Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Brittney Spencer Talks Debut Album 'My Stupid Life,' 'Cowboy Carter' Album Feature More
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
- 0:02Speaker 2: Breakfast Club, Good morning.
- 0:05Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ Envy, Jesse Hilarious, Charlamagne the Guy.
- 0:08Speaker 1: We are the Breakfast Club.
- 0:09Speaker 3: We got a special guests in the building, YESTERD. We
- 0:11Speaker 3: have Britney Spencer. Welcome baby Baltimore's own.
- 0:15Speaker 2: Yes, y'all, how are you, Brittany?
- 0:17Speaker 4: I am good. I'm so happy to be here.
- 0:19Speaker 5: I'm a little nervous because I've just been watching y'all
- 0:21Speaker 5: for years and so, like, you know, this is fire.
- 0:23Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
- 0:24Speaker 6: That's a name, Baltimore, y'all.
- 0:25Speaker 2: Don't get nervous about nothing.
- 0:26Speaker 4: That's a lot. Do you get nervous.
- 0:28Speaker 7: I get nervous when I'm there. I get nervous when
- 0:30Speaker 7: I'm here. I get nervous everywhere.
- 0:31Speaker 4: I get nervous when I breathe. Yeah, I am a
- 0:33Speaker 4: nervous wreck.
- 0:34Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 0:35Speaker 5: I'm just not very reactive, you know. I just be
- 0:37Speaker 5: like chilling and doing my therapy.
- 0:39Speaker 6: You know, what part of bottom are you from?
- 0:41Speaker 5: I've lived everywhere. Like to give context, I went to
- 0:43Speaker 5: four elementary schools. Yeah, so I've lived gosh, my family
- 0:48Speaker 5: live in like Randallstown and locker rooms.
- 0:52Speaker 4: Yeah I know, yeah, yeah, I went to school in Towson.
- 0:55Speaker 5: I could sing, and so it let me go to
- 0:57Speaker 5: like magnet schools all through middle and high school, and
- 0:59Speaker 5: so I could sing opera and so that kind of
- 1:02Speaker 5: like I didn't have to go to my zone school
- 1:04Speaker 5: and so we moved around like a bit quite a
- 1:06Speaker 5: bit sometimes, but I just didn't have to like change schools.
- 1:09Speaker 7: But I've been everywhere. What made you How did you
- 1:12Speaker 7: end up in Nashville? From Baltimore, Baltimore, all around Baltimore
- 1:16Speaker 7: to Nashville.
- 1:17Speaker 5: People always ask me that. I mean, I found out
- 1:20Speaker 5: about country music because of the radio. My friend Keisha
- 1:23Speaker 5: at church was like, you need to listen to the chicks.
- 1:25Speaker 5: Back then they with Dixie. Yeah, they were the gateway.
- 1:28Speaker 5: I feel like they always the gateway everybody meet. They're
- 1:31Speaker 5: just the gateway. That's how me and Rain and Roberts
- 1:33Speaker 5: connected the first time because we were like just loving
- 1:35Speaker 5: Dixie Chicks. Yeah, but my friends they told me to
- 1:38Speaker 5: listen to them, and I did, and I just fell
- 1:41Speaker 5: in love. I feel like Baltimore was like very like
- 1:43Speaker 5: it's very musical, you know, like you can you can
- 1:46Speaker 5: go and you can sing in church, but also you
- 1:48Speaker 5: can go and listen to music down at Peabody.
- 1:50Speaker 4: You got a lot of art schools there. You got
- 1:52Speaker 4: like harverd and Baltimore School for the Arts.
- 1:54Speaker 5: But also country radio is consistently the highest ranked in Maryland,
- 1:58Speaker 5: so you got a lot of everything. Feel like people
- 2:00Speaker 5: kind of appreciate it, you know, it's a lot of
- 2:02Speaker 5: different sides of Baltimore, and so that was kind of
- 2:05Speaker 5: my introduction to it, and I kind of just fell
- 2:07Speaker 5: in love and kept going and finally decided years later
- 2:10Speaker 5: to make the move and at least give it a try.
- 2:12Speaker 5: I had no idea if this thing was actually gonna work,
- 2:14Speaker 5: but I was like, it's worth a try. Might as
- 2:16Speaker 5: well feel as something that I actually really like, as
- 2:19Speaker 5: opposed to like succeeding at doing something I don't want
- 2:22Speaker 5: to do.
- 2:22Speaker 3: Were you nervous to do country because you said Baltimore
- 2:24Speaker 3: and Baltimore Teeter is on everything right cause you got
- 2:26Speaker 3: club musing in Baltimore. Of course, hipopp An R and B.
- 2:29Speaker 3: Do you get like a touch of Go Go because
- 2:31Speaker 3: DC is right there? And you went country. You totally
- 2:36Speaker 3: went against everything you know that people.
- 2:38Speaker 1: Were listening to. So how did that happen?
- 2:40Speaker 3: What made you say this is what I want to
- 2:41Speaker 3: do as a professional, and I'm going to take the
- 2:43Speaker 3: jump and go to like she said, Nashville.
- 2:45Speaker 4: I mean it was a lot.
- 2:47Speaker 5: I felt like I really loved country music, and I've
- 2:49Speaker 5: like I've like sat and like thought for a long time,
- 2:52Speaker 5: Like back in the day, I would be like, Yo,
- 2:54Speaker 5: why do I love this? Like everything around me was
- 2:57Speaker 5: church was gospel was I mean my family up bringing
- 3:00Speaker 5: like R and B, hip hop like that was that's
- 3:02Speaker 5: like that's my family. My father is a DJ, you know,
- 3:04Speaker 5: it's so like and he spent hip hop and R
- 3:06Speaker 5: and B all the time. And I'm like, what is
- 3:08Speaker 5: this thing? And I couldn't ever point my finger on it,
- 3:11Speaker 5: but I decided that it was. It was just what
- 3:13Speaker 5: it was supposed to be for me, and I got
- 3:16Speaker 5: the nerve. It was something about Taylor Swift, you know,
- 3:18Speaker 5: like I mean y'all know like in New York, y'all
- 3:20Speaker 5: are real close to Baltimore, so like the Northeast is
- 3:23Speaker 5: like it's mad close in proximity, and she's from Pennsylvania.
- 3:26Speaker 4: She didn't have a twang, like she was really poetic.
- 3:28Speaker 5: It was just something about her that just made me
- 3:30Speaker 5: feel like maybe I could do this and then Riba.
- 3:33Speaker 4: I love Reba.
- 3:34Speaker 6: We all like her.
- 3:35Speaker 3: Yeah, what did your dad say, being a DJ, especially
- 3:38Speaker 3: hip hop and R and B DJ When you said, Dad,
- 3:39Speaker 3: I want to do country like that ain't in my serato?
- 3:41Speaker 4: Yeah, he was like, nah, you ain't moved to Atlanta.
- 3:43Speaker 6: I was okay.
- 3:45Speaker 5: I know he was nervous, and my whole family was
- 3:47Speaker 5: kind of nervous actually, but but he got it, you know,
- 3:50Speaker 5: and especially like now, like my family, like honestly, sometimes
- 3:53Speaker 5: they be just as shocked as I am, like, oh
- 3:55Speaker 5: my god, this is actually like happening and working. I'm like,
- 3:58Speaker 5: I never knew for it actually really work. I just
- 4:00Speaker 5: kind of decided I wanted to try and just give
- 4:03Speaker 5: it a real shot. Like I was prepared to for
- 4:07Speaker 5: it to not work, I guess in a sense, but
- 4:10Speaker 5: also I mean, preparing for it to work is a
- 4:12Speaker 5: whole other conversation.
- 4:13Speaker 4: But you know, they just they're on board. They love it.
- 4:16Speaker 5: They love what I'm doing, and I mean, I think
- 4:18Speaker 5: what I do is kind of much bigger than myself,
- 4:21Speaker 5: you know, and uh, and I kind of take that
- 4:24Speaker 5: responsibility seriously, but like it's been very real for me
- 4:27Speaker 5: for a long time.
- 4:28Speaker 4: Like you just didn't know why everybody from Baltimore.
- 4:30Speaker 8: Daddy of DJA, your daddy DJ.
- 4:34Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, yeah, that's why I'm so music link.
- 4:40Speaker 7: I love music, but I don't want but like you,
- 4:42Speaker 7: you know, I don't only listen to hip hop, rap
- 4:46Speaker 7: and you know R and B. I have I delve
- 4:49Speaker 7: in rock, heavy metal, everything like country pop, everything is
- 4:53Speaker 7: every genre of music that makes accept opera.
- 4:56Speaker 6: I ain't gonna hold you. I will be sleep if
- 4:59Speaker 6: I had to do that.
- 5:00Speaker 4: I want no hot season in the morning. You don't
- 5:01Speaker 4: want to hear that?
- 5:02Speaker 7: No, I mean, of course, if you if you make
- 5:04Speaker 7: it interesting, because girl, I just be on it, that's what.
- 5:08Speaker 6: But but that my dad is DJ. Yeah yeah.
- 5:12Speaker 8: Well, it's tough being accepted in the country community as
- 5:16Speaker 8: a black female country artist.
- 5:19Speaker 5: I think, I mean for a lot of us, I
- 5:22Speaker 5: think it's challenging, like trying to get people to understand
- 5:25Speaker 5: sometimes what we're doing. But I feel like there are
- 5:28Speaker 5: a lot of creatives that are really open to kind
- 5:31Speaker 5: of this this reformation happening in Nashville. I mean, in
- 5:36Speaker 5: addition to like just what we look like we're bringing
- 5:39Speaker 5: our culture to like just like how you said, you
- 5:42Speaker 5: listen to everything like I do too, and that you
- 5:45Speaker 5: can hear that in my music.
- 5:49Speaker 4: Too, especially when I get closer to home.
- 5:52Speaker 5: It's just like it's like pulled out of me because
- 5:54Speaker 5: I've been to Nationville for eleven years, so like sometimes
- 5:56Speaker 5: it's a little twangy like just because I've been there
- 5:58Speaker 5: for so long. But but yeah, I mean, I just
- 6:01Speaker 5: I feel like we're bringing a lot of the styles
- 6:03Speaker 5: and influences that we've kind of like had around us.
- 6:06Speaker 5: You know, our family at a cookouts, we listen to
- 6:09Speaker 5: music where we see ourselves, where we see ourselves reflected.
- 6:11Speaker 5: And so we're coming into country, but we're bringing R
- 6:14Speaker 5: and B, and we're bringing rock, and we're bringing opera.
- 6:18Speaker 5: There is actually a country record that starts off with opera.
- 6:21Speaker 5: Like people who are just you know.
- 6:24Speaker 6: That's I'm just kiding.
- 6:26Speaker 7: Thinking of opera, I just think of sitting in the
- 6:27Speaker 7: symphony and they just down there, you know, doing the
- 6:31Speaker 7: It's different. I'm pretty sure it's different types of opera.
- 6:33Speaker 7: But that's the only thing my mind goes to is
- 6:35Speaker 7: that the regular symphony I get when you're sitting in
- 6:38Speaker 7: the big semony hall and they just think screaming from
- 6:40Speaker 7: water wall.
- 6:41Speaker 5: And a lot of it being like uh in like
- 6:43Speaker 5: other languages, and so you don't always know what's going on.
- 6:45Speaker 4: You gotta kind of read and stuff. I did it.
- 6:47Speaker 6: I did it.
- 6:47Speaker 1: Why do people have to go to Nashville?
- 6:48Speaker 3: Because it reminds me of when when hip hop was
- 6:51Speaker 3: big in New York and everybody had they felt like
- 6:53Speaker 3: they had to move to New York to get that sound,
- 6:55Speaker 3: Like why.
- 6:56Speaker 1: Why do you have to go to Nashville?
- 6:57Speaker 3: Why artists have to go to Nashville and kind of
- 6:59Speaker 3: get it started and come Yeah, I.
- 7:01Speaker 4: Mean I don't know. Probably because of the resources.
- 7:04Speaker 5: That's where the industry is, Like Nashville is built like
- 7:07Speaker 5: with an infrastructure. That's where the labels are, That's where
- 7:09Speaker 5: the ros are, a lot of the publishing companies are there,
- 7:13Speaker 5: a lot of the producers are there. I mean, there
- 7:16Speaker 5: are plenty of places, like in Texas, Like there are
- 7:18Speaker 5: plenty of Texas artists that are like they're not moving
- 7:20Speaker 5: to Nashville, or they'll come to Nashville and record, but
- 7:23Speaker 5: they'll stay in Texas. So there are some places it's
- 7:27Speaker 5: just I don't know, Nashville's just kind of built like yeah,
- 7:31Speaker 5: like it's just kind of built for that. And I mean,
- 7:34Speaker 5: the radios are there, and so it's just I don't know.
- 7:36Speaker 5: I feel like it's just if you want to do
- 7:38Speaker 5: it outside in Nashville, I feel like you can, especially now,
- 7:40Speaker 5: you know, with like the Internet. But ultimately I feel
- 7:43Speaker 5: like a lot of people end up feel like they
- 7:45Speaker 5: got to move to Nashville.
- 7:46Speaker 4: I felt like I had to move to Nashville.
- 7:47Speaker 5: I remember watching like documentaries with like Riba and Taylor
- 7:51Speaker 5: back when I was a kid and just being like, oh,
- 7:54Speaker 5: they both said they had to get to Nashville, and
- 7:56Speaker 5: I'm like, my ass need to get to Nashville, and so, like,
- 7:59Speaker 5: you know, it's me a few years to kind of
- 8:01Speaker 5: get the nerve to do it. But I don't know.
- 8:03Speaker 5: I feel like I feel like I meet more and
- 8:06Speaker 5: more artists that are not in Nashville, but they always
- 8:08Speaker 5: end up having to come back to Nashville a lot,
- 8:10Speaker 5: you know, like you have to kind of just get there.
- 8:13Speaker 4: Everybody is kind of there.
- 8:15Speaker 2: It's country music more racist and sexist.
- 8:19Speaker 4: M gosh.
- 8:22Speaker 5: I think radio right now like ten percent of their
- 8:24Speaker 5: airplay is women right right now. But I don't think
- 8:28Speaker 5: they're playing black women right now much so I don't
- 8:31Speaker 5: I don't know both of them is just a struggle.
- 8:33Speaker 4: I guess.
- 8:34Speaker 5: I don't know, and I don't I feel like the
- 8:36Speaker 5: industry is kind of pushing for change in that department,
- 8:40Speaker 5: but yeah, I don't know.
- 8:41Speaker 4: It's kind of in need of a little a.
- 8:43Speaker 5: Little overhaul in a lot of departments, and I'm in
- 8:47Speaker 5: the middle of that, like I feel.
- 8:49Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know.
- 8:50Speaker 5: I feel like even as I make music like that
- 8:52Speaker 5: sits on my brain sometimes but I try to.
- 8:56Speaker 4: I don't know, you can't really get away from it.
- 8:57Speaker 5: It comes out even in the creative process, like you
- 8:59Speaker 5: know this, I would say, I feel like I feel
- 9:03Speaker 5: like people speak probably more about race right now, or
- 9:06Speaker 5: people who are experiencing it, like people who are black
- 9:09Speaker 5: are talking about it more than probably women are sometimes.
- 9:13Speaker 4: And so I don't know. I mean, I have a
- 9:15Speaker 4: lot of questions.
- 9:15Speaker 5: I don't have a lot of answers, though I'll be trying,
- 9:18Speaker 5: but I don't know. I'm just hoping to see that
- 9:22Speaker 5: something changes. But in the meantime, my black women asks
- 9:25Speaker 5: right here, that's right, I got a little album, you
- 9:27Speaker 5: know whatever.
- 9:30Speaker 7: How heavily do you go into it on your in
- 9:32Speaker 7: your album? Like you know, the speaking about race? What
- 9:37Speaker 7: you were talking about, Like do you speak about it
- 9:39Speaker 7: heavily in your album?
- 9:41Speaker 4: Not so much.
- 9:44Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like it's not that I don't
- 9:47Speaker 5: want to, because I feel like I talk about this
- 9:49Speaker 5: stuff all the time, Like I don't shy away from
- 9:51Speaker 5: the conversation at all. I feel like I just try
- 9:53Speaker 5: to put my lived experience, my life experience in the
- 9:57Speaker 5: song and hopefully that attracts, you know, people who kind
- 10:01Speaker 5: of have that experience as well. Yeah, I just I
- 10:04Speaker 5: really do try to just show up as myself and
- 10:07Speaker 5: try to show up as black and as authentic and
- 10:09Speaker 5: as woman and as Baltimore as I am, you know,
- 10:12Speaker 5: and as country as I am. And so I kind
- 10:16Speaker 5: of leave that sometimes for the conversation because I feel
- 10:18Speaker 5: like I don't know if I write a song about it,
- 10:22Speaker 5: like I don't know.
- 10:24Speaker 6: I don't oversaturation.
- 10:25Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, this is.
- 10:27Speaker 7: About my story, which country it really plays off, is
- 10:30Speaker 7: about the experience and your stories.
- 10:32Speaker 6: So why is it called my stupid life? I want
- 10:34Speaker 6: to and is it stupid like or you know what?
- 10:38Speaker 4: Why why you call it it's called my stupid life?
- 10:42Speaker 5: Probably because in part because I'm from Baltimore, Like we
- 10:44Speaker 5: read each other like what's up, dummy? Probably like that
- 10:47Speaker 5: we say it's it's love you, and if you from
- 10:53Speaker 5: somewhere else, you can't sing it that tell that every
- 10:55Speaker 5: day girl.
- 10:57Speaker 6: So your Stupid Life.
- 10:59Speaker 5: It's because I feel like life is uh, you know,
- 11:02Speaker 5: it's wonderful, it's highs, it's lowses, up and downs. It's like,
- 11:05Speaker 5: it's a lot of things. And ultimately, when I'm thinking
- 11:09Speaker 5: about just the things that make me feel most present,
- 11:12Speaker 5: I'm just I don't know, like the best and worst
- 11:14Speaker 5: things happen at the same time sometimes, and for me,
- 11:16Speaker 5: that's kind of how I think about my stupid life.
- 11:18Speaker 4: And with the album, it's.
- 11:20Speaker 5: Just no one song sounds like the other, and that
- 11:23Speaker 5: was on purpose, like and so it's just I don't know,
- 11:26Speaker 5: it just felt like a conglomerate. But also, I mean, really,
- 11:29Speaker 5: I wasn't trying to name the album that. I was
- 11:30Speaker 5: really just kind of figuring out which song title off
- 11:33Speaker 5: of the album was the most appealing to me. And
- 11:36Speaker 5: when I was writing the song my Stupid Life, I
- 11:38Speaker 5: just kind of I.
- 11:39Speaker 4: Was like, oh, this is actually kind of cool.
- 11:40Speaker 5: I would listen to an album called My Stupid Life, right,
- 11:43Speaker 5: But also, I mean I come from that era of
- 11:45Speaker 5: like my so called life and like stuff like that,
- 11:47Speaker 5: and so it was I don't know, it just felt
- 11:49Speaker 5: like nostalgic to me in a way.
- 11:50Speaker 8: I saw you say that the album cracked you wide
- 11:53Speaker 8: open and it allows you to open up emotionally in
- 11:56Speaker 8: a way that you really hadn't before.
- 11:58Speaker 2: And you said, I really don't like feeling.
- 12:00Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't. I don't.
- 12:04Speaker 5: Therapy has helped me a whole lot with that, and
- 12:07Speaker 5: I have a lot of feelings. I love therapy too,
- 12:09Speaker 5: and I love what you be saying about therapy. I
- 12:11Speaker 5: love that, Like I feel like you've been like at
- 12:13Speaker 5: the helm of making it almost normalized a lot more
- 12:17Speaker 5: so thank you for that.
- 12:19Speaker 4: I feel like, I don't know.
- 12:21Speaker 5: When you have feelings, knowing what to do with them
- 12:23Speaker 5: is just hard, and it takes a certain level of
- 12:26Speaker 5: emotional intelligence and also just guidance and knowing how to
- 12:29Speaker 5: navigate what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and.
- 12:34Speaker 4: What to do with it.
- 12:34Speaker 5: You know, Like, I'm not a very reactive person. I'm
- 12:37Speaker 5: very sensitive and I feel a lot of things, and
- 12:39Speaker 5: I've learned that if you don't let yourself feel what
- 12:42Speaker 5: you're feeling and go through the process, it just comes
- 12:45Speaker 5: out in other ways. You know, you wake up one
- 12:47Speaker 5: day you realize you're detached from everything. You feel, you
- 12:51Speaker 5: feel numb, You feel like like why do I feel
- 12:54Speaker 5: so distant from people?
- 12:55Speaker 6: Why?
- 12:55Speaker 4: Why don't I know this about myself? Like there were moments.
- 12:58Speaker 5: Where I was just like just almost oblivious to parts
- 13:02Speaker 5: of myself. And I think that played a part. And
- 13:04Speaker 5: why when I started having momentum in my career and
- 13:08Speaker 5: I started touring a lot, I start having like panic
- 13:10Speaker 5: attacks and anxiety attacks, and I'm like on the road
- 13:13Speaker 5: and I'm like, what is going on? Like your body remembers,
- 13:17Speaker 5: you know, and your mind remembers even the stuff that
- 13:20Speaker 5: you thought you forgot, and so it's I don't know.
- 13:24Speaker 5: I just think it's important to at least start the
- 13:27Speaker 5: journey of, you know, understanding your feelings, you know, and
- 13:31Speaker 5: figuring out the origin of it, you know, figuring out
- 13:32Speaker 5: why you do something, figuring out why does this thing
- 13:35Speaker 5: trigger you?
- 13:35Speaker 4: It's a much deeper thing.
- 13:37Speaker 5: You thought you forgot about it because you were eight
- 13:39Speaker 5: years old, But your body remembers, and it developed a
- 13:43Speaker 5: habit of coping mechanism. And the thing that I've learned
- 13:45Speaker 5: from me in my career is that it's it really,
- 13:53Speaker 5: it really does not do well if you are just
- 13:56Speaker 5: living in survival mode. Like my survival tactics like crumbled,
- 14:00Speaker 5: they crumbled like when I started touring, and just slowly
- 14:04Speaker 5: and it's like the the just the faintest thing like
- 14:07Speaker 5: can kind of like set you off a little bit
- 14:09Speaker 5: and you don't know what's going on internally. You don't
- 14:11Speaker 5: realize you're still dealing with stuff from childhood. You're still
- 14:13Speaker 5: dealing with all kinds of stuff, Like you're still dealing
- 14:16Speaker 5: with rejection issues that really, I mean, you get rejected
- 14:19Speaker 5: a lot in this industry, you know, but my rejection
- 14:22Speaker 5: and issues didn't start with this industry.
- 14:24Speaker 2: You know.
- 14:24Speaker 5: It just exacerbates everything, and it's a it's a lot
- 14:28Speaker 5: of highs and a lot of those. I mean, y'all
- 14:30Speaker 5: know this in your career, Like you know, you can
- 14:32Speaker 5: be on the mountaintop and your mind or your career
- 14:35Speaker 5: and your psyche one day and and uh and be
- 14:37Speaker 5: in the valley the next and like, I just feel
- 14:41Speaker 5: like a lot of real life don't doesn't really prepare
- 14:43Speaker 5: you for that. And if you already got stuff, you know,
- 14:46Speaker 5: with you, it just brings it all to the forefront,
- 14:48Speaker 5: and that's what happened to me.
- 14:49Speaker 8: Not good for you in that point, because you didn't
- 14:51Speaker 8: creating poster syndrome. Oh gosh, when you get the posit
- 14:54Speaker 8: syndrome stuff, feel like you should even be here, that
- 14:56Speaker 8: everything haply for you because you're a performer.
- 14:58Speaker 5: Oh gosh, it was so bad, moom. One time, I
- 14:59Speaker 5: was having this anxiety attack. I didn't even know it
- 15:02Speaker 5: was an anxiety attack during the show. All I knew
- 15:04Speaker 5: is that I was so excited to open up for
- 15:06Speaker 5: Shania Twain. But I like ran off stage. I ran
- 15:09Speaker 5: off stage before I could even bow out, because I
- 15:13Speaker 5: literally just started, this is gonna be so gross. But
- 15:15Speaker 5: I just started literally having anxiety vomit, like in front
- 15:19Speaker 5: of the dozens of people backstage. I don't know I'm
- 15:21Speaker 5: running off stage. My band is still playing. Thankfully I
- 15:23Speaker 5: made it to the last song. But I'm just like,
- 15:26Speaker 5: what is going on? And I'm like, I'm having a
- 15:28Speaker 5: whole anxiety attack right now. And I started noticing when
- 15:31Speaker 5: I got off stage, I did the thing. My body
- 15:34Speaker 5: was doing the thing when I'm having a panic or
- 15:37Speaker 5: really bad anxiety attack, and I'm just like, this is crazy,
- 15:40Speaker 5: and it wasn't the first time it happened. I was
- 15:41Speaker 5: just like, this is insane and so and I was
- 15:45Speaker 5: in therapy at that point, and so I went back
- 15:47Speaker 5: to therapy and we talked about it more, and I'm like,
- 15:50Speaker 5: holy crap, I still have some more stuff to work out.
- 15:53Speaker 5: And this is true, Like you have to. I feel
- 15:55Speaker 5: like this life is. It's very fast paced. Things change
- 16:00Speaker 5: at the drop of a dom and and that's what
- 16:04Speaker 5: I try to put That's what I try to put
- 16:07Speaker 5: in my songs. That's what I try to put in
- 16:10Speaker 5: my talking and my speech and the way that I
- 16:13Speaker 5: articulate what I'm feeling like that's my lived experience.
- 16:16Speaker 4: I try to put that out there.
- 16:17Speaker 5: Like like I'm saying, like I hate feelings is like,
- 16:20Speaker 5: you know, that sounds like the artest thing I think
- 16:23Speaker 5: for an artist to say. We live in our feelings
- 16:25Speaker 5: and I do feel them, and I'm learning how to
- 16:27Speaker 5: navigate them better. But feelings are gosh, man, they are
- 16:33Speaker 5: Sometimes it feels like a rock in a hard place.
- 16:36Speaker 5: But if you can learn how to navigate it, it's freedom.
- 16:39Speaker 3: Now you spoke about, you know, the industry. He asked
- 16:41Speaker 3: you if it was more racist or sexist, how do
- 16:44Speaker 3: you deal with performing for people that's not necessarily majority
- 16:48Speaker 3: looking like you?
- 16:49Speaker 1: Right, Like, I look at it like if.
- 16:50Speaker 3: I had the white people in Naville, because I mean
- 16:54Speaker 3: most of the people that she's performing Shania Twain, I'm
- 16:56Speaker 3: sure is when you're looking at crowd, you don't see
- 16:58Speaker 3: too many people that look like you.
- 17:00Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, when.
- 17:01Speaker 3: Es does the show, she sees more people that look
- 17:03Speaker 3: like It makes you feel comfortablekes you feel warm. You're
- 17:04Speaker 3: gonna see auntie, You're gonna see Grandma's, you're gonna see cousins.
- 17:07Speaker 3: So how is it dealing with with you're not seeing
- 17:10Speaker 3: an auntie, your cousin of people that look like if
- 17:11Speaker 3: you're not necessarily getting that warm feeling at first.
- 17:19Speaker 6: Every white people can come into my shoes.
- 17:24Speaker 1: I just said the majority.
- 17:27Speaker 6: Because these people think they know me so much.
- 17:30Speaker 4: They can't discredit your fans. They can't. I got they can't.
- 17:35Speaker 4: It sounds just like my sister, this is so wild.
- 17:38Speaker 4: Shout out, Bria, shout out.
- 17:42Speaker 5: I feel like, I don't know, I feel like, gosh,
- 17:46Speaker 5: what's the best way to describe it? Like like, I
- 17:48Speaker 5: don't feel a way about it. I just feel like
- 17:52Speaker 5: I feel like I just it pushes me to show
- 17:54Speaker 5: up as myself even more, like I really just don't
- 17:57Speaker 5: be hot and nothing like I remember like it was
- 18:00Speaker 5: a very distinct moment where I remember being on stage
- 18:03Speaker 5: and being like, I'm gonna start running as much as
- 18:06Speaker 5: I want to because that's what the that's what I
- 18:08Speaker 5: like to do.
- 18:08Speaker 4: I don't know if I can cuss on this, I
- 18:10Speaker 4: can do the thing. Okay, that's what the fuck I
- 18:12Speaker 4: want to do.
- 18:13Speaker 5: So I just remember, like I just I don't know,
- 18:15Speaker 5: I'm just more myself and I just I feel like
- 18:19Speaker 5: in my head, I am building something, you know, in
- 18:23Speaker 5: this moment with this, with particularly with black country music,
- 18:27Speaker 5: I feel like like the people that are for us
- 18:30Speaker 5: are finding us, you know, our people, our crowd are
- 18:34Speaker 5: they're finding us. And the people who want to celebrate
- 18:36Speaker 5: all of who we are, they're finding us. And so
- 18:39Speaker 5: when I'm singing to crowds that in a majority of
- 18:41Speaker 5: them don't look like me to me, in my head,
- 18:44Speaker 5: I'm like, it's okay because I'm not opening act right now,
- 18:46Speaker 5: you know, Like I'm excited. I love opening up for
- 18:48Speaker 5: the people that I'm opened up for. That's the part
- 18:50Speaker 5: of my career where I'm at right now, and in
- 18:52Speaker 5: my head, I'm just like, you're going to be a
- 18:54Speaker 5: part of this thing. When I'm headlining the show, you know,
- 18:57Speaker 5: you're going to be part of the demographic because I really,
- 18:59Speaker 5: I really want to make me music for everybody, Like
- 19:00Speaker 5: I really want to make universal country music, Like I
- 19:04Speaker 5: want something for everybody, and everything ain't gonna be for everybody,
- 19:08Speaker 5: but like maybe there's a song or two that's down
- 19:10Speaker 5: your row, you know, and I feel like more.
- 19:12Speaker 4: I mean, I can't say more than ever.
- 19:13Speaker 5: I hate people say that like we weren't here, you know,
- 19:15Speaker 5: before our time, but it feels like right now more
- 19:18Speaker 5: than ever. People enjoy authenticity, like whoever you are is enough,
- 19:24Speaker 5: Like whatever your story is, it doesn't need to be mine,
- 19:27Speaker 5: it just needs to be real. And that's what drew
- 19:29Speaker 5: me to country music. I love that people put themselves
- 19:32Speaker 5: in their songs, and I love that people tell the truth,
- 19:35Speaker 5: or at least try to. And if you can't tell
- 19:37Speaker 5: the truth because it ain't yours, you at least have
- 19:39Speaker 5: a high level of empathy to be able to put
- 19:41Speaker 5: yourself in somebody else's shoes well enough to articulate that story.
- 19:45Speaker 5: And for me, that's what draws me even to performing,
- 19:49Speaker 5: and so I kind of I kind of keep that
- 19:50Speaker 5: the forefront of my brain and and it comes with challenges,
- 19:54Speaker 5: of course, it definitely comes with challenges. Like I mean,
- 19:59Speaker 5: even though in creating process, like having people that understand
- 20:04Speaker 5: a black girl from Baltimore City who want to do
- 20:06Speaker 5: country music. You know, that's that's interesting. You know, what
- 20:10Speaker 5: does a right like that look like? You know, what
- 20:11Speaker 5: does a session like that look like? And it's a
- 20:14Speaker 5: it can be. It's a lot of exploring and it's
- 20:17Speaker 5: a lot of open mindedness. And like I said, I
- 20:21Speaker 5: feel like in addition to bringing my complexion, I'm bringing
- 20:24Speaker 5: my culture, you know. And I feel like right now
- 20:27Speaker 5: in country music, it's a great time to be able
- 20:31Speaker 5: to explore what that sounds like, not just what it
- 20:34Speaker 5: looks like, but and that's important too, but also what
- 20:37Speaker 5: does it sound like? You know, Like I'm not coming
- 20:40Speaker 5: and assimilating. I'm bringing, you know, my eight years of
- 20:43Speaker 5: singing opera. I'm coming and I'm bringing like just listening
- 20:47Speaker 5: to the Chicks as a kid, and listening to to
- 20:50Speaker 5: Anina Simone and listening to Beyonce, and listening to shah
- 20:53Speaker 5: Dei and listening to the Clark sisters, Like I'm bringing
- 20:57Speaker 5: all of that, Like what does that sound like?
- 20:59Speaker 4: Because I come from.
- 21:00Speaker 5: A place where we listen to everything, and it's so
- 21:02Speaker 5: nice to be able to talk to Baltimore person who's
- 21:04Speaker 5: just like that too, because that's that's not a me thing.
- 21:06Speaker 5: And I'll be trying to explain that the people on
- 21:08Speaker 5: NAT show like, yo, that is not.
- 21:09Speaker 4: A me thing.
- 21:10Speaker 5: I come from a very musically eclectic place where there
- 21:14Speaker 5: isn't one genre associated with us. We got Hairspraady, musical,
- 21:17Speaker 5: Billie Holiday and Tony Braxton like that's that's very those
- 21:21Speaker 5: are very different things. And Tupac lived there for like
- 21:23Speaker 5: a little while.
- 21:25Speaker 7: Yesterday, Girl, Tim Trees, Girl, you remember bank rolls? You
- 21:30Speaker 7: think you getting half of my dough? You wink dough?
- 21:33Speaker 4: Please tell me I don't, but I wish I did.
- 21:37Speaker 6: Girl, I'm gonna send it to you. Girl, it got
- 21:38Speaker 6: too crazy.
- 21:39Speaker 4: I wish I knew. I'm sorry, I wish I did.
- 21:41Speaker 7: No, no, no, don't wish because after this yeah, yeah, okay,
- 21:47Speaker 7: but honestly, that's what like, that's what drew me to you.
- 21:51Speaker 7: I have a best friend who likes country music as well,
- 21:54Speaker 7: but I I I delve in country music, but it's
- 21:58Speaker 7: not like something that I will play every day. But
- 22:01Speaker 7: her telling like, Yo, it's this girl from Baltimore who
- 22:03Speaker 7: do country, and she sent she sent me your stuff,
- 22:07Speaker 7: you and and Rainy because she's into that. She's into
- 22:09Speaker 7: country more than I am. And so she sent me
- 22:11Speaker 7: rain and she sent me here, she sent me a
- 22:12Speaker 7: couple other girls, and I was like, dang, Like Shorty,
- 22:16Speaker 7: you can really sing, you know, and your voice is
- 22:18Speaker 7: very soothing as well. And then you mentioned Beyonce like
- 22:21Speaker 7: something like that is just interesting coming from where I'm from,
- 22:24Speaker 7: because you don't see country singers that's coming out of
- 22:27Speaker 7: our city, you know what I mean.
- 22:29Speaker 6: Every day or or even every year.
- 22:32Speaker 7: This is not this is something that you see every
- 22:34Speaker 7: once in Honestly, I think you're probably the only one
- 22:37Speaker 7: so like to be honest, and so I know even
- 22:41Speaker 7: a Beyonce would take a liking to that, Like hold up,
- 22:43Speaker 7: like you know, so how did that even happen? Like
- 22:45Speaker 7: how did that link up happen? Because you're on Blackbird
- 22:48Speaker 7: on the Cowboy called an album.
- 22:49Speaker 4: Yeah, how did that happen?
- 22:50Speaker 5: I don't actually know, Like all I know is is
- 22:55Speaker 5: that I'm there, and I it's wild. It's insane, Like
- 22:58Speaker 5: being on that record, I feel like one is just
- 23:02Speaker 5: breaking a lot of musical boundaries, like for what kind
- 23:05Speaker 5: of music people can make.
- 23:07Speaker 4: It's kind of.
- 23:07Speaker 5: Disrupting I think a lot of the industry and also
- 23:09Speaker 5: disrupting like just even the creative process. I think, like
- 23:13Speaker 5: I feel like creatives might take the boxes off a
- 23:16Speaker 5: little bit, you know, and not you know, be as
- 23:19Speaker 5: you know, I don't think we've been rigid, but like
- 23:21Speaker 5: will be even more explorative and also not feel like
- 23:24Speaker 5: in order to be marketable you have to be this
- 23:26Speaker 5: one thing. Yeah, you know, that's always a huge thing.
- 23:30Speaker 5: Like I mean, like, am I marketable in my commercial
- 23:33Speaker 5: will people like this? You know, especially if you want
- 23:35Speaker 5: to be a commercial artist, and it's I don't know,
- 23:38Speaker 5: I feel like it's taking a limits off of that
- 23:40Speaker 5: and being a part of that record, like I was.
- 23:43Speaker 5: I was just telling Kevin the other day, Kevin Lows
- 23:47Speaker 5: over here, I was just telling him. I was like, yo,
- 23:50Speaker 5: I just realized my album I put it out. Put
- 23:52Speaker 5: my album out in.
- 23:53Speaker 4: January, and it opens up with birds.
- 23:55Speaker 5: Chirping, and it opens off with this I know right,
- 23:59Speaker 5: And it opens up with this song called new to
- 24:01Speaker 5: This Town and it's in the same key as Blackbird,
- 24:03Speaker 5: almost the same tempo, and like I'm just like this
- 24:07Speaker 5: is this is wild, this is beautiful, it's it's it's
- 24:10Speaker 5: like you can't orchestra stuff like that.
- 24:12Speaker 4: I mean, I talk about Beyonce on my album.
- 24:14Speaker 2: Like and a Raven is a Blackbird Baltimore Ravens.
- 24:17Speaker 3: I don't know know it is, but why it happened
- 24:23Speaker 3: is did she call you?
- 24:24Speaker 1: Did somebody call you? Was the record? Like how did
- 24:26Speaker 1: the record come together?
- 24:27Speaker 4: I didn't already talk about that yet. I ain't gonna lie.
- 24:29Speaker 5: I mean I feel like, uh, like I feel like
- 24:33Speaker 5: as an artist, like I want to respect like her
- 24:35Speaker 5: creative process, and I feel like whenever she's ready to
- 24:38Speaker 5: talk about this, she will and I want to.
- 24:39Speaker 4: Leave that for her. I love her, I admire her.
- 24:42Speaker 5: And also she's Beyonce and like you know she'll she'll
- 24:45Speaker 5: tell the story you won't. Yeah, I mean that and
- 24:49Speaker 5: all I mean, but also like for real, like on
- 24:50Speaker 5: a very hard level, like I mean, I don't know
- 24:53Speaker 5: people have plans for how they want to like reveal stuff,
- 24:56Speaker 5: and I just want to wait, like I just make sense, Yeah,
- 24:59Speaker 5: like I want to and plus I want to cherish this.
- 25:01Speaker 5: Like I'm also the same person who like will hold
- 25:04Speaker 5: on to something for a long time and like not
- 25:06Speaker 5: share with nobody, and like I don't know, even with
- 25:09Speaker 5: my album, I had like the little leather keychain that
- 25:11Speaker 5: had the title of it on there. I mean I
- 25:13Speaker 5: had it around people have my keys, I lose my
- 25:15Speaker 5: keys all kinds of stuff and go back to the
- 25:16Speaker 5: store to get it. I've had my stupid life written
- 25:18Speaker 5: on all kinds of things for a year. I had
- 25:21Speaker 5: it on like engraved on one of my shirts. Like
- 25:23Speaker 5: nobody saw it, nobody knew, but like it was just
- 25:25Speaker 5: like my little thing. And so I respect the creative
- 25:28Speaker 5: process and so.
- 25:29Speaker 7: But it's just you because you're young, you know what
- 25:31Speaker 7: I'm saying, even just for you, like later on maybe
- 25:34Speaker 7: that's maybe you'll write a book or maybe you'll.
- 25:36Speaker 6: Do it like you know, like a memoir or like a.
- 25:38Speaker 7: Documentary where that will be something for later. You get
- 25:42Speaker 7: what I'm saying, like for you to do.
- 25:43Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like everything is so instant right now
- 25:46Speaker 5: with like social media, and I'm like, yo, have a
- 25:49Speaker 5: like having a thought out play, and I get it.
- 25:51Speaker 4: I understand urgency.
- 25:53Speaker 5: I understand like or at least, I'm starting to understand
- 25:56Speaker 5: just immediacy. I struggle with social media that is not
- 25:59Speaker 5: my four today, Like I'll be talking about I'll be
- 26:03Speaker 5: online talking to people about how I don't want to
- 26:05Speaker 5: be online. I'm like, this is like what am I doing?
- 26:07Speaker 5: Like I made a whole song the other day and
- 26:09Speaker 5: was like, I tiktokd someone please tell my team my label.
- 26:11Speaker 4: I tiktoked.
- 26:12Speaker 5: I did the thing like please, like just know that
- 26:15Speaker 5: I'm trying today, like I can't account for tomorrow, but
- 26:18Speaker 5: this week I'm bored. So I'm actually doing an experiment
- 26:20Speaker 5: where I'm posting like two or three tiktoks a day
- 26:22Speaker 5: because I'm kind of just bored. I just want to
- 26:24Speaker 5: try something now. I don't know what I'm looking for,
- 26:26Speaker 5: but I'm just having fun talking to people. But I
- 26:28Speaker 5: forgot what I was talking about just now. That's how
- 26:30Speaker 5: this works in my brain.
- 26:32Speaker 7: Basically, he was askingly, like trying to get your business
- 26:34Speaker 7: about how to be linked up, and you say you're going.
- 26:36Speaker 6: To talk about it later maybe later. Urgency is not
- 26:40Speaker 6: for thank you all that.
- 26:41Speaker 7: Like I got to start about how you know, when
- 26:42Speaker 7: me and Michael Jackson was cool, I'm gonna tell that later,
- 26:45Speaker 7: you know what I mean, because that that's a story
- 26:47Speaker 7: for later.
- 26:49Speaker 4: You know that, you know, I was just going with it.
- 26:52Speaker 4: I'm here for it.
- 26:53Speaker 8: The best thing to do when you're talking to somebody
- 26:55Speaker 8: from Baltimore to go whatever they're saying. I'm just listen
- 27:00Speaker 8: the other black female country artists. You mentioned Rainer, but
- 27:02Speaker 8: then there's a Tanner Dale, Tierraic Kennedy where y'all all
- 27:06Speaker 8: familiar with each other and cool with each other before y'all.
- 27:09Speaker 5: Yeah, So in a sense, I, me and Raina have
- 27:12Speaker 5: been really good friends for a few years. Me and
- 27:14Speaker 5: Raina we met back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
- 27:19Speaker 5: and Tanner we met. I want to say, we met
- 27:23Speaker 5: like last year for the first time. I've literally only
- 27:26Speaker 5: been around her a handful of times, but we've like
- 27:28Speaker 5: been just really friendly. We have like a common interest
- 27:30Speaker 5: in edible glitter.
- 27:32Speaker 2: Edible glitter, Yeah, yeah.
- 27:34Speaker 4: Put it in your drinks. You don't put in it?
- 27:38Speaker 5: I'm like, mind, but but that's no. I don't have
- 27:42Speaker 5: TC in it. It just I put the thing, you know,
- 27:44Speaker 5: I do the thing. Yeah, but no, it's just regular
- 27:47Speaker 5: just Amazon edible glitter. And so that was something that
- 27:50Speaker 5: we just kind.
- 27:51Speaker 1: Of literally in drink.
- 27:52Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it makes.
- 27:53Speaker 6: A drink really pretty edible, got you a little.
- 27:58Speaker 5: Gold dust on your like something, I mean anyway, but
- 28:01Speaker 5: then we connected with that online and so like it's
- 28:06Speaker 5: just been I don't know, it's just been mutual respect
- 28:07Speaker 5: and just like little things like that. I've known Tier
- 28:10Speaker 5: for a few years. We work together back in twenty
- 28:14Speaker 5: twenty one, and so yeah, I mean I feel like
- 28:17Speaker 5: we all kind of like started meeting each other when
- 28:20Speaker 5: life got busy, like around twenty twenty and when the
- 28:23Speaker 5: conversation around Black Country really kind of started ramping up,
- 28:26Speaker 5: and so I don't know, I feel like artists are
- 28:28Speaker 5: just kind of like passing ships through the night, and
- 28:30Speaker 5: so it was it's really cool to be able to
- 28:31Speaker 5: kind of like have a moment with an artist because
- 28:34Speaker 5: I mean, the beautiful and also sad part is that
- 28:36Speaker 5: like you've really got live in that moment when you're
- 28:38Speaker 5: with somebody that is in the same field as you,
- 28:40Speaker 5: because once this moment is over, like you might not
- 28:42Speaker 5: see each other for a really long time. Like I
- 28:44Speaker 5: have friends that I've connected with so deeply, like over
- 28:47Speaker 5: tour or something. And it was two months and I
- 28:50Speaker 5: haven't seen him in two years now, and so I
- 28:52Speaker 5: know I'll be going through withdrawals. I'm like, oh my god,
- 28:54Speaker 5: my friend, we shared such a beautiful moment. And also
- 28:57Speaker 5: now we only see each other anymore right now, because
- 29:00Speaker 5: life is justic it's hard.
- 29:02Speaker 4: Yeah, y'all know about that more than me.
- 29:05Speaker 8: Was there a country music before Beyonce and after Beyonce?
- 29:10Speaker 6: Yeah?
- 29:11Speaker 2: Okay, like how the things changed?
- 29:13Speaker 4: Yeah? Oh in that sense?
- 29:17Speaker 8: Have how have you benefited from her being in the
- 29:19Speaker 8: country music space now?
- 29:21Speaker 5: Oh gosh, I mean even just some of the stuff
- 29:23Speaker 5: that I was saying, like with a kind of breaking
- 29:26Speaker 5: those musical barriers and and kind of like who gets
- 29:28Speaker 5: to represent the South or like or or just the
- 29:31Speaker 5: stories that get to be told or the way that
- 29:33Speaker 5: it's told, Like even just sonically, I feel like people
- 29:36Speaker 5: might even be a little more explorative on their albums.
- 29:39Speaker 5: Like my personal favorite album is Lemonade, Like of all time,
- 29:43Speaker 5: that's my album. When I heard that album, it like
- 29:47Speaker 5: no one song sounded like another, and it was it
- 29:50Speaker 5: was really like it shook up my head a lot.
- 29:53Speaker 5: And I feel like if people listen to my album
- 29:55Speaker 5: My Stupid Life, like you can hear that you can
- 29:57Speaker 5: hear where I just wanted to have storytelling and in
- 30:02Speaker 5: country music at its core, just be the thread through
- 30:04Speaker 5: each song. But sonically it's gonna be a little rock
- 30:07Speaker 5: and country. It's gonna be a little a little R
- 30:09Speaker 5: and B and country, it's gonna be a little pop
- 30:12Speaker 5: in country. Like it's it's like, I feel like I
- 30:14Speaker 5: have that thread, and I feel like, gosh, I feel
- 30:17Speaker 5: like we're gonna hear more albums like that, you know,
- 30:20Speaker 5: but my lot is inspired by an album that she made,
- 30:23Speaker 5: you know, years ago, and so I feel like, right
- 30:26Speaker 5: now people just gonna be more explorative, like creatively, but
- 30:30Speaker 5: also I feel like she's also bringing a really interesting
- 30:33Speaker 5: fan base to country music, and and the talent is there,
- 30:37Speaker 5: and and it's our job to.
- 30:38Speaker 4: Keep them here. You know.
- 30:40Speaker 5: I have no idea what her next record is gonna be,
- 30:42Speaker 5: but hopefully, you know, the people that are here and
- 30:45Speaker 5: interested in in what this whole moment is because of Beyonce,
- 30:49Speaker 5: hopefully they, you know, wanna stick around because there's some
- 30:52Speaker 5: incredible talent here, and I think she's done an incredible
- 30:55Speaker 5: and and generous thing in spotlighting a lot of it.
- 30:58Speaker 3: On Cowboy Carter, I was gonna ask you. You know
- 31:00Speaker 3: a lot of artists are doing country now right. We
- 31:02Speaker 3: heard I think he Sha Cold said she's doing a
- 31:04Speaker 3: country album.
- 31:05Speaker 2: Doing a country album, Hey, Michelle been doing it.
- 31:08Speaker 3: So do you think it might take away from like
- 31:10Speaker 3: it might be somebody These artists might be doing it
- 31:12Speaker 3: as a quote unquote fatty type of thing, and it
- 31:13Speaker 3: can hurt or help country music because people are not
- 31:16Speaker 3: you know a lot of people will go because they
- 31:18Speaker 3: feel like it's a check right and not not do
- 31:19Speaker 3: it because they feel it in their soul.
- 31:21Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 31:22Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, I don't think I care, like and
- 31:26Speaker 5: I know that people that are care. I don't think
- 31:28Speaker 5: I do because I feel like people just do that
- 31:30Speaker 5: across the genres all the time.
- 31:32Speaker 4: Like they just do it.
- 31:33Speaker 5: People go and they make a pop record or they
- 31:36Speaker 5: make a rock album where they make you know, they
- 31:38Speaker 5: make a gospel record, like people do that all the time.
- 31:40Speaker 5: And even country artists they make gospel records or a
- 31:43Speaker 5: Christian record or something like that.
- 31:44Speaker 2: Do a rap album.
- 31:46Speaker 6: It's the poet department.
- 31:48Speaker 2: Shut up, it's tortured poets.
- 31:52Speaker 1: A rap album.
- 31:54Speaker 6: He is.
- 31:56Speaker 7: A all right, everybody wait, But I like your perspective
- 32:01Speaker 7: on I've never heard nobody say was just believing him.
- 32:05Speaker 7: I was like, oh really, because you come up with you,
- 32:08Speaker 7: I have to realize what you're walking into.
- 32:10Speaker 1: That's right, girl. No, he'll be serious, face serious.
- 32:13Speaker 7: But you know that's why I'm like, I'm so glad
- 32:18Speaker 7: that he advocates for therapy because he does.
- 32:20Speaker 6: Need it, you know, true?
- 32:21Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, But I love your your take on how
- 32:26Speaker 7: you broke down why you like Lemonade. A lot of
- 32:28Speaker 7: people they like it for the surface reason. Oh she
- 32:31Speaker 7: that's what she was betting about being che didn't all that.
- 32:33Speaker 7: I like it because the same reason is so many
- 32:35Speaker 7: different genres of.
- 32:36Speaker 6: Music and the like she did rock, you know that
- 32:40Speaker 6: she did.
- 32:41Speaker 7: She had her ballad, then the country, she had her country.
- 32:43Speaker 7: So somebody dad, right, daddy lessons that was on Lemonade
- 32:47Speaker 7: like that.
- 32:47Speaker 6: I never heard.
- 32:48Speaker 7: Nobody say that, But that's why I like that. That's
- 32:51Speaker 7: why Eliminade is my favorite album of hers because of
- 32:55Speaker 7: it's no it's a no skip, because it sounds like
- 32:58Speaker 7: so many different genres. Just understanding because I you know,
- 33:02Speaker 7: i'd be in my little music a little bit you do.
- 33:04Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, just a little bit. You I'm like Okay,
- 33:07Speaker 6: she want me over with that.
- 33:08Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like the average listener like listens
- 33:11Speaker 5: to a little bit of everything, you know. I feel
- 33:13Speaker 5: like country is first of all, it's the way of life.
- 33:16Speaker 5: You know, it's a it's a lifestyle. It's kind of
- 33:18Speaker 5: how how uh? In this case, I'm a transplant, Like
- 33:22Speaker 5: I'm from Baltimore, like I'm from I'm from Randallstown, like
- 33:25Speaker 5: I'm from over like over by Morgan State, Like that's
- 33:28Speaker 5: that's where I grew up.
- 33:30Speaker 4: That's where I lived. And so I I feel like
- 33:32Speaker 4: I just fell in love with it.
- 33:34Speaker 5: My family we went down south every summer to something
- 33:36Speaker 5: South Carolina. Oh yeah, my mother's husband is from there.
- 33:41Speaker 5: And every year somebody die every summer, some to South Carolina.
- 33:45Speaker 5: Like Jesus I could like it was almost like clockwork,
- 33:49Speaker 5: like I just knew. I mean, God rest all of
- 33:51Speaker 5: this souls. And also it was a nice time driving
- 33:54Speaker 5: in South Carolina. That's that was my introduction to the South.
- 33:57Speaker 5: It wasn't the music at all, Like it wasn't country music.
- 34:00Speaker 5: It was going down South and just getting acclimated to
- 34:03Speaker 5: everything down there and watching people fight over whether to
- 34:05Speaker 5: put cheese or salt and pepper in your grits, like
- 34:08Speaker 5: that was that was my introduction and so, you know,
- 34:12Speaker 5: and so I feel like it is a way of life,
- 34:14Speaker 5: and you know, it's it's not just sonically like what
- 34:18Speaker 5: you hear, it's not just instrumentation. It's the way you
- 34:21Speaker 5: tell a story. And it's the stories that you tell,
- 34:23Speaker 5: and it's your ability to be honest about it, you know,
- 34:26Speaker 5: it's the ability to connect with people through the lyrics.
- 34:29Speaker 5: Nashville is a song town, you know. And I think
- 34:32Speaker 5: it was Hank Williams that said something I'm a paraphrase.
- 34:34Speaker 5: He says something like, a you ain't got to be
- 34:36Speaker 5: from the South to do country. You just gotta be real.
- 34:39Speaker 5: And that's true, Like you just gotta be real with
- 34:41Speaker 5: you shit. You just you have to be honest. And
- 34:42Speaker 5: that's what I try to do, you know. And I
- 34:45Speaker 5: feel like when I listen to a lot of these albums,
- 34:48Speaker 5: like a lot of these pop stars that are doing
- 34:51Speaker 5: country albums, I'm like, go for it. Tell your truth,
- 34:54Speaker 5: you speak your shit, you know, talk do your thing.
- 34:57Speaker 5: Also disrupt the industry because all of it needs overhaul anyway.
- 35:00Speaker 5: So I'm interested Whenever label execs are like no, no, no,
- 35:03Speaker 5: I'm like, yep, that's the one.
- 35:04Speaker 4: That's what we need. That thing right there.
- 35:06Speaker 8: I think that's what that's what's making people gravitate towards
- 35:09Speaker 8: country because, like you said, country music is all about
- 35:12Speaker 8: the storytelling, Like it's the great stories. I don't know
- 35:15Speaker 8: if they feel like they can necessarily tell those stories
- 35:18Speaker 8: and whatever they're doing because.
- 35:20Speaker 5: It's a lot of glitz and glam and a lot
- 35:22Speaker 5: of polish. Yeah, But the thing that's like connecting with
- 35:26Speaker 5: people like is people just being honest about how they
- 35:29Speaker 5: feel and the stuff that they've been through. Like I
- 35:31Speaker 5: was reading something a few weeks ago that I was
- 35:32Speaker 5: talking about how we've been in the loneliness epidemic for
- 35:35Speaker 5: like a few years now, especially since like the pandemic,
- 35:38Speaker 5: And I'm like, that's why people love introspective music right now,
- 35:41Speaker 5: where people are just like just spilling their guts and
- 35:44Speaker 5: just telling the truth about how they feel, the dark,
- 35:46Speaker 5: the ugly. They're not trying to be perfect, they're not
- 35:49Speaker 5: just trying to give you like a like a cliche
- 35:52Speaker 5: love song. They're trying to like they're trying to be honest.
- 35:55Speaker 5: And I feel like that's happening a lot across a
- 35:57Speaker 5: lot of genres. But it's beautiful when I in country music,
- 36:01Speaker 5: especially pair it with like the instrumentation that I love,
- 36:04Speaker 5: give me like some heartbreaking lyric with like a steal man.
- 36:09Speaker 5: And growing up in church, I didn't have like, we
- 36:10Speaker 5: didn't hear steel guitar I equated to like an organ.
- 36:13Speaker 5: It was a friend of mine who told me he
- 36:15Speaker 5: was like, the steel guitar to country music is the
- 36:17Speaker 5: organ to gospel. And I was like, oh man, that's
- 36:19Speaker 5: so true. It's a long, sad, extended note. You just
- 36:23Speaker 5: hold it down and you just I don't know. It's
- 36:25Speaker 5: a little shaky, you know, and it's I just I
- 36:28Speaker 5: feel it. I feel that I feel that lyric and
- 36:31Speaker 5: when you pair it with the right instrument and the
- 36:33Speaker 5: right production, I mean, I just feel like that could
- 36:35Speaker 5: unlock a soul.
- 36:36Speaker 8: I love what you said about the loneliness, and it's
- 36:39Speaker 8: like my last question, but because it made me think
- 36:41Speaker 8: of this quote, I saw you said what you said.
- 36:42Speaker 8: If I could go back when you first moved to Nashville,
- 36:44Speaker 8: if I could go back, I would tell myself to
- 36:46Speaker 8: use that time to find more of myself. If you're
- 36:49Speaker 8: not finding your people, at least find yourself expound on
- 36:53Speaker 8: that a little bit.
- 36:54Speaker 5: Yeah, finding yourself is hard, Like knowing who you are,
- 37:00Speaker 5: it's hard, and I think half of the battle is
- 37:01Speaker 5: figuring out what you're not, you know, and that's that's
- 37:04Speaker 5: a little easier. At least that came a little easier
- 37:06Speaker 5: for me. But just figuring out who you are, it'll
- 37:10Speaker 5: help attract the right people, you know, Like I feel
- 37:13Speaker 5: like sometimes I've spent so much time in life like
- 37:17Speaker 5: not knowing who I am or what I want to
- 37:19Speaker 5: do or knowing my worth, and I attracted people who
- 37:23Speaker 5: weren't interested in finding that out either, And that's I
- 37:26Speaker 5: feel like how I got a lot of my my
- 37:29Speaker 5: heart broken. Sometimes I feel like that's where I got
- 37:32Speaker 5: like let down and just opening up to people who
- 37:35Speaker 5: can only meet you as far as they've met themselves too.
- 37:38Speaker 5: You just have two broken people just just trying to
- 37:41Speaker 5: figure out why you keep crashing and not just I
- 37:44Speaker 5: feel like, know who you are, it'll save you and
- 37:47Speaker 5: a lot of people a whole lot of time. Like
- 37:49Speaker 5: it's okay, everybody ain't for everybody, and you don't need
- 37:52Speaker 5: to do everything, you know, like people pleasing and just
- 37:57Speaker 5: all that stuff. It's just a lot of that is
- 37:59Speaker 5: just not know who you are, and I don't know.
- 38:03Speaker 5: I wish I could go back in time. I mean,
- 38:05Speaker 5: I won't say I have regrets. I don't really have regrets.
- 38:07Speaker 5: I just have like if I could have a little
- 38:09Speaker 5: do over, you know, I do that, But like I
- 38:12Speaker 5: just I don't know. I would I would go back
- 38:14Speaker 5: and just try to figure out who I am a
- 38:16Speaker 5: lot sooner. Because also the other part of it is
- 38:19Speaker 5: if you don't know who you are, there's somebody who
- 38:22Speaker 5: probably knows that, and they will use that against.
- 38:24Speaker 4: You, like that is a weapon.
- 38:26Speaker 5: Like whatever you are ignorant here, you feel me whatever
- 38:30Speaker 5: you are ignorant to about yourself, Like you don't see yourself,
- 38:34Speaker 5: you know, I don't see what I look like right now,
- 38:36Speaker 5: but you can tell if there's a twitch in myles something,
- 38:38Speaker 5: if I'm uncomfortable. You can see probably more about me
- 38:40Speaker 5: sometimes than I can. And I feel like somebody look
- 38:43Speaker 5: at you long enough, they'll learn, they'll learn. And if
- 38:46Speaker 5: you are if you're around the wrong people, that becomes
- 38:49Speaker 5: their weapon, you know.
- 38:50Speaker 4: And so I feel I don't know. I just I
- 38:53Speaker 4: want to I.
- 38:55Speaker 5: Would like to protect I mean, like I said, I
- 38:59Speaker 5: don't have no regrets. You know, but if I could
- 39:00Speaker 5: go back in time, I would have protected myself a
- 39:04Speaker 5: lot more. But then again, I wouldn't be who I
- 39:06Speaker 5: am right now, for we wouldn't have this conversation. I
- 39:11Speaker 5: probably wouldn't be asympathetic. I probably wouldn't be as vocal
- 39:14Speaker 5: as I am. Like even as I talk about the
- 39:17Speaker 5: things that I feel need to change in country music,
- 39:19Speaker 5: like I'm not talking about it from like a place
- 39:22Speaker 5: of like like you know, like y'all doing this, y'all
- 39:26Speaker 5: like it ain't like that. I'm actually saying like this
- 39:28Speaker 5: is an invitation. Hey, there is a much bigger story
- 39:31Speaker 5: happening here and history will be told. You know which
- 39:36Speaker 5: side of it are you going to fall on? Because
- 39:39Speaker 5: we're going to talk about like this is a movement
- 39:42Speaker 5: that we're seeing like sonically, like even musically, racially musically,
- 39:46Speaker 5: this is a movement like we're watching a shift. Like
- 39:50Speaker 5: you know, when we talk about it in ten years,
- 39:52Speaker 5: were you forward thinking or were you trying to gatekeep
- 39:55Speaker 5: you know, a future that could actually that could actually
- 39:59Speaker 5: be really dope? You know, Yeah, it makes the whole
- 40:03Speaker 5: genre bigger and that and that's so really hard thing.
- 40:05Speaker 5: I mean, you from the South, you know, like the
- 40:07Speaker 5: idea of something becoming bigger and having more people like
- 40:09Speaker 5: that can be really scary, you know, if you're from
- 40:11Speaker 5: a small town or if you're like because Naturale feels
- 40:13Speaker 5: like a big small town, it can feel really scary,
- 40:16Speaker 5: you know, like you know, getting ah, getting a bigger infrastructure,
- 40:20Speaker 5: that can feel really scary, finding feeling like you're you're
- 40:22Speaker 5: losing your bearings or you know, but it's actually just
- 40:25Speaker 5: an invitation to explore something else, you know, and to
- 40:29Speaker 5: let something else in. There could be something really sweet
- 40:31Speaker 5: happening right now. And I feel like we watch it
- 40:34Speaker 5: so often in a lot of genres where there's shifts,
- 40:37Speaker 5: you know, musical shifts where something happens and a whole
- 40:40Speaker 5: new genre is made. Honestly, for me, the biggest like
- 40:44Speaker 5: like cultural difference for me, even in country music is
- 40:48Speaker 5: Black music is by nature very innovative, Like we abandon
- 40:52Speaker 5: genres and create a whole new and we've done that
- 40:54Speaker 5: like consistently, and so that was that's a that's a
- 40:57Speaker 5: that's a cultural thing for me, Like, if I'm honest,
- 41:00Speaker 5: but I feel like I feel like the industry is
- 41:02Speaker 5: going to continue to shift, and I hope that people
- 41:05Speaker 5: feel this invitation for me and all anybody else speaking
- 41:09Speaker 5: out about this to just be like, Hey, something news
- 41:12Speaker 5: gonna happen. Let these pop artists come and do their thing.
- 41:14Speaker 5: You know, I want to hear what they got to say.
- 41:16Speaker 5: I want to hear their country album.
- 41:18Speaker 4: Why not?
- 41:19Speaker 5: Because I want to hear your gospel album. And I
- 41:21Speaker 5: want to hear the song that you do with that
- 41:22Speaker 5: pop artist that you're featured on, and when you go
- 41:25Speaker 5: to that pop festival, like I want to hear I
- 41:27Speaker 5: want to hear it, and so and I think a
- 41:28Speaker 5: lot of people do. And I think the fans want
- 41:31Speaker 5: to hear that as well, and so why not give
- 41:33Speaker 5: it to them, give them a show on the stage.
- 41:36Speaker 7: This is my last question speaking of when you were
- 41:38Speaker 7: talking about sweet things happening. You're going on tour with
- 41:41Speaker 7: Willia and Bob Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.
- 41:44Speaker 5: Girl, I've been on the road with really for three years,
- 41:47Speaker 5: and it just it never ceases to amaze me that,
- 41:50Speaker 5: like I get to do this, like the amount of
- 41:53Speaker 5: people like I'm excited to be on the rod. Really,
- 41:55Speaker 5: I've never toured with Bob before Bob Dylan, and I
- 41:58Speaker 5: think I don't know, like you know, nah, but I've
- 42:01Speaker 5: have had.
- 42:02Speaker 4: Some of his weed.
- 42:03Speaker 5: He got this this company called Willy's Reserves, and they
- 42:06Speaker 5: like they just be pulling up on you in your
- 42:08Speaker 5: dressing room. They just like knock on the door, you know,
- 42:10Speaker 5: and they just be like, I got you something.
- 42:12Speaker 4: They got They got the canister. The cancer is fire.
- 42:14Speaker 4: I keep the canister.
- 42:15Speaker 6: Yeah I got.
- 42:16Speaker 4: I mean, I've ran out of that weed. But free rolls.
- 42:20Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, so you ain't like falling asleep, you know.
- 42:24Speaker 5: And so and so I love Willie. I did meet him.
- 42:28Speaker 5: I sang with him, like he always invites like everybody
- 42:31Speaker 5: that's like that's been on the stage before him to
- 42:33Speaker 5: come and sing with him at the end of the night.
- 42:35Speaker 4: And he just like he's the sweetest, Like he blew
- 42:37Speaker 4: me a kiss one time in the middle of the song.
- 42:38Speaker 4: He was like what I was like, Willie, I love
- 42:41Speaker 4: you so much.
- 42:42Speaker 5: And so it's just it's an honor, like especially when
- 42:44Speaker 5: an artist is ninety years old, like to be able
- 42:48Speaker 5: to do this in their lifetime, Like that's how I
- 42:51Speaker 5: feel like. And uh, I mean I've gotten to do
- 42:53Speaker 5: this a few times, like three years with Willie. I've
- 42:56Speaker 5: toured with Uh. I mean, she's not at his age yet,
- 42:58Speaker 5: but Riba I've toured with her, opened up for Springsteen
- 43:02Speaker 5: last year. I'm excited about Bob Dylan this year. Gosh,
- 43:08Speaker 5: like I just I don't know. I get excited. I
- 43:09Speaker 5: get excited.
- 43:10Speaker 4: But also about the younger ones too. Yea open up
- 43:13Speaker 4: for Megan A Stallion. That was fun. First of all, yeah,
- 43:19Speaker 4: I did.
- 43:20Speaker 5: That was fun. I love touring, I really do. I
- 43:23Speaker 5: love touring and it now yeah, I loved it before too.
- 43:27Speaker 5: That was the hard part.
- 43:28Speaker 7: I was like, Yo, why am I none of that?
- 43:32Speaker 6: No, because Bob and really don't want to.
- 43:36Speaker 5: I go up to c on the last song and
- 43:38Speaker 5: I'm just, you know, just projectile, and then he kissing's.
- 43:41Speaker 6: Talking about like don't don't do that.
- 43:44Speaker 1: I can't do that, you know.
- 43:45Speaker 8: Roberts She said that whenever you are doing something new,
- 43:50Speaker 8: you're going to have some form of anxiety because you've
- 43:53Speaker 8: never been in that space before. Yes, so it's just
- 43:55Speaker 8: like you kind of got to just embrace it, you know.
- 43:58Speaker 8: Of course, we all got our techniques, you know, to
- 43:59Speaker 8: breathe next feelings and medication things like that, but you're
- 44:03Speaker 8: going to feel.
- 44:03Speaker 4: Something, Yeah, you are. Feelings, they're so hard. New things
- 44:08Speaker 4: are hard.
- 44:09Speaker 5: I love touring, having a great time, and like I said,
- 44:12Speaker 5: I'm the opening act right now, and I'm having a
- 44:14Speaker 5: great time because people have been very kind and embracing me.
- 44:18Speaker 5: And it's cool to like even just watch the stages
- 44:22Speaker 5: that have let me on, like just as a country
- 44:24Speaker 5: artist being able to say, like, in the same year
- 44:26Speaker 5: you opened up for Reba and Megan Thee Stallion and
- 44:30Speaker 5: Marion Morris and a Shiryl Crow, like that's that's an
- 44:33Speaker 5: eclectic like lineup of people. Like. But I like being
- 44:40Speaker 5: the kind of artist that has songs for all those
- 44:41Speaker 5: stages and I'm gonna keep doing it.
- 44:43Speaker 4: I'm so proud, Brittany.
- 44:45Speaker 6: We appreciate you for joining us.
- 44:46Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen.
- 44:47Speaker 3: My stupid life is out right now.
- 44:49Speaker 1: Pick it up.
- 44:50Speaker 8: Britney Spencer listening to Blackbird on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter.
- 44:53Speaker 1: That's right, and it's The Breakfast Club. Good morning, thank you,
- 44:55Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
- 44:58Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club
- 45:00Speaker 7: Sa