Speaker 1: This is cut to It with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm a little John and this
Speaker 1: is cut to It. Good do it, Good do it.
Speaker 1: They's getting down to do it. Good do it. We
Speaker 1: asked the questions you always want to know, but no
Speaker 1: one ever asked, let's cut to it. You ain't heard
Speaker 1: about it, then we're about to let you know. It's all.
Speaker 1: Let's go. Man coming up. I'm super excited. We've got
Speaker 1: Anthony Hamilton's R and B singer, Grammy Award winner, and
Speaker 1: he's here in studio for cut to It. He's your name, Brittany,
Speaker 1: Yeah he is, and it was It was wonderful to
Speaker 1: sit down with him, but also um to be able
Speaker 1: to see you and go through the process of how
Speaker 1: creative genius, how you could just take something small and
Speaker 1: making just something huge like that. And he did to
Speaker 1: cut to an intro song. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: talk about that as well. Yeah, that's what I was
Speaker 1: talking about. I don't know, I don't know anything else
Speaker 1: that you were talking about, Anthony, How you know, how
Speaker 1: did this go? I was scared to to talk to
Speaker 1: you and ask you. Um, I was nervous. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: because we were thinking about music and um, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, man, I know Anthony, I gotta I
Speaker 1: think I got a pretty good relationshipship with him. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of scared to ask him because I know how
Speaker 1: how many people ask ask me things, ask things of me,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, man, I want to be that dude.
Speaker 1: And you served it up as a possible because we
Speaker 1: were just thinking of like just some some just regular
Speaker 1: leading music and he's like, oh, I got a tie
Speaker 1: to Anthony. Were like okay, and then it showed the
Speaker 1: tie when I mentioned it. I think it was like
Speaker 1: two it was. It was like a month and a half. Damn,
Speaker 1: I'm scared, and I just I was. It was scared
Speaker 1: to be rejected, but I was also scared to for
Speaker 1: you not to feel used. You know, I was on it, um,
Speaker 1: and I knew you were coming from a place, not
Speaker 1: like that cousin who keeps asking for the cash. You know,
Speaker 1: it was from a different place than the cash I
Speaker 1: asked or the you know, man, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. So it wasn't that you know, you
Speaker 1: put in a lot of work. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of who you are and what you represent as a
Speaker 1: not only a football player, but the fall him. So
Speaker 1: I knew it was coming from a different place. Um,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I want to know, what do
Speaker 1: you have music? Because do I need to get music
Speaker 1: or do you have music? All those things, you know,
Speaker 1: made it even easier for me to go, And I said,
Speaker 1: all right, I was in the studio. I was like,
Speaker 1: let me listen to this music. I was like, okay. First, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had we had a few tracks that my brother
Speaker 1: in law actually is as a producer, so he made
Speaker 1: he made some beats, and so we sent him over
Speaker 1: and we went back in fore phones and which one
Speaker 1: sounds good? Which ones are are worthy enough for for
Speaker 1: you to grace is with your presence on him? And
Speaker 1: so we sent him over to you. Yeah, this this
Speaker 1: one stood out, Yeah, because it sounded you know, I
Speaker 1: had a good energy about it. And so I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I can see myself you know, doing something
Speaker 1: to this one. Yeah. I was like, uh, who was
Speaker 1: June slap in the middle of a pandemic? Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we kept seeing each each other, we kept seeing
Speaker 1: each other on walks. They store. Oh. We was in
Speaker 1: the grocery store, was in the neighborhood taking walks. Man,
Speaker 1: we was walking all the time, and uh, and I
Speaker 1: taught us him, Man, this is fire. Yeah. And it
Speaker 1: was a lot of conversation going on. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, he's like, man, I haven't see you. I
Speaker 1: was like, well, we also moved. It was like what yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it was and so he said it to
Speaker 1: me and I still have it so June and then
Speaker 1: that's when we did. Uh. That's when he's Anthony sent
Speaker 1: it back to me. I want you to hear and
Speaker 1: he was like, yo, I can't tell you all all
Speaker 1: of the other parts of it too. So he gave
Speaker 1: he gave you a preview. So yeah, yeah, I wanted
Speaker 1: it to have that old R and B like yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of all right cool that. Yeah, it gave
Speaker 1: me a feeling like the old good R and B.
Speaker 1: I don't want it to sound good. I want people
Speaker 1: to be like, what is this. I listened to it
Speaker 1: so missing my kids. My kids was finally like all right, dad,
Speaker 1: that's enough. Yeah. So but I love it. The fact
Speaker 1: that we have it on the podcast. You can download
Speaker 1: it just the intro, like it's just it's you know,
Speaker 1: like it ain't like, oh this is something we did know,
Speaker 1: this is this is Anthony. I'm just shoo. I'm just
Speaker 1: a good look at that handsome guys. Subjectives. We had
Speaker 1: people I want to download the song, like is there
Speaker 1: more to it? Wow? Yeah? People hit this up. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to Yeah, we cash out that. Yeah. So who track?
Speaker 1: Who produced that people? Yeah, Alex Johnson. So it's my
Speaker 1: brother in law's he's a producer. He lives up in
Speaker 1: d C. Okay, about to bless it with the whole thing. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll link it up. We'll link it up. Whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Steve you your this this this is a
Speaker 1: Grammy winner, he said. He want to he want to
Speaker 1: link something up. You know, I understand, but I own it.
Speaker 1: We ain't got four gram in the budget. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be way more than four. Ain't talking like oh my my,
Speaker 1: my business in contracts. You just said it up all
Speaker 1: I said. All I said, like he's like we hooked
Speaker 1: U up. I'm like this hooking up. I got to
Speaker 1: write the check just to see where I would go creatively.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll be like, let me see what you
Speaker 1: want to background. Oh that's like a temptate. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: gotta come up with a routine. Routine. You gotta wash
Speaker 1: the hamstring with that movie. Now they're still good. I
Speaker 1: know I'm running it. I took off running the other day.
Speaker 1: My boys didn't know I ran track. Yeah, ran the hurdles.
Speaker 1: The first one tine tin hurdles and another fellow mention
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah hurdles long jump. Now I say fellow
Speaker 1: mention because he will tell you generally the high hurdlers
Speaker 1: are not five nine and below. They usually six ten
Speaker 1: and above. Yeah. Yeah, now you just murder that did
Speaker 1: you play us play football? That played football? Is tail
Speaker 1: back in the safety? How long? When did you discover
Speaker 1: you no longer? We're good in football? When I broke
Speaker 1: my legs back, broke my leg makeing a tack, let
Speaker 1: me let me let me guess tall sweet ye making
Speaker 1: a tackle? You always it's just like you know why
Speaker 1: because that running to the side. Yeah, safety blew up,
Speaker 1: that d gap tackle got tripped up. Yeah that's what
Speaker 1: it was. I'm like, I'm make a pile, but I'm
Speaker 1: coming up like ah, you said, I'm done. I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm to where's the mike. Where's the microphone? The microphone? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, well Anthony. Our first segments called get ice
Speaker 1: stuck just icebreaker questions. They're randomly select super random ahead,
Speaker 1: give the first You're ready? Would you rather lose the
Speaker 1: ability to read or lose the ability to speak the
Speaker 1: ability to read? At fourth singer, I already know what
Speaker 1: I'm sact tired of it. I don't want no more.
Speaker 1: I got to read that to do? Uh, I go
Speaker 1: with losibility to speak. I need to be able to
Speaker 1: read some contracts I can. I can deal with that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to lose. I
Speaker 1: don't want to lose my literacy. You gotta have a
Speaker 1: really good threat when you like if this eventually, I don't,
Speaker 1: eventually I find out that this ain't what it is all.
Speaker 1: You gotta have a real one of them and make
Speaker 1: good on one or two. Uh, they have you don't
Speaker 1: have to read? Have your money that James had a pistol?
Speaker 1: Which one would you choose? I'm gonna just say what
Speaker 1: some of these folks taking. Hell, if you look on
Speaker 1: the back of some of the containers and the ingredients
Speaker 1: of food ship, I can't read anywhere. Yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: look at the word, then look it up to see
Speaker 1: what it is. So I'm gonna speak because I do
Speaker 1: agree with you, and this is people listening would understand.
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is molly whapp a few people
Speaker 1: and then when you throw it out there that it's
Speaker 1: a possibility you're gonna molly whapp them. Man, your track
Speaker 1: record shows that you are mopper. Yeah, then you start
Speaker 1: you just like you ever seen you ever seen a
Speaker 1: you ever seen a mute? Molly whopper? Don't go too well,
Speaker 1: it's probably a hard lick, all right. What long shot
Speaker 1: have you taken that really paid off? Long shot have taken? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Your version of long shot? Because they're all there, um
Speaker 1: betting on this music thing. Yeah yeah, betting on this
Speaker 1: and and going through with it and and taking all
Speaker 1: the steps, just putting all my all this betting on
Speaker 1: it hard. Yeah, and it's paying off. That's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What food do you love that a lot of people
Speaker 1: might find a little odd? What food? I love that
Speaker 1: most people will find a little odd? M as you're
Speaker 1: thinking about I can tell you Mineu's I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is, bro, but I really enjoy sometimes just
Speaker 1: make it some some fruity pebble rice, crispy trees. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, Like I like, it's some people for
Speaker 1: two year old man. Some people say, no, you're still
Speaker 1: eating Cereal. I mean I love Cereal, do too, but
Speaker 1: I still look at the box. They got Whole Cereal bars.
Speaker 1: Now you can just go in there and whatever. It's
Speaker 1: sugar some of that stuff on there. Molly's the backup
Speaker 1: looks like what's wrong with Anthony? You know some of them.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, um, Vegan beat loaf that some people
Speaker 1: would say like Vegan Lona, like go beyond is what's
Speaker 1: the what's the us beyond? And this one called something life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're talking about butters got him. That tickled him to
Speaker 1: that South met right even like, man, I tell you,
Speaker 1: I used that. I'm telling I don't care how old is,
Speaker 1: I don't care where are you from? What you think?
Speaker 1: When I was when I was in Baltimore, at least
Speaker 1: once a week, in the middle of either team meetings
Speaker 1: or or offensive meets, I would say it and I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't care how old you all you mate,
Speaker 1: it's always a tickler. Yeah, So I'll continue with your
Speaker 1: and you said being a meat loaf. Yeah, some people
Speaker 1: feel I guess they feel like, um, if it's not meat,
Speaker 1: has it meat loaf? Yeah? They don't understand, Like why
Speaker 1: would you not either perfectly good turkey meat loaf or
Speaker 1: or beef meat loaf? And you want to play around
Speaker 1: pretend like you eating meat loaf, but it's it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty good. You cook it. Because I heard pretty I
Speaker 1: cook it. I got a question in so that just
Speaker 1: makes oxtails sometime and beef ribs. Oh, so you're vegan now.
Speaker 1: I wasn't for two and a half years. I'm still
Speaker 1: back on seafood now. And believe it or not, there
Speaker 1: was a moment once I had COVID really bad and decent.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll probably get into it. But after that,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, almost die. I won't wings.
Speaker 1: I must have bought the biggest bag from Giant Penny
Speaker 1: on Friday, every last one on the back porch until
Speaker 1: I didn't want it no more. Man, I hate so many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna You're gonna die big God, Ha's gotta
Speaker 1: be born on the way hole. You had a whole
Speaker 1: conversation with self yea, oh yeah, you was right there,
Speaker 1: you're about to the white light in your mind. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of cruel. So I got a question, man,
Speaker 1: is a hot dog considered a sandwich? Hot dog is
Speaker 1: a hot dog. It's kind of a sundward but it
Speaker 1: ain't really. I don't I don't want to call a
Speaker 1: hot dog a sandwich. It's kind of it's in the
Speaker 1: way of all the other a lot of other great
Speaker 1: sandwiches that that's like, you keep pushing. The hot dog
Speaker 1: is here, so it's gonna put sandwich back. What there's
Speaker 1: a hierarchy. Yeah, yeah, that's see turkey sound. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the sandwich sound. You know ham soundwich. You know you
Speaker 1: got all these great sandwiches blog blonely sounded sound. And
Speaker 1: I ain't gone to you fried bologney, that Webber's bread
Speaker 1: that got us through a lot when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Now some smack the salting crackers. First listen. Listen when
Speaker 1: you were broke and that's all we had on a
Speaker 1: Friday buying the soft I was, I was broke. But
Speaker 1: I don't know what potted meat is. Can it's a
Speaker 1: can of just scrambled brains. I don't know where it's from.
Speaker 1: It's stuff. It's pink. It's usually right beside where the
Speaker 1: spam look. But it's it's it's a can of something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain because I take myself
Speaker 1: out of the game. I wrote both ankles colts. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know where it's from. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it's it's just in a can. It was beside
Speaker 1: of spam away and it had like jelly, and I
Speaker 1: am like spam had spam. And I've ate Vienna sausage.
Speaker 1: I've never needed meat tunas I eat tuna. That's not pot.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying all that was on the same
Speaker 1: as all that was on the same broke out broke.
Speaker 1: I'm just making sure where I ate a sausage and
Speaker 1: tuna chicken. But I never I never browsed the pot
Speaker 1: of meat. So okay, last one, then last one, And
Speaker 1: this is damn it. This is the most important. Yeah, sugar,
Speaker 1: salt in your grits, man, Salt and pepper and butter. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you like sugar. You come on, man, I've been speaking
Speaker 1: to you all these years. What what what? What complex?
Speaker 1: Your emma know that we are not the same, don't
Speaker 1: salt and co host King. That's that's that's that's fine.
Speaker 1: But hey, listen, I'm not you can't. You can't speak
Speaker 1: for all light skin the committee, your your your your
Speaker 1: status is in question. You drive like you like salt
Speaker 1: and pepper, butter and your grips man, you laying to
Speaker 1: the you laying with it, sugar, sugar for the West
Speaker 1: Coast to sugar drive. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead
Speaker 1: and get his ass up today if you have, to
Speaker 1: go ahead and get him back hand just a little,
Speaker 1: a little up on them, you know, on the steering wheels.
Speaker 1: Stern roll, roll it all the way up there, Alex
Speaker 1: and small guy. That's that's what y'all going. That's what
Speaker 1: that's what's left in your bag. I got a hold.
Speaker 1: That was the one that kept this podcasting stiff. So
Speaker 1: you know, let's jump into it because I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be fun, and I and I want to ask
Speaker 1: we want to ask you some things and really just
Speaker 1: get your fans opportunity. And then also, you know, you
Speaker 1: know how it is man so much the podcast or media,
Speaker 1: there's so much information out there. You sometimes are lazy
Speaker 1: enough not to really just dive into it. And so
Speaker 1: I found myself just down if it's just go on
Speaker 1: your Wikipedia, and then I just saw all the things
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and it just made me think
Speaker 1: about all these questions. And we've had some of these
Speaker 1: dialogues and talks, but I think some people really don't
Speaker 1: know how intriguing, discouraging, tough it is too. I want
Speaker 1: to have a career and what it and really what
Speaker 1: it goes through. So um, so I thought I was
Speaker 1: is it would be really cool. So we always asked,
Speaker 1: you know, where are you from in the place you
Speaker 1: call your hometown. I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina, born and
Speaker 1: raised here, and I called this home. Um, I went
Speaker 1: away to New York. I lived in Harlem for about
Speaker 1: eight years, in New Jersey, Inglewood and Teenack, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: So it's going about fourteen fifteen years, and uh, but
Speaker 1: I came back home because this this is just home now.
Speaker 1: Not to aid you, but being born in the seventies
Speaker 1: living in North Carolina, I know in my nineteen years,
Speaker 1: I'm amazed at how how it changed. I'm interested to here.
Speaker 1: How was North Carolina? Charlotte, North Carolina. You went to
Speaker 1: South Mack High School, Yeah, and finished up at Harden right,
Speaker 1: and I'm imagining and in in assuming here in the
Speaker 1: South late seventies, early eighties, it was different here, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: You know, coming up, I didn't have an experience with
Speaker 1: a lot of outside of my neighborhood encounters. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, you hear the stories and you you see
Speaker 1: the news and everything. As you get older, you started
Speaker 1: to pay attention to what's going on and just um,
Speaker 1: you know my side of town and different side of towns,
Speaker 1: which was what side of town west Boulevard, the western side,
Speaker 1: south side, and I grew up there, but they look
Speaker 1: different than deal Worth, you know. So my grandmother would
Speaker 1: she used to clean houses and she would get us,
Speaker 1: put us on the city bus, me and my sister,
Speaker 1: and drive us through the real nice neighborhoods and let
Speaker 1: us see which were were neighborhoods at that deal Worth
Speaker 1: Um bound time didn't exist. No, it was just a
Speaker 1: dairy farm deal Worth yeah, right right where you lived.
Speaker 1: You know, that neighborhood was a dairy farm. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: And then Male Graham and some of his people, for
Speaker 1: the Graham's and nephew, they brought it up and turned it,
Speaker 1: you know, developed it into what it is now. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, a lot of that was fiels. So we
Speaker 1: should go out there rave and raise hell can you
Speaker 1: say hell? Yeah said, I mean not everything you want
Speaker 1: to but not everything I was internalize it if they
Speaker 1: don't get therapy, you know, makes me better. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you see a lot a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities that came, um, you know, with a with
Speaker 1: a lot of hard work. Um. But then there's some
Speaker 1: still some similarities as in you know, being able to
Speaker 1: to have the better jobs and certain things being you
Speaker 1: know of color. Um, it's a little different, um, but
Speaker 1: I see some growth in different areas. Would you call
Speaker 1: your career in music business an industry or another word?
Speaker 1: It's an industry. Um that's operated you know with business.
Speaker 1: And it's also a place for me to to really
Speaker 1: um exhale. So it's kind of therapeutic for me and
Speaker 1: in so many ways, UM, I get to take the
Speaker 1: chance to to to handle business in this industry, to
Speaker 1: put my thoughts out there and to to you know,
Speaker 1: ad out some laundry. So I use it for a
Speaker 1: little bit of everything. Yeah, how were you first introduced
Speaker 1: to music man from the womb? It it goes back
Speaker 1: that deep. My mother and father both love music, and
Speaker 1: you know, we heard it a lot. My grandmother it
Speaker 1: was just gospel. She was so saved and uh, you
Speaker 1: know that's pretty. That's pretty, that's that's a unique, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty. What kind of gospel? Though? Who are we talking?
Speaker 1: Don't feel New Easter? James Cleveland all that kind of
Speaker 1: Oh James Cleveland. Now, James Cleveland, his church I grew up.
Speaker 1: His church was like four blocks from my house. James Cleveland,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. James Cleveland had died and they realized he
Speaker 1: was doing at that James Cleveland, Yeah, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: They churched that church into a at one point of
Speaker 1: picking safe yeah, and no respect when you're taking things
Speaker 1: in the Lord's name. That was such a churchy response. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know in the regular world, you take stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you go to jail. We have to take a break
Speaker 1: and the morning thing, we gotta pay some bills. You
Speaker 1: got checks. I love cut to It, and I love
Speaker 1: it even more when you download us and subscribe and
Speaker 1: you can follow us on social media too. Smithie, where
Speaker 1: where at that's at? Cut to It on Instagram? What
Speaker 1: about Twitter? At? Cut to It? Facebook? Cut to It
Speaker 1: featuring Steve Smith singr what about online and you can
Speaker 1: follow us at cut to It podcast dot com where
Speaker 1: you can buy merch and you can subscribe to us
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. I got all my answers questions.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I got all my questions answered. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm here for, a brother, cut to a podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Describe your journey from from your perspective of getting into
Speaker 1: the business world and the industry of music, but also
Speaker 1: you're saying it's your therapy and you get the air
Speaker 1: your dirty laundry and are your good laundry as well,
Speaker 1: and it is a career because early on I knew, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do. You know, you
Speaker 1: dream about being a musician, singer, songwriter, and every all
Speaker 1: of my steps were toward anything musical, from school, from
Speaker 1: church first being on the choir, to school choir singing
Speaker 1: or just in the chord. I led a few songs.
Speaker 1: You know when you when you're young, you don't want
Speaker 1: all that attention at the time, and then you start
Speaker 1: getting older, I said, I started singing out more twelve thirteen,
Speaker 1: girls start saying you oh the sing sing for me?
Speaker 1: She will absolutely look at that game. Yeah, you start
Speaker 1: getting more are comfortable with your gifts, and you start
Speaker 1: trying to find um ways to ticket to the next level.
Speaker 1: So I to get into talent shows, form little groups
Speaker 1: around town, um, start harmonizing and before YouTube, before the Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just you know at school, when you know,
Speaker 1: lunch time. But you you go back though, you said,
Speaker 1: confident in your gift and when did you know it
Speaker 1: was a gift when you when you dream about it
Speaker 1: and you feel so connected to something like that is
Speaker 1: almost magical feeling, and you can't you can't stop doing
Speaker 1: it or thinking about it. And you know something birth
Speaker 1: than you that that's special and those things that gifts um,
Speaker 1: because you didn't ask for it, you didn't train for it,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of given to you. UM. So I
Speaker 1: knew then to continue with it because if I hadn't,
Speaker 1: you know, taking it that serious that early on, and
Speaker 1: got swayed away from it, I would be miserable, probably
Speaker 1: on trucks somewhere or something, just miserable because that's who
Speaker 1: I am, truly. So I made I made every step
Speaker 1: to to get to the next level of it. I
Speaker 1: started performing in talent shows, and want a few got
Speaker 1: booed a few times. Yeah, right here in Charlotte. What's
Speaker 1: that do for you? Um? The booing and and and
Speaker 1: the winning. You know, winning is good. It's always good
Speaker 1: to win. But sometimes you when you get booed, if
Speaker 1: you're smart, you'll you'll try to see why, try to
Speaker 1: look back and say, Okay, maybe I was doing too
Speaker 1: much vocally. Maybe I was trying to be something that
Speaker 1: I wasn't and I was trying to do some job
Speaker 1: to your runs or some r Kelly runs or some
Speaker 1: you know, different runs, and that's not my voice. So
Speaker 1: it made me pay attention to how can I present
Speaker 1: this the next song in a way that I'm doing
Speaker 1: truly me, at least try it different and see what
Speaker 1: the outcome would be. And so I started doing that.
Speaker 1: It's you know, one man was like, quit bullshit, and
Speaker 1: this same big dude. It was actually at a little
Speaker 1: I don't even know how I got to go down
Speaker 1: there by myself. It was across the street. What's Boulevard
Speaker 1: was a busy, busy street, and I crossed from my
Speaker 1: neighborhood over the busy street. I used to have to
Speaker 1: go to the store all the time for my mother
Speaker 1: and grandmother anyway, So maybe I was just that good
Speaker 1: at crossing the street and I could run fast track.
Speaker 1: But I would go down there sitting. It was like
Speaker 1: a look at house, a bar. They sold hot dogs
Speaker 1: and just and tires. Is this place on what's Bulevard
Speaker 1: And I will go down there and they had to
Speaker 1: live music, not live music, but they had the speakers
Speaker 1: out and they had a microphone. And I go down there,
Speaker 1: just start singing and I chord to Yeah. Definitely, that
Speaker 1: long black cord can go from house speaker to concert
Speaker 1: many concert speaker. I don't know where they got him from.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of illegal something got at the
Speaker 1: local barber shop, probably because it was three or four
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, but yeah, I'd go down and sing
Speaker 1: and he was like quick bullshot and San, you got
Speaker 1: a nice voice, sang and that was the last time
Speaker 1: I tried that wiggle voice. What wiggle voice a wig voice? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like stopped putting on stop lamber lambder lamb
Speaker 1: in the horse. And so I started singing a different way.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, this has been told to me.
Speaker 1: And when I started doing that, I developed developed my
Speaker 1: voice into something my old school where they sang Teddy
Speaker 1: Pentagrass would just sing tell the story. Luther Vandross was
Speaker 1: singing so Luthor, Yeah you perked up? Now I love
Speaker 1: you know who I don't like? Damn you don't like?
Speaker 1: My mom used to play that every shurterday that you
Speaker 1: know what that meant? Clean it up? You got to
Speaker 1: give us a second chance every time I hear shot
Speaker 1: just grabbed my broom stick, his hands and the toilet.
Speaker 1: Who else? Who are some of your other musical influence
Speaker 1: You talked about Teddy Luke Man, Steve, Bill Withers, Steved
Speaker 1: Wander up for us, Um, Curtis blow heck yeah big.
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting Curtis wrap his music to me. Yeah, Man,
Speaker 1: Fat Boys is one of my favorite groups. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: you had the Beast two Boys. You had a lot
Speaker 1: of great talent back in the day. Ep M D
Speaker 1: Cool Mo D's. There's a lot of these, like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the babies, little baby baby baby babies,
Speaker 1: or slide slide the family stones, sliding the family stone.
Speaker 1: You know what I do? Love though, man, I was
Speaker 1: one to fire and I was gonna say Osley Brothers
Speaker 1: that that versus the other school brothers. So I kind
Speaker 1: of throche every time you went to school with one
Speaker 1: of the one of the one of the one of
Speaker 1: the brothers, to say, you know you nowhere near that age. No,
Speaker 1: it's you went to school with Rodley. No, absolutely, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not one of the Oley brothers. Several times one
Speaker 1: of the Oley brothers Benjamin Button Button fly button fly
Speaker 1: point five. Yeah, man, I just old school music is
Speaker 1: so old scoo music. You go back to it and
Speaker 1: you knew what they were singing about. Ship. Now you
Speaker 1: mess right, unrelatable. You messed around a single song, you
Speaker 1: go to jail. It's not. And the older I get,
Speaker 1: the more I have appreciation for the earth winding fires,
Speaker 1: the Osley brothers like all that stuff just because busy
Speaker 1: down the street. So I got way more appreciated for
Speaker 1: that stuff now, the older I get just for real
Speaker 1: music because it was real back then. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's nothing now, but you just felt it. Now it's different.
Speaker 1: I mean, like one of the songs I loved that
Speaker 1: by Luther and Ro's Danced with my Father. He talks
Speaker 1: about his relationship with his dad that got cut short
Speaker 1: through his mom and even now me and my son,
Speaker 1: my oldest we will like that same song came on
Speaker 1: I I shared it with him, said, man, just made
Speaker 1: me think about you. I teared up just having that
Speaker 1: fun and father and son connection. There are so many
Speaker 1: old school songs that you can actually sing along with
Speaker 1: it and you really know what they're saying. There's no
Speaker 1: subliminal messages. You know exactly what they're talking about, and
Speaker 1: you remember that point in time that you like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because even I mean I'll even use Anthony some some
Speaker 1: of his music, like point of It All that that
Speaker 1: came out right when I believe me and my wife
Speaker 1: were dating and we were right about two, I was
Speaker 1: about the proposal, so like that's that's our song, right,
Speaker 1: like we uh that song was that all with? Right?
Speaker 1: So just those you remember songs that take you to
Speaker 1: that point in time because it has substance and is
Speaker 1: substantial for you. Yeah, And you know, I try to
Speaker 1: write and create music that that has that timeless um
Speaker 1: connection to people and it's it's it's something that's kind
Speaker 1: of easy for me because I can identify. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can remember life and things that I've been through
Speaker 1: and moments that made me feel good, the moments that
Speaker 1: didn't feel so good or things I have experienced through
Speaker 1: my parents and aunts and uncles and just being in
Speaker 1: school and being a young love and all these things
Speaker 1: that you feel. When it's time to write and the
Speaker 1: music is playing. I was like, man, I remember this
Speaker 1: reminded me of because everything comes from what's been here before.
Speaker 1: This is all recycled. A lot of stuff is recycled. Um. Wow,
Speaker 1: that court reminds me of this. Let me tell my
Speaker 1: version of this story, and that's what it is like.
Speaker 1: You know, if you can connect to it and tell
Speaker 1: your version of the story, people pretty much can identify
Speaker 1: what you're saying and they'll start listening to different So
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the recycling of things, how walk
Speaker 1: us through this? This industry of music? How you know
Speaker 1: you hear different versions, different stories. You know, some people say, no,
Speaker 1: this is how money is made, this is how it's not.
Speaker 1: But is country music how they make their music? How
Speaker 1: tours are successful? Even just as simple as what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be signed to a record label? What
Speaker 1: does that? What does that mean today? And even what
Speaker 1: did it mean back when you signed with what Uptown
Speaker 1: back in the in the day. Yeah, I mean you've
Speaker 1: signed You've been with a number of record labels, not
Speaker 1: necessarily by choice or something you did wrong, but just
Speaker 1: how the business has morphed and changed. But yet the
Speaker 1: common Denominator's music still needs to be made. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: definitely has to be made. UM being signed to a label,
Speaker 1: it's like having Harvard or or or going to one
Speaker 1: of these these amazing colleges like Johnson C. Smith, having
Speaker 1: them backing you up and and just going to uh
Speaker 1: Rudy's Academy where nobody really knows who they are and
Speaker 1: what they stand for. It's almost like you get co
Speaker 1: signed by the greats people who've who've been signed to
Speaker 1: those labels, like the James Browns or the Jodices, and
Speaker 1: you're still You're You're signed to these labels. So it
Speaker 1: said something about who you are and what you have
Speaker 1: UM as a talent, you looked at in a different
Speaker 1: in a different light. It's like I made it from
Speaker 1: just the streets and the talent shows. Here I am
Speaker 1: now amongst the greatest UM. You know, you go to
Speaker 1: the office, you see Andre Horrell, you see Russell Simmons,
Speaker 1: and then Puppy walking through the hallway and Mary J.
Speaker 1: Blide is coming in and out, and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: I really really made a big step, um, you know,
Speaker 1: leaving Charlotte and going to the to the big league.
Speaker 1: So it's it's different. You can put music out now independently,
Speaker 1: but you still want them majors too, sport, you know,
Speaker 1: just to allogic. Um. I think we're all trained to
Speaker 1: think that these big corporations they they they are the
Speaker 1: ones who dictate what's what's really popular and what's really
Speaker 1: successful because they have the relationship with radio and all
Speaker 1: these people. So you want to get there almost like
Speaker 1: getting their blessings or you know, getting me Okay, that's
Speaker 1: that's when you know you're doing something. When you can
Speaker 1: get the attention of those majors, whether it's independent or
Speaker 1: signed to one of them, you have to getting signed obviously,
Speaker 1: that should mountaintop. It can be. I was signed, and
Speaker 1: I was signed for ten years before the first album
Speaker 1: came out, So you can be signed and years I
Speaker 1: was signing ninety three to Uptown. The first album didn't
Speaker 1: come out to two thousand and three. Yeah. I have
Speaker 1: worked on a few of them in between there, but
Speaker 1: it was always the record labels falling out saying falling
Speaker 1: out hometown. Uptown was distributed through m c A. So
Speaker 1: they had a falling Now, so I was on. I
Speaker 1: was in there, you know, I was about to come out.
Speaker 1: So when they separate time, it's just kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do with him? They're not letting Andre
Speaker 1: take me. He wanted to, but m c A didn't
Speaker 1: have anything invested in me a little, you know, just money,
Speaker 1: but nobody wanted to adopt the project to be their own.
Speaker 1: So I sat around and sat around, and it happened
Speaker 1: a few times with Andrew Herrell again to Sony Um
Speaker 1: and then Soul Life through Atlantic Records. They had a
Speaker 1: falling out and here I am again. This happened three
Speaker 1: major times on now and you still sit and you
Speaker 1: were sitting on that album. Yeah, I sat on a few.
Speaker 1: I just have a lot of music. Um, Soul Life
Speaker 1: came out afterwards. One of the investors put it out. UM,
Speaker 1: Southern Comfort came out. The first album, Ecstasy from Uptown.
Speaker 1: It hadn't come out yet, UM, but some people have
Speaker 1: they got their hands on it. I'm gonna reredo, re
Speaker 1: release it because I own the masters now now now
Speaker 1: as in well after in my contract I had it
Speaker 1: set to after so many years, it reverts back to me,
Speaker 1: you gotta be smart about it. You gotta, you gotta
Speaker 1: if you don't know that, you don't know that to
Speaker 1: ask for it. Um. But if it had come out
Speaker 1: back then, I would have been robbed up because the contract,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the best contract. I ate a little bit,
Speaker 1: but they would ate a lot, some of the people involved. Um,
Speaker 1: but you learned from that. That's what keeps you, what
Speaker 1: keeps you motivated in those in those ten years to
Speaker 1: where you don't just decide, you know what, I'm done
Speaker 1: with that business and I don't and I don't I
Speaker 1: want to do this anymore. Yeah, I had that moment
Speaker 1: uh once or twice and it's almost like something would
Speaker 1: happen good Like I wrote that. Doniel Jones co wrote
Speaker 1: doniel Jones same, what's what? Yeah? Um, we was playing
Speaker 1: actually I was. I was looking at that and me
Speaker 1: and and you were playing that though last night I
Speaker 1: just kind of just grow into it because it's it's
Speaker 1: one of those it's really cool, as I believe two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, two thousand six, that came out Donielle Jones. However,
Speaker 1: the guy who's saying it my freaking neighbor, right, and
Speaker 1: you're not. You know. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things as well, is as as as little boys man,
Speaker 1: we inspire to be something so much and we see
Speaker 1: the pine the sky or like for me, it's always
Speaker 1: wanted to play in the NFL, but I never thought
Speaker 1: about college. And so hearing you just be on one
Speaker 1: a album and then I go back and I see
Speaker 1: that you were part of Thugs Mansion of the remix
Speaker 1: on Tupac, you know, just hearing all this, all this
Speaker 1: music on what Nappy roots, all of just all of
Speaker 1: those little bitty in the grand scheme of things, little
Speaker 1: bitty songs, however, you know, and you're sitting down and
Speaker 1: those are the the barbecue classics songs. You're sitting down,
Speaker 1: when you're playing spades, where you're playing tonk, were you
Speaker 1: playing dominoes, and when you're cooking, and those are the songs.
Speaker 1: And when you they come on, everybody becomes inner jib.
Speaker 1: Everybody's sitting there. You you know, you got old You
Speaker 1: got that old uncle, start to be that old uncle.
Speaker 1: Joe backstage, got the old uncle. He got that same
Speaker 1: moved right. They call you, they call your g now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they tell him, all you just got that when you're
Speaker 1: gonna change up the move and I look at hey,
Speaker 1: I'm getting that to the age where I'll be able
Speaker 1: to tell the niece and nephew, your auntie ain't got
Speaker 1: a problem with that. You know. It's just those songs
Speaker 1: and those hooks and just you writing that. You take
Speaker 1: us through the process of writing writing a song that
Speaker 1: does that's melodies and music to people's ears, but they
Speaker 1: don't really know how much goes into it. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we're going in to write a song for somebody
Speaker 1: else's a little harder than writing for yourself. Um, because
Speaker 1: you have to get into this person's into their mind
Speaker 1: and too. You know, it's good to kind of know
Speaker 1: a little bit about them their life. Or you can
Speaker 1: take previous songs that they they've done and try to
Speaker 1: mimic something about it. Um. For me, the music speaks
Speaker 1: and then the lyrics, you know, lyrics will come. Um.
Speaker 1: I like to find something that's okay, this is this song.
Speaker 1: It needs to say this. This beat that Donielle Jones
Speaker 1: beat was up like this has to be up song. Um.
Speaker 1: So when they send you to I was in the
Speaker 1: studio with producers, Um, Chris Lity, Um Darren and Chris
Speaker 1: Litty and uh dude named Blawa. We were actually in
Speaker 1: New Jersey and this is something I needed at the
Speaker 1: time because I was down, you know, about to give up,
Speaker 1: and I got this opportunity and so um, this gave
Speaker 1: me a little bit more hope. When I heard the song,
Speaker 1: there's a train, short train and then again it's calm
Speaker 1: trained there. Um was that the midnight train to Georgia
Speaker 1: in the daytime, it was like confused, you know, you
Speaker 1: can do what you want now, like you know, you
Speaker 1: can do what you want. That train in the daytime,
Speaker 1: it's well in Charlotte, so it's going to Georgea. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. You got you uh but yeah,
Speaker 1: you just try to write something that you feel melodically
Speaker 1: people could they want to repeat um and you wanted
Speaker 1: to be catchy, but you want to be saying something
Speaker 1: that they feel like, Okay, I can identify. Just this
Speaker 1: feels good. I think it's about that time. Just take
Speaker 1: a little breatherd do it. Let's get down to do it. Hey, Gerard,
Speaker 1: why did you get that T shirts? You mean this thing? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: I got it from cut to a podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys
Speaker 1: at seven or four shot. But yeah, you can go on,
Speaker 1: buy you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. What do you mean you were down?
Speaker 1: All my record deals seem like they kept falling apart.
Speaker 1: You just need something to make you feel good. Um,
Speaker 1: a placement, doing backgrounds or something to let you know, like, okay,
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of the well was starting to
Speaker 1: dry up a little bit. A little ask you around,
Speaker 1: little ask you around. Top your bricks care need a
Speaker 1: little lotion, Yeah, they need a little We got egg
Speaker 1: getting a litttle eggs to me, you know, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know you don't have a lot of money
Speaker 1: so to do backgrounds or saying for you know, same backgrounds,
Speaker 1: or get a writing gig. You know that you could
Speaker 1: you can turn that into money. Um, the backgrounds you
Speaker 1: go through a union, they pay you, you could pay
Speaker 1: you get paid pretty good doing backgrounds. So if I
Speaker 1: do four notes, if I do if I do four
Speaker 1: those and put so those are four different tracks. If
Speaker 1: I put three different voices under those, stack them and
Speaker 1: that's like you know, that's twelve notes you get. That's
Speaker 1: about four dollars when you're going through the union. So
Speaker 1: I'll learned that game, you know. So I got it,
Speaker 1: I got I got robbed up. Somebody paid me like
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars to do all those notes. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: knows who he is. You know, I can go collect
Speaker 1: for you. How much do you need na, because I'll
Speaker 1: get you your need the extra. Don't worry about none
Speaker 1: of that. Look, he's I just I like seeing him.
Speaker 1: I like seeing him trying to put that ponytail together.
Speaker 1: Now I get my payback watching them trying to slick
Speaker 1: that hair into a ponytail. So you you brought up
Speaker 1: something really important that I wanted to hit on. Why
Speaker 1: you were a background singer, whether it's for D'Angelo, I
Speaker 1: know you opened up for joy to see as well.
Speaker 1: Another another sharlot that but what did that teach you
Speaker 1: about the industry? When you were doing the background stuff?
Speaker 1: What that teach you about the industry? You get a
Speaker 1: chance to see how how the lead man is moving
Speaker 1: and what it takes to get him from point A
Speaker 1: to point B. All the the team players that it
Speaker 1: takes too, you know, to facilitate success and then make
Speaker 1: it move a certain way. Um. The tour manager, actually
Speaker 1: my tour manager now was the lighting director for D'Angelo.
Speaker 1: But I knew he knew how to move on the road,
Speaker 1: so I went to hire him to be my tour manager.
Speaker 1: Has been wow, twenty years. I know we hit you
Speaker 1: with a lot. But what's the state of R and
Speaker 1: B music? Right? You know? They're still some R and B.
Speaker 1: I think her straddles. She doesn't in a way that does.
Speaker 1: You know, the new and the old pretty good. Daniel
Speaker 1: Cesar had some really good songs. Um Collead he kind
Speaker 1: of R and BSh but kind of more on the
Speaker 1: newer side. Jasmine Sullivan definitely is R and B and
Speaker 1: so um she does it. Well. There's a few, you know,
Speaker 1: like Tank R. Kelly was really I know people mad
Speaker 1: about you know, but he was just stay away from
Speaker 1: I was listening to James Brown, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: just hearing it and how and what it what it meant.
Speaker 1: It's so different now you can't now everybody's singing that
Speaker 1: you got. They gotta have their little signature start right,
Speaker 1: it's just out yeah you know, yeah you got all
Speaker 1: these starters man or yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Take
Speaker 1: just like all this stuff now, it's but man, it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes just sitting down and I think, especially with
Speaker 1: COVID and you're sitting around you know, we I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I look at how COVID has made our
Speaker 1: young men and women where they they're stuck in the house,
Speaker 1: sitting in there. And I remember I used to I
Speaker 1: used to sit at home, turn on the radio and
Speaker 1: think about playing football listening to music. Now, that music
Speaker 1: triggers me to remember back when I was a young man.
Speaker 1: How did that music exists right now? So much? So
Speaker 1: much repetitive, you know. I mean it's melody, but it's
Speaker 1: just like you get trapped in up like a mental zone.
Speaker 1: And it affects the kids, man, And a lot of
Speaker 1: it has some I don't know, like not suicidal, but
Speaker 1: like some dog undertones to it if you're not careful.
Speaker 1: You know, my younger three they really love music, and
Speaker 1: uh you know they know, okay, well that can you
Speaker 1: play such and such the clean version because they know
Speaker 1: that the other version is not welcomed, you know, amongst
Speaker 1: family and and things like that. So you bet with
Speaker 1: a new single, you made a fool of me. Tell
Speaker 1: us about that and you got an album coming up? Yeah.
Speaker 1: In August, I got in with j D Jamaine dupri
Speaker 1: Um and we were working on a project. Actually, we
Speaker 1: started working on a music for this new album, and
Speaker 1: then everybody on the internet, um, Facebook and I G
Speaker 1: were like, man, so good to see y'all back together.
Speaker 1: When is this project coming out? He was like, he said,
Speaker 1: you think what I'm thinking? I said, nah, but what
Speaker 1: you know? What are you? What are you thinking? He said,
Speaker 1: we should do a project together. You and I be
Speaker 1: on the same you know the album cover bet you
Speaker 1: and I and put out this music for the people
Speaker 1: who are chiming in every night watching us to create
Speaker 1: this music. And that's how it started. But this particular song,
Speaker 1: you Made a Fool of Me was one of those songs.
Speaker 1: But I'm working on the album for my fans, my
Speaker 1: true fans, um who just want to hear Anthony Hamilton's
Speaker 1: so Our Bar, that song from the Jamatic pre project,
Speaker 1: because it was I felt like being gone so long.
Speaker 1: I wanted to come back with something real, real, R
Speaker 1: and B, not straddling the fence, not halfway doing it,
Speaker 1: but this and I wanted to bring back that Charlene
Speaker 1: an emotion that the connection that people had to Charlene
Speaker 1: and so j D produced this music and he had
Speaker 1: never produced He said, I never made a record like this.
Speaker 1: It's so old school. But the fans of you know,
Speaker 1: Rady Goo starting to eat it up. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: meet him and Eddie came. We went in and we
Speaker 1: did it, and uh, I'll go back in later on
Speaker 1: this week to finish recording some some new stuff for
Speaker 1: the for the new album. You know, talk us through
Speaker 1: how how COVID in fact, that the music industry people
Speaker 1: were feeling like they lost craft and they were gonna
Speaker 1: lose their lives too. In their livelihood. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, people think that money is gonna keep
Speaker 1: rolling and rolling and rolling and nothing nobody, nobody foreseen
Speaker 1: foresaw this coming. This is happening, COVID, And you out
Speaker 1: there spending tricking off thirty thou dollars, twenty thou dollars,
Speaker 1: buying all these cars and doing all these things that
Speaker 1: take money. If you're not saved up, then you're go
Speaker 1: into a state of panic and you start to try
Speaker 1: to figure it out. I saved you know, I drive
Speaker 1: one car at the time, you know, and uh, just
Speaker 1: just being smart and saving my money. Some people felt
Speaker 1: that it was never gonna end like you said, and
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't put nothing aside. So doing COVID,
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure it out. If you didn't, if
Speaker 1: you weren't savvy enough to go to the internet and
Speaker 1: start doing live absent creating streams of income for yourself,
Speaker 1: then he was shout, um, and you know, some people
Speaker 1: turn the drugs, some people turn to alcohol. Some people
Speaker 1: just like you know, I'll ride it out. Um And uh,
Speaker 1: you know you couldn't do concerts now that she did
Speaker 1: it on on live. And it's a difference when people
Speaker 1: come to your certain certain artists can still have an
Speaker 1: audience doing yeah, doing COVID, you know, like d Nice did,
Speaker 1: Greg Tabitha Brown who was online cooking, she did amazing.
Speaker 1: I did great My first show. Uh during COVID had
Speaker 1: like eighty tho people chimed in, Wow, you know you
Speaker 1: have to pay for that? Did I have to say no, no,
Speaker 1: this is I gave that one for free live. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did it on i G live and uh streamed
Speaker 1: it from my actually in my living room and eight people. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you have true music and you connected to
Speaker 1: the people. They'll they'll come, Yeah, because they needed that outlet, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But if you've been feeding them garbage and they've been
Speaker 1: following your hype, then that's nothing for them. Like right now,
Speaker 1: they don't need hype. It's like, you know, it's hard.
Speaker 1: We can't breathe, you know what I mean, we can't
Speaker 1: go outside. I've been they have with a more chiming.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not about to chime in too. I'm
Speaker 1: not about to. I'm not about to chime in too.
Speaker 1: You know. Now you have to be selective. Well, I
Speaker 1: spend my money on this, this is a necessity, and
Speaker 1: this is just as bull and so you started weaving
Speaker 1: out what was really real and people, you know, some
Speaker 1: people panicked. Do you think it's gonna have a long
Speaker 1: term effect on the music business. I think people are
Speaker 1: so ready to go out and do something, but they're
Speaker 1: gonna be selective. Um you hope or is they gonna
Speaker 1: fall into the trap or start buying the same I
Speaker 1: hope hopefully they you know, continue to to pouring the
Speaker 1: stuff that's really real and invest in and this stuff
Speaker 1: that's really real. What were you going through? You said
Speaker 1: you got COVID and obvious and getting COVID and you
Speaker 1: have some you have some deep conversations with yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had COVID in December. How did you get it?
Speaker 1: Do you know? In Atlanta? I went to Atlanta. Actually,
Speaker 1: when I was down there working with j D. It
Speaker 1: wasn't from the studio. I did a video although they
Speaker 1: were taking everybody's temperature and doing things like that and
Speaker 1: keeping people distant. That was a scene where the main
Speaker 1: league girl person, yeah, person, she was in close proximity
Speaker 1: of we were there close, and I'm pretty sure it
Speaker 1: was probably from that, you know, although she didn't have
Speaker 1: a temperatre, she probably had symptoms. Yeah, something you know,
Speaker 1: underlying waiting on and it jumped on me. So I
Speaker 1: was in the hospital two weeks. You're in hospital? Yeah,
Speaker 1: two weeks? Yeah, in in the hospital and uh on
Speaker 1: oxygen and so you know, when you lay in there,
Speaker 1: it's like, damn, I ain't ready, Like what am I
Speaker 1: young boys gonna do? What am I gonna do? Is
Speaker 1: it gonna affect my voice? And there were nights when
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, I'm in tears, Like man, I
Speaker 1: gotta get out of here. So I would do all
Speaker 1: I could do that was a breathing a little plastic
Speaker 1: look like a little piece of junk, A little breathing thing.
Speaker 1: Did she how you volumes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: do it. I do it a couple of times a day,
Speaker 1: like around on every hour, and I get up and
Speaker 1: moving around, move around. I was really weak. Um. I
Speaker 1: lost a lot of weight, probably like fifteen pounds. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, you just started rethink things. And so
Speaker 1: I sang Charlene landing in the bed, and I san
Speaker 1: Charlene and it sounded pretty good. But but you weren't
Speaker 1: saying it to sound good. Now. I was saying if
Speaker 1: I had it still, why did it? Because that mattered,
Speaker 1: Like like sometimes you're like, I know I'm somebody without
Speaker 1: the music. I know, I'm you know, still a father
Speaker 1: and still a man and and all these great you know,
Speaker 1: other qualities I have. But I've invested so much in
Speaker 1: being Anthony Hamilton's the singer for that to be scripted
Speaker 1: away without a warning could be devastating. You were singing
Speaker 1: a little bit to see if you still had it,
Speaker 1: but you but you also singing it for for at
Speaker 1: that time, laying on the bed for hope. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: me ask you if you at some point didn't feel
Speaker 1: like you can still sing? What? What? What? What were
Speaker 1: you thinking? Where you feel man? Because you're so weak.
Speaker 1: And he was like, man, this thing is you know,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like myself. Um. And I just when
Speaker 1: I hadn't even tried it up until that moment that
Speaker 1: I did for the fear of it not being that um.
Speaker 1: So I just tried and nobody was around. I just
Speaker 1: kind of just sunk it and it came out. But
Speaker 1: when I got out of the hospital and I tried
Speaker 1: to sing it a little full, I can tell my
Speaker 1: lungs that being compromised, and it just was not a
Speaker 1: good thing. So that was that was another, uh, another
Speaker 1: you know, moment of slight depression for just a little
Speaker 1: while until I worked my lungs out and uh, you
Speaker 1: know could sing out. I was laying there like they
Speaker 1: give you anti viral stuff and give you all, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff to try to help your body fight this this virus. UM,
Speaker 1: It's like, am I gonna be able to get off
Speaker 1: oxygen today? So it started going down a little bit,
Speaker 1: work my way down and then I was off of
Speaker 1: it for the last two or three days. It's like,
Speaker 1: I hope you know it stays up so I can
Speaker 1: get out of here and turned into be you know,
Speaker 1: turned out uh to be two weeks you said you
Speaker 1: started thinking about your your eating and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You just sound like you were sitting in that bad
Speaker 1: and you started almost literally going like a budget of
Speaker 1: your life line item reconciling. Yeah, like what's important? Like
Speaker 1: like you've been wasting time doing this. This right here
Speaker 1: is not that important. I'm definitely not. I don't have
Speaker 1: any energy for this or any energy energy for this.
Speaker 1: Certain things became really apparent that they were bs. But
Speaker 1: you know I could have died. Did I want to
Speaker 1: go to heaven and beg when they have all that
Speaker 1: good fried chicken? But must be weeks before that? You cry? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely cry. Yeah, I cry. Yeah, just trying to
Speaker 1: get your voice by trying to get that back and
Speaker 1: just want to be alive for my younger three boys,
Speaker 1: who I was like, so what have you done and
Speaker 1: what do you continue to do for your mental health?
Speaker 1: You know, just you wake up and you breathe, and
Speaker 1: you realize what you have access to and what you don't,
Speaker 1: and that you know you have you have an option.
Speaker 1: What I don't have access to and I am I
Speaker 1: capable of you know, getting access and you make the
Speaker 1: steps toward it. Just do the work each day to
Speaker 1: kind of get to where you need to be. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I take time out. I ride my bike.
Speaker 1: We did, We did a lot of bike riding before
Speaker 1: we had COVID. My younger three boys had it as well,
Speaker 1: and they did pretty good. Um, but you rod you
Speaker 1: you don't wrap my bike and make sure I take
Speaker 1: time out to to just decompress, stay off on the
Speaker 1: internet as much as you can with you know, you
Speaker 1: can take into a lot of the political stuff and
Speaker 1: a lot of the racial stuff that happened, but you
Speaker 1: have to balance even that. So going through all that
Speaker 1: with COVID, what's your outlook now on life and with
Speaker 1: your career? Um, you know, be as healthy as you
Speaker 1: can mentally, spiritually and physically. UM, enjoy it. Enjoy every day. UM,
Speaker 1: and love on the people like you know it sounds cliche,
Speaker 1: love on you know, love on the loved ones and family,
Speaker 1: and really do it from a sincere place. And the
Speaker 1: people that you don't have with, don't if with them.
Speaker 1: I have no energy for X, Y and Z. And
Speaker 1: you know I'm not explaining it anymore, So you just
Speaker 1: kind of move on from with garbage. Would you want
Speaker 1: your kids for following your footsteps? I want them to
Speaker 1: be the best version of who they are with this music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with this with this music, because you know, you've been
Speaker 1: through a lot. Yeah, you know, but I think they
Speaker 1: have an advantage now that I'm I'm in it. So
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, I went through all that for you,
Speaker 1: So don't don't do it the dumb with you. You know,
Speaker 1: they ain't gonna you know, you don't know nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because uh, you don't know nothing about music. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been told I don't know. You don't know. My older
Speaker 1: they're they're starting to listen now it's going for yelper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they think it's a new school. Yeah, we want
Speaker 1: to kind of do it this way. I can just
Speaker 1: you know, do it through the internet. I said, well,
Speaker 1: don't put music out there until you have some people listening,
Speaker 1: because if not, it's just out there for nothing. You
Speaker 1: know how much stuff is out there, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot. Don't do it like wake, make sure they're
Speaker 1: listening and then put it out. You know, so they
Speaker 1: tried it once or twice, how do they work for crickets,
Speaker 1: you know, and how did you handle when they came
Speaker 1: back to you? This t is good. This is a
Speaker 1: good tea. This is a real good tea to Wilma woman.
Speaker 1: And it is just you know, it's been honored, but
Speaker 1: just has it's just been cool to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Laugh Yeah, man joking, this is fat. You are a
Speaker 1: unique person. You are well worth it, You are competent
Speaker 1: and most of all your lovable. I'm Steve Smith, Singer,
Speaker 1: I'm Gerard Little John and this is cut to It.
Speaker 1: Cut to It with Steve Smith singor That Is Me
Speaker 1: is a production of Cut to It, LLC ball Told
Speaker 1: Creative Media, The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Apple Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows from Cut to It. Executive producer Steve Smith,
Speaker 1: singr co host Gerard Little John, talent in booking manager
Speaker 1: Joe Fusci, Social media team Wesley Robinson and John Show
Speaker 1: from Balto Creative Media. Cut to It is produced by
Speaker 1: Brian Falka Chevic and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by
Speaker 1: Alex Labrek. Production coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson,
Speaker 1: Lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard about it,
Speaker 1: then we're about to let you know. It's all