WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Corinne Bailey Rae 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.040 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:15.280 Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quetch Love Supreme. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.600 I'm you know, it's court Love and with three of course, 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.320 this is the ever present Team Supreme. Uh, frantically, what's happening. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:24.600 What's happening, what's happening, what's happening? 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:26.200 Yeah, I was about to say, you gotta tell me 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:30.840 what's the after effect of the Little Brother documentary. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:33.520 Uh, it's been a lot, man. 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:36.880 I think the first week it came out, like when 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.199 we first put it out during the uh during Black Friday, 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.280 I had one my homie hit me and was like, Yo, man, 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.720 I haven't talked to my sister in three years, and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.879 I'm gonna give her a call after watching this. So 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.600 it's been it's been stuff like that. Like it hasn't 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:54.640 even been a lot of music shit. It's been people 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.160 just been hitting me, just talking about personal shit, personal 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.440 shit like yo, ill my man's like yo, I'm about to. 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.160 Start my own business now being bullshit and this. You know, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.160 it's been a lot. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.560 So it's been opened up a lot of conversations that uh, 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.360 I think we're Yeah, it was it was kind of 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.840 overwhelming at first, just to kind of be getting all 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.240 that at one time, you know what I mean. But uh, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.760 but people really enjoyed it, and they see the spirit 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:19.959 of what we made and you know, the love and 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.280 care what we made it, and so I'm just happy 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:23.160 that people enjoying it. 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:23.360 Man. 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.680 Yeah, I was going to say that we're kind of 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.800 at the the end of the stretch, like where we 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.560 must turn the record in somewhere, and it's sort of like, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.399 kind of after watching the documentary, I was like, hey, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.160 do we have to give this to. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:42.919 A major label? 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.440 Like come on, come on, come on, come on. 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:49.720 He preaches this forever. 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.120 I was going to say that we're seriously trying to. 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.919 I think we're considering, you know, taking the training wheels 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.440 off and see if we can do this for depth. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.480 I mean, technically, yes, we owe def jam another record, 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.280 but it's also like it's been ten years and there's 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.760 a whole nother ministration there, so you know, it's not 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.000 like I think they're crying, like damn it. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.200 Yeah. When we were. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.639 Last there working on How I Got Over, there was 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.320 an executive in the studio with us, and he was 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.639 talking shit about us, thinking that Tarik was like one 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:28.560 of the staff at Electric Ladies Studios. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:31.840 I don't know what they look like. I don't know 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:32.560 the album. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.400 Just fucking hearing ship Manek's like, Yo, I'm in this 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:36.160 studio with you. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.480 He was, Oh, I'm sorry. I thought, Oh damn, I 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:41.400 thought he worked here. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.960 So y'all institution, Man, I love to see it. That'll 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:46.400 be dope. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.919 Yeah, so I'll say that you definitely planned to see 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.000 in that to see if we can do this on 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:54.120 our own bill. 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.880 What's up man? All of our lives? 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:58.560 Like, I'm great. I was just thinking about what I 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.600 learned from the Little Brother documentary is do whatever the 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.600 fuck you want and be. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:05.440 Really good at it. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.200 Like that's the best piece of advice, Like don't succume 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.919 to anybody else's wants. Just do you and be true 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.639 to your art, like no Ship and I we all 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:15.840 make art here, but like to be that true to 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:17.880 it and like honest about it is really cool. And 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.280 that's what I learned, amongst other things about other certain people. 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:23.600 That's what I learned from the Little Brother documentary. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:24.760 I loved it. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.040 I would love to say that you're like your JMI 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:35.200 Jazz recording offices, Steve, but that's how that's how official 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.720 it looks right now. So I don't know what's going on, 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.400 Like you got your own merch now your own bags. 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:41.600 Like, oh you saw that. 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.360 Yeah, we're doing well JMI Recordings dot com. Yeah, little 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.800 jazz label here and Yo, Steve, I want to. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.680 Tell you too, Bro, I bought I finally broke down 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.360 and bought a turntable and I listened to like all 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.440 like the records that you've given. Bro, they sound amazing, man, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.600 like amazing, Like they sound great on vinyl. 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:03.840 So now y'all are doing a great job, Bro. This 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.560 ship is the shit is dope. The records really great. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.880 Thank you so much. I'll send you. I'll fill you 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:10.800 in on what you don't have. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.600 Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean cops, I mean the link. 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:14.000 You know. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:14.640 It takes money. 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.960 He makes, he makes house calls. He came to Hoboken 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.880 and delivered me records. That happens, Damn I have to ask. 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.560 Damn. Meanwhile, Steve, I live in the same building. 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.440 I find myself stealing my own product anyway, So let's 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.840 get to it. I will say I love a good 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:39.520 transformation story, the artistic metamorphosis or what we call uh 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:44.000 departure albums. I've even taught about departure albums at NY 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.080 you were a few semesters for those not hip to 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.600 the term. You know, departure album is basically like the 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.599 one album you can and that doesn't sound like what 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.080 you represented when you first came in the door. I 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.120 mean there's there's some legiti metamorphosis, like artists like and 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.960 grow eventually. I guess the most famous departure album would 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.880 be right going on? Well, no, I was going to 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.200 say Sergeant Pepper's was the very first one, because the 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.840 Beatles wanted to kill the Beatles or the idea of 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.120 the mop tops and teeny boppers and never tour again, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.719 and then that backfired and actually made them more famous 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.440 and then caused them to implode. But even that was 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.440 inspired by a departure record, which I guess you could 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.359 say pet Sounds by the Beach Boys as that, But 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:29.560 I mean there's millions of them. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.000 There's Thinker Life of Plants. 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.080 Yeah, Secret Life of Plants, right going on? Kid A 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.720 Grace land Light, Yeah, oh Rave Light? 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:39.599 Uh huh? 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:44.400 Actually was she trend hoping or was that really? 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.240 You know? It was it was a departure from what 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:49.000 came before. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.039 I'll say that, right, right, she wasn't popped. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.640 Okay, you're right, but I mean, well, awaken my love, 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.560 Ata waits and heartbreaks for hip hop, Paul's benef there 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.360 you go, yeah, bitch brewe dirty mind. So it's all there. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.360 Did the roots of a departure album? 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:06.479 What phrenology or something? It's hard to say. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:11.560 I mean, phrenology wasn't more an excuse to do something 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.200 different than I realized, Like how slow I was listening 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.279 to The Roots Come Alive and like shit was like slow, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.719 but also doing the Roots Come Alive? Like I was 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.440 at my physical heaviest at like four hundred plus pounds, 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.039 and I had lost weight for Phrenology, and suddenly I 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.320 felt like I wanted to be more energetic. So and 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.080 then it became like, let's just do what we're not 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.440 supposed to do. So it's sort of a departure record. 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.039 But time will tell if I was just you know, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.080 not willing to face the keep the things fall apart 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.760 thing alive? I don't know, but I will say that 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.479 our Guest Today has been a long time favorite of 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.279 mine since her two thousand and six debut, and shortly 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.120 there after I was fortunate enough to, I guess a 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.880 year later work on work with her on Al Green's 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.080 Laid Down album, and then a year after that we 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.920 worked on her sophomore album, To See, And you know, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.560 I kind of thought I had her completely figure it out, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.800 and nothing prepared me for her fourth record. I'll just 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:22.640 say that that much quick backstory. I guess our guest 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.160 and I reconnected in the summer of twenty twenty three. 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.680 She give me a copy of the record. She did 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.960 it so casually that two days went by before I 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.520 remember that, OHI the record, let me peep and see 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:36.560 what's up, And. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.080 You know, it was kind of gobsmack. 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:45.920 And again, I'm trying to avoid typical questlove hyper bowl 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:51.280 when it comes to my excitement for something. But you know, 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.360 it's been a minute that I've listened to a complete 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.560 album on repeat over again by an artist not named Salt, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.120 and I will to say that there's a lot to 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.200 unpack here. Normally I want to go through the whole, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.280 you know, journey of an artist's life, but I'm so 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.320 obsessed with this record. I have so many questions. I 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.320 might have to do this interview backwards. But yeah, for me, 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.240 Black Rainbows is one of my favorite records of the year, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.680 and I'm really really excited to have a conversation with 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.920 our guest today, Krinn Belly Ray One Quest Love Supreme. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.120 Welcome, Heydan, Thanks so much. Thanks for that introduction. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.480 Wait let me see, Oh god, okay, twelve minutes. We're 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.200 not bad. Normally I don't even get to the guest 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.760 until twenty seven minutes. All right, and it's time to go. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.640 Thank you very much, Karin, thank you. So right now 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.719 you are in You're in Connecticut right now? 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.120 Correct, right now, I'm in New York, so I may 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.160 or may not be getting up to Connecticut today. It 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.800 depends as loads of snow on the road. So I 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.480 always try and make a show like I'm happy to 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.559 be there, and if only twenty people come, then we're 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.760 still going to have a good time. But we'll see 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.359 what the he says. I hate cancel shows. It's so disappointing, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.360 you know. I hate to be a fan and have 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.360 a council show, and I've been to so many shows 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.960 where nobody else could make it. You know, then you 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.080 feel like you're the lucky one hundred people who brave 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.640 the storm or whatever. So yeah, hopefully we'll be up there. 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.760 And when someone cancels on you, okay, let me get 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:24.439 out my feelings anyway. Yeah, I hate when artists cancel 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.960 on people. Well, first of all, I'm curious for this 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.480 particular tour, how many musicians are you with because this 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.360 album is so sprawling in terms of its I mean, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.120 you literally cover every damn near every genre of music. 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.719 And you know, my obsession with it was how is 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.599 she going to pull this off live? What is the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.800 makeup of the band that you're with on tour? 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.559 The lineup, there's just six of us in the band. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.880 So there is Melanie Charles who's singing and she's playing 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.240 flute and she's playing percushion, and I'm singing and playing guitar, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.640 electric guitar and some percussion stuff. Aaron Barnette is playing 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:12.160 tenor saxophone. Kyle Bolden is playing electric guitar, who I 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.079 absolutely love. I've wanted to work with him for a 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.880 long time. He plays with Stevie Wonder and we're lucky 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.720 that Stevie's in the studio right now, so it's like 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.880 entice Kyle. So yeah, so's he's kind of like three people, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.440 you know. He plays just one guitar. He showed me 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.440 his guitar the other day. It folds in half and 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.800 packs in a backpack, you know, like some guitars. Really 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:34.679 it has to be this and it has to be 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.200 this wood that's maple and cherry and seasoned. And he's 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.880 just like it folds and half, he puts it in 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.559 his backpack. He's playing one guitar through the whole show 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.079 the string you know, it falls forward and the strings everything. 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.080 It's a portable guitar that it's playing right now and 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.880 he can cover. He's playing like wailing electric guitar. He's 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.920 playing like really pretty Curtis Mayfield, and he just does 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:00.600 it all. It's just in the spring, you know. So 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.880 he's amazing. And then I'm playing with Stephen Brown. He's 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.319 my long time collaborator and he has a massive setup. 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.920 So he has a few keyboards. He's playing bass sometimes 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.640 with the with organ pedals that he has underneath the 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.480 underneath the keyboards, he's playing based with his feet a 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.920 lot of times, or sometimes he's playing synth bas sometimes 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.760 he's playing electric bass. Look on New York Transit Queen. 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:23.680 He gets up from the keyboards and he has a 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.440 whole row on top of we've taken spring tanks, and 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:32.440 we've taken headles, we've taken modular synths, so everything that 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.880 he's doing on stage sort of all of the sends 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.720 from stage are going into that rig so that he 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.640 can affect it in real time, so that he can, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.400 you know, if we're singing and we wanted to get 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.959 like trippy and transcendent, he can put in his delays 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.280 and reverbs and backwards things and octavizers and then that's 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.200 going out to front of house. So yeah, we just 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.000 we just put it all on a plane yesterday. I 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.080 think are over oversize or whatever. You know, we have 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.960 to pay over it. She was like like, what, we 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:02.679 can't leave any of this shit behind. You know, it's 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.280 just like boxes and boxes and stuff. But it's worth 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.040 it because I like to be able to make this 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:08.480 six more expensive sound. 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:09.640 Yeah. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:15.240 You know, I'm also known for completely wild outtakes, and 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.559 of which I don't want to get canceled, so I'll 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.240 I'll say the majority of them behind, but I will 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.880 say the safest one of my wild outtakes was I 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:26.200 think maybe. 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.440 This was ideally. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:36.320 The album I thought I was making with Electric Circus 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.400 where you know, where you want to show a wide 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.199 range of styles but not appear to be too you know, 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:52.040 over eager or enthusiastic with it, like it just sounds natural. 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.760 And then you know, by the third listen, I realized 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.720 that like you're literally covering you're covering so much territory. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:06.320 Like you go from literally from this, uh, you know, 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.320 some shit goes completely hardcore to you know, then you 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.000 go after futurists and you do this nineties Riot Girls 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.240 throwback thing, and then like with the last song before 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.040 the Throne, like it's almost like like you transport it 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.920 back to an Alice Coltrane kind of outtake, and the 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.000 thing one is like I was hoping the song was 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.319 gonna be seventeen minutes like an Alice Coltrane song, and 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.560 then it cuts off and I'm like, what the fuck? 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:34.840 But that was one of my favorite ones on the 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.160 album too. That's a hard ass. That's a hard that 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:38.160 it flows the album. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.920 That Yeah, it's goddamn and it's can you tell me 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.440 just from soup to nuts how you put it together? 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.840 Because in my mind it's so every song is so unique. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.040 I think if making it in real time, I wouldn't 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.920 know how you had seen it as cohesive, but yet 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:57.679 together it feels cohesive. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.360 Can can you just describe to us the process. 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:02.800 I'm glad that it feels like one thing, and it 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.559 felt like one thing to me because it was all 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.199 driven by this obsession, and it was driven by this 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.560 subsession with this building. I had been on a friend's board. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:12.600 It was like a it was a Pinterest board that 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:14.760 she had she called Jamala John's and she's kind of 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.400 a arc curator. I think in the early days of Pinterest, 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.280 it wasn't just like this is a cute hairstyle, but 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.600 some people were using it like a magazine, you know. 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.720 So there they were using they would put up a 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.680 picture and then they were just right tons and tons. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.280 And she had this board called Artists and their Creatives 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.880 and their Workplaces. So she had Carra Walker arranging her silhouettes. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.720 She had a Picasso painting with light, and she had 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.840 this photograph of this artist, this black artist, contemporary artist, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.440 this man, and he was sort of staring out of 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:52.040 the frame with this peacefuls of bold expression and behind 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.400 him was this weird contemporary art that I didn't understand, 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.520 you know, A pile of bricks on the floor, this 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.920 shaggy goat instead of legs, it had the spindles and 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.200 it was going around on a circular track. And then 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.880 there was a big shop for a big sign for 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.640 a shop, Harold's Chicken Shop in Chicago, with like a 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.680 chef chasing after a chicken with a meat leaver. And 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:15.640 he was just looking out like he was represented by 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.040 white Cuban. He was looking at the frame like, yeah, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.840 this is my art, you know. And I thought, who 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.200 is this? I don't know contemporary art. Who's this man specifically, 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.720 who's this black man who's not working in figurative art? 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:26.880 Right? 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.680 It's not paintings of people, it's not drawings of people, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.240 it's not photographs. It's this stuff. And I found out 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.800 he was called theaster Gates. And then when I did 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.320 some research, I found out that part of his practice 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.160 is saving these buildings on the South side of Chicago. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.240 You know, he lives in the South Side of Chicago. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.800 He's watched many buildings just get torn down by the city, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.800 you know, on the Stoney Island where this building is 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.280 used to have big theaters, you know, really important theaters 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.600 for black music, and just over the years have been 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:05.560 torn down one by one, so I mean Chicago's architectural masterpieces. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.680 But then when you get to the south side, there's 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.080 these holes, dise these gaps, and it's a kind of 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.880 erasure of the history of the place and of the presence, 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.520 the black presence in the place. And so he saw 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.200 this bank. It's one hundred year old bank and had 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.920 been slated for demolition for a long time. It's going 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.680 to be pulled down by the city. The basement was underwater, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.720 but it's this beautiful bank with these columns outside, and 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.920 it's like a big square sort of Greeco Roman building 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.880 on Stoney Island. And he decided he was going to 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.200 save it, and so he bought it for one dollar 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.080 from the government, and he saved four million dollars by 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.120 selling his own art to transform this bank. So it 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.000 doesn't have art in anymore, it doesn't have any money in. 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.920 He's saved it by filling it with art archives and 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:57.440 historical archives. So it has twenty six thousand books that 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.800 were given to the Johnson Publishing Company, to the Johnson 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.600 Publishing Company who made Ebony magazine, Jet magazine, the Egro Digest, 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.200 So from nineteen forty three, you know, if you wrote 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:14.119 a book in anything to do with black space, architecture, politics, dance, entertainment, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.520 recipe books, yearbooks. If you wrote PhDs and you wanted 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.240 the Johnsons to review it and include it in their publication, 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.160 you would send it to the Johnson's. So twenty six 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.080 thousand of these books you know, some of them we 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.439 know and the familiar, some of them super rare books. 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.720 It's got those. It's got all of Frankie Knuckles records. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.159 And when Frankie Nuckles passed away, his entire record collection 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.119 was given to the Stony Island Arts Bank, and it 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.800 also has upstairs on the second floor these problematic objects 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:51.520 from America's past, the mammy jars, the postcards depicting racial violence, 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:59.040 newspaper articles since the eighteen hundreds, advertising copy, signage, objects 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.080 for the home, photographs that were collected by this Black 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.240 and Chinese banker called Ed Williams, who would go to 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.040 these yard sales and flea markets and see these objects 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.600 and think, you know, who wants who's collecting these things? 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.800 Who wants to continue to have these things in the home. 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:18.720 So he would buy them to take them out of 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.199 circulation and put them in boxes in his house, and 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.679 once he had amassed forty thousand of these objects, his 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.439 kids were out, can we get it's kind of intense 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.440 to be around this stuff. Can we get this out? 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.440 So he gave that, he donated it to the Rebuilt Foundation. 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.120 So the Arts Bank is contemporary art on the walls, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.760 it has exhibitions. Then it's these historic objects, the Frankie Knuckles, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.480 it's all the slides from the University of Chicago, the 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.240 glass slides from when people give talk, so you know, 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.080 or all of history that had been photographed for the 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.040 University of Chicago. And then these twenty six thousand books. 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.000 So when I saw the work that THEASTA was doing, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.199 I thought, I want to get in that bank. I 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.000 just want to be there. I just want to look around. 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.320 I want to And we managed to connect with him. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.240 I was on tour, he came to the show. He 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.320 met up with me afterwards, and I was just like, Ah, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.679 I'm so excited to meet you. Because you're a visual artist, 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.640 because you also have a band called the Black Months 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.760 of Mississippi, because you're a saramacist, which I love ceramics, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.679 because he trained in Japan, and because he's collecting these 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:26.919 objects and because he's saving all these buildings in the 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.320 South side of Chicago. He has a social practice. I 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.440 just I was really excited to meet him, and I said, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.000 I really wish you'd come to the bank, but I'm 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.720 leaving town at like eight am tomorrow morning. And he said, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.280 I'm also leaving town tomorrow because I'm going to President 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.800 Obama's fiftieth birthday party. And I was like, Oh, okay, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.240 this is this is this guy is. So we opened 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.080 the bank early for us and I went to it, 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.119 and once I opened those doors, I've just sort of 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.679 blown away by the building, the side of the building, 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:59.399 the library, the double height cube, the just the amount 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.720 of you know, every single drawer you opened it just 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:08.080 like songs from slavery times, newspapers, curling newspapers from eighteen forties, 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.800 print adverts from the thirties, tins of beauty products, you know, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.879 just stuff and stuff and every corner and every just 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.520 the arrangement of it. And the ASTA said, oh, you 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:20.000 know you have to you have to do a show 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.760 in it, and straight away I sort of flashed on 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:25.800 the music that I had made to this point and 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.359 felt like this is a new vessel. Nothing that I 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.359 have made sort of fits in this space. It's a 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:37.119 different kind of response that's needed. But then when I left, 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.520 all I could think about was the things that I 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.119 had seen. You know, he had this sculpture in the corner, 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.119 and I said, oh, who did that? He said, it's 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.239 one of mine. And it looked like it had been 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.160 made from wood that had maybe had the paint stripped off. 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.679 There was a certain amount of violence to it. And 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.480 I said, oh, you know, what is it? And he said, 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.520 it's a sculpture I made. It's from the floorboards from 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.360 an abandoned police station in Chicago. And as soon as 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:08.600 he said that, I immediately was thinking about the floorboards. 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.480