Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, Welcome to Question Love Supreme. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Quest Love or had you realize the voice drop a
Speaker 1: few really right?
Speaker 2: That we got jokes?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm just saying, when you know the weird
Speaker 1: O Younger Big Show, I was like, hey, guys, were
Speaker 1: younger be here? From when Teacher's here. I'm like, if
Speaker 1: you've reached the ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Quest Love, Wait interest hit me? Should
Speaker 1: I even say that we're you know, how is Webby
Speaker 1: legit enough for us to be like for that to
Speaker 1: be the preface to our title, like the Webby.
Speaker 3: Winning, Webb winning Image nominated?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 2: Who beat us?
Speaker 1: Was that? Jamil?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, yeah, spread the love.
Speaker 1: Spread the love anyway, miir?
Speaker 4: If you try to say Webby winning enough times, it'll
Speaker 4: be a hit on podcast.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know. I still feel some sort of
Speaker 1: way that you know, we we've been Webby winning for
Speaker 1: the longest, they haven't given us our first award, so
Speaker 1: damn like, wait of it, yo, guys, this is this
Speaker 1: is this is notable. Mm hmm normally like you if
Speaker 1: it's like Lenny Kravitz on the show or someone of noting. No,
Speaker 1: but I mean, like, okay, so thank you.
Speaker 3: You can't show up.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I've been around that seeing what should look like. I said,
Speaker 3: I shoud command to wound.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, is matching her Lenny Kravit's energy right now?
Speaker 1: Hager coming to play anyway? Yeah, so like you, Well,
Speaker 1: obviously you're fine because you know you got new art,
Speaker 1: working fans and everything behind you.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm good.
Speaker 3: I just can I just say something real QUI because
Speaker 3: I usually don't. Sare no news about what I do
Speaker 3: outside this show, but I'm just very excited number one
Speaker 3: shout out some of other podcast loving Grid and Ja
Speaker 3: dot L. But also because me and my godmother Diana
Speaker 3: Williams are producing a book for my dad on all
Speaker 3: his photography. We're gonna self published, and today we got
Speaker 3: the word that a big publisher is like, I won't end,
Speaker 3: So I just want to.
Speaker 2: Let's go fucking go congrat.
Speaker 1: What was this? What was this era of photography?
Speaker 3: If you don't from the fifties to like the late eighties,
Speaker 3: and I'm talking like from you know. He was the
Speaker 3: photographer at the White House during the first met Black
Speaker 3: Music Month event.
Speaker 2: He's from the.
Speaker 3: March on Washington to the twenty year anniversary, to make
Speaker 3: it a holiday, just all the stuff.
Speaker 1: We we got to interview ya one day, just so
Speaker 1: we can find out about ourselves, all right. So, Bill,
Speaker 1: even though I know that you're not Team in Canto, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still acting like you are. I know, because all
Speaker 1: your peeps are you know about to.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'd love to be team money Bags along
Speaker 4: with being Team in Canto.
Speaker 1: But you you created the thriller of Broadway albums. Yo? Yes,
Speaker 1: so did you? My Hamlet a nice? So? I know
Speaker 1: your Hamilton checks that are really nice?
Speaker 2: They're okay?
Speaker 4: So, uh, my girlfriend and I are getting a new condo.
Speaker 5: Yes he said, yes, he said it.
Speaker 4: So wait a minute, you're moving out of what we
Speaker 4: can I'm staying in this place. But my girlfriend they're
Speaker 4: selling we rented there, they're selling her place, so we're
Speaker 4: buying a new place.
Speaker 1: Well that's good man.
Speaker 4: I'm not getting married. Everyone stopped with the knowing league
Speaker 4: and everything. I've already been married.
Speaker 1: I don't believe you, because Fante I was listening. I
Speaker 1: happen to be listening to a classic episode when Fante
Speaker 1: was happily divorced and thought that was how I was.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, good old days.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we should all have blistened happiness
Speaker 1: that includes you to Steve happiness what Yeah, happiness is okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we're happiness his thing?
Speaker 6: Uh fanticolo? How man, everything's good, Man good. I'm happy
Speaker 6: to have teacher here today. There's been a long time coming.
Speaker 6: I feel like she's really one of the kind of
Speaker 6: chronical unsung heroes of the genre, and I'm just really
Speaker 6: happy to get her story today. So this has been
Speaker 6: this is dream come true for me.
Speaker 2: Man still too young for unsung.
Speaker 3: Yeah song, but you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: We're singing her well. Yeah. As as uh Fante mentioned
Speaker 1: about our aforementioned guests, I'm gonna actually make it, Afro
Speaker 1: mentioned there you go. I knew that that bill would
Speaker 1: instantly prove that there you go we'd be winning. And
Speaker 1: Afro mentioned the two words that were you know, make
Speaker 1: it official. O. Our guest today is an awesome, awesome
Speaker 1: singer songwriter hailing from the city of Knowledge. Yes, I
Speaker 1: heard that residence of does not like us, saying Knowledge
Speaker 1: we don't care what you do.
Speaker 5: It's just high.
Speaker 1: I already know where this episode is going on, having
Speaker 1: having written, having written for the for the likes of
Speaker 1: Mary J. Blige, n Via Nivia, Navia, Nivia. I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta, you know, I gotta get the Lucien and
Speaker 1: the human right getting correct. I gotta get it. Okay,
Speaker 1: She's named after the Lucien's first It's also Macy gray Rock,
Speaker 1: feels Neo, many others that we could name her now
Speaker 1: debut classic, the almost twenty years old Complex Simplicity, was
Speaker 1: released to critical claim in two thousand and four, instantly
Speaker 1: granting her praise from critics and a very loyal fan base.
Speaker 1: We're very happy that she's doing us the honor of
Speaker 1: chopping and mixing us for this long overdue conversation. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest of Supreme the one
Speaker 1: and only Tidra Moses.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Hello, Hello, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think I'm gonna have to pull me some congyak
Speaker 6: for this one, dude.
Speaker 1: Now, really truly wish this was a visual show, because
Speaker 1: this is the exact backdrop that Denise Williams was in
Speaker 1: episode classic black and white photo above it and you know,
Speaker 1: an empty there you go. Damned anyway, how were you?
Speaker 1: Were you right now as we speak?
Speaker 5: I'm in l A right now.
Speaker 7: I live in Miami, though I'm oh.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, you live in Miami. I see, I see. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for coming to the show. I
Speaker 1: have to say, I think did you ever come to
Speaker 1: any of our grammy jams? I think we played together once, yes,
Speaker 1: but I don't think we've ever spoken.
Speaker 5: We've played together, we've spoken like I think it was
Speaker 5: like a text or something once, yeah, but never really like, hey,
Speaker 5: what's up?
Speaker 1: I feel like this is all right talking there you go,
Speaker 1: long overdue, long overdue? All right, Well, I'll start like
Speaker 1: I start with everyone else where. Okay, so where were
Speaker 1: you born? I know that you're hailing from New Orleans,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if you were born there.
Speaker 5: I was born in Jefferson Parish, which is right outside
Speaker 5: of Orleans Parish, and that's pretty much New Orleans. So
Speaker 5: I was born in Kenna, Louisiana, which is like the
Speaker 5: suburbs of New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 1: So New Orleans and Jason, what uh your family situation
Speaker 1: is it? Is it siblings or your parents?
Speaker 5: I have two sisters, two brothers. Four of us are
Speaker 5: from my mom and dad, and one is just from
Speaker 5: my dad. Old gotcha.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 5: Team Marie. My cousin was moving into a house behind
Speaker 5: my t t's house, and we cut a gate in
Speaker 5: because everybody, you know, in the South, we all.
Speaker 7: Live around each other and only lives around each other, so.
Speaker 5: We would cut gates or or cut like little paths
Speaker 5: to go to someone's house. And we tore the gate
Speaker 5: back from my teach's house to my cousin who was
Speaker 5: moving to the house behind. And the whole time she
Speaker 5: was unpacking, she was just playing that square of it
Speaker 5: is a I was really little, but that shit was hard.
Speaker 5: I loved it. I just I was a little kid
Speaker 5: loving Tein Marie. That's my first. I guess gospel was
Speaker 5: my first, because church. But the first time I really
Speaker 5: was excited was.
Speaker 1: Teamory because it must be magic album.
Speaker 5: That was your yeah, that one, Yes they lost you,
Speaker 5: that yeah, It's so good. And she was just unpacking
Speaker 5: and dancing and like all in her song. It was
Speaker 5: her first place, you know, And I was just watching that.
Speaker 7: I was loving the music.
Speaker 5: And I was supposed to be helping, but I was
Speaker 5: a little kids.
Speaker 7: I couldn't really help. But that's my first memory of music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you uh uh any experience like did you
Speaker 1: go through church as a singer or no.
Speaker 5: I watched, and I think church made me feel like
Speaker 5: I wasn't going to be I felt like I wasn't
Speaker 5: good enough. I had a sweet, little soft voice and
Speaker 5: church like. I come from Southern Mathist church and my
Speaker 5: mother was also a singer in the church. She was
Speaker 5: really big in our church, singing it in like on
Speaker 5: the southern shippming.
Speaker 7: Circuit of gospel.
Speaker 5: So they had such really powerful voices that I think
Speaker 5: I just never thought I was good enough.
Speaker 1: What was your mother's name, Shirley Moses? Okay, and so
Speaker 1: she pretty much for the same thing, a mire.
Speaker 7: That's so weird that you said she was looking like that.
Speaker 1: I was like, exactly didn't have a gospel southern gospel
Speaker 1: belter voice, so she felt like, you know, she had
Speaker 1: a sweet songbird voice, and she just didn't feel like
Speaker 1: she belonged. So okay, So you just tried to just
Speaker 1: blend in with the the the rest of the choir.
Speaker 1: You didn't do or anything.
Speaker 5: No, and I left New Orleans kind of before I
Speaker 5: developed my voice. I would walk around the house singing
Speaker 5: and sing in the shower sink to the radio, but
Speaker 5: I had to develop my voice. Yet I didn't develop
Speaker 5: my voice. So I got to California like high school,
Speaker 5: so I was I was a little and while I
Speaker 5: was in by the time we got to California, we
Speaker 5: didn't really go to church as much. And it wasn't
Speaker 5: sudden back it's it was just more like non the national,
Speaker 5: not the dominational type music, which is totally different.
Speaker 1: Okay, your experience in New Orleans is it? Could you
Speaker 1: describe what the environment was? You know, oftentimes I think
Speaker 1: everyone in New Orleans either you know, has second line
Speaker 1: experiences or you know, it's it's almost like if if
Speaker 1: if the movie Fame were a city, I would imagine
Speaker 1: it would be New Orleans where people just bust out,
Speaker 1: like you know, everyone has to sing or do something
Speaker 1: musical just to just to live or breathe or whatever.
Speaker 1: Was that the experience were you down there, like it's.
Speaker 5: Just music everywhere all day, even if it's not down
Speaker 5: to like, but even it's not as as extensive as
Speaker 5: the second line. You know, you in New Orleans. It's
Speaker 5: music and partying all the time, music, partying and.
Speaker 2: Drinking and drink and eating.
Speaker 7: And eating and eating.
Speaker 5: This is happening to New Orleans.
Speaker 2: I just know, pounds. You just gotta just just give
Speaker 2: yourself that grace because you.
Speaker 5: Know exactly, here's such thing as being a pescatarian or vegetary.
Speaker 5: You can't do anything of that stuff. Then you just eat,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 7: No, no, that's just.
Speaker 5: It's like in New Orleans. Growing up in Orleans' music
Speaker 5: everywhere from you know, jazz on the streets if you're
Speaker 5: in the city, you know, to gospel gospels, very very
Speaker 5: big there, zodical, you know. Then they came Bounce, and
Speaker 5: hip hop was always big for us. But before Bounce,
Speaker 5: we just listened to New York hip hop, you know.
Speaker 5: So it was like more based on that and music everywhere.
Speaker 5: I don't ever recall, like even in the school I went.
Speaker 5: I went to all black school, private school by the
Speaker 5: name of Saint John of Walk, and we had choir
Speaker 5: and our teacher was a lady named the Shatters who
Speaker 5: passed not too long ago, but she's like the first
Speaker 5: person that kind of showed me my voice. We just
Speaker 5: had music everywhere, Sunday's on church, Tuesdays and Wednesdays or
Speaker 5: whatever for choir her So you know, all my brother
Speaker 5: and his turn to music everywhere. We had block parties,
Speaker 5: and then outside of that then you do have second
Speaker 5: lines and it's just music everywhere.
Speaker 7: It to the point that you don't even notice it.
Speaker 6: It's just that I wanted to ask you a question
Speaker 6: since you're from the area, about zydaco, because that's just
Speaker 6: a kind of music that we didn't really into Carolinas,
Speaker 6: we didn't really get a lot of it, but like
Speaker 6: a lot of my homies like Louisiana, Texas, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, And it has a big black following.
Speaker 6: Like I followed a lot of like dance stuff on
Speaker 6: ig like a lot of dancers and there's like some
Speaker 6: zydacal dance like they were doing them. Motherfuckers was getting it.
Speaker 6: It's not it's not stepping, it's like a it's it's
Speaker 6: you dance because you're dancing close, like the man and
Speaker 6: the woman danced close, so it's not like a step,
Speaker 6: but it's crazy dance.
Speaker 5: I just know the music.
Speaker 6: It was a club them man, they was getting it.
Speaker 6: Duing cowboy hats and it was all brothers, like brothers.
Speaker 1: I've never seen side because all my black all my
Speaker 1: side of experiences are like the white guys, well there are.
Speaker 5: Because it's it's a little bit more cajun Ish than Creole,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. It's more Cajun Gatorish than Creole,
Speaker 5: which Cajun and you know, Cajun and Creole is totally different,
Speaker 5: kind of like white white.
Speaker 1: Basically you know, more black, which part is which the
Speaker 1: black part.
Speaker 5: Creole Creole is black and French African and French, and
Speaker 5: then the Cajun is more from when uh, the Louisiana
Speaker 5: purchase happened, and it went all the way into Canada
Speaker 5: and then they migrated down the Canadians, the French Canadians
Speaker 5: migrated down to Louisiana, and they're kind of like above us.
Speaker 5: They're not really in the bottom. They're not at the
Speaker 5: bottom with us, the Creole people, but they mixed eventually
Speaker 5: came down. But it's more like here's a simple thing. Creole,
Speaker 5: we eat our gumbowl with rice, okay, with with like
Speaker 5: when they eating it with.
Speaker 8: Potato salad is totally different yet exactly it's just totally
Speaker 8: different Cajus white French from Canada, Creole African French.
Speaker 1: Okay, so since you open the door, now I gotta ask,
Speaker 1: are your culinary skills as good as your musicals?
Speaker 5: I can cook, I can really cook. But here's the thing,
Speaker 5: I started trying to be healthy, so I have to
Speaker 5: go back to my old ways to really you know,
Speaker 5: throw it down for you. Like I don't use buttering
Speaker 5: everything anymore, but I use butter and everything. But I'm
Speaker 5: cooking cook because that's the base of all the food
Speaker 5: really good. But you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 5: can cook. I can definitely.
Speaker 7: I mean, nobody's gonna leave my table, not keys or
Speaker 7: my bad.
Speaker 5: But that's the whole story.
Speaker 1: Believe this is what I'm seeing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like, what's you're trained to do in the South?
Speaker 5: You train in those areas you go you know, you
Speaker 5: go hard in those areas.
Speaker 7: Your bedroom, your kitchen, you get that together.
Speaker 5: You got everything that got mean your workout game must
Speaker 5: be amazing.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, because you gotta have energy and you gotta
Speaker 3: have room.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I'm at Wallstford's written now I forgot interview.
Speaker 6: So I was thinking about you. You're talking about your
Speaker 6: l A days. I didn't know talk about your days
Speaker 6: with the Good Life Cafe that I understood you came
Speaker 6: up kind of around that.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, I moved to la at fourteen, and I
Speaker 5: moved to l A.
Speaker 7: I moved.
Speaker 5: I didn't move to l A. I moved to West Covina,
Speaker 5: which is in the valley.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 5: And so we would travel into the city to get
Speaker 5: because I moved from New Orleans to West Kobina the valley.
Speaker 5: It was culture shock. So I found friends that came
Speaker 5: from you know, their parents have taken me out of
Speaker 5: the city because it's gangs and stuff like that into
Speaker 5: the valley. And so I found friends that I could
Speaker 5: travel into the city way and we found Good Life
Speaker 5: and the murd Park and all that stuff. And it
Speaker 5: was just an unbelievable movement, you know, of musicians and
Speaker 5: hip hop. And I also was with my sons, my
Speaker 5: children's father Raskaz, and so he kind of would I
Speaker 5: was kind of like a running around with him and
Speaker 5: I would just it was amazing. It was in retrospect,
Speaker 5: we didn't know then what it was, but in retrospect
Speaker 5: it was kind of like a big pot of all
Speaker 5: these creative people and it just kind of spilled and
Speaker 5: bled onto you. You know, you learned about things that
Speaker 5: I knew jazz, but I didn't know the kind of jazz,
Speaker 5: and they were telling me about I knew about hip hop,
Speaker 5: I didn't know like what you know. It was just
Speaker 5: like a really really great community of young musicians and
Speaker 5: young creative and not all musicians.
Speaker 3: Who else was in the Good Life Because I think
Speaker 3: for some folks who never heard of it, well I
Speaker 3: wasn't in it.
Speaker 5: I would witness it. I would witness it because they
Speaker 5: would have these functions and you know people right.
Speaker 7: The one that I probably would probably was more verse.
Speaker 5: With was Unity.
Speaker 7: Bigger b I think his name was.
Speaker 5: He did this thing called Unity, Yeah, and he had
Speaker 5: this thing where he would bring all of these different
Speaker 5: artists to LA. It was like the first person to
Speaker 5: bring all these different artists to LA. I knew Good
Speaker 5: Life and I would be around that. But what I
Speaker 5: paid attention to more so is when rads would go
Speaker 5: to a Good Life. I mean, I give a Unity
Speaker 5: and we would see like boutang plan all these different
Speaker 5: people that really weren't coming to LA, you know when
Speaker 5: they were first starting. But Good Life was more something
Speaker 5: that I was around a few times. Unity was to
Speaker 5: me the thing that I don't think it's talked about
Speaker 5: enough in l A. Bigger B had a whole movement.
Speaker 5: I think the first person that kind of had this
Speaker 5: going on, it was pre my time was the Uncle
Speaker 5: Jam Army guys. Yeah, but Bigger B was like that
Speaker 5: for real hip hop, true hip hop.
Speaker 7: Lovers, you know, And I was just kind of like
Speaker 7: a tag along the rest.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I was gonna say that. It just hit
Speaker 1: me that my first year at Fallon, this new filmmaker
Speaker 1: named Avert Deverney came to interview me. I believe her
Speaker 1: first film project was about the Good Life Cafe. I
Speaker 1: think it was called This Is It was called this
Speaker 1: is the Life I think. Yeah, but has that has
Speaker 1: that officially? Have you guys seen it? Has it officially
Speaker 1: come out?
Speaker 5: Or I thought it was. Yeah, it was a show
Speaker 5: I think, I think I don't really like but maybe
Speaker 5: that's not what I saw. But I saw a documentary
Speaker 5: type of thing about good life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, it was the first joint. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, it's I know what or a bus
Speaker 1: driver one of my favorite underground or I hate saying underground.
Speaker 1: It's such a you know, it's like damning someone to
Speaker 1: only the purple property at the beginning of the monopoly board.
Speaker 2: But critically, you know, if you're a fan.
Speaker 1: Of like Freestyle Fellowship, the Jurassic Five Cats, that's very
Speaker 1: like yeah, John oh Medusa, like yeah, I'll say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, when we first started, even though they were
Speaker 1: at the tail end of oh Far Side also they
Speaker 1: were at the tail end of their era. That's when
Speaker 1: the roots first started coming out there. But we, like
Speaker 1: I met a lot of those guys, so almost felt
Speaker 1: like we were you know, they're distant cousins often doing
Speaker 1: shows out there, and you know.
Speaker 5: People can ask a question really quickly. Why do more
Speaker 5: people talk about the Floor Side, Because I think the
Speaker 5: Far Side for the West Coast was kind of like
Speaker 5: and maybe this is overstepping, comparable to Quests, the.
Speaker 2: Bizarre Ride.
Speaker 3: Bizarre Ride, I mean, that's it, That's that's Midnight Marauders.
Speaker 7: Let's come up.
Speaker 1: Like that, because the thing is is that unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out another a two piece with Biscuit,
Speaker 1: which is like Biggie Like Unfortunately, it's like you know,
Speaker 1: for the Far Side one, it's been thirty years and
Speaker 1: it's really technically two albums like that one album, they
Speaker 1: took themselves out the running even though both classic. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing Eminem will say all day that literally
Speaker 1: Eminem's you know, said this a billion times that his
Speaker 1: whole presentation, like the cartoony voice, the wordplay, all that
Speaker 1: stuff like Bizarre Ride to the Far Side was Eminem's
Speaker 1: blueprint for the first three, uh first three records of this.
Speaker 1: Like if you listen to him rhyme and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: like the cartoony voice and all that stuff, like he's
Speaker 1: essentially just you know, that's him just overdosing on the
Speaker 1: far Side. Yeah, you're right, definitely for a lot of
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't those people that like went territorial,
Speaker 1: like oh their East coast, their West coast, But I
Speaker 1: definitely remember them changing the perception of of what we thought.
Speaker 6: Nah for us, it was for us on this side,
Speaker 6: it was far side. Of course, absolutely souls the mischief
Speaker 6: and the alcoholics.
Speaker 2: Alcoholics man listen then was my nigga. I love it.
Speaker 1: But I'll say that when we heard Bizarre Ride to
Speaker 1: the Far Side, that was the prime reason why we
Speaker 1: put Scott's Storch in the Roots because you know, they
Speaker 1: were using It's so weird that, you know, even though
Speaker 1: Tribe had been doing it the way that Jay Swift
Speaker 1: was using Fender Rhodes on that album, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole tremolo sound and all that stuff. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: we need that sound too, so entering Scott Storage coming
Speaker 1: into the Roots and you know, but yeah, we were.
Speaker 1: Actually they've reunited with the is it Booty Brown that's
Speaker 1: not in the group. I know that Fat Fat List,
Speaker 1: Fat Lip is battle, so now it's bat Lip. Uh
Speaker 1: everybody is for everything the money. Yeah, man, that that
Speaker 1: streaks me so.
Speaker 5: Much too too. I just love what they did, and
Speaker 5: I just would really like it when people talking about
Speaker 5: that era they would get a little bit more because
Speaker 5: they I really I saw how much they influenced a
Speaker 5: lot of the rappers that came after them on the
Speaker 5: West Coast.
Speaker 1: All Right, My gift to hip hop is I got
Speaker 1: to start a life coaching service for rappers. No, it's real,
Speaker 1: Like I'm currently I don't even know if I just
Speaker 1: say this. I'm trying to get my life coach to
Speaker 1: talk to both Run and D about how much valuable
Speaker 1: time they are wasting because I mean, run the MC
Speaker 1: is like are rolling stones, yo, and for them to
Speaker 1: just it's a communication is And I've talked to both
Speaker 1: of them and they're down to like, yeah, okay, how
Speaker 1: do life coach like leg like hip hop needs this
Speaker 1: and if you can, you.
Speaker 3: Got to get the guys together, you basically they got
Speaker 3: to be together so that we can champion them so
Speaker 3: then they can really win and we can champion them
Speaker 3: like a lot of these other legends.
Speaker 1: Yes, so right now, the Far Side is back as
Speaker 1: the Far Side, although technically now they spell it with
Speaker 1: an F and not a pH, So I'm assuming spun
Speaker 1: on his head. You don't. You don't know what's happening
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: With the like no idea, none of this is that
Speaker 2: not with that? Yeah, so they they're there now.
Speaker 1: If you go on their Instagram page as the Far
Speaker 1: Side to words F A R, S I D E.
Speaker 2: Like the cartoon. Yeah, right, Like how is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's it's three fourths of them are
Speaker 1: back now.
Speaker 6: So were you and Brass were y'all pursuing music at
Speaker 6: the same time at that time coming up or were
Speaker 6: you just were you like actually prefinded singing as well,
Speaker 6: and he was rhyming or how.
Speaker 5: Was y'all doing? I was pushing him, he was did
Speaker 5: he know? You can say, no, he.
Speaker 7: Didn't really know, Like I didn't really.
Speaker 5: I did wardrobe for years, Like I would be around
Speaker 5: I mean, Hype did my first video. I would be
Speaker 5: around Hype.
Speaker 8: He didn't.
Speaker 7: He didn't know, like everybody just didn't know, because.
Speaker 1: I Williams that, yeah.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 5: I would be around ye, I would be around all
Speaker 5: kind of executives because I did wardrobe.
Speaker 7: I would be with raz a different places. I mean,
Speaker 7: I just didn't talk about that because it was his time.
Speaker 5: It was his time, you know. And I'm from the South,
Speaker 5: you know, so I'm one of those women. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you do those and I trust that when it's my time,
Speaker 5: I'll do mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: But we're gonna focus.
Speaker 5: On you right now. But this just focuses stuff. It
Speaker 5: came back to me, so I have to go figure
Speaker 5: it out by myself.
Speaker 7: But he did introduce me to the guy that did my.
Speaker 5: First album with me, but he we didn't. He didn't
Speaker 5: even know I really sing like that. I mean I
Speaker 5: may have. He may have heard me singing a little bit,
Speaker 5: and you know, I think I may have done some singing.
Speaker 5: The teacher come do this song because he knew I
Speaker 5: could sing a little, but it wasn't something that I
Speaker 5: made a big deal about.
Speaker 1: Did it weird him out when you finally became transparent
Speaker 1: with your voice and sort of came out the shadows
Speaker 1: like Okay, I'm singing, I'm pursuing this. Did it?
Speaker 5: No? I don't think it weirded him out. I just
Speaker 5: remember we worked together at this point. He introduced me
Speaker 5: to the guy called Pauli. I did the first time
Speaker 5: when we started working. Pauli started working, and then he
Speaker 5: was supposed to be involved. He was supposed to be involved,
Speaker 5: but I think it was just like, oh, it's my baby, mama,
Speaker 5: she's singing, you know what I mean. I remember one
Speaker 5: day we were driving somewhere and he was like, this
Speaker 5: is really good. We're going to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: We asked that because yeah, I dated someone who never
Speaker 1: revealed to me that she was a classically chained pianist.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So accidentally.
Speaker 5: How long plus did you?
Speaker 1: It was like it was like two years. Like I
Speaker 1: think I shared this story before where I was late
Speaker 1: for a sound check, had to circle back to the
Speaker 1: hotel and I was in one of those weeks that
Speaker 1: had a piano in it. She was this, I mean
Speaker 1: it was like a couple of steps steps above, like
Speaker 1: for at least I mean, was it like, like did
Speaker 1: you like I walked in the room, like, what is this?
Speaker 1: It's like two years like you didn't tell me, you know,
Speaker 1: I played piano. So yeah, that that was that was
Speaker 1: weird to me. That's what I meant, Like, did you
Speaker 1: hold it back for so long?
Speaker 5: No, he knew because I was. He knew I had
Speaker 5: like a little bit. He knew I could sing a
Speaker 5: little because he would hear me around the house singing,
Speaker 5: you know, little.
Speaker 1: Things like that. So you said that your first entry
Speaker 1: into the business wasn't even with singing. It was with
Speaker 1: fashion first.
Speaker 5: Yeah. My best friend was a wardrobe She still is
Speaker 5: to this day, designer Najra Kinzy. She was a wardrobe
Speaker 5: stylist at the time, and I needed money. I got
Speaker 5: laid off of my job from sitting there surfing the
Speaker 5: internet too long. I was bored.
Speaker 2: What was your job beforehand?
Speaker 5: I was an administrator assistant administrator at a uh A
Speaker 5: architectural firm that he'll built a high.
Speaker 7: Oh I was bored, ship Girl, and.
Speaker 5: The internet was new, so I would just be on
Speaker 5: the internet looking at anything I could look at. And
Speaker 5: this is back when it was dollar son.
Speaker 1: Phone the phone. I'm shocked that she's.
Speaker 5: Not a.
Speaker 9: Yeah, right right, talk about you talk about being a
Speaker 9: stylist in like that moment first of all, when you
Speaker 9: felt comfortable enough to make the transition to.
Speaker 3: Let people know, were you slowly letting people know, Like
Speaker 3: would just sing a little bit while you're just you know,
Speaker 3: fixing an outfit.
Speaker 5: And somebody was like, no, and maybe that's what you're
Speaker 5: supposed to do, but I think that's corny and ship
Speaker 5: I think whatever you're there to do, that's what you do.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's how I feel.
Speaker 5: So I would be there putting on somebody's shoes or
Speaker 5: rolling down you know, and even with like guys trying
Speaker 5: to talk to you or whatever you need. I just
Speaker 5: always kept it as a job. This I'll take care of
Speaker 5: my sons, you know. So I just kept it the job.
Speaker 5: And like I said, I would be around these different people, dancers, singers, artists,
Speaker 5: all this stuff.
Speaker 7: They're like, oh, hey, you teach your mobile and if
Speaker 7: you smoke cannabis.
Speaker 5: If you're in a on video sets, you're gonna be
Speaker 5: in a circle with all kind of people, so they
Speaker 5: know we're smoking together. Once you're in decided with somebody
Speaker 5: that's your best friend, so we would all be around
Speaker 5: smoking doing you know, in between, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 5: But I just never mentioned it because first of all,
Speaker 5: I'm shy, which nobody knows that.
Speaker 3: When it comes to her talent, I believe you're shot.
Speaker 5: I don't like subjection, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 5: if someone was to tell me I wasn't good, it
Speaker 5: was gonna either get violent or sad. I was going to.
Speaker 1: And you see him a little peky wired on us.
Speaker 5: I'm better now.
Speaker 7: But but the thing is, you go back, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: You just out there.
Speaker 7: I was young, you know, but no one knew.
Speaker 5: No one knew because I was just doing my job
Speaker 5: and I just was appreciative of what I was doing
Speaker 5: at that time. And I remember Ras and I broke up,
Speaker 5: and that's when I started pursuing it because it was like,
Speaker 5: I can't just I saw my friend doing what she
Speaker 5: loved and I stopped. I stopped doing, uh the wardrobe
Speaker 5: style because I broke my leg. And while I was
Speaker 5: sitting there on downtime and collecting my eighteen hundred dollars
Speaker 5: a month in the what do you call it when
Speaker 5: workers camp, I was like, are you gotta figure something out?
Speaker 2: And did y'all have the twins at that point?
Speaker 5: Y'all with full fledge in this thing? I was, they
Speaker 5: were like three years old. I was, you know, res
Speaker 5: and I went together. I was pretty much taking care
Speaker 5: of itut myself. And it was like, you gotta figure
Speaker 5: this out because I couldn't. I couldn't go work at
Speaker 5: the post office, so I wouldn't be with those people
Speaker 5: that killed anybody, you know what I mean? Like, I
Speaker 5: couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: But did you know you.
Speaker 7: Could write a song?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, did you know?
Speaker 5: I say this? I'm saying that from the standpoint people,
Speaker 5: you can't stifle things in you. You can't like suppress
Speaker 5: these things. They come out wrong.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 5: So I did know I could write songs because I
Speaker 5: would get all the rads, would get these packs from
Speaker 5: Dave J Dilla, and that's who I would write over.
Speaker 5: I would write over unreleased J Dilla beats and I
Speaker 5: didn't even know who somebody. Wow. When he was getting
Speaker 5: these tracks, I didn't know. I was just singing over
Speaker 5: him and I loved Like Water for Chocolate. I love
Speaker 5: that album so much. And eventually he told me, oh,
Speaker 5: that's the same thing that, did you know?
Speaker 7: And it came together. But I wrote so many songs.
Speaker 5: Over I wrote like maybe to one beat, three and
Speaker 5: four songs because that's what I had. Did you tell?
Speaker 3: Did you?
Speaker 5: And j Dela ever?
Speaker 1: Did he ever know that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 8: Did you No?
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 7: I never met this man.
Speaker 5: I didn't I didn't know.
Speaker 7: You know, I didn't know. I just loved music, and
Speaker 7: so what RAS would have.
Speaker 5: I would go through whatever he had, and I remember
Speaker 5: he particularly had the CD from Jay Dilla, and I
Speaker 5: would play those that CD over and over and write
Speaker 5: songs to those. I would write over Prince Records. I
Speaker 5: would write over already written songs that I would just
Speaker 5: hear the music and start to formulate my own song
Speaker 5: over the music.
Speaker 2: That's harder.
Speaker 6: That's that's harder than a lot of people realized, to
Speaker 6: like write over oh god, yeah, to take yeah yeah,
Speaker 6: Like to just take something that's already established and just
Speaker 6: write a new song over that. To hear that in
Speaker 6: a different way, like that's that's.
Speaker 1: A skin book songs.
Speaker 7: I did that often.
Speaker 5: I just you know, I don't know if you guys
Speaker 5: ever were in a place where you couldn't do it
Speaker 5: or didn't seem like a realistic thing for you. I
Speaker 5: just wanted to do it. However, I could do it
Speaker 5: because it was in me and it needed to come
Speaker 5: out to the point that it was making me depressed
Speaker 5: and sad.
Speaker 7: I didn't even know why, you know, so I just
Speaker 7: had to do it.
Speaker 5: And I would just takes a computer and put it
Speaker 5: in his CD and just start the CDs of beats
Speaker 5: and yourself.
Speaker 1: Can I ask one question, because the thing is is
Speaker 1: this might be the only chance that we get to
Speaker 1: ask a former stylist a question. Okay, And I'm also
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm a I'm a I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a Kenya Barrass supporter and completed. So you know, Zoe's
Speaker 1: character on Grownish is a stylist.
Speaker 2: Now she is good for you and mayor.
Speaker 1: I'm supporting all my Kenya Bearrass projects. You know, thinking thing,
Speaker 1: but my question is what is the process of being well?
Speaker 1: First of all, who are your clients? Were these established music.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, no, we were Will Smith's stylar team for
Speaker 5: about two to three years. Police nas r Kelly.
Speaker 3: These are good, these looks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we would. My friend she had two of us
Speaker 5: from high school. Were just high school friends like having fun,
Speaker 5: you know, and so she was the key. Nanga was
Speaker 5: the key, my other We were all three best friends.
Speaker 5: Nanga was the key. I was more administrative, and my
Speaker 5: friend Myisha Loong. She was also like a second in
Speaker 5: line for like creative, and we would kind of like
Speaker 5: the mod squad. I don't even heard of mod squad
Speaker 5: with June Ambrose. Yeah, we were kind of like that.
Speaker 5: And you know, we would be on different different sets.
Speaker 5: She would have three jobs going the time. I'm on
Speaker 5: this set just one of our set. We got assistants
Speaker 5: under them. You know, we had a whole thing moving.
Speaker 1: How do you secure Like, okay, so for me, my
Speaker 1: crock obsessions getting a little crazy now, So how do
Speaker 1: you secure accounts from? Do you go like from established
Speaker 1: the companies and also from newer people, Like how do
Speaker 1: you call them?
Speaker 5: You just call them so you would back then That's
Speaker 5: all we had to do was call them, send them
Speaker 5: a letter, let them know that we're working facts, and
Speaker 5: back then a letter let them know that we're working
Speaker 5: on something and if they were interested in that, artists,
Speaker 5: they would then it's product. And back then, you know,
Speaker 5: back then, and it was like lots of money involved.
Speaker 5: They gave you. People were giving a lot of things away,
Speaker 5: so we could know. But even when we would come
Speaker 5: in with a new maybe because we had top clients,
Speaker 5: when we come in with a new artist, we could
Speaker 5: get them all. So, I mean we would do projects
Speaker 5: sometimes and pay for nothing because we could get so
Speaker 5: much stuff for free from these different home companies. You
Speaker 5: just kind of we just reached out.
Speaker 1: But also know that it's problematic where an artist will
Speaker 1: like an article or garment a little bit too much
Speaker 1: and then you're not going to see it again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been I've been part of many video shoots where
Speaker 1: it's like where are those Jordan's at? You know that
Speaker 1: sort of so yeah.
Speaker 5: But now in the product place and the situation they're
Speaker 5: giving it to you. Now where you're when you're going
Speaker 5: to a studio service, which is you know you probably
Speaker 5: know this, really you go and you have to pull
Speaker 5: clothes from you know, the different department stores or Gucci
Speaker 5: whoever they let out the clothes on consignment.
Speaker 7: This is where the problems came.
Speaker 1: That's where the rappers. Boy, where the boys are like,
Speaker 1: you know, you.
Speaker 5: Might have to stand next to for all days, put
Speaker 5: it in your bosom or something, because.
Speaker 7: They will literally try to take it.
Speaker 5: And then you know, you would be on sets with
Speaker 5: rappers that had like fifty dudes from the hood, and
Speaker 5: you're in the hood, you're not just you're in Queen's
Speaker 5: Bridge with fifty people that's here, that's supposed to be here,
Speaker 5: then hundreds of others that's not and five for two
Speaker 5: one hundred and ten pounds, I have to protect this
Speaker 5: whole trailer full of merchandise probably up.
Speaker 7: To about a cool hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: You know, you know you've been in a situation before
Speaker 3: Tjer where you was like, I'm not.
Speaker 1: People don't bridge, no.
Speaker 3: But you heard what she said to me. She said,
Speaker 3: people not even tested, not even tested, no, Because it's.
Speaker 5: Like, at the end of the day, I come from
Speaker 5: a place where I know what's going on. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: so when I see and I also talk to people
Speaker 5: with respect and tell people what's really going on. Like
Speaker 5: I got kids to feed don't mess me up. You
Speaker 5: take this stuff and I'm mess you know, I got
Speaker 5: to step from my pocket and you take it. You know,
Speaker 5: So you talk to people like they're like, oh, baby girl,
Speaker 5: it's all good. You know, I got whatever. And if
Speaker 5: I could get you something, if I you know, cause
Speaker 5: it'll be like some free sneak, cause here you go,
Speaker 5: take this. This is what you get. You can't have
Speaker 5: this just have to be paid for.
Speaker 1: Just common sense, street sense, converce chucks. Thank you, teacher,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Exactly more stylus question, like, on that note, since you
Speaker 3: talked about being in ciphers and being on sets and whatnot,
Speaker 3: did your experiences as a stylist, uh, kind of make
Speaker 3: you a little apprehensive about entering the music business.
Speaker 2: Or where was it?
Speaker 3: Like, Okay, I feel like maybe I know a little
Speaker 3: extra because I've been around.
Speaker 2: On the other side. Yeah, yeah, you know, it.
Speaker 5: Didn't make me apprehensive as much as it just may
Speaker 5: like these people are crazy, you know as hell, Yeah
Speaker 5: they're crazy, and it's different, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So like I learned then this is not real world.
Speaker 5: Like you're from a place where when someone says, hey, teacher,
Speaker 5: you know, they really mean that, they mean it. Where
Speaker 5: I'm from a new role as your face is what
Speaker 5: you see on somebody's face is what it is. And
Speaker 5: now I'm in this situation where you cannot tell who's
Speaker 5: real who you know.
Speaker 7: So then I just got to this place so I
Speaker 7: just assume everybody's faith.
Speaker 5: And it helped me moving forward to and it helped
Speaker 5: me moving forward in the music to realize that there
Speaker 5: are way more of a people than I thought. You know,
Speaker 5: when you start out thinking everybody's little phone in your faith,
Speaker 5: then when you start to meet genuine people and you
Speaker 5: connect with your tribe, it gets really cool. So it
Speaker 5: helped me to think that I could endure it knowing
Speaker 5: what I was getting into.
Speaker 2: How did you make the transition from styling to songwriting.
Speaker 5: I broke my leg. I broke my leg. We were
Speaker 5: doing a job and like to pay the Canyon or
Speaker 5: something like that, and I had taken time off, and
Speaker 5: I was this was my first job back, because now
Speaker 5: I'm hating style. You know, I got to the point
Speaker 5: where I was hating styling just like I was hating
Speaker 5: I broke my legs, and I just kind of like
Speaker 5: I was heeling up to go back to something that not.
Speaker 5: I loved working with my friends and all this stuff.
Speaker 5: But as much as I like clothes, I like put
Speaker 5: them on myself. I'm not I'm not a person of
Speaker 5: a service type of person. You know, I'm really an artist.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm really an artist. So it was just
Speaker 5: strange for me to kind of want to do this,
Speaker 5: not open up my mouth and tell anybody I want
Speaker 5: to do it, but I'm putting clothes on people that
Speaker 5: are doing it and no envy of them. It just
Speaker 5: became very frustrated, like I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 5: And God literally broke my leg and sat me down
Speaker 5: and made me have to figure out what I really
Speaker 5: wanted to do and come to terms with because I
Speaker 5: already knew. Just come to terms with it, like go
Speaker 5: for it. Rapped this something really followed me. He just
Speaker 5: had to help me. He didn't have a choice. He
Speaker 5: did something so fu he didn't have a choice to
Speaker 5: deny me what I was asking. And that's kind of
Speaker 5: how it started.
Speaker 2: The summer.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so okay, without getting into what he did. So
Speaker 6: when you you say he you know he did you
Speaker 6: was that did he put you on in some way?
Speaker 5: Like with the job or right, and he just introduced
Speaker 5: me to someone. The first person I went to sit
Speaker 5: down with before I even went to go make my
Speaker 5: album was Ritten Jerkins. He was working on my friend,
Speaker 5: my friend, you guys have to parton me.
Speaker 7: I smoke a lot of candidates in my brain together.
Speaker 5: But my friend he worked with because at the time
Speaker 5: we had worked with Will Smith for years, and my
Speaker 5: friend he worked with Will Smith, and so he put
Speaker 5: me he had he knew lots of different producers and
Speaker 5: he was really good friends with Rodney Jerkins, and he
Speaker 5: just would hear things. I don't know how he knew
Speaker 5: I wrote, maybe I was, maybe I recorded something over
Speaker 5: a beat, whatever, and I love him here because he
Speaker 5: was my friend, so I didn't I don't let him
Speaker 5: hear it whatever. And he was like your teacher. Come,
Speaker 5: he's writing for Destiny's Child. Then he's working for working
Speaker 5: on Justice Child's album, and now come to the studio
Speaker 5: and meet Robby and blah blah blah blah. And that's
Speaker 5: like the first person I sat down with. And I
Speaker 5: think that's when we got a rat started to take
Speaker 5: it serious that I might really start doing this, you know.
Speaker 5: And then when that thing happened, and then he's just like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 5: I'll introduce you to Paul Paully and Paul Pauly and
Speaker 5: I just started kind of getting a vibe going. And
Speaker 5: Paul Pauley, I don't think, thought I was that good.
Speaker 5: He was like, you gotta sing more, you gotta push more,
Speaker 5: you goat blah blah blah. And I was thinking, I
Speaker 5: don't really want to do that, but okay, I'll try
Speaker 5: because I just wanted to. I just wanted to make music.
Speaker 5: And we just kind of started going from there. But
Speaker 5: I don't know was.
Speaker 6: Paul was he Well, before we get into that, which
Speaker 6: is your songwriting and stuff, dip it low?
Speaker 2: How did that come up?
Speaker 5: All of my songwriting came about while I was working
Speaker 5: with Paul Paully working on my album. They were all
Speaker 5: songs for me, every song I gave away until I
Speaker 5: started to actively write songs for other which I learned
Speaker 5: I wasn't really good at writing for other people. I
Speaker 5: was better at writing songs for myself and then letting
Speaker 5: them fit into my outfit, you know what I mean. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: that's where all of my songs came from.
Speaker 1: That is it hard writing for other people because you know,
Speaker 1: you would have to know their life experience in order
Speaker 1: to speak for them.
Speaker 5: I think quest is like goes back to being a stylist.
Speaker 5: I ain't really want to do it, and I'm a Sagittarius,
Speaker 5: and it's like we really want to do what we
Speaker 5: want to do.
Speaker 7: We so help and on doing we want to do.
Speaker 5: So when I would sit down to write for people,
Speaker 5: I don't think I cared enough about what their experience was,
Speaker 5: you know, like I didn't get it. I didn't care
Speaker 5: enough to get into them. I had to literally write
Speaker 5: for people that were just singing my songs. It was
Speaker 5: so hard for me to try to figure out what
Speaker 5: this little young pop girl on. I just had to
Speaker 5: just put myself in that place.
Speaker 7: I couldn't consider them, you.
Speaker 1: Know, even if it's a situation of a big client
Speaker 1: that yeah, Mary J Blige.
Speaker 5: I put myself in Mary J Blige's place. You know,
Speaker 5: I couldn't be married. Plus I probably could be married
Speaker 5: because you know she raised all of us, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. So, but the thing is like I
Speaker 5: had to put my way of learning how to do
Speaker 5: it was to say, okay, I'm to be commiss now
Speaker 5: you becoming because trying to pull it out of them
Speaker 5: or have these kinds. Some people it's just like a styling.
Speaker 5: Some people don't know what they want to say. Fact,
Speaker 5: you know, some people don't know what they want to do.
Speaker 5: Very yeah, you know, it's very hard to pull personality
Speaker 5: and all this stuff out of because you have understand also
Speaker 5: at this time, we're doing better now. This time when
Speaker 5: I was writing, it was trash out there. So I'm
Speaker 5: coming in and I'm singing this song and it sounds
Speaker 5: so great in the AARs like oh, and I was like,
Speaker 5: I love it, I love it. I love that.
Speaker 7: This is great, this is great, this is great.
Speaker 5: But the bitch can't sing so that now she's trying
Speaker 5: to sing this song and you hate this and now me,
Speaker 5: you're looking at me, and.
Speaker 2: I did my job.
Speaker 1: Are you there? Nine times out of ten?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: For the vocal tracking like do they want you?
Speaker 5: Sometimes sometimes and then sometimes not. But if I'm there,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm doing. I'm putting voice on it.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna lay myself all over this thing. We're
Speaker 5: gonna straight up.
Speaker 7: And that trick, that's trick.
Speaker 5: You know, it just really hit me here are you
Speaker 5: beating that?
Speaker 2: Like I am here in journey and.
Speaker 3: Everything I'm really I was thinking about this earlier. I
Speaker 3: was like Teaser and Fonte are parade everything.
Speaker 5: Straight up and down.
Speaker 2: We didn't talked on Twitter about doing something. Listen, No,
Speaker 2: everything you're saying, it's coming.
Speaker 6: It's coming. We just over the right time, but it's coming.
Speaker 6: But no, seriously, everything you're saying that was exactly like
Speaker 6: what I saw, kind of like working as a songwriter,
Speaker 6: and it was just one of those things where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I done wrote the song, I done sang it, and
Speaker 6: then tracked it, produced it. I'm gonna keep this ship
Speaker 6: for me, you know what I'm saying, Like, rather than
Speaker 6: sending it to whoever else and.
Speaker 7: Got a lot of money, I wasn't.
Speaker 5: I've never been signed to a publishing company, so nobody
Speaker 5: was putting me in the studios. It's been full home studios,
Speaker 5: and I'm spending all this money to go on these
Speaker 5: studio to write these songs. Now, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I'm spending all my money going to Sometimes I would
Speaker 5: go in and they will put me in or whatever.
Speaker 5: But when you're gunning to just get a song to
Speaker 5: an artist, you're you're gonna go and be proactive and
Speaker 5: you know, figure it out yourself. And then you're loving it.
Speaker 7: You're loving it, you love it, you love it.
Speaker 5: And then we go in and she can't sing it,
Speaker 5: and you're mad at me. And I just never understood that.
Speaker 5: Like I said, we're doing better thanw We're getting artists
Speaker 5: that can actually perform, you know, but back then it
Speaker 5: was rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was why I think we saw like pre autitude.
Speaker 5: These girls. You know, I was like, Lord Hellers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was Yeah, that was why I think we
Speaker 6: saw like in like the early two thousands, like when
Speaker 6: you saw like Neo Carrie Hillson who like Sean Garrett,
Speaker 6: like you started seeing those songwriters kind of become artists.
Speaker 6: Like I saw that shit coming. I'm like, all the
Speaker 6: work that they're doing, yeah, they might as well put.
Speaker 1: This out on it.
Speaker 5: Let me add this, Fonte, the producers getting forty fives
Speaker 5: on the.
Speaker 2: Track and I'm getting let's talk about it. Let's talk
Speaker 2: all the way about it, right, Let's hear y'all talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Talk about.
Speaker 2: Man. Well, I let teach you.
Speaker 7: You know, you're not getting paid.
Speaker 5: You're not getting paid to the producer gets paid for
Speaker 5: making a track, he gets a front in the back end.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's changed out, because I don't
Speaker 5: really write for people like that no more.
Speaker 7: My piece is with myself.
Speaker 2: No, it's worse, it's even worse. I don't do it anymore.
Speaker 2: But it's it's yeah, it's trash.
Speaker 1: So you don't write on SPEC anymore. That's what songwriters
Speaker 1: or songwriters are supposed to write on SPEC.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not a work for hire person.
Speaker 7: I'm just not there.
Speaker 2: And I never really a publishing company. I found that
Speaker 2: like whoa, Okay.
Speaker 5: No, and I own my own stuff, so I'm gonna
Speaker 5: eat either way because people like me and I can
Speaker 5: just tell my own stuff and not be all right.
Speaker 1: Take us on what's the beginning or the genesis of
Speaker 1: what we now know is complex simplicity, Like the moment
Speaker 1: where you're like, I'm on my.
Speaker 5: Own list, this is my part I've been waiting for.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 7: Sour, that's the thing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Family is completely we're not coming back after this, right,
Speaker 5: it's done.
Speaker 7: We're not doing this after that. But I didn't take
Speaker 7: them back because you know, that's how it was. But
Speaker 7: I moved to a new place left and we get back.
Speaker 5: Together and then I'm like, Okay, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 5: He introduces me to this producer. But in this interim
Speaker 5: of us not being together and the producer me, me and
Speaker 5: the producer, my mom dies. That's my whole world. I'm
Speaker 5: my family is everything to me. I was twenty four
Speaker 5: five or something like that. I have these two sons.
Speaker 5: The father is not he didn't want kids. He told
Speaker 5: me that it was something he was where this and
Speaker 5: I'm stuck. And it literally was like I don't know
Speaker 5: how I was to explain it. What it was like.
Speaker 5: I wasn't gonna breathe unless I got this stuff out
Speaker 5: of me. You know, I wasn't gonna breathe unless I
Speaker 5: got all this pain out of me. And that's really
Speaker 5: where it came from. Me just writing, going every day
Speaker 5: to Paula's houses in Glendelle and I lived in Pasadena,
Speaker 5: which is very close to each other in LA and
Speaker 5: going to his house every day and just you know,
Speaker 5: first of all, the night before, sitting standing in front
Speaker 5: of the Marita entire time, just writing so I don't
Speaker 5: sing it to myself, you know, writing songs because trying
Speaker 5: to make myself happy. I was very sad, and then
Speaker 5: going in the next day and laying these songs, and
Speaker 5: I remember we got down to this song that was
Speaker 5: called what's the last song on my album?
Speaker 7: Do you remember the one to Mama?
Speaker 5: I think of you? Yeah, shout out to chanics. But anyway,
Speaker 5: so I was, I was trying to I was trying
Speaker 5: to perform it in the studio, and I just kept
Speaker 5: falling that they were they felt so bad for me.
Speaker 5: I literally would just keep trying to sing it, and
Speaker 5: if I would get one note out, I would fall
Speaker 5: down to the ground and just start crying because it's
Speaker 5: just a year after she had passed. And I really,
Speaker 5: when I look back and retrospect quas it was just
Speaker 5: me just trying to get all this pain. I didn't
Speaker 5: care about man of y'all hearing this record.
Speaker 7: I didn't care about if it was gonna be number one.
Speaker 5: That's why people want to seek for people say, oh
Speaker 5: my wish this would I had no you have to
Speaker 5: put intentions behind things.
Speaker 7: I had no intention.
Speaker 5: But to get it out, to get it happened, what
Speaker 5: happened to it. I didn't care. And then when one
Speaker 5: day Pauline was dropping me off at my house and
Speaker 5: he was leaving, and I was like, we should call
Speaker 5: it simplicit or something. I said it backwards. I said
Speaker 5: something like simple complexity or something like that, and people
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, complex simplicity.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And then I started to think.
Speaker 5: About it, like maybe about a year after it came out,
Speaker 5: and it was like literally what my life was at
Speaker 5: that time. It was literally what my life was at
Speaker 5: that time, complex simplicity.
Speaker 10: I was just.
Speaker 5: Life happens. But I didn't understand that. I was too
Speaker 5: young to understand. People die, your man cheat and do
Speaker 5: horrible things to you.
Speaker 7: He might not even say you can see you got kids.
Speaker 5: You know. I wasn't it at Paul for the life
Speaker 5: I have fallen into, and complex simplicity was the beginning
Speaker 5: of me starting to understand my path and how I
Speaker 5: had to go. It was like, literally, like I guess
Speaker 5: it's just that was the diary of me growing up.
Speaker 6: Talk about Paul Paulie because I never knew, like I mean,
Speaker 6: I had never seen him produce. I don't know if
Speaker 6: he did anything after that, but Your Record was the
Speaker 6: first time I really saw him, you know, uh, really
Speaker 6: featured in that way.
Speaker 2: What was what was his story and what was his background.
Speaker 5: Uh, he is Armenian and comes from wealth. His family
Speaker 5: owned like Jewish studies and stuff like that. But he
Speaker 5: loved music. He loved me just so much. And I
Speaker 5: think the thing I knew that he did before Complex
Speaker 5: Simplicity that did really well was that's the.
Speaker 7: Joint, that's the jam, turns it up.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, right, yeah, he did that. And he worked
Speaker 5: with Riz and you know, and I wasn't really eager
Speaker 5: to work with him. I wasn't at all. But the first,
Speaker 5: the very first song that he the first very first
Speaker 5: beat he gave me was cough on that caution to
Speaker 5: be no, let's put who song is that caught up y?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So that's the very verse beat he gave me.
Speaker 5: And that's the very first song I ever recorded, And
Speaker 5: that's on the like, that's the very first song I
Speaker 5: ever wrote in full. It's the very first song I
Speaker 5: ever recorded. And we just clicked right away.
Speaker 7: He's the Sagittary's too.
Speaker 3: Oh goodness, yeah, I know that was crazy, like oh
Speaker 3: that might be didn't want to stand until it was
Speaker 3: this black lead.
Speaker 5: It was like he literally just starts screaming every like
Speaker 5: Plie Polly was a great guy, and like we I
Speaker 5: had a chance because we did an anniversary thing.
Speaker 7: You had a chance to see him.
Speaker 5: And he doesn't do music anymore, like you know, we
Speaker 5: went completely away from music, and you know, has a
Speaker 5: beautiful family and everything's actually he does the music. He
Speaker 5: does Christian music because it's say it turns to turn
Speaker 5: you out, make you go completely, it'll make you go
Speaker 5: may So you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: He chose that rot.
Speaker 5: But really great guy, very very still when I hear
Speaker 5: stuff he does, you know its still got that same time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, great guy.
Speaker 3: Can we just stay in complex and put simplicity for
Speaker 3: a second, because I wanted to ask you a question
Speaker 3: about songs, like I wanted to ask you know, you
Speaker 3: said you were on the studio crying and I was
Speaker 3: looking at the list and I was like, you'll never
Speaker 3: find which could technically be like one of those songs,
Speaker 3: but it comes so hard, And I was curious about
Speaker 3: the story behind that song too, like and I guess
Speaker 3: it's all rare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much of this is all about.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing all of it is.
Speaker 5: Which is the time I did.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that at the time they would be
Speaker 7: like this time about Rat.
Speaker 5: I'm like, no, it's not because.
Speaker 7: It was pouring out so naturally.
Speaker 5: I didn't think it was about anything.
Speaker 7: I didn't know what I was doing, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean.
Speaker 5: I just was pouring out. And you'll never find what's
Speaker 5: the the lady I can't stand and right and people
Speaker 5: and people's see sample and she was singing, you know
Speaker 5: on that record, the samp that we sampled. You know,
Speaker 5: you'll never find a better woman or a bigger fool.
Speaker 5: So we knew. I knew that's what I was gonna
Speaker 5: build off of. When he told me the sample, man,
Speaker 5: you should hear me. And Paulie had this great thing,
Speaker 5: like I've never.
Speaker 7: Had this before in my life.
Speaker 5: The same thing like with me and Ras had this
Speaker 5: great thing and I've never had it again.
Speaker 7: It's like these two, those two.
Speaker 5: Guys, we had this connection that was something different. And
Speaker 5: with Paulie in the music side, we would sit there
Speaker 5: and like get so excited, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: so excited about the music. And so he would he
Speaker 5: let me hear the sample, and he was let me
Speaker 5: hear where it came from and let me hear what
Speaker 5: he did. It was really amazing, and I was like
Speaker 5: and he was just using a I think he used
Speaker 5: a bit of her singing in it, and I was like.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna speak on that because I was going through
Speaker 5: a bunch of shit in my relationship at the time,
Speaker 5: and I was leaving. I hadn't left yet. I mean
Speaker 5: I was like one foot in, one foot out. You know,
Speaker 5: when you're a mother of somebody's children, they kind of
Speaker 5: got access to you, probably up until five. So I
Speaker 5: always tell my homegirls like, if he got a baby,
Speaker 5: mama and he's still smashing kids, not five, because that's
Speaker 5: just kind of how it goes. I don't know why,
Speaker 5: but it does.
Speaker 1: So this is essentially wait, can I ask it? How
Speaker 1: familiar were you with Marvin Gayes here, my dear, and
Speaker 1: how much influence did that have? I mean, at what
Speaker 1: point did you realize that this wasn't just an album
Speaker 1: of yours but this was your diary, your social media
Speaker 1: you're Were there anything that was too t and I
Speaker 1: that you decided no, I can't put this verse on
Speaker 1: there or this this is everything not for sale?
Speaker 2: Not for sale?
Speaker 5: No I didn't. I didn't have that kind of stuff
Speaker 5: or for cool at the time, I just was doing
Speaker 5: whatever came out. I didn't know to filter myself. But
Speaker 5: let's let's let me tell you this. I had heard
Speaker 5: Here my Dear, great.
Speaker 7: Album, blah blah blah, but not really paying attention.
Speaker 5: You know. I hadn't really paid attention like that until afterwards,
Speaker 5: I was. I got into it and I connected with
Speaker 5: it so very much.
Speaker 7: I heard it before, but I think not until.
Speaker 5: I lived that and then experienced it after it. And
Speaker 5: I remember one time I pulled up the Blakesleep and
Speaker 5: I was playing.
Speaker 7: I was playing Here my Dear, and hand was like,
Speaker 7: don't listen to that.
Speaker 5: No, don't. He was like that to yourself, don't listen
Speaker 5: to that that you shouldn't you want to be happy,
Speaker 5: don't listen to that. I mean, it was just like
Speaker 5: I didn't know. I didn't to say when you asked,
Speaker 5: when did I know? It was my dad diary. Plus
Speaker 5: I didn't know the album was that good because I'm
Speaker 5: hard on myself, right, so I never thought it was
Speaker 5: that good.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that album was that good until about
Speaker 7: three years later, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, started coming back to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it started coming back to me, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and it became the international that motherfucker album.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people start coming up to you shaking and crying,
Speaker 5: you know, freaking you out. You say, oh, well, maybe
Speaker 5: you did something because of cool you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 5: you did something. But I never I never took it
Speaker 5: that serious to this day, I don't, you know. I
Speaker 5: just feel like we do things it pours out of us.
Speaker 5: I feel like we're just vessels. Like you know, you
Speaker 5: got to open it and then you got the spout
Speaker 5: and God pours into you and you pour out and
Speaker 5: that's just how it goes.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to and I don't.
Speaker 5: Hold lot of ownership to the accolades that come with
Speaker 5: it or the criticism. I don't hold that stuff. So
Speaker 5: I can't really hold you know, like, oh I did
Speaker 5: this stand. I'm just grateful I was.
Speaker 2: A vessel talk about being a girl.
Speaker 6: That one was so for us, like on the on
Speaker 6: the like the heavy hip hop side. The thing that
Speaker 6: caught me about that is it was a sample of
Speaker 6: or a replay of a recogn nods that did called
Speaker 6: one on One, which was it was on the street
Speaker 6: Fighter soundtrack, which like that crazy so random, like it
Speaker 6: wasn't like a big NAS record, but it was you know,
Speaker 6: if you knew what you knew it And so I
Speaker 6: was like, oh damn, she singing over that. Then the
Speaker 6: beat drop, I was like, oh shit, she's singing singing
Speaker 6: like this shit is hard? So how did that one
Speaker 6: get chosen to be the single? And kind of what
Speaker 6: was that trajectory like to see that record kind of
Speaker 6: go up the label.
Speaker 5: Chosen as the single? I thought it was slow. First
Speaker 5: of all, I didn't want to be.
Speaker 7: So mellow y'all.
Speaker 5: Still, I got this hyper I could have been a rapper.
Speaker 5: You know, y'all have such a hyper personality. So I
Speaker 5: didn't want to be so mellow. That's where Polly came
Speaker 5: in to like smooth me out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: He was like, well, his number one question was always
Speaker 7: ended annoying the shit.
Speaker 5: I mean he would always be like, what a lia sing?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 5: What a lising? This a li do? And I'm like,
Speaker 5: why do you keep? Because I wasn't really I wasn't like,
Speaker 5: you know, simp like soft like that essential like that.
Speaker 5: I mean maybe I was, and I just didn't see it,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. Because my friend would always
Speaker 5: tell me that's always been you. I didn't see it.
Speaker 5: So when that when we first started on that beat,
Speaker 5: it had these dirty, dirt, way dirtier drums, like kind
Speaker 5: of Brandy signing, not not so like they didn't crack
Speaker 5: like the ones that are actually on the record, and
Speaker 5: Ras did that rasp. He was like, put the Mary
Speaker 5: Jane Girls drums on it instead, you know. And that's
Speaker 5: kind of how that came about. And the street side
Speaker 5: of thing. I'm gonna tell you the truth. I didn't
Speaker 5: know that that was a sample from NAS. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I just would watch Belly every day, multiple times, multiple times,
Speaker 5: didn't on my couch, smoking and joint. Why it probably
Speaker 5: stipping some hype of tubac chuck from Trader Joe's. Yes,
Speaker 5: this is a day where you just have to find
Speaker 5: a little coin to get through, you know. And so
Speaker 5: I would sit there and I would watch it, and
Speaker 5: I just got so infatuated with not I like, I
Speaker 5: made this idea about who this man was that probably
Speaker 5: really wasn't him, and then I just got into like
Speaker 5: listen to his music and all this stuff. I was
Speaker 5: so so so so into him that I just started
Speaker 5: writing this song, you know, with him in mind.
Speaker 7: Like, you know, it wasn't particularly.
Speaker 3: Oh God, but where was he going where my money?
Speaker 1: I put my money where my mouth is. I have
Speaker 1: a closet full of twenty Africas. I knew that. I
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, I'm gonna make me some Africa as
Speaker 1: far as T shirts, I'm my only client. I got
Speaker 1: like twenty Africa's T shirts in my closet right now.
Speaker 1: That is my gym shirt, my pajama.
Speaker 2: Nah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So with TVT, I wanted to ask you particularly what
Speaker 6: was their deal as a label. I knew them particularly
Speaker 6: from just doing all Little John stuff, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But where your dealings with them?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: TV tunes? Yeah yeah, tv Tunes? What was your relationship
Speaker 6: with them?
Speaker 2: And how was? How did they go with them?
Speaker 5: So I went through I don't think I everatory eybody
Speaker 5: it is. So I went through a production company that
Speaker 5: was Paul Pauley and a guy named Dubs. I don't
Speaker 5: know Dove's last slam and sorry Doves, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 5: So I went through them, and what happened was they
Speaker 5: signed me to TVT. I really didn't want to go
Speaker 5: to TVT because you know, I've been working with I've
Speaker 5: been working with all these major labels and I really
Speaker 5: didn't want to go to TVT, but I did pray
Speaker 5: and ask Goot to send me the best place. And
Speaker 5: I definitely think that was the best place because I'm
Speaker 5: a natural born indie artist. So we went over there
Speaker 5: to them and also a lot of other places. They
Speaker 5: liked me, but they didn't want me to write my
Speaker 5: whole album. I know, I no one knew who I was,
Speaker 5: but I knew I had to sit it was. The
Speaker 5: whole point was for me to write the album, even
Speaker 5: more than singing it. I wanted to write it, you know,
Speaker 5: And so they agreed for me to do that. And
Speaker 5: Brian shout out to Brian Leech, who is the owner
Speaker 5: of Polo Grounds with Asaph, Rocky and all of them. Now,
Speaker 5: he was at an R at the time, and he
Speaker 5: really really you know, fought for me really really hard
Speaker 5: and and took care of me while I was there.
Speaker 5: But I signed to him directly. I signed him direct
Speaker 5: I went through Bridgehood Entertainment, this production company, because that's
Speaker 5: back when that's what people we do.
Speaker 7: You would go through a pressure company.
Speaker 5: And Doves tried to flip my advance in the streets.
Speaker 6: To break it to be slight, transparent, transparent to the
Speaker 6: point of, yeah, well, yeah, he.
Speaker 7: Tried to cop he didn't go.
Speaker 10: He ended up going, Yeah, he wanted to cop bricks
Speaker 10: with my money, honey, and so he yes, he tried
Speaker 10: to flip my advance and ended up going to jail.
Speaker 5: And then I'm just here and Paulie was the music guy.
Speaker 5: He was the business guy. So I'm just here and
Speaker 5: it's just me and TVT and shout out to Brian
Speaker 5: Leech because he took me and my partner, my sister
Speaker 5: to Mia and he just took us under his wing,
Speaker 5: kind of just looked out for us because we didn't
Speaker 5: know what was going on. We didn't even know, we
Speaker 5: had no clue what was going on, and he kind
Speaker 5: of just took us in and looked out for us.
Speaker 7: And Steve Gottley was like nuts. But I dealt with.
Speaker 5: Him really well because I didn't have expectations. See, when
Speaker 5: you come in and you've gone through the one on
Speaker 5: one of the music people you know, and Hollywood people myself,
Speaker 5: you know they currency already so I knew he was.
Speaker 7: Crazy, but he did give me what I needed, you know.
Speaker 5: I think I was the first. I think Lil John
Speaker 5: was kind of pissed because I was like the first
Speaker 5: one to get like a certain amount of money for
Speaker 5: a video, but but I wanted Hype Williams. They were
Speaker 5: so happy to be a smart all abel to get
Speaker 5: Ky Williams that they just gave them, you know, and
Speaker 5: it was still a discount belief right exactly. So TVT
Speaker 5: I have no qualms. People have such bad things to
Speaker 5: say about the people that put them on because it
Speaker 5: didn't go right. You wouldn't be here without those people.
Speaker 5: So I have nothing bad to say about TVT. Shout
Speaker 5: out to Steve Gottlieb, and I love Bryan Leach. He's
Speaker 5: one of my really really good friends. TVT was very
Speaker 5: very good to me, and I think it was a
Speaker 5: great place for me as well to hone my skills because,
Speaker 5: like I told you, the first song I ever wrote
Speaker 5: was on my first album, so I hadn't been doing
Speaker 5: it long, so I got time to just like go
Speaker 5: into studio, and a lot of times I was using
Speaker 5: their money to write so much for other people that
Speaker 5: I'm supposed to be working on my own, So they
Speaker 5: helped me a lot. Brian Leach would just put me
Speaker 5: in the studio any city I'm in I would get like,
Speaker 5: I'm in such and such, can you put yourself? He
Speaker 5: would put me in and I would just hone my skills.
Speaker 5: And you know, the more you do anything, the better
Speaker 5: you get at it. So TVT was a great college.
Speaker 6: And while you're doing all this, where are your boys?
Speaker 6: How are you handling being a mom?
Speaker 5: I lived in California with at that time, I lived
Speaker 5: and we live in an area called Altadena, and we
Speaker 5: literally live like two streets over from each other. We
Speaker 5: all it's like a little above Pasadena, a little neighborhood
Speaker 5: nestled into the mountains, and they would look out for me.
Speaker 5: And my mom was sick. She was probably she passed
Speaker 5: by that time. My mom had passed by the time,
Speaker 5: so she couldn't help out. But my sisters would help.
Speaker 5: And Raz's mom she would help so much like my
Speaker 5: first tour.
Speaker 7: She took them stuff like that.
Speaker 5: But for the most part, I was being able to
Speaker 5: be there, definitely able to be there. I prayed and
Speaker 5: ask God that my kids would be certain kind of people,
Speaker 5: and I think that that God was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 5: you're gonna have to be there.
Speaker 7: You're not gonna be able to do a lot of things.
Speaker 5: These other people are doing because you have to be
Speaker 5: present for your kids and that's kind of how.
Speaker 1: It hands out. Does this explain why there was such
Speaker 1: a long gap between albums?
Speaker 5: Oh, I gotta have something to say it because I
Speaker 5: would really love to be somebody that could churn it
Speaker 5: out like that, Like I just really have to have
Speaker 5: some life experience. Like after I did Complact Simplicity, I
Speaker 5: didn't know what to say. I just knew how to
Speaker 5: make music really good, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when the album was mastered in
Speaker 1: sequence and done with? Like? Was it? Was it a purge?
Speaker 1: Feeling like Okay, I got everything out that I wanted
Speaker 1: to get out and what now?
Speaker 5: Or I wasn't I wasn't present, so I don't know.
Speaker 5: I can't tell you like I was just rolling YEA
Speaker 5: does understand? Okay, family fall apart, mom dies, Now you
Speaker 5: have here an album, Now you on the road, blah
Speaker 5: blah blah.
Speaker 7: I have time to think about it.
Speaker 1: You get time to process it.
Speaker 3: And then are you making sure you're making up for
Speaker 3: what you're doing? Because I'm thinking about now you go
Speaker 3: on the road singing the same sad songs that you
Speaker 3: that you came up with, you know that you were
Speaker 3: trying to get out of your system.
Speaker 5: That's no more.
Speaker 7: I didn't get ship one thing about a Saturdy tavist.
Speaker 5: On't we get it.
Speaker 3: Outand no, I knowd friends, I'm sorry, But once we
Speaker 3: get out what we have to say, we.
Speaker 5: Don't care anymore. We don't care anymore, you know, like
Speaker 5: once we say what we have to say, and we
Speaker 5: can say some file ship and we don't mean to
Speaker 5: be so, but but once we get it out, it's done.
Speaker 5: And I was like, come on, look it maybe something
Speaker 5: to eat, let's have a drink's good.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, And then we just left with the
Speaker 3: ship and be like, okay, well wait a minute, and
Speaker 3: then get my mind right now.
Speaker 2: You just dropped the bomb and what a to do?
Speaker 1: That information?
Speaker 5: But it's not like I'm not offering a drink with
Speaker 5: that information after information. So I'm on stage just having
Speaker 5: a good time. Now I'm out here just having a
Speaker 5: good time. You know. That's when it just turned into
Speaker 5: so much fun, traveling all around, realizing I'm not the
Speaker 5: only crazy one, because if you all here singing this
Speaker 5: stuff with me, and you can relate, y'all just as
Speaker 5: nutty as me. So I'm not the only one.
Speaker 1: I'm okay. I'm trying to remember. This is a legendary location.
Speaker 1: The album cover. Did you shoot that cover? The infamous?
Speaker 1: Do you know these style houses? Is that okay?
Speaker 5: So I think it's a missentry modern. Is that you're
Speaker 5: talking about the style of it, the architectal style? No?
Speaker 1: No, no, okay, So it's it's kind of the house
Speaker 1: that you see in every holly to do with it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's what what was the Ricky Lyon? Is that
Speaker 5: the first place that was? Yeah, that's the one I
Speaker 5: saw it.
Speaker 1: It's literally it's called no Style s T a h L.
Speaker 1: And it's, uh, that's.
Speaker 5: What it's called.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well not the it's it's it's just that's the location.
Speaker 1: They titled it the Style House, and it's been used
Speaker 1: in over you know, at least three hundred I mean
Speaker 1: probably more than five hundred Hollywood movies. But it's it's
Speaker 1: very recognizable. So when I saw that window thing in
Speaker 1: the back's.
Speaker 5: The only part of the house this nice looking?
Speaker 1: I was I was going to ask you, okay because
Speaker 1: similar to similar to the diner that Quentin Tarantino used
Speaker 1: in pulp Fiction, which is another kind of Hollywood staple
Speaker 1: like this. This diner is never used to serve food.
Speaker 1: It's only used for movie houses to look like it's
Speaker 1: a diner. But I went in there once and it
Speaker 1: looked horrible. I always wanted to know, like if that
Speaker 1: house was vintage or was it classic, or when.
Speaker 5: I was there, there was still a lady living there.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know if it was this old couple,
Speaker 5: but the old lady was still in there, and I
Speaker 5: ended up seeing I saw her in her bed and
Speaker 5: like she was kind of sick or whatever. But they
Speaker 5: had like carpeted and it was kind of mill like.
Speaker 5: Only one that part, that part of the house, for
Speaker 5: the window winds in that area.
Speaker 7: That's the only part of the house that was nice.
Speaker 5: I'm sure now they probably invested more money in it
Speaker 5: to make it better with maybe not really or maybe
Speaker 5: not because it was it was doing what it was doing.
Speaker 1: Either way, you know, it's supposed to look like it's
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty or sixty five.
Speaker 5: So that's not the part I'm talking about. I'm talking
Speaker 5: about the other part of the house where it's okay
Speaker 5: for it to look nineteen sixties. But there were technical
Speaker 5: issues like mildew carpet, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 5: these things can be changed out. You could put more
Speaker 5: carpet and still be nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: So how did your what was the most apparent change
Speaker 1: in your life now that you made the transition from
Speaker 1: you know, not being a singer to being well known
Speaker 1: in singing, Like what was the where were the pros
Speaker 1: and cons of your newfound transition?
Speaker 5: The pros as a writer, I started making a lot
Speaker 5: of money. That was really cool. I was literally without
Speaker 5: a place to live. I'll stay homeless, but I was
Speaker 5: without a place to live because I could live in family, right,
Speaker 5: but I didn't have anywhere to live. I had to
Speaker 5: I got invicted. Well I don't get evicted, but I
Speaker 5: had to leave before I got evicted, And being a
Speaker 5: kids would just kind of like.
Speaker 7: Stand where we could.
Speaker 5: And then like a three hundred thousand dollars check came,
Speaker 5: and it just then it just started coming every few
Speaker 5: months more and more and more.
Speaker 2: That it was that that was all songwriting royalties from
Speaker 2: song because.
Speaker 7: You have understandabody.
Speaker 5: It was like checking for complex supposed to be like
Speaker 5: that that was just you know, artist, I mean, that
Speaker 5: was probably like a little sprinkling there somewhere, but it
Speaker 5: wasn't like the bulk of it. And that was really
Speaker 5: really cool. That was cool to like go from having
Speaker 5: nothing and to see that like your intellect, your intellectual
Speaker 5: property could garnishes. And people started to come at me,
Speaker 5: you know, to kind of sign publishing, and it felt
Speaker 5: very cool, cool to say no, I'm okay, so.
Speaker 1: Right now, song placement money is good money if you
Speaker 1: can place it on the right artist.
Speaker 5: Yes, And I also think you got to own your
Speaker 5: publishing because if somebody, if somebody gave you a check
Speaker 5: and now they taken you know, see thou used to
Speaker 5: tell me you used always try to get on pulish
Speaker 5: and he was saying, didn't you. You must not believe
Speaker 5: in yourself.
Speaker 7: You don't believe in it.
Speaker 5: Steve got be the owner of the owner of TV.
Speaker 5: He would say, he would say, you don't believe in yourself,
Speaker 5: You don't believe yourself. Why wouldn't you sell your publish
Speaker 5: and you must not believe in yourself? And I would
Speaker 5: live laugh like that. I would I.
Speaker 2: Believe in myself. That's why I'm not selling the shit right.
Speaker 5: But that was my that was my biggest change and then,
Speaker 5: because you have to understand, I didn't meet people. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't walk down the street and people noticed. It wasn't
Speaker 5: like anything like that. And not until I got to
Speaker 5: me like Europe or something, that's where people would notice me.
Speaker 5: But I got to make money, which really kind of
Speaker 5: Raphael Sadik is one of the artists that I watched
Speaker 5: and looked at and what he did, and it was
Speaker 5: kind of like, I love how his theme goes, Okay,
Speaker 5: he doesn't Raphael can walk or he can walk around
Speaker 5: be himself himself, you know every now and it's maybe Rafael,
Speaker 5: but he doesn't get not an essene of course, but
Speaker 5: I mean like he he he gets people that comes
Speaker 5: up to but it's not like in a bothersome way.
Speaker 5: He gets to do what he loves, live his life,
Speaker 5: make his money, be a normal person, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. And I saw that from the gate and
Speaker 5: I thought that was super super cool. So I was
Speaker 5: kind of like, not never. I hate to say it,
Speaker 5: but I've never really wanted any type of fame. I
Speaker 5: just wanted to be heard because I'm not the type
Speaker 5: of person that you can just run up on my
Speaker 5: face with cameras and say something crazy to me or
Speaker 5: and then I have to now conduct myself like a celebrity.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna conduct myself like a celebrity. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: conduct myself like a real person with real feelings, and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna treat you according to how you treat me,
Speaker 5: no matter who you are, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So that was something I was really grateful for. I
Speaker 5: didn't really I didn't want that. Nothing I even see
Speaker 5: that happen people.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, that's why it's important to share,
Speaker 3: like your story, That's why I mean, it's remarkable in
Speaker 3: that way because you are that person and the same thing.
Speaker 3: I know Fante talks about that all the time, but
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't know that, Like, you can
Speaker 3: be a whole, working, successful musician and you don't have
Speaker 3: to be on every commercial, every TV thing and be happy.
Speaker 7: Unless that's what you.
Speaker 3: Want.
Speaker 1: That's what you.
Speaker 7: Want, And I think it's beautiful when people want that
Speaker 7: and they get that. But so when people ask me,
Speaker 7: you know what anybody should to get to know what.
Speaker 6: You want anything more so than that, know who you are, like,
Speaker 6: because I think there's some people that are like they
Speaker 6: just have that thing of like like a Will Smith right,
Speaker 6: just as it was not a singer, but just Will
Speaker 6: is Will. Like he one minute he jumping out a plane,
Speaker 6: and then he doing a movie, and then he's discovering Earth,
Speaker 6: and then this nigga losing weight like you know what
Speaker 6: I mean, Like he just always is doing something, and
Speaker 6: and there are just sill some people that are just
Speaker 6: those big personalities, and then there's just some people that's
Speaker 6: just like, look, I just want to make what I make,
Speaker 6: put it out, and then y'all leave me the fuck alone.
Speaker 5: Now you have a second job, and they don't ever
Speaker 5: say I'm not so successful. I get up every day
Speaker 5: and do what I want to do.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying that when I'm talking, I.
Speaker 5: Might not be in a cover or magazine. I might
Speaker 5: not be the song you hear every time you came
Speaker 5: on the radio. But if I wanted.
Speaker 7: That, please believe me, I would have it. I never
Speaker 7: had intention of that.
Speaker 5: All I wanted to do was not work some type
Speaker 5: of job I hate it, and be able to take
Speaker 5: care of my kids. That was it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why this is a surprise.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that's why I was not surpris to
Speaker 3: hear her response in that way, because if you're a real
Speaker 3: fan of Teaser Moses and you kind.
Speaker 2: Of kind of had a feeling, that makes sense. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: how did so?
Speaker 6: Speaking of that, how did your situation with MMG, how
Speaker 6: did that come about?
Speaker 2: And what was kind of the like, how did that go?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 7: I lived in Miami.
Speaker 5: I moved to Miami, I think two thousand and nine,
Speaker 5: all the two thousand and nine I moved to so
Speaker 5: by twenty ten, I think Ross had caught lind to me.
Speaker 5: I think he found out about me in Atlanta because
Speaker 5: Atlanta is a really huge market for me, and so
Speaker 5: he found out for me in Atlanta. He said some.
Speaker 7: Rashet girls telling him about me.
Speaker 5: Or something like that, and then he reached out to
Speaker 5: me on DM because we only lived about ten minutes
Speaker 5: twenty minutes away from each other like that, Yes, come
Speaker 5: over and then we all hung out and it was cool,
Speaker 5: you know, and that's he had it had just gotten meat.
Speaker 5: Well he hadn't signed any about it yet. It got meat,
Speaker 5: and he got wild and he kind of was like
Speaker 5: kind of building his thing and I would just go
Speaker 5: in and sing on stuff and it was cool. But
Speaker 5: it just never panded to anything.
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 6: So the record when you put out Kanyak and Conversation,
Speaker 6: was that stuff you recorded wow, like during the energy
Speaker 6: time or was that just a completely different thing.
Speaker 7: It was during the MMG time.
Speaker 5: But I was never signed to them and anything that
Speaker 5: I was doing for like.
Speaker 7: I pray for all that, like, you know, I was
Speaker 7: taking care of that.
Speaker 5: Like it was just something I was doing while I
Speaker 5: was discussing with them, you know, if we were going
Speaker 5: to do something or not. You know. But I'm like
Speaker 5: a one, I'm a I'm a woman, you know, like
Speaker 5: I'm a grown woman. So it's like kind of different
Speaker 5: to have this, you know.
Speaker 7: I don't really just slip.
Speaker 5: In line with everything. I'm teacher though, not girl woman
Speaker 5: with two kids.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: But it panned out, and I was really grateful because
Speaker 5: I would give him. I think probably up until like
Speaker 5: maybe two hours ago, I was seeing all over his stuff.
Speaker 5: I'm very loyal to anybody that extends a hand to me.
Speaker 5: I'm very very loyal. If you need anything from me,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm just I'm if you have ever done
Speaker 5: anything to be helpful to me, I'm always seen and
Speaker 5: so I would sing on this stuff or whatever. So
Speaker 5: people thought I was still connected because I was seeing
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 1: The process different than this record, and that you worked
Speaker 1: with one producer yeah for the last and multiple producers
Speaker 1: for this record.
Speaker 5: Yes, very much so, because I did tons of mixtapes
Speaker 5: before that album came out, right, and so I was
Speaker 5: kind of like it was just really liked.
Speaker 2: That was the one for me, Like that was it?
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But I would do these mixtape and I think because
Speaker 5: like I said, the first album, I did you have
Speaker 5: things saying I had not only did I have Paul Pauli,
Speaker 5: I had Neo, and I had Paul Pauli and Neo
Speaker 5: and they were helping me through this process of creating
Speaker 5: an album. Then I didn't have that anymore. And then
Speaker 5: so now I'm just making these mixtapes and I'm kind
Speaker 5: of learning how to make an album brough exercising, making mixtapes,
Speaker 5: making all these mistakes. So by the time I get
Speaker 5: to konnak and conversation, that's just the mood I'm in.
Speaker 5: But I kind of just gathered. I make music constantly,
Speaker 5: always making music. I'll started just be like a first
Speaker 5: and a hook vattle later for two years, you know,
Speaker 5: and then I'll come back to it and the first
Speaker 5: and the hook that comes to that, and then I
Speaker 5: listened to the music and now now I'm doing more
Speaker 5: to the music and things like that. And that's kind
Speaker 5: of how the process was for Konnak and conversation. I
Speaker 5: didn't have this pain to pour out.
Speaker 7: It was more so just like music coming.
Speaker 5: Out than these feelings. Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 6: So it was that hard for you because that was
Speaker 6: that was Yeah, that was something that was tough, like
Speaker 6: learning how to when you're used to, I guess creating
Speaker 6: from a place of pain or trauma or like a
Speaker 6: bad relationship.
Speaker 7: I got the whole Mary Blake, J Blos.
Speaker 5: The more saying I'm in the better than music. It
Speaker 5: really is really whack, you know, to the point where
Speaker 5: I'll thrust myself into some bullshit just to learn.
Speaker 1: You're not the first person I know that keeps their
Speaker 1: ex on standby. Well no, no, no, I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: said that, But I know people that actually, I gotta
Speaker 1: get with my ex real quick. No, I know people
Speaker 1: that actually right get their ex on standby so they
Speaker 1: can finish this last verse or something I need.
Speaker 2: I need some toxic tails.
Speaker 5: You know. Really what it is is like you need
Speaker 5: to feel because I'm a genuine person, so I can't.
Speaker 5: I can't just you know, act like I feel something.
Speaker 5: I always everything I said, everything I say and do
Speaker 5: is coming from my heart, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: So like I just at that time, Kanyak and conversation
Speaker 5: was more about.
Speaker 7: Okay, you're at a place where you you know, you're.
Speaker 5: You're not in pain anymore, you're killing whatever, and you're
Speaker 5: ready to go out here and do your thing. You're
Speaker 5: a grown woman, sexy, you five, you know, go out
Speaker 5: here and do your thing. But it was different in
Speaker 5: rightly because that ain't really.
Speaker 1: On that record.
Speaker 6: You work with two very good two good friends of
Speaker 6: mine from the Bay, my man Tracademics. You did so
Speaker 6: special record with my man Brandon, one one of a Kind,
Speaker 6: One Oak. How did y'all, Lincoln, I was very surprised
Speaker 6: to see you and happily surprised to see you work
Speaker 6: with them.
Speaker 2: How did you come across the work?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I never knew that's what one of
Speaker 1: these stood for.
Speaker 2: One of a kind.
Speaker 3: I didn't the New York Club, But.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I definitely had to ask him that question
Speaker 5: and he told me what was going on.
Speaker 7: I definitely had to ask him what because I like
Speaker 7: Brandon could have just been right.
Speaker 2: That's what I always called him, Brandon. That's a shout
Speaker 2: shout to them.
Speaker 5: The Bay is another place that you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of support in the they and you know, I have
Speaker 5: cities in America and outside of America that are cities
Speaker 5: that I can always get my money from, and so
Speaker 5: the Baby was one of those cities. And Tracademics hit
Speaker 5: me long time ago. Was usually such a fan of
Speaker 5: this is all social social media. How I met them,
Speaker 5: you know, because he hit me and he was a
Speaker 5: fan of complex simplicity. And I'm the type of person
Speaker 5: that I don't just like eh, I don't do that.
Speaker 5: I really always go look and see who this is.
Speaker 5: I don't care if it's somebody that's huge or you
Speaker 5: know whatever, I'll go check it out and see. And
Speaker 5: I just loved his sound to this day, like we
Speaker 5: work constant Man, always work together because he has such
Speaker 5: a great song. And to me, I'm okay with evolving
Speaker 5: into anything that I'm supposed to evolve into. But there's
Speaker 5: a base to what my sound is, and I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't like to really kind of like dismiss that base,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying, Like it could be something
Speaker 5: different and fresh and new, but it has to have
Speaker 5: that face, and he completely has that face. We call
Speaker 5: it Champagne soul. It's like it's really really sophisticated.
Speaker 1: You know, twirl.
Speaker 7: The girls don't twork, they twirl, you know. And so
Speaker 7: it was just very easy.
Speaker 5: It was very easy for us to connect, and Brandon
Speaker 5: kind of came along with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 6: The record that on the Luxurious Underground Joint That's so
Speaker 6: specially and Missing You, those are my two ones from that.
Speaker 7: I love songs for real, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Missing You was like a village from the album that
Speaker 5: was supposed to be The Young Lions. It was just
Speaker 5: fillage from this album that I was dismantled.
Speaker 2: So, okay, yeah, the Young what happened? What happened with
Speaker 2: that record?
Speaker 5: Well, Paulie wasn't there anymore. I think Brian was this
Speaker 5: that I'll be working with one producer like we did before.
Speaker 5: But like I said, you know, I hate to be vulgar.
Speaker 5: People think it's vulgar. But I always say making music
Speaker 5: is for me. I can't speak for other people. It's
Speaker 5: like having sex. And I'm not a very for mystery
Speaker 5: as a woman because I can't connect with everybody like that.
Speaker 5: And I don't do things just to do them, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. So me and.
Speaker 7: Paulie we had this zeps, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: We had the chemistry, you know, and I just didn't
Speaker 5: find somebody else to do that with. So I would
Speaker 5: go out and work with all these different people, but
Speaker 5: I don't think that they were trying to recreate that
Speaker 5: that thing. And so before we could figure that out,
Speaker 5: I was ready to go, you know, and then TDT
Speaker 5: kind of just went and fell apart. It went bang up.
Speaker 2: Interview. You're in your material.
Speaker 6: I think the person that I hear that you have
Speaker 6: a really good chemistry with. And I don't know personally,
Speaker 6: you know, if it compares to a probably or not.
Speaker 6: But you and Bank, like yo, we y'all do not
Speaker 6: fucking miss like I love the records y'all do together?
Speaker 2: What was it like?
Speaker 5: Really we really friends, you know, like Bink and I
Speaker 5: really friends like Bank will call me invent and I
Speaker 5: don't listen.
Speaker 2: Yes much.
Speaker 7: Yeah. So I think that's the thing. I think that.
Speaker 5: I've been in the studio with the most the most
Speaker 5: world now and amazing producers, and like I said, it's
Speaker 5: like sex. It don't mean it's gonna work, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. And I think me and Benk just
Speaker 5: have a good chemistry. I think because I really genuinely
Speaker 5: like him and he genuinely liked me, and we care
Speaker 5: about each other. So it comes out that like that.
Speaker 5: And I wish I could just have sex with anybody
Speaker 5: but I. And that's kind of how it is with music.
Speaker 5: I can't. I can't. I can come in here and
Speaker 5: I can have every good intentions to make this great,
Speaker 5: you know, but if it doesn't click, I don't know
Speaker 5: how to go in the mold of like this isn't clicking,
Speaker 5: make it click. I don't know how to do that
Speaker 5: because I feel like I'm in my sweet spot when
Speaker 5: it when it's like rolling, When I force it, it
Speaker 5: gets really whack and I don't.
Speaker 7: Like that part of what I do. It makes me
Speaker 7: start to feel like I'm like, so, I.
Speaker 2: Just like I don't make you questions. So were you
Speaker 2: and Anthony together?
Speaker 6: You and Anthony when y'all did that one record, we
Speaker 6: all together in the studio when y'all did that record,
Speaker 6: we were.
Speaker 7: No, no, we weren't. I did that by myself and then.
Speaker 2: I sent it to Oh okay, okay, yeah, that was
Speaker 2: another one of my face.
Speaker 5: And that was a track I don't want to say
Speaker 5: because you probably know who because if you probably know them,
Speaker 5: you're from Philly, no Carolina, you know. Okay, well some
Speaker 5: friends of mine from Philly, I know, so I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna say some friends of vibes from Philly. I only
Speaker 5: had to much money to make the album, and they
Speaker 5: wanted more money for the album.
Speaker 7: So I just took my vocals and gave them to
Speaker 7: be being murdered.
Speaker 5: It it turned out way, but I thought it was
Speaker 5: going to be with the first check, you know. And
Speaker 5: that's kind of how that happened with the Anthony Hamilton record.
Speaker 5: And then we sent it to Anthony and he got
Speaker 5: on them.
Speaker 2: Okay, now that one that's you was Thope. I love
Speaker 2: that record, Thank you so much? For real?
Speaker 6: Was your label situation with Shanicky when you in twenty fifteen?
Speaker 2: How would they work with them compared to TVT? How
Speaker 2: is that for you.
Speaker 5: I learned to appreciate tv T a lot more, okay,
Speaker 5: And I learned.
Speaker 7: That you don't want to.
Speaker 1: I learned.
Speaker 7: I learned that you don't need a middleman.
Speaker 5: That's what I learned. I learned you don't need a
Speaker 5: middle man.
Speaker 1: Fact your current situation, are you your own manager right now?
Speaker 5: Or we have it's just we have a team. Me
Speaker 5: and my sister are partners and that's kind of how
Speaker 5: we roll. I guess I would be partly my own
Speaker 5: manager because we just kind of work together on it.
Speaker 5: But I've never had like big management or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But is that like being the wedding planner and the
Speaker 1: bride at the same time.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 5: No, I don't be the bride and the wedding planet.
Speaker 5: I really just be the bride and my sister. Yeah,
Speaker 5: she she should be sitting here to tell you how
Speaker 5: crazy I am. And you know, she takes on a
Speaker 5: lot of hats and you know, stuff like that. It's
Speaker 5: definitely I would love it for it to be, you
Speaker 5: know where I'm completely detached from it, but it's just
Speaker 5: not possible.
Speaker 3: What do your boys think about now that their they're artists? Contrast,
Speaker 3: they think about the way that you have lived your
Speaker 3: career and the things that they're gonna they're taking away
Speaker 3: from it as far as you know, to being as
Speaker 3: great indie artists.
Speaker 1: That you are.
Speaker 7: Well, they saw the up right now, right right.
Speaker 5: So it makes me feel happy that I didn't do
Speaker 5: so bad in the down times to make them be
Speaker 5: like I don't want to do this, you know, So
Speaker 5: that makes me happy. And they just always have always
Speaker 5: championed me, like I get nervous to let them hear anything.
Speaker 5: Always have since they were you know, like I just
Speaker 5: really respect their opinions so much, and I think more
Speaker 5: than anything is kind of they were kind of like me.
Speaker 5: They had it in them, burning in them. They didn't
Speaker 5: even tell me forever. I didn't learn one of their
Speaker 5: friends told me that they rap or whatever. You know,
Speaker 5: I didn't even know. I think that they just.
Speaker 1: All of this family doesn't share their intimates.
Speaker 5: They told me because they told me, well, we thought
Speaker 5: we thought that you wouldn't want us to rap, because
Speaker 5: you know Dad raps, and.
Speaker 2: You know, you know how you feel that right.
Speaker 3: You and him are like friendly now, like it's like
Speaker 3: thirty years twenty years later, twenty years.
Speaker 5: Later, I had listen. I love him with all my heart.
Speaker 5: He's my first love ever, you know, first everything. You
Speaker 5: know what I mean, And so I love him all
Speaker 5: my heart. And but we don't have any beef nothing.
Speaker 5: We super cool. We always like we could be We
Speaker 5: could always be friends, because that's always we were. My
Speaker 5: only Quama who ever has been not being a father
Speaker 5: to his children. That was all it.
Speaker 7: That was it, you know.
Speaker 5: So now he don't like when I say stuff like this,
Speaker 5: but like I can't rewrite what happened, you know, So
Speaker 5: it's cool, Like we can sit down and talk. We
Speaker 5: can be cool each other. He basically laugh.
Speaker 7: I'm making cool.
Speaker 5: But that's my only problem. So now that that's done,
Speaker 5: let's have a shot. You know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 5: all good.
Speaker 7: But it's the one time that you did say something
Speaker 7: to me.
Speaker 5: You were like, it's.
Speaker 7: Okay, it's okay, it's okay, no friends, it's no bad.
Speaker 7: And you said nothing bad.
Speaker 5: You said nothing bad.
Speaker 7: You just asked me a question, and I was like,
Speaker 7: that was it.
Speaker 5: I never heard from you again.
Speaker 6: Pretty well, so with them, So with your son's coach contra,
Speaker 6: do you, I guess, do you play any role in
Speaker 6: their career, Like, how how do you manage that? You know,
Speaker 6: with them, you know, doing their thing and you're doing
Speaker 6: your thing? How does that work?
Speaker 7: Those are my children. I am their mother.
Speaker 5: All I can do is off as artists to artists
Speaker 5: off of them, because first of all, let's start here.
Speaker 5: I ain't gonna sit up here pretend like I know
Speaker 5: a lot about this business because I've been in the
Speaker 5: industry at Teacher Moses. I haven't really been in the
Speaker 5: music as the record business, right, Yeah, I'm in an
Speaker 5: industry at Teacher Moses. I make how many off of
Speaker 5: I very rarely opened for people. I was always doing
Speaker 5: my own shows, my own you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So I don't really know much about that. So I'm
Speaker 5: not going to sit down and ask like I know
Speaker 5: of this stuff, you know. But what I do tell
Speaker 5: them is about navigation of human beings in this space,
Speaker 5: you know. And I tell them about being good. I
Speaker 5: think one of the reasons they didn't want to tell
Speaker 5: me for a long time because they knew if they
Speaker 5: were whack, I was going to tell them.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, this is not good.
Speaker 2: It's not like I.
Speaker 6: Yeah you listen, yeah, like listen, bro, you want to
Speaker 6: hear it from me, because if you hear it.
Speaker 2: From me, you know it's coming from a place of love.
Speaker 1: You hear from the internet.
Speaker 2: Them niggas don't give a fuck about nothing.
Speaker 5: They used to say all the time that they want
Speaker 5: to be basketball players. Have you ever seen their dad?
Speaker 1: Have you seen.
Speaker 5: I told them all the time when they were a
Speaker 5: little girl child told us to.
Speaker 6: Do five to you standing outside the trail in Queensbridge, son.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 7: Everyone says that I think the.
Speaker 5: Complex that you talk.
Speaker 7: I talked leg, I talk.
Speaker 5: Like a giant. But I think the complex simplicity because
Speaker 5: I get this all the time.
Speaker 7: I think the complet.
Speaker 5: Simplicity album where my leg is kind of out of something.
Speaker 5: I think people think that that's a long leg. Now
Speaker 5: I haven't.
Speaker 3: I have a long leg, but that's.
Speaker 5: Definitely not say this Fante is so much more pleasurable
Speaker 5: to see them doing what they're doing than it was
Speaker 5: for me because I did it out of desperateness to
Speaker 5: take care of my hids and to like get to
Speaker 5: not be you know what I mean. Like they're doing
Speaker 5: it because they just love it and they enjoy it
Speaker 5: and they're happy about every single thing. I went to
Speaker 5: see them. Was that last week the week before last
Speaker 5: they opened it for Corday and they were on age
Speaker 5: and these people don't know who they are and they
Speaker 5: chant everything has staying it. It's like my heart just
Speaker 5: wanting to bust wide open because it's just very good
Speaker 5: to see your children pursuing their purpose and getting reaction
Speaker 5: from it. You know, it makes you feel really really good.
Speaker 5: And I also know how long they've humbled themselves and
Speaker 5: just worked hard and kept their head down and they
Speaker 5: you know, and now they's getting reaction to it.
Speaker 2: So it makes me feel really Nah, they've been on
Speaker 2: it for a minute.
Speaker 6: I mean I see them like they going up now,
Speaker 6: like I've seen like a lot of stuff like the
Speaker 6: LA Leakers and all that. But I'll be telling them like, yo, nah,
Speaker 6: them boys been on it for a minute, like they've
Speaker 6: been at it.
Speaker 2: So I'm super super happy for them, brothers.
Speaker 1: That's dope. Epigenetics is a beautiful thing, man.
Speaker 5: And hip hop.
Speaker 1: The jeans down to that's that's awesome.
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask Teajer one thing I wanted you
Speaker 6: to break down I think would be really helpful for
Speaker 6: all our listeners and some who are you know, aspiring
Speaker 6: artists and independent artists. For you as an independent uh
Speaker 6: as R and B because that's R and B is
Speaker 6: super I tell everybody it is so much harder doing
Speaker 6: indie R and B than doing indie hip hop. Like
Speaker 6: it's being too completely the words costs a whole lot
Speaker 6: more way more specially so for you, what moves the
Speaker 6: needle for you?
Speaker 2: Do you find? Is it shows? Is it videos? Is
Speaker 2: it you know?
Speaker 6: Is it content? You know, just releasing ship on ija whatever?
Speaker 6: What are the things that work for you as an
Speaker 6: indie artist that you actually see dividends from.
Speaker 5: Well, I definitely, you know, well, I see differicends from
Speaker 5: the shows, A definitely. That was That's what kept me
Speaker 5: for the most part. But I think it's just the
Speaker 5: only the publishing has always you know, those checks come through,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, And so yeah it comes
Speaker 5: through and and.
Speaker 7: You know, merged us decent.
Speaker 5: But it's not because I'm not trying to push that
Speaker 5: as much as you know, because I love music, so.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to start a clothing line.
Speaker 5: I have to think and then like and have people
Speaker 5: help me with that. But I think, more than anything,
Speaker 5: what is the most productive, not just money wise right.
Speaker 5: The shows and touching people have made me have like
Speaker 5: this kind of more cult kind of following, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. I've been seeing the same people and
Speaker 5: these these I have like a lockdown like ten to
Speaker 5: eleven cities that I'm gonna always get my money in.
Speaker 5: And I see these people all the time. I know
Speaker 5: their children, you know what I mean. I know all
Speaker 5: these people, and I think that I think the Internet
Speaker 5: is great, and I think it can get you to
Speaker 5: a lot of people. I think ultimately, a real connection
Speaker 5: is when you're on stage, you know, and when you
Speaker 5: get off stage and you talk to people and you
Speaker 5: do like I'm a I was always big on before
Speaker 5: people would doing this.
Speaker 7: Like these pop up shows.
Speaker 5: Okay, because I travel a lot, just because I like
Speaker 5: to travel, you know, and so.
Speaker 7: I would just pop up in cities and just in
Speaker 7: a small bar and.
Speaker 5: You get a guitar player. I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: Like I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: I love real connection with people. I think that's what
Speaker 5: it is with me. I like your experience with me
Speaker 5: to be very intimate, so it feels like I'm your friend.
Speaker 5: I don't want you to fan out over me, because
Speaker 5: that's weird to be. I just want you to be
Speaker 5: my friend, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's about how do you use in terms of
Speaker 6: using social media? Because I talk with a lot of
Speaker 6: artists now, which we're different because we kind of came
Speaker 6: up in an age before it, so we know kind
Speaker 6: of what it was before. But artists now, like social
Speaker 6: media is just something that you have to have some
Speaker 6: kind of presence there, and that's not something that we
Speaker 6: really had to have.
Speaker 2: So how do you navigate that in terms of using
Speaker 2: your social media? What works for you, what doesn't? How
Speaker 2: does that work for you?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I.
Speaker 5: Started with my Space, and I'm always engaged, and I've
Speaker 5: always engaged people, and I've always been transparent. I've always
Speaker 5: been very transparent on social media to like I said,
Speaker 5: to make people feel like I'm not someone up here.
Speaker 5: I'm your homegirl next door. So when I say, you
Speaker 5: know whatever, I'm seeing what I've been through and blah
Speaker 5: blah blah. Or if I'm on a video telling you
Speaker 5: this at a third You're not listening to me like
Speaker 5: somebody talking down to you. Listen to me like someone
Speaker 5: talking across you, like a friend. But that's kind of
Speaker 5: how I approach social media. It's new now because it's
Speaker 5: like called content, but I just always been doing this.
Speaker 5: I've just always been being myself on social media. I
Speaker 5: have to step it up now because it's like.
Speaker 1: I hate the job.
Speaker 7: I used to love it. But the thing is, I
Speaker 7: used to love it.
Speaker 5: I used to really freaking you had to do engaging
Speaker 5: as people.
Speaker 7: Until it became a thing.
Speaker 5: Right now it's like you know this and the third
Speaker 5: but I actually do like it, So I'm triggering.
Speaker 7: My head back into like liking it.
Speaker 5: A lot of the things that are going on now,
Speaker 5: I used to do them before, not because I thought
Speaker 5: it was a thing.
Speaker 7: Because I just wanted to do it.
Speaker 5: Do you understand what I'm saying? So I just couldn't
Speaker 5: I continue like I always say, you know, continue what
Speaker 5: you're doing and go harder to anybody, just continue what
Speaker 5: you're doing, go harder. And that's how I post social
Speaker 5: social media. Just now, I'm fixing my mind being that
Speaker 5: I'm moving to new music to continue what I'm doing,
Speaker 5: but be more concise and like strategized about how you know,
Speaker 5: strategizing how I want to do it.
Speaker 3: I love to watch you stand in your power on Instagram.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking about that. I was telling the
Speaker 3: guys that. I was like, I love that you stand
Speaker 3: in the power who you are not just inside but
Speaker 3: also outside, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And I'm a pretty girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you're gorgeous.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean.
Speaker 5: You're gorgeous and you're surprisingly sick. So I was like,
Speaker 5: I love, Yeah.
Speaker 2: We shouted you out on that. I must shout out
Speaker 2: the little brother shouting you out on our guest.
Speaker 5: Really, yes, change myself situation, baby, that are you serious.
Speaker 1: People?
Speaker 2: I never knew that, like.
Speaker 7: Little brother did say.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: And here's the thing.
Speaker 5: I joked a lot, like I think I'm cute, I
Speaker 5: think I'm pretty, but it's far more beautiful woman whatever block.
Speaker 5: But that's just a satittary thing. We big ourselves so
Speaker 5: we don't wait for people to cheerlead for us.
Speaker 7: We just cheerlead by ourself.
Speaker 5: Like I keep my pom poms ready in case I
Speaker 5: need to pick me up. And that's just kind of
Speaker 5: how I am. So people experience and me being myself,
Speaker 5: you know, and I think it's across from me.
Speaker 7: It doesn't come all.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah in a different place.
Speaker 8: But you.
Speaker 5: I got pom poms. They's just locked down right now, girl,
Speaker 5: I've seen them on the outage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen them on that. Yes, your your new
Speaker 2: record so special? Round? I mean that make me with
Speaker 2: uh Brodie Brown, uncle chum? Not that is that?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: That record is fucking great. I love it. How is
Speaker 2: that setting up a new record?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Where are you? What you're working on? Now? Where you at?
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm working on i'n call the bullshit.
Speaker 5: It's based on what I went through after my kids
Speaker 5: had grown up, right, and I didn't. I didn't date.
Speaker 7: I tried a.
Speaker 5: Little bit, but then I realized, you got out on
Speaker 5: your plate, right, And I'm a person that when I love,
Speaker 5: I get all involved, right, So I didn't have I
Speaker 5: couldn't just have a man in my life that might
Speaker 5: deter me from my responsibilities, which were taking care of
Speaker 5: my kids and making music and you know all that stuff.
Speaker 5: So I didn't really date. So by the time the
Speaker 5: twins left and moved to LA to start pursuing what
Speaker 5: they wanted to do with music, I just went out
Speaker 5: in the world.
Speaker 7: I was like, Okay, I have a man.
Speaker 5: And you know, giving my life and all this stuff.
Speaker 5: And I was trashed. It was trash out.
Speaker 3: There in California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was.
Speaker 5: I was going out, but I traveled, so it's not
Speaker 5: just in California. I'm in New Orleans, I'm in LA,
Speaker 5: I'm in Miami. You know, I'm in New York. I'm
Speaker 5: in all these places, right. And it wasn't that I'm
Speaker 5: not saying that everybody was trashed. It just was trash
Speaker 5: for me because I need genuine connection, you know. So
Speaker 5: I've decided.
Speaker 7: I met this guy who's really good, cute, and I was.
Speaker 5: Just like, oh, hey, can be the one. I pulled
Speaker 5: him in whatever, you know, because I'm a business woman.
Speaker 5: That's how we handle everything else. Single mom and a
Speaker 5: business woman is the worst because we think we could
Speaker 5: make anything happen, right, And so I pulled this guy
Speaker 5: into my life, and I pulled the biggest bullshit into
Speaker 5: my life that I have ever experienced. I almost went
Speaker 5: gayly you understand me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, started.
Speaker 5: He worered me out, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So it was just like, dude, that was on your
Speaker 6: I g because I would see something that you would post,
Speaker 6: would you post him?
Speaker 2: Sometimes? Okay?
Speaker 1: It wasn't no, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: No, I'm not I would never he could be my husband.
Speaker 5: We could, I would you would never see some man, Okay, okay,
Speaker 5: smart thing for women and music are no. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it's just he just I liked him so much and
Speaker 5: I just felt I just felt.
Speaker 7: Like it, because I'm into you, you should just really
Speaker 7: be good.
Speaker 5: It just didn't pan out. It was just I put
Speaker 5: myself in that situation and I wanted to blame him,
Speaker 5: but I couldn't.
Speaker 7: So there's a period of.
Speaker 5: Time during that It's like four years that I wrote
Speaker 5: all these songs, and it was like what was coming
Speaker 5: out of me at that time, genuinely coming out of me,
Speaker 5: not me trying to conjure it up. Like you know.
Speaker 5: I have a record on the Eli Ka Trinada and
Speaker 5: Duran Barnard, Yeah, simply called Fighting Farewell because I'm.
Speaker 7: Just I know I need to go. I knew this
Speaker 7: is done girl, what are you doing?
Speaker 5: And I'm fighting. I'm fighting.
Speaker 7: So this is what this album is about.
Speaker 5: It's about, you know, trying to go out here and
Speaker 5: date and the bullshit I encounter and the emotions I encountered.
Speaker 5: But also the make Me album. We have a remix
Speaker 5: with Currency and Eric.
Speaker 6: And Eric Belinger, Yeah, and we have to talk about
Speaker 6: the Kate Trinada to be Your Girl, like like we
Speaker 6: have to like and the record you did for him,
Speaker 6: the Culture Joint on his album actually, and that.
Speaker 5: Was co written with my sons.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was yeah, the the remix bringing that song
Speaker 1: back some twelve years after, not even twelve, it was.
Speaker 5: It was wild though. It was like twelve twenty twelve,
Speaker 5: and I had record with Sleaks in two thousand and four.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was yeah, it was a long time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I felt really good and I love him,
Speaker 5: and I just thought it was super cool because we
Speaker 5: got to we did that and now we all need him.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't talk that now. I was so proud.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I was so happy, I'll say.
Speaker 6: However it happened without I was so happy to see
Speaker 6: that be available on officially in streaming service.
Speaker 2: However it get done, I don't care.
Speaker 5: But we got together and we did it. Yeah, so
Speaker 5: so yeah, but I was really appreciative, and I just feel, like,
Speaker 5: to be honest with you, quest that made me feel
Speaker 5: good as a songwriter, you know, I feel be Your
Speaker 5: Girl makes me feel really good as a songwriter right up.
Speaker 5: Because even if it's the original or the remix or
Speaker 5: one of the other trillion remixes that people have done.
Speaker 5: The fact that I did something that long ago, genuinely
Speaker 5: from my heart and people still like it today, it
Speaker 5: makes me feel really good.
Speaker 7: I love Maids for that reason.
Speaker 5: So the fact that I have a song that can
Speaker 5: come on way later and people still get into it,
Speaker 5: it just makes me feel really good. That's marks more
Speaker 5: than the financial game of it. I feel really really
Speaker 5: good as an artist that it's the same.
Speaker 2: I love it well.
Speaker 1: You know, I almost feel compelled to do our traditional ending,
Speaker 1: in which we all say what we learned today. I
Speaker 1: will say that it's don't come correct with teacher muses.
Speaker 6: You've done become part of a narrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she gonna write it. She's gonna write a jam
Speaker 2: about your ad.
Speaker 3: All right, What else did we learn today?
Speaker 2: I learned I did not know.
Speaker 6: I swear I did not know that us shouting out
Speaker 6: on the gangster girls that that you know that I
Speaker 6: have no idea. Yeah, we was just I mean, we
Speaker 6: were just showing you love, like I was. You know,
Speaker 6: n we was just showing you love. I mean, I've
Speaker 6: been bumping complex simplicity, and so you know, we're me
Speaker 6: and Pools just talking ship that night in the studio,
Speaker 6: were starting to keep it so, Nah, I've been a
Speaker 6: fan forever, and you know, just I see.
Speaker 2: The people you work with.
Speaker 6: You work with like a lot of you know, homies
Speaker 6: I know and people I really respect, and I just
Speaker 6: really appreciate the way you've moved in this game. And
Speaker 6: it's just You're always someone that I've always looked at,
Speaker 6: you know, you, my brother Eric Roberson, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, just on the R and B level war
Speaker 6: It's just like yo, it is people out here that's
Speaker 6: eating like that are eating good and making good and
Speaker 6: raising family.
Speaker 1: Kendred absolutely, Kendred the family.
Speaker 6: So and so I just you know, thank you and
Speaker 6: commend you for just you know, being just that person
Speaker 6: and that artist and just having that integrity and you know,
Speaker 6: always putting your best foot forward in the music you
Speaker 6: put out.
Speaker 2: It really means a lot, you know what.
Speaker 5: Everybody else go Yeah, you can so much.
Speaker 1: You can go ahead.
Speaker 4: It is your show.
Speaker 1: No Oh.
Speaker 4: I learned two things. One, uh Fonte and Teacher should
Speaker 4: have their own podcast and conversation conversations, and two I've
Speaker 4: never been so proud to be Sagittarius whole life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a Sagittary Sarious appreciation album. I
Speaker 2: didn't know about big as Sagittarius, but.
Speaker 1: I know a whole lot now.
Speaker 3: I don't learned, all right, what you learn I don't, Oh, well,
Speaker 3: I just do go quick. I have just learned that
Speaker 3: what I already knew that teacher is my whole tribesman.
Speaker 3: Every everything that she does I kind of do outside
Speaker 3: of singing and songwriting. And also I've been learned that
Speaker 3: Teacher Moses is an amazing softball player. I just want
Speaker 3: to throw that out.
Speaker 5: On top of everything else that you.
Speaker 3: Do, this bitch can kill on the field.
Speaker 7: Well I had to that day. I'm kind of how
Speaker 7: you can't do what I gotta do.
Speaker 3: No, you you stow, you stow bases and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we played.
Speaker 7: We played a small can run fast.
Speaker 1: You'll own the softball team together?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, you know not know this.
Speaker 3: I used to play on the Boys and Girls cup
Speaker 3: on the softballs. Yes, I'm here.
Speaker 2: My name is Steve.
Speaker 1: She knows what the sports are, the sports.
Speaker 5: I know what the sports are, all right, Steve?
Speaker 2: What you learn?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 11: I learned that she's cool and I like her and
Speaker 11: she's a great interview. Thank you for doing this for
Speaker 11: us today. Also in defensive asshole boyfriends, Sorry, but we
Speaker 11: do we do help you come up with good materials.
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: When is it coming? We have a date for it
Speaker 2: yet not yet? Okay, this is okay, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: it's coming this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, or you know our listeners won't be able
Speaker 1: to see this, but okay. So she's alright, mentioned it
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right. Instead of me looking
Speaker 1: at my my psychedelic kaleidoscope imagery, I started putting uh
Speaker 1: on my television screen.
Speaker 5: Belly, I tell you, I tell.
Speaker 1: You, Belly with the volume down is.
Speaker 2: Actually it's great. It looks amazing.
Speaker 1: It is a beautiful. I never really noticed the cinematize.
Speaker 1: It's a video video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, script it is.
Speaker 7: I'm beautiful.
Speaker 5: It is beautiful, the.
Speaker 1: Lighted with the volume down? Who is she.
Speaker 5: Probably be very beautiful?
Speaker 7: Still she is?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I just remember that her sister was on
Speaker 3: a reality showing a gospel play. There's a whole nother
Speaker 3: thing with Jenny Wye. You know, none matter, but I
Speaker 3: know she's.
Speaker 1: Anyway, for real, teacher, This is long overdue. We thank
Speaker 1: you very much for doing the show.
Speaker 7: Thank you guys much.
Speaker 5: I had a great time. I also want to say
Speaker 5: to you before I go, congratulations on your great documentary.
Speaker 5: Is really really amazing. I really appreciate that. And look,
Speaker 5: I appreciate all that it's getting to because it was
Speaker 5: so cool.
Speaker 1: Hopefully by the time this makes it to air, I
Speaker 1: will winning. Yes, manifested, Yes, absolutely all right, so on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Great Teacher Moses and I'm paid, Bill
Speaker 1: and Chuck, Steve, Fon, Tikolo and Ev. This is another
Speaker 1: classic much love Sacre Nate stravaganza. We will see you
Speaker 1: on the next stor down. Thank you very much. Much
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production on iHeart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.