Black Music Month QLS Classic: Solange

Published Jun 23, 2024, 3:01 AM

In this Black Music Month QLS Classic, singer-songwriter Solange talks about what it takes to be a strong Black woman today, the making of her new album and just what it is she loves so much about New Orleans.

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

What up, y'all, it's unpaid bill from Quest Love Supreme. As you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating black music a month. We are releasing an episode every day, so every day you would either hear especially picked a QLs classic, and on Wednesdays we are dropping new two part episodes Wayne Brady and the legendary James Poyser, both of which were filmed in studio. Black music is deeply important to me and has been an influence throughout my entire career. It's also something we celebrate here at QLs. In twenty sixteen, during the first season of QLs, we had Solange Knowles on the show. This was a special and spirited conversation with a tremendous artist who was in the season of an amazing album.

A set of the table.

Supremo Sun Supremo, Roll Call Suprema Sun Sun Supremo, Ro Call Suprema s S Supremo, Ro Call Supreme Son Son Supremo Role Call.

My name is Questlove. Yeah you got the message? Yeah, I'm pretty sure like you.

Yeah.

I say.

Supreme Supremo role came Suprema So Supprivo roll.

My name is Fante.

Yeah, I am not bitter. Yeah, thank God is real life? Yeah and we not on Twitter. Supre roll call Supremo Supremo roll call.

My name is Sugar Yeah, hell so lunge. Yeah, let's eat some but the cookies. Yeah and smoke some gun.

Suprema role called Suprema Son Son so Brea.

Role called Bill. Yeah, I ain't that legit. Yeah, back with quest of Supreme. Yeah, I ain't got some ship.

Oh, Supreme Son Son Supremo role called Suprema Son Son Suprema.

Role call my name's like yeah, yeah, my day is made?

Yeah, cut so Lodge is here, Yeah, no shade roll call.

Supremo son Sign Suppremea roll call Supremo Son Supremo.

Roll come until is here? Yeah an electric Lady. Yeah, So Lounge's new album. Yeah it's crazy.

Rome Supprima Sun Sign Supremo role cal Supremo Sun Sun Supremo.

Roll called names Lone.

Yeah, and I'm hungover. Yeah, ask me some week.

Yeah er Suprema Suprema roll call, Suprema son Sign Supremo. Role called Suprema son Son Suprema roll called Supremo.

Supremo, dude in the ship that was that was wow on time in rhythm go with message. I'm like, what is it going wround with?

You?

Used the five minutes on the record and everything that was some ship five minutes before I thought of Yo, Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme on Pandora.

We're broadcasting from the legendary Studio A at Electric Ladyes Studios in New York. I'm your host Questlove, and we have an incredible show for you today. Our guest is an amazing singer. She's an amazing songwriter, dancer, choreographer, and so much more. She recently released her critically acclaimed new album called A Seat at the Table in my opinions, one of the best albums of twenty sixteen. Uh Solange noses on the show today, y'all, and we'll bring on shortly. But before we do, let's check in out with Team Supreme. Yes, of course Love, Team Supreme. Yes, Uh Fante, you've been.

On the road, have you not? I have been on the road. My vand of Foreign Exchange. We performed, we did our West Coast run, so.

In the black and white vans.

Yeah yeah, and I segregated vans okay because I am from do y'all ask for a black.

And white man?

Were?

Now when we written the event, well, well we actually own a white van, Like we have a van that we y'all drove to the West Coast. No, no, no, we didn't. We didn't this time. No we No, I'm not I'm not that adventurous. But so we actually own a white man. So when we go out, like really it's the members. The black members are in one van and the white members and the other van. But we come together on stage.

And make music. Wait, wait, through is there a difference besides melononlas melon man? Like I said, a we ben Now do we know? Straight up, let's talk about it.

There is a we a surprisingly it is is the white man is the white man is the we man, and the black man is the conservative man. Yeah we're pretty conservative. Absolutely, No, no, that's no bullshit. We've been pulled over like I got pulled over on ninety four on our.

Way to Detroit. Uh, dude, made us, made us get out the car. Just get.

Right.

Now, you are witnessing a reference to a Five Heartbeats movie.

Is that right? It was five heart Beats meat? But you were right, You're right. But but nah, man, we toured tours. Dope. I'm glad it's over, you know, because I already don't like touring. But you're touring all the time. Why not?

I know, just I just cause like, fuck that ship touring, man, Like, here's the thing with me with with touring, Like, I mean, it's necessarily evil, right, you gotta go get your money and the time while I'm actually on stage, I do enjoy you know what I'm saying. I do enjoy performing, you know, the interplay with the band, I do enjoy that. But everything leading up to that and after that, I fucking hate what.

Touring?

Okay, we the parls of touring are just pretty much. It disrupts your patterns. So whatever it is that you're trying to do in your life to be better, whether if you're trying to eat better, you're trying to exercise, you trying to stay off these holes, whatever it is you're trying to do. You're trying to stay off cocaine, You're trying to leave drugs along, You're trying to stop drinking. Whatever it is that you're trying to do. The road is like the last place you want to try to do it. So when I'm at home, my routine is very simple. Wake up, you know, hit the gym, you know, work a little something around the house, go pick up my boys from school, homework, dinner, I right, go to bed, whatever, play some dune, you know what I mean, not a hole to be found, saying. The only hope we find is in the is in the garage. So but when you go on the road, it just disrupts everything. So like you're eating, goes to ship, you know what I'm saying, You're up crazy hours and then you perform. And after you perform, I mean that's essentially energy that you've absorbed from all these people.

So now you can't go to sleep. So now you got to figure out how do I get to sleep? So you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, So you know, I never like, I never liked, so I just don't. I like just a real simple life. And so my goal is to get enough money to where I ain't gotta do it no more.

But I bet the road is good for someone who's in their whole face now listen, let me tell you something. I feel like next door you and me, I'm coming with man.

Let me tell you one got damn thing, Bill Sherman. Yeah, come out here on your whole face. Man, listen.

Bro Oh my god, I'm gonna do it. No, no, just sound like Entourage is one of the I mean that show was.

It's kind of candyass as it was, but it was real in the sense that it showed how the guy didn't really get to have the fun.

All the guys around, the guys right, they got to live it up. The star, the person who's in the epicenter never has the fun. Never Matt Well, okay, referring back to our Alan lead show, like Brown Mark of the Revolution used to always get fined more for like one minute late two minutely simply because like he had the freedom to really clean and rack up in the bars and in the hotel lobby because he was known as the guy from a Revolution. But it wasn't like kass and Mayhe he it wasn't the guy. Prince on the other hand, would cause Kasos and Mayheim everywhere he went, so he was basically a prisoner in his hotel.

Absolutely he couldn't go to nowhere. He did all that work for nothing. Yeah man, so yeah, so yeah, so I generally hated it. I'm not print but but I mean, but really after the show, I don't know, maybe Mars, maybe I'm Maris, I'm on Morris than Prince.

But uh, you know, I'm thankful for the opportunity. I'm thankful for the work. You know what I'm saying. I'm thankful for the checking.

So much joy to the people.

Know when I'm on stage, I love it and the minute it ends. Yeah, she came. She was that engine came to the LA show. Oh lord, oh lord, exactly with the.

T and plus I've been coming to Fontae shows. I'm like, I'm not as much as your shows. Don't get it twisted because he's a little I don't.

Perform as much. Like God, damn, the old jokes keep coming.

No, I called, I was that was hard. But but nah, man, I'm yo, I'm I'm good. I'm happy. I've been playing on Xbox, so I'm good. All good. Let's get to her special guest right now. Hey, surprises a bum.

Actually this is not a surprise though, because I guess back in twenty fourteen. Uh, I kind of made a cry to the Internet for artists to really start making music relevant to the times we live in. And somehow the gods have heard my cry. And I knew that something was coming up the pike from our special guests, but I didn't know the magnet, the levels level of deepness that was going to come with it. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Quest Love Supreme Clon's no.

Thank you?

How are you? Solon?

I'm doing really really well.

What was drinking all? What was drinking all last night?

Tequila and wine?

Oh wow, to Como party and I know.

Not Titos.

I think it was like, that's not a drinking.

I thought it was. It was I'm sorry, I'm I'm learning to what's Tito's? Yeah, you know, I wish people would stop like, ah, like look, I'm still drinking from water. Yeah, it's that fise like frad wise like night training me. That's like a hard what is frame wall? What is what is Lambic? Frame boishek rhyme that one and say nothing new. Okay, it's a Belgian beer, but it really tastes like uh Welch's grape juice with a little bit of like non alcoholic near beer in it, and I take it they only sell this in neighborhoods where you'll find hot cheeto wrappers on them.

This is.

No this is a high ended beer.

I guess it's been like five weeks without drinking, just in preparation for my Saturday night live performance, so I had a little.

Catching up to.

I'm glad you still agreed to come.

Oh man, I'm honored to be here with all of you guys. Thanks for having me.

Thanks you too.

See me, I'm playing I'm playing cool. What are you talking about?

A special sweater for tonight?

Wearing sweatshirt from I Forget the Ages?

Yes?

Great.

By the way, congratulations on your Saturday live performance.

That joint was so much.

Was beyond nervous.

Why are you nervous?

You know what I think, because through.

The process of making the album, it was such an insular experience in some ways that it felt so mine and so personal. And to have that platform and and that be offered to me was just such an honor.

I was so honored.

And of course you don't say no to that, but for your first time delivering these songs, to be on such a huge platform and almost like the safety net in the space that I've created throughout making this album and releasing it.

That was the moment where it was like, Okay, this is outside of that safety.

Oh your comfort zone. Yeah, but I would think you've been performing all your life. Yeah, about some point you would just be numb to the experience of like, oh, this ain't nothing, it's just another No.

Actually it was not you air yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no no.

I've seen you singing at the age of seven on videotape and all that stuff. That's the thing. I'm shocked that you still get nervous about performance, you know.

I actually about three years ago I suffered from my first bout of stage.

Right.

I had a show and it just came out of nowhere. And it's really really something that I've been trying to work through. It's fairly new. Like you said, I have been performing for a really long time. So yeah, I was working through a lot of stuff before that performance and again just sharing it in such a big space because after I put out the record, I actually went to Mexico, as you know, for ten days, like the day after I put the record out, so I didn't have a lot of the outside noise, you know. In that experience, I was able to just shut my brain off and really just live in the moment of releasing and sharing such a big part of myself with the world. And so as soon as I came back, it was time to prepare for Saturday Night Live. So I really didn't have I have that time to transition into that that headspace and the way that I maybe would have liked.

From the time they say, hey, we want you to do it to the time you're on stage. How much time is that the prep I.

Had three weeks? Okay, about a week of that time was putting together a band I wanted to put together a new band, a New Orleans space band, and then I actually choreographed the entire show as well, the band's choreography, my choreography. So I spent a week on that and then yeah, a solid week of rehearsals. So not a whole lot of time for such a big platform.

But and that was your first time ever performing those songs live ever. Wow, So are you are you saying that you essentially finished the record, mastered sequence it whatever, released it as an hell Mary Throw and then you just fled the country kind of with your fingers over your ears and your eyes closed and like, Okay, let me see what's gonna happen. Kind of yeah, And you did it just to protect yourself from either what you either criticism of it or the not knowing what the response would be.

No, I think I did it as a personal retreat for myself.

I worked on the album over a three year course of time, and you know, it was at times a very taxing experience emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, and the two weeks leading up to releasing the album were some of the most challenging days that I've ever had in my life. I had a lot of issues with clearances and mastering and you know, all of the stuff that comes at the very end of putting an album. I almost lost my album date. There was just a lot of internal stuff that was happening, and I think towards the end I kind of lost a little context because everything was moving so rapidly.

But I always knew that for.

My sanity that when I released the record, I needed to just have some quiet, reflective time.

You told me at the very beginning of the recording process of the record back when you just had demos that you were going to make the quote, the statement the quintessential you know what you felt would you've been dying to express, which I know for you that had to be a challenge because I mean I can imagine based on and I've been on uh where I reach your that sounds stalky, like I'm always on your website, a website that's not stalker, that's not I know.

I'm like he's also acting like we don't talk.

No, no, that's the thing. But that's the thing, like, yeah, no, I mean, I'm sure like we're genuinely friends, but our friendship really hasn't been on the musical worship side of things, like we rarely talk about each other's projects, you know, and but just in general.

Yeah, we built that friendship off of a ginuine friendship connection. I know that.

There was there was one entry on your site that really had me curious and I wanted to call you about it, but I forgot to. And that was the I guess we can call the the craft work incident. Yeah, and the thing was I understood. I guess what I got from it was that it's really hard for you to make people understand that you still go through human experiences, which because people perceived you as coming from such a this perceived dynasty of giants that you know, would be time to pull out the violin or whatever, like, oh that's good, you know, and it's never validated. What I'm saying is that what I got from that entry was the fact that you were frustrated that you really couldn't figure out a way to express the anger you have when those injustices and those situations happened to you, because people don't see you as a human being and just see you as part of this, you know, this dynasty that's supposed to be tafline to emotions, and I can imagine that being frustrating. Can you explain the craft work situation?

Yes, but I will say before before I get into that, just to carry on what you said. The thing is is that doctor Dre is going through this in front of his home, and Oprah Winfrey is going through this, you know, in the Hermez store, and these are billionaires, so that in that landscape, I think those kind of micro aggressions happen to everyone daily as as a black woman and man in this country.

It doesn't matter your class.

It doesn't matter how much money you have, what kind of quote unquote empire dynasty you come from.

That's just the lay of the land. Essentially.

My husband and my son who's twelve jewels, and his friend Rashid, we went to see craft Work. And the interesting thing was it was a Friday night. My son had his friend over. They had never heard of craft Work, to be honest, that was the last thing that they wanted to do with their Friday night.

So, you know, Allen and I.

Are showing them YouTube videos and trying to make the link with hip hop to get them more interested, and showing them visuals and like, no, you guys are gonna love this, like, you know, just relating and specifically showing the samples that.

Jules's uncle sample of Craftworks.

So whoever that is because it took me a minute.

So essentially.

That's important to note, just just for the story itself, that here you have two young black kids who are not really interested, don't have much, you know, knowledge about this band. Yeah, and we are you know, trying to navigate them into the show and build interests and whatever.

As soon as we walk in, we got our three.

D glasses said their museum run.

No, this was at the Orpheum Theater, and so yeah, we're basically walking to our seats and it just so happened the very song.

Yes exactly was on.

And so we were super stoked. We had box seats.

There was two rows in front of us in one row behind us, and we walked to our seats and.

We're dancing, and these women essentially just started yelling at the top of their lung sit down, now, sit down, shut up. You guys are been so disruptive.

And I turned around, and I, in that moment, had to make a decision. Am I gonna respond or am I just going to enjoy this song and deal with it later. I actually clocked into myself, you know, you have that moment and said, I'm gonna dance to this song and then I'm gonna sit my ass down because I already know where this is heading. Simultaneously, which I didn't write about, which Alan thought was really important for me to note and note you My son is he was eleven at the time, and this the attendant comes over to him and his friend who are sitting down. They weren't standing up dancing.

Alan an hour and says put your no electronic cigarettes. Put your cigarettes away to these children. Yes, yes, cigarettes, know you. As soon as we walked in and.

We saw these two older white men sitting in front smoking the cigarettes, we took note of that.

We weren't bothered, but you know.

It was just the assumption that if someone was breaking the rule, surely it was the two eleven year old black kids.

Yeah, yeah, vapin.

So it was just a lot of tension in general, and thank god, by the grace of God, Alan hopped into that immediately and was like, ma'am, these are children, You've got the wrong people.

Whatever.

And then after that, Alan's going to kill me for for blanking on the name of the song automond Ye that comes on.

And on the ride there, Alan had played me the entire twelve minute song and.

It just so happened that that's what they played. So I was like, well, I'm gonna just dance to this one too, because we had just had that moment, right, and we're at an electronic dance music concert.

It's not like.

Engaged in.

So there's two there's two parts of this problem.

The problem is also that you know, we probably should have asked for floor seats.

But we were under the assumption that people were going to be dancing all night long.

So you're in the balcony the theater.

Yes, So we're dancing, and then I feel something hit me on the back of my head.

But I say, surely I am tripping.

Must be tripping, must be tripping, right, So I actually tell Alan, I said, I swear, and maybe I'm just losing my motherfucking black eyes light.

But I just felt something hit.

Me on the back of my head, and he was like, babe, you might just be tripping, like just lay low.

So I actually, you know, shook it off.

And then I felt something harder, Oh yeah, me on my shoulder, and my son, my eleven year old son, tapped me. He picked up a line from the ground I half eaten lime, and he said, Mom, I just watched these women throw this at you in front.

Used to be tested in all kinds of ways.

A reference, And I feel so bad because they gave us the tickets.

I've never met them, but you know, it just it just sucks that they also had to be associated with this incident. But yeah, you know, in that moment, I basically knew we had probably three choices one was to react, which probably would have led to someone getting arrested, you know, just spiraling out of control, or I called the police on them because essentially.

You know, they did throw ship at me.

Wow. I never even thought, yeah, I mean, you know, you're going we can.

Sometimes exactly that's what they.

Do literally, But I knew that even if that happened, that somehow.

It would still be our fraud, or just to just take it and be silenced, because I knew that if I.

Spoke to them that it would escalate.

And my son was there, it was already traumatic enough for him to have to experience that, especially in a context where it was a predominantly white space and he didn't want to be there in the first place. And so now I think the thing that saddened me the most is that here we are, as parents trying to expand, you know, his horizon and his experience and make him feel like he belongs wherever he chooses to be.

But that was not the message that we got that nex.

What do you think he took from that experience? Did you explain them? Oh?

Yeah, I had several talks. No, no, no, we had several talks. In fact, you know, the we had. It was it was quite a three days after that, I think that.

Number one, I think just as a young man and him and Alan, both as the men and the family also felt silent and powerless just in protecting me in that situation because they are black men, and no matter what would have been said or done, they would have been the aggressive in the situation. So on one end, it was about teaching him, you know, after the last eleven twelve now twelve years of teaching him about injustices and how to stand up for himself and to not be afraid and to speak up and then having to say.

But there to say.

Right. So it was it was just very complicated. But I felt the need to write that piece for him. I felt the need to essentially not be silenced.

In that situation and to let him know that there is an outlet in a way to use his voice responsibly because there are so many people who read that piece who I felt had a deeper understanding of the microaggressions that we face as black men and women on a daily basis, who were able to empathize, which is something that we have the expectation of people to do on a daily basis and to treat us with humanity.

But it was really.

Interesting, and I felt regretful because I had so much rage in the moment that I started tweeting because I wanted them to see it. When they got home, they were put on black. But I wish that I would have just channeled my emotions and that waited and channeled in.

In that piece. And it was a great lesson learned that.

You know, it really is no way to condense that experience in however many letters that you get on one hundred and forty.

Characters had to write a book about it.

Yeah, yeah, it's really no way.

But I wanted them to get home and to see them and to see they have some accountability. I honestly thought that it would come up at this point because so many people are.

Just put two and two together.

It was widely widely talked about locally and normal. The real crazy ship, though, is that they got up and started dancing.

Of course, after you.

Get out of your pistom, like you burning right.

Youst we're going to take that word, yes, And.

I did forget to note that Alan went over to them and said, did you just you know, throw fruit at or whatever? At my wife, and one of the women says, I just want to make it clear that was not me saying those horrible nasty things, streaming those horrible nasty things.

So we don't even know what they actually were saying while they were throwing Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but again you.

Can figure out who, and I would be happy to listen listen to you. What should be noted, though, is I feel like that was very mature of you to just stop pondering. Think we're having a fascinating conversation with our guests to lunch. I don't even think do you remember? I remember the first time I met you, I was in the audience at an Apollo show.

Probably was no stop pondering and thinking.

And the first time I met you, you were confronting someone in the audience about what they said about That's the first time I met you.

They were out of control though, and.

Well, yeah, I know, but it's just like, you know, I always felt that you had to walk the thin line between any any defense, your family, your art, your you know, and the fact that you I think I would have lost it, you know, especially as like, oh, you're trying to masculate me in front of front of my kids. That's that is amazing. I just want to say that to be committed.

But I felt like, honestly, throughout the course of making the album, that was it incredible amount of growth that I was able to achieve through channeling you know, this rage and just frustration and pain through my art and through my writing, and I feel like I have a better toolbag, were.

Able to get it, were able to get it out, and I was.

Even you know, some things happened last night that I would not have responded in the same way. But I honestly feel like everything that I could have said, I wrote on this album. So when those things are happening to me now versus pre this album, I feel like it's there for you to discover if you want to have that conversation. But I don't feel the need to have those conversations as much as I did prior to releasing this record.

The conversation is.

There, you know, the period between the true album Yes and this album, Like why didn't you feel that you know, twenty twelve wasn't the apropros time to do it, or even with the Heavey Street record, or even did you have any say in the very first record, so it's oh.

Yeah, that's my baby, I wrote. I wrote probably seventy five percent of that record at fifteen.

Well you wrote all your material practically, okay, but were there people that you can't do that? I honestly, when you told me that I was scared, I was like no, no, no.

Honestly, at fifteen, through throughout that record, I think that that was just such an interesting time in music.

That was at the height of.

You know, Britney Spears, Christine Angular and sync and here I was. Everyone goes to that phase. I was thirteen, I went to Jamaica. I was that suburban kid who you know, was definitely felt connected and I still do feel connected to a lot of principals of Rastafarism. But I definitely, you know, cut all my hair off.

I was a vegan. I was really doing some soul searchinges.

So this was like your snoop lyon period wow alone or like under the guise of like we was Miss Tina.

Like no, no, we no.

But it was more so about I really did feel a lot of connectivity to my body being a temple, and you know, it had a really strong effect on me and I actually feel like though as a songwriter, I was at my most potent and honest. Even still to this day, I say it all the time, the way that I approached songwriting. Yes, there was a sense of clarity and like, I'm dying to make a playlist of my fifteen year old songs that I wrote because I still still feel like there's some of my strongest songwriting to this day.

Yeah really, yeah, I mean, but I also.

Was, you know, extremely privileged to have been in the studio during that time with Pharrell and Timberland and Rock Wilder, and I was around some real musicians, you know, so it must be interesting for them to have seen you then and then see you now like have you gotten I'm sure Farrell's hit you up like whoa yeah. And Pharrell has been such a champion of me since day one, and I am so grateful for that. I remember, you know, a lot of times being fourteen, going into those studio sessions. I was signed to Colombia then it was a very different Columbia, like I said, and two three ooh.

Probably two probably two.

And I would walk into these sessions with these producers and they would say, okay, like we have a few tracks that we want to play you and I was like, no, actually write my own music.

Can you play some instrumentals?

Oh?

Fifty percent of the time people were like, we need to call the A and R. And you know, because they thought that this was just going to be easy.

I was younger sister, like, let's just come in, get this check and keep a cute and quick.

And I was playing like, you know.

Shuggary Otis Records and like, I actually have brothers Johnson play guitar on some of my songs on.

That album, and like your first record, yes, yeah, but I have to say for real was one of the ones I was just immediately.

Like, Okay, if you want to write it, then let's do it, you know. So yeah, I feel like, what's really interesting is.

That album cover.

I actually I have on my little Cari shells and my red in the Rosta cap and then in Hadley Street, you know. I I it was still really really important to me to incorporate social activism and black pride and black history into that record and my first video. I had images of Malcolm X and Angela Davis and aside of Secure and Chay, and it was people weren't peeping.

But I'm like, this is I decided.

I decided, if you look back at that that video on the history, it was all of that was in there.

So where does that come from?

Sound?

I was to do the question, Yeah, I'm gonna go back to the beginning, because they're going to me from repetition, all right.

So I was just saying that to say that it's always been there.

You know, it's always the storytelling through the lens of a black woman, and our stories in our history has for me, always been there.

It has always been a part of my work.

I don't think it's ever been as explicitly as honest and spelled out and unavoidable.

I always did it in ways that were kind of less at the forefront.

But I think it was the album that I was really destined to make, you know, from a very young age, and I had gone through enough experiences between that timeline of releasing True and the aftermath of that to where it really challenged me to say, what is it that you can write now that is what you are living through and existing in, and that that was it, you know, those stories that are told on the album, that's what I was living and existing in every day.

So it felt really good to get that out.

Between True and Headley. Your your fondness for the word fucking. The first thing I noticed the one True was with some the second song some Things don't just seem to fucking work to me. It was the ultimate title. And then I think Headley's last song was fuck this industry, which.

That's a man. I have to say.

Dev actually wrote the line some things never fucking work. So I didn't say fucking two times. I didn't write fucking two times in a song.

But sometimes that's just the only way that you can.

Well just kind of let you know that it's on on another level. So now I do want to go back to the beginning to take I think no. I think it's only important because the way that this album is built, especially with the interludes and master needs to drive an audio book.

I've got like two hours of audio from p that will blow your mind.

Now, Okay, white guy questions purpose like that? Why can't they just be questioned? No, but this is the purpose of the show is for all of us different cultures and background, black and white people and bosses and minions and bosses. I pointed to myself when I said minions, it's got real Disney for a second. Okay, minions, No, but he Okay, I was shocked that master P got so much uh space on the album. I mean, he's borderline the narrator of the record.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Are you right?

I wasn't shocked that you chose him to narrate it because unbeknownst to me, he did have a story to tell, which again, I think the thing is that hip hop Maybe this couldn't answer your concern Bill, your question?

What was the question and why master And I said, I reallyct the record was to deal with master P.

That was the first because I was listening to the entire ride here and that's what I thought.

So what you know about how I worked together?

You know.

But the thing is is that with ninety percent of the participants in hip hop culture, you really don't get to see the vulnerability and the human side of them. So thus we would just think that Masterpiece the guy from the from about about it. Yeah, and just like you know, like, Okay, it's some guy in the trap and he has money and Da da dada and c murder, and you don't think of them as human beings. Human being, right, The thing that shocked me the most was like I was engaged. I started looking. I didn't even look at the credits. I was just like, Oh, I wonder if there's another Master, Oh he's back. How did you know that he had a story to tell and why did you think it would be engaging and why did you provide the platform for him to not tell his story but also to kind of tell your story as well well.

First of all, I think that.

Master is incredibly regal, and there was a thread of regality that I wanted to connect to the album and to the visuals. I really wanted to present Black people, as you know, regal, stately beings that we are, and I think that regality can be expressed in so many different ways.

But I remember, and this might be generational, like.

Seeing MTV Cribs with Master B on it and him having like a gold toilet seed and all old everything and being incredibly ornate. But I also remember my father really looking up to Master Be because he was a black man who entered this music industry and this landscape completely independent, and he held on to his independence. And that was something that was really important from my father as someone who is transitioning as a music executive and learning the business. He you know, had a great deal of respect for MASTERP and I would hear about that. So I think that there's like a few different levels to it. One is again the regal aspect. I've always you know, thought of him in that way. And then secondly, throughout the course of this album, independence and empowerment is one of the messages that I wanted to constantly drill in and hone in on. And who better to tell that story to me than Master Be. I mean, he is honestly one of the own only ones who didn't sell his company, who did not you know, shortsight his company and his empire for a check. And he really really started in the trunks in the trenches. He saw a vision. What I love about him is that he saw so much within his twelve blocks. He saw so much potential and belief within his local community that it was never an idea or he when he speaks about this, he says like he never was thinking about mainstream or building this global empire. He was thinking about a need and demand in his community. You know, he actually opened a record store after he started selling trunks in his car and that was during a time when and I guess you couldn't like the idea of FedEx and overnighting CDs like was so foreign. But he was in Oakland or somewhere Richmond, Richmond, California, where it was really hard to get a lot of explicit hip hop records, and so he struck up a deal with a lot of the southern distribution places and he with FedEx.

Albums overnight, and that was like unheard of at that time.

So he was basically like importing CDs locally and right exactly, but just the idea for him of wanting to supply that for people who wanted to have access to that, that was super inspiring to me.

And then I also think that I see a lot of.

Similarities in my father and and the empowerment of being a self made black man and navigating through that.

One of the things I wanted to ask you about in regards to your dad, the interlude where he's talking about how he was angry as a kid, that really resonated with me as someone born and raised in the South, and just from hearing I don't know how you guys recorded it, I don't know the setting, but it sounded really intimate, and it sounded like, was that your first time hearing that story from him?

No, So I always heard the stories about my father integrating his schools. He did that in both elementary and junior high school and gas in Alabama, and my parents are no longer married. I wanted to close the chapter of the album making process by interviewing both of them and hopes that a I could really break down and get to the root and the origin generationally of how some of these traumas have been passed on to me, because I do think that there's generational trauma as black people that you just inherent and I wanted to be kind of cleansed of.

That in some kind of way. And if something made the record, then it did. But that was truly for me.

And one of the beautiful things about this album is that my father and I have had a very complicated relationship and we are so much closer and I was able to forgive him for a lot of things and understand him in an entirely new way. So although I had heard the stories before, it was something about having that formal moment of him getting to explicitly tell his story without all this background noise and have the focus be on him getting to be honest and have that moment. He deserved that and we I'm thirty years old and he's never really had the opportunity to.

Do that in that kind of a setting. And I think that it was just so powerful. There's so much from his story that I couldn't even put on the record. Unbelievable, I know. I actually both of.

My parents, like, I want to do something with that audio much bigger because I think that now, through me making this record and my sister making her last record, I think that people have come to have a better understanding of what kind of household we grew up in, and the kind of values and just the environment that we were raised in. And I think that both of my parents have such interesting stories that are not, you know, unique to a lot of.

Black folks parent.

Yeah, but not at all.

Yeah, but I will say that there's something specifically about carrying the weight of integration that I hadn't thought of in that way, and that is very unique.

Like you can't not many people can say that their parents integrated.

But we're the.

Last, well not really you, but you're probably more your sister, but that's we're the last generation of parents who have experienced that. I mean, most of our parents were of a certain age in nineteen sixty five when they were able to vote. But it's funny because listening to those interviews it made me happy. I actually listened to my mom with my mom and I was like, oh my god, Mom, I'm so happy because people get to see the foundation of which you two come from. And for a lot of black people, especially a lot of black women, it's just a level of even more comfortability.

Of course, it also made me worry.

Yeah, because I was like, you, part of your life is in a pop world and I don't.

Know, just even even with a little bit of I was like I was and I was like, oh, here comes to Launch, here comes Tina. It's real, it's really not a secret.

They're black, and they're they're black. It's just like a lot of other people's black. And four minute I did have.

A little worry.

Yeah, yeah, now that the Anelus were really they were really powerful, and I think that just having that documentation, I honestly just feel like it's something that everyone should do, Like everyone should have that of their parents that some kind of documentation of the storytelling. I understand them so much better, and I honestly feel like I will be a better, better person and a better.

Parent for it.

Like just certain things that my dad was telling me that that I had not heard before, like the electric prodding that he was electric product. Maybe two or three occasions. I didn't understand how much of a participant that my dad was.

In terms of the civil rights movement in Gaston, Alabama. Yeah, he was.

He was a classmate of CORRETTA. Scott's and he was a freedom fighter. He did sittings And.

Did Daddy look young?

Because I went up, Wow, So I learned. I learned all of that. I didn't know that.

And it was really interesting because my dad, he had a full scholarship and to uh Tennessee for basketball, and he spoke about how he didn't actually love that basketball, but he used it as a defense to basically have safety from racism because then people were able to like him and accept him and protect him from all of the fuckery that was happening. And it carried him through high school and kind of gave him a safety net from all of the violence that was happening.

Got a full scholarship and played Fisk. There was a huge riot because he was.

A black kid on this college team, which that was also the very early stages of that happening. And there was a huge fight between the two schools and people you know, were flipping cars and they got really violent and really crazy, and he bore the weight of that because black people were mad at him.

They were calling him a trader. You know, how could you and you uncle Tom and all of that.

And there was a coach from Fisk who said, listen, like, we know you have this full scholarship and that you said. And at this point, my dad had been in predominantly white schools for you know, fifteen years. That's who he was around all the time. And they offered him a scholarship to Fisk, and everyone thought he was absolutely crazy. And he left Tennessee and State and went to Fisk. And when he went there, he thought like, I'm about to be bawling and fly. And it actually was super corny at the time to be an athlete, and it was much cooler to be an intellectual and be on the debate team and to uh, you know, be stylish and you know, just be smart, and that was his first black experience was that it was awesome to be smart, and so he really was a nerd. My dad really was a nerse. So he was just like super stoked. So just hearing all of that, like that's the ship that you never hear about, Like I never knew that during that time that that was considered more cool, you know, like you don't hear that story. So it was just a lot that came out of it that really really empowered me through the making of this record.

We're here with salone in studios, Yes.

And my album by the way, I turned in in my album, I played it for the label here only I don't know two months three months ago.

Wow.

Yeah, So the engineer who was walking around, I remember him from that day. But imagine, yeah, imagine now like me having to play this for you know, my white record label heads.

Yeah, when when Don't Touch My Hair came on? What did they what did they do?

Because you know, I gotta tell you for that record with such a because a lot of us, I'm not gonna say, bring it up so.

Long, don't you understand.

While I'm a little befuddled, because it's something that we go through all the time. And to be able to the way that you said it in such a calm way, and then to watch what you say to me. But it was still like smooth. But in my mind I translated it what you say to me. You know what I mean, don't touch my hair. But can you walk us through this song and why you chose to do it, and you chose to do it on Saturday Night Live, which was really brave and I appreciate it.

Oh, thank you.

You know.

I had a jam session or a week of jam sessions when I first started to write the album, and for whatever reason.

I just sang one day, don't touch my head.

Don't know why, I just said it, and probably wrote that song in like ten fifteen minutes.

I think it was so.

Potent at the time, and it was less about, you know, the actual physical touching of the hair and more about the allowance to have our safe spaces, our cultural you know, things that we celebrate, our pride, our glory, and sang like don't touch that.

Don't come for me. Let us have this moment, let us revel in this culture that we have built from nowhere and still have to protect on a daily basis.

Because in my minds too, And.

In that metaphor, you're like because every day we see it being taken from us. And so in that moment, because I knew what you meant, I knew it wasn't just a physical don't touch my hair, but which.

Is annoying, right, it's all don't.

Touch my hair, don't touch my culture, don't touch let me. Can I have this?

Can I have my corn rolls and not.

My box breaks experience?

It's just can I ask?

And this is not a okay, you're already unfull, like you already.

Like off, like I'm just all the chicks who loved this record, okay, and thank you.

I want to ask a question. Is it possible two in the age of the internet kind of of deluding regionalism and culture at the same time. Is it possible for culture practices to not be appropriated when the internet makes.

It too easy for you to have access to it. I don't think it's well. I think it's just all in how you do it, you know what I'm saying. I think if you do it like in a tasteful way, then I don't think nobody getting mad at you.

Just don't act like it's yours. And you created it.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean, but that's always been my or like.

When they try to like what you said, I mean with the corn rolls and like they were like Caitlyn Jenner's and not Caitlyn the other one Incredible, Kylie's new incredible news, like doing that.

Shout out. Appreciate that.

Appropriation is such a complicated conversation and it's really hard to simplify.

But but it's rarely a conversation because because I only see it on I see it as rest on Twitter, right, but I never hear the conversation of it. Part of my dismay or what Twitter has taught me at least, Wow, what is what Twitter has taught me? Exclusive? The general belief is that basically, you know, the idea that black culture there's a there's a difference between loving black culture but not black white people. So usually, especially with the onslaught of the police activity, the police assassinations that have been going on in twenty sixteen, you know, the sudden silence that you see some of our appropriators that are speaking that you know won't speak up for us, but we'll still you know, right, Yeah, and so well, yeah, to explain the bill and to Steve here, a lot of the a lot of the seeds of dismay and anger lie in the fact that you have artists that are quick to you know, borrow you the fashion uh and and the language and the dances and the music and the inspirations and the swag and the lifestyle. But when it comes to us as human beings again, it's like black people are rarely seen as human beings. Like even listening to like from what we generally hear about your father and just seeing him in the news, I just seeing him as an overprotective, you know, guy in the background that caused all the shots, and I'd like this this, yeah, this is humanizing. Yeah, now I want to know more about Matthew knows that I never knew about.

My dad's story is really powerful.

Yeah, when you said it was difficult with you guys before, Like, what what made it difficult with your relationship or complicated?

That was your word.

I just think that, honestly, the weight that you have to carry as a black man, especially coming up in that time, there are just things that I can never understand how that tolls on you emotionally and your decision making and not being able to have an outlet to really say I'm flawed, you know, I made mistakes because you've had to be black excellent your whole life, and he had to be black excellent in order to give what he gave to my sister and I And so I think that that's a heavy burden to carry. I think that this album was as much of a tribute to my parents and my grandparents and my ancestors and my lineage of everyone who played a role in the privilege that I have today.

And I don't take that for granted, you know, I know.

Now, I'm very clear on all of the steps that my parents took for us to be who we are. When I say who we are, I mean as humans, as women, as Black women, as mothers.

As wives. And I think that he was, you know, sort of a chosen one.

And I do my little quote hands there because I think that in black communities, especially in that day and age, there is a little bit of a chosen one complex in terms of like, oh, you're a smarter black little nigga, or like, you know, you're one of the really intelligent ones, are articulate, Yeah, you're you're the exception.

And I think that.

Him being chosen to be integrated. My my grandparents were very, very poor. They did not have even high school education, and my dad was just they were very.

Smart, but they were not educated at all.

And so for him to have gone through that journey as like sort of this chosen one and it just continued from the every phase in his life essentially from elementary school on up.

Did you have siblings or is he the only child?

So he had fourteen foster sisters, brothers, but he was the only biological child of my grandparents.

It's such as now and he has he has my half sister, my aunt Shaquita, and that is his mom's daughter from another relationship.

We're just I can't that Jesus, okay, But yeah.

It's it's loaded.

And I remember going, you know, two gass and and like my grandparents still having an outhouse and I seventeen, the outhouse of the bathroom and my sister and I would be like this is some fun shah.

Gross and crazy.

But honestly, my my dad's side of the family was so ged up. Like my grandmother was a boot My great grandmother was a bootlegger, and she was like eighty years old, seventy five years old, still bootlegging alcohol.

And she was like she was like the most un.

Yeah, it worked out really well for her because she was like the little old lady. So she basically they owned a property next door and in the wee hours like she would basically, you know, have this little juke joint going and people would be like, who is running this and she would be complaining, like it's.

Keeping Holland and I'm seventy eight years old and they keep.

So that was that, and then my great grandfather on that side, his name was Dave Hoak. He was one of the first black men to own that amount of land, and he actually was so smart. He didn't have enough money to turn the land into farmland because that would have meant him having you know, lumber chopped down and he didn't have the money the cash flow to do that, but he had the land, so he struck up a deal with the city that and charged them, of course, that they could you know, come and use his land as lumber. Yes, So that basically they cleared out his shit, but he also got a check.

So they were incredibly smart.

They were not educated, but they were really really smart business people and entrepreneurs, and so I think to answer your question because I just went all around the block and back, I.

Just think that he had a very heavy burden to wait.

And to hold, and especially my sister's group when they were like thirteen fourteen, their manager passed away from Lupus and Tillman and they had just gotten an offer from the face actually, and she passed away really tragically, and my dad stepped in and was like, well, someone has to step in, like this offer is on the table their kids, and she was doing all of the paperwork, and he literally just went to the library and bought every book that he could find on the music business.

He had no experience.

He was vice president regionally of Xerox in the Southern region, so he's an incredibly you know, gifted businessman, but he basically knew nothing about the music industry and he had to step up to the plate and make sure that no one was going to screw these fourteen year old girls. But that's not the narrative that everyone has, you know, been so he could have sworn he was Joe Jackson and.

We had Alan Lee's here and Shep Gordon and listening to how they became managers with so more matter of facty like they didn't. It was no studying involved, It was no going to the library. It was like Jimmy Hendrick said, you're Jewish, you should be a manager.

Wow, no struggle a little different.

Yeah, yeah, And he basically applied all of the knowledge that he knew from Corporate America in terms of negotiations.

My dad Rax, the department that he actually led. A lot of people don't know this.

X RAX is the leading manufacturers for X rays and MRIs and medical equipment, and so it was his job to basically go to hospitals and sell this super expensive.

State of the art medical equipment.

And he basically just utilized all of those skills you know, in the music industry. And I just think, you know, he had a lot of pressure, and knowing his story and having the space for him to be allowed to tell that explicitly, it really really changed the dynamic of our relationships.

And I'm really really grateful for that.

Okay. I know, like we kind of the modus operandi of the show is to really dissect the music and the art and everything. So this is probably the first time we've ever dealt with social issues on the show.

But my god, damn it, I just had therapy in here.

Every week. I would be remiss. I would be remiss if I didn't mention, uh, the Lil Wayne incident, not to be confused with the craft work incidents. But I guess I should let the listeners know that there's kind of been grumbling in debates on the room on how I guess brother Tip t I has decided to handle his chastising of Lil Wayne. I guess Bill and.

And and.

Okay, the little Wayne.

Okay, I'll be I'll be Lil Wayne, or maybe you should be t I because you have the more stately voice. Maybe I'll be I'll be Wayne. I'm a young, rich mother, young I know black lives matter. I'm a nigga.

He a white man. He feeling me my life matter, especially my bitches.

So that's a little way, especially especially to my life matter, especially to my bitches.

MS.

She didn't play that part. It's online, It's it's on Twitter. You add this to the things you learned from Twitter. Wow, his life matters, especially to his bitches, which I think is a motivational statement.

Can I make a shirt? I think that's wait a minute, this is about to take a whole another turn. I didn't know that statement. To my bitches, let me be particular about this, Fiel.

Did you find you ready for your part with t I?

Why?

But then so then U t I got on Instagram and like he you know, I guess he had you know, dictionary dot com over.

Time out wait for the record, like we're sparky, We're sparky. And we talked about this last night, and well, I commended him on handling it, okay, was like to stop cooning and basically was like, but it's a first. It's a first.

I have to say.

I really appreciate what t I has done, the work that he's done for the movement, you know.

Over the course of these this last year.

Really, I think it takes a lot of bravery to step up and actually try to walk and live in that truth outside of just making art about it.

You know, he's saying that he because he has children, hm, that he sees life different now than say, eleven years ago, when he was mired in a lot of trouble on controversy. You know, it's like he was about that life quote. But I guess the grumbling in the room was whether or not he should have sund him in public or have a conversation.

Maybe he did both and maybe he felt like he had a responsibility to.

Yeah, I don't think the sunning was self serving like some people's son just to be self serving, as in to be like yo yo, that nigga woke like you see what he did? You see? And that's and that's kind of where I'm at with it.

I feel like on like Twitter, Instagram, everybody's competing for woke points and ship, you know what I mean. And so for me, my thing is like I feel like everything that t I said in was valid, But I'm just at a point with me now where it's like, I'm very careful about the way we talk to each other in front of white people, you know.

What I'm saying. Always been that way though, except for this radio show.

How does that?

What does that sound like?

People don't even know about this general rule amongst black people.

This last time, the last time that someone was on this level was caros One and Prince B. And we know how that after that confrontation that the PC.

Better give us a circle after nineteen ninety.

Oh, don't act like you you don't remember that, right. No, Prince Be in an interview said he's a teacher, but what kind of teacher is a teacher? Of what? He? In Details? It was so okay in Details magazine. Uh, he was basically saying that a lot of message teacher rappers. He was referring to Chuck Dye and Caris one, we're making mountains out of mohills and you know basically that we are hypocrites. And uh actually, later in line of Prince B's death, I think a lot of us when we saw the source. You remember, like the source on the last page you used to have that cartoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're talking right. So there's there's an illustration of karas One grabbing grabbing the stage and and later I found out and actually uh later verified through uh T Bunny whose birthday party it was tea money formally on TV raps and original concept on Deft Jam Records that it wasn't that level of like him getting kicked off the stage and throwing off. It was kind of like, okay, it was maybe a lighthearted coudeta like they just took over the stage and performed and Pmdring just exited stage left So that's that's one thing that happened. Like it is this pre like Instagram and Snapchat when it was could be verified, right, so you could tell tall tales and right, but the urban legend of the stories that Kris One and his anger came and just dropped kick I mean, Prince VI, it was like three hundred and seventy trillion pounds bigger than me. My whole point is that after that period of or at least the you know, the idea of you could lose your career if you criticize somebody publicly and may respond to you, I felt that we lost something because after that incident, every person that would otherwise have an opinion or two cents about what he feels about another rapper, Uh, that just got squashed because no one wanted to risk the public humiliation of the retaliation of Oh, you're going to share your two cents about me, Yeah, I'm gonna see you at blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. The confrontation basically stops since nineteen ninety three. So I just felt that was necessary one because that is the first time that that level of public criticism has happened, and in general, yeah, I mean, dude, I mean Wayne is Wayne's family, Like I'm about to work with him in a month and a half or so. My point is that I just feel as though, maybe now once we start confronting each other and those that know better, right do better, and those that should know better, I feel, yeah, I feel as though even if Wayne doesn't know better, I would like to think that now he might surround himself.

Like, let's be real, he is who he is, and especially at the age it's hard enough to get a regular black man to change, but a rich black man does not know he is working.

How did you feel like now that he's been on the Mad Song?

I think that I feel really conflicted about the whole situation. I think that his verse, he's so yeah, and I think that, you know, he really was the perfect person to obviously speak to being mad.

He does have a lot to be mad about. And I've been really conflicted.

Do I have a responsibility as an artist and who I align myself? Do I take on their politics and their ideals just by creating with them? But ultimately the answer is no, I don't. I created a song and a message that was very clear. I think people are very clear on my stance and my politics, especially when it comes to black issues, and I would I would just uphold him to a responsibility, Like you said, now that you know you have children, My son is twelve years old, and he respects him as an artist. He's a fan, and I would like to see us uphold a certain level of responsibility for our children and the internalized messages that they're already having a fight so hard against. We don't need to be on the same team, you know, combating those messages in that way, like we gotta be more unified than that.

This is me not playing Devil's advocate again, which I guess kind of means that. But based on the interview, which I still didn't hear that last statement, but I had the feeling that he literally did not know what she was talking and what Black Lives Matter was.

Yeah, well, I think a lot of people are unclear on Black Lives Matter as an organization and an entity and the movement itself.

But do you respond to the statement, the statement.

Itself in that Black lives matters? There should not be in hesitation to, you know, just be able to say that and be proud and feel pride in that what is there to combat?

But I don't think he literally I think he literally didn't. I don't know mad people in Brooklyn that are proud to not to not have a television. OK, right, So we take those people and then there's the uh oh, I can't watch the news because it's too it's too much.

He has like six children who have homework. I'm not doing that with you.

I see where you're going.

But this is where I think it falls apart because he said because he starts off and he's like, well, nah, what is black man?

What is that? But then he says, well, no, what it is it's actually police killing people. So he's aware of what it is, but he just doesn't agree with the way that the argument is being framed.

So he's aware of what it is, but he's just saying, you know, that doesn't have anything to do with me, which I mean fairness. I think that's his reality, you know what I mean, Like, you know, if you ask for a lot of you know, rich black people.

He's taking black Republican stance. I mean, dude, that's his reality.

That's why again, back to our guest, back to Solange, why your album I think is resonating with so many people. It is because it its present and you have your finger on what everyone is talking about, Like just you know, you.

D way better. This is lives matter. This is the blackest episode of Quizov Supreme to date.

But No, your album, I think it really speaks to where people are feeling right now. And that's why it's resonating, because you know, even though with all your success, and you know, with your sister's success and you being involved in all these things, you're still just saying, like listen, all of that or this is my interpretation, you know, with all of this is whatever, I'm still a black woman in America and these white bitches still.

Throwing lives at me. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying. So it's you know, so I commend you for that.

I really that really speaks like when you have people like a Wayne and not to beat up on him because I fuck with Wayne too, like that's my man. But but you know, there is a difference, and I think it shows that when people like you make a record like this, that makes it even harder for me to give cats like Wayne whoever pass It's like nah, bruh, like, if she know what's going on?

How you don't know? You know what I mean, right?

And I think we have a responsibility, especially in the places that we are in, to want to know and to have a yearning to understand. There's still so much that I'm learning that I'm not privy to about other cultures and sexualities that you have to go and google.

And learn your shit.

You have to have a yearning to want to treat people in the way that they deserve to be treated and to have empathy and humanity. And no one expects everyone to know everything and to just have a plethora of knowledge, you know, sitting there, But you have to want to know and to take on that responsibility to expand yourself.

And I think that as artists, if.

You move all the other stuff aside, I would just hope that as artists that we're.

All doing that so that we can become better artists.

And you know, I think that that's a really important thing to just want to evolve and grow in yourself so that you also are doing that in your artistry so that it inspires people and people are able to build off of that.

So I think that that was kind of my stance on that.

Just one lyric that I always wanted to ask you about it was it was a It was a Beyonce lyric where she says and pardon me, butcher, but you're saying, you know, my my sister taught me to speak my mind.

If I'm.

Okay, I got it? Where what explain that? Like, what influence did you play or do you do you think you played on her in that way?

I don't know.

I didn't know that that lyric was going to come out, so I was just as suc surprised as everybody else. But I think that our relationship is really cool because since we've been younger, we've both been very very protective of each other, and we both have pushed each other in the boundaries and our ways of communicating through just humans and women, but also as artists. And I think everyone who's around me, friends, family, my son, his friends. I'm a huge, you know, advocate for people getting to live in their honesty and their truth.

I think we all deserve that.

And even when I think back to my SNL performance, like you know, just the feeling of being able to say that everything that we do as humans is not going to be perfect, and it's going to be flawed and to be able to own those imperfections and speak up on them and not feel hindered.

Or you know.

That I would like to think that maybe you know, just as family, that I have played a role and also constantly telling her that as well, you know, just I tell all of my especially my black women friends, like we have to operate in the world so heavily and carrying so much weight on a daily basis, the black woman in America, and I think that we're not told like it's okay to be flawed and to not be so strong all the time.

And write out my mouth. Okay, I know you're mad regular. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that I am. I'm pretty.

You know, that's very funny. A lot of my friends describe me as that way, and I'm like, I.

Don't know what is like, Well, that's when I knew you would be cool.

Okay, But you know, at the.

Beginning, it's okay to an outsider because the perception of the dynasty is so gleamingly blinding that again, people don't until.

My mom was on Instagram.

To be getting it.

But what I'm saying is that do you still feel I know that you fight for your private life, and you fight, well, not fight just.

To you you protected, well, not even protected, just you're.

Gonna do what you're gonna do, and sometimes you just want mad normal moments. And you guys indulged in mad regular normal Hey, the you know, the the noles.

When I saw her, when I saw Miss Tina and mister Lawson posing in the parking lot of Costco, I was like, yo, data realist niggas outright now.

I'm like, yo, she real for that, and she was happy to get.

The savings, Like, oh my god, she's so serious about those mic downs.

But I mean, do you at what point did you, collectively all of you decide like I'm done, I'm tired, like we could just be regular. I mean, because some of y'all are super heroes to some people, and then you want to be regular. So at what point do you just decide like I gotta be regular and what I'm gonna just be me? Yeah?

I don't know.

I think I personally have always operated from a space of like you said, like what, I'm drawn to the things that bring me the most joy, and I try to nurture them whatever that is. And I've also lived in places that have allowed me to do that safely, Like.

Living in New Orleans is a huge part of that.

And why did you choose New Orleans? I love New Orleans.

I just love the city. I love the people, I love the culture.

Did you kind of break up with New York because I read something like that you kind of got tired of certain aspects of New York or East post elitism liberally like that.

That was definitely a part of it. That was definitely a part of it. But I think you're doing in Brooklyn.

We were doing so good in Brooklyn. You give it you.

How do you doing all that gentrification in Brooklyn?

And it's a lot, it happens, It's happening, It's happening, Yeah, but it's everywhere.

Do you still have those house parties in New Orleans? Her last night in Brooklyn was was really cool. Like I had not even had a house party in my house, Like when I do a party, I gotta do it somewhere that's not in my house. Ship. Yeah, but it was like it was like a cool house party, like DJ. It was people on Earth. Yeah, I was.

It's been twenty years.

I didn't know.

Can I just add on this to something that you said? I wanted to ask you, you know, Amir said something about just the perception of you. But I feel like Solange fans have a different perception.

Of you, and I think, yeah, like I feel like in kind of going back.

To what Fante said, because I said to Fante when we first were talking about having you on the show, I was like, you know, Solange is like she's free, you know, and either.

The male.

Who else?

He said, what does that mean to you? And I said, well, to me, it means that whatever she does and whichever way she decides to do it, people who love her will follow, and that fuck with you. And you don't have any leashes or any fences around you, like and the way you said, it's so easily, like, you know, I get to say all these things that I want to say and do all these things I want to do.

That's like freedom.

Do you know that? Do you know your fans look at you as kind of like the free.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's a lot that comes with that, because I think even just the design of the.

Term like care free black girl.

Parts of that I embrace, and then parts of that I reject because I do have a lot of care.

I don't know, I didn't say the care I know. Well, you know that's a girl.

That's the new thing to care for you, that's the new Twitter turn.

What is a carefree black girl?

There's no such thing, but you were well, I.

Of if we claim that, and we we claim that as our names, that people are not allowed to see black women as carefree individuals. They see us as angry black women, as you know, very wonful.

This just turned into an episode of.

You know, can I just ask as men, like what you just said, I feel all the time, y'all, don't that doesn't.

Just make you tire, just might be real.

This this is like black healing time. No, No, that was real because what she said, because sometimes she took the words out of my mouth when she was talking about like strong black women, And that's something that I've always what I think is like, you know, kind of the gift and the curse, so to speak of black women is that that's like the first thing that black women always described as she's so strong, she's so strong, so strong, and so when you do that, it's like, yeah, they're strong in the sense of like what we've had to endure as people and how like women have been the backbone of the family and all the voise, right, But it wasn't a choice. And too, when you characterize something as always being strong, you don't ever give it a chance to be delicate. So you don't ever get, you know, a black black woman get to be soft or vulnerable or delicate or fragile, you know what I'm saying. You never get to see them in that way. So again, that was just one of the things I liked about your album. Gives a full portrait of just a black woman.

Yeah, I'm like getting.

On the other hand, apparently you are your friends free in the Black Woman. I love black women.

And Bill.

And I must say, and this is all because me and slides we had a Twitter incident.

There was a lot of incidents.

Definitely had a Twitter incident.

But it was all good about that.

But you know what I will say about my black asses, I will pick up a phone.

She was and that day was when it was little brother to reunite. That's all I wanted. And now we're here, that's all. Now this is happening.

But it was cool.

I mean, we traveled off.

It was all respect for each other. That's the way it should be.

I'm really really like clean and sober Twitter beefs for very long time, but I really really try to pick up the phone. So I appreciated that moment because a lot of people are scared of that dialogue, like they want to to leave it there, and.

It's like, nah, were in the real world speaking of your Twitter beast. I must say.

I liked that it was her uh deep album Deep Brandy album, yea necessary necessary.

She has a song called It's necessary that I love that record.

That's all.

You're like, Yeah, that was the set up huge feld.

John from the New York Yeah, have you spoken to him about so? Yeah, we must love the album because.

Love the album. Yeah.

So what I will say is that again, me, me, and and I pick up the phone you call looking at us. So yeah, after that happened, I tracked down his number.

And I emailed him immediately because, like I said, I really do.

I'm a big fan of conversation, Like, nothing about conversation scares me.

I think again, not to bring it back to my dad.

I think that was one thing that for whatever reason he put a lot of emphasis on, like never be afraid of conversation. So when I, you know, heard and read those statements that he made about don't let the hand write the hand that feeds you and wouldn't be solange if there was no Grizzly Bear and YadA YadA, I immediately reached out to him. I said, can we have a conversation about your statements? And he wrote back something very snarky and I speak record in fact, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, and I think that this is it sucks that he has to bear the weight of this. But this really was sort of the catalyst and the moment that I said I have to write this album. So it's an important part of the conversationis it was? It was I lost a lot of sleep about that, and I wrote him and I second, I have a conversation you wrote back he said, I'm assuming you don't want to talk about to me. So I just kind of scratched my head and was like, okay, this is what we're doing here, And ultimately a conversation was not had, and I felt very silenced. And again it's sort of like that craft work incident where you are like brewing in this incident.

And you're not really able to speak your piece.

And it was so crazy because the conversation about Brandy was completely isolated. It had nothing to do actually with what they were originally talking about, which was like a review of a Chief Keef album, which I couldn't tell you anything.

About a Chief Keef album.

That was an isolated thing that I just kind of got looped into through virtue of the topic of cultural tourism.

And I think it was all relevant in that way, but I was just kind of being looped into it, and it was so weird.

Marty Garras in New Orleans, I have a very different experience, is very spiritual for me, and it's like when fat Tuesday comes, that's.

The day of release and relief. And for whatever reason, it was Marti Gras three years later.

And I just said, I have to free myself of this one incident before I go through this next chapter of Marti Gras. And it was actually, I believe like Pitchfork or someone wrote something about Brandy. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know Saint Hron had written something around the same time and so it just brought up a lot of emotions and shit got ruined. And I got his phone number from someone and I called and I just say, you know, last night, I just got really pissed, and it was the day before Mardi Gras. I needed to get it off my chest.

I went to Twitter. It probably wasn't the best form, but I wanted to call and really explain to you what the deal was.

And he immediately knew he apologies, guys. He felt very remorseful for using that terminalogy. But I still feel like there's a lot of fuzziness, like a lot of people still don't really know.

They didn't hear the podcast.

So it felt again very reactive from a black woman, you know, rolling her neck and smacking her gumbs.

Okay, real quick, this question, Love Supreme Wan Ben Duran. We're talking with our guests a lunch about Twitter beefs, and one in particular she had with the writer from New York Times. Can I catch light you up? Do you know where you are in the story now?

I know I did not tell that very clear.

Okay, Okay, so basically I don't. She expressed well justified admiration and fandom for Brandy's work.

Of which I'm a megastan.

I guess. I guess Bill and I can also agree to this. You look at me like I pulled you on the agree to what about to be in the ship? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think everyone can agree so as especially her debut record, I mean just in general, but her debut record was probably one of the probably a very pleasant surprise in it's in its artistry. And you know, oftentimes black music is so cut and paste and and quick money and here's the hit, and here's the follow up hit, and it's disposable. But Brandy and her producers Keith Crouch and Jipper Jones. Kipper Jones really made something that that that was lasting and you know, really amazing, and she expressed admiration for that, and I guess and kind of the way that we kind of dismissed La with her opinions, just like we do. Yeah, exactly. You look at her looking at you right now, Margaret.

I'm sorry, right, I do, I do. I'm sorry.

I want to hear about this though, because I want to I want to not like this motherfucker.

What do you say?

Essentially, it became it became no he didn't throw he didn't throw some shade. Essentially, I expressed this, and it became a little bit of a joke between indie white bros. I expressed, you know that, as a music journalist, that you shouldn't even feel qualified, which I still stand by to write about R and B music unless you really understand Brandy's influence on the culture of R and B music. When you're writing about Frank Ocean and the innovation of black artists today, she needs to be a part of that conversation because she is valued.

In that way.

And essentially it became a hashtag, primarily by white music journalists who Wright wrote for indie blogs and magazines, and they turned it into a hashtag deep Brandy album cuts, and it became like a.

Yeah.

And so New York Times reached out to me. They said they were doing a podcast about cultural tourism. Apparently around the same time there was a lot of resistance from black hip hop writers who had problems with the way that a Chief Key review was written about. So they were having this podcast about cultural tourism, invited me on. I decline. I did not see any incentive for me to go and have a debate with two white men about cultural tourism just didn't make sense. So I was not present, and they brought up me speaking about Brandy and the little hashtag, and essentially he said that he was a fan of mine, that he went to my show and made him feel good and fuzzy inside. But let's be clear that there would not be a Solange album if if it weren't for Grizzly Bear.

Right, and they are I thought we were using cold language.

Actually, dear friends of mine and I put out that record on one of their labels.

I love the label terrible.

To him, he did not know the general landscape of my album. He didn't know that Hadley Street il Soold True five six times over. But what he was saying was that because that was a primarily black audience who bought that and True was a primarily audience, that my relevancy rested in that that world, and his friends and his bros knew about me and valued me in that way. And he actually ended off that statement by saying, does she know who buys her records? And if I were her, I would not bite the hand that feeds me.

Trying to say, don't all these white Yeads depending was mightier than and.

Then he named on his Twitter the podcast, like his introduction to the podcast was called does Solange know who's buying her records? Oh? Wow?

Yeah?

This is times where I feel like it like that was one of the instances where I really feel like it should kind of go back to days of like you know, when chi Ococa got knocked out by uh yeah, like where journalists were really you know, held accountable, held account of, held accountable.

I mean I had a lot of I had a lot of black men that I have to say came hard, like if you want me to do this.

There was definitely a lot of conversations like that.

But ultimately, and I actually on Don't You Wait on my album, I say, I don't want to bite the hand and with my whole life, but I didn't want to build the land that has fed you your whole life.

I know that is so I wanted to ask you about that.

I said my piece, But I think I think ultimately that was just.

The emotional tormal and taxing that goes on and being silenced and me feeling like there's no way that I can actually break this down and him still be held accountable at the level that he deserves to be held accountable, because that's just the way that things work, and that is the alliances that this industry has.

Created to protect people to be able to say this.

And then one day I just had enough and I went on Twitter before Marty Gras was like, it's been three years.

And I've been wanting to tell you. Don't you ever tell a black woman not to bite the hand? My mama was so mad. She wouldn't let it go because someone told her baby, don't bite the hand. That feet.

Of that.

It's really deep and I had to hold him accountable for that.

I'm sure he is a nice guy and I'm sure he's learned a lot through this incident. And he told me, you know, he had people calling him that were really disappointed, and I felt validation in that. I felt like, we have to be held accountable. I surely have been held accountable for my functionit, so you have to too. And it sucks when that has to be public. But you know, the incident was made public when you decided to say that on.

Record, And we're learning what not to say in these days and age. I think we're really on track to learn.

I thank you for that, because especially the way that I publicly have declared my life uh and uh in a way that's like it's it's so in depth to music critics and how I acknowledge that they have their hands on the guillotine button in any moment, they can make or break my life. They once did this to Donald Glover with a very mean spirited, uh like one. I think Pitchford gave him like a one, not why no, no, no, this is his one of his records got a one. It was just like a mean spirited we can wow, you know, like if you get a one, that's like, I mean to put it in perspective like Motten Tomatoes and Andrew originally from Whim got a half from Rolling Stone like they'd never review it. They just wanted to be mean flexed about it and do that.

Don't y'all remembers the critics names they remember y'all and so who you are?

You have one? Just in general since since the onslough what I call Pitchfork culture, which is yeah, I do too.

It's it. It sucks when it feels like it is a modern day good old boys club.

Can I ask because on the other side of that coin. One of the best, most eloquent reviews of your album, ironically also came from Pitchwork, which I was shocked at the level of all the right things that were said. Now, you know, I've known that since since two thousand and four, they've really diversified.

Absolutely, I'm happy.

I'm happy about the work that they've done. And this this is the thing about that situation that happened. I felt like there was a spin on that story in that I was like somehow unhappy or being braddy about the way that they were talking about me. I have, you know, always had great reviews from my albums in general, I feel which I've been, you know, really happy about.

But I do feel like there were certain narratives coming out of that brand of.

Indie music blogs in general during that time, and people have held them accountable and I've seen the changes and I've seen the transformations, and I'm happy. That's all you can ask for, is when you can plain about some shit and you uphold people to that responsibility that they're willing to make the changes that people are asking for. And I've seen that and I've respected it.

I'm just saying I'm glad you did it, because oftentimes I feel like journalists can also be ass petty they want to and then wait till the next record comes down, and you know, I mean for those that are are in the dark. I guess a lot of my disdain for some of the Well, first of all, the Internet just gives anybody the right to be super journalists if they want to be. But I often noticed that, Uh, there was there was a period in which I guess they they were trying to determine what was authentically black absolutely and really what was pretentious. So there was a period. There was a period where like there's there's a really glowing review of Hell haf No Fury, the CLIs second album, which was a dope album, which it was amazing.

It was amazing Internet blocker Bible, I swear to god, they went so fucking crazy over that record.

Yeah, it was like but at the level of eloquence and beauty, like the review, the Pitchwork review of Hell Have No Fury was almost as incredible as the album itself. But then it left me questioning because I knew why I love the record, but just see the levels of salivating, Oh my god, you know, watch but it was it was like looking at.

Land like, wait, are you.

Never you're laughing with me or you're laughing at me.

It's it's kind of right, right, and so that's I'm so happy though that that's like deading.

It feels like it is. You think, maybe I'm being optimistic.

But I remember it was like during that time where I went on all of the profiles of people who were saying, oh hell yeah I was.

I saw every single one of them had a profile picture of of something ratchet and.

They would never subscribe to you.

I was like, let somebody drop your ass off in that part of Chicago and take a field trip for the day and see how that goes for you. Since we want to talk about cultural tourism like you know. So, but I do feel like I feel like we're.

Moving away from that.

No, I don't know.

I couldn't be wrong. Maybe I just stop giving au.

But I think I think honestly, when it comes to you know, reviews and things like that, like you can't give that energy in that way because I just feel like in two thousand and eight, during the Hadley Street shows and the aftermath of shows and meeting black girls who said some of the most profound, powerful things that I felt like I had to then live up to, you know, after the shows, those are the reviews for me, those are the moments, and even with this album, you know, it's been really important to me that I honor those moments. You know, this is so wonderful that my music is being able to reach as many people as it is and the dialogue of like, oh, this is your best work, and it is definitely an elevation of my work. But I feel proud of all of my work, and I feel really proud of the connectivity and the black girls that have been at my show since I was twenty one, who are still there and are still connecting, like those are my reviews. Those are sacred moments of being in Paris and black girls telling me like we were never told that we can wear I makeup blue and crazy lipstick, like this be aloud and it be like, those are my reviews. You know, There's nothing that can feel better to me than that, because I was that girl. I was that girl with Reese and Caalise and all of these girls were coming out and I saw people how I saw myself and what that did for my confidence and my self worth.

That was everything to me. So the reviews are nice, but that's what I thrive off of.

That's what makes me get back in the lab, Like, Okay, I gotta write some shit to honor that. And if you feel a connection to it and you write something glowing, that's beautiful. But what you won't do is disrespect my heroes. I feel very, very very protective of my heroes, whoever that might be. And I feel like still to this day that like Full Moon for me, like that's such an experimental, weird as avant garde progressive record and going further than half of the shit that you're writing about and saying it is so innovative. I mean, the sounds and the landscapes that they created with that album. So you just aren't going to leave people out of this context, you know, like even for my record, like Tweet is my vocal bible, Like, you're not going to leave these people out of the context that all of us are actually building and inspired by. And that's the part of that culture that I don't have respect for, is the pet favorites of the moment without honoring the work and the influence behind them.

How did Brandy receive all your fighting and all the.

This is really a lot.

No, she actually, you know, publicly says she really appreciated it and it made her feel really good.

And you know, she says some really kind things. But one more time it could get weird.

So Solann's what, how eclectic has your record collection always been? Actually? Actually?

Okay, this is like a cool way to answer.

Okay, well, growing up? All right, let's take it the late eighties, early nineties, when you're no, when you're younger, Yes, what does the Noles family record collection look like like? If you're taking family trips somewhere?

Right?

Who controls the radio?

So?

Okay, so you have to understand that Kelly from Destiny's Child is like a sister me. She moved in with us when I was five, so as far as I have memory, she was there. And then we have my cousin Angie, who's also like a sister to me.

You're still trying to play guitar, she is, she's.

Doing really good. Angie moved in when I was ten, so as far as I can remember, I have four sisters. And then my mom.

So my dad was outnumbered by women. It was a five woman household. So the really cool thing about that is that all three of my sisters had very different musical tastes. Kelly was very much so into alternative music. She listened to a lot of Fiona Apple and Elena's Morriset. My sister actually listened to a lot of Mariah Carey, and then when she got older, she listened to a lot of soul music, Arita Sugy, She's the one who put me up on all of that stuff. And then Angie listened to a lot of hip hop, a lot of Tupac, Little Kim Too Shore, a lot of Houston shit. So I had the experience to grow up around so many different types of music between my older sisters and then my parents were just all about earth Wind and Fire Isley Brothers.

My mom owned a hair salon, so they had like a stack of CDs that she would.

Play, you know, throughout the day at the hair salon, And I actually used to play the records when I would get home from school, but it was only like.

Twelve earth Wind and Fire records I could choose out of our Isley Brothers. That was like the two favorites.

My parents, though, actually met arguing over records my music.

Yep. My dad was like kind of a man around town, and he had his.

Apartment and he had all these like parties there that people knew about.

And my mom went with.

Her friend and he was an extensive vinyl collector, like hardcore don't touch my records type of guy, and my mom started flipping through his records and he walked over to her and the first words of them ever meeting was him saying, don't touch my records, and she was.

Like, records, yes.

So they had like a little argument actually, and then I guess it turned into flirting, but.

Exactly.

But yeah, I mean I grew up, I would say, primarily like soul music was at the forefront, but through the influence of my sisters, I heard a little bit of everything. And then when I became about thirteen, I started dancing for Destiny's Child and I went on the road with them, and we spent a lot of time in Europe, and as you know, over there, the radio formats are extremely different. So I'd be in London, you know, for two weeks and here in New York and Chemical Brothers and all of this shit on the radio, and I would go back to actually I was eleven. It was before I started dancing for them, because I remember going back to my junior high school and playing New York records.

My friends like, I don't know what the fuck. Yeah, I'm doing over there, but we don't really dig this shit.

And so I went through like a serious, downbeat, electronic middle school moment where it was just like All Boards of Canada.

Pevery or.

Seven, all that.

Canada, and so I kind of went into that landscape. And then I would say, really like the thriving moment of my musicality in terms of, you know, just collecting music was around thirteen. That was, like, you know, obviously around the time that the sol Aquarians came onto the scene, and I, for the first time felt a connection outside of the music, but more so just culturally of people who I felt like I could identify myself with.

Honest no, no, no, I'm not.

Just laughed at me.

No, no, no, it wasn't that. I don't know if I want to tell the story now, because you just said something and it triggered off. Do you not remember Sacramento? All right, So we're in Sacramento. The Voodoo Tour is in Sane Sacremento. But for some reason, h one of those like uh power jams or whatever, you know, like everybody that is also supposed to be the same night, but for some strange reason, they decided to mix both nights. So this is one of the rare times in which d'angelo's voodoo tour is also sharing a bill with Destiny's Child. Oh wow. So the whole point was that you said all these things, and it reminded me of the time that you're not aware of. All right, So Devil Spy is the first song that's performed. Here's the thing. If D'Angelo knows that someone notable is watching him perform, that could be a good thing. I'll i seeing shock of combackstage and him really being in rare form, or that could be a bad thing. Allah Destiny's Child in the corner watching him. Now, there was a slew of women there, So I'm assuming that you're also in this or you don't have a recollection of the story. Anyway, My point was that in Deed's excitement of this moment, uh, and he was very big on the James Brown moves and all that stuff. There's a point in Devil's Pie where he runs across the stage and he slides to the microphone right before we get to that hole. All a lot, but there was a nail. Oh fuck wait, I didn't even get to the punch on yet. There was a nail slightly sticking out the stage and he had on like very thin leathers. Did you have yes. So the point was that I was noticing that, Wow, he's really singing the ship out of this song like his life depends on it. And then when I looked to the left, I was like, oh God, he's showing off. And the thing was when he slid and imagine like sliding the home plate, he just basically sliced his entire side of his pants off. So I mean, he wasn't naked. It was just that when she mentioned voodoo and soul aquarians, it just triggered, wait a minute, we did it show together and D'Angelo not only split his pants, a mirror ruins another moment. Thank you for the compliments. No, I wasn't okay, Maybe I was psychologically deflecting the compliment, but what is it like.

To have a mir and Rafaela that's interesting on this last album, Like.

He explained everyone on this record.

A lot of these songs I actually just wrote like sketches of to the.

Piano, like Rise when I'm came, I had already sketched it out on my little struggle piano course, And it is a very vulnerable thing to like share that with someone and hopes to build it into something tangible. And yeah, Amyor and Ray and Greek came over one night and I just like you know, kept playing it and singing it on the piano, and they started to build soundscapes. So a lot of these sessions happened like that. In the case of Raphael, who is just so so wonderful. I had actually thought that the album was pretty much done, and I went to New Iberia, a little town maybe two hours north of New Orleans two you know, finished writing the album and I actually produced a great deal of it there as well, and I had a lot of program sounds that I was working with, and towards the end, I felt like an order for the album to punch in that way that I wanted to replace a lot of my digital sounds and replaced the sens with piano and live bas and live drums. And I actually took it to quite a few different people, and I won't name them, although I want.

To, but.

Raphael was actually the person that I played it for and immediately had the chemistry that a I was going to have someone who really respected my vision and really respected my voice. And I think as a songwriter and a producer, as a woman, I've been very very sensitive about my role in my art and how a lot of times when you invite that space open for men that it's just nature of the beast that they get a lot of credit for that. And I felt like Raphael, I knew that I was in good hands, and I knew that he would respect my vision and just be there to elevate it, and that he did. And he did such a phenomenal job of translating these sounds and making them that much richer and making them, you know, cut through his baselines, just cut through so.

Emotionally, and they're like just like a direct connection of God's space.

I feel like, you know, is that and on.

It is?

So Yeah. Essentially, the album went in three parts.

I had the preliminary writing, just concepts that I sketched out to piano. Then I had jam sessions with a number of people of Samfa being one of them, Dave long Street being one of.

Them, amazing from thirty Projectors, Yes.

Whose drum sounds are incredible, and.

So yeah, I kind of like assorted all of these people from all different worlds into a space and for a few weeks we just jammed and and I essentially took those damn sessions, lots of them an hour long, and produced them into four minute songs. And then I went and wrote and filled in all of my lyrics and melodies to those, and then I took it to Raphael and we you know, elevated a lot of those sounds, so it went in three different parts. But it was just really just such an honor to have everyone who worked on the project, in the spirit of collaboration, just have those experiences where we could just.

Let it go in the music, to them all believe in your vision, yes it does.

And to trust me with it.

And again because it was such a male oriented set of musicians and producers, also having the utmost respect and you know, being clear that I was leading the process, and I think that that was something in the past, especially starting off as a little I feel like I'm like a little writer baby, like got I signed my publishing deal when I was fifteen, and I would be in sessions, you know, every day in LA I would go there for a week and a lot of people don't know how those things work, but they're very tedious and a lot of times you just feel really vulnerable. You just meet a producer and then it's just like write a song. Or I would go to Miami like Circle House Studios and it be like a bad boy writing camp and you're just there with like twenty producers. And as a young girl navigating that world with primarily male producers and leading that a lot of times I would have to fight for my voice to be heard outside of just like here's the song. And so this was a really special environment to create that because I do think it's important to note that though the album is overall the expression of the black plight and our social issues, it's written through the lens of a black woman, and naturally that's going to resonate with black women in a very specific way. So I think having that male energy just in terms of being in the space really translates on the production.

I know a lot of nighgas who are like them. Beats is hard.

Your record is like the modern day equivalent of like My Life by Mary It is my sh because it was just one of those records that I mean as a man, I mean I like the record.

I was like, Okay, yeah, this is dope. But like women like it's so crazy though, men.

Really really.

Like every day.

Like blasting cranes like it's got bars. So that's been like really phenomenal.

Definitely, can't deny that baseline, can.

Deny that ray based man, So yeah, it was. It was awesome.

We didn't even get a chance to talk about like the visuals that went like cranes and don't touch my hair and what you and Allen came together do and I read the whole cinematographer from Daughters of the Dust like that.

July dashed but the cineatographer director of that.

But you just got a lot of energy between the images and then the choreography.

It's a lot thank you.

I have to say that honestly creating these visuals with Alan was such a phenomenal experience, and I don't think that anyone else could have translated the way that I see the world better than him. And he put his motherfucking foot and back and elbow and everything he does look so cool that yes, and there was a journey, you know, we we started off with the AJS and all of you know, the crew of twenty five when we first embarked on the journey of this video, but we actually ended it just the two of us. So most of what you see in Crane specifically was actually shot by Alan holding the camera himself, hiking up mountains, across the rivers and doing that, you know, through love.

So what was y'all like, Like, did you guys sit down and say, let's pick out some images of direction that we're going?

Like?

What was the So I knew that I wanted to again, you know, really have a meditation and a reflection of the way that I see blackness in.

This super regal, ornate, stately way, but also encompass just the vulnerability and the texture and the nuances, especially of the black woman, and the solidarity between us and the sisterhood, especially for Cranes, because I feel like so much of those things that I'm trying to work out through the song, like black women, I can identify so closely to that. So it was really about me, like emotionally mood boarding first and then I just started looking up all these locations that either felt like very regal or almost in this Grecian way, but wanting to see black people presented it in that way. And then for Cranes, I essentially wanted to create this meditation of like moving through all of these spaces still trying to work this shit out. And that literally took us from New Orleans to Houston, to Lubbock, to Austin, to Big Ben National Park, to Santa Fe to White Sands, New Mexico.

To get all of those landscapes.

And yeah, like I basically moved boarded all of that. I shared it with Alan, I said this is my vision, how can we do this? And he just went to the trenches like and mapped out all of the ways that we could do that and assembled a team that he felt could put forth that.

But I have to say, like we started off with a crew of.

About twenty two people and we he went from and we were in two RV's and we went from all those cities that I said, And towards the end of it, everyone was so burnt out, tired, frustrated, hungry, sleepy, yes, that they all went home and Alan, being the director that he is said, there's still so much of this that we don't have. There's still so many pieces of this storytelling that we did not complete. And he went to Enterprise and rented a van and we did the trip all over again, from New Orleans to New Mexico in a van with just him and I and four other people, and he actually depeed the shoot he directed defeat catered and I think that the beautiful car. I definitely did that. It's the whole twenty three hour drive. But I have to say that I had so many reservations. We've been together eight years. Amir has been there like from the time I met him until now, and I've always been a fan of his work. Likewise, he's always been a fan of mine, but we've never bridged that gap creatively because I was so scared that it would fuck shuit up.

And it made it. It made the art itself. I feel like you see and experience.

So much love and magic when you're watching those and I think that was really through the lens of what we put into it together. And again, like you're with someone, you see the way that they see the world, and that scene and don't touch my hair at the very end when we're all on the steps and I'm dancing.

Like that scene. Specifically, I remember trying to coordinate this ripple.

Because I did all of the choreography and all of the videos with like one hundred people who weren't dancers, like and now.

We're gonna do this, and then you do this.

I was wondering who all those.

People are so long just friends, right, No, those those were just New Orleans magical people. But we spend so much time trying to like coordinate all of this dance stuff that we were losing light and everybody on set was saying it's too dark, we can't shoot it, We're gonna have to reshoot it, and Alan saying the right the light just got right, Like the darkness, the birthlaze is what we need.

This doesn't need sunlight. It's not bright, it's not cheery.

This is the mood.

So it was just things like that that I really.

Really appreciated, you know, having to explain myself choreography, thank you.

I don't know.

It's like, I don't even know what you call between modern dance and I don't even know, especially what you did on Saturdy ny Line.

What do you what was what influences that. I don't mean to get all gross on.

I'm sorry, but the choreography is kind of amazing, and it's not it's she ball because that's not where you first started.

So yeah, I think I've had such an interesting relationship with dance, being that I actually thought that I was gonna be a modern dancer growing up. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted to go to Juilliard. And then when I started to dance for Destiny Shot, I was doing hip hop, but I was looking absolutely crazy at that, like that was just not the way that my body language really spoke that I was trying.

And I think maybe, like really like.

Six years ago, as my son got older, as I got more confident in who I was and who I was becoming, I was just like, fuck it, this is actually how I move, this is when I'm at home, this is actually how I communicate. And I remember even through true like when I started really expressing myself in that way, people being like what.

The fuck is this ship? Now I feel like people are like, Okay, that's just what it is.

But I don't think people would question that though.

Because oh yeah, people are like.

Really like what she doing? People still question not I mean no, I think now my cousins and friends are like no.

I meant like, you know, just people reacting to the visuals online and stuff. But I think that consistency is so key and like now that it's just like no, this is just the way I'm moving and sharing it. It's it's really cool doing it with the band because like you know, two of the dudes are like thea's from.

New Orleans.

Over here, but.

Everybody has just been so and trusting. So I actually enlisted PJ. Harvey Oh Wow to help me find musicians in New Orleans, and he he auditioned a bunch of kids from Loyola and Diler and just New Orleans based musicians, and I came in at the end and we did like chemistry tests.

And then it was like, well can you dance? And everybody was like, well, like what, So I showed them some moves and that actually eliminated like for people. But it's such a strong part of of how I like envision the show that.

Matter of fact, I've not seen the show where you're being you're being kind to put just a shame because you know, the time be doing like I definitely when when she when she Uh did the Roots picnic like two or three years ago, he was jamming on stage and was like, damn, we don't got no choreography.

Oh my god, I want to do it more for other people. So if you want so, yeah, graciously gracious because it brings me so much.

Jo please do that.

And mark all day because you're like the young ones up making work.

How are you going to deal with this presentation live? Because I'm still see this album from beginning to end. I see it as a sweet and I don't see it in concert. I see it.

I love that you thought you were like texting me that as if I was not already working.

Thinking about that. That It wasn't that. It's just that the album had moved certain people so much that they wanted to be a part of history. Even when I called you to congratulate you on the record, I forgot I was on the record you did.

I don't wait for you to tell us, But I was like, forget it no, And she.

Got mad at me because like I didn't. It was a going on, Like Yo, why did you instagram about it? I forgot I was on it first saw.

And those are popping.

No, But you know, I was just I was so amazed by the record. I totally forgot that. I thought she took me off the record, you know, and.

It was.

Everyone.

Well, no, it was makes so different that I couldn't tell that that was you. I got you. Yeah, And that's the thing. I just thought, Oh, okay, well you should I.

With those drums. I had fun like mixing and queuing and panning and all of that. But I remember that day so so well because that was the first time that I had shared my sketches with anyone, and I remember being really really scared of adding drums on it. And you were like, come on, son, like I'm gonna keep this farce and go in and I was like, of course you are.

But it was still a lot of trust.

I was too, because I sometimes call you the Queen of No.

So it's true. I've been known to say no came out phenomenon. I'm so gracious.

So I don't know, like I don't I don't want to name any names of people. But the way that I see this presentation like it's almost as if I wish you were and I feel like you will be or you could already be in a position where you could present this on a unnamed artist with the letter K and his name, like what he would do to his show floating stages the letter Oh, Kanye, I know this show is not going to be a normal presentation.

Yeah, so I'm excited.

I've been developing some ideas for the last couple of weeks and even through the SNL performance, like visualizing how that would carry out, and I'm really excited.

I think that it's important for me to.

One of the reasons, like I went to Stanford and had to talk because I wanted to ground the work in conversation and.

Has Perry, Oh, she's so happened, No, she's not.

No, but I want to be able to have that conversation really closely, and so even things like performing the album on a ground level where I'm able to be on the same physical level as people and look.

Instead of the eyes yeah, looking down.

Yeah, I'm really excited about working out how I can do that.

But it's it's a lot of logistics. I've been working on it. But of course, when you know you're trying to present something in that way and work with other venues and vendors, and promoters and all of that. That stuff gets very complicated, but I'm working through it and I'm really really excited.

I just I just think that I have to.

The songs are so emotionally charged, and again, they feel so insular, and that even a lot of people have shared with me that they primarily listen to the album alone and that they feel kind of weird playing it in group settings.

I feel the same.

Way performing it and SNL was a big wake up call for me because I was emotionally charged in a way that I had never been performing before. Like my voice was shaking because of the words that I was saying and all of the things that were encompassing that in that moment, and who it was reaching and how it was reaching people who voted for Trump, and you know, just saying don't touch my hair, don't touch my pride, Like I have the hone in how emotionally I'm going to perform that without shaking because it's so fresh and it's so raw that I also have, like you know, the challenge of most of this stuff is intentionally falsetto and sweet, and like Minie Riperton and Serita Wright were huge influences in terms of vocal presentation for this, but that takes a great amount of air and control and stillness. But I'm saying things that are strong and aggressive.

That's that's an awesome kind of contrast.

Yeah, I mean it's intentional. It's intentional, but it's not easy to pull off live. And I feel like I have to have a great deal of meditation and control to be able to do that because a lot of people don't understand like the nuances of having to say these is one thing to put them on the record and say here you go, I'm gonna allow you to have a seat at this table and share this with you. It's another to deliver that face forward in full on and feel that kind of exposure.

Yeah.

I don't know. I'm just having brainstorming moments right now. And I feel like like b Yorick is someone that I've seen in concert a lot of times, and all of our presentations are just like.

Some next level Yeah, they are the influence.

She did one particular show in which she chose like a church in Harlem, oh Wow, and gathered the audience stood in a circle and she just sang everything a cappella. She just walked in the middle and just saying everything a cappella, no music, no nothing, just a very intimate her walking, no amplification, no microphone. But everyone attend that show still maintains that was like the most powerful music experience of their life.

Like where you're going, I think that you have to really identify. I guess I've had to really identify, you know, what it is that I feel like I'm going to really really connect to and feel gravity and in that moment, like I realize now that I've gotten like award show offers and all of those things, and I realize now that that's not my space. I'm not going to never say never, I be open to it, but that's not the space right now that I'm reaching to connect with, like come February, Like yo, I don't think that that's why I feel like I thrive, And that could change and I could work at it.

But I you could write your own ticket.

I know, and that's that could evolve and that could change and I can feel differently and that's the cool thing about having, you know, I guess not putting the kind of pressure on myself to say, like if I do it and then basically.

I don't know. Like the ESNL experience.

Was very I feel really happy that I did it, But at the same time, I think that it reveals a lot to me about in what space I want to present this album in live. And it's like even the concept of FUBU is like, do I want to perform that song at Bonner? You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot that I'm like just working out as I go along, and that's fine, and it's okay. And I think as artists we should be able to be allowed to do that and change our minds and work it out and figure out what works best for us and our storytelling and that.

All right, Well, this has been the most real question Love Supreme. Yeah ever Yeah, yeah, definitely our blackest episode by far. Matter of fact, we'll have some lounge in the reflections. All I've learned. I've learned that, uh, that master p Percy Miller such a soulful name, Percy, that Percy Miller, uh was a human being. And and I learned a lot about Matthew Knowles that I didn't know. I learned that Tina Noles controls the music. Matter of fact, Uh, boss Bill, this this is my Serrito DJ list. Read the highlighted blue playlist on the left. This is this is my only challenging This is a very serious I named my playlist after you know. It could be Saturday nights, it could be that at our wedding. But that's called what Tina Knowle's Gonna Love Me? Dak dat? What is in that play? What's in that Tina and Lowell's Gonna Love Me playlist? I've never had a client or an attendee at a quest love DJ gig that put more pressure on me than Tina Knowles. Seriously. I played for presidents and kings and whoever. But yeah, Tina Knowles is one of the hardest clients ever. So what does she does? She like, what's her what's her jams? Okay?

And I'm assumed for her daughter as well.

I will say so, it's really funny.

It's like he played my my house party, and I think that she felt like he was playing stuff to safe.

She thought I was playing too safe.

Cater to her and she was like, no, I want the people to get turned.

The quote was do you know who my son is at the time?

Okay, because she wasn't playing her son.

No, no, I was pretty okay in the beginning.

He was just kind of player clean and real safe.

Tell me, did you not tell me to just be careful because all types of people are going to be in attendance.

I did, But I don't know.

I guess like, like, yeah, she was like when he says that, she was like, do you know my son's language? You know that he says in his music, Like I'm not just like yeah, like play the ship. That's gonna keep the party.

What she doesn't know is that in any party I will play Benny Goodman. Of course, I was doing the Quest Love thing, the all inclusive and it was like just cut to the chase and get to the.

Just like playing with you gonna play like my mom was in the kitchen like handing out pizzas.

Yeah she was. Yeah, she takes pictures at Costco Bro. I think she can handle.

I was.

I gotta say miss Tina that she's a very funny woman. The first time I met her was there's an MTV taping or something. She was backstage cutting up with Ed Lover.

Just they're just cutting up.

I believe she's just going Then I.

Did a brief stint at Music World your father's company. Yeah, yeah, for like three months. The holiday party, we had it at some Chinese spot in the Chinese restaurant on the Lower East Side, and your mother did karaoke.

I can't remember what she's saying. Are you seriously she did karaoke. I think I think I might have pictures of that. Oh might.

I'm dying to know you.

I want to say you were there early that night. You and your sister were there earlier in the night, and then you both left, and then they brought out the karaoke machine.

And oh wow, Now my mom is fun time. She was there last night at the AFT party and my sister.

Left and my mom was like riding with her back until she wanted to stay and get turned.

So that's what I learned, Tina, turn up. No man, what have I learned? God? So much? To start?

I learned that Solange is probably and I know you know you say you've heard it a lot, but I mean like, she's probably one of the most relatable. I won't say regular, because regular that signifies something that's like, you know, like ordinary, so and you're and you're not ordinary, but you're definitely one of.

The most relatable people. That I think that I've had that we've had on the show.

For me, just hearing about your background and as the as the mother of a son, you know what I'm saying, I have sons as well, and so there's a lot of there's a lot of common threads in your story and then a lot of stuff that I go through as well. And uh, just to hear that from someone who people would consider, you know, oh, well, she's a celebrity and she's this, she's that. It just kind of shows just that common thread of being black in America. You're never you can be on the Grammys and have a cousin in County jail. You know what I'm saying, Like, there's never you you ain't but that far removed from the bottom, you know what I mean.

So so yeah, man, I just.

You Once Liya once referred to me as the male Solange, and I understand that.

Now Solange as the female Solange. Yeah, so it makes sense now we relate to each other yet very very free. I try to be free, but.

And I have a greater understanding about the record now. I never I never looked at it. I never put it together. When you were talking about you know, being a dedication to your mom and your dad, even though they're not together now, just being able for them to tell their stories and you hearing that now as an adult, I think that's something that really resonated with me. I think as a kid, you just see your parents as like these super human people. But then once you get older, you just see them as just people. You know, you just realize that they're flawed, and they made mistakes and they did the best they could with whatever they had, you know what I'm saying.

And so, yeah, man, Solange's a real chick.

Man.

I focused a long all right, paid, Yeah, what'd you learn to day? Man? Just like therapy. I'm telling you, it's like therapy. Come on the show. What did I learn?

I learned two things. One I still don't know why I'm on this show, but I think bore I learned every time we're here. That like, I think I'm here to learn a lot, and I like that, and I think that I leave here every time being like, first of all, like at least texting one friend of mine, going, I still have no fucking idea why I invite me back, and to like what I what I learned, and I think. And the second thing is is talking about music like I don't know. We talk about this sometimes when when are we're artists?

Right?

We write music and fucking whatever, and it sometimes becomes really business oriented. And so since Soland's here, we should talk about her. You seem like, at your core such a fucking artist to me, and that's so, and that's and so like with me, it's like I write, I work on saysme Street. I do all this ship, but I feel like I get confused sometimes about when it's a business and when it's not. And I always I find myself more often than not, being like, this is what has to be done right now, this is what I'm doing, blah blah blah, and and neglecting the other side of it. And I don't think you ever do that. And I think that that's great, done out, sugar, Steve.

Yes, would you learn me? Yeah? Would you learn Steve.

I liked all the stuff you were saying about the way that you feel about having a responsibility to the past. Maybe your father had felt that way or burdens. I'm not sure the phrase you put on it, but I liked all that. I'm a nostalgic person I'm somewhat archival and historian, and you know.

Your recording engineer, well, he was one of the engineers of voodoo.

By the way, I like your respect for the past and making people respect the influences of the of the artists we have now respect.

On an a I was actually I didn't.

I don't want to say I'd learned something, but you definitely reinforce something that's kind of been on my on my head for for a while with the whole you know, you sat and talked with your parents for a long time and asked them to tell you stories, and that's something I've really wanted to do for a very long time and just haven't had the opportunity to do. My parents are getting up there in the age. I don't know how much longer I'm going to have to do it, so you know, I need to hurt U from do it. So thank you kind of reinforces that.

Means everything that episode Master where oh yeah, yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So Layah, Margaret really need first name.

I don't want you to think that I just have an attribute. Okay, I wonder Margaret is my first name?

Can you please tell us I don't have what you learned today.

To be honest, mister Love, I haven't really learned much because I know a lot about launch. And also I would not take that back because that sounds like I didn't learn it.

That's not true.

I learned a lot of ship is she just reinforced to. I think me and the rest of the sisters that are listening that she is our sister in our head. I pray, I pray that you stay where you are on that whole. I can't perform these songs everywhere. I have to figure out. That's and because Solons, you don't, you can you can really do whatever the fuck you want to do. I do hope that you show up at the Grammys to get your award. But that don't mean that you got to say you understand what I'm saying. And but do figure out a way to perform for us by us, because they need to know. And I would just say that I've learned that you are super dope. We already thank you the world.

Well, since you work here now, Salons, you got to round it out. Oh god, wow, don't focus on spread spread their life. Okay. I got a lot of patience because I know they would be sleeping right now.

No, I'm really really happy to be here, and to be quite honest, I learned that there are safe spaces for storytelling, and I'm so happy that you guys created this platform to to have that safe space. And I've been really really protective about how to speak about this album because I feel like it's so explicitly spelled out on the album that it almost feels like, do I need to talk about it? But this was such a such a great start, and you guys are also kind and funny and charming and nerdy and.

Everybody.

I also learned that a mean cannot take a compliment. He needs to work on that. I learned that I sat next to the man that I had Twitter beef with, that I sat next to someone who actually used to work with my family, and saw my mom do karaoke.

This is the ultimate fans.

Now, this was really awesome. It was really good therapy from like the come down of last night. I woke up being really hard on myself and feeling actually kind of bummed and sad.

Really, yeah, I do that brought way too much joy to be feeling like that. You have to remind yourself I'm so serious. You have to remind yourself. Sometimes your artists do that. He does that too, out of yourself. You're bringing people because it's selfish.

To not do that. Yeah, I mean it's true. It's true. So this is such a great like closing to that, Thank you guys for that.

Thank you nose ladies, gentlemen, on behalf of on, behalf of uh yeah, and unpaid Bill and Boss Bill and Sugar Steve. This is quest love supreme only on pan. Well, let me we gotta do. I didn't sign off. I didn't sign off. All right, So when Steve, when Steve stopped working at Electric Lady Studios where we are right now, where we are right now, Yes, he relocated to Philadelphia. Wait, can I just be Sugar Steve, like the cool version of Sugar version showing that you're sacrificing your life for brothers and sisters out there. Sugar, that's Steve. No, this is the best part of your thing. This it's funny. Every time we thought it was some sexy ship kind of sexualized.

Where are we going? We're not going to keep it.

It's unanimous. No, it's not. We'll tell you all in this room that the truth, raise your hands, damn even.

Even it's a good story, a short one.

Basically, when Steve moved to Philadelphia to be my full time engineer, UH, we were working on Pharrell's UH in My Mind record, and for those three weeks Steve basically adjusted his diet to my diet.

I was just about to say, what was chomping?

No one like Solange does Anyway, at the end of the day, at the end of the record, Steve wound up getting the sugars and is now has diabetes still levels the level of Solange's eyeballs songs were about lollipops and ice cream.

Confused, did you really get he actually likes to take responsibility for this for some reason.

But yeah, white people don't get diabetes on that level. And we pissed poor diet my whole life. It wasn't starting in Philly but culminating health. There was a soul was down the flock from the studio, so thus we ate there every night. It's like a recurring theme on the show for some reason.

Well, that wasn't an era where you were like going super hard on that, like healthy microbatic.

It was really annoying, so.

Hot there were so much. I wasn't there for.

South Street Diner.

It was there for the mac and cheese. There's a lot of bone marrow marrow, never any Cavin Grunt.

It was really hardcore and you are being really like kind of obnoxious.

About this person really like me about food and ship, like literally calling me up.

Like super foods are superfoods.

And gentlemen on behalf of everybody. Quest Supreme, my name is Quest, loved this Bandora, good Night, What's Love? Supreme is a production of my Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Questlove Supreme

Questlove Supreme is a fun, irreverent and educational weekly podcast that digs deep into the storie 
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