Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. March is
Speaker 1: Women's History Month as we celebrate at QLs, and we're
Speaker 1: going to look back at this plastic episode for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one with Stephanie Mills, who talks about her incredible
Speaker 1: music and theater contributions. I love this episode. Hope you enjoyed.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Much love and Team Supreme. We got a lay in
Speaker 1: the house.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, hello, hello, hello.
Speaker 1: We got unpaid unpaid bill? Yeah, you's sorry? All right?
Speaker 2: What up?
Speaker 1: Man man? Yes, sir and Sugar see my whole childhood
Speaker 1: right now. Huh, I know, Sugar, Stevie Dare Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 3: I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: What can I say, Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today,
Speaker 1: legendary singer is really putting it lightly before the past
Speaker 1: five decades, she's never lost a step in her powerful
Speaker 1: vocal range. Be it as a Broadway sensation that came
Speaker 1: into our lives in the original cast run of The
Speaker 1: Whiz to our legendary run of hits. Working with some
Speaker 1: of the greatest producers ever named Phil Ramone for backrack,
Speaker 1: how David James and Toomey Lucas, George Duke, David Hawkwazinski,
Speaker 1: Nick Martinelli, Robert Brookins, all my favorites. As since she's
Speaker 1: worked with all my favorites, she is my favorite. I
Speaker 1: never thought this day was coming, but I'm happy to say,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, welcome to quest Love Supreme. Stephanie Mills.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm honored to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: How are you today?
Speaker 4: I'm good. I'm good in this crazy world we're living in.
Speaker 4: I'm good.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. That's good. Yeah, i'd seen you, like,
Speaker 1: uh at the airport. Yeah, I was three, three years ago.
Speaker 1: It is either the airport or the train station one
Speaker 1: and and I could not believe you knew I was alive.
Speaker 2: I was like, Hi, I'm Stephanie, and you said hi.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, you know who I am. Thank you?
Speaker 1: Of course, that is amazing. Yeah, we have a gajillion
Speaker 1: questions to ask you. So we're just going to start, Okay,
Speaker 1: I always start with your your origins. Where are you from?
Speaker 5: I'm from Brooklyn, New York, but I make my Charlotte,
Speaker 5: North Carolina. But I'm from Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Why Charlotte?
Speaker 4: I live in Charlotte for the last two eight years.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, wow you neighbor. Yeah from me.
Speaker 6: So my hometown is Greensboro. That's why I'm I was
Speaker 6: raised in Greensboro. But home is Raleigh. Me and my
Speaker 6: family we live in Raleigh now.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but no, that's home. Oh wow, Okay, Stephan
Speaker 1: music is playing North Carolina. That's what's up. Yeah, everyone's
Speaker 1: playing in North Carolina. Man, I feel like that's quiet.
Speaker 1: It's beyond the not even a retirement town, but just
Speaker 1: everyone I know is relocating there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Living is easy.
Speaker 5: It's not chaotic, you know, it's just and my family,
Speaker 5: my mom and my dad were from here, so I
Speaker 5: spent all my summers here as a child, and I
Speaker 5: have a lot of family here.
Speaker 1: So I like that back when you left the city
Speaker 1: for the summer to live with grandparents.
Speaker 5: Or yeah, like you would come and stay with my
Speaker 5: aunts and my cousins, and like my cousin was here tonight.
Speaker 5: Helped putting this all together because I challenge when it comes.
Speaker 1: To all this kind of guess what so were we.
Speaker 4: I like, you know, being able to call them come
Speaker 4: over to my house to help me. I have an
Speaker 4: interview tonight.
Speaker 1: So Okay, that's cool, that's cool. What part what part
Speaker 1: of Brooklyn? Where are you from? Jephst bed sty Okay,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, I mean I know that you were,
Speaker 1: you know, practically singing out of the womb put just
Speaker 1: musically speaking, Like when did you when was that voice
Speaker 1: fully not fully developed? But like when did you realize
Speaker 1: that you had something that not many people had? That voice?
Speaker 1: Like how old were you?
Speaker 4: I don't think I realized it even till this day.
Speaker 4: I just like to sing.
Speaker 5: I like, I mean, I went to the Apollo and
Speaker 5: I won six weeks in a row. And the six
Speaker 5: weeks that I was there, James Brown performed, ROBERTA.
Speaker 1: Flacks as well, correct.
Speaker 5: Isley Brothers as well. Yes, and then I got a
Speaker 5: chance to perform with the Isley Brothers and do shows
Speaker 5: with them. And then after that I auditioned for Maggie Flynn,
Speaker 5: which was a Broadway show. I was about eleven years
Speaker 5: old and that ran on Broadway about nine years. And
Speaker 5: then after that I recorded I Knew It was Love
Speaker 5: and that's how they heard about me for the for
Speaker 5: the Whiz.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know of your sister Cassandra in the industry,
Speaker 1: but like the rest of your family are they musically
Speaker 1: inclined as well?
Speaker 2: Or no?
Speaker 4: Well, Cassandra was my sister in law. She was married
Speaker 4: to my brother.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, giant records. Yes, oh wow.
Speaker 5: She still keeps the she still keeps the name. But
Speaker 5: she was married to my brother Alan, who's now deceased,
Speaker 5: May may God.
Speaker 4: Rest his soul.
Speaker 5: But she managed her and my brother managed me for
Speaker 5: a while. Yeah, okay, so best of my family are
Speaker 5: not musically inclined. No, they would us really involved management
Speaker 5: wise when I was younger in my career.
Speaker 1: So all the talent went to you. Yeah, I see,
Speaker 1: all the talent went to you. Yeah, So in can
Speaker 1: you just what was I don't think we've yet to
Speaker 1: interview someone that was part of Showtime or at least
Speaker 1: amateur nighted the Apollo in the seventies, at least like
Speaker 1: was it his? Was it as harrowing as the urban
Speaker 1: legend will lead you to think it was? At least
Speaker 1: for people that told me.
Speaker 4: What did they say about it?
Speaker 1: Well, you know everything brutal? Yeah, man, come out, Yeah
Speaker 1: it wasn't.
Speaker 4: It wasn't brutal for me.
Speaker 5: You come out and you rub the stuff and everything,
Speaker 5: and I sang my song, I sang Who's Loving You
Speaker 5: by the Jackson five and but once in my life
Speaker 5: zebe Wonder and you sing those songs every every time
Speaker 5: you go up.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't brutal for me. My whole family was
Speaker 4: around me, and I.
Speaker 5: Was very protective, and I was able to go up
Speaker 5: on stage and watch like James Brown perform and all
Speaker 5: of that.
Speaker 4: So it was I It wasn't a bad experience for me.
Speaker 2: You could sing.
Speaker 1: She didn't know to be you can sing, so she
Speaker 1: had allow okay, not a I see okay, So I
Speaker 1: guess your your career as a recording artist happened after
Speaker 1: your first play, that's what you just said, or.
Speaker 5: After my first play after Maggie Flynn. Then I was
Speaker 5: signed to Paramount Records, and I recorded.
Speaker 4: A record with.
Speaker 5: Burt Back, not back because that was with Motown Bert
Speaker 5: Keys Okay, and I knew it was love came out
Speaker 5: was a.
Speaker 4: Single and Ken Harper, who was a DJ on A
Speaker 4: what is It A?
Speaker 2: And M?
Speaker 4: Not A and M but What's the morning station? Not FM,
Speaker 4: but but AM radio.
Speaker 5: He was a jock on AM radio and they were
Speaker 5: putting together The Wiz and they heard my single and
Speaker 5: I had gone up for a lot of different things
Speaker 5: that I didn't get, so I did not want to.
Speaker 4: Audition for the Wiz.
Speaker 5: My mother made me go that morning and she went
Speaker 5: with me, and then I auditioned three times after that
Speaker 5: and they told me I had to roll up.
Speaker 4: I did not want to go. I hate auditions.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't I if.
Speaker 5: Someone called and said we'd like to see you for
Speaker 5: some I would not go. I'm petrified I cannot audition.
Speaker 2: Well, but you chose theater so early in life, I know.
Speaker 4: But I love theater. I love the state.
Speaker 5: In fact, Melbourne Moore and I are working on something
Speaker 5: that we're going to do uh next year, and we're
Speaker 5: excited about it because I love Melbourne. I think she's
Speaker 5: like the queen she I'm I'm on Broadway because of her.
Speaker 4: She paid the way, you know.
Speaker 1: We talked to her yesterday.
Speaker 4: Actually, yeah, she's just brilliant.
Speaker 5: So we've been friends for a long time. In fact,
Speaker 5: Melbourne gave me my first yellow Bick road party when
Speaker 5: I was Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And how old were you when you did the Wiz?
Speaker 1: How old you at that time?
Speaker 4: I was actually seventeen, but they said I was fifteen.
Speaker 4: But I was seventeen.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Oh, gotcha? Yeah, okay, so you're a child. So
Speaker 1: the whiz Yeah, I saw your run when you did
Speaker 1: it really well. Yeah, he went deep with it. She
Speaker 1: has the tattoo on her arm. You still have that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry what I wouldn't have said that, nod.
Speaker 2: You made me sound like a stalker, very.
Speaker 1: Much, a stalker, very much. So I think you know
Speaker 1: what I got to say out of I mean, you
Speaker 1: could have been one of those mindless people that just
Speaker 1: does the you know they do the the Japanese characters,
Speaker 1: not what it represents. You have one of the most
Speaker 1: unique I approve of your tattoo.
Speaker 2: And admit something to me because, in full disclosure, it
Speaker 2: missed something to me because I said I wanted something
Speaker 2: that would mean something for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: My godfather's Charlie Smalls. He wrote a lot of the
Speaker 2: music and Charlie passed, so I actually call this his angel,
Speaker 2: and that's Charlie.
Speaker 5: Charlie Smalls was brilliant. In fact, he was the one
Speaker 5: who actually sat down with me at the piano.
Speaker 4: And taught me my songs.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, I can't wait, I kind of I don't
Speaker 2: I just can't wait for you to talk about like
Speaker 2: the home process.
Speaker 1: And that song and we're here already, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 4: I mean, first of.
Speaker 5: All, I had never that was my first time being
Speaker 5: around like someone like Andre the Shields, who was a
Speaker 5: brilliant whiz and Jeffrey.
Speaker 4: Holder and.
Speaker 1: The original wins yes.
Speaker 5: Behold the design, the cost stills, and then he later
Speaker 5: became the director because they fired Gilbert Moses.
Speaker 4: But Gilbert Moses was the original director.
Speaker 1: Wait, Jeffrey yeah, Nelson Nelson from Boomerang, we got I'm
Speaker 1: more Boomerang. I barely remember. He was pun Jabbin' Annie.
Speaker 4: Okay, yes, yes, and the colon that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was there. He was seven he was the
Speaker 1: seven up guy.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot yes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so the process, Yeah, can you who? I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew who you were when I was five, But
Speaker 1: I mean, what was it like to be in the
Speaker 1: eye of that storm? And you know, because I feel
Speaker 1: like the whiz was just something that we've never seen
Speaker 1: before as as black people.
Speaker 4: And it was it was amazing.
Speaker 5: It was it because you know, being a black shell
Speaker 5: and and doing the whiz. Of course, the the what
Speaker 5: do you call the critics hated us. I mean they hated.
Speaker 4: We got terrible, terrible reviews when we first opened.
Speaker 5: Because my belonged to a big church, Cornerstone Baptist Church
Speaker 5: in Brooklyn, and Ken Harper's mother belonged to a big church.
Speaker 5: Before we actually did our our commercial, they would sit,
Speaker 5: they would come in bus loads and that helped us
Speaker 5: until we did our commercial. Once we did the commercial
Speaker 5: for the Whiz, we were fine. But it was it
Speaker 5: was there was a lot of things working working against us,
Speaker 5: but we we prevailed. We really prevailed because they did
Speaker 5: not want us on Broadway.
Speaker 1: Wow, you're saying that it was not critically acclaimed. No, no,
Speaker 1: you know how the movie wasn't either though I get
Speaker 1: it now, but I just it was too.
Speaker 2: Different, right, and it was it was too different and
Speaker 2: it was all black.
Speaker 4: And you know, Judy Garland was.
Speaker 1: Right, Julie chat protective of there. Okay, I get it.
Speaker 4: And I used to watch The Wizard every year when
Speaker 4: it would come on.
Speaker 5: Never did I imagine that I would play, you know,
Speaker 5: Dorothy because that was one of my favorite, uh fairy tales.
Speaker 2: So can you tell the people who are listening, because
Speaker 2: everybody didn't get a chance to see your version of
Speaker 2: a lot of people have seen the movie version. What
Speaker 2: are the major like different breakdowns between the two.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I was a young girl, Diane
Speaker 5: was a woman, and we basically took version from The
Speaker 5: Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It's just black cass, you know.
Speaker 5: But the movie was different. It It went somewhere somewhere else.
Speaker 5: Even though Michael was was in it, and I felt
Speaker 5: like he was brilliant, and I felt like Diane was
Speaker 5: brilliant too, But I always was more like The Wonderful
Speaker 5: Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 4: It was just called the Wiz.
Speaker 2: The same musical numbers though right like same song.
Speaker 5: It's known because Charlie broke all news. We had all
Speaker 5: original music. We had these on down the road. They
Speaker 5: had followed the Yellow Bick road. I had home, and
Speaker 5: she had Somewhere over the Rainbow.
Speaker 4: So it was.
Speaker 1: In the movie was the original one. We're comparing the
Speaker 1: movie in the Broadway version.
Speaker 2: I was talking about the yes, what you said, but
Speaker 2: I do have a.
Speaker 1: Question though your second label was Motown. Yes, so I
Speaker 1: would assume that you were kind of in Barry Gordy's radar.
Speaker 1: So being as though you were Motown, artists pre whiz.
Speaker 1: Once you got it, How weird was it? Was it
Speaker 1: ever up in the air that you might do the
Speaker 1: movie version at all? Like was it even a discussion
Speaker 1: or when.
Speaker 5: They had a different uh uh, there was a different
Speaker 5: director first, I forget his name, so not Sidney.
Speaker 4: It wasn't Sidney Lamet.
Speaker 5: They had a different director and it was coming through
Speaker 5: twentieth Century Fox and they were going to have a
Speaker 5: meeting with me. But then once Sidney Lamett took over,
Speaker 5: it was almost definite that Diana was going to play Dorothy.
Speaker 5: And she would she would come to the show.
Speaker 4: All the time, all the time, all the time to study.
Speaker 1: You know show. You knew even in the run of
Speaker 1: the Broadway show that they were going to do a
Speaker 1: movie adaptation, and yes it was going to.
Speaker 5: Okay, But really do they use the person that does
Speaker 5: Broadway the same people the same person?
Speaker 2: So you took it like it's this business, business business.
Speaker 4: I didn't, you know, I was.
Speaker 5: Such a fan of Diana Ross and all that. I
Speaker 5: didn't I didn't look at it as a bad thing.
Speaker 4: I just that's the way it goes.
Speaker 1: I will say, though, because of how Home is associated
Speaker 1: with you, and that's known as a show stopper. Uh
Speaker 1: is there a pressure especially with I mean, how long
Speaker 1: was your your initial one run was? Was it two years?
Speaker 1: Three years?
Speaker 4: Five years?
Speaker 1: Wow? Five years?
Speaker 4: Bad? Way? For five years? Now?
Speaker 1: Understudy or no understudy? Whatsoever?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: I did have an understudy?
Speaker 4: She went on? Maybe for one week?
Speaker 1: Okay, people were met that week. Weren't they in five right?
Speaker 1: One right? One week and five.
Speaker 4: Five years? Yeah? That's all they week?
Speaker 1: So is it? I mean? You know, I mean, of
Speaker 1: course when you think of like the show stopper song
Speaker 1: along with you know, with Jennifer, where I am telling
Speaker 1: you like home is sort of the you must do
Speaker 1: a grand slam every night?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How much pressure was that to sing like your like
Speaker 1: no audience life depends on it? How much pressure? How
Speaker 1: hard or is that on your vocals? Every like? Vocally?
Speaker 1: How much? How hard is that?
Speaker 4: It wasn't hard on me at all?
Speaker 5: Really, Because I'm a sleeper, I always get sleep. I
Speaker 5: know I need a certain amount of sleep. And because
Speaker 5: I started in theater, it teaches you such discipline that
Speaker 5: you're doing eight shows a week.
Speaker 4: You can't do anything else. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: You can't go out, you can't party, no, nothing, no,
Speaker 5: And I'm not a partier anyway, so you can't. You
Speaker 5: can't do anything else but physically sometimes when I get
Speaker 5: a cold, it was hard, you know, to sing above that.
Speaker 4: But the show must go on. You're taught that in theater.
Speaker 4: There's no matter if you're sick.
Speaker 5: I've had sprain, ankles and everything, but the show must
Speaker 5: go on. And that's how I was trained and taught.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't that hard for me.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna ask, did you ever get a
Speaker 2: chance to talk to Charlie about the lyrics of that song?
Speaker 2: My father talks about when he wrote that song, he
Speaker 2: had like nothing and was like eating apples and was
Speaker 2: going through the struggle. But I was just curious if
Speaker 2: he ever walked you through where it came from like lyrically. No,
Speaker 2: he never did.
Speaker 4: But we used to sit at the piano and he
Speaker 4: taught me that song.
Speaker 5: And then he also wrote a song called Opening Night,
Speaker 5: which was a wonderful song. They didn't put it in
Speaker 5: the show, but he taught me that song. But sitting
Speaker 5: with Charlie and watching him play and create that music
Speaker 5: was just awesome, and I was glad that he taught
Speaker 5: me my song. He was the one who taught me.
Speaker 4: Be a Lion is actually my favorite song because it's
Speaker 4: so positive.
Speaker 5: Everybody thinks home is mine, but be a Lion is
Speaker 5: is really my favorite song in the show.
Speaker 1: Thank You. The original Whiz.
Speaker 5: Absolutely Ted Ross and Stuve Gillim was the original Scarecrush Aircraft.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, it wasn't Debbie Allen in the chorus Alita.
Speaker 4: She was was she was a munchkin.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: She was understudy for Glinda's Yeah Glinda and who wow.
Speaker 2: Really too little to know?
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay. I was going to say, at the height
Speaker 1: of what New York City was during that time period,
Speaker 1: how are you able to avoid or did you avoid
Speaker 1: the trappings of what was starting to unfurl in the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen seventy seven. I mean, Studio Wars is
Speaker 1: like a big thing, and you know, like basically the
Speaker 1: culture is shifting during the time period. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're the talk of the town in like one
Speaker 1: of the most popular praise plays on Broadway, like, how
Speaker 1: does one avoid kind of the trappings of that life
Speaker 1: at such a young age.
Speaker 4: My mother sat in the dressing room every night.
Speaker 1: That's the answer.
Speaker 2: There. You go.
Speaker 4: With me every night. When I did go out and
Speaker 4: I went to Studio fifty four, my brothers and my
Speaker 4: sisters went with me.
Speaker 1: You were allowed to go, But what was it like?
Speaker 1: I didn't mean you got out the house? All right, Great,
Speaker 1: tell me what's like.
Speaker 4: I was allowed to go. Michael and I would go
Speaker 4: sometimes together.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: And if people wait, Michael, yes, you just can't, you
Speaker 1: said Michael casually. Michael, Michael, Michael.
Speaker 4: Michael Peters was in the wits too, he was the
Speaker 4: wing monkey. Yeah. It was the young Road.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, wow. So you and Michael Jackson in Studio
Speaker 1: fifty four. What is that like?
Speaker 4: It's exciting?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: Diant Van Furstenburg was there, and and uh Mick Jagger
Speaker 5: and Andy Walhole. We went out to dinner with Andy
Speaker 5: Walhole because Michael was being interviewed with uh mister Walhole,
Speaker 5: and he wanted me to go with him, so we
Speaker 5: would go after Studio fifty four and have dinner and
Speaker 5: he would interview Michael.
Speaker 1: Was it any truth to the room that you and
Speaker 1: Michael were seeing each other or were all just friends?
Speaker 4: We were so young and you couldn't have told me that.
Speaker 4: I wasn't going to marry Michael.
Speaker 2: I loved.
Speaker 4: We were friends. I would braid his hair and I
Speaker 4: stayed with him, you know, a big afro.
Speaker 2: So that's right, okay.
Speaker 1: That join I was like, I want to get a j.
Speaker 2: Rad And I asked you, seventy, what was the moment
Speaker 2: when you knew that you and Michael were gonna be
Speaker 2: we're gonna be friends? Like I do you remember?
Speaker 5: Like you you know, it just sort of happened, you know,
Speaker 5: because I was always around. I was always around the family.
Speaker 5: I became friends with Hazel and Jermaine, and then I
Speaker 5: moved to California and I was always at the home,
Speaker 5: at Jackson's home and always around. I mean I saw
Speaker 5: the girls outside the gate crying and just go hi.
Speaker 5: Because Michael liked to drive. He didn't like to drive
Speaker 5: on a freeway. He liked to drive like right up
Speaker 5: and down Ventura Boulevard. So he would always go and
Speaker 5: he would always pick me to go get the ice
Speaker 5: cream or popcorn. He loved popcorn from the movies, but
Speaker 5: we weren't always going to the movies, but he would
Speaker 5: always send.
Speaker 4: Me in there to get it because he knew I
Speaker 4: would I would get it. I wouldn't let them tell me.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Damn, my thought was the only human being that did that. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll just get popcorn, and I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: just want to buy some popcorn. Yeah, likeley story, that's
Speaker 1: still nine ninety nine.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when you are you mention your earlier stephan You
Speaker 6: mentioned earlier about your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: How many of you of you? Was it?
Speaker 4: It was six of us, three girls, and where were you?
Speaker 4: I'm the youngest girl, so.
Speaker 3: I was spoil That's why she stayed in the dressing room.
Speaker 1: Wow, I get it now.
Speaker 2: Your was really when y'all went to the club, they
Speaker 2: really was protecting you like they were your auntie.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, the Brooklyn Mills.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, all right, So.
Speaker 1: It takes four years for your follow up album? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you only recorded one album for Midtown
Speaker 1: and wait, I got it. Yeah, it was whose decision
Speaker 1: was it to work with uh Bert and how as producers?
Speaker 1: Because you know the last time that they worked with
Speaker 1: each other was with Dion Worick.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know they had like a kind of a legendary
Speaker 1: split breakup. So you're the project that brings them back together. Like,
Speaker 1: what was the whole the decision to.
Speaker 5: Work with at that time, you know, everybody was making
Speaker 5: decisions for me, So I don't really know whose idea
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 4: All I know is one day I.
Speaker 5: Was at Blackres's apartment learning, you know, songs and how
Speaker 5: David and then were teaching me songs and I'd go
Speaker 5: to his apartment.
Speaker 1: Did you did you know their legacy at that point
Speaker 1: or just like these are Dion Worrick guys and I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, because didn't they write. They wrote for Oh
Speaker 4: what's the uh, the Team, the Girl and the Guy.
Speaker 1: Team, Carpenters, Carpenters, Yes, for the Well.
Speaker 4: Only just Begun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I knew about that because I love the Carpenters, okay,
Speaker 5: And I would listen to their songs and you know,
Speaker 5: I just thought, Okay, this is legendary. These are great writers.
Speaker 5: They're gonna write. But I think it was that album
Speaker 5: was definitely ahead.
Speaker 4: Of its time.
Speaker 1: Who else were you listening to?
Speaker 6: Like growing up, we didn't really talk about your influences,
Speaker 6: like what kind of stuff were you were you damning
Speaker 6: at that time?
Speaker 5: Motown, Jackson Fly See, Wanda, Uh, Diana Ross, I just
Speaker 5: love I wanted to be Diana Ross, you know people,
Speaker 5: you know, a slide in the family, Stone, Marvin Gay,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So when you hit Motown you must have been in
Speaker 2: awe of your life, like, oh my god, Yes, I
Speaker 2: can't believe it.
Speaker 4: I'm here.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah wow. So with your your third record, you'll
Speaker 1: work with the legendary James and Too Ma and Reggie
Speaker 1: Lucas for the next next four albums. Can you talk about, uh,
Speaker 1: at least the transition to what I mean, I no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no of you with what you're going to do with
Speaker 1: my loving I had my father had the second the
Speaker 1: Motown album, but I came to know you through your
Speaker 1: third album. So I mean at that at that period,
Speaker 1: was that where you took the reins and sort of
Speaker 1: wanted to have control over the songs you sang in
Speaker 1: the stylistic No, that was like the last year and.
Speaker 5: A half of the Whiz And I was signed to
Speaker 5: twentieth when Alan Livingston was president of twenty set Box
Speaker 5: and the guy that was president of the Grammys he
Speaker 5: was he was vice president. Wow, And so they wanted
Speaker 5: they loved into Man and Lucas, so they wanted us.
Speaker 5: They put us together. But I wasn't used to singing
Speaker 5: like love songs that what in two men?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 4: So we sat down and I was like, well, what
Speaker 4: am I? How am I gonna sing? What are you
Speaker 4: gonna do with my love? And what what does that mean?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: Okay, to Waka would sing my demos for me, and
Speaker 5: then I was gonna ask you about her. Oh to
Speaker 5: Wa sang all of my demos for me, and she
Speaker 5: and most of the singers that sang with Luther. In fact,
Speaker 5: Luther Vandros wrote can you feel a brand new day
Speaker 5: for the Whiz on Broadway?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, I was gonna say, like during that period, like
Speaker 1: uh that whole crew to Watha Lannie Lannie, uh Nnie
Speaker 1: Groves sang with stevee Qween Guthrie, like that whole whole crew.
Speaker 1: Were you sort of immersed in that the background fraternity
Speaker 1: sorority of what New York was offering at the time
Speaker 1: or was it sort of like you came after the
Speaker 1: fact like they I.
Speaker 5: Came after the fact, but they all sang on my
Speaker 5: record and I would be there when they would sing,
Speaker 5: and to Waker with you know, like I said, sing
Speaker 5: on my demos for me.
Speaker 4: But they all say Okay, all.
Speaker 6: The backgrounds, what were into me and Lucas were, What
Speaker 6: were they like in the studio and kind of what
Speaker 6: was the division of labor between those two in terms of.
Speaker 1: How they worked with you.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, it was so loving and positive because
Speaker 5: you know, they were working with Miles Davis at the time.
Speaker 4: They were doing the song with ROBERTA.
Speaker 5: Flack and Donnie Hathaway, so they had a lot of
Speaker 5: things going on at that time. But they were so
Speaker 5: dedicated and so loving. It was the best experience. In fact,
Speaker 5: just before Reggie passed away, we were going to get
Speaker 5: together and write some stuff. He was gonna and I
Speaker 5: was going to try to get them together.
Speaker 4: To do something with me.
Speaker 6: But wow, So it was Reggie. Was he more of
Speaker 6: the lyricists than James was more music?
Speaker 4: Or how did that was more music?
Speaker 5: They both were music and and and I would say
Speaker 5: Reggie was more of the lyricists, but there was music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, got you, got You? Yeah. Two Hearts is like
Speaker 1: my favorite. I mean I love that song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and singing with Teddy it was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What was that session like? Do you remember that day?
Speaker 2: It was?
Speaker 5: It was well, they because I was still still doing
Speaker 5: I don't think I was doing the wiz at that time,
Speaker 5: but I was Teddy and I.
Speaker 4: Eighty one.
Speaker 5: No, I was in California, so they did my vocal
Speaker 5: first and then they did his. But we were in
Speaker 5: the studio together to fill the fire. I was like, uh,
Speaker 5: in Philly International.
Speaker 2: Talk about that, please, I'm just begging you.
Speaker 4: Teddy was a piece of work.
Speaker 5: Teddy was my brother, and uh, you know, when you're
Speaker 5: that famous and that good looking and all the women,
Speaker 5: you know, you, they really had to baby him. I
Speaker 5: didn't baby Teddy. I'd be like, look, let's do this song,
Speaker 5: Let's get it over it, Let's do it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I really talked to him like a sister. But he
Speaker 5: was loving and I loved working with with Teddy. We
Speaker 5: wanted to road for like eight months out of a
Speaker 5: year back then.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it just hit me that I believe Shep
Speaker 1: was your manager at the same time, because I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how you two hooked up and
Speaker 1: Courton yes, and I know that he's connected to Teddy.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, how how did that pairing happen?
Speaker 1: Was that through him or just that was through Teddy?
Speaker 5: I think I was out on the road with them,
Speaker 5: and I really liked the way they were handling Teddy
Speaker 5: and everything, and so I just asked them if they
Speaker 5: could manage me, and they did.
Speaker 2: I know she'd been a part of a lot of historical,
Speaker 2: legendary things, but I was going through some old fifth
Speaker 2: pictures and I just remembered that you were at something
Speaker 2: that just s marked history, and that was, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: Stephanie Mills. I found this picture of you at the
Speaker 2: White House, President Carter's White House for the first Black
Speaker 2: Music Month.
Speaker 1: I remember that picture.
Speaker 2: I know my dad, he's a he's a sneaking photographer.
Speaker 2: He you know, Wow, I did.
Speaker 4: I went to the White House twice.
Speaker 5: I went to the White House when Carter was there,
Speaker 5: and I went to the White House when President Reagan
Speaker 5: was there.
Speaker 2: Wow, what was it like to sit out on the
Speaker 2: lawn of the White House and him dedicate.
Speaker 5: It was wonderful to see, you know, the White House,
Speaker 5: what we built, and just to be there and and
Speaker 5: have all those people around us sit and talk, and
Speaker 5: a lot of historical people.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I remember being a girl and going to Eberneza in
Speaker 5: Atlanta and meeting you know, correct King used to come
Speaker 5: and sing it out church at Cornerstone Baptist Church and
Speaker 5: do uh uh you know how they have bibles. She
Speaker 5: used to come and do the Bibles and then Daddy
Speaker 5: King would come and preach. So I got a chance
Speaker 5: to go to their house and you know, and and
Speaker 5: and hang out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: Yolanda King was one of my friends. God rest her soul.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 5: And then you know, with a lot of people coming backstage,
Speaker 5: like I got a chance to meet Alan McGrath and
Speaker 5: Steve McQueen and Jacquan on Nassas and you know, so
Speaker 5: many people came back and said hello and brought flowers
Speaker 5: and but my favorite was Pearl Bailey Wow.
Speaker 4: And Ella Fitzgerald Wow.
Speaker 2: But not at the same time because that would be
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 5: But they all said the same thing that they always
Speaker 5: They all said, there's gonna be some wolves out there,
Speaker 5: but you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 4: Just keep going. That's what they said, you just keep going.
Speaker 5: It was just and then Pearl Bailey gave me a
Speaker 5: gift from Birddoffs and I still have it in the
Speaker 5: box and everything today.
Speaker 1: So for your your twentieth century run with in two
Speaker 1: Main and Lucas because with the second album with a
Speaker 1: sweet sensation. I know that that was your first real
Speaker 1: you know pot I mean even though black radio was
Speaker 1: playing what You're going to do and put your body
Speaker 1: in It and all that stuff your breakout with never
Speaker 1: love like this before. It's how like, can you describe
Speaker 1: at least the song, not the songwriting process, but at
Speaker 1: least the choice of songs because that was a major,
Speaker 1: major pop song. I didn't realize that that song actually
Speaker 1: did better on the pop charts, and it did on
Speaker 1: the R and B chart. So just at the time,
Speaker 1: and you want a Grammy for it? Yeah, what how
Speaker 1: did how did it feel at least at that point
Speaker 1: in eighty one like that, being at that point you're
Speaker 1: the highest point of your career. What was what was
Speaker 1: that feeling?
Speaker 4: Like? It was amazing?
Speaker 5: But you know what's so funny is that now being
Speaker 5: sixty three and looking back at at that I didn't
Speaker 5: have time to stop and smell the roses, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. Everything was moving so fast, so fast
Speaker 5: you didn't have time to really like enjoy it. Like
Speaker 5: I wasn't at the Grammys.
Speaker 4: I was working. Teddy picked up the Grammy for me
Speaker 4: when I won the American Music Awards. I was there,
Speaker 4: but everything was just happening so fast. You know, I
Speaker 4: didn't get a time to like.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it and be in the moments. Wow.
Speaker 4: At that time, my family I was controlling everything, So
Speaker 4: I guess they thought it was better for.
Speaker 1: Me to be on a road than I got one question. Wait,
Speaker 1: I gotta get this out. Let me get this out please.
Speaker 1: All right? So all right, fifty year old Quest Love
Speaker 1: is not asking this question. Nine year old Amir Thompson
Speaker 1: is asking this question that kiv nine year Oldimir Thompson. So,
Speaker 1: nine year Oldimir Thompson has an aunt who owns a
Speaker 1: beauty salon, and where any beauty salon in America? There
Speaker 1: is an overabundance of Jet and Ebony magazines, and so
Speaker 1: that's basically where you get all your information about any
Speaker 1: black artist ever. Very true, right, occasional ride on Jet
Speaker 1: and Eban. Now I'm nine years old, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I tried to look it up here and it's
Speaker 1: really not much on it. And you actually instagrammed a
Speaker 1: photo this week as of this recording. So all I
Speaker 1: remember was did you have a shotgun wedding with Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Daniels and why was it so controversial at the time. Again,
Speaker 1: I was nine years old, so I didn't get into
Speaker 1: I just knew one day your commercial for one of
Speaker 1: your albums had you in a hot tub. I forget
Speaker 1: which the album was, either dantalizing, and I remember like
Speaker 1: the talk of the beauty shot was and Jeffrey Daniels
Speaker 1: got married and that was like, you know, and then
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything else about it. And slight disclosure,
Speaker 1: I'm an avid Soul Trained watcher. Yes, so I worked
Speaker 1: for Soul Trained. So I'm going through your episodes and
Speaker 1: one of your appearances you're dancing with Cooley and uh
Speaker 1: Coolly from a solid gold like Jeffrey's guys, the guys
Speaker 1: that talked Michael Jackson, yes, Casper and Cooley. So I
Speaker 1: started putting two two together, like okay, that really did
Speaker 1: happen because I was like, wait, so she got married
Speaker 1: And then I looked on your ig you acknowledged that
Speaker 1: because I guess his birthday was recently. What was that
Speaker 1: period like and why were my aunts going out of
Speaker 1: their mind over that moment. I was nine years old
Speaker 1: at the time, so I didn't understand anything.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, Jeffery and I dated for like six months.
Speaker 5: Somebody from RCA introduced us. They felt like, oh, Stephanie,
Speaker 5: you would like Jeffery.
Speaker 4: He's so much funny.
Speaker 5: Because I was so my family was very guarded with me, okay,
Speaker 5: and when we Jeffrey and I would go on dates,
Speaker 5: my brother and my sister had to go with us.
Speaker 1: It was that oh wow.
Speaker 4: So I was ready to kind of like get out
Speaker 4: of the house. And Jeffrey was just so much fun.
Speaker 4: So we got married. You know. He said you want
Speaker 4: to marry me?
Speaker 5: And I said yes, And we thought that I was
Speaker 5: going to have a big wedding everything, but my family
Speaker 5: was very.
Speaker 4: Much against it.
Speaker 1: So how old were you at that time?
Speaker 4: I was twenty two, Okay, I knew it wasn't crazy
Speaker 4: jef So I ran away to uh uh, what's the preacher?
Speaker 1: Very nice house? James Cleveland.
Speaker 4: Yeah, James Cleveland married us?
Speaker 1: Why right now? A little brown black history facts? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, are you serious?
Speaker 4: James Cleveland married us? Yep.
Speaker 5: He took us to Beverly Hills, bought our rings, everything,
Speaker 5: and that night he was preaching at a church and
Speaker 5: I'm telling you, the god down the street he was teaching.
Speaker 3: James Cleveland, James Cleveland, Yes, James, Reverend James leaving the.
Speaker 1: Right, I know who that is.
Speaker 4: And we went to the church. He stopped the service
Speaker 4: of what he was doing. He married Jeffrey and I
Speaker 4: and then we left.
Speaker 1: When you said that the castle and stuff, we went
Speaker 1: out for ice cream and then Michael and then Michael. Right,
Speaker 1: was Michael there? This is like earlier after Michael, Wow,
Speaker 1: that is crazy. Yeah, I was saying that I'd never
Speaker 1: I mean, my my first foray into beauty shop girlfriend
Speaker 1: talk girl.
Speaker 5: Rea, and why I put Jeffrey sent me those wedding
Speaker 5: pictures and and because one of our friends had had them,
Speaker 5: so he said, I'm gonna send you because he lives
Speaker 5: in Nigeria.
Speaker 4: Now he just had a beautiful Wow what baby girl?
Speaker 2: Yes, dang, when it's still worked, they still use it.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey had just had a girl, right. Why I thought,
Speaker 1: I told you, we won't stop. We can't stop, we can't.
Speaker 5: I put it on because I heard that there was
Speaker 5: so much talk of who actually taught Michael the moonwalks
Speaker 5: walk that it was Casper and Jeffrey.
Speaker 4: Because I was at those rehearsals, so I know I
Speaker 4: was there.
Speaker 1: Wait, I was going to say, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: and one of your performances of the Medicine song, you
Speaker 1: actually broke out into the moonwalk.
Speaker 4: Yes, I did.
Speaker 2: How could I live in.
Speaker 4: Hills? How could I live with him and they rehearsal
Speaker 4: all the time and not know how to do it?
Speaker 4: Of course? Yes, I need to see that.
Speaker 1: I knew thousands of hours of watching the solitary would
Speaker 1: help me to Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, so okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to go through everything.
Speaker 2: So any questions.
Speaker 3: What else did nine year old get into? I'm just interested.
Speaker 3: Like nine year old a mere at the barbershop.
Speaker 4: I just do.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to do but sit there and read Jet
Speaker 1: all the Jets and wait for my my grandmam to
Speaker 1: get her hair done at at nine pm. Second, go home,
Speaker 1: I'm impressed and read them.
Speaker 2: I just went for the photos of the week.
Speaker 1: I would start of at the back. I would start
Speaker 1: reading them at the back. I always see you jet backwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to see the albums. That's what they have read.
Speaker 1: The first twelve pages of Jet Ever my life fact
Speaker 1: you starting backwards and then you end after photos of
Speaker 1: them after after the Jet beauty the week. Right, that's it.
Speaker 1: That is over.
Speaker 2: Not a deep dive, but not the deep dive. But Stephanie,
Speaker 2: you've been to that. You went to the Ebony and
Speaker 2: Jet building before?
Speaker 4: Right? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, can you tell people because they have no idea
Speaker 2: of the layout of the floors, and the colors were
Speaker 2: kind of like the whiz right where every floor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the kitchen it was a different color every floor.
Speaker 4: It was a different color every floor.
Speaker 5: And they had big posters of all the jets and
Speaker 5: the magazines and the covers, and they had lunch.
Speaker 2: You would go and have lunch free, soulfuld lunch free.
Speaker 4: I had it. I've met a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a I'm on the board the Museum and
Speaker 1: Modern Art of Food. Well, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: food museum coming in I thing like twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: But they just purchased that kitchen, and that kitchen had
Speaker 1: to be delivered like in the state that it's always
Speaker 1: been in sermon you hear of like people like tearing
Speaker 1: down Banksy walls just to get his artwork. So they
Speaker 1: literally delivered that kitchen intact from Chicago, uh to New York,
Speaker 1: like in all of its seventies tacky psychedelic must Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a very unique looking you know something, all right?
Speaker 1: So you you have a you you you have a
Speaker 1: rarity in which you know. Princess is well known for
Speaker 1: his disdain for anyone covering his music, Yet he loved
Speaker 1: your version of how Come you don't how Come you
Speaker 1: Don't Call Me Anymore? Two things though, One, well why
Speaker 1: did you choose that? But you also opened your album
Speaker 1: with that. I always have questions about artists that opened
Speaker 1: their albums with slow song cover, especially with that song,
Speaker 1: like why did that happen? Especially when that was a
Speaker 1: merciless had pilot era on it, E Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: don't think stand back, but I think yeah was like
Speaker 1: that was the lead single. But always wanted to know
Speaker 1: why did you open that album with how Come you
Speaker 1: Don't Call Me Anymore?
Speaker 5: Because I love the song? I love Prince. I got
Speaker 5: a chance to meet Prince and go to Paisley Park
Speaker 5: when Prince was honored at the Soul Train Awards. Somebody
Speaker 5: else was going to sing how Come you Don't Call Me?
Speaker 5: And he called me personally and and switched it and
Speaker 5: wanted me to sing the song on the train Awards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I I just think Prince is a genius
Speaker 4: and I wanted to open with that on the album.
Speaker 6: There was a producer you worked with on on the
Speaker 6: Sweet Sensation album that I've We've never had anyone on
Speaker 6: the show that has been able to talk about him
Speaker 6: if if you knew herb huber Eves who did all
Speaker 6: the D train stuff.
Speaker 5: Hubert's played piano and stuff for all my stuff on
Speaker 5: Into May and Lucas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, what was he like because I've we've never we've
Speaker 6: never had anyone that you know, was able to talk
Speaker 6: to about it.
Speaker 2: He was just a cool dude, just with.
Speaker 5: Sitting in the studio and just because most of the
Speaker 5: time when I did all my stuff with Intu May,
Speaker 5: I was in the studio live with my band with
Speaker 5: the band Okay God would be in the booth and
Speaker 5: they would be.
Speaker 4: Playing, and he was just a cool He was an
Speaker 4: easy going, beautiful brother. He was just easy going.
Speaker 1: That's what's up.
Speaker 6: Because all that D trains though, I mean that was
Speaker 6: my you know, I was a kid and I played
Speaker 6: that stuff. My mom used to play that stuff.
Speaker 1: All the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was cool.
Speaker 1: That's what's up.
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 1: Uh, you worked with uh Hawk was David Hawk was
Speaker 1: from from Rufus. I have to Okay, So I heard
Speaker 1: a rumor that were you supposed to be the initial
Speaker 1: recipient of Ain't Nobody? I know that according to Shaka,
Speaker 1: that was a last minute like Rufus getting that song
Speaker 1: was the last minute resort because initially I believe that
Speaker 1: the talk was that Cimbello, Michael Simbelo and Hawk Wazinski
Speaker 1: was trying to place it on Thriller didn't make it.
Speaker 1: And then I heard that when Hawk was working on
Speaker 1: I've Got the Cure, he wanted you to do that?
Speaker 1: Is there truth to that? Like? Were you offered Ain't Nobody? First?
Speaker 4: I wasn't offered. I wasn't offered. I wish that I was, though,
Speaker 4: but I wasn't. I wasn't offered that song. No, okay,
Speaker 4: but you know Patty was supposed to do I feel
Speaker 4: Good all over and wowed and took the song. You know,
Speaker 4: songs are taken from artists every day.
Speaker 1: Are you aware of how of hip hop's relationship to something?
Speaker 1: That way? You made me feel you would cut it
Speaker 1: up free fat Joe?
Speaker 4: I love that, Joe. But yeah, you know they told
Speaker 4: me about it. Kick Cabre definitely told me about it and.
Speaker 1: Fat Joe you finally did it with him, I believe
Speaker 1: last year like live where he Yes, we were at
Speaker 1: I was at.
Speaker 4: My manager's charity event and uh uh Indianapolis.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, they still got it. Good for them, and
Speaker 2: uh I.
Speaker 4: Did it with him. We went to the there was
Speaker 4: there's a white party that they had and I got
Speaker 4: on stage and did it with him.
Speaker 1: That's so dope.
Speaker 4: We recorded We were going to record it and Teddy
Speaker 4: Rowley was going to do it, but I don't. I
Speaker 4: think it kind of just like fell apart. But I
Speaker 4: was going to sing it over with him and let
Speaker 4: him do his thing.
Speaker 1: So at that time, they were just explaining to you
Speaker 1: what that song meant to the hip hop nation, like
Speaker 1: you you were just unaware.
Speaker 4: I was unaware of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so for our listeners, so yeah, for our listeners
Speaker 1: out there. With the advent of like mixtapes and being
Speaker 1: a kick, Capri was sort of out the gate as
Speaker 1: one of the very first like mixtape pioneers or what
Speaker 1: we know is mixtapes. It was just a radical idea
Speaker 1: back in the day to take a cappella well, first
Speaker 1: of all, to fine any a cappella versions of songs
Speaker 1: was hard enough. So there was an a cappella version
Speaker 1: of something the Way You Feel on the twelve inch
Speaker 1: and then he would put it under the Honey Drippers
Speaker 1: and Peach the President break beat, and that was like
Speaker 1: our first taste of a blend where you could take
Speaker 1: someone's vocals from here and put it under a beat
Speaker 1: over there, and like that's basically what inspired like and
Speaker 1: the thing that was smarter about women.
Speaker 6: Yeah, kid was smart enough to know that, like you
Speaker 6: put that vocal under just a raw breakbeat and the
Speaker 6: key would match because it's just a raw when you
Speaker 6: had other duties there just be putting may be putting
Speaker 6: vocals under whatever and I'm like anything, I'm like, this
Speaker 6: is not match at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that became. That was like one of
Speaker 1: kick Capri's signature mixes. No kick Capre party would be
Speaker 1: complete without him opening up his For thirty years, he
Speaker 1: would open up his set with Stephanie Mills and Impeach
Speaker 1: the President. So wow, yeah to see that happen that
Speaker 1: was like super legendary. Yeah, yeah, you know, it was
Speaker 1: super legendary. Stephanie again, like we're also using you as
Speaker 1: the conduit to figure out like about our favorites. You
Speaker 1: worked under the tutelage of Loose Silas at mc Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was what was working with lou like, Like, what
Speaker 1: was he like as well? I mean was he president
Speaker 1: of the Black division at MCA or was he just
Speaker 1: head A and R?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What was his position?
Speaker 4: He was head of A and R. But he did everything.
Speaker 4: He did all my mixes. He did the remixes of
Speaker 4: Power of Love and a lot of songs. I loved
Speaker 4: working with lol.
Speaker 5: Lull had a great ear. I mean he had a
Speaker 5: great ear. He was working with you know, a New
Speaker 5: Edition and Bobby Brown and all of that. He put
Speaker 5: all that stuff together. He put them all all together
Speaker 5: and worked and and he was the one who chose
Speaker 5: my songs. And when things didn't work out with one producer,
Speaker 5: Jerald Buzzby would come and take that song and give
Speaker 5: it to another producer. Jerald Busby and Lull worked hand
Speaker 5: in hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say he discribed what was
Speaker 1: what were they like? Because it's hard to find anyone
Speaker 1: that was really, you know, in proximity to where they
Speaker 1: were at the time.
Speaker 2: I was with them a lot.
Speaker 4: I would go up to the to the office a lot.
Speaker 4: They were just cool guys.
Speaker 5: I always had lunch with with Joe Busby and Louel.
Speaker 5: I would go to the basketball games with him because
Speaker 5: Lowell later on was dating Cassandra, you know, was a
Speaker 5: manager at the time. So I was with loll And
Speaker 5: over Lowell's house all the time. And Joe Busby we
Speaker 5: became close, very close.
Speaker 1: I also know that you uh worked with Richard Rudolph
Speaker 1: and also with Rod Temperton. Yes, well, I know that
Speaker 1: he did.
Speaker 4: I've working with Rod Templeton. Now. He was a genius
Speaker 4: with background vocals and making and blending things together. Oh
Speaker 4: my god. And he was the nicest, nicest, most humble guy.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask, like, how much of
Speaker 1: a task master was he with his background vocal stacking, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: was he super intense?
Speaker 4: Yes it was.
Speaker 5: It was intense, but he wasn't mean about it. He
Speaker 5: wasn't like okay, he was very nice about it.
Speaker 4: And I was used to working in the studio and
Speaker 4: as long as you get me in the studio.
Speaker 5: Early, I'm good. I don't do night time student because
Speaker 5: I go to bed early. I get sleepy, but early
Speaker 5: in the day, I'm good.
Speaker 4: So I loved it and I learned so much.
Speaker 1: So an average session, how long could your voice last
Speaker 1: before it's starting to give out? Like are you good?
Speaker 1: For two hours? And then it's like stop?
Speaker 4: But I do I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't beat a song. I do one or two
Speaker 5: takes and that's it because I do my homework at home.
Speaker 5: So I'm not you know, I'm not gonna sing all day.
Speaker 5: I've never I've never been one to sing all day.
Speaker 5: Most of my songs are done in one take.
Speaker 4: That takes. That's it. We got to fix with it.
Speaker 4: But other than that one or two, do it right?
Speaker 2: Do it?
Speaker 1: I love it? Wow?
Speaker 2: Do you do you think do you think that like
Speaker 2: and of course God given talent is definitely a part
Speaker 2: of it, but do you think that like your theater
Speaker 2: background has a lot to do with that?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 5: My theater background definitely definitely taught me the discipline. You know,
Speaker 5: I was They knew that when I came in the studio,
Speaker 5: I was going to be ready.
Speaker 4: I was going to know my songs, and that's it.
Speaker 5: My theater background and being in theater and and being
Speaker 5: around those because I was around like Liza Minelli and
Speaker 5: Rivera and and all these legendary theater people. Broadway was
Speaker 5: like a community, So I learned, and I and I
Speaker 5: was the kind that would just sit and watch. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't talk when other people was working. I'd watch the
Speaker 5: director because I found that fascinating. So I would just
Speaker 5: sit and watch and learn. And and Cheetah was became
Speaker 5: very good friends with me, and and and I did
Speaker 5: the Sammy Davis Junior Show and Liza. Sammy gave me
Speaker 5: a gold bracelet, but Eliza, miss Manelli, had given it
Speaker 5: to Sammy, so he had to come and get it
Speaker 5: and then buy.
Speaker 4: Me another one. Did you got Eliza?
Speaker 5: I had it, but he forgot that Liza gave it
Speaker 5: to him, and she reminded him, and so then he
Speaker 5: came to the theater and got it, and then he
Speaker 5: brought me another one.
Speaker 2: Wow, you had a relationship with Liza like y'all have. Actually,
Speaker 2: I mean, miss Manelli, y'all had a relationship where you
Speaker 2: were actually speak to you.
Speaker 5: Respect, you know, because she was there was nobody bigger
Speaker 5: on Broadway than Liza Manilla right right, geta Rivera, you know,
Speaker 5: And and then Pippin and Ben Vereen and all those people.
Speaker 4: I just learned from all of them.
Speaker 2: I asked about Liza specifically because you remixed the role
Speaker 2: of her mother. So I was just curious if that
Speaker 2: that ever came into conversation or she ever lets you
Speaker 2: know that she was aware.
Speaker 4: She was aware, and she felt like I did a
Speaker 4: good job, and she told me not to worry about
Speaker 4: what people said.
Speaker 6: Yes, we were wanted to know your work with Nick
Speaker 6: Martinelli was yeah. Was that like were you a fan
Speaker 6: of the loose end stuff that he had done?
Speaker 1: Like before that? Like how did y'all hook up?
Speaker 5: I think Louel put that together and then Philadelphia and
Speaker 5: I went to his house and we talked about it.
Speaker 5: But Nick allowed me to be free, like the first
Speaker 5: part of Home. I wrote that I and I told
Speaker 5: Nick that I wanted Home to be a little bit
Speaker 5: more urban because I was coming out. You know, I
Speaker 5: had done the Whiz, but I wanted to be a
Speaker 5: little bit more urban. And I wanted people to remember.
Speaker 4: How great Charlie Small songs were. I didn't want them
Speaker 4: to forget, you know.
Speaker 5: So when we went in the studio and take six,
Speaker 5: did the backgrounds, Oh, that's them, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Let's take six casual flex n Wow, yeah I can.
Speaker 6: I can hear you saying it because I well maybe
Speaker 6: as was because you know, I was thinking particular about
Speaker 6: if I were your woman, and how that just sounds
Speaker 6: like nothing that he had done like previously before that.
Speaker 1: It sounds nothing like the loosen stuff for like none
Speaker 1: of that. I was going to say, that's his first
Speaker 1: parade outside of eight o eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jam and Lewis.
Speaker 1: DNA talked.
Speaker 4: I loved Nick. I mean even when Nick went to prison,
Speaker 4: I went to visit him there.
Speaker 1: Oh he's at the prison. Yeah, that's why we gotta
Speaker 1: interview Nick Martin. By the way, I missed that. Jimmy
Speaker 1: Jam actually told me you guys got to interview them
Speaker 1: and find out why.
Speaker 2: I gotta google that. Damn all right, No I.
Speaker 1: Didn't know my so yeah, no, we we definitely got
Speaker 1: to get Nick Martinelli episode out because yeah, it's a story,
Speaker 1: it's a story. I was going to say, why did
Speaker 1: you decide to reclaim or recover Home in eighty nine
Speaker 1: when for the home album?
Speaker 5: Because so many of the cast members had passed on
Speaker 5: and I just wanted people to remember and I wanted to.
Speaker 4: Do a tribute, and that was my tribute to the original.
Speaker 5: Cast members, to Charlie Smalls and Ken Harper and Charles
Speaker 5: who was our director, and a lot of people that passed.
Speaker 2: On, even Michael Peters, Yes, Michael Peters, Yes.
Speaker 1: So okay, after I asked about Angela, well, I mean
Speaker 1: there's so many other producers. Well, first of all working
Speaker 1: with Angela Wimbush. I know she wrote those songs, but
Speaker 1: does she actually produce power love and something that make
Speaker 1: me feel as well?
Speaker 4: Or well, I won't tell you the story about Power Love.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna tell that story.
Speaker 5: But they started producing it and then Gerald had to
Speaker 5: come in and take it and give it to have
Speaker 5: Mercy cursy, cursy, and he finished it. But yes, she
Speaker 5: wrote Power of Love was originally power of God. Angela
Speaker 5: wrote and produced something in the Way You Make Me
Speaker 5: Feel and uh uh another.
Speaker 4: Song on my album.
Speaker 5: But I think Angela is a brilliant writer and producer.
Speaker 5: She's one of my good friends.
Speaker 1: That's what's up. And she still she's still like like
Speaker 1: active and stuff.
Speaker 5: She's still like helpwise, she's well, yes, going to the
Speaker 5: church now, but she's still act that.
Speaker 4: You know, I get her to do a song and stuff.
Speaker 4: But she's still active.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she sang at a AT's funeral. Oh wow, oh man,
Speaker 1: I know that was a little weird. Yeah, like me
Speaker 1: and me and di'angelo were her impromptu band. Oh but
Speaker 1: we were at the Apollo first of all. I was
Speaker 1: at the Apollo and then like, oh, we're playing angel
Speaker 1: Tino Angeli Wick. So we're like winging it. But she's
Speaker 1: also kind of quasi throwing us under the bus because
Speaker 1: we know the chord changes. Like I was just here
Speaker 1: to look at the casket and leave. Now I'm playing
Speaker 1: drums with you. Okay.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask seventy who are like you mentioned Angelo,
Speaker 2: you mentioned Twala and Elba, But who are your your
Speaker 2: sisters and song like the ladies especially you've been catching
Speaker 2: on during these these times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have a crew? Like who were your BFFs?
Speaker 1: Like people that you could.
Speaker 2: Lean on and they're not in the industry though, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's what I meant. I thought somebody who you were
Speaker 2: going through it. You're both going through the same, you know.
Speaker 5: The only person that probably uh would be Angela. It's
Speaker 5: hard to be friends with sometimes the women in the
Speaker 5: business because it's.
Speaker 4: A different kind of thing, you know, it's hard. It's hard, oh, Ques.
Speaker 3: Who said that?
Speaker 2: And you said earlier that the record label and your
Speaker 2: family kind of controlled a lot of stuff. So I
Speaker 2: thought about that, and I was like, I wonder if
Speaker 2: it was at times where it was like pitting against
Speaker 2: and whatnot, because you know the whole mentality of there
Speaker 2: can only be one and what.
Speaker 5: I never had that mentality, not you, but but I'm
Speaker 5: saying like there are some artists that really do have
Speaker 5: that mentality. But I always competed with myself being better
Speaker 5: for myself. You know, I tried to be better or
Speaker 5: sing better than anybody else. I just did me and
Speaker 5: that always worked for me.
Speaker 2: That worked because there is no like you know, she
Speaker 2: just like Stephanie Mills.
Speaker 1: There's no no, no, you know there was, now that
Speaker 1: I think about it, there's a There was a kind
Speaker 1: of a what do you call it? For Christmas? When
Speaker 1: they do no no, no, not a Christmas album. But
Speaker 1: a friend of mine took me to a church in Harlem,
Speaker 1: and this church it's like six thousand seats. I just
Speaker 1: remember it was you and Felicia Rashad. I saw is
Speaker 1: that when they.
Speaker 2: Had the real live animals and stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh no, that we didn't have real live animals, but
Speaker 4: we did Black Nativity.
Speaker 1: Oh yo, I was going to say, okay the night
Speaker 1: the night I finished Master in il Adelph Half Life,
Speaker 1: I got off early, and friends of Mine is like, yo,
Speaker 1: we're gonna see Stephanie Mills go singing at a church
Speaker 1: this Nativity thing, and like Felicia Rashad was the narrator,
Speaker 1: and what was always wanted to know because the thing
Speaker 1: was they were doing it was the story of Black
Speaker 1: Nativity scene. But it was a sold out audience, and
Speaker 1: you were incorporating kind of your catalog. I mean, you
Speaker 1: sort of had to bend the narrative so that it
Speaker 1: could fit the story of the Nativity. So like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do I feel good all over. But it
Speaker 1: was sort of bent into whatever. The story of Mary
Speaker 1: explaining to Joseph, well she got prayed. It was the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing, like it was. It was basically in my head.
Speaker 1: I was sitting there like, okay, so she's doing six songs,
Speaker 1: She's doing six of her hits, and they had to
Speaker 1: figure out a way how to incorporate those hits into
Speaker 1: the narrative of the birth of baby Jesus. So it
Speaker 1: was like, but feel the fire, like all these songs
Speaker 1: that were not Nativity ready, but they twisted. Always wanted
Speaker 1: to like, how how did that come to be? Obviously
Speaker 1: that wasn't the first time you did it, so it
Speaker 1: was like, was that a something normal for you? Because
Speaker 1: literally they.
Speaker 4: Felt like I think I did I feel good all over?
Speaker 4: And I think I did home or something. I don't
Speaker 4: think I did feel the fire.
Speaker 1: I swear it was like three or four songs, and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, how they going to incorporate this one?
Speaker 1: But anyway, but yeah, how how did they how did
Speaker 1: that come to be?
Speaker 5: They they wanted they felt like if people came to
Speaker 5: see it, they'd want to hear me sing something that
Speaker 5: that people know for right, Okay, that they're more famili
Speaker 5: we're with then just that and that's how they wanted
Speaker 5: to sell it.
Speaker 1: Okay. I was a board. I was like, okay, to
Speaker 1: reinterpret all of your songs through the gospel filtering. I
Speaker 1: thought that was Matt clever. So I wanted to know
Speaker 1: was that something that you would return to or I
Speaker 1: didn't know if maybe that point in your life you
Speaker 1: were just going to do non secular versions of your
Speaker 1: regular Songho.
Speaker 2: I did one.
Speaker 5: Gospel album and everybody all thought, oh, she's doing gospel now,
Speaker 5: But I wanted to do you know, I eventually would
Speaker 5: love to do a Broadway album.
Speaker 4: And sing yeah, oh wow tune. So I want to
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 5: That was one of the reasons why I left MCA,
Speaker 5: because they no longer Well first, I didn't want to
Speaker 5: record contract anymore. I just wanted to kind of do
Speaker 5: what I wanted to do, and so I'd love to
Speaker 5: do a Broadway album.
Speaker 2: We got two Broadway show producer and composers right here
Speaker 2: on this uh we do you you?
Speaker 1: That guy?
Speaker 2: You? And William Bill that guy.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna ask along those lines, Ms Mills,
Speaker 3: how do you feel about being one of the only
Speaker 3: that I can think of at the moment or at
Speaker 3: all like Broadway folk who began as a Broadway person
Speaker 3: and then graduated into pop star them if there are
Speaker 3: plenty who are pop stars who take on stunt rolls
Speaker 3: and musicals, but you're one of the only people I
Speaker 3: can think of who began as a Broadway person and
Speaker 3: then became this sort of big pop sensation.
Speaker 1: What is that like?
Speaker 3: I can't even think of anybody else who's along those lines.
Speaker 5: They always reminded me of that. They always like, Stephanie,
Speaker 5: it's really odd that you came from Broadway. Usually Broadway
Speaker 5: people don't have the voice to be commercial, and that's me.
Speaker 3: It's a different voice.
Speaker 4: It's a different It really is a different voice. But
Speaker 4: I don't really know how I did it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I get I have to.
Speaker 5: Really thank the producers. And I never really left. I
Speaker 5: never let I never left my soul. Even though I
Speaker 5: was on Broadway and singing, I still kept my soul.
Speaker 5: I think I didn't like turn into this Broadway singer.
Speaker 3: Did they try to change you though? Like I mean,
Speaker 3: like Broadways known for vibroadbo and like epic whatever it is,
Speaker 3: and I don't at.
Speaker 4: All then sound. Yeah, you know that whiny kind of sound.
Speaker 5: But I uh, they tried to change me later in
Speaker 5: my career. They wanted me to take some of the
Speaker 5: soul out of my voice because they wanted me to
Speaker 5: be so. They would say, you're sounding a little bit
Speaker 5: too black. I mean, even my videos and things were
Speaker 5: never played on MTV or v h one because they
Speaker 5: said I was too black.
Speaker 6: Oh, I was gonna say, I remember you did a
Speaker 6: song that I thought was kind of to me, it
Speaker 6: felt like a comeback, so to speak, when you did
Speaker 6: I Just Want Love and it was it was on
Speaker 6: the Strictly Business soundtrack. I would never get this song soundtrack.
Speaker 6: It was on the it was on the Strictly Business soundtrack.
Speaker 6: It's the last song. It's the Streetly Business, the movie
Speaker 6: with Halle Berry and Tommy Davis and I Can't Home
Speaker 6: from the Cosby Show, Super classic.
Speaker 2: Remember that song, God, literally I can't because we used.
Speaker 1: To I just want to from you, I just want
Speaker 1: you love from you. It was on the it was
Speaker 1: the first song on the soundtrack, but it's the last
Speaker 1: jam in the movie.
Speaker 2: It sounds nineties very I was in like.
Speaker 6: Seventh grade, but but I was. But but the thing
Speaker 6: was because it was other people on that soundtrack. I
Speaker 6: think I think like Mary was on that soundtrack, and
Speaker 6: I just remember Uptown m A.
Speaker 5: And you know it was Mary, Patti LaBelle, Jody Watley,
Speaker 5: myself and we were all on m c A. We
Speaker 5: would always come out first quarter, second quarter, third quarter,
Speaker 5: fourth quarter, released by records.
Speaker 2: Well at least, yeah, same time.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 6: I thought that was just a good way of them
Speaker 6: kind of uh you know, it was a voice that
Speaker 6: was familiar to me, and I heard it and I
Speaker 6: was like, man, they found a way to, you know,
Speaker 6: make material that puts Stephanie in like a modern day context,
Speaker 6: you know. And it didn't sound like like you said,
Speaker 6: you know, it sounded like you were still you were
Speaker 6: still doing you. You weren't trying to do like what
Speaker 6: the younger generation was doing. It didn't sound like you
Speaker 6: were pandering. It just sounded like, oh, this is Stephanie
Speaker 6: Mills in this context. And I always thought that's I
Speaker 6: always really liked that song.
Speaker 1: My question is, as as a quote real singer or
Speaker 1: a singer singer.
Speaker 4: How what's your funny.
Speaker 3: Not questions even funny?
Speaker 1: As a real singer? How hard is it to make
Speaker 1: sense where we are now? This is not not like
Speaker 1: to dispara or bring no no, no no.
Speaker 2: I love it Stephanie Mills. I love it.
Speaker 1: Let's go No Oh wait what am I missing?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: On Twitter? I forgot?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: I just.
Speaker 2: I just love that she don't hold her tongue.
Speaker 1: That's what I forgot. Yes, I totally forgot you bring
Speaker 1: smoke to Sam about Michael Jackson. I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: But I mean, just where we where we are now,
Speaker 1: Where we are now where? I mean, you know what
Speaker 1: music is now, I don't have to auto tune everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it could be frustrating sometimes. I mean even
Speaker 1: me now, like as a music fan and actively in
Speaker 1: the music business, you know, I don't have any expectations
Speaker 1: for people to blow me away with their singing anymore,
Speaker 1: or good songs to be written or any of those things.
Speaker 1: But how do you do you even make sense of
Speaker 1: what's happening today at all? Or is it just like
Speaker 1: R and B.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that they've just kind of like killed
Speaker 5: dur and B. They're trying to but we're trying to
Speaker 5: hold on to it as you know. No, I think
Speaker 5: it's very easy for people today to become pop stars,
Speaker 5: and they use the word legends and icons and things
Speaker 5: very loosely.
Speaker 4: And I think that's why.
Speaker 5: A lot of people can't sing live. I mean a
Speaker 5: lot of shows are taped. A lot of shows, you'd
Speaker 5: be surprised. I've been on the road with quite a
Speaker 5: few artists and mostly predominantly.
Speaker 4: All their whole show is taped.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, but I come from theater, you know, and I'm
Speaker 5: so glad, I'm so thankful every day that you know,
Speaker 5: I've learned how to sing, whether I can hit that
Speaker 5: note that night, or point to my background singer and
Speaker 5: hit it. But what I do before I go on
Speaker 5: the road is I sing all my songs every day
Speaker 5: so that I can sound somewhat like I sounded, you know,
Speaker 5: and people won't be scared to hear me. I do
Speaker 5: sing every day because I just love to sing. But
Speaker 5: today's music, I don't think any of today's music you'll
Speaker 5: hear five and ten years from now like you do
Speaker 5: Stevie and Aretha and and and the people from the
Speaker 5: seventies and eighties.
Speaker 4: I don't think that you'll hear this music today. One
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think in my head like you. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I was trying to argue that fact, but okay.
Speaker 4: I don't do I don't know. I mean, I love
Speaker 4: Jasmine Sullivan, but I feel I love her as a vocalist,
Speaker 4: uh a, Deborah Cox. I think it's a brilliant vocalist.
Speaker 2: And but that's still not in this in the next
Speaker 2: to ten years, in this last years, that's not that's.
Speaker 5: Not like immediate, Like do you think that we'll hear
Speaker 5: Cardi b stuffed ten to fifteen years from now, no man,
Speaker 5: So you know that.
Speaker 4: And that's not to take away from anybody.
Speaker 5: I'm not because I don't knock anybody's hustling, But I
Speaker 5: just don't think that you know their music is going
Speaker 5: to last ten to fifteen year Miss Stephan.
Speaker 6: I was gonna ask so with your jam with hip hop?
Speaker 6: When hip hop, you know, kind of came into the
Speaker 6: just into the industry. You know, every episode of Unsung
Speaker 6: they all have the same story. It's like they they
Speaker 6: were doing great and then rap and it was over.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. How what was it like
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying when you saw the industry
Speaker 6: kind of starting to shift and you saw what hip
Speaker 6: hop was becoming.
Speaker 1: What was that like for you? And what was your
Speaker 1: relationship to hip hop? If any I didn't have.
Speaker 4: A relationship with hip hop, but I enjoyed it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I guess something different because I just
Speaker 4: I just keep doing me. I just kept doing what
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 5: I didn't try to change and try to adapt, you know,
Speaker 5: I just I just kept doing another version of me
Speaker 5: whatever that you know, just keep doing another version of me.
Speaker 4: I love hip hop, you know I I would I
Speaker 4: Oh my Christmas album, I wrapped, I wrapped the Red Bars.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I just I you know, everybody has their thing to do,
Speaker 5: and I think, you know, hey, you just keep on
Speaker 5: going and to come back around.
Speaker 2: I've seen it, but it didn't bother you like the
Speaker 2: Unsung bother me.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: I didn't freak out about it now because I could
Speaker 4: always go and do theater. I can do other things.
Speaker 4: So I didn't. I didn't like, Oh god, No, I
Speaker 4: didn't want anymore anyway.
Speaker 2: If there was a show, what would the show? Is
Speaker 2: there a show you have in mind that you would
Speaker 2: love to do as far as a theater.
Speaker 4: Yes, Melody and I are going to do run It's
Speaker 4: woman show Happen. We're writing it now.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I'm here. We're here for that.
Speaker 1: We're writing.
Speaker 4: Melbourne is just wonderful on stage.
Speaker 5: We did a we did a show called If You
Speaker 5: Had to Talk, and it was just wonderful being on
Speaker 5: stage with her.
Speaker 4: Talk recently and that she was like, let's work together.
Speaker 4: I said, let's do it. We found a writer. So
Speaker 4: they're writing it now.
Speaker 1: Oh it's good. Get my ears ready, Okay, since I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to ask the question, but I mine as well.
Speaker 1: Have you heard back from Sam Smith? Quiet back at him? Oh,
Speaker 1: I only forgot about that's she brought smoke. I love.
Speaker 4: You know what it is? This is really what it
Speaker 4: is about it.
Speaker 5: People don't really know my personality because I've always just
Speaker 5: been a singer.
Speaker 4: And on Broadway. But I'm really just a hood girl
Speaker 4: from Brooklyn. You know what I'm saying. I'm really just
Speaker 4: that that girl. And I love Michael.
Speaker 5: He's not here to take care of herself and I
Speaker 5: to speak up for herself. And I get tired of
Speaker 5: people who I know have copied sounds. I mean, Sam
Speaker 5: Smith is nothing but Sylvester all over.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So you know when you say you don't like our music,
Speaker 4: how can you say that? So I really had to.
Speaker 5: I felt like I have to say something. And my
Speaker 5: manager's always like, Okay, I'm gonna let you say this,
Speaker 5: but you gotta say it like this, because sometimes I
Speaker 5: just think people need to back off.
Speaker 4: I don't like when they they need an education, and
Speaker 4: they need an.
Speaker 5: Education, they need it, And I don't think people should
Speaker 5: say things about people and they're not here to defend themselves.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you wanted to.
Speaker 5: It's just like when fifty was talking about Michael and
Speaker 5: you know, and then his daughter said, please don't talk
Speaker 5: about my father, and then fifty wanted to, you know, go,
Speaker 5: she's a child, you know, so I kind of I said,
Speaker 5: why don't you talk to me? I'm more your speed,
Speaker 5: I'm older, you know, so I just I just don't
Speaker 5: like when people are bullies.
Speaker 4: I don't like bullies. I don't.
Speaker 2: There you go, Stephanie Miles. I'm telling you, Stephie Mills
Speaker 2: Yon word, they sat in Twitter on fire.
Speaker 4: Okay, she doesn't play, Leon does not play. And you
Speaker 4: know who didn't play, Aretha? Aretha didn't play.
Speaker 1: She didn't really. Oh now what was she like? Did
Speaker 1: you y'all have worked together or anything? Were y'all just colleagues.
Speaker 5: I lived in Detroit for a couple of years and
Speaker 5: she used to come. I did a play there and
Speaker 5: she used to come and see me, and towards.
Speaker 4: The end of her life we would talk.
Speaker 5: I talked to her about two months before she passed away,
Speaker 5: and she told me a lot of things about Motown
Speaker 5: and how Barry started it and how her sister was involved.
Speaker 5: And her father, And it's a conversation I could never
Speaker 5: talk about. But I loved Aretha. But Aretha took no prisoners.
Speaker 5: When I tell you she didn't, she didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I you know, I guess in closing,
Speaker 1: I would just like to know from this journey you had, like,
Speaker 1: what is your in a career with so many highlights
Speaker 1: in it, what is your like, your your favorite what
Speaker 1: means the most to you of your entire journey, your
Speaker 1: creative journey, That I'm still.
Speaker 4: Here, that I didn't get on drugs.
Speaker 5: I didn't, you know, because I think about Whitney, and
Speaker 5: I think about Michael, and I think about Prince, I
Speaker 5: think about Gerald and.
Speaker 4: So many times as artists, we have so much pressure
Speaker 4: and wait on us that just destroys us.
Speaker 5: And people don't really understand sometimes what an artist is
Speaker 5: going through.
Speaker 4: So I think that I'm still.
Speaker 5: Here and somewhat my right mind, and and that I
Speaker 5: enjoyed it. I'm able to enjoy it and sit back
Speaker 5: and relax and just enjoy it.
Speaker 6: I was going to ask you earlier because you were
Speaker 6: saying that you know, when you look back over your
Speaker 6: career and just over your life, it was all kind
Speaker 6: of going really fast and you never really had a
Speaker 6: chance taking in in what ways, if any has twenty
Speaker 6: twenty like with us being kind of locked down with
Speaker 6: COVID and everything, what has that given you a chance?
Speaker 6: What is this year giving you a chance to reflect
Speaker 6: on and you know, kind of change or any shifts
Speaker 6: that you may be making in your life now?
Speaker 5: You know, when I turned forty forty five, I had
Speaker 5: my son, and I didn't I didn't have a It
Speaker 5: all changed for me when I separed my ties with
Speaker 5: MCA because I didn't want to be a fortying artist anymore.
Speaker 1: And what year was that around? What time?
Speaker 5: Oh my, I was looking the nineties. Okay, the nineties, yeah,
Speaker 5: and I just I slowed down.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't until i'd like hit fifty fifty five
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh man, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I like this.
Speaker 4: But my sixth seas have been the best. Really, oh
Speaker 4: my sixties have. Really. I don't care what I.
Speaker 1: Say.
Speaker 4: I don't care about nothing.
Speaker 2: I can't wait.
Speaker 5: So it's like, I don't care what you say about me.
Speaker 5: I don't care, you know, It's just you don't care.
Speaker 5: It's but when you're like in the thirties, you're caring
Speaker 5: about what everybody. The sixties have been just wonderful. My
Speaker 5: fifties and my sixties have been just wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so great. Twenty one. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: you look amazing, amazing.
Speaker 4: Before in March.
Speaker 2: You look like that same little lady I saw on
Speaker 2: stage when I was six.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all in here.
Speaker 2: You and melbur got something going on.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hold you a little secrets, but
Speaker 2: you and Melbourn, they got something going on.
Speaker 4: You know what I think it is.
Speaker 5: I just think I get a lot of sleep. I
Speaker 5: don't really smoke or anything. And I just started drinking
Speaker 5: wine at sixties.
Speaker 1: What really?
Speaker 4: That's yes, I just.
Speaker 1: What they start drowning to me because I just started that,
Speaker 1: uh earlier this year.
Speaker 4: And everyone you're drinking now.
Speaker 1: Yes, the rest of the.
Speaker 2: Ve been drinking since we was seing.
Speaker 4: They I just started.
Speaker 1: I just started.
Speaker 3: Thank you, you've been missing out.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, wait a minute, this all right, this one,
Speaker 1: this one thing I gotta know, okay, Senior in concert
Speaker 1: once Yes, and you're doing if I was your woman,
Speaker 1: mm hmm, and you always did it. You had a
Speaker 1: chair as a prop.
Speaker 4: Yes, four chairs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, this is what I gotta know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was just the Philadelphia air, but you
Speaker 1: went extra on throwing that chair above your head in
Speaker 1: a way it was almost like a no look pass
Speaker 1: from Like I just want to know in performing that
Speaker 1: particular song, was that a nightly ritual. I don't even
Speaker 1: know if you remember, but you just you you pick
Speaker 1: this chair up and it was like you know them
Speaker 1: chairs that comedians use when they do their routines, like
Speaker 1: them those talk like literally she hoisted it to the
Speaker 1: other side of the stage, And I always wanted to know, like,
Speaker 1: was that a part of your routine where you Pete
Speaker 1: Townshend Pete Townsend from the who that reference? Was that
Speaker 1: a part of your repertoire every night when you did
Speaker 1: that song?
Speaker 5: Or I was to throw it but not not probably
Speaker 5: like that. But sometimes I get so involved and I
Speaker 5: go to another.
Speaker 4: Space on stage.
Speaker 5: So that was probably one of the nights that I
Speaker 5: was in another space. Maybe my boyfriend made me mad
Speaker 5: or something, I don't know, and I just took it
Speaker 5: out on the chair.
Speaker 1: That was Olympic level of chair throwing, which.
Speaker 4: I was like, those chids were really light though, they
Speaker 4: weren't heavy.
Speaker 2: They were really like, what's your sign, Stephanie, I'm ari,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you do that?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: Can I just.
Speaker 2: Ask before we go? Because I asked Melb this, and
Speaker 2: I think we should probably just get in the habit
Speaker 2: of doing this, Like for folks that are listening that
Speaker 2: love you and being a fan and stuff like, where
Speaker 2: do you tell them, especially in COVID, like how to
Speaker 2: support you and make sure that they are tuned into
Speaker 2: how they can support you.
Speaker 4: On my I G, I'm on i G, I'm on
Speaker 4: Twitter and.
Speaker 2: Had you for sharing too. On IG you share your
Speaker 2: story with your son and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And I just have my story with my son and
Speaker 4: I talk about people a little bit, but not too bad.
Speaker 4: I don't think, you know. I just kind of keep
Speaker 4: them straight a little bit.
Speaker 2: To somebody got to.
Speaker 4: Just a little bit. But people kind of get afraid
Speaker 4: or whatever don't want to talk to me. But that's cool.
Speaker 2: Ever, we should have a counsel for this kind of ship.
Speaker 2: You should have help and tap somebody in.
Speaker 5: But I think people should say, I mean, this year
Speaker 5: has been so tough on everybody. I have crazy faith,
Speaker 5: you know, my faith has always gotten me through situations
Speaker 5: and I just think people need to wear their masks
Speaker 5: and wash their hands and it. You know, I guess
Speaker 5: some people will take the vaccine. I don't think I'm
Speaker 5: gonna take the vaccine. I'm gonna wait and see you.
Speaker 5: I wait and see what they're doing, because I don't
Speaker 5: trust it.
Speaker 2: That's you know, Spring, We cain't, none of us take
Speaker 2: it right now anyway, Let's just wait for the fourth
Speaker 2: match to get their second shot, you.
Speaker 3: Know, exactly get that iPad never first generation, right, exactly right.
Speaker 1: Well, once again, we thank you for doing our show,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy you said you agreed to do it's.
Speaker 4: Going to have you invited me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I've had a good time.
Speaker 1: And you live in North Carolina. I'm so proud I
Speaker 1: did all this time. Man, Yes, Carolin, I love you.
Speaker 4: New York too, but I could never live in New
Speaker 4: York again.
Speaker 2: It's to get too over that ship. Oh I'm too
Speaker 2: old for it. I'm too old for that ship. A love.
Speaker 1: And he rich yet we're not even Just wait till
Speaker 1: February then I'll join you know. All right, y'all, let
Speaker 1: me wrap this up. We'll be having Flo and uh
Speaker 1: unpaid Bill and Sugar Steve Sugar stevens Okay, just thank
Speaker 1: you for all the music think thank you all right?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, thank you once again to our special guest
Speaker 1: Stephanemils on Quest Love Supreme. We will see you on
Speaker 1: the next greground. Have a great twenty twenty one people
Speaker 1: you next time. Thank you, yo, what's up? This is fante.
Speaker 1: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: QLs and let us know what you think and who
Speaker 1: should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe to our podcast, all right, Peace West Love
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