Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I mean,
Speaker 1: here's Quest Love. I mean we have Team Supreme. We
Speaker 1: have the one and only Sugar Steve. You should be
Speaker 1: Stone Steve. What I think you need a new moniker?
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: I thought you said you should be Stone right now, Steve.
Speaker 2: I was like you my mission accomplished that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, Stone Steve.
Speaker 2: I think I'm giving you Sugar Steve. It's a brand now, she's.
Speaker 1: Made a brand out of it. If like a hold
Speaker 1: the way of life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, ain't work. I'm good.
Speaker 1: As long as you're still living. That's that's that's all
Speaker 1: care about.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm living.
Speaker 1: Uh unpaid bill. It's also in the house. How's it going? Fantastic?
Speaker 1: Life fantastic? All right ya? How are you yo?
Speaker 3: For real?
Speaker 4: I was real calm, but then I saw her face
Speaker 4: and I got really happy. Okay, I'm like, I'm excited,
Speaker 4: Like we've missed that face.
Speaker 1: We missed the ship album? Absolutely Fonticolo, How are you.
Speaker 5: I can leave leaving come back?
Speaker 6: No, you guys, get all excited.
Speaker 1: Again, just for the for the whole hour and a half.
Speaker 1: Just come back and come back in ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: What can I say our guest today, Well, for starters,
Speaker 1: she's sold over thirty million units of her albums, and
Speaker 1: in the last two decades, I believe they're ten in total.
Speaker 1: But besides all that she personally, I will say that
Speaker 1: she's one of my favorite voices in music, and thank you.
Speaker 1: Not in that oh. I like niche unusual sounding singers,
Speaker 1: but it's it's rare to hear any trace of soul
Speaker 1: or life in such a technically perfect culture that we
Speaker 1: live in now, where everything is overdone and overwrought and
Speaker 1: too perfect. Like she has a pulse in her voice,
Speaker 1: and that's what I always loved about her. Welcome to
Speaker 1: request Love Supreme Macy.
Speaker 5: Gray, Hello, sweetheart?
Speaker 3: How you doing?
Speaker 5: Hey? You brush?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 6: I'm in my bed in Los Angeles, California, sitting on
Speaker 6: my bed. The internet in my house is best in
Speaker 6: my room. So when I have stuff like this, I
Speaker 6: get in the bed.
Speaker 1: I see, well, yeah, we're we thought we were all
Speaker 1: in our beds. But wait, before I ask anything, this
Speaker 1: is what I have to know. So I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: getting my first, real, real, real house hooking up right now.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that the one idea I'm stealing
Speaker 1: from you is the idea of the chocolate room. When
Speaker 1: I first went to your house, you had a room
Speaker 1: dedicated all brown, all chocolate. Which do you still maintain
Speaker 1: that in your house? It's been a while since I've
Speaker 1: ever been back to your crib. I'm just asking, Mike, is.
Speaker 5: I got a chocolate room? But you have to. It's
Speaker 5: very important.
Speaker 6: You have to get the paint suited or else it'll
Speaker 6: just look like dude to brown. You gotta get like
Speaker 6: a proper painter and tell them you want it swayed.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: That sounds a yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I was about to say, damn it. It's
Speaker 1: been so long since since we wrapped to each other,
Speaker 1: you know. I now I feel like I'm really we're
Speaker 1: reintroducing ourselves to each other. I mean, of course, in
Speaker 1: your circle, I always heard people call you Nata Nat,
Speaker 1: but I know, yeah, that, uh Macy is stage. How
Speaker 1: did you How did you get that name? I never
Speaker 1: asked you, like, how did you get the name Macy Gray?
Speaker 6: I saw it on a mailbox. I guess there's there
Speaker 6: is a real Macy Gray.
Speaker 5: So you know in Ohio, you know how, like back
Speaker 5: in the.
Speaker 6: Day, so everybody used to make up their name, like
Speaker 6: now everybody.
Speaker 5: I know when I.
Speaker 6: Was when I was coming up, everybody had a fake name, right,
Speaker 6: mess it man, everybody.
Speaker 5: And so I thought I had to make up a name.
Speaker 6: So I just I saw this name on a mailbox
Speaker 6: and I was like, you know, that sounds good, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean I saw it on a mailbox when I
Speaker 6: was much younger. But when I decided to make up
Speaker 6: my name, I went to that name.
Speaker 7: Wait, have you ever looked up the actual Macy Gray? Yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean the one from the mailbox.
Speaker 5: He lived across the street.
Speaker 1: So somewhere your neighbor has told that story.
Speaker 5: Least Oh my god, a mail a hundred.
Speaker 1: Times that she's named after me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I like, I knew who he was, but it
Speaker 6: didn't like resonate. So I saw it that spelled out
Speaker 6: on a mailbox.
Speaker 5: It was kind of like you remember in a Boogie
Speaker 5: Nights and he goes Dirk Tiggler. I saw. I didn't
Speaker 5: like Dirk Tiggler. It was kind of like that kind
Speaker 5: of moment.
Speaker 3: Bookie Nights.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you need to go steal that mailbox just chocolate room.
Speaker 1: Is he still living?
Speaker 5: No, he passed a few years ago. Lives on the
Speaker 5: name lives on.
Speaker 1: Oh Wow okay, and like have you has he seen
Speaker 1: you since you christiened yourself? Basic?
Speaker 5: No? I never ran into him after that.
Speaker 6: But you know, he lived on my mom and dad's
Speaker 6: street and then and then they moved, but they were
Speaker 6: they were never like friends or nothing, but you know,
Speaker 6: he was just a guy across the street's older across
Speaker 6: the street.
Speaker 1: So I believe you were born in Ohio, Ohio. Okay.
Speaker 1: I was going to say what city was it and
Speaker 1: what type of town was it?
Speaker 6: So Canton c A N t O N okay. It's
Speaker 6: most known for the Football Hall of Fame is in Canton.
Speaker 2: That's a sport of mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh okay, I get it.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay. So I went to school with Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 5: He's from Canton. Wow O. Jays are from Canton to
Speaker 5: the Barges.
Speaker 6: Lebron's from from Akron, Act is like twenty minutes away.
Speaker 6: It's like, you know, it's like the next little city over.
Speaker 6: And then a bunch of people Steph Curry's from Akron.
Speaker 6: Trying to think who else oh Hio.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's quietly, but it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely the heartbeat of America. Like yeah, for okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So Steve's blame the sports to me? Why why why
Speaker 1: are all the Hall of Fames of sports in Ohio?
Speaker 1: I understand why the rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: is there because allegedly Alan Freed, they claim he coined
Speaker 1: the term rock and roll, but I tend to think
Speaker 1: that he just stole it from whatever black person was
Speaker 1: saying it. How he coined the term. So that's that's
Speaker 1: why I know the rock and Roll Hall of Fames
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. But I mean just in terms of Cooperstown
Speaker 1: or the football hall, like why.
Speaker 2: Is well, Cooperstown's in New York.
Speaker 1: That's how much I don't know about the sports. But
Speaker 1: I don't know the actually right now, Like Bill, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever embarrassed you more. You're poundering your
Speaker 1: future on this podcast based on that last question, and
Speaker 1: I just, yeah, Cooperstown is very much in New York.
Speaker 1: That's okay, Hollows. That's how much I don't do the sports.
Speaker 1: We know, we went. I went to a baseball game
Speaker 1: with you, do you remember we had geese steaks. It
Speaker 1: was a big night for the team lose when we
Speaker 1: went probably yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: How can you don't like sports? Why don't you watch sports?
Speaker 1: No, it's not that I don't like sports. I just
Speaker 1: joke that, you know, you can't worship two gods. And
Speaker 1: for me, there's music. People stick to music and sports
Speaker 1: people stick to sports. And then some people get really
Speaker 1: really defensive when I say that, well, I like sports
Speaker 1: and I do music, And then behind their backs, I
Speaker 1: be like.
Speaker 4: So you dedicated your life a little harder to music
Speaker 4: than most a mirror.
Speaker 7: So that's not healthy to just love one thing only
Speaker 7: you know, like, come on, experience a little bit more
Speaker 7: than that.
Speaker 1: But do you meditate three hours a day? I played
Speaker 1: play ball when I was a kid. I played kickball,
Speaker 1: played dodgeball. None of those are real kickballs a.
Speaker 2: Thing I'm saying. They're not professional.
Speaker 6: Kickball and roller skate. Yeah good at ping pong, Ping
Speaker 6: pong dominant.
Speaker 5: Space tag king ball is a real sport.
Speaker 6: People get people get serious on site, they get upset.
Speaker 1: Have you guys? Are you are you guys keeping up
Speaker 1: with the now that they have the space tournament on
Speaker 1: the Poker channel.
Speaker 3: Shut up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just get it real now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ye, talk about that later.
Speaker 1: I wonder what, okay, if you know they're now starting
Speaker 1: spades tournaments.
Speaker 5: On the my game, can you win money?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're playing professionally.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's about respect play.
Speaker 1: I played one spade game in my life with with
Speaker 1: Jill and lizel and I did horrible and that was it.
Speaker 1: That was my.
Speaker 6: He plays played like chess, checkers and dominos.
Speaker 1: See after watching Queen's gambit, I was going to try
Speaker 1: for three days. I was on fire about chess and
Speaker 1: then I lost that fire, so I'll stick to Yeah,
Speaker 1: but staxis, like I played ghetto version, not the There's
Speaker 1: so many ways to cheat it. There are so many ways.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Okay, we're never going to talk about Macy's career.
Speaker 1: I get offended when white people won't allow the ghetto
Speaker 1: rules of of UNO to stand, and even crazier UNO
Speaker 1: once try to clap back at me on Twitter because
Speaker 1: I told him like staxis are allowed.
Speaker 3: That was a triples all day son.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they tried to, like you know, the Twitter account
Speaker 1: of you know, try to correct me and I had
Speaker 1: to send them and blacks would have shut that ship down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't. We took over that game. I'm sorry. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 6: My dad whooping my ass because I wouldn't practice my piano,
Speaker 6: getting my ass beat because I had to practice a
Speaker 6: half hour every day, and sometimes I would like, wait
Speaker 6: till he fell asleep, and I'll think you'd sleep and
Speaker 6: then and then I would say, yeah, I practice it,
Speaker 6: and he would Then I would get a whooping if
Speaker 6: I if I didn't.
Speaker 1: Practice, if you didn't practice your skills, yeah, man. So wait,
Speaker 1: how old were you when you first started playing piano?
Speaker 5: Seven?
Speaker 1: Was this like a church requirement thing or like just
Speaker 1: something to do to pass the time or no, it's
Speaker 1: my mom.
Speaker 6: My mom had this thing for signing me up for
Speaker 6: activities so she could go do what she was gonna do.
Speaker 6: That was like my babysitter. So if I was at
Speaker 6: the y MCA all day, then you know I was coming.
Speaker 6: That was just like after school. I went to piano
Speaker 6: and then she would drop me off and she would
Speaker 6: like go grocery shop like that was her, Like you
Speaker 6: know that those were all my babysitters.
Speaker 5: But but I learned, you know, I learned how to
Speaker 5: play the piano and she had me an archery, swimming.
Speaker 5: I could do anything when I was little.
Speaker 6: You guys didn't have the white the white mom just
Speaker 6: dropping you off on Saturday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, boys and girls summer time yeah yeah, basketball, gymnastics, yeah, everything,
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 5: Gymnastics that was good.
Speaker 8: Forward road get dropped off with the wire and.
Speaker 1: School on Sundays.
Speaker 2: Yeah, schools our wife.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, we had that.
Speaker 5: We had a Jewish center and I had to go
Speaker 5: to that too.
Speaker 3: Why'd you have to go to that?
Speaker 5: Because they had what class did I take?
Speaker 1: That's why cleaner? Why a cleanery I took?
Speaker 5: I took. That's why I put swimming lessons.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, that's funny. Yeah, because it wasn't
Speaker 3: those swimming pool that was.
Speaker 5: Nice like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I couldn't go to the fifty second Street. Why
Speaker 1: I could go to the Jewish whye on Broad Street
Speaker 1: but not fifty second Street? You get you ask the
Speaker 1: second Street? Why that's really? Do you remember the first
Speaker 1: album that you purchased.
Speaker 6: The bot with my own money was Purple Rain Huge
Speaker 6: Prince Friends, And that was your first record, first record
Speaker 6: I bought with my own money. I mean, you know
Speaker 6: before that, I was just listening to my mom and
Speaker 6: dad's records all the time.
Speaker 1: When that okay, so even before then, there wasn't like
Speaker 1: a large record collection in the household.
Speaker 5: Uh no, my god, it was a huge. All he
Speaker 5: did all day was play eight tracks. But you know,
Speaker 5: I just listened to that.
Speaker 1: That's what I grew up on my mom and stuff
Speaker 1: was your dad listened to?
Speaker 6: He was a huge James Brown fan. He thought James
Speaker 6: Brown was just everything, and you know, the Isley Brothers,
Speaker 6: and my mom was really into Gladys Knight and all that,
Speaker 6: you know, mostly soul music. And my mother was a
Speaker 6: huge fan of Elvis Presley, So I knew a lot
Speaker 6: of Elvis Presley fan I mean songs, and I knew
Speaker 6: a lot of Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 5: She really liked those two.
Speaker 6: But other than that, it was all like that old
Speaker 6: soul stuff, you know, you know, grown, grown people's stuff.
Speaker 3: Did you bring Purple Rain back to them? Like, did
Speaker 3: y'all listen to it together?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 6: I kind of so I got really into Prince when
Speaker 6: MTV came out.
Speaker 5: When was MTV.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty one eighty four? Oh yeah, the TV was
Speaker 1: good between eighty one and eighty five.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's when I got really into like all
Speaker 6: different stuff. That's when I really got in a rock
Speaker 6: and roll. I was like a big Poison fan. I
Speaker 6: like thought it was Van Hale and Reconds, and.
Speaker 5: I got really into Prince.
Speaker 6: I painted my room purple and I saw the Night
Speaker 6: I Saw Purple Rain I watched. I sat there for
Speaker 6: three three shows. I sat there yep in a row.
Speaker 1: What a time to be alive when you would have
Speaker 1: to sit and watch a movie over there again, thinking
Speaker 1: you would never see it again as long as you live.
Speaker 5: I was obsessed with that. Wow. So after so that
Speaker 5: was like, you know, my big fanatic is Prince. Prince.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned at the top of the show, mhm
Speaker 1: that the the texture of your voice is probably the
Speaker 1: most even when you talk, it's a it's a melodic
Speaker 1: it's a melodic sounding voice. Like did you always have
Speaker 1: this texture in your voice even as a child? Like,
Speaker 1: was this always like something that stood out from anyone
Speaker 1: else that was speaking.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I always had a unusual voice. And then when
Speaker 6: but you know, when you're little and the kids make
Speaker 6: funny so I stopped talking. I mean I know, I
Speaker 6: didn't stop talking. It just made me really quiet, made
Speaker 6: me shy and like I was. I didn't want to
Speaker 6: speak because all the kids would start laughing, you know,
Speaker 6: So I didn't talk much.
Speaker 3: Outside of maturity. What's the difference in your voice then
Speaker 3: than now?
Speaker 5: Like what it was?
Speaker 3: It just way different or has it evolved into something?
Speaker 3: Had it evolved in something different?
Speaker 5: Well? Yeah, I grew up with me. I mean it's
Speaker 5: changed for sure.
Speaker 6: And then, uh, probably a lot of singing, you know,
Speaker 6: because I took up vocal lessons for a while and
Speaker 6: then and then you know when you go on tour,
Speaker 6: that's like that's like practicing. That's like a two hour
Speaker 6: vocal lesson every night. So oh so it's it's definitely changed.
Speaker 6: But but yeah, I've always had a you know, funny voice.
Speaker 5: They call it okay beautiful.
Speaker 1: Who was the first Do you remember the first concert
Speaker 1: you ever attended?
Speaker 6: Okay, So, my mom took me to see Michael jacks
Speaker 6: So when I was super little, but on my own.
Speaker 6: It was a Prince concert took me to see and
Speaker 6: I remember Michael Jackson running through the crowd and everybody,
Speaker 6: the little girls jumped on him and my mom grabbed his.
Speaker 1: Cheeks really like the bottle on his.
Speaker 5: Face, on his face. But let me tell you how
Speaker 5: funny life is. So what was that last thing he did?
Speaker 5: It was like a big m t V. It was
Speaker 5: like m TV ten or something.
Speaker 1: Well he did something for that uh all of his
Speaker 1: album titles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Invincible, I know it was like talking about the movie.
Speaker 6: But no, it was a MTV remember that type his
Speaker 6: bodyguard to beat up, beat up that guy.
Speaker 1: Oh oh god, that's my favorite moment. The dude from
Speaker 1: is he is he from paulp at the World? Okay,
Speaker 1: at the at the at the World, you know that
Speaker 1: award show where it's like the World Music Awards. It
Speaker 1: feels so like staged. While he was performing, he was
Speaker 1: performing earth song, I think Jarvis Cocker. Uh is he
Speaker 1: in Pulp? I believe he decided to run on stage
Speaker 1: and and moon Michael's performance, you know, like Michael was
Speaker 1: doing that whole Jesus Angelic floating out the sky ship
Speaker 1: or whatever like save the Earth, and and then the
Speaker 1: guy was just like this, you know this bullshit and
Speaker 1: just ran on stage and it became u it became
Speaker 1: like a what do you call those like Charlie Chaplin
Speaker 1: chase scenes like Keystone cops. Yeah, Like it was like
Speaker 1: six people chasing Jarvis Cocker while Michael Jackson's trying to
Speaker 1: perform do this majestic ending of a song. But all
Speaker 1: you could see was like the song that should have
Speaker 1: been playing in the background was sort of like like
Speaker 1: those old timey thirties flight of the Bumblebee, like just
Speaker 1: chasing him all like they couldn't catch this guy for nothing.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened, but he.
Speaker 5: Got beat up really bad, but they him up anyway,
Speaker 5: after walking through you welcome, he's walking by.
Speaker 6: He has fifty bodyguards and I took my mom and
Speaker 6: she reaches in and grabs his cheeks and he goes hey,
Speaker 6: He goes hey Maids's mom and then he walked away.
Speaker 5: Nurse.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just glad the bodyguards didn't didn't beat up
Speaker 2: your mom.
Speaker 6: You know how moms are, Like bodyguards don't mess with
Speaker 6: you know, mom, They just don't go to them.
Speaker 2: What what Prince tour was? The was your first concert tour?
Speaker 2: Was that? Okay?
Speaker 5: I memorized the show. I knew all the moves.
Speaker 3: What you wear, what you wear?
Speaker 6: Oh, I know, I did my hair, I had my
Speaker 6: you know, like you know the mullet, mullet put my
Speaker 6: hair over one side.
Speaker 5: I don't remember what I wore, but I was trying.
Speaker 6: To get that hairstyle when they at least Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: who was the first prince tour that you saw?
Speaker 2: Question?
Speaker 1: Okay, so.
Speaker 2: Wait, this is a pretty simple question.
Speaker 9: Yeah, questions, the first, the first, the first two princes.
Speaker 9: I had to wrap it up some previous ship that
Speaker 9: I haven't I haven't yet to admit to my parents yet.
Speaker 5: So it's okay, you're fifty.
Speaker 1: The sow anyway, Yeah, technically technically the Love Sexy Show.
Speaker 1: But I saw him in ninety three somewhere.
Speaker 3: How old were you? I'm telling miss Jackie? How old
Speaker 3: was he?
Speaker 1: Shut up away? Yeah, okay, so what what would what
Speaker 1: do you? What would you think you're come to Jesus moment?
Speaker 1: Was as far as you wanting uh to sing or
Speaker 1: like did you form a band in high school or
Speaker 1: any of those things? Like?
Speaker 6: Uh So, So I went to USC and I used
Speaker 6: to hang out with all the music majors. I was
Speaker 6: in a film school, and and I just gravitated to
Speaker 6: the musicians because that's you know, I know how to
Speaker 6: pray and uh so, you know, in college, we I would,
Speaker 6: we would form bands and stuff like that. So so
Speaker 6: I met this kid, right, he had a four track.
Speaker 5: I'm giving away my age again. He had a four
Speaker 5: track and.
Speaker 6: He used to write songs and he was super cute
Speaker 6: and he was like, I told him I wrote songs
Speaker 6: because I, you know, just so I could hang out
Speaker 6: with him.
Speaker 5: You know, I was trying to get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the.
Speaker 6: Way I got attached to it, I started like writing songs,
Speaker 6: and I you know, I really liked like you know,
Speaker 6: and so you know, when you write a song, you
Speaker 6: have to kind of sing it, uh so the person knows.
Speaker 5: How it goes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for him, Yeah, I was writing songs for his tracks. Okay,
Speaker 6: so you know how so we had all these little
Speaker 6: recordings of me having melody ideas on his songs.
Speaker 5: And then one of his friends had every.
Speaker 6: Sunday, uh like little brunch gig down at the Ramada
Speaker 6: Inn down by usc downtown LA, and and he needed
Speaker 6: a singer and we would all get we would all
Speaker 6: get one hundred dollars every Sunday. And I had no
Speaker 6: intention of being a singer. But when he told me
Speaker 6: I would get a hundred dollars, I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'll sing it. And so I started doing a brunch
Speaker 6: every Sunday money. I couldn't, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 6: anything about singing. And then he gave me all these
Speaker 6: little records, you know, stand to learn. So I learned
Speaker 6: a bunch of jazz standards and stuff that and that
Speaker 6: that was the beginning. No, no, then I got into it.
Speaker 1: I like it so not not one person until that moment.
Speaker 1: I saw you as a lightning in a bottle moment
Speaker 1: because like, again, the texture of your voice is like
Speaker 1: that's a music producer's dream to capture something that unusual
Speaker 1: and unique for singing. Like it's just like no one
Speaker 1: had heard your voice. It was just like Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: like we got to get you at least in your
Speaker 1: teen years up up until you went to college, not
Speaker 1: not once the moment ever occurred.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, you look exactly like you did
Speaker 5: when I met you.
Speaker 7: No, he's got a team of people working on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a team work. Wait a minute. Your
Speaker 1: family's last name is McIntyre.
Speaker 5: My mom and dad. My last name is Haines. I
Speaker 5: was married.
Speaker 6: I mean I'm not married anymore, but I was married.
Speaker 6: I didn't change my name back. But my mom and
Speaker 6: dad are McIntire's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good Irish people. And what yeah, because my family
Speaker 1: is mcintires. Are they from any of the Carolinas or yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad's.
Speaker 6: From the south uh huh Wish of Georgia, Florida. I
Speaker 6: don't know if they're from the Carolina, but I know
Speaker 6: his family is in Tampa.
Speaker 5: Is what do you know who won the Super Bowl?
Speaker 5: Quest Steve No, She asked.
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, she asked you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew who won the super Bowl as it
Speaker 1: was Tom Brady wanted the super Bowl, Tom Brady and
Speaker 1: the Weekend one the week den he lost the super Bowl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't like the Weekend at the super Bowl.
Speaker 5: I thought it was cool.
Speaker 2: I wasn't thought I was tripping.
Speaker 1: Great means out of it.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That's all I think at this rate. If you can
Speaker 1: get a good meaning out of something like that's a win,
Speaker 1: and yeah it's a win, it's like what magical point
Speaker 1: you know, seven seconds can you take from this moment?
Speaker 1: But yeah, that Jack I just found out that jacket
Speaker 1: he wore, that red line stone jacket that costs three
Speaker 1: million dollars. What Yeah, that that that Ryan's red Ryan
Speaker 1: Stone jacket. It's like hand stitched.
Speaker 3: And I know he gave that up to feed somebody.
Speaker 3: I know he did.
Speaker 5: Would that be three million dollars he gave so he
Speaker 5: did something with.
Speaker 1: That uh uh? Made of I think made of rubies,
Speaker 1: not run.
Speaker 5: Made. And it should have cooked.
Speaker 6: For him and and and exercise every day and had
Speaker 6: a pigs for him.
Speaker 5: Three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Well, he worried every thing that he's promoted so far
Speaker 1: with this record.
Speaker 3: That jacket.
Speaker 1: Okay, the red jacket, that's you know, it's very expensive jacket.
Speaker 5: What do you think of artists having to pay to
Speaker 5: do the Super Bowl?
Speaker 1: Artists were paying to do the same.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute now, I'll break the news. Now, what
Speaker 4: are you saying that? What's going on now?
Speaker 5: You have to pay to do halftime?
Speaker 6: Well, you pay for your own show, which is cost
Speaker 6: him about five million dollars.
Speaker 1: I don't think he paid. I don't. I think you're
Speaker 1: responding to did he pay to do it? No? They
Speaker 1: they still have to come to you. They organized that rocket.
Speaker 1: They came to him.
Speaker 3: I get that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what what you want to do
Speaker 1: to it depends on how deep your pocket took.
Speaker 4: They don't have a budget for a show, butch your
Speaker 4: What Jesus said was there is no budget for the show.
Speaker 3: It's like, you can come. I would invite you to
Speaker 3: come and then you can figure it out.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, there's a limited budget, but if you want
Speaker 1: more than that's coming out of your pocket. So yes,
Speaker 1: in addition to those what two to three million dollars
Speaker 1: just for that jacket, I think he paid an additional
Speaker 1: seven million.
Speaker 3: What's the.
Speaker 5: That? Remember? Okay, so did it used to be like that?
Speaker 6: Though it started with Katy Perry was the first one
Speaker 6: to pay to do halftime?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 5: That three years ago? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: Well you got to make an impression and if you
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it works for you.
Speaker 3: Like what's the return? What's the return? So I was
Speaker 3: about to say, what's the return on?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you if you know you're going to
Speaker 7: make twenty million dollars that night from streaming people streaming
Speaker 7: your music or something like that, and you spend ten million,
Speaker 7: you know, it's.
Speaker 1: Probably a scait of money. Don't make none situation. So
Speaker 1: I think I think at the time, maybe he agreed
Speaker 1: to do it kind of thinking that it was going
Speaker 1: to be a victory lap. But I don't think he
Speaker 1: was expecting to get shut out at the Grammys this year,
Speaker 1: so that kind of made it, uh man, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, you should have taken the weekend off.
Speaker 1: There you go. See, this is where I would press
Speaker 1: words of wisdom. It mays, I know, I know often
Speaker 1: I can tell when critics are lazy when they start
Speaker 1: bringing up Billie Holliday, because I actually think your voice
Speaker 1: is closer to Esther Phillips. Was she at all an
Speaker 1: influence on you? Like the range and the tone of
Speaker 1: your voice and the texture of it is more closer
Speaker 1: in my opinion too, Esther Phillips then Billie Holliday. But
Speaker 1: you know, not many people know of know of Esther
Speaker 1: Phillips and her catalog like that. But like, is there
Speaker 1: is there a north star for you? Like someone that
Speaker 1: vocally that you admired, Not in a Prince I'm a
Speaker 1: Prince fan way, but like, yeah, as far as you're singing,
Speaker 1: there was a lot.
Speaker 6: You know, I think when you're into music, you listen
Speaker 6: to a lot of different singers, and.
Speaker 5: You know you can learn so much.
Speaker 6: So Billy Holliday is, uh, what's so magical about her
Speaker 6: is you can you can understand every word she says.
Speaker 6: You know, She's not like she's not gonna get with
Speaker 6: Houston and bulk out some crazy note.
Speaker 5: But so I learned from her to get my words
Speaker 5: in there, you know.
Speaker 6: And then uh so, like from like like I told you,
Speaker 6: I liked uh, what's his name, David Lee from Van Halen,
Speaker 6: and like I.
Speaker 5: Learned from them. I learned from him. Yeah, but I
Speaker 5: can scream because also.
Speaker 6: And then you listen to like hip hop like Biggie,
Speaker 6: like you learn to sing on rhythm, like learn to
Speaker 6: hit the beat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So there's all these lessons and I'm still learning.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm trying to think Chaka Khan, you know,
Speaker 6: or somebody like Uh. Fritz is interesting because he did
Speaker 6: so many things with his voice, Like he could go wow,
Speaker 6: wow yo big well the picture and then he could
Speaker 6: do a falsetto. So I learned from him to try,
Speaker 6: you know, experiment with my voice and and and and
Speaker 6: hit high notes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, do you prefer singing in a lower range
Speaker 1: or falsetto range?
Speaker 5: No? I learned what else?
Speaker 6: You know, there's a head voice your chest voice, and
Speaker 6: I've learned to not have to use my so I
Speaker 6: got all kind of voices.
Speaker 1: It's okay. Is as a non singer, I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: this question, is that really important? Like I know, uh,
Speaker 1: vocal trainers or whatnot are real big on like sing
Speaker 1: from your diaphragm, singing from your diaphragm. But why why
Speaker 1: why are most people that teach people to project, be
Speaker 1: it acting coaches or singers, why are they so insistent
Speaker 1: on singing from your diaphragm and not your.
Speaker 5: Throat because it takes the work off of your throat
Speaker 5: because your your vocal cords will wear out a lot
Speaker 5: faster than your stomach.
Speaker 6: You know, a proper singer, I can can sing from
Speaker 6: like I can sing from my cheeks.
Speaker 5: I can I can do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 6: But yeah, the idea is to use your throat as
Speaker 6: as little as possible because your vocal cords can wear
Speaker 6: a lot faster. There's a lot of canceled shows stuff
Speaker 6: like that.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask if you're when you were
Speaker 1: actively touring, like how how much damage would have to
Speaker 1: occur for you to cancel a show? Because even if
Speaker 1: you have a slightly hoarse or slightly scratched, sort of
Speaker 1: goes into what your tone already is.
Speaker 6: But no, I've only I swear, I've only canceled two
Speaker 6: shows in my whole career because of my voice. Okay,
Speaker 6: one show I missed because of you know, a couple
Speaker 6: of shows I missed because of the weather.
Speaker 5: But my voice I got, Like I call myself super.
Speaker 6: Vocals because I like and and and when I when
Speaker 6: I canceled, it was it was all karma against Seal.
Speaker 6: It really wasn't my fault, Like he was so off
Speaker 6: with me, and I think I messed my That guy
Speaker 6: just reached down and it's like you don't have to
Speaker 6: take the ship and it Seal.
Speaker 1: Samuel see Seal.
Speaker 5: Yeah that's a seal, the seal in the ocean. No,
Speaker 5: but I opened for Seal for a couple of weeks
Speaker 5: and it didn't go well. And that was the only
Speaker 5: tour that my voice, my voice ever punked out at me.
Speaker 1: Why didn't go well?
Speaker 6: He's just, you know, just we just didn't connect. You know,
Speaker 6: it wasn't you know, we want you know, I didn't
Speaker 6: go like that. Well you know, when I when I
Speaker 6: opened for the Roots, that wasn't great. How was it
Speaker 6: that was my first my first tour you guys the roots?
Speaker 5: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to doing back. When's the last time
Speaker 1: you wrapped it? Doing or? Steffie formerly known of Star
Speaker 1: sixty nine one, used to be in the Jazzy Fat
Speaker 1: Nasties before they went down to a duo. But the
Speaker 1: one was the one that put me onto you.
Speaker 5: Oh really?
Speaker 1: Oh she she stalked. She stalked me like I gotta
Speaker 1: let you. Because the thing was, I was so over
Speaker 1: the over the top excited for when the Jazzy's were
Speaker 1: on Tommy Boy as a foursome, when Jay Swift was
Speaker 1: producing them. It's like the next to slum Village. That
Speaker 1: was like the demo I was the most excited about
Speaker 1: ever hearing no offense. I love you too. I want
Speaker 1: to hear this demo. Yeah, so uh, I think knowing
Speaker 1: the the excitement I had for the Jazzy's, she like
Speaker 1: hit I remember her hitting me at like it was
Speaker 1: past me. It might have been one am and I
Speaker 1: was in l a I thing. It was like right
Speaker 1: after a House of Blue show and she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: driving over to play this, and I sat in her
Speaker 1: car and listened and like I was like, who the
Speaker 1: hell is this? And yeah, like Dawn was like, you're
Speaker 1: you're your biggest champion. So I Dawn Beckman Center, I love.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to I don't know if she's on
Speaker 1: social media or anything. I haven't talked to Dawn in
Speaker 1: like ten years. Maybe. God, I keep I'm in denial
Speaker 1: about what year we're living in. Yeah, I'll say like
Speaker 1: a few years back, thinking I'm talking about like two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: But the year y'all talking about is that when the
Speaker 4: tour was two thousand and four tour it.
Speaker 1: Was too ninety nine two thousand. Wow, it came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, so I'll say ninety nine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right, because it was before my I told
Speaker 5: with you before my record broke. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did you remember the time? You remember the
Speaker 1: time you uh, I don't know. Maybe you were on
Speaker 1: tour with Dave Matthews. It was in Boston, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you were drummerless and yeah.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about that yesterday.
Speaker 1: You called me on a whim and I tried to
Speaker 1: get up there, but it was like the weather was
Speaker 1: was just hard. Did you did you do a drum
Speaker 1: less show that night.
Speaker 6: No, no, I forget what we did, but I thought
Speaker 6: about that yesterday.
Speaker 5: I was like, he was so cool, he was gonna
Speaker 5: fly out and do my show because you were on tour.
Speaker 1: Too, right, Yeah, I just never casually. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the first time where it was just like hey, I'll
Speaker 1: be like going out to get cigarettes, like hey, I'll
Speaker 1: be back running the Boston real quick to play for
Speaker 1: Mac at the stadium. Then.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but see that was like before I knew how,
Speaker 6: you know, how everybody was and how the music business was.
Speaker 6: So I didn't think it was you know, I'm used
Speaker 6: to being on the streets in La playing the rock seat,
Speaker 6: and you know, I'm used to saying, hey, will you
Speaker 6: play drums for me tonight?
Speaker 5: So I didn't know like that.
Speaker 6: Was a big request, you know, because you asked Quest
Speaker 6: to come fill in for you.
Speaker 5: Are you? I was like, I mean, but I didn't know.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the type of person I am. I
Speaker 1: like working.
Speaker 4: Can we talk about lessons because because Mazie you said
Speaker 4: that your first time going on tour was with the Route,
Speaker 4: so like, yeah, of course we know their ultimate showmen
Speaker 4: and whatnot, But so what were some of the lessons
Speaker 4: or things that you learned since that was your first experience.
Speaker 6: Well, it was my first like real you know run
Speaker 6: and uh we watched The Roots every night, so my
Speaker 6: band was really I remember my band was really fascinated
Speaker 6: with the Roots and they wanted to have that kind
Speaker 6: of synergy.
Speaker 5: And I remember that. And then I remember partying a lot.
Speaker 5: You partied a lot because that was my first time
Speaker 5: and now just went crazy?
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And I remember, you know, I remember drinking a lot
Speaker 6: and just having a really good time. I don't know
Speaker 6: if I was focused on learning, but my band was
Speaker 6: like did you.
Speaker 5: Totally like we actually know it was.
Speaker 6: It actually taught us how to tour, like because that
Speaker 6: was my first tour that I.
Speaker 5: Learned how to go from city to city and get
Speaker 5: on stage every night, and and uh, you know, you
Speaker 5: learn you have to learn how to how to talk
Speaker 5: to your crowd.
Speaker 6: You know a lot of artists don't get that you
Speaker 6: really have to have a conversation with because if you
Speaker 6: just sat up there and sing.
Speaker 5: And they're not engaged with.
Speaker 6: Yes, I remember, uh, really learning about being with different
Speaker 6: crowds because you play in New York, it's a different
Speaker 6: crowd and when you go play and I don't know
Speaker 6: Saint Louis, you know, so I.
Speaker 5: Remember learning how to adjust.
Speaker 6: I remember that was because that was my first time
Speaker 6: I ever had to do that.
Speaker 1: If I recalled correctly, Yeah, I think is did you
Speaker 1: tell me that not that Epic wasn't your first choice?
Speaker 1: But you you had a record deal before you signed
Speaker 1: the Epic.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was on Atlantic, uh like three years before my Epic.
Speaker 5: Deal, but that never came out. Vow what was his name? No?
Speaker 6: No, no, Val didn't sign me. He was the president
Speaker 6: at the time. But the guy who signed me was
Speaker 6: Tom Caroline.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was thinking, and who's our guy social justice?
Speaker 1: Craig Well not Craig Helman. Bred about Jason.
Speaker 5: I met Jason. I met with Jason.
Speaker 6: He turned me down. I met with him when he
Speaker 6: had lava. Does he still have lava?
Speaker 1: He still has lava?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he called me in though. He Jason was my
Speaker 5: first record label meeting ever. Okay, okay, he heard he
Speaker 5: got my demo tape.
Speaker 1: So what what what happened in the Atlantic situation that
Speaker 1: didn't work out that led you to Epic?
Speaker 6: I got pregnant, I had and I and they didn't know,
Speaker 6: and and and my A and R came to the
Speaker 6: studio and and and then I got dropped like right
Speaker 6: after Yo.
Speaker 1: Remember they could not they could do that, but I
Speaker 1: can't believe that for.
Speaker 3: Decades, Like remember in the fifties and said, oh god no.
Speaker 1: But even in the music world, like why why is
Speaker 1: life over? Once? You know, I'm saying, like why would
Speaker 1: life be over in terms of the record label saying, well, let's.
Speaker 3: Drop because men, because men run labels.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 6: I mean, still most most artists have babies way later.
Speaker 6: Actresses you know, a lot of girls don't want to
Speaker 6: mess their body up, though it's not always true.
Speaker 4: And why do they want to mess their body up
Speaker 4: when they why is that?
Speaker 1: That's just crazy to me that I mean, was that
Speaker 1: their exact reason or did they make up an excuse?
Speaker 1: I assuming they made up an excuse. Oh okay, that's
Speaker 1: what you mean. That's they just told you like, okay,
Speaker 1: well you're pregnant, so this is over, goodbye. That's the label.
Speaker 10: They can't work you as much as they could. You
Speaker 10: know that that's the thinking, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10: They once you have a kid, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 10: whatever we had planned for you to touring and the
Speaker 10: studio and the running back and forth just all the time.
Speaker 1: You can't that's no longer a possibility.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But sir, if you just had a kid, come on,
Speaker 4: let's go, because you know, you ain't got.
Speaker 1: To stay home, you got to eat. Yeah, you got
Speaker 1: to make that money. Exactly. So did you get when
Speaker 1: you arrived that epic? How much control were you given
Speaker 1: as far as the direction you wanted your project to go?
Speaker 5: Not a lot.
Speaker 6: I mean, I had we had written the songs, most
Speaker 6: of the songs on that first album.
Speaker 5: We were on my little demo tape that they heard
Speaker 5: and then but they hired this producer and Andy Slater.
Speaker 1: Oh Slater, okay, Yeah, So his.
Speaker 6: Concept he wanted to do because my my, the demos
Speaker 6: were strictly like beats and and you know, with you
Speaker 6: know bass program, you know, so he wanted to do
Speaker 6: His concept was to do an R and B record
Speaker 6: with live instruments. And I had no idea what that
Speaker 6: was all about. But I was just, you know, I
Speaker 6: went with the floor. We had a lot of fights.
Speaker 6: There was a lot of fights, me and him because
Speaker 6: because I was used to things the way I wanted
Speaker 6: it like I wanted a.
Speaker 5: Tuba on one song and he had a fit. But really, yeah,
Speaker 5: he just.
Speaker 6: You know he I think he had a really clear
Speaker 6: vision and and I think he felt like he knew
Speaker 6: what he was doing. So it was very you know,
Speaker 6: draining for me making that record. But once it was done,
Speaker 6: you know, I liked it.
Speaker 5: And then and then it grew on me. I really
Speaker 5: I really liked it, you know, much later.
Speaker 1: I'm really dismayed that they didn't put a lot of
Speaker 1: muscle behind uh do something, because I always felt like
Speaker 1: out the gate and again I heard do something that
Speaker 1: her her cover of Outcasts get up, get out and
Speaker 1: get something. I instantly heard that. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be across the board hit like this
Speaker 1: is I can't I can't miss situation. And was it
Speaker 1: just that, I mean they didn't know how to market
Speaker 1: it or properly work it, or even get Outcasts to
Speaker 1: do the remix or something like that. Like I just
Speaker 1: felt like it was such an easy allue shot that
Speaker 1: really didn't get maximized.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was an interesting time because uh, okay, so
Speaker 6: someone got that. Someone I don't know who put it
Speaker 6: all together, but they felt like it was really important
Speaker 6: for me to go or to go to the urban
Speaker 6: audience first. They felt like if I if I skipped
Speaker 6: over and went straight to I Try, I would I
Speaker 6: wouldn't have that base or whatever. Like I said, this
Speaker 6: is the time I knew nothing about the record business.
Speaker 6: So they did put out do something first, but it
Speaker 6: was kind of put out as a setup track for
Speaker 6: them to just get me out there and then and
Speaker 6: then and then they couldn't.
Speaker 5: Wait to get on I Try.
Speaker 6: So I don't know if they didn't give it the
Speaker 6: time it needed or it was just you know, just
Speaker 6: kind of set me up and get me in all
Speaker 6: the papers and stuff, and then and then they went
Speaker 6: on the I Try, and then that was that was that,
Speaker 6: you know. So I don't I don't know, like I
Speaker 6: didn't know, Like I said, I didn't know what was
Speaker 6: going on. They were like, you know, show up on
Speaker 6: forty second.
Speaker 5: Street and I'll be there. I was. I was just
Speaker 5: having fun, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll say I Try. Well, now that it's
Speaker 1: two decades old, what is your relationship with the song
Speaker 1: do you? Is it a thing where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I dreaded having to still do this this long into
Speaker 1: my career. You are you comfortable with still people coming
Speaker 1: up like, oh, that's my song or you know.
Speaker 5: No, I love that song.
Speaker 6: I just hate that. That's some people only know me
Speaker 6: for that song.
Speaker 1: I hate for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I hate that. But no, you know what though,
Speaker 5: you guys, I still don't get it.
Speaker 6: I know it sounds stupid, but like I do my
Speaker 6: shows and people like still scream on that song.
Speaker 5: They still get up there.
Speaker 6: Not every word, every ad lib, every beat, we still
Speaker 6: have to do it on the end. So you lost
Speaker 6: your song because I still don't get what I buss
Speaker 6: is by. I mean, it's a good song, but I
Speaker 6: still don't get like classic song from twenty years I
Speaker 6: had no.
Speaker 5: If I wouldn't have ever put money on that.
Speaker 1: No, my theory on I Try was in this Rich,
Speaker 1: my manager, Rich and I had this conversation and we said,
Speaker 1: if I Try as probably the best song that Al
Speaker 1: Green could have maybe recorded or attempted to do in
Speaker 1: the arts in ninety nine two thousand, if you were
Speaker 1: allowed to like it, just it was a very I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's like an authentic kind of you know
Speaker 1: it was it was drifting, sort of an authentic soul
Speaker 1: cloak that I think resonated with a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and you know it and it took off, Like was
Speaker 1: it was it exhausting at some point because you know,
Speaker 1: there was some point where like literally every commercial, every
Speaker 1: that record was everywhere it ran new book type of
Speaker 1: romantic comedies like yeah, like in your in your head,
Speaker 1: like what was so? What was that rush?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Once you hit jackpot, It's amazing.
Speaker 6: You know, you get to see the world and everybody's
Speaker 6: you know, sweating you and giving you free stuff, and
Speaker 6: you know, you say boom and they get all excited, and.
Speaker 5: You know, and you make a lot of money and
Speaker 5: you know, people look up to you. It's cool. I don't.
Speaker 6: I know, people complain about same, but I refuse.
Speaker 5: Because I enjoyed it. I mean, it's there's other stuff,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 6: That was the first time I like, you know, did
Speaker 6: mushrooms and you know, stayed up for three days. I
Speaker 6: mean a lot of stuff goes along with that. But
Speaker 6: you know, I did a lot of shopping things I
Speaker 6: couldn't buy it.
Speaker 1: Before I had bought what's life like?
Speaker 10: I was gonna ask you, if you talk about fame,
Speaker 10: what's life like for you now? Is it still you know,
Speaker 10: like crazy like that? Or are you able to go
Speaker 10: to Trader Joe's in peace?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: You know what I find is when you roll out alone,
Speaker 6: nobody really bothers you. But when people take out eight
Speaker 6: bodyguards and they.
Speaker 1: Say, oh, you're drawing attention.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but when you roll out, especially now in a mask,
Speaker 6: even though it's crazy, people recognize me with a mask,
Speaker 6: I don't get that.
Speaker 5: So so but yeah, I'll go to the store all.
Speaker 6: The time, and I mean it's cool, it's not. No,
Speaker 6: it's not nearly as crazy as it used to be.
Speaker 5: But I still tour a lot, and I love touring.
Speaker 5: That's like my heaven.
Speaker 4: How did you manage to maintain all of that and
Speaker 4: then still be mommy to three babes?
Speaker 5: Oh? You know, I just lock them in the closet
Speaker 5: when I'm gone.
Speaker 1: And I'm afraid to ask this question. How old is
Speaker 1: Happy now?
Speaker 5: Twenty three?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is that your oldest? Your youngest?
Speaker 5: My youngest is twenty five, remember Ni bel.
Speaker 1: Like in my mind your kids are still three.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she came home one of the drum set.
Speaker 1: Happy is like a past college now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she has one more year. She she took some
Speaker 5: time off she's a photography major and she got an
Speaker 5: internship and then and now she's going back to.
Speaker 6: Finish and and it's online. It's such a drag. I
Speaker 6: feel so bad for her. For students, so glad I'm
Speaker 6: not in school, but they're.
Speaker 1: Old old I'm sorry that threw me for y'all. I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready for it, say, like fifteen fourteen, like, oh yeah, happy,
Speaker 1: he's about to start in high school.
Speaker 4: Have they been around during this COVID time? Like, are
Speaker 4: you guys in vicinity close vitinities each other?
Speaker 5: Yeah? At first when I first started, my my mother
Speaker 5: was here.
Speaker 6: My mother has cancer, so everybody was extra careful not
Speaker 6: to really do too much. But now I don't know,
Speaker 6: I don't know. It's hard to, you know, keep that up.
Speaker 6: It's been a year, hard to sit around the house again.
Speaker 4: And you know, you got generations z babies. I know
Speaker 4: they were just like I'm going out.
Speaker 5: Yeah I did.
Speaker 6: I did tell them no company, you know, But now
Speaker 6: you know, I've come home sometime and it's a little
Speaker 6: you know, straight straight people.
Speaker 1: Okay, So okay, Now I have a question mine of
Speaker 1: your catalog And I'm not being biased like the I
Speaker 1: was always my favorite, and of course I know about
Speaker 1: the do you do you subscribe to the to the
Speaker 1: the nine to eleven Jinks of of all those records
Speaker 1: in case I don't know, like there were at least
Speaker 1: seventeen albums that were released between uh September eleventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one and uh like the subsequent week like
Speaker 1: September seventeenth, of which you know, because of where the
Speaker 1: country was during that time period, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of albums just fell by the wayside, kind of just landed.
Speaker 1: And with the exception of like the Blueprint, but you know,
Speaker 1: everyone like Mariah's Glitter, like everything, movies, everything, did it
Speaker 1: disappoint you that? Or you know, did Epic not at
Speaker 1: least try to like do a re release or just
Speaker 1: you know in time, like why did they just let
Speaker 1: I thought that album was so brilliant and you know
Speaker 1: it's due to unfortunate timing, but what were your feelings
Speaker 1: of it at the time? And also why wasn't I'm
Speaker 1: So Mad You Meet Shed a hidden track and not.
Speaker 5: That was the Tuba track?
Speaker 6: Dude, I don't want to get back to the Tuba
Speaker 6: track I was telling you about.
Speaker 1: That is my all time I still play shed in
Speaker 1: my DJ sets now like shed my ship. But it
Speaker 1: was a hidden track, So like, why why did they
Speaker 1: at least try to revive it or did they just say, like, look,
Speaker 1: just go back in the studio and start the what
Speaker 1: was the next one? The trouble with being myself like
Speaker 1: to start on that. But what was the what was
Speaker 1: the situation at the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I think the label was disappointed. Like
Speaker 6: I said, I was still chilling, you know not, but
Speaker 6: people forget I sell most of my records overseas and
Speaker 6: I sold four million copies that I Reckon in Europe
Speaker 6: and the UK. But I know here there was kind
Speaker 6: of a you know, what do you call it? Not
Speaker 6: a letdown but anti cloud whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: Because they hyped it up.
Speaker 6: There you go, they hyped it up and it didn't
Speaker 6: do as well as as they they wanted it to, but.
Speaker 5: It did well.
Speaker 1: I think if it weren't for nine to eleven, it
Speaker 1: would have been a different story. But yeah, I always
Speaker 1: rec Yeah, wait a minute, it just hit me. This
Speaker 1: is what I always wanted to know. Okay, So when
Speaker 1: you were promoting when you were promoting the id MHM,
Speaker 1: there was an interview and Vibe magazine. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember this at all?
Speaker 3: Give me more. I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that it was. But I feel because the
Speaker 1: thing was because there wasn't because it wasn't social media,
Speaker 1: you know, even though it was two thousand and one
Speaker 1: and we were like definitely living in uh social media
Speaker 1: esque times. But I just remember how people responded. I
Speaker 1: think Marco Marco Watson.
Speaker 5: Who I cannot believe you remember that. That is insane, dude.
Speaker 1: You know what my obsession is. I remember every attempted
Speaker 1: takedown article of any black artist that I ever, you know,
Speaker 1: loved or that sort of thing. So aux right M
Speaker 1: A R G E A U X. Well she I
Speaker 1: think she's a music executive now, but back when she
Speaker 1: was a journalist, I mean she did a Q and
Speaker 1: A with with Masie and Vibe, and I think that
Speaker 1: people were just like thrown off by the interview you and.
Speaker 6: But that she screwed me because she wasn't a cut
Speaker 6: and as she came over with my house, we hung
Speaker 6: out for two days. Right, I thought she was like
Speaker 6: my best friend by the time.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I thought I'm telling.
Speaker 6: Her like like I just told y'all, you know, I
Speaker 6: went over. I did mushroom, you know, you know, I'll
Speaker 6: kissed somebody, you know what I mean. I'm talking to
Speaker 6: her like she's my girl, even though she wasn't. I
Speaker 6: was that could have been my mistake, and then she
Speaker 6: put it on in the article and I just I
Speaker 6: didn't know that she would do that. So that's just
Speaker 6: something I learned the hard way. But you know, you
Speaker 6: just can't be telling people stuff like that. But I
Speaker 6: didn't know. I gave her a proper interview, but she
Speaker 6: took all the stuff I told her off the record, Yeah,
Speaker 6: off the regular.
Speaker 5: I see, like she says, so have you ever blah
Speaker 5: blah blah, And I said, girl, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, it would have been like her talking just to
Speaker 1: you like you so but I could have been sister
Speaker 1: girl by thing. But instead, you know.
Speaker 6: But in her defense, she sent me the actual article
Speaker 6: that she wrote because I called her right away, and
Speaker 6: her whoever the editor was at the time, totally just
Speaker 6: picked out those parts because the article she wrote wasn't
Speaker 6: that bad like the things that were, you know, not
Speaker 6: so right, you know, so godly she.
Speaker 1: I know the editor too, and I got beef with
Speaker 1: her too, But I'll.
Speaker 5: Be nice, Yeah, she totally.
Speaker 6: I don't know why she came after me like that,
Speaker 6: but it it wasn't.
Speaker 5: All Marbo her article. I wish I still had it,
Speaker 5: I think I do.
Speaker 6: But her article wasn't that bad. Like if her article
Speaker 6: has been published, it wouldn't have been that bad, right.
Speaker 1: I see now. I always wanted to know, like what,
Speaker 1: because I knew like people were thrown off and then
Speaker 1: like you didn't hear anything about it, But I always
Speaker 1: wanted to know what you felt.
Speaker 6: Yes, So I begged my label to let me speak
Speaker 6: on it, and they thought if I if I said anything,
Speaker 6: I would bring attention to it. But I was like,
Speaker 6: everybody read it already.
Speaker 1: I don't know more attention.
Speaker 4: Would y'all just random question now that you said that,
Speaker 4: I'm like, would y'all trade coming out then to now
Speaker 4: in a social media error?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: Okay, because I mean, if it was social media, you
Speaker 4: could have just said what you needed to say, right,
Speaker 4: But yeah.
Speaker 5: No not.
Speaker 6: Because back in the back in the day, we made
Speaker 6: we made a lot more money. We had a lot
Speaker 6: more fun sitting here all that word about that posh
Speaker 6: like we was out partying, you know, having fun, selling records,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 1: But I also think I don't think that there was
Speaker 1: anything that scandalous in the article. So I think in
Speaker 1: this particular case, if Twitter were a thing in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, it probably, you know, probably could have
Speaker 1: been cleared instantly, whereas like because there was no explanation
Speaker 1: of it and just it was left out there in
Speaker 1: the you know, kind of there in the in the
Speaker 1: atmosphere that it just caused a lot of confusion at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was that that really hurt me. That was
Speaker 6: I was down about that for a long time. It
Speaker 6: took me a while to get over that. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: you know, it's not always just she was like when
Speaker 6: your mom reads it, you know, right, and your family
Speaker 6: and and they're looking at you sideways, like girl.
Speaker 1: During this time period, you were you know, getting your
Speaker 1: your acting chops on. Mm hmm, especially with like I
Speaker 1: think you did Idle Wild, uh like a Want of Blues,
Speaker 1: you did Spider, then you did training especially training day.
Speaker 1: What was what was training day?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 6: It was wild because Uh, okay, so I'm in the
Speaker 6: studio and that's my manager said, Antoine wants to stop
Speaker 6: by and meet you.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: I didn't really know who he was, and uh, I
Speaker 6: was like, okay, whatever, and then he goes, you know,
Speaker 6: I want you to be in my movie. So I thought,
Speaker 6: you know, someone was wrong with him because I don't
Speaker 6: have any acting background.
Speaker 5: I had no interest in acting.
Speaker 6: And then he goes, you know, let's so he hung
Speaker 6: out at the studio and then he said, let's go
Speaker 6: to a dinner tomorrow. So we went to mister Childs
Speaker 6: and he's sitting there. He's telling me all about his
Speaker 6: movie and then he says, you know, yeah, and uh,
Speaker 6: the guy who's playing this characters is Denzel Washington. So
Speaker 6: I was like, what you know? So then so then
Speaker 6: I got all into it. You know, then I was
Speaker 6: called my marriage. I was like, get I want to
Speaker 6: do that movie, and and then you know, I got
Speaker 6: serious about it eventually, but uh, at first, I was
Speaker 6: just you know, just putting my heart out because I
Speaker 6: had no skill or background in acting.
Speaker 5: So that was all heart, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That shining through.
Speaker 10: I really I really enjoyed watching you as as an actress,
Speaker 10: and I always wanted if you had plans to do more,
Speaker 10: because you really you really pop on screen.
Speaker 5: Thank you. But he's cool.
Speaker 6: I went to his trailer and he gave me some
Speaker 6: advice and he was very I forget the name of
Speaker 6: his character.
Speaker 1: What was his character's name, Scary, No, not Lonzo, it
Speaker 1: was Fronte is the most memorized, like walking I am
Speaker 1: d b every actor.
Speaker 5: For every character, but he was very much in character.
Speaker 5: He was like, it was like in his eyes it
Speaker 5: was kind of scary.
Speaker 3: What was his advice?
Speaker 5: He said, just if you don't know what to do,
Speaker 5: just just be you doing your part.
Speaker 3: It's what he does that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: So he had the same character that whole time to
Speaker 1: not break it.
Speaker 5: Or Yeah, he was in the trailer like he had
Speaker 5: this look in his eyes. I'll never forget.
Speaker 6: I thought like he and he was watching Ken Burns
Speaker 6: documentary on was it on Felonious Monk And I think he.
Speaker 1: Felt like that.
Speaker 6: I think that's what his character would watch. But he
Speaker 6: had the whole set and he was just watching documentary
Speaker 6: at the documentary and his channel, which.
Speaker 1: Now which my relationship is based on Felonious Monks. Kim
Speaker 1: the Kim Burns Stalone's documentary.
Speaker 5: By the way, Yeah, that's wild because that's that's what
Speaker 5: he was watching.
Speaker 3: Training day was project number what for you?
Speaker 5: That was my first movie.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you about filming and Philly and doing
Speaker 4: shadow Boxer and their role and working with Lee Daniels. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that role that you played even in Dying.
Speaker 5: Just no, yeah, yeah, can.
Speaker 4: You talk about that and how that came about and
Speaker 4: what was it like doing Bad Way?
Speaker 5: It was the same Lee. Lee came to see me
Speaker 5: and that you know, that.
Speaker 6: Was Lee's first directing he had he had he had
Speaker 6: produced Monster's Ball, but that was his first directing.
Speaker 1: And what's that the one he worked on with Damon
Speaker 1: Dash Yeah.
Speaker 5: Okay, Damon gave him the money. Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1: I've seen the clip I went.
Speaker 5: I went to a party with Lee and Lee is
Speaker 5: like he'll just walk up to people and say, I'm
Speaker 5: making a movie. This was way back when he was
Speaker 5: starting out. I'm trying to make this movie. You got
Speaker 5: their money, like seriously, like.
Speaker 4: All day.
Speaker 1: Yes, the original.
Speaker 5: Door he was me.
Speaker 6: He wouldn't care and I've never seen that before, no fear,
Speaker 6: and he raised the money.
Speaker 1: But that is very much a d Daniel's thing.
Speaker 3: That's my favorite.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Oh really wow, I just yeah, so we hit
Speaker 5: it off and then I did the movie.
Speaker 4: It's cool, but you didn't answer if asked, are you
Speaker 4: are you planning on getting jumping back into a little
Speaker 4: bit of acting. I know you've got an album you're
Speaker 4: working on and whatnot, but what about the acting.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: No, my record's coming out, and then I'm doing a
Speaker 6: movie in October, and then I got a horror flick
Speaker 6: coming out in April.
Speaker 5: I did my first horror movie, really really with who
Speaker 5: assist this new girl? Her name is Jess Farley, just Varley.
Speaker 5: She's only twenty six. It's the first movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, I got a sick mind.
Speaker 5: It's actually pretty good a shot, really really good, Mace.
Speaker 1: I totally forgot one of my all time favorite moments
Speaker 1: with you in any medium. M you gotta tell me.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you remember this or I
Speaker 1: don't even know if you know what how how viral
Speaker 1: this moment was. But do you have any memories whatsoever
Speaker 1: of the New Year's Eve night of twenty thirteen, that
Speaker 1: whole Jamie Kennedy thing with Bone Thugs and Harmony and
Speaker 1: you and whoever else was on that show. Have you
Speaker 1: guys ever seen this clip at all? This is a
Speaker 1: hell of a setup.
Speaker 2: If you don't remember what yeh? God?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there were midgets and like, no, you guys
Speaker 1: don't this you know again, was this two thousand? I
Speaker 1: think it was twenty eleven, twenty twelve, whatever it was.
Speaker 1: If the only way I can describe it is if
Speaker 1: if the white version of Funky Finger Productions from a
Speaker 1: living color, if they were allowed to throw Dick Clark's
Speaker 1: Rock and New Year's Eve Special, but kind of with
Speaker 1: a finesse of like Wayne's World, like public access. So
Speaker 1: it's one of the things where like, you know, the
Speaker 1: host doesn't know the cameras on him, and they'll be like,
Speaker 1: wat told the pitcher, give me some fried chicken. Huh oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of that. A fistfight breaks out
Speaker 1: on stage over two drunk girls, a bone you know,
Speaker 1: busy bone was in rare busy bone moment and if oh.
Speaker 6: You don't even know my band got robbed wait that night, Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's not even yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Was going to say it. Just just google Jamie Kennedy
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve Special, Los Angeles and I'm good right now.
Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest. I think the version that's
Speaker 1: on the internet now is sort of a condensed like
Speaker 1: maybe six minute version, but the entire production is and
Speaker 1: like Macy counts down to midnight and it's still like
Speaker 1: maybe like eleven o four. She's like, it's like three
Speaker 1: two one, and the producers are like, no, Macy's not
Speaker 1: even midnight. He said, well, so just act like it's
Speaker 1: New Year's half and then you know, like it. It
Speaker 1: was so horrible that I knew that I knew it
Speaker 1: was like MacArthur MacArthur genius levels of just excellence. That's
Speaker 1: how bad it was. It was the best thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3: It's called a fail on a couple of the videos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got it, you gotta watch it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I discovered after seeing if there were any
Speaker 1: more busy bone moments that need to be witnessed besides
Speaker 1: his uh, I'm saying this lightly his drunken rant, but
Speaker 1: box it wasn't alcohol.
Speaker 5: And they had us in the same dressing room.
Speaker 6: Well it was like a big room, but the room
Speaker 6: and there was like a little divider between us.
Speaker 1: So you weren't aware that this was like a highly
Speaker 1: viral movement for the internet.
Speaker 4: No, we are.
Speaker 5: First of all, we were super drunk. Everybody was drunk.
Speaker 5: But I didn't know.
Speaker 6: I've been drunk on New Year's even done shows great.
Speaker 6: I didn't know it was gonna go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't the drunk part. Yes, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of drunk parts, but it was just like the
Speaker 1: the production was horrible. Everything was shanky, the you know,
Speaker 1: the jokes weren't landing. The host didn't know where he
Speaker 1: had to be, Like, it was horrible.
Speaker 5: It was horrible. I can't believe you remember that.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite thing to watch, Like I'll be say,
Speaker 1: three times a year, three times a year, I'll watched
Speaker 1: that ship. Do you have do you have memories of
Speaker 1: of doing the fail Out Project with us?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 5: I tell everybody about that. That was another time and
Speaker 5: you just called me up and you're like, hey, come down,
Speaker 5: and you know, you know nowadays when people say that
Speaker 5: you gotta call your manager and you got to.
Speaker 6: Your assistant hester but it was just like okay, and
Speaker 6: I came down and we did it. And that's the
Speaker 6: night I met the Angelo, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Now considered that the last night of Voodoo, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was close chapter of it. But he was really impressed,
Speaker 1: like he knew he knew of you. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think after the session, when you and him did
Speaker 1: the vocal session together. Yeah, he hit me up like, yo, man, yo,
Speaker 1: I really fucks with her, man, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: know that, Like he was really he I think he
Speaker 1: was like kicking himself that he didn't at least jump
Speaker 1: on the bandwagon before or what you know, like two
Speaker 1: years earlier, because I mean this was two thousand now,
Speaker 1: But like he was really kicking himself that he didn't
Speaker 1: pay attention in ninety eight when he should have been
Speaker 1: paying attention, Like he didn't realize, like yo, like she
Speaker 1: has chops, like I fox with it like that.
Speaker 5: But yeah, but then I never heard from him again.
Speaker 5: He was like, yeah, there's too someone and I never heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, his next album came out fifteen
Speaker 1: years later, so.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 5: I've never talked about that.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about working with why did why did
Speaker 1: you choose Dallas Austin when you did the trouble with
Speaker 1: being myself out and like what how was your working
Speaker 1: relationship with him in the studio?
Speaker 5: So that was that was different. That was the first time,
Speaker 5: like Polly poly Anthony, she was ahead of the label
Speaker 5: and I know probly passed.
Speaker 2: Poly Anthony.
Speaker 5: Yeah, wow, I.
Speaker 1: Didn't know that ship. Oh damn, I didn't know that fun. Yeah, damn,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you hear that. No, was the chance like
Speaker 1: the last of the last of I won't say the Mohicans,
Speaker 1: but definitely the lasted damn.
Speaker 6: So she had me like meat producers, like, because my
Speaker 6: first two albums, I just decided who I wanted, and
Speaker 6: well Andy kind of came in. But but it wasn't
Speaker 6: a choice, she said, and he's going to produce your record.
Speaker 6: And then I was like, okay, so, but this is
Speaker 6: the first time I like set with producers and they
Speaker 6: played me.
Speaker 5: Stuff and.
Speaker 6: On this record with Andy, No, No, I mean, he's
Speaker 6: a great but we just fought. It was too much
Speaker 6: like Firelight far all the time. So I met with Dallas,
Speaker 6: and Dallas was like he just kept talking about how
Speaker 6: much he loved, you know, the songs that.
Speaker 5: I had and blah blah blah. He's kind of juiced
Speaker 5: me up and I felt for it. It's like, okay,
Speaker 5: that was it?
Speaker 1: Was it? Was it not?
Speaker 10: Was it not a pleasant experience or were you not
Speaker 10: pleased with the outcome of those songs that y'all did together?
Speaker 5: No, we we have fun. He's hard to it's hard
Speaker 5: to get him to sit. You know, he's very we
Speaker 5: were much.
Speaker 6: Younger at the time, so we both just had a
Speaker 6: lot going on and so it was cool we got
Speaker 6: it done, but I think he got.
Speaker 5: Upset with me because some of his ideas I didn't like.
Speaker 6: And you know, there's always a first So that was
Speaker 6: like the first time I had been in with.
Speaker 5: Somebody like him, and and I didn't you know, like
Speaker 5: now I would handle it totally differently.
Speaker 1: And also thing with single choices, man like for that
Speaker 1: album like Come Together, I felt it would have been
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 5: And you know, oh my god, the fact that you
Speaker 5: know that song is so.
Speaker 1: May see, I'm an actual fan of yours, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not just like, oh yeah, I know her and she's
Speaker 1: singing as I try, like, I know your entire discography,
Speaker 1: trust me about stuff. Well then okay, so what I well,
Speaker 1: first of all, shortly before she pat well, I mean
Speaker 1: she passed in twenty sixteen. But what was it like
Speaker 1: working with Natalie Cole? I know that she was on
Speaker 1: you used her on the big album? Yeah, what was
Speaker 1: it like? But even more than that, I gotta know,
Speaker 1: what's it like working with Ron Fair? Like in my
Speaker 1: mind and I hope, I hope. I don't get you know,
Speaker 1: don't you don't ever want to rock the boat of
Speaker 1: Ron Fair or Jimmy Iving when you talk about them.
Speaker 1: But you know, Ron always when I think of like
Speaker 1: when they talk about like a suit, you know, like
Speaker 1: when there's a suit in the room and people like
Speaker 1: trying to be creative, like that's Ron and Ron, like
Speaker 1: he infamously told Will I Am. This is when Will
Speaker 1: was pondering whether or not to put Fergie in the
Speaker 1: group or not, and Ron says, well, you know, look,
Speaker 1: I know you guys have your fantasies of being like
Speaker 1: the Roots, but you know you could either be like
Speaker 1: the roots or you can win and sell some units.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do? And I know, but
Speaker 1: I'm not offended because that that's how Ron. Ron's just
Speaker 1: cutting dry, like yeah, yeah, he always gives you his
Speaker 1: unsolicited opinion, like if you guys just had a girl
Speaker 1: in the group, and you know, you guys would win too.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to tell him, like, you know, just
Speaker 1: winning isn't just like that's not my life goal just
Speaker 1: to win that sort of thing. But what was it
Speaker 1: like working with him on this album?
Speaker 6: He's very you know, precise, and you know everything is
Speaker 6: really big orchestral.
Speaker 5: And thought out and stuff like that, and you know
Speaker 5: he's run fair.
Speaker 6: He was always really nice to me. I hear a
Speaker 6: lot of horror stories, but he was always really nice
Speaker 6: to me.
Speaker 5: I don't know, but you know I did. I Will
Speaker 5: did that.
Speaker 1: Label. I didn't know how much he produced it. There
Speaker 1: there's one joint on there that I there's one joint
Speaker 1: on there I loved called okay, And I always wanted
Speaker 1: to know if the Neptune had anything to do with
Speaker 1: that or.
Speaker 5: Justin Timberlake wrote that song.
Speaker 1: There you Go Okay. I felt there was like at
Speaker 1: least a one degree to Pharrell and then by the
Speaker 1: way the bridge sounded and all that, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know this, but you know, because we were past
Speaker 1: the CD era, I never once looked up the credits
Speaker 1: and whatnot.
Speaker 10: So Masie, I wanted to always to ask you about
Speaker 10: the song love Won't Wait off the Black Eyed Peas
Speaker 10: first album that was. That was my favorite song on
Speaker 10: that album and I loved your performed song. Do you
Speaker 10: have any memories of doing that song?
Speaker 1: The session for it? It's always honest.
Speaker 3: In your mind.
Speaker 4: Do you have memories like the favorite Cowboy collaboration moments though,
Speaker 4: because you've done so many, I mean even a mere
Speaker 4: asking for about Nighty Cole, I forget, Like I forgot
Speaker 4: all about that. But are there some memorable ones in
Speaker 4: your head to stick out the most?
Speaker 5: Stick out the most?
Speaker 6: Probably I was I did a record with Robin Think
Speaker 6: and then he left to go out to dinner and
Speaker 6: he never came back.
Speaker 1: Speaking of.
Speaker 4: Record, and y'all never spoke after that ever.
Speaker 6: I mean I run into him, but okay, and it
Speaker 6: was it was a Ryan Fair record, which supposed to
Speaker 6: do and it just never came back.
Speaker 1: Oh record you you you gave? I think you you gave.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: He gave hip Boy one of his first looks, like
Speaker 1: how did you How did you cheer him? Especially before
Speaker 1: you know, his his blow with niggas in Paris and
Speaker 1: all the other stuff that he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 5: At the record plant.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 6: I was at the record plant and he was with
Speaker 6: I forget, but he came in my room and he
Speaker 6: just said, hey, you know, I'm a producer and you know,
Speaker 6: blah blah blah. And then I'll call him to see
Speaker 6: what he had.
Speaker 5: And we worked together, you know, Okay, he was just hustling.
Speaker 5: But I always I keep my EyeT for like, I
Speaker 5: listened to everything, like people come up to me and
Speaker 5: because you just never know, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: So people want to play me stuff. I said, then,
Speaker 5: and listen, you just.
Speaker 3: Said that out loud.
Speaker 4: You really mean it because you know, I mean so
Speaker 4: she just said that out loud. So I mean, if
Speaker 4: it wasn't happening before, now people are listening like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: I feel comfortable just handed me.
Speaker 5: But that's how I met for Pharrell. Actually, and I
Speaker 5: did a record with Farel.
Speaker 6: He was nineteen and nobody knew who he was, not
Speaker 6: really he did.
Speaker 5: It was me and Guru, I could call it.
Speaker 10: It was on the it was all I said. It
Speaker 10: was all I said. All I said, I forgot one
Speaker 10: the streets, so three of the streets Soloe it was
Speaker 10: the one was certified.
Speaker 1: I was about I forgot you were on that record.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was like, they were like, there's this new kid,
Speaker 6: and I mean, you know, and I went to the studio.
Speaker 5: And it came out cool. He was out but not
Speaker 5: like he wasn't frail yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just he still had the mustache. Yeah, yeah, still
Speaker 1: the mustache. I always wanted to know this, and I've
Speaker 1: never heard this before, But how what was the what
Speaker 1: was the idea of covering the entire Talking Book album
Speaker 1: by Stevie Wonder? Whose idea was that?
Speaker 5: That was? Okay, you know how how Wilner, he's the
Speaker 5: he's I know, yeah, me too, I love him. So
Speaker 5: he had this idea. He was like, nobody's ever covered
Speaker 5: the whole album, and and then he had some ideas
Speaker 5: and one and then and Talking Book is like the
Speaker 5: one album I know backwards and forwards. I know every word,
Speaker 5: every beat.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 6: So we did that when I was on this little
Speaker 6: label and I could do whatever I want, So we
Speaker 6: just we just won the seal dance. But then you
Speaker 6: follow the house though everybody's plugged in, and.
Speaker 1: But then you followed it up with another cover album, Like,
Speaker 1: what was the the logic behind that just get covered?
Speaker 1: Was at least half covered? Was covered? All covered songs?
Speaker 5: Or just no, it was all It was all covers, Okay, some.
Speaker 1: That were obvious hit singles and some that were like
Speaker 1: cool album cuts.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I was on this little label and and
Speaker 6: my manager didn't think I should give them any big
Speaker 6: records or something. I mean that I probably shouldn't have
Speaker 6: announced that book.
Speaker 1: The whole goal was to shoot your shot, like no
Speaker 1: matter what.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no not in some In some cases you should
Speaker 5: shoot your shot. Not always. But but.
Speaker 6: There was this little label and and my my manager
Speaker 6: didn't think they were capable of, like, you know, properly
Speaker 6: promoting a song, and so he was like, it's just
Speaker 6: too covers and then let's get up out of there,
Speaker 6: and so we'll just covered. But some of my favorite
Speaker 6: songs of mine are on are on that record. I
Speaker 6: know I shouldn't have said that.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's just honesty.
Speaker 5: I take it back, I take it back, give me
Speaker 5: another excuse.
Speaker 4: Still talk some good songs. It don't really matter, it's
Speaker 4: like good. I was like, I'm going down on this covered.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know about that.
Speaker 5: No cover, some good records on it.
Speaker 1: Of your canon, what's your favorite out them?
Speaker 5: Uh, probably definitely my first one to d and then
Speaker 5: my last one I love.
Speaker 6: I did an album called I Think It's Yeah, Ruby's
Speaker 6: good album.
Speaker 1: Someone called that returned to four. Is there anyone that
Speaker 1: you've yet to work with that you would like to I.
Speaker 5: Actually got the song on my new album, I want
Speaker 5: you to play, and I was gonna send it to.
Speaker 1: You, send it to me, give her your emails.
Speaker 4: And is that the one that I think Susie sent
Speaker 4: us to Spotify?
Speaker 6: Is that it's not it's not a it's really actually
Speaker 6: like a like a breakdown in the song and you
Speaker 6: kind of.
Speaker 5: Just do some solo ship.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's out right right, Mae, it's out the song
Speaker 4: you talk.
Speaker 5: About, No, not the song for a quest.
Speaker 6: But there's a song okay, so everybody listens stream a
Speaker 6: song called thinking of You, and then there's a song
Speaker 6: out called Deer America.
Speaker 5: Because we're setting up my album, because is this.
Speaker 4: The first time you're doing it? Correct if I'm wrong
Speaker 4: a jazz record.
Speaker 5: No, I've done a jazz record.
Speaker 6: This is at my first minute. So my I've been
Speaker 6: with my touring band for about five years. So we
Speaker 6: decided to be official so called Macy Gray in the
Speaker 6: California Jet Club.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, ask.
Speaker 3: Where did that name come from?
Speaker 5: It's really boring. So we all live in California. We
Speaker 5: fly a lot's club.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I didn't come up with I would
Speaker 6: have came up with some way better. No, it's cool,
Speaker 6: but so yeah, thinking of you. If you go on Spotify,
Speaker 6: you look up Macy Gray in the California Jet Club.
Speaker 5: You guys would love Dear America. That's my favorite. But
Speaker 5: it's a good record.
Speaker 1: Okay, damn you know what? I did have one question
Speaker 1: about whose idea was it to do the stripped album
Speaker 1: the way you did it? Steve? What's what's the technical
Speaker 1: term I'm looking for? Do you remember.
Speaker 2: By normal?
Speaker 1: How did you know before I even ask? Because nevermind,
Speaker 1: forget it, this is why we quest love supre But yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the what was the decision to make it
Speaker 1: by a normal? Which I assume that it was basically
Speaker 1: two strategically placed microphones in the room? Oh, just one microphone.
Speaker 1: The Cowboy Junkies first did this idea? Correct? I believe
Speaker 1: were they infamously went to this church to record this album.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you placed one microphone perfectly in the center
Speaker 1: of the room, and I guess each musician has to
Speaker 1: fall in proximity to that microphone so that the balance
Speaker 1: is perfect and you all play at the same time.
Speaker 5: We did out of church in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like an audio version of Dogma ninety five,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's it's a challenging sound to achieve. But
Speaker 1: was that your idea or just your producer at the time.
Speaker 5: Or No, there's a Cheskey Records. Do you know nor
Speaker 5: I mean Cheskey, No, I don't.
Speaker 6: He owns a jazz label called Cheskey Records, and he
Speaker 6: does most of the albums on his label like that, okay,
Speaker 6: because there's no there's no mix, of course, and you
Speaker 6: get it all done in two days, like you go
Speaker 6: rehearse and then you go and.
Speaker 5: You cut it.
Speaker 6: But it's back in the day, I mean one of
Speaker 6: the most of the old records cut like that alone. Yeah, no,
Speaker 6: but I love it, love the way it sounds, and
Speaker 6: I love the way that record sounds. But yeah, we
Speaker 6: all got in kind of a what do you call it,
Speaker 6: like a U shape around the mic, and we cut
Speaker 6: half of it one day and the next day we
Speaker 6: cut the other half. I'm sitting there thinking I'm gonna
Speaker 6: go back and do my vocals over so because I
Speaker 6: wasn't like it just didn't hit me like you.
Speaker 5: This is it.
Speaker 1: Oh you didn't know it's final.
Speaker 5: It was. It's really final.
Speaker 6: That's the only thing that would be cool for the roots,
Speaker 6: though you guys would kill that.
Speaker 3: Oh God, something you'll haven't done.
Speaker 1: I would love to, but I don't know sonically we
Speaker 1: can achieve that.
Speaker 5: But you know, I mean no, there's people that the
Speaker 5: people that know how to do that with will hook
Speaker 5: it up for you.
Speaker 7: Steve Let's real engineer would would know how to do that.
Speaker 1: Before before I.
Speaker 5: Wrap up, yes, we got to talk about my goods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the charity.
Speaker 1: Can I get that question out?
Speaker 8: Okay, we beat you to the spot, right, that's a
Speaker 8: sports term, the spot to the spot.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I have a question. I have a question. What is
Speaker 5: that on your shoulder that's driving me crazy? What is
Speaker 5: that for me?
Speaker 1: Steve shoulder? That is oh wow, Dean Ricky. They make
Speaker 1: those lego hearts for me. Now they're making a Donuts line.
Speaker 5: But did the jacket come like that and you put
Speaker 5: that on there?
Speaker 1: No, No, I just put it on the jacket because
Speaker 1: this is green and the jacket's green.
Speaker 3: So you know, forgetting to go to the Instagram page. Okay,
Speaker 3: every time.
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought it was too No,
Speaker 1: it's a Donuts.
Speaker 3: They dope brothers though. Yeah, I'm glad to be a
Speaker 3: rock dad.
Speaker 1: They make awesome brooches.
Speaker 2: You should rock the bagel one bill.
Speaker 4: Saying.
Speaker 1: They just they just hit me three weeks ago. They're
Speaker 1: sending me a locks and bagel. They they actually paired
Speaker 1: up with uh, some high end Brooklyn deli to do
Speaker 1: locks and bagel. So they're going to send me one.
Speaker 1: So I'll rocket for you, or or I'll ask you
Speaker 1: permission rock and rocket. Yeah, but what what I was
Speaker 1: asking you, Mace, was about my Good dot org. Could
Speaker 1: you explain sort of the process of you starting this foundation?
Speaker 6: So My Good is, Uh, what we do is we
Speaker 6: support the families who've lost loved ones due to police violence.
Speaker 6: M that we come in and help with funeral costs,
Speaker 6: a lot of medical bills, mental health services, a lot
Speaker 6: of families, you know, they get sold down and depressed,
Speaker 6: they lose everything. So we've had to get a couple
Speaker 6: of moms, uh housing. It's I think, you know, people
Speaker 6: get all into their opinion of it and you forget
Speaker 6: that someone's actually living the death, someone's death. You know,
Speaker 6: lost a kid, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 6: so that's that's what we do. It just started in
Speaker 6: July and and I'm really proud of it. You know,
Speaker 6: we want to make a difference. We want to help
Speaker 6: change laws and stuff like that. But it's it's mostly
Speaker 6: financial support because of what the families go through after
Speaker 6: especially you know, you hear about all the court cases.
Speaker 6: I mean that's lawyers, lawyers and all kinds of I mean,
Speaker 6: you have no idea what they go through. A lot
Speaker 6: of a lot of you know, moms and dads break
Speaker 6: up after there's been suicides.
Speaker 5: A lot of.
Speaker 6: Families fall into like addiction and stuff like that. So
Speaker 6: so we're just there to help people get back on
Speaker 6: their feet and help them get through it.
Speaker 1: And people can go to it's my good dot org
Speaker 1: m y g o O D dot org.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you go there, you donate, or you can go
Speaker 5: on the email if you want to be a part
Speaker 5: of it and just support and stuff like that. But
Speaker 5: we're doing good.
Speaker 6: I mean it's new, so so it's just coming together,
Speaker 6: but we're doing good. We're gonna make a documentary and
Speaker 6: we have our own shoe coming out.
Speaker 3: Your own Shoe.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're gonna sell shoes to help raise money for
Speaker 6: the foundation.
Speaker 5: They're pretty deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody sells yo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they like sneakers or they like a little slippings.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 3: The website.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you. I saw the the interview
Speaker 1: you did on on on Oprah. Oh god, I wanted no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was it was. It was amazing to see that.
Speaker 1: But what I want to know is, in sort of
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, how how have you been handling uh
Speaker 1: staying clear and staying focused and kind of well sober.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, how how have you been
Speaker 1: handling it?
Speaker 5: I haven't. I'm sucked up right now. I'm just kidding, okay,
Speaker 5: so let me see.
Speaker 1: Let me send the show.
Speaker 5: But my mother was here that kept me in line.
Speaker 5: I mean, not that I don't have h I got.
Speaker 6: I got away from that, so I'm proper healthy and
Speaker 6: a lot more mature now. But my mother made us
Speaker 6: all be good while she was here, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: And then and then I started working on my record,
Speaker 6: so I was always in the studio. And then you know,
Speaker 6: like that binge watch like everybody else, and I learned
Speaker 6: how to cook and all that bullshit.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't that OR learned other things to cook.
Speaker 5: I can I could cook better. To put it that way,
Speaker 5: I like, like I got all.
Speaker 6: Into my spices and my season and stuff. Stuff I
Speaker 6: had never really worried about before.
Speaker 3: Seasons and spices.
Speaker 5: You know, before you just make a hamburger. You flipped
Speaker 5: a couple of times and put some barbecue sauce. Now
Speaker 5: I'm all into, you know, leming them and put a
Speaker 5: little of this because it was nothing. Yeah, the rubs.
Speaker 5: I didn't even know what a rub was before, ye know.
Speaker 1: You like, I've been paying a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: the spice cabinet, way like, way more than I normally have,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, cinnamon and lemon pepper to reach word.
Speaker 3: But I bought some black garlic the other day.
Speaker 1: Let's go damn salt.
Speaker 4: Everything, treffle oil, garlic oil, all the oils, all the everything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because there was nowhere else to go but the
Speaker 5: grocery store. Everybody got into like, you know, let's get
Speaker 5: some black garlic.
Speaker 3: I ain't yet, but you know it's there.
Speaker 5: Let me see what this is. There's some rub over there.
Speaker 6: I started, like, you know how they have the self checkout,
Speaker 6: you know before I was way too boogie for that,
Speaker 6: Like I'm not checking out?
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 5: I just go to self checkout. This is something that
Speaker 5: is an hour just bagging my little grocery just like
Speaker 5: the highlight of my day. It's horrible a.
Speaker 3: Self self checkout question. Ain't nobody ever just you know,
Speaker 3: not put it across the.
Speaker 10: Bar, like yo, okay, Steve looked me right at that
Speaker 10: point in my life, Steve, I'm ready, I'm looking Steve,
Speaker 10: look me in the eye right now, he'll know we're
Speaker 10: now fourth floor?
Speaker 1: How honest are you.
Speaker 5: The way.
Speaker 2: Fourth floor?
Speaker 5: Steve?
Speaker 1: Thirty?
Speaker 2: No, I know, I know what you're talking about. That
Speaker 2: vending machines there were food in them.
Speaker 1: But I've now it's a level of trust on the floor,
Speaker 1: a thirty rock that I've never seen.
Speaker 10: It's so that I purposely like, don't tell me more,
Speaker 10: just to not just to offset the niggas is still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, because on the fourth floor there's just a complete,
Speaker 1: like grocery store that's just isolated, Like if I wanted to,
Speaker 1: I could just grab like sixteen yogurts if I wanted
Speaker 1: to or whatever, and.
Speaker 2: A lot to carry.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, wait, they trust us to do this,
Speaker 1: Like I could literally just walk out here with an
Speaker 1: entire refrigerator of how do you pay for it?
Speaker 2: Aren't you supposed to pay for it?
Speaker 1: No? You're paid. They they trust that you will be
Speaker 1: honest and paid for it, which I know they're not watching.
Speaker 2: Oh actually wow, But.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wanted to know if you ever have
Speaker 1: the temptation to just like it, you know.
Speaker 3: And target every once and again.
Speaker 1: Well, I believe in. So that's why I'm not done.
Speaker 3: Y'all get on my nerves, dude.
Speaker 1: It's real, right, You're right, right, it's real. It comes back.
Speaker 3: I'll take those earrings back.
Speaker 1: Anywhow may see you're man.
Speaker 10: I was gonna say for you wrap a mere Basically,
Speaker 10: there's a connection I have, Well, you have with two
Speaker 10: bandmates of mine. I sing in a band called the
Speaker 10: Foreign Exchange and one of my bandmates that I sing with,
Speaker 10: Carmen Rogers.
Speaker 1: She did a this is back in two thousand and one.
Speaker 10: She was working for a high end like this high
Speaker 10: end design firm in Dallas or whatever, and they had
Speaker 10: like a Christmas party or whatever, and they her boss
Speaker 10: thought it would be a cool idea for her to
Speaker 10: imitate Macy Grey, because she does she still does, like
Speaker 10: a really good Macy Gray personation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so her boss was like, Okay, I think
Speaker 1: this would be cool. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Do it.
Speaker 10: So at the time, Karma had a big red fro
Speaker 10: and she went and they go into the party whatever,
Speaker 10: and they really thought it was her, so people start.
Speaker 1: Crying and hypervent leadership.
Speaker 10: They eventually had to rush her out the fucking building
Speaker 10: because they really thought so. She just wanted me to
Speaker 10: just tell you that. Hell and also and also a
Speaker 10: very a very dear friend, Cy Smith.
Speaker 1: You, she just told me.
Speaker 10: She was just telling you to tell you, say what's up.
Speaker 10: She said, it was a blast to one with you
Speaker 10: and she just wanted me to see you some love.
Speaker 6: Yes, well, sEH, I thank you for thank ye, thank
Speaker 6: you for for doing this with us.
Speaker 3: Your patience is amazing. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: Don't forget to check out. She was here.
Speaker 1: She was here at like six thirty.
Speaker 4: She telling people like y'all arete the gold, tell them
Speaker 4: to wrap this ship.
Speaker 3: Like you know, she just roll with us.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that's what's up, okay, keeping us hons No, yeah,
Speaker 1: but thank you, thank you for doing the show. And
Speaker 1: we we appreciate and we're fans of yours and we
Speaker 1: love you on behalf of Laya and Sue, Steve and
Speaker 1: paid Bill Fine, take a little my name is quest
Speaker 1: Love and another episode of quest Love Supreme. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. See I'm the next an yo.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: This is fante.
Speaker 10: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 10: QLs and let us know what you think and.
Speaker 1: We should be next to sit down with us. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right.
Speaker 2: DC.
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