Welcome, Welcome to J dot L, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, Hello, good people, this is uh, this.
Is Joe Scott and you're listening to J dot L the Podcast. You already know who I'm here with.
The amazing, incredible Laiah Saint claud No you no you, no you, no you, and the wonderful, brilliant age of Graydon Danzler.
All y'all, yes, that's all.
All of us and everybody listening to, everybody listening to. I just want to thank you so much for this incredible season of J dot L the Podcast.
We talked about so many things.
Oh my goodness, the lists of life experiences and information that we've been able to share with you.
Some tears.
Always, some hollering, keen, some beauty, some you know, some living we've been doing, some living for real, Okay. So many things have changed from when we started talking to each other on this podcast to.
Right now in this minute. So many things. Yeah, we have lost some folks.
We have.
Watched some young people do amazing things around us and in our families. We have checked ourselves, huh, like we really checked ourselves in a lot of areas. We've been really forthcoming and honest with ourselves in some ways that were scary, in some ways that just ended up being empowering, Like this is so turned fifty. We did Wow, we did well. I did you know, like major major living, major.
Life and oh my goodness.
Yes, we got some fibroids out of there, twenty pounds of fibroid.
I'm joking, but it was close.
Major changes perrymnopause.
Oh girl, yes, yes, shout out to extra Van thank you.
Boo oh it's like that.
Oh girl, Yeah, I've been I've been dry thanks to huh oh blessings.
Not everywhere.
No, the face still, it goes through it when it goes through it, but it's just less as long as you can do less less less.
Sweat, Yeah, that's sweat.
Awesome. We're here.
We're here just to get to the other side. You feel me, yes, because sometimes we're like we're on a we're literally on.
A cliff sometimes and don't know what to do. What you do? You jump forward?
You know?
Do you back up and then start running and soar?
You know, nobody has like real wings, but.
Our spirits do a lot. Our spirits can take us so many places.
And when we add intention and uh, effort, like, man, we're powerful beings through COVID.
Right, that was a lot.
That was a lot.
That was a lot.
At first it was really really cute. You know, I'm like, about three weeks I get to be home. I'm a litting about six months for me. I was just happy to be home. And you know, you can talk to your people, you go to see what they're doing.
You know they home home, ain't got no fom, ain't got no pomo because everybody inside.
Yeah, right, you changed that changed, that changed that changed to go back to word and then you had to put off your tour and now you're back on tour. Everyone on tour, everybody US twenty.
Three put every single person that's physically able to be on the.
Roads on the road.
I want to take this moment to thank the people of America.
I thank you because I want.
To trying this summer.
I don't know what y'all are selling on the black market to go to.
All of these shows.
You appreciate you, thanks so much.
With all your goddamn festivals, goddamn artists got how do so?
Thank you? The music helped y'all get through the pandemic. So you're welcome.
Are you right?
Though?
Seriously, you know, it's so much change you we are on the precipice. It just feels and especially I tell y'all before, like living on this West coast, honey, and just feeling the tides they are changing, just at least on the way we receive these stories. It's just it's and the on the backs of mercury and retrograde.
I know, you're ain't a thing, but it's just a lie. It's a change.
It's a lot of people's thing though. You know, I'm not trying to negate your thing.
I just think, you know, when we're talking about astrology, I'm kind of like, there's so many factors that go into making a person.
You know, there's there's so many background You.
Just don't like when people pigeonhole someone based on it, pigeonhole their own thinking, oh, you you were sanitaryus.
Oh, I know how y'all are, Like.
It'd be the same, but oh you're from North Philly.
Oh, I know how y'all are.
All right, But there is a little I know how y'all are?
I mean, well, are you black? Though?
And there is a little truth to that, Like that's sight so I'm just a little yes, yes, yes, some commonalities don't test me.
But it's that pigeonhole portion that I can do.
Yeah, I get, I get, I get what your what your issue is with it, and I get I think it's just important for us to stay open because especially if we're talking about change, because at the age that I am now, I want to believe that I'm super open to it. But after some further unpacking, I realized that, you know, I have to.
Talk myself through change.
Have I definitely have, you know, I have my fears and my concerns and ways that I have to kind of quiet myself and my spirit that I didn't exactly know that about myself. Someone says, oh, you afraid to change. I'm like, oh, no, girl, you know, I'm an artist. I love you know, you know, but you know, I realized that, you know that I struggle with it just like a lot of people do. And you know, and
I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the introspection because and that's that's the part that I'm grateful for introspect, to the wisdom to be able to say, Okay, yes, I see this about myself. I'm not judging myself. But I'm just going to address it. We're just going to find some time to address it. And that way, I feel like I'm ready for change. From that way, I feel like I'm ready.
Do you think as you get older, change gets harder?
Yeah, I doult.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean not that I don't know.
But maybe not for our I don't know.
I feel that maybe you have a better tools.
I feel like in our generation, I feel like generationally though, and no shade or like that's kind of what other generations have been through. But I feel like the change in the last forty years.
Has been on rapid.
Yes it is, and we've had to keep up with so much.
You know what I mean. Like the Internet we was like high school.
I just I still say the internet we were in high school when it's hot it and it's just.
I was in elementary school. Oh yeah with the big computer.
Yeah you talking about before DOS you talk DOS.
You're talking about that.
Big ass computer that said.
Like yeah, and I mean email an email was se.
Extreme mail burden something like what is this this microwavable dinner?
Like we were at the microwavable dinner people like you know, Lasania macaroni and cheese.
Like, I always think about my grandma, you know, because she was she's born in nineteen seventeen. Yeah, you know the amount of change that she experienced in life. Yeah, because I was gonna say that. You know that boomers are parents, they experienced the same kind of like.
Lightning bolt change.
Now my mother remembers televisions not being a thing, but they.
Are not expecting to keep up if a boomer I mean, so you know, the kids get mad when the boomers get they they let us miss incorrect, but you can't give us so mad. They really get pissed at us, like we best to have all our shit.
Well, yeah, because at this point, at this point, we are the most successible adults, the same way that our parents were the most accessible adults at that time. You know, now boomers are their great grandparents or their grandparents at this point, right, you know, so that you don't expect that young people will have those kind of expectations out of their grandparents, but they do out of their parents.
And so I do hear you in the sense of that, like, as a generation, we are having to contend with I'll say this, I feel like it feels harder for us because we have more language, because we have the ability to because we have the ability to unpack. What if you don't have the ability to unpack, then stuff's happening and.
It's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever, that's whatever.
When you have the ability, when you have the ability to unpack and you can see what's going on, that that's a mind blower. And I think for us as a generation, because we were a generation that were we were the you know, Gen X, we didn't have no We're the generation with no name, we have no purpose, we were underestimated, we were treated a certain kind of way by elders, and so we've been trying to prove ourselves and be relevant and invent things and be entrepreneurs
and do all this stuff. And I think we have the ability to be self aware, But being self aware means you also have to be willing to change. You have to be you can't be halfway self aware. If you know it, you got to use it. And now we're being challenged to use it, and that that makes us different. And I think that's what's harder for us, because it's like, I know, y'all not trying to tell us we're not progressive.
You was progressive when.
You was twenty We was fighting the power.
Now you have to understand what that means in the current context.
That is a different type of chat.
Progressive. You mean was progressive?
You know?
I mean?
Yeah, more real talk after the break.
Yeah, well, I'll tell y'all one thing. I was overwhelmed by the thought of AI. I was so overwhelmed and I didn't want to see it.
I didn't want to try it, like I was scared, like I was. And then I tried it.
And it's even more scary.
When did you try an AI? Yeah, I tried a few things. I try to put together. I told AI to put together a pitch for this TV show idea I got.
She did it.
Now, she didn't do it perfectly. Because this is what people don't understand about AI. AI is like, I'm gonna do it, but you need to check my work because there might be some wording off here, some things that you know are not here. But I'm gonna put it in a format that is a pitch. Then I'm then I'm gonna be like, give.
Me a budget for it. Here's the budget, you know.
I'll tell you a friend of mine and a writer friend of mine said he was just messing around with it. He was like, Hey, I write me a script for the Parkers set in the nineteen sixties. Jokes and all scripts done. Whoa yeah, more one more example. Shout out to my little brother Antonio. He asked a got to create an image, an image of black people at the slave the castles in Ghana, similar to a popular artist and the artist vain, but the slave the black people
would be outside frolicking. I'm gonna say the artist is a very well known artist. It looked like the artists had actually created that image of black people frollicking outside of those castles.
That's the part I don't know.
That part like like that is scary to me because so much of humanity is really about our creativity, and you're telling me that creativity also can be microwaved.
Yeah, I mean the creativity and AI would be about the ability to do description, the art of description.
That would be the creative part of that, like the way you how much you put it.
Eventually, all technology turns into how can you be creative with the existing technology?
Yeah, because there was.
You know, for us as artists, you know, there was a time when sampling was super scary to our predecessors, and when DJing or wrapping or just wrapping over beats. You mean that boobity bop hippity Patina always talks about that, you know, And I'm not saying it makes it less scary, because I feel like we have to own our fear. It's okay to say that's scary to me, you know
what I'm saying. And it might be, you know, because at the end of the day, technology does change what the workforce is like, changes your everyday life, and it eliminates jobs, It eliminates certain things, and it always has it always has the cottingen, the electric plow is you know, factor street lights, street lights, right, elevators, elevator to be an elevator operator.
My grandmother was an elevator operator. So I think, you know, So.
It is scary because we are getting to that age where we do begin to fear our relevance in the world and to see such a very stark, stark evidence of that we and things that we have always done might not be the same and they may not need us.
We're already worried about if we're needed or wanted. So I think this is a time where it's so important for us to know who we are and to love on ourselves because if we don't, we can really get caught up in the fear of this change and to keep our optimism because of the end end of the day, there are there will be those of us who will thrive in the new era.
Mm hmm.
There's one thing, like I want you, I'm gonna name my thing, and I'd love for you to name yours, the thing that has not changed, well slightly but it has not changed that gives.
You peace of mind. And for me, that thing is fishing.
Hmmm.
That's funny because I do watch like the Tuna Show and stuff like that, Like have they changed.
Like I fly fish.
It's so funny that you said that because I literally didn't think you're going to go there, but it was.
It was effective. It was very effective.
Yeah, fishing, fishing, it's you're even in that world.
Even in sports and activities like that, things have changed, and maybe fishing this is one of the last I think.
I think bowling is the same, you know, like like I.
Think bowling is the same. I mean, you just the ball, hit the pins, you win. You lose fancy your colors where the depends are.
But yeah, pretty much the same.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you know scuba diving is the same.
Uh, scuba dive?
You like that?
I do?
I do?
I do.
I'm sorry a snorkel because the scuba dive is when your ears the pressure and you're about to explode in your head. I don't like that, but I do like this to snorkel.
I like that.
I never do the snorkel, right, but I got it.
Yeah, you're not supposed to do too d you're supposed to let the thing like just I traveled with my own mask.
Oh I got one dancing. Let me tell you something, Jill.
When I was dancing with Asia to the Afro Beats the other night, I was like that, it ain't gonna check. Well, she's gonna get older, but I think she's still gonna be dancing the same. So, because you know, Jill, we need to be on the look. You know how you remember your birthday party the bitch shut.
It down, look, slid on the water, fell, jump back up and dance some more, Jill, house.
Party that the house, yes party.
But yeah, no, I do love dancing.
Yeah, dancing.
I pray, pray, Lord, you hear me, hear my voice, and heard that I can dance till I'm old old. If I'm to be here, old old, please let me be able to dance till I'm old old.
That's beautiful. A couple of a ball. But you know what, well, what do we need? I mean, do we need things to say the same?
Like?
Are there certain things that we need? It's a questions. Are there certain things they need to stay the same?
Is there?
I mean you know that you know the line that that if you're not you're not changing or growing, you're dead. You know, they're supposed to change. You know, life is supposed to change. You're supposed to change. Yeah, like that's just the way life goes.
Huh.
I am not meshing and I'm not meshing right now with energies that want me to be the same.
Yeah, I'm just not. And I think.
I think it keeps you, you know, and not that I have an issue with being older, I don't, but I do think it gives it keeps you youthful. You're embracing of change, you know, because anything you do in resistance, the body responds as if it's in resistance right. The brain and the body starts to respond if you resist, if you are in opposition to that's what starts to manifest opposition.
I just don't want.
To feel that and to be and to be one hundred percent honest. I think it is absolutely possible to be at peace and not be a and still accept those things that are tough.
I don't know who that is. It's real popular now.
I don't know who said it, but the people been saying that I can do difficult things.
Hmm, I can do difficult things.
I saw jem want They say something about not being afraid to be a beginner.
Talk about change. She has some change. I love her change. I'm ready for all of it.
Pete the science of it all, talk about it, joke, she got it.
I love it.
I've been watching Janelle for a long time. Yeah, absolutely, Just so you know, I absolutely adore her. It's a lot of work ethic involved in that, and there's a lot of forward thinking in the hope as well. Like everything that she has done has led up to hear whether we've all understood what she was doing or not.
I get it, I get some of it, all, all of it.
I hope that I don't.
I don't want to pretend that I get all of it because I don't know her. But I feel like the button up of things, the understanding the craft. You understand how great my craft is without having to see certain things about Yeah, I get that.
Starting completely clothed, Yes, yes, and.
For years in a uniform, Yeah.
Yes.
Janelle rehearses like nobody ever seen. She rehearses till something is perfect, like un till it's literally perfect. And I remember thinking we were at the White House, and I remember thinking, where's the space, you know, for the for the I don't know the humanity in it, like you know,
because I didn't quite understand. But now looking where she is, it all makes so much sense that she's like cutting through with a level of perfection, and now she's fully allowing herself outside of the craft to be free.
Free.
She's like free now, like breaking.
All chains because she was a master at being inside of them discipline to the discipline of now and.
Now she's like loose. And it's wonderful to.
Think that was always the intention. Is there a I believe it's always been the intention.
Yeah.
Now, when Jills put it that way, I was like yes, because she's also always inside liftis life, Like.
We've seen things behind the scenes where you know that life.
All as we go.
The yes yes, And then when Jill broke down the Josephine Baker piece and the fact that she was playing Josephin Baker, and then I rewinded to what she did at the active party of the Medala when she got on top of that bar.
But her I was like, everything is methodical.
Like it's a beautiful setup.
It's a beautiful setup, and she's in charge of her ship.
And now we're ready to receive it too. It's weird. It's like, it was so good that to see her with these images oh my, in that beautiful body and the way that she's interacting with these women, It's like, you prepare, I'm here for this, I'm ready.
For this change.
I love how thoughtful she is about about this change and how she's prepared us for her change.
That changes.
I remember like when Andre three thousand came out and he you know, had the fun the fuzzy pants and the you know, we weren't ready, we weren't ready. It was so much discussion about it. People were not prepared in any way, shape or form.
Yeah, but he knew.
He knew, like I feel like, for a change, you better know when you're changing, you gotta you gotta know more than anybody else could ever that this is for your benefit, this is for your freedom, this is for your your peace, your joy, for your fulfillment. And maybe people won't get it until later, until much later, but I think we've.
Seen we've seen some evidence of that in the past with different artists, maybe not that exact same way, but how we didn't get it until later or until we knew the whole story, you know.
I think about that with the Little Richard story with his.
Documentary, and I'm not understanding until.
It's all at the end.
But I think more than anything, what's at the root of what we're talking about is to live uninterrupted. Like there was a clip moving around about that, and I wish I knew the sister who actually was talking about it, but she was saying, like, what is your life? She was asking this question, and y'all please forgive me, because I would love to like actually reference who said this, but it was circulating on Instagram where she was like someone that asked her, what do you think your life
would be like without interruption? Or who would you be without interruption? And I think Janelle Money is an example of a person who has pondered this and kind of created a life based around who is a deal? I want to be uninterrupted? And you know, and that type of freedom and liberation you.
Cannot sounds so overwhelming, it sounds so good.
I'm sorry, as you go ahead.
It sounds good, but guess what it is also work? Yeah, I see that's the thing, right, this idea about liberal right, we have this idea about liberation and freedom number one, even trying to contemplate it all already puts you in opposition to the status quo. So you know you're already dealing with that. Then you have your internalized stuff that you didn't have to go against, and then you have to be really planning and intentional about that.
Sometimes people have a crew, you know, a crow of a crew of people that have vision. You know that that creates the vision or assist in creating the vision for you. And then some and she may I don't know that she doesn't have people who you know, she talks about what she wants in her life, and then you know she has people to help implement those things and direct in those areas. That's awesome. M. I lost my train of thought because I want that. That sounds great. That sounds great to me.
But it starts with the intention of the person themselves, right, So you can pull together whomever, but you have to have a you have to have a strength of vision her when you talk to her to have a strength of vision though, and she there's a clip of her going around now too that speaks to that as well when she talks about just being yourself. Yeah, like you know, and yeah, that conversation with the self is serious. Look, I'm just saying whether whether I even understand it or.
Not, this is like my last year of being Chill Scott, M. What do you mean by that?
I don't know.
I don't even know that I.
Like I could, but you know that you sure.
Know that I know that it's I'm ready to change. There are things about myself that I really really love in my artistry that I really really love. Writing will probably never change for me, like never. I love to write. It's my favorite thing. But some things are going to change, and I hope that I have the good sense to prepare you for it. You know people who are who enjoy what I do.
Hope I have. I can prepare you for it.
Or you won't be because because here's the part about change, you will win some and you will lose some.
Oh, Janelle is definitely yeah, I'm sorry.
I know we could use her an example, but I'm like, yeah, she's got to she's got to be losing some because everybody ain't feeling all that, all that Levin owned Lady stuff, But hey, I don't matter.
When Prince was like, you know, my name is now a symbol, we were like, get the fuck out of here.
I will say that. I will say it.
But and you know then right, but what are you talking about, your prince? What do you mean? You know? But in hindsight, we understood, we understand.
What he was dealing with and what he was going to do, but he had to make a major change because circumstances required required it. That it's not changed the fact that this is one of the most amazing musical geniuses ever on the planet.
And it's like, how can how can we be really authentic in ourselves to the point that when we really do understand that time has come, that we accept it and we move with it, because you know sometimes that that thing whispers to you, it says it's time, gives you those indications, and people don't always know or feel comfortable to move with it, you know, and.
Then it'll come and kick your in the ass.
Like it tries a gentle it's a gentle pushing initially, but if you meant to change, it's gonna come kick you in your ass.
Well, the universe is more powerful than these kind of systems and things that we're dealing with every day.
For sure. Universe is going to is massive.
It's gonna move, it's going to change, It's gonna at every single level, you know, to the molecta level, to the sound wave level, like it's going to do what it does and it's.
Not going to wait on you.
Yeah, you know you can either.
It's like remember when I was telling you guys about making omer and I was like, it's like a school of fish and you got to get into the rhythm to get into it right. So it's just like, yeah, you can stop in the middle of all those people moving around.
You can do that, but they gonna keep going.
You kind of have to get with it, you know, you have to get with it in terms of the universe, not necessarily the status quo, but how those things.
Are coming up to you.
You feel it in your body, you feel it in your spirit, and for many of us, and y'all know, y'all hear old people talk about this about how when you pray for something, be ready to receive what you.
Play come for. You know, you be ready to receive when you.
Tap in your prayers.
Honey.
Well yeah, but once you tap in, you can't be afraid of what it reveals because everybody, everybody won't tap in right.
Some people ain't tapping in.
You are, You're tapped in right, But that's not the end of it.
You have to receive it.
We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back.
I chuckle with God all the time because y'all know I'm I'm a big proponent of being very intentional and a particular in what you ask for God for because God will make a joke on me all the time, because He will grant my blessings and the.
Deliberate, exact way. And I should have.
Said, oh why I say this, But this is what I ask for God. So you are listening, so you are listening, so to that effect. That's why when change happens, I always tell people, I'm like, well, change is happening, and I know I'm in God's favor because somehow always ended up working it out.
Sometimes I end up better.
I'm literally I just all these changes. I feel like, yes, because of this industry and this town that I live in. But I'm like, personally, I'm feeling it on a parimental, pausal type level.
I don't know when my period coming back, y'all. I'm feeling changed from a career level.
I mean, I got this is the end of the season for two podcasts of what You're gonna do. But I feel like, where some people maybe go down from all these things, I feel excited, Like I feel like this is how God kicks my ass. God is like, remember you wanted to do this?
Hey, yeah, now here's time to play fools.
Let's go. Let's go.
I'm giving you a space, giving you a space.
It may not be the space you asked for, but I ain't.
Gonna have you starving out in these streets, so go ahead and get it done.
That's what I feel about change.
I posted about my my son turned twenty four yesterday and I posted this picture of us from like twenty two years ago. You're like two years old in this picture.
And it was the first time we ever did Essence Festival, and we were laying on this hotel bed and I was trying to put him down for a nap, and I was two weeks postpartum from DIA and I had to I remember praying to God, Please, God, let this baby be born so I can get on this plane, because at that time, that was to that date, the largest paying gig that we had ever gotten to at that date, and so I was like, I got to get on the plane with these kids, and I can't
fly with a baby under two weeks soul, so I need her to be born on her due date. And she came to day before and I was two weeks postpartum with her, and I was looking at this picture and I was thinking to myself, and my girlfriend texted me and was like, girl, two weeks postpartum. I said, yeah, girl, that was back when the Kamakazi mothering was still in style.
We don't do that no more. That's out of style now, right.
But when I thought about it, I was like, all the sacrifices I made all of these years.
The way that I moved.
My change right now honestly is believing that I deserve a rest because I have just been on for a very long time. Yeah, and I wake up now and it's like wow, Like I get to decide what I'm doing with my day, Like it's really it's amazing. Actually, when I think about it, I'm not busy. Like I'm busy, but I'm not. This is not the life I was living ten years ago.
It isn't.
And though sometimes I worry about what will be the rest of my career and will I continue to work this way or this that and the other?
Do we have a retirement?
Are we going to be because Fatiina and I are not superstars, We're not none of that were working artists. We have a nice, you know following who is supportive of us. But you know, there's still always that question of what happens later And shout.
Out to everybody in the gig industry where we don't have social security, we ain't got pension.
No, you don't listen.
So yeah, right now, in this moment, I'm giving myself permission to take a damn breath. Beautiful and to live as softly as I can.
Oh to the solf living, the soft living.
And I don't like a trendy term, but that one has really that wouldne that would have got into my heart.
I can think about the young people right now, you know, the younger, younger people than than myself.
And you ladies like there's you're doing your thing.
Everything is working, you're out of your parents' house, you got your own everything, it's working. All the dreams and ideas, the effort that you put forth, it's happening.
And then something like COVID pops up, you know, something.
Like, you know, the job that you had is letting you go for a reason it doesn't even make sense to you. Yeah, that's when change gets really really scary because.
Because people went on strike.
Right so now, so now what does this mean that you know the fear level can be so high? To me, it just it just I'm not trying to make light of anything. It's kind of like all right, all right, then, well back to what can you do punishing? What can you do because you still want to be able to you may not be able to maintain I mean exactly how you were living before.
But you're still living.
And I think the peace of mind that you have, that self awareness comes in handy at a time like that. Mm hm, it really does, because you're not you're not hinging everything on it, you know what I mean. It's like And also like, ill circle back to what I am saying. Well, she was just like, I know I'm going to be all right. I don't know what version of alright is gonna be, but I do know I'm
going to be all right. And it takes a level of experience to have experienced worrying about being not alright several times and see it be okay for you to have that kind of confidence. And so this is what this age kind of is about. Also, it's like I know what I know.
And we know what we ain't going back to because I tell you what I know, I ain't going back.
I ain't going back to Cadisi's couch. I ain't going back to Cadizia's couch. And I know that.
And I know that because I'm my blessings and I know that because of my work and I know I just I just know I have faith and I'm also manifesting that in case, yeah, cocktail, that ship, you know, praying manifest you don't face word.
I wonder if we are.
You know, it's funny we start out talking about change and it's like it has like an excitement to it. And I realized, and I'm listening to us talking, we we've gotten soft, We've gotten a little somber. I'm saying, no, no, no, no no. I feel like excitement is good. But we you know, we cackle.
And for this to be we have got no no, no, no, no, it's good.
It's good, but like we have gotten real, like because it is serious though, like, yeah it is.
This is real.
It's a it's everybody.
It is a real life real And I'm glad to be able to have that conversation with y'all because some people experience and this alone.
And I want to.
Take this moment to say something to people who listen to this podcast, because I know that they have said on social media times when I've seen them in public. Some people this this is the kitchen table conversation for them. This is that moment to hear I'm not the only person feeling this. I'm not alone, you know what I mean. And for people who come to this podcast, most of them are like, I'm a huge Jill Scott fan and they love, love, love you and your music and who
you are. And for them to hear you even say this, it's so important. It is really important for them to hear that level of relatability and that that says I'm not by myself, because people have a tendency in this music business in Hollywood to place people in these spaces of untouchableness, like they're not seeing the same stuff, but they're not going through the same things and feeling the same things, you know, as people for real everybody, people for real, real.
For actual real. Yeah, Oh, I'm a I'm a.
This freaking cat got ship that is shipp right beside you.
You're gonna pay attention to the cat.
He knocked over my food onto the floor.
Where you're gonna pay attention should when the cat is letting you.
Know the cat is telling you, and you know what the cat is telling you. You ain't paying that baby too much attention. You've been paying yourself too much attention. Everybody gets attention. Now you got to notice me. Come on there and come up behind the neck. I want you to feel my tail.
Come on, now, come on, used to me. You used to be looking for you used to need me.
Now you don't need me no more. Somebody else Your food.
Down there, just she is down there getting it in.
On my food.
They even know.
I ain't even know cats eight real food.
Chi That.
Wasn't supposed to be an example of change. My girlfriend was around all the time, spending time with the cat. Loved the cat. But she got busy. Life happens, you know. She got a new job, she got a new friend. She's spending time with a new friend working at the cat. Every time she would come in the house with dry cleaning, the cat would pee on top of her dry cleaning every time, Like, you better not put your dry cleaning down on the bed. You better hang it up and
put it in the closet and close the closet. Can't do that because the cat was like, oh this plastic care and these little clothes you want to go out in, I'm a pee right.
Here on your ship. You supposed to spend time to be the love me.
That's the ship that change.
There you go, it's some some piss pissy.
Everybody okay all the time?
No, no, everybody like we did that. We did.
Everybody some people can't go, they tell you, so I go all the time.
So you know, as you as you make some decisions or life makes some decisions for you, you already know that not.
Everybody is going to be able to go with you.
Yeah, you know, And that's that's not a disc that's just reality.
That's just reality.
Certain people for certain things. It's all right.
But to say a season and for a reason, and a season a reason, yeah.
Because I just everybody is on everybody's on their own path, you know. For really, I think a lot of times, well we'll say, oh, yeah, well this is a person who can't go, when it also might be you who can't go. It's all, you know, it's all everyone's on a different path, you know, and we all kind of interacting with each other according to.
The needs of where we are on that path.
And that's why it's good to think about it intentionally as you're doing the things you're doing, because they do effect all, you know what I mean. There's a yeah, I think this is in the quarter and it says there are signs in it for everyone who witnesses, right, So like any person who is witnesses a thing, there's something in it for everyone who witnesses a thing, you know.
What I mean.
And so if we're if we're in community with each other, each of us is in community with each other for a purpose or maybe several purposes, right, And as long as we're in community with each other, each each of us is receiving something, each of us is getting some sort of perspective. And you know, and when we're not together, we're pulling from that into our other interactions, and so on and so on and so on and so forth.
Whoever comes into contact with those people, and those people and then some and that's how we all end up so connected with one another. And that's why it is important to think about and be self aware so that when you are interacting with others that you're pouring in beautiful things into them.
So when it's time for them.
To not be in communication with you or not in community with you, what they pull away from that is beauty. What they pull away from that is what was needed. And I think that for me, that's my that's what I try to do. I was writing something today and I said this about myself that I never would have said about myself five years ago.
My heart is my flex. If I love you, I feel the same way I ain't gonna do you. Yeah, if I love.
You, you don't have any doubt about that.
Word.
And that for.
Me, that's the way I choose to be in community with people. So I'm hoping that that's what they take away from their time with me, whether it be a short time or be decades of time.
I'm gonna say this, you know, we've said it many times before.
I'm gonna say it again that this podcast, this J dot L podcast is is really it's been so therapeutic. It's been so to sit in therapy, Okay, is for anybody who has it, to sit in therapy, you know, with just your therapist and yourself, that's one thing, because it's almost like talking to yourself in a sense, but somebody else has given their perspective, but not judgment really, but giving a perspective and trying to help you get to where you said you wanted to go. Really, that's
what therapy it is about. But being here with you, ladies, and voicing you know, concerns or voicing joys or you know, and having your perspective and having your your light shining in my direction. And then for everybody that's listening as well. It's like this powerful triangle you know that that people get an opportunity to.
Get lost in for a while or found in nice it is.
It is always like I've come to this podcast many times, like exhausted and concerned and you know.
Afraid and alive. You know, I'm just out here living.
And then I'll say a thing and an Age will say a thing and it'll bounce off my forehead and it'll pop like in the nose and she'll say something and it's it's like this wonderful energy.
Of just lift.
It's a lift and a man. I just love y'all, I really do. I just really do love you.
I know that you know, okay, because you're best to know I.
Okay, that's the best part of it all, Like yes, and knowing knowing as a thing.
Boy, when you know a thing.
Like Age eleven, I'll be like, I know, you'll like.
This becomes the prerequisite.
So it's like you know, you move forward and you know all the things are in love. Yeah, you know, and that you know not to be on our circle back because you know, I'm not as good as this as y'all are. Y'all will circle a ship back. That is that's y'all be doing that. It's so masterful. But on the circle on my I be a circle back. I'm gonna say, you know, that's how I've been able to deal with a lot of changes. It's just from knowing that I'm loved and knowing that I'm in spaces where I am.
Loved, because that helps it, you know what I mean.
And us, like I said, you know, when we started doing the podcast, I was right in the middle of a lot of complicated feelings, my grief and my kids were all kind of a teenager.
You know.
Now, lots of lots of stuff, you know what I mean. Working those things out with people who I know loved me is you know, blessing, No blessing, blessing. And that's why I feel like we've been able to bless people other people, because the core of it and the core of the connection there is about love, and we're leading from there and that and I and I love that because that's how we're able to talk to each other in honest ways about it all the things and.
Listen to each other. Listening is really important when somebody loves you, when somebody loves.
You and they tell you something. This is this is really a part.
Of the biggest goal of all is to to love on you, you know as you listening to this podcast and bathtub or you know, on a toilet or the kitchen, in the kitchen wherever you are, like it, really the goal is to love on you. You know, I'm the auntie, they're the sisters, you know, or they're the cousins you know. But we want to share information with you, and we want to reveal, you know, the humanity and all of us, you know, like nobody's perfect. Nobody like nobody anywhere, like anywhere.
I've never met a perfect person ever. And we have these hard conversations out loud.
I love that about us, like we, like you said, we literally are sparking conversation like now you can figure out now, you can figure out a way, you have.
The words, And it's not it's not just in this room, you know, it's not.
That's I think that's the biggest part of it because we're having such a public conversation about real life.
Mm hm.
You know, we got to know a lot about each other on this podcast.
That's the cool part.
Yes, Yes, and you don't eve think you know somebody, but and you're like, oh wow, like I know you in a whole different way, like whole whole different way ever before yeah, and then and also too, we've all gotten older and you know, no, da da da da. So it's like, you know how it's very easy to have somebody's twenty year old self like branded in your brain.
It's kind of like when you grow when you grow.
Up with somebody, or you see somebody when they're young, No, somebody when they're a baby, and whenever you look at them and still see a ten year old maybe like thirty, you know what I mean. So I think that's easy to have somebody's twenty or twenty five year old self, you know, just in your brain. But I think being able to intimately have these type of conversations, like even when you're friends with somebody, doesn't always mean you're having these kind of conversations.
Right, you know what I'm say saying.
So having those type of conversations broken and open even so much further for me, you know, oh.
More conversation after the break.
I want to say something though that's slightly not slightly off topic, it's on topic, it's on the topic of change. Don't get mad at me, but it's just slightly off topic of what we're talking about now. The world is changing in some kind of interesting ways that I want us to pay attention to due you know, in particular, in particular some of these really offensive laws that are being passed, Yeah, around women's bodies, around education, in our history.
I mean, y'all, they are banning books like the world is regressing. We are sitting there to the world is regressing. Some of the books and the authors that we talked about on this podcast are on the list of banned books in some of these states. Yeah, they are rewriting history even worse than the revisionists ass history that we learned.
These kids are getting it even worse. I did we really think it was just gonna stop? No, I think I thought it was.
I didn't think it would get work.
I didn't know that we were going to revisit. It's all so foolish. It seems foolish.
But I'm gonna tell y'all something that prequel to Handmaid's tell, not not the actual prequel, but the part in the in the yeah that's prior to.
To Yes, Oh, Yes, this is it.
We have been, We have been on the pathway to fascis.
Like so, I'm just saying I want us to pay attention to these changes, right. I want us to keep in mind, and particularly around some more controversial issues as we start talking about and using words like traditional and words like you know that that harkened to time periods that none of.
Us lived in.
I think that we really have to be clear about what it means to attack humanity and other people's humanity, and know that just because you may not be a part of that group, that that is an attack on all humanity because they come in for you next. So you can't allow any person, any human being, to be for and that's what happens. They try to pick a small group of people that everybody can gang up on.
And I'm telling y'all, they're going to gang up on you next, and they're showing themselves to be doing it. These are changes where we cannot be comfortable with. These are the changes that we cannot fold into. These are the changes that we cannot allow ourselves to stand by and watch.
I know you're speaking on it from an organization or activism level, but somewhere in my mind. You're you're also speaking on it from a political thing where you do have power at some point.
Right, yes, but also on a personal level because guess what, laws can be changed, but culture and society changes because.
Of the way we talk to each other.
So speak up, and we're doing this on this podcast where we're taught the conversations that we're having. That's how you change culture with changing how you talk to people, right, and your feelings, your ideas is the ideas that are important, you know what I'm saying, because they can go back and change.
The law versus waight is done. It's done. Did you ever think it's done?
But the reason that it's done is because.
All of these foul, insidious conversations and talk.
So it talk changing culture. Going back to changing culture.
Yeah, so don't be don't be when I when you say activism, I think people have a picture in their mind and we talked about this on.
The podcast before.
They have a picture in their mind and somebody with a you know, a sign and a post the board and they march it and they going to jail and d Yes, that's that's definitely disruption and it's a part of it, but part of changing. You know, the way that we do things is changing our ideas, and that's that's the thing that we do on the show, and that's what I'm hoping that we can continue to do.
You know, not just after people leave the show and they go on and have their conversations with their cousins and their family and their moms and their dads and their children.
You know, we can't afford to let that go. We can't change is.
It can be very exciting and it can also be very frightening, depending on what that change may be.
But know that you.
Are guided, that you are loved, That it is a miracle that you're even here, huh, that you're even here, that you're listening to this podcast right now, or that you're that you're just sitting on a park bench, whatever it is that you're doing.
Be not afraid. If there was anything to do.
There are shows that I've had that I felt like I was jumping off of a building over and over and over and over again because it was scary every time. But there is something about that leap of faith. There is something about action even when you don't want it.
There is something.
About resilience and making a decision that some things can never happen again, and something should absolutely change.
We have the right to do that. You're born to it.
Know that, Know that you are loved, Know that you are a miracle, and know that it has been our pleasure to share our time with you. Blessings in real life, and then no kind of shallow saying it just to say it. Count them counter blessings. Hold on to them and appreciate the life that you have.
Change is inevitable. It just is. What the fuck it is?
Small more, laugh, loud, hold hands, kiss somebody slow, dad spoke weed.
That's a good change. It's getting better.
Make hard decisions for your benefit. What else? I don't even know. I think that was That was good.
Nobody says.
No, baby, listen, listen.
I'm like you Manifest when you say Manifest, come on, Manifest this.
Manifest Manifest. Oh you're waiting. You really want me to say manifest?
Yeah you see no, no, no, no, no, you left the tea out.
She always gets the end. Manifest Manifest and take naps.
Yes, yes, yes, and breathe, breathe, relax.
All your not giggle too, but and giggle, but don't do it at the same time as you mess up.
Dance, go get your titties check. Yeah mm hmmm mmm yeah yep. We love you for real, like for real. You know why we do because we love ourselves. That's what it is hitting for. That's real bad.
This is a reflection. Okay, bye bah?
How do you eat an elephant? One by time?
Hey, listeners, it's Amber the producer here. My heart is so full. This has been such an amazing season to spend with you all. I just want to share again that quote from Parable of the Sewer from Octavia Butler.
All that you change changes you.
The only lasting truth is change.
God is change.
God has changed. And this is our last episode of the season.
Please tell your friends, family, and community about our show and let's all eat the elephants in our lives one by at a time. Follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter at Jill Scott Podcast to keep up with us and stay up to date on new seasons and episodes. We love you so so much and can't wait to join you here again.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Hi.
If you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six, Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight, six, six, four, three, nine, five, four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode.
Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Il.
The podcast.
Jay dot il is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.