Lalah Hathaway

R and B Money, Honey, we are thanks take MATOCHI. We are the authority on all things R and B ladies and gentleman. My name is Tank Time, and this is the R and B Money Podcast. The authority. You know what I'm saying on all things, all things, all, every last one of them. R and B.

Is it in your blood? Did you come from it?

Did you come from it?

Uh?

Did you get it out of the womb?

Huh?

Are you on a level of perfection? That are you will be studied?

How many grammy is you got?

How many grimes do you have? Yeah? Yeah? Have you perfected you'll game? Have you putting in hours to understand? Can you say more than one voice with one throat? That's all I'm asking you.

She can and she's here.

About it?

Fie, Hello, thank you?

Something wrong with you?

No, it's all right.

It doesn't make sense. I have I have. I have two perfect vocals. I have two perfect vocals. There's Eric Dawkins in their shoe.

I fully agree with you on the Eric Dawkins fully perfect. He's in my top ten of all time voices.

No flaws.

Yeah, I agree with.

You, and I've seen you live, I've heard you on record. You don't miss sometimes I miss I haven't heard it.

I covered good. That is the gifts to understand. There's no such thing as a miss. But yeah, I usually don't miss them.

Yeah. Yeah, what I'm doing, what I'm doing, you won't catch me missing.

Yeah, you fix it somehow.

You're just vocal. Steph Curry, oh man. Every time you shoot, we think it's going in every time.

A word.

That's the other part. It's the expectation though. That's if you think, you know how you like you see a girl on Instagram and she looks away that when she walks in front of you. You might she don't look that way, really, but you're so used to looking at that other way that that's what you see.

So yeah, okay, let me ask you a question. And normally we started to beginning, but you just played us your new project. I did, yeah, and thanks for listening please. And I feel like you're taking like jazz soul, and I want to mix in something else in there? What can I mix? What else can I mix it?

Now?

Pop, blues, alternative, mets.

I want to say alternative. Yeah, I want to add alternative. So R and B R and B got some house, so I feel like you're you're I feel like you're somewhere we're not yet really, I feel like you're in the future. And it's because and it's because like this is how I see it like for me, like listening to it, I'm about to I'm about to study it to apply it to future work.

Interesting to me, it feels like I'm in the real, good, good past of me because in nineteen ninety when I started making records, I wanted to make records that had all that stuff on them, Like I had Shakakhan records that had Beatles covers and duets with Rick James and our Reef margin like these whole designed Bebop Medley things on them. So I grew up with records where people were stretching across the whole records. That's always what I have tried.

To do, and it's like there's no boundary, which is what I love.

Yeah, I like to stretch.

And so when we were having that conversation, I was like, oh my god, if you don't put this tempo on their head and keep hitting them with it, I'm gonna be mad.

Yeah, I feel you, I feel you, I feel you on the sequencing.

No, noss, I'm sorry. I wasn't talking about sequencing. I'm talking about singles.

Oh yes, I agree, Yeah.

I'm talking about singles. They need to feel that of you, right.

But the concept of a single, though, like they're gonna feel everything. We're gonna do what we can do for everything. But the concept of the single is like, what is that anymore?

It's just a lee record. It's just a record that you're putting emphasis on at the moment. Yeah. Right, And so but if we if we're dialing into single single and we started talking radio, then that space is still very much a viable space for what you do.

But where would you like, what radio? Would you go to?

ARMB radio? Off top?

What R and B radio?

Army radio?

Is that a thing?

Oh we changed that, Yeah, Army radio is a whole thing.

Is that a thing for that kind of.

It is absolutely a thing. Chris Brown is on R and B radio. Yeah, it is a thing. C B as you call them, c B see Breezy Team Breeze Radio. It is. It is a thing. Sissa is on R and B radio.

Not with tempo.

Absolutely, Sissa doesn't do tempo, does she?

I think you're looking at it from like, you know, yours is Yours is just more upbeat. I think Scissa does more of a down beat type of record, and I agree with that. But I think what he's saying is that it's now the format is just opened up to more.

That's good to know because I am a person that is not in my car all the time listening to the radio, So I get my music from all kinds of sources. Some from the radio, some from the satellite radio, a lot from friends.

Let me help you. Number Number two on R and B radio, Tyler Water, Number one on the R and B radio Usher Good Good Yeah.

Uh.

Number three on R and B Radio Victorium Money, Oh my mama.

Oh yeah. Also though still not tempo urgency, but not tempo tempo.

It is absolutely tempo. If Bloodlines came out right now, it'll be on R and B.

Radio, Well, yes, that's for not for tempo though the temple. I hear you, Yes, absolutely, I feel.

You, because because now R and B radio is in a place where it is it is being competitive with mainstream radio, it's trying to mirror it in a sense, and so the only thing that only place where I think R and B radio is now is now starting to pivot to catch up. Is for an artist to be able to have multiple records at the same time and a great charge some of them do. Yeah, so that's the that's the next change revolution to RMB radio.

Yeah. I mean I have been at radio stations where, you know, like I had a new record out and the program director said, we just can't stop playing Forever for Always for Love. And that record came out in the early aughts, So I recognize that things have changed since I put a record out. Things have changed absolutely with me, and things have changed in the in the

I am you and I are mirrored in the blues in the ballad box. We are in there, you know what I'm saying, And and we just said, man, I'm a fine one. And when I find it's going yeah, and we found it and it's going yeah, and so likes. It's just it's just a concise. It's like a very mean decision. This is it. You just pick it and go, this is it. What y'all doing, This is what we all.

I'm going to show this to my whole team today. I'm going to tell them all about it. That's all about it.

That's the that's what we're in like we're we're not. We just can't let them dictate it no more. And I say that for you because you have so so much to offer in terms of creativity, you should not be limited. I agree with you for no reason.

Yeah, I think I know an artist like me, I can just speak for myself. I fall into that paradigm of like being one foot in what is the traditional part of this business, and then both the other feats in the future of where I want to go and what I want to be able to do.

Because musically you're doing it.

Yeah, absolutely, and I feel like I have been doing it musically. But it's just it's always been a it's always been a thing. It's always been like this is what you do, and you kind of stay in that box. Which is why I apploud a lot of these young artists, particularly women, who understand their power and understand that whatever they decide to do is what's going to get done. It's not even like a radio thing. It's deciding what you want to get to people.

And it's also a testament to you know, now social media, whereas like I'll talk to you, I'll tell you and they'll talk to you. And for someone like yourself, your fan base is so vast, you know what I mean, You've been building your fan base and you have so many people who just love you and what you decide to give me right, And I think sometimes with artists you you fall into, like you said, you fall into some of those boxes of oh, well this is just

The temple, because I think the biggest misconception about me is that you know, like I'm somewhere sad singing the blues.

You're clearly not. You're clearly not. That's that, Yeah, you know.

That I'm not like a vibrant person that has joy, and it's it's definitely not that I love the ballance and I love to sing and I love to ring people out emotionally, but I also like to have fun.

I like it, you know, have fun.

But it's another thing too of are you willing? And I'm using you as an example, but just as an artists period, like are we willing to take that chance? Because every artist isn't willing to take that chance. Some are is just like, listen, this is what they like me for. I love me for. That's what I'll make other than being like, you know what, this is what I love and hopefully you love it with me. And some people just aren't willing to make that sacrifice and have people be like, ah, that ain't.

What I want it from you track them at thirteen.

But there's so many people, especially now with social media and how fast the music business moves. It's people all over the world that hear your song as soon as it comes out. Absolutely so for those those other millions that want a certain thing, is a billion people out here that just like, oh my god, I've never heard of Laylor Hathaway, right.

And everybody has access to the same stuff.

Everybody got access.

So the whole point for me is to be able to on every record, is to be able to capture the base and give them a loving hug and let them sing the blues and then expand the tour the territory past that. And that's always what I'm trying to do.

And this drops when this album drops. Win.

This album drops June fourteenth, in time for your June teenth celebration.

Because I wanted to get this at the top of the episode to make sure that they understand that June fourteenth. In the name of the album, Vana Black, van to Black, and what is van to black?

It's like the blackest black, even though you know, I found in the last few years that like I'm super black, Andy black, and I was always, but now I'm extra I got extra black. In the last ten ten years or.

So, you've gotten blacker.

Come blacker.

I think I've got what.

We've just settled into all the plant.

Like two thirteen fifteen, I started looking around and really evaluating my life in this country and my life like on the planet as a as a black woman, and understanding that just from all of this is where all of this comes and the culture that we dictate is just dictated to the whole, the whole, Like everything I do, me as in the body me, all of us is studied throughout the no matter what corner you go in in the world black black, there's some black andy black

Van to Black, the title cut is absolutely out of this world. You out of it. I'm just still like listening as we're talking. So I'm gonna get through it. Because it was some earth went and fire in there. It was like it was just so many things throughout the project that I was just like, and then you went into some crazy time signatures, which was very disrespectful, very disrespectful. Some people are gonna be very confused.

I'm sure she sang very easy.

Easy, like it was nothing. No one's going to know where they snapped their fingers. I'm a drummer, so I was. I was like, oh my god, you cannot do that. I told you can't do that.

Yeah, tell me that you admonished me on my own ship.

Okay, listen, what we love to do. We love to go back to the beginning, like Chicago shut down, like where it.

Chicago black.

I just I mean the question I normally asked is when did somebody say or identify that you had it in you were special? But I just feel like, for some reason, were born as soon as when you were born, like when they cut the cord you hit a note. Yeah, I just feel like I feel like that happened.

No, I don't you know what. It's funny. I think that from the time I was very little, you know, like I have perfect pitch. My parents have perfect pitch, and both your parents have perfect Yeah. I think that My mother said that the elevator would come down and it would whistle. Dad will say what notice that? And I was able to say it, which seems like a big deal. No, no, no, what I'm saying is when you listen to music all the time, you develop a

It's still.

If you can't sing, you got a bad memory. That's just like, oh you all right, bro has a horrible memory.

It's not that you're not gifted, bab you have a bad memory.

Memory. It's the same way you learn to talk. It's the same way you follow whomever's teaching you to talk, how to talk, the inflections, the way you go down, the way it's up as briten, down as no. It's all of that. We unlearned that as we get older. But that's the same way you learn to talk. Is where you learn.

Let me try some. I was a whole step down, so I have relative pitch.

What are you singing?

I was? I was? I was singing? How excellent?

Yeah?

So that's so like I can hold up me trying to Uh.

These are good exercises for your ear. These are good ear training exercises down okay, so you know you're within it. I'm I'm microtonally off nowadays sometimes okay. But Claire Fisher told me that the world is not vibrating at four forty anymore like it was.

That is a fact.

So the world change, I'll take it.

Wasn't me fact.

I'll take it.

Oh, yeah, you don't hear spinning bars, you know, Yeah, it's at she did?

You know?

It's just okay? And then and then I want to ask you this, and then we'll go back to the we go back to the beginning. What made you say there's a chance I can sing two notes at the same time, you know what?

It just happened, and then I thought, oh, and then I kept trying it, and then I would show it to people and say what can I do with this? And people were like hmmm. And then I did it, and I did it on a John p Key record as a little joke, and he kept it on the record, and then I started doing it more often, and then I did it for that Snarky Puppy record and people were able to see it actually happening because there were people floating around on the internet like watch this, but

Did you want to be in a group person instead of having imaginary.

Free normy imagining group?

What does this come from? No?

I just I just make a lot of I make a lot of sounds. I'm just into sound.

Okay, you hit an elevator, your pop says what key is that? And you can say the key and what age is this?

Two?

Two three? I guess I don't know.

It's not normal.

It's it's normal. If you grew up in the house of music, it's normal.

Like it's not. I don't want you to believe that isn't it. I do not want you to get here.

I'm pretty sure it is.

No, it's pretty sure it's normal.

No, looking in the camera deeply, it is not going anymore normal.

Normal, Like you know how you grew up with kids that have musician parents or big brother and sister parents, and they know a lot of music. I just grew up in a house full of music.

Yeah, And there's like, you know, there are people who are what we call not geniuses, but when they're early, when they came in their kids, when they prategies like you're you're you're clearly a prodigy because the gift resonated so different at an early age, Like that's a thing that you know you ask an adult, okay, or or going into your adult years like very skill, got it, but this is something that you're like, you know, like like a twenty royster doing uh doing clinics at ten

Yeah, that part is not normal. And I was a piano players kid, and I traveled and played piano, and I played, you know for my mother, like for her voice lessons. I would play piano for her. My sister and I both grew up doing music like from day one, from literally from day one, and so that was just the the regularity of my life. I don't really It's hard to see it any other way because I felt like, whose parents don't do music? Everybody does music. It's everywhere.

It was, it's normal for you.

Yeah, So it wasn't even about making a decision about it.

It just it just was, yeah, well there was never. I mean, the only time my mother ever threatened me was like I would want to go outside and she said, you don't want to, you don't want to play piano. And I'd say, no, I want to go outside, and she say, okay, I'm gonna call miss Bion Kenni now and tell her you don't want to take lessons anymore. And I say, no, I'll do it. That's the only pressure I ever got.

So you were in you were in lessons as well, absolutely, because I know you were study. I did you know how earlier you started.

Started like three four like that at the American Conservatory of Music. So my my thing is like the nature that I had, and then also the nurture which my parents also had. They were born musicians, but they met at Howard at the Fine Arts School.

Shout out the Define Arts Department at Howard University that developed me absolutely in that basement of the Fine Arts Building, the musicians shedding yes in them rooms and the drum rooms, and oh my god, I saw something from Gordon to Marlon Saunders to Chris Daddy Dave, Like, so.

Oh my god, so many and your parents met there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, it all makes sense.

Yeah.

And so as you're developing your tone, are you are you emulating Pops at this time? Are you like saying okay that is or it's just you were just born with that, just singing.

And I didn't even really I knew I was a musician. I used to tell my mother I wanted to be a magician, and she'd say, no, you mean musician. But I actually wanted to do magic. So I tried theater. I tried, you know, I tried desperately the dance department, which did not work out for me at all. But it was not a thing until you really.

Don't you do it? I can dance, don't you.

Oh you've met your twin? Yeah no, so okay you didn't. It didn't work out.

I mean it worked out over time, but I didn't really even start. I feel like I started coming into my instrument like in college. You know, I got to college and people started coming up to me on the stairs like, hey, are you done? You have to Pay's daughter? And I was like yeah, say, oh we want you to come come sing with us, or come be in my ensemble or come, you know, make music with us.

That group that she was preparing for.

Girl, that's where I discovered like my sound and I'm still I'm still discovering it.

And you went to Berkeley was prestigious, is it?

My cousin went to Berkeley, the one who inspired me to do all this? Oh yeah, you.

Know, I applied to like two schools. I knew I wanted to go to Berkeley because I had these friends in high school that were guitar players and they said they were going to Berkeley. They gave me my Pat Metheni records. They gave me my Jean leue Ponti records, and I thought, oh, it's not a classical school. No one will judge me for the breathiness of my voice or make me try to sing and a register that's not comfortable. That's where I want to go.

That's just crazy that like, as you say this right, because you know when we listen when when I heard you, when I discovered you, I was like, oh, that's that's perfect, that's incredible. But there were people early on.

Yeah that didn't Yeah, that didn't get it. I never thought you.

I never thought you would say that.

There's people that still don't get it.

Impossible.

It's a true thing. Everything is not for everybody.

But in a subjective business, subjective is one thing, but right and wrong or another right now for someone to that's a crazy statement in my opinions before. So at no point did you did you ever have the you know, I no, okay, use that everage relax, hath the way?

No? Okay no, no, people make it.

No, I never had that.

You guess that.

Yea.

It built my character, built me into deciding like, okay, I can't sing like those girls. How what is the way that I sing? What is my sound? What is the what is the characteristic? What are the characteristics of my instrument that make it singular? Because I can't do

So it is that death in your voice though, that makes it, that makes you special, singular and makes it special because I've seen you live. Go to go to that basement and everybody just like.

Aalvo. He said, if you go any lower, you'll need an exorcism.

But it's so rich and and like it's so rich and right. I'm still not connecting with that. We got to shout those people out who didn't get it. What were you thinking?

It was a European you know, everything is kind of European. And that's another one.

Of those things in the kind of the studied space.

Absolutely, when you're singing carolmeo Ben, there's only you know, seven ways you can really sound on it.

And there's a difference in music is the one thing too, where it's most of the things that are quote unquote supposed to be right usually don't work in the business right, like it is very much, you know, with all due respect, like this is a business that of where if you can't do you teach mm hm, well you know what I mean, Like most people that can really do this aren't teachers, not not in not in music, because it's just it's something else, is something else that connects to

Well, I think we're past the time right, because there was a time where right was right.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I think so. I think there was a time where right was right. When you where when you heard a young Michael Jackson.

I guarantee you there were some people that had an opinion about my.

But I'm just talking about the effect of it. It still was like that's right when you heard when they heard Ray Charles, like, oh yeah, when they heard Stevie Wonder.

There is a there is an undeniable quality about greatness that's always going to rise. Period. I like the way you said there's an undeniable the cream will always like you said, but there was somebody in the corner like you sing too raspy.

Y, doing that your hair right?

Something to say in the music.

Everybody has something to say.

Yeah, yeah, so get me to It's college discovering the vocal many groups. Remember I was not in any groups.

I was in Vocal Summit. That was just like an apella type of situation, like.

Like, okay, yeah, the movie is pitch perfect. Pitch perfect.

Yeah, kind of like that got it. Yeah, we were great. We were actually really good.

So full like sixth part, like the whole. I know that was crazy. Yeah, because I love to take six.

About like I like, I like to think of them as take seven because you.

Can.

I just you know, we're in Jodysy. Oh yeah, we're in Josy. I don't know if they know it, but we're in Josey.

I'm gonna take six to.

About to go on the road again, aren't they we are?

Yeah, of course we're of course word book books. You take six too.

Yeah, but see she can be an extra number because she knows what she knows what the other notes are.

And I did the talking parts, and boys.

You are busy so many.

Because you no girl, you're just running around with that other fella. You're definitely not gonna be able.

To do that line.

I didn't mind.

I didn't I.

Get me, to get me to a discovery to where it becomes like now it's about a record company and in a budget, in a project.

So I got signed to Virgin when I was probably seventeen or eighteen. I was in school. I used to get on an Amtrak and come from Boston out here.

Wait, you were taking the train from I'm not just gonna say, oh, I was going up to New York, Boston to LA.

I was coming to LA and demo Wing Records.

And how long I just was seventeen years?

Hold long?

How long did it take for you to get.

From three days? Are you seeing the country? Was looking out of the window, I've.

Been everywhere, I have, I have. I used to come back and forth. My mother was not flying at that point, and so I would get on the train and come back and forth three and make my rade. Yeah, it was fun.

I can imagine it. At seventeen years old. It was exciting that can I can no not you, not you.

It was always fun on the way on the way back, and the way back.

You wish you could fly, but your mom didn't fly.

Not at that point. We had a little hiatus of her saying like I'm not messing with these aeroplanes. Yeah, and we would amtrak everywhere.

Wow. And so you can sign the Virgin.

I got signed the Virgin. Jeff Foreman signon. You know him, Jeff Foreman is in two May's cousin. He was a Virgin. I got signed there there.

But we were there in nine two thousand and that's what black ground was that in two thousand and two, I think, yeah.

I got signed there. I don't know what year it was. Now its it's becoming a blur, which is a little.

Bit scary it happens to me.

But it was before Janet was there, before Lenny was there, before D'Angelo was there.

So that was way early because because we got offered a deal. When Janet was there, I was in tenth grade.

Yeah, okay, gotcha, you were in the tenth grade.

Gosh.

But we were singing for Jesus, and we said we just gonna sing for Jesus. And look at me.

Now I understood.

I could have took that Virgin.

Been a lot been signed to Sir Richard Branson.

Man.

Well, I was there when Paul Abdua was there and nice, you know, it always was perplexing to me that I was trying to be on the road like with a band, and no one could figure that out. And then I would go to these big pop shows and it'd be like, no musicians anywhere. So I was still in such a music mindset at that point, like I'm gonna make records, but I'm an actual jazz musician. That's really what I

So I came to LA so you could be on the scene or the LA scene.

This one lady told me, she said, you've got to come to LA because our senior Hall is here. We're not going to be flying you back and forth to do our senior hall. That was her whole reasoning for me. I was on it like six times.

I never sat, never sat on the couch.

No never, what do you mean you?

I was always there just I did with my band. I was on with Gerald Albright, I was on with Joe Sample, I was on Yeah, I was on a bunch of times. Never sat on the couch, but you sang a bunch of times. I'll take it all right. Hall Show used to sound good. I don't know if you remember. They had a cracked team of sound engineers and that show sounded great top to bottom. Absolutely it absolutely.

We need that back.

We do.

We need it. I need a place to go, I.

Agree on it's a shame that we don't have.

That because a lot of what are are a lot of the things that may resonate what our culture may not make it to the charts. And only we understand that.

Well most things there, yeah, are not going to make it to the chart.

You need a place. First record, first record?

When was that? Nineteen seventy, nineteen ninety, That's my first record, Hathaway.

I'm still going on my notes. He's got notes, he has notes. I'm talking about.

That was a good little record.

I listen to record.

When you go back and listen to your old record.

Lailah Hathaway live? Is that just Leila Hathaway? And that was what when?

Nineteen ninety nineteen ninety?

Yeah, Jesus Christ, how were you then we put that out? You know, young, you know, you can't ask what are you doing because it's a younger age, but it was it was a long time ago.

I'm not even married, and I know not it was a long time ago because.

She said, so you were youthful, Yeah, he was just born and record.

Yeah.

So I put that record out and uh, Luckily people that I was wanting to work with and associate with were able to feel my intent through that record because the record, to me, is a great record. There's a lot of stuff on that record that is great. Smile I'm coming Back, which is obviously like a great song that I've recorded for three records in the last thirty

Are you went to Grammy for twenty years later?

So It's Something is a record that I recorded on my first album. I was working with Andre Fisher, who was a drummer for Rufus, and he took me to get this record that Brenda Russell had written called It's Something. It's a Brenda Russell David Foster record, and so I recorded it from my first album and then I recorded it from my live album, but I also recorded it with this band called Snarky Puppy and we want a Grammy for it, and that was it's like twenty years apart.

How crazy is that?

Yeah?

Have you done that multiple times? Where you do a rerecord of something later on?

I do a lot of covers. I do a whole lot of covers.

What's the method behind that for you?

For me, it's really making a love letter for the person that recorded that song originally, So for Forever, for Always, for Love or Loves Holiday by Earth Wind and Fire or Angel with Anita Baker or I mean a lot of those records on it Joe sample record are obviously covers their standards. Heaven Knows was my first single ever that was a cover. You know, Jackie Graham had recorded that in London a couple of years pror of that.

Were you purposely doing that though?

No?

No, you just you love the song.

You just like Yeah, I like to sing stuff that I like. I mean again, as a sometimes as a recording artist, they want you to, you know, make a record that people know you know what's the cover gonna be? You know, that's a conversation a lot of times, particularly in the part of the recording world that I was in at the time. But I mean, I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I always say, until I before I realized that my father didn't write What's going on?

You just? I mean, I only know.

Look, well there is there is only one definitive version, which is his, and I believe that that's my own biased opinion, but not his record. Yes, it's yours and my you and me together.

Wow, that's not I did not know that.

You've got a friend. Obviously he didn't write. There's a lot of records that my dad stole from people.

Cap Jesse Campbell, Willy Nelson, Who Who's.

Who's a writer for a song for you, you know who it is.

You're looking it up, I am, I don't.

You're gonna know it when when he says it, I just can't call it up right now because I haven't had any breakfast. That's why Leon Russell, Leon Russell, absolutely.

I did not know that.

I had no idea.

Absolutely, even the arrangement, like the piano, that's Daddy's arrangement.

He's playing it. But yeah, but it's a it's a it was an already recorded song. Wow, for all we know, that's an old standard.

H you know that one? I know the song. I don't know what that it's an old standard.

Yeah, it's an old standard. And even for when he's playing it on that record, I think the story is that ROBERTA is telling him the lyrics in his ears.

He's no way.

Yeah, But that's the approach to us to a to a standard or cover is to first internally is to own it in some way, but but mostly it's to stand beside the thing that gave you the impetus to create that thing, like a love letter to that impetus.

That I mean one of your favorite I mean one of one of my favorite songs of yours? Is not your song? Technically?

Which one?

I can't make you love me?

And I used to go through like singing that song at colleges and those kids started was my song?

Yeah, I run into people all the time.

A lot of people think that as a Chris Brown song.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

So when you do when you put out this first album, are you now starting to make the connection with with a lot bunch of the artists that you see and look up to and that kind of thing or does that take time?

That takes time?

I mean because I say that because you come from Royalty, are they are they picking up on it and saying we gotta.

What's interesting is, you know, I'm very young, but there are people reaching out to me like Marcus Miller, Joe sample Gerald Allbright. You know, I got to go Dave Samborn, I got to go play with legends based on that record, which is funny because the record is not like a jazz record by any stretch of the imagination, but people could hear I guess the intent, and I started to work like kind of constantly with people of that ilk of that elk.

Yeah, you're at Berkeley at this time or you're you're still in that.

I graduated when the record came out.

Ok, yeah yeah baby, and everybody's now reaching out.

Yeah not everybody, not everybody, but.

The people you wanted, my peers, that's.

Immediate peer. I mean I did some work on of course, I draw all kinds of but I mean I've done a lot of work. I had done a lot of work at that point with people sort of in my immediate circle. But then I started working with jazz musicians a lot, and I think it became complicated for the label because it was like, well, where do we put you? You know, the nineties also is a vortex in terms

Do you think it was because, like, your gift was just mature? But so, yeah, it was old.

It was it was old and mature. Yeah.

So did they sign you as a jazz artist or did they sign as an R and B artist?

They signed me as an R and B artist because I had I had these cool demos that Renee and Angela have written in one of them songs I can't find and it's so good. I don't know whatever happened to it, but they signed me to make what ended up being what was supposed to be like an R and B pop record, I believe. But when we got working then it became like, oh, this is what this is.

Like.

I used to have conversations with them about what to say on video soul. We would we would prep for interviews and they would say, who are you listening to? And I would say, oh, I just got a new one Shorter album and I got a John Coltrane record that I really like, and they'd say, no, no, no, no, no, don't say that.

So you tricked them, trick them, just like, Hey, I'm gonna take this R and B Monday you know when we had this conversation with Robert Glass where he was like, yeah, they're gonna get twelve hundred jazz album absolutely or twelve thousand. Yeah, but so yeah, he was out here with a big budget.

It wasn't a big budget. No, it wasn't a big bugy No. No, I don't think so, I don't know what, but you know that when you really reflect on it, what would have been a big budget in the nineties.

Nineties was rocking maybe good.

Yeah, we spent a lot of money because I was in a kid group. Oh, we were on MCA and we probably we probably spent about seven to fifty yeah.

Wow. So there's a there's a part of my career which again mirrors my father's career, which is that I'm never not going to make records or or continue to be a musician and make music. But there is a commercial element to that part of the R and B money that missed me in the nineties because I was off doing other things.

Does that make sense it being talented?

Yeah, no, it's off.

Being talented inigent you know, because we are in this business, we all have to find that happy medium at some point. At some point, like you have to you know, as gifted as you are, you have to find that space to say, Okay, is this thing going to take care of me? And how am I going to start putting myself into space where it takes care of me other than it just takes care of you know, just my ego or what i've.

You know, Yeah, I'm great, you know what I mean.

And I see so many artists along the way, we've all been in this business for you know, many years, and you're like, oh, the artist is really really talented or they can really sing, or great performer, all these things, and me and him have these conversations and he'll be Jason, what, I'm like, that ain't gonna make no money.

Doug.

Yeah, He's like, yeah, but I don't think that's gonna make no money because this, this, this, this, And I don't think that the artist wants to I don't even know what the word would be.

Like capitulate to what is the thing that.

Would at least kind of to where there it's a compromise the digestible in a sense.

Yeah, I mean, I have followed the advice of many people over you know, the years, and people said I've had conversations where people say, oh, it's got to be this many beats per minuted, that's the only way you're gonna break radio, or it's got to be it's got to be a lifestyle record. You know, there's people always there's always like a man at a label that has an idea of what you need to do for your life. But ultimately, like I have never really wanted for anything.

You do a star Market, that's the grocery store. Imagine she's checking out summer.

I did it. I worked at the Shari Movie Theater for two months. Those are my only jobs I've ever done other than music. So I have been okay on my path. Yes I would like some g wagons and houses and all that ship, but ultimately, the legacy, the thing that I have inside of me is so important to me that it has to be good and I'm never gonna want for anything. I know that.

Because he can play this is awesome.

I wish you had two keyboards. I would have played song with you. I also stop at singing the wrong note at any given song.

That I don't even know what she expects.

See you pop up on this podcast.

That's too close, that's still too close. Get all the ways, just get out out, go ahead, just ahead, change.

No, I want to hear the audience is going to be man, that's fun.

That is fun, is fun.

I'm trying to go somewhere.

Is it?

What do you find more offensive? Flat or sharp?

Flat?

I agree, because the plan is.

Like you didn't even try, You gave it no effort. If you overshoot a rock with you sharp make his records, it really does.

Last night, we want to know something later.

What is it?

Your top f.

Your top five? Rock at you?

We all know?

All right? No, why do you.

Sound like a Bugwiser commercial right now?

Because that's what it is?

You five show top five. I hate these questions?

So what top five? Hate these R and B singers? Okay, right now, please.

Let me just name five because top five is so hard. Tony Hathaway is number one.

Start there all times, all time.

There's just no there's no about really, there's no tone like that. Nope, make you laugh, makes you cry.

Look drus very clean, very clean.

I try not to think about these questions because I'm going to tell you that I probably have one as well, one of the top five of all time zones.

Mm hmm.

I just got to that in the last year and a.

Half to shout out to myself.

You haven't been the only person who named yourself. Oh really, yeah, people name you. People people named you.

I've watched many of your I'm gonna have to go through Thank you for those that name me. I appreciate it's their mamas that like my record hard shaka Stevie Michael top eight. It's very hard. I'm not even scratching the surface. I'm at the top. That's that's why five is hard.

That's that's why we make it five, to make it hard.

But if you get the same five people all the.

Time, no't know you don't, we don't, we don't, we don't.

Who have you got is.

A staple obviously is like Stevie Wonder.

Your dad, Michael Shock is actually not not not on that not in everyone's whitney.

And it depends and it depends on the age demographics to you know what I mean, Like some people come in and have a younger top five. Some people have you know what I mean? Like it just it just depends. You might get an elephant. Gerald. No, that's what I'm just saying.

What was the question though? Top five singers Singers of all Time?

Yeah, you've been answering something.

I was trying to sing it and tell you, Oh, okay, I'm sorry.

Then my list is not much different. I'm gonna say my dad and I'm just gonna get up under his coat and save me because I just I take that. Now, I can do that. Singers of all Time. I'm gonna say, Nat King Cole. It's a hard one. I don't I played the fifth.

I can't do it, can't do it.

It's hard. Okay, you know earlier Aretha cannot be beat.

Imagine.

I'm really into Eric Dowkins, particularly right now too. I'm gonna put him in there.

Why not?

It's excellent? Is that fine?

Hard?

Five has got here before? Five sod R and B songs.

Songs I knew. I knew this was coming, and somehow I'm still yet unprepared. You know what I was listening to on the way over here, Circles by Atlantic Star. I love that record. All right, let's move on from that that's one. Okay, you know any Chaka console.

Okay, that's one. This is Chaka Khan Essentials, Essentials, Value one and too. Yeah.

Top five R and B records of all time.

No, just your your favorite listen.

I don't. I am bifurcated all over the place. I'm sorry, it is so hard.

What type of education? What did you major in music?

Yeah?

But where are the words coming from? I'm sorry?

Did you go to the penitentiary for that's the that's the real question.

All right, let me think the discipitation. Herbie Hancock, come running to me, Herbie, all the Donny Hathaway songs. It's so hard, Mountains, Joni Mitchell, both sides. Now, do you know Glenn Rafferty.

I don't know.

Glen.

Put us up on something.

Glenn Rafferty songs. I like it's been you wo right down the line. Do you know that song? Yeah, Baker Street? Maybe that's song Baker Street. I love that song, Whining your Way down and bays. Then why don't we now go to Stevie Wonder or you know, any songs on it's.

Just top twitter.

To choose. It's very bad.

All right, Okay, let's build your voltron. Okay, your your your super R and B artist, It's going to be easy to do. Okay, who are you going to get the vocal from the performance style? The styling performance style, let me announce it my performance style, the passion of the artists. And then since you are a song or, who's gonna write for this artist? Number one? Where you're gonna get the vocal from for this super R and B artist? Got it easy? Not even worried about that. Okay,

Do you mean like dancing around style?

If that's what you want performance? If you just want somebody who can stand and get your presence, your world way, your world. It's your artists.

I'm just really micro sometimes it's your artist.

What do you want your artists to do on stage?

I'm gonna okay, the performance style I want is gonna be like my friend Hiram Bullock. He's no longer with us. He's a guitar player, but he I just watched him electrified people all over the world for years and years and years. He would just start playing and people would just their.

Hair would blow back on some rock star type.

Yeah, but he was. He was a jazz kind of jazz guitarist.

How guitarists do they face beat?

Yeah, it's a thing, you know what those faces are?

Yeah?

Okay, Styling the drip of.

The artists, that's a hard one because you know, I like to be cute, but I also really liked to wear a T shirt and jeans and just be out there. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna choose like I don't know, like Rihanna or.

Probably be which one.

She's Beyonce. She's always super hella together.

It's always customed, absolutely and get that at the stove.

You can't buy that everywhere.

Somebody has to make that thing. Someone would imported fabrics.

Okay, imported hands, mhm.

The passion of the artist, the heart.

Of the artist.

That's Donny Hathaway or me.

A Hathaway.

A Hathay half the way she would have told that, Damn teacher, I'm a Hathaway, nigga.

You know who I know? I know Leila Hathaway.

This is only in the last ten fifteen years. I mean every year somebody says to me, I not this dude, sounds just like your father. Every year. Have you heard such and such? Have you heard this one? Have you heard that one? He sounds just like your father.

Have you heard anyone that sounded close.

I've heard a lot of people to sound else. Nobody sounds like him. You know what I mean? I don't.

And it's There was a guy who in DC sing in a group with Cliff Jones. I got Cliff. I think it might have passed. I cannot think of his name right now, to save my life, I know they'renna kill me. He sounded like your pops. Yeah, like we were in there like and it was like it was the patience that he had with his movement now that it was just like.

A lot of the people that that sound like him or want to sound like him can capture the part of the color spectrum. They cannot capture the pain. And that's a big part of what his sound was.

I hear exactly what you're saying. I hear a thousand persons now.

In the last fifteen years. People walk up to me and say, like, I sound just like your father. I sound just like that.

I say that to you, Yes, wow, said thought it is. That's wild and I.

Always say I am Donny Hathaway.

And there's that, so welcome to me, and so stop running.

Up on please for the love about you cut.

It top or someone's telling me someone on the voice sounds just like you, like no they didn't, but okay, that's fine. Why do you want to sound just like Donny Hathaway. Well, figure out what you sound like, incorporate that, that's part of that's part of the seed of what you sound like, and then what is your sound?

And then what is your sound? Who's writing for this artist?

Songwriters?

It's making your day hard.

So it's terrible. I mean, are they songs? Are they writing songs or tracks?

Writing song tap line?

Top line, the top line being melody Again. I've been doing some stuff with E. Dawkins and he's killing it.

Or we wrote a lot of records with the Egg.

So we.

Stevie wonder in his prime, I mean Mitchell, I wonder what Stevie's records sound like right now, like just the records he's writing.

I would love to know that.

Yeah, yeah, but how can you?

I mean, so many decades, so many songs like he did not miss, like entire albums of masterpieces.

He also made difficult, he made impossible sound easy.

Yeah, but I would just love to hear though, because of like a Babyface, like baby Face still writing songs absolutely and hit records for himself for other people. Like So when you have someone like Stevie, wonder you just like, for lack of a better term, you wonder what the music still is? Yeah, what it would sound like if you just pull up on Stevie was playing working? Can you imagine that saying that to Stevie, wonder.

What work she's working on?

Yeah?

You hear something I would love to know because that's music I grew up with. So that music has accompanied me at every step of life. So I want to know what's it? How is it now?

Yeah? Yeah, we should start doing that. We started pulling up on it on jeez man, like fun for reason. We got that work out for it.

It sounds amazing.

We might get cussed out a couple of times, but whatever, whatever.

Good stuff that.

Was ugly, wasn't it like mustard? Like mustard?

It's like all three of them.

What I both try to do something.

The look that you give me, one out of every three looks is like huh.

Because that's what you be doing. You be doing hun stuff.

I understand.

Now. I'm gonna try to get through this song because in this song are the instructions for the next segment.

The last one. You didn't know the last when you didn't listen to instruction.

I'm paying attention. I'm fully aware of let's go.

I ain't saying no nicks. I ain't saying no names. I ain't saying no names.

Ain't saying no niggs.

Who he was? What you did? Don't say she? Ain't saying no names.

Hey, they very important segment of the show. I ain't saying no names. Tell us the story funny and fucked up a funny and fucked up the to the game. You can't say no name?

Sure one. So I was doing a session with a friend who was working with these legendary singers, and my friend that was producing said, please come because one of these singers is I don't know how to communicate with her what I'm trying to get, And so I showed up and it was cool, but then the producer was like, hey, can you get them to do that thing that they do? And I was like, they said, they don't want to do that and now you pushing it. And so at

Who it is gets great.

I did tell Prince Ones that I had gas. That's kind of a funny story.

You just said the name.

That's crazy, because of course she was hanging out with him.

Hey, Prince I got.

I'm a very honest girl. What can I say that? The story I was talking about before, though, was harrowing because it was somebody that I held in very.

High esteem and they canceled you off.

They canceled a whole lot of things, They canceled a whole lot of people, and I just happened to be quietly in that line. But the reason it hurt was because it was somebody that I had really been trying to lift up and really been trying to support not in the way that they need what I have, but in a way that is how you support legends.

Absolutely, you know, absolutely, Yeah, that sucks.

Yeah, it's the worst. Like when the legendary talent and then the legendary attitude don't.

I've been there. It happens.

It happens more than people know.

Yeah, I've been there.

Some of the greatest musicians that I've ever met, though, are so cool.

Most I think the thing that I've experienced is like the guys on a really really high level are the nicest people.

Absolutely, they don't have anything to prove.

It's the mids, some scanless midscanless.

Mids, scandless mids like that. You know you mad, right? Are you walking like that? You can't be mid and walk and talk like that. I respect your confidence. Relax, relax, Well, well we got to pack your bags. Is you know, you got to get on that road. Get on tonight. We're looking forward to a new album.

Thank you. I'm so excited. It's probably the best record I've made.

I'm excited for the album too, and I'm excited because of the layers and you know, I'm gonna continue to encourage you to have fun. Yeah, you've you've You've more than earned that Black Black album. Have a ball. The intro is so crazy, Thank you, But have a ball. That temple there, that's that's yours, and have a good time. Because I was just like, literally when you were playing a couple of those songs, I was like this, ooh you and you and black Coffee. That would be like, yeah,

When are we going to do something?

Whenever you want to quit plan I'm the only thing I'm doing right now.

This is my worst pest peeve in this whole business. I really want to do something with you. Oh, I'll call you Thursday.

I'll give you my address. All right then, and you've you've been here.

I mean, I know you live here.

So we work here and I work and I work at home and to guess wherever you feel comfortable. My wife to cook something I.

Don't eat when I'm working. But yeah, that's be fine.

We have some snacks on deck. Snacky Robinson got to keep snacks on deck snacking call.

All right, well you said it. Now people know I'd like, yeah, we should, we really should, we actually should.

I might have something.

Casey came out here and said the same thing, same thing.

Now I'm about to mix it single.

But that's excellent.

Okay.

Oh, here's here's a good story, shady story about somebody I thought was sucked up. But I met this person. He's a legendary kind of songwriter dude. And I walked up to him. I was, you know, probably twenty five years old, and I said, I love your work. It has so much depth and color. I just I would love to work with you or write a song, or if you could write something for me. I don't know if you're familiar with what I do, but I just I think that what you do is for everyone. I

He didn't eat and what I didn't, I.

Don't want one of your songs in the can. It might have been, but I'm interested.

I was.

I was coming to him. I think you're great. Can we make something bespoke for for both of our levels of great bespoke. And he said, I'm busy. I got ship I made for other people six weeks ago. Why don't you just sip through that and find it?

Can you some of this meal? Prep?

Just get that?

No, no freshly cooked meal?

Yeah you kind of said, come get this hit.

He has no more hits. He's had no more hits.

Oh wow, yea, no, Mas, that statement really bad. Then if you don't have live the way I know you don't, you know, I know you don't feel like you have the perfect vocal. I I feel like you have the perfect vocal.

You are.

I never I never get the fan out, you know, when we're around each other, I never get to like you know what I'm saying. We just be like, hey, what you doing? Like you know, we were just kind of being passing. But I'm thankful for this moment to where I really get to actually sit and fan out over you and give you some flowers and let you know that like, yes, we're listening and we're studying. Thank you, yes, so thank.

You, thank you.

We appreciate.

Valentine.

This is the rby Money podcast. You authority on all things R and B because they gotta know.

Its gonna wake the ass up.

They gotta know your ass up because in the building is the COVID. R and B Money.

R and B Money is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and Radar Show, and you can connect with us on social media at Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode, subscribe to YouTube dot com, forward Slash, R and B Money