Georgia Anne Muldrow

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio, Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Left Show. I'm your host, Quest Love. I became familiar with our guest I want to say two thousand and four, two thousand and five, back when.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Air quote that site was in full bloom.

00:00:40
Speaker 1: Her demo was making the rounds and I forgot who put me onto it, And all I can say is that I when I was flabbergasted. I mean, you know, she did a majority of the production, the writing, the recording by herself, so instantly, like my antennas went up, and you know, I listened to it. I mean, now we're you know, we're in an age where everything is streamed and there's SoundCloud, and there's ways to access records without the help of a major label. But you know, before, you know, two thousand and seven, that was hard. So you know, basically I just had a burnt CD and I mean I would sleep to it. That's pretty much my obsession to it. Of course, when I heard from her next her debut LP, She's part of the Stone's Throw community. Since then, she has literally collaborated with I'll be here all day if I'd say the artist I mean either Brittany Howard, Brian Jackson, Anderson Pac, Lotus Badu, Yasim Bay, everyone, everyone but the roots.

00:01:52
Speaker 2: And I gotta change that quickly.

00:01:54
Speaker 1: And I'm certain that she's tired of hearing this, but yeah, she's the pioneer of the term stay woke. As we celebrate Women's History Month, this is a person who makes history every day. You can check out her new album, Electrical Field of Love by her band Harriet Tubman, and we're going to talk about that and her journey, she what makes her tick. Georgia and Moldrew, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: How are you?

00:02:23
Speaker 3: I'm related quest Love. We've known each other a long time and I love you. I love your sister, don Tie. She's the GM of a being. Yes, she's just a wonderful big sister to have, So thanks for sharing her with me, you know, I mean, just thank you for you know, when I think about just the roots, you know, like when I think about just I can't tell you how many permission slips I got from listening to you guys about you know how to mix creatively? Really, yeah, I mean I think so for sure. I remember, like listening to you guys records and going like I'm anna note in people. Those are my people. I'm like, no, that's my family. I'm ready to listen and be like, no, I know, I'm going to talk to them one day. I want to speak with these people. Are gonna understand what it did I'm doing. And it was never like nothing ambitious. It was like really from like the glow of It's like that native tongue's glow.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: You know.

00:03:22
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you're a manifesto.

00:03:24
Speaker 3: Yeah you knew you was a part of the music.

00:03:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. It's weird, you know. I listen.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: I mean, you have over twenty albums and probably more than twenty albums, and it's a lot. I listened to you, and I don't feel like I'm doing enough, like I'd like to think that I'm a hard worker, but you're definitely leading that charge. So I got to learn from you. So my first question to you is what is your first musical memory.

00:03:58
Speaker 3: My first musical memory is honestly hearing my dad play Giant Steps on guitar every morning, so it was like my ABC's and depending on how he played, let me know if I should stay in a corner somewhere, so I don't get like, like himmed up you feel me or like I can tell he if he's jovial or if he's upset, or if he's angry.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: Or is you know, based on how he solo.

00:04:28
Speaker 3: So it was I had to understand because like, you know, the song b like but on the jazz guitar, not plugged into nothing, so you got to listen in close, so like you know, it's like a you know, like a big body. You know the L five, you know with Gibson Joint and you know the West Montgomery Special, and you know, my dad's really from south side Chicago. Really, you know, listen to me. Listen to West Montgomery, you know, and that gen Ammons you feel me like all of it. And that's my first memory is listening, okay, to see see what kind of day we're gonna have as a whole, to see what kind of day we're gonna have.

00:05:09
Speaker 1: What does your house look like as in your childhood? Do you have siblings your domestic situation?

00:05:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I got older brother, Stephen. Like my early childhood is my mom, my dad, and my brother. Okay, small little house in La.

00:05:27
Speaker 1: What does your mom do my mom's.

00:05:29
Speaker 3: A singer songwriter too. She's amazing, you know. Actually her first record was on Music Records and it's called slow Down Baby. Yeah, what did this come out? I think in seventy life.

00:05:47
Speaker 1: Seventy five and what's her name.

00:05:49
Speaker 3: At that time? It said Ricky Boga Okay, Ricky bo Yeah, Ricky Boga. And but you know, you'll see it. It's a big old fro somebody who looked like kind of look like me. I think that that's an important record to check out quest because I didn't hear this till after all the worth nothing stuff and all this kind of stuff. But it's like real epigenetic stuff because the way she's taking like she's banking all the chords and it's like too many chords for one song, and like time stops and all this kind of stuff in her arrangements. And it's produced by Howard Johnson who played Toogle with mingas Lot. Yeah, yeah, real for real, My mom's actually go there. Like actually like she played in Rollanhanna New York Jazz Quartet. She played with Pharaoh Sanders, played keys with Pharaoh like and for the record, like with Philis Simon on it. Because when she didn't feel like touring almost playing Yeah, she's playing keys and the ensemble everything, singing and playing keys with Pharaoh. So it's just like on both sides, it's like that, you know. And I think another thing too is just like my mom just with the Women's History Month of black Stuff. You know, it's just like the fallout from the disco era, how that affected a lot of black singer songwriters, you know, where it's like you have people like lower Nero, she could break through, but then there was a lot of people like the songwriting sisters was kind of co worse to make dance records or they was gonna get signed. I mean like getting literally told during those years, you know, we're not signing nobody who's thinking right now it's love to love you baby, or you need to like go work at a at a restaurant. So my mom, my mom didn't respond to that was be like a piano bar hustler, you know, and you know do it like that. M h.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was gonna say for that time period, probably an occasional Joan armor trading could get inside miracle.

00:07:46
Speaker 3: It's a miracle, but yeah, I mean Joan arbitrating is like parallel universe. Right, occasionally the Russell is a miracle at this point, like as far as like when you talk about racism and the used to business and things like that. You know, it's like have you heard Jones latest record?

00:08:05
Speaker 1: You know what people are talking about this and I have to peep it. Yes, No, she went in.

00:08:10
Speaker 3: She got some stuff on there. You know, I love Joning a lot. I'm seriously a Jon Chad family real. I love her work.

00:08:17
Speaker 2: Wait where are you right now?

00:08:19
Speaker 1: Like I love the blue red juxtaposition of this interview.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: It's funny because whatever's happening in the camera is making its own decision about what it wants you to see. So right now I'm in my avatar, I'm my avatar era, but it's still just the red lights above. So it's like, I don't know, something shifting gotch but yeah, but this is this is my mom's arriety. This is where I record at. This is my little, my little two door recording studio. It's a little ten of love. You know.

00:08:45
Speaker 2: The lights are always this moody so that you can create.

00:08:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, I need the disco light because it's my favorite color is disco lights.

00:08:55
Speaker 2: Nice your whole house is designed like this.

00:08:58
Speaker 3: Nope, okay up here, but gotch you Diceral lights is like it's where my I could hear all the music. It's like because I'm synesthetic very much, and it works in reverse too, so like when it's going around, I'm like, hey, and you're like reverse engineering, you know, you know it's.

00:09:17
Speaker 1: Like and you know, I always wanted to take this test with a fellow because I'm also synesthesia and I see songs in colors when I hear.

00:09:27
Speaker 2: Them, So I want to try this test on you to see if we see it the same.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to pick the most common album of all time, which I would like to think that you've heard Thriller at least five times in.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: Your life, have you?

00:09:43
Speaker 3: Of course? Yeah?

00:09:45
Speaker 1: So what color is going to be starting something to you when you hear it?

00:09:53
Speaker 3: I have to go through a little bit. Yeah, definitely, I'm definitely getting like these colors, the blue, like definitely, it's it's definitely cool neon greens, but when the guitar comes in, it's more like there's more neon reds.

00:10:08
Speaker 2: And then when different parts come in, you see different colors.

00:10:13
Speaker 3: Yes, And with that pepper into the landscape because what happens to me is that there's a whole sonic image that begin to create. So the first thing I see is a mirrored floor, like first, okay, there's a lot of black toobes. It's like black with illumined It's like tron.

00:10:29
Speaker 2: It's like, really, okay, I see light blue for some reason.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: I see it as a daytime light blue, like the sky blue.

00:10:40
Speaker 3: That's really good. That's really good for.

00:10:42
Speaker 1: The song after Baby be Mine. What color do you see?

00:10:47
Speaker 3: Definitely pink? Orange, pink?

00:10:51
Speaker 1: Get it's weird. Do I see orange? Okay, only because I see rock with view as orange and that's the second so I say that, all right, So the girl is mine? What color do you see?

00:11:06
Speaker 3: I don't nothing, just that I don't know. I don't know what song with color. That song is white. I don't know. I just oh the song white.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I.

00:11:20
Speaker 3: See I don't believe. I don't know, like because it's weird because with my synesthesia it's like it's land too. It's like I see objects, you know, like yeah, so like say like a certain snare like I started I started seeing like if it sounds metallic, like a certain kind of snare, like you know, like the hip hop head style. You know, yes, it'll be like a whole gauntlet like you know, like and then like the I had to be like swords like that. So it's like it all depends. Sometimes it's sometimes a high hat is like a scimitar, that's like an age rest you know. Color. Sometimes it's like a bright you know what I mean. So it's like it's those kinds of things too. I really do get objects too. I think Baby Be Mine would probably, I don't know. It's just white too. It's just khaki. I don't know how I feel.

00:12:16
Speaker 1: The girl's mind is the girl of mine.

00:12:18
Speaker 3: Not baby Mine. I like Baby be Mine, but it's just khaki pants.

00:12:21
Speaker 1: See. I see Grace Skies only because because I was alive in real time when that album came out, I was coming on from school and it was raining, and they premiered it on the radio.

00:12:34
Speaker 2: So I forever with that.

00:12:37
Speaker 1: So when you hear Thriller the title cut, what color do you see?

00:12:43
Speaker 2: Or does the video already influence what you see?

00:12:47
Speaker 3: No, Because the first time I heard Thriller was at my Grandmama's house on vinyl. I was like I had nothing to do, so like video, the videos didn't mean nothing because you know, I was in North Carolina at my grandma's house and just like in the corner. So yeah, I think I don't know the go go go Google. Interesting, all of them have this neon thing to him. To me, just because of Cozy Jon mixing, like the profile he had on his production. It's like there is very much everything is like on Thriller. I feel like the cover matches the way it sounds so well, you know what I'm saying, because like cover, Yeah.

00:13:29
Speaker 2: So the white, the black and the.

00:13:32
Speaker 3: It's a lot of black. It's like a lot of black. But then just these like the airbrush you know what I mean, airbrush glow in the dark like and so I think Thriller the goo goo gee goos.

00:13:44
Speaker 1: Have you ever spoken to Jill Scott about music? Jill Scott is the only other person I know that will literally describe like she'll go up to a musician.

00:13:55
Speaker 2: Be like mm mmm, I need more more blue, give me.

00:13:59
Speaker 1: Blue, yeah, and like what the hell's blue?

00:14:03
Speaker 3: So I've definitely done that in a gig. I've definitely done that in a gig where I just call out start calling out colors, definitely do that. But I but I find that it's better to call out weather than colors because whether it's like more of a collective thing, you know, like the milanocytes have it give you some type of like measuring tool with milanocytes and and such. You know. But but with synesthesia, there's people who I know who are synesthetic, but the way they see colors different. Like a perfect example is L's e. He's synesthetic and that's why he's like completely really anal about his takes because he wants to make sure all the colors match, and he wanted to make sure that the contrast that he has even his vocal range, like the melody he finds over the beat is like creating enough compliment. He's serious about that. And he was one of the people that we see the same. He's like, yo, most of your So that was a mad orange yoke. I was like, I know, he's like, you got any more blue songs? And say, yeah, a few of them, but those are the ones that tend to be more of the techno like like kind of like as of house sonic value, you know what I mean. But I love to have a lot of rais in my music, like solar, the solar sound, you know, And the perfect example for like a solar sound would be ray a is anything exactly okay, you know, like everybody loves the sunshine. The reason why I work, I think the reason why the song works so well is because it sounds like the sun. You know. George Duke has a lot of solar jams too. Very solar, you know, like so prepare yourself, you know, or mint tests, you know, whichever one. It's like, it's just very this rays of sun, you know, Earth wind and fire is very solar, you know.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: I see that.

00:15:50
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna skip thriller and I'm gonna ask you a deeper question, what is your favorite key?

00:15:56
Speaker 3: Haa? It changes, it changes, and then it's funny because people wrote to me like, Okay, she's gonna jam and D again.

00:16:05
Speaker 2: Z your go to DZ, your go to thing.

00:16:08
Speaker 3: I jammed in D for so long. I don't know, I think right now. I love G. I love G, I love F Shop, I love I love F for a lot. I don't know. It just kind of tilt the head forward a little bit.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: I have a least favorite key I want to know if this is the same. You know what C sharp minor is one of the hartists. Okay, So the way that I DJ is I DJ every song in Keys.

00:16:39
Speaker 3: Yeah you do the keys, yeah, uh huh.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: And for some reason I noticed that the songs that people do the key and the least is in C sharp for some reason, and prop like, my favorite all time C sharp minor song is seven seven seven ninety three eleven, but it's rare.

00:17:01
Speaker 2: Besides that, I don't know it's for me.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: I feel like C sharp minors is the redheaded stepchild of Keys.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: So I think you ain't never lied. I think you ain't never lie, you know. I feel like people like Solami Rose Joe Lewis definitely lives there, like she really be composed there. But that's why she starts from I think. And then also you're reminded me of Pocket Queen how she plays the mess out of that pattern. Pocket Queen played it, and she played it her own way. I feel like that's so difficult to do.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: It took me the longest and then you know, I mastered it at eleven and then my dad's bass player told me that that's a drum machine and I was just like, oh, what's a drum machine?

00:17:50
Speaker 2: I had no clue. We mutate speak on it, we do.

00:17:56
Speaker 3: Just I mean, I just love that. I mean I really absolutely love that. Like there's it's almost like when Jimmy he and Jix was like, yo, man, they playing my mistakes. Man, I don't know they even copying the mistakes I made. You know, It's like I feel like that's the thing where it's just like if you take everything at face value and you say, well, that's what's going on. Like for me, like when I first heard Public Enemy, I thought that I didn't know about sampling at all. All I knew was musicians. So I was thinking at that.

00:18:22
Speaker 2: You thought that was real?

00:18:23
Speaker 3: That was yeah, Like because I was little like you know what I'm saying, I'm going any three like I was going to ask.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: I was like, I hope you don't mind me asking what you were you?

00:18:32
Speaker 3: Wow?

00:18:32
Speaker 2: So you experienced Public Enemy at like five and.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: Six as a musical like, and I'm going like, that's how music should sound, you know what I mean, Hank Shock, I'm going like, this is amazing. And they got somebody going, they got somebody in it and go whoa like it's just like all this is I'm thinking like it's Duke Ellington or something. I'm thinking like it's like you know what I'm saying. Like, but if that didn't hit me like that, I wouldn't be this kind of musician. I wouldn't be this kind of composer.

00:19:15
Speaker 1: You spoke of your grandmother's house in North Carolina.

00:19:18
Speaker 2: Where were you born?

00:19:20
Speaker 3: I was born in Los Angeles, California. Okay, I'm a child in mid city.

00:19:24
Speaker 2: Okay, So you would visit your grandma? Okay, I thought you were my grandma.

00:19:29
Speaker 3: My MAM's North Carolina. Ye city, Charlotte, Okay, Charlotte, No Carolina, Yeah, Charlotte, North Carolina.

00:19:36
Speaker 1: I almost feel as though you're so musically immersed that this might be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway.

00:19:42
Speaker 3: Okay, there's not no dumb questions, just the one you don't know answer to.

00:19:46
Speaker 1: Okay, So what TV show would you say to find your childhood?

00:19:51
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean definitely Reading Rainbow, Reading Rainbow. I'm PBS baby for show b p b ask. So this is like definitely mysterizes, definitely all the loving kindness, but also there's a video I kept I would rint all the time, and it was be somebody or to be somebody's food by mister T. And I feel like mister T is like my hero role model. He's really my role model for real, for real.

00:20:21
Speaker 1: Like you purchased the Mister T Commandments album in eighty four.

00:20:25
Speaker 3: The nope, I was only one years old time out. I don't know. I didn't know you have a record. Like now I'm about to lose my mind, Like what do you mean. I have an at I have an eighteen shirt, but I don't have no Mister T record. There's more my mother, no other.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: He performed the T's Commandment on Soul Train, Yes I was.

00:20:47
Speaker 2: I'll send it to you, Yes, I'll send it to you.

00:20:50
Speaker 1: I often find that people born after me, like eighties babies and on. If I say to them like you, they'll say, oh, but I was two years old then, And I'm like, man, when I was born, I had to listen to Duke Ellington records at the age of two and study them things.

00:21:09
Speaker 3: But I did too. I did too. But I'm just saying, like my parents, I was the vanguard of the Mister T aesthetic in my home. You feel me?

00:21:19
Speaker 2: Uh, They weren't into that.

00:21:21
Speaker 3: They wasn't on that, like like the only rap song my dad can condone was the message. He was like, now he's rapping for his life. Now that that's a rap record. Now that and puts they loved jigs Chase it all like all that shit, you know what I'm saying, right, Like I inherited who DENI like we're on the side of who DEENI we had beef with drun DMC as a home like that. I knew that from like the musicians side of stuff.

00:21:46
Speaker 2: What's your age difference between you and your brother?

00:21:49
Speaker 3: A year? A year and some change, like a year and a few months, like yeah, like seventeen months apart.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: Okay, did you have like an older cousin or someone older that put you onto Oh yeah.

00:22:00
Speaker 3: All the way. So like my cousin DJG he like I call him like bumble Bee from like you know, the Transformers. So his mixtapes were very neurosaucy. So it's like every other second like he used the records to actually say what he wanted to say, you know, DJ and behind the back all that kind of stuff, you know what I mean. So I definitely had a plug into like hip hop and stuff like that. But as far as getting exposed to like music outside of Canniball, Adelie Art, Blake Key or my mom at the time was just so into her own compositions, you know what I'm saying, or outside of train. My mom's ear was very eclectic. So it'd be like Biden mcfharri and Sally Kate to Diane Reeves, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Mahelia Jackson kind of thing, like a mixed bag of like a very limited amount of records that we listened to all the time. And then like my dad would be like a more extensive collection of music that'd be like very straight ahead like post bop. And then you know him playing with Eddie Harris and everything for such a long time.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: What was your father's name, Ronald Muldrow? Okay, and he played with Eddie Harris.

00:23:16
Speaker 3: Uh huh yeah, like part of the usual suspects game, you know, playing all the guitar like from records like Turbulence to his Hand to Carnival like I need some money, you know, all those records. Yeah, word, he's on all of them.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: Wait, what year didn't they join join?

00:23:34
Speaker 3: Like I think it was shortly after the last McCann, like right after I think it was right after the Swiss movement. Then he was in there, so like they innovated, like the funk jazz stuff together. So my dad was playing all that stuff.

00:23:47
Speaker 1: I have your dad playing live on Soul Train in nineteen seventy four with Eddie.

00:23:53
Speaker 2: Harris and they did this incredible dance thing.

00:23:57
Speaker 1: They do this African Oh my god, okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, I had to take it.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: When she mentioned her father, I was like.

00:24:05
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, you can tell her with my dad, right, you could.

00:24:08
Speaker 1: Tell Oh, my god, that is your father. Shit, that is crazy.

00:24:16
Speaker 2: Okay the last time. Okay, So this is what you're gonna know about me.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: Soul Train is the air I breathe and the blood in my veins. I religiously watch this show and being as though I have a new form of expression that people have just discovered in the last five years. One of the myths that I would like to dispel about Soul Training is the fact that they're like, well, people don't play live on there. People do play live on Soul Train. Probably one of the rarest moments where a jazz group gets to flex their muscles on Soul Train is where Paddy Harris was on Oh my god, I can't believe that you're f okay yeah man.

00:25:02
Speaker 3: And the guitar gan it's something that he had invented, like you know, so they were like tinkerers, like you know him and like that was really Eddie Harris is like the fairy god father for me. He was like a very grandfather. I grew up knowing him and what were like, you know, that's why we would talk, you know, he'd be like, what about you know.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: This explains everything about you now everything.

00:25:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you when you said epigenetics, Now I get it.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: They get it.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm so glad. This is how I'm finding out.

00:25:35
Speaker 3: Can I ask you one thing, to ask you what's your favorite soul chain thing?

00:25:41
Speaker 1: The only answer and shout out to uh dj Nick Fresh, who hates when I say this.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: O'Brien's nineteen.

00:25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh Baker, no no, no, no, no, you're doing the Hollywood, you're doing the disco.

00:26:04
Speaker 3: Okay, So O'Brien didn't want yes, yes, yeah, no, no, that's my favorite too, O'Brien. O'Brien did it. Yeah, but this is my second. That's the second one.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: I like, got you, got you.

00:26:22
Speaker 3: My second, but my favorite O'Brien too.

00:26:26
Speaker 1: You're alright, all right, yeah, you are right to tell me this much. What is your morning routine? What's the first thing you do in the half hour of your day every morning?

00:26:39
Speaker 3: I go like, I kind of gasp because I got another one. Yeah, okay, it's not over yet. And then I take time that that blow my mind in a while. Okay, yeah, thank god, I feel. I take time to feel life online around me, you know, I could feel the network of life. And then by that time, you know, it's tea time, so I have some a nice cup of tea. I spend most of my morning pretty much non vocal if I can, and I find that when I do that, I'm better regulated for the all the way into the evening. But if I start talking too soon, I become very oversimilated for most of the day. So it's definitely I take time to just cool and hum. And even as we talk right now, it's like, Bebop's my first language, you know, just because of all of the giant step stuff, it's actually my first language. So like, I take time just to be bop. You know, just to be bop, just to be, and that's how I pray and be bop, you know, And yeah, I just be, you know, take time to just be that way and then that way. It might be like there's going to be a current that takes me east west, north south, you know, then I'm like ready, I'm prepared for it. But if I don't take time to calibrate my heart, mind equipment, then it comes to be a very confusing day. So my routine is based in more of a spiritual discipline. My minurosis is more on the spiritual side, whereas there's just certain things that have to take place, like spiritually in for you to you know, in order for me to flow with where I'm like supposed to be at the right place at the right time.

00:28:35
Speaker 1: Gotcha. So, before the age of ten, what were your desires in terms of what you wanted to do when you became an adult. Did you come out the moon wanting to do music or did you have other fantasies or to do something else.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: By the time I was nine years old, I had completed the autobiography of Asada School and I was already playing in a dazz ensemble. I was playing drums and jazz ensemble. I was, you know, yeah, I like I was kind of raised serious. So it was my dream was total total black liberation. Total liberation for black people was already my goal because I was like maybe three years old, because that's when I learned about the trans Atlantic slave holocausts. So I was definitely raised to be an RBG assassin. And so that's the undercurrent there, you know. But the beautiful thing about that is that it encouraged me to it encouraged me in the things in my abilities, that there was a purpose behind my abilities. So like if you're reading all the hotepie and books, you know, like as a child, they used to glow in the dark for me, Like you know, so like Soling Legacy, George GM James. You you haven't seen family Guy that cartoon. Yes, I was like Stewie that baby, like I was thinking of a master plan. So I see George GM james Stolen Legacy the book, right, and it's like this glowing you know, some of my odd roster Tevin rows on the book, you know, and like or Ramsey's the second as y'all would say, Right, so you have this other children's book and you go like, I have to figure this out to get over there. So like I'm like the cat in the hat. That's what you're saying, right, d Cat.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: And I'm.

00:30:36
Speaker 3: Reading like Doctor Seuss, but I'm looking at George gm Jans, like how do I get over there? So just like I think I've been like since I was nine, I think it was absolutely had something to do with the liberation of black folks to know that they're free, to know that they're for them to have successful lives, for them to have full and happy lives.

00:31:00
Speaker 2: Age nine.

00:31:01
Speaker 1: Yes, Jesus Christ, I'm so ashamed because it took me why I didn't read ASADA's book until when we were working on Commons like Water for Chocolate record.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: They had just started.

00:31:15
Speaker 1: Lifting the like embargoes for visiting Cuba and whatnot, and so Common was like, I'm gonna go down there to you know, because he shout out to Dreamhampton, who had Black August Organization take us down there, like we were like one of the first American hip hop people. I think The Roots was like maybe the second or third show down there. But it's so weird because we went down there to meet her and like when you go there, usually they tell you like to bring things that you don't need anymore for people there. Yeah, And for some reason, I just I was like, you know what, I know, being here all this time, I wonder if she will like something simple like Essence magazines or Vibe magazine, you know what I mean, like just to catch.

00:32:10
Speaker 2: Up on black pop culture.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: And I gave her bag of just like and it's like all these magazines throughout the years that I found that like thrift stores like across America and whatnot. And she was like so beautiful. Yeah, that was so beautiful.

00:32:27
Speaker 3: And I mean, look and you being able to meet her because of because of music, Like that's that's very intense. That's that's very beautiful thing.

00:32:35
Speaker 1: She knew we all were like she was very much hipped to everything music was happening. So that was right. You mentioned that mister T was kind of the first entity that you yourself uniquely brought in that how so not like from someone inherited me? But can I ask was on my own, dad?

00:33:05
Speaker 3: Like I was on my own with mister T. Like like I was on my own with it?

00:33:09
Speaker 1: What was the first record that you yourself purchased? Not that was in the household already. But what's the first right now?

00:33:17
Speaker 3: Oh? I know, because I had you know what, I had to wait to give them some lunch money because we used sometimes we packed lunches school, so I literally had to earn from like not eating like And the first was a cassette single. It was and oh my god, it was they saw me, myself and I and Tom to be Hippie on the other side. That's my first cassette ever. I bought it with my own money, from my well, my parents money, but it was from the food money that I had saved to the side so that I could buy you.

00:33:53
Speaker 2: Two, your sister, yourself.

00:33:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was like, I want to buy us. I want to buy a cassette.

00:34:04
Speaker 2: So you brought the K single instead of the twelve inch.

00:34:08
Speaker 3: They had no record player.

00:34:09
Speaker 2: Ah damn, because here's the thing.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: It plus a twelve inch cost more than a dollar.

00:34:15
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, all right.

00:34:16
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you know this, but what what makes that twelve inch very unique? They did something really innovative, which was, you know, side one was regular me myself and I. Side two they did something really innovative, which is they did a three sided record, so you would start the record and get the remixes to me myself and I, but then you started again and it's too labeled to be a hippie. What's more And the brainwash flower where they meet the kid Jeff and he's making fun of their shit, you know, like it's Yes, it's basically hidden grooves, hidden grooves on the twelve inch and yeah, I two purchased that in twelfth grade.

00:35:01
Speaker 3: And but it was the person of my own. It was like the first this is my, this is mine. So when I put it out, I know they hate it and everything, but I have to say, it's the best neuro divirgin anthem. It's the best about like like Normanies, like I hate you Normanies, Like I don't have to fit in with none of you guys. I don't want to. I don't want to. I'm different and it's okay and I'm on my own world and I don't. And because at that point I think that I was getting sent to office every day, I.

00:35:38
Speaker 1: Was gonna say, what were you like in school?

00:35:40
Speaker 3: Oh my god, do like militant? So like in public school, I'm getting I'm getting sent to jail every day I'll get I have a political prison at school. What because my mom said, don't you pleasure at least is anohing? But god, I was like okay, So it's like now we're going through a pledge at least, I said, And you know, I'm that one.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia.

00:36:08
Speaker 3: Go to the office, okay every day. So it was just like me and schools. It's like it was really hard. It was very hard because like, where did you go to school? I went to Community Magnet, which was in mid City and it's also the same I think it was saved it the school. There was a few folks that went there. But anyway, it was after the first school I went to ruined me for every school, which was Huru shoe Le, lived by amazing matriarchs of Sister Carry who was an amazing, amazing, amazing pillar of the black Garvyait community in Los Angeles, alongside with Sister Lola Comen and all of this stuff. And and I mean, these are the people who really held up the underground hip hop community, the folks from the Black consciousness movement. That's why I'm not surprised that aside of New Year music, because for instance, ex clan would be another early influence because Brother J literally hand delivered the tapes like Black Watch literally hand delivered the tapes to Marcus Garbage School for African Minds United Children's Program, So like I could talk to Brother J and be like, yo, I learned about yourself. He's like, oh, oh yeah, I delivered that over there, sister, yes, And I'm like, I'm the demographic that you read, like if it wasn't for him, like sending something by hand. And at that time, mind you, I'm thinking everybody's playing everything from scratch, so it's like I'm chripping out like this is the best. Like, so that's another Like that was the first time I saw other mister T adjacent people too. Was like through the hip hop world, everybody had different kind of names like that superhero aesthetic thing.

00:37:59
Speaker 1: So hip to ask in yeah California, Okay, okay, yeah wait you said other notable people went to your school?

00:38:08
Speaker 2: Who else went to your school with you?

00:38:10
Speaker 3: There was Marcus Houston. We went to the school and then like like the group kind of got together at the school, at the Magnet School, and that's like a whole nother story's Bless the Hearts of all.

00:38:23
Speaker 1: So what would you say was your first real creative project like that you did as a I don't know if you created as a kid or made demos as a kid, but what was your first.

00:38:37
Speaker 2: Creative project mixtapes? What will be on these mixtapes?

00:38:41
Speaker 3: A man? Like? I mean, I was a mixtape queen, you know what I'm saying. Like so just like that's why I just I was so fond of y'all because y'all sound like my mixtapes. So it'd be like like my guy name god mother gave me all these fail like Coutie records, you know, So I had failah and then I have had some boy modeling school, and then I would have a freestyle fellowship. Then I would have I definitely have like some like fantastic part one, and then I have just I mean staying up so late, I never got no sleep because like you know, can't tell you KPFK, you know, k CRW staying up so late to hear all of the independent musicians. And I would make that and then I would add it with my eyes a k, add it with my nina to my own record, add it with my bad brains. But everybody would tell me fast forward through that. Yeah, I learned about it. I learned about bad brains through the bargain binch. I learned about bad brains and Sun rather the same day, because I would go to the warehouse like the music store, but I noticed, if you get what they're promoting, you have to pay, like so much money you have to pay. It costs you like twenty dollars anth change. Whereas if I went to the bargain bend, I could get like three, I could get three or four. So I would look and then they'd be looking back at me, so it'd be like muddy water. I'm like Johnny Hooker, I'm like, who's that? You know? I'm a bargain bin child, Like I really am, Like the reason why of all that ecollected kind of things, like before the iPod shuffle is really bargain bin surfing, and I would just be getting like Errol Garner Ero Garner needed some own the same day, Ero Garner needed some own, and Isaac Hayes the same day.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: Okay, so name me five unskippable perfect albums that you cannot live without, and they cannot be box sets and they.

00:40:48
Speaker 3: Cannot be great like a record of day made.

00:40:51
Speaker 1: It cannot be greatest hits or box sets. I might let you have with live because live is different. But namely five perfect.

00:40:59
Speaker 3: Album, see you five perfect album? Okay. One perfect album is salif Kta Sorrow. It's perfect sally K I grew up with Darek salif Kta is in from nineteen eighty eight. Like, that's the record I grew up with.

00:41:16
Speaker 2: You spell that for me.

00:41:18
Speaker 3: Yeah. S l I f k e I t A is produced by Ibraheim Sillah okay. And and then the name of the record called s O r O Yes Sorrow, Yes, I know this is it's an amazing he's we called me and my my homegirl Malaika Eagle Nebula. We call him the West African Frankie Beverley.

00:41:43
Speaker 2: I see sorrow, Yes, okay, I know this.

00:41:46
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, what's your next album?

00:41:49
Speaker 3: The next album is bib mcfair and Medicine man Ah.

00:41:54
Speaker 2: Man Sweet in the Morning. Yep, Amelue put onto that.

00:42:04
Speaker 3: Yes, no, like, I'm not skipping past none of those. I'm in each one like yes, yes you I like I'm angry as he ran all the way.

00:42:22
Speaker 1: And in high school, emmel Rue put me on to that record, and then I went through his entire discography amazing.

00:42:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, like yeah, that one. I mean, you just it's just not it's not it like each one is amazing, and you just follow him through the whole thing, like no discipline is pressent, Like like when he started just going off, like on his guitar solo at the end, I was just like, those are such golded scat solos, Like I'm saying, like, that's the goals.

00:42:57
Speaker 1: The scariest job ever did in my life, you know, because there's a period where the family lived in Philadelphia and Madison hit me up and was like, yo, Dad said, stop ducking him and let's do the two man chill already. And you know, it took me about a year to agree because I was scared, like because I know, I.

00:43:21
Speaker 3: Know what you mean, and I've been there. I've been there, i know what you're talking about.

00:43:24
Speaker 1: And so I called him. I was like, all right, so should we rehearse to do something. He's like no, And I was like, well, well let's go to soundcheck or whatever. He's like, no, need I said, huh. And then we got there and I'm like, well let's map it out. He says, nope, let's not map it out. And I said, what are we going to do? He said, We're going to walk on stage and we're going.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: To create for two hours.

00:43:47
Speaker 3: Right.

00:43:47
Speaker 1: It was the fastest my heart has ever beaten. That's true artistry and vulnerability when you work it out in real time on stage. And he yeah, man, I mean here's the thing, like I'm a deciphle Jade Diller and and.

00:44:08
Speaker 2: And you know, mistakes were a really that was part of their their fiber.

00:44:14
Speaker 3: You know, mistakes, right, that's it, come on, but that's what you think.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: To embrace it live like literally, McFerrin said, hey, if you make a mistake, I want you to repeat it four times. And I was like, okay, that's why I love him that.

00:44:32
Speaker 3: I think you you're summing up all the reasons why I love Bobby mcfair and so much. I mean, he just that raw. You know, he's just wrong. That's raw, like to be like that, like yeah, no, okay, now mean it because it came out of you. So how do you honor the things that you wouldn't? You know, how you honor the things that are happening from you? Like how you do that? I mean I say my style is completely ninety generated from era. Really like, if not percent, we had to be up in the eighties, you know what. My whole stylet even the composing melodies and stuff. I mean like even just like and vibing out on loops and stuff. Because that Jamie Abersol. I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to be the musician I need to be. I need to make I need to throw out some other chords. I need to have some other stuff like cycling around and if I can find a melody in there, then I'll be doing something. So I need to make my mistakes in a different way because it's two five to one thing. I'm like, this is boring because you know, I got raised with the Giant Steps. So it's just like when I heard the Abra Salt record, I wanted to die. It was horrible. So shout out to Jamie Abrassold, that's where the jazz heads out there. But got one, two, three, I'm like, oh god, this is horrible.

00:45:48
Speaker 1: This is wait. This is one question I didn't ask you well, knowing that you played any and everything, what is your preferred weapon of choice as far as one instrument only?

00:46:00
Speaker 2: What is your instrument?

00:46:01
Speaker 3: Wow, I'd have to say, hm hmm, Kazoo, what down I begin, I get begin my Henry Threaguil impersonations. I'd be I'll be on it. I'd be because I like it. Because it's like I could get in there, you know what I mean. I'm holding something and then I have my little microphone up there and I'm like, you know, now, I got my dazzy Gillespie angle. I got my little but I think I want a kazoo to have a bell on it so I could really, like, you know, you know, be tripping, you know, a little bit more the enjoy that got the bill that go like this. I think they have a marching bank. But I mean to be honest, Yes, Kazoo. Tamboo Marine, I like it a lot. Tam Marine is like this Doppler device of like it's dope. It's dope. It's like it's it's like a graphic instrument. It's like a radar instrument. So I like a tambourine a lot. My approach to tambourine is like a mix of motown and and like just Negro, like you know, ancient Negro spirits, you know, so It's like that's how I like to play, you know, like play odd time on it and but with the motown, you know, flip over this play. You know, those are my favorite right now. But piano, of course, because I love to do sound design, love synthesizers very much. I'm definitely a synthesizer person, and I feel as though I'm more of a roads pianist. I'm not a grand pianist. I feel like, you know, with pianos that they should be like needed out, just like how horns are. Like you have a buried saxophonist, a soprano saxophone, alto saxophone. I feel like they're grand pianists their upright pianiss roads because somebody who plays on grand don't necessarily say great on the roads facts, or they don't necessarily sound great on upright either, Like there's some people that compose for upright, like you know, you have your the Loneliest Monk. It's not to say that he doesn't sound at home on a grand piano, but for how he the angularity of the cordal structures, like how it sustains Baby Grants is his grand piano. So it's like I think that those things are very interesting. I've been discussing that more like largely just about like the different types of pianos as being classified as different instruments instead of as piano being one thing that when you lift the hood on it, you have all these different shapes and all these different string lengths and all these different like cabinets. Right when that happens with any other instrument, it's like a different instrument.

00:48:49
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.

00:48:50
Speaker 3: So I'm definitely a roads girl. I'm a roads upright. But I think even before all of that, because of the mentorship I received from one of the original synthesized players of Mothers of Invention. His name is Don Preston. So he intervened in my life when I was like about like fifteen, and he started like giving me see these of like moonscapes of Jupiter and stuff like that. So like the wind Greases has been with me the whole time, Like I really like it's really my thing, you know. It's like and Ducal Chancelly taught me cloud he interrupted, he interrupted Sunday school and said, George you ready, And it was like these big old, obnoxious white cloves and He's like, George, you ready, and I'm like, uh huh, this cloud a get get get get get clap it out. I clapped it. He's like, good now that this reverse get get get get get clap it out. Got it all right, y'all have a good day and left.

00:49:51
Speaker 2: Wait time out, time out.

00:49:52
Speaker 1: All right. So you just said two mind blowing facts. One that you were in proximity of somebody that went at the school of Frank Zappa. Yeah, that's one.

00:50:04
Speaker 3: Thing, like original, the original man, the original, like the criminal.

00:50:09
Speaker 1: Like Preduin yea. And but then on top of that, and Dougu was one of your teachers.

00:50:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I didn't have no choice, you know, because he played with my mom at church, so like.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: He just casually just played drums on Sunday.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then when he would play, he would be making eye contact like this is timing. Okay.

00:50:38
Speaker 1: Now, I would do anything to have known what that felt like.

00:50:43
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:50:43
Speaker 1: So I'm an artifact collector. And the last time I saw in Dugu before he passed away. Every time I see him, I beg him and Dougu, where is the Billy Jean Snare?

00:50:57
Speaker 2: And he claimed that he knew and I, ah, that means the.

00:51:04
Speaker 1: Holy Grail finding the dude Chandler Billy Jean Snare drum. But the fact that he was just her Sunday school church drummer is no.

00:51:14
Speaker 3: I mean, but he no, he interrupted. He completely interrupted Sunday school like he was like, Georgie.

00:51:20
Speaker 2: Ready and we'll just teach you right there.

00:51:24
Speaker 3: Wow, and then and then left like that and then lee like he knew. He knew that, like somehow there was enough in my spirit and now I can see that and in kids too. But like it was, he's like, no, that's a percussion in there. That's percussion in there, you know, And so he gets he get everybody on water bottles and give me the most hardest part to learn of the ensemble, like we like I had to learn. He taught me percussion.

00:51:51
Speaker 1: That means he respected you. If he challenges you, that's that's amazing.

00:51:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, he put me through it though, And that was on the other side of you know, I guess he when my mom told him I was playing drums, so that my nine year old life, you know, it's like, oh, she playing jazz er, Okay, well then get with it.

00:52:10
Speaker 1: Here you go. Wow, when you write lyrics, walk me through what your creative process is oh.

00:52:29
Speaker 3: Man, every song is so different. Sometimes the general aspect, do you want to know.

00:52:35
Speaker 2: The like does it hit you in a dream? Does it hit you at night?

00:52:38
Speaker 1: Does it? Yeah?

00:52:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like one of two things that's going on. Okay, it's one of two things that's going on. So like say, if it's like a nonlinear kind of compositional thing, like say, if it's just something that's moving forward, if it ain't like a loop, so to speak, or something like this, if it's just like something that's happening, I'm literally translating the changes into backend to English that Sometimes that's what I'm doing that as a personal growth exercise, to do the thing that my dad maybe couldn't. Well.

00:53:10
Speaker 2: What comes first for you?

00:53:11
Speaker 1: Music or lyrics, It all depends like it.

00:53:14
Speaker 3: Sometimes the lyrics come first. Sometimes I'll be sitting outside and the sunshine will give me a song like love light you know, yeah, and I write it down because that's how it told me, or the sunshine wrote the wrong way, you know, and the love light within will live on forever because like a lessie, there was a three song, three different songs that the sunshine wrote. I just like just took it down.

00:53:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:53:45
Speaker 3: But then there's other times where it's like because the way I hear overtones are very pronounced. So sometimes I say like I'm living in my own little cathedral because I hear overtones very very pronounced. So like say, if y'all was playing and I go into the next room, I might hear the whole thing transposed a fifth up because it's like, depending on the size of the room, I hear the overtones more loud, you know. So because of that, if I have a disco like I start to hear, you know, it's a melody sweller up here, the whole song come to me, and it's like I'm looking into a spoon kind of like, and the melody's there, like the song's already kind of complete. It's just taking time to like pan for the gold. Sometimes writing lyrics, it's something that happens in real time, and I just hyper zumem into each moment. I hypersume into each pulse of each moment, and time flows down and I'm in the booth already, and that's how the record is.

00:54:54
Speaker 1: We now live in the age of the iPhone, which I guess you can go to voice memo and hum an idea, and you know, I hate doing that process because you hear the entire arrangement outline, keyboard line and all that stuff, and then when I revisited three weeks later, it's nothing. It's like it's like wait a minute, I knew, So how do you channel it from space to your chakra to your mouth to tape? Like how do you do that?

00:55:28
Speaker 3: It's really interesting, right, because that is the question. It's like, you know, I think being a sound designer helps me very much in that gotch because then I can start to trace the environment that it's coming from. You know. Now I'm just dealing with sound waves and stuff. So like people don't know, but like you know, black Men, I'm going off of O lesson because it's like the twentieth year anniversary, right, so it's like like black Men, I did that in garage band.

00:55:56
Speaker 2: You know, like you told me that and I didn't believe.

00:56:01
Speaker 3: Yes, But the dealing is that I'm like the mod wheels and I'm going to make it sound like what it is that's going like this. I'm doing all the things. I'm turning all the knobs, doing all that I can so that it is echoing what I am hearing, you know, So sound design helps a lot for me to take a snapshot of a atmosphere.

00:56:24
Speaker 2: You know black Man's on the second album, right, the Fragments.

00:56:28
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, yeah yeah. So it's like that's like sound design. You know, sound design is amazing as a compositional tool because you know the way a signal enters the room. So that's the beginning of the song. Like it's a fractal image of what a song is going to do as a whole. So it's like it's the little blocks of these things. It's the letters that make the words, that make the sentence. Yeah. So it's like if you see it in that kind of way, you know, I'll do that first. So sometimes I hear the baseline, I hear everything, but I know if I lose the sauce that all of it's suspended in, I'm gonna lose it. So I go for the sauce that it's all suspended in. First, the setting, I think about, like where is it? Is it in a force? Is this a forest? What is this? I keep asking questions of the song that's there, and then I'm like, definitely by Aluminescent forests.

00:57:32
Speaker 1: Are you able to answer your question?

00:57:35
Speaker 3: I know that's wild, but it's dude.

00:57:37
Speaker 1: I'm near a diversity, so I totally. But what is the percentage of you executing that to completion? And has there ever been moments where you lost it? I eat, you know, last night I had a great idea and I think I gave up midweight, Like what is in my head? I couldn't accurately.

00:58:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you. I'll tell you when it happens. And you know what's funny, It's the wildest thing because I usually my best kept secret is that I know how to read music. I don't want nobody to know. I want people to treat me like I can't read. Treat me like the niggas think Dianoni because it's racist, because like, well, no, it's not that. Well. This is my thing is if say, y'all read invented written music? Right the Ethiopian monk, He invented the systems of writing for music. It comes from Africa, right this brother? Like you know the mesmer is like it sets the tone for medieval music as we know it. You know what I'm saying. The way that one note we'll go to another had something to do with the group that was going to perform it. It had. It was a more dynamic notation, so that it was a better like let's stick a pin in this, and then we get here when we're ready, and then we get here when we're ready, and this is where the tone is going to shift into this and all this kind of stuff. But at the rate of agreement. I think now people think that they can write themselves to a beautiful place, and I don't think this too. So you got to learn it the way I did it. You know. I remember when I go, like for piano lessons and stuff, and I look at the music, but then I look at her hands. I go like, that's not on there. What you're doing with your hands is not on there. I learned it. I said, that's not on there. And so it wasn't until I learned about MIDI with the one twenty seven of the velocity and things like that, I was like, now that's on there. Like when I look at a piano roll, I like, it's on there, you know, Like how did you play each note? Like I understand where the note's supposed to be. I understand where it's supposed to be.

00:59:46
Speaker 1: Rhythmically, but how I was going to say, I almost feel like your father kind of well, I'm not saying he invented middy, but I mean to incorporate these things. That's basically yeah, it's basically many and so so it's like those kinds of things, those messages.

01:00:04
Speaker 3: When I learned those messages, I felt free to like, Okay, this is I need to explore it is more. And so I use the NPC as a mini production center for real. So like I feel like, you know, I love that because now I can record, like how it's coming to me, I can record all those messages. When I forget a song, it's because I've tried to write a chart.

01:00:27
Speaker 1: Ah, So the second you start, you're ama, dais process of writing it, That's.

01:00:34
Speaker 2: When you lose it.

01:00:35
Speaker 3: It just don't. It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way. It's like slash chord. At the slash chord, I'm here, I'm here today there, and I'm doing it and it's like, yeah, but there's another piece of information that is not there that I feel like I freeze it, like I feel like somehow it gets cryogenic, it gets so cold and ice. Yes, I just That's the way I lose songs is when I write them, Like when I write them down, it's better that I complete them and then I can write them.

01:01:08
Speaker 2: I feel like they come back to you eventually, I mean.

01:01:11
Speaker 3: I hope. So I got so many songs I finished. I don't have to be stingy. Some of them can go back to the wind, you know, like I don't have to.

01:01:18
Speaker 2: I'll take them them.

01:01:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.

01:01:23
Speaker 2: So here's a question.

01:01:25
Speaker 3: What is.

01:01:27
Speaker 2: Or who is your longest friendship?

01:01:33
Speaker 3: Who my longest friendship? Yes, it had to mean Ego Nebula, Yeah, Ego Nebula? Who is who is the incredible MC with Rog's African Space program? Yes, but I know her as more like a jewels. We've been tight since I was fifteen, you know, and we're still like the same level of friendship that we are today. But there's a lot of people I'm meeting, like like day one isseris there coming back in which I'm happy to see them too. But as far as like consistent friendship all the way through it, it's Malaika. Yeah.

01:02:11
Speaker 1: Nice.

01:02:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. We have a record called Cosmic Headphones that's really wild, Like if you like km D like that record, it's like, Wow.

01:02:19
Speaker 1: I believe that I probably have listened to every one of your projects at least five to ten times each. So dude, I look, we met once when you first, like before you got a record deal, and I tried not to scare you with my fandom. So you know, yes, I know that could be overwhelming to be like, okay, stranger, get out of the way.

01:02:47
Speaker 2: But I mean, like, I know, you know what.

01:02:49
Speaker 3: A lot of the time, it'd be like it's funny because I don't find out till later on, you know. But it's a positive thing for me because somehow it's like I don't know, it's I love y'all, you know. And when I hear the stuff that you guys do, I like when I hear you know, catch's ill fifth dynamite. When I hear that, I'm like, they know, Like for me, it hits me in a whole other place because of that's my first language. I hear that, you know or like or that scat and all of that kind of stuff. I mean, like, there's so many different there's so many different records that I just like, wow, you know that they have painted the backdrop, you know, honestly, you know, what I mean. And I think the other thing I loved so much was I love the Due operas. I'm a fellow Due opera too, you know, no matter how avant garde things get on my end, I'm still still very much a Due opera you know.

01:03:47
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have something to ask about your vocal style. Okay, and this is.

01:03:55
Speaker 1: I remember.

01:03:55
Speaker 2: Okay.

01:03:56
Speaker 1: So when I first got the demo, uh, you know, I played it all of the usual suspects, and when I played it for d he got real quiet, and he was like, she wants some ship.

01:04:12
Speaker 2: So this is what I have to ask you because I know, Wow, that's real deep. That's really deep.

01:04:17
Speaker 1: That's deep. He has the gift of analyzing who you are as an artist based on your your vocal textures. These kind of parallel thing with Marvin Gaye is the fact that both these artists and this is something I noticed with your your music is and when you explained public enemy being in your life at the age of.

01:04:41
Speaker 2: Five, I was like, that's where the dinsness.

01:04:43
Speaker 1: Even though you're using all of these like h light colors to paint, and the thing is you have you have different genres like uh, I won't say Dandira, but I'll probably say like vocally, like what you do on the Seeds album whatever. But it's so much texture that I actually feel as though there's comfort in hiding behind it because there's so much going on that I'm trying to concentrate on your face and but you're you're you're throwing all these things at me.

01:05:14
Speaker 3: Do you everywhere in one time? Well?

01:05:17
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it's either being omni pressent or it's also hiding in plain sight.

01:05:21
Speaker 2: So this is what I'll ask you.

01:05:23
Speaker 1: All right, So I don't know if you're familiar with this method, but the Danish have invented this filmmaking style called Dogma ninety five, which is basically it's a bunch of limitations. It's like a challenge to each other, like you could only use natural light, you can't score it, like there's there's there's like fifty rules, and they all challenged each other to try to make movies with very limited resources, like you can't use a cry so for you, like, have you ever tried considering like the opposite of what you do, like a straight up I mean, I forget what the disco record that you did?

01:06:04
Speaker 3: Okay, the opposite of what I do. You're gonna have to really walk me through that, like, well, no, no.

01:06:09
Speaker 2: No, because you do everything. You do everything.

01:06:12
Speaker 3: I'm saying like, I feel like this Harriet Tubman record is like definitely a different a different zone, but but I feel like it is I feel you know what, you know what opposite of what I do. I feel like that got nominated for sure, like with the exercise and Restraint and like Overload, I feel like Overload was definitely like and you know, so wild. It was like I did Overload was actually a joke. It was like how fast can I ride it? Like a cut like this, like just live in a cliche?

01:06:43
Speaker 2: All right, here's the thing about Overload.

01:06:45
Speaker 1: Were you shocked that of all your work, that that's the one that like got nominated for Grammy And like what was your.

01:06:54
Speaker 2: Reaction to that?

01:06:56
Speaker 3: I was like that stuff had me laughing because I was like, don't like there was some songs like like Canadian Hill really. I called it Canadian Hill really because I'm like, how do I make a Drake song? Like the song as long as it takes to play twice, That's how long it took to make it like that? On that is I think the thing I'm most impressed with with that song is how I have a synthesizer with the symbols, like like if that's all built in, Like that's my pride of that. But for me, those kind of lyrics, for me, I feel like a definite I'm also doing my personal growth with that, right, Like what if a very successful musical life has something to do with you not thinking much at all?

01:07:45
Speaker 2: The Bobby farn method.

01:07:47
Speaker 3: Right, But but but then there's this other side. Right if before I could afford therapy, this was my personal growth gym, and this is my shit, and I'm a ship junkie, and I want to see how fast I can step in easily step into another world. This is my this is my time machine, my spaceship, you know, my musicianship is like places. It's something I used to travel, like a literal vehicle through time space. Yeah. So it's like when it's all of those things you start bringing into account and not to get heavy in like two seconds, right, but like you, but you get in you bring into account your friends who have overdosed because they couldn't be themselves in their music, so they had to go and textra curricular things so that they could experience the thrill of walking on that knife edge on stage, so they could experience certain things. So I feel like some of the sacrifices I have made have contributed to my life quality. I didn't have to go do coke to do things. I could just say, Okay, today's set list is trust God. And then also I can get the data. I can see where people can be blocked up and like you know somebody who say, oh, this person is killing But it's like, trust God, and then by the end of the game you had you would have worked through something. I don't know. It's like those kind of things. I don't have to do no cocaine, because I'm already like feeling.

01:09:19
Speaker 2: Like you're channeling.

01:09:21
Speaker 3: If the gig camp, if the gig cake one hundred percent completely fail at any second, I'm not having fun. Like it's the reason you want.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: To you want to be a daredevil?

01:09:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you scaring me? I'm in a place now, and I think this is where I am in my fifties where let me let me explain something to you. One time I asked George Clinton about first meeting Prince and he joked. He says, man, I never met a cat like so intense on rehearsing his spontaneity. He's like, Prince is the only cat I know that rehearses his spontaneity. And I had to think about that, and for me, I do find there is a comfort that I find when it's so tightly like the wheel is so tightly operational, that I don't have to think about it and I actually have I have fun and relax because I know the machine is going to work. But then will come a moment where I remember once and I know the only reason why I tell this story is because I'm so embarrassed of how I acted one time, Glasper. After years and years and years of my schedule not working out, I finally agreed. I said, Okay, I'm gonna do your October thing. I'm a jam with you. And you know again I got on my McFerrin thing. I was like, all right, so when we rehearse, what are the setlist?

01:11:09
Speaker 2: What can I study?

01:11:11
Speaker 3: And you know, he's like, NA, like, right, well.

01:11:16
Speaker 1: We made a plan and initially we were going to do something that we did like a month before. It's like cool, I know that, and then maybe like four days before I hit him up. I was like, all right, so what's the deal. And he's like, oh no, no, Instead, we're going to do this, that, this that, and this that, and the way that I panicked.

01:11:35
Speaker 3: And everybody got different ways that that they hooked up. Like sometimes to be prepared is like that. That is that. Yeah, like everybody has different ways. If they know what they're walking into, then they're not going to be like just embattled with a panic attack. Like that's just real, man, It's a different But the.

01:11:53
Speaker 1: Reason why I was angry at it because it's like, damn, I'm petrified. I don't want to let him know I'm petrified because then he'll go back and be like, hey, y'all, Chris Love was petrified and he want rehearse and you know, and I was angry because glasper forced me to the place where I should be, which is season of day, ready for a new challenge.

01:12:23
Speaker 2: And what you said is correct.

01:12:25
Speaker 1: If you're just in a place where it's well rehearsed and runs like a machine, that's not where you are you want. You want to be in a place where it's like you don't know what's going to happen.

01:12:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know it's Swallo, though, I think it's wild because if I'm playing a song that i've current like that wrote prior, right, it's never like what cored is this? I'm thinking about the system behind everything, Like every song has a system of its own, you know, and that's how I can remember what my right hand's doing with my with my left hand, you know, and like its systems. So like what I find is I think the a one like the sweeting spot between these two different philosophies, right, is if there's this over it's understanding of who you're playing with, like an understanding of Okay, this is the harmonic ranges that everybody's in. You know what I'm saying. I know you're gonna be in this range. I know you're gonna be in this range, and then you can take your liberties within different ranges. But it's like, you know, to know what the expectations are, but that you're free. If you get struck with Holy Gooes, then you can like like let that out, you know what I'm saying. As opposed to it's so rigid and it's so on a train track that it wouldn't matter if you were just playing a tape and everybody was fake playing. That's got to be crazy. Like, you know, there's technology that solves for some of these things that have caused a certain amount of of problems off of the stage, you know.

01:14:06
Speaker 1: Yes, so if you're not gelling with your collaborators.

01:14:11
Speaker 3: The musicians are playing your work. I'm saying from a composer's point of view, right, because I mostly identify, like when I think about instrumentation, I mostly identify as a composer. I think, like through all of it, through and through, I mostly identify as a composer, you know, as a composer. Right, I've done the song as the producer, I did the record right, Yes, Basically I went through so much trouble, Like when I did the work, nothing is I had to wait for people to be able to play it, like because Uncle Doogle wasn't around the corner like he could, like I didn't have like he wasn't right around the corner. Oh yeah, she's playing the gym based stuff. I know. Oh yeah, she's doing that. She's doing that. Yeah yeah, I know. This is you know, so like the kind of musicianship that I needed, like from such an early age. It took a while for people to rehearse it. But then I could go to like Soul Village, Eric Rovers and Soul Village and like s Obs, you know, and then there'd be Daniel Jones there rest in peace, you know, my beautiful Like we were very much like twinsis like that was my other Like like we'd be very much you know. He had such rock and roll jams songs in like fifteen rock and rock and roll songs in fifteen and just punk funking odd meters and like we be and I'll be like, Okay, I'm gonna write to that. I want to write to that Daniel, you know. But like now I think about it like that they do not hear no more, you know, like because and I'm saying it wrong because it's like, yes, this fool was like I'm a Dais Mozart when it comes down to making arrangements for Janet Jackson, like everything's gonna hit, this is hitting now, this is it? I mean, and he could do that ship in fifteen minutes. Yes, I just this is my thing. Quiz It's like it you can do that in fifteen minutes. I want to know what you sound like when nobody's telling you what to do. What do you sound like when you're just like unbridled unhands Like, what does that sound like?

01:16:11
Speaker 1: You know you've had so many collaborators. What is the choice of knowing? You know your Kendrick Spirits? How do you choose collaborators? How do you know if a person's gonna work as opposed to like we're five of like my go to I know I'm gonna have some shit with these collaborators.

01:16:35
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't you know. I love collaborate. I just love collaboration so much. It's like I love it because I get a chance to just enjoy it. I don't have to carry all the weight. It's not just my job by myself, you know, to do everything. I love. Let me see my top five collaborators because sometimes collaborating be remote though I still have to like turn in something from where I'm at. But I think from being in the studio with Michelle and Degiell Cello's definitely like mmm her as a producer, it's like a dream.

01:17:13
Speaker 1: What is she like?

01:17:14
Speaker 2: She's so quiet when we talk.

01:17:16
Speaker 3: She got I felt like I was talking to myself.

01:17:20
Speaker 1: It was weird.

01:17:20
Speaker 3: It was weird.

01:17:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I she'll loosen up sometimes, but look like I get shy Michelle. I get very quiet, very reserved Michelle, and I want to know what she's like when she's running the ship.

01:17:37
Speaker 3: But it's so cool, you know, it's so cool. You feel taken care of, man like because she's her ears are like impeccable. It's just really refreshing when you have a producer that doesn't use the term vibe as a cliche. They're using the term vibe because they're a satellite that she understand me, like they're getting radio waves, you know, you know they hear radio Wait, you know what I mean. You know, some people say vibe and it's just like nondescripted and it's like falling apart and they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Like Michelle is like there's a hand on the hip, there's a hand out here, and she's listening and the hands out there, and then she'll ask God, like why that child sounds so old? She's like she's talking about Jermaine Paul, like why Jamaine sound like an old man? But it's while she's producing, and it's just like to be there, like hearing her listening, I think, is like that's an honor that that was an honor just as a fellow producer to see her producer. Like she's like, I got I've been a fan of her work so I was ten years old. Like she's like I'm swimming her water, Like are you serious? Like that's crazy. So, like, you know, Michelle is definitely a highlight with I think, well.

01:18:56
Speaker 1: Wait, let me ask you who is who's the collaboration that was the most challenging. And I'm not saying your least favorite. I'm not saying the one that you didn't vibe with.

01:19:10
Speaker 3: No, you're talking about the one that say, can you try that take again? Like I think you can get it better?

01:19:16
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? Or just some does something a little different than how you would normally do it, But you're you know, who's a challenging collaborator?

01:19:26
Speaker 2: Who challenges you?

01:19:27
Speaker 3: I feel like the challenging collaborator would probably be I'd have to say Keith Rice from Little Black Kids, because like he's the one that would be like, I think you can get that take a little bit better, And I said I think I can too, you know, instead of like somebody's going like okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nope, Nope, that's it. That's it just in comparison to other people, because I have a different sound, you know, but somebody who could hear intil it's down and be like, now let's get that one more time. I let's see who else is like the challenge to collaborate. I think because everything he's doing what was very intentional. I'd say Adrian Young because of all of the of all the equipment that's rolling. Then he wants to videotape everything, and then he has like he's cleaning while he cooks, like in a multi media expressive.

01:20:22
Speaker 2: I've worked with him before. Yeah, that's definitely Adrian.

01:20:24
Speaker 3: He's very particular about this chord and he's very going in and I you know, I think it's very whimsical. I think because he's like that, it makes the experience like even more whimsical.

01:20:40
Speaker 1: Got you. I love all your projects. He is probably my favorite.

01:20:43
Speaker 3: What is.

01:20:45
Speaker 2: What was the most fun album to make?

01:20:47
Speaker 3: The most fun album to make has been Jo t Oko Taya. It was the first time where I was just like, you know what, you know, because there was other influen We're gonna say, other voices in the sauce saying like no experimental music. Oh and I'm going like, but I'm raised by experimental people. Yeah. The first the first one, ok Taya, it was fun because it was this unbridling thing where I'm just like, nah, I think I'm going to just turn the feedback up on that. Uh yeah, I think I'm gonna just turn this. I want the feedback to just hang out on this little stereo delay.

01:21:28
Speaker 1: Nah.

01:21:29
Speaker 3: I think I wanted to be everywhere. Yeah, I think I want to just drag this snare through this like through like maybe probably eighteen bars and see what happened. Yeah. Yeah, And Oktaya was the moment where because I first started out on like the vsaad e X, like the digital the digital recorders, you know where you could burn a TD on there. So I'm like this weird hybrid eyz. Like the technology I had was very like when they had this term semipro, you know, but I think.

01:22:04
Speaker 2: Everyone uses when I asked them, like, what's your weapon of choice?

01:22:08
Speaker 1: Like what are you using? And I see what they work with the best people work on the most limiting kind of Yeah.

01:22:19
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think like Okota was like I took myself like, yeah, I'll show you like but for Okotaya, it was just like just to finish. The thought was like it was the time where I just press record, gotcha, and I'm like, yo, I'm just checking. I'm just checking out, and like I turned everything on for every noad just record everything. I'm turning just record. And I had so much fun because I never knew that after I did it, you know, and I brought that into like all the music I would do after. It's like nah, like automation is like, you know, taking a bigger role, you know, and like returning it as like a real important quality instead of just like I need to bang and be you know, like doing record hello, record for MC's you know.

01:23:10
Speaker 1: Which record of yours you kind of see as a redheaded step child. Like I loved making my very first record, but I don't listen to it because we sound like amateurs.

01:23:24
Speaker 3: But like, for you, what album is that for the longest time, it was my first one for the longest song, the longest time, because yeah, because like my first record, I'm not talking about words nothing, I'm talking about my first record, the one that the demo, yeah, yeah, the one that you listened to though, the demo one that was the one that Venus Brown heard that and he wanted to clean it up. He was like, Okay, let's polish this. Oh yeah, it was a little all famous performance. Yeah, but what ended up getting released was the one from the VS A eighty e X, which is just me singing off key like you know. And so because of that, because I'm such a shit junkie, because like a lot of people don't know, like I really have like an instrumental approach to my vocalizations and stuff, like I really do, you know, So it'll just be like ah. But then like I think, now I could appreciate it, you know what I mean, Like, now I could appreciate it after all this time, be like, wow, at least I had the gut to sing my reparations, Like at least that's there. But I think also I think definitely another Step Child record at EP would definitely be Sogala Patti Bling Sgala because it's such a regional record, Like it's like when I go to d C, the black people know that Patti Bling records, so like it's so weird, like it's DC. It's like like Washington DC, Black DC, very very different vibrated with that with that record, you know what I mean, maybe because I call Laren Bush an apathetic hole, like I don't know why. But on the other side, it's like it wasn't like the conversation that you hear a lot now where it's like, oh, turnative black people. Oh you know, it's just like I'm just tuning into my punk funk. I got my punk funk on and I'm just going for whatever it is. I'm like smoking like so much weed, you know, I'm just making a record, you know. So I think that's I think that's really the Redheaded step Child, not in the sense that I don't like it, but in the sense that it's just like it's a strange like, yeah, it's super strange. But I think I think but for the longest time, like the one that you're talking about, like the one where you feel like it's almost a thrown in your side, like what in the world it was? It was that early album cause it's just like but then I had to give myself credit, that's what I'm talking about. That was the record because it was my first thing I ever made, So it was just like, but that's the song. But that's the records that most everybody everybody loved the record, but for me, I just felt like I sound so inexperienced, and I felt so, you know, all these different things, you know, So yeah, I mean, in that interesting. But now I can appreciate it because I'm like, dude, I was a child. My brain wasn't even done developing when I made that record. You know, I wasn't even twenty years old. I wasn't even like I was. I was a teenager making that record.

01:26:32
Speaker 1: So it's like, all right, So one of my least favorite Prince records was Diamonds and Borrels, right, Diamonds and Pearoles.

01:26:40
Speaker 3: Wow, okay was and then like you know, like, well.

01:26:44
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, and Prince fans get angry when I say this. So between seventy eight and eighty eight, Prince recorded in a very like, uh kind of it's a method that's it's mostly like it's it sounds demoi like he recorded in his bedroom. He recorded in a warehouse with no padding at all. So Princess sound. Yeah. And the thing is is that Diamonds and Pearls suddenly was this elegant, pretty sounding record.

01:27:22
Speaker 3: That also you felt like it was less pump, it had less punk punk values.

01:27:27
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing, though, I maintained that for the thirty plus years it was out, and then two weeks ago, you know, the thing is is that the fact that we can carry our entire record collection inside this phone.

01:27:43
Speaker 3: Is that's so great.

01:27:46
Speaker 1: And so the thing is is that he released a five hour box set of Diamonds and Pearls with like outtakes and remixes and a live show, and and I had it was one of them days where it was like, you know, we had a snowstorm or whatever, and I was like, all right, you know what, I'm gonna sit here and listen to this five hour record. And when I listened to the outtakes, right, but here's the thing. When I listened to the outtakes, I realized that he demoed the album first, and then he went in the studio and did the pretty professional adult contemporary record.

01:28:27
Speaker 2: But man, those demos.

01:28:29
Speaker 3: Do you like their demo? Did you like the demo?

01:28:31
Speaker 1: I made a fourteen song compilation of outtakes that would have probably been my top five prints record because it's.

01:28:45
Speaker 3: Man, it made that much of a difference, exactly.

01:28:49
Speaker 1: And we get embarrassed by the blemishes and the not readiness of a record. But I now I now understand why it's important to keep the blemishes in the spots and where you're green.

01:29:04
Speaker 2: And that sort of thing.

01:29:18
Speaker 1: I definitely want to talk Harry Tubman now. I mean to me, it's not lost on me that Harriet Tubman represents freedom and Liberation's something that I know that you are experiencing in various ways in your life, your entire life as a restart, as a redo and whatnot. So talk about just talk about the genesis and the seeds of how this album came to be and.

01:29:50
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's my dream gig. Actually this is like actually if it's like you know, you know, when like most Death had director when he had the band with like it was it was like Bernie Waring Doug went with like all of the sugar Hill realness, what like Jack Johnson. It was all of that all Sugarhill wish with Bernie Warril. And that's how I feel like as far as working with Harriet Tubman, because like God led me to this band. I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I just went out. I went out because I just had to. Yeah, and it's like make a left hand ter, make a right hand tern. I ended up at this place that it was like they had a lot of this is place called Galavagos. It's not there, not no more. But basically I happened upon the spot like I let myself be led to this sign on the sidewalk that says Harriet Tubman playing now. And I was like what I was like twenty years old. I go in there. I had just finished like worth nothings and all this, like like I'm myfulilosophies all the way together at this point. It's like it's all the way together. And I hear these cats that like live there, like they live there. I'm like they understand what it is I'm doing. I'm like, oh, I understand them. I'm one of them. And I remember being there and getting againnes stout for dinner and like tripping out like they had a month residency, and I went every day like I went every week that they were playing, because it felt like this alternative if there was a jew joint for somebody like me, this would be the Blues that would be playing on stage.

01:31:40
Speaker 2: Where can I find this.

01:31:43
Speaker 3: Harriet Tubman? You better do the knowledge. The terror end of Beauty is an incredible record. I mean they've been jamming since ninety eight, Like Melvin gives the bass players one of the founding members of the Black Rock Coalition.

01:31:57
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, I.

01:31:59
Speaker 3: Mean JT's liminal thrash Monster. I mean, as a drummer is one of the most genius drummers I've ever heard in my life as far as like being able to play not not much up above a hush and all this shit man like like like tumbling, like it's almost like a ninja that's like can hop on like the roof and you don't hear him land. You know. It's like these cats is musical ninjas, you know. And I've been a fan of them since I was twenty years old, like so like to be forty two. This is the dream gig. And so what happened is that we had both had the same booking agent. I was playing at the Detroit Jazz Festival and Maurice, the booking agent, was like, well, you know, Harriet Tubman's gonna be playing there too, and I represent them as well, and uh, what do you think about playing with her? I said, you don't know about Harriet Tully too st to know about some harrytails, like what youre talking about, but don't talk about my don't talk about my band. You don't know about Harry telling you know what you know about. No, I'll have them call it, you know. And so I was like, He's like, would you want them to? Because He's like, you're already because during the time where I'm like politically digging in, like as far as like music as our language, you know that we can have accents like you know, And I'm going like, I'm playing in the moment because coming out of the pandemic, I wanted a place for musicians to be able to acknowledge that we can't move forward. I wanted so I used my band staying as a place for advocacy for musicianship. So I was like, we're playing in the moment.

01:33:38
Speaker 2: What did you do?

01:33:41
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty was the year where I probably played drums the least. Was the year that I've I've never not been on a stage, like eight months in a row and not had a show, not been on a stage, not seeing an audience eight months.

01:33:56
Speaker 2: What did you do during the pandemic?

01:33:58
Speaker 3: I put out a record that was wild and it did well. I put out a record during the pandemic that that's wild, but I did, yeah, and it was called Momy. You can bet it's like my favorite record I made. It's my favorite one, you know, because it's like where Jot goes completely like vocal, Like there's vocal jams like you know.

01:34:19
Speaker 1: But so creativity didn't wane or change much in the pandemic, like and I mean, like what did you do? I mean, I know you've released records, but like for you, was creativity or just how you channeled different than it?

01:34:37
Speaker 3: I mean, I definitely it allowed me to rest a lot more because I have been working, and you know, when you worked so hard, I've been worked so hard for so long. I was able to really key back into like getting spiritually buffed, like you know, having meditate elongated meditation time and understanding the benefit of you know, spiritual spiritual activities you know, like things that help you to evolve, you know, breathing and meditation and prayer and you know, journaling and understand why what am I doing this for?

01:35:17
Speaker 1: What?

01:35:18
Speaker 3: You know, you get a chance to like take personal inventory and I feel like as I did that, I became very much magnetic, even like magnetizing certain songs at that time where social media really had like a height. I think it was a balloon that was growing, like I think it balloon during the pandemic because it was something still like so much real about it as far as like I could put out a song to help people feel good about themselves, or like putting out songs would be like just something that loops around and like help people to stay in a positive state of mind.

01:35:51
Speaker 2: You know, how do you deal with stress or what's your self cared routine?

01:35:55
Speaker 3: Well, God told me something about stress. And what God told me was that stresses. This is literally the veneration of a strange God. You know, before people start to like judge other people right, like to be like, oh, you know, yo, Jesus, don't look like he the Beg's from Australia, Like before all that happens, you know, or you know Christianity, Jesus, you know all that before all of this starts happening, right, Well, the strangest God is the one that that terrifies your nervous system. The strangest God is the one that actually like raises cortisol in your in your being that you know, like the Cortisol's alarm system to say that, hey, you haven't released this. You're not trusting that life has you in the call of its hand. You you're not trusting that that you are not just your own consciousness.

01:36:49
Speaker 2: Sometimes we all do.

01:36:52
Speaker 3: God wouldn't have told me nothing if I didn't, if I didn't need to get told, He got me told. So it was just like, stress is the veneration of a strange God, the one that doesn't come through, the one that doesn't keep the promises, the one that lies to you about everything. And when it was reframed as worship, that's when I could get really tight, you know. And sometimes I'm stressing non vocally, you know, just because of my neural sauce. Sometimes sometimes my fist will just be balled up kind of and I have to like remember it go, you know, and open up and be okay, you know. And I think a lot of the time too, because I'm a helper be you know, I love to help people so much that sometimes I do it to my own self because I just want to be help. I love solutions that I hear solutions so fast that I can like, oh, oh, let's try this, let's try it. Oh, and then when the level of engagement isn't met, then a stress can can happen. So now before I do those things, I can have an idea and I know that I can write it down somewhere as a prayer, and if it comes back up to me, if somebody asks me for my help, then I can say, oh, I was thinking about this. I have this for you, instead of going like taking on everyone's problems, you know. But for me, what I do with stress is that I go outside and I do this deep bent as if like you know, a moonwalk, like you know the astronaut like when they land, I do a deep slow motion BND like I just landed back on planet Earth. And when I get back up like this, somehow the trees begin to lay hello, and I start over, and then I remember the trees are holding hand beneath my feet, you know, they're holding their hands right under my feet, and I could feel that, you know, and I could listen like when I'm stressing out, it's because I'm jumping to conclusions about every passing moment. I'm jumping to these conclusions that are poisonous, you know, instead of going like, don't jump there yet, just listen, Just listen here, let your heart beat a few more times. You're not gonna die from letting your heart beat few more times. You're gonna die from not doing that. You're not gonna die from taking one more breath before you come up with an answer. You're gonna die from not taking a breath before you come up with another answer. So it's just those kind of things, you know. And then also music. I like, I'll turn on the mog, you know, I have a grandmother mog, and I'll I'll do the win grease man. I'll get start greasing the wind man. I'll start. I turn a knob intil the part of my spine, like relax, you know, And I use my I use my discomfort as a map for what sounds gonna come up next. I'll do that. And I'll do that with one speaker on. It don't even matter. I just funk in Monel right there. And then I'm like, then keep that on, right, I've done that for other folks. There's some other folks that I was supposed to produce their record, right, I'm gonna keep them anonymous to protect them, you know. But like there's people that was in such a world. It wasn't about making no music. It was about hearing what the problem was, turn it on that mode Model D and recording that and they can go home with that, go play that so that you can come on back, you know what I'm saying. You know, sometimes it just takes one tumb before it before somebody had to be working at something. It's just be like, well, take two of ease and call me in the morning for real, you know. So I've done that as a producer, like send somebody home, like just chill with that, and it'll be like, thank you so much, because it'd be like, yo, I feel like I went swimming or something, you know. And then of course I've had a lot of guinea pigs like tests on.

01:41:06
Speaker 1: People where do you feel it?

01:41:08
Speaker 3: Where do you feeling you know, like like and then when everybody's doing the same thing, you know, yeah here, you know. But the way that I answer stress is strategy. You know. Strategy helps me like mitigate stress, you know. So it's like it'll be like a whole sequence of some kind. Maybe it's me landing slow motion back on planet, or maybe it's you know, toning into my lumbard so that it loosens up. You know. Sometimes it's cooking, you know. Sometimes it's a pot of black eyed peas. You know, you know Collin Greens, you know, make some candy ams just because just make them, you know, make some candy. Hm. That's what's wrong with you. You ain't had no home cooking, you know.

01:41:52
Speaker 2: Question what other talent do you possess that we are unaware of?

01:41:59
Speaker 3: What other I don't know. I don't know, because if you it depends. I think it's regional because we're on town. Like I got the best black eyed peas in town. That's it. That's just the truth. That's just the truth, you know. And if and if they taste.

01:42:13
Speaker 2: Good, it's the way, go ahead, finish.

01:42:16
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, it's all right. No, I mean no, they're gonna be the best. I'm trying to tell you, you know what I'm saying. Like I think people judge because my wrists.

01:42:23
Speaker 1: Look like this.

01:42:24
Speaker 3: They'd be like, you don't be cooking. They'd be like, oh no, I don't see, No, you ain't got nothing going on right there, you know what I mean. I really do cook. I really, I actually really cook. I love to cook. I cook for the community. It's part of my spiritual path. It's like it's my spiritual It's like for me cooking as martial arts because I think one day it's gonna be a day where we love ourselves more as a people and we can value more things about how we go about stuff. When soul food can be like a whole. Like the way people teach yoga's way, they'll teach culinary arts. Like you know, everybody sit down and be like now, if you feel like yelling at somebody, you need to chill. Okay, take a breath. You know first of all that we don't want none of that in our food. That's nasty. Don't put that in our food, you know what I mean.

01:43:16
Speaker 1: But it's funny.

01:43:18
Speaker 3: But with the sisters, like we are like that anyway when you talk, when sisters talk to this other and be like good every day. I don't cook cookies when I got to work through it with this attitude, you know what I'm saying, Like that kind of stuff, Like I feel like I don't know the arts and sciences where they kind of like collide is through those kinds of conversations. So I'm always very interested in that. In cooking. I love cooking I love art. I'm an avid water colorist. Our water color every day. I love it like it's I love it. I mean, I have so much art to the point where I'm gonna have to figure out storage in a second. It's I do textile, al right. I love to quach. I love to I love to paint. And one of my favorite pieces in acrylic is called Father water Malone and it's like a like five feet by three feet, you know, like I'll be painting. So I love to paint. And I feel like.

01:44:19
Speaker 1: Who knew?

01:44:21
Speaker 3: I knew because that was like the first conversation we had back in the day, my first my first conversation with but I was like, do you paint?

01:44:29
Speaker 1: And he was like, yeah, everybody that paints. Chuck D's one of them. George Clinton is one of them.

01:44:37
Speaker 2: I collect.

01:44:38
Speaker 3: He's a beat us a beat yo.

01:44:42
Speaker 1: George Chuck D and I were talking last week about uh, I believe otis Redding And as we were talking, I didn't realize he did a full blown sketch. I guess he just does that as a therapeutic thing. And to here bono from you two also the same. I want to collect some of your work this conversation could have been more timely, and I'm also kicking myself that it's taken twenty plus years for us to really talk and have this conversation. But I'm actually glad I got to witness you from demo to where you are now. You're metamorphosis and yeah, man, you're just really You're so channeled.

01:45:30
Speaker 2: I have hope for the future because of your creative Thank you, and I want to.

01:45:36
Speaker 3: Thank you doing my podcast for me, Yo, thank you, Thank you so much for your love of music. Thank you so much for letting me know I could be expressive and be I just love how much you love music. Man. I love that, I love your I love how detail gets for you and it doesn't, you know, for me. I'm just happy that we can just see that we've been each other all along as people, that this is the time where we can draw nearer. And I'm so looking forward to all the rest of the things that you'll do to enjoy yourself even more and more all the time.

01:46:12
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking forward to my play The Black Eyed Piece, so I'm gonna remind you of that.

01:46:16
Speaker 3: But yeah, thank you so much.

01:46:20
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. Once again, Georgia and Mandureau.

01:46:23
Speaker 1: There are twenty three plus albums that you can immerse yourself in and really and I never do this. I never have to sell an artists on the show, but we owe it to ourselves to I don't know, go go high vibrational and you know, and this is what and you know again, I've never been to the person and been like hey, like and subscribe like, but I want you guys to really support, like if you're here at this point of this interview, I want you to because we don't get to hear your words and this is what you know. And I'm a doom score like the rest of them, and I shouldn't be as much. And sometimes I need to hear artists that are divinely inspired to remind me why artists are so important.

01:47:12
Speaker 2: And I thank you for that.

01:47:13
Speaker 1: And so till the next episode of People, this is the Quest Love Show and once again the Great Georgia A. M. Moldrew by all of our records, purchase, go and sound, get all of our shit.

01:47:23
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.

01:47:32
Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is hosted by me Amir quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G. Brian Calhoun and Me.

01:47:42
Speaker 4: Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Connelloy. iHeart video support by Mark Canson, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Lowe. Additional support by Lance Colpan. Special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, make sure you follow us on socials.

01:48:18
Speaker 1: That's at QLs. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Quest Love Supreme Shows and our podcast archives. The Quest Love Shows the production of iHeartRadio