Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is not gonna be awkward, is it. Oh well, let
Speaker 1: me let our listeners know. This is one of those
Speaker 1: rarety one on one sessions. Actually, often in the group
Speaker 1: chat say that we should do more one on one
Speaker 1: sessions because it allows us to deep dive without having
Speaker 1: five people kind of attack you from each angle. I
Speaker 1: was fighting to get our questions in. So, of course,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, this is quest Love Supreme. I'm your
Speaker 1: host quest Love Shout out to the fam Sugar, Steve
Speaker 1: f On, Tigelo on paid Bill Laya. When people often say,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have any regrets in life, no
Speaker 1: regrets whatsoever, I might have a slight regret, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I would say my slight regret is that it took
Speaker 1: me five decades to reach a point of and I'll
Speaker 1: say this with air quotes enlightenment and even that's questionable
Speaker 1: or it's still same musical enlightenment, no life enlightenment.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: And often dream and fantasize, like what my life would
Speaker 1: have been had the mind state I've reached now in
Speaker 1: my fifth decade of life, Like what would have happened
Speaker 1: to me if I had this power. Well, I've always
Speaker 1: had the power, but I just never turned the light
Speaker 1: on if I had this at say in my early
Speaker 1: thirties or even my early forties. And you know, I
Speaker 1: dream about like how magical my life could have been
Speaker 1: if my self confidence, or my creative process, or my
Speaker 1: spiritual grounding all those things were just the overall philosophy
Speaker 1: of just dealing with things.
Speaker 2: That we deal with every day.
Speaker 1: People pleasing and all those things. Yes, And that's just
Speaker 1: me wondering about, like if I were in my thirties forties,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm giving me honor of talking to
Speaker 1: a human secretly in my mind, I say, Pleadian.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But you know you're of the age I was
Speaker 1: when I first gotten this industry. Like when my first
Speaker 1: album came out, I was twenty three years old, and
Speaker 1: it took me three decades to finally get grounded. Like
Speaker 1: my life is just starting now in my early fifties,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I'm only wondering, like, what will
Speaker 1: your life be like in twenty fifty four when you
Speaker 1: are in your fifties?
Speaker 2: Whatay fifty four doesn't even sound real? That sounds like.
Speaker 1: A I'm gonna tell you something. So when I started
Speaker 1: in ninety two, and maybe because you know, when you're
Speaker 1: when you're a twelve year old and Prince releases his
Speaker 1: fifth album nineteen ninety nine, and you're twelve, just even
Speaker 1: looking at the album covered, nineteen ninety nine seemed like
Speaker 1: the future, like it seemed like, you know whatever, I
Speaker 1: thought this yeah, like and now, you know, I often
Speaker 1: joke that now when I think of nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: I just think of like the matching denim that Justin
Speaker 1: and Britney wore on the MTV Totally Carpet. And so
Speaker 1: now twenty fifty four is you know, that's when you'll
Speaker 1: be in your fifties, and I just wonder, like what
Speaker 1: that's going to be like. I'm absolutely gobsmacked at our
Speaker 1: guest's rapid growth in songwriting and her singing, her song arrangements,
Speaker 1: her musicianship, her abilities to pick the right collaborators, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, her willingness to be vulnerable kind of and
Speaker 1: on a public stage, which is really, really truly hard.
Speaker 1: I think or black people often don't allow emotions or
Speaker 1: feelings into their lives because there's often a penalty, or
Speaker 1: we say that there's a penalty.
Speaker 3: For it, there has been.
Speaker 1: So whenever I see someone even remotely going there to
Speaker 1: do that, because I'm also noticing that if we don't
Speaker 1: allow be it dark emotions or light emotions, if we
Speaker 1: don't allow that stuff to process, then that's the quickest
Speaker 1: way to winding up being an obituary, because you you know,
Speaker 1: you died of whatever trying to escape exactly. And so
Speaker 1: I really applaud that. So our guest today is giving
Speaker 1: me the honor of a conversation and helping her celebrate
Speaker 1: the release of her excellent new album and Pathogen, not
Speaker 1: to mention your new novel, Black Shield Maiden. What can
Speaker 1: I say? I'm talking to Willi Smith Willo, professionally known
Speaker 1: as Willow. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm so good, I'm honored to be here, all right.
Speaker 1: So, for me, album releases are like given birth. Yes,
Speaker 1: And as a person who's been holding on to his
Speaker 1: eighteenth child for ten years now, who you know, Tarika
Speaker 1: and I had a conversation of like, okay, we cannot
Speaker 1: let an eleventh year go by and not release this record. Yes,
Speaker 1: what is the feeling when you let it go into
Speaker 1: the public talk to me about twenty four hours before.
Speaker 1: What's the thoughts in your head?
Speaker 3: The thoughts in my head are, oh, my goodness, I've
Speaker 3: been talking myself up this hill and it's gonna come
Speaker 3: out and no one's gonna think it's special, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be sitting there going oh, shouldn't have trusted myself
Speaker 3: that time. That's the dark end of it.
Speaker 1: Oh see, you thought there's gonna be yet another tree
Speaker 1: that falls in the forest that no one just people shrug.
Speaker 3: I was hoping in the depths of my heart that
Speaker 3: it wasn't going to be, because I really put my
Speaker 3: heart and soul into this and crafted it in a
Speaker 3: way that I felt like it deserved a little bit
Speaker 3: of recognition even But no, those are the dark thoughts
Speaker 3: that go through your mind. But then there's this feeling
Speaker 3: of excitement like, oh my goodness, Like what if it
Speaker 3: really is as special as I really think it is?
Speaker 3: And so those two sides are kind of warring with
Speaker 3: one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna explain to you how I let your
Speaker 1: art into my life because it was the most unlikely.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I've always been aware that you existed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a guy that takes in everything. But I think
Speaker 1: when you take it in everything, you don't sit with it,
Speaker 1: and so it takes a lot for me to sit
Speaker 1: with it past the purchase ate. Yeah, like I'll listen
Speaker 1: to each record and not the obligatory like okay, I'll
Speaker 1: give it a thirty second test, thirty second test next,
Speaker 1: like I'll sit with an album or so. And there's
Speaker 1: some artists that are so amazing that I actually see
Speaker 1: their artwork ad okay. So, of course, to give full
Speaker 1: context totally, we are speaking, let's say a week after
Speaker 1: the what I'm calling the the Unfortunate sparring rounds of
Speaker 1: Drake and Kenchrick Lamar. And of course, you know, hip
Speaker 1: hop is one of those things in which you know
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's almost like prayer. I two and
Speaker 1: more gathered than you know, it's going to be a
Speaker 1: conversation about it. And I told a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I love Kendrick's work, but I
Speaker 1: see kendricks works so almost so overwhelming that I take
Speaker 1: it in like a movie, like I love Raging Bull
Speaker 1: by right, Yeah, I've seen Raging Bull like seven times.
Speaker 1: I've listened to Thriller probably three hundred thousand times, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like with Kendricks them. Yeah, but with Kendrick's work,
Speaker 1: he doesn't release the kind of music that like, I'll
Speaker 1: just put it on the background and you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, no, you gotta listen.
Speaker 1: You gotta look and stare at the speaker. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: especially with this latest round of work, like I found
Speaker 1: myself on YouTube like slowing the pace down to the
Speaker 1: slowest to you know, to to absorb it.
Speaker 2: That's the one thing I love about old school rap.
Speaker 2: You can hear what they're saying.
Speaker 1: Getting old.
Speaker 2: No, No, I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: No, but I feel like your generation is way more
Speaker 1: advanced than my generation, as it should be. It's evolution
Speaker 1: as it should be.
Speaker 3: I'm tempted to be like advancing, like what ways, because
Speaker 3: I would be the one to say that, like you
Speaker 3: being like, let me so slow this down so I
Speaker 3: can listen to it. Like to me, that feels like,
Speaker 3: oh no, we're just getting so fast, fast fast that
Speaker 3: the idea like our minds or like chipmunks, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Like we're getting to where it's like, ah,
Speaker 3: like what are we even saying?
Speaker 1: I was really shocked at how blatant and direct you
Speaker 1: are with your messaging, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like the second you said the word feelings, I stopped
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, black people never talk about feelings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have void feelings at all at all costs. Right.
Speaker 1: And then when you went to the bridge about I
Speaker 1: have big problems and kept repeating it, I was.
Speaker 2: Like, way, I have problems too, Yes.
Speaker 1: Wait is she singing about me?
Speaker 2: Like literally big feelings?
Speaker 3: Is? I used to call it an anti pop song,
Speaker 3: but I legitimately feel like, no, it's actually a pop song.
Speaker 2: Like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So George Clinton once explained the magic of Funkadelic songs
Speaker 1: great examples not just need deep where not just knee
Speaker 1: deep as like a ten minute song on their album
Speaker 1: and which there's about maybe seventeen micro courses totally all courses,
Speaker 1: not versus, and it sticks to you and thus it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well this part, yeah, dale I Soul used that for
Speaker 1: me myself, and Snoop used that for this. But then
Speaker 1: like just the small messaging, it's almost like you get
Speaker 1: to pick which part of the song you like. So
Speaker 1: that to me is the smartest way of even though
Speaker 1: it might be boxed up in what might seem like
Speaker 1: a very complex.
Speaker 3: It's gift wrapped in a very complex wrapping, but it's
Speaker 3: simple exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what means. That also the magic of
Speaker 1: you're doing something I haven't seen since the days of Prince.
Speaker 1: The idea of Prince is that, oh he's just a
Speaker 1: really complex musician. No, no, no, no. He made three
Speaker 1: tier work slightly. He gave something for the athletes and
Speaker 1: the nerds in the back, and he had something that
Speaker 1: even five year olds could follow and somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: So you do that. So what I want to know
Speaker 1: is I have reason to believe that your evolution journey
Speaker 1: starts the day and you know disclosure. Yes, I've read
Speaker 1: your Dad's been more. I read it twice. Wow. And
Speaker 1: so when he talks about the haircut, yeah, and that moment,
Speaker 1: my first thing was like wow, Like, what young teenager
Speaker 1: has that much?
Speaker 2: I wasn't even a teenager yet.
Speaker 1: Well you you were eleven?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like eleven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like wow, that's serious, Like where a person
Speaker 1: has that much conviction to know?
Speaker 2: I just knew in my heart of heart.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not the wh my hair girl,
Speaker 3: Like I am the whit my hair girl, but like
Speaker 3: I'm not, though, and I was so deathly afraid, Like
Speaker 3: in my heart of heart, I was terrified.
Speaker 1: First of all, what was the process of what look
Speaker 1: as a person with his hair?
Speaker 2: Like for me, that's like, no, I feel.
Speaker 1: Like my superpower, but I often wonder like what would
Speaker 1: happened if ireword to like is that a new life
Speaker 1: for me? Because you know Lenny kravit Is.
Speaker 3: I mean, in the Rastafarian tradition, they say that like
Speaker 3: your hair carries like so much energy.
Speaker 2: It is your power.
Speaker 3: But I think that they say it's power so they
Speaker 3: don't cut their hair off.
Speaker 2: They're like, no, We're going to keep it.
Speaker 3: But with your power comes so many years of like
Speaker 3: you have to work for that power, and that power
Speaker 3: comes with pain. That power comes with like a sense
Speaker 3: of like whatever you had to go through to gain
Speaker 3: that power is in your hair.
Speaker 2: And so for me, I was like, I want to
Speaker 2: shed this pain that I've experienced.
Speaker 3: I want to shed this and you know, in my weird,
Speaker 3: like preteen mind, I'm like.
Speaker 2: Also kind of want to piss my parents off a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Did you knew that at eleven?
Speaker 3: I didn't know that at eleven. But my heart was
Speaker 3: like my heart knew that. My mind was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I feel uncomfortable and the only way that I can
Speaker 3: express this uncomfortability is through doing this. But I look
Speaker 3: back and I'm like, no, like I knew I was
Speaker 3: just I was terrified.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I knew I was not this person. I knew I
Speaker 2: was not this person.
Speaker 1: Amazing, So did you know that you were going to
Speaker 1: wind up being this person? I didn't.
Speaker 3: That's that's the part. That's that's the part that's really
Speaker 3: funny to me.
Speaker 2: I really didn't. But I hoped and I prayed, and
Speaker 2: I there.
Speaker 3: I remember I might have been like might've been like
Speaker 3: twelve or thirteen years old, and I remember just breaking
Speaker 3: down into tears one day and being like, am I
Speaker 3: ever gonna be a real musician? Like I know that,
Speaker 3: like I sing songs and stuff, but like I don't
Speaker 3: feel like a real musician, so that must mean that
Speaker 3: I'm not. And I legitimately had a whole moment where
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, like I don't want
Speaker 3: to I don't want to be in this middle ground anymore.
Speaker 3: Like I want to be I want to be a
Speaker 3: real musician and then I started playing the guitar at fourteen,
Speaker 3: which is late to me. That's late, and that was
Speaker 3: me starting my journey of like, no, I'm not just
Speaker 3: a singer a person who just like writes songs sometimes
Speaker 3: like I want to create myself.
Speaker 2: I want to create this journey of musicianship.
Speaker 1: So at fourteen, you had zero knowledge of how to
Speaker 1: handle this.
Speaker 3: If somebody played me on the piano like a major
Speaker 3: third interval, I wouldn't be able to tell them that
Speaker 3: it was a major third interval. So like in my mind,
Speaker 3: I'm like, that's like okay, Like are you really a
Speaker 3: musician or like you just like making songs?
Speaker 1: So we will say that the pandemic started with like
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty. Let's go to like July twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: What's your morning routine? Like the world still stopped? I
Speaker 1: assume that you. I mean, I know my world stopped.
Speaker 1: I assume that even yes, all yeah, world stop? Yes,
Speaker 1: So what's your morning routine? Because it wasn't until my
Speaker 1: guitar player said, yo, man, you follow on a Instagram.
Speaker 2: So your guitar player brought me to you.
Speaker 4: Wow, the top musicians, that's amazing, the top musician.
Speaker 5: He said, Yo, you follow I said, yeah, I think
Speaker 5: I am. He's like dude like her advanced.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. There's a period between two thousand
Speaker 1: and three and like twoy fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel.
Speaker 1: That where I was I rolling every hit, Like there's
Speaker 1: a point where like, Okay, Andre's doing prototype on the
Speaker 1: BT boards with the guitar, not knowing how to play
Speaker 1: a guitar, but it looked cool. And then Wayne came
Speaker 1: on stage and guitar, not guitar, but it looked cool.
Speaker 1: Even jay Z had a moment where he had the headline.
Speaker 1: You know, he had the whole ordeal with Oasis about
Speaker 1: him headlining the thing, and he started his show doing
Speaker 1: a wonderwall with the guitar in his hand, and so
Speaker 1: suddenly I was just like, Okay, now we're just in
Speaker 1: the age where a guitar is an accessory but people
Speaker 1: don't know how to play it.
Speaker 3: But let me tell you something, dope, just real quick
Speaker 3: before you continue.
Speaker 2: The guitar is also a himb a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I feel like you're vibing with the aspect of like
Speaker 3: a lot of people use it performatively, not like, oh.
Speaker 2: I can actually play this instrument.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, like I'm I'm holding a guitar.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 3: But I look at it in the sense of, like,
Speaker 3: underneath all that, people know that the guitar has always
Speaker 3: been a symbol of the culture.
Speaker 2: The guitar has always been.
Speaker 3: A symbol of like I am stepping out and speaking
Speaker 3: on something of the culture, and the guitar has always
Speaker 3: been a driving force of that, you know. And I personally,
Speaker 3: when I see things like that, I'm like, wow, they
Speaker 3: are recognizing and they want to use the guitar as
Speaker 3: a symbol, not necessarily as an instrument, which you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, you know, twenty twenty, I was
Speaker 1: very dark, cynical. I feel that, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: changed now, but back then, so when he said that,
Speaker 1: instantly I was like, all right, well another guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, no, dog, Like I'm serious, yeah, And I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, well, the fact that it was your guitars.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's the thing. And I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: you see in her play. He's like, oh, she's kind
Speaker 1: of killing it. Wow, I said what. And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the algorithms might not have you see a person
Speaker 1: and I went there and I was just like, oh, snap,
Speaker 1: miss this? When did I miss this? And so how
Speaker 1: did that process soup the nuts? Okay?
Speaker 3: So I started playing the guitar at fourteen, and I
Speaker 3: personally was like, oh my goodness. Like I had tried
Speaker 3: to play the piano before, like when I was younger,
Speaker 3: I had tried other instruments and they never really stuck.
Speaker 3: And I've kind of felt like man like, I kind
Speaker 3: of felt a little bit of failure energy, like I
Speaker 3: was like, damn, like I missed it. And so then yeah,
Speaker 3: I missed my office. And then I was like, you
Speaker 3: know what, Willow stop? Get out of that mindset, like
Speaker 3: just just play every day? Just play every day. And
Speaker 3: you know, I went through I had a moment where
Speaker 3: I was doing like classical guitar nylon string like like
Speaker 3: I had a moment where I was doing flamenco guitar.
Speaker 3: I went through a whole bunch of different phases that
Speaker 3: nobody really saw because I was just trying to find it.
Speaker 3: I was like, like, how do I want to play
Speaker 3: the guitar?
Speaker 2: What do I want to do? And you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like, well, let.
Speaker 1: Me ask you when you decided. Okay, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a part of my life, you know, because
Speaker 1: you also have to see something, visualize or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what were you visualizing in terms of like your mastery
Speaker 1: of this thing?
Speaker 3: Back before I ever was like obsessed with jazz or ever,
Speaker 3: like really was like listening to stuff, I would do
Speaker 3: an exercise before I ever had the guitar teacher whatever,
Speaker 3: where I would try to sing. I would sing a
Speaker 3: melody and I would try to play play that melody. Right,
Speaker 3: So I would sing a melody and I would try
Speaker 3: to play it, or I would try to be like
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of a note in my head and I'm
Speaker 3: singing it. Can I play the melody as I'm singing it?
Speaker 3: Can I as I'm singing it? Which you know now
Speaker 3: that I see like, I see a lot of beautiful
Speaker 3: jazz musicians who do like fully improvised things where they're
Speaker 3: just like scatting, but they're following each line with their guitar.
Speaker 3: And even before any of this, that was my idea
Speaker 3: of mastery.
Speaker 2: So I would I sat.
Speaker 3: Down, I was like, huh, trying to sing these things,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to play it, and weirdly enough, it's like
Speaker 3: from that seed, you know, it's you just pick it
Speaker 3: up every day.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 2: I'm honestly like.
Speaker 1: How many hours do they?
Speaker 3: So I want to say, like a year ago, I
Speaker 3: started practicing the most I've ever practiced in my whole life.
Speaker 3: So I would I would wake up in the morning,
Speaker 3: I would do yoga, I would come back home, and
Speaker 3: I would practice for at least three hours, at least
Speaker 3: three hours at least okay, which you know to some
Speaker 3: of my friends are like three hours, Like that's nothing
Speaker 3: for me. I'm like, after the third hour, my mind,
Speaker 3: my mind starts to like I can't. People say, you know,
Speaker 3: you practice smart. Don't practice like you have to practice smart,
Speaker 3: like not just sitting there doing scales. It's like, no,
Speaker 3: let's practice for what we really want to be able
Speaker 3: to do. We want to practice for the music we
Speaker 3: want to be able to create, not just like oh,
Speaker 3: people say I.
Speaker 2: Should play scales, So let me play scales.
Speaker 1: Who do you like practicing too?
Speaker 3: So there's this app it's called I Reel Pro, and
Speaker 3: it has a bunch of stuff from the real book.
Speaker 3: It has like like random like midi recreations of things
Speaker 3: in the real book, right, And so they give you
Speaker 3: all the chords they give you the they give you
Speaker 3: the key or whatever, and I just play that and
Speaker 3: I'll just like play along to these like jazz standards.
Speaker 1: Basically for our listeners out there, there are two kind
Speaker 1: of Bibles in the world of jazz. There's the real
Speaker 1: book and there's also the fake book. I'm part of
Speaker 1: the fake book generation. Yeah, so in general, if you
Speaker 1: are a supper club musician or just in general, you know,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you have to know all the books
Speaker 1: of the Bible and all the verses. So if if
Speaker 1: you are a jazz musician, you have a real book
Speaker 1: on you and basically has all the standards from all
Speaker 1: of me to autumn Leaves to like basically, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the piano version, which is basically just
Speaker 1: chord gang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally, But there's a.
Speaker 1: Real or fake book for guitarist as well.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I'm just going off of the real book,
Speaker 3: like the keys and the different like chord changes, and
Speaker 3: I'm just improvising on the guitar through those changes.
Speaker 1: So you even have to teach yourself how to read.
Speaker 3: So no, so the really cool thing about this app
Speaker 3: is that there's no actual notation. It'll just be like
Speaker 3: D sharp or like it'll give you like this, like
Speaker 3: when it changes. Do you see what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 3: it will actually say like D sharp, like a flat
Speaker 3: all this stuff. And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: a flat. Let me find my let me find my shapes.
Speaker 1: They're playing the chord and you have to fill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to find the lines through the changes,
Speaker 3: like if it's changing keys.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you as an interviewer. I'm asking you
Speaker 1: almost for inspiration, like yeah, oh that's how I should do.
Speaker 3: No, totally totally, like just playing through the changes, and
Speaker 3: I'm not My mind doesn't work in the way of
Speaker 3: like oh like now I'm in this key.
Speaker 2: Now I'm in this key, like i'm my ear.
Speaker 3: I just go off of ear usually, but I've been
Speaker 3: trying to like get that strength of like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I can I know what key this song isn't you
Speaker 3: didn't even have to, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get my ear right. I'm trying to
Speaker 3: get my improvisational skills right, like oh, let's say I
Speaker 3: go and play with questlove and his band one day, right,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be sitting there going, oh guys,
Speaker 3: what cure mean?
Speaker 2: Do you see what I'm saying? I want to be it?
Speaker 3: Yes, I want to be able to be like ah okay,
Speaker 3: I hear that rhythm. I know it's in seven. Ah okay,
Speaker 3: I hear that chord progression, it's going to the five,
Speaker 3: it's going to the four, it's going to the You
Speaker 3: see what I'm saying. So that's what I'm trying right now.
Speaker 3: That's that's what I'm trying to learn how to do.
Speaker 1: I think you did it.
Speaker 3: So there's always you know, there's always more to learn.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you're You're always learning, You're always expanding. What
Speaker 1: is your morning routine?
Speaker 2: So my morning routine when I'm on my when you're.
Speaker 1: On your five version, give me yeah today, I got
Speaker 1: admit this week I've never since the pandemic, I've been
Speaker 1: like rigorous with you know, yeah, the affirmations, breathing. Yes,
Speaker 1: I've let three days go by and I everything cub
Speaker 1: right and then I'm already in my head like a man.
Speaker 1: I didn't do my stretching on my breathing or my affirmations.
Speaker 3: But that's why I had that sciatica bro because I
Speaker 3: usually wake up every morning, I do yoga hot yoga
Speaker 3: for an hour. Okay, so I do hot yoga for
Speaker 3: an hour, then I come back. Then I come back home,
Speaker 3: and if I'm working, I pretty much only get to
Speaker 3: practice like two hours, like if I have to work,
Speaker 3: like if I go to if I go to yoga,
Speaker 3: seven am, okay, get back you.
Speaker 1: Go somewhere to go to yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 3: So seven am, I do my hour, come back home
Speaker 3: by nine, practicing by eleven. I'm like getting ready to
Speaker 3: like leave the house. Okay, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And so then if I have my day, I did
Speaker 3: dada da whatever. I have six animals, so I come
Speaker 3: back home. I'm trying to make I know. I know,
Speaker 3: I have three dogs, three cats, and they like each other.
Speaker 3: They love each other. It's nuts. So I'll go do
Speaker 3: my day. I'll go to my day working and working whatever.
Speaker 2: I come home. Got to take care of the animals.
Speaker 2: It's a whole thing. You see what I'm saying. Hopefully
Speaker 2: I'll be able to get an hour of reading it
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 1: And you swear by this app that.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I swear by this app but I
Speaker 3: would say that it helps to be like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: what it sounds like when the one changes to the five.
Speaker 3: That's what it sounds like when the like instead of
Speaker 3: just seeing it as like mathematics on a page or
Speaker 3: seeing it like a concept, it's like, oh wait, no,
Speaker 3: that's what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So do they guarantee that you will?
Speaker 2: They don't. I just use it as a I just
Speaker 2: use it as a specific tool.
Speaker 3: I don't even think people actually, I think people just
Speaker 3: use it to like, oh, I'm gonna play this song
Speaker 3: at a jazz club later tonight, let me shed to
Speaker 3: it or something.
Speaker 2: I think people just use it like that, explain Okay.
Speaker 3: So I pretty much during Coping Mechanism, So that was
Speaker 3: my last album, I made friends with a really amazing musician.
Speaker 2: His name is Chris Creotti.
Speaker 3: And the way that he was I've always been a
Speaker 3: harmony addict, so like, whenever I start a song, I'm like, oh, harmonies,
Speaker 3: and I just never end.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I need to stop.
Speaker 3: So he had that same thing, but he while he
Speaker 3: was going through it, he was explaining to me, like
Speaker 3: these this this is like the layers of the harmonies.
Speaker 3: Like he was explaining to me music theory from a
Speaker 3: point of view that I had never heard it before.
Speaker 2: Do you see what I'm saying. So from before I
Speaker 2: met him, I was like, Oh, this sounds good. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna layer this. This also sounds good.
Speaker 3: A layer this, I'm not thinking like, oh that's the
Speaker 3: sharp four, that's the major third.
Speaker 1: And how are you? How are you meeting your community?
Speaker 3: So I'm very very grateful, you know. I opened up
Speaker 3: my heart and I was like, please God. I was
Speaker 3: like I had not lost some friendships, but had some
Speaker 3: rocky roads and you know, friends that I had had
Speaker 3: from a young age that I kind of felt like
Speaker 3: we're not really growing together, you know.
Speaker 2: So that was really painful for me.
Speaker 3: And I remember being like, oh, I'm opening my heart
Speaker 3: and I'm like, God, please allow people into my life
Speaker 3: that are going to inspire me and lead me towards
Speaker 3: the person that I actually want to be. So I
Speaker 3: made I was like I'm being intentional with this, and
Speaker 3: I legitimately feel like the universe was like you shed
Speaker 3: some leaves. Here are some people in your life to
Speaker 3: like uplift you a little bit.
Speaker 1: That's my biggest fear.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, why is that your biggest fear?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: See, it's weird to do this episode because usually the
Speaker 1: other four will chime in, and you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of whit me in this shape, but the way that
Speaker 1: I've structured. Okay, so this is what I realized. If
Speaker 1: you don't know much about me, you know, my main
Speaker 1: addiction was working workaholic. And if a person is a workaholic,
Speaker 1: it prevents them from dealing with life or whatever it
Speaker 1: was in the room too busy, and thus, as a result,
Speaker 1: you know, relationships I have might fall apart after a
Speaker 1: year and a half. Are we having kids or not?
Speaker 1: Are we getting married? I gotta work on this project.
Speaker 1: So thus, you know, one at one time during a session,
Speaker 1: I was told to, you know, like, well, name your friends.
Speaker 1: And I named them, and you know, my person was like, well,
Speaker 1: aren't they on your payroll? And I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, like they're my best friends and we
Speaker 1: go to basketball games together whatever. And so then when
Speaker 1: I had to list people who are not on payroll
Speaker 1: who are.
Speaker 2: My friends but you're working with you're with them all
Speaker 2: the time. Like I get that, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get that, Yeah, But then the the other side
Speaker 1: of that coin is that once they leave, Yeah, then
Speaker 1: I have zero contact with them. So so it is
Speaker 1: a professional relationship and you're paying for it. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'll say that for the last two years,
Speaker 1: I've been struggling to find like friends whom I have
Speaker 1: no professional time.
Speaker 3: That's the struggle of my life. That's the struggle of
Speaker 3: a lot of artists' lives that I remember. I used
Speaker 3: to go to my mom and I would cry, and
Speaker 3: I'd be like, am.
Speaker 2: I just too weird?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Am I like? What is like?
Speaker 3: I I've always been so driven, right, and I've always
Speaker 3: had such vision And you're saying like, oh, you're seeing
Speaker 3: it as like a workaholic thing, and it can definitely
Speaker 3: turn into that, and it does turn into that. But
Speaker 3: we're people who have a vision, and we're people who
Speaker 3: really maybe too much care about that vision and making
Speaker 3: it come to fruition, and even so much so that
Speaker 3: we might be like, h this stuff over here. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm intoxicated by the vision. So I get that part
Speaker 3: of it. But I would go to my mom and
Speaker 3: be like and she would always tell me, You're gonna
Speaker 3: find your tribe. You're gonna find your tribe, how.
Speaker 1: Do you avoid the trappings of what people outside of
Speaker 1: your dome or your world would see as an easily
Speaker 1: Like you know, as far as what we know of
Speaker 1: anyone raised anywhere near Hollywood or that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: Like it's almost like a one way ticket to the
Speaker 1: same filtered path.
Speaker 2: To the same unhappiness and disillusion.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing, I don't want to be judgmental
Speaker 1: to say, like, well, obviously that person's unhappy whatever. It's
Speaker 1: like they they are what they are. But like you
Speaker 1: could easily just like okay, and who knows, you might
Speaker 1: come out with a sneaker line one day or whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm out with a sneaker line or go to rehab.
Speaker 2: Who knows the world's my oyster.
Speaker 1: But you know what I'm talking about, Like, for you
Speaker 1: to have not fallen down the same path that I've
Speaker 1: seen everyone your age go down, that's miracle enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's but it almost feels though you didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: had to hit a rock But based on your lyrics also,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, there might have been a rock bottom
Speaker 1: point that we are not.
Speaker 3: Pop who have watched the Red Table talk no things
Speaker 3: right exactly. But but what I will say is we
Speaker 3: all experienced darkness. I've experienced crazy darkness in my life.
Speaker 3: But that darkness has informed, weirdly enough, informed and inspired.
Speaker 2: My like just just like my.
Speaker 3: Love for life in such a weird way, like when
Speaker 3: you really sit in that loneliness and you really sit
Speaker 3: in that like Pemacholdrin this, she's a Buddhist monk. She
Speaker 3: calls it being on the edge of a needle. Like
Speaker 3: you're a beetle on the on the edge of a
Speaker 3: needle and if you move, and you move, you're gonna
Speaker 3: impale yourself. See what I'm saying. You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this this stings. I'm about to die. And then you're like, ah,
Speaker 3: you impel yourself. You know what I'm saying. But if
Speaker 3: you can just be still and that it's gonna it's painful.
Speaker 3: You know, you're on the tip of a needle, But
Speaker 3: if you can be still, you won't impael yourself.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what I've learned about feelings, coming back to
Speaker 1: feelings again is oftentimes when the dark feelings come through,
Speaker 1: what I've learned about emotions is I mean, some people
Speaker 1: say thirty seven emotions, some people say two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty emotions.
Speaker 2: Totally when we.
Speaker 1: Get to those dark places, suddenly this is uncomfortable. What
Speaker 1: makes me happy? Yeah, and let me get to happy.
Speaker 1: Happy is the good feeling I remember happy, But I
Speaker 1: maybe learned two years ago that you even have to
Speaker 1: let dark emotions process. Man, And how do you get
Speaker 1: to that place where you're comfortable? Like weirdly enough, I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm a year into this.
Speaker 3: Self soothing is actually a good thing. Self medicating. You
Speaker 3: see what I'm saying. Self soothing is actually what we're
Speaker 3: all trying to learn. Self soothing is, I personally believe
Speaker 3: one of the important hallmarks of adulthood because you know,
Speaker 3: when we're still and shit, I'm a fucking child, I'm
Speaker 3: talking shit. But when we're still in that mindset of
Speaker 3: like we're born and we need our parents, you see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, And throughout our whole life, we're trying
Speaker 3: to gain our parents attention, their love, you know, because
Speaker 3: deep in our evolutionary biology, deep in our minds and
Speaker 3: our hearts, we are wired we see our parents and
Speaker 3: we go you give me life like you sustain me. Like,
Speaker 3: not just with the laughs and the cuddles, but you
Speaker 3: feed me. Like if I'm not with you, I die,
Speaker 3: you see what I'm saying. And so as life goes on,
Speaker 3: you know, you have a boss, so you have your
Speaker 3: or you have your you know your partner, and you're like, well,
Speaker 3: how am I going to get love from them?
Speaker 2: How am I going to get attention from them? You
Speaker 2: see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And I feel like very few humans ever get to
Speaker 3: the point to where we realize like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: like it's not about me trying to push myself in
Speaker 3: all these different shapes and to stretch myself into all
Speaker 3: these ways so that these people will love me or
Speaker 3: these people will validate me.
Speaker 2: It's about me really just loving them and loving myself.
Speaker 3: But getting to that place, I mean, no one gets
Speaker 3: to that place, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm not at that place.
Speaker 3: I'm talking from a position of reading a million fucking
Speaker 3: self help books and just wishing and hoping every single day,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So for you, it's a daily struggle to you.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: I don't feel so alone now.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: The darkness being choke hold bro, like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm working on a project right now. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: the story of sly Stone. Here's the thing, though, sly
Speaker 1: Stone is, in my opinion, the first post civil rights figure,
Speaker 1: which basically means that his level of celebrity is slightly
Speaker 1: different than say, Ray Charles Totally, Chuck Berry or James Brown.
Speaker 1: Whereas like, Okay, you're famous in the fifties, Yeah, James
Speaker 1: Brown cannot eat in the same supper club that he
Speaker 1: can perform. You know, that's really yeah, And it's not like, Okay,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight everything was right with the world.
Speaker 2: We still definitely not every day.
Speaker 1: However, sly is the first Black celebrity of his caliber
Speaker 1: that kind of gets draped in a kind of zero fox.
Speaker 1: Given level of celebrity, basically gets what we think we want,
Speaker 1: you know, when we think of what a celebrity, what
Speaker 1: is being famous, what's being rich? What's being popular? Like,
Speaker 1: he gets the dream and depending on who you ask,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like I'm wondering if I wound up
Speaker 1: doing this documentary for me instead of a sly depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask. When it comes to his fifth album,
Speaker 1: he'll release an album, there's a ride going on in
Speaker 1: which I'm still sticking no matter what he says or
Speaker 1: anyone is camp or any of the expert as I interviewed,
Speaker 1: I still feel as though there's a riote going on.
Speaker 1: Is one of the most painful forty one minutes to
Speaker 1: listen to you, because whereas you're very transparent in all
Speaker 1: your work and you're not just this album totally, but
Speaker 1: there's a level of pain and vulnerability there that I
Speaker 1: think people are generally blinded by, simply because on the
Speaker 1: other side of that coin, he's such a genius. Like
Speaker 1: essentially Riot, in my opinion, is his twenty seven club entry,
Speaker 1: even though.
Speaker 3: He's still okay, yeah, no, I feel you.
Speaker 1: It's someone falling on their sword and it's a self
Speaker 1: sabotagement totally. So essentially, I have a theory that black
Speaker 1: success is just as traumatic as failure, because there's often
Speaker 1: times and which when something really good happens to me,
Speaker 1: suddenly I feel guilty about it because I start thinking
Speaker 1: about all the other people who are going to alienate,
Speaker 1: who won't talk to you anymore because like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: too important to talk to me, or it's more isolated loneliness.
Speaker 1: Culturally speaking, you're you're always feeling like, WHOA am I
Speaker 1: doing too much? Am I selling out? Missing my connection
Speaker 1: with where I started? And what I started to notice was,
Speaker 1: you know, because people would often ask me about like
Speaker 1: my modern piers now totally, Why does blah blah blah
Speaker 1: wait ten years between records? Why does da data I
Speaker 1: always show up late? Why does da da I always
Speaker 1: get go to jail? Why is why is everyone dying
Speaker 1: before sixty? Why? Like, why do we start addictions and
Speaker 1: all these things? How do you deal with especially now
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming that you've had an outpouring love out
Speaker 1: the Gate we didn't even talk about with my hair,
Speaker 1: like the fact that out the Gate you got this love,
Speaker 1: But I almost feel like the love you're getting now
Speaker 1: for this record, which is why you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: telling you like, I'm so like, I'm only telling you
Speaker 1: like three percent of the excitement I feel about this
Speaker 1: record totally, because what I don't want to do is
Speaker 1: make it so overwhelming that now when you start to
Speaker 1: go to another direction during your head about well, damn,
Speaker 1: people really loved me when I.
Speaker 3: Was I had that experience with coping mechanism, like I
Speaker 3: felt the energy of like people being like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: people love you doing rock music.
Speaker 2: People love you in this area.
Speaker 3: And I did have a moment where I was like, well,
Speaker 3: do I just make another rock album because it seems
Speaker 3: like people really like that.
Speaker 2: But in my heart of hearts, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm just super connected with my gut feeling, and my
Speaker 3: gut feeling has led me through my entire life, and
Speaker 3: I hope that I can stay connected enough to it
Speaker 3: for it to lead me till I'm no longer here.
Speaker 3: But my gut feeling was just like, you can't make
Speaker 3: another rock album, bro, Like you just can't do it.
Speaker 1: Like do you feel like you're speed dating to find
Speaker 1: like what's my fit? Or no, who knows what you'll feel.
Speaker 3: I think that I have been experimenting with so many
Speaker 3: different kinds of music and gaining so many different tools.
Speaker 3: To continue to make so many different kinds of music
Speaker 3: and continue to gain so many different tools. I think
Speaker 3: my favorite musicians are the ones who do whatever the
Speaker 3: fuck they want and who do it well, right with
Speaker 3: like a scalpel, Like, do whatever the fuck you want,
Speaker 3: but do it with like the most trained scalpel in
Speaker 3: the world, and that's what I'm going for.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm going for.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna try a new twist on an old question, please, Okay,
Speaker 1: House on Fire? Okay, all right, Well you live in
Speaker 1: LA anyway.
Speaker 2: So I know, so that's pretty uh think about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you've saved your menagerie. Yes, you can only
Speaker 1: save five records from your collection. I'm gonna ask twenty
Speaker 1: three you that question, and then i'm gonna ask thirteen
Speaker 1: year old you that question as well. So twenty three
Speaker 1: years old, which five albums are you saving from your
Speaker 1: record collection? Okay?
Speaker 2: Purple Rain that's gonna be that's gonna be.
Speaker 3: That's Prince Record, that's gonna be number I'm sorry, that's
Speaker 3: gonna be number one for me. Or Sign of the
Speaker 3: Times Okay, okay, no, no, okay, okay, I mean okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna put both of them in there.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put Purple Rain and Sign of the Times
Speaker 3: in there, So that's there's two in there. Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put DiAngelo. I'm gonna put DiAngelo in there. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put U.
Speaker 1: Which one in there?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pu Voodoo in there. Okay, I'm gonna put
Speaker 2: DiAngelo Voodoo.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put im gonna put Goldfrap Felt Mountain Word.
Speaker 1: Okay, how is that four?
Speaker 2: Already?
Speaker 3: Four?
Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna put that one high is Coyote album?
Speaker 2: Oh Mood Mood Valiant.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the one. That's the one Mood Valiant. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's my twenty three year.
Speaker 2: Old okay one?
Speaker 1: Oh man, thirteen, Well, I feel like you were even
Speaker 1: musically advanced at thirteen, so I might push this back
Speaker 1: to like nine.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, nine come on.
Speaker 1: Man, we all have those records.
Speaker 3: I used to really love this artist named Lanka Lanka.
Speaker 3: She was really cool. She had she had a she
Speaker 3: had a song. Weirdly enough, I think the song was
Speaker 3: called like a song. Ha weird, Yeah, Lanka Lanka. The
Speaker 3: song was literally called like a song, which is so weird.
Speaker 3: Uh so we have Lanka uh imagen. I mean.
Speaker 2: I actually didn't get into image heap until much later.
Speaker 3: Hold on nine nine, man, When I was nine, I
Speaker 3: was listening to some Lady Gaga.
Speaker 2: Bro, I can't even nine dude, Lady show. You know,
Speaker 2: you know, I was listening to some Lady Got nine Lanka.
Speaker 3: At this time, I also was getting into a ballet,
Speaker 3: so I was like, I was listening to a lot
Speaker 3: of classical music during this time as well. So when
Speaker 3: you're when you're practicing ballet, that's all you listen to
Speaker 3: is classical music. Wow.
Speaker 2: Nine nine nine. I wish I could look at Can
Speaker 2: I look at my phone?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, because I'm like, I still have music.
Speaker 3: On my phone from when I was nine.
Speaker 1: You can't throw away your history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like music on my phone from when I was nine.
Speaker 2: That's nuts. Oh wait, my mom got me into the
Speaker 2: Cocktail Twins.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mom got me into the cock Yes, I
Speaker 3: love that song. My mom got me into the Yes,
Speaker 3: my mom loves the Cocktail Twins.
Speaker 2: Yeah she got me. Yeah, she got me.
Speaker 3: My mom actually gave me, like my my musical taste
Speaker 3: from like nine to like fifteen's like all my mom, honestly,
Speaker 3: which's kind of insaying, you know what's weird? Right, And
Speaker 3: this is very controversial, but I'm going to say it anyway.
Speaker 1: Hit me.
Speaker 2: Eminem was like one of my favorite musicians when I
Speaker 2: was like nine.
Speaker 1: It's not controversial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I loved like I literally had like my heart
Speaker 3: like I was like, she's special.
Speaker 2: Like nine years old. I'm like, this guy's special. I
Speaker 2: don't know how many that was.
Speaker 1: He kind of went over it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went over it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, all right, So I see. Wait, I never
Speaker 1: told you how I wound up discovering you by accident.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know I work at thirty Rocks. Now I've been
Speaker 1: there for sixteen years.
Speaker 2: Wow, So that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and nine, I still felt like
Speaker 1: I was a part of the fabric of the world,
Speaker 1: not like whatever I'm supposed to be now, like the
Speaker 1: getting stages of the Sage Elder, like I don't want
Speaker 1: to be that guy, but.
Speaker 3: You are.
Speaker 1: Thank you. But you know, there was a time period
Speaker 1: where I started getting fatigue, and I have two occupations
Speaker 1: that don't allow that. Being at the Tonight Show, I'm
Speaker 1: always asked, hey, maybe what do you think about what
Speaker 1: do you think about dirty projectors? Hey what do you
Speaker 1: think about? Right? And so it keeps you sharp. And
Speaker 1: then as a DJ, now, yes, there's sometimes where I
Speaker 1: put myself in positions of which I'm allowed to play
Speaker 1: what I feel. But then there's the ones in the
Speaker 1: blue moon time where I actually have to like catch
Speaker 1: up to society. I got to play the role. And
Speaker 1: the thing is is that oftentimes my interns and even now,
Speaker 1: like my people that work with me, now you know,
Speaker 1: they're in their twenties their thirties, so they keep me
Speaker 1: sharp as into who's who and what's what. And so
Speaker 1: I think this is right When Olivia Rodrigo was starting
Speaker 1: to pop and I heard one song and my old
Speaker 1: guy grumpy cynical stance wasn't there. Yeah, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that song's not bad totally. And then one of the
Speaker 1: interns is like, well, yeah, because the producer she works
Speaker 1: with is like kind of your age. Like, I heard
Speaker 1: a lot of reference.
Speaker 4: Like references, and I was like, oh, okay, so that's
Speaker 4: why her music sounds like it sounded wise in I
Speaker 4: was like, there's no way that someone in her.
Speaker 1: Age knows references totally. So I get home and I
Speaker 1: put my speaker on. I was like, all right, let
Speaker 1: me see what else she has in her catalog that
Speaker 1: I might gravitate towards. So I was listening, listening, listening, listening,
Speaker 1: and I'm the kind of person that when I'm still
Speaker 1: no matter what, Yeah, really instantly asleep. The thing is
Speaker 1: the music's blasting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I was sitting there on my and at
Speaker 1: five o nine a m. I heard something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said, damn, Olive is kind of incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. And but the thing was, I was such,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is beyond the alpha and the beta
Speaker 1: state of sleep, Like sometimes I actually have the ability
Speaker 1: to sleep and over my eyes will still be asleep total,
Speaker 1: like occasionally, like my eyes will open but I can't move.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe it, like I'm still asleep,
Speaker 1: but somehow my eyes are are active totally. And I
Speaker 1: realized that I was sleeping on top of my iPhone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I felt the heat thing in the back, but
Speaker 1: it was such a deep sleep that I couldn't move
Speaker 1: it totally. So I fell asleep again. And then at
Speaker 1: around like maybe six thirty seven am, another song came on.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, And this time I got up.
Speaker 1: I looked that Willow Smith. Yeah, wait a minute. I
Speaker 1: got up at maybe the eight in the morning, totally
Speaker 1: entirely in the gym. I went through your whole catalog,
Speaker 1: like yo. And this leads back to the whole friend thing.
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, how come no one put me
Speaker 1: onto this?
Speaker 2: Totally like what the fuck?
Speaker 1: And then I called Kirk. I said, dude, you remember
Speaker 1: what you.
Speaker 2: Told me about Willow? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I said she was alwayshidding like this and girl was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I was trying to tell you.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, how came you? I said, wait, Kurt,
Speaker 1: how you know about this? And curts like a mirror.
Speaker 1: I got kids, My kids put me on the I
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, I get mad when something's so
Speaker 1: dope and no one puts me onto it.
Speaker 2: I feel you, I feel you. You're like, where have
Speaker 2: I been?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And literally it's like I was aware, but I never
Speaker 1: but not really, I've never deep that. Like, to me,
Speaker 1: a mark of a true artist is when they're filler total,
Speaker 1: not the songs. You know, this is beyond, this is
Speaker 1: not Wait a minute. Came on Olivia Radio like they
Speaker 1: I know you say your anti technology. So when you're
Speaker 1: on when you're on Spotify, when an album is done,
Speaker 1: then they'll automatically put you on whatever artists you chose
Speaker 1: their radio stage, of which then they'll start playing their music,
Speaker 1: maybe two of their songs. Yeah, someone that's adjacent to
Speaker 1: but then they run out of that and whoever the
Speaker 1: next artist is under her total. So then apparently in
Speaker 1: my sleep, I just heard two hours of your music.
Speaker 1: Totally sorry, Olivia, Look, I thought you had those amazing
Speaker 1: coret changes, but it wasn't.
Speaker 6: So we love everyone right, right, And so I've spent
Speaker 6: like maybe four days just like asking people, like I.
Speaker 1: Went to our bookers totally how come this is not
Speaker 1: on the show? Literally, I just went on a mission
Speaker 1: and that's how I was able to discovery.
Speaker 2: I love that, like, I love that so much.
Speaker 1: So for you, what is because I know that this
Speaker 1: level of magic that's happening for you right now, it's new,
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's a result of a manifestation.
Speaker 1: Ask for something.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it is. It's a result of manifestation. And
Speaker 2: just just not me, just no giving up, dude.
Speaker 3: Just like I put out albums and you know, my
Speaker 3: second album it was like orchestral.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of like like cellos and stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was the first album that I actually
Speaker 3: played guitar on.
Speaker 2: This is the first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the.
Speaker 3: Titles, Yeah, I know I wanted it. I want I'm
Speaker 3: not even to go into that. I'm just I'm just
Speaker 3: a fucking weirdo. But so that was the first album
Speaker 3: I actually played guitar on, and yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 3: Like I just feel like every time I've been challenging myself,
Speaker 3: challenging myself, challenging myself, and I make it a point
Speaker 3: like every album, I want to be able to do
Speaker 3: something I never was able to do before.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like, you know, my sixth.
Speaker 3: Album, I'm like, I just grew up a little bit, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, my tools have kind of I know where
Speaker 3: they are. I know I have a little bit of
Speaker 3: a more of a mind to know how to use them.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Just getting acquainted with the
Speaker 3: tools that I've been that I've been just trying to gather.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: All your collaborators from from dev to Tyler to on,
Speaker 1: how do you choose them? And like, what's the process
Speaker 1: at the top of a project when you're creating this stuff.
Speaker 3: I never go before I make an album like, oh
Speaker 3: I want these people on it. I always have to
Speaker 3: make Jack Antonov said something really really insightful. He said,
Speaker 3: whenever you're making an album, there's always that song that's
Speaker 3: the door into your album. It's like, think of your
Speaker 3: album as a house and you want to bring people inside.
Speaker 3: Like what song is that open door bringing people inside
Speaker 3: of this house that is your album? And I never
Speaker 3: like to think about features until I have that song
Speaker 3: that is like, this is the entryway into Empathogen, This
Speaker 3: is the entryway into coping mechanism. And once I have
Speaker 3: that song, then I'm like who embodies? Like who embodies
Speaker 3: the feeling at this entrance? Okay, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like who embodies? That's why having Jon Baptiste on the
Speaker 3: first song of Empathogen, He's like.
Speaker 6: Ah, I love everything, and the first voice on the
Speaker 6: record literally of everything.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, do you know how amazing an
Speaker 1: honor it is for you to be the first voice
Speaker 1: of what I feel is her arrival to the life place,
Speaker 1: Like of all the honor that he's gotten in the
Speaker 1: last I know, like, forget his oscars, forget all that,
Speaker 1: the fact that he gets to red carpet and be
Speaker 1: the first voice of your new.
Speaker 3: Arrival and that's him being himself, like him, I love everything,
Speaker 3: Like that's so him, Yes, And I felt like, oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, Like what a perfect entry way into this
Speaker 3: house that I have created.
Speaker 1: How do you decide, because even with your album titles,
Speaker 1: does it come first or does it come last? Because
Speaker 1: like I decide what the overall theme is. As far
Speaker 1: as your album.
Speaker 2: Titles, there's usually a theme.
Speaker 3: Like for my first album, Artipithecius, that's the scientific artist,
Speaker 3: Like Artipithecus ramatist is like the scientific word for the
Speaker 3: first hominid bones that scientists found that were standing upright.
Speaker 2: And so for me.
Speaker 3: Nerds, I know that's what it's screams.
Speaker 2: It just screams a nerd because I am a nerd.
Speaker 3: But in my head, I was like, the title always
Speaker 3: comes first, And in my head, I was like, this
Speaker 3: is my first album, It's going to be a part
Speaker 3: of an evolution.
Speaker 2: Like I saw.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is the first step on my
Speaker 3: evolution as a musician. And Artipithecus Ramitist being like, it's
Speaker 3: not quite human yet, you know what I'm saying, But
Speaker 3: we're we're what we're almost you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: We're almost We're katting there, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And so each album I am like, Okay, I know
Speaker 3: the feeling in my heart that I want this to
Speaker 3: express and what this means to me, like coping mechanism.
Speaker 2: I was so pressed through the entire recording of that album.
Speaker 3: I would like all the escapisms I was trying to escape,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But yet you let us in when you're that vulnerable.
Speaker 1: How hard is that? Because a lot of the artists
Speaker 1: I know hide and plain sight totally the first time
Speaker 1: I ever heard of this term. Bary Gordy was the
Speaker 1: only one not impressed with Marvin Gaye's mastery of multiple tracking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you know the story of
Speaker 1: Got to Give It Up, but he actually made a
Speaker 1: bet with Marvin Gaye. He says, look, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a one hundred thousand dollars check if you can give
Speaker 1: me one song when you're not trying to hide behind
Speaker 1: all your background vocals and you just sing one lead
Speaker 1: and has to be clear or is that we know?
Speaker 2: Totally?
Speaker 1: He said, if you could do that for five minutes
Speaker 1: and that song goes to number one, I'll give you
Speaker 1: this hundred thousand dollars check. So Marvin Gaye did Got
Speaker 1: to Give It Up? Wow, And sure enough, like right
Speaker 1: after the five minute mark, suddenly all.
Speaker 2: The yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: But when I went back to listen, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay hides and plain sight where he's hide and
Speaker 1: behind all of his background vocals and totally you can't
Speaker 1: make it out and what's he's saying and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: because you're very clear on your intentions and on sharing
Speaker 1: what you go through. Like, what was the decision to
Speaker 1: be that honest?
Speaker 2: I never really thought there was any other way.
Speaker 3: I feel like being a kid and being like, ugh,
Speaker 3: like I don't want to be the kind of like
Speaker 3: I don't want to be a pop star. I don't
Speaker 3: want to I don't want to have people pitching me
Speaker 3: songs and writing me songs and have other people producing
Speaker 3: them and then I just show up and da like
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that. That whole realization was
Speaker 3: a part of me being like this is not this
Speaker 3: is not vulnerable. I'm trying to get to the most
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get to the top of that vulnerability hill,
Speaker 3: you see what I'm saying. So that whole thing for me,
Speaker 3: me going away from that way of doing things was
Speaker 3: also me searching for a way to be more vulnerable,
Speaker 3: and I've never really gotten off that path. I just
Speaker 3: knew that the artists that I love, the artists that
Speaker 3: make me feel like life is worth living, they don't
Speaker 3: hold anything back and they really tell you how it is.
Speaker 3: And I've always wanted to be one of those artists.
Speaker 3: I never that was never an option in my mind
Speaker 3: to like play it safe.
Speaker 1: Did you fear that we wouldn't receive it?
Speaker 3: Because it has not been received? Many times it hasn't
Speaker 3: been received. Well, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You wait time out, you read your press or you
Speaker 1: read your whatever reviews.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: But when you're on social media and you just put
Speaker 3: out an album or people are talking or whatever, and
Speaker 3: you just get a vibe from your peers, you get
Speaker 3: a vibe from you know what I'm saying. And there
Speaker 3: have been many times where IM like a that just
Speaker 3: didn't hit, Like that's okay, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like that one didn't quite land, you know, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: What is your biggest fear in life?
Speaker 2: Not reaching my potential?
Speaker 1: Do you visualize what your potential is?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 1: What is your dream?
Speaker 2: Then that's a big right.
Speaker 1: Now you can share it. Nothing's too silly, Nothing silly?
Speaker 2: What is my dream. I want to be like a shaman.
Speaker 3: Who brings people closer to themselves, but I want to
Speaker 3: be a shaman through music. Yes, you see what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: like the interconnectedness, like the science and also the spiritual
Speaker 3: aspect of it, and have it integrate completely.
Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna give me the nerd alert
Speaker 2: nerd alert, but it's true because I am a nerd.
Speaker 1: But I also yeah, like since and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show, like yeah, but before twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: I was hide and play sight, running from my shadow,
Speaker 1: raised in a very strict religious like anything outside of
Speaker 1: like my next project, I can't announce it yet, but
Speaker 1: we started. My next project is going to deal a
Speaker 1: lot with metaphysical living yea. And my goal is, if
Speaker 1: I have a dream, my dream is to pry people
Speaker 1: away from what they've been taught totally in terms of
Speaker 1: spirituality the R word, yeah, and letting go of the
Speaker 1: R word and letting more metaphysical spirituality.
Speaker 2: And that is so beautiful, which.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a lofty goal, but it's it's going
Speaker 1: to be hard because if you know us, you know
Speaker 1: that safety, safety is our homeboy, and rather like you
Speaker 1: know that idea of what we related, you know, raised
Speaker 1: it as far as religion is concerned. Is that so? Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, no, No, expanding the scope of what it means
Speaker 3: to be a black person, like you know, what it
Speaker 3: means to be a black person connected to God? You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, That whole aspect is like, there's
Speaker 3: so much room.
Speaker 2: To expand that. Yes, there's so much room to expand that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I did my first journey, like I mean twenty seventeen. Wow,
Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, I want to be a
Speaker 1: shaman totally. But it's also like, well, I gotta be
Speaker 1: this guy too, So how do I work my way
Speaker 1: into that? So I'm glad you said that. I'm at
Speaker 1: least with you. I'm like, okay, I'm not crazy. No,
Speaker 1: being a shaman.
Speaker 2: No, being a shaman is like being a monk or
Speaker 2: a shaman. That's what I always say, being a shaman.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's okay. You say you were anti technology.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't say anti technology.
Speaker 1: I would say television, I do what do you binge?
Speaker 2: What do I binge? I really love that one show
Speaker 2: Blown Away where they blow glass.
Speaker 1: That's all they do, that's all they do.
Speaker 3: They blow glass and they like make these insane glass sculptures.
Speaker 1: Okay, where where do I find.
Speaker 2: This in Netflix?
Speaker 1: Okay? Blown away?
Speaker 2: Blown away?
Speaker 1: Say like the guy a channel or something like that.
Speaker 3: No, it's like it's super artistic. But I wouldn't say.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I mean blowing or is it? No?
Speaker 3: People just go in their artists and they blow glass
Speaker 3: and they and they compete.
Speaker 2: Wow, Like what's yeah, it's called blown away?
Speaker 1: See the business guy means also like trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what that pitch meaning was, like literally like okay,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. It's beautiful, you're going to do glass
Speaker 1: towards all right? Blow away?
Speaker 2: No, it's flying?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: What is your all time favorite cereal? Question? Really?
Speaker 3: I me and my brothers would down some cinnamon toast
Speaker 3: crunch back in the day.
Speaker 2: I love Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, as a person that's always displayed her talents
Speaker 1: on our social media, I think there's anything left. What
Speaker 1: secret talent do you have that we don't know about?
Speaker 2: Listening?
Speaker 1: That's a talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some people don't do it well.
Speaker 2: Most people don't do it well.
Speaker 1: Facts. Okay, what is your go to order at Starbucks?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, hibiscus the ice hibiscus something tea, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm new to I'm new to Starbucks World. I've avoided
Speaker 1: tea and coffee for the longest point.
Speaker 2: I feel you as of lately I've been it's just
Speaker 2: so sugary.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, what is the one conception of you that
Speaker 1: most of us get wrong that you would like to correct.
Speaker 3: That I am somehow exempt from feeling deeply because I
Speaker 3: have privilege.
Speaker 1: That's real, that's real. That's another part of this sli thing,
Speaker 1: like we often think that once you get to safety,
Speaker 1: oh there's money, that's actually.
Speaker 2: When the problems start totally.
Speaker 1: That's when again I don't know what the one to
Speaker 1: ten level of what your reaction was to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, I went through like maybe three weeks of
Speaker 1: like balled up in the corner fetal positions level panic
Speaker 1: and then you know, that's when suddenly I get you know,
Speaker 1: a mere you need to learn what meditation is and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So there was a period even though, yes,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty was somewhat of a horrible year because also
Speaker 1: on my side of the fence, like the amount of
Speaker 1: people all lost, Yeah, a lot of a mount of
Speaker 1: people in the hospital, like you know, I mean, can
Speaker 1: you help us out with dada da? So, like just
Speaker 1: the weight of my world.
Speaker 2: A community trying to try.
Speaker 1: To it was hard. But I think for the first
Speaker 1: time of this year, I started like looking at twenty
Speaker 1: twenty like the good old days, which I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, like how is that happening?
Speaker 1: So like now that we're in twenty twenty four, like
Speaker 1: how do you look at twenty twenty, Like was it
Speaker 1: the good old days? Or was it like.
Speaker 2: Never again?
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty was dark, okay, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Two, it was dark, okay.
Speaker 3: But I will say the thing that really kept me present.
Speaker 3: This is gonna sound weird, but if I didn't have
Speaker 3: so many animals, I probably would have been way more
Speaker 3: dis associated and not grounded in reality because you got
Speaker 3: six animals looking at you like I need this, I
Speaker 3: need this, I need.
Speaker 2: This all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so that kept me always so in the
Speaker 3: present moment.
Speaker 1: Are the dogs the same breed at least?
Speaker 2: No, they're all different. One's one's this big, one's like
Speaker 2: it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Jackie Barland, Tito, Michael Randy and.
Speaker 2: Were putting them to work. So the cats are Lola, Tubs.
Speaker 1: And Aria okay.
Speaker 3: And the dogs are Abby, Corn and Rocky. And Rocky's
Speaker 3: the big one, the big german shepherd. Abby and Corn
Speaker 3: are Tainy okay.
Speaker 1: Last three questions, When is the last time you cried?
Speaker 2: Huh A little bit this morning?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I cry every day.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I cry every day, damn.
Speaker 1: One of my biggest shames was like, doing one therapy session,
Speaker 1: they asked like, when's the last time you cried? I
Speaker 1: was like this decade?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: Really and they were like whoa.
Speaker 1: They were like, you basically said that you haven't taken
Speaker 1: a piss in a decade. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you know, maybe five years
Speaker 1: ago in my boy's funeral, I think I cried.
Speaker 2: It's so good for.
Speaker 1: Three twenty three, twenty twenty. Wow, that's amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish I had that.
Speaker 2: That hyper emotion emotion out sometimes.
Speaker 1: I see, no, I gotta get to your life. I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta do that. At least your emotions are moving.
Speaker 2: We got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, what's your favorite word?
Speaker 2: Recently? I've been saying voracious a.
Speaker 1: Lot okay for future scrabble game.
Speaker 3: Gracious, No, Like, I just love like like I'm a
Speaker 3: voracious reader, like I love like. It's like you're so
Speaker 3: in like you're so into it, you're so like consumed
Speaker 3: by it.
Speaker 1: Last question, you're in your seventies, you have the luxury
Speaker 1: to retire, and let's just say the earth is still here.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I hope so yeah. Flip a coin.
Speaker 6: Yeah, where are.
Speaker 1: The three cities that if you did not have to
Speaker 1: work a day in your life ever again, would you
Speaker 1: just want to be in exist with three cities?
Speaker 3: I feel like I'd be down to pass away, live
Speaker 3: the rest of my days in like Oregon or Portland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know about Portland.
Speaker 3: I love Portland like I love Oregon, Like I literally
Speaker 3: road trip down there all the time, just just like
Speaker 3: for nothing or India.
Speaker 1: Talk Portland. Until the kind of fuckery of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: that happened, Portland was my number one city ever more
Speaker 1: use record Store totally. The Food Truck game was good,
Speaker 1: bro wow. I thought it was the only one that
Speaker 1: rode like. Portland and Austin were always like my team.
Speaker 2: The vibe is just so there, Like I don't know, look.
Speaker 1: I cannot say this enough. I've been as a guy
Speaker 1: who's been constantly grumpy of like just dealing with well, no,
Speaker 1: not dealing with life, as this is a person who's
Speaker 1: married to music, like I've been in show business like
Speaker 1: since the age of five. Yeah, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: a point where suddenly I didn't like music anymore, and
Speaker 1: then I became indifferent, and then I just had no
Speaker 1: hope for the future whatsoever. I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for just allowing yourself the space to be this artist
Speaker 1: like I needed to see it, you know, because sometimes
Speaker 1: we often feel like we're a loaned and I was
Speaker 1: looking ahead for a leader, and you know, maybe I
Speaker 1: had to realize that. Well, you ever think that one
Speaker 1: day that a black woman three decades your your your junior,
Speaker 1: might be the leader that you're looking for. And I'm
Speaker 1: just and I don't think it's by accident of discovering
Speaker 1: your music and all those things. Like, I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for allowing yourself the space to grow. And
Speaker 1: I know that if other people see it, it makes
Speaker 1: them feel that they can do it too. Yes, and
Speaker 1: maybe this is the paradigm shift I've been hoping for.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna make cry yes.
Speaker 1: On, behalf on, behalf of my q ols fam. Shout
Speaker 1: out to Chick, Stephen and Bill and and Uhlayah, Fontigelow,
Speaker 1: Jake and Fritt. Thank you very much, Willis Smith. This
Speaker 1: was an overdue conversation. Oh come on now, tell me
Speaker 1: a joke. All right, end on this, tell me a joke.
Speaker 2: I can't. I'm just a thank you so much for this.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, you're welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. All right, goodbye people. Wow, that
Speaker 1: was awesome.
Speaker 2: That was amazing.
Speaker 7: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast
Speaker 7: is hosted by a Mere Quest Love, Thompson, Liyah Saint Clair,
Speaker 7: Fonte Coleman Sugar, Steve Mandell, and myself unpaid Bill Shir.
Speaker 1: The executive producers.
Speaker 7: Are Meir just walked into the goddamn room, Thompson, Sean
Speaker 7: g and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittany Benjamin, Jake Payne
Speaker 7: and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conroy I Know
Speaker 7: Alex Conwen. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts Wherever you listen to your favorite shows,