André 3000

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All Right, ladies and gentlemen, do not attempt to adjust your dial. I'm so old school, of course, I would say a dial as if it was a radio. We learned on a previous episode of Quest Love Supreme you gotta file the light. And so we're doing something rather different. This is going to be a one on one interview, and you know, oftentimes we just have to you know what, Okay. Normally I would do my normal jargon of you know, we have greatness in the room and da da da da, But I feel that's a lot of pressure. Sometimes, oh, I will just simply say that there is an episode of two friends, two colleagues having a conversation with each other, and uh, I don't know it's happening, Ladies and gentlemen, there's a conversation with the one and only. How do I describe Andre Lauren Benjamin aka three stacks shit, he's so enlightened he might be four stacks right about now aka Johnny Vulture, Sunny Bridges. I forgot about just chipped out the nicest Gemini I know, like he's the acceptance of my new Gemini's rule. Sorry, about that. Come on, now, you're man. You're made Gemini though, So you know, I like to think you're more tarist adjacent than Junie Geminis. I don't know, I don't. I don't get along with many June Geminis. So Gemini is crazy, man, like exactly. Yes, you are all crazy, but so crazy that you just into it. Like whatever we're into, we're crazy about it. Yeah. No, you guys are bold. I mean, look, dude, our hero Prince is a Gemini. Yeah, so many Geminis out there. Yeah. So yeah, I want to do something a bit different because I know you're on a press run and I know when an artist does a press run where you're just doing an interview at the interview, at the interview to interview, the muscle memory kicks in. You're answering the same exact questions over and over again. And I kind of want to use this as an opportunity to actually to get to know you as a human. All right, let's stretch Dan. Yeah, And so I'm yeah, I'll say that I'm taking a three thousand approach in quest love Supreme Land, and I'm gonna throw out questions that I wouldn't typically ask on AQLS episode and no, no no, no, this is gonna get fun. Yeah, I assure you, I assure you it's that. So my first question to you is what time do you wake up in the morning, just automatically, not like on the clock that I got to get to the airport, but what's your body clock? When do you wake up? About about eight eight am? Maybe like naturally about eight am? Naturally eight am? Okay, do you have a morning routine? What do you do in the first half hour of your day? Like, I've never used social media, so I've never had a Twitter account. I only have an Instagram account now to preserve my name, but I've never ever posted anything in my life. So it's funny that when I see most people in the world and they're constantly checking their Instagram, like you know, kind of going through these little things. So when I get up in the morning, I have my TV set up to like I'm a YouTube person, man, Like YouTube is my university. So I just watch a whole bunch of shorts, just random, random shorts. I guess the same thing someone would do scrolling through Instagram. But yeah, I kind of get thrown stuff from the youtubel Alga, Okay, where do you live? I live in Venice Beach. I live a few blocks up from here. I live in Venice Beach, California. How long have you lived out in Venice? About four? Four or five years now? Maybe? So was there every time you lived in New York? Yeah? I lived in New York for four years before I came here. So I lived in Atlanta, lived in Dallas for two years. Then I moved to New York for about three years maybe, and then then moved here. I heard a crazy room. Are you a fishing a fishonado? No? I started going deep sea fishing, like my family took me dee deep sea fishing, and I enjoyed. And I invited a big boy on a on a couple of them, and big boy like he's been running with it, Like big boy goes out in deep sea fishes all the time. So I think you may be confusing me with big boy. Well, I heard that someone told me like in Long Island once that you like I saw one hundred and three thousand like going fishing in Long Island. I was like, Long Island, he's not from New York. And it's like, yeah, he's from New York. So now what do young people say? That's cal Okay, that's a good room. I mean, fishing is awesome, you know, now, just I've never done it in Long Island though, okay. And these are also non sequitur and random questions. No, I love these kind of questions, like you're interviewing me, like, like, well, when we go to Europe, they asked different questions exactly, you know what I mean. I like figure you're just tired of asking the same thing. Where have you been? You know? How many instruments do you play or can you play? I can mess around with maybe four or five to get a sound out of them. But I don't even consider myself a musician in that way, Like I can't even claim that I know real musicians, you know. But I can write. I use them as kind of like writing to sometimes I can record myself doing it, but I'm not proficient. I'm probably more proficient on flute than I am on any of them. So in a world full of instruments, why the flute natural? How I got there? How I discovered it? With instruments, you kind of you pick them up and you mess around with them, and you start to see where am I spending most of my time, and it ended up being the flute. But then I go through phases too, because I I did it with guitar for a little bit, then I did it with bass for a little bit, and then flute just happened to be the thing that I think stuck. And because I think the mobileness of a flute too, because I mean, right now I'm holding the flut. I cared it kind of everywhere, So any inspiration I get, I just pick it up and start messing around. I can't do that with a bass guitar. I can't do that with a piano. You can do it with a guitar acoustic maybe, but this is so unassuming and you just kind of carry it like you know. So I think that the portability of a flute probably made it my favorite. How many do you own about thirty thirty flutes? Maybe? So you have thirty versions of that, No, and they're all from different makers. But this style of flute I probably owned more vse and my double flutes than any other style because it's kind of the flute that I really fell in love with the first which is based in like meso American culture, you know Mayan and Nastec flutes, and now this is the Native American version of them, made by Gearmore. They were made of clay originally, but I own a lot of these. But I think once I started to go on the flute path, I started to get schooled by uber drivers because I play all the time, So I play in ubers, I play, I play in the back word yeah. And so if I'm playing and it's a Chinese driver, he'll turn around like, oh, man, that reminds me of my country. Or if it's Japanese, oh that reminds me. Oh, it reminds me. So everybody I'm playing the same flute, but every nationality of driver will turn around and tell me it reminds them of their country. So that let me know that culturally, every culture has a flute and a and a dram of course. But yeah, but I started to get schooled on the street and by uber drivers while people asking me about things like I was in Philly shooting the film, and I spent a lot of time in Philly and I would just walk and play, and this dude comes up to me and he's like, oh, you're doing that Japanese thing, and I was like, what Japanese thing are you talking about? And then he schools me and tell me that there was a whole shakahachi culture where you know, these Japanese players will walk around with baskets on their head to have no identity and no ego and just play for people. That was the thing. End. I would just walk around in public and play. So he was asking me was I doing that? Which I had no idea what that was, and went to research that and learned about that. I was going to say, there's a show that came on h in the seventies called Kung Fu Yes, and of which David Carodine's character is sort of and he Tarantinas sort of alluded to that and Kill Bill in which he played the same exact flute, like just walking around and start playing and okay, so yeah, I was wondering, like, wow, I wonder if he's in his kung fu face. It's it's just I'm being taught. I'm learning, and I see now that anything that I can blow when through and manipulate the notes with my fingers, I want to play it. So if I'm turned onto Persian nay flute or Indian bun story flute or like a gore a Chinese go Like, I just like discovering things that I can blow, you know, and it's and it's fun, you know, paulse how long did it How long did it take? How long did it take you for muscle memory to I get the feeling you're going to say, I have yet to master the flute, but oh yeah, man, I mean, but you do know, Like and right now when you're playing, are your hands telling you what to do? Or do you know that this particular position will yield this note and that note? And no, that's the fun and scary part about how I play, like when people hear the record, like we made it up as it was going So I'm discovering that melody as is going along, but I don't know what I'm doing until I do it. So like I couldn't like if you played a note for me right now on a keyboard, I cannot tell you what that note was. If you played a chord, I couldn't tell you. See, I understand when musicians talk about a key center or you know the bottom of this chord, but I don't know what that is. None of that. So for me it's all physical and it's all shapes. So I do know if I take one finger and spread, I can't say it on the microphone or how to say it, but do these et kind of fingers. I know that gives me an odd note. That's all I know. I know it's odd, which may be of I don't know a flat or something. And I know if I put all my fingers down, I get a certain thing. So when I'm playing, I'm actually responding to what note I just played before, not knowing what that note is. So everything is on a tight rope. See, you take one step at a time, purely one step at a time, but it is it is very physical. It is very physical because I'm trying to wheel something out because I know I never trained, so I have to find another way, another route to get to it. How often do you practice to day? I wouldn't even call it practice, which I'm now getting into practice, like because I started playing flute, Like I'm actually meeting like kick ass flute players, Like someone introduced me to shabaka and so Shebacca will show me exercise like, but I've never done that before, and so I'm learning how to practice. I never went to college or anything, so I don't even have like the I just never had to study, so I don't have that. Emmy, It's all for me. It's always playing. I just try to play as much as possible, which ends up being studied. So even before I'm just always out playing. But I don't know, I don't have a regimen really, you know. Fun fact that's you're speaking for at least seventy percent of all musicians out there, Like I play by ear, yeah, I mean I've just recently, maybe in the last twenty years, and only because like some of the more intellectual roots will eye roll because I don't know. I didn't know previously how to say, like play a C sharp sus. I know those words, but that's so that's foreign to me, right. But for the majority of creatives there there's two types of musicians, technical musicians and musicians that feel I'm a field musician. Totally feel like if you were to put notaate notes in front of me, I wouldn't know what the hell is in front of me. So I got to go feel Yeah, that's all I have, man, That's all I kind of and and the thing about hip hop too, hip hop forces you to do the immediate thing. I don't know, it's just a certain energy that Yeah, I don't know. We just kind of have this kind of flying by the seat of our parents kind of thing. And so when I put it towards an instrument, I'm kind of transferring in that way of like we just try stuff, like we pick up something that's not supposed to be for a thing and make it for something else, you know. So I'm using a lot of that. How did you assemble the musicians for New Blue Son? How did it come together? It naturally came about by me meeting Carlos. Carlos Nino. We met. It's such a Venice Venus story. We met in airwine no joke, no joke, we met it. We met like and actually, uh, Mike d from Beastie Boys was there at the meeting because I saw him in line checking out and I went up to him something man, you know, and then Carlos comes up. So there's three of us standing right here at the cash register, right and Carlos invites us out to an event that he's doing at night, and yeah, we kind of started hanging out since then he had heard that I was in town in Venice, and people were like, I think y'all need to meet, you know, and some people would say that to Carlos, and Carlos was like, yeah, I'm gonna meet him, you know at some point, you know. And we finally ended up meeting and he invited me over to his house. We recorded in his garage, and that was kind of like our first kind of getting into it. And I knew I wanted to work on this Wind project, and I knew a lot of the sounds that I was looking for. Uh that's what That's what Carlos does. And so when he was brought him to the Fold, He's like, man, I know a lot of people I could bring, you know, to help. And so we tried out a lot of different outfits, you know, different situations, and the core four of us ended up kind of ended up being Yes, Aihen Nate, and but that ended up being the core, and then we would invite just anybody in to come and you know, hang out. But yeah, this album definitely, it couldn't have been made without Carlos Nino, like Nino is. What I love about Nino is he reminds me of when I was producing earlier on for outcasts, Like there's a certain excitement, like he's more concerned with what's the most interesting thing? Okay, you know, and I love that. It's like kind of kid spirit, you know. So okay. In the credits of the album, under Carlos's title, there's also play like It's listed as gongs, various instruments, and then there's plants. How are plants a part of the instrumentation of this album? I mean, you will see when we when we play live. But sounds are everywhere, man, like anything is anything is a sound. You know, We've only settled on certain instruments because we're used to them. But like Colos may just grab a palm leaf off the side of the road and shake it. Oh okay, I see, you know what I mean? So I get anything like it could be a beanstalk or drive anything, you know, just whatever makes a cool noise that you like. And Colos has, like man and a myriad of sounds of stuff anything like yeah, and plants happen to be one of them. So what's the division of labor as far as the technical aspect. I'm only asking this because when I read the credits to your album, there's a name. There a legendary Philadelphia name, gentleman named Andy Kravitz. Andy mastered this album. Yes, Now, Andy Kravitz to me is a very legendary Philadelphia native. Trauma. We got our record deal in nineteen ninety three. I used to intern at Ropoul's Records, and so Andy Kravitz was sort of like a house producer at Studio fifty four. So I'm there like when he's working with ten Dog, He's played on Steady be stuff and so I you know, he was like really the first hip hop drummer I've seen with my own eyes. Nothing sorry Bobby Simmons of steps to signing forgive me, but yeah, Andy Kravits like and then he just disappeared off the radar for like twenty and I always wondered what happened to him. So he's mastering. Yeah, it's so cool that the relationship, Like Carlos has worked with him before, and so his mastering studio is in Venice, so it was all in the neighborhood. So like his mastering studio is right by the beach, and we just kind of go to his house and he got like crazy equipment like knee boards and a little bit of ass apartment. It's awesome. Like so basically I have to move to Venice. Why Venice? I have no idea, man, like I got here havingstance, like I wasn't even supposed to be living in Ventage. And then this real estate agent lady and she was like, hey, check out this little house I got in Venice. I mean, it's just check it out. And all my friends in LA they were like, please, man, don't move to Venice. Like all right, LA people be like, man, we'll never see you because that's on the west side. That's way. Yeah. I was gonna say it's beautiful, but then I was like a man so much on sunset and all my favorite restaurants I would never know. But I never get back on that side though, Like everything I need is pretty much over here. And I think all of that, like me moving to Venice, catapulted me in the direction I needed to go. And I will say that because I met I went to a breathwork class in Venice. That's when I first heard this certain kind of flute that I love. And it was all because of Venice. So I have to say, sometimes them certain breadcrumbs or wherever you're wherever you are are for a reason and you may not even know it at the time. But if I didn't move to Venice, this album probably wouldn't have been made. Okay, not in this way. What was the batter year or the starting year of your flute curiosity? I don't know the actual starting year, but I will say because it's me and college was just talking about it the other day. Since the love below, I've been interested in wind instruments, like I've messed around with saxophone, even though like and she lives in my life at the end, the horrible saxophone, that's me messing around on saxophone. Oh, I thought you had a free jazz saxophone player. That's me, That was you. Yeah, that's me playing. I have to listen to that. Okay, it's horrible. It's horrible, but it was like, I don't believe in wrong notes and I love Now. I got to go back and listen again. You're here, you're here. The thing is if you do with a straight face and confidence. Oh yeah, yeah, Oh, it's always for real. Now it's serious, even if it's horrible, you don't believe it, Okay, I just thought you had some free jazz. Okay, now I have to revisit that. So yeah, I started wanting to play saxophone first tenor saxophone because of John Coltrane. I mean because I was a fan of John Coltrane, and me reading bios of John Coltrane, I learned that he played clarinet in school first before he switched over to so I was like, well, let me give me a clarinet. So I bought a clarinet straight B flat, the straight one be flat clarinet, and I played around with for a few months. And then we were on tour and I went to a pawn shop in New York and there was this Selmer bass clarinet. I don't know why I was there, and I was like, this, it looked cool A lot of time. I'm gonna track it to an instrument because the way it looked. And so I saw it and it was in its case, it was open, and it happened to be like a nineteen sixty seven Selmer bass clarinet. Bought it and as soon as I started playing it, like and the thing is with wind players, it's a thing called armbiture. It's kind of like how your mouth fits over the tip of the the read and all that kind of stuff. It's weird, but I was just blessed to immediately have an amatry. Like my first time picking it up and putting my mouth on, it was like, I'm getting a good tone, like a good sound. So it motivated me to even want to play more, you know. So from there, once I hit the bass claerinet, I noticed that I love the deeper tones and I love wind on wood compared to metal, which is you know, soprano or but you I tried a little soprano too, okay. So from there it's just me loving what I could get out of wind instruments. So I even got into Obo, which is the hardest one to play, like I love the Obo sound, got into Obo, went into Obo Day, Obo Day, which yeah, Obo Day. At the new School, they have like Obow Day. Okay, see what I'm saying, like dre D but Obo Day all right? Okay. I was like, is that a pun or no? Get it? So yeah, when I moved to New York, I would just kind of look at the school schedule of whatever performances were at the New School because I always like to go where the youth is performing. New music. I don't care. Like there's something about that college age where you're dumb enough to try new things but you're developed enough to do them well, and that it's about that that period, And so I would just go to the new school and see whatever recital as a plan. I don't care if piano one night, it could be the soon it's another night, or whole orchestra, and I just sit there and listen and side question, are you freaking people out as you're like just wandering into their school? Not really, because we're no. I just you know, talk to the students. You know, they'd be like, oh, he came to the show, but it would be maybe fifteen people in there, like ten people just sitting, So it was it was not like a big production or anything, so I could easily just slip in and slip out. But just my interest and when instruments just kept growing, and so I would just collect different wind instruments, and then I discovered the Guiermo the Maya double flute, which is kind of what really pushed me into wanting to play it all the time. And maybe like even with the bass claierinet, you have to it's like a gun you have to construct it, put it together, put it back in the case, clean it. You know, with these it was so instant. I can just carry it around, So it was very instant. I think because I could carry it, I kept it with me longer than any other instrument. So yeah, I've been interested in win for a long time. But okay, yeah, so this album Marks have returned to the spotlight for you for the first time and as of this recording, seventeen years basically meaning you haven't released product with your name on it since two thousand and six, my own product yet, your own product yet, even though you've done things here and there. Could you describe if you can go back that far two thousand and seven, like a year after two thousand and seven, well, a year after two thousand and six where you know you're starting your I'm sure then you didn't think of it as I'm gonna start my exile or my rest from my day job that people know me from. But like a year or two after it, when you're not in daily motion of gotta have an amount, got to figure out a tour, got it? Like, yeah, what was two thousand and seven like for you, you were thirty two years old. I don't remember, but that's cool too, Yeah, because it's harked me to place the dates, like I you have to give me kind of like a like a marker, like that was a year after the leve Blow came out or a year before Idlewow, or like I kind of have to mark I think a year after Idawoa came out in two thousand and six, So I say a year after Idlewold, then, uh, you have to Idlewow. I'm at home, and I was blessed to start getting asked to be on remixes, okay, and that was a blessing for me because it gave me a chance to rap, you know, after all that had, So you see it as a blessing now because it feel good to wrap. So whenever you get to like the opportunity to do it and you in it, I know. But like, okay, So I remember once when you appeared on the remix of Walk It Out, Walk It Out Right? Yeah yeah, and the so I know you're not on social media, so to see the social media reaction to you even being on that remix one was a shocker, Like wait, one hundred and three thousands on a walk it out song and with Jim Jones whatever. So but it was such a mind blowing thing. But in my mind I was like, wow, I wonder if he notices like that. And again, I mean, this was no pressure, new intent of pressure, like you're kind of holding the world's oxygen supply, you know, hostage, because you can spit a verse and it's guarantee that at least three things that you say in that verse will be like holy shit, here are a couple of those words together, like it's it's an event I've seen people like, for instance, the verse on the Rick Ross thing, like I didn't think i'd ever experience coming from a place where we would have daily meetings about wait, what about this start doing your PowerPoint thing? And the way he does supposed these words together. But man, so it's just weird to hear you say like, oh, I'm just so blessed to be able to get the opportunity to do that, And I'm like no, and when you are the opportunity, no, But when I say blessing, you got to understand too, this is a town, a town creating a new sound too. So dj unk like that actually came through another DJ friend of mine. That no unt just saying, Hey, asked Andrea here you to get on this beat, and it came that way. It was no, it was nothing, no big production, Like I don't even know if I got paid for the song, like I think I think the trade off was, hey, can you do a couple of beats that we scratched between in the background of my cartoon, That'll be the payment class for class of three thousand. So I think it was set up that way. But the beat was so jamming that you just want to get on it. So I say the blessing because any rapid just want to be on a good beat and beat in the city, you know, you just want to be out. You want to be heard. So if producers are making new sounds or even like even later like new artists. So even if a Frank Ocean says, hey, get on my song. Frank Ocean a new artist, I don't know him, like, get on my song. But when I say a blessing, that reintroduced me to a whole nother generation too, you know what I mean? That were following that, you know, so I do look at it as blessings. Am I say blessing because we had just come off of Speakerbox Cluve Below Idle Wow, which was a musical, more focused, melodic kind of thing, And so I didn't rap a lot, okay, and those offerings a little bit. So when I say a blessing, it gave me another opportunity to do what I enjoyed doing. Yeah, what five albums can you not live without? What five albums can you not live without? That's a hard pressure. Yeah, you should have gave me some time before we got on the microphone. Man. Well, the thing is, I think oftentimes when you when people are in this high pressure situation of like, I gotta give the most intellectual answer, Like sometimes I listen to boring as shit, you know what I mean. I'm on an Elvis kick right now because i just saw the Lisa Marie biopic and I'm interested in that sixty eight comeback Black Leather, so i'm and plus you know the recond Crew were playing on that record. So right now I'm on an Elvis kicking okay for some strange reason, but it doesn't have to be five. I've gone through that Elvis kick too, really, yeah, man, like E was a bad motherfucker man? Or what five albums would you not expect us to think that you're into hmm, not think that I'm into. That's another thing because when you say your five albums, it's almost like I'm trying not to give you the ones that everybody's going to say too. So I'm double thinking. Like if I say, you know, you know Love Supreme, you know what I mean, that's everybody's you know what I mean. So I'm trying to figure out that's a good question. What okay, So everyone has a go to song that they put on to just calm them down. And you know, when the album came out, I hit you with twelve paragraphs. I'm certain the whole world was hitting you with paragraphs. But you know, okay, I won't say an album because what's an album in twenty twenty three? What music? What's your go to music that you escape to. It's different phases, man, And just like you're saying right now, you're into Elvis phase right now, I'm into like a kind of classical Steve reikish kind of Oh okay. It's very repetitive, calming and meditative at the same time, but at the same time like very complex and moving. It's like and it's rhythmic, you know, it's tight, you know, so I guess I'm into that. And I listened to like a lot of native drum circle music like Cree Indian cre Nation kind of drumming the way they sing. Man, Yeah, that just that just blows my mind some very powerful okay about that? Is there any lyric that is ever stuck in your head? A stanza or a lyric of any song or I've been I've been working on a slide documentaries for so long that I think almost every day here the last line of Family Fair like you can't cry because you look broke down, but you're cry anyway because you're all broke down. So that's that's stuck in my head? Like are there lyrics that are often just stuck in your head even if it's dumb? I met her in a hotel lobby, like anything like the song fast Card by Tracy Chapman, Like it's one of those songs that I wish you know how people ask you, man, what song do you wish you wish you wrote? Yeah? Like, as a child hearing that song, it introduced me to, oh, you can you can actually hit people in the heart with words you know and when she when she said the line, uh, something like the body is too young for bodies too old for working, but bodies too old, too young to look like his. My mama went off and left him. She wanted more than he could give. Somebody's got to take care of him. So I quit school. I was like, yeah, you wish she wrote that. Yeah, it was like we were like we were we were listening and watching a real life Like it's almost like the black, the black kind of trailer park story, you know what I mean, Like you and you were on the ride the whole time, like these big dreams of hurting this dude and someone running away from a past life. And it went full circle like she had these big dreams just like a mama did. Then at the end she got to keep moving like WHOA right hard? Okay? Yeah. Anyone that has ever asked me like what song that I wish I wrote or a part of I will never hesitate to say. I think will ever beat the moment in which we were in our tour bus. We had one week to finish our Things Fallow Apart album. We were coming back from Pittsburgh and this is August of ninety eight, and you know back in the day, of course your album had to be done like three months ahead of Oh yeah, man. Yeah. So somehow my publicist was connected to Drew Dixon at Arista and had a copy of Equimini and The Feeling of Fear. When Spotioli Doplicious came on, I was like, fuck, they sound like a better band than we do, like and instantly I knew, like every black university marching ben like, this was gonna be something I heard like forever. And I was like, damn, how come ideas don't come to me like that? Man, Like, what the fuck you know? And plus it's very rare. It's it's it's rare in what you hear stream of conscious thinking, black people thinking. And man, that paralyzed me so goddamn much, man like I wish I don't know if I should say thank you or sorry? You know, made it made me try harder, man like, and I've yet to still create that, so like in my mind, that's that's what I'm doing. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? It? Actually the best piece of advice I would say came from Erica's grandmother. Erica would all Erica's grandmama would always say anything, any problem in the issue that come up, she'd be like, keep on living. It happened to you. That was it. Did you know what you meant? Yes? Okay, Yeah, keep on living. It'll happen to you. Yeah, okay. And it's as simple as that, it's going to happen. Keep on living. It'll happen to you. If you can astro travel. If you can astro travel back to nineteen ninety two, and you were allowed you today, were allowed a twenty second window to disrupt the timeline and talk to yourself. And I believe you were seventeen in nineteen ninety two. What would you tell yourself in those twenty seconds? This is like before first album ninety two. I consider that at the beginning of the podcast, what would I tell myself? Get ready for the ride, man, get ready for a ride that you don't even know how to hold on because you can't even fathom what's going to happen, you know. So I don't know if there's any any more advice than that, just to get ready for the ride and just yeah, yeah, because there's nothing to prepare you for. Because we can have plans like as humans, we you know, you just want to wrap okay, but those are kind of on the ground, you know, goals. But then there's a higher force that takes you further that things that I couldn't even imagine, that I couldn't even think about. So really, just get ready for the rode. Most people, when they dream, they often have themes that occur all the time. Yep, trains are always in my dream. For the least, the last thirty year of trains are always in my dream. What is the prevalent theme of all of your dreams? Flying? You're always on a plane? No, I'm always flying no plane. Do you have a fear of flying? No? Besides trains. And this is weird. I live. I live in an apartment in New York and I'm on the seventy third floor and people always ask all the time, wait, aren't you a free to be up here? You know that that sort of thing. But yet when I sleep, because I often believe that times your brain can't register a fantasy in real life. So I tried an exercise where, you know, I was watching somebody on YouTube and they said, like, imagine yourself flying, and when I close my eyes to mat like to stand on a ledge to make that leap. I get that I can't imagine myself even in my dreams. I can't imagine myself flying over like it's it's the same fear as if I were on the ledge and want to hang on to deer life. M So in your dreams, you have the ability to just transport and fly. Yes, And it was from wherever I am, like not a I have to be on the top of a building like I can be on the ground. And I start to do this type it's almost like a a hover like it's like a floating kind of thing, and you're kind of like it's not like it's not like direct control. It's almost like you're drifted and you're able to manipulate the drift a little bit, but not fast. So if I want to make a turn, I got to start drifting a little. But yeah, like I'm always flying, I'm looking down on the world like I'm looking down on mountains, I'm looking down on things. But here's the craziest thing. Whenever I try to show my friends, like I remember when one of dream I was trying to trying to show sea law like see look man check this out and I tried to do it for him. It didn't work, you know what I mean, Like it's almost like you wanted to share and you were planning it, you couldn't do it. But it's when I was by myself and it was happening, I was like, whoa, look at this flying thing. And now at this point I want to show people. You're almost like I almost want to show off the trick, like, oh, check this out, and whenever I try, it just doesn't work, which is which is weird, you know. But I have that dream a lot and it's the same flying style, which is and it's kind of like it's a really awesome style because it's because even in your dreams, you're cool shit because it because it's so it's so floaty. It's so floaty. It's not like a plain ship. Well I'm able to make quick rights or anything. So it's almost like it's hard. Okay, I guess how to describe dreams on a microphone. It's hard. It's hard. Who are three of the most in your career? Who are three of the most important people that you've met? La Reid who signed this Big Boy and I just I say third, I'd have to say collectively, the Dungeon, those are the most important, okay, you know, because because and for for different reasons, but well, la read. Of course, he gave us our first opportunity, you know, so he he saw enough in us to sign us, to give us an opportunity to do something. Big Boy, because he's my high school friend that started this whole thing with me that oh we can do this, you know, and not only not only that just contributing and like a music form, but in a motivational form too, because Big Boy knows me more than anybody, and he knows, you know, when I'm not feeling a certain thing or you know, when I've given up in a way. And Big Boy's always been kind of like the Chileader. Like I remember before we even first our first album came out, our first showcase, people didn't like us, you know, and we got the feedback from that showcase when all labels were coming you would do your acting. You know, it's kind of funny thing about it now, but we got word that, you know, some feedback was they're okay, they're not stars, you know. That's that was the feedback. And so at that point, I remember we were kind of sad. We were at the Dungeon and I was like, oh, well, well shit, man, I'm gonna go ahead and do this art thing like I always like, I thought i'd be drawing and paint like that's why I started doing so I was the plan was like, all right, well we're just going to our school now. You know, this rap thing is not working so big boys kind of a person like, no, man, we don't came this far. Let's do it. So that value importance in my life and career the Dungeon because they created an environment to show me to well, to make me feel comfortable enough to do all the things that y'all are seeing now, Like you have to have a good ground to to feel comfortable enough to try stuff, you know. If yeah, I mean you've seen a year, your producer, you've been in the studio, Like you've gotten certain things out of artists when they're opening and you know, freer than if they're you know, nervous or you know they're scared to fuck up, you know, or scared to not be great. You know, you got to create that environment, and I think the Dungeon created that environment for me to yeah, for me to know how to dream like they taught me, Like, yeah, they taught me how to get out. You know, what's the hidden talent that you possess that the world doesn't know about drawing paint? You're still actively paint right now? Yeah? Yeah. Are you into selling your work? Yes, very soon, stay tuned, very soon. Yeah, I want to be for because that's I collect works from different artists. Yeah. Man, So finally George Clinton gave an official piece and yeah, man, I can't wait to share it because it's a whole nother thing. And I've been I've been sharing it a little bit, but only like on outcast CDs. Uh. Yeah, although our sketches a little quick. And that's that's another thing that was. That was a big boy thing, like I did it one time for the first album and then big boys like you're gonna do another one for the next one. I was like, yeah, sure, why not? So it became a thing because he you've done all that artwork of on the AC Yeah, that's your work. Yeah. And I'm I'm I call myself more of a like a classroom drawer more than anything. I wouldn't say I'm you know, full fledged, I'm learning how to paint now. But yeah, I've been doing it for a while now and I'm loving that I'm finding what. I am loving that I'm finding my style and can't wait to share it. But that I cook how good I have to cook it? You have to tell me, Like, but people that have had food, they enjoy it. And I really be doing the same thing that my mom and my daddy showed me, just recipes they showed me. So it's like Jim Salmon Patti's and cheese grits or fried fish. My dad had a fish shop on Riverdale Road, Okay, and my mom taught me, you know, recipes. I'm only child, so I cooked for myself a lot, so I had that skill to do it. So okay, other talents. I can make water noises with my mouth. Okay, you want to hear them? Hit me. What's the greatest cereal of all time? I would have to say, you gotta eat it quick with them fruit the pebbles though, like oh before yeah super sivvy, Yeah yeah, them fruity pebbles. Man, they something else. The story that you told me before we started taping about Coachella at night one, Yeah, yeah, man, could you share that story. Yeah, for sure, and it's funny for a long time. I wouldn't sure if you know, when people pass away, you just want to kind of respect. But I think I think Prince would. I think he would enjoy it. So yeah, like I don't, I don't. I've met Prince in passing. Like when I was finishing up The Love Below. I lived in LA and I remember being a homie going out to a club on sunset, normal night, and I go, I say, hey, I'm going to use the bathroom and walking away use the bathroom and this big, huge bodyguard dude comes and grabbed me, and you say, hey, Prince is in the corner. He wants to meet you. And so that was my first time meeting Prince when I got a pee. Man, this was making Love Below. So no, actually this was Hey, y'all was already out. Hey, y'all was out. Yeah, and that's the only like the whole album. You were just meeting him. No, the album had just come out. Yeah I hadn't met him before. Crap. Yeah okay, yeah, all my friends had met him, you know, Erica told me stories. You know, I never met him, but so his bodyguard, I never mind you I still got a pee, right, So I go over to this booth and this prince and he's sitting and uh, I'm very nervous, and he, you know, motions his hand like sit down, sit down, man, you know. So I go and sit down and I just I didn't know what to say, and he could he could tell that I didn't know what to say, right, so he was like, it's all good. Man. He didn't say all good, but he was like it's okay or something like that. He's like, it's okay. He's like, we don't have to talk about everything now. That's what we said. We don't have to say everything now. It's like, you can come out to Paisley Park, you know. He invite it in, which I've never been to Paisley Park. But and so I'm sitting there and I didn't So he starts talking about hey, y'all, and I didn't know if it was did that freak you out? It? Did that? He knew you were alive, that you existed, yes, But what he said I didn't know how to take it. I didn't know if he was taking a dig at me or what. Because he said, yeah, I liked that song. Hey, y'all. Man. He was like, I thought I was the only person that did songs in those tempos. That's what he said to me. And I didn't know if he was like, take that, nigga, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? I didn't know how to take it. You know, this is my hero. I think he considered, did you appear like I don't know? I don't know. And so naturally, the album had just come out and we were trying to figure out what's the next single, and so I didn't know what to say to him, and I just said, hey, have you heard the album? He's like, yeah, I've heard it. Then and I said, well, what do you think the next single should be? Then he said another Prince thing. He said in my day, we only had one shot. So basically he was saying, it don't matter now, whatever you do, it don't matter, right, And I know how to take that either, you know, It's like okay, okay, cool. The next time I saw Prince, I'm I'm and it's always random. So I'm walking down the street like close to Rodeo by myself and a limo pulls up close to me. I'm not I swear to all the gods. Man. No, dude, every Prince story is this rand Yes, I know because I've heard him too. Yes. And so he so this window rolls down and his little head pops out and his prince and he said, what's up man? I was like, what's up man? You know? And then he was like, you heard about this something. I can't say I remember which magazine, but they were they opposed the thing, or we want to put you in prints on the cover of a magazine together. And Prince said, you heard about that. Uh. I don't know if a rap paid, I don't know what complex. I have no idea which magazine was, but I was like, yeah, I heard about it. And I was asking him like what do you what do you think? And he said don't let them do you like that? Yeah? And I still like, I don't know, but but now, like in retrospect, I think what he meant was don't let them boil you down to being next to me, right, you know what I mean. That's that's what I got from it, Like, you know, you know what I mean, and people will try to put you in them boxes, you know what I mean? And I respected that from him. You know what I mean, he was like, you're more than whatever people are saying, you know what I mean, And that's what I that's what I took. So so fast forward. I hadn't talked to him and seen him that whole time. Big Boy done toured ten years, So we have this Coachella opportunities outcast twenty years. Wait, you must really be off the radar because Prince is super like I will see him in the most random situations. Yeah. So you're saying ten years went by before you saw him again. Yeah, I think it was seven to ten years. Damn. Okay. I'd moved from LA too, so I only saw him in LA. I think he was hanging out right here a lot. So the Coachella opportunity comes up, I was kind of like whatever about it, Like you know, I was there were certain times I didn't even remember my raps, you know, I was kind of all right, whatever, let's go. I hadn't do it. So the first night of the first weekend of Coachella, nerves like I hadn't been on stage, you know what I mean, Like, that's not my normal every day anymore. Big Boy does it every night, so this is normal to him. So I'm coming out the dressing room. They start the show. I'm walking to the stage and I see Paul McCartney. Wow, no, walk to the left side of the stage and sit. I saw Prince walk to the right side of the stage, and oh god, I'm sorry. And you see what I'm saying. Tyler the creator just met us backstage. Tyler is new, He's sorry. We were talking. He came backstage. We tripping. I'm nervous as fuck. I'm walking to the stage and I see these gods standing on both sides of the stage. Mind you. My whole career, I've never used in ears. You know, the monitors. We always just worked out for whatever speaker was on stage. My first time ever using in the ears, and they're acting up, so they're clipping out. I'm him people voices I don't even know talking in my ear. I'm like, what the fuck? So it was a disaster to me, Like I was trying to get through it. I didn't know how to do it anymore, Like it was just a new awakening for an old thing that I used to do. So halfway through the show I'm checked out, Like I'm already just trying to get through it. I'm just trying to get through the night. You know, I'm already in my bed. So as soon as I walked off stage, I went home and went straight to sleep. When you crash, you go straight to sleep, like it's like a bad night. So you just let me go to sleep and you know, wake up in the morning. So when I woke up and I'm driving back to LA, my manager called and said, hey, Prince wants to talk to you. So he calls. I don't know where he got the number from. Yeah, he should work for like the secret Service, right exactly. But he calls and it's Prince on the phone. I'm like, hey, man, I'm like, you know, I don't even know, like I got prints on the fucking phone, right. First thing he says, he says, you know what your problem is? He digs, he goes in straight like that. He said, you don't understand how big y'all are. And of course I'm telling him my sob story, like, yeah, man, you know, I ain't really been wanting to do it anymore, like I don't like doing old. So he was like, and this is him. He's saying, I've been there, man, like I know exactly what you mean, I've been there where I don't want to do those songs, blah blah blah. But he said, but you're a grown man. You signed up to do these shows, so do them just like that. And so that conversation made me have to re figure out how can I make these shows exciting to me? You know, how can I be in it? And that's when the idea to try to put messages on my uniform every night where That's what got me excited. Where are those uniforms. We have them in storage, all of them, all of them. So my biggest excitement of that tour was figuring out what I was going to say that night, because I was trying to say something new, like I love I mean, here's my thing. I love the blessing of the songs that we've been given. I don't like performing old songs, really, I just I just don't because I'm in a whole nother space and I have to kind of get back and remember what that felt like to do that, and I don't necessarily like doing that. It's almost like playing dress up to an eighth grade picture that you saw and now you're trying to rebe that person again. And so I was trying to figure out how do I make this exciting this tour, and so the messages on the suits were just fun to me. It was just hilarious. What can I do to make it fun? That's that's how I got through it. And that gave me something, an entry way to make this exciting and that's yeah. Oh oh. But but back to back to Prince another thing. So when I was telling him about, you know, how I felt, and he was like, yeah, I've been there. I've been there. He's like, but you got to do these shows. You're grown man. And then he said, oh oh, so back when he was like, you got to remind people who you are. It's like when you've been gone for a long time, you have to remind people who you are every time. He's like, you got to do that first. This is him telling me, like, you got to do that first, and then you can do whatever. He actually said, if you remind people what you do first, you can shave off all your hair and tell them to do it and they will do it. This is what this is. These are his words, and he said, I learned that from Mary J. Blige. This is Prince telling me I toured I did a couple of shows with her, and I'm trying to do all this new stuff and she's doing what people know. And he said, I learned that from Mary, to give the people what they want first, then you can do whatever you want after that. And him trying to, I guess, plead his case about reminding people who y'all are. He started naming artists and I won't name the names because I don't think it's about these names. But he was like, this person, this person, this person. None of these people would be here if it wasn't for y'all. And you have to remember that, and you have to remind people of that all the time. So and then he said, and this is I guess the musician. And he was like, and why you didn't play your guitar on hey y'all on stage? Why you didn't do it? I was like, I'm not like a great guitarist or anything. You know. It's like, I know how to play a couple of chords. He's like, but you're good enough. You should have played it. So, you know, he digging it. And then I didn't tell everybody at the time because I wanted to keep the momentum together. But he totally dissed our band. Right, Yeah, He's like, and what's up with that fucking band? This is Prince saying, what's up with that fucking band? And at that point I was like, ah, man, you know, I really didn't want a band, you know, I was trying to find a new way to be modern looking on stage or something like that. Anyway, I said, but you know, I'm in a group, and you know, we have to be fair about decisions, and I'm telling Prince about my inner you know, right, and a decision with me and Big, you know, Big like I want the band, the band, you know, shit, that's you know, these are folks who support our band, which I'm with on that, but I wanted to do something new. But we are together in this thing, so we had we made decisions to do the band, and it was our first night, so we're trying to get as tight as we can be. But anyway, he was like, what's up with that band? They sound horrible? Yeah that's all I remember from that conversation. But yeah, brother, you know, I just want to say that I've been a long time, long, long, long time fan of yours. One of my prime career regrets in the in the early start is that we never got to shop it up or or like work together. Then in the what I call the fossil years, we started our careers thirty years ago, folks. But man, you know, but you're an inspiration in terms of like pushing boundaries because you know a lot of us are walking out here sort of mired and self doubt, you know, thinking of survival first. All right, I gotta get I gotta bring this money in so I can, you know, help my mom out, and obligations and stuff like that. And we never allow ourselves to like break free and dream and take risks and do these things. And you know, you've proven time and time again that there is a payoff when you do listen to your heart. And I'm a brain person. I used to be a brain person where I'm always thinking of fight or flight survival first, that sort of thing, and not what do I really feel? And yeah, man, with New Blue Man, Dude, it couldn't have come at a better time in my life because that's the type of music I always listen to just to calm down. Just a twenty four to seven, that's all I listened to. It listen like tones and all those things. Man. So no, man, thank you man. I'm glad that it's useful for you. Man, Like I'm just happy to be a part of that this time. You know what I mean? You said an attention and you never know where it's gonna land. Like my idea of what people are calling the Flute album, which I think it's I think it belittles it to call it a flute album, you know what I mean, It's not just a flute. I do play flute on it a bit. I play electronic flute on it. But it's it's just it's just music, man, It's just music. But can I ask you something, Have you heard from Stevie Wonder yet? Because no, I haven't. To me, this reminds me so my father and I, our bond was always been shopping records. I grew up in a household like three thousand records. So once a month we just go been chopping everything. And one day in nineteen seventy nine, he comes home with Stevie Wonder's Journey through the Secret Life of Plants album, which is like a three year follow up to Songs in the Key of Life. Songs in the Key of life was like one of those events like Thriller. You know, everyone had to have it in the household, and we're listening to it together as a family. Brought the family together, and so we're waiting three years for this follow up record and the look of utter disappointment on my dad's face where he's like Stevie Wonder doesn't even sing until like the fourth song and he couldn't get it. Now, I'm eight years old and seventy nine, so I've never had a Dark Side of the Moon psychedelic experience. So for me, I'm putting my headphones on and I'm like imagine in space and all these things. So I totally took that record different. I think that for a new generation that this is going to be that for them. Like for me, I use it for meditative and sleeping purposes because I've heard a lot of that. Man, Like I used to sleep to the news, especially with the past administration, and it's just unhealthy to have that on like twenty four to seven and all that bad news. So then I started sleeping to that and when you're soundtrack, oh man, that to me, that was everything. So I thank you for that. Man. Man, I'm so happy that you're finding use and people are finding use in it, like it's it's become a thing that people are actually using, like it's a tool, like I have to be in traffic. So I put this album on, and I'm not mad anymore, you know, Like, so I'm happy that I'm a part of something that can contribute positively to somebody's life, you know what I mean. Like, and the sleep thing is really important because I've read like a lot of people like man, I don't really sleep, and I've gotten the best sleep in the last three days after listening to the album. So to me, I'm just happy that it's it's working in that in that way too, and not just on a you know, Oh this is a moment and he's a rapper and he made this flute thing, you know, like beyond that, you know, And I'm kind of I'm upset that people are upset, but I understand because if you've been waiting for a thing for seventeen years, which I haven't been waiting for a thing, that's the that's the difference. I've never said, hey, I'm about to put the solo albm ount, Hey I'm about to put this solo albm ount, But I didn't do that for seventeen years, so I didn't see it the same as like when I put it out, I forgot, oh it has been seventeen years, so I didn't see it as hey, fuck y'all listen to this. I just saw this. This is where I am right now. You know, put it out, I didn't think that it would have as wide of wings as it's had. Are I'm happy for it? Are you planning on the visual aspect of it now? Are you trying to figure out how to present this live? Either by film or some sort like what salons used to do take over museums and both both both We we did shoot a film to it that's going to be playing mid December, very simple kind of thing. It's gonna be an IMAX theaters, so you'll have a visual to it. But live, man like, that's what I'm really looking forward to, because that's honestly, that's the kind of jew and the magic in it. It's kind of like the feeding off of each other and making that thing, you know, it's kind of like watching a formation like and we don't know, especially I'm not a trained musician, so it's even more surprising to me when a note comes out or something falls a certain way, you're like when right, and you don't and you don't know it, Like I don't know like music theory wise to make something land. I only know how to land because I jumped up before it, you know what I mean. So that's that's the only way that I know. So doing it live and actually doing music with these brothers, like that's the fun and out and I can't wait for people to experience in a room watching us do it do it, you know what I mean. So that's yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to. Well, let's have it, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of my fellow Quest Love Supremes Layah and Fonteglo and Humpey Bill and it's your birthday to day as we do this. Uh. Shout to Brian and cousin Jake and Brittany as well on the home front. Uh. Once again the Great Andre three thousand on Quest Love Supreme. Uh and we'll see you in the next go round. Thank you, brother apreate now, thank you man, appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme hosted by Amir Quest Love, Thompson, Why You Saying, Claire Fonte, Coleman, Sugar, Steve Mandell, and unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are a mere Quest, Loved Thompson, Sean che and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittany Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Liiah Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown and Mike Johnson. This episode was engineered by Trevor Young. What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.