Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Janelle Monáe & Nate Wonder

Transcript

Janelle Monáe & Nate Wonder · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Janelle Mona's had a lot to smile about this
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: year after a run of successful albums over the last decade,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and June she released her fourth album, The Age of Pleasure.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It's an important project. Not only was it just nominated
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: for two Grammys, including the Album of the Year, but
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it's also signaled a big tone shift for Janelle, whose
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: past albums have centered in part around a recurring character
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: named Cindy Mayweather, an android who represents society's new other. Esthetically,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Janelle has also always been pretty buttoned up. For her
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: first few album releases, she made a point of always
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: appearing in public in some iteration of a tuxedo. But
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: for the Age of Pleasure, she literally stripped down to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: almost nothing, flanting a newfound freedom centered around black joy, pleasure,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and acceptance. On today's episode on Poolside, having a conversation
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: with Jenemo and her longtime musical partner Nate Wonder, who
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: also co produced and co wrote this new record along
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: with her others, We're after a creative home base in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the Hollywood Hills called Wonderland. Nate explains how the Age
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of Pleasure album started with the simple conceit of wanting
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to make Janelle Monet smile. Jane also talks about why
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: she decided to ditch your career in musical theater after
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: college and how the Grace Jones ended up topless in
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Wonderland's now infamous pool. This is broken record liner notes
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with Nate Wonder and Janelle Monette. Happy birthday, Thank you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Rammy nomination.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, album of the Year.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like two in a row.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Now, I know that's a big deal. I know it's
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: a big deal.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I'm still just so humbled, very big.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Not just progressive R and B album, but like album
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of the year, Like that's some crazy.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: That's wild.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: I watched a lot of my here get it and
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: be on that stage, and like it's really a dream
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: to be able to not just shine light on the
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: work that I do. But you know, Nate's here as well.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: He worked heavily on the music and production and writing
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: with me and everybody else who you know was a
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: part of the album. They get recognized too. So that's
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: the beautiful thing about being in that category.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah. I wanted to ask about the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: collaborative since I have the pleasure of both of you guys,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: which is it feels special to me. So I was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: curious about how you guys collaborate on it. I mean,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you guys been working together a long time.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: First of all, every project, every album since my EPs,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: where I was selling them out of the trunk of
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: my car in Atlanta. We've been able to have, you know,
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: a creative bond and just like evolution together and it's
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: just been really a fun ride. Lots of fun things
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: happen in the studio. It feels like family, it feels intentional.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Where were you both at when you guys first met
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: We met at Morehouse Janelle was she was living like
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: in the.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Area, Parson Street, Yeah, boarding house next to Club Woody
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: in auc Club Woody is.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: The name of the library.
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: Okay, you go there though, because it's in the middle
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: of all three campuses, it's kind of like a club.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: You never know in Atlanta what that could be exactly.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: It's actually actually the university library. And she would throw
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: shows on the steps. And I was just out of college.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: I had lost my scholarship in my junior year of
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: college because I was writing music, And so after I graduated,
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: like I could really take the time to focus on
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: my music the way I wanted to.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So in college you knew that like music was where
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you were focused, That's where your attention was.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: But why did you lose it? What happened?
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: You need to tell him exactly a moment that will
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: let you know how serious you.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: I mean, I had I had two full scholarships to school,
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: and I lost both of them because I.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: How do you have to how do you get two.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: NASA gave me a scholarship and the school gave me
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: a scholarship separately, and I just had both of them.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: I had one like as a backup, I guess idea.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: But I was in a math test and I was
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: doing well on the test except for like in the
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: middle of the test, I had this song come to
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: me and I just felt compelled to get up, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: I went to my dorm room and I wrote the
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: song and I did not finish the test, and it
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: caused my GPA to crater.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And that's why I lost my scholarship.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Yay was that And that's how we got to make music.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, thank god he lost his NaSTA and scholarship.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, in any other scenario, that's a tragedy. Yeah,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: but it seems to have been the right path.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: It tragic at the time too. After I realized that happened.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: In the moment, it felt like, this is what you're
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: supposed to be doing. You need to just listen to this.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Was that common for you to just up and leave
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: whatever you were doing, wherever you were at, whoever you
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: were with, YO, get an idea.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but not a test. It had not happened like
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: that was something that cost me so much.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the movie of your life was a pretty
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: high stake, you know.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: What I mean, it was, and it felt like a
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: big mistake afterwards. For a little while, it felt like, wow,
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: that was crazy.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. My dad was like, you're crazy. You absolutely
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: lost your mind.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Were your parents academically folks, like, I mean, I don't
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: know how you get a scholarship.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: My dad has a doctorate in music.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Actually, wow, And he wasn't active in music in that
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: kind of way.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: He's a professor, so he's yes, he's.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you grew up with a lot of theory and things.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: I grew up watching him write music composed and like
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: he was writing operas and all that kind of stuff,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: and like, so I saw that growing up, and I
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: learned a lot of instruments kind of I got introduced
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: to a lot of instruments early on, and I got
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: introduced to the idea of composition very early.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: But he was not. He was like that it is dumb,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: just so we could be clear, that's dumb.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Did you know him at the time.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I didn't know. You didn't know each other.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: That was you know, I met him after he probably
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: did some healing from the traumatic experience of losing your scholarships.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I learned how to focus. That's what I learned from that.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: I always hold that as like a lesson in focus
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: what it takes.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Focus on the thing at hand, or focus on the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: creativity that's taking away.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Actually, you know, you know it's interesting, like it's just
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: pick something and do that thing. So the idea of
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: the multitasking and all that kind of stuff, I understood
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: how detrimental that could be to whatever the dream that
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I had was. So if it was music, like I
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: know that, Like the feeling I had when I was
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: in the class asked, was, hey, you're not pursuing the
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: thing that you're supposed to be pursuing right now, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: you are going to feel sick about that at some
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: point in time. Right now, you feel sick, so you
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: need to go write that song. Later on, I felt like, okay,
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: I but I made a commitment and so you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: it's about just commitment, focus not being distracted. And when
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: I finished college, I was like, Okay, now I'm going
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: to focus and I wanted to do that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: You did finish, yes, and you paid.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to pay my last year.
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Hey, last year, I got a scholarship for part of it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I got a scholarship to go live in Spain, so
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: they paid me to go.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: I did get another scholarship too, smart man, But I.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: And tell them what you know what?
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: Tell them what you got that scholarship in Spanish, which
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: I suck it. I failed Spanish high.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: School year, but major Spanish class.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Major in Spanish.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you study any music Spanish music while you
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: were in Spain?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: No?
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: I studied Spanish art and architecture actually, And so when
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: I went to Spain, I was like, let me not
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: pursue music right now, let me focus. I'm not going
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: to bring any of my instruments, like I would never
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: not have a guitar in my hand. And so I
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: was like, I'm going to go to Spain. I'm not
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: going to have any instruments. I'm going to focus and
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: I'm going to just do what I'm here to do.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: And I went there, and what was crazy is that
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: the place that I lived was directly next to a
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: music conservatory. So I would wake up and this girl
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: would play the flute every morning. It would wake me
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: up every morning. I would hear musicians playing all day,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: and I was like, man, I got so I was there.
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: I bought a flute and like taught myself to play
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: the flute, but that was it. I was like, let
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: me just that's small enough.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's more of a hobby than a real pstick pursuit. Similarly,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you early on were kind of like possessed by creativity, right,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I like that possessed.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, there was never a time where I wasn't singing.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: I don't remember like singing, acting, partying, doing exactly what
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: it is that I'm doing. I was talking to a
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: friend and she reminded me, she was like, remember in
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: sixth grade when we used to throw these parties and
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: you would charge a dollar for people to get in,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: and I skipped school to hand out flyers.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It was a whole thing.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: But at that same time, I was on every talent
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: show stage in Kansas City, in every musical theater production.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: And you know, it's morphed into concerts now and the
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: age of pleasure album and being driven by by just
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: the things that I love. I'm so thankful that I
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: still can do that. And for me when I went
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: to school in New York after you know, after high school,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: went to school in New York, and I thought, oh,
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: I want to do musical theater. As soon as I
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: got out there and started going to sea plays and stuff,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: I was like, man, ugh, I'm not excited about any
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: of the roles that they're offering.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: You know, people that look like me.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: What were you What kind of roles were you getting?
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Well, we couldn't really audition, but like there was no
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: there was maybe one strong black woman leading something there
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: was not right now, Broadway has changed, like it' it's
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: it's a lot more diverse, a lot more stories, a
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: lot more uniqueness. And the only thing, because I'm from Kansas,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: the only thing I think people saw me doing was
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: the Whiz, and the Whiz wasn't on Broadway, and I'm
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: just like, I love the Whiz, but where is the
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: new energy, the new stories? And I had so much
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: bubbling because I'm a writer as well, and I decided that,
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: you know, I was going to quit. So I quit
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: school in New York. Everybody thought I was crazy too.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: That was my like you're crazy moment, because coming from Kansas,
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: such a small town, They're like.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Wow, You're in New York. You're living the dream.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: And little do they know, I was sleeping in the
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: same bed as my cousin because I could not afford
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: housing there, and so I was commuting from like a
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: hundred and forty of an Amsterdam the like seventy second
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: and Broadway every single day, Monday through Friday. Wow, I mean,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I learned a lot about surviving. And I was just like,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: you know, poor, but excited about the arts and excited
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: about finally figuring out what did Janelle Robinson have to say?
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Because I wasn't even going by Janelle mone I had
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: not tapped into the center the core of what I
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: had to say because I was spending so much time
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: singing everybody else's songs.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Why the transition of Janell Moe then from Janelle Robinson.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: What about that felt more like the authentic place to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: create farm.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Well, I knew about the painter mone and I always
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: thought like, that's that's a great artist name, and it
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: just so happens to be my real name. My middle
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: name is none. My aunt actually she was like Janelle Monet,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Janelle Monee. She calls me that all the time, like
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: when she sees me, and it just it sucks.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Even before, so it wasn't like I was a kid
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: like your family and where you come from, none.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: Of I just thought Monnette felt like an artist's name
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: and it was my name, and it was like, yeah, okay,
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: I get to reinvent you know who, what I can be,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: how I can say it, how I see myself.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: And it was so great.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: So that's when I moved to Atlanta, and that's when
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: I met Nate Rocket Wonder, I met Chuck Lightning, I
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: met Michael Moore, who were all still working together. They
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: were at Morehouse. They ran this arts collective called the
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: Dark Tower Project, and they would bring musicians, poets to
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Morehouse and I was one of the people who performed
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: that night, and I just saw this kind of black
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: cosmopolitan in Atlanta, Like it was just this melting pot
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: of just excellence and creativity and freedom of expression. I
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: had never seen anything like it, and I wanted to
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: be around that, and I wanted to make music for them.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: That's who I wanted to make music for. And so
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: when I started to write, I would sit out, like
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Nate was saying, I would sit on the library steps
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: of Club Woody and I would just play guitar, sing
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: my songs. People will walk by, some would stop and listen,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: some would keep moving.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I would go to dorm lounge.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: And sit on the couch and give before like to
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: anybody that would listen. I was, I was like, I
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: don't give a damn. I have to know.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Is this for me?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Like, do you guys like what I have to say?
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: Like can I make my purpose and passion and also
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: career aligne.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a scary time because you don't you don't
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: really know that. And we have the confidence to not
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: necessarily care, but you don't at times don't really know.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You don't know.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: Like one of the reasons why we really connected was because,
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: like I know it sounds very basic, but.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: We love art.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: And I think that we were inspired by meeting other
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: people who loved art, like really would just like fall
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: in love.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: With art, you know, just be obsessed over it.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: Just sit up all day and think about something that
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: they read or a painting that they.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Saw, or just a song, just sit and cry to
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: a song. And just like.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: I know that Janelle and I have a very spiritual
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: connection that music, it really is like the catalyst for
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: that and it catalyzes it all the time. It's something
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: that I know that we can always tap into. Like
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: besides being like good thought partners and like you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: there are wonderful myriad things about Janelle that make her
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: a great like human being. But on a musical level,
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: she is very passionate about music, Like if I play
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: certain chords, it can make her cry. And that is
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: something that also happens to me, Like I can hear
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: certain songs certain chords, and it doesn't have to do
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: it necessarily the lyrics. Always sometimes the lyrics, yes, and
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: poetry is beautiful and that's another you know, but just
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: like music and just being really just emotionally brought to
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: your knee ease over how good music can be. And
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: we've shared so many of those moments, and that was
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: like the beginning of that time where we got to
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: really just pass music back and forth and be shocked
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: and just sit in awe with.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Each other as we would just listen to what could
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: be done.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I think one of the things that I loved early on,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: and the reason why I think we've worked so well
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: together musically, is because Nate is a student of music,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: and so when it comes to like anything that I
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: want to do, there's nothing we can't do, from string
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: arrangements to core progressions, horn arrangements, melodies, Like there's no genre.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: We've been genres with each album. You know, it's all
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: about how do we create our own musical language.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: And I love that.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: I always have to feel pushed and stretched, and I
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: think that's what is the exciting thing, because it's like
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: we literally have the the mind and the student heart,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: Like we never stop.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Being student, always at the beginning.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Always it's always a new whiteboard, you know, the ideas
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: ready to be put down.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It sounds to me like you guys are just always
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: creating things, regardless of like there's an album, dude, or
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you know, or it's been a minute or you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's just that's how you guys are inhabiting life.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: It's just creating every day or you know, the days
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that it feels right to do. Right.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I didn't get into music because of
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: awards or because of you know, recognition or anything like that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Music is truly healing. I need music like I need
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: a song in my darkest hours. I need a song
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: in my most celebratory stage. I need a song when
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: you know, I want to communicate something that my own
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: words can't say, and I need to be able to
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: write when I'm feeling frustrated or when I'm like it's
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: a way. It has helped my mental health so much, Yeah,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: so much.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: You know, when I was listening again for like the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: umpteenth time this morning on a wat to the Age
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: of Pleasure, I was wondering listening to it, it might
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be a possible question to answer, but whether these songs
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: were for you or for other people, because I in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a way I've realized as I've been listening to it,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I've been taking it as like you giving mantras to me.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I love that, but it occurred to me to the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe you needed to write this for you too,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and I don't know how you were approaching.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: That, but it's for all of us.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: It's for us, and that means a lot to hear
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: you say that, because I think one of the most
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: important things as an artist is your ability to communicate.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: And as much as I can, you know, say like, oh,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I just want to do an album and I want
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: this just for myself and I me to listen to it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: That's not my truth. I actually want everybody to feel
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: like this is their soundtrack to their life. This is
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: curating their thoughts and their feelings. They are part of
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: my community. We're a part of each other's community, and
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: all of us are growing and healing and moving together
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: and sharing something that they can tap into anytime they
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: want to. And it's funny because you're here. This is
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: exactly what inspired the album, this space, having this space
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: filled with black and brown and you know, just beautiful
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: people across the diaspora here, seeing them smiling, seeing the
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: joy and their spirits and their hearts. During the time
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: where everybody thought the world was ending, I mean every dayandemic.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: We created Wonderland West during the pandemic. It was one
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: of the most scary things ever because I grew up
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: my parents didn't own a home. We were either in
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: like a duplex or you know, we live with my
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: grandmother and they were working class, like making ends meet,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: but live in check to check. So when it was
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: time for all of us to contribute and figure out
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: where we were going to migrate with Wonderland, it was like, okay,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: are we ready to all? Am I ready to invest
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: in our next creative endeavor?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Yes? I am, But we're in the middle of a pandemic.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: What does that mean?
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: And luckily we knew the person who was trying to
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: sell the space, and they were just like, there's nobody
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: else I want to have this space.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: And it worked out and it came right to you. Yeah,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: it did.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: But it was also scary because a lot of things
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: were being canceled For me. My job is to go
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: out into the world and travel and you know, try
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: to heal people through music.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: But I couldn't do that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So you come from growing up a certain amount of insecurity. Yeah,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, the successful career you've had, it's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: hard to imagine that. But you know, as soon as
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you start to feel that a little bit insecurity again.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I know from my own life, like all of a sudden, Yeah,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, where was your mind that?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: With all of that, I.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: Think the pandemic reminded me just how much music means
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: to me as a person, not as a career path,
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: not as you know, the artists that people know and
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: come to the concerts and see, but as a human
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: android having this Earth experience.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I need music. I need to create.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: During that time, not only were we working on music,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: but I also wrote a book called The Memory Librarian.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I was just doing anything creative that would would help
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: me feel better, because to go from moving around so
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: much to just being still it was tough.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: It was tough for me. How was it for you, Nate?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: You know, art has this weird responsibility of trying to
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: document and explain the human experience a little bit more
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: and kind of just like on Earth, a little bit
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: more about what it means to be human. And I
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: think that so many of us were finding out a
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: lot more about what it meant to be human, Yeah,
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: like a lot about the mortality of it, even though
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: we weren't necessarily in or didn't consider ourselves vulnerable in
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: that kind of way. I think a lot of us
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: looked at ourselves as more vulnerable to death. And I
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: think that that was a very real consideration that we
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: all kind of had to deal with it differently. And
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: I think that human experience is a very unique one
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: that kind of felt like okay, so what is the
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: response to that, and how do you talk about this
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: in healthy ways? And how do you explore and understand
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: more about it? So I think that like part of
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: what we were trying to do was just face that
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: in an honest way. When you talk about like the affirmations,
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: I mean that was very intentional, because part of just
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: confronting death is like being able to turn your head
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: and be like not today, and then you kind of
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: are like okay, so then what does that mean? And
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: it's kind of like, okay, live and so then how
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: do you live in a way that honors the life experience?
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: And it's like, hey, okay, I'm here, I'm here now,
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: you know. And you hear these stories about the Roaring
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: twenties when people are kind of like getting through the depressions.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: It's so much going on and they're like you and
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: they've made it through a pandemic, right, and you have
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: the guilt and so much of that goes into just
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: just your human experience, and it's those affirmations were like
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: just the small attempts to just undergird just the everyday
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: thing that's kind of like pushing you down and kind
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: of be like, all right, I'm.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Gonna get back up.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: You know when Janelle says like I used to walk
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: into the room head down, you know, it's just that
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: feeling of I used to walk into the room head
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: down and being like that's I'm leaving that and now
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: I'm onto this next stage of myself.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: I think in the I think it was a priva
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: to be still because during that time, I mean, as
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: we know, a lot of people were getting laid off
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: from work, a lot of people were losing their families
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: passing away. And as much as it was sad that
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I couldn't go and be the artist that I wanted
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: to be out into the world, there were so many
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: other people who had it worse than us. In that stillness,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: I said, well, what can I do. I know, we
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: were in LA and we got the opportunity to feed
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: and give out over thirty five thousand meals throughout Won
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: to Lunch program, and so we did that for like months,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: and months and months, and I think that connectivity back
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: to humanity really let us know what kind of affirmations
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: are people needed and what I needed as well. And
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I think to answer your question, we were very intentional
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: about that, and I think Float really kicked it off.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Like I used to.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: Walk into the room head down out on walk Now
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: if Float, I got an opportunity in that stillness to
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: deal with childhood trauma that I had not help with
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: that because because I was moving around so much, I didn't.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: It was like, Okay, you know something's not right, but
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: I don't have time to deal with it. And in
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: that discovering and peeling back the layers of the rejection
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: and abandonment that I felt early on get into the
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: root of it, my spirit started to get lighter because
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: I knew. I was like, oh, okay, so I can
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: become better and more evolved as a person now. And
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: I feel so empowered now that I know.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: What was going on with me.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: And when you heal as a as a person, all
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: of that seeks into your music and your art. My
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: art is a reflection of who I am, and I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: so thankful for that, because all I wanted to do
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: was give more people affirmations because I know I wouldn't
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: only want When I would have conversations with people, they
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: would say the same thing, like, man, I have to
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: let go of this. I have to let go of that,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: you know, And so float was that thing. It was
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: like once you let go of the heaviness that you've
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: been carrying on your back that you didn't didn't have
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: to carry, and you just find you're finding out like, oh,
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I have a way to get all of this off
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: of me now. It felt like I wanted to celebrate
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: as a new person, like I feel like I definitely,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: you know, shed a lot of skin, turned a new leaf.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: And obviously it's a constant, you know, journey, But once
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: I tapped into it, I got really inspired to write
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: After a quick break, we'll come back with more of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: my conversation with Jennel Monet and Nate Wonder. We're back
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: with Jennel mone and Nate Wonder. Once you put the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: album out, how did you guys feel about the response
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to it. You know, obviously we're very vulnerable, and I
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: feel like that was like a big point of conversation
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: around that. But was it Sometimes you do things feeling
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: like that's the right thing to do, and then it's like,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: oh shit, I got to talk about this, Like how
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: was the process of going out and talking about the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: album and getting people's responses to the project?
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: You know, I think it's a beautiful thing that when
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: people see themselves reflected, that was the most beautiful thing.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people coming up to me,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: some of them whispering, some of them more vocal about it,
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: like thank you so much, you know, for sharing more
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: of who you are. There's this quote by betha and
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Hardest and this as you know, people don't change that
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: become more of who they are. And what I got
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: an opportunity to do is become more of who I
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: am and write about it and write about it with
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: other people who were discovering more about who they were
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: and us having a safe space that was really important.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: I think with an album called The Age of Pleasure,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: there is no pleasure without safety. When we don't feel
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: safe and taking care of you cannot be free in
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: the way that you move or express yourselves.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: At least from me to your point earlier about unpacking
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of the dramas and stuff, just feeling safe
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: within yourself too exactly, you know what I mean exactly.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: I feel a lot more. Mmm, how do I put it?
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: I did put it. I see a float. I feel
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: like I've like floated in anything that used to bother me.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: It doesn't touch me to say. It's kind of scary
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: and also really really awesome.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how was it writing on this record with Janelle?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: With given the just the way the songs were coming out,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: A real blessing.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Before we started working on that album, I remember I
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: told my management team that I really wanted to focus
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: this time that I have right now on making music
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: for black women and black non binary folks. I want
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: to make music that makes them smile, Like, I want
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: to make music for them specifically, like I really just
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: want to be of service to that community. And there's
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: so many reasons why. But one reason is because when
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: I go to the grocery store as like a little
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: side I.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Do it. I love it.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: This is great.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I love it because I do not like going used
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: to have me in the grocery store way too long.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: It's like I'm ready to go home.
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: So anyway, but when I would go and I see
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: like black women at the grocery store smiling.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: It just makes me feel a certain way.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: And sometimes it'll be like when a certain song would
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: come on, it would be like you see them singing
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: their song and it's like, man, so good. And Janelle,
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: of course, has like done so much work as a
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: leading voice in terms of activism, in terms of being
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: on the right side of history, in terms of speaking
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: up for marginalized people, early to early always it's been herself.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: But I also was thinking about how much that can
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: weigh on a person, And I told you now, I said,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: I really like for your next time, I would really
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: love I would love to see you smile more like
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: I would love to just see you smile, Like it
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: really would mean so much. I think that you smiling
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: is a really special thing. I love when I see
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: you smile, and I would love to see what that
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: energy is to like really put that into a space.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: And I hadn't really considered that. And I looked at
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: all my album covers and I was like, I'm really
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: not smiling.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Kind of fuck with you for a second, Yeah, I was.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Like, what what is going on? Like from the Arcandroid
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: to Electric Lady to Dirty Computer, And if you look
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: at the cover for the Age of Pleasure. I am
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: writing this pool swimming topless and smiling.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it's a layered idea, but I do
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: think that giving somebody something that makes them want to
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: smile is its own resistance. It's its own protest, it's
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: its own like giving people affirmations is its own version.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: It's a certain form of work, it's a certain type
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: of healing.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And so it's pleasure like yeah, you like it's like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I want you to smile. It's like to your point
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: then too, it's like only I smile, like I want
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: top in this pool right and smiled, And it's like
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: both of those things are can be subversive, can't be
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: absolutely you know what I mean?
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Absolutely it is to make an album called The Age
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: of Pleasure in the middle of a pandemic is a
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: subversive piece of art because it is just kind of
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: being like, no, it's just like because there's been you know,
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: when you're dealing with so much trauma from elections to
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: it's so much that happens, and it feels like your
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: energy when you wake up is going to be stolen
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: from you.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it feels like, yeah, you're dolen, right, It's
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: not yours.
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: Exactly, and so it was like a big like, no,
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: you cannot have all of my day.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you cannot have all of my time.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: I'm going to take some time to enjoy life as
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: best as I can under whatever the circumstances that I
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: have are. I'm going to try my best to do
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: what I can to appreciate this moment, as simple as
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: it may be. And what I think that we were
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: finding in the writing process was that just having time
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: to hang out with your friends was the thing that
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: we needed the most. Just seeking time to appreciate each other,
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: to smile at each other, to laugh with each other,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: to do like the simple stuff with each other felt
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: like this is like worth my time way more than
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: whatever that other thing was that was driving me and
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: decentering my joy.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's what that stuff does, right, Like
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: when you think about racism, when you think about sexism,
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: when you think about homophobia, all of it. It literally,
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: in addition to just being you know, pure evil work,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: it distracts you from living your life because you spend
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: so much time fighting. And I definitely found myself and
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: I know I'm not the only one. There were so
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: many of my friends and people who were out marching.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: You know, you have to understand George Floyd had been murdered.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: It was so much. Breonna Taylor, it was so much.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: And I was working with say her name and I
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: put out you know, protest music. It was so heavy, man,
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: and I was like, somebody has to do the work.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: But I think balance is important, and what I was
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: realizing is I was not getting the balance that I needed.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: And so once we made a decision to not center
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: white supremacy, to not center you know, all all of
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: the things that again come to distract and destroy and
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: stop us from just living our lives as humans, having
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: this earth experience and be clear and stand on that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: That's when I feel like the songwriting got focused. And
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: with this project, I said, I want to make music
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: for that community, for that community of folks who suffer
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: time poverty, Like they don't have time.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: It's a great phrase.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: It's a real thing in our community. People don't have
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: the time or the leisure time to just be you
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, to just be one with their
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: friends or their families, because you spend so much time working,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: you spending so much time fighting, and it's like when
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: do we say, Okay, well we're going to carve out
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: this little space for us. And so I said, I
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: want to create music that we can all listen to
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: take with us whole with us. That is the balance
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: in everything that we're dealing with. And if the people
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: that I invite or are not dancing to these songs,
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: if they are not moving, if they're not trying to shazam,
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: if they're not asking who is that, then it's not working.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: It's not like I want them to really really really
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: really love this music. Obviously we have to love it right,
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: but it was so important that the community people we
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: were writing.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: It for loved it.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: And that's how we put together the Age of Pleasure.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: We had Nona Quabina who worked on some of the music,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: who's also a DJ, and our friends with everyday people.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know about everyday people parties.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I've not bet, but like I have to give a
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: shout out Pleasure Science. I've been working hard.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: I have to give them a shout out because during
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: the pandemic, they couldn't find a place, you know, to
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: have their parties. And when I say parties, it's not
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: just like I mean everybody's dancing and singing and having
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: a good time, but people are feeding each other at
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: the parties like their food vendors.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: It's the diaspora.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: It's Pan African is from around the globe from you know, Nigeria, Ghana,
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: the Caribbeans, Jamaica, Atlanta, New York, LA and Cape verd
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: like all in one place. It's just nothing like going
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: to their parties. And so when they asked they had
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: come by Wonderland, they were like, you know, they were
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: having a hard time getting the space, and we were like,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: come here, shoot, let's figure it out because we're we're
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: going through it too, like not being able to see people,
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: like how can we do this?
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: And that was a was it a bob?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: You had to know who was coming or okay, right?
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: For sure?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It was very small because I would be a little.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah it was. We needed to know.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: It was small and it was safe.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, safe and small, And and that's where the music
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: was tested first hearing all of the backstory.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say it because I feel like it's
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: even in the music, like a more human album. It's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: funny because as we're moving into an age now more
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the future looks a little bleaker in terms of technology.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I feel like you might have called that a little early.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: And it feels like the project away from computer and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: arch Android and Metropolis and like this tomorrow it feels
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: like Janelle the person you know, or it feels like
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to me listening to it, like I even just feel
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: myself coming a lot more, just feeling more than me,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I know a lot of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: people who've listened to the record, a lot of friends,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. They're saying that like it makes
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: them feel a particular way as a living creature, you know.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, from the beginning, there was this conversation
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: around android rights. Yeah, and Cindy was always being was
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: always fighting to be perceived as a human and to
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: be respected as a human. So I guess there's a
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: certain truthfulness to being like, yeah, you're a human and
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: kind of being like.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, finally, I mean the definition of an android. And
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: if you're listening and you don't know any of my work,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: it's rooted around Cindy May whether who represents the other
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: and the other is a parallel, you know, the android
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: is a parallel to black folks to you know, marginalize
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: folks that I want to amplify, the voices I want
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: to amplify and the music I want to write. The
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: definition of an android is a robot developing human characteristics.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: So I really think it tells such a continuation of
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: beautiful continuation of the story, and it's not finished. It's
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: very trippy to see because when I put out Metropolis,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: we were reading The Singularity is near by Ray Kurzweil,
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: and if you haven't read that, please do. But it
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: talks about this moment that we're having with AI, and
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: it talks about the singularity of like not being able
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: to differentiate AI recording the song by Janelle Monne or
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Janelle Monet really mapping out that voice. And it's so
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: interesting that it's happening now. And when I think about
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: the album, how I hate to say it, we knew
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: that that when this moment of integration happens, humans were
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: going to be frantic about it, as you can see
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: right now, Like it's a lot going on in my
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: business when it comes to using the likeness of an
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: actor's face without paying them, like AIS in that conversation heavily,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: and people are afraid and they're scared and I totally
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: get that, and I also think that there needs to
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: be more conversation and more laws and things rules to
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: really be agreed upon, because not all humans.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Are bad and not all AI is bad.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: So I think that there needs to be a real
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: conversation around who's programming AI. But the thing that I
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: realized in knowing that the Singularity was going to happen
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: was that it's nothing like that human in human connection.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: It was so important for us to gather and have
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: experiences that cannot be created by AI. We can only
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: have these the barbecue experiences, you know, sharing food together,
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: wrapping our arms around each other, being there for each other,
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: and these times, these are moments that humans have such
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: a deep connection to and can talk about in ways
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: that AI can. And that was my hope too, is
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: to encourage more community, to encourage people to be with
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: each other like our stories are all we have. It
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: is our stories that will set us apart and continue
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: to make us believe in humanity again.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how have you guys playing guitar on the steps,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: barely finishing college, having to shot out some money to
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: do it? You guys found each other over those years,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: you guys have amassed a body of work, all very
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: different from each other, genre less. As you said from
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the beginning, money comes success time, new people, new relationships,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: new opportunities. It's incredible to me that you guys have
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: managed to stay close.
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: There you go, Yeah, separate the legal entity of the
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: Rolling Stones, you know, it's like, yeah, I have no
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: real responsibility to each other.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: We do, but we do.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's very I'm happy that you brought that up.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: It's so true.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: And when I look at some of the collectives, and
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: you know, we don't have to dig into names, but
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: even even some of the most iconic collectives ended up
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: not working with each other anymore. And I just remember
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: the time when they were and how that felt, and
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: how I felt when it wasn't the case anymore. And
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I just it always was important to me to nurture
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: my relationships, like I invest in people, you know, not
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: because they're of course, everybody is very talented, but I
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: think they're really really great people who happened to be
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: very talented. And when you come from a big family
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: like me, I have forty nine first cousins, so I
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: was brought into a community, you know that runs through
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: my blood. And it's loyalty, and it's growth and transparency
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: and communication and all those things in respect as somebody
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: who has ideas, obviously, I'll always have the final say
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: if we're working on something with what I want to do,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: you know, on my music.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: But I love listening.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: I love being able to hear how Nate's mind is working,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: to hear how Chuck's mind is working. Since a bueno
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: is thinking none no, like I love to see how
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: they interpret certain things and how they sharpen my sword
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: you know when it is time to creatively fight for
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: an idea.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: So I love that.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: I love what this community has done, not just for
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: me before the rest of the.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: World quests love for us aside a few years ago
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: and he was like, listen, man, you guys have something
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: really really special. But just so you know the most
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: important thing you guys can do, just trust me on this.
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: Just stay together. Just stay together. And he went through
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: his stories of what happened, like all the things that
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: happen to you can change you. But just know that
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: you guys have something very special and it's worth protecting.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: Stay together. Don't get distracted by whatever else comes. Just
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: stay together. And the other thing is that we have
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: this credo, a Wonderland credo that was written a long time.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Ago, like very very early.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: And in there it discusses our responsibility to each other
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: and to our broader community, but.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Specifically to each other.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: How we need to take care of each other, how
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: we need to look after each other. Those basic things
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: are written into our credo of how we understand Wonderland.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: Like at its foundation it must at least be a
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: community or artists can be taken care of and of
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: course challenge each other around our ideas, but that we
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: feel at least safe to have our ideas.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how you make your best music again, when
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: you feel safe with the people that you're with, Like
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: when you feel like you can just go there and
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: try new shit out like fall in love with music,
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: fall in love with art, And I think that's what
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: we love at our core.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: First of all, you guys are living the dream. I
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: mean that you guys found each other. It's hard.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Let me say, it is hard work. It is not easy.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Art is hard.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: Depending on what process you're in, it can be frustrating
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: and just like you can lose your confidence and second
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: guess yourself, or you could be having the best time
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: of your life. You wake back up and listen to
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: that demo or you wrote the night before, you're like, oh,
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: this ship is fire, like thank God, and you play
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: it for people outside you know, who were not a
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: part of the process, and you get that feedback. It
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: can be disappointing or it can be like, Yes, when
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: do you.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Start playing stuff for Is it usually like earlier in
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the process, or is it like.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: I try to play as early as possible.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I like people seeing in the studio when I'm working
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: on music.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I gotta feel that.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's different. I don't know.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: But but with Age of Pleasure, I was more open.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: But with all my other albums I would be in
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: their engineering myself. I engineer myself a lot on this
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: project too.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just because you wanted to be.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: Because I needed When she goes in, yah, it's like
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: close it and Janelle go in there and will engineer.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: And then I'll call them back in like once I
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: have all my takes that I feel like are highlighted
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: and good, or I'll ask them to highlight in green,
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: like which ones you think are the best. But I'm
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: always searching for that feeling, and sometimes I need to
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: be alone to get that feeling.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna pause for another quick break and then
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: come back with more from Nate Wonder and Janelle Monee.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of my conversation with Nate
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Wonder and Janelle Monee. We were talking about the diaspora
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: earlier and one of the beautiful that on the album
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Daspa was like really represented from Sam Coudie, Yes to
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: uh to Sister Nancy, Nancy Grace Jones, uh.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: K K Doms Unlimited.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: From Atlanta to Ghana, to Nigeria to Jamaica and so on.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just we're so friends on there.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the musicians talking.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and what did those come from?
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Corey hen from us so French the French seventy five
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: is us in New Orleans during Essence Fest, not this
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: year but last year and we were we woke up
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: and we started talking about the night that we had
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: and it was my first it was like my first
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: time getting beads and so if you've been to New Orleans,
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: you know what getting your beads means. Like it's so
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: fun and I was, it was so liberating and just
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: really I know, right, it involves you going down on
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: in the French quarters and if you lift your shirt up,
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: they would throw you some beads. And it's a part
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: of the New Orleans culture. Fun and it was freeing
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: because as somebody who's like, oh my god.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: I'm famous, they can't do these things. I'll end up.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: And nobody even really posted it until like years later. No, no, no,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: nobody found it. Actually, nobody found that video. Maybe one person.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: No no, no, no, not not my beads. Oh I've done that.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: On several occasions.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: No, it's really the beads want too. I thought, okay,
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: well that's awesome. It made me smile. Remember I said
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: this album we are smiling. This season, we are smiling.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: And that being said, I wanted to just have authentic
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: conversations with my friends and I just asked them it
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: was okay if I press record, and it's just it
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: was authentic because the people who were there, they're really
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: my friends. And so to have these conversations with the
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: people who are directly involved in inspiring the songs and
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: the song writings. They were all in the studio when
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: we were writing them. They were the first people that
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: I think everybody on the interview they were some of
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: the first people that heard the songs. So when we
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: did Float to Champagne Shit, those were their ellipstic lover
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: Like when we were writing those songs, I always looked
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: at how they moved. I always looked at the body language.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: I always looked at like when they would go play
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: other artists songs, what they asked to play this song again,
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: because I liked their taste and I knew that they
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: were like key in helping us nurture that audience that
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: we wanted.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Like what we would example, something you might have tweeked it.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: So you're looking at your friends playing on they might
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: not quite groove the way you expect. Yeah, so what
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: do you do? You just go back in and you
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: know what, I.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Don't feel like we had a lot of those moments
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: Only I know one song that that happened with and
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: we changed. It didn't come we were in the middle
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: of trying to figure the song out.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: It was hot.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, YEA changed that one.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a lot.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's actually a David Bowie vocal that was supposed
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: to go on that.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: It was a quote from an interview that he had
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: done that right after right after Janelle says, uh, they
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: say I look better than David Bowie and the moon
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: Age Dream.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: There's this quote line.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I love that line.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Because I think Edward had taken us to the movies.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: To see moon Aed's day Dream because he knew Janelle
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: was a huge fan.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: I oh, you took everybody.
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, you took everybody to see the David boy
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: film moon AG's day Dream.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: You said Edward Norton.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because we had just so when I when we
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: wrote the Age of Pleasure. Right before that, I just
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: filmed The Glass Onion and we were in Greece and Serbia,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: and I was having Nate send me music there because
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: I was like, when I get back, I'm writing this album. Yeah,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: I'm writing this album. I'm so inspired. I know I'm
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: clear on where I am, who I am, and what.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: I need to do.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: And so he sent me all the music of some
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: of the musical beds and I picked what I loved
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: and liked. As soon as I got back, I was
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: in the studio.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: It's poetic that you're working on the Glass Onion and
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: you're coming clear about.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Who you are.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Clear.
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: It's like pull back the layer. Yeah, So David boy quote.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: It says, I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: to fulfill other people's expectations.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: If you feel safe.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: In the area you're working in, you're not working in
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: the right area. Always go a little further into the water.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: Then you feel you're capable of being in a little
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: bit out of your own depth. And when you don't
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: just about in the right place to do something exciting.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So that was the end of that was the
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: quote that was on the in the record.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: We should put that back in time.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: It was great, but of course, like when you're at
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: a party, you may not want to go into the like.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just like.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Appreciate.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's really incredible.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: Because this is somebody who, like myself, you know, is
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: a world builder. Yeah, and somebody who believed like Ziggy
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: Starred Us and the Spiders from Mars, gave me the
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: courage to do Cindy Mayweather in Metropolis and the Arc
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Android and to create these versions of ourselves, you know,
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: these thousand versions of myself and we're all fine. That's
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: if you don't know that's from Phenomenal on the Age
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: of Pleasure. Sorry, so so to be able to watch
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: him say, I know that I could be Ziggie Startles
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: for the rest of my life, or I can become
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: more of who I am and give you that and
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: not be afraid, you know, to break it down and
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: rebuild and reimagine who I can be. So that really
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: also helped inspire me as well.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Did you ever get a chance to meet him?
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like I did. I feel like our spirits
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: absolutely met each other. I know that he knew who
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: I was because I did a cover of heroes and
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: his wife Emon told me and he had to clear it.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: And his wife told me that he really loved me,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, I wish I could have
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: told him how much I really loved him. But I
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: think he knows it. They are aware.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you putty naturally fall into I mean, twenty nineteen,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: you feeling like you want to start writing for women
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: people calor non binary folk. Was it easy to slide
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: into that mentality? Was it easy to stike?
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: I felt compelled and again, and when I feel compelled,
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: I'm like, man, I'm doing it?
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Was it a messy star did it feel always right.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: Or natural to fill myself playlist?
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, that really encouraged me.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean both of us had the same thought.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: So we were listening to Spotify. We had an opportunity
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: to listen to a lot of music. I start back
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: working out and there were a lot of black women
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: on this playlist that were just like sounding extra liberated
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: and super tapped into their well of honesty and truth
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: and sensuality and sexuality and grit and softness and hardness.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: Like I loved hearing that all on one playlist, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: it encouraged me to tap into my many different sides.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: And I think Nate would see me listening to Filling
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: myself playlists around the studio and as I was working out,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: and it was like, I've never remembered and that's the
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: beautiful thing with playlists and really curate your own world,
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: your own soundtrack. And when I felt that vibe, I
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: was like, I want more of this, and I want
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: the people that are listening to this who are feeling
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: like they have not been able to walk in their
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: greatness as black women, as non bininary folks, as marginalized people.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: They haven't been able to really own all of them.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: I want to lead by example and I want I
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: want to highlight them. I want and highlight them by
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: creating music that speaks to their hearts.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Know, I got your daughters, and I don't want them
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to feel ashamed of pleasure or whatever, like as they
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: get older and ornot and it's like, ye, but society
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: for so you.
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: Know, and it's still that it's still a lot of
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: work to be done in that area. But you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: one of the things I noted was that playlist. Like
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: when you go to like a rap Caviaar or the
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: other like big hip hop, the biggest hip hop playlist,
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: sometimes they'll even have like a woman on the cover.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: But then you go through the actual playlist, it literally,
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: out of one hundred songs, it might be like three
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: songs by women, and it really I just took so
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: much issue with it.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: I was just like, this is wild.
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Like literally they'll put Megan thee Stallion on the
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: cover of it, and then I to go like down
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: thirty songs to get to her song.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: It's like, this is graz this is wow.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: And that was another reason why we wanted to make
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: sure that you know, black women were represented on this
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: project generationally, from Dochi to you know, the King of Jamaica, Grace.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Jones, Grace's albums really album Come on exactly. Yeah, ridiculous.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you she.
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: I spent seventy two hours with Grace Jones. That's how
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: we got her on the album.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I was going to sall you got it, you don't money.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: I'm still like just.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Bowing down to her. Seventy two hours with her where
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Come together.
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: So I went to her at the Hollywood Bowl and
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: I ended up. She was somehow it's like her life
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: on her last songs and they were calling people on stage,
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: and of course I'm a jump on stage.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: And if you look online.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: If you look online, you will see there's a video
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: of me running through Grace Jones' legs, her smacking my
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: ass us, dancing like just being the free spirits that
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: we are. And I had met her years back, but
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: we didn't really get to connect. And she did call me.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: She called me years back, and I was so shocked.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: I was like, how does she.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: Even get my number? And she just called me and
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: she told me she loved me, and I was just like,
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: I love you, but we never got to connect again
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: after that. I think maybe she changed her number, you know,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: maybe she just went to another planet for the springtime.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Who knows, it's Grace Jones.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: And so when she came this time though, we went
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: backstage and we really connected and she she was.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Just like hugging me.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: I was hugging her, and she was just saying, you know,
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: I'm in town for a few days. She invited me
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: to her hotel where they had like a small little
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: gathering to celebrate her incredible performance live.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: If you ever get a chance, go see her. She nobody,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: nobody touches her.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: I regret not going. I was going to supposed to
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: go to that.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Always you just always say yes.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: And so that night when we went back to her hotel,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: I was like, you know, I you know, I had
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: to leave, and I just said, I'm just gonna invite
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: her to Wonderland. What she can just say no, and
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: if she says no, I'll be like yes. Grace Jones
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: told me no, Yes.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: So great.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: And so I said, listen, I have to leave, but
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: I don't know, you know what your schedule is tomorrow,
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: but I would love to have you for lunch at
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: Wonderland at our studio and she was like, is there
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: a pool there? And I was like, indeed, there is
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: a pool. And then she was like, okay, I will
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: call you. I'm gonna come, and I just I was
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: like okay, And I was like, she says this to everybody,
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: I'm sure because she doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: And she called.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: She had she had her assistant text and asked if
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: it was a heated pool. If they but she swims
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: every day, is her exercise? And I asked them, well,
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: what does she drink? What does she Like, Like, I'm scrambling,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: I'm like, how am I going to host Grace Jones?
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: Everybody? We need to have a meeting, right go to
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: the grocery store? What are we doing?
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: And he sends me this list like her wine list
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: is immaculate, her champagne list is immaculate.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: And so she came over and we really had lunch
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: and we really got in this pool.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: She took her top off. Just I mean, I know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: we're talking a lot about all of the toplessness, which
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: which is really great because as we know, we live
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: in a world where there's a double standard. Yeah, you
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: know where The liberation that Grace has been able to
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: do did not come with open arms, you know.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: It came with a lot of scrutiny.
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: This is somebody who was raised under a pastor, you know,
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: who was a bishop and in a very conservative community.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: And for her to say I'm gonna live my mother
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: fucking life and to show us that like that was
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: all I needed to see and hear. And she she
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: really by being her and by hanging out with her
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: and her encouraging me to be me, and sitting in
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: the studio listening to the songs, like her getting up
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: dancing and moving and telling us which one she loved
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: and what like her hearing the instruments and talking about
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: that like she is a musical genius. It was all
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: the affirmation I needed.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: First of all, her taking off her top of your
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: pool is a real legendary, what an honor, you know
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: what I mean? You curated this.
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: It's just a typical Tuesday for her.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: But then so then you pull in the studio when
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: she's listening. You asked her to Yeah.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: I was like, I told her, I said I would
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: love to get you, you know, on our project.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: She was like, Okay, well where is it.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: And I was like, well, since you asked, there's a
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: studio right in here, and so we went in there.
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: And but I will say recording Grace Jones because I
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: had to wrangle her in it is like having the
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: most beautiful panther in the studio that then turns into
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: a tiger that then turns into like a bird with
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: the biggest wings that will flap around and you just
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: you cannot contain that energy. You just have to have
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: everything on record and get what you can. Wow, you
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. You can't really tell her what
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: to do. But even in the moments where I was like, Okay,
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: can you do more of this or do more of that,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: or no, say it like this, or talk French because
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: she speaks French fluently, and that's what we and that
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: was the thing that I said, Oh, that's the sexy
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: shit that I want on this project, because I don't
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: think we've really gotten a chance to hear her in
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: that way. And we've actually recorded more, like I have
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: at least two hours of recording with Grace job definitely,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: and I really really want to. She's working on her album,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: which is going to also be incredible. She played us
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: her album like I got to hear Grace Jones's album.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: We did. It's really beautiful.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. Well man, you got I mean the fact
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: that you went as far as to pull Grace Jones
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: in the studio for your album. Nothing we can say
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: but thank you. There's nothing we could say but thank
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: you and congratulations on not just the Grammy, but congratulations
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: for that, but just what I've seen and do to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: people's spirits over the last eight months.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: You know, that's all we want. It's incredible, that's all
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: we want. Thank you so much.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Can I ask her not to put you on the spot?
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Man?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I love We're far enough from heaven.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: You are a Deep Cotton fan.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I fucking love Deep Cotton. I don't know where the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: lost my copy.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: Of I Love This You Are. I knew I liked you,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: but now I love you. I love this is my.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Ship, this song is I feel like I don't even
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain my love of this.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: So good, it's really good.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: Now we can freak out.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: So well done.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 7: You use the brandons to pick out you can join
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 7: it sh bang bang, you can't learning them heaving.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Now we can bring out there's some broad doesn't here's
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: a veranda.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: It wants to break out. There's a killer and all
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: that is much and it all bang bang go. It's
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: jars and it's so good on more you can see it.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: You can dealing now until right as well, kiss the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: monster lighting up.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: To your dad.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: You don't think cash you all? I got it?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Just take your burthers man didn't tell some stories in here?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: And who can cook?
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Who can clean?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Who will pay the fence?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Who can cook?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: Who can clean?
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Who will pay the fence?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Who can cook?
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: Who can clean?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Who can paint the fence? I will? I will far
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: enough from evan. Now we can break out.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah we're fire, nothing heaving.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Now we can break out.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, freak out, Yeah we're freak out.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: You have excellent tastes.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: They like.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: When I heard their song, actually, when Nate was saying,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: like he met me performing on the library steps with
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: the guitar, I was heavily just like on some acoustic
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: big afro I guess you would say.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Neo soul vibes.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: And when I heard their music it changed my whole life.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: It changed the way I saw us because I hadn't
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: seen I mean with the exception of like Andre, because NARLS.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Barkley wasn't even around at that time. But with the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: exception of like the Love Below and what.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Andre was doing and you know, some some some indie
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: artists in Atlanta, nobody was stretching and it's sounding good,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: like it was either too alternative for me to get to,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: you know, to get into, and there was no melody.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: There was no soul.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: But when I heard their stuff, I was like, it
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: was up temp. There were there were like up tempo
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: records that sounded like Japanese funk.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know, that's the best way to describe it.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: And all I knew was like, I want to make
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: music like that, and so that I really have to
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: credit Deep Cott for why I like up tempo songs
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: and why I make up tempo music and stretch.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: When it comes to genre, textures are incredible. No one really,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: no one really plays like acoustic like that, like an
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: up It sounds like some Frank Black like it's it's weird,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: bizarre like phrase.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: Chuck is an incredible writer, imminator, like their their partnership.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: We actually had it's crazy. We actually are finishing our
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: album right now. We actually just got the album cover
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: done for it and everything.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're coming out, what is coming true?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: I love that song because I love the line who
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: can cook, who can clean? Who will paint the fence?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's so many other things about the song
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: that are great, but also who can cook, who can clean?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Who will paint the fence?
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: Because it takes like this idea of like taking over
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: the mansion, tell some stories and there and all that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff, which is cool idea, right, but then
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: like it's the responsibilities that you have to each other,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: like who's who can cook, who can clean, who will
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: paint the like who's doing the real work that it
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: takes to like stay alive. So we can, you know,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: take over this match and tell some stories.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I love it. Thanks so much, guys, Thank you so much, creative,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you. This is beautiful, incredible. Thanks to Janemo, n
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: A and Nate wonder for the invite to Wonderland to
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: chat about her latest album, The Age of Pleasure. You
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: can hear it along with our other favorite songs of
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Jennemales and Nate Wonders on a playlist at Broken record
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: dot com slash broken Record podcast, where you can find
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: all of our new episodes. You can follow us on
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinay. Broken Record is
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin
• 1:05:30
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• 1:05:37
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• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. Our theme Music's back Anny Beats.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: I'm justin Richmond.