Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm here
Speaker 1: with the almighty Team Supreme. I assume that brand new
Speaker 1: Bill is on the streets right now.
Speaker 2: We're here in the water, okay.
Speaker 3: Now here on vacation with the girls.
Speaker 4: He's on vacation. Where Bill vacations?
Speaker 5: Where's these vacations?
Speaker 2: They didn't on a boat somewhere?
Speaker 1: Damn?
Speaker 6: Okay, you would say I'm with a bunch of all
Speaker 6: the girls though, so you know, it's kind of vacation.
Speaker 1: That's what quality time. Let's let's what's up? We got
Speaker 1: fon Tigelow. You're in North Carolina, I.
Speaker 2: Assume, yeah, yeah, man, what.
Speaker 1: Is that artwork that's on the left side, your left side?
Speaker 1: I always wonder that when you're interviewing from this place.
Speaker 7: What is that we did? An artist did that illustration
Speaker 7: for us? It was like a card. Okay, let's warn
Speaker 7: me on top of about like a like a plane card.
Speaker 7: And yes, I just framed up put in my studio.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's what's up? Like, Yeah, how a y'all doing?
Speaker 3: We are good. I'm sorry y'all all forgiving you all this.
Speaker 6: I'm after looking at Sara's album cover, I realized I
Speaker 6: need to put my workout clothes on every day, and like,
Speaker 6: I'm a workout So that's what I'm going to do
Speaker 6: after this.
Speaker 4: Is inspirational.
Speaker 1: Physic together, in your post pandemic physical together.
Speaker 4: We all hear you loud and clear.
Speaker 5: Bro.
Speaker 1: You know summer's coming up, you know, giving my Sarah
Speaker 1: on Steve, how's it going?
Speaker 8: Good morning everybody. Yeah, how's the network doing? I'm not
Speaker 8: sure if it exists anymore?
Speaker 1: No more network?
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I don't know.
Speaker 8: There was some tumultuous season seven. Now we're in season eight.
Speaker 8: I'm not really sure he's in charge, and you know
Speaker 8: we're moving forward.
Speaker 1: Damn, you got m needed out of your own network.
Speaker 4: Kind of.
Speaker 1: Damn, Steve, It's okay, we got to do a network episode.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 8: I still got my quest of Supreme family though.
Speaker 1: So basically I will say that this particular episode, this
Speaker 1: is one of those practice what you preach moments, because
Speaker 1: I think around October of last year, I kind of
Speaker 1: put a note out to the producers of the show
Speaker 1: Layah cousin Jake Brittany that you know, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to get too comfortable, Like when you get way too
Speaker 1: comfortable in your comfort zone, that could be too an
Speaker 1: easy downfall. And I was noticing another podcast that sort
Speaker 1: of stayed in their.
Speaker 4: Comfort zone and they had a really great.
Speaker 1: Run, and now they're kind of running out of ideas
Speaker 1: because they're not pivoting and getting out of that comfort
Speaker 1: place they like. And of course, when you're coming to
Speaker 1: Quest of Supreme, nine times out of ten, we're talking
Speaker 1: to veterans that have put like, you know, twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: forty fifty years the game, and you know, it's always
Speaker 1: fun and very easy to go back and and sort
Speaker 1: of marvel on someone's legacy. I gave a note that
Speaker 1: I really, especially after the Dave Matthews episode, that I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to newer artists, younger artists that maybe
Speaker 1: I wasn't that familiar with, like the back of my hand.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like us doing a Narti Michael
Speaker 1: Walden episode, or us doing a Quincy Jones episode, or
Speaker 1: you know, something of that level.
Speaker 4: And so wait, we did a Quincy Jones episode, Steve.
Speaker 5: I'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: We did a Quincy Jones episode, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: Actually, you can tell us about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, we've done a Quincy Jones episode. So anyway, that said,
Speaker 1: I kind of said, start in twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: want to switch it up a little bit and start
Speaker 1: connecting with tomorrow's legends. You know, people kind of ten
Speaker 1: years maybe fifteen years in the game, younger than your
Speaker 1: thirty your forty year old veterans that will be tomorrow's legends.
Speaker 1: I think it's rather apropos that our guest today is
Speaker 1: sort of running on an ongoing theme that we've been
Speaker 1: having with a lot of ours that we've been speaking
Speaker 1: to in that what their lives were before the pandemic
Speaker 1: has sort of pivoted and moved into another direction. And
Speaker 1: basically this artist, of course has Brandy recognition. He has
Speaker 1: a new album entitled Heavy, sort of making the rounds
Speaker 1: as we speak, getting a lot of accolades, and along
Speaker 1: with his collaborations and his previous records, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: liking this new place that artists are in right now
Speaker 1: in terms of.
Speaker 4: Putting their heart out there and.
Speaker 1: Showing their vulnerability and showing their journey, which is needed.
Speaker 1: So pretty much the ongoing theme to me is rather
Speaker 1: apropos and our guest is no exception to it. Please welcome.
Speaker 1: Two question of supreme sir.
Speaker 5: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: Where are you talking to us?
Speaker 5: From this morning eighty fourth? I'm over here in Inglewood, man.
Speaker 5: You're still in Inglewood?
Speaker 1: Yay?
Speaker 5: Course of course, of course, yeah, I can't leave.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: It's the neighborhood actually got better since they did the
Speaker 5: stadium and they're working on Clippers stadium over here. If
Speaker 5: you know anything about the city, has been a lot
Speaker 5: of changes over here.
Speaker 3: This gentrification thing is real over here.
Speaker 5: It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing
Speaker 5: for somebody that still lives in the city. People that
Speaker 5: held onto their houses and didn't sell and move and
Speaker 5: stuff like that. They're up right now. The house, I
Speaker 5: mean it is up right now. So I know everybody
Speaker 5: around me is happy.
Speaker 3: There's something special about LA people.
Speaker 6: They really hold on to their homes in South I
Speaker 6: live in lamert So I'm just saying, get these people
Speaker 6: hold on to their.
Speaker 5: Homes for sure, if they know any better, because the
Speaker 5: property value is just going to keep going up. The
Speaker 5: center city of Los Angeles, including like Inglewood and copp In.
Speaker 5: The inner city is flourishing. You know what, I mean,
Speaker 5: and the people that owned homes have been there thirty
Speaker 5: forty years. So my neighborhood is the same people I
Speaker 5: run into, the same people I grew up with. They
Speaker 5: still live in their mama house.
Speaker 6: And thanks, I'm Merre's funny because the landlords around here
Speaker 6: are old and black too, so they just is discriminatory.
Speaker 6: So when I got my place, he definitely looked me
Speaker 6: up and down like, okay, you fit, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1: I went back to my old neighborhood, my old house
Speaker 1: that you remember, Laya in South Philly, Saint Albans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sad to say that I'm the last owner of pretty
Speaker 1: much of that block, and sad to say I'm the
Speaker 1: last black owner, Like it was a black neighborhood.
Speaker 4: When I moved in, and now I didn't recognize that shit.
Speaker 1: I felt like Marty McFly walking through nineteen fifty, like
Speaker 1: we got Starbucks on the corner, Like that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 6: Because for reference, sir, you should know that, like Philadelphia
Speaker 6: is probably in stage eight A, gentrification is a one
Speaker 6: to ten. I always say, like DC and Harlem are
Speaker 6: in stage fifteen past ten, but LA is probably in a.
Speaker 3: Five or six. So I know you're saying what you're saying, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 6: Y'all just got there. You just got the stadium. We
Speaker 6: just get in the train stations. It's no, they're jogging.
Speaker 6: They're jogging.
Speaker 4: They're jogging.
Speaker 1: Wait, so you're saying to me, because the thing was,
Speaker 1: I went to that stadium on not opening night, but
Speaker 1: like opening month. Now, the stadium beautiful. Where I park though, Dad.
Speaker 5: You park at the Forum, probably trying to get you over.
Speaker 4: To so far dog. You know, that was a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago. I hope it's gotten better.
Speaker 2: So you know, it was, it happened.
Speaker 4: It was a little weird.
Speaker 5: No, No, it's still a hectic now, mind you. I'm
Speaker 5: not I'm not a I'm not a football fan, so
Speaker 5: I don't care about the stadium. It's not my thing,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. But it's just it's done
Speaker 5: a lot for the city, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And having met the mayor and talked to him about
Speaker 5: it then and seen you know, all of the businesses
Speaker 5: that have come up, and you know it kind of
Speaker 5: it makes you look at it differently.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I definitely was thinking about protecting, you know, the people
Speaker 5: that were getting displaced because people got displaced. You know,
Speaker 5: we ain't gonna talk about that, but you know they
Speaker 5: tore down homes and stuff like that to move things
Speaker 5: in for the Clippers stadium, and you know that was
Speaker 5: a big thing. But once you start to see the benefit,
Speaker 5: you kind of look at it like this can work,
Speaker 5: you know. But it's all about the community coming together.
Speaker 5: And I from from my perspective, I don't think Inglewood
Speaker 5: ever being completely gentrified, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 5: see it as it might end up being a melting pot,
Speaker 5: which it already kind of is. There's a huge Asian
Speaker 5: community out here, there's a huge community of someones. There's
Speaker 5: a huge you know, Mexican community as well as all
Speaker 5: the black folks out here. So you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: you're gonna have to kick out a whole bunch of
Speaker 5: different people before you get to straight up just gentrification,
Speaker 5: you know. And I don't think I don't think we're
Speaker 5: on that route.
Speaker 4: I dig it. There were you born in Inglewood.
Speaker 5: Inglewood Adjacment. We're Los Angeles baby, So me and my
Speaker 5: family were all born in like South Central, but my
Speaker 5: dad was born in Inglewood and the house that we
Speaker 5: grew up in My grandmother bought in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 5: so we had been in the city my whole life.
Speaker 5: But no, I was born at uh she I think
Speaker 5: I was born a Killer King. I know my mom was.
Speaker 3: Okay, Killer King?
Speaker 5: Is that what you said? Killer King? Is the hospital
Speaker 5: in la is famous?
Speaker 1: What is it known?
Speaker 4: For people that aren't?
Speaker 5: It's in the hood. So when you get shot, they
Speaker 5: take you to Killer King and nobody survives at Killer King.
Speaker 1: Like Brady, you were going to say that, Okay, every.
Speaker 5: City to Killer King. You're telling them take me anywhere.
Speaker 4: But in Philadelphia that would be Misser Cordia Hospital. I
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 2: I got you that.
Speaker 5: That make sense.
Speaker 1: We called it miserable Codia Cordia.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll ask you what I ask all of our guests.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what your first musical memory was in life?
Speaker 5: Great question? Okay? Now, which had a piano roll on me?
Speaker 5: Because I don't have perfect pitch. But let's just give
Speaker 5: an example. My mother will be at the piano and
Speaker 5: she'd be like, this is see. If you have your
Speaker 5: fingers here, you're hitting the note. If you go down here,
Speaker 5: you are flat.
Speaker 1: If you go up beast, you are strong.
Speaker 5: See you know what I mean. That's my first musical
Speaker 5: memory is my mother teaching us how to sing, or
Speaker 5: trying to teach us how to sing. And my first
Speaker 5: musical performance, I was five years old in front of
Speaker 5: the church and we sang Oh Holy Night, and so
Speaker 5: I you know, I grew up. I grew up in
Speaker 5: a house where music was everything. You know, I don't
Speaker 5: remember my life when I don't remember a time of
Speaker 5: my life where somebody wasn't creating or somebody wasn't performing.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'm blessed to be in a musical family.
Speaker 7: Your mom, she was a singer and already she sang
Speaker 7: for Steve not Stevie Shaka and Michael Jackson that she
Speaker 7: did backs.
Speaker 5: For them, yep, yep, yeah man, Miss Jackie, Miss Jackie, yep.
Speaker 5: And prayers up for my mom. Man. She was in
Speaker 5: a car accident a couple of days ago. So she's
Speaker 5: she's got surgery today at twelve, and we're just fearful. Man.
Speaker 5: She fractured her second vertebrae and it's been you know,
Speaker 5: his last couple of days has been really tough on us.
Speaker 5: But she's doing good. She's in good spirits, but she's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, resu, how long was she singing?
Speaker 5: She grew up in a church too. Her her grandfather
Speaker 5: was a pastor, mother's singer in the church, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. Her and her brothers were raised in church.
Speaker 5: So my mom doesn't know anything about music. She started
Speaker 5: playing piano when she was six years old, and my
Speaker 5: uncle Andrew started playing bass when he was seventeen and
Speaker 5: never looked backing. Yeah, you guys know Andrew Gruchet. If
Speaker 5: you know anything about gospel music, yea better know Andrew
Speaker 5: Grouchet God, yes, yes, yeah, the Godfather of base you know.
Speaker 5: And my mother was blessed to have a brother like Andrew.
Speaker 5: I can say their dynamic kind of creates the dynamic
Speaker 5: that you see between me and my brother the Smoke
Speaker 5: and my brother Deveond. They help each other when they can,
Speaker 5: but they're individuals and they're very powerful on their own. So,
Speaker 5: you know, it was it was always the you know,
Speaker 5: just the joy to watch my mother work, you know,
Speaker 5: being the miniSTR of music at church. You know, she
Speaker 5: was out there every Sunday. Well, let's let's be honest.
Speaker 5: She was there Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, you know choir, Yeah,
Speaker 5: Bible study choir, rehearsal, Friday service, Sunday service, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. My mom was a workforce, you know,
Speaker 5: and still to this day. We was with her yesterday
Speaker 5: and the only thing she was worried about, you know,
Speaker 5: when they're talking about surgery, she's like, can I play
Speaker 5: the piano? That's you know what I mean, Like, I
Speaker 5: don't care about nothing else. I need to play the piano,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So that's the type of
Speaker 5: mother I had.
Speaker 4: Well, were you Seventh Day of ventist.
Speaker 5: Or oh no, we're non denomination okay, oh damn, okay, Okay,
Speaker 5: it was just real.
Speaker 3: Christians that did the thing. Like you know, it's just
Speaker 3: different church days.
Speaker 1: Well often when I hear every day usually it's seven
Speaker 1: Day of Venice. But and it's weird, not denomination when
Speaker 1: people always thought with more lenient, not too super strict
Speaker 1: on things that are normally you know the law, right right? Okay,
Speaker 1: So non denominational. Do you remember like your first creative project,
Speaker 1: Like what was the first thing that you remember doing
Speaker 1: creatively or what was singing in that church? Your first Okay?
Speaker 5: So when I was younger, my mom bade us do music,
Speaker 5: and as a kid, I didn't appreciate it. I didn't
Speaker 5: understand it. I shunned away from it, and I didn't
Speaker 5: I didn't like it. So when I was about fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 5: we sat down and had a conversation about what I wanted,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I want to play sports. So
Speaker 5: I stopped doing music. Didn't do music ten years. I
Speaker 5: didn't even come into the game until I was like
Speaker 5: twenty three, twenty four. My brothers were writing twenty four
Speaker 5: something like that. Yeah, twenty four, twenty five, something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't write my first song until I was twenty six.
Speaker 1: Wo Yeah, you know what I man, how old are
Speaker 1: you right now?
Speaker 5: Thirty seven?
Speaker 3: I gotta know a beer?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry, I think when you're my age fifty three? Hello,
Speaker 1: but everyone to me is just nineteen. Yeah, we got
Speaker 1: to work on that.
Speaker 5: You thought you just talking to a kid. Man.
Speaker 2: I got.
Speaker 1: This young kid. Let me hear me, let me.
Speaker 3: Some things.
Speaker 1: My knowledge on this young boy.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: Hey, So it just it just the hands up, you know.
Speaker 5: I started off my because I'm I'm the type of
Speaker 5: person I am. My thing is knowledge. When when I
Speaker 5: like something, I got to know how to do it right,
Speaker 5: You know what I mean? So I went to school.
Speaker 5: I went to Los Angeles School. I was my first
Speaker 5: step when I when I started writing songs, I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: I stuck, let me figure out what's going on. I
Speaker 5: was terrible at it, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 5: my my brother was kind enough to show me that
Speaker 5: there was potential behind it. But I was like, naw,
Speaker 5: this don't sound like what these niggas are doing. So
Speaker 5: I went to the LA Film School to two years
Speaker 5: of my life and really focused in on trying to
Speaker 5: just become a better musician and engineer. So I'm a
Speaker 5: recording engineer by trade. That was my first, you know thing,
Speaker 5: and from there I started to just develop my sound
Speaker 5: and my songwriting and stuff like that. And this is
Speaker 5: all while I was just working as an engineer. My
Speaker 5: first big gig was working for Tyrese, which, yeah, that
Speaker 5: was interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that faith and That's love Supreme Office
Speaker 4: next week.
Speaker 5: Shout up to Tyrese. Taught me a lot about people,
Speaker 5: taught me a lot about the music industry, taught me
Speaker 5: a lot about independence and how much I wanted it
Speaker 5: at the time, Like I'm showing up the sessions. I'm his,
Speaker 5: you know, head engineer. In the house. I got six
Speaker 5: people working for me, you know, and I'm just watching
Speaker 5: all these other songwriters come in and try to bless him. Wow.
Speaker 5: At the time, I was writing songs and I had
Speaker 5: found a little confidence. But I wouldn't have said that
Speaker 5: because it was my job, my day job, So I
Speaker 5: wasn't even trying to like get in get in the mix.
Speaker 5: But I played a couple of records for one of
Speaker 5: the other songwriters one day and they were like looking
Speaker 5: at me crazy, you know what I mean. We were
Speaker 5: at a camp for his last project called the Black
Speaker 5: Rolls Album. Yeah, Yeah, and my brother Davion was one
Speaker 5: of the songwriters. I got him in to write songs
Speaker 5: for Tyrese, and he just wasn't having it. He was like,
Speaker 5: fuck that, you know what I mean, You're gonna play
Speaker 5: some of these folkus fucking songs for Tyrese. So they
Speaker 5: had this big meeting where everybody would sit down at
Speaker 5: the end of the week and play two three records
Speaker 5: or something like that. And I had like a batch
Speaker 5: of like five ready, and I was the last person
Speaker 5: to play records. Everybody played records as like Darrel got records.
Speaker 5: I come in, I play my songs and everybody lost
Speaker 5: their shit. It was like a big This was probably
Speaker 5: the biggest music moment for me at today at the time.
Speaker 5: But Tyrese runs up gives me a big hug. I
Speaker 5: didn't know, Oh my god, I didn't know. I had
Speaker 5: to tell him underneath my wing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I just you know, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 5: like a two weeks yeah, you know, just there's so
Speaker 5: much going on. Man, God is moving in this room.
Speaker 2: People.
Speaker 5: Hey, look, look, can't nobody do Tyree's like me.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what did you make Black Role?
Speaker 5: Did you get on the record?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got a couple of songs on it. I
Speaker 5: can't tell you the names of him because I forgot
Speaker 5: I don't remember, but I definitely made the project for sure.
Speaker 5: But you know, having that big moment, and this is
Speaker 5: a lesson for a lot of musicians. Just because people
Speaker 5: look like they're fucking with you or they look like
Speaker 5: they rock, and don't mean they got your best interests
Speaker 5: at heart, you know what I mean. Even after that incident,
Speaker 5: you know, I kept working for Tyreese. He just our
Speaker 5: relationship didn't like progress. It seemed like he was trying
Speaker 5: to like he's trying to stand back me.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: He wasn't trying to let me shine. He wasn't trying
Speaker 5: to put me out there to where he wanted me
Speaker 5: to be his engineer. And there was a day where
Speaker 5: Jennifer hood And came to the house. I don't know
Speaker 5: if she remembers this, but you know, she came in
Speaker 5: to meet him, and I let her in the house.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm like, hey, she you know, anothers nary, nonchalant,
Speaker 5: and he, you know, was introducing her to everybody in
Speaker 5: the house and just didn't even say my first name. Bro.
Speaker 5: Like it was that this one man. I don't know
Speaker 5: if Tyrese knows this story, he remembers this, but he
Speaker 5: couldn't say my name to Jennifer us and Jennifer Usson
Speaker 5: didn't look me in the eye. And I took that
Speaker 5: very personally. I quit that day. I walked in the room.
Speaker 5: It was like ten niggas in that room, writers, producers,
Speaker 5: Jenniferussis didn't right there. Eric Bellinger was there. I forget
Speaker 5: who else was there, but oh ty dollad Time was there,
Speaker 5: I think. But I walked in there, I was like, hey, Tyrese, Hey, hey,
Speaker 5: pay me for the day, bro, I quit in front
Speaker 5: of everybody, was like, what what what do you mean? Him? Hey, hey,
Speaker 5: hold him on, y'all, hold him on, y'all. Let me
Speaker 5: go out at him and talk to me outside. And
Speaker 5: there was no convincing me of that. And I think
Speaker 5: after that, I probably was signed to TDE like after
Speaker 5: like six months or something like that, or I you know,
Speaker 5: I was already like popping. I put my own project out.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't was the first thing we dropped into Seven Sundays
Speaker 5: And it was over after that, and I've never looked back,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And I think tyre for
Speaker 5: that experience because it taught me a lot about how
Speaker 5: to treat people, you know, first or four months.
Speaker 7: I want to ask you about your first about Seven
Speaker 7: Sundays and the label you put that out on Fresh Selects.
Speaker 2: Talk about just that period in your life.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: I love that record. I played it, you know all
Speaker 2: the time. Uh No, man, just I just wanted to
Speaker 2: talk talk about that time in your life.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: I was I was broken, homeless. I just put tyree
Speaker 5: and I didn't know what I was gonna do with
Speaker 5: my life, you know. I was trying to figure things out.
Speaker 5: And we had just put out this this tape that
Speaker 5: had like twenty one songs. What it's called Wooden Voodoo
Speaker 5: is it's my first tape. If anybody really looks for it,
Speaker 5: it's like fault Wooden Voodoo.
Speaker 2: It's got some stuff on there.
Speaker 5: But Kenny heard it. Kenny Fresh from Fresh Selects heard it,
Speaker 5: and he contacted me and was like, I want to
Speaker 5: put this project out. I was like, okay, I'm already
Speaker 5: working on something, and we started to playlist for seven
Speaker 5: Sundays and seven Sundays is what introduced me to Top
Speaker 5: and got me in the room with Tde. So I
Speaker 5: look at that time as like this that was probably
Speaker 5: like the highlight of my career because it opened so
Speaker 5: many doors for me. And I did that all by myself.
Speaker 5: It was just me and Kenny, and he really didn't
Speaker 5: even do anything. He just suggested, like I like this song.
Speaker 2: I like that song.
Speaker 5: I did the master, I cut the vocal, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean? And yes, I said, I did the
Speaker 5: master myself. Like I was engineering back then. I don't
Speaker 5: do that shit no more. I got I got helped.
Speaker 1: But wait, even now, as as an artist, you I mean,
Speaker 1: you're an engineer, so you would know how you want
Speaker 1: the song to sound.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, oh yeah, I mean I still cut my
Speaker 5: own vocal. I can't let go of those rings. Like
Speaker 5: I've tried. I've hired engineers, I've sat down. But imagine
Speaker 5: that you're in the booth, guys in the chair and
Speaker 5: you cut a vocal, but you just want him to
Speaker 5: nudge it. You have to say, I need you to
Speaker 5: nudge this to the left. Now imagine I'm sitting in
Speaker 5: the here, I cut the vocal. I need to nudge it.
Speaker 2: I can nudge it, right.
Speaker 5: I nudged it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And that's it.
Speaker 8: That's the whole thing. Steve, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 8: A mirror is much more for people who don't realize.
Speaker 8: He's much more of an engineer than people know. He
Speaker 8: mixes more than I do most of the time. I
Speaker 8: mean I'm recording because he's you know, playing and producing
Speaker 8: a lot of times. But when it comes time to
Speaker 8: do rough mixes and certainly in the final mix stage,
Speaker 8: Amir has got his hands on the dials since I
Speaker 8: met him, since Electrical Lady in ninety six, he's been
Speaker 8: He gets gets right on the board. It's easier and
Speaker 8: quicker than to try and explain what you want if
Speaker 8: you just know the basics, you know, and and a
Speaker 8: mir loves plugins, so he just loves playing around with
Speaker 8: toys essentially. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot.
Speaker 8: I mean, D'Angelo was recording his own vocals, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Things like that.
Speaker 8: But yeah, it's certainly helpful to as an artist to
Speaker 8: know how to engineer it.
Speaker 1: I would think from a singing standpoint, which is such
Speaker 1: a vulnerable thing to do. Are you the type of
Speaker 1: singer that needs pretty much your space? Like, are you
Speaker 1: the singer that can turn it on if five people
Speaker 1: were in the room watching you, the engineer.
Speaker 4: Your boys, your.
Speaker 1: Family and there watching you, or is it like everyone
Speaker 1: get out the room engineer too.
Speaker 4: I could do this myself.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, I don't care who's watching you watch
Speaker 5: especially with this album. Yeah, oh yeah, oh well this
Speaker 5: album was different. I was high most of the time,
Speaker 5: so that wasn't nobody around.
Speaker 4: Okay, no, no, you can stay in the room.
Speaker 5: I don't I don't mind people being around. Just shut
Speaker 5: the fuck up. I got to cut the vocals. Be quiet.
Speaker 5: I don't want to hear you on my track. But
Speaker 5: you know, nah, these last few years. I honestly don't
Speaker 5: know how these songs came. I can't explain it. I
Speaker 5: don't even remember most of these sessions. I don't remember
Speaker 5: a lot because I was just slated. You know a
Speaker 5: lot of people have heard the story of a million
Speaker 5: times about me going to.
Speaker 2: Rehab and all that blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: You know, I beat that story into the ground. So
Speaker 5: if we can just swim by this real quick, I'm sober.
Speaker 5: It's been a year and five months, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. I found so bride. I found sobriety my way,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I still smoke a little weed. Everyone.
Speaker 5: I'm going to ask you, I.
Speaker 3: Thank you for saying this. Thank you because yeah, you
Speaker 3: want to say space.
Speaker 5: No sobriety. Sobriety is different for everybody, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, everybody has. If you're an addict like I was,
Speaker 5: you have a DC now your doc. Your drug of
Speaker 5: choice is your drug of choice. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 5: everything will affect you like that will, but you got
Speaker 5: to stay away from that thing. And you know, I
Speaker 5: found my way through depression because you know, people don't
Speaker 5: just do drugs. There are root issues too, you know,
Speaker 5: there's reasoning behind it, and I had root issues that
Speaker 5: I find so therapy, rehab, family, everything that. You know,
Speaker 5: all of the love I had helped me kind of
Speaker 5: figure out what was going on, and it placed me
Speaker 5: back in a position where I could fight for my life.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been somewhat transparent about my journey. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm now like three years removed from the path I'm
Speaker 1: on now, but I can definitely acknowledge that year one
Speaker 1: of this new paradigm shift quest love. The first seven
Speaker 1: months I was actively, subconsciously and consciously trying to sabotage
Speaker 1: it because it was just a very fearful place to
Speaker 1: be in. Could you talk about your experience behind me?
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course, Yeah. And I like what you said about,
Speaker 5: you know, there being a fear of success because I
Speaker 5: think like there was never down in my mind that
Speaker 5: I'll be good at music, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: But there was. I'm a married man. I've been married
Speaker 5: for fifteen years, my wife being with my wife at
Speaker 5: twenty and you know, the type of music I make
Speaker 5: and the artartists that everyone wanted me to be, me
Speaker 5: being a married man, those two things didn't mix. So
Speaker 5: you know, there was always this push and pull of
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I want to succeed, but
Speaker 5: you know, I don't know what it's going to look like,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And as I started to
Speaker 5: progress in my career, I started to notice that, you know,
Speaker 5: people didn't give a fuck about my marriage, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. And that made it very hard for
Speaker 5: me to enjoy my career, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: and enjoy the successes of my music. And then on
Speaker 5: top of that, the attention that you get when you're
Speaker 5: in the position we're in makes it very hard for
Speaker 5: you to be you know, to see things how everyone
Speaker 5: else sees it. Let's feel like that, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. It's used your view on you know, relationships
Speaker 5: and people, and it really kind of like set me
Speaker 5: back because I didn't go about it the right way,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I wasn't doing a good
Speaker 5: job of just taking care of myself first, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. I was so concerned with what everybody
Speaker 5: thought about me and what everybody wanted me to be
Speaker 5: as an artist and stuff like that, and I was
Speaker 5: people pleasing and things like that, and then I was
Speaker 5: just neglecting my relationship with my wife. You know what
Speaker 5: I mean, for this image of serve that I thought
Speaker 5: I needed to be, and then I got sick of him,
Speaker 5: and you know, it had already caused problems at home.
Speaker 5: Didn't want to go back to who he was, and
Speaker 5: found this middle place of like, I'm just gonna silently
Speaker 5: like self medicate, you know what I mean, because I'm depressed,
Speaker 5: My home life is messed up staring who I want
Speaker 5: to be. But niggas love him. They love that guy,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? And I just, you know,
Speaker 5: I started to self medicate, and you know, didn't tell
Speaker 5: anybody until it was too late. And once I decided
Speaker 5: that it was time to tell people, the pandemic happened,
Speaker 5: you know. But you know, as someone that you know
Speaker 5: doesn't give a fuck about like fame or like, I
Speaker 5: don't do this for accolades. I actually like love music.
Speaker 5: It's very hard to appreciate artistry and everything it comes
Speaker 5: with when you know what I mean. People don't like
Speaker 5: respect it or respect you. They don't respect your humanity
Speaker 5: when they see you as an artist, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. And I had to learn that the hard way.
Speaker 6: I was just gonna ask, what else did you have
Speaker 6: outside of rehab coming out of COVID. You also it
Speaker 6: sounds like you also have people around you that you
Speaker 6: may have had to shuffle a little bit change, Oh.
Speaker 5: For sure, for show for shows, I got, I got
Speaker 5: friends I can't see, you know what I mean. My
Speaker 5: family was very hands on in my health and my recovery,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So me and my family
Speaker 5: we were already tight knit, but this kind of just
Speaker 5: brought us closer together. But yeah, I definitely like my
Speaker 5: whole circle is different. I don't got I got like
Speaker 5: two friends that I call, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And for the most part, I speak to my mother,
Speaker 5: my father, and my brothers and try to keep.
Speaker 2: It like that.
Speaker 3: We haven't talked about your dad.
Speaker 2: My dad.
Speaker 5: My dad is a he's a funny guy. His name's
Speaker 5: ron and he's gonna be on the interview.
Speaker 3: It is, yes, Ronald.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my dad is the oldest of like six kids.
Speaker 5: He's one of the most gentle people you'll ever meet
Speaker 5: in your life. And he don't sing, he don't do music.
Speaker 5: But he loves my mama. He loves you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 6: Sir, talk about growing up in that like being a
Speaker 6: married man and growing up and having that because a lot.
Speaker 5: Of people have a great example might not mind you.
Speaker 5: My father, when I was growing up, he spent some
Speaker 5: time in the pen. He he had two strikes before I,
Speaker 5: before I was you know, thought of so when I
Speaker 5: when I was when I was six, he got out
Speaker 5: of jail and never looked back, you know, and took
Speaker 5: care of his family. And I've seen him struggle so hard,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. You know, I having two
Speaker 5: strikes in the nineties, it wasn't too much work for him.
Speaker 5: He you know, he was a limo driver, he's a chaplain.
Speaker 5: He's done so many different things just to provide for
Speaker 5: us and give us opportunities to be great. And we
Speaker 5: love him to death man. And he's still, you know,
Speaker 5: just superhands on in my life. And you know, I
Speaker 5: talk to him all the time. But I think he's
Speaker 5: a funny guy because my dad is getting old, Like
Speaker 5: he's an old man. Now what is old, sir? Oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, she's an old But what's even more, what's
Speaker 5: even more funny is my brother's are turning into old
Speaker 5: man to meet and me and me and my brothers
Speaker 5: we wake up in the morning with neck pains and
Speaker 5: all kind of thirty seven. You know I ain't no
Speaker 5: spring chicken. Man, Are you the youngest of you had?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Wait hold Steve smoke he thirty eight, about to be
Speaker 5: thirty nine, always.
Speaker 1: Youngins man, It was moving fast. See this explains it
Speaker 1: because again I'm thinking, like, damn man, for twenty four
Speaker 1: year old, this guy got a lot of wisdom under
Speaker 1: his belt. Now now I get it.
Speaker 4: I get it now.
Speaker 1: As far as your pen game is concerned, how hard
Speaker 1: is it to you use your music to express what
Speaker 1: you're feeling inside.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say it's difficult. It just hurts when I
Speaker 5: do it. You know, then this is like a superpower
Speaker 5: I've developed over years of like trying, of trial and error,
Speaker 5: just pulling from emotional places. You know, I'm really good
Speaker 5: at it. And you know the poetry comes from pain.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of a second nature thing for me now, man.
Speaker 5: And like right now I'm sitting in my house. I
Speaker 5: haven't written a song in like probably three four months.
Speaker 5: I'm like an out of practice musician, it feels like,
Speaker 5: but I know as soon as I sit down to
Speaker 5: do it, I know my process. I know what I
Speaker 5: want out of these songs and if I hear the
Speaker 5: music and it's it's there, the songs down there already
Speaker 5: written at this point, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 5: that comes from years of working. I put so much
Speaker 5: time in that people don't see, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: with songwriting, writing for other artists, writing for myself. I
Speaker 5: got a pile of probably five hundred songs that I
Speaker 5: ain't never gonna see the light of day. But I
Speaker 5: go back and listen to them and examine them and
Speaker 5: pick them apart, just to you know, try to find
Speaker 5: too my craft, you know. But I'm proud that people
Speaker 5: like know me as like a songwriter, like they actually
Speaker 5: like the lyrics and ship like that, because you know,
Speaker 5: I don't put you know, I don't want to like
Speaker 5: ever ever, you know, assume that people listen to my
Speaker 5: ship and they love it, you know, they love what
Speaker 5: I got to say, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm crashing down, that's my record. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm blessed to be in a position I'm in.
Speaker 5: Like a lot of people just they try to say
Speaker 5: cool ship, you know what I mean, I'm trying. I'm
Speaker 5: trying to dig so the end that it's relatable to
Speaker 5: the outer world, you know, what I mean. I think
Speaker 5: that's my secret. When you sit down to write, are
Speaker 5: you like a lyrics guy first or melody guy first?
Speaker 5: It depends. Yeah, it all depends.
Speaker 4: You know that.
Speaker 5: People people that try to say that one or the
Speaker 5: other don't really to me, I ain't doing it right,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Because you you know it's
Speaker 5: this is this is I don't know. It's like basketball.
Speaker 5: And in a basketball game, you dribbling down the court,
Speaker 5: You're not gonna shot the same shot every time, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean? You got to have some kind
Speaker 5: of you know, knowledge of where you're at and what
Speaker 5: you know what the court is dictating. So my songwriting
Speaker 5: is dictated about the court that I'm standing on.
Speaker 6: When it comes to your songs, is it more of
Speaker 6: a your writing songs and artists or A and R
Speaker 6: are picking the songs, or is it also to your
Speaker 6: writing songs for certain people?
Speaker 5: No, I just right now, I don't write for anybody.
Speaker 5: I have a pile. And you know, even when I
Speaker 5: was writing for other people, I never really wrote for them.
Speaker 5: I didn't like, sit down like, okay, I need the
Speaker 5: Beyonce song. I hate them niggas that shit. Don't that
Speaker 5: that shits trash. Let me write a song for Beyonce.
Speaker 5: Want to get up on Beyonce?
Speaker 2: Rat?
Speaker 5: No, No, I just write vis you know what I mean? Now,
Speaker 5: I came from that. I came from like we were
Speaker 5: what works first. People don't know I was in. We
Speaker 5: were writing songs for other people. My brothers had big placements,
Speaker 5: they at Usher placements and like John placements back in
Speaker 5: the day. And that's what really like sold me on
Speaker 5: becoming like a musician. So my first like before I
Speaker 5: wrote my own projects, we were working on like writing
Speaker 5: for the people, and I was in a songwrinning camp
Speaker 5: of six motherfuckers. So you know that taught me a
Speaker 5: lot about who I wanted to be as a writer.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to me what those I always hear
Speaker 1: about those types of camps, especially from artists that come
Speaker 1: on this show.
Speaker 4: Never been a part of those camps because.
Speaker 5: Apparently I'm doing it wrong, Like, no, you're doing it right, brother.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But what are camps like? Because it's also like it's
Speaker 1: every it's is it every man for himself? Is it
Speaker 1: like you're off of blood? Like I got to get
Speaker 1: a placement on this record, and it's.
Speaker 5: Pretty it's pretty cut throat at certain points, but I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm so displaced from it. I haven't been in a
Speaker 5: camp for ten years, man, so I don't know. I
Speaker 5: don't know what they like nowadays. But when I was
Speaker 5: doing it, it was tough.
Speaker 4: It was tough.
Speaker 5: So what we used to do because we all loved
Speaker 5: each other and we wanted everyone wanted to succeed, as
Speaker 5: we would break songs down into pieces that's not mine.
Speaker 5: That's how Woodworks did it. Somebody got the first verse,
Speaker 5: we're writing a hook together. Somebody got I can verse,
Speaker 5: somebody get a bridge, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 5: that and that was I mean, that didn't always work,
Speaker 5: but that was the game plan. That's how we went
Speaker 5: into the situations. And then it would if you're going
Speaker 5: into a writing camp where it's like a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of individuals writers that are coming in, like look, okay,
Speaker 5: let's say Tyree sets up a camp where he has
Speaker 5: producers the writers in come. That is very cutthroat because
Speaker 5: everyone's writing by themselves on their own little setup to
Speaker 5: bring to play to Tyree so that he can choose
Speaker 5: what records he's gonna cut, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And that was a different environ I can say that
Speaker 5: the songwriters that I've come across, they're they're all very competitive,
Speaker 5: but you know there is a community of like I'm
Speaker 5: going to help you out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It was never so cutthroat that work wasn't getting done.
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that, you know, if it's coming
Speaker 1: from your insides and it's your song, it's like your child.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, like, all right, well I got a
Speaker 1: first verse, you know, And I do I do believe
Speaker 1: in that whole thing of how inspiration hit you that
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be in the right environment
Speaker 1: acquired him. I mean, some people need to be in
Speaker 1: a chaotic of environment. I know, people that feel like
Speaker 1: they need to be in arguments with their girlfriend or
Speaker 1: you know, whatever whatever floats their book. But to have
Speaker 1: the ideas come, Quincy Jones on the episode That Will
Speaker 1: Never Come Out says that all of his ideas come
Speaker 1: at one in the morning, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't imagine like, Okay, having half
Speaker 1: a song and just in the name of time, like
Speaker 1: all right, well you take it over now it's your
Speaker 1: child and we're co parents.
Speaker 4: Like I just never understood that process.
Speaker 1: Like I always felt like, once this song comes out
Speaker 1: of you, you should see it through soup the nuts.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't know, like do you recommend
Speaker 1: writers camps or for you it's it's better when it's
Speaker 1: just coming from you isolated alone.
Speaker 5: Well as an artist, I don't recommend writing camps, but
Speaker 5: I do recommend writing with other writers. Like, for example,
Speaker 5: there's an artist in Jazzi that is she's a singer
Speaker 5: songwriter and she's very popular. I brought her in to
Speaker 5: help me write the song that I have with Ti
Speaker 5: Dallas Sign on the album. And I did it because
Speaker 5: you know, when creating albums, I feel like you need
Speaker 5: to have different Like let's just use the word vibes.
Speaker 5: I hate the word, but let's you gotta you gotta
Speaker 5: have different different.
Speaker 4: This is how I know you're not twenty all right, exactly.
Speaker 5: You gotta have different There has to be some type
Speaker 5: of variety, you know, to to the sound. In my opinion,
Speaker 5: to make a great project. You know, it's really hard
Speaker 5: to pull off when it's just you in your head,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I feel like I've I've
Speaker 5: learned to let people in because people, you know, can
Speaker 5: improve something for you, you know, can make something better
Speaker 5: by you know, looking at it from their perspective, you know.
Speaker 5: And I can learn a lot still, you know, I
Speaker 5: definitely don't think I know everything. So having help, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, to get you through your own
Speaker 5: thoughts isn't a bad thing. It just depends on how
Speaker 5: you handle it, you know. And I think I've I've
Speaker 5: had years of trial and era with working with other artists,
Speaker 5: so I know what I like immedia, It'll take ten
Speaker 5: minutes for me to decide if we actually gonna do
Speaker 5: the session, you know what I mean, Like if we're
Speaker 5: sitting down and you know, once I'm locked in with somebody,
Speaker 5: it's gonna go smoothly. But it's all trial and there,
Speaker 5: and I feel like I've learned for me, I need help,
Speaker 5: and my music sounds better when I have the right
Speaker 5: type of help. So it's not just about having a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of songwriters people come in. It's about having
Speaker 5: the right.
Speaker 1: Of all the storied clicks in contemporary music. You know,
Speaker 1: start with native tongues, and then start with Wu tang,
Speaker 1: and start with death row Tde to Me is well
Speaker 1: one one of the most ubiquitous but also on the
Speaker 1: other side of that coin, one of the most mysterious
Speaker 1: organizations that I know of but don't know jack about.
Speaker 2: Are we all right?
Speaker 1: Look when you join this organization number one, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be impression that if you join TDE then yeah, like
Speaker 1: Sizza and Isaiah and Schoolboy and Absol and Doshi and
Speaker 1: like the whole clique are all family in like working
Speaker 1: together on each other's projects and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But like, what is it like?
Speaker 4: Because I know nothing about about Anthony and it is.
Speaker 5: It is right. We were just talking about the songwriting camps.
Speaker 5: It is the songwriting camps at the highest level. So everybody,
Speaker 5: everybody is alp for blood. We are all hungry, we
Speaker 5: are all independent. We help each other out where we can,
Speaker 5: but we all got careers to take care of. Now.
Speaker 5: Mind you, we're family, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 5: we're very tight. We're very close knit, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. But man, TD, there's still a learning curve
Speaker 5: for me, you know what I mean. Let's take away
Speaker 5: the music industry like him his bloods, these game members,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? And yeah, from LA so
Speaker 5: I gotta I gotta, I gotta first just respect that
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like, at at any given time,
Speaker 5: she can go a sour and you know, all hell
Speaker 5: could break loose on this side, you know. So I
Speaker 5: just had to learn who I was dealing with and
Speaker 5: learned that. You know, respect is earned, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, before it's given in this circle, and we
Speaker 5: don't tolerate disrespect. We don't tolerate ignorance stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Top Is like, he's hardcore man, and as hardcore as
Speaker 5: he is, he's also very gentle and very loving. He's
Speaker 5: a father of like nine kids. He's got a lot
Speaker 5: of children. Yeah, top is a is an interesting dude.
Speaker 5: Man's Charlie Mack. You know. But as far as the egos,
Speaker 5: I will say this, I've never been in a place
Speaker 5: where I'm that motivated to stand out in my life.
Speaker 5: There's so many great things happening. It just makes me
Speaker 5: want to work so much harder to be the best
Speaker 5: version of myself. Sizzle's on top of the planet. Motherfucking
Speaker 5: do she scares me? Scares me?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: I did. Yeah, if you're not familiar, go check out.
Speaker 5: That's the Florida girl. And she she's like, yeah, you
Speaker 5: can't tell me nothing. I know music and I know
Speaker 5: what I like. I know beyond what I like, what
Speaker 5: is proper like. I know I know when it when
Speaker 5: it hits, when it's smacks, and when when the artist
Speaker 5: behind it knows how to make it smack. This bitch
Speaker 5: I didn't even know she was with y'all.
Speaker 3: I like, what, y'all that's great.
Speaker 5: Look, look I met I met doch Uh like uh,
Speaker 5: I guess a couple of weeks before they announced, she
Speaker 5: was starting to TV. When they first came, she came
Speaker 5: in so nice and played me some records. She played
Speaker 5: me the craziest records. What's the song that she has out?
Speaker 5: You probably won't know anyway, but she played me something
Speaker 5: that I was like, I was floored. Well, lord, this
Speaker 5: is one of the most talented women in the game
Speaker 5: right now, and I knows, you know, scissors scissors and
Speaker 5: deserves everything that's going on. But Adolcie, he could ask
Speaker 5: about Dochie, she gonna say the same thing. I'm scared
Speaker 5: of that girl, you know. But that's the environment that
Speaker 5: TD creates. It creates monsters, it creates people that are
Speaker 5: so hungry that you ain't don't give a fun what
Speaker 5: y'ad got going on. It's me, is this this is
Speaker 5: PD or it's nothing else, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And it's always gonna be that.
Speaker 1: As an avid watcher of King of the Hill, can
Speaker 1: you please explain your.
Speaker 4: Logic behind John Redcorn.
Speaker 5: We can talk about King of the Hill all day. Okay,
Speaker 5: let go of my person. I don't know you, okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, John Redcorn. He was the indigenous dude on in
Speaker 3: King of the Hill. Yes, that was married to the.
Speaker 4: Blonde right right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know John Redcord was not married, motherfucker. He
Speaker 5: was the dude on the side. Dale Gribble is blind
Speaker 5: and when he could not see what was going on,
Speaker 5: he was dirty. Now there was a boy on the show,
Speaker 5: his name was Joseph, but we all know the truth
Speaker 5: behind that whole story. Now that now, mind you and
Speaker 5: me and my wife like we we oh my gosh,
Speaker 5: we burned King of Hill into the ground. I've watched
Speaker 5: the season finale so many times, and like I'm I'm
Speaker 5: a huge, huge fan of John Redcorn in general, just
Speaker 5: because of the episode that I remember him on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that song.
Speaker 5: That song was a happy accident. Let's be honest, nobody
Speaker 5: expect I didn't expect that motherfucker to go as crazy
Speaker 5: as it did.
Speaker 4: But it did.
Speaker 1: I only asked you simply because you know, oftentimes artists,
Speaker 1: especially under the umbrella hip hop, and I kind of
Speaker 1: blamed ghost Face for this, where they'll just title their
Speaker 1: song anything that has nothing to do with the song.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But when I saw that, I was like, nah, there's
Speaker 1: something deeper behind this besides just naming it John Redcorn,
Speaker 1: and especially I know the character that he is, and
Speaker 1: it was curious to how you landed there, and so I.
Speaker 5: Actually started with with I was like, I was watching
Speaker 5: King of the Hill and we were watching I was
Speaker 5: watching the episode where Joseph was like it was like
Speaker 5: a Joseph John Redcord episode. Yeah, and you know he
Speaker 5: left and was just and it's always crying in a
Speaker 5: car or something like that, and it just it made
Speaker 5: me so sad. I was like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 5: poor guy. And the first verse came of the hook
Speaker 5: came immediately alone every night alone, and I was like,
Speaker 5: this might be interesting, and I started I wrote that
Speaker 5: I actually helped produce that song. So I did drums first,
Speaker 5: I beat by and then I did the harmonies and
Speaker 5: recorded over the harmonies and then had somebody coming in
Speaker 5: and play guitar, so I have musicians build around my
Speaker 5: I did my little three part or whatever, and we
Speaker 5: went from there. But you know that that was, like
Speaker 5: I said, a happy accident. But it definitely helped, like
Speaker 5: shape how I wrote songs for the next few years
Speaker 5: because of how people responded to it. You know, it
Speaker 5: made me a little more adventurous. It made me want
Speaker 5: to connect the dots before I sat down to write.
Speaker 5: I do a lot of that, like a lot of
Speaker 5: repping before I actually write the song in thought where
Speaker 5: I you know, I listened to the music, I said,
Speaker 5: I'm listening to the beat, but I'm also trying to
Speaker 5: just figure out, you know, what would go good over
Speaker 5: the beat and blah blah blah. But anyway, you know this,
Speaker 5: this is like John Redcorn is my baby, man. It's
Speaker 5: it's it's the gift that keeps done giving.
Speaker 2: I love that song, man for real.
Speaker 7: I wanted to ask you about one of your collaborators
Speaker 7: you've been working with over the years, Dek the Punisher Man.
Speaker 7: Hey and you guys, y'all relationship in y'all's creative chemistry,
Speaker 7: how did that come about?
Speaker 5: Me and DK met through one of my favorite people
Speaker 5: on the planet. QUI. I don't know you remember. I
Speaker 5: think I met you back in the day through this guy,
Speaker 5: through Andre Harris, through are.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, dang, you've been to a playlist retreat. I met
Speaker 5: you got the Playlist retreat.
Speaker 4: You've come to Jeff's thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I've been. I was there the first three
Speaker 5: years and then the drug. I mean, you know what.
Speaker 1: The night I came to the Playlist Retreat, I got
Speaker 1: there late from the tonight show and there was a
Speaker 1: taco truck outside it. And what they failed to tell
Speaker 1: me was that all the tacos were infused. And I
Speaker 1: at that time, I was, you know, post pandemic, I microdos,
Speaker 1: I like edibles. I'm very lightweight, and so I downed
Speaker 1: about four of those tacos because I was starving, and
Speaker 1: I found out the hard way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, don't oh yeah, this night was interesting. Oh you
Speaker 5: four you' all around? Yeah, the most euphoric tacos you'll
Speaker 5: ever have in your life.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 5: But I actually met DK the Punisher in two thousand
Speaker 5: and ten at Andre Harris's house. This is the first
Speaker 5: opportunity I had to write songs as just as songwriter
Speaker 5: Nobody's engineer was given to me by Andre Harris and
Speaker 5: and DK met working under Andre Harris, and we got
Speaker 5: great placements, had some great work met. Miss Jill got
Speaker 5: placements on the Woman project. You know, I did Fool's Goal.
Speaker 5: DK produced Fools Gold for Miss Jill on her last project.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 5: But like, that's my brother at this point. That's that's
Speaker 5: and you know, that's my Baltimore connect, you know, so
Speaker 5: I like me and him have a different type of
Speaker 5: relationship now outside of music. Like I'm about to call
Speaker 5: him right now. We're supposed to work out today, so
Speaker 5: it's going to go link up. But that's my literal
Speaker 5: brother at this point. And musically, you know, me and
Speaker 5: him just click whenever we decide to work. It just
Speaker 5: works now, y'all boys. That chemistry man, man, But the
Speaker 5: music industry is tough man. DK actually had to shift.
Speaker 5: He's a web developer now, so you know, and this
Speaker 5: is one thing that I always recommend to, you know,
Speaker 5: career musicians, if it's not paying your rent, like, don't
Speaker 5: force that, don't be a broke musician. I don't recommend
Speaker 5: that for anybody. Having experienced that, go get you a
Speaker 5: fucking job. You're getting your job isn't going to take
Speaker 5: away from your talent. It's going to make it easier
Speaker 5: for you to get things done if you really think
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: So DK did that, and of course he still has
Speaker 5: placements on Heavy. He's still working, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: But I'm happy for him because his life is balanced
Speaker 5: out now and he can focus on being a better
Speaker 5: musician because he has a career to kind of.
Speaker 6: Balance another skill, another skill. You didn't mention what was
Speaker 6: your first placement? That's what I asked the Mirror that
Speaker 6: I forgot my first placement. Oh my god, a song
Speaker 6: called Drinks Saints Free by Warren G.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, all right, I like that face.
Speaker 1: That came out of nowhere.
Speaker 5: All right, Yeah, it's a peculiar. It's a peculiar. One
Speaker 5: artist named Mono Maury.
Speaker 2: Which is yeah shouts of man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Eman is the one that set that session up.
Speaker 5: He called me like, girl, Hey, hey, I got a
Speaker 5: chest with Warren G. Pull up and then we pulled
Speaker 5: up and uh yeah, I got I got my little
Speaker 5: part off.
Speaker 6: Can you talk about the LA music scene because I'm
Speaker 6: curious about the camaraderie because I heard you mention the
Speaker 6: interviews before that. It's a lot of competition, but there's
Speaker 6: got to be camaraderie because you collaborate with Anderson, You've collaborated,
Speaker 6: uh with I'm.
Speaker 3: Guessing like the majority of folks out here. So, but
Speaker 3: what is the scene, Like where do y'all go to?
Speaker 3: Like what's the club? It just doesn't feel like LA
Speaker 3: is like that, like Philly was. Yeah, I know, it's weird.
Speaker 5: That ain't no, ain't no scene for me. I came
Speaker 5: to myself now l A the LA musicians like it's like,
Speaker 5: all right, so you go to you know how you
Speaker 5: go to LA shows and the crowd just like stares
Speaker 5: at you. Yes, yeah, that's how. That's how the LA musicians.
Speaker 5: Then feels like we don't really get along like you
Speaker 5: think we would. Nah, it ain't no camaraderie or anything
Speaker 5: like that. CD is td E. We keep to ourselves
Speaker 5: and it's everybody else outside of that circuit.
Speaker 6: Tie td though, right tis not a TDH Yeah no,
Speaker 6: no no, But that's like TYE is time.
Speaker 5: It's hard to get to the only reason I like
Speaker 5: have these connections because I'm me and I don't say
Speaker 5: that like as a musician, like the type of person
Speaker 5: I am. You know, once you meet me and you
Speaker 5: shake my hand and you start to talk to you
Speaker 5: understand that I have no ill intention. I really respect
Speaker 5: the art and the game, and I think that goes
Speaker 5: a long way with a lot of artists like Anderson.
Speaker 5: I was a fan of hands and I met him
Speaker 5: when he was still Breezy love Joy and you know
Speaker 5: he was I forgot the project. It had a song
Speaker 5: on their I was like, take me to the Star
Speaker 5: Gay and Black be in the space, this beautiful song.
Speaker 5: And I met him and FANBOYD and like was genuine
Speaker 5: about it, Like, wasn't you know I didn't want to
Speaker 5: like act all hard. I was like, yo, I love
Speaker 5: your shit, man, Oh my gosh it. Me and him
Speaker 5: have been friends ever since because I was genuine and
Speaker 5: like when I meet people like ty and and you know,
Speaker 5: I was always genuine. So I feel like they see
Speaker 5: me come back around with my own stuff and they
Speaker 5: want to help, they want to work because of the
Speaker 5: type of person I am. And that's the thing. It's
Speaker 5: always a people thing for me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I don't care where you're from, what you do. Long's
Speaker 5: you go good people, you know, and I'm here to
Speaker 5: support that.
Speaker 3: You see that in a circle back.
Speaker 6: Even when you mentioned Jill and how you had met
Speaker 6: her as an engineer and then y'all ended up collaborating
Speaker 6: on your album, I was like, well that speaks volumes.
Speaker 5: Yeah for sure, for sure, And I mean, shout out
Speaker 5: to miss Jill Man. She's still very instrumental. Like when
Speaker 5: I was going through all of my drug youth, she
Speaker 5: was calling me and like, didn't nobody call me, didn't
Speaker 5: nobody check in on me? Yeah, she called me the
Speaker 5: other day just about my mother, just to check in
Speaker 5: and by my album. She called me to let me
Speaker 5: know she heard my shit and like she loved it,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And that shout out to
Speaker 5: miss Jail Yeah, I mean, you guys know it's Jilly
Speaker 5: and shout out to Philly. Let's let's start there. Let
Speaker 5: me go back, shout out to Philadelphia. Okay, all of
Speaker 5: my music connects or all of the things that are
Speaker 5: all of the people that have really like put on
Speaker 5: for me are from Philly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And I mean, you guys, I don't know what's in
Speaker 5: the water, but like the talent even now, the talent
Speaker 5: pool is phenomenal, you know what I mean, And I'm
Speaker 5: glad to be a part of that community. I'm glad
Speaker 5: to say that I'm somewhat a part of that community
Speaker 5: of people. You know.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, brother, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Before we close, I gotta ask, can you tell me?
Speaker 1: And I'm asking more personally, like, what was the process
Speaker 1: the steps to your your health journey?
Speaker 4: Now out.
Speaker 5: You know a lot of prayer, a lot of prayer.
Speaker 1: And when I mean health journey, I'm actually mean your
Speaker 1: physical health journey, because oh oh.
Speaker 5: I tell you a lot of prayer. I still right, Well,
Speaker 5: now you know, all right, so I'm a foodie. I
Speaker 5: love to eat. And during all of this, you know,
Speaker 5: the pandemic and stuff, all we had was postmates sitting
Speaker 5: at the house. I got up to about two hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty pounds. But yeah, yes, look, and you know
Speaker 5: even now, I'm I'm just shocked to see where I got.
Speaker 5: To honestly answer your question, I don't know how all
Speaker 5: this happened.
Speaker 2: I just I was.
Speaker 5: I was just standing on a wing in the prayer man, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: I started I started by asking questions, what did I want?
Speaker 5: You know what I mean, who do I want to
Speaker 5: be what do I want to look like? And I
Speaker 5: came up with a goal to get down to two
Speaker 5: hundred pounds. And after I lost a few pounds, I
Speaker 5: got to this point where I wasn't losing any more weight.
Speaker 5: So I got a nutritionist because I felt like my
Speaker 5: eating was the biggest thing. So my nutrition is this
Speaker 5: the real reason? And I'm in shape. I'm in now.
Speaker 5: You taught me how to spread my meals out. He
Speaker 5: taught me how, you know, eat the right amount of protein,
Speaker 5: make sure I get the right kind of carbs in.
Speaker 5: So my diet did everything.
Speaker 3: You know, sugar, what you're doing with?
Speaker 5: No bread, no sugar, no salt, no life, no love,
Speaker 5: no hoogs, no happiness.
Speaker 1: With you Right now, man, I'm drinking my salads.
Speaker 5: That's right, That's right, these damn seaweed chips. On a
Speaker 5: personal note, if y'all ever need information on the I'm
Speaker 5: a wealth of knowledge when it comes to like healthy
Speaker 5: and yeah, like that, you know, because it's important especially
Speaker 5: for us. It's black folk, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: We have our issues and we need to pass knowledge
Speaker 5: around so that we can all, you know, thrive and
Speaker 5: be healthy. So feel like you need some information, man,
Speaker 5: feel free to reach out broad Got you so, sir.
Speaker 3: You want to functional mushrooms? You want to.
Speaker 5: No mushrooms, That's that's part of my I can't do mushrooms. No, No,
Speaker 5: not rooms, sir.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: I do the badrooms.
Speaker 6: Yeah, not a I'm talking about the other one, the
Speaker 6: coffee rooms here mutual.
Speaker 1: Okay, you did say that you did that, like matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I'm right now.
Speaker 4: We have some in the kitchen.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Multi vitamin for sure. I definitely like try to
Speaker 5: stay as healthy as possible. But I mean I feel
Speaker 5: like people that need multivitamins are eating like ship. You
Speaker 5: know what I mean. Eat healthy? You need to do
Speaker 5: all the extra ship.
Speaker 4: Just just do.
Speaker 5: Put some greens in your body. This is one. Here's
Speaker 5: the note of the day. If you're gonna eat like crap,
Speaker 5: put something green on your stomach first, because there's something
Speaker 5: inside of you know, in the fiber or so. There's
Speaker 5: a chemical that gets put in your stomach and it
Speaker 5: lines your stomach and helps you digest your food better
Speaker 5: if you eat green before you eat anything else. So
Speaker 5: just eat a little salad before you eat anything else.
Speaker 5: That'll help out.
Speaker 3: Yes, Sally, you're not like a.
Speaker 5: If you if you blending if Yeah, the juice works.
Speaker 1: I'm not a salad fan at all, so all my juice,
Speaker 1: you are salads.
Speaker 5: So smart man, smart man, and it works just as well.
Speaker 6: Can I ask Fat Sir one question I did? I'd
Speaker 6: like to ask Fat Sir old faster.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me though, in Inglewood three of your
Speaker 3: favorite places to eat? Because I just would like to
Speaker 3: know there right now, Inglewood Service?
Speaker 5: All right, all right, if you just want to like
Speaker 5: small little breakfast spot, emma is and it's a hole
Speaker 5: in the wall. This is our bodegga. Okay. So now
Speaker 5: Emma's is on Market in Manchester. She right across the
Speaker 5: street from the swat. Mean, she's just a little hole
Speaker 5: in the wall. But you go in there. You just
Speaker 5: get you a breakfast burrito. Emma to take care of it.
Speaker 3: I'm a breakfast burrito theme, so thank you. I'm always
Speaker 3: on the chase.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, So now and you tell it. You
Speaker 5: tell her that Daniel sent you. Don't tell it Daryl sent.
Speaker 2: Extra g A.
Speaker 5: Yeah, uh Doulans really you don't like see you have me? No,
Speaker 5: you just disrespected I thought it was commercial. I didn't
Speaker 5: know if it was, Dolens is all we got. No,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna say it's the best, so who out
Speaker 5: here because they be lying, But Dolings is what we got.
Speaker 5: So go get you somebode. Go get you from the sun,
Speaker 5: some some smother chicken from Duelings. You'll be all right.
Speaker 3: Now, give me a healthy spot, give me one of
Speaker 3: the last spot and simply host them. Oh well, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's I live down the street.
Speaker 5: Okay, perfect, Ye, that's not that's not Inglewood, but that's
Speaker 5: that's where we go. That's where we go.
Speaker 4: Y'all know my two cents anymore, that's spout.
Speaker 5: That's not my spot. No, no, no, no, that's out
Speaker 5: of towns Inglewood spot.
Speaker 4: I support my two cents.
Speaker 6: Ain't nothing wrong with that shot off to Dustin Felder,
Speaker 6: but simply holdsome it's historic in in uh of course
Speaker 6: South l A.
Speaker 5: And the ownership so got it?
Speaker 4: Got it? Well?
Speaker 1: Thanks sir, I thank you for taking time out to
Speaker 1: speak to us. Also, godspeed on on your good energy
Speaker 1: to her. But more than that, I really appreciate just
Speaker 1: you and applaud your ability to not only share your life,
Speaker 1: not only for your music, but in your personal story,
Speaker 1: your recovery and just your your daily walk, and it's
Speaker 1: it's needed. And especially the air quote tumultuous times that
Speaker 1: we're in when you're watching a lot of the old
Speaker 1: guard get dealt with and you're seeing the new guard
Speaker 1: come into play, you know this is overdue and needed.
Speaker 1: And I applaud you and thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: and of course love to Supreme to share your story
Speaker 1: with us. Man, Thank you, Man.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate you guys inviting me Man, and and
Speaker 5: just to say, I'm a huge fan, Bro, I have
Speaker 5: been for years and years and years. Thank gonna gash
Speaker 5: you too much, man, but you you.
Speaker 2: I look up to you, man, and thank you brother.
Speaker 5: It's a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Thank you for having man that the album
Speaker 7: is dope. But the song like that's my favorite record
Speaker 7: on the album. That's just a beautiful song, Man, really
Speaker 7: really vulnerable, and just the vocal performance on it is
Speaker 7: just really beautiful.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: So thank you, thank you, thank you for saying that. Bro.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate that this this album is a laborer love,
Speaker 5: and you know, I'm just excited to start getting out
Speaker 5: here and performing these songs and getting through this.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be tough.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be tough.
Speaker 1: Well, this this album is it's take one step at
Speaker 1: a time. Nah man. Just look, it was uncomfortable, go
Speaker 1: with it. If it's out of your comfort zone, go
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 5: I've learned not to hold back on my emotions. If
Speaker 5: I got to cry on stage, I'm gona let it out.
Speaker 5: But we're gonna get through it, for sure.
Speaker 4: That's important. I applaud that ship.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a farticular Sugar Steve, get your
Speaker 1: network back, bro. We thank you all are here and
Speaker 1: I'm changing shout the cousin. Jake and Brittany, thank you,
Speaker 1: and Sir big upt We'll see you next week. Quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme all right, yes, sir, thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by Mere
Speaker 1: Quest Love, Thompson, Liya Saint Clair, Fante Coleman, Sugar, Steve Mandell,
Speaker 1: and myself. I'm pay Bill Sherman. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: mer who just walked into the goddamn room, Thompson, Sean Jean,
Speaker 1: and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittany, Benjamin, Jake Pain and
Speaker 1: Lias Sinclair.
Speaker 4: Edited by Alex Conroy.
Speaker 1: I know Alice Conroy, produced for iHeart by Noel Brown West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.