WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Malcolm-Jamal Warner 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:10.240 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen. 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.080 This is Quest Love Supreme, sitting here with family. This 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:19.560 is uh uh font ticcolo and layah. I keep forgetting 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.720 that we're now on YouTube and I hear we're doing well. 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:25.960 I want to talk like an old person. We're doing 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:27.760 well on the YouTube. I hear. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:32.960 This is what I on the internet? 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.680 Yes, yo, wait someone all right. Someone ragged me hard 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:43.360 this entire weekend. Of course, a vacation and a mirror 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.840 are not synonymous with each other. But I took three 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.680 days off to go off the grid, and I gathered 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.680 a whole bunch of friends and we went to Las 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.840 Vegas to do a bunch of and I'm gonna say 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.959 it correctly this time, escape rooms. What I didn't know 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.040 was behind my back. Everyone's been teasing me because I've 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:09.720 been calling it escape the room, which is right to 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:15.000 look on Fante's face right now, is right? Everyone. Finally 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.000 someone had the heart to say, hey, I'm here, by 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.920 the way, in case you it's not a call to 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.040 escape the room. It's just called escape room. They were 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.679 basically telling me that I'm talking like an old black person. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:26.840 Did you have a good time. 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.280 Half the time in my life, you know, solving murder mysteries. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.959 Yet to do one? Man, I want to do one too. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.840 Escape rooms is how I that? Who's going to get 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.759 in on the inner circle? Now you know, I've made 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.840 a lot of friends this year. No, I'm serious, word word, 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:47.880 I made a whole bunch of friends this year. So 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.040 now I got to weed them out. And the best 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:52.680 way to figure out who is who? 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.160 You only want smart people in your team. 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.640 Well, no, no, no, no, it's not just that, no, no, no, 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.800 Because the thing is is that escape rooms and japany 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.919 and I mentioned like she and Japanese restaurants is also 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.799 a litmus test. It's not about who succeeds or who 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.280 finds it natural. It's about I mean, even with total amateurs, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.079 it tells me a lot about their willingness to figure 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:20.680 it out. If they don't know it, do they fake 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.680 it till they make it so they like I'm telling you, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.960 escape rooms are the best way to figure out what 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.720 kind of people you're dealing with. So I had a 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.679 lot to learn this weekend. Anyway, my whole point was 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.280 that I use the word the and I shouldn't have 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.040 been using the so anyway, so we're on the YouTube 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.720 now and I'm hearing that we're doing well on the internet. 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:51.160 On the internets. I will say that oftentimes we speak 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.960 and we talk about heroes or people that we idolize, 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:56.800 and we have the go to names that you know, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.000 the biggest achiever and all that stuff. But I will 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:08.760 say that oftentimes we overlook certain people because some you know, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.160 sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, like your glasses 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.800 on your forehead, and you're tearing the room up looking 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:17.760 for your glasses, and they're like, oh, right here on 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:22.840 my forehead. I will say that in the preparation that 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.640 I took to do this particular episode, it reminded me 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:34.040 that our guest today is probably the individual to whom 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:40.000 I vicariously lived my life through. And you got to 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.960 understand that, you know, I'm a very specific situation, being 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:49.040 born in nineteen seventy one, three years after the whole 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:54.200 Civil rights you know revolution, I'm born into like one 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.320 of the first free generations or in terms of laws, 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.840 like you're not allowed to kill us, or at least 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.840 you're supposed to be. It's weird that my definition of 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:08.080 freedom is that legally it's it's it's it's illegal to 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.440 kill me, which is sort of as sad state of 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.880 affairs or where we are as a country. But that said, 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.479 you know, there are heroes and people to look up to, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.000 and oftentimes, I was, we often look up people way 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.279 older than us, like of course, for a lot of America, 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.880 the Jackson Five were the first people that we vicariously 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.240 lived through as heroes. And then you know, there's other 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.600 people that came along. But you know, when I turned 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:40.480 into a teenager, there really wasn't I mean, besides maybe 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.760 you know, I mean there's Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.320 Janet Jackson like him, Fields like people my age. But 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.240 that's the thing when you're hip hop, right, but when yeah, 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.960 when you're the minority, and you know, it might hit 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.159 different from Fonte, who's way younger than I am, you know, 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:03.520 but for me at least, like this, this gentleman was 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.480 a very big part of my life as I got 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.040 into like my junior high in my high school years 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.200 and so and when you look at the span of 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:18.000 his career, you can clearly see an individual who like 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.680 has evolved, not only you know, as an actor on television, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.600 but you know, also in theaters on and off Broadway, 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.480 as a musician, a Grammy Award winning musician, as a poet, 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.520 as a producer, as a director, Like there's so many, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.680 I mean even as as host of SNL, Like there's 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:42.960 a lot of even small minuscule milestones that our guest 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:48.080 has has done throughout his life that I paid attention to. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.080 And I've been waiting so long for this conversation, not 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.839 just you know, as a I don't know if are 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.240 we are we journalists right now? 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.800 Today we can be I feel like in this way, I. 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.320 Never you know, even though we have a long running 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.159 you know, going on our sixth year as with this podcast, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.000 Like I don't feel like we're journalists or whatever. But 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.080 you know, I'm not looking forward to it as a journalist, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.240 but just as a person that really gets to fan 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.320 out and ask questions to the person that he personally deemed, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.719 you know, like that person. I don't know what to say, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.840 but ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Malcolm Jamal wanted to quest 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:28.360 love supreme. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.479 Thank you, thank you, thank you. I gotta say this though, 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.760 because I've listened to your show because I know you 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.680 were you know, you're like no bullshit a geek. There's 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.240 no bullshit like you know I get from you from 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.480 Ufonte both like I don't go for bullshit. So I'm 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.080 looking forward. I'm so looking forward to having this conversation. 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.560 But to be honest, to hear that from you, Emir 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.960 is a trip for me. Like you never know how 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.640 how you can affect people, right right, and you never 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.720 know how you, you know, come off to someone. You 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.600 may come off with someone a certain way, and that 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.400 was not the intent, right right, Bro, I have loved 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:20.600 you for years of point some years, and sometimes that 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.760 is crazy because but sometimes see it, we'd be cool 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.040 as all right, and sometimes I see you and I'd 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.880 be like did I say something wrong last time? 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:30.440 Or what? 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:31.600 Really? 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.960 Yeah? So like honestly, I stay there. I spent so 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.600 much of my time like thinking like, wow, I don't know, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.160 I don't know if he likes me, Like I'm not sure. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.320 I think with you all right, this is definitely the 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.160 this See, this is why this. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:46.600 Conversation is necessary. 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.360 I'm in a way different place now in my life 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:56.040 for this very specific twenty twenty three year. It's twenty 0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:03.120 twenty three, right, oh, I'm fifty two now, it's in 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:09.440 your birthday to okay, and it's probably springtime right now. No, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.520 I think a big part of my old life and 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.120 I'm gonna I'm gonna save this a lot. I'm trying. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.720 My heart is not to sound like the jail cat 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.880 that discovers religion and then is on fire for like 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.800 seven years. You know that, that type of annoying person. 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.720 But I'll just say that in this in this portion 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:34.679 of my life, yes, I think that I avoided anyone 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.440 I looked up to and dude, Steve and I'm not 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.440 even name like Steve is just the same thing, like 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.199 you don't call me, Like how come you don't call 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.760 or that sort of thing. And I think oftentimes I 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.040 get in my head like, oh man, that's just that's 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.280 that's way too you know, you make up excuses. So 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.400 I apologize for my standoff is nature, but I assure 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.720 you that this is the elephant that's afraid of the mouse, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.560 and the mouse is afraid of the element thing. 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:08.200 So well, I got that. 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.760 But seriously, even when doing I had to do international 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:17.240 press for the movie for Summer of Soul and someone 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.520 I think this is when I was in we were 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.240 in Holland, and someone asked me, like, you know, what 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.400 was the first moment? Like I often asked a question 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.960 like what's your first musical memory, someone asked me something like, 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.920 what was like the moment that you felt like, oh 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.120 you could do this too. And I don't know if 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.120 you remember this, but this was you did a segment 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.800 once on Entertainment Tonight, or at least Entertainment Tonight covered 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.720 it where they gave you and four of your friends, 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:54.760 like four video cameras and you guys shot around New 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.839 York City and I just remember the way you're laughing 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.280 right now, tells me you remember. I just remember the 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:06.320 backdrop was to the Jackson State of Shock. However, oh wow, However, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.720 I watched that moment and again, yeah, was Spike Lee 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:13.040 a thing? 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:13.320 Then? 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:19.000 Yes he was. However, to me that that moment I watched, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.679 I was like, Oh, we can do other things. So 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.120 that was a that was to you, that was just 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:32.360 some thirty seven year ago segment for a television show 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.920 that you probably haven't even thought about in decades. But 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.280 for me, that was a moment. I mean, dude, even 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:45.800 the jamin on the one moment that other producer's thread 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.280 that I spoke of, like with The one thing we 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:54.360 all have in common was we saw that episode, and 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.800 then in two months later we all get Cassio sk 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.560 Ones and the first thing you do is you do 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.199 all the cuss words. Then you do jamming on the one, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.000 you do all the things you saw like it was 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.959 a toy. And then there's the moment you're like, oh, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.000 I could put music in this thing. And I assure 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:22.199 you any classic hip hop producer that started in that 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.880 really got their foot in the nineties, I swear to 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.200 God God that for a lot of us, that was 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.800 our moment to know what hip hop was, you know 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.520 what I mean. So it's weird that you're you're such 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.720 a part of these historical moments that you yourself probably haven't 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.160 even thought of. Like wow, I'm I'm like a watershed 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:49.280 for a lot that has happened, and you know, you 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.319 don't register it. Oh my god, this is the longest 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:51.880 intro effort. 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:53.160 Did I said something? 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.120 He said something, he said something in the middle, it's 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:56.880 like fifteen minutes. 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:58.760 Anyway, Malcolm, how are you? 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.600 Man? Great man, that's great, that's great. And Yo, thank 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.840 you for sharing what you shared. And I'm glad that 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.520 I was right that I could bring that up in 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.880 the spirit that you would receive it and it wouldn't 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.880 come off like, you know, me trying to be a 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:21.000 dick or you'd be defensive man, you know, and that 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.040 might have been an older verse to me that wouldn't 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.880 have done it just because, but you know, like you, 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.160 I'm fifty two, I'm beginning to like really embrace like 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.040 the wisdom that comes with that, you know, so the 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.000 biby to have that exchange, and it be as cool 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.480 of an exchange that that was. Just I appreciate we. 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:40.680 Are what you call evolved adults. 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:42.439 Now. Yeah, yeah, it's great though. 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:48.000 Congratulations, I'm watching it between two black men. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:48.680 It's beautiful. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:49.840 Word word, thank you. 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.400 So I'll ask you, now, what was your first musical memory. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:03.480 Hearing Graham Central station other's living room? Wow? Really, I 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:09.080 just remember, like, what what is that? And it never 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:14.280 understood until twenty something years later that when I started 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.320 playing bass, I was like, oh wow, bass is something 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:25.040 that that resonated with me at you know, three years old, right, 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.760 So I just remember, and I know I've heard music 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.319 before that, but I just remember a moment hearing hair 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.800 and hearing this voice and then and the guitars and 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.280 the music, and it was just it was crazy, but 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.520 it had a profound effect. 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:48.480 Not not to self promote or self plug but I mean, 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.199 you know, half of our at least more than half 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.760 of our listeners know that I'm currently right now at 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.199 the beginning of the slide in the Family Stone documentary. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.000 But for me, one of the hardest men to climb, 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.160 the hardest mountain to climb of this whole process isn't 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.680 even sly like slides already in the can slides interviews 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:15.920 are done. However, U I really truly thought like the 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.480 likelihood of getting Larry to cooperate in this thing was 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:24.120 the equivalent of like a Steph Curry shot from all 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:25.880 the way the other end of the court and you 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:27.840 pray to God that it goes in the court. And 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.240 he just literally as of the speaking like just agreed 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.800 to be a part of it. So like, I'm going 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:40.480 to gril the hell out of Larry Graham and yeah, yeah, 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:45.000 take advantage of that opportunity exactly exactly because you know, 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.000 all too often, like there's not a lot of in 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:53.200 depth interviews even with you. Besides like the very little 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.240 that I knew of you, like when you were, like 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.640 when Cynthia Horner was covering you right on magazine and 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.920 stuff like that, like there's really you know a lot 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:03.520 of my me. 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.160 Don't forget about the come on, I had to pull 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:08.840 out the whole pull out poster. 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.760 Exactly like for me, Like there's there's just not much 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:18.840 in depth information that you get to find out about. So, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:24.480 but when did you first realize like coming I'm assuming 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.480 that you came to the base later in life, Like 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.560 how old were you when you first like decide I'm 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.360 gonna try this. It's twenty six that I know. That 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.080 has to be intimidating. How long was it before you 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:40.440 picked it up? And how many years did you give 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:41.800 yourself to really master it? 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.600 So the whole reason I started playing bass was because 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.479 I was working on Malcolmingetti, right, and I was miserable. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.440 Really, I was miserable on that show after that Michelle 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:57.000 period or. 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.239 No, it was mister Michelle was during that period. But 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.880 it was because I had spent eight years you know, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.800 at NBC in an environment that mister Cosby made everyone 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:14.240 ultra aware of the images of people of color we're 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.520 putting on the airways, right, So eight years of that 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.880 then I go to UPN and it was like having 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.640 had the top university and then being stuck in fucking 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:26.560 junior college. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.320 You know, home Boys are out of space man. 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:30.760 Right right? 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.040 Yeah, But Malcolm and Eddie was not Homeboys in a 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.520 space yeah, or the Butler Guy. 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:37.960 But here's the thing, though, there was a lot of 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.720 work that I put into There's like a lot of 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.400 you know, blood, literal tears, the literal sweat I put 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.640 into that show because I came from Even though I 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.480 knew what UPN's programming was, I was like, Okay, well 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.200 they've seen me for eight years be a part of 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:59.600 a show they made that made history without relying on stereotypes. 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.040 So my thinking was, okay, well that's what they want here. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.960 I've watched mister Cosby run that show for eight years. 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:12.359 I know that. You know, the stereotypical things you didn't 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.439 see on the show was not because the writers were 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.960 not writing it. It was because mister Cosby was saying, no, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.560 that's not the show we're doing. That's not who these 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.440 that's not who the Huckstables are. That the drive by 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.359 mentality you have when you're writing black comedy that doesn't 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.800 belong on the show. So literally I watched them for 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:33.399 eight years, shutting down writers, making them go back to 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:38.440 square one and rewrite the script that's not based on stereotypes. Right, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.760 So all that I get to upm like, okay, well 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.359 they know how this goes, and realize that one of 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.000 them was not Bill Cosby. We were not doing Bill 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.359 Cosby numbers. So I would come to work every day 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.960 fighting writers, producers, directors, studio, network, fellow actor, viewing public 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:01.520 because there was a certain standard that I wanted to 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:08.280 continue when Uphold and UPN's whole marketing thing was the 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.280 antithesis of what I had come from. 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.240 What did the writer's room look like? It was a 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:20.879 bunch of white people the whiters rooms, Yeah, but what 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:21.680 did it look like? 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.120 It was mostly white writers on Cosby. I don't think 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.040 we ever had more than three black writers on staff 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.480 at the time. At the time on. 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:38.479 Cosby, how many writers are normally in the room. They 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.560 could be eight ten, So typical sitcom will have eight 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:49.840 to ten writers, yeah, and a show runner and they paid. Okay, 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:50.280 I get it. 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.480 So so Malcolm Edi was it was the same kind 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.159 of the same kind of that. We may have had 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.560 four writers at one time, but I mean, you know, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.920 just I was just miserable and I was looking for 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.600 a hobby, something that I wouldn't turn into a career. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.680 So the directing started out as a hobby and and 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.879 that State of Shock video you were talking about was 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.240 actually that was really my entree in uh, you know, 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.480 let me really see what this directing thing is all about. 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.240 Because the first two years of the show, we would 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.440 do this Cosby Show Cosby Kids Tour. Me and Lisa 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.680 would always talk about, yeah, we want to be triple threats, 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.080 you know, we want to write at that and direct 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.520 and do woo woo woop. Like after two and a 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.840 half years of saying that, I was like, let me 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.600 see if that's something i'd want to do, something I 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.639 even can do. So that State of Shock video, I 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.120 laughed because that was literally my first shot at attempt 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:43.800 at directing. 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.640 And then you did on The Magnificent and you also 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.080 did Any Heartbreak at. 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.320 Yeah, yeah with Brian. What was that? 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:52.760 Brian? 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:54.600 What I remember they y'all were in the video. They 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.359 showed it behind the scenes to Any Heartbreak. I was like, 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:58.159 it was you and it was impressive because it was 0:19:58.200 --> 0:19:59.800 also the actor from Head of the class who was 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:01.160 a became a director. 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.320 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Brian and Brian Robbins. Yeah yeah. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.879 So the directing started as a hobby became a career. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.440 So by the time I was on Malcolm and Eddie, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.840 I was like, Okay, I need a hobby, something that's 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.359 not acting, not directing, something that will never become a career. 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.960 I've always wanted to play music. I'll never be so 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.440 if I, in fact, if I just practice scales to 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.399 a metronome in my dressing room, that would keep me 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.760 from caring as much about the show. I'm putting so 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.240 much of myself into the show that's not loving me 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.119 back in the way that I would like, let me 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:36.879 just practice scales to a mess from that would kind 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.360 of put me in a zone kind of place. I'll 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.640 never be one of those corny actor dudes who try 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.440 to do music. I'll never start a band, right, I'll 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:51.800 never record a CD. I'll just do this. And then 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.879 it became it became a whole other thing because like, like, really, 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.159 who gets off from practicing scales to a metro know 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.880 in their dressing room in between scenes? Right? 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:12.880 The pivot is real, man, Yeah, pivoting is real. It's 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:18.000 so weird we're having this conversation right now because right 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:24.959 now I'll say that creatively, you know, I'm I'm let 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:26.879 me stop painting it, like I'm being forced to, like 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.160 they have guns to my head. But you know, we've 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.320 been working like for all I for all I can 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:38.080 say is that the Roots album is essentially finished. I'm 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:42.320 definitely using a lot of you know, I'll think of 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.640 ways to hold up install the process. You know, there's 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.879 a better song, there's a better song. But this morning 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.480 I was like, man, you made a promise to yourself 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:57.800 that you were going to learn how to thoroughly play piano, 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.040 like thoroughly and not that whole like three chords at it. 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:04.920 Like I'm a three chord at a time person where 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.600 I could do three chords and then stop the thing, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.120 and then I got to figure out the next chords 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.720 and figure out and then I'll struggle through. That's like 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.920 my level of songwritings. But you know, I was just like, man, 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.119 it's way too late for you, Like I talked myself 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.600 out of the process, Like it's way too late for 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:29.640 you to even start to think that you can play 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.399 piano as good as you play drums, like, if I 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:34.840 could just get my piano thing down, then my songwriting 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.800 level could go to the next level. But you know, 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.280 I think I was too intimidated by the process to 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.080 actually think that I could make it happen. But I'll 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:51.800 ask you from practicing your scales to like knowing exactly 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.639 what you want musically and producing your own records, Like 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:57.920 how long did that process take from twenty six to 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.520 when do you feel like, yeah, I could do this shit? 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:04.120 All right? I said, let me go back with real 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.119 quick to address something you said, So I don't. So 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:10.280 where are you now with the needing to play piano 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:11.200 as well as you? 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:14.840 You know, this is probably gonna be the last album 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:17.359 in which I will go to either James Poyser or 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:20.000 Camal or Ray Angry and be like, Okay, so I 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.400 need this care that card and like talk my way 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:25.720 through it and sort of more this whole CSI process 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:27.960 of trying to figure out how to get what's out 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:32.800 of here into the fingers next year. Damn it. I'm 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:35.440 learning how to play piano the way I really want 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:39.560 to learn it, like as good as James, which I 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:45.880 know takes time, And you know, I'm trying to disprove 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.480 the fact that you can't teach an old dog new trick. 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.040 So that's why I was asking you, gotcha? Gotcha? 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.159 How intimidating was it to go from I think I'm 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:58.280 learn the bass to holy shit, I can learn the 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:01.600 bass too, right right? And the winner is Malcolm Jamal 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:04.840 Waner for No D D DA Like, okay, this real quick? 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:06.520 So you know you don't have to you don't have 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:08.840 to play keys, you don't have to play piano as 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:11.080 well as you play bass to write dope songs. You 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:14.320 realize that, right, I just want you to keep that mind. 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:18.560 I've no I've I've proven that one can only know 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:21.919 how to play drums and still produce music. But it's 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:28.200 just oftentimes, like the ideas come like so often that 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.960 you know, I feel like I'm letting great ideas go 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:36.920 because I don't have an outlet to get somebody to 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:40.000 translate my you know, which is why I want to 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:41.040 learn to do it myself. 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:41.400 Yeah. 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:46.600 So, speaking of which fante, do you play an instrument? Nah? 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:49.760 Well, the only instrument I officially learned to play was trumpet. 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:52.920 I played trumpet all through like middle school and like 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:54.679 some high school. But I was I was like off 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:56.080 stake man. I was first chair. 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:57.440 Wait you first chair. 0:24:57.960 --> 0:24:59.720 Yeah, I was first chair. I was first chair, and 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:02.760 like my band and I got school band. Then when 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.200 I first chair, and I'm just finding this out now, 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:06.600 I was third chair. 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:07.440 It's all state man. 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:10.359 But but then when I got to high school, you know, 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:12.960 you couldn't play ball and play trumpet at the same 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:13.720 time play band. 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:15.400 So I just played football. 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.920 But uh keys, I know some I know theory, I know, 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:21.479 like just basic theory, but I'm not a player by 0:25:21.560 --> 0:25:24.879 any stretch. All the vocal arrangements and stuff I do, 0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:26.160 it's just really just about year. 0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:29.520 You know, trumpet in hand, could you go to where 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:31.560 you were in Hell? 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:33.280 No, I'm sure it's done. 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.399 Play that ship in thirty years, but you know you 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:37.920 better Blues level. 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:39.760 Can tell it. 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:44.680 You can sell it, bleak, you can sell it. I 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:49.680 ain't playing, but yeah, I know, I know, yeh, trumpet, piano, 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:52.680 you know, I know, just basic like you know, chords 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.480 and just like theory, and then with being around so 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:00.560 many musicians, like particularly like vocal arrangements, like some of 0:26:00.640 --> 0:26:04.320 my nerve fans are like, oh you saying if major 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:06.960 seven in that quart, I'm just like, I take your 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:11.000 word for it, but but I know just a little bit. 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:12.440 I don't play. I'm not a player. 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:16.080 I did used to play the recorder if that matters. 0:26:16.160 --> 0:26:18.000 I don't think I could go back to her play 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:19.159 like I used to. 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:20.840 Yeah, grade grade that. 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:25.320 Was that was in seventh grade. Yeah, yes, you were saying, Malcolm. 0:26:25.040 --> 0:26:28.960 I'll offer you this and then I'll get into answer 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:32.480 your question. In terms of old dog learning new tricks, 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:35.320 I picked up trumpet two years ago. 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:37.520 How's it going. 0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:43.240 It's your breath, it's so nasty, it's you know, I'm 0:26:43.520 --> 0:26:45.360 just getting to the point where she started to love 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:48.680 me back a little bit, right, but it's it's no. 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:52.880 It gives me a greater appreciation for music because I'm 0:26:52.920 --> 0:26:55.840 having a new relationship with with music. So like, so 0:26:56.119 --> 0:26:59.760 I took the base. I was twenty six, right, a 0:27:00.080 --> 0:27:03.080 year and a half after, you know, realizing that the 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:07.640 metronomeal scales not happening. I used to hold jam sessions 0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:11.080 like at my house, just play with cats. And a 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:13.639 year and a half after playing base, I went to 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:16.879 m I I had like a three month hiatus from 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:19.840 Alcornetti and I went to Musicians Institute and they're like 0:27:19.960 --> 0:27:24.880 ten week based immersion program. I was in way over 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:27.919 my head, what are you learning ten weeks? It's they 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:30.399 throw so much at you, and it was it was 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:33.680 stuff that I couldn't It was every day and yeah, 0:27:33.720 --> 0:27:37.080 it was every day. Literally. It took me a good 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:39.840 three or four years to be able to digest what 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:42.560 I had learned, you know, not what I had learned 0:27:42.600 --> 0:27:44.480 those ten weeks, but the information that I had a 0:27:44.600 --> 0:27:47.440 mast in those ten weeks. It took me years for 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:50.280 it to make sense. Right. But I say that to 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:53.840 say so because I play with cats who have great ears. 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.600 I dove head first into theory because I needed to 0:27:58.640 --> 0:27:59.919 at least be able to communicate. 0:28:00.119 --> 0:28:01.359 I don't have to speak the language. 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.000 Yeah, And I was also clear that, like you know, 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:07.520 in playing with other musicians and starting a band, I 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:12.000 really can't be that corny actor dude who wants to 0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:14.320 get into music like I got to take it seriously 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:18.800 and I have to respect it enough that real musicians 0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:21.840 who I want to play with understand that I respected enough, 0:28:22.480 --> 0:28:25.040 you know, and want to rock with me. And as 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:27.680 a musician also, you know, guide me along the way 0:28:27.920 --> 0:28:32.160 that makes sense. Right. So, as a bass player, I've 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:35.960 always used music theory as my hack instead of using 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:41.200 my ear on bass, I can play a fourth anywhere 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:44.560 on the neck because I know where the fourth is analytically, 0:28:44.720 --> 0:28:47.960 and I know where fourth is logistically, not because I 0:28:48.000 --> 0:28:53.400 could hear the fourth right. So now playing trump muscle 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:55.800 memory and just thought like, I know, you know, I 0:28:55.920 --> 0:28:58.440 know where a fourth is in the muscle memory and 0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:01.240 the theory of it. I know where a fourth is, 0:29:02.200 --> 0:29:04.800 so you can get away with Okay if I know, 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:06.600 if I know what key I'm in and I got 0:29:06.640 --> 0:29:09.400 the progression, I'm good and you can do that without hearing. 0:29:09.880 --> 0:29:12.200 But on trumpet, as you know, you got to hear 0:29:12.280 --> 0:29:16.960 the note before you play it, right. So now I'm like, oh, 0:29:17.280 --> 0:29:21.600 that's what a fourth sounds like. Ah okay. It's just 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:24.560 giving me a whole different appreciation for music because I 0:29:24.640 --> 0:29:26.360 started playing trumpet two years ago. 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:28.959 At the time, when you're doing this, going to jam sessions, 0:29:29.000 --> 0:29:31.440 like what part of the United States? Are you in 0:29:31.600 --> 0:29:35.320 New York? Are you in California? I'm in La Okay, 0:29:35.520 --> 0:29:38.040 So back, let's go back to nineteen ninety five. If 0:29:38.120 --> 0:29:41.480 you want to find a jam session or a spot 0:29:41.560 --> 0:29:44.720 that will let cats work things out, Like where are 0:29:44.760 --> 0:29:45.560 you going like. 0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:48.960 That part was easy because there were these cats. It's 0:29:49.280 --> 0:29:52.040 Ron Kat Spearmen. They had this house that was kind 0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:53.880 of down the hill from me, and they were a 0:29:53.960 --> 0:29:56.520 band and they were a whole band that lived together, okay, 0:29:56.640 --> 0:29:59.040 and so they had you know, they always had the 0:29:59.160 --> 0:30:02.280 music set up down in the bottom floor of the house. 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:04.600 So I used to go over there and kind of jam, 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:07.479 you know, like literally I met a cat I think 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:10.720 actually the cat who sold me my first bass at 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:14.640 the Guitar Center. He was a drummer, right, So after 0:30:14.720 --> 0:30:16.960 doing the jam sessions at roncast crib and then sometimes 0:30:16.960 --> 0:30:19.640 they'll come to my crib. And then at some point, 0:30:19.800 --> 0:30:22.040 like two days a week, I would have two different 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:25.680 sets of musicians who I'm jamming with. When I go 0:30:25.760 --> 0:30:29.360 to m I they had a BMI was holding the 0:30:29.400 --> 0:30:32.800 showcase m and who's when the showcase was like, listen, 0:30:32.800 --> 0:30:35.800 we're doing a showcase for BMI. Since you go here, 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:38.160 I'd love for you, the host it if I give you, 0:30:38.240 --> 0:30:39.800 I'll give you a slot to do a song, and 0:30:39.880 --> 0:30:42.680 I'd love for you the hosted. So I was like, well, 0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:47.280 let me do two songs and cool. She was like fine, 0:30:47.560 --> 0:30:53.160 I had no songs. Yeah, I was gonna say lo. 0:30:53.320 --> 0:30:55.360 I was like, hey, by I know, I was working 0:30:55.440 --> 0:31:00.200 on Coltrane's Equinox and Lover was just's ugly head. So 0:31:00.360 --> 0:31:02.960 I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do those those two songs, 0:31:03.360 --> 0:31:05.240 and I'd even have a band. So the band I 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:08.680 put together were, you know, the different cats from the 0:31:08.720 --> 0:31:12.120 two different jam sessions, and I make sure that none 0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:16.000 of them played in bands together because I wasn't sure 0:31:16.080 --> 0:31:17.520 what I was trying to create, but I knew I 0:31:17.600 --> 0:31:20.360 wanted it like a little a mix of stuff, but 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:22.600 you know, I still wanted to be wanted it to 0:31:22.640 --> 0:31:24.560 be my project, if that makes. 0:31:24.400 --> 0:31:27.680 Sense, right, And it wasn't intimidating in terms of like 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:31.440 I'll give you an example. Comedians have to always work 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:34.840 out their comedy in front of a small group of people. 0:31:35.880 --> 0:31:38.040 Like for me, performing like it's no people ask all 0:31:38.040 --> 0:31:39.920 the time like yeaver get nervous to perform and whatever. 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:43.880 And I'll say that, you know, a typical roots concert 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:49.200 nowadays is somewhere you know, we're somewhere in between five 0:31:49.320 --> 0:31:53.680 thousand to maybe depending on the marketplace, you know, nine 0:31:53.720 --> 0:31:58.840 to ten thousand people. And with that many people, there's 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:02.840 no intimacy there, so I don't have fear, but you know, 0:32:02.960 --> 0:32:06.200 it's always in small, smaller clubs and those sort of 0:32:06.280 --> 0:32:10.200 things like if you say, if Glasper's like yo, come 0:32:10.280 --> 0:32:13.400 down the blue note and sit in a song or two, 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:19.000 like I might legit get like uptight about it because 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:24.840 I think in smaller intimate settings musicianship is a weirder 0:32:25.320 --> 0:32:28.360 thing for me to do, which I know is kind 0:32:28.400 --> 0:32:30.520 of weird for me to say, like thirty years into 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:34.080 my career to emit, like I have hang ups about 0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:35.640 that sort of thing. 0:32:35.720 --> 0:32:37.719 But for you, though, but would you do it were 0:32:37.760 --> 0:32:40.880 you ever worried about like Amir, would you do with it? 0:32:41.040 --> 0:32:42.400 You would have your hang ups and get up tight 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:43.560 about it, But would you still do it? 0:32:44.720 --> 0:32:48.960 I would still do it because even now and yeah, 0:32:49.040 --> 0:32:51.920 sometimes the voice of self doubt is heavy as hell, 0:32:52.280 --> 0:32:56.600 But I'm smart enough to just jump in the pool 0:32:56.640 --> 0:32:58.560 and say fuck it at the end of the day, 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:03.000 but not before the anxiety of how good do I 0:33:03.040 --> 0:33:06.560 have to be? The you know, because like the level 0:33:06.600 --> 0:33:09.640 of musician nerds that are watching Glass are a little 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:15.080 bit different than the crowds that you know want us 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:17.719 to play a song that reminds them of their college 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:20.640 period back in two thousand and three, you know what 0:33:20.680 --> 0:33:23.640 I mean, Yeah, this is real, real different. But for you, 0:33:24.080 --> 0:33:27.360 you were never at all like keeping this close to 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:31.200 the chest and worrying about people that are judging you 0:33:31.480 --> 0:33:35.240 of your other profession that they see you perfect, you know, 0:33:35.400 --> 0:33:38.600 and applying it to your musician life. Yeah. 0:33:40.360 --> 0:33:42.720 No, I mean I think I think it was you know, 0:33:42.880 --> 0:33:48.440 maybe just part audacity. I'm sure. I'm sure there's also 0:33:48.480 --> 0:33:51.800 a little a little ego in it and that, you know, 0:33:51.880 --> 0:33:53.960 when you know, when I was doing when I started 0:33:53.960 --> 0:33:56.280 doing spoken word, I was I was really active in 0:33:56.360 --> 0:34:01.920 the underground spoken word movement in La right, and I 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:04.600 was always doing poetry always, So there's a certain of 0:34:04.720 --> 0:34:06.760 you know, there's a certain level of audacity to be 0:34:06.840 --> 0:34:10.200 able to be a poet and you know, write your 0:34:10.680 --> 0:34:14.040 shit and be vulnerable and have people you know judge 0:34:14.080 --> 0:34:16.560 you and shit. So there's a certain level of audacity 0:34:16.680 --> 0:34:19.120 with that. But back when I started, you know, there 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:22.440 was only like one or two poetry spots, you know, 0:34:22.680 --> 0:34:26.040 in any given city you could go to. So once 0:34:26.160 --> 0:34:29.959 it got to the point where you know, neo soul 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:33.880 you know, started to take off, and then you know, 0:34:34.120 --> 0:34:36.360 there are poetry spots like all over the place, and 0:34:36.400 --> 0:34:42.200 now HBO's got a poetry situation, so there was For me, 0:34:42.320 --> 0:34:44.440 it was like, okay, well this is you know, a 0:34:44.560 --> 0:34:48.200 really a crowded field, and I have a you know, 0:34:48.280 --> 0:34:53.480 I have a love hate relationship with poetry anyway. But 0:34:53.760 --> 0:34:57.319 you know, I also I grew up listening to to Gil, 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:59.840 Scott Hare and Brian Jackson, Like my dad went to 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:04.719 Lincoln with Gil and Bryant, and my dad went to 0:35:04.840 --> 0:35:08.120 Lincoln because Langston went to Lincoln. So like the whole 0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:10.680 poetry thing is all like I came out of the 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:16.600 womb listening to Gil and last poets. So when all this, 0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:19.240 you know, when now it seems like everybody's a poet 0:35:19.880 --> 0:35:26.040 and now fucking celebrities are poets too, right, right right, 0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:29.759 I'm so much on my own ship. I will I 0:35:29.880 --> 0:35:33.239 make the disclaimer. I am a poet. I am not 0:35:33.360 --> 0:35:36.040 a celebrity who likes to do poetry. I'm a poet. 0:35:37.120 --> 0:35:39.600 So I think when like when everybody's a poet, I 0:35:39.719 --> 0:35:41.160 was like, well, you know what, Gil put his stuff 0:35:41.200 --> 0:35:44.600 to music. I think at some point the music was 0:35:44.640 --> 0:35:47.000 still kind of you know, calling me a bit. But 0:35:47.120 --> 0:35:50.879 even before I started playing bass, I used to see 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:53.359 you guys in me. I don't remember. You guys would 0:35:53.360 --> 0:35:57.320 do San Diego a lot, yes man, yeah, And I 0:35:57.440 --> 0:35:59.960 was doing a play down in La Joya Bell Yeah, 0:36:00.239 --> 0:36:03.480 so whenever y'all come through, you know, we did there. 0:36:03.800 --> 0:36:05.759 And at this point I wasn't even you know, I 0:36:05.920 --> 0:36:08.279 might have thought about bass, but I wasn't really, you know, 0:36:08.400 --> 0:36:10.960 seriously considered picking up bass. But I would talk to 0:36:11.080 --> 0:36:15.400 Hub about bass and and and jazz and jazz studies 0:36:15.520 --> 0:36:18.560 and Okay, So by the time it came around to 0:36:19.440 --> 0:36:23.560 fuse the you know, the music and the poetry, right, 0:36:24.160 --> 0:36:28.040 it was what you guys were doing with Ursula Rucker. Yeah, right, 0:36:28.960 --> 0:36:31.440 Like the first time I heard that first joint, like, 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:38.239 you know, right, right, And so I had listened to 0:36:38.360 --> 0:36:42.880 that for years, even before thinking about playing bass or 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:45.400 any of that. But when the time came that I 0:36:45.560 --> 0:36:47.760 had to put the two together, because when I started 0:36:47.840 --> 0:36:50.279 the bass, it was just to play music, right. I 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:52.960 kept the poetry and the music separate from each other, 0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:55.680 even though I was still doing poetry at spots, and 0:36:55.680 --> 0:36:58.120 I was still doing poetry with other bands. You know, 0:36:58.320 --> 0:37:00.759 my band like no, we're we're like we're jazz funk band. 0:37:00.760 --> 0:37:03.680 I'm here to play bass, but what was happening. People 0:37:03.800 --> 0:37:06.480 weren't really you know, feeling coming to see me standing 0:37:06.520 --> 0:37:07.600 in the back with the drummer. 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:08.920 Right. 0:37:09.040 --> 0:37:12.840 So at some point I had to uh take responsibility 0:37:12.880 --> 0:37:16.120 for being a front the front man to my own band, right, 0:37:18.320 --> 0:37:20.719 And then I started coming. I was coming out of 0:37:20.760 --> 0:37:23.480 pocket like two three hundred dollars every time I did 0:37:23.520 --> 0:37:26.160 a gig, because once I paid everybody, once I did 0:37:26.320 --> 0:37:29.360 print and advertising. Uh, you know, I asked somebody, you know, 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:31.759 video of the show. I'm coming out of pocket. So 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:35.040 I was like, I need to sell a CD so 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:36.560 I can at least and not feel like I'm losing 0:37:36.600 --> 0:37:38.520 money every time I do a show. But I had 0:37:39.080 --> 0:37:44.680 no music. I had no music, so it was like, 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:48.440 all right, I need to start doing poetry. I need 0:37:48.520 --> 0:37:51.959 to start, you know, uh, you know, coming up with music, 0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:55.000 do my poetry over and then I would go back 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:56.760 to uh to the unlocking. 0:37:58.120 --> 0:37:59.279 It was like yeah. 0:38:00.000 --> 0:38:03.240 And then Michelle nddio Cello you know that first album 0:38:03.400 --> 0:38:06.319 was like, ah, brand new Heavies. You know, they were 0:38:06.520 --> 0:38:09.239 you know, they were popping. So all of that made 0:38:09.280 --> 0:38:12.480 me go, yes, I'm gonna do poetry and I'm gonna 0:38:12.480 --> 0:38:16.080 play bass. Fuck what every other poet out there is doing. 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:20.000 I'm on some different shit. Nobody's doing this, and I'm 0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:24.319 gonna do it well, right, and it's gonna be good, right, 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:27.360 And I know it's going to be so good that 0:38:28.160 --> 0:38:31.239 I don't care what you think about it, right, Like 0:38:31.280 --> 0:38:33.000 I'm trying to get there with my acting. If you 0:38:33.160 --> 0:38:36.640 told me, yo, you suck. Truthfully, I'm almost at the 0:38:36.680 --> 0:38:40.120 place where that wouldn't bother me, but it might hit 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:42.680 me somewhere. Right. You can tell me as a poet 0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:46.560 that I suck water off a duck's back. It does 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:49.400 not affect me at all, because for me, that's how 0:38:49.520 --> 0:38:55.560 good I feel I am as a post right. So okay, well, 0:38:56.040 --> 0:38:59.400 if I already feel that way about the poetry and 0:38:59.520 --> 0:39:02.040 everybody trying to fill the space, well let me kick 0:39:02.080 --> 0:39:04.480 it up a notch, you know, let me start playing 0:39:04.560 --> 0:39:08.399 bass while I'm doing poetry, right, but let me really 0:39:08.960 --> 0:39:14.320 learn the Eddie Griffin had a band right wait in 0:39:14.440 --> 0:39:17.000 real life? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. 0:39:17.120 --> 0:39:19.040 I didn't know this. So he had this band. 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:20.239 It was like it was like a you know, a 0:39:20.280 --> 0:39:28.320 from Cadelic knockoff. He had two bass players, is yeah, yeah, yeah, really, 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:31.360 yeah yeah. That's one of the things that kind of 0:39:31.440 --> 0:39:34.919 broke the mystique for me. It's like, oh, okay, they're 0:39:34.960 --> 0:39:37.960 doing funk Adelic. And then I just watched him a lot, 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:42.440 and I uh, I watched him so much and listened 0:39:42.440 --> 0:39:47.440 to him so much and understood that he's one of 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:51.960 those talented cats you know that can definitely by playing 0:39:52.000 --> 0:39:55.360 all the stuff, but he doesn't he's not study. He 0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:58.799 doesn't know music. So I was like, Okay, well, if 0:39:58.960 --> 0:40:02.839 I just do that, I could get over. But if 0:40:02.880 --> 0:40:05.239 I actually take the time to study the language of music, 0:40:05.520 --> 0:40:10.160 then I could actually play with really good musicians, you know, 0:40:10.160 --> 0:40:12.960 who are gonna rock with me and hold me accountable 0:40:13.800 --> 0:40:15.320 and not just be kissing my ass because I'm not 0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:17.080 much to my one. So like there was all of 0:40:17.280 --> 0:40:24.600 that that that that went into so much about the honor, respect, 0:40:24.719 --> 0:40:28.160 and legitimacy of being able to call myself a musician 0:40:28.719 --> 0:40:32.920 around really good musicians and they can actually acknowledge me, 0:40:33.880 --> 0:40:36.120 you know, and to be legit Like that's the long 0:40:36.239 --> 0:40:40.560 game that I was going for back at twenty eight. 0:40:41.360 --> 0:40:42.600 And I think I think you. 0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:46.279 I think there's also thing as well with actors, with musicians. 0:40:46.880 --> 0:40:49.720 If you're an actor doing music, we know, for damn 0:40:49.719 --> 0:40:51.000 sure you're not doing it for the money. 0:40:52.080 --> 0:40:54.640 Like you know what I'm saying. 0:40:55.080 --> 0:40:58.840 We know like, Okay, if you're here, you're here for 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:01.040 a choice, you know, I mean, you're making a choice 0:41:01.080 --> 0:41:03.520 to be here because you could take care of yourself 0:41:03.600 --> 0:41:07.200 so much better, you know what I'm saying, doing TV, 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:08.520 doing movies on whatever. 0:41:08.760 --> 0:41:11.080 So there is there is some skin in the game 0:41:11.120 --> 0:41:13.120 in that way, and putting up product with no label, 0:41:14.000 --> 0:41:16.960 you know, no promotional budget, like none of that, like 0:41:17.120 --> 0:41:22.160 everything like coming straight out of pocket, right, no union 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:26.600 right right. But for me, it's about the art, like 0:41:27.080 --> 0:41:31.239 like I'm yeah, I'm creating art, and I'm creating timeless art. 0:41:32.080 --> 0:41:34.680 So who was the first peer that saw what you 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:38.200 were doing and was like keep doing that? And you 0:41:38.600 --> 0:41:40.520 it really kind of stamped it for you. I mean 0:41:40.520 --> 0:41:45.080 even though in terms of the music side of the No, 0:41:45.160 --> 0:41:48.200 on the music side, I got the poetry because Ursula 0:41:48.239 --> 0:41:49.000 Rucord just text. 0:41:48.920 --> 0:41:50.120 Me about you, so I get it. 0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:50.840 Wow. 0:41:53.320 --> 0:41:57.520 I think early on Layla Hathaway because me and Layla 0:41:57.640 --> 0:42:01.880 go way back. And so when I first, you know, 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:04.160 put this band together and I'm out gigging. You know, 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:07.880 I had a female vocalist and Layla would come to 0:42:08.080 --> 0:42:12.000 my gigs and when the vocalist would sing, she would leave. 0:42:13.600 --> 0:42:20.600 What's that's actually on brand for Laila halfaway? 0:42:20.920 --> 0:42:21.040 Right? 0:42:21.960 --> 0:42:25.520 But but but it's so much Layla. It's so much Layla. 0:42:26.160 --> 0:42:29.600 It's not Layla being a dick. It's like she like, 0:42:29.719 --> 0:42:34.000 if it's not working for her, she literally cannot physically 0:42:34.160 --> 0:42:34.480 beat it. 0:42:34.840 --> 0:42:36.160 And we're like, when you, I think, when you're one 0:42:36.200 --> 0:42:38.120 of the best at something, like I mean, when we 0:42:38.239 --> 0:42:39.839 had Dave on, he was saying, like how it's hard 0:42:39.840 --> 0:42:42.040 for him to watch other comedians. You know what I'm saying, 0:42:42.080 --> 0:42:45.200 because it's just you know, you're just constantly looking at 0:42:45.360 --> 0:42:46.840 how you could do it better. 0:42:47.400 --> 0:42:47.880 You know what I mean. 0:42:47.960 --> 0:42:49.880 And with Layla, I mean with her being you know, 0:42:49.960 --> 0:42:53.600 one of the singers in the world. Yeah, I could 0:42:53.680 --> 0:42:55.719 see her, you know, walking out. 0:42:56.520 --> 0:42:58.839 Wait, So that being said, I know we weren't talking 0:42:58.840 --> 0:42:59.120 about it. 0:42:59.160 --> 0:43:01.239 Does that mean you're gonna talk about Jesus children and 0:43:01.320 --> 0:43:03.520 how that that came together then, because that's kind of 0:43:03.800 --> 0:43:05.320 a beautiful circle back. 0:43:06.320 --> 0:43:09.920 Right, Yeah, yeah, I love to just just go back 0:43:10.000 --> 0:43:10.439 real quick. 0:43:10.840 --> 0:43:14.360 Sorry, you know, just just probably the first backwards episode 0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:18.879 of Quest Love Supreme where we started the end way 0:43:18.960 --> 0:43:21.000 backwards and. 0:43:21.000 --> 0:43:24.120 That's how conversation goes though, right right there. So later 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:28.239 would later would would come to my gigs often, right, 0:43:28.320 --> 0:43:30.760 So even if she didn't dig, you know, whatever singer 0:43:30.880 --> 0:43:33.640 we had, she was still supportive and you know, and 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:37.600 I know she wouldn't be rocking just you know, because. 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:40.880 So that, by the way, can let me enterrupt one second? 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:43.279 That singer never found out? Did they. 0:43:44.760 --> 0:43:47.239 Hopeful? Well, there were a couple of different singers, you know, 0:43:47.400 --> 0:43:51.239 a different different shows, so uh may. 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:56.680 This episode like I know that that wasn't me anyway. 0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:00.200 A't talking about me? 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:02.120 Right exactly exactly. 0:44:03.640 --> 0:44:06.719 But Jesus Children Kevin Teasley who was my my my 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:10.640 MD at the time, had office space at west Lake 0:44:11.480 --> 0:44:13.680 and he's at west Lake, you know, Rob's at west 0:44:13.760 --> 0:44:16.400 Lake and they're talking and you know, uh, you know Capstone, 0:44:16.400 --> 0:44:19.000 he's you know, India, my band whatever. So so I 0:44:19.120 --> 0:44:22.840 come over, you know, hanging out they're doing and Layla's 0:44:22.840 --> 0:44:26.600 actually recording Jesus Children, okay, And as I'm there and 0:44:26.719 --> 0:44:31.680 she knocks it out in one take, and you know, 0:44:31.840 --> 0:44:34.560 Rob is playing to me this musical interlude and he 0:44:34.680 --> 0:44:39.759 was telling me how his homeboy, uh I had a 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:45.080 daughter who was killed at Sandy Hook, and he's going 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:47.360 to write a poem, you know, and it's going to 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:49.960 go here and hold nine. And I was like, Yo, 0:44:50.160 --> 0:44:54.440 that's that's dope, right. So we're hanging out and then 0:44:55.160 --> 0:44:57.640 about two weeks later, he's in town. He's back in town. 0:44:57.680 --> 0:45:00.359 He's and he's mixing the record and Robins like, yo, 0:45:00.600 --> 0:45:02.920 you know, my man, he couldn't do it like you know, 0:45:03.239 --> 0:45:05.640 at the you know, eleventh hour, it really hit too 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:09.520 close to home. Do you have a poem about Sandy Hook? 0:45:10.640 --> 0:45:12.520 And I was like no, but he forgive me the track. 0:45:12.560 --> 0:45:15.440 I'll go upstairs the right one. So he gave me 0:45:15.520 --> 0:45:23.200 his iPod shuffle time and I went upstairs, and in 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:26.560 about an hour or some change, he came upstairs and like, 0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:30.160 I spit it to him. He was like, and I 0:45:30.320 --> 0:45:32.600 was at a time where I was doing I was 0:45:32.640 --> 0:45:35.680 doing a lot of writing at the time, so it 0:45:35.760 --> 0:45:38.000 was clearly like a time where I needed to be 0:45:38.200 --> 0:45:41.839 on my A game. And it was just a point 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:43.799 in life where I was on my A game because 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:46.160 I was doing so much writing at the time that 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:47.920 I was you know, I was able to go up. 0:45:48.320 --> 0:45:52.440 And I know it sounds corny when writers talk about, oh, well, 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:54.880 you know, God was just using me as the vessel 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:56.840 and you know, ya YadA, that's. 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:57.359 All I say. 0:45:57.480 --> 0:46:01.680 Now, so welcome to that. And it's a real thing. 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:03.640 And I guess you have to experience it to like 0:46:03.760 --> 0:46:06.520 really understand that it's a real thing. And it can 0:46:06.600 --> 0:46:09.000 sound corny and cliche, but like that's some real shit. 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:12.560 And that night, like the vessel was open and the 0:46:12.680 --> 0:46:15.600 universe just said and I just took it. 0:46:15.640 --> 0:46:15.960 All and. 0:46:17.640 --> 0:46:22.200 You know, no, that's it's real. It's not corny at all. 0:46:27.360 --> 0:46:29.279 I have to say that I really admire the fact 0:46:29.360 --> 0:46:35.480 that you are covering poetry because all too often I 0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:37.959 think a typical move would have just been like, okay, 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:40.440 you're an MC, now you're a rapper, that sort of thing. 0:46:41.320 --> 0:46:46.320 And the fact that you took on poetry is super admirable. 0:46:46.880 --> 0:46:47.279 I know that. 0:46:47.680 --> 0:46:52.120 You know, Tariq's process is he's such a morning person, 0:46:52.320 --> 0:46:55.560 like literally like wakes up, you know, does whatever is 0:46:55.600 --> 0:46:58.040 yoga and exercise all that stuff, like like at five am. 0:46:58.840 --> 0:47:01.120 He's like the opposite of Quincy Jones, where Quincy Jones 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:04.160 said that you know, like yeah, yeah, like that one 0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:08.239 am is where he gets his magic from. Srika's like 0:47:08.360 --> 0:47:12.280 a in bed by nine thirty ten pm early person, 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:19.880 and between six am and maybe nine am that's usually 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:24.320 when the line's share of ideas come. Like that's his 0:47:24.440 --> 0:47:27.720 writing time, Like you're never to interrupt him, wow before 0:47:27.880 --> 0:47:32.239 eleven am, because from five till then, that's that's his 0:47:32.640 --> 0:47:33.799 that's his moment, that's his. 0:47:34.000 --> 0:47:36.160 Part of his process. That makes so much sense. 0:47:36.880 --> 0:47:39.600 Always wanted to know because oftentimes, you know, Tarik will 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:43.000 also have like these assignments to do, like this guy 0:47:43.080 --> 0:47:44.759 wants him to rhyme on that shit or you know that, 0:47:45.040 --> 0:47:47.360 or he has a deadline for a record. But is 0:47:47.480 --> 0:47:50.759 poetry the same? And I guess you could answer to 0:47:50.840 --> 0:47:55.160 this also, Fante, Like for a writer when you have 0:47:55.360 --> 0:47:59.040 a blank page and the idea isn't coming, like can 0:47:59.120 --> 0:48:04.080 you sort of in record time like regurgitate words to 0:48:04.239 --> 0:48:07.600 be right right poems? 0:48:08.520 --> 0:48:08.719 Yeah? 0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:12.200 I mean you can, you know, I mean listen the 0:48:12.280 --> 0:48:15.279 thing I tell everybody, man, the blank page kicks everybody's ass. Like, 0:48:15.360 --> 0:48:17.400 I don't care if you've written a million books, if 0:48:17.440 --> 0:48:21.239 you've sold a million records, you know it, don't you know? 0:48:21.440 --> 0:48:24.440 If that blank page or that blank screen or whatever. 0:48:25.040 --> 0:48:28.080 That is the great equalizer because no matter how many 0:48:28.160 --> 0:48:30.600 times you've done it, you still got to do it again, 0:48:30.840 --> 0:48:31.319 you know what I mean. 0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:34.560 And it's you know that blank page is that shit 0:48:34.680 --> 0:48:35.440 is intimidating. 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:39.040 So yeah, it definitely is a time where you know, 0:48:39.840 --> 0:48:43.560 we are somebody like to read and I mean, Malcolm 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:44.920 just you know, someone that's been in the game for 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:46.960 so long. We've been in it so long to where 0:48:47.000 --> 0:48:51.280 it's like it's kind of technically impossible to be bad, 0:48:51.719 --> 0:48:52.279 you know what I mean. 0:48:52.440 --> 0:48:55.640 But my mentality is always good is the enemy of great. 0:48:56.880 --> 0:49:00.520 I'm so technically good, like I can just write it'll 0:49:00.560 --> 0:49:03.080 be good, but I ain't going for good. 0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:04.759 I'm trying to be great, you know what I mean. 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:08.120 And so a lot of times if you're under the gun, 0:49:09.239 --> 0:49:11.600 that's kind of where I think the alpha state thing 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:13.520 can kind of come because you're not thinking and you 0:49:13.719 --> 0:49:15.759 just kind of just writing and it's like, oh yeah, 0:49:16.080 --> 0:49:19.480 this shit just kind of came out. But it definitely 0:49:19.800 --> 0:49:24.640 is a degree of professionalism where I just think it's 0:49:24.760 --> 0:49:28.359 not about inspiration. Inspiration is fleeting, you know what I'm saying. 0:49:28.440 --> 0:49:30.920 Inspiration you can be inspired one day and you may 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:34.759 not be inspired again, you know, for months. But it's 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:37.520 more so just about dedication, just dedication to the craft 0:49:37.719 --> 0:49:39.640 and just the more you do it. You know, even 0:49:39.719 --> 0:49:42.600 if I'm not for me every day, even if I'm 0:49:42.640 --> 0:49:47.040 not writing, I'm always having just some kind of prompts 0:49:47.160 --> 0:49:50.160 or something like I may just like take a word, 0:49:50.239 --> 0:49:52.120 I hear a word I hear on TV or something, 0:49:52.280 --> 0:49:54.680 and I'll just write like ten words that rhyme with 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:56.160 that word, you know what I mean. 0:49:56.440 --> 0:49:58.680 Or that's your exercise in your memo, like in your 0:49:58.840 --> 0:50:01.680 in your iPhone memo, Yeah you got a page after 0:50:01.760 --> 0:50:02.719 page after page of. 0:50:03.040 --> 0:50:05.759 I'll have string of rhyming words or just prompts or 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:09.480 ideas and then I'll just contextualize it later, you know 0:50:09.520 --> 0:50:09.839 what I mean. 0:50:10.320 --> 0:50:14.400 But but yeah, it definitely is a practice. And for 0:50:14.560 --> 0:50:16.000 me in my career, you. 0:50:16.080 --> 0:50:18.040 Can do it at any time if you just say, hey, 0:50:18.120 --> 0:50:19.960 I need something, you know, you can turn it around. 0:50:20.560 --> 0:50:24.800 But it's that memory, that working that muscle trying to 0:50:24.920 --> 0:50:28.120 be you know, get that greatness consistently over and over 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:28.720 and over again. 0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:31.320 That for me is always the best practice. 0:50:32.480 --> 0:50:37.160 And what's your what's your general practice with with poetry? 0:50:38.239 --> 0:50:39.880 Like does it hit you when it hits you or 0:50:40.239 --> 0:50:43.759 do you give yourself like exercising assignments to you know, 0:50:44.160 --> 0:50:44.560 to write. 0:50:44.880 --> 0:50:46.680 I would really like to do that, and I would 0:50:46.800 --> 0:50:50.360 really like to be more disciplined in my writing practice. 0:50:50.880 --> 0:50:54.240 Now I'm older to understand why yoga is considered the practice. 0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:57.840 I understand why law is considered the practice, you know. 0:50:58.360 --> 0:51:01.800 And now you know, I'm getting into the fame of 0:51:01.880 --> 0:51:04.200 mind that I need to treat my writing as a 0:51:04.280 --> 0:51:07.839 practice so when I have an assignment, it doesn't take 0:51:07.920 --> 0:51:10.719 me as long because like lately, you know, because I'm 0:51:10.719 --> 0:51:13.279 not I'm not writing, you know, with the output that 0:51:13.400 --> 0:51:15.680 I was. You know, it may take me a little 0:51:15.719 --> 0:51:19.960 longer to write a piece, but I have to. You know, 0:51:20.040 --> 0:51:21.920 I love putting way too much on my plate, so 0:51:22.040 --> 0:51:25.880 I'm always fighting. I'm constantly fighting overwhelmed, you know, so 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:30.520 just trying to practice base, you know, now practice horn, 0:51:31.760 --> 0:51:35.880 you know, put time into writing, but the production and 0:51:36.080 --> 0:51:38.960 being a present husband and fathers, like, there's so much, 0:51:40.080 --> 0:51:44.239 so I keep being overwhelmed. But I think it would 0:51:44.280 --> 0:51:49.239 serve me better if I can find a discipline like 0:51:49.360 --> 0:51:52.400 to reek or like you find they find something that 0:51:52.480 --> 0:51:54.919 doesn't have to be you know, a sit down dude, 0:51:55.120 --> 0:51:58.480 but you know, take ten minutes and you know, just 0:51:58.800 --> 0:52:01.840 check in where mine and just right from there. I 0:52:01.920 --> 0:52:05.839 think that would benefit me greater than the path of Okay, well, 0:52:06.640 --> 0:52:09.239 you know, when I get something or I have to 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:12.000 write this out let me, I'll see where I am 0:52:12.160 --> 0:52:14.840 and you know, at some point the inspiration will hit me, 0:52:15.520 --> 0:52:17.840 you know, or figure out what the outline is. Like, 0:52:18.120 --> 0:52:23.279 there's no there's no one, uh single approach to my 0:52:23.400 --> 0:52:25.520 writing that is the one. 0:52:26.000 --> 0:52:26.719 Sometimes for me. 0:52:27.040 --> 0:52:29.800 Like it's something that you know, it goes from a 0:52:29.920 --> 0:52:32.279 drought to a deluge, right, it just goes nothing and 0:52:32.360 --> 0:52:34.520 then all of a sudden everything just kind of comes. 0:52:35.320 --> 0:52:36.960 Do you have those moments where you kind of go 0:52:37.280 --> 0:52:39.520 back and forth for the words just it's quiet, and 0:52:39.600 --> 0:52:41.280 then all of a sudden it just comes out of nowhere. 0:52:41.520 --> 0:52:43.279 Yeah, Like there's some poems that you know that will 0:52:43.320 --> 0:52:45.279 it will take me weeks to write, but then you know, 0:52:45.320 --> 0:52:50.239 there's time ross sit down and it'll yeah, you know, 0:52:50.360 --> 0:52:51.920 then you finish it and then you you know, and 0:52:51.960 --> 0:52:53.560 then you come back a couple of days later and 0:52:53.640 --> 0:52:55.320 you read it. At least for me, my experience is 0:52:55.360 --> 0:52:58.719 like I read it and then go, wow, I really 0:52:58.920 --> 0:53:05.719 meant every word of that, yeah, you know, like and 0:53:06.239 --> 0:53:08.120 for it to come out the way it came out 0:53:08.400 --> 0:53:12.080 and every word of it be true. Wow, that's really dope. Again, 0:53:12.239 --> 0:53:15.160 feeling like okay, well that's the channel and the channel's 0:53:15.200 --> 0:53:17.640 opening up, and like does it all come and just 0:53:17.840 --> 0:53:20.080 I'm writing as fast as I can. 0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:24.040 Let me ask, because I will say, especially in the 0:53:24.120 --> 0:53:27.840 times that we live now, this entire year feels like 0:53:27.920 --> 0:53:31.680 a five year period. I feel like everything that's happened 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:33.920 to me this year happened like five years ago, and 0:53:33.960 --> 0:53:36.680 I'm reading lines like, oh, holy shit, that was March. 0:53:37.719 --> 0:53:42.720 So my question to you is one, I'm really curious 0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:48.120 about your latest miles long album title, which is Hiding 0:53:48.160 --> 0:53:52.080 in Plaine View. You'll be pressed to find any interview 0:53:52.160 --> 0:53:55.680 I've done in the last year where the quote hiding 0:53:55.760 --> 0:54:01.600 in Plaine Sight literally was that was my story, like, 0:54:01.880 --> 0:54:04.480 you know, even whatever, like the evolution of who I 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:07.879 am now I was the king of hiding in Plain 0:54:08.040 --> 0:54:12.440 Sight like and everything. So one that struggle with me. 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:16.520 But two, it's also seven years in between projects, which 0:54:17.440 --> 0:54:19.640 you know, if this one year feels like five years 0:54:19.680 --> 0:54:21.759 that I know that seven years for you has to 0:54:21.800 --> 0:54:23.320 almost be like twenty years. 0:54:23.719 --> 0:54:26.520 I forgot what album was. So Stevie had an album 0:54:26.600 --> 0:54:28.560 coming out and it was had been a lot of 0:54:28.680 --> 0:54:32.759 years since album, and they asked him about why, you 0:54:32.840 --> 0:54:35.719 know what took so long, and he said, you know, 0:54:35.840 --> 0:54:38.960 sometimes you have to live life to have something to 0:54:39.000 --> 0:54:41.880 write about or write about the facts, you know. So 0:54:42.200 --> 0:54:44.880 a lot of it was just you know, adjusting to 0:54:45.120 --> 0:54:48.520 you know, moving to Atlanta, was you know, being on 0:54:48.640 --> 0:54:52.440 the resident, you know, being a husband and father. You know, 0:54:52.760 --> 0:54:56.840 just at some point it's really hard to balance orther. 0:54:57.239 --> 0:55:01.680 I've not become successful at balancing it at all. The 0:55:01.760 --> 0:55:05.399 three things that I can't let falter is work, my wife, 0:55:05.440 --> 0:55:09.880 and my daughter. So I found myself in the you 0:55:09.960 --> 0:55:14.240 know days of especially during the pandemic and not having 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:18.880 child care help. There were days where I didn't get 0:55:18.880 --> 0:55:21.920 to touch music at all because I had to you know, 0:55:22.120 --> 0:55:23.440 there was work and I had to do with my 0:55:23.560 --> 0:55:28.560 daughter and my wife. So just in that of just 0:55:28.680 --> 0:55:33.239 living life outside of music and poetry, there was just 0:55:33.400 --> 0:55:36.160 all these things that were you know, forming for me 0:55:36.280 --> 0:55:40.200 thought processes. You know, what I'm thinking about, politics, what 0:55:40.440 --> 0:55:43.879 I'm thinking about, you know, the state of hip hop 0:55:44.680 --> 0:55:48.840 now versus when I wrote Project Image, you know, on 0:55:48.920 --> 0:55:52.120 an album that came out seventeen years ago. Whatever R 0:55:52.200 --> 0:55:53.920 It's like where am I now? Where am I with? 0:55:55.719 --> 0:55:55.880 You know? 0:55:56.360 --> 0:55:59.480 How I see? How I see the game, how I 0:55:59.520 --> 0:56:02.719 see the mate? How much? How do I in some way? 0:56:02.880 --> 0:56:09.040 It's also been like how do I get across what 0:56:09.239 --> 0:56:13.640 mister Cosby was trying to get across? But it got 0:56:13.719 --> 0:56:14.239 sucked up? 0:56:16.920 --> 0:56:17.040 Right? 0:56:18.160 --> 0:56:18.319 Right? 0:56:18.760 --> 0:56:20.359 What doctor Dyson wrote a book about? 0:56:20.960 --> 0:56:22.239 Right right? Right? 0:56:22.440 --> 0:56:24.279 Yes, yes, because I was going to ask you if 0:56:24.320 --> 0:56:26.239 you and if you have you know, I haven't heard it. 0:56:26.320 --> 0:56:29.440 You know, my my apologies, but have you written a 0:56:29.920 --> 0:56:33.120 poem about mister Cosby and your experience with or what 0:56:33.360 --> 0:56:34.400 is that you would explore? 0:56:35.560 --> 0:56:38.160 There's no, there's really no reason for me, gotcha. 0:56:38.640 --> 0:56:40.239 And when I say read about I don't mean like 0:56:40.360 --> 0:56:44.440 about him, but about the experience about whatever is it? 0:56:44.920 --> 0:56:50.080 Yeah, that's not a that's not a poem yet. And 0:56:50.280 --> 0:56:53.239 at some point again, I'm living life, so at some 0:56:53.360 --> 0:56:54.960 point it may become come up. 0:56:55.560 --> 0:56:57.160 Yeah, but I don't know. 0:56:57.360 --> 0:57:03.920 And now that you plan to see something made definitely, so. 0:57:04.040 --> 0:57:05.880 Many, so many things, so many. 0:57:07.640 --> 0:57:09.440 Even from what you were talking about with Malcolm and 0:57:09.560 --> 0:57:11.200 Eddie and what you learned and how you grew up 0:57:11.400 --> 0:57:14.799 like in that TV world, which is just a one 0:57:14.840 --> 0:57:18.400 of a kind experience experience for that time, like and 0:57:18.520 --> 0:57:21.240 having that power like you said when you realize you 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:24.040 weren't him, and walking in that writer's there's so many angles. 0:57:23.960 --> 0:57:28.280 To take, you know, likes just being present to it all. 0:57:28.400 --> 0:57:31.520 And to the doctor Dyson's point as well. 0:57:33.280 --> 0:57:36.640 Wait, what book was that like, because it's Bill Cosby, right. 0:57:36.800 --> 0:57:39.000 Yeah, that was what the name of the book was. 0:57:39.360 --> 0:57:41.000 He wrote a whole book about what he said about 0:57:41.080 --> 0:57:44.200 us on that faithful day they're usually people talk about Yeah. 0:57:44.280 --> 0:57:45.520 Okay, gotcha. 0:57:46.320 --> 0:57:48.240 So again I think this is part of it was, 0:57:48.720 --> 0:57:53.320 you know, how do I how do one not have 0:57:53.480 --> 0:57:57.680 what happened to his message happened to you know, for 0:57:57.880 --> 0:58:00.560 for the message I'm trying to you know. So there 0:58:00.560 --> 0:58:04.040 were people that actually consulted with like Professor Daniel Williams 0:58:04.720 --> 0:58:07.440 over at Howard I, you know, that's the homiees like 0:58:07.760 --> 0:58:11.200 I conferred with her with you know, some of the writing, uh, 0:58:11.440 --> 0:58:13.640 just to kind of make sure okay, you know, And 0:58:13.760 --> 0:58:17.720 and there's a certain you know lens through which I'm 0:58:17.920 --> 0:58:19.880 you know, because of a lens through what I'm watching, 0:58:19.920 --> 0:58:23.920 I'm not necessarily aware of how this could be misinterpreted, 0:58:25.480 --> 0:58:28.479 you know, in another way. So you know, Dana helped 0:58:28.520 --> 0:58:32.120 me out with that a great deal. And there's another 0:58:32.160 --> 0:58:34.000 piece I took to another poet just to kind of 0:58:34.040 --> 0:58:37.200 get some feedback on. So just all of these things 0:58:37.240 --> 0:58:37.920 have been brewing. 0:58:38.480 --> 0:58:39.960 One of the tracks on here I was listening to. 0:58:40.240 --> 0:58:41.880 I was listening to it, and it actually made me 0:58:41.960 --> 0:58:46.000 think about what happened to Amir this year in February, Like, 0:58:46.080 --> 0:58:47.600 and I was like, but he is he referring to that? 0:58:47.960 --> 0:58:50.280 It was Ai? Which track was it? 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:52.840 But yeah, what happened at the Oscars, It made me 0:58:53.000 --> 0:58:55.560 It was talking about that and showing their true feelings 0:58:55.640 --> 0:58:58.760 and when when black men really put themselves out there. 0:58:59.080 --> 0:59:01.280 They just made me think of that in that way. 0:59:02.760 --> 0:59:07.000 For you, though, in March of twenty twenty, like what 0:59:07.360 --> 0:59:09.680 adjustments have you had to meet? And like how did 0:59:09.720 --> 0:59:13.640 you deal in the last two years from from the 0:59:13.840 --> 0:59:15.960 pandemic and quarantine until where you are now? 0:59:16.840 --> 0:59:19.880 That's a great question. Like for me during that time, 0:59:20.920 --> 0:59:22.160 like it was a you know, it was a fuck 0:59:22.240 --> 0:59:25.320 that time, but it was a beautiful time for you know, 0:59:25.440 --> 0:59:28.120 for my family, because it was literally me, my wife, 0:59:28.160 --> 0:59:32.040 and my daughter right right, you know. And for my 0:59:32.200 --> 0:59:36.080 daughter to have mommy and Papa both at home all 0:59:36.200 --> 0:59:42.240 day every day she was in heaven. So for our unit, 0:59:42.960 --> 0:59:46.640 you know, it made our unit stronger in that we 0:59:46.920 --> 0:59:51.120 had the opportunity to have to be in each other's 0:59:51.160 --> 0:59:55.240 presence like all the time and and really really enjoy 0:59:55.320 --> 0:59:57.040 each other, you know, and being able to have that 0:59:57.200 --> 1:00:00.840 time because my daughter was two when COVID broke out, 1:00:00.920 --> 1:00:02.680 So to be able to have that kind of time 1:00:03.240 --> 1:00:07.680 and that kind of family time uninterrupted by work felt 1:00:07.760 --> 1:00:11.920 really good, you know. So I think that that kind 1:00:11.960 --> 1:00:15.919 of informed really everything else, if that makes sense. 1:00:17.480 --> 1:00:19.120 Did you do a lot of writing during that time 1:00:19.440 --> 1:00:19.800 or was it? 1:00:20.040 --> 1:00:23.240 Yeah? So what happened was I know, So I've been 1:00:23.320 --> 1:00:28.640 knee deep and I've been deep inable to forever. Like 1:00:29.520 --> 1:00:32.880 I took him able to online course at Berkeley in 1:00:33.000 --> 1:00:37.200 like twenty fourteen, right, so I'm I had able to 1:00:37.240 --> 1:00:40.560 it was able to three point five, right, and I 1:00:40.680 --> 1:00:44.200 was eleven, you know, But back then I didn't really 1:00:44.280 --> 1:00:46.320 understand it, so I put it away until they came out, 1:00:46.440 --> 1:00:49.240 till nine came out. But so twenty twenty, I was like, 1:00:50.080 --> 1:00:54.640 I'm going to do a record, and I'm going to 1:00:54.760 --> 1:00:58.120 do all the production of myself. Not because that's what 1:00:58.200 --> 1:01:01.360 I want to do moving forward, but since you know, 1:01:01.440 --> 1:01:05.000 let this be my quarantine me myself and able to 1:01:05.320 --> 1:01:06.880 eat get the ship. 1:01:07.520 --> 1:01:07.720 Yeah. 1:01:07.880 --> 1:01:10.840 So that's where a lot of the record came from, 1:01:11.680 --> 1:01:15.040 because you know, I got into a five song EP, 1:01:15.640 --> 1:01:18.280 and then I did a great job of self sabotageing myself, 1:01:18.320 --> 1:01:21.240 said well, maybe let me add two more songs, right, 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:23.680 let me be flushed that with seven songs, right, I'm 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:27.200 gonna do that, And then life happened and it never 1:01:27.280 --> 1:01:29.720 got done right, as you know, just kind of sat 1:01:29.800 --> 1:01:31.360 warning or something, but they kind of sat on it. 1:01:31.440 --> 1:01:35.000 It wasn't you know, at the height of a priority list, 1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:38.840 especially now when everything's streaming, It's like, well, one, I 1:01:38.880 --> 1:01:42.440 can put it out whenever. I'm not gonna make any 1:01:42.480 --> 1:01:45.160 money off of it, so there's really no rush into finishing. 1:01:45.200 --> 1:01:48.120 So I did all of that, the self sabotage, finishing 1:01:48.160 --> 1:01:52.200 the record, and then last year when the Grammys announced 1:01:52.200 --> 1:01:54.600 they were doing the uh you know, finally doing the 1:01:55.520 --> 1:02:01.280 spoken word poetry category, I was like, was that, Yeah, Yeah, 1:02:01.360 --> 1:02:02.040 this is the first. 1:02:01.920 --> 1:02:04.240 Year I thought there was always a spoken word. 1:02:04.400 --> 1:02:11.919 Yeah, but not so spoken word traditionally was included poetry, audiobooks, 1:02:11.920 --> 1:02:14.120 audiobook to comedy. 1:02:14.400 --> 1:02:17.760 Yeah, so you got your own category. Yeah. 1:02:17.840 --> 1:02:22.520 So like two years ago, say cool Edwards had an 1:02:22.560 --> 1:02:27.120 album that was nominated, but Michelle Obama won right. 1:02:30.160 --> 1:02:30.640 Right, like. 1:02:32.200 --> 1:02:36.160 Exactly, So finally, after years of campaigning, they finally opened 1:02:36.240 --> 1:02:39.640 up the best Spoken word Poetry album. 1:02:40.720 --> 1:02:46.320 Can I take this rare ten seconds out to pick 1:02:46.440 --> 1:02:50.800 up my sister, Dawn Thompson. I rarely, I mean I 1:02:51.280 --> 1:02:55.720 rarely go there, but I will say that I've never 1:02:55.960 --> 1:03:03.160 known a human being that is on damn near at 1:03:03.320 --> 1:03:10.760 Tasmanian devil level of trying to bring change to me, 1:03:11.600 --> 1:03:17.440 to Naris and the entire Grammy organization. And I think 1:03:17.520 --> 1:03:19.560 even saying that might be putting on the spot a 1:03:19.600 --> 1:03:20.360 little bit too much. 1:03:20.840 --> 1:03:23.160 Yeah, but she's doing it the right way locally too, 1:03:23.400 --> 1:03:25.480 like for her hometown, Like that's what's upping. 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:29.040 Yeah, But I mean like she's really in the trenches 1:03:29.160 --> 1:03:31.960 in ways that I never because the thing is is like, yeah, 1:03:32.040 --> 1:03:34.520 I'm a part of the academy, but I don't go 1:03:34.600 --> 1:03:36.520 to those DAN meetings. You guys. 1:03:36.880 --> 1:03:38.720 Amir's not saying his sister is the president of the 1:03:38.720 --> 1:03:40.880 local Philadelphia chapter of NEARS. 1:03:41.480 --> 1:03:44.800 Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot that part. Yes, but you know, 1:03:45.200 --> 1:03:49.760 she also is like there for countless and billions of 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:52.840 hours for like things that you don't think about, but 1:03:53.120 --> 1:03:56.280 like the level of happiness that she felt. And it 1:03:56.400 --> 1:03:58.800 wasn't like she was giving me a daily progress report 1:03:59.160 --> 1:04:01.919 of Okay, I'm working on trying to get these these 1:04:02.160 --> 1:04:04.520 categories and da da dada. It wasn't like that. But 1:04:04.640 --> 1:04:09.720 I just know that one of her biggest challenges was, 1:04:10.320 --> 1:04:13.280 all right, I now have to be the change that 1:04:13.920 --> 1:04:17.080 I want to see implemented in an industry, you know, 1:04:17.200 --> 1:04:19.520 because she came to the industry just like I did 1:04:19.680 --> 1:04:20.440 as an artist. 1:04:21.960 --> 1:04:23.840 Alicia Butterfield too, because you know. 1:04:24.320 --> 1:04:28.360 Yeah, exactly the doing it. And yeah, my whole point 1:04:28.520 --> 1:04:32.000 is with my sister that sorry, I got to well, no, no, no, 1:04:32.040 --> 1:04:35.800 I'm saying I got in the door, you know, luckily, 1:04:35.880 --> 1:04:38.520 to make to make a living, I got in the door. 1:04:39.640 --> 1:04:42.520 She had to go kind of the scenic route to 1:04:42.560 --> 1:04:45.200 get there. But I definitely know that she was a 1:04:45.320 --> 1:04:50.520 part of almost, you know, a long, long, long, long, 1:04:50.680 --> 1:04:56.440 long process of getting these these categories changed so that 1:04:56.760 --> 1:04:59.320 other arts you know, so that artists can actually get 1:04:59.360 --> 1:05:00.720 to reap the benef fits o their work. 1:05:00.920 --> 1:05:03.880 And quick disclaimer for people who don't know, Don Thompson 1:05:04.080 --> 1:05:06.640 is coming from an independent artist perspective, and she's not 1:05:06.800 --> 1:05:08.600 there for her her brother relations. 1:05:08.640 --> 1:05:10.400 She's there because she knows the struggle. 1:05:10.360 --> 1:05:12.600 Big up to doing it. For that, I have to 1:05:12.640 --> 1:05:15.080 say that I said at the top, like everything that 1:05:15.200 --> 1:05:18.400 you said, especially with being a self saboteury and all 1:05:18.440 --> 1:05:24.880 those things like that that has been me decades, Like 1:05:25.040 --> 1:05:30.040 I'm now just dealing with this year of setting myself 1:05:30.360 --> 1:05:35.000 of all those things, like of me noticing how I 1:05:35.200 --> 1:05:40.840 hold back my own process and those things. So I 1:05:40.920 --> 1:05:42.640 feel like I'm hearing the code words from you and 1:05:42.720 --> 1:05:46.720 I'm like, oh wow, this might be a verse of 1:05:46.760 --> 1:05:47.360 a feather moment. 1:05:47.960 --> 1:05:51.840 Yeah, congratulations for one being able to acknowledge it and 1:05:53.120 --> 1:05:56.120 being courageous enough to you know, not do things the 1:05:56.160 --> 1:05:57.080 same way. 1:05:58.000 --> 1:06:00.080 Right, It's do an everyday struggle though. 1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:03.640 No doubt. No, Yeah, yeah, I resemble that remark. 1:06:04.280 --> 1:06:07.640 Tomorrow's a new day, you know what I mean. But 1:06:08.240 --> 1:06:11.640 you know, at least I'm at least very much aware 1:06:11.800 --> 1:06:14.040 of you know, you could either manifest something or you 1:06:14.400 --> 1:06:18.960 could manifuc something. I've been the king of man of 1:06:19.000 --> 1:06:20.000 fucking for a long time. 1:06:20.160 --> 1:06:25.720 So wow, Okay, I'm gonna tell you her, like the 1:06:25.840 --> 1:06:28.720 real real ship. Let's go, that's what we're here for. 1:06:29.160 --> 1:06:32.480 I want to name the album Blackfist Beautiful. 1:06:34.240 --> 1:06:35.080 Who Walked Your Back? 1:06:35.400 --> 1:06:40.720 My wife she was like, she was like, you know 1:06:40.800 --> 1:06:48.160 that's corny, right, It's just right. That's exactly what she said. 1:06:48.400 --> 1:06:51.160 That's exactly what she said. It leaves nothing to the imagination, 1:06:51.680 --> 1:06:52.360 oh dude. 1:06:52.440 --> 1:06:56.960 And I was like, but how do I show that 1:06:57.000 --> 1:06:57.640 I'm just black? 1:07:00.160 --> 1:07:03.800 So you know I can't. So I'd always loved the 1:07:04.640 --> 1:07:07.880 I'd always learned love the title Hiding and Playing View, 1:07:08.480 --> 1:07:11.240 And so I was like, okay, I'm a name. I'm 1:07:11.360 --> 1:07:13.640 named the album Hiding and Playing View. I told my 1:07:13.720 --> 1:07:17.440 wife and she was like, you know, you're not really hiding. 1:07:17.560 --> 1:07:20.880 I mean, everything you're writing about is exactly what you feel, 1:07:22.640 --> 1:07:26.160 so you're not really hiding. So she was like, in 1:07:26.240 --> 1:07:32.080 what ways do you hide? Damn it? So she put 1:07:32.160 --> 1:07:33.720 me in that and she put me in that space. 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:39.280 She's like, right about that, yes, yes, yes, you know. 1:07:39.560 --> 1:07:42.160 And then that poem was actually something different too, because it, uh, 1:07:42.360 --> 1:07:46.200 it started different and the play on words like it's 1:07:46.280 --> 1:07:49.040 so fucking dope, and I, you know, I was mixing 1:07:49.120 --> 1:07:50.760 with this other poem and trying to show some kind 1:07:50.800 --> 1:07:53.920 of vulnerability, like let me start the poem, you know, 1:07:54.440 --> 1:07:57.720 just spitting like like you know, technical ship, so you 1:07:57.800 --> 1:07:59.880 know that I'm a worsmith and and I can do 1:08:00.080 --> 1:08:01.920 things with words, and then let me hit you with 1:08:02.000 --> 1:08:04.520 the vulnerable. And to me, I thought it was dope. 1:08:05.640 --> 1:08:08.920 And my wife was like, yeah, sounds like two different poems. 1:08:09.920 --> 1:08:13.040 I'm like, all right, cool, you're not really a poet, 1:08:13.120 --> 1:08:13.800 like you don't really. 1:08:17.040 --> 1:08:18.920 So she's your sounding board. 1:08:19.320 --> 1:08:22.680 Yeah, yeah, yes, but I called another poet friend of 1:08:22.720 --> 1:08:26.920 mine out, but it's like, yo, you know, I feel 1:08:26.960 --> 1:08:27.920 like two different poems. 1:08:31.520 --> 1:08:35.519 Okay. I use the term kill your kids, because when 1:08:35.560 --> 1:08:40.559 you know, when you create something, you know, like right now, 1:08:41.000 --> 1:08:46.080 there's over six hundred roots ideas and it's like, dude, 1:08:46.200 --> 1:08:49.040 just pick fourteen and let's have the record already, so 1:08:50.200 --> 1:08:54.000 you know, you don't want to let the other five 1:08:54.160 --> 1:08:58.080 hundred and eighty four songs go, but you know they're 1:08:58.120 --> 1:09:00.559 going to have to go down the drain eventually, at 1:09:00.640 --> 1:09:04.400 least for this project. But how open are you two 1:09:05.800 --> 1:09:09.600 take that advice. Well, okay, I know that you said that. 1:09:09.720 --> 1:09:11.680 You know your wife's not you're not a poet, your 1:09:11.720 --> 1:09:15.439 da da da dada. I tend to keep I keep, 1:09:15.560 --> 1:09:20.200 I keep an expert, and I keep what I call 1:09:20.320 --> 1:09:22.320 the And I'm being very nice when I say this, 1:09:22.880 --> 1:09:27.800 the common person factor behind their backs. I'm like the factor. 1:09:28.280 --> 1:09:31.720 So but I think that it's it's good to have 1:09:31.800 --> 1:09:36.360 both opinions of people that have no emotional connection to 1:09:36.400 --> 1:09:38.880 you whatsoever, and your work to give an opinion. 1:09:39.360 --> 1:09:42.479 And usually with great art you'll find out that you know, 1:09:42.600 --> 1:09:44.800 like as in the case of you, Malcolm, your wife 1:09:44.880 --> 1:09:47.000 is saying one thing, but then you hit your poet homie, 1:09:47.400 --> 1:09:48.800 he's saying the same thing as well. 1:09:49.040 --> 1:09:51.240 So it's like there's a universal proof that's there, you 1:09:51.280 --> 1:09:51.599 know what I mean. 1:09:51.760 --> 1:10:00.479 So did the other three people truth get back at 1:10:00.520 --> 1:10:03.200 my wife like you got it? I won't. I won't 1:10:03.200 --> 1:10:04.960 sleep on you next time. So then when I when 1:10:05.000 --> 1:10:08.160 I totally rewrote the poem right and I was like, ah, 1:10:08.400 --> 1:10:10.800 this is ah, this is dope right here, like this 1:10:10.960 --> 1:10:13.000 is it, and I played it for her. She was like, 1:10:13.960 --> 1:10:16.400 let me read it. I needed to see it. And 1:10:16.640 --> 1:10:18.920 then there were there were there were a couple of 1:10:19.040 --> 1:10:23.800 tweaks that she made that made me go, thank you, 1:10:23.880 --> 1:10:28.000 Malcolm for not sleeping on your wife yet again. Right, 1:10:28.479 --> 1:10:30.439 So she just gave me some some tweaks and some 1:10:30.600 --> 1:10:35.880 finishing touches. That really makes it, you know, really what 1:10:36.040 --> 1:10:39.120 it is. So so so I stay open. But at 1:10:39.160 --> 1:10:44.120 the same time, I gotta tell you the story. Ah, 1:10:44.840 --> 1:10:48.320 and you know it's it's fucked up, but but let's go. 1:10:48.680 --> 1:10:50.080 It says a lot about a lot of people and 1:10:50.160 --> 1:10:51.960 then also says a lot about how I feel about 1:10:52.040 --> 1:10:55.000 myself and and and who I am and owning myself. Right. 1:10:55.520 --> 1:10:59.240 So wrote the song with Wayman Tisdale. Okay, right, we 1:10:59.320 --> 1:11:01.639 were doing a jam session and you know, we recorded 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:04.800 it whatever, and you know, we had like a little 1:11:04.840 --> 1:11:07.880 demo was in my hard drive. You know, Wayman passed 1:11:08.479 --> 1:11:11.040 and you know I pulled that out. Was like, you 1:11:11.080 --> 1:11:13.120 should do something, should do something with that. So I 1:11:13.920 --> 1:11:18.960 I arranged this whole song based on this demo that 1:11:19.040 --> 1:11:22.120 he and I did. You know, I played the song 1:11:22.240 --> 1:11:26.080 live like for years our last record. I want to 1:11:26.120 --> 1:11:29.320 put the song on the record. I had Barty services 1:11:29.400 --> 1:11:33.320 with Chris Dave on another project, so I called him 1:11:33.320 --> 1:11:35.479 a favor from him. It was like, yo, you know, 1:11:35.600 --> 1:11:37.360 like this drum program is cool, but like I really 1:11:37.439 --> 1:11:39.479 need some live drums behind us. It was like cool, 1:11:39.680 --> 1:11:42.519 you know. So he comes in, he kills it. Then 1:11:44.080 --> 1:11:46.720 a few weeks later, I get a call because the 1:11:46.800 --> 1:11:49.280 engineer who has helped me produce that record was also 1:11:49.360 --> 1:11:52.880 producing Chris's record. Right, So I get a call and 1:11:53.200 --> 1:11:57.000 was like, yo, I got a surprise for you. Pino 1:11:57.160 --> 1:12:05.519 came through and lay based on your joint, right, I'm like, whoa, 1:12:05.920 --> 1:12:08.519 that's dope. But wait a minute, I'm playing bass on 1:12:08.560 --> 1:12:12.599 that record, okay, And that's the record that I wrote 1:12:12.720 --> 1:12:17.160 with Wayman I speaks performing this song live right, like 1:12:17.280 --> 1:12:20.160 that's my ship and my listen to it. Pino. You know, 1:12:20.360 --> 1:12:24.519 Pino did Pino right, So there's no that question about 1:12:24.560 --> 1:12:28.280 this ship was butter. It was a whole different vibe 1:12:28.720 --> 1:12:31.360 from what I had spent years with. And I'm like, 1:12:32.880 --> 1:12:38.120 so I went to seven different people. I said, listen, 1:12:38.520 --> 1:12:42.320 these are here's two approaches to the base I'm trying 1:12:42.320 --> 1:12:44.720 to I'm not sure which approach I'm gonna use for 1:12:44.760 --> 1:12:46.400 the song, which do you like? 1:12:47.439 --> 1:12:48.720 Didn't tell them who was playing what? 1:12:48.960 --> 1:12:53.759 No, No, they'll give them any backstory, right five other people, 1:12:54.960 --> 1:12:57.120 They're like, yo, it's really dope, but I really like 1:12:57.240 --> 1:13:00.880 this one and that's mine, right, okay. Uh. The two 1:13:01.000 --> 1:13:04.600 other people knew the story, and they were trying to 1:13:04.640 --> 1:13:06.559 convince me that it would be really dope because to say, 1:13:06.560 --> 1:13:09.840 I've got Pino and Chris Dave on my record, the 1:13:10.280 --> 1:13:13.680 Big Girl and the Algorithms and the whole nine. So 1:13:14.960 --> 1:13:17.040 so at the last minute I decided it was like, 1:13:17.120 --> 1:13:19.280 you know what, I'm gonna kick myself in the ass 1:13:19.920 --> 1:13:21.840 for the rest of my life every time I played 1:13:21.840 --> 1:13:25.439 this song and pinos on it and I'm not right, 1:13:25.640 --> 1:13:27.760 and again, not that I'm better than Pino, like that's 1:13:27.840 --> 1:13:32.880 not like, don't let anybody attempt to miss that. But 1:13:33.360 --> 1:13:36.240 so I ended up. I called I called the producers, 1:13:36.240 --> 1:13:38.200 and that was like, yo, I thought about it. I'm 1:13:38.200 --> 1:13:41.360 gonna use I'm gonna use my bass. He says, ah, well, 1:13:41.439 --> 1:13:43.280 you know what. You know, I didn't want to tell 1:13:43.280 --> 1:13:45.439 you this, you know, but Chris said if you play 1:13:45.520 --> 1:13:48.560 based on it, to take your drums off, and that 1:13:48.760 --> 1:13:54.760 producer was also supposed to mix my whole record. They said, 1:13:54.840 --> 1:13:57.519 so I gotta take Chris's drums off. I got to 1:13:57.600 --> 1:14:00.640 take my keys off, give you your files back, and 1:14:00.720 --> 1:14:05.719 you got to find somebody else to produce the record. Wow, 1:14:06.880 --> 1:14:11.439 that's real ship, that's real fucked up, but you go 1:14:11.560 --> 1:14:14.519 just do it. So is called high on love right, 1:14:14.600 --> 1:14:18.680 And you know, you may think it's you may think 1:14:18.720 --> 1:14:20.960 it's whack, but it's not whack. And if you said 1:14:20.960 --> 1:14:23.360 it was whacked, but like cool, that's your you know again, 1:14:23.439 --> 1:14:26.320 I'm not Pino right, it's not you know, I'm not 1:14:26.439 --> 1:14:29.640 saying it's you know, I do me right. 1:14:31.840 --> 1:14:32.680 So that's my thing. 1:14:32.800 --> 1:14:35.559 Like I had to really go, Wow, I'm getting ready 1:14:35.640 --> 1:14:40.120 to take Pino Paladino off my record for my ship. 1:14:41.479 --> 1:14:42.680 I feel that's strong about it. 1:14:42.720 --> 1:14:47.360 I stand up sometimes I will, and I can attest 1:14:47.400 --> 1:14:50.000 to this as well. Sometimes only the best won't do. 1:14:51.520 --> 1:14:51.800 Hmm. 1:14:52.560 --> 1:14:57.400 You know, I think I think oftentimes, especially you know, 1:14:57.760 --> 1:15:00.040 there's there's a BC in the A D. And And 1:15:00.120 --> 1:15:05.280 for me, I think the moment in which I learned 1:15:05.320 --> 1:15:11.040 this lesson this year where someone told me that, Okay, 1:15:11.479 --> 1:15:16.080 you get into something brand new and you're you're in 1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:20.360 the space of being a creative, and then once you're 1:15:20.479 --> 1:15:24.240 after that and you experienced some sort of success, then 1:15:24.560 --> 1:15:27.800 you're in a space of not being a creative, but 1:15:28.000 --> 1:15:31.280 you're in a space of where you're now succeeding. Like 1:15:32.080 --> 1:15:35.000 in other words, you're thinking about how to maximize or 1:15:35.120 --> 1:15:38.519 capitalize on a moment versus how to make the thing. Yeah, 1:15:38.640 --> 1:15:42.680 and it's it's sort of And the thing that I 1:15:42.800 --> 1:15:45.320 think that's being lost here, at least on their side 1:15:45.360 --> 1:15:48.120 of the fence, is that you know, this is still 1:15:48.160 --> 1:15:51.760 a creative expression for you. This is still therapeutic for you. 1:15:52.160 --> 1:15:56.360 This is still like it's your project. You know, it 1:15:56.600 --> 1:16:01.200 would be like me, like I think Chris Davis would 1:16:01.200 --> 1:16:04.600 I want him to drum in proxy of me on 1:16:05.080 --> 1:16:07.880 the next Roots record. That might be a little weird, 1:16:08.000 --> 1:16:11.360 you know what I mean, because I'm not making the 1:16:11.479 --> 1:16:15.840 Roots record as in like to be successful. But I'm yeah, 1:16:15.920 --> 1:16:20.400 it's like your creative expression. So you're you're well within 1:16:20.439 --> 1:16:24.320 your right. Even if the Lord Jesus Christ came down 1:16:24.360 --> 1:16:26.640 on Earth and plate based on you're doing, like you 1:16:26.880 --> 1:16:36.120 still gotta I understand your decision. You're your first joint 1:16:36.160 --> 1:16:38.519 came out in two thousand and two, I believe two 1:16:38.760 --> 1:16:41.479 and three. Yeah, it was it was like right after 1:16:41.680 --> 1:16:47.439 the millennium started. So are you able? And I'll ask 1:16:47.479 --> 1:16:49.639 you too, find like I feel like I'm interviewing two 1:16:49.760 --> 1:16:52.679 artists here. Is it easy to go back to listen 1:16:52.760 --> 1:16:56.960 to the first thing you ever created and you're fine 1:16:57.000 --> 1:16:59.920 with it or you're like super critical of it, you know, 1:17:00.200 --> 1:17:03.679 compared to it's twenty years into the game now. 1:17:03.760 --> 1:17:08.839 For you mistakes like oh god, man, all I here's mistakes. 1:17:09.280 --> 1:17:11.840 But but you know, but so the listening for you 1:17:11.960 --> 1:17:12.920 is like organics. 1:17:13.240 --> 1:17:16.000 Yeah, I'm like, oh my god, yeah. I mean I 1:17:16.080 --> 1:17:17.400 can listen to it, you know what I mean. 1:17:17.439 --> 1:17:20.679 I haven't listened to it, and sometimes I've been listen 1:17:20.760 --> 1:17:23.439 to it for the for the film, but like, I 1:17:23.520 --> 1:17:26.439 can listen to that stuff. But again, I just hear it. 1:17:26.520 --> 1:17:30.000 I'm just like, god, I sound so young, that sounds whatever, 1:17:30.280 --> 1:17:32.479 you know what I mean. And it's just you know, 1:17:32.640 --> 1:17:34.000 it's cringe, you know what I mean. 1:17:34.439 --> 1:17:37.360 Wow, And you made a POI fi classic. 1:17:38.240 --> 1:17:38.840 Thank you man. 1:17:39.240 --> 1:17:42.160 But I mean, but I just look at it over 1:17:42.240 --> 1:17:44.479 the time, just you know, the years I've been doing this, 1:17:44.880 --> 1:17:47.639 I just learned to look at albums as or whatever 1:17:47.640 --> 1:17:49.920 it is, album's polled, whatever you make. I just look 1:17:49.960 --> 1:17:51.519 at it as a snapshot of where you were at 1:17:51.560 --> 1:17:52.760 that time. You know what I mean, you have to 1:17:52.800 --> 1:17:56.120 look at it like a photograph, and you can't look 1:17:56.160 --> 1:17:58.760 at it like, oh man, I'm so much better now, 1:17:59.080 --> 1:18:00.880 you know. But it's like, yeah, am, but this is 1:18:00.920 --> 1:18:04.280 where I was back then, and and I better be 1:18:04.400 --> 1:18:04.920 better now. 1:18:05.520 --> 1:18:08.680 Exactly exactly because if I was looking at listening to 1:18:08.760 --> 1:18:09.280 the old. 1:18:09.160 --> 1:18:11.680 Ship like damn, this dude was better, like and I 1:18:11.760 --> 1:18:13.320 got a problem, nid you know what I mean, because 1:18:13.320 --> 1:18:16.479 I ain't got better, you know what I'm saying. If 1:18:16.479 --> 1:18:18.200 I feel like I got to chase my old ship. 1:18:19.320 --> 1:18:20.960 So yeah, that's that's kind of been my thing. But 1:18:21.280 --> 1:18:24.000 I've very rarely listen to older stuff. It's kind of 1:18:24.040 --> 1:18:25.080 cringe cringe worthy. 1:18:26.120 --> 1:18:28.360 How about for you, MALCHAELM Yeah, I can listen to 1:18:28.479 --> 1:18:32.240 old stuff and appreciate where I was at the time. 1:18:32.880 --> 1:18:34.679 And then also you know, I listened to that stuff 1:18:34.720 --> 1:18:38.360 and you know, again I appreciate it makes me really appreciate, 1:18:39.000 --> 1:18:42.519 you know, Malcolm, then, especially coming from the journey of 1:18:42.680 --> 1:18:46.120 how this whole thing started. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. 1:18:46.760 --> 1:18:49.720 The fact that I can, I always wanted to. I 1:18:49.720 --> 1:18:53.840 always want to make timeless music, right, I want the 1:18:53.960 --> 1:18:57.439 content to be timeless. Use I still listen to Gil 1:18:58.320 --> 1:19:00.639 and like, you know, damn everything Gil was talking about, 1:19:00.680 --> 1:19:08.720 We're still ship. You know why the most I want 1:19:08.760 --> 1:19:10.840 someone to you know, to go back. And it's happening 1:19:10.920 --> 1:19:12.720 now because when I send people to like you know, 1:19:12.840 --> 1:19:16.519 the Spotify or the hiding in view album page, you know, 1:19:16.640 --> 1:19:18.840 the catalog comes up. So people who don't know that 1:19:18.960 --> 1:19:20.720 this is like my fourth record, they go back and 1:19:20.800 --> 1:19:26.920 they listen. But it's all still relevant, right, It's all 1:19:27.160 --> 1:19:29.080 still it's all still listenable. 1:19:30.200 --> 1:19:30.360 You know. 1:19:30.479 --> 1:19:35.000 I still stand behind you know, even you know I 1:19:35.120 --> 1:19:37.000 made like some you know, somethings better than others. I'll 1:19:37.000 --> 1:19:41.679 still stand behind. Just like my acting work. I'll stand 1:19:41.800 --> 1:19:44.840 behind anything in my body of work and my music 1:19:45.240 --> 1:19:47.960 I do to say, except I don't use nigga and 1:19:48.360 --> 1:19:50.960 my music anymore. Uh. But like you know, my first 1:19:51.160 --> 1:19:58.200 records I did right because I replaced it with common 1:19:59.000 --> 1:20:01.280 all right. And and actually and if you listen to 1:20:01.800 --> 1:20:03.880 on the album, there's a joint called so I Run 1:20:03.960 --> 1:20:08.280 Prelude and so on the record. I have doctor Daniel 1:20:08.360 --> 1:20:12.920 Black on the record, who is in my mind, okay go. 1:20:13.200 --> 1:20:16.840 He's assistant Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Clark 1:20:18.160 --> 1:20:22.519 so I interviewed him sometime last year because there's a 1:20:22.640 --> 1:20:25.400 bed of music in this piece called the Sante Sona 1:20:26.080 --> 1:20:30.560 that I wanted to have him just talk. So he 1:20:31.040 --> 1:20:35.080 ended up dropping so much knowledge that I put him 1:20:35.760 --> 1:20:39.040 all throughout the album. I will dare to say that 1:20:39.920 --> 1:20:42.200 my album Hiding and Playing View is one of them, 1:20:42.720 --> 1:20:45.639 is one of the most important albums to come out 1:20:45.680 --> 1:20:49.080 in twenty twenty two. And I know I'm putting a 1:20:49.160 --> 1:20:53.080 lot on it, but I'm also saying that because of 1:20:53.520 --> 1:20:57.760 the gems that Doctor Black is dropping all over this 1:20:58.040 --> 1:21:03.479 record is it's it's it's important. It's almost vital that 1:21:04.000 --> 1:21:07.200 we need to hear these messages. Like I tell people, 1:21:07.439 --> 1:21:11.200 my record is for us, it's for black boys, it's 1:21:11.280 --> 1:21:15.439 for black men, it's for black people. It's for non 1:21:15.560 --> 1:21:19.000 black people who have the foresight enough to see our 1:21:19.160 --> 1:21:23.080 self healing as an invitation for them to explore their 1:21:23.160 --> 1:21:24.400 own necessary healing. 1:21:24.960 --> 1:21:26.559 Okay, this is how we do a tribunal. 1:21:26.600 --> 1:21:28.680 I was wondering how you were to tribunal, and I 1:21:28.760 --> 1:21:32.680 think you finally got him out, because how do you 1:21:32.800 --> 1:21:35.960 keep them out but maybe still once get it in? 1:21:36.800 --> 1:21:39.320 So thank you. 1:21:39.680 --> 1:21:43.840 I'm gonna steal those words because this album black and 1:21:43.880 --> 1:21:45.519 Shit and ps he still named. 1:21:45.360 --> 1:21:51.120 The song you know, because there was I was working 1:21:51.120 --> 1:21:53.080 a song, couldn't figure out the title because initially it 1:21:53.160 --> 1:21:55.920 was just you know, C minor seven minor seven, So 1:21:56.120 --> 1:21:58.280 like I had to give it a real title. And 1:21:58.439 --> 1:21:59.800 once I you know, I got to write in the 1:22:00.000 --> 1:22:05.040 he's won't you name Matt blackf is beautiful? I was like, 1:22:05.600 --> 1:22:07.519 I thought you didn't like it. She was like, it's 1:22:07.600 --> 1:22:10.519 not right. 1:22:10.680 --> 1:22:14.200 That song is like all day she's Jenius. 1:22:15.160 --> 1:22:19.479 So yes she is, but so so I know I 1:22:19.560 --> 1:22:22.360 put a lot on on that album. But that's how 1:22:22.439 --> 1:22:24.519 I strongly feel about it. And again I strongly feel 1:22:24.520 --> 1:22:28.120 about that. I feel a big part of that statement 1:22:28.360 --> 1:22:31.680 is because of doctor Daniel Black and saying all that. Say, 1:22:31.760 --> 1:22:34.200 there's a prelude called so I run Prelude and he 1:22:34.520 --> 1:22:42.479 does a bit about niggah. Yeah, I think it's like 1:22:43.680 --> 1:22:48.680 but and even though I was adopting comrade before this conversation, 1:22:49.640 --> 1:22:54.040 he just has a really an interesting way that we 1:22:54.120 --> 1:22:56.439 should at least to consider. 1:22:57.600 --> 1:23:00.840 I'm open to hear what I say to struggle like. 1:23:02.360 --> 1:23:03.920 It is, but then it's like anything to keep them 1:23:03.960 --> 1:23:06.400 from saying it. So I don't know what we gotta do, right, 1:23:07.080 --> 1:23:08.599 it's get the numbers are growing. 1:23:10.200 --> 1:23:12.800 I know, I know that for me on the East 1:23:12.840 --> 1:23:15.960 Coast at least, like there's in Philly we had something 1:23:15.960 --> 1:23:18.920 that's similar to like the New Aurekan Society and that 1:23:19.240 --> 1:23:22.479 you know, like there's Trepeter Mason, Jill Scott, Ursula Rucky 1:23:22.520 --> 1:23:26.960 in Philly, New York. There's the New Eurekan Cafe where 1:23:27.000 --> 1:23:31.479 poets came. What was that environment in LA? Like where 1:23:31.560 --> 1:23:35.280 would one like if if Robin Harris is working out 1:23:35.560 --> 1:23:39.880 at the Comedy Act Theater, right, what was the New 1:23:39.960 --> 1:23:41.200 Aurekan or the. 1:23:43.320 --> 1:23:43.360 Like? 1:23:43.520 --> 1:23:46.759 Where did black poets hang in LA during that period 1:23:46.880 --> 1:23:49.799 in which you're looking for your tribe? 1:23:50.000 --> 1:23:53.200 Like, yeah, there are are two places of Fifth Street 1:23:53.280 --> 1:23:57.640 Dix in the Myrt Park, Okay, and that's where you're 1:23:57.680 --> 1:24:00.800 gonna find the open mics, the poets, the jazz heads, 1:24:00.880 --> 1:24:03.840 the old jazz heads, the young Jack's heads, everyone who 1:24:04.960 --> 1:24:08.240 everyone who was at at at Prinshaw High, every musician 1:24:08.880 --> 1:24:12.439 you know, spent time shedding at Fitz three Dicks. And 1:24:12.680 --> 1:24:15.880 then over in West l a uh, there is a 1:24:15.960 --> 1:24:20.360 place called Lucy Florence and every Tuesday night a poet 1:24:20.400 --> 1:24:23.360 by the name of Deep Red would do a what 1:24:23.560 --> 1:24:28.280 was called Red Sea poetry. But anybody who's coming coming 1:24:28.360 --> 1:24:31.200 coming up on the scene in La would work out 1:24:31.439 --> 1:24:32.040 at at. 1:24:33.600 --> 1:24:34.280 Right now, right now. 1:24:34.320 --> 1:24:36.719 He goes by spoken yoga on Instagram, but it's deeper 1:24:36.720 --> 1:24:39.680 as spoken yoga. But I always had to give him 1:24:39.680 --> 1:24:43.360 props because he provided He provided a really dope space 1:24:43.439 --> 1:24:45.840 and environment for you know, poets coming up. And there's 1:24:45.840 --> 1:24:49.559 also a fly poet, the fly poet in La, John Hensley. Uh, 1:24:49.640 --> 1:24:52.000 he would do a monthly thing, but he was he 1:24:52.080 --> 1:24:54.519 would only he would vet the poets. It would be 1:24:54.520 --> 1:24:57.519 a monthly thing, but they were all features. So he 1:24:57.720 --> 1:25:00.760 was really good about, you know, getting budgets to be 1:25:00.800 --> 1:25:04.560 able to pay you know poets to come in and 1:25:05.240 --> 1:25:07.439 you know, put some money in the pockets. But you 1:25:07.479 --> 1:25:09.640 would go to fly Poet knowing that you it was 1:25:09.720 --> 1:25:11.840 not an open mic. You were always going to get 1:25:12.680 --> 1:25:20.080 a hot legit poet on that stage. Damn response, When 1:25:20.080 --> 1:25:25.000 did you move to Atlanta in twenty eighteen? But no, 1:25:25.080 --> 1:25:26.960 but I have to go back because it would be 1:25:26.960 --> 1:25:29.240 it would be a huge disc if I didn't shout 1:25:29.280 --> 1:25:32.679 out The Poetry Lounge that was also another spot where 1:25:33.439 --> 1:25:38.320 uh and outside of La. The Poetry Lounge is probably 1:25:38.400 --> 1:25:43.519 the more popular, the more well known spot, but for 1:25:43.640 --> 1:25:45.400 those of us who were coming up on the scene 1:25:45.640 --> 1:25:50.000 in La, we were definitely a red Sea poetry. You know, 1:25:50.000 --> 1:25:52.040 a lot of people did work on at the Poetry 1:25:52.080 --> 1:25:57.400 Lounge and John Hilly spot. I just don't want to 1:25:57.439 --> 1:25:58.000 go out shout. 1:25:58.080 --> 1:25:59.759 It's kind of a part of my life that I missed, 1:26:00.600 --> 1:26:04.040 like in the early Square roots stays like Tuesday nights 1:26:04.080 --> 1:26:12.080 at University of pen you know, yes, exactly, like right, exactly, 1:26:12.520 --> 1:26:14.240 A lot of a lot of brothers who who who? 1:26:14.640 --> 1:26:14.760 Who? 1:26:14.800 --> 1:26:14.960 Who? 1:26:15.200 --> 1:26:17.920 Repeat words like this that that and this and that 1:26:18.080 --> 1:26:23.479 and the other and that, like I missed, I really miss. 1:26:24.000 --> 1:26:25.840 I just hear little brother songs. I'm sorry, I just 1:26:25.920 --> 1:26:27.040 hear yo man. 1:26:27.280 --> 1:26:35.920 I see that. That's what really drew me. See when 1:26:35.960 --> 1:26:39.439 I heard that first spansee, I was like, first of all, fante, 1:26:39.760 --> 1:26:44.880 fuck you. In second one, Sante, damn this moment. He's 1:26:45.000 --> 1:26:51.920 actually right, he is on. Like poetry was always for me, 1:26:52.400 --> 1:26:54.040 you know, And that's why I can appreciate with you 1:26:54.680 --> 1:26:55.559 because you know what you're saying. 1:26:55.600 --> 1:26:58.800 You know, I'm a poet Because for me coming up 1:26:59.160 --> 1:27:03.200 so much of poets they were failed and seas, you 1:27:03.280 --> 1:27:06.320 know what I mean, Like they weren't really they were 1:27:06.479 --> 1:27:09.600 you know guys, it's like they weren't good enough to 1:27:09.760 --> 1:27:11.880 be rappers. So they would kind of be in like 1:27:12.000 --> 1:27:15.360 this middle ground, this poetry thing. 1:27:15.720 --> 1:27:16.719 Now we're just critics. 1:27:17.160 --> 1:27:19.080 Yeah, but like but but all their poems would be 1:27:19.080 --> 1:27:21.479 about like it just being about fucking and ship you 1:27:21.520 --> 1:27:24.360 know what I mean, You know what I mean, it 1:27:24.360 --> 1:27:25.280 would just be like dude. 1:27:27.560 --> 1:27:27.760 Yeah. 1:27:27.880 --> 1:27:30.920 So so now so I can appreciate the way that 1:27:31.080 --> 1:27:32.400 you really take it poetry. 1:27:32.479 --> 1:27:35.080 And even for me, so you say North Carolina had 1:27:35.080 --> 1:27:36.680 a community, we did. 1:27:36.800 --> 1:27:38.639 We did, we did, we had. Yeah. 1:27:38.680 --> 1:27:41.760 So the song that he's referring to, if you're not uh, 1:27:42.640 --> 1:27:45.800 just so we know, songs called the Yo Yo's a 1:27:45.880 --> 1:27:47.880 verse I did it was on the song was a 1:27:47.880 --> 1:27:48.519 little brother song. 1:27:48.880 --> 1:27:51.320 It was it was a star as board. Like all right, 1:27:52.080 --> 1:27:57.000 Frante is really underselling it. Frante's underselling it. I say this, 1:27:57.240 --> 1:28:01.080 And I know I'm world famous for my my uh my, 1:28:01.320 --> 1:28:07.240 my over exaggerated hyper bolt, but I will say that 1:28:07.479 --> 1:28:13.760 Fonte's verse on Yo Yo like for me, for me, 1:28:14.640 --> 1:28:17.559 it was almost it was a star is born bust 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:23.200 rhyme scenario verse for a tribe called quest because I 1:28:23.439 --> 1:28:29.240 just never I never heard someone just come over and 1:28:29.400 --> 1:28:32.920 look at my jinger and just be like snooped dog, 1:28:33.120 --> 1:28:34.840 like your toys. 1:28:34.520 --> 1:28:38.000 A little bit like somebody you thought you was playing 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:40.120 with because and. 1:28:40.160 --> 1:28:42.360 I was like, wait a minute, you were on our 1:28:42.439 --> 1:28:45.320 side of this, it was I didn't. So when I 1:28:45.400 --> 1:28:47.400 wrote that verse, it wasn't for y'all. 1:28:47.400 --> 1:28:48.400 I mean, like I looked at it. 1:28:48.479 --> 1:28:50.920 First off, I never even looked at y'all as like 1:28:52.240 --> 1:28:53.840 like y'all, I mean, we weren't in it. 1:28:54.040 --> 1:28:57.840 I didn't take personal look at y'all in that way. 1:28:57.880 --> 1:28:59.680 I didn't look at y'all as poets, you know what 1:28:59.720 --> 1:29:02.880 I'm saying. MC j'all were musicians. So nah, that was 1:29:02.880 --> 1:29:04.360 specifically for poetry. 1:29:04.439 --> 1:29:07.439 Like I did it. I was hosting this poetry night. 1:29:07.600 --> 1:29:10.600 I got this gig and it was in Durham and 1:29:11.160 --> 1:29:13.960 it was my friend Tracy Ivora and Matt Sherman. 1:29:14.040 --> 1:29:14.439 They hit this. 1:29:14.560 --> 1:29:21.080 Whoever they are, I love Tracy back to this day, 1:29:21.240 --> 1:29:24.200 love them, love them to this day. Tracy is actually 1:29:24.240 --> 1:29:27.800 the girl on the listening. That's w JLR slow Jams, 1:29:27.840 --> 1:29:31.840 that's Tracy. So she had this thing she was having 1:29:31.880 --> 1:29:34.400 this poetry night. She was like, Yo, we want you 1:29:34.479 --> 1:29:37.000 to come host it. And I was like, all right, cool, 1:29:37.200 --> 1:29:39.479 how much you're paying? And it was like one hundred 1:29:39.520 --> 1:29:43.160 dollars and like, nigga, one hundred dollars in two thousand, 1:29:43.320 --> 1:29:44.040 what shit? 1:29:44.439 --> 1:29:45.880 You want ten thouars A fill up? 1:29:45.960 --> 1:29:48.120 My damn my little monsters, nigga. 1:29:48.160 --> 1:29:48.799 I was eating. 1:29:48.840 --> 1:29:51.800 I'm like, hell, let's go. So I go and I 1:29:51.960 --> 1:29:54.200 do the joint and I'm hosting and I'm just being me, 1:29:54.400 --> 1:29:55.599 you know what I mean, I'm just doing me. I'm 1:29:55.640 --> 1:29:58.120 talking my shit, you know, just whatever, whatever. And the 1:29:58.240 --> 1:30:01.439 poets are coming up there and they're really bad like this, 1:30:01.840 --> 1:30:06.120 like they really they kind of sucked, and so I'm 1:30:06.200 --> 1:30:06.920 just talking my shit. 1:30:07.000 --> 1:30:07.240 Whatever. 1:30:07.640 --> 1:30:10.600 So afterwards, the next day we talked. She calls me 1:30:10.800 --> 1:30:13.080 after the gig and I get paid everything, and I'm like, yeah, 1:30:13.120 --> 1:30:13.960 so when's the next one? 1:30:14.040 --> 1:30:14.559 Like I'm ready. 1:30:14.600 --> 1:30:15.960 I'm like, I'm thinking it's gonna be a monthly. 1:30:16.040 --> 1:30:18.559 I got like a little monthly, my little residence or whatever, 1:30:18.600 --> 1:30:19.840 my little hundred dollars nigga. 1:30:19.960 --> 1:30:20.680 Shit, I'm out here. 1:30:21.720 --> 1:30:22.599 When the next joint? 1:30:22.960 --> 1:30:23.479 She was like. 1:30:24.960 --> 1:30:29.280 Yeah, So we kind of got some complaint from the patrons. 1:30:29.400 --> 1:30:31.760 You know what I mean, you know, because I'm like, well, 1:30:31.800 --> 1:30:33.639 what can paint? Well, you know it was you saying 1:30:33.720 --> 1:30:37.720 the IN word. I said, well, trace it. 1:30:37.840 --> 1:30:43.160 I don't say the N word. I say, nigga, let's 1:30:43.160 --> 1:30:45.439 clear that shit up real fast, you know what I mean. 1:30:45.640 --> 1:30:47.360 Like I'm just being me, you know what I mean. 1:30:47.920 --> 1:30:50.680 And but so yeah, so I think like maybe like 1:30:50.720 --> 1:30:52.720 a week or two later I wrote that verse. And 1:30:52.840 --> 1:30:54.360 it wasn't at poor. 1:30:55.800 --> 1:30:57.800 I can't believe in finding this story out now. 1:30:58.760 --> 1:31:01.479 It wasn't about poets or any you know whatever. It 1:31:01.640 --> 1:31:06.040 was just about the pretentiousness of that scene, about people 1:31:06.080 --> 1:31:08.439 with the craft. It was just the pretensiousness of the scene. 1:31:08.479 --> 1:31:11.240 It was just like, you know, y'all up here like 1:31:11.360 --> 1:31:14.200 claiming to be a higher level of conscience or whatever, 1:31:14.439 --> 1:31:18.080 but the rappers are rapping about fucking girls and y'all 1:31:18.280 --> 1:31:20.559 just up here scene talking about. 1:31:20.880 --> 1:31:23.320 Girls, Like get the funk out of here, you know 1:31:23.400 --> 1:31:26.240 what I mean. So that was where that verse came from. 1:31:26.360 --> 1:31:27.719 It came from every real place. 1:31:27.840 --> 1:31:30.400 But well that was the Star's war movement. 1:31:35.000 --> 1:31:36.400 Hit us after you do moutholm. 1:31:38.120 --> 1:31:45.400 You know it's funny. You got a little fontet, can 1:31:45.439 --> 1:31:47.240 we at least do rapid fire about. 1:31:47.280 --> 1:31:51.640 Yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, all okay, so A C. A. 1:31:53.640 --> 1:31:57.080 You read my mind. God damn it, mother, my motherfucker brother, come. 1:31:56.960 --> 1:31:57.479 On, come on. 1:31:57.520 --> 1:32:00.519 Always that is one of my favorite roles, was like 1:32:00.560 --> 1:32:03.080 your AC role, your son's and an art like talk 1:32:03.120 --> 1:32:06.200 about those roles where you they played. I don't wanna 1:32:06.240 --> 1:32:08.240 they play against type, you know what I mean, but 1:32:08.760 --> 1:32:11.080 something that you know, people wouldn't think, Oh, THEO is 1:32:11.120 --> 1:32:12.840 in the fucking motorcycle Gang, you know what I mean. 1:32:13.640 --> 1:32:15.800 You know, so talk about like the OJ, the A C. 1:32:15.960 --> 1:32:18.280 Co Collins Man, how'd you prepare for that? Yeah, I 1:32:18.320 --> 1:32:21.400 mean that's a whole you know, my whole journey. 1:32:21.880 --> 1:32:25.240 You know, post Cosby has always been trying to you know, 1:32:25.400 --> 1:32:28.600 shed some of that THEO to come energy, and you know, 1:32:29.040 --> 1:32:31.360 especially Cosby was really my first comedy role. I was 1:32:31.400 --> 1:32:35.240 doing dramatic work before. Cosby was always known for comedy 1:32:35.560 --> 1:32:38.320 and because I had done because sitcom is so you 1:32:38.400 --> 1:32:42.160 know ingrained in me. I've done a lot of work too, 1:32:42.960 --> 1:32:46.919 you know, move myself away from that. So I'm constantly 1:32:47.000 --> 1:32:49.840 looking for roles to kind of go against type and 1:32:50.640 --> 1:32:55.320 AC Really, now I think about it sparked off a 1:32:56.479 --> 1:33:00.600 bunch of things that kind of helped move me to 1:33:00.760 --> 1:33:04.680 this side. You know, the thing I loved about a 1:33:04.800 --> 1:33:06.800 C was one that there wasn't a whole lot of 1:33:06.920 --> 1:33:10.000 research to be done on him because it just wasn't 1:33:10.000 --> 1:33:14.479 a lot. But you know, what I recognize is, you know, 1:33:15.439 --> 1:33:17.519 you know, he and OJ they used to be they 1:33:17.520 --> 1:33:19.640 were both the men, right, But then you spend your 1:33:19.680 --> 1:33:23.000 life like you're the man sitting next to the man, 1:33:23.360 --> 1:33:27.000 the man you know, and you live such a lifestyle 1:33:27.200 --> 1:33:33.959 now that your you know, your relationship, your livelihood depends 1:33:34.120 --> 1:33:39.360 upon your relationship with him, you know. And I've never 1:33:39.479 --> 1:33:42.240 I've never really been I've never been the man now 1:33:42.280 --> 1:33:44.519 that I would ever call myself the man amongst my friends, 1:33:44.600 --> 1:33:46.479 but I've never been the man sitting next to the 1:33:46.560 --> 1:33:50.000 man right. So, but I know a lot of those do. 1:33:50.400 --> 1:33:52.320 So it was it was fun to be able to, 1:33:52.680 --> 1:33:55.880 you know, to play that side of a relationship that 1:33:56.080 --> 1:33:57.559 I saw all my life. 1:33:58.040 --> 1:33:58.880 Is he still with us? 1:33:59.520 --> 1:34:00.840 Yeah, as far as I know. 1:34:00.960 --> 1:34:04.320 Yeah, did you have any talks with him prior to 1:34:04.400 --> 1:34:06.040 the role where there any none of that? 1:34:07.360 --> 1:34:09.280 Yeah, I still haven't talked to him. 1:34:09.760 --> 1:34:14.320 Now you killed that role, thank you, and did that 1:34:14.520 --> 1:34:17.160 role lead to working with Ryan Murphy again and what 1:34:17.360 --> 1:34:20.080 is it like going from that to American Horror? 1:34:21.240 --> 1:34:23.920 So I started American Horror Story. I did that first, okay, okay, 1:34:24.000 --> 1:34:28.439 so sorry and then so what was fun though? For 1:34:29.439 --> 1:34:32.320 for people? Forus OJ? I actually auditioned for Chris Darton. 1:34:33.360 --> 1:34:33.679 Wow. 1:34:34.840 --> 1:34:39.080 And that was literally that was one of the best 1:34:39.240 --> 1:34:44.560 auditions in my life. Like the cash director helped my 1:34:44.600 --> 1:34:46.760 agent up with email like an hour after I left 1:34:46.840 --> 1:34:51.320 and like gave me pomps. I was like, I was like, 1:34:51.479 --> 1:34:53.439 this is this is that one? Like I'm about to 1:34:53.520 --> 1:35:01.639 blow off this motherfucker he was he was done. Months 1:35:01.680 --> 1:35:06.800 went by and I heard nothing right, and then I 1:35:06.960 --> 1:35:11.839 was like okay, and then out of the blue, Ryan's 1:35:11.920 --> 1:35:14.559 office called me and offered me the A C roll 1:35:15.680 --> 1:35:19.200 And so based on, you know, the audition for for Chris. 1:35:19.720 --> 1:35:21.640 So then when I saw Sterling, I was like. 1:35:22.760 --> 1:35:27.200 What right, of course, right right? What are we talking about? 1:35:28.000 --> 1:35:28.639 That made him? 1:35:29.040 --> 1:35:31.640 That made him to really he just I mean, he 1:35:32.000 --> 1:35:38.000 he put his everything, everything from his to his achilles 1:35:38.080 --> 1:35:42.479 heel he put in that, you know, So, yeah, yeah, 1:35:42.560 --> 1:35:42.960 I get it. 1:35:45.400 --> 1:35:50.120 I gotta ask. Speaking of that, Lenny have revealed to 1:35:50.240 --> 1:35:54.719 me that they first came to him. Did he reveal 1:35:54.800 --> 1:35:59.479 that on our episode? Uh? That before Cuba Gooding? Like, 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:04.000 I know, this is real hard to imagine, but like OJ, 1:36:04.760 --> 1:36:10.960 Lenny and O J are dopel gangers. You gotta you 1:36:11.040 --> 1:36:14.360 gotta google it together. There's there's a period of OJ's. 1:36:14.000 --> 1:36:15.040 Life something about cravit. 1:36:15.160 --> 1:36:18.800 Y'all. Just so, yeah, what other Lenny? Not Lenny White? 1:36:20.280 --> 1:36:21.920 Nobody never heard the comparison. 1:36:23.000 --> 1:36:24.479 Or Lenny White the drummer anyway. 1:36:25.000 --> 1:36:25.280 No, no, no. 1:36:25.960 --> 1:36:30.880 When I was watching Ezra's OJ documentary on episode two, 1:36:31.080 --> 1:36:34.280 you know it's a four part documentary, episode two, I 1:36:34.400 --> 1:36:37.040 was like, damn, I never knew that OJ looked like 1:36:37.120 --> 1:36:39.080 Lenny Kravitz. And I hit him up like yo, like 1:36:40.400 --> 1:36:42.160 did you know you guys were twins? And he's like yo, 1:36:42.320 --> 1:36:46.320 they offered me the role and he didn't take it, Like. 1:36:47.240 --> 1:36:48.559 I gotta think about his butler roll. 1:36:48.600 --> 1:36:50.280 That will be the look he didn't want. 1:36:50.400 --> 1:36:53.559 Yeah, Like, but did you did you realize that all 1:36:53.640 --> 1:36:58.679 that that Lenny at one point was being courted heavily 1:36:58.840 --> 1:37:01.280 to play OJ's well before. 1:37:02.160 --> 1:37:04.000 No, I didn't know that. It's my first I mean, 1:37:04.000 --> 1:37:07.800 I'm not I mean that that doesn't that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, 1:37:08.880 --> 1:37:09.960 so yeah, never, I didn't hear that. 1:37:10.600 --> 1:37:12.599 It's so beautiful the way it worked out, though, because 1:37:12.680 --> 1:37:15.320 people love when they saw you on the screen, like 1:37:15.360 --> 1:37:17.479 it was a it was a beautiful like surprise. 1:37:17.600 --> 1:37:21.640 Like the thing that I admire about the roles that 1:37:21.720 --> 1:37:24.000 you chose, Like you happen to always show up on 1:37:24.200 --> 1:37:30.200 shows that I watch a lot, like, you know, just 1:37:30.320 --> 1:37:32.600 on the road, I watch everything, so like when you 1:37:32.680 --> 1:37:36.720 were in community, Detroiters is one of my all time 1:37:36.760 --> 1:37:42.120 favorite shows, you know, on the little because I know 1:37:42.280 --> 1:37:45.360 the people to do the production, even the girlfriend's gut 1:37:45.439 --> 1:37:51.320 to divorce you, Like, there's so much all all of 1:37:51.400 --> 1:37:57.200 the shows that you've done. Is acting still like a 1:37:57.360 --> 1:38:02.120 journey that you enjoy or or is it like it's 1:38:02.200 --> 1:38:04.639 cool but you know, like music's like like what's your 1:38:04.800 --> 1:38:06.559 what's your fifty ballants? 1:38:06.600 --> 1:38:06.720 Here? 1:38:07.000 --> 1:38:07.160 Right? 1:38:08.160 --> 1:38:12.000 The acting? I mean, one, it's my bread and butter, right, 1:38:12.400 --> 1:38:16.599 But I'm also you know, I'm hitting a new stride 1:38:17.640 --> 1:38:20.519 as an actor. So my craft is you know, I 1:38:20.640 --> 1:38:22.880 have a better handle on my craft. It's just even 1:38:22.920 --> 1:38:27.400 these five seasons I've been doing on The Resident, The 1:38:27.479 --> 1:38:32.400 Resident has really been a great playground, you know, to 1:38:32.680 --> 1:38:38.040 to work on certain tools I need as I continue 1:38:38.080 --> 1:38:42.599 on this journey of mastery of my craft. So I'm 1:38:42.680 --> 1:38:45.400 always looking to to get better. I have this this 1:38:45.720 --> 1:38:50.479 really dope show coming out on Fox called Accused. It's 1:38:50.520 --> 1:38:55.120 a courtroom anthology series, so like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, 1:38:55.280 --> 1:39:00.760 every episode is its standalone. Yeah, but so I have 1:39:00.800 --> 1:39:05.800 an episode of that, and these five seasons on The 1:39:05.960 --> 1:39:09.400 Resident have greatly and even informed that role because that 1:39:09.560 --> 1:39:12.439 role is again a very different role. It was very 1:39:12.520 --> 1:39:16.679 demanding emotionally, So just having that experience was like wow, 1:39:16.840 --> 1:39:20.040 like like I am I say, with The Resident, I 1:39:20.120 --> 1:39:24.839 have finally I'm finally beginning to handle on my craft 1:39:25.479 --> 1:39:30.080 that I've been chasing since Cosby. M hmm. So there's 1:39:30.280 --> 1:39:33.400 all of that and it's like, oh wow, there's all 1:39:33.479 --> 1:39:38.160 of that that's informed where I am. Now, Fuck what's next? 1:39:39.200 --> 1:39:42.439 You know, Like I'm excited about that. And then instead 1:39:42.439 --> 1:39:45.960 of me stressing about you know what the next job 1:39:46.080 --> 1:39:47.679 is going to be, I have the music. 1:39:48.520 --> 1:39:51.280 Yeah right, I would say, man, I would say, bro, 1:39:51.439 --> 1:39:53.519 like I just from as someone that you know, grew 1:39:53.640 --> 1:39:58.400 up like watch you on Cosby and who I knew 1:39:58.400 --> 1:40:00.519 you were older than me, but you know but just 1:40:00.600 --> 1:40:02.960 you know, in the same range, you know what I'm saying. 1:40:03.400 --> 1:40:07.320 But like I always admired, I thought you really grew 1:40:07.400 --> 1:40:10.040 into yourself really well you know what I mean in 1:40:10.160 --> 1:40:13.320 terms of you know what I mean, in terms of 1:40:13.439 --> 1:40:16.240 just like your transition and going from because I mean 1:40:16.320 --> 1:40:20.559 we you know, I mean child actors, no doubt. Well, comrade, listen, 1:40:20.800 --> 1:40:27.880 I say that, thank you, thank you. I think, yeah, 1:40:28.360 --> 1:40:31.800 comrades up out here, really you know what I mean. 1:40:32.520 --> 1:40:35.639 But nah, you know, so you know, most child actors 1:40:35.680 --> 1:40:38.799 that's a sub transition to make. But I've always admired 1:40:39.000 --> 1:40:42.200 just the way you've kind of transition, and you've always 1:40:42.200 --> 1:40:44.759 seemed to pick roles that were you and it seemed 1:40:44.840 --> 1:40:47.760 like it was really yeah, just like a lot of 1:40:47.840 --> 1:40:50.439 class and you just brought I think, you know when 1:40:50.439 --> 1:40:53.960 you talk about your process and how you're growing, you know, 1:40:54.200 --> 1:40:56.080 older and kind of you feel like there's another level 1:40:56.120 --> 1:40:57.200 of mastery just there. 1:40:57.680 --> 1:40:57.840 You know. 1:40:58.080 --> 1:41:01.439 I see that, man, It really shine through and everything 1:41:01.520 --> 1:41:03.760 you do, you know what I mean, And I really 1:41:03.760 --> 1:41:04.959 appreciate it for really. 1:41:05.200 --> 1:41:07.000 I got to ask fan out questions though. 1:41:07.280 --> 1:41:08.760 All right, let's go, I got some soul. 1:41:09.240 --> 1:41:13.600 Okay, So a year before the pandemic. All right, so 1:41:13.680 --> 1:41:17.839 the Roots lived, you know, we moved to London, England, 1:41:17.960 --> 1:41:20.639 like in ninety three when we got our record deal, 1:41:21.520 --> 1:41:25.040 moved over there and kind of kept an apartment there 1:41:25.720 --> 1:41:28.160 so that we could tour all of Europe extensively without 1:41:28.200 --> 1:41:30.240 it being like really heavy on our pockets, you know, 1:41:30.400 --> 1:41:32.920 paying for flights back and forth to the States. Like 1:41:33.000 --> 1:41:35.400 we're just going to live in Europe and so like 1:41:36.120 --> 1:41:38.760 London's the second home for us. So we did this 1:41:39.000 --> 1:41:45.280 gig in London and it's like our biggest crowd yet. 1:41:45.320 --> 1:41:48.680 So it's like fifteen thousand people, and this is not 1:41:49.240 --> 1:41:52.000 like a festival, this is just like a regular roots 1:41:52.040 --> 1:41:57.120 show outdoors. And I'm staring at this woman and I'm like, 1:41:57.439 --> 1:42:01.080 I know you from so where I don't know where 1:42:01.120 --> 1:42:04.439 I know And she just stood out like she stood 1:42:04.439 --> 1:42:07.280 in the middle. And then I did a DJ gig 1:42:08.400 --> 1:42:15.360 and that same woman was like was was was was there? 1:42:15.840 --> 1:42:19.760 And I was like, where do I know you from? 1:42:20.680 --> 1:42:23.120 At the end of the night, I was like, excuse me, 1:42:23.320 --> 1:42:28.400 where do we know each other? And she says, yeah, 1:42:28.520 --> 1:42:33.880 my name is Denise Pearson. I was like, fucking five star, 1:42:34.040 --> 1:42:38.679 Denise Pearson, where you started laughing. I was like, wait, 1:42:38.760 --> 1:42:42.320 you know, I said, wait, always hung with Malcolm Tomorrow 1:42:42.360 --> 1:42:48.960 Warner like for me, for me like and then and 1:42:49.040 --> 1:42:52.120 then taking taken to the very top of this episode 1:42:52.680 --> 1:42:57.240 when I told you, like vicariously, who am I living with? Like? 1:42:57.360 --> 1:42:58.479 Who am I living through? 1:42:58.880 --> 1:43:00.880 What is you gotta give us? 1:43:01.680 --> 1:43:07.320 Give me a second like for me in watching and 1:43:07.520 --> 1:43:12.240 watching you as a kid vicariously living like I would 1:43:12.320 --> 1:43:15.600 just like, wow, man, the only two people like I 1:43:15.680 --> 1:43:19.240 knew Eddie Murphy mentioned them once and you were always 1:43:19.320 --> 1:43:27.759 hanging with five Star? Do you not know five Star? No? Okay, 1:43:28.000 --> 1:43:29.840 all right, this this is all I said. You remember 1:43:29.840 --> 1:43:35.000 the Jimmy jam episode where you know he spoke of 1:43:35.880 --> 1:43:39.120 who's our our our my Philly comrade. Oh Nick Martin 1:43:39.160 --> 1:43:43.040 Nelly when we talked about people that bite jam and Lewis, 1:43:43.720 --> 1:43:48.160 Nick Martin Nelly was basically, I don't want to insult 1:43:48.439 --> 1:43:53.760 Nick Martinelly. I'm saying this through the mind of Jimmy Jam. 1:43:54.240 --> 1:43:55.920 If you can't get Jam and Lewis, you can get 1:43:56.000 --> 1:43:58.720 Nick Martin Elly and almost get the same results. So 1:43:58.920 --> 1:44:03.080 like loose ends five Star like he was. 1:44:03.320 --> 1:44:06.400 Sid Star from the group five Star. 1:44:07.160 --> 1:44:11.320 Yeah, oh shit. So I'll just say that production wise, 1:44:11.600 --> 1:44:16.400 like Nick Martinelli had took jam and Lewis's SOS band 1:44:16.560 --> 1:44:20.840 sound and gave it to Lowsens, gave it to Phyllis Hymon. 1:44:21.120 --> 1:44:24.120 I only want to be your girl. That's going and 1:44:24.920 --> 1:44:29.599 five Star, which is basically in my mind, if if 1:44:30.080 --> 1:44:34.519 pre controlled Janet Jackson had a group like her brothers, 1:44:34.720 --> 1:44:38.679 it was this group. They were, but they were biggest ship. 1:44:38.880 --> 1:44:41.360 They were Jacksons Europe. 1:44:41.840 --> 1:44:44.280 They were definitely the Jacksons of Europe. And at the 1:44:44.520 --> 1:44:48.400 time and at the time when the Jackson's resorted kind 1:44:48.439 --> 1:44:53.680 of running on empty between eighty four and on, like 1:44:53.800 --> 1:44:56.600 there was no there was nobody to really scratch that 1:44:56.760 --> 1:45:00.680 itch of watching five people dance at the same time 1:45:00.760 --> 1:45:02.640 and do those same moves at the jet. You know, 1:45:02.720 --> 1:45:05.000 It's like after the Victory Tour, the Jackson's were pretty 1:45:05.080 --> 1:45:08.040 much over in eighty four, so five Star kind of 1:45:08.120 --> 1:45:12.960 took their place. There was a new addition, but five 1:45:13.040 --> 1:45:16.400 Star was really that anyway. Like, you know, they were 1:45:16.520 --> 1:45:18.639 always hanging with Malcolm jam and I was like, wow, 1:45:18.760 --> 1:45:21.560 man like, he's so lucky to know them, man like. 1:45:23.240 --> 1:45:26.240 But I just want to ask you, in general, you're 1:45:26.520 --> 1:45:30.000 experiencing life and coming of age during a period in 1:45:30.200 --> 1:45:36.120 which might seem normal to you then but now is 1:45:36.320 --> 1:45:40.519 like everything you experienced was a classic moment. Like you 1:45:40.680 --> 1:45:44.360 saw Prime New Edition. I mean, like you were hanging 1:45:44.400 --> 1:45:49.400 with Houdini, like you're in the Funky Beat video, right yeah, yeah, yeah, right, 1:45:49.600 --> 1:45:54.479 like you're hanging with like I mean, Run DMC raising 1:45:54.680 --> 1:45:57.760 how era Run DMC was the musical guests on your 1:45:57.880 --> 1:46:03.479 episode of SNL. Matter of fact, that man out. No, 1:46:03.600 --> 1:46:06.800 I'm just saying, like Swike Lee even did his little 1:46:07.080 --> 1:46:11.280 short film join on Malcolm's episode, Like I'm almost certain, 1:46:11.880 --> 1:46:13.519 like this is the one moment where I wish all 1:46:13.560 --> 1:46:16.160 five of us were together because I know you probably 1:46:16.200 --> 1:46:18.679 were also a Latin quarter. 1:46:20.640 --> 1:46:24.760 Regular that well yeah, when I was too young to 1:46:24.800 --> 1:46:27.600 even be up in there, right, But I'm just saying, like, 1:46:28.080 --> 1:46:33.600 just in general, I feel like I'm what was it 1:46:33.760 --> 1:46:34.200 like to be you? 1:46:35.080 --> 1:46:35.240 Right? 1:46:35.640 --> 1:46:38.200 You know, I don't want to sound like old boy 1:46:38.280 --> 1:46:41.920 interviewing Paul McCartney on Saturday Live, like that was cool, 1:46:42.360 --> 1:46:46.160 but like you were the man when like the Prince 1:46:46.280 --> 1:46:51.200 I wish I knew was I became his friend like 1:46:51.680 --> 1:46:56.320 after the fact, you know, but what was it like 1:46:56.479 --> 1:46:59.400 during that period to be in that, to be in 1:47:01.160 --> 1:47:04.599 the eye of the storm, because I mean, for all, 1:47:05.520 --> 1:47:07.639 the thing that we can't take away from that show 1:47:09.320 --> 1:47:17.080 is the domino effect of ideas and seeds planet. I mean, 1:47:17.120 --> 1:47:19.679 I started with the hip hop thing, but I'm certain 1:47:19.760 --> 1:47:22.680 that a lot of us were looking at you know, 1:47:22.920 --> 1:47:27.400 black college is different. We were looking at education different. 1:47:27.479 --> 1:47:28.960 We were looking the first time here in night time 1:47:29.000 --> 1:47:29.599 at the right time. 1:47:29.960 --> 1:47:34.160 Rachel, Like, that was right, so many firsts. So like 1:47:34.880 --> 1:47:40.160 for you in general, what was your experience like just 1:47:40.439 --> 1:47:44.040 in the eye of the Storm between eighty four and 1:47:44.240 --> 1:47:45.760 ninety two, you. 1:47:45.800 --> 1:47:49.280 Couldn't tell me shit, Oh no, were you an asshole? No? 1:47:49.400 --> 1:47:51.760 It wasn't an asshole. It wasn't that, not at all. 1:47:52.960 --> 1:47:55.760 When it was when I first started working pre Cosby, right, 1:47:56.080 --> 1:47:59.920 I was doing like Matt Houston Fame I was doing. 1:48:00.000 --> 1:48:04.400 I was doing two plays at the same time. Like 1:48:04.479 --> 1:48:07.280 I'm in seventh grade and like I'm feeling like I'm 1:48:07.280 --> 1:48:09.880 at school when people recognizing them from TV. So I'm like, yo, 1:48:10.120 --> 1:48:17.040 I'm that comrade. Right, I was like, yo, I'm the ship. 1:48:17.280 --> 1:48:19.439 Like so I was in that space. Then eighth grade 1:48:19.520 --> 1:48:22.439 came around and I could not book an audition to 1:48:22.479 --> 1:48:24.840 save my life. I was going on like four or 1:48:24.880 --> 1:48:28.760 five callbacks, not booking anything, and it was hurting my soul. 1:48:29.360 --> 1:48:32.160 But the message I got was like, Wow, this is 1:48:32.200 --> 1:48:36.200 all cool, but this can go away just like that 1:48:36.880 --> 1:48:39.600 control over ye. And as soon as I got that epiphany, 1:48:40.000 --> 1:48:43.559 I book cosme. So, so that's the first filter through 1:48:43.640 --> 1:48:46.120 which I have. You know, I handled my whole journey. 1:48:47.479 --> 1:48:50.040 So I wasn't well so so the beautiful thing was 1:48:50.120 --> 1:48:53.840 I wasn't an ass, but I was very present to 1:48:54.880 --> 1:48:56.479 this life that I'm living. 1:48:57.200 --> 1:48:57.639 That's good. 1:48:58.200 --> 1:49:01.280 And being in New York had a a great deal 1:49:01.360 --> 1:49:04.120 to do with that, because I wasn't in Hollywood, and 1:49:04.240 --> 1:49:08.200 my best friends weren't on the same lot two stages 1:49:08.280 --> 1:49:11.320 down in their show. We were in New York. But 1:49:11.680 --> 1:49:15.120 when we were first in Brooklyn, the NBC studios didn't 1:49:15.120 --> 1:49:17.320 have a commasary, so at lunch we had to go 1:49:17.439 --> 1:49:20.280 out into the neighborhood and pick up our lunch wherever 1:49:20.360 --> 1:49:23.000 we decided we're gonna eat right, and we're on the 1:49:23.120 --> 1:49:26.080 number one television show in the world. 1:49:26.640 --> 1:49:28.479 There wasn't commisary there, not, not. 1:49:28.520 --> 1:49:30.720 At this particular because we were like an avenue m 1:49:30.840 --> 1:49:32.920 and E's fourteenth Street, like this is like deep in Brooklyn? 1:49:33.320 --> 1:49:37.280 Can I side note? Yeah, the last season of Cosby 1:49:38.240 --> 1:49:40.400 you know it was on the catering staff there, right, 1:49:41.560 --> 1:49:46.280 what the head cook Cracy? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:49:46.360 --> 1:49:49.920 that's how she She started out as a one of 1:49:49.960 --> 1:49:53.599 the head chefs at the Cosby Man, which then led 1:49:53.640 --> 1:49:54.920 her to life. 1:49:55.920 --> 1:49:59.200 Yeah, no doubt, I remember Grace. Yeah, yeah, she's cool. 1:49:59.479 --> 1:50:02.559 But yeah, in terms of the because y'all were very 1:50:02.720 --> 1:50:07.880 you know, y'all are children, were did they because you 1:50:07.920 --> 1:50:11.200 talked about how Cosby in the writer's room, how he 1:50:11.240 --> 1:50:13.200 would talk about you know, you know, we're not gonna 1:50:13.200 --> 1:50:13.360 do that. 1:50:13.400 --> 1:50:14.000 I'm not gonna do that. 1:50:14.600 --> 1:50:18.280 Did he or Felicia or just any of the adults 1:50:18.320 --> 1:50:20.120 on the show, did they kind of give y'all game 1:50:20.400 --> 1:50:21.760 as young actors as well? 1:50:22.240 --> 1:50:23.680 It was the educational it that way. 1:50:24.320 --> 1:50:27.640 It was for me, it was just watching, okay, right, 1:50:27.840 --> 1:50:30.400 that just means like understanding, you know, we're on this 1:50:30.560 --> 1:50:35.000 number one television show in the world. But every weekend, 1:50:35.120 --> 1:50:38.880 mister Cosby is in Atlanta, Tahoe, or Vegas doing stand 1:50:38.960 --> 1:50:41.600 up Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then be the work the 1:50:41.680 --> 1:50:45.519 first person back at work on Monday, right. So I'm 1:50:45.520 --> 1:50:48.640 seeing like, I'm seeing that kind of grind, you know, 1:50:48.720 --> 1:50:51.120 and I'm seeing the you know, the work that he's 1:50:51.160 --> 1:50:55.000 putting into the show. I'm seeing the fights that he's having. 1:50:55.640 --> 1:50:58.280 Uh So, so much of that was was just by 1:50:58.360 --> 1:51:02.639 watching watching him. I've probably I'm sure I've learned more 1:51:02.680 --> 1:51:05.840 from him than more from him from watching him than 1:51:05.920 --> 1:51:09.160 him sitting me down a bit. But I listened, and 1:51:09.280 --> 1:51:12.040 he's one of those people who is willing to share 1:51:12.080 --> 1:51:14.519 all of his knowledge with anyone who's willing to listen. 1:51:15.520 --> 1:51:17.400 So I also, you know, I listened a lot. I 1:51:17.479 --> 1:51:19.240 listened to you know, I was, I mean I was. 1:51:19.680 --> 1:51:24.439 It was a great apprenticeship in terms of running a show, uh, 1:51:24.640 --> 1:51:30.439 in terms of handling the responsibility of living in the 1:51:30.479 --> 1:51:31.040 public eye. 1:51:36.120 --> 1:51:39.639 You guess directed the special ED episode? Correct? 1:51:40.400 --> 1:51:43.680 I directed like like six episodes, but not the one 1:51:43.920 --> 1:51:44.280 ED was on? 1:51:45.080 --> 1:51:45.559 Which ones? 1:51:45.640 --> 1:51:47.240 Did you do? Well? 1:51:47.280 --> 1:51:47.920 Give us a couple? 1:51:48.400 --> 1:51:51.880 I know them all about heart but no, no, no, 1:51:52.040 --> 1:51:52.360 I don't know. 1:51:52.840 --> 1:52:00.600 I think off to see the Wretched, got drunk and 1:52:00.680 --> 1:52:02.800 they went to the Uh they went to see some 1:52:03.280 --> 1:52:07.600 some some group, yes, in Philly, and Clifford Claire had 1:52:07.640 --> 1:52:10.680 to drive the Philly to go get them, and. 1:52:10.680 --> 1:52:13.680 They had to play a drinking make fun ye no, no, 1:52:13.840 --> 1:52:16.360 not that one drink they. 1:52:16.320 --> 1:52:18.120 Were they were in Philly, they got these tickets, they 1:52:18.200 --> 1:52:20.519 drove up, you know, letting by know and then I 1:52:20.560 --> 1:52:24.640 think a scalper scammed them and took the ticket and 1:52:24.720 --> 1:52:26.280 then they the car broke down. 1:52:26.840 --> 1:52:27.639 Remember that episode. 1:52:27.720 --> 1:52:29.840 They lied to Clifford Claire about where they were going, 1:52:29.880 --> 1:52:31.639 so cliff clar had to drive to Philly to get 1:52:31.680 --> 1:52:32.519 them and bring them back. 1:52:32.560 --> 1:52:36.439 And so when you're doing directing, like I've noticed that 1:52:36.600 --> 1:52:40.120 some of those episodes you weren't in at all, Like 1:52:40.360 --> 1:52:42.720 was that by design? Like, Okay, my character won't be 1:52:42.800 --> 1:52:44.679 in this particular episode like I will. 1:52:45.400 --> 1:52:48.280 I think in the in the episodes that I directed, 1:52:48.320 --> 1:52:49.519 they definitely wrote me lighter. 1:52:50.160 --> 1:52:50.240 Uh. 1:52:50.600 --> 1:52:52.280 Just sometimes there are just times we running them for 1:52:52.960 --> 1:52:54.519 you know, for whatever reason. 1:52:55.240 --> 1:52:57.640 At the point when THEO went to college, did they 1:52:57.680 --> 1:53:00.120 start asking you for your opinions on things like or 1:53:00.160 --> 1:53:02.360 did they ever before that or at any point did 1:53:02.439 --> 1:53:05.000 you have any on the writing. It was moments when 1:53:05.160 --> 1:53:06.880 I saw you come home and like they were listening, 1:53:06.960 --> 1:53:08.560 you were listening the day Last Soul, and I was 1:53:08.640 --> 1:53:10.560 like in my you know, in my mind, I'm like 1:53:11.320 --> 1:53:14.240 Malcolm did that because right, like. 1:53:15.040 --> 1:53:17.559 Yeah, stuff like that, like the so the very last episode, 1:53:18.080 --> 1:53:21.040 I submitted the demo. Me and Spaceman Patterson submitted a 1:53:21.080 --> 1:53:24.160 demo for the theme song. They ended up not using 1:53:24.240 --> 1:53:26.960 our demo, but they used the drum track of that 1:53:27.080 --> 1:53:30.920 programmed like they used my drum patterns, right, they changed 1:53:30.920 --> 1:53:32.639 the sounds, but they used my drums just like. Okay, 1:53:33.240 --> 1:53:36.679 got it? So, I mean there was there was definitely 1:53:37.240 --> 1:53:37.600 wait for. 1:53:37.640 --> 1:53:41.639 The last season. Yeah, so you helped do the music 1:53:41.840 --> 1:53:44.240 of when they're dancing in front of the brick wall 1:53:44.400 --> 1:53:48.599 the brother Hell House. Yeah yeah, yeah, but wait, oh god, 1:53:48.680 --> 1:53:50.280 I have so many questions to ask. 1:53:50.120 --> 1:53:55.360 You now the intros so not even the intro, okay, but. 1:53:55.360 --> 1:53:59.040 I always wanted to know. Okay, there was one. There 1:53:59.120 --> 1:54:02.560 was one particular episode in which, for the life of me, 1:54:03.520 --> 1:54:07.559 I will never understand how this happened. You know, Normally, 1:54:07.840 --> 1:54:13.600 they will make if someone's listening to outside music, you know, 1:54:13.720 --> 1:54:17.200 they'll have whatever, I know, like Stuke Gartner, somebody would 1:54:18.040 --> 1:54:20.920 make up a song, a fictional song or whatever for 1:54:21.040 --> 1:54:24.600 you guys to listen to. But this one particular episode, 1:54:25.320 --> 1:54:30.200 I couldn't believe that, not only uh was like black 1:54:30.240 --> 1:54:32.919 you Who. Like if if you remember the the episode, 1:54:33.440 --> 1:54:35.280 this is when I first got a VCR, So you remember, 1:54:35.360 --> 1:54:37.080 like when you first get your VCR and you just 1:54:37.160 --> 1:54:39.800 record any and everything or am I way too older 1:54:39.840 --> 1:54:43.680 than you? I'm way older than you too, So I'm 1:54:43.760 --> 1:54:45.600 just saying that when you get a VCR, you record 1:54:45.720 --> 1:54:48.600 everything and you watch it over again. So this one 1:54:48.640 --> 1:54:54.120 particular episode they use the actual black you who Guess 1:54:54.160 --> 1:54:59.400 Who's coming to dinner, which is uh, spoony, spooky right right, 1:55:00.000 --> 1:55:02.720 which you know the whole I say amon thing, But 1:55:03.000 --> 1:55:06.920 for me, I always wanted to know. So there's a 1:55:07.000 --> 1:55:12.280 scene where Vanessa and Robert are listening to Cosmic Slot 1:55:12.360 --> 1:55:15.760 by Funkadelic, and I was like, Yo, these two are 1:55:15.880 --> 1:55:20.200 twelve years old. Wow, what do they know about listening 1:55:20.280 --> 1:55:24.040 to a song from nineteen seventy three about a mother 1:55:25.400 --> 1:55:27.800 that has to turn tricks in the alleyway to feed 1:55:27.840 --> 1:55:31.600 her Like it was such. I was watching it with 1:55:31.680 --> 1:55:35.200 a musician friend of my dad's and he was like, 1:55:35.240 --> 1:55:38.240 wait a minute, are they really playing Cosmic Slot by 1:55:38.320 --> 1:55:40.840 Funkadelic right now? On the cosby That was like one 1:55:40.840 --> 1:55:43.560 of the most revolutionary moments. But I always wanted to know, 1:55:44.640 --> 1:55:48.480 like I know that wasn't by accident or like, I 1:55:48.600 --> 1:55:51.879 know that was on purpose? Who would is that? The writers? 1:55:52.320 --> 1:55:52.520 Is that. 1:55:54.120 --> 1:55:59.320 That was either mister Cosby or Stut Gardner. Probably mister Cosby. 1:56:00.080 --> 1:56:00.320 Wow. 1:56:00.720 --> 1:56:04.840 So at the time I know that scene, I was 1:56:04.880 --> 1:56:09.000 probably too young to know cosmic slop so right, But 1:56:09.120 --> 1:56:11.840 now that you're saying that because I know the song, like, 1:56:12.280 --> 1:56:16.640 that's such a genius It's such a genius move. 1:56:18.440 --> 1:56:21.200 Yeah, so that was that. I mean that that really 1:56:21.240 --> 1:56:25.160 turned me on. Before that moment, those Funkadelic records were 1:56:25.480 --> 1:56:27.720 just scary album covers in my dad's collection and I 1:56:27.800 --> 1:56:31.840 was like whatever, And then suddenly like, oh wait, this 1:56:32.040 --> 1:56:34.880 was on the Cosby Show. Like literally every it's a. 1:56:34.880 --> 1:56:36.320 Lot of records that were found like that. 1:56:36.560 --> 1:56:40.680 Yeah, yeah, like with Candy and all that stuff. So again, 1:56:40.880 --> 1:56:44.600 I go back to my first question, what was for 1:56:44.800 --> 1:56:49.200 you like one of the coolest moments of the advantage 1:56:50.160 --> 1:56:53.800 of being your career because I you know, I also 1:56:53.920 --> 1:56:56.360 know that back then there was sort of this thing 1:56:56.400 --> 1:57:00.720 where it's like you versus here, I say. 1:57:01.360 --> 1:57:08.880 Damn it, you transition very well. 1:57:11.520 --> 1:57:17.480 Yeah, yo, for real, for real, dog for real, for 1:57:17.640 --> 1:57:23.080 real you Malcolm. Yeah, and I just felt like you've 1:57:23.160 --> 1:57:27.520 really never got your props for what you represented on 1:57:27.720 --> 1:57:31.960 that show. But just in general, like what was like 1:57:32.080 --> 1:57:33.720 one of the coolest moments of. 1:57:35.320 --> 1:57:36.080 That experience? 1:57:36.400 --> 1:57:41.640 Yeah, like meeting someone otherworldly or just like, wow, I 1:57:42.000 --> 1:57:44.280 get to see this concert because you know, like. 1:57:45.400 --> 1:57:48.800 That could be a two hour conversation in itself. I'm 1:57:48.800 --> 1:57:50.880 gonna tell you one that stands out because since you 1:57:50.960 --> 1:57:57.120 brought it up. So we're at SNL right, I'm rehearsing 1:57:57.400 --> 1:58:00.600 my opening monologue, and it was about I had just 1:58:00.720 --> 1:58:02.520 learned how to do the wop right because I was 1:58:02.600 --> 1:58:05.560 I was at I was at l Q, everybody was 1:58:05.600 --> 1:58:07.800 wopping and my man Darren Hie me finally taught me 1:58:07.840 --> 1:58:12.200 how to how to wop right. So old monologue is 1:58:12.200 --> 1:58:14.160 about me trying to learn this dance and then uh, 1:58:14.520 --> 1:58:16.680 Dana Carvey comes in and he's really trying to show 1:58:16.760 --> 1:58:19.320 me how to do the dance. It's a real goofy Uh. 1:58:19.520 --> 1:58:26.160 It's a real open monologue. So we were rehearsing and run, uh, 1:58:26.280 --> 1:58:29.160 you know, running Daryl coming and there they're early, so 1:58:29.320 --> 1:58:32.360 they're sitting down, Uh, they're watching us. You know, do 1:58:32.560 --> 1:58:36.480 the monologue and you know, the band starts playing and 1:58:36.600 --> 1:58:41.000 I start, you know, doing the walk mm hmmm finished 1:58:41.000 --> 1:58:48.040 the piece. Yo, did you hear that? They playing my melody? 1:58:49.000 --> 1:58:52.120 Run looked at me. He was like, yo, you did that. 1:58:52.920 --> 1:58:55.680 I was like yeah, he was like he gave me 1:58:55.720 --> 1:59:00.520 the look. Right, Run DMC is impressed because I'm want 1:59:00.720 --> 1:59:05.120 ESNL doing the wop having the band playing AIRGB and 1:59:05.480 --> 1:59:09.160 rock kims my medd right, Run is to meaning like 1:59:10.360 --> 1:59:15.640 this mon right wait and I'm like fifteen, like so 1:59:15.760 --> 1:59:17.480 to get that look from Run. 1:59:18.600 --> 1:59:25.640 Like wow, yeah, wow, this is a lot of them. 1:59:25.640 --> 1:59:28.640 But that's definitely you know for a fifteen year old kid, 1:59:29.680 --> 1:59:31.600 you know, love and Run DMC to get that kind 1:59:31.640 --> 1:59:32.760 of recognition, I. 1:59:32.960 --> 1:59:35.520 Think like spending night at an aunt's house or whatever, 1:59:35.680 --> 1:59:38.560 and you know, and I got to see that episode. 1:59:38.640 --> 1:59:39.040 Man, that. 1:59:41.040 --> 1:59:44.200 That that was everything, Yo, dog, I can I can 1:59:44.320 --> 1:59:47.080 nerd out forevery normally I'm about to look at the clock, right, 1:59:47.440 --> 1:59:49.560 Jesus Christ, this is a two and a half hour episode. 1:59:50.400 --> 1:59:53.120 Sorry, but I mean you're you know, you're a legend. 1:59:53.240 --> 1:59:53.400 Run. 1:59:55.480 --> 1:59:58.400 No, this is this is a living legend, friend, and 1:59:58.480 --> 2:00:01.000 I'm talking to legends. So it's whole thing. 2:00:01.320 --> 2:00:02.840 I do it all the time. It's really cool. 2:00:04.200 --> 2:00:07.040 I really thank you for talking to us and and 2:00:07.600 --> 2:00:10.360 and you know I'm one of your biggest fans. Dok 2:00:10.440 --> 2:00:16.320 and ways in ways in ways. I can't explain it. 2:00:16.360 --> 2:00:19.200 I just I thank you. I really don't have any 2:00:19.240 --> 2:00:21.240 other words, but you know, thank you. Thank you. 2:00:21.760 --> 2:00:23.440 Do people still walk up to you and say, I 2:00:23.520 --> 2:00:25.000 brought you in this world and I'll take you out? 2:00:25.680 --> 2:00:31.240 Fortunately not okay, good yeah, but but I mean just 2:00:31.320 --> 2:00:34.880 to like, like like this, wait a minute, didn't you 2:00:34.960 --> 2:00:41.640 just use something based on that Uhteh Sherman showcase I 2:00:41.880 --> 2:00:43.680 just heard I brought you in this world, I'll take 2:00:43.720 --> 2:00:44.320 you out reference. 2:00:44.360 --> 2:00:46.080 I don't know if it was a song reference or 2:00:46.160 --> 2:00:47.000 just a line reference. 2:00:47.400 --> 2:00:49.880 It might have been a line reference. But I okay, okay, okay, 2:00:49.920 --> 2:00:51.760 I didn't we didn't do a song I did. I 2:00:52.000 --> 2:00:53.520 just I'm crazy. I just thought of it. 2:00:53.840 --> 2:00:57.240 So the first podcast what It's just got me this job, 2:00:57.680 --> 2:01:00.600 the very first podcast I did, Man Shot, my Man, 2:01:00.680 --> 2:01:03.800 DJ Brainchild. Our first podcast is called. 2:01:08.920 --> 2:01:13.160 Yeah Jimmy Jams Yeah, and our logo was you. It 2:01:13.320 --> 2:01:15.800 was you in the shirt like this like that was 2:01:15.880 --> 2:01:17.640 our logo, Like it was that's right. 2:01:17.880 --> 2:01:21.120 I forgot the the the genesis of this very podcast 2:01:22.680 --> 2:01:28.160 was the Gordon cart podcast, which I stole. Yes, yeah, I. 2:01:29.880 --> 2:01:30.520 Mean we were done. 2:01:30.560 --> 2:01:32.600 That show was done by the time when we started this. 2:01:32.760 --> 2:01:35.320 But yeah, but nah, man, I know you. I said, 2:01:35.320 --> 2:01:36.440 had to say, you've been apart. 2:01:36.800 --> 2:01:39.680 You've been a part of our of our cultural you know, 2:01:40.000 --> 2:01:42.120 just everything for you very long time. 2:01:42.280 --> 2:01:44.400 And just to be able to see you still. 2:01:44.360 --> 2:01:48.000 Just after all these years, like still flourishing, still working 2:01:48.280 --> 2:01:53.800 and like still you know, got your good sense on 2:01:53.880 --> 2:01:56.480 no dope and no dumb ship like that, like you 2:01:56.680 --> 2:01:58.680 you make you make the fifties, You make your fifties 2:01:58.720 --> 2:01:59.600 look real good, brother, for. 2:02:00.200 --> 2:02:03.640 I appreciate that. Man. Well, I gotta say, just for me, 2:02:04.000 --> 2:02:07.240 this is, this is this has been I don't even 2:02:07.360 --> 2:02:11.640 know the word affirming. It's been wonderful. It's been, you know, 2:02:11.840 --> 2:02:16.360 just because I respect both of you so much, just 2:02:16.480 --> 2:02:18.680 you know, as an MC when we talk about it's 2:02:18.720 --> 2:02:20.840 like you guys, like I talk about this love hate 2:02:20.880 --> 2:02:24.320 relationship I have with hip hop, right, but there is 2:02:24.520 --> 2:02:28.960 still like I can't trash hip hop because you guys 2:02:28.960 --> 2:02:33.280 are still hip hop, right, I'm saying. So, you know, right, 2:02:33.400 --> 2:02:36.880 So it's like it's like, you know, Felicia Rashad, you 2:02:36.920 --> 2:02:39.240 know you will tell me that you know, the light 2:02:39.360 --> 2:02:43.960 and the dark will always coexist. They have to, right, 2:02:44.600 --> 2:02:48.680 There's always going to be that battle. So I disappreciate that, 2:02:49.400 --> 2:02:52.280 you know, you guys are still around and still relevant 2:02:52.440 --> 2:02:54.880 enough to be like, no, but yo, this is you know, 2:02:55.000 --> 2:02:56.760 we still got this, so we don't even really have 2:02:56.920 --> 2:02:58.280 to dog hip hop. 2:02:58.640 --> 2:03:02.120 Don't have that them have that we got. I think, God, yeah, 2:03:02.480 --> 2:03:04.080 no one expected it to last this long. 2:03:04.160 --> 2:03:06.000 Like no, I don't think anyone expected it to be 2:03:06.280 --> 2:03:11.000 fifty year olds that are still invested in the hip hop. 2:03:11.200 --> 2:03:14.160 I don't think anyone, even the record companies when they 2:03:14.160 --> 2:03:14.640 first started. 2:03:14.640 --> 2:03:16.640 I mean, I don't think anyone expected to last as 2:03:16.680 --> 2:03:18.880 long as it did. So the idea of. 2:03:19.160 --> 2:03:22.480 Growing old or growing up in hip hop, I mean, 2:03:22.520 --> 2:03:24.920 I think that's a rarely new conversation of like the 2:03:25.040 --> 2:03:27.000 last you know, decade or so, maybe you know what 2:03:27.000 --> 2:03:27.240 I mean. 2:03:27.720 --> 2:03:29.560 Look, I remember being twenty five, and I remember being like, 2:03:30.000 --> 2:03:36.280 nobody's gonna want to hear Comrades rapping at fifty wait 2:03:36.400 --> 2:03:40.680 for jay Z, But now here we are like yeah, yeah, 2:03:40.680 --> 2:03:43.880 I'm saying he is killing it. Slick is killing it 2:03:44.000 --> 2:03:44.440 like it's. 2:03:44.440 --> 2:03:47.400 You know, black thought, it's black killing it. 2:03:47.680 --> 2:03:50.600 He's the thought is in and he's on the level 2:03:50.760 --> 2:03:55.760 like all unto him. He owns his own lady, right right, 2:03:55.920 --> 2:03:57.760 you know what I'm saying. So so to have you 2:03:57.880 --> 2:04:02.240 guys still be relevant forces is just as a hip 2:04:02.240 --> 2:04:06.960 hop fan, I'm so appreciative, but just as you know, 2:04:07.440 --> 2:04:09.880 a fan of both of you guys. You know me, 2:04:09.920 --> 2:04:12.280 You're like, I've been rocking with y'all. Said back when 2:04:12.520 --> 2:04:15.160 Marvin Matt gave me this this single. 2:04:18.960 --> 2:04:22.280 You and Wesley were definitely one of the first, the 2:04:22.720 --> 2:04:27.600 first like pioneers or gods that came to. 2:04:27.640 --> 2:04:29.880 See us like that consistently. 2:04:30.360 --> 2:04:33.320 Yeah, you asked me if I remember the Belly Up Club. 2:04:33.360 --> 2:04:36.680 It's like yo, dog, like that whole bus Rider was 2:04:36.720 --> 2:04:44.400 like yo man, step steps. Yeah, And just that's what 2:04:44.520 --> 2:04:44.840 it was like. 2:04:45.240 --> 2:04:48.160 And just you know, I want to reiterate against I 2:04:48.240 --> 2:04:52.040 don't want it to get lost. And how influential you 2:04:52.200 --> 2:04:55.400 guys were on what I do musically. 2:04:56.720 --> 2:05:01.760 Well, that's because I watched you first. So yeah, this 2:05:01.840 --> 2:05:02.680 is specification. 2:05:03.680 --> 2:05:05.400 And on that note, I just want to say something 2:05:05.480 --> 2:05:07.880 that has not been said. Thank you for giving us 2:05:07.920 --> 2:05:10.160 a space to talk about one of all of our 2:05:10.240 --> 2:05:13.000 favorite shows of all times. It's not always easy to 2:05:13.200 --> 2:05:16.120 talk to speak lovingly about a thing that we love 2:05:16.200 --> 2:05:18.600 so much, but you know, things have changed and stuff. 2:05:18.600 --> 2:05:21.560 So thank you for engaging. The show is the show. 2:05:21.680 --> 2:05:23.680 The show raised us, you know what I'm saying, So 2:05:24.160 --> 2:05:25.160 thank you, Thank you. 2:05:26.040 --> 2:05:30.560 Doubt all right, so on behalf of fan Tikolo, Laya Sugar, 2:05:30.640 --> 2:05:32.680 Steve and I'm paying Bill. 2:05:32.760 --> 2:05:33.960 Y'all, y'all missed the flash. 2:05:35.560 --> 2:05:38.200 Thank you, Malcolm Jamal Warning, this is Quest Love signing 2:05:38.240 --> 2:05:40.040 off for Quest Love Supreme. If we will see you 2:05:40.160 --> 2:05:46.400 on the next go round. West Love Supreme is a 2:05:46.440 --> 2:05:53.040 production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, 2:05:53.200 --> 2:05:56.600 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 2:05:56.720 --> 2:05:57.840 listen to your favorite shows.