One Song - Patrice Rushen's "Remind Me" with Patrice Rushen

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

One Song is closing out our celebration of Black Music Month with award-winning musician and composer Patrice Rushen. Alongside LUXXURY and Diallo, Patrice delves into her musical foundation and creative process that shaped her beloved 1982 classic “Remind Me.” One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=e2023fe26fc7497a Songs Discussed: “Remind Me” - Patrice Rushen “Forget Me Nots” - Patrice Rushen “Number One” - Patrice Rushen “Take Your Time” - Heavy D & the Boyz “Fallin’ In Love” - Faith Evans “I Need You Tonight” - Junior M.A.F.I.A. “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” - Sly & The Family Stone “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” - Stevie Wonder “Speak Like A Child” - Herbie Hancock “As” - Stevie Wonder “Doing It To Death” - The J.B.’s “I Feel For You” - Prince “I Wanna Be Your Lover” - Prince Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah. There aren't any players on this song besides you playing instruments. Is that right? That's it. The drummer. The drummer. And I think you might have a background vocal. And I have a background vocalist.

Yeah. Were you hard to work with? The luxury, to say I'm excited about today's show would be an understatement. I am in awe of our guest today. She's done some of my favorite tracks of all time. Haven't you heard? Number one, feel so real. I could go on for days.

Oh, my God. And my favorite is forget me not. because, I mean, listen, we're going to get into it on the show. That affects me on the deepest emotional level possible for music. So to be sitting here next to you, the creator of that is just incredible. We're going to get into that today. We're all excited to talk about one of her songs that was never a single, but ended up being a huge fan favorite nonetheless.

We're going to find out why that was and dive deep into the creative process behind remind me with none other than the legend herself, Patrice Russian. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter. musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen.

That's right. You'll hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch one song, you can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. So our guest today has had such an incredible career. She's a four-time Grammy-nominated singer, producer, songwriter, and multi- instrumentalists. She's also a film and television composer

with credits on everything from the Steve Harvey show to wait and exhale to Hollywood Shuffle. And let's not forget that she was also the first woman to serve as the music director for the Grammys not once but three times. And she was the chair of the popular music program at USC's Thornton School of Music from 2013 to 2023.

Is there anything she doesn't do? Let's give a warm, warm welcome to Patrice Russian, everybody. Oh, wait, wait, wait. The clap has to be like this. Oh, my God. It's iconic. Oh, that's very true. Well, listen, I just want to start off by saying I feel like your music has been there, you know, in some ways it's been a soundtrack to my life.

You know, like, growing up in Atlanta, we didn't actually have, like, hip-hop radio stations when I was first coming up. And so we had R&B and, like, the songs that we've already name-checked. I just feel like they've been playing in my brain for so-so-long. So I just want to say thank you. Well, thank you. Absolutely. And as one of the preeminent, I would say, players of the Rhodes instrument. And what you bring to that is so special. I cannot wait to get into it with you. That instrument has been such a soundtrack to all of our lives. You're playing of it, your songs than the use of it. But there's something about that instrument that inspired me in my own music. When I am playing my Rhodes parts poorly, I am imitating you with all the respect and reverence and failing to get what you get to. But it's really your influence on my own music is extraordinary. That's amazing. I really enjoy hearing how the music affects people. You know, when we're doing it, or at least when I'm doing it, when I'm writing or when I'm playing, I'm in that moment.

I'm not necessarily as concerned about what other people are going to feel or what other people are going to think. You're doing it for you. I'm doing it for me. And I think that that comes from the background of the tradition of jazz in learning to play that music because its vocabulary requires so much. you know. In learning to play that, you are, it's spontaneous composition when you're soloing, when it's your turn to expound on the writer's composition. Yeah. Well, listen, I do want to take a second and play this clip. We found of you in 1973 playing with your trio on an amazing variety show.

Not many people know about it called Black Omnibus, hosted by James Roe Jones. Let's play that clip. Pre-Darth Vader. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it so much. It's got that hard bop thing happening there that to me, it reminds me of Young Holt Unlimited and some of the other artists that were, you know, sort of like sort of late 60s. I feel like you're carrying on like a tradition there. It's just great stuff. Yeah.

I love it. Thank you. Well, you know, around that time, you're talking about a generation of people who were the young people that had listened to the music of the 60s. Yeah. And where our parents were playing the music of the 50s, you know, so we were hearing all of this stuff. Radio was, radio was key. You know, there was no internet. Our device to learn about culture, the news, everything was radio and a little bit and television.

A little bit of TV. Yeah. And I was never without either of them. So the information and the way that I assimilated musical culture, artistic culture, were from watching TV. and listening to the radio. So the people that were popular at that time were people that influenced me, which was why later you hear in the music that I'm doing

probably this mix of so many things that come together because as a person, I'm made of a lot of those different things. I mean, at the same time, I'm going to play classical piano on my Wednesday lessons at piano. I'm also dancing on Soul Train. or, you know, listening to the latest Stevie Wonder tune or Marvin Gay or whatever.

So my parents are listening to Miles Davis and they're playing Sarah Vaughn and they're playing, you know, the civil rights freedom songs. Absolutely. And Bach and Beethoven because they belong to a record club. Rock Mono. They're just seeing you all this stuff. Exactly. And there's also the explosion, obviously, you've got to think about what else is going on in the world. There's the explosion of civil rights, you know, at this time.

Nothing was perfect, but like things were getting. more free than they had been. And I see, like, the hairstyles of the early 70s and the music and just the open sort of experimentation. I mean, like, it seems like such an exciting time in jazz where everything was so experimental and so free because you've got, like, Sunrod doing his thing. You've got George Benson doing his thing. Like, I just, I feel like, how did you use this moment to do you?

Like, what, did you go in with a mission statement? Were you like, this is exactly, I'm going to be that person? Or was it more like, I just want to be a part of it? I just wanted to have the opportunity to play music. If there was a mission statement or an overarching desire, I just, I wanted to do music. I didn't know what that would look like or what that might mean. But I was attracted to the music in the little box, the TV.

I was watching these shows and seeing people reaction to music. And I would go to, my parents would take me to concerts sometimes, and they'd have their little house parties, and I'd watch the people dance. This music thing is, it's kind of cool. And in school, playing in the orchestras and the bands and being part of that population in a school,

you were also able to kind of see the reaction of, you know, you had your kids who played sports and you had your kids who do the music. And, you know, it was all of them. It used to be a very nice, clean line like that. It was very cool to be a part of a community or to feel like I was going to be a part of a community. Now, that's very superficial, and it was a lot deeper than that,

but I had to be much older to really understand the depth of what I had experienced and how I would then transfer it over. So what I wanted to be was a composer. Wow. And I figured that out and then wanted specifically to compose for film and TV. So the idea of how to do that, I had no idea. When my parents said, well, you know, it was time to go to college. They said, well, what do you want to do?

I said, I want to be a composer. And they said, oh, that's nice. What would your real job be? Right. Because that generation would be, hey, you still got to pay your bills. And they were very progressive, but very loving, but very real, you know. And so they, and I didn't have the path. So our deal was for me to be a music education major.

Wow. What I learned in that time was that having sort of a 50,000 foot view of what was going on allowed for me to see that the vocabulary that I would need could continue to be wide. I didn't have to choose to be this or that or the other. All of it was connected, and my duty was to see if I could make those connections so that I would have at my disposal. And it's emerging one album at a time, one song at a time, you're kind of looking at like, this is 1973. You're sort of bringing in maybe an idea or to into the song naturally, or maybe you're communicating with your bandmates so that it's a structured song. But it's all kind of, there isn't a master plan.

It's unfolding in real time. It's unfolding in real time. It's unfolding in real time. And learning things gives you a way to communicate it to someone. Gives you a language where you can actually say, I'm not sure but, and have certain parameters that the next person's artistic sensibility can add to that. But it's important to point out that what we're talking to you, you are describing the path of forging what we now look back on and take for granted. In 1973, Fusion, blah, blah, blah, funk and disco like these, you were in the trenches making

that happen. You are making choices and putting out music that caused these evolutions to happen. You're on the front lines of, we look back again, and historically now it's codified, but it was you making it happy. You were part of the group that was making. I'm glad I didn't know all of that responsibility. You had no idea what you were doing. You had no idea that you were playing the moment.

We were having fun. We were challenging ourselves to be the, the best version of ourselves, you know, you alluded to the timetable. Black Pride was a big thing. We were trying to undo certain kinds of stereotypic ideas about a lot of things. Yeah. And trying to cement certain ideas about how all together we could be a part of that path that forged, forged the way for a future, where we were all included. And the music was a safe place to do that. how did it feel given that, you know, like so many things, this was still male-dominated scene?

You know, how did it feel for you? And do you feel like you got the level of recognition that you would have gotten, you know, that was given to your male contemporaries? Great question. I don't really know if I have the typical story in terms of the scene. Yes, it was terribly male-dominated. I saw very, very, very few women. But by the time things started happening for me, career-wise, the cat was already out of the bag because even in my high school, the idea which was Locke High School.

Lock High School. Los Angeles. Thank you. If you could play, that was what was needed. Let's get this part played. Let's write these tunes. Let's organize what we're going to do for our musical presentation. That was the criteria.

So the fact that I was female wasn't at least right in my face. all the time as being the girl in the bend, maybe for other people. But we were serious about what we were doing. I was serious about what I was doing. And my male counterparts really protected me. I was protected. I had to ask you because Locke High School comes up so much. What is the secret sauce of Locke?

Is it Mr. Reggie Andrews? Yes. What was he doing? Can you tell us just really quickly? To those who don't already know, he was the music teacher in Locke High School. and we've talked to everybody, so many different artists on this show, right up to like Warren G, I think.

He comes up on the far side episode. On the far side? He comes up so many times. A few episodes. So, and he was your teacher. What made Mr. Andrews special? I think the thing for me that made him special was the fact that we could relate to him so well

because he wasn't that much older than us. In my years at Locke, those were his first years of teaching. And Reggie handled harmony, and jazz, which for us was the music history link to everything that we would encounter not only studying jazz, but the music that we all were thinking about

playing as commercial music, as musicians. You're creating and career. Wow. So he brought to the school, and this was before jazz was institutionalized, he brought to the school people like Herbie Hancock, Lenny White, Ernie Watts, Oscar Bresier, got us charts from Quincy. Jones from Gerald Wilson

from Thad Jones and this stuff is way over our heads but he's exposing us to you're gonna, if you think you want to be a musician, this is what is going to look like. He would take us over to Warner Brothers and say now see these people here? All these people in here, they're doing really well

and you don't know who any of them are and you, but you hear them every day on TV commercials, movies, etc. These are like the session musicians. Yeah, the session musicians. Him showing you that this is like one of these representation matters kind of situation. Like just by a dint of meeting to somebody, it becomes possible that this, oh, I can maybe do what this person does because they're human. They're not just on TV anymore.

They're really somebody in your, Herbie Hancock is in the room with you? What is he doing? Is he showing you stuff on me? No. He's just there talking to people. He's just there talking to us. That's incredible. And all of the members of his van, who I became very close to, you know, Benny Mopping and.

That type of access as a high school student. As a high school student. And before it was, you were supposed to do. that, you know, before it was part of a curriculum. We would go and see the Philharmonic, and then the next week we'd go to the lighthouse and hear Farrell Sanders. These were field trips so that we could see all of the different iterations of what being a professional musician could look like. And this leads to a really question that I've had, which is obviously you're starting, you have this great music program. You have incredible innate gifts and skills that you then

work on very hard to perfect. At a certain point, and we just saw the footage, In 73, you're in this jazz milieu or this pre-fusion fusion's happening. But my question that I'm sort of leading towards is at what point is songwriting as a sort of the compositional side of things of sort of sitting down with a group potentially or by yourself and determining that there's going to be this section, that there's going to be this section. In other words, this is a little different from, as you were saying, being in the moment and bringing the improvisational element of jazz. Maybe you've got a head.

You know that you're going to have those big section and then get back to the head. this sort of songwriting that you start to do at this point. How did that begin? How did that evolution happen? You know, it's a lot more organic than being this and then this and each thing, there are elements that intersect. Okay. So while what was happening in 73 was going on, you know, I'm listening to the radio just like everybody else. And I'm hearing songs and I'm writing arrangements for the marching band of the songs that we want to play.

So James Brown, Signs still delivered from Stevie Wonder, all these little. That's a good one. All these marching band arrangements, which again, as I'm studying how to do that, what also is going in is song form, song structure. I'm not calling it that. I'm not studying it for that. But you're having to arrange something before you sit down and play. Exactly.

And so that's a part of that. And as time went on and I really then put forth the effort to have pieces, you know, fast-forwarding into when I started recording albums, then the assignment, you know, of doing music for those albums that represented sort of a time stamp and where I was at that time. That's what I was responsible for doing. So my early albums were jazz and kind of leaned into fusion, but as they gave me a little more creative freedom, it started to use some of these other instruments and synthesizers. I started to sing a little bit. I played bass on one or two tunes. And by the time I got to the Elektra years, which are the years when I did some of the songs

as you were talking about, hang it up, and Remind Me came up from one of those albums. By the time we got to that, these are things that I had already touched on. The assignment was to come up with a collection that represented me at that time. And also now factored in the music business and the industry. We are here to talk about Remind me, but we have to mention Forget Me Nots. It factors into this story. Let's hear a little bit of Forget Me Nots. That place, I'm so sorry.

Everything about this song makes me cry from the collapse to the roads to the baseline. It's just an emotional sound production machine for my brain because it's tied into memories, but there's something so special about the magic of their ten elements, no less than, your vocal, the lyric, the reverb, the baseline, the melody, the fills that he plays. One question I need to ask you because it's you. and you're here is the Rhodes part you play. Now, we've talked about, we've alluded to it, it's clearly you have a connection to this instrument.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on what that connection is and maybe specifically in this song, why those chords do what they do to me. I wonder if you have an answer. Yeah. Well, I've always been attracted to harmony and chords. And the Rhodes, I first heard Herbie Hancock play, playing Rhodes.

That was my first understanding that, Whoa, there's something special about that sound. About that tone, about that texture. And as it relates to Forget Me Notts, this again is one of those situations where just because you are surrounded by people who play, Freddie, Washington, was playing this baseline. We were practicing together that day. And he was playing this line. And I ran in the kitchen to get some water or something. And I heard him just, he's just jamming.

But I used to keep a real-to-reel tape recorder just run. running. So you can so you don't miss anything. So you can hear yourself and go, I need to work on that or blah, blah, blah. But this line was so wicked. I said, what was that? And he said, what are you talking about? And I played it back and he said, oh, and he played it. And I said, wow, there's something

there. He didn't even know. He just played it in passing. He just played it in and passed it. And then we started fooling around with the rhythm, which had to be simple because the baseline was so complete. We used to put it on a little cassette and then play it in the car or whatever like that. And he took it to somebody, Terry McFadley. and great lyricist, and she heard the groove, and she said, she came up with sending you, forget me not to help you to remember. Baby, please forget me not, I want you to remember.

Wow. He brought that back to the house, and then I started messing around with- You kind of fitting into the space. Exactly. The space didn't require a lot of movement. It just required glue, something that was going to hold it together as all of the other elements were just so profound. And then because of the story, it seemed like, well, this is not a vocal where you're jumping in.

No, no. This should be like, you know, the antithesis of what I'm hearing. I'm hearing all this funk up underneath it. But I need to float on top because the story is about the flower. Forget me not as a flower. Yeah. And when you say- Despite the distance. Double meaning.

Double meaning. Exactly. So those were the kinds of things we would think about. Terry McFadden had a lyric. No melody, or was there a melody too? I don't remember. Okay. She may have had the melody, too, but I don't remember.

It's so evocative this song. It's such a beautiful marriage of the three of your talents, obviously, and the instruments and the lyric. Everything just comes together in such a special way. It's such a special song. And that's one of those interesting times because it came together in first Freddy, then Terry, then back to me. True collaboration.

Then, you know, it's not always like that. And that's what I would impart to y'all. young riders now. It's going to come all kind of different ways. Your skill set needs to be such that if you see somebody walking down the street and they have a certain rhythm in their walk, that could inspire the kick drum pattern. Or if you hum something or you say something that is a particular, in a particular cadence in the way that you say it, that could inspire the melody. It comes from a lot of different places. And you want to be open to that and then be able to take that and make it into something. Can I tell you right off the bat, one of my favorite songs

from this album, straight from the heart, is number one. I love this song. I love this song so much. I was looking for it for years. Okay? I didn't even know it was your song because it's an instrumental. I was at record store, you know, checkout counters, like singing like, you know, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Like, I see the whole song and people would be like, hey, hey, Harvey, come over here. Do you know this? Nobody was helping. Nobody was helping. You know, finally I heard a DJ. play it. And I like ran over that. I was like, dude, you have to tell me what. I've been looking to the song for years. It's pre-s-s-s-z-z-zam. Instrumentals are rough. They're just rough like that. You can't, don't do them anymore.

They're-the-cans. Kids don't understand. I feel like children or adults now don't even understand that like if you, if a song didn't have lyrics, you may not ever figure out what the name of the song was. This is a pre-S-S-Zam era. You were just out of a look. Can we just hear a little bit of one of my absolute favorite songs of all time? This is number one. You like that change. It puts me in such a good place. Oh, nice. This song is amazing.

But you can imagine me for years. Like pretty much a decade trying to sing that up in Tower and Amoeba and every other record story I was in. I mean, I'm just struck by through all of this, the infiltration. Sorry for the, it's kind of a funny comparison, but like we did an episode on Steely Dan. And one thing that is shared is that there's a sort of jazz infiltration in pop that's going on with. with both Pegg and Josie and also a lot of your hits is that you're thrown in a surprising harmony, like we said, the tensions and such chords that are normally not found on pop radio. And that gives it part of the special sauce.

That's part of this extraordinarily rich emotional experience, I think. When you went to that chord, we all felt it. We all felt like, oh, that's not what one would expect. And it's deep and rich. It's like several layered emotions at once. How conscious were you of there being a balance of accessibility with simplicity and maybe throwing in something that's a little bit more sophisticated like some of these chords? I didn't think about it. We did music that we liked. I did music that I liked and I played it with people that I loved and we came up with things that were natural to you. That were natural to us again in the moment of what it was that the music was telling us that we needed to do to make it right.

Now, I will say we were aware of groove. focus on the music feeling great. Like if you had a tight rhythm section. That was the focus. Right. You could kind of, that gave you some liberties. That gave you, because all of the music, especially that I had heard and had to come up listening to, you studied the rhythm sections. You know, all those Motown hits were played by the same guy. Who happened to be jazz musicians, by the way, the Funk brothers were jazz musicians. You know, so when you hear those kinds of things that were done in muscle shows, it's the same

people. It's the same grouping of people. Studio 1 and all the, all the Jamaican stuff. Exactly. So here was the same type of thing in here being in Los Angeles. A lot of those rhythm sections that you hear on the Marvin Gay records or the Jackson 5 records or whatever you were listening to back then. Those will come to the same people over and over again. And it's because of a certain kind of affinity that we had for just making the music feel a certain way. So I had that too.

You asked me what we were listening was at Freddie Washington on bass. Yes. Because there's a special connection between. what he will play against a harmonic idea or what harmonic idea I will play against his moving baseline. It's that kind of thing. You have a communication flow that's unspoken.

Exactly. So no, we weren't aware of it. We were just doing what we were doing. And if we liked it, if it got past us, if it got past me, I felt like there might be at least one other individual in the world that would like it. And that was really the emphasis

to make the music just feel great. Number one was because on a lot of the recordings, I wanted to always include a song that was more instrumental for two reasons. One, because I like doing that. It gave me a chance to play.

But the other thing was because I have always believed that people sometimes want to draw a line in the sand as far as what they feel when something has lyrics and when it doesn't. So I found that middle ground. Everybody can sing da-da-da.

But they're singing... But not everybody can identify about it. But they're singing, but that's what instruments do. We're trying to imitate the sound of the human voice. And so now people are kind of, they're kind of in on it. And it's called number one because it was the first thing we recorded. Oh, that was going to be one of my questions. I'd love to play another clip for you.

It's from an interview you did on Soul Train when Straight from the Heart was released. Let's roll that. What's different about straight from the heart? What do you think? I think that it more or less illustrates the change that I think black music is going through so many years, things change. And we're getting back to the groove again. Absolutely.

And to the way things really, really feel, kind of blending the complexities with the simplicity and putting it together for another thing. It's very exciting. It's really nice. Now, in that clip, you said the black music is getting back to the groove. I got to ask, what is that a reaction to? Because I don't think of the 70s is a time when necessarily we lost our group, but, like, I wasn't there.

And I'm just curious, like, what caused, what do you think caused the group to get lost? You don't have to name names, but what was that in response to? I think it was in response to a lot of artists that were now kind of going more towards what they thought was going to sell, as opposed to offering that energy to being better and better at what they were doing and selling that. I could see it happening and I could see it influence. everything in a way that wasn't necessarily healthy, particularly if young people didn't know what it come before. And certain choices, we're kind of there now, where certain choices are made on the basis of one's limitations as opposed to the goal of what it is you're trying to do

and to figure out and find out and research and learn all the things in order to meet that goal. When you say limitations, do you mean maybe instrumental skill or technical skill, or is it something else? I think musical skill. And when I say musical skill, that doesn't mean that you have to know every little technical aspect. But many records are not constructed

on the basis of the music. It's constructed on the basis of whatever the formula might be. Current formula, yeah. And it's constructed with the idea of what other people are going to think of it as being the emphasis. Right, right. Not everything.

Don't get me wrong. Part of this comes, I think because we can do it that way because technology allows it. Now technology for me, I'm not against it at all, obviously. But the thing about it is that

it offers additional tools to even be more precise with your message that you wanted to say in the first place with the thing you were trying to do. It gives you more colors in your palette. It gives you other ways to be able to get at things and it allows for you to create things that currently don't exist, i.e. certain kinds of sounds or certain kinds of ambience or certain

kinds of fields. And certainly from the standpoint of performance, when you really grab a great performance or a particular line to be able to move that line around and, you know, copy and paste and all these kinds of things. I think all of this is happening. It's great. But it's in lieu of, for some people, learning music. And we were so lucky to learn music first. so that when we have access to these tools, we can use them to enhance, you know, what we're doing. Well, look, when we get back, you'll hear the isolated elements that make this song so special.

And you'll get some insight into the creative process of our very special guest, the legend, Miss Patrice Fruccian, right after this. Welcome back to one song. We are so excited to talk about this song and how it was made with its creator. Because there isn't a lot of documentation about the making of the track. So we're going to break some ground here

for the future generations for the making of this tune. So let's start from the beginning. How did the song remind me begin? I was at the road practicing, just playing, and came up with this. I won't call it a chord progression because I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it. I was trying to find a particular voicing,

just experimenting with an exercise that I wanted to try to make up. I would do this. I'm like that sometimes. You're playing with harmony, basically. Yeah, in order to practice sometimes I'll find. find other ways to kind of trick my brain into doing what I'm supposed to do that I don't want to do. Because sometimes when you sit down your fingers just do certain things. Yeah, and I wanted to break away from something.

So I'm practicing. I'm working on something. And then I think I just kind of came up with the idea. Now, one of the things that, as a pianist, one of the things that you want is independence of your hands. So that your hands don't always have to move in the same direction at the same time. So an exercise that I used to do is to be trying to play. a baseline while I was trying to also play chords and hold it. And it was, again, this came out of the practice of trying to be a good player. Happened to come up with this groove, liked it.

And as I said, I always would record and listen back to my practice sessions and develop the song from there. Let's just start building it because you just referred to this part in the roads. Let's listen isolated to what Patrice. Russian would have sat down and played once upon a time. And by the way, I've got a question here. We're about to hear the top of the song. And one thing, like this song famously has your eighth note thing. But in the first few seconds, you're playing quarter notes? I'll play it for you. And then I have a question about that. Okay. So this is, as you were just telling us, this is you playing with your right hand, those chords, the eighth notes, and the baselines in your left hand. I'll talk about

that in a second, but just quickly for that question I asked. I'm just wondering, is this a first take and you sort of got the feel for it and then you're like, no, I want to switch to eighth notes for the rest of the song or was that just kind of in the moment choice? This was an arranging choice.

Okay. Because by the time we got to the studio to do this, I knew that at the top of the tune, I wanted something else. Okay. With it. Something different. That would change.

Something different that would be the intro. Got it. And that's where the idea of, you know, because I knew that was going to be on top. So because that has its space, you don't crowd that space with eighth notes underneath it until you're ready to establish something. Can we hear that? Yeah, absolutely.

I love it. We're going to do the show a little differently. We're going to follow where the conversation goes naturally. Here's that, and I've got a question about this. Is this a performed arpeggio or is this pushing a button on like the Jupyter's arpeggiator in a machine? Let's listen. And then you can answer that question for us. And then it gets harmonized here.

How did that part come together? I played it. You played that. We didn't have the Jupiter at the time. There you go. We had, that was an ARP Odyssey. Okay. And the ARP Odyssey allowed for you to filter certain kinds of tones.

So you started with your sine wave or whatever you were going to use. And then you could filter what you wanted and add to it. the synthesizers for consumers were not, you know, they weren't big and they weren't so available to people. Right. You know. So that's what I had. And so actually, I played it. You're performing those that arpeggio.

Right. And when the harmony comes in, are you saying that you, because you can adjust when you have multiple in synthesis, if there's multiple sign waves, you can't harmonize theoretically with one performance? You can. But I think I played it. Because they weren't in exact proportion. Because of the harmony, they weren't in exact proportion to one another. I had to make certain... Some major, third, some minor things.

Exactly. I had to make certain... So you're overdubbing or you're playing both? I'm overdubbing. Okay, got it. Yes. Very cool. How amazing that we get to like...

Isn't that cool? Learn this ourselves and tell the world how this was made piece by piece like this. But it also makes it so human that you just played it. You know what I mean? Like, we talked about this on the Dill episode because he didn't quantize everything in his production. Like, you played this. People ask me about that part a lot, you know, because they make the leap that, oh, that was very cool what you did with the sequencer. With the sequencer.

And we didn't have, they weren't out yet. So you actually have to play it. Now, what most people don't know on your penis will appreciate this is that you got two hands. So don't be trying to do that. Okay. You know, you can do it with two hands. Is that what you did? And that's exactly what it is.

It would be clean. And it would be tight. You also alluded to how the origin of the song was you doing. an exercise or right hand's playing the eighth notes as we heard in the roads and your left hand is playing that baseline let's listen back to that knowing that you're playing the base in the roads part and then it seems to be that you've doubled it on another sim there's no bass player per se i think this is you playing bass right yes on what other instance is that a moge or the arp i don't remember maybe i will yeah let's listen and then i'll piece it together okay that baseline da da da da that little

hook thing. And then you've got a second separate bass synth, which is mirroring the exact variations that are, to my ears, not really repeated ever, which is something only the same performer would know to do. Here that is. And let's listen together. And you can hear how just perfectly matched they are. Now, I know you're in tune with Freddie Washington sometimes when he's playing bass guitar, but this is you in tune with yourself at two different times. Is that right? Correct. Amazing. Let's listen. So the question I have for you is, Did you play the entire Rhodes part sort of memorize your own base choices that vary from one section to the next and then nail it? Or did you go section by section?

Or, and here's a third option, in the same way that sometimes a vocalist goes to the booth to double themselves, they instinctively know what they would have done and they just do it in this magical, perfect way. Is it one of these ways? It's all of that. Okay. One of the nice things about the recording studio is that it in and of itself is an instrument. It in and of itself is a character in being able to get the song done. So yes, the Rhodes was played, played it, did it, you know, in a complete take.

One pass all the way through. Okay. When I got the bass song, I remembered a lot of it, but there might be a moment where maybe I didn't. You know, the song is three, four minutes. So there might be a place where, and then you stop and you pick it. pick it up from there. That's using the recording studio environment in a way that allows for you to be able to be that precise. So you kept going and you're listening back to your Rhodes part and you're getting it. And then if there's a moment where you're like, that wasn't quite what

I did the first time. You just pause it and redo that. Punch in. Exactly. Incredible. That's so cool. I love that. And listening to the isolated bass synth, do you know? It sounds like it could have been a moog. Okay. Yeah. I did have a mini-mug at that time. So it sounds like it could have been. say you could play all of that at one time. Would that be three hands? Because I heard this. I heard the bass. But then I heard like a little third hand, if you will, playing the chord. Great question. I heard that too. Yeah. Yeah. Look at you. Listen with the third ear. Your hands are divided up into quadrants also where you can do this and this at the same time.

You can do this and this at the same time. These are extra. Remember what was the next? exercise. So the idea was I could play the chord and bring out that melody line that you're hearing as a single line as I'm playing the chord with the same hand. And that's something that's a pianist thing. And that's made, you know, without putting pianists on a pedestal, we spend years trying to learn how each digit has the capacity to bring out something even when they're playing all together. That is so inspiring on so many levels because I had the same question. I was hearing multiple either passes or players or someone reached over and like, you know, put their hand on the keyboard to help you out. But it also speaks to the value of now twice in this song story of exercising, of practicing. You sat down and wrote the song in the vein of you were practicing. You had an idea that you wanted to improve upon in how you played and stretch yourself.

And it turned into this composition. I love that. Amazing. There's another hook going on in the clav at the very beginning. So let's listen to that. Such a simple, so hokey. And then a moment later, it sounds like you're adding a wah and you do this. Yeah.

Like one would think that might be a guitar, but it's Patrice Russian on the cloud. Is that right? That's correct. That's right. Okay. But that's really noticeable in that the role that a guitar would typically play. using keyboards to approach that role. Were you thinking, like, I'm going to put a guitar part using a clav?

Was that just sort of happened spontaneously or was it conscious? I like the sound of the clav, and that was the role that needed to get played. I think I went at it that way. The sound is usually the thing that attracts me first. And then how that sound is going to, where that's going to fit. And what's going to happen. And you're right. We added the while pedal.

You know, that you hear is the same clavinet. There is a bar on a clavinet that allows for the sound to be very pointed or muted. And so I use the muted part, but the wah part has the full weight of the strings. And the wah-wah pedal. And by the way, it stands out so much. It's not that it makes the song, but it's like one of those things that definitely helps define the song. that wha. That wha.

Let's listen in context. I'll build some elements around it as we listen to that same thing we just heard for context. So here it is with, let's just start with the bass. So you can hear the wa. Yeah. What I love about this, it needs to be pointed out, is that so far we've heard the entirety of the musical content of the song, minus the drums and the vocals. And you're playing all the parts.

There aren't any players on this song. besides you playing instruments. Is that right? That's it. The drummer. The drummer, and I think you might have a background vocalist. Is that right? And I have a background vocalist. Yeah. Were you hard to work with? Apparently not. At least no one said I was in my face.

There's some power dynamics in play. We need to factor in, but I get the feeling that you're pretty easy to work. You're like, there was a short hand. The other thing to point out is that the entirety of the song, you mentioned the four chord, or I'm saying their four chords. There's kind of a two phrases within the four bars. Exactly. A slight variation from the first two to the second two. But so many of the notes are common to all of the chords.

It's more the voicing, I think, that allows for it to feel like that. Where each of the root, third, and fifth are played, lower or higher in the middle. And that is the entirety of the song harmonically. You're playing this one series, this chord progression the whole time. The whole time. Right. And it never gets.

boring. That's one of the magic tricks, I think, of a song like this, is just adding the right amount of variety sonically and bringing parts in and out, and of course, the vocals. But this is, this is straight through all the way from beginning to end. You're playing for about six minutes these chords. Just to point out the genius of the songwriting, that that still, still is interesting in spite of it being what you would think would need changes. It doesn't. It does not need the changes. I think more than anything else, the arrangement and actually how you build on that foundation of those of that progression or of those chords that's what helps and one of the things i learned you know through listening to a lot of other people's music

and particularly in learning about little things that help people remember things and and include in on the shape of the song especially when the chords are repetitive like that is that you have what we used to call ear candy yeah and that ear candy might be a fill or that ear candy might be another instrument that comes up that's really high. The clavinet, for example, or that little part, or finding something that allows, that you're building on this progression, the progression is not changing

very much, but the things around it that are executing that progression offer interest. There's just a little surprise, periodically sprinkled, whenever it's just about to be like, okay, not the same thing again. Nope, it's never the same thing exactly twice. Well, we're going to call attention to some of those in just a minute. Can we talk about the

road solo? Oh, my God. Let's hear a little bit of it. Satisfying resolution there. You had some substitutions in there. You gave it some color. And is that you comping to your own solo? Adding that, throwing in those chords in there? Beautiful stuff. Did you do multiple takes or was this the one and only? No, I think that was it. This was it. This was the one. That's all you needed. What was the motivation to throw a solo like this in the middle of this song? I think I wanted, the song felt really good and I wanted to play on it. Yeah. I just want to have fun. You know, and I think it lended itself really well in the context of the song for it to be a Rhodes.

You know, sometimes it just speaks to you what the instrument is that you want to help to illustrate the story. Right. And Rhodes felt like the right one. And it's sort of an energy boost, too, to have that run of the chromatic, the 60, like that moment, as you were saying, the ear candy, here's another piece of over the course of the song unfolding in time. You're doing something really wonderful. different and surprising for ear candy. Ear candy almost sounds insulting to the musicianship in there. I don't mean it like that.

No, no, but that's right. And also, you know, constructing a solo in a song structure like this is probably the hardest thing. It's harder to do that than it is to play chorus after chorus after chorus after chorus, you know, if you're playing with, you know, people and you're playing a solo. You've got X number of bars to be able to expound on the larger story. And you can't take away from that. supposed to, as I said, expoundable on that story.

So one of the things about this solo is that it has stuff in it that you would never, ever expect would be in a song like this. I couldn't agree more. And it adds an element of a certain kind of freedom for me and hopefully represents that, you know, improvisation and being in the moment allows for you to be able to do certain things within the scope of the larger piece. I found a quote from you in an interview where you say, you talk about how every album is like a snapshot of things.

So all the things you liked at the time. So the compositions in songwriting and development, when you hear the songs, quote, I hear what it took to get it that way. So when you listen back to this material, to this song, to remind me, to forget me, that's to this era, does it evoke like an image, like a snapshot of the composition process or the recording process?

Does one kind of memory? Or Los Angeles, like, Come to mind? Yeah. Well, it takes me to that day. To that day. It takes me to that day sitting there that day because there were only two people in the studio that day, myself and the drummer. I was just going to say, speaking of the drums, I think we should show the, give the drummer some.

Give the drummer some. Let's give the drummer some. Now, if I'm not mistaken, this is James Gadsden. Is that right? Now, he's got a list of credits as long as your arm. One of those guys, he was on Bill Weathers used me and lean on me. He's on Express. yourself from 1970, Charles Wright. Jackson 5, Dancing Machine, Cheryl Lynn Gottsby Real. And he continues

to this day. He's played on some Lana Del Rey stuff recently. He's done some back, a monster musician, laying down the groove. And now let's listen to some James Gadsden on the drums. And there's also a clave and a tambourine in the mix. I'll add that now. Just on two and four. I'll isolate that so you can hear it. Who's playing percussion? Is that you? I was going to say, that's probably you, right? I could tell it's the patented Patricious. Russian two and four. So, and then, as you were saying, kind of ear candy, he occasionally throws in a little fill here and there to add, you know, interest for our ears. Here's in a moment of that. Simple stuff, but like all the groove needed. And then there's one moment where he kind of throws a

16th note in. I'll play it isolated. And then I'll add context so you can hear how that choice completely relates and supports the rest of the music. Here it comes. Just that one little tongue. That little stutter. A little stutter. And here's what's happening in the instruments in that moment. Here it comes one.

Right. The end of four, and up. Settled. But important. But it is important, and I think we'll talk about this in a second. It's important as far as hip-hop is concerned because I think if the drums are too complicated sometimes,

it makes it harder for a producer to sample it. Well, listen, we've heard pretty much everything underneath the vocals. There's not much on this track. It didn't need much and we heard what there was. So now without further ado, should we get into the vocal. We've come to the vocals and lyrics and I do want to ask you this about the process. And that's because, you know, he makes music.

I like to think that I have some songs that I'd like to make. So I'm always curious to know which came first, the chicken or the egg for you. And I know it might be different for every song. But do you go in with like notes, chords, sounds, and then graph words onto them? Or do you more often go in with the words first and then find places to insert the words? And who is Karen Evans?

Karen Evans is one of my oldest friends from childhood. Okay. Like talking junior high school. And we used to listen to the same kinds of music and, you know, she's very, very funny. And so we always were telling jokes and having a good time. And to your question, the idea of the music came first. in this one. The structure and the melody I had.

Yeah. Then it was about now I got to find, I got to find lyrics for this melody. And typically for me, words were hard. I mean, sometimes I could just do it. But more often than not, the idea of collaboration brought out something in me that may not have happened if I had tried to do it by myself. So I got together with Karen, I said, listen to this and see if this speaks to you. And it did.

You had the chords and the melody, the vocal melody? Yeah, the track and everything was pretty much done. And I had a vocal melody idea, but no words. So before we got to the vocal date, he was going to need some words. So we got together, and that's how the song came together. She's a great writer, and we bounced off of each other very, very well. Was it her, did you have a title or any kind of concept? I didn't have anything other than the melody.

So she brought all of that in. Where did you sit down and write? I'm curious. A little bit at her house and a little bit of my house. Okay. You know, just sitting down and seeing what we could get. within that within the structure

and you kind her in on the songwriting and she's a proper pretty much 50-50 car write on this yeah can we hear some isolated vocals let's do it here is verse one of remind me by patrice Russian who's sitting right there

I can recall a certain magic in your eyes I'm under your spell each time that you appear a kiss so passionate that has been measured We'll pause right there. When you listen back to yourself in 1982-ish, what do you think?

Okay. That's okay. I think over the years that, you know, you learn things about approaches to how you're going to place things in your voice and all of that. But I would say overall, that wasn't bad. Oh, you hear things you would have done differently? Maybe now. Interesting. Yeah.

Maybe not. We're glad you didn't do anything differently. You're not allowed to do it. Not bad. No, no. I also, I got to give kudos to Charles Mims Jr. Producer, co-producer, because Charles's role, you know, we co-produced together. But a person to perform something, you hear things one way.

To hear it and receive it, you hear it a different way. And you need, I needed, to have somebody in the booth that I could trust. Because I might think that something was really cool. With some objective. And it's not. And conversely, you must. might think something's bad. They'll be like, no, no, no, no, that was really good. Exactly. So again, the power of, of, of collaboration. So he was sort of vocal producing you as you would sing this.

Absolutely. And kind of giving you feedback. In fact, all, every time that I was in a situation where I was performing, I chose to have someone in the booth. And he was typically. And you trusted his ears and his judgment. So that was a good marriage. Here's the first chorus. And one thing you'll notice is that there's a, it goes from being a little dry in the verse. There's a little bit of revert that gets added. I just want to get granular here. Like who decides like you remind me? Like the duration of the mind. That melody was fixed.

You had that. That was done. So now you're trying to find the words that allow for. It could have been straight from the heart. Like it could have been that. It could have been other words. It could have been other words. But that's what.

That's some of the power of collaboration. I love it. Because how another person might receive that you realize, that, ah, it needed an open sound. Yeah. Because it lasted for so long. Yeah. So finding a word like, remind, your mouth is wide open.

Do you remember the moment where Karen maybe came up with that? And you were like, that's the one? Or were there drafts before that? We came up. I think the chorus came first, which is the most important part. and then the story of how you arrive at that chorus. And did you know right away when you heard the remind? Was that tried out pretty early?

Yeah, that was pretty early. It didn't take too long. Wow. We love this song. We love it so much. And as we mentioned earlier in this episode, remind me was never a, eight-side single.

Never an eight-side single. Did you ever push for it to be one? No, not really. You know, back then, if you got one off really well, people would go by the album. Yes. And that's what you want.

And then they would discover for themselves the other songs. And this one, you know, along with number one and a few other things on the album, became popular. And it was interesting for me to follow what regions locked in on what other cuts. I was going to ask you about that. You know, because out here, remind me was one of the cuts. Number one was one of the cuts that were really popular. Midwest, look up.

Wow. You know, there was all these other songs. You know, it actually makes me want to ask. ask the question, what does this song's legacy say to you about the power of those communities, the fans, versus Electra's marketing department? It says that, you know, at the end of the day, the music is supposed to communicate. Yeah. And it's supposed to communicate to people.

And sometimes we get to the place where one of the ideas of communicating to people is what you want to learn to master is that part, the communication part. and whatever it is that you do. You talked about James Gadsden's, the simplicity of what he played. He can play everything. Of course. But he chose that. Now, that's mastery to me, to have the entire vocabulary available to you

and choose the right word at the right time. To serve the song. To serve the purpose. And to place it just right and to be consistent. Those are the kinds of things that I think we valued and that we were taught would be longer lasting, no matter what it is. Be good at the thing that you do. And that's why, for me, still, mastery is, you know, mastery Trump's marketing.

Mastery over marketing. I love that. Remind me has been sampled and interpolated over 130 times. And those are just the ones we know about. So many of the remixes are from 1995. There was like a groundswell. And I always, you know, as a person who, you know, I would say I was a drummer. but my real relationship with music went to a whole new level when I became a DJ.

And I was a hip hop DJ, you know, in the 90s trying to do my thing as a student and a part-time DJ. I always wondered like when a song would just take off and like five or six rappers would have that sample be used at that time. So is that a function of Elektra actively shopping the song to hip hop producers saying, hey, if you want to sample this, we'll clear it. or was it a hit for, you know, junior mafia or somebody first, and then everybody came calling, which came first for Remind Me? You know, I don't know. I think that you're right, though, how there was this seeming this convergence of all these people that were using it.

I was like crazy. What I know about that part of the process, because it was still relatively new, was that there had to be some kind of clearance. Yes. Yes. If the mix was going to be for sale. See, there was all kind of people mixing.

Sure. Mixing. Just for the clubs. You buy it, you do it, and they're in the clubs, and they're doing that thing. If it was going to be for commercial use, I think that, you know, that's where it had to, you know, their sampling had to be cleared. And they would have to come to the publisher, which was me. Which was you. Are you on your own publishing?

I did then. I did then. I kept it all for a very long time. Baby fingers. Baby fingers. Exactly. I kept it for a long time because I didn't know what was going to happen, you know, with the music. And, you know, when you're with a publisher, then you're with a publisher and there are other thousand writers, you know.

So I just held on to it. So they would have to come and they would clear it with me. You know, during this time, heavy D samples a song. Because this is how we do. Faith Evans does one of my favorite versions of it, falling in love. One of the biggest songs to sample remind me is this one. This is Junior Mafia featuring Alia, and it's, I Need You Tonight. That sounds like knowledge to me for the record.

So we want to ask for your opinion on how do you think that they did? What was your impression of the Junior Mafia song? Oh, no, I loved it. You loved it. I have to say this. The highest compliment that you can pay a composer or a songwriter is that years after they've offered it, people are still relating to it and still use it. And when I hear that, and I hear, and you even grab part of the solo, you know what I mean? Yeah.

It says a lot about. having done what we tried to do. What we're trying to do with some music that we really enjoyed and spread that joy to other people. And years later, when people can still relate to it and feel that, nothing else attached to it, just that. And then the next layer of that is then to add their own brand of creativity on top of it or their take of it or whatever and pull things.

And I'm always very interesting in what did they pull? What bars do they use? And how do they flip it? And how did they flip it? As you mentioned, the solo. What instruments are in and what her out? And then when does it? You know, so it's, I mean, it's the constant massage of joy for me.

Was there an evolution in your feelings about sampling, basically, as an art form? As it goes from being in the earliest days, something that is the wild west of how it's done, is it cleared, is it not cleared? Is it not clear? Is publishing involved or not into something that becomes, at this point, at least in the mid-90s, kind of a more structured thing? Did you find yourself thinking of your music being reused differently over that evolution? Or were you always sort of coming from what you're describing. Musical borrowing is part of all music historically.

And this is just the new version of it. I was pretty much staying in that lane that I'm so glad people are enjoying it and this is awesome. Until people started using some of the music in ways that were against some of my principles. Like, I had a song called Settle for My Love, Love Song. And it had been, you know, someone wanted to clear a sample. And the first lyric was just so offensive. The first lyric of their sample was, Relax, bitch, and take off your clothes.

And I'm like, yo, really? So this love song. Has Luther Campbell ever apologized to you? Because he was wrong. So I, I don't know if it was Luther. So, you know, that's when I had to drop. That's when I did start. to pay attention and draw a line.

Like, okay, so... Yeah, that's fair. Context matters. It does matter. And again, I want people to have their freedom of expression, but if you want to be that free, then you make it up. Don't use mine. That's an important part of the sampling and interpolation process,

because we talk about it a lot on the show, and we're fans of it when it's done the right way. And interestingly, you're talking about it's not just, in other words, the money and the credit. It's also about does it match what I as an RANNES, artist believe in feel like is appropriate or even connected to me as a person through my music. I think that's the part that's maybe the least discussed. Right.

So it's interesting to hear you talk about how important it is and it makes so much sense when you articulate it like that. It's great. I've had to say no a couple of times, you know, in situations where the people came back to me and one person actually changed it. Oh, that's great. You know, no, that's not going to be, that's not okay. Now, if you can figure out how else you want to try to offer that illusion,

go ahead. But that word, no. No, nothing. And they actually changed it. So it comes down sometimes just literally the use of language. The same idea, a story can be told, but just can we tweak the words? Right. It's sometimes all it takes. That's really interesting. So, Patrice, we've been talking so much about your legacy of these great songs. We'd love to know what are you excited about now? What are you working on? What is next for you?

I've just completed almost 14 years of teaching at USC where I was chair of the popular music program. Probably one of the highlights of that was being able to take the curriculum, build a curriculum and be a part of the development of a curriculum that prepares young people for exactly what it is that we did as kids. In other words, put together something that allowed for this feeling of community as opposed to competition, help each other learn through being guided through represent. the history of pop music, all of this type of thing, give people a chance to experiment with it and find themselves and find their multiple voices of expression within this particular major. So I'm really, really proud of that. And in some ways, I feel like it's bringing full circle to Locke High School where you were shown this path, you were given some keys, and now you're doing that again. Exactly. And I can keep that going, but also use a different platform. And because of the convergence

of the resurgence of my catalog, the idea that I'm a professor, that I love performing still, can play and want to be able to present the music, all this is coming together in such a way that now, touring now means a different thing, because now every time I'm in a concert situation, people are singing this song back to me.

If we're lucky enough to be in a town that you're coming to, where can we find where you're going to be? All of that information exists on my website, which you are welcome to visit. It's www. www. patricerussian.com. Okay, before we end the show, we want to play a game with you.

It's called What's One Song? Here are the rules. We'll ask you a question, and you'll give us a one song answer. Please answer as quickly as possible. Don't overthink it. What's one song that you remember dancing to on Soul Train? Thank you for letting me be myself.

Sly Stone. Great song. What's one song you never get tired of listening to? Signs, Seal, Delivered. Stevie Wonder. There you go. What's one song? on the change the way you approached music.

Now, that's really hard because there's so many that are flooding my mind right now. And they're in different areas. In different genres. In different genres. In different genres. We'll allow three. Can I rule out three or say three? The rule book is. You'll allow three. You'll allow three. Okay. Brahms Symphony 4.

Miles Davis's album, The Sorcerer. And Herbie Hancock speak like a child. Wow. Listen to all those. Yeah. That is your homework. What's one song that you wish you'd play piano on? I'd wish I'd play piano on as Stevie Wonder. That might be my favorite.

That might be my favorite Steve Wonder. What's one song that always puts you in a good mood? James Brown, I'm going to say doing it to death. Oh, with Fred. Is that a J.B? Yeah, that's the one. It's got the shuffles. The shuffle feeling.

And finally, what's one song we have to break down on a future episode of one song. What songs should we give this treatment to that you'd love to listen to? You need to maybe consider breaking down some of Prince. We did. Let's go crazy. But obviously, his catalog is so dense. It's dense. Yeah. You might consider controversy. Listen, I mean, people that don't know, I mean, Prince wrote at least maybe two songs about you. Is that right? I feel for you is apparently about you. Is that right? I've heard that too. I've heard that too. And what's the other one? I want to be your lover.

I want to be your lover. Yeah. He wrote them to you. That's incredible. I read that when I read the, when I saw the album credits. But you guys had a connection. You guys had a friendship. We did.

We did. And, you know, one of the things that I can say without question is that was probably the closest person who I saw as a contemporary whose career just went like through the roof very, very, very fast. I mean, there's those of us who are in sort of, you know, there's the tortoise in the hair, I'm the tortoise. I'm going to be constant, but it's going to be slow. And that's fine. I love the way things have evolved. But it was interesting to watch somebody where it just exploded

and to be that close, you know, to somebody where your foundation of your relationship was about the music. And then, you know, to be in on conversations about his vulnerability with certain areas. like the films and things like that. If we do another Prince episode, will you come back and be a part of that?

You guys can call me any time. All right. We've got microphones and cameras. We're holding you to it. Holding you to that, yeah. Yeah. Can't back out now. It's binding.

Patrice promise. We're there. We're there. We're there. Patrice, thank you for being here. It has been my honor, really. Thank you. Such a joy.

We're so lucky to have you here. So lucky. Telling us about the making of the song as we listen to the stems. We can't wait to have you back again another time. I look forward to it. If you want to find us on Instagram and TikTok, you can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-A-A-L-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-L-O. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-S-U-R-Y and on TikTok at Luxury X.

And you can also follow this podcast at One-Song podcast on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of OneSong on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One-Song podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the One-Song Spotify Pl, list for all of the songs we discussed in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you made it this far, we think that means you like the podcast, so please don't forget to give us five stars, five stars only. Leave a review and share us with someone

who you think would like this show. It really helps us keep it going. Luxury, help me in this thing. Well, I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duenas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo, mixing by Michael Hardman and engineering by Eric Hicks. Production supervision by Razak Boykin, additional production support from Z. Taylor. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Waddings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam.