Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome the inside the studio on iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: My name is Jordan runt Dog. But enough about me.
Speaker 1: You can see my guest today every weeknight on The
Speaker 1: Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he leads his band
Speaker 1: Stay Human. But that's just a small portion of his
Speaker 1: oversized resume. Born to a family of musicians in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: the Juilliard educated performer serves as the musical director of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic and the creative director of the National Jazz
Speaker 1: Museum in Harlem. He also co composed the music for
Speaker 1: the latest Pixar masterpiece, Soul, which has released last fall.
Speaker 1: If his expansive career has a through line, it's that
Speaker 1: music makes the world better. He often performs spontaneous public
Speaker 1: events that he calls love riots, spreading joy throughout his
Speaker 1: adopted city of New York. Over the summer, he used
Speaker 1: his voice to amplify protests for the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: movement in the wake of the murders of George Floyd
Speaker 1: and Brianna Taylor. More recently, he performed for frontline workers
Speaker 1: at vaccination sites as part of New York Pops Up.
Speaker 1: He continues to push for a higher social consciousness on
Speaker 1: his new album We Are, which is out today. It's
Speaker 1: a record that blends the whole continuum of American music,
Speaker 1: from jazz and rock to country and hip hop. For
Speaker 1: such a community minded man, this album certainly took a village.
Speaker 1: There over a hundred musicians playing on it, including legends
Speaker 1: like Quincy Jones, Maybe Staples, Steve Jordan's and Trombone Shorty.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to speak to the maestro himself, Mr
Speaker 1: John Battit wait, oh wait, yeah, oh man, John, I'd
Speaker 1: asked to do it with you. I got a little
Speaker 1: piano over here, but I don't want to embarrass myself,
Speaker 1: so I'll leave. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Man. What
Speaker 1: kind of piano. It's just a little cork nothing, a
Speaker 1: little apartment living so I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if too, I don't have a lot of room. Oh
Speaker 1: you're killing it though, Oh mass, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time to talk today. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: such a pleasure. I've got so many things I want
Speaker 1: to ask me. Well, yeah, oh man, this is really
Speaker 1: the perfect place to start. You're gearing up to release
Speaker 1: your new album, we Are, and it's it's an album
Speaker 1: that's just jam packed with warmth and joy. It's just
Speaker 1: coming out of every song. You can really feel it.
Speaker 1: But before we dive into the specifics of the album,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about a concept that runs
Speaker 1: through all of your work, and I love it so much.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to talk about social music.
Speaker 1: Tell me if you would about that philosophy. I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to share that with people. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Social music is tapping into the power of music at
Speaker 1: its rawist form. And we've looked at music as entertainment
Speaker 1: for so long and it's become a commodity, but you
Speaker 1: have to think that for centuries and centuries before it's
Speaker 1: become this thing that we put on t shirts and
Speaker 1: CDs and and we sell. It was a part of
Speaker 1: the fabric of everyday life in communities. You have drum
Speaker 1: circles in Ghana, you'd have people passing the fiddle around.
Speaker 1: In the Apple Asia, you have people singing songs, indigenous
Speaker 1: people from America, Native Americans, the spirituals, folk songs. And
Speaker 1: there's not many places left where there's that kind of
Speaker 1: social music. And my idea of social music is taking
Speaker 1: all of those different forms of music and connecting them
Speaker 1: and creating a d categorized form of music that's a
Speaker 1: part of the fabric of everyday life in the twenty
Speaker 1: one century. And it sounds like it took a community,
Speaker 1: a whole village to put this album together. Some hundred
Speaker 1: artists have read the play on it. You've said that
Speaker 1: the blueprint of of We Are came together over six
Speaker 1: days in your dressing room. What was that process? Like? How?
Speaker 1: How was that? It was kinetic? Man? The energy was
Speaker 1: in the air. You know, it was a great thing
Speaker 1: to capture because I was in the middle of so
Speaker 1: many things, you know, doing the show, doing a musical,
Speaker 1: during the score for a movie Pixar sold doing all
Speaker 1: these things at one time. And I was coming in
Speaker 1: and out of my dressing room, and I had creatives
Speaker 1: and food deliveries and instruments all over the place, just
Speaker 1: kind of around the clock for six days. And that's
Speaker 1: how we came up with the blueprint of the album.
Speaker 1: Autumn Roll, songwriter, Kids, old producer, myself, The three of
Speaker 1: us were kind of the nucleus of that six day session,
Speaker 1: and um, there were many many musicians coming in and out,
Speaker 1: as I said, But then over eight or nine months
Speaker 1: following that, six days. I built the record out, UM
Speaker 1: built the vision out in l A, New Orleans and
Speaker 1: New York. And that was really a powerful thing because
Speaker 1: it concluded during the first wave of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: during the protest A lot of them, um you know,
Speaker 1: we're going on in New York City, and I led
Speaker 1: the first musical marches in New York City when um
Speaker 1: we we found out about George Floyd, and um you know,
Speaker 1: there was so much going on, and I think all
Speaker 1: of that time was captured in this record. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: for making a record of social music. The events of
Speaker 1: that of the last year must have changed the meaning
Speaker 1: of the music that you've written prior to that immense
Speaker 1: slateman with George Floyd, as you mentioned Brianna Taylor and
Speaker 1: and just the whole Black Lives Matter movement. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about the cover art for for for
Speaker 1: We Are, because there's a lot of history in that font.
Speaker 1: If you look closely, it's modeled after a very famous
Speaker 1: poster and in the the Civil rights movement. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about that. Absolutely the Memphis Sanitation workers strike,
Speaker 1: which Dr Martin Luther King Junior championed nationally just prior
Speaker 1: to him being assassinated in which my grandfather was a
Speaker 1: part of, which you know, as as an activist, as
Speaker 1: a as a leader in his community, as the president
Speaker 1: of the Hotel Workers Union and the Postal Workers Union
Speaker 1: in Louisiana at different times he fought for the rights
Speaker 1: of workers in in Louisiana. Um So, just the connection
Speaker 1: to my personal lineage and also the lineage of the
Speaker 1: black diaspora and all of the heroes and unsung heroes.
Speaker 1: That's what the album is about. It's my coming of
Speaker 1: age as an artist and as a person through my
Speaker 1: lineage and my craft, and also the coming of age
Speaker 1: in the twenty one century of all of these different
Speaker 1: forms of black culture and social music. The title we
Speaker 1: Are is so great because to me, it reminds me
Speaker 1: one of those optical puzzles where you look at it
Speaker 1: one way, it looks like one thing, but then if
Speaker 1: your perspective a bit, it looks like something holy other
Speaker 1: If we are as a question, it's an answer, it's
Speaker 1: a promise, it's an affirmation. It's so many different things.
Speaker 1: What does that title mean for you? That's it, You
Speaker 1: nailed it. It's one of those things that gives people
Speaker 1: the question and answer at the same time. It gives
Speaker 1: people a prayer and a hope, and also it gives
Speaker 1: them a vision of the future and of the past
Speaker 1: at the same time. The great art that I really
Speaker 1: admire in what I strive to do is to exist
Speaker 1: in the space of timelessness, which means that you're coming
Speaker 1: from the past, the present, and in the future at
Speaker 1: the same time. You're broadcasting what the vision of the
Speaker 1: future is through your art as you're inspired by what
Speaker 1: the vision of the past was and all the things
Speaker 1: that come from that, and then you're in the present
Speaker 1: while making these two things come together. Such a great
Speaker 1: title for this time too, because it seems like it
Speaker 1: this moment, we've been doing a lot of soul searching,
Speaker 1: both as a country with this election, but also in
Speaker 1: the last year of being isolated. We've kind of been
Speaker 1: forced to look in word in a lot of ways now.
Speaker 1: So it's perfect time for that time, man. We that's
Speaker 1: the silver lining of this pandemic. I going to ask you,
Speaker 1: I mean, thinking about how you've you've used music in
Speaker 1: the in the in the civil justice marches last summer,
Speaker 1: and also in your love riots. Why is music so
Speaker 1: good at telling the truth? Or conveying the truth. Music
Speaker 1: is vibration, and as pure as form is vibration, and
Speaker 1: the frequencies that music create are unable to be manufactured
Speaker 1: or adjusted to tell a story that they don't contain.
Speaker 1: That vibration contains an energy and a meaning, and it
Speaker 1: can't tell a story that's not in the vibration. It's
Speaker 1: it's you hear a note the way I play that note.
Speaker 1: It's a different vibration, different meanings. Music is the art
Speaker 1: of of mastering frequency and vibration and communicating those frequencies
Speaker 1: and vibrations. So much of your art is about bringing
Speaker 1: joy to people, but also this this truth to people,
Speaker 1: and those two points, joy and truth don't always exist
Speaker 1: in in harmony. Sometimes the truth isn't very joyful. Actually
Speaker 1: recently does that? Is that ever hard for you to
Speaker 1: to rationalize those two points? I think that the joy
Speaker 1: comes in knowing. The joy comes in knowing that we're
Speaker 1: here and we're part of a master plan, and this
Speaker 1: aspect of life, even the troublesome aspects of life, even
Speaker 1: aspects of life that bring so much destruction, or part
Speaker 1: of that plan, and knowing that allows us to face
Speaker 1: them with joy. Knowing that this is not the end
Speaker 1: um and it's not an optimism that's rooted in some
Speaker 1: sort of idealistic naive tape, but it's actually rooted in
Speaker 1: facing the hearts rather than acting like it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: At what point when you're writing does the audience enter
Speaker 1: your consciousness? When you're writing, are you writing purely for
Speaker 1: you and then you're thinking about presenting it to people?
Speaker 1: Or are you do you have people in mind? Are
Speaker 1: you conveying a message as you're writing, or does that
Speaker 1: come from thinking about what the creator is putting in
Speaker 1: me at that moment as the vessel, as this vehicle
Speaker 1: for whatever I'm I'm I'm channeling. Um, it's being given
Speaker 1: to me. I don't control that, So I think that
Speaker 1: I oftentimes think about the audience and the people after
Speaker 1: the fact when I'm performing and i'm and I'm delivering
Speaker 1: the message that I've I've channeled onto the page, onto
Speaker 1: the record or onto the piano, into my voice and
Speaker 1: my dance moved or whatever it is. I'm I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking about that afterwards. Um. And this is how the
Speaker 1: album was made. There were a lot of things going
Speaker 1: on in the world, but it really was born out
Speaker 1: of this internal coming of age and this channeling of
Speaker 1: a message and a theme that given to me that
Speaker 1: turned out to be very prescient for our time. I
Speaker 1: mentioned all the different artists who came together to make
Speaker 1: this album with you, and there are people like Quinchy Jones,
Speaker 1: Babs Staples, Steve Jordan's, Trumbone Shorty, just so many incredible names.
Speaker 1: Was there anyone who really intimidated you to work with?
Speaker 1: Are you past that point? And everyone's just just an artist.
Speaker 1: I always feel a great deal of reverence for anybody
Speaker 1: who I'm able to work with, in particular everybody on
Speaker 1: this album. There's a story that I could tell about
Speaker 1: each person on this album that is a is a
Speaker 1: life changing coming of age for me as an artist
Speaker 1: and as a creator. You know, talking about the first
Speaker 1: time I met Quincy Jones, or conversations with Mavis, or
Speaker 1: thinking about growing up in New Orleans with Trumbone Shorty,
Speaker 1: p J. Morton, talking about the Saint Augustine High School,
Speaker 1: Marching Bay. You talked about the gospel sold old in
Speaker 1: a quiet my grandfather's church, my dad is playing based
Speaker 1: on the album. You got Emily King on the album
Speaker 1: who you know? It's just incredible musicians, Robert Randolph, incredible artists,
Speaker 1: um and I just find that, you know, you got
Speaker 1: over two hundred artists on it, but all of them
Speaker 1: are meaningful. And that's what gives me that reverence, because
Speaker 1: it's humbling for me to be able to capture this
Speaker 1: thing that I have in my mind, that I'm carrying
Speaker 1: my soul and have all of the right people around
Speaker 1: to really make it, make it be real. Almost seems
Speaker 1: like he chose people like a painter chooses a shade
Speaker 1: of color, Get the right kind of green on there,
Speaker 1: the kind of blue to borrow Miles Davis phrase, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, that's right, It's you're right, though, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't think about it like a album
Speaker 1: where you get features for the name recognition or things
Speaker 1: like that. I was just thinking about it from the
Speaker 1: perspective of I'm creating a master work. I'm creating something
Speaker 1: that only specific colors can fit within the context of
Speaker 1: this whole painting. And in a lot of ways, I
Speaker 1: like the analogy of it being made like a great
Speaker 1: novel um where you you don't skip chapters or you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know, you don't leave out words, or you wouldn't
Speaker 1: really know what was happening with the right level of acuity.
Speaker 1: So um, I think about the album like that. It's
Speaker 1: a forty five minute novel. Even if you close your eye.
Speaker 1: You know, if you close your eyes, in your mind's eye,
Speaker 1: you will see it as a movie. It's like you
Speaker 1: don't skip a scene in the movie. And that's how
Speaker 1: I encourage people to listen to it. Just absorb it
Speaker 1: from the beginning to end. It's a forty five minute
Speaker 1: meditation or prayer or dance party for your day every day. Like,
Speaker 1: what's it like making music with your dad? That's gotta
Speaker 1: be something really special. I know he was a huge
Speaker 1: part of what made you love music. He's incredible because
Speaker 1: he's such an intelligent man. He's just so well versed
Speaker 1: in many different ways. He's an he's a real, real
Speaker 1: inspiration to me as a person. So making music with
Speaker 1: him is great just because I get to spend time
Speaker 1: with him. In the last few years, you know, I
Speaker 1: haven't really spent as much time because I'm so busy,
Speaker 1: and I live in New York and they live in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and I've been visiting. But it's never the
Speaker 1: same when you don't live there. You visit for a
Speaker 1: couple of days at a time, and then a few
Speaker 1: months willgo by and you talk on the phone. But
Speaker 1: that's not the same as hanging out making music, you know,
Speaker 1: living at home or him living up here. So it
Speaker 1: was really beautiful just for that alone, you know, and
Speaker 1: in fact, I mean musically speaking. You know, if you
Speaker 1: listen to what he plays, it's just you know, if
Speaker 1: you listen to Cry, for instance, the way that he
Speaker 1: drives that song with Steve Jordan's He's playing the bass
Speaker 1: and Steve is playing the drums and it's just like
Speaker 1: a machine. Is heck of a rhythm section. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that song and that the song Cried harkens back
Speaker 1: to the Great Migration. Tell me more about about the
Speaker 1: meeting behind that song. Incredibly powerful song, one of my
Speaker 1: favorites on the album. Oh Man, thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening and digging into that one, because I find
Speaker 1: that if you open your heart and your soul to
Speaker 1: this music, it will leave you full. And it's full
Speaker 1: so much stuff, um, so many inspirations, and cry with
Speaker 1: something that I was inspired by the lineage of my
Speaker 1: family that actually are black family farmers, you know. Four
Speaker 1: generations of black family farmers in Georgia and then also
Speaker 1: um in Mississippi on both sides of my family, mother
Speaker 1: and father side. There's that lineage that is rooted in
Speaker 1: the time after reconstruction and slavery of our ancestors, and
Speaker 1: they gave sustenance and worked the land and gave the
Speaker 1: people food that helped fuel the economy and feel fuel
Speaker 1: people's lives. And music came from that, and we think
Speaker 1: about folk in Americana and we oftentimes don't think about
Speaker 1: the black contribution to that, which the song almost as
Speaker 1: a reclaiming of that. There's a great quote that you
Speaker 1: gave recently that and I'm I'm trying to recall off
Speaker 1: top my head one of the one of the great
Speaker 1: twenty one of the goals for the twenty feet century
Speaker 1: should be to recall, to recall where all our melodies
Speaker 1: came from. And I thought that was what I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you more about that. That's speaking about going
Speaker 1: through your own history through music. I wanted to touch
Speaker 1: on that a little bit. Well, our melodies come from
Speaker 1: places that are rooted in our history and our lineage,
Speaker 1: and they go far far back into time before we
Speaker 1: can even be conscious of their existence. They're ubiquitous, they're
Speaker 1: just in the air. There's so many melodies that are
Speaker 1: just a part of of of life that in in
Speaker 1: making things into a commodity, we lose touch with how
Speaker 1: they function societally, We lose touch with how they function
Speaker 1: within communities. You talk about Grio to African storytellers who
Speaker 1: pass the oral tradition down. Those come with melodies. There
Speaker 1: will come with dances, those come with rhythms, and you
Speaker 1: talk about nursery rhymes, you talk about songs. All of
Speaker 1: these things that seem to have been in existence before
Speaker 1: time itself, and we have to bring that back into
Speaker 1: time today because our trends in the thinking of genres
Speaker 1: puts things in a box where we lose track of
Speaker 1: our melodic and cultural dna because we're trying these to
Speaker 1: fit into formula marketing schemes. So that's really what social
Speaker 1: music is all about. I remember my one of uh
Speaker 1: music is a big point of bonding between me and
Speaker 1: my own father, and I remember taking him to a
Speaker 1: music festival and he saw I can't remember who the
Speaker 1: artist was, but afterwards we were talking and he was
Speaker 1: so jazzed about it because he was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what genre that was. That was like a little
Speaker 1: bit of techno, a little bit R and B, a
Speaker 1: little bit of rock. And to see it through his
Speaker 1: eyes as a sixties something you're old man like, oh yeah, Genres,
Speaker 1: it's all mixed now. And that that makes me think
Speaker 1: of a track like I Need You, which you know
Speaker 1: spans from the Lindy Hop to you rapping. I mean,
Speaker 1: tell me more about that song. That song is just infectious.
Speaker 1: That's just like a warm sunny day on record. I
Speaker 1: wanted that. I wanted that feeling, man, I wanted that
Speaker 1: feeling of just um, unbridled joy. We were on the
Speaker 1: set Alan Ferguson, the director, and Jamal McWilliams. That was
Speaker 1: uh um. That was our emo with creating the video,
Speaker 1: which you see me doing the Lindy Hop of the
Speaker 1: modern dance, but also the song itself was created. You know,
Speaker 1: Autumn Roll and Kissel and the three of us in
Speaker 1: the dressing room made this song on the last day
Speaker 1: of that that six seventh day run, and it was
Speaker 1: really the thing that captured a lot of what the
Speaker 1: album is about. In a very literal sense. It's literally
Speaker 1: a song you know, you got this baseline. It's literally
Speaker 1: a song that has that juke joint um chipland circuit
Speaker 1: black social music baseline from the you know the forties
Speaker 1: Little Richard you know that field mixed with a pop
Speaker 1: hip hop song that you were here on Z one hundreds.
Speaker 1: So that that is such a literal manifestation of what
Speaker 1: the album is about and what social music is about.
Speaker 1: It's a continuum. It's all related, it's all linked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all It's all connected. That's it. The video is spectacular.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a showing a scene of a
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties chipland circuit you joint come into life and
Speaker 1: you you got moves. I gotta say, I know, I
Speaker 1: love it, man. I love that. You know, dancing is
Speaker 1: fun because it allows people to be liberated just by
Speaker 1: seeing you. That was the greatness, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: They see you and it's just like, even if they're
Speaker 1: not dancing, there's a freedom that emerges within maybe they
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, is there a musical era
Speaker 1: that's the most fascinating for you that you would have
Speaker 1: liked to have lived through? Would you want to have
Speaker 1: done the Lindy Hop in the thirties or or looked
Speaker 1: through some other some other time or man. You know,
Speaker 1: I find a lot of different eras fascinating. I would
Speaker 1: love to um have have experienced. But I oftentimes think
Speaker 1: about the future. I want to live in the future.
Speaker 1: I want to know what music is going. I want
Speaker 1: to create it. I want to use elements of the past,
Speaker 1: like the golden age of of American popular song and
Speaker 1: American music where classical musicians and first generation immigrants mixed
Speaker 1: with lack musicians playing blues jazz, all of the different
Speaker 1: forms of pop music of that day in the twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties. You know that era where the music was blended. UM.
Speaker 1: I think about that. I think about the era of
Speaker 1: time and um in in in Benin and what the
Speaker 1: europe but tradition with the europe of people. You know
Speaker 1: what my lineage is actually from UM if you go
Speaker 1: way back, just how did they make music and worship?
Speaker 1: You know, when I travel to Africa, when I go
Speaker 1: to um different parts of the world like Havanna, if
Speaker 1: I go to Brazil and experience those ways that the
Speaker 1: music is still just like in New Orleans and Haiti,
Speaker 1: import of prints, you know where the music is still
Speaker 1: in the street, pouring out of people's houses, in the hallways,
Speaker 1: on the porch, going to the beginning of those traditions
Speaker 1: in different parts of the world. You know, that's my
Speaker 1: vision of the future. Actually, let's take all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: because now is the first time in history where I
Speaker 1: could connect those traditions and create something and that is
Speaker 1: completely of without category. And it's so interesting because we forget,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up, you know, being especially in Northeastern
Speaker 1: United States, that that music for thousands of years was
Speaker 1: part of the community. I mean, now it's something that
Speaker 1: there's this prevalent notion that music is something that you
Speaker 1: get to do if you're good enough, and then we
Speaker 1: sticky on the stage above other people. I think always
Speaker 1: thought that was an interesting metaphor. And everyone gets together
Speaker 1: and kind of watches you and your mother, and how
Speaker 1: do you combat that? How do you see ways of
Speaker 1: making music more inclusive and bringing it back to being
Speaker 1: a community experience, like like your love riots for example.
Speaker 1: Well that's it, man, The love riot is one of
Speaker 1: the things that I dreamed, and it's a vision that
Speaker 1: I got in a dream from the creator to do
Speaker 1: this communal aspect of music at every show, and even
Speaker 1: before we did it at shows, we did it in
Speaker 1: the subways and street corners in New York City. We
Speaker 1: leave Juliart. We all, you know, at the time the
Speaker 1: band was predominantly from Juliart. My classmates and I would
Speaker 1: go down the subway and play for people in the
Speaker 1: arame thirties, thirty minute concert, thirty minute performance, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, not asking for money, just getting
Speaker 1: people to to to to feel that vibration. Eventually we
Speaker 1: do that. Now we go to our shows, you know,
Speaker 1: the encore the show will be us jumping into the
Speaker 1: audience sometime in the middle of the show and the
Speaker 1: encore jumping the audience. And then at some points at
Speaker 1: the time we will go to a venue and we
Speaker 1: will play the whole show in the crowd, and we
Speaker 1: would take the crowd from the venue, march out of
Speaker 1: the venue, march to another place, places where we wasn't
Speaker 1: even supposed to be, just like a coffee shop or
Speaker 1: just you know, a place that is is um generally quiet,
Speaker 1: like a library, will come in and then even now,
Speaker 1: you know, nine times out of ten people will welcome us. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of that and calling it a
Speaker 1: love right came from the different points in time where
Speaker 1: the gathering would be close to a thousand people just
Speaker 1: just spontaneously gathering on the street, and it would look
Speaker 1: like a riot because they would start chanting and screaming
Speaker 1: one more song and dancing and just you know, the
Speaker 1: energy of that cause police to even come. Sometime once
Speaker 1: we're in the Lower East Side and police came on horseback.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, you know, they came and then they realized, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just and then sometimes they would even get into it.
Speaker 1: Even at the at the Black Lives Matter protest the
Speaker 1: day after the new NYPD had um someone from their
Speaker 1: ranks run into a crowd of people um it with
Speaker 1: the car. We went out there and we did a
Speaker 1: love riot the next day and we had police officers
Speaker 1: with us that were dancing along with us, standing next
Speaker 1: to David and I in the band and everybody like
Speaker 1: it was you know, it wasn't It wasn't something that
Speaker 1: you would imagine looking at the news. So to me,
Speaker 1: we just want to use a love riot um as
Speaker 1: a way to bring love joint community wherever we go.
Speaker 1: You know, you recently performed as part of the the
Speaker 1: ny Pops up event where you brought arts and music
Speaker 1: back to the streets of New York after, you know,
Speaker 1: playing for essential workers at fascination sites after a year
Speaker 1: of not a lot of music in town in New York?
Speaker 1: How is that experience for you? Ma? It was humbling
Speaker 1: to see them. They do a lot of the work
Speaker 1: on the front lines that it's unimaginable think about the
Speaker 1: last ten months eleven months of work that they have
Speaker 1: to do, and just that a couple with everything else
Speaker 1: that they normally do year round, every day, day and
Speaker 1: day out. Now you have this pandemic, and you have
Speaker 1: all of these different things that are happening with the
Speaker 1: economy and the shortage of materials to treat people, and
Speaker 1: all these things that are tremendous, And to be able
Speaker 1: to play music for them and get them to smile,
Speaker 1: get them to clap their hands, and and to be
Speaker 1: with us in that way, You know, it was less
Speaker 1: about me and how I felt, but more just about
Speaker 1: what the music and the power the music can do
Speaker 1: in a time like this. How is the last year
Speaker 1: changed you as a person. I find that I'm more
Speaker 1: more conscious of taking things one day at a time,
Speaker 1: because there's always stuff that comes up every day. It's
Speaker 1: like a whole lot. It's a whole lot too. It's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of stuff to get through a day
Speaker 1: in in in COVID, even if you're healthy and you're
Speaker 1: able to use all of the resources that we have,
Speaker 1: um just to produce a TV show. Imagine people who
Speaker 1: are you know? We we we have it pretty great
Speaker 1: in that sense, and it's still a lot to get
Speaker 1: through the day. Um to to to give myself grace
Speaker 1: and to give other people grace that we're in a
Speaker 1: time that um we we we really have to focus
Speaker 1: on on it one day at a time and not
Speaker 1: get too caught off. You strike me as a as
Speaker 1: as an optimist. Has that been challenged over the last
Speaker 1: year two? What keeps you feeling that that that good man,
Speaker 1: hopeful God? You know, I read the Bible and pray
Speaker 1: and try to stay close to God, and my faith
Speaker 1: is really important. I also find that people make me happy. Man.
Speaker 1: I love talking to you, just your smile, the energy
Speaker 1: you have, the way that you bring care to the interview.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the music and in the
Speaker 1: vision of all the things that I've been given and
Speaker 1: want to give back to people and then you're giving
Speaker 1: it to people through this performance and this show, and
Speaker 1: it's all I don't know, Man, I enjoy thatt me
Speaker 1: going and performing on stage, me going. That's why I
Speaker 1: do the stuff, you know. Me Being able to connect
Speaker 1: with other people, even in this time makes me happy,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Even if it's virtual, even
Speaker 1: if it's a virtual interview or performance or a a
Speaker 1: panel or I don't know, just being able to connect
Speaker 1: and feel other people's spirit makes me happy. Thank you
Speaker 1: for saying that right right back at you. With with
Speaker 1: your your music and your your answers, I mean that
Speaker 1: there is a great part of I forget if it
Speaker 1: was a quote or if it was in the press
Speaker 1: release for your album. He says something that really stuck
Speaker 1: with me. I've known for some things already, but there's
Speaker 1: so much more that I want people to know about. Man,
Speaker 1: what do you hope that people know about you with
Speaker 1: with this record? That we don't have to categorize people
Speaker 1: because people contain multitudes as the same goals. Let's de categorized.
Speaker 1: I thinking, let's look at music and look at that
Speaker 1: as a way, almost as an allegory to how we
Speaker 1: can look at each other. Let's stop putting people in boxes.
Speaker 1: There's billions and billions of us throughout that have been
Speaker 1: created throughout the history of this plan, and none have
Speaker 1: been the same. None have not even twins, not even
Speaker 1: people who come from the same city, same block, same household,
Speaker 1: completely different souls. And that's really what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Music is you know very clearly what you were You
Speaker 1: were put here to do and to give. Have you
Speaker 1: been feeling creative and in the last couple months in lockdowns,
Speaker 1: you've got a whole workshop in your in your house.
Speaker 1: Have you been writing a lot. I've been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that is creative, you know, just trying
Speaker 1: to connect with people again. I've been doing this thing, uh.
Speaker 1: I've been dancing on Instagram on Sundays, you know, with
Speaker 1: people around the world, which is you know, I never
Speaker 1: used Instagram like this. I've never done like the live
Speaker 1: uh feed where you can go live and I just
Speaker 1: had this idea again. It just came to me one day,
Speaker 1: where oh I can do a dance, a one on
Speaker 1: one dance with people. So I danced with people and
Speaker 1: I play music on Sundays as a ritual to kind
Speaker 1: of connect and people have come from all over the world.
Speaker 1: There's people from you know, peop from Israel, people from
Speaker 1: from Ghana, West Africa, people coming on from uh from
Speaker 1: New Orleans, my hometown, and then people coming on from India.
Speaker 1: Last week there was a guy on from India and Japan.
Speaker 1: I mean at different It's at three o'clock, so for
Speaker 1: them it's it's it's way late. But people still jump
Speaker 1: been on the thing. So that's actually been creative for me.
Speaker 1: It's inspired me in many ways doing things like that.
Speaker 1: It's connecting in a new way. Yeah, finding it, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for it. I'm searching for it, and and
Speaker 1: and that's what happened. It came to me and I
Speaker 1: I love it. Bringing those smiles. I'm always curious about
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking of someone like you who has just
Speaker 1: such a perfect blend of both the The link between
Speaker 1: music and comedy is really interesting to me because there's
Speaker 1: so many of the same things. There's the rhythm, there's
Speaker 1: the timing, there's the inflection, like when you were playing
Speaker 1: that note before in multiple different ways, getting the same sound.
Speaker 1: That's to me, that's comedy. You can do that with
Speaker 1: a word, with a look, with a phrase, has your
Speaker 1: spot on on we're working with with Stephen Colbert, has
Speaker 1: that impacted your music in a funny way by by
Speaker 1: interacting with comedy more. Yes, Stephen Colbet is a genius.
Speaker 1: He's incredible in terms of what his capacity is. He
Speaker 1: can think of and execute on many different levels at
Speaker 1: the same time, and that's what common he is. You're
Speaker 1: dealing with your engagement with the audience, your engagement with
Speaker 1: your your your counterparts on stage, your engagement with the material,
Speaker 1: whether it's scripted or as improv um, and your your
Speaker 1: engagement with yourself. You know, you think about things that
Speaker 1: you've seen, thinking about how you feel in the moment,
Speaker 1: how you want to channel all of your life's experience
Speaker 1: and culminating to that moment and be funny and connect
Speaker 1: and and you know, watching him do that all the time,
Speaker 1: and watching all the folks will come on the show,
Speaker 1: it's really been a great, great infusion into what I
Speaker 1: bring to the table, which is already a synthesis of
Speaker 1: so many different things. I know. The future is something
Speaker 1: that you said that that's really what you're looking for
Speaker 1: in your looking towards when you're when when you're writing,
Speaker 1: bringing all your influences both musical and just life experiences
Speaker 1: to the to bear. Looking to the future, What's what's
Speaker 1: next for you? What are you looking forward to next? Wow? Man,
Speaker 1: oh wow, There's so so many things that as a
Speaker 1: creative I'm always thinking about the future, and as a person,
Speaker 1: I'm taking it a day at a time, and I
Speaker 1: think as a creative I'm looking forward to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm writing a symphony right now. It's called the American Symphony,
Speaker 1: and it will be premiering at Carnegie Hall next year
Speaker 1: in February and two. And um, it's a forty minute piece,
Speaker 1: four movements, and it has the symphony orchestra, It has
Speaker 1: a marching band, it has a chorus, and it has
Speaker 1: what I consider a new age rhythm section with electronic
Speaker 1: technological instruments along with acoustic instrumentation. And there will be
Speaker 1: guests along with each performance. And I find that this
Speaker 1: kind of thing has really been something my head, in
Speaker 1: my head, um, and I'm glad I have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to really manifest because it's been in my head for
Speaker 1: five years or so. So that's coming next. But as
Speaker 1: we speak today, thing I'm looking forward to next is
Speaker 1: playing some piano working on this Beethoven Symphony. Uh this
Speaker 1: Beethoven sonata and uh learning all the sonatas. But um,
Speaker 1: you know that's today. But in the future it's the
Speaker 1: symphony and also just more music, taking more of the
Speaker 1: black diaspora and and taking more of the indigenous folk
Speaker 1: musics of all cultures and de categorizing it. I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to see you're hitting here your symphony. That is unbelievable. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's I'm honored to have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do this at Carnegie Hall. It's going to be an
Speaker 1: incredible experience for me, and I hope people get a
Speaker 1: lot out of it. And I love Beethoven too. He's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite I love I love the rhythm
Speaker 1: of him. I love what he can do with with
Speaker 1: with rhythm, how he can do do a whole symphony.
Speaker 1: That's just it's playing with the inflections and rhythm of
Speaker 1: a fairly simple phrase. I think, gagle do gangle do
Speaker 1: gag do gay at the blues, oh my Beetho in
Speaker 1: the style of Ray Charles, come on, please do that.
Speaker 1: Oh man, John, thank you, it's been such a joy
Speaker 1: a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: your memories, your music. My my very last question, if
Speaker 1: you could snap your fingers and have everything go back
Speaker 1: to whatever your definition of normal is, say, say this
Speaker 1: time last year, what would be the first thing that
Speaker 1: you would do? Places you go, people, you'd hug, restaurants
Speaker 1: you'd go to, you know, whatever it is that what
Speaker 1: would be the very first thing that you would like
Speaker 1: to do. Well, already get to hug my lady Sulika,
Speaker 1: so that would be normal. Uh, she's been working and
Speaker 1: I've been working. So I would go on a road
Speaker 1: trip together. She just put out a book, and uh,
Speaker 1: the album is coming out and then my album out
Speaker 1: we Are and that's all been very it's it's been
Speaker 1: working the quarantine. So I probably just would go on
Speaker 1: the road together and go on a road trip. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll get you out in the road. Since John, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Just been such a pleasure. Really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Baby. Yeah, oh my god, please do that album,
Speaker 1: Please do that album. You're the best man. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you from bottom my heart. It's been really great talking.
Speaker 1: They really appreciate it. Yes, indeed, my brother, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. And I love love your album. I love
Speaker 1: your album. Hey man, thank you. We're putting a vibe
Speaker 1: on it. Deed do do dee do ah. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite podcasts.