The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Boyz II Men Part 1

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

This Questlove Supreme Classic is a peak pandemic discussion. To recap: Here is what you know about Boyz II Men, they are the record breaking, multiple award winning, best singing group of our time. In this episode we dive into the unknown through the reunion of old high school friends Questlove and Boyz II Men. Listen as Quest and Team Supreme dive into the REAL (uncensored) story behind one of the most successful and consistent groups of all time. You get the first person accounts of what really went down, according to Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman, and Wanyá Morris. Take a listen to the true story of Boyz II Men Part 1.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

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So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar.

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was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Ellen, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian. Michael Mancini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women. discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ego Wood. My next guest, it's Will Ferri. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.

Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's Questlove, and please make sure that you're up to date on my podcast, The Questlove Show. However, it's Quest Love Supreme for life.

Back in late 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, QLS had my guys on, Boys to Ben, for a two-part podcast discussion. It's damn near three hours of conversation when we get real. and all the stories behind this incredible record-breaking group. So join me, Fon Ticcolo, Laia, unpaid Bill, and Sugar Steve for this amazing touchstone interview with a lot of humor, candor, and realness. Thank you to Nate, Sean and Wanié. Shout out to you, too, Mike and Mark.

You're all boister men to me. You guys humbled me and also gave one incredible conversation at a time when we needed it. So here's part one of Boys to Men on Questlove Supreme. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. Don't forget, Amir you recording? Yeah. Okay. My excuse his real name, ain't that a bitch?

I mean, shit, that's what is Mama called. Oh, yeah, that's, yeah. My name is Clay. My name is Clay. Yes, I am immune. Okay. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what can I say?

Our guest today are the pride of my hometown of Philadelphia. They are, in my opinion. and I'm very biased. They are simply one of the finest, most talented singing groups in history. They have made classic records. They have broken records. And when those records got broken, they broke records with their own records. Three singles single-handedly have occupied the number one spot for 43 weeks in a row.

That is no small feat when it's just spread out through three singles. Only two other artists in recording history have achieved that feat. And no, his name isn't Michael Jackson, Elvis and the Beatles. You know, to be alive to watch Beatles fans cry over into the road record breaking the Beatles. That was one of the most craziest days I've ever seen. We can call them the last true R&B group. We can call them the forefathers. We know that every, any group of individuals that call themselves boys band,

they know they owe this group everything from in sync to bt s they owe them greatly please welcome to quest left supreme finally the one and only boys to men yes sure there you go you're finally because we only got one call right yeah wait wait wait wait is this is going to be you know hey hey you know what type of conversation is going to be like we're high school like like Yeah, it's gonna be real. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Fonte had a look at Fonte's face right now.

Fonte's like, all right. The Jill Scott episode went somewhere. The music episode went somewhere. Boy, listen. I'm like a man who was. You want to call Tareach. We called Tareke. This is as real as you don't get.

Like, we, you know. Oh, boy. We only know one way to talk to each other. I'm ready for this, boy. Let's go. Actually, wait, my first question, people are dying to know. What the hell did y'all do this sudden impact? What did we do?

I don't know what we did. That wasn't our group. No, I'll tell you what. I'm playing. If you didn't know what we did, we tried to save them. After Mike Bimmers got rid of them, we tried to sign them to Stone Creek in Philly and took them over the time of the toll. And he said, oh, hell, now, then somebody named Backstreet Boys came out,

and then they disappeared. Wow. If you really want to know what happened. Mother fucking Nathan Morris, everyone. I love it. I love you. I can tell it's going to be a classic interview already. Where are you guys right now?

I assume that. And I know you guys get tired of asking, like, when people see you individually, like, where the other group at, as if you're attached to the hip. Yeah, like we're going to join together. Right. Because I can never be nowhere without Mr. Ricat, you know. Right, exactly. So where are you guys right now?

I'm in L.A. Wines in Vegas and Nates in a big old house in Tampa, Florida, sitting by the river. A big old house like everybody else. Everybody else should be in a big old house too. Sitting by a lake. I'm in a pretty nice-lice house. All right. I see that.

When, okay, based on the reality that we're living right now, when's the last time that you three were physically in the room at the same time? February. I would tell you this. Yeah, March, but I'll tell you one even crazier. when we left each other in March by the time we got to May or June, it was probably the longest

that we had ever been apart from each other since high school. That's what I was going to say. Has this been the biggest break that you guys have had since? Yeah, without a doubt. Without seeing each other or talking, yeah, physically, yeah.

We went on breaks, but we saw each other, we hung out, we hung out, wanted Sean used to live around the corner, stuff like that, but like physically being apart for this long, it's the longest. I missed the hell out of those niggas. So yeah, how does that affect, especially when you've been singing together for so long for so consistent, how does that affect you?

Like, when I hang up, I'm about to, we're about to do, like, our first root show in eight months. And I'm actually nervous about it because, like, we're going to have rehearsal, which is, I mean, we did it so much that the automatic pilot was good, but, like, how does it? when you're not in that rhythm anymore, like, how does that affect? I mean... We don't know. We never did it. It's never happened before, you know what I'm saying? But like you said, you know, groups that have been together for this long and, you know, working together, we pretty much know our roles.

We know what roles we play. So, you know, I'm pretty sure it's more... It's autopilot as well. It's just, you know, getting in the room together and, you know, remembering our notes and the steps and all kinds of stuff. like that, that's the only thing. But for the most part, man, this is, this is weird. You know what I'm saying? It's definitely weird. But, you know, we got to make the most of it. Is this a welcome break? Most, most artists that I talk to say, like, this is the first real sleep I've gotten. This is

the first, like, I mean, monetary issues aside of worrying about, you know, how your life is going to be affected? Like, is this a welcome break or is it just like? I mean, I think it's more individual that question to be answered. I mean, for me, I think two months, that's a welcome break for me, you know what I'm saying? But after two months, I'm ready to see, I'm ready to, you know, be where we, where we are, you know, I'm ready to get back on stage, I'm ready to see my brothers. I'm ready, you know what I'm saying, you got to have that, that energy flow of people that are like-minded around you and create the same way and think the same way musically around you. So after two months, I'm like, yo, I got to.

I gotta do it. But, you know, it's, it's welcome for about two months for me. I don't know about everybody else. Now you're just antsy to give back to, yeah, whatever. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's the same. So I think we were all due, there comes a ceiling that, you know, you tour after a while, you know, you want to say, okay, you know what, let's fall back for a second and kind of like, you know,

look at our houses for a little while and go food shopping and do regular normal stuff because I think with us that that's the balance that's required for all of us. We've never really been about and you know us in here. We've never been about all the spectacle and all the other stuff.

I just came with the job but for the most part you would see us driving down South Street you know what I'm saying like you know in our cars getting some music or you know getting some food or just hanging out or whatever that's just what we like to do. Right. You know and the stage is

is just another persona that when, you know, when we're on stage, we go off and we do what we need to do and we stay and we jump around and we're like fools. And then after that, you know, we back to just being normal Sean Wanyan and Nate. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's always been the ebb and flow. And as it should be with most artists, right?

You know, we require both in order for us to feel whole. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, so it's, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, I'm I miss it. I think the guys miss it. We miss being out there and performing because, like I said, it feels like it's half of us that's kind of missing to some degree. You know, yeah, we like to be home. We like to chill and all this stuff. But, you know, we ain't go loud. We like to entertain. This is what we do. One thing I was curious to know, I saw y'all, y'all, y'all came to Raleigh, man, this is probably like 10 plus years ago. This is a minute ago. And y'all performed and, you know, it was outside. And y'all was in the suits and the choreography. I think we y'all were doing like the most. whole town. It was going to cover records y'all done. And the show was amazing and we all, like, we loved it. I was curious to know how do y'all preserve your voices after all these

years, man, because y'all still sounded exactly like the record 20 plus years later. I think part of it is exactly what we're saying earlier. It's like we haven't really been away from each other this long. I mean, I plead a fifth on the other topic. But the fact that we've always, we sang all the time. There hasn't been months. that have gone by where we haven't sang or we haven't performed. So, you know, it's like a muscle. If you work it out all the time, it'll be there for you. And because we've never really ever been separated in our whole lives,

we sing almost every other week or so. And I mean, definitely in the last five years or so, we've been extremely consistent. I mean, with Vegas, we, I mean, there's probably not a week that's gone by in the last five years that we haven't sang. What's up? No, it's inconsistency. What are you doing now to make sure this?

Oh, we're saying. Well, I mean, we still sing. We just don't sing together. I mean, I'm sure, you know, we know each other's personality. So, you know, we sing around the house. We sing on stuff we create. I mean, we just sing. I think we're just, it's funny when we first got started our role manager years ago,

Khal, you know, we would sing so much that every time we would sing, he would pull out a cup almost as if, you know, you guys trying to sing for some coins or whatever. Because, you know, we hadn't quite. been successful in. So he was like, you know, you got to learn when to tone it down and when, you know, you just can't sing all the time. But I think that's one thing that he never really could take out of us. So over time, you know, we, this is just something that we've always done. Okay. So real quick, real quick. Yeah. What do you mean by you plead the fifth on the last question, then? I need to. Oh, no. Well, see, again, I, the difference for me is that,

unlike you guys, I fly before we did this for the last five years, I fly almost 5,000 miles a week for Vegas. So when you talk about needing time away, I probably need a lot more than you guys do because it's just too much for me to do. I mean, I'm flying east, west, east, west, every single week.

So it's not. So for that residency, you were doing, come to Vegas, I live in Florida. I've been flying back. for the last five years every week. And are you still, Nate, were you still doing your show as well?

Were you still doing your show? See, see, see, the thing is, I mean, I'm answering, I'm asking Wyn's question because I know what he's saying. It's like, I just need a clarification because, you know what I'm saying? I just, I lay that, I lay down, I need clarification. No, no, no, but that's what I was saying.

It's like, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not the group per se. It's just when you, my, my, my grind is a little bit different than you guys, because you guys on the West Coast. You're right there. You're 30 minutes away. You know what I'm saying?

But when you got to wake up at 4.30 every Thursday or Friday, fly out every weekend, turn right back around. And that's not counting what we do during the week. I mean, yeah, nigger need a break. Right. I get it. So that means native James Poyser and Juanez Amir. See, I was like, I'm going to be in Manhattan. I'll move to Manhattan.

James is like, no, I'm going to go further down south to Delaware and drive every day. for three hours. All right. I get it down. Yeah. That's right about it, but you're about right. This leads to my next question. So you know, I was immersed in my particular culture at Creative and Performing Arts

High School. For those that don't know, we all went to the same high school. Never made it. Never made it. Never made it. Never made it. Never made it. Never made it to advisory. Because he sat right next to me. I know he wasn't there. We know. So, The thing is, is that, you know, there's, I don't know much about the singing culture at creative and performing arts.

So my particular experience there was, all right, first of all, like, I had a kind of a Bloods and Crips environment. The Bloods were like the Jazzheads. So in order to get Chris and Joey's respect, I just study all this 40s jazz to let them know I speak their language. Right, right. And then on the other side, Kurt Rosenwinkel, I don't know if you remember Kurt Rosenwinkel, but he's like, yeah, he's, he's a massive deal right now in the world of jazz. So he would try to force me to unlearn all the old shit that Chris and Joey wanted me to learn. Right.

And then I'm going behind both their backs and doing hip-hop with Tariq, kind of like whatever gang was winning, that that's the side I was on. Right. But what was the culture for vocal majors on the fourth floor? Oh, I can, I can, I can, and like, take me through it. I could break that down because, because honestly, I wasn't in any of it. Because when I came- But y'all would break out in the song. Yeah, but see, here's the thing.

When I came in, Y, he wasn't in yet. I came in in 86 and Yen came in 87. You there as a freshman. Okay. And I, when I came in, you had your cliques. You know what I'm saying? You know, I'm saying? You had your gospel kids, you know, the ones that just straight up sang gospel all day, every day.

Jesus, he gives us, Lord, Jesus, all day. You know what I'm saying? And then then you had the cool kids, you know what I'm saying, that Nate used to hang around. No, no, no, no, go, no, don't even do that to yourself. No, no, no, no, no, no. If you don't do it, be right, be right. I'll not be right. I did not hang around them.

They hung around me. Let's get it right. Let's not even, and you know I'm not a flexia, by it. No, no, I need to, we're going to clear it up. They hung around me because most of them is from North Philly. Thank you. So Capo was in South Philly, and you know every day after school, the Palumbo kids will come outside and try to beat our asses every day

because we could sing and dance, right? And I didn't have that problem. A lot of those dudes hung around Nate, as he says it, because, you know, that was the cool kids. That's my neighborhood. So they want to get their ass beat, so they all got. Wait, how real was the Palumper? Because, again, I was so, when you were in that basement,

you could hide all day and nobody would miss you until you get to it. Right, so I was separated from all that shit because we just stay in the basement. It was real.

How real was that Palombo shit? That's not, the third and fourth line. The bottom line is a one of my friends got his nose broken. By them little kids? Yeah.

Okay, no, no. Here, here, here. Here, let me do you. Don't listen. Palombo, all right, let me, let me, let me explain it to you. I got you. Okay, okay.

Those little kids their big brothers were from the projects. There you go. There you go. There you go. So they lived in my neighborhood. I went to the school because I was local. Most of the other guys went to the school because they were from northeast and it was a magnet school.

So when they came down, you know, with their little, you know, so-called Gucci shoes and whatnot, my neighborhood guys wasn't happy about that. And then they would be in the school and they would mess with the little Colombian kids and they'd go tell their big brothers. And by the end of the day,

their big brothers would be waiting outside. And I'm the only one that can walk outside and I have a problem. So they hung around me. They was young, yo. They was like Babeay's kids. They was like 50 and 6 graders. Yeah. Because we had to be split.

Not graders. High school that we shared. Them, it was their bigger brothers. That was our age. I got you. So it wasn't the actual plumbus. A lot of little kids. But they was causing the issue, though.

Yeah. Well, what it was was the school was, it was a big high school, one of those older schools and, you know, it's a neighborhood with no money. So they split our high school at the same building with lower grade kids that were like seventh and eighth grade. So they were on one side of the building, we were on the other side. And they didn't. Those upper crusty

so-called Kappa choir people that like to, you know, mess with little broke kids, would call them all kinds of names. They'd go home and tell their family, and then they'd have to deal with it after But you know, you know what, it wasn't always them calling them names and stuff. It was the fact that we were, that the, you know, artists are eccentric, you know what I'm saying? So we walk different, we talk different, we act different, you know what I'm saying? You know what I said?

And I'm not going to front of me and I'm not going to front. I mean, of course there was some interaction. I'm sure the interaction escalated it to be what it became. But the thought process behind it is there was a lot of fucking kids in that school. And the fact that we all had to interact at some point in time, whether it was crossing the hallways, I'm sure there was a little bit of eyeing and things like that. But when you left the school, you're not thinking that what happened in school is going to check.

You're not thinking that. So when you walk outside and you see all these dudes standing on the wall, like, did he go right there? Or there they go. it didn't even have to be that person. It's just they wanted to make sure that they made themselves known and seen that this is their neighborhood

and y'all going to have to run if y'all come out here. Anyway, I digress. I digress. Back to the vocal culture. There you go, me. So you had the so-called... This is my favorite episode?

I just said the same shit. You had the so-called cool kids, right? They all hung out with Nate. And then you had the geeks, right? The nerds, right? The spasoids, the un- Okay, Sean. Horribles, the guys.

I don't know, wait, well, time out, Sean, you weren't a dweeb. Nah. I was. You was pulling yours, though. No, he was pulling Jones when he got in the group. You all was, you all was, I know that's right.

I don't know. No, no, no, let me explain. I don't think I got enough of this. That was very true, which is one of the reasons why, one of the reasons why I had somewhat of an issue, because, listen, I was the same nigger when I went in the school, right? Right. I could sing the same. I hung around the same people, even when I was in the group, the whole nine yards. Not really, though.

I get in the group, you know that show February 14th. Yeah, the one y'all cheat with the sparkles? Yes, okay. You know, I think if you guys with sparkles, you know, if you guys with sparkles, you know, I didn't put a bunch of out there and just a play. I ain't never look that shit out. The mayor said y'all had the whole outfit since high school. Oh, yeah, no, we, oh, listen, listen.

You don't kill that shit, boy. They had sparkles in their hand for like, let me tell you some. If you and boys to men, you're going all the way. That's the only way we know how to do it. All right. Yeah. So to bring our people up to date,

There was a Valentine's Day performance in school and you know, there's the moment where you felt like, all right, now we're about to kill you. You thought your instrument was just going to do it. No, that's going to be on, digger. He's going to be on there. He needed some sparkles.

I lie. I lie to you not. He ran into the sparkles. I lie to you not. The dickens got beat by sparkles. He's very strong for me. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

Go ahead. I'm dead serious. When y'all walked on stage, I was like, oh, shit, they're like a real group. Like, this isn't unique attraction anymore. This is like a real group. And the thing was, girls were screaming in the audience like it was Ed Sullivan on the Beatles. Absolutely. And I was like, yo, but dude, like.

I just sat nice to me. still might owe me 75 cents. Like, this is still them. They're not a real group. But for that, for that 10-minute performance, y'all, y'all transformed into like, it was like the Jackson's came to school and shit. And I was like, wow.

Let me tell you, dude, honestly, we didn't really realize it until that. It was one of those things where I think the same way you felt it at that moment. It's the same way we felt it. And we literally had no idea. What the hell was happening? None.

None. Wow. I mean, it's- That was a transformative movement. It's crazy you bring that up because, you mean, like Sean said, it was girls that, you know, I'm pretty sure we all tried to like, you know, send my holler at during the year, you know what I mean? And they basically gave us no attention whatsoever.

Word. When we, when the, because you remember, the principal came and stopped it. Yes. He was going to stop because riots we're about to break out. Because it was so loud

the crowd was like, this is not a concert this is not, you remember that? Yeah. And we were like, in our pose

is looking stupid as shit trying to about Yeah, we were, like, wait, that's really weird. I thought I was the only one

that remembered this moment. I was like, I wasn't even going to bring it up because I'm like, oh, they don't remember that shit. Oh, no, dude. Let me tell you.

So we talk, we should talk about it on a tour bus all the time, dude. Like Juan said, And Sean said, nobody wouldn't talk to us, dude. We all had our own little cliques. But when we were doing boys to men and stuff,

because everybody in the school could sing, you know, Amel could sing. Everybody could sing. It was just like, okay, well, everybody could sing. But it wasn't just in the school. It was after school when we stayed there until 10 o'clock at night or when we went down the subway at 10 o'clock at night. It was all that stuff that put us a little bit ahead of everybody else.

And it became normal for us. That's just the way. we're supposed to do it. Yeah, we didn't stop at 3 o'clock. And it was just crazy because those girls, man, after that performance, the same girls, I remember them, Khadija. She was personal. She sat right next to me right after the class and she was like, why he didn't give me a

rose? And I was like, that's why you didn't give me a number? I don't know, I'm not gonna make it. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm telling you. I love you. You know how important it was like, you know, bag of upperclassmen.

And I was like in the- Every grade. And I had a classman for a girl from, like a straight singer, like weeks after the show. Like I had a baddie. So y'all went from Burgess to not-Virc. But I'm gonna tell you what's crazy, You know, when you look at the whole musical landscape

at the school at that time, it's like, you know, we used to try to do new addition stuff like that and sound modern and that was kind of our niche. But, like, you guys and stuff was interesting to us because it was like, we knew, our parents would hear y'all do your jazz stuff and be like, ooh, we'd be like, that's my friend. Like, he's not playing old stuff.

Like, and it's, and you knew the vibe because it was like, if older people fell in love with you guys and stuff, it was fire. Not that young people didn't, but we couldn't mentally soak in all that deep jazz stuff y'all had going on. So we would just watch and watch older people just lose their mind. Like, these guys are so deep and they're, in their, you know, they're so rich. And we'd be like, we can't even read half the music stuff that they've played.

It's like, it was interesting. It was you guys were more cultured than we could ever. get at that age in our life. And let me tell you Let me tell you some month though, Amir. Like even now, like we would tell people in interviews that those four years

were probably some of the best years arguably in that school because so much talent came out of those four years. It was something going on. You talk about it real quick, Sean, because it's common knowledge to y'all, but to the rest of the world, people don't know what came out of Kappa.

Like, can you just tell us? It was Tariq and Amir. It was a Melarou. It was Joey Bride. Chris Riebred, Joey DeFrancco. Like, it was so many established, now established, still touring the world, making money, you know,

winning awards, the whole nine yards that happened in that four years. And we all went to the same school together. A win is a win. A win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told,

and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network

on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends,

oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone?

I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with him one day. And I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent,

I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. Mm. and he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the Sports Sliced podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Sliced podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects.

From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar, this is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone's, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian and Michael Maranini. My mind was blown.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so I came to Kappa.

You came in 11th grade as well? No, but the year you came in, I was already there. Right. So the thing was is that the first incarnation of the group was unique attraction. How did that dissolve and how did it morph into boys to men? The first incarnation was in 85. Oh, okay. That was me.

That was none of the guys that you know other than me. Not even Mark Nelson. Not even Mark Nelson. Okay. No, no, no. No, no. No, no. No, not even Mark Nelson.

Mark was right after that. We had one guy kick out. So right on the end of that was guys, you don't know other than Mark. And as people would graduate school and lead a group or quit in a group, when they girl pull them out, you know, all the crazy stuff. You know, I would just put, you know, other people back in a group. Now, it's funny because Juan was actually picked before anybody else before he actually got into school because I watched him audition the year before.

And I knew somebody was leaving. So I was like, all right, well, if he leaving, I'm going to get that little negative. as he get in there, he just don't really know how his thing is going down. So then, you know, wine was added when we had, you know, me wine and it was a girl and two other guys. And then Sean actually, again, like Sean said, he kind of had his own little nerdy click. We didn't really know how well he could sing.

We knew he could sing because he's in the choir because, you know, at school, don't pick nobody. But he had a solo one year. And I was like, I need him. So the next year, somebody else left, put him in. and then it was me, him, Juan, and Mark, and it was just us. Mike just snuck in by mistake. It wasn't like we really handpicked the guy.

He was, we were singing the bathroom rehearsing. Mike walked past us while we were rehearsing. He went to the bathroom, taking pitch, and while we were singing, he sang along with what we were singing. You know, Mike's voice, you know, so it filled up the bathroom. In those acoustics, right. Yeah, so it was like, all right, well, you know, let's see how he works in here.

And then that was that was what you know. And that all came together around 88, right, Sean? Yes. 88, yeah. So, okay, for those that don't know, what actually I don't know. I know the legend of the Civic Center story, but how exactly did you finagle your way backstage to Biv? Was it a new edition performance? Like, what was the actual story?

It was the powerhouse, Amir. Oh, shit. Okay. It was the powerhouse. It was the powerhouse that year. And that was the year that um, uh, Bell Biv Duvaux was actually being announced.

Like they, Mike and Rick and Ron went to Philly to make an announcement that they were going to be a singing group together. But the thing was was, obviously Charlie knew Nate, Charlie and, and Charlie was like, yo, I'm gonna have

I'm gonna have real let y'all, you know, hear y'all sing. You know what I'm saying? And he was like, all right, cool. So we're sitting out, you know, front, waiting for Charlie to show up or whatever. He never showed, but we knew we ran into Teddy Pendergrass's daughter. Yeah.

Donna. Okay. Anna Pendergrass, right? So she was right. And she was like, yo, I'm gonna get y'all in. So we got in. That's another story. So, so, so we So, so we know. So we, okay, so we, okay.

So we got it to the venue, right? Right? So we got it to say. And so we're waiting around the backstage area, right? So I don't know, and Nate, you can help me out. Who was the first person to kind of get their way? Mark started talking to or whatever. and she was there obviously because of her dad.

So she had a friend with her, and they had one extra pass. I guess it was somebody else who were waiting for. So Mark kind of finagled the pass from him, and he went backstage, and they were kicking it, whatever. And then he borrowed one of theirs and came back out, gave it to one of the guys. Then we kept switching the pass back and forth

until everybody got back there. And by the time we got back there, Rick and Ron and them was coming offstage because they was actually hosting the show. So it was coming offstage from introducing the group. And when they came off stage, he was like, yo,

we asked Ricky first. Like, yo, do we got, you know, can we sing for you? And he was like, you know, y'all got a tape.

You know, tape back then. Y'all got a tape. We could just sing it right now. He was like, well, you know, y'all got to send us a tape. And then Ron was like,

yeah, well, you know, y'all can send it? He writing the address. And I was like, man, fuck that. So I asked Mike. I was like, yo, dude,

can we sing for you? Mike was like, can you do it right now? And he was like, Yeah. Like, all right, cool. And we just rocked in the freaking, what was it? I can't remember.

King's Day of Rain. Yeah, in King's Day of Rain. And everybody was standing around watching. And by the time we finished, Charlie showed up. And it was, I'm talking about, look, Keith Sweat was there. When we finished, surrounding us was Keith Sweat, Paul Abdul, Shirel. All of, like, Will Smith. All the hot art, yeah.

Yeah, no, Will came in after. After we finished. When we finished singing, Will came in with a red leather jumpsuit. Yup. And it's a herring bone that said fresh prints. You know, can't get up it in with child. And then that's that thing. Yeah.

Yeah. What's funny is after we finished, Rick was like, well, you know, y'all still got to send us a tape. And Mike was like, nah, y'all y'all niggas ain't got to send me nothing here. I'm gonna be here. And this time, redda-da-da-da-da-da. Call me in about a week and a half, and that was it. Wow. Wow.

Just to hear that story, it's all. almost like creative Russian roulette because if it's five minutes, if it's had Charlie Mac showed up in time, it would have been a whole different trajectory. Absolutely. Anybody standing backstage could have had, it could have been a different result. That's right. That's crazy. That's Charlie.

Charlie Mac learned at that moment not to be late. We learned not to depend on Charlie Mac. Hey, Nate, no, no, hey, Nate, you know I had this same conversation with Trump and he denied this whole story. Of course he did. Of course he is. He completely denies that this is had, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.

No, no. No, no. And first of all, Sean, you know what's funny is that, Mayor, check this out. Not only did we have to get backstage, we didn't even have tickets to get in. I can't even remember how we snuck in the building in itself. Yeah, right, right.

That's quite a few people's story for Powerhouse, though. You know, Our House's its own legacy in the house. that way. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? Honestly, we started to realize that everybody was sneaking in the powerhouse after that. After we told the story, everybody's sneaking power. Oh, dude, I hate y'all for this story simply because then suddenly comes the onslaught of, Yo, can I spit for you real quick?

Yo, because they hear the story and then they're like, can I speak for you? Yeah. Can I move real quick? And it just happened. What's funny is they do it for us too. And now we'd be like, Okay. Oh, give me a chance.

Is there somebody, like, is there someone established right now that has a story for y'all, like, I came to y'all first and y'all didn't hear us? Oh, we got this. A lot of people. People established now, who? You told you all. Music came to us when we were at the, uh, the vibing video shoot.

You were shoot a line. Man. And I didn't even know, I didn't even know. I didn't even know it could stink. Yep. he's one, it's a couple of them, bro. Oh, here's another. Poor music.

Wow. A-Kahn. A-Kahn? A-Kahn. Gave us a CD or something we was on the bus somewhere. A lot of records, bro. Yeah, we listened. Y'all could have had A-Kine?

He could have, he was writing music for us. It would, like, crazy. Oh, that would have been crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I could see how the voice was. It happens, man. It happens.

It happens. So, all right. When the, whatever, whatever day that stands in your mind for officially arriving. Right. What lesson would you tell yourself back then that you wish you knew as a precautionary tale? I'm only asking this because I tell people I told someone like I think last episode

I said I spent my entire advance in three weeks not knowing that that was it. Right. I blew my whole advance on like four stopping sprees and that was it. What lesson did you

did you wish you knew then the first time you got put on like that first year? It's yeah Well, okay. Oh, my God. Am I a DJ Vlad now?

No. I thought I knew. You're in the culture. Absolutely not. You're in the culture. Yeah, yeah. I thought I had. I thought I had.

I'm not dead. I thought I had my business in order. I thought when my group signed a 50-50 publishing deal with Mike Bivens that it was a 50-50 publishing deal. And without me going too deep into it, it wasn't.

Okay. So you wish you would have fought for that? I wish I would have known a little bit more at that moment than I knew four months after that, because it didn't take much long to figure it out. But it was a life-changing decision that if it was made early for all of us at that point, four months, five, six years later, things would have been a lot different. A lot different, yeah. Okay.

Well, to ask, was it was the, was the, parting with Biv amicable? It was not at first. I mean, I think it's better now. To this day, are you fine now? I think we're better now, but at that time, it was not amicable at all, no. It was actually, the funny thing is,

is he was literally forced to part with us. That's right. You know what I mean? Because it was between boys to men and Biv 10 records. You know what I mean? And we were both involved with Motown records at the time. So, you know, he had to make a choice because they said it was a conflict of interest, and he chose Bivton Records.

Yeah, he had a big business. He did not take away from the fact that he had 50% of our publishing. And writers. Was Gerald Busby a part of that? What role did he play? It was a critical part of it. At the time that we split, it was during the time that was going through a major transition of being sold

to a larger record later and we were a key piece and we were at a time yeah and we let we basically let him know we were at that time we were about 9 million records in or 8 something like that whatever it was a lot and

you know we saw all of the bad deals surrounding us and we were like yo in order for us to kind of continue and make records you know we basically very kindly he said, well, you got to fix this deal or else we're not making any more records. So in, you know, trying to fix

the whole situation, Gerald presented Bidt with the Bid 10 deal, Bid 10 record. Because we were signed actually actually that deal was that deal was predicated on Mike finding three artists, which he

did. Before we even met Mike, it was set up for him to find artists and then if his artists were successful, he would roll over into that record label, which the artist was us, another bad creation. And at that time, M.C. Brames, he had three successful artists. But because we were on the back end of that, like Sean said, we, you know, our numbers weren't right for us. Gerald pretty much said, listen, I got this deal with you, but you can't be in these guys' pockets, too. You got to figure something out because these guys are holding up my company now.

So if they don't make a record, I got a problem with you. So he jammed him up saying, listen, you can take one of the other. You can take this Big Ten deal and roll and rock with that, or you can rock with that. He knew we weren't really happy because early on, you know, we figured this thing, like I said, it wasn't too far. We figured this thing out about two and a half million records. I'm like, this money ain't right.

So we rode it out 14 million records, knowing that it was wrong. So by the time we got there, he chose to go with Bib 10 because he produced his three records, that artists that were supposed to, you know, was successful. and then we ventured off. So Gerald made that split happen. Otherwise, Mike would still be a part of Boystam in some kind of way right now. Wow.

Wow. So I guess the boy fruit punch didn't deliver too much. No. No. He didn't get out much. It didn't get out much. All right. So who, what's the, what's the, I guess the,

the process of deciding what the creative vision is at least for your records. Like, okay, you got a record deal. And I know that, you know, the characters in Dallas collaborated with you guys. But who decides, like, who says that, okay, let's start off with, I never, besides the SOS band, I don't know many groups that have thrived starting their album off with three ballots. That's just something I heard about. I was like, wait a minute. They're talking with a balance.

Please don't go, boy. Right, exactly. Man. Well, you know what? It wasn't supposed to happen that way. We didn't have any records. They didn't know what to do with us. They signed the R&B group that could sing and they loved it.

But once we made, they did, once we got signed, they didn't have any songs. So, like, you know, all the songs that was on the first album, if you look, we wrote all those and performing arts. We wrote those in those hallways and those rooms. Before we even had a deal. Yeah. before we had a deal. We had those songs done and they were like Dallas, we're going to put you with this group. What songs you got? Dallas had Motown Philly sitting around from the Joyce Irby Days, but other than that, Dallas Austin had no more record. So we was like, oh, well,

we got, you know, we do it so hard to say goodbye to the yesterday. There's a cover. You know, we wrote, please don't go. It's only hard. We like, we wrote all the records, so we just start recording them. And Dallas put the production, he produced the record. We sung it to him, and he sat there and figured it all out. produce the record and, you know, those songs that you actually hear were already pre-written. And as far as the ballast is concerned, you got people tend to forget that Motown Philly was the first single. It wasn't a ballot. Right. Okay. No, I just meant in terms of the record itself. Who's the alpha that decides, okay, this is the title of the album. This is going to be

like... That was bid. Yeah, that was bid. And I think, you know, him talking to us, he kind of understood our strengths and in the albums. specifically, this specific album, Kulihaar harmony, and the ballads had such a presence that we all agree that, you know, the Adagio side was the best side, you know. That was the performing arts we stole. Right.

Right. You know what I'm saying? So we wanted that just as much because those hit different with us, you know what I'm saying? And it hit different with our friends. We would bring friends over and stuff like that. I mean, they love the up. but the ballads just kind of,

that kind of made it real for us. Yeah, I went through that list kind of fast. I'm just curious, those songs that you said that you wrote in high school were what, and then how did that division, I'm so curious, the songwriting process and a division of work. Nate wrote, Please Don't Go in Lonely Heart

in school. As we were going along with the process of doing the record, you know, we started coming up with ideas. Uh, Juan Ye and Nate wrote, uh, Well, no, me and you, we wrote, This is my heart in school. This is my heart.

Me and what, yeah, I wrote, I wrote my part on the train, on the L. That's right. And then I came in. And Juan wrote his, you know, the loving and crazy than only time. Uh-huh. Like, he, you know what I mean? Like, and, and he wrote that in the studio. Me and Sean wrote more time, filming in my backyard.

Yeah, me, John wrote, we wrote that in Mr. Walker's room, bro. I promise you. Which one? Loving and kissing and holding it. Yeah, I think I remember that. You're right. Mr. Walker. Yo, so just to reiterate,

just to reiterate what y'all said earlier for the novices, for people who were just listening, y'all wrote these songs in high school, and yet still you only got 50% of these songs. Absolutely. And that's when you look at, like me and Sean sitting in my backyard, right, Motown, Philly, you know, when, I mean, again, I give Viv all the credit

for, you know, a lot of the creative stuff, you know, the idea of creating a song called Motown Philly, the idea of coming up with a song called O-A. Titles and concepts are great, but none of that has been titled you to having 50% of my song. And that's where things started to go left. And we, you know, we looked up to them a lot. So our thing was, you know, that's our guy, you know what I'm saying,

it's cool, we understand. But once we start to realize money is coming through and we're still in South Philly, something's got to change. But I don't want to get back on the negative. I'm going to stay on the other stuff. As far as the songs, like I said, me and Sean did Motown Philly in my backyard. And then wine, we were all sitting in my brother's room. And like I said, Bib came up with the idea, you guys need to write a song called,

Oh, ah. And niggins is like, ugh, ah, what the fuck? So we was like, who going to let's like, nobody wanted to write it. So we all flipped the coin and Juan lost. So he had to write it. So he started writing the song. We all went back in the studio. I voted on the toilet time.

Both versions? I was about to ask, yeah, which one? Both versions? The remix was fired. I was going to say, I'm the remix person. Yeah. The remix was our body. Sean, I think me and Sean did the remix, I think.

Yeah, we did. I did the track. Anyway, why I started writing, he came to the studio, and he couldn't finish it. So he's like, yo, dude, you know, finish this time of that. I finished it. I finished it, but you said, it ain't nasty. Y'all said, it ain't nasty enough. And he was like, well, dude, I mean, you know, what are we supposed to do?

I said, give it here. So I rewrote some of it. I rewrote it and wrote more parts of it. And then we started singing it. Well, I was like, I don't know, man. My dad ain't going to be proud of me with this song. We just like, all right, well, go ahead. We just pushed record and just kept going.

It was like, we ain't, we're trying to pressure that right now. So one came in studio late the day we was recording. And we had a girl in the studio, didn't make the record. But we had a girl in the studio making these sounds and stuff on the- Oh, yes. She's the mic, right? Mike. Right.

Yeah, but I mean, like, some of the stuff that we had didn't make the record. Oh. But anyway. Because the video was enough, the video. Wine came in. I was on the console. Wine came in, and he heard the girl. He looked in the booth.

He was like, what is this? What is this? We're just trying to, you know, get the song where it needs to be. He's like, dude, I told you, my dad ain't gonna be proud of it. And he ran out and slammed the door, me and he showed all the day and he said, like, I tried it again one more time, we go from the top. Just kept going. So, again, most of those songs, almost all those songs except two on the first album,

we all wrote, either in high school or on the way to the studio or when houses getting ready to make that record. Because Motown had no songs for us. They didn't know what to do with us at all. Wow. So how difficult was the transition in your personal lives? Again, I can only speak from an experience that your life drastically changes and probably the people that change the most on you are your,

are family members, like people that are close to you and whatnot. How awkward or not awkward. What's that adjustment like? with your first year into coming out with as far as interacting with friends from your childhood and people that feel entitled? Yeah, I can't say, I can't say that there's been like some level dramatic, like change personally from people that I knew. The people that I knew were actually in support of me even before all this stuff.

So when it happened for me personally, they were like, okay. that makes sense because I was the kid that was in the Philadelphia Boys Choir at 8. You know, I did these things and that, you know, all the other stuff. So when it came down to, oh, I'm in the group, yeah, you had a couple of knuckleheads. It was like, oh, Nick, I don't believe you until, you know, it all happened. But it was never like, oh, you know, give me some money or some credit. It was, it wasn't a movie scene. It was all supported in a sense where when I came back to my neighborhood, everybody was like,

yo, what's up? And I was sit, my old stoop, just with my, you know, the same friends that I had and we'd hang out and kick it. I think it's the same with everybody. I mean, nobody. Not me, because. Not me. Not me, guys.

Nah. I had that, like, yo, dude, like, yo, you're supposed to come? You're supposed to get us up all out of here. And I'm sitting here going through it because I'm a logical thinking, guys. I go through my head, I'm like, and I ask this dude, all right, it's probably y'all out here. Let's just, just play this game for a second.

with you. I'm supposed to make it and come back and get all of y'all out. So if I come get all five of y'all out and give y'all all my stuff, y'all going to be going and I'm going to be back here on this corner by myself. I'm not going to be here by myself. I'm not giving you all nothing. Yeah. And that's how that went. Well, with me, it was, with me, it was a little different because now I'm from the project. I'm for Richard Island Project. Richard Allen. Yeah. And now Northern Liberties. Exactly. Now half a million

dollar homes. Exactly. So I'm from Richard Island and a lot of people that when I became famous, they were my age. You know what I'm saying?

There's a lot of cats that was my age, but they were doing other things. I'm saying they were street pharmacists. You know what I'm saying? They were, you know, they was hustling. They was doing all the different stuff. But they always supported me.

You know what I'm saying? Once we became you know, famous, so to speak, we actually, you know, when I would come back, every time I would come back, somebody was in jail or dead. You know what I'm saying?

And it was their brothers and sisters who were now older in the place where they were, so they didn't have the same respect for me as their brothers. Oh, geez did, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Who was like, yeah, we finally

made it, you know what I'm saying? That's how they felt. But then as they started going, you know, to prison and, you know, passing away and stuff, there, there, there was no respect there. I even had to move my grandma out of and she loved the projects. She loved it. Even when I was making money, she really literally wanted to stay there. You know what I'm saying? Because that's really all she knew for so long. But I had to move her out of there because I couldn't go and sit out in front of her house with my, with my, with my bins now, you know what I'm saying? with my bins or in my truck and people just walk by. It was always something.

And my grandma was here getting a lot from it. And she basically was like, yeah, they're talking crazy. I said, well, you got to move out of here. And I just bought it. The heat was coming for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's different. I mean, family is a little different too, of course,

because like you said, there's always an entitlement somewhere. Somewhere, it's not necessarily always the immediate, it, but there's always an entitlement of a cousin, of a cousin of a cousin. You know what I'm saying, that you do know, but they're not really, you know, a part of your life like that, you know? I tell you what's funny with me is that I had to try to,

because I always try to think a little bit ahead. I had to try to think for family members who don't really understand the change or the lifestyle. And in some cases, you know, obviously when you become successful, you can't bring your whole family, you know, out of the ghetto. I mean, there are people still live there and whatnot. to the point where I had to start seeing my family at my house because I always felt like me driving up in my car going in their house, I'm kind of endangering them.

Because when I leave, whoever saw that car pull up is like, well, why was he going in there? What's in there that I don't know about? So I would always have to wind up having my family come to me. And I had to kind of pull up from going to see my family just not to put them in those spots. It's a controlled environment if they come to see you. Yeah, exactly, exactly. How burdensome is in the end of the road in retrospect? How burdensome is it?

Like, I understand what he said. Is it an I-roll? Is it, how do you feel like, no, no, no, even when it was happening, when it was happening, you know, okay, so I was obsessively reading Billboard. Like, this is right before we got put on. So I was always hanging in industry circles. I was intern in at Roughhouse. So when it got to that 12th week, like every 40-year-old white guy was like,

yo, they're about to break the Beatles record. It was like Santa Claus wasn't real. You had no idea. No, for real. It was like Santa Claus wasn't real. And they were going to break this record in the next. And it happened. Like, did it feel anyway?

Or was it just like, yeah, it's no problem. didn't even make it about a doctor because we didn't know. Yeah, when we got the news, we were in London. And, you know, we were overseas most of the time that end of the road was doing what it was doing. So when we finally got the news, we were literally 10 minutes in going to on stage at the hippodrome in London. And someone told us, hey, guys, you know, you guys broke the record. You know, longest number one, blah, blah, blah. We were like, oh, cool.

That was it. Wow. I think it was more so, I think it was. Very Philly. Honestly, we didn't really know how much it meant. Like, again, the same way we were in high school was the same exact way we were in the business for a long time. It was just find a song, learn the song, sing the song better than any damn other group

can ever sing it on the planet and keep doing it again and again and again. And every single day, that's all, everything was about. So all the other stuff that was going on, that didn't even matter. It's like, okay, well, now we're finished with time as rehearsal. Rehearsals at seven. We got to get, we got to get these harmonies right for the next thing. It was just never a time to even think about that. We just didn't know how big that was. Right. And the funny thing was at the same time, it's if we were, if we knew that the record even existed, like you said, you were around that circle, Amir, so you know what I mean? People were saying, oh,

this is about to happen, we didn't even know that there was a record that existed, that needed to be broken. You know what I'm saying? So if we were like waiting for it, like, oh, we're about to do it. We're about to do it. Yeah. We didn't do it. I guess if you're living it, if you guys are actively working, living it and I'm observing it, it's different. Like at that point, I was observing it. So for me, like, me observing those first two years was just like, wow, like someone, that I actually know is doing something

yeah doing something fucking big let me let me tell you nothing let me tell you one real quick we got the same vibe with y'all and this was crazy we was running around doing all the stuff went up to Canada what now you know Canada they got the all the all the gear and whatnot

the first time we ever heard roots was the clothing line in Canada so we was like all jackets this nigga we heard about we heard y'all as the roots we was like Oh, we know that's a, fuck what, that's, dude, that's, that's a mere. No, it was, for us, it was like, we just felt like, yo, our other brother made it. You know what I'm saying? Like, that was just so dope for us.

Like, because that's the only way we, that was our only time. We ever heard anything about a roots. And then it's like, oh, it's a group. And they, oh, that's, oh, we know the biggest, yo. And that was it. That was it, Cud. I wish. But they forgot about your ass after high school, huh, I'm here?

It was like, oh, no. Dude. Wait, wait, wait. I'm not, no, for real. I got to tell you that I had to throw that shirt away. Which one? Because, all right, so it's weird. I know your lives have changed, but imagine a 2.6, a 2.6.

a 2.6 second cameo. In a video. Yeah. I wouldn't even talk about that. Oh, yeah, that's right. A 2.6 second cameo. It literally, it changed my life at that point. To the point where, like,

Tariq would come by the crib, we go by. And he's like, wait, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know. He's like, you're not wearing the shirt. I said, I'm not wearing that shirt. yo. Go get the shirt, man.

That shows dirty. I'll wait. Like, that outfit had to be worn. The worst it ever got was at my grandmoms funeral. Wow. I'm not lying. I'm not lying to you. Wow.

It's like, it's, like, you guys were so popular. So when they asked you to be in a video, Amir, you just, how long did you take to say yes? Hell yeah. Dude, like that being in a video was like, yeah. And that's why, and the funny thing is- Being verified on Instagram. Exactly. Right.

What's even funny a man is that back then, like you wake up at four in the morning all excited, looking at your outfit like, yeah, it's like Easter. But it's funny because back then, as soon as we got the word that we was doing Motown, Philly and we knew it was doing it in Philly, I mean, just nature.

for us was like, who do we know? Who's our people? Amir, Tashel. But we would, anybody we grew up, we like, we got to get everybody in the video. Yeah. Was it Angie in that film? Tashel Johnson?

Wasn't Angie in that video, too? Yeah. Larry Lyre. Angela Nissel. No, she's, she wasn't in a while. We tried our best to get everybody in that video. EST. Because we, we wanted, we wanted Philly to be finally on the map with us.

We couldn't go on. the map without everybody else. Ah, Hansel was in it, yeah. Hansel, yeah. Hansel, oh my God. Maybe Reverend Hansel. I don't know what. Must respect to Hansel.

Yes, he's Reverend, Reverend Hansel. He's the Reverend out. One of the tax free boys. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about that free Jesus money. All right. I got you.

I'm fucking with Nate. Tax free. Hey, man. I know the, I know. I know to get up. Come on, now. Yeah. Yeah, for real.

Like, I had to throw the shirt away and not rock that shit no more. That's crazy. Yeah, man, that's what's that. Yeah, but it got, it got crazy. No, what I, actually, what I do want to know is, can you guys speak on Khalil, Roundtree? Like, your relationship with him? and the effect that that had on you? Greatest man in our life.

Kyle Lille through Biv, because Kyle Lill was role manager for new edition. And we met him in Philly, right, guys? We met him in, we used to rehearse on. RPM. RPM on Delaware Avenue. Right. We were 20, Delaware Avenue, baby.

Yeah. And, you know, to make a long story short, you know, Khalil became my father figure, you know, somebody that looked out for us and protected us from everything and everybody. And, you know, even though Bibb brought him in and initially his loyalty was to Bibb, you know, that slowly turned it turned into something else. Like, you know, he, he started to love us just like we started to love him. And it became us, you know. When you talk about that where your father's like in you guys lives, like what was the status of that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But no, they weren't on the road with us. Gotcha, got you. You know what I'm saying? Like, when we were on the road and we were traveling and doing all the stuff that we were doing, he took on that father, you know, figure. Yeah, mine was out. But, yeah. Right. But for the most part, he took care of all of us.

And he made sure that, you know, we were not only safe, but that we were carrying ourselves the right way. you know, we stay motivated and even doing rehearsals and all the other stuff. Like he, he was something special because, you know, he really gave a shit about us. It wasn't just a paycheck, you know, to Khalil. Like, he became an integral part of all of our families. He would talk to all of our mothers on the road and, you know, because the mothers would be calling on the road making sure that we all right. He would talk to each and every one of them making sure that they knew that, you know,

we were safe and all that. Like he became something different than just, the average romance. I mean? Yeah, he actually, my dad was only comfortable with me being on the road when he met Khalil. Once he met Colleen, he was like,

okay, I'm cool. Yeah. He was like a partner for me, man. Like I said, my dad wasn't around. So, you know, I think I got the call first from Viv about a guy that he was looking into and Khalil had, it was the night before we all met him. he was staying at an airport marriott or whatever and you know he had with a big giant silver case with all his cassettes lined up on his thing in his room and um when i first walked in dude

i mean i was a little intimidated because you know calil's big dude i mean he's a big big guy so and that real deep voice you know what i'm saying so you was it was almost like the father figure that kind of you know put you in line without you mentally knowing it but you know once you got to know him You knew he was a big teddy bear overall, but he was just always, he was never going to tell you something that either wasn't right or something that was bullshit, that just was not the guy.

You know, if someone tried to, you know, say, hey, well, you know, I need you to do this or, you know, in the business, whatever, like, yeah, we need you to get your artist to do. He was never that guy. Like, I'm not getting my artist to do anything. Like, I'm going to tell them what it is, and then we're going to talk about it.

He was that guy. So he taught us early on, the ins and out to that whole business thing. So like Sean said, you know, he was more than a father. He was, he was everything we could have possibly asked for. Yeah, yeah. What year was it when he passed? I remember seeing y'all, this was, I mean, God, I was in like seventh grade.

Y'all came to Greensburg Coliseum, and I, I want to say it was the Boyd-Wise Superfest, but I remember it was, it was y'all, uh, Jodice, and Hamill was the, was the headliner. The hammered too, which to quit to her thing. Yeah, I think it was 90, 99. Yeah, it was like 92, yeah. That was around the year when he passed? Yeah, well, yeah, it was 92. Yep, it was on the hammer tour.

Yeah, it was in Chicago. We just finished playing the Rosemont Horizon. No, and what was funny is we all kind of like keying on this particular moment the night that he passed away or got murdered. Khalil was a very confident dude. Every move that he made, everything that, you know, he wanted us to do, he said it with... Calculate it.

You know what I'm saying? We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to do this. This was the first night that we ever seen Khalil say, where y'all, what hotel y'all want to stay? I don't know which hotel I want to stay in. Yeah. He came to us with the promoter's idea.

I guess the promoter wanted us to stay in the Ninaan promoters. They got a cheaper hotel. hotel over here. The chief ones, right. You know, all the crew is staying, so I want to move the guys. And like Sean said, Kyleel was never, never indecisive. He was always, well, this where they're going. You're doing this?

Just where they're going because I said so. And he came to us and addressed from him. It's like, you know, the promoter, you know, but save him some money if you guys did this, so forth and so on. You know, I don't really know what, I mean, I'm kind of on the fence. What do y'all want to do? And we were like, I mean, Kay, Kay, it's up to you, whatever. You know what I'm saying? We don't really, whatever you were.

want to do. And he picked the hotel and unfortunately that was the hotel where guys came in and, you know, I don't like to talk about it. So I'll appreciate you. Sharing that. I'm sorry. A win is a win. A win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying.

Yep, that's me. Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, This platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me

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You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck.

I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm AGOWODAM. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo!

Woo! My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, And dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be.

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players

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This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.

Gregalespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice has served in Arizona.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I do have to ask, though, because I know that singing is, I always see singing as an intimate thing. And I know that you guys are like brothers. You know, when Tarika and I are angry with each other, like, the root show can still happen. Absolutely. You know, because we're not facing each other. But how do you guys handle if there's friction between y'all and you still have to do the intimate act of singing with each other and harmonizing? We do it because actually the funny thing is that music, it actually supersedes everything.

You know what I mean? What we do together is magic. And it's like, you know, literally, you know, sometimes I, I literally listen to how we create and figure out certain parts without even thinking about it. You know what I'm saying? So when we're on stage, we all know that we have a job to do, for one. But at the same time, we also know that this person next to me is going to do that job better than anybody that I could ever. You know what I'm saying?

So the respect level is really like, I know what he's here to do. I know what Sean's here. I could be pissed off at me, mad at me. But we know what we got to do because our integrity is involved. Do you know what I'm saying? It helps feel the craziness. Is singing your version of

Don't Go to Bed, Mad? Almost. Yeah. Again, if it helps kill the craziness. If we are having issues, most of the time after we finish performing, somebody will come to somebody's room.

Somebody will say something to something. It will always, it takes away everything because of what we just did on stage. That right there. together is greater than the anger that we have, you know, for each other. Was it always like that? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we, we have fish fights and then go back and go out on stage and rock. Literally. I mean, it's just, I mean, again, we grew up as brothers, literally. Like, I have three brothers. I have my brother, and then I have my brothers. I mean, we don't know anything else. I mean, I always say that, you know, when we, We'll start earlier talking about how much time we've been together.

We've been together longer than any of us have been together with any family member, even our mothers. Like, you've spent more time with each other than our own parents. Like any, there's not one family member in any of our families that we have spent more time around than each other. So, I mean, that right there, like, I mean, it's really that it answers itself. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what family do. You know, of course, you know, you go through things.

You like, you argue, but at the end of the day, you know, we still family. And we do something together better than anybody, I believe. And we're the only one that can say what we say about each other, and you can't call my brother that. I can say it. You can't say it. Right. It's that. Facts.

Because we were getting into the two album, we ended the road. Before we got there, I wanted to go back a little bit. So one of my boys I'm in hot takes. I have several. As a long time fan, my favorite album for y'all that I was, I'm not, Kulia Harmony, I love Kulia Harmony.

Outside of Kulia Harmony, I always thought that some of the best just writings, songwriting, vocal, everything was on Christmas interpretations. I fucking love that album, man. Y'all niggas was in y'all bag on that shit, man. We had to fight. We had to fight for that.

Really? What was the story on? Well, the label wanted, you know, a typical Jackson 5, you know, oh, ho, ho, Santa Claus Christmas record, and we weren't going to do that. Like, we didn't want to fall into that platform of ho-ho-ho and jingle bells. So we fought to try to do an original Christmas record. And we didn't have any songs again. So we all sat around and said, all right, well, here, Sean, you do two, why you do two? I'm a do two, Mike, you do two.

And then we said, okay, well, since we did, you know, since we rock out with the night, because that's our boy, you know, we'll have him come in and we'll have him produce it with us. And if he's got a song or two, we'll throw it on and we'll rock out like that. Everybody just wrote two songs and we just went for it. No, I love that because it was, you know, like hearing you say, you didn't want to do just a typical, you know, jingle bells, you know, kind of record. But all the songs, I mean, it were just great songs that could have been,

they could have worked year round. Like, they weren't relegated. Like, I would listen to that album in March. You know what? That shit was jammed. You know what? That's a cop. I appreciate that, Fondi.

But, you know, going back to a question that you, you said, like, a little while ago as far as things that you, that I regret. And I don't think I regret it. Just more or less, I wish that there was more emphasis applied on me and my guy's ability to write music. Because we tried our best to, even, even Nate, You know, we tried to be the next L.A. in face or Jammin Lewis or something like that. We felt like that that was like a natural progression for us to kind of go into that realm. And, you know, I'm speaking of all of us.

Warnier got a crazy pen. Like, you know what I mean? Like we've all written records for us and for other people that, you know, that, you know, I wish for my guys that we were, I guess, more, I guess, that was more emphasized on. But because boys to men was such a phenomenon and it was such a juggernaut in itself, it seemed like all of our folks, honestly, looking at it in retrospect,

a lot of people, even down to Gerald, who's just like Juan Ye said, they didn't know what to do with us. So when we were successful, they were like, what the fuck is this? Right. You understand what I'm saying? Like, everybody was kind of like,

well, how long is this candle going to be? So everybody's mentality wasn't, hey, let's move these gentlemen forward to the next stage. As I look back at all the events that's happened to us and the people that came in and out of our lives, it almost felt like, let's get this money now because we don't know how long this train is going to last. So a lot of our folks had that mentality. They didn't look beyond the fact that, yo, Nate was a great story. songwriter, yo, Juan could have been a solo artist. You know, Sean could have did. Mike could have happened.

You know what I'm saying? Like, they didn't go that far with us. They just said, okay, if there are a moment, let's snatch and grab, and then let's move on to the next thing. And the case and point of that is when during the evolution album, when we came out with the evolution album, this was around the time the boy band thing started to come up.

So you felt, from our standpoint, you actually felt the shift of people's priorities going from us to them. Like literally, like our literal budget in Motown

was literally taken from us and given to 98 degrees. Wow. Wow. Like, it's real. Like, these things happened. And it was, it was almost like they were done. Like, everybody was done with us.

Almost mind-boggling that they couldn't just add singer-songwriter to any time y'all names were sent. Because I'm really thinking about that. Did they have you work with these acts? I'm going to tell you what happened. When we did the first record, like we said, we had records that were ours. They didn't know what to do with us. So it was almost like, well, we don't know if this record's going to do well. Let's let the guys do whatever they're going to do.

And we'll see if the project does well. Project sold 12 million records. So at that point, the label was like, okay, so we need to make it bigger. that's who else can we get on this record. Now, here's the caveat that people tend to forget. The original Culey High Harmony album did not have End of the Road on it. It wasn't part of the original album. That song was done for the soundtrack for the Eddie Murphy boomerang.

After Culea Harmony was already out. So what, if you notice, the original Cooley-I-Harmony album had us with the shirt-and-coats on, the canes and the little squares around it, I think that original album probably might have got to about four and a half, five million records. Yes, that's true. When they did the boomerang deal, they did the deal to where, okay, well, they can use it on the soundtrack. We'll have the guys perform the song. They'll perform it.

We'll put it on that record. And then we'll also have to put it on. We'll have the rights Motown took to put it somewhere else. So they repackaged the Kulia Harmony album because they saw that we started to have a pop. Start, we had a pop audience. So they said, okay, well, let's. Get the bright color, the bow ties, throw this strong on air, re-released this as a single off that album,

and then that album goes to $12 million. So now their mind is like, okay, well, now we need those kind of songs and those kind of songwriters, not cool, our harmony songs, but those kinds. So then they went to Jimmy and Terry. They went to baby face, and as we were trying to grow as artists, like artists always say, hey, well, we wrote some of those songs on the one that did five, six.

Can we write? Oh, yeah, well, you could write some stuff, but right now we need these guys. So, you know, us taking the approach of just let's focus on making sure we sing the right notes and do what we've got to do. We didn't hammer home right away with trying to be on top of it. We got pushed away to the point where it was like, okay, well, bring Dallas Austin back because he's a producer. Artists and producers back then, they wouldn't let get, they didn't, you know, their producer was always more important than the artist because the producer could produce 15 or 30 records at home on 15, 20 artists that the label had. The artist is just one entity.

So it was always more important for labels to make allegiances with producers and songwriters. Keeping us from becoming super producers and songwriters took the power away from us to just be singers. So they wrapped that lay in face and everybody around it and not knocking it that it didn't do well, but it did stifle what Sean was talking about our ability to grow as songwriters. And they kind of threw us a bone like, well, here, go go hang out with, you know, Dallas's beat producers, Tim and Bob. and see what you come up with. So we started writing some songs with them, which we happened to get on two albums.

And one of them, we had to tell them that Dallas wrote in order to get it on the record because they wouldn't put it on that. Was it vibing? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Wow.

No, no, I wasn't. It was vibed. It was vibed. We had to lie to the record label and tell them that Dallas Austin wrote that song and produced it because they weren't going to put it on the album. Wow.

So my favorite songs on that album were the ones that y'all did. Vibbing 50 candles, they know. But to the record label's point as they were trying to, and then again, I understand it now because when you really look at it, we can all talk about those records. But if you went to Istanbul,

they're talking about it in the row. They're talking about I'll make love to you. They're not talking about please don't go. They're not talking, you know what I'm saying? So I understand what they were trying to do. But if it was explained to us a little bit more back then as we were going through, we would understand it other than people feeling

other than us feeling like artists, like, ah, well, we're going to get the big names and y'all just go take the ride. But you know, here's the irony of all of that, the irony of all of that, Nate, is the fact that, yes, those guys wrote those songs and things that they should. And this is no disrespect, because there are records, so I can't disrespect all songs. But the biggest one was written by us.

Right. Once we did. Once we did. So, you know, despite what they thought, despite what they might have thought we were or what we needed what we needed was always here there was always with us

but they never wanted to see that so they tried to literally manipulate the situation to even make us think that you know we don't need them and and it wasn't like it wasn't a disrespect it's not a disrespect

because we Uncle Terry Jimmy Jeff we they're are we love them. You understand? With all of our hearts. We love baby face with all of our hearts. So we understand that this was all a business move.

But at the same time, one benefited a little bit more than the other from that standpoint. And me being 48 years old, I'm understanding now that life is all about relationships. Life is about growth. Life is all about being able to develop and go from this point to that point. and we all need the help to do it. There's not anybody alive that has not become successful without some sort of leg up by somebody that was in a better position than them.

So when I look back at this, this was by design. They wanted us to be here, stay here, and then- It wants to sing. That's all they want. It was easy for them. They didn't want us to dabble in too much. And it's been said a couple times throughout our career.

And what made it even tougher was that, Even when we tried to write and produce on somebody else, the name of the group was so overshadowing that all people wondered was, I just want to hear y'all singing, y'all do something. I don't really want Nate's record or vice versa. And not that I don't like it, but I like this better. And that's, you know, it's a double-edged sword. The success is great, but at some, at that point in our career,

we had to either live with one or the other. We weren't going to be able to get both. When it comes to the technical aspect of the creating of a song, is it clear who's going to sing what part? Because to me, like, the three of you have very similar voices and voice ranges. I know there are different, you know, strong suits for each of you. But like, when you're writing a song and you're creating it, it's clear who's going to sing what part.

It's like, Nate, you're going to sing the melody. Sean, you're going to sing the 10 part, whatever, whatever. Writing for my group is probably the easiest thing in the world. Because you can literally, you know. You know exactly who does what. That like, you don't even got to like question or have a, you know, tribunal about who's going to sing this verse or that verse or whatever. You know who's going to sing it.

Who's going to send it home? And then the harmonies is just something that most people don't know how we do it. So we just do that. But I want to know, how do you do that? The silent night, as Franzi said, silent night is that's, how long does it take you guys to craft that? Here's the deal. It's that.

Everybody has their own style with this, for sure. The reason why I think that a lot of, a lot of, it seems more difficult than it is. A lot of producers, i.e. Jimmy Jam, Terry, faces him like working with us because, and this is not, you know, not trying to blow smoke in any way. But honestly, there's not many songs

that we can not sing because vocally we cover the gamut. From here to here, whether it's one guy, two guys, or whatever, we cover the whole spectrum. We're going to sing every single. You can't, you can't, You can't out key us.

Yeah, you can't. Oh, well, that's in the wrong key. You can't, you can't do that with us because vocally, we just, it's all over the place. So with that being said, like Sean said, it's easy to write for us because throw it against the wall. And to answer your second question, because we grew up in a choral environment, we automatically know where the parts fall. But even after that, what made boys to men different from just people singing choral, is we moved out of that realm a little bit. So if Juan's background part is the first,

if Sean's background part is the second tenor, he'll start singing it. And eventually somewhere he'll end up on an alto, second alto part. And most people will say, well, he went out of his range. He's got to stay there. He doesn't have to because when he's singing that,

Juan's already singing where he left the spots open. Right, right. And I'm already hearing the spots. that they both left open. So it's just a mental thing. And you intuitively know to jump to that place? It's like, I'm going to make it this simple. You ever have Connect 4?

You know how when you drop the thing down and they go click, click, click, click, click. That's pretty much what it is. Wherever that lands, you know when you drop the next one where it's got to go. You just know where it's got to go. And I'll be totally honest. And that's what I was talking about earlier. It's the magic, you know. The crazy thing is, is, okay, let's just say,

Sean's in the vocal booth and I'm out in the lobby. And Sean sings this note. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He sings this note. When I come in and hear the note that Sean's doing, I automatically know where I'm supposed to go. And it's not even a song that I ever heard before. You know what I'm saying?

So then I'll go in and I'll do my part. And then I'll leave. Then Nate will come in and by the time we finish, it has turned into this. Click. And it doesn't have to be in sequential order. One could start. Then I'll come in second.

Then Sean will come in. Or I'll start or vice versa. It's just a natural ability to just feel what each guy's idea for that song is going to be. I mean, and it hasn't even gotten more difficult with three people because I was doing both parts anyway. So it's just, now it's just rap. It's just, it's quicker actually, in all actually, and all that. So the intention always to sound like a choral group, or was the intention to sound like, I mean, look, I'm a white kid from Long Island. I listen to boys to men religiously as a, you know, forever.

Oh, you can you from Africa this time? No, fuck you. But like, what I'm fascinated by is like, I always felt like you guys were four guys at that time, but you sounded like about 20. And like, I don't know, I don't think that there was like ultimate stacking. It was just like the notes that you picked and the way that you did it. And I think what I'm getting at, Nate, is like what you said is like, is when you would get to someplace, you would hand it off to Juan and da-da-da-da-da-da-z. Silent night is the perfect example.

And now I'm grabbing me or mentioned it. Yeah, because that's not normal. Because we, because we, what it is is that we, we sang some of it, something like that in high school. Right. But what we did was we added R&B to it when we, when we took it for our own. And if you notice, there are some chords where literally, I mean, you may have a second, a third, a seventh. It sounds like it's 12 people, but it's not.

And especially when you get to that chord at the end, that real big strong. It sounds like it's 15 people, but it's just the notes that we chose. And with Mike underneath of it, which a lot of people never really had, you could sing three notes. and he would only be a fourth away, but it would just make it sound like it's 13 people. But like, was the intention always like that cluster harmonies would be the thing? I mean, because like gospel, gospel for the record is like, it's more the court.

I'm getting real nerdy. The chords are more spread out in gospel, right? It's like, it's like root fifth. Right, right. Root above, like third above that, right? That's the stack. We, you guys don't do that. We intentionally.

You don't want nobody follow you in Canada. We just did that. Yeah. We intentionally did that. No, no, you're right. Like that we intentionally did that because, one, those progressions are boring to us. Like, they're boring. You know what I mean?

You know, like to do one, three, five. Yeah. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, we can do that. But there's so many sweet spots in the seventh and then the 13th and like in between and all those other, you know, sustained, you know, chords and harmonies and stuff like that. So those suscords and all that. So to be able to do that was always the goal.

I mean, we grew up on Take Six and the Carpenters and all those guys who did all of that stuff. So that's what we grew up listening to even before we met each other. Okay, so I was going to ask, because I didn't ask earlier, I know that, you know, Take Six is an influence, but the intricate level of how you guys do your harmonies, this is yeah it's beyond that like was there influence from Brian Wilson like who who are your who are your harmony gods here's the I'm gonna tell you take six honestly is the key but the difference is when like I said when you got six guys and they're moving pretty tight there's not there's not a

whole lot of space for a guy to sing a soprano party and end up all the way down at the baritone because there's six guys in there but what we did was we've colonally we would listen to them because we knew we didn't have six parts. We found the parts that made it sound just like them without all six. Yeah, even if you had to go from the top to the bottom just to make that chord sound like their chord, that's what we would do. So we would jump all over the place. We would move right so that they actually created those Suss cores in the middle and then

spread out to become something else. So as a threesome, as a threesome, do you guys have the ability to recreate? create so much to say with just three people? No, but you know what? That's okay. Because when you're listening to an album, you just want to capture the moment. You want to create the space.

You want to create the painting. And that's all that matters. It's three of us, but if we feel six parts, we're gonna sing those six parts. You know what I'm saying? Because that's what you need for that. But I will say there are things that can sound that strong with three people.

And I use our star spangled banner as an example. Right. We used to sing that with four people. But again, now that Mike's not here, we just took that other leg and kind of folded it under. And we took the meat of what we needed to make it sonically sound the same way. People just jump in different spots to make it sonically sound the same way. It's just not four people. and the average ear is not going to hear

when that one note is not, when you've got a triad and it's a triad of a maybe a fifth or third and a seventh, you're not worried about what the other note was because it was probably a unison with any other group anyway.

You're only focusing on that. So we make sure we give you that and then we'll peel one off to where it feels like it's open and then we'll bring them back in. So it's ways to twist it. Like Sean said, obviously records give us a lot,

lot more flexibility, but if we have to narrow it down, that's normally how we'll do it. So what happens if a member has laryngitis or? That's happened. We'll switch parts. That's happened. Yeah. And how long does it take to adjusts? Even when Mike had to leave the group, how much work and adjustment did you have to do to

figure out how to cover what was missing? I mean, we get some hours. It's literally us getting, being backstage. or somewhere and just arranging it, mentally preparing ourselves. Because, you know, when you're, when you're doing someone else's part, you're doing someone else's character. That a lot of people understand that, yo, that's Juan Ye sing.

Yeah. So there's no way I'm going to sing like Juan Ye. So because he puts a stamp on everything that he sings. So there has to be a way to get around it. So you just make a way around it. And, you know, obviously, it's not going to sound like Juan Ye, but we try our best for us not to suck. And if it doesn't suck, then that's good enough. And honestly, we have the type of fans and people that we can be on stage to say,

yo, man, Juan Ye's got lyongitis. He's here. He's here, guys. He's here. He's going to sing his best for you. And people know what they hear it. They see it. They see them struggling or they see me struggling or whatever.

We'll sing their parts. And they sing our parts. And they sing our parts too. They sing our parts too. So we have that type of, like people have seen us enough to know that we can sing. That's never been a doubt or a question. So when somebody has an off day, we just have an off day. And our people understand it.

And we just go about the show. And we do it. And our people ride with us. I, ah, ladies and gentlemen, sorry to do it to you, but you know we're going to have to cut it short right now. Trust me, we'll be back next week for more talk with Nate, Sean, and Wanye, Boys to Men, Quest Love Supreme. All right? Come next time. See you.

Yo, what's up? This is Fonte. Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at QLS and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit. down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. All right. Peace. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. For more podcasts from IHartRadio, visit the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey,

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He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

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