Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: This is Quest Love Supreme, sitting here with family. This
Speaker 1: is uh uh font ticcolo and layah. I keep forgetting
Speaker 1: that we're now on YouTube and I hear we're doing well.
Speaker 1: I want to talk like an old person. We're doing
Speaker 1: well on the YouTube. I hear.
Speaker 2: This is what I on the internet?
Speaker 1: Yes, yo, wait someone all right. Someone ragged me hard
Speaker 1: this entire weekend. Of course, a vacation and a mirror
Speaker 1: are not synonymous with each other. But I took three
Speaker 1: days off to go off the grid, and I gathered
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of friends and we went to Las
Speaker 1: Vegas to do a bunch of and I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it correctly this time, escape rooms. What I didn't know
Speaker 1: was behind my back. Everyone's been teasing me because I've
Speaker 1: been calling it escape the room, which is right to
Speaker 1: look on Fante's face right now, is right? Everyone. Finally
Speaker 1: someone had the heart to say, hey, I'm here, by
Speaker 1: the way, in case you it's not a call to
Speaker 1: escape the room. It's just called escape room. They were
Speaker 1: basically telling me that I'm talking like an old black person.
Speaker 2: Did you have a good time.
Speaker 1: Half the time in my life, you know, solving murder mysteries.
Speaker 3: Yet to do one? Man, I want to do one too.
Speaker 1: Escape rooms is how I that? Who's going to get
Speaker 1: in on the inner circle? Now you know, I've made
Speaker 1: a lot of friends this year. No, I'm serious, word word,
Speaker 1: I made a whole bunch of friends this year. So
Speaker 1: now I got to weed them out. And the best
Speaker 1: way to figure out who is who?
Speaker 4: You only want smart people in your team.
Speaker 1: Well, no, no, no, no, it's not just that, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Because the thing is is that escape rooms and japany
Speaker 1: and I mentioned like she and Japanese restaurants is also
Speaker 1: a litmus test. It's not about who succeeds or who
Speaker 1: finds it natural. It's about I mean, even with total amateurs,
Speaker 1: it tells me a lot about their willingness to figure
Speaker 1: it out. If they don't know it, do they fake
Speaker 1: it till they make it so they like I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: escape rooms are the best way to figure out what
Speaker 1: kind of people you're dealing with. So I had a
Speaker 1: lot to learn this weekend. Anyway, my whole point was
Speaker 1: that I use the word the and I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been using the so anyway, so we're on the YouTube
Speaker 1: now and I'm hearing that we're doing well on the internet.
Speaker 1: On the internets. I will say that oftentimes we speak
Speaker 1: and we talk about heroes or people that we idolize,
Speaker 1: and we have the go to names that you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest achiever and all that stuff. But I will
Speaker 1: say that oftentimes we overlook certain people because some you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, like your glasses
Speaker 1: on your forehead, and you're tearing the room up looking
Speaker 1: for your glasses, and they're like, oh, right here on
Speaker 1: my forehead. I will say that in the preparation that
Speaker 1: I took to do this particular episode, it reminded me
Speaker 1: that our guest today is probably the individual to whom
Speaker 1: I vicariously lived my life through. And you got to
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, I'm a very specific situation, being
Speaker 1: born in nineteen seventy one, three years after the whole
Speaker 1: Civil rights you know revolution, I'm born into like one
Speaker 1: of the first free generations or in terms of laws,
Speaker 1: like you're not allowed to kill us, or at least
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be. It's weird that my definition of
Speaker 1: freedom is that legally it's it's it's it's illegal to
Speaker 1: kill me, which is sort of as sad state of
Speaker 1: affairs or where we are as a country. But that said,
Speaker 1: you know, there are heroes and people to look up to,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes, I was, we often look up people way
Speaker 1: older than us, like of course, for a lot of America,
Speaker 1: the Jackson Five were the first people that we vicariously
Speaker 1: lived through as heroes. And then you know, there's other
Speaker 1: people that came along. But you know, when I turned
Speaker 1: into a teenager, there really wasn't I mean, besides maybe
Speaker 1: you know, I mean there's Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and
Speaker 1: Janet Jackson like him, Fields like people my age. But
Speaker 1: that's the thing when you're hip hop, right, but when yeah,
Speaker 1: when you're the minority, and you know, it might hit
Speaker 1: different from Fonte, who's way younger than I am, you know,
Speaker 1: but for me at least, like this, this gentleman was
Speaker 1: a very big part of my life as I got
Speaker 1: into like my junior high in my high school years
Speaker 1: and so and when you look at the span of
Speaker 1: his career, you can clearly see an individual who like
Speaker 1: has evolved, not only you know, as an actor on television,
Speaker 1: but you know, also in theaters on and off Broadway,
Speaker 1: as a musician, a Grammy Award winning musician, as a poet,
Speaker 1: as a producer, as a director, Like there's so many,
Speaker 1: I mean even as as host of SNL, Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of even small minuscule milestones that our guest
Speaker 1: has has done throughout his life that I paid attention to.
Speaker 1: And I've been waiting so long for this conversation, not
Speaker 1: just you know, as a I don't know if are
Speaker 1: we are we journalists right now?
Speaker 2: Today we can be I feel like in this way, I.
Speaker 1: Never you know, even though we have a long running
Speaker 1: you know, going on our sixth year as with this podcast,
Speaker 1: Like I don't feel like we're journalists or whatever. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not looking forward to it as a journalist,
Speaker 1: but just as a person that really gets to fan
Speaker 1: out and ask questions to the person that he personally deemed,
Speaker 1: you know, like that person. I don't know what to say,
Speaker 1: but ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Malcolm Jamal wanted to quest
Speaker 1: love supreme.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I gotta say this though,
Speaker 4: because I've listened to your show because I know you
Speaker 4: were you know, you're like no bullshit a geek. There's
Speaker 4: no bullshit like you know I get from you from
Speaker 4: Ufonte both like I don't go for bullshit. So I'm
Speaker 4: looking forward. I'm so looking forward to having this conversation.
Speaker 4: But to be honest, to hear that from you, Emir
Speaker 4: is a trip for me. Like you never know how
Speaker 4: how you can affect people, right right, and you never
Speaker 4: know how you, you know, come off to someone. You
Speaker 4: may come off with someone a certain way, and that
Speaker 4: was not the intent, right right, Bro, I have loved
Speaker 4: you for years of point some years, and sometimes that
Speaker 4: is crazy because but sometimes see it, we'd be cool
Speaker 4: as all right, and sometimes I see you and I'd
Speaker 4: be like did I say something wrong last time?
Speaker 3: Or what?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So like honestly, I stay there. I spent so
Speaker 4: much of my time like thinking like, wow, I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't know if he likes me, Like I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I think with you all right, this is definitely the
Speaker 1: this See, this is why this.
Speaker 4: Conversation is necessary.
Speaker 1: I'm in a way different place now in my life
Speaker 1: for this very specific twenty twenty three year. It's twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, right, oh, I'm fifty two now, it's in
Speaker 1: your birthday to okay, and it's probably springtime right now. No,
Speaker 1: I think a big part of my old life and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna save this a lot. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: My heart is not to sound like the jail cat
Speaker 1: that discovers religion and then is on fire for like
Speaker 1: seven years. You know that, that type of annoying person.
Speaker 1: But I'll just say that in this in this portion
Speaker 1: of my life, yes, I think that I avoided anyone
Speaker 1: I looked up to and dude, Steve and I'm not
Speaker 1: even name like Steve is just the same thing, like
Speaker 1: you don't call me, Like how come you don't call
Speaker 1: or that sort of thing. And I think oftentimes I
Speaker 1: get in my head like, oh man, that's just that's
Speaker 1: that's way too you know, you make up excuses. So
Speaker 1: I apologize for my standoff is nature, but I assure
Speaker 1: you that this is the elephant that's afraid of the mouse,
Speaker 1: and the mouse is afraid of the element thing.
Speaker 4: So well, I got that.
Speaker 1: But seriously, even when doing I had to do international
Speaker 1: press for the movie for Summer of Soul and someone
Speaker 1: I think this is when I was in we were
Speaker 1: in Holland, and someone asked me, like, you know, what
Speaker 1: was the first moment? Like I often asked a question
Speaker 1: like what's your first musical memory, someone asked me something like,
Speaker 1: what was like the moment that you felt like, oh
Speaker 1: you could do this too. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember this, but this was you did a segment
Speaker 1: once on Entertainment Tonight, or at least Entertainment Tonight covered
Speaker 1: it where they gave you and four of your friends,
Speaker 1: like four video cameras and you guys shot around New
Speaker 1: York City and I just remember the way you're laughing
Speaker 1: right now, tells me you remember. I just remember the
Speaker 1: backdrop was to the Jackson State of Shock. However, oh wow, However,
Speaker 1: I watched that moment and again, yeah, was Spike Lee
Speaker 1: a thing?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: Yes he was. However, to me that that moment I watched,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, we can do other things. So
Speaker 1: that was a that was to you, that was just
Speaker 1: some thirty seven year ago segment for a television show
Speaker 1: that you probably haven't even thought about in decades. But
Speaker 1: for me, that was a moment. I mean, dude, even
Speaker 1: the jamin on the one moment that other producer's thread
Speaker 1: that I spoke of, like with The one thing we
Speaker 1: all have in common was we saw that episode, and
Speaker 1: then in two months later we all get Cassio sk
Speaker 1: Ones and the first thing you do is you do
Speaker 1: all the cuss words. Then you do jamming on the one,
Speaker 1: you do all the things you saw like it was
Speaker 1: a toy. And then there's the moment you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I could put music in this thing. And I assure
Speaker 1: you any classic hip hop producer that started in that
Speaker 1: really got their foot in the nineties, I swear to
Speaker 1: God God that for a lot of us, that was
Speaker 1: our moment to know what hip hop was, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it's weird that you're you're such
Speaker 1: a part of these historical moments that you yourself probably haven't
Speaker 1: even thought of. Like wow, I'm I'm like a watershed
Speaker 1: for a lot that has happened, and you know, you
Speaker 1: don't register it. Oh my god, this is the longest
Speaker 1: intro effort.
Speaker 4: Did I said something?
Speaker 2: He said something, he said something in the middle, it's
Speaker 2: like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Malcolm, how are you?
Speaker 4: Man? Great man, that's great, that's great. And Yo, thank
Speaker 4: you for sharing what you shared. And I'm glad that
Speaker 4: I was right that I could bring that up in
Speaker 4: the spirit that you would receive it and it wouldn't
Speaker 4: come off like, you know, me trying to be a
Speaker 4: dick or you'd be defensive man, you know, and that
Speaker 4: might have been an older verse to me that wouldn't
Speaker 4: have done it just because, but you know, like you,
Speaker 4: I'm fifty two, I'm beginning to like really embrace like
Speaker 4: the wisdom that comes with that, you know, so the
Speaker 4: biby to have that exchange, and it be as cool
Speaker 4: of an exchange that that was. Just I appreciate we.
Speaker 1: Are what you call evolved adults.
Speaker 4: Now. Yeah, yeah, it's great though.
Speaker 5: Congratulations, I'm watching it between two black men.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 4: Word word, thank you.
Speaker 1: So I'll ask you, now, what was your first musical memory.
Speaker 4: Hearing Graham Central station other's living room? Wow? Really, I
Speaker 4: just remember, like, what what is that? And it never
Speaker 4: understood until twenty something years later that when I started
Speaker 4: playing bass, I was like, oh wow, bass is something
Speaker 4: that that resonated with me at you know, three years old, right,
Speaker 4: So I just remember, and I know I've heard music
Speaker 4: before that, but I just remember a moment hearing hair
Speaker 4: and hearing this voice and then and the guitars and
Speaker 4: the music, and it was just it was crazy, but
Speaker 4: it had a profound effect.
Speaker 1: Not not to self promote or self plug but I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, half of our at least more than half
Speaker 1: of our listeners know that I'm currently right now at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the slide in the Family Stone documentary.
Speaker 1: But for me, one of the hardest men to climb,
Speaker 1: the hardest mountain to climb of this whole process isn't
Speaker 1: even sly like slides already in the can slides interviews
Speaker 1: are done. However, U I really truly thought like the
Speaker 1: likelihood of getting Larry to cooperate in this thing was
Speaker 1: the equivalent of like a Steph Curry shot from all
Speaker 1: the way the other end of the court and you
Speaker 1: pray to God that it goes in the court. And
Speaker 1: he just literally as of the speaking like just agreed
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. So like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to gril the hell out of Larry Graham and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: take advantage of that opportunity exactly exactly because you know,
Speaker 1: all too often, like there's not a lot of in
Speaker 1: depth interviews even with you. Besides like the very little
Speaker 1: that I knew of you, like when you were, like
Speaker 1: when Cynthia Horner was covering you right on magazine and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, like there's really you know a lot
Speaker 1: of my me.
Speaker 5: Don't forget about the come on, I had to pull
Speaker 5: out the whole pull out poster.
Speaker 1: Exactly like for me, Like there's there's just not much
Speaker 1: in depth information that you get to find out about. So,
Speaker 1: but when did you first realize like coming I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that you came to the base later in life, Like
Speaker 1: how old were you when you first like decide I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try this. It's twenty six that I know. That
Speaker 1: has to be intimidating. How long was it before you
Speaker 1: picked it up? And how many years did you give
Speaker 1: yourself to really master it?
Speaker 4: So the whole reason I started playing bass was because
Speaker 4: I was working on Malcolmingetti, right, and I was miserable.
Speaker 1: Really, I was miserable on that show after that Michelle
Speaker 1: period or.
Speaker 4: No, it was mister Michelle was during that period. But
Speaker 4: it was because I had spent eight years you know,
Speaker 4: at NBC in an environment that mister Cosby made everyone
Speaker 4: ultra aware of the images of people of color we're
Speaker 4: putting on the airways, right, So eight years of that
Speaker 4: then I go to UPN and it was like having
Speaker 4: had the top university and then being stuck in fucking
Speaker 4: junior college.
Speaker 2: You know, home Boys are out of space man.
Speaker 4: Right right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Malcolm and Eddie was not Homeboys in a
Speaker 1: space yeah, or the Butler Guy.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing, though, there was a lot of
Speaker 4: work that I put into There's like a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, blood, literal tears, the literal sweat I put
Speaker 4: into that show because I came from Even though I
Speaker 4: knew what UPN's programming was, I was like, Okay, well
Speaker 4: they've seen me for eight years be a part of
Speaker 4: a show they made that made history without relying on stereotypes.
Speaker 4: So my thinking was, okay, well that's what they want here.
Speaker 4: I've watched mister Cosby run that show for eight years.
Speaker 4: I know that. You know, the stereotypical things you didn't
Speaker 4: see on the show was not because the writers were
Speaker 4: not writing it. It was because mister Cosby was saying, no,
Speaker 4: that's not the show we're doing. That's not who these
Speaker 4: that's not who the Huckstables are. That the drive by
Speaker 4: mentality you have when you're writing black comedy that doesn't
Speaker 4: belong on the show. So literally I watched them for
Speaker 4: eight years, shutting down writers, making them go back to
Speaker 4: square one and rewrite the script that's not based on stereotypes. Right,
Speaker 4: So all that I get to upm like, okay, well
Speaker 4: they know how this goes, and realize that one of
Speaker 4: them was not Bill Cosby. We were not doing Bill
Speaker 4: Cosby numbers. So I would come to work every day
Speaker 4: fighting writers, producers, directors, studio, network, fellow actor, viewing public
Speaker 4: because there was a certain standard that I wanted to
Speaker 4: continue when Uphold and UPN's whole marketing thing was the
Speaker 4: antithesis of what I had come from.
Speaker 1: What did the writer's room look like? It was a
Speaker 1: bunch of white people the whiters rooms, Yeah, but what
Speaker 1: did it look like?
Speaker 4: It was mostly white writers on Cosby. I don't think
Speaker 4: we ever had more than three black writers on staff
Speaker 4: at the time. At the time on.
Speaker 1: Cosby, how many writers are normally in the room. They
Speaker 1: could be eight ten, So typical sitcom will have eight
Speaker 1: to ten writers, yeah, and a show runner and they paid. Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 4: So so Malcolm Edi was it was the same kind
Speaker 4: of the same kind of that. We may have had
Speaker 4: four writers at one time, but I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: just I was just miserable and I was looking for
Speaker 4: a hobby, something that I wouldn't turn into a career.
Speaker 4: So the directing started out as a hobby and and
Speaker 4: that State of Shock video you were talking about was
Speaker 4: actually that was really my entree in uh, you know,
Speaker 4: let me really see what this directing thing is all about.
Speaker 4: Because the first two years of the show, we would
Speaker 4: do this Cosby Show Cosby Kids Tour. Me and Lisa
Speaker 4: would always talk about, yeah, we want to be triple threats,
Speaker 4: you know, we want to write at that and direct
Speaker 4: and do woo woo woop. Like after two and a
Speaker 4: half years of saying that, I was like, let me
Speaker 4: see if that's something i'd want to do, something I
Speaker 4: even can do. So that State of Shock video, I
Speaker 4: laughed because that was literally my first shot at attempt
Speaker 4: at directing.
Speaker 1: And then you did on The Magnificent and you also
Speaker 1: did Any Heartbreak at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah with Brian. What was that?
Speaker 2: Brian?
Speaker 5: What I remember they y'all were in the video. They
Speaker 5: showed it behind the scenes to Any Heartbreak. I was like,
Speaker 5: it was you and it was impressive because it was
Speaker 5: also the actor from Head of the class who was
Speaker 5: a became a director.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Brian and Brian Robbins. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: So the directing started as a hobby became a career.
Speaker 4: So by the time I was on Malcolm and Eddie,
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I need a hobby, something that's
Speaker 4: not acting, not directing, something that will never become a career.
Speaker 4: I've always wanted to play music. I'll never be so
Speaker 4: if I, in fact, if I just practice scales to
Speaker 4: a metronome in my dressing room, that would keep me
Speaker 4: from caring as much about the show. I'm putting so
Speaker 4: much of myself into the show that's not loving me
Speaker 4: back in the way that I would like, let me
Speaker 4: just practice scales to a mess from that would kind
Speaker 4: of put me in a zone kind of place. I'll
Speaker 4: never be one of those corny actor dudes who try
Speaker 4: to do music. I'll never start a band, right, I'll
Speaker 4: never record a CD. I'll just do this. And then
Speaker 4: it became it became a whole other thing because like, like, really,
Speaker 4: who gets off from practicing scales to a metro know
Speaker 4: in their dressing room in between scenes? Right?
Speaker 1: The pivot is real, man, Yeah, pivoting is real. It's
Speaker 1: so weird we're having this conversation right now because right
Speaker 1: now I'll say that creatively, you know, I'm I'm let
Speaker 1: me stop painting it, like I'm being forced to, like
Speaker 1: they have guns to my head. But you know, we've
Speaker 1: been working like for all I for all I can
Speaker 1: say is that the Roots album is essentially finished. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely using a lot of you know, I'll think of
Speaker 1: ways to hold up install the process. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a better song, there's a better song. But this morning
Speaker 1: I was like, man, you made a promise to yourself
Speaker 1: that you were going to learn how to thoroughly play piano,
Speaker 1: like thoroughly and not that whole like three chords at it.
Speaker 1: Like I'm a three chord at a time person where
Speaker 1: I could do three chords and then stop the thing,
Speaker 1: and then I got to figure out the next chords
Speaker 1: and figure out and then I'll struggle through. That's like
Speaker 1: my level of songwritings. But you know, I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: it's way too late for you, Like I talked myself
Speaker 1: out of the process, Like it's way too late for
Speaker 1: you to even start to think that you can play
Speaker 1: piano as good as you play drums, like, if I
Speaker 1: could just get my piano thing down, then my songwriting
Speaker 1: level could go to the next level. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think I was too intimidated by the process to
Speaker 1: actually think that I could make it happen. But I'll
Speaker 1: ask you from practicing your scales to like knowing exactly
Speaker 1: what you want musically and producing your own records, Like
Speaker 1: how long did that process take from twenty six to
Speaker 1: when do you feel like, yeah, I could do this shit?
Speaker 4: All right? I said, let me go back with real
Speaker 4: quick to address something you said, So I don't. So
Speaker 4: where are you now with the needing to play piano
Speaker 4: as well as you?
Speaker 1: You know, this is probably gonna be the last album
Speaker 1: in which I will go to either James Poyser or
Speaker 1: Camal or Ray Angry and be like, Okay, so I
Speaker 1: need this care that card and like talk my way
Speaker 1: through it and sort of more this whole CSI process
Speaker 1: of trying to figure out how to get what's out
Speaker 1: of here into the fingers next year. Damn it. I'm
Speaker 1: learning how to play piano the way I really want
Speaker 1: to learn it, like as good as James, which I
Speaker 1: know takes time, And you know, I'm trying to disprove
Speaker 1: the fact that you can't teach an old dog new trick.
Speaker 4: So that's why I was asking you, gotcha? Gotcha?
Speaker 1: How intimidating was it to go from I think I'm
Speaker 1: learn the bass to holy shit, I can learn the
Speaker 1: bass too, right right? And the winner is Malcolm Jamal
Speaker 1: Waner for No D D DA Like, okay, this real quick?
Speaker 4: So you know you don't have to you don't have
Speaker 4: to play keys, you don't have to play piano as
Speaker 4: well as you play bass to write dope songs. You
Speaker 4: realize that, right, I just want you to keep that mind.
Speaker 1: I've no I've I've proven that one can only know
Speaker 1: how to play drums and still produce music. But it's
Speaker 1: just oftentimes, like the ideas come like so often that
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I'm letting great ideas go
Speaker 1: because I don't have an outlet to get somebody to
Speaker 1: translate my you know, which is why I want to
Speaker 1: learn to do it myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of which fante, do you play an instrument? Nah?
Speaker 6: Well, the only instrument I officially learned to play was trumpet.
Speaker 6: I played trumpet all through like middle school and like
Speaker 6: some high school. But I was I was like off
Speaker 6: stake man. I was first chair.
Speaker 1: Wait you first chair.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was first chair. I was first chair, and
Speaker 6: like my band and I got school band. Then when
Speaker 6: I first chair, and I'm just finding this out now,
Speaker 6: I was third chair.
Speaker 3: It's all state man.
Speaker 6: But but then when I got to high school, you know,
Speaker 6: you couldn't play ball and play trumpet at the same
Speaker 6: time play band.
Speaker 4: So I just played football.
Speaker 6: But uh keys, I know some I know theory, I know,
Speaker 6: like just basic theory, but I'm not a player by
Speaker 6: any stretch. All the vocal arrangements and stuff I do,
Speaker 6: it's just really just about year.
Speaker 1: You know, trumpet in hand, could you go to where
Speaker 1: you were in Hell?
Speaker 3: No, I'm sure it's done.
Speaker 1: Play that ship in thirty years, but you know you
Speaker 1: better Blues level.
Speaker 3: Can tell it.
Speaker 6: You can sell it, bleak, you can sell it. I
Speaker 6: ain't playing, but yeah, I know, I know, yeh, trumpet, piano,
Speaker 6: you know, I know, just basic like you know, chords
Speaker 6: and just like theory, and then with being around so
Speaker 6: many musicians, like particularly like vocal arrangements, like some of
Speaker 6: my nerve fans are like, oh you saying if major
Speaker 6: seven in that quart, I'm just like, I take your
Speaker 6: word for it, but but I know just a little bit.
Speaker 4: I don't play. I'm not a player.
Speaker 5: I did used to play the recorder if that matters.
Speaker 5: I don't think I could go back to her play
Speaker 5: like I used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, grade grade that.
Speaker 2: Was that was in seventh grade. Yeah, yes, you were saying, Malcolm.
Speaker 4: I'll offer you this and then I'll get into answer
Speaker 4: your question. In terms of old dog learning new tricks,
Speaker 4: I picked up trumpet two years ago.
Speaker 3: How's it going.
Speaker 4: It's your breath, it's so nasty, it's you know, I'm
Speaker 4: just getting to the point where she started to love
Speaker 4: me back a little bit, right, but it's it's no.
Speaker 4: It gives me a greater appreciation for music because I'm
Speaker 4: having a new relationship with with music. So like, so
Speaker 4: I took the base. I was twenty six, right, a
Speaker 4: year and a half after, you know, realizing that the
Speaker 4: metronomeal scales not happening. I used to hold jam sessions
Speaker 4: like at my house, just play with cats. And a
Speaker 4: year and a half after playing base, I went to
Speaker 4: m I I had like a three month hiatus from
Speaker 4: Alcornetti and I went to Musicians Institute and they're like
Speaker 4: ten week based immersion program. I was in way over
Speaker 4: my head, what are you learning ten weeks? It's they
Speaker 4: throw so much at you, and it was it was
Speaker 4: stuff that I couldn't It was every day and yeah,
Speaker 4: it was every day. Literally. It took me a good
Speaker 4: three or four years to be able to digest what
Speaker 4: I had learned, you know, not what I had learned
Speaker 4: those ten weeks, but the information that I had a
Speaker 4: mast in those ten weeks. It took me years for
Speaker 4: it to make sense. Right. But I say that to
Speaker 4: say so because I play with cats who have great ears.
Speaker 4: I dove head first into theory because I needed to
Speaker 4: at least be able to communicate.
Speaker 3: I don't have to speak the language.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I was also clear that, like you know,
Speaker 4: in playing with other musicians and starting a band, I
Speaker 4: really can't be that corny actor dude who wants to
Speaker 4: get into music like I got to take it seriously
Speaker 4: and I have to respect it enough that real musicians
Speaker 4: who I want to play with understand that I respected enough,
Speaker 4: you know, and want to rock with me. And as
Speaker 4: a musician also, you know, guide me along the way
Speaker 4: that makes sense. Right. So, as a bass player, I've
Speaker 4: always used music theory as my hack instead of using
Speaker 4: my ear on bass, I can play a fourth anywhere
Speaker 4: on the neck because I know where the fourth is analytically,
Speaker 4: and I know where fourth is logistically, not because I
Speaker 4: could hear the fourth right. So now playing trump muscle
Speaker 4: memory and just thought like, I know, you know, I
Speaker 4: know where a fourth is in the muscle memory and
Speaker 4: the theory of it. I know where a fourth is,
Speaker 4: so you can get away with Okay if I know,
Speaker 4: if I know what key I'm in and I got
Speaker 4: the progression, I'm good and you can do that without hearing.
Speaker 4: But on trumpet, as you know, you got to hear
Speaker 4: the note before you play it, right. So now I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's what a fourth sounds like. Ah okay. It's just
Speaker 4: giving me a whole different appreciation for music because I
Speaker 4: started playing trumpet two years ago.
Speaker 1: At the time, when you're doing this, going to jam sessions,
Speaker 1: like what part of the United States? Are you in
Speaker 1: New York? Are you in California? I'm in La Okay,
Speaker 1: So back, let's go back to nineteen ninety five. If
Speaker 1: you want to find a jam session or a spot
Speaker 1: that will let cats work things out, Like where are
Speaker 1: you going like.
Speaker 4: That part was easy because there were these cats. It's
Speaker 4: Ron Kat Spearmen. They had this house that was kind
Speaker 4: of down the hill from me, and they were a
Speaker 4: band and they were a whole band that lived together, okay,
Speaker 4: and so they had you know, they always had the
Speaker 4: music set up down in the bottom floor of the house.
Speaker 4: So I used to go over there and kind of jam,
Speaker 4: you know, like literally I met a cat I think
Speaker 4: actually the cat who sold me my first bass at
Speaker 4: the Guitar Center. He was a drummer, right, So after
Speaker 4: doing the jam sessions at roncast crib and then sometimes
Speaker 4: they'll come to my crib. And then at some point,
Speaker 4: like two days a week, I would have two different
Speaker 4: sets of musicians who I'm jamming with. When I go
Speaker 4: to m I they had a BMI was holding the
Speaker 4: showcase m and who's when the showcase was like, listen,
Speaker 4: we're doing a showcase for BMI. Since you go here,
Speaker 4: I'd love for you, the host it if I give you,
Speaker 4: I'll give you a slot to do a song, and
Speaker 4: I'd love for you the hosted. So I was like, well,
Speaker 4: let me do two songs and cool. She was like fine,
Speaker 4: I had no songs. Yeah, I was gonna say lo.
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, by I know, I was working
Speaker 4: on Coltrane's Equinox and Lover was just's ugly head. So
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do those those two songs,
Speaker 4: and I'd even have a band. So the band I
Speaker 4: put together were, you know, the different cats from the
Speaker 4: two different jam sessions, and I make sure that none
Speaker 4: of them played in bands together because I wasn't sure
Speaker 4: what I was trying to create, but I knew I
Speaker 4: wanted it like a little a mix of stuff, but
Speaker 4: you know, I still wanted to be wanted it to
Speaker 4: be my project, if that makes.
Speaker 1: Sense, right, And it wasn't intimidating in terms of like
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. Comedians have to always work
Speaker 1: out their comedy in front of a small group of people.
Speaker 1: Like for me, performing like it's no people ask all
Speaker 1: the time like yeaver get nervous to perform and whatever.
Speaker 1: And I'll say that, you know, a typical roots concert
Speaker 1: nowadays is somewhere you know, we're somewhere in between five
Speaker 1: thousand to maybe depending on the marketplace, you know, nine
Speaker 1: to ten thousand people. And with that many people, there's
Speaker 1: no intimacy there, so I don't have fear, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's always in small, smaller clubs and those sort of
Speaker 1: things like if you say, if Glasper's like yo, come
Speaker 1: down the blue note and sit in a song or two,
Speaker 1: like I might legit get like uptight about it because
Speaker 1: I think in smaller intimate settings musicianship is a weirder
Speaker 1: thing for me to do, which I know is kind
Speaker 1: of weird for me to say, like thirty years into
Speaker 1: my career to emit, like I have hang ups about
Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: But for you, though, but would you do it were
Speaker 4: you ever worried about like Amir, would you do with it?
Speaker 4: You would have your hang ups and get up tight
Speaker 4: about it, But would you still do it?
Speaker 1: I would still do it because even now and yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes the voice of self doubt is heavy as hell,
Speaker 1: But I'm smart enough to just jump in the pool
Speaker 1: and say fuck it at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: but not before the anxiety of how good do I
Speaker 1: have to be? The you know, because like the level
Speaker 1: of musician nerds that are watching Glass are a little
Speaker 1: bit different than the crowds that you know want us
Speaker 1: to play a song that reminds them of their college
Speaker 1: period back in two thousand and three, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Yeah, this is real, real different. But for you,
Speaker 1: you were never at all like keeping this close to
Speaker 1: the chest and worrying about people that are judging you
Speaker 1: of your other profession that they see you perfect, you know,
Speaker 1: and applying it to your musician life. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I think I think it was you know,
Speaker 4: maybe just part audacity. I'm sure. I'm sure there's also
Speaker 4: a little a little ego in it and that, you know,
Speaker 4: when you know, when I was doing when I started
Speaker 4: doing spoken word, I was I was really active in
Speaker 4: the underground spoken word movement in La right, and I
Speaker 4: was always doing poetry always, So there's a certain of
Speaker 4: you know, there's a certain level of audacity to be
Speaker 4: able to be a poet and you know, write your
Speaker 4: shit and be vulnerable and have people you know judge
Speaker 4: you and shit. So there's a certain level of audacity
Speaker 4: with that. But back when I started, you know, there
Speaker 4: was only like one or two poetry spots, you know,
Speaker 4: in any given city you could go to. So once
Speaker 4: it got to the point where you know, neo soul
Speaker 4: you know, started to take off, and then you know,
Speaker 4: there are poetry spots like all over the place, and
Speaker 4: now HBO's got a poetry situation, so there was For me,
Speaker 4: it was like, okay, well this is you know, a
Speaker 4: really a crowded field, and I have a you know,
Speaker 4: I have a love hate relationship with poetry anyway. But
Speaker 4: you know, I also I grew up listening to to Gil,
Speaker 4: Scott Hare and Brian Jackson, Like my dad went to
Speaker 4: Lincoln with Gil and Bryant, and my dad went to
Speaker 4: Lincoln because Langston went to Lincoln. So like the whole
Speaker 4: poetry thing is all like I came out of the
Speaker 4: womb listening to Gil and last poets. So when all this,
Speaker 4: you know, when now it seems like everybody's a poet
Speaker 4: and now fucking celebrities are poets too, right, right right,
Speaker 4: I'm so much on my own ship. I will I
Speaker 4: make the disclaimer. I am a poet. I am not
Speaker 4: a celebrity who likes to do poetry. I'm a poet.
Speaker 4: So I think when like when everybody's a poet, I
Speaker 4: was like, well, you know what, Gil put his stuff
Speaker 4: to music. I think at some point the music was
Speaker 4: still kind of you know, calling me a bit. But
Speaker 4: even before I started playing bass, I used to see
Speaker 4: you guys in me. I don't remember. You guys would
Speaker 4: do San Diego a lot, yes man, yeah, And I
Speaker 4: was doing a play down in La Joya Bell Yeah,
Speaker 4: so whenever y'all come through, you know, we did there.
Speaker 4: And at this point I wasn't even you know, I
Speaker 4: might have thought about bass, but I wasn't really, you know,
Speaker 4: seriously considered picking up bass. But I would talk to
Speaker 4: Hub about bass and and and jazz and jazz studies
Speaker 4: and Okay, So by the time it came around to
Speaker 4: fuse the you know, the music and the poetry, right,
Speaker 4: it was what you guys were doing with Ursula Rucker. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: Like the first time I heard that first joint, like,
Speaker 4: you know, right, right, And so I had listened to
Speaker 4: that for years, even before thinking about playing bass or
Speaker 4: any of that. But when the time came that I
Speaker 4: had to put the two together, because when I started
Speaker 4: the bass, it was just to play music, right. I
Speaker 4: kept the poetry and the music separate from each other,
Speaker 4: even though I was still doing poetry at spots, and
Speaker 4: I was still doing poetry with other bands. You know,
Speaker 4: my band like no, we're we're like we're jazz funk band.
Speaker 4: I'm here to play bass, but what was happening. People
Speaker 4: weren't really you know, feeling coming to see me standing
Speaker 4: in the back with the drummer.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So at some point I had to uh take responsibility
Speaker 4: for being a front the front man to my own band, right,
Speaker 4: And then I started coming. I was coming out of
Speaker 4: pocket like two three hundred dollars every time I did
Speaker 4: a gig, because once I paid everybody, once I did
Speaker 4: print and advertising. Uh, you know, I asked somebody, you know,
Speaker 4: video of the show. I'm coming out of pocket. So
Speaker 4: I was like, I need to sell a CD so
Speaker 4: I can at least and not feel like I'm losing
Speaker 4: money every time I do a show. But I had
Speaker 4: no music. I had no music, so it was like,
Speaker 4: all right, I need to start doing poetry. I need
Speaker 4: to start, you know, uh, you know, coming up with music,
Speaker 4: do my poetry over and then I would go back
Speaker 4: to uh to the unlocking.
Speaker 1: It was like yeah.
Speaker 4: And then Michelle nddio Cello you know that first album
Speaker 4: was like, ah, brand new Heavies. You know, they were
Speaker 4: you know, they were popping. So all of that made
Speaker 4: me go, yes, I'm gonna do poetry and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: play bass. Fuck what every other poet out there is doing.
Speaker 4: I'm on some different shit. Nobody's doing this, and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna do it well, right, and it's gonna be good, right,
Speaker 4: And I know it's going to be so good that
Speaker 4: I don't care what you think about it, right, Like
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get there with my acting. If you
Speaker 4: told me, yo, you suck. Truthfully, I'm almost at the
Speaker 4: place where that wouldn't bother me, but it might hit
Speaker 4: me somewhere. Right. You can tell me as a poet
Speaker 4: that I suck water off a duck's back. It does
Speaker 4: not affect me at all, because for me, that's how
Speaker 4: good I feel I am as a post right. So okay, well,
Speaker 4: if I already feel that way about the poetry and
Speaker 4: everybody trying to fill the space, well let me kick
Speaker 4: it up a notch, you know, let me start playing
Speaker 4: bass while I'm doing poetry, right, but let me really
Speaker 4: learn the Eddie Griffin had a band right wait in
Speaker 4: real life? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. So he had this band.
Speaker 4: It was like it was like a you know, a
Speaker 4: from Cadelic knockoff. He had two bass players, is yeah, yeah, yeah, really,
Speaker 4: yeah yeah. That's one of the things that kind of
Speaker 4: broke the mystique for me. It's like, oh, okay, they're
Speaker 4: doing funk Adelic. And then I just watched him a lot,
Speaker 4: and I uh, I watched him so much and listened
Speaker 4: to him so much and understood that he's one of
Speaker 4: those talented cats you know that can definitely by playing
Speaker 4: all the stuff, but he doesn't he's not study. He
Speaker 4: doesn't know music. So I was like, Okay, well, if
Speaker 4: I just do that, I could get over. But if
Speaker 4: I actually take the time to study the language of music,
Speaker 4: then I could actually play with really good musicians, you know,
Speaker 4: who are gonna rock with me and hold me accountable
Speaker 4: and not just be kissing my ass because I'm not
Speaker 4: much to my one. So like there was all of
Speaker 4: that that that that went into so much about the honor, respect,
Speaker 4: and legitimacy of being able to call myself a musician
Speaker 4: around really good musicians and they can actually acknowledge me,
Speaker 4: you know, and to be legit Like that's the long
Speaker 4: game that I was going for back at twenty eight.
Speaker 4: And I think I think you.
Speaker 6: I think there's also thing as well with actors, with musicians.
Speaker 6: If you're an actor doing music, we know, for damn
Speaker 6: sure you're not doing it for the money.
Speaker 3: Like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: We know like, Okay, if you're here, you're here for
Speaker 6: a choice, you know, I mean, you're making a choice
Speaker 6: to be here because you could take care of yourself
Speaker 6: so much better, you know what I'm saying, doing TV,
Speaker 6: doing movies on whatever.
Speaker 4: So there is there is some skin in the game
Speaker 4: in that way, and putting up product with no label,
Speaker 4: you know, no promotional budget, like none of that, like
Speaker 4: everything like coming straight out of pocket, right, no union
Speaker 4: right right. But for me, it's about the art, like
Speaker 4: like I'm yeah, I'm creating art, and I'm creating timeless art.
Speaker 5: So who was the first peer that saw what you
Speaker 5: were doing and was like keep doing that? And you
Speaker 5: it really kind of stamped it for you. I mean
Speaker 5: even though in terms of the music side of the No,
Speaker 5: on the music side, I got the poetry because Ursula
Speaker 5: Rucord just text.
Speaker 2: Me about you, so I get it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: I think early on Layla Hathaway because me and Layla
Speaker 4: go way back. And so when I first, you know,
Speaker 4: put this band together and I'm out gigging. You know,
Speaker 4: I had a female vocalist and Layla would come to
Speaker 4: my gigs and when the vocalist would sing, she would leave.
Speaker 1: What's that's actually on brand for Laila halfaway?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: But but but it's so much Layla. It's so much Layla.
Speaker 4: It's not Layla being a dick. It's like she like,
Speaker 4: if it's not working for her, she literally cannot physically
Speaker 4: beat it.
Speaker 6: And we're like, when you, I think, when you're one
Speaker 6: of the best at something, like I mean, when we
Speaker 6: had Dave on, he was saying, like how it's hard
Speaker 6: for him to watch other comedians. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: because it's just you know, you're just constantly looking at
Speaker 6: how you could do it better.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And with Layla, I mean with her being you know,
Speaker 6: one of the singers in the world. Yeah, I could
Speaker 6: see her, you know, walking out.
Speaker 2: Wait, So that being said, I know we weren't talking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 5: Does that mean you're gonna talk about Jesus children and
Speaker 5: how that that came together then, because that's kind of
Speaker 5: a beautiful circle back.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, yeah, I love to just just go back
Speaker 4: real quick.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you know, just just probably the first backwards episode
Speaker 1: of Quest Love Supreme where we started the end way
Speaker 1: backwards and.
Speaker 4: That's how conversation goes though, right right there. So later
Speaker 4: would later would would come to my gigs often, right,
Speaker 4: So even if she didn't dig, you know, whatever singer
Speaker 4: we had, she was still supportive and you know, and
Speaker 4: I know she wouldn't be rocking just you know, because.
Speaker 1: So that, by the way, can let me enterrupt one second?
Speaker 1: That singer never found out? Did they.
Speaker 4: Hopeful? Well, there were a couple of different singers, you know,
Speaker 4: a different different shows, so uh may.
Speaker 1: This episode like I know that that wasn't me anyway.
Speaker 4: A't talking about me?
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: But Jesus Children Kevin Teasley who was my my my
Speaker 4: MD at the time, had office space at west Lake
Speaker 4: and he's at west Lake, you know, Rob's at west
Speaker 4: Lake and they're talking and you know, uh, you know Capstone,
Speaker 4: he's you know, India, my band whatever. So so I
Speaker 4: come over, you know, hanging out they're doing and Layla's
Speaker 4: actually recording Jesus Children, okay, And as I'm there and
Speaker 4: she knocks it out in one take, and you know,
Speaker 4: Rob is playing to me this musical interlude and he
Speaker 4: was telling me how his homeboy, uh I had a
Speaker 4: daughter who was killed at Sandy Hook, and he's going
Speaker 4: to write a poem, you know, and it's going to
Speaker 4: go here and hold nine. And I was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: that's that's dope, right. So we're hanging out and then
Speaker 4: about two weeks later, he's in town. He's back in town.
Speaker 4: He's and he's mixing the record and Robins like, yo,
Speaker 4: you know, my man, he couldn't do it like you know,
Speaker 4: at the you know, eleventh hour, it really hit too
Speaker 4: close to home. Do you have a poem about Sandy Hook?
Speaker 4: And I was like no, but he forgive me the track.
Speaker 4: I'll go upstairs the right one. So he gave me
Speaker 4: his iPod shuffle time and I went upstairs, and in
Speaker 4: about an hour or some change, he came upstairs and like,
Speaker 4: I spit it to him. He was like, and I
Speaker 4: was at a time where I was doing I was
Speaker 4: doing a lot of writing at the time, so it
Speaker 4: was clearly like a time where I needed to be
Speaker 4: on my A game. And it was just a point
Speaker 4: in life where I was on my A game because
Speaker 4: I was doing so much writing at the time that
Speaker 4: I was you know, I was able to go up.
Speaker 4: And I know it sounds corny when writers talk about, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know, God was just using me as the vessel
Speaker 4: and you know, ya YadA, that's.
Speaker 1: All I say.
Speaker 4: Now, so welcome to that. And it's a real thing.
Speaker 4: And I guess you have to experience it to like
Speaker 4: really understand that it's a real thing. And it can
Speaker 4: sound corny and cliche, but like that's some real shit.
Speaker 4: And that night, like the vessel was open and the
Speaker 4: universe just said and I just took it.
Speaker 5: All and.
Speaker 1: You know, no, that's it's real. It's not corny at all.
Speaker 1: I have to say that I really admire the fact
Speaker 1: that you are covering poetry because all too often I
Speaker 1: think a typical move would have just been like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're an MC, now you're a rapper, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you took on poetry is super admirable.
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 1: You know, Tariq's process is he's such a morning person,
Speaker 1: like literally like wakes up, you know, does whatever is
Speaker 1: yoga and exercise all that stuff, like like at five am.
Speaker 1: He's like the opposite of Quincy Jones, where Quincy Jones
Speaker 1: said that you know, like yeah, yeah, like that one
Speaker 1: am is where he gets his magic from. Srika's like
Speaker 1: a in bed by nine thirty ten pm early person,
Speaker 1: and between six am and maybe nine am that's usually
Speaker 1: when the line's share of ideas come. Like that's his
Speaker 1: writing time, Like you're never to interrupt him, wow before
Speaker 1: eleven am, because from five till then, that's that's his
Speaker 1: that's his moment, that's his.
Speaker 4: Part of his process. That makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: Always wanted to know because oftentimes, you know, Tarik will
Speaker 1: also have like these assignments to do, like this guy
Speaker 1: wants him to rhyme on that shit or you know that,
Speaker 1: or he has a deadline for a record. But is
Speaker 1: poetry the same? And I guess you could answer to
Speaker 1: this also, Fante, Like for a writer when you have
Speaker 1: a blank page and the idea isn't coming, like can
Speaker 1: you sort of in record time like regurgitate words to
Speaker 1: be right right poems?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean you can, you know, I mean listen the
Speaker 6: thing I tell everybody, man, the blank page kicks everybody's ass. Like,
Speaker 6: I don't care if you've written a million books, if
Speaker 6: you've sold a million records, you know it, don't you know?
Speaker 3: If that blank page or that blank screen or whatever.
Speaker 6: That is the great equalizer because no matter how many
Speaker 6: times you've done it, you still got to do it again,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And it's you know that blank page is that shit
Speaker 3: is intimidating.
Speaker 6: So yeah, it definitely is a time where you know,
Speaker 6: we are somebody like to read and I mean, Malcolm
Speaker 6: just you know, someone that's been in the game for
Speaker 6: so long. We've been in it so long to where
Speaker 6: it's like it's kind of technically impossible to be bad,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But my mentality is always good is the enemy of great.
Speaker 6: I'm so technically good, like I can just write it'll
Speaker 6: be good, but I ain't going for good.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be great, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And so a lot of times if you're under the gun,
Speaker 6: that's kind of where I think the alpha state thing
Speaker 6: can kind of come because you're not thinking and you
Speaker 6: just kind of just writing and it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 6: this shit just kind of came out. But it definitely
Speaker 6: is a degree of professionalism where I just think it's
Speaker 6: not about inspiration. Inspiration is fleeting, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Inspiration you can be inspired one day and you may
Speaker 6: not be inspired again, you know, for months. But it's
Speaker 6: more so just about dedication, just dedication to the craft
Speaker 6: and just the more you do it. You know, even
Speaker 6: if I'm not for me every day, even if I'm
Speaker 6: not writing, I'm always having just some kind of prompts
Speaker 6: or something like I may just like take a word,
Speaker 6: I hear a word I hear on TV or something,
Speaker 6: and I'll just write like ten words that rhyme with
Speaker 6: that word, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Or that's your exercise in your memo, like in your
Speaker 1: in your iPhone memo, Yeah you got a page after
Speaker 1: page after page of.
Speaker 6: I'll have string of rhyming words or just prompts or
Speaker 6: ideas and then I'll just contextualize it later, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, it definitely is a practice. And for
Speaker 3: me in my career, you.
Speaker 6: Can do it at any time if you just say, hey,
Speaker 6: I need something, you know, you can turn it around.
Speaker 6: But it's that memory, that working that muscle trying to
Speaker 6: be you know, get that greatness consistently over and over
Speaker 6: and over again.
Speaker 3: That for me is always the best practice.
Speaker 1: And what's your what's your general practice with with poetry?
Speaker 1: Like does it hit you when it hits you or
Speaker 1: do you give yourself like exercising assignments to you know,
Speaker 1: to write.
Speaker 4: I would really like to do that, and I would
Speaker 4: really like to be more disciplined in my writing practice.
Speaker 4: Now I'm older to understand why yoga is considered the practice.
Speaker 4: I understand why law is considered the practice, you know.
Speaker 4: And now you know, I'm getting into the fame of
Speaker 4: mind that I need to treat my writing as a
Speaker 4: practice so when I have an assignment, it doesn't take
Speaker 4: me as long because like lately, you know, because I'm
Speaker 4: not I'm not writing, you know, with the output that
Speaker 4: I was. You know, it may take me a little
Speaker 4: longer to write a piece, but I have to. You know,
Speaker 4: I love putting way too much on my plate, so
Speaker 4: I'm always fighting. I'm constantly fighting overwhelmed, you know, so
Speaker 4: just trying to practice base, you know, now practice horn,
Speaker 4: you know, put time into writing, but the production and
Speaker 4: being a present husband and fathers, like, there's so much,
Speaker 4: so I keep being overwhelmed. But I think it would
Speaker 4: serve me better if I can find a discipline like
Speaker 4: to reek or like you find they find something that
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be you know, a sit down dude,
Speaker 4: but you know, take ten minutes and you know, just
Speaker 4: check in where mine and just right from there. I
Speaker 4: think that would benefit me greater than the path of Okay, well,
Speaker 4: you know, when I get something or I have to
Speaker 4: write this out let me, I'll see where I am
Speaker 4: and you know, at some point the inspiration will hit me,
Speaker 4: you know, or figure out what the outline is. Like,
Speaker 4: there's no there's no one, uh single approach to my
Speaker 4: writing that is the one.
Speaker 3: Sometimes for me.
Speaker 6: Like it's something that you know, it goes from a
Speaker 6: drought to a deluge, right, it just goes nothing and
Speaker 6: then all of a sudden everything just kind of comes.
Speaker 6: Do you have those moments where you kind of go
Speaker 6: back and forth for the words just it's quiet, and
Speaker 6: then all of a sudden it just comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like there's some poems that you know that will
Speaker 4: it will take me weeks to write, but then you know,
Speaker 4: there's time ross sit down and it'll yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: then you finish it and then you you know, and
Speaker 4: then you come back a couple of days later and
Speaker 4: you read it. At least for me, my experience is
Speaker 4: like I read it and then go, wow, I really
Speaker 4: meant every word of that, yeah, you know, like and
Speaker 4: for it to come out the way it came out
Speaker 4: and every word of it be true. Wow, that's really dope. Again,
Speaker 4: feeling like okay, well that's the channel and the channel's
Speaker 4: opening up, and like does it all come and just
Speaker 4: I'm writing as fast as I can.
Speaker 1: Let me ask, because I will say, especially in the
Speaker 1: times that we live now, this entire year feels like
Speaker 1: a five year period. I feel like everything that's happened
Speaker 1: to me this year happened like five years ago, and
Speaker 1: I'm reading lines like, oh, holy shit, that was March.
Speaker 1: So my question to you is one, I'm really curious
Speaker 1: about your latest miles long album title, which is Hiding
Speaker 1: in Plaine View. You'll be pressed to find any interview
Speaker 1: I've done in the last year where the quote hiding
Speaker 1: in Plaine Sight literally was that was my story, like,
Speaker 1: you know, even whatever, like the evolution of who I
Speaker 1: am now I was the king of hiding in Plain
Speaker 1: Sight like and everything. So one that struggle with me.
Speaker 1: But two, it's also seven years in between projects, which
Speaker 1: you know, if this one year feels like five years
Speaker 1: that I know that seven years for you has to
Speaker 1: almost be like twenty years.
Speaker 4: I forgot what album was. So Stevie had an album
Speaker 4: coming out and it was had been a lot of
Speaker 4: years since album, and they asked him about why, you
Speaker 4: know what took so long, and he said, you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you have to live life to have something to
Speaker 4: write about or write about the facts, you know. So
Speaker 4: a lot of it was just you know, adjusting to
Speaker 4: you know, moving to Atlanta, was you know, being on
Speaker 4: the resident, you know, being a husband and father. You know,
Speaker 4: just at some point it's really hard to balance orther.
Speaker 4: I've not become successful at balancing it at all. The
Speaker 4: three things that I can't let falter is work, my wife,
Speaker 4: and my daughter. So I found myself in the you
Speaker 4: know days of especially during the pandemic and not having
Speaker 4: child care help. There were days where I didn't get
Speaker 4: to touch music at all because I had to you know,
Speaker 4: there was work and I had to do with my
Speaker 4: daughter and my wife. So just in that of just
Speaker 4: living life outside of music and poetry, there was just
Speaker 4: all these things that were you know, forming for me
Speaker 4: thought processes. You know, what I'm thinking about, politics, what
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about, you know, the state of hip hop
Speaker 4: now versus when I wrote Project Image, you know, on
Speaker 4: an album that came out seventeen years ago. Whatever R
Speaker 4: It's like where am I now? Where am I with?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: How I see? How I see the game, how I
Speaker 4: see the mate? How much? How do I in some way?
Speaker 4: It's also been like how do I get across what
Speaker 4: mister Cosby was trying to get across? But it got
Speaker 4: sucked up?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: What doctor Dyson wrote a book about?
Speaker 4: Right right? Right?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, because I was going to ask you if
Speaker 3: you and if you have you know, I haven't heard it.
Speaker 6: You know, my my apologies, but have you written a
Speaker 6: poem about mister Cosby and your experience with or what
Speaker 6: is that you would explore?
Speaker 4: There's no, there's really no reason for me, gotcha.
Speaker 6: And when I say read about I don't mean like
Speaker 6: about him, but about the experience about whatever is it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not a that's not a poem yet. And
Speaker 4: at some point again, I'm living life, so at some
Speaker 4: point it may become come up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: And now that you plan to see something made definitely, so.
Speaker 2: Many, so many things, so many.
Speaker 5: Even from what you were talking about with Malcolm and
Speaker 5: Eddie and what you learned and how you grew up
Speaker 5: like in that TV world, which is just a one
Speaker 5: of a kind experience experience for that time, like and
Speaker 5: having that power like you said when you realize you
Speaker 5: weren't him, and walking in that writer's there's so many angles.
Speaker 4: To take, you know, likes just being present to it all.
Speaker 2: And to the doctor Dyson's point as well.
Speaker 1: Wait, what book was that like, because it's Bill Cosby, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was what the name of the book was.
Speaker 5: He wrote a whole book about what he said about
Speaker 5: us on that faithful day they're usually people talk about Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 4: So again I think this is part of it was,
Speaker 4: you know, how do I how do one not have
Speaker 4: what happened to his message happened to you know, for
Speaker 4: for the message I'm trying to you know. So there
Speaker 4: were people that actually consulted with like Professor Daniel Williams
Speaker 4: over at Howard I, you know, that's the homiees like
Speaker 4: I conferred with her with you know, some of the writing, uh,
Speaker 4: just to kind of make sure okay, you know, And
Speaker 4: and there's a certain you know lens through which I'm
Speaker 4: you know, because of a lens through what I'm watching,
Speaker 4: I'm not necessarily aware of how this could be misinterpreted,
Speaker 4: you know, in another way. So you know, Dana helped
Speaker 4: me out with that a great deal. And there's another
Speaker 4: piece I took to another poet just to kind of
Speaker 4: get some feedback on. So just all of these things
Speaker 4: have been brewing.
Speaker 5: One of the tracks on here I was listening to.
Speaker 5: I was listening to it, and it actually made me
Speaker 5: think about what happened to Amir this year in February, Like,
Speaker 5: and I was like, but he is he referring to that?
Speaker 2: It was Ai? Which track was it?
Speaker 5: But yeah, what happened at the Oscars, It made me
Speaker 5: It was talking about that and showing their true feelings
Speaker 5: and when when black men really put themselves out there.
Speaker 2: They just made me think of that in that way.
Speaker 1: For you, though, in March of twenty twenty, like what
Speaker 1: adjustments have you had to meet? And like how did
Speaker 1: you deal in the last two years from from the
Speaker 1: pandemic and quarantine until where you are now?
Speaker 4: That's a great question. Like for me during that time,
Speaker 4: like it was a you know, it was a fuck
Speaker 4: that time, but it was a beautiful time for you know,
Speaker 4: for my family, because it was literally me, my wife,
Speaker 4: and my daughter right right, you know. And for my
Speaker 4: daughter to have mommy and Papa both at home all
Speaker 4: day every day she was in heaven. So for our unit,
Speaker 4: you know, it made our unit stronger in that we
Speaker 4: had the opportunity to have to be in each other's
Speaker 4: presence like all the time and and really really enjoy
Speaker 4: each other, you know, and being able to have that
Speaker 4: time because my daughter was two when COVID broke out,
Speaker 4: So to be able to have that kind of time
Speaker 4: and that kind of family time uninterrupted by work felt
Speaker 4: really good, you know. So I think that that kind
Speaker 4: of informed really everything else, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Did you do a lot of writing during that time
Speaker 3: or was it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So what happened was I know, So I've been
Speaker 4: knee deep and I've been deep inable to forever. Like
Speaker 4: I took him able to online course at Berkeley in
Speaker 4: like twenty fourteen, right, so I'm I had able to
Speaker 4: it was able to three point five, right, and I
Speaker 4: was eleven, you know, But back then I didn't really
Speaker 4: understand it, so I put it away until they came out,
Speaker 4: till nine came out. But so twenty twenty, I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to do a record, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: do all the production of myself. Not because that's what
Speaker 4: I want to do moving forward, but since you know,
Speaker 4: let this be my quarantine me myself and able to
Speaker 4: eat get the ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that's where a lot of the record came from,
Speaker 4: because you know, I got into a five song EP,
Speaker 4: and then I did a great job of self sabotageing myself,
Speaker 4: said well, maybe let me add two more songs, right,
Speaker 4: let me be flushed that with seven songs, right, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna do that, And then life happened and it never
Speaker 4: got done right, as you know, just kind of sat
Speaker 4: warning or something, but they kind of sat on it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't you know, at the height of a priority list,
Speaker 4: especially now when everything's streaming, It's like, well, one, I
Speaker 4: can put it out whenever. I'm not gonna make any
Speaker 4: money off of it, so there's really no rush into finishing.
Speaker 4: So I did all of that, the self sabotage, finishing
Speaker 4: the record, and then last year when the Grammys announced
Speaker 4: they were doing the uh you know, finally doing the
Speaker 4: spoken word poetry category, I was like, was that, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 4: this is the first.
Speaker 2: Year I thought there was always a spoken word.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but not so spoken word traditionally was included poetry, audiobooks,
Speaker 4: audiobook to comedy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you got your own category. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So like two years ago, say cool Edwards had an
Speaker 4: album that was nominated, but Michelle Obama won right.
Speaker 1: Right, like.
Speaker 4: Exactly, So finally, after years of campaigning, they finally opened
Speaker 4: up the best Spoken word Poetry album.
Speaker 1: Can I take this rare ten seconds out to pick
Speaker 1: up my sister, Dawn Thompson. I rarely, I mean I
Speaker 1: rarely go there, but I will say that I've never
Speaker 1: known a human being that is on damn near at
Speaker 1: Tasmanian devil level of trying to bring change to me,
Speaker 1: to Naris and the entire Grammy organization. And I think
Speaker 1: even saying that might be putting on the spot a
Speaker 1: little bit too much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but she's doing it the right way locally too,
Speaker 5: like for her hometown, Like that's what's upping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean like she's really in the trenches
Speaker 1: in ways that I never because the thing is is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a part of the academy, but I don't go
Speaker 1: to those DAN meetings. You guys.
Speaker 5: Amir's not saying his sister is the president of the
Speaker 5: local Philadelphia chapter of NEARS.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot that part. Yes, but you know,
Speaker 1: she also is like there for countless and billions of
Speaker 1: hours for like things that you don't think about, but
Speaker 1: like the level of happiness that she felt. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't like she was giving me a daily progress report
Speaker 1: of Okay, I'm working on trying to get these these
Speaker 1: categories and da da dada. It wasn't like that. But
Speaker 1: I just know that one of her biggest challenges was,
Speaker 1: all right, I now have to be the change that
Speaker 1: I want to see implemented in an industry, you know,
Speaker 1: because she came to the industry just like I did
Speaker 1: as an artist.
Speaker 2: Alicia Butterfield too, because you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly the doing it. And yeah, my whole point
Speaker 1: is with my sister that sorry, I got to well, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm saying I got in the door, you know, luckily,
Speaker 1: to make to make a living, I got in the door.
Speaker 1: She had to go kind of the scenic route to
Speaker 1: get there. But I definitely know that she was a
Speaker 1: part of almost, you know, a long, long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long process of getting these these categories changed so that
Speaker 1: other arts you know, so that artists can actually get
Speaker 1: to reap the benef fits o their work.
Speaker 5: And quick disclaimer for people who don't know, Don Thompson
Speaker 5: is coming from an independent artist perspective, and she's not
Speaker 5: there for her her brother relations.
Speaker 2: She's there because she knows the struggle.
Speaker 1: Big up to doing it. For that, I have to
Speaker 1: say that I said at the top, like everything that
Speaker 1: you said, especially with being a self saboteury and all
Speaker 1: those things like that that has been me decades, Like
Speaker 1: I'm now just dealing with this year of setting myself
Speaker 1: of all those things, like of me noticing how I
Speaker 1: hold back my own process and those things. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm hearing the code words from you and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, this might be a verse of
Speaker 1: a feather moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, congratulations for one being able to acknowledge it and
Speaker 4: being courageous enough to you know, not do things the
Speaker 4: same way.
Speaker 1: Right, It's do an everyday struggle though.
Speaker 4: No doubt. No, Yeah, yeah, I resemble that remark.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's a new day, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: you know, at least I'm at least very much aware
Speaker 1: of you know, you could either manifest something or you
Speaker 1: could manifuc something. I've been the king of man of
Speaker 1: fucking for a long time.
Speaker 4: So wow, Okay, I'm gonna tell you her, like the
Speaker 4: real real ship. Let's go, that's what we're here for.
Speaker 4: I want to name the album Blackfist Beautiful.
Speaker 2: Who Walked Your Back?
Speaker 4: My wife she was like, she was like, you know
Speaker 4: that's corny, right, It's just right. That's exactly what she said.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what she said. It leaves nothing to the imagination,
Speaker 4: oh dude.
Speaker 2: And I was like, but how do I show that
Speaker 2: I'm just black?
Speaker 4: So you know I can't. So I'd always loved the
Speaker 4: I'd always learned love the title Hiding and Playing View,
Speaker 4: And so I was like, okay, I'm a name. I'm
Speaker 4: named the album Hiding and Playing View. I told my
Speaker 4: wife and she was like, you know, you're not really hiding.
Speaker 4: I mean, everything you're writing about is exactly what you feel,
Speaker 4: so you're not really hiding. So she was like, in
Speaker 4: what ways do you hide? Damn it? So she put
Speaker 4: me in that and she put me in that space.
Speaker 4: She's like, right about that, yes, yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 4: And then that poem was actually something different too, because it, uh,
Speaker 4: it started different and the play on words like it's
Speaker 4: so fucking dope, and I, you know, I was mixing
Speaker 4: with this other poem and trying to show some kind
Speaker 4: of vulnerability, like let me start the poem, you know,
Speaker 4: just spitting like like you know, technical ship, so you
Speaker 4: know that I'm a worsmith and and I can do
Speaker 4: things with words, and then let me hit you with
Speaker 4: the vulnerable. And to me, I thought it was dope.
Speaker 4: And my wife was like, yeah, sounds like two different poems.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, cool, you're not really a poet,
Speaker 4: like you don't really.
Speaker 1: So she's your sounding board.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yes, but I called another poet friend of
Speaker 4: mine out, but it's like, yo, you know, I feel
Speaker 4: like two different poems.
Speaker 1: Okay. I use the term kill your kids, because when
Speaker 1: you know, when you create something, you know, like right now,
Speaker 1: there's over six hundred roots ideas and it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: just pick fourteen and let's have the record already, so
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to let the other five
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four songs go, but you know they're
Speaker 1: going to have to go down the drain eventually, at
Speaker 1: least for this project. But how open are you two
Speaker 1: take that advice. Well, okay, I know that you said that.
Speaker 1: You know your wife's not you're not a poet, your
Speaker 1: da da da dada. I tend to keep I keep,
Speaker 1: I keep an expert, and I keep what I call
Speaker 1: the And I'm being very nice when I say this,
Speaker 1: the common person factor behind their backs. I'm like the factor.
Speaker 1: So but I think that it's it's good to have
Speaker 1: both opinions of people that have no emotional connection to
Speaker 1: you whatsoever, and your work to give an opinion.
Speaker 6: And usually with great art you'll find out that you know,
Speaker 6: like as in the case of you, Malcolm, your wife
Speaker 6: is saying one thing, but then you hit your poet homie,
Speaker 6: he's saying the same thing as well.
Speaker 3: So it's like there's a universal proof that's there, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So did the other three people truth get back at
Speaker 4: my wife like you got it? I won't. I won't
Speaker 4: sleep on you next time. So then when I when
Speaker 4: I totally rewrote the poem right and I was like, ah,
Speaker 4: this is ah, this is dope right here, like this
Speaker 4: is it, and I played it for her. She was like,
Speaker 4: let me read it. I needed to see it. And
Speaker 4: then there were there were there were a couple of
Speaker 4: tweaks that she made that made me go, thank you,
Speaker 4: Malcolm for not sleeping on your wife yet again. Right,
Speaker 4: So she just gave me some some tweaks and some
Speaker 4: finishing touches. That really makes it, you know, really what
Speaker 4: it is. So so so I stay open. But at
Speaker 4: the same time, I gotta tell you the story. Ah,
Speaker 4: and you know it's it's fucked up, but but let's go.
Speaker 4: It says a lot about a lot of people and
Speaker 4: then also says a lot about how I feel about
Speaker 4: myself and and and who I am and owning myself. Right.
Speaker 4: So wrote the song with Wayman Tisdale. Okay, right, we
Speaker 4: were doing a jam session and you know, we recorded
Speaker 4: it whatever, and you know, we had like a little
Speaker 4: demo was in my hard drive. You know, Wayman passed
Speaker 4: and you know I pulled that out. Was like, you
Speaker 4: should do something, should do something with that. So I
Speaker 4: I arranged this whole song based on this demo that
Speaker 4: he and I did. You know, I played the song
Speaker 4: live like for years our last record. I want to
Speaker 4: put the song on the record. I had Barty services
Speaker 4: with Chris Dave on another project, so I called him
Speaker 4: a favor from him. It was like, yo, you know,
Speaker 4: like this drum program is cool, but like I really
Speaker 4: need some live drums behind us. It was like cool,
Speaker 4: you know. So he comes in, he kills it. Then
Speaker 4: a few weeks later, I get a call because the
Speaker 4: engineer who has helped me produce that record was also
Speaker 4: producing Chris's record. Right, So I get a call and
Speaker 4: was like, yo, I got a surprise for you. Pino
Speaker 4: came through and lay based on your joint, right, I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 4: that's dope. But wait a minute, I'm playing bass on
Speaker 4: that record, okay, And that's the record that I wrote
Speaker 4: with Wayman I speaks performing this song live right, like
Speaker 4: that's my ship and my listen to it. Pino. You know,
Speaker 4: Pino did Pino right, So there's no that question about
Speaker 4: this ship was butter. It was a whole different vibe
Speaker 4: from what I had spent years with. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: so I went to seven different people. I said, listen,
Speaker 4: these are here's two approaches to the base I'm trying
Speaker 4: to I'm not sure which approach I'm gonna use for
Speaker 4: the song, which do you like?
Speaker 3: Didn't tell them who was playing what?
Speaker 4: No, No, they'll give them any backstory, right five other people,
Speaker 4: They're like, yo, it's really dope, but I really like
Speaker 4: this one and that's mine, right, okay. Uh. The two
Speaker 4: other people knew the story, and they were trying to
Speaker 4: convince me that it would be really dope because to say,
Speaker 4: I've got Pino and Chris Dave on my record, the
Speaker 4: Big Girl and the Algorithms and the whole nine. So
Speaker 4: so at the last minute I decided it was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm gonna kick myself in the ass
Speaker 4: for the rest of my life every time I played
Speaker 4: this song and pinos on it and I'm not right,
Speaker 4: and again, not that I'm better than Pino, like that's
Speaker 4: not like, don't let anybody attempt to miss that. But
Speaker 4: so I ended up. I called I called the producers,
Speaker 4: and that was like, yo, I thought about it. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna use I'm gonna use my bass. He says, ah, well,
Speaker 4: you know what. You know, I didn't want to tell
Speaker 4: you this, you know, but Chris said if you play
Speaker 4: based on it, to take your drums off, and that
Speaker 4: producer was also supposed to mix my whole record. They said,
Speaker 4: so I gotta take Chris's drums off. I got to
Speaker 4: take my keys off, give you your files back, and
Speaker 4: you got to find somebody else to produce the record. Wow,
Speaker 4: that's real ship, that's real fucked up, but you go
Speaker 4: just do it. So is called high on love right,
Speaker 4: And you know, you may think it's you may think
Speaker 4: it's whack, but it's not whack. And if you said
Speaker 4: it was whacked, but like cool, that's your you know again,
Speaker 4: I'm not Pino right, it's not you know, I'm not
Speaker 4: saying it's you know, I do me right.
Speaker 1: So that's my thing.
Speaker 4: Like I had to really go, Wow, I'm getting ready
Speaker 4: to take Pino Paladino off my record for my ship.
Speaker 4: I feel that's strong about it.
Speaker 1: I stand up sometimes I will, and I can attest
Speaker 1: to this as well. Sometimes only the best won't do.
Speaker 4: Hmm.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I think oftentimes, especially you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a BC in the A D. And And
Speaker 1: for me, I think the moment in which I learned
Speaker 1: this lesson this year where someone told me that, Okay,
Speaker 1: you get into something brand new and you're you're in
Speaker 1: the space of being a creative, and then once you're
Speaker 1: after that and you experienced some sort of success, then
Speaker 1: you're in a space of not being a creative, but
Speaker 1: you're in a space of where you're now succeeding. Like
Speaker 1: in other words, you're thinking about how to maximize or
Speaker 1: capitalize on a moment versus how to make the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's sort of And the thing that I
Speaker 1: think that's being lost here, at least on their side
Speaker 1: of the fence, is that you know, this is still
Speaker 1: a creative expression for you. This is still therapeutic for you.
Speaker 1: This is still like it's your project. You know, it
Speaker 1: would be like me, like I think Chris Davis would
Speaker 1: I want him to drum in proxy of me on
Speaker 1: the next Roots record. That might be a little weird,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because I'm not making the
Speaker 1: Roots record as in like to be successful. But I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like your creative expression. So you're you're well within
Speaker 1: your right. Even if the Lord Jesus Christ came down
Speaker 1: on Earth and plate based on you're doing, like you
Speaker 1: still gotta I understand your decision. You're your first joint
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand and two, I believe two
Speaker 1: and three. Yeah, it was it was like right after
Speaker 1: the millennium started. So are you able? And I'll ask
Speaker 1: you too, find like I feel like I'm interviewing two
Speaker 1: artists here. Is it easy to go back to listen
Speaker 1: to the first thing you ever created and you're fine
Speaker 1: with it or you're like super critical of it, you know,
Speaker 1: compared to it's twenty years into the game now.
Speaker 3: For you mistakes like oh god, man, all I here's mistakes.
Speaker 1: But but you know, but so the listening for you
Speaker 1: is like organics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, oh my god, yeah. I mean I
Speaker 3: can listen to it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I haven't listened to it, and sometimes I've been listen
Speaker 6: to it for the for the film, but like, I
Speaker 6: can listen to that stuff. But again, I just hear it.
Speaker 6: I'm just like, god, I sound so young, that sounds whatever,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. And it's just you know,
Speaker 6: it's cringe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Wow, And you made a POI fi classic.
Speaker 4: Thank you man.
Speaker 6: But I mean, but I just look at it over
Speaker 6: the time, just you know, the years I've been doing this,
Speaker 6: I just learned to look at albums as or whatever
Speaker 6: it is, album's polled, whatever you make. I just look
Speaker 6: at it as a snapshot of where you were at
Speaker 6: that time. You know what I mean, you have to
Speaker 6: look at it like a photograph, and you can't look
Speaker 6: at it like, oh man, I'm so much better now,
Speaker 6: you know. But it's like, yeah, am, but this is
Speaker 6: where I was back then, and and I better be
Speaker 6: better now.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly because if I was looking at listening to
Speaker 3: the old.
Speaker 6: Ship like damn, this dude was better, like and I
Speaker 6: got a problem, nid you know what I mean, because
Speaker 6: I ain't got better, you know what I'm saying. If
Speaker 6: I feel like I got to chase my old ship.
Speaker 6: So yeah, that's that's kind of been my thing. But
Speaker 6: I've very rarely listen to older stuff. It's kind of
Speaker 6: cringe cringe worthy.
Speaker 4: How about for you, MALCHAELM Yeah, I can listen to
Speaker 4: old stuff and appreciate where I was at the time.
Speaker 4: And then also you know, I listened to that stuff
Speaker 4: and you know, again I appreciate it makes me really appreciate,
Speaker 4: you know, Malcolm, then, especially coming from the journey of
Speaker 4: how this whole thing started. Anyway, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: The fact that I can, I always wanted to. I
Speaker 4: always want to make timeless music, right, I want the
Speaker 4: content to be timeless. Use I still listen to Gil
Speaker 4: and like, you know, damn everything Gil was talking about,
Speaker 4: We're still ship. You know why the most I want
Speaker 4: someone to you know, to go back. And it's happening
Speaker 4: now because when I send people to like you know,
Speaker 4: the Spotify or the hiding in view album page, you know,
Speaker 4: the catalog comes up. So people who don't know that
Speaker 4: this is like my fourth record, they go back and
Speaker 4: they listen. But it's all still relevant, right, It's all
Speaker 4: still it's all still listenable.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I still stand behind you know, even you know I
Speaker 4: made like some you know, somethings better than others. I'll
Speaker 4: still stand behind. Just like my acting work. I'll stand
Speaker 4: behind anything in my body of work and my music
Speaker 4: I do to say, except I don't use nigga and
Speaker 4: my music anymore. Uh. But like you know, my first
Speaker 4: records I did right because I replaced it with common
Speaker 4: all right. And and actually and if you listen to
Speaker 4: on the album, there's a joint called so I Run
Speaker 4: Prelude and so on the record. I have doctor Daniel
Speaker 4: Black on the record, who is in my mind, okay go.
Speaker 4: He's assistant Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Clark
Speaker 4: so I interviewed him sometime last year because there's a
Speaker 4: bed of music in this piece called the Sante Sona
Speaker 4: that I wanted to have him just talk. So he
Speaker 4: ended up dropping so much knowledge that I put him
Speaker 4: all throughout the album. I will dare to say that
Speaker 4: my album Hiding and Playing View is one of them,
Speaker 4: is one of the most important albums to come out
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two. And I know I'm putting a
Speaker 4: lot on it, but I'm also saying that because of
Speaker 4: the gems that Doctor Black is dropping all over this
Speaker 4: record is it's it's it's important. It's almost vital that
Speaker 4: we need to hear these messages. Like I tell people,
Speaker 4: my record is for us, it's for black boys, it's
Speaker 4: for black men, it's for black people. It's for non
Speaker 4: black people who have the foresight enough to see our
Speaker 4: self healing as an invitation for them to explore their
Speaker 4: own necessary healing.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is how we do a tribunal.
Speaker 5: I was wondering how you were to tribunal, and I
Speaker 5: think you finally got him out, because how do you
Speaker 5: keep them out but maybe still once get it in?
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna steal those words because this album black and
Speaker 5: Shit and ps he still named.
Speaker 4: The song you know, because there was I was working
Speaker 4: a song, couldn't figure out the title because initially it
Speaker 4: was just you know, C minor seven minor seven, So
Speaker 4: like I had to give it a real title. And
Speaker 4: once I you know, I got to write in the
Speaker 4: he's won't you name Matt blackf is beautiful? I was like,
Speaker 4: I thought you didn't like it. She was like, it's
Speaker 4: not right.
Speaker 2: That song is like all day she's Jenius.
Speaker 4: So yes she is, but so so I know I
Speaker 4: put a lot on on that album. But that's how
Speaker 4: I strongly feel about it. And again I strongly feel
Speaker 4: about that. I feel a big part of that statement
Speaker 4: is because of doctor Daniel Black and saying all that. Say,
Speaker 4: there's a prelude called so I run Prelude and he
Speaker 4: does a bit about niggah. Yeah, I think it's like
Speaker 4: but and even though I was adopting comrade before this conversation,
Speaker 4: he just has a really an interesting way that we
Speaker 4: should at least to consider.
Speaker 1: I'm open to hear what I say to struggle like.
Speaker 5: It is, but then it's like anything to keep them
Speaker 5: from saying it. So I don't know what we gotta do, right,
Speaker 5: it's get the numbers are growing.
Speaker 1: I know, I know that for me on the East
Speaker 1: Coast at least, like there's in Philly we had something
Speaker 1: that's similar to like the New Aurekan Society and that
Speaker 1: you know, like there's Trepeter Mason, Jill Scott, Ursula Rucky
Speaker 1: in Philly, New York. There's the New Eurekan Cafe where
Speaker 1: poets came. What was that environment in LA? Like where
Speaker 1: would one like if if Robin Harris is working out
Speaker 1: at the Comedy Act Theater, right, what was the New
Speaker 1: Aurekan or the.
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 1: Where did black poets hang in LA during that period
Speaker 1: in which you're looking for your tribe?
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, there are are two places of Fifth Street
Speaker 4: Dix in the Myrt Park, Okay, and that's where you're
Speaker 4: gonna find the open mics, the poets, the jazz heads,
Speaker 4: the old jazz heads, the young Jack's heads, everyone who
Speaker 4: everyone who was at at at Prinshaw High, every musician
Speaker 4: you know, spent time shedding at Fitz three Dicks. And
Speaker 4: then over in West l a uh, there is a
Speaker 4: place called Lucy Florence and every Tuesday night a poet
Speaker 4: by the name of Deep Red would do a what
Speaker 4: was called Red Sea poetry. But anybody who's coming coming
Speaker 4: coming up on the scene in La would work out
Speaker 4: at at.
Speaker 1: Right now, right now.
Speaker 4: He goes by spoken yoga on Instagram, but it's deeper
Speaker 4: as spoken yoga. But I always had to give him
Speaker 4: props because he provided He provided a really dope space
Speaker 4: and environment for you know, poets coming up. And there's
Speaker 4: also a fly poet, the fly poet in La, John Hensley. Uh,
Speaker 4: he would do a monthly thing, but he was he
Speaker 4: would only he would vet the poets. It would be
Speaker 4: a monthly thing, but they were all features. So he
Speaker 4: was really good about, you know, getting budgets to be
Speaker 4: able to pay you know poets to come in and
Speaker 4: you know, put some money in the pockets. But you
Speaker 4: would go to fly Poet knowing that you it was
Speaker 4: not an open mic. You were always going to get
Speaker 4: a hot legit poet on that stage. Damn response, When
Speaker 4: did you move to Atlanta in twenty eighteen? But no,
Speaker 4: but I have to go back because it would be
Speaker 4: it would be a huge disc if I didn't shout
Speaker 4: out The Poetry Lounge that was also another spot where
Speaker 4: uh and outside of La. The Poetry Lounge is probably
Speaker 4: the more popular, the more well known spot, but for
Speaker 4: those of us who were coming up on the scene
Speaker 4: in La, we were definitely a red Sea poetry. You know,
Speaker 4: a lot of people did work on at the Poetry
Speaker 4: Lounge and John Hilly spot. I just don't want to
Speaker 4: go out shout.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a part of my life that I missed,
Speaker 1: like in the early Square roots stays like Tuesday nights
Speaker 1: at University of pen you know, yes, exactly, like right, exactly,
Speaker 1: A lot of a lot of brothers who who who?
Speaker 4: Who?
Speaker 5: Who?
Speaker 1: Repeat words like this that that and this and that
Speaker 1: and the other and that, like I missed, I really miss.
Speaker 2: I just hear little brother songs. I'm sorry, I just
Speaker 2: hear yo man.
Speaker 1: I see that. That's what really drew me. See when
Speaker 1: I heard that first spansee, I was like, first of all, fante,
Speaker 1: fuck you. In second one, Sante, damn this moment. He's
Speaker 1: actually right, he is on. Like poetry was always for me,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's why I can appreciate with you
Speaker 1: because you know what you're saying.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm a poet Because for me coming up
Speaker 6: so much of poets they were failed and seas, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, Like they weren't really they were
Speaker 6: you know guys, it's like they weren't good enough to
Speaker 6: be rappers. So they would kind of be in like
Speaker 6: this middle ground, this poetry thing.
Speaker 1: Now we're just critics.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but like but but all their poems would be
Speaker 6: about like it just being about fucking and ship you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, You know what I mean, it
Speaker 6: would just be like dude.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so now so I can appreciate the way that
Speaker 3: you really take it poetry.
Speaker 1: And even for me, so you say North Carolina had
Speaker 1: a community, we did.
Speaker 4: We did, we did, we had. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So the song that he's referring to, if you're not uh,
Speaker 6: just so we know, songs called the Yo Yo's a
Speaker 6: verse I did it was on the song was a
Speaker 6: little brother song.
Speaker 1: It was it was a star as board. Like all right,
Speaker 1: Frante is really underselling it. Frante's underselling it. I say this,
Speaker 1: And I know I'm world famous for my my uh my,
Speaker 1: my over exaggerated hyper bolt, but I will say that
Speaker 1: Fonte's verse on Yo Yo like for me, for me,
Speaker 1: it was almost it was a star is born bust
Speaker 1: rhyme scenario verse for a tribe called quest because I
Speaker 1: just never I never heard someone just come over and
Speaker 1: look at my jinger and just be like snooped dog,
Speaker 1: like your toys.
Speaker 2: A little bit like somebody you thought you was playing
Speaker 2: with because and.
Speaker 6: I was like, wait a minute, you were on our
Speaker 6: side of this, it was I didn't. So when I
Speaker 6: wrote that verse, it wasn't for y'all.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I looked at it.
Speaker 3: First off, I never even looked at y'all as like
Speaker 3: like y'all, I mean, we weren't in it.
Speaker 4: I didn't take personal look at y'all in that way.
Speaker 6: I didn't look at y'all as poets, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. MC j'all were musicians. So nah, that was
Speaker 6: specifically for poetry.
Speaker 3: Like I did it. I was hosting this poetry night.
Speaker 6: I got this gig and it was in Durham and
Speaker 6: it was my friend Tracy Ivora and Matt Sherman.
Speaker 1: They hit this.
Speaker 6: Whoever they are, I love Tracy back to this day,
Speaker 6: love them, love them to this day. Tracy is actually
Speaker 6: the girl on the listening. That's w JLR slow Jams,
Speaker 6: that's Tracy. So she had this thing she was having
Speaker 6: this poetry night. She was like, Yo, we want you
Speaker 6: to come host it. And I was like, all right, cool,
Speaker 6: how much you're paying? And it was like one hundred
Speaker 6: dollars and like, nigga, one hundred dollars in two thousand,
Speaker 6: what shit?
Speaker 4: You want ten thouars A fill up?
Speaker 3: My damn my little monsters, nigga.
Speaker 4: I was eating.
Speaker 6: I'm like, hell, let's go. So I go and I
Speaker 6: do the joint and I'm hosting and I'm just being me,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, I'm just doing me. I'm
Speaker 6: talking my shit, you know, just whatever, whatever. And the
Speaker 6: poets are coming up there and they're really bad like this,
Speaker 6: like they really they kind of sucked, and so I'm
Speaker 6: just talking my shit.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: So afterwards, the next day we talked. She calls me
Speaker 3: after the gig and I get paid everything, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: so when's the next one?
Speaker 4: Like I'm ready.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm thinking it's gonna be a monthly.
Speaker 6: I got like a little monthly, my little residence or whatever,
Speaker 6: my little hundred dollars nigga.
Speaker 4: Shit, I'm out here.
Speaker 3: When the next joint?
Speaker 4: She was like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we kind of got some complaint from the patrons.
Speaker 6: You know what I mean, you know, because I'm like, well,
Speaker 6: what can paint? Well, you know it was you saying
Speaker 6: the IN word. I said, well, trace it.
Speaker 3: I don't say the N word. I say, nigga, let's
Speaker 3: clear that shit up real fast, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like I'm just being me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And but so yeah, so I think like maybe like
Speaker 6: a week or two later I wrote that verse. And
Speaker 6: it wasn't at poor.
Speaker 1: I can't believe in finding this story out now.
Speaker 6: It wasn't about poets or any you know whatever. It
Speaker 6: was just about the pretentiousness of that scene, about people
Speaker 6: with the craft. It was just the pretensiousness of the scene.
Speaker 6: It was just like, you know, y'all up here like
Speaker 6: claiming to be a higher level of conscience or whatever,
Speaker 6: but the rappers are rapping about fucking girls and y'all
Speaker 6: just up here scene talking about.
Speaker 3: Girls, Like get the funk out of here, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. So that was where that verse came from.
Speaker 3: It came from every real place.
Speaker 1: But well that was the Star's war movement.
Speaker 2: Hit us after you do moutholm.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny. You got a little fontet, can
Speaker 1: we at least do rapid fire about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, all okay, so A C. A.
Speaker 2: You read my mind. God damn it, mother, my motherfucker brother, come.
Speaker 4: On, come on.
Speaker 6: Always that is one of my favorite roles, was like
Speaker 6: your AC role, your son's and an art like talk
Speaker 6: about those roles where you they played. I don't wanna
Speaker 6: they play against type, you know what I mean, but
Speaker 6: something that you know, people wouldn't think, Oh, THEO is
Speaker 6: in the fucking motorcycle Gang, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: You know, so talk about like the OJ, the A C.
Speaker 6: Co Collins Man, how'd you prepare for that? Yeah, I
Speaker 6: mean that's a whole you know, my whole journey.
Speaker 4: You know, post Cosby has always been trying to you know,
Speaker 4: shed some of that THEO to come energy, and you know,
Speaker 4: especially Cosby was really my first comedy role. I was
Speaker 4: doing dramatic work before. Cosby was always known for comedy
Speaker 4: and because I had done because sitcom is so you
Speaker 4: know ingrained in me. I've done a lot of work too,
Speaker 4: you know, move myself away from that. So I'm constantly
Speaker 4: looking for roles to kind of go against type and
Speaker 4: AC Really, now I think about it sparked off a
Speaker 4: bunch of things that kind of helped move me to
Speaker 4: this side. You know, the thing I loved about a
Speaker 4: C was one that there wasn't a whole lot of
Speaker 4: research to be done on him because it just wasn't
Speaker 4: a lot. But you know, what I recognize is, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, he and OJ they used to be they
Speaker 4: were both the men, right, But then you spend your
Speaker 4: life like you're the man sitting next to the man,
Speaker 4: the man you know, and you live such a lifestyle
Speaker 4: now that your you know, your relationship, your livelihood depends
Speaker 4: upon your relationship with him, you know. And I've never
Speaker 4: I've never really been I've never been the man now
Speaker 4: that I would ever call myself the man amongst my friends,
Speaker 4: but I've never been the man sitting next to the
Speaker 4: man right. So, but I know a lot of those do.
Speaker 4: So it was it was fun to be able to,
Speaker 4: you know, to play that side of a relationship that
Speaker 4: I saw all my life.
Speaker 2: Is he still with us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, as far as I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you have any talks with him prior to
Speaker 3: the role where there any none of that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I still haven't talked to him.
Speaker 5: Now you killed that role, thank you, and did that
Speaker 5: role lead to working with Ryan Murphy again and what
Speaker 5: is it like going from that to American Horror?
Speaker 4: So I started American Horror Story. I did that first, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: so sorry and then so what was fun though? For
Speaker 4: for people? Forus OJ? I actually auditioned for Chris Darton.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: And that was literally that was one of the best
Speaker 4: auditions in my life. Like the cash director helped my
Speaker 4: agent up with email like an hour after I left
Speaker 4: and like gave me pomps. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 4: this is this is that one? Like I'm about to
Speaker 4: blow off this motherfucker he was he was done. Months
Speaker 4: went by and I heard nothing right, and then I
Speaker 4: was like okay, and then out of the blue, Ryan's
Speaker 4: office called me and offered me the A C roll
Speaker 4: And so based on, you know, the audition for for Chris.
Speaker 4: So then when I saw Sterling, I was like.
Speaker 3: What right, of course, right right? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2: That made him?
Speaker 4: That made him to really he just I mean, he
Speaker 4: he put his everything, everything from his to his achilles
Speaker 4: heel he put in that, you know, So, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 1: I gotta ask. Speaking of that, Lenny have revealed to
Speaker 1: me that they first came to him. Did he reveal
Speaker 1: that on our episode? Uh? That before Cuba Gooding? Like,
Speaker 1: I know, this is real hard to imagine, but like OJ,
Speaker 1: Lenny and O J are dopel gangers. You gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta google it together. There's there's a period of OJ's.
Speaker 2: Life something about cravit.
Speaker 1: Y'all. Just so, yeah, what other Lenny? Not Lenny White?
Speaker 2: Nobody never heard the comparison.
Speaker 1: Or Lenny White the drummer anyway.
Speaker 4: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: When I was watching Ezra's OJ documentary on episode two,
Speaker 1: you know it's a four part documentary, episode two, I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, I never knew that OJ looked like
Speaker 1: Lenny Kravitz. And I hit him up like yo, like
Speaker 1: did you know you guys were twins? And he's like yo,
Speaker 1: they offered me the role and he didn't take it, Like.
Speaker 2: I gotta think about his butler roll.
Speaker 4: That will be the look he didn't want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, but did you did you realize that all
Speaker 1: that that Lenny at one point was being courted heavily
Speaker 1: to play OJ's well before.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't know that. It's my first I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm not I mean that that doesn't that doesn't surprise me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so yeah, never, I didn't hear that.
Speaker 5: It's so beautiful the way it worked out, though, because
Speaker 5: people love when they saw you on the screen, like
Speaker 5: it was a it was a beautiful like surprise.
Speaker 1: Like the thing that I admire about the roles that
Speaker 1: you chose, Like you happen to always show up on
Speaker 1: shows that I watch a lot, like, you know, just
Speaker 1: on the road, I watch everything, so like when you
Speaker 1: were in community, Detroiters is one of my all time
Speaker 1: favorite shows, you know, on the little because I know
Speaker 1: the people to do the production, even the girlfriend's gut
Speaker 1: to divorce you, Like, there's so much all all of
Speaker 1: the shows that you've done. Is acting still like a
Speaker 1: journey that you enjoy or or is it like it's
Speaker 1: cool but you know, like music's like like what's your
Speaker 1: what's your fifty ballants?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: The acting? I mean, one, it's my bread and butter, right,
Speaker 4: But I'm also you know, I'm hitting a new stride
Speaker 4: as an actor. So my craft is you know, I
Speaker 4: have a better handle on my craft. It's just even
Speaker 4: these five seasons I've been doing on The Resident, The
Speaker 4: Resident has really been a great playground, you know, to
Speaker 4: to work on certain tools I need as I continue
Speaker 4: on this journey of mastery of my craft. So I'm
Speaker 4: always looking to to get better. I have this this
Speaker 4: really dope show coming out on Fox called Accused. It's
Speaker 4: a courtroom anthology series, so like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror,
Speaker 4: every episode is its standalone. Yeah, but so I have
Speaker 4: an episode of that, and these five seasons on The
Speaker 4: Resident have greatly and even informed that role because that
Speaker 4: role is again a very different role. It was very
Speaker 4: demanding emotionally, So just having that experience was like wow,
Speaker 4: like like I am I say, with The Resident, I
Speaker 4: have finally I'm finally beginning to handle on my craft
Speaker 4: that I've been chasing since Cosby. M hmm. So there's
Speaker 4: all of that and it's like, oh wow, there's all
Speaker 4: of that that's informed where I am. Now, Fuck what's next?
Speaker 4: You know, Like I'm excited about that. And then instead
Speaker 4: of me stressing about you know what the next job
Speaker 4: is going to be, I have the music.
Speaker 6: Yeah right, I would say, man, I would say, bro,
Speaker 6: like I just from as someone that you know, grew
Speaker 6: up like watch you on Cosby and who I knew
Speaker 6: you were older than me, but you know but just
Speaker 6: you know, in the same range, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: But like I always admired, I thought you really grew
Speaker 6: into yourself really well you know what I mean in
Speaker 6: terms of you know what I mean, in terms of
Speaker 6: just like your transition and going from because I mean
Speaker 6: we you know, I mean child actors, no doubt. Well, comrade, listen,
Speaker 6: I say that, thank you, thank you. I think, yeah,
Speaker 6: comrades up out here, really you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But nah, you know, so you know, most child actors
Speaker 6: that's a sub transition to make. But I've always admired
Speaker 6: just the way you've kind of transition, and you've always
Speaker 6: seemed to pick roles that were you and it seemed
Speaker 6: like it was really yeah, just like a lot of
Speaker 6: class and you just brought I think, you know when
Speaker 6: you talk about your process and how you're growing, you know,
Speaker 6: older and kind of you feel like there's another level
Speaker 6: of mastery just there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I see that, man, It really shine through and everything
Speaker 6: you do, you know what I mean, And I really
Speaker 6: appreciate it for really.
Speaker 1: I got to ask fan out questions though.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go, I got some soul.
Speaker 1: Okay, So a year before the pandemic. All right, so
Speaker 1: the Roots lived, you know, we moved to London, England,
Speaker 1: like in ninety three when we got our record deal,
Speaker 1: moved over there and kind of kept an apartment there
Speaker 1: so that we could tour all of Europe extensively without
Speaker 1: it being like really heavy on our pockets, you know,
Speaker 1: paying for flights back and forth to the States. Like
Speaker 1: we're just going to live in Europe and so like
Speaker 1: London's the second home for us. So we did this
Speaker 1: gig in London and it's like our biggest crowd yet.
Speaker 1: So it's like fifteen thousand people, and this is not
Speaker 1: like a festival, this is just like a regular roots
Speaker 1: show outdoors. And I'm staring at this woman and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know you from so where I don't know where
Speaker 1: I know And she just stood out like she stood
Speaker 1: in the middle. And then I did a DJ gig
Speaker 1: and that same woman was like was was was was there?
Speaker 1: And I was like, where do I know you from?
Speaker 1: At the end of the night, I was like, excuse me,
Speaker 1: where do we know each other? And she says, yeah,
Speaker 1: my name is Denise Pearson. I was like, fucking five star,
Speaker 1: Denise Pearson, where you started laughing. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, wait, always hung with Malcolm Tomorrow
Speaker 1: Warner like for me, for me like and then and
Speaker 1: then taking taken to the very top of this episode
Speaker 1: when I told you, like vicariously, who am I living with? Like?
Speaker 1: Who am I living through?
Speaker 2: What is you gotta give us?
Speaker 1: Give me a second like for me in watching and
Speaker 1: watching you as a kid vicariously living like I would
Speaker 1: just like, wow, man, the only two people like I
Speaker 1: knew Eddie Murphy mentioned them once and you were always
Speaker 1: hanging with five Star? Do you not know five Star? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, this this is all I said. You remember
Speaker 1: the Jimmy jam episode where you know he spoke of
Speaker 1: who's our our our my Philly comrade. Oh Nick Martin
Speaker 1: Nelly when we talked about people that bite jam and Lewis,
Speaker 1: Nick Martin Nelly was basically, I don't want to insult
Speaker 1: Nick Martinelly. I'm saying this through the mind of Jimmy Jam.
Speaker 1: If you can't get Jam and Lewis, you can get
Speaker 1: Nick Martin Elly and almost get the same results. So
Speaker 1: like loose ends five Star like he was.
Speaker 2: Sid Star from the group five Star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh shit. So I'll just say that production wise,
Speaker 1: like Nick Martinelli had took jam and Lewis's SOS band
Speaker 1: sound and gave it to Lowsens, gave it to Phyllis Hymon.
Speaker 1: I only want to be your girl. That's going and
Speaker 1: five Star, which is basically in my mind, if if
Speaker 1: pre controlled Janet Jackson had a group like her brothers,
Speaker 1: it was this group. They were, but they were biggest ship.
Speaker 4: They were Jacksons Europe.
Speaker 1: They were definitely the Jacksons of Europe. And at the
Speaker 1: time and at the time when the Jackson's resorted kind
Speaker 1: of running on empty between eighty four and on, like
Speaker 1: there was no there was nobody to really scratch that
Speaker 1: itch of watching five people dance at the same time
Speaker 1: and do those same moves at the jet. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like after the Victory Tour, the Jackson's were pretty
Speaker 1: much over in eighty four, so five Star kind of
Speaker 1: took their place. There was a new addition, but five
Speaker 1: Star was really that anyway. Like, you know, they were
Speaker 1: always hanging with Malcolm jam and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: man like, he's so lucky to know them, man like.
Speaker 1: But I just want to ask you, in general, you're
Speaker 1: experiencing life and coming of age during a period in
Speaker 1: which might seem normal to you then but now is
Speaker 1: like everything you experienced was a classic moment. Like you
Speaker 1: saw Prime New Edition. I mean, like you were hanging
Speaker 1: with Houdini, like you're in the Funky Beat video, right yeah, yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: like you're hanging with like I mean, Run DMC raising
Speaker 1: how era Run DMC was the musical guests on your
Speaker 1: episode of SNL. Matter of fact, that man out. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like Swike Lee even did his little
Speaker 1: short film join on Malcolm's episode, Like I'm almost certain,
Speaker 1: like this is the one moment where I wish all
Speaker 1: five of us were together because I know you probably
Speaker 1: were also a Latin quarter.
Speaker 7: Regular that well yeah, when I was too young to
Speaker 7: even be up in there, right, But I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 7: just in general, I feel like I'm what was it
Speaker 7: like to be you?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to sound like old boy
Speaker 1: interviewing Paul McCartney on Saturday Live, like that was cool,
Speaker 1: but like you were the man when like the Prince
Speaker 1: I wish I knew was I became his friend like
Speaker 1: after the fact, you know, but what was it like
Speaker 1: during that period to be in that, to be in
Speaker 1: the eye of the storm, because I mean, for all,
Speaker 1: the thing that we can't take away from that show
Speaker 1: is the domino effect of ideas and seeds planet. I mean,
Speaker 1: I started with the hip hop thing, but I'm certain
Speaker 1: that a lot of us were looking at you know,
Speaker 1: black college is different. We were looking at education different.
Speaker 3: We were looking the first time here in night time
Speaker 3: at the right time.
Speaker 1: Rachel, Like, that was right, so many firsts. So like
Speaker 1: for you in general, what was your experience like just
Speaker 1: in the eye of the Storm between eighty four and
Speaker 1: ninety two, you.
Speaker 4: Couldn't tell me shit, Oh no, were you an asshole? No?
Speaker 4: It wasn't an asshole. It wasn't that, not at all.
Speaker 4: When it was when I first started working pre Cosby, right,
Speaker 4: I was doing like Matt Houston Fame I was doing.
Speaker 4: I was doing two plays at the same time. Like
Speaker 4: I'm in seventh grade and like I'm feeling like I'm
Speaker 4: at school when people recognizing them from TV. So I'm like, yo,
Speaker 4: I'm that comrade. Right, I was like, yo, I'm the ship.
Speaker 4: Like so I was in that space. Then eighth grade
Speaker 4: came around and I could not book an audition to
Speaker 4: save my life. I was going on like four or
Speaker 4: five callbacks, not booking anything, and it was hurting my soul.
Speaker 4: But the message I got was like, Wow, this is
Speaker 4: all cool, but this can go away just like that
Speaker 4: control over ye. And as soon as I got that epiphany,
Speaker 4: I book cosme. So, so that's the first filter through
Speaker 4: which I have. You know, I handled my whole journey.
Speaker 4: So I wasn't well so so the beautiful thing was
Speaker 4: I wasn't an ass, but I was very present to
Speaker 4: this life that I'm living.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 4: And being in New York had a a great deal
Speaker 4: to do with that, because I wasn't in Hollywood, and
Speaker 4: my best friends weren't on the same lot two stages
Speaker 4: down in their show. We were in New York. But
Speaker 4: when we were first in Brooklyn, the NBC studios didn't
Speaker 4: have a commasary, so at lunch we had to go
Speaker 4: out into the neighborhood and pick up our lunch wherever
Speaker 4: we decided we're gonna eat right, and we're on the
Speaker 4: number one television show in the world.
Speaker 1: There wasn't commisary there, not, not.
Speaker 4: At this particular because we were like an avenue m
Speaker 4: and E's fourteenth Street, like this is like deep in Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: Can I side note? Yeah, the last season of Cosby
Speaker 1: you know it was on the catering staff there, right,
Speaker 1: what the head cook Cracy? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how she She started out as a one of
Speaker 1: the head chefs at the Cosby Man, which then led
Speaker 1: her to life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no doubt, I remember Grace. Yeah, yeah, she's cool.
Speaker 6: But yeah, in terms of the because y'all were very
Speaker 6: you know, y'all are children, were did they because you
Speaker 6: talked about how Cosby in the writer's room, how he
Speaker 6: would talk about you know, you know, we're not gonna
Speaker 6: do that.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 6: Did he or Felicia or just any of the adults
Speaker 6: on the show, did they kind of give y'all game
Speaker 6: as young actors as well?
Speaker 3: It was the educational it that way.
Speaker 4: It was for me, it was just watching, okay, right,
Speaker 4: that just means like understanding, you know, we're on this
Speaker 4: number one television show in the world. But every weekend,
Speaker 4: mister Cosby is in Atlanta, Tahoe, or Vegas doing stand
Speaker 4: up Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then be the work the
Speaker 4: first person back at work on Monday, right. So I'm
Speaker 4: seeing like, I'm seeing that kind of grind, you know,
Speaker 4: and I'm seeing the you know, the work that he's
Speaker 4: putting into the show. I'm seeing the fights that he's having.
Speaker 4: Uh So, so much of that was was just by
Speaker 4: watching watching him. I've probably I'm sure I've learned more
Speaker 4: from him than more from him from watching him than
Speaker 4: him sitting me down a bit. But I listened, and
Speaker 4: he's one of those people who is willing to share
Speaker 4: all of his knowledge with anyone who's willing to listen.
Speaker 4: So I also, you know, I listened a lot. I
Speaker 4: listened to you know, I was, I mean I was.
Speaker 4: It was a great apprenticeship in terms of running a show, uh,
Speaker 4: in terms of handling the responsibility of living in the
Speaker 4: public eye.
Speaker 1: You guess directed the special ED episode? Correct?
Speaker 4: I directed like like six episodes, but not the one
Speaker 4: ED was on?
Speaker 2: Which ones?
Speaker 4: Did you do? Well?
Speaker 2: Give us a couple?
Speaker 1: I know them all about heart but no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think off to see the Wretched, got drunk and
Speaker 4: they went to the Uh they went to see some
Speaker 4: some some group, yes, in Philly, and Clifford Claire had
Speaker 4: to drive the Philly to go get them, and.
Speaker 2: They had to play a drinking make fun ye no, no,
Speaker 2: not that one drink they.
Speaker 4: Were they were in Philly, they got these tickets, they
Speaker 4: drove up, you know, letting by know and then I
Speaker 4: think a scalper scammed them and took the ticket and
Speaker 4: then they the car broke down.
Speaker 1: Remember that episode.
Speaker 4: They lied to Clifford Claire about where they were going,
Speaker 4: so cliff clar had to drive to Philly to get
Speaker 4: them and bring them back.
Speaker 1: And so when you're doing directing, like I've noticed that
Speaker 1: some of those episodes you weren't in at all, Like
Speaker 1: was that by design? Like, Okay, my character won't be
Speaker 1: in this particular episode like I will.
Speaker 4: I think in the in the episodes that I directed,
Speaker 4: they definitely wrote me lighter.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: Just sometimes there are just times we running them for
Speaker 4: you know, for whatever reason.
Speaker 5: At the point when THEO went to college, did they
Speaker 5: start asking you for your opinions on things like or
Speaker 5: did they ever before that or at any point did
Speaker 5: you have any on the writing. It was moments when
Speaker 5: I saw you come home and like they were listening,
Speaker 5: you were listening the day Last Soul, and I was
Speaker 5: like in my you know, in my mind, I'm like
Speaker 5: Malcolm did that because right, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, stuff like that, like the so the very last episode,
Speaker 4: I submitted the demo. Me and Spaceman Patterson submitted a
Speaker 4: demo for the theme song. They ended up not using
Speaker 4: our demo, but they used the drum track of that
Speaker 4: programmed like they used my drum patterns, right, they changed
Speaker 4: the sounds, but they used my drums just like. Okay,
Speaker 4: got it? So, I mean there was there was definitely
Speaker 4: wait for.
Speaker 1: The last season. Yeah, so you helped do the music
Speaker 1: of when they're dancing in front of the brick wall
Speaker 1: the brother Hell House. Yeah yeah, yeah, but wait, oh god,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions to ask.
Speaker 2: You now the intros so not even the intro, okay, but.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know. Okay, there was one. There
Speaker 1: was one particular episode in which, for the life of me,
Speaker 1: I will never understand how this happened. You know, Normally,
Speaker 1: they will make if someone's listening to outside music, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll have whatever, I know, like Stuke Gartner, somebody would
Speaker 1: make up a song, a fictional song or whatever for
Speaker 1: you guys to listen to. But this one particular episode,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that, not only uh was like black
Speaker 1: you Who. Like if if you remember the the episode,
Speaker 1: this is when I first got a VCR, So you remember,
Speaker 1: like when you first get your VCR and you just
Speaker 1: record any and everything or am I way too older
Speaker 1: than you? I'm way older than you too, So I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that when you get a VCR, you record
Speaker 1: everything and you watch it over again. So this one
Speaker 1: particular episode they use the actual black you who Guess
Speaker 1: Who's coming to dinner, which is uh, spoony, spooky right right,
Speaker 1: which you know the whole I say amon thing, But
Speaker 1: for me, I always wanted to know. So there's a
Speaker 1: scene where Vanessa and Robert are listening to Cosmic Slot
Speaker 1: by Funkadelic, and I was like, Yo, these two are
Speaker 1: twelve years old. Wow, what do they know about listening
Speaker 1: to a song from nineteen seventy three about a mother
Speaker 1: that has to turn tricks in the alleyway to feed
Speaker 1: her Like it was such. I was watching it with
Speaker 1: a musician friend of my dad's and he was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, are they really playing Cosmic Slot by
Speaker 1: Funkadelic right now? On the cosby That was like one
Speaker 1: of the most revolutionary moments. But I always wanted to know,
Speaker 1: like I know that wasn't by accident or like, I
Speaker 1: know that was on purpose? Who would is that? The writers?
Speaker 5: Is that.
Speaker 4: That was either mister Cosby or Stut Gardner. Probably mister Cosby.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So at the time I know that scene, I was
Speaker 4: probably too young to know cosmic slop so right, But
Speaker 4: now that you're saying that because I know the song, like,
Speaker 4: that's such a genius It's such a genius move.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was that. I mean that that really
Speaker 1: turned me on. Before that moment, those Funkadelic records were
Speaker 1: just scary album covers in my dad's collection and I
Speaker 1: was like whatever, And then suddenly like, oh wait, this
Speaker 1: was on the Cosby Show. Like literally every it's a.
Speaker 2: Lot of records that were found like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like with Candy and all that stuff. So again,
Speaker 1: I go back to my first question, what was for
Speaker 1: you like one of the coolest moments of the advantage
Speaker 1: of being your career because I you know, I also
Speaker 1: know that back then there was sort of this thing
Speaker 1: where it's like you versus here, I say.
Speaker 3: Damn it, you transition very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yo, for real, for real, dog for real, for
Speaker 1: real you Malcolm. Yeah, and I just felt like you've
Speaker 1: really never got your props for what you represented on
Speaker 1: that show. But just in general, like what was like
Speaker 1: one of the coolest moments of.
Speaker 3: That experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like meeting someone otherworldly or just like, wow, I
Speaker 1: get to see this concert because you know, like.
Speaker 4: That could be a two hour conversation in itself. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna tell you one that stands out because since you
Speaker 4: brought it up. So we're at SNL right, I'm rehearsing
Speaker 4: my opening monologue, and it was about I had just
Speaker 4: learned how to do the wop right because I was
Speaker 4: I was at I was at l Q, everybody was
Speaker 4: wopping and my man Darren Hie me finally taught me
Speaker 4: how to how to wop right. So old monologue is
Speaker 4: about me trying to learn this dance and then uh,
Speaker 4: Dana Carvey comes in and he's really trying to show
Speaker 4: me how to do the dance. It's a real goofy Uh.
Speaker 4: It's a real open monologue. So we were rehearsing and run, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, running Daryl coming and there they're early, so
Speaker 4: they're sitting down, Uh, they're watching us. You know, do
Speaker 4: the monologue and you know, the band starts playing and
Speaker 4: I start, you know, doing the walk mm hmmm finished
Speaker 4: the piece. Yo, did you hear that? They playing my melody?
Speaker 4: Run looked at me. He was like, yo, you did that.
Speaker 4: I was like yeah, he was like he gave me
Speaker 4: the look. Right, Run DMC is impressed because I'm want
Speaker 4: ESNL doing the wop having the band playing AIRGB and
Speaker 4: rock kims my medd right, Run is to meaning like
Speaker 4: this mon right wait and I'm like fifteen, like so
Speaker 4: to get that look from Run.
Speaker 1: Like wow, yeah, wow, this is a lot of them.
Speaker 4: But that's definitely you know for a fifteen year old kid,
Speaker 4: you know, love and Run DMC to get that kind
Speaker 4: of recognition, I.
Speaker 1: Think like spending night at an aunt's house or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you know, and I got to see that episode.
Speaker 4: Man, that.
Speaker 1: That that was everything, Yo, dog, I can I can
Speaker 1: nerd out forevery normally I'm about to look at the clock, right,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, this is a two and a half hour episode.
Speaker 2: Sorry, but I mean you're you know, you're a legend.
Speaker 5: Run.
Speaker 4: No, this is this is a living legend, friend, and
Speaker 4: I'm talking to legends. So it's whole thing.
Speaker 2: I do it all the time. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: I really thank you for talking to us and and
Speaker 1: and you know I'm one of your biggest fans. Dok
Speaker 1: and ways in ways in ways. I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: I just I thank you. I really don't have any
Speaker 1: other words, but you know, thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Do people still walk up to you and say, I
Speaker 2: brought you in this world and I'll take you out?
Speaker 4: Fortunately not okay, good yeah, but but I mean just
Speaker 4: to like, like like this, wait a minute, didn't you
Speaker 4: just use something based on that Uhteh Sherman showcase I
Speaker 4: just heard I brought you in this world, I'll take
Speaker 4: you out reference.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a song reference or
Speaker 1: just a line reference.
Speaker 3: It might have been a line reference. But I okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: I didn't we didn't do a song I did. I
Speaker 3: just I'm crazy. I just thought of it.
Speaker 6: So the first podcast what It's just got me this job,
Speaker 6: the very first podcast I did, Man Shot, my Man,
Speaker 6: DJ Brainchild. Our first podcast is called.
Speaker 3: Yeah Jimmy Jams Yeah, and our logo was you. It
Speaker 3: was you in the shirt like this like that was
Speaker 3: our logo, Like it was that's right.
Speaker 1: I forgot the the the genesis of this very podcast
Speaker 1: was the Gordon cart podcast, which I stole. Yes, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean we were done.
Speaker 3: That show was done by the time when we started this.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but nah, man, I know you. I said,
Speaker 3: had to say, you've been apart.
Speaker 6: You've been a part of our of our cultural you know,
Speaker 6: just everything for you very long time.
Speaker 3: And just to be able to see you still.
Speaker 6: Just after all these years, like still flourishing, still working
Speaker 6: and like still you know, got your good sense on
Speaker 6: no dope and no dumb ship like that, like you
Speaker 6: you make you make the fifties, You make your fifties
Speaker 6: look real good, brother, for.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. Man. Well, I gotta say, just for me,
Speaker 4: this is, this is this has been I don't even
Speaker 4: know the word affirming. It's been wonderful. It's been, you know,
Speaker 4: just because I respect both of you so much, just
Speaker 4: you know, as an MC when we talk about it's
Speaker 4: like you guys, like I talk about this love hate
Speaker 4: relationship I have with hip hop, right, but there is
Speaker 4: still like I can't trash hip hop because you guys
Speaker 4: are still hip hop, right, I'm saying. So, you know, right,
Speaker 4: So it's like it's like, you know, Felicia Rashad, you
Speaker 4: know you will tell me that you know, the light
Speaker 4: and the dark will always coexist. They have to, right,
Speaker 4: There's always going to be that battle. So I disappreciate that,
Speaker 4: you know, you guys are still around and still relevant
Speaker 4: enough to be like, no, but yo, this is you know,
Speaker 4: we still got this, so we don't even really have
Speaker 4: to dog hip hop.
Speaker 3: Don't have that them have that we got. I think, God, yeah,
Speaker 3: no one expected it to last this long.
Speaker 6: Like no, I don't think anyone expected it to be
Speaker 6: fifty year olds that are still invested in the hip hop.
Speaker 6: I don't think anyone, even the record companies when they
Speaker 6: first started.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think anyone expected to last as
Speaker 3: long as it did. So the idea of.
Speaker 6: Growing old or growing up in hip hop, I mean,
Speaker 6: I think that's a rarely new conversation of like the
Speaker 6: last you know, decade or so, maybe you know what
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 4: Look, I remember being twenty five, and I remember being like,
Speaker 4: nobody's gonna want to hear Comrades rapping at fifty wait
Speaker 4: for jay Z, But now here we are like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm saying he is killing it. Slick is killing it
Speaker 4: like it's.
Speaker 2: You know, black thought, it's black killing it.
Speaker 4: He's the thought is in and he's on the level
Speaker 4: like all unto him. He owns his own lady, right right,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So so to have you
Speaker 4: guys still be relevant forces is just as a hip
Speaker 4: hop fan, I'm so appreciative, but just as you know,
Speaker 4: a fan of both of you guys. You know me,
Speaker 4: You're like, I've been rocking with y'all. Said back when
Speaker 4: Marvin Matt gave me this this single.
Speaker 1: You and Wesley were definitely one of the first, the
Speaker 1: first like pioneers or gods that came to.
Speaker 4: See us like that consistently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you asked me if I remember the Belly Up Club.
Speaker 1: It's like yo, dog, like that whole bus Rider was
Speaker 1: like yo man, step steps. Yeah, And just that's what
Speaker 1: it was like.
Speaker 4: And just you know, I want to reiterate against I
Speaker 4: don't want it to get lost. And how influential you
Speaker 4: guys were on what I do musically.
Speaker 1: Well, that's because I watched you first. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is specification.
Speaker 5: And on that note, I just want to say something
Speaker 5: that has not been said. Thank you for giving us
Speaker 5: a space to talk about one of all of our
Speaker 5: favorite shows of all times. It's not always easy to
Speaker 5: talk to speak lovingly about a thing that we love
Speaker 5: so much, but you know, things have changed and stuff.
Speaker 2: So thank you for engaging. The show is the show.
Speaker 2: The show raised us, you know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 2: thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Doubt all right, so on behalf of fan Tikolo, Laya Sugar,
Speaker 1: Steve and I'm paying Bill.
Speaker 4: Y'all, y'all missed the flash.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Malcolm Jamal Warning, this is Quest Love signing
Speaker 1: off for Quest Love Supreme. If we will see you
Speaker 1: on the next go round. West Love Supreme is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.