1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,920
Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:08,760 --> 00:00:11,480
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome Too Much Information, the show that

3
00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,680
Speaker 2: brings you the hidden histories and secret fascinating facts and

4
00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:17,560
Speaker 2: figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music, and more.

5
00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:20,119
Speaker 2: We're your two fujis of facts.

6
00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:25,320
Speaker 1: I don't think I can say that anymore because it's refugees, right.

7
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:29,560
Speaker 1: Oh that's what that means. I didn't know that. Oh wow,

8
00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:33,640
Speaker 1: we're the whitest guys in the room. I'm Alex Heigel,

9
00:00:34,479 --> 00:00:36,640
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan run Talk and Jordan.

10
00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:38,960
Speaker 2: Today we're talking about one of the load stars of

11
00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:42,440
Speaker 2: hip hop's late nineties Imperial era. A masterpiece that's one

12
00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:45,720
Speaker 2: of the last genuine pieces of monoculture from the pre oughts.

13
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:50,640
Speaker 2: Turns twenty five this week, last week, whatever, we're in

14
00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:54,400
Speaker 2: the balls week. Yeah, the Best Education of Lauren Hill.

15
00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:58,000
Speaker 2: I remember this album being everywhere. I remember that cover art.

16
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 2: I could probably draw it from memory. We're just talking

17
00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 2: before we started about the do wop.

18
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:04,880
Speaker 1: Video that I used to see all the time on

19
00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: I guess this would have been The Box and maybe

20
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,160
Speaker 1: MTV because I didn't watch a Yeah, yeah, because I

21
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,520
Speaker 1: didn't have the patience for MTV, which had non music

22
00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 1: on it, but.

23
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:20,560
Speaker 2: The Fox was just videos. Miseducation is a great document

24
00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:23,440
Speaker 2: of the times. It's a great snapshot, but it's also

25
00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:26,720
Speaker 2: just like, I don't know if he can genuinely be

26
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,080
Speaker 2: called auturist based on some of the controversies that we're

27
00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:33,520
Speaker 2: talking about, but Hill was definitely a real talent, still

28
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:37,319
Speaker 2: is probably, but we don't have that much evidence. She

29
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:41,280
Speaker 2: was a real talent. Around this time, Tom Bryant wrote

30
00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:44,320
Speaker 2: a stereogum. She's generally remembered as one of the greatest

31
00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:47,520
Speaker 2: rappers and singers of an era when singers didn't really

32
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,800
Speaker 2: rap and rappers didn't really sing, so and the record

33
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,400
Speaker 2: is this great multi genre mix of you know, it's

34
00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:58,640
Speaker 2: I really like the neo soul from around this era.

35
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 2: Like one of my favorite records is is that Dangelo

36
00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,120
Speaker 2: Voodoo and I like a lot of the Solquarian stuff,

37
00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:06,680
Speaker 2: and this has some of that in there.

38
00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:08,560
Speaker 1: But it's also you know, parts of it were recorded

39
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 1: in Bob.

40
00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,280
Speaker 2: Marley's studio in Jamaica, and so there's this heady mix

41
00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:15,440
Speaker 2: of almost every genre of black music in there. And

42
00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:16,600
Speaker 2: she was twenty three.

43
00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:19,920
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson was that age when he made Pet Sounds yeah,

44
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:25,640
Speaker 1: and it cost both of them, oh everything, and it

45
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,040
Speaker 1: was a huge hit, which we'll get to in a bit. Jordan,

46
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:31,840
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Yeah, I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you

47
00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:34,280
Speaker 1: that I came to this pretty late, so it's not

48
00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:36,600
Speaker 1: itched in my syneps is the way it should be

49
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:39,400
Speaker 1: for most people in my age group. Allow me to

50
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:43,240
Speaker 1: cite my oft expressed excuse, which is that I really

51
00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:45,600
Speaker 1: didn't engage with a lot of contemporary pop music when

52
00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:48,520
Speaker 1: I was a kid. This was my Beatles and malt

53
00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 1: Shop Memories era, which is ironic considering the song du

54
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,160
Speaker 1: Up that thing. But I probably heard of that song,

55
00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:58,959
Speaker 1: listen to it, realized it was not actually a do

56
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 1: wop song, got mad and refused to listen to any more. So, Yeah,

57
00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:08,320
Speaker 1: I didn't really gone onto this, and I think by

58
00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:11,040
Speaker 1: the time I became aware of her in a serious way,

59
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:13,520
Speaker 1: it was mostly as a tabloid story. When I first

60
00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:17,200
Speaker 1: started my career as an entertainment journalist, and that would

61
00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:19,359
Speaker 1: have been in the early twenty tens, when she was

62
00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:23,799
Speaker 1: going through tax evasion stuff. I must have seen. I

63
00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,080
Speaker 1: have this memory of her, I think like a Guinness

64
00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: Book of World Records, like the picture of her at

65
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,480
Speaker 1: the Grammys with an armful of statues. Yeah, she became

66
00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:35,120
Speaker 1: I think the first woman to win five Grammys in

67
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:39,840
Speaker 1: one night. But yeah, my impression of her until very recently.

68
00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:42,320
Speaker 1: Again I'm ashamed to say this wasn't as much that

69
00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 1: she was a major musical force, but she was an

70
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:47,400
Speaker 1: artist who had a big record and then never came

71
00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:51,280
Speaker 1: back and was like almost in the one hit Wondered Territory,

72
00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:56,520
Speaker 1: which is obviously an extremely unfair characterization of her career.

73
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:01,480
Speaker 1: And yeah, it really wasn't until fair recently that I

74
00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:04,840
Speaker 1: went deeper. I am a huge Amy Winehouse fan, and

75
00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,920
Speaker 1: I think it was when the documentary Amy came out

76
00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,240
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. They had a lot of deep cuts

77
00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:12,600
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack and there was a cover of Amy

78
00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:15,400
Speaker 1: doing due up that thing, which makes total sense. You

79
00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,520
Speaker 1: could really tell that that's totally Amy's vibe, and that

80
00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,200
Speaker 1: sent me back to this record and I realized just

81
00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:23,839
Speaker 1: how incredible it was and just how wrong I was

82
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,680
Speaker 1: well from the debate over the proper credit for the

83
00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,479
Speaker 1: album's songs, how the stress of creating and then living

84
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:33,000
Speaker 1: up to the masterpiece ultimately led Hill to retreat from

85
00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,479
Speaker 1: public life to the long shadow it casts on.

86
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:37,360
Speaker 2: Actually, I realized I didn't really get to that last

87
00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:41,200
Speaker 2: part to a third bullet point that I'll decide on later.

88
00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,960
Speaker 2: Here's everything you didn't know about the Miseducation of Lauren Hillo.

89
00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:56,400
Speaker 2: Lauren was born in Newark, New Jersey, and she grew

90
00:04:56,480 --> 00:05:00,640
Speaker 2: up middle class and suburban South Orange, New Jersey, which

91
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,680
Speaker 2: I believe she may still live there to this day,

92
00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:06,360
Speaker 2: and I think when she was definitely living there for

93
00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:10,720
Speaker 2: a while, she doesn't still. Both her parents were amateur musicians.

94
00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:15,040
Speaker 2: She grew up listening to her mom's soul records, and fittingly,

95
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:17,560
Speaker 2: she had a defining moment of her teen life when,

96
00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:20,000
Speaker 2: at the age of thirteen, she got booked to sing

97
00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:22,160
Speaker 2: at the famous amateur night at the Apollo.

98
00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:27,160
Speaker 1: I'm wincing as you say that, because it is brutal.

99
00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:31,120
Speaker 1: Yeah she's fine, but the crowd is famous.

100
00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:35,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the bit she's saying, Who's Loving You,

101
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:38,560
Speaker 2: which is a nineteen sixty single Smoky Robinson wrote for

102
00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:41,839
Speaker 2: The Miracles, and like at the performance, like she's not

103
00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:44,560
Speaker 2: bad by any stretch, Oh she was just like her

104
00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:48,000
Speaker 2: voice waivers just a little bit, and the crowd immediately

105
00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:50,480
Speaker 2: comes for her because.

106
00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:52,720
Speaker 1: She's obviously nervous. That's the thing that I think is

107
00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:55,840
Speaker 1: just an excuse of post that she's clearly very good

108
00:05:56,120 --> 00:06:00,800
Speaker 1: but nervous, and instead of being a generous audience, come.

109
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:04,120
Speaker 2: For the thirteen year old girl who damned to get

110
00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:09,000
Speaker 2: up on stage to dream. Yeah, but so she soldiers on.

111
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:11,600
Speaker 2: The hook doesn't come out, you know, that's the whole bit.

112
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:13,280
Speaker 2: At the Apollo, they bring out the hook.

113
00:06:13,839 --> 00:06:17,159
Speaker 1: Executioner yest to the come. I don't think it's a hook.

114
00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 1: I think it's because that's the gong show. I think

115
00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:21,560
Speaker 1: it's a guy with a broom who would chase people

116
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 1: off the stage as if they were like woodland creatures

117
00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,159
Speaker 1: on a back porch or something. The guy who did that,

118
00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:31,800
Speaker 1: that was one guy's job. He was a vaudeville tap

119
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:34,960
Speaker 1: dancer named sand Nan Sims, and he did that role

120
00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:38,240
Speaker 1: from the fifties until two thousand. For half a century.

121
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:42,719
Speaker 1: He crushed hopeful streams passage on the stage at the

122
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:46,599
Speaker 1: Apollo as his professional gig. And then there was also

123
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:48,520
Speaker 1: I don't know if this was reserved for people who

124
00:06:48,520 --> 00:06:51,800
Speaker 1: were especially bad, or just if sam Man Sims had

125
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:53,560
Speaker 1: the night off or what, but I guess there was

126
00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:55,919
Speaker 1: another guy who would chase off people who were getting

127
00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:58,960
Speaker 1: booed with a cap gun to the sound of a

128
00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:02,359
Speaker 1: siren that that would layover the sound system. So that's

129
00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:07,480
Speaker 1: that's nuts. Yeah, but yeah. Another person who bombed another

130
00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:10,920
Speaker 1: future celebrity who bombed open Mic Night or Amateur Knight

131
00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:14,520
Speaker 1: the Apollo was Luther Vandros, who appeared there five times

132
00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:17,760
Speaker 1: and was booed off every single time, and then he

133
00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:21,760
Speaker 1: went on to sing on Sesame Street before getting his

134
00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 1: big break backing David Bowie on Young Americans. Jimi Hendricks

135
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:28,760
Speaker 1: though one first place at an amateur music contest at

136
00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:32,200
Speaker 1: the Apollo in nineteen sixty four, so they at least

137
00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,480
Speaker 1: got that right. But we should punch in punch in

138
00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:38,600
Speaker 1: a clip from that performance Lauren did because it's really great.

139
00:07:51,960 --> 00:08:10,600
Speaker 1: Dred you b It's interesting to me. I mean, who's

140
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:15,040
Speaker 1: loving you? I'm imagining she chose that song because there's

141
00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:18,040
Speaker 1: almost as well known as the Smokey Robinson version is

142
00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:21,400
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's version when he was like in a very

143
00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:25,440
Speaker 1: early Jackson five days probably nine ten years old. So

144
00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:29,320
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like the official like preternaturally gifted

145
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:37,240
Speaker 1: motown anthetal singer anthem. Yeah, it wasn't Quitney Houston from

146
00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:41,160
Speaker 1: Newark or South Orange. Rather, who though she's from Newark.

147
00:08:41,160 --> 00:08:46,880
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston. Yeah, No, Jersey's got a lot of Jersey's

148
00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:50,040
Speaker 1: got a lot of great story's, musical states. Go, Jersey's

149
00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:52,120
Speaker 1: got a lot of great claims to it, you know,

150
00:08:54,280 --> 00:09:03,120
Speaker 1: Bruce miss Fitz. Oh, yeah, Whitney, you know, Lauren, Frank Sinatra, right,

151
00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:10,079
Speaker 1: most Italian? Most Italian guys from the Four Seasons on Joe.

152
00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:12,559
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's Frankie Valley there, George Clinton,

153
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:20,440
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Bill Evans, Donald Fagan. Like, it's

154
00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:23,360
Speaker 1: really crazy when you actually start to tally it up.

155
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,440
Speaker 1: Paul Simon no oh no, he was a native of

156
00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: New York City, but he was No, he was born

157
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 1: in New York. Paulse, I didn't know that. Wow. I

158
00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:35,200
Speaker 1: like to pretend that you're just doing this for memory

159
00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:38,080
Speaker 1: right now. No, No, I didn't think I could do that. No.

160
00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:40,760
Speaker 1: It's funny when you get into like the really granular

161
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:47,559
Speaker 1: people like Blues Traveler and the Bouncing Souls. I would

162
00:09:47,559 --> 00:09:51,480
Speaker 1: have been anything that Blues Traveler was from, like North Carolina. Yeah.

163
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:58,000
Speaker 1: Sarah Vaughan that's crazy, Count Basie, Yeah, man Jersey Saravan,

164
00:09:58,080 --> 00:10:00,560
Speaker 1: the one who flipped the table on the Rea Franklin.

165
00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:03,200
Speaker 1: She sang from time to time, I know that for

166
00:10:04,120 --> 00:10:10,200
Speaker 1: in fact, you dramamonger, get this back, all right, all right.

167
00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:13,280
Speaker 1: Lauren Hill was a straight A student in high school,

168
00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 1: and she also ran track and field and was a

169
00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:19,960
Speaker 1: cheerleader and was also elected homecoming queen. But the most

170
00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:22,400
Speaker 1: defining moment of her teen life came in ninth grade

171
00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:25,440
Speaker 1: when she teamed up with a classmate Pras Michelle to

172
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:28,480
Speaker 1: form a rap group called Translator Crew with a Z,

173
00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:33,839
Speaker 1: which also featured Pros's cousin Wycleft John, and together they

174
00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 1: became the Fujis. Wycleff was the only one of this

175
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:40,840
Speaker 1: threesome who was born in Haiti, though Prose's parents were

176
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:44,400
Speaker 1: also and Wycliff and Lauren Hill's on and off relationship

177
00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 1: with color a lot of a lot of went into miseducation,

178
00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:48,800
Speaker 1: which we will get to in a bit.

179
00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:56,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, their relationship is bad on like MESSI on both ends. Anyway,

180
00:10:56,920 --> 00:10:59,480
Speaker 2: It's a measure of hills talent that before she even graduated,

181
00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:02,000
Speaker 2: she had the owns of a fairly promising acting career.

182
00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:03,320
Speaker 1: Going. In nineteen ninety one.

183
00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:06,679
Speaker 2: She was emc lights understudy in Club twelve, which was

184
00:11:06,679 --> 00:11:10,400
Speaker 2: an off Broadway hip hop reimagining of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,

185
00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:11,760
Speaker 2: which sounds awful.

186
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,120
Speaker 1: Wycliffe was always Larren Hill. Well that's well, she was

187
00:11:16,120 --> 00:11:19,280
Speaker 1: an understudy mc who's what did mc light? I should

188
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:23,280
Speaker 1: know this off the top of my head, mc light,

189
00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 1: Cha cha cha, Yeah. This is when it becomes apparent

190
00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:33,160
Speaker 1: that we do not have not a riging background and

191
00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:36,040
Speaker 1: hip hop as we do in most areas of pop

192
00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:36,840
Speaker 1: culture nerdery.

193
00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:40,280
Speaker 2: She also landed a role in the soap opera As

194
00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:43,040
Speaker 2: the World Turns, and then in nineteen nine That's Bizarre,

195
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:46,800
Speaker 2: and then in nineteen ninety three, at eighteen, she made

196
00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:50,600
Speaker 2: her big screen debut in Your Favorite sequel Sister Act two.

197
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:54,800
Speaker 1: Back in the Habit I did. That was actually where

198
00:11:54,840 --> 00:11:57,400
Speaker 1: I first encounted Lauren Hill. That's true. She's great in

199
00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:00,240
Speaker 1: that movie. She had like a real she could been

200
00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:02,840
Speaker 1: a real actress, Like she had a real presence and

201
00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:05,280
Speaker 1: she's yeah, she's great. I think that actually may have

202
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,839
Speaker 1: been where I first saw her and then was like, yeah,

203
00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:14,120
Speaker 1: actually same. She also decided to go to Colombia for

204
00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:18,640
Speaker 1: college while the Fujis were like blowing up with their

205
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:22,200
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six sophomore album The Score Fuji La. The

206
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:25,840
Speaker 1: song with where she sings the hook On peaked at

207
00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:27,719
Speaker 1: number twenty nine in the Hot one hundred, but the

208
00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:30,840
Speaker 1: album eventually sold seven million copies just in the US,

209
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:34,439
Speaker 1: mostly on the strength of their version of ROBERTA Flax

210
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:40,440
Speaker 1: Killing Me Softly, which you are about to ruin, Yeah,

211
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:42,800
Speaker 1: but before I do, I'm going to ruin Colombia. Also,

212
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 1: Our Garfuncle also went to Colombia just as his career

213
00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,200
Speaker 1: and Sabbin a Garfunkle was taking off. I forget if

214
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:54,199
Speaker 1: he was studying architecture, mathematics. I think it was mathematics,

215
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:55,800
Speaker 1: but he wasn't so sure. I think he thought that

216
00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:58,760
Speaker 1: the whole Sabbin a Garfunkle folk pop thing was gonna

217
00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:00,160
Speaker 1: be a flash in the pan and he won and

218
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,240
Speaker 1: to go study up and get his degrees, so he

219
00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:06,679
Speaker 1: went to Columbia. One of the many ways that Our

220
00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:10,880
Speaker 1: Garfuncle and Lauren Hill are similar. But yes, that was

221
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:16,600
Speaker 1: the worst thing you've ever said on this but yes,

222
00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:21,080
Speaker 1: my little detour and killing Me Softly with his song

223
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:26,320
Speaker 1: It's written about your favorite and mine, Don McLean? Did

224
00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:28,120
Speaker 1: you know that? Did we talk about this in the

225
00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:34,960
Speaker 1: American Pie episode? We must have that? Yeah. So the

226
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:37,079
Speaker 1: song was written by a twenty year old singer song

227
00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:40,080
Speaker 1: un her name, Laurie Lieberman, saw Don McLean perform at

228
00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:43,920
Speaker 1: LA's Troubadour Club, the very famous club in nineteen seventy one,

229
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:48,240
Speaker 1: and she really loved Don's song empty Chairs, and she

230
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:51,599
Speaker 1: started scribbling notes on presumably like a beer coaster or

231
00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:54,520
Speaker 1: something or a napkin that very night for the lyrics

232
00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:58,480
Speaker 1: that would become killing Me Softly with his song. And

233
00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:02,079
Speaker 1: the song was actually written by Norman Gimble and Charles Fox.

234
00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:06,079
Speaker 1: She was signed to a production deal to these two songwriters,

235
00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:10,160
Speaker 1: and so she went uncredited for years as a co

236
00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:12,120
Speaker 1: writer on this song, and it became a source of

237
00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:15,600
Speaker 1: a very ugly legal squabble. I guess she was signed

238
00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:18,240
Speaker 1: to them, but she also started a romantic relationship with

239
00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:22,560
Speaker 1: gimbal and then he, apparently, according to Lori Lieberman, became

240
00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:27,800
Speaker 1: abusive and their partnership crumbled, and so the songwriting due.

241
00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:30,280
Speaker 1: I would spend decades trying to minimize her role in

242
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,200
Speaker 1: this song that through the Fujis and ROBERTA. Flack would

243
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:38,600
Speaker 1: sell a gazillion copies. That's a whole other episode. But

244
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:42,240
Speaker 1: I think she's finally credited now after many, many years.

245
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:45,440
Speaker 1: But Laurie Lieberman, she was the first person to record

246
00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:49,040
Speaker 1: this song in nineteen seventy two, and it didn't do

247
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:51,600
Speaker 1: much on the charts, and then they tried to shop

248
00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:54,840
Speaker 1: it around to other singers. Helen Ready of I Am

249
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:57,440
Speaker 1: Woman Hearing Me Roar Fame has said that she was

250
00:14:57,480 --> 00:14:59,760
Speaker 1: sent the song, but she said the demo sad of

251
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:03,520
Speaker 1: My Turntable for months without being played because I didn't

252
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:07,720
Speaker 1: like the title. That's true, it's kind of a weird title. ROBERTA. Flack,

253
00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:11,920
Speaker 1: Who did? I mean, arguably the most iconic version to me,

254
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,160
Speaker 1: more so than the Fuji's version. But then again, I

255
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:16,840
Speaker 1: would say that because I, in my mind, lived through

256
00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:19,800
Speaker 1: the seventies. She first heard the song while on an

257
00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:23,479
Speaker 1: airplane while listening to like an in flight music program,

258
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:27,120
Speaker 1: and she loved it so much. She just I think

259
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:29,040
Speaker 1: she didn't even know what the song was. She just

260
00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:31,440
Speaker 1: wrote down the lyrics and then as soon as she landed,

261
00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 1: I believe she called Quincy Jones, who she was acquainted with,

262
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:37,360
Speaker 1: and said, you know, hum the song to him and

263
00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:39,200
Speaker 1: said some of the words that can you track this

264
00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 1: down for me in like you're publishing contacts? I love

265
00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,080
Speaker 1: the song, and she did. She recorded it went to

266
00:15:45,160 --> 00:15:48,760
Speaker 1: number one and it was how many years would it

267
00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 1: have been? About twenty years later the Fujis did a version.

268
00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 1: It was recorded for their album The Score I think

269
00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:56,640
Speaker 1: was the last song recorded for that album after pros

270
00:15:56,680 --> 00:16:04,120
Speaker 1: made the suggestion to cover it anyway wow okay man.

271
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:10,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Meanwhile, in nineteen ninety seven, why Cleff went solo

272
00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 2: with the double platinum The Carnival, thanks to the strength

273
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,840
Speaker 2: of goun to November great song. It was a bad

274
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:20,320
Speaker 2: time for the Fujis. Wycleff had always either forced himself

275
00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:22,440
Speaker 2: into the spotlight. He used to do like backflips on

276
00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 2: stage and play guitar behind his head, or just force

277
00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:29,240
Speaker 2: himself into the spotlight. And his relationship with Hill, which

278
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:34,040
Speaker 2: had continued after Jean Mary designer Marie Claudnett, was effectively

279
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:38,200
Speaker 2: destroying the group, not that their relationship was really functional

280
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,480
Speaker 2: or fun at any point, As why Cleff wrote in

281
00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:44,680
Speaker 2: his biography, we had fights on planes. We had huge fights,

282
00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:46,880
Speaker 2: and a few times when it went down, she started

283
00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:49,480
Speaker 2: swinging at me right there in the seats, people would scatter.

284
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,080
Speaker 2: We never got arrested, but we came close a few

285
00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:56,360
Speaker 2: times in Europe in this In his autobiography Why Cleff,

286
00:16:56,440 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 2: who it's important to note, defrauded an entire country with

287
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:05,080
Speaker 2: his Yale Haiti charity, which was launched after the wake

288
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:07,960
Speaker 2: of the twenty ten earthquake and essentially served as a

289
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,239
Speaker 2: piggy bank for y Cleft and his cronies to just

290
00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:15,480
Speaker 2: fly around and live large. He blames Lauren Hill for

291
00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:19,360
Speaker 2: breaking up the Fujis because this is where I say

292
00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:25,040
Speaker 2: this gets really messy. At some point, Lauren meets Bob

293
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:30,040
Speaker 2: Marley's son, Rohan, who's playing football for the University of Miami,

294
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,400
Speaker 2: and she gets pregnant with his child. But she lies

295
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:39,400
Speaker 2: to Jean and lets him think that the kid is his,

296
00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:44,720
Speaker 2: and plays up this ambiguity and basically until the kid's born,

297
00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:48,159
Speaker 2: and then when he found out, he wrote, in that moment,

298
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:54,199
Speaker 2: something died between us, which is sort of understandable. A

299
00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:57,680
Speaker 2: friend told Torre for Rolling Stone in two thousand and three.

300
00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:00,000
Speaker 2: He wrote a great feature about kind of what happened,

301
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,840
Speaker 2: And honestly, she didn't even want the relationship with Rohan.

302
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:05,359
Speaker 2: Everyone was pushing her towards Marley to get her out

303
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:07,639
Speaker 2: of the other thing. They pushed her towards him, like

304
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:10,040
Speaker 2: why don't you give him a chance? Come on, go

305
00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:12,159
Speaker 2: out on a date, Just do it, not knowing this

306
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:14,440
Speaker 2: man had all this other baggage and drama in his life.

307
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:17,320
Speaker 2: That baggage turned out to be the fact that Rohan

308
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,080
Speaker 2: had gotten married in nineteen ninety three and had two

309
00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:23,239
Speaker 2: children with a woman and was still married probably at

310
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:27,959
Speaker 2: the time he met Lauren. I found a note on

311
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:31,840
Speaker 2: his Wikipedia that said he later produced divorce documents from Haiti,

312
00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:34,760
Speaker 2: which is funny because that's not a country that we

313
00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:39,600
Speaker 2: were talking about with regards to their relationship. You would

314
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,679
Speaker 2: assume he would maybe have gotten the papers in Jamaica

315
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:44,120
Speaker 2: or in the United States.

316
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 1: But is Haitian divorce a thing? Isn't that a Steely

317
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:51,399
Speaker 1: Dan song? Huh? I don't know what it says about.

318
00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:53,800
Speaker 2: Oh, it says this song refers to the alleged ease

319
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,720
Speaker 2: of divorce in Haiti. Okay, cool manal scam all right, great.

320
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:00,840
Speaker 1: An anonymous source told Rolling Stone, people don't know how

321
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,800
Speaker 1: calculating she can be. Lauren used Road to pull herself

322
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,560
Speaker 1: out of the relationship with Clef and she happened to

323
00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 1: get pregnant. She hoped that the baby was y Clefts

324
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:12,119
Speaker 1: because it would have forced his hand, but it wasn't.

325
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:16,159
Speaker 1: She would later have, according to my Notes, five kids

326
00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 1: with Rohan Marley. Yeah yeah, which is a.

327
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:23,760
Speaker 2: Kind of a shocking thing when you maybe didn't even

328
00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:25,800
Speaker 2: really want to be in a relationship with the guy

329
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:26,760
Speaker 2: in the first place.

330
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:32,520
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Hill, for her part, told Trance Magazine at

331
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:36,800
Speaker 1: the time the Fujis was a conspiracy to control, to manipulate,

332
00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:40,000
Speaker 1: and to encourage dependence. I took a lot of abuse

333
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:42,880
Speaker 1: that many people would not have taken in these circumstances.

334
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 1: Are the fuji Is the most white collar crime band

335
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:53,639
Speaker 1: of all time? They absolutely must be. I'm trying to

336
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 1: think of because why Clef defrauded a charity. Lauren went

337
00:19:57,320 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 1: to jail for tax evasion and I just found that

338
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:05,560
Speaker 1: the this year, Praz was convicted of a spearheading a

339
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 1: multi million dollar political donation fund money shuffling campaign that

340
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 1: involved a Malaysian fugitive named Joe Low. It's wild. I

341
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:22,880
Speaker 1: think Rolling Stone had a big expos on that.

342
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 2: That's truly nothing nefarious. I mean, on the right side,

343
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 2: I think some of the money was going to Barack

344
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:30,639
Speaker 2: Obama and some of it was going against Trump or whatever.

345
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:32,120
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, we're not allowed to get political.

346
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 2: But yeah, I wasn't like he was funding like coups

347
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 2: in like Somalia or whatever. But still really wild. If

348
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:44,640
Speaker 2: you threw a dartboard at all the nineteen nineties hip

349
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:49,639
Speaker 2: hop acts, who you thought would commit this this slew

350
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 2: of crimes? Would you have thought it would have been

351
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 2: the fujis? Yeah, tax evasion, charity defrauding, and international political

352
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 2: money laundering. I would have bet on Drew Hill.

353
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have expected TLC. Maybe Saltan Pepa mm hmm

354
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 1: mmmmm a friend or I guess more of an acquaintance's mom.

355
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:19,240
Speaker 1: Was Lauren Hill's cellmate in prison? Oh she wasn't jail. Yeah,

356
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 1: apparently she was very nice.

357
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:22,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she was there for like three months.

358
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:24,879
Speaker 2: It was not it was not she wasn't doing a

359
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 2: hard time. Why, Cleff sounds like a piece of sh

360
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie.

361
00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:33,359
Speaker 1: Uh.

362
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 2: Torre had this thing in the in the in the

363
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:37,080
Speaker 2: Rolling The Rolling Stone Future in two thousand and three

364
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:41,879
Speaker 2: where uh basically Praz talked about how when Wycliff was

365
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 2: writing the Carnival. Both Lauren Hill and Praz were supportive

366
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:46,680
Speaker 2: of him, wanted him to branch out, and then when

367
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 2: Hill started writing her own songs, y Cleft was like, yeah,

368
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna help you out with

369
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:57,119
Speaker 2: that stuff. Praz told Torre, I remember when PEPSI wanted

370
00:21:57,119 --> 00:21:58,800
Speaker 2: her for a commercial and they were like, all we

371
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:00,840
Speaker 2: want is you. We don't know the the other two cats.

372
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 2: She said, without them, I'm not doing it. There's a

373
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:05,399
Speaker 2: lot of things she didn't do because of the group.

374
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 2: Then when she goes to work on her music and

375
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:10,840
Speaker 2: she doesn't have the support that can have an effect.

376
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 2: Several quotes later, he calls Wycliff Jean a cancer. In

377
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:18,880
Speaker 2: case you needed a more forceful quote.

378
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:23,679
Speaker 1: That's his cousin, right, Yes, yeah, I think so.

379
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:28,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the man did defraud Haiti while she

380
00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 2: was pregnant. Hill wrote and produced songs for women like

381
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, which is insane to think about.

382
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 2: Aretha's nineteen ninety eight single A Rose is Still a

383
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,720
Speaker 2: Rose that H'll produced with peaked at number twenty eight.

384
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 2: Imagine you have you're like twenty and you're producing and

385
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 2: writing for Aretha Franklin. That's Wild Marley Rowan. Marley and

386
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 2: Lauren Hill's son, Zion, was born in nineteen ninety seven,

387
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,680
Speaker 2: shortly after Hill dropped out of Columbia and turned twenty.

388
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 2: Lot happened to her, and not very much time. She

389
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 2: was feeling frustrated on multiple levels. People told her that

390
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 2: having a child at this stage would be bad for

391
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 2: her career, and she was also fed up with her label,

392
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 2: who was bulking at her desire to go solo like Wyclef.

393
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 2: So she began the process of assembling a crew of

394
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 2: musicians and got to work on what would become her

395
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:22,640
Speaker 2: defining artistic statement. She told Rolling Stone, when I decided

396
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 2: that I wanted to try a solo project, I was

397
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 2: meant with incredible resistance and discouragement from a number of

398
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,919
Speaker 2: places that should have been supportable. So that had a

399
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 2: motivating factor, but it was less about proving myself and

400
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 2: more about creating something I wanted to see and hear

401
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 2: exist in the world. I think most of her emails

402
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 2: or most of her interviews since like the mid two

403
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 2: thousands have been email based or like on Tumblr. Because

404
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,199
Speaker 2: for that tore feature, he was like called her for

405
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 2: a quote, and you got this long thing that was

406
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 2: like miss Hill does not do interviews that do not

407
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 2: compensate her for her time and effort, and he asked

408
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 2: around in another magazine had also been in contact with her,

409
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 2: and she wanted ten grand for the cover, which is,

410
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny because like a lot of what

411
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 2: she talks about makes sense, but in like a kind

412
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 2: of like that's just not how any of this works way,

413
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 2: you know, Like she she's arguably right that the music

414
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 2: industry is disgusting and parasitic and that like you know,

415
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 2: doing interviews and stuff and like and all this stuff

416
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 2: is a big drain on time and resources. But like

417
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 2: that's just not the world. We're all sorry, and she

418
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 2: has chosen not to live to live in it.

419
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, which I mean again, at least she's stuck

420
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: to her guns with that. Did you ever have an

421
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: interview request ask for money?

422
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 2: No?

423
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: I did, and it was always with like the people

424
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: who were close to the actual stars and not an

425
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 1: actual famous person, a lot of people. I worked on

426
00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: a feature on Freddie Mercury, just into his life from

427
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody came out and got some quotes from people

428
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: like Brian May and like people were actually quote close

429
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: to him. But I was also was trying to get

430
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: on more ancillary figures, and a lot of those types

431
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: of figures were asking for money. And then I did

432
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: a show a podcast about the life of David Bowie,

433
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: and it was sort of the same deal. A lot

434
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: of people who were kind of on the fringes of him,

435
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 1: including people who claim to have had romantic relationships with him,

436
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: were all asking for money, including his former wife. Yeah.

437
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 2: I mean, I think some of the nineties stuff, like

438
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 2: I'm sure, like Inside Edition and some of the tabloids

439
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 2: just kind of set that precedent in people's minds. But

440
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 2: it's always like, yeah, legitimate places don't do that anyway.

441
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 2: One of miseducations mixers and engineers was a guy named

442
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 2: Gordon Williams with the charming nickname of Commissioner Gordon, which

443
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 2: I of course loved because it's a Batman reference.

444
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: Uhh. Yeah.

445
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 2: He was an A and R guy who'd come up

446
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 2: through New York's hip hop scene, and he told Okay

447
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 2: Player In twenty twenty one, I met Lauren when she

448
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 2: was a member of the translator crew. She asked me

449
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,239
Speaker 2: to work with her on the Miseducation of Lauren Hill.

450
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 2: After a lot of bumping into one another at other

451
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: people's sessions, we recorded in New York, Miami, and at

452
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 2: Hope Road, which or Tough Gong Studios in Jamaica. To

453
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 2: be in Bob Marley's house created a landscape for magic.

454
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 2: Stephen Marley was the one who invited us to come in,

455
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 2: which is odd considering she had a kid with the

456
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 2: non Stephen Marley.

457
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: It's all family.

458
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 2: I had organized the equipment that had to be brought

459
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 2: to Jamaica, and we had to make sure it could

460
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 2: work as a museum. When we weren't recording, they let

461
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 2: Lauren occupy the main studio. We were there for a

462
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 2: couple weeks at a time, across multiple sessions, and.

463
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: Rich Nice, who was an A and R man at

464
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: Columbia at the time, told Okay, Player Commissioner Gordon was

465
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: in control of the studio as a track master's producer.

466
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: I had a respected ear. She would ask me what

467
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: I thought. She would give us five different versions of

468
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: one song with other verses differing hooks, and we'd love

469
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: all five. Lauren always has her idea of what she wanted.

470
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: It was never a scenario where she was lost or

471
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: asked what do I do? And in an interview, Lauren

472
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: described the first day of recording by stating, the first

473
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: day in the studio, I ordered every instrument I ever

474
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: fell in love with harps strings, timpany organs, clarinet's. It

475
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 1: was my idea to record it so that the human

476
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: element stayed in. I didn't want it to be too

477
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: technically perfect. I love that.

478
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, She's talked about her like liking older keyboards like

479
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 2: Whirli's and electric pianos and Hammond organs that might not

480
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 2: be perfectly in tune. She says she never uses compression

481
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,640
Speaker 2: on her voice on her vocal tracks. Commissioner Gordon said

482
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 2: that when James Poyser, who was at the time playing

483
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: keys for DiAngelo, came in to play on the song Superstar,

484
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 2: they rented a harpsichord that was so out of tune

485
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 2: or so old it fell out of tune so much

486
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 2: that they had the tuner on hand and by the

487
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 2: time James finished playing it on a track, it.

488
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: Was already out of tune, which just hilarious. Can I

489
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: ask you a mega nerd question, how do electric pianos

490
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:10,680
Speaker 1: go out of tone.

491
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: Because the times so they're they're instead of strings like

492
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: a piano, they're metallic times, and because they're being struck repeatedly,

493
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: they can get just get bent out of shape.

494
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah. Yeah. The few ones that.

495
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 2: I've ever actually touched or like been in a studio with,

496
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 2: I've I've gone in and immediately like wanted to sit down,

497
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 2: and people have been like, please don't do that, because apparently,

498
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 2: like people sit down at them unplugged and want to

499
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 2: play them hard enough to actually like produce sound, and

500
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 2: that's really bad for the times.

501
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: You always have to play them amplified as you meditate

502
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: on that. We'll be right back with more too much

503
00:28:51,360 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: information after these messages, so.

504
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 2: We'll get into some of the higher profile musicians on

505
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 2: the record, including one of my nemeses, but Carlos Santana.

506
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, But it's worth talking about the core

507
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 2: of the studio musicians behind mis Education because that's where

508
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 2: one of its biggest controversies come from. They were gang

509
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: of musicians who Hill christened the New Arc, although they

510
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: are by their own admission, were known for a while

511
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 2: after this whole thing as the lawsuit guys, the four

512
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 2: musicians who formed the studio band Rashim Kilo Pugh, Vada Nobles,

513
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 2: and the twin brothers Johari and Tejamold Newton sued Lauren

514
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: Hill and the label Columbia when they were not credited

515
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 2: as writers and producers. They eventually settled out of court

516
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 2: for five million. Kilo PW brought his crew to Hill's

517
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 2: house in Orange, New Jersey. Everyone hit it off initially.

518
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 2: She's really like a sister. If there was a female

519
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 2: version of me, it would be her. Joe Newton told

520
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: her XXL mag I knew the family, her mother and father, brother,

521
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: her man, her kid. We were extensions of her family.

522
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 2: Hill brought the team into a studio that she had

523
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: in the attic of the house, where they began working

524
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 2: on songs for Aretha Franklin another singer named Andrea Martin.

525
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 2: Before starting work on Miseducation, either in the attic of

526
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 2: this Orange house or Manhattan studios, they were recording on

527
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: two inch tape, trying to use as few loops as

528
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 2: possible or samples. Commissioner Garden told Rolling Stone in the beginning,

529
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 2: the New Arc guys were the core who put the

530
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 2: basic tracks together. Vadder was a programmer who made drum beats.

531
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 2: Kilo would write hooks and lyrics. Tessumal Newton played piano

532
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 2: and Joe Newton played guitar. Joe told XXL Lauren was

533
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 2: definitely the guide. It was her vision. Our job is

534
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 2: to take whatever was in her head and put it

535
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 2: down for her. This led to a collaborative way of writing,

536
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 2: where a riff or sound with morph into an idea

537
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 2: and become a groove and finally emerges a song. Everybody

538
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: had jobs, Pew remembered fat Is jobs to find the

539
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 2: groove that made us hum. Then t t Jumol and

540
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: Joe's job was the instrumentation to enhance that groove. When

541
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 2: the groove was so catchy that it made us hum,

542
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 2: either Lauren or me, then it was time to create

543
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 2: the words that she wanted to sing. It was literally

544
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 2: constant work. Even when you didn't think you were working,

545
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: you were working. The vibe was incredible. Much like the band,

546
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 2: this informal division of labor, in which nothing was set

547
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 2: on paper until it was too late, would come back

548
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 2: to bite both Lauren Hill and the Newark.

549
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: The band came with her to Jamaica for a little

550
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: over two weeks, according to Pew, where they worked on

551
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: Lost Ones, do wop that thing then it hurt so

552
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: bad and forgive them father, And there was a really

553
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: cute moment apparently on the record Commissioner Gordon recalled Lost

554
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: Ones was recorded the first day we were in Jamaica.

555
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 1: I saw all those kids gathered around Lauren, screaming and dancing.

556
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: Lauren was in the living room next to the studio

557
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: with about fifteen Morley grandchildren around her, the children of Ziggy,

558
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: Steven and Julian, and she started singing this rap verse

559
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: and all the kids start repeating the last word of

560
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: each line, chiming in very spontaneously because they were so

561
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: into the song, and it made it onto the record.

562
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 2: After Jamaica, things got messy. The Newton twins say that

563
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 2: Nobles convinced them to sign a publishing deal with him,

564
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 2: which they did in the middle of making Miseducation, but

565
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: at some point Nobles was informed that Hill would be

566
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 2: taking all the writing and production credits. He and Pugh

567
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 2: were not happy about this and exited the project six

568
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 2: months before it wrapped, while the Newton stayed on to

569
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 2: finish the album, but they were ultimately ensnared in the

570
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 2: lawsuit after the release due to the deal that they

571
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 2: signed with Nobles. Joe said, we got dragged into a

572
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 2: lawsuit we didn't even want to go into, and initially

573
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 2: this super backfired on these guys. Hill was basically hip

574
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: hop's golden child at the time, so a bunch of

575
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 2: relatively unknown session musicians, all male, suing her was seen

576
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 2: at He was seen as an ugly move, and they

577
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 2: said it had repercussions for them. Pugh was basically passed

578
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,959
Speaker 2: over for an opportunity to work with Missy Elliott, who

579
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 2: was as she still is but extremely hot at the time,

580
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 2: just because she found out that he had been involved

581
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 2: in the lawsuit. Another of the album's producers, guy named

582
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 2: Chay Vicious, told Rolling Stone that Hill might have faced

583
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 2: pressure from the label to make herself seem an auteur.

584
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: He said, she gave me co production on to Zion,

585
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 2: but I did the track on my own. There was

586
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: label pressure to do the Prince thing written and produced

587
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 2: by Once it became clear that I wouldn't be credited

588
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 2: or compensated according to what's fair, I had to voice

589
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 2: how I felt I had a wife and family. She

590
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: barely credited me. She gave Chay my credits as God

591
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 2: is my witness.

592
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: That was in spite. I tried my best to resolve

593
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: it without lawyers, but it became impossible, and all of

594
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: this was reopened in very ugly fashion by jazz pianist

595
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: Robert Glasper, who in twenty eighteen went on a rant

596
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: about Hill on a radio show in Houston. Asked the

597
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: question about managing egotistical personalities, Glasper took aims squarely at Hill,

598
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: bringing up moments from a gig he did with her

599
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight in which she frequently changed arrangements,

600
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,479
Speaker 1: demanded she be addressed as miss Hill and never looked

601
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: at directly in the eye. And she also threatened to

602
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: cut the band's payment in half, presumably if any of

603
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 1: these things were not abided by. And a two thousand

604
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: and three features on Lauren Hill for Rolling Stone, a

605
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: few people mentioned that when they asked her how much

606
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: they would be paid for working on a record with her,

607
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: she said, do it for God, do it for free.

608
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: Glasper continued, you've already stolen all my friends. Music miseducation

609
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: was by great musicians and producers that I know personally,

610
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: you got a big handoff of music. You didn't even write.

611
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: Those songs were written by other people and they did

612
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: not get their credit. She likes to take credits so

613
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: she could become this superperson. If you're a superperson and

614
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: you're that talented, do it you feel me? She couldn't

615
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: tune her guitar and rehearsal, and Lauren was moved to

616
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: respond to Glasper later that month, writing three thousand words

617
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 1: on medium medium dot com, she said, these are my songs.

618
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: Musicians are brought in because of the masterful way they

619
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: play their instruments. You may be able to make suggestions,

620
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,720
Speaker 1: but you can't write for me. I am the architect

621
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: of my creative expression. No decisions are made without me,

622
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: no matter how incredible the musicians who play with me are.

623
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: My name is on the marquee. The expectation to make

624
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: it all come together is on me. The risk and

625
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: financial losses are on me. Yeah.

626
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, man, it's so ugly. You

627
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 2: don't want t tar and feather people, especially women. But

628
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 2: the evidence does not really look good for her, based

629
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 2: on you know, the unplugged performance where she insisted on

630
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 2: playing solo guitar and was not a very good guitarist.

631
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it's kind of like the Robbie

632
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 2: Robertson thing where it's like, oh, yeah, that was all

633
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 2: you so when's yeah, when's that happened?

634
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: And again.

635
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, I mean I don't know, it's exact same

636
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 2: thing as the band man goat.

637
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: You can't. You're going to go into the studio and

638
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: collaborate with people, better get the exact nature of your

639
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: legality straight, because you will something bad will happen. You

640
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: will get bitten in the ass at some point. Sorry,

641
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 1: well weile reading this account, I was moved to think.

642
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard a lot about celebrities who reportedly

643
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: demand that Underling's not looked them in the eye. I

644
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: think Diana Ross was when he sprung to mind. And

645
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this and I did a

646
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: little googling, and there is a lot written on this subject.

647
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: I was sort of shocked to find. The New York

648
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: Post wrote a piece in twenty eleven called stare Wars.

649
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: The ultimate star perk is forbidding eye contact, and it

650
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: includes the passage we've all heard this for years, attached

651
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: to pretty much every A list celeb or rockstar out there.

652
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: Barbara streisand Force's hotel workers to turn and face the

653
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: wall when she enters a room, goes one tail. Same

654
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: for Michael Jordan at the Foxwoods Resort Casino. Some say

655
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman insists her makeup artist refrained from making eye contact.

656
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise supposedly ordered extras to avert their gazes on

657
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: the set of Magnolia. So I'd like to do a

658
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: little sidebar on the phenomenon of celebrities, alleged Leaguele saying

659
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: that people can't look them in the eye because it's

660
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. This same story in page six reports

661
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: that the smoking gun leaked Katy Perry's tour writer for

662
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, which provided in their mind, definitive proof because

663
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 1: of this clause covering her driver's behavior, She stipulated that

664
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: her chauffeur is quote not to start a conversation with

665
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:41,919
Speaker 1: her or quote stare. In this same New York Post

666
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: Piece pizza story that Jessica Albel told I think on

667
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,399
Speaker 1: several occasions about a time she had a bit roll

668
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: on two episodes of Beverly Hills nine O two one

669
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: zero back in nineteen ninety eight, and she was apparently

670
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: contractually forbidden for making eye contact with Luke Perry or

671
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: Tory Spelling. Otherwise she would have been thrown off the set.

672
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: She said, you wouldn't be allowed to talk to them

673
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: unless they spoke to you first. It was bizarre, but

674
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:07,879
Speaker 1: I guess that's what happens to you when you become

675
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,399
Speaker 1: a big star. It's like the queen. The same piece

676
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: also said that Sylvester Stallone was sued by five of

677
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: his household staffers in nineteen ninety nine, complaining that they

678
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: could be fired if they looked him in the eye.

679
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: I apparently when Sylvester Sloane entered a room, they were

680
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: expected to quote back out and vanish immediately. A piece

681
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: on Yahoo about this phenomenon cites an example from Boy

682
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: Meet's World actor Ryder Strong, who was in a nineteen

683
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: ninety three movie with Donald Sutherland called Benefit of the Doubt,

684
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: and apparently he was informed nobody can make eye contact

685
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: with Sutherland. He talked about this on the iHeart podcast

686
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 1: Pod Meets World. If you were in a scene with him,

687
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: you could make eye contact with him. But his whole

688
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: thing was that every crew member has to look away.

689
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: And the theory I guess behind all this is that

690
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: actors are sensitive and the getting in the zone and

691
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: any kind of like you know, eye contact is a

692
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 1: very intimate thing and it might throw them or shake

693
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: their performance or I'm waiting for you to make a

694
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:11,879
Speaker 1: fart sound.

695
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 2: I mean, dude, it like it's never like good actors

696
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,879
Speaker 2: that you hear about right, like, sorry, Donald Sutherland, you're

697
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 2: not you know been. If like Daniel da Lewis said

698
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 2: it like I would suddenly I would be I'd be like, oh, yeah, okay,

699
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 2: that that has credence. If like Meryl Streep said it,

700
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: I'd be like, okay, sure. But it's like, oh, Donald Sutherland,

701
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 2: do you really need the purity of your getting into

702
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,320
Speaker 2: character for the movie you made with one of the

703
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,919
Speaker 2: guys from Boy Meets World, like the old asshole. Having

704
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,720
Speaker 2: said all of that, if I had that kind of power,

705
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 2: I would probably do it.

706
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:50,879
Speaker 1: I want to be able to look. I want people

707
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: look at me in the eyes. That makes makes fair insects.

708
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: Where's a quick lightning round of stories about other famous

709
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: other A listers who have been linked to this demand.

710
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: Sandra Bullock, entertainment journalist Steve Hessler claims back in twenty ten,

711
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: I was an extra in The Lake House when Sandra

712
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:12,800
Speaker 1: Bullock was in it, and we were told that we

713
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 1: were not allowed to make eye contact with her unless

714
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: she initiated the eye contact. But apparently the crew started

715
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 1: this policy on her behalf, and when she found out

716
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 1: about it, she threw a big party for the cast

717
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: and crew just to show that she wasn't a terrible person.

718
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: You if somebody ruined Sandra for me, I'd be pretty broken. Yeah.

719
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise, on the other hand, rumors about killing Miscavige, Yeah,

720
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: it's astounding to me that anyone would bother cherry picking

721
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:47,839
Speaker 1: this particular weird thing about Tom Cruise out, like what, Yes,

722
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: he has denied them. In an interview with an interview

723
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: that director Chris macquarie gave to The Sunday Times, he

724
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: said that he asked Tom Cruise what the weirdest story

725
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: was ever heard about himself, and Cruz laughed and said

726
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: that it was a myth that people were not allowed

727
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 1: to look me in the eye. So he says that's

728
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 1: not true. Leonardo DiCaprio, the Hollywood Reporter, claimed in twenty

729
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: nineteen that on the side of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon

730
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: a Time in Hollywood quote, some crew members on there

731
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: were instructed to avoid making eye contact with him. The

732
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,799
Speaker 1: qualifier of some crew members is interesting. Maybe they're people

733
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 1: that he just specifically didn't like. Yeah, I mean again,

734
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: Leo is not exactly like. I don't think anyone's like

735
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: expecting Leo to be like the nicest guy in Hollywood, right,

736
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: especially if you're a twenty six year old woman. Maybe

737
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: that's what he meant. Maybe he meant anyone who's over

738
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: the age of twenty six, do not look at me

739
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: in the eyes. And also a dude, the rest of

740
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: you please do this brings us, of course, to Ellen DeGeneres,

741
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: she responded to multiple reports of a toxic environment on

742
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: her sound stage. According to page six, she had a

743
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: zoom call meeting with her with her staff and she

744
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: addressed these reports. She said, I don't know where this

745
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,439
Speaker 1: rumor started that you can't look me in the eye.

746
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: Please talk to me, look me in the eye. That

747
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 1: is a command, and finally noted a comedy hero of mine,

748
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: but noted eccentric Mike Myers, a bodyguard who worked with

749
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: Mike on The Love Guru maligned Love Guru in two

750
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, has claimed that he was fired for

751
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: looking Myers in the eye. He said he was informed

752
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: of this policy, but accidentally made eye contact while allowing

753
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 1: him into his trailer and his bodyguard. I guess. He

754
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: took to Twitter to say, within an hour, I got

755
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: a phone call letting me know that I'm fired and

756
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: I have to get off the set because I broke

757
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: this weird rule. Mike meanwhile denies this claim. That's just

758
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: so dumb, like he really needed to be in the

759
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: right head space for the Love Guru icon would have broken.

760
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: Come on, shud he had to make I guess. I

761
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 2: guess he really had to pour it into writing the Pentaverate.

762
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I forgot anybody remember that? Anybody remember? Like?

763
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 1: What was that two summers ago? A summer ago? Who knows?

764
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter God, for these people. The least they

765
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 2: can do is something interesting like Laura Hill and just

766
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 2: say I'm not paying taxes anymore because of society. Uh so,

767
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 2: pedestrian and boring eye contact? All right, No for that

768
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 2: ugly stuff. What about the songs? A couple of them

769
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,320
Speaker 2: were pretty good, I'm told. Uh DiAngelo came by to

770
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: seeing on nothing even matters, he told Rolling Stone. Originally

771
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,280
Speaker 2: we were going to swap tunes for each other's projects

772
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 2: because I was working on Voodoo at the same time

773
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 2: and my keyboardist, James Poyser of the aforementioned out of

774
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 2: Tune Harpsichord was working with her. When Lauren and I

775
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 2: went into the studio together, I laid down my vocals

776
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,359
Speaker 2: in the course of an hour. I don't know why

777
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 2: he felt compelled to add that, but sure. And then

778
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 2: this was actually interesting to me, he said. Churches started

779
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 2: substituting God in for the lyrics to nothing else matters,

780
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 2: and he was like, whenever they make a gospel version

781
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 2: out of a secular song, that's significant.

782
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I'm I'm having a tough time thinking of

783
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,359
Speaker 1: another example. Maybe I shall be released. I mean, neither

784
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: of us go to like Black Baptist churches, so probably

785
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: there are others, But yeah, I shall be released. Is

786
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: a pretty has been adopted? Meanwhile on Everything Is Everything,

787
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: Future R and B star John Legend showed up. I

788
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: did not know this, yep, that I was in the

789
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: spring of my junior year at the University of Pennsylvania.

790
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: He's tucking a Rolling Stone. A friend invited me to

791
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 1: give her a ride to Lauren's house in Jersey. Lauren

792
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: was working on Everything Is Everything. I sang and played

793
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 1: a couple songs for her, and she asked me to

794
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,319
Speaker 1: play piano on the track. She got me a little bit,

795
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: but it was pretty simple because I was playing along

796
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: with a string part that was already there. So I

797
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: became known around campus as the dude who played on

798
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 1: Everything Is Everything. It was my little claim the fame

799
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: at Penn for my whole senior year. That's cool. You

800
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 1: know what's less cool?

801
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 2: Carlos Santana, Yes now canceled, transphobic boomer guitar wank icon.

802
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 2: Carlos Santana a man who never met somebody else's song.

803
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 2: He couldn't play the same licks over uh plays on

804
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 2: two Zion, the most personal at the tracks, addressed to

805
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 2: Lauren Hill's son with Marley. I hate Carlos Santana.

806
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,919
Speaker 1: I always have. That really was Yeah.

807
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 2: I just watched so he was like a talking head

808
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 2: that I was exposed to a lot when I was

809
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 2: watching a bunch of like music documentaries, and he just

810
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 2: had nothing profound to say ever, and it came clearly

811
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 2: was a guy who thought he did you know uh

812
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 2: and had a lot of like like the trans rant,

813
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 2: he just went on like who the asked you get.

814
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: Up there, play that that she lick and go go

815
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: wherever it is you go. You know what a prick?

816
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: Can you help the Santana guitar lick? Is it like

817
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: the same lick over and over? You have more? No?

818
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm just thinking about well now, I'm just

819
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 2: thinking of the smooth lick. But he has a very

820
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 2: identifiable style, I mean, and and some of it is

821
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just sounds like guitar center. It

822
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 2: can the tone like out of time, just like sour bends.

823
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,439
Speaker 2: His bens are out of tune. Yeah, fat guy.

824
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: He's a time intervative a few times, and he's a

825
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: tough interview. Were you being insufficiently deferential? No, no, you

826
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: just it was just it was like nailing yellow to

827
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: the wall. It was just everything you said was so

828
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: conceptual that there was nothing to grab onto, so there

829
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: was no follow ups, there was no Everything would just

830
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: drift off into like oh wow, that's really wow, that's

831
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: really yeah. Where'd you get that leather fedora?

832
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 2: So anyway, he plays on tu Zion because Hill promised

833
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 2: to be on Supernatural, and in fact she was. Although

834
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 2: not one of the songs that that album is remembered for,

835
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 2: she apparently was a big fan of his going way back,

836
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 2: she said. I told MTV News in nineteen ninety nine,

837
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 2: I used to write music, you know, write songs over

838
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: Santana's guitar playing when I was a little kid. I

839
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: had all his records and I would play Samba Pati

840
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: off the Abraxis album and just write rhymes and songs

841
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 2: on top of it. So I knew Carlos way before

842
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 2: he knew me. That song, Hill told The Guardian in

843
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine is about the revelation that my son

844
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: was to me. I had always made decisions for other people,

845
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 2: making everybody else happy, and once I had him, that

846
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 2: was really the first decision that was unpopular. It was

847
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 2: one that was based on my happiness and not what

848
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 2: other people wanted for me or for themselves, and it

849
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 2: was the best decision I could have made, because I'm

850
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:51,879
Speaker 2: the happiest and healthiest that I have ever been.

851
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: We like to hear that, yeah for the album Smash

852
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: Hit do Wop parentheses that thing close breath Anisha Randolph,

853
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: a backup singer on the track, told Rolling Stone that quote,

854
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: I got a phone call asking if I was available

855
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: to come to chun King Studios. Lauren came in eating spaghetti,

856
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: palmadoro and garlic bread. For some reason, I really want

857
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: to know if she was like walking in with that

858
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: and eating it as she was walking, or if if

859
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,879
Speaker 1: she came in eating Yeah. I just like the fact

860
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: that this person remembers that. Yeah. I mean, I guess

861
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: that's like pretty I'm trying to think of I have

862
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 1: any celebrity experiences where they were eating and I'm remembering

863
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: what they're eating. No, okay, moving on. Uh. Lauren explained

864
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: where she's trying to go with this album for Duop.

865
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 1: She said, I'm want to play with fifties and sixties harmonies,

866
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: like barbershop guys on the corner, and then we all

867
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: just jumped in and harmonizing a cappella. Woo woo woo.

868
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: I should have given that more passion. Commissioner Gordon added,

869
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: when I mixed Duop at Sony Studios, it was one

870
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty eight tracks, two forty eight machines, plus

871
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: two twenty four to two inch machines all running at

872
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: the same time. I know there are a lot of

873
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 1: vocal harmonies on that track. I know that, And I'm

874
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: sure there are a lot of samples running at the

875
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,720
Speaker 1: same time. I'm sure there are a lot of drums

876
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: that are individually miked and have their own track. How

877
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,919
Speaker 1: are there one hundred and twenty eight tracks on that song?

878
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 2: I mean everything you just said, Jesus, her vocals will

879
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 2: probably tracked over a few times everybody. I mean, they

880
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 2: might have done the Queen thing, you know, where everybody

881
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 2: everybody's harmonies are tracked over multiple times.

882
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that stuff piles up quickly. It's crazy.

883
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean you can there's like prog

884
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: rock wonks who put like fifty mics on a drum kit.

885
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: You know.

886
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the lyrics and du wop though, haven't

887
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 2: age particularly well in an era that's much more sex positive.

888
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 2: Hill's moralistic stance can see them in a little bit judgy,

889
00:49:57,520 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 2: but in a details interview at the time, she skirted

890
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 2: a whether or not she was taking aim at some

891
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 2: of her peers. I mean, to contextualize all this, this is,

892
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 2: you know, an era in which like Little Kim and

893
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 2: Foxy Brown are rapping about sex in a very aggressive

894
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:17,320
Speaker 2: female centered way, and do wop that thing is? Lauren

895
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 2: was her image was not at all sexual, and this

896
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 2: song in particular has a few different too.

897
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: What's that? I mean her pardon sister act too? Or

898
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: she was you know she's singing in a choir in

899
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: a nunnery. No nice she has been, or no, she's

900
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: one of the teen kids I forget. Yeah, it's been

901
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:39,840
Speaker 1: three weeks since you were looking for your friend, the

902
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: one you let hit it and never call it again.

903
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:43,839
Speaker 1: You act like you ain't hear him, then give him

904
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: a little trim to begin.

905
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 2: How you think you're really going to pretend like you

906
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 2: wasn't down and you called him again. Plus when you

907
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: give it up so easy, you ain't even fool in him.

908
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 2: If he did it, then then you'd probably again.

909
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: Trim is such like a rat pack expression.

910
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, who are you gonna tell when the repercussion spin

911
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: showing off your ass because you're thinking it's a trend.

912
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:05,959
Speaker 1: Yeah.

913
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 2: So anyway, she said she wasn't taking aim at them

914
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 2: in particular. She said, I'm not dissing them, I'm dissing

915
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 2: their mindset. My music talks about a certain way of

916
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:17,359
Speaker 2: thinking and if the cap fits. You know, I knew

917
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 2: girls like Kim growing up. I might have even been

918
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 2: one at a certain age, and there's a huge lack

919
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 2: of self esteem behind that thinking.

920
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: I don't think little Kim's problem is a lack of

921
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: self esteem. No, yeah, no, to quote a little Kim.

922
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:33,919
Speaker 1: Around this period, I used to be scared of the dick.

923
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: Now I throw lips to the There you have it, Yes,

924
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: as true today as when it was written. We're gonna

925
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with

926
00:51:49,280 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: more too much information in just a moment. The album's

927
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: cover of Frankie Valley's hit Can't Take My Eyes Off

928
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: You was actually never meant to be a commercial single.

929
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: It was recorded for the very forgettable Mel Gibson Julia

930
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 1: Roberts movie Conspiracy Theory, but once it hit the radio,

931
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: it became immensely popular and wound up as a bonus

932
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: track on the record. I would imagine this would have

933
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,359
Speaker 1: been around the time of its resurgence and Ten Things

934
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 1: I Hate About You. Maybe that was ninety nine. That

935
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: might have been ninety nine. Yeah, I was always confirsed.

936
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, good couple of years for Frankie. Yeah, royalty checks

937
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 2: must have been fat.

938
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: And then he got Jersey Boys premiered, probably around then too, jeez.

939
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: Living Large Commissioner Gordon told Rolling Stone, Lauren called me

940
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,759
Speaker 1: and said she was behind and had to get the

941
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: song done. She didn't know how the arrangement of the

942
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: song went, so he went and got a copy from

943
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: Coconuts or Sam Goodie record stores. I had a little

944
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: one room, sixteen track studio in my apartment in Jersey.

945
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: Lauren was eight months pregnant, laying on her back on

946
00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: the floor, half asleep, holding a handheld mic. She did

947
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 1: all those vocals off the top of her head pretty

948
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: much in one take with the beatbox and all that.

949
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: That blew me away. That is a great version of

950
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 1: that song. I love that song.

951
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 2: The album, as I was mentioned at the top of

952
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:14,720
Speaker 2: the episode. The album is in conversation with a history

953
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:17,240
Speaker 2: of a wide swath of black music.

954
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: Hill and Mary J.

955
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 2: Blige's duet I Used to Love Him samples a hook

956
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 2: from ice Cream, which was a Wu Tang member Rakwan

957
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 2: solo track. The album's title track, Miseducational, Lauren Hill also

958
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 2: calls back to another nineties rap star. It's a play

959
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 2: on Commons nineteen ninety four song I Used to Love

960
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:37,839
Speaker 2: Her her as an acronym for hip hop in its

961
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 2: essence is real, which has always felt like a stretch

962
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 2: to me. Common Hill also nods at a foundational classic

963
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 2: from the dance music genre on the album, which he says,

964
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 2: jack your body in every ghetto, every city. She's referencing

965
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty six club anthem jack your Body by

966
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 2: Chicago DJ producer Steve sil Curly and Lost Ones is

967
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 2: built on a sample of the famous dancehall track Bam

968
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 2: Bam by Sister Nancy, which itself interpolates a hook from

969
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty six Toots of the Maytol song of

970
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 2: the same name.

971
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: That's just so cool, man. I love when I love.

972
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 2: It's like it's like the old folk songs, or like

973
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 2: old blues songs that just have a bunch of common lyrics.

974
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:19,040
Speaker 2: Everything's just kind of shared and passed around. Funnily enough,

975
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:23,400
Speaker 2: the teacher who's heard talking with students on Miseducation's interludes

976
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 2: is Ross Baraka, who is now the longtime mayor of Newark.

977
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: He is the son of Amir Baraka, who is a writer,

978
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 2: very foundational jazz writer, music writer who wrote a lot

979
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:37,840
Speaker 2: of his stuff under the.

980
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:38,800
Speaker 1: Name le Roy Jones.

981
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 2: He said, I was running for councilmen in Newark, and

982
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 2: I was also an eighth grade teacher. I was just

983
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,320
Speaker 2: about to take two of my students home, and Lauren

984
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 2: called and asked if I could come up to her

985
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 2: house in South Orange. There were chairs set up in

986
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 2: the living room and a bunch of kids were there.

987
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 2: She told me she wanted to discuss the concept of love.

988
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:56,799
Speaker 2: There was a blackboard and I wrote the letters love,

989
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 2: and we just went into the whole discussion. So for

990
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 2: the album's title, he'll reach back to a nineteen thirty

991
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:05,760
Speaker 2: three book called The Miseducation of the Negro by doctor

992
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 2: Carter G. Woodson that her parents had a copy of.

993
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 2: And in the book, Woodson railed against what he saw

994
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 2: was cultural indoctrination by the US school system against black students,

995
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,319
Speaker 2: writing at one point, when you control a man's thinking,

996
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 2: you do not have to worry about his actions. You

997
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 2: do not have to tell him to stand here or

998
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 2: go yonder. He will find his quote proper place and

999
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 2: will stay in it. You do not need to send

1000
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 2: him to the back door. He will go without being told.

1001
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 2: The titles also referenced to nineteen seventy four black exploitation

1002
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 2: film called The Education of Sonny Carson. Carson was a

1003
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 2: real life figure. He was a Korean War vet activist

1004
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 2: community leader in Brooklyn who organized protests to get of

1005
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:45,640
Speaker 2: the school systems in black communities in New York in

1006
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, and that film has become a huge

1007
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:52,320
Speaker 2: touchstone in hip hop. The Wu Tang Clan, Prodigy of Mob, Deep, Common,

1008
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 2: Ghost Face Killer, Pete Rock, Two Chains, and Meek Mill,

1009
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 2: among others, have all sampled dialogue from the film in

1010
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 2: their music, and twenty one Savage and Travis Scott both

1011
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,440
Speaker 2: sampled a song from the film's soundtrack to use as

1012
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 2: the basis for their tracks.

1013
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 1: Lauren Hill told The Guardian the title of the album

1014
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 1: was meant to discuss those life lessons, those things you

1015
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 1: don't get in any textbook, things that we go through

1016
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 1: that force us to mature. Hopefully we learn. Some people

1017
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: get stuck. They say that what doesn't kill us makes

1018
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:22,320
Speaker 1: us stronger. And these are some really powerful lessons that

1019
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,840
Speaker 1: change the course and direction of my life. And for

1020
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: the cover of the album, so Beloved by My Dear

1021
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: friend Alex Heigel. Laurence Hill initially pursued a school themed

1022
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: art direction at our old high school in New Jersey,

1023
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: shot by a guy named Eric Johnson who'd actually grown

1024
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 1: up in South Orange also. But after these images have

1025
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:44,759
Speaker 1: been shot, Aaron Grozia, then Sony Music's art director, got

1026
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: a phone call from Lauren Hill's team. He recalled the

1027
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: ok Player. An image of Eric's was selected that would

1028
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 1: be carved in quotes from the wood of the desk.

1029
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,880
Speaker 1: I provide a direction to Will Kennedy, a gifted retoucher

1030
00:56:56,960 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: that was part of the art department in nineteen ninety eight.

1031
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: To shop wasn't anywhere near as powerful retouchers made up

1032
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:06,359
Speaker 1: for it with all their skills and talent. Will had

1033
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,359
Speaker 1: a knack forgetting the art to look just right. There

1034
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 1: have been various versions of the cover art, including some

1035
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: with the wood chips that had just been carved out

1036
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: if you will and visible on the surface of the

1037
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: desk that got rejected as the various woodchips were visually distracting.

1038
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 1: Then there was another version that had no pencil, but

1039
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: in the end the cleaner desk was finally selected.

1040
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it always reminded me of the burnin the Whaler's

1041
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 2: album cover, which I think in that interview, that Okay

1042
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 2: Player interview, there's a different executive who's like, yeah, they

1043
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 2: didn't want the album the Bob Marley album cover, which

1044
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 2: means more than one person made that same mistake. And

1045
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 2: I also made me think of the Alice Cooper the

1046
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 2: schools out schools at which I doubt was an influence.

1047
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go on a limb there. Despite the

1048
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 2: album's status in this day and age, there was internal

1049
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 2: friction about it at the time. Rohan Marley told Rolling

1050
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 2: Stone and her mom took early versions of the album

1051
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:04,800
Speaker 2: to Sony Records and they said, this is coffee table music.

1052
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 1: What is it?

1053
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 2: She took her and walked out of there. Rich nice

1054
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 2: A and R. Columbia told Okay Player, the buzz in

1055
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 2: the album in the building wasn't as popular as you

1056
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:16,680
Speaker 2: might think, and her being a black woman added touchiness

1057
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 2: to it. There was a who does she think she

1058
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 2: is in the building. The climate from some senior execs

1059
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 2: was that they were not in favor of the record,

1060
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 2: and it was no secret to the people who created

1061
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 2: and worked on it. It was insulting that this great

1062
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 2: artist put together this amazing album, but all they want

1063
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 2: is a jukeboxed artist. Somebody actually said to Zion is okay,

1064
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 2: but there's no killing me softly here.

1065
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 1: However, the label was able to get a lot of

1066
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 1: press in the order for Lauren. She was on the

1067
00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: cover of Time magazines tribute to hip hop's twentieth anniversary,

1068
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 1: which I guess they're counting as nineteen seventy eight, which

1069
00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 1: is weird because now we've got a big fiftieth anniversary

1070
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: of hip hop. Anyway, what is Time? Yeah? True, it's

1071
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:00,440
Speaker 1: a flat circle. And they also scored covers not just

1072
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: more black focus magazines like Honey, Essence, Vibe, and The Source,

1073
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: but also Harper's Bizarre, GQ, and Rolling Stone. Stephanie Gale,

1074
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 1: the senior director of marketing at Columbia at the time,

1075
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,520
Speaker 1: told Okay Player, the biggest issue at the time seems

1076
00:59:14,560 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: silly now, but the label was concerned about how people

1077
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 1: would react to her being pregnant. I needed to make

1078
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 1: sure we could accomplish everything that was needed to properly

1079
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: set up an album without making it obvious that she

1080
00:59:25,840 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: was with child. We pushed to get the album photoshoot

1081
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: done as soon as we could deliver the iconic concept

1082
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 1: she was insisting on and use great discretion to get

1083
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 1: the Doop that Thing video completed. Now, Higil tell us

1084
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 1: about this video for Duop that Thing, because we were

1085
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: talking before we started recording. I don't think I've ever

1086
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: seen this video, which is one of my many cultural

1087
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: blind spots from the era in which I allegedly grew up.

1088
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, for any of you who are similarly in a

1089
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 2: blind spot, it is a split screen set up with

1090
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:01,880
Speaker 2: Lauren and in the current day and then as a

1091
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 2: kind of very obviously Motown influenced singer, and it kind

1092
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:10,480
Speaker 2: of pans around the streets of Harlem and everybody's dressed

1093
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:13,479
Speaker 2: currently and then dressed from the sixties. Very vibe, very cool.

1094
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 2: The senior director of video production for Columbia at the time,

1095
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 2: Camille Yorick, told Okay Player that she reached out to

1096
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 2: a bunch of directors and it was actually a British

1097
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:25,720
Speaker 2: production due named Big TV who submitted the split screen idea.

1098
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 2: They flew to New York in advance of the shoot

1099
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 2: and we had a great meeting with Lauren at her hotel.

1100
01:00:30,720 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 2: It was Lauren's decision to make the split screen invisible.

1101
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 2: She liked that one image blended into the other as

1102
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 2: opposed to a stark line. It was this big TV done,

1103
01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:42,160
Speaker 2: that's not really googleble just brings up best by.

1104
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:45,120
Speaker 1: Big TV.

1105
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:51,720
Speaker 2: Anyway, York continued. The styling, photography, and production design were

1106
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 2: also key to the magic of that video. The challenge,

1107
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 2: we were basically shooting two videos at once. It was

1108
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 2: a five day shoot, two sets of wardrobes and art

1109
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 2: direction from two very different time periods, requiring lots of research.

1110
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:04,360
Speaker 2: We shot the whole thing in the Inwood section of

1111
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:07,640
Speaker 2: Uptown Manhattan. We took over a city block for five days.

1112
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:09,880
Speaker 2: Lauren was also very pregnant at the time, but she

1113
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 2: was a trooper. It paid off at the mtvma's back

1114
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,600
Speaker 2: when that meant something. Do Wop video won four Awards

1115
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 2: for Best Female Video, Best R and B Video, Best

1116
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:21,640
Speaker 2: Art Direction, and Video of the Year, making Hill the

1117
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 2: first solo black artist to win and the second overall

1118
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 2: after TLC in nineteen ninety five. Because MTV didn't like

1119
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:31,720
Speaker 2: black people.

1120
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 1: The song Lost Ones was leaked early and with it

1121
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: being presumed shot at WYCLEF radio stations, ate it up,

1122
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 1: causing a wave of hype around the album. Consequently, when

1123
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 1: the full record dropped on August twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight,

1124
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: it debuted at the top of the Billboard two hundred,

1125
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: making Lauren Hill the first unaccompanied female solo rapper to

1126
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: do so, and she's still one of only five female

1127
01:01:57,520 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: rappers to hold the honor, with the other four being

1128
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:05,040
Speaker 1: Foxy Brown, Yes, Eve, Yes, Nicki Minaj, Sure, Cardi B.

1129
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? That's fine? Okay. During

1130
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:14,480
Speaker 1: its first week on the shelves, Miseducation sold over four

1131
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand copies, breaking the record for the

1132
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: release week sales by any female artist. Wow. That stood

1133
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:26,600
Speaker 1: until Adele's twenty five Jesus Not twenty one twenty five

1134
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 1: Yeah Wow, that is crazy. The Recording Industry Association of

1135
01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:34,840
Speaker 1: America certified the album gold a little more than a

1136
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: month after it came out, which is a sales of

1137
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand copies or more, and the record spent

1138
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: eighty one total weeks in the Billboard two hundred. In

1139
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, the Guinness Book of World Records noted

1140
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 1: that Lauren Hill became the first female rapper to reach

1141
01:02:48,080 --> 01:02:53,080
Speaker 1: RIAA Diamond certification for selling ten million copies of Miseducation.

1142
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: Not only has no other female rapper achieved the feat since,

1143
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: but the only rappers period to reach Diamond status for

1144
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 1: an album eminem Outcasts, Notorious Pig presumably not in his lifetime,

1145
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 1: Tucac presumably not in his lifetime. Beastie Boys, Beastie Boys,

1146
01:03:10,040 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 1: NMC Hammer was Beasti Boy licensed to Ill? Must have

1147
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: been licensed to Ill? Yeah, could have been Paul's fatigue

1148
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: Okay Wow.

1149
01:03:16,280 --> 01:03:19,960
Speaker 2: Miseducation was intended to function as a full album, and consequently,

1150
01:03:20,040 --> 01:03:21,760
Speaker 2: at first du Wop wasn't even going to come out

1151
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:23,920
Speaker 2: as a commercial single, But the album was such a

1152
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 2: success that Columbia printed up a limited number of singles

1153
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:29,160
Speaker 2: for the song and released them two months after the

1154
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 2: album dropped, Uh, that's just wild to me in October

1155
01:03:32,520 --> 01:03:34,400
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety eight. They weren't going to release it.

1156
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 2: The album was such a success that they were like

1157
01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 2: two months later they were like, as I guess, I

1158
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,640
Speaker 2: guess we gotta do this. The single debuted at number

1159
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 2: one on the Billboard Hot one hundred and Hot Rap

1160
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 2: Songs chart, became Hill's only top ten hit. Two other

1161
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:52,240
Speaker 2: singles from mis Education charted X Factor at number twenty

1162
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 2: one and Everything Is Everything at number thirty five, and

1163
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:57,919
Speaker 2: then at the Grammys the following year, Hill set two

1164
01:03:58,120 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 2: additional records for female artists. She received ten nominations and

1165
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 2: won five awards, the first female artist to do so,

1166
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 2: with Miseducation becoming the first hip hop record to win

1167
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 2: Album of the Year.

1168
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: Wow.

1169
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 2: And then the music goes into a minor key because

1170
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 2: all of this came at a price. Hill's manager at

1171
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 2: the time, Jason Jackson, told Rolling Stone, Lauren became an

1172
01:04:21,280 --> 01:04:24,920
Speaker 2: international superstar. She couldn't go to the grocery store without makeup,

1173
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 2: and I think that had an adverse effect on her.

1174
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 2: Two thousand and three Rolling Stone article by Torre contended

1175
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:33,160
Speaker 2: that Hill was offered the role in Charlie's Angels that

1176
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 2: ultimately went to Lucy Lou and that she took meetings

1177
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:39,919
Speaker 2: with Matt Damon about being in the Bourne Identity, Brad

1178
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:42,400
Speaker 2: Pitt about a part in The Mexican and with the

1179
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,240
Speaker 2: Wachowskis about a role in the last two films in

1180
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 2: the Matrix trilogy, which I am betting dollars to donuts

1181
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 2: is the role that ultimately went to.

1182
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:56,440
Speaker 1: Jada Pinkett Smith yeah. Oh yeah, Wow, that is crazy.

1183
01:04:56,640 --> 01:05:00,520
Speaker 1: Did she do any big movies after no? I assumed not. Yeah.

1184
01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 1: Lauren Hill told Rolling Stone there were definitely things I

1185
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: enjoyed about stardom, but there were definitely things I didn't enjoy.

1186
01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 1: The pedestal to me is as much about containment and

1187
01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 1: controls at his adulation. Finding balance, clarity, and sobriety can

1188
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,400
Speaker 1: be very hard for some to maintain. She added, the

1189
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 1: idea of artists as public property I always had a

1190
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,240
Speaker 1: problem with that. I agreed to share my art, I'm

1191
01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 1: not agreeing to necessarily share myself. The entitlement that people

1192
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 1: often feel like they somehow own you or own a

1193
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 1: piece of you can be incredibly dangerous. I chafe under

1194
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 1: any kind of control like that, and resist expectations that

1195
01:05:35,640 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: suggest I should somehow dumb down and be predictable to

1196
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,800
Speaker 1: make people feel comfortable, rather than authentically express myself. So

1197
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 1: Lauren withdrew into her family life and went deeper into religion.

1198
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:50,040
Speaker 1: Jason Jackson, her manager, told Rolling Stone it started to

1199
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:53,080
Speaker 1: get strange. Bible study went from one day a week

1200
01:05:53,160 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 1: to three days a week to five days a week.

1201
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 1: I went to a couple of them, but was like

1202
01:05:57,640 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 1: I completely understand if it's your calling, but it's not

1203
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:03,240
Speaker 1: mine and I can't force it. As that picked up,

1204
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:06,600
Speaker 1: we drifted further and further again. Hard to know, hard

1205
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 1: to know what actually happened, but we do have. I mean.

1206
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:12,840
Speaker 2: Hard to know what actually happened, but what seemed to

1207
01:06:12,960 --> 01:06:16,000
Speaker 2: happen was a guy named Brother Anthony came in.

1208
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:18,640
Speaker 1: In two thousand.

1209
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:24,880
Speaker 2: He sort of a Bible centric spiritual advisor, and possibly

1210
01:06:25,000 --> 01:06:29,920
Speaker 2: under his influence, Hill fired her management team and other

1211
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:33,640
Speaker 2: people close to her with no notice. Sources told Rolling

1212
01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:36,160
Speaker 2: Stone that she began starting many of her sentences with

1213
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:40,800
Speaker 2: Brother Anthony says. People couldn't pin down what exactly it

1214
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 2: was that he believed in other than the Bible. One

1215
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 2: person told Rolling Stone, I don't think he had a religion.

1216
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:48,160
Speaker 2: I think he was more like my interpretation of the

1217
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 2: Bible is the only interpretation of the Bible. I'm the

1218
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:54,360
Speaker 2: only one on earth that knows the truth. Shortly after

1219
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 2: recording her disastrous installment of MTV Unplugged, Hill told MTV Online,

1220
01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 2: I met someone who has an understanding of the Bible

1221
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:03,240
Speaker 2: like no one else I ever met in my life.

1222
01:07:03,800 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 2: I just sat at his feet and ingested pure scripture

1223
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 2: for about a year. Pras Michelle never won to mince words. Said,

1224
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 2: brother Anthony was definitely on some other I had a

1225
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 2: tape of his teachings that she is ill me up.

1226
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:19,240
Speaker 2: I can't explain it. It was some weird man. It

1227
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:23,400
Speaker 2: was some real culture. So MTV Unplugged two point zero,

1228
01:07:23,440 --> 01:07:28,640
Speaker 2: which is her only album length proper release, comes out,

1229
01:07:29,000 --> 01:07:33,720
Speaker 2: and it was a It was just something. It was

1230
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:36,480
Speaker 2: quite a thing. She didn't have any full band arrangements.

1231
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:38,360
Speaker 2: It was just her and acoustic guitar, which she did

1232
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 2: appear to not to have spent a ton of time practicing.

1233
01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 2: And the entire album is punctuated by a lot of

1234
01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:52,000
Speaker 2: just raw emotion. She breaks down in tears repeatedly. She

1235
01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 2: makes statements like I'm crazy and deranged. I'm emotionally unstable.

1236
01:07:56,840 --> 01:07:58,560
Speaker 2: I used to be a performer, but I don't really

1237
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:02,000
Speaker 2: consider myself a performer anym more. She said, I created

1238
01:08:02,040 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 2: this public persona this public illusion, and it held me hostage.

1239
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:07,520
Speaker 2: I couldn't be a real person because you're too afraid

1240
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:10,080
Speaker 2: of what your public will say. At that point, I

1241
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:14,600
Speaker 2: had to do some dying. Yeah there is Do you

1242
01:08:14,680 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 2: remember this?

1243
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:18,040
Speaker 1: I dimly Yeah.

1244
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:23,880
Speaker 2: They recorded in July twenty first, two thousand and one.

1245
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:29,800
Speaker 2: It did get a sample. It became the basis for

1246
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,080
Speaker 2: Kanye's song All Falls Down, one of the songs off

1247
01:08:33,120 --> 01:08:36,360
Speaker 2: of it, so it had that, But of course now

1248
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:40,639
Speaker 2: now it's all just being you know, reappraised. Sam Smith

1249
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:46,160
Speaker 2: treated that MTV Unplugged Lauren Hills is their bible. Britney

1250
01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 2: Spears praised the album as amazing.

1251
01:08:48,360 --> 01:08:50,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure the performances were great, but it

1252
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:54,759
Speaker 1: must have just been a troubling document of an artist

1253
01:08:54,920 --> 01:09:01,439
Speaker 1: in some form of what alternatively say collapse. And I'm

1254
01:09:01,520 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: saying that as somebody who doesn't really know the intricacies

1255
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:06,880
Speaker 1: of her personal life. But yeah, it doesn't sound like

1256
01:09:07,479 --> 01:09:11,280
Speaker 1: an especially healthy place. And she elaborated on this a

1257
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:13,759
Speaker 1: little bit in in two thousand and six interview with Essence.

1258
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:15,919
Speaker 1: She said, I had to step away when I realized

1259
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:18,200
Speaker 1: that for the sake of the machine, I was being

1260
01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:21,639
Speaker 1: way too compromised. I had to fight for an identity

1261
01:09:21,720 --> 01:09:24,280
Speaker 1: that doesn't fit in one of those boxes. I'm a

1262
01:09:24,360 --> 01:09:26,920
Speaker 1: whole woman, and when I can't be whole, I have

1263
01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:29,200
Speaker 1: a problem. And by the end I was like, I've

1264
01:09:29,240 --> 01:09:31,679
Speaker 1: got to get out of here. People need to understand

1265
01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 1: that the Lauren Hill they were exposed to in the

1266
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 1: beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at

1267
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:41,920
Speaker 1: that time. There was much more strength, spirit, passion, desire, curiosity, ambition,

1268
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:44,759
Speaker 1: and opinion that was not allowed in a small space

1269
01:09:44,880 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 1: designated for consumer mass appeal and dictated by very limited standards.

1270
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 1: It's a very articulate way to I mean, I assume

1271
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:54,960
Speaker 1: this would be in her email interview phase, but it's

1272
01:09:54,960 --> 01:09:59,840
Speaker 1: a very articulate way to put feeling at odds with

1273
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:01,599
Speaker 1: the machine. Yeah.

1274
01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 2: I mean again, everything she says is like not wrong. Yeah,

1275
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:08,720
Speaker 2: it's not wrong. It's just you know, not how unfortunately,

1276
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:11,759
Speaker 2: not the way that the system works. Torre's two thousand

1277
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:14,320
Speaker 2: and three feature in Rolling Stone had some sources claiming

1278
01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:18,280
Speaker 2: that Columbia had spent over two and a half million

1279
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:21,160
Speaker 2: on a follow up to Miseducation by that point, and

1280
01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:25,000
Speaker 2: that they had subsequently cut her off. Her live shows

1281
01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:29,320
Speaker 2: around this time gained a reputation for starting hours late,

1282
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 2: if at all. Performances were frequently canceled. In December of

1283
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,400
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, during a performance in Vatican City,

1284
01:10:36,720 --> 01:10:40,280
Speaker 2: she spoke of the corruption, exploitation and abuses by the

1285
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:43,559
Speaker 2: Catholic Church, which again not wrong.

1286
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:46,479
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, read the room.

1287
01:10:48,320 --> 01:10:52,639
Speaker 2: Very shenade like yeah yeah yeah, but again in Vatican City,

1288
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:55,720
Speaker 2: which is arguably like the most punk thing that you

1289
01:10:55,760 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 2: could possibly do. But yes, totally, but like, yeah, I

1290
01:11:00,320 --> 01:11:03,640
Speaker 2: don't know how she thought that would go for her.

1291
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:06,719
Speaker 2: Fuji's reunited in two thousand and four for Dave Chappelle's

1292
01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:10,519
Speaker 2: Block Party, and Hill released she has released new music.

1293
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 2: She's become just more and more of a recluse. I

1294
01:11:14,040 --> 01:11:17,040
Speaker 2: found this delightful note in Wikipedia. One of the few

1295
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:19,560
Speaker 2: public appearances Hill made in two thousand and eight was

1296
01:11:19,600 --> 01:11:22,519
Speaker 2: at a Martha Stewart book signing in New Jersey. A

1297
01:11:22,640 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 2: fellow inmate, yes exactly. Speaking of tax evasion, then, of

1298
01:11:28,600 --> 01:11:32,679
Speaker 2: course there was the tax evasion. In June of twenty twelve,

1299
01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:34,720
Speaker 2: Hill was charged with three counts of tax fraud for

1300
01:11:34,760 --> 01:11:37,000
Speaker 2: failing to file taxes on one point eight million of

1301
01:11:37,080 --> 01:11:39,639
Speaker 2: income earned between two thousand and five and two thousand

1302
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:42,479
Speaker 2: and seven. In a long screed on her Tumbler account,

1303
01:11:42,600 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 2: Hill said that she had gone underground as a result

1304
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:51,200
Speaker 2: of quote a climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism,

1305
01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:54,320
Speaker 2: and agism. Going on to state when I was working

1306
01:11:54,360 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 2: consistently without being affected by the interferences mentioned above, I

1307
01:11:58,160 --> 01:12:00,920
Speaker 2: filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped when it

1308
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:03,919
Speaker 2: was necessary to withdraw from society in order to guarantee

1309
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:06,160
Speaker 2: the safety and well being of myself and my family,

1310
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:10,920
Speaker 2: which again makes sense. Sure, yeah, not a thing you

1311
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:11,280
Speaker 2: can do.

1312
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:14,839
Speaker 1: Though. She's a brilliant woman. I mean everything we discussed

1313
01:12:14,840 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 1: earlier about, you know, writing songs for Rutha Franklin and

1314
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:20,400
Speaker 1: Ya Houston at age twenty and going to Columbia and

1315
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:25,400
Speaker 1: being a homecoming queen and an athlete I guess, oh,

1316
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:29,639
Speaker 1: an yes, athlete I mean, and also an incredible actress too.

1317
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 1: I would assume that people who are that brilliant maybe

1318
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:38,720
Speaker 1: assume the rules don't apply to them, or that the

1319
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:42,559
Speaker 1: only way to change things in society is not to comply.

1320
01:12:43,520 --> 01:12:46,360
Speaker 2: Well, the government was of a different mind, and she

1321
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:49,559
Speaker 2: served just under three months in the minim security federal

1322
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:53,360
Speaker 2: prison in Danbury, Connecticut. In twenty twenty one, Hell made

1323
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:55,479
Speaker 2: the claim on a podcast that her label never asked

1324
01:12:55,479 --> 01:12:57,960
Speaker 2: how they could help her make another album, which is

1325
01:12:58,760 --> 01:13:04,599
Speaker 2: a commonly aggregate news piece. Despite all of that stuff

1326
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:08,320
Speaker 2: that I said, about Torre's feature claiming Columbia spent two

1327
01:13:08,360 --> 01:13:11,160
Speaker 2: point five million on her. I have to believe that

1328
01:13:11,320 --> 01:13:14,439
Speaker 2: that was not true. Like I far be it for

1329
01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:16,920
Speaker 2: me to call Lauren Hill a liar. But I don't

1330
01:13:17,080 --> 01:13:23,120
Speaker 2: think there's any way that that was. That's a true thing. Yeah,

1331
01:13:23,200 --> 01:13:26,800
Speaker 2: A source described the label to him as bending over

1332
01:13:26,960 --> 01:13:30,519
Speaker 2: backwards for her. But the fact of the matter is that,

1333
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:34,559
Speaker 2: other than if you're counting unplugged, Hill has never given

1334
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:37,479
Speaker 2: a proper full length album fall up to this. The

1335
01:13:37,520 --> 01:13:39,280
Speaker 2: big news this month is that she announced a twenty

1336
01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:43,160
Speaker 2: fifth anniversary toort commemorate Miseducation, and all the obvious jokes

1337
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:45,200
Speaker 2: about whether or not it'll start on time or if

1338
01:13:45,240 --> 01:13:47,240
Speaker 2: a new record will be timed to the album's fiftieth

1339
01:13:47,240 --> 01:13:51,040
Speaker 2: anniversary have been made, So thank you. That contest is

1340
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:53,519
Speaker 2: now closed. Thank you to everyone who wrote in yes,

1341
01:13:55,080 --> 01:13:57,400
Speaker 2: you know, I think the thing that makes me sadist

1342
01:13:57,400 --> 01:13:59,560
Speaker 2: about this is just the potential. I was reading a

1343
01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:05,080
Speaker 2: lot of inner views from artists like also now canceled Lizzo,

1344
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 2: and but just a lot of the young hip hop

1345
01:14:08,240 --> 01:14:11,200
Speaker 2: adjacent or R and B adjacent artists who talked about

1346
01:14:11,240 --> 01:14:14,840
Speaker 2: how truly crazy it was to have to see someone

1347
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:18,360
Speaker 2: like her have such a level of visibility and just

1348
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 2: world domination when they were.

1349
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:21,640
Speaker 1: Growing up, you know.

1350
01:14:21,760 --> 01:14:23,960
Speaker 2: And one of the things we didn't mention at one

1351
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:25,479
Speaker 2: point was that she had a tour that was like

1352
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:30,080
Speaker 2: co sponsored by Levi's, like you know, the jeans that

1353
01:14:30,200 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 2: was a big deal, Like it was a big fashion coup,

1354
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:36,400
Speaker 2: and getting on the cover of like Harper's Bizarre and

1355
01:14:36,560 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 2: Time magazine like that was really genuinely crazy, you know,

1356
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:45,360
Speaker 2: for a black woman at the time, especially in that

1357
01:14:45,560 --> 01:14:49,680
Speaker 2: era of hip hop. So that's what just makes me

1358
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:54,599
Speaker 2: sad about this is like, you know, there was seemingly

1359
01:14:54,720 --> 01:14:57,400
Speaker 2: such a long on road ahead of her and it

1360
01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:03,080
Speaker 2: just never materialized. She took the off ramp instead, you know,

1361
01:15:03,200 --> 01:15:07,280
Speaker 2: And being is that she hasn't talked about it a ton,

1362
01:15:07,439 --> 01:15:10,439
Speaker 2: you know, you can't really we can only take her

1363
01:15:10,479 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 2: at her word that it was the right move for

1364
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:15,880
Speaker 2: her and her family. But it's still, Yeah, it's just

1365
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:19,439
Speaker 2: like seeing that that idea of that potential never really

1366
01:15:19,479 --> 01:15:22,280
Speaker 2: materialize is really heartbreaking.

1367
01:15:24,640 --> 01:15:28,160
Speaker 1: What a bummer. Yes, but it almost gets back to

1368
01:15:28,240 --> 01:15:30,040
Speaker 1: the old is a better doo have loved and lost

1369
01:15:30,120 --> 01:15:31,240
Speaker 1: than never loved your girl?

1370
01:15:31,439 --> 01:15:33,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we still have the album. Man, it's

1371
01:15:33,520 --> 01:15:36,720
Speaker 2: still sold ten million copies. You know, you can't take

1372
01:15:36,760 --> 01:15:39,479
Speaker 2: that away from her. She broke all those records. She

1373
01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:41,360
Speaker 2: was and even if you know, even if she never

1374
01:15:41,439 --> 01:15:44,280
Speaker 2: lived up to the potential of being that figurehead and

1375
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:46,880
Speaker 2: that person for the hip hop community, she was still

1376
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 2: out there for a lot of kids growing up who

1377
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:52,800
Speaker 2: needed to see that. And that's what's ultimately still really

1378
01:15:52,800 --> 01:15:54,840
Speaker 2: important and what we can take away from it. And hey,

1379
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,120
Speaker 2: you know, if you get tickets, I really hope the

1380
01:15:58,200 --> 01:15:59,280
Speaker 2: show starts on time.

1381
01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:02,479
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Heigel. This has been too much information. Thank

1382
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:05,120
Speaker 1: you for listening, and I'm Jordan run Tagg. We'll catch

1383
01:16:05,120 --> 01:16:13,320
Speaker 1: you next time. Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio.

1384
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:16,839
Speaker 1: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg.

1385
01:16:17,000 --> 01:16:20,479
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show

1386
01:16:20,600 --> 01:16:24,080
Speaker 1: was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog and Alex Heigel,

1387
01:16:24,240 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 1: with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1388
01:16:27,800 --> 01:16:29,800
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1389
01:16:29,880 --> 01:16:33,880
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,

1390
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.