Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Quest Love Supreme, y'all, and this is a tradition
Speaker 1: for us. At March, we are celebrating Women's History Month
Speaker 1: with some special programming drawing from nearly a decade of
Speaker 1: shows and conversations.
Speaker 2: This is part two.
Speaker 1: You know, it goes without saying that despite where we
Speaker 1: are currently in present day times, it is important to
Speaker 1: be an ally to women to lift up their voices. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I believe that they are the leaders of now. We
Speaker 1: as men need to take a back seat, and I'm
Speaker 1: all for that. So despite what you hear in the
Speaker 1: news as far as like how businesses are run, I
Speaker 1: will continue to keep that promise to elevate. And you
Speaker 1: clearly see, like with my staff, my management, the artists
Speaker 1: that I choose to highlight, it's all about allyship and
Speaker 1: that's what we're about here. Being raised by my mother,
Speaker 1: my mother was always quick to pull me aside if
Speaker 1: she ever felt that the seeds of anything toxic was
Speaker 1: about to start coming down the pike. And you know,
Speaker 1: she would quickly remind me that, you know, you better
Speaker 1: learn from this situation that when you're grown up you know,
Speaker 1: a woman's not going to tolerate this type of behavior.
Speaker 1: You know, she kept me in a constant practice, not
Speaker 1: just when your mom's around you start, you know, acting up.
Speaker 1: But she taught me early about the importance of this
Speaker 1: and so women are not a threat. They deserve agency
Speaker 1: and are full support. Here's Shaka Khan from twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: The clip is only a few minutes long, but it
Speaker 1: says a lot. Shaka touches on pivoting outside of rufus
Speaker 1: and some of the judgments and complications she felt as
Speaker 1: a pregnant.
Speaker 2: Artist at the time.
Speaker 1: She also speaks about her reluctance to sing I'm every woman,
Speaker 1: Shaka on behalf of everybody. We're very glad you did, though,
Speaker 1: do you explain to your guys like, Okay, well I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do the soul project real quick, but I'll be back,
Speaker 1: or like where was it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I got pregnant in the until of
Speaker 3: the beginning of that situation Otis Smith. You know, he
Speaker 3: was trying to trap me up and everything. God bless you, ODIs,
Speaker 3: But I'm telling the truth. He thought, you know, he
Speaker 3: was trying to have me and I got pregnant. By
Speaker 3: my husband. And he told me, he said, I'm how
Speaker 3: am I gonna make a star to you if you're
Speaker 3: gonna be having babies? I said, let me tell you something.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be what I'm gonna be with you or
Speaker 3: without you, around you or under you. You have nothing
Speaker 3: to say about this.
Speaker 4: That's crazy because how many female singers have that same story,
Speaker 4: Like pregnancy is like.
Speaker 3: Cat make a start. I said, I'm not you know,
Speaker 3: a pin up. I'm an artist, you know when I'm
Speaker 3: pregnant or not.
Speaker 2: So so coming to the soccer project.
Speaker 1: You work with, I mean, ar If is one of
Speaker 1: my idols because for me, like the band that I
Speaker 1: worshiped the most when I was a kid was the
Speaker 1: average white man. Yeah, and so to see those names
Speaker 1: on the credits, I was like, oh, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be awesome.
Speaker 2: What was it? What was it like working with him? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh he was like my uncle father. Really, he took
Speaker 3: care of me. He put when I got my.
Speaker 2: Did you see him first or did they come to you?
Speaker 3: Like okay they put us together.
Speaker 2: Okay, who did you initially?
Speaker 1: Because by that point I forgot you did sounds and
Speaker 1: stuff like that too with Quincy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well Quincy seventy six.
Speaker 1: Was he ever in the running for a second? I
Speaker 1: mean before Master Jam, but I mean like.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I don't know what happened behind the
Speaker 3: scenes and stuff with that with him not working with
Speaker 3: I think he might have been working with Michael around
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was so iraf and I I liked if
Speaker 3: a lot because he had produced Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love what you did with Donnie Hathaway, right,
Speaker 3: and you know, so I was like, yeah, this is good,
Speaker 3: this is good. And I mean he bought the blinds
Speaker 3: from my apartment, he put the carpet, you know, he
Speaker 3: took care of me like like his daughter. Well, and
Speaker 3: you know, I was his spiritual daughter. And he told
Speaker 3: everybody that you and told me all the time you
Speaker 3: were my instrument. Really, you have my instrument. You can
Speaker 3: play anything that I hear that I want.
Speaker 1: So, how did you I mean, by that point, by
Speaker 1: that point, you're just in full fledge of control of
Speaker 1: your instrument, your arrangements and background.
Speaker 3: The songs I wanted. Then, Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Did they write I'm every nick value right, A lot
Speaker 1: of scientifically, Yeah, what made you choose that song?
Speaker 3: I'll actually talked me into it because I felt like it.
Speaker 3: I felt awkward saying the words I'm every woman. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I thought, how dare somebody say that they're every woman?
Speaker 3: I would just just not, you know, mentally there yet,
Speaker 3: not saying the anthem that it will be a song.
Speaker 2: That you because I'm a woman. I'm a backphone.
Speaker 1: See I'm thinking in terms of like you're singing like
Speaker 1: feminist anthems and those things.
Speaker 2: That was just in line with you, you know.
Speaker 1: No your womanhood and making us respect that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I wouldn't think about womanhood at all.
Speaker 3: I was singing songs that meant something to mean lyrics
Speaker 3: like I'm a woman on a back on a backbone.
Speaker 3: Your Smile was written by a woman named Lalonei Washburn.
Speaker 3: She wrote those songs. And but when I'm every woman,
Speaker 3: I had to grow into it. I just well, maybe
Speaker 3: in the last ten years something got comfortable singing that
Speaker 3: because I understood then what she was saying, you know
Speaker 3: what they were they were writing.
Speaker 5: I just shood, what did Whitney singing it mean to you?
Speaker 3: She's of all the people that have covered by songs.
Speaker 3: I had to ask her after she did it? I said, uh,
Speaker 3: did you use my background? Or that you that's like it?
Speaker 3: She's she's great, she was a great, great artist.
Speaker 2: Did you do was I'm every Woman first? Or was
Speaker 2: Clouds first? Which one.
Speaker 1: Clouds is on the second album on because that's the
Speaker 1: first song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what's doing. Whenever it's time to
Speaker 3: make us the record, we would get our put the
Speaker 3: word out. We would get boxes and boxes of cassettes
Speaker 3: and we would sit and listen to songs, listening sessions,
Speaker 3: and we would mark which songs we did were good,
Speaker 3: and when we came down to it, he would go
Speaker 3: on the track and write it out.
Speaker 2: Oh you don't want to ask what were your feelings
Speaker 2: on Snaps the Power? Uh? I got the Power specifically?
Speaker 3: Well that was a Penny. Yeah, actually that was my gig.
Speaker 3: I was living in England.
Speaker 2: They for you.
Speaker 3: They called me and asked me to come and do
Speaker 3: this stuff with him with them, but you know, I
Speaker 3: was having too much fun and I said a Penny.
Speaker 3: I told him I was sick of some But I said,
Speaker 3: pity you go to that because she Penny is one
Speaker 3: of my students as well.
Speaker 2: Oh you sent her to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I said you could have that, you go do
Speaker 3: it really? Yeah, and then I slapping myself on the
Speaker 3: back of my head.
Speaker 2: Was a monster. Yeah, it's so basically why Snaps.
Speaker 3: Really the group snap?
Speaker 2: You got it?
Speaker 4: In the context, Penny was the one who was saying
Speaker 4: I got the power.
Speaker 2: But that's not the part that we're referring to. Put
Speaker 2: you on the game.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying the whole he could break my heart
Speaker 1: part from I Got the Power.
Speaker 3: Love left my brother on bass, yes.
Speaker 5: Like your brother.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And it sped up. It got faster fast. You could
Speaker 3: tell that that was a heart song. And Steven he
Speaker 3: was kicking on the damn drunk, I'm mean. And somebody said,
Speaker 3: well it gets fast. I said, the little hearts when
Speaker 3: they're excited.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I thought we.
Speaker 1: Had a moment because I don't looking at me like
Speaker 1: humble practice.
Speaker 2: Three two. Yes, I own the snare drum that so
Speaker 2: on some love, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Was it a pickolop?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Steve, Steve, I've stalk note drummer in life more
Speaker 1: than Steve Ronie.
Speaker 2: Like I'm literally his Yeah, I'm saying I'm in air
Speaker 2: parent more than Clyde Stubble or any other drummer.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Fron's double and he as a gesture, he
Speaker 1: gave me, uh his black and white snare that he's used, Wow,
Speaker 1: all records.
Speaker 3: Oh fantastic, But you don't. Miles gave me one of
Speaker 3: his his trumpets, the blue one. But you don't what
Speaker 3: his nephew that I could kill him.
Speaker 2: He took it back.
Speaker 3: I could kill him. Excuse me, almostcuse me, who can't
Speaker 3: take it? Okay, But I'm telling you after after he
Speaker 3: died in his in his will, he gave it to me,
Speaker 3: and the boy kept. Every time I see him, he
Speaker 3: shrinks and tries to hide and say, I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: it to you. I swear I'm gonna get to you. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm done with it now. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: because what Miles David said is your your voice sounds
Speaker 3: just like my own. That was enough for me.
Speaker 2: You have trumpet, that's enough for me.
Speaker 3: The new the trumpet. See, I don't like usually like trumpet,
Speaker 3: only this muted. What's that sexy? I'll make trumpet? Make sexty,
Speaker 3: yeah baby.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, Quest Stuff Supreme recorded of Black
Speaker 1: episodes in Atlanta, where our iHeart Partners.
Speaker 2: Are located and based.
Speaker 1: One of the highlights of that trip were speaking to
Speaker 1: Stacy Abram, the politician, author and activist. Wasn't a race
Speaker 1: to become the first black woman governor of the state,
Speaker 1: and my role call then I called for Stacy to
Speaker 1: run for president in twenty twenty eight, and I stand
Speaker 1: by those words still. We asked her about the origin
Speaker 1: of her leadership, and she explained, back when you were
Speaker 1: in college where what were your lofty.
Speaker 2: Goals in life?
Speaker 1: Like are you imagining that some fifteen sixteen years later
Speaker 1: that you'll be in the position that.
Speaker 2: You are now? Or were you just like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be a lawyer or da da da da, Or.
Speaker 6: I had like twenty seven majors in college. I was
Speaker 6: physics and philosophy, with a minor in theater. It turns
Speaker 6: out I liked star trek but not differential calculus. And
Speaker 6: when you can't stay awaken in pistemology, it's probably not
Speaker 6: the thing to do when there are only four people
Speaker 6: in the classroom. I like acting, but not enough to
Speaker 6: make it my life's work, and so I flitted through
Speaker 6: a bunch of other things. But What was the through
Speaker 6: line for me was activism. The pivotal moment for me
Speaker 6: when I realized that it wasn't just an inherited property
Speaker 6: from my parents, It was part of my DNA. When
Speaker 6: the Rodney King decision came down in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 6: I was a freshman at Spelman. I organized students to protest.
Speaker 6: They locked down our campus. I was at the AUC
Speaker 6: and if you if you know Atlanta, they locked down
Speaker 6: I twenty so you could not get off of the
Speaker 6: interstate and come to the University center. So it Spellman, Moorhouse,
Speaker 6: Clark Atlanta, Morris Brown, ITC and our School of Medicine.
Speaker 6: And then they tear gassed us. They tear gas the
Speaker 6: entire area. And this was under a black mayor.
Speaker 5: And this is Spelman and Mors.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 6: But the schools were juxtaposed next to some of the
Speaker 6: oldest housing developments in the nation. And so the issue
Speaker 6: was we weren't, you know, elite students and poor communities.
Speaker 6: We were all black, and we were all basically accused
Speaker 6: of the same anger. And the problem was the protests
Speaker 6: were real because the pain was real. And so I
Speaker 6: helped organize students actually got into an argument with then
Speaker 6: Mayor Maynard Jackson. He won the argument, but because he
Speaker 6: couldn't argue and I was like, my cleanest tea shirts
Speaker 6: were my nicest jeans.
Speaker 3: But he still won.
Speaker 6: But he later hired me to work in the newly
Speaker 6: created Office of Youth Services.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask something, because you know, I did
Speaker 1: not go to college, like immediately got a record deal
Speaker 1: and had a career. Always wanted to know when we
Speaker 1: protest on a college campus, like what's the goal, especially
Speaker 1: when like the issue is three thousand miles away in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Like how does that trickle to?
Speaker 6: So two things. One, what Rodney Kings with the verdict
Speaker 6: was evocative of was the lack of justice from police,
Speaker 6: and that was happening in Atlanta, that was happening in Georgia.
Speaker 6: And part of it was where poverty exists, where racism exists,
Speaker 6: you were going to find police misconduct. And there was
Speaker 6: also the larger issue of simply the evidence of our
Speaker 6: eyes being denied. Those things. Well, Rodney King was emblematic
Speaker 6: of it was but he was only one example. He
Speaker 6: was the first example that got caught on tape. But
Speaker 6: people had those experiences everywhere, and that's why it was
Speaker 6: so inflammatory the protests I organized. We started this moment wetched.
Speaker 6: We marched from the AUC all the way to City Hall.
Speaker 6: So to your point, I didn't go to a college,
Speaker 6: We're protesting at the college. Made a lot sense because
Speaker 6: we all pretty much agreed the most effective protests leave
Speaker 6: the safe spaces and go into the public spaces. So
Speaker 6: we made sure that march went past the housing projects,
Speaker 6: went past the liquor stores, all the way down to
Speaker 6: city Hall. That's how I ended up getting into the
Speaker 6: tet a.
Speaker 3: Tet with the mayor.
Speaker 6: But to your point, there are some campuses where protest
Speaker 6: on campus is it's effective because if you're at Harvard,
Speaker 6: you're talking about billions of dollars in economic influence. If
Speaker 6: you're an AEC the numeric the monetary effect is the smaller,
Speaker 6: but the salutary effect is bigger because you have people
Speaker 6: who may have been conditioned to think that they were
Speaker 6: the exceptions to the rule, who have to remind themselves
Speaker 6: that they are part of the same fabric that people
Speaker 6: don't ask you, They don't investigate did you go to Spelman,
Speaker 6: Why are you in the AUC, Why are you in
Speaker 6: Southwest Atlanta? They just see someone who looks like something
Speaker 6: they've been taught to be afraid of or taught to disregard.
Speaker 6: And this is true for a lot of different communities
Speaker 6: of color. It's true based on your economic situation and
Speaker 6: where protests comes in as protest moves beyond the space
Speaker 6: that you inhabit, and it tells the rest of the
Speaker 6: world you've got to pay attention.
Speaker 2: It's a bullhorn exactly.
Speaker 1: So do you consider that moment you're or first footprint
Speaker 1: in political action.
Speaker 6: It was my parents will tell you, because my mom
Speaker 6: and dad were in grad school here uh in Georgia.
Speaker 6: They hadn't moved back to Mississippi at and I gave
Speaker 6: out my phone number to tell people, you know, during
Speaker 6: the protest, I'm like, if you're if you want to
Speaker 6: join us. I didn't think through the fact that I
Speaker 6: was giving my parents home number out, yah know. And
Speaker 6: and they pointed that out to me later on as
Speaker 6: the phone started to ring. But for me, it was
Speaker 6: it was it was both in a moment of empowerment
Speaker 6: but a moment of ownership that I I wanted to
Speaker 6: be a voice for people who didn't know they deserve
Speaker 6: to be in that march that didn't know that they
Speaker 6: deserve to have better and who'd been lulled into thinking
Speaker 6: that because you had leadership that looked like you, that
Speaker 6: they shared all of the same issues that you shared.
Speaker 6: And that's just never true. That that notion of monolithic
Speaker 6: power is just not real. And so even within space,
Speaker 6: I mean, Mayor Jax is extraordinary mayor. But in this issue,
Speaker 6: when it came to youth poverty, he had not done
Speaker 6: what I thought needed to be done. So my job
Speaker 6: was to push that. And so for me it was
Speaker 6: it was a moment of reckoning, Like did I actually
Speaker 6: believe the things I was saying when I was safely
Speaker 6: on campus? And turns out yes, I did.
Speaker 1: So at the time, were you like student body president
Speaker 1: or like I don't know what the president's system is
Speaker 1: for college now, like I used to be president in
Speaker 1: my ninth grade class, But.
Speaker 6: I mean, like for you, so I wasn't then I
Speaker 6: eventually did. I was at that point. I was just
Speaker 6: an annoying freshman in college who was.
Speaker 2: And you were a freshman.
Speaker 1: I was my freshman year, So how did you, like,
Speaker 1: isn't it hard for a freshman to get the respect
Speaker 1: in the I was relentless and were people like afraid
Speaker 1: of being suspended or kicked off campus or.
Speaker 6: Yes, so one thing that happened part of I kind
Speaker 6: of short shortcuted the story, but it was a few
Speaker 6: phases when they were tear gassing the campus. This is
Speaker 6: before social media, this is before cell phones, and this
Speaker 6: is when you only had the television stations, the broadcastations.
Speaker 6: So I organized students in my dorm to call all
Speaker 6: the broadcast stations. They were lying saying that we were
Speaker 6: running amok. I'm like, no, we are angry and protesting
Speaker 6: both on the campus and out in the community, but
Speaker 6: this isn't a riot, and they were miscommunicating what was happening.
Speaker 6: So I had a bunch of friends call all the
Speaker 6: stations and flood the stations, and the stations got wise
Speaker 6: to us and said, well, who's calling, and so I said,
Speaker 6: just tell them you're me. So you had like seventy
Speaker 6: five Stacy Abrams is calling and that amplified my voice. Again,
Speaker 6: didn't think through the consequences when they sent the police
Speaker 6: to come and get me to take me to this event.
Speaker 6: I wasn't being arrested, but I was invited to the
Speaker 6: simulcast because all of the television stations in Atlanta came
Speaker 6: together because this was a crisis, and so the mayor
Speaker 6: was there and I was invited as one of the
Speaker 6: students to be there, and so that sort of that
Speaker 6: lifted my platform a bit more than I expected.
Speaker 7: I ask.
Speaker 4: I'm so curious, just on as a student as we're
Speaker 4: in this Spellman moment, I'm curious, did you what we
Speaker 4: your full experience was in college? Was it all work
Speaker 4: and no play and activism or but at a pivotal
Speaker 4: time in Atlanta period like olymp post Olympics maybe, So
Speaker 4: I was right before the Olympics, right before Okay, so
Speaker 4: right before the Olympics. So can you talk about like
Speaker 4: what kind of student you were in that way, like
Speaker 4: did you have fun.
Speaker 6: Social Because I was a nerd and I'm an introvert,
Speaker 6: so I heard this.
Speaker 3: That's why I was surprised.
Speaker 4: Firstman year, you went all out and started.
Speaker 2: Well I was that was happy left supreme right, A
Speaker 2: bunch of nerds and introvis. You mentioned star treks.
Speaker 6: So that was the well next generation was out. So
Speaker 6: your peak card girl, the card je Waite, Look, I
Speaker 6: do the whole universe, so.
Speaker 5: Turn out card is everything like us Luke who Jean Luca.
Speaker 1: Every day I find this person, I've known him for
Speaker 1: thirty plus years.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, even though she's still nineteen. That's good.
Speaker 6: So I this is probably the best example. When I
Speaker 6: became student by the president, part of your job is
Speaker 6: to make sure that they're social at I got two
Speaker 6: of my best friends. I created a position called the
Speaker 6: Social Activity Coordinator so I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Have to go to parties.
Speaker 5: So you wouldn't have to go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So they would set up the parties. They would
Speaker 6: I would come at the beginning to say hi, and
Speaker 6: I would come at the end to make sure nobody
Speaker 6: stole anything. Otherwise I was back in my dorms.
Speaker 2: You would not go to.
Speaker 4: Everybody was trying to get to go out, and you
Speaker 4: were like, I have meaningful to do.
Speaker 6: I never went on spring break? What well, why would
Speaker 6: you pay money to go sit in somebody else's hotel.
Speaker 6: I mean, like I was, I had a dorm, I
Speaker 6: could read anywhere.
Speaker 2: Like okay, So you said something, and I think you know.
Speaker 1: I try to pull as much personal inspiration information from
Speaker 1: our guests that come on this show. But I'll ask
Speaker 1: you yes, sir, because I feel like the one small
Speaker 1: task that I'm holding myself back from actually crossing the
Speaker 1: line to where you are, despite the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: hosting my own podcast and do other things. How do
Speaker 1: you get over the fear of speaking, because I've seen
Speaker 1: you speak before, and you know, for an introvert, you
Speaker 1: project well, I guess it's the acting help.
Speaker 6: But so, yeah, I grew up in the church, so
Speaker 6: we had to do you know, easter programs, manspation, proclamature programs.
Speaker 6: Never liked any of it. I'm not afraid of you
Speaker 6: had to read all of the stuff right, you name it,
Speaker 6: we did it. My fear isn't public speaking. I'm reticent
Speaker 6: about being around lots of people. So when I was
Speaker 6: in high school, I joined the debate team. I had
Speaker 6: a psychosomatic case of laryngitis because it occurred to me
Speaker 6: that I couldn't be I wouldn't be debating by myself,
Speaker 6: that other people would see me do it. And suddenly
Speaker 6: my voice didn't work. And went to see the.
Speaker 2: Nurse and she's like, there's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 6: And that's when I also learned what psychosomatic because what
Speaker 6: psychomedia look like.
Speaker 1: Artist do that, and that's often an issue on the
Speaker 1: show like when people self sabotage their progress or whatever.
Speaker 2: The Great Kathleen.
Speaker 1: Hannah and I had a one on one conversation last year.
Speaker 1: She is the pioneer of the Riot Girl movement and
Speaker 1: a true feminist. Her memoir was Why We Spoke, and
Speaker 1: you can hear how she wanted her story to redirect
Speaker 1: some curse. Review of her impact and legacy and the
Speaker 1: whole interview is like this clip, but it still captures
Speaker 1: Kathleen's spirit. She's a powerful leader to women everywhere. But
Speaker 1: as I told her in this particular conversation, her work
Speaker 1: and the punk scene helped inspire the roots to build
Speaker 1: a community in Philly at my house, which was called
Speaker 1: the Black Lil. What is the first step in realizing
Speaker 1: that you're going to overspill and share with us your
Speaker 1: life and how does that affect the people that you
Speaker 1: write about.
Speaker 8: I never thought about it. I just sat down and wrote.
Speaker 8: I really just sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote.
Speaker 9: It was really for me.
Speaker 8: I didn't think about an audience at all, Like when
Speaker 8: I first started writing, which was like, you know, years ago,
Speaker 8: and I knew it was a book, Like I wrote
Speaker 8: the introduction like ten years ago and then ended up
Speaker 8: I changed it all, of course, but I was just
Speaker 8: sort of writing it a little bit and I didn't
Speaker 8: have a publisher or whatever. And then finally I was like,
Speaker 8: I just need to do this to get to the
Speaker 8: next stage of my life, you know how like there's
Speaker 8: different like things that you've made that you're known by,
Speaker 8: Like you know, people walk up to you on the
Speaker 8: street and they're like, you know, this is the thing,
Speaker 8: and it's annoying because you're like, I don't want to
Speaker 8: talk about that. Actually, my real love is directing, or
Speaker 8: my real love is you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 8: like you get known as you know, if you're in
Speaker 8: a commercial and someone's like you were in that VW
Speaker 8: commercial for the rest of your life. And it's like
Speaker 8: I was sort of like really trapped in this like riot.
Speaker 10: Girl thing and like the like you wrote this exteen
Speaker 10: spirit line or you know, other like weird mini scandals
Speaker 10: I was involved in, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 10: I just kind of want to like not talk about
Speaker 10: that anymore.
Speaker 8: And part of that is me getting over stuff that
Speaker 8: I never dealt with. And so I really kind of
Speaker 8: wrote it just to get it all out on the page,
Speaker 8: and I wasn't I knew that I got to edit
Speaker 8: it later. You know, I'm an adult. I've done like
Speaker 8: a lot of projects, so like, I know, I'm not
Speaker 8: writing this and everybody's going to see it, and having
Speaker 8: the same confidence that I had with it that I
Speaker 8: have with my journal, where it's like, no one's going
Speaker 8: to read this, so I can write whatever I want,
Speaker 8: and I had fun with it. I was like I
Speaker 8: would think of a title like Benjamin Franklin's Glasses, and
Speaker 8: then you know, you have like catchphrases in your life
Speaker 8: that you use to talk to your friends with, where
Speaker 8: like for me, like the smells like teen Spirit story,
Speaker 8: which is like I wrote Kurt smells eighteen Spirit on
Speaker 8: his wall and then he used as a song like
Speaker 8: people have asked me about that a lot, right, and
Speaker 8: so it's I started calling it the you know smells
Speaker 8: like Benjamin Franklin's Glasses, and I would be like, it's
Speaker 8: like I found Benjamin Franklin's glasses in the trash, and
Speaker 8: Everybody's like, ooh, there's the girl who found Benjamin Franklin's
Speaker 8: you know, glasses in the trash. And I was like,
Speaker 8: I'm actually like a feminist artist who's been working for
Speaker 8: thirty five years and like, I have a lot of
Speaker 8: projects i'd love to talk to you about, but they're like,
Speaker 8: but tell me about Benjamin Frank. So I didn't specifically
Speaker 8: actually write that story like to you know, get people
Speaker 8: off my back or whatever. But I did write everything,
Speaker 8: like everything, and then I edited it later and that's
Speaker 8: when I thought about it and I changed. I did
Speaker 8: change names. I changed almost everybody's names unless they were
Speaker 8: in a positive light.
Speaker 2: And so they were okay, okay.
Speaker 8: And there were people there's a particular person who who
Speaker 8: is really messed up in the book and basically commits
Speaker 8: crime and against me. And I called that person and said,
Speaker 8: I'm going to tell this story and you need to
Speaker 8: get a therapist and be prepared. I changed your name,
Speaker 8: but some of our friends are going to know its you,
Speaker 8: So I want you to prepare yourself. And I don't
Speaker 8: want aybody kill themselves, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: What was his reaction?
Speaker 8: You know, I wish I wouldn't have called. That's all
Speaker 8: I can say. I mean, he was like, he's like,
Speaker 8: you know, it's your story and you can tell it.
Speaker 8: I can't stop you. But it was like a big
Speaker 8: pity party of things in his life that have gone wrong,
Speaker 8: and that you know, he had a whole new story
Speaker 8: for why the bad incident happened. I was like, I
Speaker 8: can't rewrite it. I already wrote it. So the story
Speaker 8: answer is I didn't think about it. I got my
Speaker 8: butt in the chair and I worked, and then I
Speaker 8: would have these long periods of time where I just
Speaker 8: worked and worked and worked and work, and then I
Speaker 8: would have periods of time where I had a nervous
Speaker 8: breakdown and went to crisis counseling, like for three days
Speaker 8: a week, and then I would get back to work.
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask you, because the
Speaker 1: thing is is that unlike my movement, you know, the
Speaker 1: Neo Soul movement, both of our movements, I would say,
Speaker 1: start with the the quote the idea of I'm certain
Speaker 1: there was an actual Seattle movement or Northwest movement, but I,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much even I knew that we were
Speaker 1: responding to the idea of what we thought the Seattle
Speaker 1: movement was things move on and things subside and things
Speaker 1: are in your rear view mirror. How did it feel
Speaker 1: to have to unpack that period in your life? Because like,
Speaker 1: literally chapter after chapter. It's one thing to keep a
Speaker 1: band together, but it's a whole other thing where you
Speaker 1: also have to keep yourself together and protect your sanity,
Speaker 1: but also like organize a movement. And I'll say the
Speaker 1: main difference between you and I, luckily because of the
Speaker 1: development of the Internet. For me at least ninety eight
Speaker 1: ninety nine, you know, I thought it was all unique,
Speaker 1: like the only person in music who allows this fan
Speaker 1: base to curse him out or criticize him or say
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck they want to.
Speaker 2: But that's contained in like this world on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Whereas because you're eight years before you know, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with newsletters and actual people coming You've essentially a pre
Speaker 1: social media pioneer, although it wasn't invented yet because you
Speaker 1: came out so damn early. But all the things that happened,
Speaker 1: like the idea of people spewing out their opinions mid show,
Speaker 1: you know, all all the toxic energy you had to have.
Speaker 1: You're juggling like four or five things at once, and
Speaker 1: you're learning lessons. You're learning lessons about feminism, you're learning
Speaker 1: lessons about yourself, you're learning lessons about your health. Like
Speaker 1: all these things but to really put yourself in that
Speaker 1: position to go back and revisit how taxing was that
Speaker 1: on you today, to revisit those periods.
Speaker 8: The way I would say when I would get home
Speaker 8: from work was I'd be like I just created my
Speaker 8: face with the cheese grater for eight hours. That's what
Speaker 8: it felt like. If I really felt well, I was
Speaker 8: like my face was blank, I was dead behind the eyes,
Speaker 8: like I was going in and out of being present.
Speaker 8: Like it was awful. Awful, but so is crisis counseling,
Speaker 8: I mean, And it was basically like I was. I
Speaker 8: saved myself a lot of therapy because I actually sat
Speaker 8: there and wrote down stuff I'd never even admitted to myself,
Speaker 8: and a lot of it didn't There's three hundred extra pages.
Speaker 8: It didn't end up in the book because it originally
Speaker 8: was like Ryacral Hobbit and they were six center pages long.
Speaker 8: You might get it in a different form, but yeah,
Speaker 8: a lot a lot of the stories I cut out
Speaker 8: were because they were more visual, like it was like
Speaker 8: that you had to be there, kind of stories where
Speaker 8: it's like, you know, we're on acid and we're like
Speaker 8: running towards the sky in the park looks like he's juggling.
Speaker 8: We're like, it's a clown. And then we get close
Speaker 8: to him and we're like, oh shit, he has not
Speaker 8: a ninja. It's an ninja turn around, like you know
Speaker 8: what I mean, Like it doesn't really work in a book. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it was horrible, That's all I can say. It was
Speaker 8: absolutely awful because it was like excavating all of the
Speaker 8: stuff that you know, I had also suppressed and pushed
Speaker 8: down to keep going to the next project. And that
Speaker 8: was part of the reason why I worked so much,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. And I didn't turn out
Speaker 8: like a kazilion albums, but I was constantly doing projects.
Speaker 8: Even when I went through a long period while I
Speaker 8: was pretty sick, I was still like, I wrote a
Speaker 8: pilot for a TV show, and you know, I could
Speaker 8: tell you twenty other things that I did while I
Speaker 8: was still ill, because I just had even if it
Speaker 8: was from bed, if I had one good day, I
Speaker 8: had to use it. And part of that is just
Speaker 8: like I grew up as a kid and I felt
Speaker 8: like I was really a zombie, Like I had to
Speaker 8: turn myself off to live in my household. And so
Speaker 8: when I kind of came to when I moved out
Speaker 8: when I was seventeen, I was like living with vengeance.
Speaker 8: Like I was like, I have to pack as much
Speaker 8: stuff into this one life as possible. And also all
Speaker 8: the people you know that I've lost along the way
Speaker 8: to like drugs, suicide aids, you know, it's hard not
Speaker 8: to feel like you're living for them, Like you know,
Speaker 8: every day you have a part of their character with
Speaker 8: you that comes out and you're like, I want to
Speaker 8: let that part of this person shying today, you know, Like,
Speaker 8: but then that can become this weird like toxically positive
Speaker 8: bullshit that then you have to contend with that. So
Speaker 8: I just try to be in the present as much
Speaker 8: as humanly possible, and writing the book, the whole point
Speaker 8: of it was to get me into the present. Was
Speaker 8: to be like, I'm going to grapple with this thirty
Speaker 8: five years or even you know, my whole life. I'm
Speaker 8: going to grapple with that, and then I'm going to
Speaker 8: be like I did that, and now here I am.
Speaker 8: And sure I still like have bad memories of stuff
Speaker 8: or like whatever. But the thing that was really kind
Speaker 8: of miraculous was I just realized how much I lead
Speaker 8: with the negative you know what I mean, Like a
Speaker 8: lot it was so easy. It wasn't easy, but it
Speaker 8: was like I went straight for the juggler. Like I
Speaker 8: was like, I went to all the worst moments in
Speaker 8: my life really quick. And part of it was because
Speaker 8: I needed to. I really needed to do that. But
Speaker 8: then I was like, whoa, no one's going to read this.
Speaker 8: This is going to make people just throw up, Like
Speaker 8: I got to put some joy in here. And then
Speaker 8: I just started being like they started popping out like
Speaker 8: you know, Jack in the Box style, like just like joy,
Speaker 8: Joy Joy, And I was like, oh yeah, that guy
Speaker 8: in Minneapolis who like said I'll record your band in
Speaker 8: my garage. I love what you're doing and I and
Speaker 8: that made me feel like accepted in the punk scene,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean. Like and it was just
Speaker 8: a tiny gesture from this one person that probably they
Speaker 8: didn't even I don't think that guy even read the
Speaker 8: book or knows or remembers. But this guy to Max
Speaker 8: said I'll record you and you know, record us and
Speaker 8: my first touring band, Vivachnevl And it meant the world
Speaker 8: to me, you know, remembering the first time that I
Speaker 8: heard my vocals sounding good in headphones like literally, as
Speaker 8: I was writing it, I was remembering it for the
Speaker 8: first time, and I was sitting in that garage listening
Speaker 8: to my voice with reaverb on it and going, oh,
Speaker 8: my god, this is what I want to do forever.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 8: What a gift that I had to go through. I
Speaker 8: had to kind of, like, you know, dig myself out
Speaker 8: with a shovel. I kept seeing in my head when
Speaker 8: I was writing, like a kind of a newly dug grave,
Speaker 8: like the soil and stuff, and I felt like my
Speaker 8: hand was just sticking out and I had to reach it,
Speaker 8: pull my hand and get me out of the grave.
Speaker 8: And once I dug myself out, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 8: look at all this awesome stuff that happened that maybe
Speaker 8: you didn't fully appreciate in the moment, and I'm able
Speaker 8: to appreciate it now, and in a lot of cases
Speaker 8: I did. I had a great time, like I've had
Speaker 8: an awesome life.
Speaker 1: And last week's Women's Month celebration episode, you heard from
Speaker 1: Faith and Newman and Lisa Cortez, who were some of
Speaker 1: the first women at Depth Jam Records. We had another
Speaker 1: prominent figure from the nineteen eighties New York hip hop
Speaker 1: scene on the show. Heather Hunter maybe first start of
Speaker 1: her work in the adult industry, but she was also
Speaker 1: a staff member at the Latin Quarter and a close
Speaker 1: friend to many hip hop stars at the time. And
Speaker 1: I cherished this interview because Heather is still a great
Speaker 1: storyteller and a great friend, and because she also speaks
Speaker 1: so free. Heather touches on her transition from New York
Speaker 1: to hip hop to la in the adult industry, and
Speaker 1: there are meaningful reflections about experience as a woman and
Speaker 1: the sexism she faced in both of us.
Speaker 7: As when I was growing up in the club. Even
Speaker 7: though this genres even like saw all of them can
Speaker 7: even definitely can relate to this. We were be girls,
Speaker 7: do you know what I mean? So it seems like
Speaker 7: the bee girl had that error versus now we had
Speaker 7: so much respect. They treated us like they gave us respect.
Speaker 7: The men in hip hop it was like they put
Speaker 7: you on a pedestal versus now it's not like that,
Speaker 7: you know. And my whole thing is like bringing something back.
Speaker 7: I really wish I could bring back the big girl essence,
Speaker 7: you know, and make men and hip hop recognized that
Speaker 7: versus in the eighty and nineties, how they treated girls
Speaker 7: I mean, it's it's so different.
Speaker 2: I wish they bring back hip hop.
Speaker 5: Period.
Speaker 7: Yes, it's bad because you know, my god, you know,
Speaker 7: I'm so happy I was a big girl.
Speaker 1: So when you graduated New York or did you what
Speaker 1: did you feel like that you were outgrowing New York?
Speaker 2: Like what called you to Los Angeles?
Speaker 5: Poor?
Speaker 9: Don't avoid it, just get it, don't avoid it.
Speaker 2: Just get it. Just don't you wait? What are you
Speaker 2: talking about?
Speaker 4: I was like, just get out the Latin Court and
Speaker 4: go into them because that's where she went.
Speaker 5: That's where she went. And then when I got back,
Speaker 5: it was when I get back then it was a tunnel.
Speaker 2: You know things. Yeah, it went from that was my era.
Speaker 7: It went from Irving Plaza to tunnel and things were changing.
Speaker 7: Now you know that was my era too, because.
Speaker 5: I did a lot. I was a promoter a lot
Speaker 5: for tunnel, didn't you do?
Speaker 2: So let's tackle that issue.
Speaker 1: As all right, So you go to Los Angeles, like,
Speaker 1: how did you How do you get into the industry?
Speaker 1: How does one get into the industry, especially when the
Speaker 1: time period that you were in the industry.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm certain that porn is.
Speaker 1: Probably one of the most racist cultures of all time,
Speaker 1: Like the titles I would see it was like again
Speaker 1: like fried Chicken and fucking all that.
Speaker 2: All the stuff in my no like nah I got
Speaker 2: my uncle had.
Speaker 1: Like Ray Victory and barbecue f three Like it was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So how do you navigate your way to the status
Speaker 1: that you became because as far as I'm concerned, like
Speaker 1: you were, at least from my point of view, you
Speaker 1: kind of were equal billing of the white actresses of
Speaker 1: the of the time right on coverage. Ye, you weren't
Speaker 1: doing like super derogatory and ship.
Speaker 5: It was because I had a really good manager. He
Speaker 5: had a magical idea when we kicked me off.
Speaker 2: The magical is like, let's treat you with dignity.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's not tell them what your colored skin is.
Speaker 7: We're gonna put your first movie out and it's gonna
Speaker 7: be Heather. And it was like we're going to ignore
Speaker 7: that you're no, no, no, I'm saying as in, when
Speaker 7: you're doing promo, before you're doing promo to put out
Speaker 7: for adult like promo goes out. So the whole team
Speaker 7: was like throwing out Heather and then my face was
Speaker 7: so shown and then that's when I started standing up for.
Speaker 2: Everything, But what what's promo in the adult world back then?
Speaker 7: Promo adult world was like okay AVN when you had
Speaker 7: the ABN's back then, so they would give flyers, you
Speaker 7: would promote things.
Speaker 5: It was mostly like street teaming stuff, you know.
Speaker 7: And then you know, the Internet was only created for
Speaker 7: porn back then, so if you were on the Internet
Speaker 7: at that time, you knew exactly what was going on,
Speaker 7: at least with in the adult world.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: And then I stood up for every right From there on,
Speaker 7: I refused to be treated. I want to be treated
Speaker 7: no matter what color my skin is. So I really
Speaker 7: stood up. I broke through a lot of color barriers.
Speaker 7: I stayed to my convictions. And it's really about knowing
Speaker 7: your worth and sticking to it.
Speaker 11: You know, how oldre you When you did your first
Speaker 11: movie eighteen eight.
Speaker 5: I did it on my birthday?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 5: What was October first?
Speaker 2: Okay, what was the first? What was that experience? Like
Speaker 2: just your first time on camera?
Speaker 5: Oh, it's crazy.
Speaker 7: It was really crazy because I realized how wild the
Speaker 7: people were in the business, you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: And I was like, wow, this is crazy. It seemed
Speaker 7: like I danced through it, like I was kind of
Speaker 7: like an auto out of body experience, you know, do
Speaker 7: you know what to expect?
Speaker 5: I had no clue.
Speaker 7: And then when this girl pulled out this back then,
Speaker 7: it was really no dial though she put out one
Speaker 7: of these big massages.
Speaker 5: She was vibe you know massage. Yes, yes, Spencers.
Speaker 7: God, that was actually the first time I actually was
Speaker 7: with on camera first time, the very first time.
Speaker 2: So the first time was with the girl. It wasn't
Speaker 2: with the guy.
Speaker 7: It was it was a guy, but it was my
Speaker 7: first time actually having a girl. Oh okay, I mean
Speaker 7: I was attracted to girls, but it was my first
Speaker 7: time really going all the way in.
Speaker 1: So I mean, how are you not self conscious about it? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that some part of porn is scientific,
Speaker 1: as in, okay, stop cut, we need this angle right here,
Speaker 1: and and you know there's no manual to guide you
Speaker 1: through that or any training. So how do you you
Speaker 1: just you got to catch on quick and man.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, honestly, I say, you know, that's why the
Speaker 7: difference between now, how everybody's really over top with their
Speaker 7: sexuality and not really understanding it. When in the porn
Speaker 7: business you really have to be a professional. You have
Speaker 7: to have that professional state of mind, because if you
Speaker 7: don't and you just dip in, you can lose it
Speaker 7: along the way, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So oh yeah, I could lose it a long way.
Speaker 5: So you have to already be natural freak. I think
Speaker 5: it has to be already in you have no inhibitions,
Speaker 5: you know, comfortable with sexuality. But did you know how
Speaker 5: much of a freak you were? Like oh yeah, age, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: because you still.
Speaker 4: Have to become more of a freak, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Like eighteen freak Heather is different than ten
Speaker 4: years later.
Speaker 7: I'm more freakier now, but I'm a domestic freak now.
Speaker 7: I got a man, you know, I'm home, you know,
Speaker 7: you know, but it's a different it's different dynamic now.
Speaker 7: But I think the older you get, you get more freakier,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm looking at you to leave this conversation.
Speaker 11: But what is the difference between sex on camera and
Speaker 11: or rather, how do you differentiate between sex on camera
Speaker 11: and like you say, like domestic sex or sensitizing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like how do you how do you how do
Speaker 2: you have?
Speaker 11: Like you is it like you have a scene with
Speaker 11: somebody and it's like, oh, great job and let's hook
Speaker 11: up later or is.
Speaker 2: It just a line?
Speaker 5: It's like that was that and now we're well that's
Speaker 5: the thing.
Speaker 7: When I was in porn, I only dated porn starts,
Speaker 7: male porn starts. I wouldn't date somebody out I call
Speaker 7: y'all civilians.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wouldn't do it because honestly, I would like,
Speaker 7: why you want to date me? I'm doing porn, you know,
Speaker 7: because I wouldn't want to date me, you know. So
Speaker 7: I had this thing, now date male porn starts. So yeah,
Speaker 7: I got to pick all my men because I worked
Speaker 7: for Vivid, so it was yeah, we would go from
Speaker 7: there and then we would have awkward sex in front
Speaker 7: of the camera and everybody telling you to do something.
Speaker 5: It's just like you can't even enjoy it.
Speaker 7: So you would go back into the bathroom after your
Speaker 7: scene was done, and then y'all could actually have and
Speaker 7: get it in if y'all were together, if.
Speaker 5: You felt like it.
Speaker 2: So it is acting. How much of that is acting? Oh?
Speaker 5: It's acting. It's hard.
Speaker 9: How can you act?
Speaker 5: Your body has to respond because.
Speaker 7: It's it's like, okay, perfect example, I was watching a
Speaker 7: porn I just had this discussion with somebody was just
Speaker 7: watching porn. And like I say, if I meet a
Speaker 7: guy when I was single, if I met a guy
Speaker 7: and he's like wants to pound pound, he's doing everything
Speaker 7: like a porno movie, and no, it's like that in't good,
Speaker 7: you know, No, no, no it's not good because like
Speaker 7: when you're watching the porn, even when we're having sex
Speaker 7: on camera, we got to speed up so it looks
Speaker 7: exciting for the viewer.
Speaker 12: We have to.
Speaker 7: We have to do everything to make it look so exciting.
Speaker 7: And then when we're about exciting and into it, they like, cut, okay,
Speaker 7: we gotta do this, turn the angle, go this way,
Speaker 7: all right, heather, da da you gotta you know, So
Speaker 7: we got a.
Speaker 1: Whole new generation that watches porn and repeats it and yeah.
Speaker 2: And all they ain't need to go down. I see. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know you said so disappointed.
Speaker 5: Because they professional entertainers. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 2: That's a problem.
Speaker 5: Men watch porn and think sometimes no, it's not that
Speaker 5: it is it.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that for the male performer, it's almost
Speaker 1: there's a bigger pressure to instantly perform because I mean,
Speaker 1: women can fake orgasms like nobody's.
Speaker 5: Visit but now they got viagra. Like in my error,
Speaker 5: it was hard, you know.
Speaker 1: Now the guys are just yeah, I'm just saying like
Speaker 1: just like on que, like okay, let's go hurry up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Ray Victory, perfect sample. He could not come unless
Speaker 5: you had Red High heels on.
Speaker 2: Shut.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was banging so much. He could not come.
Speaker 5: He did not care who you were.
Speaker 7: I remember I had a scene with them and I
Speaker 7: had my little you know, because I was so very girl.
Speaker 7: Next story, I had my little skippies on.
Speaker 2: He was like, that ain't gonna get it.
Speaker 5: They ain't gonna do it. That's not going to do it.
Speaker 5: They had to go get me. Yeah, Red High Hill.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I'm kind of like the the
Speaker 2: the the yoga era of porn and this whole like
Speaker 2: what was the yoga era? The yoga era? I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean they have different things. They have like a lot.
Speaker 2: It's always the same backup. Like it's like it's either
Speaker 2: the pizza delivery scene.
Speaker 5: Oh now there's yoga class or whatever.
Speaker 2: In my head, yes, yes, I don't know. The sports
Speaker 2: gym look is not oh it's not hot. It's it's
Speaker 2: not personally sexy to me.
Speaker 4: Okay, but you know it's love, isn't just to get
Speaker 4: get you out of your your hole. You're going into
Speaker 4: porn one of the only one of the only industries
Speaker 4: where the men is inequality between the men and the
Speaker 4: women in pay where the men get paid less or is.
Speaker 7: That yeah, the men get paid less. Certain guys, if
Speaker 7: you're a star guy, you could probably make more money
Speaker 7: than the girls. But if you're engay porn, they make
Speaker 7: more money. They make money just like the women. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so it's you know, I have a lot of colleagues
Speaker 7: that are in the business that I've been out of
Speaker 7: the business for twenty eight years now. I've been retired,
Speaker 7: so it's been a long time. I kind of keep
Speaker 7: in touch with certain people because I certain people I
Speaker 7: do like that's still in the business, or like I
Speaker 7: like Missy Stone.
Speaker 5: I think she's a good person.
Speaker 4: So mentoring a little bit, how do you mentor a
Speaker 4: little bit?
Speaker 5: My whole life is a mint essure every day right now?
Speaker 7: You know, my every day is you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 7: It comes to my my uh rings on my phone
Speaker 7: every day, questions everything. So I think the business itself
Speaker 7: and I still and I think people look at me
Speaker 7: and I'm not anti porn. You know, a lot of
Speaker 7: people think, wow, she's not porn. She feels My only
Speaker 7: view about porn is that I just really wish that
Speaker 7: they would practice safe sex.
Speaker 2: How scary was it that bothered I left?
Speaker 7: Because I wasn't gonna I was wearing condoms anyway, as
Speaker 7: soon as I came about, I was wearing condoms.
Speaker 5: But after I do, I was telling I tell this
Speaker 5: all the time.
Speaker 7: When I did a movie in Hawaii for Vivid, and
Speaker 7: I was doing a scene in a non erupting volcano.
Speaker 7: It was down inside the volcano with Vince Vince somebody foyer,
Speaker 7: and I'm like, why am I down here? Because after taxes,
Speaker 7: it's not gonna be worth it, between my health taxes,
Speaker 7: I can't do this no more, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: It's just just I think I started growing up, you know,
Speaker 7: I started kind of waking up and realizing, you know,
Speaker 7: there's more things that are important, which is your health
Speaker 7: and making sure you stay on this earth. Because that
Speaker 7: business is like going into war. You can come out
Speaker 7: a soldier unscathed, or you can come out and you
Speaker 7: can really die, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: How thorough are they as far as making sure that
Speaker 1: I had my papers and I'm tested, and.
Speaker 2: Like its just someone always on the set. That's like okay,
Speaker 2: let me and someone could lie about it. In Detroit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Brazil, Yeah it was Darren James was him.
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar. I just know that you went to
Speaker 1: Brazil and he got infected. I know that the industry
Speaker 1: had to shut down for a month or so, Like
Speaker 1: who who are the police dogs that enforces that? And
Speaker 1: like in the age that it is now crazy, it's
Speaker 1: almost like pull out the iPhone.
Speaker 7: It's impossible to I mean you have your set companies
Speaker 7: that still the other protocol you take get tested every
Speaker 7: time you do a movie. Uh, these people still choose to.
Speaker 7: They don't want you to wear condoms, but if you
Speaker 7: want to, you have to really insist it. Sometimes you
Speaker 7: won't get hired because you just want with condoms. So
Speaker 7: I was a Vivid, So I was contract girls. I
Speaker 7: was able to wear condoms.
Speaker 5: I choose to.
Speaker 2: Was that the highest honer back then, like to be
Speaker 2: a Vivid.
Speaker 5: Like now oh yeah, even to this days, to be
Speaker 5: a Vivid girl.
Speaker 2: There's still yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean Kim and ray J took them to another level,
Speaker 5: right and then it just went back.
Speaker 2: That was vivid.
Speaker 5: That was vivid, right right?
Speaker 2: You said that in alacrity, like that was the empire built?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was the Kardashian empire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and me and I was probably a Vivid girl.
Speaker 5: I always will.
Speaker 7: It's something that I'm not gonna, uh forget up my
Speaker 7: life because it was. They were a great company.
Speaker 2: Were your peers as nice to you? And or that thing?
Speaker 2: Or was it like was it caddy?
Speaker 5: As far as know, all my the Vivid girls, I
Speaker 5: was cool with one I punched in the face.
Speaker 2: Who was that?
Speaker 5: That's hilarious.
Speaker 9: I just want to know what she did?
Speaker 5: And one it was one I punched in the face.
Speaker 2: Who do you have the punch?
Speaker 5: Who was I'm not going to say, why did you
Speaker 5: have the punch?
Speaker 7: Huh?
Speaker 2: What'd she do?
Speaker 5: We were all on set waiting for her.
Speaker 7: All the Vivid girls were on step waiting for I
Speaker 7: was really sick, and she decides that she showed up
Speaker 7: like four hours later. She went to go get her
Speaker 7: hair bleached, and I was sick, and then she came
Speaker 7: in just like I could do what evan, what.
Speaker 5: You gonna do with it? Not just socked?
Speaker 2: What you going to do? Did she still do the same.
Speaker 7: My Keisha came out and that socked and now.
Speaker 5: And then they sit they sent her home and I
Speaker 5: finished the shoot. You know, her face was fucked up.
Speaker 5: Her face was fucked No. After that she became like
Speaker 5: she really wanted to be my best friend. From there on.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to get posted.
Speaker 7: It's funny, it's funny, but yeah, no, everybody's always respectful.
Speaker 7: We were like the Brady Bunch.
Speaker 1: For the environment you grew up in as a New
Speaker 1: york and the time that you grew up and as
Speaker 1: a New Yorker, you're very nurturing and not necessarily like
Speaker 1: usually there's a hard exterior or a defensive exterior, and
Speaker 1: most New Yorkers, I know, like I've yet to hear
Speaker 1: you say what happened or like any Brooklyn sort of
Speaker 1: terminology that lets me know that you're like you've been
Speaker 1: through shit and lived through shit.
Speaker 2: Deadass.
Speaker 7: But that's that's when I said Keisha come, that's my
Speaker 7: middle name. That's when Keisha comes out, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean?
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, what is your real name?
Speaker 5: My name is Heather A Kisha Hunter.
Speaker 2: Okay, what made you go into your real name?
Speaker 5: My father he said, be proud of your name. You
Speaker 5: have a powerful name.
Speaker 2: So when he found out you were doing Paul, what
Speaker 2: was his reaction?
Speaker 5: He was like he was not shocked. It was more
Speaker 5: or less.
Speaker 7: My father always I could rob a bank, and my
Speaker 7: dad was like, she's the best bank robber.
Speaker 5: I could do no wrong in.
Speaker 7: My father's eyes, which is beautiful because that helped me,
Speaker 7: you know, you know along the way.
Speaker 2: You know your mother in the picture as well.
Speaker 5: My mom to my mom, still don't get it. She
Speaker 5: looked at me like, what did you do.
Speaker 2: So get it?
Speaker 5: You know, she's still don't get it.
Speaker 2: Do you have a large family? Do you have cousins?
Speaker 5: A huge family?
Speaker 1: Because you are the krim of? I mean, your name
Speaker 1: is is pop culture reference in many of hip hop's rhymes.
Speaker 1: Is it weird for your cousins or whatever?
Speaker 2: Like to like how.
Speaker 7: Well my sisters? I have to you know, it's interesting
Speaker 7: my younger sisters. All right, okay, yeah, my my younger sister.
Speaker 7: You know, I knew it was gonna be hard for
Speaker 7: them because they're both beautiful, they attractive. But what I
Speaker 7: loved about them they raise so strong, good head on
Speaker 7: their shoulders that no matter what comes away, or if
Speaker 7: somebody was like, oh you have to have the sister
Speaker 7: or something. They really handle it, you know, they never
Speaker 7: wanted to stray away from it, you know. And then
Speaker 7: my male cousins all of them use my name like,
Speaker 7: oh I could get pussy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's it's interesting.
Speaker 4: What about all those those mcs that you mentioned that
Speaker 4: you came up with La and Quarter, Like, at what
Speaker 4: point was everybody well receiving of your career or was
Speaker 4: anybody like, all right, let me come talk to you
Speaker 4: in a corner.
Speaker 7: You know, I have a few, like a few. Thank god.
Speaker 7: I've been the same all my life. My character, everything
Speaker 7: about me, I've never changed. So you have a few
Speaker 7: people that have thrown off. You know, definitely a few
Speaker 7: people have thrown off, But then they got used to
Speaker 7: it because I think it came with the respect that
Speaker 7: I already had within my community, my street, my friends.
Speaker 5: It was just already there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I really respect people.
Speaker 2: And something just hit me right now, like literally, when
Speaker 2: she said that, something hit me. I'm sorry it sounded
Speaker 2: like it. Wait a minute.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this about me, Heather,
Speaker 1: but I am probably the third most knowledgeable person of
Speaker 1: anything soul trained porn.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, so trained.
Speaker 2: You danced on soul Train. Yeah, I believe that was you.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, even then, I didn't put
Speaker 1: two and two together that that was you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wasn't porn at that time.
Speaker 2: Wow, I was going to say you were on you
Speaker 2: were a soul trained dancer as Heather Hunter.
Speaker 7: I snuck in on the line. I used my mother's name,
Speaker 7: so I got online. They let me in as soon
Speaker 7: as I was on the floor, I guess because I
Speaker 7: dance like I'm New York.
Speaker 2: They were like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: And the.
Speaker 7: Asian girl with the long hair, yeah, she was retiring
Speaker 7: and I had long hair, so they immediately threw me
Speaker 7: up on the stage. So now I'm on stage, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 7: this is bad, this is great.
Speaker 5: My boy who had the cane?
Speaker 2: I forgot.
Speaker 5: It took like about five shows for I was going to.
Speaker 2: Say, you were only on for seven episodes? What happened?
Speaker 7: Eric Cassim, who was the manager who was the production
Speaker 7: that he knew after he realized it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: sat the Hunter, you know, And even Louis pointed to
Speaker 7: the cane, Oh my god, it's the Hunter. So they
Speaker 7: kind of hid me from from Don Cornelius for a while,
Speaker 7: and they threw me down. Eric kept throwing me down
Speaker 7: the soul train line. Okay, this gets you down the
Speaker 7: soul train line. Let's get you down. We're gonna get
Speaker 7: all these down. And then out of nowhere, someone contacted
Speaker 7: the Don Cornelius and say that you have a point
Speaker 7: started gyrating.
Speaker 5: Twirling down the line.
Speaker 2: I produced Pam Brown. It was Pam Brown. It probably
Speaker 2: she was a wow.
Speaker 7: Don was like, pulled me to the side. When I
Speaker 7: came back next time, he could not. This is how
Speaker 7: great this was. Because I would see Don at Stringfellows
Speaker 7: at the club in La So He's like, who is
Speaker 7: this girl? How'd she get into Stringfellas? I'm there with
Speaker 7: Marvin Gay Jr. All of them, and how is she
Speaker 7: in here?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: And then it clicked and he found out who I was,
Speaker 5: and then he couldn't uh.
Speaker 2: I got.
Speaker 7: I love Don for this because he didn't want to
Speaker 7: tell me that I couldn't be on the show because
Speaker 7: he thought it was not right to do.
Speaker 5: You can't do that, you know what I mean? Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: So I gave him a break and I did it for.
Speaker 7: Him, you know, what I mean, really, yeah, I gave
Speaker 7: it to it and then I used to and then
Speaker 7: I said, said, I get it. You know, I'm just
Speaker 7: happy that I had experience to actually do this. And
Speaker 7: he was like, you could still hang and come down,
Speaker 7: and that exactly why I would do. I go and
Speaker 7: chill and I would hang out because I worked with
Speaker 7: Eric as well, and Don was just the coolest and
Speaker 7: then a by that time, you know, I'm friends, and
Speaker 7: I had to respect him because you know, he couldn't
Speaker 7: do it. You know, he couldn't say, hey, you can't
Speaker 7: be I only had to. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna go. And then we did a pornal movie
Speaker 7: called Get On a Real Soul Trade.
Speaker 2: So back.
Speaker 1: When we interviewed lunch Back in twenty sixteen, Fante asked
Speaker 1: a really interesting question just about her sisterhood with Beyonce,
Speaker 1: based on a lyric Let's listen.
Speaker 11: Back one lyric that I always wanted to ask you about.
Speaker 2: Uh it was.
Speaker 11: It was a It was a Beyonce lyric where she says,
Speaker 11: and pardon me if I butchered, But you're saying.
Speaker 2: You know, my my sister taught me to speak my mind.
Speaker 2: If I'm okay, I got it all right. Where what
Speaker 2: explain that? Like, what influence did you play or do
Speaker 2: you do you think you played on her in that way?
Speaker 9: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 13: I didn't know that that lyric was gonna come out,
Speaker 13: so I was just a sucp surprised as everybody else.
Speaker 13: But I think that our relationship is really cool because
Speaker 13: since we've been younger, we've both been very very protective
Speaker 13: of each other, and we both have pushed each other
Speaker 13: in the boundaries and our ways of communicating through just
Speaker 13: humans and women, but also as artists. And I think
Speaker 13: everyone who's around me, friends, family, my son, his friends.
Speaker 13: I'm a huge, you know, advocate for people getting to
Speaker 13: live in their honesty and their truth. I think we
Speaker 13: all deserve that. And even when I think back to
Speaker 13: my SNL performance, like, you know, just the feeling of.
Speaker 5: Being able to say.
Speaker 13: That everything that we do as humans is not going
Speaker 13: to be perfect and it's going to be flawed, and
Speaker 13: to be able to own those imperfections and speak up
Speaker 13: on them and not feel hindered or you know that
Speaker 13: I would like to think that maybe you know, just
Speaker 13: as family, that I have played a role and also
Speaker 13: constantly telling her that as well. You know, I tell
Speaker 13: all of my especially my black women friends, like we
Speaker 13: have to operate in the world so so heavily and
Speaker 13: carrying so much weight on a daily basis, the black
Speaker 13: woman in America, and I think that we're not told
Speaker 13: like it's okay to be flawed and to not be
Speaker 13: so strong all the time.
Speaker 2: And Okay, I know you're mad regular. I don't even
Speaker 2: know if I'm allowed to see that.
Speaker 8: I am.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty I'm.
Speaker 13: Like, you know, that's very funny. A lot of my
Speaker 13: friends describe me as that way, and I'm like, I
Speaker 13: don't know, what.
Speaker 2: Is it like that? Well, that's when I knew you
Speaker 2: would be cool. Okay, but you know, at the beginning,
Speaker 2: it's okay to an outsider.
Speaker 1: Because the perception of the dynasty it's so gleamingly blinding
Speaker 1: that again people don't But what I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: do you still feel I know that you fight for
Speaker 1: your private life, and you fight, well, not fight just.
Speaker 3: To you you protected, well, not even protected, just you're.
Speaker 2: Gonna do what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you just want mad normal moments, and you
Speaker 1: guys indulged in mad regular normal hey.
Speaker 2: The you know, the the noles.
Speaker 11: Just like when I saw her, when I saw Miss
Speaker 11: Tina and mister Lawson posing in the parking lot of Costco,
Speaker 11: I was like, yo, data realist niggas out like.
Speaker 2: God, Like I'm like, yo, she real for that, and
Speaker 2: she was happy to get the savings.
Speaker 13: Like, oh my god, she's so serious about those mic downs.
Speaker 1: But I mean, do you at what point did you
Speaker 1: collectively all of you decide like I'm done, I'm tired,
Speaker 1: like we could just be regular. I mean, because some
Speaker 1: of y'all are super heroes to some people, and then
Speaker 1: you want to be regular.
Speaker 2: So at what point do you just decide like I
Speaker 2: gotta be regular and I'm gonna just be me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 13: I think I personally have always operated from a space
Speaker 13: of like you said, like what, I'm drawn to the
Speaker 13: things that bring me the most joy, and I try
Speaker 13: to nurture them, whatever that is. And I've also lived
Speaker 13: in places that have allowed me to do that safely,
Speaker 13: Like living in New Orleans is a huge part of that.
Speaker 2: And why did you choose New Orleans?
Speaker 3: I love New Orleans.
Speaker 5: I just loved the city.
Speaker 3: I love the people, I love the culture.
Speaker 4: Did you kind of break up with New York because
Speaker 4: I read something like that you kind of got tired
Speaker 4: of certain aspects in New York or East Coast eliteism
Speaker 4: liberally like that.
Speaker 9: That was definitely a part of it.
Speaker 13: That was definitely a part of it.
Speaker 2: But I think we were not so good in Brooklyn.
Speaker 9: How do you do all that gentrification in Brooklyn?
Speaker 4: And it's a lot it happens, It's happening, Yeah, but
Speaker 4: it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: Do you still have those house parties in New Orleans?
Speaker 1: Her last night in Brooklyn was was really cool, Like
Speaker 1: I had not even had a house party in my house.
Speaker 2: Like when I do a party, I gotta do it
Speaker 2: somewhere that's not in my house. Ship. Yeah, but it
Speaker 2: was like it was like a cool house party.
Speaker 4: DJ on Earth, it's been twenty years. Can I just
Speaker 4: add on this to something that you said. I wanted
Speaker 4: to ask you, you know, Amir said something about just
Speaker 4: the perception of you, but I feel like Solange fans
Speaker 4: have a different.
Speaker 9: Perception of you, and yeah, like I feel like, in
Speaker 9: kind of going.
Speaker 4: Back to what Fante said, because I said to Fante
Speaker 4: when we first were talking about having you on the show,
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, Solange is like she's free,
Speaker 4: you know, and I.
Speaker 2: Think you called me the male Solange.
Speaker 3: Who else?
Speaker 4: He said, what does that mean to you? And I said, well,
Speaker 4: to me, it means that whatever she does and whichever
Speaker 4: way she decides to do it, people who love her
Speaker 4: will follow it. And that fuck with you. And you
Speaker 4: don't have any leashes or any fences around you, like
Speaker 4: and the ways you said, it's so easily, like you know,
Speaker 4: I get.
Speaker 5: To say all these things that I want to say
Speaker 5: and do all these things I want to do. That's
Speaker 5: like freedom. Do you know that?
Speaker 4: Do you know your fans look at you as kind
Speaker 4: of like the free?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's a lot that
Speaker 13: comes with that, because I think even just the design
Speaker 13: of the term like care free black girl, parts of
Speaker 13: that I embrace and then parts of that I reject
Speaker 13: because I do have a lot of care.
Speaker 9: I don't know what care.
Speaker 6: I know, well, you know that's.
Speaker 2: To care for you. That's the new Twitter term.
Speaker 4: What is a care free black girl?
Speaker 14: There's no such thing, but you well, the idea of
Speaker 14: if we claim that, and we we claim that as
Speaker 14: our names, that people are not allowed to see black.
Speaker 13: Women as care free individuals. They see us as angry
Speaker 13: black women.
Speaker 9: As you know, very wellful.
Speaker 2: This just turned into an episode.
Speaker 4: Can I just as men like what you just said,
Speaker 4: I feel all the time, y'all. Don't that doesn't just
Speaker 4: make you tire.
Speaker 2: Just might be real A hundred This this is like
Speaker 2: black healing time.
Speaker 11: No, No, that was real because because what she said,
Speaker 11: because sometimes she took the words out of my mouth
Speaker 11: when she was talking about like strong black women. And
Speaker 11: that's something that I've always what I think is like,
Speaker 11: you know, kind of the gift and the curse so
Speaker 11: to speak of black women is that that's like the
Speaker 11: first thing that black women always described as she's so strong,
Speaker 11: she's so strong, so strong, And so when you do that,
Speaker 11: it's like, yeah, they're strong in the sense of like
Speaker 11: what we've had to endure as people and how like
Speaker 11: women have been the backbone of the family and all
Speaker 11: the boys, right, but it wasn't a choice. And too,
Speaker 11: when you characterize something as always being strong, you don't
Speaker 11: ever give it a chance to be delicate. So you
Speaker 11: don't ever get you know, a black black woman, men
Speaker 11: get to be soft or vulnerable or delicate or fragile.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 11: You never get to see them in that way. So again,
Speaker 11: that was just one of the things I liked about
Speaker 11: your album. It gives a full portrait of just a black.
Speaker 9: Friend to the black woman.
Speaker 1: Next, we're gonna hear from Oscar winning director Catherine Bielow,
Speaker 1: and she's gonna explain why she chosen to resist conversations
Speaker 1: about the smaller circle of women directors than men. Catherine
Speaker 1: directed Zero, Dark, thirty and The Original, Point Break and
Speaker 1: The Boobye Detroit.
Speaker 4: Is there a female director collective like.
Speaker 15: Well, there's there's a kind of a kind of like
Speaker 15: that at the TCA Director Skilled of America, the Steering Committee,
Speaker 15: And I mean, you you know, I suppose my feeling
Speaker 15: is I've always resisted a conversation about your woman doing.
Speaker 15: You know, I think that kind of ghettoizes women, you know,
Speaker 15: in other words, that actually prevents a perceptual in other words,
Speaker 15: it it siloizes them. And so, you know, I think
Speaker 15: of myself as a filmmaker, I don't think of myself
Speaker 15: as a woman director.
Speaker 2: So there's no Sundays with Sophia and.
Speaker 15: I just I just don't think of that, only because
Speaker 15: I think it, Well, I don't think like that because
Speaker 15: I think it perpetuates that inequity.
Speaker 4: But what about from a mentorship standpoint, because they it
Speaker 4: is and I'm guessing that there is an inequity in
Speaker 4: the numbers of the female directors.
Speaker 15: And seven percent you mean that that kind of inequity.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, it's that like sixty cents
Speaker 4: to a dollar to me, but facts. But yeah, so
Speaker 4: what about on that note, because there is a dichotomy
Speaker 4: of Okay, I don't want to be the female director,
Speaker 4: but hey, it's not a lot of us.
Speaker 1: So how do I use there an end game where
Speaker 1: you become mureau like do you run? Do you imagine
Speaker 1: like maybe fifteen years from now you will have your
Speaker 1: own paramount where you wow, make sure that again, like again,
Speaker 1: you said that, you already said that you don't want
Speaker 1: to focus on the sex of it, but at least
Speaker 1: from what you know, and I know that you've had
Speaker 1: a lot of mansplanning done in your life and a
Speaker 1: bunch of no's told to you, and you've saw injustice
Speaker 1: where your male counterparts would have gotten that and sure,
Speaker 1: petty shit like well, I think it should be done
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 2: And that whatever.
Speaker 1: So is there any desire to I would like to
Speaker 1: open my own production company and.
Speaker 2: Give fellow mes out there a voice or that sort
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm.
Speaker 15: Well, I'm working with I do you know, I'm producing
Speaker 15: a couple of things, and I try to you know,
Speaker 15: I try to give back in that way. And I
Speaker 15: suppose also in the world of philanthropy, as I said,
Speaker 15: elephant conservation or any wildlife trafficking conservation, So you try
Speaker 15: to give back in a way that's meaningful. But I
Speaker 15: also am a creative advisor at Sundance, and that's where
Speaker 15: I sort of spend most of my energy of trying.
Speaker 2: To even at the score.
Speaker 15: Well, yeah, to a certain extent. On the other hand,
Speaker 15: I sort of always walk away from that feeling like
Speaker 15: I get way more than anybody else.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 15: It's just I don't know, do you know, kind of
Speaker 15: I don't presume to be able to. I mean, I
Speaker 15: never want to tell somebody what to do. I just
Speaker 15: want to do what I do and hope that inspires
Speaker 15: others to carry on. And I always tell them, don't
Speaker 15: take no for an answer. No, it doesn't exist. World
Speaker 15: in your universe not doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: All right, here's my pal Nelly Furtado speaking about some
Speaker 1: of the issues she encountered as a woman in the
Speaker 1: industreet surrounding her imaging and message.
Speaker 9: Twenty one year old girl, Like all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: like what, like I'm.
Speaker 12: Nominated for Grammy and like my mom's sitting next to
Speaker 12: me and were at the Grammys and I went a grant.
Speaker 9: Like it was all surreal.
Speaker 2: How do you feel when they announced your name that night?
Speaker 2: I think I was there that night when you won
Speaker 2: your your Yeah.
Speaker 9: You were probably there, Yeah, back in the good old days.
Speaker 9: I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 2: I was like, what you kind of I mean you
Speaker 2: expected to win. I mean you were unstoppable.
Speaker 12: I don't know, like it's still cool, Like it's still
Speaker 12: the funny thing that happens is afterwards. I remember I
Speaker 12: was living in it. I remember, actually exactly, because I
Speaker 12: was living in LA for like a year. I remember
Speaker 12: you invited me to a party one night and I
Speaker 12: couldn't go, And I don't remember why.
Speaker 9: I couldn't convince my friend to come out with me
Speaker 9: and I didn't go. My roommate my friend. But around
Speaker 9: that time, I remember starting to.
Speaker 12: Feel like, oh, I got to deal with all the
Speaker 12: other ways I actually feel about this business, you know
Speaker 12: what I mean?
Speaker 9: The starry eyes are gone.
Speaker 12: I'm now wondering does it all come down to wearing
Speaker 12: a pretty dress on the red carpet? And that really
Speaker 12: messes with you when you're only twenty two.
Speaker 5: This is before the second album.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it was right when I was about to record
Speaker 9: when you're.
Speaker 2: Worrying that you might become the establishment that you were.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and that's why my first single on Folklore is
Speaker 12: called Powerless where magically sign of the times.
Speaker 9: They asked me to sing it tomorrow on the Today Show.
Speaker 9: I was like, is this a typo? Do you need ris?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 9: Do you know what I mean? Like people want to
Speaker 9: hear songs.
Speaker 12: Like Powerless now, which was a kind of like a
Speaker 12: protest song at the time.
Speaker 11: The first line says, I mean, look at the time
Speaker 11: we're living in those it's now I think I know,
Speaker 11: but it's.
Speaker 12: Amazing to me that music can live on in that
Speaker 12: way and still inspire people. Because the first line says,
Speaker 12: paint my face in your magazines, make it look whiter
Speaker 12: than it seems. Paint me over with your dreams, shove
Speaker 12: away my ethnicity because his life is too short.
Speaker 9: To live it just for you. But if you feel
Speaker 9: when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do? Okay,
Speaker 9: I got to learn lyrics before tomorrow. You yeah gonna do?
Speaker 9: So say what you want? But is that true now?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 4: Really, at some point, somebody because your ethnicity is a
Speaker 4: part of yeah sound, So somebody.
Speaker 9: Really came at you in a label type that way
Speaker 9: in photo shoots.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I felt like there was an how do I
Speaker 12: say anglization? Yeah, anglicization on me. I've always had olive skin,
Speaker 12: you know what I mean. I was aware of that
Speaker 12: because I grew up in a small town British colony.
Speaker 12: I was like the only ethnic kid in my class
Speaker 12: in kindergarten, so it's all you know, relative and then
Speaker 12: I and so by the time I was done with
Speaker 12: my first record and I was doing Powerless, I was like, well,
Speaker 12: what about who am I really?
Speaker 9: You know what I mean?
Speaker 12: Like, what what am I really about? And what do
Speaker 12: I want to say on this next record? So I
Speaker 12: started talking about the next record. I have a song
Speaker 12: called like Fresh off the Boat. You know, my parents
Speaker 12: are immigrants. I was born in Canada. I have a
Speaker 12: song called picture Perfect about my dad's like immigrant dream
Speaker 12: of like coming to Canada and how everything looks so
Speaker 12: good in the old seventies photographs when you look at it.
Speaker 9: Right, So anyway, yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, Sometimes I
Speaker 9: would feel like there was a paradigm you needed to
Speaker 9: fit into at the time that didn't always match how
Speaker 9: I felt. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So last week we played a clip from Chila and
Speaker 1: I asked her if she felt any pressure as a
Speaker 1: woman playing the drums, And I asked the same about
Speaker 1: Terry Lane Carrington in twenty twenty two. She had a
Speaker 1: real answer too, which not only spoke to her self confidence,
Speaker 1: but to the work she does play in ginger equality
Speaker 1: as an educator.
Speaker 2: Let's listen back.
Speaker 4: I just want to know, you say from the jump,
Speaker 4: jazz was in your life in the sense that like
Speaker 4: no other you weren't even as a kid in school,
Speaker 4: because I mean you said Berkeley when you were eleven.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, did anything else ever getting to the
Speaker 4: householder into your ears outside of the.
Speaker 16: Art, Okay, Yeah, I mean I was. I mean I
Speaker 16: listened to the radio and I listened to you know,
Speaker 16: like my father started me off listening to what he
Speaker 16: would consider more rhythm and blues, which at the time
Speaker 16: we were talking about the early seventies. But for him,
Speaker 16: like he played in horn sections with James Brown and
Speaker 16: Ruth Brown and people like that when he was in college,
Speaker 16: and so that's the kind of music he started me
Speaker 16: off listening to because he thought I would be able
Speaker 16: to relate to that, you know, more than John Coletraine
Speaker 16: and Miles Davis. So I was listening to lots of Oregon,
Speaker 16: you know, lots lots of blues, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff,
Speaker 16: and you know, some rhythm and blues of course, James Brown,
Speaker 16: Ray Charles Raytha Franklin. And those are the records, you know,
Speaker 16: a lot of the records that I remember, you know,
Speaker 16: as a kid.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the first album that you purchased
Speaker 1: with your own money? Not just that around the house,
Speaker 1: like oh, let me see what Dad's James Brown's album
Speaker 1: are into?
Speaker 16: But like, yeah, you know, like I don't know if
Speaker 16: I purchased it, but I think I must have asked
Speaker 16: my parents to get get it for me, because I'm
Speaker 16: not sure they would have. For whatever reason, I was obsessed.
Speaker 16: And I remember I had one of those kids it
Speaker 16: was green too, one of those kids, uh phonograph players
Speaker 16: that had a little speaker built in.
Speaker 2: Post pre school or whatever, Fisher Price record players. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like I know what this record or what
Speaker 2: was the record?
Speaker 16: Oh no, it was the Fifth Dimension.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 16: I was obsessed with Aquarius. Uh yeah, for some reason,
Speaker 16: the age of the Aquarius, Like are you one? No, no, no,
Speaker 16: I'm a leo.
Speaker 5: Okay, I forget.
Speaker 8: That being the record.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no no no, I'm just saying no,
Speaker 2: it's for being a leo.
Speaker 1: Get points if you're a queer for drumming, though, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that there's a sect of people whose opinions
Speaker 1: are like, you know, at least for ginger pairing, Like
Speaker 1: there are instruments that it's probably deemed that men should
Speaker 1: use only as far as masculine or feminine whatever, like
Speaker 1: the women on drums really, in my opinion, like an
Speaker 1: adjustment pre nineteen eighties. But at all, did anyone ever
Speaker 1: discourage you, like, well, why don't you try the piano
Speaker 1: or maybe a guitar, violin, yeah, clarinet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't you know.
Speaker 16: I don't know if anybody really ever discouraged me. And
Speaker 16: I was you know, I was confident at a young age,
Speaker 16: so like, I think what tells a story about that?
Speaker 16: For me, the best is when I met Buddy Rich
Speaker 16: for the first time. I was ten. I was a
Speaker 16: guest with Clark Terry, so nice to you. That was
Speaker 16: the thing. Everybody said, stay away from him. He's in
Speaker 16: a really bad mood. And I didn't care, and I
Speaker 16: went up to him anyway. And so then somebody stepped
Speaker 16: in and said, well, let me introduce you to young Terry.
Speaker 16: She's a guest with Clark Terry. And he said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 16: you better not be any good. And I just looked
Speaker 16: at him and said, well, who's going to stop me?
Speaker 5: Ooh? And then he said he kind of took a.
Speaker 16: Step back, and then he said, you want to come
Speaker 16: play with my band?
Speaker 5: Oh you see what I mean? Flax flax? No, but
Speaker 5: well it wasn't that. It was beautiful flax.
Speaker 16: Well yeah, because I think it's how you're raised and
Speaker 16: I was raised that this is my music.
Speaker 3: Where did that.
Speaker 4: Confidence come from, Terry? Like, do you remember, like did
Speaker 4: your parents something say to you, like the impetus of.
Speaker 16: That, Like, I think it's who you are, and that's
Speaker 16: why I do so much gender equity work now because
Speaker 16: every woman shouldn't have to be like me. I would
Speaker 16: go ahead to head with any man, you know what
Speaker 16: I mean, And I'm not intimidated by anyone. I can
Speaker 16: be I can be shy, and I can be insecure.
Speaker 16: Of course, we're all insecure. If I was playing a
Speaker 16: gig next to you, I would be insecure, especially if
Speaker 16: I had to play the groove, I'd be like, oh man,
Speaker 16: he sitting next to me.
Speaker 2: Damn, right now you're talking about sugar Steve and his
Speaker 2: engineering skills.
Speaker 16: What I'm just saying, No, I'm serious, And so I'm
Speaker 16: just saying that doesn't mean I think you can be
Speaker 16: confident and that be a part of your personality, which
Speaker 16: doesn't mean there's these other things that you know aren't
Speaker 16: there as well. But you shouldn't have to be like
Speaker 16: me to make it, you know, you shouldn't have to
Speaker 16: have that kind of personality as a woman to to
Speaker 16: have the opportunity or the access or mentorship or apprenticeships.
Speaker 16: And so that's you know, when I realized that. That's
Speaker 16: when I because I had been looking at women saying, well,
Speaker 16: what do you mean? Just do it?
Speaker 5: You know, like, what do you mean, just later for them,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 16: Like something discourage you, that should give you more infetous
Speaker 16: to you know, And then I realized, you know, they
Speaker 16: have a nervous breakdowns and shit, you know, like so
Speaker 16: I had to look at it differently.
Speaker 4: Because everybody doesn't have a foundation, because you still had
Speaker 4: some type of foundation to let you know that that
Speaker 4: is the way to think, and these women didn't have that.
Speaker 16: So and they don't need to. That's the whole thing.
Speaker 16: We're all different, you know, we don't have to be.
Speaker 16: I was nothing around nothing but men playing, you know,
Speaker 16: for a long time, and so I ended up kind
Speaker 16: of acting like them, you know, and not be you know,
Speaker 16: having a problem being around man all the time. So
Speaker 16: I think that, you know, we should celebrate our differences.
Speaker 16: And what does a woman's aesthetic sound like in the music?
Speaker 16: You know, I think that's the question we should start
Speaker 16: to ask.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, thank you for tuning in and celebrating
Speaker 1: Women's History Month with QLES. We're gonna be releasing some
Speaker 1: new conversations, especially with some amazing women.
Speaker 2: Soon, so please come back next week for Pardon Free,
Speaker 2: What's the Sugree, what's the production of iHeart radio.
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