Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Wyclef Jean - Live from On Air Fest

Transcript

Wyclef Jean - Live from On Air Fest · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin why Cleft John had spent the last three decades
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: as one of the most impactful rappers, producers, and composers
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in popular music. As a part of the Fujis, he
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: helped craft their nineteen ninety six landmark album The Score,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one of the best selling hip hop albums of all
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: time and personally one of my favorites. The following year,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: he released his debut solo album, The Carnival, which included
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: hits like Guantanamera featuring Celia Cruz and the platinum certified
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: single Gone Till November. As a writer and producer for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: other artists, Wycliffe is behind Whitney Houston's My Love Is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Your Love, Santana's Maria Maria Shakira's Hips Don't Lie, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the Destiny's Child remix of No, No No, which was
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: their breakout single. Today, we're bringing you a live conversation
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: recorded at the On Air Podcast Festival, where I was
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: joined by special guest host Sam Sanders to sit down
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: with wyclef. We get into what it was really like
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in the studio with Whitney here Houston, how the Fuji
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: shaped their sound while recording The Score, and the wisdom
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: y Cleft would pass on to his younger self about
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what makes a great creative collaboration. This is broken record,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with y Clef.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broke a Record
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: podcast if you'd like to watch.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Without further ado, justin Richmond and why Cleff Jean, come
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: on out, come on out.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, welcome.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: You know are you?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in charge, boss man.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Man. I'm so happy here with you.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right, that's right.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's James Bird.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I remember one time we did an interview twenty nineteen
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and uh we were talking about something and you were like,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it'd be easy if I just showed you,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, we don't got a guitar.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: We got up, We walked around this office building, every
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: damn room. We found the most busted guitar missing, the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: string wouldn't stay in tune. You tuned that thing up.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: It was a miracle. I don't know how you tuned it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Tune that thing up and played it like like Billboard is.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Andrix combined was like the craziest thing. And that's
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: when I realized, I mean, I always knew you were
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a great songwriter, great vocalist, great producer, great. But I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was like, wow, why Cleff is a player? Man? Like
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: y Clef is a musician a player, and not a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: player in that way, but I mean a music player.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe, but you really, you really are an incredible,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: incredible musician.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: And uh, you know, not.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Everyone, not everyone can just do that on a you know,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: we just go find a random beat up, bust the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: guitar with the missing stream and play it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: You know, what did you play that day? Do you remember?
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: I just tuned the guitar and then I just started
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: just playing, you know, playing chords, playing perfect fifths, just
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: having fun.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: But for me, like uh, instruments. It started for me
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: like in Haiti, I would say I left, I left.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: Oh there's always one Haitian somewhere, so right, so that
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: that's why you see the flag. Yeah, but you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: I say, like it starts for me in that small,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: tiny village.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Man, how old were you when?
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: Like I was, I was like four, Like my aunt
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: will tell you like my first song was to my
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: straight Dogs. It's the worst, probably the worst song I
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: ever wrote. But tell us I'll tell you this song.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: It's terrible. So what happened though, was I used to
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: in this village like straight dogs would constantly come and
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: I would feed them. And then one day it was
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: marti gra Carnival. And then so I put a bunch
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: of tar on me, like tar, like black tar you
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: gave your h So I was like, and then I
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: put a bunch of like rags and then just creating
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: an outfit for carnival, right, And then I'm out there
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: and then the dogs see me and they literally all
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: come to attack me because they couldn't recognize me. And
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: then when they jumped on me, and I was like
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: gulliblebib and then they all just started licking me. So
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: my aunt was like, that's his first song, the worst
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: song I've ever wrote, but saved my life.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: What did it mean?
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: It was just the tone, right, because because the the
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: the music is built from vibration, So lyrics are what
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: we put afterwards. We just feel an expression, you know
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying before words, it's an expression.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: So interesting then you're saying that the lyrics come afterwards.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: When you're writing a song, are you thinking mel first
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: or are you thinking lyrics first?
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: It comes melody at times mostly melodies. Yeah, rap wise though,
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: because I was a battle rapper. That's how I learned
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: how to speak English words. Was fierce, you know what
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: I mean. So I would write raps depending on who
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: I'm about to battle. That's how I would write my schemes.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: But when it came to like song writing, it all
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: came from the church. So I would just hear melodies first.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: What kind of church?
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: So my dad grew up in Haiti when he came
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: to Brooklyn, it's a church of the Nazarene, so it's
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: very it's like Pentecostal. It's literally like club church, you
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like, if you missed the Club,
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: come to our church on Sunday, you're gonna get that
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: same energy.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: It's incredible to say. But it's been thirty years since
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: The Score, which is for me, the Score one of
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the foundational albums of this This is gonna be like
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: maybe blasphemings to certain people, but for me, when I
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: think about The Score, I think about it like it's
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: like hip hop's Abbey Road in the sense of there's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: great music. There's great rock music after Abbey Road. But
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it could have stopped there and we would have been fine,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And as much hip hop
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: came after the Score that I love, and I love
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of it. If we had just stopped right
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: there at the score, we was good. That was it,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I mean incredible and much like the Beatles too, the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: sum of all those parts man incredible. But I want
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to play something real quick, because your first album blunted
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: on reality. You guys put it out and to your
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: point of being a battle rapper. It was very for
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the people who know out there. Maybe this makes sense,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: maybe doesn't. Very fool schnickings in a way. It was
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: heavy on the round underground, heavy on the boom, bat
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: heaving on the like you know, dope rhyme schemes and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: is it okay?
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: You're kind? It sold two copies, Okay, I.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Didn't want to say it. But then Salon Remy did
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the Nappy Heads remix and I want to play a
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: bit of that real quick, and this became a hit
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: for you guys.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Yo, Mona, Lisa, Could I get a date on Friday?
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: And if you're busy, I wouldn't in might takeing Saturday, hey, or.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know, if did pass coming around the way.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your head it was.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Shut what you got did? Can I guess some of
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: that lyric.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: A cheap of.
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: Cheaper y'all, Well, I'm anaik briyall, y'all, darn darn a.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Cheaper cheaper y'all. Well, I'm a leak briyall y'all, y'all, y'all.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: You on a battle swing my brink comand the man
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: like I was king, and all your dreams are right now,
• 7:58
  Speaker 6: all replica sleeping kink cling the box almost the face
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: and say I got tired as a fat lady, so
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: wat sing nobody own our pro but.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: Lit by that.
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: So I'm your king died like that because I got
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: Saliza Moore girls convinsist. I was wanted to quote, but
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: now I'm killing with a good minute assassination on the kid.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: From the Capitol.
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: I never played us Omar, but now I'm in general
• 8:19
  Speaker 6: Raw hospital.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And this is the first time classord that's that's not
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that remix.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I ran back the nineties, spring back the nineties, so I.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Missed the ninety But that to me, when you listen
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to the the Fuji's in order, like that's the first
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: time it sounded like you guys figured the sound out
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: like that sounds like what this like? That sounds like
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the genesis of the score. And I never put it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: together until I listened to Blunted in Reality Napihead's remix
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and then the score back to back to back to
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: do this because it sounded at the time, it just
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: sounded like the score came out fully formed. Everyone immediately
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: loved it. And so where did this come from? And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I was wondering, did working with salam Remi on this
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Napyheads remix? Did that unlock something for the three of
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you guys creatively?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: So I think the first part about it is so
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: growing up in Jersey, we was raised with Cooling a Gang.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: So the first Fuji album was produced by Kalise Beyond
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: from Cooling a Gang. So he's like the wizard. He
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: did jungle boogie and everything.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: So at a.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Very early age, I think I was like fifteen sixteen,
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: so hanging Aroundalisekalise.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Took me in as a like a son.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: I was a jazz major in school, so he took
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: me in and he started he was like mister Mayagi,
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: so he would quiz me and give me all these chops.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: So in the process Kalise was responsible for producing Blunding
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: on Reality. So what happens is there was a sound
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: out there, so Kalise was like, Okay, I know they
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: can rap, but we're going to get them in that sound.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: The best way to explain my relationship with Salam Remy
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: it's like Ray Charles and Quincy Jones, because it's like
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: I already had everything in my head, but I'm real
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: young and I'm doing beats quietly. So like when I
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: would go to Salaam, I would share with Salaam, like
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: what I'm doing, he would share with me. I actually
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: went to see Salam first and then I bought Lauren
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: and praz over, so we had an idea of in
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: my head, like what I wanted to do, but it's
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: like cooling a gang.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: What are you going to say?
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: You're gonna shut up and you're gonna eat the l
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: and figure it out. So they had a big studio
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: in West starring So every time we record, then I
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: go back to the hood. When I go back to
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: East Starringes, what was being recorded in the hills was
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: not sounding like what was coming out of the trunks.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: So in the trunks, me and Jerry Wonder in the
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: book of basement. We was literally doing what was coming
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: out of the trunks. And this is one last part
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: that you had to know. So I ain't want to
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: sell dope. So I was like, yo, I gotta figure
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: out of hustle because the burger king wasn't working too
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: well for me, right, So what I did was like
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: I was like, well, everybody on the block they rapping.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: So if we become our own versions of Doctor Dre
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: then we don't have to sell dope. We can just
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: charge them to do records. So in this concept, we
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: literally just started developing a pulse within that vibe. So
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: when we all went to see Salam, the first thing
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: Salam was like was like, y'all too talented?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Like y'all over talented, right.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: Because in this industry too, Now you gotta keep it
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: stupid like one plus one got it equal to we
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: gotta do some knucklehead shit.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Did they throw out some ideas that they thought were
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: too talented?
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: They they just.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: Felt like because this group, I mean, I played fourteen instruments,
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm a jazz head. I was scoring like
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: off Broadway stuff. Lauren was heading to Sister I too.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: She just crushed the apollo so there was a lot.
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: It was like, yo, how do you break that? Because
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: you see in the industry, it's harder to break sophisticated talent, right,
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: you see the because when you have talent that don't
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: care about fame but care about artistry and will not
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: compromise it, it's like hard. You'll be like, okay, what's
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: the middle? And so it was like a Beach Street movie.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: So Salam put on the beat and he was like, Yo,
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: just go in the booth and literally, now I'm about
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: to see a different style of production. So he puts
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: on the snappy head beats and I go into booth first,
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: and Salam has a tape where we're wrapping for twenty
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: minutes straight.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: So Salam, you listening to this?
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: You got to drop this for the thirtieth year anniversary,
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: and it's this wizard Salam literally, so we left to
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: go to Europe. He went back and then he cut.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: He cut the twenty minutes. It's literally three minutes and
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: thirty seconds. And then the minute he did the math,
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: something happened in my head too, and I said, oh, okay,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: I understand.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can I actually go a follow up on this song?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: So it opens with you singing Mona Lisa, that melody,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: that little ditty that motif ends up and an R
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and B ballad that you make for your solo album,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: The Carnival with the Neville Brothers.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, I'm very.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Interested in understanding how you take a motif like that
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Mona Lisa riff and have it work for a rap
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: song with Silamam producing, and also an R and B
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: slow gem with another brother.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Play the Carnival vision of Mona Lisa Real quid just
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: so people get here with Sam's talking.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: One of the greatest love songs.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: This is, by the way, and just for context, one
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: year I want to talk about this too, one year
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: after the score recorded on tour, you know, promoting the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: school on tour. Yeah, let's hear this.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: My ticket Saturday, right about nine.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: If you want your gee, you gotta hear the Nevills
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: on Thistle Up.
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: If you don't have a gee, if you have a
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: little bode, I still want to the front.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: We want all the ladies fast, relax, let your hair out.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: At least White Left.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: Presents the Neville Brothers in the house tonight.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I knew.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: She grew.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Incredible.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Whatever I can't take that same riff and make it
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: work in both.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I did a party file I'll cut the top Office,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: but we heard it's all good. You know.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: How do you so like when you're doing that, how
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: does your mind say? How does your mind know, well,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: this one little riff, it'll be two different songs that
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: are very different.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Like walk me through that.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say the best way to understand that is, uh,
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: in high school at fifteen years old, my music teacher
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: walks in and I'm playing piano and I'm doing circle
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: of fifths yeah, and she's like, where do you learn
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: that from? And I was like, oh, I just play
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: every day and trick and she was like, close your eyes,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: what do you see? And then I said, well, on
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: the right side of my eye, I see one, three,
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: five and on the left side I see one five.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: So I haven't read music. I didn't understand theory. So
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: she was like, tomorrow you're gonna start jazz and I
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: was like, nah, jazz ain't for me, it's for old people.
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: And I said, I'm gonna be a battle rapper like
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: L COOLJ. I got this thing figured out. And then
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: she was like, you could do both right, So now
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: when once I got into jazz and classical.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Music because you were seeing scale degrees. The one three
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: five and the one five.
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, y five is a try I one three five
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: and then the one five and the left hand. So
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: the numbers are the notes of a scale eight, and
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: it's like perfect harmony.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Right, that's the happy one.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: It's perfect.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: So I was a happy baby someone saying that. So
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: I fell in love with a few composers, Gershwin, cap Callaway,
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Quincy Jones, Louis Armstrong. Now what did I give from that?
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: So when you hear Yo Mona Lisa, can I get,
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: It's like, so let's go there, I go there, I
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: go there, right, go bye bye.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: So in my brain when I do a composition, long
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: before the AI, it was I I have literally seven
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: different versions in my brain.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Of what this thinking, of what it is.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: So it's like at the end of the day, I
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: could do a song and I can hear it in
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: a ballad form, and then I can hear it in
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: a house form, or I could hear it in the
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: reggae form. So all that time when I was hearing,
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: I was like, man, I'm obsessed with the meters.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: I was obsessed with Aaron.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: I was like, man, if I could get these guys,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: that would be the R and B version of Mona Lisa.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Would there ever be another version of Mona Lisa today
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: that you made? And if so, what would it be?
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know, Man, we got I think Burnap Boy
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: did a version of.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Its generation. Yeah, we'll be back with more from y
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Cleff after the break. Going back real quick to uh
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to that Salon Rummy story. So you learned? So you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you when you heard that cut down version of Nappyhead's remix,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: were you you? Instantly? You weren't upset. You knew this
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: is what we need to be doing, Like this is
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the right he heard the magic, he cut it to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the right parts, and this is what we need to do.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean again, like I understood the math right,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: so like my brain like it's like infinite math.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: So but one plus one equals too. Like he just
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: taught me.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Salim taught me like, all right, if you're not gonna
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: be in in Carnegie Hall every week with your instruments
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: sitting amongst the orchestra, and you want to be in
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: the music business, this is how to go.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: You got to figure it out.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: Because Quincy Jones was doing the sinatra and all of that,
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: but then he figured out how to do the other thing.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: So once Shalam did that, my eyes opened up.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: So then what's the I know you got from the label.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: You got a bit of an advance. You buy a
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: bunch of equipment, you put it in the basement, the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: book of basement as you call it, the studio, And
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: what's the first thing you make then for Because you
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: produced all but two songs on the score, So what's
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the first thing you do for that album? Okay?
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: So the equipment we got it from a garage cell really, so.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: All the score okay?
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so everything you hear from the score, Me and
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: my cousin Jerry, and my other cousin. You know, he
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: funded us. He was like the chef, so he had
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: a higher up job and he funded us. So I
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: only tell you this so you understand how my brain works.
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: So we went to a garage cell music stunt. Now,
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: for my nerds that are watching this, let's just run
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: through three things, which is important.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: We bought a four five six.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: Ampex rail big tape machine, so like when you be
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: seeing the Ferdie Mercury, and then they cut tapes for
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: the backgrounds. It was very important the tape machine. You
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: got twenty four tracks, right, the twenty fourth is the
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: sympthy that's where the noise come in and you try
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: to stay away from that. That was one we bought.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: A second thing we bought was an old MCI board.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: Shout out to one Riker, one of the engineers, and
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: this old MCI board just sounded warm, and then we
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: just built a bunch of patch base around that. Again,
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: we did this ourselves, like the way Steve job was
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: doing what was in his garage. It was like, why
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: go to pay a million dollars for a knave board
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: or an SSL when the soul is inside of your brain,
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: inside of your heart, right, So we just figured it out.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: So in saying that, that's how that was the mystery.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: So we did the score inside of that basement. And
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: you have to imagine this is thirty something years ago.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: This is thirty years ago dating today. So now a
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: child like my daughter or my niece, they literally can
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: just pop their computer and do music right from wherever
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: they had around the world. So I just say that
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: to show you how advanced and how far ahead we
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: were when it came to the technology yeah, Yeah, what's
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: the first.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Thing you make with all that You get the pass
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: base set up, you got everything together. What's one of
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the first things at least that made the album that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you do.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: I would say like along with that, I was obsessed
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: with Pink Floyd the Wall. I needed something that had
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: space in it, you know what I'm saying. So one
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: of the early joints was the Mask. Have you ever
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: won the Mask? And this is long before COVID, Like
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: rappers have a way of the same ship and then
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: years later they gonna be like he was Nustredamis. The
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: Mask was one of the early ones because of the
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it was like the jazz influence
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: and everything. It was pretty amazing. Shout out to John
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: Forte who we passed. Yeah, he was like, you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: one of one of the architects with the score. Like
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: I would say, like the Score, it was like the
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: best of like Motown Stacks band. So we just used
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: to horn in and people always talk about so we
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: were the refugees and then on the other side of
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: town we had the outsiders. And then so you had
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: two different clicks, the outsiders. Eminem was part of the Outsiders,
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: then a Kon was part of the Refugees. So when
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: you hear Fuji La the remix, that's Akon.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Are you serious?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, am I I'm getting me on. Y'all don't
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: know everything, man, am I'm breaking trivia.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: So, so Akon is like my little brother brother. So
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: we was working on the score. Akon used to come
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: around and be like, yo, man, listen to this, listen
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: to this, and he would be playing his music for me.
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: And but we're touring, and I was like, so before
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: we finished the score, I was like, yo, the score
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: cannot finish without putting this kid on it. And then
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: so now when you hear the Fujila remix, well not now,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: when you go back and listen, that's Akon on that
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: So I only say that.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: So we said that.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: Akon and then Eminem Inem they crew MMM was part
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: of the Outsiders. Then when Eminem had left the Outsiders,
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: he went to Detroit to do what he's doing. When
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: we did the score, we bought in the Outsiders. So
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: we wanted to show that unity. So on this song Cowboys,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: it's like the Refugees and the Outsiders like getting all together,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: you know. John Forte and everybody. So it was pretty
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: so so there's a whole cool background of the history.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I just keep thinking about all of the names that
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you're dropping, and you're in credit record of collaboration, you
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: know salam Remy Then, Nevil Brothers, Akon, Shakira, Whitney, Houston's
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Destiny's Child. When you are deciding who to collaborate with
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: or fielding requests for collaboration, what is your north star
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: in deciding who to make music with?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Because you have a pretty good track record.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, thanks, I think that for me, I don't
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: even think of it like a collaboration. I've always thought
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: of it like how I could compose something for someone,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: so like, for example, like you hear Shakira hipstone line,
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: but I did that to everybody heard Yah, But I
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: did that two years before Shakira. It was on a
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: movie called Havanah Knights Dance like this. So so so
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: a lot of my what I do is always based
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: on the mind of a composer. Now when I write
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: these records, I never think of myself because like if
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: for me, when I'm on music, I just think too deep,
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I'd be like if I.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: Was president then I get elected on Friday, they'd be
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: like that shit ain't gonna play on the radio. But
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: when it comes to artists, I'm always a fan and
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: then I would demo the record and that's how I
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: end up staying on a lot of that stuff.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: How do you know when they say no to a collapse?
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: Well, the thing is I always say, I have to
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: be able to give something back to the artist, right,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: and it's deeper than that, you know what I'm saying.
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: I was touched the other day when I received some
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: flowers from Beyonce, you know, and then she was like yo.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: I mean they kind of like destiny should popped off
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: because of you an area.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: But it was ill because there's a composer and be
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: understanding that, like I would perform. Then I bought them
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: on tour with me. But she would always be on
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: the side of the stage again right, watching the same
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: way I would watch the next person. So right, So
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: it has to be bigger than the collaboration. I've touched
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: people that I felt have got next. Like remember I
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: said they went from a dream to the Young Supremes.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: That was pretty amazing.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: Most intimidating person that I've ever been in the studio
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: like dog my boots was shaking.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Whitney Houston.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about that because I personally
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: think that one of her best songs is My Love
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: is Your Love?
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, man, tell me why I ain't gonna hold you
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: because it's like dog like we in the hood in
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: high school. You feel what I'm saying to you, and
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: were a bunch of bad kids and we like.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: I believe the children.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying to you.
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: You know it's like and I'm like, oh, you know missus.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: Whitney's like it was just in the studio. She was amazing.
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: She was you know, so Clive hit me and I'm like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: you know, he's like, you're Clark. David's the record for Whitney,
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: and you know, as a church boy with the church,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: it's right, and Whitney was going through something at the time.
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: And then so so you just said, how do you
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: know who to collaborate with? So I'm over here and
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: I'm writing this record if tomorrow's judgment day. So I
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: was like, I'm gonna write like a love note, you
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: know what I mean, like to to to God. And
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: then so Whitney's writing a love note to God. It's
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: almost like she's in the gates. And then so I
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: send a demo and I'm like waiting, you feel what
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: I'm saying to you, and and finally you get the
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: call and then you know what I mean. And then
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: she's like, you know.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I don't like it? Why I don't like it? I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: love it?
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So me and Jerry one for you?
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, I hate the song.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: No no, I loved it so so so in saying
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: that to me, that was like, you know what I'm saying,
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: like someone like you just idolize?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: That was probably yeah, yeah, hold on, but what was it? So?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I can't bring a Whitne and hold up? So what
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: what is it? When you're in the studio with Whitney?
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: How do you approach that? Because like the idea of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: telling Whitney, yeah, let's do it this way. Maybe let's try,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Like I just how do you even you know, as
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a layperson, how do you think to do that?
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: I do?
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: Like, yeah, I think, like, so Whitney, we like, you know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: we had it was like brother and sister in the
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: studio and I'm the choir director, so I know who's going.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: To sing the lead? The soprano.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: The so we have that the church just gave you.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: So we had that church code connection right where we
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: wrapped out. But here's a crazy story. Y'all might have
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: heard it, or ya might not. So I'm doing I'm
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: doing this like I'm doing it right. I'm doing this joint.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: And in the middle.
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: Of the record, right, it sound like to me that
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: Whitney dropped a note.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: It sounded flat to me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: You heard Whatney's sounding flat?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: What do you know?
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Do you just think that and say, I can't be right?
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: She can't be flat?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Bro, listen, what did you do?
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I was like, in my ear, I heard something was off.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: And then so you know, as a producer, this is
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: where you have to make what I call the final call, right.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: You gotta tell him you're literally right.
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: So you know I stopped everything. You know what I
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: mean and what I was telling you. Remember I said,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: my legs started shaking cold sweat, you know what I'm saying.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: And she's on the other side, and I'm like, miss
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Whitney Houston, You're gonna have to do that one again.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: It came out a little flat what she said. You
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: saw how silent it wasn't here, yo, sit got mad silent,
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: and I was like, I'm fucked. And then and then
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: she goes, baby, it's not flat. I bent the note
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: that bro I went back and she listened to the take,
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: and her ear was so advanced that the way I
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: was playing a major and minor the same way like
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: bb King with Ben the note inside of it. So
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: that literally, like till today, that was one of the
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: things that just blew my mind.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Whitney's not flat.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Was never flat.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I heard that she really cuts up in the studio
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: like she has fun. She's a jolly old time in
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the studio.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I've heard, you know.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: My experience was one of the best experiences because I
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: had Whitney in the studio, I had Bobby, I had
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: the daughter.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: I had all of them.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: So she had so so and Bobby Brown and then
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: so So in the studio. The illest moment for me
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: was when Whitney was in the booth and she was
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: singing and her daughter was on the other side with me,
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: and then her door while her mom is singing, her
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: mom can't hear where she's going, and then she goes.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Sing saying mommy because that ends up in the track.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and then so I just sample. I sampled her daughter.
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: I ain't even Whitney ain't even hear that till the
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: final version.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Wait, so you heard her daughter say sing mommy?
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Were you recording in the control room?
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: So I have the control room, but I still always
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: have Mike's inside of my main room. But if you're
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: in the control room, Whitney can't hear. But her daughter
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: is cheerleading her mom.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: She's like, sing mommy yeah.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: And then I go, wow, I'm seeing I said what
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: you say. And she don't know she's being recorded. So
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: I sat my engineer and she goes, sing mommy yeah.
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: And then I saved that on a sample, and then
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: later I went up and I did that. So that
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: was pretty pret your mind, your mind pretty.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. Well, not's break and we're back with y
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Cleft Sean looking back, you make the score huge hit,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: you're on the road, you're making the carnival, and for
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, I don't know, the group is sort of
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: not holding looking back on it, how would you counsel
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: yourself as y Cleft today to y Cleft back then
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: in terms of how to be a member of the
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: fujis in that moment?
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, the thing is like, way before me,
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: there was people that made the same mistakes as me,
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: Like you could read all about it, like it's it's
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: very clear. Even if I was to go back to
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: speak to the younger why cleft, the problem is you
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: can't go back and speak to your younger self.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: What you do is within your present self, you're able
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: to give a young one that you see that has
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: that air and on the come up and you're like, yo, man, listen,
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: now these are a list of things that you should
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: not do moving forward. And but at the same time,
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: you see within the universe when the vulnerability of artists
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: and the honesty of artists. Right, So these thirty years,
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: there still was a healing process.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Right. Lauren's my sister.
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: You know, her kids are like, I'm uncle, why Cleff,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: you feel what I'm saying to you. It's like to
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: be in such amazing place of love. Right, Sometimes it
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: takes because when you're young, right, and you have all
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: these super hero powers. Both of us we got superhero powers.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: You don't understand the powers. As you get older, you
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: start to understand them more and more and more. So
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: I think like from a space of maturity, I wouldn't.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: I couldn't go back. But what I do is all
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: of the young I call them superheroes that are gifted
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: that I work with within the context, I'm able to
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: give them better advice.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I always think about group dynamics and when a group
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: knows when to try to keep making it work and
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: to let it go and break up. And I always
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: think of the Fuji story in comparison to the saga
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of Fleetwood Mac. Like the Fujis had drama and then
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: they broke up. Fleetwood Mac had drama and they just
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: stuck together and made an album about it. And the
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: drama and the breakups.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: How do you know in.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: A creative, collaborative partnership if it's worth saying we're gonna
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: stick through this and keep making art or we got
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: a break.
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: I mean, I would say it's like two different psyches,
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: Like Fleetwood Mac is a different psyche than we were,
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: ye and we grew up within different environments. Yes, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: then our dramas were completely different than Fleetwood Mac's drama.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: So it's not even like when you get to the point,
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: I don't know, if y'all been watching twenty twenty five,
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: you've seen the food. She's on tour and if you
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: see us on stage, it's like old school Lakers. You
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like I don't have to look
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: at launch.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: You know the past.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: Everyone knows the past.
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: So but the what we do have and what we
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: all have always been conscious of is in order to
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: move the universe forward, because we always was like, we're
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: not going to be a group, We're going to be
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: a movement. In order to be a movement, they got
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: to be perfect harmony. So the day like we don't
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: feel perfect harmony, then the superpowers leave, right, and then
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: you're not able to create that thing because you literally
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: you know, like, yo, there's not a superpower there.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: What does that feeling feel?
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: That knowledge feel like when you know the powers aren't
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: like like what you tell?
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: How do you spot it? How do you feel it?
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: I'm able to tell now because we've healed, you see
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying. So it's like we've healed, like me
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: and all were good, Like everything is dope. So it's
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: almost like Wolverine, like you shed skin and it's like
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: when when when you're after the wound and then after
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: the sacrifice, right, wow, and it happens and I don't
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: I don't think people understand like we were, like I
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: mean kids starts, Like even before you knew who we were,
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: we already was like off Broadway doing a musical called
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: Club twelve. So just to start off like that and
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: for us to be over thirty years and to look
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: like ourselves still be pretty bad, funny, sexy and all that,
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: that's not an easy job.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's struggling right now.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: And I bring it up.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: So I bring up this question of collaborating and knowing
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: when to break and when to stay in it because
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of the folks are at this conference are
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: audio creatives who are making all kinds of shows with people,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: and those formulations of these teams might change, and there
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: are podcast breakups and makeups and shake ups. And it's like,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: I wonder if you have any advice for creatives who
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: are working in partnership right now? You know how to
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: read the tea leaves stay in it or like know
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: when to leave it? Like what is whycha Lejean's creative
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: partnership advice?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the biggest of advice.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: So my partnership advice to all creatives is like this,
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: it's better you do one thing, say that one thing,
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: you'd be surprised how many people have only done one thing.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: And that one thing, you know, it turns into an iPhone.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: I'm just give you an example. You know, the one
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: thing turns into Microsoft, right, you know, the one thing
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: turns into the most amazing podcast. What happens is once
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: the synergy and the harmony is gone, you got to
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: move on because if you continue, then what you're thinking
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: about is something that's for profit now opposed to something
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: that you created. Because in the beginning, it was just like, Yo,
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: I want to create a movement to move people. So
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: I always say it's better that you do something one
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: one thing and you're amazed by it, and then synergy
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: don't lie, right, And if you don't feel that synergy,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: you gotta keep it moving, man.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: So trust the vibes. Listen to the vibes, trust the vibes.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Mone. You know, there's also you said, Sam, get this
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: wonderful list of people you collaborated with, and you mentioned
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: one person backstage who I didn't realize we had a
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: whole project with, who also gave you some advice back
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago, King of Pop, Man, about where we
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: are in today's future. So you told you if you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: can tell what the King of Pop told you about
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago and how you're moving with that today.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So so RP to the King of Pop Michael Jackson,
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: by the way.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't know who, leave the room.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: So I would say again sometimes that I'll be saying
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: stuff and I'll be like, you know what I'm saying, Like,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: because I don't feel like a lot of people get
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: what I'll be saying. You know what I'm saying to you,
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: because I'll be on another planet. And then so see
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: they lying and they're like, what is he talking about?
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: So I'm in the studio with Michael and Mike, you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: and then and Michael is like, just real quick, you
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. So it's like he's in the
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: studio and it's second du right, and and he said,
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: did you get that?
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: No, you know what I'm saying. The orchestra lives in
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: your head.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: The orchestra lives in your head.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: And as long as you can take what's in your head,
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: you don't even have to say it. You can think
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: it and the machine will spit it back to you.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Michael, you know, cleft.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: I'm working on this this other album. It's called Binaural.
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: You ever heard of by Noural No, He's like yo.
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: As we move towards the future, people will be able
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: to hear music like it sounds like it's coming from
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: a theater, but it will be like movie music. But
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: they'll be able to hear from their headphones.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Fast forward today. Where we at today?
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: You have.
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: AI, right, and so the thing about it is, you
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: know backstage, you know I use you. You almost punched
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: me in my face when I told you, like, you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: I'm deep into AI.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But we were going we're going back and forth on that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: But here's here go the game. Okay, So there's AI
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: and then there's Ia. Ia is me intelligent Alpha. That's
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: what we all are, like, we're the source of everything.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: So at the end of the day, to my twelve
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: niece arriving to day, is a new way that the
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: future will do music. There's a new way that the
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: filmmakers will make film.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: There will always be bad actors in a room because
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: within everything, Like when the computer wave was going on,
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: there was bad actors.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: When we was.
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: Going from no more physical records to digital and then too,
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: streams were always gonna have bad actors. I think that
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: our responsibility of as the human is to never lose
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: our soul, right, because the only thing that the machine
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: will not be able to duplicate is your soul. So inside,
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: when I have like my niece and everything, she does
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: everything with her computer. But when I'm sitting there and
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: she's like, yo, oh, could you grab that guitar and
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: play something, that physicality of the human.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: You can't replace that.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: So you're not you are using AI as a tool,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: but not scared about it replacing the human creative spirit.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm using it as a tool because how is
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: music created? Right, y'all y'all see the final product. But
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: if I bring y'all into my studio, y'all going to
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: be like, oh, this looked like Star Trek. Right, it's
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: called there's a lot of equipment, and the equipment is
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: called hardware. Then the hardware get converted into software. You know,
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: my DJ friends, we used to carry like ten thousand
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: crates and then it gets converted into the computer. So
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: at the end of the day, you use AI as
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: a tool. I teach my students I am the master
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: of AI. AI is not the master of I therefore
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: I am I. So it has to be your slave, right.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: The problem is if you if you become the slave
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: of the robot, then it's over for you.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know where you gotta go, But I gotta
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: just ask you one question. As a fan of rap
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: and a lover of rap, I see all these headlines
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: about rap being dead or dying. I hear some of
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: the newer artists today, and I'm like, you not like
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: it used to be? Why left as a legend of
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the field. Do you feel positively or negatively about the
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: current state of rap?
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: I got seven albums coming out starting in April all
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: the way to October. I think that rap is part
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: of hip hop and hip hop. The culture is only
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: getting stronger and stronger all around the world, and I
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: believe in the future. I'm gonna do my part, and
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: I'm very excited about some of the future young artists
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: that are coming out. You know, we just got to
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: make sure that they get that space. The algorithm can't
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: keep pushing one form of hip hop in America, right,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: We need that multiple because hip hop in France is
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: sounding like it sounded in the nineties.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: What we're pushing here is the algorithms are just more
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: towards one thing, and we have to go back to
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: that eclectic well and not just that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: It's like I watch and I have this theory. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: think that like every rapper of note in America right now,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: the men, the boys aren't having fun.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: Are you already watch this? I'm gonna get to twenty one.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: I'm the one. I know what y'all thinking.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: Me too.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: In my game of numbers, they could only be a few.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: I am the Trinity. Guess the riddle?
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: Kids? One man on two sticks?
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: What's that the crucifix? At least that's what they taught
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: me in Sunday School. Forgive my foes. Fives pointed at
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: Pinocchio's nose. Skip to six, Go to seven. That's the
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: number of completion. Adam ate the apples, so they cast
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: them from the garden to Eden. Jealousy got him waving
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: his nine King kills Abel he attend man, you know
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: his heart pump soil. Two ones ain't enough to make
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: it ring Michael phone check one two rap lips in
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: my vein. I'm from the ever Dude's scrap with they
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: hands play Friday to thirteen, Get Cobra.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: Klutch or body slamm.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: But my nephews they don't use they hands in fourteens,
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: m fifteen's guns and roses pointed at your sweet sixteen.
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: I was born on our tour with seventeen. That's the
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: day they killed my lead up, Jean Jacques Ile And
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: then my mama told me there's monsters under my b
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: They eighteens think Malcolm X. The nineteenth thought was about
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: any means. Twenty twenty vision they say the good die young.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: I am the master of AI. AI is not the
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: master of I. I did this freestyle to show you
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: how I made it past twenty one.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, Ali mans It.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Sam Sanders, Justin Richmond, w John, Oh my God.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: of our favorite way Cleft songs, along with some of
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: his new music. Be sure to check out YouTube dot
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record podcast to see all of our interviews,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Broken Record pot. Broken Record is produced and edited by
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Leah Rohodse with marketing health from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production
• 45:14
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  Speaker 1: podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.