Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 3: To not geek out as I normally do in these introductions,
Speaker 3: but and I will.
Speaker 4: Also try to hide my abundant enthusiasm before talking to
Speaker 4: such a killer of culture.
Speaker 3: As just know, it is so weird that our very
Speaker 3: first exchange is going to be in front of millions
Speaker 3: of people. I will try to keep my composure of
Speaker 3: my professionalism. All right, ladies and gentlemen of Questlove World listenership.
Speaker 3: This is one of those air quote dreams come true
Speaker 3: moments for this podcast. Our guest today has a profound
Speaker 3: effect all my life, ever since his nineteen eighty seven debut,
Speaker 3: which yielded five singles that propelled him to the top
Speaker 3: of the charts. And it can't be overstated how impressionable
Speaker 3: he was to me in my life at that particular time,
Speaker 3: because I was just about to graduate high school and
Speaker 3: I was deciding for myself, like what is it that
Speaker 3: I want to do with my life? And clearly I
Speaker 3: didn't want to live my dad's dream of you know,
Speaker 3: respectable politics and entering the world of classical music. But
Speaker 3: reading our guests mind blowing interviews and mind you Like,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of my idols and hip hop
Speaker 3: really weren't given the platform of a village voice, or
Speaker 3: of a spin magazine or of a rolling Stone. So
Speaker 3: reading his mind blowing interviews really had an effect on me.
Speaker 3: Reading his lyrics had an effect, watching and perform Hearing
Speaker 3: him sing had an effect his arrangements, his production and fun. Fact,
Speaker 3: a lot of you are going to be mind blowing.
Speaker 3: That are Roots fans. His liner notes, okay, his liner notes, credits, yes,
Speaker 3: credits and liner notes. I literally didn't know that these
Speaker 3: food delivery box could be an instrument, like so just
Speaker 3: his sixth sense of humor in music and on his
Speaker 3: line like literally longtime Roots fans who still to this day,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that I've written eight and I'm plugging
Speaker 3: My hip Hop's History came out last week, but my
Speaker 3: eight New York Times bestsellers, despite the fact that I
Speaker 3: have eight books, Roots fans complain to this day that
Speaker 3: and despite the fact that there are no more tangible
Speaker 3: well not no more, but you know, tangible objects like
Speaker 3: cassettes or LPs or CDs or a trex is not
Speaker 3: the primary way that we consume music. To this day,
Speaker 3: they still ridicule me for not doing epic liner notes,
Speaker 3: not knowing that our guess is single handedly responsible for
Speaker 3: that side of my life. Yeah, I'll definitely say forty
Speaker 3: percent responsible. I don't want to dismiss you.
Speaker 4: I have to cut you off now before you You're
Speaker 4: embarrassed both of us.
Speaker 2: No, no, man, let me, let me.
Speaker 3: Let me just gonna get to the end, because I
Speaker 3: know when love is projected, we somehow try to avoid it,
Speaker 3: like the Matrix. I get it, and if the other
Speaker 3: Team Supreme people were here right now, they do the
Speaker 3: same to me.
Speaker 2: But I think it's important.
Speaker 3: That we give flowers and really show respect to the gods.
Speaker 4: So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But literally, because I was aware of his life transformation
Speaker 3: after his first five records, it wasn't until D'Angelo and
Speaker 3: I were making Black Messiah around like twenty eleven, twenty
Speaker 3: twelve that D'Angelo will hit me to the fact that
Speaker 3: I missed like seven or eight albums and not believing
Speaker 3: what I heard, I pulled my phone out and realized
Speaker 3: the mountain of music I missed, and I have not
Speaker 3: been the same ever since. I have always wanted to
Speaker 3: say this, Welcome to quest love supreme. Wow, Sanata Matreya,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having us. And also let me say
Speaker 4: that we're basically two geeks speaking to each other because
Speaker 4: a lot of what makes us, speaking of us both
Speaker 4: collectively what we are is that particular attention to detail
Speaker 4: that being a geek bestows upon you, because when you're
Speaker 4: a geek, it means that you're paying attention to extra
Speaker 4: things that others are not. And then when you have
Speaker 4: a chance to contribute yourself. I mean, I often have
Speaker 4: said to people if I write certain things, while I
Speaker 4: do a certain things a certain way, I said, these
Speaker 4: are for the people who.
Speaker 2: Are like me.
Speaker 4: When I could thrill a second engineer on a Stevie
Speaker 4: Wonder record when I met him like fifteen years later,
Speaker 4: because I actually knew who he was by his name, okay,
Speaker 4: and the fact that you knew what Stevie record it
Speaker 4: was and everything, and they were like so thrilled. It's like, Wow,
Speaker 4: what a gift to give back to someone simply because
Speaker 4: I was a kid like you who devoured everything. Okay.
Speaker 4: I feel a p Funk record if it was a
Speaker 4: Beatles record, didn't matter. If I got for me, the
Speaker 4: only thing I missed about the old vinyl days, really
Speaker 4: is this artwork space. Yes, you know, the presentation. You
Speaker 4: had to make a title, you know, and bring a
Speaker 4: completely different stamp on the world before. Unfortunately, we began
Speaker 4: to put thoughts in your head as to the context
Speaker 4: of the song by the videos, Whereas once upon a time,
Speaker 4: it was the song meant what whatever it triggered in
Speaker 4: your imagination, that was the video that was created.
Speaker 3: But oh yes, I want to share something with you
Speaker 3: that I don't think the world news and I can't
Speaker 3: say her name properly, but there's an artist right now,
Speaker 3: a very significant artist who is held back releasing videos, yes,
Speaker 3: or a particular album, an emic album. And I found
Speaker 3: out maybe four months ago, went to go see this
Speaker 3: particular artist in concert, said how great the show was,
Speaker 3: and noticed that I saw certain visual clips that weren't
Speaker 3: out in the world. And this artist tells me, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, you're actually partly responsible for this, and I
Speaker 3: was like, what do you mean. So when this artist
Speaker 3: released a record, I said, you know what I love
Speaker 3: about this album is that because there were no videos initially,
Speaker 3: because of course I thought there was going to be
Speaker 3: an onslaught of videos that I said.
Speaker 2: It took me back to.
Speaker 3: The time where I explained to this artist when the
Speaker 3: album came out that I had a when Stevie Wonder's
Speaker 3: Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants came out that
Speaker 3: for me was my dark side of the moon. Like
Speaker 3: my dad hated that record, so he was like, here,
Speaker 3: you take it, and I took it, put the headphones
Speaker 3: on and just closed my eyes and imagined, you know,
Speaker 3: and basically said that I don't want videos for songs
Speaker 3: in the Key Life or any of Stevie Wonder's seventies
Speaker 3: records because in my mind, I have a picture of
Speaker 3: what I see, yes, because synaesthesia is real, and I,
Speaker 3: you know, I was just making a passing comment that,
Speaker 3: you know, it's great to experience this record without the
Speaker 3: videos telling me.
Speaker 2: What to think. And I didn't know that I held
Speaker 2: that much weight.
Speaker 3: And I guess on the ride home that must have
Speaker 3: been a straw that broke the camel's back to say, hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna not release videos because I want people to
Speaker 3: experience the music.
Speaker 4: And I remember getting Journey Through the Secret Life of
Speaker 4: Plans as a Christmas present one year from my aunt
Speaker 4: who worked in sears so yes, and so she got
Speaker 4: it for me. And I remember I was just on
Speaker 4: the cusp where I was allowed to listen to stuff
Speaker 4: inside the house that wasn't gospel. But I remember going
Speaker 4: out to our car and with my littc casette and
Speaker 4: just playing it because I absolutely I mean, if it's
Speaker 4: not clear, it should be that Stevie was one of
Speaker 4: the absolute pillars of my entire consciousness as a musician,
Speaker 4: as an artist, as anything that I perceived myself to be.
Speaker 4: He and the Beatles are kind of just right there
Speaker 4: at the foundation of how I started to envision music.
Speaker 4: So I loved that album saying well, you Loe, that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean And the thing about Stevee was he was
Speaker 4: like the Beatles were for me. He was a master
Speaker 4: class in all of it, songs, arrangements, instrumentation, He was
Speaker 4: a master orchestrator, Like they told him this motherfucker.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: And it was like just the way he brought further
Speaker 4: dimension of consciousness into the music, just by his understanding
Speaker 4: of sounds and how sounds trigger us alone, it's just
Speaker 4: not enough it's spoken about that. Sometimes I wish our
Speaker 4: brother Stevie was was white, just so that he would
Speaker 4: get much more intellectual appreciation. Yes, you know, because he
Speaker 4: really the only peers for me he had on the
Speaker 4: level that he existed was the Beatles, was like Brian Wilson,
Speaker 4: like these these extremely rare contemporaries who are like the Schubert, Beethoven,
Speaker 4: Mozarts of their time. You know. So I'm with you all.
Speaker 4: It's interesting that we have that journey through the secret
Speaker 4: life of plans connection. And also before we travel further,
Speaker 4: I want to thank you so much for just your
Speaker 4: contribution that you've made since the roots and since first
Speaker 4: coming out and just expanding your whole empire of consciousness
Speaker 4: onto you know what for me culminated in this Oscar
Speaker 4: that you I was so happy that you won and
Speaker 4: you make such a memorable year as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that there's a life changing year for me, man,
Speaker 3: because I really appreciated.
Speaker 4: You know. One of my claims to Pride is that
Speaker 4: I was born the same day as Sly, So you know,
Speaker 4: I remember Ifroen Prince saying, you fuck are you're born
Speaker 4: the same You and Slive born the same day. You
Speaker 4: know what I said?
Speaker 2: You do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. No, I'm not sure if
Speaker 4: Sly knew it.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, but Prince knew that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, wait, I gotta ask one question.
Speaker 3: There's so much I want to learn about your story
Speaker 3: and your journey, but I've been dying to ask you
Speaker 3: this question for at least three decades.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, and you already mentioned his name, so I
Speaker 2: had to ask.
Speaker 3: Okay, February of nineteen eighty eight, mm h, you are
Speaker 3: about to walk on stage. Yes, And Smokey Robinson's in
Speaker 3: the audience, Stevie wonders in the audience, Bono's in the audience.
Speaker 2: Michael's in the front row.
Speaker 4: With the red fucking jacket that you couldn't miss if
Speaker 4: you were Stevie wonder Yes.
Speaker 2: Princes in the front row.
Speaker 3: I think that's the first time where I tried to
Speaker 3: like channel vicariously. How does a person give a pitch
Speaker 3: perfect performance when literally the pillars of gods are literally
Speaker 3: like in the first three rows watching you. And the
Speaker 3: thing is is that I know Michael has an attitude
Speaker 3: because like that was also a weird night for him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was sort of the very that was the seed
Speaker 3: of the beginning of yeah, his you know, his future
Speaker 3: and also.
Speaker 4: The beginning of mine.
Speaker 2: In soundcheck.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know this because when I do
Speaker 3: award shows and I go soundcheck, you know, they put
Speaker 3: those big giant cards on the chairs and you see name, name, name,
Speaker 3: So when you're sound checking, you see, like, who's going
Speaker 3: to be watching you?
Speaker 2: Because you still gave a pitch perfect before?
Speaker 4: Thank you?
Speaker 3: What was that day like or was it just so
Speaker 3: numbing that it wasn't a footnote for you at all?
Speaker 2: Or well?
Speaker 4: First of all, the thing is is that at some
Speaker 4: point you do feel that parallel realities are real.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I used to explain at the very beginning what freaked
Speaker 4: people out most around me was that I had told
Speaker 4: them exactly what was going to happen, and it did
Speaker 4: because I had this sense even then that what I
Speaker 4: was going to do I had already done. But this
Speaker 4: was just kind of a time shift. Or because this
Speaker 4: dimension is at a slower rate of frequency than the
Speaker 4: dimension in which I've already done this, it just takes
Speaker 4: time to manifest. But I just had this but I've
Speaker 4: done this already attitude that informed so much of where
Speaker 4: I was coming from. And I say that because sometimes
Speaker 4: I mean still to this day, I can be in
Speaker 4: the vocable singing, and I have this almost outer body
Speaker 4: experience where I hear that the voice isn't coming from me,
Speaker 4: it's coming through me. And I'm basically literally capable of
Speaker 4: standing in that space where I can see the difference
Speaker 4: between something that originates from you and something you're just
Speaker 4: bearing witness to as a witness to a process. And
Speaker 4: a lot of times that happens when it seems like
Speaker 4: the reality that you're about to walk into is already
Speaker 4: so surreal that you might as well just have that
Speaker 4: kind of other dimensional experience. I said, say this, you
Speaker 4: grew up watching the Grammys. You grew up dreaming that
Speaker 4: one day would be you okay, and then but what
Speaker 4: you didn't dream is that damn there, like you said,
Speaker 4: every one of your like heroes and this in the
Speaker 4: front row. And at least it distracted you from the
Speaker 4: millions and millions and millions of people who are watching it.
Speaker 4: That was like the good thing they distract you from it.
Speaker 4: But during the sound check and what have you, I
Speaker 4: just don't pay that much attention to those things. I
Speaker 4: really don't. I focus out, I get my game head together.
Speaker 4: I understand what I have to do, and I know
Speaker 4: what I have to do to achieve that level. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that I did have to do
Speaker 4: was I always shut people out before the gig. I
Speaker 4: never saw anyone before a gig, and of course you
Speaker 4: get a reputation that people don't understand as being aloof
Speaker 4: for arrogant or whatever. You med meditation, Yeah, to put yourself,
Speaker 4: put your game face on, getting that zone, call your
Speaker 4: spirit together and all of that. But here's the secret
Speaker 4: is the killer. Fortunately that gig was in between a
Speaker 4: tour that we were doing anyway, we were already touring
Speaker 4: the States, and before I left London, a fan of
Speaker 4: mine from California had said, I'm going to be like
Speaker 4: shipping you something that will be waiting for you when
Speaker 4: you get to whatever. My first destination was Miami or
Speaker 4: Orlando or some Daytona, Florida, Okay. And so I got there,
Speaker 4: which is where I took the band to do production mirossalsuse.
Speaker 4: I grew up in the Daytona Beach area and I
Speaker 4: wanted to return there for production mirousals for the American tour.
Speaker 4: And so when I got there to Daytona Beach, what
Speaker 4: was waiting for me but a nice stick packet of shrooms. Okay.
Speaker 4: So I took the schedule, which I remember was forty dates,
Speaker 4: and I picked about eight to a dozen, eight to
Speaker 4: a dozen that I'm gonna do shroom here, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: do it shroom here, I'm gonna do air. And it
Speaker 4: was like it was just a crazy great experience. And
Speaker 4: I had no intention of doing that that night, But
Speaker 4: when I was sitting in the audience and I could
Speaker 4: see all the silhouettes and all people in front of
Speaker 4: me and just the spectacle that it was, I just
Speaker 4: thought I should be high. I mean, this is not right,
Speaker 4: and I'm just being honest. I was never like a
Speaker 4: cocaine guy or heroin guy. I was. I was in
Speaker 4: the like even as a child. I understood if it
Speaker 4: kind of gave you a different perspective on some shit.
Speaker 3: I think it brings you closer to God personally. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm a new microducer. I started microducing, and like before
Speaker 3: twenty twenty nothing, I didn't drink, none of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And then you know, once I started meditating and all
Speaker 3: that shit, you know what I mean, Like I started yeah, microdocing.
Speaker 4: So as I was getting closer to being called if
Speaker 4: I'm not mistaken, I think even Madam Whitney performed that
Speaker 4: night okay mistaken. It was just an onslaught of like
Speaker 4: just genius bitches. And I was like, okay, look. I
Speaker 4: turned to my baby mama, my English daughter, Sarahina, and
Speaker 4: I say to her, yeah, hooked me up when of
Speaker 4: them rooms buds right, because she she had brought a
Speaker 4: few emergencies. Just break, just break emergency, I'm saying, and
Speaker 4: I said, and she was like, looked at me, like,
Speaker 4: are you sure. I was like, no, no, no, give me.
Speaker 4: So I took one, went to bathroom booming. Next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, I was able to get out of my
Speaker 4: head and leave that performance because you know, it was
Speaker 4: also important for me to address my the heroes that
Speaker 4: were present, that this is the effect that you've had, This.
Speaker 2: Is what you dude. I said that.
Speaker 3: I said, Wow, I wonder if they're sitting there thinking
Speaker 3: I felt this, No, but not that, but I felt like,
Speaker 3: because the thing is, it's also your thing is so deep,
Speaker 3: like it's not your version of the microphone tricks, isn't
Speaker 3: James Brown's Joe text? Like literally, people don't know that
Speaker 3: Joe Tech started that shit, Like the pioneer never gets
Speaker 3: the credit there's always the second person that sees it
Speaker 3: and perfects it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and James Brown is world famous for his.
Speaker 3: Derivative borrowing, but you know, yeah, he's still the god.
Speaker 3: But even to the level where you started doing a
Speaker 3: microphone like in your history of performance, I was like,
Speaker 3: oh wow, he even knows Joe Texa's level of microphone mastery.
Speaker 4: And a lot of that stuff is channeling really, because
Speaker 4: it is a collective, whatever name one is comfortable giving
Speaker 4: to it. You know, if I'm in a certain comfortable space,
Speaker 4: I don't mind calling it the Holy Spirit, because ultimately
Speaker 4: that's who I believe, That's who I know. I'm belonging
Speaker 4: to the service of Okay, I do believe that many of
Speaker 4: us artists, this is precisely why we're here. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm asked often, why are you so prolific or how
Speaker 4: you create so easily? I said, that's a simple I've
Speaker 4: never seen myself as separate from the music. I'm an
Speaker 4: extension of the music. The music is not just a concept.
Speaker 4: It's a real spirit and it can create life, just
Speaker 4: like a lot of other spirit has the power to
Speaker 4: create life. So I just believe that I'm a form
Speaker 4: of music. In a human life, and therefore there is
Speaker 4: no separation between me and the mus and the music.
Speaker 4: It's just at one with my expression. And this is
Speaker 4: basically what I've always known that I was in the
Speaker 4: service off because I don't really believe all of these
Speaker 4: gifts of mine. I believe that I have been, that
Speaker 4: this is my Karmen, and this is my service, and
Speaker 4: we're selected for our fidelity because everything that I have,
Speaker 4: everything that I've endured and been able to endure with
Speaker 4: whatever grace has been I've been able to summon from
Speaker 4: the reservoir of mercy, is simply by understanding that you know,
Speaker 4: I was taught in Sunday School seeking first the kingdom
Speaker 4: of having in its righteousness, and all these things will
Speaker 4: we added onto you. The way I've lived that, the
Speaker 4: way I've interpreted that my life is the muse telling
Speaker 4: me listen, is the deal you served first and foremost
Speaker 4: to the utmost of your fidelity. You serve the music,
Speaker 4: you serve the inspiration. Hear it that you're giving, and
Speaker 4: we will look after your life. We will find the
Speaker 4: right woman for you. We will find what you need
Speaker 4: because we know what you need, and we know we're
Speaker 4: not gonna give you more than you need to be
Speaker 4: a distraction from the work that you're taken upon yourself
Speaker 4: to do. So you know all of that's a part
Speaker 4: of it, and you know that's that's what we're in
Speaker 4: the service of. So basically, yeah, it's their moments. When
Speaker 4: it's the same, it's like I rarely will drink or whatever,
Speaker 4: but if I feel like I need, as any performer,
Speaker 4: to drink, to take a shot of whiskey, to just
Speaker 4: kind of like center myself in the in the purpose
Speaker 4: thereof that you do what you gotta do.
Speaker 3: For our listeners that are not aware. Where's your beginnings? Like,
Speaker 3: where were you born?
Speaker 4: I have the great great fortune of being stamped by
Speaker 4: arrival in the great Borough of Harlem, h and the
Speaker 4: magnificent year of nineteen sixty two, the year of the
Speaker 4: Fender Jaguar, the year of the New York Mets, the
Speaker 4: year of the Rolling Stones. Okay, there you go, nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty two, and then I was basically we were actually
Speaker 4: from my people were from Newark. I also proudly claimed
Speaker 4: that East Darns connection, because, as you would know, East
Speaker 4: Starnes has produced an abundant amounts of bitches that were
Speaker 4: like making sense, you know what I mean? Yes, I
Speaker 4: think even Shaq Shaquille comes from Eastars And even my
Speaker 4: mother's history is kind of wound around Madame dion Warwicks,
Speaker 4: what could have been, what happened, what would happen if
Speaker 4: type history. So we came from that area. But my
Speaker 4: mother was the beloved eldest daughter of the big pastor
Speaker 4: of Newark, the Pentecostal Church, and when basically my father
Speaker 4: seduced her, you know, it was shame upon your family
Speaker 4: and all that bullshit, and so basically she was kind
Speaker 4: of banished to a cousin in Harlem who also knew
Speaker 4: how to take care of her, to look after because
Speaker 4: my mother's mother died when she was thirteen. So we
Speaker 4: were banished into Harlem to live with a cousin, and
Speaker 4: it was basically two years after that we moved back
Speaker 4: to Jersey. So that's where I began. And I'm proud
Speaker 4: to say I was born in Harlem because it's just
Speaker 4: one of those vortexes on the earth that if you
Speaker 4: have that fortune to be able to do something with
Speaker 4: that stamp, you're a blessed person.
Speaker 3: Indeed, what was your first musical memory in life the Beatles.
Speaker 4: I was two years old, and it's the first not
Speaker 4: only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
Speaker 4: the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
Speaker 4: of my father being banished from my life, my biological father,
Speaker 4: But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
Speaker 4: a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I
Speaker 4: remember she loved yeah, yeah, and oh you no no no, no, no, hope,
Speaker 4: you don't understand. I want to hold your hand, and
Speaker 4: she loves you. That that is the earliest memory I have,
Speaker 4: and I just think it's so awesome that it was
Speaker 4: a musical memory as well, because nothing you know that
Speaker 4: that was the music that woke up my consciousness to
Speaker 4: the fact that I was existing in that life. So
Speaker 4: that was my first memory. I also remember seeing Breakfast
Speaker 4: at Tiffany's on television when it came on in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty four, I think was also too or somewhere around thereabouts.
Speaker 4: And I remember my mother buying me some Batman cards
Speaker 4: because that was my first hero is Batman. So those
Speaker 4: memories around the same time, but they were all East Orange,
Speaker 4: New Jersey memories.
Speaker 2: How long were you a resident in Harlem?
Speaker 4: I think no more than two years. I think my
Speaker 4: first two years.
Speaker 2: Just the general Tri state area. Like how long were
Speaker 2: you there?
Speaker 4: Well, we were there until I was about six or
Speaker 4: seven when we moved to Florida for the first time.
Speaker 4: Then we moved back to Jersey, then we moved to Chicago,
Speaker 4: and we moved around a lot. I was my stepfather
Speaker 4: was a first evangelist and minister and then later became
Speaker 4: a pastor and all that, so we were moving around
Speaker 4: a lot. Plus it was just the way I guess
Speaker 4: the organization he was a part of was growing the time.
Speaker 4: But obviously things happened to us for a purpose, which
Speaker 4: hopefully we can extract the better reasons of.
Speaker 2: Were they a musical family as well? Like do you
Speaker 2: have siblings that sing as well?
Speaker 4: Or yes, everybody kind of sings, but my mother is
Speaker 4: mainly the one who sang. And it was apparently her
Speaker 4: mother who I sounded most like or looked most like,
Speaker 4: because her mother was I'm quite sure there was some
Speaker 4: hitten Sephardic judaism that was hit in the situation, coming
Speaker 4: back from the times of Spanish and the Reconquisto whatever.
Speaker 2: Hell it was the family tree, Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but there.
Speaker 4: Are a lot of similarities apparently between me and her mother.
Speaker 4: But it is my mother whom I get kind of
Speaker 4: that impetus. She was she grew up singing in the.
Speaker 3: Church, and most of my the artists that I interviewed
Speaker 3: that or at least of a certain age, kind of have
Speaker 3: the same story in which quote unquote secular music is
Speaker 3: contraband or not look favorably upon. So how are you
Speaker 3: consuming well, you know our listeners not like being a
Speaker 3: Prince fan was almost like detrimental to my life. And
Speaker 3: it's funny to hear him say, like, your parents were
Speaker 3: right to punish you for owning these records, but like
Speaker 3: were you allowed to purchase albums or how did you
Speaker 3: Some artists would say like, oh, Marvin and Stevie were allowed,
Speaker 3: but nothing else, Like how do you consume music? Are
Speaker 3: your friends in school telling you like what's hip?
Speaker 2: Or no?
Speaker 4: Basically, you know you're in a culture whereas everything is
Speaker 4: around you. And what I wasn't allowed to do until
Speaker 4: I was about fifteen or sixteen was to listen to
Speaker 4: music in our house that I had from the outside.
Speaker 4: But at some point, you know, on a Saturday when
Speaker 4: in my area Soul Trained in the American bandstand were
Speaker 4: back to back. Yeah, So if I remember correctly, Soul
Speaker 4: Trained came on at twelve and twelve thirty American bandstands,
Speaker 4: and I was allowed that at some point, provided you know,
Speaker 4: I kept the noise down and what have you. But
Speaker 4: you know, you just heard everywhere else what was happening,
Speaker 4: what was around you. And there were people that were
Speaker 4: just ubiquitous that you couldn't you know, you couldn't avoid
Speaker 4: certain people. But the profile in my home was my
Speaker 4: mother was a choir director first and foremost by inclination,
Speaker 4: so we tended to listen to like a lot of
Speaker 4: choir music. There was like a lot lot of James Cleveland.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of like, uh, like Albertina Walker
Speaker 4: AND's Andrews, that whole that whole caravans am Betride, which
Speaker 4: should a documentary in and of itself, the minutia of
Speaker 4: the genius of black culture if you just did the
Speaker 4: caravans and you know, and Anaz and Shirley Sees and
Speaker 4: all those people, because Shirley was also one of the
Speaker 4: two women who had the most influence on me as
Speaker 4: a singer.
Speaker 3: O God, if I, if I hear no charge one
Speaker 3: more time. It won't be a moment too soon, like
Speaker 3: every every day that sons on an ausehold.
Speaker 4: But she was in the James Cleveland and all of
Speaker 4: this stuff. And you know, obviously Aretha's genius album Amazing Grace.
Speaker 4: I kind of got bored with choir music. It was
Speaker 4: that was beautiful. I got. I learned my lessons. I
Speaker 4: was absorbing everything, of course, but my jam was like
Speaker 4: the quartet singers. Them like like them dudes in the
Speaker 4: deep from the Deep South, and they just come into
Speaker 4: church and just kill it, kill it. And it would
Speaker 4: always be some dude with some like voice. I could
Speaker 4: cut glass. And there was another dude that you suspected
Speaker 4: probably we was on the on the gay spectrum, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. But my brother was holding it down,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. He had a beautiful voice.
Speaker 4: And then woman was just like fall out and stuff.
Speaker 4: And it was But see the church conglomeration of situational congregation.
Speaker 4: We were with the Pentecostals. That was more of the
Speaker 4: Baptists and the Methodists who would have like the quartet scene.
Speaker 4: The Pentecostals was more about choirs and and all of
Speaker 4: this kind of stuff and nobody's stealing the light from
Speaker 4: the pastor he did, so.
Speaker 5: Then oh wow, I did not know that. Okay, there's
Speaker 5: some of that, you know what I mean, which is why,
Speaker 5: ironically it was Rod Stewart, one of my great heroes.
Speaker 5: Shout out of respect to Rod.
Speaker 4: It was Rod who turned me back on the Sam
Speaker 4: Cook because I knew Sam Cook vaguely as a legend
Speaker 4: in our community from the Soul Stirs, but I didn't
Speaker 4: paid that much attention to it because that music wasn't
Speaker 4: mainly played in our home. But one of the things
Speaker 4: I've always loved about Rod and the Stones is neither
Speaker 4: one of them ever wasted any breath, you know, not
Speaker 4: reminding you of who these heroes were that changed their
Speaker 4: lives and were not shy about letting you know who
Speaker 4: they were. So Rod's guy was Sam. Oh this muddy
Speaker 4: and I've always heard some Bobby Blue Bland, But the
Speaker 4: point is he was real about that shit. So it
Speaker 4: was when I fell in love with Rod and realized
Speaker 4: Rod was in the direction that I was going to
Speaker 4: be taking my own situation. It was you know him,
Speaker 4: and I just started listening to Sam and going, oh shit, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 4: I missed this. This is what But it was good
Speaker 4: that I got it when I got it, because then
Speaker 4: I was not only able to listen to the pop
Speaker 4: stuff and appreciate what an underrated, one of the all
Speaker 4: time underrated, great foundational pop songwriter as he was, because
Speaker 4: you know, if we forget how foundational he was to
Speaker 4: the writing what we call pop songs, not just soul
Speaker 4: or R and B whatever, Sam Cook and Buddy Holly
Speaker 4: were right there formulating what became pop music. And interestingly
Speaker 4: enough is you know they were friends, they were very
Speaker 4: close friends. But yeah, so it was Rod who took
Speaker 4: me back to Sam. And that's when like the door
Speaker 4: opened up again. I thought, yeah, And I always felt
Speaker 4: in my heart if Sam had lived, he would have
Speaker 4: been doing what Rod wound up doing. And I have
Speaker 4: I always felt. I even said this to Rod, I
Speaker 4: really feel like you have a walk in you know,
Speaker 4: because when we when we love people and we know
Speaker 4: people love us, the different layers of our physical existence,
Speaker 4: of the different layers of our existence, the frequencies that
Speaker 4: stayed closest to the earth, you know, the densest as
Speaker 4: obviously we burn it or we bury it. Then there's
Speaker 4: this magnetic field that goes to the people who love
Speaker 4: us and who we know we can leave some of
Speaker 4: this too. They will continue some of our work or
Speaker 4: our spirit, or will take some of our cross upon themselves,
Speaker 4: and they will continue forward with that vibe.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So for me, like I'll say, like a never dull
Speaker 3: moment in Lantic Crossing, I like my two favorite ride albums,
Speaker 3: But for you, like, what's your go to albums of his?
Speaker 4: First of all, let me give him ecses his flowers.
Speaker 4: The man has an unerring ear for songs. He's a
Speaker 4: great producer whatever whoever's producing him, or he's just got
Speaker 4: an unimpeachable ear for songs and great musicianship. For me,
Speaker 4: he's never made an album where I just thought, well, okay,
Speaker 4: that's a waste of time. And he's made tons of them.
Speaker 4: But I would have to say around that period but
Speaker 4: loose and fantasy free. Tonight, I'm yours.
Speaker 2: Ah tonight, I'm yours. Do anything that you won't be.
Speaker 4: But check this out. The story was I was in
Speaker 4: the military. I was stationed in hand Out, Germany. The
Speaker 4: base no longer exists. Third Arm at the in the
Speaker 4: barracks across from our barracks was a big rec center
Speaker 4: and at the very top was some broom closets, and
Speaker 4: I went out and bought the cassette of Tonight I'm
Speaker 4: yours because up to that point I had like this nice,
Speaker 4: sweet choirboard tenor okay, and my determination was I wasn't
Speaker 4: gonna come out of this closet, No pun intended.
Speaker 2: Until you sing like Rod or something. Until I sang
Speaker 2: like Rod, Wait what?
Speaker 4: Until I had that voice ye had Because I had this,
Speaker 4: I had the sweet, nice Michael Jackson, E Stevie type
Speaker 4: of vibe. Cultivating a long way. Frank Sinatra was another
Speaker 4: huge influence. I had all that, but I wanted that
Speaker 4: other thing.
Speaker 3: So the rasp comes from because you do have like
Speaker 3: three distinctive voices, your rasp voice and then a very
Speaker 3: sweet falsetto, and then you're your natural tenor. So you're
Speaker 3: saying that Rod Stewart is the impetus of that that
Speaker 3: grap what Yes, yes.
Speaker 4: All that Maggie may wake up Maggie Young. The first
Speaker 4: cut is the deepest, for real, all that, all of
Speaker 4: that stuff, Baby Jane, Okay, one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 4: Yes you're right, you think I'm sexy. It's just come on, man,
Speaker 4: do you think I'm sex? He's one of the records
Speaker 4: of life. It's just.
Speaker 2: Has he ever told you the Young Turk story?
Speaker 4: No, I don't think I got it directly from him.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, No, just recently he did a benefit And
Speaker 3: I'm always obsessed and you do this a lot too.
Speaker 3: I'm always obsessed with song titles that have nothing to
Speaker 3: do with what's said in the song. Yeah, And in
Speaker 3: my mind, I'm like, you're saying young Hearts, right, You're
Speaker 3: not saying young Turks. And I think Michael Jackson at
Speaker 3: the same situation when Heartbreak Hotel basically like the publisher
Speaker 3: and the managers like, look, there's already a song called
Speaker 3: Young Hearts out there, and people are going to confuse
Speaker 3: the two and it's gonna make the paperwork difficult.
Speaker 4: And there's also the famous story of Radio Gaga from
Speaker 4: Queen that he was never singing Gaga, but the record
Speaker 4: company didn't feel comfortable with him actually putting Radio Coca
Speaker 4: because he was saying all he is on the radio
Speaker 4: is ship in these days. Oh and if you listen now, okay, yoh,
Speaker 4: then when you don't think you're supposed to be hearing
Speaker 4: Gaga and you will hear Coca. All we hear is
Speaker 4: radio Coca.
Speaker 3: Makes sense now boom, all right, look at you are
Speaker 3: your schooling.
Speaker 4: We have to converse more often.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh no, no, this is the greatest first conversation ever.
Speaker 3: Our journey through life is so parallel, from living in
Speaker 3: America to moving the Kennish town, to all these things.
Speaker 3: Even as you tell you the story of your family
Speaker 3: and all that, like, yes, I'm not shared that on
Speaker 3: the air, but same story. By I think ten twelve thirteen,
Speaker 3: you kind of know what your calling is. What is
Speaker 3: it that you desired to be before you.
Speaker 2: Were eighteen years old? Like, what do you think your
Speaker 2: calling was?
Speaker 4: Well, at various times, I wanted to be a marine
Speaker 4: biologist for a short period of time, but I was
Speaker 4: serious about it. I wanted to be a journalist for
Speaker 4: a very long time and went to university for one
Speaker 4: year with the intent that explains it getting accredited. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: well there you go.
Speaker 3: Because your lyrics are just absolutely of course you went
Speaker 3: to school for journalism.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be Okay, now I get it, I
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was gonna be my jam. I was quite
Speaker 4: certain in my heart that if I didn't make it
Speaker 4: as the heavyweight champion of the world, Okay, then when
Speaker 4: I realized that my body type did not lend itself
Speaker 4: towards me becoming a heavyweight before the fort then I
Speaker 4: downsized to the middleweight champion of the world. And then
Speaker 4: I had my epiphany when I won the Golden Gloves
Speaker 4: for the State of Florida in nineteen eighty during my
Speaker 4: eighteenth year, when I was beating this kid and his
Speaker 4: mother was very emotionally supporting him and cheering him on,
Speaker 4: and I had an epiphetic moment that whatever I went
Speaker 4: into boxing to accomplish or to ascertain from the experience
Speaker 4: I had gotten it, I had proven something vital to myself.
Speaker 4: I was tough. I was just littler than everybody else
Speaker 4: for a long time, and you know, I needed to
Speaker 4: do something to assert myself in that particular way. But
Speaker 4: there was one point when I was hitting this kid
Speaker 4: in the face pretty easily and to hear his mother's impassion,
Speaker 4: you know, please to him to do better. I realized
Speaker 4: in that moment that the spirit it didn't put me
Speaker 4: on the earth to be hitting mother's children in the face.
Speaker 2: So you were going to be a boxer. You you're
Speaker 2: a Golden Gloves winner.
Speaker 4: Yes, in nineteen eighty state for the State of Florida.
Speaker 4: I'll never forget that. It was in Coconut Grove in
Speaker 4: an Arena and Coconut Grove in Miami. But I just
Speaker 4: remember that that I actually didn't even fight after that
Speaker 4: fight because the next fight was the fight for the title.
Speaker 4: But the guy that I was doing to fight had
Speaker 4: to pull out at the last minute because of some
Speaker 4: bullshit I I still don't understand. But anyway, that's how
Speaker 4: I got the title. But that was also one of
Speaker 4: those epathetic experiences where I realized it was time to
Speaker 4: leave that part of warrior training alone and come back
Speaker 4: to the main arena.
Speaker 3: So in some alternate life, like you could have been
Speaker 3: fighting like Ray Boom Boom Mantini or like question.
Speaker 4: That was really good. I was shockingly good for someone
Speaker 4: who basically pretty much wasn't support in any other type
Speaker 4: of athletic endeavor. I mean I was always you know,
Speaker 4: I was a great I love love baseball. It was
Speaker 4: my favorite sport. I was a great little baseball player.
Speaker 4: But I didn't have any ass, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 4: get the ball much further than saying. And so you know,
Speaker 4: these coaches don't have any patients. You know, we just
Speaker 4: need to fact them up. You know, I'm just this kid.
Speaker 4: We got all the potential in the world, but you
Speaker 4: couldn't strike me out. I knew it instantly where the
Speaker 4: ball was going the meat the minute it left the bat.
Speaker 4: I wasn't the fastest kid by a long shot on
Speaker 4: the team, but I knew I was still based. I
Speaker 4: was all instinct and everything was just pure instinct. Like basketball.
Speaker 4: I didn't have any height. I couldn't shoot worth the shit,
Speaker 4: but I was a great defender, great rebounder, great passer.
Speaker 4: And the more difficult the shot, the more likely I
Speaker 4: was to make it. The easier the percentage of shot,
Speaker 4: the higher percentage shot it was, the lower percentage it
Speaker 4: was going to get for me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But the point is that I kept trying to find
Speaker 4: my athletic new you, and I could never find it
Speaker 4: until by accident, I discovered that I had a natural
Speaker 4: instinct for boxing. During the nineteen seventy six Olympics, that
Speaker 4: great great Olympics, when you had Ray Davis, Sugar, Ray Leonard,
Speaker 4: I forget there was like three or four guys on
Speaker 4: that squad who all went to become to become great champions.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I was a cousin of mine had come
Speaker 4: down from Jersey to visit ust In, Florida, and we
Speaker 4: went into the laundry room after one of the boxing
Speaker 4: matches and we started piling a bunch of athletic socks
Speaker 4: on our fists. We started punching each other and I
Speaker 4: noticed I was really good at it. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 4: I had gotten the respect that I needed and I
Speaker 4: had proven to myself what I needed until I got
Speaker 4: like I said, I got the sign that this part
Speaker 4: of your training is over all.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So now that I know that you are a real sportshead,
Speaker 3: now I really have to analyze the Kobe and Lebron
Speaker 3: song because just to see your song titles alone it
Speaker 3: is one thing, but to experience it, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: this is really risky way to go. But in my
Speaker 3: mind I always said that serious musicians aren't sports heads.
Speaker 3: But you know, time and time again, I'm proving wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, so now I have to get serious about
Speaker 3: my my sports passion.
Speaker 2: So no, it's just.
Speaker 4: That it's you know, the triangular, the triangulation of singers
Speaker 4: want to be athletes, Athletes want to be rock stars,
Speaker 4: rock stars when moose stars, it's that thing. It's like
Speaker 4: we all want. But you know, I had a conversation
Speaker 4: with someone actually quite recently about the fact that it's
Speaker 4: still the average guy if you gave him a choice,
Speaker 4: a Musk okay, and Bruce Springsteen Okay, well, Elon Musk
Speaker 4: and Michael Jordan's fuck Elon Musk. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: that's just it's just billions and billions never have to
Speaker 4: work there in your life. But if dude can be
Speaker 4: like Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky or like you know,
Speaker 4: for just like.
Speaker 2: That summer a hero, yes.
Speaker 4: Those people, you can be rinaldo when all of those
Speaker 4: people in your nation are cheering for you. There's nothing
Speaker 4: like that. There's nothing like being you know, like Bruce
Speaker 4: and you can play for fucking almost four hours and
Speaker 4: people are still rapturously drenched and ready to receive more
Speaker 4: from the what, you know, the utter inces that fall,
Speaker 4: you know, from the grace of your table. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's incredible to be able to to to have that
Speaker 4: kind of position and understand why society or polite society
Speaker 4: have always been so wary of those of us who
Speaker 4: practice this magic that they cannot contain because it is
Speaker 4: a very, very very powerful for us, and it can
Speaker 4: just take your mind somewhere else away. It can challenge
Speaker 4: the programming. And we know that all societies that are
Speaker 4: going to ben fit as how it sees itself as
Speaker 4: a society, there's going to be some programming involved that
Speaker 4: we collectively agree to undergo in order to be this
Speaker 4: kind of relatively cohesive thing called the society where we're
Speaker 4: pretty much all on the same page.
Speaker 3: I didn't ask earlier where are you currently residing?
Speaker 2: Where do you live?
Speaker 4: Well? The last twenty one years, twenty two perhaps I've
Speaker 4: been living in Milano.
Speaker 2: Oh, Italy. Yes, okay, man, I've been there a few times.
Speaker 2: I never knew that. Okay.
Speaker 3: Or so do you do you still follow Are you
Speaker 3: still passionate about sports?
Speaker 2: Now? Do you follow it? Well?
Speaker 4: It's a great distraction for us, because you know, we'll
Speaker 4: consumed this thing of ours like Kosstra, but where this
Speaker 4: thing is our life. It's like, you know, I say
Speaker 4: to people all the time, it's not like you know,
Speaker 4: what would you do if you weren't doing this, that's
Speaker 4: not even a question that you know. That's this is
Speaker 4: what life is is about. For me, it's consuming, it's
Speaker 4: it's sometimes just so much as it can torment you
Speaker 4: as a beast. So the other thing, the other things, films,
Speaker 4: sports books, those are the great distractions that are right
Speaker 4: there at your fingertips, excuse me, you can immerse yourself
Speaker 4: in because also with storytellers, So you need to fall
Speaker 4: back into these other disciplines to not only get yourself rested,
Speaker 4: to give your mind a place to tune off somewhere else,
Speaker 4: you know, less challenging, but also just to keep up
Speaker 4: with with the stories and the things that you know
Speaker 4: are part of our whole me and you of presentation
Speaker 4: as artists, you know, you got to just keep your
Speaker 4: hand involved in the arts and be immersed in it
Speaker 4: if you want to remain an active participant and relevant
Speaker 4: to where it is emotionally. So, you know, for me,
Speaker 4: it's interesting because a person that I identify a lot
Speaker 4: with is Bosquio. He's one of my three favorite. Boscot,
Speaker 4: Dhali and Picasso are like gods to me. And in fact,
Speaker 4: I had a project that I was going to call Boscot.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was interesting because I want to This
Speaker 4: is something I was going to plan to talk to
Speaker 4: you about as well, but it got postponed because of
Speaker 4: the Boscou estate wrongly assumed that I was trying to
Speaker 4: you know, edge edge something onto my plate from them.
Speaker 4: It was, of course, and his people at that particular
Speaker 4: time were not very hip and young. They were more
Speaker 4: like guardians and gatekeepers, so they didn't get it. But
Speaker 4: the conceit of the project is that Bosco his secret desire,
Speaker 4: his unfulfilled desire, was to be in a punk rock band,
Speaker 4: and that he was in a band, and that years
Speaker 4: later cassettes was discovered. Yeah, and so with this this
Speaker 4: in mind, what did those tapes sound like? And that
Speaker 4: was the conceit of this bout Scout project is to
Speaker 4: me to undertake to provide the music for the secret
Speaker 4: music he was making that he didn't live long enough
Speaker 4: to find the courage to release or whatever to press
Speaker 4: himself for in that direction. But maybe even so more
Speaker 4: so than being an artist, what he really wanted to
Speaker 4: be was a fucking rock star.
Speaker 2: Have you ever met Michael Holloman at all?
Speaker 4: Not that I'm aware of Michael Holloman.
Speaker 3: You know, I do a lot of side projects, and
Speaker 3: one of my also wishes was to hear what that
Speaker 3: music sounded like. So I did this at the Brooklyn
Speaker 3: Academy Museum, I think in twenty twelve. But I had
Speaker 3: his partner in that group, Michael Hollman, whom I guess
Speaker 3: our listeners would probably know if you ever google any
Speaker 3: New York City Breakers footage them on Soul Train or
Speaker 3: whoever their spokesperson is. Michael Hollman was kind of the
Speaker 3: official spokesperson for the New York city Breakers, but not
Speaker 3: many people know that they were the black punk art
Speaker 3: It's reductive to say wham, but I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: figure out a duo or whatever. But Michael was his
Speaker 3: partner in that band called Gray And so I think
Speaker 3: one of the biggest misconceptions about you was through the
Speaker 3: gaze and the lens of rock journalists born in the forties.
Speaker 2: Really, and the thing is, let me give you a preface.
Speaker 3: So tomorrow, after two years of working on this, my
Speaker 3: follow up film to Summer Soul is the Sign of
Speaker 3: the Family Stone.
Speaker 4: Documentary, Oh awesome, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Oh You're not ready for this shit, You're not ready.
Speaker 3: And also I'm kicking myself because you would have been
Speaker 3: the perfect oh beyond. However, this is what I'm learning,
Speaker 3: especially of a certain generation of like critics, critics that
Speaker 3: you have to face. Yeah, the Dave Mars generation, the
Speaker 3: Rolling Stone born in nineteen forties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I get you. I get you. To this day,
Speaker 4: I can't read well. To this day, I can't go.
Speaker 2: Then, brother, I get it. I get it now.
Speaker 4: I mean, just in case there's something besides some more
Speaker 4: lists that these motherfuckers put together. But anyway, I get it.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but see if I can, for example, even the
Speaker 4: cultural divide between the stick I was running in England
Speaker 4: and not having time to recalibrate the fact that the
Speaker 4: same potion won't work on the Americans because they don't
Speaker 4: have They're just not as academically grounded for as long
Speaker 4: a period of time as the English, and it's their
Speaker 4: language we speak anyway. Plus they have something we don't,
Speaker 4: which is appreciation of irony. In any event, some of
Speaker 4: them were aware that I was just dusting off of
Speaker 4: Muhammad Ali routine, just trying to hype and sell directly,
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, I didn't believe
Speaker 4: any of this shit I was just but I.
Speaker 3: So you're saying that the interviews that you would give
Speaker 3: like enemy could go down easier there, but here with
Speaker 3: rolling Stone, Yes, suddenly you're the most arrogant.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And then there and then I've always tried to
Speaker 4: be a gentleman, to be real about my shit. And
Speaker 4: then there was just one of the first journalists I
Speaker 4: spoke to my America. She was upset that I didn't
Speaker 4: try to fuck her, so, you know, she wound up
Speaker 4: doing a smear piece just based on again an interpretation
Speaker 4: of an act. You know, I'm sure you met him,
Speaker 4: but Muhammad was nothing like his image. He was trying
Speaker 4: to sell tickets. He knew whether you came to see him,
Speaker 4: winna lose. You can't.
Speaker 3: I knew you were doing the Muhammad Ali thing. I knew,
Speaker 3: and I was sixteen at the time reading that cover story.
Speaker 4: But me thing was interesting QUESTI because I remember it
Speaker 4: was a young journalist and it was for the cover.
Speaker 4: I'm I was really excited. And then of course I
Speaker 4: was too naive to catch this trick. He turns off
Speaker 4: the tape recorder says, Okay, we're finished. Then he looks
Speaker 4: at me and he says, but seriously, how good do
Speaker 4: you think you are? You really are? And you know,
Speaker 4: I'm like twenty three some twenty four. I'm not even
Speaker 4: sure what a kind of question is this. You know,
Speaker 4: I come from the hood, you know, it's like it's
Speaker 4: like and and one thing we learn is that, you know,
Speaker 4: you used to go to like the throing Cookman talent shows,
Speaker 4: you know, doing Cookman College, and you learn quickly if
Speaker 4: you don't entertain these motherfuckers, you become the entertainment. Either way,
Speaker 4: they're gonna get the entertainment either threw you or from you,
Speaker 4: or you know, but so you you kind of Plus,
Speaker 4: I was born in New York, and there is a
Speaker 4: certain swagger. There is a certain swagger that IM views
Speaker 4: upon those of us who are born there and grew
Speaker 4: up there, and and I think all those things together,
Speaker 4: but you know, basically I didn't believe all that that shit.
Speaker 4: But any of the interview, the guy asked, so, how
Speaker 4: good do you think you are? And I'm not sure
Speaker 4: if he's serious, but I just look at him, says
Speaker 4: think I'm a fucking gene, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But I also didn't believe that at the time. But
Speaker 4: I also did believe that I could get there much
Speaker 4: easier if I did believe it. It was one of
Speaker 4: those things where from the earliest moment I heard the word,
Speaker 4: it resonated something of recognition aside me like, well, I
Speaker 4: don't know what this means, but I think I might
Speaker 4: have some of this or what have you. But it's
Speaker 4: snowballs from there. And as you know, then at some
Speaker 4: point you don't have to say anything. They start to
Speaker 4: give quotes to what is a profile and what they
Speaker 4: feel like people will accept this from him because we're
Speaker 4: already presenting him as this kind of guy who would
Speaker 4: say this kind of shit. So yeah, that definitely was
Speaker 4: a situation. But there's also another element I found, which
Speaker 4: is when you're erodyite and you can speak for yourself,
Speaker 4: they get into this savior complex thing. What they want
Speaker 4: to be the ones to interpret how brilliant they it's
Speaker 4: on them because they loved it. Well. They often prefer
Speaker 4: that image of the idiot savancee who is brilliant. But
Speaker 4: it just doesn't oh, because you know, we didn't have
Speaker 4: much of an education, and I think I was I
Speaker 4: experienced being too intimidating for some of them because I
Speaker 4: was reading the same shit they were reading. I was
Speaker 4: reading the same journalist, Nick Kent, and all these guts
Speaker 4: that they were growing up on and reviewing.
Speaker 3: All right, folks, I got good news and bad news,
Speaker 3: bad news of courses. It's the end of part one.
Speaker 3: Good news is that you can check back next week,
Speaker 3: you know, to where you get your podcasts, depending on
Speaker 3: when you listen for the great part too. And there
Speaker 3: we're going to discuss h Sonanda's catalog, including his new album,
Speaker 3: The Pegasus Project, Pegasus and the Swan. We also talk
Speaker 3: about life turning points and uh Sonanda nearly joining an excess.
Speaker 3: Yeah that all right, see y'all next week.
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