Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: brother Me.
Speaker 2: How you doing like that? It's a mighty exhale.
Speaker 3: You know. I think I'm having what they would call
Speaker 3: first world problems, but problems are still they're not.
Speaker 4: Easy just because their first world don't make them easy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's the ongoing be careful
Speaker 3: for what you ask for Olympics. With me, this is
Speaker 3: probably the most packed summer I've had in the history
Speaker 3: of my existence. Like I think, I think an average
Speaker 3: person has like one or two two major projects to
Speaker 3: do a year, and you know what happens is oftentimes
Speaker 3: I'm pitched to do stuff, usually a year and a
Speaker 3: half in advance. You know, they're people pitching me projects
Speaker 3: and ideas now for like twenty twenty eight, top of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty nine, So of course I'm gonna say, of course,
Speaker 3: no problem. I'll been done by then. And then it
Speaker 3: turns into, you know, bitch, better have my movie, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like, so, I didn't realize studios talk to you like that,
Speaker 5: but that's good to know.
Speaker 2: Nah boy.
Speaker 3: They it's the way they remind you the deadline's coming up,
Speaker 3: so you know, so Meir you know that orchestral project
Speaker 3: we talked about, you know, for September of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yeah, you know, how's it going?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? It's not that specifically, but
Speaker 2: you get my point. How's your summer?
Speaker 5: It's been a different It's been busy, but a different
Speaker 5: kind of busy. Like I feel like.
Speaker 2: So everything's different, Like it's not just me.
Speaker 5: Well, I similarly have a bunch of different plates spinning.
Speaker 5: I feel like the places I have spinning are a
Speaker 5: little closer to my body though, so I can reach them,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm.
Speaker 4: Saying, Like I feel like yours.
Speaker 5: You got to stand on all type of ladders and
Speaker 5: cranes and stuff to keep your plates spinning. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't envy that, but I do understand how quickly
Speaker 5: these days go by and how these mountains of work
Speaker 5: pile up when you have a lot you're trying to do.
Speaker 5: Is this summer going by fast for you quickly? Like
Speaker 5: it's it's zoom, Like it's the middle of July already.
Speaker 5: That's nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like April yesterday, right, It's nuts.
Speaker 3: Like I definitely put up my Marvin Gaye rest in
Speaker 3: peace post like, oh my god, back in April and
Speaker 3: now like I almost feel like we might as well
Speaker 3: just say it's August.
Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much, win a second half of July. It's
Speaker 5: going by, it's almost done.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be in the.
Speaker 1: Foot the fourth of July like a week, like maybe
Speaker 1: five days ago.
Speaker 4: Thing, it's time no longer exists.
Speaker 2: It no longer exists. You know what, It's funny you
Speaker 2: say that. I'm I'm still in.
Speaker 3: Post earth wind and fire research syndrome, and I'm still
Speaker 3: going down the book list of like Maurice White books
Speaker 3: I should read, and I'm right now in David Evans,
Speaker 3: and he speaks a lot about like time really doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: It's all relative.
Speaker 2: Time is only slow when shit's fucked up.
Speaker 4: When you can't wait for whatever you're in to be
Speaker 4: over to be over.
Speaker 3: So, speaking of I guess we're having fun if is
Speaker 3: moving quick, moving quickly.
Speaker 4: Speaking of time. Note, this is a mini episode.
Speaker 5: So we got a mail bag question that I think
Speaker 5: could lead to a real cool, quick conversation. It's been
Speaker 5: submitted by Mario, who asks a question for the mail bag.
Speaker 5: Heard a minute of an interview with director on Batam
Speaker 5: of Saturday Night Fever. He was introduced with the comment
Speaker 5: about the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack being the biggest soundtrack
Speaker 5: of all time. I've heard the story of how DJ
Speaker 5: Rick Dee's declined having his novelty hit Disco Duck included
Speaker 5: on the soundtrack will cost him a lot of money,
Speaker 5: which makes God, this is making the question or wonder,
Speaker 5: how does it work to get your song on the soundtrack?
Speaker 5: Do you get paid to set fee as an artist?
Speaker 5: And in the old days of pure album sales, do
Speaker 5: you get a royalty base? So basically asking about the
Speaker 5: economics of how soundtrack works, especially back in the day,
Speaker 5: because I feel like I came up in a golden
Speaker 5: age of movie soundtracks and there were some root songs
Speaker 5: on some very important best Man High School high.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's funny you say that, because right now I'm
Speaker 3: I just happened to start binge watching this series on
Speaker 3: our TV that's gotten like a lot of nominations for
Speaker 3: the Emmys. I think they have nineteen nominations, And of
Speaker 3: course I'm stalling because I just writ.
Speaker 5: So Okay, I was thinking it might be Widows, but
Speaker 5: I don't know that it got nominated for Emmis because
Speaker 5: it's so new, but it's a fantastic show.
Speaker 3: I think it has more than yeah, it has one
Speaker 3: more than plural Us. Plural Us was supposed to be
Speaker 3: like the Bell of the Ball, but Widow's Bay has
Speaker 3: nineteen Emmy nominations and one of the most humorous observations
Speaker 3: I knowed about that show, Yo Man like quality controlled
Speaker 3: by the Jurassic Five to me, has to be one
Speaker 3: of the most licensed songs of all time. Okay, so
Speaker 3: here's the deal. And I was thinking about this question basically,
Speaker 3: like probably like three days ago. One of the very
Speaker 3: first records that I received as a gift was a
Speaker 3: compilation album, Soul Train, and it's like fourth season released
Speaker 3: like an a. They would have party albums, you know,
Speaker 3: like now somebody will put a bunch of songs together
Speaker 3: and streaming and play it at the house party so
Speaker 3: that the party can keep going.
Speaker 2: Records weren't like that.
Speaker 3: Mostly in the fifties and sixties, people would listen to
Speaker 3: comedy records like Red Fox Records was known as a
Speaker 3: party album right at a party, which is weird, like
Speaker 3: you're like talking, but you're also like listening to Red Fox.
Speaker 3: And then of course like every DJ that we admire
Speaker 3: would say that, like they grew up in the sixties
Speaker 3: and seventies as the record player person, like get a
Speaker 3: bunch of forty fives, and it's your job to keep
Speaker 3: the music going. And you know, once in a blue moon,
Speaker 3: they would make these party records, which is basically just
Speaker 3: like the first version of Now that's what I call music.
Speaker 2: So Soul Training had the same thing.
Speaker 3: They would have like a twenty song compilation on this
Speaker 3: album called Soul Trained Super Tracks, and it was like
Speaker 3: it's literally twenty songs on a single album.
Speaker 2: So already the grooves are like minuscule.
Speaker 3: And you know, they would license these songs, like there
Speaker 3: are companies that you and I are probably familiar with
Speaker 3: that maybe they wouldn't know today, like k Tel, Like
Speaker 3: there would be labeled specifically whose job it was.
Speaker 4: To have these linsing agreements with these.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to license songs, and you know, it was just
Speaker 3: it was super cheap. Somewhere, I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 3: when did the tables turn?
Speaker 2: And I almost feel like.
Speaker 3: When I started getting into the game of licensing songs
Speaker 3: very briefly, when I thought I had a career as
Speaker 3: a music scorer, for films, and people would hire me
Speaker 3: to not only score of music but also to like
Speaker 3: play songs, like around two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, two thousand and eight. I would say that
Speaker 3: for the most part, people were honored to be included
Speaker 3: on a soundtrack, so they wouldn't go all in. They
Speaker 3: wouldn't say, hey, i'm a list such and such, yeah,
Speaker 3: I want two million for it. It's almost like, oh,
Speaker 3: promotion like this in a movie. So like a good
Speaker 3: example of the last days of that glory period would
Speaker 3: be like the eight Miles soundtrack. Fomo, of course you
Speaker 3: want to be on the eminem soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Thing of a jiggot.
Speaker 3: So pretty much, I'll say, like around twenty ten, especially
Speaker 3: when I started working in terms of like working for
Speaker 3: television shows in which you know, good side money for
Speaker 3: me was always like whatever series is on HBO. I
Speaker 3: don't mean like answer rise. I forget the names of
Speaker 3: the shows that I was a part of, but I
Speaker 3: would easily be called in just so that I could
Speaker 3: share my playlist and hopefully I could recommend something that
Speaker 3: was cheap.
Speaker 2: So this is what I mean.
Speaker 3: If you are familiar with the film called Made Vince
Speaker 3: Vince Vaughn and uh, what's his name?
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Favreau.
Speaker 3: Their follow up film, There Were Swingers and There was
Speaker 3: Me same it's almost like the same movie. And there's
Speaker 3: a scene where they have to go up to Harlem
Speaker 3: to meet Diddy at a nightclub. He's like a gangster type,
Speaker 3: meet him at a nightclub and for one thing, Grandmaster
Speaker 3: Flashes spinning at this night club. And what does he
Speaker 3: spend He spends quality controlled by the Jurassic Float. I'm
Speaker 3: sitting there watching Ditty in the club like in his
Speaker 3: bottle service glory moment, and I'm like, there's no way
Speaker 3: in the world you would tell me that Diddy would
Speaker 3: be in a nightclub listening to the Jurassic Fly all
Speaker 3: right with Grandmaster Grandmaster Flash spinning. This is pretty much
Speaker 3: how like I mean, we've licensed the roots, have licensed
Speaker 3: the f and here I come to at least ten
Speaker 3: to twenty of those things you come in low in
Speaker 3: the name of we want to promote.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a fair cash cow.
Speaker 3: I would say, now low balling would be anywhere between
Speaker 3: ten and fifteen thousand dollars to license. But then on
Speaker 3: the other hand, if you want to license, say a song,
Speaker 3: that's been iconic, like Crazy in Love or Umbrella. You know,
Speaker 3: especially if you watch a show like Maya Rudolph's her
Speaker 3: television show, which.
Speaker 2: Is notory, like they at least.
Speaker 3: Use ten to twenty songs. Those shits are expensive, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? And it just depends even shit
Speaker 3: even with my own movies, Like do you know how
Speaker 3: weird it is to be asked by a company to
Speaker 3: do a documentary about their artists so that they could
Speaker 3: sell records, and they're still charging me for using their music.
Speaker 2: Yes see, Like.
Speaker 5: I get it, but that's that's almost disappointing to hear.
Speaker 4: Even though I get it.
Speaker 3: The amount of letters I had to write to say, look,
Speaker 3: it's really crucial that we include this song. Like normally,
Speaker 3: when you start with a project, they give you just
Speaker 3: enough money to maybe clear twenty songs and hopefully you're
Speaker 3: working now. In the case of Earth when in Fire,
Speaker 3: a big part of the reason why I was able
Speaker 3: to get twenty five to thirty songs cleared is because
Speaker 3: they wrote a majority of their.
Speaker 4: Songs, so they have more control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhat.
Speaker 3: One of the snags I had was there's scene where
Speaker 3: when he starts working for Chess Records. I use Marlena
Speaker 3: Shaw's California Soul because I wanted hip hop heads rather
Speaker 3: familiar with gangster right. However, that wasn't my first choice.
Speaker 3: My first choice was the drum break that we would
Speaker 3: know as leader of the New School's case of the PTA.
Speaker 3: It's like a famous drum break that Maurice White did. However,
Speaker 3: that song is a mighty Quinn, which is written by
Speaker 3: Bob Dylan. Now, if you remember, during the pandemic, Bob
Speaker 3: Dylan's people made an announcement that he sold his entire catalog.
Speaker 2: So that's what's happening now.
Speaker 3: He sold his entire catalog to this company for three
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars. So they're not in the benevolent for
Speaker 3: History's sake business.
Speaker 2: They're in the fuck you pay me bit.
Speaker 4: Better money we got, we gotta get this three hundred
Speaker 4: mil back, right.
Speaker 3: And I'm basically like, look, I just want to use
Speaker 3: the drum break thirteen seconds?
Speaker 2: Do you mind cut me a break?
Speaker 3: And you know, I even went to the point as
Speaker 3: far as saying, like my future films, I'll use more
Speaker 3: more music from your acquirements if you want me to.
Speaker 3: But they want it full rate for it, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't worth four times the price, Like they're trying to
Speaker 3: recoup their three hundred million back. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: what's happening now now in the case of I think
Speaker 3: in the case of Rick D's and Saturday Night Fever,
Speaker 3: which you know, Saturday Night Fever, in my opinion, is
Speaker 3: the gold standard of the mega record, Like that's the
Speaker 3: album that Michael Jackson was watching when he said I
Speaker 3: want to sell more records than matter of Fact.
Speaker 2: Matter of Fact. On the demo of Shake your Body
Speaker 2: Down to.
Speaker 3: The Ground, you literally hear Randy and Michael working on
Speaker 3: the song that's before shake your Body Down to the Ground,
Speaker 3: which is Things I Do for You on their Destiny album,
Speaker 3: And towards the end of it, Randy changes the key
Speaker 3: and Mike's like, oh, what's that and they're doing what
Speaker 3: we will eventually known as shake you right down to
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 2: So they're just like riffing and stuff.
Speaker 3: And at the very end of that riff, for like
Speaker 3: a minute, you're Jackie Jackson say, man, I can't.
Speaker 2: Wait for the begs to hear this. So that goes
Speaker 2: to show you how.
Speaker 3: Major that soundtrack was, you know, that could move me
Speaker 3: and in one album of the year. So as a result,
Speaker 3: you know, cooling, the gang was almost on the way out,
Speaker 3: and yet that was enough to say them for a
Speaker 3: little two years before they got to their eighties phase.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I'm actually glad it didn't make the soundtrack, even though
Speaker 3: I had that forty five when I was in first grade.
Speaker 2: But I think it would have. That was a credible
Speaker 2: disco album.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was, you know what I mean, It was
Speaker 5: the only one I have personally. I know, you know,
Speaker 5: not to not to be dismissive of the era at all,
Speaker 5: but that to me was like, oh, this is no.
Speaker 3: It was actually a credible disco album. I got it
Speaker 3: in second grade as a gift. Listen to it over,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like it was required in
Speaker 3: every household. As matter of fact, I've never seen the movie.
Speaker 3: Until I see the movie. I seen the movie, dude,
Speaker 3: the most depressing movie ever.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't expect that based on that soundtrack. You wouldn't expect it.
Speaker 3: No, Like it's you know what, you know, it's weird.
Speaker 3: So I think I seen that movie. I've definitely seen it.
Speaker 3: When I started working at the Tonight Show. It must
Speaker 3: have been one of them times when like John Travolta
Speaker 3: came on the show and I realized, Yo, I've seen Greece,
Speaker 3: I've seen paulp Fiction, I've seen get I've seen all
Speaker 3: John Travolta's films except for the one film that made
Speaker 3: him a star. And I watched it and I was like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, this soundtrack would lead you to believe
Speaker 3: that this was like.
Speaker 2: NonStop party and amaze, right, and it wasn't.
Speaker 3: And that's when I realized that as much as we
Speaker 3: like love and reminisce about the seventies and the eighties
Speaker 3: and even in the nineties, those are the worst of times.
Speaker 3: It's just at the sound the music soundtrack was our
Speaker 3: escapism for such a harsh Sperioit that's mine.
Speaker 5: So so as we, you know, bring this particular conversation
Speaker 5: to a close, I did want to focus on one
Speaker 5: of these soundtracks that I heard Roots, like Root's music on.
Speaker 2: High School.
Speaker 5: High School has specifically I hate you man, why you
Speaker 5: gotta be cut? Gotta be deep cut Smurphy. I mean, look,
Speaker 5: I'm telling you to me right, this is a deep
Speaker 5: cut because this is like, it's not a movie people
Speaker 5: think about at all, but like in the height of
Speaker 5: my gotta have it all going to the record store
Speaker 5: every week.
Speaker 4: This is a soundtrack I bought and like, I was.
Speaker 5: Just endlessly entertained by the music on this soundtrack.
Speaker 2: It was parapacked. Yeah, I mean it was parapacked. Angelo
Speaker 2: and Erica Baidu.
Speaker 4: On here wool Wear the garment Renaissance. Yeah, Alas, can't
Speaker 4: call it so much.
Speaker 5: I mean I think tribes on there, I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: peace of prosperity of paper.
Speaker 4: Dude, Like, what do you remember about this? Like this
Speaker 4: putting this together?
Speaker 3: Okay, So I told you the story of how I
Speaker 3: met D'Angelo at the House of Blues show and in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. I thought his date had a very unusual
Speaker 3: head wrap on our head, only to find out he's
Speaker 3: Erica Badud. And I'm also meeting them on March thirtieth,
Speaker 3: and they're telling me that they're going to what we
Speaker 3: will know as Marvin's Room. H damn, rest in peace.
Speaker 3: I forgot Marvin's room burnt down in the in the
Speaker 3: Palis States fire. No more Marvin Gaye's studio. But they
Speaker 3: want to Arvin gay Studio, which was famous for kind
Speaker 3: of being in a time portal that never moved the
Speaker 3: way that he had that studio in nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 3: when he last used it for Here My Dear is
Speaker 3: the same condition that it's been in until that Palisade fire.
Speaker 2: They never changed the thing, not the interior, nothing.
Speaker 3: So they recorded a Marvin Gaye Tammy Terell song at
Speaker 3: Marvin Gay's studio the next day after I met them
Speaker 3: at the House of Blues, which essentially is like the
Speaker 3: summit meeting of all of us meeting he just met
Speaker 3: Erica eight hours before, and I'm meeting him and Erica
Speaker 3: eight hours later as they come to see the Roots
Speaker 3: and the fujis and goodie mob at the House of Blues,
Speaker 3: and it just so happens that Kadar Massenberg was within earshot.
Speaker 2: So then he comes and says, Hey, she wants to
Speaker 2: work with y'all next.
Speaker 3: And so we will eventually start working on the other
Speaker 3: side of the game and stuff and stuff with Erica
Speaker 3: in about a month. And then he introduces us to
Speaker 3: I forget who the sound. I think I think maybe Reef,
Speaker 3: somebody that used to work at the Source that then
Speaker 3: got an an r gig was sort of spearheading the
Speaker 3: sound of the High School High soundtrack. We did that
Speaker 3: song at Dallas Austin Studio on a day off. The
Speaker 3: fujis were next door working on what I believe was
Speaker 3: going to I believe they were working on what will
Speaker 3: eventually become.
Speaker 2: The sweetest thing.
Speaker 3: And we were working on that High School Highest soundtrack
Speaker 3: song in Dallas Austin studio. And the guy that does
Speaker 3: all the the reggae chanting thing that was like it
Speaker 3: was like Proswell's cousin or something like.
Speaker 2: He he like hanging with us.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's for the weed or whatever like,
Speaker 3: but you know, it was like a kind of a
Speaker 3: happy summit meeting between the roots and the fujis at
Speaker 3: the Dallas Austin Studio in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: So that's pretty much what I remember well.
Speaker 5: As always, our conversations can unfold a hundred different ways
Speaker 5: and we can talk for hours. So I mean, I
Speaker 5: look forward to maybe picking that up sometime in the
Speaker 5: future too, Yes, sir, But good to connect on this
Speaker 5: one and talk to you again, surely.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio