Amerie

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: E four warrened Ladies and Gentlemen, It's gonna be one of those gargantuan long quest Love introus So you gotta go to the bathroom.

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Speaker 1: Or you know some quest Love spream if you're if.

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Speaker 2: You're driving right now, or however you receive this podcast, just know you probably want to skip to the eight minute mark, which will officially start the program. So no for real, Welcome to quest Love Supreme, Ladies and gentlemen. I am your host quest Love. How's it going like?

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Speaker 3: It's good?

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Speaker 4: Good?

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Speaker 3: Good? The sun is out?

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Speaker 1: So sun is out? Okay? And Steve, how's life good?

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Speaker 5: The sun is out here?

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Speaker 1: And uh as we see Yeah, life is good. And Bill Yeah, man, I'm in a basement. I don't know where the sun is, but I've never been been. It sounds like me right about now?

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Speaker 2: Yes, okay, great, okay, So there's probably one artist I mean, yes, you guys have all of your requests the rare times that I delve into the general population of my dms. You know, it's two types of dams, the dms that people you follow, and then dms of the other two million, nine hundred people you deal with, but I will say that there's probably one artist to whom the QLs listeners slash fam have probably been salivating over.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: For the last eight nine years.

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Speaker 2: Like we could just round it off that we've been on for a decade, you know, cat years, podcast years, and it's really not like our guest has been hiding in the shadows. I will probably even dare say I probably have now seen her more in the context of her book club discussions than I've seen how I first got to know her and how we all got to know her as a musician singer, which you know is kind of a special thing. But this is court Love Supreme. And there is an itch I've in Dinah scratch because that could probably falsely lead you into believing that our guest today her musical canon is easily bypassable, and that.

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Speaker 1: Is a negative.

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Speaker 2: I know, I'm world famous for my hyperbolic intros and whatnot, So yeah, just ride with me, all, okay, Look, disclosure of course, we know that Mary is the queen of hip hop, soul, hip hop, R and P.

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Speaker 1: There's absolutely no disputing that fact. I feel like our.

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Speaker 2: Guest is the god of boom Bap soul and my definition of boom bap soul boom Bap souls like when you display your talents, your vocal talents on top the rhythms that are so hard and I mean hard, like the way that dress says on the first Black Sheep album hard that it can easily be interchangeable with a credible rapper's voice, like and based on the.

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Speaker 1: Events of Oh Shity.

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Speaker 2: Single Demayo twenty twenty four, now, I mean you could be listening to this in the future and you need a reference, you know that time in single Demayo twenty twenty four, I believe the entire world found out the difference between a credible let me not play sides, credible MCing and non credible MCing, And I believe that that is a compliment in the highst order.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: You love how a bullet dodge that?

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Speaker 6: Uh?

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Speaker 3: I look kim at, Yeah, you look right exactly.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: Little kim Oh, that's what we're doing instead of matrix dodging, we're little kim in it, yo, Like, I'm gonna use that from now on. That said, I feel like our guest has checked many requirement list in providing us with what I say is our undeniable bangers, like more bangers than some of my.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: Favorite rappers have made bangers.

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Speaker 2: And if I keep it a buck, her music probably changed my opinion of the Tom Tom. There's a time when you knew Questlove had minimum drums, and then one day you saw, like, damn, he's playing real drums.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: He has a full setup there.

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Speaker 2: I will say that our guest was probably the quiet paradigm shift in my relationship to my own craft that I've been doing since I was five. So it takes a mighty influencer to make that shit happen.

00:04:43
Speaker 3: Anyway, you gotta yell louder.

00:04:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, for the people in the bet. Can I make this intro any longer? Absolutely, Ladies and gentlemen. I feel as though our guest has never been given a proper due. I would say that our guest is probably the metaphorical giving tree. And I'm being very careful withe of my words right here. She's probably the giving tree who's every creative move has been analyzed, copied, eaten, regurgitated, refurbished, and resold back to us.

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Speaker 1: And if there ever was.

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Speaker 2: An artist to whom and I'm really passionate about this only because you know, I'm not doing the whole self deprecating thing of like.

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Speaker 1: You know that was our story too. I'm not even making us about me.

00:05:32
Speaker 2: But there's ever an artist to whom I wanted to peek under the hood of creativity. I will say it's our guests a Marie Rogers Nicholson. Once we were successfully able to book her at the Roots Picnic, which passed already, and I'm manifesting that it was great. Yes, full disclosure, of course, ladies and gentlemen, we're doing this way before the Roots Picnic, but just pretend so.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I will just say.

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Speaker 2: I will just say that, you know, we've had very few personal interactions, only because I really wanted this platform to be the first time that we had our real conversations, because I know that I tend to freak a lot of my peers out, because I probably come off more like a journalist than a human being to some people. So I figured, at least our first true interaction mixing can be on this platform, and then after this we could be friends.

00:06:32
Speaker 1: Not to be out done.

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Speaker 2: I'm also obsessed with how she's pivoted into the world of literature, a world that I just stepped into in the last half year in the world of publishing, authoring, not to mention songwriting, producing, acting, and most importantly, what's commendable is what I believe is her decision to kind of get out of the cesspool of the old record label system that we're having, you know, God willing by the forties and fifties. Of course, I met my day job, so you have to hear what's happening anyway. Yeah, I did I even make it the eight minute. God damn, ladies and gentlemen. I always wanted to say this, Please welcome our guest. Finally a Mari I apologize. I think that was the longest intro I've ever done.

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Speaker 6: Can I just tell our listeners if you want to, you can listen to two A Marie songs in that time.

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Speaker 2: That's what I said, how are you?

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Speaker 4: I'm so humbled by I'm humbled by everything that you're saying. I really appreciate that. You know, people always think that, Well, I guess I don't know. Every artist is different, but for me, you never know what people think. You know, you never know people tell you like, well this affected me this way or not. But you're living your own skin. So you just kind of that all just kind of disappears, and so it's easy to feel kind of like you just created yourself and you're just creating and nobody cares. And so that's just kind of like how everyone is different that I can say that's how I am. And so it's like, oh, I appreciate that. Thank you, Like wow, that's are you saying?

00:08:17
Speaker 1: You feel seen right now?

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Speaker 4: I feel seen right now. I feel heard. Like I'm like, oh, okay, you know, all right, all right. We've had some interactions before in the past, you know what I mean, Like we've we've had some of that, but you're right, we never like had a full blown like conversation like like big ones. We've had little conversations here and there. But I always before I would have released anything, I would always feel kind of like some pressure because I would be like, I want to learn mirror thinks about this? What is he gonna think about?

00:08:47
Speaker 1: Dude?

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Speaker 2: I'm such a fan of yours, like your demos, your demos for other artists are like part of my daily my current DJ set, Like you're working to.

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Speaker 6: Find demos from other artists a meter, how do you what are the demos from other artists.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: My name is you know who I am.

00:09:08
Speaker 2: Like, I'm not even doing this to flex like literally in this room are artifacts and I don't know. I think I've built up a cachet of which people know that I might be interested in certain things, especially on Okay Player.

00:09:27
Speaker 1: There's a severe underground sect of us that are into.

00:09:34
Speaker 2: How the sausage is made, and you know, like uh like for instance still to this day. I mean, I would say loves off the chain was probably created.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, maybe.

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Speaker 4: Created in two and eight nine, No, when.

00:09:55
Speaker 1: When was that creative?

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Speaker 4: First of all, I wondered, I was wondering, like, how did you get that? How do you even have that somewhere? I don't even know if I was crying some box somewhere. But no, love, love, lucks change, that was I did that when we did one thing during that time. I think that was thousand or three. Yeah, we just didn't know, We didn't we didn't know what we're going to do with it yet, but there were there were there was like a there was a I think I would say one main option. I don't know if oh yeah, okay, maybe did we talk about this before. No, I just guess, yeah, yeah, I think.

00:10:33
Speaker 2: Janet, because Janet's the only person that I don't know has like received the Rich Harrison treatment.

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Speaker 4: But I think I think it was It was Janet though. That's that's that's who has always been in mind. It was for But we didn't really we didn't really know that was going to maybe use it or not. I wasn't sure if it felt like me.

00:10:51
Speaker 1: I give credit where credit is due.

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Speaker 2: Shout out to uh Philly's and Cosmic Keev, a guy to whom I would say probably I credit with my creative direction in DJ and the stuff I do to this day, and when he really likes a record, he'll just stay on that intro and not care.

00:11:10
Speaker 1: But for me, like to this day, I.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: Still spend those records like they'll they'll never and may still work. They still work, they still work. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. How are you today? Where are you speaking to us from?

00:11:23
Speaker 1: Like?

00:11:23
Speaker 4: Where are you good? I'm in Atlanta right now, and.

00:11:27
Speaker 1: So you reside in Atlanta?

00:11:29
Speaker 4: In Atlanta, yeah, and back and forth between LA and Atlanta a little bit, and yeah, everything's good. I actually on the deadline, actually just I have a lot of self and posed deadlines for writing stuff. But then I was just doing some past pages because I have a novel coming out. We didn't announce it yet. You know, we always meant to announce it, and we didn't announce it. But I have a novel coming out next year. Nice for growing up because I did a children's book and everything, but it's like, you know, grown up novel. And then I'm just now getting into Like I just had a conversation with the producer that I won't name just yet, but we were just like, Okay, we gotta let's let's get in and play because I'm working. I'm just now beginning working on the next album. It's really this this next album. I mean, I always have a lot of ideas and projects. That's one thing I like about not being like in the traditional record label system because it didn't really work for me because so like I would by the time I would finish recording for a project, it's like for me, it was never like now I'm done. It was more like I'm just recording and just making stuff, creating, playing, and then we just have a cut off point. But by the time we would get to that cutoff point, I would almost start getting into a different vibe. So if I kept going, it would just be a different project that doesn't go with the last one. So even by the time we started doing like visuals and all that stuff for the album, I was kind of like over it already, because I was already like, now I'm doing this sound and this vibe, and I don't want to do that other sound, and that that would frustrate me a lot, like I would be frustrated with myself as an artist, because I'd be like, why don't you this is the visual vibe, the visual section, and why don't you just dig into that? But I'd be like, but I'm feeling a different mood now now I'm in this sound and this feel and these colors, and they want to drag me back into the thing. I already did it, like I already got it off my chest. I've done, I'm moving on.

00:13:31
Speaker 1: But you lived with it. We haven't lived.

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Speaker 4: With it yet, but right no one else lived with it. And plus I was doing stuff that you know, I know a lot of people like the visuals. Frankly, bro and I talked about this once, like about how we see music and like even like it's just like colors. It's just synesthesia, right, but not to the not to the degree where it's like a clinical thing, but like it's the point where like, if I'm recording myself the pro tools, colors will mess me up because the hook should not be orange, it's blue and it should be here. So then I placed the tracks all these places. That makes my engineer crazy. But doing visuals I didn't like. I don't really like doing visuals to music. I do it, but once the visual happens, the thing that's in my head changes, and I think that's why I was kind of resistant to it as well, just why I don't always have a million visuals. If it was up to me, I would have no visuals. I would just have to here's some colors, here's some texture, and that's it.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of the UK collective known as Salt. Have you heard of them?

00:14:38
Speaker 4: Familiar with them? No? I'm not familiar.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: S A U L T.

00:14:42
Speaker 2: I guarantee they will change your life like Salt basically. Okay, So they kind of started off with this daft punk mission where they didn't want to be known.

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Speaker 1: All their album covers are black.

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Speaker 2: They've since then they've since then, uh like adapted to you know, read and you know, but there's really no visuals. But initially they were mystery. But of course we know that Inflow Cleo soul Kid's sister. There might be a few other people contributing, but yeah, that's that's a group who has used kind of mystery to.

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Speaker 1: The hilt where interesting and that's the thing like you, for instance, I wanted.

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Speaker 4: To do that. My first album had almost had no pictures when we sent out the first Yes, when we sent out when I first came Outler.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:15:46
Speaker 4: Look, I've been saying this for years, but even from the first album, because I've been trying to be like you know what. And that's then I liked, like one of the albums I did. I like those visuals, but I like those visuals because we did those visuals on our own. And I was like, Okay, I like this because I look like myself. I look like me. I look like me when I look in the mirror, like it just still looks like me. But in the very beginning, you probably have this sampler. I'd be surprised if you didn't, because you have everything pretty much. It was the first it was the first sampler and it was wan and fall in Love. I think I just died is on it and like something else that I'm like holding on to a branch or something like like that, and and I love the way the shoot came out, but I was like, can we just have my name with no pictures? They're like what? And I was like I always it a rope okay, rope okay. I knew it was something, and I was like, I just want my name on it. I was like this, no one knows who I am is the first impression. I really just wanted to be the music. If that's it, Like no preconceived notions, no ideas of what it should sound like. Because we meet people at that time and I would tell I'm like I saying it came, it would come up. I never would just tell people that. They always kind of had this idea of what I would sound like, and they would always say Aliyah. I love Aliyah, but they were just they were just talking to me. They would just kind of I think I need to just be introduced to everyone with nothing but just the music and that's it, no visuals and that's it. And then they didn't. They didn't want to do that. They didn't want to do that. I kept bringing that up in later projects, even though people knew it was me. I was still like, I don't know. I thought about changing my name. I consider doing an album without letting anyone know who I was at all, and I was like, I think they'll still know that it's me. Though I actually created a sound cloud with a not a real name, I still haven't told anybody what it is because I was like, I think I'm going to just do this and this is why I'll release music like under this. So wait, they're touring with that idea for so years and years.

00:17:51
Speaker 2: There's a sound caou page right now that has your music that we don't know is you.

00:17:56
Speaker 4: No, No, there's no music on it. There's no music on it right now. I think I think I almost put something on there. And I was like, oh, I don't think so. Because then I heard this Beatles story and they were like they try to do that like where they were performing that people would know it was them. Then I was like, what if I only do songs that are definitely probably not what people would think about it being me? It might be easier. People who really know me will be like those harmonies and those it's very familiar.

00:18:20
Speaker 2: Your harmonies and your voice slidings give you away instantly, so you would have to sing super dry. No influx is no good like none of your slides and none of that shit. Right, Hey, Mariy, what is your first musical memory in life?

00:18:43
Speaker 4: My first musical memory? I have a few, Okay, so they're kind of like mixed up, but they're all in the same time period.

00:18:50
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:18:51
Speaker 4: One of the ones that really sticks out is like my birthday party and my dad was like playing Stevie Wonder, Oh digging it. But I was also like, Daddy, want this is something else? And I think I was like, I don't know, eight nine, and he was like you can name it. No, no, no, no, no, no no. He was like dancing, and you know, all the kids are like, okay, I don't know what we wanted at that time, but it was something for the kids. And so I was like, all right, thanks Daddy, And so I remember that by Stevie Wonder. Was it was an influence, Okay. A big big memory was also the Grease soundtrack. I really liked that soundtrack one right, Grease, one Yes, and I would I would I would swing on the swing set and she sing the whole thing before that. Because I got to go back in time.

00:19:36
Speaker 2: Let me interrupt you, Bill, what wait she mentioned that? And then lan you mentioned that, you know.

00:19:44
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Greece Too, because that's a terrible film.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: Was like I was.

00:19:49
Speaker 4: I was like Michelle Pfeifer though, like who's that? Who's that? Boy Wady become from? Like yeah, that was. I was like, I want to be that cool.

00:19:58
Speaker 1: So wait, last roots pick Nick.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: There's a movie theater in Philadelphia and my hotel was across the street. They were having like a midnight showing of Greece Too. And I'm like, Greese Too. And I thought in my mind, like this is a flop movie. I know Michelle Pfeiffer's in it, but they are fans of this.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: It's the way of life, man. But I went to this thing and do the entire audience. It was.

00:20:23
Speaker 2: It was almost like their version of uh or Rocky hardor Audience where the audience sings with them. I didn't realize that Greece Too was that big of.

00:20:35
Speaker 6: A just because Michelle, because she was, yes, she was like cool, it's cool, writer, No, cool, cool.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: Was the gym the first one.

00:20:48
Speaker 4: I wanted the jacket back then too, so like, you know, you can have it, look alike.

00:20:54
Speaker 1: My girlfriend has told me that she prefers Grease to up for like two weeks. Just I'm meeting these people back together. I'm meeting two people like Ryder died Grease Tours, and I don't understand how now yeah, yeah, sorry friend.

00:21:13
Speaker 2: Anyway, you were eight at your birthday party, dad played Stevie one. There was eighty eight eighty nine, so you probably.

00:21:18
Speaker 1: Wanted to hear.

00:21:19
Speaker 4: Yeah. I thought, you know, maybe b C Boys or something like that. But I'm now I'm going back, so I'm going earlier. Okay, so if I say this, maybe it'll trigger something earlier. But I think this may be like my first strong because I remember like like a virgin playing in the car and we were singing along, and later I thought about I was like my mom. You know, my mom's Korean, she speaks English, but at that time too, it's just like she's not paying attention to the radio and the English was happening on there. I was like, anyt think that was kind of inappropriate for us to be singing that in the back. But this is back in the day, no car seats, no booster seat, You're just back there, And so we were singing that. But the Thriller video. I remember when the Thriller video came out. I remember we watched it in the living room. I was scared. He was so handsome and he's like, you know, as a kid, there might be effects, but your mind, you don't see the effects. You see the real thing. So to me, it was really really scary. The zombies were really really scary. But also I was dancing and I liked it, but I was also scared.

00:22:22
Speaker 3: Every week kid, that is every kid that.

00:22:27
Speaker 4: It was nightmare and I wanted the jacket and I wanted to be her. I call her the thing is that the kid you just everything is real and you don't you know. So to me, even though it was a different song, I see her in the video with him, she's Billy Jean. I'm like, I want to be really Jean. I want that outfit, like I want to be Billy Jean.

00:22:50
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no no, I thought, Jean.

00:22:53
Speaker 3: Okay, because everything's real, right real?

00:22:57
Speaker 4: So Michael Jackson, that's Michael Jackson and this is he's is he really a thing? Is he really a thing? Maybe that's really him. He's like a really aware wolf. Oh there's that's that's Billy Jean. That's his girlfriend, right, And she's so like beautiful and they're real. They're not like playing a character on screen. They are real people that are really together. And she's really scared and she's really in this zombie thing and she's really gorgeous and it's like the epitome of like who you want to be as a girl. Right. But I also wanted to be Michael Jackson too, and the knife fighting like I was. I was into that. That was beat it. You know, all blends together.

00:23:36
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I was thinking bad but yeah he bought a couple of.

00:23:39
Speaker 4: Times, right, yes, so it all blends together. So that's that's probably my my earliest earliest you know, I have that and my dad playing the Marvin Gay. So I listened to listen to Marvin Gay on my own, like religiously. He had the whole Marvin Gay collection and I would just listen to it. That's why I always say that Michael Jackson, Gay and Mary J. Blige are my top three influence. Okay, okay, and Phil Spector probably your's choice.

00:24:07
Speaker 1: Okay, that was an interesting fourth choice. Did see that the wall of sound?

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Oh okay, it.

00:24:16
Speaker 4: Was because the production. But what I hear is the instruments. But the one thing with Rich and I we would always like he understood. I was like, I hear those instruments, but the voice is an instrument. And so when we would create songs, it'd be like, we need this part, Like, no, I'll sing this vocal part, but it's like a trumpet. So I'm singing it but not like it's it's a trumpet.

00:24:38
Speaker 2: Okay, I have to interrupt and skip. You're forcing me to to to skipad no, no, no, no, because I gotta know. I gotta know your background trademarks are so unusual because I never Okay, So as an engineer, if I'm dealing with background vocals, I would tend to think that the soprano voice, the highest one, would be sort of the ringleader, and then I'll figure out a way to tuck the tenor alto and base like the other harmonies, like under them, really not put them on top of the cause you know, I would think that the cherry on top, like the melody on top, is what drives the vehicle.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: But your tenor is always the loudest.

00:25:27
Speaker 2: Your tenor's louder than your your top voice, Your tenor's louder than your your out of voice. Like literally, I was like, wow, that's really curious that when she does like three four part harmony that she brings out the one voicing that I, as an engineer, would have tucked under, and it's loud and up front. Almost You mentioned Marvin gay and I was going to ask, because especially on your first record, you do this kind of.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: Marvin Gaye does it.

00:26:01
Speaker 2: Of course, Marvin Gaye pioneered, and Slick Rick also did it where you know, sometimes the narrator, the lead person sings, but often the background vocal has just as much agency as the singer has. What is your method of song? Because then I'm wondering, like, are you writing this on paper? Like okay, while sing this and then the background singing that, and in parenthal we.

00:26:26
Speaker 4: Do it all, we do it all. It's just like, okay, the backgrounds. It would be a lot of work because the backgrounds, and I did one project, but I was like, you know what, I'm just trying to not do any of those backgrounds. I'm just keep I just noticed people just only do top line, So I'm gonna just do some top line. Wow, this is way faster getting through a song because the backgrounds are always like really really important and so really it's just a matter of not writing anything down or anything, but just like listening and then saying, okay something. A lot of times how you would like bed the lower vocals, like the lower those would be more of the feature. Those will have more movement, so like I like to do like the high one, those will be sustained more like and no. But then underneath it like that and then it's like, okay, let me have that in between, and it's like okay, what can go in the middle of that? Maybe a little something dumb right and something like, So then things are like kind of moving. And this is why I say I for me, the music is like visual, but in a different way. It's like it's movement like color and kind of like you know, like it's hard for me to articulate it exactly because it is something that's very visual, but not in a picture, not in a real human being. Colors, like if you look at the universe in the galaxy and you're like seeing like swirling, I know, it sounds like silly, but we're not silly. But I'm not trying to be about it. It's just that that is literally how I'm creating. And Rich is similar in when we would do our vocals, we like collaborate really well because we think very similarly. When it comes to especially those kinds of background notes.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: Well, then my one question is how tedious is it if you're doing this live?

00:28:24
Speaker 1: Like how hard are you on.

00:28:27
Speaker 2: Either if you got background singers, Like how hard are you?

00:28:31
Speaker 4: Like? Do not sing? I don't. I tried that and I was like, no, no, no, no, say it. No you can't. You can't sing it.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: There as when I didn't know you. There's a moment Ah damn, Okay, it's it's actually one of my favorite albums of yours is the one that you didn't release in the United.

00:28:56
Speaker 4: States because I love it because I.

00:28:59
Speaker 1: Love it and the intro.

00:29:05
Speaker 2: And the thing was, Okay, the first song I would say, this is probably how she's gonna come out on stage, So this is gonna be the intro song that you know, because it's not a full song. It's like a two minute thing. So I was like, yeah, she's But then when I heard the backgrounds. I said, Yo, this is this is really intricate. And then I said to myself, I wonder how hard she is on her background vocals.

00:29:30
Speaker 1: Like so hard they don't exist.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: She no, But then I think I actually put in my head she must be a hard, difficult person to work for, because.

00:29:41
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know, I don't know one singer that won't stop the world.

00:29:47
Speaker 4: I'm not kidding, I'm kind of kidding. I'll tell you the story yet.

00:29:50
Speaker 1: But that's the thing I actually said.

00:29:52
Speaker 2: I said, I bet you she's she's a hard person to work for, because like, I can't see someone nailing me to perfection to the place where she wants it to be.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: So I bet you, like she just either just assists like pro tool all my background vocals. We'll trust that.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: But I was like, there's no way that someone is doing this live and nailing it because you were just your tag teaming with yourself in ways.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: It's like a cat and mouse thing.

00:30:21
Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't think this can be recreated on stage, so that's it.

00:30:26
Speaker 4: Really, no, it cannot be because everyone's voice is different. And I was joking when I said, oh, I don't know, and I don't mean that to say no, no, I can sing it like me. It's not want to sound like yourself. It's just that one is not going to sound the same because it is someone else singing it. But because again, the backgrounds are not backgrounds. Backgrounds are like a lead. They are like the co stars of the songs. And I say that in an objective way, and that I'm not saying, well, that's me and that's my voice. No, I mean just how they're crafted is that they're very important there as important as the lead. They are in a sense their own lead. Which and since I'm not in a group, you can't sing that part because you won't sound like me because you're not. You're not you don't have my voice. You have your own gift, your own voice, and it's different. And I did try to have background singers before, and it wasn't that they weren't getting the parts, although they always had to be laid in there anyway, tucked because it would be hard to follow otherwise. But also it doesn't sound like me to me, And so when I'm singing, because the song is supposed to sound like this, it was another voice. It was throwing me off and the textures just weren't coming out correctly to me, and I will I will say I'm a person I don't enjoy, generally speaking, not all the time. I don't enjoy watching performances when I'm listening to somebody singing their record and there's other people's voices that are there that wasn't there on the record. Personally, I don't.

00:31:59
Speaker 3: Wait do a live show in that way, right so you.

00:32:02
Speaker 1: Can pro to it.

00:32:03
Speaker 4: The vocals are all mine to pro to it. We had we got to the point where we would have background singers miming they were they were mouthing, but don't you day and the throat.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: Right now, I feel like K pop is going through their nostalgia nineties R and B period right now, Like have you been approached to composed songs for any of those groups?

00:32:35
Speaker 4: Or I know there was some talk about something like that maybe several years ago, because I did collaborate with a couple of artists a lot of years ago, like over a decade ago, and then a couple of artists and that it has been about that long in world, yeah, and then I performed with them and we did things together over there, and then there was talk about possibly doing some kind of like writing that kind of thing, but I have it it could be cool, but there's so much that I want to do creatively, and you know, you realize your time is limited that I would just do my own thing and put it out, which to me, it's always made more sense than to go ahead and do what I'm going to create and then songs that I don't end up using that kind of thing seeing you know, then shopping those like that, but not actually going in and although I consider that too, like going in and working with someone or some people like just specifically craft something for them, especially because as an artist, I feel like I can go in and really respect them as an artist and uh what they want to do and what they don't want to do or sing about, you know, just knowing from my own experiences. That's why I really work with like different producers, but I have like the ones that I really work well with. And the thing is that, sometimes, even to my own like chagrin, I have to write my own records. Really, the only person who could really write records for me would be Rich and we can collaborate, we can write them or like one or two other people. That's it because no one else is going to actually write a song. That's what I want. What I would actually say, because you know something, I've been in sessions where they'd be like, okay, da da. I don't want the sessions because someone at the label wanted me to go. Not no offense to the people who were there, but that wasn't you know, if I'm going to work with someone. That's why I never really want made people pay me. I think I think maybe probably people paid me a couple of times for a feature, but I always like, I'll do a feature they don't have to pay me because to me, then m I might be in a minority. I feel like there's something a little offensive about asking someone to pay me for a feature because I feel like, if I'm an artist and I appreciate you and you're like appreciating me, let's just let's let's create together, let's play together. Let's you know. And most of the time you pay somebody, it's going to that label on this and someone wants fees. But I don't know, I just felt a little weird about that.

00:35:00
Speaker 3: You don't want publish it, you just want.

00:35:01
Speaker 4: To publishing, publishing, you get publishing, but I'm talking about will you do this song with me? I'll pay you this money to do the song with you, and then if you're going to be in the video, I'll pay you more money to do the video. And I find I feel like if you agree to do the song, that inherent and that is the acceptance of doing the video. If there is one right, you don't have to pay me. But something about it feels a little like too transactional versus two artists coming together to create some magic.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: This out there with the same person real quick.

00:35:32
Speaker 6: Because we mentioned I want to go back to the K pop question that Amir asked you. Yeah, curious do they understand and accept you also as one of them in that way and do they see you as an asset because you are a part of them as well?

00:35:44
Speaker 3: How does that work?

00:35:46
Speaker 4: When I did collabse you know, back at that time, they were really like appreciative and my mom was with me too. But it was also interesting to see how the system works. It works really differently. Like you know, aretists in the States, they go show up to a thing, perform. The people that are in the doing the background stuff, you know, the show that you show up for to perform all that the producers all that they producers of the show, they can tend to be more differential to the artists. Not saying that you want that, but that's just like they're just like, Okay, you're here to do the song, we appreciate you. We're going to some TV blocking, et cetera. But they're very differential. It's kind of was the opposite way what I was witnessing. Now. For me, it was different. They treated me very well with respect the people on TV show because I'm also an American. I'm coming in so I'm a guest in more ways than one, you know, when I visited, But I noticed that for the artists who are and maybe it's different now this is this is back in you know, I forgot what year, but at least ten years plus, right, I noticed that the artists were deferential to the TV producers. They were the ones doing the the extra bo and the extra you know, and so that was interesting. You know, that was curious to me. But it's because it's the way that and the way I figured it was that their entertainment system because we created our system entertainment system decades and decades and decades and decades we have so much longer. There was a change out of the old studio system, our old Hollywood studio system, where the actors and stuff probably were very differential to the producers back in Marilynroe pre Marilynda Lauren McCall days. Right, But it's grown and artists have learned their power and it's become a different ecosystem. And so I was like, where they are now is where Golden Age Hollywood was before. And as it progresses around the world, the entertainment system progresses, artists will be become more knowledgeable of their power and recognize their power. And then those around them who work for them when the TV shows, which the bikini producers will understand that the around the artists, the artist is the sun and everything else is revolving around them. Once the artists realize that, the system will change. So it's just that they're just behind. They're just it's like the uh, you know, the advance of humanity, right like and any kind of system. That's where they are and they're going to be in a different place and soon it's going to be totally different.

00:38:10
Speaker 6: It blows my mind because I don't think really people understand the concept that like, as I asked somebody Korean one dance, like what was before k pop?

00:38:18
Speaker 3: Like what is the original Korean music? And it doesn't you know that.

00:38:24
Speaker 4: Is It's an interesting thing and it's cool, but it also there's a certain sadness to it. I was sitting in an award show and it was an Asian theme. It was like one of the Gallas, and so it's all celebrating everything Asian and you see the actors and the argus, the movies and the films that are being introduced, and a lot of it is very Korean, but also Korean American and Asian American, an Asian American because it grew out of just being a Korean American thing to an Asian American thing. But once the music section came in, I was like, and this is something I always knew. I always I always recognize from again decades ago that before it was even called K pop, I didn't. I don't know what it was called. When I was growing up. It wasn't called K pop though, but you would see them emulating the braids and all that. It wasn't called K pop, but it was just pop, right, Korean pop music popular music. You know, we would watch my dad would comment those are black dances. I was like yeah, and I'm you know, I'm eleven, I'm twelve at the time, and he was like that that was just cream people doing black music. And I was like, pretty much, what, that's what I'm seeing. But see, the artists were very very where they gave credit where credit is due with the music. Okay. So so the music that I was seeing, I was like, wow, this is so interesting because I'm watching all this stuff and I'm you know, Korean as well, but once because it comes to the music, this is black music. The only thing that's Korean about it really is there's a certain politeness, there's certain movements, the cute parts and stuff. I was like, you know, but that's that's also modern. But I was like, this is black music, and I was like, interesting, there's almost like this gap where there's no Korea because traditional Korean music is more like if you my mom will play it sometimes and so you just have the drums to do. And I wanted to do that too. Actually, I think I'm still going to do that. I want to do the whole thing in my mind. I won't say what it is but it's a very it's like a very big do v M A type thing. But I wanted to do something really cool culturally, right, so the music will be like dum, that's not I'm not saying any words, but the no. So that kind of vocalization, that's one of the traditional like aspects. But that's like you know what people will call like you know, old old old old old old old old people made traditional. But see Korean people have a lot of soul too, so you have those like those side drums, those drums that are in the front and the so you just hear the and then you know that that that vocalization again that I was doing. But I sat there at the gallapy thinking where is the bridge from that? And what I remember hearing as a kid when my mom will play that sometimes to the traditional young like where is because we can say this is pop music and R and B and we're getting the roots into blues and going way way back. But there those are bridges. I was like, where is the bridge? There's no bridge.

00:41:22
Speaker 6: It's crazy coca cola yep.

00:41:27
Speaker 4: From that to a complete cultural import and so I was like, man, I don't know. I was like, I mean I'm Korean, but I'm also black, so I view it like okay, But if I weren't black at all, I'd probably be thinking like, yeah, having our own Like what is our I want to see?

00:41:49
Speaker 3: I got that I want.

00:41:51
Speaker 4: I am black in Korean, but I am black and Korean, but I still feel like I want to see that.

00:41:56
Speaker 1: Frankly, can we go back in the time machine so we can act to get to your story?

00:42:02
Speaker 4: Right? Oh?

00:42:03
Speaker 1: Shoot, like.

00:42:05
Speaker 4: We're just talking.

00:42:06
Speaker 2: I know we're just talking, but I gotta I know you're a military brat, But where do you consider home?

00:42:12
Speaker 1: Like where are you born and raised?

00:42:14
Speaker 4: Please say DC, because we claim you I wasn't born and raised well, I wasn't born and raised in anyone place, So to me, I consider myself like a citizen of the world, like home is where I am. I will say this about d C d C is where I really came into my self as an artist, Like d C d C kind of like that's where suddenly I knew how to dance. I couldn't really dance really well before. I'm not going to say I'm the most dopest dancer in the world now, but.

00:42:45
Speaker 3: And where did you learn to dance in the club in d C or in the.

00:42:48
Speaker 4: Club, Yes, in the club. So d C was really important because it is where I like really really grew like exponentially as an artist, like where I came into my own because of who I met, because of where I was going, because of the vibe. I feel like DC is really like when I chose to go to college in DC, it was because it was close to New York and I knew it was culturally rich. It was a black city, and you know, I group as a military brat, so I didn't really get to just be around a whole lot of black people only. It was always very mixed, which I loved as well. But I was like, I really want to like I really want to be in the city where there's a lot of black people, you know what I mean. And then I got to be close to New York because I want to try to get a record, deals like go down on the weekend, figure something out, try to get some meetings or whatever people do. I'm coming out of Alaska. I don't know. It's just like, Hi, I want to see.

00:43:36
Speaker 3: You came from Alaska to DC.

00:43:38
Speaker 4: Because yeah, I went to high school in Alaska, but only for three and a half years, because before that was high school and middle school in Texas. I was in Anchorage and Anchorage, Alaska. And then I went to I know, I cried when I was fine with moving around my whole life. When we were going there, I was like, wait, there's no people there. It's like a moose. There's a TV show with a.

00:43:57
Speaker 1: Moose, and you know, exposed.

00:43:59
Speaker 4: It wasn't like that. It wasn't like man. But then I went to d C and I was like, like, for that freshman year, I would go to the club every Wednesday and then the weekend too, but also on Wednesday because they had like the stance hall thing. I think it was DC clud Okay, and then it was Republic Gardens Republic Gardens, and then this was before Dream even existed, and they became a club love right, are you?

00:44:24
Speaker 3: I'm going to raise I went to high school right across from Howard.

00:44:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, okay, so yeah, you know that's why.

00:44:31
Speaker 6: I really let me tell him my truths are just about to tell you that when I graduated from college, I moved to Philly and it became my home and I loved that place too.

00:44:39
Speaker 3: But I'm going to raise.

00:44:41
Speaker 4: I guess.

00:44:43
Speaker 1: It's okay.

00:44:44
Speaker 4: It's okay, but I have a soft spot in my heart my death from North Philing. I'm a soft spot. I have a soft spot for Philly.

00:44:53
Speaker 6: Last DC question I got for you, tell me about did you have ever had the go go experience?

00:44:57
Speaker 3: Because I mean, I hear it in the music, but I was curious about it goes.

00:45:00
Speaker 4: Out because because I when I would go to the club, so I would go every weekend. I never went out really much, and after that freshman year, I was like, well, got out my system and I never never really went out again after that. But during freshman year I was out of the weekend and then every Wednesday at least we would go out and literally I would go to dance. I know that sounds like such a I just wanted to go out and dance, but I did. I wanted to go to dance and have a good time. And then it would be like reggae night and this night and that and then they have like a go go night. And again it's instrumentation. Sometimes for me, I would like a song before there's any vocals on something, you know what I mean. So I could just appreciate that and that's why I say, like DC, I really kind of like got my seasoning and kind of came into myself as an artist. I met Rich there and we like just created some It was a lot of like kind of like what are you ringing? Like this is what I've got? Okay, what do you have? But I have this? Oh that's what I've been looking for. Oh why don't we do this and combined? And it's very very magical. And so I think that's why sometimes people will ask like if I'm from DC, and I'm like, I'm not from there because I was. I'm the military, but that is where I really I have my influences. But the seasoning, the finishing, the cooking, the bake, it was all happening in DC.

00:46:19
Speaker 6: And Amir, that's how I feel about Philadelphia. That is how I feel about Philly.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, have commonality.

00:46:29
Speaker 7: Okay, we do have perfect pitch because we're talking about like synesthesia and the way your harmonies work.

00:46:34
Speaker 1: I guess this is that you.

00:46:35
Speaker 4: Do I have. Okay, Now I'm not always singing in perfect pitch, but I know when i'm not. When I can hear myself. Sometimes you get those performances and you're like what they want, But it's because I can't. Half the time, I can't hear myself. Something always happens, especially when you do like one off. If it's a tour and it's my tour, it's all my people and we have it locked in. But when I'm going somewhere, it's a new person, a new sound person, and new someone else is going on before you and your things were touch. You can hear yourself, then yes, if you hear me sounding bad ever, And I don't say this to like Bragg or anything, I might be under the weather. I could be under the weather like right now. But it's guarantee that I can't hear myself because I'm one of those people who can hear anything. If it's not absolutely perfect, I can hear it. I'm like, that's a little off, that's a little flat, that's a little sharp. If there I walk into a room and the table is slightly crooked, I can see that it's crooked, and I have to fix everything. So it's just perfect because I can hear when anything is off and I can see when anything is off. And an engineer told me one time, I'm like, why did how could you. How could you hear that? Because I can hear like you can lay the vocals back. I mean you engineered, so you probably know what I mean. Like, lay it back, not like point one zero, not one point one five, lay it back point zero two, lay back point zero one, go back point zero one, go back back. That's like super super super super super super minimal. A lot of people can't tell, but I can tell. That was a long way of saying, yes, I can hear perfect pitch. I do have a perfect pitch because I know when I'm not on it. Ah, Okay, that means I probably can't hear myself in a moment.

00:48:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got been a nerd all your life, a Marie.

00:48:15
Speaker 4: I have been a nerd all my life. I've been a nerd before i've been anything else.

00:48:19
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:48:24
Speaker 2: I'm sorry listeners, this episode is like Momento on Shuffle, like we're.

00:48:31
Speaker 1: Just going all over the timeline.

00:48:33
Speaker 2: But I mean pretty much, I would assume that you're in a rare case where like your first thing out the box is why don't we fall in love? But wait, before we get to that, let me at least complete the story. Please tell us how you met Rich Harrison.

00:48:50
Speaker 4: So I met Rich Harrison. You know again, I chose DC because it's a great school. I wanted to go to Georgetown. It's like, Okay, I worked, you know, academically, I worked hard for this. But it's also close to New York, so I can work on getting a demo because I do know what I want to do when I finish school. This gives me time to get to that point. And DC's very rich culturally, so great. When I'm there, I'm actively trying to make connections, figure things out. Well, I was in a group for a second. I'm not a group person. The group never worked out anyway. It's just I'm just not a colicky person. We didn't really ever have anything, and the names kept changing because we never actually that. No one ever stayed in the group long enough for us to actually be a group. So what I should say is I was trying to put together a group. That's what it is. And people that I was working with we were trying to put together a group, but it never worked and I was like, see, this is a sign I'm not a group person. But one of the girls who was not in the group was kind of like feeling her out she also would put on fashion shows, and she was from DC, so to you know, in the name of like getting to know each other a little bit more, not just only in the studio stuff, I just like tagged along with her one night while she was looking for some space for her fashion show, and so we went to I guess it was DC Live at the time, but Ron de Berry was the manager at the time. So I'm just sitting there literally taking my legs. While I'm sitting there, I'm waiting for her to have these conversations about the space. And then so she's doing her thing looking around, and then he's just he and I just get to talking and I'm like, oh yeah. Then I go to Georgetown blah blah blah and I sing. He's like, oh great, okay. After that, That's kind of it. Every time I would go to the club on these nights I was telling you about, like every Wednesday or whatever it was pus the weekends, I would see him and he always remembered because he would always say, you're the girl that sings, Like right, you're the girl that sings. One of these days, you know. Much later, he was like, Hey, I have a friend who's looking to work with an artist. He's a producer. I heard lots of things before. One of my things of policies was like, I'm never going to go out with a guy to see you know what's going on. I was never. One thing I was always very clear on with myself was I know what I want to do, and I'm not going to sacrifice any of my integrity to get there. I'm just not going to do it. That's just not my personality. So if people were like, oh this, you know, you meet a lot of this guy wants to help people want to help you, they don't. They want to help you so badly that you never even heard me sing a note, So like, what are you trying to do? So I was like, okay, He's like he's a producer, da and it's coming from him and that guy trying to pick me up. So I'm like, okay, Well, he's like, can I get your number and then you know, maybe put you guys in touch. Okay, okay, sure, So give him the number. Later on he calls and Rich and I talk on the phone and we agreed to meet up so I can hear his music and then he can hear some of the lifestyle. The people think sometimes do we meet and the McDonald's parking, like happened to meet? No, that wasn't that. It happened just like what I told you the McDonald's parking. Yes, McDonald George, that happened. So it was late after school at the nighttime. I chose. I chose McDonald's because again, I'm not going to someone's house and they say they're a producer quote unquote, I don't know him from a cannon. So I'm like, let's meet at McDonald's. Let's just really see what it is, you know. So I was in my car then he showed up. I'm like, okay, you know again you never really know. But then we just chatted for a second. He just went right into like, okay, so I'm looking to work with an artist and I brought some music. Great, let's let's hear it. And I'm like, okay, he's serious. You know what I mean. He's serious. So he's playing me tracks, one of which ended up being the song float, but right now they're all instrumentals. But I heard, like I heard what I was looking for, what I've been looking for, and that was I was missing because what I wanted was so specific, and what I wanted was I need. Obviously it's gonna be tracks. I can sing to R and B tracks, but I don't want them to just be R and B tracks. They have to be hip hop R and B tracks. They have to have a great balance. They have to be hard, like they have to be a rapper would want to, you know, like they could do something over it. That's really really hard to find. Not so much now but now music sounds a little different. But at the time that was really that was really difficult.

00:53:08
Speaker 1: To finow trust me, Okay, so you know it was.

00:53:12
Speaker 4: It wasn't easy. So when he was playing this for me, I was like, yes, and there was something special in his his production and the percussion. It was just so much of it. I was like, I felt like that was like what I'd been looking for, what I was missing, Like it was like the missing instrument. Because again I didn't look at my voice as being like I did love to sing to the thing, but I didn't. It sounds funny, but I didn't love to sing that much. I love to create music and to create sound. So that's why I would get asked to do so many like National anthems, birthday songs, and I was like, I don't like to sing national anthems. I don't like to think so, because then you're just singing because you want to sing it. I don't. Actually, I'm not that interested in just singing. Actually it sounds weird, but that's why Rich understood what I met. He was like, so what are you into? And I was like, I didn't have my songs that i'd like sang on because for some reason, also so I note, whenever I would get in this group with someone, I ended up tending to be like a duet somehow, I never had any vocal so I'm like, I guess I'm the mastermind. But also not on any records. So I was like, I would, I would, I would my vocals because I was working with other people too, and for some reason, I could never get any parts. Can I can I get a vocal? Can I get a no? No?

00:54:32
Speaker 6: No no no?

00:54:33
Speaker 4: In the back? Okay, I got some. I got some of that. Oh that was kind of it. So there was no use in playing him that, And so I was like just singing him things that I'd written and just songs that I love because he I think he asked me, like, who what artists I really liked? And then I'm sure I mentioned Mary. So I probably sang Mary, probably saying some lev probably, but I think when he was hearing me seeing Mary and I was like that she is one of my biggest influences, he was like, okay, because that's what he was looking for.

00:55:12
Speaker 3: But he was looking go to Marry.

00:55:14
Speaker 4: So I think you might have been, oh no, I just want to make it wrong.

00:55:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:55:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's probably one of them. Yeah yeah, yeah, and it's on your mom and you see that. Could I can be able to stop baby admitted my mar your okay, well you're gonna beginning. We're beginning more of that because I I if I were not me, if I were not myself, I would probably and someone was like, well, if you're not, well, I guess that is me. I was like saying, I would be like a mix of Mary, Marvin Gay, and Michael Jackson. But I think that actually is me because they are are so pivotal to me as an artist, that and Prince. But yeah, so I sang him back and he heard what he was looking for because he love love, love, love, love love love Mary J. Blige. I think that was like one of his favorite artists, like he loved love her and he actually had just worked with her before too, but he didn't know who he was, but he was still like a huge fan. And so what he was looking for was someone who could have that like grit that he wanted, and that that R and B hip hop that could lend itself to that voice could lend itself to that. But then also, you know, why why did I even tell you line like something false? You know what I mean? Something soft too, And so he was looking for something very specific. So when we met, it was literally like we were the missing puzzle pieces like artistically, and we could play in the false like even I Just Died. I Just Died was a song that wasn't even supposed to be a song of false. When were there, Sarah Sarah, Yeah, I was like, Rich, that song is too low. I remember saying that. He was like, well, what do you mean? Because he would sing some of the songs right, and I was like, listen to where the track is. It's like staring at a mirror's E started to carefully called it, but I was like I can't even I can get there like this, but it begin get anywhere else, and I was like, all right, well, standing in ameera and I was like, I don't know, can I get all of that? And then I was like, oh yeah, I can in my false then staring, and then then when the song even gets higher. So we had so much room to play with, and I was like, I've been looking for this. It was literally like the perfect thing. We had this. I said, this track, this track right there that was gonna be float I don't don't give it, don't give it away, it's ours. So we already knew from the meeting and sitting in that car that we had something. And we met right after that, like a next week, and we started laying out. We started doing the demo right then and there those songs, some of those songs ended up being on the demo, and then actually some of those songs ended up being on the album, which we recorded sitting on the back of the sofa with the washing machine over there, and those ended up being the vocals because when we tried to go to the quote unquote real studio to do it for real this time, we had already done it and created the magic. So it wasn't the same, but it wasn't the same, Like those vocals weren't the same. They really weren't the same. It wasn't it wasn't. It just wasn't the same. Okay, do you ever have did you have? That's what I needed to see. I'm gonna be surprised if you didn't have that.

00:58:48
Speaker 8: I don't just fun and needed the same Maha, Yeah, okay, that's that's one that that was one of the first ones we did and we loved, and I think that might have been the first one.

00:58:59
Speaker 4: We did and and some of it it reminded me of a Leah actually a little bit, and I was like, wow, we really have something. But we were like at the same time, but this is not it, this is not it. We're getting there, but we got there like that next week, I mean song of the song of the song of the song of the song, because we understood like when I would say that that vocal was like, that's a trump I'm gonna sing it like a trumpet. I'm not gonna sing it, I'm gonna do it. It's a trumpet like and he was like, yeah, that's that's this or this is like a string, So I will do a vocal certain way, and so we just understood we had the same language because we're looking for the same thing.

00:59:41
Speaker 1: Like what time is this period?

00:59:43
Speaker 2: And then how do you guys wind up at the offices of Columbia.

00:59:48
Speaker 4: Ah, four months, maybe maybe four or five months.

00:59:52
Speaker 1: So this is happening like lightning.

00:59:55
Speaker 4: This is happening lightning, speed, we meet, we start recording. He already had connects seat Jeff Burrows and Darryl Williams. There were Darrel Williams Jeff Brows were working together. Jeff Burrows had worked at a Bad Boy and he was at Columbia, so he had a situation there Rise Entertainment and they were already watching Rich for a few years, at least a couple of years, and so they were always just kind of like send some stuff along, you know, dad. But Rich had found an artist he wanted to like walk in with like that. So he did have someone who was ready in the wings when it was time. So once we created a demo, that's when he let them know. And then it was like so things were kind of there in place when you have something, let us know that kind of thing. So once we had it, we did have an end.

01:00:41
Speaker 2: You told me, But like this is what your dream was like, even though you're going to college, you want to be a singer. How supportive is your family to the idea of you not doing academia and getting into the music industry as we.

01:00:58
Speaker 3: Didn't even Oh right, who were you supposed to be doing?

01:01:03
Speaker 4: English major?

01:01:05
Speaker 3: Okay?

01:01:05
Speaker 1: So I was.

01:01:06
Speaker 4: I was an English major because I always loved books. But that's why it's naturally for some people. They're like, oh, you wanted to books? Are you pivoted? I was like, oh, no, I've always been. I've been writing books since I started journing when I was seven, and I've been writing books since I was that age, stapling little books, trying to making little newsletters. So that that's just me.

01:01:21
Speaker 1: Anyway, all your book reports looking perfect for school?

01:01:25
Speaker 4: Oh, I was the Oh, I know, we have this history assignment where we have to write these essays. Can I write like a short like story.

01:01:32
Speaker 1: Your extra credits?

01:01:34
Speaker 4: Murph? I don't want to write an essay. I want to Yeah, she didn't need the extra credit.

01:01:43
Speaker 3: She's one to do.

01:01:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't need it, but you know, it's all always right now. I was like, let me just write this civil war civil war saga where the girl has two fat two members of or family fighting on opposite side instead of they. So it was it was actually kind of good actually looking for it for years. But so I was that was normal for me. But I wanted to sing and I want my last year of high school, I was like, you know, I think I want to go for this professional I think I want to do this, and that was another reason for choosing Georgetown. Right, So I'm there and then while I'm you know, we have a couple of slight bites maybe kind of sort of meetings. Doors might be opening. And so sophomore year, I was like, mommy daddy, if it looks like maybe a deal could be coming. If I can get a deal, what do you think about me pausing university just to like pursue it. See my mom was like no, no, no. My dad was like, well, I don't know, those kind of opportunities don't always come. And I could see that both their opinions. But you know, I was like, Okay, I had to think it over. But it didn't matter because I didn't even get the opportunity anyway until my senior year. Because Rich and I, I think we ron and I talked in December sometime, or maybe it was January. Rich and I spoke, we did, we met up and started doing the demo February, which is my last semester of senior year. And so thank god, it just kind of happened. I didn't have to try to make the choice, which which honestly, I think in retrospect it's not a good idea to leave school to do that. Like some people will be like, oh, take this chance. I'm a believer. If you all you'll do is one everything happens if it's supposed to happen. So it's supposed to happen for you, you know, alah, wah will it. It'll happen. Don't you worry about it. But also you will become a better artist anyway, even always hone. You can always become better. But you already put in all this work. I mean literally, when you graduate from college, you're still like twenty one, like you know, it felt old at the time, but you're twenty one, like you All you can do is just get better, grow as an artist, improve on your craft, get that under your belt. So you have that. And but at the time when I I didn't even have I don't know, I was like, career fest, resume, I don't even know what. I didn't do any of that. I was like, because this is gonna work, about to graduate in like four months. I don't know what's going to happen. But somehow I just knew. I mean I just had a feeling. I was like, it's going to happen, so I have to make that decision. But they were very supportive. All my mom was disappointed. I think she cried. Actually no, because she wanted me to be a professor or a lawyer.

01:04:17
Speaker 1: Got to live your dreams, not your parents' dreams.

01:04:20
Speaker 4: Yeah. And Angela, who wanted to be an ice cream lady, turned out to be a lawyer. So that's that's good.

01:04:24
Speaker 1: Wait, that's what wanted to be.

01:04:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, she wanted to be ice cream lady. I mean that last time we asked her was when she was like eight. But that was the last answer she gave us, the ice cream lady.

01:04:34
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:04:35
Speaker 2: See in my mind, you like said, Okay, I'm gonna be a big star and you're going to be my lawyer.

01:04:42
Speaker 4: No, Angela was gonna she wanted to be a lawyer. You know, we had the conversations because there was a hot second where she was going to be maybe be my stylist, and my parents were like anybody stylist. Angela has her own path, and she's going to do her own path and it comes back around then she can do that. But then any times she's gonna do her own thing, which is good because then I would have been like feeling too much pressure.

01:05:05
Speaker 2: I know your sister's tired of me because I will always run up to her and reintroduce myself.

01:05:12
Speaker 1: She'd be like, it's Angela a Marie's sister. Oh okay, sorry.

01:05:19
Speaker 2: It happened even at the Grammy's last Like I'm always meeting your sister and everyone else for the first time.

01:05:25
Speaker 1: See see Bill, You're not alone.

01:05:27
Speaker 4: It's a funny, little not so secret secret. But that happens to me as well for a lot of people that I know. It actually just happened to me the other day when I was at a party someone that I'm supposed to know pretty well, not pretty well, but we are passed across enough times where she's like hey, hey, and I'm like ah, and then I was like, no, I do know him from somewhere. It's like, yeah, you saw him two weeks ago. Remember that happened last time. You're like, oh yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, it didn't click. Because we're in a different environment.

01:05:55
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you the most loaded broad questionquestion of all time.

01:06:01
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you're preface.

01:06:05
Speaker 2: No, it's just I'm gonna let you because you answer and paragraphs. I decide not to just go bit by bit.

01:06:12
Speaker 3: He's met his match a Moory.

01:06:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:06:14
Speaker 7: Right, this feels like the battle of two worlds, like the same same person. Honestly, it's like talking to two versions of Save. We would have been vff is in a whole another lifetime.

01:06:23
Speaker 1: We're literally the same person. It's like talking to a mirror. Right, which your.

01:06:27
Speaker 4: Sign Cocorn sun sign, a Quarius rising and Pisces moon.

01:06:33
Speaker 6: Wait damn wait wait where were you born? Girl?

01:06:37
Speaker 4: Yeah? In January twelve? January twentieth twelve, you're January twentieth.

01:06:44
Speaker 1: Both of us are.

01:06:46
Speaker 4: So you're Capricorn too, well, no, no, the other.

01:06:50
Speaker 1: Side for you, I'll say I'm capable.

01:06:54
Speaker 3: Straight.

01:06:56
Speaker 4: Okay, your birthday is close as well. You're you're, you're, we're the same day.

01:07:01
Speaker 2: We're both January twenty Oh wow, Okay, but she was born twenty years after me.

01:07:07
Speaker 1: Oh no, anywhere.

01:07:11
Speaker 3: All look very very young this Saturday morning cartoon step on.

01:07:16
Speaker 2: Anyway, So as broad as I can ask this question a Marie, and this is what we all want to know. Okay, can you give us your assessment of your experience recording for Columbia Records?

01:07:34
Speaker 4: Oh godding no, I didn't Brown, I don't say that. No, I'm just thinking I never felt like I was recording for them because I came in, and I say we we came in because me and Rich with our own music and our own sound, and they really did just leave us alone. They really did just leave us alone. Now, later they did try to play around with some things. I remember getting some different versions of hooks of one thing, and I was like what I was now, okay, they.

01:08:14
Speaker 1: Were trying to augment it or something.

01:08:16
Speaker 4: Oh no, it was like that hook is too linear quote unquote. I was like, I don't really know how to process that. I'm just feeling it out and it feels right to me. It feels good. But okay. So then there was this other worthy hook. I just wanted tom.

01:08:35
Speaker 1: The hook.

01:08:36
Speaker 4: Oh no, they had someone to sing it and everything. Then I was doubly offended. One thing I do get, I can get offended when people try to change the thing unless it's solicited. But you know, sometimes the labels so jump in with unsolicited thought, how about this? Yeah? And I didn't like that, but generally they did just leave me alone with it, you know what I mean? Or maybe I just kind of just didn't really care because I just felt like I came in to do my own thing anyway. Like I was like, at my funeral, they're going to play Frank Sinatter's my way. That's what's going to be playing. I mean probably not really just little a little bit somber and weird to play at a funeral.

01:09:20
Speaker 1: Good question, I like that. What what song is going to play at my funeral? Guess what?

01:09:26
Speaker 2: And I've e'ched just in Stone with my lawyers. I'm not having a funeral.

01:09:32
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:09:32
Speaker 2: However, my plan is I will organize a bunch of dinners.

01:09:39
Speaker 1: We'll just cut to the chase, we'll go to the repast. I will organize a.

01:09:43
Speaker 3: Bunch of dinners like your birthdays. O.

01:09:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I organized a bunch of dinners for all my loved ones to just sit and have a meal and that's remembering a mirror.

01:09:53
Speaker 1: We're not.

01:09:54
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I've been to especially in the last three years post COVID. I'm done with funerals, like I'm done.

01:10:00
Speaker 1: Eye on the Sparrow. I'm done with Eye on the Sparrow. I'm done with that.

01:10:04
Speaker 3: Nothing mere. I no song we could play, not really.

01:10:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I would force y'all to play the most goofy song on earth.

01:10:12
Speaker 3: You know, it would be still, it'd be a theme song never.

01:10:14
Speaker 2: Mind, Yeah, exactly, like you know, the Elmo Elmo's World something. Oh yeah, I'm so unseerious about that. So when I'm asking you your experience at Colombian Sony, was it hard just finding your space in your lane.

01:10:32
Speaker 4: Where you can just you know, Okay, Well, one, it's funny that you say that about the R and B part, because when I was creating, actually I listened to some R and B and that I was really looking to music. And before that, Yeah, but I had gone through a long period I actually didn't really like R and B, listen to it only but even when I was in college. When I was in college and a little bit after that, I only listened to hip hop. No R and B or what I called boring R and B. And that's what I call it. It's boring. And so that's what I liked to about Rich too, because and there were great R and B rs, I'm sure, but it's just there was just just in general, like for me, the genre, it's boring and it's boring to me. So that's why I need that hip hop element in there because for myself, you know what I mean. So I just didn't listen to any of it and then and then I fell back in love with it again, but I always needed, like my favorite era of R and B was hip hop and r Andy got married, So that's why we align on that. As far as like what was tough about Columbia, See, this is a thing like artistically, they really did leave me alone. Like I said, what was tough, Well, you had a lot of artists there who were like really big before I got there, So it wasn't hard to get traction or the building behind you in the sense that like a creative vibe. It's just there's a marketing department and their job is to do that, and this is their publicity department, and their job is to do this. And I can tell that as much as their kind and you know, their kind and all of that, but their priority is not me. I am not their priority. I can tell it that that. This is just there's no priority.

01:12:20
Speaker 1: But then there saw a thing where it's like everybody can be on.

01:12:23
Speaker 4: Top, like I mean, honestly, you should be able to.

01:12:26
Speaker 1: Do that, but when it should.

01:12:29
Speaker 4: Be able to do that, that's that's what smaller labels understood. Smaller labels led by you know, black producers who had have an artist. Everyone was hottowntown and even with get Young money. For a while, it was like we have this, this, this, this, and the more successful we are, the more successful we all are, and we spread it and that's how it should be. But that's not actually, you know, it's more corporate. It's tony, So it's a much a more much more corporate culture, and a corporate way of thinking is not like a crew with a figure or like. And they would try to do that like they try to do so many urban music dollans different things, but it was still very top down, you know, so they just they didn't get that. And then what I then there was a little I think a little bit of tension as well, because are some inner things that were happening with the people who I don't want to say too specifically because it's not my story to tell, but the people that I was working with, various people that I was working with, and the tensions between them and amongst themselves and the label and all the stuff that didn't have to do with me, but specifically with them, and so that kind of made it pretty difficult, I think as far as like because it was going all the way to the top, So it's very difficult to kind of get things to move because of that. Then on top of that, I was never in those conversations, but I definitely got wind of people trying to maybe like take a song, take my song and stuff, but I was like, well, you can't do that because I also co wrote the song, so you literally legal you don't have to deal with that, which I'm sure they found frustrating. So the thing with Oh, I don't think I actually told you this part, or maybe I did. No, we didn't talk about this, so we didn't talk. One thing actually only came out we did talk.

01:14:18
Speaker 2: I didn't know that, but I'm building the drama here. We never talked about this though, drama.

01:14:25
Speaker 1: Did she freeze. That's what you get for put in so much drama of the world. Did you freeze? I'm freeze, amany please? I sort of kind of thought she was praying that last one freeze. Come on.

01:14:37
Speaker 3: That's lining he liked this thing over.

01:14:42
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen.

01:14:43
Speaker 2: We don't necessarily want to gaslight you, uh visually. So what had happened was about well five weeks ago, back in June, oh, two months ago, eight weeks ago, we had a Wi Fi discreption and see and then it became the most hilarious game of kick the can down the road and we'll do the episode tomorrow. All right, Well next week's cool. Ah damn, I'm out of town. The week after, well damn, I'm going on tour after that. So now here we are, some two months later, janky as possible.

01:15:17
Speaker 1: We're not even going to try to This is.

01:15:19
Speaker 6: Good a mirror because you know what, you know why I'm excited while we're two months later, because I can talk to y'all about the picnic. I could talk to y'all about a Marie performing with the Go Go Bank like I. So I'm excited. So I'm no shade. But things happened the way they should.

01:15:33
Speaker 2: We did weird enough stop at the entry point we did. It's crazy that we spent an hour forty minutes in social foreplay. I'm talking about life and our philosophies, and we started recording Career one hour.

01:15:51
Speaker 1: Forty minutes into the conversation.

01:15:54
Speaker 2: All right, so, and I'm glad we have this time because then there's a lot of yolks and crannies that.

01:15:59
Speaker 1: We did and pick up for starters.

01:16:02
Speaker 2: Fall in Love is one of the shortest sing I almost consider it an interlude more than I consider it a full flit song.

01:16:11
Speaker 1: Was that truly the goal?

01:16:12
Speaker 4: Like it was technically an intro. Technically it wasn't made to be the intro, but we were like, this where the sequencing goes, this is the intro, and it is the intro to the album. It's the intro to me. I felt like that was a perfect song to introduce me. I was like, if I could encapsulate who I am as an artist right now, I feel like this is probably the best introduction that I have right now, and I felt like it works perfectly. So it was an intro and it wasn't going to be the first single. Talking to Me was the first single technically that the record label had chosen, and then I was fine with that. It was a little slow for me, to be honestly, to be the first single. I was like, I don't know, it's a little slow to be the first single, and maybe something a little bit more aggressive is what I wanted. But I was like, you know, I don't know, so that's fine. We shout the video and everything.

01:17:02
Speaker 1: First thing.

01:17:02
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, this is something that we were rhyme too. And you know there's been Marx and history to where none EMCs were picking music that was almost MC ready, Like I remember rhyme.

01:17:20
Speaker 6: Talking to me, That's what I was thinking to talking to me.

01:17:26
Speaker 2: I remember, I mean the day, the day that Mary's My Life came out.

01:17:32
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, didn't you give us that cassette?

01:17:35
Speaker 2: I remember you being in the We were like doing DC heavy, like we were in the DMV doing Howard and our usual promo thing. You were in the van with us, and I remember like we just got in a promo of Mary's My Life.

01:17:52
Speaker 1: And suddenly.

01:17:55
Speaker 2: I had the same issues with the music as my parents had with hip hop, because it was like, wait a minute, why she's singing over a loop?

01:18:04
Speaker 1: What like this is just for rappers and rappers only? Like when My Life came on, I was crying foul, like, no, can't take Roy Air song and just I don't remember the lyrics on top of it and she can't sing over like she just singing.

01:18:20
Speaker 4: Over him hop beats. I remember that was a big complaint.

01:18:23
Speaker 2: Right, And then one someone said, well, oh so it's cool for brand newbie and a rhyme over it, but it's not cool for Mary to do it. And I was like, yeah, but R and B people are supposed to create the music that we want to.

01:18:33
Speaker 1: Take, but they can't. Wow, what the line in front of us?

01:18:38
Speaker 2: That's how I was thinking in ninety four, and even though like since that point people have done it. When fall in Love came out, that was like, Wow, finally there's a producer that musicallyague kind of things like I do.

01:18:56
Speaker 1: Like I felt that that was the closest to.

01:19:01
Speaker 2: A non commercial, Like it just sounded too real to me, and I was just like, whoa, who's this?

01:19:05
Speaker 3: And samples and fall in love? Right, I'm trying to think there is what's the sample on the phone?

01:19:10
Speaker 4: Oh wait, I'm thinking about the Love remix, which is crazy.

01:19:14
Speaker 1: Gene Carn what Gen Carn? Yeah, man startist stripping?

01:19:19
Speaker 4: Well, what's the sample in the fall Love Remax? No? No, no, no. We always felt like that should have gotten.

01:19:29
Speaker 6: The beginning of a song is the beginning of something, huh that international?

01:19:34
Speaker 1: Oh me or shame? I know? I feel my city, I feel my city. I'm sorry I felt yeah, But for me, At no point did anyone at the label say, yo, make this joint into a full fledged song if we're going to shoot a video to it, or.

01:19:54
Speaker 4: Some people did ask like, oh, it's kind of short, you want to make it longer. But I think we agreed. Everyone pretty much agreed from the job that better to have people want to repeat it than have it go on too long.

01:20:05
Speaker 1: See you're ahead of the time.

01:20:06
Speaker 2: See now we live in that age where most songs are under two minutes.

01:20:13
Speaker 4: You know, really are they not sure?

01:20:16
Speaker 2: There's there's an artist now whose complete album, like the average song is like under two minutes and fifteen seconds.

01:20:24
Speaker 1: Like that's wow.

01:20:25
Speaker 2: Socially and politically, not only are we emulating the fifties, but even creatively, you know, which tells me that Okay, the rebirth of the album era might come back maybe in the twenty thirty.

01:20:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know what, that's a good point because you know, we always want whatever's going on now than the pendulum swings, and it's you know, I think you mentioned the fifties, and then I think about even like just throughout human history, like thousands of years, we have a way of thinking that whatever is happening now is the first time that this has happened, or that we're on a progression, like.

01:21:06
Speaker 1: The end of it, right, the end of it, right.

01:21:09
Speaker 4: But where's everything's just cyclical, like there's nothing that's they say there's nothing new under the sun, or I think that's actually in the Bible. But everything that's happened has already happened. Whether people are thinking like this is a super progressive idea, It's like throughout human history there have been times where things have been way over here and way over there. We just repeat because we're still the same beans.

01:21:31
Speaker 3: They knew its technology.

01:21:32
Speaker 4: It feels like the one that's new is technology. I wonder what kind of sounds like if someone's playing like an ood or whatever, like back in the day and they're like, oh, this is kind of I like that beats and then things are all slow again. I don't know.

01:21:45
Speaker 2: No, you're right, I mean because look, when the Summer of Life happened with Woodstock, you would have thought, oh, this is a rival something new. No, Woodstock was the end of that period, civil rights period, the summer of love. When satur nighte Fever came came out, you would have thought that was the arrival of the disco era in nineteen seventy seven.

01:22:04
Speaker 1: Here it is Nope, the.

01:22:06
Speaker 2: Backlash happened immediately, and sad to say, when Thriller happened, you would have thought, hey, this is this is the arrival of Michael Jackson.

01:22:18
Speaker 1: Where now we could sort of kind of say Thriller was the ending of Michael, the undoing of Michael Jackson.

01:22:31
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson, you know what, my coustin dude.

01:22:34
Speaker 1: He's my idol. This is no, it's not shade or whatever.

01:22:36
Speaker 6: But if he's make me scared about where bad comes into conversation.

01:22:39
Speaker 3: But that's just yea well cause the.

01:22:40
Speaker 2: Thing, see, the thing that the last he was genius about was that in his mind, like I've always been historically afraid of kids are so damn honest, like they don't know how to be cynical, or they don't know how to be they don't know how to bullshit you. So if a kid immediately likes the song, then that song's forever, no matter what.

01:23:05
Speaker 1: And George Clinton said the same thing.

01:23:06
Speaker 2: But I think where Michael sort of discounted was Thriller had nothing to do with the music or the talent or any of those things.

01:23:16
Speaker 1: Thriller had with timing.

01:23:18
Speaker 2: MTV was a year old, and I mean, just like Drake took advantage of viralness and Instagram, and you know, like Michael took advantage of MTV. Thus that is why he sold one hundred million units, because he was he was the one that mastered the ideal viralness. But also, unfortunately Thriller, what's most talked about is never the quality, it's always the quantity. How many awards did it win, how much money did he make, how many units did he sell? And thus that caused a flooding that never stopped, which is why money became more important to us. How much we sold, you ain't ship because units sell this units like Thriller was one of the greatest moments.

01:24:03
Speaker 1: But I also see Thriller as.

01:24:05
Speaker 2: A burden that no one has including Michael, has been able to cross. So I considered thriller at best. I can say thriller is a penultimate to.

01:24:18
Speaker 1: The ending of Michael Jackson as opposed to the arrival. But that's with everything with Obama. We were all happy. Days are here again.

01:24:27
Speaker 2: Nope, I feel like Obama's Eero was the last time that we had the wool over our eyes, like, yep, nothing to see here, Everything's okay until and once the unarmed shootings happened and everything, So I feel like now and Siclicoles.

01:24:42
Speaker 4: It sounds like you always feel like the pinnacle is the beginning of the end. But you know what that is the climax in any story or in a movie story, right, the climax actually is the end. After that, you just have the dinner mart, you just have you have the everything's cooling down after that. But the climax is at the end of the story or near the end of the story, and after that you do just have the denim wall into the and then the beginning of the next story.

01:25:08
Speaker 2: Which which is why I feel with no hesitation of doubt whatsoever, no matter how much they trying to move the gold.

01:25:17
Speaker 1: Post or whatever. Politically.

01:25:18
Speaker 2: This is why I feel the Harris Wats administration will truly be the beginning.

01:25:25
Speaker 4: That we're on a different page. But we're not going to talk about politico.

01:25:32
Speaker 3: Me said, we ain't gonna talk about politics.

01:25:37
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk about that to you either. Oh.

01:25:42
Speaker 6: I'm intrigued, though, Amory on some other platform, I would love long.

01:25:49
Speaker 1: But I know it's good.

01:25:50
Speaker 9: I know a whole bunch of could have should have would as a whole bunch I could have should have would put it this way, Yes, unless you are standing for a against genocide, I just can't.

01:26:02
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm just not. And I've heard people throw out the H for the H name towards all these other candidates, one in particular. But I'm like, all right, but did he help kill two hundred thousand people? I'm just I'm just that's what I'm saying. You say, you could say all these other things, and maybe someone the next response is, well, he would have, he would have it, maybe he would have done worse. And I'm like, well maybe maybe maybe, maybe maybe not, maybe yes, maybe no, but I can't go on. Maybe. I just know what I see and I know we have.

01:26:29
Speaker 2: To go in as you're right. I know we have to go as right.

01:26:34
Speaker 4: And also it's kind of like, I don't know if we were If we were, this is a it's not a direct parallel to that, but if we were like living in the Confederacy right now, I don't really know if I would have been really arguing that hard on which Confederate president we're going to get and how much it would have made a difference, like necessarily to me if I was enslaved. I'm sure there have been something, some minor things maybe, but generally, you.

01:26:54
Speaker 6: Know, if we were living in the Confederate moment, that's a huge if it.

01:27:00
Speaker 4: But what I mean is that sometimes you know, people will try to do the lesser evil thing. Oh yeah, yeah, Well that's why I said this is a long this is a whole other thing.

01:27:09
Speaker 2: I mean I've heard yes, I've heard that too. I mean, right now, I'm doing whatever possible to stop forty five from what's happening.

01:27:18
Speaker 3: And giving their women rights back for their bodies. I don't know that's important too. So it's a whole list of importance and things. And yeah, that's a whole.

01:27:26
Speaker 4: All the topic as well. Unpopular opinions on that as well. But oh, I'm dreaming, Marie. When is the podcast for my friends? My friends have? I have friends who are just like some of some of a couple of them maybe who are like vote blue no matter who, some who are like no, I think that this is actually good to go. You know, I have some people who are like, I'm definitely gonna do third party support that build the framework while everybody else is doing all the other stuff, because it's just build a third party frame, which is it has to be done. If we want to have like four or five parties, we're gonna have someone's have to do it. So while everyone's in the frame.

01:28:03
Speaker 3: Till Jill come back.

01:28:03
Speaker 4: Wait, No, it's no, it's always going to be a boogeyman. It's always going to be a boogeyman. It's never the it's never the best time. So someone just has to do in the meantime. Because it's a five to ten year, twenty year. You gotta think like China thirty years down the road, you know what I'm saying. You can't just think about right now. So it's like someone has to do that while everyone else is doing the other thing.

01:28:20
Speaker 3: That's true.

01:28:21
Speaker 4: I also know people who are super pro black, like Pan African. They send it private after schools. They voted Trump last time, and they'd be voting for him again.

01:28:29
Speaker 3: That's crazy. Things are better pregnant.

01:28:33
Speaker 4: But no, I don't know if they're black. I would hope that we have more babies. I'll just say that, Oh I'm tired of I'm just saying we've been sitting at thirteen percent.

01:28:44
Speaker 6: Who as long as somebody's babies at Marie, as long as somebody could be the babies.

01:28:49
Speaker 4: There's that. There is that. But the majority of the world is more impoverished than we are, and they don't tie their family to money. They have kids. And but some people will be like, you know, because I was reading this one book, I had a book club book, and they were like one of the moments in the book, I was like, interesting, I never thought about it like that. The woman was a housekeeper from South America and she was cleaning the house for the lady. And the lady lived in a big house, a white lady, and they had one son. And she said, you're pregnant again. And of course she was like, why do you people keep having children that you can't pay for and she's like, you don't think about like how you can provide and she said no, Senora, And I was like, interesting, because when the lady got pregnant, I was like, oh, man, y'all are living in this shared space. You got two kids, it's hard. Now you're pregnant again. I don't know, girl, what's going on. And she's a grown woman. But when she said that to the lady, I thought, interesting, we have so much on this side and there are people who are struggling, but I'm just saying there's different, it's relative to a different level. I was like, she's sitting in this wealthy woman's house. She's not even that welly. She's probably up middle class white lady, big huge, three hundred square thousand square foot house me before thousand square foot house, just her and her husband and one child. And they were like, this is all we can do to provide what we want to provide for our son, which is fair. But then you have another woman who's like, the amount of children I have is not determined by our finances. It's about family and growing a family. And many people in the world think like that, and I never really thought about it that way. Until I read the book.

01:30:20
Speaker 3: We're capitalists as fuck, I mean as America.

01:30:23
Speaker 4: So it's like, well, when you when you're like, yeah, when you're throwing all the women in the workplace and everyone's feeling like they don't have enough to survive and everything inflation, you can be like, man, you got to pay for this, And I agree, But also I can see the other side and say, well, people make do with a lot less and still have five six kids, And so there's no real answering there. It's just more of a question and a perspect something to think about. But I just know me myself, I'm not on the page of like when it comes to like those women's rights, da da da da da da. I have mixed feelings because I know that when it came to the Blo population anyway, it wasn't because they were like, you need some rights. It was like, it's too many of y'all and we don't want that. So we're gonna put this here and here and here. Now what y'all do with it is what you do with it. But I'm just saying I'm not gonna be waving the batter and say this's a black and white thing. It's individual.

01:31:17
Speaker 3: But it's just nice to have the choice. It's just nice to have sho.

01:31:19
Speaker 4: I'm not happy. I'm not happy that the majority of children the potentialized whatever you want to say, I'm not It doesn't make me happy that the majority of them, or like it's not thirteen percent, it's like a twenty five, thirty percent or half, or that doesn't make me feel good, you know what I'm saying. So I don't know what the answer is, but I know that doesn't make me happy.

01:31:43
Speaker 2: And on the other side of that argument, there's also like health issues we have to figure out. Yeah, there's Yeah, I know a lot of people just for health issues reasons, have to terminate a pregnancy.

01:31:55
Speaker 4: Yes, that sounds real. I mean that's what I say. It's complicated. But I'm just like, yeah, who do you need this?

01:32:01
Speaker 6: I'm like, uh, no, is I think people are just fighting for their choice, to make their choice for themselves.

01:32:06
Speaker 3: So just like, just don't tell me what to do. Just let me.

01:32:10
Speaker 6: My man said last night, too many people in the hospital room with me. Let me make my choice.

01:32:14
Speaker 4: I'm a firm believer in body sovereignty and you need that. But across the board, so when now the COVID now they're talking about empos. I'm a believer and I am accination too. I see you, a Marie, I am a my body. It's my body, it's my choice, it's my family's choice. It's like this is bully. I'm a and I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm not for that censorship either.

01:32:40
Speaker 3: My friend was like, are you at Africanist as well? A Marie? Are you a little bit of a Pan Africanist as one?

01:32:45
Speaker 4: I think so, but I'd have to look at and see, like what what technically that is? But I fall into that as well. I was. My friend was like, I don't know what they ever trying to figure it out, because you know, I got a Republican friends, people who don't we're independent just across the board. They're like, well what are you? And I was like I've always said I'm just independ But I was like, they were like, I know what you are? Someone just texting me out the blue. They're like, you're a libertarian. And I was like, you know, there was a point where I thought maybe I was because I'm just like everybody just do what they want to. But I was like not quite. Then I was like, maybe not. I think what it is is I just don't really have any kind of I can't fall into any niche because I agree with this, and I don't agree with that. I agree with this, but I don't agree with that. I agree with this, but I don't agree with that, meaning this, this group, this group, this group, this group. So I think I'm more of.

01:33:32
Speaker 3: An American.

01:33:35
Speaker 6: Because you have the right to be that way, right, Like awful, you you know what I mean?

01:33:40
Speaker 4: When those people were tearing down those COVID masks and they were being belligerent in the targets and knocking on them racks, and everyone's like they're being stupid, and I was like, I mean, it's really out of control. But they're also the first line of our civil defense actually, so let them just be doing their thing. They don't really necessarily care about my civil rights necessarily, But it's okay. You don't need you don't. You just need people to act sometimes, and you it's just like whether it's political parties, whether it's certain groups of why certain groups can come together and they may be completely our opposite side of the political spectrum, but on one issue they agree. People have to be able to find common ground, and you have to understand like when the chess pieces are moving, like, for instance, all right, they're going to use this democratic president to do these things while they're trying to do that, and now when it's another time and it's like a Republican president, that's going to be the time to usher in these other things. But see what ended up happening. You're like, well, what happened? It's like, actually it's from the president that was sent when the Democrat democratic president was in or what's happening now, Well, that kind of got kind of slid in when the Republican was a president. It's like two hands to the same body. Yeah, which is why we need more political parties.

01:34:59
Speaker 1: So what was it? What was your second single?

01:35:12
Speaker 2: Now, in terms of the first album? First of all, who were the higher ups at Sony Columbia? Was it Donnie and Tommy still or was at that time.

01:35:24
Speaker 4: Donnie was still there? Well, you know, I'm always I'm like the worst at remembering things, honestly, but yes, I remember Donnie was still there. I don't know if Tommy was there. I never met him, so I don't I don't think he was there. How I got into Sony at Columbia was because I think we talked about that I was I met Rich, but Rich already was being someone was already kind of just like watching out for him to see how what was developing for the last couple of years previously when we met, before we met, and that was Jeff Burrows and Darryl Williams. They had a Rise Entertainment and Jeff had really come from bad Boy and then he had a situation he was trying to get going with Columbia. He just didn't have an artist that he wanted yet, and so he was just kind of watching with Rich. So we kind of created that and they brought us into the system.

01:36:15
Speaker 1: So at that time, like who was your A and R at the label?

01:36:21
Speaker 4: I remember Space, I remember his name, but it's because we didn't have an R ring at that time. We did did our project. It was like a thing that we did and we delivered it and that was done. It was really just like finishing touches.

01:36:34
Speaker 1: It was.

01:36:34
Speaker 2: It wasn't like feedback and hay, I like no, no, no, no, no, try and go back and do this again.

01:36:39
Speaker 4: No, the feedback It was pretty much like this is great, and that was it because also there was Rich and I, and then we had Jeff and Daryl their partners, and then we had Columbia. So by that time we had kind of already vetted it, and Jeff had already vetted it, felt good about it, and they trusted him with it. So someone hearing something, Yes, they tried. They did try to get certain things finished, like just the label was really instrumental in closing out the project, mixing and all that stuff like that. But the A and R for the first album, that really was just us. That development.

01:37:12
Speaker 6: That's because I was like, what about the vision where they had their hands They didn't even have their hand in the vision.

01:37:18
Speaker 4: I remember Donnie got really mad at my first shoot. I heard in the meeting. He was so upset about not the is the shoot. So on the back of the album, the back of the album has the song titles on it, and it's just me on a chaise lounge or whatever, and it's just like wearing like black shorts are pretty listen. It's quite It was to me. It was kind of tame then, but it's super tame compared to what's happening now. But it was just he said, why what is this? Why is it all liked? And he was really upset. Most people will have their labels like trying to make them naked, but he was just he just that was just too much. He was upset. I mean, he telling me that, but that's the feedback. They're like, he really didn't like that. I was like, this just sitting down. You can't even it's not even frontwards, just from the side. It's just legs. Really, that's it. And he's just like he thought.

01:38:15
Speaker 1: It was easy. Well whatever you call that thing.

01:38:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, lying down, lying on the shades, and then it's just a complete side view. So it's just like leg But again, super Tank people would look at and be like.

01:38:28
Speaker 1: What bad album. I don't call that, but okay, he is.

01:38:32
Speaker 4: The back is the back of the album. It's the back of the album where the song titles are. That's what I'm saying, Like, you probably not even thinking about it that way because it's it's super Tank. But I remember when I went to the Soul Train Awards too. I remember they were the label's nervous. They're like dresses, the dresses really well, it was it was kind of it was kind of risque. It was kind of risque. It was like basically basically like a David Downer but Patricia Fields. They made that dress and it was like a dress that was like a body suit, like a bathing suit body suit, but we added more because I didn't want cheeks to come out. And then it was just like the train of it all was black, like chiffon or something, so it was black just see through, so it was it was it was quite revealing, but you couldn't see any cheeks.

01:39:18
Speaker 6: It's just shocking because you would think all labels want all their female singers to be.

01:39:22
Speaker 3: Like shoo shoo, you know, pow powow.

01:39:25
Speaker 4: So yeah, but I think it depends on what they want to do, right, because if they're just like, we don't want we wanted a little bit more wholesome maybe or something.

01:39:35
Speaker 1: Cass, I thought you were the girl next door.

01:39:40
Speaker 4: I felt like it was. I didn't think it was too much. But you know, it's funny because my thing was like I was like, listen, I like short shorts because they were also kind of like shorts of the video kind of short. They were like okay, okay, you know, but I was like, listen, I love short shorts and here's the thing about me. I was like, you know, whether I show a lot of skin or whether I show no skin, my whole thing about who I am is I'm going to do what I want to do because I will be in control of my own image and I will be in control of my sexuality. No one is going to be in control of that. So if I want to be like I have the legs out on the chadels, or I want to wear short shorts in the video, but you know, it's still it's still tame. But then if I do immense magazine thing, I don't want a bikini, I don't want I want pants, and I want this. You know. My whole thing was like, you know, I have to it's my it's my it's it's me, it's my body, it's myself, and I want to be in charge of myself, you know what I'm saying.

01:40:35
Speaker 2: So for the three years that transpire between all I have in touch, was there active conversations on how to build up on the momentum. Because the thing was, when one thing came, nobody saw that shit coming. It just literally landed out of nowhere like a boulder out the sky, like oh, shit, what and then that's a good way just landed on us in such a hard weight, Like I distinctively remember like when I first heard I just got my license.

01:41:08
Speaker 1: That was like one of the first songs that like my whole listen, let's get to it. No, let's not get into it. No.

01:41:22
Speaker 2: I graduated, listen, I graduated high school and immediately like setting the motion like a big part of the root stories that we had to move to Europe, you know, like two years after regraduating high school and us making it, we moved to Europe and lived in London for like the longest. But even at that like we were touring two hundred days out the year, so like I mean, I just brought my first real, real real house, like my first Hey let me take my money and do something nice for me thing like I did that and maybe three years ago because the day that things fall apart came out to Wrek got his license.

01:42:07
Speaker 1: Okay, uh huh so what were you saying?

01:42:10
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, exactly, we were in the gallery doing an in store and it was like where's to rique. Oh he went to go get his license and buy his car. I'm like, we make money enough to buy our lights in the car. No, but one thing was one of the first things I remember blasting and I was just like, I can't believe that the hardest hip hop song of all time is not Buying MC and so.

01:42:37
Speaker 6: Hip hop mixed with go Go hip hop mixed with Go Go don't.

01:42:41
Speaker 2: All right, Look, there's one ConA and that's the thing I wanted to spend. I know there's Go Go leanings into it.

01:42:48
Speaker 1: It's not a Go Go song. I'm sorry. There's a lot of Yes, there's a lot of musicians in.

01:42:55
Speaker 4: The video expectful if I was like, yeah, that's a go Go record, like go Go, Let not get out of control. He got little flavors, got the tinge of it, but that's a whole different vibe.

01:43:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's it's I mean because of the drum rolling and all that stuff. Yes, it feels it feels like, it feels updated. I love it. So did the labels see that coming at all?

01:43:21
Speaker 4: Like? One thing? Are you talking about the second album? You're talking about the creations.

01:43:24
Speaker 1: One thing, which I hope let you hey, you have more of this, and then we could put.

01:43:29
Speaker 4: No, it was the opposite.

01:43:31
Speaker 2: It was the almost feel like you you made it against there.

01:43:36
Speaker 4: I mean we did it right, we did it. We were creating the album. It was kind of really difficult to create that second album honestly because Rich was like doing I don't know what was going on. He was kind of like in a different space and it was like almost like chasing him down. And he works in a very specific way, which is basically in isolation where he has to he has to get a lot of his ideas, but he has to be like a complete isolation. So the label was also meanwhile trying to create that for him, like you know, putting him up here or there. Also he had different people who wanted to work with him, so there was that, but he still needed to have his isolation. And he doesn't work fast. He doesn't work fast. He's more he takes his time and it takes it can take a long time while he's putting things together, he's getting his thoughts together right. So that was also happening, and meanwhile, it's like, okay, time to do the second album. Once we got into the flow of it though it was pretty good. Then I almost did like this part of the album separately, like we did it together, but then separately because of that timing because it was taking so long. So like the record I did with Carl Thomas and stuff like that, that was just something that you know, we were putting together because at the time, you know, Lenny was also putting that project together. It was really difficult, but we eventually got it and then we ended up doing one thing.

01:44:51
Speaker 2: How do you normally work with rich Like does he go off on his own and comes back and says, this is one I prepared in the mountain cabins.

01:44:58
Speaker 4: Yes, he normally just goes off his own and then I can finish the thought depending on like you know, what's what it is. But he needs to have his space to finish his own thought first. But he's got to complete his thought musically, and then I can see, you know, because a lot of times I did the bridges a lot, because he just doesn't really do a lot of bridges, you know what I mean, Like he'll get all the other things there. But that's normally how it would work. We have to see for the future, you know, should I will see what happens. But how we worked in the past was he has to finish his thought. He has to finish the thought. I just remember it being painstaking that second album, it was just it was just difficult to finish. But once we got it though, then we had it, you know what I mean. So we had one thing we had talking about. We felt like it was special, we felt like talking about was also really amazing. Actually, I feel like I actually like talking about even better than one thing. Lav told me that before that was that that was his favorite, and I like, yeah, you know, that's the one. I never I don't get tired of performing either one, but that one just something about it is like I think it like it's in my essence, like that's very me. But we did one thing and we felt like, Okay, this is something really dope, but we couldn't say like because it's kind of like this and that one was big, so this one it was. It wasn't. It was just it didn't sound like anything. So we just knew how we felt about it. So it's kind of like deflating when the label just completely didn't get it at all. That's actually how they were, like.

01:46:39
Speaker 1: They said this, I didn't play it.

01:46:41
Speaker 4: And I wasn't there, but I know, you know, it was played for them, and the reaction was pretty much like not is this it? This is? This is this is that you came up with?

01:46:51
Speaker 3: This is one thing?

01:46:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just like this isn't it? And at the time if everything was almost like culminating. And it's interesting because you talk about like things of like things that can be like the biggest thing, but it's also like the ending, the shiftings to something else because with the way that it was so painstaking to put the album together, it's taking a long time, and you know, that time, the label starts wondering what's going on because meanwhile, looking at the rich, I've got him somewhere, but it's kind of like taking a long time still, and I'm creating what I'm creating, and it's like it's all kind of been a painstaking process and it's very drawn out right, really really drawn out, and normally and I get into vibe, I want to just like boom boom, bom boom. I'm quick. So that it was kind of hard for me too, because I'm also working, you know, like partner it up, you know what I mean, And and he is his process is different, so it's a little antsy for me. But that taking a long time, the label not really knowing what's going on. I think spends a lot of money just trying to like figure out how to just create that artistic oasis for Rich I feel. I don't I don't like to speak for him because he knows his experience, you know, but just from from what I what I was seeing and what I knew of what I was privy to, that it's taking a long time. And then and then after all that, like ooh, this has been like I don't know, a year or a year and a half just trying to get the scenario going, and then they come with this what is what is even?

01:48:17
Speaker 6: This?

01:48:17
Speaker 4: What is this even? And so I think at that point and there were some other political things I don't even know about, honestly to this day, I don't really know. But somehow there were some issues with the head of the label and with maybe Jeff, you know, with a Rise I think, and then there were also issues maybe with the label and Rich. So there was all these little splinterings that were happening in the meantime, and then of course then we come with this. So at that time I think it was really like, okay, I'm probably going to just like lose my deal or you know, just it's just that's just it. That's kind of like the vibes I've been getting and pretty much what we're feeling like is that that I'm just about to just not be with them anymore. They're about to drop me on from the label. And I was like, I mean, the thing about it is, I was like, I don't even care about any of that stuff. I just really care about the music. And I was like, this, this is great and somebody's gonna hear it. So if they're not going to put it out, I guess I just will. I'll just give it to everybody for free then. And that's really that's how it got out. It was really, uh, thanks getting a DJ getting we'll work with Charles Dixon and Charles Dixon. I remember DJ Charles Dixon. Charles Dixon had like this, this is that back in the day when you know, people would have these massive DJ lists all over the world and DJ's had a lot more. I feel like maybe it's like that again. Yeahtonomy and they could just do what they want. They could actually.

01:49:46
Speaker 6: Break records so that helped too, and record pools.

01:49:50
Speaker 4: Yes, so we basically did that. We did it to Sundays of the record pool send it to the list, and so all the DJs like around the world got it, and I think the UK might have gotten it first, like a day before everyone else, maybe half a day, you know, because just the way that the list was sent out or the record was sent out to the list, and they just started playing it like immediately, like a lot of d started playing it right away. And that was that was kind of my parting thing. That was to me, that was my you know, and it was just my decision because lendy Als is our thing. That was the parting thing that.

01:50:22
Speaker 1: Was like, well, you know, I'm gone, let's prepare for part two. Okay, wow, that's crazy.

01:50:29
Speaker 4: Yeah. Then we put it out and it took off over Christmas break, so this is Christmas, no one can do anything. So it was actually a good time too because everyone was like on their vacations, so there was on like these crazy calls and all these things happening, and I was like, great, we'll just do this at the end of the year, and this is my parting gift, I guess, and I just want people to hear the record. That's also I guess. I'm done and we'll figure out what you do after that, and that was it, and come New Year's it was just building so fast and the label then had to pay play ketch up like, Okay, we need to do the video, we need to do this.

01:51:01
Speaker 1: Because answer this thing.

01:51:03
Speaker 2: Though, was there any sort of moment of redemption, like, hey, we.

01:51:09
Speaker 1: Were wrong about this.

01:51:13
Speaker 2: Non or were they mad at you for ruining their plans?

01:51:19
Speaker 4: You know? The thing that's so weird is no, it wasn't that. And I can't say specifically because I wasn't in the meetings, but there was the feeling that they were that would be weird though, so I never knew if that was the case. What I was gonna say was they were like actively trying to tamp down the record because there were other records at the label that they wanted to pop, and they were shift they wanted to shift the attention of other records, so they're trying to shift people away from that. And so really one thing did what it did in spite of the label, not because of it. And I don't mean that to disparage any particular person, because I actually had a really great relationship with people who were there. So some people are just doing their jobs, you know what I mean it's more like I think when you go on the higher up, the higher, higher, higher up part of it, because people who are really insitionally working but are great you.

01:52:16
Speaker 2: Literally just said, I mean, I think when you work for or when you work with the system, that's kind of more or less prioritizing their job safety as opposed to creativity. You often find a lot of cutting off the nose despite the face. Because my whole thing is that, well, if you win, then they all win, and then other people can win. But there's this whole thing where it's just like one entity can only share the spotlight.

01:52:49
Speaker 4: And I never understood that. I didn't understand that. And we said that at the time because I was like, listen, and I think when people started looking at like rap smaller rap labels, they understood that the strengthen numbers because I was like, listen, they're thinking too corporate. They're thinking in a very old, staid corporate way, which is this is the van guard, this is the this, and this is that. And I'm like, you want everyone to win because then everyone can help each other, and everyone even just by the nature of being successful, it helps give you leverage for this and that I'm like, why am I the only one who's seeing this over here? I mean my team was seeing it. I was like, you want more artists to be super super successful? Do you only want one or two to keep your lights on? Because that's not a good that's a precarious position for you to be in as a label. Why would you want that?

01:53:35
Speaker 3: It's not the lady model. Like when you go back and you talk.

01:53:37
Speaker 6: To even some of these female singers and legends of the days, it's like one Diana Wannareita. They can't even talk to each other. They don't not imposed to like like it's a thing. Even when we look at female MC's, there is one who does this and one who does that, and they cannot It's yeah, there's an.

01:53:52
Speaker 4: Artist tokenism, don't I don't like that either.

01:53:55
Speaker 2: There's a really awesome book that I read like five years Well, he's a comedy writer.

01:54:01
Speaker 1: Now.

01:54:02
Speaker 2: His name is Jason Carp. Back then, I believe his MC name was Hot Karl, and Hot Karl was he made his mark in the early aughts.

01:54:14
Speaker 1: Whatever the Hot ninety seven is of la.

01:54:17
Speaker 2: They used to have this freestyle Friday's thing where you know, they would have different people call him Freestyle Battle and whatnot. And this guy was at one point just had the world in the palm of his hands. And so he signs to a particular label and his memoirs called Kanye west Owes Me three hundred Dollars and other true stories, and basically Jensen goes through his whole from being a battle MC to being signed to Innerscope Records, and he reveals something. So right now, the story that you're telling me is I believe the same story that Bubba Sparks went through at Innerscope. So the way that Jason painted the story was that they were so invested in a particular money making MC on that label that their plan was to sign everyone that was kind of like under his umbrella and freeze them so that they don't stand in the way of their star producing.

01:55:25
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, I've never heard of that.

01:55:28
Speaker 2: Like, if you were to tell this story without me reading that book, then I would have just been like, Okay's But once I read Jensen's book and then started asking around to other ex label execs, and they were like, dude, that is part of the course that happens all the time.

01:55:46
Speaker 4: It's kind of weird, they said, they just signed I mean, I feel like that's actually extra like where they went out of their way to sign people that were similar to him.

01:55:55
Speaker 2: We just had Senata Matrea that was kind of his at the label because his debut was so magnetic and sold so much that it was problematic for Sony's biggest artist, who was the biggest.

01:56:13
Speaker 1: Selling artist of all time. That was a problem for.

01:56:17
Speaker 2: Him, and he kind of rang the alarm a little bit, like, Yo, this can't happen, and in their way, they kind of let the air out, which you know, is kind of weird.

01:56:32
Speaker 1: His take on it.

01:56:33
Speaker 2: When he did Quest Love Supreme, he was very bitter about it for about twenty years, and then he realized that his life was saved because he's still alive, and he realized, like, wow, that person unknowingly saved my life because but you know, I personally believe that you can manifest a successful future without this whole idea that if you become the biggest thing in the world, then suddenly you're gonna die or meet the fate of what Whitney met or Prince met or Michael met, or you know, this whole idea that only the biggest artists fall off the hardest.

01:57:18
Speaker 1: I believe that we can control that as well. Y'all doing it.

01:57:21
Speaker 6: Now, right, if you think about it, it's like, also, you don't have to go to the same five white men to get a record deal to make you change your life anymore. And so that's the thing too, Like these kids understand now that you don't have to do that.

01:57:32
Speaker 4: You don't need to the label, and the label doesn't do as much as they used to do for you know, for people, which was you know, a long time ago. This is before I came into the music business. They actually would develop the talent, you know, help make you who you became. They really helped develop those artists that that was kind of gone when I came in. And then now it's really they just want I don't know, they might as well just be distribution, because they really just want the the artists already to be there, have the music, and have the audience already via social media. So you know, but people can so many more artists can make a living and they can do really well and be successful without that. Now, so that's a really wonderful thing. But you know, regarding the story that you're telling, about him. You know, only he knows himself though, so he if he says that, it's probably because he recognized what kind of like issues or what kind of demons could be awakened if the things that we're just like lurking beneath the surface. You know how someone could say, like, Okay, maybe if I went down this path, I would have done really well with the success, and other people can say, actually, if I went down that path, I think I would have turned into a really arrogant jerk because I already could sense that it would have been happening like for instance like that, So probably sense No, not me. I'm just saying anyone, No, not Medy, just anybody that could say, these are the things that I think could be my potential pitfalls and issues, because I do believe everything happens for me. Yes, yes, yeah, So even if you think, if you are a believer in that, then you really believe that there are no missed opportunities, that no one ever took anything from you, because what God has for you is for you, and no one can take what is for you if God has that for you. So it's really just you finding your path and feeling out what that is because if you believe that God's got you, then really even when like your worst enemy tries to make you fall, they're only still they're doing their part in God's plan, you know what I mean.

01:59:30
Speaker 6: And that is the fight, and that is the fight to continue to try to keep your mind like that.

01:59:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, remember that.

01:59:42
Speaker 2: So even though for me one thing is your Monsters single, my favorite album of yours is actually because I love it, which that.

01:59:52
Speaker 4: Is so interesting.

01:59:54
Speaker 1: Well because it also happened to Calice, Like Kalie's second album never came out in the United States. I had to go overseas to.

02:00:02
Speaker 2: Find Chalicea's Kaleidoscope album and that's the same because I love it was all over Europe but not in America, Like what what happened with it?

02:00:12
Speaker 1: Because I love a project in general that it didn't get any light whatsoever in the States?

02:00:19
Speaker 4: What label was that? What was it? Because of love? It was that Columbia as well, Columbia.

02:00:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that's.

02:00:23
Speaker 4: Probably the last one. That's what I was really thinking of leaving the label because it's just like even when I wanted this single, it's like it was like so hard to move and like to do anything and then we were going to release it, and it was like, yeah, it's gonna it's gonna come out in the States, and I was like, but why are they coming out at different times? We live in the internet era, just it should be one date. I don't believe in this different dates for this and that I have fans that are going to be like, hey, I didn't get the album, so what what is the good reason for having them come out at different times? Oh, We'll just do that. And I was like, I don't know. I'm feeling like that is just leaving it possible that it doesn't even have a US release. I wasn't really confident in them at this point regarding them following through, So I really that was just completely out of my hands regarding why and that that album. I'm really proud of that album. It's not perfect, you know what I mean. I can definitely be critical of it.

02:01:19
Speaker 2: I loved it, like the ship you did with the Canons, like then't make me be believed thing that kids.

02:01:28
Speaker 4: Are so great. I just was just asking after them actually got.

02:01:32
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, we still when I heard that, we to this day do that flip whenever the roots do the seed like I played the ship out out of that song when it first came out, like DJing and whatnot? Shit you also worked with them from Formerly of the Youngsters.

02:01:51
Speaker 1: Karan, Yeah, Karan did. He did some like it. I believe he a little bit. You know, it's weird I thought initially I thought.

02:02:04
Speaker 4: It was Actually that was mostly me and Lenny did that one?

02:02:07
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, I was going to say you and Lenny came like also would hate to Love you, which I thought was outstanding.

02:02:14
Speaker 4: Thank you did? I love you to love you too? Who did that?

02:02:17
Speaker 1: That was you did?

02:02:19
Speaker 4: But we're also no, not that one up?

02:02:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, one up?

02:02:26
Speaker 4: And went Also, I love to create tracks while we're creating the song like that way we can you know what I mean, Like it's really like musicianship that way. It's it's not just like writing to a track, it's just something that's living.

02:02:38
Speaker 2: And breathing by this point where you rich creatively, Like, are you guys not working?

02:02:43
Speaker 1: Was there at tension there?

02:02:44
Speaker 4: What? No, there's no tension. But I have to see what he's doing. And we haven't spoken in a long time as of today. As of today, we haven't spoken because I.

02:02:56
Speaker 6: Could have just heard you say something like it is a potential for some thing in the future with the two of you.

02:03:01
Speaker 4: Always there, always is. I just have to literally be like, hey, what's going on? Because for a second, he wasn't doing.

02:03:06
Speaker 1: Any music for I was not to say, is he actively still working?

02:03:10
Speaker 4: I don't know if he is now, but before he wasn't and then he was again. So I'm thinking that he still is, but just some just cooking.

02:03:19
Speaker 3: What state does he live in? I just he's such a mystery. What state does richer.

02:03:24
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna say, because I don't know if he wants to anyone to know.

02:03:26
Speaker 3: Say city. I just is he okay, see in this country?

02:03:30
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm assuming he's still in the country unless he's unless he's just visiting somewhere. But yeah, he listens.

02:03:35
Speaker 2: I hope he's still a DMV, but I hope. But yeah, So what is the division of labor between the two? Like working in the studio? Do you work from soup to nuts together? In terms of that would have been.

02:03:46
Speaker 4: The idea for this next time, if we do something together again, we'll be doing it like that, like because my face. I don't know if that's like his his zone though, but he's a musician, so I know he can. I just don't know if he's comfortable doing that. The favorite way I like to work is I'm at the mic and they got the musicians here. I did this session of where I went in with a producer and it was like, let's just play, let's just let's just see what happens. Just let's just feel it out. Got these vibes and he was like, okay, well, you know what, I'm gonna bring some I a guitarist in, I'm gonna bring in some piano, a couple of pianists. Let's just do it. I'm like, okay, it was gonna just be really a meeting and it's just like, let's just but I always like to the reserve room to play, just because you never know what happens. And we were just like in there and I just stand at the mic and then it's like, give me a you know, something like this, something deeper, okay, add something in like some piano now or something. Then I'll just give those general directions. Right. Sometimes I'm specifical. I'm literally like do that, you know, I'll be very specific, but sometimes not. And then so the producer was also like getting them together while I was like, yeah, this feels like this, give me a little something like that, and I turn off all the lights so it's very dark, so kind of it's hard for people to work for a second. They only have the lights of the board and the stuff are around them because it has to be like woom dark for me. So then I'm just like I'll just start singing stuff and I like do the lyrics as I'm just filling out the melody, and I'll just start saying stuff. But I'll just be like laying it out and then it's like, oh, now we're adding in building and we built some songs like that. We had like fifteen dope records just from that one evening. That's my favorite way to work. And then we can figure out what to take further, you know what I mean, and what musically what's going on, but we've got the feel of it, the sound of it. That's my favorite way to work. I don't like to get a track and be like write something to the track.

02:05:37
Speaker 1: Write something I don't know, it's not my I.

02:05:40
Speaker 4: Don't really like that because I feel already boxed in already, you know, and that's not the melody that's in my head, it's in a whole different key and it's not that vibe.

02:05:49
Speaker 1: So again, I'm only laughing because I prefer to work the way that rich does, Like I need silence and I need isolate because if.

02:05:59
Speaker 2: I'm in front of somebody, I'll be less. Steve's my has been my engineer since.

02:06:07
Speaker 1: Since you got your driver's license.

02:06:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, before I got much driver's license. Like, Steve has engineered all the common stuff. He was there for all of the D'Angelo stuff, like all that stuff. So you know, I don't feel stupid or silly when I'm trying to experiment that may or may not work, you know. But oftentimes I'll feel like if people are in the room, it's too much pressure.

02:06:36
Speaker 1: Yeah you are.

02:06:37
Speaker 4: Afraid to mess up?

02:06:39
Speaker 2: Well yeah, But then also like I'll be in a situation where one particular artist wants to be there from the suit to nuts thing instead of like, here's what I prepared for you, and oftentimes I'll have to I did this once to a client where I already had the song down, but I literally spent five hours acting like, oh my gosh, I did.

02:07:05
Speaker 4: Just so many situations here do you do this to your you know what you're still not for confrontational. We need to talk about that.

02:07:12
Speaker 1: I just learned the word no like five years ago. So no, i'm me now.

02:07:19
Speaker 2: But yeah, I put on this, I put on a whole horse and pony show and accidentally wound up into the idea that.

02:07:30
Speaker 4: I can't I can't believe you did that. But from what you told me last year, I can. I can't believe that you spent five hours with tending that you were coming up with something because you're so sweet and non and you were non confidation.

02:07:45
Speaker 1: That was old me. This This was back in like twenty fourteen.

02:07:48
Speaker 2: No, now I'm I am new in my communications.

02:07:54
Speaker 1: She set up like, all right.

02:07:55
Speaker 3: You're working on it. You are in progress, he's in progress.

02:07:59
Speaker 4: I can understand you needing that time because see, even if I'm there we're doing this thing, I have closed sessions. I don't like you know, people are in there. They don't have to be in there because then it gets like uncomfortable and all. So you want to be able to feel free to make mistakes. But also like if I was writing a record, if I was writing a record.

02:08:17
Speaker 6: At hard.

02:08:22
Speaker 3: About your ship, I got you.

02:08:24
Speaker 4: No, I understand that you would want to finish your thought and be like, let me finish my thought, like in peace. Because if I'm writing a song or something like that for someone else, or just even if I was just writing something for me, but the music was done. If if there are other writers in the room, and usually there aren't, because I find it hard to work with other writers, no, because they never say what I would say, no, because they never say it. Then that's when you I'm sorry, but that's when you come out with something like none of the chicks like this. The chicks like me sing. You walk into the room and I'm like, that's not even me. I would never say that, and I would never feel like all these other girls are trash but I'm so great. It get jump inded it out like that.

02:09:07
Speaker 6: You get stuff like that, and meanwhile, e Marie, it's funny as you say that, I'm curious what's moving you these days. I would never ask you the elementary question of like what are you listening to?

02:09:15
Speaker 4: But what? Well, let me say first, let me finish.

02:09:18
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm sorry.

02:09:20
Speaker 4: The other people I've worked with that did not because they might well we worked together. I was like giving you stuff like that, so that's not I was being facetious. That's not all that comes out of it. But I have to be particular with the writers I work with because they do have to know me and what I would say and how I was saying. Now, I'm also a writer, like a fictional you know what I mean, Like words are important. What I say and how I say it is really important. So yeah, so, but but I've worked with really talented writers and when we gel, we gel, and then I know, like they'll you know, that's what's great about rich too.

02:09:54
Speaker 1: Person or just a music person.

02:09:57
Speaker 4: He can be with the lyrics too, but his stuff would I think it's melody and feel and like the rhythm of the word. What I mean? Okay, And then you were asking me something about what am I into now?

02:10:09
Speaker 3: No, I said, musically, what is moved for you these days?

02:10:13
Speaker 4: Here's a thing about me. I'm kind of weird and I sometimes feel uncomfortable honestly having music related interviews. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie.

02:10:21
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get the books.

02:10:23
Speaker 4: No, No, I usually don't. I'm just saying because I feel like people will be like, dang, well, she's not listening to anything no more. Her habits are weird, and so I feel like I don't I don't really want to talk about.

02:10:36
Speaker 6: It because you're not supposed to care, supposed to be free, say what you feel, okay.

02:10:43
Speaker 4: I usually will go through pockets of time where I listen to no music. It might be half a year where I don't listen to anything, or it might just be instrumental or if I'm listening to music because I do that because I don't listen to music so much. I listen to music that came out years ago as if it just came out, so it's new to me. But the interesting thing is I do get a feel for what can last and not feel old right although I'm like, well I don't really know what's the new things like whatever. But so I'll be listening to something right now and playing it out like but it's.

02:11:20
Speaker 1: Like they don't look.

02:11:22
Speaker 4: Then I'll look and I'm like, oh, DAGs fourteen years old? This no, but like I'll be like, this album's really dope. I like this. Oh wait, oh he came out with this on twent fifteen. Well, well great job, you know what I mean. It's like late, So I'm listening right now. Actually, I've been listening to a lot of Chris Brown.

02:11:40
Speaker 3: Right, Chris Brown, but he put out something every month.

02:11:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm.

02:11:45
Speaker 4: Not as late on Chris Brown stuff because but still some of the songs I am a little late on and they're new to me.

02:11:53
Speaker 2: This is precisely the reason why I have you on the subscription list.

02:11:59
Speaker 4: I know you said, Okay, so you do know that you're sending it to me. Honestly, I'm just like us. I always feel like you're sending it to me, but like you're not even realized. I'm just a number. I'm I'm just a notch in your head.

02:12:10
Speaker 2: There are one of four hundred and thirty eight people. Wow, Okay, but no, no, no, I don't do it. I literally, I say, a lot of friends.

02:12:20
Speaker 4: Do you have a lot of friends? So is that special for you? Is that? Is that a small There's all right?

02:12:25
Speaker 1: This is what I do. I do it for two reasons.

02:12:28
Speaker 2: Okay, Primarily I know that people my age and adjacent to my age.

02:12:35
Speaker 4: I'm twenty four. What are you talking about?

02:12:37
Speaker 1: But okay, keep exactly.

02:12:38
Speaker 2: That's so I know that oftentimes we'll get comfortable in our comfort zone, and our comfort zone is the seventy five songs we know you know this Stevie Wonder song, that that song.

02:12:57
Speaker 1: And we'll tend to our gym list. Our walking lists are Sunday Afternoon cleaning a house mixed.

02:13:04
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's all my playlist.

02:13:06
Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, go ahead.

02:13:07
Speaker 2: So we tend to get trapped in that. So number one, I do it because you know, it started with one person.

02:13:16
Speaker 4: Is that what it is?

02:13:16
Speaker 2: It started with one person and then it wound up being ten people, and then one of those ten people told the world and then they were like, where's my list? And then it wound up being four hundred and thirty something people.

02:13:28
Speaker 6: You're one of those the million, because they're not the four hundred you put These are the playless conversations. You're talking about your Spotify situations.

02:13:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, will actually text. I get the text from his phone, and you know, but because it's like.

02:13:41
Speaker 2: You know, text, I individually go through all four hundred and thirty eight names twice a month and send them.

02:13:51
Speaker 4: It should take to everybody.

02:13:53
Speaker 1: This should takes nineteen hours to do.

02:13:55
Speaker 3: We want I feel less special.

02:13:58
Speaker 6: I want you to know I'm in that four So I'm just gonna sit here and ask you to send me those for later.

02:14:05
Speaker 1: Fine, la, yeah, you will be four hundred and thirty nine people. No.

02:14:08
Speaker 2: But but when I got the three hundred, I was like, I can't do it no more. My hands are hurting. And then if people tell me, yo, I'll come in on the list, then I do it. See, you just said I'll come on the list.

02:14:20
Speaker 1: So I did it. But the second reason why I do it, okay, it is because it forces me to constantly search for music, because at this age, I too can get stubborn and just stuck in. All right, I'm just gonna listen to prints for the next eight months and stay in that cycle and miss all that behind me. So in this process I go through about, realistically, three hundred songs a week, and of those three hundred songs, maybe eleven are cool and so I'll just stuck up. Yeah, So that's why do it.

02:15:00
Speaker 4: So it's hard, I feel special, and I think that it totally makes it. Everything that you said totally makes sense. The thing about it is that if like, I'm always thinking all the time, right, so I usually am like the kind of the way that I like take in information is like this is what I'm in and I'm in this for like I'm in trench for this amount of time. It could be months and months, it could be a year, and that's all I'm doing. If I'm not eating and taking care of my family, I am just doing that. And then I'm super in this and that. So I can I feel like I can have a lot of in depth knowledge on different things because I spent like time and trenching it. The issue with music and listening to music, because someone was recently asking me, like this summer when you told me you didn't listen to music like that, I was like what. I was kind of sad and I was like what really, And they were like I use it for everything I do And I was like, yeah, but I can't do that because here's the thing. If I listen to music, I won't ever stop. If I listen to music, I start thinking about what project I want to do. I want to do this. Then I'm thinking about this and that and the colors of that and what I want to create and what do they do, and that's really interesting and now going down a rabbit hole. I will do nothing else but only that, And so I get in my moments where I'm like, I'm into some history thing grabs me. I'm pouring the internet, I'm pouring books to learn about this particular thing. Or like right now, I've been very like into geopolitics. So I'm all about, like the economy, geopolitics. That's all my videos. If I'm exercising, it's geopolitics. If i'm you know, I had to you know, go to the doctor and get a shower or whatever.

02:16:32
Speaker 1: It is.

02:16:32
Speaker 4: My distraction thing is the geopolitical thing on the economy and what happened to the middle class. Like I am in that, and that's all I can do because the I process my information at night, I talk to myself. So at nighttime usually whether i'm you know, in the shower or whatever, people will hear me. Well, I don't think that this is it because first of all, the reason why you do that, And people might come in and be like, well I'm talking to me, I'm talking, I'm talking to me, and so I'm like, just you know, cure, it's a lot. Someone was like, dang Amory, sometimes you can be a lot like being around I'm like doing about how I feel I have to live with me and I can't escape myself.

02:17:19
Speaker 2: You're taking in a lot of podcasts, a lot of books, a lot of so using. When a person takes in a lot of information, it usually to gather and sort the information so that they can.

02:17:31
Speaker 1: Do something with it, do something with it. What is your end game?

02:17:36
Speaker 4: That's what I'm trying to figure out. And that's that's because I'm revisiting that question. Before I had a lot of information and I remember thinking, I all this information, I need to put a put this in like a book, and I was thinking of doing that, and I've done some of that. But then I was thinking, okay, you're doing all these things. And then yes, there are a couple of people who are like, you need to do like a podcast, you need to do that, and I'm like, okay, do I though, like, okay, one in one universe, I do do that. Uh And people love me and they also hate my guts. So there's the information information, but they love the information, you know. But so I'm saying that there's there's that, and I think it would do really well actually, But then the question is because they were like, but you know all this stuff, and I was like, but then the question is is everything always to be commodified know a lot of things. Does it mean like I need to try to get famous in this lane with it? I mean, can you just have information to have information to inform how you live and what you do? Or is it like worthless unless you get big off of it? And then that's a question. I don't know. That's right there.

02:18:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a you know what I'm saying, very valid, very valid.

02:18:49
Speaker 1: Well, I just sent you your.

02:18:51
Speaker 2: Own mix of what I'm listening to now, which isn't music. It's literally tones, because yes, I know what it is.

02:19:01
Speaker 1: For your brain to constantly in thinking mode. I sent it, you send me. I just yes, what is this?

02:19:12
Speaker 4: Listen to it?

02:19:13
Speaker 2: I listened so basically, Layah. It is where Fante always clowned me. You know, like when Spotify snitches on you and says you've been listening to you know, it gives you, like your top five what you've been listening to, and people look at my things like, wait, there's no music on here, so all I do, Layah, it's tones of hurts where I'll send it to you.

02:19:38
Speaker 1: Layah.

02:19:38
Speaker 2: It's just it's a chord that you know, what you listen to when you go to the spa. You hear the like eight wait a minute, time out, It's like the sound.

02:19:50
Speaker 4: Remember I told you about my project Simatica. Remember I told you that's the whole cimatic of the trilogy. That's my long I'm going to put it together. I have three songs I want to keep from it, but I wanted to record it actually in I was going to record it in either four. Now am I doing four thirty two? But like the frequencies we talked as a.

02:20:07
Speaker 3: Frequency Rogers, I hardly knew ye, she's a Helen nerds, blurred blurred power.

02:20:14
Speaker 4: He's like reset. You're like, is it Vargus nurse? Is it parison? But that paris? Yeah, you're nervousness. I tell you, I get into something. I get a.

02:20:28
Speaker 1: Dude, I feel like I'm on the Nard War episode right now?

02:20:31
Speaker 3: What does a Marie mean? Is that what we're missing? Is that what we're missing? Did your parents do all along? What does Amrie?

02:20:36
Speaker 4: My mom made it? My maid made it?

02:20:39
Speaker 1: Okay?

02:20:39
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm glad you said it to me because I was listening to it because I was like, you need to like heal, you need some like healing vibes.

02:20:47
Speaker 1: But this is the rabbit holest of all Quest of Supreme rabbit Hole.

02:20:52
Speaker 3: Similar to the Bulge, y'all making it sound like the bulge. Y'all know that right, like it's sounding.

02:20:55
Speaker 2: We're gonna do another episode where we just talk about your world of books. I literally thought when we did this episode, we were going to talk about us an author, you as a book club person, because you really got me in the game.

02:21:08
Speaker 1: Oh yes, my ninth.

02:21:10
Speaker 2: Book coming out soon, the Kid book I wrote, my first kid Yes, yes, exactly beautiful. I will be like she she got me into the rabbit hole. But we obviously this can go on for twelve hours, but we do have to wrap up. Listen, can we do a retreat with Marie?

02:21:27
Speaker 6: I feel like it's a it's a it's an event, like we need a retreat. We need to do some sound baths.

02:21:31
Speaker 4: We need to you know, we would sound bask sing. We would have some political conversation, exchange the books, have some debates, a political exchange.

02:21:41
Speaker 1: A Marie is about to be the next member of Quest Left.

02:21:49
Speaker 3: Would you guess you could?

02:21:50
Speaker 4: That'll be dope special special, whatever whatever you would like or whatever you would invite me to. I'm there Okay, Wow, it's not a party. No, I'm kidding.

02:22:00
Speaker 1: Awesome, you're not.

02:22:01
Speaker 8: No, you're not.

02:22:04
Speaker 1: And also, if ever you know you're in your creative mood, yeah, I would like to collaborate as well.

02:22:13
Speaker 4: I just text I don't know.

02:22:15
Speaker 1: After this, I'm like, nah, music's not your calling. This is Julie. This is Julie where your passion lives.

02:22:21
Speaker 4: Well, what is this?

02:22:22
Speaker 1: What do you call this?

02:22:23
Speaker 4: Because I'm trying to figure out what is this? What is this?

02:22:27
Speaker 2: I think this is called life pivoting. I think both of you and I are discovering what information you can't. We can't put a title on it until maybe twenty twenty eight.

02:22:37
Speaker 4: The truth.

02:22:38
Speaker 3: Now you're gathering information.

02:22:40
Speaker 4: I know I'm always seeking the truth. I'm seeking the truth about everything always, But I don't know what to call it. And that's someone when you were asking me what I would want to do with it, my friend was like, you do the podcast. I'm like, I don't know. I'm trying to right now. I'm just trying to be still and let God because i know I'm doing the things that i'm doing, Like I'm got to start working on the new project, finishing up doing the novel that I'm working on. But then I'm also like, there's another thing that's happening, and I'm just trying to be still for it. So God can like be like, okay right here, because I also don't know what it is.

02:23:12
Speaker 2: You're finding out what it is you're you're finding out right now. But this is why being still and silent also helps. And take it from the guy that had nineteen jobs and always the second I did this, the.

02:23:30
Speaker 1: Answer comes to you. I promise you. I promise you. The answer comes to you. Thank you.

02:23:35
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I need to text you sorry. I'll just just you know, we gotta just talk. We've got to just talk off off time as well. Yes, absolutely, now that we're allowed, because you were like, we do the interview.

02:23:47
Speaker 1: Interview now, yes, we're allowed.

02:23:51
Speaker 6: He didn't have no real conversation until we did the podcast because he wanted to spoil it exactly exactly.

02:23:56
Speaker 2: Now we're friends, all right, well a mariy I thank you. We having Siger, Steve and Layah and and the family. Thank you for the supreme I appreciate you and I will see you on the next around.

02:24:10
Speaker 4: Y'all.

02:24:10
Speaker 5: All right, this is sugar, Steve, thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by a mere Quest Love Thompson, Liah Saint Clair, Sugar, Steve Mandel, and unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are a mere Quest Love Thompson, sewn G and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Britney Benjamin, Jake Payne and Liah Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.

02:24:49
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast Asked or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.