Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Talk ‘Nothing But Hits,’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Michael Jackson, Prince, Music Culture & Producing + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Talk ‘Nothing But Hits,’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Michael Jackson, Prince, Music Culture & Producing + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every day, Breakfast Club finish for y'all done morning. Everybody
0:08
Speaker 1: is d j en Vy just hilarious.
0:10
Speaker 2: Charlamagne the guy. We are the breakfast Club, Laurn La
0:13
Speaker 2: Rosa is here as well. We got some special guests
0:15
Speaker 2: in the building, got icon, some legends.
0:18
Speaker 1: They're backed.
0:18
Speaker 2: This their second time on the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy,
0:21
Speaker 2: jam and Terry Lewis, welcome.
0:24
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us. How are y'all man a
0:27
Speaker 3: little wet because it's raining.
0:30
Speaker 4: Stay true to the uniform now now they don't got
0:33
Speaker 4: the suit on today.
0:36
Speaker 1: It's winter. It's like, you know, we're trying to be
0:38
Speaker 1: you gotta stay warm. That's right.
0:40
Speaker 2: Well, how y'all feeling first and foremost?
0:42
Speaker 5: I feel great?
0:42
Speaker 1: Man.
0:43
Speaker 5: You know busy, I like that.
0:45
Speaker 3: But if I'm not busy, I gotta get busy being busy.
0:49
Speaker 5: So that's just what it is.
0:51
Speaker 2: Young artists reach out to you guys like they should.
0:54
Speaker 2: I mean, because you put up so many hits on
0:56
Speaker 2: the board, so many, so many points on the scoreboard.
0:58
Speaker 2: I wonder if the younger artists say, you know what,
1:00
Speaker 2: I gotta tap in with Jimmy, Jeame, Terry Lewis.
1:04
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I mean, what happens now is because so
1:07
Speaker 1: many of the artists are tapping into the eighties and
1:09
Speaker 1: the nineties. They're either sampling our stuff or they'll just
1:14
Speaker 1: call and say, hey, well you could get down with
1:16
Speaker 1: me and do some stuff, you know. So yeah, so
1:18
Speaker 1: that definitely is happening, which I think is very cool,
1:20
Speaker 1: you know.
1:21
Speaker 2: And if you don't know, if you're just join us.
1:22
Speaker 2: Jimmy Jameterry Lewis, Icons Legs. They work with artists from
1:25
Speaker 2: Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Princes, Shamir j Blase, Mariah Carry Everyone,
1:29
Speaker 2: Boys and Man, New Addition, Chaka Khan, Tony Braxton, her
1:33
Speaker 2: S So West, Ben Yolanda Items, just to name a few.
1:35
Speaker 6: I don't even like to say that y'all worked with
1:36
Speaker 6: those artists. Those artists worked with y'all. Yeah, because y'all did.
1:40
Speaker 6: Y'all shaped culture. There was a period where y'all sound
1:43
Speaker 6: is what absolutely positively shaped culture.
1:46
Speaker 1: It's a team sport, you know, it's a team sport.
1:49
Speaker 1: I mean, we work with really talented people. I always say,
1:51
Speaker 1: we work with talented people. They make us look good,
1:53
Speaker 1: you know. So that's what it is. And it's a
1:55
Speaker 1: team sport. Even you know us being here with y'all
1:58
Speaker 1: today because we could make all the music we would
2:00
Speaker 1: want to, and if there wasn't a delivery system where
2:03
Speaker 1: people could actually hear it with all y'all talking us
2:05
Speaker 1: up or playing our songs in that it's like the
2:08
Speaker 1: treat that falls in the force and nobody knows about it.
2:11
Speaker 1: So Terry has a theory on that. He says, we
2:14
Speaker 1: don't make hits, We just make music.
2:16
Speaker 3: Y'all make it hits everybody, everybody. Everybody takes the whole
2:20
Speaker 3: ecosystem to create a hit.
2:22
Speaker 6: Do you think producers today still shape culture the way
2:26
Speaker 6: that y'all did or has like the algorithm replaced the
2:30
Speaker 6: producer ear so to speak.
2:33
Speaker 3: I don't think algorithms will ever replace anything. That's just
2:36
Speaker 3: people who don't know having a way to know something. Still,
2:40
Speaker 3: it comes from the gut, man, What makes people feel something,
2:43
Speaker 3: What makes the hair on your arms stand up, you know,
2:46
Speaker 3: and make you get Goosebumps's that's what moves the needle.
2:49
Speaker 3: All the rest of it, man, is just people talking
2:51
Speaker 3: about things that they don't know nothing about.
2:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, it went that way this way.
2:55
Speaker 3: Trending is trending that way, but it doesn't always trend
2:58
Speaker 3: a way that you wanted to go all what you
3:00
Speaker 3: think is going to do. And if someone knew that equation.
3:04
Speaker 5: Oh man, everybody have a hit everything they do would
3:07
Speaker 5: be that's right.
3:08
Speaker 6: You know.
3:08
Speaker 2: We just recently had Teddy rally up pair right, we
3:10
Speaker 2: would talk about the New jack Swing era and we
3:12
Speaker 2: was talking about Teddy and Keith and I was I
3:15
Speaker 2: was thinking to myself, shouldn't Jimmy, Jim and Terry Lewis's
3:19
Speaker 2: name be added to creating that New Jack Swing sound?
3:23
Speaker 2: And do you ever feel way when sometimes you guys
3:25
Speaker 2: are not mentioned in that in that creation of that.
3:28
Speaker 1: I feel like Teddy is a king of New Jackson Wing,
3:33
Speaker 1: meaning that he took that style, patented it, and gave
3:37
Speaker 1: us something to all be a part of it or
3:39
Speaker 1: follow along with it. I feel like the first New
3:43
Speaker 1: jack Swing song, although there was no title for it,
3:46
Speaker 1: there was no moniker for it, it's probably Janet Jackson Nasty,
3:50
Speaker 1: which was which was Control album, which is forty years
3:53
Speaker 1: ago this year, so we saw make Everybody Feel Old
3:56
Speaker 1: forty years ago that album came out. But that's I
3:59
Speaker 1: think that. And I remember the first time we heard
4:02
Speaker 1: I Want Her by Keith and I remember we were
4:05
Speaker 1: with Babyface in La. We were just hanging out in
4:07
Speaker 1: a club and that song came on and we all
4:09
Speaker 1: thought it was nasty at first because like the little
4:12
Speaker 1: like the little synthesizer parts. And then baby Face said,
4:16
Speaker 1: oh no, LA said, oh no, that's Keith Sweat. That's
4:18
Speaker 1: Keith Sweat. And I said, oh yeah, Key Sweat, that's dope.
4:20
Speaker 1: I like that. And then baby Face goes, yeah, Keith's cool.
4:23
Speaker 1: But the dude behind him, Teddy Riley, he's the one.
4:27
Speaker 1: So Face was the one that really turned us on too,
4:28
Speaker 1: Teddy Riley. And love what Teddy does. So I think
4:33
Speaker 1: we're part of it. But I think there's no question
4:36
Speaker 1: that he's the king of New Jack Swing. And by
4:38
Speaker 1: the way, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you quick
4:40
Speaker 1: Teddy Riley's story. So I always said my theory was
4:43
Speaker 1: the foundation of hip hop was always James Brown, right.
4:46
Speaker 1: It was always based on funky drummer or the Lynn
4:49
Speaker 1: Collins think you know, the Tambourne and Natale was across
4:52
Speaker 1: so many hip hop records. But I always said the
4:54
Speaker 1: foundation of New Jack swing was Casey in the Sunshine Band.
4:57
Speaker 1: Oh yes, right, and everybody, everybody said, no, no, what
5:01
Speaker 1: are you talking What are you talking about? So when
5:03
Speaker 1: I interviewed, I had a show on Serius sex in
5:05
Speaker 1: back in the day and I actually interviewed Teddy and
5:07
Speaker 1: I told him that theory and he laughed and he said,
5:11
Speaker 1: oh my god. He said, can I tell you something?
5:13
Speaker 1: He said, you know the baseline of I want her
5:16
Speaker 1: and he goes, doom doom, doom doom, boom boom. Right,
5:19
Speaker 1: that's the he said, That's the way I like it.
5:21
Speaker 1: Casey in the Sunshine Band. If you listen to that song,
5:24
Speaker 1: it's the same bassline. The other foundation of that is
5:28
Speaker 1: I get lifted that boo. That's Casey in the Sunshine Band.
5:35
Speaker 1: George McCrae sang the song, but Casey in the Sunshine
5:37
Speaker 1: Band played it and produced it. Wow. So he said, yeah,
5:40
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. So I was like, okay, cool. So
5:42
Speaker 1: now I can go to people that think I'm nuts
5:44
Speaker 1: and go, no, I got it from I got it
5:46
Speaker 1: from the guy. But Teddy's amazing, absolutely amazing.
5:48
Speaker 4: The more conversations that that I'm a part of here
5:51
Speaker 4: where I learned so much about, like music history, I'm like,
5:53
Speaker 4: is there ever going to really be a way to
5:56
Speaker 4: really archive all of the hip hop, R and B
5:59
Speaker 4: soul like real music history, because every time I talk
6:01
Speaker 4: to somebody, I learned something new. We're a different angle
6:03
Speaker 4: way to think about it. Like, do you guys think
6:05
Speaker 4: we'll ever really be able to document all of it
6:07
Speaker 4: and do it right now?
6:08
Speaker 5: Yeah? I think you can.
6:10
Speaker 3: It's just that for music, I don't think anyone can
6:13
Speaker 3: take credit because everything is based on something else.
6:16
Speaker 1: You know.
6:16
Speaker 3: The shoulders that we stand on dictate kind of where
6:19
Speaker 3: we can see the our purview on something, and so
6:23
Speaker 3: everybody has something in their air that affects them in
6:26
Speaker 3: another way and we just keep taking in another place.
6:29
Speaker 3: But it all is based on the same stuff, So
6:33
Speaker 3: nobody can claim credit for anything. Because like KC, that
6:36
Speaker 3: was my favorite stuff, you know that I.
6:46
Speaker 5: Come there with the slag, that was it?
6:49
Speaker 7: So well, congratulations on Las Vegas residency coming to April.
6:54
Speaker 7: How does it feel to have that? That's that's big,
6:56
Speaker 7: that's nice.
6:57
Speaker 1: You know about probably talked a little bit about it
7:01
Speaker 1: when we did our album, when we did our Jamin
7:02
Speaker 1: Lewis Vie one album, But we had said back at
7:04
Speaker 1: that time there was three things we wanted to do.
7:06
Speaker 1: We wanted to work with Babyface, which we ended up doing,
7:08
Speaker 1: which was great. We said we wanted to do our
7:10
Speaker 1: own album, which we did Jamine Lewis Volume one, as
7:13
Speaker 1: Volume two is on the way. But then we also
7:15
Speaker 1: said we want to go play our own music live,
7:18
Speaker 1: because if you think about it, we started off before
7:20
Speaker 1: we were songwriters and producers. We were musicians, you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: playing in bands and playing everybody else's hit songs, and
7:27
Speaker 1: that was part of our learning process, part of our
7:29
Speaker 1: education and how we learned to even songwrite and produce.
7:32
Speaker 1: And so now going back full circle for us, we'd
7:36
Speaker 1: get a chance to play some hit songs, but they
7:39
Speaker 1: just happened to be ours and go back to our
7:42
Speaker 1: musician roots. So we're really really excited about it. In
7:45
Speaker 1: Vegas is a perfect place to do it, and we
7:48
Speaker 1: got a nice little intimate room called Voltaire at the
7:51
Speaker 1: Venetian Resort, and it's going to be nothing but hits,
7:54
Speaker 1: as we call it, but we're also going to be
7:57
Speaker 1: telling the stories behind the songs, like the way those
8:00
Speaker 1: songs were made and all that, and we think it's
8:02
Speaker 1: gonna be a great little format, a little time travel,
8:05
Speaker 1: a little virtual time travel.
8:06
Speaker 6: All forty two Billboard number one, we're gonna hear we're
8:08
Speaker 6: gonna well, we're gonna get as many as we possibly can.
8:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, we definitely definitely are. I tell people it's gonna
8:13
Speaker 1: be more of a more of a tasting menu. Like
8:16
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do like a whole seven minute remixes back. Yeah, yeah, no,
8:21
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do that. But but we'll hit you.
8:23
Speaker 1: We'll hit you with that intro. We'll get you there,
8:25
Speaker 1: you know. Verse course, you know, might hit a bridge
8:28
Speaker 1: or something, kind of hit bridges because we love bridges.
8:29
Speaker 1: We got to hit the bridges and whatever and then
8:31
Speaker 1: we boom, we right onto the next So it's more
8:33
Speaker 1: like a mixtape or more like if a DJ is
8:35
Speaker 1: doing a mashup. It's more of that kind of thing.
8:37
Speaker 2: Now, you guys work with so many people. I'm sure
8:40
Speaker 2: all these artists will be there. Will It'll be some
8:42
Speaker 2: of those things where somebody's in town and be like
8:44
Speaker 2: so and so's on the stage. Yeah, Jena Jacksons here, ladies, gentlemen, control.
8:50
Speaker 1: It absolutely is. Well. The thing that happened for us
8:52
Speaker 1: was we kind of tested this concept while we went
8:56
Speaker 1: to Japan. We did like, I think sixteen shows in
8:59
Speaker 1: Japan or something like that in the past couple of years,
9:02
Speaker 1: just to kind of test the concept of what it
9:03
Speaker 1: is and what happens is if you have friends in
9:05
Speaker 1: the audience, most of the time they will want to
9:07
Speaker 1: come on stage. So we did a show in Atlanta
9:10
Speaker 1: during Labor Day last year and for instance, uh, and
9:14
Speaker 1: I will say, Ruben Stuttard is our kind of our
9:16
Speaker 1: male singer because he can handle anything from you know,
9:18
Speaker 1: Alexander O'Neil to Usher to whatever. And when we started
9:22
Speaker 1: doing Bad Girl, he just walked where Usher was sitting
9:25
Speaker 1: and Usher was there watching, just enjoying the show, and
9:27
Speaker 1: he kind of looked at Usher and like and Usher
9:30
Speaker 1: got on stage hit you know, hit Bad Girl, hit
9:33
Speaker 1: you Remind Me? And it was like, oh okay. So
9:37
Speaker 1: we always say you never know who's gonna show, and
9:40
Speaker 1: that's that's why we look at you know, listen, we
9:42
Speaker 1: talked to doctor Dre yesterday. He said, he's gonna come,
9:45
Speaker 1: He's gonna come play. Coyle bell is what he said.
9:46
Speaker 1: I said. We put a cow bell up in the
9:48
Speaker 1: front on the catwalk. Yeah, and the catwalk, Cole bell
9:51
Speaker 1: on the cat coy bell on the catwalk. We got
9:53
Speaker 1: a cat a catwalk that goes out in the audience,
9:55
Speaker 1: which is cool, so everybody gets a good seat and stuff.
9:58
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot of fun, man, And yeah,
9:59
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of friends dropping through and
10:02
Speaker 1: you never know. Each night is going to be different.
10:03
Speaker 1: We're doing six nights. It's a limited residency, but each
10:06
Speaker 1: night'll be a little bit different.
10:08
Speaker 7: How did come about?
10:11
Speaker 1: It was a friend of ours, uh, who just was
10:14
Speaker 1: a huge gem and Lewis fan and happened to have
10:17
Speaker 1: a room in Vegas and said, you guys should come
10:20
Speaker 1: to my room and play. And we just said, okay,
10:24
Speaker 1: let's check it out. And then we went to the
10:25
Speaker 1: venue and the venues just perforges. Yeah, it's beautiful, and
10:29
Speaker 1: we just thought, okay, yeah, I think we could do
10:31
Speaker 1: something here really cool. And like I say, we want
10:33
Speaker 1: to We're at the part of our careers where we
10:35
Speaker 1: want to do things we haven't done yet, and this
10:38
Speaker 1: fits perfectly in that slot of things we haven't done yet.
10:41
Speaker 6: You hold on, I'm watching y'all, and I saw your
10:43
Speaker 6: man with all of those Please tell me that that's
10:46
Speaker 6: a line of glasses.
10:47
Speaker 1: Tell me that, y'all, that's a line of glasses. Yes,
10:54
Speaker 1: but I have to make sure there's there's a sordid
10:57
Speaker 1: you know, we got to make sure we right. Okay, Okay,
11:01
Speaker 1: we got you, we got you, we got you. Okay,
11:03
Speaker 1: so what do we what do we got Terry Lewis?
11:04
Speaker 5: These are the Jimmy jams? All right?
11:07
Speaker 1: So these are like I'm wearing right here between the
11:10
Speaker 1: Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis. Okay, you got the Terry
11:12
Speaker 1: Lewis right there? We fit in the see okay, because
11:15
Speaker 1: I got Terry Lewis right here.
11:16
Speaker 4: Let me.
11:19
Speaker 1: Love, I need Jimmy j I need the big ones.
11:21
Speaker 5: Which one getting a little older?
11:27
Speaker 1: We need definitely need to do that. Okay, So wait
11:29
Speaker 1: a minute, which one? Which one? Who wanted Terry Lewis?
11:33
Speaker 1: You got her? You got you got Jimmy jam. All right.
11:36
Speaker 5: So then then there's a female pair too.
11:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, there we go. Which one is a female?
11:42
Speaker 1: I'm you like this? Just the jam? Right?
11:47
Speaker 6: Those?
11:47
Speaker 1: What's those jam? Jimmy right there? Man there? Thank you
11:52
Speaker 1: so much?
11:52
Speaker 4: Female pair?
11:53
Speaker 5: Yeah?
11:56
Speaker 1: Wait, how do you know the difference?
11:57
Speaker 6: Because they both say jam and louis.
11:59
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can see it's just a shape of the one.
12:03
Speaker 4: Let me see you.
12:06
Speaker 1: That's the female right there. Okay, there you go.
12:08
Speaker 5: That'll look great on her.
12:10
Speaker 4: Shape differently, Yeah, bag too, because you could also use
12:16
Speaker 4: this as a cute.
12:17
Speaker 1: Little place than we give credit to Terry's wife actually,
12:22
Speaker 1: and there she's our merch matt Man. She's the one
12:25
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's not only the product itself,
12:27
Speaker 1: but the way it's packaged, the whole thing. And if
12:29
Speaker 1: you notice there's a little case and a little thing
12:31
Speaker 1: in there for your cloth, that's you know, basically our genius. Yeah,
12:37
Speaker 1: how can people get these?
12:37
Speaker 2: Because I mean we're talking about if somebody might want
12:39
Speaker 2: to order, how can they order these?
12:40
Speaker 1: So flight Time Lifestyle is on Instagram. That's the place
12:43
Speaker 1: to go. And if you go to flight Time Lifestyle,
12:46
Speaker 1: it's f l y T E T y emmy lifestyle
12:50
Speaker 1: and uh, you can go there and there's a link
12:51
Speaker 1: that gets you to the actual merch. And we'll have
12:54
Speaker 1: these in Vegas and you know, but you can have
12:55
Speaker 1: your get yours now and then you can wear them
12:57
Speaker 1: to Vegas when you come, you.
12:59
Speaker 5: Know, when it's sunny, when it's sonny.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, because y'all all need to come and y'all need
13:03
Speaker 1: to get out of this rain and all this crazy stuff,
13:05
Speaker 1: and I tell people it's a great excuse to go
13:07
Speaker 1: to Vegas.
13:08
Speaker 4: Is this the first time that you guys are ever
13:10
Speaker 4: approached about a residency?
13:12
Speaker 1: We did one other one well for us, Yes, for
13:15
Speaker 1: Jimmy and Terry. Yes, we did do a residency with
13:18
Speaker 1: the time with our group, the time right after we
13:21
Speaker 1: did the Grammys back in two thousand and maybe. I
13:26
Speaker 1: don't remember what year it was.
13:27
Speaker 5: And I can't remember yesterday.
13:32
Speaker 3: No.
13:32
Speaker 1: I always say I remember forty years ago better than
13:34
Speaker 1: forty minutes ago. But you know, that's how it goes.
13:36
Speaker 1: But we were approached because we performed on the Grammys
13:38
Speaker 1: at here. It was a fiftieth anniversary of the Grammys,
13:40
Speaker 1: and we performed with Rihanna actually, and I remember when
13:44
Speaker 1: we came off, everybody said, hey, what are y'all going
13:46
Speaker 1: to do? And we said this is just a one
13:48
Speaker 1: off and they said no. And then a guy that
13:50
Speaker 1: actually ran the Flamingo Hotel, Tony Braxton, was appearing there.
13:55
Speaker 1: But Tony was having some health problems and he said,
13:57
Speaker 1: I got three weeks that I can put y'all in
13:59
Speaker 1: if y'all want to do a so A's the time
14:01
Speaker 1: we did a residency and It was during the summer,
14:03
Speaker 1: and it was great. It was probably the best summer
14:05
Speaker 1: vacation we ever had. The greatest yea that our families.
14:07
Speaker 3: Will just do what you love man and be done
14:09
Speaker 3: by you know, we going at seven, we're done by
14:12
Speaker 3: nine and we haven't dinner with our family.
14:14
Speaker 1: Yes, it was great. Ry Terry said, it's at least
14:16
Speaker 1: we ever worked in our life. It was great.
14:19
Speaker 6: I always wonder about that, that that that time with
14:21
Speaker 6: the time, No punt intended. But how did Prince contribute
14:25
Speaker 6: to y'all growth as just produces musicians, artists, everything.
14:30
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'll start off by saying, the reason
14:32
Speaker 1: we're here is because of Prince. I mean, Prince was
14:34
Speaker 1: the one that I mean, I met Princeton Junior High school.
14:37
Speaker 1: We went to junior high school together, took piano classes
14:39
Speaker 1: together and stuff. We both knew how to play, but
14:41
Speaker 1: it just got out of the side of class a
14:43
Speaker 1: little bit, you know. But he was the one that
14:45
Speaker 1: really and I will say Morris Day because Morris actually
14:49
Speaker 1: wrote there's a song called Party Up on the Dirty
14:51
Speaker 1: Mind album. And Morris actually wrote that song or the
14:54
Speaker 1: track to that song because Warners wanted, you know, Prince
14:57
Speaker 1: to do something a little more funky because he had
14:59
Speaker 1: gone into his you know, more of his rock thing.
15:01
Speaker 1: And Morris gave that song to Prince and Prince said,
15:04
Speaker 1: what do you want. He said, I'll give you know,
15:06
Speaker 1: I'll give you thirty grand or I'll give you whatever
15:08
Speaker 1: amount of money. He said, oh, I'll get you a
15:10
Speaker 1: record deal. And Morris said, I'll take the record deal
15:12
Speaker 1: and Morris said okay, And then Prince said, put a
15:14
Speaker 1: band together and you know, we'll get you going. And
15:16
Speaker 1: Morris came to our band and we were actually like
15:18
Speaker 1: a competing band of Morris back in the day, but
15:21
Speaker 1: he came to us and said, okay, y'all going to
15:23
Speaker 1: be the band and we're like, okay, cool, And that's
15:25
Speaker 1: what got us going. That was back in eighty one,
15:28
Speaker 1: so that was the thing that got us going and
15:29
Speaker 1: put us on the map. So all thanks to Prince,
15:32
Speaker 1: all thanks to Morris day. They're the ones that startled us.
15:35
Speaker 1: And of course we got you know, as we the
15:36
Speaker 1: famous story we got fired by Prince, but Terry likes
15:40
Speaker 1: to say he didn't fire us. He freed us. And
15:42
Speaker 1: literally the same night that Prince freed us, we were
15:47
Speaker 1: at Sunset Sound. He freed us. We went over to
15:49
Speaker 1: a studio called Larrabie right across you know the way,
15:53
Speaker 1: and ended up mixing what became our very first hit,
15:56
Speaker 1: and that was just be Good to Be by the
15:58
Speaker 1: SOS band. So literally the same night we got freed,
16:01
Speaker 1: we had our first hit, and you know, the rest
16:04
Speaker 1: is history after that, very much a Hollywood story.
16:06
Speaker 3: Well, God knows, bro, God definitely knows.
16:08
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts?
16:09
Speaker 5: All?
16:10
Speaker 6: I do want to ask one other question, y'all. I'm
16:12
Speaker 6: sure y'all still maintained a relationship with Prince after that.
16:15
Speaker 6: I think when people have these conversations about like who's
16:18
Speaker 6: who's the greatest.
16:19
Speaker 5: Artist of all time?
16:21
Speaker 6: I don't think they really understand what people like Prince did,
16:25
Speaker 6: even like a Stevie Wonder, the fact that they could write, sing, produce,
16:30
Speaker 6: play instruments like they not just sanging the song somebody
16:33
Speaker 6: wrote and dance it.
16:34
Speaker 1: You know, I think the impact, I mean you feel
16:38
Speaker 1: it's a ripple effect. And that's the thing that you
16:40
Speaker 1: when you talk about Prince and think about this. He
16:43
Speaker 1: played every instrument. His debut album, to me is like
16:46
Speaker 1: the best debut album of all time because he played
16:48
Speaker 1: every instrument he played, sang every note, wrote every song.
16:53
Speaker 1: I mean, he did everything on that record, and so
16:55
Speaker 1: that was his thing. But if you think about it,
16:57
Speaker 1: the way we dressed the way we and you think
17:00
Speaker 1: about the ripple of effect. Now, you know when you
17:03
Speaker 1: hear like, you know a Bruno Mars, there's no Bruno
17:06
Speaker 1: Mars without Prince, and he acknowledges that. Matter of fact,
17:09
Speaker 1: Bruno Mars thanks us. He's like when he had twenty
17:12
Speaker 1: four Carrot and all that stuff out, he was like,
17:14
Speaker 1: thank you, Jimmy, Jame and Terry Lewis, you know. So
17:17
Speaker 1: to me, that's the ripple effect, and that's all because
17:19
Speaker 1: of Prince and the fact that we're still here, we
17:21
Speaker 1: get a chance to be blessed to talk to you
17:22
Speaker 1: guys today. That's because of Prince. That's that ripple effects.
17:25
Speaker 1: So when you talk about the greatest some of it
17:27
Speaker 1: is what they did in the moment, but also that
17:29
Speaker 1: ripple effect that they have, you know, and Princess, there's
17:32
Speaker 1: nobody better.
17:33
Speaker 2: To me, I was asking, you know, what's your thoughts
17:35
Speaker 2: on AI and the fact that some of these artists
17:38
Speaker 2: now are using AI to be an artist. You know,
17:41
Speaker 2: what's your thoughts on that, and they're using it to
17:42
Speaker 2: create music and create sounds. What's your thoughts on that.
17:46
Speaker 5: I have a lot of thoughts. You want thoughts of feelings.
17:52
Speaker 3: My feelings say, Okay, I don't like the concept, but
17:57
Speaker 3: the facts are the facts. It's here, it's gonna It's
18:00
Speaker 3: like any other tool. They said the drum machine was
18:03
Speaker 3: gonna put drummers out of business.
18:05
Speaker 5: It didn't.
18:06
Speaker 3: It Just if you took the drum machine and learned
18:09
Speaker 3: how to use it, it just became a tool, like
18:12
Speaker 3: auto tune or anything else becomes a tool at a
18:14
Speaker 3: certain point.
18:16
Speaker 5: AI. To me, it's three phases of AI. I say, there's.
18:19
Speaker 3: People that are trying to stop it. They're on the
18:23
Speaker 3: tracks trying to stop it. It's not gonna work because
18:27
Speaker 3: the cat's out the bag now. So there's only two
18:31
Speaker 3: positions left. You can get on the train and ride it,
18:34
Speaker 3: or you can get on the train and try to
18:35
Speaker 3: drive it.
18:36
Speaker 5: And I'm a driver.
18:37
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking, let's figure out how we can use
18:40
Speaker 3: it to the best of our abilities to enhance the
18:43
Speaker 3: things that we do as songwriters and our songs.
18:48
Speaker 5: Maybe we can make our songs better.
18:49
Speaker 3: I don't know, so I'm not afraid of it because
18:52
Speaker 3: it's just technology. But nothing's going to replace humans in
18:57
Speaker 3: a club with the guitar and a voice that put
19:01
Speaker 3: you know, that hair on your arms standing up, you know,
19:05
Speaker 3: and goosebumps. So a, I can't do that. So everybody
19:11
Speaker 3: that's that's trying to use it to yeah, get on
19:14
Speaker 3: the field, Well, what is it doing is diminishing the
19:18
Speaker 3: field because it's flooding the field with the fans, and
19:21
Speaker 3: when the fans are on the field, the game is
19:23
Speaker 3: not important anymore. Somebody's got to watch and make it important.
19:29
Speaker 7: And y'all have worked with so many different people over
19:32
Speaker 7: the years. Have y'all ever turned down to artists writing
19:34
Speaker 7: for an artist or producing because I ain't trusting with
19:38
Speaker 7: y'all music or it just didn't align with y'all.
19:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've turned down things, for sure, but not for
19:43
Speaker 3: that reason. We didn't feel like we were the best
19:46
Speaker 3: people for the job. So we are fans of the
19:50
Speaker 3: people that we work with. We're fans of music, and
19:54
Speaker 3: we love music, retro and forward whatever, and we want
19:58
Speaker 3: to protect it. So we protect picked ourselves by not
20:01
Speaker 3: doing something that we're not inspired by.
20:03
Speaker 1: I'd like to say we we we don't really. If
20:06
Speaker 1: we say no, it's always with a butt. It's like no.
20:10
Speaker 1: But you know who would be really good for this
20:13
Speaker 1: is this person? So we redirect. A lot of times
20:16
Speaker 1: we will redirect and get the right people involved, or
20:19
Speaker 1: a lot of times we will advocate. We were talking
20:22
Speaker 1: about it the other day, so Pink is up for
20:24
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Girl Yeah,
20:27
Speaker 1: and Pink came to Minneapolis to do work on some
20:30
Speaker 1: stuff with us, and we said, well, you play us
20:33
Speaker 1: what you got so far, and she started playing all
20:35
Speaker 1: this stuff and it was the stuff that Linda Perry
20:36
Speaker 1: did with her and Dallas Austin did with her. And
20:39
Speaker 1: we were like, what do you need us for? You said,
20:41
Speaker 1: you got it. You got a record right And she said, well,
20:43
Speaker 1: LA thinks that you know, because it's so different from
20:46
Speaker 1: what I did before, because her first album was a
20:47
Speaker 1: very R and B album. And I said okay. So
20:50
Speaker 1: we called La and I said, La, I said, take
20:52
Speaker 1: your record company hat off for a minute and just
20:54
Speaker 1: put your musician hat on. I just wanted to give
20:56
Speaker 1: you two examples, and I said. The first one was
20:58
Speaker 1: a girl in Canada. She was popular in Canada, had
21:01
Speaker 1: a few hits and stuff. She came to America. She
21:03
Speaker 1: made a record called Jagged Little Pill and he said,
21:05
Speaker 1: Alanis Morris sat and I said yeah. And I said,
21:07
Speaker 1: then there was a guy I said, he had a
21:09
Speaker 1: you know, double platinum album, big record. I said, the
21:11
Speaker 1: next album. He came out, changed his whole style, had
21:14
Speaker 1: bikinis and lakewarmers, in a trench coat. He said Prince
21:17
Speaker 1: and I said yeah. And he said, so you're telling
21:19
Speaker 1: me you think Pink is Prince and Atlantis morrissat and
21:23
Speaker 1: I said yes. I said, now put your record company back,
21:26
Speaker 1: your hat back on. You have your first single. He said,
21:29
Speaker 1: what's that? I said, get the party started, because that
21:32
Speaker 1: song will not lose her audience that she already has,
21:34
Speaker 1: but it's going to start gaining her that audience where
21:36
Speaker 1: she's trying to go. And I remember when the album
21:39
Speaker 1: came out, like three months later, everybody started calling us.
21:42
Speaker 1: Because this is before internet or anything. You couldn't just
21:44
Speaker 1: text people. They would call us and they go, what
21:46
Speaker 1: DoD y'all do on Pink's album? We said, we didn't
21:48
Speaker 1: do nothing on the album. Well, she thanks you in
21:51
Speaker 1: the liner notes, she said, thank you Jimmy jam and
21:52
Speaker 1: Terry Lewis, and I said, oh, we made a phone call,
21:55
Speaker 1: so that's it. So we've done a lot of that,
21:57
Speaker 1: so that wasn't a no, but it was you know,
22:00
Speaker 1: you got what you need right here. You don't really
22:02
Speaker 1: need anything from us.
22:04
Speaker 6: Wohden it last night because you know you keep saying
22:05
Speaker 6: that you know that music that makes your hair stand
22:08
Speaker 6: up on your own. When the last time you felt
22:10
Speaker 6: like that about some.
22:10
Speaker 1: Music yesterday when we heard Open My Heart by Yolanda Atoms. Wow,
22:17
Speaker 1: that's when when? Because people always ask us, you know
22:20
Speaker 1: our favorite song, and we always say, you know, it's
22:23
Speaker 1: the song I always say, I would put it like
22:24
Speaker 1: this favorite is tough, because there can be a whole
22:26
Speaker 1: lot of reasons something is your favorite, But I think
22:29
Speaker 1: that I always say. My analogy is always, if there's
22:31
Speaker 1: a time capsule, the time capsule says jam and Lewis
22:34
Speaker 1: on it, and one hundred years from now, the aliens
22:35
Speaker 1: come down or whatever, they open the time capsule, and
22:38
Speaker 1: the song that would play for me would be Optimistic
22:41
Speaker 1: by the Sounds of Blackness. Listen to it at least
22:43
Speaker 1: three times a week. Okay, so that song to me
22:46
Speaker 1: because it says because that song would tell you everything.
22:48
Speaker 1: If you didn't know us, never heard of us, that
22:51
Speaker 1: song would tell you everything you'd want to know about us.
22:53
Speaker 1: And so you know our rhythm, our melodic sense, our
22:57
Speaker 1: you know, our our sense of lyric, all of those
23:00
Speaker 1: types of things. And then Terry always says in one,
23:02
Speaker 1: not even number two, but one A would be Open
23:05
Speaker 1: my Heart Eulanda Adams for that same reason that you
23:08
Speaker 1: can't listen to that song. And Terry would always talk
23:11
Speaker 1: about how people would pull over and Sylvia Roone, you know,
23:13
Speaker 1: chairman of of of at the time Electra Records, when
23:18
Speaker 1: she said, do you guys want to do with Eulanda Adams?
23:20
Speaker 1: We were trying to sign Eulana Adams at that point,
23:22
Speaker 1: and we said, yeah, we'll do Yulanda and we did
23:24
Speaker 1: the song and I remember she said, oh man, that
23:27
Speaker 1: song gave me chills, It made me cry it, you
23:29
Speaker 1: know whatever, and we were like cool. And I remember
23:31
Speaker 1: they put out a couple of singles, but it wasn't
23:33
Speaker 1: that single, and we were like, yo, Sylvia, what happened
23:35
Speaker 1: to open my heart? And she said that, you know,
23:38
Speaker 1: as a record company person would say, well, you know
23:40
Speaker 1: it's summertime. You know, we got to be up tempo
23:42
Speaker 1: and we got to be whatever and were like, yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: but it made you cry. And I remember she gave
23:46
Speaker 1: it to I think it was Elroy at a GCI
23:49
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Okay, she gave it to him. He played
23:53
Speaker 1: it the next morning, I guess whoever the morning jock
23:58
Speaker 1: was was like, who's this record? Everybody's calling me about
24:01
Speaker 1: this record you played last night. What is that record?
24:03
Speaker 1: I don't even have that record? And it was Yulanda
24:05
Speaker 1: And at that point they knew, Okay, yeah, this thing's
24:07
Speaker 1: gonna go. Forget that it's a ballad in the middle
24:09
Speaker 1: of the summer. It didn't matter, and of course it
24:12
Speaker 1: changed everybody's lives in a positive way. So I think
24:15
Speaker 1: those are the kind of records that we want to
24:16
Speaker 1: be involved with. And I love that, you know the
24:19
Speaker 1: records that sometimes that happens, it's records that we've helped create.
24:23
Speaker 1: But we always say God creates the records. We're just
24:25
Speaker 1: the delivery system. Absolutely.
24:26
Speaker 6: And another thing I wanted to ask, why does pop
24:29
Speaker 6: music often you looked at as a white genre when
24:33
Speaker 6: it was black a black producer like a Quincy Jones
24:36
Speaker 6: and a black artist like a Michael Jackson and black
24:38
Speaker 6: producers like You two and a black artist like Janet
24:41
Speaker 6: Jackson who changed the trajectory of pop music well pop.
24:44
Speaker 3: I think that the intention of pop was only to
24:47
Speaker 3: refer to it as popular, and I don't think it
24:51
Speaker 3: was race or gender specific at that point. I think
24:57
Speaker 3: people have a need to own everything. White people, yes, okay,
25:07
Speaker 3: I have the need to claim everything and I can't.
25:10
Speaker 3: I think that messed the game up. Like I actually
25:13
Speaker 3: prefer how they do it in Europe, Like there's one
25:16
Speaker 3: chart and if you on it, you want it, and
25:18
Speaker 3: if you're not, you're not. So if the competition is
25:22
Speaker 3: fair at that point, let the games begin and let
25:26
Speaker 3: the music speak for itself. So I don't know it's
25:29
Speaker 3: a way to separate. What's the difference between gospel and
25:32
Speaker 3: Christian one is white and one is black.
25:39
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about that.
25:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so so everybody needs they feel the need
25:44
Speaker 3: to put things in boxes.
25:46
Speaker 5: But we're talking about God. We're talking about God, same God, right.
25:51
Speaker 4: I think, how do y'all feel about the Rock and
25:54
Speaker 4: Roll Hall of Fame conversation and Ozzy Osbourne gun in
25:57
Speaker 4: trouble again for saying that like hip hop artists R
26:00
Speaker 4: and B artists shouldn't be I'm sorry confused that ye
26:10
Speaker 4: white person Gen Simms. Yes, he got in trouble again
26:13
Speaker 4: because he was saying that black basically artists that are
26:16
Speaker 4: hip hop or R and B should not be.
26:18
Speaker 2: The title is rock and Roll Hall of Fame Rome.
26:22
Speaker 3: That's kind of pissy, but you know what I mean,
26:25
Speaker 3: that's how he feels, and that he's trying to protect
26:28
Speaker 3: himself and that because black folks created rock and roll.
26:33
Speaker 3: So how can he be mad at the other people
26:36
Speaker 3: that are getting in because they created the genre that
26:40
Speaker 3: you specifically want to claim. So you can't be mad
26:44
Speaker 3: at other people for getting in because you can be.
26:48
Speaker 5: It just doesn't work, just done.
26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't work on any level. Well, I mean,
26:53
Speaker 1: if you think about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
26:55
Speaker 1: the first people that were inducted in the rock and
26:57
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame right at the very beginning, you know,
26:59
Speaker 1: you had know Chuck Berry in Fast Domino, and you
27:03
Speaker 1: know it was the black pioneers, the people little Richard like,
27:07
Speaker 1: the people that really invented what is known as rock
27:10
Speaker 1: and roll, and rock and roll was not at the origin,
27:14
Speaker 1: was not a white dude with long hair, and a
27:16
Speaker 1: guitar that was not what it was. It morphed into that.
27:21
Speaker 1: But I think we see now it's changing to be
27:24
Speaker 1: more inclusive. And also rock and roll is more of
27:27
Speaker 1: an attitude than a genre of music anyway, you know.
27:30
Speaker 1: And I think hip hop if anybody embodies you know,
27:34
Speaker 1: aggressiveness different you know, neis coming through adversity to make music.
27:39
Speaker 1: That's the hip hop community. So to me, that's as
27:42
Speaker 1: rock and roll as it gets.
27:44
Speaker 4: And he credits them as well when he talks about it,
27:46
Speaker 4: but it's just like the irony of like that credit
27:48
Speaker 4: and then the separation, and then it sparks a whole
27:51
Speaker 4: conversation again about that barrier and that guideline.
27:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, well maybe they should just call it the Hall
27:56
Speaker 3: of Fame. Fame Yeah, if you want to be you know,
28:03
Speaker 3: specific in a way that is general. You know, it's
28:07
Speaker 3: about the music, isn't it about the contributions, isn't it?
28:11
Speaker 1: Well? I think I think the importance of it is
28:13
Speaker 1: that I think the music, the conversations around music are
28:17
Speaker 1: always great. So if somebody has to say something that's
28:21
Speaker 1: you know, slightly off, you know, just off, I guess ignorant. Okay,
28:27
Speaker 1: then I think it's great that we have the conversation
28:29
Speaker 1: about it because it keeps music important and keeps it relevant.
28:31
Speaker 1: And I'm glad we have the conversations. And I think,
28:33
Speaker 1: you know, once again for younger people, we're coming at
28:36
Speaker 1: it from I mean, we're coming from old guys, you know.
28:38
Speaker 1: But I think that everybody needs to know that conversation
28:42
Speaker 1: and how those kinds of things happen, because otherwise you
28:44
Speaker 1: think that it's just a status quo. You know, the
28:45
Speaker 1: things were always like that, I mean, a whole different thing.
28:48
Speaker 1: But I know my kids, for instance, when my kids
28:51
Speaker 1: were growing up, Obama was the president, they thought, oh,
28:55
Speaker 1: that's normal, that's what it is. And it's like, no, no, no, no,
28:57
Speaker 1: you do it's not normal. And now they see what
29:00
Speaker 1: the new normal is and they're like, whoa wait a minute, now,
29:03
Speaker 1: you know, because they historically don't don't have that. So
29:06
Speaker 1: I think you have to have the context. And I
29:09
Speaker 1: think that. But I love that the Rock and Roll
29:11
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, and the other thing about that is
29:13
Speaker 1: the people to vote on that that room is changing
29:17
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean because it goes to the fan
29:19
Speaker 1: vote also, but that room in that room is changing,
29:22
Speaker 1: and so I think that there's a need to you know,
29:25
Speaker 1: we people like Luther Vandross on the ballot this year,
29:27
Speaker 1: which I think, you know, think about Luther Vandross. He
29:30
Speaker 1: was a major contributor to David Bowie. Yeah, you know,
29:33
Speaker 1: so I just think that the connections and those types
29:35
Speaker 1: of things are really good. But I think the conversations
29:38
Speaker 1: are really healthy to have. You know, the debates are healthy,
29:41
Speaker 1: and the buffs got to go. I know they got
29:43
Speaker 1: to go.
29:43
Speaker 6: I got one last question when it's all said and done.
29:45
Speaker 6: Do you want Jimmy, Jame and Terry Lewis to be
29:46
Speaker 6: remembered for the hits? Are for the blueprint y'all created
29:50
Speaker 6: for producers to control their own destinies.
29:54
Speaker 1: Ooh, it's a good question. Well, I always say story,
29:58
Speaker 1: I always say about that, is it? Michael Jackson asked?
30:03
Speaker 1: He said, how do you want to be remembered? And
30:05
Speaker 1: I just said, I want to be remembered as a
30:07
Speaker 1: nice guy. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. Is
30:11
Speaker 1: it because of all her hit records or that you
30:13
Speaker 1: sold somebody? I said, no, no, no, that's all statistical stuff.
30:17
Speaker 1: So like a chart position, that's statistical. I said, I
30:19
Speaker 1: want to be remembered as a nice guy. And about
30:21
Speaker 1: a year later I'd sampled some of michael Texas stuff
30:24
Speaker 1: and they said, oh, you'll never clear that. You'll never
30:26
Speaker 1: clear that. And I called Michael. He called back and
30:28
Speaker 1: he says, I know you want to ask me a question,
30:30
Speaker 1: but can I just tell you Whenever they asked me
30:32
Speaker 1: what it's like working with you guys, I just go
30:35
Speaker 1: Jimmy jam is.
30:35
Speaker 6: The nicest guy.
30:37
Speaker 1: And I said thanks Michael, and he goes, yeah, yeah,
30:39
Speaker 1: I'll clear it. Have John Bran could call and I'll
30:41
Speaker 1: clear the sample and whatever. We ended up not even
30:43
Speaker 1: using the sample. But my point was is that was
30:45
Speaker 1: the impression. And I said to Michael, I said to
30:47
Speaker 1: Good News Michael, I said, when people asked me what
30:49
Speaker 1: it was like to work with you, I tell them
30:51
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. He's a nice guy, so I
30:54
Speaker 1: always want I would always go for that over the talent.
30:56
Speaker 1: But the way you articulated as sort of a blueprint
30:59
Speaker 1: or sort of a you know, an inspiration or all
31:01
Speaker 1: of that, that's what we would like to be. I
31:03
Speaker 1: think you know that. I mean, the hits are great
31:06
Speaker 1: in the moment, but once again, as I talked about
31:08
Speaker 1: earlier with Prince you know, Prince had some big hits,
31:11
Speaker 1: but his effect on people and the fact that we're
31:13
Speaker 1: even sitting here right now. We want to be that
31:16
Speaker 1: for people. We want to be the reason that they're
31:18
Speaker 1: sitting here and being able to do what it is
31:20
Speaker 1: that they do and for to have them say, I mean,
31:22
Speaker 1: I'll tell you we're talking about you know, you know,
31:24
Speaker 1: white people. Charlie Pooth. Charlie Pooth came on the thing
31:28
Speaker 1: we did the other day and he was like, y'all
31:31
Speaker 1: the reason I even make chords, the way I make
31:33
Speaker 1: my chords and that kind of stuff. You know. So
31:35
Speaker 1: that's the kind of Charlie is good dude, right, But
31:39
Speaker 1: you want that's the kind of impact you want to have.
31:40
Speaker 1: And I think that means a lot to us to
31:44
Speaker 1: have that.
31:44
Speaker 3: And I would just add a little bit of sauce
31:47
Speaker 3: on that, Sam, which is really nice, Jim jam But
31:53
Speaker 3: I think from the age that we came into this,
31:57
Speaker 3: you know, there were people before, certainly Gamble and Health,
32:00
Speaker 3: who was our blueprint, you know, Quincy Jones, who was
32:03
Speaker 3: like a mentor.
32:06
Speaker 5: I love the way our career arc and.
32:11
Speaker 3: Business acumen helped to shape the business side of it
32:16
Speaker 3: for producers that came after us.
32:18
Speaker 5: Now, although that.
32:21
Speaker 3: That's all changed now because nobody gets paid now because
32:24
Speaker 3: of streaming. But we actually made the producers have some
32:29
Speaker 3: power at a certain point because before they were just tools,
32:34
Speaker 3: and we became personalities and tools, and that helped us.
32:39
Speaker 3: Just like you guys are. They all are personalities. So
32:43
Speaker 3: that gives the voice even a louder bullhorn.
32:46
Speaker 5: So we were able to advocate for all the people that
32:49
Speaker 5: we love.
32:50
Speaker 3: You know, I love musicians, I love for artists, I
32:53
Speaker 3: love producers, anybody who's creating music. And Kenny Gamble said
32:58
Speaker 3: it best because as my mentor, we would always talk
33:01
Speaker 3: to him about things. He said, you know, our music
33:03
Speaker 3: is supposed to be pure, wholesome. It's supposed to feed
33:06
Speaker 3: and nourish us. So we have to be careful with
33:08
Speaker 3: what we do in terms of what we create for
33:11
Speaker 3: our communities.
33:13
Speaker 5: And I still believe that. But this room for all
33:16
Speaker 5: of it.
33:17
Speaker 3: You know, But for every you know, piece of fried
33:19
Speaker 3: chicken you eat, you better eat a salad.
33:23
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy joining us, and you know, anytime
33:28
Speaker 2: you guys are in town, pull up on.
33:29
Speaker 6: Us please, and tickets can be purchased for their residency
33:33
Speaker 6: at a volt tear.
33:35
Speaker 2: LV dot com, LV dot com April seventeen through the
33:39
Speaker 2: twenty six And thank you brothers again, thank you.
33:42
Speaker 1: It's the Breakfast Club.
33:43
Speaker 6: Good morning, every day up, Breakfast Club.
33:49
Speaker 1: Finish for y'all. Done,