QLS Classic: Mariah Carey Part 1

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Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up Everybody? This is Sugar Steve from Quest Love Supreme as we celebrate the holiday season. This felt like a worthy two part classic revisit. Here is Mariah Carry. We recorded this in the middle of the night, but it was worth it. Mariah was promoting her book and she was an open book to us. This is a really free and fun conversation with one of the biggest superstars of music. Part one originally air January thirteenth, twenty twenty one, but this is timeless. Enjoy everybody and happy holidays and a healthy new Year from Team Supreme and everybody at Quest Love Supreme. Ladies and gentlemen, Happy twenty twenty one. Let me just start a preface that this intro might be twelve minutes, but I'll cut to the chase. I consider all Quest Left Supreian episodes to be top notch, some of my favorite guests ever, but a few guests might shine a little bit brighter. I won't even say the most, but few of our guests on the shows signed just a little bit brighter. As our fortune have it in twenty twenty one, this particular episode will shine very bright. Notice the holiday Christmas motifs I'm using. I will say that for the last three decades, our guest has been Music Royalty out the Gate, fifteen studio albums, seventy two singles, over two hundred million records sold globally. I will say that for of those records, orioh Daydream, Music Box and Emancipation have sold one hundred million copies combined. Just those four she is the best selling female artist globally. And she practically, she literally owns Christmas her her ordal all. Yes, Christmas is twelve months away, but still she owns Christmas. Her All I Want for Christmas is the biggest selling song in the world and all parts of the globe, not even just the United States for the second time already. It is broken crazy records. It's the all time biggest selling streamed song. I didn't even know that, at seventeen point two million for streams in one day. It's the first single by a female artist in history to be certified five times platinum in the UK, which is not an easy feed at all. She's the first artist to rank number one on the chart for distinct decades, For distinct decades. She reached number one this year, officially on the UK Singles charts, after twenty six years a gap in between. It's the first holiday song in history to be number one in the US and the UK at the same time. So Fuck White Christmas by bing Crossby Her Apple specials number one and more than one hundred countries across the world. Her book is a New York Times bestseller and number one on Audible. I have to say I'll be here all damn day, Ladies and gentlemen. How did we get the one and only Mariah Carrey on quest of supreme Please welcome? Thank you? Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you officially made it. We've arrived. Yes, we have made it. No, I listen, I've been stressing out about this because I know that I am not queen of technology, nor am I queen of musical technical moments of discussion. Look we are we are. I swear. We are four nerds that just like music. Like, trust me, I'm not going to okay, I do. Your first question is okay, so you're Yamaha Dix seven patches on your first album, right, like, please don't ask me those nerdy stuff that you ask about, like keyword patches and all this. Oh thank god. I mean, you know, that's cool, that's it. She hates that as well. How how are you today? I'm good. I'm good. Actually it's we're having a little celibratory moment. So you mentioned Christmas and I just want to say this is totally off topic, but I'll just say it anyway. So we had an incredibleness this year and all the things, all the things, but because it's COVID and I can't really I haven't gone anywhere in months, almost a year, just at a paranoid about the whole thing. And it's not paranoid, it's just being saved. But yeah, so so here I am enjoying like my first little party and cheers to you guys. So cheers you have me flash as we talk. But I did want to say thank you for having me, and yeah, I was a little bit like, clearly I know Greg filling games by expect nice one. And by the way, I did hear when he when you said, oh, the Mariah Carey Boys to men elevator and he was like, well that's the Greg filling games later and I'm like that's cool, but can they pay me back? Like, can can they hit Battery give me those millions of dollars back that I used to cost to record it. I'm sorry real for them. I'm sorry. It is how we need to keep it. This question of Supreme talk that sh No, it's nothing, it's nothing. It's just that. Really, I can't even imagine how much money people used to spend in on recording, you know, to record their albums or whatever they recording in these major studios, Like just to be in a big studio. I know how I felt, because come on, just to be there, just to say I'm at the Hit Factory on blah blah blah blah Street, I'm at right Track, I'm at Quad, I'm at whatever. But here I'm know for like I'm at Quad, but I'm just wait, did you ever record a Quad? Of course I have. Yes, you went to Tupac Central. Wow, I lived at Tupac Central. Yes I did, and we recorded there too. Couest love Supreme. I know that, but I would expect us to be there. It's funny. That's the same type of thing that goes on in terms of people's perception of me, Like yeah, I went to Quad. Yeah, I'm not gonna say, I'm not saying that recording at uh something high level like Sony or D and D studios is beneath you, but yeah, even I would prefer to be at at its time when Sony was a great studio record at or Electric Lady as opposed to D and D or you know, like Electric Lady. We love Electric Lady, of course, and the history and the whole thing of it all, and I need to be the give the utmost respect to this. The history of it all is everything, and we know the room and the way it sounds in the rooms and the way they sound and everything. We'd love that. But yes, the glitzy and glamorous new like they're not new now, but like you know, the head factories of the world give you a different type of thing. So can I ask now that you know, for the last thirty years you've been recording at studios and they were, you know, plentiful. In the last three decades now they're almost like far and few between. I know Manhattan, there's probably maybe seven left that are still up and running and in good condition. Does that wear you little bit that or have you adjusted already? Like have you made music on your laptop yet. Have you you know Allah, you know Kanye and jay Z making watch the thrown in a hotel room in bathrooms, Like, have you adjusted to that yet? Or I absolutely have and not because they did it. I started doing this. I'm going to say probably the Rainbow album. Actually I'm trying to think that far back. Yeah, so that's ninety nine, but yeah, I started. So I went to Randy Jackson, not of the Jackson five, but Randy Jackson. Randy, Yeah, Randolphin and we love him, I said, Randy, I love going other places I'm recording. So me and my engineer, Brian Garton, we would go wherever. We would just go. He would set up a room, even if I literally sang in the bathroom, he would set up a soundproof situation and we would run the wires at that point through he would I didn't. I didn't run the wires, but if he would, you know, figure it out, and we would record that way. Because I wanted to be, whether it's Puerto Rica, wherever I wanted to be from my own peace of mind. And like Amir, we've talked about this, where you're like, I don't want to be in a comfortable environment. I like to feel like that criminess. And I understand that too. I don't know that I'm not speaking for you and saying exactly what you said, but I think I'm on the same page as what you were saying. Oh, that's exactly what you were saying. Forward to studio, Yeah, exactly. But I spent I feel I've spent enough years in uncomfortable studios, starting from when I was eighteen years old, sleeping in the floor, sleeping on the floor in the little studio behind it in the back of the woodshed, which I talk about in my book, but on the floor sleeping there because I had no money to have a real studio situation. So anyway, cut to ninety nine and I started kind of like traveling in order to record. Actually it happened right after the Butterfly album, which is like the year before, because I was just trying to figure out, like where can I do this, How can I do this? And then I connected with my couple different engineers I was working with and we figured it out. So Randy Jackson back to that, he said, mn, man, I have this studio that you would love and capri and it's on top of a mountain and blah blah blah. It was like please like anything you have. So I ended up falling in love with this studio called Capri Studios and another Italian word that I can't pronounce, but anyway, I slept in a little room next to the live room and I would actually recorded several songs there, and then when we were doing the immense I did the Chombracet album there and other places. Basically we just traveled. It was a traveling studio, so it was you know, pro tools and just a setup on his laptop and then you know, making the room so it's not super for Yeah, so we had all of that, like we had we had all of that together, and then I would just love it because honestly, like and this is a total sidebar, and I'm sure you're going to edit this however or maybe not. But one of the things I learned early on from Luther when we did our for our collaboration on Endless Love we make yes and he was one of my all time favorite people and tones like just vocal, just the texture, and he felt that there was a similar type of this is what he said to me, type of like when you hear the harmonics sometimes within the breathy tone. And he was telling me in order to preserve that with that haven't always listened to and have gotten back into it now. But he was like, you need to be in a place like a very warm and humid climate in order to preserve that. The desert la everywhere else is really really bad for you. Just always remember, like if you are in those places, make sure you have like humidification, like all the humidifiers in the land, like you need to have it. And I have that. Go ahead, Okay, I have a question, Okay, okay, so secretly, yeah, behind all of your backs and by all of you or I'm talking about singers. I I quasi eye roll because I always thought that that was psychosomatic. So let me let me ask the question first, okay, is okay? So is that whole thing now? Just to give it a little backstory, You're at the tonight show. Okay, when Aretha Franklin was alive, she would only agreed to come on this show if we killed all of the air conditioning in thirty Rock. And the thing is, it's not like one particular floor can control the temperature. So if we turn off the air condition for Aretha Franklin that affects like seven floors, which basically says that we should modernize and update our temperature system. But whenever Aretha comes, it would be a nightmare because then it would be ninety eight degrees in this building and they would have to turn off the air at two in the morning the night before, and then her guy would come in test it, and then she'd would you know, she'd come in. So it's said that her voice, her throat would closed or whatever and that sort of thing. Is that really true? I believe it to be true, and particularly for Ritha. So, Amir, you have me laughing because I know you read my memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey shameless plug. But I'm going to say it because we talk about Aretha and when we were doing what was the devis Live? Yeah yeah, yeah, so she and Ken Rlick, we love Ken r Lick. Yeah, And knowing that if I say something negative, he's gonna be pissed off of me like he always gets. But you know, I'm just being I'm just keeping in one hundred this is what happened, Supreme, trust me. No, no, no, you're not. But he has a way of hearing. So I love Ken, we love him. He did my first Nagad show. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, we love Ken. So but here's what was happening. So I was like, I'm in a pop culture spiral right now, and I can't even believe this. So I'm sitting there and you know, I already know because I just told you about Luther and the recommendations like that was not in front of any camera. That was not for any reason other than he was like, preserve the tone, right. He was like, just do these things. And I never knew anything about the humidity blah blah blah. Anyway, so when I first sang with Aretha that night, obviously I was completely intimidated and flipping out and scared and everything else. Right, So we're getting ready to go on the stage and all of a sudden, there's this whole hoopla happening, and I hear, you guys are are we just really pissed off Ken? Ken Carl comes by and he's like, she's not happy. I don't know what's going to go on. I'm right just gonna say, you know, wait and see what happens. Right, So I'm like, this is a big moment in my career, Like it's right at the beginning of Butterflies, all this and all that. But again, Wreatha is the queen, so everybody's waiting. We were basically you're all there in reverence. I know I was in reverence of the queen. So so yeah, so I said, well maybe because he said she always does this, she always does this, and he's like, oh, I don't worry, she always does this. And I'm like, okay, I go, can I just maybe rehearse with her? Because I don't know what this, what's gonna this is gonna be, So I just just want to have a little moment so you know, and also you want to be I had met her before, and we had had, you know, our moments and great moments, and but never this type of thing. So anyway, I guess I'm not. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but she ended up saying, okay, we can rehearse in her tripper. So I walk into the trailer and she goes Mariah, they're playing games and I'm not having the game. Yeah, so we won't so we won't be rehearsing tonight and saying with the frank, yeah that was a great How long did it take you to nail that? No? Honest, So you know my friend Treyla Wrenz, right, he was just saying yes, yeah, yes, Florence, South Carolina, Florence. Oh wow. He talked about fish sandwiches in all right, South Carolina. He told me. He just texted me tonight. He's like, he's like, I love him. He asked me about the fish. Sam. Yes, we're all but anyways, so yes, Be and Trey always you know, we Revere a lot of singers, and we don't do it to be funny, like we're not impersonating, and it's just you sort of embody them when you're telling the story because this is how it happened. So you know what I mean. I kind of do impersonations on the side, not really, but it's not an impersonation. It's just me telling exactly how it happened. So anyway, back to the story, so we won't be rehearsing tonight, and I'm like, so anyway, we work where they got her. And here's one thing that I always say, and this is not that musicians don't know this or people like you guys who are like professors of it all. But being that Big Jim Right, the late Big Jim Right who we love, my former musical director who passed the way I believe it's almost three years ago now, but he was her musical director, Miss Franklin's musical director as well, so he was just like, this is prior to me working the Big Gym. I don't even know how I got on this tension, but he was just like, you know, she takes that queen stuff very, very seriously. So it's a real thing. So he would say, you know when it's she's such a such a brilliant musician and her play her skills as a piano player were insane and people don't even they don't even realize that. So anyway, that's one of the things that I revere her the most about, like that musicality she had, and I wish people and I know it's a female thing, and I know it's because her technical, her vocals and her whole thing was so incredible and the whole diva persona that they don't even they didn't even look at it, like, look at this woman plays the musician ship and obviously when you watch, like, I'm trying to think, was it don't play that song or the one where she did. She she's playing live and it's the black and white video and you see her playing from back in the day with the whole ensemble. Yeah, you know what it is. But anyway, you see that only in certain moments. Anyway, so they so cut too. Deevi's live back again. So they got her a keyboard, put it in her in her trailer and they're like, Okay, you guys can go rehearse this right now. So she had wanted to do dream Lover. We had a little rehearsal I guess the day before or something, and then she got out of there because it wasn't the air conditioning situation wasn't right. So she was like, I really liked what you did. I really like your sean Dreamlover. I think that would be a wonderful way to go. And I was just like, oh my god, she goes dream Lover. Anyway, I was like, can we just do Chain of Fools? Because I just couldn't. It was too much from my heart to actually here were song and try to do it. So anyway, tailor, she she played the song she played, Uh, we figured out the key and what we're gonna do and stuff, and we kind of went back and literally five minutes or maybe maybe ten and a couple of little moments. I never knew she was an Aries. I'm an Ares. We're born two days apart from each other, different years. But she I said something she would like us. So a few more typical larries. I she know Lemon Areas so, and you know Diana ross Is in those few couple of days of Billie Holidays, Sarah Vond there's a lot of these divas that I grew up idol Shaka Khan and other areas idolizing. And I found this out from Maretha Franklin. I never even knew anyway. So we rehearsed a little bit and and the thing is, there was a huge, huge issue about the AC and she goes like this. At one point, in front of like my whole crew, she goes, what are these people doing that's making them so hot? Why do we need it? Why? And it just I was just like, Wow, it's really real for her. And if you ever saw when she did, I believe it was for Barack Obama. She did something for the second term, and she was out of window and it was cold and it was freezing, and she sang, I don't remember what the song was. I believe it might have been the Star slang, but I don't remember the one of the inaugurations, like yeah, but she wasn't outside. She she actually apologized on Larry King Live. She went and she apologized because she had to. And by the way, obviously it was more than fine. She just wasn't up and down the scale doing a million whatever. It was great, but she felt the need to tell people that the cold air had foiled her. And I get it because I know I've been that hell with that type of thing and way worse. But the thing is that level of like she knew that she wanted to actually in her mind kill it, and that cold air was messing with her. So you have to to me whatever somebody says, like if you told me I can't play drums when they don't have like a specific light shine, like it is what it is like that was her thing, But I do believe it's an actual it's an actually it's a physical situation where the throat, the cords do tighten up. So let me ask because Uh, obviously you're you're world famous for your active range. What is your active range? You're five to six? I don't know, and neither do you say one of our favorites, it's going to happen. Here's the truth. You would know better than me, Like I don't know. I've told people know this, some people do, some people don't. My mind. Other was sang with City Opera. She was, you know, she had a wonderful and still does to this day, range and beautiful depth of her voice. She wasn't a color to a soprano at stuck a metsa soprano, but she has this range. So she would look at me with my little moments and be like, you're gonna hurt yourself? What are you doing? Like what is this? What? I was the opposite, and so I, you know, we have our issues and blah blah blah blah. But I do appreciate the fact that she didn't force me to try to become an opera singer because first of all, I don't think I have that in me, And second of all, because I respect that level of what that takes to be that and to understand that and then to interpret really like you have to really stick to the composer and do exactly what it is. There's not much room for, you know, impro conversation. Yeah. I love feeling like you're channeling and doing whatever you want, particularly with writing and melodies and having those flow through you. So I would have been stifled had I had I tried to do what she did, because I'm not that disciplined. I'm just not that disciplined. So let me ask, because I know that your high register is world famous. I know that in your your Christmas special, especially with the Misty Copham portion, you're singing, You're you're singing. Uh. I don't know if it's Carol the bells or or the Nutcracker. It's a shape, there's an there's an exact title. But the sugar plump fairies, yea, the sugar Okay, So you're doing you're doing your your trademark what we call the Mariah whistle. How how how long can you instantly turn that on at any time of the day or do you have to like seth Riggs work your muscle before you can reach those levels? Like can you just turn that on at any given moment of the day? Twenty four hours Uh, it depends, Like honestly, all of it depends, like all the different ranges depend on sleep and humidity, mainly sleep, but sometimes it's it's a weird thing. So I've kind of studied it. And sometimes even if I'm completely hoarse, the whisper as they call it, the whisper register is even more strong and clear then if I'm not horse because it's the it's the the upper register is sort of like that was where it's just sort of like when you're closing the vocal cords and it's the very very tippy top of what you're using in terms of those that upper upper register. But if I'm just sitting around, yeah, I can access it. But when I'm on when I feel like pressure, it's less accessible than when I'm just sitting around the house, you know and just playing around and singing. However, like when I'm under pressure, it's always screwed up every part of my voice, so was screwed up. I'm sitting there because my nervousness takes over and I really am more of a quote unquote studio rat where I love to play around with it, experiment, do whatever, create it as part of the melody you know what I mean, whether it's upper registered, lower mid, background vocals, layering of background vocals, whatever, it is, all of that. Even when I do the background vocals and the upper register as a part. For me, that's my instrument. That's fun. Actually, one time James Brown told me the only first and only time I ever met him back in the days at the American Music Awards, the first time I was ever there, and they were, can I give you this segue because everybody else, Yes, we believe you're already my favorite guest on QS. No, no, no, I'm just like, this is how I talk. We're back and forth with things. So I don't want to be like all over the place, you know, you know, like when black people eat and they don't say nothing at Mama's house because the food are good. Like this is ues right now, Like we're not talking over you or anything. We're just like and these stories are our time capsules. This is good too, you know, to remember this and have these James Brown. Yes, let's talk about James Brown. Let's talk about James Brown. I don't know a mirror. If you've got the message before. When I was playing, yeah, I was, I was Yeah, Let's make Christmas mean something this year, which is one of my favorite Christmas songs, but it's on my loop of Christmas music. We have that, and we have Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto, and then many other James Christmas quote unquote hits that I've made Christmas hits in my household because I just played the round and then we get stuck on the James my phone. I'm like, I love you, James Brown, but I need to hear like a little mixed street. And so when I had never met James Brown, obviously, it was my first year in the industry, and somebody said to me, I'm in, I'm in my trailer. And this is when I was very much sequestered under that sony world of whatever. Yeah, yes, prior to singing thing and all of that, but anyway, under that thing. And then so I'm shocked that they even told me that James Brown wanted to meet me. They're like, James Brown wants to meet you. So that's a huge thing. So I want, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, okay, let me go to his trail, let me do the respectful thing. Let me walk in. See what it is. So I'm sitting there and and we just meet and whatever, and I'm just like shocking off, shocking off, and He's like, I'm not gonna do an impersonation of him. But he was like this, I was waiting for that everyoneation. You guys can do it when I'll tell you the text. But he was like, this is no surprise to me. This is no surprise to me. This is basically the success is no surprise to me. He's like, you use your voice as an instrument. You use your voice as an instrument. So that was a humongous compliment because I know what he's talking about, because you can hear what he does those like this, this screw. I'm not sure how we how we categorize what he does with it did with his voice. No, he knew that, Like, using that upper register is a thing, whether you're doing it as to accentuate something like he would do, or whether you're doing it like you were talking about a mirror with the car not the caroll the bells, the sugar plung ferry. Yeah, did that as an acapella moment for the album. Prior to this past year, which was just a reissue of some Christmas songs, but I said, let me do something new, and I did like that little acapella acapella part with and the high parts on top of that. What is your, uh, at least your warm up ritual? Like as far as like, is it a lot of tea? Is it a lot of Usually if I do shows with other guest or whatever, like, I'll look in their dress room to see what their writer is, so I'll see like Stevie Wonder's thing is, you know, two giant te's and all these honey's and then Shaka Khan has a thing where it's Aca Nation and whatever. Like what before live performances, not before your studio stuff? What is your ritual? Can I just say that I used to have a ritual, and I've been through many facets of that ritual. It started when I was a background singer and I was looking at what the other like the background singers that I really looked up to, I e. Cindy, Myzell and many other you know, and Lisa and all their crew, the whole crew. But I really spent the most time around Cindy before I even had a deal. And I talk about this a record deal in my book I haven't even heard from her, but I did a whole like basically like almost a whole chapter about how much I revered her just from looking at the credits when she would be when she and Audrey Wheeler would do like a lot of these background parts, and I could tell on like many of these hop records where it clearly wasn't the lead singer doing these parts, right, but it was with these incredibly beautifully sacked backgrounds, and I was like, oh my gosh, Cindy myself. So I wind up in a session for TM Stevens. Right, I'm like eighteen years old. I'm at this session. I know we just totally went off topic again, but do you want to hear this story? The on topic go on? We want all the stories. That's my man. It's the topic is relevant because the question was about my writer. But I'm telling you where I got this thing from. So yeah, we are the Where the Rabbit Hole show? So you're you're right on top of okay, cool. So so I'm at this This is prior to anyone ever hearing of me. I had a dollar a day. I had to choose between the subway and the H and H bagels when I'm living uh yeah, for real, and I'm on above. I was living above you know where Rascals. You guys know where Rascals on fourteenth Street is on the on the east side. No, but I know H and H Bagels and and I hope you chose bagels over subway every time, because when I lived, when I would go to the H and H Fagels is when I lived closer to the Upper west Side. So the H and H Bagels that I used to go to was the one on seventy ninth Street, right is that that was that where that one is? I went to the one on the upper upper east side. I don't know it's gone, it's gone, it's not even there. I know they got shut or whatever. But back then that was my meal for the day. So it was either way subway. And I used to work at this place called Sports Broadway on seventy seven and so I would take the subway back and forth. But anyway, I had to decide whether it was walking or eating a bagel. So that's why I was when I first came out to the public as a singer. Anyway, back to the story, So prior to all that, I was well, during that time, I started getting background vocal gigs or whatever, and so I wound up after being a huge fan of Cindy as a background singer and a ranger, and whenever, I wound up working doing a session for TM Stevens. And I'm sitting there next to Cindy myself, so I'm like, oh my gosh, this is Cindy, So mind you. I'm there. My shoes have holes in them. I'm in like one little It probably looked like pretty much like this today but a little bit different, but anyway, like a million bucks, Okay, I get it. My stomach was rumbling. We're on the mic. She's hearing my stomach rumbling. She's looking at my shoes and she's like, you know, beautiful and perfect and everything, and she's like, what you know, you got to get something to eat. I'm like, yeah no. And then she just like we're doing the thing, and I'm telling you I did not have it together. She was such a professional in terms of stacking vocals, getting it perfect. The next one has to line up perfectly. You know, I'm figuring, I'm not in the pocket. I'm all over the place. After that session, I really like learned a lot and learned a lot from her. But anyway, that was that first song with Tim Stevens, and she was and Cindy was like, just call me. And I talked about this in the book, to just call me, you know, whenever, if you wantnother you know, if you need anything. And I never want to bother people. So I never ended up calling her. Then I saw her for another session. She was like, she said, why didn't you call me? I said, well, I just I didn't know, you know. She's like, no, You're supposed to call me. And I'm like, oh, okay, I don't know the etiquette. I don't know why we ended up working together over the years, but I will say to answer the question and to circle all the way back, I believe that back then it was the maybe the Red Singer tea Celestial Seasonings tea. I love Red Zinger with the Honey Honeybear and like a ton of the honey. There was a ton like Debora Cooper and a lot of other singers I was working with. They would do Depra Cooper sang on a lot of the CNC Music Factory stuff way back when. Okay, really nice person and anyway, they used to do cayenne pepper. Do you ever hear singing that do cayenne pepper to like clear if you're sick. If you're sick, it gets it clears. Like I know, Eric do use this cayne pepper a lot in her that yeah, And I would respect that, you know, but I don't. That doesn't help me. I need like I even drink like tea with milk sometimes, like English breakfast, you drink milk. I thought, milk is wow. That sometimes for me it's a coating and and it's different than the lemon stripping stuff, so I don't know, it's really it's really whatever. And right now we're drinking this and it's absolutely spectac yes, and that far I use cream cheese he to my My go to would be for vocals out. Always tell people my it saved me so many times. Coconut water with pineapple juice. M hmm. That shit has saved me so many times. Cocaine water. I don't like the taste of it, but that shit works. It's the coating and the pineapples really good too. I agree. It's just I feel like you try all different things, and I've been through ups and downs with it all. Honestly, for me this whole year with COVID and everything, not to sing for my supper and travel around and not get the right sleep or you know, just be put on this thing where there's a certain amount of stress for me that takes away a lot of stuff. So I'm just like emotionally like that's where I need to be centered or whatever. But it's being off kind of like taking off work has really helped my voice, I think in a lot of ways, just being able to have like stress free And so I'm just like saying and everyone's like, oh, you got to get back in the studio, like you got to get back to singing, And I'm like, I know, do you feel like getting back into it? I know you just put out Caution, you know, in twenty eighteen, but are you kind of feeling like it's to drop some new shit? Yes, but honestly a different approach. And I don't even want to go into what it is, because when I did Caution, I loved some of the songs from Caution, but I don't think I was at the place vocally where I could be now. Also, it was rushed, not that it was rushed and I look at my best, most critically acclaimed album, and you know, I think that's because the critics have changed and shifted since back in the days, like believe it or not. If you look at those things, it's the most favoric thing in the album. But what I was going to say is that I didn't have the time time I would normally take, and I really wish I did have that time to do a few more records on that album to just, you know, fully have that expression. But what are you going to do? Like it was a much more of like, oh, we got to get her back and have people know she put out a studio, and then they screwed that up with the way they gave away these instant grats. Oh we're going to do instant grats? Why just for this? What is what's the instant grat? What is that instant grat is when they give away a song rather than have it be a part of an album. So and I just learned about this two years ago too, So like yeah, gangster bbd es Wait wait, I'm sorry man, that's yeah, I'm sorry for that reference. Wait for record. I love that song. I know they're trying to hide it like a red hitad step child. But I'm sorry, I don't remember that. I remember video. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was supposed to be like their big comeback single. But because it kind of tanked, then they try to act like we never did it, like and then they came back with Above the Rim, and it was like, yeah, y'all could have just rolled with Gangster, right exactly. Yeah, but yeah, labels start putting out red carpet records or red carpet singles just to announce and album's coming out without putting it on the record or whatever. Well, here's the thing, if you do for your actual fans, right, because my the lamily, they don't care about getting an instant grat. They just want to see the record do well like and they want to music. So these stupid instant grats and this is no shade to anybody. We know. They didn't have to do it like that. So like the instagrats here, let's get on instagrat. Then they got on another Instagrat. So at that point, you're like three singles in that you gave away for free, when you could have just had a whole experience with your fans like this here product that's what I'm saying. So it just came like. That's why when you ask the question about like caution and vocally, No, I mean I recorded that at home as well. I walked back and forth and basically I have my own little vocal booth. That's a really cute vocal booth that they made for me. I wouldn't name check the company, but right now I can't remember the name. And we take it wherever and it's really cute. It's black and pink and don't inside there and we're obo. Yeah, my little booth. But I recorded most of all of that album pretty much there. And what's the studio Henson? Yeah, you're the world in right, Yeah, that's one of my favorite places synchronicity and didn't record there too. We recorded, yeah, and it's Michael Jackson room right where Michael like supposedly laid on the floor and listened to those speakers. I don't know, they tell many a story. No, no, No, he did record at Hintson, but I gotta I don't know which project it was for, but yes, most famous The Other World was made there. Yes, and have that picture. Yeah, I think the thing you know when you talk about caution, you know, you saying that you didn't feel like you were vocally kind of where you want to be. You know. The reason I think that record was so well received, and what I liked about it was that you were It's very hard, you know for artists that you know, if you know, have been in the game, you know what I'm saying, as long as you have, and I sold as many records. When they quote unquote come back, they end up trying to just copy what the youngest is doing and that ship up sound to corny, you know what I mean. But I like the way that you were able to kind of do you know, to compete with what you know, the contemporary artists were doing, but it still sounded like you. And that was the thing I really liked about that record. It was it was Mariah, but it was like, yeah, this is her in this context, like you had the record with Dollar and Gunna and you know what I'm saying, But it was like, she's still doing Mariah. And I think that you know, for your fans, you know, particular my generation, we just you know, appreciated the way you came back and was showing like yeah, I'm you know, I'm Mariah, but I can still bang with you, motherfuckers. I'm not. This is And by the way, my fans get really mad when I they think I shaved my own albums or songs. That's not what I'm doing. I'm saying. And I appreciate you saying those things about Caution the album, because I really do like it as an album. But I'm saying it to put it up against like and this is not even a fair analogy, But like Butterfly, I had all the time in the world I had. I went in there and did what I wanted. I worked in Florida, I worked in New York, I worked wherever I wanted, and really put the time into it. But with Caution, and with the way the record industry is now, we don't have that luxury of time, like yeah, like some people do. So do you believe in deadlines as in like okay, well do you like plan the tour first? And okay, I got to finish this album four months or is the album done when you say it's done, then we move on with the campaign. I don't know how it is for Upper Echelne. Yeah, is it like if you agree, like okay, we're going to tour the summer from May to September. Then I gotta have this record out by March. So do you are you a deadline sticker no matter what? Or is it like, this album's not coming out unless I'm goosebump happy about it? Okay? So I would say that that's how it should be, and that's and that's how it used to be. But one also one thing that I do want to your point about touring, I was never touring artist, and that was a deliberate choice I think on behalf of certain CEOs of Sony Okay, because there was a conscious effort, and I have no problem with this looking back at it, I'm very grateful for it now on some levels, and on other levels I'm like, I didn't get to kind of like, what's the thing called when you cut your teeth and record? Yeah? So I because what's the reason, Because what's the reason. Why wouldn't they why wouldn't they want you to dour? Because it was more financially beneficial for me to continue to make album after album after album. Yeah, to record. So if you look at it, and then you look at my first album through when I left, Wow, I was still on Sony, but like through Rainbow, like I just did, and Rainbow was because I wanted to get off the label. So I just did that album in three months. And I still love some of the songs. But I did that like super fast because I was like, I got to get the hell out of this toxic situation, not because it's Sony, but because of the professional intertwinement that was going on with that situation. Yeah, sing sing, But but in the beginning, it was like, just make the records, make the records, make records sing sing like right right, you know all this stuff. And if I didn't want to write, I would have. I'm sure life would have been easier. But I have the need. I love writing. To me, I'm a writer first and and and I love being in the studio, but I never The first tour I did was really aside from like promo tours, from the very beginning with just the incredible Richard T and you know Trey and Patrick McMillan and the old time Richard T was your touring keyboard player. Richard T played on song Vanishing from my first album as in studio, yeah, I love okay and that is the and then he was an incredibly, I mean just mammoth in terms of his legendary status, and we did. He did come out and do some shows with me, and then it wasn't t obviously yeah, but these were this is before there was like people filming. There were people filming and that type of thing like he and then I don't know if you ever saw this America, the beautiful performance that I did for the NBA Playoffs. I know nothing about sports, so I'm saying it wrong. But like my first first time that you debuted before I went on our senior Hall, which was my first like TV appearance. Yea, the entire world saw that every the NBA thing where if you look it up, and it's not only my real fans know it, but Richard T did the piano track. I went there with a track to Detroit. I know nothing about sports whatever in record respect him, Like, oh, those kids they said I would not map tied nothing. They were watching those jocks from the school they were watching. So I had I had to do my own hair and makeup. I had my one black dress. I walk in on the thing and it's Richard T's piano track. You can find it right now. I'm here and I found it on the piano and we worked it out together. I sang it with him prior to going there and performing it, but we like did it together in terms of the arrangement. And then I had his piano track and that was it, and I had to go sing and nobody knew who I was, and they introduced me ladies and gentlemen, uh Columbia recording artists, Mariah carratter like and then but then at the end of it, it's the Shining Sea and the note, and it was like the most of it. Who was the man? I love him. I don't even want him to ever hear this and think I don't remember his name, But I'm so bad with sports. The announcer and you'll see it if you look it up, and he's like lo Palace, Now, how's the Queen? And the goosebumps will continue? And I talk about in the book, but I didn't. I would love to name check him. I'm just so bad with sports that I always forget Marvin probably probably mar Alt, Yes, I think I know that's not his same, but he's famous. I can't think of it now. But anyway, that was Richard T and Richard t played a really big part in that early part of development. That's that's impressive company because Richard T' is a legend. I was going to ask, did you have to fight to write your own material? Because that was something that pop singers, you know, they damned they weren't permitted, you know, to write their own stuff. So what was that like for you? Well, okay, so that was to me, that was the one thing that I really held tight onto starting out as like having my first demo. So my first demo and some of these songs are not my favorite, and I just I like the demos better. But I was always writing songs from the time I was a little love, I vote poetry, I heard melodies, I did all that. But so when I got my after like working with a few different people and I started working on my first demo. By the time it got into Tommy Mottola's hands, that demo had well, it ended up the demo ended up being Vision of Love. The demo version some Day, Alone in Love and ultimately vanishing like the original demo had had at least had one number one song, which ended up being some Day. But you know, that's like my least favorite song. But I like the demo, I hate the record. I told her. I told her this last night. Some day might be inadvertently responsible for my career. Oh Chocolate, No, No, yeah, exactly no, I kind of well no, Well, in short, uh, I was auditioning for Tarika, and I went to New York to audition. I went to audition for colleges to uh, Julliard and the News School. And on the train ride home, some girl thought that I was Chocolate playing the bucket drummer. That Chocolate ride had the bucket drummer on the Murra video right, and also in Spike Lee's well you know, he was also in Spike Lee's Levi's commercial, so she thought I was the Levi's guy, when actually I was the Motown Philly guy. So the next the next day, Tarik is in my living room and after a commercial, uh, we're watching Soul Train and when that Levi's commercial comes on, Treik was like, yo, that girl thought he was the Mariah Carey guy anyway, so we might as well just do that. And then wow, four hours later, the Roots are doing their first show on South Street. So yes, thank you to Someday. Yeah. I used to always tell people, y'all came first. All right, so you talk about those demos? How did you cut those original demos? Because you if you was couldn't afford, you know, to eat, How did you How did you afford it? And how did you meet Walter? Walter came later. Walter was I met through Naught and Michael Walden and I was doing a lot of production for him in that I'm trying to think of the name of the actual area and it's like in the Bay Area kind of up in that San Francisco, but beyond Thomas, I'm trying to think of the name of the studio. You could, you could find out what it is. But anyway, so Walter was working in that world, but prior to that, way, prior to that, and also Randy Jackson was around there. Like that's how I met everybody that started his whole crew. Yet his whole crew, and he had a lot of really great people, musicians, support system, whole thing. But anyway, that's like when I first before my first record, everybody was like, oh, she would go work with an order now in order to answer the question to preserve my ability or to ensure my like just being able to be a writer and not to be forced to do other people's songs. When I saw my idea, like I said, I already had that demo that had, you know, songs that people could look at and go, oh, she's she wrote this, Okay, what I worked with? At first, I met Gavin Christopher, who did I'm coming wanstead up I've had I've had three legendary arguments with singers on the internet, and Gavin Christopher is one of them. Sorry, I haven't seen him since way back then. I haven't seen him since way back then. And he wasn't even really like She's the next star, Da da da, but he was cool enough to work with me and blah blah blah. And then from him, because I was in high school, I was like sixteen years old, So then from him I met this guy named Ben Marca. Lee's blah blah blah. It's all in the book. But we worked in his dad's studio, which for the time I was lucky to be at any studio. But it was a small studio in the back of a woods shop. And you know, they I guess they must have had some money, because I surely didn't. They were like twenty five twenty six, and I was a kid in high school, so I was just happy to be there working and writing, and then I would get up. I would stay there, and then I would try to drive back to the island, try to drive back to Long Island, which I hated that whole experience, but whatever, I would wind up lost in Brooklyn by myself. You know, it's no cell phone people at cell phones and GPS, and I was just like in this piece of crap cutless Supreme from like whatever, nineteen eighty or something, and I'm sitting there driving getting lost everywhere. But it was worth it because I would get there. I would always be late to school. I would you know, make my fake forged notes and get to school. But really the reason I was late I could do my mother's signature perfectly. The reason I was late is because I was working in a studio. But that's so I started working with Ben and we made this demo with a lot of songs that we wrote. And this year when we released the Rarities, there's a few of the song well really one song that we wrote together called here We Go Around Again, which back then I love the demo. But when we went on to make the album, they just tried to reinvent the Wheel because the demo was better anyway. So I had these songs and people felt that they could be hits. The label felt they could be hits. So when I was signing my deal, even though I signed it like the worst deal in history because it was through that production company, the PA, I don't know if it the worst deal in history is pretty bad. But the one thing, thank god, I didn't do was sell my publishing for five thousand dollars. That was yeah, that was presenting me as an option. So five thousand dollars sounded like five one hundred million dollars to me at that point. And luckily I didn't because I had seen a documentary on the Beatles and their whole thing, okay, yeah, and what they gave away, so I knew better than to do that. But when I did sign my ideal, the one thing I said to the lawyer because I knew I was kind of giving away a lot, but you don't know, as a broke kid that grew up with nothing, you don't know what. You don't have leverage to negotiate for anything better. Yeah, And plus I was too young to even be signing my own record deal anyway, So I was like, you know, and my mother didn't know. She came into the room and just trying to help. You know, I'm here as the guardian, but she didn't know. So I just said to the lawyer, I said, the one thing I want to make sure is that nobody can force me to do somebody else's song, Like, I just have to make sure that they can't force me to do that. So even when they would direct me to work with producers over the day that they wanted me to work with for whatever Warren or No or a name at the time, they didn't force me to work with any songwriters. They they suggested that I work with be it Rett Lawrence or not to Michael Walden or Rick Wake or whoever it was. It was like, you know, work with these people because we believe this is going to happen. But then the ones that I loved the best were like the Richer t Moment or do you know what I mean, Like things where it was a collaborative musical experience and where people of that statue were giving me as a kid, as a young woman, which is really difficult, you know, really difficult, particularly being female, to get any kind of respect and all the obstacles, you know, just to be able to be like, okay, I don't I'm not being forced to work with writers. So that was one thing. Nobody ever submitted songs to me, and if they did, I didn't hear them. So that was one thing that was grateful for you. Now I was going to ask it they ever. Did they ever ask that you write songs for some of the other ladies coming through or anyone. No. At that point, I think it was like, you know what, this is our we believe in this girl being me. Let's get done. So it took like a year to actually take what were demos and then the new songs that I would write or do to be this finished product. And there was a conscious effort like because I was sitting like when is this going to be done? Like you know, it's just like that, and they're like, it's fine because we and there was a vision that it would happen and begin in the nineties, not like before that. So that whole year of figuring it out, I do think it was a smart move to not have it out until that decade began. I was going to ask, does when you were working with Narada, does he always talk in that mystical voice? Yes, yeah, any anytime Narda, anytime he talks to me, I always feel like I'm being hypnotized at the moment. You know, he he's very said, you know what I mean, Like he's too saying I get scared Narada and Eric about your two people, and I don't want to look in the eye for more than five seconds. So as well. Yeah, Eric Erica has a very hypnotic quality that will have you wearing crosy pants in about a year or so. Stop that he's an artist and she's sensitive. Word. I was gonna ask what was working with Walter a fantasy? Like what was he like in the studio? I always admire like one of my favorite, my favorite songs of yours is Can't Let Go, And I just thought that that's just that sound that you and him had together. It was just a very pop like super clean and you know, just just the sine that he would have on those records. Like when I heard God this the Bruno Mars record the Vasati on the Floor, I was like, Yo, this is him doing Walter. Yeah, I mean yeah, but but nah, I just want to know what was he like in the studio, because he's not someone i've you know, really read or know much about. Okay, well, first of all, thank you. We can't let go that. Walter was a great writing partner. I would always try to sneer thing more and they can't let go direction because because it was a little bit slightly more R and B than black other things translation black, so slightly more than that more there. But you know, we could also do these big sweeping things like till the End of Time, which only like the Lambs would know. Yeah it was it was the next the last song going your first album, the End of Time. Yeah, that part, that was when I got to really express myself on the outros, on the on the you know, doing the background vocal parts, like doing those arranging that stuff. But I really liked working with him in that way. There were some uh, incestuous situations where let's just call it the record company and the publishing situations where I don't want to get into this various specifics. This is not I don't have to say it, but really it was too how do you call it? It was? It was a bit incestuous because people were like, how do I say it, oh loood? Was it? Was? It like the label had a piece of Walter so like baby. I wouldn't want to go saying that because I don't know for sure, but I'm just saying certain people in my life had that other connection and so was extremely talented. But some but for the most part, when I'm coming up with melodies and I'm singing it to somebody like hey, can you play this? That happened on several songs, and then we would take it to another place because I won't think of if someone plays accord, I'll be like no, like I hear it in my head and then I'm like, that's not it. I don't know how to articulate it. I'm not there going can you really inverted? Like I don't know how to say that. I just know how to hear it. So so I'll be hearing something and until somebody gets it where I'm hearing it, I'll be like no, no, no, no, and then we get there and then from there he and I I will say I had a really good flow with putting stuff together. So it's no shade towards him. I wish him well whatever, but I will say, like you know that was a that was a moment in time, and I'm very thankful for it. And also talking about people that have been great writers writing partners with me, Big Jim Wright with Fly like a Bird and Circles and all those songs for me. Me also James Poyser. Now everybody says it's poisoning that we actual pronunciation of his name, and I don't understand it, but I love him and so when we I love working with incredibly talented musicians because when I can sing back and forth to them and we can figure things out together and then we can go to another place, that's something that I feel is a gift. When I'm sitting there coming up with stuff by myself, I love it, but I know that I need to articulate it to somebody to put it down unless I'm playing, which is the worst thing ever, although sometimes it's turned out to be to my own benefit because I don't know the rules, so I don't have to follow them. So besides big joy question, can I just say I love working with James Poyser? James, I said Poiser, Okay, his name, Mariah, say his name. I'm just saying, I said, James Poyser because everybody else goes it, says Poisoner, and then they and make me feel like I'm a stupid one. It's pains. I created James Poisoner Twitter account just a computer. The real the real secret is James Poyser is just Nelson George's side project. No comment, no comment. But When Christmas Comes, which we wrote together, is one of my favorite Christmas songs and I really have I really feel like it's a much more look we love. All I want for Christmas is you, and I thank the Good Lord above. I really sat there coming up with a like And then when I did sing that to walderhat and he's been on record as saying it, why are you trying to do scales as a song? Like? Why is that? Why would you want to do that? Like he didn't hearly as a thing. How long did it take to record that? Which fire? No the song? I have a theory about mega songs. Every mega song that's larger than life take seconds to do. So like how long did it take to write, not executing record, but just to write the general song that we know? So the idea, So there was an idea do a Christmas album and at that point, at twenty two or whatever, I was like Lily little early and then I said, Okay, well I love Christmas. I always have, you know, let me think about it. So you you know, I was sitting in this house in the Hillsdale, New York as I came at hills Jail, and just started thinking like, what are the what are the things that I loved as a kid with Christmas songs? And what are all the things that made me feel christmasly even amidst the bleakness of my childhood. So I started sitting there and there was this keyboard. I believe it was some sort of some sort of really really cheap like CASSIEO keyboard or something. And again I'm I'm not playing. I just write a lot. So I was in there and I'm like, I just started channeling and trying to figure out how to play it. So by the time I brought it to Walter, I had done everything but the bridge. Oh lots of USh shining, you know, because I honestly couldn't probably do that transition like as a as a keyboard player, which I'm still not. But so we did that part and then we brought it back to the oh, so I would say the writing my part. I had the lyrics done except for the bridge. I had everything done really quick, like it was just immediate, you know. It's it's like with Hero. I had a They explained the song that I'm sorry the movie there was a movie by Dustin with Dustinhoff and whatever. Tommy Mitella came in, Hey, Luther's doing a song for this movie. They want you to write this song for Glorias to Find. You know. It's about a guy that says people on a plane. That's pretty much what I heard, right, And I was never alone at that point in my life, and I'm pretty much I rarely still am. But anytime I would walk to the bathroom and I wouldn't be followed by somebody's goons or whatever, I would walk in. I had two minutes. I go in there and I'm and I start hearing that, and then here comes along like the melody and the piano part, right, and so then I walked back and like, well this is how it goes. No, no, no, no, carry me on, right. So I'm like I'm like all excited, like just write this, dude, this dude. And then I'm like I'm like, so, wait, who do they want this for? They wanted for Glorias to right, and Tommy's standing there and he's like, I think you need to keep this one for yourself. So it was a similar thing with All I Want for Christmas is You, except that I was by myself in the room at first, and then wrote those lyrics down and then went and sang it to Walter and we finished it from there. But the actual recording of the record took a while, and it was a collaboration, and you know, I'm not taking anything away from him, but there was a concerted effort to make it feel like a classic, which I've noticed people have adapted that type of Yeah, I like the phil Spector, I love the phil spectrnes of it. But I would like to note that, you know, when I woke up this morning to prepare for this interview, I was listening to it. All I Want for Christmas is You is probably the happiest song with the most minor note keys in it. Like there's so much dark chords and minor chords in the song, but like because people don't expect it to go there exactly, like it's it's it's a very unlikely because usually Christmas is associated with I mean, every Christmas song practically has like happy chords, happy major chords. And I'm trying to figure out how did this song manage to jump over the pack, because it's it's there's so many chromatic and dark chords in it that are more blues based or black, you know, like black chords, yet it works and I'm trying, like that's a hard thing to achieve because you know, I know that most pop hits have some sort of major chord element that feels inviting. And not to say that blues chords don't work and aren't successful, like you know, there's plenty of them out there, but usually in Christmas songs it's like that, like as far as like structuring the song where they're back and forth and sort of you know, conflict as in to how bright the song should be as opposed to how it came out, because it's it's an achievement that is such blues based. But still I don't know if I'm saying it the right way. I know what you mean. And it's interesting because Mark Shaman, when we the incredible Mark Shaman or Kestel Genius, who I worked with starting on he wrote the South Park movie. That's like my favorite thing he's ever done. Yeah, I love him and he is the most irreverent, just hilarious person and super talented and everything. But when we first got together, he was like, don't think I didn't hear. I just want to know, like you know that little that was hot? Yeah, but I do hope think I didn't hear that. So so here's the thing, because like I said before, I don't know the rules. I don't follow the rules. I just know what I hear, and specifically on that one, it was just like like I don't know, I just heard it, you know what I mean, I didn't do it like here, I am trying to be bloozy here, I am trying to I don't know. And I think that's why Walter was like, well why and that he said in that interview, which I don't know. I'm sure it can be geguiled, but you know, it was like these scales and she's trying to this. I wasn't trying to do anything like that. I don't even know how to break it down and explain that. I just know that that's what I heard, and I heard it with the with you know, the lyrics, and then wrote them down. But it was very specific to me, and I recorded it on my little tape recorder that I had that you know, the mini tape recorder and you just help it kind smaller than an iPhone but like thicker, and so I had that and I recorded it on there, and I don't know, like I agree the when it gets poppy is the oh name made? You know what I mean? Like that part's poppy because the backgrounds were such incredible singers, and because the way we range it, like you're fine with the poppiness of at that point, the whole thing, unless we're getting analytical about it, is pop. But you're right those changes came from me because I didn't know any better. I didn't know, Oh, let me just make this like oh and happy and festive and we won't darker. Course, But like in the book, I talk about how my Christmas is as a kid, I always wanted them to be perfect. I always wanted them to do great, and I have these ex family members who really destroyed every year. So I think when writing the song just by myself in the room, not dissimilar to where I'm at right now looking at the Christmas tree by myself, just thinking about stuff, kind of feeling whatever's happening in the air. And I do feel like when you're writing, if it's a real, if it's a connected moment, you are channeling, you know, And I know that's that's we know that, but not everybody understands that. I'm not saying with some genius revelation, but that's what happened. So it was just like, this is what I'm hearing, you know, and this is what I think would be good. I never was like, oh and then blah blah blah, you're so now we're going to break the Spotify record. So I've learned ever since I've gotten to know you, I know that there's a term called Mariah hours, which ladies and gentlemen out there. This is the one of the first episodes that we've taped, the only the only most of our episodes are done. And I'm sorry and listen not to not to be your daddy, but even when we did Quincy Jones, Oh Jesus Christ, it was out of respect. Yeah, Quincy was just was in this late like right now, it's it's two in the morning, where we are but hoologizing. Nah, it's all good. We on COVID time anyway. Ain't nobody sleeping? Yeah, I got a new job. What what I want to have? You always kept Mariah, like when do you wake up? When do you wake up in the morning, Like what is your daily routine? Because I know like three in the morning is sort of like you're twelve in the afternoon. Yeah, you're right, And I don't have. I don't have when I'm working, which when I say working, I need tramo, not in a studio. When I'm in the studio, you know, And the best place for me to be in the studio is wherever feels the best. So, like we said, Cakree the Bahamas, wherever, it's just on the schedule of when now I'm not I don't mean writing. If there's like a whole like what I would love to do again, there's a whole bunch of writers get together. We're in a place, we work at a respectable hour whatever that is for everybody, a little the better, But you know, we all get together. We come up with stuff. If we're doing that like I did that on this song called Subtle Invitation in the Bahamas, we're working at Compass Points Studios, and you know one of them still around. I don't know this is back. This is early mid two thousands of the Chambre Compass Point world famous. We're Sli and Robbie and Grace Jones. Everybody record Club Tom Tom Club, and I believe anybody on island records like practically recorded down there. So continue. So you're there, and you know whatever you're working on, whatever the time schedule is. And now what I've realized with recording vocals, so that's the only thing for writing, but recording vocals, I just have to get up and luckily my engineer is cool enough to be like, okay, we're working on MC time. Okay we do. I drink coffee, like give me two hours, lea, you know, heads up, I'll get my two three hours. You know, we'll do a thing where it's like not before ten, so we know that usually means midnight, but you know, we know it's not gonna be more tense. So he sleeps, I sleep, and we just get up when my voice is ready to work. But in terms of like Mariah hours, this started for me when I was six years old because my house felt very unstable and there was always like teenage people and whatever happening, you know, freaking seances, whatever the hell was going on was happening, and it felt unsafe, and so I would lay in bed and kind of be scared and I wouldn't be able to sleep. So over the years, it just became like I stayed up because I had to develop this kind of like person in charge, like here's my reflexes, like in case something has to happen, this mechanism, yeah, defend, I'm the grown up in this scenario, like something may happen and I'm going to be awake to handle it. So that started as like a six year old kid, and it's all detailed in the memoir. But yes, that's what happened. The reason I say that is because I'm not explaining it as eloquently as I would like for people to hear it and to understand, you know what I mean. But answer the question. You know, I'm going to get on that next because I didn't even start with the book yet. But but wait, can I ask about the time things that she did mention the time, because I mean, You've been mentioned in the book a little bit, but in the book you do talk about like your whole concept of time and acknowledging and whatnot, and not to go over it because, like you said, it's in the book, but I was curious. I was, like, the one thing you didn't mention was when you developed this concept of not acknowledging time. It reminded me of something my grandmother used to say, because people would always ask her how old she was, and she would say, I'm too too old to be young, too young to be old, and that's it. Don't ask me anymore. But oh but but that being said, like when did that concept to you start developing? Like I don't need to acknowledge this time thing at all. Let's just I turned when I when I was eighteen, prior to getting my record deal. Right, Yeah, I had a I guess it's a boyfriend. It wasn't really like that deep of a thing. There was no actual whatever. La la la lah. You'll you'll get to know. I'm very prudish. I'm very prudish. People don't know, but I don't talk about certain things. That's just how I am. But you know, and then that's really as a response to like people I saw growing up that were the opposite that were very promiscuous, that had all these situations going on, and I just never wanted to be like them. But anyway, so when I so, when I was eighteen, I cried and my boyfriend, you know, god lesson for tolerating my prudences. But he was like, why are you crying? And I'm like, because I didn't. I don't have a record deal yet, like this is supposed to be happening. When I was, well, what is going on? And I didn't understand it? And I was I was so my work ethic was insane. People don't understand. Yes, you can be borned, Yes you can be born with whatever the look is or whatever it is. But if you don't have that work ethic, unless you have somebody that shines down upon you from above and does all the work for you, it's really not most likely not going to happen because you just have to have that Like, I'm going to do this regardless. I believe in it and I know it is going to happen. So in terms of like doing it, when I was young, like I was, I just had this thing where, oh my gosh, like this is supposed to be happening. This is a young person's industry, like and this is me as a kid knowing this. So I'm very thankful though that it didn't happen when I was much younger, like that, I that I didn't get those Broadways show things I wanted to be in as a ten year old because I was quote too tall. But we know, we know someone it was you, you see, that was like one of their excuses. That was from Annie. Let's face it. We know I wasn't Oh no, you wasn't sorry boo no, not life for real? No, no too dall. But I but I realized, like in retrospect, like I mean, I'm not putting myself in this category in terms of talent of God getting talent, but when you look at Michael Jackson and you look at how he really never had a childhood, like and then he became this hugely you can't even call it what it was. But I mean, like, I was just thankful at least I had somewhat of a childhood dysfunctional as it was, that wasn't a famous person's childhood, because I feel like that really screws people up beyond repair sometimes. But in terms of like how did it make me feel? To just not acknowledge time. I just decided, you know, anniversaries, no birthdays is what it is. Keep a pushing. I don't know. Okay, so Mariot, I guess I should say. I was about to say, I guess that's to start with. But it's ninety minutes into it. So our good friend Eleana Diaz of Rock Nation former Fallon Night now she's probably going to be president in ten years, sent me a box with your book in it, and it came with tissues and I was like, okay, that's interesting. What am I supposed to cry when I read this book? Whatever? And so I took the book home, and this is like prime COVID, where like one of the one thing I stuck to was my promise to read more books, Like I just stopped reading books pre like March twenty twenty. Maybe I did like one of two books a year, and this year I'm like, okay, I'm gonna just run everything dust off, you know, sixteen books whatever. So you know, I said, all right, let me let me read the first three chapter, see if I'm gonna learn anything about it about her, And you know, about chapter three, I was like, wow, okay, just engaged, and I'm let me, let me see what the next three year into. So when I got to the fifth chapter, I crept in your DMS and I was like, yo, you you write a good book. And the thing that in Laya actually texted me this last night she said, and I sent you what she said, uh Liyah said that the way that Mariah describes food is making me hungry. And I was like, yo, And I showed Layah my first text to you, which is basically I was like, yo, I've written two books about food, and no one has described Ritz crackers so eloquently that you have. And then and then I was like, all right, well I had to take this like long trip to Philadelphia, and I was like, all right, let me get the audiobook listen to it in the car, and hearing you narrate this audio book was almost like your own podcast. And I was like, well, now I got to start at the beginning again. And I had to say that this was for me like sleeper Surprise of the Year, Like this book has humanized you in a way I didn't think it was possible, not that I thought that you were subhuman or supern like most most Black people, especially black achieving people. They're either like, you know, on the high level of you know, credit to their race and they're superhuman, or there's up human blake. We're never like, we're never neutral. And I love the fact that this book puts you as a black person in a space where black people are rarely allowed to bleep be which is human. First of all, I would like to know, because most most memoirs are autobiographies, I don't trust them. That's why, like oral history is better because you at least get a taste of everyone's opinion. But what made you want to be so transparent and blatantly honest in this book? Because that's what I wasn't expecting. Well, I've been wanting to write this book for years, like I think, first of all, I just wanted when I when I first so I had the opportunity to work with a very big like probably the biggest publishing house that there is, when I was pregnant, Right, that's what I wanted to write the book. I'm like here, I am, I can't go anywhere. It's basically like COVID, but it's not COVID. But you're pregnant with twins and you're on bedrest and and I was like, all this all my life, Oh my life. I wanted to, you know, write this, write my book, write my story. So I so I wanted to do it at that point. And I really had this great relationship, very just beginning on a relationship, but I felt a kinship with Mikayla Angela Davis, who I wanted to work on the book with right and then this publishing house, the person at the top, she was the editor in chief, and she said, I don't want you to collaborate with anybody because I believe that your voice is going to transcend. You know, you need to have it be your voice. I'll be your editor and you just do it. And I was like, you know what, that's huge, and I thank you for believing in me on that in that way. But I really want to work with Mikayla. And so I didn't do the book at point, but I started just putting together, like some of the stories and whatever. Can you just tell us I'm sorry, I don't mean to apolog you, but can you just tell people because I'm a big fan of hers, but can you tell everybody why you were so adamant about Mikayla well we okay, So Michaela Angela Davis is a brilliant writer and she we first met when I did The Essence, my my first and only Essence magazine cover, which ended up myself just to make that happen at that point, because there were so many quote unquote issues with my image and how black women would perceive me and how, you know, could it happen and is this gonna happen and whatever, And it was a really important thing for it to happen for me because being black and of mixed race, there's always been this, you know, the stigma that that white people have. But then there's this thing, this thing where the lightness is perceived as privilege, privilege. But really, if you were put in the situations that I was put in as a kid, where you're only in white neighborhoods and this is nothing, they can't help it. You're put in this situation where you're not you're not dark enough to scare them into not saying anything, or even remind them, oh, let me not say this because it might offend this person because they're strictly looking at it like that. But then when they're all around you, like I talk about it in the book. Whatever you do. I think it's important that people hear it in the way that it's described in the book, because to just flippantly talk about it, it's why people were like, Oh, what did you take so long? And know you're embracing your blackness, and like there was never a non embracing that. What did you expect to do? I can't. I can't tattoo it on my fore I guess I could have. I mean, maybe I should have. I don't really want to attach it on my forehead, but you know, like you have the vision to collaborate with old dirty bastard. That's the black move ever. But it was an interesting question as you listen to your story in the book, though, because that's what I kept thinking to myself as I listened to you talk about how like your dad and you didn't really talk about that kind of stuff that much as I know about like your mom didn't talk about that stuff that much. And it's getting to know you and understanding that, like this has been an interesting journey for you in that way of that side of your life. So I always wondered as I was listening, I was like, so, I wonder what was that moment because I haven't gotten to it yet in the book where you were like maybe it was then the Bronx cousins or whatever, when you were like, this is me. I'm proud. I see it, you know, and there's a pride there. Yeah, what happened was there was never a lack of I see it, I'm proud. It was always you take a child, you don't explain to them how to understand who they are. Right, you have a bour family with a black father and a white mother who was from the whitest place where the KKK born in Springfield, Illinois, and you have her family that had disowned her. Well, her family didn't even know she married my father. Only her mother knew, so she didn't tell anybody. And that imagine how you feel like because of who my father is, and ultimately that means because of who and what I am, and my siblings who went on to talk to whatever, because of what we are, we are considered sub human to them, so we don't exist and they don't even know that we exist. Actually, because that's how big of a that's how big of a thing it was that my mother did this. So it was the ultimate sin against her whiteness to her family and to her world. So to be honest with you, like she was very into civil rights, according as the story go, and she Martha doctor King before all these things, but which I heard more about that from her than I really heard from my father, because I feel like my father was always trying to in his own way assimilate understand who he was and what he went through because he was very like he you know he was. He just didn't really feel like he fit in it in any place either. So we never had a conversations till he was on his deathbed. But back to the thing about the book and why I felt I wanted to write with MICHAELA was because we had these conversations in a way that I never had a conversation with another, certainly not a writer previously, and we connected on that level, and we couldn't get into every detail. How can you talk? How can you encapsulate a lifetime of experiences in a twenty minute interview with the magazine where the editor is going to then give you what they wanted to look like? How they what's the angled? You know? What I mean? Is Mikayla is she mixed race as well. I'm down the line, but she's you know, her family's black. She lights them, She's very Mikaela Angela David. You know what I mean, like she yeah, yeah, I mean, I got it. It's a different struggle when you're placed in an environment that you don't belong in, so you're you're like fish out of water and with people saying stuff around you that they would neverver say, and you have to figure out you have to figure out how do I handle this, how do I how do I come back this, how do I exist? How do I survive? Without anybody giving you the talk, without anybody you know, and so there was never a discussion about racing your house. There was never no one ever set you down and was like, you know, listen, you are a black girl and this is what that entails. Wow. No, No, it was your intucial and that's what you tell everybody. I'm like, but we don't know what that means. What is that mean? They don't know what this means. That's why, Yes, my cousins were always like when they were my cousins from the Bronx CC and Chris who we love, you know, on the few occasions when I'll be at my grandfather's house in Queen's and the kids would be like, that's not your cousin. She's white, and they would stick up for me and they would be like, no, she's not white, this is our cousin. She's black. She's our cousin. Like that was the only time there was like that unified, like we got you type of a thing, you know. But it was difficult because there's also the thing about money and not having money. So I think if it was like a family unit where the parent don't forget my parents divorce when I was like three or four years old, So there's that, and there's my father living in the neighborhood and me and my mother living in like fourteen different places without the siblings, without anybody else to connect to say we got you, like no matter what these other people are saying. And again they didn't know how to interpret it. They also it was considered their biggest insult to say to someone it's your father black, like this was they would say behind my back and then ultimately took my face when you you know, in a different way, when you read the book, did you ever play again with that little girl? Becky that ran crying when she saw your dad. Did you guys ever meet again? No, m there was a girl named Becky and I'm sure she was white. So what your name? Becky saw your dad started running? Oh I believe that Becky knows who Mariah Carey is. Right. Yeah, I'm sure that incident really impacted upon her, Like it was literally she had never seen a black person in her life before. So yeah, so when we're in this lily white neighborhood that my mother chose to live in, and then this was my friend and there were no questions asked like what are this and that I think that's before my hair retext heurized. So I'm still really and you know, we go to my dad house and I talk about it in the book obviously, but she just was frozen and then she just broke down and then my mother like escorted her. For some reason, my mother knew to like linger. My mother escorted her out and it was just like I'll never forget it. I'm sure she probably remembers it, but maybe she blocked it out. I don't know, Darling, how much control or well, well, from from the context of what you said earlier, So you had like really no control. But you know, when you're when you first signed to Columbia, who or how did you decide or what role did you play in your imaging in your package because they marketed you very much as you know, like just the pop kind of girl, and like, you know, they kind of just marked you as a white woman, not us. You know, we could look at you and we knew you know what I'm saying, Like we was like I hear what y'all saying. But you know, like so like we knew something smells familiar. Yeah, yeah, I see, I see them curls, you know what I mean? I see? Yeah? So yeah, what was what took us through that process? Like just kind of your identity being formed for you in a way that maybe you didn't have any say so over I would say that the marketing is its own thing. If you look at the actual first album cover in the back of the first album cover, my first album cover, Marine Kerry. Right, Yeah, what you have time to display my blackness differently? Just tell me, like visually it was just your face because it was just your face in black and white. Yes, it was my natural hair, you know, additional curls put in it and then the black cover it curvature and stuff like that. Like I'm just trying to asked, like, how do you think that I could have made it more clear other than telling people that my father was black my mother? How how could we have unless it was should I have adapted a different hairstyle? Should it be? No, that's that's deep. No, you're right, you're right. No, you're right, that's deep, And then asking that question, I wasn't like it wasn't a blaming of you or anything like that. I was just it was just something that like we all just kind of notice it's a conversation. Yeah, because people did, but you you're right, Like I was just me. No, I was me honestly. It wasn't even like on that album cover, I had like straight hair and blue contacts and you know, none of that, Like it's the same nose. It's the seem like you I can't help. But I talked about in the book, I don't have an upper lift that you know they told me. The black people would be like, oh, your lip is too small, but white people were like, your lip is really full, and I'm like yeah, but you know, honestly, I think the marketing. Marketing wise, they definitely skewed it pop. They definitely wanted adult, temporary pop. There's no question in my mind. But at that point, how the hell do I know the different charts? I don't know. I mean, by the way, Vision of Love was number one on the quote unquote R and B charts before the pop charts, So I often refer to that because that makes me feel a sense of right. But there wasn't like a black music department at that point, with black music department thing a thing, or it wasn't even at your point. They really skewed me away from that. But I did work with the Black Music Department, and that was when Rodriguez was running Oh Ruben, Ladies and gentlemen and lambs. That concludes part one of our special two part terview with the one in the for Ria Carrey. Make sure you come back from part two of the Question of Supreme special with the one to know Riah Carry all right, see Oven, Hey, this is Sugar Steed. Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at QLs and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. 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