NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - ‘Her Take’ with Cynthia McFadden: Ester Dean

Episode Date: May 28, 2019

You know her music. You may just not know her name.Ester Dean has written music for Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Beyonce, among others. She sits down with NBC’s Cynthia McFadden in an extended interview to discuss how she found success in her career. 

Hi, I'm Cynthia McFadden. Here with today's Her Take is a new series we're doing here at Nightly News where we take a group of really interesting women, some of them famous, some of them not, and get their take on their lives and this country and what it means to be a woman today. definitely know her music. You may not know her name. I didn't really know what to expect when we went to a little recording studio in Times Square. But the woman I met was truly extraordinary. And when you hear her life story, you'll think so too. I hope you'll enjoy listening to what Esther Dean has to say as much as I enjoyed talking to her. Here we go. So tell me about being a little girl. Yeah. No daddy in the family. Right.

Youngest of five. Not much money. No connections to the bigger world. And you are bubbling over with this dream, with this idea that you are going to make it. Yeah. Did it occur to you that the odds were against you? Nope.

I had blind ambition. I had music in my spirit, and I heard music, and I was already recording music. Because back then, you know, you had tape players. You had the tape players. So they used to have a perm tape that told you how to put the perm on, right? Just for me. And I would use that tape and my mom would record the songs off the radio. My sister would write down lyrics from the song, which at a young age, she was writing down lyrics and I would use the tape and I would push those play and record. And I just

would hear myself sing, you know? So I've always wanted to record and I always wanted to hear myself out of the radio. I've been writing since I was in third grade. And I know that for sure. Alright, what was the first song? Well, the first song I really remember was called Gypsy Lady. It was like, Gypsy lady tell my future. Gypsy lady tell me now. Cause I wanna know my story and I want to know it now.

I was always considered very spunky and outspoken. Yet, most people who told me about it was adults and they would say, hey, you got a good head on you you either they said I had a good head on me or I had um old spirit so I was always told I got an old spirit you know nobody tried to hush me you know but I don't think I heard them if they did well you grew up youngest of five yeah of course we are like well and the is, I knew we didn't have any money, but I didn't need for anything, really. I just wanted a lot of food. How important is the money? The money is freedom of choice.

So if you want a bottle of water, you're going to need money. If you need your electrical, you're going to need money. You need your electrical and you're going to need money. So at the end of the day, money is important. It's important to the world. That's why we go and do business with other countries and stuff like that. If we didn't need it, we wouldn't use it. But it's not necessarily important but a necessity. It's just what is needed to be where you are.

But importance is my mental stability. So you've gone. I mean, you know what it's like to have food stamps. Yeah. I appreciate the government for that. I appreciate the government for that. And you now

have made a lot of money. A lot of it. It still feel like food stamps. You still use it the same way. I still eat ramen noodles. I still buy hot dogs. You don't really change unless you're changing your mental about, you know, the quality of what you, what means quality to you, you know. I buy a lot of books.

I got like 700 books, audio books. Audio books should love me right now. I buy a lot of books. Like that, I spend my wealth on things that is an asset to me, you know, not a liability. Where did that come from, that sort of self-confidence that I'm not going to let anyone tell me what my place is? I think that's my dad. Like when I hear the stories about my dad, he was a stubborn man. Like, even on his downfalls, he was like,

and I still ain't listening to you, and I'm still doing what I want to do. And my mom was, she wasn't a fighter in the beginning. You know, she went through abuse in ways that I would pray no woman ever go through. She just, she raised a superstar to me. Like, look, she got me. She moved me out of Oklahoma to Nebraska.

At 19, I told her I wanted to move to Atlanta. She said, go. Well, that took a lot of gumption, though. You got in a car. Got in a car. With how much money? $500. People keep on saying this.

Somebody said, she didn't get in a car with $500. Honey, I did. That's all I had. List off for me the women who you have written music for. The women, they're all women. Kelly Clarkson, Rihanna, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, JLo, Mary J. Blige, Katy Perry. Do you have a favorite song

of all the ones you've written? My favorite song. You know what, I have a favorite song? Of all the ones you've written. My favorite song. You know what? I have a favorite song and nobody would even know that I have this one favorite song. Jennifer Hudson sung a song and she never went out. She never put it out. But when I tell you, I play that song in my car

and it's just, it's basically a demo now because it's just Jennifer singing a song, but it was, I kind of re-editioned, My baby love, my baby love. And she sung that song so well. And that's my favorite song. She don't even know it. That's my favorite song.

You have a special gift. No, I don't. I have gifts that I tried. Everybody I know is talented in some form, some way. And if they apply it to anything, you know, like who is the person who made the toilet stopper or the, you know, the lady who did the Spanx. My mom been putting pantyhose on to hold it in all, but she's like, no, I'm going to try to sell these. It's okay. It's like it doesn't have to be like this majestic, like, talent. Just go for something.

Like, go for something to win, you know? So it's not about who can do it and who can't. It's who tried it and who didn't.