REPLAY - Eric Benét

R and b's Money.

Child.

We are the authorities.

R and B.

What's going on? People?

You have just tuned into the R and B Money Podcast. I'm Tank, this is Jay Valentine, and we are the authorities on R and B music and in the building all the way from mell Walkee mail town.

Huh anything with mail letter mail do my brother from another mother.

Thanks for the insight man waiting to come up in this.

Listen this. We want to this. We want to kick this thing off the right way. Okay, we want to kick this off the right.

In honor, yes, okay, in honor of Okay.

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. First of all, are you all of a sudden organic? Yeah, all of a sudden? Are you in touch with the earth people? All of a sudden? You? Wait, listen, I'm gonna tell you. Started this ship there was a man, yeah, walking.

Barefoot, barefoot.

He had already had sea shells attached the strings and ship.

Yeah, And we was trying to figure out how is he doing this? Is he Listen?

I'm trying to tell you every girl I knew everyone was like, oh my god. I was like, no shoes up.

I love Eric B.

I'm looking at my temple and was like, still represent we are not wearing shoes.

With no shoes, I'm gonna get rid of my heir.

Jesus is here man, Jesus ey thing.

It was every nay, Lenny Kraviss Maxwell, a very small group of elite organic men.

We all smell like that. You back then, some of the ladies like, remember he would be on Venice Beach and the nigga be selling. I got some portunity for you.

Yeah, see this, he's been doing this, so you said some money eventually eventually.

Now y'all come in the terms.

Now you've got your feet now you now you now you're not now you hold he's been doing it and the women have been going.

So let me ask you a question. Yes, answer your question. Please do that.

I want to talk about the bare feet thing. Go ahead.

Was that on Was that on purpose?

Like did you know going into this like I'm gonna give them something, something different, I'm gonna give them something vulnerable, something you know what I'm saying a different kind of with my feet out, I'm comfortable.

I'm gonna tell you about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go a little surface with it, then I'm gonna go deep.

Okay.

So when I was first signed back in nineteen Hendres and Hum, it was me and my sister. We were called Bennet. We were first. My first record deal was with E and My Records, and so you know, we came up in Milwaukee. We did like the clubs we would do, like the obscure cities in Michigan and Illinois. And then we got our record deal. And I was always used to looking to my left and seeing my sister right there. Okay, first record deal didn't work out

A wow.

So my dumb ass hung in there a little bit longer and I got my solo deal. Once I got my solo deal, I started to have to perform by myself.

I was not used to that.

The stage fright when you are used to looking over and see your family member and all of a sudden, it's me out there.

It was.

It was like I'd be backstage a little debilitated, just like stage fright will come on me like that. So I discovered one day that if I just took my shoes off and went out on the stage. I relaxed, almost like you felt at home. I felt at home. And a byproduct was of that was women. Apparently I must have had a good foot day or something and they'd be like.

Oh, look at his feet. I was like, oh, y'all like this shit.

Okay, I'll keep doing it because it makes me feel great. So let me flash forward. Great, I'm gonna flash forward to something that I've reached. I told you I was gonna go deep, something that I've just discovered, which you're probably hipped to. You're so health conscious and YouTube. But there's such a thing. It's called grounding and earthing.

Have you heard of this, yes?

Yeah.

So basically, grounding is the science based upon the fact that the Earth is just one big battery full of negative electrons. We as human beings, are basically electric beings. We're full of positive electrons. But when we walk around with shoes on all the time, especially rubber soul shoes, we are insulating ourselves from those negative electrons, which balances our body and reduces inflammation, makes us healthy, makes us

Wow. Yeah, it's real ship, you know what. And and thinking about that, I used to always wonder why my.

Country cousins healthiest ship well, was so far ahead every party elements.

They were faster than you. They were faster. It was right right like they was driving. I was like, you're not right, how are you driving? Just dropping the car.

Broke bruh, you and me both because that where's your family? From my mobile? Alabama?

I got Alabama, I got I got all all all over Alabama, Birmingham specifically, I got Arkansas, little Rock all through there.

And then they all migrated. They Migras's how they got to Milwauk into Detroit.

But you are you are speaking the truth. Like we would go down to Alabama and my other I'd be ten years old, and my other ten year old cousins be like driving, got girlfriends and.

They got everything. We're going to see these goods around the corner you want to go.

I was like, I ain't much nowhere, you can't go.

I don't know we're gonna do.

We get exactly the joke, but they was ready to get to it. It was like and then I had two goods.

Like, so, what you're saying with it, with the whole barefoot thing, is that we shouldn't make jokes about the little drunk white girls after the club.

We can still make fun of this drunk Let's keep that funny.

I'm just wondering, man, how that all works. All right, let's tap into the music. Man, Yeah, let's go.

Let's go to the beginning, right, we like we like to go to like the introduction of of you to music and music to you. You know what I'm saying, like the complete where your old story.

No, I mean you can break it down in the pieces, but the part where it's where you said you know, where it claimed you because normally claimed you first.

Right, you don't know what the gift is. You don't know you have a gift. True, you were in a group.

Yeah, you're able to do things that you just think you're able to do. And then there's a moment where you recognize.

Oh yeah, you really hit up. You really hit on something right there. Because I remember as far back as I can remember, you know, Milwaukee in grade school, sixty Pith Street School and Capitol Drive, you know, something as simple as music class. I just remember having an ability to sing and understand music on a level that was way above like the rest of the kids.

And what I would do.

I don't know if you did this, but because I didn't want to stick out and be weird, I acted like I was on their level, you know what I mean. It's like I don't I don't want too much attention

No?

That was me in sixth and seventh grade, and so I was just kind of like staying here and then really right right right right.

It was almost like this, Yeah, I played football.

Like you sing were you sing. I'm like, right, I don't know if I want to, you know what I'm saying. Because my cousin was the lead singer. My cousin Kisha, was the one who was doing all the solos. And then when I finally tried a solo, I tricked it off really bad.

You know what I'm saying. I was like, how do I do? She was like, you was off? You know what I'm saying. So I went back into training. You know what I'm saying. Okay, So so you're starting there and you're and and about what time is it?

So this is I mean, this is grade school. And then when I go home, like I'm I'm the youngest of a group of five siblings, we're all musical, we all sing. So that was the place. The whole house from from my mom playing the piano. My dad didn't really sing, but he had this extensive classical music collection. So I would be in my dad's music collection listening to Tchaikowsky and Brahms and Mozart, and then with my

Bruh.

I sang Lionel Richie's truly I kill that ship. I killed that ship. You know that's still a fro no offense, Linel, But at thirteen, I probably sang that ship better than you respected. But you respected Bruh. Can I tell you? The next day at school there were two girls I had crushes on that did not know I existed. They were waiting at my locker the next morning. I was like, that's something to this ship. Both boup.

Both up.

Vicky Stanton, Vicky Stanton, Laura Oldenburg.

Them oh vi VI Vicky Stanton, Laura.

Oldenberg Oldenburg Oldenburg.

Yeah, I was.

You were early there too. You were early there too. I didn't learned about equal Effers is way later in.

I don't even know if I know now where, but yeah, and from there, you know, from there it was just like my cousin George, who was always like the musician, the musician of the family. My George, cousin George played you know, he was like you. He was like, played piano and he played the guitar. And it was just dope and my cousin George and my sister Lisa and

So between time wise, when you guys get your first deal, so when you get your deal and get your first hit wreck, a lot of shit happened between that and me having a solo deal.

So what's the what's the time frame. So we're talking about we signed the Benet deal with EMI Capital in ninety two, Pluck from Milwaukee in Los Angeles, and that

And that's ninety two.

That's ninety two. That record did not work out, as everybody in the industry has these stories where your first management deal, your first record deal, it's like, well they kind of sort of put a single out but didn't really put any money behind it, so we got dropped.

Right.

This was one of the hardest times in my life because a few years prior my father died. My father was a detective for the city of Milwaukee. So Dad died, my girlfriend, Tammy Stouff, we became parents. We became parents India short my daughter, India Shortly after I got dropped, Tammy died in a car accident. So now I lost my record deal. Dad's gone all of a sudden, single dad, and I'm just trying to figure out, Wow, how am

I'm riding with a girl through d C.

Was it side Boom? It might have been that's another beast.

I was upside. It might have been signed, She's a beast. Yeah, it might have been signed. You gotta hit this from I'm really she played that, she played that femininity. Oh ship and at that time, pronounce it.

That's how I like it. And I was like everything for me was John p Key and Burrell, It was Fraying Hammond and and then it was it was it was all that, you know what I'm saying, so when you tell me to listen to something like at this point, I have every run in the book downloaded.

That's how I lived my life. I run. I don't want to verse, no first verse.

Let's not gliss over that that you nigga.

You don't just run, you just you kill it at that time, Nigga, I have no verse. I'm gonna run this hol of thame five minutes. So so if you ain't doing that right, I don't want to get you're not running through the whole song. And she started playing this song and a.

Missing to the thing.

You was making the faces and ship right interesting right, and the vocal was so clean and straight ahead, and I was like, who's this again?

After she had already told you. And then and then, and then you did something that we do in church. Was about the three and a half close to four minute mark.

You did a vamp. Okay, you let the band play for a minute, and then you went into a vamp.

Yeah that's this nineteen seventy ship.

Oh yeah, this niggas ba nigga vam. I was so at that point, man, thank you you went into a vamp. I was coming from yours. I said, your problem coming from and then even I know we'll we'll get to we'll get to the later in the two thousands, But then you started going digging into your false settle with the uh.

I cried sometimes sometimes yeah yeah, yeah.

That bothered me.

I took a shue with that.

I took I took it. I felt the person at okay, okay, because GEORGI said, I took that person because I'm going thumb back, say let it. Why is this nigga, why is this false settled? So clear it's been connected with me.

And and I hear you sing that on stage and you didn't miss a no wow a no, And I'm a false settle that's what I do.

You known for that?

No?

No, no, no, no, literally not just a false sttle, right, you're known for not missing, which is as guys who we all sing, right, we've we've been around one thousands, so you know where that comes. But not missing, it's a different type of gift, right, That's just that's that's

A Yoshi.

Yosh and he was like, nigga, he didn't miss.

And you know, as singers, we all know what that means. But I had to ask again. I'm like, what do you mean he didn't miss? That's a huge conference, Like he didn't And you.

Know about this that comes from that comes from going through the ranks, like like, okay, so I dropped out of college, but my college was being in those shitty clubs all over the Midwest, right having to it's a drunk crowd. This nigga over here is about to start a fight with this nigga. There's some something going over here. I'm gonna have to like take command of this whole room, and I'm gonna have to do it consistently, And maybe I wasn't able to do it for the first six

Well, I mean they're not investing. They're not investing in the process, right.

I don't even know if there is the process, Is there any reverence for it anymore? No, there should be, there should be.

But I don't really think that we're like probably the lasts who are who are looking for people who are actually just just seized and seasoned in some type of growth, that's some type of developments. Like it's taken us years to find an artist, right because we're like, nah, but they hot in they all time.

They got this record of them.

But you that fleeting, Like that's so fleeting. I remember, like one of the things that I so appreciate y'all telling me that that means a lot to me. I remember a couple of times in my career, and as artists, I guess there's always some level it thinks for me,

Yeah.

Yeah, the hunger doesn't go away, you know, the grind, the hustle. Yeah, never never goes away.

So when you get that first hit record, right, because thanks spoke about it a little bit, right, you know, you put up on them with shoes off, was out, you know what I mean, showing them sing something, showing them something, and they're definitely showing out.

What is that influx?

Like?

Yeah, man, you mean when you catch there, you catch that r you fresh from Milwaukee, Yes, you're fresh from your walk. You get a major hit record, and but.

You don't but you also don't get the run of the meal hit record. You get a record that nobody's heard before. You don't get the some producer was did that record, and then your producer heard it and y'all recreated and now you get that little cheek code hit. You had a record that sets you apart from the gate, right. So it's a different it's a different level that's coming your way. It's a it's a different kind of vibe because back then.

There were like you said, I mean, when you think about what I was doing back then, and what cats like D'Angelo were doing back then, and like Maxwell were doing back then, that was outside of the norm.

For sure.

It was like Mashow was brushing his teeth right video, Like it's like right brushing his teeth. They don't care at all and they love it right right.

So we.

It was just kind of like this feeling of I don't know, being that kind of a creative person. The people who I work with. When I'm in the lab and i've been, I've I like to go check in on like how see how lots of people work. A lot of people like to work like they like to check out what's hot right now, like runk, what kick sounds are hot right now? You know what's happening in the top ten. And I'm going to try to put my own spin on that. But I've never really worked

And you had seen the bottom.

I had already had huge loss, personal loss in my life, my the mother of my daughter dying all of a sudden. I'm a solo single father, trying to figure out the next move. I was working at UPS. When I told you I was working at the studio, I was also working at UPS. Uh, and working at the studio to make you know, to make a little bread. So it's like I saw the bottom and once I knew that, oh you mean, I can win by just being completely authentic in my appreciation for music, not the music industry,

And that's it. And that's a very unique situation.

That's very as all of us has been in this music business for so long to actually it's like getting drafted to the right team because one or worked for you, but universal may.

Have not you know what I mean, or im I didn't you know what I mean?

So it's like in that space man, that that in itself, and you know, we try to give that type of information when we when we do these interviews for people that are trying to get in the music business. People are in the in the business to understand, like this ship just don't happen the way you want it at that time, and you got to keep pushing.

You got to keep pushing until you find that situation that makes the most sense for you exactly. But we got off of the influx that came with this.

You you.

I'm from that area.

He wasn't gonna let you around by the way around baptized didn't.

I'll tell you.

I tell you here.

A lot of people don't believe this, but actually, now that you now that you know me, you can leave it.

Where you feel me where it's like I'm in that ten fifteen years you just jumped another.

You know, I need a little bit more.

Time to real this thing in right, because it's like, all of a sudden, I can have all of it. Are you fucking kidding me? It was like like, speak on, man, come on, you stuttered Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Maryland.

Yeah right, l A, now now I gotta I gotta taste. When I went on tour with Genuine, it was it was a it was a heavy taste.

That was it was.

It was the taste that changed my life. No, no, listen, I definitely yes, you are correcting that, man. I know, and Genuine would say to me, this is cool. I know you having the time of your life, but it ain't nothing like when it's you and I didn't believe I'm never leaving you.

I'm going to sing.

You still dowhere if guy is on stage and we got to show that he finds.

A way to sing back to get let's do So it's like.

When you get with you, but then when it when it listen when I watched, when I watched, maybe I deserve start charting and me going from clubs like you know what was one hundred people to a thousand people, to seven hundred people to a thousand people, and then to co headlining radio shows and arena's and London.

To Chris and and and Nally you know and and Jah rule Jesus Christ, you have.

To be all the R and B shows all because my name was Tank and so sometimes they wouldn't even listen to my music.

Just saw that's hilarious record.

Yes, so so so like you take you, I just I was dropped in a church kid. Still I'm still trying. You know, it's still biblical for me, it's still spiritual. Lord, If you just guide me tonight, I'll let me.

Just won't do it.

Lord, if you just let me get this tonight, I'm not gonna do it. No mo Like, Lord, please guide me tonight. And Lord, why did why did her ask have to look like that?

Lord said?

Lord made you did that, you made you did this, and I honestly was not. No, you were not. I was not.

There is no man and and people people don't understand this, bro, like you get it. There is no man on this planet who works at home depot or who's working at Wells Fargo right now. If you throw him in this situation, if you just throw him in the whatever you want situation, it will kill him. It will suck the life out of them. And so it's like you have to be in a certain mental emotional preparedness, which I was not. But like I said, it will take some years and you have to live with.

Some consequences, some consequences, some losses and losses, some consequences, and it's.

Like, wow, I need to reevaluate a lot of shit. So but this, you can't be ready for that.

And and I think on the other side of that, the the upbringing and all of these things, and having the family structure that we had prepared us in a different way to where.

We would be able to survive. Right, you know what I'm saying. Because a lot of people, a lot of people just don't know. And and for you, you did it on a very public stage. Right, because you know what you were involved in.

So it's like anytime it's on a public stays, it's a million it's not only magnified a million times, but there's a certain uh, there's a narrative that they want to tell to you know. Now it's clickbait, but it's like to sell magazines to do this, So things respawn a certain way, and then on the very tiny nucleus of what's happening on the inside, there are details that no one else knows and maybe I'll never share, but it's like it ain't mistakes were made. I've taken accountability.

That's that's that's a hard thing. And it's even it's even harder now with social media.

Oh my god, it's even harder now, right because back then you just have to try to see you and take a picture of you and then't write whatever they wanted.

You get tired of it or they get tired of it.

And now you make your own and you sorry typing ship, and now you're like maybe I should Yeah, maybe I should have.

Just I'm a delete that right, they've already out. He used to call me. You'll call me about seven in the morning. What the fuck? Take what did you? What do you want to do?

What's her name?

Seven? Five?

Saying some can you stop this on line?

This?

No, I said, I said that said the same way.

But I get that, I said, Tank, what you gotta realize a lot of times you're talking to ghost. True, you're literally talking to go like, yes, are there some people that are real people that are going at you? But sometimes it's just accounts that are made to literally absolutely get a.

Rise out of you. Well, what come on out, come on now, doubt. Can you just stop on Instagram? Can you do it for me for two weeks?

Please?

No, they have to hear from me. That's just not easy.

I have this outlook on life. Mistakes that might be a little different because granted, in the moment, they feel like the exact wrong thing you've allowed to happen, or you participated in happening, or that has happened to you. But in my fifty four years on this earth, I am fifty four.

Come on, man, I did not know that nigga, I don't think I'm buying no more shoes. Yeah.

Man, what I've learned is mistakes, all of them. And this is gonna sound like some cliche. You see you on the Instagram with a lion in the background of some sh sterc but from.

Some nigga, that's just a terrible human, right. It's probably horrible.

For the girls I'm talking about some certain people whatever is it's a terrible human right, or the Instagram models with the ass and it be like.

Spiritual, you know, it's like, you know, I've got to grow foot.

To be like to be like only God, you know. Anyway, So what the what was I saying?

Oh, mistakes, mistakes, God?

I know, great, I got to use the mistakes for me have all been an opportunity to grow. So yes, I have made mistakes in my life, and I feel and I think it goes back. I think it goes back to something something you hit on the parenting thing my mom and dad instilled in me a long time ago, like you are going to make a lot of mistakes in your life. What do you do with those mistakes? What do you do with those traumatic events in your life?

You know, but.

The record label didn't really give us autonomy, didn't really give us control to make all of the music we wanted to make, to pick the producers that we necessarily wanted to work with, or at least we felt like I shouldn't say that, because there was a lot of energy on my part where I felt like I doubted myself. Enough is that twenty something year old kid who well, I certainly can't know so if they're telling me I should work with this artist and that artist, and I

Led you here.

Don't doubt that, you know, like, lead with that. Don't let somebody else who's been on their own journey and have seen their own assent to fame and fortune tell you this is how I did it, so you need to do it. You need to do it like this. Look, some of those lessons that they bestow on you are appropriate and you can use that, but their path is not your path. So I think that's probably one of the biggest lessons that I learned. I think I learned

Yeah, I could only imagine Eric coming out as like the fifth member of Joasy with like.

The type of that was.

Like, it's not you, you are somebody tried to get me in, like a nigga was that to get me in like a three boy band group where it was me I was to singing nigga and it was like this dark nigga from from like Nigeria or something, and it was a white nigga who was singing whig and it was like I almost did it. And this was before my first record deal.

I was like, and I was in the meeting with the two guys.

And come on, bro, this is our chance. You know, if you don't like it, you know, we could blow up and then you can do your own thing. I was like, yeah, but I don't know the same for me, So you're absolutely right. Man, it's like, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be true to yourself. You gotta be true to yourself. You have to be honest enough with yourself to know your gut, to know your soul, so that when something doesn't vibrate right with you, you are the

Bow it up? You know what?

And that's that's okay, movie star writer all of that. Let's pivot to that because you know, I don't really do a whole lot of politics.

You know sometimes and listen you in between you and d L you, Oh my god, yeah, out there.

I think that's the old man. That's the old man in me.

You are out there.

The old man ship is real because once you get to a certain age, it's like, let me just say you are saying it. I remember when I first started doing it. My management was like, yeah, you know, that's how I started saying. You know, we really respect that you want to voice your opinion, but we got to remember there's there are people out there who like your music who aren't exactly on the same political that man, we're talking about a damn you know ship, damn Hitler starter kit.

Here's what I say, it's like, it is a double ed short right in terms of the political part of it. Once you start dabbling into that place, you can you can feel the shift of people who were there for the music then knowing discovering too much about you, right, that makes them either go way left or way right with you. But you're right, you're and you're out, you're outspoken in terms of you know, in terms of the political uh, in terms of your political status.

I think once you hit fifty, what it is like any any whatever like filter I had left that ship, that ship just you.

Know, because you were you were attacking who was you? Who was you?

You know you said something, you said something running, ain't singing and if it's in insane you know because you and you young niggas, you're putting the whole lot of we grew up on you man doing that man attacking the kids, saying like who was attacking the king?

At some point we're gonna have to stop.

Eric, you ain't nobody when I was growing up, when I was in the studio, which I hate that.

I said, Eric, come on, man, stop there people, This new ain't ship. You put the time on it.

But it was like it was like you were just I mean, you were being honest about how you felt about it. But you know what I mean, Like I think I was.

Having one of those moments where hey, I love like I am. I'm one of the biggest fans of like dope runs and people who can run.

It's just like, I don't know.

I think it's like one of those things where before the run, there needs to be the melody, Like can we at least know what the melody is before you start?

Like and I know what I said, and I agree with you, but they had to say it. But no, there because because because I grew up, Yeah, you said.

On Kim Barell.

But see that's it's almost.

So guess what I needed, Like she she didn't. She didn't make a song that was like a straight ahead or a commercial thing until way later.

I know this sounds like bullshit, but it's almost like that's different because because Kim Barell, Kim Barell is a whole nother being.

It's not different because I needed what she was doing. I needed it.

I agree with that. I'm not disagreeing with you. Like these young nigga like kim Barell, probably.

That's what it's like.

It's like these young niggas would hear a Kim Barell and be like, Oh, that's what I need to do, and it's like, no, before Kim Barell was I don't know, I don't. I mean, I met Kim Barell. She's a wonderful person, but I don't know like her whole story, but I would imagine before she could do all that, at some point she had the base, like she could do a melody for sure, so and she had to

Oh, and that's what the song is, that's all it is.

But as I was able to grab the pieces, well, clearly you can use it and use it in spacessary and that's.

What the beauty of running like you you well you're a songwriter, you're a producer, so you know construction of along the melody, learn yes, yes.

To learn to stop singing versus myself. You know what I'm saying, like, Oh, they'll never be able to do this, Like that was my mentality when I went to the studio. They're going to be like when they can't sing, like maybe I deserve was like in my mind, my worst song vocally one of my biggest.

Wow, and I didn't understand why until fifteen years later.

Was that kind of stuff is incredible to me because I kind of feel the same way like with some of my biggest songs. For some of those songs where and it's interesting how this works. It's like you can be in the studio and you can have some song that you feel like is a masterpiece and you just have to put no every every box of that song. No no, no, no, no no no, that wasn't right. I want to can we can I bring the can the guitar play come back to the studio because he

So it's like, I'm a story of mine, the story of my career right A song Please Don't Go have been played for numerous artists foof album whose albums I've worked on. I was like, I got this one thing right here playing it's cool. I'm in Glenwood Studios working on uh, working on tex Club and pain and I got one day extra. I finished all the songs I wanted to release, said something here.

They was like.

They was like, well, you got one more day. If you want to do something, you do something. I was like, okay, they got good cookies and ship hang out at the studio, chill, and I'm gonna record this one track. One.

I was like, I got this one track. I'm just recorded.

Lonnie, my guy, Lonnie he call, He's like, he's like, what you working on teas. I was like, I'm just working on this song right here. Like he's like, let me get some of that. Bridge was like absolutely. It was one hundred percenter into the bridge, so he puts a bridge down. I sing the bridge. I'm like, I'm just turn it in with the rest of them. Turned

Is that snad? I said, are you sure?

Right?

You know I haven't been out in five years. I've been on the bench.

Yeah, I've been at war. Yeah, we're in rec company for five years. And they're like, this is a song and I'm like, I don't I don't think. I don't think that after five years of being absent, that this is this is where we go. We don't start with this, right, And they're like this, yes we do, right, Yes we do. Black Round Records I got.

I got the same story. So it had been a minute since I went through this whole thing. With Warner Brothers where I you know, we did A Day in the Life and that was a big record for me. And then I did this other record, another album called Better and Better, but they rejected my album, so the whole album. So I'm going to the record label and I'm like, Okay, y'all don't really get this album. Okay, will you let me leave the label? Will you let me out at my deal?

Nope?

Okay. Will you give me like a budget to go in and do some more shit like if you didn't like Nope. So basically I'm just sitting. I'm just sitting for a couple of years. They wouldn't let me out, they wouldn't give me a budget to do anything else. And so I'm back home just vibing some songs with my dudes. Ultimately I got another I got a green lid to do another record. And we were in the in my promotion man's room, Ken Wilson, you know, come

Yeah. I thought it was just like, yeah, I thought it was.

I thought because when we wrote You're the only One, I thought it was one of those like throwback to you know, the whole vibe we were doing like a seventies throwback thing, and I was like, I don't know people ready for that right now. It's probably just gonna be like a cool vibe on the album. Can It was like, Nigga, that was the vibe, that ship right there, Nigga, don't know what you're smoking, Nigga. So yeah, and that was that was number one for like a couple more number one.

You got toast the number.

Boy.

It was got a lot of my money. We have a part of the show. Okay, right, he can do it. He can definitely. What is it?

Does it involve calistenics or doing push up?

No?

No, no, okay, it involves talking that talk, so it's called I ain't saying on that m.

Hm, whoa No, listen, listen, listen, listen.

It can be funny or fucked up. Are both funny and fun up your story? But you do not say the names of the other participants in the story. But you give a non be like, oh you talking about that?

Could have been.

I ain't saying, I ain't saying. Okay mm hmm.

But you know I know I didn't prep you for this. You just not. We like to do it on the spot. We like to do on the spot. You like to get it honest uge.

Let me see now in my memory, I'm you know, I'm doing like the fucking don't say that. They don't know. They don't know who that is that ship either. No, yeah, we're swiping. I'm swiping right.

Now in my brain. Old hell, let's see, no name, no face, no case.

Here's that I'm trying to think it don't fit. I ain't saying no name.

Y'all edit this ship. No we wrong you the ben man. Whatever you need, whatever you need.

Jamie told us, don't any ship custs us out.

But I wanted to adder some ship. Okay, okay, okay.

I ain't said no names. I mean it's I mean just in the spirit of the conversation and being from Milwaukee, and you know Milwaukee gets cold as ship. Mm hm.

Ah.

Somebody was uh this was I used to before I actually moved to LA. I kept my I kept the place in Milwaukee for a while. And uh there was an artist. Oh my god, I can't believe I'm telling you burdening ham. If I didn't have like three glasses of wine, I probably wouldn't say this man hold up. So there was somebody. There was this female artist who I was kind of vibing. By the way, full disclosure, was not married. This was like Eric in Milwaukee, just

It was it was. It was.

It was either December or January in Milwaukee. So you know, that's no way, no joke. So we are, we're drinking, we're eating, and as we're drinking and eating, we're getting a lot more touchy philly with the laughs, the laughs, the lingering hands are lingering longer and boom boom boom.

And then.

We're both drunk, which this is everything about the story is horrible because because I'm drunk in the bar with this person and now I'm gonna I'm like where you're saying what what? Held are you saying?

Okay, I'm just driving.

I'm not drunk. Incredibly irresponsible. So we're in the car and she says we're driving past esther Brook Park. She says streaking. I'm like streaking, Yeah, let's do it. So it's like one o'clock in the morning, it's probably like eight degrees outside.

Drunk as hell.

That's a great idea.

Pull over, Oh my god, pull.

Over as the Brook Park in the parking lot, looking ship, we takeing off our clothes. We run through Estherbrook Park one o'clock in the morning, butt ass naked, ended up in the bushes, and that's where I'll leave the.

Bushes eight degrees you are wow?

Yeah.

Do you ever hear about the news run in Milwaukee?

This this is me say.

I got a lot a lot of crazy white boyfriends in Milwaukee. So they got this are they used to? I don't know if they do it anymore? But on New Year's Eve, you got the Polar Bears, and they jump into the Polar Bears, y'all. They don't know what the Polar Bears is. It's a bunch of crazy ass white people in Milwaukee. On New Year's Eve, they will strip down to their swimsuits and jump into sub zero water,

They were break into the swim.

Yeah. So I did the nude run in Milwaukee once.

But I feel like you do more.

Probably probably the nude run Milwaukee.

I did it like one time.

I know I was lying. You could tell I was lying right every year like new Road.

This niggas wilf Ferro didn't mean that's Frank the tenth right here? Why is the gentleman? This has been Everybody Podcast with our brother Eric Bennay. He name name, name name, I don't even be money money