Karlous Miller and Navv Greene sit down with Eric Benét at the 2024 BET Awards!
Eighty five Sound Show twenty twenty four b EG Awards Exclusive. I don't want to talk to nobody who ain't interesting, and today I'm talking to a legend.
If you know, you know this is a real legend.
Now.
I told you I was gonna make sure you got.
To the twenty twenty four BT Awards, and I wasn't bringing you around nobody but the best that this entertainment industry has to offer, and we got none other than the OG himself.
Everybody type of intro.
You, man, I need I need that intro everywhere I go. Man, I love that all that when I wake up in the morning to you a legend, wake up, I like that you are, man, Thank you for that, sir, giving us it's man, I ain't done yet.
Man, How does it feel? It feels?
It feels gratitude. Man, that's the word gratitude. I mean, you know, it sounds like a something you see on a poster, inspirational poster.
But it's the truth. It's like the more gratitude.
You feel every time something happens, like that, every time I come out with a song that starts going up the charts. You know, don't take it to the ego place, take it to the gratitude place.
And then that just like feeds feeds.
More blessings, you know. So I mean that's what it feels like. And uh uh.
You know we're doing it again.
I got to single out with Tamar Braxton that we're going for as she is incredible, man, come on.
Like shout out to take like we go.
We go for ads at radio next week and it's already blowing up. So it's but she sounds incredible on it. The song is called something we Can Make Love To.
I know it, yes, album, I know right, you drop some music. That's what's happening. That's right, that's right, exactly what's up? Hey, you better come out let me all right?
Bet yeah yeah yeah, but uh, you know, she's just been a dream, you know, to work with. And she said something about her her voice and my voice together it's like it's perfect alchemy of just just romance and y'all got to hear it. So I decided to do a project that was all duets. My upcoming project is all duets with me and female artists.
And I wrote a.
Bunch of songs with a bunch of producers, and you know, I Alison Ball is the CEO of my label, and she had the brilliant idea that, you know, we need to we need to go roll through Atlanta and go holler at Tricky and Laney Stewart because you know, they king of the world right now.
And so Laney was like, Yo, you need to check this out.
So he sent us the demo of this song, and I immediately resonated to this thing. And Tricky reached out to Tamar and said, Tamar, you think you want to jump on this with Eric Breney And she didn't hesitate. It was like the same literally the day he asked her. She was like, let me drive over to the studio right now, and she hopped into vocal ble and killed it.
Y'all. You know what's crazy. People always see the reality TV show Tamart.
They don't get to see how she could, Like she's like a sniper, wouldn't come to that music.
Oh, Like vocally she's she's like as soon as you hear the song, it's like like, I don't I don't know that side of Tamar. I know, like this incredibly beautiful, sweet person whoever we hang out, we crack it up, laugh and making jokes and uh, she's just a sweetheart and vocally she's a beast.
So that's what's your process when you write in these ballats and these duets.
You know, that's a good question.
So my biggest hits are People always think songwriting is kind of like journalism. It's like, oh, you write, you writing that because you're going through that right now, But not not so much with me. Some of my biggest romantic ballads I've written when I was just lonely or or or there was a disconnect in my relationship. So basically, I'm writing about a fantasy that is not really happening in my life. And somehow when I'm in that that that that that empty place, I can find the words to describe what I want beautifully. And I think that's why they like, like, when I wrote spend my Life to Me and to Me a joint, I hadn't been in a relationship and I don't know how long, and.
I was just like, dang, I just got to find somebody. So it's just so so.
I started, Man, I ain't make the record hit completely right, just what I want, Yeah, this is exactly.
So I start thinking about what do I want? I want.
I want that person where I see them every morning when they open their eyes and I feel like, Wow, this is where God put me, just to find my piece, my side. So it's like that was the That's what I started writing about. So that's what I came from.
What keep me? First of all, mister man, put you in the hold?
Look just around the disneys start she was calling nearyboy oh, And I saw that she was.
So cute, So I got a respect. I can't go hey, come me, there you go, there you go, there you go? Now? What keep you inspired? Though?
Like just to keep putting out like you know what I'm saying, like classic material?
Though, Man, I that's an excellent question. I think I made a decision to make a long story short. Like before I got my first solo deal, the label was interested in me as an artist because they liked my voice. So they put me with all of these producers were talking about in the nineties, right and you know there was a very distinctive sound of R and B in the nineties. Uh, And so they put me with all these producers that were getting placements and this, that and the other.
And I was out there.
I was in l a for a couple of months, and then at the end of a couple of months, I sat down with with with the A and R person and we listened to all these demos that I did with all these producers, and it.
Was like.
I sounded good on the songs, but there was some disconnect between the track and me, And so I said, how about this, how about this, how about this. Let me just go back to Milwaukee. I'll post up in the studio. I had a little bedroom studio. I'll call some of my cats in Milwaukee. I'm gonna write some songs and I'm going to.
Just like do me.
And when I got back to my Milwaukee I wrote all these songs. From my perspective. I was trying to put in those songs all of those elements that made me fall in love with R and B music, being the kid growing up in the seventies and that was the roads, that was horns, that was like strings on some stuff. And so when I let her hear that demo, the Milwaukee demo, they were like, that's it. So I think from that moment, I made the decision, you know what, I'm only going to record music that gives me those bumps of when I felt earth, when I heard Earth, Wind and Fire for the first time, when I was listening to Bobby Caldwell, when I hear Donnie Hathaway's voice, I want to use that as the barometer, you know, regardless of what's happening trend wise and music, I'm gonna use that. So that's why I call the record True to Myself. And that's why every time I write that's my inspiration. I'm gonna pull from my life and I'm gonna just make sure it comes from like this authentic R and B place.
You never lose yourself or lose this.
That's why I called my first album True to Myself, and I pretty much.
Stayed to form that whole time. Do you a great singer?
Do you ever find yourself just like at the crib just making up shit that ain't gonna necessarily be a song?
Oh man?
That still ever made a dope ass song like washing dishes or some shit.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's it's just like that's part. That's that's part of songwriting. It's like sometimes it's it's annoying to some people because there's always music, there's always melodies, like you know, especially if you're talking to somebody, you don't they really ain't grabbing your attention.
The music will just start taking over and I'll be like nod my head, yeah yeah yeah.
But I'm like I'm like, oh, shoot, that's a dope horn part right there, you know, So it don't.
The music never stops.
Sometimes it's not a part of a song that you're gonna put into something, but sometimes it is. You're like, oh, I got to remember that transition. I'm gonna put that in something so that yeah, that's always going. Can somebody be taught had to sing?
I think so.
I think so, But I don't think you can be taught Like hmm, you can. There's there's a certain authentic soul that can't be taught. You can be, you can be, your pitch can be perfected like things like your cadence and your timing can be perfected, but there has to be like this.
Raw soul there somewhere. I mean, because I.
Always tell Mother'll lucky I can't sing. Yeah, I would be the most singing where you ever sing?
Well, maybe you, I mean, can you is it that you can't hear the picture or do you feel like because I'm sure you got some Bobby Womack song from back in the day or something going.
So I was gonna go more blues because they don't really care too much about the sing You probably be.
Singing along with it and the soul come out right.
The pictures messed up though, the sound right, Yeah, that could be taught.
I think that could be taught. I'm working on something then, I think, so.
Is it uh that that you hip to now that like be catching your ear? You're like, oh no, they got a dope voice.
Ah, let's see who's who's whose voice?
Whose voice? Do? I I really like?
I like uh Man, I really love the Lucky Day, I love the October London.
I love.
There's this Icelandic singer which is weird, I know, like like she's so dope and she's like this quirky looking white girl.
But her name is uh laffi l a u f y.
She she mixes a bunch of genres, but somewhere in her icelandicness is like soul. It's like it's yeah, it's it's yeah. It definitely ain't like straightforward R and B. It's it's something else.
But it's something like that, like how do you just always look yeah.
You know you just perus, just be perusing through what's or if I hear something, you know, we got technology now, shizam. You be in a restaurant, you'd be like, oh shit, what is that?
So you heard any of that Korean like they got this Korean version of nineties like R and B.
T Yo, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.
From my travels to like to South Korea and Japan, they always take something.
And and and and hone in on it.
And what they did what I don't think they really maybe they are, but what.
They're doing with like nineties R and B is so dope.
Some of these Korean and Japanese but a lot of them are going back to some of these amazing producers from the nineties, like they're going they getting Dark Child, they getting Teddy Riley to come over there and do some But they are not wrong.
And that ship sounds incredible.
Yeah, that's a lot of that stuff sounds InCred I can't tell you none of the names of them, but but but but sometiunds good.
Yeah, sonically it sounds crazy.
Yeah, So look, what's the day of the of the Drop with the so.
So the we officially the song is out. It's called something we Can Make Love to Tamar Braxton and myself. I think, shoot, I think we're gonna come out with the EP. We're coming out with the EP first in another month and a half, and then after the EP the top of the year, I'm releasing.
The whole album still duets because I wrote too many songs. Man.
So now let me ask you one more question. B to your Awards twenty twenty four. Yeah, this is not your first rodeo with B to your Wards. Yeah, give me one of your favorite B to your Wards memory before we get upack this.
Man, that's a good one.
I'm trying to did not do like a I'm trying to think, didn't I do a tribute? What did I did? I did a couple of tributes that dang, you put me on the spot like a scratch.
Let's see.
I remember one time Shaka was performing. She she killed it.
Man.
I remember another time Beyonce opened the show. That was crazy, y'all remember that? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, what year is that?
I think Monique came back and she redid the.
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah, yah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
That's a lot of the man, and that's a lot of them for real. I need you to come on the real show. Man, Come on, what's up? I need you to come on the eighty Fast South Show. Come on, what's up? Get him on eighty five? Man?
Yeah, wait, what's me? What's idiom? I coming to Atlanta? Man, I'm always in Atlanta. Come on, man, Let's make it happen that man, because I got a million in one question, I gotta go.
Now, let's make it happen. I bring my CD.
We're gonna have a CD player when you get that, man, I got ship hit different on a CD play.
It does hit way different, it really does.
I was just like I said, I was just there with Tricky and Laney, and.
You know, I know you be in the city. That's what I'm saying. Next time you down there, I gotta catch you on R and B Mode. Get my my man, my man, gonna get your contact, man, and then you gotta come on the show. I'm coming through, all right, bet. I ain't gonna hold you all day.
We got we got plenty of duets to do, and I told you I'm working on something.
I'm gonna send you something over. Man, come on all Right Man on BT
Awards twenty twenty four, none other you A leader named Green, Yeah Yeah, Southwhere out of eight