Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey there, it's justin Richmond. We're revisiting an episode
Speaker 1: we recently put out with Jenell Money to celebrate World
Speaker 1: Happiness Day. We're part of the Pushkin network. In one
Speaker 1: of my colleagues, Laurie Santos, who hosts the Happiness Lab podcast,
Speaker 1: ask me to share an episode that makes me happy,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, nothing made me happier than this
Speaker 1: episode with Jenell mone and Nate Wonder. So to celebrate
Speaker 1: World Happiness Day and the World Happiness Report that the
Speaker 1: UE puts out every March, and in honor of my
Speaker 1: colleague Laurie Santos from the Happiness Lab, have fun. Were
Speaker 1: listening to this conversation I have with Janelle Monee and
Speaker 1: Nate Wonder. Also, we'll be putting an episode of the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab in this broken record feed shortly, so stay
Speaker 1: tuned for that. This is broken record liner notes for
Speaker 1: the Digital Age just Mission. Here's my conversation with Nate
Speaker 1: Wonder and Janelle Monae. Happy birthday, Thank you Rammy nomination. Yes,
Speaker 1: Album of the Years. Yeah, it's like two in a row.
Speaker 2: Now, I know that's a big deal.
Speaker 3: I know it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: I'm still just so humble, very big, not just progressive
Speaker 1: R and B album, but like album of the year,
Speaker 1: Like that's some crazy, that's wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I watched a lot of my heroes get it
Speaker 3: and be on that stage, and like it's it's really
Speaker 3: a dream to be able to not just shine light
Speaker 3: on the work that I do, but you know, Nate's
Speaker 3: here as well. He worked heavily on the music and
Speaker 3: production and writing with me and everybody else who you
Speaker 3: know was a part of the album. They get recognized too.
Speaker 3: So that's the beautiful thing about being in that category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah, I wanted to ask about the
Speaker 1: collaborative since I have the pleasure of both of you guys,
Speaker 1: which is it feels special to me, So I was
Speaker 1: I was curious about how you guys collaborate on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys been working together alone time.
Speaker 3: First of all, every project, every album since my EPs
Speaker 3: where I was selling them out of the trunk of
Speaker 3: my car in Atlanta. We've been able to have, you know,
Speaker 3: a creative bond and just like evolution together and it's
Speaker 3: just been really a fun ride. Lots of fun things
Speaker 3: happen in the studio. It feels like family. It feels intentional.
Speaker 3: It's magical.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Where were you both at when you guys first.
Speaker 4: Met in Atlanta? We met at Morehouse Janelle was she
Speaker 4: was living like in the.
Speaker 3: Area Parsons Street. Yeah, boarding house next to Club Woody
Speaker 3: in the AUC Club.
Speaker 2: Woody is the name of the library.
Speaker 4: Okay, you go there though, because it's in the middle
Speaker 4: of all three campuses.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a club.
Speaker 1: You never know in Atlanta what that could.
Speaker 4: Bet It's actually actually the university library. And she would
Speaker 4: throw shows on the steps. And I was just out
Speaker 4: of college. I had lost my scholarship in my junior
Speaker 4: year of college because I was writing music. And so
Speaker 4: after I graduated, like I could really take the time
Speaker 4: to focus on my music the way I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So in college you knew that like music was where
Speaker 1: you were focused, That's where your attention was.
Speaker 3: But why did you lose? What happened? You need to
Speaker 3: tell him exactly a moment that will let you know
Speaker 3: how serious you were.
Speaker 4: I mean I had I had two full scholarships to school,
Speaker 4: and I lost both of them because I how do
Speaker 4: you get too? NASA gave me a scholarship, and the
Speaker 4: school gave me a scholarship separately, and I just had
Speaker 4: both of them.
Speaker 2: I had one like as a backup, I guess idea.
Speaker 4: But I was in a math test and I was
Speaker 4: doing well on the test except for like in the
Speaker 4: middle of the test, I had this song come to
Speaker 4: me and I just felt compelled to get up and
Speaker 4: I went to my dorm room and I wrote the
Speaker 4: song and I did not finish the test, and it
Speaker 4: caused my GPA to crater.
Speaker 2: And that's why I lost my scholarship.
Speaker 3: Yay, was that and that's how we got to make music.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank god he lost his NASSA And I
Speaker 1: mean in any other scenario, that's a tragedy. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it seems to have been the right path.
Speaker 4: It felt tragic at the time too, after I realized
Speaker 4: that happened. In the moment, it felt like, this is
Speaker 4: what you're supposed to be doing. You need to just
Speaker 4: listen to this.
Speaker 1: Was that common for you to just up and leave
Speaker 1: whatever you were doing, wherever you were at, whoever you
Speaker 1: were with, YO, get an idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but not a test. It had not happened like
Speaker 4: that was something that cost me so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the movie of Your Life was a pretty high stake,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it was.
Speaker 4: And it felt like a big mistake afterwards. For a
Speaker 4: little while, it felt like, wow, that was crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: My dad was like, you're crazy. You absolutely lost your mind.
Speaker 1: Were your parents academically folks, like, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: How scholarship My dad has a doctorate in music actually,
Speaker 4: and he wasn't active in music in that kind of way.
Speaker 2: He's a professor, so he's yes, he's yeah.
Speaker 1: You grew up with a lot of theory and things,
Speaker 1: and I grew.
Speaker 4: Up watching him write music composed and like he was
Speaker 4: writing operas and all that kind of stuff, and like,
Speaker 4: so I saw that growing up, and I learned a
Speaker 4: lot of instruments kind of. I got introduced to a
Speaker 4: lot of instruments early on, and I got introduced to
Speaker 4: the idea of composition very early.
Speaker 2: But he was not. He was like that it is dumb.
Speaker 2: Just so we can be clear, that's dumb.
Speaker 1: Did you know him at the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. You didn't know each other. That was
Speaker 3: you know, I met him after he probably did some
Speaker 3: healing from the traumatic experience of losing your scholarships.
Speaker 2: I learned how to focus. That's what I learned from that.
Speaker 4: I always hold that as like a lesson in focus,
Speaker 4: like what it takes.
Speaker 1: Focus on the thing at hand, or focus on the
Speaker 1: creativity that's taking away.
Speaker 4: Actually you know, you know it's interesting, like it's just
Speaker 4: pick something and do that thing. So the idea of
Speaker 4: the multitasking and all that kind of stuff, I understood
Speaker 4: how detrimental that could be to whatever the dream that
Speaker 4: I had was. So if it was music, like I
Speaker 4: know that. Like the feeling I had when I was
Speaker 4: in the class was, Hey, you're not pursuing the thing
Speaker 4: that you're supposed to be pursuing right now, and you
Speaker 4: are going to feel sick about that at some point
Speaker 4: in time. Right now, you feel sick, so you need
Speaker 4: to go write that song. Later on I felt like, okay,
Speaker 4: I but I made a commitment, and so you know,
Speaker 4: it's about just commitment focus not being distracted. And when
Speaker 4: I finished college, I was like, Okay, now I'm going
Speaker 4: to focus and I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: You did finish, yes, and you paid?
Speaker 2: Yeah I had to pay.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. Hey, last year I
Speaker 4: got a scholarship for part of it. I got a
Speaker 4: scholtship to go live in Spain. So they paid me
Speaker 4: to go. I did get another scholarship.
Speaker 1: Too, smart man, but I.
Speaker 3: And tell them what you know?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Tell them what you got that scholarship in Spanish, which
Speaker 3: I sucked in. I failed Spanish high school year, but
Speaker 3: Spanish major in Spanish.
Speaker 1: Look at you? Yeah, did you did you study any
Speaker 1: music Spanish music while you were in Spain?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: I studied Spanish art and architecture actually, And so when
Speaker 4: I went to Spain, I was like, let me not
Speaker 4: pursue music right now.
Speaker 2: Let me focus.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to bring any of my instruments, like
Speaker 4: I would never not have a guitar in my hand.
Speaker 4: And so I was like, I'm going to go to Spain.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to have any instruments. I'm going to
Speaker 4: focus and I'm going to just do what I'm here
Speaker 4: to do. And I went there, and what's crazy is
Speaker 4: that the place that I lived was directly next to
Speaker 4: a music conservatory. So I would wake up in this
Speaker 4: girl would play the flute every morning.
Speaker 2: It would wake me up. Every morning.
Speaker 4: I would hear musicians playing all day. And I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I got And so I was there I bought a
Speaker 4: flute and like taught myself to play the flute, but
Speaker 4: that was it. I was like, let me just that's
Speaker 4: small enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's more of a hobby than a real
Speaker 1: stick pursuit. Similarly, you early on were kind of like
Speaker 1: possessed by creativity, right, mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: I like that possessed. Yes, there was never a time
Speaker 3: where I wasn't singing. I don't remember like singing, acting, partying,
Speaker 3: doing exactly what it is that I'm doing. I was
Speaker 3: talking to a friend and she reminded me. She was like,
Speaker 3: remember in sixth grade when we used to throw these
Speaker 3: parties and you would charge a dollar for people to
Speaker 3: get in, and I got I skipped school to hand
Speaker 3: out flyers. It was a whole thing. But at that
Speaker 3: same time, I was on every talent show stage in
Speaker 3: Kansas City, in every musical theater production. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's morphed into conserts Now and the Age of Pleasure
Speaker 3: album and being driven by by just the things that
Speaker 3: I love. I'm so thankful that I still can can
Speaker 3: do that. And for me, when I went to school
Speaker 3: in New York after you know, after high school, went
Speaker 3: to school in New York, and I thought, oh, I
Speaker 3: want to do musical theater. As soon as I got
Speaker 3: out there and started going to see plays and stuff,
Speaker 3: I was like, man, ugh, I'm not excited about any
Speaker 3: of the roles that they're offering. You know, people that
Speaker 3: look like me.
Speaker 1: What were you? What kind of roles were you getting?
Speaker 3: Well, we couldn't really audition, but like there was no
Speaker 3: there was maybe one strong black woman leading something there
Speaker 3: was not right now, Broadway has changed, like it's it's
Speaker 3: it's a lot more diverse, a lot more stories, a
Speaker 3: lot more uniqueness. And the only thing, because I'm from Kansas,
Speaker 3: the only thing I think people saw me doing was
Speaker 3: The Wiz, and The Whiz wasn't on Broadway. And I'm
Speaker 3: just like, I love the Wiz, but where is the
Speaker 3: new energy, the new stories? And I had so much
Speaker 3: bubble because I'm a writer as well, and I decided that,
Speaker 3: you know, I was going to quit, So I quit
Speaker 3: school in New York. Everybody thought I was crazy too.
Speaker 3: That was my like you're crazy moment because coming from Kansas,
Speaker 3: such a small town to get there, They're like, wow,
Speaker 3: you're in New York. You're living the dream. And little
Speaker 3: do they know, I was sleeping in the same bed
Speaker 3: as my cousin because I could not afford housing there,
Speaker 3: and so I was commuting from like one hundred and
Speaker 3: forty ath An, Amsterdam to like seventy second and Broadway
Speaker 3: every single day Monday through Friday. Wow, I mean I
Speaker 3: learned a lot about surviving. And I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, poor, but excited about the arts and excited
Speaker 3: about finally figuring out what did Janelle Robinson have to say?
Speaker 3: Because I wasn't even going by Jane one. I had
Speaker 3: not tapped into the center the core of what I
Speaker 3: had to say because I was spending so much time
Speaker 3: singing everybody else's songs.
Speaker 1: Why the transition of jenem on a them from Janel Robinson?
Speaker 1: What about that felt more like the authentic place to
Speaker 1: create farm.
Speaker 3: Well, I knew about the painter Monet, and I always
Speaker 3: thought like, that's that's a great artist name, and it
Speaker 3: just so happens to be my real name. My middle
Speaker 3: name is done. My aunt actually she was like Janelle Monett,
Speaker 3: Janelle Monet. She calls me that all the time, like
Speaker 3: when she sees me, and it just it sucked.
Speaker 1: Before it wasn't like a kid like your family and
Speaker 1: where you come from, none of it.
Speaker 3: I just thought Monet felt like an artist name and
Speaker 3: it was my name, and it was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I get to reinvent, you know, who, what I can be,
Speaker 3: how I can say it, how I see myself. And
Speaker 3: it was so great. So that's when I moved to Atlanta,
Speaker 3: and that's when I met Nate Rocket Wonder, I met
Speaker 3: Chuck Lightning, I met Michael Moore, who were all still
Speaker 3: working together. They were at Morehouse. They ran this arts
Speaker 3: collective called the Dark Tower Project, and they would bring
Speaker 3: musicians poets to Morehouse and I was one of the
Speaker 3: people who performed that night. And I just saw like
Speaker 3: this kind of black cosmopolitan in Atlanta, Like it was
Speaker 3: just this melting pot of just excellence and creativity and
Speaker 3: freedom of expression. I had never seen anything like it,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to be around that, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to make music for them. I wanted That's who I
Speaker 3: wanted to make music for. And so when I started
Speaker 3: to write, I would sit out, like Nate was saying,
Speaker 3: I would sit on the library steps of Club Woody
Speaker 3: and I would just play guitar, sing my songs. People
Speaker 3: would walk by, some would stop and listen. Some would
Speaker 3: keep moving. I would go to dorm lounge just sit
Speaker 3: on the couch and get perform. Like to anybody that
Speaker 3: would listen, I was. I was like, I don't give
Speaker 3: a damn. I have to know is this for me? Like,
Speaker 3: do you guys like what I have to say? Like
Speaker 3: can I make my purpose and passion and also career aligne.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a scary time because you don't you don't
Speaker 1: really know that, and me have the confidence to not
Speaker 1: necessarily care, but you don't. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: don't really know. You don't know.
Speaker 4: Like one of the reasons why we really connected was because,
Speaker 4: like I know it sounds it's very basic, but we
Speaker 4: love art, and I think that we were inspired by
Speaker 4: meeting other people who loved art. Like really we're just
Speaker 4: like fall in love with art, you know, just be
Speaker 4: obsessed over it. Just sit up all day and think
Speaker 4: about something that they read, or a.
Speaker 2: Painting that they saw, or just a song. Just sit
Speaker 2: there and cry to a song.
Speaker 1: And just like.
Speaker 4: I know that Janelle and I have a very spiritual
Speaker 4: connection that music. It really it's like the catalyst for
Speaker 4: that and it catalyzes it all the time. It's something
Speaker 4: that I know that we can always tap into, like
Speaker 4: besides being like good thought partners and like, you know,
Speaker 4: there are wonderful myriad things about Janelle that make her
Speaker 4: a great like human being. But on a musical level,
Speaker 4: she is very past about music, Like if I play
Speaker 4: certain chords, it can make her cry, and that is
Speaker 4: something that also happens to me, Like I can hear
Speaker 4: certain songs certain chords, and it doesn't have to do
Speaker 4: it necessarily the lyrics. Always Sometimes the lyrics, yes, and
Speaker 4: poetry is beautiful and that's another you know, but just
Speaker 4: like music and just being really just emotionally brought to
Speaker 4: your knees over how good music can be. And we've
Speaker 4: shared so many of those moments, and that was like
Speaker 4: the beginning of that time where we got to really
Speaker 4: just pass music back and forth and be shocked and
Speaker 4: just sit in awe with each other as we would
Speaker 4: just listen to what could be done.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that I loved early on,
Speaker 3: and the reason why I think we've worked so well
Speaker 3: together musically is because Nate is a student of music,
Speaker 3: and so when it comes to like anything that I
Speaker 3: want to do, there's nothing we can't do from string
Speaker 3: arrangements to you know, core progressions, horn arrangements, melodies, like
Speaker 3: there's no genre. We've been genres with each album. You know,
Speaker 3: it's all about how do we create our own musical language.
Speaker 3: And I love that. I always have to feel pushed
Speaker 3: and stretched, and I think that's what is the exciting thing,
Speaker 3: because it's like we literally have the the mind and
Speaker 3: the student heart, like we never stop being.
Speaker 1: Student, always at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Always it's always a new whiteboard, you know, the ideas
Speaker 3: ready to be put down.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me like you guys are just always
Speaker 1: creating things, regardless of like there's an album doing or
Speaker 1: you know, or it's been a minute or you know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's just that's how you guys are inhabiting life.
Speaker 1: It's just creating every day or you know, the days
Speaker 1: that it feels right to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I didn't get into music because of
Speaker 3: awards or because of you know, recognition or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Music is truly healing. I need music like I need
Speaker 3: a song in my darkest hours. I need a song
Speaker 3: in my most celebratory stage. I need a song when
Speaker 3: you know, I want to communicate something that my own
Speaker 3: words can't say, and I need to be able to
Speaker 3: write when I'm feeling frustrated or when I'm like it's
Speaker 3: a way. It has helped my mental health so much, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was listening again for like the
Speaker 1: umpteenth time this morning on my watt to the Age
Speaker 1: of Pleasure, I was wondering listening to it, it might
Speaker 1: be the possible question to answer, but whether these songs
Speaker 1: were for you or for other people? Because I in
Speaker 1: a way I've realized that as I've been listening to it,
Speaker 1: I've been taking it as like you giving mantras to
Speaker 1: me that, but it occurred to me to that I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe you needed to write this for you too, And
Speaker 1: I don't know how you were approaching that, but.
Speaker 3: It's for all of us. It's for us, and that
Speaker 3: means a lot to hear you say that, because I
Speaker 3: think one of the most important things as an artist
Speaker 3: is your ability to communicate. And as much as I
Speaker 3: can say like, oh, I just want to do an
Speaker 3: album and I want this just for myself and I
Speaker 3: me to listen to it, that's not my truth. I
Speaker 3: actually want everybody to feel like this is their soundtrack
Speaker 3: to their life. This is curating their thoughts and their feelings.
Speaker 3: They are part of my community. We're a part of
Speaker 3: each other's community, and all of us are growing and
Speaker 3: healing and moving together and sharing something that they can
Speaker 3: tap into anytime they want to. And it's funny because
Speaker 3: you're here. This is exactly what inspired the album this space,
Speaker 3: having this space filled with black and brown and you
Speaker 3: just beautiful people across the diaspora here, seeing them smiling,
Speaker 3: seeing the joy and their spirits and their hearts. During
Speaker 3: the time where everybody thought the word world was ending,
Speaker 3: I mean every day the pandemic. We created Wonderland West
Speaker 3: during the pandemic. It was one of the most scary
Speaker 3: things ever because I grew up my parents didn't own
Speaker 3: a home. We were either in like a duplex or
Speaker 3: you know, we live with my grandmother and they were
Speaker 3: working class, like making ends meet, but live in check
Speaker 3: to check. So when it was time for all of
Speaker 3: us to contribute and figure out where we were going
Speaker 3: to migrate with Wonderland, it was like, Okay, are we
Speaker 3: ready to all? Am I ready to invest in our
Speaker 3: next creative endeavor? Yes, I am, but we're in the
Speaker 3: middle of a pandemic. What does that mean? And luckily
Speaker 3: we knew the person who was trying to sell the space,
Speaker 3: and they were just like, there's nobody else I want
Speaker 3: to have this space. And it worked out and you, yeah,
Speaker 3: but did. But it was also scary because a lot
Speaker 3: of things were being canceled For me. My job is
Speaker 3: to go out into the world and travel and you know,
Speaker 3: try to heal people through music. But I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: So you come from growing up a certain amount of insecurity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, the successful career you've had. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine that. But you know, as soon as
Speaker 1: you start to feel that a little bit insecurity again,
Speaker 1: I know from my own life, like all of a sudden, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, where was your mind that With all of that.
Speaker 3: I think the pandemic reminded me just how much music
Speaker 3: means to me as a person, not as a career path,
Speaker 3: not as you know, the artists that people know and
Speaker 3: come to the concerts and see, but as a human
Speaker 3: android having this Earth experience. I need music. I need
Speaker 3: to create. During that time, not only were we working
Speaker 3: on music, but I also wrote a book called The
Speaker 3: Memory Librarian. I was just doing anything creative that would
Speaker 3: would help me feel better, because to go from moving
Speaker 3: around so much to just being still it was tough.
Speaker 3: It was for be How was it for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, art has this weird responsibility of trying to
Speaker 4: document and explain the human experience a little bit more
Speaker 4: and kind of just like unearth a little bit more
Speaker 4: about what it means to be human. And I think
Speaker 4: that so many of us were finding out a lot
Speaker 4: more about what it meant to be human, like a
Speaker 4: lot about the mortality of it. Even though we weren't
Speaker 4: necessarily in or didn't consider ourselves vulnerable in that kind
Speaker 4: of way. I think a lot of us looked at
Speaker 4: ourselves as more vulnerable to death. And I think that
Speaker 4: that was a very real consideration that we all kind
Speaker 4: of had to deal with it differently. And I think
Speaker 4: that human experience is a very unique one that kind
Speaker 4: of felt like, Okay, so what is the response to that,
Speaker 4: and how do you talk about this in healthy ways?
Speaker 4: And how do you explore and understand more about it?
Speaker 4: So I think that like part of what we were
Speaker 4: trying to do was just face that in an honest way.
Speaker 4: When you talk about like the affirmations, I mean that
Speaker 4: was very intentional, because part of just confronting death is
Speaker 4: kind of like being able to turn your head and
Speaker 4: be like not today, and then you kind of are
Speaker 4: like okay, so then what does that mean? And it's
Speaker 4: kind of like, okay, live and so then how do
Speaker 4: you live in a way that honors the life experience?
Speaker 2: And it's like, hey, okay, I'm here. I mean I'm
Speaker 2: here now, you know.
Speaker 4: And you hear these stories about the Roaring twenties when
Speaker 4: people are kind of like getting through that depressions. It's
Speaker 4: so much going on, and they're like, and they've made
Speaker 4: it through a pandemic, right, and you have the ss
Speaker 4: guilt and so much of that goes into just just
Speaker 4: your human experience, and it's those affirmations were like just
Speaker 4: the small attempts to just undergird just the everyday thing
Speaker 4: that's kind of like pushing you down and kind of
Speaker 4: be like, all right, I'm gonna get back up. You know,
Speaker 4: when Janelle says like I used to walk into the
Speaker 4: room head down, you know, it's just that feeling of
Speaker 4: I used to walk into the room head down and
Speaker 4: being like that's I'm leaving that and now I'm onto
Speaker 4: this next stage of myself.
Speaker 3: I think in the I think it was a privilege
Speaker 3: to be still because during that time, I mean, as
Speaker 3: we know, a lot of people were getting laid off
Speaker 3: from work, a lot of people were losing their families
Speaker 3: passing away. And as much as it was sad that
Speaker 3: I couldn't go and be the artist that I wanted
Speaker 3: to be out into the world, there were so many
Speaker 3: other people who had it worse than us. In that stillness,
Speaker 3: I said, well, what can I do. I know we
Speaker 3: were in LA and we got the opportunity to feed
Speaker 3: and give out over thirty five thousand meals throughout Won
Speaker 3: to Lunch program, and so we did that for like
Speaker 3: months and months and months. I think that connectivity back
Speaker 3: to humanity really let us know what kind of affirmations
Speaker 3: are people needed and what I needed as well. And
Speaker 3: I think to answer your question, we were very intentional
Speaker 3: about that, and I think Float really kicked it off.
Speaker 3: Like I used to walk into the room head down
Speaker 3: out on walk. Now if Float, I got an opportunity
Speaker 3: in that stillness to deal with, you know, childhood trauma
Speaker 3: that I had not dealt with because I was moving
Speaker 3: around so much, I didn't It was like, Okay, you
Speaker 3: know something's not right, but I don't have time to
Speaker 3: deal with it. And in that discovering and peeling back
Speaker 3: the layers of the rejection and abandonment that I felt
Speaker 3: early on getting to the root of it, my spirit
Speaker 3: started to get lighter because I knew. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: so I can become better and more evolved as a
Speaker 3: person now. And I feel so empowered now that I
Speaker 3: know what was going on with me. And when you
Speaker 3: heals as a person, all of that seeps into your
Speaker 3: music and your art. My art is a reflection of
Speaker 3: who I am, and I'm so thankful for that because
Speaker 3: all I wanted to do was give more people affirmations,
Speaker 3: because I know I wasn't only want. When I would
Speaker 3: have conversations with people, they would say the same thing, like, man,
Speaker 3: I have to let go of this. I have to
Speaker 3: let go of that, you know, And so float was
Speaker 3: that thing. It was like once you let go of
Speaker 3: the heaviness that you've been carrying on your back that
Speaker 3: you didn't have to carry, and you just find that
Speaker 3: you're finding out like, oh, I have a way to
Speaker 3: get all of this off of me now. It felt
Speaker 3: like I wanted to celebrate as a new person, Like
Speaker 3: I feel like I definitely, you know, shed a lot
Speaker 3: of skin, turn a new leaf. And obviously it's a constant,
Speaker 3: you know, journey. But once I tapped into it, I
Speaker 3: got really inspired to write about it.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, will come act with more of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Jenne Monet and Nate Wonder. We're back
Speaker 1: with Jane mone and Nate Wonder. Once you put the
Speaker 1: album out, how did you guys feel about the response
Speaker 1: to it? You know, obviously we're very vulnerable, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that was like a big point of conversation
Speaker 1: around that. But was it Sometimes you just do things
Speaker 1: feeling like that's the right thing to do, and then
Speaker 1: it's like, oh shit, I got to talk about this,
Speaker 1: Like how was the process of going out and talking
Speaker 1: about the album and getting people's responses to the project?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's a beautiful thing that when
Speaker 3: people see themselves reflected, that was the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people coming up to me,
Speaker 3: some of them whispering, some of them more vocal about it,
Speaker 3: like thank you so much, you know, for sharing more
Speaker 3: of who you are. There's this quote by Betha and
Speaker 3: hardest and this As you know, people don't change, they
Speaker 3: become more of who they are are. And what I
Speaker 3: got an opportunity to do is become more of who
Speaker 3: I am and write about it and write about it
Speaker 3: with other people who were discovering more about who they
Speaker 3: were and us having a safe space that was really important.
Speaker 3: I think with an album called The Age of Pleasure,
Speaker 3: there is no pleasure without safety. When we don't feel
Speaker 3: safe and taken care of, you cannot be free in
Speaker 3: the way that you move or express yourselves, at least for.
Speaker 1: Me, to your point earlier about unpacking a lot of
Speaker 1: the traumas and stuff, just feeling safe within yourself too exactly.
Speaker 3: You know what I feel a lot more. How do
Speaker 3: I put it? I did put it. I see it float.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've floated, and anything that used to
Speaker 3: bother me it doesn't touch me.
Speaker 1: To say.
Speaker 3: It's kind of scary and also really really awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how was it writing on this record with Janelle?
Speaker 1: With given the just the way the songs were coming.
Speaker 2: Out, it was a real blessing.
Speaker 4: Before we started working on the album, I remember I
Speaker 4: told my management team that I really wanted to focus
Speaker 4: this time, that I have right now on making music
Speaker 4: for black women and black uh non binary folks. I
Speaker 4: want to make music that makes them smile, like I
Speaker 4: want to make music for them specifically, like I really
Speaker 4: just want to be of service.
Speaker 2: To that community. And there's so many reasons why.
Speaker 4: But one reason is because when I go to the
Speaker 4: grocery store as like a little side.
Speaker 1: I do it. I love it.
Speaker 3: This is great. I love this because I do not
Speaker 3: like going.
Speaker 1: Long.
Speaker 3: Used to have me in a grocery store way too long.
Speaker 3: It was like I'm ready to.
Speaker 4: Go home, so anyway, But when I would go and
Speaker 4: I see like black women at the grocery store smiling,
Speaker 4: it just makes me feel a certain way. And sometimes
Speaker 4: it'd be like when a certain song would come on,
Speaker 4: it would be like you see them singing their song
Speaker 4: and it's like, man, so good. And Janelle, of course,
Speaker 4: has done so much work as a leading voice in
Speaker 4: terms of activism, in terms of being on the right
Speaker 4: side of history, in terms of speaking up for marginalized
Speaker 4: people early to.
Speaker 2: Always it's been herself.
Speaker 4: But I also was thinking about how much that can
Speaker 4: weigh on a person, and I told Janelle, I said,
Speaker 4: I really like for your next time I would really
Speaker 4: love I would love to see you smile more like,
Speaker 4: I would love to just see you smile, Like it
Speaker 4: really would mean so much. I think that you smiling
Speaker 4: is a really special thing. I love when I see
Speaker 4: you smile, and I would love to see what that
Speaker 4: energy is to like really put that into a space.
Speaker 3: And I hadn't really considered that. And I looked at
Speaker 3: all my album covers and I was like, I'm really
Speaker 3: not smiling.
Speaker 1: Kind with you for a second.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, what what is going on? Like
Speaker 3: from the Arcandroid to Electric Lady to Dirty Computer And
Speaker 3: if you look at the cover for the Age of Pleasure,
Speaker 3: I am writing this pool swimming topless and smiling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's a layered idea, but I do
Speaker 4: think that giving somebody something that makes them want to
Speaker 4: smile is its own resistance. It's its own protest, it's
Speaker 4: its own like giving people affirmations is its own version.
Speaker 4: It's a certain form of work, it's a certain type
Speaker 4: of healing.
Speaker 1: And so it's pleasure like, yeah, it's like I want
Speaker 1: you to smile. It's like to your point then too,
Speaker 1: it's like only I smile, Like I want top in
Speaker 1: this pool, right, and smiled. Yeah, and it's like both
Speaker 1: of those things are can be subversive.
Speaker 4: Can be absolutely you know what I mean absolutely it
Speaker 4: is to make an album called The Age of Pleasure
Speaker 4: in the middle of a pandemic is a subversive piece
Speaker 4: of art because it is just kind of being like, no,
Speaker 4: it's just like because there's been.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're dealing with so much trauma.
Speaker 4: From elections to it's just so much that happens, and
Speaker 4: it feels like your energy when you wake up is
Speaker 4: going to be stolen from you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like, yeah, you're dolen. It's not yours,
Speaker 1: not yours exactly.
Speaker 4: And so it was like a big like, no, you
Speaker 4: cannot have all of my day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you cannot have all of my time.
Speaker 4: I'm going to take some time to enjoy life as
Speaker 4: best as I can under whatever the circumstances that I
Speaker 4: have are. I'm going to try my best to do
Speaker 4: what I can to appreciate this moment, as simple as
Speaker 4: it may be. And what I think that we were
Speaker 4: finding in the writing process was that just having time
Speaker 4: to hang out with your friends was the thing that
Speaker 4: we needed the most. Just seeking time to appreciate each other,
Speaker 4: to smile at each other, to laugh with each other,
Speaker 4: to do like the simple stuff with each other. Felt like,
Speaker 4: this is worth my time, way more than whatever that
Speaker 4: other thing was that was driving me and decentering my joy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's what that stuff does, right,
Speaker 3: Like when you think about racism, when you think about sexism,
Speaker 3: when you think about homophobia, all of it. It literally,
Speaker 3: in addition to just being you know, pure evil work,
Speaker 3: it distracts you from living your life because you spent
Speaker 3: so much time fighting. And I definitely found myself and
Speaker 3: I know I'm not the only one. There were so
Speaker 3: many of my friends and people who were out marching.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to understand George Floyd had been murdered.
Speaker 3: It was so much. Breonna Taylor, it was so much.
Speaker 3: And I was working with say her name and I
Speaker 3: put out you know, protest music. It was so heavy, man,
Speaker 3: And I was like, somebody has to do the work.
Speaker 3: But I think balance is important, and what I was
Speaker 3: realizing is I was not getting the balance that I needed.
Speaker 3: And so once we made a decision to not center
Speaker 3: white supremacy, to not center you know, all all of
Speaker 3: the things that again come to distract and destroy and
Speaker 3: stop us from just living our lives as humans having
Speaker 3: this earth experience and be clear and stand on that.
Speaker 3: That's when I feel like the songwriting got focused. And
Speaker 3: with this project, I said, I want to make music
Speaker 3: for that community, for that community of folks who suffer
Speaker 3: time poverty, Like they don't have time. It's a great phrase,
Speaker 3: it's a real thing in our community. People don't have
Speaker 3: the time or the leisure time to just be you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, to just be one with their
Speaker 3: friends or their families, because you're spending so much time working,
Speaker 3: you spending so much time fighting, and it's like when
Speaker 3: do we say, Okay, well we're gonna carve out this
Speaker 3: little space for us. And so I said, I want
Speaker 3: to create music that we can all listen to take
Speaker 3: with us whole with us. That is the balance and
Speaker 3: everything that we're dealing with. And if the people that
Speaker 3: I invite over are not dancing to these songs, if
Speaker 3: they are not moving, if they're not trying to shazam,
Speaker 3: if they're not asking who is that, then it's not working.
Speaker 3: It's not like I want them to really really really
Speaker 3: really love this music. Obviously we have to love it, right,
Speaker 3: but it was so important that the community people we
Speaker 3: were writing it for loved it. And that's how we
Speaker 3: put together the Age of Pleasure. We had Nana Quabna
Speaker 3: who worked on some of the music, who's also a DJ,
Speaker 3: and our friends with everyday people. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you know about everyday people parties not bet but like
Speaker 3: I have to give a shout pleasure.
Speaker 1: I've been working hard.
Speaker 3: I have to give them a shout out because during
Speaker 3: the pandemic, they couldn't find a place, you know, to
Speaker 3: have their parties. And when I say parties, it's not
Speaker 3: just like I mean, everybody's dancing and singing and having
Speaker 3: a good time, but people are feeding each other at
Speaker 3: the parties like their food vendors. It's the diaspora. It's
Speaker 3: Pan Africanism from around the globe, from you know, Nigeria, Ghana,
Speaker 3: the Caribbeans, Jamaica, Atlanta, New York, LA and Cape verd
Speaker 3: like all in one place. It's just nothing like going
Speaker 3: to their parties. And so when they asked they had
Speaker 3: come by Wonderland, they were like, you know, they were
Speaker 3: having a hard time getting the space, and we were like,
Speaker 3: come here, shoot, let's figure it out. Because we're we're
Speaker 3: going through it too, like not being able to see people,
Speaker 3: like how can we do this? And and that was
Speaker 3: a to know who was coming or for sure it
Speaker 3: was very small because I would be a little Yeah
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: We needed to know it was small and it was safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, safe and small. And and that's where the music
Speaker 3: was tested.
Speaker 1: First, hearing all of the backstory. I'm just gonna say
Speaker 1: it because I feel like it's even in the music,
Speaker 1: like a more human album. It's funny because as we're
Speaker 1: moving into an age now more the future looks a
Speaker 1: little bleaker in terms of technology. I feel like you
Speaker 1: might have called that a little early. And it feels
Speaker 1: like the project is away from computer and an arch
Speaker 1: android and metropolis and like this tomorrow it feels like
Speaker 1: Janelle the person you know, or it feels like to
Speaker 1: me listening to it, like I even just feel myself
Speaker 1: coming a lot more, just feeling more me, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I know a lot of people who've
Speaker 1: listened to the record, a lot of friends, a lot
Speaker 1: of people there saying that like it makes them feel
Speaker 1: a particular way as a living creature, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, from the beginning, there was this conversation
Speaker 4: around Android, writes, Yeah, and Cindy was always being was
Speaker 4: always fighting to be perceived as a human and to
Speaker 4: be respected as a human. So I guess there's a
Speaker 4: certain truthfulness to being like, hey, you're human and kind
Speaker 4: of being.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, finally, I mean that the definition of an
Speaker 3: android And if you're listening and you don't know any
Speaker 3: of my work, it's rooted around Cindy Mayweather, who represents
Speaker 3: the other, and the other is a parallel, you know,
Speaker 3: the android is a parallel to black folks to marginalize
Speaker 3: folks that I want to amplify, the voices I want
Speaker 3: to amplify, and the music I want to write. The
Speaker 3: definition of an android is a robot developing human characteristic.
Speaker 3: So I really think it tells such a continuation of
Speaker 3: beautiful continuation of the story, and it's not finished. It's
Speaker 3: very trippy to see because when I put out Metropolis,
Speaker 3: we were reading The Singularity is near by ray kerr
Speaker 3: wo and if you haven't read that, please do. But
Speaker 3: it talks about this moment that we're having with AI,
Speaker 3: and it talks about the singularity of like not being
Speaker 3: able to differentiate AI recording a song by Janelle mone
Speaker 3: or Janelle Monet really mapping out that voice. And it's
Speaker 3: so interesting that it's happening now. And when I think
Speaker 3: about the album, how I hate to say, we knew
Speaker 3: that when this moment of integration happens, humans were going
Speaker 3: to be frantic about it, as you can see right now,
Speaker 3: Like it's a lot going on in my business when
Speaker 3: it comes to using the likeness of an actor's face
Speaker 3: without paying them, like AI is in that conversation heavily,
Speaker 3: and people are afraid and they're scared, and I totally
Speaker 3: get that. And I also think that there needs to
Speaker 3: be more conversation and more laws and things rules to
Speaker 3: really be agreed upon, because not all humans are bad
Speaker 3: and not all AI is bad. So I think there
Speaker 3: needs to be a real conversation around who's programming AI.
Speaker 3: But the thing that I realized in knowing that the
Speaker 3: Singularity was going to happen was that it's nothing like
Speaker 3: that human and human connection. It was so important for
Speaker 3: us to gather and have experiences that cannot be created
Speaker 3: by AI. We can only have these the barbecue experiences,
Speaker 3: you know, sharing food together, wrapping our arms around each other,
Speaker 3: being there for each other and these times, These are
Speaker 3: moments that humans have such a deep connection to and
Speaker 3: can talk about in ways that AI can. And that
Speaker 3: was my hope too, is to encourage more community, to
Speaker 3: encourage people to be with each other like our stories
Speaker 3: are all we have. It is our stories that will
Speaker 3: set us apart and continue to make us believe in
Speaker 3: humanity again.
Speaker 1: Have you guys, you know, playing guitar on the steps,
Speaker 1: barely finishing college, having to shot out some money to
Speaker 1: do it, you guys found each other. Over those years,
Speaker 1: you guys have amassed a body of work, all very
Speaker 1: different from each other, genre less. As you said from
Speaker 1: the beginning, money comes success time, new people, new relationships,
Speaker 1: new opportunities. It's incredible to me that you guys have
Speaker 1: managed to stay close.
Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, I don't think that happened.
Speaker 1: Separate the legal entity of the Rolling Stones, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I have no real responsibility to each other.
Speaker 1: We do, but we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's very I'm happy that you brought that up.
Speaker 3: It's so true. And when I look at some of
Speaker 3: the collectives, and you know, we don't have to dig
Speaker 3: into names, but even even some of the most iconic
Speaker 3: collectives ended up not working with each other anymore, and
Speaker 3: I just remember the time when they were and how
Speaker 3: that felt, and how I felt when it wasn't the
Speaker 3: case anymore, and I just it always was important to
Speaker 3: me to nurture my relationships, like I invest in people,
Speaker 3: you know, not because they're of course, everybody is very talented,
Speaker 3: but I think they're really really great people who happen
Speaker 3: to be very talented. And when you come from a
Speaker 3: big family like me, I have forty nine first cousins,
Speaker 3: so I was brought into a community. You know, that
Speaker 3: runs through my blood, and it's loyalty and it's growth
Speaker 3: and transparency and communication and all those things and respect.
Speaker 3: As somebody who has ideas, obviously, I'll always have the
Speaker 3: final say if we're working on something with what I
Speaker 3: want to do, you know, on my music. But I
Speaker 3: love listening. I love being able to hear how Nate's
Speaker 3: mind is working, to hear how Chuck's mind is working
Speaker 3: with since a Bueno is thinking none of Like, I
Speaker 3: love to see how they interpret certain things and how
Speaker 3: they sharpen my sword, you know, when it is time
Speaker 3: to creatively fight for an idea. So I love that.
Speaker 3: I love what this community has done not just for
Speaker 3: me before the rest of the world.
Speaker 4: Questlove pulled us aside a few years ago and he
Speaker 4: was like, listen, man, you guys have something really really special.
Speaker 2: But just so.
Speaker 4: You know, the most important thing you guys can do,
Speaker 4: like just trust me on this. Just stay together. Just
Speaker 4: stay together. And he went through his stories of like
Speaker 4: what happened, Like all the things that happened to you
Speaker 4: can change you. But just know that you guys have
Speaker 4: something very special and it's worth protecting. Stay together. Don't
Speaker 4: get distracted by whatever else comes. Just stay together. And
Speaker 4: the other thing is that we have this credo, a
Speaker 4: Wonderland credo that was written along time ago, like very
Speaker 4: very early, and in there it discusses our responsibility to
Speaker 4: each other and to our broader community, but specifically to
Speaker 4: each other, how we need to take care of each other,
Speaker 4: how we need to look after each other. Those basic
Speaker 4: things are written into our creedle of how we understand
Speaker 4: Wonderland at its foundation, it must at least be a
Speaker 4: community or artists can be taken care of and of
Speaker 4: course challenge each other around our ideas, but that we
Speaker 4: feel at least safe to have our ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how you make your best music again when
Speaker 3: you feel safe with the people that you're with, Like
Speaker 3: when you feel like you can just go there and
Speaker 3: try new shit out, like fall in love with music,
Speaker 3: fall in love with art, and I think that's what
Speaker 3: we love at our core.
Speaker 1: First of all, you guys are living the I mean
Speaker 1: that you guys found each other. It's hard individuals.
Speaker 3: Let me say it is hard work. It is not easy.
Speaker 1: Is hard hard?
Speaker 3: Depending on what process you're in, it can be frustrating
Speaker 3: and just like you can lose your confidence and second
Speaker 3: guess yourself, or you could be having the best time
Speaker 3: of your life. You wake back up and listen to
Speaker 3: that demo or you wrote the night before, you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: this ship is fire, like thank god, and you play
Speaker 3: it for people outside you know, who were not a
Speaker 3: part of the process, and you get that feedback. It
Speaker 3: can be disappointing or it can be like, yes, when do.
Speaker 1: You start playing stuff? Is it usually like earlier in
Speaker 1: the process, or is it like I try to.
Speaker 2: Play as early as possible. People see in the studio
Speaker 2: when I'm working on music.
Speaker 3: I gotta feel yeah, he's different. I don't know, but
Speaker 3: but with age of Pleasure, I was more open, but
Speaker 3: with all my other albums, I would be in there
Speaker 3: engineering myself. I engineered myself a lot on this project too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just because you wanted to be.
Speaker 4: Because when she goes in yes, like close it and
Speaker 4: Janelle go in there and will engineer, and.
Speaker 3: Then I'll call them back in like once I have
Speaker 3: all my takes that I feel like are highlighted and good,
Speaker 3: or I'll ask them to highlight in green, like which
Speaker 3: ones you think are the best. But I'm always searching
Speaker 3: for that feeling and sometimes I need to be alone
Speaker 3: to get that feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna pause for another quick break and then
Speaker 1: come back with more from Nate Wonder and Janelle Monee.
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of my conversation with Nate
Speaker 1: Wonder and Janelle Monae. We were talking about the diaspora
Speaker 1: earlier Beautiful that on the album DASPA was like really
Speaker 1: represented from Sam Coudie Yes to uh to Sister Nancy.
Speaker 2: Nancy Grace Jones, uh.
Speaker 3: K Unlimited, from Atlanta to Ghana to Nigeria to Jamaica
Speaker 3: and so on.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just we're so friends there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the musicians talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did those come.
Speaker 3: From from US, so French. The French seventy five is
Speaker 3: us in New Orleans during Essence Fest, not this year,
Speaker 3: but last year, and we were we had we had
Speaker 3: woke up and we start talking about the night that
Speaker 3: we had and it was my first It was like
Speaker 3: my first time getting beads. And so if you've been
Speaker 3: to New Orleans, you know what getting your beads means.
Speaker 3: Like it's so fun and I was. It was so
Speaker 3: liberating and just really maybe I know right. It involves
Speaker 3: you going down on in the French quarters and if
Speaker 3: you lift your shirt up, they would throw you some
Speaker 3: beads and it's a part of the New Orleans culture.
Speaker 3: Fun and it was friend because as somebody who's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm famous, they can't do these things.
Speaker 3: I'll end up. And nobody even really posted it until
Speaker 3: like years later. No, no, no, nobody found it. Actually
Speaker 3: nobody found that video. Maybe one person. No no, no, no,
Speaker 3: not my beads. Oh I've done that on several occasions. No,
Speaker 3: it's really the beads want too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, well that's awesome. It made me smile.
Speaker 3: Remember I said this album, we are smiling this season
Speaker 3: we are smiling. And with that being said, I wanted
Speaker 3: to just have authentic conversations with my friends, and I
Speaker 3: just asked them it was okay if I press record,
Speaker 3: and it's just it was authentic because the people who
Speaker 3: were there, they're really my friends. And so to have
Speaker 3: these conversations with the people who are directly involved in
Speaker 3: inspiring the songs and the songwritings. They were all in
Speaker 3: the studio when we were writing them. They were the
Speaker 3: first people that I think everybody in the interview, they
Speaker 3: were some of the first people that heard the songs.
Speaker 3: So when we did Float to Champagne, Shit, those were
Speaker 3: the elliptic lover Like when we were writing those songs,
Speaker 3: I always looked at how they moved. I always looked
Speaker 3: at the body language. I always looked at like when
Speaker 3: they would go play other artist songs, would they asked
Speaker 3: to play this song again? Because I liked their taste
Speaker 3: and I knew that they were like key in helping
Speaker 3: us nurture the audience that we wanted.
Speaker 1: Like what we would example, something you might have tweaked it,
Speaker 1: or so you're looking at your friends playing on they
Speaker 1: might not quite groove the way you're expecting or so
Speaker 1: what do you do?
Speaker 3: You just go back in and you know what, I
Speaker 3: don't feel like we had a lot of those moments
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 4: Only I know one song that that happened with and
Speaker 4: we changed. It didn't come We were in the middle
Speaker 4: of trying to figure the song out.
Speaker 1: It was hot, Okay, changed that one. Yeah a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's actually a David Bowie vocal that was supposed to
Speaker 3: go on that.
Speaker 4: It was a quote from an interview that he had
Speaker 4: done that right after right after Janelle says, uh, they
Speaker 4: say I look better than David Bowie in the moon
Speaker 4: Age Dream, there's.
Speaker 2: This quote line.
Speaker 4: I love that line because I think Edward had taken
Speaker 4: us to the movies to see Mooney's Daydream because he
Speaker 4: knew Janelle was a huge fan.
Speaker 3: I oh, you took everybody.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, you took everybody to see the David boy
Speaker 4: film Mooney's day Dream.
Speaker 3: You said, yeah, because we had just so when I
Speaker 3: when we wrote the Age of Pleasure. Right before that,
Speaker 3: I just filmed The Glass Onion and we were in
Speaker 3: Greece and Serbia, and I was having Nate send me
Speaker 3: music there because I was like, when I get back,
Speaker 3: I'm writing this album. Yeah, I'm writing this album. I'm
Speaker 3: so inspired. I know I'm clear on where I am,
Speaker 3: who I am, and what I.
Speaker 1: Need to do.
Speaker 3: And so he sent me all the music of some
Speaker 3: of the musical beds and I picked what I loved
Speaker 3: and liked. As soon as I got back, I was
Speaker 3: in the studio.
Speaker 1: It's poetic that you're working on the glass onion and
Speaker 1: you're clear about.
Speaker 3: Clear to it's like pull back the layer. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: David boy quote it says, I think it's terribly dangerous
Speaker 3: for an artist to fulfill other people's expectations. If you
Speaker 3: feel safe in the area you're working in, you're not
Speaker 3: working in the right area. Always go a little further
Speaker 3: into the water. Then you feel you're capable of being in.
Speaker 3: Go a little bit out of your own depth, and
Speaker 3: when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching
Speaker 3: the bottom, you're just about in the right place to
Speaker 3: do something exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that was the end of that was the quote
Speaker 2: that was on the in the record.
Speaker 3: We should put that back in time.
Speaker 4: But of course, like when you're at a party, you
Speaker 4: may not want to go into the like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just like.
Speaker 1: Appreciate I.
Speaker 3: Don't know if you've seen it, but it's really incredible.
Speaker 3: It was amazing because this is somebody who, like myself,
Speaker 3: you know, is a world builder, and somebody who believed
Speaker 3: like ZIGGI starred Us and the Spiders from Mars gave
Speaker 3: me the courage to do Cindy Mayweather in Metropolis and
Speaker 3: the Arc Android and to create these versions of ourselves,
Speaker 3: you know, these thousand versions of myself and we're all fine.
Speaker 3: That's if you don't know. That's from Phenomenal on the
Speaker 3: Age of Pleasure.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: So so to be able to watch him say, I
Speaker 3: know that I could be Ziggy Starters for the rest
Speaker 3: of my life or I can become more of who
Speaker 3: I am and give you that and not be afraid,
Speaker 3: you know, to break it down and rebuild and reimagine
Speaker 3: who I can be. So that really also helped inspire
Speaker 3: me as well.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get a chance to meet him?
Speaker 3: I feel like I did. I feel like our spirits
Speaker 3: absolutely met each other. I know that he knew who
Speaker 3: I was because I did a cover of heroes and
Speaker 3: his wife Emon told me and he had to clear
Speaker 3: it and his wife told me that he really he
Speaker 3: really loved me, And I was like Oh, I wish
Speaker 3: I could have told him how much I really loved him,
Speaker 3: but I think he knows it. They aren'tware.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you putty naturally fall into I mean, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: you're feeling like you want to start writing for women,
Speaker 1: people coloring non binary folk. Was it easy to slide
Speaker 1: into that mentality? Was it easy to like?
Speaker 4: I felt compelled and again, and when I feel compelled,
Speaker 4: I'm like, man, I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: Was it a messy start? Did it feel always right
Speaker 1: or natural?
Speaker 3: Fill Myself playlist?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that really encouraged. Yeah, definitely mean both of us.
Speaker 3: Had the same thought. So we were listening to Spotify.
Speaker 3: We had an opportunity to listen to a lot of music.
Speaker 3: I start back working out, and there were a lot
Speaker 3: of black women on this playlist that were just like
Speaker 3: sounding extra liberated and super tapped into their will of
Speaker 3: honesty and truth and sensuality and sexuality and grit and
Speaker 3: softness and hardness. Like I loved hearing that all on
Speaker 3: one playlist, and it encouraged me to tap into my
Speaker 3: many different sides. And I think Nate would see me
Speaker 3: listening to Filling Myself playlists around the studio and as
Speaker 3: I was working out, and it was like, I've never remembered.
Speaker 3: And that's the beautiful thing with playlists. You can really
Speaker 3: curate your own world on your own soundtrack. And when
Speaker 3: I felt that vibe, I was like, I want more
Speaker 3: of this, and I want the people that are listening
Speaker 3: to this who are feeling like they have not been
Speaker 3: able to walk in their greatness as black women, as
Speaker 3: non binary folks, as marginalized people. They haven't been able
Speaker 3: to really own all of them. I want to lead
Speaker 3: by example and I want I want to highlight them.
Speaker 3: I want and highlight them by creating music that speaks
Speaker 3: to their hearts.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I got two daughters and I don't want
Speaker 1: them to feel ashamed of pleasure or whatever, right, like
Speaker 1: as they get older or not. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but society for so you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's still that it's still a lot of
Speaker 4: work to be done in that area. But you know,
Speaker 4: one of the things I noted was that playlist. Like
Speaker 4: when you go to like a rap Caviar or the
Speaker 4: other like Big hip Hop, the biggest hip hop playlist.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll even have like a woman on the cover,
Speaker 4: But then you go through the actual playlist. It literally,
Speaker 4: out of one hundred songs, it might be like three
Speaker 4: songs by women, and it really I just took so
Speaker 4: much issue with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just like this is wild.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like literally they'll put Megan thee Stallion on the
Speaker 4: cover of it and not to go like down thirty
Speaker 4: songs to get to her song.
Speaker 2: It's like, this is crazy, this is wold.
Speaker 3: And that was another reason why we wanted to make
Speaker 3: sure that, you know, black women were repers ended on
Speaker 3: this project generationally, from Dochi to you know, the King
Speaker 3: of Jamaica, Grace Jones.
Speaker 1: Grace's albums really come on, yes, let me.
Speaker 3: Tell you she. I spent seventy two hours with Grace Jones.
Speaker 3: That's how we got her on the album.
Speaker 1: I was going to get it, don't I'm still.
Speaker 3: Like just bowing down to her. Seventy two hours with
Speaker 3: her hour is where I was like, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, come together. What So I went.
Speaker 3: I went to her at the Hollywood Bowl and I
Speaker 3: ended up she was somehow it's like her light, one
Speaker 3: of her last songs, and they were calling people on stage,
Speaker 3: and of course I'm gonna jump on stage. And if
Speaker 3: you look online if you look online, you will see
Speaker 3: there's a video of me running through Grace Jones' legs,
Speaker 3: her smacking my ass us, dancing like just being the
Speaker 3: free spirits that we are. And I had met her
Speaker 3: years back, but we didn't really get to connect. And
Speaker 3: she did call me. She called me years back, and
Speaker 3: I was so shocked. I was like, how does she
Speaker 3: even get my number? And she just called me and
Speaker 3: she told me she loved me, and I was just like,
Speaker 3: I love you. But we never got to connect again
Speaker 3: after that. I think maybe she changed her number, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe she just went to another planet for the springtime.
Speaker 3: Who knows, it's Grace Jones. And so when she came
Speaker 3: this time though, we went backstage and we really connected
Speaker 3: and she she was just like hugging me. I was
Speaker 3: hugging her, and she was just saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: in town for a few days. She invited me to
Speaker 3: her hotel where they had like a small little gathering
Speaker 3: to celebrate her incredible performance live. If you ever get
Speaker 3: a chance, go see her. She nobody, nobody touches her.
Speaker 1: I regret not going. I was going to go to that.
Speaker 3: Always, you just always say yes. And so that night
Speaker 3: When we went back to her hotel, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I you know, I had to leave, and
Speaker 3: I just said, I'm just gonna invite her to want
Speaker 3: to land what she can just say no, and if
Speaker 3: she says no, I'll be like yes. Grace Jones told
Speaker 3: me no, Yes, so great, and so I said, listen,
Speaker 3: I have to leave, but I don't know you know
Speaker 3: what your schedule is tomorrow, but I would love to
Speaker 3: have you for lunch at Wonderland at our studio. And
Speaker 3: she was like, is there a pool there? And I
Speaker 3: was like, indeed, there is a pool. And then she
Speaker 3: was like, okay, I will call you. I'm gonna come,
Speaker 3: and I just I was like okay, and I was like,
Speaker 3: she says this to everybody, I'm sure because she doesn't
Speaker 3: want to hurt anybody's feelings. And she called. She had
Speaker 3: she had her assistant text and asked if it was
Speaker 3: a heated pool if they because she swims every day
Speaker 3: is her exercise? And I asked them, well, what does
Speaker 3: she drink? What does she Like like, I'm scrambling, I'm like,
Speaker 3: how am I going to host Grace Jones? Everybody? We
Speaker 3: need to have a meeting, right go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3: What are we doing? And he sends me this list,
Speaker 3: Like her wine list is immaculate, her champagne list is immaculate.
Speaker 3: And so she came over and we really had lunch
Speaker 3: and we really got in this pool. She took her
Speaker 3: top off just I mean, I know, we're talking a
Speaker 3: lot about all of the toplessness, which is really great because,
Speaker 3: as we know, we live in a world where there's
Speaker 3: a double standard. Yeah, you know where the liberation that
Speaker 3: Grace has been able to do did not come with
Speaker 3: open arms, you know, it came with a lot of scrutiny.
Speaker 3: This is somebody who was raised under a pastor, you know,
Speaker 3: who was a bishop and in a very conservative community.
Speaker 3: And for her to say I'm gonna live my motherfucking
Speaker 3: life and to show us that, like that was all
Speaker 3: I needed to see and hear, and she really by
Speaker 3: being her and by hanging out with her and her
Speaker 3: encouraging me to be me, and sitting in the studio
Speaker 3: listening to the songs, like her getting up dancing and
Speaker 3: moving and telling us which one she loved and what,
Speaker 3: like her hearing the instruments and talking about that like
Speaker 3: she is a musical genius. It was all the affirmation
Speaker 3: I needed.
Speaker 1: First of all, taking off for top in your pool
Speaker 1: is a real legendary what an honor, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, you curated this.
Speaker 3: It's just a typical Tuesday for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But then so then you pull in the studio
Speaker 1: when she's listening.
Speaker 3: You asked her to Yeah. I was like, I told her,
Speaker 3: I said, I would love to get you, you know,
Speaker 3: on our project. She was like, okay, well where is it?
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, since you asked, there's a
Speaker 3: studio right in here, and so we went in there.
Speaker 3: And but I will say recording Grace Jones because I
Speaker 3: had to wrangle her in it is like having the
Speaker 3: most beautiful panther in the studio that then turns into
Speaker 3: a tiger that then turns into like a bird with
Speaker 3: the biggest wings that will flap around and you just
Speaker 3: you cannot contain that energy. You just have to have
Speaker 3: everything on record and get what you can. Wow, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. You can't really tell her what
Speaker 3: to do. But even in the moments where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: can you do more of this or do more of that,
Speaker 3: or no, say it like this or talk French, because
Speaker 3: she speaks French fluently, and that's what we and that
Speaker 3: was the thing that made it. I said, Oh, that's
Speaker 3: the sexy ship that I want on this project, because
Speaker 3: I don't think we've really gotten a chance to hear
Speaker 3: her in that way. And we've actually recorded more, like
Speaker 3: I have at least two hours.
Speaker 2: Of recording with Grace job definitely.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 3: I really, I really really want to. She's working on
Speaker 3: her album, which is going to also be incredible. She
Speaker 3: played us her album like I got to hear Grace
Speaker 3: Jones's album. We did. It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible. Well man, you got I mean, the
Speaker 1: fact that you went as far as to pull Grace
Speaker 1: Jones in the studio for your album. Nothing we can
Speaker 1: say but thank you. There's nothing we could say but
Speaker 1: thank you and congratulations on not just the Grammy, but
Speaker 1: congratulations for that, but just what I've seen it do
Speaker 1: to people's spirits over the last eight months.
Speaker 3: You know, that's all we want. It's incredible, that's all
Speaker 3: we want. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Can I ask her not to put you on the
Speaker 1: spot now? I love We're far enough from heaven.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you are a deep Cotton fan.
Speaker 1: I love Deep Cotton. Oh, I don't know where the
Speaker 1: love my copy of.
Speaker 3: I love this you are. I knew I liked you,
Speaker 3: but now I love you. That's what I love this.
Speaker 1: This is my ship, this song is I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't know how to explain my
Speaker 1: love of this.
Speaker 3: So good, it's really good. From heaving. Now we can
Speaker 3: freak out. So well done it. It's the lorndessakout. You
Speaker 3: can join it.
Speaker 4: Bang bang.
Speaker 1: Wants breaking out.
Speaker 4: There's a killer and that is marching and all bang
Speaker 4: bang this does and you can see it.
Speaker 2: As well.
Speaker 3: Kissed the most laughing to your dash.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my god, take up friend, that's man.
Speaker 2: Didn't tell some stories in here?
Speaker 1: And bo can cook?
Speaker 2: Can clean?
Speaker 1: Who will pay the fence?
Speaker 2: Who can cook and clean?
Speaker 1: Who will pay the fence? Who can cook?
Speaker 3: Who clean the fence?
Speaker 1: Fire nothing man, But now we can break out. Yeah
Speaker 1: we fire nothing happening.
Speaker 3: Now we can break out.
Speaker 2: Yeah we fire nothing man.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna freak out.
Speaker 2: Yeah we're fire nothing having Now we.
Speaker 3: Can break out, freak out.
Speaker 2: That's so crazy.
Speaker 3: You have excellent tastes.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: Like when I heard their song, Actually, when Nate was
Speaker 3: saying like he met me performing on the library steps
Speaker 3: with the guitar. I was heavily just like on some
Speaker 3: acoustic big afro I guess you would say, neo soul vibes.
Speaker 3: And when I heard their music, it changed my whole life.
Speaker 3: It changed the way I saw us because I hadn't
Speaker 3: seen I mean with the exception of like Andre, because NARLS.
Speaker 3: Barkley wasn't even around at that time, but with the
Speaker 3: exception of like the Love Below and what Andre was
Speaker 3: doing and you know, some some some indie artists in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: nobody was stretching and it's sounding good like it was
Speaker 3: either too alternative for me to get to, you know,
Speaker 3: to get into, and there was no melody, there was
Speaker 3: no soul. But when I heard their stuff, I was
Speaker 3: like it was up temp. There were there were like
Speaker 3: up tempo records that sounded like Japanese funk. I don't know,
Speaker 3: that's the best way to describe it. And all I
Speaker 3: knew was like, I want to make music like that,
Speaker 3: and so that I really have to credit deep Cott
Speaker 3: for why I like up tempo songs and why I
Speaker 3: make up tempo music and stretch.
Speaker 1: When it comes to genre textas are incredible. No one really,
Speaker 1: no one really plays like acoustic like that, like a
Speaker 1: up loud. It sounds like some Frank Black like the
Speaker 1: weird bizarre phrase.
Speaker 3: Is an incredible writer imminator, Like there.
Speaker 2: Their partnership we actually had. It's crazy.
Speaker 4: We actually are finishing our album right now. We actually
Speaker 4: just got the album cover done for it and everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah coming out what dream is coming true?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that song because I love the line
Speaker 4: who can cook, who can clean?
Speaker 2: Who will paint the fence?
Speaker 4: I mean, there's so many other things about the song
Speaker 4: that are great, but also who can cook, who can clean?
Speaker 2: Who will paint the fence?
Speaker 4: Because it takes like this idea of like taking over
Speaker 4: the mansion and tell some stories and there and all
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, which is cool idea, right, but
Speaker 4: then like it's the responsibilities that you have to each.
Speaker 2: Other, like who's who can cook, who can clean? Who
Speaker 2: will paint?
Speaker 4: Like who's doing the real work that it takes to
Speaker 4: like stay alive. So we can, you know, take over
Speaker 4: this match and tell some stories.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thanks so much, guys, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Creative Thanks likewise, this is beautiful, incredible.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jennell Monee and Nate wonder for the invite
Speaker 1: to Wonderland to chat about her latest album, The Age
Speaker 1: of Pleasure. You can hear it, along with our other
Speaker 1: favorite songs of Jennemne's and Nate Wonders on a playlist
Speaker 1: at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where
Speaker 1: you can find all of our new episodes. You can
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinay.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
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Speaker 1: Back in the Beats? I'm justin Richmond, h