Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Revisiting: Raphael Saadiq

Transcript

Revisiting: Raphael Saadiq · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Rafael Sadiq is one of the great R &
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: B writers and producers of the last 30 years. He
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: started out writing and playing bass in the group Tony
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Tony Tony with his brother Dwayne Wiggins on guitar. The
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Tonys had an amazing four-album run from 88 through 96,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: with hit singles like It Never Rains in Southern California,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Feels Good, Anniversary, and If I Had No Lou. Since
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the group's disbanded, Raphael's released five solo albums, starting with
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: 2002's Instant Vintage. His most recent, Jimmy Lee, is a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: collection of very personal songs about the traumas he and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: his family experienced growing up in Oakland, California. But Raphael's
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: also done some amazing work behind the board. He's produced
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and written for the likes of D'Angelo, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Solange, Earth,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Wind & Fire, and just recently worked on a handful
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of songs on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter album. That's all in
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: addition to his work as an Academy Award-nominated film composer.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It was a real honor to speak with Rafael Sadiq
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: from his studio in Los Angeles about some of the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: incredible work he's done the last handful of years with
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Beyoncé and Solange, breaking down his collaboration with D'Angelo on
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the classic track Lady, plus discussing the underrated influence of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Sly Stone bassist Larry Graham on a whole generation of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: musicians coming up in the Bay Area. This is Broken Record.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Line of notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richmond.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Rafael Sadiq. To see the full
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: video version of this episode, go to youtube.com slash broken
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: record podcast. Man, Rafael, thanks so much for having us.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: You're beautiful. I mean, this is one of the, I've
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: been to a lot of studios. This is one of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the best.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, this is where it
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: happens for me.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: How long have you been here?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I've been here 20 i think 20 years now working
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: out of here working out here for 20 years yeah wow.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: So that would have been i guess ray ray maybe
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: after ray ray you started doing your projects here.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: No i think i did ray ray here so maybe
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: it was longer wow was it.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Not instant vintage though instant vintage.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Oh so maybe i didn't i forget which song which
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: album came first now but i think i did ray
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: ray was second So I did the last song on
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Instant Vintage. There's a hidden track at the end of
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: every record that I do.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: So at the end of Instant Vintage, they gave me
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the keys to the studio. And so I came in.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I had an MP-60, and I just dropped the drum
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: machine on the desk, and I wrote the very last
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: song to Instant Vintage.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. I want, I want to ask you about
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that too. How did that tradition start? Because actually I
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: met one of my favorite cuts of yours is the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: hidden track on stone rolling.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Is that with Larry Graham?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's the one with Larry Graham.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Yeah.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: We did that right here.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It's recorded right where you're sitting. Me and me and
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Larry was here right here. Um, Larry's a, you know,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's my, my guy. I've, Raised in the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: same neighborhood in Oakland that he lived in. So we
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: met through some people, and I invited him to the
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: studio and said, I got this song. It was hard
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: for me to actually work around him to play bass.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It seemed like I can't really play bass when he's around.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: He's the only person I'm around that I lock up
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: when he comes around.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Kind of like playing guitar in front of Hendrix or something. Yeah.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It's like that level of, you know. Yeah. Hard to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: imagine because Hendrix isn't here, but like, you know, Larry's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: still around.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Larry's around. He's still great.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Did you play bass on that?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Or was that him? Oh, no, that's Larry.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought because it really has that. I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: didn't know if you were going for that.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: No, he's a big boy. He plays big boy bass.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: You notice when he's playing the difference between just the years,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you can feel like his... something in his fingers is
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: just different.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He sounded great too. Oh yeah.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: He made me sound like I was like a chipmunk
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: when I, when my voice comes on and then his
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: voice comes on, he.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Just came on.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh wow.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But it has that age. Like you're talking about. Yeah.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: You can't, you can't, I've been around a couple of
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: singers and, and that's what happened. I've, I've, I've sang
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: around Charlie Wilson and, And I was singing his song,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: and he came in on the other part of it,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and it just sounded like apples and oranges.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: What was the occasion for that?
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: It was some award show, and it was a lot
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of different artists singing. And Charlie was singing, and we
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: did Outstanding. I think we did a couple songs. But
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: he came on, and you could just tell the age,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: the years that he put into it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And Stevie. Stevie. I've sang around Stevie before. Then I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: heard him sing like right after me. And it was
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: just sounding like, I was like, wow, this is those pipes,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just those years, you know, like that
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: working that muscle.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And this is really strong.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if you'll ever get there
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: by the way, either. Cause you saying too much shape, man, you're,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you're in too good a shape to really ever let
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: your pipes ever shown these signs.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: But I think they're in shape. They're like in vocal shape.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: There's two different types of shapes.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Your lungs, your pipes, they can hold notes longer than anybody.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: CeeLo Green is another person who can... I watched him
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: sing Lovely Day one time, and he went, A lovely day.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And he was looking at me. I was in Chicago
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: at House of Blues, and I was right above him.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: And he said, A lovely day. And he was just
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: looking at me, and it was going forever. And I
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: was going, how does he do that? So I just
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: think that's those... those pipes, you know, those age pipes of, of,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: you know, working that muscle.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And CeeLo too, just from, I mean, and Stevie too.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, Stevie has, of course, something like special, but
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: CeeLo just has just such a, um, just born with
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: some pipes that are just fascinating.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: He's a, he's a one of a kind. We always
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: see each other in Atlanta somewhere and say, we're going
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: to work together. That's one person I do. It'll be
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: easy for me to work with because he's so soulful
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: and I love soulful music too. So, um, I'm waiting
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: for that matchup. That's the perfect matchup for me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You should definitely do that. You should, you should do
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a full Larry project too, man.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be, that'll be cool. I mean, we, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: used to, I used to, when those records used to
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: come out in my neighborhood, it would be a line
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: in front of the store to buy, um, Grand Central
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Station's records. It was, cause he was more like a
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: superhero to, to most in Oakland. I don't know about
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: everywhere else, but, You know, I would see people lining
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: up at this store called, a record store called House
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: of Music. It was one of the Tony's records.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: House of Music. I titled the album House of Music
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: because of that store.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But I was just close. It was not that long ago.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. And I was too young to go in
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: that store in the beginning because, you know, they had
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: all these black posters, you know, the black suede posters
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: with black pussy and pussy incense.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Pam Grier looking.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: You know, like, Teddy's Everywhere, incense.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, when you go in the store and
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: you're like eight years old, you're like, Oh wow. But
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: then you see like, you know, James Brown soundtracks, uh,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: black Caesar, black Caesar, you know? So yeah, but Larry,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: it was definitely a line. So when, now when I'm
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: working or something and I'm talking to somebody, rest in peace, John, um, John,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: he was always talking about, um, John Singleton about, um,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Comic books. And so I was never privy to being
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: in those conversations about comic books because I wasn't into
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: comic books. My comic books was Larry Graham, Grand Central Station, Parliament, Funkadelic.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: The Funkadelic records.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: The album covers.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Pedro Bell did all that artwork.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. That's interesting. I wonder because Larry Graham, I
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: spent some time living in Oakland. And so I happen
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: to know how much love the Bay has for Larry.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It does feel like maybe elsewhere Bootsy is kind of.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: The, the, the one that gets, but Larry's.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Larry's, Larry's Steph Curry in Oakland. Yes.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Yes. Sure. That's a great, that's a great comparison. He
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: really is. He really is. Was that, was he your
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: inspiration to pick up the bass?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: My inspiration to pick up the bass came from, um,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: my neighborhood. It was so many bass players and guitar
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: players and, uh, um, bass, he was the biggest influence
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: once I picked it up because he did things that
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: nobody was doing. And so you, if you couldn't do
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: what he was doing, you couldn't really walk into like
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: a jam session and jump on the drums because the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: drummer was going to challenge you, you know, and see like,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: you know, you know how to play a pile. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: if you didn't know how to play pile, then you
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: couldn't be in the room. So he was the bar.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: He's always the bar. Another guy in Oakland to play
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: for the Hawkins family, Walter Hawkins and Edwin Hawkins.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, happy day.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Daniel Hawkins, Lynette Hawkins, Tremaine Hawkins. But the guy
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: is Joel Smith. He was the other Steph Curry in Oakland.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I have a huge piece of art that I had somebody.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: In there. With the bass?
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I was wondering, is that Stanley, like a young Stanley Clark?
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I've never seen him with a P bass.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: That's Joel Smith.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Joel Smith.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: He's an amazing drummer. He was an amazing drummer and
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: an amazing bass player. I looked up to him more
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: than anybody.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: That's interesting because I almost was going to ask you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: too if it was Rusty Allen. He always got the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hat on, but it kind of looked like him.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: No, it's not Rusty. But Rusty is a beast. Rusty
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: should get way more props than he does.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Because those Sly records that he played on, I'm still
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: studying those records.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: They're crazy.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I just called somebody to try and
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: find Rusty's phone number. Really? So I just want to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: hang out with him.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I think I have his email.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. I can shoot that to you. I'm pretty sure. Okay.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's ridiculous. I don't want, like, I almost feel like,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you know, and I love Larry and I love Grand
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Central Station. But some of those slide records got even
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: better once, like.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: He did. He did kill it. I mean, I never
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: want to say that. That's, like, sacrilegious for me to
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: say anything about Larry. But I have to say, that
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Fresh record. And then he was like, if you listen
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: to him play with Bobby Womack, Yeah, right. Rusty, his
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: choice selection on bass is crazy. Bass is just a
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: crazy instrument, man. You can fill up church and a
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: lot of those Donny Hathaway records, the bass is a
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: lot to know, a lot to learn. I love bass
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: a lot. I'm always listening to music in my car
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and just so amazed on how many great bass players
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: there really are.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: There's some great ones, man. Pino, another who you've worked
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: with a lot.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Pino comes by sometime and we just have a
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: bass off. One time we made a bass record. It
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: was just me and him. It was no other instruments
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: but bass. I don't know where it's at.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Y'all didn't put that out though, did you?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: No. Pino just pops in sometimes when he's not traveling
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: with some big rock band or something.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the Who or whatever.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: With the Who. He's like, yeah, I got to learn
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: 78 songs in two hours for the Who tour. I'm like, damn.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Do you ever want to do anything like that? A
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: tour with somebody else? Be like a sideman for just
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: like a year?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I'd rather be a sideman.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Trust me, if the Stones were to call me like
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: 15 years ago before the bass player they have now.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Before what? Daryl? Daryl, yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Man, I'd be gone. I wouldn't even did my second album.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: For real? I'd be out.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: What? I'm on bus, I'm on jet. I'm out.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It's done. Someone's got to hit you up now, man.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: No, it's an adventure just happening. It's done. I'm out
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: of solo stuff. I've never done it. I've been gone.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It's so funny. Dude, speaking of which, you performed with
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Mick on the Grammys in 2011. I did. And that's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the best I've heard Mick sound outside of the Stones.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Wow. Like the way y'all did that Solomon Burke song.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He's an amazing dude. Like he, I mean,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: he just came in and I wasn't supposed to play,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: you know, because to play on the Grammys, you have
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to be nominated to even to play, even to assist
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: another person. That's sort of the rules, I guess.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Some bullshit rules, whatever, whatever. But Mick called me and said,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I want you to play with me at the Grammys.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So we never really told the Grammys. Somebody may have
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: told them maybe a few days before. They found out.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But what can they say? They can't say nothing. Mick
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: plays stadiums. He don't need to play the Grammys.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: No one say no to Mick.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you know him like that?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: No.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: No.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: No, he just, I think he heard Stone Rolling, the
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: album Don was, is a really good friend of his.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And I think that's how the affiliation happened. But it
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: was right. I mean, it was fun. I mean, I
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: had a lot of questions for him, you know.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Did you ask him? Yeah, of course.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about, you know, Holland Wolf. Wow. We
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: just talked about those Chess Records days and, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: I'm a huge Holland Wolf fan. And so he told
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: me about it. All kind of stuff. He pulled out
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: his harp. We played blues at the rehearsals. We had
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: more fun at the rehearsals, like, for four or five
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: days than we did playing, you know, at the Grammys.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: But it was really cool. He was a real cool dude.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It showed up on the Grammys, though, man. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: It was fun.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It really did. It really did, man.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: The band, I had the guys I had. Like, those
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: guys are hard.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who was in the band?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Because that's who I think I had. Calvin Turner, Joss
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: on bass. Joss Smith is a blues guy. guitar man himself.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: I'm Lamar, Lamar Carter on drums. And I had Rob
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Bacon on guitar, which is a Detroit boy. Who's a,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: a blues guy, fun guy. Um, I think I had
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: four horn players. I think maybe I had a Barry
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: trumpet sax bone. I had BJ singing background, Erica, Jerry
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: singing Charles, uh, play keys but that band that was
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: probably my best man that was my best man they
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: were fire yeah so you know they all big you
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: know mick fans so i think they play better for
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: mick than they play for me i was looking back
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: sometime like.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Hey oh it's so funny man Um, and you got some, yeah,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: those guys too. Lamar, you mentioned he was on the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Stone Rolling album.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: He was.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Some of those drum sounds y'all got.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was on the record. Um, Calvin played on
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the record. They're actually on the picture too. It's me, Calvin,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: and Lamar in the picture.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Are you in the picture?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: No, not the one in the front, but there's a
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: picture in the back that plays to the back, um,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: that we took this little picture. It is not highly publicized,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: but yeah, we did that. Um, they played on a
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: song called... Moving down the line.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: But most of the record was played by me on drums.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I play drums most of all the way I
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: see it. Wow. And most of Stone Rolling.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: So when did you, because it's funny, I always think
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of you more as a bass player. It seems like
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: you've become more of a guitar player maybe over the years.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: But drums too? When did that happen?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I think I picked up the drums the same time
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I picked up the bass. But I'm not a great
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: drummer or nothing like that. I can put together a
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: beat in a record, but you wouldn't want me in
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: your band. But in the studio, yeah, you want me
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: in the studio because I play these beats that fit
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the vibe of what I'm doing. And sometimes it shifts.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: It gets a little off. And so it's sort of
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: like that on the record. So Lamar, when he plays
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: my records over, he plays the mistakes.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: That I make. And I'm like, just play it like
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: you would play it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: But he likes it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, he's being funny.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's fucking with you?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's fucking with me. No, definitely.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: That's fucked up, man. Yeah, he's like.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like, bro, come on, bro.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: That's funny. Speaking of that little vibe, I was thinking
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: about it. And I was thinking about the D'Angelo records
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and Brown Sugar. I've heard Questlove say that... maybe y'all
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: asked him to play on the first record or something
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and he wasn't feeling it or maybe he, like, I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe he'd heard about it and he was
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: just kind of a little dismissive because he wasn't there
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: with R & B. But then he heard the album
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and loved, like, the drum sound and, like, just the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: groove y'all locked into. And I feel like that groove
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a little later kind of got associated with Dilla, who's
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a genius, of course, as well. But that kind of was, like, y'all's,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: not that it's a competition, but kind of early on,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that was kind of y'all's Yeah, I.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Think me and D'Angelo have the same background in gospel,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: which is the Hawkins family. We both grew up listening
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: to Walter, Ed, Daniel, and Joe. And we didn't know
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: that when we first got together, but we figured it out.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of random. I mean, you were in
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the Bay.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I was in the Bay. He was in Virginia. But,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: you know, that music sort of was all around the world. Like, really...
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Andre Crouch was more of the bigger pop gospel, but
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the Hawkins family was the more grit, you know, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: that was that. So somehow it got to Virginia and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: it got to his house. His dad's a great piano player,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: D'Angelo's dad. So it just sort of happened. We got
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: in the studio, we was making music and we were.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: How did y'all even meet?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: We met through... we met through an, um, A &
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: R from a publishing company. We were signed to the
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: same publishing company. So somebody introduced us and, um, the
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: first time we met, D was supposed to come to
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: my house and he didn't show up the first day.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And then he came the next day, but I think
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: he thought, you know, he was going to come to
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: a house and it was going to look like the, uh,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the rich and famous probably with a spiral stairs and helpers,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: everybody in the house.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like, I'm going to Tony, Tony, Tony's house.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: But, but when he's asking me a lot of people,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: he don't really like a lot of people, you know,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: then he found out I don't need it. So when
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: he got to my, my little two bedroom, you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: $ 235, 000 crib, what, you know, it was in the garage.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: It was me, him and my engineer.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Where at?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: In Sacramento.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: In Sac? Oh wow. Yeah.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And, um, I lived in this neighborhood full of lobbies
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and politicians, right? And he was just so surprised. He
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: didn't tell me later on. He said, I thought this
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: house was going to be crowded with a lot of people.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't. And so I started playing lady. That's
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the first thing we worked on was Lady.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: You had that already? Yeah. Wow.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I had the idea, because it was supposed to be
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: for Tony's record, the idea.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: For House of Music, maybe?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't like it. They didn't like the initial idea.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: They never heard what it was going to be. Neither
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: did I.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: But I.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Played the guitar riff for D'Angelo, and he said, I
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: like it. I said, cool. So I was going to
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: call somebody over to record. to play my guitar parts over. He,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: he said, no, you should leave what you did. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: that's the first time my guitar playing, playing ever got
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: on the record.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Ever got on a record.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: So, but I think the, how, how we came up
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: with that, we figured it out. We were, we were,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: we were playing and we were playing behind the beat,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: but I think we were just really trying to lock,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: lock something in. And so he would, fall back and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: he would start laughing. Then I would fall back and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: we started kind of smiling and laughing and it became,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: we just kept going back and forth, but not talking
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: about it. And it became sort of the style of
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: his record, but that's the way he sings. That's the
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: way he plays. Wow. And it was just natural for him,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: but he's a Dilla fan.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And so then, you know, I'm a Dilla fan too.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: So I figured it out later. We were just mocking Dilla.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Really? That early? Like that early on?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I think Dilla was the first one.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Or we heard it through hip-hop.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Maybe it's just not Dilla.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe we heard it on some Wu-Tang records. Maybe we
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: heard it on some Tribe records.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: We just love, I love hip-hop.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Right? So I think both our love for the Hawks
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: is in gospel and hip-hop and rock and songwriting. It
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: was just the perfect storm at the right time.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: The way you explain it, it's perfect that y'all met. Yeah.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Because it really is the right combo of everything.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I just talked to him yesterday. And we
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: don't talk much. You know what I mean? And it's
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: hard to catch either one of us. But yesterday we
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: caught up and was like, yo, you picked up. I
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: picked up and said, I didn't expect you to pick up.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: But I was going to leave you a message about
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: your field. on keys because now I'm practicing keys, like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: you know, piano a lot.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And since I've been studying it, I always knew what
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: he knew on piano, but now it's really, I really know. Like,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: his touch, his approach to piano was different from most
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: gospel piano players because Dee sort of graduated from church.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: He didn't make records and get locked into, like, playing
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of chords like church guys do.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: He's, like, really figured out his place with songwriting and
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: his touch and his feel yeah and it's different and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: that's why i called him we were just laughing about that.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Because you did you send him some stuff or like.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: No we he heard stuff that i got and he
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: you know we we always go back and forth but
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: he he got some records he that he he's excited
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: about and you.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Know we always just send us some stuff so you
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: sent us no no no.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: He was here he came here okay one day um
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: He played the Hollywood Bowl, and I played guitar with him.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And he came in here afterwards, and we just pressed
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: play and played records. And he's playing guitar now, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: he's playing bass, and he's funky as hell right now.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Man, I like seeing him play guitar on that last tour.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: He's a bad boy. Yeah, he's a bad boy. And
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Q-Tips is getting good on bass. Really? He's getting good
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: on bass. Shahid is really good on bass.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, shit.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: You know oh shit yeah adrian young is getting good
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: on bass all my friends that didn't play they all
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: pretty good now did adrian never play he played but
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: now i heard him play like maybe two weeks ago
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: on the record i was like man who's playing on
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the record i said wow i said you i said
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: you was playing you know maybe two years ago but
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: now I wouldn't have known that was you.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I love to see people putting in
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the work.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: That's a huge compliment from you.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they putting in the work.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: That's wild. We'll be right back with more from Raphael
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Sadiq after this break. We're back with Raphael Sadiq. You know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it's funny. You mentioned that you brought Lady to the Tonys.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I was curious about when you kind of left the Tonys,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you switched to guitar. Like, how your brother Dwayne felt
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: about that? Because he was kind of the guitar, like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was there like a little friction with that? Or like,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: did he look at you like, you know, you're playing
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: with Mick Jagger on the, playing guitar with Mick Jagger
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: at the Grams. Like, come on, dog.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Actually, I wouldn't even know. I wouldn't even know. But
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: when you're going to be a frontman, I like frontmans
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: that play guitars, not bass. I mean, I love like Larry,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: that plays bass. It's hard to play bass and sing Bootsy,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Level 42.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: The Rush guy, I guess. But you got to really be,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I've played bass on one tour as a front, as
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: a singer in the front. It's not easy. It's fun,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: but it's not easy. I'd rather, I want somebody to
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: dig in on the bass when I'm singing.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: So I have to have the guy that relieves me
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: on bass got to be like, That dude, you know.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: How'd you pick the dude for the recent Tony's tour?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: How did I, I seen him play, I think I
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: found him on Instagram.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I seen him play Josh.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Josh, he's a bad boy too. And he used
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: to play with MPG. But I didn't know that at
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: You just found him and just.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I found him at the time and I knew he
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: was solid. You know, you just need somebody solid that's,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: They got chops, but they also know how to play,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you know, be solid.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Did you consider doing the tour, like bass on the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: tour or nah?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, I never even, because I've never played bass
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: on a Tony's tour. Never. I've never even played guitar.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: But you're on the records.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I played all the records.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: And you just, same reason, you just didn't want, you
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to be, because you're leading. Yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't think I could do it, honestly, to be honest.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't think I could do it. I didn't think that,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: you know, syllables and rhythms, you know, sometimes when you
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: sing a word in a syllable, sometimes your fingers go
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: with it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So you have to separate, like a drummer, you have
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: to separate that part. I could do it. I've done it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I've done a tour with me, Rob Bacon. Rob was
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: on guitar, I was on bass. I forgot the drummer
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: and Kelvin wouldn't play keys. And it was fun. It was,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: you know, less people, more money for me. Right.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One less player. You gotta, you gotta pay. How
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: do you separate? I mean, you've like, man, you've been
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: on a, a hell of a run lately with the,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: with composing and writing and producing these days. Like how
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: are you spending your time? Like musically? Like, are you,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Are you writing a lot?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I spend my time right there on that piano.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: This piano?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I spend most of my time on the piano.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I haven't recorded anything in maybe close to six months.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I said, I just want to practice and just play
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and not just loop everything. Because when you're recording now
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: and you're in Ableton, you just loop everything and you
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: never get any practice time on any instrument. so I'm
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: just doing a lot of listening to, you know, a
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: lot of Donnie, a lot of Earthwind, a lot of, um,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: going to shows. I just want to, you know, concerts
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and figuring out when I'm a tour again in 25 and,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and just figuring out a lot of keyboard stuff, listening
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: to songs that I really love and learning how to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: play them and, and just knowing, you know, um, Learning
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: what I'm playing. You know, I'm taking piano lessons. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: take piano lessons three days a week.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I take classical pianos. I haven't played not one full
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: classical piece yet, but because I'm starting from the.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Very, very beginning. And are you reading or are you writing?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Reading, everything, yeah.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: So I played first bone in school. I played trombone
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: in high school.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: So you've been reading.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: We was cheating in school.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: That's why.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: We was writing down the positions, you know, one, two, four.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: We knew, you know, I could read bass clef pretty
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: good then. But, you know, you don't use it, you
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: lose it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: So it's from the beginning now. Wow.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: What made you want to like woodshed right now? Like
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: what was the impetus for that? Like was there like
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a moment where you're like, ah, man, like.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I got bored. I mean, I just, I love, I
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: love piano. I love chords. I love voice teams. And
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I just want, I want to have so much artillery in.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to write, to grab from. Like I can hear everything.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I can hear it, but I just want to be
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: able to go to it in like two seconds. so
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: my nephew he plays piano Dylan and he's from another
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: another world yeah yeah he can he could pick up
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: anything learn anything and that just I always tell him
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: to not Don't stop because he's doing pretty good. He's
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: done a lot of records. He worked with a lot
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of people. And because he's so talented that, you know,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: you can stop playing your main instrument. His main instrument
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: is piano, but he plays guitar, drums. His little brother, Jaden,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: he plays bass. He's funky as hell. He's been playing
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: like Larry Graham songs since he was like nine years old.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: What?
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: And talking like Larry, acting like him.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Uh-oh. That's an issue.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole thing. So.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: You know, when you're in the industry, you just don't
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: want to fall off the instrument that you love. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: so I always tell him, like, are you practicing? You know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: are you practicing? Don't stop because you got a record
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: out with this person, this person. Keep playing. So I
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: took some of my own advice and jumped on the piano,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: looked on Google, found this piano teacher. Kristen, it was
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the Tahonga Pianos. I found it. I thought she was
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: in Tahonga. No, Topanga Canyon pianos. And she was actually
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: in Seattle. So I like have a screen here. I mean,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: a camera here, a camera here, a camera here. I'm
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: an upright piano.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: In the back. Oh, OK. You're zooming on that.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I'm zooming.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And it's been really cool. So I haven't written any music.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: But when I start writing music, I think it's going
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: to be a little different.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: You have a whole new bag to pull from. Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Because now I'm playing like stylistic songs. I'm going over
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: all the songs that I used to play. Some of
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: the best writers were, you know, piano players.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So what are you like? What are the ones,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: what are the songs that stand out for you as a,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: what were the songs that you loved growing up? Oh, that, that,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that are also like incredible piano songs.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: It's going to sound redundant, but that's why I started
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: listening to the Hawkins family because I felt like all
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: those records, if I learned those records, just, almost everything
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I wanted to know. But then I would say, like,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: you know, Tom Bell and The Creed, you know, very
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: good piano songs. And it falls right in place with all, like,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: The Spinners and The Delphonics, The Stylics, all those people.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And then Earth, Wind & Fire, I was definitely all
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: over the Gratitudes albums, the live album.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Did you ever see them in the day?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't see the Gratitude tour, no.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: But I saw... Funk on the Green. I saw Parliament.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: I saw Bernie Burrell play live. I saw Tower of
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Power live. I saw Bob Marley and the Wailers.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You did? Mm-hmm.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: The Berkeley Greek.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Wow. I don't think I've met anybody that saw. I
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: met one person one time that had tickets and they
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: didn't go for some reason. I was like, what a mistake.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't have tickets. I was just on a bike,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: riding a bike from East Oakland.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Just.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: to Berkeley just being some bad kids just riding so
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: far from home and we were just riding around and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I heard this reggae music and my friends kept going
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: on the bike and I stopped and I'm looking through
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the fence and I'm like what is that and I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: could see Bob Marley and and I just stayed there
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I never left.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Did you know Bob Marley at the time yeah I.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Knew who he was I didn't know much about I
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: knew who he was but I didn't leave I just
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: stayed there by the fence I watched through the fence
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: That's incredible. Yeah. So I'm a huge Wailers, you know,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, the bass playing from Family Man is the naughtiest.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I like rhythm sections like Brothers, like the rhythm section
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: with him and Family Man and his brother on drums.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: It's the tightest drum section. I would say I would
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: put them neck and neck with the James Brown rhythm section.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: It's different, but it's tight.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: That's a hell of a... I know. I'm going to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: have to go back and listen for that specific.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. It's crazy. Then I'll go to Verdine and Freddie.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Those are my rhythm sections.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: The Bob rhythm section, Earth, Wind & Fire's rhythm section,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: and James.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: And, of course, James Jamerson.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Motown. Motown. Yeah. You worked with Earth, Wind & Fire.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And with like when Maurice was still. I did.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I had a chance to work with Maurice.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Maurice White.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Talked to Maurice White a lot.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: What was that like? That was scary, man. Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: That was scary working with Maurice. I mean, they all
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: walked in the room. Three of them. Phillip.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Phillip Bailey.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Phillip Bailey, Maurice White, and Ralph Johnson.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Dope. Yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: They walked in the room and I was super nervous.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: But they're really nice. And so much history. You could
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: feel the history when they walk in the room. You
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: could just feel that. Like, like we just, we bad.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: We bad boys. Like we, we, we bring it.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: He was a band leader. You know, he was a
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: band leader guy. And then. Yeah.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: What was the dynamic? How was, how was Maurice's dynamic
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: in the room with.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: He produced me. He produced me to produce.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. yeah that's crazy like when i was singing um
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: uh i was singing the falsetto part on show me
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: the way and he told me to and to tell
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: in and just kick the reverb a little bit higher
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: it's a producing tip damn yeah from the best.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: From definitely from the best especially for the back like
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: if it's a producing tip on a on a falsetto
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: vocal yeah come on yeah you know that's solid advice
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: did um Did you, you didn't play, you never played
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: live with them, did you?
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I've never played live with Earth, Wind & Fire, no.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would still love to do that now.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: But I mean, it's still neat. Verdine's playing. You know
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: what I mean? Yeah. You can't. I mean, that's the
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: backbone of Earth, Wind & Fire.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: You could jump in on guitar, though.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: If you're not moving, nah. They just let me clap
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: my hands. Maybe I could sing a part with Phillip,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: but I'm definitely not going to jump on a guitar
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: or bass.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Maybe a soundcheck. A couple of soundchecks I would like
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: to play with. With Earth, Wind & Fire. And I
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: got a chance to play with Nile Rodgers and Chic.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: For something at Apple.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: When was that?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe a year ago. A year? Something for some type
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: of new headphones or something. I was like, oh yeah,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: definitely doing that. But it wasn't a live audience.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: How was it though?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. Because, you know, Bernard Edwards is.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: This is my guy too.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Were you playing his parts? Yes.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Dressed like him. I did the whole thing. I had
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: schoolboy glasses on, the tweed jagged. I did the whole thing.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Now I was looking at, looking at me and saying, wow, man,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: this dude went all the way in. I'm like, of course,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: of course I did.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Damn. That must've been, Bernard Edwards is ridiculous. Yeah. Of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: all the bass players we talked about today, I feel
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: like he might be the most underappreciated, you know?
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's, he, he's, He's celebrated, though. People do celebrate Bernard.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I even feel like Queen took a piece of Another
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: One Bites the Dust. It's from Good Times. Yeah, for sure.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Another One Bites the Dust. That was smart. That's a
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: nice bite. That's a nice little....
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: You can't be mad at it. I love Queen.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's a nice bike.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It is ridiculous. It stands out in their
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: catalog though. It was like, that's a, that's a, um,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: how was, uh, tell me about the Beyonce sessions, man,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: or how the, the, the work on that came to be. Cause, um,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I was, you know, the singles were, were great. 16
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: carriages was particularly my favorite of the early singles. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I know you worked on both of those, but then
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: when the album came out, I was kind of, And American,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: what was the top? American Requiem came on. I was like,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I got to really listen.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Well, they did a great job of having the right
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: people in the room. I always tell people about Beyonce's,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: her ear. in her like, you know, decision-making is the
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: most important thing you could be as an artist. Somebody
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: that tours, somebody that makes records, somebody who knows their audience.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: So if you know your audience, it's easy to have
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: musicians in the room that you think can push forward
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: what you're trying to do. And so for, for me,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: you know, Dream was in the room.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: A lot of great musicians. So we took songs and I,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: changed some songs around, you know, but then it was
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: great things on the record already. So I just had
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: a great, it was almost like, it was almost like
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the all-star team, you know, with people that I didn't know,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: like the, the banjo playing, you know, with, you know.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Rihanna Giddens.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Rihanna Giddens, who like, that record wouldn't be that record without.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Her doing that. That banjo part's amazing.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Right, so, I think that's, I just I think they
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: ain't already great they had a great team they they
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: had great people was.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: That banjo part on there but when you first heard the.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Song no no but she knew like she wanted to
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: have it on the record and you always want to
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: always I love working with people who know what they
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: want yeah it makes producing fun you know, or being
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a part of something fun.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What was the, what was the ask of you? Like,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: what was like, what, what did you feel like you were? Why,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: why was I in the room?
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I think I was in a room because I, I take,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I'm coachable and I take instructions and I can, I
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: can do what you asked me to do. And I
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: actually love what I do. And I love actually knowing
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that somebody is going to, you dished them a dime,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: they about to go dunk it. That's my inspiration for me.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I think they know, like, you know, I could be
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: in a room and work with people. And it's more
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: about the camaraderie of working with others, you know, and
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: not being like, I'm a producer. Instead of like, no,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: we're in a room, like, we have instruments, and we,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: it's time to get it done.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why I was in the room, because...
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I can play in many genres.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But you can also play a lot of parts.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So it's like when you're in there with your set,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: like your musician hat on or producer, like the dreams already,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: like how do you balance that? There's so many people, man.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I'm only, well, sometimes I'm in the room by myself
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: and some of the stuff I did here.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Like they sent you stuff?
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I was sending stuff too that was already, like Bodyguard
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: was pretty much a song that I did, you know.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You wrote that I wrote that alone cause you do
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the is that you doing the count off.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah on Bodyguard yeah she kept it counting yeah but
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: I wasn't even gonna like play that song that was
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: another song and she heard it and she said what's
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: that she got an ear like that and that's why
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I said not many artists could take a song like
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Bodyguard and say I like this song and I wanna
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: make it a record they wrote some changed some lyrics
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: and did different things but it's only Maybe two people
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I know that takes some of the stuff that nobody
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: would take from me. That's Beyonce, now, and D'Angelo.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: And Solange.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, right. Solange, too. Right.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: That'll take some, like, I wouldn't even play some things
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: for people because I know they might be like, oh,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: that's just way too, like, you know. But you know
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: the great ones. The great ones, they want to dive in. Yeah.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Raphael Sadiq after
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the break. Here's the rest of my conversation with Raphael Sadiq.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me the story of Cranes in the Sky?
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Cranes in the Sky was already eight years old, the
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: music was. And I was really singing something. That's what
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: I was doing, something crazy like that. And when I
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: met Solange, we were both doing these 60s records at first.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: And then we were going to hook up, and I
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: wanted her to write for me, with me for that song,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: for me.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: For your album.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Right. So she had a copy of it, but I
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: think it had my vocal on it. But then she
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: wrote something for herself. And it was years later, maybe
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: a few years later, but it was already eight years old.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And....
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't have a copy of it I didn't have
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: a clean copy you gave her the actual she didn't
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: have it either we never had a copy wow so
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: when she was calling me asking me for a clean
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: version with no lyrics I didn't have it so a
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: good friend of mine Conrad who lived up in Portland
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: is a videographer and he sometimes takes my songs and
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: sort of makes short films And so I was talking
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: to him about, he said, you know, I have a
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: copy of it on a CD, on a disc. So
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: that's the only thing we had.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Because you had sent it to him just to....
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Just so he could make a film with it?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I like a little short film shooting some friends and like,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: you know, just some stuff on the street.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: How the hell did he get on that list?
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Conrad Montgomery. He's a track and field coach. He's
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: a good friend of Nile Rodgers. And we run together.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: We run together. He taught me really how to run.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: He's a track and field guy. And he had it.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: And I said, the only one I have is on
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: a disc. And so that record's nothing separated. that's the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: record that came out.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Wow. So you ripped it from that.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: She's just saying over the, just put that in pro
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: tools and saying over, over top on the.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Top of it. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's, that's wild. Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: So when it works, it works. Sometimes you don't even,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, we, I think they compressed it and mixed
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: it that way, like with compression and make it, you know,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: but pretty much it was, you know, the bass was there.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: The drums is already there. Um, Melatron is that Melatron
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: right there.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: And it has work, so it kind of cracks and
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: does some weird shit. So no Melatron sounds like that
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Melatron because of that. So I never get it fixed
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: because of that. But it was all on that record.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: It was not anything recorded. Only thing that was recorded
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: over was my nephew Dylan played. He played another, he
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: played an acoustic piano. an upright piano, or he played
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: a grand piano on top of it. Then Solange added
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: some like crazy, like bell was just like, boom, she
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: added that. But everything else was pretty much already multi-tracked
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: and we couldn't separate anything.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Did she record that here with you or did she
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: do it on her own?
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Did she? I think she recorded Korean too.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: That's wild that that's the origins of that song, man.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like that's a, that's a,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: that's a Grammy winning project, man, that you just was
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: like discarded and with some track coaching. Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you just have to make music and to make music.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Cause I don't make music to, to give to one,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: to give to anyone. I give, I'll make music to
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: sort of entertain myself. Cause I love music that much
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: that I just want to hear it. If I come in,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: if I come in the studio, I want to hear music.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Sometime I come to the studio and I don't even know,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: I don't even play any music. I just, I might
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: play Madden or something. Like the arcade, the old one,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: like when Tom, when like McNabb was the quarterback.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right. Yeah. Going back.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: So you played with, okay, yeah, McNabb.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: I played with McNabb and then Terrell Owens is the receiver.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: He catches everything right out there.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: You don't play with the Raiders?
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Every Blue Moon, I played with the Raiders. The Raiders
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: wasn't that good that year.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: But sometimes, you know, sometimes I play with the Raiders.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: I am definitely a Raiders fan.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on. That's tough, man.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I'm a Raiders fan, though. No, don't get it twisted.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: But if I'm playing arcade.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I don't do it. Okay.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: You got to go with the Eagles on that.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I got to go with the Eagles or I have
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to go with the best defense on that game. I
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: would say somebody like Rick Ross would probably say, no,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: that's not you because I heard he's really good on arcade.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I would say Green Bay. I like to play with
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Green Bay. Kansas city because they had priest homes as
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: a running back at the time. So I just like
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: to play with the players to do special things.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know you were a video game guy.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: I'm a video game company.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: You do?
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We make games. It's called ill phonic.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Ill phonic. We did a Friday the 13th, Friday, 13th, uh,
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: state ghostbusters.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Um, so my.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Engineer who've, who recorded the way I see it and, um,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Lee, he mixed it. And Stone Rolling, his name
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: is Chuck Brungard. So we started a video game company
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: almost 12, 13 years ago. Because we were in the business,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: we were trying to make records and we couldn't fit
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the system of, you know, we work on a record,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: they'd have somebody else mix it. And it was just
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: getting kind of weird. So I came up with this
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: idea to start a video game company. Um, because it
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: was a joke about it. So, um, what's the death
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: jam game? Um, it's a fight game.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: It was the rush, the rush. Um, anyway, a friend
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: works for the company. It was all these rappers and
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: it was a fight game. And I was like, I'm like,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: you got to build me in the game. And my
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: friend was like, we don't put R and B people
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: in the game. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: make my own game. And I'm called a ghetto golf. And,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: and we just laugh. And so when she left, my
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: partner Chuck goes, you know, if you really want to
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: start a game company, you know, that's what I do for,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I went to school for programming. I'm saying, let's do it.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Let's call it Illphonic because Illmatic is my favorite hip
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: hop album, one of them. So I called it Illphonic
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: and then maybe like the next month, we had like
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: this test game of ghetto golf. And from there we
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: started taking it into publishers for about a year or two.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: And then the next thing we were, you know, I
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: was at all the conference game conferences. And I just
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: kept it on the low because I felt like, um,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Gamers don't really care about musicians having, you know, having
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: a game company.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: It's about the gamers.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: It's on the strength of the game itself.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's about them. It's not about me. It's not
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: about Chuck. And so then we kept going. Um, then
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: we moved the company to Denver, Colorado, and now it's
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: in Colorado and it's in Tacoma.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Wow. And it's still, it's active.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: It's active right now.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Wow. What games are you developing? Um, Wow.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I always blow this title, and they will kill me
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: if I say this, so I'm just not going to
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: say it.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Because one time I spoke on a game, and I
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to, and it was like I just blew
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: up the world or something.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Okay. We don't got to go there then. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: You should revive the Def Jam game. That sounds incredible.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know how I missed that. Yeah. It was
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: a good game. M & M was in it.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Buster Runs. I don't know why I can't think
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: of the name of the game. I love games. But
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I play more sports games than I do first-person shooter games,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: which I really want to start playing more first-person shooter games.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You just got to put a lot of time into that.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I'm still like Call of Duty. I'm still getting blown
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: up on the first stage. I'm like, you got to
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: keep going. I can't follow the– I can't look at the–
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I can't look at it and follow it.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: So I think I should just get better on piano instead.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: That's a better, that's a better move, man.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm going to do.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: That's about the time I got out of games. I
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: was like, well, I got to spend like, you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I got to train for the game. I'm like, man,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I can't really be involved with this.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: I can't catch any passes on like Madden and new.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Like it's just, it's like, just, it is bounce off
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: my fingers. I'm like, is there a button? I'm always
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: asking kids, is there a button that the fingers do
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: like this to catch the ball? Because I can't, I
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: could throw a short pass, a screen. But if I'm
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: going for a bomb, it's like....
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: You got to go to training camp, man.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I got to go to training camp. You got to
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: go figure it out.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's too much time on that.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's too much time.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to ask you, speaking of rap,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you brought up Illmatic, made me think of The Chronic,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: because I always think of those two albums in my
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: mind for some reason, different years, but just incredible debut
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: rap albums.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: But Chronic 2, still DRE, and you did still Ray.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: On Instant Vintage. Yeah, that was a... It feels like a,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: speaking of like a good, like.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good bite. That was a great bite.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: It's a great bite.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. I mean, I'm a huge Dre fan.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: You know, his name is Dre, mine is Ray. And
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: I was like, hmm. And you know, Dre always have
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: those lyrics. And this is motherfucking thanks I get. I
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: kind of feel like Dre sometimes.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: That's how you feel?
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: No, not really. But I love that lyric. And this
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: is motherfucking thanks I get. But when that was like, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I was like, let's turn that into like a lullaby,
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: like a pretty song, like the hardest song that everybody's, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like, let's turn that to, I'm coming home to you.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I'll keep it going.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Hold on. That's too nice. Hold on.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I'm like, let's flip it. Let's put it on his
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: head and let's change it. I'm coming home to you
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: where something see-through. You know, it just happened just really fast. Yeah,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: but I was definitely inspired by.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Did you hear from Dre on that?
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: Nah.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I bet he appreciates it, though.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, definitely, definitely got to, like, you know, Dre
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: is a music guy, you know.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And y'all both worked with Don Robinson.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: We both did, yeah.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: From Vogue.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: We both did, yeah. We both have stories.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, of working with Don.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Good stories, good stories.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Can you share what you think? It's the one you can...
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Did you know En Vogue from Oakland?
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: They are, I feel like.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Bad girls. I mean, beautiful, talented. Insane singers, man. Some
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: of the nicest people. And we sort of came from
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: the same camp with Denzel Foster and Thomas McElroy.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Right, which they did the I Got Five On It.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: They did I Got Five On It. They did Lean
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: On Me with Club Nuvo.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: They did... I mean, Situation, Situation No. 9 for Club Nuvo. And, um,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: that's just five on it. But they did, um, Engine No. 9.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: They just, uh, and they signed us. We came, the
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Tonys went through to Tough Enough Production. They found us.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: They signed us.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: They're responsible for, they had a reason why I'm sitting
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: here talking to you. Wow. Yeah. I still talk to them.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I talk to them pretty much, you know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: a couple times a month. You know, Denny, Denny's a golfer.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: He plays golf. So he tries to get me out
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: there and playing golf. I'm not good though, but I'm trying.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: And Tommy is just, Tommy started, he started fighting. He
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: became a fighter. He always had, he was always a
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: martial arts guy. And then I think he became a,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: what do you call, he was a martial arts fighter.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: He was fighting.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He started doing that.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: He said he got hit really hard and then he stopped.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: That's a good reason to stop.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: That's why I never started with that.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah. And, um, yeah, but yeah, those guys, I'm
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: really responsible for, you know, um, so that's how we
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: got to Mercury. Wow. That's how we got there through
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: those guys. And, um, I'm, I'm lucky to have them
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: in my, in my, you know, my career because I
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: learned a lot by just by listening to them.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, man. Um, How was the tour with the Tonys?
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: The tour with the Tonys was amazing. It was definitely
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: a bucket list. We took the phones. I took the phones.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: You took the phones away from the audience?
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: From the audience. Because I wanted the audience to have
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: a good time. The way that I've seen the OJs,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I didn't have a phone when I was a kid.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: And that's where I learned. I feel like not having
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: a phone And, you know, you're actually sitting with your
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: friend or your mate and you're singing and dancing with
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: each other. You know, you're giving people a moment of
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: freedom that they don't know that they actually lost.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: You know, nobody knows. You know, we attach to our phones.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: No one remembers life before a phone, man.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and you're not actually doing anything with
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: the videos anyway. Like, you just want to show your
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: friends that you were at the show But it's better
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: that you watch the show in its entirety like we
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: rehearsed it. It was amazing though. The songs were fun
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: to sing over. It was great to be around my
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: brother and Tim and introduce some new musicians like Sharky
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: who played guitar for us, who helped me out tremendously
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: to put the show together. It was amazing. It was
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: having an out-of-body experience. I feel like I felt my
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: ancestors talking to me, especially in Memphis. Memphis was this...
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: We played in this venue that just felt... It was packed.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: It was like black people from the front to the back.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: And we haven't played... I haven't played audience with all
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: black people in a long time. Really? Cause my, my
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: audience is very diverse, you know, over the years as
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: a solo artist, you feel like as a solo artist,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: it's just got very diverse, but this, this audience was
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: black from the front to the back in the South.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: It was everywhere.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: It was a few different people in different places, but
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: it just felt like this whole, um, because nobody had
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: the phone, you could, you could look at me and
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: I could look at you. So it's probably different for
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: artists really doesn't, don't know how that feels anymore to
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: having a phone, to have a, you know, 5,000 people
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: looking right at you and not a phone.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: And you're the main, you're the main entertainment.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: You're the main thing. So I think we, we, we
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: share something that we both haven't had in a long time.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: So it brought out this energy of, um, these spirits
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: and energies that I felt like most of the time
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I was I felt like I felt like it didn't
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: even happen and it was just so you know every
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: moment we could take our time we could walk off
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: we had an intermission people were very patient you know
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: it felt like it was like a house party like
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: we were all together in this in this house party
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: and it was just everybody had a good time they
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: were talking they were hugging they was kissing and sometimes
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: the audience wasn't even looking at me they was you
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: know talking to their girl and she's talking to her
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: man they wasn't they was just enjoying it, thinking about
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: the times when they heard this music for the first
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: time and everybody was sort of reflecting on, they may
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: have lost people in the family. And it had this
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: real deep feeling that I just never, I never felt.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: And so it was funny when there was anybody of
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: any other, you know, if there was somebody white or
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: some at the shows, it almost felt like a Malcolm
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: X rally. It felt like it was the CIA.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: It felt like a movie.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, this is CIA. Get that out of my pocket.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: But then as we got closer to San Francisco, it
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: got more diverse.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: You were, okay.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: People came out.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: You've had the Paramount in Oakland?
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: We played the Paramount and then we played, I forgot
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: we played in San Francisco at some hall.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Warfield. Did y'all play the Warfield?
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: We didn't play the Warfield. We played inside. It was
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: raining hard outside. But I've never played the Paramount. Ever.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: That was my first time playing at Paramount. And it
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: was really good to bring it home. We brought it home.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful theater in Oakland.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: So the experience was amazing. I just felt like we
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: needed to give people, you know, give it back to
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: them one more time. Something that they gave to us.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: They gave us the gift to like our music and
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: to like what we were doing. Because we didn't know
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: we were doing this. You know, we were just kids
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: making music with a record deal. And... We were able
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: to put out some test of the time music that
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: people still listen to. I mean, how did it feel
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: for you guys to do it? Because, I mean, I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: feel like, and I guess there's two ways of thinking
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: When you guys broke up, if that's what y'all want
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: to call it, after House of Music, I feel like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you guys kind of went out on top. Like, I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: love all the records, but House of Music's like far
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: and away from me, my favorite record of y'all's. And
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: it's like, damn, there's probably so much more y'all could
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: have done or, or maybe it was the right time.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I don't, so I don't know, but y'all left like
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: on top for sure.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, so to get together, like, you know, 20
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: years later, like how did that feel for you guys?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: It felt, cause we rehearsed right in this room. We
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: rehearsed here and it felt good to see everybody in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: a room and, you know, like playing those songs live, no,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: no back tracks. Just, it felt really good. it was
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: more for me for like the nieces and nephews family
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: members to you know and from my father who's not
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: living anymore he would have wanted us to do that
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: and I really wanted to he said something to me
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: before about you know how to look at things you
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: know no matter what you think they are how you
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: look at them and you know and you how you
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: want to be perceived and I wanted to be perceived as,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I wanted to give people what they wanted. Because when
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: we were younger, you know, we blew it. We broke up.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: You know, we didn't run it. I left. You know,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: I left the group. But it was the perfect time
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: for me to leave the group. I mean, I didn't
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: want to be, I remember, I always have these stories
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: about Eddie Kendricks, one of my favorite people who, you know, he,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: it was hard for him to leave the Temptations. I'm guessing, right?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: Such a big group, such big stable songs. And like,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: you know, Lionel Richie leaving the Commodores, you know, he
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: had big, huge compositions. And I didn't want to get
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: stuck being just an A group guy. I felt like
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: I had more to offer. And I had ideas of
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: how I wanted to do things. And I wasn't like
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the band leader guy who could tell people, you know,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: this is how it's going to go. Just do what
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: I say. So that was better for me to step
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: off and just, and just try and, you know, and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: see what I was going to do. I wanted to
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: work with other people. I just wanted to play music,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: you know, and see if I could copy these, these
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: legends that I love.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: And it didn't feel like you could do both. Like
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: it didn't feel like that was a, nah, nah, no.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: I just, I just came home one day and was like,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Let me just buy some season tickets to the Sacramento Kings.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: And I did. And I met Brian Grant, who became
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: one of my best friends to this day. And I
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: didn't want to, you know, he was, I had a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: detail shop out there. And so I should, we should,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: the Kings cars will come there and different cars will
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: come there. People will come there.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Wait, so you got the season tickets. She says like,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I can't go. I can't, I can't book nothing.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Cause I can't, no, no, no, I just, I got,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: when I decided I was leaving the group, I just decided,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: And I just moved to Sacramento, was new in Sacramento,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: bought this house there, was nothing to do. And I
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: was like, there's not shit to do in Sacramento. But
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: go to a strip bar or go to a game.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: So I did both.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Season tickets to both.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: No, not season tickets, but not season tickets, but. I mean,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: that's where I was like, you just hear a lot
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: of Metallica and Sacramento strip bars. Oh, man.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: That's it. Dude, that's always a.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I love Metallica. And I was like, oh, yeah, this
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: is cool. Metallica, like, Nicky's coming up right now, guys.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: And Metallica and truck drivers. And it was the Sacramento Kings.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: And then... And so people was asking Brian for tickets
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: all the time. You know, he had a family. I said, man,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get my own tickets. Right. And that's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: what I did. I ended up.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: Watching more basketball, watching more sports. And then I only
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: worked on two artists at that time. It was D'Angelo,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: it was Lady, and Total, Kissing You. Puffy's group. Other
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: than that, I didn't do much work for a few years.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, too, you compare yourself to Eddie Kendricks, too.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Because there are some times, listening to Tony, Tony, Tony,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: when you and your brother... like trade vocals. It's almost
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: like a, a, a rough and Kendrick kind of like,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: just the way y'all sound sometimes, you know.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: What I mean? Cause we, I always felt like, you know,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: sometimes when I'm watching the sports shows, sometimes people scream
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: too much. Like if I'm watching, if I'm watching Stephen,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: if I'm watching first take, I call first take first Baptist.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Cause it sounded like church. It sounded like, like preachers.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: They all sound like preachers.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: But I love their show.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I love the show.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: And then I listen to, I'll go to like, what's
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: it called? It's called First Things or something.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: First Things.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: First Things First.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Their voices are too high. It's just like, and it
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: just irritates the hell out of me. And then.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Skip Bayless.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Can't take skips. At all.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: But.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Who was on the show I like on the Skip Show?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Wayne? Lil Wayne's on there now.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: The right receiver.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're talking about. USC. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: I'm just blanking out on his name. That's terrible because
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: he's my favorite guy.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he just joined the last year. It's a great commentator.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he makes Skip Show good, but I'm really
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: calling her a guy.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: You're a Colin Hurd guy?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: I can't deal with it. I feel about Colin the
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: way I feel about Skip. I like Skip Batch. He
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of wrestling or something.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: No, Colin is right. Because you know why? Because Colin
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: got it right. Because Colin is no debating. He'll ask
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: a question.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: He debates himself.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: No, but yeah, but when he brings on great guests.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't, if I ask you a question, and
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: then when you answer the question, he goes to the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: next subject. He don't debate you. I like that.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: He just moves along.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: He doesn't debate you, right?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: That's so funny.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Back to me and Dwayne.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: I think my voice is irritating sometimes, right? So it
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: was great to have me and Dwayne going back and forth.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: And that's the way I see those talk shows, those
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: game shows. You need different people with different voices because
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: some voice might irritate you. My voice is high. And
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: sometimes people, it could be irritating.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: It's too high. I've never heard anyone say that.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: But when Dwayne comes in, it just levels me off
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: and gives me the confidence. You know, it's like, I
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: don't want to say this, but like, you know, Michael
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: and Jermaine, it worked, right?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: So, those talk shows, yeah, I think Colin is the man, bro.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Come on, man. I can't, I can't, man.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: You like Skip over Colin?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Skip's funny to me. Skip just cracks, it's like, it's
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous. It's insane.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: He's like Trump almost.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but, okay. Sorry.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, listen. Listen. You're not wrong.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: He's just saying shit. You're not wrong.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Like, okay, I might regret putting
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: this on wax, but Trump is actually kind of funny.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: He is funny. It's just that he's like... George Bush
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: is funnier. Come on. They're both pretty funny.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: No, he's just... Trump is just ridiculous.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what's ridiculous? I mean, this really ain't funny.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: It's kind of funny. It's in a dark way. You
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: think about George Bush started the Iraq war, all those veterans,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: people dead, maimed.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: It was terrible.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: And now he's just sitting there at home painting them.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: And he's good.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: Like, bro, like, what? You sent them to fucking lose
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: an arm.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: Because now he's painting, like, look at this motherfucker you
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: guys got now.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Like, whatever choice do you have? Like, I mean, most
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: people I know, like, are voting. And who wants to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: vote Trump, who you wouldn't think. Everybody want to save
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: money on taxes. But I want to save money on taxes, too.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, if that's going to be it, fuck it.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do it that much. Lose the money.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I would rather lose money than do the yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but Skip is definitely Trump.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: He is, but he's not trying to run the country.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: That's what I appreciate about it. You know what I mean?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: He's just trying to push in.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like Skip comes in with a ready package. Like,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: you say something, he's going to combat it. I feel
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: like they have the... You could.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I can see their daily meetings.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take this position. You're going to take
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: that one. That's why I don't like it.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: With Colin, you know there's a meeting, but it's only
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: one person.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Colin just reminds me of the guy in the classroom
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: that's doing too much. You know what I mean? He's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: ruining everything for you.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: But you know what I like about Colin? I don't
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: know how he got on the sports thing, but the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: funny thing about Colin, I want to find out why
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: does he hate Aaron Rodgers so much?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: That's a great question.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: It's funny, though. He'll give him a break, but he'll
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: be like, you know... He just kills him. I think
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: I watch him just to watch him kill people. But
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: he has really good tips for being professional. If you
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: listen to him.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, definitely.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: Like he definitely.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. You got it. I'm going to move to Manhattan beach.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Try to try to link up with him. He may
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: see if he can mentor me on how to. Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, because look at this podcast company is Draymond green.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wait, no, that's it. Is that his?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: That's his.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Dude comes on and be like, you know, he
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: gave dream on the platform. I didn't know that.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: He's a beast, man.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: He's a beast.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: But Skip, you got Stephen A, Shannon, Wayne, our boy
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: who we can't think of right now. He's put people
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: on too. I'm just saying. I try.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Like I, I try, I skip my stations and I
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: go on Skip. I'm like, nah, Skip's like, Skip's just
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: like making people mad.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love that about it.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: It's a different structure, different folks.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: That's it. Um, I feel like I'm bouncing everywhere, but
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: it's just like so much to ask you.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: One more thing about Skip.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Please. One more thing.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: His name is perfect. You should just skip his show. Exactly.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: That's the tagline. You can just go on and skip me.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: Skip this, Skip that.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Just skip this Bayless, man. Y'all went down to record
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: House of Music. Y'all went down to, was it Trinidad? Trinidad. Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: It's a House of Music? Because it's Sons of Soul.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Was it Sons of Soul y'all did that?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: I think it was Sons of Soul.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Pre-internet, how did you know about this studio
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: down in Trenton? How did y'all know to get.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: We found out from some of our Trini brothers, Trent
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Gumbs and Desmond Gumbs, some guys that was in a...
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Trent Gumbs, I was in a high school band with him.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: And he's Trini. And he told us about this studio.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: They needed people to come down there and record it.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: They gave us a good price to come record the music.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: And we stayed there for three months. stayed there for
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: three months. I think that's the first time I had roti.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: This is the sad part. It's the first time I
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: ever tasted a mango.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was in Trinidad.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: That's probably was a good mango too.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: The best mango I ever had in my life.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: And it was beautiful. It's a beautiful place. Beautiful music,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: beautiful food. And, um, we had almost five to six
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: rooms to record in.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Huge orchestra room. Um, it was it was a great time.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Was it like that was that was how many people
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: so was you guys who else did you guys go
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: down with.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: We brought we we might have brought like 10 people
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: when we left we left uh it was only maybe
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: three people we left everybody wanted to leave except us
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: wow yeah.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: It seems like an incredible do you guys have any
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: like footage of that time or i.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: Don't think we filmed anything we were the worst we
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: we weren't the beatles we didn't dock how you know
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: you see the Beatles have a documentary that came out
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: and they filmed it like 40 years ago. Yeah.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like literally all the footage. It's like, yeah,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: they're never off camera.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I mean, I just, yeah, it's pretty, I
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: guess it makes sense that it was Sons of Soul
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: cause it feels like that's like really, there's an energy
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: on that album, you know?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Sons of Soul was like, yeah, it was definitely
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: a Trini. Right.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Slow wine.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Slow wine.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: Slow wine.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Um, It's beautiful.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, like the rainforest, it would be like just
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: in the daytime, just you eating dinner and just hard
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: rain is just coming down, you know, because the windows
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: are open. They love the good life out there.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Other thing I wanted to ask you, just going back
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: to Beyonce, your brother, Dwayne, brought Destiny's Child to Oakland
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: like before they blew up, right?
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: So it's like, did you, did you like, yeah. Can
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: you tell that story if you know it? And then
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: did you know Beyonce at that time?
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't know. I didn't know Beyonce at that time.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: I actually was in L.A. at the time.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: Or I was in Sacramento and then I moved to L.A.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: So I missed that whole thing. I wasn't around it
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: I know I know he had him through another guy
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: named Alonzo Jackson. Alonzo Jackson is a guy we were in.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: I was in a band with two. And Dwayne was
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: in a band with Alonzo Jackson's uncle. So we were
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: sort of like the kids band to that band. But
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: there's also another lady who Alonzo met. So he met
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: Destiny's Child through this lady. She ended up passing away.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: And then Alonzo brought the girls to Dwayne.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Did you hear from him about it? Like, yo, I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: got these.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was working with a lot of people
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: at the time. He was working with Alicia Keys after that. Um,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: he had his own label. He, he was working a
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: lot of people, but like I said, I wasn't around
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: for any of it. I didn't know any of the artists.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Do you guys get along or is that not?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: No, we get along. No, we get along. We just different.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: We just different. And, you know, um, I mean, growing up,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: he was my, you know, my child, my idol. I
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: wanted to be around him all the time. Was it
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: a sort of an age gap there? And then once
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: you get in, once you get a record deal, everybody
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: started having their own set of friends, you know? So,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: and I was still, in Amber with the, the trick
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: that I was, I was in the business, I was
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: making records, you know, it was like something that was
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: a really, a surprise to me, you know, cause I'm
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: pretty much wanting to be like an assignment, a play
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: for people. So I was too busy figuring this out
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: and how not to be a failure and what we
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: said we were doing. So I, I pretty much, You know,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: I was trying to, you know, talk to as many
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: people as I could to learn a little bit more.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: There was like a five-year, maybe five, maybe six-year gap
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: between House of Music and Instant Vintage.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't know because there's no gaps for me
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: because I'm always playing music.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: I'm always making records, but they're just not coming out.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Okay. But so there wasn't like when you left like
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: this earth. feel of urgency of like I gotta get
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: something out establish myself as no you did the song
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: for like you know.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah for different people it should have been some urgency but.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't it's all worked out I was just curious.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: No no it should have been some urgency but I
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: didn't I wasn't I wasn't there like that I was
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: like you know like I said it was football basketball
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: music video games the new guitars watching this person do
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: that nieces and nephews and I was nephew was playing
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: you know wanted to play basketball so I was you know,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: fly him to Dominguez from Sacramento to play in a
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: league with the Pump brothers. And I was sort of
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: like helping my nieces and nephews get in good schools.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: And that was part of it too.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: You could have become like a sports agent or something.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: You could have like, you know, there's another, there's another
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: path you could take.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: I should tell my buddy, like I told Brian one time,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: he wasn't doing that good. Well, his points was low
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: and I just went to him one day. I was like, man,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: I said, tell me something. I said, if they come
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: to you and say, no, they're going to fire you.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: I said, they're going to fire, the GM is going
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: to be there for a long time. You probably get
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: fired first. Like, it's you, then it's the coach, then
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: it's the GM. That's how it go, right? He like, yeah.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: He said, okay, I hear you. He went and he
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: got like, he got about what? He hit about 20,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: he hit about 17 rebounds and That night when he
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: called me, he's like, you see the game? I'm like, yeah.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: He said, yeah. He said, no, I want to hear
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: some records.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: You're a clutch producer, man. Yeah. You produce anything. Yeah.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: Charlie Ray. The song Charlie Ray. Yeah. Where did that
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: guitar part come from?
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: Well, it came from me trying to be in my funkadelic,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: you know, um, And it's like Charlie Ray's... It's like
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: a funkadelic dream. It's such a... It almost sounds like
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: Grateful Dead-ish. Like it's so... Really? Like it's just so.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know that anyone.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: I do have a lot of Grateful Dead type of
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: music that I haven't put out. What? Just like instrumental stuff.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: For real? Yeah. Yeah, I did. So my album, before
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: I did Jimmy Lee, I had this whole other record
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: that felt like Charlie Ray. And then I started thinking
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: about my brother and some friends about drug addiction. And
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: then I just jumped off and got on this whole other...
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: wave in but i did have these records that then
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: i'm gonna put together it's more instrumental stuff vocals happen
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: but maybe like after two minutes in the record what
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: yeah that's what that's the stuff i love that you
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: know i could do it now because i'm not i'm
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: not really in the record i'm not i'm not i
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: don't think i've ever been in a record business i
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: think i've been a friend of the brand That's my thing.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: A friend of the brand.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: A friend of, really? Yeah.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: The friend of the brand. I got that from like
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: New Balance. I did this thing with somebody and instead
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: of having ambassadors, they might have somebody in a commercial
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: and it's like a friend of the brand is not
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: an ambassador. When I heard that term, I was like, oh,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: that suits me just fine because that's what I felt
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: like I've been. I'm a friend of the brand, which
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: means I really, really love it. I can call myself
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: a friend of the brand.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Is that because you don't necessarily want to be fully
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: in it like because you i'm sure you could.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: Be no i think i want to be fully in
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: it but i just want to you know dip off
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: and do regular shit you know and not i don't
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: need to have 10 celebrity friends and hang out with
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: them you know i don't need to be talking about
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: celebrity friends all day i need to just you know
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: i'm walking um you know i'm on a bike i'm
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: just doing Things that, you know, my friends are... I'm
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: still friends with my friends from third grade.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Damn.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: You know? I still talk to them on the phone.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: You know? I took some of my friends' lyrics and
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: put it in a song.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: A song that he used to always sing. And then
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen him in 25 years. When he saw me,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: he's like, you sang my lyric in a song.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: What lyric? What song?
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: It's not called For the Love of You. It's a...
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: I will see... I will... Stand by you like a tree.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: Dare anyone to try to move me. But he had
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: got it from Marvin. Wow. But I didn't know. But
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: we would be on the street hanging out. And he
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: would be like, I'll stand by you like a tree.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: He would always say that. So our first record, his
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: name is Rodney. We called him We Got Rodney Smith.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: And when he saw him, he was like, tell him, Ray.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: It was all our other friends. He said, tell him.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: He already knew. He said, tell him. I said, I
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: took those lyrics, stand by me like a tree. He
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: already knew.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Cold busted, man.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tell him that.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. I'm going to circle back because this is
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: one thing we dropped, which was we started talking about
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: the secret track. How did that, we got off on
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it because that Larry Graham one is my favorite. But
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: how did that happen? When did that, like?
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: I think I started doing it because I think Prince,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: when I heard, hello, how are you? it was at
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: the end of the record and I've heard maybe one
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: other person do that. And I was like, I wonder
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: if I just like let the record go off and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: for like a minute or two, a minute and a half,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: let it scare the hell out of people if they
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: in the house and the record pops. That's not, I
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: don't want to scare people, but I just thought like,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: you know, this, this would be a thing that I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: could start and I can continue to do it. Yeah.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm actually going to put out some vinyl pretty soon.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Um, Of previous stuff?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: Previous stuff. And I'm sort of like a vinyl club.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: I started putting out vinyl.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Put the Grateful Dead project down, man.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: I will. I'm definitely going to do that.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: I'll buy that on vinyl. The gatefold. Definitely.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: I'm a vinyl head, you know.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Man. Cool. Well, Rafael, thank you so much, man.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you, man.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: What an honor.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Rafael Sadiq, for having us out to
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: this beautiful Los Angeles studio. To hear some of our
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: favorite Raphael Sadiq songs, check out a playlist at brokenrecordpodcast.com.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast where
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: you can find all of our new episodes. You can
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolley.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: bonus content and ad-free listening for $ 4. 99 a month. Look
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast Subscriptions. And if you
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: I'm Justin Richmond.