Speaker 1: He is drinks chests, motherfucking podcast. He's a legendary queens rapper.
Speaker 1: He ain't agreed that your boy in O r E.
Speaker 1: He's a Miami hip hop pioneer. What ups d J
Speaker 1: e f N? Together they drink it up with some
Speaker 1: of the biggest players you me and the most.
Speaker 2: Professional unprofessional podcast and your.
Speaker 1: Number one source for drunk drinks.
Speaker 3: D is New year c That's it's time for drink champs,
Speaker 3: drink up?
Speaker 1: Mother would it could be hoping He's winter should be
Speaker 1: it's your boy in O R E? What up is
Speaker 1: d J e f N?
Speaker 2: This is mina tepic crazy have you have gonna make something?
Speaker 1: And when we started, when we started the show, we.
Speaker 2: Said we wanted to interview legends. Yes, man here as
Speaker 2: a legend. This man is an icon. He's the only
Speaker 2: person I know what an e guy and even know
Speaker 2: what the fucking e goot was I dropped out a
Speaker 2: seventh grade.
Speaker 1: God damn it, it's mo fucker E got is he?
Speaker 2: NAACP Awards nominated at least thirty forty nine a thousand times,
Speaker 2: thirteen goddamn Grammys.
Speaker 1: This motherfucker is a legend on a legend and his
Speaker 1: name is a legend. And in case you don't know
Speaker 1: who we talking about, we talked about the one, the
Speaker 1: only dampeccable. Yes, you can take a quack before me.
Speaker 1: You beat me to the blest of intro. I like
Speaker 1: to hear. Man, So what's going on which brings you
Speaker 1: to Miami?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: I came to see y'all. Oh, I just fix the
Speaker 1: fucking up.
Speaker 4: I was in New York doing press and they were like,
Speaker 4: do you want to come down to Miami and do
Speaker 4: drink champs?
Speaker 1: And yes. I was like, it's about time. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So recently you letting your skills and you sang for
Speaker 2: the fire department, but now it's not a normal fire department.
Speaker 2: This was a fire department that was sent prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I wasn't there to sing.
Speaker 4: I was just there to highlight what they're doing, to
Speaker 4: thank them because these guys they're currently incarcerated and they
Speaker 4: volunteer for this program to fight fires in California, which
Speaker 4: California has a lot of fires, and so they're going
Speaker 4: they train, they go hike up the mountains, go back
Speaker 4: up and back and forth and up and back and forth,
Speaker 4: and it's a crazy training program. But they grow so
Speaker 4: much through it and they end up getting time taking
Speaker 4: off of their term in prison and it improves their
Speaker 4: lives a lot. But we wanted to highlight what they
Speaker 4: do them and thank them, and also advocate that they
Speaker 4: get paid better, that the conditions are still better for them,
Speaker 4: and they get more opportunities after they leave prison so
Speaker 4: they can actually work as firefighters and they leave and
Speaker 4: other things like that. So I was there just to
Speaker 4: talk with them. I sat there just building with them
Speaker 4: for like an hour, and then at the end I
Speaker 4: sang like a versus ordinary people and everybody's like John
Speaker 4: Legend just went and sang ordinary people to the fire
Speaker 4: like that was all I was doing there. I went
Speaker 4: there to talk to them, highlight them, thanked them, advocate
Speaker 4: for them, and they were asking me questions at the
Speaker 4: end about my life and getting advice from me. And
Speaker 4: then at the end they were like, John, what you
Speaker 4: sing for it? So I sang a little ordinary people.
Speaker 1: Some of the top of people in the world love
Speaker 1: R and B. That's a fact. Yes, thugs love R
Speaker 1: and B. That's so.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you something to me. You are hamanitarian,
Speaker 2: you're a people person. How did you develop that like
Speaker 2: type of you know what I mean, like you put
Speaker 2: people before you, like from outside of looking at this inside.
Speaker 4: Well, I always thought that I wanted to be an artist.
Speaker 4: I always thought I wanted to sing for a living,
Speaker 4: but also always thought that the greatest artists that I
Speaker 4: looked up to were the ones that gave back.
Speaker 1: And if you look at Stevie.
Speaker 4: Sidney Poitier, mam and Gay, Sidney Poitier, Paul Robson, Nina Simone,
Speaker 4: Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte, all of these artists, they were
Speaker 4: successful as artists. They were huge artists, sold a lot
Speaker 4: of records, so a lot of concert tickets, and then
Speaker 4: they were also funneling money to doctor King to make
Speaker 4: sure that the movement was going forward.
Speaker 1: They would fly and meet him.
Speaker 4: At these at these marches and bail him out of jail.
Speaker 4: And so I always looked at being an artist as
Speaker 4: partly not just being an artist for myself, but using
Speaker 4: the platform to give back and to be humanitarian.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm gonna give straight to it. It was
Speaker 2: like Trump was your nemesis.
Speaker 3: I feel like he's NICs nemesis.
Speaker 1: They're not mine because.
Speaker 2: He ran against Hillary Hillary side. Yeah, he ran against Kamala. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he was on commona side against body. Now was
Speaker 2: on Biden's side. You know, if Trump is running, there's
Speaker 2: a good chance I'll be against him.
Speaker 1: Do you I think he follows you on Twitter secretly? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not on Twitter anymore? Okay, good? Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: come on Twitter. It's not good. It's gone. It disappears.
Speaker 2: Whenever I'm having too much of a good day, I just.
Speaker 1: Go on black Twitter. I just have to broke. You
Speaker 1: got to get base, Yeah, base only Fans's son retired.
Speaker 1: He has a fan base. He started. It's a black owned.
Speaker 1: There's a couple other ones that are, but.
Speaker 3: All of them are kind of smaller than Twitter used
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 4: And then a lot of people left Twitter. I left Twitter,
Speaker 4: and I think a lot of people are gone from it,
Speaker 4: so there's not really one place where everybody is. I
Speaker 4: do most of my communicating on ig but even that,
Speaker 4: I don't really do as much of what I used
Speaker 4: to do on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, But you think you think Trump separly follows
Speaker 2: you on I G Well, I would.
Speaker 1: Say he was.
Speaker 4: He's like the only time he really acknowledged us when
Speaker 4: he was president.
Speaker 1: The first time I.
Speaker 4: Did this criminal justice reform event at.
Speaker 1: Sing Sing in New York.
Speaker 4: And yeah, so we went up there to the prison
Speaker 4: and we're meeting with the inmates and we're just having
Speaker 4: a conversation about reform and everything that we work on.
Speaker 4: And for some reason, on a Sunday night, the President
Speaker 4: of the United States was watching the show and he
Speaker 4: was mad that we didn't say enough about him, give
Speaker 4: him enough credit because he passed one criminal justice reform
Speaker 4: bill and he was upset and so he was like
Speaker 4: that boring singer John Legend and his filthy mouthed wife, Christy.
Speaker 4: Christy wasn't even there, so I don't know why she
Speaker 4: catches stress, But I'm like, why are you watching the show?
Speaker 4: You like you're the president, Like, don't you have something
Speaker 4: better to do? But no, he likes he likes to
Speaker 4: watch cable news. I don't know what he's doing on Twitter,
Speaker 4: but I think he's on his own app. He got
Speaker 4: his own that now he has his own, Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: I'll be seeing him on ex a lot, well his
Speaker 1: boy on it now. So yeah, like like I'm.
Speaker 2: Sorry to get political, because I'm gonna go. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: going We'll talk about everything. But but his it's crazy
Speaker 2: right years ago recipe of IRV Gotti years ago, IRV Gotti,
Speaker 2: J Prince Sug and I forget who's the other It
Speaker 2: was one of other Prince Sug Sugar Gotti was there
Speaker 2: somebody else.
Speaker 1: I hold, don't think they're Dang Dang. I believe Dave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, huh yeah, I believe Dame was down and these
Speaker 2: were these powerful black men that was getting together. People
Speaker 2: automatically said, this is a Illuminati right now, right now,
Speaker 2: in our face. They met in private just because they
Speaker 2: couldn't get get it together. And from what I heard,
Speaker 2: but you seeing Eli must with Dan a white uh
Speaker 2: huh woof Joe Rogan in your fucking face and a
Speaker 2: meeting in public, bark Zuckerberg. He used, he was down
Speaker 2: with a Democrat and he does twitched over, he doesn't
Speaker 2: change his watches and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he went over to that other side. Well, I
Speaker 1: think they saw what Elon was able to do.
Speaker 4: He was able to donate over two hundred million dollars
Speaker 4: to the campaign, and he basically bought a presidency. So
Speaker 4: he bought the right to ride shotgun with Trump and
Speaker 4: be his co president. And so now he's running through
Speaker 4: the government doing what he wants to do because he
Speaker 4: bought the right. You shouldn't be able to buy the
Speaker 4: right to do that, but he did it out and ope,
Speaker 4: and he bought it. And Trump is letting him be
Speaker 4: co president with him.
Speaker 1: Because what's the thing you just said.
Speaker 2: That's a different Twitter, Isaac Hayeson.
Speaker 4: That one's called fan Base, But there's a Blue Sky,
Speaker 4: there's true Blue Sky is another new one.
Speaker 1: Threads is part of Instagram. I know, I know.
Speaker 3: You can invest in fan base too, like apen source
Speaker 3: where you can invest in it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, so what if we all got together.
Speaker 1: That's that's what Isaac's trying to do.
Speaker 4: He's trying to do that's what But there's a couple
Speaker 4: others that are trying to do it as well, and
Speaker 4: it's just, uh, what was the other one? There was
Speaker 4: another black owned one. I can't think of the name now,
Speaker 4: but goddamn, everybody's trying. But it's hard because you got
Speaker 4: to get everybody in the same place for it to work,
Speaker 4: you know, because they don't have the same energy that
Speaker 4: Twitter had at the beginning. Because everybody's not in the
Speaker 4: same place.
Speaker 2: I think the reason why I like Twitter to take
Speaker 2: the truth is because like when, like I said.
Speaker 1: When I'm having a good day, they will humble me.
Speaker 1: That's the worst humanity, you know.
Speaker 2: I could post the most positive things in the world
Speaker 2: and somebody black, somebody.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it works for me because I'm like,
Speaker 2: all right, cool, it keeps you humble.
Speaker 1: I'm off my high horse. You want to be like,
Speaker 1: fuck you right, bular, that's what you want to The
Speaker 1: ig comments are the same, though, is kind of nice
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: I heard you say something about that. I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: to that. But when you was fifteen, you wrote an
Speaker 2: essay of exactly who you was going to be you
Speaker 2: grew up.
Speaker 1: So I wrote an essay.
Speaker 4: This was like a Black History Month essay comp Titian
Speaker 4: McDonald's was the sponsor, and one of my teachers is like, John,
Speaker 4: you should enter this. You would be good. And so
Speaker 4: the question was just how you plan to make Black history?
Speaker 4: And so I said, I'm going to be a famous artist.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be a famous singer, and then I'm gonna
Speaker 4: use my success as a platform to help my people
Speaker 4: to stand up for what's right, stand up for justice.
Speaker 1: And that's what I've been doing. Wow, since I manifest
Speaker 1: and manifested. I know you did that.
Speaker 2: I know you did that for school, But do you
Speaker 2: recommend that kids that age fourteen, fifteen sixty years years
Speaker 2: old write an essay not the cebrity in school. Sure,
Speaker 2: I write an essay of who they should be in
Speaker 2: that in the next fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, start setting intentions for yourself at that age, and
Speaker 4: you know, we as parents can start encouraging them to
Speaker 4: think about that.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't ask my eight year old what.
Speaker 4: She really wants to be when she grows up, Like
Speaker 4: we say it, but we don't really know that they
Speaker 4: know what they want to be yet. But I think
Speaker 4: once they getting those teen years like start, you have
Speaker 4: them set intentions for what they want to do in life.
Speaker 4: And when you set those intentions, you start to put
Speaker 4: yourself in that path.
Speaker 1: To do it. And I think that's what I was
Speaker 1: thinking and that's what I started doing. Yeah. I did
Speaker 1: a vision board with my six year old this year.
Speaker 1: My wife. You know what a vision board? Ye, same thing.
Speaker 3: It's like manifesting, but you know it's a kid level.
Speaker 3: But you start doing little things like that with them,
Speaker 3: they start to understand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and once you say it, it makes you want
Speaker 4: to work to it too, you know. And so I
Speaker 4: think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: And you would you were what they call a prodigy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a child producty. Yeah, I skipped a couple of grades.
Speaker 4: So I graduated high school when I was sixteen, graduated
Speaker 4: college from houses.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. They literally called me Doogie high school.
Speaker 4: So I get to high school, I'm twelve years old.
Speaker 4: Everybody else is fourteen. They start calling me Doogie. And
Speaker 4: but you know, I was a nerdy little kid. I
Speaker 4: wanted to read everything, do everything, sing everything, and went
Speaker 4: to Ivy League college afterwards.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, I watched you on OPRAH when you
Speaker 2: went to your your old block.
Speaker 1: I was literally cold.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, you have so much
Speaker 2: snow there ray for Ohio. Man, do you still fun
Speaker 2: with the snow? I can't funk with the snow.
Speaker 1: I'm good with it. You're good with it? Yeah, fun
Speaker 1: with this too, it's snow. I was just in New York.
Speaker 1: I love New York. You're from New York. Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't go there too? May I mean I heard it
Speaker 1: right not to go.
Speaker 2: There, Like I earned the right not to be Like
Speaker 2: I literally kept rewinding your ship and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm so cold, like I can't see
Speaker 2: you fun with snow.
Speaker 1: Miami right here. I grew up in Ohio. I live
Speaker 1: in l A now. But when I go to the
Speaker 1: snow like, I enjoy it. So you missed the snow.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we intentionally will go somewhere cold for like Christmas,
Speaker 4: because I.
Speaker 3: Want that Christmas snow feeling. You know, it makes me
Speaker 3: feel at home, not me now, he.
Speaker 1: Said, I see you tracking through it, and ship did you?
Speaker 1: Did you you watch the Grammys recently? I was there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I just played piano. So if you if
Speaker 4: you miss me, I don't blame you. I was just
Speaker 4: playing a piano. We were supporting the.
Speaker 1: Band DAWs Dows.
Speaker 4: Their lead singer and their drummer were with us on
Speaker 4: stage and they performed I Love La and it was
Speaker 4: a whole tribute to La to open the show. And
Speaker 4: they lost their homes literally, the lead singer and the
Speaker 4: drummer lost their home. Their family was from there too.
Speaker 4: They lost home, and they lost a lot of their
Speaker 4: studio and music equipment. So they lost a lot, and
Speaker 4: so the recording the Academy, we have a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, folks that live in l A and we
Speaker 4: wanted to show love to all those musicians that lost something.
Speaker 4: And so Dawes was the lead performance of the show,
Speaker 4: and they had a bunch of us other artists come
Speaker 4: and support them and play. I played piano, Brittany Howard
Speaker 4: from the Alabama Shaks played guitar, Brad Paisley played guitar,
Speaker 4: Saint Vincent played.
Speaker 1: The keys, Cheryl Crowe played the bass, and then we.
Speaker 4: Just supported this band that had lost so much in
Speaker 4: the fire.
Speaker 3: They did a lot of fundraising during that whole Yeah,
Speaker 3: they raised like twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 4: Money really gets oh yeah, well twenty five million dollars
Speaker 4: raised and it's going to go to help a lot
Speaker 4: of people. And you know, Music Cares is a part
Speaker 4: of the Recording Academy too, and Music Cares is basically
Speaker 4: the music community supporting each other because not all of us,
Speaker 4: you know, we're not all millionaires. A lot of our musicians,
Speaker 4: like they fall on hard times. They're dealing with addiction
Speaker 4: and dealing with loss, something's happening in their lives.
Speaker 1: And they need help.
Speaker 4: So Music Care supports them all throughout the year every year.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you right in Miami, they got
Speaker 2: this scheme that they do right when it rains scheme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'll be doing out here. I'm watching y'all.
Speaker 1: But they're talking about like we all to deal with climate,
Speaker 1: like when it.
Speaker 2: Rains, they'll let they'll let their car get flooded or
Speaker 2: whatever and then they'll claim it.
Speaker 1: Oh you talk about it from yeah yeah yeah, So
Speaker 1: hey man, I know the'se gots.
Speaker 2: I know people right, but but in their assurance, it's
Speaker 2: a difference between hurricane insurance and flood insurance.
Speaker 1: So is that a difference? And there's fire insurances.
Speaker 2: That's because because a friend of minee uh left his
Speaker 2: car out in a hurricane and he had he didn't
Speaker 2: have flood insurance. So they said that it wasn't calls
Speaker 2: from a hurricane, it was called from the hef his car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he tried to be slipped. He should have checked
Speaker 1: his policy before Miami schemers.
Speaker 4: Insurance companies their job is to find a way to
Speaker 4: not pay like that's that's their job.
Speaker 1: So you gotta check the fine print.
Speaker 4: You got to check everything with insurance, health insurance, everything.
Speaker 2: Their job is the final reason to not pay that.
Speaker 2: So what these California flyers. Do you think people were
Speaker 2: insured fire?
Speaker 1: What did they have to Hell, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of them were.
Speaker 4: But even if you are, they only ensure the actual home,
Speaker 4: so it's a land. So see, it's always the loophole,
Speaker 4: So definitely so, But theoretically it makes sense because if
Speaker 4: you lose your home, you still own the property and
Speaker 4: you can build it back, so they'll reimburse you for
Speaker 4: building it back, but they won't buy the land from you,
Speaker 4: So it basically requires you to stay there or sell
Speaker 4: the land to somebody else to really make your money back.
Speaker 1: And I heard a lot of people lost their policies.
Speaker 1: They were canceled before.
Speaker 4: Yes, so some of them got canceled before, and maybe
Speaker 4: they didn't check their mail, they didn't notice that they
Speaker 4: got canceled, and so they find out after the fire they.
Speaker 3: Don't have a policy, which is crazy, and then all
Speaker 3: the conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the thing is what's going to happen more
Speaker 4: and more in Florida, in California and all these places.
Speaker 4: It's going to be hard to ensure a house and
Speaker 4: so a lot of people are not going to be
Speaker 4: able to buy a house.
Speaker 1: And it's not because the mortgage.
Speaker 4: It's going to be because they can't afford the mortgage
Speaker 4: and the insurance.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so you're in the fire, right, I'm not there,
Speaker 1: but you got one bottle of water. Let me tell you,
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Let me tell you, Let me
Speaker 1: tell you.
Speaker 3: How.
Speaker 4: How we how we experienced the fire. Like we landed
Speaker 4: on January seventh. We had just been on family vacation.
Speaker 4: We heard, oh, there's a fire in the Powersades. We
Speaker 4: didn't know it was going to be huge. With normal, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we have fires all the time.
Speaker 3: In that area, especially Malibus.
Speaker 1: Malibu is my favorite place. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So Malibu is right around the corner from the Powasades,
Speaker 4: and Malibu gets a lot of fires. Palsaids is not
Speaker 4: as much. But so we land and we see smoke
Speaker 4: pluming from that area.
Speaker 1: You think it was we I was like, it's no,
Speaker 1: right here, and we literally saw the flame.
Speaker 4: Usually when there's fires in l A, I don't see
Speaker 4: the flame, Like I see the smoke coming from it,
Speaker 4: but I don't see the flame. But I'm looking in
Speaker 4: the hills and I'm like, oh, that's an actual flame.
Speaker 4: And so we're driving back to our houses in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: So it's between.
Speaker 4: The Pasadena fires and the Malibu fires, Palastates fires, and.
Speaker 1: We're like, should we leave, should we get out of here?
Speaker 4: And we never ended up in an evacuation zone, but
Speaker 4: when there was a fire in the Hollywood Hills that
Speaker 4: fell a little too close for comfort, so we were like,
Speaker 4: we're getting out of here, so we left. We went
Speaker 4: down to San Diego for like a week, and then
Speaker 4: we came back home after a week.
Speaker 1: So we didn't lose anything.
Speaker 4: Some of our very good friends lost their home and
Speaker 4: had relatives lose their homes, and a lot of people
Speaker 4: just it just got wiped.
Speaker 1: Out and it all happened. Most of it happened in
Speaker 1: that first.
Speaker 3: Day or two because if you looked at the video,
Speaker 3: it was a hurricane.
Speaker 1: Of the wind.
Speaker 4: The wind was blowing as fast as it blows down
Speaker 4: here during a hurricane. It was eighty one hundred miles
Speaker 4: an hours tornadoes in that mo Yeah, it was literally
Speaker 4: whipping the fire around, and it like it looked like
Speaker 4: like a movie, like it couldn't be real, and it
Speaker 4: was insane, and it took over entire areas really fast,
Speaker 4: and I never seen anything like.
Speaker 1: The tragedy was crazy. I hang out with a lot
Speaker 1: of conspiracy theorists. Yeah, I don't believe. Some of my
Speaker 1: family I don't believe. I love to listen, I mean
Speaker 1: some of these things. And somebody.
Speaker 2: Conspiracy theorists of mines said to me that these were
Speaker 2: caused by the way.
Speaker 1: This is not me, This was not me.
Speaker 2: This was caused to the areas of the rich so
Speaker 2: that they could rebuild l A and have this smart
Speaker 2: l A.
Speaker 1: That's what that's what he thinks, right, what do you
Speaker 1: think of that?
Speaker 2: No, because they said the fires didn't come to the hood,
Speaker 2: is that true or the fires did hit that well,
Speaker 2: it hit a black neighborhood, hit a black outa Dina
Speaker 2: so Auta.
Speaker 1: Dina was one of the first neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: that allowed black people to actually live there. I didn't I.
Speaker 2: Didn't know about this, uh until until the fires. Like
Speaker 2: I didn't know this area, this is Altadena is not
Speaker 2: really close to like a lot of portions of LA
Speaker 2: that's like kind of far northeast near Pasadena.
Speaker 1: But there was a black neighborhood there.
Speaker 4: And a lot of the folks there are like middle class,
Speaker 4: working class, so not everybody was like Hollywood celebrities, but
Speaker 4: the Palisades. That's an expensive area, Malibu, extremely expensive. These
Speaker 4: are like some of these are like fifty million, seventy
Speaker 4: five million dollar homes and so definitely a lot.
Speaker 1: Of rich people got hit. But I have a hard
Speaker 1: time believing that somebody intentionally did that. Did it to
Speaker 1: Bill smart La, What does that mean?
Speaker 3: They're saying the same thing, the same conspiracy that happened
Speaker 3: in Malway. They said it's a laser that hit to
Speaker 3: take that property over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just hear that. I'm always SKEPTI I'm always skeptical.
Speaker 3: I always feel like usually the most obvious explanation is
Speaker 3: the real explanation.
Speaker 1: But I could be wrong. Sometimes it was probably caused
Speaker 1: man made, which the fires.
Speaker 4: Happened accidentally, yeah, or even sometimes it's on purpose. But
Speaker 4: the wind and the dryness just accelerated everything. We hadn't
Speaker 4: had rain since like last fall rain Soulls of California,
Speaker 4: that's what.
Speaker 1: But we literally we normally would have like they said.
Speaker 4: Five or six inches between October first and when the
Speaker 4: fires happened, we had point one six inch, So that
Speaker 4: on its own was an accelerant. And then the wind
Speaker 4: was something we almost never see. The Santa Ana winds
Speaker 4: at that wind at that speed, So you out there,
Speaker 4: you combine the speed of the wind and the dryness.
Speaker 4: That's why it happened. Were you out there we landed,
Speaker 4: you know after it started.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But we never were in the fire, so we didn't
Speaker 4: see it up close and personal. But close friends of
Speaker 4: ours were and uh, you know they lost their homes.
Speaker 4: They didn't make you evacuate. No, we were not in
Speaker 4: evacuation zone. We were like between evacuation zones. But we
Speaker 4: left anyway, just for.
Speaker 1: A little bit. There's people that lost everything.
Speaker 2: Be honest, I thought New Yorkers was stubborn until I
Speaker 2: moved to Miami.
Speaker 1: They won't move for the hurricane. You're like, hurricane is
Speaker 1: going to kill everybody. They don't really tell everyone is
Speaker 1: gonna die in Miami. They were like, it's okay, I
Speaker 1: guess sawtcula go to home. People in public about to
Speaker 1: get you, and then the ship goes out with listen, yo,
Speaker 1: but y'all take it. You'll take it too far. Soon
Speaker 1: as it's a hurricane.
Speaker 2: They rack up hurricane party hurricane parties.
Speaker 1: The nigga store is gone. They're used to it here many.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna be honest with you, John Legend, you
Speaker 2: look like you never had a bad day.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. I'm a little jealous. Man.
Speaker 2: I look at you, and you look stressed. Fucking you
Speaker 2: look like nothing you have had bad days.
Speaker 4: But I would say I am probably one of the
Speaker 4: most kind of, like even killed people you'll ever meet.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of I don't get really
Speaker 1: angry very often. I am as chill as you think.
Speaker 4: And he compares me, song compares me to Seinfeld because
Speaker 4: there's this episode of Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: Show me the episode I'm ready for it.
Speaker 4: Where they say everything always evens out for Jerry.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Son always called me Seinfeld because he's like, everything
Speaker 4: always evens out for you. Man, you got something happened,
Speaker 4: something some for some reason, it just always evens out.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Hang out with you, then that's that's my that's you
Speaker 2: watched Kirby Enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love it.
Speaker 2: Oh that's my favorite ship. I love shows a lot.
Speaker 2: I've seen every episode. Okay, yeah, which one you will pick?
Speaker 2: Curb or or side fel.
Speaker 1: Or Curb Curb? I mean too Yeah, most people would
Speaker 1: say I can love. I'm sorry, man. I love Larry David. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm love I love them. I love so much.
Speaker 2: I don't want to meet him because if I meet
Speaker 2: him and he'd be like, hey, what the fuck, I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4: Man, his whole persona is that he probably wouldn't be
Speaker 4: nice to you when you met him, and so you're like,
Speaker 4: maybe that is being.
Speaker 1: Nice being not nice to Like.
Speaker 2: I was like, it's this restaurant called Club I mean
Speaker 2: Hotel COASTI is in Paris. Yeah, very nasty people like
Speaker 2: they're like a little French root the French Route. And
Speaker 2: one time I went there on my birthday and they
Speaker 2: were nice to me, and I would say, this is
Speaker 2: not what I paid for. You're like to me, they
Speaker 2: got a cigarette when I used to smoke cigarettes and
Speaker 2: have a cigarettes section all that.
Speaker 1: And it was nice to me. One time I didn't
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah. Yeah, I was on Larry David show.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 3: I did a guest of parents on he was. He
Speaker 3: was nice then, and but I hung out mostly with Jeff.
Speaker 2: And uh Susie yeah yeah yeah yeah, the lady with
Speaker 2: the bad mouth and the manager.
Speaker 1: Yes. So so what episode was this? This was the
Speaker 1: bot Mitzvah. I was singing at the bat Mitzvah for
Speaker 1: their daughter. Uh and uh.
Speaker 4: The conceit of the show was that I was one
Speaker 4: of Jeff's clients and he got me to sing at
Speaker 4: the bat Mitzvah.
Speaker 1: So I sang a song there. This is early, like
Speaker 1: six early in my career. But that was cool.
Speaker 3: And I just sat there and talked to Jeff and
Speaker 3: Susie the whole time, and they had me cracking up.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, they were funny, Okay, yeah, they were really funny.
Speaker 2: Now you also got to do a movie with the
Speaker 2: late great Bernie Mack. Yes, so man, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you know one of the best lines I ever heard
Speaker 2: in the world is in that movie when Bernie Mack
Speaker 2: moves into the old folks home behind and Mike f says,
Speaker 2: you know, because now you can spend some time with
Speaker 2: the kids, and Bernie Mack looks to him with all
Speaker 2: honesty and.
Speaker 1: Says, that's an iconic line. That line has been used
Speaker 1: since then. But how was me and Bertie Mack?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Man, he was funny too in person.
Speaker 4: You know some comedians they're not funny in person because
Speaker 4: they they it's like they're saving it for the stage.
Speaker 1: Because he's himself.
Speaker 4: You can sell Yeah, I have another it's like they're
Speaker 4: saving it for the stage. But Bernie was really funny
Speaker 4: in person. Jeff and Susie were very funny in person.
Speaker 4: And then some people they like they clam up and
Speaker 4: they don't give you no jokes until you see him
Speaker 4: on stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you never met Prince. Yeah, I met Prince. I
Speaker 1: met Prince of Future. I didn't. I didn't know whatever
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: Let's put my seatbelt. That's kind of like I was
Speaker 2: about to ask you did he float? Did he float?
Speaker 2: When you met him?
Speaker 1: I was starstruck. This is one of the first big
Speaker 1: celebrities I met that I really like, truly was starstruck
Speaker 1: when I met him. As out Prince on no ass out,
Speaker 1: his ass was in. I'm sorry. He was close. So
Speaker 1: at the time he was signed to the same label
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: He was at Columbia Sony Urban and we had the
Speaker 4: same exact Lisa Ellis and he was doing a concert
Speaker 4: at MSG and Lisa was like, you want to come
Speaker 4: see friends. I was like yeah, so and then he
Speaker 4: did an after party at bb King's and he he Princess,
Speaker 4: the craziest musician because he'll do the whole show and
Speaker 4: then go play the after party.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He he would do a three hour show and then
Speaker 1: go play at the after party.
Speaker 4: I've never seen anybody that just loved playing music and
Speaker 4: kept playing music, kept playing music like he did.
Speaker 1: And it was amazing seeing him.
Speaker 4: The first time I met him, he was just like,
Speaker 4: you know, he was on that protect your rights, make
Speaker 4: sure you get.
Speaker 1: Your master's black when you can all that.
Speaker 4: And then the next time I saw him, he had
Speaker 4: one of those after parties that he had after the
Speaker 4: Grammys or the Oscars in l A. And uh it
Speaker 4: was a jam session and a bunch of artists were
Speaker 4: there and I got up.
Speaker 1: On stage and jam with him, and STEVEE was there,
Speaker 1: and uh it was fun. Man, God damn me. Before
Speaker 1: I get to the Eguy, Michael Jackson met Micah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I met Mike. I met Mike, and Bahrain put
Speaker 4: back on my hand weird. So this is where he
Speaker 4: was living.
Speaker 3: So he was dealing with all his you know, legal things,
Speaker 3: and uh, he was living in Bahrain for a while.
Speaker 1: Over in the Middle East. It's in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: It's overbody like Saudi Arabia and uh, and uh they
Speaker 4: were having an F one uh event over there, and
Speaker 4: they had like a celebrity invitational and they were like
Speaker 4: just trying to get celebrities to come to the F
Speaker 4: one and I was a new celebrity. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'll go to Bahrain on whatever. I heard Michael Jackson,
Speaker 4: we might get to meet Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, the Crown Prince has a dinner.
Speaker 4: At one of his homes and Michael Jackson just walks
Speaker 4: in and I sit there and it was like a
Speaker 4: few like round tables, and I'm sitting at the round
Speaker 4: table where Mike's.
Speaker 3: Sitting and We're all just sitting there talking, talking about
Speaker 3: music whatever. You don't remember the subject we talked.
Speaker 1: We talked about We talked about music, we talked about
Speaker 1: you know, life. I don't know. Is it true about
Speaker 1: his voice?
Speaker 3: He said that he when he were normal, Yeah, he
Speaker 3: just he doesn't have the same high pitched voice.
Speaker 1: It was still pretty. It wasn't deep, Nah, it wasn't deep.
Speaker 1: It was you know, walking night.
Speaker 2: You know, the pictures with Michael Jackson would have grip
Speaker 2: stories about him not created. He fought all kinds of
Speaker 2: Mike get crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I don't hear a lot of conspiracies. They're fun.
Speaker 1: Am I here the debunk Conspiracy Factor fiction with John.
Speaker 2: So John leszend. We want you to know, man, our
Speaker 2: show is about giving people the flowers.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you. I love the show, but we want to
Speaker 1: give you your flowers. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: For it matches my wine bottles too. You know this
Speaker 3: is my l B E wine and it matches perfect.
Speaker 2: So it's not love, it's l v E. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: call LB, but it's been calling it love too. You
Speaker 2: can call love to all right?
Speaker 1: Cool? You ever drink Whispering Angel? Yeah, this Whispering Angel killer,
Speaker 1: it's better. You know what I'm saying. It's the killer.
Speaker 1: It's the killer, the killer Whisper better better than LV.
Speaker 1: I've tried it plenty of times and and ours is
Speaker 1: better than their. Yes, fact, Just to say, what did
Speaker 1: you drink Whispering Age? Drying France? I've drank like the
Speaker 1: Hampton's France Rich Rich in France. I try to do French,
Speaker 1: you know brands out there, but now we're doing LV.
Speaker 4: Man, that's the only one we're doing. Ours is French too, though,
Speaker 4: What do you drink in France?
Speaker 1: What does it?
Speaker 3: Well, I drink a lot of Burgundy wines. So my
Speaker 3: partner in this wine is a Frenchman. His name is
Speaker 3: Jean ch.
Speaker 1: Rich money to hold.
Speaker 4: So he grew up in Burgundy in France, and so
Speaker 4: his family has been making wine forever and so.
Speaker 2: So he's my he's my connect in France. So how
Speaker 2: did you come up with the wines? Let's talk about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a cabernet. Yeah, that's a cabernet. We got a rose.
Speaker 4: We got a sparkling rose. We got a sparkling white.
Speaker 4: We got uh, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc. We got a nice range.
Speaker 1: No, uh, we do have a small run of pinoa,
Speaker 1: not a lot of you know, it's just right now. No, great, ye.
Speaker 2: So look, we're gonna want to splain them in the
Speaker 2: rules quick time.
Speaker 1: You got right? Are you ready? You got you gotta
Speaker 1: ask him what he would like to drink? Please? What
Speaker 1: we got? Yeah, I'll do shots? Yeah, I take mins chilled?
Speaker 1: All right, remind me of rules of again. Let's go.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna give you two choices. This is to
Speaker 3: bring up any stories you got with anybody. But if
Speaker 3: you pick one, we don't drink, don't pick drink. Okay,
Speaker 3: so you say, but I just got to commit one
Speaker 3: way that h we drink with you got there?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, we haven't we having fun, so I gotta
Speaker 2: set it off off Okay, Yeah, this is not waiting
Speaker 2: for my shots.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, Okay, I think I said I like this.
Speaker 1: You're ready with the shots coming?
Speaker 2: Okay, Chris Brown or Asha, I'm gonna say Usher, okay
Speaker 2: because the roller skates, because.
Speaker 4: Of the rollers, both of them are like supremely talented.
Speaker 4: But I was on tour with Usher. Me and Kanye
Speaker 4: were opening for Usher. This is like, this is the
Speaker 4: Confessions era Usher. So this is right after College Dropout
Speaker 4: came out and right before Get Lifted my album came out,
Speaker 4: and Usher's, you know, on top of the world, eight
Speaker 4: million albums sold, and he's touring arenas for Confessions.
Speaker 1: And we're opening for him. So I'm seeing the work
Speaker 1: he's putting in every day getting the show right. And
Speaker 1: I see that same.
Speaker 4: Level of work ethic and effort and then just pure
Speaker 4: talent from him still twenty years later.
Speaker 2: So I'm a Usher fan for life. You don't go
Speaker 2: to take a shot because you're right picked. But let
Speaker 2: me ask you a question. This is off catalog. Your
Speaker 2: lady asks you to go to Usher concert. Huh and
Speaker 2: Usher comes over.
Speaker 1: Like Kiki, Yeah, ushers out here ruining relationship ship and strawberries.
Speaker 1: He sees, your lady, are you getting is John Legend? Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is I slow danced with women on my stage.
Speaker 1: I understand the guy. I respect the game. You know,
Speaker 1: he's like a show business business show business. It's cool,
Speaker 1: but it's cool. She's not coming up volunteering her.
Speaker 2: But I respect the game because he literally ruined short
Speaker 2: these relationships.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, he left like he one girl.
Speaker 4: It was Keky's baby's father. And uh they weren't married,
Speaker 4: but you know he he wasn't happy. She was having
Speaker 4: too much fun.
Speaker 1: Who side was you on? He was you on his side?
Speaker 1: Unher soide?
Speaker 2: He like, oh Swiss bell swims.
Speaker 1: I said, what up? I just saw him Sunday, But
Speaker 1: uh listen, Uh like, I say, you got it. That's
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 4: It's a show man like he did it in front
Speaker 4: of everybody. She was sneaking up to his hotel room.
Speaker 4: It's like in front of everybody. This is fine, it's good.
Speaker 1: Your arm b Niggs don't leave your girl. He a
Speaker 1: song Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte.
Speaker 4: I gotta go with my guy Harry, because I was
Speaker 4: close with him before he passed away. I didn't really
Speaker 4: I met mister Partier, but I spent a lot of
Speaker 4: time in mister Bellafonte.
Speaker 1: And him both missed up. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh, we really called him mister b and like he
Speaker 4: was the example of how to be an activist and
Speaker 4: an artist. And uh he took a lot of classy dudes. Yeah,
Speaker 4: a classy like extremely talented, and he was the biggest
Speaker 4: selling artist of his era. Like when he was big,
Speaker 4: he was bigger than everybody. And so for him to
Speaker 4: take that and then put it on the line so
Speaker 4: he could.
Speaker 2: Support doctor King and do what everything he did, Like
Speaker 2: I always look up to him.
Speaker 1: He picked. Yeah, Okay, Patti LaBelle or Tina Turner.
Speaker 4: Miss Patty that's right, Yeah, I mean Tina was extremely talented.
Speaker 3: But I just like Miss Patty's music more. It's like
Speaker 3: more more of my speed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I love to drink yeah, and I love
Speaker 1: Miss Patty. She came on drinking chance for her own glass. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you spent time with her, she's so real so real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I love her, I really love her. Jada kiss
Speaker 1: or Nas, I'm ready to drink.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say this is that this is not easy. Actually,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say Nas, Okay, we ain't drinking at all today, Okay,
Speaker 4: this one.
Speaker 3: I've done records with both of them, and I love
Speaker 3: both of them.
Speaker 4: I think I just like NAS's voice just a little better,
Speaker 4: like this, his flow and his voice just a little better.
Speaker 2: But Shade is incredible, y'all all you Nas, all of
Speaker 2: y'all go to light skin karate class.
Speaker 1: I know, I know about y'all. I know about meeting meaning.
Speaker 1: You can't drink out Franklin or Nina Simon. I might
Speaker 1: drink on this, man. I don't know if I could pick.
Speaker 1: These are two of my favorites of all time.
Speaker 4: Uh, I'm gonna say, Nina Simon, Oh you don't drink shot,
Speaker 4: don't take a shot.
Speaker 1: I take a shot for these are the smallest shots.
Speaker 1: Usually it's a lot of shots. It's a long game.
Speaker 1: We didn't think. We didn't think. We thought she was
Speaker 1: going to be like very well correct. Don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you my truth. He saying that shit was
Speaker 1: hot as hell, yeah, you want it Whitney Houston or
Speaker 1: Amy Winehouse Whitney. That was easy. I should take a
Speaker 1: shot for knowing that I love Amy though I love
Speaker 1: her music. I met her. I met Amy when she
Speaker 1: was brand like when that Back.
Speaker 4: To Black album, So she had already had another album
Speaker 4: that didn't really pop, and then the Back to Black
Speaker 4: album was about to come out, and I was on
Speaker 4: later with Jules Holland, which is a British show which
Speaker 4: I love. And the show is just different artists in
Speaker 4: like the round, and so one band will play and
Speaker 4: then another band will play, and then the other band
Speaker 4: all play and they're all five or six bands in
Speaker 4: this room together in this big studio in London, and
Speaker 4: Amy and I were both on the set, and so
Speaker 4: she had a couple of her songs, she did Rehab
Speaker 4: and something else from.
Speaker 1: That album, and then I.
Speaker 4: Did a couple songs from my second album, and she
Speaker 4: walked up to me like like she was a brand
Speaker 4: new writers, like handing me her a demo and handing
Speaker 4: me Back to Black, which ended up, you know, taking
Speaker 4: over the world right after that, but at that point
Speaker 4: it hadn't done that yet and it was about to.
Speaker 2: But that's when I first met him. Wow, yeah, Sam
Speaker 2: Cook or Teddy Pintograph mm hmmm taking a shot.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. I'm gonna say Teddy just because there's
Speaker 1: just more jams that I love, you know. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: see look at Teddy Pograd. Baby, that's a Philly man.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: He uh fly Eagles Fly? Is this gonna air after
Speaker 1: the super Bowl? Yeah?
Speaker 3: This would be at the super Bowl. Yeah, you knows
Speaker 3: what happened. I'm over the Chiefs.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: If I got to choose, you patched him my home cousin.
Speaker 4: I got family look more like Jayleen Hurston. But I
Speaker 4: went to scoring Philly. I went to you, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I got you know, yeah, I got love for Philly.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jesus man, Philly. Get to the kig on like
Speaker 1: that Biggie or Big L Biggie. I never was like
Speaker 1: completely into Big L like, but I was definitely into Biggie. Okay,
Speaker 1: DJ College or DJ Drama. I gotta go with College man.
Speaker 4: I did like twenty records with College and legendary record
Speaker 4: with niy Hustle exactly believe that was his last video
Speaker 4: and to take it all the way back, we did
Speaker 4: a record with good music me a consequence. We did
Speaker 4: a record called Grammy Family with Collein.
Speaker 1: That's a big record.
Speaker 4: That was like when that was the early days when
Speaker 4: Colin first started making those compilation albums, and uh, he
Speaker 4: didn't win a Grammy. Colin didn't win a Grammy until
Speaker 4: we wanted together with Nipsey for Hire.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: It was called the Grammy Fan and the early record
Speaker 4: was called Grammy Family. But years later we wanted his
Speaker 4: first Grammy together.
Speaker 2: I needed this is any criteria you want Yay or Pharrell? Mhmm,
Speaker 2: I say Yay, Okay, yeah right.
Speaker 3: I just started working with Pharrell recently, yeah, on music.
Speaker 3: So we stepped in the studio and we started working
Speaker 3: on some new music. First time working together.
Speaker 1: We'd only done a couple of songs together.
Speaker 4: Okay, but you know, obviously Yay and I have done
Speaker 4: a thousand records together, and I'm truly a fan of
Speaker 4: Yay as a producer and an artist over the years too.
Speaker 1: So, but I love both of them.
Speaker 4: I mean, just think how influential both of them have
Speaker 4: been to all of our culture, not just what we
Speaker 4: listened to, what we wear everything.
Speaker 2: It sounds like we're taking a shot, no, he picked
Speaker 2: a okay, okay, okay, so like we're taking it like a.
Speaker 3: Like a.
Speaker 1: Honorable shot. Let's mean you take a shot and oh
Speaker 1: ship okay, yes, La or Miami. Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Well I live in l A, and I think Miami.
Speaker 4: I enjoy partying here more than I do l A.
Speaker 1: But I live in LA. It's like, you know, my
Speaker 1: kids go to school there, l A.
Speaker 4: Like you want to say, Miami's more Miami's more fun
Speaker 4: in doses, and then La.
Speaker 1: Is where I stay.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's all you, this is me sein fell a
Speaker 2: Kirby enthusiasm. We've established this curb. Yeah, yes, but let's
Speaker 2: explain to the people why.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the fact that on HBO gives it
Speaker 4: more leeway to like say all the jokes, you know,
Speaker 4: say all the funks they want to say, and everything else.
Speaker 4: But also I think us getting to know Larry, who
Speaker 4: was the creator of exactly, I think that was a revelation.
Speaker 4: So I think that's what makes kurb better is his
Speaker 4: his personality. Because George was always a really funny part
Speaker 4: of Seinfeld anyway.
Speaker 3: But having the real George, having Larry there is.
Speaker 1: Like it makes it better, all right.
Speaker 2: Now I want to ask you what is your favorite
Speaker 2: Seinfeld episode and what is your favorite curb episode?
Speaker 1: Now this is this is not with drink Chance, but
Speaker 1: one in one. I don't know, that's a good one.
Speaker 4: I like the one where they're doing the contests in Seinfeld.
Speaker 4: That's a good one where they're like seeing who's going
Speaker 4: jack off first?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, come out you were JBS? Move is Kramer?
Speaker 1: And yeah like that?
Speaker 2: Yes, he's like the black you went with the episode? Yes,
Speaker 2: se felt it's called the con. Now that's your favorite curve?
Speaker 1: My favorite curve? Oh, man, I gotta think about that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I really have to think about it.
Speaker 2: You know what my favorite curve when they he hired
Speaker 2: the people to be Christians in front.
Speaker 1: Of down and the Nativity said, because you know he's Jewish,
Speaker 1: so he hired Christian, but his wife is Christian. His
Speaker 1: wife is Christian Christian, and I think he didn't feed
Speaker 1: them or something wrong. So that's my favorite. If you
Speaker 1: think about it, we'll come back to yes. The next one.
Speaker 1: Swiss Beachs are Timberland.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say Tim, it's fucked up because I know
Speaker 3: all these people very well, so.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see yes, I'll say Tim.
Speaker 4: Honestly, there's more Tim records that I'm like, are some
Speaker 4: of the greatest records of all time? That then I
Speaker 4: think of Swiss, But I love a bunch of Swiss
Speaker 4: records too. But I'm gonna say Tim. Okay, Most Deaf
Speaker 4: or to Live, Most Deaf or Black Dog Black Dot Okay.
Speaker 4: I just think if Most was still giving us material
Speaker 4: then it would be closer. But I think because Black
Speaker 4: Dot has been so prolific, h and consistent and prolific.
Speaker 1: Uh, you got to show up? Is this show biz? Man?
Speaker 4: If you show up and you're making records, then like, uh,
Speaker 4: there's there's points.
Speaker 1: For that, you know, like the montaue to show up? Okay,
Speaker 1: analog of digital?
Speaker 4: Well, we we run everything through analog before we put
Speaker 4: it on digital.
Speaker 1: To this day, we run it through the tape. Really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I make a record, we run it through
Speaker 4: the tape first and then.
Speaker 1: Put it to digital. We say tape you meet real, Yeah,
Speaker 1: get the out of school, Yeah yo, let me make
Speaker 1: some noise. You know. Cartel said that yesterday too on
Speaker 1: the rail Oh ship. Yeah, you can run into tape
Speaker 1: before you put it on digital. Oh man, So there's
Speaker 1: best of both. It just gives it that flavor. That
Speaker 1: home you picked that digital. I'm goinging analog.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That's not going all the time. Marvin Gay or Al Green, Marvin, Damn,
Speaker 2: It's easy.
Speaker 1: I was flying through this. I'm just willing to commit.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm gonna make it, even if I like
Speaker 4: I might have second thoughts later, I'm gonna decide, you know,
Speaker 4: Dre or Quincy Jones. Oh, it's like apples and oranges.
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna say Quincy just the range of probably musicianship,
Speaker 4: you know, because you think about Quincy's career. He was
Speaker 4: producing and arranging and composing for Frank Sinatra and Ray
Speaker 4: Charles in the fifties and sixties, and then giving us
Speaker 4: Thriller in the eighties, and to me and everybody else
Speaker 4: and all the R and B artists he produced over
Speaker 4: the years. Nancy Sinatra, he did everything, so just the breadth.
Speaker 1: Of work he was able to do. Yeahgazine, heay, he.
Speaker 3: Produced a fresh Prince of bel air, roots, color purple.
Speaker 1: He just gave us everything. Yeah, thanks one.
Speaker 4: Get lifted or my favorite dream, get lifted. It's a
Speaker 4: good segue. Let's promote get listed. Twenty years so this
Speaker 4: is the twentieth anniversary. It gets listed right now. And
Speaker 4: we just did the luxe edition of the album with
Speaker 4: the original album first, but then a whole extra album,
Speaker 4: the whole I did it all over, Yeah, a whole
Speaker 4: extra album of remixes. So I did The Ordinary People
Speaker 4: with Thames, the APPROB version.
Speaker 3: I did Approb version of Refuge with Semi.
Speaker 4: Both of them are from Nigeria. And then I did
Speaker 4: a couple of hip hop remixes. I did Black Thought
Speaker 4: on used to Love You with ninth Wonder I'm making
Speaker 4: the B and then uh You making the ninth d Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then on Let's Get Lifted Again, I had Killer
Speaker 4: Mike and Lil Wayne each do a verse and uh
Speaker 4: So the remixes are dope, but we have the original
Speaker 4: versions first, and then at the end of the album.
Speaker 1: You can listen to the remixes. M that's fine, m
Speaker 1: J or Prince.
Speaker 3: Childhood. Tell this is a shot A you got four
Speaker 3: shots us to do four times at least.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say both MJ.
Speaker 2: If I'm just going record for record, like the songs
Speaker 2: that had the most impact in.
Speaker 1: My life, I feel like MJ had more. They say,
Speaker 1: they say MJ is just as famous as Jesus.
Speaker 4: Do you believe that now at his peak, at his peak, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm sure, yeah, yes, but if you ask a kid now,
Speaker 4: like I don't know, but during that time, he was everything.
Speaker 4: Like the first like merch I ever had was a
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson Thriller folder for school.
Speaker 1: Zipper jacket. Yeah, zip jacket too. You look like you
Speaker 1: had to go. Yeah, so you definitely had.
Speaker 4: I was born in seventy eight, so I was born
Speaker 4: in seventy eight, so my first time going to school
Speaker 4: was like mid eighties, and like.
Speaker 1: That was everything when Thriller, when that video came out.
Speaker 4: My parents were very religious, so Prince they like thought
Speaker 4: Prince was a little too like uh crazy, a little
Speaker 4: too wild he was. Yeah, so he was like forbidden
Speaker 4: through at the house for a while. But MJ, you know,
Speaker 4: we could get away with that.
Speaker 3: That's just great because both of them had very religious families. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and Prince was very religious. Yea, Prince became even more religious.
Speaker 3: I think it was Jehoah's witness. Our Seventh Day venis
Speaker 3: one of Stevie Wonder or Smokey Robinson, Stevie you know.
Speaker 3: Snoop Dogg said that Stevie wants face thoms him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Steevie facetimes, what's just the one that Georgie Clinton.
Speaker 1: Jorine Clinton said that he saw him across the busy street.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got everybody got Stevie. Give everybody. Everybody's got Stevie's
Speaker 3: not blind.
Speaker 1: Stories.
Speaker 2: Shaq said he seen he seen Stevie getting the elevator, said,
Speaker 2: what's up, Diesel.
Speaker 1: Black. I don't remember that bar, but we need to No, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, everybody's got him. Like, but I went to his studio.
Speaker 2: You've seen him rolling up and he was just walking
Speaker 2: around like like he was seeing everything.
Speaker 1: But it was also his studio, so so like he's
Speaker 1: he's been there a lot. He walking around.
Speaker 3: He's literally blind, but he's actually not one hundred percent
Speaker 3: blind because I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I never asked. I never had when
Speaker 1: I never asked.
Speaker 3: Because men, the stories are crazy. Stevie family calling him like.
Speaker 2: We spoke about him almost every but he likes to
Speaker 2: make jokes about it too, Like he makes blind jokes
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: He has blind jokes all the time. He'll just say
Speaker 1: like yeah, I'll drive over there, I'll see you when
Speaker 1: I like he'll drive over because Oprah board him with
Speaker 1: may back. He said he was gonna I'm dropping exactly.
Speaker 1: He says it all the time, though he'll joke about
Speaker 1: it all the time.
Speaker 2: We would love to have him one, but I've never
Speaker 2: asked him. Stevie, be real with me, are you really blind?
Speaker 1: You're pulling? You know what's crazy. Like most blind people,
Speaker 1: they feel your face to see how you you look.
Speaker 2: I've never seen Steve. Steve touch anybody's face. I've never
Speaker 2: seen I'm just being I love. I mean, you see
Speaker 2: him as a famous person. He's had someone next to
Speaker 2: me like you're about to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's always got somebody next to her. All right.
Speaker 4: If I'm betting, I'm betting he's blind. Okay, okay, Uh,
Speaker 4: Brothers of the Parliament, Isaacs. Just more records that you
Speaker 4: know resonate with me.
Speaker 3: Tony Tony Tony or BBD Tony Tony.
Speaker 1: Tony, same answer, More records that resonate me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I'm close with Raphael too, and he's
Speaker 3: produced a couple of my albums.
Speaker 1: And uh and.
Speaker 4: Raphael sadiqu the you know, lead singer and one of
Speaker 4: the great producers. He's just one Album of the Year
Speaker 4: with with Beyonce for the country album. Uh, he was
Speaker 4: part of that, and he's part of that and part
Speaker 4: of renaissance, and he's a part of everything like that.
Speaker 4: You don't even know, like di'angelo Lady Untitled by di'angelo,
Speaker 4: like some of the great R and B records of
Speaker 4: all time, he's behind.
Speaker 1: And then all those Tony Tony records.
Speaker 2: Are amazing too, great new addition or BBD No, No
Speaker 2: Jackson five, Jackson five, my bad Jackson Fine, Okay, it's
Speaker 2: the guys from Boston.
Speaker 1: He's mad Tony, Tony Tony or BBD. I know we
Speaker 1: did that one. We did that one. Hmm. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say Rion Alicia is my friend too.
Speaker 4: But as a fan just listening, I probably listened to
Speaker 4: Rihanna Moore and again more records that I'm like in
Speaker 4: love with of hers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, y'all got a couples b something you just swiss
Speaker 3: And no, man, I don't really love both of them. Man,
Speaker 3: I truly love both of them. They're like wonderful people.
Speaker 3: I'm just speaking as like a as a as a
Speaker 3: non biased man.
Speaker 1: And they both drink chancelortle. Oh soul man coming to America. Oh,
Speaker 1: coming to America. This is coming into America too. They
Speaker 1: put yes, oh coming to America too. Wow, so man,
Speaker 1: we'll good it to so man. Both movies.
Speaker 3: Those are both Malcolm Lee movies because you SWI Okay,
Speaker 3: oh shot, that's my guy, Malcolm Lee. He just texted
Speaker 3: me this week.
Speaker 1: All right. This last question they get back in the interviews,
Speaker 1: loyalty or respect? Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say that's a good question, m respect. And
Speaker 4: the reason why I will say I think I think
Speaker 4: we should want respect more than we want loyalty from people,
Speaker 4: just because, first of all, respect will come with loyalty anyway, but.
Speaker 1: I want.
Speaker 4: Sometimes loyalty can bleed over into being blind loyalty and
Speaker 4: people not telling you what you don't want to hear, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 4: So like yes, man, yeah, so I would rather have respect. Okay,
Speaker 4: this makes noise for that, John Legend. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 4: you something. I'm not sure if anybody ever told you this.
Speaker 4: I think you should run for president.
Speaker 1: No, someone has told me that before a few times,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I have put coporations. Look you, honestly,
Speaker 1: I love California.
Speaker 4: I love being involved in everything, and I'll stay involved,
Speaker 4: but I just feel like I would not enjoy running
Speaker 4: for it or being at Let's let's say you.
Speaker 2: Let's just say you you did like you woke up
Speaker 2: the next day tomorrow and I'm tomorrow, I'm gona run
Speaker 2: for president. Who would be your vice president?
Speaker 1: Who would you? I don't know?
Speaker 3: She got real?
Speaker 1: So seriously, who who? Who you pick?
Speaker 3: Who? Right now?
Speaker 2: Like tomorrow, I don't know now, I don't know loaded
Speaker 2: would it be dope if you was to pick Barack? Yo?
Speaker 1: I just feel like backs my man pronounced it, Barack
Speaker 1: Obama Obama? Sure would that would that'd be crazy? John
Speaker 1: legend run of a fucking president?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And Borack come out he quit walking or something like.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, like he do something like
Speaker 2: coming out to be.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not bad. You know, I'm going over
Speaker 1: to place. I'm excited. I'm excited. Lexic kids, Who would
Speaker 1: you pick? Who would you pick? You know?
Speaker 4: I feel like it shouldn't be a celebrity, No, no, no, whatever.
Speaker 4: If it's going to be me, it shouldn't be a
Speaker 4: celebrity that it should be a politician. Yeah, that may
Speaker 4: be so so let's get wild. Let's George Clinton or somebody.
Speaker 1: I'm just just your choice. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Uh, Kerrie Washington, she's an actor, okay, yeah, playing president
Speaker 3: she was a scandal.
Speaker 1: She was a scandal. Okay. Well the thing about Carrie
Speaker 1: is I've seen her.
Speaker 4: Behind the scenes and she's like really politically aware, and
Speaker 4: she's really great at organizing and motivating people, and she
Speaker 4: would be amazing and she's a great communicator.
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought that through. You can give him. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking for I think he's gonna pick for real. You
Speaker 1: wanted to make the best beats for the way out?
Speaker 2: This should be being wrong, yes, okay, all right, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: How many haters did you get?
Speaker 1: Of course of this cover? So many see now this
Speaker 1: is this is.
Speaker 4: When if I was on Twitter. I was on Twitter
Speaker 4: back then, and I made an intentional choice to not
Speaker 4: check my Twitter.
Speaker 1: It wasn't on black Twitter when this game. I did
Speaker 1: not check my Twitter when that cover came out. It
Speaker 1: was gonna be because I knew it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: nice because there's no win situation for you.
Speaker 3: Becuzin some people are like, hey, great, but most people
Speaker 3: are gonna be like fuck him.
Speaker 4: Somebody else should have won. And then and then they
Speaker 4: let all the other people that should have won. So
Speaker 4: I'm like, fuck, y'all, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Reading your tweets, but how did they call you for
Speaker 1: this couple?
Speaker 3: My publicist called me and they're they're like, we got
Speaker 3: big news.
Speaker 2: John, Let's take a shot for you. That's not a
Speaker 2: part of the show. I was just taking a shot
Speaker 2: the sexiest man alive.
Speaker 1: Jesus Holy Ship.
Speaker 4: They said we got big news, and I was like really,
Speaker 4: And I was already thinking like, oh man, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: get so much ship for this.
Speaker 1: But I was like, all right, let's do it. And
Speaker 1: so then they set up the photo shoot. They did
Speaker 1: the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Did that at our house, and you know you did
Speaker 2: the photo shoot. Yeah, the help come to me. Did
Speaker 2: you charge you for that? We usually do charge like
Speaker 2: a location field. Goddamn, you gotta double it. We gotta
Speaker 2: talk about EGOT. Yeah, all right, listen, I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: honest with you. You're probably the only EGOT Award winner
Speaker 2: I'm ever gonna meet, not life.
Speaker 1: Well, you could meet Jennifer Hudson. You can bet Jennifer
Speaker 1: she is now. She might not have been when you
Speaker 1: met definitely.
Speaker 4: The first here on Drink Champs, and then whoopee Whoopy
Speaker 4: was the first black person to become a EG.
Speaker 1: I was the second.
Speaker 4: I was the first black man, and then Jay Hudd
Speaker 4: and now Viola also is.
Speaker 1: An E guy Davis, Yes, okay, so all right, let's
Speaker 1: explain to mother fuckers.
Speaker 2: So he got it's an Emmy, a Grammy, yeah, Oscar? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I forgot what the last one?
Speaker 1: Tony?
Speaker 3: Did you say?
Speaker 1: What is? That's Broadway? Broadway, That's what we produced, were
Speaker 1: to play.
Speaker 4: We produced a play called Jitney and it won a Tony, and.
Speaker 1: So that's my tea.
Speaker 3: That's awesome, man, congratulations, So which one did you get?
Speaker 1: First? The Grammys?
Speaker 4: So my first Grammys were three Grammys for my debut
Speaker 4: album Get Lifted twenty year anniversary this year, goddamn.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: So I won Best New Artist, Best R and B Album,
Speaker 4: and Best R and B Male Vocal Performance for that
Speaker 4: album and for Ordinary People. And then since then I've
Speaker 4: won thirteen Grammys. Thirteen and then I won an Oscar
Speaker 4: for Glory with Common.
Speaker 1: We wrote that for Selma, and then.
Speaker 4: After that I won the Tony for Jitney, which is
Speaker 4: a play written by August Wilson, and we produced a
Speaker 4: revival of it and we won Best Revival on Broadway
Speaker 4: and then only needed the Emmy, and NBC called me
Speaker 4: up and asked me to start as Jesus Christ in
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ Superstar Live production that they did for NBC and.
Speaker 1: That play.
Speaker 4: That musical was written by Andrew, Lloyd Weber and Tim
Speaker 4: Rice and they all three of us only needed an
Speaker 4: Emmy to get the egot, and we all wanted at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 1: When we won Best Live Music.
Speaker 3: Is there a point where you're getting closer, You're like,
Speaker 3: now you're shooting for You're like this.
Speaker 4: My team knew that all I needed was an Emmy,
Speaker 4: and they're like, and I have a production company and
Speaker 4: we produced TV and film, so like, if anything we
Speaker 4: produced would get an Emmy, then I would have an egot.
Speaker 4: So they're like, man, we're gonna get you this egot.
Speaker 3: So so we produced Jesus Christ Superstar Live.
Speaker 1: And it won the Emmy.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, I'm gonna tall you well for first
Speaker 2: of us to make some noise for that. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna tell you something. Uh, you know, I'm an artist first,
Speaker 2: and I believe in I'm pro artist, super pro artist.
Speaker 1: Right, So we've been doing this nine years, nine years,
Speaker 1: eight years, nine years.
Speaker 2: I was like nine years, nine years, right, and due
Speaker 2: these nine years, no one has ever sent us a writer.
Speaker 1: You are the only one who's sitting there. I was
Speaker 1: so happy the artist in me. I was like, he
Speaker 1: has to send us a writer. It's funny because I
Speaker 1: haven't even been to the dressing room, so I don't
Speaker 1: even know if I have a rider. I was.
Speaker 2: The artist in me because I cool, this is this
Speaker 2: is one thing, right, And I lost money on you too.
Speaker 1: I bet he was gonna be on time. We always bet.
Speaker 3: This is.
Speaker 1: This is how I was there two oh nine, No, no,
Speaker 1: you said too, or nine you came here two and sixteen? Yes,
Speaker 1: I lost.
Speaker 2: Literally bet and I I bet my mind. I was like, no, miss,
Speaker 2: I'll called you miss the legend. I was like, the
Speaker 2: legend will be on time, and he's gonna be on
Speaker 2: But holy molyam those were saying before saying that he
Speaker 2: was late.
Speaker 1: The writer, the writer that ship touched me.
Speaker 4: I was a writer because we got like small riders
Speaker 4: and then big specifically purple grapes in there that.
Speaker 1: I like, I like, I love that we just have
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: We have like the streamlined version and then I got
Speaker 4: the full version for the show and everything.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you, I apologize, I love it.
Speaker 1: Do not apologize. That is dope. Your team is dope.
Speaker 1: Let me let me just tell you something. Sorry. I
Speaker 1: was going to go to.
Speaker 2: I was on tour in Japan, right and every city
Speaker 2: that I went to, the promoter was like, he just
Speaker 2: kept hugging me because my writer was just like Hennessy
Speaker 2: at the.
Speaker 1: Time, blunt and maybe kid like I had. I had
Speaker 1: no fruit, I had no water.
Speaker 2: And he was And I said to him, I had
Speaker 2: like a twenty four city tour with him, So I
Speaker 2: was like, Yo, why do you keep hugging me every
Speaker 2: time that I go in the dressing room?
Speaker 1: He was like, because I just had l L.
Speaker 2: Do you imagine what l El's writer was in Japan?
Speaker 2: He wanted green apples. I don't even think green apples
Speaker 2: go past He's ghost.
Speaker 1: So he was just happy. How he was just happy,
Speaker 1: how simple you're I was? And I didn't so this
Speaker 1: whole nine years. You know, he's Hollywood. You know I
Speaker 1: believe only one of yell skittles.
Speaker 3: He wanted to open up everything that was all violator
Speaker 3: old bout of the end. I booked you out here
Speaker 3: for the first time and I got your writer.
Speaker 1: It was crazy.
Speaker 3: You had like to two palettes of snapples or something
Speaker 3: crazy like gon ship.
Speaker 2: Dude, By the way, do you make your own writer?
Speaker 2: Because I don't make my writer. I have input.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I'll like like when I don't like where
Speaker 4: we are with it, like because maybe like I wanted
Speaker 4: this two years ago, but I want it now, then I'll.
Speaker 1: Go back and go through it and edit it.
Speaker 4: So the last tour we went on, I went through
Speaker 4: and edited it and I haven't had to say anything
Speaker 4: since then.
Speaker 2: You know what should have We should do a documentary
Speaker 2: music people ride us? Yeah, because different people like different ship.
Speaker 3: They revolt, they they listen to my writer. Unfortunately, when
Speaker 3: I got the what's the drink?
Speaker 1: I got you're drinking fireball? This is like a frat boy.
Speaker 3: To me.
Speaker 1: Here's your writer, oh ship? I went on from there.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm sorry to switch the subjects up,
Speaker 2: but if if, if God came to you right now,
Speaker 2: and God says John Legend, I need you to make
Speaker 2: one record to save humanity, and you got one feature
Speaker 2: and you got one producer dead or alive, the feature
Speaker 2: and the producer dead or live.
Speaker 1: You got one record.
Speaker 2: This record that you make John Legend is going to
Speaker 2: save humanity and put people on motherfucking.
Speaker 1: Mars to live. Yeah. Yeah. He said, you don't want
Speaker 1: to work with Elon Mark. I don't believe nobody. I
Speaker 1: haven't worked with that. I love that. I shouted out
Speaker 1: today Timberland.
Speaker 2: Tim, you can have a feature if you want, dad
Speaker 2: or live. We're talking like a singer or a rapper,
Speaker 2: whatever you want.
Speaker 3: This is John Legend, world's doing with a banjo.
Speaker 4: Uh, let's do Tim tim Bow and hove. I was
Speaker 4: just listening to Dirt off your shoulder in the car.
Speaker 1: Crazy record. Yeah nasty. I just saw a video of
Speaker 1: the first moment he showed whole that Tim eat the banana.
Speaker 1: It was awkward, but it was it was banana in
Speaker 1: his mouth. He just held it. What do you like more,
Speaker 1: performing or making the record? I like to make the record, man, hmm.
Speaker 1: I love both.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say my favorite part is writing writing. Yes,
Speaker 4: for other people, writing for myself, but I.
Speaker 1: Mean for other people too.
Speaker 3: But I love starting with nothing and ending the day
Speaker 3: with something new that could change my life.
Speaker 1: That that's a.
Speaker 4: Special It's like, Hey, that didn't exist before today and
Speaker 4: we made it, and it's amazing. You always think it's
Speaker 4: amazing for the first day, and it's not always amazing,
Speaker 4: but that feeling, there's nothing like him. Right, Okay, let's
Speaker 4: take it back to the beginning. How did we start.
Speaker 4: So I grew up in Ohio. Grew up in a
Speaker 4: small city called Springfield. And uh my family is very
Speaker 4: next with Dave Chappelle and that right, So if he
Speaker 4: was on SNL, he was.
Speaker 1: Talking about my hometown the other day because.
Speaker 4: The whole eating Yeah, the Haitians are there and and
Speaker 4: uh so Trump was making up shit about them on.
Speaker 1: On the debate stage.
Speaker 4: But that was my city. That's where I grew up.
Speaker 4: So I grew up in Springfield, Ohio. My family is
Speaker 4: very involved in the church. So my grandpa was the pastor,
Speaker 4: my grandmother was the organist, my mom was the choir director.
Speaker 4: So I just grew up around people who made gospel
Speaker 4: music all the time. And so I piano at the house,
Speaker 4: drums at the house, and before the piano hit for
Speaker 4: you all right, yeah, but yeah, I just grew up
Speaker 4: around music all the time, especially in church, and I
Speaker 4: always loved it. I always wanted to sing, just grew
Speaker 4: up around people who loved it too, and they encouraged me.
Speaker 4: I took piano lessons when I was four, started singing.
Speaker 1: In church choir when I was seven, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's been my life. God damn it, you love it.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: But you said, you said you're celebrating your debut album,
Speaker 3: but you had music that you had albums before this independently, all.
Speaker 1: Independent albums, A couple of them.
Speaker 4: They basically were like demos that I was, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to get signed with, but I was also selling
Speaker 4: them at my shows, so I would play.
Speaker 1: I was living in New York, and I was working
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 3: Daytime as a consultant, so like this very like white
Speaker 3: collar job in.
Speaker 1: The business world, corporate world.
Speaker 4: But at night I was trying to get signed, and
Speaker 4: I would play gigs around New York, so I would
Speaker 4: sell my little demos at the shows. And so that
Speaker 4: I graduated college in ninety nine, moved to New York
Speaker 4: in two, and I got signed in four and Get
Speaker 4: Lifted came out four, So I had like those four
Speaker 4: or five years out of school where I was just
Speaker 4: trying to get signed, but also working.
Speaker 1: A day job. That's when I met Ya.
Speaker 4: That's when I met a lot of the people that
Speaker 4: I wrote the first album with was during that time.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna get back to that. But is this
Speaker 2: true that you have to eat a rotesttery chicken meal
Speaker 2: before every.
Speaker 4: That's in my show writer, that wasn't in this right,
Speaker 4: that's in my constant. I don't need the whole chicken,
Speaker 4: but I ordered half a chicken.
Speaker 1: Okay, why.
Speaker 3: I just like the feel of it. Boston Market. It's
Speaker 3: Boston Market. The market, yeah, okay, Boston Market too. Was
Speaker 3: it called Boston Boston Market used to be called Boston Chicken.
Speaker 4: It started as Boston Chicken, then it became Boston Market
Speaker 4: because that's.
Speaker 1: That's how the chicken. I've been to Boston. I've never
Speaker 1: seen that chicken in Boston.
Speaker 2: I'm just asking, like anybody else has That's a good question,
Speaker 2: like I've never seen that chicken start in Boston. That
Speaker 2: sounds from that's the reason why. But have you ever
Speaker 2: had that Boston Market chicken in Boston?
Speaker 1: Ok? I love the market. He's serious about it, so
Speaker 1: we established you don't get mad. I'm very very mellow guy.
Speaker 1: It's rarely do I lose my cool. I got to
Speaker 1: ask you this straight up.
Speaker 2: We had Kanye on this app on it I saw
Speaker 2: and we had two different we had two different different episodes. Yes,
Speaker 2: and this is this is your according to your words,
Speaker 2: as you're saying, this is like your mentor somebody that
Speaker 2: you looked up, somebody that puts you on. We made
Speaker 2: a lot of great music together, and we came we
Speaker 2: came up together.
Speaker 1: Right, Sometimes does it disturb you, Oh, how did you feel?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely disturbs me some of the things he says.
Speaker 3: And and I'm not as just serve for me because
Speaker 3: what he said about me, I think.
Speaker 4: I'm like, obviously it was a good thing for him
Speaker 4: and for me that he signed me. I wasn't worried
Speaker 4: about the literal words that he said. I didn't take
Speaker 4: it personally. But I just feel like a lot of
Speaker 4: times he seems to be going through ship and and
Speaker 4: every once in a while we'll get, you.
Speaker 3: Know, these flurries of outbursts from him, and it's sad.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I don't love seeing it. Man, I don't love seeing
Speaker 2: it for him because you know him, like, yeah, like
Speaker 2: these people to most people, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: stay on this. I'll get you know, you know, well
Speaker 2: most people it's entertainment.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, And it's like, but that's your that's your brother,
Speaker 4: and it is outrageous, and sometimes it's funny, like and
Speaker 4: some of my friends will like, you know, text me
Speaker 4: hear what Kanye said. Yeah, I'm like yeah, but like
Speaker 4: part of it's sad, you know, it's sad seeing it.
Speaker 4: And I still look at him as one of the
Speaker 4: most important artists that we've ever had, and I still
Speaker 4: like some of his music is just like truly incredible, groundbreaking,
Speaker 4: world changing and still holds up now and and I
Speaker 4: just feel like it's a shame that.
Speaker 1: That it gets clouded by all the other shit.
Speaker 3: God bless man, because to go more to the musical
Speaker 3: side of it, like yeah, that journey that when you
Speaker 3: guys connected in the beginning, but was that like how
Speaker 3: so what stage of his career and for you, like, what.
Speaker 1: Was that whole that was good music? Correct? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it didn't even exist good music. It didn't exist when
Speaker 1: we met. So I'm a new artist.
Speaker 4: I'm, like I said, working by day as a management
Speaker 4: consultant in New York, one of my roommates I went
Speaker 4: to college with. His name is Devo, and Devo had
Speaker 4: a cousin from Chicago that was about to move to
Speaker 4: the area and his name was Kanye West. So Devo
Speaker 4: he's not known neither, no, but he had just started
Speaker 4: working Jay and Dame and all them at Rockefeller and
Speaker 4: he had just him and just Blaze basically did the
Speaker 4: whole blueprint.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right.
Speaker 4: So when I met Kanye was May of two thousand,
Speaker 4: or like late spring or early summer in two thousand
Speaker 4: and one. And I remember because it was at Jimmy's
Speaker 4: Uptown and I recorded that show at Jimmy's Uptown and Harlem, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Jimmy's Uptown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, We're gonna stab somebody.
Speaker 4: So I'm doing a show there and we recorded it
Speaker 4: and we actually put out a live record to my
Speaker 4: fans of that recording. So that's why I knew when
Speaker 4: I met him, was because it was that day that
Speaker 4: we record the show, and.
Speaker 1: My roommates like, you gotta meet my cousin.
Speaker 4: He just moved to New York and he's producing for Rockefeller,
Speaker 4: and we met and then we started working together a
Speaker 4: few months later. He was working on his demo and
Speaker 4: he was trying to get signed as a rapper, but
Speaker 4: everybody was like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you keep that serious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because not me for a second, because Farrell always
Speaker 2: downplays when when like when me and Pharrell, Farrell was
Speaker 2: cocky as ship, even as a person that was coming
Speaker 2: up was Kanye Kky.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was cocky. Yeah cool is Susan right.
Speaker 4: He's not the same as he was back then, but
Speaker 4: he was. He's always like had.
Speaker 1: A strong say yeah all.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, was like he's so humble now I'm like,
Speaker 2: none of the motherfucker I remember.
Speaker 3: But when the guy told you my cousin, did you
Speaker 3: already know about his production?
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't out yet.
Speaker 2: So the Bluebird came out nine eleven, remember nine eleven,
Speaker 2: on the day of nine eleven, and that's that's yeah,
Speaker 2: he's debut as a productor that.
Speaker 1: Was his first big moment as a producer.
Speaker 4: So yeah, which was a single before the album came out,
Speaker 4: and then he had a few cuts on the album
Speaker 4: and then Blaze did the other side, so it was
Speaker 4: just like both of them were the album basically, so
Speaker 4: that soul sample sound was the whole blueprint sound and yay,
Speaker 4: and just Blaze did the whole thing basically, and he's
Speaker 4: telling you this and you believe him, Like I'm like,
Speaker 4: let's meet him.
Speaker 3: Like at this point, it's like I'm trying to get
Speaker 3: signed too, and I'm like, let's try it.
Speaker 1: You know, like I don't know him, but we'll see.
Speaker 2: And you never know what hip hop producers because some
Speaker 2: aren't musical enough because they're more like being driven and
Speaker 2: you know, I'm an R and B artist, some more soulful,
Speaker 2: so I want somebody that still has some musical underpinnings.
Speaker 2: And the good thing about Yay was he he was
Speaker 2: using all the soul samples and the music was very soulful.
Speaker 2: So it was like the perfect blend of soul and
Speaker 2: hip hop for us to work together. So we start
Speaker 2: working together, like late two thousand and one, early two
Speaker 2: thousand and two, he gets in an accident.
Speaker 3: You met before that before the accident, and I think
Speaker 3: he was signed by the time he had that SID But.
Speaker 4: Damn and m Our impression was they signed him just
Speaker 4: so they could keep him in house for Beef, yes,
Speaker 4: not because they really thought he was going to be successful.
Speaker 4: We saw artists who were so much.
Speaker 2: You Meydan Sie like the crew, so we got this, yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole crew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we and I started to get to know
Speaker 3: them later. But you know, Devo was working with him,
Speaker 3: my roommate. He was like basically running his production company.
Speaker 3: And so you know, Kanye really believed in himself as
Speaker 3: a solo.
Speaker 4: Artist, and a lot of his team did, but I
Speaker 4: felt and a lot of us felt like Rockefeller didn't.
Speaker 1: So he gets an accident. Can I tell you real
Speaker 1: question to add to the story.
Speaker 3: I was working for Deaf Jam at the time, and
Speaker 3: they weren't pushing him as an artist. He went and
Speaker 3: sent he got the list of all the street teams,
Speaker 3: sent the white labels of his singles hustling, and started
Speaker 3: a conference call with himself and all the street teams. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're pushing this like himself. Yes, outside of the infrastructure
Speaker 3: of the label.
Speaker 4: He was so entrepreneurial. He put out his own mixtape
Speaker 4: and he got an accident and made through the wire.
Speaker 4: And then he started just camping because he got an
Speaker 4: accident in La. So he started just camping out at
Speaker 4: the w and Westwood in l A. Yeah, And so
Speaker 4: I would go out there from New York whenever I
Speaker 4: had time, and we would work on College Dropout with him,
Speaker 4: and I wrote used to love you out there, uh,
Speaker 4: and some of my songs forget Lifted. And that's when
Speaker 4: I started to see after the accident this new sense
Speaker 4: of like this man is on a mission. And it
Speaker 4: started with Through the Wire, but then I heard Jesus
Speaker 4: Walks and all these other records. I'm like, yo, this
Speaker 4: is gonna be And I played piano on Lauren Hill's Miseducation,
Speaker 4: So what what what to so.
Speaker 1: You put on the whole.
Speaker 4: I played piano on Everything Is Everything on Lauren Hill's album,
Speaker 4: and I said to ya when.
Speaker 1: I was listening to g Walks, I was like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I was part.
Speaker 4: Of one album that changed the world in ninety eight
Speaker 4: and this is album is about to do the same
Speaker 4: thing in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: And you got credit for Laurence Hill. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like John Stevens, Yeah I Stevens. Yeah, you know that's wild,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, because how did you go the Let's just
Speaker 1: finish this right?
Speaker 4: So anyway, that time was crazy because we're all out
Speaker 4: in la We're meeting up with him, he's recovering from
Speaker 4: the accident, but he's got this new sense of purpose
Speaker 4: and uh, he's making the best music of his.
Speaker 1: Life up to that point, and it just felt like the.
Speaker 4: Momentum was was there and it was going to be
Speaker 4: a big, special album and it was sure was Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: How about the Grammy family, Like, yeah, you had the
Speaker 2: whole industry shook up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, every Monday at one point or we.
Speaker 2: Were doing the Good Fridays Friday my bad, I said,
Speaker 2: Monday's lets you know how much I'll be drinking? Like
Speaker 2: was that something that y'all all got together and said
Speaker 2: we're gonna fuck up the industry?
Speaker 1: I think sometimes YA just gets in that like creative
Speaker 1: like uh, like that just.
Speaker 4: Extra excitement and he's ready to like he's just got
Speaker 4: all these ideas and he just wants to.
Speaker 1: Get him out and he's like, that's just good Fridays.
Speaker 1: That was the time.
Speaker 4: He's like everybody at the studio needs to wear a
Speaker 4: suit and tie, and so everybody was dressing like there
Speaker 4: was in Reservoir Dogs.
Speaker 1: At the studio. They called it the Rose with Era.
Speaker 1: It was like a whole thing.
Speaker 3: So sometimes he's just beyond one and he's like that's
Speaker 3: his thing at that time.
Speaker 1: And that's what he be on.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, God damn, I wish y'all good into the studio.
Speaker 2: Well a goddamn reservoir dog.
Speaker 1: Oh jesus. He called it the Rosewood era.
Speaker 3: So then you get so so now getting into your project,
Speaker 3: transitioning from his Yeah, So it was all happening at
Speaker 3: the same time though, so uh, we were working on
Speaker 3: like used to Love You and some of the joints
Speaker 3: from Get Lifted during the same time that we're working
Speaker 3: on College Dropping Really at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was all happened at the same time.
Speaker 4: We're both trying to get I was trying to get
Speaker 4: signed after he had already gotten signed to Rockefeller, and
Speaker 4: I eventually signed to Good Music and my roommate was
Speaker 4: running the label for him, so I was basically signed
Speaker 4: to my roommate's.
Speaker 1: Label with his cousin.
Speaker 4: And eventually after College Dropout came out, that was when
Speaker 4: the industry really.
Speaker 1: Started to be like, okay, we fucked with the whole crew.
Speaker 4: So before that, we took the same music to all
Speaker 4: the labels and they turned us down or they gave
Speaker 4: us a low offer. And when College Dropout came out,
Speaker 4: everybody changed their tune.
Speaker 3: We had a bidding war and I signed with Columbia.
Speaker 3: And who was the crew at the time? You consequence GLC,
Speaker 3: don C. I mean those are the artists. Me consequence
Speaker 3: GLC and ya that those are the artists. But then
Speaker 3: don ce John Monopoly. The whole crew was you know,
Speaker 3: we were touring together, we're opening for us, sure together.
Speaker 1: Uh that was the crew? Crazy, man? Did you ever think?
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I was like almost like the modern day
Speaker 1: Wu Tang clan right.
Speaker 2: Like like but not exactly okay, but with different like
Speaker 2: you know, you had to push.
Speaker 1: Your te you had consequence, Yeah, you had you. You
Speaker 1: had kick cutting Sean Big Sean.
Speaker 3: Like during that during that Good Friday's time, that was
Speaker 3: a like latt Roster was crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna be honest as an industry person, we
Speaker 2: were scared of that Friday. You did not like it,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not gonna say I'm not fucking making.
Speaker 1: Music no more so.
Speaker 4: Yeah said the records like click and some of those
Speaker 4: records were insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like we were mad at y'all. We were like
Speaker 1: why why did y'all want to just blogging? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: was wow.
Speaker 4: And then right around that time, right after that time,
Speaker 4: Jay and Kanye start working on Watching the Throne, like
Speaker 4: probably this is the one, this is the main Washington, Yeah,
Speaker 4: the only one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this is around twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, he's he's
Speaker 4: up in the Mercer. They talk about the song the
Speaker 4: Mercer Hotel in New York.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you something about car Let's let you know.
Speaker 4: So they were literally they were literally in the Mercer
Speaker 4: Hotel and he just brought his studio equipment in there
Speaker 4: and was making Watch the Throne with Jay and then
Speaker 4: we made Love in the Future, my album that came
Speaker 4: out in twenty thirteen, in that same hotel, and so
Speaker 4: all of me was on that. I didn't do that
Speaker 4: one with Yay, but Yay produced the whole like executive
Speaker 4: produced the whole album.
Speaker 1: And that was another crazy time.
Speaker 4: So there's been these times when Yay's really on like
Speaker 4: a creative tear and producing some of the best music
Speaker 4: of that era. It was incredible.
Speaker 1: Again, like I said it earlier, I feel like you
Speaker 1: never had a bad day.
Speaker 2: I just feel it because I just feel like you're
Speaker 2: a positive person, which is really really, really really dope
Speaker 2: to see in this day and time, because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of negative shit going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there anything that you regret?
Speaker 4: I mean, I have regrets all the I mean there's
Speaker 4: things I would do differently now, But.
Speaker 1: I honestly, I don't think about regrets because.
Speaker 4: I feel like everything that happened happened, and I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be here if all of it didn't happen, like the
Speaker 4: good and the bad. Like, I just feel like all
Speaker 4: of it brought me to where I am, and I
Speaker 4: love where I am, and I learned from everything.
Speaker 1: Goddamn, that was the most people, John leg I gotta
Speaker 1: ask you, do you we want time? I only got
Speaker 1: a little bit right here, all right. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of it yet.
Speaker 5: I'm yeah, I'm coming out with Forwards. He's coming out
Speaker 5: with the Great You. I got like ten Grays down here.
Speaker 5: He's coming up with the Virgins. Where can make it
Speaker 5: be it grayer?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the most beautiful records in the world, all
Speaker 2: over the world, not New York, not America, ordinary people,
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: One of the most like listeners in the world. Thank you.
Speaker 4: How did you make it so? That started with Will
Speaker 4: I Am and the Black Eyed Peas? So I had
Speaker 4: the same manager as them David Sonenberg.
Speaker 1: And we when he signed me, he was like, I'd
Speaker 1: love to get you in with Will.
Speaker 3: I am from the Black Eyed Peas and at the time,
Speaker 3: it was before they really blew up with Fergie and everything,
Speaker 3: and they were still like an underground group pree Ferki Yeah. So,
Speaker 3: but he was always a dope producer. And so I
Speaker 3: went out to La the first time and we wrote she.
Speaker 1: Don't Have to Know.
Speaker 4: We wrote something for a compilation album that Will was doing,
Speaker 4: and then Will really liked writing with me. I wrote
Speaker 4: a hook for the Black Eyed Peas, and then after
Speaker 4: I got signed, it was like the summer two thousand
Speaker 4: and four. I just gotten signed in May and he
Speaker 4: was in New York and he was like, can you
Speaker 4: come by Hit Factory when we used to have Hit Factory.
Speaker 1: In New York? Remember that and.
Speaker 4: Fifty seven Street, Yeah, right around there. And then so
Speaker 4: he was in the studio and he was like, can
Speaker 4: you just write some hooks for us? I love writing
Speaker 4: with you. So he would just play beats and I
Speaker 4: would just see what hook I could come up with, and.
Speaker 1: I came up with wid and the repeat pople to
Speaker 1: a beat.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't like stripped down piano ballot like it
Speaker 4: was on my album.
Speaker 1: It was to a B and it was going to
Speaker 1: be a hip hop song for the Black Eyed Piece
Speaker 1: with me on the hook that mind, thinking of the
Speaker 1: Black Eyed Piece.
Speaker 4: I wrote the chorus just listening to the music and
Speaker 4: seeing what I recorded it that night, just the hook.
Speaker 4: And then a few days later I'm like, well, you
Speaker 4: can keep every other idea I wrote, but I want
Speaker 4: to keep ordinary people for myself, and he was like, okay,
Speaker 4: no problem.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'll let you produce it, no problem. Like,
Speaker 3: but I feel like it'll be a better R and
Speaker 3: B song than like a pop hip hop song.
Speaker 2: And I started messing with it on tour. I went
Speaker 2: on a European tour with Kanye, and every.
Speaker 4: Soundtrack, every soundcheck, I would write more of the verses
Speaker 4: to ordinate people. And so I basically wrote the chorus
Speaker 4: in the studio with Will and the verses on the
Speaker 4: road with Ya. And I recorded a demo back in
Speaker 4: La on just piano, and I played it for everybody
Speaker 4: and I was like, yeah, Will I Am is going
Speaker 4: to produce it, blah blah blah, and everybody's like, don't
Speaker 4: fuck with that. Leave it alone and so we ended
Speaker 4: up leaving it stripped down, just vocal piano, and.
Speaker 1: That's how it came out.
Speaker 4: And back then, remember the samplers you used to get
Speaker 4: at DJ, so they would hand out the samplers and
Speaker 4: it was my first single, Used to Love You with
Speaker 4: the Halla haa la Halla, and then three snippets of
Speaker 4: other tracks from the album, and then it ended with
Speaker 4: a full version of Ordinary People.
Speaker 1: So this is, you know, late two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: I'm out on the road with USHERINGA from August to October.
Speaker 4: Used to Love You came out during that time, and
Speaker 4: we're promoting it at every stop on the Usher tour.
Speaker 4: I'm going to do radio and we're giving them the
Speaker 4: sampler and in Chicago they were like, yeah, used to
Speaker 4: he was cool, but they just decided at w g
Speaker 4: C I they were going to start playing. They made
Speaker 4: that the single ordinary People, and they made it to
Speaker 4: single by it blowing up in Chicago first and then
Speaker 4: took over.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people thought you was from Chicago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because ya and everybody, But I grew up
Speaker 4: in Ohio, but uh never lived in Chicago, but you know,
Speaker 4: I love Chicago. But yeah, but they really claimed me
Speaker 4: as their own too, just because of the Yea connection
Speaker 4: and and uh and they were the first ones that
Speaker 4: loved Ordinary People and Yay loved it so much that
Speaker 4: he wanted to direct the video. So he ended up
Speaker 4: directing the Ordinary People video. So if you look at it,
Speaker 4: that's him, that's his work.
Speaker 1: Did we'll ever get upset that he couldn't produce it? No,
Speaker 1: he got some publishing. Really, yeah, he got some publishing,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know I wound up producing it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, he knew that it was better that way, like
Speaker 4: stripped down it just it made more impact that way,
Speaker 4: and you got to think about like what was coming
Speaker 4: out in R and B at that time. There's nothing
Speaker 4: else like just like that striped down pan Alicia a
Speaker 4: little bit, but not even uh, it was just it
Speaker 4: stood out from the radio and so like a caapella.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but do you think you're an ordinary person?
Speaker 1: I mean, what does that even mean? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm asking they here's the writer, Here's what I think,
Speaker 1: what you mean, Here's what I think.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: When I wrote the song, I was thinking about my
Speaker 4: parents because they had gotten divorced, then back together, then
Speaker 4: divorced again right before my second my first album was
Speaker 4: about to come out, and so I'm writing and thinking, like,
Speaker 4: you know, we don't know which way to go, and.
Speaker 1: So I'm writing it based on their situation.
Speaker 4: But the bottom line is, I think, no matter if
Speaker 4: you're rich or poor, celebrity or not, like, everybody goes
Speaker 4: through shitting the relationships.
Speaker 3: And in that sense, yes, I'm an ordinary person. I
Speaker 3: love that answer, but you're not.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of extraordinary things about my life. Yes.
Speaker 1: Do you think.
Speaker 2: So many people say overnight success right right? That shit
Speaker 2: doesn't exist. It almost never happens that way. It never happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But do you think that you fast forwarded from
Speaker 1: that child prodigy to superstarter?
Speaker 2: Well, it didn't feel like fast forward to me because
Speaker 2: I'm like working at days, y'all work.
Speaker 1: Asking for the people out there.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm like, and I didn't get signed until
Speaker 4: I was twenty five, So it wasn't like I was,
Speaker 4: you know, getting signed like some of these artists gets
Speaker 4: signed when they're eighteen, nineteen, fourteen, fifteen, And you know,
Speaker 4: back then, I thought I was ready. You know, when
Speaker 4: I was fourteen, I was like singing the talent shows.
Speaker 4: I'm like, why is somebody signing to me now, But
Speaker 4: I didn't even know what went into getting signed, you know,
Speaker 4: what went into being a real artist, not just a singer.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm on the voice now and I'm always
Speaker 4: like trying to advise these guys on what it means
Speaker 4: to actually be an artist and not just somebody who
Speaker 4: can sing. But I didn't know that back then.
Speaker 1: So you have to grow, you have to learn.
Speaker 4: And I thought I was ready then, but I wasn't
Speaker 4: ready until my mid twenties, and then you know, it
Speaker 4: was time, goddamn. And the you know, the cool thing
Speaker 4: not to interrupt your plause, but the cool thing was
Speaker 4: I keep bringing it up, but bringing it up being
Speaker 4: with you a during that time, he became famous like
Speaker 4: a year before I did.
Speaker 1: So it was almost like I got to you saw it,
Speaker 1: watch it.
Speaker 4: While he was experiencing, and I was right there, and
Speaker 4: it made it easier for me to transition into being
Speaker 4: the front guy.
Speaker 3: What I was going to say is, do you think
Speaker 3: that that process, which is a time frame now with
Speaker 3: the internet, like you said, these kids are making themselves
Speaker 3: viral and getting deals eighteen or younger, do you think
Speaker 3: that process takes away from their careers.
Speaker 4: Well, I think I've said this before and I really
Speaker 4: believe it that it's hard to be sustainable if you
Speaker 4: haven't done like the prep work early on, like doing
Speaker 4: shows like when nobody's there, like quote.
Speaker 1: Unquote development, yes, yeah, exactly, development, whether you develop yourself
Speaker 1: or you're in a part of a real artist plot, like.
Speaker 4: Doing a show in front of fifty people before you
Speaker 4: have to do one in front of fifteen thousand people.
Speaker 1: Like having that.
Speaker 4: Just foundation of performing and and building your career experience,
Speaker 4: building your story, building your experiences. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 4: can't make dope music then, but it's hard to do
Speaker 4: everything right if you haven't spent some time preparing and
Speaker 4: I really think performing.
Speaker 3: Practicing as a performer. You just look at like we
Speaker 3: talked about Usher.
Speaker 4: And even Chris Brown and Beyonce and like some of
Speaker 4: these artists, especially ones they have to dance and sing.
Speaker 1: It's like like the level of time you have.
Speaker 4: To put in in the studio, in the dance studio,
Speaker 4: working on the coreera for getting every little thing right,
Speaker 4: and a lot of that they did before they were famous.
Speaker 4: They were like they were like developing that muscle before
Speaker 4: they were famous, and that's why they're still here. Like,
Speaker 4: that's why Usher did the Super Bowl, you know, over
Speaker 4: twenty years after he debuted, because he made himself sustainable
Speaker 4: by putting in the work.
Speaker 1: Of preparation and the reps that he needed to put in.
Speaker 1: And you got to do it.
Speaker 4: And if you don't, if you're not prepared when you
Speaker 4: have that TikTok hit or that viral sensation, then it
Speaker 4: could be fleeting and not sustainable disposable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly how was it speaking about the Super Bowl
Speaker 2: when you got that phone call in twenty fifteen to
Speaker 2: perform at the Super Bowl out?
Speaker 1: That was dope. Man. I was at the Detroit one.
Speaker 2: I forget which one that was, but I did want
Speaker 2: Roger Goodell'll call you.
Speaker 1: Roger did not call you.
Speaker 3: They always call my agent, you know. I never't talked
Speaker 3: to anybody. It's like they get to my agent eventually,
Speaker 3: and they get to me eventually.
Speaker 2: Get all right, So where you at somebody and they
Speaker 2: call you and they say they want you to perform
Speaker 2: for Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, Honestly, I don't really remember that. Like
Speaker 1: it's so dope, you don't know, But I never like headline.
Speaker 4: Like the halftime at the super Bowl. I liked it
Speaker 4: like a pre I did God Bless America one year
Speaker 4: and then I did a pre performance on that. So
Speaker 4: I've never had like the the that prime big for us,
Speaker 4: sir down it was it Usher or you know, Kendrick
Speaker 4: or whatever. You know, it's not that that halftime spot.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me ask you they call you next year,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, John Legend headline.
Speaker 4: You know, I honestly, I don't think it's great for
Speaker 4: artists that are more like if like most of my
Speaker 4: hits are ballads. So it's like, I feel like it's
Speaker 4: better if you got a lot of up tempo hits
Speaker 4: for the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: It just feels more right. You got that. I got
Speaker 1: a little little little something. Yeah, yeah, you will do it.
Speaker 1: I can see you halftime show. It could be done,
Speaker 1: all right. So if super Bowl calls you twenty six,
Speaker 1: what is your your playlist? My set list?
Speaker 4: You know, I'll mix it up, do some up tempos,
Speaker 4: some slows, so we'll do green light, we'll do ordinated people,
Speaker 4: We'll do all of.
Speaker 1: Me probably like love me now, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have to think about it.
Speaker 2: Some features, like some of the you bring along as
Speaker 2: I've guessed it on like Grammar Family, bring it up
Speaker 2: some Yeah, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll definite had some collapse. It's just on the
Speaker 2: top of one artist. Will you Did you bring up.
Speaker 1: A snooper? Rick?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll be good, Rick Ross. We got a bunch
Speaker 3: of Doubt records together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah do.
Speaker 3: I was making playlists of like different collabs, and I
Speaker 3: made a whole playlist just of me and Rick because
Speaker 3: it was like ten songs Justice League, right. I think
Speaker 3: it started with college and then.
Speaker 4: No, probably call it because colleg was his exec at
Speaker 4: Deaf Jam South right earlier. Yes, so, so I don't
Speaker 4: know what came first, but green Light came out and
Speaker 4: he did like a remix that I heard and I
Speaker 4: didn't even know him yet.
Speaker 2: Like a mixtape joint, Yeah, mixtape joint of green Light
Speaker 2: where he was rhyming on him.
Speaker 4: And then not long after that he reached out to
Speaker 4: us about Magnificent, But I think it was through Collin.
Speaker 1: You know, what's one of your favorite places to perform? Uh,
Speaker 1: South Africa? Love it? I love Johannesberger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, crazy crowds there, Soul South Korea. Crazy crowds in Korea. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I love like London and Amsterdam a lot. In the US,
Speaker 4: I love DC area, Atlanta area, Miami's cool. It's like
Speaker 4: i'd say, my best audiences are a no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm just being honest.
Speaker 3: My best audience is a DC area, Atlanta area, in
Speaker 3: Chicago area, I would say so, and the Bay Area
Speaker 3: in the Bank think a lot.
Speaker 1: You describe the blackest cities, yeah, the world? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: let's make some noise. Yea.
Speaker 2: So my my wife, my wife, she's here, she's Latina. Right,
Speaker 2: do you get like any type of thing for your
Speaker 2: wife not being a black woman?
Speaker 4: Not really, But you know, I think when we first
Speaker 4: started dating we probably got some. But we've been together
Speaker 4: for so long. Everybody's like, yeah, yeah, of course that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we've been together since six.
Speaker 1: So what do they call that? Interracial data?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're in the racial So my wife is half
Speaker 4: Asian and half white and then I'm black, So interracial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, inter racial. Do we make a noise? Let's take
Speaker 1: it block kids in confused? Now, this motherfucker were all
Speaker 1: type of racist? Are we're human? Is your wife like
Speaker 1: light skin? Latine my head. Yeah, so your kids will
Speaker 1: be like in between, we got kids.
Speaker 4: My kids are actually the exact same color as me,
Speaker 4: but they just got you know, less kinky hair down.
Speaker 1: Now got there's a little more waving. Okay, no wave, Grace, no,
Speaker 1: no way, grace no no King of the Moon girl girl,
Speaker 1: what place have you performed.
Speaker 3: As country wise that you were? You just were like,
Speaker 3: this is wild that I'm even here in this country,
Speaker 3: that they that I have fans here.
Speaker 4: Well, the first time I went to South Africa, it
Speaker 4: was right at the beginning of my career, and you
Speaker 4: don't really know how you're going to do internationally when
Speaker 4: at the beginning and I went there and I was like,
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe how much love I had there and
Speaker 4: everybody knew every song.
Speaker 1: That was amazing.
Speaker 4: But then going to Asia, going to places where they
Speaker 4: don't speak English, non English speaking, Yeah, so you go
Speaker 4: to Japan, and you go to Italy, you go to Spain,
Speaker 4: you know, all these different places where people don't even
Speaker 4: speak the language that you're singing in and then they
Speaker 4: sing the songs back to you. It feels pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was just there last year and how.
Speaker 3: Was that was?
Speaker 1: Dover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was into it. We had a good time.
Speaker 2: I'll probably go back. And you got engaged in where
Speaker 2: in the Maldives and then you got married at lake
Speaker 2: Como in Italy.
Speaker 1: That's my place. I love. You've been to Maldives soon?
Speaker 1: Of course? Oh yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 2: Me and my wife turned up just us, yeah, because god,
Speaker 2: we didn't go.
Speaker 1: And you went with other people.
Speaker 4: Well, when we got engaged, it was just the two
Speaker 4: of us. We didn't have kids or anything. So we
Speaker 4: in the Maldives. Yeah, and so that was twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Uh. And then we had already been to Lake.
Speaker 4: Como as a couple just dating, and it's like the
Speaker 4: most beautiful romantic place.
Speaker 1: You could go. You feel like you're in heaven. And
Speaker 1: then the little boats. Yeah, we're in a little boats,
Speaker 1: you know, going on dates on a boat. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like life is good. That's my staff. I always say.
Speaker 4: We fell in love at lake Como, and so we
Speaker 4: decided we would get married there, and so we got
Speaker 4: married there in twenty thirteen, and we shot the All
Speaker 4: of Me video there too, So if you look at
Speaker 4: the video, double dipped yeah, so the whole So it
Speaker 4: was like I got to expend some of the trip.
Speaker 4: But the craziest thing about the video is it was directed.
Speaker 1: By this guy named Nobille Elderkin.
Speaker 4: And he's the guy that is the reason why Christian
Speaker 4: and I met because he was the director of the
Speaker 4: very first video where we met, and Christian and I
Speaker 4: started dating after we met on the video set, and
Speaker 4: so this guy is responsible for us meeting and he
Speaker 4: ended up directing the video for all of.
Speaker 2: Me, you know, seven years later. And did he directed
Speaker 2: the proposal? No, we didn't shoot that. We didn't shoot that.
Speaker 1: That was just that was just us. That was just us.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a very famous yea, a very famous guy.
Speaker 1: So how was your proposal? What did you do? So?
Speaker 1: You you're a very smooth guy. I want to compare you.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: It was like a few months I decided I was
Speaker 4: going to do it, and I decided I was going
Speaker 4: to do it on this trip, and I started getting
Speaker 4: the ring together and everything, and I have this little
Speaker 4: package trying to disguise the ring in my bag in
Speaker 4: case she like saw it in my bag. And so
Speaker 4: I had this nondescript just envelope with the ring package
Speaker 4: in there, and so I'm just trying to make sure
Speaker 4: she don't see it so I can actually propose in
Speaker 4: the moment, you know where I want to do it.
Speaker 4: And we're flying to the Maldi's and back then you
Speaker 4: had to fly through Colombo, Sri Lanka, but now you
Speaker 4: can fly direct to Malee.
Speaker 1: But before we flowed to the Dubai, spent a day
Speaker 1: at Duba and then to Malee.
Speaker 4: But back then you had to go somewhere Dubai, then
Speaker 4: to Sri Lanka and then it's horrible times. But nowadays
Speaker 4: you can go straight to Malee from the Bye.
Speaker 1: So that's what we do now.
Speaker 3: Anyway, we're going through the airport and they're rifling.
Speaker 1: Through my bag. I'm like, y'all better not open this
Speaker 1: fucking ring man. Wait wait customs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the people can't say basically wipeople right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this cer over in they about to blow
Speaker 1: you up. Yeah. So they're going through, going through, going through,
Speaker 1: and they were just about.
Speaker 4: To open that envelope. But God must have spoke to him.
Speaker 3: And said not now, son, right right right, right, right
Speaker 3: right right, because he didn't open up the envelope.
Speaker 2: And I got to propose on the beach in the Maldives.
Speaker 2: So it was for like Christmas Eve dinner on the
Speaker 2: beach in the Maldives.
Speaker 1: One two three. We're about to have dessert.
Speaker 2: And I tell the you know, a way to bring
Speaker 2: out the ring with dessert, and he brings it out
Speaker 2: in a little tray and then she sees it starts
Speaker 2: crying and she said, yes, that's similar to my proposal.
Speaker 1: But you just did it in about these no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let me about you old so okay, all these she
Speaker 1: says yes. She says yes obviously, and then we go.
Speaker 3: Then we go over to Thailand because her mom and
Speaker 3: dad were living in Thailand at the time.
Speaker 4: Her mom's tie and uh. And then we show them
Speaker 4: the ring. Uh when we land at the airport and
Speaker 4: they're like ah. And her mom didn't really get it.
Speaker 4: She was like, Okay, that's a nice ring. It's pretty
Speaker 4: was the first.
Speaker 1: I doubt it. She lived in Bangkok, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of Bangkok. Him the bank, the bankok, and they
Speaker 1: lived Yeah. And then and they lived in America. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Christy was Christy was born in the Internet.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Christy was about Christie was born in America and her
Speaker 4: dad was born and raised in America and he met
Speaker 4: her mom.
Speaker 1: Her mom over there, but.
Speaker 3: Then they lived in America for a long time, but
Speaker 3: then they moved back to Thailand, and that's when I
Speaker 3: met them, when they had moved back to Thailand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you like Thailand. Yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful back then,
Speaker 1: I don't think I think they stopped I think they
Speaker 1: stopped it. I think that's legal. Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1: If you do some crazy.
Speaker 4: Singapore, Singapore, Singapore America, Singapore.
Speaker 1: Singapore is really strict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Singapore is like you can't shoot gum and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very clean.
Speaker 4: It's very clean. Well, Singapore is beautiful, but it's it's
Speaker 4: definitely strict.
Speaker 2: I went to Singapore one time, and this is the
Speaker 2: time where the whole economy was tobacco, and I had
Speaker 2: two carts a new Ports.
Speaker 1: I used to smoke, and they pulled me over like
Speaker 1: I had like you got buy her, you got buy it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they this is how crazy it was.
Speaker 2: They made me throw out the cigarettes and then they
Speaker 2: made me buy their cigarettes in customs and I bought it,
Speaker 2: like I I definitely did it. You got to buy
Speaker 2: a little what's your favorite country. The performer, well, South Africa,
Speaker 2: Korea said, I love playing in Amsterdam and London, and yeah,
Speaker 2: those are my favorites.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of times.
Speaker 3: It was before it got crazy experience. Yeah, it was
Speaker 3: before it got crazy lately, like.
Speaker 1: With the war and everything. But uh, I was there.
Speaker 1: It was like for a birthday.
Speaker 4: It was like a private birthday party or something and
Speaker 4: some you know them guys with the big money, they
Speaker 4: want somebody to come and sing their birthday party.
Speaker 2: It was in Moscow. Yeah, at like a theater. It's beautiful,
Speaker 2: beautiful cities. Yeah, she's the Louis Properties. I've been just
Speaker 2: about everywhere. There's a very few places I have been.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you performed a kow not kouw.
Speaker 1: But I played Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, a
Speaker 1: bunch of Middle Eastern places. Yeah. Yeah, Morocco, like I
Speaker 1: just take a shot. But for him performing every yes, worldwide,
Speaker 1: shots are gone. Here we go yeah shot yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we like if we don't want you, we don't
Speaker 1: want to. Yeah, we want you to catch a flight
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah yeous.
Speaker 2: So anything in your whole career, right, yeah, beautiful lovely career,
Speaker 2: beautiful wife, beautiful children, beautiful everything.
Speaker 1: Apparently, never have a bad day, according to listen, being honest.
Speaker 2: I'm spreading the rumor you leave here. It might it
Speaker 2: might read John Legend never has a bad joy. It
Speaker 2: might just read that I just mean. But by the way,
Speaker 2: this is one of my friends, right, this is this
Speaker 2: is my friend Sonny d b T. He's never had
Speaker 2: a bad day.
Speaker 1: I hate him. I love that for you in a
Speaker 1: good way.
Speaker 3: He never had a bad day, and Haiti is the
Speaker 3: source of everything.
Speaker 1: In a good way, like in a good way, like
Speaker 1: he like.
Speaker 2: If ever I'm having a bad day, I call him
Speaker 2: and he'll be He'll he'll simply say some foul ship,
Speaker 2: like shut the fuck up, let's go outside on this
Speaker 2: and we'll have a great day. Yes, I cherished people
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, is that who you are? Can I
Speaker 2: call you on a bad day and you'd be like,
Speaker 2: shut up?
Speaker 1: Nigga trying to find him bright side, trying to find
Speaker 1: the right side for you, man, trying to find find
Speaker 1: the right side for you. He wants you to start
Speaker 1: a hot line. I got to be his friend, John Legend,
Speaker 1: never have a bad day, never have a bad day.
Speaker 3: Back in the when they first started doing the voice
Speaker 3: activated assistant for Google.
Speaker 1: They made me the voice of it.
Speaker 4: So really I had to literally go to the studio
Speaker 4: and just record myself saying all kinds.
Speaker 1: Of words Jillian things, excuse me, check though. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was a good check but it was a lot of work.
Speaker 3: It was like literally ten days in the studio of
Speaker 3: like six to eight hour days.
Speaker 1: Of just reading things. Does that still exists now?
Speaker 4: It was like a one year promotion, so you could
Speaker 4: if you have one of those Google Home things, you
Speaker 4: would have my voice on it for a year and
Speaker 4: then you was like Siri.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like Siri for Google, I would buy
Speaker 1: all Have you done more things like that in the
Speaker 1: tech space, I've done a lot of stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well we worked with them on their AI project too,
Speaker 3: Google's too. So one thing that I'm curious about in
Speaker 3: the R and B space in terms of related to
Speaker 3: hip hop space. Yeah, so, you know, in the hip
Speaker 3: hop space generationally, we're looking at the differences in the sound.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. Do you see that in the R and
Speaker 1: B space as well?
Speaker 4: But I think a lot of R and B artists
Speaker 4: still like hold on to some of the classic sounds,
Speaker 4: but they're always like. But the thing is R and
Speaker 4: B and hip hop are so close, Like we work
Speaker 4: with a lot of the same producers, and so a
Speaker 4: lot of things that are happening in hip hop, we're
Speaker 4: doing it as well. But there's still a lot of
Speaker 4: R and B artists. I think that like the classic
Speaker 4: sounds too.
Speaker 3: Do you ever feel like you are hip hop just
Speaker 3: by the nature of how you came up?
Speaker 4: I feel I'm so connected to hip hop. I feel
Speaker 4: like I've made so many hip hop records. I literally
Speaker 4: was going through because we're doing some promotions for my
Speaker 4: anniversary of Get Lifted, and I was going through all
Speaker 4: the hip hop collapse I have and making a playlist
Speaker 4: and it's massive, Like the list, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, hip hop is so core to my.
Speaker 3: Career and my musical identity and everything.
Speaker 1: So it's John Legend rapped.
Speaker 4: I have go back and list listen to a record
Speaker 4: with Consequence. He wrote the rapskay and.
Speaker 3: He like produced my session, but I did rap with him.
Speaker 2: On the song.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy that experience? I did. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'd be better at it now, like I just have
Speaker 1: more understanding of whatever.
Speaker 2: So you've not and I've been writing raps actually for
Speaker 2: a Broadway show.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, writing raps? Yeah, he rhymed. Well, he's talking.
Speaker 4: About how hip hop is so important to my career,
Speaker 4: and I was talking about how many times I've been
Speaker 4: on hip hop records the whole life, my whole career.
Speaker 1: But he was like, have you ever rapped?
Speaker 4: And I said, I did one record with Consequence where
Speaker 4: he wrote the.
Speaker 1: Raps and I did him.
Speaker 4: But I've actually been writing raps for Broadway for a show.
Speaker 1: I'm writing.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's fine. What's your relationship with Consequence? He hit me,
Speaker 2: like a couple of weeks ago. I love Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't talk to him a lot, but
Speaker 2: all love. We were like in the early day, he's
Speaker 2: a tour and we were roommates.
Speaker 3: Like uh so, so he'd have uh you know when
Speaker 3: you when you have a broke artist and you just
Speaker 3: on tour support, like everybody got double up, so you
Speaker 3: sleep in the double rooms.
Speaker 4: He's in one bed, I'm in the other. So Console
Speaker 4: was my roommate. Who was these other people that's on
Speaker 4: the tour? Consequence you GLC, don c.
Speaker 2: Yay, Monopoly monop would come out a lot really really.
Speaker 1: Dough doing tour buses or not. We were on tour buses.
Speaker 1: Those are rigorous. Yeah, those tour buses are. I like
Speaker 1: tour buses.
Speaker 3: Man, Well I get the start bus now, yeah, I
Speaker 3: get to stop goodse I got the bed, I got
Speaker 3: the actual everybody else is.
Speaker 1: In bunks and then you're in a nice bed. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I don't mind it because as a singer, you
Speaker 2: don't love being up and down in the uh because
Speaker 2: the air yeah mess with your vocal.
Speaker 4: You just get dry and going up and down all
Speaker 4: the time for shows, and so it's easier for just
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 1: On the bus. You know why I love good music.
Speaker 1: I'ma be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I came up in an arrow where we had to
Speaker 2: be gangster, right, and we had to keep up that gangster.
Speaker 2: If you not gangster for one week, there's someone who
Speaker 2: will come and try to take that slot that same week.
Speaker 1: Just you're just trying to chill.
Speaker 2: I got introduced to a person named for Real. His
Speaker 2: first lines he ever said to me was I don't
Speaker 2: have a gangster bone in my body. At the time,
Speaker 2: I could have been like this egotistic maniac and been
Speaker 2: like what because he had on a medium shirt. I
Speaker 2: had on a five acts right, So this is the
Speaker 2: time of Fox, right, No, I know, and I chose
Speaker 2: to believe in that movement. Yeah, I chose to believe.
Speaker 2: I was like, fuck that you don't have to be.
Speaker 2: But if Pharrell knew how to make gangster beats for y'all,
Speaker 2: you know, and me and Pharrell made all this. But
Speaker 2: to me, I always remember those first words they said
Speaker 2: to me, and then it trickled down to good music, right.
Speaker 2: And I always loved y'all because that's what y'all represented.
Speaker 2: Represent the gangster part of life, yeah, represented the I
Speaker 2: don't want to the ordinary people part of life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And most people aren't gangsters, you know.
Speaker 4: And so and you know the thing about us being
Speaker 4: attracted to artists that describe that life, It is attractive
Speaker 4: because it's just like you want to watch Scarface or
Speaker 4: you want to watch.
Speaker 1: Like you want to watch Against the movie.
Speaker 4: And so there's something appealing about that even if you
Speaker 4: haven't lived that life, like you're fascinated by that life.
Speaker 4: And so I see why people love gangst the rap.
Speaker 4: But it also helped Kanye stand out when he was
Speaker 4: like we're in the polos and talking about dropping out
Speaker 4: of college. When he was on the same label with
Speaker 4: guys rapping about Dylan Coke, it was like it made
Speaker 4: him stand out, you know, And I'm giving it to
Speaker 4: y'all in its entirety. It just because it was all
Speaker 4: of y'all like yeah, like I mean, but I wasn't rapping,
Speaker 4: so like I didn't.
Speaker 1: Have to be gast it was I was singing, but
Speaker 1: you were singing. That was the outfit.
Speaker 4: But I didn't have to be gangster though, But as
Speaker 4: a rapper, that was a bold thing to do to
Speaker 4: like not to be the only non I was very.
Speaker 1: Gangster, Yeah, Kanye, to be that way, it's bold, it's authentic.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And now we have a whole genre of
Speaker 1: that music. But then we have a whole genre of
Speaker 1: dead music. Jesus Christmas.
Speaker 2: These people rhyme about killing people, and it's crazy because
Speaker 2: I'm un quote against the wrapping and I listen to
Speaker 2: this ship like, oh.
Speaker 3: No, but you're saying it wrong because you guys, you
Speaker 3: guys are rhyming about killing people in a way, the
Speaker 3: kids are literally rhyming about killing people for.
Speaker 1: Real, like you talking about like, yeah, we don't about
Speaker 1: drill is mostly in New York, right, it's all over it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm saying, where did that start?
Speaker 3: Chicago's gets Chicago gets yeah, gets gets.
Speaker 1: Scort starts, I think really and London.
Speaker 3: Yeah, London, like there's there's city, Like New York has
Speaker 3: its own version that's.
Speaker 2: Drill and then yeah London, Like I'm so gree Like
Speaker 2: one day I was just like I hit some really
Speaker 2: talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's drill. I mean, but I think that's that was
Speaker 1: for New York. But I even think it's changed so
Speaker 1: much from them.
Speaker 3: It's gotten so much, like where they really like because
Speaker 3: they're using souli media with the music to really like
Speaker 3: this is what I'm really doing, but they're like outing themselves.
Speaker 1: It's just wild.
Speaker 4: It's it's what what do you think about the whole
Speaker 4: movement to not hold like a record against the person,
Speaker 4: Like like how with the uh in the case you
Speaker 4: can't like quote the lyrics it blurs the lines.
Speaker 1: Complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really complicated, man, Like I really think that
Speaker 3: that art should be separated, yeah, from the judicial system in.
Speaker 1: That sense, Yeah, you could should be just can't be charged.
Speaker 1: I agree. Like, also, like what the fuck I believe?
Speaker 1: I believe you shouldn't. You shouldn't be able to hold
Speaker 1: someone's song against them.
Speaker 4: You got to have real evidence that they did something,
Speaker 4: not just that they rapped about something hard.
Speaker 1: That Nigga killed nineteen for sure, exactly sure, so he
Speaker 1: really didn't that's the problem. But Rus, that is not that.
Speaker 4: But the point is, it's not enough proof to say
Speaker 4: someone made art about killing somebody.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to prove they actually did it,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: Because I remember you being against the stopping chriss, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was fully against the stopping.
Speaker 4: Now I'm generally like trying to find ways to make
Speaker 4: everything more just for us, you know, And so I
Speaker 4: don't like the idea of them holding songs against us.
Speaker 4: I don't like the idea of stopping frisk. I don't
Speaker 4: like the idea of illegal searches in general. And I'm
Speaker 4: just always going to be on the side of standing
Speaker 4: up for us and not locking a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of us up. That's why are we running for
Speaker 1: president twenty twenty? Excellent? But I don't know what God does.
Speaker 2: How long you live down here, mem I'm going on
Speaker 2: like seventeen years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never going back? You said, I don't want
Speaker 3: no more snow. No, I don't want to sound.
Speaker 1: You like the snows. I'm good with it.
Speaker 2: No, it's filming the fuck Korean Kareem is here, that's
Speaker 2: what jamake.
Speaker 1: He don't stop working. Yes, yeah, you got eight jobs,
Speaker 1: but you do. I don't like the cold.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Like that is that different people from I'm
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican, but they're black? Okay, yeah, so yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think any side of my side wants to
Speaker 2: reside wants to the cold, Like like why, like how
Speaker 2: I put it in my whole time in New York.
Speaker 2: Then I moved to New Jersey. I did all the
Speaker 2: like walking with my tams in the snow, and now
Speaker 2: like Louis Tims.
Speaker 1: So it's like a little different. You don't want him
Speaker 1: to get up, Like why can't I just be like
Speaker 1: who I am now? Like funk that I deserve the
Speaker 1: right to where Louis tim. That's right, I deserve the right.
Speaker 1: God damn it. And you said you're working before. What
Speaker 1: are y'all doing? We just started working on the album.
Speaker 1: We never a whole album.
Speaker 4: We never done like a whole big thing together. He
Speaker 4: just did a couple of songs with me years ago.
Speaker 4: And he just called me up in De Simmer. It
Speaker 4: was like, uh, I really am inspired. Like I've been
Speaker 4: thinking about your music and my vision for it. I
Speaker 4: feel like we should just get in and see what happens. Wait,
Speaker 4: he hit you out the blue saying this out the blue.
Speaker 1: That's that's type of it makes sense, makes sense.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: He's so creative and he gets inspired and and so
Speaker 4: I've been over to Paris to work with them, and
Speaker 4: we're gonna do it again in March.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: That's your next album, yeah, I mean well, yeah to
Speaker 2: the people that your next album is fully produced Buffalo.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say fully produced, yeah, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: say executive produce.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm saying we're getting in and he's gonna ep
Speaker 1: the record. So that's exact. H What is something that
Speaker 1: you did back then you wish you could have did
Speaker 1: right now? Like back then.
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example example. My friend of mine
Speaker 2: is named Tata. I have this number one record. It's
Speaker 2: called Equal Man. I'm I'm Latino, I'm all over thet.
Speaker 1: Comes all over the place.
Speaker 2: Tata comes to me and says, I want a girl
Speaker 2: to do a remix to this record. This is Jay,
Speaker 2: absolutely yes, and he says, I want to go to
Speaker 2: do a remix to this record, and I got to
Speaker 2: just listen to me.
Speaker 1: Somewhat. I don't want to say I said no. I
Speaker 1: didn't say no. But when they asked me the payment,
Speaker 1: it was like it's fifteen grand and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this woman wind up being Rihanna. Oh make this mistake
Speaker 1: of my whole correct I don't have one like that that.
Speaker 1: They don't have one. I don't no, I don't have one.
Speaker 4: That was like, John, we want you to feature with
Speaker 4: this of that artists, and then they went on to
Speaker 4: blow up when I said no, I haven't done that honestly.
Speaker 1: So if you've never said no to somebody that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of something. I can't think of anything.
Speaker 1: That means you say yes to everybody. No. It means
Speaker 1: what I say no to I don't regret.
Speaker 3: You know, I said yes a lot, because you know,
Speaker 3: I got a lot of collapse out there.
Speaker 4: But I definitely said no to something. But it didn't
Speaker 4: come back to bite me, honestly, because not for nothing
Speaker 4: Sonny did. He's got a record.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a funny story had Nas on here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was my brother and Nas.
Speaker 2: So I said to Nas, I said, because I feel
Speaker 2: like the same way I feel about you, that.
Speaker 1: You have a bad day in your life.
Speaker 2: I feel like Nas, no one would tell Nas no,
Speaker 2: Like I've been to the club with Nas and all
Speaker 2: these gangsters.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows and they see Naves to go. He's royalty.
Speaker 1: I love royalty. But I asked now, I said, Yo,
Speaker 1: anybody ever told you no?
Speaker 2: And now I was like maybe no. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, nah, nah, someone told you no. And then
Speaker 2: he said Prince, Okay, there you go. And then I said,
Speaker 2: why did Prince tell you?
Speaker 1: Know? You know what Prince told Nas? No? He said,
Speaker 1: do you own your masters? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And now I said, I told him I don't own
Speaker 2: my masters. He said, well, get back with me when
Speaker 2: you do own your masters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So now just part to that too, where he
Speaker 1: said I don't want to put them through colleges on
Speaker 1: like put your kids through college.
Speaker 3: I don't want to put the ekids college.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to ask you this question again. Has
Speaker 1: it any ever been anybody in front of them on you.
Speaker 4: Front of them and like said no to me? Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: there's been a artists that passed on. Like I'll reach
Speaker 4: out and ask for somebody to feature on the record
Speaker 4: and they'll pass, and they'll pass for different reasons. Like
Speaker 4: sometimes I think with rap, especially if you want an
Speaker 4: MC to get on a record, they really have to
Speaker 4: hear that be and feel in spite of the right Yeah,
Speaker 4: hit themselves on it. And sometimes they don't, and and
Speaker 4: it's fine, give me a sample. I don't take it personally,
Speaker 4: give me a sample who's passed. I mean, Andre just
Speaker 4: passed on something three but like recently passed on everything, so.
Speaker 1: You could even play. They were like, the guy that
Speaker 1: I go through is a good friend of both.
Speaker 3: Of ours, and he was like, if you have to
Speaker 3: play flute, he might have done it, but.
Speaker 1: You should.
Speaker 4: Because it was a beautiful way. It was for the remix.
Speaker 4: It was for the remixes. It was the one remix
Speaker 4: on the remix.
Speaker 1: It was one of the remixes that we did it
Speaker 1: for the Get Lifted.
Speaker 2: Adrey rapping more bro and he was like, if you
Speaker 2: have them to play flute, he might say yes, but
Speaker 2: you know, Andre be on what he's on at that time,
Speaker 2: and if he ain't on, good shot.
Speaker 1: And saying no, because we should have we should have
Speaker 1: dot it. I don't be mad at it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, you're not in the right place to
Speaker 2: do it, you know, but you got a record with Andre,
Speaker 2: but also Limpsey battle you I did Andre's record, yes,
Speaker 2: but yes, we did green Light together.
Speaker 1: That was our you know single we did together. We
Speaker 1: did the video.
Speaker 3: He really helped come up with the concept for the
Speaker 3: video too, and uh.
Speaker 4: It was incredible working with him for that. And then uh,
Speaker 4: when Christy was co hosting lip Sync Battle with l
Speaker 4: l Uh, I came on and did hey, y'all do
Speaker 4: with a full wig and everything? It was something lip
Speaker 4: sync was a time.
Speaker 2: Yes, goddamn it, who's your favorite? Wrapper alls on Jay? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I say Jay?
Speaker 3: And then uh, I feel like Kendrick is almost there now.
Speaker 3: Like it's like I was talking to Charlemagne like probably
Speaker 3: two years ago.
Speaker 4: And we were still like, are we putting him in
Speaker 4: the top five already? Because he's younger than everybody else? Yep,
Speaker 4: he was.
Speaker 1: Well, we were discussing it.
Speaker 4: We were discussing it because he was younger than everybody
Speaker 4: else that normally you would put in there.
Speaker 1: And I was like, at this point, you got to
Speaker 1: put him there prolific.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Two years ago he was wait, yeah, and I was like,
Speaker 1: at this point, you already got.
Speaker 4: To put him there because and he never lets you
Speaker 4: down because all the records are dope, the singles are dope,
Speaker 4: and the videos are dope.
Speaker 1: Different. Yeah, the videos are crazy. His shows are crazy. Like,
Speaker 1: you got to put him right up there. Who's your
Speaker 1: favorite R and B singer?
Speaker 2: Stevie Steve, Steve seeing Stevie or no, Steven Steve, He's
Speaker 2: always He's always.
Speaker 1: Your favorite jazz.
Speaker 2: I'm not super into jazz. Truthfully, you look you look
Speaker 2: like a jazz player. I'm gonna be honest, and didn't
Speaker 2: look like on the flu. I'm not like deep into it.
Speaker 4: I'm more like, you know, I know some Miles Davis
Speaker 4: records from John Coltrane, some like you know, like the
Speaker 4: older singers like uh, you know Louis and Ella and uh,
Speaker 4: I listen to some of that, but I'm not like
Speaker 4: deeply into jazz zz.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 3: Who's your favorite jazz artists? Louis Armstrong, Yes, right, you
Speaker 3: know the man?
Speaker 1: And I like to singing boy. I like to singing well.
Speaker 1: I like the ratty singing boys too, like he was dope.
Speaker 2: Who's your favorite reggae artist Boo Nice Month, whom.
Speaker 3: I've done a couple of records of Boo I love,
Speaker 3: I said.
Speaker 4: Reggae dance? Who's your favorite dance hall? Okay, so bo
Speaker 4: dance hall? Yes, all right, we're being more specific. Yes,
Speaker 4: just go back to Rake. Reggae Bob Marley, you made
Speaker 4: records with I have a couple of records of the
Speaker 4: first one we did together was on my Evolver albums
Speaker 4: called Can't Be My Lover and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I've been on a couple of his projects.
Speaker 1: He's the weast Papa Cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Reggae doesn't take or world Jamaican Today.
Speaker 1: M hm. Who's your favorite reggae throne artists? Regged throne?
Speaker 1: Have you dabbled in that? No? Do we count Bad Bunny?
Speaker 1: Is he regu? I think so. I think I'm not
Speaker 1: very well versed, so I'm not. I mean, yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't count what's your favorite reg I love Bad Bunny,
Speaker 1: but I don't know very well honest And he got conscious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got like he stands up for Puerto Rico because listen,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie to you. He said, it might
Speaker 1: be a porter going up for the weekends.
Speaker 3: He stands up for Puerto Rico. Like, he's very political
Speaker 3: and his music is crazy damn.
Speaker 1: So you will collab with bad Bunny? Absolutely love to
Speaker 1: Would that be your go to feature? Uh life? I
Speaker 1: had a record artist? Yeah, I mean Latin America. And
Speaker 1: for the time, I've worked with like singers in Latin America.
Speaker 3: So I worked with like one Is and uh Sebastian
Speaker 3: and uh like you got the Noel from.
Speaker 1: Uh who else? I haven't done a record with would
Speaker 1: and uh Yeah, I've worked with a few Latin.
Speaker 4: Artists over the years, but singers, I have really done
Speaker 4: your record good?
Speaker 1: Now his his is where we gotta go? Who's your
Speaker 1: favorite dancehall artists? We kind we said, oka reggae artists.
Speaker 1: I'm saying he's going to happen. He's going through, he said,
Speaker 1: sucking up. Who's your favorite car? Who's your favorite DJ?
Speaker 1: How about that DJ? If you're getting married, Maldi's who?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we played my last big party jig Capri.
Speaker 4: I went back, absolutely, I went back, you know, and he.
Speaker 1: It was amazing, honestly, and biz MARKI played our wedding.
Speaker 1: Well that was so vapis he played a vabis No
Speaker 1: he DJ bro DJ. Sure, he did a couple of it.
Speaker 1: He usually with DJ song and performing a little bit
Speaker 1: a couple, just.
Speaker 4: A couple, but mainly he's just playing records and uh and.
Speaker 1: Just the party was going the whole night. So that
Speaker 1: was twenty thirteen and.
Speaker 4: Then we and then we did our tenth anniversary in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three and Bis Markey was no longer with us,
Speaker 4: but k Capri came and kickza want that party ever?
Speaker 5: Do it?
Speaker 1: Crazy? You anymore?
Speaker 4: Jonnres And I'll tell you why I wanted him, because
Speaker 4: I had been talking about this college party I went
Speaker 4: to when I was in school. This is in like
Speaker 4: ninety six, and I was like, I've never seen a
Speaker 4: party like so turned for so long, Like he just
Speaker 4: had the party on eleven the whole night and it was.
Speaker 3: Ca Capri and I was like my brother. I was like,
Speaker 3: let's get him back. And so that was I sat
Speaker 3: to him, no more, Genres, no, no, who's your favorite whistler?
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep it. Oh, this's writing.
Speaker 2: Because you have one of the best beautiful family stories, right,
Speaker 2: But you know it started out it's.
Speaker 1: Like real fighting there was there was fighting in there.
Speaker 1: Where is this going out? Because you picked out a model.
Speaker 1: It was like, I like her, had to come to
Speaker 1: the yea. So she she was in the video with me.
Speaker 1: And then that's how we met. Yeah, and the is history.
Speaker 1: See a lot of people listen, a lot of people
Speaker 1: want to build up Oh I don't you ask. It
Speaker 1: started out with the b what you said, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to build up mom his wife. First day they
Speaker 1: kicked it off, and they kicked off.
Speaker 4: He said, if you hear me, yeah right, And now
Speaker 4: y'all eighteen years we met eighteen years ago ago.
Speaker 1: We got four kids. Four kids, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Four kids, the oldest ones eight and the youngest ones
Speaker 3: one and a half. Wow.
Speaker 1: So director came to you and showed you a picture.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you said I'm in I was all right, what
Speaker 4: And then we just had good chemistry and had a
Speaker 4: show later that night, and then we hung out after
Speaker 4: that and we've been hanging out ever since.
Speaker 1: God damn understatement.
Speaker 2: And you became a great father listen some years later. Yo, man,
Speaker 2: I just want to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I really really respect your legacy. I really respect what
Speaker 2: you're doing. I really respect how you represent for black people.
Speaker 2: Every time there's a there's a there's a moment. I
Speaker 2: know that John Legend is going to be there. I
Speaker 2: know that you you'll be there in the forest fires.
Speaker 2: I know that you'll be there during COVID. I know
Speaker 2: that you'll be there.
Speaker 1: And that ship is just like a beautiful thing to me.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Like, because I want to watch,
Speaker 2: but I don't maybe not be there, like, but I
Speaker 2: want to watch still, like I want to be like,
Speaker 2: oh ship, that ship is nice and you.
Speaker 1: Be holding it down don Lemon style. Okay, new one. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about? I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: a reporter now, So so what hold on? Going back
Speaker 1: to the fires?
Speaker 3: Is there anything before you get out of here that
Speaker 3: any true things that people could donate to that are
Speaker 3: actually impacting and helping.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a bunch of charities that are doing great work.
Speaker 4: We always work with Baby the Baby a lot, and
Speaker 4: because they help parents that have kids and need supplies
Speaker 4: for their kids. A lot of people got displaced to
Speaker 4: have kids, so Baby to Baby is great. Of course
Speaker 4: the Red Cross is helping. Yeah, those are a couple
Speaker 4: that we've donated to and helped out. But I would say,
Speaker 4: baby the Baby, that one's close to our heart and
Speaker 4: we've raised money for them a lot over the years.
Speaker 3: Any any artists that you know that personally have been
Speaker 3: impacted are artists you don't like in the hip hop world.
Speaker 3: Mad Lib he lost Yes, I saw.
Speaker 1: That concerts and Ico she lost her place. And then.
Speaker 4: The guys we sang with on the opening of the
Speaker 4: Grammys that was a band, uh, a rock band, indie
Speaker 4: band called DAWs and they grew up in that area
Speaker 4: in Altadena and they lost everything. Their parents lost their
Speaker 4: home in the studio and the instruments, everything, So a
Speaker 4: lot of people lost a lot. It's crazy because when
Speaker 4: you go to La unless you're in those areas, you
Speaker 4: don't even see it because everything else looks completely normal.
Speaker 1: But when you go to those areas, they look like
Speaker 1: a war zone. They're like, I don't, we don't see that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a war zone in those specific areas,
Speaker 4: and then everywhere else looks normal.
Speaker 1: It's crazy though, it's surreal. Yeah. Well so, I mean,
Speaker 1: all right, this this is one meme percent all me.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be impactful.
Speaker 2: Of course, because you were really Trump's nemesis, right, let's
Speaker 2: suppost didn't work this Trump says, I want to meet
Speaker 2: with John in the middle of Central Park. Why because
Speaker 2: let me be in New York.
Speaker 1: Why you hating?
Speaker 4: Honestly, I would meet with him with no cameras and
Speaker 4: no like this is like I would. I would meet
Speaker 4: just like on some could I influence him because I
Speaker 4: feel like he's very easy, Like I think people people
Speaker 4: getting his ear, I feel like.
Speaker 1: They can convince him of things, and so I.
Speaker 4: Would deal with no cameras and just try to use
Speaker 4: whatever influence I had.
Speaker 1: But I doubt it would be useful, but it would
Speaker 1: be worth a shot. Why not? But let me ask you,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep it real. Are you gonna have jokes?
Speaker 2: You gotta have jokes, you gotta call him arms Asian arm.
Speaker 2: You're gonna do something to bring yourself up.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'm not boring as singer with the
Speaker 1: Filthy Mountain.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but honestly, I believe like anybody can
Speaker 4: be talked to, and you don't need to do it
Speaker 4: for like a photo op.
Speaker 1: Do it like actually trying to accomplish something, and he knows.
Speaker 3: And everybody should be talked to, like, if he's in
Speaker 3: a position, especially if they're in power, you should talk
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 1: But you would meet it. I mean, it's not on
Speaker 1: the table, But yes, I think it's plausible. I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I just think he needs someone in his
Speaker 4: ear telling him something other than what Elon and all
Speaker 4: these other guys are telling him.
Speaker 1: So if that needs to be.
Speaker 2: Me, fine, Okay, So let's let's talk about for a second.
Speaker 2: Why did you change your name from John Stevens to
Speaker 2: John So the.
Speaker 4: First person to call me John Legend was a guy
Speaker 4: named Jay Ivy, and he just started calling me the Legend.
Speaker 4: Jay Ivy's a spoken word ARTI. If you listen back
Speaker 4: to Never Let Me Down on the College Dropout, he's
Speaker 4: doing the.
Speaker 3: Spoken word piece on it. He's from Chicago, and I
Speaker 3: met him when we were working on the College Dropout
Speaker 3: album and he just heard everything I was doing in
Speaker 3: the studio.
Speaker 1: I was singing on.
Speaker 2: Everything, playing on everything, and you just started calling me
Speaker 2: the legend. And our whole crew just started calling me
Speaker 2: John Legend.
Speaker 4: Not long after that, and I had to decide whether
Speaker 4: or not I would actually use it as a stage
Speaker 4: name or just you know, just a nickname among our friends, and.
Speaker 1: I decided I will use it. I was like, fuck it.
Speaker 4: You know, this is like, this is announcing my presence.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say I'm John Legend.
Speaker 1: And what was ever a thought of the of it
Speaker 1: sounding like John Lennon. It started to come up later.
Speaker 1: It's funny.
Speaker 4: Some people was like, hey, it's John Lennon, which is
Speaker 4: kind of dope. Yeah, it's fine. And then some of
Speaker 4: John Lennon's fans call him John Legend. I learned that later. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know that before. But I had to
Speaker 4: check on their trademark and trademark that could infringe.
Speaker 1: I had to check on it.
Speaker 4: So we found out that once I got signed a
Speaker 4: mass Sony and all the lawyers, you know they're about
Speaker 4: to get my album ready and make sure the clearances
Speaker 4: are right, they're like, we need to make sure we
Speaker 4: trademark John Legend as your stage name. So they go
Speaker 4: out and look for other John Legends. And it wasn't
Speaker 4: an issue with the John Lennon, uh, you know, leg Estate.
Speaker 4: But there's this porn producer named Johnny Legend.
Speaker 1: Legends. So there's a porn producer, but he also made music.
Speaker 4: So because he made music. Yeah, we had to clear
Speaker 4: it with him for me to use the name. And
Speaker 4: so we found him and my manager was like trying
Speaker 4: to be chill about it. He didn't want to make
Speaker 4: it seem like this big new artist on this Yeah.
Speaker 4: He wanted to seem like we were just some poor
Speaker 4: kid from Ohio. And so he was like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: have this artist and he goes by John Legend, and
Speaker 4: we don't want any trouble, just want to negotiate a
Speaker 4: mutually non exclusive deal with the guy owned the name Legend.
Speaker 4: He was Johnny Legend, Johnny and he was a musician.
Speaker 4: So if he had a record at a store.
Speaker 1: And I had one at the store, he could be like, yo, confusing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there could be a suit. Yeah, that's confusing. So we
Speaker 1: had to find him and he agreed.
Speaker 4: We gave him I think ten thousand dollars, which I
Speaker 4: think was a very affordable bargain.
Speaker 1: Yeah for him, it's probably good. Yeah, and he was
Speaker 1: like yeah, so he signed the deal.
Speaker 4: He was Johnny Legend, I'm John Legend, and he went
Speaker 4: sue me and I wouldn't sue him. So you kind
Speaker 4: of popping in the porn world too, Yeah, you know
Speaker 4: you made it. You know you made it when fake
Speaker 4: dudes are you, you know, use your name. So my
Speaker 4: friend sent me. I don't know how you found it.
Speaker 1: You found this as a poor star that goes.
Speaker 4: By John the Legend and it's like a light stined
Speaker 4: dude with a beard like trying to look like, yes,
Speaker 4: you know you made it when you.
Speaker 1: Got a poor knockoff star and he's cocking and saying ordinary.
Speaker 2: John Lezard, Man, I really appreciate you man for coming
Speaker 2: out and just hanging with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, because this is what I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, yeah, we were scared. Well you know
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 4: You know last time my friend was on the show
Speaker 4: and it wasn't great, But I figured I should come
Speaker 4: on at some point.
Speaker 1: Yes, and uh, either have our own conversations. This is
Speaker 1: the first, not the last.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to promote pink socks, I'm in
Speaker 2: pink socks.
Speaker 1: We got the pink rose though from l v E.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, l l v E because just Love Love
Speaker 4: Love Love LB stands for Legend Vineyard Exclusive.
Speaker 1: There it is there, it is say it again. Legend
Speaker 1: Vineyard Exclusive, Legend Vineyard l v SO short for love too.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's what Noy is calling. I love love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love love you, love love. I love love you,
Speaker 1: love love you. I love being married. I love love.
Speaker 1: I'm happily married, happily happy to be a dad. Love
Speaker 1: it all. It's good. Why why don't people praise that?
Speaker 1: Like from friend Swiss called me earlier great dad. Loves
Speaker 1: being great dad, and I love yeah.
Speaker 2: At lasta keys, Wow, we don't like focused on bigging
Speaker 2: that part of hip hop.
Speaker 1: I love it. You know, we don't. I think we're
Speaker 1: starting to, don't know. I think we're maturing more. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you something.
Speaker 2: Swiss and at Leasta being at the Grammys was great, right,
Speaker 2: But if Swiss would have been with another bitch at
Speaker 2: the Grammys, thatsh it would have been top line whatever.
Speaker 1: But him's being a lawyer.
Speaker 3: But if it's God, yeah, if you're married consistently, why
Speaker 3: would that be anything.
Speaker 2: It's not news, it's not news. But I think we celebrate.
Speaker 2: You know, we said we should, we said, we said,
Speaker 2: we said, picked that up. Like the thing about it, like,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at Jay and his wife Beyonce. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that's my friend, so I'm.
Speaker 1: Looking at him.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying, why are we not bigging that up more?
Speaker 2: I think they're celebrated as a couple. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 2: looking at you and your wife. Now, why do we
Speaker 2: not bigging it up more?
Speaker 4: I think they're celebrated. I feel like not in pop culture. Well,
Speaker 4: the thing is, people like news and they like controversy.
Speaker 4: So people were excited when they saw Jay and Solange
Speaker 4: and the Elevator because it was controversy.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying too, And so I feel like,
Speaker 1: so I really.
Speaker 4: Think like it's not exciting when it's just bliss and
Speaker 4: it's love.
Speaker 1: And so people get more excited for the controversy side.
Speaker 3: And the flip is it shouldn't be extraordinary for a
Speaker 3: couple to be together a long time.
Speaker 1: That should not be an extraordinary thing.
Speaker 4: And the thing is with artists, especially with hip hop,
Speaker 4: like a lot of our biggest stars currently, like in
Speaker 4: the moment, are young, and they're not in that phase
Speaker 4: of life, right, They're not like they're in the datings. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're they're in a bachelor phase of their life.
Speaker 1: Bachelor.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then but then by by the time their legend
Speaker 4: status like Jay, then they should and have kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, but this because in our community, the just
Speaker 2: promoted so much of you not having a fault. Now
Speaker 2: you've got John Legend with his beautiful wife, you got
Speaker 2: Jay with his beautiful wife, you got Swiss Beats with
Speaker 2: his beautiful Why are we not saying yo, black man,
Speaker 2: black all, all Latino man.
Speaker 1: Whatever. Let's let's just let's focus on that part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what's on that.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the myths about us is that
Speaker 4: we aren't as present as fathers. We're actually more present
Speaker 4: as fathers. The statistics statistics are that we are Actually
Speaker 4: we spend more time with our kids than white fathers do.
Speaker 4: We're more present, and so and so, like that's never told.
Speaker 4: That story is really never told. There is not told enough.
Speaker 4: But that's right. Like Black fatherhood is wonderful and we
Speaker 4: are really good fathers.
Speaker 1: And we know that means to be present for our kids.
Speaker 4: And even if you're not married read to the mother
Speaker 4: of your child, you can still be a great father.
Speaker 1: And and so I see that example all the time.
Speaker 1: Like I have people, I have.
Speaker 4: Friends in my life who are really great fathers that
Speaker 4: may not be married to the mother the child, but
Speaker 4: they still make sure they're there for everything. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 4: and I was raised around great fathers. My dad's a
Speaker 4: great one. He was a single dad for us for
Speaker 4: a while. My uncles all of them like really great fathers.
Speaker 4: So I'm just I'm like, that's my example. It's like
Speaker 4: I've seen great fatherhood and it's not everybody's example. But
Speaker 4: the bottom line is, even when we're not married, black
Speaker 4: fathers are very present in general, and we.
Speaker 3: Got to celebrate it. Yeah, take a shot for the
Speaker 3: black fathers.
Speaker 1: Here. We got black father. Yes, he has a.
Speaker 2: Let's take a shot to fatherhood, fathershood.
Speaker 1: I might seem like a priest though, isn't it, John Legend?
Speaker 1: What is? What do you see yourself trying to accomplish?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: With all the things you've accomplished.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a couple of things I'm doing that are new.
Speaker 4: I told you before I'm writing for Broadway.
Speaker 3: That's the first time I've ever done that, and neither
Speaker 3: of the shows out even though you got the Tony already,
Speaker 3: I was producing, but I didn't write. I'm writing music
Speaker 3: for musical two musicals, so that these two shows are
Speaker 3: the first time I've ever done that. And then then
Speaker 3: I'm always just trying to tap myself as an artist,
Speaker 3: like next album needs to be better than the last album,
Speaker 3: Like every time, that's my goal.
Speaker 1: So that'll be my goal with this next album.
Speaker 4: What about acting, it's not a goal honestly if it
Speaker 4: works out and it's the right thing at the right time.
Speaker 4: But honestly, like you're kind of like starting from the
Speaker 4: bottom as an actor because you're like, because I get what,
Speaker 4: I get to go sing somewhere and I sing for
Speaker 4: an hour, you know, Oh, do.
Speaker 1: You feel like it's starting over?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not going to get that for being in
Speaker 4: a film and it's going to take six weeks of
Speaker 4: my time.
Speaker 1: It does, and it's like is that worth it? Most
Speaker 1: of the time it's not.
Speaker 2: I feel like Common is the positive blueprint, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1: If you build long enough, then it can be worth it.
Speaker 1: But you got to be able to put that time
Speaker 1: in because Common has been building that acting career for
Speaker 1: a long time. You can't just PLoP in and be
Speaker 1: like I want, you know, ten million to show up
Speaker 1: for this film, right Like, you just can't do it.
Speaker 3: And so it's like, do I want to put in
Speaker 3: all that time to build up my price in there
Speaker 3: when I've already built up my price as a singer.
Speaker 1: I rather just can't make money. Yeah, and I love making.
Speaker 3: Music, right, But okay, so I know we joked about
Speaker 3: the political realm.
Speaker 1: Do you really ever see yourself? I don't, and people
Speaker 1: do advocate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and I will continue to And people ask
Speaker 3: me all the time if I ever want to run
Speaker 3: for office, and I.
Speaker 1: Still don't believe I ever will, and I don't believe i'll.
Speaker 3: Ever want to. If I change my mind, and then
Speaker 3: I'll change my mind, but I don't. I don't think
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 1: I don't think he will either. Nor are you gonna run,
Speaker 1: profess No, I'm running for offers you. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: honest with you. If you run for office, I'll be
Speaker 1: like you know, the guys with the.
Speaker 2: Helmets security January sixth, niggah, my Hitchman, BECAUSEA be honest.
Speaker 1: I don't be.
Speaker 2: No, you will mind me of a rock in the
Speaker 2: most beautifulest way it is. And I spoke to Killer Mike.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love killing Mike, right, I love Mike. Kill
Speaker 1: him Mike man. But I feel like Killer Mike should
Speaker 1: be mayor of Atlanta. He could do it. I feel
Speaker 1: like he might run. I feel like he should do it.
Speaker 2: I feel like he should do it unapologetically. I feel
Speaker 2: like he shoul to do it eating peanuts like me.
Speaker 1: What up in his real self? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well he cares a lot about lances and put
Speaker 4: it that way. I don't know if he every wants
Speaker 4: to run for office, but he's I feel like he's
Speaker 4: great at knowing what the people want in his city,
Speaker 4: and he loves his city. He advocates for his city,
Speaker 4: advocates for.
Speaker 3: Our community, like having our own businesses and own property
Speaker 3: or on wealth. And uh, he's a great man.
Speaker 1: But you you never thought about running for president when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I didn't since I've been in
Speaker 1: an adult I love my life.
Speaker 3: I love what I get to do now, and I
Speaker 3: don't think I would enjoy being president. Wow, I just
Speaker 3: don't think I would. You know what, Actually, we got
Speaker 3: to shut out his papa, Keith is running for office,
Speaker 3: right commissioner shout out to from out here. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: a radio personality. He's been influential out here in the
Speaker 3: community and now he's.
Speaker 4: I respect anybody that puts himself out there. My friend
Speaker 4: Hill Harper, he ran for you don't want to he
Speaker 4: ran for Senate in Michigan.
Speaker 3: I was like, man, it's just stressful. He didn't win
Speaker 3: the primary, and it's like you put yourself out there,
Speaker 3: they come at you. Yeah, and it's like into those I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, I already put myself out there enough and I
Speaker 1: get enough ship for it.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't want to like actually run,
Speaker 4: but imagine you and dlugy.
Speaker 1: Dl DL's instagram be going. You know you wouldn't one?
Speaker 1: Why give up? Give up on this lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I'm just asking because to me, I will one job.
Speaker 1: I want to go pisical ends to be a fucking
Speaker 1: president like me. This is me. I guess the personal
Speaker 1: open you can look at me out I got I believe.
Speaker 1: I believe in you that much? Did I feel like
Speaker 1: you can be the president? But why why? Why?
Speaker 2: Why can't we have our own community, support our own community.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I appreciate because you know why use
Speaker 1: against Trump every every Yeah? So why not have you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I take a shot. It ain't even got nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. But why why why wouldn't you wouldn't you? Well?
Speaker 1: We got here, Oh thank you, Sam? Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna take something cash. He's in the writer,
Speaker 2: but why wouldn't you want for possident.
Speaker 4: I just feel like it's so much negativity and like
Speaker 4: where's the positive side?
Speaker 1: And there's music. Music is now when you're.
Speaker 4: A musician, there's not a whole party organized to bring
Speaker 4: you down like all the other R and B cats
Speaker 4: don't have like organized party trying to destroy my career.
Speaker 4: Like user fans aren't like outside my door with picking
Speaker 4: signs like fuck John Legend. It might be, but like
Speaker 4: if you run for office, like there's like literally half
Speaker 4: the country hates you or they're being told to hate you,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I'm not interested in that feeling.
Speaker 1: But we interested in your ideology. I get it. I
Speaker 1: get it. We will leave with John Legend believes I
Speaker 1: get it. And I appreciate black people to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, we need you? Yeah, we need you. We
Speaker 1: want to get behind well.
Speaker 3: Crazy, I want to get behind you, Paulsey taking me
Speaker 3: back two thousand and four but the pause days.
Speaker 2: But we need we need somebody in that office that
Speaker 2: we can identify, would relate to because we can see
Speaker 2: you don't think that's you.
Speaker 4: I hope Wes Moore runs for president. And there's some
Speaker 4: great people that we can look up to. Let's let's
Speaker 4: so Wes Moore. He's a governor of Maryland. Brother, very accomplished, veteran,
Speaker 4: amazing speaker. Okay, beautiful wife. You know he can do it,
Speaker 4: and I think he's he's already governor of Maryland.
Speaker 1: He could do it. So I'll support them. So are
Speaker 1: we We're putting on money to him. Who knows.
Speaker 2: We'll see, we'll see, we'll see if he runs. But
Speaker 2: he could, and I think he'd do a good job.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at everybody here. What's his name, Wes Moore,
Speaker 2: Wes Moore. But if we could pick Wes Moore, we
Speaker 2: could pick John Legend. That's our next running candidate for
Speaker 2: the president of the United States. Look at this nigga.
Speaker 1: This nigga is Obama's because it Okay, I appreciate it, nor,
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 1: I appreciate what you're doing. Right now, you get an endorsement, right,
Speaker 1: love and respect. I did no. No, you know why
Speaker 1: because I trust you.
Speaker 2: The thing about it is, we're voting for the American President.
Speaker 2: You want to trust him. I want to trust the person.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you me and that you
Speaker 2: know I'm brown. Trust you all right?
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it. I pretty much on you. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry because you know it's all good. But but
Speaker 1: why not, because you know why? The one thing that
Speaker 1: we got to give Trump is he just outrageous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't give a fuck. So why wouldn't you, Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you be up? They be like this man himself
Speaker 1: holds down. I don't know, I don't know this is president.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I want to.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest that John John John legends resident.
Speaker 1: You gotta be writer. If you John let the president.
Speaker 1: How many of us is rooting voting for John? I
Speaker 1: make some No, I'm gonna be honest. I'm just sorry.
Speaker 1: We believe in you. Curls is right, I feel it.
Speaker 1: I feel it. The girls he's gonna be secretary of State.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be something else, Like I'm gonna be like
Speaker 2: what else, drinker of the drink?
Speaker 1: Girls stink up.
Speaker 2: I don't think think we're gonna make some new position.
Speaker 2: I'm playing around, But in real reality, I was thought
Speaker 2: about that. He's not with it because because look at me,
Speaker 2: look at me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you. He's look at me, look at me,
Speaker 1: look at you. I have no beef for Trump. Right,
Speaker 1: but if I was to put you and Trump in
Speaker 1: a spelling bee, I'm picking you. Yeah, I would win.
Speaker 2: If I'm picking you and Trump against like like, uh
Speaker 2: of course we're a puzzle. I'm picking you.
Speaker 1: Jeopardy Yeah yeah yeah, travel so so so why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you try to lead off monopoly a little bit? Why
Speaker 1: would you? I just don't feel like I would enjoy it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful man, running or being in office. I don't
Speaker 1: think I would enjoy either. One very just one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because I believe mean you so much. I know,
Speaker 1: I feel it. I feel it, I feel it. He's
Speaker 1: your campaign, I'm your number one thing. I know, I
Speaker 1: feel it. I feel if you feel like that next
Speaker 1: to year, Okay, I'll hit you, please hit me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like that. The John Legend man. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, man, thank you. I had such a
Speaker 1: good time. What say it out? I say, I'll talk
Speaker 1: about let's go make some money? Yeah, get it now.
Speaker 2: I'm truly I'm glad I got to come by and
Speaker 2: see y'all. I've been wanting to do it for a minute.
Speaker 4: And I'm glad we got to come and celebrate the
Speaker 4: twentieth anniversary because I'm just grateful.
Speaker 2: And you know, I told you all these stories of
Speaker 2: like us on the come up, and like I think
Speaker 2: back on all of that when I listen to that
Speaker 2: music from Get Lifted, and I'm just grateful for everything
Speaker 2: to happen. Yeah, good John, thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2: I ain't gonna lie. You're the only nigga that ever
Speaker 2: ordered beef.
Speaker 1: Jerky turkey, turkey, turkey jack turkey. Yeah no, no, don't
Speaker 1: say that. That's in my that's in my rider too,
Speaker 1: because you know with turkey. Come on, I don't eat beef.
Speaker 1: I don't eat you sure that's turkey.
Speaker 3: I swear to god, you ain't gonna be able to
Speaker 3: tell because it smelled the same.
Speaker 1: Already, Bro, somebody went to the grocery store in here.
Speaker 1: They got it. Are you ready? You ate it already?
Speaker 1: You had a dinner with a shot though, and then
Speaker 1: we out of here. I appreciate you, y'all. Man, what
Speaker 1: a pleasure. You gotta let him go. We drink Champs.
Speaker 1: Drink Champs is a drink Champs LLC.
Speaker 3: Production hosts and executive producers n O r E and
Speaker 3: dj e FN. Listen to Drink Champs on Apple Podcast,
Speaker 3: Amazon Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 3: for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs hosted
Speaker 3: by Yours Truly, dj e FN and n O r E.
Speaker 3: Please make sure to follow us on all our socials
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