Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Bilal

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Bilal · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Ballah has a brilliant new project out called as Brightness.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's bold, cinematic, and his most cohesive project since his debut.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And if that one't enough, he's also just dropped Live
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: at Glasshouse, an intimate live recording that captures the magic
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of his performances where the band is tight, the vocals
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: are loose, the energy is electric, and anything can happen. Today,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: ball talks about the making of a Just Brightness, how
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: he prepares for his explosive live performances, and why chasing freedom,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: both musically and spiritually, has always been his north star.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: conversation with blaw. Your high school is pretty.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I went to a performing in ours high school too.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: We had everybody, well, boys, the men, the roots, a
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: mill of the room, Chris McBride, yup, christmacbride, Joey d Francesco.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Joey Diferen, RP Man. He was phenomenal.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: But yeah, we had some cats. None of them was
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: there when I was there.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But the roots and boys to men are kind of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: like I guess I'm not infamous, but for lack of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a better word, the infamous class from your your high school.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: But you were, you were a good deal younger man.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm like, geez, I don't know what year
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: they graduated, but I think we were like maybe almost
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: ten years, if not ten years apart.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you aware of them growing up?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I was aware of them just in the school. The
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: teachers that would brag about them. Man, some of them
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: would still come up to the school like jam with
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: jam with us. I remember Chris mas Bride used to
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: come up and jam with our our jazz band all
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: the time. And at the I think that was right
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: the year before our like big I guess mister King.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: He was like our big time choral teacher. So boys
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and men used to come all the time and just
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: hang out with him. So we see boys and men
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: all the time.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: That's insane because that means they were as big as
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: he could get at that time.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and he used to always say they still used
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: to still like he would always rag on them, but
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: they loved it. They you know, like y'all still don't
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: sing the harmony like I tort you. But we all
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: hated mister King, but we loved him. No, he's passed,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: he passed, but you know, he was just one of
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: those strong minded Germans, German men, German guy. Yeah, but
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: he was so soulful and just like I learned a
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: lot from him and just about emotions and the music
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: and stuff.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And man, he.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Was just really into the music. You know, he didn't
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: care that we were kids. He would cuss and everything,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: but it was music first over everything.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I learned that from him. And he's passion.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Like I didn't even know music could give you goose
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: bumps or you should be in search of the goose
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: bump effect as a musician until mister King. You know,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: he taught us all about that, like how to truly
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: get emotion out of out of music or to draw
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: an emotional reaction out of the listener.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Like how would he teach that?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: He was just look for a certain tamper of the
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: voice or a certain dynamic of the music, like certain dynamics,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: like something going from extremely loud to soft automatic light
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: abruptly it does something emotionally to the listener, and then
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: if it goes big again and then you know, you play,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: you play with volume.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: It kind of like it has an emotional play.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: That explains a lot about about your your music. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: your approach to music one because I was thinking about, like,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I've seen you many many times and your I mean,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it might it might sound kind of tripe to sort
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of say that it appears to me that you treat
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: your voice almost more like an instrument. But anytime I'm
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: going to see you live, as opposed to any other singer,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: it always feels much more like an improvisational thing, in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: search of like a really high high or in search
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of a moment. And sometimes I've been to the shows
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: where like that moment is like it's it's there, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes that you could tell us that you didn't quite
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: find it, or was it or the audience to find it,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: or there was some disconnect. But it's one of the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: things that is addicting about going to see you is
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: just like what's it going to be tonight? It's almost
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: like going to see you know. I just kind of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: got around to finally seeing The Grateful Day a few times,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I get why people follow them, because
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: at night to night, it's like what's it going to be?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: I love that. I mean, that's the whole jazz thing
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: for me. I got that out of going to school
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: for jazz, hanging out with all jazz cats my whole life.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: You know, Improvisation was just a big deal for me
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: early on. So when I would go to write my music,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I always try to leave little pockets and spaces that's
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: like unknown and you have to like kind of make
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: it up when you get there. So every night when
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: we play, it's just it just so happens to be different,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: and I think that's a cool thing. It makes it
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: fun for me, you know, playing these songs over and
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: over again.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you do you have a do you have
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a reliable way at this point of like a routine
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: or anything that you can do to sort of get
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you closer to achieving something than.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Not like to start to like get ready for the show.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I start to get ready for the show. Is
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: there anything you can do that you feel like, even
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: if it's just like you know, like an athlete might
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have like a like a little ritual that's like might
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: not even be real, but like I gotta wear my
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: green socks or whatever. It's just or it might not
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: be that silly. But no, I don't. I don't I
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: think I should.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: I think I started off having one, but then it
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: just tanked. I used to try and have a little ritual,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: but I think I just keep forgetting the ritual.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So my ritual is no ritual.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: What were you trying to implement as like.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: No, because I used to be like, yeah, before the show,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do some push ups, you know what.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna just get my jump rope that I'll leave
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: my jump rope at the hotel.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: We don't have enough time to do push ups or
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I'm like out of breath, so I'm like, I'm not
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: doing that no more. So I'll just try to get
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: into a little common space, like before the band goes out.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'll just sit there a little longer with my
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: sunglasses on.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I just try to get into avoid place where I
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: don't really care no more.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: You know, And what does what do you think that
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: brings to the what you do?
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: It just takes away from the expectations and.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Trying to prove something or.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Really caring to you know, and just get up there
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: and do do what I do. I see myself as
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: a channeler, you know. When I'm going up there, I'm
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: kind of channeling from my higher self or like my
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: perfect self. So I kind of like try to forget
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: my hurtfully self, you know what I mean? Yeah, try
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: to forget everything.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it helps bring you into the get rid
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of the expectation and bring it to the moment.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when it works, sometimes I literally forget everything and
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: then I forget the words, and but when it's right on,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: you know, I forget all of the negative stuff.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That's great. Is it a similar approach in the studio
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: when you go into the studio. No.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: In the studio, I want to feel everything, you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I want to be open to every everything in the room,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: everything that's coming to me, so I can try and
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: make the studios where I try to make sense of everything.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: So I'm just overanalyzed. And sometimes I have to stop
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: myself from overanalyzing because that's just what happens in is
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: you can stop, think, take a break, come back to it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: But on stage it's just all go, you know.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Is it too many inputs live? Is that kind of
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: why you maybe have to blunt some of that or
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: try to block it out versus in the studio, where's
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a little more controlled and.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: A little more well.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: In the studio, I think that's where a lot of
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: the input most especially if people like if I'm working
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: with other people, because you know, it's just everybody's giving input,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: everybody's giving them opinions, like all in real time, just oh,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: maybe do that again or you you know, I might
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: think I just nailed something like that's that's something.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Like what I gotta like, I gotta battle my ego,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Like all right, I'll do it again, you know what
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I mean? So uh, in the audience, if somebody says
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: it sucked, I'd be.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Like, great, let's let me let me stay on that
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: note even more like it's like I'm the smartest suck
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: shit in your face now, you know what I mean.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I turned it to the villain maybe on stage, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: in the studio, I'm just very analytical of everything.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, I sit with everything.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Has that been true your entire recording career too, you think?
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Or is it has that changed a bit from when
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you first got in the studio? But the first album, Firstborn,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: second too, just brightness.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Now I think it's changed as far as like who
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I bring in the studio to give me that their opinions.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: You know, when I first started off, like I didn't
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: have to say who was in there, giving me their opinions.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: You know, everybody felt like they were there to mold me,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: and you know I was just too listen, you know.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's gotta be a weird position too.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: It took some getting used to, especially when I first
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: started recording, because I came straight from university college, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: just straight artsy kind of thing, and I was I
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: think when I first started off, I was a lot
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: more defensive because of that, because I was just very
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: militant on what I wanted to do, how I wanted
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: to do it. And I was like that in school,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: you know, like I went to a I went to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: a music conservatory and all I did was argue with
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: the teachers all day.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So they were happy to see me go.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You know, do you ever did you keep up with
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: any of them or not? Was it really?
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: One of my one of my like most infamous teachers,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: we wounded up being really close, Janet Loss, and she
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: passed not too long ago, but we started off really
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: rocky because she was like a vocal teacher. And my
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: whole thing was I don't want to study with no singer.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Singer suck, you know, I don't want to study with
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: nobody that sings jazz.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Like and she kind of had that same mentality. But
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: jazz musicians it's almost like athletes. I look at jazz musicians.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: They have the same sensibility of athletes, you know, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: they will sit there and argue with each other and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: just I always want to one up, or let's battle.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: You're not playing changes quite right. But so that's what
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: me and her would get into the arguments of I
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: don't like the way you sing over that, and I'm like,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: this is jazz. I can sing it over all ever
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I want. And she's like, yeah, but you're not singing
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: the chort changes. And it's like my whole thing was
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I would go to jazz theory class and be like, yeah,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: but you do know this is theory, so you're just
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: telling me your theory of how to do it. I
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: don't have to do it like that, though, And that
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: would just whoa.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Kick off.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: That would kick off, especially for like the older jazz musicians.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Oh man, it will almost be like, all right, let's
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: in the class and go out and take this outside then,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: young man.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: But they remember me because of that.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times in university, the students
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: don't really challenge the teacher, you know, and when they are,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: they're like shut down.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: So I just refused it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: I didn't really want to do vocals anyway, you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: and I felt like I want to do I wanted
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: to be a musician, but the musicians do want it
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: wouldn't want to accept me. I was just like a
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: mad villain, just walking around, this grumpy.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: That's painful man, Like.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Hey guys, I can scat.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: No.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: It wasn't until I really started like, man, I'm gonna
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna start learning change it, just like the cats,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Where it started to work out for me.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: And then I when I discovered Bobby McFerrin, it was.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Over, Yo, tell me about that.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Man, Like Bobby McFerrin was just he didn't even use
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: words much and I was like, that's that's that's my
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: stick right there, Like I don't he really turned his
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: voice into an instrument and that really like it turned
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: the light on in college for me.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Man, I gotta I gotta digg into some Bobby.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he did a whole album that the one that
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: really like got me. He did a whole album with
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Chick Area, just him and Chick Area what and it
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: was just magic. And my friend of mine, well, Robert Glasper,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: we went to we went to college together and we
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: got to see chick Corea and Bobby do duet at
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: the Blue Note and it was boom, just like.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Wow, wow, wow, when did when did you get put
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: onto him?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: In college? Right?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: I knew I knew Bobby being fair and from the
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: you know, don't worry, be happy. But in college I
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: would hang out at the the Vinyl library a lot
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: and just listen to vinyl all day.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Is that that was at your square, to vinyl library
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: at your school. That's really cool.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: That's another place to like really like did something to
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: me musically?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: You know. It wasn't really the classes. It was like
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: developing arguments and then going to the vital.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Library to prove my theories. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, I felt that. I was like, yeah,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: this is it, Like he was really even the way
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: he was getting he was like challenging chit, you know
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: even and that's like chick Rea like wow, Biden fairness,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: nasty nasty.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Word, that's really wild, because yeah, all I knew him
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: for was I don't want to be happy as well,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and I love that as a kid by the way, right,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I mean I still love it now, but it's great.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I mean even though you know, man another the number
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: one jam you know, I mean public enemy kind of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: turned me off for a minute, but still still.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Not only not only in the jazz world, but also
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: even in a classical world. He's like an accomplished uh.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: For the you yeah really high up?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Wow? Have you gotten to hang with him? No?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: But I know his his children, his his his daughter
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Maddie mc ferrence, Madison, uh Madison. I known her for
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: a minute. I know him his tailor, Taylor for a
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: long minute. So yeah, I'm gonna Taylor from like when
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I first moved to New York. Really m h no,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know that that was his dad was
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Bidy mcpherrins, So.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: That like blew my mind when I found out about that.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Because he when I met Taylor, he was doing interesting
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: stuff like that through the beat boxing and he would
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: be boxing then be playing keys at the same time school.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So it was almost like on that same kind of
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: thing but taking it to another level.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: This message is brought to you by Starbucks. Years before
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Broken Record, I actually used to work at Starbucks and
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to this day, I'm still a loyal customer. I love
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: seeing the new seasonal menu items rolling out across the year,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and just today I went to my local Starbucks to
• 18:25
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  Speaker 1: I want to remind you that Starbucks isn't only known
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  Speaker 1: for their expertly crafted, high quality beverages, but also for
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: their inviting, vibrant cafe atmosphere. And something that I've always
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: loved about the cafe ambiance is the coffee house music
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that plays in the back while you're enjoying a coffee
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: or a freshman. Strato frappuccino. The coffee house genre. You
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: can probably imagine the sound driven by acoustic instruments, relaxed
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: vocals drawing from folk and jazz influences, lyrics so personal
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: they sound like they'd been written in a journal an
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: hour before recording. What we know is coffee house music
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: has a deep history, and to understand the sound, we
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: have to start with the space. If you were a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: young singer, songwriter, or something to say, you started in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: coffee houses. You had folk singers, poets, and visionaries passing
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: around guitars and exchanging ideas in equal measure. Bob Dylan
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: played his earliest gigs and cafes in Greenwich Village in
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: New York City. So did James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: The list goes on. They were all fixtures in coffee
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: houses around the country and around Canada. Coffee houses were
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: proving grounds, no backing band, no effects, just a guitar
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and a voice and of course a delicious beverage on hand.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Over time, its sound has evolved from folk to indie
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: rock to aubeaut acoustic playlist, but at its heartbeat, there's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: simplicity and connection that mirrors the cafe experience, and still today,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: coffee houses remain creative hubs. There where screenwriters start new scripts,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: where podcasters work on an outline for their next episode,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: where someone strums a guitar may be thinking about an
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: open mic night. Places like Starbucks are part of the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: coffee house tradition. It's a place where music lives alongside creativity,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and the strato frappuccino fits perfectly in that tradition. Their
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: team dreamed up the cold foam flavors, the dreamy blended layers,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and the feeling you get with each creamy sip. So
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: here's to the sound of the Starbucks coffee house in
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the summer, not just the music, but the atmosphere, the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: conversations and the creativity, the rhythm of espresso being pulled,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a friends catching up of a lyric being written down
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: for the first time, from the first chords played in
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a Greenwich village cafe to the playlists we queue up now,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and here's to the drinks that pair with it. Your
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: strato frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. Who else
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: free at that time, like when you were developing, like
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: vocally was or not even vocally, just whether it's vocal
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a vocalist and instrumentalist. Who was who was like pouring
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: into at that time, like in that vinyl library? What
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: were you? Do You think that still sticks with you
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: even maybe too?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Oh well, I got into Indian music like Robbie Shankar was.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I was deep into Robbie Shankar because I started to
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: try and try to figure out my own like special
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: phrasings or special vowels for scatting.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: So I went down this school like uh rabbit hole
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: of Japanese throat singing and uh and in Indian music.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And that would help you change, like think about how
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to approach vowels.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because a lot of their the throat singing they
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: could they had this method. The only other person I've
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: seen that has mastered it is uh Layla Hathaway's.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: She can sing like three notes at once like a
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: chord like be like a minor chord like what Yeah.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: She can like separate her vocal corus to play three
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: notes at once.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And she can do it.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Like how you learned that?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I don't I keep it. I don't know.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: I asked her how. She said she was born knowing
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: how to do it. Wow mm hmmm, Wow.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know how she did it, but I know
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: there's it's a genre.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a genre.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: So that and Robbie Shanekarr and his daughters and dope
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Indian music. They they get into NBA two between notes,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: so our scals like eight notes or like seven notes,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and then it goes into that octive note. They have
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: this thing called ghost notes where there's like semi tones,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: small middle or ascending tones in between the actual tone
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: that we claim.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: So between like an E and and F there's like something.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Else, there's like three other tones that they know of. Wow.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So yeah, can you hear those?
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: And no, it depends on the setting, Like it in
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: a drone situation where it's like.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: You can kind of hear the those type of things.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: But if it's something where the core changes is moving
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: around a lot, you can't, well I can't you know.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: It's like in the B box that it would be impossible.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: No, but if you were to listen to.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Coltrane when he would get into like a lot of
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: his Love Supreme stuff, or you could hear those those
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: semi tony he was doing it. Wow, he was deep
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: into Robby Shankar and those whole He started making up
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: all different types of scales to kind of like buying
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: those in between notes.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I've seen some, like i've seen pictures. I
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: haven't studied them or anything, but I've seen like copies
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of like journals he would write, and you see these
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: really bugged out diagrams he would draw somehow connecting this
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: note to that, no, to that. You know, I don't
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: know that circle.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: It was like a circle of fifth thing. I think
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I know what you're talking about.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was a little different than a circle
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of fist maybe or something like. I mean, it's just
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: seem a little like more intense, like the basic circle
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of fists kind of thing. But yeah, like it seemed
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: like he was really searching.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: For he unlocked something, and it was like based off
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: of that those in between notes.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: We would like any of the classics that resonated with you,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: like you scouting, like I always think of like elphanz
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Gerald as a scatter, Did any of that resonate with
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you or less?
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Was dope?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: She I definitely started by checking out a lot of LA,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of serv On. Then I got into Betty Carter,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: and Betty Carter is like my favorite. I met Betty
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Carter when I was a kid. I sang for her.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: She told me I sucked, and that's awesome.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: What was the what was the context of this?
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Oh man, it was, uh Jazz I was a part
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: of this like after school program and in high school,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Settlement at Settlement Music School, and she would come to
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: a lot of the school programs back in the day
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: and jam with the kids. And we had a big
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: assembly and uh, everybody was like, go up there.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Sing for Betty, sing, sing, sing, So I was like.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, you know, and I really thought I was
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: like killing him on the scag game.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And she she sang, that's not it, that's not it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You singing too many notes. You're not giving the people
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: a chance to reminisce. He said, people reminisce when you
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: when you're actually not singing. And she was singing all
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: of this, but like she was trashing you washing because
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I went up there shout it up beat my.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I was going in and she was like, nah, baby,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: it's too many notes. He's like, and I never forget that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: She said, you know, you gotta watch how many notes
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: you sing? Or where you place the notes, because you
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: got to give the listener time to catch up and
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: to reflect, because that's what draws people to the music,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: when they have something that reminds them of their own life,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: you know, and you got to give them an opening
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: for that, you know. And the music is really a
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: portal for the listener's memories to like take place.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: What do you what do you think about that?
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: As a I didn't know what she was talking about
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: as a kid, but like like now, I don't know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: I never forgot that and now and as a as
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: a writer, as a producer, that's like the main thing
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of when I'm in a studio, Like I
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: want the listener this song to be some type of
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: a time capsule for them, you know.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about when you first came out,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: how we were kind of in an era where people
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: didn't really respect virtuoso virtuosic talent, you know, Like I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: don't even know if Kendrick Lamar could have been as
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Populus is now then.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: What and not you think so hm hmm, yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Not in about but in the sense of and I'm
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: gonna say this, but I love I love no limit
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and I love all I love all of No Limit,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But it feels like that was a different a different
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: thing happening then. No.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think it was like it's still like
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: a counter culture from like what the Roots was doing
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: or a slum village. There was like counter culture of
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: of of music.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It definitely feels counter it felt, That's what I guess,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And that's what I mean, is it felt at that
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: time like a counter culture, whereas now it feels like
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: it could be of the culture same way that like
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff like that.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I guess it's biggest Kendrick is now back then, I
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: don't know, because I look at the way kendred it's
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: very intentional about the art and very you could tell
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: he thinks about it.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I see that.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: The way Outcast was dropping those records back then, you know,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: it was like wow, artistically like they were like stepping
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: it up every record and it was like wow, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: it was accepted and it was crossing over.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: You know, they were they were doing their thing.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm happy.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to be wrong on the point. Happy to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: be wrong. It just felt like all the ship I
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: like back then was more subculture more for sure, like
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like the way like you know, like in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the nineties, like alternative music had its like it crossed
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: over finally and it was like all the ship from
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the Ramones through like whatever. All of a sudden, it
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: was like it was in like Bagel bytes commercials or whatever,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: like wait, why didn't one and like this in like
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, you know or not no One? But
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: why didn't you know what I mean, Like you couldn't
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: get this on like CBS in nineteen seventy.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know what.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what this era of the cool
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: kids is, but I feel like that's because I'm older.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But also it seems like people really at a well
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: yes and no, maybe musically at least except like I
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: think about like how a Thundercat has, Like it seems
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: like the fact that a critical massive people can accept
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that level of talent is a good sign to me,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so it does feel
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: like we're in an era of people really recognizing musically
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: at least like superb supreme talent, you know, even the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: back like I don't know whatever. Not to get controversial,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: but the backlash against Drake or whatever. You know, it's like.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Music.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: But that's but it is also in some way a
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: positive sign, you know, and there's not a lot of
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: positive things, you know, there's not a lot of things
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: pointing towards the post is the future so much necessarily always,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: But that feels like one of those things where you're like, oh,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: it's like a cool bell weather for what could could be.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is dope. You know that.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: For a minute there, I thought all of society could
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: be programmed to like one thing and then that was it,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: you know, But that did like put in my head that, yeah, well,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: you know, the people can speak, you know, and the
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: people like a variety of things, and they should have
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: that lead way in the marketplace to like a variety
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: of things instead of just this is what's dope and
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: anything outside of that it's not dope, you know. I
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: think that's I don't know if that's only in America though,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: you think what.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Seems like outside of America people have always been a
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: little more open, you know, I don't know, right like.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And I think that's just a marketing thing.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Definitely think it's the market I think people, including Americans,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: think Americans are stupid. So I think then we market
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: ourselves like we're idiots, you know what I mean, Like
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: we can't we can't make decisions, you know, like we
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: find boxes for things because we're fucking idiots.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Because it's a marketplace. Everything is a marketplace.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Everything is to be sold. You know, you just got
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: to find the right marketing pitch. I can pick up
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: a piece of dirt off the floor, and you know,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: if I got that gift of gab, I'm gonna make
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: some money.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, it's funny. Like I got to put out
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: an interview with Daryl Hall and they got a bunch
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: of pickup because, like I asked himself. You know, it's
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: interesting to me when I go when I listened, I
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't around when Holland Oas was was hitting in the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: late seventies and eighties, or when the Dubie Brothers were
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: But you know, I listen to that stuff now and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you're like, this is clearly just white dudes that love
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: R and B, R and B. And you know, I
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: was like when I was talking to Michael McDonald once,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, like Warner Brothers didn't know what
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to do with us because we're white dude. So they
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: wanted to market us to rock radio, but Rock Ray
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: didn't want to play us because we sounded like like
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: R and B like black dudes. But like they, Warner
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: couldn't get it in their head to like play us
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: on black radio. But finally some black radio promoter at
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Warner was like, this guy to go to black radio.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Black radio started playing it. But then you know, the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: labels just started calling it adult contemporary or soft rock
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: or whatever you know, AO or I oriented rock, like
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: they would have these phrases for it. So I was asking,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I was asking about that. He's like, yeah, well, fuck
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: yacht rock like they you know, they're trying to like
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and You're like, I I kind of see his point.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Like he's a dude. He just loves Philly dude, Philly dude.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I know he can't. He kept it wrong rock, you know,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: he just love R and B and before a guy
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: has to get a label yacht rock or whatever, you know.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: And I felt this pain, you know, like.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that's the way I felt about Neil Soul.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Like it's just a marketing term, Like I felt like
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: we were just cats that loved hip hop, but found
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: those seventies uh instruments from the that were used from
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: those records that we were sampling, and was like, well,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: let's just use those.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Instruments, yeah, instead the sampling, let's just pull out of
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: roads in.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Right, instead of getting sued on every instead of not
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: making no money from the track, because it's they're taking
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: all of the publishing, Like, let's make up our own loops,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: you know, yeah, and use those instruments. So try to
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: figure out how how they recorded it to get that sound.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I thought that's what we were doing.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: But it still had it had the integrity of soul music,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: so it still had that soul in it. Yeah, so
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: why say it reminds you of soul?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good call. Yeah, it did have
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the to your point, it had the feeling of you know,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: whether it's like an send it's like a soul man.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Like what it was like you felt when you when
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: you heard the term soul man. You feel like that's
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: a stand up brother, who's gonna you.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Whatever they have that like, these are these are these
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: are these are people really serious about their what they do,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Like it's no joke. So I have that, but yeah,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to just call it Neil Soul and and then for
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that to become like a thing of you guys just
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: making derivative music, like that's that's crazy.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: I think this labels on music sucks because it's just
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: it keeps you in a box. It keeps the listener
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: in the box, and then it forces the artists into
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: a box because they want to still try and make
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: money and they think that that audience wants to hear
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: whatever is in that box.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: So there's they don't want to go out of that box.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: So it just.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Everything in that box. If it gets played out, nobody
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: wants to hear it no more. The whole box gets
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: just thrown out.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I don't know how we got it. But
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: that brings me back to what I was gonna say,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: which is that this album is cool because it sounds
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways like almost like what would
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: have been like the natural progression for like maybe like
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: your third album if your second album hadn't gotten shoved.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: But it also is very in so many ways also
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: like out of the box.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: For for what we think of as a ball record,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: like like this like Sunshine, which is is like I
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: don't think I've ever heard anything like that from you,
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: and it's incredible, you know.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, like I said, I don't know.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: I mean when I go into the studio, I'm just
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: making stuff that I like, that feels good, and you
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: know that I'm challenging myself. Yeah, I call them beautiful mistakes.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Especially with this album. We were just doing a bunch
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: of accidents or in the studio, like doing something and
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: then out of nowhere, like something will fall on the
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: keyboard or like the guitars will be playing the kick
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: accord and something to go. We're like, whoa, but what
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: was that? Like erase everything, but keep that part.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Let's start from there, you know, that's amazing.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: And from that it would turn into something else. It
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: was like just a bunch of adventures that kind of
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: happened by accident, just like this little inquisitive kids.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: You know, after this last break, we'll be back with
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of my conversation with the law. Who are
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: you in the studio with? On some album?
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: On this album, I worked with you know, Robert Robert
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: glassfer On on a track.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I worked with.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: My core, my core people that I've been playing with
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: in my band free years Tony Whitfield and Simon. I
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: always forget Simon's producer's name, so he's going to smash
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: me or Flana Flanna fly, but incredible.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: This is a young all young music year.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: He's a guitarist.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're a guitarist, yeah, and guitarist, phenomenal producer. I
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: worked with Kareem Riggins. It's amazing, uh man wonder it's
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: also an awesome producer from Philly. I think he's out
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: here in l A now. And Jeriy Khan who's a
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: producer in Brooklyn. So this is just all my friends.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Really forget Simon's last name, but he plays in Hyat's Coyote.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marvin.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Simon, Marvin Simon, if you watch this, dude, I love you. Man.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: I just don't on anybody's last names. Sorry.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: And was a lot of the writing done in studio
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: or did you? Did? You have a lot going there?
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: On some of the songs, I would write alone, but
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: I also worked with my two writer friends, Hezekiah he's
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: a MC from Philly and MC from Philly under the
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: name Chemists.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: He's really dope. Hezekia has been uh.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Working with me as far as lyrics, go for maybe
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: since all the way back to my second my second album,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: air Tys Revenge from air Tys Revenge all the way
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: up till now, and I produced and wrote a lot
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: of that out of Philly and my old collaborator that
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I used to work with in the in that second album,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Steve McKee Steve Steve Udo was right, Steve McKeith and
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: Hezekia had their studios kind of in the same building.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: So I would just hang out at everybody's face and
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: we would call has to come up just to hang
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: and then you know, like I said, when I'm in
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: the studio and everybody's in the room, I asked everybody
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to be involved. Yeah, if my wife came to the studio,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: I would ask her to be involved somehow. Like my
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: wife has written lyrics, written lyrics to some some songs.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Like I'll write some stuff and be like this sounds stupid,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: what would you think? And because my wife is a
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: good writer, U but she writes, like really writes like
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: essays and books and stuff like that. But I ask anybody,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: so now, if I don't have anybody to bounce stuff off,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I make colachas And that's how I, uh, the latter
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: part of the record. I just started getting really uh
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: into these collages.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: How are you making these collages? How do how do
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: they start? How do they sound?
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Oh? Well, it's like a word collage.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: So I'll write something down and if I'm not really
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: like sure what it is, I'll i'll put it. I'll
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: put it aside and I'll start writing something else that
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: don't have nothing to do with it, just without the
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: music on, and I'll just start writing writing, and then
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: I'll I'll take the other paper that I was trying
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: to write lyrics to.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And you're writing to the music to that one.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And I'll cut it up, like with some scissors, cut
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: it up, cut up, and then I'll take the other
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: page that I was just writing random stuff on.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I'll cut that up and I'll just paste them all together.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Like lines, full lines, but I'll.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Cut it down and i'll just you know, pace them back.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Together and just kind of move him around.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Until I got that idea from Donald Fagan. Like I
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: was reading an article. Donald Fagan said that's how he
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: wrote his lyrics and Big Black Cow. I was like,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: what I'm gonna do that?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: That's crazy, No wonder Steally Dan lyrics. It kind of
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: makes sense though.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: The lyrics kind of make sense, but don't.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Onder like I Sometimes I just feel like, I know
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: those guys are genius, and sometimes I'm like, I'm stupid.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I don't I kind of get where he's going one
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: hundred percent.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: See, Yeah, man, I want to sit down with with
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: with ghost Face and ask him because I feel.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Like he's doing the same thing.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, ghost Face might get it. Ghost Face is
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: on that level. He's the best man. Earlier, you were saying, like,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: early on in your career, you felt very much like
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: dictated to in a sense, very much like like like
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you couldn't maybe you were hemmed in and unable to
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: make a decision on decisions for yourself or maybe I'm
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: extrapolating too far.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Yes and no.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: You know, I felt like it started off as you know,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: we want you to just get in here, do something different,
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: do something crazy. But then they were like, wow, that's
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: too crazy. We need to figure out how to like
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: bring it in the real it ends. You know, this
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: is and this is like interscope as a interscope or
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: like I wasn't designed direct to interscope, so it was
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: like production. I was under like a production company, so
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: it was kind of who are you under? It was
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: a production company called more Yo Music, So it was
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: it's like three people where they were James and Too
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: May's sons. No Way, yeah, and so these cats that
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I respect their musicianship, Yeah, but it was just I
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: don't think they were telling me like we need to
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: dumb you down to make you pop. They were just like,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: this is so wild.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: How are we gonna sell this? Man? Know?
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: What is there a version of your first album that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: is a little like are there versions of those songs
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: or other songs that are a little more.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a there's lots of song. We did so
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: many songs. I do so many songs for records, and
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: then I just sit back like we what of this
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: is a record?
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Especially for that first record, it was we did so
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: many songs, work with so many people. Wow, Like I
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: did like four songs with Dyla, but we only yeah,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: well we only chose one. So that and then when
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: I went to do my second album, I was I
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: came to the label to have Dyla do the whole album.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: So before Dyla passed, we were working like I was
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: at it at his house it's like we did like
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: six songs in Detroit and then he moved out to La.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: It was like got to be like six unfinished tunes.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the version that got leaked wasn't necessarily like.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Those songs that got leaked were like the songs that
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: I produced.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: So that wasn't like the album as it was gonna
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: come out the way that it was.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Just whoever was working with the people that were mixing
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: the album, they just like some of the stuff that
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: like the unfinished mixes of the because Dyla didn't Dyla
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: mixed all his stuff itself. So like I said, he
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: had started getting six So we just went in and
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: started mixing the songs that I had produced, and those
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: were the ones that got leaked.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Sorrow, Tears and Blood. That was that you and Dilla.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: No, that was just me.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: That was just you, Okay because someone online someone said
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: that it was Dylan and I was always.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: No, No I produced that, but I had I was
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: bringing in a lot of different people like to kind
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of be a part of it, like Za Mama Calm
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: and came and he wrapped on the last half of it.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: But it was it was for a sorrow, cheers and
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: Blood project. They were doing a Feila Cootie project that
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: wasn't even for my second album. Really around that time
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: that that's what had happened. I had I convinced the
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: label to allow me to produce six songs by myself
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: and then let Jay Dilla come in and produce six
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: songs and then we make an album.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: And they were in on that.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: They were in on it until they heard what I
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: was doing.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Did they hear the stuff that was leaked?
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: That's when they leaked it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: What didn't they like about it?
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: They didn't like it, But then when it got leaked, ironically,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: they came back and was like, this stuff's amazing.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, what the yeah, this.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Is amazing, like incredible cuts a. I me what was
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Jimmy ivying?
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Like, oh man, that's hilarious. Jimmy didn't know what to
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: think about it. He was just like, this is not
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: R and B. So then I was like, well, what's
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: R and B? Then, Jimmy so you would be like, okay, okay,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: you want to play that game. Let's get doctor dre
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: in here.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: So Doctor j was like, this ain't this ain't R
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: and B.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: It's a hybrid. I know, exactly what it is, so
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: signing me and I was like.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, how do I do this.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: In the midst of that, I guess somebody that I
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't want to out anyone, out anyone,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: but when they heard the people that they thought would
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: say it sucked, was like, actually, I could do something
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: with this.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: It got the leaked.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So someone blocked you from signing to DRE.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I don't think somebody blocked me from signing and Dre.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: I just think once I started working the project with Dre,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: the music that I had already worked on got leaked.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: I guess in an effort to have me just start
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: from scratch, you know what I mean.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Damn, that's the way it came to me.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: It was like, oh, everything's leaked, so I guess we
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: gotta start from the top.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, what, but theoretically you could have started
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: from the top, but you said fuck that. Yeah.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: I mean I tried, man, but I was just I
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: felt like I was doing a whole new album. I
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: just kind of lost what I would wear. I was
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: what was happening? Yeah, yeah, you know. And in the
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: in the middle of that, like the business side just
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: went into estellemate I think the the production label that
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I was under kind of changed homes. They went to
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: another label, So it was just a bunch of label
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: stuff started happening. And at the same time that the
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: record was bootlegs, so it was just everything was up
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: in the air.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Drey must have loved you, though, I imagine, right.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still I still talked to Dre
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: every now and then.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys made music. Still.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know what Dre's doing, but I know maybe
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: one day. Still, I loved Dre.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: I love everything he's doing, and I think the last
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: time I saw him, we would I went into the
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: studio to hang out with Anderson Pack and he came
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: through when we was just hanging Yeah, so.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Were you when you went into the stew with him
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: to do stuff? H firstborn? Second, I guess you would
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: have in a high school when Chronic came out or
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: close to Was that like in your or did you
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: kind of some some of these some people on these coasts.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like I missed that a bit. You know.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: When I was in high school, I knew of the
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Chronic because my brother was big in hip hop. But
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: when I was in high school, I was kind of
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: like a jazz snob, Like I was like, nah, man,
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: you know, only through that I really like was like, oh.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: THATX kind of hip is like.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Tropical quest because I knew the jazz samples, you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: I was kind of approude. But by the time I
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: got to the second Chronic, I was already in in college,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: you know, I was loving it.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: So by the time I got to the studio, I
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: was full on like.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: A static yeah something there with Doctor Dre And it's crazy.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: You know they always say you really want something to happen,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: you write it down, and I literally wrote down all
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: the people that I wanted to work with and I
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: worked with all of them.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Wow, And so that was crazy. It was in there.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: I was just like, this is magic, This is magic.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: And I felt at home because Scott Storch was there,
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: and Scott Storch from Philly.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So Philly got another Philly guy right of course.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: So we were just in there high five and it
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: was just it was awesome.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Damn it. Did he did he had he heard of
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you by that point, like Scott or what did he
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: know you from Philly?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I knew Scott from Philly.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: So it was it was great.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Questlove tells a great story about how Sometimes
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: came to be in this in the glasshouse record or
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: live session. I don't know how you want to frame that.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Which is an incredible I mean it's it's streaming. People
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: should listen to and watch it on YouTube. It's phenomenal,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: so well done well, i mean, directed, well performed everything.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: That's an incredible piece than you. Uh, But Questum tells
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: us a pretty pretty funny story about how Sometimes came
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: to be. Can you tell that from your perspective?
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Well, by the time I had came to the studio,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: they were kind of like already joking around, playing playing
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: the record in the way our mirror and James produced.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like just one big jam session. So
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: they were just in there laughing, joking, and I came in,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: just got on the mic and just started freestyling over
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: top their joke, their banter.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: They're poking fun at comn from missing out on the road.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe the most death y'all seen Bay. Yeah, And.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: You know, it was just a bunch of bunch of
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: laughing and joking coming, you know, and different switch ups
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: in the music they would do as jokes.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: You know, they'll play a ton of different shapes and
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: then at the end they was like, all right, you
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: picked from that and then we'll come back and make
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: it a whole track. But when I heard them, I
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: didn't know it was a joke. I just went in
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: right in there and started singing along. They were like, hey,
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: what is this this working? And some of the freestyle.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: I changed some of the lyrics, but most of sometimes
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: was just right off. Sometimes I wish I was with me,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: sometimes I wish I was a drug free I was
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: just I thought I was just going going in with
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: the bands back, you know.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: So, Yeah, that's incredible.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: It's like a freestyle song.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: It's insane, says. It's at the end of the story.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: He says it to where he's like, y'all were mixing up.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Umi says, to make fun of comment with with Bill's
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: bills bills I think from Destiny's Child because it was
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: the car Man movie. D just started. Yeah, so but
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: he said then at that he says, yeah, it was
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: one take.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: The core of it, most of it, and then I
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: just went back in and uh, put backgrounds vocals on there,
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: and then just like some of the lyrics.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: I changed some of the lyrics, but like I said,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: most of it.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Was just that was it much longer and you guys
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: had to like trim it down.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it was like, man, it was almost like
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: eight minutes just and then going into other stuff.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: But it didn't have a base on it. It was
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: just our mere playing drums and James on the keyboards.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: And then later on they had Pino Palladino come in
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: and that was one tape.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Pino didn't even Pino didn't even know what was going on.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: It was it was just like, all right in two
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: in two more bars, we won't go It's gonna go
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: to another.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It's gonna go on another gourd rady go New York
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: and it kept everything.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I loved it, or as on the spot as it
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: could get.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: As far as the music, that's an amazing story, man,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that's an amazing story.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: I love it like I love it when it's like that,
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: you know, that's just the music just comes out of you.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: When I was working with Dla, a lot of the
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: music happened the same way.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a song we just I did a
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: song with Guru on his Jazmine task album.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: On volume one of that, right yeah, right, And.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: Me and Guru went out to Detroit and Del it
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: was just in the studio. It was quiet, just like this,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: and he was just like and we was like, so,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: where's the music. He's like, oh, I was waiting for
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: y'all to get here. Let me, let me put something together.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: And he did that whole everything. He just walked around
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: collected like twenty vinyls and just all while we're talking
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: and he's rolling blood on the vinyl just like yeah,
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: so we oh man seen a minute and then he
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: would just keep like one headphone on the whole time
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: is just quiet and we just in there.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: He got games, so we playing games and stuff and
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: then he's just like.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And then like literally, I think that beat took him
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: like not even ten minutes, because he was just boom,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: next record ten minutes. And then he would just turned
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: their beat up just like that, and he's like whoa,
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: And I was like, Yo, that's a lie. You you
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: had this beat made? This was just a performed Like
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: come on.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: He was like, nah, were there beats he took longer
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: to make?
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Were there? I know?
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: Every time I worked with him, he made it from nothing,
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: damn even the drum sound.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: He was never struggling with anything like, oh I got
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: this thing, I don't know what to.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Do with nah.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Even when he was like not feeling well, it was
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: the same. His creativity didn't go nowhere.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I thought.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: The last time I worked with him, he messed my
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: head up the most because we were having a problem
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: with some of the samples. It was one of the
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: an rs from the label had came with me that
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: time and we were like talking about some of the
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: stuff and like clearing the samples, and he.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Was like, what, I replay all this.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: He programmed, he knew, programmed all of the moves in
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: the crib, replayed everything. What And I was like, what,
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know your play bass? What the hell is
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: going on?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And he said, I don't know how to play?
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: So so did he actually know or did he just
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: had he just listen enough that he knew, Like he just.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: He said he didn't know, but I was like, yo,
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: you're playing that and you killing it. He was like,
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I just know how to find the sounds that I want.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Damn, man, that's amazing.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: And the crazy thing was the label had flew James
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Boyster out the next day to kind of replay the
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: stuff that he sampled.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: And me and James was in there like what is
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: going on? Like how did you? James was like I'm out, I'm.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: It's like he because we thought James was like the
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: man at finding programming the moves, was like, wow, got
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: the exact sounds like from.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: You know on the move. It's just that one noise.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: He blew my mind.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Jesus, that's wild and did it just as fast as
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: he would do chopping the beat.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: I was done.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: That's really wild. I'm gonna go back to the idea.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Early on you were talking about your what was your
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: high school teacher's name, mister King, Mister King, you're talking
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: about how he also introduced you to the idea of
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: dynamics and music essentially, and that's so present in your music.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: And you do a version of Since I've Been Loving
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: You by Zeppelin. That's like that song has always floored
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: me because again the dynamics where they go up and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: down with that song is and then the version you do,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: and there was one you did at like a root
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: jam something you do since I've Been Loving You into
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: everything in this right place, some believer, I think at
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the Cork this morning because I was like, dude, y'all
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: are ridiculous. Man. Oh yeah, you guys are ridiculous. Man.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: That's a good The cool thing about the Roots say,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: they encompassed so many.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Styles of music.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: I was always inspired by them, you know, Like I said,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: coming up in Philly, I would search out the Amyre
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: jam sessions, you know, because he would have these impromptu
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: jam sessions around the city and I would just try
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: and find them. And ironically, like that's where I met
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: some of the cool musicians that I know to this day. Like,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: I was just always, uh, I think drawn to that,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: and I always try to keep that element. And I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: always saw what the Roots was doing. It's like kind
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: of the blueprint of what I wanted to do. I
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: felt like it was the gateway to push what I
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: had absorbed from college and jazz and how I like
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: fused that in to uh, you know, the the popular culture.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: I would say, you know what I'm saying. I felt
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: like they really were doing it.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Man. It was just inspiring to this day.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I got I gotta put in requests that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: you and Kurt do a project together. Man. There's also
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: another video. I can't find it anymore, man, but I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: ripped it so somewhere in my having in my heart
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: drive somewhere. You guys on Falling when it was still
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the Late Show doing the roots on the other side
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: ten years or so ago. Oh yeah, with the the strings.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: But there's a bit of where you and and Captain
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Kirk just go like just trading back and forth, and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. It's like chills.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's cool when there's musicians for
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: me that can.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Set up that environment where you feel like, wow, I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: can jump off this cliff and I'll be fine, yes, yeah.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: And then nobody's going no, don't jump.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: You find it hard to find musicians because I mean, like,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: you are a guy. You just strike me as a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: guy just from listening to you and seeing you, like
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: it's like I feel like you'll go further off the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: cliff than anybody, you know what I mean. Like, it's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: hard for you to find people that like, I'm like
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the Lenny Bruce Yeah for the yeah, yeah, for the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: young hands. Yeah, they won't get that reference, but yes,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: you're the Lenny Bruce of RB. You're getting arrested on
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: stage for taking it too far.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Man, I don't know.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: I mean that's like I said, that's the jazz thing,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: and then it's also the punk rock thing.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: Bad Brains is like my favorite, one of my favorite
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: groups of all time. And I mentioned my boy Chuck
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: Trees because he used to play drums and the Bad
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Brains and he's like my old g I met Chuck
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: we uh at our mere's house, but then we got
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: really close when we were roommates Uh in d'angelo's band
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: Wow and.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: For a summer. Then I got fired.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: But what you get fired for?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I couldn't. I was just a horrible background singer, man.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I seen, but I was.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: I was like so into what everybody else was doing.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: I kept missing my parts.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: It wasn't that I couldn't sing the parts, but it's
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: like our mirrors on drums. H roy Hard goes on
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: in the trumpet section. D'angelo's playing keys, and this is
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: like me right out of high school. I'm just looking.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Around at everybody, like, oh my god, this is so bad.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: And then I look and d'angelo's giving me the deaths
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: there like you missed your note again, and I'm.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Like, oh yo. He was like, yeah, who fires you
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: out of Dangelo's band? Like, how does that work?
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: D'Angelo fired me, man, But it was very friendly. He said,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: you need to go get a record. You too much
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: about the music, man, he was looking at everything.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Not doing your job, brother.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: About the music. You fucking mind you that's crazy. Did
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: did you process it as like a blow or you're
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: just like, nah, you're probably right man, Like no, I was.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: I took it as wow, you think I could get
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: a record? Hell? Yeah?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Is that? Is that? How you knew Keytar Boston Bird?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: I met Keytar?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, from that process because I started putting together a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: demo with.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: The guy from but the drummer from the Spin Doc
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: which I never I gotta said, I never knew that.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We went to the same college.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: The drummer from the Spin Doctors, Aaron Comas two Princes
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Spin Doctors produced on your first record and everything.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: Ironically, we went to the same college and we were
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: playing in the same.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: Dive bar jazz band.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: Uh like three in the morning at this place called
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: Sidewalk Cafe, and me and Rob were having a hard
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: time stay and walk to make the gig. So Aaron
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: was like, YO, just come to my house, and you know,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: I got some instruments there. We could kind of like
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: jam until the gig we go there. He lives in
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: a man like straight up like I'm like, what do
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: you do mean?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: You're so rich?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: Because I didn't know anything about the spin doctors and
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: then he was like, dude, I'm about He didn't even
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: tell us until like, I don't think he ever told me.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: I just kind of found out about that myself.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: He didn't have like records on the wall.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: No, it's just like a regular house. But he had
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: an ill studio. Wow, just like wow, like how you
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: got all this stuff?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: And that I wrote.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: A lot of h like my first uh songs on
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: on on our air, on my first album at his crib,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: like when you call Queen in Sanity love poems, all
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: of those.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: That's that's the sequence, right, that's in sequence on the
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: album too. That's a those are great songs man, And
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: he's playing drums on those, yep.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Except he's playing drums on all of those except for
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: Queen Insanity. Because I mirrored I marreor did a uh
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: a mere move. I was just like, let me try something,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: and I think, uh, you know, I was just like wow,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: we kept. We kept a lot of it, the integrity
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: of it, but that was the only one that we
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: kind of re recorded. But everything else it was just
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: like it was at this spot.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: I think it was another tune too. We had this so,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: like I said, I had did a whole.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Record alone at Aaron's and then we just picked some
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: of those and shopped it too for late You.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Know, you got still cool.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're still cool. I just haven't spoken to him
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: in a while, but yeah, Aaron, Aaron, we had a
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: whole album. I thought it was kind of like a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: rock album almost like not rock. It was like kind
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: of rock, kind of Jameric.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Why ish?
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: But I was gonna ask, I mean, we sped past
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the Zeppelin, but like the way you, I mean, like
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the way you do a Zeppelin song, man, Like that's
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: really it's it's really, first of all, a lot of
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the any cover I've really heard of yours, whether we
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: just Sarrotares and Blood or Can't High Love or Hide
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: and Dry or since I've been loving you, it's like
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: you definitely bring something to I want to ask you
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: more about just what you the way you might interpret
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: the song, But have you ever thought about like it's
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: it's I can't think of anyone who can do a
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin song justice the way that you did on that. Like,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: have you thought about just forming a rock band, like
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: putting a band like I mean, and I guess your
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: second album is a little.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Were very hard hard rock. I think the band everybody
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: in my band thinks there rock musician anyway.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I was sort of making My kids asked
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: me that too, you know. My son asked me, why
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: don't you make another type of band when y'all doing
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: But I'm just like we what I do is I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: try to shove everything in the world into one burrito.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but it's just so fun to hear you
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: do that genre because it's.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: Like, yeah, there's a I would love to go full
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: on into that genre, into the jazz world too.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: You know, like a lot of people don't even know
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: that I sing jazz.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: We would like to do like a straight up like
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: a like a I.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Used to, But then I'm like, what the hell is
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: jazz now?
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of things.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: It's what I'm doing.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of what you're doing now.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: So I don't know rock would be cool though.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a party that wants to the amount
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: of the amount of time between this record and your
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: last records, almost the amount of time between yeah, the
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: first and second album. Do you is there a party
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: that is happy to just put stuff out when every
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: so often? Do you? Is there a party that wants
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: to it? Sounds like you have a lot of stuff too,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: like something you can be releasing regularly, not to I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: could put it.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: I could put out an album every two years. I could.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: I got so much music.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Why are you depriving us?
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just wanted to be done right. You
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: know I've been doing putting music out. You're not satisfied
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: with the way I put it out that. I'm just like, man,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: I wanted.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: To be done the right way. You know.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: With this album, I put my own money into it
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: to make sure I kind of like did it how
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: I was envisioning it and make it kind of work.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: But I don't want to go bro, you know what
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: Definitely not. But it's a good album though.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: That's sure. I insisted on it.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: It almost feels like the most even including the one
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: that I guess like at leads. But that's not fair
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: because that wasn't really what it was intended to be.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: But it does feel like the most cohesive project in
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: a sense, you know, where it's like it just feel
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: like there's a through line and you could just start
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: right back at one like like you could just loop
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: it and it's like it feels like it's like a circle.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't stop. You know. It has that real
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: complete feel to it, you know.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean this record was definitely a labor of love.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: A lot of it was done in my own like
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: personal studio, and just it wasn't a label for I'm
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: doing this, so I can kind of because the label
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: like signed me to do it. It was just something
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: I was doing. And then I was like, I want
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: this to come home. Let me go fish for somebody
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: to help me.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. But I don't want to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: do that no more. Man. I feel like.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: I put together good projects and I just have to
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: find a good home for it, you know, to so
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: that I can just put it out. But like I said,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: I got mad ship, dude, mad shit.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: Man, we got I want out there. I mean, I
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: hope you put it out.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: It just has to be it has to be right.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: And that's the way I feel like because I put
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: a lot into stuff.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: You know, can I I won't keep you here forever?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: But can I ask you about Morocco? Oh yeah, I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: would love ask one. What's some of my number one
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: destinations to go to? Man?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: I love Morocco. The people are very It's almost like
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: a competition. Like I'll go to a woman my wife's
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: aunt's house, and then she'll find out her sister I went,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: you know, her the other I know find out that
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: I went there, and then it's like oh yeah, And
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: then I'm in my mind. I'm like, we going there,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: We're going to her house, and she goes, really, so
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: what'd you eat over there?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: Well, now you're gonna have this.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: It's like everything is great if you're a visitor, because
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: everybody's like you, you have never had hospitality like this.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: He come to my house and give you the best.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: So I'm like raiding. Everybody's green, everybody's a mentee.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: It's one of those doesn't sound too different from like
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: just like a black family that Auntie's house, Like.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, come and visit me.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, Like oh man, you know, like
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I can't visit no one you know, and.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: Then they feed you and feed you and feed you,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: and you're like, I'm none. And if you don't know
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: how to say this one word, you have to learn
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: this word or else you will you your stomach will
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: bust open and you'll just die in somebody's dinner table.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: You have to learn this word called safi, saffi safi
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: that means enough, okay.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Enough, because they will just keep feeding you and feeding
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: you like no, no, no.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: No, because I mean they don't make us spread like
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: you've never seen.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: Wow and yeah, so wow.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: And the awesome thing about it, I didn't gain no weight,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: and I ate so much food. I felt like I
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: was getting stronger. That's when I knew like there was
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: some something, something's up with.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: The food here. Yeah, because.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: I was eating late at night. Oh man, just some
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: of these leftovers, that's.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: My I might move there. I was eating later night
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: last night. I feeling guilty, like a month, I gotta move.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: And the scenery, you know, I got into painting out there,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: like really into painting because of so much scenery.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: And you had never done that really before.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: I always kept like a sketch book, but I never
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: like set up an easel and it was just like
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna paint like I'm gonna make a painting. I
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: always had like painter friends, so I watched them and
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: how they put and it was always similar to me
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: the way I put my songs together, just like a
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: bunch of collages. And so that was like my approach
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: to my paintings. And now I think that's kind of
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: what changed on this last album, because I approached it
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: just like I was doing those paintings, like just throwing
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: shit against the wall and see what sticks, you know,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: or waiting around for something random that happened that we
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: didn't know how we did it. And then now I
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: was like, that's thetart, you know. Now let's see what
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: we can do around that. And I think I learned
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: that from from the painting.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. Yeah, And are you living in Morocco? Morocco
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: or like kind of.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: Like off and on?
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: I still my family still has a property out there
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: and I'm playing on. I'm actually on my way back
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: out there in July. So the plan is to live
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: here and and Morocco.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: It's really cool, man. I heard Hendricks back in the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: day used to go through Morocco.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: I swear, I swear.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: There's so many mountains and waterfalls. Morocco is I think
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: the only place in Africa where they have all of
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: the seasons.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: Really there's snow. There's that wind like a winter with
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: snow out there.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: Well, you go up these mountains and there's snow up there.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, and what's the music? I out there?
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: Incredible? I got into this. It's this transient music that
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: they play called Ganawa.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: I heard of it.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Ganawa music is music based off of this instrument called
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: the gimbrii, which is they make it out.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: Of the actual throat of.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: The of a goat, like and it's a base and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: they make it from the the skin of the throat
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: and they use the strings the intestines because they have
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: this thing where if they slaughter animal, they have to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: you have to use the of the entirety of the animals.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: So they do other things with like they'll make if
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: after they eat all of the meat, they'll use the skin,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: they'll use the bones. They you know, nothing goes away.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: So they've made this instrument in Ghanawa was basically kind
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: of birthed out of the slave tree, the Islamic slave tree,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: the sub Saharan slave trade.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: The slaves came together, and the way they would remember
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: their heritage or where they came from, they would make
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: they through these songs they would create from this gimbi.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: But when I tell you, it was like I was
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: at a Pentecostal church. Dude, it was I didn't know
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: what nobody was saying, but cats up. They're singing songs
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: about Allah.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: But it's like we're at a Pentecostal church.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: Cats is passing out, their little cat's getting laid hands
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: on and they sacrificed the chickens. Wow, it's like a
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: full on Southern Baptist. And I was just in there
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: like wow, Like I feel like a little boy again.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: And they start these they start these seances. I call
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: them at like five in the afternoon and then it's
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: over at five in the morning. And I mean, just this,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: it's like a trance. Like you go into this music
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: and it's like you leave this planet. And I'm actually
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: going out there in July to play with.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: A Ganawa band.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, like a band from out there, and you're
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: gonna sing.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm gonna saying, but it's gonna
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: be awesome. You know it's a live thing. Are you're
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: gonna of course live? Yeah, at the festival. They have
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: a Ganala Festival. They have lots of festivals, music festivals,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: Man and Hendricks. That's what Hendricks will be. He would
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: go to those festivals. But it's this I really can't
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: describe it other than it's like it feels like Delta
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: blues Wow mixed with riggy Wow.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to check that out that part of Africa.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: It just seems like incredible.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: Like I would.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: I would try to record them, but they don't let you,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: Like if they see your phone, they'll be like, oh.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: Like I pulled it out at one of the everything stopped.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: I felt like. I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: I just had to get some of this groove. I
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: had to get some of this groove down the chickens.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: But we had them come.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: We had them come to my house and they I
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: have a rooftop, built a tent on the roof and.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: They played the whole thing on the roof.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Did you record that?
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: They couldn't tell me no that. I was like, y'all, no,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: I can record. Now you're out there.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: You're like like Alan Low Max and Morocco or some
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: ship man.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: Oh man, they they called me the America honey black man.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: They're going another country. I guess I am. Goddamn yeah.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: But the.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Really really good people, beautiful people.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: That's great man. Well, ship man, I'll come check you
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: out there with these groups.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: That's how yeah. Man.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: Fortunately have to miss you in l A bock at
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: you hey, thank you for thanks for taking all the time.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate having its cool conversation.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: In the episode description, you'll find a link to a
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: playlist of some of our favorite songs and features from
• 1:21:51
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• 1:22:07
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