Questlove Supreme: Danyel Smith

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. How are you guys, Steve?

I realized in the last five episodes you hardly said a word.

What are you? Okay? Yes, there you go? All right? Uh you're in a purple room now, all right?

My fault still the after effects of the studio.

Yeah, yeah, man, I just you know, I feel like I get y'all a little a little green light.

Uh, the core to day, little YouTube makeup artist vibe.

I got you, I got what's except we're getting today, sir.

Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner, and.

I like you.

How's it going with you? Oh? It's going good.

I'm on an eye list somewhere hoping my WiFi don't.

Ship on y'all.

Nice on vacation. Good to hear case?

Yeah, okay, Now I can introduce to our our guest, our Guesterday is of course, she's an award winning author, novelist, journalist, magazine editor from the Ya area, The Yay I don't know.

I don't even know if people in the.

Bay Area call it the Yay Area, but I'm going on a limb and calling it the Ya Like Northia.

No one calls it.

Yeah, no one calls it that.

Except for the roots when they're on stage. Will I will say that I got to know and subsequently feared this woman Uh when she was the first black editor in chief at the much loved Vibe magazine starting in nineteen ninety four. I believe you replaced Alan like correct I did?

In fact, yeah I did.

In fact.

If ever, you guys wondered why is Amir obsessed with journalists more than he's obsessed with his fellow peers in the music business, I will honestly tell you it starts with this woman because I only realize the power of

Daniel Smith, thank you, a how are you? Oh?

I mean I'm doing good because I'm over here with y'all, so it feels it just feels really good and really special.

Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Where are you just speaking to us right now? From? Where are you from?

My home in southern California, specifically in Venice, California.

Hey, aw, nice, Okay, I didn't know, I see, I didn't know if you were in East Coast or West Coaster.

I mean, I'm I feel pretty equally both. Over the course of my life at this point, I mean, I think I did twenty three years on the on the East Coast between most of it in Manhattan, most of it in Brooklyn, some of it in Manhattan, some of it in Washington, d C. But I'm back home in my in the in the great country of California. So it's good to be here.

Good to have you. Okay.

So the thing is, you're shigned Bright book. It's almost like Jeopardy where your shine Bright Book? In my opinion, it's almost like an episode of Quest of Supreme without us asking the ques questions, you know. So it's almost like if I were to go, well, no, literally she you know.

It's it's a good cheat sheet.

Especially in the first chapter where you're breaking down your journey. It's almost like, I feel like it's the service to even recap that. So I kind of want to take a different route with this episode than I would normally do if you were a recording artist and well, you know, one, I want to just ask the obvious, why did you feel the need to construct this book and tell these stories.

Well, let me answer the the second question first, Why was this so long overdue? It's a combination of on my part timing combination, add to that a lot of second guessing myself, add to that a little bit of fear, and add to that I hadn't quite figured out the best way to tell it. It just hadn't. I had to get to that place. I had to get really strong, I think, a way that I hadn't felt, probably, I don't know, in a half a decade by the time I finished Shine Bright. So it's it's all my fault.

All right, You speaking of your husband loved Elliott Wilson why in yeah.

Why these seventeen years? Seventeen years?

That's awesome and hip hop?

That is it?

Right? Like straight up and down.

I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, so it's it took me too long. I'm not gonna lie, but you know it just the timing was right. It was the reason why I wanted to do it is you know, long story short, when Whitney Houston died in twenty twelve, which she shouldn't have, but when she did die in twenty twelve, you know, people approached me and said, could you just write a bio off her really quickly? And you know, let's go heavy on the drugs, let's go heavy on the bad marriage. You know.

I was just like, i'll tell you that, yes, and a sentence and one sentence.

Yes, what oh my god?

Like what like drugs? Bobby, Like, let's go how fast can you get it done? And I was like, I'll have it to you on the twelfth of never like, I'm not doing that. So so I came back to some folks with an idea about doing the history of black women in pop I sold that and I was never finishing that, and then I left that publisher and I went back home so to speak to Chris Jackson.

At the top of the the introduction, you know, I was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that.

That I loved and feared you only because I.

I realized I mean for starters, you know, with the source that with vibe and at least the first wave of late eighties early nineties journalism being sort of in a serious form and not just like and this is not to take away from Cynthia Horner or black Beat or Steve Iberry or those guys. But you know, there really hasn't been black critical writing. And although I've seen it with rock journalism, like I've never seen a takedown article or anything of that level from the black side

When did you leave Vibe ninety eight?

I started as I started as music editor in ninety four. I was there in ninety six, went back to school for a year to ninety seven, came back and got promoted to Vib to be the first black and first woman editor in chief of Vibe in ninety seven. I left in ninety nine. Then I came came back in six and was editor in chief of Vibe again six O seven o eight, two years, two years.

Every time I would say that, you know, your era was way different, I noticed immediately your era from say Allen Light's period. I guess the trench issue was what ninety one I believe ninety.

Yeah, ninety two to ninety four.

And not to say that, you know, because I'm friends with Alan, like I'm not saying it was light in the ass, but I definitely saw a noticeable difference between both those issues. And that said, I don't know in my mind, and I think this is often.

Of how the world will see black women.

As you know, we always use these words like strong, you will use fierce and all those sort of colloquially describe them. And so I was a bit taken aback, you know, at how vulnerable you got, especially in the first chapter speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like, you know, because it was kind of like whoa like you don't see a human side, Well, I'm a Journalists often don't insert themselves or that sort of thing.

So I was really just I was I was pleasantly surprised.

Of how you weave your your life in music, like I love those type of things. Whereas not that I'm just learning a lesson of the artist, but I'm also learning the effect that it had on you, because your writing career also had an effect on artists as well.

I learned a lot from Alan. Alan first gave me my first album review when he was editing the review section at Rolling Soon as my first Rolling song in Vogue. The second Yes give It Stars, Yeah, I did.

I did it.

I didn't come on it. I was. I was a big homer at that time. And if I'm not still just to be home. Come on, man, you know they were gonna call me to do in Vogue weird.

Okay, so two stars, I don't know.

Don't listen. Don't listen to me.

Don't know. I'm gonna tell you some Danielle, you can't.

You can't debate me on this when I tell you, like in the order of me, I can't, like Fante well, study MC, study production whatever. I don't know, Like I study record reviews, I study journalists, like I study the people that determine whether or not.

Now I'm it's gonna have shelf life or not. I very much.

No.

Here's the thing, though I actually agreed with you. I didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that.

And to be fair, did I give it two stars?

Well, I was gonna say, to be fair, you don't determine how many stars it gets.

I don't the publication publish it.

By the way, that's always the case. That was the case at the source too, and that was the case that Vibe and we used to give our little red light green light, yellow light or whatever we.

Used to do, right, the music editor determines it.

But somebody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that weight. I'm a fan.

Hold On, I'm listening to what y'all saying. Hold On, I'm a fan. What you're saying is the person who wrote that whole review doesn't have anything to do with those stars.

Now, how so how do they come up with them stars?

The music editor the music you determined.

Yes, so it's not even based on what you wrote. It's just based on what the music editor thinks.

Now, it's kind of based on what you wrote, and it's based on whatever their chase is also.

But okay, so since you're kind of doing this in the nineties and I will see that you know post Karis one PM Dornish confrontation levels. I mean, you worked at Vibe where it is, and you worked at Vibe during one of the most dangerous issues, of which is the death row issue.

Wouldn't your music other Dore's at least want.

To give you warning if they're going to give it a less than savory uh rating.

Knowing I could never answer that question except for on a case my case basis. Honestly, it was, as you said, it was a very wild time. And when you say you know I worked that vibe during the most dangerous time, during the death Row issue, I mean I really honestly have to look at the dates one because I blocked so much of that trauma.

Out of I remember everything.

I'm sorry because because what I think people tend to forget, at least with me, is that, especially with regard to death Row when Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity MC for me, He's actually a good friend of mine from Oakland, and so I recused myself from a lot of the coverage of Tupac almost until after he passed.

It was such a complex time time, such a time when I always say that Vibe called upon the strongest part of me and that it got it. It got it, it got it, and it did wear me out, which is why you know, your music editor for two years at least talking about me a music editor for two years and then I get a fellowship and I go to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted out for a while, you know, I wanted out for a while. And while I was gone, while I was in Chicago

Aren't people more or less investing in the Vibe brand like I'm going to buy a new Vibe.

That's true. There are issues of Vibe that did not sell. There are issues, there's there's a thing like this. You have a you have a subscriber base, right, that's your small money. But that's your loyalists me. They keep they keep up paying that thirteen ninety nine a year, twelve ninety nine a year, lights on, that's keeping the lights on. But the money money is that the news stand back when the news stand mattered, Because that's two fifty three

Either to imply anything different when the kind of lesson the work that you put into figuring out who you was gonna put on this cover and then the content.

No, you don't even know what's science and The thing about me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I took Billboard into consideration because I had been an R and B editor at Billboard.

Did you replace Nelson when he left or.

No, it's Jenny McAdams that I replaced McAdam, So wow, yes, Jenine's between us, so yeah.

No.

I I was a person that always took Billboard into consideration because I worked at Billboard, and because even before I worked at Billboard, I studied Billboard like a maniac, which is why I got the job at Billboard. But it's like, no, I was the one that was like, if it's bubbling under, it deserves this. If it's doing this on the charts, if it's number eight with a bullet or blah blah chart, then it deserves this. Now, people always wanted to argue with me, and we had

I thought, oh, I thought you were just asking a question. I thought you were asking a question mere like was it the brand that sold?

I mean it's just I mean Circle Out with its vibe and the source was like a religion and straight.

Up thank God for y'all.

But we were the ones keeping the lights on though we weren't Impulse buys.

It's like podcasts.

It's just like music, right, like we want new podcast.

So can I ask you this because I didn't know this first of all, what is expected for Vibe in terms of going platinum? Like how many issues have to sell for your whoever the the higher ups are at the publishers to say, hey, they're doing well.

It depends on It depends on the year. It depends on the year because you know magazines, you know, magazines are pretty much gone now for all intents and purposes. There's not really a news stand that you can depend on. But let's just say, at the height of things, it's always a percentage, it's not a it's not an exact number.

No, I hate now the South is buying Now the South. That's exactly what is region.

That's exactly what it is.

Yeah, I would have put my publishing and my cribs.

I could have sworn that that that Depth Row issue was the greatest selling against you of all time.

The thing about that make them say it was it was? It was a it was a perfect cover. Wow, it was everybody, It was your X. It was a mystical It was everybody and we and we had a tank in it. We had a tank and everybody had on camel. And so basically the whole cover was green and shades of black and white. But we did what's known as a fifth color in the magazine business, which means basically a fluorescent or a or a glitter and we made

Man, it's twenty years ago.

Twenty years it feels like yesterday to me, though. I feel like I'm on my way to an editorial meeting right now. Y'all like gonna get me out here like this A damn it.

Now now I'm gonna go. I literally have issues in the room to see it. If I text you got to verify.

It, I will, I will, but I can't because it's like it's mean, man, And it doesn't necessarily sometimes even have to do with the person.

It's me.

It could be the photography, it could be anything. It just doesn't necessarily it could be the truck was late, man.

Please tell me what it was, Yode.

You don't get it from me. No, and you talk about you fear me. You see how easy I'm scary. I'm scary, Like I can't say that that's so mean? What if I just said, yes.

It's not mean. Particular facts in business, This particular.

MC has the lowest selling issue in the history of Vibe. That's hardcore. It's definitely ja I will say that from the south though. Just to show you how things change.

Is somebody is it somebody who has a career or they considered a legend still they do.

They have a career rapping? Or do they just have a career.

Do they have a career, Do you have a career.

They have a career, but they don't necessarily have a career in rapping.

Okay, all right, I got it anyway, So I do want to know what what was the first or at least national Well, you said that is the very first time that your work appeared.

In a national magazine. I would say, no, that's not the case. I would say the first time I had a national story was in spind magazine. There was a column there called Dreaming America.

Yep.

That was my first national Uh, that was my first national thing. And I always remember that I couldn't believe I was getting paid a dollar a word?

Was that standard or was that like that was.

A standard for mainstream people don't even get that now, And it's like I was made. I was now hope listen, you used to be able to make a living as a writer. It's very difficult to do so now. Even in the Bay Area, I was getting ten, fifteen twenty cent a word. If I wrote a fifteen hundred word piece, I was getting one hundred and fifty dollars. But when when and at Craig Marks, he's the he's actually the music editor of the La Times right now. Craig was

In that job.

I always thought Spend was the weird cousin to Vibe magazine. I thought they were weirdly related, like they had some kind of similar.

I mean, at the beginning we didn't. But then like in the I guess late nineties two thousands, Yeah, we were owned by the same company and we were in the same building.

What was the company Adventures?

Oh so okay, theyve.

Ventures owned Vibe and Spin and BLA and Blaze at that time too.

A Blaze man, I forgot about remember that Blaze battle. It was mainly just primarily hip hop, but I remember it was like pre complex real.

Journalism though it was. It was Jesse Washington was the editor in chief. I was the editorial director. Jesse Washington is actually at espn Z Undefeated.

Now, okay, yeah, we we we had our umatic rating moment with Blaze like things fall apart, like got a perfect five rating there in that in the jay Z.

The monitoring these reviews about about right now does my heart good. Though. It does my heart good to know that somebody of your stature and talent and genius is paying attention like that, because we really tried, like we weren't up there like pooling around like we were about passion, but we were about rigor. We were about facts, and we were about deep and strong opinions. We were about design, photography,

All of it, it matters.

I mean I could take it to Ego Trip, I could take it to one network. I could take it to for yately, I could keep going, like I could keep going the fact that any of us that worked in those spaces were being paid attention to, that our work was being monitored or enjoyed or even it matters a lot to us.

Look all right, So the deal is, I think in that Princess you if you guys remember the Prince Vibe issue, the Prince Vibe Coup issue.

Yes, there's a write up for zing Lamadoony.

That single handedly like if you want to know the beginning of Questlove's micromanage era of like I must write all the liner notes. I must no, I must do all the interviews I must like no article ever scared me more.

And the thing is is that you know, now I live in.

An era where you know, I mean you know I read the New York Times now just read like this year, everyone's celebrating the fact that New York Times gave like eleven Madison a two star review, which is like soccers or you know, I mean, there's been like sort of like crazy reviews, like Miles Davis is on the corner

But to me, when I read your.

Arrested development Zingle Lamaduni feature, to me, that was like, it was literally like watching the Apocalypse now documentary or Amir is also known for good hyper bowl quotes. No, but it's it was And it wasn't even you didn't even have to do anything. You didn't It wasn't a takedown from your point of view, Like literally, speech was kind of sleep at the Wheel and the entire band decided they're going to do a mutiny in this article.

Point for me. Okay, so long story, I guess. Long story short, It's like I didn't even work at Vibe at that point. I was functioning as a freelance writer, but I had a reputation in the business for being on point, on time and thorough and more than that, I had written a piece for a magazine that doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for years, called Request magazine that you used to be able to get at Tower Records.

Okay, yes, I love the Requests.

It's a great magazine. And if you count that as national, which I don't always, just because it was given away for free at Tower and you didn't pay for it. But that was probably really my first national look was in Requests. So I did a cover story on Arrested Development when they launched.

Oh, okay, okay, So.

It was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee, you know what I mean? You talking about all of that. I fell in love with them, man, I fell in love with them, they fell in love with me. It was a Carver story. And this was back before I had been in the business long enough to realize it's not always wise to fall in love with groups, and it's not always wise to allow groups to fall in love with you. I didn't know. I was a child. I was in my early twenties, mid twenties something like that.

Yeah.

So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey, you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want to go, you know, go back and talk to Speech and everybody in the group. Yes, definitely, I was freelancing too. It was just like, it sounds exciting, you gonna send

Of the group and you were allowed to, Yes, this was.

A different time, y'all. There was no internet.

Interview, no evidence.

And what's so wild though, it was like at a certain point I wasn't even going to people to talk to them, and were coming to me. And listen, I remember that group so well, man, and it's it's heartbreaking to me because there's such a like the music isn't necessarily necessarily always so like wildly optimistic. But it's just like I've been around Public Enemy. Those are my guys. They're not the most optimistic group of brothers. You know, not like but but but with the group of rest

Was coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back, all right, and.

You know, things just weren't going well. It's so hard. And I know, Quest knows this hard to keep a band together. Anybody watched the Metallica documentary knows that. And it's like, it's hard to keep a band together. And you could ask, you could ask, you could ask the Supremes, you can anybody the comress like it's hard to keep a band together. Yes, and everybody was mad, and everybody's talking into the tape recorder and.

They let her know. I went.

If you remember Ursula Smith, who was my publicist at the time, set the run, No no, no, no, She left set the run and started her own. I forget her and Amy Mars had their own thing, and I came in the following Monday like shake it in my boots because I was just like, oh, man, like they're done with, They're over with, And if they're that easy.

To get, like what does that mean for us?

And like the amount of talking me off the ledge for like two days straight because I don't know. In my mind, I just felt like arrest development had reached the mountaintop. They've reached the mountaintop that day. Yeah, that Daylight Tribe, like a lot of those acts couldn't get to But.

They didn't come up together though, right, Like did they come up together like that all of their Yeah, I mean people.

Of them had with a lot of other groups like that didn't. Once Speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come with mad ambition. Some people just want to make a record and get it out there. Some other people have mad ambition, and Speech had that. It was a very difficult piece to write, a very difficult piece to publish. It was fact checking, went through the lawyers and went through all of that, and it was very difficult to publish. And guests, the publicists wildly mad at me. Some in

Gotcha, Okay, check it out. I don't know. Have you have you read Murray's White's autobiography.

I have not yet.

I mean, it's kind of the structure where wait, we just recently did and interview with someone.

He was Larry Blair.

Black said.

Larry Blair said it was a democracy. Uh uh, what do you call it? Dictatorship? It's like it's like a democracy dictatorship where I guess it's the I I think it's the the idea of, hey, we're a community where all these things. But really, I mean, the decision falls on one person, that person's.

Speech and about a lot of groups like that.

So that's why I'm saying with the with the Earth, Wind and Fire book, No, not even that, I mean Marius White, I mean Philip Bailey. He went into heavy with Oh, okay, Maurice is sort of the state of Earth, would and Fire.

We're just people for higher.

And as as I'm certain that you know Fonte, you know absolutely as an artist about being blue collar. Like often we get in this game because we you know, we we see these slow motion william shots and it's like we get our Bentley moment and it never happens that way. And it's just that this time headliner was just mad about his money, mad about like the situations.

But it was very much like you know, the rest of the band.

Was explaining how unsatisfied they were with the situation that they were.

But I can see how it could have an effect on you as it had an effect on a lot of people that piece because one it said that Vibe was going to do stuff like that.

That's the first thing Black people never seen something to that level.

No, because this is the thing because because the media that is considered to be ours right have any essence, you know, going back to the to the black newspapers that came out of Reconstruction all the way up through the fifties and through the civil rights movement and everything else. Like the reason that these things came to be is because we were treated so unfairly by the mainstream media,

So it's like.

Vibe existed in a space of like, well, of course this is going to always be a place of celebration. But the thing that I always did learn from Quincy Jones is that Vibe was to be a place of celebration and interrogation. That no one would trust us on the celebration if we didn't also do the interrogation. And so I felt supported by Quincy by Alan in doing that.

Hard for most black women.

At some point you feel that protect the moment where you're like, you know, do you have to fight that protect the moment and go with more of your journalistic mind or does that not.

Even ever come into your head?

There's this and it's funny because I was like, I wonder if she writes it, I haven't gotten to that point if you write about this and shine bright, But I was like, you know that protector moment where you go this could maybe hurt this feeling, you know, so maybe I won't do that.

Did you ever have that moment?

I have that moment every day of my career?

Okay, okay, I thought that to tell I look at your face. I was like, am I saying something born?

I know every every every every day of my career, and especially as editor in chief of Vibe. It's it's even different as being editor of Billboard. Talk about that. Wow, it's a trade magazine. It's it's all, it's all, it's all genres. I gotta know about what's going on in country, classical, adult contemporary bubbling under, like I gotta know about what's going on everywhere, what's going on with pop singles, pop albums, like I know R and B this, R and B that.

Until that Cosby issue. Well, no, no, it hats off to Kiaran for that. Yes, that's the first.

Time that from what generation, the hip hop generation.

Yes, exactly, yes, And.

So that's what I'm saying. It just it's it's hard, you know, it's hard when I can think of even small things like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for the cover of That's my first Vibe cover.

Yeah, I remember that issue.

That was a great issue. Man. My mom drove me to his house in Venice. He was going through it. And that also that movie wasn't good, which it was Demolition.

Man, The Blind Hair.

Hot.

It was a hot mess and the movie the film was, but Wesley himself wasn't and it never has been. So to me, it's one of the more under rated these actors in the history of cinema. Like he's so good. I'm not saying he's made all the proper moves and all of that. But but my thing is, how do you how do you say that? But then how.

Do you say in a way that's not how do you say that?

And that's the work for me, That's the work in shine bright for me, Like how do I how do I talk about Whitney Houston's mom?

Sure you handled that awesomely, by the way.

Oh thank you? Who to me is it's just like she's so important to the history of American populic she literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind Elvis Presley, she literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimmy Hendris, everybody. And it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for all of this big pop and she trained Whitney. At the same time, she just didn't accept her daughter for who she was.

Yo.

And can I just say on that note, it's so funny you say that, because as we're going through all the these different lenses and filters for people these days when it comes to the music business, I find it harder and harder to apply those filters if you really want the true story about things, or you really want to talk to people like if we really we I mean, we've had these moments where, you know, even talking to me and a miryor Well and Jake will talk about

There's no man.

So how do you like navigate that?

That's it'sious.

Well, I don't be canceled culture was I think then you know what I mean, right as wes as it is now.

Yeah, I guess that's why less get paid less and less they can hardly write well.

It's also because artists have so many other avenues in which to tell their story. It used to be that the only place that you had to know. Yeah, you just go on I Live. You can go right to your Twitter feed, your ig feed, and some of that. I have to say, I am not.

Mad at like I I miss it, even if it's the judgment of your.

Do I miss it? Yes? Do I miss being? Like you have to go through vibe essentially you got to go through me and my cord, right, So do you miss that feeling of like, oh my god, yeah, this is we're vibe? But yeah, of course. But you know, to everything, there is a season we were we were we were needed for that at that time, we were desperately needed. But I can just give you an example.

Okay, thank you, come on, yes and.

So and so no, and not even to get into the complexities of Michael situation, but just to say this, just to talk about the Internet part of it. So the person that's directing her answered asking me the question, says, don't you just find the Internet to be totally overwhelming

Right?

I said, I was insatiable when you're thirteen year old as a fan. Oh my god, was insatiable. And I couldn't find anything. And I told him, I said, so, I actually feel flush man with joy that I can put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search and just see every million, even if the news is bad, even if the news is ugly. I I would rather that than to have, like to be searching and thirsty to know something about being one. Yes, So that's why go ahead?

Can I ask a question? All right?

I was going to ask you what was the hardest issue for you to execute? However, I wanted to take a while guess how hard was that Michael Jackson issued to put together.

Of course, you know what I mean? What year was that?

Was?

I there?

Ninety five Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe magazine dressed very uncharacteristically. He was I think Cadata had dressed him in Tommy. Wait, you don't remember this.

I don't remember he had a kango on.

He got a kango remember Michael Jackson.

I remember it. I remember it. Wait a minute, let me let me take me into my memory. Whoever just looked it up? What are the cover lines on there?

Reading Michael makes history?

Uh the King of Pop strikes a pose, Easy E's Final Days, Notorious Big Smokers smokes Cali into the Wu Tang clan with uh oh, I can't read the name something uhlone.

That was ninety five.

Barely have any memory of that except for Easy.

Damn. That's a flex. That's a flex. Michael Jackson, don't remember that ship.

What do you remember about Easy? What do you remember about the Easy interview?

This is Easy?

Well, this is this is post he had died.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what that was. That's what That's what I remember about that about that particular issue because ninety so I'm music editor. I just remember that.

Well.

One, I just remember that it was you remember from the Bay Area, So I had been known about dealing with AIDS, probably in a closer proximity than a lot of people. It was very entwined in our lives, and so I don't know the tragedy of that man. And I will say this, I'm not even the biggest Easy E fan, but just as a human being, man, it was just too much. And also the way hip hop was dealing with it was crazy. That's what I really

I don't know.

I just was always just the impressions, like, okay, he started this magazine and I'll see y'all later.

Oh but he was day to day No, okay, he was.

He was not day to day, but he was like, if it had something to do with something that Quincy had something to do with, then mister Jones was involved. Absolutely.

I don't know.

I don't know if I talk about it in Shine Bright, but my first experience, so I did her Franklin and then let me not get my dates mixed up. But I feel like I was called to the phone and I was told that Quincy was on the phone with Joe Jackson because oh wow, because it was it was Janet had an album coming out and so we needed

Wow.

I mean I probably my voice was a little bit more shaky back at those times. Yes, let me not act like I was coming with all the like the all the full confidence. But it's just when Quincy Jones shoots you to Rondo Pass, it's like you better just act like Kevin Garna.

Yeah.

Yeah, So for Sean Bright, what was probably the most surprising revelation in constructing this and also was there anyone that you had to leave on the side of the road that you wanted to include.

The most crazy thing to me about Seine Bright is just how much music comes out of segregated times. Oh my god, it's it just never would just cease to amaze me. And you keep thinking that as the decades go by, that it's going to be different, and then it just isn't. I mean, even if it's like somebody from younger than me who got bussed, you know what I mean, and from a segregated situation. And I think

Yeah.

When you were talking to the Dixie Clubs at one time, it seemed like one is the sisters was like, okay, Dan, they.

Were but they got they really at first they were like mad at me, and then they really had to say you really don't know though.

Because the fact that you dropped after that was something that I didn't know.

You said.

The thing about the screen.

Yeah, it was a metaphor. I didn't know.

It's a screen, like an actual real hard screen with peg holes, like it had pegs on it and then there were holes in the back of each seat and you could just move it and just put the screen up in the pegs. And they made them and they made and they made the black person do it.

So basically there's there's a part in telling the Dixie Cup story which their single was going to the.

Chapel single, number one, number one single, right.

So there, I guess you could say the real first ring of of.

Girl.

I mean they.

Let me do like they love me do out of number one.

So the Dixie Cups is going to the Chapel Yes, you know, they're the first black group to to hit number one. Yes, And so she starts with them and they're telling a story about just segregation and bussing and whatnot, and the fact that customers and Bush writers would often tell and I'm saying, tell very lightly, uh, black people to move to the back of the bus, and they would put a I guess there is a disposable screen that you can put up, a movable screen, a movable screen.

To it should have been in the same regulated place.

I always thought, that's no, okay. So this is the thing that is what I thought. I always thought, and this is how you know that segregation never really gets discussed in detail. And I am committed always to not talking about black people or black women in summary, but

Up that morning.

She did, and I said, we don't know how segregation really was functioning. It wasn't separate but equal.

It wasn't separate, but it.

Was really going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings when black people were allowed and stuff like. It was really there's a thing I write about my grandmother telling me one time, my god, and we all know about these black nights. I mean, you know, we do the

You blew my mind with that, because I was like, that's nationwide.

There's always a week night. It's always on a weeknight. Black night is always on a weeknight.

You're you're right about that.

And yeah, when I love writing about I love writing about like I said, specifics, and I like writing about culture, and I like writing about something and powers who's ahead of music at MPR and was music editor s F Weekly and I became music edit of SF Week San Francisco right after and and really handheld me into that job.

So in your history, what will you say is your three definitive pieces of work.

One of the most important pieces to me, and one that continually gets good notice from people, is the piece that I wrote as the forward to the collection of essays about Chupac Shakr that if I put together in a book called tubakshak Kor, and you can find it at just google New York Times Daniel Smith tupakshak Or, And it's about a forty five hundred word piece that basically just takes his career and life into consideration. And so that is one for me. The second one is

Can you give a summary of that, because I'm curious.

It's just very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country on her bag because war had just been declared. This was in the pre security era and Super Bowl was a soft target. So I wrote about everything. I wrote about what was going on with the war. I wrote about what was going on with the NFL commissioner. I wrote about her pre recording the song. I wrote about the I covered her performance in a second by seconds way.

To me, you're ninety five Kel's piece, which.

We'll see that's blocked.

But you're like the one that literally broke the story.

Yes, we did. It was it was a team effort, but we did.

Yes, Okay, I didn't know what's the team effort.

The team effort comes in I'm on the road with Dana Luxemburg. We're chasing him down. But the reporting of Dana Luxemburg's a photographer that shot him for the cover. The cover it is, And I'm happy you brought that up. Honestly, because because really the headline is for all time, the sex, the soul, the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage superstar Alia. And the thing that made it what it

I never like if that was cosmic kass right, And I was like, man, you making my whole life.

You were doing the story and you weren't officially traveling with the camp.

Not at all. We got on Amtrak from New York to the filling and they weren't super No. They were literally signs up backstage at the Spectrum that said, if you see anybody from Vibe here, escort them off the premises.

Wow.

Wow, And so we were like wow what. He just felt like public enemy number one because we had a story on the This was my thing when I was at by music editor or editor in chief. If you said you were gonna do it, I'm holding you to your word like I really believed that. And it was very childish almost the way I would really hold on to that like I would. My thing was very much like you promised no.

No.

A person could be like yes, but I know somebody can easily be like my fingers are crossed when I said it, like that's how, that's how, but that's how. That's how serious. I was about it though, I was just very like, no, they promised, so they're going to be held to that, and so Jive and and and and mister Kelly had promised we were doing this cover story and then because the Aliyah stuff broke, then they said no. So my thing is no. Then we're gonna find you and we are going to get the story.

That's because you.

Right, listen, listen. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, but listen. So then Dana said, because we were really ganggang Dana said, okay, but I'm not coming in without Danielle. So then Robert said, if you because he knew I was. I had covered him before. I had been in London with him all types of stuff on junkets as people used to do back in those days. So he said, you can come in, but you can't write anything down with a he said, with a pin. Okay, okay, but see I had a pencil.

Wow, how do you do that?

That's what I might say, how do you do that? In ninety five?

Let me tell yourself that it was work and we had we had contacts, We were reporters, We knew people, who knew people who knew people. I mean, we were the ones that reported the fact that how Aleiah climbed out of the window and got with the bodyguards and they got on a private plane down to Florida, Like this is because we know people who know people.

Yes, you guys have to be Google.

We had to be and so and so Carter and then found that mairor certificate and we ran it. And that's also another one of those to go back quest. So what you were talking about with the rest of development, that was another time when people said, oh, Vibe is serious, because you got to understand. I remember to see one of the higher upset Vibe calling me either on that issue or the next time we put him on the cover when we had even more evidence about his doings.

This is?

This is like someone very high up at Jive Records. Does he still have a job? Does he to have a job to have a job, Yes, he does. So I'm just sailing. And then I remember too that Robert was saying he was going to sue Vive. He was going on I guess it was hot ninety seven saying that, and I went on the radio because they'd be like, well, do you want to respond? This is how the internet used to work in the pre Internet era. And I

So when you run that piece about you know, him doing all the abuse and just all the fuck shit, how do you then reconcile when it's time to review his next album?

So I was there for two stories, two cover stories of our healing, and I don't I mean, the short answer is, I don't know what we actually did. I would have to look at the timeline, but if I had to guess, I would say that the discussion went like this, And this is purely me guessing. The record is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything, and

Do you think that's how it should in twenty twenty two, with all the lenses. Is that how the conversation should still go.

I think once a person is convicted of something, then the conversation changes because a thing too particular too the black community is this, There's so many times when black people are accused of things that they did not do. There's so many times in history where people are Black people was getting canceled before canceling was a word because of things that they did, I mean things that they

Yeah, murder is murder is.

A legal term. It's a legal term, and so these are that.

So you would have to say Stupak is killed. You couldn't say that it was a murder. You could not until well I'm being hypothetical when I asked, yes.

But but yes, yes, And I do believe if you go back, you will see that I remember that being struck out of many a piece that he was, that he was not murdered until someone had been convicted of having murdered him.

In your I guess, in your your tenure there, who were some of the writers that you helped usher into the game? People that kind of started off as interned to it now, like, man, listen.

Look at your phone, look at your phone.

I know at first, well, let me just say this, I don't know who all I ushered in, but I do know that I've worked with some amazing people. I mean, when I got there, you know, Allan and Jonathan van Meder had already hired people like Joan Morgan, who's doctor Joan Morgan now, Scot Scott Polson, Brian who's doctor Scott Pulsing, Bryan now, people like that, like okay, and then when I when I got there, I mean, Karen Rene Good Marrable, I was gonna.

Say, Karen Good was just starting out like she was as I did.

I mean, Karen and I are girlfriends. Karen was at my wedding, Like that's how you know we're girlfriends? Like that so obviously Karen Good Marrable, who writes a lot now so much beautiful stuff for the Oxford American, but also Sasha Jenkins, Jeff mal also I think, yeah, I always gotta be careful talking about who I get a start to, right, yes, but but no, Rockelcipated definitely is the genius. And she wrote for a Vibe when I

First five record review.

You remember, no, but he was he does, but but there was way before we started dating. I was actually married. Elliot's my second husband. In case people don't know.

No, really didn't.

How long was your first your first short and sweet? Nice?

How old were you?

I got married at like twenty two?

Oh yeah that was yeah?

Is it hard when well, I mean at one point both of you were editor in chiefs of Competing. We were so because you guys were married and you're editor in chief of Competing not had Phil McCoy level.

It was competition, it was yeah. So how does that work?

Like how do you find what separation of church and state when both of you are fishing for like the same story.

Well, we had a history of it already. Elliott want to become when we were back when we were just colleagues, Elliott stopped writing for Vibe and he went on to become music editor of the Source. All right, So I was feeling competitive at that time before we ever were dating. So but I had to respect the skill.

Set and sounds like that's one of y'all love languages.

Yeah, and then when I was when I was in grad school by this time, he was at it in chief of XXCEL and this was around the time when we started dating. I had to respect it. Like that's when he put a feenie on the cover, and that was just such a courageous moment, like I could only I wasn't even like we weren't even in each other's phones during it. I didn't even know if we had phones back then. But I just remember saying to people, like, I know he had to fight to get that done.

So he found him down.

I will say the Elliott now is way more calm, and I actually credit that to you because just his his nerdy ego trip like days of yeah.

Yeah, those are my guys, though all of them tore one but it's like but but no, So we really after the first issue, it just was bad, like the way things went down. Yeah, and so and also you have to understand that we had staffs of people that Elliott the whole staff of people that already believed in him, and I was a brand new second time editor in chief of Vibe that wanted a staff to believe in me.

Come on, now, you got to give us a couple I got to know, well, I.

Mean if I'm honest. The main one was just that you could not discuss in any way at home anything that was going on with the issue at work. But you could say somebody was getting on your nerves or I don't know why they don't have Coca colas and the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't. You couldn't come home and say, like, I'm really trying to get this cover with a B or C.

No, gotcha, got you, gotcha?

Let me ask.

Only because again, like you and him are to me the most courageous power couple of journalism, only because both of you had your feet in the fire again at a time time in which and I'm using more hyperbole when I say dangerous, I'll say more like exciting times, but I'll also say serious times. Like you you were, you were definitely around during like the what they would call the danger era of the East and West thing.

I mean, he was at XXL at that time, but yeah.

Right, and like, was there just any just general worry for safety coming for your end, like, Okay, don't don't write that op ed because you know good and well that this is gonna or for you. It's just like Church and State were never talking about what our work is and bringing it into the home.

When Elliott was going through the most terrible stuff, we were not dating. We weren't. Okay, yeah, we weren't. We started dating at the I think the end of three. But let me not let me not put too fun a point on it, because Elliot. Elliott was away in the streets at the time when we were dating.

So just for our listeners, Elliott was at Exxcel right during the height of I guess the Eminem versus ben Zeno wars, and.

It would get very serious, very serious.

As I said, at the time, when he was going through the very worst of it. We weren't dating. I knew him at I knew him as a as a colleague. And you know, there's a certain scene of writers and stuch in New York at that time, Black writers and stuff where we all kind of knew each other, would see each other out and that kind of thing. And I always knew Elliott, like I said, he used to write for me when I was a music editor at Vibe,

They had to be a lot of pressure because you're top of that food chain.

Yeah, and people were people were attacking us physically. People were getting guns pulled on them in the studio overmember record reviews and stuff, and so it's.

Like, yeah, would you change anything?

I would change everything up here. No, not everything, But you know what if I just as I said, we were all we were young, man, I think about think about your think about I call them my baby cousins and stuff like, think I think about my baby cousins that are like twenty five years old right now. They come over and ask me the most ridiculous stuff and I'm like, aren't you grown? And They're like no, And I'm like, I was a whole Like I thought that

Like.

What like I was? I was? I was editing Haveloc Nelson when I was like twenty five.

That's not fair to put that.

Now, their age, their age like a twenty four, you know, in ninety five, and a twenty four in twenty twenty two or two.

Completely very different. It's very different. I'm not saying I wasn't mature, but I'm just saying I was still I didn't have a lot of it. I was learning how to manage on the job. And then all of a sudden, you tell me you're coming to my office and say I was at the studio and such and such didn't like the review, and I told him I was I could. I didn't know what to say to that, and then they just pulled out a gun. Now, I'm not going to act like I'm not from East Oakland, because I am mm hmm.

But that was statement.

Well, it's it's loaded from a native yeh, I feel, but that's still shouldn't be. No, it's not normalized. But in the nineteen late nineteen eighties in Oakland and East Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland.

Too, in your office and I'm talking about this storied no no, but.

I'm saying that, you know, and you just kind of kind of had to be about it in East Okland. And so did I bring some of that being about it to the offices of Vibe. I probably did. I probably did.

When you are running a ship like that, is there pressure that you felt that your male contemporaries wouldn't have had that have gone through yes, like timeout with Salan and jonathanis screamer? Were they screamers or not at all?

Not at all.

I almost think Alan's like not passive aggressive, but.

Like, no, Allan's is a very soft spoken dude.

Right, That's what I'm saying.

So people deal with white men differently than they deal with black women, all positions of power. And as much as I'm saying that, you know, I brought some of my East Oakland nests to the editor in Chief's chair, I'm also sitting front row in Milan at you know, the Jill Sanders Show and things like that, and trying to give all of that energy before I even knew how to get that kind of energy. But if you're

It didn't balance out the hard shit.

No, as an artist, I wanted to study who the gatekeepers of reviews and words were when at the well I'm still making records, but the time when I was making products. But for you, do you have hope for what counts for journalism today? Because I will say that there's like a level of thoroughness that is kind of lost, and there's also just technique and and I'm not saying that.

It's it's it's a lost art.

Like there's definitely some writers that I feel like are super smart and super insightful. But for the most part, I think now it's like the wild wild West where just you know, there's there's just people that aren't that knowledgeable about their subjects. They run on Wikipedia real quick or run to your old articles and add to it, do you feel like your era of the NBA or the new era of the NBA is can hold a candle to your era of it?

It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. For the most part. If there's differences in quality, it's not the fault of the writer.

It's also what they have to write about.

No, it's the fact that there's no budgets for anything. There's no If you're writing right now for twenty cents a word, how much are you putting into it? I was writing for twenty cents a word when I was in my early twenties. If you were, I turned stuff down now because I'm just like, it's just not worth it for me to do that, because I'm not even contributing to my household well on what you're trying to pay me. And so then you have kids who aren't

Something that I give, Okay, are you going to write any more fictional novels?

Whether yes, I love fiction and my MFA is in fiction, I may, God willing, in life is long, I may, but I will admit that the things that I'm thinking about with regard to fiction now would probably be more scripts maybe the novels. Yeah, it's what I'm into right now, and thinking about how to maybe even look at my first two novels and how those things might turn into things that exist in other spaces, whether that's audio, whether

I'm actually, you know, I guess by the time this airs, will already made an announcement like I'm a Freddy Cat in terms of I never make an announcement until the project is finished, okay, when it comes. But the probably the biggest secret I've been keeping under my hat for the last two years is I too, have.

Written a fictional book.

And well, well, I will assume that this will come out by next week. So I'm I've been a junkie of time travel and I'm one of my favorite writers, a gentleman named s A. Cosby who he's written many a New York Times bestseller. So he and I sort of came friends over the pandemic, and I guess, you know, taking a break from doing the movie, I would DJ, but then taking a break from DJ and I would

Didn't get to read as a kid.

So it's and are those books like black people traveling in Time? Is that? What is?

Yeah, it's it's two kids. It's it's it's middle school books. So it's it's two kids.

That are as a yo novel.

Yeah, it's it's it's two kids that are.

Are are I love to hear it.

Yeah, a grown up boy. They're both fourteen and fifteen.

And the girl she's like a science wizard and she invents a time travel device and he gets the bright idea to try to save one of his groups that he admired, uh from breaking up and the butterfly effect of Yeah, of that anyway.

Sounds really good. That's like I remember I used to read all those Madelin Lingo books like Wrinkling Time and all that. All the time those folks were white in the book. I love the books, but I didn't see myself in them.

Yeah.

I kept that one and then under Wraps only because like again, I have like nine projects on the back burner and maybe only four of them will actually make it to fruition and the other five sort of fall out the wayside, and then I got to figure out what to do with it.

But this sounds really exciting. It sounds so excited.

Thank you, I'm excited.

I want to ask you, damn before we break up. So were you editor and vibe was this like eight ninety nine? Were you still there at that time.

I was there from ninety seven to ninety nine.

Nice nine. Okay, there was a review.

It was the Lee review for the for the Revolution's Record review section. That was a four Heroes, two pages album. I don't know if you even remember this, but it was the Lee review and that was just if you you were there.

I just want to thank you for that. Man ever wrote it. Ever, God, don't get me the line don't get me to line. I can't. I have to look it up.

I don't recall it off the rip, but I wish I did, because you guys are making me feel like I should go back and find it.

Yeah, that review just opened me up.

I mean I never would have found that album had I not saw that, and it just just completely Yeah. Yeah, that was my first time ever hearing reading review.

That's crazy.

I mean, you've been living in London for years, so it was whatever to you.

Well, no, they're the reason why I did the German based thing at the end of You Got Me. Yeah, when forign hero got that leave review even, I was like, oh God, damn, Like, finally.

Did Greg Tate red.

I bet you any money and money it was probably great. I bet you it sounds like it.

That's one of the owners of my life too, is editing Greg. But at that time I was editor in chief, so I wouldn't have been editing him one on one.

Just me, I forgot. I believe if you were there in ninety Were you there in ninety.

Nine a part of it?

You guys actually let me write my own Vibe feature.

That's all right, that sounds right, wrote it naked.

No, that was such a moment.

It would like Chris rock is guest editing. I think that was almost my last too. Yeah, that was. I feel like that was my second to last issue. And then maybe there was the j cover where he has his hands in front of him like this the whites in a white suit. But that was kind of the end of my first editor in chief era.

The j LO, the very first j LO cover in ninety nine, that.

Was I don't think I was there for that though.

You guys didn't send a writer so literally, I just had to diary touring Europe and.

That sounds like an amazing thing though.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely one of the probably the second major features I wrote, like, I enjoyed it all right. My last question, because you are from Oakland, I am, but to be of age in Oakland at the time when that first generation of hip hop was coming out, are there any notable like for you moments of growing up in Oakland that you can share as far as like the culture of it in terms of shows that you saw when you were younger.

That sort of thing, because it's such a musical town.

Man. I mean, I don't know if I have how many Oakland tales I have. I can just tell you.

That your best one.

What do I have? I mean, I told you I saw the Jackson five nearby in San Carlos at the Circle Star Theater, and it's like, I don't know, Like, let's just pass by the childhood stuff and get back to me moving to the Bay Area as a college student at UC Berkeley. So now you have to understand too that the Barry is a huge touring stock. I mean, you know this, and so I'm seeing anybody from a flock of Seagulls to Frankie Beverly and Mats and Ziggy Marley.

Obviously, you don't.

Forget about the the was right there, like we were all coming up together. And then and then when when the tour happened, the tour that I was out a lot on the Public Enemy tour with Heavy D and the Boys, Queen La Chief and the so.

Far Digital on the ground had those masks on. Yes, yes, one of the best.

One of the best hip hop tours in history, and a kid and play. Depending on the day, it would be MC Breed. Depending on the day, it would be Luke Skywalker two Live Grew, depending on the place, it would be certa mix, a lot trouble. T Roy died on that tour, just like those Tupaca was on their tour, dancing background for Digital those moments and the way that Oakland hip hop will Coles obviously Chuck D I don't

I had to get it out, Daniel. I thank you very much.

I know we had a few false starts and trying to do this, but thank you.

I was just say. Mark Weingarten wrote that four Hero review.

He wrote that review that you're talking Yeah, I.

Remember, yes, okay, but I just wanted to thank you for that.

Oh well, of course we were happy to be of service. We really are, and we really were, and like I said, all of us that worked there over the time. I'm not saying we have our bad times, but if you are a part of Vibe, ex Excel, to Source and those big magazines Essence, Latina, all those King Latino, Yeah, you know, King Magazine, Slam, all that stuff. It's like it's a certain fraternity slash sorority that we're all in.

So yeah, again, I really want to thank you, and yeah, I highly recommend to our audience who religiously listens to our podcast you definitely want to get the book, get the hard copy and actually, you know the audiobook where I've just never heard someone so emotionally Yeah, because no, No, the days I couldn't read it, I would drive to it. And you know, there's a few times we had to break down and catch some tears for a second, and that, to me, I was just an awesome level of vulnerability.

And I really loved the book.

And it sets a lot of light on a lot of unsung heroes that we didn't So thank you very much.

Daniel. I appreciate it.

Thank you all. Thank you Quest so much. It's the honor and thank you everybody on this team. It's amazing to see and meet everybody.

All right, when you have a Layah and Fon, Tickeolo and Sugar Steve.

Yeah, thank you. There you go.

The journalism and episode are my favorite.

Unpaid bills back whatever you said, you're mute right now.

I'll speak for you said, give me a baby.

All right, great, great, all right, this is Quest Love and we'll see you over the next go around.

Thank you very much. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

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