Ep 227 -- Robbi Hall Kumalo: Finding Your Voice When Life Changes

0:01 Hello and welcome to Stories from Real Life. I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for spending some time with us today. My guest today worked alongside some of the most recognizable voices in music, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Rod Stewart. But today we want you to hear the stories behind her own voice. M.S. Roby Hall Kamalo is a singer, composer, storyteller, and author whose work has taken her from professional stages to making music with children. Her memoir, Married to a Rockstar, opens another window into her life. And since a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2014, she has continued exploring ways to create and share her own experiences.

0:42 Roby, welcome to Stories from Real Life. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm pleased to have you here. When you coach someone who is afraid to use their voice, what do you notice first? Sometimes that they're just shy and trying to have low self-esteem and not believe in themselves. It's usually something that somebody says is, you know, like, oh, yeah, you know, I don't really think, I don't know. Because they actually do and they love it, but they're afraid of the criticism. And I think that's what makes it easier for me to be a voice teacher because I'm not going to critique you.

1:23 So is that what you see the most often when you work with children? They have the talent, but they just don't have the confidence? I was talking about adult children. But yeah, little children have a lot of confidence. And I think they have a great deal of talent. I'm not the judge of their talent. So that's why they have a great deal. When I start to judge talent, well, I would want to be on a TV show. So I could pay for judging that. Good point. Good point. All right, so take me backstage to the moment when the scale of your career first felt real. Who was there and what happened? You know, I think my first moment that I felt that my career was becoming real was when I had married my husband, who was Paul Simon's bass player and helped Paul Simon write the Graceland album.

2:13 When he lived in South Africa, Paul Simon went over there to get the music that he was hearing and wanted to play. And so then when... I was working for Paul Simon, so I met all the band. But that bass player was just somebody that was almost my height. So I was easy to see eye to eye with him. And I thought like, this is a good looking guy because he's like my size. And he spoke his language, Zulu. He didn't really speak English. And I talk a lot. I'm a storyteller, as you can tell. So I'm meeting this guy from Africa. He's with the band. And I'm like, oh, I work for Post, I can help you, I can do this, I do this.

2:55 And all he would do is look at me like... And I thought, wow, he's so different than American men. American men are always like, oh, do this, do that. But this man listens to me. I had no idea until we were actually married that he said to me, Roby, I don't speak English. I don't understand everything that you say. And I was like, I thought you did. It sounds like you do. And he was pretty sure that he was still learning English. So that was the first time that I had kind of, I guess by language, kind of stopped and looked at my life to say like, where am I?

3:42 And I was hanging out with an extremely talented human being. So we wound up being invited somewhere because we're in New York now. That's where Paul Simon lives. That's where his office was. So we wound up in New York and he's like, we're going to go to meet my friends. And I'm like, oh, great. It was a jam session. It wasn't his friends. There's a bunch of people that he knew or that knew him that liked him, but it wasn't his friends. It was a jam session. And when he walks in, everybody's like, oh, Baguetti, you're here. And he's like looking at me like, come on, we're here. And I'm like, okay, all right, we're here.

4:22 And the person says, would you like to play the bass? Or would you like to sing? And he looked at me. And I was like, sing? Yes, of course. And Bagheese looked at me like, oh, okay, let's see this. I took the microphone and I started to sing. Melvin, I was like, cheering for me. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I looked at him and he was cheering and I was like, this is good. And I kept going and I didn't have any more to do after the yee. So I'm kind of stuck there and I have the microphone and I'm looking at him and he's looking at me.

5:03 I guess he looked at me to say like, good, you stopped. And, but I didn't know that that was the signal that his eyes were saying to me. So I kept going. And I had nothing more to do when I kept going because I did my best note. And then I was like, and the MC took the microphone from me and said, okay, thank you. So had I not been in that experience, I wouldn't have been opened up to this concept of jam sessions. Up until then, I had been a children's artist. Children are in places where children are. They're in schools. They're in theaters or wherever they're meant to be.

5:46 But I went to somewhere at night. I had not meant to be there. And I'm there with this guy that I'm in love with and I'm going to marry him. And he's a great musician and so my mind. And then I'm like, not. Oof. But we definitely started working together from that point. He started showing me how to write music on his QY10, very small little machine, and we started writing songs together. As we started to work together and write songs together, then we were married and living together. I did meet a lot of his friends because he knew everybody that was South African in New York 30 years ago because there weren't a lot of people leaving South Africa.

6:33 So apartheid had to end for a lot of people to be able to leave. They didn't have passports. They didn't have the ability in the government documents to travel anywhere. But because he worked with Paul Simon, Paul Simon went to South Africa and he had to figure out how to get a passport real quick. So he had a little bit of local help to do that. And then he was able to leave South Africa. And all I wanted to do was go to South Africa after I met him. So you said you didn't know he spoke English until you got married. How long did you know him? I knew everybody a long time in the group, but I just assumed that they all were speaking English.

7:14 You called him your ex-husband, but you still speak very fondly of him. Yeah, well, you know, things change your life for the better or the worse, but at some point you're going to accept that your life is going for the better. You also worked alongside artists such as Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross. What's one encounter that changed how you approach your own work? Well, one thing that was amazing with Aretha Franklin is that she was an amazing piano player. I didn't know her as a piano player. I just knew her as the lady I was seeing on television. But working with her, I had rehearsals and dress rehearsals and sound checks and all sorts of places where musicians are.

7:58 Ms. Franklin did not sing in rooms that were too cold. So just when she would arrive, if there was too much air conditioning, she would leave. And she would let them know, I can't perform in your venue. It's too cold. And I learned that from her. I learned a lot of things from her. Shaka Khan is another person that I learned a lot from that had nothing to do with being on stage or how to get to stage, but how to think when you're there on the stage.

8:44 And I think it influenced the way that I teach voice because it's not like you're teaching people how to sing the notes. They're either born with the notes they can sing or you're going to help them hone those notes that they have. Or they're not going to be able to reach that kind of goal that they set. Maybe they could do other things. And that's what I learned from both of those women. Even Diana Ross. All of them taught me about, you know, I had to be on my own to get here. Just by their example. How they were able to be on their own. Yet we were in a big group of people. They're now famous. They have people helping them. Yet they knew how to help themselves. All right. So what did making a life in music require of you away from the stage that an audience would never see?

9:32 Practice. You know, you have to actually know how to play your instrument. Once you start to play your instrument, you realize that you love it. And then the more you love your instrument, the more you fall in love with your instrument. Sometimes you hate your instrument when you're falling in love. Sometimes you fall out of love. But it's a great relationship, Melvin, that you can build with your instrument as a musician. And that's a job that I wish that we all realized that we have, no matter what job we have. It's our instrument that we were given a gift to be able to do and do it well so that it helps people.

10:13 Because why would you be a gift that doesn't help? Makes sense. So your memoir, as I mentioned in the beginning, is called Married to a Rockstar. Why did you name it that? Well, that's a good question because I named the book Married to a Rockstar. Because at the time I was married to a rockstar and we had this idea that we were going to write this book together. You remember I told you about that QY10? We were sitting making music on this little teeny thing. And all that kind of stuff. It was great. But then I was like, let's do something else. Like, you're a famous guy. You help Paul Simon and all of us understand what apartheid is.

10:57 You should write a book. And he said, oh, yeah, I should. And I was like, let's do it. He says, yeah, let's do it. And he never did because he'd rather pick up his bass and play his instrument because that's where his relationship was in life was with his instrument. Me, I had a relationship with words.

11:41 And I had this idea to write a book, but it wasn't his idea. And I didn't realize then that we were kind of separating from each other because we weren't going to have as many things in common as we thought. So tell me about your experience with Schoolhouse Rock, the people behind Schoolhouse Rock. It was very brief. Besides growing up on Schoolhouse Rock, Um, I used to do chores when I was a little girl and chores would be on Saturday morning because during the week you had school. So the first thing in the morning on Saturday, get up and clean your room.

12:24 And my mother would give us allowance for the little tasks that we did around the house. So I realized that like I could do more tasks and maybe get a little bit more allowance. And my, I think my allowance at the time was $2 per week. So I was like, if I do a lot of things in the week on that day, maybe I could get $3 or $4. So my mother was like, probably not, but do the chores to begin with. I'll let you watch TV. And the TV that I watch was the Saturday morning cartoons with cartoons that were boring and schoolhouse rock.

13:04 That was not boring. And I just fell in love with that type of songwriting and style of music and who it was for. It was for me. How did I feel when I heard that music? How did it help me learn? The conjunction function. Conjunction, junction, what's your function? I wouldn't have thought so much about conjunctions. Had I not learned that song. So to learn other languages, I already knew the mechanics of language from schoolhouse rock. So over the years of my development and growing in education, I still remembered those songs.

13:45 And then I wound up by 1980 singing those same songs for children, or if I couldn't remember them, making up a new song that I felt was similar or kind of like it. Come to find out that that was Bob Duro. As I became a children's artist, other children's artists and people that had been in the children's music discovered me and was like, oh, shit, this is interesting. One of the people that discovered me was WXPN in Philadelphia. They had a children's music station. And the person that did that children's music station was in charge of all the children's artists' music that went on the station.

14:29 And they did this event called, what's it called? Kindycom. K-I-N-D-I-E-C-O-M. Kindycom, where they brought all of the children's artists together. And I was invited to be a speaker one of the years at Kindycom. But they had also invited Bob DeRoe to be a speaker that year. So we were on the same speaking bill. And I was like, Mr. DeRoe. And he was like, yeah, that's cool, man. That's right on, right on for you. And I looked at him and he had this like long ponytail going down his back with his hair. And I was like, oh, you, you're cool, Mr. DeRoe.

15:13 He's like, call me Bob. I was like, okay, Bob, we should write some songs together. He was like, yeah, I'd like that. What's your number? Huh? That was kind of a dream in the process of coming true. Unfortunately, shortly, not too shortly, but kind of shortly after we met, he passed away. When I met him, he was 94. Wow. But he was sitting at the piano, you know, and I was like, I just thought, I didn't see his age as a number. I just saw him as like an older person that wrote Schoolhouse Rock and how I could see my future as that person.

15:54 And since he was going to be my friend and we're going to write songs together, I just knew my future was secure. And then he died. So then here I am still a children's artist. Now people know me more because I also have been finding myself in different circles that I'm traveling in because of my husband also being on my record as my bass player. So people all of a sudden noticed the quality of my music was different. And then I was bringing this whole world kind of feeling into children's music. And in the 80s, that was kind of new for children's music.

16:35 There were people like Ella Jenkins that was doing folk music and Melanie Damore. There were a couple of artists, Malvina Reynolds, that were trying to bring culture And music to children, because that was also missing in children's music. A lot of the music that was written for children was not written by people that were wanting all children to grow well. It was mostly written by adults that had opinions about stuff and experiences about stuff as adults that thought that children would like to sing a song about a disease or something.

17:19 So tell me about a child who changed the way you perform or talk. A child that I worked with and I experienced? Yes. Well, you know, Melvin, I've seen over a million children. It would not be fair for me to say that it was only one of them that touched my life, especially because when one of them that's in her early 30s now found me a month or two ago, And was excited like she had just met me. And she says, you don't remember meeting me? And I was like, so I'm kind of like, just remind me again where?

18:00 And she was like, I live down the street from you. And you used to sing with me. And nobody wanted to sing with me but you. And I didn't think that I sang well. And you told me that I did, that I believed you. Can I sing for you today? Because I'm still singing. And I was like, ew. Wow. So that was how I found out what impact I had on somebody's life. Had they not come back to me, I wouldn't have known. But being that child that received music, I know how it had an impact on my life. So I can only imagine all the good little people that have grown up that are Generation Xers or whatever generation they are.

18:49 At this point, hopefully they're doing a good job in the world. Is there a story or music traditions that you felt responsible for carrying forward, especially if it came from your own family? Yeah, you know, I thought that like gospel was going to be my, like church music was going to be my thing. But I went to an AME Zion church that wasn't a heavy, heavy gospel type of church. It was more of an anthem and hymn. And it's kind of harder for me to learn it now.

19:46 All right. So you've written publicly about your 2014 MS diagnosis and you use it as part of your name. So clearly that's part of your identity. Why have you chosen to identify so closely with that disease? Thank you for that question. I'm identifying with it because it's constant. It's kind of like love. It doesn't go away. You never know if it's there or not. And whoops, there it is waiting just for you and only for you. So I thought like, wow, let me have a relationship with my body now that it has been diagnosed with something that really nobody even knows about. Not even the doctors know about it.

20:27 But if I have it, I could know about it. How will I do that? Maybe it likes music. So I realized that, yeah, you know, like your body does like music because whenever you make music, You realize that you feel better and you're a happier person. And when I encountered this instrument, which I just picked up, this is called a monochord. It's not a piano. It's not a guitar. It looks like something, but it's got all these strings, 21 of them.

21:09 And when I saw this instrument, I was like, that is a weird thing that you got on your lap. But the person explained to me, this is a healing instrument. And I was like, healing? What does it heal? She says, I don't know. You want to try it? Play it? See how you feel? So I said, sure, I'll play it. How do you play it? She's like, oh, it's easy. You just go like this with your hands and you'll strum the strings and you'll create a drone. All these strings are tuned to 432 hertz, which is a frequency that Our bodies can absorb and kind of benefit from as it absorbs sound vibrations that move.

21:52 And I thought, well, I probably can reach multiple sclerosis with this thing on my lap. I wonder if I play it loud, if that makes a difference. And then I realized that my fingers are just like vibrating the whole time that it's touching this instrument and that these vibrations get to go up my hand into my wrist, up my arm. All the way up to my shoulders, up to my head, my neck, where my lesions for MS exist. And then it goes down my spine where all the lesions of MS could exist. And I figure I'm going to sit with you guys so that you can chill out and maybe you'll just sleep and go away.

22:32 So that's how I have been able to still find a value in music and also have a A new way to share music that's not with children necessarily because children are a little healthy and fine and energetic and fun a lot of the times. But it's as we get older, we learn these things about our body changing. And many people as we get older, especially as baby boomers, we're at a point where we could have different types of illnesses and the healthcare profession. They like to diagnose things. So there's always some explanation for why your toe has a boo-boo or your heel hurts or what's wrong with my pinky.

23:13 You know, you could always go to a doctor and they'll say, oh, well, we'll have to run a test on that. You have insurance? You do. Great. We'll run a lot of tests. And then we get into that system as adults. But my system of that healing instrument on my lap keeps me in my youth. My childhood, my youthful self of me. And then I feel like I do something that benefits. And I think that your listeners probably noticed that frequency and how nice it felt to hear it. So I'm glad that I'm on your podcast today to do that. I appreciate you sharing that with us.

23:53 Tell me about a day when your body wouldn't cooperate, but AI helped you create something. Well, you know what? AI, I've learned to... Towards the end of the pandemic, I realized that I was by myself. I was podcasting. I was liking it, but I was by myself. I had nobody to talk to except me. And I got bored talking to myself, and I was like, who else would I talk to? Meanwhile, I'm learning this whole thing with AI. There's this woman who's a great consultant with AI, Alicia Little. She would offer these free classes on Instagram on how to bring AI into your life.

24:34 You don't have to buy anything. I'll just tell you this app. If you want the app, you can buy it. If you don't, at least learn how to use it. So I was like, all right, what does she have going on here, Alicia Little? Maybe she's short like me. I like her. She gave away AI apps that were available for people to use. And she says, you know, if you're a podcaster, you could do a podcast with an AI. And I was like, how could you do something like that? And I tried to figure it out and play around with it. And what I discovered was that you can't get AI to do anything until you learn how to program and code and talk to AI.

25:16 So that's what I've learned from AI, is how to talk to it so that it could check my emails. You got an email from me the other day, yes? Yesterday? Yes, I did. AI sent that for me. Okay. I was like, AI, I have to send Melvin an email about this, and this is what I'm speaking. Because with MS, my digits are sometimes hard to move. So that's why piano playing has become harder to do. But the monochord is a different kind of movement. So that's why I can do that, but not that. But then I'm like looking at the phone and it's like, I don't want to do this and squeeze my eyes.

25:57 I'm going to just push a button and talk. So when I talk to the AI, I said, I have to send Melvin an email. I need you to draft this email and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you do that for me? And then next day, I said, check your draft folder. Checked my draft folder. And there was the email for you. And I realized that it did everything that I had asked. And it was helpful. Helped me prepare for this interview today. Well, that's how AI. Does AI help you, Melvin? It does. It does. I use AI as part of my research. So I consider it a research assistant. I say, okay, I've got this person coming on my podcast.

26:38 I want to ask her five questions about A, B, or C. And then I want to dig deeper. And I want to ask three questions about something that she's never been asked before on another podcast. And that way I don't have to go and listen to 100 podcasts. It helps me and I can prepare for a better interview, I think. Yeah. Yeah, and it just helps us baby boomers in our stage of intelligence and generational wealth not have to just depend only on ourself. We actually have an assistant that can listen to what we're saying. We don't have to hire somebody that doesn't listen.

27:20 All right, so as we start to wind down the conversation, I've got a couple of rapid-fire questions for you. Okay. So you ready? You need a beat for that? No, we're just going to go acapella here. Freestyle and acapella. Wow. All right, so the song that can change your mood in seconds. Just keep the beat. Keep the beat. Keep the beat. My own song, keep the beat. Your own song, okay. A performer you wish you could have shared a stage with. Joan Armatrading. Or Gil Scott-Harrard. Okay.

28:00 Your most unexpected backstage snack? My most unexpected backstage snack was fresh cooked lamb chops that were served to us on a platter. They were like still red. They were perfectly cooked at a backstage gig at Rockefeller Center with Aretha Franklin. That sounds nice. Yeah, it was unexpected. A sound that makes you feel at home. The sound of the first instrument for mankind is the voice.

28:41 It always makes me feel at home. Very nice. One word from the chapter that you're living right now. Exclamation. Okay. All right, so final question here. Where should listeners go to hear your work, find your book, and follow what you're creating next? People could come to my website because I'm trying to make it easier for me to show all the things that I'm doing, to put them in one place. Thanks to my AI, I have been reminded that's all I need is one place. And that one place is my website. Website is my name. My name is like this.

29:22 Please don't complain. It is R-O-B-B-I-K-U-M-A-L-O. Does everybody have that? We got it. I don't know. Let's make sure you do. B-I-K-U-M-A-L-O. It's your turn. Well, sorry, we're running out of time. We're going to have to end it right there. We'll end at the beginning. So my thanks to M.S. Roby Hall Kamalo for sharing her stories with us. R-O-B-B-I-K-U-M-A-L-O.com. And the link is right there in the show notes to make it easy for you. Just click on the link.

30:03 So thank you again for being here. I enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. I did too, Melvin. If this conversation brought someone to mind, share it with them and follow stories in real life so that you can join us for the next conversation. Until next time, don't forget to shine your light wherever you go.