Speaker 1: Pushkin why Cleft John had spent the last three decades
Speaker 1: as one of the most impactful rappers, producers, and composers
Speaker 1: in popular music. As a part of the Fujis, he
Speaker 1: helped craft their nineteen ninety six landmark album The Score,
Speaker 1: one of the best selling hip hop albums of all
Speaker 1: time and personally one of my favorites. The following year,
Speaker 1: he released his debut solo album, The Carnival, which included
Speaker 1: hits like Guantanamera featuring Celia Cruz and the platinum certified
Speaker 1: single Gone Till November. As a writer and producer for
Speaker 1: other artists, Wycliffe is behind Whitney Houston's My Love Is
Speaker 1: Your Love, Santana's Maria Maria Shakira's Hips Don't Lie, and
Speaker 1: the Destiny's Child remix of No, No No, which was
Speaker 1: their breakout single. Today, we're bringing you a live conversation
Speaker 1: recorded at the On Air Podcast Festival, where I was
Speaker 1: joined by special guest host Sam Sanders to sit down
Speaker 1: with wyclef. We get into what it was really like
Speaker 1: in the studio with Whitney here Houston, how the Fuji
Speaker 1: shaped their sound while recording The Score, and the wisdom
Speaker 1: y Cleft would pass on to his younger self about
Speaker 1: what makes a great creative collaboration. This is broken record,
Speaker 1: real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with y Clef.
Speaker 1: Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broke a Record
Speaker 1: podcast if you'd like to watch.
Speaker 2: Without further ado, justin Richmond and why Cleff Jean, come
Speaker 2: on out, come on out.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, welcome.
Speaker 1: You know are you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in charge, boss man.
Speaker 1: Man. I'm so happy here with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: It's James Bird.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I remember one time we did an interview twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and uh we were talking about something and you were like,
Speaker 1: you know, it'd be easy if I just showed you,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, we don't got a guitar.
Speaker 1: We got up, We walked around this office building, every
Speaker 1: damn room. We found the most busted guitar missing, the
Speaker 1: string wouldn't stay in tune. You tuned that thing up.
Speaker 1: It was a miracle. I don't know how you tuned it.
Speaker 1: Tune that thing up and played it like like Billboard is.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Andrix combined was like the craziest thing. And that's
Speaker 1: when I realized, I mean, I always knew you were
Speaker 1: a great songwriter, great vocalist, great producer, great. But I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, why Cleff is a player? Man? Like
Speaker 1: y Clef is a musician a player, and not a
Speaker 1: player in that way, but I mean a music player.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe, but you really, you really are an incredible,
Speaker 1: incredible musician.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, not.
Speaker 1: Everyone, not everyone can just do that on a you know,
Speaker 1: we just go find a random beat up, bust the
Speaker 1: guitar with the missing stream and play it.
Speaker 3: You know, what did you play that day? Do you remember?
Speaker 5: I just tuned the guitar and then I just started
Speaker 5: just playing, you know, playing chords, playing perfect fifths, just
Speaker 5: having fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But for me, like uh, instruments. It started for me
Speaker 5: like in Haiti, I would say I left, I left.
Speaker 5: Oh there's always one Haitian somewhere, so right, so that
Speaker 5: that's why you see the flag. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 5: I say, like it starts for me in that small,
Speaker 5: tiny village.
Speaker 3: Man, how old were you when?
Speaker 5: Like I was, I was like four, Like my aunt
Speaker 5: will tell you like my first song was to my
Speaker 5: straight Dogs. It's the worst, probably the worst song I
Speaker 5: ever wrote. But tell us I'll tell you this song.
Speaker 5: It's terrible. So what happened though, was I used to
Speaker 5: in this village like straight dogs would constantly come and
Speaker 5: I would feed them. And then one day it was
Speaker 5: marti gra Carnival. And then so I put a bunch
Speaker 5: of tar on me, like tar, like black tar you
Speaker 5: gave your h So I was like, and then I
Speaker 5: put a bunch of like rags and then just creating
Speaker 5: an outfit for carnival, right, And then I'm out there
Speaker 5: and then the dogs see me and they literally all
Speaker 5: come to attack me because they couldn't recognize me. And
Speaker 5: then when they jumped on me, and I was like
Speaker 5: gulliblebib and then they all just started licking me. So
Speaker 5: my aunt was like, that's his first song, the worst
Speaker 5: song I've ever wrote, but saved my life.
Speaker 1: What did it mean?
Speaker 5: It was just the tone, right, because because the the
Speaker 5: the music is built from vibration, So lyrics are what
Speaker 5: we put afterwards. We just feel an expression, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying before words, it's an expression.
Speaker 2: So interesting then you're saying that the lyrics come afterwards.
Speaker 2: When you're writing a song, are you thinking mel first
Speaker 2: or are you thinking lyrics first?
Speaker 5: It comes melody at times mostly melodies. Yeah, rap wise though,
Speaker 5: because I was a battle rapper. That's how I learned
Speaker 5: how to speak English words. Was fierce, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. So I would write raps depending on who
Speaker 5: I'm about to battle. That's how I would write my schemes.
Speaker 5: But when it came to like song writing, it all
Speaker 5: came from the church. So I would just hear melodies first.
Speaker 4: What kind of church?
Speaker 5: So my dad grew up in Haiti when he came
Speaker 5: to Brooklyn, it's a church of the Nazarene, so it's
Speaker 5: very it's like Pentecostal. It's literally like club church, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like, if you missed the Club,
Speaker 5: come to our church on Sunday, you're gonna get that
Speaker 5: same energy.
Speaker 1: It's incredible to say. But it's been thirty years since
Speaker 1: The Score, which is for me, the Score one of
Speaker 1: the foundational albums of this This is gonna be like
Speaker 1: maybe blasphemings to certain people, but for me, when I
Speaker 1: think about The Score, I think about it like it's
Speaker 1: like hip hop's Abbey Road in the sense of there's
Speaker 1: great music. There's great rock music after Abbey Road. But
Speaker 1: it could have stopped there and we would have been fine,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And as much hip hop
Speaker 1: came after the Score that I love, and I love
Speaker 1: a lot of it. If we had just stopped right
Speaker 1: there at the score, we was good. That was it,
Speaker 1: I mean incredible and much like the Beatles too, the
Speaker 1: sum of all those parts man incredible. But I want
Speaker 1: to play something real quick, because your first album blunted
Speaker 1: on reality. You guys put it out and to your
Speaker 1: point of being a battle rapper. It was very for
Speaker 1: the people who know out there. Maybe this makes sense,
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't. Very fool schnickings in a way. It was
Speaker 1: heavy on the round underground, heavy on the boom, bat
Speaker 1: heaving on the like you know, dope rhyme schemes and
Speaker 1: is it okay?
Speaker 4: You're kind? It sold two copies, Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to say it. But then Salon Remy did
Speaker 1: the Nappy Heads remix and I want to play a
Speaker 1: bit of that real quick, and this became a hit
Speaker 1: for you guys.
Speaker 4: Yo, Mona, Lisa, Could I get a date on Friday?
Speaker 5: And if you're busy, I wouldn't in might takeing Saturday, hey, or.
Speaker 4: I don't know, if did pass coming around the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your head it was.
Speaker 4: Shut what you got did? Can I guess some of
Speaker 4: that lyric.
Speaker 3: A cheap of.
Speaker 6: Cheaper y'all, Well, I'm anaik briyall, y'all, darn darn a.
Speaker 4: Cheaper cheaper y'all. Well, I'm a leak briyall y'all, y'all, y'all.
Speaker 6: You on a battle swing my brink comand the man
Speaker 6: like I was king, and all your dreams are right now,
Speaker 6: all replica sleeping kink cling the box almost the face
Speaker 6: and say I got tired as a fat lady, so
Speaker 6: wat sing nobody own our pro but.
Speaker 4: Lit by that.
Speaker 6: So I'm your king died like that because I got
Speaker 6: Saliza Moore girls convinsist. I was wanted to quote, but
Speaker 6: now I'm killing with a good minute assassination on the kid.
Speaker 4: From the Capitol.
Speaker 6: I never played us Omar, but now I'm in general
Speaker 6: Raw hospital.
Speaker 1: And this is the first time classord that's that's not
Speaker 1: that remix.
Speaker 2: I ran back the nineties, spring back the nineties, so I.
Speaker 1: Missed the ninety But that to me, when you listen
Speaker 1: to the the Fuji's in order, like that's the first
Speaker 1: time it sounded like you guys figured the sound out
Speaker 1: like that sounds like what this like? That sounds like
Speaker 1: the genesis of the score. And I never put it
Speaker 1: together until I listened to Blunted in Reality Napihead's remix
Speaker 1: and then the score back to back to back to
Speaker 1: do this because it sounded at the time, it just
Speaker 1: sounded like the score came out fully formed. Everyone immediately
Speaker 1: loved it. And so where did this come from? And
Speaker 1: I was wondering, did working with salam Remi on this
Speaker 1: Napyheads remix? Did that unlock something for the three of
Speaker 1: you guys creatively?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I think the first part about it is so
Speaker 5: growing up in Jersey, we was raised with Cooling a Gang.
Speaker 5: So the first Fuji album was produced by Kalise Beyond
Speaker 5: from Cooling a Gang. So he's like the wizard. He
Speaker 5: did jungle boogie and everything.
Speaker 4: So at a.
Speaker 5: Very early age, I think I was like fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 5: so hanging Aroundalisekalise.
Speaker 4: Took me in as a like a son.
Speaker 5: I was a jazz major in school, so he took
Speaker 5: me in and he started he was like mister Mayagi,
Speaker 5: so he would quiz me and give me all these chops.
Speaker 5: So in the process Kalise was responsible for producing Blunding
Speaker 5: on Reality. So what happens is there was a sound
Speaker 5: out there, so Kalise was like, Okay, I know they
Speaker 5: can rap, but we're going to get them in that sound.
Speaker 5: The best way to explain my relationship with Salam Remy
Speaker 5: it's like Ray Charles and Quincy Jones, because it's like
Speaker 5: I already had everything in my head, but I'm real
Speaker 5: young and I'm doing beats quietly. So like when I
Speaker 5: would go to Salaam, I would share with Salaam, like
Speaker 5: what I'm doing, he would share with me. I actually
Speaker 5: went to see Salam first and then I bought Lauren
Speaker 5: and praz over, so we had an idea of in
Speaker 5: my head, like what I wanted to do, but it's
Speaker 5: like cooling a gang.
Speaker 4: What are you going to say?
Speaker 5: You're gonna shut up and you're gonna eat the l
Speaker 5: and figure it out. So they had a big studio
Speaker 5: in West starring So every time we record, then I
Speaker 5: go back to the hood. When I go back to
Speaker 5: East Starringes, what was being recorded in the hills was
Speaker 5: not sounding like what was coming out of the trunks.
Speaker 5: So in the trunks, me and Jerry Wonder in the
Speaker 5: book of basement. We was literally doing what was coming
Speaker 5: out of the trunks. And this is one last part
Speaker 5: that you had to know. So I ain't want to
Speaker 5: sell dope. So I was like, yo, I gotta figure
Speaker 5: out of hustle because the burger king wasn't working too
Speaker 5: well for me, right, So what I did was like
Speaker 5: I was like, well, everybody on the block they rapping.
Speaker 5: So if we become our own versions of Doctor Dre
Speaker 5: then we don't have to sell dope. We can just
Speaker 5: charge them to do records. So in this concept, we
Speaker 5: literally just started developing a pulse within that vibe. So
Speaker 5: when we all went to see Salam, the first thing
Speaker 5: Salam was like was like, y'all too talented?
Speaker 1: Like y'all over talented, right.
Speaker 5: Because in this industry too, Now you gotta keep it
Speaker 5: stupid like one plus one got it equal to we
Speaker 5: gotta do some knucklehead shit.
Speaker 2: Did they throw out some ideas that they thought were
Speaker 2: too talented?
Speaker 3: They they just.
Speaker 5: Felt like because this group, I mean, I played fourteen instruments,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm a jazz head. I was scoring like
Speaker 5: off Broadway stuff. Lauren was heading to Sister I too.
Speaker 5: She just crushed the apollo so there was a lot.
Speaker 5: It was like, yo, how do you break that? Because
Speaker 5: you see in the industry, it's harder to break sophisticated talent, right,
Speaker 5: you see the because when you have talent that don't
Speaker 5: care about fame but care about artistry and will not
Speaker 5: compromise it, it's like hard. You'll be like, okay, what's
Speaker 5: the middle? And so it was like a Beach Street movie.
Speaker 5: So Salam put on the beat and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 5: just go in the booth and literally, now I'm about
Speaker 5: to see a different style of production. So he puts
Speaker 5: on the snappy head beats and I go into booth first,
Speaker 5: and Salam has a tape where we're wrapping for twenty
Speaker 5: minutes straight.
Speaker 4: So Salam, you listening to this?
Speaker 5: You got to drop this for the thirtieth year anniversary,
Speaker 5: and it's this wizard Salam literally, so we left to
Speaker 5: go to Europe. He went back and then he cut.
Speaker 5: He cut the twenty minutes. It's literally three minutes and
Speaker 5: thirty seconds. And then the minute he did the math,
Speaker 5: something happened in my head too, and I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: I understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can I actually go a follow up on this song?
Speaker 2: So it opens with you singing Mona Lisa, that melody,
Speaker 2: that little ditty that motif ends up and an R
Speaker 2: and B ballad that you make for your solo album,
Speaker 2: The Carnival with the Neville Brothers.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, I'm very.
Speaker 2: Interested in understanding how you take a motif like that
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa riff and have it work for a rap
Speaker 2: song with Silamam producing, and also an R and B
Speaker 2: slow gem with another brother.
Speaker 1: Play the Carnival vision of Mona Lisa Real quid just
Speaker 1: so people get here with Sam's talking.
Speaker 3: One of the greatest love songs.
Speaker 1: This is, by the way, and just for context, one
Speaker 1: year I want to talk about this too, one year
Speaker 1: after the score recorded on tour, you know, promoting the
Speaker 1: school on tour. Yeah, let's hear this.
Speaker 4: My ticket Saturday, right about nine.
Speaker 1: If you want your gee, you gotta hear the Nevills
Speaker 1: on Thistle Up.
Speaker 5: If you don't have a gee, if you have a
Speaker 5: little bode, I still want to the front.
Speaker 4: We want all the ladies fast, relax, let your hair out.
Speaker 4: At least White Left.
Speaker 5: Presents the Neville Brothers in the house tonight.
Speaker 1: I knew.
Speaker 5: She grew.
Speaker 1: Incredible.
Speaker 2: Whatever I can't take that same riff and make it
Speaker 2: work in both.
Speaker 1: I did a party file I'll cut the top Office,
Speaker 1: but we heard it's all good. You know.
Speaker 2: How do you so like when you're doing that, how
Speaker 2: does your mind say? How does your mind know, well,
Speaker 2: this one little riff, it'll be two different songs that
Speaker 2: are very different.
Speaker 3: Like walk me through that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say the best way to understand that is, uh,
Speaker 5: in high school at fifteen years old, my music teacher
Speaker 5: walks in and I'm playing piano and I'm doing circle
Speaker 5: of fifths yeah, and she's like, where do you learn
Speaker 5: that from? And I was like, oh, I just play
Speaker 5: every day and trick and she was like, close your eyes,
Speaker 5: what do you see? And then I said, well, on
Speaker 5: the right side of my eye, I see one, three,
Speaker 5: five and on the left side I see one five.
Speaker 5: So I haven't read music. I didn't understand theory. So
Speaker 5: she was like, tomorrow you're gonna start jazz and I
Speaker 5: was like, nah, jazz ain't for me, it's for old people.
Speaker 5: And I said, I'm gonna be a battle rapper like
Speaker 5: L COOLJ. I got this thing figured out. And then
Speaker 5: she was like, you could do both right, So now
Speaker 5: when once I got into jazz and classical.
Speaker 1: Music because you were seeing scale degrees. The one three
Speaker 1: five and the one five.
Speaker 5: Yeah, y five is a try I one three five
Speaker 5: and then the one five and the left hand. So
Speaker 5: the numbers are the notes of a scale eight, and
Speaker 5: it's like perfect harmony.
Speaker 4: Right, that's the happy one.
Speaker 1: It's perfect.
Speaker 5: So I was a happy baby someone saying that. So
Speaker 5: I fell in love with a few composers, Gershwin, cap Callaway,
Speaker 5: Quincy Jones, Louis Armstrong. Now what did I give from that?
Speaker 5: So when you hear Yo Mona Lisa, can I get,
Speaker 5: It's like, so let's go there, I go there, I
Speaker 5: go there, right, go bye bye.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So in my brain when I do a composition, long
Speaker 5: before the AI, it was I I have literally seven
Speaker 5: different versions in my brain.
Speaker 3: Of what this thinking, of what it is.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So it's like at the end of the day, I
Speaker 5: could do a song and I can hear it in
Speaker 5: a ballad form, and then I can hear it in
Speaker 5: a house form, or I could hear it in the
Speaker 5: reggae form. So all that time when I was hearing,
Speaker 5: I was like, man, I'm obsessed with the meters.
Speaker 4: I was obsessed with Aaron.
Speaker 5: I was like, man, if I could get these guys,
Speaker 5: that would be the R and B version of Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2: Would there ever be another version of Mona Lisa today
Speaker 2: that you made? And if so, what would it be?
Speaker 4: I don't know, Man, we got I think Burnap Boy
Speaker 4: did a version of.
Speaker 1: Its generation. Yeah, we'll be back with more from y
Speaker 1: Cleff after the break. Going back real quick to uh
Speaker 1: to that Salon Rummy story. So you learned? So you
Speaker 1: you when you heard that cut down version of Nappyhead's remix,
Speaker 1: were you you? Instantly? You weren't upset. You knew this
Speaker 1: is what we need to be doing, Like this is
Speaker 1: the right he heard the magic, he cut it to
Speaker 1: the right parts, and this is what we need to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean again, like I understood the math right,
Speaker 5: so like my brain like it's like infinite math.
Speaker 4: So but one plus one equals too. Like he just
Speaker 4: taught me.
Speaker 5: Salim taught me like, all right, if you're not gonna
Speaker 5: be in in Carnegie Hall every week with your instruments
Speaker 5: sitting amongst the orchestra, and you want to be in
Speaker 5: the music business, this is how to go.
Speaker 4: You got to figure it out.
Speaker 5: Because Quincy Jones was doing the sinatra and all of that,
Speaker 5: but then he figured out how to do the other thing.
Speaker 5: So once Shalam did that, my eyes opened up.
Speaker 1: So then what's the I know you got from the label.
Speaker 1: You got a bit of an advance. You buy a
Speaker 1: bunch of equipment, you put it in the basement, the
Speaker 1: book of basement as you call it, the studio, And
Speaker 1: what's the first thing you make then for Because you
Speaker 1: produced all but two songs on the score, So what's
Speaker 1: the first thing you do for that album? Okay?
Speaker 5: So the equipment we got it from a garage cell really, so.
Speaker 1: All the score okay?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so everything you hear from the score, Me and
Speaker 5: my cousin Jerry, and my other cousin. You know, he
Speaker 5: funded us. He was like the chef, so he had
Speaker 5: a higher up job and he funded us. So I
Speaker 5: only tell you this so you understand how my brain works.
Speaker 5: So we went to a garage cell music stunt. Now,
Speaker 5: for my nerds that are watching this, let's just run
Speaker 5: through three things, which is important.
Speaker 1: We bought a four five six.
Speaker 5: Ampex rail big tape machine, so like when you be
Speaker 5: seeing the Ferdie Mercury, and then they cut tapes for
Speaker 5: the backgrounds. It was very important the tape machine. You
Speaker 5: got twenty four tracks, right, the twenty fourth is the
Speaker 5: sympthy that's where the noise come in and you try
Speaker 5: to stay away from that. That was one we bought.
Speaker 5: A second thing we bought was an old MCI board.
Speaker 5: Shout out to one Riker, one of the engineers, and
Speaker 5: this old MCI board just sounded warm, and then we
Speaker 5: just built a bunch of patch base around that. Again,
Speaker 5: we did this ourselves, like the way Steve job was
Speaker 5: doing what was in his garage. It was like, why
Speaker 5: go to pay a million dollars for a knave board
Speaker 5: or an SSL when the soul is inside of your brain,
Speaker 5: inside of your heart, right, So we just figured it out.
Speaker 5: So in saying that, that's how that was the mystery.
Speaker 5: So we did the score inside of that basement. And
Speaker 5: you have to imagine this is thirty something years ago.
Speaker 5: This is thirty years ago dating today. So now a
Speaker 5: child like my daughter or my niece, they literally can
Speaker 5: just pop their computer and do music right from wherever
Speaker 5: they had around the world. So I just say that
Speaker 5: to show you how advanced and how far ahead we
Speaker 5: were when it came to the technology yeah, Yeah, what's
Speaker 5: the first.
Speaker 1: Thing you make with all that You get the pass
Speaker 1: base set up, you got everything together. What's one of
Speaker 1: the first things at least that made the album that
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 5: I would say like along with that, I was obsessed
Speaker 5: with Pink Floyd the Wall. I needed something that had
Speaker 5: space in it, you know what I'm saying. So one
Speaker 5: of the early joints was the Mask. Have you ever
Speaker 5: won the Mask? And this is long before COVID, Like
Speaker 5: rappers have a way of the same ship and then
Speaker 5: years later they gonna be like he was Nustredamis. The
Speaker 5: Mask was one of the early ones because of the
Speaker 5: I don't know if it was like the jazz influence
Speaker 5: and everything. It was pretty amazing. Shout out to John
Speaker 5: Forte who we passed. Yeah, he was like, you know,
Speaker 5: one of one of the architects with the score. Like
Speaker 5: I would say, like the Score, it was like the
Speaker 5: best of like Motown Stacks band. So we just used
Speaker 5: to horn in and people always talk about so we
Speaker 5: were the refugees and then on the other side of
Speaker 5: town we had the outsiders. And then so you had
Speaker 5: two different clicks, the outsiders. Eminem was part of the Outsiders,
Speaker 5: then a Kon was part of the Refugees. So when
Speaker 5: you hear Fuji La the remix, that's Akon.
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, am I I'm getting me on. Y'all don't
Speaker 5: know everything, man, am I'm breaking trivia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, so Akon is like my little brother brother. So
Speaker 5: we was working on the score. Akon used to come
Speaker 5: around and be like, yo, man, listen to this, listen
Speaker 5: to this, and he would be playing his music for me.
Speaker 5: And but we're touring, and I was like, so before
Speaker 5: we finished the score, I was like, yo, the score
Speaker 5: cannot finish without putting this kid on it. And then
Speaker 5: so now when you hear the Fujila remix, well not now,
Speaker 5: when you go back and listen, that's Akon on that
Speaker 5: So I only say that.
Speaker 4: So we said that.
Speaker 5: Akon and then Eminem Inem they crew MMM was part
Speaker 5: of the Outsiders. Then when Eminem had left the Outsiders,
Speaker 5: he went to Detroit to do what he's doing. When
Speaker 5: we did the score, we bought in the Outsiders. So
Speaker 5: we wanted to show that unity. So on this song Cowboys,
Speaker 5: it's like the Refugees and the Outsiders like getting all together,
Speaker 5: you know. John Forte and everybody. So it was pretty
Speaker 5: so so there's a whole cool background of the history.
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking about all of the names that
Speaker 2: you're dropping, and you're in credit record of collaboration, you
Speaker 2: know salam Remy Then, Nevil Brothers, Akon, Shakira, Whitney, Houston's
Speaker 2: Destiny's Child. When you are deciding who to collaborate with
Speaker 2: or fielding requests for collaboration, what is your north star
Speaker 2: in deciding who to make music with?
Speaker 3: Because you have a pretty good track record.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, thanks, I think that for me, I don't
Speaker 5: even think of it like a collaboration. I've always thought
Speaker 5: of it like how I could compose something for someone,
Speaker 5: so like, for example, like you hear Shakira hipstone line,
Speaker 5: but I did that to everybody heard Yah, But I
Speaker 5: did that two years before Shakira. It was on a
Speaker 5: movie called Havanah Knights Dance like this. So so so
Speaker 5: a lot of my what I do is always based
Speaker 5: on the mind of a composer. Now when I write
Speaker 5: these records, I never think of myself because like if
Speaker 5: for me, when I'm on music, I just think too deep,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I'd be like if I.
Speaker 5: Was president then I get elected on Friday, they'd be
Speaker 5: like that shit ain't gonna play on the radio. But
Speaker 5: when it comes to artists, I'm always a fan and
Speaker 5: then I would demo the record and that's how I
Speaker 5: end up staying on a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 3: How do you know when they say no to a collapse?
Speaker 5: Well, the thing is I always say, I have to
Speaker 5: be able to give something back to the artist, right,
Speaker 5: and it's deeper than that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I was touched the other day when I received some
Speaker 5: flowers from Beyonce, you know, and then she was like yo.
Speaker 2: I mean they kind of like destiny should popped off
Speaker 2: because of you an area.
Speaker 5: But it was ill because there's a composer and be
Speaker 5: understanding that, like I would perform. Then I bought them
Speaker 5: on tour with me. But she would always be on
Speaker 5: the side of the stage again right, watching the same
Speaker 5: way I would watch the next person. So right, So
Speaker 5: it has to be bigger than the collaboration. I've touched
Speaker 5: people that I felt have got next. Like remember I
Speaker 5: said they went from a dream to the Young Supremes.
Speaker 4: That was pretty amazing.
Speaker 5: Most intimidating person that I've ever been in the studio
Speaker 5: like dog my boots was shaking.
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about that because I personally
Speaker 2: think that one of her best songs is My Love
Speaker 2: is Your Love?
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, tell me why I ain't gonna hold you
Speaker 5: because it's like dog like we in the hood in
Speaker 5: high school. You feel what I'm saying to you, and
Speaker 5: were a bunch of bad kids and we like.
Speaker 4: I believe the children.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying to you.
Speaker 5: You know it's like and I'm like, oh, you know missus.
Speaker 5: Whitney's like it was just in the studio. She was amazing.
Speaker 5: She was you know, so Clive hit me and I'm like,
Speaker 5: you know, he's like, you're Clark. David's the record for Whitney,
Speaker 5: and you know, as a church boy with the church,
Speaker 5: it's right, and Whitney was going through something at the time.
Speaker 5: And then so so you just said, how do you
Speaker 5: know who to collaborate with? So I'm over here and
Speaker 5: I'm writing this record if tomorrow's judgment day. So I
Speaker 5: was like, I'm gonna write like a love note, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, like to to to God. And
Speaker 5: then so Whitney's writing a love note to God. It's
Speaker 5: almost like she's in the gates. And then so I
Speaker 5: send a demo and I'm like waiting, you feel what
Speaker 5: I'm saying to you, and and finally you get the
Speaker 5: call and then you know what I mean. And then
Speaker 5: she's like, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't like it? Why I don't like it? I
Speaker 1: love it?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: So me and Jerry one for you?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I hate the song.
Speaker 5: No no, I loved it so so so in saying
Speaker 5: that to me, that was like, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: like someone like you just idolize?
Speaker 1: That was probably yeah, yeah, hold on, but what was it? So?
Speaker 1: I can't bring a Whitne and hold up? So what
Speaker 1: what is it? When you're in the studio with Whitney?
Speaker 1: How do you approach that? Because like the idea of
Speaker 1: telling Whitney, yeah, let's do it this way. Maybe let's try,
Speaker 1: Like I just how do you even you know, as
Speaker 1: a layperson, how do you think to do that?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, I think, like, so Whitney, we like, you know,
Speaker 5: we had it was like brother and sister in the
Speaker 5: studio and I'm the choir director, so I know who's going.
Speaker 4: To sing the lead? The soprano.
Speaker 1: The so we have that the church just gave you.
Speaker 5: So we had that church code connection right where we
Speaker 5: wrapped out. But here's a crazy story. Y'all might have
Speaker 5: heard it, or ya might not. So I'm doing I'm
Speaker 5: doing this like I'm doing it right. I'm doing this joint.
Speaker 4: And in the middle.
Speaker 5: Of the record, right, it sound like to me that
Speaker 5: Whitney dropped a note.
Speaker 4: It sounded flat to me.
Speaker 3: You heard Whatney's sounding flat?
Speaker 1: What do you know?
Speaker 2: Do you just think that and say, I can't be right?
Speaker 3: She can't be flat?
Speaker 1: Bro, listen, what did you do?
Speaker 5: I was like, in my ear, I heard something was off.
Speaker 5: And then so you know, as a producer, this is
Speaker 5: where you have to make what I call the final call, right.
Speaker 3: You gotta tell him you're literally right.
Speaker 5: So you know I stopped everything. You know what I
Speaker 5: mean and what I was telling you. Remember I said,
Speaker 5: my legs started shaking cold sweat, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And she's on the other side, and I'm like, miss
Speaker 5: Whitney Houston, You're gonna have to do that one again.
Speaker 5: It came out a little flat what she said. You
Speaker 5: saw how silent it wasn't here, yo, sit got mad silent,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I'm fucked. And then and then
Speaker 5: she goes, baby, it's not flat. I bent the note
Speaker 5: that bro I went back and she listened to the take,
Speaker 5: and her ear was so advanced that the way I
Speaker 5: was playing a major and minor the same way like
Speaker 5: bb King with Ben the note inside of it. So
Speaker 5: that literally, like till today, that was one of the
Speaker 5: things that just blew my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Whitney's not flat.
Speaker 4: Was never flat.
Speaker 2: I heard that she really cuts up in the studio
Speaker 2: like she has fun. She's a jolly old time in
Speaker 2: the studio.
Speaker 1: I've heard, you know.
Speaker 5: My experience was one of the best experiences because I
Speaker 5: had Whitney in the studio, I had Bobby, I had
Speaker 5: the daughter.
Speaker 4: I had all of them.
Speaker 5: So she had so so and Bobby Brown and then
Speaker 5: so So in the studio. The illest moment for me
Speaker 5: was when Whitney was in the booth and she was
Speaker 5: singing and her daughter was on the other side with me,
Speaker 5: and then her door while her mom is singing, her
Speaker 5: mom can't hear where she's going, and then she goes.
Speaker 3: Sing saying mommy because that ends up in the track.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then so I just sample. I sampled her daughter.
Speaker 5: I ain't even Whitney ain't even hear that till the
Speaker 5: final version.
Speaker 2: Wait, so you heard her daughter say sing mommy?
Speaker 1: Were you recording in the control room?
Speaker 5: So I have the control room, but I still always
Speaker 5: have Mike's inside of my main room. But if you're
Speaker 5: in the control room, Whitney can't hear. But her daughter
Speaker 5: is cheerleading her mom.
Speaker 4: She's like, sing mommy yeah.
Speaker 5: And then I go, wow, I'm seeing I said what
Speaker 5: you say. And she don't know she's being recorded. So
Speaker 5: I sat my engineer and she goes, sing mommy yeah.
Speaker 5: And then I saved that on a sample, and then
Speaker 5: later I went up and I did that. So that
Speaker 5: was pretty pret your mind, your mind pretty.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Well, not's break and we're back with y
Speaker 1: Cleft Sean looking back, you make the score huge hit,
Speaker 1: you're on the road, you're making the carnival, and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I don't know, the group is sort of
Speaker 1: not holding looking back on it, how would you counsel
Speaker 1: yourself as y Cleft today to y Cleft back then
Speaker 1: in terms of how to be a member of the
Speaker 1: fujis in that moment?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, the thing is like, way before me,
Speaker 5: there was people that made the same mistakes as me,
Speaker 5: Like you could read all about it, like it's it's
Speaker 5: very clear. Even if I was to go back to
Speaker 5: speak to the younger why cleft, the problem is you
Speaker 5: can't go back and speak to your younger self.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: What you do is within your present self, you're able
Speaker 5: to give a young one that you see that has
Speaker 5: that air and on the come up and you're like, yo, man, listen,
Speaker 5: now these are a list of things that you should
Speaker 5: not do moving forward. And but at the same time,
Speaker 5: you see within the universe when the vulnerability of artists
Speaker 5: and the honesty of artists. Right, So these thirty years,
Speaker 5: there still was a healing process.
Speaker 4: Right. Lauren's my sister.
Speaker 5: You know, her kids are like, I'm uncle, why Cleff,
Speaker 5: you feel what I'm saying to you. It's like to
Speaker 5: be in such amazing place of love. Right, Sometimes it
Speaker 5: takes because when you're young, right, and you have all
Speaker 5: these super hero powers. Both of us we got superhero powers.
Speaker 5: You don't understand the powers. As you get older, you
Speaker 5: start to understand them more and more and more. So
Speaker 5: I think like from a space of maturity, I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: I couldn't go back. But what I do is all
Speaker 5: of the young I call them superheroes that are gifted
Speaker 5: that I work with within the context, I'm able to
Speaker 5: give them better advice.
Speaker 2: I always think about group dynamics and when a group
Speaker 2: knows when to try to keep making it work and
Speaker 2: to let it go and break up. And I always
Speaker 2: think of the Fuji story in comparison to the saga
Speaker 2: of Fleetwood Mac. Like the Fujis had drama and then
Speaker 2: they broke up. Fleetwood Mac had drama and they just
Speaker 2: stuck together and made an album about it. And the
Speaker 2: drama and the breakups.
Speaker 3: How do you know in.
Speaker 2: A creative, collaborative partnership if it's worth saying we're gonna
Speaker 2: stick through this and keep making art or we got
Speaker 2: a break.
Speaker 5: I mean, I would say it's like two different psyches,
Speaker 5: Like Fleetwood Mac is a different psyche than we were,
Speaker 5: ye and we grew up within different environments. Yes, and
Speaker 5: then our dramas were completely different than Fleetwood Mac's drama.
Speaker 5: So it's not even like when you get to the point,
Speaker 5: I don't know, if y'all been watching twenty twenty five,
Speaker 5: you've seen the food. She's on tour and if you
Speaker 5: see us on stage, it's like old school Lakers. You
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like I don't have to look
Speaker 5: at launch.
Speaker 1: You know the past.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows the past.
Speaker 5: So but the what we do have and what we
Speaker 5: all have always been conscious of is in order to
Speaker 5: move the universe forward, because we always was like, we're
Speaker 5: not going to be a group, We're going to be
Speaker 5: a movement. In order to be a movement, they got
Speaker 5: to be perfect harmony. So the day like we don't
Speaker 5: feel perfect harmony, then the superpowers leave, right, and then
Speaker 5: you're not able to create that thing because you literally
Speaker 5: you know, like, yo, there's not a superpower there.
Speaker 3: What does that feeling feel?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: That knowledge feel like when you know the powers aren't
Speaker 2: like like what you tell?
Speaker 3: How do you spot it? How do you feel it?
Speaker 5: I'm able to tell now because we've healed, you see
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. So it's like we've healed, like me
Speaker 5: and all were good, Like everything is dope. So it's
Speaker 5: almost like Wolverine, like you shed skin and it's like
Speaker 5: when when when you're after the wound and then after
Speaker 5: the sacrifice, right, wow, and it happens and I don't
Speaker 5: I don't think people understand like we were, like I
Speaker 5: mean kids starts, Like even before you knew who we were,
Speaker 5: we already was like off Broadway doing a musical called
Speaker 5: Club twelve. So just to start off like that and
Speaker 5: for us to be over thirty years and to look
Speaker 5: like ourselves still be pretty bad, funny, sexy and all that,
Speaker 5: that's not an easy job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's struggling right now.
Speaker 3: And I bring it up.
Speaker 2: So I bring up this question of collaborating and knowing
Speaker 2: when to break and when to stay in it because
Speaker 2: a lot of the folks are at this conference are
Speaker 2: audio creatives who are making all kinds of shows with people,
Speaker 2: and those formulations of these teams might change, and there
Speaker 2: are podcast breakups and makeups and shake ups. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I wonder if you have any advice for creatives who
Speaker 2: are working in partnership right now? You know how to
Speaker 2: read the tea leaves stay in it or like know
Speaker 2: when to leave it? Like what is whycha Lejean's creative
Speaker 2: partnership advice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the biggest of advice.
Speaker 5: So my partnership advice to all creatives is like this,
Speaker 5: it's better you do one thing, say that one thing,
Speaker 5: you'd be surprised how many people have only done one thing.
Speaker 5: And that one thing, you know, it turns into an iPhone.
Speaker 5: I'm just give you an example. You know, the one
Speaker 5: thing turns into Microsoft, right, you know, the one thing
Speaker 5: turns into the most amazing podcast. What happens is once
Speaker 5: the synergy and the harmony is gone, you got to
Speaker 5: move on because if you continue, then what you're thinking
Speaker 5: about is something that's for profit now opposed to something
Speaker 5: that you created. Because in the beginning, it was just like, Yo,
Speaker 5: I want to create a movement to move people. So
Speaker 5: I always say it's better that you do something one
Speaker 5: one thing and you're amazed by it, and then synergy
Speaker 5: don't lie, right, And if you don't feel that synergy,
Speaker 5: you gotta keep it moving, man.
Speaker 3: So trust the vibes. Listen to the vibes, trust the vibes.
Speaker 1: Mone. You know, there's also you said, Sam, get this
Speaker 1: wonderful list of people you collaborated with, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: one person backstage who I didn't realize we had a
Speaker 1: whole project with, who also gave you some advice back
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, King of Pop, Man, about where we
Speaker 1: are in today's future. So you told you if you
Speaker 1: can tell what the King of Pop told you about
Speaker 1: twenty years ago and how you're moving with that today.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So so RP to the King of Pop Michael Jackson,
Speaker 5: by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't know who, leave the room.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I would say again sometimes that I'll be saying
Speaker 5: stuff and I'll be like, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 5: because I don't feel like a lot of people get
Speaker 5: what I'll be saying. You know what I'm saying to you,
Speaker 5: because I'll be on another planet. And then so see
Speaker 5: they lying and they're like, what is he talking about?
Speaker 5: So I'm in the studio with Michael and Mike, you know,
Speaker 5: and then and Michael is like, just real quick, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. So it's like he's in the
Speaker 5: studio and it's second du right, and and he said,
Speaker 5: did you get that?
Speaker 4: No, you know what I'm saying. The orchestra lives in
Speaker 4: your head.
Speaker 1: The orchestra lives in your head.
Speaker 5: And as long as you can take what's in your head,
Speaker 5: you don't even have to say it. You can think
Speaker 5: it and the machine will spit it back to you.
Speaker 1: Michael, you know, cleft.
Speaker 5: I'm working on this this other album. It's called Binaural.
Speaker 5: You ever heard of by Noural No, He's like yo.
Speaker 5: As we move towards the future, people will be able
Speaker 5: to hear music like it sounds like it's coming from
Speaker 5: a theater, but it will be like movie music. But
Speaker 5: they'll be able to hear from their headphones.
Speaker 4: Fast forward today. Where we at today?
Speaker 6: You have.
Speaker 5: AI, right, and so the thing about it is, you
Speaker 5: know backstage, you know I use you. You almost punched
Speaker 5: me in my face when I told you, like, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm deep into AI.
Speaker 1: But we were going we're going back and forth on that.
Speaker 5: But here's here go the game. Okay, So there's AI
Speaker 5: and then there's Ia. Ia is me intelligent Alpha. That's
Speaker 5: what we all are, like, we're the source of everything.
Speaker 5: So at the end of the day, to my twelve
Speaker 5: niece arriving to day, is a new way that the
Speaker 5: future will do music. There's a new way that the
Speaker 5: filmmakers will make film.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: There will always be bad actors in a room because
Speaker 5: within everything, Like when the computer wave was going on,
Speaker 5: there was bad actors.
Speaker 4: When we was.
Speaker 5: Going from no more physical records to digital and then too,
Speaker 5: streams were always gonna have bad actors. I think that
Speaker 5: our responsibility of as the human is to never lose
Speaker 5: our soul, right, because the only thing that the machine
Speaker 5: will not be able to duplicate is your soul. So inside,
Speaker 5: when I have like my niece and everything, she does
Speaker 5: everything with her computer. But when I'm sitting there and
Speaker 5: she's like, yo, oh, could you grab that guitar and
Speaker 5: play something, that physicality of the human.
Speaker 4: You can't replace that.
Speaker 1: So you're not you are using AI as a tool,
Speaker 1: but not scared about it replacing the human creative spirit.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm using it as a tool because how is
Speaker 5: music created? Right, y'all y'all see the final product. But
Speaker 5: if I bring y'all into my studio, y'all going to
Speaker 5: be like, oh, this looked like Star Trek. Right, it's
Speaker 5: called there's a lot of equipment, and the equipment is
Speaker 5: called hardware. Then the hardware get converted into software. You know,
Speaker 5: my DJ friends, we used to carry like ten thousand
Speaker 5: crates and then it gets converted into the computer. So
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, you use AI as
Speaker 5: a tool. I teach my students I am the master
Speaker 5: of AI. AI is not the master of I therefore
Speaker 5: I am I. So it has to be your slave, right.
Speaker 5: The problem is if you if you become the slave
Speaker 5: of the robot, then it's over for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know where you gotta go, But I gotta
Speaker 2: just ask you one question. As a fan of rap
Speaker 2: and a lover of rap, I see all these headlines
Speaker 2: about rap being dead or dying. I hear some of
Speaker 2: the newer artists today, and I'm like, you not like
Speaker 2: it used to be? Why left as a legend of
Speaker 2: the field. Do you feel positively or negatively about the
Speaker 2: current state of rap?
Speaker 5: I got seven albums coming out starting in April all
Speaker 5: the way to October. I think that rap is part
Speaker 5: of hip hop and hip hop. The culture is only
Speaker 5: getting stronger and stronger all around the world, and I
Speaker 5: believe in the future. I'm gonna do my part, and
Speaker 5: I'm very excited about some of the future young artists
Speaker 5: that are coming out. You know, we just got to
Speaker 5: make sure that they get that space. The algorithm can't
Speaker 5: keep pushing one form of hip hop in America, right,
Speaker 5: We need that multiple because hip hop in France is
Speaker 5: sounding like it sounded in the nineties.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: What we're pushing here is the algorithms are just more
Speaker 5: towards one thing, and we have to go back to
Speaker 5: that eclectic well and not just that.
Speaker 2: It's like I watch and I have this theory. I
Speaker 2: think that like every rapper of note in America right now,
Speaker 2: the men, the boys aren't having fun.
Speaker 5: Are you already watch this? I'm gonna get to twenty one.
Speaker 5: I'm the one. I know what y'all thinking.
Speaker 4: Me too.
Speaker 5: In my game of numbers, they could only be a few.
Speaker 5: I am the Trinity. Guess the riddle?
Speaker 4: Kids? One man on two sticks?
Speaker 5: What's that the crucifix? At least that's what they taught
Speaker 5: me in Sunday School. Forgive my foes. Fives pointed at
Speaker 5: Pinocchio's nose. Skip to six, Go to seven. That's the
Speaker 5: number of completion. Adam ate the apples, so they cast
Speaker 5: them from the garden to Eden. Jealousy got him waving
Speaker 5: his nine King kills Abel he attend man, you know
Speaker 5: his heart pump soil. Two ones ain't enough to make
Speaker 5: it ring Michael phone check one two rap lips in
Speaker 5: my vein. I'm from the ever Dude's scrap with they
Speaker 5: hands play Friday to thirteen, Get Cobra.
Speaker 4: Klutch or body slamm.
Speaker 5: But my nephews they don't use they hands in fourteens,
Speaker 5: m fifteen's guns and roses pointed at your sweet sixteen.
Speaker 5: I was born on our tour with seventeen. That's the
Speaker 5: day they killed my lead up, Jean Jacques Ile And
Speaker 5: then my mama told me there's monsters under my b
Speaker 5: They eighteens think Malcolm X. The nineteenth thought was about
Speaker 5: any means. Twenty twenty vision they say the good die young.
Speaker 5: I am the master of AI. AI is not the
Speaker 5: master of I. I did this freestyle to show you
Speaker 5: how I made it past twenty one.
Speaker 1: Yes, Ali mans It.
Speaker 2: Sam Sanders, Justin Richmond, w John, Oh my God.
Speaker 1: An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
Speaker 1: of our favorite way Cleft songs, along with some of
Speaker 1: his new music. Be sure to check out YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record podcast to see all of our interviews,
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Speaker 1: Broken Record pot. Broken Record is produced and edited by
Speaker 1: Leah Rohodse with marketing health from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
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Speaker 1: podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.