first, Why
Speaker 6: was this so long overdue? It's a combination of on
Speaker 6: my part timing combination, add to that a lot of
Speaker 6: second guessing myself, add to that a little bit of fear,
Speaker 6: and add to that I hadn't quite figured out the
Speaker 6: best way to tell it. It just hadn't. I had
Speaker 6: to get to that place. I had to get really strong,
Speaker 6: I think, a way that I hadn't felt, probably, I
Speaker 6: don't know, in a half a decade by the time
Speaker 6: I finished Shine Bright. So it's it's all my fault.
Speaker 6: It's not my editor's fault. It's not anybody I interviewed.
Speaker 6: It's not their fault. It's it's it's my fault, just
Speaker 6: being uncharacteristically slow and missing of deadlines. Which, oh now,
Speaker 6: let me tell you something. If my husband was here,
Speaker 6: he would say, it took me eight I feel like
Speaker 6: I've been writing it since I was eight years old,
Speaker 6: but I think technically it took me six years.
Speaker 2: All right, You speaking of your husband loved Elliott Wilson
Speaker 2: why in yeah.
Speaker 6: Why these seventeen years? Seventeen years?
Speaker 1: That's awesome and hip hop?
Speaker 5: That is it?
Speaker 4: Right? Like straight up and down.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, so it's
Speaker 6: it took me too long. I'm not gonna lie, but
Speaker 6: you know it just the timing was right. It was
Speaker 6: the reason why I wanted to do it is you know,
Speaker 6: long story short, when Whitney Houston died in twenty twelve,
Speaker 6: which she shouldn't have, but when she did die in
Speaker 6: twenty twelve, you know, people approached me and said, could
Speaker 6: you just write a bio off her really quickly? And
Speaker 6: you know, let's go heavy on the drugs, let's go
Speaker 6: heavy on the bad marriage. You know.
Speaker 7: I was just like, i'll tell you that, yes, and
Speaker 7: a sentence and one sentence.
Speaker 1: Yes, what oh my god?
Speaker 6: Like what like drugs? Bobby, Like, let's go how fast
Speaker 6: can you get it done? And I was like, I'll
Speaker 6: have it to you on the twelfth of never like,
Speaker 6: I'm not doing that. So so I came back to
Speaker 6: some folks with an idea about doing the history of
Speaker 6: black women in pop I sold that and I was
Speaker 6: never finishing that, and then I left that publisher and
Speaker 6: I went back home so to speak to Chris Jackson.
Speaker 6: In one World Chris Jackson published. I have two novels
Speaker 6: from the early two thousands, more like Wrestling in Bliss,
Speaker 6: that Chris Jackson published, and so I wanted to go
Speaker 6: back home with him, one because he's a genius and
Speaker 6: two because I trust him deeply. And he just said,
Speaker 6: you know, eventually, he said, You're going to have to
Speaker 6: put yourself in the book. I'm eternally grateful to him
Speaker 6: for saying that. And then I spoke to my sister,
Speaker 6: who's so much a part of shine Bright, And my
Speaker 6: sister was like, are you asking me if you could
Speaker 6: tell my story? She was basically like, b I tch,
Speaker 6: you should have been told it so and so then
Speaker 6: we were off to the races, you know.
Speaker 2: At the top of the the introduction, you know, I
Speaker 2: was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that.
Speaker 1: That I loved and feared you only because I.
Speaker 2: I realized I mean for starters, you know, with the
Speaker 2: source that with vibe and at least the first wave
Speaker 2: of late eighties early nineties journalism being sort of in
Speaker 2: a serious form and not just like and this is
Speaker 2: not to take away from Cynthia Horner or black Beat
Speaker 2: or Steve Iberry or those guys. But you know, there
Speaker 2: really hasn't been black critical writing. And although I've seen
Speaker 2: it with rock journalism, like I've never seen a takedown
Speaker 2: article or anything of that level from the black side
Speaker 2: of things. And you know, you ran it very tight,
Speaker 2: like your version of Vibe magazine, which I guess is
Speaker 2: ninety four.
Speaker 1: When did you leave Vibe ninety eight?
Speaker 6: I started as I started as music editor in ninety four.
Speaker 6: I was there in ninety six, went back to school
Speaker 6: for a year to ninety seven, came back and got
Speaker 6: promoted to Vib to be the first black and first
Speaker 6: woman editor in chief of Vibe in ninety seven. I
Speaker 6: left in ninety nine. Then I came came back in
Speaker 6: six and was editor in chief of Vibe again six
Speaker 6: O seven o eight, two years, two years.
Speaker 2: Every time I would say that, you know, your era
Speaker 2: was way different, I noticed immediately your era from say
Speaker 2: Allen Light's period. I guess the trench issue was what
Speaker 2: ninety one I believe ninety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ninety two to ninety four.
Speaker 2: And not to say that, you know, because I'm friends
Speaker 2: with Alan, like I'm not saying it was light in
Speaker 2: the ass, but I definitely saw a noticeable difference between
Speaker 2: both those issues. And that said, I don't know in
Speaker 2: my mind, and I think this is often.
Speaker 1: Of how the world will see black women.
Speaker 2: As you know, we always use these words like strong,
Speaker 2: you will use fierce and all those sort of colloquially
Speaker 2: describe them. And so I was a bit taken aback,
Speaker 2: you know, at how vulnerable you got, especially in the
Speaker 2: first chapter speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like,
Speaker 2: you know, because it was kind of like whoa like
Speaker 2: you don't see a human side, Well, I'm a Journalists
Speaker 2: often don't insert themselves or that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I was really just I was I was pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 2: Of how you weave your your life in music, like
Speaker 2: I love those type of things. Whereas not that I'm
Speaker 2: just learning a lesson of the artist, but I'm also
Speaker 2: learning the effect that it had on you, because your
Speaker 2: writing career also had an effect on artists as well.
Speaker 6: I learned a lot from Alan. Alan first gave me
Speaker 6: my first album review when he was editing the review
Speaker 6: section at Rolling Soon as my first Rolling song in Vogue.
Speaker 6: The second Yes give It Stars, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: I did it.
Speaker 6: I didn't come on it. I was. I was a
Speaker 6: big homer at that time. And if I'm not still
Speaker 6: just to be home. Come on, man, you know they
Speaker 6: were gonna call me to do in Vogue weird.
Speaker 1: Okay, so two stars, I don't know.
Speaker 6: Don't listen. Don't listen to me.
Speaker 1: Don't know. I'm gonna tell you some Danielle, you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't debate me on this when I tell you,
Speaker 2: like in the order of me, I can't, like Fante well,
Speaker 2: study MC, study production whatever. I don't know, Like I
Speaker 2: study record reviews, I study journalists, like I study the
Speaker 2: people that determine whether or not.
Speaker 1: Now I'm it's gonna have shelf life or not. I
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, though I actually agreed with you. I
Speaker 2: didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, did I give it two stars?
Speaker 2: Well, I was gonna say, to be fair, you don't
Speaker 2: determine how many stars it gets.
Speaker 1: I don't the publication publish it.
Speaker 6: By the way, that's always the case. That was the
Speaker 6: case at the source too, and that was the case
Speaker 6: that Vibe and we used to give our little red
Speaker 6: light green light, yellow light or whatever we.
Speaker 1: Used to do, right, the music editor determines it.
Speaker 5: But somebody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that weight.
Speaker 5: I'm a fan.
Speaker 7: Hold On, I'm listening to what y'all saying. Hold On,
Speaker 7: I'm a fan. What you're saying is the person who
Speaker 7: wrote that whole review doesn't have anything to do with
Speaker 7: those stars.
Speaker 5: Now, how so how do they come up with them stars?
Speaker 6: The music editor the music you determined.
Speaker 7: Yes, so it's not even based on what you wrote.
Speaker 7: It's just based on what the music editor thinks.
Speaker 6: Now, it's kind of based on what you wrote, and
Speaker 6: it's based on whatever their chase is also.
Speaker 2: But okay, so since you're kind of doing this in
Speaker 2: the nineties and I will see that you know post
Speaker 2: Karis one PM Dornish confrontation levels. I mean, you worked
Speaker 2: at Vibe where it is, and you worked at Vibe
Speaker 2: during one of the most dangerous issues, of which is
Speaker 2: the death row issue.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't your music other Dore's at least want.
Speaker 2: To give you warning if they're going to give it
Speaker 2: a less than savory uh rating.
Speaker 6: Knowing I could never answer that question except for on
Speaker 6: a case my case basis. Honestly, it was, as you said,
Speaker 6: it was a very wild time. And when you say
Speaker 6: you know I worked that vibe during the most dangerous time,
Speaker 6: during the death Row issue, I mean I really honestly
Speaker 6: have to look at the dates one because I blocked
Speaker 6: so much of that trauma.
Speaker 1: Out of I remember everything.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry because because what I think people tend to forget,
Speaker 8: at least with me, is that, especially with regard to
Speaker 8: death Row when Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity MC for me,
Speaker 8: He's actually a good friend of mine from Oakland, and
Speaker 8: so I recused myself from a lot of the coverage
Speaker 8: of Tupac almost until after he passed.
Speaker 6: It was such a complex time time, such a time
Speaker 6: when I always say that Vibe called upon the strongest
Speaker 6: part of me and that it got it. It got it,
Speaker 6: it got it, and it did wear me out, which
Speaker 6: is why you know, your music editor for two years
Speaker 6: at least talking about me a music editor for two
Speaker 6: years and then I get a fellowship and I go
Speaker 6: to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted out
Speaker 6: for a while, you know, I wanted out for a while.
Speaker 6: And while I was gone, while I was in Chicago
Speaker 6: or in Evanston. Both Biggie and Tupac were murdered while
Speaker 6: I was not even working ad Vine. I ended up
Speaker 6: writing the obituary for Biggie for the for the Village Voice,
Speaker 6: but I wasn't even working at that time. I was
Speaker 6: trying to, Okay, I wasn't And then I came back
Speaker 6: in ninety seven. Everybody had died, and I put Kurt
Speaker 6: Franklin on the cover because he was number one was
Speaker 6: Stump with the Stomp remix, And I felt like that
Speaker 6: was the second line. I felt like we had been
Speaker 6: mourning for a while. We had thought that hip hop
Speaker 6: was going to We thought that everything that the mainstream
Speaker 6: had said about it was going to be true, that
Speaker 6: it was just a fat it wasn't real. We was
Speaker 6: all going to kill each other. And then you know,
Speaker 6: you began to feel it rising from its ashes. You know,
Speaker 6: you got to remember, like that's when Miseducation came out. Really,
Speaker 6: Laurence Hill doesn't get the credit she deserves or helping
Speaker 6: bring hip hop back to life after the death of
Speaker 6: Tupac Shakor and then Notorious Big, and then you add
Speaker 6: Kirk Franklin and Salt. They don't also get the credit
Speaker 6: either one of them for helping bringing hip hop back
Speaker 6: to life. And that was actually my first cover as
Speaker 6: editor in chief of Vibe was Kirk Franklin and the Family.
Speaker 6: That's how I came back in ninety seven. And believe me,
Speaker 6: my publishers and the business people were like, this's a
Speaker 6: soft cover. It's never going to sell. It's not gonna sell,
Speaker 6: it's not gonna sell. And I wasn't really that person
Speaker 6: that was always bragging about, like, I know what the
Speaker 6: streets is fell in. I was not always that girl.
Speaker 6: I'm very much a pop girl. Pop is in the
Speaker 6: title of My Shine Bright. But it's like I didn't
Speaker 6: know what the hell was going on, and I knew
Speaker 6: that there's no way that a song was going to
Speaker 6: number one R and B. I believe top ten pop
Speaker 6: for the Stamp remix, and it wasn't like having a
Speaker 6: major impact on the culture. I also knew that because
Speaker 6: gospel never gets the credit that it's due for it's
Speaker 6: impact on culture period, and it had never there had
Speaker 6: never been a gospel artist on the cover of Vibe
Speaker 6: that that the gospel fans, the church folks were gonna
Speaker 6: go out and buy two and three issues and they did,
Speaker 6: and they did.
Speaker 2: Aren't people more or less investing in the Vibe brand
Speaker 2: like I'm going to buy a new Vibe.
Speaker 6: That's true. There are issues of Vibe that did not sell.
Speaker 6: There are issues, there's there's a thing like this. You
Speaker 6: have a you have a subscriber base, right, that's your
Speaker 6: small money. But that's your loyalists me. They keep they
Speaker 6: keep up paying that thirteen ninety nine a year, twelve
Speaker 6: ninety nine a year, lights on, that's keeping the lights on.
Speaker 6: But the money money is that the news stand back
Speaker 6: when the news stand mattered, Because that's two fifty three
Speaker 6: dollars a pot. Whether you're buying it at Bond, Safeway,
Speaker 6: Key Food, Barnes and Noble back in the day, Walden
Speaker 6: Books or whatever, that's where the money was. And that's
Speaker 6: an impulse buy. And that's what I was judged on.
Speaker 6: That's what any editor in chief really is judged on
Speaker 6: at the end of the day period, end of story.
Speaker 7: Either to imply anything different when the kind of lesson
Speaker 7: the work that you put into figuring out who you
Speaker 7: was gonna put on this cover and then the content.
Speaker 6: No, you don't even know what's science and The thing
Speaker 6: about me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I
Speaker 6: took Billboard into consideration because I had been an R
Speaker 6: and B editor at Billboard.
Speaker 1: Did you replace Nelson when he left or.
Speaker 6: No, it's Jenny McAdams that I replaced McAdam, So wow, yes,
Speaker 6: Jenine's between us, so yeah.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 6: I I was a person that always took Billboard into
Speaker 6: consideration because I worked at Billboard, and because even before
Speaker 6: I worked at Billboard, I studied Billboard like a maniac,
Speaker 6: which is why I got the job at Billboard. But
Speaker 6: it's like, no, I was the one that was like,
Speaker 6: if it's bubbling under, it deserves this. If it's doing
Speaker 6: this on the charts, if it's number eight with a
Speaker 6: bullet or blah blah chart, then it deserves this. Now,
Speaker 6: people always wanted to argue with me, and we had
Speaker 6: the best arguments in the world that vibe. But I
Speaker 6: was the one who always took Billboard into consideration. Not
Speaker 6: everybody's like that. Wow, I think, by the way, can
Speaker 6: I just say this too. I think it's so crazy
Speaker 6: that I just learned right now that y'all thought every
Speaker 6: issue of five sold. When I got to Vibe a no, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: we didn't think that.
Speaker 7: I thought, oh, I thought you were just asking a question.
Speaker 7: I thought you were asking a question mere like was
Speaker 7: it the brand that sold?
Speaker 2: I mean it's just I mean Circle Out with its
Speaker 2: vibe and the source was like a religion and straight.
Speaker 6: Up thank God for y'all.
Speaker 3: But we were the ones keeping the lights on though
Speaker 3: we weren't Impulse buys.
Speaker 5: It's like podcasts.
Speaker 7: It's just like music, right, like we want new podcast.
Speaker 2: So can I ask you this because I didn't know
Speaker 2: this first of all, what is expected for Vibe in
Speaker 2: terms of going platinum? Like how many issues have to
Speaker 2: sell for your whoever the the higher ups are at
Speaker 2: the publishers to say, hey, they're doing well.
Speaker 6: It depends on It depends on the year. It depends
Speaker 6: on the year because you know magazines, you know, magazines
Speaker 6: are pretty much gone now for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 6: There's not really a news stand that you can depend on.
Speaker 6: But let's just say, at the height of things, it's
Speaker 6: always a percentage, it's not a it's not an exact number.
Speaker 6: So at the height of Vibe, you just never really
Speaker 6: want to be belie fifty fifty percent and and you
Speaker 6: figure your circulation like the height of the circulation for
Speaker 6: for me, man I got I got a vibe of
Speaker 6: it up to I don't know, eight nine hundred thousand.
Speaker 6: So you wanna you wanna? You want to sell through
Speaker 6: a fifty plus percent? Now, that's high, But I have
Speaker 6: an ego that's b plus. The best selling issue a
Speaker 6: vibe in history is the master p issue. Make them say, wait,
Speaker 6: what I hate to blow y'all up?
Speaker 7: No, I hate now the South is buying Now the South.
Speaker 7: That's exactly what is region.
Speaker 6: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would have put my publishing and my cribs.
Speaker 2: I could have sworn that that that Depth Row issue
Speaker 2: was the greatest selling against you of all time.
Speaker 6: The thing about that make them say it was it was?
Speaker 6: It was a it was a perfect cover. Wow, it
Speaker 6: was everybody, It was your X. It was a mystical
Speaker 6: It was everybody and we and we had a tank
Speaker 6: in it. We had a tank and everybody had on camel.
Speaker 6: And so basically the whole cover was green and shades
Speaker 6: of black and white. But we did what's known as
Speaker 6: a fifth color in the magazine business, which means basically
Speaker 6: a fluorescent or a or a glitter and we made
Speaker 6: the orange fluorescent. That episode left left off. And I'm
Speaker 6: not gonna say how many issues Pee bought, but because
Speaker 6: the world would, the world will never know. But it
Speaker 6: was huge. And you gotta remember too. Master P has
Speaker 6: a huge contingency of fans in the Bay Area too,
Speaker 6: out from Richmonds, so he was all over Yeah, So
Speaker 6: it was that's really the biggest selling, you know issue.
Speaker 6: I would never say the lowest issue because it's people
Speaker 6: that we all know and love, but it would surprise you,
Speaker 6: I would. Y'all gonna have to get that someplace else.
Speaker 1: Man, it's twenty years ago.
Speaker 6: Twenty years it feels like yesterday to me, though. I
Speaker 6: feel like I'm on my way to an editorial meeting
Speaker 6: right now. Y'all like gonna get me out here like
Speaker 6: this A damn it.
Speaker 1: Now now I'm gonna go. I literally have issues in
Speaker 1: the room to see it. If I text you got
Speaker 1: to verify.
Speaker 6: It, I will, I will, but I can't because it's
Speaker 6: like it's mean, man, And it doesn't necessarily sometimes even
Speaker 6: have to do with the person.
Speaker 1: It's me.
Speaker 6: It could be the photography, it could be anything. It
Speaker 6: just doesn't necessarily it could be the truck was late, man.
Speaker 1: Please tell me what it was, Yode.
Speaker 6: You don't get it from me. No, and you talk
Speaker 6: about you fear me. You see how easy I'm scary.
Speaker 6: I'm scary, Like I can't say that that's so mean?
Speaker 6: What if I just said, yes.
Speaker 1: It's not mean. Particular facts in business, This particular.
Speaker 6: MC has the lowest selling issue in the history of Vibe.
Speaker 6: That's hardcore. It's definitely ja I will say that from
Speaker 6: the south though. Just to show you how things change.
Speaker 7: Is somebody is it somebody who has a career or
Speaker 7: they considered a legend still they do.
Speaker 6: They have a career rapping? Or do they just have
Speaker 6: a career.
Speaker 5: Do they have a career, Do you have a career.
Speaker 6: They have a career, but they don't necessarily have a
Speaker 6: career in rapping.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I got it anyway, So I do
Speaker 2: want to know what what was the first or at
Speaker 2: least national Well, you said that is the very first
Speaker 2: time that your work appeared.
Speaker 6: In a national magazine. I would say, no, that's not
Speaker 6: the case. I would say the first time I had
Speaker 6: a national story was in spind magazine. There was a
Speaker 6: column there called Dreaming America.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 6: That was my first national Uh, that was my first
Speaker 6: national thing. And I always remember that I couldn't believe
Speaker 6: I was getting paid a dollar a word?
Speaker 1: Was that standard or was that like that was.
Speaker 6: A standard for mainstream people don't even get that now,
Speaker 6: And it's like I was made. I was now hope listen,
Speaker 6: you used to be able to make a living as
Speaker 6: a writer. It's very difficult to do so now. Even
Speaker 6: in the Bay Area, I was getting ten, fifteen twenty
Speaker 6: cent a word. If I wrote a fifteen hundred word piece,
Speaker 6: I was getting one hundred and fifty dollars. But when
Speaker 6: when and at Craig Marks, he's the he's actually the
Speaker 6: music editor of the La Times right now. Craig was
Speaker 6: music editor of Spend back then. And when he said
Speaker 6: it was a dollar a word and eight hundred eight
Speaker 6: hundred words, I just remember thinking, so, that's that's pretty
Speaker 6: much rent in Oway back then. And I felt like
Speaker 6: and I felt like I felt like back then, and
Speaker 6: I felt like I could stay in this. I could
Speaker 6: stay in this. But yeah, I wrote it. I think
Speaker 6: my first one was about Yo Yo Okay, Yes, Black
Speaker 6: Pearl Forever. Yeah, I wrote about DJ Quick for Spin,
Speaker 6: who's also a favorite still And then it was out
Speaker 6: of those Spin clips and a couple of things I
Speaker 6: did for The Village Voice that brought me to the
Speaker 6: notice of Allen Light and Anthony de Curtis are Rolling Stone.
Speaker 6: And then I was only really R and B editor
Speaker 6: at Billboard for like six or eight months something to
Speaker 6: outline and shine Bright. But then Vibe lunched and Allen
Speaker 6: had gone over there as music editor, and when he
Speaker 6: was promoted to editor in chief because Jonathan Van Meterer left,
Speaker 6: then Alan asked me to come over as music editor
Speaker 6: and it was it was a wild two years.
Speaker 1: In that job.
Speaker 7: I always thought Spend was the weird cousin to Vibe magazine.
Speaker 7: I thought they were weirdly related, like they had some
Speaker 7: kind of similar.
Speaker 6: I mean, at the beginning we didn't. But then like
Speaker 6: in the I guess late nineties two thousands, Yeah, we
Speaker 6: were owned by the same company and we were in
Speaker 6: the same building.
Speaker 2: What was the company Adventures?
Speaker 1: Oh so okay, theyve.
Speaker 6: Ventures owned Vibe and Spin and BLA and Blaze at
Speaker 6: that time too.
Speaker 3: A Blaze man, I forgot about remember that Blaze battle.
Speaker 3: It was mainly just primarily hip hop, but I remember
Speaker 3: it was like pre complex real.
Speaker 6: Journalism though it was. It was Jesse Washington was the
Speaker 6: editor in chief. I was the editorial director. Jesse Washington
Speaker 6: is actually at espn Z Undefeated.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, yeah, we we we had our umatic rating
Speaker 2: moment with Blaze like things fall apart, like got a
Speaker 2: perfect five rating there in that in the jay Z.
Speaker 6: The monitoring these reviews about about right now does my
Speaker 6: heart good. Though. It does my heart good to know
Speaker 6: that somebody of your stature and talent and genius is
Speaker 6: paying attention like that, because we really tried, like we
Speaker 6: weren't up there like pooling around like we were about passion,
Speaker 6: but we were about rigor. We were about facts, and
Speaker 6: we were about deep and strong opinions. We were about design, photography,
Speaker 6: We're about fashion, style, all of it. And so the
Speaker 6: fact that you being you were paying attention that hard, honestly,
Speaker 6: it doesn't matter good. And anybody that listens to this,
Speaker 6: that used to work at Vibi source XXL, any of it,
Speaker 6: rahap sheet, all of it, honey, honey.
Speaker 4: All of it, it matters.
Speaker 6: I mean I could take it to Ego Trip, I
Speaker 6: could take it to one network. I could take it
Speaker 6: to for yately, I could keep going, like I could
Speaker 6: keep going the fact that any of us that worked
Speaker 6: in those spaces were being paid attention to, that our
Speaker 6: work was being monitored or enjoyed or even it matters
Speaker 6: a lot to us.
Speaker 2: Look all right, So the deal is, I think in
Speaker 2: that Princess you if you guys remember the Prince Vibe issue,
Speaker 2: the Prince Vibe Coup issue.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a write up for zing Lamadoony.
Speaker 2: That single handedly like if you want to know the
Speaker 2: beginning of Questlove's micromanage era of like I must write
Speaker 2: all the liner notes. I must no, I must do
Speaker 2: all the interviews I must like no article ever scared
Speaker 2: me more.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that you know, now I
Speaker 1: live in.
Speaker 2: An era where you know, I mean you know I
Speaker 2: read the New York Times now just read like this year,
Speaker 2: everyone's celebrating the fact that New York Times gave like
Speaker 2: eleven Madison a two star review, which is like soccers
Speaker 2: or you know, I mean, there's been like sort of
Speaker 2: like crazy reviews, like Miles Davis is on the corner
Speaker 2: for Downbeat magazine like throughout history. You know, it's different
Speaker 2: now because in the Internet I sort of feel like
Speaker 2: artists write for each other like hey, check this out,
Speaker 2: you know that sort of thing, like when they're really
Speaker 2: going to go.
Speaker 1: But to me, when I read your.
Speaker 2: Arrested development Zingle Lamaduni feature, to me, that was like,
Speaker 2: it was literally like watching the Apocalypse now documentary or
Speaker 2: Amir is also known for good hyper bowl quotes. No,
Speaker 2: but it's it was And it wasn't even you didn't
Speaker 2: even have to do anything. You didn't It wasn't a
Speaker 2: takedown from your point of view, Like literally, speech was
Speaker 2: kind of sleep at the Wheel and the entire band
Speaker 2: decided they're going to do a mutiny in this article.
Speaker 2: And at that point I realized, like, oh man, a
Speaker 2: career could be made or or dead it in one
Speaker 2: fell swoop with just one article running.
Speaker 6: Point for me. Okay, so long story, I guess. Long
Speaker 6: story short, It's like I didn't even work at Vibe
Speaker 6: at that point. I was functioning as a freelance writer,
Speaker 6: but I had a reputation in the business for being
Speaker 6: on point, on time and thorough and more than that,
Speaker 6: I had written a piece for a magazine that doesn't
Speaker 6: exist anymore and hasn't for years, called Request magazine that
Speaker 6: you used to be able to get at Tower Records.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, I love the Requests.
Speaker 6: It's a great magazine. And if you count that as national,
Speaker 6: which I don't always, just because it was given away
Speaker 6: for free at Tower and you didn't pay for it.
Speaker 6: But that was probably really my first national look was
Speaker 6: in Requests. So I did a cover story on Arrested
Speaker 6: Development when they launched.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay, So.
Speaker 6: It was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean? You talking about all of that. I
Speaker 6: fell in love with them, man, I fell in love
Speaker 6: with them, they fell in love with me. It was
Speaker 6: a Carver story. And this was back before I had
Speaker 6: been in the business long enough to realize it's not
Speaker 6: always wise to fall in love with groups, and it's
Speaker 6: not always wise to allow groups to fall in love
Speaker 6: with you. I didn't know. I was a child. I
Speaker 6: was in my early twenties, mid twenties something like that.
Speaker 6: I didn't know you live and learn. So then when
Speaker 6: there's second album is coming out, it was emi am
Speaker 6: I right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey,
Speaker 6: you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want
Speaker 6: to go, you know, go back and talk to Speech
Speaker 6: and everybody in the group. Yes, definitely, I was freelancing too.
Speaker 6: It was just like, it sounds exciting, you gonna send
Speaker 6: me to Atlanta. So I went down there and my
Speaker 6: first conversation was with Speech, as it should be, and
Speaker 6: I have a lot of respect for him, but you
Speaker 6: could tell from the moment that I got in a
Speaker 6: car with him that things weren't okay with the group,
Speaker 6: and it seemed like something he didn't want to get
Speaker 6: into detail about. But you know, as a reporter, I
Speaker 6: have my instincts, I have my feelings, and so when
Speaker 6: I began to talk to the other members.
Speaker 1: Of the group and you were allowed to, Yes, this was.
Speaker 6: A different time, y'all. There was no internet.
Speaker 1: Interview, no evidence.
Speaker 6: And what's so wild though, it was like at a
Speaker 6: certain point I wasn't even going to people to talk
Speaker 6: to them, and were coming to me. And listen, I
Speaker 6: remember that group so well, man, and it's it's heartbreaking
Speaker 6: to me because there's such a like the music isn't
Speaker 6: necessarily necessarily always so like wildly optimistic. But it's just
Speaker 6: like I've been around Public Enemy. Those are my guys.
Speaker 6: They're not the most optimistic group of brothers. You know,
Speaker 6: not like but but but with the group of rest
Speaker 6: of Development, they came back. They were taking us back
Speaker 6: to the South, like they were reminding us of our groups.
Speaker 6: Everything was like, you know, the blood in the in
Speaker 6: the dirt, like we was all in the red class,
Speaker 6: like we was all in it, like everybody from the
Speaker 6: Northeast used to go back south in the summertime. Like
Speaker 6: all of that feeling was there. But then, you know,
Speaker 6: I remember that DJ's name was Headliner, right, Dion Ferris.
Speaker 5: Was coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back, all right, and.
Speaker 6: You know, things just weren't going well. It's so hard.
Speaker 6: And I know, Quest knows this hard to keep a
Speaker 6: band together. Anybody watched the Metallica documentary knows that. And
Speaker 6: it's like, it's hard to keep a band together. And
Speaker 6: you could ask, you could ask, you could ask the Supremes,
Speaker 6: you can anybody the comress like it's hard to keep
Speaker 6: a band together. Yes, and everybody was mad, and everybody's
Speaker 6: talking into the tape recorder and.
Speaker 1: They let her know. I went.
Speaker 2: If you remember Ursula Smith, who was my publicist at
Speaker 2: the time, set the run, No no, no, no, She
Speaker 2: left set the run and started her own. I forget
Speaker 2: her and Amy Mars had their own thing, and I
Speaker 2: came in the following Monday like shake it in my
Speaker 2: boots because I was just like, oh, man, like they're
Speaker 2: done with, They're over with, And if they're that easy.
Speaker 1: To get, like what does that mean for us?
Speaker 2: And like the amount of talking me off the ledge
Speaker 2: for like two days straight because I don't know. In
Speaker 2: my mind, I just felt like arrest development had reached
Speaker 2: the mountaintop. They've reached the mountaintop that day. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: Daylight Tribe, like a lot of those acts couldn't get
Speaker 2: to But.
Speaker 7: They didn't come up together though, right, Like did they
Speaker 7: come up together like that all of their Yeah, I
Speaker 7: mean people.
Speaker 6: Of them had with a lot of other groups like
Speaker 6: that didn't. Once Speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come
Speaker 6: with mad ambition. Some people just want to make a
Speaker 6: record and get it out there. Some other people have
Speaker 6: mad ambition, and Speech had that. It was a very
Speaker 6: difficult piece to write, a very difficult piece to publish.
Speaker 6: It was fact checking, went through the lawyers and went
Speaker 6: through all of that, and it was very difficult to publish.
Speaker 6: And guests, the publicists wildly mad at me. Some in
Speaker 6: the group were wildly mad at me. Some in the
Speaker 6: group were so happy and grateful to me. Some were
Speaker 6: we're grateful to me. But I just want to say
Speaker 6: as well, it just basically outlined that the group was
Speaker 6: not happy and was probably not going to stay together.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Okay, check it out. I don't know. Have you
Speaker 1: have you read Murray's White's autobiography.
Speaker 4: I have not yet.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of the structure where wait, we
Speaker 2: just recently did and interview with someone.
Speaker 4: He was Larry Blair.
Speaker 1: Black said.
Speaker 2: Larry Blair said it was a democracy. Uh uh, what
Speaker 2: do you call it? Dictatorship? It's like it's like a
Speaker 2: democracy dictatorship where I guess it's the I I think
Speaker 2: it's the the idea of, hey, we're a community where
Speaker 2: all these things. But really, I mean, the decision falls
Speaker 2: on one person, that person's.
Speaker 6: Speech and about a lot of groups like that.
Speaker 2: So that's why I'm saying with the with the Earth,
Speaker 2: Wind and Fire book, No, not even that, I mean
Speaker 2: Marius White, I mean Philip Bailey. He went into heavy
Speaker 2: with Oh, okay, Maurice is sort of the state of Earth,
Speaker 2: would and Fire.
Speaker 1: We're just people for higher.
Speaker 2: And as as I'm certain that you know Fonte, you
Speaker 2: know absolutely as an artist about being blue collar. Like
Speaker 2: often we get in this game because we you know,
Speaker 2: we we see these slow motion william shots and it's
Speaker 2: like we get our Bentley moment and it never happens
Speaker 2: that way. And it's just that this time headliner was
Speaker 2: just mad about his money, mad about like the situations.
Speaker 1: But it was very much like you know, the rest
Speaker 1: of the band.
Speaker 2: Was explaining how unsatisfied they were with the situation that
Speaker 2: they were.
Speaker 6: But I can see how it could have an effect
Speaker 6: on you as it had an effect on a lot
Speaker 6: of people that piece because one it said that Vibe
Speaker 6: was going to do stuff like that.
Speaker 2: That's the first thing Black people never seen something to
Speaker 2: that level.
Speaker 6: No, because this is the thing because because the media
Speaker 6: that is considered to be ours right have any essence,
Speaker 6: you know, going back to the to the black newspapers
Speaker 6: that came out of Reconstruction all the way up through
Speaker 6: the fifties and through the civil rights movement and everything else.
Speaker 6: Like the reason that these things came to be is
Speaker 6: because we were treated so unfairly by the mainstream media,
Speaker 6: or we were just erased or not even considered. You know,
Speaker 6: you would talk about music in a certain town and
Speaker 6: you would just talk about all the white artists and
Speaker 6: never talk about the black artists. Or you would talk
Speaker 6: about all the male artists and not talk about the
Speaker 6: women artists.
Speaker 7: So it's like.
Speaker 6: Vibe existed in a space of like, well, of course
Speaker 6: this is going to always be a place of celebration.
Speaker 6: But the thing that I always did learn from Quincy
Speaker 6: Jones is that Vibe was to be a place of
Speaker 6: celebration and interrogation. That no one would trust us on
Speaker 6: the celebration if we didn't also do the interrogation. And
Speaker 6: so I felt supported by Quincy by Alan in doing that.
Speaker 6: And honestly, it was a very difficult piece for me
Speaker 6: to write for the for the magazine to publish, and
Speaker 6: also it set the industry back on his heels a
Speaker 6: bit that it's like, we love Vibe, but you just
Speaker 6: don't know. You still kids don't know. Yeah, And so
Speaker 6: to some that was great because it meant that we
Speaker 6: weren't like a pamphlet, or we weren't just like it
Speaker 6: meant that, yes, you got to remember one of the
Speaker 6: first pieces, and Bob, I think it's in the Treasch
Speaker 6: issue right that the test issue in which Trench was
Speaker 6: on the cover, and there's a big piece by the
Speaker 6: great Scott Posts and Brian in that piece and the
Speaker 6: and the headline is one for all time about Sean Colmes.
Speaker 6: The headline is this is not a puff piece right right,
Speaker 6: So it's something for so many meanings and so and
Speaker 6: so we were always on that, even with all the
Speaker 6: Death Row stuff. It's like, are you know? People were like,
Speaker 6: are you guys contributing to it? It's like are we?
Speaker 6: But are we reporting as any other culture would report
Speaker 6: on its culture? And is that also new and different
Speaker 6: for black and multi the black and multicultural audience vibe
Speaker 6: to hear and see. So it was it was very.
Speaker 5: Hard for most black women.
Speaker 7: At some point you feel that protect the moment where
Speaker 7: you're like, you know, do you have to fight that
Speaker 7: protect the moment and go with more of your journalistic
Speaker 7: mind or does that not.
Speaker 5: Even ever come into your head?
Speaker 7: There's this and it's funny because I was like, I
Speaker 7: wonder if she writes it, I haven't gotten to that
Speaker 7: point if you write about this and shine bright, But
Speaker 7: I was like, you know that protector moment where you
Speaker 7: go this could maybe hurt this feeling, you know, so
Speaker 7: maybe I won't do that.
Speaker 5: Did you ever have that moment?
Speaker 6: I have that moment every day of my career?
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, I thought that to tell I look at
Speaker 5: your face. I was like, am I saying something born?
Speaker 6: I know every every every every day of my career,
Speaker 6: and especially as editor in chief of Vibe. It's it's
Speaker 6: even different as being editor of Billboard. Talk about that. Wow,
Speaker 6: it's a trade magazine. It's it's all, it's all, it's
Speaker 6: all genres. I gotta know about what's going on in country, classical,
Speaker 6: adult contemporary bubbling under, like I gotta know about what's
Speaker 6: going on everywhere, what's going on with pop singles, pop albums,
Speaker 6: like I know R and B this, R and B that.
Speaker 6: I gotta know what's going on in Latin music. I
Speaker 6: gotta know what's going on globally, Like I gotta know
Speaker 6: what's going on everywhere and make decisions based on all
Speaker 6: of that. But you know, when you're a Vibe, you're
Speaker 6: covering black culture for a multi for a black and
Speaker 6: multicultural audience. It's not even used to being covered all
Speaker 6: the time with rigor and passion. It's like it's like
Speaker 6: even like in history, if you look at Ebony at
Speaker 6: the very beginnings of Abnuye, it's like James Ball when
Speaker 6: and everybody's in there. It's a different situation. But then
Speaker 6: to me, you took pressures from the community. It just
Speaker 6: became more and more like you can always expect good
Speaker 6: and proper news from Ebanue.
Speaker 2: Until that Cosby issue. Well, no, no, it hats off
Speaker 2: to Kiaran for that. Yes, that's the first.
Speaker 6: Time that from what generation, the hip hop generation.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, yes, And.
Speaker 6: So that's what I'm saying. It just it's it's hard,
Speaker 6: you know, it's hard when I can think of even
Speaker 6: small things like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for
Speaker 6: the cover of That's my first Vibe cover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that issue.
Speaker 6: That was a great issue. Man. My mom drove me
Speaker 6: to his house in Venice. He was going through it.
Speaker 6: And that also that movie wasn't good, which it was Demolition.
Speaker 4: Man, The Blind Hair.
Speaker 1: Hot.
Speaker 6: It was a hot mess and the movie the film was,
Speaker 6: but Wesley himself wasn't and it never has been. So
Speaker 6: to me, it's one of the more under rated these
Speaker 6: actors in the history of cinema. Like he's so good.
Speaker 6: I'm not saying he's made all the proper moves and
Speaker 6: all of that. But but my thing is, how do
Speaker 6: you how do you say that? But then how.
Speaker 1: Do you say in a way that's not how do
Speaker 1: you say that?
Speaker 6: And that's the work for me, That's the work in
Speaker 6: shine bright for me, Like how do I how do
Speaker 6: I talk about Whitney Houston's mom?
Speaker 1: Sure you handled that awesomely, by the way.
Speaker 6: Oh thank you? Who to me is it's just like
Speaker 6: she's so important to the history of American populic she
Speaker 6: literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind Elvis Presley,
Speaker 6: she literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimmy Hendris, everybody. And
Speaker 6: it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for
Speaker 6: all of this big pop and she trained Whitney. At
Speaker 6: the same time, she just didn't accept her daughter for
Speaker 6: who she was.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 7: And can I just say on that note, it's so
Speaker 7: funny you say that, because as we're going through all
Speaker 7: the these different lenses and filters for people these days
Speaker 7: when it comes to the music business, I find it
Speaker 7: harder and harder to apply those filters if you really
Speaker 7: want the true story about things, or you really want
Speaker 7: to talk to people like if we really we I mean,
Speaker 7: we've had these moments where, you know, even talking to
Speaker 7: me and a miryor Well and Jake will talk about
Speaker 7: people and we'll be like, yes, they were significant, they
Speaker 7: are historical. These conversations should be had. However, but this
Speaker 7: little thing had happened. And so I'm so curious, Danielle,
Speaker 7: how you navigate that? Like, because even in a situation
Speaker 7: like I can't even say names because you feel guilty.
Speaker 7: But no man who was doing business in the sixties,
Speaker 7: seventies and eighties is fucking straightforward has no shit with
Speaker 7: them basically, right, there's no man.
Speaker 5: There's no man.
Speaker 6: So how do you like navigate that?
Speaker 5: That's it'sious.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't be canceled culture was I think then
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right as wes as it
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I guess that's why less get paid less and
Speaker 7: less they can hardly write well.
Speaker 6: It's also because artists have so many other avenues in
Speaker 6: which to tell their story. It used to be that
Speaker 6: the only place that you had to know. Yeah, you
Speaker 6: just go on I Live. You can go right to
Speaker 6: your Twitter feed, your ig feed, and some of that.
Speaker 6: I have to say, I am not.
Speaker 1: Mad at like I I miss it, even if it's
Speaker 1: the judgment of your.
Speaker 6: Do I miss it? Yes? Do I miss being? Like
Speaker 6: you have to go through vibe essentially you got to
Speaker 6: go through me and my cord, right, So do you
Speaker 6: miss that feeling of like, oh my god, yeah, this
Speaker 6: is we're vibe? But yeah, of course. But you know,
Speaker 6: to everything, there is a season we were we were
Speaker 6: we were needed for that at that time, we were
Speaker 6: desperately needed. But I can just give you an example.
Speaker 6: So I'm doing this. I'm doing this, Uh this picture
Speaker 6: me doing a talking head moment for a Michael Jackson documentary.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you, come on, yes and.
Speaker 6: So and so no, and not even to get into
Speaker 6: the complexities of Michael situation, but just to say this,
Speaker 6: just to talk about the Internet part of it. So
Speaker 6: the person that's directing her answered asking me the question, says,
Speaker 6: don't you just find the Internet to be totally overwhelming
Speaker 6: and ridiculous? Like you can just put Michael Jackson's name
Speaker 6: into into a Google search bar and then like eight
Speaker 6: million pictures come back about Michael Jackson, twelve million stories headlines,
Speaker 6: everything in the world is just so overwhelming and terrible.
Speaker 6: Isn't that just cheapening Michael's legacy? This, that, and the third?
Speaker 6: And I was like, not, actually I don't because see,
Speaker 6: I grew up a Michael Jackson fan, and I couldn't
Speaker 6: find anything about Michael Jackson when I'm nineteen eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 6: fifteen years old, and all I wanted to know about
Speaker 6: was Michael Jackson. If I didn't have Cynthia Horner's right
Speaker 6: on magazine, what really would I have?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: I said, I was insatiable when you're thirteen year old
Speaker 6: as a fan. Oh my god, was insatiable. And I
Speaker 6: couldn't find anything. And I told him, I said, so,
Speaker 6: I actually feel flush man with joy that I can
Speaker 6: put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search and just
Speaker 6: see every million, even if the news is bad, even
Speaker 6: if the news is ugly. I I would rather that
Speaker 6: than to have, like to be searching and thirsty to
Speaker 6: know something about being one. Yes, So that's why go ahead?
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question? All right?
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you what was the hardest
Speaker 2: issue for you to execute? However, I wanted to take
Speaker 2: a while guess how hard was that Michael Jackson issued
Speaker 2: to put together.
Speaker 6: Of course, you know what I mean? What year was that?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 6: I there?
Speaker 2: Ninety five Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe
Speaker 2: magazine dressed very uncharacteristically. He was I think Cadata had
Speaker 2: dressed him in Tommy. Wait, you don't remember this.
Speaker 4: I don't remember he had a kango on.
Speaker 1: He got a kango remember Michael Jackson.
Speaker 6: I remember it. I remember it. Wait a minute, let
Speaker 6: me let me take me into my memory. Whoever just
Speaker 6: looked it up? What are the cover lines on there?
Speaker 5: Reading Michael makes history?
Speaker 7: Uh the King of Pop strikes a pose, Easy E's
Speaker 7: Final Days, Notorious Big Smokers smokes Cali into the Wu
Speaker 7: Tang clan with uh oh, I can't read the name
Speaker 7: something uhlone.
Speaker 1: That was ninety five.
Speaker 6: Barely have any memory of that except for Easy.
Speaker 1: Damn. That's a flex. That's a flex. Michael Jackson, don't
Speaker 1: remember that ship.
Speaker 4: What do you remember about Easy? What do you remember
Speaker 4: about the Easy interview?
Speaker 6: This is Easy?
Speaker 4: Well, this is this is post he had died.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what that was. That's what
Speaker 6: That's what I remember about that about that particular issue
Speaker 6: because ninety so I'm music editor. I just remember that.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 6: One, I just remember that it was you remember from
Speaker 6: the Bay Area, So I had been known about dealing
Speaker 6: with AIDS, probably in a closer proximity than a lot
Speaker 6: of people. It was very entwined in our lives, and
Speaker 6: so I don't know the tragedy of that man. And
Speaker 6: I will say this, I'm not even the biggest Easy
Speaker 6: E fan, but just as a human being, man, it
Speaker 6: was just too much. And also the way hip hop
Speaker 6: was dealing with it was crazy. That's what I really
Speaker 6: remember most about that. And I also remember just not
Speaker 6: liking the cover image or the design, which is rare
Speaker 6: for me, which is rare because it doesn't really even
Speaker 6: look to me like a classic Vibe cover, which we
Speaker 6: were very meticulous about on most issues. But you also
Speaker 6: gotta believe too. Again, I don't know even know if
Speaker 6: I was in those conversations, but I do know this,
Speaker 6: if Michael Jackson was involved in Michael Jackson had probably
Speaker 6: had final say on what the cover looked like. Because
Speaker 6: you understand too, and in that era, Quincy Jones had
Speaker 6: a lot more to do with the day to day
Speaker 6: than he did. By the time I became properly editor
Speaker 6: in chief.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just was always just the impressions, like, okay, he
Speaker 2: started this magazine and I'll see y'all later.
Speaker 1: Oh but he was day to day No, okay, he was.
Speaker 6: He was not day to day, but he was like,
Speaker 6: if it had something to do with something that Quincy
Speaker 6: had something to do with, then mister Jones was involved. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I talk about it in Shine Bright,
Speaker 6: but my first experience, so I did her Franklin and
Speaker 6: then let me not get my dates mixed up. But
Speaker 6: I feel like I was called to the phone and
Speaker 6: I was told that Quincy was on the phone with
Speaker 6: Joe Jackson because oh wow, because it was it was
Speaker 6: Janet had an album coming out and so we needed
Speaker 6: to get that together. And I was on the phone
Speaker 6: with Quincy and he is they've known each other since
Speaker 6: the dawn of time, and I was the sitting editor
Speaker 6: in chief, and I was just like, why am I
Speaker 6: even on the call? Hello? Yeah, And they were just yeah,
Speaker 6: just hash and stuff out. And then I was like,
Speaker 6: they asked me, like, who who should the writer be?
Speaker 6: They asked I think Joe asked Quincy that and then
Speaker 6: Quincy finally said, Damne, like this is your moment, like
Speaker 6: speak up, like this is your area or whatever. Yes,
Speaker 6: And I was like, well, you know, I think it
Speaker 6: should be me. And they were like, Joe was like, really,
Speaker 6: why I said, And I said, simple reasons. I said,
Speaker 6: because I saw her before at the Circle Star Theater
Speaker 6: than Carlos, California when I was eight years old for
Speaker 6: my birthday, so bo I probably had the longest relationship
Speaker 6: with her out of anybody here but y'all. And then also,
Speaker 6: we're both really pretty much the same age. We're both
Speaker 6: really black California girls at the end of the day.
Speaker 6: And I mean, we could go through the catalog thus far.
Speaker 6: We could go back to Dreams Street if you want to.
Speaker 6: We could do what you want to do. And so
Speaker 6: that's when Joe said, it seemed like you should be
Speaker 6: the person.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: I mean I probably my voice was a little bit
Speaker 6: more shaky back at those times. Yes, let me not
Speaker 6: act like I was coming with all the like the
Speaker 6: all the full confidence. But it's just when Quincy Jones
Speaker 6: shoots you to Rondo Pass, it's like you better just
Speaker 6: act like Kevin Garna.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for Sean Bright, what was probably the most
Speaker 2: surprising revelation in constructing this and also was there anyone
Speaker 2: that you had to leave on the side of the
Speaker 2: road that you wanted to include.
Speaker 6: The most crazy thing to me about Seine Bright is
Speaker 6: just how much music comes out of segregated times. Oh
Speaker 6: my god, it's it just never would just cease to
Speaker 6: amaze me. And you keep thinking that as the decades
Speaker 6: go by, that it's going to be different, and then
Speaker 6: it just isn't. I mean, even if it's like somebody
Speaker 6: from younger than me who got bussed, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean, and from a segregated situation. And I think
Speaker 6: people don't just talk about that enough. Like everyone decides
Speaker 6: like we're just all out here going to school together
Speaker 6: and you know, being friends together, and out of that
Speaker 6: comes multi Out of that multicultural stew comes this amazing
Speaker 6: thing called pop. Well now, well, absolutely no. So that
Speaker 6: was the fact that it just kept coming up, and
Speaker 6: I just got to be very nosy about it too.
Speaker 6: I wanted to know the details off and I'm like,
Speaker 6: so you're on the back of the bus, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: When you were talking to the Dixie Clubs at one time,
Speaker 7: it seemed like one is the sisters was like, okay, Dan, they.
Speaker 6: Were but they got they really at first they were
Speaker 6: like mad at me, and then they really had to
Speaker 6: say you really don't know though.
Speaker 7: Because the fact that you dropped after that was something
Speaker 7: that I didn't know.
Speaker 6: You said.
Speaker 5: The thing about the screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a metaphor. I didn't know.
Speaker 6: It's a screen, like an actual real hard screen with
Speaker 6: peg holes, like it had pegs on it and then
Speaker 6: there were holes in the back of each seat and
Speaker 6: you could just move it and just put the screen
Speaker 6: up in the pegs. And they made them and they
Speaker 6: made and they made the black person do it.
Speaker 2: So basically there's there's a part in telling the Dixie
Speaker 2: Cup story which their single was going to the.
Speaker 1: Chapel single, number one, number one single, right.
Speaker 2: So there, I guess you could say the real first
Speaker 2: ring of of.
Speaker 7: Girl.
Speaker 1: I mean they.
Speaker 6: Let me do like they love me do out of
Speaker 6: number one.
Speaker 2: So the Dixie Cups is going to the Chapel Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, they're the first black group to to hit
Speaker 2: number one. Yes, And so she starts with them and
Speaker 2: they're telling a story about just segregation and bussing and whatnot,
Speaker 2: and the fact that customers and Bush writers would often
Speaker 2: tell and I'm saying, tell very lightly, uh, black people
Speaker 2: to move to the back of the bus, and they
Speaker 2: would put a I guess there is a disposable screen
Speaker 2: that you can put up, a movable screen, a movable screen.
Speaker 5: To it should have been in the same regulated place.
Speaker 6: I always thought, that's no, okay. So this is the
Speaker 6: thing that is what I thought. I always thought, and
Speaker 6: this is how you know that segregation never really gets
Speaker 6: discussed in detail. And I am committed always to not
Speaker 6: talking about black people or black women in summary, but
Speaker 6: in detail, because this is my thing. I always imagined
Speaker 6: that the bus was kind of split into like two
Speaker 6: like into thirds, and that the white people had the
Speaker 6: first two thirds and then the black people have the
Speaker 6: area like from the back door of the bus on.
Speaker 6: But see, no, this is what's crazy. They moved the goalpost. Essentially,
Speaker 6: the more white people that got on, the smaller the
Speaker 6: black area would get because this screen was movable. And
Speaker 6: I asked Rosalie Hawkins and Barbara Hawkins, I was like,
Speaker 6: so when would it be the driver or the people?
Speaker 6: And she said whichever, And then I said, would they
Speaker 6: ask you nicely? Or were they or were they mean?
Speaker 6: And this isn't New Orleans, Louisiana. And I told her,
Speaker 6: I said to her, I know I'm asking stupid questions,
Speaker 6: but I literally don't know. And she said, well, then
Speaker 6: I will tell you. The way they asked depended on
Speaker 6: the way they woke.
Speaker 1: Up that morning.
Speaker 6: She did, and I said, we don't know how segregation
Speaker 6: really was functioning. It wasn't separate but equal.
Speaker 5: It wasn't separate, but it.
Speaker 6: Was really going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings
Speaker 6: when black people were allowed and stuff like. It was
Speaker 6: really there's a thing I write about my grandmother telling
Speaker 6: me one time, my god, and we all know about
Speaker 6: these black nights. I mean, you know, we do the
Speaker 6: way my grandmother was just like, oh my god. You
Speaker 6: know how conceited you are as a girl when you're
Speaker 6: like nineteen or twenty and you think you're cute and
Speaker 6: you're really in the mirror and you really get that Messcara, right,
Speaker 6: this is before lashes and you're really the pre lash
Speaker 6: era and you're really what you're mabling getting right, and
Speaker 6: your grandmother's irritating you because your tights, your top is
Speaker 6: too tight and your skirt is too short. So my
Speaker 6: grandmother is really giving me that look, like, so where
Speaker 6: are we going? And I was like, I'm going to
Speaker 6: the spot, Grandma. It's like Thursday nights or Tuesday nights
Speaker 6: or whatever it was, and and she was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 6: where is it? I said, Grandma, it's just at this
Speaker 6: cool spot, like all the black people in Oakland get together.
Speaker 6: Like it's really weird. It's organic. It's just like we
Speaker 6: all just hang out there and it's just so cool.
Speaker 6: It's like a lounge and drinks is amazing. It'said, okay,
Speaker 6: where is it? And I told her the place. She said, oh,
Speaker 6: I know that place because my granda, my grandmother, is
Speaker 6: born and raised in Oakland. I said, Grandma, you could
Speaker 6: not know the place, like you're one hundred, I'm twenty.
Speaker 6: Like stop, Grandma, I love you, but no, she said, ma'am, listen,
Speaker 6: we used to go to that place. And if it
Speaker 6: wasn't that place, it was owned by the same people.
Speaker 6: And the thing is we went there because that was
Speaker 6: the only night that we were allowed to go to
Speaker 6: that club. It wasn't it was like Tuesday nights, so
Speaker 6: we all had to get up to go to work
Speaker 6: morning on Wednesday, so we just had to go on
Speaker 6: Tuesday and on Saturday and Sunday and Friday, or on
Speaker 6: Friday and Saturday, when when it's a normal time for
Speaker 6: people to party. It was only white people that were
Speaker 6: allowed in there. So that's why she's like, yes, that's
Speaker 6: why it's organic mechanically on a Tuesday, that is that
Speaker 6: is Black Nights. And so my grandma, I was like,
Speaker 6: I couldn't even have a good time at the set
Speaker 6: any more. I'm like, I'm living what.
Speaker 5: You blew my mind with that, because I was like,
Speaker 5: that's nationwide.
Speaker 6: There's always a week night. It's always on a weeknight.
Speaker 6: Black night is always on a weeknight.
Speaker 1: You're you're right about that.
Speaker 6: And yeah, when I love writing about I love writing
Speaker 6: about like I said, specifics, and I like writing about culture,
Speaker 6: and I like writing about something and powers who's ahead
Speaker 6: of music at MPR and was music editor s F
Speaker 6: Weekly and I became music edit of SF Week San
Speaker 6: Francisco right after and and really handheld me into that job.
Speaker 6: And something that Anne taught me was this is back
Speaker 6: in the nineteen ninety one nineteen ninety two, she said,
Speaker 6: no one's writing about people are writing about hip hop
Speaker 6: as a music no one's writing about the scene and
Speaker 6: what the scene is like. And I was enraptured by that,
Speaker 6: and I still am. I still am. I take notes
Speaker 6: in my head on a pad or on my notes
Speaker 6: app when I'm out, just because the scene matters. It matters,
Speaker 6: it's culture, and that Tuesday night thing is the scene.
Speaker 2: So in your history, what will you say is your
Speaker 2: three definitive pieces of work.
Speaker 6: One of the most important pieces to me, and one
Speaker 6: that continually gets good notice from people, is the piece
Speaker 6: that I wrote as the forward to the collection of
Speaker 6: essays about Chupac Shakr that if I put together in
Speaker 6: a book called tubakshak Kor, and you can find it
Speaker 6: at just google New York Times Daniel Smith tupakshak Or,
Speaker 6: And it's about a forty five hundred word piece that
Speaker 6: basically just takes his career and life into consideration. And
Speaker 6: so that is one for me. The second one is
Speaker 6: for much later in my career. Six years ago, I
Speaker 6: think now, I wrote a piece for ESPN, the magazine
Speaker 6: about Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at Super Bowl.
Speaker 6: I just really felt like, and my editor really felt like,
Speaker 6: and in fairness ESPN really felt like it hadn't really
Speaker 6: been written about at the intersection of culture sport and
Speaker 6: just like American history. I put so much work into
Speaker 6: that Whitney Houston piece and it paid off in won awards.
Speaker 6: Like it's really one of my favorite pieces probably that
Speaker 6: I ever wrote. And you know, I think I'm very
Speaker 6: smart in that piece.
Speaker 1: Can you give a summary of that, because I'm curious.
Speaker 6: It's just very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country
Speaker 6: on her bag because war had just been declared. This
Speaker 6: was in the pre security era and Super Bowl was
Speaker 6: a soft target. So I wrote about everything. I wrote
Speaker 6: about what was going on with the war. I wrote
Speaker 6: about what was going on with the NFL commissioner. I
Speaker 6: wrote about her pre recording the song. I wrote about
Speaker 6: the I covered her performance in a second by seconds way.
Speaker 6: I covered every single second of her performance, and that's
Speaker 6: what I wanted for my conclusion, and that's what we had.
Speaker 6: And I just talk about her at the end, just
Speaker 6: you know, with the with the what do they call it,
Speaker 6: the fighter pilots or whatever, the jet planes or whatever,
Speaker 6: the military planes going off her head, and really, to me,
Speaker 6: I was trying to say how inappropriate, it is, but
Speaker 6: the way she sings free is so important to me.
Speaker 6: How she owned that word in that in the Star
Speaker 6: Spangled banner. So many singers run from that word. Are
Speaker 6: they shorten that lyric? And Whitney put a whole curly
Speaker 6: qu at the end of it. She went up higher
Speaker 6: than she even normally goes. She went up into Mariah's
Speaker 6: territory at that moment. She stood there in an at
Speaker 6: ease like kind of stance. She was in a sweatsuit.
Speaker 6: When do you see what do you sit in a sweatsuit? Yes,
Speaker 6: and she had a headband and some Nike corteses. I
Speaker 6: was like, who is that lady?
Speaker 1: To me, you're ninety five Kel's piece, which.
Speaker 6: We'll see that's blocked.
Speaker 1: But you're like the one that literally broke the story.
Speaker 6: Yes, we did. It was it was a team effort,
Speaker 6: but we did.
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, I didn't know what's the team effort.
Speaker 6: The team effort comes in I'm on the road with
Speaker 6: Dana Luxemburg. We're chasing him down. But the reporting of
Speaker 6: Dana Luxemburg's a photographer that shot him for the cover.
Speaker 6: The cover it is, And I'm happy you brought that up. Honestly,
Speaker 6: because because really the headline is for all time, the sex,
Speaker 6: the soul, the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage
Speaker 6: superstar Alia. And the thing that made it what it
Speaker 6: was was the fact that Dana got the shot. I
Speaker 6: got the story, and Robert was so awful that day
Speaker 6: and we didn't even know what we didn't know at
Speaker 6: that time. And so me and Dana are on the road.
Speaker 6: This is Allanson and Me and Dana Lixemburg on the road.
Speaker 6: Dana shot so many great shots of low Kim Chupac Shakor.
Speaker 6: But so our goal is we got to get the story,
Speaker 6: and we need him to speak. And also I got
Speaker 6: to report. I gotta find his teacher. I gotta find
Speaker 6: you know, I got to interview all types of people.
Speaker 6: His bodyguard let me in. We were at the what
Speaker 6: was it, what was it called the arena and Philly
Speaker 6: Beck then the Spectrum or therum, the spectrum, so I'm
Speaker 6: in the bowels of the spectrum. It wasn't Fuzzy, but
Speaker 6: it was another radio DJ that when I saw him,
Speaker 6: he was It wasn't Fuzzy, but it was somebody that
Speaker 6: reminds me of Fuzzy. And they were standing on stage
Speaker 6: in soundcheck that we had snuck into, and I told
Speaker 6: him my situation and he was like, you can have
Speaker 6: my backstage fast.
Speaker 7: I never like if that was cosmic kass right, And
Speaker 7: I was like, man, you making my whole life.
Speaker 2: You were doing the story and you weren't officially traveling
Speaker 2: with the camp.
Speaker 6: Not at all. We got on Amtrak from New York
Speaker 6: to the filling and they weren't super No. They were
Speaker 6: literally signs up backstage at the Spectrum that said, if
Speaker 6: you see anybody from Vibe here, escort them off the premises.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: Wow, And so we were like wow what. He just
Speaker 6: felt like public enemy number one because we had a
Speaker 6: story on the This was my thing when I was
Speaker 6: at by music editor or editor in chief. If you
Speaker 6: said you were gonna do it, I'm holding you to
Speaker 6: your word like I really believed that. And it was
Speaker 6: very childish almost the way I would really hold on
Speaker 6: to that like I would. My thing was very much
Speaker 6: like you promised no.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 6: A person could be like yes, but I know somebody
Speaker 6: can easily be like my fingers are crossed when I
Speaker 6: said it, like that's how, that's how, but that's how.
Speaker 6: That's how serious. I was about it though, I was
Speaker 6: just very like, no, they promised, so they're going to
Speaker 6: be held to that, and so Jive and and and
Speaker 6: and mister Kelly had promised we were doing this cover
Speaker 6: story and then because the Aliyah stuff broke, then they
Speaker 6: said no. So my thing is no. Then we're gonna
Speaker 6: find you and we are going to get the story.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna come to Philly and I'm gonna figure something out.
Speaker 6: If I have to interview everybody in Philly, how do
Speaker 6: you feel about this concept in this situation, I'm going
Speaker 6: to do it. If Danta has to shoot you with
Speaker 6: the telephoto limbs from the back at the stadium, then
Speaker 6: that's what we're gonna do. But the thing is he
Speaker 6: he let us in because of Dana. Dana's beautiful woman,
Speaker 6: white woman from South Africa and very just low key
Speaker 6: with it, very very not like giving you sex, not
Speaker 6: very not giving you sexy, but just giving you like Frank,
Speaker 6: you know what, this disarming disarming so so so Robert
Speaker 6: said she could come in.
Speaker 5: That's because you.
Speaker 6: Right, listen, listen. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, but listen.
Speaker 6: So then Dana said, because we were really ganggang Dana said, okay,
Speaker 6: but I'm not coming in without Danielle. So then Robert said,
Speaker 6: if you because he knew I was. I had covered
Speaker 6: him before. I had been in London with him all
Speaker 6: types of stuff on junkets as people used to do
Speaker 6: back in those days. So he said, you can come in,
Speaker 6: but you can't write anything down with a he said,
Speaker 6: with a pin. Okay, okay, but see I had a pencil.
Speaker 6: So it was like a man. Listen. It was so crazy.
Speaker 6: I can't even tell you how crazy that was. But
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, why was such a team effort aside
Speaker 6: from the fact that I had Allan advising me, that
Speaker 6: Dana had George Pitts, the photo director, advising her because
Speaker 6: we didn't know what to do. Also, you guys got
Speaker 6: to remember we were kids. I was twenty eight. I
Speaker 6: was a child, like I mean I was. I was
Speaker 6: young in the game, but was just on it. And
Speaker 6: so while Alan was advising me and George Pitts, who's
Speaker 6: gone now God blessed dead, was advising Dana, then Carter
Speaker 6: Harris and Rob Kenner and the whole Vibe team was
Speaker 6: back there trying to find him. Mayor that was the goal.
Speaker 6: That was set and we refused not to meet that challenge.
Speaker 5: Wow, how do you do that?
Speaker 4: That's what I might say, how do you do that?
Speaker 4: In ninety five?
Speaker 6: Let me tell yourself that it was work and we
Speaker 6: had we had contacts, We were reporters, We knew people,
Speaker 6: who knew people who knew people. I mean, we were
Speaker 6: the ones that reported the fact that how Aleiah climbed
Speaker 6: out of the window and got with the bodyguards and
Speaker 6: they got on a private plane down to Florida, Like
Speaker 6: this is because we know people who know people.
Speaker 1: Yes, you guys have to be Google.
Speaker 6: We had to be and so and so Carter and
Speaker 6: then found that mairor certificate and we ran it. And
Speaker 6: that's also another one of those to go back quest.
Speaker 6: So what you were talking about with the rest of development,
Speaker 6: that was another time when people said, oh, Vibe is serious,
Speaker 6: because you got to understand. I remember to see one
Speaker 6: of the higher upset Vibe calling me either on that
Speaker 6: issue or the next time we put him on the
Speaker 6: cover when we had even more evidence about his doings.
Speaker 6: I remember just putting it on a speaker and just
Speaker 6: allowing people to walk into my office hearing that man
Speaker 6: call me. Every type of bi tch lowlife, who re
Speaker 6: Vibe being fish Wrap Vibe being? I was leading, who
Speaker 6: is this?
Speaker 1: This is?
Speaker 6: This is like someone very high up at Jive Records.
Speaker 6: Does he still have a job? Does he to have
Speaker 6: a job to have a job, Yes, he does. So
Speaker 6: I'm just sailing. And then I remember too that Robert
Speaker 6: was saying he was going to sue Vive. He was
Speaker 6: going on I guess it was hot ninety seven saying that,
Speaker 6: and I went on the radio because they'd be like, well,
Speaker 6: do you want to respond? This is how the internet
Speaker 6: used to work in the pre Internet era. And I
Speaker 6: was like, I'll take that, babe. And I went up
Speaker 6: there and they were like, well, are you concerned that
Speaker 6: you guys are going to get sued? And Robert Kelly
Speaker 6: said he's going to put Vibe out of business? And
Speaker 6: I said, what was in true? I used to feel
Speaker 6: so confident in our which people don't have anymore in journalism.
Speaker 6: I used to feel confident in our reporting. I used
Speaker 6: to feel confident in our fact checking, and I used
Speaker 6: to feel confident in the fact that every single solitary
Speaker 6: page of Bob magazine went by lawyers before it went
Speaker 6: to press. Every single month that I was ever working
Speaker 6: there as music editor or editor in chief. So my
Speaker 6: thing was I was able to say on the radio,
Speaker 6: I think that he's just like profiling, as we used
Speaker 6: to say in Oakland. He's just side busting because if
Speaker 6: he wanted to sue, then he would, but he would
Speaker 6: have to prove one that we were wrong in too,
Speaker 6: that we had malicious intent, and we have neither.
Speaker 3: So when you run that piece about you know, him
Speaker 3: doing all the abuse and just all the fuck shit,
Speaker 3: how do you then reconcile when it's time to review
Speaker 3: his next album?
Speaker 6: So I was there for two stories, two cover stories
Speaker 6: of our healing, and I don't I mean, the short
Speaker 6: answer is, I don't know what we actually did. I
Speaker 6: would have to look at the timeline, but if I
Speaker 6: had to guess, I would say that the discussion went
Speaker 6: like this, And this is purely me guessing. The record
Speaker 6: is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything, and
Speaker 6: so we have to cover it. I'm not saying that
Speaker 6: that is what happened, but just knowing how things tended
Speaker 6: to happen when I was there, that sounds like the
Speaker 6: way a conversation might have gone.
Speaker 7: Do you think that's how it should in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 7: with all the lenses. Is that how the conversation should
Speaker 7: still go.
Speaker 6: I think once a person is convicted of something, then
Speaker 6: the conversation changes because a thing too particular too the
Speaker 6: black community is this, There's so many times when black
Speaker 6: people are accused of things that they did not do.
Speaker 6: There's so many times in history where people are Black
Speaker 6: people was getting canceled before canceling was a word because
Speaker 6: of things that they did, I mean things that they
Speaker 6: didn't do. And so we also had to walk a
Speaker 6: very fine line of like, well, what do we know,
Speaker 6: what has what is legally I remember there was a
Speaker 6: whole thing at Vibe that that happens at all places
Speaker 6: of reputable places of journalism, is that you can't just
Speaker 6: go around saying that someone was murdered before there is
Speaker 6: a conviction. To that point, you have to say that
Speaker 6: they were killed killed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, murder is murder is.
Speaker 6: A legal term. It's a legal term, and so these
Speaker 6: are that.
Speaker 1: So you would have to say Stupak is killed. You
Speaker 1: couldn't say that it was a murder. You could not
Speaker 1: until well I'm being hypothetical when I asked, yes.
Speaker 6: But but yes, yes, And I do believe if you
Speaker 6: go back, you will see that I remember that being
Speaker 6: struck out of many a piece that he was, that
Speaker 6: he was not murdered until someone had been convicted of
Speaker 6: having murdered him.
Speaker 2: In your I guess, in your your tenure there, who
Speaker 2: were some of the writers that you helped usher into
Speaker 2: the game? People that kind of started off as interned
Speaker 2: to it now, like, man, listen.
Speaker 5: Look at your phone, look at your phone.
Speaker 6: I know at first, well, let me just say this,
Speaker 6: I don't know who all I ushered in, but I
Speaker 6: do know that I've worked with some amazing people. I mean,
Speaker 6: when I got there, you know, Allan and Jonathan van
Speaker 6: Meder had already hired people like Joan Morgan, who's doctor
Speaker 6: Joan Morgan now, Scot Scott Polson, Brian who's doctor Scott Pulsing,
Speaker 6: Bryan now, people like that, like okay, and then when
Speaker 6: I when I got there, I mean, Karen Rene Good Marrable,
Speaker 6: I was gonna.
Speaker 2: Say, Karen Good was just starting out like she was
Speaker 2: as I did.
Speaker 6: I mean, Karen and I are girlfriends. Karen was at
Speaker 6: my wedding, Like that's how you know we're girlfriends? Like
Speaker 6: that so obviously Karen Good Marrable, who writes a lot
Speaker 6: now so much beautiful stuff for the Oxford American, but
Speaker 6: also Sasha Jenkins, Jeff mal also I think, yeah, I
Speaker 6: always gotta be careful talking about who I get a
Speaker 6: start to, right, yes, but but no, Rockelcipated definitely is
Speaker 6: the genius. And she wrote for a Vibe when I
Speaker 6: was there. And also that's I met Elliott Wilson, my husband,
Speaker 6: and then I signed him his first Vibe record review also.
Speaker 4: First five record review.
Speaker 6: You remember, no, but he was he does, but but
Speaker 6: there was way before we started dating. I was actually married.
Speaker 6: Elliot's my second husband. In case people don't know.
Speaker 5: No, really didn't.
Speaker 6: How long was your first your first short and sweet? Nice?
Speaker 5: How old were you?
Speaker 6: I got married at like twenty two?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah that was yeah?
Speaker 2: Is it hard when well, I mean at one point
Speaker 2: both of you were editor in chiefs of Competing. We
Speaker 2: were so because you guys were married and you're editor
Speaker 2: in chief of Competing not had Phil McCoy level.
Speaker 1: It was competition, it was yeah. So how does that work?
Speaker 2: Like how do you find what separation of church and
Speaker 2: state when both of you are fishing for like the
Speaker 2: same story.
Speaker 6: Well, we had a history of it already. Elliott want
Speaker 6: to become when we were back when we were just colleagues,
Speaker 6: Elliott stopped writing for Vibe and he went on to
Speaker 6: become music editor of the Source. All right, So I
Speaker 6: was feeling competitive at that time before we ever were dating.
Speaker 6: So but I had to respect the skill.
Speaker 5: Set and sounds like that's one of y'all love languages.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then when I was when I was in
Speaker 6: grad school by this time, he was at it in
Speaker 6: chief of XXCEL and this was around the time when
Speaker 6: we started dating. I had to respect it. Like that's
Speaker 6: when he put a feenie on the cover, and that
Speaker 6: was just such a courageous moment, like I could only
Speaker 6: I wasn't even like we weren't even in each other's
Speaker 6: phones during it. I didn't even know if we had
Speaker 6: phones back then. But I just remember saying to people, like,
Speaker 6: I know he had to fight to get that done.
Speaker 6: I know what that fight must have been like. And
Speaker 6: I respected it. So then when we got married, I
Speaker 6: was in grad school, so and it's like a nine
Speaker 6: ten months after we were married where I went back
Speaker 6: to Vibe and we went into it real really very
Speaker 6: willy nilly. We thought it was going to be very
Speaker 6: easy to man, it's just facient and after and after
Speaker 6: our first issues. I don't know if people know my husband,
Speaker 6: but he's not known for like his calm and it's
Speaker 6: such a it's such as such a sweetheart. But he's
Speaker 6: just not really known for, you know, taking things lightly.
Speaker 6: He's a very passionate individual.
Speaker 1: So he found him down.
Speaker 2: I will say the Elliott now is way more calm,
Speaker 2: and I actually credit that to you because just his
Speaker 2: his nerdy ego trip like days of yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, those are my guys, though all of them tore
Speaker 6: one but it's like but but no, So we really
Speaker 6: after the first issue, it just was bad, like the
Speaker 6: way things went down. Yeah, and so and also you
Speaker 6: have to understand that we had staffs of people that
Speaker 6: Elliott the whole staff of people that already believed in him,
Speaker 6: and I was a brand new second time editor in
Speaker 6: chief of Vibe that wanted a staff to believe in me.
Speaker 6: So we had to establish some as we call them
Speaker 6: back then, the rules and regulations and some times and conditions.
Speaker 5: Come on, now, you got to give us a couple
Speaker 5: I got to know, well, I.
Speaker 6: Mean if I'm honest. The main one was just that
Speaker 6: you could not discuss in any way at home anything
Speaker 6: that was going on with the issue at work. But
Speaker 6: you could say somebody was getting on your nerves or
Speaker 6: I don't know why they don't have Coca colas and
Speaker 6: the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't. You couldn't come
Speaker 6: home and say, like, I'm really trying to get this
Speaker 6: cover with a B or C.
Speaker 4: No, gotcha, got you, gotcha?
Speaker 1: Let me ask.
Speaker 2: Only because again, like you and him are to me
Speaker 2: the most courageous power couple of journalism, only because both
Speaker 2: of you had your feet in the fire again at
Speaker 2: a time time in which and I'm using more hyperbole
Speaker 2: when I say dangerous, I'll say more like exciting times,
Speaker 2: but I'll also say serious times. Like you you were,
Speaker 2: you were definitely around during like the what they would
Speaker 2: call the danger era of the East and West thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, for also him as as a wife,
Speaker 2: were you concerned about his situation at the source, because
Speaker 2: he too was sort of in a word pickled situation.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was at XXL at that time, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, and like, was there just any just general worry
Speaker 2: for safety coming for your end, like, Okay, don't don't
Speaker 2: write that op ed because you know good and well
Speaker 2: that this is gonna or for you. It's just like
Speaker 2: Church and State were never talking about what our work
Speaker 2: is and bringing it into the home.
Speaker 6: When Elliott was going through the most terrible stuff, we
Speaker 6: were not dating. We weren't. Okay, yeah, we weren't. We
Speaker 6: started dating at the I think the end of three.
Speaker 6: But let me not let me not put too fun
Speaker 6: a point on it, because Elliot. Elliott was away in
Speaker 6: the streets at the time when we were dating.
Speaker 2: So just for our listeners, Elliott was at Exxcel right
Speaker 2: during the height of I guess the Eminem versus ben
Speaker 2: Zeno wars, and.
Speaker 1: It would get very serious, very serious.
Speaker 6: As I said, at the time, when he was going
Speaker 6: through the very worst of it. We weren't dating. I
Speaker 6: knew him at I knew him as a as a colleague.
Speaker 6: And you know, there's a certain scene of writers and
Speaker 6: stuch in New York at that time, Black writers and
Speaker 6: stuff where we all kind of knew each other, would
Speaker 6: see each other out and that kind of thing. And
Speaker 6: I always knew Elliott, like I said, he used to
Speaker 6: write for me when I was a music editor at Vibe,
Speaker 6: and he was always supportive of me. I remember when
Speaker 6: my book came out and Know Three, my first novel,
Speaker 6: he came into because he was bawling. He came into
Speaker 6: Barnes and Noble, brought like fifteen books and he was
Speaker 6: just you know, he was that type of dude. But
Speaker 6: even from Afar and through my friends on the scene
Speaker 6: and people who were publicists and other writers, I mean,
Speaker 6: they would say that Elliott was going through it. You know,
Speaker 6: people that saw him. I mean, these are his stories
Speaker 6: to tell, but people that saw him more than I did.
Speaker 6: And I also know, just now being his wife for
Speaker 6: these many years, you know, the health issues and stuff
Speaker 6: that came out of that era, like it's you know,
Speaker 6: stuff that he still manages to this day. So I mean,
Speaker 6: he's a brave dude though, but none of us are
Speaker 6: like superhuman, you know, and there was some real scary
Speaker 6: stuff that we all went through. Some of it is
Speaker 6: in Shine Bright were just you know, threats were made
Speaker 6: and it's like I remember my mom coming to see
Speaker 6: me in New York from California, and she really did,
Speaker 6: but she did a couple of times, and she's at
Speaker 6: the office and I was just going about the business
Speaker 6: of my day. And then she said, like, who is
Speaker 6: this how it always is? And I was like what
Speaker 6: And she was like, just the way you're it was
Speaker 6: a different error. She's like, just the way you're talking
Speaker 6: to people. I said, how am I talking to people?
Speaker 6: She's like just cursing and stuff. And I was like,
Speaker 6: am I cursing? She's like, yes, you're cursing a lot
Speaker 6: on the phone to people. And I was like, that's
Speaker 6: because people are trying to back out of the things
Speaker 6: that they said they were going to do. That's because
Speaker 6: of this. That's because of that. And my mother said, Okay,
Speaker 6: but like are you running to stab or are you
Speaker 6: running the game? Like what's going on? But see the thing? Yeah,
Speaker 6: but see because the thing is we it was you.
Speaker 6: I mean, I was only there for about five more
Speaker 6: months because we were scared. And also, you guys understand
Speaker 6: how invested we were in Vibe success, how much responsibility
Speaker 6: we felt to the community and to our elves and
Speaker 6: and just the music into hip hop culture. Like we
Speaker 6: were obsessed. There's not a better word for it. I
Speaker 6: would say this about just most everybody on the staff,
Speaker 6: down to the receptionists.
Speaker 7: They had to be a lot of pressure because you're
Speaker 7: top of that food chain.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and people were people were attacking us physically. People
Speaker 6: were getting guns pulled on them in the studio overmember
Speaker 6: record reviews and stuff, and so it's.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, would you change anything?
Speaker 6: I would change everything up here. No, not everything, But
Speaker 6: you know what if I just as I said, we
Speaker 6: were all we were young, man, I think about think
Speaker 6: about your think about I call them my baby cousins
Speaker 6: and stuff like, think I think about my baby cousins
Speaker 6: that are like twenty five years old right now. They
Speaker 6: come over and ask me the most ridiculous stuff and
Speaker 6: I'm like, aren't you grown? And They're like no, And
Speaker 6: I'm like, I was a whole Like I thought that
Speaker 6: was right. I was a whole R and B editor
Speaker 6: of Billboard at that at your age, man.
Speaker 7: Like.
Speaker 6: What like I was? I was? I was editing Haveloc
Speaker 6: Nelson when I was like twenty five.
Speaker 5: That's not fair to put that.
Speaker 3: Now, their age, their age like a twenty four, you know,
Speaker 3: in ninety five, and a twenty four in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two or two.
Speaker 6: Completely very different. It's very different. I'm not saying I
Speaker 6: wasn't mature, but I'm just saying I was still I
Speaker 6: didn't have a lot of it. I was learning how
Speaker 6: to manage on the job. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: you tell me you're coming to my office and say
Speaker 6: I was at the studio and such and such didn't
Speaker 6: like the review, and I told him I was I could.
Speaker 6: I didn't know what to say to that, and then
Speaker 6: they just pulled out a gun. Now, I'm not going
Speaker 6: to act like I'm not from East Oakland, because I
Speaker 6: am mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But that was statement.
Speaker 6: Well, it's it's loaded from a native yeh, I feel,
Speaker 6: but that's still shouldn't be. No, it's not normalized. But
Speaker 6: in the nineteen late nineteen eighties in Oakland and East
Speaker 6: Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland.
Speaker 5: Too, in your office and I'm talking about this storied
Speaker 5: no no, but.
Speaker 6: I'm saying that, you know, and you just kind of
Speaker 6: kind of had to be about it in East Okland.
Speaker 6: And so did I bring some of that being about
Speaker 6: it to the offices of Vibe. I probably did. I
Speaker 6: probably did.
Speaker 2: When you are running a ship like that, is there
Speaker 2: pressure that you felt that your male contemporaries wouldn't have
Speaker 2: had that have gone through yes, like timeout with Salan
Speaker 2: and jonathanis screamer? Were they screamers or not at all?
Speaker 1: Not at all.
Speaker 2: I almost think Alan's like not passive aggressive, but.
Speaker 6: Like, no, Allan's is a very soft spoken dude.
Speaker 1: Right, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So people deal with white men differently than they deal
Speaker 6: with black women, all positions of power. And as much
Speaker 6: as I'm saying that, you know, I brought some of
Speaker 6: my East Oakland nests to the editor in Chief's chair,
Speaker 6: I'm also sitting front row in Milan at you know,
Speaker 6: the Jill Sanders Show and things like that, and trying
Speaker 6: to give all of that energy before I even knew
Speaker 6: how to get that kind of energy. But if you're
Speaker 6: asking me, was it hard because I was a black woman. Absolutely,
Speaker 6: And this is the thing I'm not guessing because I
Speaker 6: know the men that ran other magazines and that ran
Speaker 6: a vibe after me, and I know what their experiences
Speaker 6: were like as compared to my experiences. I know how
Speaker 6: much money they made as compared to how much money
Speaker 6: I made. I know all of these things. Also just
Speaker 6: because I'm nosy and I'm a reporter, So it's like,
Speaker 6: was it harder for me? Yeah? Were there times when
Speaker 6: it was easier for me maybe, but not enough.
Speaker 4: It didn't balance out the hard shit.
Speaker 2: No, as an artist, I wanted to study who the
Speaker 2: gatekeepers of reviews and words were when at the well
Speaker 2: I'm still making records, but the time when I was
Speaker 2: making products. But for you, do you have hope for
Speaker 2: what counts for journalism today? Because I will say that
Speaker 2: there's like a level of thoroughness that is kind of lost,
Speaker 2: and there's also just technique and and I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a lost art.
Speaker 2: Like there's definitely some writers that I feel like are
Speaker 2: super smart and super insightful. But for the most part,
Speaker 2: I think now it's like the wild wild West where
Speaker 2: just you know, there's there's just people that aren't that
Speaker 2: knowledgeable about their subjects. They run on Wikipedia real quick
Speaker 2: or run to your old articles and add to it,
Speaker 2: do you feel like your era of the NBA or
Speaker 2: the new era of the NBA is can hold a
Speaker 2: candle to your era of it?
Speaker 6: It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. For
Speaker 6: the most part. If there's differences in quality, it's not
Speaker 6: the fault of the writer.
Speaker 1: It's also what they have to write about.
Speaker 6: No, it's the fact that there's no budgets for anything.
Speaker 6: There's no If you're writing right now for twenty cents
Speaker 6: a word, how much are you putting into it? I
Speaker 6: was writing for twenty cents a word when I was
Speaker 6: in my early twenties. If you were, I turned stuff
Speaker 6: down now because I'm just like, it's just not worth
Speaker 6: it for me to do that, because I'm not even
Speaker 6: contributing to my household well on what you're trying to
Speaker 6: pay me. And so then you have kids who aren't
Speaker 6: getting fact checked. You have kids that aren't not even kids,
Speaker 6: but adults who aren't edited by people that no one
Speaker 6: understand the culture and who they themselves are being paid
Speaker 6: well enough to put their heart and soul into the work.
Speaker 6: You have people that are only doing email interviews because
Speaker 6: no one wants to pay somebody's cab across town, let
Speaker 6: alone a plane trip. I remember when I sent Michael Gonzalez,
Speaker 6: another great writer from the Vibe era, shout Michael Gonzalez,
Speaker 6: Gonzo Mike it. It's like I remember Barry White had
Speaker 6: an album coming out that was the Practice What You
Speaker 6: Preach album, and they were like, well, I wanted a story,
Speaker 6: Like I just wanted the story. I wanted the story.
Speaker 6: I think I was music editor at the time, and
Speaker 6: they were like, well, we can't do it, we can't
Speaker 6: do it, we can't do it. But if you want
Speaker 6: to send somebody to Brussels right now, then we can
Speaker 6: do it. I went to my boss whoever it was
Speaker 6: at the time and told them the situation and they said, welly,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna taket to Brussels and they went. And it's
Speaker 6: a great, great story from Michael on the headline is
Speaker 6: BlackBerry Jam and it's an a amazing it's an amazing
Speaker 6: story and amazing photographs and it's like, where is that
Speaker 6: going to happen? Now? That's not the that's not the
Speaker 6: fault of the writer. That's the thing that's heartbreaking to me.
Speaker 6: One of the great things about me going to ESPN
Speaker 6: was because ESPN has budgets. As I said, they sent
Speaker 6: me to Katar to do someone boles. When is that happening?
Speaker 6: They can afford to to to take care of people
Speaker 6: like Justin Tensay, like David Dennis like so Ria like yeah,
Speaker 6: like you know, like so that people can make a
Speaker 6: living and have a life. There's not even that many
Speaker 6: places right now where you can go where that's okay.
Speaker 6: So when I say I have hope, I do believe
Speaker 6: that the pendulum is going to swing back, but it's
Speaker 6: going to take some footstopping and maybe even some swinging
Speaker 6: on the part of the journalists themselves. That's when I
Speaker 6: say yes, Like I don't know what a general strike
Speaker 6: is called for, I don't know, but.
Speaker 2: Something that I give, Okay, are you going to write
Speaker 2: any more fictional novels?
Speaker 6: Whether yes, I love fiction and my MFA is in fiction,
Speaker 6: I may, God willing, in life is long, I may,
Speaker 6: but I will admit that the things that I'm thinking
Speaker 6: about with regard to fiction now would probably be more
Speaker 6: scripts maybe the novels. Yeah, it's what I'm into right now,
Speaker 6: and thinking about how to maybe even look at my
Speaker 6: first two novels and how those things might turn into
Speaker 6: things that exist in other spaces, whether that's audio, whether
Speaker 6: that's you know, filmic or whatever. So those are the
Speaker 6: kind of things that I'm thinking about a lot, trying
Speaker 6: to learn about taking a page out of your books,
Speaker 6: are just trying to look at what could happened it? Yeah,
Speaker 6: what can happen in documentary spaces and things like that.
Speaker 2: I'm actually, you know, I guess by the time this airs,
Speaker 2: will already made an announcement like I'm a Freddy Cat
Speaker 2: in terms of I never make an announcement until the
Speaker 2: project is finished, okay, when it comes. But the probably
Speaker 2: the biggest secret I've been keeping under my hat for
Speaker 2: the last two years is I too, have.
Speaker 1: Written a fictional book.
Speaker 2: And well, well, I will assume that this will come
Speaker 2: out by next week. So I'm I've been a junkie
Speaker 2: of time travel and I'm one of my favorite writers,
Speaker 2: a gentleman named s A. Cosby who he's written many
Speaker 2: a New York Times bestseller. So he and I sort
Speaker 2: of came friends over the pandemic, and I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: taking a break from doing the movie, I would DJ,
Speaker 2: but then taking a break from DJ and I would
Speaker 2: journal and wrote my other music book. But then my
Speaker 2: fourth pivot was I always wanted to write kind of
Speaker 2: the books that I.
Speaker 1: Didn't get to read as a kid.
Speaker 6: So it's and are those books like black people traveling
Speaker 6: in Time? Is that? What is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's two kids. It's it's it's middle school books.
Speaker 1: So it's it's two kids.
Speaker 4: That are as a yo novel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's two kids that are.
Speaker 6: Are are I love to hear it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a grown up boy. They're both fourteen and fifteen.
Speaker 2: And the girl she's like a science wizard and she
Speaker 2: invents a time travel device and he gets the bright
Speaker 2: idea to try to save one of his groups that
Speaker 2: he admired, uh from breaking up and the butterfly effect
Speaker 2: of Yeah, of that anyway.
Speaker 6: Sounds really good. That's like I remember I used to
Speaker 6: read all those Madelin Lingo books like Wrinkling Time and
Speaker 6: all that. All the time those folks were white in
Speaker 6: the book. I love the books, but I didn't see
Speaker 6: myself in them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I kept that one and then under Wraps only because
Speaker 2: like again, I have like nine projects on the back
Speaker 2: burner and maybe only four of them will actually make
Speaker 2: it to fruition and the other five sort of fall
Speaker 2: out the wayside, and then I got to figure out
Speaker 2: what to do with it.
Speaker 6: But this sounds really exciting. It sounds so excited.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm excited.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, damn before we break up.
Speaker 3: So were you editor and vibe was this like eight
Speaker 3: ninety nine? Were you still there at that time.
Speaker 6: I was there from ninety seven to ninety nine.
Speaker 4: Nice nine. Okay, there was a review.
Speaker 3: It was the Lee review for the for the Revolution's
Speaker 3: Record review section. That was a four Heroes, two pages album.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you even remember this, but it
Speaker 3: was the Lee review and that was just if you
Speaker 3: you were there.
Speaker 4: I just want to thank you for that. Man ever
Speaker 4: wrote it. Ever, God, don't get me the line don't
Speaker 4: get me to line. I can't. I have to look
Speaker 4: it up.
Speaker 6: I don't recall it off the rip, but I wish
Speaker 6: I did, because you guys are making me feel like
Speaker 6: I should go back and find it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that review just opened me up.
Speaker 3: I mean I never would have found that album had
Speaker 3: I not saw that, and it just just completely Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was my first time ever hearing reading review.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've been living in London for years, so
Speaker 4: it was whatever to you.
Speaker 2: Well, no, they're the reason why I did the German
Speaker 2: based thing at the end of You Got Me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when forign hero got that leave review even, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh God, damn, Like, finally.
Speaker 6: Did Greg Tate red.
Speaker 1: I bet you any money and money it was probably great.
Speaker 1: I bet you it sounds like it.
Speaker 6: That's one of the owners of my life too, is
Speaker 6: editing Greg. But at that time I was editor in chief,
Speaker 6: so I wouldn't have been editing him one on one.
Speaker 6: But the way it used to work it vibe was
Speaker 6: the writer filed to their editor and then that piece
Speaker 6: then would go from they go back and forth with it,
Speaker 6: and then that would go to what was called the
Speaker 6: top editor, which was the senior editor, and then the
Speaker 6: senior editor would get it right, and then it would
Speaker 6: go on page and usually then the editor in chief
Speaker 6: would read it at that point, and then it would
Speaker 6: go from approval by the editor in chief to fact
Speaker 6: checking to make sure every fact was correct, and then
Speaker 6: after fact checking, it would go to copy editing to
Speaker 6: make sure every period and comment everything was in the
Speaker 6: right place, and then at that time it would go
Speaker 6: to photo, and then after it would go to auto
Speaker 6: win design, and then at that point it would go
Speaker 6: to production and be made into a real page. And
Speaker 6: that's when I say, when you talk about budgets, you're
Speaker 6: talking about paying every single person at at every single stage,
Speaker 6: and that just doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: Just me, I forgot. I believe if you were there
Speaker 1: in ninety Were you there in ninety.
Speaker 6: Nine a part of it?
Speaker 1: You guys actually let me write my own Vibe feature.
Speaker 6: That's all right, that sounds right, wrote it naked.
Speaker 1: No, that was such a moment.
Speaker 6: It would like Chris rock is guest editing. I think
Speaker 6: that was almost my last too. Yeah, that was. I
Speaker 6: feel like that was my second to last issue. And
Speaker 6: then maybe there was the j cover where he has
Speaker 6: his hands in front of him like this the whites
Speaker 6: in a white suit. But that was kind of the
Speaker 6: end of my first editor in chief era.
Speaker 1: The j LO, the very first j LO cover in
Speaker 1: ninety nine, that.
Speaker 6: Was I don't think I was there for that though.
Speaker 2: You guys didn't send a writer so literally, I just
Speaker 2: had to diary touring Europe and.
Speaker 6: That sounds like an amazing thing though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely one of the probably the
Speaker 2: second major features I wrote, like, I enjoyed it all right.
Speaker 2: My last question, because you are from Oakland, I am,
Speaker 2: but to be of age in Oakland at the time
Speaker 2: when that first generation of hip hop was coming out,
Speaker 2: are there any notable like for you moments of growing
Speaker 2: up in Oakland that you can share as far as
Speaker 2: like the culture of it in terms of shows that
Speaker 2: you saw when you were younger.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, because it's such a musical town.
Speaker 6: Man. I mean, I don't know if I have how
Speaker 6: many Oakland tales I have. I can just tell you.
Speaker 1: That your best one.
Speaker 6: What do I have? I mean, I told you I
Speaker 6: saw the Jackson five nearby in San Carlos at the
Speaker 6: Circle Star Theater, and it's like, I don't know, Like,
Speaker 6: let's just pass by the childhood stuff and get back
Speaker 6: to me moving to the Bay Area as a college
Speaker 6: student at UC Berkeley. So now you have to understand
Speaker 6: too that the Barry is a huge touring stock. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know this, and so I'm seeing anybody from a
Speaker 6: flock of Seagulls to Frankie Beverly and Mats and Ziggy Marley.
Speaker 6: I'm seeing all of that. And then when I decide
Speaker 6: I want to be, like I'm really going to become
Speaker 6: a writer, then it's like EMC. Hammer's blowing up in vogues,
Speaker 6: blowing up two shorts, blown up, Tony Tony, Tony's blown up.
Speaker 6: And these are just the folks that invoked the TIMEX
Speaker 6: Social Club. These are just the folks that got famous
Speaker 6: we're not even talking about Paris is blown up. We're
Speaker 6: not even talking about Kate Cloud and the crew, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. We're not talking about MC, and
Speaker 6: we're not talking about what about Conscious Daughters.
Speaker 4: Obviously, you don't.
Speaker 6: Forget about the the was right there, like we were
Speaker 6: all coming up together. And then and then when when
Speaker 6: the tour happened, the tour that I was out a
Speaker 6: lot on the Public Enemy tour with Heavy D and
Speaker 6: the Boys, Queen La Chief and the so.
Speaker 1: Far Digital on the ground had those masks on. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: one of the best.
Speaker 6: One of the best hip hop tours in history, and
Speaker 6: a kid and play. Depending on the day, it would
Speaker 6: be MC Breed. Depending on the day, it would be
Speaker 6: Luke Skywalker two Live Grew, depending on the place, it
Speaker 6: would be certa mix, a lot trouble. T Roy died
Speaker 6: on that tour, just like those Tupaca was on their tour,
Speaker 6: dancing background for Digital those moments and the way that
Speaker 6: Oakland hip hop will Coles obviously Chuck D I don't
Speaker 6: even know how I can explain. It's just and then
Speaker 6: it would be in the studio sometimes the digital because
Speaker 6: those are my guys and I was dating a road
Speaker 6: manager back then, all the wild stuff we was doing,
Speaker 6: and shout out to nilslis Johnson, who's an amazing guy.
Speaker 6: Still we're friends to this day. You know, we'd be
Speaker 6: in the studio and in in Marine County or in
Speaker 6: Richmond and be like, you know, gold records from like
Speaker 6: platinum records from like Huey Lewis in the News and
Speaker 6: Journey and Frankie Beverly and the Whispers and all Pointer
Speaker 6: Sisters and all this grace of tower power from Oakland history,
Speaker 6: and it's like we felt like we were Yes, we
Speaker 6: felt like we were in the righteous space. Man. It
Speaker 6: felt good, and honestly it still feels good.
Speaker 1: I had to get it out, Daniel. I thank you
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 2: I know we had a few false starts and trying
Speaker 2: to do this, but thank you.
Speaker 4: I was just say. Mark Weingarten wrote that four Hero review.
Speaker 6: He wrote that review that you're talking Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Remember, yes, okay, but I just wanted to thank you
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 6: Oh well, of course we were happy to be of service.
Speaker 6: We really are, and we really were, and like I said,
Speaker 6: all of us that worked there over the time. I'm
Speaker 6: not saying we have our bad times, but if you
Speaker 6: are a part of Vibe, ex Excel, to Source and
Speaker 6: those big magazines Essence, Latina, all those King Latino, Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, King Magazine, Slam, all that stuff. It's like
Speaker 6: it's a certain fraternity slash sorority that we're all in.
Speaker 6: And everything wasn't perfect, we didn't do everything right, but
Speaker 6: we are most most of us are pretty proud of
Speaker 6: the stuff that we did there. And if it wasn't
Speaker 6: for that, would there be shine, right, No, would there
Speaker 6: be black girls on book right? Not at all.
Speaker 2: So yeah, again, I really want to thank you, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend to our audience who religiously listens to
Speaker 2: our podcast you definitely want to get the book, get
Speaker 2: the hard copy and actually, you know the audiobook where
Speaker 2: I've just never heard someone so emotionally Yeah, because no, No,
Speaker 2: the days I couldn't read it, I would drive to it.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a few times we had to
Speaker 2: break down and catch some tears for a second, and that,
Speaker 2: to me, I was just an awesome level of vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And I really loved the book.
Speaker 2: And it sets a lot of light on a lot
Speaker 2: of unsung heroes that we didn't So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Daniel. I appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thank you all. Thank you Quest so much. It's the
Speaker 6: honor and thank you everybody on this team. It's amazing
Speaker 6: to see and meet everybody.
Speaker 2: All right, when you have a Layah and Fon, Tickeolo
Speaker 2: and Sugar Steve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. There you go.
Speaker 4: The journalism and episode are my favorite.
Speaker 1: Unpaid bills back whatever you said, you're mute right now.
Speaker 4: I'll speak for you said, give me a baby.
Speaker 2: All right, great, great, all right, this is Quest Love
Speaker 2: and we'll see you over the next go around.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Quest Love Supreme is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.