Bilal

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin Ballah has a brilliant new project out called as Brightness. It's bold, cinematic, and his most cohesive project since his debut. And if that one't enough, he's also just dropped Live at Glasshouse, an intimate live recording that captures the magic of his performances where the band is tight, the vocals are loose, the energy is electric, and anything can happen. Today, ball talks about the making of a Just Brightness, how he prepares for his explosive live performances, and why chasing freedom, both musically and spiritually, has always been his north star. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my conversation with blaw. Your high school is pretty.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: I went to a performing in ours high school too.

00:01:11
Speaker 3: We had everybody, well, boys, the men, the roots, a mill of the room, Chris McBride, yup, christmacbride, Joey d Francesco.

00:01:22
Speaker 1: Joey Diferen, RP Man. He was phenomenal.

00:01:27
Speaker 3: But yeah, we had some cats. None of them was there when I was there.

00:01:31
Speaker 1: But the roots and boys to men are kind of like I guess I'm not infamous, but for lack of a better word, the infamous class from your your high school. But you were, you were a good deal younger man.

00:01:42
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm like, geez, I don't know what year they graduated, but I think we were like maybe almost ten years, if not ten years apart.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, were you aware of them growing up?

00:01:58
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:01:58
Speaker 3: I was aware of them just in the school. The teachers that would brag about them. Man, some of them would still come up to the school like jam with jam with us. I remember Chris mas Bride used to come up and jam with our our jazz band all the time. And at the I think that was right the year before our like big I guess mister King. He was like our big time choral teacher. So boys and men used to come all the time and just hang out with him. So we see boys and men all the time.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: That's insane because that means they were as big as he could get at that time.

00:02:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he used to always say they still used to still like he would always rag on them, but they loved it. They you know, like y'all still don't sing the harmony like I tort you. But we all hated mister King, but we loved him. No, he's passed, he passed, but you know, he was just one of those strong minded Germans, German men, German guy. Yeah, but he was so soulful and just like I learned a lot from him and just about emotions and the music and stuff.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: And man, he.

00:03:23
Speaker 3: Was just really into the music. You know, he didn't care that we were kids. He would cuss and everything, but it was music first over everything.

00:03:33
Speaker 2: I learned that from him. And he's passion.

00:03:35
Speaker 3: Like I didn't even know music could give you goose bumps or you should be in search of the goose bump effect as a musician until mister King. You know, he taught us all about that, like how to truly get emotion out of out of music or to draw an emotional reaction out of the listener.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: Like how would he teach that?

00:04:00
Speaker 3: He was just look for a certain tamper of the voice or a certain dynamic of the music, like certain dynamics, like something going from extremely loud to soft automatic light abruptly it does something emotionally to the listener, and then if it goes big again and then you know, you play, you play with volume.

00:04:23
Speaker 2: It kind of like it has an emotional play.

00:04:28
Speaker 1: That explains a lot about about your your music. And your approach to music one because I was thinking about, like, I've seen you many many times and your I mean, it might it might sound kind of tripe to sort of say that it appears to me that you treat your voice almost more like an instrument. But anytime I'm going to see you live, as opposed to any other singer, it always feels much more like an improvisational thing, in search of like a really high high or in search of a moment. And sometimes I've been to the shows where like that moment is like it's it's there, and sometimes that you could tell us that you didn't quite find it, or was it or the audience to find it, or there was some disconnect. But it's one of the things that is addicting about going to see you is just like what's it going to be tonight? It's almost like going to see you know. I just kind of got around to finally seeing The Grateful Day a few times, and I'm like, I get why people follow them, because at night to night, it's like what's it going to be? You know?

00:05:28
Speaker 3: I love that. I mean, that's the whole jazz thing for me. I got that out of going to school for jazz, hanging out with all jazz cats my whole life. You know, Improvisation was just a big deal for me early on. So when I would go to write my music, I always try to leave little pockets and spaces that's like unknown and you have to like kind of make it up when you get there. So every night when we play, it's just it just so happens to be different, and I think that's a cool thing. It makes it fun for me, you know, playing these songs over and over again.

00:06:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you do you have a do you have a reliable way at this point of like a routine or anything that you can do to sort of get you closer to achieving something than.

00:06:27
Speaker 2: Not like to start to like get ready for the show.

00:06:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I start to get ready for the show. Is there anything you can do that you feel like, even if it's just like you know, like an athlete might have like a like a little ritual that's like might not even be real, but like I gotta wear my green socks or whatever. It's just or it might not be that silly. But no, I don't. I don't I think I should.

00:06:50
Speaker 3: I think I started off having one, but then it just tanked. I used to try and have a little ritual, but I think I just keep forgetting the ritual.

00:07:01
Speaker 2: So my ritual is no ritual.

00:07:06
Speaker 1: What were you trying to implement as like.

00:07:08
Speaker 3: No, because I used to be like, yeah, before the show, I'm gonna do some push ups, you know what.

00:07:13
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just get my jump rope that I'll leave my jump rope at the hotel.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: We don't have enough time to do push ups or I'm like out of breath, so I'm like, I'm not doing that no more. So I'll just try to get into a little common space, like before the band goes out. Maybe I'll just sit there a little longer with my sunglasses on.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know.

00:07:39
Speaker 3: I just try to get into avoid place where I don't really care no more.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: You know, And what does what do you think that brings to the what you do?

00:07:51
Speaker 3: It just takes away from the expectations and.

00:07:58
Speaker 2: Trying to prove something or.

00:08:02
Speaker 3: Really caring to you know, and just get up there and do do what I do. I see myself as a channeler, you know. When I'm going up there, I'm kind of channeling from my higher self or like my perfect self. So I kind of like try to forget my hurtfully self, you know what I mean? Yeah, try to forget everything.

00:08:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it helps bring you into the get rid of the expectation and bring it to the moment.

00:08:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, when it works, sometimes I literally forget everything and then I forget the words, and but when it's right on, you know, I forget all of the negative stuff.

00:08:48
Speaker 1: That's great. Is it a similar approach in the studio when you go into the studio. No.

00:08:55
Speaker 3: In the studio, I want to feel everything, you know, I want to be open to every everything in the room, everything that's coming to me, so I can try and make the studios where I try to make sense of everything. So I'm just overanalyzed. And sometimes I have to stop myself from overanalyzing because that's just what happens in is you can stop, think, take a break, come back to it. But on stage it's just all go, you know.

00:09:27
Speaker 1: Is it too many inputs live? Is that kind of why you maybe have to blunt some of that or try to block it out versus in the studio, where's a little more controlled and.

00:09:36
Speaker 2: A little more well.

00:09:37
Speaker 3: In the studio, I think that's where a lot of the input most especially if people like if I'm working with other people, because you know, it's just everybody's giving input, everybody's giving them opinions, like all in real time, just oh, maybe do that again or you you know, I might think I just nailed something like that's that's something.

00:10:00
Speaker 2: Like what I gotta like, I gotta battle my ego, Like all right, I'll do it again, you know what I mean? So uh, in the audience, if somebody says it sucked, I'd be.

00:10:15
Speaker 3: Like, great, let's let me let me stay on that note even more like it's like I'm the smartest suck shit in your face now, you know what I mean. I turned it to the villain maybe on stage, but in the studio, I'm just very analytical of everything.

00:10:33
Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, I sit with everything.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: Has that been true your entire recording career too, you think? Or is it has that changed a bit from when you first got in the studio? But the first album, Firstborn, second too, just brightness.

00:10:48
Speaker 3: Now I think it's changed as far as like who I bring in the studio to give me that their opinions. You know, when I first started off, like I didn't have to say who was in there, giving me their opinions. You know, everybody felt like they were there to mold me, and you know I was just too listen, you know.

00:11:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's gotta be a weird position too.

00:11:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.

00:11:15
Speaker 3: It took some getting used to, especially when I first started recording, because I came straight from university college, you know, just straight artsy kind of thing, and I was I think when I first started off, I was a lot more defensive because of that, because I was just very militant on what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. And I was like that in school, you know, like I went to a I went to a music conservatory and all I did was argue with the teachers all day.

00:11:59
Speaker 2: So they were happy to see me go.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: You know, do you ever did you keep up with any of them or not? Was it really?

00:12:06
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:12:07
Speaker 3: One of my one of my like most infamous teachers, we wounded up being really close, Janet Loss, and she passed not too long ago, but we started off really rocky because she was like a vocal teacher. And my whole thing was I don't want to study with no singer.

00:12:26
Speaker 2: Singer suck, you know, I don't want to study with nobody that sings jazz.

00:12:31
Speaker 3: Like and she kind of had that same mentality. But jazz musicians it's almost like athletes. I look at jazz musicians. They have the same sensibility of athletes, you know, and they will sit there and argue with each other and just I always want to one up, or let's battle. You're not playing changes quite right. But so that's what me and her would get into the arguments of I don't like the way you sing over that, and I'm like, this is jazz. I can sing it over all ever I want. And she's like, yeah, but you're not singing the chort changes. And it's like my whole thing was I would go to jazz theory class and be like, yeah, but you do know this is theory, so you're just telling me your theory of how to do it. I don't have to do it like that, though, And that would just whoa.

00:13:27
Speaker 2: Kick off.

00:13:28
Speaker 3: That would kick off, especially for like the older jazz musicians. Oh man, it will almost be like, all right, let's in the class and go out and take this outside then, young man.

00:13:45
Speaker 2: But they remember me because of that.

00:13:47
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times in university, the students don't really challenge the teacher, you know, and when they are, they're like shut down.

00:13:59
Speaker 2: So I just refused it.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: You know.

00:14:02
Speaker 3: I didn't really want to do vocals anyway, you know, and I felt like I want to do I wanted to be a musician, but the musicians do want it wouldn't want to accept me. I was just like a mad villain, just walking around, this grumpy.

00:14:22
Speaker 1: That's painful man, Like.

00:14:26
Speaker 2: Hey guys, I can scat.

00:14:29
Speaker 1: No.

00:14:30
Speaker 3: It wasn't until I really started like, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna start learning change it, just like the cats, you know.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: Where it started to work out for me.

00:14:40
Speaker 3: And then I when I discovered Bobby McFerrin, it was.

00:14:45
Speaker 1: Over, Yo, tell me about that.

00:14:47
Speaker 3: Man, Like Bobby McFerrin was just he didn't even use words much and I was like, that's that's that's my stick right there, Like I don't he really turned his voice into an instrument and that really like it turned the light on in college for me.

00:15:08
Speaker 1: Man, I gotta I gotta digg into some Bobby.

00:15:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did a whole album that the one that really like got me. He did a whole album with Chick Area, just him and Chick Area what and it was just magic. And my friend of mine, well, Robert Glasper, we went to we went to college together and we got to see chick Corea and Bobby do duet at the Blue Note and it was boom, just like.

00:15:37
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, wow, when did when did you get put onto him?

00:15:43
Speaker 2: In college? Right?

00:15:45
Speaker 3: I knew I knew Bobby being fair and from the you know, don't worry, be happy. But in college I would hang out at the the Vinyl library a lot and just listen to vinyl all day.

00:16:01
Speaker 1: Is that that was at your square, to vinyl library at your school. That's really cool.

00:16:06
Speaker 3: That's another place to like really like did something to me musically?

00:16:12
Speaker 2: You know. It wasn't really the classes. It was like developing arguments and then going to the vital.

00:16:18
Speaker 1: Library to prove my theories. Yeah.

00:16:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, I felt that. I was like, yeah, this is it, Like he was really even the way he was getting he was like challenging chit, you know even and that's like chick Rea like wow, Biden fairness, nasty nasty.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: Word, that's really wild, because yeah, all I knew him for was I don't want to be happy as well, and I love that as a kid by the way, right, I mean I still love it now, but it's great. I mean even though you know, man another the number one jam you know, I mean public enemy kind of turned me off for a minute, but still still.

00:16:57
Speaker 3: Not only not only in the jazz world, but also even in a classical world. He's like an accomplished uh.

00:17:07
Speaker 2: For the you yeah really high up?

00:17:13
Speaker 1: Wow? Have you gotten to hang with him? No?

00:17:17
Speaker 3: But I know his his children, his his his daughter Maddie mc ferrence, Madison, uh Madison. I known her for a minute. I know him his tailor, Taylor for a long minute. So yeah, I'm gonna Taylor from like when I first moved to New York. Really m h no, I didn't even know that that was his dad was Bidy mcpherrins, So.

00:17:47
Speaker 2: That like blew my mind when I found out about that.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty.

00:17:50
Speaker 3: Because he when I met Taylor, he was doing interesting stuff like that through the beat boxing and he would be boxing then be playing keys at the same time school. So it was almost like on that same kind of thing but taking it to another level.

00:18:11
Speaker 1: This message is brought to you by Starbucks. Years before Broken Record, I actually used to work at Starbucks and to this day, I'm still a loyal customer. I love seeing the new seasonal menu items rolling out across the year, and just today I went to my local Starbucks to try the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverages. They're the perfect addition to the summer lineup. The Strato is the Starbucks frappuccino. You know, in love with the new spin, A crave worthy ice blended beverage take into the next level with the dreamy layer of rich, creamy cold foam on top. Today I tried the salted caramel Mocha Strato Frappuccino and that blend of salty and sweet and a creamy, cold blended drink was out of this world. It's the perfect way to kickstart a warm summer day. And you know, I want to remind you that Starbucks isn't only known for their expertly crafted, high quality beverages, but also for their inviting, vibrant cafe atmosphere. And something that I've always loved about the cafe ambiance is the coffee house music that plays in the back while you're enjoying a coffee or a freshman. Strato frappuccino. The coffee house genre. You can probably imagine the sound driven by acoustic instruments, relaxed vocals drawing from folk and jazz influences, lyrics so personal they sound like they'd been written in a journal an hour before recording. What we know is coffee house music has a deep history, and to understand the sound, we have to start with the space. If you were a young singer, songwriter, or something to say, you started in coffee houses. You had folk singers, poets, and visionaries passing around guitars and exchanging ideas in equal measure. Bob Dylan played his earliest gigs and cafes in Greenwich Village in New York City. So did James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez. The list goes on. They were all fixtures in coffee houses around the country and around Canada. Coffee houses were proving grounds, no backing band, no effects, just a guitar and a voice and of course a delicious beverage on hand. Over time, its sound has evolved from folk to indie rock to aubeaut acoustic playlist, but at its heartbeat, there's simplicity and connection that mirrors the cafe experience, and still today, coffee houses remain creative hubs. There where screenwriters start new scripts, where podcasters work on an outline for their next episode, where someone strums a guitar may be thinking about an open mic night. Places like Starbucks are part of the coffee house tradition. It's a place where music lives alongside creativity, and the strato frappuccino fits perfectly in that tradition. Their team dreamed up the cold foam flavors, the dreamy blended layers, and the feeling you get with each creamy sip. So here's to the sound of the Starbucks coffee house in the summer, not just the music, but the atmosphere, the conversations and the creativity, the rhythm of espresso being pulled, a friends catching up of a lyric being written down for the first time, from the first chords played in a Greenwich village cafe to the playlists we queue up now, and here's to the drinks that pair with it. Your strato frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. Who else free at that time, like when you were developing, like vocally was or not even vocally, just whether it's vocal a vocalist and instrumentalist. Who was who was like pouring into at that time, like in that vinyl library? What were you? Do You think that still sticks with you even maybe too?

00:21:24
Speaker 3: Oh well, I got into Indian music like Robbie Shankar was. I was deep into Robbie Shankar because I started to try and try to figure out my own like special phrasings or special vowels for scatting.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:21:45
Speaker 3: So I went down this school like uh rabbit hole of Japanese throat singing and uh and in Indian music.

00:21:59
Speaker 1: And that would help you change, like think about how to approach vowels.

00:22:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, because a lot of their the throat singing they could they had this method. The only other person I've seen that has mastered it is uh Layla Hathaway's.

00:22:17
Speaker 2: She can sing like three notes at once like a chord like be like a minor chord like what Yeah.

00:22:26
Speaker 3: She can like separate her vocal corus to play three notes at once.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: And she can do it.

00:22:33
Speaker 1: Like how you learned that?

00:22:36
Speaker 2: I don't I keep it. I don't know.

00:22:38
Speaker 3: I asked her how. She said she was born knowing how to do it. Wow mm hmmm, Wow.

00:22:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how.

00:22:47
Speaker 3: I don't know how she did it, but I know there's it's a genre.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: It's definitely a genre.

00:22:58
Speaker 3: So that and Robbie Shanekarr and his daughters and dope Indian music. They they get into NBA two between notes, so our scals like eight notes or like seven notes, and then it goes into that octive note. They have this thing called ghost notes where there's like semi tones, small middle or ascending tones in between the actual tone that we claim.

00:23:33
Speaker 1: So between like an E and and F there's like something.

00:23:36
Speaker 2: Else, there's like three other tones that they know of. Wow.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: So yeah, can you hear those?

00:23:43
Speaker 2: Yes?

00:23:44
Speaker 3: And no, it depends on the setting, Like it in a drone situation where it's like.

00:23:54
Speaker 2: You can kind of hear the those type of things.

00:23:59
Speaker 3: But if it's something where the core changes is moving around a lot, you can't, well I can't you know.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: It's like in the B box that it would be impossible.

00:24:07
Speaker 2: No, but if you were to listen to.

00:24:10
Speaker 3: Coltrane when he would get into like a lot of his Love Supreme stuff, or you could hear those those semi tony he was doing it. Wow, he was deep into Robby Shankar and those whole He started making up all different types of scales to kind of like buying those in between notes.

00:24:29
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I've seen some, like i've seen pictures. I haven't studied them or anything, but I've seen like copies of like journals he would write, and you see these really bugged out diagrams he would draw somehow connecting this note to that, no, to that. You know, I don't know that circle.

00:24:43
Speaker 2: It was like a circle of fifth thing. I think I know what you're talking about.

00:24:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was a little different than a circle of fist maybe or something like. I mean, it's just seem a little like more intense, like the basic circle of fists kind of thing. But yeah, like it seemed like he was really searching.

00:24:58
Speaker 3: For he unlocked something, and it was like based off of that those in between notes.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: We would like any of the classics that resonated with you, like you scouting, like I always think of like elphanz Gerald as a scatter, Did any of that resonate with you or less?

00:25:16
Speaker 2: Was dope?

00:25:18
Speaker 3: She I definitely started by checking out a lot of LA, a lot of serv On. Then I got into Betty Carter, and Betty Carter is like my favorite. I met Betty Carter when I was a kid. I sang for her. She told me I sucked, and that's awesome.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: What was the what was the context of this?

00:25:43
Speaker 3: Oh man, it was, uh Jazz I was a part of this like after school program and in high school, Settlement at Settlement Music School, and she would come to a lot of the school programs back in the day and jam with the kids. And we had a big assembly and uh, everybody was like, go up there.

00:26:10
Speaker 2: Sing for Betty, sing, sing, sing, So I was like.

00:26:13
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, you know, and I really thought I was like killing him on the scag game.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: And she she sang, that's not it, that's not it. You singing too many notes. You're not giving the people a chance to reminisce. He said, people reminisce when you when you're actually not singing. And she was singing all of this, but like she was trashing you washing because I went up there shout it up beat my.

00:26:47
Speaker 3: I was going in and she was like, nah, baby, it's too many notes. He's like, and I never forget that. She said, you know, you gotta watch how many notes you sing? Or where you place the notes, because you got to give the listener time to catch up and to reflect, because that's what draws people to the music, when they have something that reminds them of their own life, you know, and you got to give them an opening for that, you know. And the music is really a portal for the listener's memories to like take place.

00:27:24
Speaker 1: What do you what do you think about that?

00:27:25
Speaker 3: As a I didn't know what she was talking about as a kid, but like like now, I don't know, I never forgot that and now and as a as a writer, as a producer, that's like the main thing I'm thinking of when I'm in a studio, Like I want the listener this song to be some type of a time capsule for them, you know.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about when you first came out, how we were kind of in an era where people didn't really respect virtuoso virtuosic talent, you know, Like I don't even know if Kendrick Lamar could have been as Populus is now then.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: What and not you think so hm hmm, yeah.

00:28:12
Speaker 1: Not in about but in the sense of and I'm gonna say this, but I love I love no limit and I love all I love all of No Limit, But it feels like that was a different a different thing happening then. No.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think it was like it's still like a counter culture from like what the Roots was doing or a slum village. There was like counter culture of of of music.

00:28:51
Speaker 1: It definitely feels counter it felt, That's what I guess, And that's what I mean, is it felt at that time like a counter culture, whereas now it feels like it could be of the culture same way that like a lot of the stuff like that.

00:29:02
Speaker 3: I guess it's biggest Kendrick is now back then, I don't know, because I look at the way kendred it's very intentional about the art and very you could tell he thinks about it.

00:29:21
Speaker 2: I see that.

00:29:24
Speaker 3: The way Outcast was dropping those records back then, you know, it was like wow, artistically like they were like stepping it up every record and it was like wow, and it was accepted and it was crossing over.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: You know, they were they were doing their thing.

00:29:41
Speaker 1: That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm happy. I'm happy to be wrong on the point. Happy to be wrong. It just felt like all the ship I like back then was more subculture more for sure, like you know, like the way like you know, like in the nineties, like alternative music had its like it crossed over finally and it was like all the ship from the Ramones through like whatever. All of a sudden, it was like it was in like Bagel bytes commercials or whatever, like wait, why didn't one and like this in like nineteen seventy eight, you know or not no One? But why didn't you know what I mean, Like you couldn't get this on like CBS in nineteen seventy.

00:30:16
Speaker 2: I don't know what.

00:30:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what this era of the cool kids is, but I feel like that's because I'm older.

00:30:23
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:30:23
Speaker 1: But also it seems like people really at a well yes and no, maybe musically at least except like I think about like how a Thundercat has, Like it seems like the fact that a critical massive people can accept that level of talent is a good sign to me, you know what I mean. And so it does feel like we're in an era of people really recognizing musically at least like superb supreme talent, you know, even the back like I don't know whatever. Not to get controversial, but the backlash against Drake or whatever. You know, it's like.

00:31:00
Speaker 2: Music.

00:31:00
Speaker 1: But that's but it is also in some way a positive sign, you know, and there's not a lot of positive things, you know, there's not a lot of things pointing towards the post is the future so much necessarily always, But that feels like one of those things where you're like, oh, it's like a cool bell weather for what could could be. You know.

00:31:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is dope. You know that.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: For a minute there, I thought all of society could be programmed to like one thing and then that was it, you know, But that did like put in my head that, yeah, well, you know, the people can speak, you know, and the people like a variety of things, and they should have that lead way in the marketplace to like a variety of things instead of just this is what's dope and anything outside of that it's not dope, you know. I think that's I don't know if that's only in America though, you think what.

00:32:04
Speaker 1: Seems like outside of America people have always been a little more open, you know, I don't know, right like.

00:32:11
Speaker 2: And I think that's just a marketing thing.

00:32:14
Speaker 1: Definitely think it's the market I think people, including Americans, think Americans are stupid. So I think then we market ourselves like we're idiots, you know what I mean, Like we can't we can't make decisions, you know, like we find boxes for things because we're fucking idiots.

00:32:31
Speaker 2: Because it's a marketplace. Everything is a marketplace.

00:32:34
Speaker 3: Everything is to be sold. You know, you just got to find the right marketing pitch. I can pick up a piece of dirt off the floor, and you know, if I got that gift of gab, I'm gonna make some money.

00:32:47
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, it's funny. Like I got to put out an interview with Daryl Hall and they got a bunch of pickup because, like I asked himself. You know, it's interesting to me when I go when I listened, I wasn't around when Holland Oas was was hitting in the late seventies and eighties, or when the Dubie Brothers were But you know, I listen to that stuff now and you're like, this is clearly just white dudes that love R and B, R and B. And you know, I was like when I was talking to Michael McDonald once, he was like, yeah, like Warner Brothers didn't know what to do with us because we're white dude. So they wanted to market us to rock radio, but Rock Ray didn't want to play us because we sounded like like R and B like black dudes. But like they, Warner couldn't get it in their head to like play us on black radio. But finally some black radio promoter at Warner was like, this guy to go to black radio. Black radio started playing it. But then you know, the labels just started calling it adult contemporary or soft rock or whatever you know, AO or I oriented rock, like they would have these phrases for it. So I was asking, I was asking about that. He's like, yeah, well, fuck yacht rock like they you know, they're trying to like and You're like, I I kind of see his point. Like he's a dude. He just loves Philly dude, Philly dude. I know he can't. He kept it wrong rock, you know, he just love R and B and before a guy has to get a label yacht rock or whatever, you know. And I felt this pain, you know, like.

00:34:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that's the way I felt about Neil Soul. What is that?

00:34:10
Speaker 3: Like it's just a marketing term, Like I felt like we were just cats that loved hip hop, but found those seventies uh instruments from the that were used from those records that we were sampling, and was like, well, let's just use those.

00:34:27
Speaker 1: Instruments, yeah, instead the sampling, let's just pull out of roads in.

00:34:31
Speaker 3: Right, instead of getting sued on every instead of not making no money from the track, because it's they're taking all of the publishing, Like, let's make up our own loops, you know, yeah, and use those instruments. So try to figure out how how they recorded it to get that sound.

00:34:50
Speaker 2: I thought that's what we were doing.

00:34:51
Speaker 3: But it still had it had the integrity of soul music, so it still had that soul in it. Yeah, so why say it reminds you of soul?

00:35:03
Speaker 1: You know, that's a good call. Yeah, it did have the to your point, it had the feeling of you know, whether it's like an send it's like a soul man. Like what it was like you felt when you when you heard the term soul man. You feel like that's a stand up brother, who's gonna you.

00:35:15
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?

00:35:16
Speaker 1: Whatever they have that like, these are these are these are these are people really serious about their what they do, Like it's no joke. So I have that, but yeah, to just call it Neil Soul and and then for that to become like a thing of you guys just making derivative music, like that's that's crazy.

00:35:34
Speaker 3: I think this labels on music sucks because it's just it keeps you in a box. It keeps the listener in the box, and then it forces the artists into a box because they want to still try and make money and they think that that audience wants to hear whatever is in that box.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: So there's they don't want to go out of that box. So it just.

00:36:00
Speaker 3: Everything in that box. If it gets played out, nobody wants to hear it no more. The whole box gets just thrown out.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I don't know how we got it. But that brings me back to what I was gonna say, which is that this album is cool because it sounds in a lot of ways like almost like what would have been like the natural progression for like maybe like your third album if your second album hadn't gotten shoved. But it also is very in so many ways also like out of the box.

00:36:26
Speaker 4: For for what we think of as a ball record, like like this like Sunshine, which is is like I don't think I've ever heard anything like that from you, and it's incredible, you know.

00:36:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, like I said, I don't know.

00:36:42
Speaker 3: I mean when I go into the studio, I'm just making stuff that I like, that feels good, and you know that I'm challenging myself. Yeah, I call them beautiful mistakes. Especially with this album. We were just doing a bunch of accidents or in the studio, like doing something and then out of nowhere, like something will fall on the keyboard or like the guitars will be playing the kick accord and something to go. We're like, whoa, but what was that? Like erase everything, but keep that part.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: Let's start from there, you know, that's amazing.

00:37:22
Speaker 3: And from that it would turn into something else. It was like just a bunch of adventures that kind of happened by accident, just like this little inquisitive kids.

00:37:34
Speaker 1: You know, after this last break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with the law. Who are you in the studio with? On some album?

00:37:45
Speaker 3: On this album, I worked with you know, Robert Robert glassfer On on a track.

00:37:52
Speaker 1: I worked with.

00:37:55
Speaker 3: My core, my core people that I've been playing with in my band free years Tony Whitfield and Simon. I always forget Simon's producer's name, so he's going to smash me or Flana Flanna fly, but incredible.

00:38:19
Speaker 2: This is a young all young music year.

00:38:21
Speaker 1: He's a guitarist.

00:38:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're a guitarist, yeah, and guitarist, phenomenal producer. I worked with Kareem Riggins. It's amazing, uh man wonder it's also an awesome producer from Philly. I think he's out here in l A now. And Jeriy Khan who's a producer in Brooklyn. So this is just all my friends. Really forget Simon's last name, but he plays in Hyat's Coyote.

00:39:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marvin.

00:39:05
Speaker 2: Simon, Marvin Simon, if you watch this, dude, I love you. Man. I just don't on anybody's last names. Sorry.

00:39:12
Speaker 1: And was a lot of the writing done in studio or did you? Did? You have a lot going there?

00:39:19
Speaker 3: On some of the songs, I would write alone, but I also worked with my two writer friends, Hezekiah he's a MC from Philly and MC from Philly under the name Chemists.

00:39:35
Speaker 2: He's really dope. Hezekia has been uh.

00:39:39
Speaker 3: Working with me as far as lyrics, go for maybe since all the way back to my second my second album, air Tys Revenge from air Tys Revenge all the way up till now, and I produced and wrote a lot of that out of Philly and my old collaborator that I used to work with in the in that second album, Steve McKee Steve Steve Udo was right, Steve McKeith and Hezekia had their studios kind of in the same building. So I would just hang out at everybody's face and we would call has to come up just to hang and then you know, like I said, when I'm in the studio and everybody's in the room, I asked everybody to be involved. Yeah, if my wife came to the studio, I would ask her to be involved somehow. Like my wife has written lyrics, written lyrics to some some songs. Like I'll write some stuff and be like this sounds stupid, what would you think? And because my wife is a good writer, U but she writes, like really writes like essays and books and stuff like that. But I ask anybody, so now, if I don't have anybody to bounce stuff off, I make colachas And that's how I, uh, the latter part of the record. I just started getting really uh into these collages.

00:41:20
Speaker 1: How are you making these collages? How do how do they start? How do they sound?

00:41:25
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, it's like a word collage.

00:41:27
Speaker 3: So I'll write something down and if I'm not really like sure what it is, I'll i'll put it. I'll put it aside and I'll start writing something else that don't have nothing to do with it, just without the music on, and I'll just start writing writing, and then I'll I'll take the other paper that I was trying to write lyrics to.

00:41:52
Speaker 1: And you're writing to the music to that one.

00:41:53
Speaker 3: And I'll cut it up, like with some scissors, cut it up, cut up, and then I'll take the other page that I was just writing random stuff on.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: I'll cut that up and I'll just paste them all together.

00:42:06
Speaker 1: Like lines, full lines, but I'll.

00:42:09
Speaker 2: Cut it down and i'll just you know, pace them back.

00:42:12
Speaker 1: Together and just kind of move him around.

00:42:14
Speaker 3: Until I got that idea from Donald Fagan. Like I was reading an article. Donald Fagan said that's how he wrote his lyrics and Big Black Cow. I was like, what I'm gonna do that?

00:42:26
Speaker 2: And it worked.

00:42:27
Speaker 1: That's crazy, No wonder Steally Dan lyrics. It kind of makes sense though.

00:42:35
Speaker 2: The lyrics kind of make sense, but don't.

00:42:37
Speaker 1: Onder like I Sometimes I just feel like, I know those guys are genius, and sometimes I'm like, I'm stupid. I don't I kind of get where he's going one hundred percent.

00:42:45
Speaker 3: See, Yeah, man, I want to sit down with with with ghost Face and ask him because I feel.

00:42:50
Speaker 2: Like he's doing the same thing.

00:42:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, ghost Face might get it. Ghost Face is on that level. He's the best man. Earlier, you were saying, like, early on in your career, you felt very much like dictated to in a sense, very much like like like you couldn't maybe you were hemmed in and unable to make a decision on decisions for yourself or maybe I'm extrapolating too far.

00:43:17
Speaker 2: Yes and no.

00:43:18
Speaker 3: You know, I felt like it started off as you know, we want you to just get in here, do something different, do something crazy. But then they were like, wow, that's too crazy. We need to figure out how to like bring it in the real it ends. You know, this is and this is like interscope as a interscope or like I wasn't designed direct to interscope, so it was like production. I was under like a production company, so it was kind of who are you under? It was a production company called more Yo Music, So it was it's like three people where they were James and Too May's sons. No Way, yeah, and so these cats that I respect their musicianship, Yeah, but it was just I don't think they were telling me like we need to dumb you down to make you pop. They were just like, this is so wild.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: How are we gonna sell this? Man? Know?

00:44:23
Speaker 1: What is there a version of your first album that is a little like are there versions of those songs or other songs that are a little more.

00:44:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a there's lots of song. We did so many songs. I do so many songs for records, and then I just sit back like we what of this is a record?

00:44:42
Speaker 2: You know?

00:44:43
Speaker 3: Especially for that first record, it was we did so many songs, work with so many people. Wow, Like I did like four songs with Dyla, but we only yeah, well we only chose one. So that and then when I went to do my second album, I was I came to the label to have Dyla do the whole album. So before Dyla passed, we were working like I was at it at his house it's like we did like six songs in Detroit and then he moved out to La. It was like got to be like six unfinished tunes.

00:45:27
Speaker 1: Wow. So the version that got leaked wasn't necessarily like.

00:45:33
Speaker 2: Those songs that got leaked were like the songs that I produced.

00:45:37
Speaker 1: So that wasn't like the album as it was gonna come out the way that it was.

00:45:42
Speaker 3: Just whoever was working with the people that were mixing the album, they just like some of the stuff that like the unfinished mixes of the because Dyla didn't Dyla mixed all his stuff itself. So like I said, he had started getting six So we just went in and started mixing the songs that I had produced, and those were the ones that got leaked.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: Sorrow, Tears and Blood. That was that you and Dilla.

00:46:11
Speaker 2: No, that was just me.

00:46:12
Speaker 1: That was just you, Okay because someone online someone said that it was Dylan and I was always.

00:46:18
Speaker 3: No, No I produced that, but I had I was bringing in a lot of different people like to kind of be a part of it, like Za Mama Calm and came and he wrapped on the last half of it. But it was it was for a sorrow, cheers and Blood project. They were doing a Feila Cootie project that wasn't even for my second album. Really around that time that that's what had happened. I had I convinced the label to allow me to produce six songs by myself and then let Jay Dilla come in and produce six songs and then we make an album.

00:47:03
Speaker 1: And they were in on that.

00:47:05
Speaker 2: They were in on it until they heard what I was doing.

00:47:11
Speaker 1: Did they hear the stuff that was leaked?

00:47:13
Speaker 2: That's when they leaked it.

00:47:15
Speaker 1: What didn't they like about it?

00:47:16
Speaker 3: They didn't like it, But then when it got leaked, ironically, they came back and was like, this stuff's amazing.

00:47:21
Speaker 2: I was like, what the yeah, this.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: Is amazing, like incredible cuts a. I me what was Jimmy ivying?

00:47:30
Speaker 3: Like, oh man, that's hilarious. Jimmy didn't know what to think about it. He was just like, this is not R and B. So then I was like, well, what's R and B? Then, Jimmy so you would be like, okay, okay, you want to play that game. Let's get doctor dre in here.

00:47:47
Speaker 2: So Doctor j was like, this ain't this ain't R and B.

00:47:51
Speaker 3: It's a hybrid. I know, exactly what it is, so signing me and I was like.

00:47:55
Speaker 2: Okay, how do I do this.

00:48:00
Speaker 3: In the midst of that, I guess somebody that I you know, I don't want to out anyone, out anyone, but when they heard the people that they thought would say it sucked, was like, actually, I could do something with this.

00:48:21
Speaker 2: It got the leaked.

00:48:23
Speaker 1: So someone blocked you from signing to DRE.

00:48:26
Speaker 3: I don't think somebody blocked me from signing and Dre. I just think once I started working the project with Dre, the music that I had already worked on got leaked. I guess in an effort to have me just start from scratch, you know what I mean.

00:48:44
Speaker 2: Damn, that's the way it came to me.

00:48:45
Speaker 3: It was like, oh, everything's leaked, so I guess we gotta start from the top.

00:48:53
Speaker 1: I was like, what, but theoretically you could have started from the top, but you said fuck that. Yeah.

00:49:00
Speaker 3: I mean I tried, man, but I was just I felt like I was doing a whole new album. I just kind of lost what I would wear. I was what was happening? Yeah, yeah, you know. And in the in the middle of that, like the business side just went into estellemate I think the the production label that I was under kind of changed homes. They went to another label, So it was just a bunch of label stuff started happening. And at the same time that the record was bootlegs, so it was just everything was up in the air.

00:49:37
Speaker 1: Drey must have loved you, though, I imagine, right.

00:49:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still I still talked to Dre every now and then.

00:49:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys made music. Still.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: I don't know what Dre's doing, but I know maybe one day. Still, I loved Dre.

00:49:54
Speaker 3: I love everything he's doing, and I think the last time I saw him, we would I went into the studio to hang out with Anderson Pack and he came through when we was just hanging Yeah, so.

00:50:07
Speaker 1: Were you when you went into the stew with him to do stuff? H firstborn? Second, I guess you would have in a high school when Chronic came out or close to Was that like in your or did you kind of some some of these some people on these coasts. I feel like I missed that a bit. You know.

00:50:23
Speaker 3: When I was in high school, I knew of the Chronic because my brother was big in hip hop. But when I was in high school, I was kind of like a jazz snob, Like I was like, nah, man, you know, only through that I really like was like, oh.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: THATX kind of hip is like.

00:50:43
Speaker 3: Tropical quest because I knew the jazz samples, you know, I was kind of approude. But by the time I got to the second Chronic, I was already in in college, you know, I was loving it.

00:50:58
Speaker 2: So by the time I got to the studio, I was full on like.

00:51:04
Speaker 3: A static yeah something there with Doctor Dre And it's crazy. You know they always say you really want something to happen, you write it down, and I literally wrote down all the people that I wanted to work with and I worked with all of them.

00:51:19
Speaker 2: Wow, And so that was crazy. It was in there. I was just like, this is magic, This is magic.

00:51:26
Speaker 3: And I felt at home because Scott Storch was there, and Scott Storch from Philly.

00:51:33
Speaker 1: So Philly got another Philly guy right of course.

00:51:36
Speaker 2: So we were just in there high five and it was just it was awesome.

00:51:40
Speaker 1: Damn it. Did he did he had he heard of you by that point, like Scott or what did he know you from Philly?

00:51:44
Speaker 2: I knew Scott from Philly.

00:51:46
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

00:51:48
Speaker 2: So it was it was great.

00:51:50
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Questlove tells a great story about how Sometimes came to be in this in the glasshouse record or live session. I don't know how you want to frame that. Which is an incredible I mean it's it's streaming. People should listen to and watch it on YouTube. It's phenomenal, so well done well, i mean, directed, well performed everything. That's an incredible piece than you. Uh, But Questum tells us a pretty pretty funny story about how Sometimes came to be. Can you tell that from your perspective?

00:52:30
Speaker 3: Well, by the time I had came to the studio, they were kind of like already joking around, playing playing the record in the way our mirror and James produced. It's kind of like just one big jam session. So they were just in there laughing, joking, and I came in, just got on the mic and just started freestyling over top their joke, their banter.

00:52:53
Speaker 1: They're poking fun at comn from missing out on the road. Maybe the most death y'all seen Bay. Yeah, And.

00:53:02
Speaker 3: You know, it was just a bunch of bunch of laughing and joking coming, you know, and different switch ups in the music they would do as jokes.

00:53:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.

00:53:15
Speaker 3: You know, they'll play a ton of different shapes and then at the end they was like, all right, you picked from that and then we'll come back and make it a whole track. But when I heard them, I didn't know it was a joke. I just went in right in there and started singing along. They were like, hey, what is this this working? And some of the freestyle. I changed some of the lyrics, but most of sometimes was just right off. Sometimes I wish I was with me, sometimes I wish I was a drug free I was just I thought I was just going going in with the bands back, you know.

00:53:53
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, that's incredible.

00:53:55
Speaker 2: It's like a freestyle song.

00:53:57
Speaker 1: It's insane, says. It's at the end of the story. He says it to where he's like, y'all were mixing up. Umi says, to make fun of comment with with Bill's bills bills I think from Destiny's Child because it was the car Man movie. D just started. Yeah, so but he said then at that he says, yeah, it was one take.

00:54:15
Speaker 3: The core of it, most of it, and then I just went back in and uh, put backgrounds vocals on there, and then just like some of the lyrics.

00:54:27
Speaker 2: I changed some of the lyrics, but like I said, most of it.

00:54:30
Speaker 1: Was just that was it much longer and you guys had to like trim it down.

00:54:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it was like, man, it was almost like eight minutes just and then going into other stuff.

00:54:45
Speaker 3: But it didn't have a base on it. It was just our mere playing drums and James on the keyboards. And then later on they had Pino Palladino come in and that was one tape.

00:54:58
Speaker 2: Pino didn't even Pino didn't even know what was going on.

00:55:02
Speaker 3: It was it was just like, all right in two in two more bars, we won't go It's gonna go to another.

00:55:08
Speaker 2: It's gonna go on another gourd rady go New York and it kept everything.

00:55:16
Speaker 3: I loved it, or as on the spot as it could get.

00:55:20
Speaker 1: As far as the music, that's an amazing story, man, that's an amazing story.

00:55:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:55:25
Speaker 3: I love it like I love it when it's like that, you know, that's just the music just comes out of you. When I was working with Dla, a lot of the music happened the same way.

00:55:36
Speaker 1: Really.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a song we just I did a song with Guru on his Jazmine task album.

00:55:45
Speaker 1: On volume one of that, right yeah, right, And.

00:55:49
Speaker 3: Me and Guru went out to Detroit and Del it was just in the studio. It was quiet, just like this, and he was just like and we was like, so, where's the music. He's like, oh, I was waiting for y'all to get here. Let me, let me put something together. And he did that whole everything. He just walked around collected like twenty vinyls and just all while we're talking and he's rolling blood on the vinyl just like yeah, so we oh man seen a minute and then he would just keep like one headphone on the whole time is just quiet and we just in there.

00:56:32
Speaker 2: He got games, so we playing games and stuff and then he's just like.

00:56:38
Speaker 3: And then like literally, I think that beat took him like not even ten minutes, because he was just boom, next record ten minutes. And then he would just turned their beat up just like that, and he's like whoa, And I was like, Yo, that's a lie. You you had this beat made? This was just a performed Like come on.

00:57:04
Speaker 1: He was like, nah, were there beats he took longer to make?

00:57:07
Speaker 3: Like?

00:57:07
Speaker 1: Were there? I know?

00:57:11
Speaker 3: Every time I worked with him, he made it from nothing, damn even the drum sound.

00:57:17
Speaker 1: He was never struggling with anything like, oh I got this thing, I don't know what to.

00:57:19
Speaker 2: Do with nah.

00:57:21
Speaker 3: Even when he was like not feeling well, it was the same. His creativity didn't go nowhere.

00:57:31
Speaker 2: I thought.

00:57:33
Speaker 3: The last time I worked with him, he messed my head up the most because we were having a problem with some of the samples. It was one of the an rs from the label had came with me that time and we were like talking about some of the stuff and like clearing the samples, and he.

00:57:57
Speaker 2: Was like, what, I replay all this.

00:58:01
Speaker 3: He programmed, he knew, programmed all of the moves in the crib, replayed everything. What And I was like, what, I don't know your play bass? What the hell is going on?

00:58:19
Speaker 2: And he said, I don't know how to play?

00:58:21
Speaker 1: So so did he actually know or did he just had he just listen enough that he knew, Like he just.

00:58:27
Speaker 3: He said he didn't know, but I was like, yo, you're playing that and you killing it. He was like, I just know how to find the sounds that I want.

00:58:38
Speaker 1: Damn, man, that's amazing.

00:58:39
Speaker 3: And the crazy thing was the label had flew James Boyster out the next day to kind of replay the stuff that he sampled.

00:58:49
Speaker 2: And me and James was in there like what is going on? Like how did you? James was like I'm out, I'm.

00:58:59
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

00:59:00
Speaker 3: It's like he because we thought James was like the man at finding programming the moves, was like, wow, got the exact sounds like from.

00:59:18
Speaker 2: You know on the move. It's just that one noise. He blew my mind.

00:59:25
Speaker 1: Jesus, that's wild and did it just as fast as he would do chopping the beat.

00:59:33
Speaker 2: I was done.

00:59:35
Speaker 1: That's really wild. I'm gonna go back to the idea. Early on you were talking about your what was your high school teacher's name, mister King, Mister King, you're talking about how he also introduced you to the idea of dynamics and music essentially, and that's so present in your music. And you do a version of Since I've Been Loving You by Zeppelin. That's like that song has always floored me because again the dynamics where they go up and down with that song is and then the version you do, and there was one you did at like a root jam something you do since I've Been Loving You into everything in this right place, some believer, I think at the Cork this morning because I was like, dude, y'all are ridiculous. Man. Oh yeah, you guys are ridiculous. Man.

01:00:22
Speaker 3: That's a good The cool thing about the Roots say, they encompassed so many.

01:00:26
Speaker 2: Styles of music.

01:00:31
Speaker 3: I was always inspired by them, you know, Like I said, coming up in Philly, I would search out the Amyre jam sessions, you know, because he would have these impromptu jam sessions around the city and I would just try and find them. And ironically, like that's where I met some of the cool musicians that I know to this day. Like, I was just always, uh, I think drawn to that, and I always try to keep that element. And I always saw what the Roots was doing. It's like kind of the blueprint of what I wanted to do. I felt like it was the gateway to push what I had absorbed from college and jazz and how I like fused that in to uh, you know, the the popular culture. I would say, you know what I'm saying. I felt like they really were doing it.

01:01:43
Speaker 2: Man. It was just inspiring to this day.

01:01:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I got I gotta put in requests that you and Kurt do a project together. Man. There's also another video. I can't find it anymore, man, but I ripped it so somewhere in my having in my heart drive somewhere. You guys on Falling when it was still the Late Show doing the roots on the other side ten years or so ago. Oh yeah, with the the strings. But there's a bit of where you and and Captain Kirk just go like just trading back and forth, and I've never seen anything like it. It's like chills.

01:02:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's cool when there's musicians for me that can.

01:02:31
Speaker 3: Set up that environment where you feel like, wow, I can jump off this cliff and I'll be fine, yes, yeah.

01:02:42
Speaker 2: And then nobody's going no, don't jump.

01:02:45
Speaker 1: You find it hard to find musicians because I mean, like, you are a guy. You just strike me as a guy just from listening to you and seeing you, like it's like I feel like you'll go further off the cliff than anybody, you know what I mean. Like, it's hard for you to find people that like, I'm like the Lenny Bruce Yeah for the yeah, yeah, for the young hands. Yeah, they won't get that reference, but yes, you're the Lenny Bruce of RB. You're getting arrested on stage for taking it too far.

01:03:15
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know.

01:03:16
Speaker 3: I mean that's like I said, that's the jazz thing, and then it's also the punk rock thing.

01:03:21
Speaker 2: You know.

01:03:24
Speaker 3: Bad Brains is like my favorite, one of my favorite groups of all time. And I mentioned my boy Chuck Trees because he used to play drums and the Bad Brains and he's like my old g I met Chuck we uh at our mere's house, but then we got really close when we were roommates Uh in d'angelo's band Wow and.

01:03:49
Speaker 2: For a summer. Then I got fired.

01:03:51
Speaker 1: But what you get fired for?

01:03:56
Speaker 2: I couldn't. I was just a horrible background singer, man.

01:04:01
Speaker 1: I seen, but I was.

01:04:04
Speaker 2: I was like so into what everybody else was doing. I kept missing my parts.

01:04:10
Speaker 3: It wasn't that I couldn't sing the parts, but it's like our mirrors on drums. H roy Hard goes on in the trumpet section. D'angelo's playing keys, and this is like me right out of high school. I'm just looking.

01:04:26
Speaker 2: Around at everybody, like, oh my god, this is so bad.

01:04:29
Speaker 3: And then I look and d'angelo's giving me the deaths there like you missed your note again, and I'm.

01:04:35
Speaker 1: Like, oh yo. He was like, yeah, who fires you out of Dangelo's band? Like, how does that work?

01:04:44
Speaker 3: D'Angelo fired me, man, But it was very friendly. He said, you need to go get a record. You too much about the music, man, he was looking at everything.

01:05:02
Speaker 2: Not doing your job, brother.

01:05:07
Speaker 1: About the music. You fucking mind you that's crazy. Did did you process it as like a blow or you're just like, nah, you're probably right man, Like no, I was.

01:05:18
Speaker 2: I took it as wow, you think I could get a record? Hell? Yeah?

01:05:28
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that? How you knew Keytar Boston Bird?

01:05:34
Speaker 2: I met Keytar?

01:05:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, from that process because I started putting together a demo with.

01:05:41
Speaker 1: The guy from but the drummer from the Spin Doc which I never I gotta said, I never knew that.

01:05:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. We went to the same college.

01:05:48
Speaker 1: The drummer from the Spin Doctors, Aaron Comas two Princes Spin Doctors produced on your first record and everything.

01:05:55
Speaker 3: Ironically, we went to the same college and we were playing in the same.

01:06:02
Speaker 2: Dive bar jazz band.

01:06:07
Speaker 3: Uh like three in the morning at this place called Sidewalk Cafe, and me and Rob were having a hard time stay and walk to make the gig. So Aaron was like, YO, just come to my house, and you know, I got some instruments there. We could kind of like jam until the gig we go there. He lives in a man like straight up like I'm like, what do you do mean?

01:06:39
Speaker 1: You're so rich?

01:06:41
Speaker 3: Because I didn't know anything about the spin doctors and then he was like, dude, I'm about He didn't even tell us until like, I don't think he ever told me. I just kind of found out about that myself.

01:06:55
Speaker 1: He didn't have like records on the wall.

01:06:57
Speaker 3: No, it's just like a regular house. But he had an ill studio. Wow, just like wow, like how you got all this stuff?

01:07:05
Speaker 2: And that I wrote.

01:07:08
Speaker 3: A lot of h like my first uh songs on on on our air, on my first album at his crib, like when you call Queen in Sanity love poems, all of those.

01:07:26
Speaker 1: That's that's the sequence, right, that's in sequence on the album too. That's a those are great songs man, And he's playing drums on those, yep.

01:07:35
Speaker 3: Except he's playing drums on all of those except for Queen Insanity. Because I mirrored I marreor did a uh a mere move. I was just like, let me try something, and I think, uh, you know, I was just like wow, we kept. We kept a lot of it, the integrity of it, but that was the only one that we kind of re recorded. But everything else it was just like it was at this spot.

01:08:10
Speaker 2: I think it was another tune too. We had this so, like I said, I had did a whole.

01:08:14
Speaker 3: Record alone at Aaron's and then we just picked some of those and shopped it too for late You.

01:08:21
Speaker 1: Know, you got still cool.

01:08:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're still cool. I just haven't spoken to him in a while, but yeah, Aaron, Aaron, we had a whole album. I thought it was kind of like a rock album almost like not rock. It was like kind of rock, kind of Jameric.

01:08:41
Speaker 2: Why ish?

01:08:43
Speaker 1: But I was gonna ask, I mean, we sped past the Zeppelin, but like the way you, I mean, like the way you do a Zeppelin song, man, Like that's really it's it's really, first of all, a lot of the any cover I've really heard of yours, whether we just Sarrotares and Blood or Can't High Love or Hide and Dry or since I've been loving you, it's like you definitely bring something to I want to ask you more about just what you the way you might interpret the song, But have you ever thought about like it's it's I can't think of anyone who can do a Zeppelin song justice the way that you did on that. Like, have you thought about just forming a rock band, like putting a band like I mean, and I guess your second album is a little.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: Were very hard hard rock. I think the band everybody in my band thinks there rock musician anyway.

01:09:40
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was sort of making My kids asked me that too, you know. My son asked me, why don't you make another type of band when y'all doing But I'm just like we what I do is I try to shove everything in the world into one burrito.

01:10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but it's just so fun to hear you do that genre because it's.

01:10:06
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, there's a I would love to go full on into that genre, into the jazz world too.

01:10:13
Speaker 2: You know, like a lot of people don't even know that I sing jazz.

01:10:17
Speaker 1: We would like to do like a straight up like a like a I.

01:10:20
Speaker 2: Used to, But then I'm like, what the hell is jazz now?

01:10:25
Speaker 1: It's a lot of things.

01:10:26
Speaker 2: It's what I'm doing.

01:10:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of what you're doing now.

01:10:30
Speaker 2: So I don't know rock would be cool though.

01:10:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a party that wants to the amount of the amount of time between this record and your last records, almost the amount of time between yeah, the first and second album. Do you is there a party that is happy to just put stuff out when every so often? Do you? Is there a party that wants to it? Sounds like you have a lot of stuff too, like something you can be releasing regularly, not to I could put it.

01:10:58
Speaker 3: I could put out an album every two years. I could. I got so much music.

01:11:03
Speaker 1: Why are you depriving us?

01:11:05
Speaker 2: I don't know.

01:11:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I just wanted to be done right. You know I've been doing putting music out. You're not satisfied with the way I put it out that. I'm just like, man, I wanted.

01:11:17
Speaker 2: To be done the right way. You know.

01:11:21
Speaker 3: With this album, I put my own money into it to make sure I kind of like did it how I was envisioning it and make it kind of work.

01:11:33
Speaker 2: But I don't want to go bro, you know what I'm saying.

01:11:36
Speaker 1: Definitely not. But it's a good album though.

01:11:39
Speaker 2: That's sure. I insisted on it.

01:11:42
Speaker 1: It almost feels like the most even including the one that I guess like at leads. But that's not fair because that wasn't really what it was intended to be. But it does feel like the most cohesive project in a sense, you know, where it's like it just feel like there's a through line and you could just start right back at one like like you could just loop it and it's like it feels like it's like a circle. It just doesn't stop. You know. It has that real complete feel to it, you know.

01:12:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean this record was definitely a labor of love. You know.

01:12:12
Speaker 3: A lot of it was done in my own like personal studio, and just it wasn't a label for I'm doing this, so I can kind of because the label like signed me to do it. It was just something I was doing. And then I was like, I want this to come home. Let me go fish for somebody to help me.

01:12:33
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. But I don't want to do that no more. Man. I feel like.

01:12:38
Speaker 3: I put together good projects and I just have to find a good home for it, you know, to so that I can just put it out. But like I said, I got mad ship, dude, mad shit.

01:12:51
Speaker 1: Man, we got I want out there. I mean, I hope you put it out.

01:12:54
Speaker 2: It just has to be it has to be right. And that's the way I feel like because I put a lot into stuff.

01:13:01
Speaker 1: You know, can I I won't keep you here forever? But can I ask you about Morocco? Oh yeah, I would love ask one. What's some of my number one destinations to go to? Man?

01:13:12
Speaker 3: I love Morocco. The people are very It's almost like a competition. Like I'll go to a woman my wife's aunt's house, and then she'll find out her sister I went, you know, her the other I know find out that I went there, and then it's like oh yeah, And then I'm in my mind. I'm like, we going there, We're going to her house, and she goes, really, so what'd you eat over there?

01:13:37
Speaker 2: Well, now you're gonna have this.

01:13:40
Speaker 3: It's like everything is great if you're a visitor, because everybody's like you, you have never had hospitality like this.

01:13:48
Speaker 2: He come to my house and give you the best.

01:13:50
Speaker 3: So I'm like raiding. Everybody's green, everybody's a mentee.

01:13:54
Speaker 1: It's one of those doesn't sound too different from like just like a black family that Auntie's house, Like.

01:14:00
Speaker 2: Okay, come and visit me.

01:14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, Like oh man, you know, like I can't visit no one you know, and.

01:14:08
Speaker 3: Then they feed you and feed you and feed you, and you're like, I'm none. And if you don't know how to say this one word, you have to learn this word or else you will you your stomach will bust open and you'll just die in somebody's dinner table. You have to learn this word called safi, saffi safi that means enough, okay.

01:14:30
Speaker 2: Enough, because they will just keep feeding you and feeding you like no, no, no.

01:14:37
Speaker 3: No, because I mean they don't make us spread like you've never seen.

01:14:41
Speaker 2: Wow and yeah, so wow.

01:14:45
Speaker 3: And the awesome thing about it, I didn't gain no weight, and I ate so much food. I felt like I was getting stronger. That's when I knew like there was some something, something's up with.

01:14:58
Speaker 2: The food here. Yeah, because.

01:15:02
Speaker 3: I was eating late at night. Oh man, just some of these leftovers, that's.

01:15:08
Speaker 1: My I might move there. I was eating later night last night. I feeling guilty, like a month, I gotta move.

01:15:16
Speaker 3: And the scenery, you know, I got into painting out there, like really into painting because of so much scenery.

01:15:23
Speaker 1: And you had never done that really before.

01:15:26
Speaker 3: I always kept like a sketch book, but I never like set up an easel and it was just like I'm gonna paint like I'm gonna make a painting. I always had like painter friends, so I watched them and how they put and it was always similar to me the way I put my songs together, just like a bunch of collages. And so that was like my approach to my paintings. And now I think that's kind of what changed on this last album, because I approached it just like I was doing those paintings, like just throwing shit against the wall and see what sticks, you know, or waiting around for something random that happened that we didn't know how we did it. And then now I was like, that's thetart, you know. Now let's see what we can do around that. And I think I learned that from from the painting.

01:16:27
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Yeah, And are you living in Morocco? Morocco or like kind of.

01:16:34
Speaker 2: Like off and on?

01:16:35
Speaker 3: I still my family still has a property out there and I'm playing on. I'm actually on my way back out there in July. So the plan is to live here and and Morocco.

01:16:49
Speaker 1: It's really cool, man. I heard Hendricks back in the day used to go through Morocco.

01:16:53
Speaker 2: I swear, I swear.

01:16:55
Speaker 3: There's so many mountains and waterfalls. Morocco is I think the only place in Africa where they have all of the seasons.

01:17:05
Speaker 1: Really there's snow. There's that wind like a winter with snow out there.

01:17:09
Speaker 3: Well, you go up these mountains and there's snow up there.

01:17:13
Speaker 1: Wow, and what's the music? I out there?

01:17:17
Speaker 3: Incredible? I got into this. It's this transient music that they play called Ganawa.

01:17:24
Speaker 1: I heard of it.

01:17:27
Speaker 3: Ganawa music is music based off of this instrument called the gimbrii, which is they make it out.

01:17:34
Speaker 2: Of the actual throat of.

01:17:37
Speaker 3: The of a goat, like and it's a base and they make it from the the skin of the throat and they use the strings the intestines because they have this thing where if they slaughter animal, they have to you have to use the of the entirety of the animals. So they do other things with like they'll make if after they eat all of the meat, they'll use the skin, they'll use the bones. They you know, nothing goes away. So they've made this instrument in Ghanawa was basically kind of birthed out of the slave tree, the Islamic slave tree, the sub Saharan slave trade.

01:18:23
Speaker 2: A lot of.

01:18:23
Speaker 3: The slaves came together, and the way they would remember their heritage or where they came from, they would make they through these songs they would create from this gimbi. But when I tell you, it was like I was at a Pentecostal church. Dude, it was I didn't know what nobody was saying, but cats up. They're singing songs about Allah.

01:18:50
Speaker 2: But it's like we're at a Pentecostal church.

01:18:52
Speaker 3: Cats is passing out, their little cat's getting laid hands on and they sacrificed the chickens. Wow, it's like a full on Southern Baptist. And I was just in there like wow, Like I feel like a little boy again. And they start these they start these seances. I call them at like five in the afternoon and then it's over at five in the morning. And I mean, just this, it's like a trance. Like you go into this music and it's like you leave this planet. And I'm actually going out there in July to play with.

01:19:40
Speaker 2: A Ganawa band.

01:19:43
Speaker 1: That's amazing, like a band from out there, and you're gonna sing.

01:19:46
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm gonna saying, but it's gonna be awesome. You know it's a live thing. Are you're gonna of course live? Yeah, at the festival. They have a Ganala Festival. They have lots of festivals, music festivals, Man and Hendricks. That's what Hendricks will be. He would go to those festivals. But it's this I really can't describe it other than it's like it feels like Delta blues Wow mixed with riggy Wow.

01:20:13
Speaker 1: I'm excited to check that out that part of Africa. It just seems like incredible.

01:20:19
Speaker 2: Like I would.

01:20:20
Speaker 3: I would try to record them, but they don't let you, Like if they see your phone, they'll be like, oh.

01:20:26
Speaker 2: Like I pulled it out at one of the everything stopped.

01:20:30
Speaker 3: I felt like. I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just had to get some of this groove. I had to get some of this groove down the chickens.

01:20:42
Speaker 2: But we had them come.

01:20:45
Speaker 3: We had them come to my house and they I have a rooftop, built a tent on the roof and.

01:20:53
Speaker 2: They played the whole thing on the roof.

01:20:55
Speaker 1: Did you record that?

01:20:57
Speaker 2: Yeah?

01:20:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:20:59
Speaker 2: They couldn't tell me no that. I was like, y'all, no, I can record. Now you're out there.

01:21:04
Speaker 1: You're like like Alan Low Max and Morocco or some ship man.

01:21:07
Speaker 2: Oh man, they they called me the America honey black man.

01:21:16
Speaker 1: They're going another country. I guess I am. Goddamn yeah. But the.

01:21:24
Speaker 2: Really really good people, beautiful people.

01:21:27
Speaker 1: That's great man. Well, ship man, I'll come check you out there with these groups.

01:21:32
Speaker 2: That's how yeah. Man.

01:21:33
Speaker 1: Fortunately have to miss you in l A bock at you hey, thank you for thanks for taking all the time.

01:21:41
Speaker 3: Man.

01:21:41
Speaker 2: I really appreciate having its cool conversation.

01:21:46
Speaker 1: In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of some of our favorite songs and features from the law. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and athlete listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.