Speaker 1: Speaks to the planet.
Speaker 2: I go by the name of Charlamagne of God and
Speaker 2: guess what, I can't wait to see y'all at the
Speaker 2: third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming
Speaker 2: back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poeman
Speaker 2: Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions Decisions,
Speaker 2: Mandy B and Weezy. Okay, we got the R and
Speaker 2: B Money podcast. We're taking Jay Valentine. We got the
Speaker 2: Woman of All podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts. We got
Speaker 2: Good Mom's Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be there with
Speaker 2: her next sports podcast and the Trap Nerds podcast, with
Speaker 2: more to be announced. And of course it's bigger than podcasts.
Speaker 2: We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black owned businesses,
Speaker 2: plus the food truck court to keep you fed while
Speaker 2: you visit us. All right, listen, you don't want to
Speaker 2: miss this. Tap in and grab your tickets now at
Speaker 2: Black Effect dot Com Flash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1: R and B Money, we second take valleib We are
Speaker 1: the authority R and B Ladies and gentlemen. My name
Speaker 1: is Tank Valentine and this is the R and B
Speaker 1: Money Podcast. The authority on all things are n B. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, hit records, hit movies, dessert.
Speaker 3: You can't spell that.
Speaker 1: It's written right here on my phone class beauty and Talent.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: It's all package and a really cool paggage and it
Speaker 1: has a really really awesome being to define it. I
Speaker 1: would enjoy saying this name, announcing this.
Speaker 5: Person to be family, excuse my friends, but is oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Christine,
Speaker 5: I didn't know you.
Speaker 4: Were sta Okay, okay. It was a great intro.
Speaker 6: That was exciting, That was exciting, and I wish, you
Speaker 6: know what, we have it on tape if I ever
Speaker 6: go out and perform ever again, I'm gonna play that
Speaker 6: right at the beginning.
Speaker 4: You know, you have you the intro, that's my intro. Hi,
Speaker 4: what's the guys gonna be?
Speaker 1: Y'all give me million? Where's Lilyan?
Speaker 4: From my mom?
Speaker 6: So Carmen Million is my mom and my dog.
Speaker 4: And I'm Cuban, So I come from Cuban descent.
Speaker 6: But Cuba is like a melting pot, just several just
Speaker 6: different different cultures, different places and faces, and so from
Speaker 6: what I'm told, I mean, we have just a long
Speaker 6: lineage back.
Speaker 4: But it's Spaniard.
Speaker 6: It also feels very Italian if you have veryal But
Speaker 6: I don't know, I honestly, really I need to do
Speaker 6: one of those like twenty three and and just kind
Speaker 6: of go back, I know, because.
Speaker 4: Then you find out you're connected to a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of presents you don't want to be in contact even
Speaker 4: just that.
Speaker 7: Then they start, you know, they probably will be looking
Speaker 7: for people that they got certain that's true.
Speaker 6: What you're in the system. They might they might build
Speaker 6: a robot off of me. I found a little bit
Speaker 6: of inkling. What is the ear wax or what is
Speaker 6: it the nose?
Speaker 1: I didn't do it yet, No, sure yet. I'm just interested,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Because every time, every every
Speaker 1: time I'm around me him there, they say, start talking
Speaker 1: through me, you know. So I'm like, I must be
Speaker 1: I must be part of the community, you know. They
Speaker 1: told to me, and they see me, they say, hey,
Speaker 1: your name is Derail. That's my mama fault. But my
Speaker 1: middle name is out.
Speaker 4: With the role just artists.
Speaker 1: Artists, Okay, you know what it has? I like, like
Speaker 1: over over my e there's the thing. It's only found
Speaker 1: in the in the Spanish, right over top of.
Speaker 4: Okay, it count you even.
Speaker 1: Know what I'm talking about. It's US scree today.
Speaker 4: You're Spanish.
Speaker 1: I was taught Spanish. Is my first language? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Wait so in school or you mean in general? That
Speaker 4: was your first first language.
Speaker 1: My grandmother believed that that Spanish was going to be
Speaker 1: the first language of the US. One day, Wow, my
Speaker 1: grandmother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said, I'm going to put you
Speaker 1: in a Spanish immersion school kindergarten through fifth grade. I
Speaker 1: only learned Spanish, really, and you would lose recess if
Speaker 1: you talk English write the word Spanish too.
Speaker 4: Did you teach nobody? You're coming from me like, oh,
Speaker 4: your grandma me.
Speaker 1: I thought I was slick. I'd be like, she's like,
Speaker 1: where's your homework. I was like, it's right here, and
Speaker 1: she'd like this, So what all you got to do?
Speaker 1: I said, well, this says right here, no necessity, and
Speaker 1: then and then this part says I saw them, and
Speaker 1: then I'm done. And she said, okay, you can talk
Speaker 1: that Spanish stuff if you want to. I'm gonna see
Speaker 1: when the report car come out. And my dumb self
Speaker 1: like this, whatever, you know what I'm saying, And that
Speaker 1: report card came out English.
Speaker 4: Yes, maybe you got beep.
Speaker 8: Dang man.
Speaker 1: She lied to me. She told me, I was good,
Speaker 1: it's Spanish.
Speaker 6: You thought you had a secret language and everything thought
Speaker 6: I had a secret leg.
Speaker 1: Kids always think that they're smarter than the adults.
Speaker 6: I don't know why they do. My daughter, I had
Speaker 6: to talk with her this morning talking about stuff that
Speaker 6: wasn't turned in and how she found out three other
Speaker 6: people had turned it in and she had turned it
Speaker 6: into and the teacher wrote to me that they hadn't
Speaker 6: gotten it, but they sent the same message to everybody
Speaker 6: else and blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, everybody,
Speaker 6: this is the same story all the time. I never
Speaker 6: I don't think I tried to pull this stuff on
Speaker 6: my parents, but they were too smart.
Speaker 4: Dad was super smart. He was really strict to me. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: no no.
Speaker 6: I remember the day I had a C on my
Speaker 6: pre report you know, like the middle of the semester
Speaker 6: report card. I was an AB student and so I
Speaker 6: had a C.
Speaker 4: Do you know.
Speaker 6: I was crying on my walk home, like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: my dad, my parents are going to kill me. I
Speaker 6: got a C on my on my report card on
Speaker 6: the progress report. Oh my god, I was so scared
Speaker 6: about what would happen when I got home because it
Speaker 6: just meant that I wasn't doing my homework. It was
Speaker 6: meant I wasn't, you know, focus, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 6: My dad was big on like focusing and about you know,
Speaker 6: being great.
Speaker 4: And so when I had a.
Speaker 6: See, Oh my gosh, but you know what he was surprisingly,
Speaker 6: they were cool. I didn't get my my butt whipped.
Speaker 6: I gots yeah.
Speaker 1: Went out. We're talking about c's here.
Speaker 4: That mean that was average.
Speaker 1: First of all, when I got a SEE, was going
Speaker 1: to basket Rappers.
Speaker 6: Yes, you got the pizza.
Speaker 3: They knew you were going to master the middle seat.
Speaker 4: L Look what happens when you stay here with.
Speaker 1: Graduate. He didn't even need to school. He didn't even
Speaker 1: need to school. She said. I was getting a and
Speaker 1: BS and scene. No, it tormented me.
Speaker 4: It was terrible. I thought death was It was upon me.
Speaker 1: Christina. When was the identifying moment that you have a
Speaker 1: gift or something different to offer outside of your intellectual
Speaker 1: and scholasticabilities.
Speaker 6: Wow, okay, well outside of being extremely.
Speaker 4: You know, I knew early on.
Speaker 6: My mom says she saw it early of course a parent,
Speaker 6: they recognized things, and now as a parent, I recognize
Speaker 6: things in my.
Speaker 4: Children, so I get in.
Speaker 6: But she I was always singing, and I still to
Speaker 6: this day. There's not a moment in my day even
Speaker 6: if I'm having an argument or having a conversation, I
Speaker 6: don't even notice I'm humming or I'm singing. So I'm
Speaker 6: always like musically, it's always going through my head.
Speaker 4: I could be having me my mom would be screaming
Speaker 4: at me and she's like, stop, stop doing that, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm not doing it, and then she started
Speaker 4: talking again.
Speaker 6: I'm like, like, I don't know, it's it's something neurological,
Speaker 6: it's something, but I think it's a great thing. I
Speaker 6: say that musical people or people that sing like that.
Speaker 6: I'm like, you don't see like an unhappy person. I
Speaker 6: think that's just what keeps me in my little happy bubbles.
Speaker 4: Music. So it was really it was.
Speaker 6: It was the Greats that I was watching as I
Speaker 6: grew up. It was Michael Jackson, I was listening to
Speaker 6: Diana Ross. I was listening to a lot of oldies,
Speaker 6: a lot of motown. My parents only had AM radio
Speaker 6: in their car for some reason. It was like broken
Speaker 6: so Am Radio. I was just listening to old school
Speaker 6: stuff and I also just listened to everything all genres.
Speaker 4: So I was looking at the people and they.
Speaker 6: Like, I mean, especially Michael Jackson, like I can get
Speaker 6: chill still thinking about him to this day and seeing
Speaker 6: him being on stage and people passing out and screaming
Speaker 6: and sweating and just the energy. And I had dreams
Speaker 6: about it. So I would dream about like performing, and
Speaker 6: I'd dream about that same exact thing. And of course
Speaker 6: at the in the back, like the helm of that
Speaker 6: is having parents telling me I can do anything I
Speaker 6: want to do, be great at it, work hard at it,
Speaker 6: you know, just always enforcing this this energy in me
Speaker 6: to just want to go big and back then, those
Speaker 6: people had such a mystique about them, I just wanted
Speaker 6: to know so much, so I just I dreamt about
Speaker 6: it and I begged my parents. I really did to
Speaker 6: do what I do today. So they started me early,
Speaker 6: like they helped me out early. I don't want to
Speaker 6: say they started me because it was really a thing
Speaker 6: that I really like if you watch old camp quarter
Speaker 6: videos to me, like you couldn't get me off the camera.
Speaker 6: I was singing the Oscar Marina song. Whatever I can
Speaker 6: sing in front of the camera, they're like.
Speaker 4: Get away from the they're screaming up. I got screamed
Speaker 4: at a lot for.
Speaker 6: You know, people telling me sing for everybody, for the family.
Speaker 6: So I'd always have to sing some Italian aria, some
Speaker 6: opera thing or whatever. But it started really early, and
Speaker 6: I started like auditioning and stuff when I was a kid,
Speaker 6: mostly for acting because we didn't really know how to
Speaker 6: get in the music industry.
Speaker 4: I was living in Maryland because my dad was in
Speaker 4: the military.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, and my parents they were my dad and
Speaker 6: my mom. They started young, like they had me at
Speaker 6: seventeen and eighteen years old, and so these are like
Speaker 6: two Cuban refugees, you know, they'd come from Cuba five
Speaker 6: with their family, big family, and they met eventually in
Speaker 6: high school, fell in love. Well, I guess they fell
Speaker 6: in love. They had me, so they had to follow
Speaker 6: in love.
Speaker 4: Back then.
Speaker 6: They were like, y'all gotta get married, y'all gotta do this,
Speaker 6: and they got their lives together. And so my dad
Speaker 6: was in the military and that's what took us to Maryland.
Speaker 6: And in Maryland it was just you know, there's not
Speaker 6: much out there. At that time, but I grew up
Speaker 6: in the age of MTV. That was also the Information
Speaker 6: is the year MTV was really born, so it was
Speaker 6: just so exciting. So I just wanted to embody all
Speaker 6: of that. So I was just, you know, auditioning. I
Speaker 6: didn't really get anything for a long time, so my
Speaker 6: parents took me out because they were like, this costing
Speaker 6: us too much money and maybe you need to focus
Speaker 6: on school. And it was like a year later, I
Speaker 6: just I just I couldn't bear just doing that. Only
Speaker 6: I really asked my parents, like I really want to
Speaker 6: do the skin. They're like, Christina, we're going to be
Speaker 6: one more try. So they got an agent or whatever,
Speaker 6: and I went my first audition. I booked it and
Speaker 6: it was a national geographic campaign. It was like not
Speaker 6: a campaign, but back then you used to watch those
Speaker 6: scholastic videos a national geographic video when you were in
Speaker 6: elementary school about whatever. And so I was acting and
Speaker 6: like I did like three of them, and so that
Speaker 6: was my first thing I ever did.
Speaker 4: And then from there was just like.
Speaker 6: A little short small like baby steps and musical theater
Speaker 6: kind of was my first foray into music and acting.
Speaker 6: And I started out in DC at the Fords Theater
Speaker 6: doing a play and I was an understudy. So I
Speaker 6: was an understudy, so I had to learn everybody's lines.
Speaker 6: Everything not always nice to the understudy. So I learned
Speaker 6: that as a kid that you know to be patient.
Speaker 6: My time would come. But I watched people every night,
Speaker 6: had the whole thing memorized from top to bottom, everybody's lines,
Speaker 6: everybody's voice, this, that, and it was exciting. I got
Speaker 6: a chance to actually perform because I got chicken pox
Speaker 6: and then somebody else got chicken pox.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, not saying that you not saying that you
Speaker 1: took your chicken pox.
Speaker 4: I must have gone back a little too early.
Speaker 1: I can give you a hood.
Speaker 6: No, that's like our ongoing joke. But I guess technically
Speaker 6: it was. Maybe it might have been back to a
Speaker 6: little too soon. And so I got my opportunity to perform.
Speaker 6: And I just felt the energy of being on that
Speaker 6: stage performing for a crowd, the voice that you have
Speaker 6: to belt out, it was invigorating.
Speaker 4: I actually swore for my life like.
Speaker 6: The most of the beginnings of my career was musical theater,
Speaker 6: and I thought, that's all I want to do. My
Speaker 6: musical theater is my life because it was just such
Speaker 6: a good feeling to be live.
Speaker 3: So you weren't even thinking about making records or anything
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 6: No, I mean it was a dream, but I just
Speaker 6: we were like, maybe one day I'll get discovered. We'll
Speaker 6: be walking in them all and somebody discovered, or maybe
Speaker 6: I'll go on what was the one not start start
Speaker 6: star search, you know what I mean. But never bothered
Speaker 6: to like seek those things. It was just like, maybe
Speaker 6: we'll get discovered and tell me this.
Speaker 1: You two can speak to this as child stars and performers.
Speaker 1: I was terrified as a kid to get in front
Speaker 1: of that church and sing a solo, like.
Speaker 6: Terrified, But do you find it's maybe because you knew
Speaker 6: the people.
Speaker 4: I think if I.
Speaker 6: Sing in front of my family, I was like I
Speaker 6: don't want to sing in front of my family, But
Speaker 6: in front of strangers, I was about it.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is great, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean I would sneak and do it, like I
Speaker 1: would sneak and play my grandmother's piano when nobody was looking,
Speaker 1: sneak and play my cousin finals's drums when he wasn't looking.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't like I wasn't ready to get in
Speaker 1: front of five hundred one thousand people and that it
Speaker 1: wasn't emmy. Do you feel like that was something because
Speaker 1: with you having with you having pops and you having
Speaker 1: your parents that they kind of they kind of read
Speaker 1: in you in terms of getting you ready for that
Speaker 1: or do you feel like that you were born? I
Speaker 1: think I was ready for the world.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 6: I was just like I told you, I was such
Speaker 6: an extrovert because I was just I was born ready
Speaker 6: for the world because I knew, like with the idea
Speaker 6: that I could get discovered, because you'd hear these stories.
Speaker 6: No matter who it was that asked me to sing,
Speaker 6: I would just start singing anywhere. I'm like in the mall,
Speaker 6: blah blah blah, this place, that place. I would just
Speaker 6: start singing because I was like, this might be my
Speaker 6: opportunity to make it. And like I said, Michael Jackson, Ma, Donna,
Speaker 6: Janet Jackson, all these people to see that, I was like,
Speaker 6: I'm ready.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I was raised like yours being born.
Speaker 7: I think I was raised and early on, I think
Speaker 7: for me it was where's the money. My niggas got
Speaker 7: a couple of dollars on y'all this is what because
Speaker 7: I mean because early on too, like we were street performers. Yeah,
Speaker 7: like my family street performers, me and my brothers. So
Speaker 7: you know that how that goes. That's you know, the
Speaker 7: crowd gets around and they see these little kids and
Speaker 7: they throwing money. So I'm like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 7: So if you didn't have no money, I wasn't doing
Speaker 7: no singing. That's just kind of how it was for me.
Speaker 7: That's kind of how it is to this business. Business,
Speaker 7: so it is the juice worth to squeeze. If not,
Speaker 7: I'm going here and talk a little bit on this podcast.
Speaker 3: Managed to do some executive ship, but I.
Speaker 7: Was right, and I'm not about to just be out
Speaker 7: here sinking for free. So I think for me, I
Speaker 7: was I was more so raised into it and brought
Speaker 7: into it in that sense more so than like one
Speaker 7: day I was just oh I'm a singer now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I wasn't that me personally.
Speaker 4: I was just I wanted to.
Speaker 6: I was. I felt like I was destined for success
Speaker 6: and something. And my dad was like, you don't have
Speaker 6: to wait for any man to do it for you.
Speaker 6: You have to do this, do that. It's all in you.
Speaker 4: So I was just like, Okay, that's.
Speaker 1: Amazing, that's o Ye. When is discovery? When is like
Speaker 1: the real? Like I'm not going to say National Geographic
Speaker 1: when real because that's a gig. I know you got
Speaker 1: some money for that put in the account. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: do you feel like that that defining moment where it's like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, they all of these things that.
Speaker 4: I connecting.
Speaker 1: Manifest Yeah, I've been knowing I'm gonna do this. Now
Speaker 1: we're here looking at yah eye.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 6: So when I was thirteen, we moved to Los Angeles
Speaker 6: because I did a play at the Pantags Theater Pantage, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and all these agents started calling and asking me to stay.
Speaker 6: They said they had seen the show and they were like,
Speaker 6: she should stay in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: We were still living in Maryland.
Speaker 6: My mom was on the road with me, and so
Speaker 6: we're like, wow, Hollywood agents are asked for me to
Speaker 6: stay and they want me to come home and do this.
Speaker 6: So we considered it, but we went back home because
Speaker 6: my mom's my grandma was sick. So we went to
Speaker 6: go take care of her for like a good year
Speaker 6: year or two, and eventually cancer took over and she
Speaker 6: passed away. And by that time it was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: now it's time to take a chance and go We're
Speaker 6: going to do this.
Speaker 4: And I was ready.
Speaker 6: I was so ready to get out of Maryland. I
Speaker 6: was like, he's y'all, I'll see you later. I'm going
Speaker 6: to Hollywood in Maryland. West Lake High School, you know, Weslake.
Speaker 6: West Lake High School is in Waldorff, Charles County.
Speaker 4: That's where I grew up.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm in PG County.
Speaker 4: I forgot.
Speaker 6: We were both from We've been had that show one
Speaker 6: time in DC a long time ago. It was like
Speaker 6: a college and so yeah, PG County. I grew up
Speaker 6: over there. I grew up in Maryland, like right in the.
Speaker 1: Room of it and where you would go to go
Speaker 1: to up against the.
Speaker 6: It off with the you know, but the children's places,
Speaker 6: and then you grow up and you go up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so yes, it was cool, but I was ready
Speaker 6: to be out. So we just tried it out l
Speaker 6: a for a second. We said, okay, six months and
Speaker 6: see what happens. Nothing happened. Six months later, my sisters
Speaker 6: and we were supposed to come back, and my sisters
Speaker 6: and I booked all these commercials, and so the commercials
Speaker 6: is what kept us out here. So we stayed and eventually,
Speaker 6: like I started to get discovered. So I stayed at
Speaker 6: the Oca departments.
Speaker 9: We know the we started a lot of a lot
Speaker 9: of people's you know, their their journey and you had
Speaker 9: like people like Tupac and O dB, all these people there.
Speaker 6: I was always always around and I would be selling
Speaker 6: cookies with my sisters.
Speaker 4: They were in the girls Scouts and stuff you need.
Speaker 6: People got a lot of money d by and it's
Speaker 6: when I met Ronnie Jerkins. Yes, so right before Rodney Jerkins,
Speaker 6: I met another guy that was the in my building.
Speaker 6: They were called Spanky and Charles. And Spanky and Charles
Speaker 6: were the first people that they had like a little
Speaker 6: studio in their apartment and they were like, you do
Speaker 6: you sing? I was like, yes, I do, and they
Speaker 6: were like sing for us. So I sang, but all
Speaker 6: I sang back then was like classical arias and Broadway songs.
Speaker 4: So I'm like.
Speaker 6: To play life and real musical, like real musical theater.
Speaker 6: And so they brought me into the studio first. It's
Speaker 6: before I met Rodney. And this is all at the
Speaker 6: oak Woods also, and that's where I learned to like
Speaker 6: my first time behind a microphone and hearing my voice
Speaker 6: and on a song it was I was hooked.
Speaker 4: I was hooked, Like.
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 4: At this point, I was just thirteen.
Speaker 6: I was thirteen, and so we made like two songs
Speaker 6: were followed spanking and charles around. They were in like
Speaker 6: a band with like I don't remember. It wasn't earth
Speaker 6: Win the Fire, but it was somebody the Temptations or
Speaker 6: something I remember, but they were older gentlemen.
Speaker 4: And I was making like some R and.
Speaker 6: B, like you know records, but of that style of
Speaker 6: the night and of the nineties, but it was it
Speaker 6: was the nineties, yeah, And so I made a couple
Speaker 6: of demos and then eventually I just started meeting people.
Speaker 6: It was like a trickle effect. Just started meeting people,
Speaker 6: and Rodney Jerkins came around. And I met Rodney when
Speaker 6: I was about fourteen or fifteen fifteen, maybe fifteen forty
Speaker 6: to fifteen, and he.
Speaker 4: Was in his early stage. She was only like eighteen.
Speaker 6: He's like eighteen years old, and he invited us to
Speaker 6: the studio and I remember seeing these massive speakers. I've
Speaker 6: never seen such huge speakers in my life. And we
Speaker 6: played the music, your ear drums.
Speaker 1: Full out drink yeah, that's what he did.
Speaker 6: Yes, that was the first time I experienced music that way.
Speaker 6: I mean I used to play it up loud in
Speaker 6: our little tourists you know, our four tours that Yeah,
Speaker 6: we had the four tourist station wagon. I was the
Speaker 6: DJ in the car. But when we got to that
Speaker 6: studio and I heard that music and heard him play
Speaker 6: and watched him play, and he connected with me and
Speaker 6: my mom. So my mom is my right had died
Speaker 6: like this, I said, Carmen is my mom. She's my
Speaker 6: manager and for years, like she's just everywhere I went.
Speaker 6: We just did this together, and so we were like,
Speaker 6: maybe this is our opportunity to really like to get
Speaker 6: a record deal.
Speaker 4: And we're meeting people constantly.
Speaker 6: We're meeting people through Rodney, I'm meeting people at different avenues,
Speaker 6: just walking walking the street.
Speaker 4: Again, like I met a lot.
Speaker 6: Of different people, like you know, people from Babyfaces Camp.
Speaker 6: You know, people would just they were trying to find
Speaker 6: girls like to sing or to be in girl groups.
Speaker 6: And so I didn't know these people, but eventually, like
Speaker 6: you know, they were all legit and they're still here
Speaker 6: to this day.
Speaker 4: You know a lot of these producers A.
Speaker 6: And RS and stuff, but Rodney. I made some great
Speaker 6: people through Rodney and Rodney. Originally he asked me to
Speaker 6: make some demos. He was like, you want to make
Speaker 6: some demos, you could practice there and he wanted to
Speaker 6: sign me. So I was making demos for him and
Speaker 6: I got him. I got to watch him make the
Speaker 6: Boys Mine. I got to watch him make all that
Speaker 6: Brandy album that was a really good album, amazing. I
Speaker 6: got to see him work with Whitney Houston and he
Speaker 6: would just invite us to the studio. And that's the
Speaker 6: first time I experienced like, don't go to sleep, you know,
Speaker 6: you don't sleep, like working late at night, people talking, gathering,
Speaker 6: watching them work, listening to music. The music's so powerful.
Speaker 6: It's just like you dream big as this is happening.
Speaker 6: So that was really my first foray into the record
Speaker 6: business world. R and B world and Ronnie used to
Speaker 6: They used to make fun of me because I was
Speaker 6: They would say, I sing white so like they so
Speaker 6: I would go and make demos, but they're like, can
Speaker 6: you do this?
Speaker 4: Run? Can you do this? And I'm like, and Sean,
Speaker 4: you know everybody, they're making fun of me and stuff.
Speaker 6: But I was learning and trying and you know, trying
Speaker 6: to do runs. I just didn't do that. You know,
Speaker 6: when you do musical theater. It was just so like plugging,
Speaker 6: you know, learn and you stick to that. So I
Speaker 6: learned to find myself by myself emotionally. I wasn't writing
Speaker 6: back then, but I was singing other people's demos. But
Speaker 6: it was there that I learned that I wanted to
Speaker 6: write because it was the really like I just sometimes
Speaker 6: couldn't relate to the lyrics. So I wanted to write
Speaker 6: songs that related to me and to other kids and stuff,
Speaker 6: and so.
Speaker 4: That happened later on.
Speaker 6: But yeah, Brodney, I didn't end up signing with him,
Speaker 6: and I don't even think we got to the paper,
Speaker 6: but I started to the papers part of it. But
Speaker 6: I started to meet other people, and I think, like
Speaker 6: at sixteen, I took a music as a business class
Speaker 6: at Valley College over here, and I met a gentleman
Speaker 6: who worked with David Foster, and they also ended up
Speaker 6: wanting to offer me a deal.
Speaker 4: I got a little deal.
Speaker 6: The deal was offer was like twenty five thousand dollars,
Speaker 6: but it was David Foster, and I learned about the
Speaker 6: music business and I got an attorney, and then the
Speaker 6: attorney was like, you should probably meet some other people
Speaker 6: before you sign this deal. So we're like okay, and
Speaker 6: so they set up some meetings and I ended up
Speaker 6: going to New York and meeting with Island f Jam.
Speaker 6: I met with Sony, I met Tommy Mottola, I met
Speaker 6: Leo Cohen, and I just sang for them. I made
Speaker 6: a demo. I ended up writing a song for myself.
Speaker 6: It was called what You're going to Do. I have
Speaker 6: like songs that I wrote as a kid. I was
Speaker 6: because I'm the big sister, So I used to like
Speaker 6: write songs, do plays.
Speaker 4: In the house of my sisters. I used to make Yeah,
Speaker 4: they had to sing yeah to act out what I did.
Speaker 4: Pup show.
Speaker 6: I'm the director, you said, the puppet rail station, the
Speaker 6: record and play and record on the little play.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was me say this. They are the puppet
Speaker 4: by the way too.
Speaker 7: So you all these means you do the you do
Speaker 7: the whole thing. Yeah, where you go sit practically you
Speaker 7: you're naming all the labels at this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah everybody.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was that was crazy to me because like
Speaker 6: I finally had a little CD collection. Oh no, no,
Speaker 6: it might have been cassette. I wasn't on CDs yet.
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm not CD. But when I finally
Speaker 6: did get into CDs, I was sixteen seventeen years old
Speaker 6: and I had like my little record book, my little
Speaker 6: CD book, and I had most of the artists in
Speaker 6: there were rappers. I love the jay z Jall Rule,
Speaker 6: all these people. Most of them were artists. So in
Speaker 6: my head, I was like, you got either bad Boy.
Speaker 6: I was like, that would be cool to be on
Speaker 6: bad Boy, or I could be something like Deaf Jam
Speaker 6: and Deaf Jam.
Speaker 9: So those were like two big record laklans.
Speaker 4: Like what I had plans. I had dreams. It was
Speaker 4: really like dreams, but.
Speaker 1: You were very concerned. It's almost like you were studying,
Speaker 1: like this is gonna this is where, this is where
Speaker 1: it's gonna work best for me.
Speaker 6: I was like, there's no other person that competes. They
Speaker 6: would appreciate me this. I would be the girl of
Speaker 6: the team, you know what I mean. I would be
Speaker 6: that person. But at the same time, I was like,
Speaker 6: I want to be an urban pop artist, Like I'm
Speaker 6: not just R and B, but I'm urban pop. I
Speaker 6: want to go really mainstream, And back then they only
Speaker 6: had like, you're only listening to pop radio hip hop radio.
Speaker 4: Remember it was also, I'm so separated.
Speaker 6: If you wanted to be if you made a pop song,
Speaker 6: you want to be on R and B radio or
Speaker 6: hip hop radio, you had to get a feature from
Speaker 6: hip hop artists.
Speaker 4: Now it's all.
Speaker 6: So I had to find this like happy middle. But
Speaker 6: I just knew that I was both, you know, it
Speaker 6: was all of it. I was like, I'm not going
Speaker 6: to be just you know, one tone. And I was like,
Speaker 6: I want to dance, but I didn't know how to dance.
Speaker 6: By the way, I didn't I didn't take dance lessons.
Speaker 3: Or I wanted to dance.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I was like, I want to be Michael Jackson.
Speaker 6: I want to be Jenna Jackson, but I don't take
Speaker 6: dance classes because we can't afford it. But I'm going
Speaker 6: to do it the musical theater. I faked it the
Speaker 6: whole way too. I said I was the tap dancer.
Speaker 6: I said I could ride horses. I can skateboard. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I've seen kills, you know, ride never.
Speaker 1: Have a horse.
Speaker 4: I was like, I want to learn it.
Speaker 1: Pop in to the meeting. You pop it to the
Speaker 1: meeting and they say so you ride horses first.
Speaker 6: My skills were deep, but you have no idea that's
Speaker 6: how That's what my list was. So I was like,
Speaker 6: whatever the case is, I'm going to learn it, you know.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, I met Tommy Wutola, I went to them,
Speaker 6: I came back again, did a whole meeting. I met
Speaker 6: Jeff Finster at Island def Jam and he was the first.
Speaker 6: He was the one that discovered and signed Backsheet Boys.
Speaker 6: He was the A and R for Britney Spears and
Speaker 6: Sink and so they brought him over to Island f JAM.
Speaker 4: I was like, what a perfect union for what I want.
Speaker 1: You are doing so much.
Speaker 4: It was a great, amazing.
Speaker 1: Calculating and processing at an early age.
Speaker 4: Like I had a lot of information.
Speaker 1: None of that is like, give me a d I
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't even know that was like you're
Speaker 1: still talking about sixteen seventeen eighteen. I'm still at church,
Speaker 1: not even considering R and B. But I mean we
Speaker 1: had a deal with Verity Records doing gospel and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But I didn't even know what that meant,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: on my two keyboards and sing my songs. And write
Speaker 1: my songs. I didn't know there was life after that,
Speaker 1: that there was a whole thing happening that I was
Speaker 1: that was being stolen from me. I didn't know that, right,
Speaker 1: And so when I finally get to this R and
Speaker 1: B space, I don't know, they just say, yea, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get a deal with such.
Speaker 4: I'm like, cool, cool, and put the music out.
Speaker 1: Oh we lost that deal. We don't get a deal
Speaker 1: because we got another one coming there. We'll get deal
Speaker 1: with such.
Speaker 4: A Ya that happened. Yeah, people work didn't go through that.
Speaker 1: Barry Higginson says he would blackground records now is it cool?
Speaker 4: I'll I'll tak it whatever.
Speaker 1: But you're like doing so was that a result of,
Speaker 1: of course, not just you understanding or wanting to understand
Speaker 1: the terrain, but also having your mom involved to have
Speaker 1: that back and forth and have those those Yeah, my mom.
Speaker 6: I mean she, like I said, we were really close.
Speaker 6: We still we're very close. And like because she was
Speaker 6: a young mom. We were talking about her being in
Speaker 6: her thirties and I'm like, you know, early thirties. And
Speaker 6: it was when my parents, like I don't know where
Speaker 6: they were going to have a divorce. My dad asked
Speaker 6: for a divorce from my mom and that was like
Speaker 6: around fifteen, and it came as kind of a real
Speaker 6: big surprise, even though and I look at their history,
Speaker 6: I'm like, it shouldn't have been a surprise because things
Speaker 6: were all over the place, but it was normal back then.
Speaker 4: But it really, like all of a sudden, our life.
Speaker 6: Kind of changed, like like a from zero to one
Speaker 6: hundred real fast. We went from living this like it
Speaker 6: was a more middle class family life and really surviving
Speaker 6: off of what we you know, my money, our family money.
Speaker 6: It's nothing like my dad working his butt off. My
Speaker 6: mom had to quit her job help with all this stuff,
Speaker 6: and next thing you know, we were on our feet
Speaker 6: on our own, like my dad.
Speaker 4: It kind of shifted.
Speaker 6: It was a shift, and we've come to terms with
Speaker 6: the reasons why and everything, and you know what was
Speaker 6: happening in our life. But all of a sudden, it
Speaker 6: was my mom and I having to raise my two
Speaker 6: sisters and we decided to stay here in California instead
Speaker 6: of going back to Maryland. And so because we made
Speaker 6: that choice my dad, it was like a separation of
Speaker 6: everything from financ shoal to everything. So we were surviving
Speaker 6: on our own. So in that time, it was a rough,
Speaker 6: rough patch for my mom. She had, you know, months
Speaker 6: of crying and listen to unbreak my heart and Tony
Speaker 6: Braxton and the bathtub got.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 6: And I had to get her back on her feet
Speaker 6: and say, Mom, like we're here, We're still living life.
Speaker 6: And she had to get her life together again because
Speaker 6: she was just so distraught over it. And I remember
Speaker 6: we went to the grocery store and we went to
Speaker 6: go buy groceries and we found out like the credit
Speaker 6: cards everything was cut off, so we're gonna have to survive.
Speaker 6: And survival mode really was like we had just moved
Speaker 6: into our apartment everything we were gonna have to pay
Speaker 6: the the you know, the rent on our own without
Speaker 6: my dad and I'm only fifteen, you know.
Speaker 4: So she started taking temp.
Speaker 6: Jobs, I started babysitting, hosting at restaurants, We started cleaning
Speaker 6: houses together, and we really went through this survival mode
Speaker 6: of like work, work, work, but we were just working
Speaker 6: to survive. But also life was actually kind of great
Speaker 6: at that time when you're at your life hardest time
Speaker 6: and you really have faith, but you're in a situation
Speaker 6: where it's like we had no furniture. We just moved
Speaker 6: through the whole apartment thinking like life was gonna be fine.
Speaker 6: We had moved in, we didn't have furniture, we didn't
Speaker 6: have anything, and all of a sudden, we had nothing.
Speaker 4: You really appreciate with that nothing that.
Speaker 6: Says you appreciate, like having toilet paper from the dollar
Speaker 6: store instead of getting it from you know, McDonald's up
Speaker 6: the street and getting ketchup or whatever. You liked the
Speaker 6: can of beats that's the only food that you have
Speaker 6: in the house, and you mix it up with some
Speaker 6: olive oil and so, oh my gosh, it tastes like
Speaker 6: a damn stk rob and noodles taste like a steak
Speaker 6: and lobster. You're like, I don't know what these rich
Speaker 6: people are talking about, but I could live like this.
Speaker 4: This apartment is fine. We do. We as a family
Speaker 4: were such a union.
Speaker 6: And our friends were so dope. We had so many
Speaker 6: friends from all of rich my friends. I had a
Speaker 6: lot of kind of like young black, wealthy friends, and
Speaker 6: they used.
Speaker 4: To love to come to my house and like thug
Speaker 4: it out with us.
Speaker 6: It was like everybody's sitting on the floor watching TV
Speaker 6: and my Mom's just like the cheapest thing to make
Speaker 6: was like spaghetti or a list. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 6: cost anything for noodles and sauce, but she cooked it
Speaker 6: up and she would make a mass amount, and people
Speaker 6: just every day just loved being with us and didn't
Speaker 6: really feel like we were technically that we were broke,
Speaker 6: though we were like on the verge of eviction every
Speaker 6: other day, but we also just didn't feel like we
Speaker 6: were broke, like something still felt like we were surviving,
Speaker 6: even though there were some times that was like tough.
Speaker 6: But the one moment when we realized it was the tough,
Speaker 6: isn't it was the turnaround that we were like, let's
Speaker 6: focus on.
Speaker 4: This music part.
Speaker 6: You really want to do this, then let's focus is
Speaker 6: when my mom and I went to a we went
Speaker 6: to a food line in North Hollywood.
Speaker 4: There's a church.
Speaker 6: I know you've probably seen it all the time. It's
Speaker 6: on like Moore Park and like Colfax, and they still
Speaker 6: do this. They give away food to those that need it.
Speaker 6: And we went there because we had no food. And
Speaker 6: by the way, blessings would happen sporadically out of nowhere
Speaker 6: all the time, so that's like we find like one
Speaker 6: hundred dollars on the floor or something. Just random things
Speaker 6: would happen so that we really were surviving off of that.
Speaker 6: But it was in that line that I saw like
Speaker 6: the rest of the people that were there with us,
Speaker 6: and some people even more of a hopeless situation with
Speaker 6: no shoes, nothing, And we got like I was standing
Speaker 6: there with my mom and I just remember like I
Speaker 6: didn't want to show them, but I was crying, and
Speaker 6: I was like we it had gotten to this, you know,
Speaker 6: and we had gotten the food and they gave us,
Speaker 6: you know, all the necessary needs that we needed. And
Speaker 6: when we went home and I started opening the box
Speaker 6: and when as we were walking and I'm looking like
Speaker 6: there's ants in the boxes and stuff, and I'm crying,
Speaker 6: and my mom she said to me, Christine, and we
Speaker 6: made this promise to each other on that walk back
Speaker 6: home that we were going to focus, that we were
Speaker 6: going to sacrifice. We were going to sacrifice the fun
Speaker 6: and all different all the other stuff to focus on
Speaker 6: my career.
Speaker 4: She started reading books.
Speaker 6: She had just started reading books about music as a business,
Speaker 6: and this is what made me go to school for
Speaker 6: music as a business. She read about just contracts and
Speaker 6: focusing on that because we seemed so close to everything,
Speaker 6: but it just never got there. We were like, there's
Speaker 6: something there, and I really wanted it. And so we
Speaker 6: made this promise to each other that I would always
Speaker 6: take care of her. To promise that to my mom
Speaker 6: to this day, I said, I just need you to
Speaker 6: focus on managing me. I need you to focus on me,
Speaker 6: and we'll focus on this together. We got to get
Speaker 6: out of this rut. And so we went home. We
Speaker 6: put on all white, lit some candles and said a
Speaker 6: prayer with my sisters and we had this joke with
Speaker 6: my mom said a prayer on her knees. Like answers
Speaker 6: were came immediately, and so we said, I can't tell
Speaker 6: you about the job she was.
Speaker 4: Doing at the time, but they's just.
Speaker 6: Say she had to use her voice, yes, And let
Speaker 6: me tell you the next day.
Speaker 4: Her voice was gone. She needed her voice for this job.
Speaker 6: And just like our neighbors knocked on the door said hey,
Speaker 6: we're moving out. Do you want the milk? Do you
Speaker 6: want the stuff in our cabinet? And like we just
Speaker 6: appreciated all the little things, the little answers were coming
Speaker 6: to us. I would find like ten cents under the
Speaker 6: couch so I can get a little gas, just so
Speaker 6: I can go to the Valley College and get my
Speaker 6: anda take these lessons. And that's where I met the
Speaker 6: gentleman from David. So it was like we're just getting
Speaker 6: these little answers. But we were going to this crazy
Speaker 6: time in life. And when we went to New York,
Speaker 6: it was like, we're in New York and I have
Speaker 6: to make this happen. And so yes, it was a
Speaker 6: strategy and it was a there was we It was
Speaker 6: a lot of homework. We really my mom My mom
Speaker 6: is the mostly especially the spiritual part holds us down.
Speaker 6: And that's where I became connected, the spiritual part, because
Speaker 6: I understood religion as a kid, but I still didn't
Speaker 6: understand it. But it was then that I became spiritual
Speaker 6: and I had conversations with God and that's when I
Speaker 6: was like everything was just starting to unfold itself. And
Speaker 6: the day I so I got the deal with Island
Speaker 6: Deaf jam oh M.
Speaker 4: Just Censer came to me again, offered the deal.
Speaker 6: I went in sing acapella, got my deal singing acapella
Speaker 6: and what You're gonna do about a demo?
Speaker 4: And the day I finally signed my deal. We literally
Speaker 4: drove our little tour station wagon to the attorney's office
Speaker 4: and that.
Speaker 6: Thing it was broken down. We were laughing, my mom
Speaker 6: and I because there was smoke coming out the car.
Speaker 6: We had to push our car there. We had to
Speaker 6: push our car there. We finally made it there. It
Speaker 6: was right off of like Highland and Hollywood Boulevard. Signed
Speaker 6: my deal and on the way home we got it
Speaker 6: to start again, and then it stopped like right on
Speaker 6: the hill, like you know when you're like the Hollywood Bowl, and.
Speaker 4: Stopped right there.
Speaker 6: We were there and my mom and I are laughing
Speaker 6: and crying, laughing like we just signed a deal for.
Speaker 4: One hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: I didn't think I'd ever seen money like that, and
Speaker 6: we went from zero I had actually been. We were
Speaker 6: getting evicted and my attorney had to forward us money
Speaker 6: in the meantime because I wasn't going to be able
Speaker 6: to pay it. And so we're laughing and crying and like,
Speaker 6: look at us, look at what's happening right now. It
Speaker 6: was so humble. It's so humble, our humble beginnings, Like
Speaker 6: stick with me. That's probably why I'm very frugal and
Speaker 6: all this other stuff because I'm like always like you know,
Speaker 6: I save and other stuff lasting out. I can laugh
Speaker 6: at it, right, right, But it's those humble beginnings that
Speaker 6: I always draw back to and my connection with God
Speaker 6: and I was my spiritual side. That's really like that
Speaker 6: opened up when I was sixteen fifteen, sixteen years old
Speaker 6: and those times and yeah, you know that is now.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 7: That's an incredible story. And it just shows you got
Speaker 7: to stick to what you really want. Yeah you know
Speaker 7: what I mean, because so many people you just never
Speaker 7: know how close you are, yes, right, And for you
Speaker 7: and your mom to have that moment together to say, listen,
Speaker 7: all right, no more this, no more that, no more this,
Speaker 7: because we're focused on getting you to a certain place
Speaker 7: and actually getting there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that moment.
Speaker 7: Of relief and that like you said your car had
Speaker 7: broken down, but you broke down with a with one
Speaker 7: hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 1: You got five if you just picked me up.
Speaker 4: Somebody pushed us.
Speaker 6: They pushed ark and said there was somebody saw us
Speaker 6: and they pushed our car from their car and they
Speaker 6: pushed us up the hill. But yeah, it's crazy that
Speaker 6: walk that I had with my mom was like an
Speaker 6: it was an eye because the option was stay and
Speaker 6: dug it out and let's make this happen, or go
Speaker 6: back to Maryland. And I was like, I just don't
Speaker 6: see it. I don't see me going back to Maryland.
Speaker 6: All my friends that I had from back in Maryland
Speaker 6: at that time, they started, you know, doing drugs out
Speaker 6: of boredom. There's stuff that kids do in towns like
Speaker 6: that that is just out of boredom. And if they
Speaker 6: don't have, they weren't dreaming, already motivating. I was in
Speaker 6: a different position. I still just felt like I could
Speaker 6: see it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going back to There.
Speaker 4: Was no giving up. I was like, I'm not giving up.
Speaker 1: And that Maryland was a bad place, not at all.
Speaker 4: It just felt like the opportunity.
Speaker 1: I'm in Hollywood, the land of opportunity. If I go home,
Speaker 1: if I just pack it up and go home, I've
Speaker 1: given up.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's exactly, And I was not. I was not
Speaker 4: giving up.
Speaker 1: So let me just move out to Rancho Cuckamonga, you know,
Speaker 1: just a little ways away, okay, where I can afford it,
Speaker 1: you know, where they can't really see me doing bad
Speaker 1: or Corona. Yeah, you know what I mean, until I'm
Speaker 1: still here. I still I still can drive my stick
Speaker 1: shift Ford Escort.
Speaker 3: So you had a Ford that Scort, she had a
Speaker 3: four tours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're in the family. Thank you for you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, the very wheel spell off.
Speaker 3: So now you got your deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: People don't realize now it's a whole nother process.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because now you gotta find songs.
Speaker 7: Now you got to people, you might get shelved.
Speaker 3: How long does it take you to get to the
Speaker 3: record with you and ji U? Between me and you?
Speaker 6: Okay, I think it took I signed my deal September.
Speaker 6: I think by the next summer that that song came out.
Speaker 6: So I signed my deal. I was making music.
Speaker 3: Are you still acting? In between two?
Speaker 6: Though I was at the I was I had gotten
Speaker 6: to the job on Disney Channel, so I was like
Speaker 6: Tina from the movie Surfers.
Speaker 4: So that was actually that was one of those.
Speaker 6: Checks that would come I would get sporadically, that was
Speaker 6: like one of the things that helped us. So I too,
Speaker 6: and I was getting a name for being Tina from
Speaker 6: the movie Surfers. And also this probably helped me move
Speaker 6: my deal. Because Disney kids were popping and popping through
Speaker 6: they were trying to find Disney kids. So that probably
Speaker 6: really helped because when I look at it, I'm like,
Speaker 6: I don't sing that great, and I wasn't dancing.
Speaker 4: Oh, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But I had enough of a chance and a globe
Speaker 6: that walked in and they were like they saw it,
Speaker 6: and so yeah, I had squit this Disney because by
Speaker 6: then I was like seventeen, eighteen eighteen, and I was like,
Speaker 6: I can't do this high pitch voice anymore.
Speaker 4: And I was just in the studio and surviving off
Speaker 4: this money. So I was doing fun.
Speaker 6: I didn't have to do the acting at the moment,
Speaker 6: and I was tired of doing like girl number four,
Speaker 6: number three, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I wasn't getting my main roles.
Speaker 6: So I was making music and unfortunately, for a period
Speaker 6: of time, there was I did it something that could
Speaker 6: have helped me back. I ended up in an abusive
Speaker 6: relationship for a little while, but my def gen people
Speaker 6: really like stuck with me, and my mom was on me,
Speaker 6: and I stuck it out and I eventually got out
Speaker 6: of that and I made this trip my A and R.
Speaker 6: Jeff said come to New York and start working on
Speaker 6: music here. So I went to New York and in
Speaker 6: that trip, I was able to break off of that relationship.
Speaker 6: I cut off my phone number. This that though I feared,
Speaker 6: you know, for the worst, I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: take this chance, and I really want this.
Speaker 4: I can't let this stop me.
Speaker 6: And so I went to New York and I started
Speaker 6: working on music there and I met my Her name
Speaker 6: is Shanita Floyd.
Speaker 4: She was like my creative director, I guess, she would say.
Speaker 6: And she got a call from IRV Gotti and IRV
Speaker 6: was looking for somebody to sing between me and you,
Speaker 6: and he wanted somebody that kind of sing.
Speaker 4: Like Mariah Vibe. He wanted, like I forgot the song.
Speaker 6: There was a song that Mariah did maybe with buster
Speaker 6: rhymes or something like that, and he wanted that kind
Speaker 6: of sweet spot voice. And they or the song was
Speaker 6: written and she's like, go to the studio and I
Speaker 6: was like, they're like, would you want to do this?
Speaker 4: I was like yeah. I was like, I'll go to
Speaker 4: the studio and hear the song.
Speaker 6: So I went and I met IRV and I had
Speaker 6: Irven his God bless him, and May he rest in peace.
Speaker 6: He had this loud New York energy and everything with
Speaker 6: bananas and it was electric.
Speaker 4: Banana.
Speaker 6: That was the first time I was in the studio,
Speaker 6: so like there was a gun on the table. I
Speaker 6: was like, oh my here, you know, the guys had
Speaker 6: to protect themselves. But Job Rule was one of my
Speaker 6: first you know, theft jam albums CDs that I bought,
Speaker 6: so I was a band of Ja Rule, like, oh yeah,
Speaker 6: I want to work with them, And so he played
Speaker 6: me to the song and the song was dope.
Speaker 4: It was there.
Speaker 6: So I went in the booth, sang it, didn't know
Speaker 6: anything of it, left, the left my mom and I left,
Speaker 6: and within a month we're shooting a music video David
Speaker 6: Myers up in like Porter Ranch, Chatsworth and this giant
Speaker 6: house and I'm shooting a video and it was like overnight.
Speaker 6: It was those chances that I would take of sacrificing,
Speaker 6: Like even when you're in an abusive relationship, it is
Speaker 6: a sacrifice to leave something because you're scared and you're
Speaker 6: also so in love brainwashing that person. You're like, you know,
Speaker 6: I could you know You're It's it's a it's a
Speaker 6: sacrifice I had to make because my heart was so
Speaker 6: in it, but I knew it was the wrong thing.
Speaker 6: So it was when I would take those chances and
Speaker 6: follow my heart and connect with God that I would
Speaker 6: have these amazing turnovers, like these turns in my life
Speaker 6: that was like it. God was always telling me, see,
Speaker 6: like I'm your friend, I got you, I got you,
Speaker 6: and I did. The video song came out and I
Speaker 6: didn't really know that it was like blowing up like that.
Speaker 4: It was crazy.
Speaker 6: I was like, yeah, like at Ralph's on Venture Boulevard
Speaker 6: one day, all of a sudden, I'm power one of six,
Speaker 6: I'm hearing the song and I'm sitting in the in
Speaker 6: the parking lot with my mom, and I'm like, I
Speaker 6: just thought, I'm calling people.
Speaker 4: I'm hearing myself on the radio like like it was.
Speaker 6: It was that's when you you cry and you're counting
Speaker 6: your blessing. You're connecting back to the moment of walking
Speaker 6: and you know, you know, the whole I've lived. I
Speaker 6: still live in the area where all of this stuff happens,
Speaker 6: you know, So I passed by these places and remind
Speaker 6: myself of this stuff all the time.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the job Rol.
Speaker 6: Song came out, Give You that's when the label was like, okay, studio,
Speaker 6: I go to Sweden. Oh yeah, like yeah, I go
Speaker 6: to Sweden. It had been took like four months. It
Speaker 6: was like maybe maybe two maybe two and a half months.
Speaker 6: I made an album.
Speaker 1: And you said to Sweden to make it.
Speaker 6: I went to Sweden. I went to Norway. That was
Speaker 6: my first time at the country. I still have these videos.
Speaker 6: Was watching the other day and I was such a novice,
Speaker 6: like like, wow, look there's a burger king.
Speaker 4: Wow, this is that?
Speaker 6: And and yeah, I went and worked with a couple
Speaker 6: couple people stricken to Rogers.
Speaker 4: These guys name bloodshin Avunt, even what's his name?
Speaker 6: My mama, Mama Mark Mark when we made all the
Speaker 6: Brittey Spears records, I should.
Speaker 3: Know this, Yeah, Max Martin.
Speaker 4: Historic. So these are people.
Speaker 6: Well I'm like watching, you know, and I'm in the
Speaker 6: studio making records. And I started writing.
Speaker 3: I really started the I started.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was with Bloodshed. I started writing.
Speaker 6: And because people were giving me songs at eighteen talking
Speaker 6: about there were either two overly sexualized or always like
Speaker 6: I've got pictures of him on my wall.
Speaker 4: I look at him.
Speaker 6: It's always admiration and like over the top of guys,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, well, what about my real experiences, Like
Speaker 6: I didn't fit in in school, girls didn't like me,
Speaker 6: you know the you know the records about.
Speaker 4: Just like real high school stuff.
Speaker 6: And so I started writing those songs with really great
Speaker 6: melodies and pop sounds. And when I was working with him,
Speaker 6: I ended up writing a song called play also, and
Speaker 6: that was supposed to be like I wrote that right
Speaker 6: before song. The next day, I wrote a song called
Speaker 6: AM to PM. So play was something I did in
Speaker 6: like twenty minutes. I didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, it's cool, Bampa, doctor Seuss. I
Speaker 4: was like, is this too simple? My Mom's like it's great,
Speaker 4: you know simple, It's good.
Speaker 6: And by the way, I studied to write because I
Speaker 6: didn't think I could write, So my mom told me,
Speaker 6: if you could read, you could write. So I did
Speaker 6: study a lot of the greats to learn how to
Speaker 6: write songs in the formats, all that stuff that was
Speaker 6: happening also in those really broke times.
Speaker 4: So that's what we do.
Speaker 6: We go to Second Spin on Ventura and we would
Speaker 6: listen to music for free, because you get the CDs,
Speaker 6: you listen to music and so anyways, so that's how
Speaker 6: I learned how to write, learn how to format.
Speaker 4: I wrote a first song, my first song called you
Speaker 4: Make Me Laugh.
Speaker 6: Anyways, So play happens and I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 6: a good song write am TOPM.
Speaker 4: I'm like, that's a great song. This is me.
Speaker 6: And then like a week later, Tommy Watola comes to
Speaker 6: Sweden to come get some songs for j LO and
Speaker 6: he hears the song play and he's and he fell
Speaker 6: in love with it, and he's like, we need this
Speaker 6: song for Jenny Lopez. And they were like do you
Speaker 6: are you? Do you? Are you cool to give it away?
Speaker 4: I was like, oh yeah, yes, please, yes, I don't
Speaker 4: like the song like that. I was like, am TOPM.
Speaker 6: Was my party song. I was like, there's no way
Speaker 6: they're going to put two party songs on this album.
Speaker 6: I'm going to keep AM to PM. Yes, yes to
Speaker 6: j LO. And so yeah, I'm like I got a
Speaker 6: song on j LO by accident.
Speaker 4: It was so cool.
Speaker 6: I went to New York she recorded the song like
Speaker 6: it blew my mind. And then I started writing for
Speaker 6: other people too, and it's just it was crazy and yeah.
Speaker 4: Eventually AM to PM came out of course.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately it came out around the nine to eleven era,
Speaker 6: so a lot of that changed, a lot of the
Speaker 6: trajectory of music. I ended up getting Johnny Right as
Speaker 6: a manager, so he started co managing with my mom
Speaker 6: and Johnny Wright.
Speaker 4: Was handling Britney Spears and Sync.
Speaker 6: When I tour within Sync, which was cool and opening
Speaker 6: for them, Yes, I opened for.
Speaker 4: Them and the week my album was it was crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I met my idol. The day I went to MTV,
Speaker 6: I met Jenny Jackson.
Speaker 3: The one day you go up there having a meeting.
Speaker 6: Jenny Jackson was going to surprise PRL and come out
Speaker 6: and they decided they said.
Speaker 4: You want to meet her?
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, They.
Speaker 6: Brought me down to her. I walked in that room. Guys,
Speaker 6: I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. I
Speaker 6: was like, like, I said, Hi, I was like so timid.
Speaker 4: I had my mom with me. All I said was
Speaker 4: nice to meet you. She was glowing. That's the thing.
Speaker 4: I walked in there. She was glowing. She had an
Speaker 4: art she was glowing, and she.
Speaker 6: Was petite, and she was telling me that she saw
Speaker 6: my music video and she was telling me, my mind, did.
Speaker 3: You never know who's watching no, you never know who's watching.
Speaker 6: It blew my mind and I was on MTV. I'm like,
Speaker 6: this is my dreams that come in true. Like she
Speaker 6: left the room or I left the room, I can't
Speaker 6: even remember. And I was I cried for two hours
Speaker 6: and laughter in tears and crying good.
Speaker 4: Like I was crazy, but I was crying.
Speaker 6: I was so happy, like everything just unfolded so beautifully
Speaker 6: and so it was so cool and it was such
Speaker 6: a time. This is why people don't like. People ask
Speaker 6: me about doing music now and I just don't know.
Speaker 1: It's cool. It's cool, is it? I have to ask you.
Speaker 6: My husband does it, but he does it in France,
Speaker 6: I think on a really international level. And I had
Speaker 6: MTV and I had the nineties, nineties, two thousands.
Speaker 1: Early two thousands, man please, there was like, yeah, there
Speaker 1: was so music mediums, like especially visually you know what
Speaker 1: I mean with that MTV and those like music videos,
Speaker 1: worry things.
Speaker 6: You spent your money on that being man what And
Speaker 6: people watched it. People came home after kids came home
Speaker 6: after school.
Speaker 4: It was a tradition.
Speaker 3: I think they made it more normal.
Speaker 7: Now music feels too in my opinion, it feels too normal.
Speaker 1: Because back then, doing a video right was special because
Speaker 1: you have to actually have an't you called just content.
Speaker 1: You have to have a You couldn't use this to
Speaker 1: shoot a video.
Speaker 7: I mean the first time a director said that to me,
Speaker 7: he was like, you know, I shot it on my iPhone.
Speaker 3: I said, oh, we're fucked. Dang, I said, we're fuck.
Speaker 4: No, in my head, I was like when someone said that,
Speaker 4: I was like, damn.
Speaker 6: If I would have had that, then do you know
Speaker 6: how many songs I wanted to put out or how
Speaker 6: many videos I wanted to do? People telling me no
Speaker 6: because you technically did what the label told you in
Speaker 6: a way or what they were down for what they
Speaker 6: would commit to. But like I have video ideas. I
Speaker 6: wanted to shoot so many things, and eventually people did.
Speaker 4: Do that, and I was like, damn, I should have
Speaker 4: done that.
Speaker 1: Well, it just wasn't economical back No, it wasn't. Yeah
Speaker 1: that and that's you know that, that's where videos also
Speaker 1: made star videos may start.
Speaker 3: They made stars.
Speaker 7: These pieces of content don't really make our stars.
Speaker 3: Like they introduced you to artists.
Speaker 7: They engagement, and it's engagement, but maybe not even I
Speaker 7: won't say they don't make superstars they don't make superstars.
Speaker 4: All the superstars have videos with labels and still.
Speaker 1: Still don't you got videos? Still it says they got
Speaker 1: video Chris Brown got videos, Beyones got videos, drakevideos, can videos.
Speaker 4: Name some new people who got videos.
Speaker 3: They don't got videos.
Speaker 1: Those your cat got videos. Those you can't got videos.
Speaker 3: But those are super That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Those are Those are the superstars now though, and they
Speaker 7: still have that. The rest of the artists don't have that.
Speaker 7: Let me shoot this in my hood real quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Get a buzz off of it, and that's cool.
Speaker 7: It's not gonna make it to me because it's just
Speaker 7: something about the screen, something about that screen, right, It's
Speaker 7: just like being.
Speaker 6: In the movie There was Now I don't even get
Speaker 6: to watch music videos.
Speaker 3: Did I make music videos?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm surprised.
Speaker 6: Sometimes there are videos, but we just don't get to
Speaker 6: seek them all the way. Like I'll find out when
Speaker 6: I go on the treadmill and I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 6: just want to see listen to music, So I'll go
Speaker 6: on put a playlist on, and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4: They made a video for that. Like, but you're right.
Speaker 6: Still, some people are just making like lyric videos and
Speaker 6: stuff because it's like why spend the money. But it
Speaker 6: was just a different time. We had the platforms. Is
Speaker 6: when we had we had MTV overseas, we had all
Speaker 6: these different networks of shows that you will perform on
Speaker 6: PEPSI smash this, that, blah blah blah, and it was
Speaker 6: just so exciting. And I just don't like if it
Speaker 6: doesn't give me that vibe, and I got a hustle
Speaker 6: and that probably not make any money, not that much money,
Speaker 6: and leave sacrificed my family for that. It doesn't feel
Speaker 6: really worth it for me right now to do that.
Speaker 6: And I just feel like I lived in such a
Speaker 6: good time. And actually back then you can kind of
Speaker 6: know what the numbers were. I don't know how y'all
Speaker 6: count the numbers streams and this, that that, and figure
Speaker 6: out how you make money off of this as an
Speaker 6: artist just for music.
Speaker 4: You know, now it's just touring and maybe merchant stuff.
Speaker 4: But figure out the numbers how you do that character show?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's that's a big tricky That's the only
Speaker 7: real thing. Those the numbers that they've created. Now as
Speaker 7: far as like the streaming, it's all bullshit. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 7: say it clearly, it's all bullshit, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Somebody telling you that you gotta stream fifteen hundred times
Speaker 7: for it to be considered one download?
Speaker 3: Like who made that dumb ass shit up?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Crook?
Speaker 4: That's crazy?
Speaker 3: Crook made that up?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: Because and then it's like, okay, are the numbers even real?
Speaker 7: Because you can trick the algorithm. Somebody may have phones
Speaker 7: just running over unning about that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of things.
Speaker 7: The only thing that's that's in my opinion, that's really
Speaker 7: tangible is going out there and performing for your for
Speaker 7: your audience and for your fans.
Speaker 1: When you show up to that room five hundred or
Speaker 1: one thousand or fifteen hundred, that's gonna tell strong what
Speaker 1: the truth is outside. All that makes the stream and
Speaker 1: YouTube and all I get it? What do the people say, though, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's how you define it. Yeah, I'm gonna jump around
Speaker 1: a little bit because my stories no no, no, no, no, I'm learning, like,
Speaker 1: like I've learned so much about you that it's really really.
Speaker 4: Cool that I had no idea good, Like.
Speaker 1: Really your journey is really really awesome, let's go here
Speaker 1: because because this is I want to go and sequence
Speaker 1: your order. Love don't cost the thing? Oh two thousand.
Speaker 4: And three, right, great movie?
Speaker 1: Yep, how'd you land that? Just me me quick.
Speaker 4: I was surprised. I was going away with that one.
Speaker 6: My first album came out only overseas because, like I said,
Speaker 6: nine to eleven kind of change the trajectory of that.
Speaker 6: But I had a name that was out there. Am
Speaker 6: TOPM did come out between me and you came out.
Speaker 6: But I got a call from Troy Bayer. That's she's
Speaker 6: an actress who was also a director.
Speaker 4: She's great.
Speaker 6: She ended up writing the script to have a general meeting,
Speaker 6: and that was one of my first general meetings that
Speaker 6: I had. It was like an in between album thing.
Speaker 6: I was coming back to you know, LA, because I
Speaker 6: was on the road everywhere. I traveled to over like
Speaker 6: thirty five countries off just the first album because I
Speaker 6: went overseas, and so I came back and they asked
Speaker 6: me to have I ended up getting an agent because
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm interested in acting again, and I
Speaker 6: got an agent and she got the call about this meeting.
Speaker 6: So when had a meeting and didn't have a.
Speaker 4: Script or anything.
Speaker 6: They had introduced me, given me a script, and they
Speaker 6: were just talking to me, and I'm like, okay, cool,
Speaker 6: We're here having this meeting in Santa Monica talking and
Speaker 6: it was like the producers and stuff didn't really know
Speaker 6: anything of what was happening. But she was just smiling.
Speaker 6: She was just so happy to see me. It's just
Speaker 6: something to director Troy, and she kind of looked like
Speaker 6: she could be like my big sister. So I think
Speaker 6: she saw her in me. And by the end of
Speaker 6: the meeting, she's like there telling me, we want you
Speaker 6: to do this movie. And I was like, really, like,
Speaker 6: I had been auditioning my whole life for everything, for
Speaker 6: small roles because they didn't have as many black roles,
Speaker 6: black Latina rolls, anything like that back then. So I
Speaker 6: was always auditioned for really small roles or the best
Speaker 6: friend of or something. And they said they want me
Speaker 6: to do this movie. And back then it wasn't even
Speaker 6: with Warner Brothers. Yet they got the green light off
Speaker 6: of me, off of my name, and so I read
Speaker 6: the script loved it. It reminded me of Can't Buy
Speaker 6: Me Love, which it is a remaking Can't Buy Me Love.
Speaker 6: So I knew the vibe. I didn't know actually until
Speaker 6: later on, that it was actually a reimagining of and
Speaker 6: so they said, if you want to do it, then
Speaker 6: we'll bring it to Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers said yes.
Speaker 6: They green lit the movie off of me saying yes.
Speaker 6: And then we had to find the guy. And so
Speaker 6: they thought of a couple guys. But I thought of
Speaker 6: you know who I thought of? So I thought of
Speaker 6: two guys. It was the guy who played Jet Jackson
Speaker 6: on Nickelodeon. And I thought of Nick Cannon. And there
Speaker 6: was saying, that's funny, we were think about Nick Cannon two,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. So had a general meeting with
Speaker 6: them and I connected with Nick. And now the reason
Speaker 6: I thought about Nick cause Nick used to hit on
Speaker 6: me all the time when I was younger, and I
Speaker 6: just felt like, you know.
Speaker 4: The whole and I always felt like he was nerdy.
Speaker 6: He was young, Yeah, we were both young, but I
Speaker 6: always felt like he was a little bit nerd.
Speaker 4: He just wasn't my type, you know. So I was like,
Speaker 4: how perfect fit. He's popular in Nickelodeon.
Speaker 6: It's this and he's actually a really nice guy and
Speaker 6: so when he came in and we all had this meeting,
Speaker 6: they were like they still were on the fence. They
Speaker 6: were thought maybe jee Jackson, and I was like, no,
Speaker 6: it's Nick. I think it's Nick. And so they went
Speaker 6: off of my off of my.
Speaker 4: Say and said we'll do Nick.
Speaker 6: And so Nick ended up being Alvin and within what
Speaker 6: didn't take much like I don't even know how they
Speaker 6: green lit it and it happened so fast, but whatever
Speaker 6: period of time it was, the production.
Speaker 4: Company was ready.
Speaker 6: We shot the movie, and I mean it was the
Speaker 6: best experience ever. I just I was nervous because I
Speaker 6: finally had a lead role, so it was gonna fall
Speaker 6: on me and I was gonna had to actually memorize
Speaker 6: all these lines and everything. But it was easy. It
Speaker 6: was so easy. Troy was an amazing director. She was great,
Speaker 6: such a great guide. My connection with Nick I was
Speaker 6: we had great chemistry and it grew over time in
Speaker 6: the role. I almost felt like I was my character
Speaker 6: sometimes when people would, you know, when the odds were
Speaker 6: against me, you know what I.
Speaker 4: Mean, Sometimes I was like nobody's my friend here.
Speaker 6: And Nick and I connected and had this chemistry on
Speaker 6: screen and of course in person.
Speaker 4: That happened eventually.
Speaker 6: Where you got to see that and now you know,
Speaker 6: after that role, I immediately got another role.
Speaker 1: What happened because because you're having a time right now,
Speaker 1: like you're starting like.
Speaker 4: Two thousand and three, two thousand and three, you.
Speaker 1: Start having a time, then you drop it's about time
Speaker 1: and hit that hot one hundred with dip it low. Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're cooking right now.
Speaker 4: Yes. So I'm back in the studio, back in the studio.
Speaker 1: So Love don't cost a thing. The record company said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we got some money.
Speaker 6: You want album going, keep going, Come on, I'm in
Speaker 6: the studio. I'm trying to find a hit. By the way,
Speaker 6: I'm making songs. I consistently was in the studio, by
Speaker 6: the way, all this time, because music was still like.
Speaker 6: I was like, there's no reason I can't do both.
Speaker 6: So I'm still in the studio doing and filming Love
Speaker 6: don't cost the thing, but I'm making songs movies over
Speaker 6: I'm still continuing to make songs. But I still didn't
Speaker 6: have that hit. I didn't have that home, so I
Speaker 6: was searching. It took months finding it. And my friend.
Speaker 4: Billy Billy's in the building. Big Billy like he was
Speaker 4: at Deaf Jam.
Speaker 6: I made best friends with him and Billy is he
Speaker 6: is one of the A and R's here on the
Speaker 6: West Coast and he's just one of my best friends
Speaker 6: who just believed in me. And he's another lover of
Speaker 6: like the Jacksons, Michael Janet and he just gets it too.
Speaker 4: And Billy, Billy knew some producers.
Speaker 6: I called him one day, I said, Billy, I said,
Speaker 6: I want to meet as many producers as possible. I
Speaker 6: need to find a hit. And so just put me
Speaker 6: like every hour I want to go to a studio,
Speaker 6: meet somebody listening to some music. Tell him I want
Speaker 6: to come in, and you know, because not every hour
Speaker 6: is like maybe you have two hours because you got
Speaker 6: traffic in La So I had one meeting and then
Speaker 6: he told me about this guy named Polly Paul and
Speaker 6: this guy named Demetrius. Demetrius was managing Polly Paul and
Speaker 6: also at the time it was Schaeffer as we know
Speaker 6: was Neow he was Schaeffer back then was working with
Speaker 6: him too and like helping him, like with vocal production
Speaker 6: and stuff like that. So I went and had a
Speaker 6: meeting with Shape or not Shape or with Paully Paul
Speaker 6: and Demetrius. First time I met them, and uh, he
Speaker 6: plays me songs and the first song they play is
Speaker 6: dip it little first song, first song.
Speaker 4: And TJ.
Speaker 6: Moses is the one that wrote it. She's singing the song,
Speaker 6: and my mom and I.
Speaker 4: Have chills thinking about this. We looked at each other
Speaker 4: and we were like, that's it. You know, you don't
Speaker 4: say that. I loved And they started playing game. They
Speaker 4: started over play Oh, so and So wants it? So
Speaker 4: I got a lot of that.
Speaker 6: You find a song like oh but so and So
Speaker 6: wants oh but it. Songs that never even came out
Speaker 6: to this day. So I heard, We heard that song,
Speaker 6: and we just knew it was immediate.
Speaker 4: It was immediate.
Speaker 6: We didn't say it in front of him, but we knew.
Speaker 6: Then he played some other songs. We're like, yeah, those
Speaker 6: are good. That's a good great We were like that
Speaker 6: Diplot song, that would be a good one.
Speaker 4: That would be a good one. That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should explore it.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you.
Speaker 6: We got in the car my mom and I called
Speaker 6: Billy like Billy sorry, that was prob. We got it.
Speaker 6: We got it. We got it. Called the label do
Speaker 6: this do that? We got to set this up. We
Speaker 6: got to record this song. That's the one. It's the one.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you, it's the one. Billy was so excited,
Speaker 6: you know, because it's like as a friend and as
Speaker 6: an an r and you know that your friend is happy,
Speaker 6: and those meetings were set upright.
Speaker 4: And everything was was good. Everybody was good.
Speaker 6: But that song we knew we had the single single
Speaker 6: is everything. First single, that's first single, and now we
Speaker 6: know it's dip it low like diplo. Is my biggest
Speaker 6: song today. So I went in and Uh Schaeffer, which
Speaker 6: is Neo. He was my vocal producer, and I sang
Speaker 6: that song. And thank you teacher Moses, Moses for writing
Speaker 6: it also being a great demo guide because most of
Speaker 6: what I did on top of what I did on
Speaker 6: my own.
Speaker 4: Was her flair, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: She was a great inspiration for that and I found
Speaker 6: my I felt sexy already in that time.
Speaker 4: I was twenty one, twenty twenty one. There was a
Speaker 4: big change. Also, you had like.
Speaker 6: All the maxims and all this other stuff. So it
Speaker 6: was it's like I feel this, I am this, I'm
Speaker 6: ready to make this leap into my womanhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she just jumped over King magazine. You went right
Speaker 3: to Maximum.
Speaker 6: King was the Queen of King most magazines ever sold.
Speaker 1: It was the time.
Speaker 6: Platinum, the time.
Speaker 8: We did a couple of those, by the way.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I fell into my woman Hud. I felt
Speaker 6: confident this was me, and it felt like even though
Speaker 6: I didn't write it, and it was rare that I
Speaker 6: would find songs that didn't write that I connected with.
Speaker 6: So this one, I just felt it and it was right,
Speaker 6: and so I recorded it. The label was super happy
Speaker 6: with it, and wam bam music video. The ideas were
Speaker 6: just coming out, coming out, and we found the right
Speaker 6: director and we had this whole idea based off of
Speaker 6: the seventies and just doing body paint and they used
Speaker 6: to do shows with the body paint and everything.
Speaker 4: Then I started getting movies. I got be Cool.
Speaker 3: That's ship. I don't do no no this nigga loves
Speaker 3: be Cool.
Speaker 6: Well, the video for Dipple Little helped me also, like
Speaker 6: I showed them after I got me cool.
Speaker 4: But keep going. Let's let's back it up, going, go ahead, tank.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Well, now Diplo in my pocket.
Speaker 1: Now we're two thousand and five. We be cool? Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't even think you understand how many times me
Speaker 1: and Zina have watched this funny movie. It comes on today,
Speaker 1: I stopped and watch It's just one of my movies.
Speaker 1: I love that movie. Like in this period in time,
Speaker 1: like this, this, this, this is I just want to
Speaker 1: I just want you to speak to this is life.
Speaker 1: You're having a life changing something that never happens in
Speaker 1: a lifetime for most entertainers, like you have hit records
Speaker 1: and hit the movies at the same time, it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen like that. And just speaking to the walk home
Speaker 1: with mom too. Now you're having this moment that had
Speaker 1: to be like.
Speaker 4: That means, what's happening.
Speaker 6: But we're still like it's crazy because we're still living
Speaker 6: like this, like a really cool regular life because we're
Speaker 6: still saving.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't have to get My little.
Speaker 6: Sisters are going to school in North Hollywood High School.
Speaker 6: I'm showing up at the little you know, the little
Speaker 6: you know prom thing, being the ambassador little things, showing
Speaker 6: up for my sisters because they also had to sacrifice
Speaker 6: a lot too from like me being away. I felt
Speaker 6: like I was like their parents too, So yes, all
Speaker 6: this stuff, I was like, I'm doing it for me,
Speaker 6: for my family or my sisters. There were my daughters,
Speaker 6: you know, and uh yeah, it was the time. I'm
Speaker 6: doing photo shoots every the day. Magazines were selling back
Speaker 6: then too, so we're doing photo shoots every day, magazine covers,
Speaker 6: traveling the world, shows, Japan, this, that, tours and sync.
Speaker 6: I'm touring with Britney Spears and doing this that below.
Speaker 6: So I get the audition for Be Cool. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: they had John Jivalta and now with Thurman involved, and
Speaker 6: I knew it was the sequel to Get Shorty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Tell me about it. I was blown away that I
Speaker 6: got it.
Speaker 3: Did you have to audition?
Speaker 6: I auditioned four times, and that time I was exhausted.
Speaker 6: I was shooting the movie Man of the House Tommy
Speaker 6: Lee Jones in Texas. Love Don't Cost a Thing came
Speaker 6: out that same month, and I came back to do
Speaker 6: these auditions for f Gary Gray and I sang, well
Speaker 6: should I feel this good?
Speaker 4: I sing?
Speaker 6: I can't sing right now, but I was singing it,
Speaker 6: singing and that was the song I was using to
Speaker 6: sing it. And I did my audition and they loved it,
Speaker 6: and there were a couple of really really great contenders
Speaker 6: I was up against. It was like a handful of
Speaker 6: women that were up for this role. So I was
Speaker 6: really surprised actually that I got it because they're real
Speaker 6: the sangers, and they're really popular. And when it came
Speaker 6: down to my last audition, I was exhausted. I was
Speaker 6: tired because I was filming. I was doing a lot,
Speaker 6: and I flew in from Texas to do this last
Speaker 6: audition and I remember sitting inside the driveway for the
Speaker 6: audition because they were negotiating my deal.
Speaker 4: You have to negotiate for the it's.
Speaker 6: Kind of like it's kind of like a screen test,
Speaker 6: so you kind of have to negotiate if you if
Speaker 6: they're going to agree to what's happening. If not, you
Speaker 6: don't do the audition, you do not even doing the movie.
Speaker 6: So this last screen test, my attorney was was like
Speaker 6: for an hour and a half. I was sitting inside
Speaker 6: the driveway and I had practic singing so much that
Speaker 6: my voice was actually kind of tired, so I was like,
Speaker 6: I gotta go and sing again. So I remember crying
Speaker 6: to my mom like I'm just exhausted, and she's like, Tina,
Speaker 6: you can do this. You can pull through with this,
Speaker 6: you know, don't you know, don't discourage yourself.
Speaker 4: This is the last one.
Speaker 6: And I went in there and I sang and I
Speaker 6: did crack a little because I was tired. It was like,
Speaker 6: how my voices right now is got scratchy. But it
Speaker 6: was just a small crack. But I had enough parisma,
Speaker 6: I guess, and enough of the auditions enough that Efgary
Speaker 6: Gray saw something and the innocence I think still in
Speaker 6: me that match to character. And gosh, when I got
Speaker 6: that call talk about bringing to your knees crying and
Speaker 6: prayers and being where I was at and back then
Speaker 6: I was still with Nick Too, and I had just
Speaker 6: I shot the video for Dip It Low too, and
Speaker 6: I had the video in my hands and we were
Speaker 6: at the edits and stuff and uh, and I got
Speaker 6: that call.
Speaker 4: It's just a man, Yeah, maybe you'll feel me. I
Speaker 4: don't have to say words.
Speaker 6: And then I was on the set with these people
Speaker 6: and I'm like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 4: I had it was pinched me.
Speaker 6: It was pinched me all the whole time, just like
Speaker 6: and you're shocked that I'm working with these legends, these
Speaker 6: amazing of a plus actors and I couldn't believe I
Speaker 6: was there with them and I was singing, and I'm
Speaker 6: the focused.
Speaker 4: My character is the focus of this movie, Linda Moon,
Speaker 4: Linda Moon. John Travolta's my manager.
Speaker 6: These people are fighting over me in this movie. Alicia
Speaker 6: Keys wrote one of the songs. Bergie and wrote one
Speaker 6: of the songs. And will I am Vince Vaughn. Like
Speaker 6: the scene actually with me and Vince Vaughan in the
Speaker 6: beginning where he's like, Linda, get over here, blah blah blah,
Speaker 6: and by the arm like I really fel grabbed me
Speaker 6: and I slipped in my little wedges and I love
Speaker 6: that they kept that stuff in there. But he stays
Speaker 6: in character, by the way, even when he's not feeling
Speaker 6: he was. He was his character all the time when
Speaker 6: we're not chooting. So so uh it was. It was
Speaker 6: mind blowing at this point.
Speaker 7: What's your favorite? You have a favorite between being an
Speaker 7: artist or being an actress?
Speaker 4: Not at all?
Speaker 3: Are you just like I'm doing everything?
Speaker 4: You're doing everything. I loved doing everything.
Speaker 6: People try to break me away from doing one or
Speaker 6: the other, like the label would be like she has
Speaker 6: to do acting. They didn't really tell me I had
Speaker 6: to do that, but they kind of were like she
Speaker 6: has to a little bit. There was a there was
Speaker 6: a like she's gonna get more movies she focuses on.
Speaker 6: And I was like, no, I can do it all.
Speaker 6: And even at the label, they were fighting over me.
Speaker 6: I went, if you look at my albums, I was
Speaker 6: like Island plus Murder plus the ink. They changed the
Speaker 6: thing because I don't want to have Murder on that
Speaker 6: the ink. Then they changed me the deaf Soul. So
Speaker 6: they were fighting over me. Even as a pop artist
Speaker 6: and an R and B artist, I was always in
Speaker 6: between these things where people trying to make me make choices,
Speaker 6: and I never believed that that was the option. Like
Speaker 6: it's just like I can do it all, and like
Speaker 6: don't give me these labels actor or singer, pop or
Speaker 6: R and B or this or that, Like I can
Speaker 6: do all of these things, and so.
Speaker 4: I just kept doing it.
Speaker 6: Sometimes I had to make these adjustments and do things
Speaker 6: their way, especially music label wise, and then would prove
Speaker 6: itself like if it didn't work, it just didn't fit.
Speaker 6: But yeah, it was a it was a beautiful time.
Speaker 6: I ended up going on tour after that with Usher
Speaker 6: and Kanye West.
Speaker 1: Your tour lineup is pretty crazy and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 6: Confessions Tour at that that was Kanye West the Graduation
Speaker 6: like College drop Out that say, it was college the
Speaker 6: College Dropout album and we have.
Speaker 4: Never people. He's honest.
Speaker 1: Time he was cooking. I don't I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to gloss over bring it on.
Speaker 6: Oh that was yeah, that's still girls to because it
Speaker 6: bring it on is a thing. It is a thing
Speaker 6: that they came to me, Universal came to me. That
Speaker 6: was a straight up offer. I no longer had a
Speaker 6: record deal. I had gotten dropped from ild Def Jam
Speaker 6: after my third album. It was a crazy like drop,
Speaker 6: but it happened, and I was in this lull and
Speaker 6: I still wanted to do music, and uh.
Speaker 4: But I didn't know you know, the labels.
Speaker 6: You know how labels it could be like people don't
Speaker 6: want you to be somewhere else, so they'll talk about you,
Speaker 6: and you know, so I was like in this crazy
Speaker 6: place and next thing I know, I got a call
Speaker 6: out of nowhere to bring it on and it was
Speaker 6: great money, great franchise.
Speaker 4: I needed them. I did.
Speaker 6: When I say money is because again you go through
Speaker 6: dips as an entertainer. Everything is not certain. People have
Speaker 6: to understand like it might be famous, but it's nothing
Speaker 6: is certain. You have to be you have to let
Speaker 6: your pride go to the side sometimes, but this is
Speaker 6: not a pride thing. I was a fan of to
Speaker 6: bring it on, you know, franchise, and they brought me
Speaker 6: a really great deal and I was like, yeah, I
Speaker 6: love the script and I did it. And now to
Speaker 6: this day, I have little girls and their mama coming
Speaker 6: to me overseas are like it's called American Girl. They're like,
Speaker 6: I love American Girl. I have girls recognized you in
Speaker 6: now yeah called American Girl.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah. And I had so much fun doing it.
Speaker 4: It was great. It was an awesome opportunity.
Speaker 1: One thing that's awesome about what you were able to
Speaker 1: do with your career is you were able to really
Speaker 1: establish an overseas presence, yes, which which which pays dividends
Speaker 1: as you as you moved in through move through those
Speaker 1: highs and lows, because something about overseas, Yeah, they just
Speaker 1: they stick, which yeah they rocking.
Speaker 6: Which they still then they still rock with me whether
Speaker 6: I'm doing music or not. When you see those numbers
Speaker 6: on those Netflix films and when you see numbers on
Speaker 6: you know, especially movie these they do numbers these days.
Speaker 6: A lot of things data driven. That's what streams are for,
Speaker 6: for data. And and when you see that, you're like
Speaker 6: a movie you do is number one in over seventy
Speaker 6: five countries.
Speaker 4: Speak because of that relationship I've carried with them.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 3: You know my sister did that movie with you?
Speaker 4: Which one?
Speaker 3: Meet me at Christmas?
Speaker 4: Which one?
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes, yes, let's tell you
Speaker 6: you know ser tomorrow.
Speaker 4: That's my girl.
Speaker 1: There's most people.
Speaker 3: Most people don't. Most people don't put two and two together.
Speaker 7: Because our last name is new but my middle name
Speaker 7: is Valentine, So.
Speaker 3: Most people don't put it together. We don't always say it.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Like, you know, she has
Speaker 3: her career.
Speaker 4: She surprised me when she talks about it. I forgot.
Speaker 4: I didn't put it. I did didn't even put the
Speaker 4: two together.
Speaker 3: I love her, She loves you.
Speaker 4: She did a fantastic you.
Speaker 3: Guys did an amazing movie and we watched it over Christmas.
Speaker 3: Loved it the whole family.
Speaker 1: She's like, and make sure what was the extra one?
Speaker 7: It's like excellent movie makes all y'all got got you?
Speaker 6: Oh man, Yes, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: She's great. She's an awesome producer.
Speaker 6: Now I've gotten just step into the producer lane, you know,
Speaker 6: which is cool on producing movies now.
Speaker 4: And so that was one of.
Speaker 6: My first I produced an independent before that, and then
Speaker 6: I just was an executive producer with Netflix after I've
Speaker 6: done two very successful movies with them. They trusted and
Speaker 6: trusted in me and my gut feeling about how to
Speaker 6: do this. And I'm pretty good at rom coms, you know,
Speaker 6: Love Don't Cost a Thing, and and Latania and I
Speaker 6: and also Christina Rogers she introduced me Militania. She entrusted
Speaker 6: in the both of us to really help put this
Speaker 6: project together in a way that would make it work
Speaker 6: and become what that movie was. And we had some
Speaker 6: really great partners. I mean Mark Mark Roberts is the
Speaker 6: one that you know, initially started the movie. So all
Speaker 6: the producers, all of us together was a really great team.
Speaker 6: We had so much fun, so much fun, and it
Speaker 6: shows on screen. And she's very I love she's on it.
Speaker 4: She stay with us the whole way. She could have left.
Speaker 3: She still like that. You still like that for sure?
Speaker 1: You're sending me leon. We got TV film, we got
Speaker 1: records producers. Now we got my nickname is snacks. Now
Speaker 1: we got these motherfucking Ben.
Speaker 3: And said my daughter two days ago. Listen, she loves it.
Speaker 1: No disrespect to anybody, am I beignets anywhere? You got
Speaker 1: my favorite beignets. No, no disrespect to anyone, to the
Speaker 1: originators of the idea, just.
Speaker 7: God, and say what you gotta say, disrespect.
Speaker 1: Your beignets are my favorite. Thank you light extra powders
Speaker 1: sugar for me late almost died. It was so much
Speaker 1: powdered sugar. And I breathed in hell, Never in hell,
Speaker 1: yesterday powdered sugar for the love of God.
Speaker 6: Gosh, no the first bite, never in hell, because the
Speaker 6: powdered sugar is just gonna go straight.
Speaker 1: What really quickly? What made you say I'm going to start? Ben?
Speaker 1: Yeo okay, Ben.
Speaker 4: Yeah okay.
Speaker 6: So in the between, after all the music has happened,
Speaker 6: and after being bring it on, I started living real
Speaker 6: life after I had a divorce, so my daughter Violet
Speaker 6: came along, I met dream, got married, had a crazy
Speaker 6: world when life of one year and a half and
Speaker 6: then I had to figure out my life after that,
Speaker 6: I'm getting a divorced, got a divorce, the whole deal,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, what am I gonna do. I'm figuring
Speaker 6: out my career, start getting a little rolls here and there.
Speaker 6: But then I started to figure out friendships. I was
Speaker 6: always working, so I didn't really get to hang out
Speaker 6: with pa people like I have. My dancers were my friends.
Speaker 6: Police people like Billy were my friends. But it were
Speaker 6: always music related. But my family was like my friend.
Speaker 6: That was like I was kind of raised, like your
Speaker 6: family is your friend and everybody else is an out
Speaker 6: of it. But I'm such an extrovert, like everybody is
Speaker 6: actually my friend. But I didn't really go out. I
Speaker 6: didn't go out in Hollywood, none of that. But I
Speaker 6: had to figure out how to stay famous in Hollywood
Speaker 6: after getting dropped from the label and like, But the
Speaker 6: thing was it was going out, going out, being popular,
Speaker 6: going to Robertson doing pop Rozzi snapping you, and so
Speaker 6: I figured that out.
Speaker 4: So I started to go.
Speaker 6: Out and I had a friend named Liz that I met.
Speaker 6: We know, she's not my Venia box partner, but Liz
Speaker 6: was in the scene.
Speaker 4: She knew people.
Speaker 6: And I met Liz through an organization, like we were
Speaker 6: going to work on an organization mentoring kids and that
Speaker 6: were in a Plowster care system.
Speaker 4: And through our.
Speaker 6: Connection there on one side, we're like doing all the
Speaker 6: you know, foundation hands on work, and we're also girls
Speaker 6: going out clubs and partying and stuff like that, and
Speaker 6: we just grew this bond. We grew this tight, tight friendship.
Speaker 6: And through that type friendship, we meet lots of girls,
Speaker 6: girls become our friends.
Speaker 4: Girls in the bathroom, girls this you.
Speaker 6: Know what I mean, you're going out, And we just
Speaker 6: grew this clique of girls that just was growing, you know.
Speaker 6: And so after my divorce, I started to go back
Speaker 6: out again. It was that revenge body, revenge life. I
Speaker 6: got to get my life together, but I know that
Speaker 6: also being on the scene helps me get my roles,
Speaker 6: helps me do this da da And we eventually decide
Speaker 6: let's get a place together.
Speaker 4: She had this place called the Sugar Shock.
Speaker 6: So the Sugar Shock is where all the girls got
Speaker 6: together hung out sugar Shack, and we're there and everybody's
Speaker 6: doing their business, doing their life. And I started to
Speaker 6: become an entrepreneur. I had this thing called Platinum Hookah
Speaker 6: that I started at the time and it was getting
Speaker 6: popping by the way. By the way, that would have
Speaker 6: been a big business. It was these little, little known
Speaker 6: nicotine hookah sticks, which is really popular, and I was
Speaker 6: killing it. Let me tell you, I was killing it.
Speaker 6: But I also felt it didn't match my life and
Speaker 6: the FDA and all this other stuff was too complicated.
Speaker 6: But she saw my ethic, my work ethic, and that
Speaker 6: was my first entrepreneurial thing that I did, and that
Speaker 6: was a goal getter. I didn't sleep. I was working
Speaker 6: on that thing day and night. And Liz had her thing.
Speaker 6: She has events, you know, knocked out, she's got marketing
Speaker 6: knocked out, this that.
Speaker 4: So we always used to say. So we ended up
Speaker 4: moving in.
Speaker 6: I moved in with her because I'm single, I'm with
Speaker 6: the girls all the time. I needed to get out
Speaker 6: of my mom's house because that's where I was after
Speaker 6: my divorce, and I was like, I can't keep doing this.
Speaker 4: I had Violet, so.
Speaker 6: I was like, my girls, I'm with them all the time.
Speaker 6: We're raising Violet together. We're a village. Plus to have
Speaker 6: my sisters and my mom. But we said to each other,
Speaker 6: Liz and I were like, we just saw what we
Speaker 6: had on our hustle, and we were like, someday we
Speaker 6: need to do a business together. We need to figure
Speaker 6: it out. We need to do something local in Studio City.
Speaker 6: That's our community, these are our people. We got that
Speaker 6: vibe we're going to do something, and so we set
Speaker 6: our mind that someday we were going to do something,
Speaker 6: and we thought about it. We would go on walks
Speaker 6: and running canyon and say, you know, maybe a candy store,
Speaker 6: maybe this be a bakery. But we're not chefs, but
Speaker 6: we never said bannets. But she had this organization where
Speaker 6: we would rebuild houses in New Orleans. It was called
Speaker 6: the Hope Foundation. And so I would go back to
Speaker 6: New Orleans and she had this gala and we would
Speaker 6: actually physically like meet the families and rebuild their houses.
Speaker 6: We raise money, and we would try the food. We
Speaker 6: had po boys, we had turtle soup, we had this that.
Speaker 6: And one day all the girls we gathered we went
Speaker 6: to cafe doing it and we got the coffee and
Speaker 6: we got the bagnets.
Speaker 4: And lord, let me tell you, we.
Speaker 6: Were like ben like we're girls, you know, drinking wine
Speaker 6: and having bagnets, like you know, we're bringing it back.
Speaker 6: But it just wasn't the same when we would bringing
Speaker 6: back like there it was great. We'd bring them back
Speaker 6: to the house and it was like kind of like
Speaker 6: doe and cold and it was just not the same thing.
Speaker 4: But the sugar, the sugar was doing a thing.
Speaker 6: So we're like, before we go back to La, we
Speaker 6: need to get some Beagnets again. We have to do
Speaker 6: it again. We're like, Liz, you have to bring us back.
Speaker 6: And it was there that we were like, there's no
Speaker 6: Begnets in La.
Speaker 4: Why not Beignet's in La. And this was like.
Speaker 6: We were like all of us are, Yeah, we should
Speaker 6: d D D And Liz started to do the numbers
Speaker 6: and see what the business of it would be and
Speaker 6: it just made sense and so yeah, like it sounded
Speaker 6: like it just made sense.
Speaker 4: We loved it. We knew there was nothing like it.
Speaker 6: There was a food culture in La and just the
Speaker 6: world that food is everything, and we decided that was
Speaker 6: gonna be the Begnet.
Speaker 4: So it took us some time.
Speaker 6: She started working on We really first started working on
Speaker 6: the look of the branding.
Speaker 4: That's what Liz does.
Speaker 6: And through that time we started to figure out what's
Speaker 6: the Begnet, what's gonna be the best tasting, most flavorful.
Speaker 6: What's going to make sense in La? Why did we
Speaker 6: choose La?
Speaker 4: Our friends were there.
Speaker 6: It was gonna be the community, the people, and but
Speaker 6: you know La, we're also like health conscious, were also
Speaker 6: like fit.
Speaker 4: It's conscious.
Speaker 6: We're like, we got to do something a little bit light,
Speaker 6: but give them the same flare.
Speaker 4: Unless we got and we figured out the.
Speaker 3: Run off the turkey, then we don't care about none
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 4: It's okay, just go a light.
Speaker 6: Bo I say it's a diet because they're super light.
Speaker 6: They're very fluffy, the layered, and that's why we thought
Speaker 6: it would be the perfect benyet.
Speaker 1: The mini Ben. Ye.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys were one of our first customers too.
Speaker 4: We started with the truck. That's holy.
Speaker 3: That's how I found out about it. Yeah, coming to
Speaker 3: the house, I see the truck.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and out of nowhere, I see Christie in the window.
Speaker 8: I'm like serving people cooking.
Speaker 4: It's taking sure, everyone's getting it.
Speaker 3: Okay, you got to search now, fine, give me give
Speaker 3: me two boxes.
Speaker 1: Really awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's cool. It's a crazy start.
Speaker 6: We were like, we do a shop and then we
Speaker 6: couldn't figure out the shops. Too many permits and too
Speaker 6: much stuff. And then Liz, Liz is the go get her.
Speaker 6: That's the one thing like, that's the partner I chose
Speaker 6: was right for me, and she chose I was right
Speaker 6: for her because we're connect we're connectors, we're one with
Speaker 6: God and manifesting and we work hard. But Liz, she
Speaker 6: is she is, She's diligent, she's like on it, she's persistent,
Speaker 6: she's consistent, she's on and as a partner and as
Speaker 6: an artist, I still want to be an artist.
Speaker 4: I don't want to have to do all the work.
Speaker 6: That she is really what she's really good at. She
Speaker 6: doesn't want to have to do it all the time.
Speaker 6: And I have been there when I can, especially in
Speaker 6: the beginnings. But she's one of those people. She's a boss,
Speaker 6: and she learns things and she grows things, and she's
Speaker 6: not afraid to get her hands, you know, in the
Speaker 6: dirt and learned some lessons and to get us where
Speaker 6: we are even in the hardest times, because you know,
Speaker 6: we've gone through pandemic, we've gone through actors strike, we've
Speaker 6: gone through a lot of changes. But the food truck
Speaker 6: was the best start for us because we got around
Speaker 6: town and we made our way to the people and
Speaker 6: we got the word out.
Speaker 3: How many restaurants do you guys have now?
Speaker 6: Right now, we have two trucks and we have one location, okay,
Speaker 6: And the reason we did that just wanted to focus
Speaker 6: on we want a franchise, and so our biggest thing
Speaker 6: was learning the different ways this company could work. So
Speaker 6: we've had a brick and mortar. We've had a really
Speaker 6: big brick and mortar. The location was quite large, the
Speaker 6: rent was high, you have.
Speaker 3: To employ more people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you have to employ more people, the rent
Speaker 6: is high, the insurance, everything is much higher. In those situations,
Speaker 6: it looks great, but you know, the the you know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of setbacks in that in that way,
Speaker 6: but we've learned, like kiosks work, you know, really well
Speaker 6: for us to go, the trucks work extremely well. So
Speaker 6: we've learned the different patterns that work well for us,
Speaker 6: so that if anybody wants a franchise, they can understand
Speaker 6: what they're working with and with the best direction for them.
Speaker 6: So it's been some really great learning lessons and we've
Speaker 6: employed a lot of people, our friends' kids, you know,
Speaker 6: and here here and around Studio City and North Hollywood everywhere.
Speaker 6: We've had a lot of people come for us as
Speaker 6: far as like to come to eat the beignet, but
Speaker 6: also family like you know, you know your daughter needs
Speaker 6: a job, first job, and we've had some great like
Speaker 6: they bring on the other kids to come. You know,
Speaker 6: it's a family, you know, Benya Box is about family.
Speaker 6: The Benya Bytes is about sharing, it's about community, and
Speaker 6: eventually we want to bring this back to where it
Speaker 6: all started with foundations, organizations, and just last night we
Speaker 6: work with a foundation called Hands for Hope. It's in
Speaker 6: North Hollywood and we've done a lot of great things
Speaker 6: personally with them and also now through the organization with
Speaker 6: with with Benye Box. So it all leads one thing
Speaker 6: right back to the next.
Speaker 7: Since you're here now, can you tell the people where
Speaker 7: the trucks are located or around the way or even.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well you can find us at Bennet Box, our
Speaker 6: online on social media just at Bennet Box. And then
Speaker 6: we're we're up updating our website right now. Right now,
Speaker 6: we're so focused on marketing and on making every short
Speaker 6: making sure all the things that we have. We've never
Speaker 6: done email marketing, we've never done any of that stuff.
Speaker 6: Really we've been like just so small business, grassroots friends, family.
Speaker 6: Then now we're like, okay, time take those next steps
Speaker 6: because we really are a small.
Speaker 4: Team running it. We're just us women.
Speaker 6: We've had people come in and out that just didn't
Speaker 6: work out, but we've got to figure it out. And
Speaker 6: so yeah, you can find us right now at the
Speaker 6: Topanga Mall at the Westfield to Panga Pega Social Yes,
Speaker 6: which is great, brings lots of people over there. And
Speaker 6: then the truck is usually in and around all around town,
Speaker 6: Studio City, Calabasas, Santa Clarida, Long Beach. If you just
Speaker 6: check out the page, you know, it'll show where it's at.
Speaker 6: And eventually right now we're figuring out the email marketing.
Speaker 6: We have a loyalty program all that stuff. We'll start
Speaker 6: letting people know, you know where we're at. But you
Speaker 6: can really just go to it.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get some uh
Speaker 7: a discount.
Speaker 8: Then put you on the loyalty reward, you get a
Speaker 8: a we got some good deal.
Speaker 3: Congratulate relations.
Speaker 7: Just watching how you pivoted in your career has been
Speaker 7: really cool, you know what I mean, Like, no, absolutely right,
Speaker 7: because we never know, nobody ever know.
Speaker 4: People.
Speaker 7: We meet each other young age, we're all kids, and
Speaker 7: then some of us become what we become. Some of
Speaker 7: us go into other spaces. But the main thing that
Speaker 7: I've seen just off of the survivors in this thing
Speaker 7: is like literally surviving in music and having a real career.
Speaker 3: Because you got to be able to pivot. You have to.
Speaker 7: You know, we talk about that all the time. You
Speaker 7: can't shop that same demo, yeah, you know what I
Speaker 7: mean in any term, You know what I mean. You
Speaker 7: just can't continue to shop that same thing. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 7: well what else can I do in these spaces because
Speaker 7: all of this is in your wheelhouse though, everything that
Speaker 7: you just said all connected, It all connected, and it's
Speaker 7: really cool to see. And just like I said, congratulations
Speaker 7: you graduation. I've known you a really long time.
Speaker 4: I know we have each other for a long time,
Speaker 4: all of us here. We're not gonna talk about age.
Speaker 4: That's all I got to say.
Speaker 3: You know that beauty.
Speaker 4: Forever though.
Speaker 3: While he was sixty three, is he about to be
Speaker 3: sixty four? I said, yeah, I'm allowed to be sixty five.
Speaker 4: Oh my birthday, right time. It was the right time.
Speaker 4: A good time.
Speaker 1: We need a couple of things from you before you go. Yes,
Speaker 1: we need your top Oh lord, oh lord, five oh.
Speaker 4: R and B artists Brandy.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let's go all right, married j oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: Oh gosh, I mean Beyonce, she's she's a little everything.
Speaker 4: She's I can consider her. She's and my last one. Dang,
Speaker 4: I gotta go back though. I want to go. Oh,
Speaker 4: Aretha Franklin. No no no no no no no no
Speaker 4: no no no, I said the wrong name. It starts
Speaker 4: with the A. No no no, no know me. I
Speaker 4: need a baker.
Speaker 1: What a voice? Guy in there? Right?
Speaker 4: I mean I can keep going no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 4: But I like my females and I relate very much
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 6: And uh, but there are a lot of ARM and
Speaker 6: B males. I mean, especially groups. I love groups, my gosh,
Speaker 6: true hell, Joe's all the groups.
Speaker 4: I mean, everybody.
Speaker 6: You make great albums, like I can keep going.
Speaker 1: Five, it'll be in the top fifteen. I know you.
Speaker 1: I know you're gonna do top five Army songs.
Speaker 4: Oh nah, he would go, I gotta do this R
Speaker 4: and B.
Speaker 6: Gosh, can we just go through all the Confessions album.
Speaker 4: That's a great album.
Speaker 1: Incredible.
Speaker 6: Gosh, guys, you really do this.
Speaker 4: You should have told me in bed.
Speaker 1: This is the thing we told Billy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he didn't tell me. Can I'm gonna go through
Speaker 4: my phone.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna tell you what I have that you did not, guy,
Speaker 6: did not say this.
Speaker 4: Hold on, we go to R and B and we're
Speaker 4: gonna make this.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, I mean to B B. I get so weak.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, Mary j.
Speaker 6: Blige, Wait wait, but there's a specific song because that
Speaker 6: was my jam.
Speaker 4: That was like, Mary, Oh my gosh, y'all killing me.
Speaker 7: I love that you have the pink phone with the
Speaker 7: heart hanging now if it's very I love, don't cost
Speaker 7: the thing.
Speaker 4: I haven't out of it.
Speaker 6: Not.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a great song too. Oh yeah, I love
Speaker 4: real love. She's got so.
Speaker 6: Many songs, but there's just one.
Speaker 4: But let's let's get it. Cronk. I'm sorry. It's an
Speaker 4: army songs was my jam.
Speaker 6: So we're gonna put that read about heartbreak Hotel. That's
Speaker 6: another one.
Speaker 4: It's a Mary js Los song.
Speaker 6: I have to say because it's necessary my life. Mary Jane, Oh,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna give Maya Maya. Maya's
Speaker 6: gosh Case of the X. Case of the X was
Speaker 6: popped though, but her first song too, and it's uh damn,
Speaker 6: what was Maya? I love Maya Rocked the Boat, Aliyah
Speaker 6: Rock the Boat, great song, amazing and we got one more?
Speaker 4: Is that? What it is? Brandy? Brandy Brandy.
Speaker 6: Because it's gonna be hard to pick this one, but
Speaker 6: that I'm gonna go with this.
Speaker 4: Album, Never Say Never. That was my jam.
Speaker 6: And it's gonna be hard to pick this one because
Speaker 6: Never Say Never was my album. Me and my girlfriend
Speaker 6: would be in the car crying over our little boyfriends,
Speaker 6: singing the songs, Oh my gosh, Oh Angel in disguise.
Speaker 4: Angel, Yes, and I got the Roddy Jerkins what he
Speaker 4: did in music, super bad by super Bad.
Speaker 1: He was a super producer, He is a super is Yes,
Speaker 1: he is super bag.
Speaker 6: So I'd say that whole album, actually, but we'll go
Speaker 6: with Angel. Honestly, it's every song you got a top
Speaker 6: that Okay.
Speaker 1: It's your world, it's your work. Let's make a Vultron.
Speaker 1: You're a super R and B artist, right. If you're
Speaker 1: making an artist, you're making a superhero R and B artist,
Speaker 1: and you want to get the vocals from somewhere or
Speaker 1: mid style from somebody, the styling of the artists, the
Speaker 1: heart of the artist. And since you're a songwriter who's
Speaker 1: gonna write for this artist, you need one vocal to
Speaker 1: make your super R and B artist.
Speaker 4: What is that going to be?
Speaker 6: Well, I just love Brandy's voice, So I'm gonna put
Speaker 6: Brandy's voice on it, saying easy walk Brandy's boys performance style.
Speaker 4: We're making a super.
Speaker 6: R and B with the R and B performance style
Speaker 6: of you know what, I love Maya.
Speaker 4: We're gonna put she she has.
Speaker 8: We're talking about her staff.
Speaker 6: I love a girl that can own it and who's
Speaker 6: She's kind of timid, she's not like like an hour
Speaker 6: person that's like, but her music is like she's I
Speaker 6: like her, Yes, Maryland, you know my love is like Whoa?
Speaker 6: Here was another one that's another person I should be.
Speaker 6: But I'm gonna go with Maya because Maya I love.
Speaker 6: I think I love that. I love what comes out
Speaker 6: of her. You know what I mean as an artist,
Speaker 6: a performance and stuff like that. With clothing wise, oh gosh,
Speaker 6: there's a couple of them. Style wise, I would say dang,
Speaker 6: I can't put it up at the top of my
Speaker 6: the top of my ah, give me some girls, damn styling.
Speaker 1: Wise, you gotta read.
Speaker 6: You got the oh Rihanna, Yeah, Rihanna and the style too, please.
Speaker 4: Rihanna got easy easy.
Speaker 1: Love that love that she she put that ship on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the passion of the artist, the heart.
Speaker 4: Of the arts coming from the heart.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna give it to Beyonce because that girl's got
Speaker 6: a heart of the heart of a lion.
Speaker 4: She just doesn't give up.
Speaker 6: She's just she's that what would Beyonce do? Like, she's
Speaker 6: that voice in your head when you're feeling lazy that
Speaker 6: day and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed, and
Speaker 6: you're like.
Speaker 4: Whoa that woman?
Speaker 1: Beyonce would get to work. She would get to work,
Speaker 1: heels on the track, get to work.
Speaker 4: On treadmill and singing and singing. Yeah, caring a baby.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, who's writing for this artist?
Speaker 4: Oh? Dang, okay? The dream yeah? Yeah. Tricky Steward.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm not mad, not biased at all, No, not
Speaker 6: for any particular reason, but I have witnessed the man's
Speaker 6: talent in his very.
Speaker 10: Respect respect what's going on because We got one more segment,
Speaker 10: and we have to give a disclaimer.
Speaker 7: My brother's doing eight shows a week now. He's doing
Speaker 7: eight shows a week on John Browdway, right, he's a thespid.
Speaker 6: Can we talk about the title? Give me the title.
Speaker 6: We need to name anybody who doesn't know what show
Speaker 6: he's doing? What's the show?
Speaker 1: I am doing Hell's Kitchen and asking Alicia Keys Broadway
Speaker 1: Musical and I play her father Davis. And it's real.
Speaker 1: It's real, it's real. You got it.
Speaker 3: When you go back to New York, you gotta go
Speaker 3: check it out.
Speaker 1: I will like it's like, you know, it's Tony Award
Speaker 1: winners and nominees all over that.
Speaker 7: I was ready to throw tomatoes at him. He did
Speaker 7: his thing, no starting, I mean I had to tell
Speaker 7: I had to celebrate it.
Speaker 4: You couldn't help it.
Speaker 1: You killers on stage.
Speaker 6: Yeah, especially, and by the way, Broadway is killing you
Speaker 6: right now. You're amongst all these eight plus everything everywhere.
Speaker 1: Danzel's feet away, Denzel's right there. They cool and all that.
Speaker 1: But we talked.
Speaker 4: About this week talking about we're.
Speaker 1: Talking about dol Doorrail junior juniors. We'll be talking about senior.
Speaker 1: I get it. You want to see the new Denzel
Speaker 1: get to work. I'm on forty four. Oh, hello, my,
Speaker 1: I'm on forty four. Stand.
Speaker 7: We had a very important segment of the show. What
Speaker 7: we close out is called I Ain't saying on names?
Speaker 7: Will you give us a story? Funny or fucked up?
Speaker 7: Are funny and fucked up? The only route to the
Speaker 7: game is you can't say no names.
Speaker 4: Funny orked up?
Speaker 3: Both are both.
Speaker 6: It could be Billy, You'm alright and die. You gotta
Speaker 6: tell me because I know we got stories and I'm yeah,
Speaker 6: Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: I like that New Years.
Speaker 6: Hotel opening New Year's not okay, I can't sit then
Speaker 6: because I just love won't. But you might know the
Speaker 6: name just based off of my own interpretations of the situation,
Speaker 6: because this is an it's one of those nights.
Speaker 4: Actually you don't say the name. That's how good.
Speaker 6: This is beautiful, because this is almost a couple. This
Speaker 6: is twenty years later or no, ten years later. Okay,
Speaker 6: So we go night, Oh my gosh, we're having so
Speaker 6: much fun. Me and my friends, me and my sister
Speaker 6: and my sisters. Billy's there we go, New Year's Night,
Speaker 6: We see the fireworks, Crazy night, Billy, let's let's help
Speaker 6: me this with this story, because how do we end
Speaker 6: up there? Somehow we end up going with a very
Speaker 6: popular ARM and B pop star to a strip club.
Speaker 4: Is that where we started? How we end up there?
Speaker 6: Go say it, just say the beginning of it.
Speaker 4: Jay Z and Coldplay were playing.
Speaker 6: They are not in the part of the story, but
Speaker 6: they were there at the Yeah, so we see this
Speaker 6: all this everybody everybody like, all the hottest stars are
Speaker 6: at this big cosmopolitan, you know, New Year's night thing,
Speaker 6: and somehow we end up around this other star. She's
Speaker 6: a female's pretty dope, and we all decide somehow we're
Speaker 6: all going to the strip club.
Speaker 4: And she's like, come on, let's go. So she's got
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 6: The biggest you know, the big suv trucks.
Speaker 4: We all clamoring.
Speaker 6: We're stuffed in there like sausages, and she's like, she's
Speaker 6: a boss, by the way, and she gets.
Speaker 4: Us all inside of the car.
Speaker 6: We get to the strip club. We're at the strip
Speaker 6: club having a really good time. By then, we've had
Speaker 6: multiple shots, you know, there's people smoking, a little everything.
Speaker 6: She decides she's done with the strip club. We're gonna
Speaker 6: bring the strip club back.
Speaker 4: To her hotel room.
Speaker 6: So everybody gets back in the car. She's really cool,
Speaker 6: by the way, and we get in the car. We
Speaker 6: go to her penthouse suite that she has at the hotel,
Speaker 6: and we're just in awe of all.
Speaker 4: We're watching it, and she's such a boss.
Speaker 6: She's walking around the room, she's got stacks of singles
Speaker 6: in her pocket, and she's the but she doesn't really
Speaker 6: hasn't shared it. And she brought the strippers back. So
Speaker 6: these female strippers come back, you know, and so they're
Speaker 6: shaking their butt everywhere and everything shaking ass and they're naked,
Speaker 6: but nobody's paying attention to them.
Speaker 4: They're just like music playing out loud. People are smoking a.
Speaker 6: Little weed, you know what I mean, and we're all
Speaker 6: talking just you know, having a good time. But the
Speaker 6: strippers are doing stuff, but they're not getting paid anything.
Speaker 6: She has the money, but she hasn't you know, it's
Speaker 6: in the cut.
Speaker 4: So eventually the strippers.
Speaker 6: Are like, you know, oh my god, they're starting to
Speaker 6: get bored because no one's paying attention to them. So
Speaker 6: they go up to this girl and they're like, so
Speaker 6: and so we're gonna lead because you know, everybody's you know, everybody,
Speaker 6: Billy have to tell it, Come on, say it, you
Speaker 6: have to say what she says, Okay, you're gonna say it.
Speaker 4: So we're gonna leave because nobody's paying attention to us, and.
Speaker 6: They're holding their clothes in their hand, and she says.
Speaker 4: They weren't back.
Speaker 6: On the floor got to dancing, and then she said,
Speaker 6: just threw her she just threw the sacks.
Speaker 4: Of cash at them.
Speaker 6: And the night continued on and we were just in
Speaker 6: all of this woman because she's just for so cool
Speaker 6: and she's and I think, you know, I think that
Speaker 6: told the story. So that's night we still talk about
Speaker 6: to this tonight. We still talk about to this day,
Speaker 6: just kind of like watching this this strong ass female
Speaker 6: that's just so cool, be as dope as you imagine
Speaker 6: that she is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: Shut and there.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 4: That's all she had to say.
Speaker 1: That was it. Yeah, I don't want to hear nothing else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. That's a really good story.
Speaker 4: That's christ So that's a funny story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you have you have navigated this thing in
Speaker 1: such a way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was amazing. Was that two hours?
Speaker 1: It's close. We were trying to you. But you've navigated
Speaker 1: this thing with with with so much grace and so
Speaker 1: much class. And to see you now, to see you
Speaker 1: still evolving, to see you still growing, still surprising us
Speaker 1: and showing us new things, it's just like, really dough,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We we we didn't get
Speaker 1: to tap too heavy into the the you know, the
Speaker 1: wife and the children in this aspect of But that's
Speaker 1: that's a whole another space. That is to where you know,
Speaker 1: with everything else that you do, like you're in this
Speaker 1: super woman super hero space that is just it should
Speaker 1: be studied.
Speaker 4: I got some work to do. It's not easy, no.
Speaker 1: Space, but we get to you know, we get to
Speaker 1: see you show up. You get to pull up on
Speaker 1: us and and it all looks good on you.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you.
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to stay young, drink a lot of water, hopefully,
Speaker 6: stay in shape, trying to do what these kids need
Speaker 6: in their life. It starts show for whoever needs me
Speaker 6: to show up for. You know, that's important. But no
Speaker 6: matter what, God has just guided me. I always turned
Speaker 6: to gout and that's what keeps me and all of
Speaker 6: those things going. And I'm just thankful for my longevity
Speaker 6: and to meet good people and through my lifetime and
Speaker 6: be good to people and people be good back and
Speaker 6: it always comes back around. So great lesson I've learned
Speaker 6: and I'm really happy about it.
Speaker 4: Look at us, look at.
Speaker 8: Us, look good at look at you.
Speaker 1: And this is the Army Money Podcast, the authority on
Speaker 1: all things are and be a Superwoman. Family Are outro.
Speaker 4: Thank you has been been great. Thank you died that
Speaker 1: Yah