Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme, sitting here with family. This is uh uh font ticcolo and layah. I keep forgetting that we're now on YouTube and I hear we're doing well. I want to talk like an old person. We're doing well on the YouTube. I hear.
This is what I on the internet?
Yes, yo, wait someone all right. Someone ragged me hard this entire weekend. Of course, a vacation and a mirror are not synonymous with each other. But I took three days off to go off the grid, and I gathered a whole bunch of friends and we went to Las Vegas to do a bunch of and I'm gonna say it correctly this time, escape rooms. What I didn't know was behind my back. Everyone's been teasing me because I've been calling it escape the room, which is right to
look on Fante's face right now, is right? Everyone. Finally someone had the heart to say, hey, I'm here, by the way, in case you it's not a call to escape the room. It's just called escape room. They were basically telling me that I'm talking like an old black person.
Did you have a good time.
Half the time in my life, you know, solving murder mysteries.
Yet to do one? Man, I want to do one too.
Escape rooms is how I that? Who's going to get in on the inner circle? Now you know, I've made a lot of friends this year. No, I'm serious, word word, I made a whole bunch of friends this year. So now I got to weed them out. And the best way to figure out who is who?
You only want smart people in your team.
Well, no, no, no, no, it's not just that, no, no, no, Because the thing is is that escape rooms and japany and I mentioned like she and Japanese restaurants is also a litmus test. It's not about who succeeds or who finds it natural. It's about I mean, even with total amateurs, it tells me a lot about their willingness to figure it out. If they don't know it, do they fake it till they make it so they like I'm telling you, escape rooms are the best way to figure out what
kind of people you're dealing with. So I had a lot to learn this weekend. Anyway, my whole point was that I use the word the and I shouldn't have been using the so anyway, so we're on the YouTube now and I'm hearing that we're doing well on the internet. On the internets. I will say that oftentimes we speak and we talk about heroes or people that we idolize, and we have the go to names that you know,
the biggest achiever and all that stuff. But I will say that oftentimes we overlook certain people because some you know, sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, like your glasses on your forehead, and you're tearing the room up looking for your glasses, and they're like, oh, right here on my forehead. I will say that in the preparation that I took to do this particular episode, it reminded me that our guest today is probably the individual to whom
I vicariously lived my life through. And you got to understand that, you know, I'm a very specific situation, being born in nineteen seventy one, three years after the whole Civil rights you know revolution, I'm born into like one of the first free generations or in terms of laws, like you're not allowed to kill us, or at least you're supposed to be. It's weird that my definition of freedom is that legally it's it's it's it's illegal to kill me, which is sort of as sad state of
affairs or where we are as a country. But that said, you know, there are heroes and people to look up to, and oftentimes, I was, we often look up people way older than us, like of course, for a lot of America, the Jackson Five were the first people that we vicariously lived through as heroes. And then you know, there's other people that came along. But you know, when I turned into a teenager, there really wasn't I mean, besides maybe you know, I mean there's Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and
Janet Jackson like him, Fields like people my age. But that's the thing when you're hip hop, right, but when yeah, when you're the minority, and you know, it might hit different from Fonte, who's way younger than I am, you know, but for me at least, like this, this gentleman was a very big part of my life as I got into like my junior high in my high school years and so and when you look at the span of his career, you can clearly see an individual who like
has evolved, not only you know, as an actor on television, but you know, also in theaters on and off Broadway, as a musician, a Grammy Award winning musician, as a poet, as a producer, as a director, Like there's so many, I mean even as as host of SNL, Like there's a lot of even small minuscule milestones that our guest has has done throughout his life that I paid attention to.
And I've been waiting so long for this conversation, not just you know, as a I don't know if are we are we journalists right now?
Today we can be I feel like in this way, I.
Never you know, even though we have a long running you know, going on our sixth year as with this podcast, Like I don't feel like we're journalists or whatever. But you know, I'm not looking forward to it as a journalist, but just as a person that really gets to fan out and ask questions to the person that he personally deemed, you know, like that person. I don't know what to say, but ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Malcolm Jamal wanted to quest love supreme.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I gotta say this though, because I've listened to your show because I know you were you know, you're like no bullshit a geek. There's no bullshit like you know I get from you from Ufonte both like I don't go for bullshit. So I'm looking forward. I'm so looking forward to having this conversation. But to be honest, to hear that from you, Emir is a trip for me. Like you never know how how you can affect people, right right, and you never
know how you, you know, come off to someone. You may come off with someone a certain way, and that was not the intent, right right, Bro, I have loved you for years of point some years, and sometimes that is crazy because but sometimes see it, we'd be cool as all right, and sometimes I see you and I'd be like did I say something wrong last time?
Or what?
Really?
Yeah? So like honestly, I stay there. I spent so much of my time like thinking like, wow, I don't know, I don't know if he likes me, Like I'm not sure.
I think with you all right, this is definitely the this See, this is why this.
Conversation is necessary.
I'm in a way different place now in my life for this very specific twenty twenty three year. It's twenty twenty three, right, oh, I'm fifty two now, it's in your birthday to okay, and it's probably springtime right now. No, I think a big part of my old life and I'm gonna I'm gonna save this a lot. I'm trying. My heart is not to sound like the jail cat that discovers religion and then is on fire for like seven years. You know that, that type of annoying person.
But I'll just say that in this in this portion of my life, yes, I think that I avoided anyone I looked up to and dude, Steve and I'm not even name like Steve is just the same thing, like you don't call me, Like how come you don't call or that sort of thing. And I think oftentimes I get in my head like, oh man, that's just that's
that's way too you know, you make up excuses. So I apologize for my standoff is nature, but I assure you that this is the elephant that's afraid of the mouse, and the mouse is afraid of the element thing.
So well, I got that.
But seriously, even when doing I had to do international press for the movie for Summer of Soul and someone I think this is when I was in we were in Holland, and someone asked me, like, you know, what was the first moment? Like I often asked a question like what's your first musical memory, someone asked me something like, what was like the moment that you felt like, oh
you could do this too. And I don't know if you remember this, but this was you did a segment once on Entertainment Tonight, or at least Entertainment Tonight covered it where they gave you and four of your friends, like four video cameras and you guys shot around New York City and I just remember the way you're laughing right now, tells me you remember. I just remember the
backdrop was to the Jackson State of Shock. However, oh wow, However, I watched that moment and again, yeah, was Spike Lee a thing?
Then?
Yes he was. However, to me that that moment I watched, I was like, Oh, we can do other things. So that was a that was to you, that was just some thirty seven year ago segment for a television show that you probably haven't even thought about in decades. But
for me, that was a moment. I mean, dude, even the jamin on the one moment that other producer's thread that I spoke of, like with The one thing we all have in common was we saw that episode, and then in two months later we all get Cassio sk Ones and the first thing you do is you do all the cuss words. Then you do jamming on the one, you do all the things you saw like it was a toy. And then there's the moment you're like, oh,
I could put music in this thing. And I assure you any classic hip hop producer that started in that really got their foot in the nineties, I swear to God God that for a lot of us, that was our moment to know what hip hop was, you know what I mean. So it's weird that you're you're such a part of these historical moments that you yourself probably haven't even thought of. Like wow, I'm I'm like a watershed for a lot that has happened, and you know, you
don't register it. Oh my god, this is the longest intro effort.
Did I said something?
He said something, he said something in the middle, it's like fifteen minutes.
Anyway, Malcolm, how are you?
Man? Great man, that's great, that's great. And Yo, thank
you for sharing what you shared. And I'm glad that I was right that I could bring that up in the spirit that you would receive it and it wouldn't come off like, you know, me trying to be a dick or you'd be defensive man, you know, and that might have been an older verse to me that wouldn't have done it just because, but you know, like you, I'm fifty two, I'm beginning to like really embrace like the wisdom that comes with that, you know, so the biby to have that exchange, and it be as cool
of an exchange that that was. Just I appreciate we.
Are what you call evolved adults.
Now. Yeah, yeah, it's great though.
Congratulations, I'm watching it between two black men.
It's beautiful.
Word word, thank you.
So I'll ask you, now, what was your first musical memory.
Hearing Graham Central station other's living room? Wow? Really, I
just remember, like, what what is that? And it never understood until twenty something years later that when I started playing bass, I was like, oh wow, bass is something that that resonated with me at you know, three years old, right, So I just remember, and I know I've heard music before that, but I just remember a moment hearing hair and hearing this voice and then and the guitars and the music, and it was just it was crazy, but it had a profound effect.
Not not to self promote or self plug but I mean, you know, half of our at least more than half of our listeners know that I'm currently right now at the beginning of the slide in the Family Stone documentary. But for me, one of the hardest men to climb, the hardest mountain to climb of this whole process isn't even sly like slides already in the can slides interviews
are done. However, U I really truly thought like the likelihood of getting Larry to cooperate in this thing was the equivalent of like a Steph Curry shot from all the way the other end of the court and you pray to God that it goes in the court. And he just literally as of the speaking like just agreed
to be a part of it. So like, I'm going to gril the hell out of Larry Graham and yeah, yeah, take advantage of that opportunity exactly exactly because you know, all too often, like there's not a lot of in depth interviews even with you. Besides like the very little that I knew of you, like when you were, like when Cynthia Horner was covering you right on magazine and stuff like that, like there's really you know a lot of my me.
Don't forget about the come on, I had to pull out the whole pull out poster.
Exactly like for me, Like there's there's just not much in depth information that you get to find out about. So, but when did you first realize like coming I'm assuming that you came to the base later in life, Like how old were you when you first like decide I'm gonna try this. It's twenty six that I know. That has to be intimidating. How long was it before you picked it up? And how many years did you give yourself to really master it?
So the whole reason I started playing bass was because I was working on Malcolmingetti, right, and I was miserable.
Really, I was miserable on that show after that Michelle period or.
No, it was mister Michelle was during that period. But it was because I had spent eight years you know, at NBC in an environment that mister Cosby made everyone ultra aware of the images of people of color we're putting on the airways, right, So eight years of that then I go to UPN and it was like having had the top university and then being stuck in fucking junior college.
You know, home Boys are out of space man.
Right right?
Yeah, But Malcolm and Eddie was not Homeboys in a space yeah, or the Butler Guy.
But here's the thing, though, there was a lot of work that I put into There's like a lot of you know, blood, literal tears, the literal sweat I put into that show because I came from Even though I knew what UPN's programming was, I was like, Okay, well they've seen me for eight years be a part of a show they made that made history without relying on stereotypes. So my thinking was, okay, well that's what they want here. I've watched mister Cosby run that show for eight years.
I know that. You know, the stereotypical things you didn't see on the show was not because the writers were not writing it. It was because mister Cosby was saying, no, that's not the show we're doing. That's not who these that's not who the Huckstables are. That the drive by mentality you have when you're writing black comedy that doesn't belong on the show. So literally I watched them for eight years, shutting down writers, making them go back to
square one and rewrite the script that's not based on stereotypes. Right, So all that I get to upm like, okay, well they know how this goes, and realize that one of them was not Bill Cosby. We were not doing Bill Cosby numbers. So I would come to work every day fighting writers, producers, directors, studio, network, fellow actor, viewing public because there was a certain standard that I wanted to continue when Uphold and UPN's whole marketing thing was the antithesis of what I had come from.
What did the writer's room look like? It was a bunch of white people the whiters rooms, Yeah, but what did it look like?
It was mostly white writers on Cosby. I don't think we ever had more than three black writers on staff at the time. At the time on.
Cosby, how many writers are normally in the room. They could be eight ten, So typical sitcom will have eight to ten writers, yeah, and a show runner and they paid. Okay, I get it.
So so Malcolm Edi was it was the same kind of the same kind of that. We may have had four writers at one time, but I mean, you know, just I was just miserable and I was looking for a hobby, something that I wouldn't turn into a career. So the directing started out as a hobby and and that State of Shock video you were talking about was actually that was really my entree in uh, you know, let me really see what this directing thing is all about. Because the first two years of the show, we would
do this Cosby Show Cosby Kids Tour. Me and Lisa would always talk about, yeah, we want to be triple threats, you know, we want to write at that and direct and do woo woo woop. Like after two and a half years of saying that, I was like, let me see if that's something i'd want to do, something I even can do. So that State of Shock video, I laughed because that was literally my first shot at attempt at directing.
And then you did on The Magnificent and you also did Any Heartbreak at.
Yeah, yeah with Brian. What was that?
Brian?
What I remember they y'all were in the video. They showed it behind the scenes to Any Heartbreak. I was like, it was you and it was impressive because it was also the actor from Head of the class who was a became a director.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Brian and Brian Robbins. Yeah yeah. So the directing started as a hobby became a career. So by the time I was on Malcolm and Eddie, I was like, Okay, I need a hobby, something that's not acting, not directing, something that will never become a career. I've always wanted to play music. I'll never be so if I, in fact, if I just practice scales to a metronome in my dressing room, that would keep me
from caring as much about the show. I'm putting so much of myself into the show that's not loving me back in the way that I would like, let me just practice scales to a mess from that would kind of put me in a zone kind of place. I'll never be one of those corny actor dudes who try to do music. I'll never start a band, right, I'll never record a CD. I'll just do this. And then it became it became a whole other thing because like, like, really, who gets off from practicing scales to a metro know
in their dressing room in between scenes? Right?
The pivot is real, man, Yeah, pivoting is real. It's so weird we're having this conversation right now because right now I'll say that creatively, you know, I'm I'm let me stop painting it, like I'm being forced to, like they have guns to my head. But you know, we've been working like for all I for all I can say is that the Roots album is essentially finished. I'm definitely using a lot of you know, I'll think of ways to hold up install the process. You know, there's
a better song, there's a better song. But this morning I was like, man, you made a promise to yourself that you were going to learn how to thoroughly play piano, like thoroughly and not that whole like three chords at it. Like I'm a three chord at a time person where I could do three chords and then stop the thing, and then I got to figure out the next chords and figure out and then I'll struggle through. That's like
my level of songwritings. But you know, I was just like, man, it's way too late for you, Like I talked myself out of the process, Like it's way too late for you to even start to think that you can play piano as good as you play drums, like, if I could just get my piano thing down, then my songwriting level could go to the next level. But you know, I think I was too intimidated by the process to
actually think that I could make it happen. But I'll ask you from practicing your scales to like knowing exactly what you want musically and producing your own records, Like how long did that process take from twenty six to when do you feel like, yeah, I could do this shit?
All right? I said, let me go back with real quick to address something you said, So I don't. So where are you now with the needing to play piano as well as you?
You know, this is probably gonna be the last album in which I will go to either James Poyser or Camal or Ray Angry and be like, Okay, so I need this care that card and like talk my way through it and sort of more this whole CSI process of trying to figure out how to get what's out
of here into the fingers next year. Damn it. I'm learning how to play piano the way I really want to learn it, like as good as James, which I know takes time, And you know, I'm trying to disprove the fact that you can't teach an old dog new trick.
So that's why I was asking you, gotcha? Gotcha?
How intimidating was it to go from I think I'm learn the bass to holy shit, I can learn the bass too, right right? And the winner is Malcolm Jamal Waner for No D D DA Like, okay, this real quick?
So you know you don't have to you don't have to play keys, you don't have to play piano as well as you play bass to write dope songs. You realize that, right, I just want you to keep that mind.
I've no I've I've proven that one can only know how to play drums and still produce music. But it's just oftentimes, like the ideas come like so often that you know, I feel like I'm letting great ideas go because I don't have an outlet to get somebody to translate my you know, which is why I want to learn to do it myself.
Yeah.
So, speaking of which fante, do you play an instrument? Nah?
Well, the only instrument I officially learned to play was trumpet. I played trumpet all through like middle school and like some high school. But I was I was like off stake man. I was first chair.
Wait you first chair.
Yeah, I was first chair. I was first chair, and like my band and I got school band. Then when I first chair, and I'm just finding this out now, I was third chair.
It's all state man.
But but then when I got to high school, you know, you couldn't play ball and play trumpet at the same time play band.
So I just played football.
But uh keys, I know some I know theory, I know, like just basic theory, but I'm not a player by any stretch. All the vocal arrangements and stuff I do, it's just really just about year.
You know, trumpet in hand, could you go to where you were in Hell?
No, I'm sure it's done.
Play that ship in thirty years, but you know you better Blues level.
Can tell it.
You can sell it, bleak, you can sell it. I ain't playing, but yeah, I know, I know, yeh, trumpet, piano, you know, I know, just basic like you know, chords and just like theory, and then with being around so many musicians, like particularly like vocal arrangements, like some of my nerve fans are like, oh you saying if major seven in that quart, I'm just like, I take your word for it, but but I know just a little bit.
I don't play. I'm not a player.
I did used to play the recorder if that matters. I don't think I could go back to her play like I used to.
Yeah, grade grade that.
Was that was in seventh grade. Yeah, yes, you were saying, Malcolm.
I'll offer you this and then I'll get into answer your question. In terms of old dog learning new tricks, I picked up trumpet two years ago.
How's it going.
It's your breath, it's so nasty, it's you know, I'm just getting to the point where she started to love me back a little bit, right, but it's it's no. It gives me a greater appreciation for music because I'm having a new relationship with with music. So like, so I took the base. I was twenty six, right, a year and a half after, you know, realizing that the metronomeal scales not happening. I used to hold jam sessions
like at my house, just play with cats. And a year and a half after playing base, I went to m I I had like a three month hiatus from Alcornetti and I went to Musicians Institute and they're like ten week based immersion program. I was in way over my head, what are you learning ten weeks? It's they throw so much at you, and it was it was stuff that I couldn't It was every day and yeah,
it was every day. Literally. It took me a good three or four years to be able to digest what I had learned, you know, not what I had learned those ten weeks, but the information that I had a mast in those ten weeks. It took me years for it to make sense. Right. But I say that to say so because I play with cats who have great ears. I dove head first into theory because I needed to at least be able to communicate.
I don't have to speak the language.
Yeah, And I was also clear that, like you know, in playing with other musicians and starting a band, I really can't be that corny actor dude who wants to get into music like I got to take it seriously and I have to respect it enough that real musicians who I want to play with understand that I respected enough, you know, and want to rock with me. And as a musician also, you know, guide me along the way
that makes sense. Right. So, as a bass player, I've always used music theory as my hack instead of using my ear on bass, I can play a fourth anywhere on the neck because I know where the fourth is analytically, and I know where fourth is logistically, not because I could hear the fourth right. So now playing trump muscle memory and just thought like, I know, you know, I know where a fourth is in the muscle memory and
the theory of it. I know where a fourth is, so you can get away with Okay if I know, if I know what key I'm in and I got the progression, I'm good and you can do that without hearing. But on trumpet, as you know, you got to hear the note before you play it, right. So now I'm like, oh, that's what a fourth sounds like. Ah okay. It's just giving me a whole different appreciation for music because I started playing trumpet two years ago.
At the time, when you're doing this, going to jam sessions, like what part of the United States? Are you in New York? Are you in California? I'm in La Okay, So back, let's go back to nineteen ninety five. If you want to find a jam session or a spot that will let cats work things out, Like where are you going like.
That part was easy because there were these cats. It's Ron Kat Spearmen. They had this house that was kind of down the hill from me, and they were a band and they were a whole band that lived together, okay, and so they had you know, they always had the music set up down in the bottom floor of the house. So I used to go over there and kind of jam, you know, like literally I met a cat I think actually the cat who sold me my first bass at
the Guitar Center. He was a drummer, right, So after doing the jam sessions at roncast crib and then sometimes they'll come to my crib. And then at some point, like two days a week, I would have two different sets of musicians who I'm jamming with. When I go to m I they had a BMI was holding the showcase m and who's when the showcase was like, listen, we're doing a showcase for BMI. Since you go here, I'd love for you, the host it if I give you, I'll give you a slot to do a song, and
I'd love for you the hosted. So I was like, well, let me do two songs and cool. She was like fine, I had no songs. Yeah, I was gonna say lo. I was like, hey, by I know, I was working on Coltrane's Equinox and Lover was just's ugly head. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do those those two songs,
and I'd even have a band. So the band I put together were, you know, the different cats from the two different jam sessions, and I make sure that none of them played in bands together because I wasn't sure what I was trying to create, but I knew I wanted it like a little a mix of stuff, but you know, I still wanted to be wanted it to be my project, if that makes.
Sense, right, And it wasn't intimidating in terms of like I'll give you an example. Comedians have to always work out their comedy in front of a small group of people. Like for me, performing like it's no people ask all the time like yeaver get nervous to perform and whatever. And I'll say that, you know, a typical roots concert nowadays is somewhere you know, we're somewhere in between five thousand to maybe depending on the marketplace, you know, nine
to ten thousand people. And with that many people, there's no intimacy there, so I don't have fear, but you know, it's always in small, smaller clubs and those sort of things like if you say, if Glasper's like yo, come down the blue note and sit in a song or two, like I might legit get like uptight about it because I think in smaller intimate settings musicianship is a weirder thing for me to do, which I know is kind of weird for me to say, like thirty years into
my career to emit, like I have hang ups about that sort of thing.
But for you, though, but would you do it were you ever worried about like Amir, would you do with it? You would have your hang ups and get up tight about it, But would you still do it?
I would still do it because even now and yeah, sometimes the voice of self doubt is heavy as hell, But I'm smart enough to just jump in the pool and say fuck it at the end of the day, but not before the anxiety of how good do I have to be? The you know, because like the level of musician nerds that are watching Glass are a little bit different than the crowds that you know want us to play a song that reminds them of their college period back in two thousand and three, you know what
I mean, Yeah, this is real, real different. But for you, you were never at all like keeping this close to the chest and worrying about people that are judging you of your other profession that they see you perfect, you know, and applying it to your musician life. Yeah.
No, I mean I think I think it was you know,
maybe just part audacity. I'm sure. I'm sure there's also a little a little ego in it and that, you know, when you know, when I was doing when I started doing spoken word, I was I was really active in the underground spoken word movement in La right, and I was always doing poetry always, So there's a certain of you know, there's a certain level of audacity to be able to be a poet and you know, write your shit and be vulnerable and have people you know judge
you and shit. So there's a certain level of audacity with that. But back when I started, you know, there was only like one or two poetry spots, you know, in any given city you could go to. So once it got to the point where you know, neo soul you know, started to take off, and then you know, there are poetry spots like all over the place, and now HBO's got a poetry situation, so there was For me, it was like, okay, well this is you know, a really a crowded field, and I have a you know,
I have a love hate relationship with poetry anyway. But you know, I also I grew up listening to to Gil, Scott Hare and Brian Jackson, Like my dad went to Lincoln with Gil and Bryant, and my dad went to Lincoln because Langston went to Lincoln. So like the whole poetry thing is all like I came out of the womb listening to Gil and last poets. So when all this, you know, when now it seems like everybody's a poet and now fucking celebrities are poets too, right, right right,
I'm so much on my own ship. I will I make the disclaimer. I am a poet. I am not a celebrity who likes to do poetry. I'm a poet. So I think when like when everybody's a poet, I was like, well, you know what, Gil put his stuff to music. I think at some point the music was still kind of you know, calling me a bit. But even before I started playing bass, I used to see
you guys in me. I don't remember. You guys would do San Diego a lot, yes man, yeah, And I was doing a play down in La Joya Bell Yeah, so whenever y'all come through, you know, we did there. And at this point I wasn't even you know, I might have thought about bass, but I wasn't really, you know, seriously considered picking up bass. But I would talk to Hub about bass and and and jazz and jazz studies and Okay, So by the time it came around to fuse the you know, the music and the poetry, right,
it was what you guys were doing with Ursula Rucker. Yeah, right, Like the first time I heard that first joint, like, you know, right, right, And so I had listened to that for years, even before thinking about playing bass or any of that. But when the time came that I had to put the two together, because when I started the bass, it was just to play music, right. I kept the poetry and the music separate from each other, even though I was still doing poetry at spots, and
I was still doing poetry with other bands. You know, my band like no, we're we're like we're jazz funk band. I'm here to play bass, but what was happening. People weren't really you know, feeling coming to see me standing in the back with the drummer.
Right.
So at some point I had to uh take responsibility for being a front the front man to my own band, right, And then I started coming. I was coming out of pocket like two three hundred dollars every time I did a gig, because once I paid everybody, once I did print and advertising. Uh, you know, I asked somebody, you know, video of the show. I'm coming out of pocket. So I was like, I need to sell a CD so I can at least and not feel like I'm losing money every time I do a show. But I had
no music. I had no music, so it was like, all right, I need to start doing poetry. I need to start, you know, uh, you know, coming up with music, do my poetry over and then I would go back to uh to the unlocking.
It was like yeah.
And then Michelle nddio Cello you know that first album was like, ah, brand new Heavies. You know, they were you know, they were popping. So all of that made me go, yes, I'm gonna do poetry and I'm gonna play bass. Fuck what every other poet out there is doing. I'm on some different shit. Nobody's doing this, and I'm gonna do it well, right, and it's gonna be good, right, And I know it's going to be so good that I don't care what you think about it, right, Like
I'm trying to get there with my acting. If you told me, yo, you suck. Truthfully, I'm almost at the place where that wouldn't bother me, but it might hit me somewhere. Right. You can tell me as a poet that I suck water off a duck's back. It does not affect me at all, because for me, that's how
good I feel I am as a post right. So okay, well, if I already feel that way about the poetry and everybody trying to fill the space, well let me kick it up a notch, you know, let me start playing bass while I'm doing poetry, right, but let me really learn the Eddie Griffin had a band right wait in real life? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
I didn't know this. So he had this band.
It was like it was like a you know, a from Cadelic knockoff. He had two bass players, is yeah, yeah, yeah, really, yeah yeah. That's one of the things that kind of broke the mystique for me. It's like, oh, okay, they're doing funk Adelic. And then I just watched him a lot, and I uh, I watched him so much and listened to him so much and understood that he's one of those talented cats you know that can definitely by playing all the stuff, but he doesn't he's not study. He
doesn't know music. So I was like, Okay, well, if I just do that, I could get over. But if I actually take the time to study the language of music, then I could actually play with really good musicians, you know, who are gonna rock with me and hold me accountable and not just be kissing my ass because I'm not
much to my one. So like there was all of that that that that went into so much about the honor, respect, and legitimacy of being able to call myself a musician around really good musicians and they can actually acknowledge me, you know, and to be legit Like that's the long game that I was going for back at twenty eight. And I think I think you.
I think there's also thing as well with actors, with musicians. If you're an actor doing music, we know, for damn sure you're not doing it for the money.
Like you know what I'm saying.
We know like, Okay, if you're here, you're here for a choice, you know, I mean, you're making a choice to be here because you could take care of yourself so much better, you know what I'm saying, doing TV, doing movies on whatever.
So there is there is some skin in the game in that way, and putting up product with no label, you know, no promotional budget, like none of that, like everything like coming straight out of pocket, right, no union right right. But for me, it's about the art, like like I'm yeah, I'm creating art, and I'm creating timeless art.
So who was the first peer that saw what you were doing and was like keep doing that? And you it really kind of stamped it for you. I mean even though in terms of the music side of the No, on the music side, I got the poetry because Ursula Rucord just text.
Me about you, so I get it.
Wow.
I think early on Layla Hathaway because me and Layla go way back. And so when I first, you know, put this band together and I'm out gigging. You know, I had a female vocalist and Layla would come to my gigs and when the vocalist would sing, she would leave.
What's that's actually on brand for Laila halfaway?
Right?
But but but it's so much Layla. It's so much Layla. It's not Layla being a dick. It's like she like, if it's not working for her, she literally cannot physically beat it.
And we're like, when you, I think, when you're one of the best at something, like I mean, when we had Dave on, he was saying, like how it's hard for him to watch other comedians. You know what I'm saying, because it's just you know, you're just constantly looking at how you could do it better.
You know what I mean.
And with Layla, I mean with her being you know, one of the singers in the world. Yeah, I could see her, you know, walking out.
Wait, So that being said, I know we weren't talking about it.
Does that mean you're gonna talk about Jesus children and how that that came together then, because that's kind of a beautiful circle back.
Right, Yeah, yeah, I love to just just go back real quick.
Sorry, you know, just just probably the first backwards episode of Quest Love Supreme where we started the end way backwards and.
That's how conversation goes though, right right there. So later would later would would come to my gigs often, right, So even if she didn't dig, you know, whatever singer we had, she was still supportive and you know, and I know she wouldn't be rocking just you know, because.
So that, by the way, can let me enterrupt one second? That singer never found out? Did they.
Hopeful? Well, there were a couple of different singers, you know, a different different shows, so uh may.
This episode like I know that that wasn't me anyway.
A't talking about me?
Right exactly exactly.
But Jesus Children Kevin Teasley who was my my my MD at the time, had office space at west Lake and he's at west Lake, you know, Rob's at west Lake and they're talking and you know, uh, you know Capstone,
he's you know, India, my band whatever. So so I come over, you know, hanging out they're doing and Layla's actually recording Jesus Children, okay, And as I'm there and she knocks it out in one take, and you know, Rob is playing to me this musical interlude and he was telling me how his homeboy, uh I had a daughter who was killed at Sandy Hook, and he's going to write a poem, you know, and it's going to go here and hold nine. And I was like, Yo,
that's that's dope, right. So we're hanging out and then about two weeks later, he's in town. He's back in town. He's and he's mixing the record and Robins like, yo, you know, my man, he couldn't do it like you know, at the you know, eleventh hour, it really hit too close to home. Do you have a poem about Sandy Hook? And I was like no, but he forgive me the track.
I'll go upstairs the right one. So he gave me his iPod shuffle time and I went upstairs, and in about an hour or some change, he came upstairs and like, I spit it to him. He was like, and I was at a time where I was doing I was doing a lot of writing at the time, so it was clearly like a time where I needed to be on my A game. And it was just a point in life where I was on my A game because I was doing so much writing at the time that I was you know, I was able to go up.
And I know it sounds corny when writers talk about, oh, well, you know, God was just using me as the vessel and you know, ya YadA, that's.
All I say.
Now, so welcome to that. And it's a real thing. And I guess you have to experience it to like really understand that it's a real thing. And it can sound corny and cliche, but like that's some real shit. And that night, like the vessel was open and the universe just said and I just took it.
All and.
You know, no, that's it's real. It's not corny at all. I have to say that I really admire the fact that you are covering poetry because all too often I think a typical move would have just been like, okay, you're an MC, now you're a rapper, that sort of thing. And the fact that you took on poetry is super admirable.
I know that.
You know, Tariq's process is he's such a morning person, like literally like wakes up, you know, does whatever is yoga and exercise all that stuff, like like at five am. He's like the opposite of Quincy Jones, where Quincy Jones said that you know, like yeah, yeah, like that one am is where he gets his magic from. Srika's like a in bed by nine thirty ten pm early person, and between six am and maybe nine am that's usually
when the line's share of ideas come. Like that's his writing time, Like you're never to interrupt him, wow before eleven am, because from five till then, that's that's his that's his moment, that's his.
Part of his process. That makes so much sense.
Always wanted to know because oftentimes, you know, Tarik will also have like these assignments to do, like this guy wants him to rhyme on that shit or you know that, or he has a deadline for a record. But is poetry the same? And I guess you could answer to this also, Fante, Like for a writer when you have a blank page and the idea isn't coming, like can you sort of in record time like regurgitate words to be right right poems?
Yeah?
I mean you can, you know, I mean listen the thing I tell everybody, man, the blank page kicks everybody's ass. Like, I don't care if you've written a million books, if you've sold a million records, you know it, don't you know?
If that blank page or that blank screen or whatever.
That is the great equalizer because no matter how many times you've done it, you still got to do it again, you know what I mean.
And it's you know that blank page is that shit is intimidating.
So yeah, it definitely is a time where you know, we are somebody like to read and I mean, Malcolm just you know, someone that's been in the game for so long. We've been in it so long to where it's like it's kind of technically impossible to be bad, you know what I mean.
But my mentality is always good is the enemy of great.
I'm so technically good, like I can just write it'll be good, but I ain't going for good.
I'm trying to be great, you know what I mean.
And so a lot of times if you're under the gun, that's kind of where I think the alpha state thing can kind of come because you're not thinking and you just kind of just writing and it's like, oh yeah, this shit just kind of came out. But it definitely is a degree of professionalism where I just think it's not about inspiration. Inspiration is fleeting, you know what I'm saying. Inspiration you can be inspired one day and you may
not be inspired again, you know, for months. But it's more so just about dedication, just dedication to the craft and just the more you do it. You know, even if I'm not for me every day, even if I'm not writing, I'm always having just some kind of prompts or something like I may just like take a word, I hear a word I hear on TV or something, and I'll just write like ten words that rhyme with that word, you know what I mean.
Or that's your exercise in your memo, like in your in your iPhone memo, Yeah you got a page after page after page of.
I'll have string of rhyming words or just prompts or ideas and then I'll just contextualize it later, you know what I mean.
But but yeah, it definitely is a practice. And for me in my career, you.
Can do it at any time if you just say, hey, I need something, you know, you can turn it around. But it's that memory, that working that muscle trying to be you know, get that greatness consistently over and over and over again.
That for me is always the best practice.
And what's your what's your general practice with with poetry? Like does it hit you when it hits you or do you give yourself like exercising assignments to you know, to write.
I would really like to do that, and I would really like to be more disciplined in my writing practice. Now I'm older to understand why yoga is considered the practice. I understand why law is considered the practice, you know. And now you know, I'm getting into the fame of mind that I need to treat my writing as a practice so when I have an assignment, it doesn't take me as long because like lately, you know, because I'm not I'm not writing, you know, with the output that
I was. You know, it may take me a little longer to write a piece, but I have to. You know, I love putting way too much on my plate, so I'm always fighting. I'm constantly fighting overwhelmed, you know, so just trying to practice base, you know, now practice horn, you know, put time into writing, but the production and being a present husband and fathers, like, there's so much,
so I keep being overwhelmed. But I think it would serve me better if I can find a discipline like to reek or like you find they find something that doesn't have to be you know, a sit down dude, but you know, take ten minutes and you know, just
check in where mine and just right from there. I think that would benefit me greater than the path of Okay, well, you know, when I get something or I have to write this out let me, I'll see where I am and you know, at some point the inspiration will hit me, you know, or figure out what the outline is. Like, there's no there's no one, uh single approach to my writing that is the one.
Sometimes for me.
Like it's something that you know, it goes from a drought to a deluge, right, it just goes nothing and then all of a sudden everything just kind of comes. Do you have those moments where you kind of go back and forth for the words just it's quiet, and then all of a sudden it just comes out of nowhere.
Yeah, Like there's some poems that you know that will it will take me weeks to write, but then you know, there's time ross sit down and it'll yeah, you know, then you finish it and then you you know, and then you come back a couple of days later and you read it. At least for me, my experience is like I read it and then go, wow, I really meant every word of that, yeah, you know, like and for it to come out the way it came out
and every word of it be true. Wow, that's really dope. Again, feeling like okay, well that's the channel and the channel's opening up, and like does it all come and just I'm writing as fast as I can.
Let me ask, because I will say, especially in the times that we live now, this entire year feels like a five year period. I feel like everything that's happened to me this year happened like five years ago, and I'm reading lines like, oh, holy shit, that was March. So my question to you is one, I'm really curious about your latest miles long album title, which is Hiding
in Plaine View. You'll be pressed to find any interview I've done in the last year where the quote hiding in Plaine Sight literally was that was my story, like, you know, even whatever, like the evolution of who I am now I was the king of hiding in Plain Sight like and everything. So one that struggle with me. But two, it's also seven years in between projects, which you know, if this one year feels like five years that I know that seven years for you has to almost be like twenty years.
I forgot what album was. So Stevie had an album coming out and it was had been a lot of years since album, and they asked him about why, you know what took so long, and he said, you know, sometimes you have to live life to have something to write about or write about the facts, you know. So a lot of it was just you know, adjusting to you know, moving to Atlanta, was you know, being on
the resident, you know, being a husband and father. You know, just at some point it's really hard to balance orther. I've not become successful at balancing it at all. The three things that I can't let falter is work, my wife, and my daughter. So I found myself in the you know days of especially during the pandemic and not having child care help. There were days where I didn't get to touch music at all because I had to you know, there was work and I had to do with my
daughter and my wife. So just in that of just living life outside of music and poetry, there was just all these things that were you know, forming for me thought processes. You know, what I'm thinking about, politics, what I'm thinking about, you know, the state of hip hop now versus when I wrote Project Image, you know, on an album that came out seventeen years ago. Whatever R It's like where am I now? Where am I with?
You know?
How I see? How I see the game, how I see the mate? How much? How do I in some way? It's also been like how do I get across what mister Cosby was trying to get across? But it got sucked up?
Right?
Right?
What doctor Dyson wrote a book about?
Right right? Right?
Yes, yes, because I was going to ask you if you and if you have you know, I haven't heard it.
You know, my my apologies, but have you written a poem about mister Cosby and your experience with or what is that you would explore?
There's no, there's really no reason for me, gotcha.
And when I say read about I don't mean like about him, but about the experience about whatever is it?
Yeah, that's not a that's not a poem yet. And at some point again, I'm living life, so at some point it may become come up.
Yeah, but I don't know.
And now that you plan to see something made definitely, so.
Many, so many things, so many.
Even from what you were talking about with Malcolm and Eddie and what you learned and how you grew up like in that TV world, which is just a one of a kind experience experience for that time, like and having that power like you said when you realize you weren't him, and walking in that writer's there's so many angles.
To take, you know, likes just being present to it all.
And to the doctor Dyson's point as well.
Wait, what book was that like, because it's Bill Cosby, right.
Yeah, that was what the name of the book was.
He wrote a whole book about what he said about us on that faithful day they're usually people talk about Yeah.
Okay, gotcha.
So again I think this is part of it was, you know, how do I how do one not have what happened to his message happened to you know, for
for the message I'm trying to you know. So there were people that actually consulted with like Professor Daniel Williams over at Howard I, you know, that's the homiees like I conferred with her with you know, some of the writing, uh, just to kind of make sure okay, you know, And and there's a certain you know lens through which I'm you know, because of a lens through what I'm watching, I'm not necessarily aware of how this could be misinterpreted,
you know, in another way. So you know, Dana helped me out with that a great deal. And there's another piece I took to another poet just to kind of get some feedback on. So just all of these things have been brewing.
One of the tracks on here I was listening to. I was listening to it, and it actually made me think about what happened to Amir this year in February, Like, and I was like, but he is he referring to that?
It was Ai? Which track was it?
But yeah, what happened at the Oscars, It made me It was talking about that and showing their true feelings and when when black men really put themselves out there.
They just made me think of that in that way.
For you, though, in March of twenty twenty, like what adjustments have you had to meet? And like how did you deal in the last two years from from the pandemic and quarantine until where you are now?
That's a great question. Like for me during that time, like it was a you know, it was a fuck that time, but it was a beautiful time for you know, for my family, because it was literally me, my wife, and my daughter right right, you know. And for my daughter to have mommy and Papa both at home all
day every day she was in heaven. So for our unit, you know, it made our unit stronger in that we had the opportunity to have to be in each other's presence like all the time and and really really enjoy each other, you know, and being able to have that time because my daughter was two when COVID broke out, So to be able to have that kind of time and that kind of family time uninterrupted by work felt
really good, you know. So I think that that kind of informed really everything else, if that makes sense.
Did you do a lot of writing during that time or was it?
Yeah? So what happened was I know, So I've been knee deep and I've been deep inable to forever. Like I took him able to online course at Berkeley in like twenty fourteen, right, so I'm I had able to it was able to three point five, right, and I was eleven, you know, But back then I didn't really understand it, so I put it away until they came out, till nine came out. But so twenty twenty, I was like, I'm going to do a record, and I'm going to
do all the production of myself. Not because that's what I want to do moving forward, but since you know, let this be my quarantine me myself and able to eat get the ship.
Yeah.
So that's where a lot of the record came from, because you know, I got into a five song EP, and then I did a great job of self sabotageing myself, said well, maybe let me add two more songs, right, let me be flushed that with seven songs, right, I'm gonna do that, And then life happened and it never got done right, as you know, just kind of sat warning or something, but they kind of sat on it.
It wasn't you know, at the height of a priority list, especially now when everything's streaming, It's like, well, one, I can put it out whenever. I'm not gonna make any money off of it, so there's really no rush into finishing. So I did all of that, the self sabotage, finishing the record, and then last year when the Grammys announced they were doing the uh you know, finally doing the spoken word poetry category, I was like, was that, Yeah, Yeah, this is the first.
Year I thought there was always a spoken word.
Yeah, but not so spoken word traditionally was included poetry, audiobooks, audiobook to comedy.
Yeah, so you got your own category. Yeah.
So like two years ago, say cool Edwards had an album that was nominated, but Michelle Obama won right.
Right, like.
Exactly, So finally, after years of campaigning, they finally opened up the best Spoken word Poetry album.
Can I take this rare ten seconds out to pick up my sister, Dawn Thompson. I rarely, I mean I rarely go there, but I will say that I've never known a human being that is on damn near at Tasmanian devil level of trying to bring change to me, to Naris and the entire Grammy organization. And I think even saying that might be putting on the spot a little bit too much.
Yeah, but she's doing it the right way locally too, like for her hometown, Like that's what's upping.
Yeah, But I mean like she's really in the trenches in ways that I never because the thing is is like, yeah, I'm a part of the academy, but I don't go to those DAN meetings. You guys.
Amir's not saying his sister is the president of the local Philadelphia chapter of NEARS.
Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot that part. Yes, but you know, she also is like there for countless and billions of hours for like things that you don't think about, but like the level of happiness that she felt. And it wasn't like she was giving me a daily progress report of Okay, I'm working on trying to get these these
categories and da da dada. It wasn't like that. But I just know that one of her biggest challenges was, all right, I now have to be the change that I want to see implemented in an industry, you know, because she came to the industry just like I did as an artist.
Alicia Butterfield too, because you know.
Yeah, exactly the doing it. And yeah, my whole point is with my sister that sorry, I got to well, no, no, no, I'm saying I got in the door, you know, luckily, to make to make a living, I got in the door. She had to go kind of the scenic route to get there. But I definitely know that she was a part of almost, you know, a long, long, long, long, long process of getting these these categories changed so that other arts you know, so that artists can actually get to reap the benef fits o their work.
And quick disclaimer for people who don't know, Don Thompson is coming from an independent artist perspective, and she's not there for her her brother relations.
She's there because she knows the struggle.
Big up to doing it. For that, I have to say that I said at the top, like everything that you said, especially with being a self saboteury and all those things like that that has been me decades, Like I'm now just dealing with this year of setting myself of all those things, like of me noticing how I hold back my own process and those things. So I feel like I'm hearing the code words from you and I'm like, oh wow, this might be a verse of a feather moment.
Yeah, congratulations for one being able to acknowledge it and being courageous enough to you know, not do things the same way.
Right, It's do an everyday struggle though.
No doubt. No, Yeah, yeah, I resemble that remark.
Tomorrow's a new day, you know what I mean. But you know, at least I'm at least very much aware of you know, you could either manifest something or you could manifuc something. I've been the king of man of fucking for a long time.
So wow, Okay, I'm gonna tell you her, like the real real ship. Let's go, that's what we're here for. I want to name the album Blackfist Beautiful.
Who Walked Your Back?
My wife she was like, she was like, you know that's corny, right, It's just right. That's exactly what she said. That's exactly what she said. It leaves nothing to the imagination, oh dude.
And I was like, but how do I show that I'm just black?
So you know I can't. So I'd always loved the I'd always learned love the title Hiding and Playing View, And so I was like, okay, I'm a name. I'm named the album Hiding and Playing View. I told my wife and she was like, you know, you're not really hiding. I mean, everything you're writing about is exactly what you feel, so you're not really hiding. So she was like, in what ways do you hide? Damn it? So she put me in that and she put me in that space.
She's like, right about that, yes, yes, yes, you know. And then that poem was actually something different too, because it, uh, it started different and the play on words like it's so fucking dope, and I, you know, I was mixing with this other poem and trying to show some kind of vulnerability, like let me start the poem, you know, just spitting like like you know, technical ship, so you know that I'm a worsmith and and I can do things with words, and then let me hit you with
the vulnerable. And to me, I thought it was dope. And my wife was like, yeah, sounds like two different poems. I'm like, all right, cool, you're not really a poet, like you don't really.
So she's your sounding board.
Yeah, yeah, yes, but I called another poet friend of mine out, but it's like, yo, you know, I feel like two different poems.
Okay. I use the term kill your kids, because when you know, when you create something, you know, like right now, there's over six hundred roots ideas and it's like, dude, just pick fourteen and let's have the record already, so you know, you don't want to let the other five hundred and eighty four songs go, but you know they're going to have to go down the drain eventually, at least for this project. But how open are you two take that advice. Well, okay, I know that you said that.
You know your wife's not you're not a poet, your da da da dada. I tend to keep I keep, I keep an expert, and I keep what I call the And I'm being very nice when I say this, the common person factor behind their backs. I'm like the factor. So but I think that it's it's good to have both opinions of people that have no emotional connection to you whatsoever, and your work to give an opinion.
And usually with great art you'll find out that you know, like as in the case of you, Malcolm, your wife is saying one thing, but then you hit your poet homie, he's saying the same thing as well.
So it's like there's a universal proof that's there, you know what I mean.
So did the other three people truth get back at my wife like you got it? I won't. I won't sleep on you next time. So then when I when I totally rewrote the poem right and I was like, ah, this is ah, this is dope right here, like this is it, and I played it for her. She was like, let me read it. I needed to see it. And then there were there were there were a couple of tweaks that she made that made me go, thank you,
Malcolm for not sleeping on your wife yet again. Right, So she just gave me some some tweaks and some finishing touches. That really makes it, you know, really what it is. So so so I stay open. But at the same time, I gotta tell you the story. Ah, and you know it's it's fucked up, but but let's go. It says a lot about a lot of people and then also says a lot about how I feel about myself and and and who I am and owning myself. Right.
So wrote the song with Wayman Tisdale. Okay, right, we were doing a jam session and you know, we recorded it whatever, and you know, we had like a little demo was in my hard drive. You know, Wayman passed and you know I pulled that out. Was like, you should do something, should do something with that. So I I arranged this whole song based on this demo that he and I did. You know, I played the song live like for years our last record. I want to
put the song on the record. I had Barty services with Chris Dave on another project, so I called him a favor from him. It was like, yo, you know, like this drum program is cool, but like I really need some live drums behind us. It was like cool, you know. So he comes in, he kills it. Then a few weeks later, I get a call because the engineer who has helped me produce that record was also producing Chris's record. Right, So I get a call and
was like, yo, I got a surprise for you. Pino came through and lay based on your joint, right, I'm like, whoa, that's dope. But wait a minute, I'm playing bass on that record, okay, And that's the record that I wrote with Wayman I speaks performing this song live right, like that's my ship and my listen to it. Pino. You know, Pino did Pino right, So there's no that question about this ship was butter. It was a whole different vibe from what I had spent years with. And I'm like,
so I went to seven different people. I said, listen, these are here's two approaches to the base I'm trying to I'm not sure which approach I'm gonna use for the song, which do you like?
Didn't tell them who was playing what?
No, No, they'll give them any backstory, right five other people, They're like, yo, it's really dope, but I really like this one and that's mine, right, okay. Uh. The two other people knew the story, and they were trying to convince me that it would be really dope because to say, I've got Pino and Chris Dave on my record, the
Big Girl and the Algorithms and the whole nine. So so at the last minute I decided it was like, you know what, I'm gonna kick myself in the ass for the rest of my life every time I played this song and pinos on it and I'm not right, and again, not that I'm better than Pino, like that's not like, don't let anybody attempt to miss that. But so I ended up. I called I called the producers, and that was like, yo, I thought about it. I'm gonna use I'm gonna use my bass. He says, ah, well,
you know what. You know, I didn't want to tell you this, you know, but Chris said if you play based on it, to take your drums off, and that producer was also supposed to mix my whole record. They said, so I gotta take Chris's drums off. I got to take my keys off, give you your files back, and you got to find somebody else to produce the record. Wow, that's real ship, that's real fucked up, but you go just do it. So is called high on love right, And you know, you may think it's you may think
it's whack, but it's not whack. And if you said it was whacked, but like cool, that's your you know again, I'm not Pino right, it's not you know, I'm not saying it's you know, I do me right.
So that's my thing.
Like I had to really go, Wow, I'm getting ready to take Pino Paladino off my record for my ship. I feel that's strong about it.
I stand up sometimes I will, and I can attest to this as well. Sometimes only the best won't do.
Hmm.
You know, I think I think oftentimes, especially you know, there's there's a BC in the A D. And And for me, I think the moment in which I learned this lesson this year where someone told me that, Okay, you get into something brand new and you're you're in the space of being a creative, and then once you're after that and you experienced some sort of success, then you're in a space of not being a creative, but
you're in a space of where you're now succeeding. Like in other words, you're thinking about how to maximize or capitalize on a moment versus how to make the thing. Yeah, and it's it's sort of And the thing that I think that's being lost here, at least on their side of the fence, is that you know, this is still a creative expression for you. This is still therapeutic for you.
This is still like it's your project. You know, it would be like me, like I think Chris Davis would I want him to drum in proxy of me on the next Roots record. That might be a little weird, you know what I mean, because I'm not making the Roots record as in like to be successful. But I'm yeah, it's like your creative expression. So you're you're well within your right. Even if the Lord Jesus Christ came down on Earth and plate based on you're doing, like you
still gotta I understand your decision. You're your first joint came out in two thousand and two, I believe two and three. Yeah, it was it was like right after the millennium started. So are you able? And I'll ask you too, find like I feel like I'm interviewing two artists here. Is it easy to go back to listen to the first thing you ever created and you're fine with it or you're like super critical of it, you know, compared to it's twenty years into the game now.
For you mistakes like oh god, man, all I here's mistakes.
But but you know, but so the listening for you is like organics.
Yeah, I'm like, oh my god, yeah. I mean I can listen to it, you know what I mean.
I haven't listened to it, and sometimes I've been listen to it for the for the film, but like, I can listen to that stuff. But again, I just hear it. I'm just like, god, I sound so young, that sounds whatever, you know what I mean. And it's just you know, it's cringe, you know what I mean.
Wow, And you made a POI fi classic.
Thank you man.
But I mean, but I just look at it over the time, just you know, the years I've been doing this, I just learned to look at albums as or whatever it is, album's polled, whatever you make. I just look at it as a snapshot of where you were at that time. You know what I mean, you have to look at it like a photograph, and you can't look at it like, oh man, I'm so much better now, you know. But it's like, yeah, am, but this is where I was back then, and and I better be better now.
Exactly exactly because if I was looking at listening to the old.
Ship like damn, this dude was better, like and I got a problem, nid you know what I mean, because I ain't got better, you know what I'm saying. If I feel like I got to chase my old ship. So yeah, that's that's kind of been my thing. But I've very rarely listen to older stuff. It's kind of cringe cringe worthy.
How about for you, MALCHAELM Yeah, I can listen to old stuff and appreciate where I was at the time. And then also you know, I listened to that stuff and you know, again I appreciate it makes me really appreciate, you know, Malcolm, then, especially coming from the journey of how this whole thing started. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. The fact that I can, I always wanted to. I always want to make timeless music, right, I want the
content to be timeless. Use I still listen to Gil and like, you know, damn everything Gil was talking about, We're still ship. You know why the most I want someone to you know, to go back. And it's happening now because when I send people to like you know, the Spotify or the hiding in view album page, you know, the catalog comes up. So people who don't know that this is like my fourth record, they go back and
they listen. But it's all still relevant, right, It's all still it's all still listenable.
You know.
I still stand behind you know, even you know I made like some you know, somethings better than others. I'll still stand behind. Just like my acting work. I'll stand behind anything in my body of work and my music I do to say, except I don't use nigga and my music anymore. Uh. But like you know, my first records I did right because I replaced it with common all right. And and actually and if you listen to on the album, there's a joint called so I Run
Prelude and so on the record. I have doctor Daniel Black on the record, who is in my mind, okay go. He's assistant Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Clark so I interviewed him sometime last year because there's a bed of music in this piece called the Sante Sona that I wanted to have him just talk. So he ended up dropping so much knowledge that I put him
all throughout the album. I will dare to say that my album Hiding and Playing View is one of them, is one of the most important albums to come out in twenty twenty two. And I know I'm putting a lot on it, but I'm also saying that because of the gems that Doctor Black is dropping all over this record is it's it's it's important. It's almost vital that we need to hear these messages. Like I tell people, my record is for us, it's for black boys, it's
for black men, it's for black people. It's for non black people who have the foresight enough to see our self healing as an invitation for them to explore their own necessary healing.
Okay, this is how we do a tribunal.
I was wondering how you were to tribunal, and I think you finally got him out, because how do you keep them out but maybe still once get it in?
So thank you.
I'm gonna steal those words because this album black and Shit and ps he still named.
The song you know, because there was I was working a song, couldn't figure out the title because initially it was just you know, C minor seven minor seven, So like I had to give it a real title. And once I you know, I got to write in the he's won't you name Matt blackf is beautiful? I was like, I thought you didn't like it. She was like, it's not right.
That song is like all day she's Jenius.
So yes she is, but so so I know I put a lot on on that album. But that's how I strongly feel about it. And again I strongly feel about that. I feel a big part of that statement is because of doctor Daniel Black and saying all that. Say, there's a prelude called so I run Prelude and he does a bit about niggah. Yeah, I think it's like but and even though I was adopting comrade before this conversation, he just has a really an interesting way that we should at least to consider.
I'm open to hear what I say to struggle like.
It is, but then it's like anything to keep them from saying it. So I don't know what we gotta do, right, it's get the numbers are growing.
I know, I know that for me on the East Coast at least, like there's in Philly we had something that's similar to like the New Aurekan Society and that you know, like there's Trepeter Mason, Jill Scott, Ursula Rucky in Philly, New York. There's the New Eurekan Cafe where poets came. What was that environment in LA? Like where would one like if if Robin Harris is working out at the Comedy Act Theater, right, what was the New Aurekan or the.
Like?
Where did black poets hang in LA during that period in which you're looking for your tribe?
Like, yeah, there are are two places of Fifth Street Dix in the Myrt Park, Okay, and that's where you're gonna find the open mics, the poets, the jazz heads, the old jazz heads, the young Jack's heads, everyone who everyone who was at at at Prinshaw High, every musician you know, spent time shedding at Fitz three Dicks. And then over in West l a uh, there is a place called Lucy Florence and every Tuesday night a poet by the name of Deep Red would do a what
was called Red Sea poetry. But anybody who's coming coming coming up on the scene in La would work out at at.
Right now, right now.
He goes by spoken yoga on Instagram, but it's deeper as spoken yoga. But I always had to give him props because he provided He provided a really dope space and environment for you know, poets coming up. And there's also a fly poet, the fly poet in La, John Hensley. Uh, he would do a monthly thing, but he was he would only he would vet the poets. It would be
a monthly thing, but they were all features. So he was really good about, you know, getting budgets to be able to pay you know poets to come in and you know, put some money in the pockets. But you would go to fly Poet knowing that you it was not an open mic. You were always going to get a hot legit poet on that stage. Damn response, When
did you move to Atlanta in twenty eighteen? But no, but I have to go back because it would be it would be a huge disc if I didn't shout out The Poetry Lounge that was also another spot where uh and outside of La. The Poetry Lounge is probably the more popular, the more well known spot, but for those of us who were coming up on the scene in La, we were definitely a red Sea poetry. You know, a lot of people did work on at the Poetry Lounge and John Hilly spot. I just don't want to go out shout.
It's kind of a part of my life that I missed, like in the early Square roots stays like Tuesday nights at University of pen you know, yes, exactly, like right, exactly, A lot of a lot of brothers who who who?
Who?
Who?
Repeat words like this that that and this and that and the other and that, like I missed, I really miss.
I just hear little brother songs. I'm sorry, I just hear yo man.
I see that. That's what really drew me. See when I heard that first spansee, I was like, first of all, fante, fuck you. In second one, Sante, damn this moment. He's actually right, he is on. Like poetry was always for me, you know, And that's why I can appreciate with you because you know what you're saying.
You know, I'm a poet Because for me coming up so much of poets they were failed and seas, you know what I mean, Like they weren't really they were you know guys, it's like they weren't good enough to be rappers. So they would kind of be in like this middle ground, this poetry thing.
Now we're just critics.
Yeah, but like but but all their poems would be about like it just being about fucking and ship you know what I mean, You know what I mean, it would just be like dude.
Yeah.
So so now so I can appreciate the way that you really take it poetry.
And even for me, so you say North Carolina had a community, we did.
We did, we did, we had. Yeah.
So the song that he's referring to, if you're not uh, just so we know, songs called the Yo Yo's a verse I did it was on the song was a little brother song.
It was it was a star as board. Like all right, Frante is really underselling it. Frante's underselling it. I say this, And I know I'm world famous for my my uh my, my over exaggerated hyper bolt, but I will say that Fonte's verse on Yo Yo like for me, for me, it was almost it was a star is born bust rhyme scenario verse for a tribe called quest because I just never I never heard someone just come over and look at my jinger and just be like snooped dog, like your toys.
A little bit like somebody you thought you was playing with because and.
I was like, wait a minute, you were on our side of this, it was I didn't. So when I wrote that verse, it wasn't for y'all.
I mean, like I looked at it.
First off, I never even looked at y'all as like like y'all, I mean, we weren't in it.
I didn't take personal look at y'all in that way.
I didn't look at y'all as poets, you know what I'm saying. MC j'all were musicians. So nah, that was specifically for poetry.
Like I did it. I was hosting this poetry night.
I got this gig and it was in Durham and it was my friend Tracy Ivora and Matt Sherman.
They hit this.
Whoever they are, I love Tracy back to this day, love them, love them to this day. Tracy is actually the girl on the listening. That's w JLR slow Jams, that's Tracy. So she had this thing she was having this poetry night. She was like, Yo, we want you to come host it. And I was like, all right, cool, how much you're paying? And it was like one hundred dollars and like, nigga, one hundred dollars in two thousand, what shit?
You want ten thouars A fill up?
My damn my little monsters, nigga.
I was eating.
I'm like, hell, let's go. So I go and I do the joint and I'm hosting and I'm just being me, you know what I mean, I'm just doing me. I'm talking my shit, you know, just whatever, whatever. And the poets are coming up there and they're really bad like this, like they really they kind of sucked, and so I'm just talking my shit.
Whatever.
So afterwards, the next day we talked. She calls me after the gig and I get paid everything, and I'm like, yeah, so when's the next one?
Like I'm ready.
I'm like, I'm thinking it's gonna be a monthly.
I got like a little monthly, my little residence or whatever, my little hundred dollars nigga.
Shit, I'm out here.
When the next joint?
She was like.
Yeah, So we kind of got some complaint from the patrons. You know what I mean, you know, because I'm like, well, what can paint? Well, you know it was you saying the IN word. I said, well, trace it.
I don't say the N word. I say, nigga, let's clear that shit up real fast, you know what I mean.
Like I'm just being me, you know what I mean.
And but so yeah, so I think like maybe like a week or two later I wrote that verse. And it wasn't at poor.
I can't believe in finding this story out now.
It wasn't about poets or any you know whatever. It was just about the pretentiousness of that scene, about people with the craft. It was just the pretensiousness of the scene. It was just like, you know, y'all up here like claiming to be a higher level of conscience or whatever, but the rappers are rapping about fucking girls and y'all just up here scene talking about.
Girls, Like get the funk out of here, you know what I mean. So that was where that verse came from. It came from every real place.
But well that was the Star's war movement.
Hit us after you do moutholm.
You know it's funny. You got a little fontet, can we at least do rapid fire about.
Yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, all okay, so A C. A.
You read my mind. God damn it, mother, my motherfucker brother, come.
On, come on.
Always that is one of my favorite roles, was like your AC role, your son's and an art like talk about those roles where you they played. I don't wanna they play against type, you know what I mean, but something that you know, people wouldn't think, Oh, THEO is in the fucking motorcycle Gang, you know what I mean. You know, so talk about like the OJ, the A C. Co Collins Man, how'd you prepare for that? Yeah, I mean that's a whole you know, my whole journey.
You know, post Cosby has always been trying to you know, shed some of that THEO to come energy, and you know, especially Cosby was really my first comedy role. I was doing dramatic work before. Cosby was always known for comedy and because I had done because sitcom is so you know ingrained in me. I've done a lot of work too,
you know, move myself away from that. So I'm constantly looking for roles to kind of go against type and AC Really, now I think about it sparked off a bunch of things that kind of helped move me to this side. You know, the thing I loved about a C was one that there wasn't a whole lot of research to be done on him because it just wasn't
a lot. But you know, what I recognize is, you know, you know, he and OJ they used to be they were both the men, right, But then you spend your life like you're the man sitting next to the man, the man you know, and you live such a lifestyle now that your you know, your relationship, your livelihood depends
upon your relationship with him, you know. And I've never I've never really been I've never been the man now that I would ever call myself the man amongst my friends, but I've never been the man sitting next to the man right. So, but I know a lot of those do. So it was it was fun to be able to, you know, to play that side of a relationship that I saw all my life.
Is he still with us?
Yeah, as far as I know.
Yeah, did you have any talks with him prior to the role where there any none of that?
Yeah, I still haven't talked to him.
Now you killed that role, thank you, and did that role lead to working with Ryan Murphy again and what is it like going from that to American Horror?
So I started American Horror Story. I did that first, okay, okay, so sorry and then so what was fun though? For for people? Forus OJ? I actually auditioned for Chris Darton.
Wow.
And that was literally that was one of the best auditions in my life. Like the cash director helped my agent up with email like an hour after I left and like gave me pomps. I was like, I was like, this is this is that one? Like I'm about to blow off this motherfucker he was he was done. Months went by and I heard nothing right, and then I was like okay, and then out of the blue, Ryan's office called me and offered me the A C roll And so based on, you know, the audition for for Chris.
So then when I saw Sterling, I was like.
What right, of course, right right? What are we talking about?
That made him?
That made him to really he just I mean, he he put his everything, everything from his to his achilles heel he put in that, you know, So, yeah, yeah, I get it.
I gotta ask. Speaking of that, Lenny have revealed to me that they first came to him. Did he reveal that on our episode? Uh? That before Cuba Gooding? Like, I know, this is real hard to imagine, but like OJ, Lenny and O J are dopel gangers. You gotta you gotta google it together. There's there's a period of OJ's.
Life something about cravit.
Y'all. Just so, yeah, what other Lenny? Not Lenny White?
Nobody never heard the comparison.
Or Lenny White the drummer anyway.
No, no, no.
When I was watching Ezra's OJ documentary on episode two, you know it's a four part documentary, episode two, I was like, damn, I never knew that OJ looked like Lenny Kravitz. And I hit him up like yo, like did you know you guys were twins? And he's like yo, they offered me the role and he didn't take it, Like.
I gotta think about his butler roll.
That will be the look he didn't want.
Yeah, Like, but did you did you realize that all that that Lenny at one point was being courted heavily to play OJ's well before.
No, I didn't know that. It's my first I mean, I'm not I mean that that doesn't that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, so yeah, never, I didn't hear that.
It's so beautiful the way it worked out, though, because people love when they saw you on the screen, like it was a it was a beautiful like surprise.
Like the thing that I admire about the roles that you chose, Like you happen to always show up on shows that I watch a lot, like, you know, just on the road, I watch everything, so like when you were in community, Detroiters is one of my all time favorite shows, you know, on the little because I know the people to do the production, even the girlfriend's gut to divorce you, Like, there's so much all all of
the shows that you've done. Is acting still like a journey that you enjoy or or is it like it's cool but you know, like music's like like what's your what's your fifty ballants?
Here?
Right?
The acting? I mean, one, it's my bread and butter, right, But I'm also you know, I'm hitting a new stride as an actor. So my craft is you know, I have a better handle on my craft. It's just even these five seasons I've been doing on The Resident, The Resident has really been a great playground, you know, to to work on certain tools I need as I continue on this journey of mastery of my craft. So I'm always looking to to get better. I have this this
really dope show coming out on Fox called Accused. It's a courtroom anthology series, so like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, every episode is its standalone. Yeah, but so I have an episode of that, and these five seasons on The Resident have greatly and even informed that role because that
role is again a very different role. It was very demanding emotionally, So just having that experience was like wow, like like I am I say, with The Resident, I have finally I'm finally beginning to handle on my craft that I've been chasing since Cosby. M hmm. So there's all of that and it's like, oh wow, there's all of that that's informed where I am. Now, Fuck what's next?
You know, Like I'm excited about that. And then instead of me stressing about you know what the next job is going to be, I have the music.
Yeah right, I would say, man, I would say, bro, like I just from as someone that you know, grew up like watch you on Cosby and who I knew you were older than me, but you know but just you know, in the same range, you know what I'm saying. But like I always admired, I thought you really grew into yourself really well you know what I mean in terms of you know what I mean, in terms of just like your transition and going from because I mean
we you know, I mean child actors, no doubt. Well, comrade, listen, I say that, thank you, thank you. I think, yeah, comrades up out here, really you know what I mean. But nah, you know, so you know, most child actors
that's a sub transition to make. But I've always admired just the way you've kind of transition, and you've always seemed to pick roles that were you and it seemed like it was really yeah, just like a lot of class and you just brought I think, you know when you talk about your process and how you're growing, you know, older and kind of you feel like there's another level of mastery just there.
You know.
I see that, man, It really shine through and everything you do, you know what I mean, And I really appreciate it for really.
I got to ask fan out questions though.
All right, let's go, I got some soul.
Okay, So a year before the pandemic. All right, so the Roots lived, you know, we moved to London, England, like in ninety three when we got our record deal, moved over there and kind of kept an apartment there so that we could tour all of Europe extensively without it being like really heavy on our pockets, you know, paying for flights back and forth to the States. Like we're just going to live in Europe and so like
London's the second home for us. So we did this gig in London and it's like our biggest crowd yet. So it's like fifteen thousand people, and this is not like a festival, this is just like a regular roots show outdoors. And I'm staring at this woman and I'm like, I know you from so where I don't know where I know And she just stood out like she stood in the middle. And then I did a DJ gig and that same woman was like was was was was there? And I was like, where do I know you from?
At the end of the night, I was like, excuse me, where do we know each other? And she says, yeah, my name is Denise Pearson. I was like, fucking five star, Denise Pearson, where you started laughing. I was like, wait, you know, I said, wait, always hung with Malcolm Tomorrow Warner like for me, for me like and then and then taking taken to the very top of this episode when I told you, like vicariously, who am I living with? Like? Who am I living through?
What is you gotta give us?
Give me a second like for me in watching and watching you as a kid vicariously living like I would just like, wow, man, the only two people like I knew Eddie Murphy mentioned them once and you were always hanging with five Star? Do you not know five Star? No? Okay, all right, this this is all I said. You remember the Jimmy jam episode where you know he spoke of
who's our our our my Philly comrade. Oh Nick Martin Nelly when we talked about people that bite jam and Lewis, Nick Martin Nelly was basically, I don't want to insult Nick Martinelly. I'm saying this through the mind of Jimmy Jam. If you can't get Jam and Lewis, you can get Nick Martin Elly and almost get the same results. So like loose ends five Star like he was.
Sid Star from the group five Star.
Yeah, oh shit. So I'll just say that production wise, like Nick Martinelli had took jam and Lewis's SOS band sound and gave it to Lowsens, gave it to Phyllis Hymon. I only want to be your girl. That's going and five Star, which is basically in my mind, if if pre controlled Janet Jackson had a group like her brothers, it was this group. They were, but they were biggest ship.
They were Jacksons Europe.
They were definitely the Jacksons of Europe. And at the time and at the time when the Jackson's resorted kind of running on empty between eighty four and on, like there was no there was nobody to really scratch that itch of watching five people dance at the same time and do those same moves at the jet. You know, It's like after the Victory Tour, the Jackson's were pretty much over in eighty four, so five Star kind of took their place. There was a new addition, but five
Star was really that anyway. Like, you know, they were always hanging with Malcolm jam and I was like, wow, man like, he's so lucky to know them, man like. But I just want to ask you, in general, you're experiencing life and coming of age during a period in which might seem normal to you then but now is like everything you experienced was a classic moment. Like you
saw Prime New Edition. I mean, like you were hanging with Houdini, like you're in the Funky Beat video, right yeah, yeah, yeah, right, like you're hanging with like I mean, Run DMC raising how era Run DMC was the musical guests on your
episode of SNL. Matter of fact, that man out. No, I'm just saying, like Swike Lee even did his little short film join on Malcolm's episode, Like I'm almost certain, like this is the one moment where I wish all five of us were together because I know you probably were also a Latin quarter.
Regular that well yeah, when I was too young to even be up in there, right, But I'm just saying, like, just in general, I feel like I'm what was it like to be you?
Right?
You know, I don't want to sound like old boy interviewing Paul McCartney on Saturday Live, like that was cool, but like you were the man when like the Prince I wish I knew was I became his friend like after the fact, you know, but what was it like during that period to be in that, to be in the eye of the storm, because I mean, for all, the thing that we can't take away from that show
is the domino effect of ideas and seeds planet. I mean, I started with the hip hop thing, but I'm certain that a lot of us were looking at you know, black college is different. We were looking at education different.
We were looking the first time here in night time at the right time.
Rachel, Like, that was right, so many firsts. So like for you in general, what was your experience like just in the eye of the Storm between eighty four and ninety two, you.
Couldn't tell me shit, Oh no, were you an asshole? No? It wasn't an asshole. It wasn't that, not at all. When it was when I first started working pre Cosby, right, I was doing like Matt Houston Fame I was doing. I was doing two plays at the same time. Like I'm in seventh grade and like I'm feeling like I'm at school when people recognizing them from TV. So I'm like, yo, I'm that comrade. Right, I was like, yo, I'm the ship.
Like so I was in that space. Then eighth grade came around and I could not book an audition to save my life. I was going on like four or five callbacks, not booking anything, and it was hurting my soul. But the message I got was like, Wow, this is all cool, but this can go away just like that control over ye. And as soon as I got that epiphany, I book cosme. So, so that's the first filter through which I have. You know, I handled my whole journey.
So I wasn't well so so the beautiful thing was I wasn't an ass, but I was very present to this life that I'm living.
That's good.
And being in New York had a a great deal to do with that, because I wasn't in Hollywood, and my best friends weren't on the same lot two stages down in their show. We were in New York. But when we were first in Brooklyn, the NBC studios didn't have a commasary, so at lunch we had to go out into the neighborhood and pick up our lunch wherever we decided we're gonna eat right, and we're on the number one television show in the world.
There wasn't commisary there, not, not.
At this particular because we were like an avenue m and E's fourteenth Street, like this is like deep in Brooklyn?
Can I side note? Yeah, the last season of Cosby you know it was on the catering staff there, right, what the head cook Cracy? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how she She started out as a one of the head chefs at the Cosby Man, which then led her to life.
Yeah, no doubt, I remember Grace. Yeah, yeah, she's cool.
But yeah, in terms of the because y'all were very you know, y'all are children, were did they because you talked about how Cosby in the writer's room, how he would talk about you know, you know, we're not gonna do that.
I'm not gonna do that.
Did he or Felicia or just any of the adults on the show, did they kind of give y'all game as young actors as well?
It was the educational it that way.
It was for me, it was just watching, okay, right, that just means like understanding, you know, we're on this number one television show in the world. But every weekend, mister Cosby is in Atlanta, Tahoe, or Vegas doing stand up Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then be the work the first person back at work on Monday, right. So I'm seeing like, I'm seeing that kind of grind, you know, and I'm seeing the you know, the work that he's putting into the show. I'm seeing the fights that he's having.
Uh So, so much of that was was just by watching watching him. I've probably I'm sure I've learned more from him than more from him from watching him than him sitting me down a bit. But I listened, and he's one of those people who is willing to share all of his knowledge with anyone who's willing to listen. So I also, you know, I listened a lot. I listened to you know, I was, I mean I was.
It was a great apprenticeship in terms of running a show, uh, in terms of handling the responsibility of living in the public eye.
You guess directed the special ED episode? Correct?
I directed like like six episodes, but not the one ED was on?
Which ones?
Did you do? Well?
Give us a couple?
I know them all about heart but no, no, no, I don't know.
I think off to see the Wretched, got drunk and they went to the Uh they went to see some some some group, yes, in Philly, and Clifford Claire had to drive the Philly to go get them, and.
They had to play a drinking make fun ye no, no, not that one drink they.
Were they were in Philly, they got these tickets, they drove up, you know, letting by know and then I think a scalper scammed them and took the ticket and then they the car broke down.
Remember that episode.
They lied to Clifford Claire about where they were going, so cliff clar had to drive to Philly to get them and bring them back.
And so when you're doing directing, like I've noticed that some of those episodes you weren't in at all, Like was that by design? Like, Okay, my character won't be in this particular episode like I will.
I think in the in the episodes that I directed, they definitely wrote me lighter.
Uh.
Just sometimes there are just times we running them for you know, for whatever reason.
At the point when THEO went to college, did they start asking you for your opinions on things like or did they ever before that or at any point did you have any on the writing. It was moments when I saw you come home and like they were listening, you were listening the day Last Soul, and I was like in my you know, in my mind, I'm like Malcolm did that because right, like.
Yeah, stuff like that, like the so the very last episode, I submitted the demo. Me and Spaceman Patterson submitted a demo for the theme song. They ended up not using our demo, but they used the drum track of that programmed like they used my drum patterns, right, they changed the sounds, but they used my drums just like. Okay, got it? So, I mean there was there was definitely wait for.
The last season. Yeah, so you helped do the music of when they're dancing in front of the brick wall the brother Hell House. Yeah yeah, yeah, but wait, oh god, I have so many questions to ask.
You now the intros so not even the intro, okay, but.
I always wanted to know. Okay, there was one. There was one particular episode in which, for the life of me, I will never understand how this happened. You know, Normally, they will make if someone's listening to outside music, you know, they'll have whatever, I know, like Stuke Gartner, somebody would make up a song, a fictional song or whatever for you guys to listen to. But this one particular episode, I couldn't believe that, not only uh was like black
you Who. Like if if you remember the the episode, this is when I first got a VCR, So you remember, like when you first get your VCR and you just record any and everything or am I way too older than you? I'm way older than you too, So I'm just saying that when you get a VCR, you record
everything and you watch it over again. So this one particular episode they use the actual black you who Guess Who's coming to dinner, which is uh, spoony, spooky right right, which you know the whole I say amon thing, But for me, I always wanted to know. So there's a scene where Vanessa and Robert are listening to Cosmic Slot by Funkadelic, and I was like, Yo, these two are
twelve years old. Wow, what do they know about listening to a song from nineteen seventy three about a mother that has to turn tricks in the alleyway to feed her Like it was such. I was watching it with a musician friend of my dad's and he was like, wait a minute, are they really playing Cosmic Slot by Funkadelic right now? On the cosby That was like one of the most revolutionary moments. But I always wanted to know, like I know that wasn't by accident or like, I
know that was on purpose? Who would is that? The writers?
Is that.
That was either mister Cosby or Stut Gardner. Probably mister Cosby.
Wow.
So at the time I know that scene, I was probably too young to know cosmic slop so right, But now that you're saying that because I know the song, like, that's such a genius It's such a genius move.
Yeah, so that was that. I mean that that really turned me on. Before that moment, those Funkadelic records were just scary album covers in my dad's collection and I was like whatever, And then suddenly like, oh wait, this was on the Cosby Show. Like literally every it's a.
Lot of records that were found like that.
Yeah, yeah, like with Candy and all that stuff. So again, I go back to my first question, what was for you like one of the coolest moments of the advantage of being your career because I you know, I also know that back then there was sort of this thing where it's like you versus here, I say.
Damn it, you transition very well.
Yeah, yo, for real, for real, dog for real, for real you Malcolm. Yeah, and I just felt like you've really never got your props for what you represented on that show. But just in general, like what was like one of the coolest moments of.
That experience?
Yeah, like meeting someone otherworldly or just like, wow, I get to see this concert because you know, like.
That could be a two hour conversation in itself. I'm gonna tell you one that stands out because since you brought it up. So we're at SNL right, I'm rehearsing my opening monologue, and it was about I had just learned how to do the wop right because I was I was at I was at l Q, everybody was wopping and my man Darren Hie me finally taught me how to how to wop right. So old monologue is about me trying to learn this dance and then uh, Dana Carvey comes in and he's really trying to show
me how to do the dance. It's a real goofy Uh. It's a real open monologue. So we were rehearsing and run, uh, you know, running Daryl coming and there they're early, so they're sitting down, Uh, they're watching us. You know, do the monologue and you know, the band starts playing and I start, you know, doing the walk mm hmmm finished the piece. Yo, did you hear that? They playing my melody? Run looked at me. He was like, yo, you did that. I was like yeah, he was like he gave me
the look. Right, Run DMC is impressed because I'm want ESNL doing the wop having the band playing AIRGB and rock kims my medd right, Run is to meaning like this mon right wait and I'm like fifteen, like so to get that look from Run.
Like wow, yeah, wow, this is a lot of them.
But that's definitely you know for a fifteen year old kid, you know, love and Run DMC to get that kind of recognition, I.
Think like spending night at an aunt's house or whatever, and you know, and I got to see that episode.
Man, that.
That that was everything, Yo, dog, I can I can nerd out forevery normally I'm about to look at the clock, right, Jesus Christ, this is a two and a half hour episode.
Sorry, but I mean you're you know, you're a legend.
Run.
No, this is this is a living legend, friend, and I'm talking to legends. So it's whole thing.
I do it all the time. It's really cool.
I really thank you for talking to us and and and you know I'm one of your biggest fans. Dok and ways in ways in ways. I can't explain it. I just I thank you. I really don't have any other words, but you know, thank you. Thank you.
Do people still walk up to you and say, I brought you in this world and I'll take you out?
Fortunately not okay, good yeah, but but I mean just to like, like like this, wait a minute, didn't you just use something based on that Uhteh Sherman showcase I just heard I brought you in this world, I'll take you out reference.
I don't know if it was a song reference or just a line reference.
It might have been a line reference. But I okay, okay, okay, I didn't we didn't do a song I did. I just I'm crazy. I just thought of it.
So the first podcast what It's just got me this job, the very first podcast I did, Man Shot, my Man, DJ Brainchild. Our first podcast is called.
Yeah Jimmy Jams Yeah, and our logo was you. It was you in the shirt like this like that was our logo, Like it was that's right.
I forgot the the the genesis of this very podcast was the Gordon cart podcast, which I stole. Yes, yeah, I.
Mean we were done.
That show was done by the time when we started this. But yeah, but nah, man, I know you. I said, had to say, you've been apart.
You've been a part of our of our cultural you know, just everything for you very long time.
And just to be able to see you still.
Just after all these years, like still flourishing, still working and like still you know, got your good sense on no dope and no dumb ship like that, like you you make you make the fifties, You make your fifties look real good, brother, for.
I appreciate that. Man. Well, I gotta say, just for me, this is, this is this has been I don't even know the word affirming. It's been wonderful. It's been, you know, just because I respect both of you so much, just you know, as an MC when we talk about it's like you guys, like I talk about this love hate relationship I have with hip hop, right, but there is still like I can't trash hip hop because you guys
are still hip hop, right, I'm saying. So, you know, right, So it's like it's like, you know, Felicia Rashad, you know you will tell me that you know, the light and the dark will always coexist. They have to, right, There's always going to be that battle. So I disappreciate that, you know, you guys are still around and still relevant enough to be like, no, but yo, this is you know, we still got this, so we don't even really have to dog hip hop.
Don't have that them have that we got. I think, God, yeah, no one expected it to last this long.
Like no, I don't think anyone expected it to be fifty year olds that are still invested in the hip hop. I don't think anyone, even the record companies when they first started.
I mean, I don't think anyone expected to last as long as it did. So the idea of.
Growing old or growing up in hip hop, I mean, I think that's a rarely new conversation of like the last you know, decade or so, maybe you know what I mean.
Look, I remember being twenty five, and I remember being like, nobody's gonna want to hear Comrades rapping at fifty wait for jay Z, But now here we are like yeah, yeah, I'm saying he is killing it. Slick is killing it like it's.
You know, black thought, it's black killing it.
He's the thought is in and he's on the level like all unto him. He owns his own lady, right right, you know what I'm saying. So so to have you guys still be relevant forces is just as a hip hop fan, I'm so appreciative, but just as you know, a fan of both of you guys. You know me, You're like, I've been rocking with y'all. Said back when Marvin Matt gave me this this single.
You and Wesley were definitely one of the first, the first like pioneers or gods that came to.
See us like that consistently.
Yeah, you asked me if I remember the Belly Up Club. It's like yo, dog, like that whole bus Rider was like yo man, step steps. Yeah, And just that's what it was like.
And just you know, I want to reiterate against I don't want it to get lost. And how influential you guys were on what I do musically.
Well, that's because I watched you first. So yeah, this is specification.
And on that note, I just want to say something that has not been said. Thank you for giving us a space to talk about one of all of our favorite shows of all times. It's not always easy to talk to speak lovingly about a thing that we love so much, but you know, things have changed and stuff.
So thank you for engaging. The show is the show. The show raised us, you know what I'm saying, So thank you, Thank you.
Doubt all right, so on behalf of fan Tikolo, Laya Sugar, Steve and I'm paying Bill.
Y'all, y'all missed the flash.
Thank you, Malcolm Jamal Warning, this is Quest Love signing off for Quest Love Supreme. If we will see you on the next go round. West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.