Speaker 1: R and B Money. We take valti. We are the authorities.
Speaker 2: R and B ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank,
Speaker 2: I am jave allent.
Speaker 3: This, this right cheer is the R and B Money Podcast,
Speaker 3: the authority.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on, come on, all things.
Speaker 4: R and B today. We're gonna get a drummer son today.
Speaker 2: Yeah like that.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're gonna give the motherfucking drunk listen, come on,
Speaker 3: come on, come on.
Speaker 2: There are people and then there are pillars.
Speaker 3: There are foundings in foundational building blocks that this thing
Speaker 3: is set upon. There is a gate with platinum and
Speaker 3: gold bars.
Speaker 2: Get in there.
Speaker 3: There's a man that stands at this gate as a keeper.
Speaker 2: Quality control. Before Q see shout after my God, shout
Speaker 2: out this man. This legacy.
Speaker 3: Is the reason why we are here one hund. I
Speaker 3: won't label before you long I could intro could take years.
Speaker 3: We want to get into the information and the method
Speaker 3: of the madness of the man.
Speaker 2: Mister l a read Wow, yeah, wow, you're a good
Speaker 2: waiting this way. I'm all the buzz and the pillars
Speaker 2: and the one thing I can say that.
Speaker 3: Was so good I was shaving. And then the man
Speaker 3: is the man of a man You're important. Thank you, sir,
Speaker 3: Thank you. This is important being here with y'all, this
Speaker 3: is important. This means everything to me. Thank you for
Speaker 3: I have to say, like, you know, I can't overstate
Speaker 3: your importance, your contribution to all of us, like we
Speaker 3: we we were all babies. I don't even know if
Speaker 3: I had a dream of of being that, Like it
Speaker 3: was so far away what you were doing with you guys,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: It was just like.
Speaker 3: You just watching Amazement and say, I don't even know
Speaker 3: what that is. I don't even know if I'll even
Speaker 3: get to that, s I don't even know if I'll
Speaker 3: ever attain. But it gave us. It gave us levels,
Speaker 3: you understand, I'm saying. It gave us inspiration, That gave
Speaker 3: us things to aspire too. It gave us the senses
Speaker 3: I spoke before, a sense of quality, like we're being
Speaker 3: seen for what we are.
Speaker 2: True artistry, yes, sir. Like knowing that that was there
Speaker 2: and what it accomplished.
Speaker 3: Keeps us pushing to know that we can still accomplish
Speaker 3: that no matter what the algorithm says, no matter how
Speaker 3: far they try to go away from.
Speaker 2: It, it is possible. Because you did it, then you
Speaker 2: keep doing it and we can keep doing it. I
Speaker 2: love what you just said. I love that regardless of
Speaker 2: what the albem rhythm says. I absolutely love that. The
Speaker 2: algorithm is people. It's people pressing a button a certain
Speaker 2: amount of times, right, and now we have the power
Speaker 2: to get to those people. We have the power to
Speaker 2: give them a choice, an alternative. I don't knock anything.
Speaker 2: Everybody does anything that anybody else does, I never knock it.
Speaker 3: I salute it. If you can get off that bench
Speaker 3: and get in the game and get some points up.
Speaker 3: God bless you, God bless you who, God bless you.
Speaker 3: It ain't easy easy to talk about it. Oh my
Speaker 3: God out there and be about it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: But I absolutely have an affinity for those who are
Speaker 3: well versed, well studied, prepared, rehearsed, God gifted, like for
Speaker 3: those who are different, for those who feel like they
Speaker 3: are not seen and very seldom celebrated, have an affinity
Speaker 3: for them the ship that you do.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. So that was my long thank
Speaker 2: you well received and I appreciate it and thank you.
Speaker 3: I have to start at the beginning because there's so
Speaker 3: many pieces that I want to we want to get
Speaker 3: to because We just want to understand your mind on
Speaker 3: on decisions, on on music, on business.
Speaker 2: But where does where? Where did this? Where does this
Speaker 2: even start? Where? Where do you start building into? Wow? Man?
Speaker 2: My career starts with my love for music and more importantly,
Speaker 2: my love for seeing a set of drums for the
Speaker 2: first time in my life and feeling like I saw
Speaker 2: God like right, and everything about me just just sparkled
Speaker 2: with excitement. What was the brand? And it was Ludwig
Speaker 2: and it was my uncle's right and he had them
Speaker 2: in these cases and he opened the case and I
Speaker 2: saw those things, man, and it's just and I must
Speaker 2: have been like eight nine years old, but I saw God, man,
Speaker 2: It's like what there it is? I had never played,
Speaker 2: had never paid attention to anything like that, but I
Speaker 2: saw that, and in that moment I was I was gone,
Speaker 2: and I've never been back.
Speaker 3: My cousin had a red Tama Thomas, Yeah, and he
Speaker 3: went to Berkeley College of Music and he would come
Speaker 3: home during the summers and he was set up in
Speaker 3: his mom's attic, Auntie Betty's attic, who taught us all
Speaker 3: how to say, and he would just be up there
Speaker 3: ship sneak.
Speaker 2: Up into the attic and just watch them.
Speaker 3: You know, like you said you saw God in the drums.
Speaker 3: I like I saw Jesus playing the drums that God
Speaker 3: gave me.
Speaker 2: I was like, this bit me and it's crazy, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that that killed me. Man, It was like, my god,
Speaker 2: this is not I said it wrong. Didn't kill me.
Speaker 2: It brought me to life. It birthed me, you know.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I'm not that good. I was
Speaker 2: never that good, right, that's not really the point. I
Speaker 2: was never I was like.
Speaker 4: Well, you get to your drums and its production.
Speaker 2: So that's a that's a tough thing to say.
Speaker 4: Because record, yeah, no record all right, an actual drummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was things I just could never do. But
Speaker 2: still it was my love and that's what brought me
Speaker 2: into the game. And and that just led me. That
Speaker 2: took me places, you know what I mean. That took
Speaker 2: first around the neighborhood in Cincinnati everybody else who did music. Like,
Speaker 2: just being a drummer led me to everybody that made music.
Speaker 2: And one person leads you to another person leads you
Speaker 2: to another person, and you you know how this goes, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that was that's where it started.
Speaker 4: So were you clearly focused on becoming an artist in
Speaker 4: the beginning, or did you just want to play in
Speaker 4: the band.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do anything around the band. Like my
Speaker 2: first gig was like carrying the drums and carrying amps
Speaker 2: for somebody for another I don't even know who they were.
Speaker 2: And at the time, James Brown was like on fire, right,
Speaker 2: James Brown was like the godfather soul, and he used
Speaker 2: to drop down on one knee and they put the
Speaker 2: cape over right. So my first gig was putting the
Speaker 2: cape over this guy who's James Brown, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So it was just about being a part
Speaker 2: of it band. It wasn't It didn't matter to me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the difference between you know, being a
Speaker 2: utility person or being a performer making music or setting up.
Speaker 2: I didn't know to just want to be around it.
Speaker 2: Just had to be in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that love of service. We always it
Speaker 4: always goes back to that. Yes, the people who have
Speaker 4: who've gotten to these higher levels, at some point you
Speaker 4: had to be of service, that's right, and you still
Speaker 4: got to be of service, but in the beginning, you
Speaker 4: got to start somewhere. I think people are you know,
Speaker 4: we try to fast forward instead of actually going through
Speaker 4: the experiences of Like you said, I don't even remember
Speaker 4: who I was putting the cape on, but it was like,
Speaker 4: that's what'all needed.
Speaker 2: To do exactly. I'm a leisure let's go my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, Like you know, you've had these conversations we
Speaker 4: have as well where you meet, you know, the new
Speaker 4: people that just want to be in a business, but
Speaker 4: they don't want to do all the things that they
Speaker 4: need to do that's available to them at that point,
Speaker 4: because everything is not available to you when you first
Speaker 4: get in, you know what I mean, you can't sign
Speaker 4: the checks when you first get in. That's just not
Speaker 4: where you are.
Speaker 2: Well to me, those people who are not the thing
Speaker 2: that I got naturally, and I'm assuming that you guys
Speaker 2: feel the same way about it and being of service.
Speaker 2: The people who are willing to give, if anything, are
Speaker 2: are setting themselves up in a really positive way to
Speaker 2: receive many many things. People that want to jump over
Speaker 2: the cheating themselves, right, That's how I feel like you
Speaker 2: can't jump over it, Like you gotta do the service
Speaker 2: part first. It can't be about you first. It can't.
Speaker 2: If that's the gig then I mean I get it.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's not what I teach my kids,
Speaker 2: you know, like like, let's just do it for everybody else.
Speaker 2: You know, to this day, I'm still of service. I
Speaker 2: love that. I think I love that more than anything.
Speaker 2: I love for an artist to call me and say
Speaker 2: I need X, I need this, I need help with
Speaker 2: this and help with that. Nothing makes my day more
Speaker 2: than to be able to say I don't know if
Speaker 2: I can accomplish it, but I'm damn sure going to
Speaker 2: pick up the phone and try. M hmm right. That's
Speaker 2: that's everything to me, you know. So yeah, man, So
Speaker 2: my existence is all about being.
Speaker 3: Of service to the artists, you know, to give me
Speaker 3: to the where's the break, where's the like? Okay, my
Speaker 3: service has been rendered in so many areas and with
Speaker 3: so many people to where now it's being recognized and
Speaker 3: seen on a higher level on the industry, a professional level.
Speaker 2: When does that happen for you?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Man? I had the great fortune of being in a
Speaker 2: band that you're familiar with, the Deal and Babyface Kenny Edmunds.
Speaker 2: I met in Indianapolis, and we ended up being in
Speaker 2: the band together, right, and we ended up writing and
Speaker 2: producing stuff together. But the real breakthrough for me was
Speaker 2: meeting him, was meeting Babyface right when he was Kenny
Speaker 2: Edmunds and being the guy that he called every morning
Speaker 2: to listen to the song get written. That was life
Speaker 2: changing for me. Right, I feel like that was the
Speaker 2: greatest honor ever. I heard damn near every song that
Speaker 2: man wrote before the world did. Right, So you know
Speaker 2: that felt wow?
Speaker 4: And did you even realize.
Speaker 2: That, Oh no, no, no, no, I didn't.
Speaker 4: I just just my guy playing me some song.
Speaker 2: Yo, this guy's playing me this song, and he wanted
Speaker 2: to know what I thought, and he wanted to know
Speaker 2: is it complete? Is it right? And and somehow I
Speaker 2: knew the answer to those questions. And I didn't know
Speaker 2: how I knew the answer to those questions, right, but
Speaker 2: I was like, no, right, here needs to go to
Speaker 2: a bridge, and it used to do this, or it
Speaker 2: needs to do that, or you know, I knew how
Speaker 2: to coach it. And I didn't even know where that
Speaker 2: came from, but it was all. You know what it is,
Speaker 2: it's memory. It's like the music you listen to, the
Speaker 2: music you grow up on. What you're really doing is
Speaker 2: you're really trying to do what you've heard create. And
Speaker 2: so if a song does a certain thing, you want
Speaker 2: your song to do that thing that you're favorite song did.
Speaker 2: And so I was like I was in touch with that,
Speaker 2: and so I could tell him, you know, I could
Speaker 2: give him advice about it, just based on being a
Speaker 2: connoisseur of music. Music, Like I really listened to a
Speaker 2: lot of music. I still do. I listened to tons
Speaker 2: of music. So I keep that muscle, you know, intact,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. But anyways, that's what it was, man,
Speaker 2: that was the breakthrough.
Speaker 4: He told us that, uh you said he had to
Speaker 4: get he had to be more breed though, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was That was it to get in
Speaker 2: the band?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, that was that was like the thing.
Speaker 2: It was like he wasn't breed enough, Like we were
Speaker 2: a Breed band. You know what breed was bread? You know. Okay,
Speaker 2: great man, I'm I'm in the room with y'all. You know, man,
Speaker 2: you know what it is. You have to whip that up. Man.
Speaker 3: You know what the craziest thing about Breed is so
Speaker 3: so so so.
Speaker 2: The crown Prince of Breed is prince yes, yes, and
Speaker 2: he knew that we were all his disciples without meeting us,
Speaker 2: right and just like that, even treat us like that.
Speaker 2: The first time I met Prince, he was looking at
Speaker 2: it like, yeah, I know exactly who you are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I knew you before you had those classes and your
Speaker 2: little suit and right, and he was just son us
Speaker 2: because he knew he was the crown Prince of Breed. Right.
Speaker 2: So anyway, yeah, so that's how we start. Anybody ever
Speaker 2: cussed him out.
Speaker 4: You started?
Speaker 2: No, No, I argued. I did argue with him though.
Speaker 2: So was that a like Breed?
Speaker 3: Was that a just a regional thing that was just
Speaker 3: like if we're from this place, this is what we
Speaker 3: must tap into.
Speaker 2: You know what it was?
Speaker 6: It was?
Speaker 2: It was an era that in black music. It was
Speaker 2: it was the closest thing to rock and roll. Like
Speaker 2: that was edge at that time, I got to say,
Speaker 2: because it grew beyond, yes, just where it was. It
Speaker 2: turned into phenomena, It turned into a thing. But it
Speaker 2: was it was the edge, like there was a there
Speaker 2: was a certain there was a certain normalness and normalcy
Speaker 2: about R and B and R and B artist at
Speaker 2: that time. And everybody could sing and everybody can play.
Speaker 2: We just saw talented people, right, and so the thing
Speaker 2: that would separate you was where did your edge come from? Right?
Speaker 2: And so breed was really androgyny? Mhm, it was this.
Speaker 2: It was the black it was it was the black
Speaker 2: take on what David boy was doing or artists like that, right,
Speaker 2: Billy Idol at the time and Prince sort of introduced
Speaker 2: it and we all just basically copied prints. But it
Speaker 2: was a way to have edge, you know, uh, and
Speaker 2: the way to to have just to have a little
Speaker 2: just a little a little danger. And in your presentation,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Did you feel more dangerous?
Speaker 2: He I ain't have no heels listen, Jay, I didn't
Speaker 2: have no heels on.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm feel tough in his T shirt.
Speaker 2: But in this plus you don't get kniced up in
Speaker 2: here when I throw this on. This interview is over.
Speaker 3: This is crazy, no, but but you you know what.
Speaker 2: It was like. It was the girls. Man, They always
Speaker 2: do girls always always. They knew the difference. They knew
Speaker 2: oh my god, yeah, they knew the difference, the difference, right,
Speaker 2: And that that was that's you know, that's always the
Speaker 2: unfortunate leader of decisions that we make. How you because.
Speaker 3: If a woman jump ten men is going to replicate
Speaker 3: that process. They replicate that process there you go.
Speaker 2: So I met face he wasn't breed, and we talked
Speaker 2: and he wanted to join the band. And he was
Speaker 2: so gifted though, And that was the only reservation because
Speaker 2: at that point we were we were me and the
Speaker 2: guys in my band were focused on we'd already done
Speaker 2: the club circuit, the chitlin circuit. We've been playing for years, man, right,
Speaker 2: and now we need to break.
Speaker 4: So we've been playing for years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we've been doing it for years. Yeah, we played.
Speaker 2: We used to play clubs. Uh, six nights a week,
Speaker 2: four shows a night and hour hold hold on, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how we grew up. What Yeah, we played clubs.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no, I get to that. Six days, yes,
Speaker 4: six days ago, four hours a night, our show fours.
Speaker 2: To night and on Saturdays we had a matinee. So
Speaker 2: it was like two sets in the daytime and for
Speaker 2: the night time. Right, And that's how we grew up
Speaker 2: and polished. Yeah, we learned how to play. Yeah you know,
Speaker 2: but you can also as much as that sounds like
Speaker 2: a great, uh stage for polishing, we actually became complacent
Speaker 2: doing it. Go we stopped growing. We started doing that
Speaker 2: and just got stuck in that cycle for like three
Speaker 2: or four years. We lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis had clubs.
Speaker 2: It had the Zodiac Lounge. You had to mark for
Speaker 2: Ricky's Lounge, the night flight. It was just clubs, man
Speaker 2: and every club higher bands and the bands will stay
Speaker 2: for weeks on weeks, like having a residency, except chitting
Speaker 2: a circuit residency no money and no money and you know,
Speaker 2: you could do some original material, but you had to
Speaker 2: do cover. So you're doing covers four shows at night,
Speaker 2: six n four shows a night. Yeah, it is it, okay?
Speaker 2: Is it where people come to the club, you just
Speaker 2: take a fifteen minute break and you just get back
Speaker 2: up running the cycle. Yeah. Yeah. We just had four
Speaker 2: different sets, you know, and we had the opening set.
Speaker 2: We had the set that hat like the hits in it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And we just pasted so
Speaker 2: for all intensive purposes. You guys were the DJ. Oh
Speaker 2: there was no DJ at the time. This is three DJ.
Speaker 2: The DJ was the change exactly. Actually, you know when
Speaker 2: the DJs came, that's when disco kicked in. Gotcha right,
Speaker 2: I'm really aging myself, I know, but that's when disco
Speaker 2: kicked in in the eighties like really right, like seventy eight,
Speaker 2: seventy nine, eighty disco kicked in right, really really heavy,
Speaker 2: and that was the difference. But before that it was
Speaker 2: the band. It's the band stand a lot of live musicians,
Speaker 2: you know, able to make a living, and the DJ
Speaker 2: kind of changed that.
Speaker 3: You're taking me back to watching ray right and them
Speaker 3: in the club like full sets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so how long does it? Okay? So once Kenny
Speaker 4: gets into group, is now the focus make these records?
Speaker 2: Get a record deal? Yeah? We we we switched our
Speaker 2: focus right before meeting Kenny. We had come tired of
Speaker 2: playing clubs and we started saving up some of our
Speaker 2: little club money and buying machines, buying take recorders like
Speaker 2: two track or four track reel to real. U took
Speaker 2: our mixing console from the live show, brought it into
Speaker 2: a room and we started recording, and we started making
Speaker 2: demos and really getting serious about it. And that's kind
Speaker 2: of how we ended up. Like making the transition, the
Speaker 2: focus was let's make the best songs we can make
Speaker 2: and figure out how can we get them to Solar Records,
Speaker 2: Like we only wanted to be on one record label.
Speaker 2: We didn't want a record deal. We wanted a record
Speaker 2: deal with Solar, that's it. We wanted that because because
Speaker 2: my music teacher from Cincinnati was signed to Solar. My
Speaker 2: music teacher's name is Terry Brown, and he had a
Speaker 2: brother named Gerald Brown, and they moved from Cincinnati to
Speaker 2: LA and they had a group called the Soul Train Gang,
Speaker 2: which morphed into Shalamar. Okay, So, so the only thing
Speaker 2: I three and Jeffrey. It was Jeffrey, Jody and Gerald
Speaker 2: at first, and then it became Jeffrey, Jody and Howard.
Speaker 2: So my eyes were set.
Speaker 4: But they were all they were so trained dancers.
Speaker 2: They were so all so trained dancers. But my music
Speaker 2: teacher came out here, left left high high school and
Speaker 2: came out to UH to join Don Corneis and Dick Griffy,
Speaker 2: and so I'm sitting in Cincinnati like, yeah, I want
Speaker 2: to be there too, And so my mind was just stuck, stuck,
Speaker 2: focused on solo records, and I sent my first demo
Speaker 2: to them. I got a rejection letter, and I thought
Speaker 2: that was the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 3: The letter was the letter, just getting a rejection. They're
Speaker 3: talking to me, had the logo on it, had records. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm getting get a better song.
Speaker 2: But now that I know you listening, Now I know
Speaker 2: that you're listening, and you know what, it's crazy job.
Speaker 2: And we ended up getting signed to show our records.
Speaker 2: What was the song they did it? Body Talk? You know,
Speaker 2: the song no Body Talk by the deal is the
Speaker 2: first song we made, not the first song we made it,
Speaker 2: but it was the first single that we had as
Speaker 2: a group. And I wrote it. I co wrote it
Speaker 2: with a couple of other guys and and it worked. Man,
Speaker 2: got us the record deal. Next thing I know, we
Speaker 2: were on tour with Luther Vandros opening for Luther and
Speaker 2: the de Barge. Life changed. That's what I love about
Speaker 2: what we do. Man. One song can change your life.
Speaker 2: Lottery the lottery.
Speaker 4: One song that was your lottery ticket.
Speaker 2: We went from being in the chicken circuit man eating
Speaker 2: hm Popeyes, you know, on tour with Luther. Popeye is
Speaker 2: on credit, by the way, huh yeah, because I went
Speaker 2: to the Popeyes guy that ran Popeyes. Okay, I gotta
Speaker 2: feed my band. I can pay you at the end
Speaker 2: of the month.
Speaker 4: You was getting Popeyes on credit.
Speaker 2: My man was like, all right, I trust you. I
Speaker 2: failed my band Popeyes. The end of the month came.
Speaker 2: I paid him. Next month. I was like, I gotta
Speaker 2: do it again. I'm about to go to chick.
Speaker 4: For le.
Speaker 3: Man, like, I see if I can pay at the
Speaker 3: end of the month.
Speaker 2: At the end of the month, I promise some good.
Speaker 2: He trusted the tag and pomp that survived. I've never
Speaker 2: heard of that before. I never heard of it. I'm
Speaker 2: a band leader. I got to take care of my guys.
Speaker 2: That's that's it. That's what mattered, right. I got to
Speaker 2: get their rent paid, I had to get them fed.
Speaker 2: I got to get them ready for the show. Whatever
Speaker 2: you need, you need to geitar strings, whatever you need.
Speaker 2: My job is to make sure.
Speaker 4: That was always your function from the beginning. You always
Speaker 4: this thing, we're putting this together and whatever y'all need,
Speaker 4: and I would make it happen.
Speaker 2: Facilitator. And then and it became casting. It became okay,
Speaker 2: I got to get the right members. I get to
Speaker 2: get the right members with the right look and the
Speaker 2: right everything. That's that's where the babyface piece comes in.
Speaker 2: At the whole conversation about not being breed was Okay,
Speaker 2: you have the musicality, but you're not the right casting
Speaker 2: And he fixed it next time I saw it. Next
Speaker 2: time I saw him, he was he was ready. Man.
Speaker 2: He had the right everything, the right right trench, cody
Speaker 2: at the hair right, everything was right. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: now now you fit the movie joint and anyway, That's
Speaker 2: how I see it, man. So my career is all
Speaker 2: about being a band leader. So what I've done as
Speaker 2: an executive, as a producer and all that stuff, it's
Speaker 2: just all the same thing that I did when I
Speaker 2: was twenty two years old, when I was picking members
Speaker 2: of the band and picking material. Yeah, it's the same shit.
Speaker 3: That was the that was the development of this, that
Speaker 3: was the skill set.
Speaker 2: The same shit. Because I was never the talent, right.
Speaker 2: I had some talent, but I was never the talent, right,
Speaker 2: So I was I was a different time. I was.
Speaker 2: I was the eyes and the ears and the ingenuity, right,
Speaker 2: and you were able to identify that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because that's the one thing I feel like as well,
Speaker 4: especially in this day and age. Hey man, all y'all
Speaker 4: not talented, very rays not, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Or maybe you're talented, but you meet someone you're like,
Speaker 4: you know what, you got something different? Have something and
Speaker 4: you know what I can help you with this, right,
Speaker 4: I can help guy that we can figure this whole
Speaker 4: thing out together instead of it being like na, na,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna just be the artist and keep all these
Speaker 4: songs from me.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I met so many people you guys
Speaker 2: have too that I'm like, damn, if you just get
Speaker 2: out of the way, what the career you would have
Speaker 2: if you would just get out of the way. Right,
Speaker 2: But it's gotta be about you. Huh, Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: tell me something. Dick griff Yes, how was how was
Speaker 2: he as an executive? Dick Griffy was? Uh, he had
Speaker 2: great taste. He was a he was he was tough.
Speaker 2: He was tough, but but he was but he but
Speaker 2: he had a soft spot for talent. Right. But the
Speaker 2: way he would talk to me, he talked to me like,
Speaker 2: you know, like a tough guy. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He would give me the information whatever I might be
Speaker 2: asking about, whatever I need to know, but he would
Speaker 2: always say it like, let me tell you something, young motherfucker. Right.
Speaker 2: Everything was like young motherfucker. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Everything was like that. You met people like that, you know,
Speaker 2: but you're still getting getting the lessons. But yeah, he
Speaker 2: was he was great man. He had he had great
Speaker 2: taste in music. He knew a hit when he heard
Speaker 2: a hit. You know, yeah, I loved I loved Solar.
Speaker 2: I still love Solar.
Speaker 4: I don't think I don't think he gets enough credit
Speaker 4: when the great executives are mentioned, right, they don't. They
Speaker 4: don't talk about sound of Los Angeles records, and they
Speaker 4: don't like the artists, the writers. The music that came
Speaker 4: from Solar is so special.
Speaker 2: Yes, one of my favorite producers ever is from Solar.
Speaker 2: Man Leon Silva one of my favorite producers. Man, Like,
Speaker 2: if you listen to Chalamar and the whispers and the
Speaker 2: beat goes on and all those make that move or
Speaker 2: you know, you just name it like it's joints for
Speaker 2: the lover in me. That's all Leon Silver's as a producer.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: So, but I think it's hard to everybody can't get
Speaker 2: the praise. Man, It's just like everybody can't get it.
Speaker 2: Barry Gordy is that guy. It's Arry Gordy, right, Berry
Speaker 2: Gordy is the greatest record executive of all time. And
Speaker 2: no one else gets to have that. No one else
Speaker 2: gets to have that. I don't care how good any
Speaker 2: of us might be at him. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: in basketball, I don't care what it's Michael Jordan's Kobe right,
Speaker 2: Kobe Man right.
Speaker 3: But but it feels like it's just gonna be Jordan's forever.
Speaker 3: It starts and ends right because it's the it's the blueprint.
Speaker 3: It's everything that we're aspiring to be and how we
Speaker 3: should do it and how it starts there.
Speaker 2: It starts there, transcended basketballau and even even when you
Speaker 2: look at a Berry Gordy right, motown was they had
Speaker 2: a different type of shine to it.
Speaker 4: It had a different type of thing to it that
Speaker 4: no one had ever seen at that point. That's the
Speaker 4: other thing I think that happens with Michael Jordan. No
Speaker 4: one had ever seen the tongue out, the ball head,
Speaker 4: all of that, the band shoes, the Nike money pushing it,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, it was a lot of things
Speaker 4: that made that what it became, right, And I feel
Speaker 4: like for us, Barry Gordy sits in that spot where
Speaker 4: he was. He broke down so many barriers.
Speaker 2: I think people who are thought of as the first
Speaker 2: greats at anything, it's just very tough for anyone else
Speaker 2: to really hold that title. Yeah, Yeah, We still think
Speaker 2: of Sigmund Freud as the greatest psychologists, and and we
Speaker 2: still think of Albert Einstein as as a genius in
Speaker 2: a certain way. We still those things don't change right there.
Speaker 2: Probably they're probably somebody who is is a better psycho
Speaker 2: therapist than Sigmund Freud. But it doesn't matter, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 4: But I think that's ultimately a big reason also why
Speaker 4: we started this show is so that we could highlight
Speaker 4: everyone everyone. That's really something that that is very important
Speaker 4: to us. That someone like Dick Griffy gets the you know,
Speaker 4: gets the celebration man other labels may have gotten, because
Speaker 4: what he did is so special and it's still lasting
Speaker 4: to this day. You come from Solar, they face comes
Speaker 4: from Solar, you know what I mean. Like this is
Speaker 4: something that is and still the test of time, but
Speaker 4: the average person would not know of.
Speaker 2: Right, even some of the early you remember like COOLi Old, Sampled, Lakesides, fantastic,
Speaker 2: even it transcended R and B and pop at that
Speaker 2: time and even made its way into hip hop. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Dick Griffy is incredible, man, he really is incredible. I
Speaker 2: learned a lot from him, really learned a lot. He
Speaker 2: let me study under him, He let me hang around
Speaker 2: and just watch and ask questions. I would ask anything,
Speaker 2: good questions, bad questions. He'd still give me an answer,
Speaker 2: you know. And that was a training ground.
Speaker 4: Do you think that you were preparing yourself for what
Speaker 4: you would become then, even though you were an artist
Speaker 4: at that point, because you're signed to his label, but
Speaker 4: you're asking questions like a young executive.
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was doing that. I really didn't know.
Speaker 2: I was just trying to survive. Man. Again. I was
Speaker 2: just trying to get the bills paid, man, and get
Speaker 2: my band fed. Everything I was asking was just about
Speaker 2: how do I take care of my people? You know
Speaker 2: what I mean? It was a survival. It was all
Speaker 2: about that, you know. And I didn't know. But when
Speaker 2: once I once I saw Dick Griffy, it became clearer
Speaker 2: what I thought I could do with my career. He
Speaker 2: was the example, because yes, Barry Gordy was the great,
Speaker 2: but I never met him. He was way you know,
Speaker 2: you know, but Dick was right there. They dealing with
Speaker 2: him every day every day. Yeah, good batter and different. Right.
Speaker 3: As a performer like you, you you go from doing
Speaker 3: the clubs.
Speaker 2: Now you got a record that's working, and it's it's
Speaker 2: the Barge and and and Luther and Luther and when
Speaker 2: you when you when n I just was as a
Speaker 2: performer on your first few dates. Are you going through
Speaker 2: a thing where you're watching him and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we gotta get our ship together, or you're in a
Speaker 2: space where oh, cool, we're about to kill that's a
Speaker 2: great one. So the first show Marcus Square Arena, Indianapolis,
Speaker 2: Indiana Arena. From a little bar to arena. Man, we
Speaker 2: were so horrible. We were so bad, but we didn't
Speaker 2: know we were good, right, But we got on that
Speaker 2: stage and you've been on that big stage, big all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you can't hear I can't hear the
Speaker 2: bass player, the guitar players out of tune, but he
Speaker 2: can't hear it because all there is guitar and and
Speaker 2: it's a mess. It's a mess. So that was the
Speaker 2: first show. You guys are open, were opening, no soundtrack,
Speaker 2: you know, no sound check. I'm sorry and very much.
Speaker 2: And it was bad. So we didn't have that that
Speaker 2: bravado and the ego, uh that we thought we were
Speaker 2: all that, No, we knew it was getting ass kicked,
Speaker 2: right and plus plus the barge was light skinned man, right, so.
Speaker 4: I can only imagine how bad was.
Speaker 2: I would have definitely been on side of stage. I
Speaker 2: see Buddy, by the way, we're on the side of the stage.
Speaker 2: But I never met no, no, you could get they
Speaker 2: wouln't letting none of us. And get it, guys, those
Speaker 2: boys come out and and and the screams. They would
Speaker 2: lose it, they would and they were good, like El
Speaker 2: Debarche was not incredible, like really an incredible talent, Like
Speaker 2: I love his songs, I love his voice, and the
Speaker 2: band was good, but it was for me. It was
Speaker 2: El Debarche that was great. But when Luther hit that stage,
Speaker 2: it was a problem. It was a whole different thing.
Speaker 2: It was like all of a sudden the Siege party,
Speaker 2: Like it was a different thing. Because Luther is a
Speaker 2: real pro right right right to this day. I haven't
Speaker 2: heard people we love singers. Luther never had a mic problem.
Speaker 2: It was never like something's wrong with the sound system.
Speaker 2: Like Luther.
Speaker 4: It's so crazy that most people that if you don't
Speaker 4: don't do music and you've never been on the stage,
Speaker 4: that in itself right there for you to say that right,
Speaker 4: he never had a mic. Every single artist has that
Speaker 4: at some point.
Speaker 2: Not Luther. That's crazy. That mean he was on He
Speaker 2: was on it, man, he was. I'm telling you, like,
Speaker 2: the sound was incredible, and you know how I used
Speaker 2: to do that thing where he yeah, I know you
Speaker 2: could do this.
Speaker 3: Ship right but right, but it was always like perfection
Speaker 3: and it was always like sonically round and complete and
Speaker 3: full and in your face or an echo of it
Speaker 3: needed to be right.
Speaker 2: So like Luther would just shut everybody down. And I
Speaker 2: did that for like, I don't know. We must have
Speaker 2: been out there for at least like sixty shows. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about, right, real touring. So I saw
Speaker 2: that every night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, by show sixty though, y'all doing y'all thing.
Speaker 2: We were better. By the end, we were better. We
Speaker 2: would never we never got to let it got there
Speaker 2: right n sixty nights. But here's the beauty of it.
Speaker 2: You ever heard a song about Babyface and the Deal
Speaker 2: called Sweet November? Yes, yes, yes, So that was that
Speaker 2: was our takeaway from watching Luther every night. When he
Speaker 2: and I went in the studio to make that record,
Speaker 2: we were in our minds. We were doing what we
Speaker 2: learned from Luther right, all of our ballots where will
Speaker 2: you Go? All the ballads that we did, like the production,
Speaker 2: the way we approached it. Everything was what would Luther do?
Speaker 2: Like we started our career with what would Prince do?
Speaker 2: And as we grew it became what would Luther do?
Speaker 4: It's so crazy when you say that and I'm dialing
Speaker 4: up now, it feels like what would Luther do?
Speaker 6: Is you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh no? All the way? Man, all the way?
Speaker 2: That was that way? Then?
Speaker 4: So did you guys have two occasions by this time
Speaker 4: that you're on the road or no?
Speaker 2: Oh no? That came on our third album. Yeah, we had.
Speaker 2: We had. Our first album was Body Talk, which was
Speaker 2: it was a hit. It was it was a hit,
Speaker 2: like number three on Black chart, maybe number twenty on
Speaker 2: the pop chart. It was a hit. And on the road, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: the second and Reggie Callaway produced that album like two
Speaker 2: days ago, that's right, that's right, but Reggie produced it.
Speaker 2: Second album. Dick Griffy said he came to Cincinnati to visit.
Speaker 2: We played in some demos and he said who produced
Speaker 2: the demos? I said, I did. He said, well, you
Speaker 2: should produce the album, So I produced me and Face
Speaker 2: produced the band's second album, and it was a disaster.
Speaker 2: The songs were good, but we just didn't get the
Speaker 2: singles right okay, And then Dick moved us to la
Speaker 2: He called me one day he said, let me ask
Speaker 2: you something, young man, Why are you still living in Cincinnati?
Speaker 2: That's this home. He let me tell you something. I
Speaker 2: think you knew everything. This is Dick. He just talks
Speaker 2: like this. He said, you could make more money by
Speaker 2: accident in Los Angeles then you can make on purpose
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati. All I needed to hear.
Speaker 4: Is still in that there. I'm still That's what it is.
Speaker 4: What it is.
Speaker 2: I say it all the time.
Speaker 3: You you in the right place at the right time
Speaker 3: and had the right conversation, your life can change.
Speaker 2: It changed. So we moved out here and started working
Speaker 2: on the albums. Start working on the record, meeting other people,
Speaker 2: meet Charlaman, meet the Whispers, meeting people, and then we
Speaker 2: started producing writing together. And then we had two occasions right,
Speaker 2: which was originally it was an up tempo song. It
Speaker 2: was like it was a funk record at first, and
Speaker 2: yeah it was a funk record, yeah, And then Face
Speaker 2: took it. It was one of the other members of
Speaker 2: our band D actually wrote the song and Face took
Speaker 2: the chorus that D wrote and turned it into a
Speaker 2: beautiful ballot and I was like, oh, there it is.
Speaker 2: We got we got one.
Speaker 3: So what's Let me ask you a question, like, was
Speaker 3: that production a result of now you're in l A.
Speaker 3: You in these different rooms, different studios, different level of
Speaker 3: producers and writers, and you're like this okay, and and
Speaker 3: that triggering the competitive nature yeah, and sharpening the tool
Speaker 3: at the same time to get you to a new
Speaker 3: place where it's like now this is now, we're here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know how music works when you when
Speaker 2: you first time you made I ain't gonna say your
Speaker 2: first hit because your first hit was like, oh I
Speaker 2: got hit. But by the time you were like into it,
Speaker 2: you actually knew when you nailed it absolutely. You know
Speaker 2: that point where your knowledge just kicks in and you
Speaker 2: just you know you in the bag. You know you're
Speaker 2: in your bag, you know you in the zone, and
Speaker 2: everything you do at that point sounds really good. It
Speaker 2: does no matter what's a hit and out of hit,
Speaker 2: everything is quality at that polot, right, because you're now
Speaker 2: in your bag. Right, That's what happened with two Okay.
Speaker 2: We were in our bag. We didn't have to ask
Speaker 2: questions like how does this sound? We were in our bag, right,
Speaker 2: and everything that we did in that moment, everything wasn't
Speaker 2: a hit, but everything was of that quality because we
Speaker 2: were in our bag, you know.
Speaker 4: But is that yourll Is that your first like smash
Speaker 4: hit though.
Speaker 2: That wasn't our first. That was our first really big
Speaker 2: hit for the band, but it wasn't our first really
Speaker 2: big hit. I really our first really big hid was
Speaker 2: a song called rock Steady by the Whispers, a.
Speaker 5: Song called yeah like yeah yeah listen, friend, yes, don't
Speaker 5: talk to our people talk.
Speaker 3: About the money community. Come on, we've had the Whispers
Speaker 3: on here. Whisper absolutely, whisper. Don't wait with use here man, yeah,
Speaker 3: come on, brother Walter, Yes, what's like?
Speaker 2: All right? This all right? All right, all right, that's money.
Speaker 2: So that's the respect.
Speaker 4: That's the first. That's our first.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: So are you getting some money when you when you
Speaker 4: get rock Steady out? Did you did you take some
Speaker 4: money yet? Is this anything substantial?
Speaker 2: Man? Let me tell you something. We don't have no
Speaker 2: money yet. Okay, I were paying the rent, but we
Speaker 2: have no money yet. We had this manager money, we
Speaker 2: had this manager. Uh he heard the song. He was
Speaker 2: and we needed some money. It was like holiday time.
Speaker 2: He said, let's go bring your boombox. Let's go go
Speaker 2: to the bank. Okay, we went to the bank with
Speaker 2: a boombox. We went in to see the bank. I
Speaker 2: don't know a dude at the bank in the office.
Speaker 2: The president paid rock Steady.
Speaker 4: But it's not out yet.
Speaker 2: No, it's not out yet. Had a nice Christmas.
Speaker 4: He gave y'all check.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gave us a check at the bank alone, yeah, alone,
Speaker 2: like I want to. You have to ask Kenny, Kenny,
Speaker 2: how much was it? There was some money though the
Speaker 2: song like a publishing company. Know that. We went to
Speaker 2: the bank. You're telling me right now, going today, let's
Speaker 2: go get out. It's a different a man. We went
Speaker 2: to the bank. We played City National. I don't know
Speaker 2: how much we got, but I'm telling you we got
Speaker 2: some money. It might have been some grand let me
Speaker 2: get something, but we got some money. I forgot much.
Speaker 4: I got some songs in the computer. I'm going to
Speaker 4: give me somebody out of the City National day.
Speaker 2: I can't make this up. Thank you are listen, you
Speaker 2: are listen.
Speaker 3: You are disoling me at the moment. First of all,
Speaker 3: Popeye is old. Credit alone with this record, can ready
Speaker 3: to flit this boom. But for a banker, not a
Speaker 3: music person.
Speaker 2: No, right, the black bank. We were in California, Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: a black bank. Yes, sir, this is great. Yeah that happened.
Speaker 4: So your first real check came off of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we started getting Then we started getting
Speaker 2: making money. Okay, right, we got hot. Yeah. I was
Speaker 2: about to say because rock steady and steady and then
Speaker 2: girlfriends ah on two occasions, like all ridolds hit at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 4: You know what he bought?
Speaker 2: What did you buy? Speakers? First thing? Yeah, first thing
Speaker 2: I bought was a set of speakers. He's so smart.
Speaker 2: I promise, I'm not right. I promise you, I'm not right.
Speaker 2: You better than me, man, No, but uh yeah, but
Speaker 2: I'm a sound fanatic, right, so I bought. When I
Speaker 2: look around, I'm like, damn, I got so many pairs
Speaker 2: of speakers, Like I'm a sound fanatic. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: bought a pair of I don't even know what they were, man,
Speaker 2: but they sounded great.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They would just just just play back or so you
Speaker 2: could know. This is so that I could listen outside
Speaker 2: the studio. When I got home, I wanted to Yeah,
Speaker 2: you wanted to know what it? Yeah, I already know.
Speaker 2: It was just that thing. Yeah yeah, and probably the
Speaker 2: next thing was like a jeep, cheap Cherokee and put
Speaker 2: a sound system in it. Right, it was just all
Speaker 2: about the music. Sound guy. Yeah. First person I ever
Speaker 2: saw like that serious about speakers was Craig Calman. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's serious.
Speaker 3: He was the first person I like, he's definitely a
Speaker 3: sound guy. I had seen, like, Okay, in the studio,
Speaker 3: you got the speakers. You know you got you got
Speaker 3: your Ausburgers or your genial xt or you know, you
Speaker 3: all the all the brands, right, But never had I
Speaker 3: been in someone's house or office where there's an eighty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars speakers up right, I'm like you tripping right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Pairs of rims. I could
Speaker 3: have gotten this money. They were low and heart ld
Speaker 3: one and they shine when I pulled up, And that
Speaker 3: was the first time I had ever saw it. He
Speaker 3: was like, no, I got a I have to know, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: everywhere I go, I have to know what this ship
Speaker 3: sounds like.
Speaker 2: That's how I am everywhere I go. I have everywhere
Speaker 2: to this day, like everywhere, sound is everything with you,
Speaker 2: that's my pet everything. Do you purchase cars around? The
Speaker 2: speaker said, that's in or do you No? I don't
Speaker 2: really buy cars though, like I never. I hate driving.
Speaker 2: I'm horrible, man. I have a couple of cars, and
Speaker 2: man I can't I'm so bad at driving, like you
Speaker 2: can't drive. No, I'm horrible. What cars you got right now?
Speaker 2: I got an old Range for over to speed up.
Speaker 2: I got an old Porsche to speed up. And my
Speaker 2: kids have cars, but I just don't care about I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to see if there's anything you want. It's
Speaker 2: not I'm trying to take it's not. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: you might have some ventus sitting there. You know. I
Speaker 2: do have one ventage car, like I have an old
Speaker 2: sixty five Ford Mustang coming to get beautiful and to
Speaker 2: pick that up. Yeah that's a beautiful. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: it's that's a talking piece, that one. But take a
Speaker 2: walk with me outside. Yeah. But I'm so horrible a driver, man.
Speaker 2: I should never have a nice car like trash cars
Speaker 2: like you know, but they sound good. I bet I
Speaker 2: bet take us, take us from production company to record label.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so we had we started having a lot of
Speaker 2: success as writers and producers. We we did. I think
Speaker 2: the big one for us was Bobby Brown. I was
Speaker 2: going to the one man when we did Bobby. By
Speaker 2: the time we did Bobby, we probably had like five,
Speaker 2: six seven other artists that we worked on. And the
Speaker 2: record labels just put out everything that we did. They
Speaker 2: trusted you, right, They you know, would put out all
Speaker 2: of the Bobby songs, or Warners will put out the
Speaker 2: Karen White songs. Everything we did just came out at
Speaker 2: the same time. So it was like we didn't make
Speaker 2: it all at the same time, but they released them
Speaker 2: all at the same time, and it made it feel
Speaker 2: like we on fire. It made it feel like we
Speaker 2: were on fire. You know. That's called the run, The Run,
Speaker 2: the run. And what were you thinking? What was you
Speaker 2: thinking about when you was making that Bobby Brown like like,
Speaker 2: oh man, that was being in the bag man? Like
Speaker 2: what the songs like, I'm gonna tell you the one
Speaker 2: I love all of them, but the one I love
Speaker 2: is my heart belongs to a Ronie the truth about
Speaker 2: She's the sweetest. And he wrote that when we were
Speaker 2: on tour with the Barge and Luther Kenny wrote that
Speaker 2: in Miami, Florida, on a night we had off. We
Speaker 2: didn't know why we were off, because Luther and the
Speaker 2: bar still had they were still on. Yeah, but for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, we were off that night. And I remember
Speaker 2: this girl walking into the hotel and he saw her
Speaker 2: and he loved her, and and but she went with
Speaker 2: one of the other band members, right, And I just
Speaker 2: saw Kenny just like in his bag, in his own
Speaker 2: looking at her. And he went to his room and
Speaker 2: he came back and he played me the truth about
Speaker 2: a Ronie. And we held it until nineteen eighty and
Speaker 2: that probably was like that. Probably there had to be
Speaker 2: like eighty three or eighty four. And he held that song.
Speaker 2: He held that song until we did Bobby Brown. Then
Speaker 2: he pulled it out and we did it on Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: I wonder if I got a rone in a tux.
Speaker 2: Listen to the songs, the most timeless, Oh, and I
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 4: I love that song. I loved all of it, but
Speaker 4: that one was like special to me. Now that you
Speaker 4: told that story, I got to go listen to it again.
Speaker 4: You just see how he painted it.
Speaker 2: I'm talking, but I didn't touch the demo, right, so
Speaker 2: you know, he did the demo, but when we did
Speaker 2: it on Bobby, I put my thing on it, right,
Speaker 2: And that's what I want you to listen to. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 2: I want you to listen to that. Yeah, forget everything else.
Speaker 2: I there listening to those drums, seriously, so the drums.
Speaker 2: Listen to that. Listen to that. That ship is smacking, right,
Speaker 2: that one. That's my one. That's my one brag about
Speaker 2: my career and my music. My drums on Ronnie. After that,
Speaker 2: I'm going back to service. Listen my one talk to you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: top tier. So we made up, we made a bunch
Speaker 2: of records, and then we didn't have anything to do
Speaker 2: with the records once we turned them in, like we
Speaker 2: make these records and the record company thank you for
Speaker 2: your service, and they and we had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with it. And that started to eat at me because
Speaker 2: I was like, that's not the right single. Damn. I'm
Speaker 2: like what they're wearing, Oh, this video is trash. I
Speaker 2: started having all of that, yeah, big opinions, and so
Speaker 2: I just wanted my own at that point. I wanted
Speaker 2: my own label at that point. So we started. Clarence
Speaker 2: Avant made his beautiful soul rest in peace. What an
Speaker 2: important man. Clarence said, well, if you want to have
Speaker 2: a record label, I'm gonna introduce you to everybody. But
Speaker 2: you know, you can't take these people money and bullshit
Speaker 2: that like, you gotta be serious about it right, And
Speaker 2: Clarence schooled us. Clarence became our godfather very early on,
Speaker 2: and he took arounding introduced us to every record company
Speaker 2: head in the city, right from David Geffen to Moe
Speaker 2: Austin to you name it. We met everybody and we
Speaker 2: ended up we thought we were going to make our
Speaker 2: deal with David Geffen, but we ended up doing it
Speaker 2: with Clive Davis and we started the Face Records with
Speaker 2: Clive and then we moved to Atlanta and started the
Speaker 2: labeling that started the next chapter of our lives.
Speaker 3: What was what went into the Clive decision was just
Speaker 3: on an overall better deal, beating of the better minds.
Speaker 2: I think that if you ask Kenny, it was because
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston was an artist at Arista and Kenny being
Speaker 2: you know, the most incredible songwriter I know, he wanted
Speaker 2: to work with Whitney, so that was his attraction. For me,
Speaker 2: it was when I was eighteen. Clive had a book
Speaker 2: and I read his book when I was eighteen, so
Speaker 2: I was enamored with him. M right, But nobody really
Speaker 2: knew it. But I was just enamored with Clive and
Speaker 2: Kenny Love Whitney. So it's just worth just go. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when you guys do your deal, were you thinking
Speaker 4: outside of outside of the things that you said earlier
Speaker 4: as far as just wanting to for your opinion to matter.
Speaker 4: That's really that's what kicked it off. That's right, your
Speaker 4: opinion mattering. Were you thinking from the business side of
Speaker 4: it yet though, or were you just like, this is
Speaker 4: just an entry into it.
Speaker 2: No, I never did to be honest with you, like,
Speaker 2: I understand business, but I was never like a consummate businessman.
Speaker 2: I understand value, I understand culture, I understand trends, I
Speaker 2: understand the world artistically. Yeah right, it was never We
Speaker 2: were never great business people.
Speaker 4: So for you, it was never about you know, this
Speaker 4: is real estate.
Speaker 2: For me, no, I never thought about it like that.
Speaker 2: I thought about it simply as she's a star. She's
Speaker 2: a fucking star. This this girl, she sounds like a guy.
Speaker 2: Tea bos sounds like a guy. That ship's unusual. Yes,
Speaker 2: her m that's how I thought about this ship. It
Speaker 2: wasn't about but it was like her with that voice
Speaker 2: and that look, and these two girls that are with her, oh,
Speaker 2: Dallas Austin, you want to work with them?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that was it man. It was just like,
Speaker 2: how do we architects some great different ship out here?
Speaker 4: Because that was really cool to see with you guys
Speaker 4: as well as far as being producers and writers that
Speaker 4: you didn't try to produce and write everything that was
Speaker 4: on your label, you really found and discovered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was your fun, man. That was That was
Speaker 2: the real That was the real fun, because I wasn't
Speaker 2: you know, Babyface was the great songwriter. I was a
Speaker 2: good producer and a decent drummer, but baby Face was
Speaker 2: a genius so and and still is to this day,
Speaker 2: right and and and I owe my entire career to him.
Speaker 2: You know, if I hadn't met Kenny, I don't know
Speaker 2: what would have would have happened. But working with him.
Speaker 4: Was it was that was.
Speaker 2: I think that was like Phil Jackson working with Michael Jordans.
Speaker 2: So now where does Phil go from Michael? You gotta
Speaker 2: find Kobe. So I started looking for people that I
Speaker 2: thought were as talented as Kenny or especial like that.
Speaker 2: That led me to like Dallas Austin that let me
Speaker 2: Organized Noise, Jermaine Dupree. You know, it just led me
Speaker 2: to some really great producers who wanted to work with us.
Speaker 2: And that's how the Face Records was built. You know,
Speaker 2: off of Yes, Face Me and Face produced. Face was writing,
Speaker 2: Daryls Simmons was writing, you know, all of us were
Speaker 2: contributing KO. You know, my high school best friend was
Speaker 2: in it. But the real growth was Organized Noise doing
Speaker 2: Outcast and Goodie Mob, and Dallas Austin doing TLC and
Speaker 2: Usher being with Jermaine dupri That was the growth.
Speaker 3: It's really awesome to see that because it was like
Speaker 3: you were, just like you said, you were creating extensions
Speaker 3: of yourselves to pull all these things together. It's like,
Speaker 3: how can these how how can how can we us
Speaker 3: you know, exist in four different rooms at the same
Speaker 3: time exactly and get it all done?
Speaker 4: That was that was it.
Speaker 2: That was it. I don't even know what made you
Speaker 2: think of that, but that's exactly what it was, like,
Speaker 2: how can we how can we make four sets of
Speaker 2: us like with similar vibe and music, but still different
Speaker 2: because Dallas and those guys they were younger than Facing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah they were. They had one foot in
Speaker 2: hip hop, but they right man, and we were pure
Speaker 2: r and b maybe one foot in pop, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. So that and then Jermaine was a DJ,
Speaker 2: Organized Noise were purely hip hop, right, So those extensions
Speaker 2: of us was really like, that was the magic. That's
Speaker 2: the most fun I ever had. That's those are colors, man, Like,
Speaker 2: that's yeah, that's the that's the full box of crayons, right,
Speaker 2: like all of that.
Speaker 4: How long did it take to garner success? As in
Speaker 4: the label?
Speaker 2: First couple of years were really rough because we didn't
Speaker 2: really know. We thought we knew. We had so many
Speaker 2: hits at that time, right we I mean we thought
Speaker 2: we knew, and I'll tell you exactly when the turning
Speaker 2: point happened. Right, So it took it took close to
Speaker 2: three years to really like have a legitimate hit. And
Speaker 2: we signed this group called Damien Dame right first that
Speaker 2: face and I produced the entire album and singles. We
Speaker 2: put out a single, Arista, our joint venture partners put
Speaker 2: out a single. It was doing okay, So I went
Speaker 2: to Clive Davidson to said, Clive, like, I need you
Speaker 2: to push the button on this thing. Man. You know.
Speaker 2: He said, what's the button? I said, you know, like
Speaker 2: you did for Whitney Houston, Like I need you to
Speaker 2: push the button. And we were at a conference when
Speaker 2: I said this to him. He said, the button. Huh?
Speaker 2: He said, sit right here. I sat down beside and write.
Speaker 2: We had a conference and I forgot what we were.
Speaker 2: I thought we were in Florida. I can't remember, maybe
Speaker 2: Miami or something. Anyway, Whitney Houston comes on stage and
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston sings and he looks at me. He said,
Speaker 2: that's the button. He said no, he said, do they
Speaker 2: sound like that shit? I was like, oh, so what
Speaker 2: you're telling me it's my shit is not hot?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Because I thought I really did think, like you know,
Speaker 2: record labels, they take talent, good batter and different and
Speaker 2: they push the button and ship goes right. That's what
Speaker 2: I thought.
Speaker 4: So Cli pushed the button, this button that we've all
Speaker 4: heard about.
Speaker 2: Right here, young man something, and then I saw it.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I get it now, And I
Speaker 2: thought I knew. But when you're a producer and when
Speaker 2: everybody's hiring you to make records. You start thinking that,
Speaker 2: you're like God, you think start thinking that the ship,
Speaker 2: you know issue, thank you sweet, And I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, So signing talent is, oh, that's different
Speaker 2: than producing talent. Oh, so it ain't about us anymore.
Speaker 2: It's about getting the right got it, got it? So
Speaker 2: then you know, we got Lucky and signed TLC signed
Speaker 2: the Button and Tony Brixton another button. Both of them
Speaker 2: are like like two weeks apart. Y'all signed him two
Speaker 2: weeks apart. Yeah, wow, that was the button. That was
Speaker 2: the button. Then we had we had a great fortune
Speaker 2: again because we signed Outcast and Usher. Yeah in the
Speaker 2: same month. Now you got a cardigan. Those are fours
Speaker 2: right in the same month. Like so okay, now it's
Speaker 2: work very expensive. It's expensive expensive. Yeah. So then that
Speaker 2: was it. So it took about three years to get
Speaker 2: it right though.
Speaker 4: So do you remember the first face hit record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the Boomerang soundtrack Jesus Rise. Oh yeah, yeah, Boomerang, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Jesus Rise.
Speaker 4: And that's ultimately how y'all launched Tony.
Speaker 2: Yes, we launched Tony from that and and we got
Speaker 2: ourselves kind of back right, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: we had a little cold period when we in the face.
Speaker 4: We weren't hot because you tried to become businessmen. At
Speaker 4: this point, we try to.
Speaker 2: We're trying to and and I think that was always
Speaker 2: like one of mine and faces tug awards with each
Speaker 2: other was he is an incredible songwriter. And he's like, man,
Speaker 2: I gotta write songs for great artists. And I was like, no,
Speaker 2: you gotta, You should write songs for our artists. And
Speaker 2: he's like, no, I got to write for great.
Speaker 4: Art So he's telling you, y'all didn't have no hot,
Speaker 4: He's telling me, but Kitty put the hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it ain't hot. They're not breathed, ain't it.
Speaker 4: Listen in our next beating, I'm gonna go thank Is
Speaker 4: that artist a button?
Speaker 2: Right? That's right? But is that ship breed? Is it
Speaker 2: the button? Because you know, is it it?
Speaker 4: Is it it?
Speaker 2: You gotta stay on that right. Yeah. So so that's
Speaker 2: what took a long time. But then Boomerang kicked in,
Speaker 2: and Tony kicked in, and end of the Road kicked in.
Speaker 2: Ah ah right, yeah yeah, end of the Road was yeah,
Speaker 2: although we've come, Yeah, that was you know when we
Speaker 2: did it, I think I'm sure Kenny knew it was great.
Speaker 2: I knew it was great, But that was one of
Speaker 2: those ones that when I played it for Clive, I
Speaker 2: saw it in his eyes. I was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: I saw a difference.
Speaker 4: That was that wasn't for.
Speaker 2: For the label, for the label either.
Speaker 4: Obviously it wasn't it was it wasn't on the face,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't even for Clive.
Speaker 2: It was on the face. Yeah, yeah, that was on
Speaker 2: the Boomerang soundtrack, but Busby Busby said, I need to
Speaker 2: put it on Coolly High Harmony as a what do
Speaker 2: you call it when you stripped something on stripe it
Speaker 2: on or whatever you used to call it, a bonus.
Speaker 2: End of the Road was a bonus on COOLi High Harmony.
Speaker 2: But it was on Boomerang. I did not realize that.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was ours, that was our, That was ours. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Boom run, yeah, home run. Yeah. So that was that's
Speaker 2: that's when we were official. Yeah, that about doing that's
Speaker 2: not like renegotiations. Yes, you know y'all.
Speaker 4: You know y'all been in the rear for three years.
Speaker 4: I don't give over.
Speaker 2: The road the road. You ain't lying, boy, that's like,
Speaker 2: that's like scoring eighty absolutely, right?
Speaker 4: Is that the biggest LA and Babyface record?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Ever, Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. Yes, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: we go to the concert and sing it to this day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a big one. That's a big one we had. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because the one that would compete with that, I didn't
Speaker 2: produce with him. He did it like we broke up,
Speaker 2: and he went in the studio and he cut the
Speaker 2: song and he came to my office. Can you a
Speaker 2: funny guy? He comes to my office and he plays
Speaker 2: me can We Talk? And I'm like, why would you
Speaker 2: come in here and play me that great fucking record?
Speaker 2: The record sounds so good. My heart was so broken.
Speaker 3: But but the music, but the music. I loved it
Speaker 3: so much. I wanted I wanted to I wanted to
Speaker 3: hate it.
Speaker 2: Man, it was so good. But that was the first
Speaker 2: hit he did outside of without Me and without the face,
Speaker 2: without nothing to do with me, right, And I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: that's big. That's where I wanted to be mad. I
Speaker 2: wanted to hate it. It was just so good. And
Speaker 2: when I hear it today, I think that I think
Speaker 2: can We Talk? It is Babyface's most famous record. Like,
Speaker 2: I think in the Road might score bigger on the chart,
Speaker 2: but I think that when I'm out and about or
Speaker 2: if I'm scrolling, it's always like can we talk challenge?
Speaker 2: Or or when it comes on I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: what do you think you said? Can we talk challenges? Lee?
Speaker 2: I did that?
Speaker 4: He started? You need to endit? The road challenge, the challenge.
Speaker 2: It's one of those songs that is just like it's
Speaker 2: the simplest song, it's the easiest song, but it's so
Speaker 2: every piece about it is just memorable and every piece
Speaker 2: you know what it is, everything, everything weeks, but every
Speaker 2: part of the song has a peak, like like going
Speaker 2: into the chorus, the song has a peak, the bridge
Speaker 2: has a peak. Everything about it, like every every every
Speaker 2: every section of it continue used to rise. It rises.
Speaker 4: You're talking real executive songwrite and talk because everybody, everybody
Speaker 4: has an opinion. Everybody doesn't have solutions. Everybody can tell
Speaker 4: you what they don't like, they can't tell you how
Speaker 4: to fix it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: That is a separation between people who are great like yourself,
Speaker 4: thank you, who can say you know what, hey, actually,
Speaker 4: can you just change this right here? And it's a
Speaker 4: whole nother record.
Speaker 2: That's the tweet, that's that little tweet we need solution based. Yeah,
Speaker 2: always looking for that. And there was a point when
Speaker 2: I knew how to do that really well. There was
Speaker 2: a point when I was like, I don't actually know
Speaker 2: what to say to you. It's just not it right.
Speaker 2: But there was a moment though, when I just knew, like,
Speaker 2: just right there, just go here and watch the difference
Speaker 2: it makes. But anyway, he mastered that on that song, man,
Speaker 2: he mastered that thing, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is greatness. This is really really that's my favorite
Speaker 2: that both Tevin Campbell songs and my my favorite babyface composition.
Speaker 2: There was another one he did call I'm Ready right,
Speaker 2: and I just love it and it was old. I
Speaker 2: remember did that like early eighties and he gave it
Speaker 2: to Tevin like really late in the nineties or something.
Speaker 4: Man, you know what I You know, when I see
Speaker 4: when I see Kenny in the car line when I
Speaker 4: dropping the kids off at school, I hey, man, you
Speaker 4: got anything you want to go?
Speaker 2: You need to you need to ask Kenny. Let you
Speaker 2: hear some of his four tracks, like yeah, he's got magic,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, Yeah, I need that.
Speaker 4: How long did you guys have face.
Speaker 2: We had Leface from nineteen eighty nine. We started it
Speaker 2: and we sold it to Arista BMG in two thousand, right,
Speaker 2: but we kept the name. But I took over Arista
Speaker 2: at that point, so I kept it alive, although we
Speaker 2: weren't technically the owners at that point, right, but I
Speaker 2: was still in charge of it, right. Yeah, So what
Speaker 2: is that progression like where you're.
Speaker 3: You, you make the sale and then become the executive
Speaker 3: of the company by how does that?
Speaker 2: How does that work? Not? Well, oh yeah, Fucky records,
Speaker 2: Well we have musical success. That part was good, you know.
Speaker 2: The good news about it was I got I got
Speaker 2: to see what it was like to actually be the boss, right,
Speaker 2: And I also got to see what it was like
Speaker 2: with being the boss and how people dance around the boss,
Speaker 2: and how much bullshit there is, right And how many
Speaker 2: smiling faces there are and how many fucking knives there are.
Speaker 2: I ain't know none of that, ship man, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: a musician. I just told you. I come from the
Speaker 2: clubs and the label was yours. But Arista was that
Speaker 2: was that you come from a boutique from where everybody
Speaker 2: loves each other and everybody has a common goal and
Speaker 2: we're all like bootstrapping it. Everybody wants to make it.
Speaker 2: Everybody's happy for the success, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a political you know environment. So was tough.
Speaker 2: That was tough for me because I was like a
Speaker 2: country boy. I didn't know anything about this ship, you know,
Speaker 2: but I knew. I knew well, I knew what I
Speaker 2: felt about music, and that was my saving grace, right,
Speaker 2: So we signed while I was there. We signed seattra
Speaker 2: mm hmm. We signed Avria Levigne, We signed uh Pink.
Speaker 2: We put up Pink's first album.
Speaker 4: Pink wasn't Through the Face.
Speaker 2: Pink was signed to Okay, but but her first album
Speaker 2: came after taking the job at Arista. Her first single
Speaker 2: came while it was the Face, and then the transition happened.
Speaker 4: Because I know there's a group called black Pink now,
Speaker 4: but she was the first black Pink.
Speaker 2: That was the first black.
Speaker 6: There's that talk that I met her at the studio,
Speaker 6: that I met at the studio back in the day,
Speaker 6: and I was like, oh you okay, you think okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: black white girl.
Speaker 2: I see. It was just what I was just talking
Speaker 2: to her, like a few days ago, and uh, you
Speaker 2: know she had to. She had the second largest tour
Speaker 2: global tour in twenty twenty four. Taylor's was first Pinks
Speaker 2: of Second Wow. I don't even like the transition she
Speaker 2: made crazy and the elevation in her performance.
Speaker 4: I knew it was different when she did like the circus.
Speaker 4: So that's what That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That's the change.
Speaker 4: Wasn't that was the change?
Speaker 3: I said, incredible, But she can also sing, She's she
Speaker 3: she had real gift and said, now how do I
Speaker 3: how do I add to this and and and make
Speaker 3: it not just the gift? Because because the gift that
Speaker 3: I have people have seen before, people have seen singing,
Speaker 3: people have seen they we got that, But how can
Speaker 3: I be special.
Speaker 2: And completely out side of the box. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: She told me something that I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 2: I sorry, she said. She said, you're focused on hits.
Speaker 2: She said, I don't have that many hits, so I
Speaker 2: don't focus on hits. She said, I focus on my show.
Speaker 2: That's my hit. And she said, you never focused on that.
Speaker 2: You didn't have to, but that's why you probably didn't
Speaker 2: recognize what was the turning point? In my life because
Speaker 2: you probably thought the turning point in my life was
Speaker 2: going to be a song. It wasn't a song, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't a song. You can still learn, you know.
Speaker 4: I love that. You just said that. Love that, right,
Speaker 4: you can still learn. You can still learn? Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: Like it's it's a man, people, We all get there.
Speaker 4: We all get to points in our life of whatever
Speaker 4: success or whatever things that you you give a little
Speaker 4: closed minded.
Speaker 2: Yeah you start, yeah, just thinking, you know, man, and
Speaker 2: I don't know. The more I know, the more I realize,
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know what I'm saying, and and
Speaker 2: and I try to add a certain logic to every situation.
Speaker 2: Oh I know why that is. That's because this, that's
Speaker 2: because of that. But then some shit just doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense, you know. Like we were talking earlier, We're
Speaker 2: watching the Grammys. I was watching the Grammys. It's a
Speaker 2: great show, man, it was great. There was no black
Speaker 2: man on stage. What the fuck happened to R and
Speaker 2: B and black people?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: There was none man on a great show. They did
Speaker 2: a great job.
Speaker 4: No, it was a great show.
Speaker 2: I watched Bobby Mason did an incredible job man of
Speaker 2: turning the whole narrows around and getting the voters and
Speaker 2: really addressing like diversity and minority. H he is a
Speaker 2: ten out of ten, right, But I watched the show
Speaker 2: and I was like, damn, but damn, where where's the representation?
Speaker 2: And I mean and I couldn't. I couldn't.
Speaker 4: The only black man got up there that I could
Speaker 4: think of that I mean, obviously perform and he didn't perform.
Speaker 2: Though, Yeah, it's the we can't perform the Weekend did
Speaker 2: perform them, we can't perform fair enough, massive, massive, massive
Speaker 2: star Stevie performed. Yes, Stevie's a tribute legend. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a tribute. But I'm saying like in the in
Speaker 2: those in those feature moments when we watched uh Shabouzie
Speaker 2: or Chaperone or Properenter Benson Boom or Teddy Swims or
Speaker 2: you know, when I was watching, like.
Speaker 4: There was no core R and B manation, you know
Speaker 4: what I was waiting for.
Speaker 3: And and because I didn't know what was going on
Speaker 3: with the Grammys, I had talked, hadn't talked to anybody.
Speaker 3: I was like sitting at my house just watching it.
Speaker 3: I was waiting for that old school mic to from
Speaker 3: the sky with the glitter Chris Brown to sing residuals.
Speaker 3: In my mind, I had decided that's going to happen,
Speaker 3: and it didn't have a lot. Okay, well he won out,
Speaker 3: he won r bum.
Speaker 2: Ooh I wish yeah, yeah, man, that that would have
Speaker 2: That would definitely I know exactly that would have answered
Speaker 2: the call. And the reason I say it is not
Speaker 2: because it's not because I'm jaded. That might be jaded.
Speaker 2: It's not that it's that I liked that country music
Speaker 2: found its way because the first country recording of note
Speaker 2: was a black man. We all know that that's historic,
Speaker 2: that's that's documented, and for it to make its way
Speaker 2: back to being represented by black people, like I love that,
Speaker 2: right and and so much of music traces back to
Speaker 2: UH to black performers like and rock and roll is
Speaker 2: a little Richard and Chuck bergerbut right, and so I
Speaker 2: know how important we are to music as black people,
Speaker 2: and no disrespect, but as black men, I know how
Speaker 2: important we are as well, right And and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: so what's happening now? The best soul singer on the
Speaker 2: show might have been like Benson Boom. He could sing
Speaker 2: his face off, right and Teddy Swims. They could sing, man,
Speaker 2: but they sing in soul music. And they don't look
Speaker 2: like Tank, and they don't look like Usher, and they
Speaker 2: don't look like Chris Brown. And so I'm just like,
Speaker 2: what's happening? And so I see it as an opportunity.
Speaker 2: I see there's an opportunity to try to make a
Speaker 2: contribution and to try to focus on the youth, you know,
Speaker 2: black youth that sing. And that's why, and that's why
Speaker 2: I thank you guys for allowing my artists to come
Speaker 2: on your show and sing, you know, jay Don Paradise,
Speaker 2: because I'm trying to find the next generation of of that. Man,
Speaker 2: I don't want to see it. I don't want to
Speaker 2: see another show and say it's great, but see us
Speaker 2: missing right all right?
Speaker 3: As you say that, I'm just thinking about our upbringing,
Speaker 3: where we had Bobby, we had new Additions, we had
Speaker 3: Guy m Hm, we had Babyface, we had our Kelly,
Speaker 3: we had Maxwell, we had like we had it like.
Speaker 2: Man, and we got to see I'll be sure, be sure,
Speaker 2: thank you, we got the truth true, I mean, so
Speaker 2: many of them, but we got to see them.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, No, But I mean and that that in
Speaker 4: itself you're doing the work. You're doing the work by
Speaker 4: by having Paradise, by having Jayden, Like that's that's extremely important,
Speaker 4: like to continue it and to give it opportunities. Right
Speaker 4: because I'm sitting there and I'm you know, my daughter's
Speaker 4: nine years old and we're watching it. She she knows
Speaker 4: she's introducing me to stuff and introduce me to music.
Speaker 4: And her excitement as a nine year old young black
Speaker 4: girl watching the Grammys kind of it kind of caught
Speaker 4: me off guard. Like my daughter literally was looking at
Speaker 4: the clock, so dadd it comes on at you know,
Speaker 4: because now that everything is on demand, everything is on demand.
Speaker 4: My daughter is counting down until the Grammy starts. She's saying,
Speaker 4: we got to have dinner at this time, but we
Speaker 4: gotta grab some snacks and we're gonna have to.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be on this couch right watching the Grammy.
Speaker 4: So when I see that, I'm like, Okay, who's going
Speaker 4: to give her the music in the soundtrack for her
Speaker 4: life that looks like her or that she can be
Speaker 4: excited about. You know, Listen, I got a daughter. I
Speaker 4: know at some point she canna run off with a boy,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, she gonna want, she gonna
Speaker 4: want to put a boy up, a picture of a
Speaker 4: boy in her locker. I get it. Me being in
Speaker 4: a position that.
Speaker 2: I'm in probably gonna be paradise.
Speaker 4: Maybe in a position that I'm in and music, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: I have to help create that for her, man. I
Speaker 4: have to you know what I mean. I have to
Speaker 4: help usher in these artists, these young these young artists
Speaker 4: that are speaking to her. Yeah, like we need a
Speaker 4: down my heart.
Speaker 2: Come on, don't do that, We need a telephone. Man.
Speaker 2: So here's the difference, like, and here's here's here's how
Speaker 2: I just thought of this while I'm sitting here, and
Speaker 2: why I think that it's that way. You know, there
Speaker 2: was a time and and and in the past, not
Speaker 2: that distant past. But we were talking earlier about Dick Griffy,
Speaker 2: We talked about Barry Gordy. Yes, we talked about Gerald Busby.
Speaker 2: We talked about black leaders who were the curators of
Speaker 2: the music that we loved. Right, and that's that is
Speaker 2: all but missing. We still have great ones. We still
Speaker 2: have Sylvia Rohn, we have you know, zeque Lewis, we
Speaker 2: have Tanji. We have some great executives in really great positions.
Speaker 2: But very very few. Yeah, and only I think you
Speaker 2: and I talked about it. How many how many important
Speaker 2: boutique labels do we have that are black, because that's
Speaker 2: where the community is built from, right, right, So you
Speaker 2: started at blackground, right right, a boutique, right and an
Speaker 2: artist I had started at La Face. And there was
Speaker 2: Uptown artists, and there was Death Row artists, there was
Speaker 2: Motown artists. There stacked artists, and they were like and andy,
Speaker 2: and that was where that's where black music was uh, nurtured,
Speaker 2: curated and and and and it wasn't no disrespect to anybody,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't so much us asking for permission, hmm,
Speaker 2: because people that looked like us were making those decisions.
Speaker 2: And look how different the industry looked in so the end,
Speaker 2: so the moment we just talked about when we said, guy,
Speaker 2: and I'll be sure and keep Sweat and Babyface and
Speaker 2: and all and heavy D and the boys, and and
Speaker 2: I could keep going on and on and boys the men, right, guys,
Speaker 2: those are black people making decisions about the music. We
Speaker 2: heard on a national, international level that is all but dead.
Speaker 2: So if you look at the Grammy stage, what you
Speaker 2: see missing is people that look like us, what's next.
Speaker 2: So what's next for me is I've been very fortunate
Speaker 2: that a couple of young artists found me. One of
Speaker 2: them his name is Jaydn. One of them his name
Speaker 2: is Paradise. Another one his name is Sweater, And they
Speaker 2: found me, and I'm putting moms around it and I'm
Speaker 2: going to rock this thing all the way to the top.
Speaker 3: First of all, we want to introduce that right here
Speaker 3: on the Army Money Podcast. First time ever, incredible, give them,
Speaker 3: give them a platform to perform their music.
Speaker 2: I love that. I think it's beautiful. I appreciate you
Speaker 2: for inviting them on having them here, and we'll look
Speaker 2: back on this one day. We're gonna all be really
Speaker 2: really proud of it, you know, really really, we're gonna
Speaker 2: be really proud of really audacity and the bravery to
Speaker 2: do this, to actually bring some new artists on the
Speaker 2: R and B Money Podcast, which is one of the
Speaker 2: most famous podcasts in the world that could have star
Speaker 2: after star after star, but you actually had the bravery
Speaker 2: and the audacity to bring on some complete unknowns, some
Speaker 2: brand new artists and giving them your platform to shine.
Speaker 2: So I really appreciate it, and we got as we
Speaker 2: as we following great footsteps you're making. You're making great decisions.
Speaker 2: I know that you make a great decisions.
Speaker 4: We try come you.
Speaker 2: L trying to run off on this, man, I talked
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 1: NOA l A no, this is this is needed.
Speaker 4: We're gonna have a part too.
Speaker 2: We're gonna bring you back. Come on, man, we got
Speaker 2: a lot now, I ain't gonna lie. We got a lot.
Speaker 2: You got over the chapel, brother la Bishop reed. We
Speaker 2: have come to the portion of the show where your
Speaker 2: musical knowledge and information is needed.
Speaker 3: We you've been breaking for a long time, and we
Speaker 3: want to take you back to a place to where
Speaker 3: music has inspired you.
Speaker 2: We call this particular section. You're f your top five,
Speaker 2: top fire, your.
Speaker 3: Top fur beasing?
Speaker 2: What else are let be sooo? We got to know
Speaker 2: before you go belong this shoe. Come on out the
Speaker 2: Norse your.
Speaker 4: Top Yes, right to you, top four.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, man, you are gifted. Oh my goodness, brother,
Speaker 2: they read you get that from it just made it up. Wow.
Speaker 2: Your top five are in the singers. Singers sing, We're
Speaker 2: doing We're doing gender or whatever you want, no gender,
Speaker 2: we want. It's up to you. Five whatever you want?
Speaker 2: Five R and B singers all time, all time, Aretha Franklin,
Speaker 2: start there, mister Marvin Gaye, Oh my god, R and
Speaker 2: B singers, mister Luther Vandros. Yes, sir, yes, sir. I
Speaker 2: gotta go obscure because I love what I love. I
Speaker 2: love what I love. What I love is what I love. Right,
Speaker 2: there's a young man named Howard Hewitt. I love this man.
Speaker 2: He loves this voice him sad man. And then Chaka
Speaker 2: Khan huh check a con check.
Speaker 3: When the first time I saw Sha Ka Khan live,
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe that that voice was coming out of
Speaker 3: her because of the height.
Speaker 2: No, man, she wasn't. It was effortless powerful. I never
Speaker 2: felt like she's reaching for it.
Speaker 1: Just it was the rough.
Speaker 4: Did you know she you knew?
Speaker 3: I'm sure you probably know rum Yeah, I don't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I never spent time around her. She's like, I just
Speaker 3: saw a clip, but I saw that too. I think
Speaker 3: I'm like drums. I saw Chakak hitting every song note
Speaker 3: for note like she had just recorded it like it
Speaker 3: was nothing.
Speaker 2: It was nothing.
Speaker 4: I believe the message on her page about coming to
Speaker 4: the podcast. I mean, I listen.
Speaker 3: I'm a hit her too, that we ran into it
Speaker 3: as all that stuff. Every now and then I get
Speaker 3: a little interaction on my page.
Speaker 2: Boy, tell you mean, I mean it was for me,
Speaker 2: it was it was her and like I really loved
Speaker 2: it was Others that I love that are not in
Speaker 2: that top five, like I love Mayvid Staples from the
Speaker 2: Staple Sings, like I really loved I felt some ROBERTA.
Speaker 2: Flack is like one of my all time favorite artists ever,
Speaker 2: you know, and Stevie Wonder and Donnie Hathaway. I don't
Speaker 2: mean to lead him out of the top five, but
Speaker 2: it's like five slots. I don't know how to do
Speaker 2: it right because they I don't even know which one
Speaker 2: of those is where that's you know, But there's so many.
Speaker 2: There's so much great music. But originals like originals, people
Speaker 2: who did like original stuff. Original turns original. That's what
Speaker 2: Chaka Khan is like, Yeah, I never heard anybody I've
Speaker 2: never heard of do her phrasings?
Speaker 3: Right, we've had we've had oh, she's like or she's like, right,
Speaker 3: we haven't had a Chaka Khan.
Speaker 2: No, it's only one Shaka Khan. There was one, lady,
Speaker 2: don't get mad at me. There's one Lady who Who.
Speaker 2: She did a song. She's gonna hate me for saying this,
Speaker 2: But Vesta Williams and she had a song called Once
Speaker 2: Bitten Twice Shy and it had Choka con phrasings right
Speaker 2: and it was and I was like, okay, so chalk
Speaker 2: is impacting people.
Speaker 4: Congratulations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I'm hearing Yeah, okay, no one is this
Speaker 2: original was her Top five R and B songs. God, man,
Speaker 2: yeap what you can name yours? I want to you
Speaker 2: can name yours. It's fine five top five, it comes
Speaker 2: to your mind. Yeah, just come to your mind. Okay, man,
Speaker 2: try a little tenderness oldis Redding. Let's see which one
Speaker 2: is it. It's a song on Marvin Gaye's What Let's
Speaker 2: get it on album? And I want to say. It's
Speaker 2: called If I Should Die? Do you know that? If
Speaker 2: I Should Die? That's one of my favorites. Reverendly by ROBERTA. Flack.
Speaker 2: Let's see it aren't being sold the same thing? True,
Speaker 2: they are, so I can't have two lists. Let's say,
Speaker 2: Oh man, let's see, I'm gonna I'm gonta lost. I
Speaker 2: got too many songs in my head, just like like
Speaker 2: there was an era in music that I called the
Speaker 2: post do op era, when it was all the stand
Speaker 2: up groups, it was the Temptations, it was the four Times,
Speaker 2: it was the dramatics, it was the stylistics and the intruder.
Speaker 2: That era right there, right, that era in music was
Speaker 2: like so impactful and like so under celebrated, right, but
Speaker 2: so much greatness the shylights, right, it was so much
Speaker 2: great music out of that and uh and there was
Speaker 2: songs from that place, gambling huff.
Speaker 4: Was that era super?
Speaker 2: I know, me and Missus Jones. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 2: I found it. It's me and Missus Jones.
Speaker 4: That record is so special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, that's my that's my that's my
Speaker 2: song going on. Let's see. So how many do I
Speaker 2: give you? That's for time will reveal by the DeBarge,
Speaker 2: they were singing that every night, every night watching Eldbar.
Speaker 2: Time will reveal. That's five for today. If you ask
Speaker 2: me tomorrow, be a different five. I don't even know
Speaker 2: what I just said. By the way, I don't even
Speaker 2: know what you I just said. I really don't because
Speaker 2: I I have so much music in my head. I
Speaker 2: listened to so much music. I love music so much.
Speaker 2: There's no five of anything five is so unfair.
Speaker 3: But I tried two more sections for you, and we're
Speaker 3: gonna let you go. Let's make a ul trying for you,
Speaker 3: a super R and B artist, a super one where
Speaker 3: you're going to get the vocal from the performance style,
Speaker 3: the styling of the artists, the passion of the artist.
Speaker 3: Who's going to produce for this artist vocal You're gonna
Speaker 3: dial up to make your super R and B artist one.
Speaker 2: Vocal, one vocal. We're just creating, right, Give me Tevin
Speaker 2: Campbell's voice, Give me Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis as
Speaker 2: the producers. Are you skipping? Hold on? Don't you help me?
Speaker 2: Guy the track? Yeah, he's going heavy to Jimmy Jam.
Speaker 2: Okayform style, give me Usher's performance style, me Tevin styling.
Speaker 2: Who're gonna put that ship on the drip? Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep it breathing.
Speaker 4: Prince about to say if you didn't say Prince, I'm.
Speaker 2: Man, it's Prince.
Speaker 4: I'm seeing your original album.
Speaker 2: Super breathing.
Speaker 3: Keep We need edge right and drodging, edge blousey edge.
Speaker 2: Drop, Uh, the passion of the artist who mean it,
Speaker 2: the heart of the artist. Marvin Gay. Yeah, right, I
Speaker 2: believed everything. Marvin me too everything, Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4: I don't know nobody else that had to give an
Speaker 4: album and divorce proceeding.
Speaker 2: Meaning. And it was here and it was enough. Here
Speaker 2: here is that crazy? It was enough. He tried to
Speaker 2: make a bad album. He was incapable of making a
Speaker 2: bad album. Take Teer.
Speaker 4: That's the thing though.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he didn't want to give it a good album,
Speaker 2: Take this one. He couldn't help it. You know, it's
Speaker 2: too great, too good, talented. And then you said it,
Speaker 2: who's going to produce themself? Yeah, and it's Jimmy Jamary Lewis.
Speaker 2: Are they writing it to or you're writing it? No,
Speaker 2: it's just them all the way. All is Jimmy Dammitary. Melodies, piano, drums,
Speaker 2: They're wrong with them? What's wrong with them? They're perfect? Like,
Speaker 2: they're fucking perfect. They're the greatest ever. They're the fucking
Speaker 2: greatest ever.
Speaker 4: Are you as you guys are having your run? Are
Speaker 4: you looking like the whole time?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: Not like that? Not looking at it? Never competitively because
Speaker 2: I never thought we could compete. Never, Like, if there's
Speaker 2: no Jimmy Jammentary, there is no la and face at
Speaker 2: that time, right, period, point blank. They introduced us to
Speaker 2: Clarence A. Van, They gave us the blueprint everything about them, Like, no,
Speaker 2: it was never I never thought we could compete with them.
Speaker 2: I still don't. And as much as I love music
Speaker 2: that we made, you know, ask Jimmy's I love I
Speaker 2: love I love their songs, man, I love their like
Speaker 2: you Everard never knew love like this by Alexander That's
Speaker 2: my ship, you know, I mean all of those songs,
Speaker 2: everything from from Charrell's uh, I didn't mean to turn
Speaker 2: you on to s O s bands, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean their songs, man Like, I just think these songs,
Speaker 2: the sound of them to me metaphorically, it looks like
Speaker 2: the tallest building in the world. The production sounded like
Speaker 2: the tallest come on like it was just.
Speaker 4: Like wow, absolutely, I've never heard that atology, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like the bottom was way down there
Speaker 4: and the top of it was way to fuck up there.
Speaker 2: Right, and no one, they're the best in the world.
Speaker 2: They're the best. I love Quincy Jones also, right, and
Speaker 2: Quincy has the years the genre, mixing the diversity of
Speaker 2: talent from everything from Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not taking anything away from Quincy Jones, who is
Speaker 2: probably the most celebrated, but my personal favorite it's Jimmy Janme,
Speaker 2: Terry Lewis and they know it.
Speaker 3: It was it's it's the musicality that we love, but
Speaker 3: the drama in effect and and sound making right right,
Speaker 3: because we have the musical element which is absolutely insane,
Speaker 3: but the sound making the things that took you from
Speaker 3: the B section to the hook or from the verse
Speaker 3: to the beat, like how sounds was like, what is
Speaker 3: what is adorning this musical masterpiece?
Speaker 2: Like like the piano on Tender Love by for m
Speaker 2: D or Oh my God man, that just blow me away.
Speaker 2: They really they are just masters because on top of the.
Speaker 4: Masters relatable top line, the lyric and melody is so
Speaker 4: relatable to everyone. Like you said, tender love, right, We're
Speaker 4: gonna call this tender tender love, tend to love love,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? Like just the songs that
Speaker 4: when you just go down the list of records that
Speaker 4: they've done, the finest by so O S Band, just
Speaker 4: be Good to Me by s O S Band, all
Speaker 4: those new addition songs.
Speaker 2: Man, never what is that? If it isn't love, why
Speaker 2: does it feel this way. Why does it feel so
Speaker 2: bad if it.
Speaker 4: Isn't love.
Speaker 2: Rights? Right? Sometimes I just look at them and like this,
Speaker 2: they didn't do that. That's great. He y'all didn't do that.
Speaker 2: They don't do that.
Speaker 4: All of it, all of it, man, all of it. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 4: they producing it.
Speaker 2: They they're they're it.
Speaker 4: But la signing it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm signing it. You signed right? How about this
Speaker 2: secure discovery? I sign.
Speaker 1: O?
Speaker 2: Brother, you can't still discovered that signed Jimmy produc sir right, waited,
Speaker 2: y'all good at this? Thank you, thank you, thank you
Speaker 2: for real my brother. First of all, let's say this
Speaker 2: you you, you are him, Thank you, sir, thank you.
Speaker 2: We don't we don't take your time, your expertise, your wisdom,
Speaker 2: we don't take none of that, likely brother, your success.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it all, and we appreciate you sitting in
Speaker 2: that chair right now like we do not take this thankly,
Speaker 2: and we thank you from the bottom of my hearts.
Speaker 2: And thank you for thank you for the challenge, yes, sir,
Speaker 2: thank you for the challenge. Yes, to be more, to
Speaker 2: be better. Thank you.
Speaker 3: We can as you as you talk about those those
Speaker 3: boutiques and all we we stand here as a boutique,
Speaker 3: and and and we are answered answering, answering the bill, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: getting to these trenches and get it done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to. I wanted to do this because
Speaker 2: I had so much. You know, when I met you,
Speaker 2: I was like, damn, just met this man, But damn
Speaker 2: he's my brother, geez. Like that's how I felt like, Wow, right,
Speaker 2: and I've known you tan't and just knowing you to
Speaker 2: be so talented and what you guys are doing together,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to be a part of it, man,
Speaker 2: because I think that it's so damn important what you
Speaker 2: stand for. And I also love just that, like you
Speaker 2: have a platform of honesty, but it's coming from a
Speaker 2: really loving place, like it's really coming from it. And
Speaker 2: as I told you earlier today, baby fait, it always
Speaker 2: reminds me if I'm in a situation that doesn't have
Speaker 2: love in it. And he says, I can't prosper, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And that's a brother looking out
Speaker 2: for a brother, you know. And he and I have
Speaker 2: the greatest relationship because we're not friends, but we are brothers.
Speaker 2: It's the craziest thing in the world, right, So Anyway,
Speaker 2: I just really appreciate being here with y'all. Thank you
Speaker 2: for listening to me, thank you for letting me rant
Speaker 2: and get on my soapbox, you know. And I like
Speaker 2: to come back, you know, and part two I'll have
Speaker 2: stories funny and fucked up. We'll take it's binding because
Speaker 2: I'm but but I want to You got to fight
Speaker 2: me off because I want to back, you know, like
Speaker 2: you always invited. Brother. The last time I thought that,
Speaker 2: I thought y'all canceled on me. And I was like,
Speaker 2: why would they cancel on men? My sister said, no,
Speaker 2: you're out of town. I was like, oh it was me.
Speaker 2: It was I was trying to get in my feelings,
Speaker 2: you know. You know, you know listen, he's trying to
Speaker 2: find the reason reason that's crazy. You know. I'm glad
Speaker 2: you brought that up because I'm a nigga, because yeah,
Speaker 2: she was a nigga and Assen too. I was like,
Speaker 2: where he was, well, I was colored that day. It
Speaker 2: was like I was bro I was chasing. I was
Speaker 2: there with Mariah Carey shut up to not yeah, and
Speaker 2: she's welcome to the Larry make his own announcement. But
Speaker 2: you know, we there's something Brewing. We love that.
Speaker 4: Come on to the p.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh you do want.
Speaker 3: Mariah absolutely, and you know what you know who to
Speaker 3: come you definitely, oh you definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ladies and gentlemen about him to take.
Speaker 3: And this is the R and B Money podcast, the
Speaker 3: authority on all things R.
Speaker 2: And B and and the authority is in the month
Speaker 2: Thank you for having fun fun R and B Money.
Speaker 4: R and B Money is a production of the Black
Speaker 4: Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 4: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 4: favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show,
Speaker 4: and you can connect with us on social media at
Speaker 4: Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode,
Speaker 4: subscribe to YouTube dot com, forward slash R and B
Speaker 4: Money