The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Fred Hammond Part 1

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

In 2022, Questlove Supreme interviewed our first Gospel legend, and we started right. Fred Hammond is a game-changer and an innovator. We covered it all in this two-parter. Oh, and keep your ears open for a special guest cohost with his own Gospel "roots."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Our podcast is called Hey Jonas. We've here since everyone has a podcast, we wanted to as well. And we've had some incredible guests so far. And now our good friend, Nile Horn, is joining the show. How's it going, boys? Hey, Niall. It was the same thing with Slow Hands. The whole answer is not about anything else really, is it?

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Just honest conversations about what it means to be alive. I'm Javier Tornandez and listen to Learning to Be Human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. The Questlove show is a production of IHeart Radio. What's up, y'all? June is Black Music Month, and every year we use this time to acknowledge something that really can't be overstated. Black music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now, back when Team Supreme and I were doing the Questlove Supreme, and now on the Questlove show, we've always tried to create a space for those stories. So for the entire month of June, we're bringing you an episode every day focus on the history, influence, and ongoing evolution of black music.

A team and I dug through the catalog and selected episodes that feel especially meaningful for now. Conversations that inform, entertain, and connect the dots between, where this music comes from and where it's headed. Now, alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes of Questleff show, featuring Trailblazers, innovators, and cultural connectors, and visionaries who represent the past, present, and future of black music. I want you to enjoy this. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Questlef Supreme.

Welcome to our nominated, our NACP-NAMNAMNAMOACP nominated Team Supreme. Lai'ia. Hello, how are you? I'm feeling good in Image Award nominated, sir. I have made it. Yes, that's fine. And, uh, Suga Steve, how are you this evening? I'm good.

My image has been nominated as well by the NACP. Congratulations on your NACP image. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling. I'm feeling good. And, uh, you know, uh, the keeper of Rocco and Elmo, how are you doing, uh, unpaid bill? I can't say that I ever thought in all the awards that I'd ever be. be nominated for an NAACP award, so feels good, but you put it like that.

There you go. Cheers. How's it going? I'm good, brother. I'm good, man. Glad to be nominated. And, uh, yeah, I never thought this would happen this way. I know.

He thought it would be over in three years, right? Straight shit. Three. You better to go get cigarettes after three. He came back after two and now he's back and now it's okay. You're back in here, saying. He went to get cigarettes for a long time. Okay.

So I know for the longest. I've been talking to our listeners of QLS, especially in the last year, about, you know, the direction of transformation of my life is going and how it's important to often get out of your comfort zone. You know, stretching out the different territories. So I will be the first to be very transparent with our longtime listeners of QLS that this episode should be notable for unlike previous Questlove Supreme. episodes, this will probably be the first time that, and it's not like I have a PhD in every guest that ever comes on the show, but this will probably mark the first time that I don't know the entire canon and history of a particular guest of the show like the back of my hand, not saying that I'm not familiar with our guest today. So that said, I would actually like to say, and in Jack, that we have two special guests today.

Joining the team supreme is my brother in soul or soul querian, James Aloysius Poyser. What? Producer, songwriter, fellow Randy Watsoner, extraordinary, and gospel aficionado. And meme. And world famous meme on Twitter. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, James is definitely like a meme.

I'm not even a meme. Like, that's a like goal of mine. Do memes get nominated for NAACP Awards? No, you know five years. You won Grammys. Back up, sir. Back up. You won Grammys.

Yes, you have Grammys. And, you know, but I'm sure that in the meme Hall of Fame, in the meme Hall of Fame, you will make it. That said, I brought Brother James here to help me pick up the pieces on things that I otherwise wouldn't know. Because for me, I don't want to leave any stone unturned. Our guest today, I will say, is, one of the most legendary and influential musicians that I know in black music. That's not

hyperbolic or anything. I say this literally because I have not met a musician post five that has not made our guests their North Star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get with that in the show today. But without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, and please welcome to Quest Love Supreme, be legendary brother Fred Hammond. Yes. Appreciate it. And congratulations, everybody.

Thank you. And your nomination. This is about it. Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know, it was weird. I didn't even know that you were active on social media. And you had left a comment in one of my things.

and I was like, yo, Fred Hammond knows who I am. Like, I had zero clue that you even knew that I was alive or anything. So this conversation is long, long overdue because, as I said at the top, back when I was really honing my skills as a musician, there was like one or three routes you can go. Now, we all know is I chose the hip-hop route. most musicians in 83, 84, 85, they chose the purple route. And then there's a sect of black musicianship in which you might have a household

that might not allow secular music in the household. And that said, I will say that you were probably their main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking about you and your very influential group commission. So I thank you. I've been dying to have this conversation with me because I need the eddication. So where are you right now as we speak? I'm at my studio here in Dallas. I have a warehouse and a studio here that I do everything out of, me and my family, my brothers.

And I was actually just finishing up a vocal that I'm working on for the new addition tour. Yes. Just to kind of give them some stuff to go through some transitions, you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I was just finishing up. that, you know, and then we'll send it out to him and see, you know, give him some ideas of what can happen. My brother, Ray, is the production manager for the tours.

So when you see BBD a new addition, he's front of house and the guy that runs the, you know, gets everything together production-wise. So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi-MD or co-MD of this reunion tour that's about to happen? No, it's just, right now we're just, just seeing some stuff. And I wanted to show them like a lot of the transitions that they want to do from song to song to song that they could do some vocal right here.

That's simple. That's what they do because it's not normal for them to do that. And so I just went in there and just did some old commission, new edition type stuff. Simple. Yes. Just to get them to the next song. Yeah. So to give me another, just to give my idea of what can happen.

So, you know, it's up to them, you know, that sounds like, yeah, Quasi MD. Okay. I was I am. Well, it's funny you say that because I think maybe like a month ago, I was listening to Heartbreak. And I was just talking to Jimmy Jam about the intro song of that album, which is called, that's the way we're living. Which as far as it's execution's concerned, I feel like that definitely falls from the tree of what commission was about. when a lot of these cats that have what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that, you know, they're sons of commission.

So I always wanted to know how you felt about your influence, as far as the black musicianship we have now with gospel chops. Like, you know, do you watch acts often in R&B say like, well, that's our lick and that's our lick and that's our like. Well, you know, the thing about it is back then a lot of people don't notice, but I was close with a lot of those guys back then. You know, you know, it was funny because, you know, Devante, his father is a pastor. And one day we did a concert at their church.

And Devante said, yo, man, you know, he came up iced out. He was a young fellow. He said, hey, man, I just wanted to tell you guys have been influenced to us. And I just got signed to MCA. And the name of my group is called Jodacy. I said, really? He said, you know, K.C. And I knew KC. from Lil Cedric.

I used to play Cates for quiet. So Little Cedric and the Haley singers, we would do concerts together and pass on the road and do interviews and whatnot. So I kept up with all of those guys. You know, a lot of the cats, Chuckie Booker and DOA and they would bring me backstage. They would bring me backstage.

Whether they was doing the Budwives or Super Fest, and I'm a student. You know, a lot of people, you know, a lot of church people, they don't go places and learn because they can't control themselves when they get inside or behind the curtain. You know, but I would go, you know, I would go to Al Heyman, Budweiser Super Fest, and I would meet the guys backstage, and I would watch.

I'd be a student of production of how they were playing, and I would take it back to commission. You know, commission is a amalgam of the Clark sister, number one, the vocal of the Clark sisters. Then the rest is the time, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Genesis, you know, Chicago. we did just a different thing, and we noticed that a lot of the guys that were coming around at that time were coming up to us, and they were starting to get put on, like boys and men, and we just kept in touch, and we were just cool and friendly. Little Joe and Buddy from the Rube Boys. Yeah.

We were always doing something. We were always together at some point doing something, letting them hear music. They're letting us hear ours and here theirs. You know, so we kept connected with our R&B family, you know. Did he just say Genesis? Yes. That's what's up. But if you really look at it, yo, I mean, there's really not that much difference between Prague Rock and gospel tops.

Wow. Crazy drawn about that. We just saw just like he just literally, I forget the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think you remember this, you for this. remember when um who's who's the group that who morphed they were formerly known as at the drive-in and then when one of their members oh mars volta marz volta yeah so do you remember when marz volta auditioned a drummer at our studio like behind literally next to your studio he was a gospel chops jummer thomas prigin i think of yes yeah and it was a it was a match made it at first i was like, that's weird that they got a gospel

drumming to do it, but because of the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like a marriage made in heaven. And that's when I realized that gospel chops and Prague rock are almost neck and neck with each other. I mean, of course, gospel chop has more soul to

it, but every pop group now has a gospel drummer. I just, Ariana Grande and all those guys, they all have it's all like big fills from three and four into one. every bar. It's literally all black music. It's not all black music.

It's like everything's like at the end of a four bar phrase is what? The notable thing about my entry in music is that I'm the opposite of that. But literally. Which is funny. Yeah, which I'm saying that basically I feel as though commission really is probably the most influential black group in.

at least the last 40 years of music second to print, you know, as far as the ripple effect of- No, absolutely. Your contribution. I mean, as you look at a song like I'm learning, I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all. I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Jodacy album. Or, you know what I'm saying?

Like, it was, the thing I always liked about y'all's stuff was that it was, I could tell when you say, you know, you were a student and you would go and meet the other groups and stuff, the songs always sounded current. You know what I'm saying? A lot of times gospel, because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel stuff would always be behind.

Like, if it came out in 92, it would sound like something from like 88, 87. You know what I'm saying? But commission records, y'all was always like right on time and it was never dated. I always appreciated that, man. That right there was,

it was just our DNA. It was like, we listened to everybody. I give you a story. One of the guys wrote a song called It's So Good to Know the Savior, and he was a tempo guy. So it was like a church tempo.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, it's so good to know, let's say, and the record company didn't pick it.

It was, it had all of the fizzle and the buzz and everything. And the guy, he came to me and said, hey, man, listen, I think we need to change the drum route,

which is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's not. I said, basically, it's, man, it's kind of dated. And I said, tomorrow, we just need to Casanova that month. And they didn't know because they hadn't heard Lerburt. I was cool with Gerald.

And so when Casanova came out, they hadn't heard it yet. So I said, let's just get in the studio and let me flip it a little bit. And I had an RA drum machine and some stuff. And I just boom, boom, boom, cockapoo. Boom, cockapoo. Boom, cockapoo. And then it changed into, you can see it vamp into that. And then the song had life.

Well, that was because we stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and our counterparts. You know, we paid attention to everybody from old school, whether it's Luther, Al Green, you know, Earthwind, all the way up to the bird to a baby face to the deal. You know, like, we were talking, what song we like? We like Sweet November or do we like this? because our vocals were off of the whispers and the dramatics. Those were our male vocal counterparts that we love doo-watt.

So if you hear a lot of our harmonies, we sing like Ron Banks and Scotty and Walter. You hear a lot of that in our, but then we add what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology. We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it was funny, too. You said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry is like my hero. Jimmy Terry, Teddy, Tim, Babyface in LA.

So one time we were going to do this thing in Minnesota called, it's a Methodist Church, and they were, the Soul Liberation Outreach. And they said, where you want to go tomorrow? I said, can we go see flight time? Because we were just, you know, we didn't have no studio. So I said, can we go see flight time? We want to see some black guys who were owning something.

And I walked into flight time, and I was just blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily by, you know, these two guys. And they were just finishing the controls starting on. We've got to start on this new record called Rhythm Nation. They're recording now. And we just had those moments. Then they said, well, where you want to go next? Now, we church boys.

Now, remember this, this is, but we church boys. So we don't do clubs and stuff like that. So somebody said, you want to go see Print Studio? And we was like, oh, I don't know. I think some of them. I think some going to jump on us. But I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I want to see it. So we went over there, man, and the whole ride over there because at that point, Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in that, that I want to, I'm going to really mess you up with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up to the place and people were praying, Jesus help us Lord, you know, we're walking into the spot.

And we're thinking, man, you better pray it, be able to put some annoy. the oil on you, whatever you were doing. When we walked in, it was business as usual. People were just walking around doing business. It wasn't nothing crazy. And I said, man, this is the whole thing as a persona. You thought it was going to be Sodom and Gamora. I thought it was going to stay at his house.

And the rest of the guy, some of the guys said, man, I'm going to stay in the van. I said, I'm going in. I want to see what's what. I mean, how far do you get this? How do you get this close? Right. And I see, this guy had a complex. I mean, at that time, to think about Paisley, it was, it was like Cowboy Stadium at that time.

I said, I got to go see it. But when I walked through, they took us to his personal room. And they just, my mind was blown because it was just business. And at the end of the day, I say, man, this is just a persona. And then I learned how to be an owner. So now, I mean, I got 17,000 square feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry. It came from Jimmy, Terry, Prince, and Michael Powell, who lived in Detroit, who...

Yeah, produced Anita Baker. Produced Anita Baker. That was my close friend. So I had to learn. And that's, you know, I looked at my big brothers to do that for me, you know. Pride month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. IHeart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival and we won't stop.

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It's a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, I want to start at the beginning of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan. No, I was born in San Antonio.

Oh, all right. See, the one time I don't ask the question, I get burnt. Sorry. Can you tell me what your first musical memory was? My first musical memory, honestly, was, First of all, you know, I say this because a lot of people have these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks that they're perfect. I don't. I was born different. You know, I was, my mother and father were married to other people. And he was a pastor and my mother was a musician. And the church really dogged my mom and protected him. And so they kind of put her out. And so it was basically me and her.

And before I was born, you know, we went through this whole thing about she was, she went to had an abortion and it didn't work, you know. So it's a lot of stuff that goes on with me being here. You're destined. That's a blessing. Yeah. And so she was my biggest musical influence. So I followed her everywhere to, because she taught choirs.

She was very amazing at teaching choirs and playing the people. piano for churches. And I never forget, I'll go back to, she came home with this little 45, and I had a close and play. And she said, you know, I bought these boys, you know, and it was just a picture of these five boys, it was the Jackson's. And she said, you know, listen to this. I hadn't even heard him on the radio. And I put it on my clothes and play, and I want you back came on. And I just saw Michael as my age, because they were saying he was younger than it. They said he was my age. I was probably five, six, and I was just, I was enamored with this group. And so I was singing, and I found myself singing Jermaine's part at six, seven years old. And my mother said,

you know, if you open your mouth, you can sing better, you can sing like that little boy right there. And I was very shy. And I didn't want her to hear me because I thought she would make me sing in front of people. So I made sure she did never hear me again. So I took my closing plate in the closet because you ran there on batteries and I sang in the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing. I was afraid she was going to put me up there in front of the church. And so that's my earliest knowledge right there. So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church? Like, since you're, because of your situation. You know, the beautiful thing is God kept me from that, from the knowledge of people not thinking I was worth it, you know, but when I look back at it,

a lot of people just thought I was just worthless. because you can't do nothing with God because you're born out of wedlock. Who are you? You know, your mother is an adulterer. So they just kind of threw us away. But the reality is that's why I'm probably effective today, not because I sing good, not because I play any instruments, or not because I produce anything or sing on anybody's record,

is because I understand what broken people go through. And so my whole job is to tell people, Hey man, I've been broken. I understand brokenness. Why don't you come with me? I believe this. And, you know, so there's no errors. It's just.

There's a forgiveness element in there, too, though, that you got that you, that's what it, yeah. Absolutely. So when people like Quest, you say, you understand my pain when it comes to just you and your mom. You understand that, you know, and maybe others do too. But, you know, my path, man, my path is just, it's been ordained to go through a, rugged, rugged, beat up path to get to this point to tell other people, I understand where you are.

I get it. I get it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean, mine wasn't as drastic as like being shunned or whatnot, but definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation where they were part of other unions.

And, you know, that's kind of how, you know, I came to the world. So for a lot of our listeners, I don't know if they're full, aware, you know, I would explain to people often that, you know, we'll look at somebody like,

you know, Ray Charles now as a national treasure. But, you know, I would tell, like, anybody that I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact that, you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the NWA of his day. Like, the idea of singing gospel music with secular lyrics was highly controversial with the Black Church. And fast forwarding to where your entry in the gospel music is, where you can put some funk inside it or put some swing inside of your music and it really not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just the, what brought you to Detroit? How did you make the transition from San Antonio to Detroit? Well, due to the circumstances and situation, They sent us up to Detroit.

We were sent. Oh. Dang. You're exiled to Detroit. Exile. We got a nice bus ticket up to a friendly place called Detroit. And a beautiful family called the Hulk, the Hulk's family. They took us in and they gave us their attic.

And we became a part of their family while my mother went through her healing process, you know, of which when she passes 75. she was still trying to validate herself as, you know, forgiven, you know. And she was a, she's a great praise warrior, great, you know, she made a lot of strides. But it just, she couldn't get over some things. And so we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing. How big is your family at this point, as far as your siblings? At that time, it was me and my mom. At this point, it's me.

I got two brothers. Ray and Dave, and they have families. I have a family. I have kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that live in Atlanta from my mother's other union, you know. Okay. And then I have a brother and four other sisters from the other unit. So I'm right there in the middle.

Okay. I'm the absolute, when you count down, I'm the middle child of all of that. So that's, we're, and now we're all kind of cool together. My brother from my father's side, he comes and he drives our tour bus from time to time. And my sisters are, so we're all kind of together. And, you know, that's the thing. So, okay, I know you were born in 1960, I believe. Yep.

So can you describe to me what it is to grow up in Detroit, Michigan? in the early 70s. I know about, you know, I've heard people tell me about growing up in Detroit in the early 60s, and I know of course people who grew up in Detroit between like the mid 80s and the early 90s, but I really don't know people that have had a period in Detroit in the early 70s, like around that period

where like United Sounds there, where, you know, Motown's leaving. Could you just describe to me basically what your life was as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan? in the 70s? You know, it was really just about school and surviving in the hood. You know, just, you know, one of my good friends in the 70s, I went to, well, my mom moved to California to Englewood when I was in the fourth grade, the first part of the fourth grade, and she didn't like it, and we came back to Detroit around December. But I hadn't been in school. So that whole,

fourth grade year, I had to try to catch up. So this is like the 70s, you know, this is, and whatnot. The next year I had to go to a parochial school, a 70 at Venice where I was good friends. My best friend was Greg Mathis, Judge Greg Mathis. So he and I were in the fifth grade together. Wow. Wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he and I were in the fifth grade together. And everything you ever hear that he ever said, 100. Because I lived in the hood and he lived in the projects. He lived in the Herman Gargis, and he had a bunch of brothers, but he was smart as a whip in the fifth grade, and I was struggling, but he and I were just really good friends. So growing up there, it was just, you know, the 70s are almost a blur because I wasn't musical yet.

I was thinking more sports and whatnot, and I hadn't done any real music until I got to about 16, about 15 to 16 years old, and I transitioned from drums in my church to bass guitar. Wait a minute. You're trying to tell me that I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass, but this didn't happen until you were a teenager? Yeah, right around 14, 13 years old. I transitioned because my mother, I went to a church called Greater Grace Temple,

and the line to play drums was around the corner. and the pastor's son, he had it locked. Chuck E. Ellis, Charles Ellis, he's bitchabellis now, but he was an amazing drummer. And I had my sticks. I would go every Sunday and I would try to play and, you know, just never got a chance. And my mother said, hey, you know, I don't like to see you, you know, not getting a chance. Is there any other instrument? There was a bass guitar laying over in the corner and nobody would come and play it because the guy was working.

And I said, well, I like to play bass. Maybe I could try that. And that's when I moved to bass guitar and I never looked back. The reason why it's also important for me to know about this specific period in the 70s is because I know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially in town, you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois, you know, a lot of them are escaping the South, the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying well. and they're buying these houses and the houses have garages

and of course, instruments, you know, this is basically how like the first wave of the funk generation starts. And I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration, 70, 71, 72, you know, budgets started to get cut. Music education started to wane and whatnot.

And the idea of the garage band, you know, kind of wilted out. So, I mean, by that time period, even though you were late in developing your musicianship, were there musicians around like next door and all those things? Or were factories closing by then and then like that dream just died? You know, music was still big, even though a lot of the porch bands and the garage bands from the 60s

weren't very popular. But music was still a thing, you know. So I hooked up with a guy at my 15. His name was Jeff Stanton. And he was like my best friend. And this guy could play every instrument. At that point, he could play bass. He could play guitar.

He could play drums. And he was fluent at it at 15 years old. So he would take every day we would come home to his house after school or in the summertime. And we would just shed. And he would start to show me people. He was the person. He said, man, I got this record you really need to hear. Check it out.

This dude right here plays all the instruments. His name is Prince, and it was the four-you album. And so we're listening in the basement, and he's like, man, listen to that, listen to that. You've got to get on your theory, Fred. He's teaching me theory. He's like, what, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, what's that? And I'd have to kind of come back and name it. And so every day we would shed and we would go places like the Detroit Music Union

and bands would play, come in and audition. So it was still alive. And then we would play in the garage. We played Mr. Magic for like four hours, you know, in the garage. Ah, James. Then we graduated to Herbie and got, you know, a chameleon. I mean, you know, so once I learned that, them two songs, and we have a little crowd out there and we just play it.

And then there it was. I was so proud when I learned the baseline to, that's the way of the world. And I learned that that had, do, When I learned that concept, man, it blew me away. So we were still, it was still a powerful place to learn music. It hadn't died. That whole 70s, it hadn't died, you know.

Well, living in Detroit, was any of the P-Funk folklore, like, was that an influence on you at all? like seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or any of those things? Or was that sort of like after, you know, they migrated and went to California? Like was any of that part of your DNA at all? You know, they had a, on 8 Mile, there was a club called Axles, okay? Belita Woods, Lamont Johnson, Brainstorm. They were all play there.

Brainstorm, yeah, Belita Woods, yeah. So they would all play there. Amp. Fiddler would show. up. And they say, yo, man, that's Amp Fittler from, he played with George Clinton, David Chong, which, I mean, and all these people, and we would try to go in there and sit in there and sneak in because we was kind of underage, but we'd sneak in and we'd listen to them. And these cats, the funk was heavy. It was still, brainstorm was just starting to get started. Man, it was real, real strong. So Amp. Fittler, we never got a chance to see George,

but we played with a lot of the guys that played on his record, like Butch Small. I believe his name is Bush Small. Oh, Butch Small? Yeah, he was real big. He used to run a studio called RMJ. And so he was the Lynn Drum King. So he came and did some Lynn Drum on the first commission record,

you know, but he was just somebody we looked up to, you know, Warren Woods, the engineer, you know. Man, it was just, it was still rich, man. It hadn't died at all. I mean, it was still rich. really rich in the 70s, especially going into the 80s. So as a musician, who would you say is your North Star as far as like, that's the musician I want to emulate?

Because it's weird to me, like most bass players I know, especially having lived in the 70s, every sentence starts with the least with Larry Graham's. Thank you for let me be myself for Stanley Clark. So the fact that you started in 78 with Prince tells me. that you're sort of a later generation. So who, as far as like your shedding and as far as like who you wanted to emulate, who is the musician that is your North Star? Well, number one, okay, well, let's break it up into two bass players, okay?

Not because my total North Star is Stevie, period, hands down, right? But as far as bass players are going, okay? So my first bass player influenced, and I didn't really know it, but I would pick his sound out when I heard, I want you back. That's James James. James. I would hear his bass lines. And I just always locked him.

Now, as a bass player, definitely it was Stanley and Jock. And then it was Abe LaBoreal. It was Alfonso Johnson, who blue. played this, you know, fretless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson. These are my go-toes. And then, of course, Marcus was younger, so he came on the scene a little bit later.

But those guys were my Jameson, Clark, Anthony Jackson, Jocco, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vannelly's base player, I don't know who it was, but we would listen to him. So anybody that was really killing back then, We would grab their record, their music, and we would just share to it. So those are my North Stars right there. So were you more team thumb plucking, or were you more team index middle finger for bass playing?

I'm a pocket guy. I never had all of these. I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely a thump. I was definitely team thump. I get it. Okay. I love it.

At what point are you forming? or at least bonding with Marcus, Montreal, like the other members of commission. Like, how are you guys, how do you guys meet? And is that, was that your first actual band or did you have other bands before? Well, Mitchell Jones and I, we graduated, we went to school together at Mumford High. And we were together nonstop all three years. So he and I started commission, you know, at the end of the day. he and I started commission.

I went off to play for the Wynans. I was the bass player for them from 19 until I was like 23 years old. And that's when I started, that's when I started commission. But it was me and Mitchell, Keith Staten, Carl Reed, Michael Brooks and Michael Williams the drum.

And right around them, right around... Are you talking live or studio? Both. With the Wiener's, I'm sorry. Oh, with the Wynos, I was just, man, they wouldn't even let me near the studio. They wouldn't, you couldn't even, you couldn't even see nobody famous. What, here's a, here's a joke.

Andre Crouch came to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man, if you don't, if you be good, I'll let you come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh, man, we can see him. And so they, this is no joke. They had us come over. He opened the door. And we had to look through the screen at Andre's sitting in the chair over and he said, just look over there. That's him right there.

Wow. over there and we was like, wow, that is him. Wow, this is it. We never asked, could we come in? And we never went in. Wait, we all ran bunches like, why go home? Nah, that's how they protected their relationships. Like, I'll imagine.

Go home. No, no. So I'd never got a chance to play on any album, you know, with them or anything. We weren't, you know, we weren't good enough, but we were good enough to do the road. And you know what? We wasn't offended. We really weren't offended. When we heard their records,

we knew it was something different between Abe La Boreal, Bill Maxwell, Hadley, Hocken-Smith, you know, we knew it was something different. So we weren't tripping, you know, we just appreciated the opportunity to just be in the number. Pride Month Toronto, Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. IHartRadio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival.

and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada. Your 24-7 radio stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've never had before. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto. Happy Pride. Iheart Radio.

I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom for my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari,

and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game.

The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Together. meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And it's a ton of exciting because their new star is Javier Tieterito. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born. And I still have so many questions. Where do we come from? What happens after death?

How do you deal with cancellation? Cristiano or Messi? Do aliens exist? What is love? Real Madrid or Varsa? From every day and ordinary to the deep and extraordinary. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real and genuine.

This podcast is like a deep talk with your closest friends where vulnerability comes out conspiracy theories end up on the table and goals and lessons are shared. All in this life has an order perfect and everything is just. Wait me, I'm going to be able to be able to be able to connect. The Chicharito. I'm Javier and together with IHard Radio.

We're going to make the ordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary. Stay close. It is a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Now let me ask you this. Were you around the, and I'm going to nerd boy out on the church. Yes. Let's do it. That's why you hear.

Were you back there in the church vibe with Thomas Whitfield and Rudolph Stansfield and all them guys? Come on. Come on. See, that's stuff I wouldn't know to ask. More James. Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in the studio. and my base, my base wasn't up to par. It wouldn't stay in tune and I was too young.

The first record was Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Peace Be Still record. Yes, Vanessa Bell. And there's a song called, I don't want my living to be in vain. And anywhere you bless me, I ended up playing those two. Okay, my boy that honestly, he called in because my base didn't work was Lenard Brantley, Kern. Okay, current, everybody knows. Yeah. That's my dog.

Okay. So McCurn was the king around there, and he was another guy that kind of schooled me. But that was my first take on going in the studio. So then when we did our demo as commission, we asked, we saved up some money, and we asked Thomas Whitfield to produce us. So when you hear the band track, when you hear the rhythm track, like if you listen to these four songs, give it my problem to you, I can see Jesus.

Yeah. if you listen to if we ever needed the Lord before. Those three songs. The rhythm track of that was produced by Thomas Whitfield. Whoa. And I was amazed by Thomas because, you know, Thomas had narcolepsy. So Thomas would be in there, he would be straight up like this. And he's like, hey, get that B flat out of there.

And everybody stopped. And somebody played it. And they solo it and sure enough, guitar player played the B-flat that was kind of hidden up under there. And he said, I don't play that. No, that's a C. Come on. I'll go back to sleep. And Thomas was my hero.

Thomas was really my hero. And I was sitting in the corner of RMJ Studio. And I went out, I remember washing a garbage can out. It was like this little gray high school bought garbage can. We have in high school. I went and washed it out. I turned it upside down and stuck it between the tape machine,

the MCI tape machine, and an effects rack. And I sat in this little cubbyhole, and I didn't say a word. I said, don't let him kick me out. Don't let him kick me out. And I honestly just sat there and I listened and I prayed and I said, Lord, show me how he thinks.

And I probably was 18 years old at that time. I said, please show me how he thinks. Because he was a genius. When he sat down and played, like he sit on the piano and played, man, it was, it was magical, just the way he did it. Yeah. And so, you know, Thomas Whitfield, man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh, man, Rudolph was a, and I'm not sure if you remember this guy, because he was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J. Wright. You know, he was, he was a genius. So all these cats ran together, and I just stood in the background.

So, yeah. Brother Hammond, you mentioned about you not having the right base. One, what was your first base you used and what is your acts of, what is sort of your acts of your favorite weapon? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so true story. My mother, we went to Kmart and when we was talking about doing to a base, we went to

Kmart and there was a base on sale for a. $35. And the headstock was cracked, literally cracked. And they said $35. And the guy said, if you buy it now, I'll give it to you for $25. Now, it couldn't stay in tune. It was impossible because between the A and the G, you know, there was, it was cracked. Right.

So I'm sitting there and I'm going, I think we can fix this. So I think we can take just a wood shop and put it on a vice and put some blue there. And so I'm trying to figure out how to make this thing work. work. So we took it up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all fix this? And the guy said, no, you can't fix that. You need to take that back and buy this one. We'll give it to you for the same price if you come back and buy it. We took it back to Kmart, argued with him because it was no return, but they gave us her money back. My mother took the 25 back to Wonderland. And we bought this Norma for that same amount. And so I never forget. My mother said, if you, if you

put this under your bed and you don't use it, I'm going to sell it. You got to promise me. And so I promised her. And I played and I went to church and we had a storefront church and I played. I had a little bitty amp and I played and I would play so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had to play it like a lead because church would be going. And I'm playing, do, do, do, do, do, that's what you can hear out of that little amp. And so my mother got really.

I got discouraged and I put it up. So for four months, my mother let it sit up under the bed. And then one day she was going, we were going to the choir rehearsal. And she said, I'm disappointed in you. You promise me. I'm going to sell that. I'm going to sell that. And she wouldn't even look at me.

She just driving me. She said, I'm very disappointed in it. And my mother's relationship with me, it wasn't no talking. It was just she talked and I just listened. And I felt horrible. And she said, why did you disappoint me like that? You told me, you promised you better keep your word as a man. Why did you tell me that?

And I said, they laugh at me, Ma. She said, who? So everybody. On Esther, Eddie, Charles, everybody. Why? They said, because it don't sound like a bass. And she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended up going

to Oakland Mall, Brunel's music, and we were in there. And so she was playing the piano, like she was playing the piano. And she said, which one of them bases is better? And I picked up this Univox. And I said, well, this one is, ma'am. It's $180.

Because at that point, you could tell how much your base, about how much it costs. $180 from $25 is a nice, you got a good base. So I was sitting there, man, and I was playing it. And then she said, okay, wrap that up. I'm going to take it for him. And the salesmen became the sales. He said, ma'am, this boy got talent.

If you want him to be the best, you got to get him the best. And I'm telling the dude, and shut up, my mother's on a quick thing. Just pack this thing up and get the head out of here. He said, let me show you what it is. This boy's got talent. He rolled, he pulled this fender out of the front, the same one that AWB had, the same blonde fender precision. And did we know about Alan Gorey?

Man, that's my dude. That's my dude. You're my man. Oh, God. Okay. That's right now. Sitting there, I'm in there, and I'm asking her, can we play? I say, we're going to get this one.

But can I just leave play it? And we went through this rich. We said, take off your coat, almost like Moses. Take off my shoes from all that feet. Take off that coat. And he backed up. He made sure he put a towel on me. And he put the base down.

And I plugged it into that amp that the Unibox had. He said, oh, no, no, no. You got to do this right. And he pushed it. just big red custom eight-foot amp off of it. And he turned it up. And the first thing I did was, Dome.

Don, do, don't know, don't know, do don't know, do don't know. And it was so smooth. It was so smooth. And all of a sudden, I'm playing everything. I say, I may not get a chance to play this no more. So I played skin tight. I'll take you there. I played fire.

I played everything. I could possibly play. Next thing you know, there was a crowd in front of Grinnell's brother saying, look at that boy. Look at that boy in there playing that base like that. And my mother looked at it. And she said, they said, we can do a payment plan of $30 a month. He deserves this.

He'll be good. And she put her head down just like this because she didn't have that kind of money. And she said, wrapping up, I bet not see this under the bed. I say, I promise you, you'll never see it under the bed. Now, that base retired my mother. Wow. It let her retire. All of this stuff you see here, all of this, every time you see me on

soul, every time you see me anywhere, it was because she took a chance on a $430 Fender base when she didn't have the money. She probably ended up paying $1,800. Right. Right, buddy. I was rent-to-home. She bought a car.

But it paid for everything that you see me about. She invested in me. She invested in me. And that was what it was. And I played that thing in the ground. Being young, I didn't know anything about I couldn't afford to take it to go and get calibrated. So I just changed the screens. And you know how we had to boil the stuff.

strings to get that pop back. You know what I mean? Boil them. You will put, well, explain that process to me. So here's the thing. I ended up, I could buy like, I could save up enough money to buy strings maybe once every five to six months. So I bought these deer dairy lights. So, you know, they get all trutty and stuff. They start sounding dull. Well, we learned that if you take them off the base, round them up, put them in hot, boiling water for about seven, to 10 minutes.

You pull them back off and they fresh you get that same bank right back again. So we were boiling strings. We would never buy nothing. That's good stuff. Wow. What? That's good stuff. Hey Fred, did you play that on victory?

I played a nut. By that time, I was able to buy another base. Okay. Another fender because that base got me fired. That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session, he said, man, you're a good. player, but you got to keep up with your axe. And you just got to, I got to have somebody

to play. And at that point, Leonard Turn had just Gibson, and it was, it was solid. So I lost the gig, but he let me play at least those two songs. And, you know what it was? It was an Ibanez. I went and bought an Ibanez. And that's the one that's on victory. That's the one on victory. Yep. Do you still have that original base just for prosperity's sake or? I couldn't find it. But, I went and bought one just like, just to remind me. I went and bought one just night. Now it's crazy. I don't play much no more because of my arthritis

and I'm just older. And so I got a lot of young cats to play with me. Now I ended up getting my own baseline through bass mod. Oh. Wow. And my own signature and everything on it. And so I got about five of them. And I'm like, man, you wait till I can't play to give me this.

Dang, and your mother didn't get to see that, Dissie Fred. Never got chest. Damn, that would have been dope. But, you know, she's watching in spirit. We know. Yeah, she knows. She knows. Pride month, Toronto.

Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada. Your 24-7 radio stream and the old. only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've never had before. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto.

Happy Pride. Iheart Radio. I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place, soccer, football, at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad.

It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though.

Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations

with the world's most fascinating people, Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And it's a ton of exciting because their new star is Javier Tichorino Hernandez. He's from Mexico. Everyone sees me as a whole thing. football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day, I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born. And I still have so many questions. Where do we come from? What happens after death? How do you deal with cancellation? Cristiano or Messi? Do aliens exist? What is love? Real Madrid or Varsa? From every day and ordinary to the deep and extraordinary. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is

spontaneous, real and genuine. This podcast is like a deep talk with your closest friends, where vulnerability comes out. Conspiracy theories end up on the table and goals and lessons are shared. All in this life has an order perfect and all is just. Wait-in me, I feel to present. We are here to connect.

The Chicharito. And together with I-Hadrady We're going to make the ordinary, extraordinary, stay close. It's a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Can you please tell me as much as you feel comfortable with revealing what's under the hood, I want to know what is it to tour on the gospel circuit. First of all, to get the pole position of being the go-to guy to play these gigs, but then let's say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Wynes, but I mean, I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand. Like, when do you start, when do they really start taking you serious as in Fred's my go-to? Like, at what year are you the man?

You know, it never happened like that for me because I went straight from the Wyners, straight to commission. And with commission, I dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every waking moment to making sure that group did what we needed to do. I will tell you this story that I got fired off of a commission, off of a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that I was the go-to guy. Wait there.

Man, I'm trying to think it was probably, I was out of school. So it could have been like, it was coming out of the winery. So it's probably 83. She would write her first real solo album. Look at me. Crisis at me free. That album. That first record,

I got fired off that gig, and it was funny because Michael Wright was one of my best friends. Michael Williams is one of my best friends. Michael Williams is a drummer. He's a drummer for commission. And Michael Wright was the guitar player. He was supposed to be the seventh member of commission. And they, Jeffrey the Valley was putting together a group. to go out and play for Tremaine.

So me and Michael, bass player, lead, and then drummer, and everything was fine. We were rehearsed. We were shed in the basement. And I always sang the middle. And Mike sang the top. And that's just the way it was.

The night we got to Jeff to come in and do the audition, like let's start practicing. My Mike froze and he started singing the middle. Now, in my head, I couldn't make. that transition bass-wise and singing. So I had to share it. And once I learned my part, I'm good. But it's not like, oh, let me switch to this part, let me sing this part. It's like, this is my part. I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well, he's saying my part, and he froze. And I never forget, I said to him, we stopped. I said, yo, Mike,

I sing the middle. And he looked right back at me and said, no, I sing the middle. And I'm like, Oh, we had a situation here. And Jeff LaValley was looking like this. Somebody sing something. And so I said, well, let me salvage this situation because he's my boy. I'll try to sing this top. I'll just learn it. And as I was doing it, I was struggling.

And so Jeff said, you know what, let's just come back tomorrow. Well, when I came back the next day, they had somebody sitting in the car. And the manager came and said, we have a problem. And we seem to be a problem. What's the problem? And they said, well, I said, well, I said, well, we kind of learned kind of the same part. And they said, go get Jonathan right quick.

And coming down the steps, Jonathan Duvost comes walking down the steps. He comes walking down the steps. And Mike Wright, who's a guitar player, said, oh, man, I'm fired. And he literally started packing up his guitar. And they said, no, no, no, no. They said, Fred, can he use your bass? And they rehearsed right in front of me. And they said, Fred, I'm sorry.

Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to use you on this time. And they couldn't just take three hours so you can relearn your harmony parts or whatever. They told me to go home and learn it. And they gave me a night. And I went home and I learned it. And when I went back, Gloria Hawkins was there. Jeff LaValley was there.

And Jonathan was standing there. They were just there. And I can't imagine if Jonathan came in yet, but I know it was down and the pressure hit me so hard. I started playing, and I was singing a note that I could not sing, and I just remember stopping and put my head down. And I wasn't going to rap on my boy. This is kind of the first time I saw it was his fault.

I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal while Jonathan Duvost practiced on my bass. Oh, wow. And I tell everybody, one of the reasons, reasons why probably I am decently successful is because I never carried bitterness towards anyone. Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like, you're seeing these people every day? Like, we were still boys.

Okay. We were still boys. We never, you know, you don't rat your boy out. And that's just what it was. And it was unspoken at that time that that's what the problem was. And I never, I never ratted him out. And I just, it was crazy too because they toured for about a year to two years.

And I was bro. I was broke. See, James, we were to rat at each other out, man. No. My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the drummer for commission. And he has no filter. So he would come back, just tell that, yeah, we just came from Amsterdam, man. Man, let me tell you something, man.

I just bought this. I bought that. And we did this. And I just sat there and I just. I just took it, you know. So what did you wind up doing? Like, did you take that ass like, okay, I got to shed even harder? Oh, yeah.

Like, I've said, I'm never going to let that happen to me again. But what I did was I focused deep on getting commission together because we had to learn managers. We had to try to find managers. We didn't have the easy road, man. People thought the commission was signed and somebody saw us. Man, we spent, we raised $13,000 from aunts, uncle. cousins, skating parties, receptions. We would put them in a shoebox under my bed

and go by studio time. And finally, we had a finished product. And we leased that first record that I'm going on. It was a least- I'm going on record. Yep. Our manager, we went to Ty Scott records, and Leonard Scott said, I'll sign you guys.

We didn't know what to ask for. We said, can we just have the money back to pay our parents and our family back? And he said, sure. But then Derek Dersen, who was the leader of chapter 8, you know, he was the drummer and the leader of chapter 8. He said, let me manage you guys. He just walked away from the wind. He said, let me manage you. And we said, okay, he said, give me two weeks. I'm going to take it to light records. And if they don't

come back within two weeks, we'll go over the Thai sky. Well, he called on his relationships. He did a lease deal. We put the record out, and the rest is history. Then we got signed the second record on from second record on. Yeah, I was just going to ask you. about the business of that. So how did that work in terms of like do you guys own those masters now? Was it a deal that they own? How was business done in the gospel world as compared to the kind of secular music? It was done the same. Same thing. Artis got jacked. I believe we own the masters now, though. We do own the master now to the first five records. But other than that, we just got took. So in your mind, and you're saying that the winans was like your first gig before you went with, or your biggest gig before you went to forming commission, in your mind is the winans and doing that circuit as good as it gets, like as top as it gets?

Is there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I should go to Los Angeles to become a session musician? or are there any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker in the chapter? You know, like are your eyes looking elsewhere? Or for you, it's like, I'm going to stay in the gospel world and the winans is as good as it gets to get out there? I never looked to do a secular group or play in a club or anything else. I really felt like I was called.

And this was before I knew my birth issues. or anything, I honestly felt like I was called to gospel music. So the win-ins was as big as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be paying for them right now at 60 years old. I never thought I was going to leave. And I didn't want to leave when I left. You know, honestly, there was a little haiku that happened to in commission. I'm going to give you all some real, a little something behind the same.

A couple members called me with our managers at that time. into a basement at 12 o'clock at night. And they told me, if you don't leave the win-ins, we're going to take this group from you. You out here traveling, you out here doing that, you can't be no group leader. They didn't have a record deal. They didn't have anything.

But there was some scuttlebutt that was going on between two members and the management. And they were literally trying to take the group from me. And I said, if you don't leave them, we're going to take this group from me. So I had to go back to the winings and I couldn't be no rat. So I couldn't tell him, man, they're making me do this. I had to tell him.

And then after Chicago, that's my last, that's my last gig. I'm going to make commission. And they was so mad. Really? Man. They were so mad. They understood. They told you, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's what they said. But it was because we were family. And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Al Green, and a bunch of people in Chicago. And I never forget, I cried like a baby. And in the van, they got together as brothers. And they sang this song to Finders' Keepers.

I just remember the hook. They said, farewell, friend. We love having you. What up, y'all? Fon Tigolo here. That was part one of our two-part interview. with the legendary Fred Hammond. Y'all stay tuned. Part 2 is coming up next week,

and it gets even better right here on QLS, QLSA. Custlove Supreme. Yep. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It's that time to put on your jersey

and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch a watch? to walk up. That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American Football on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CV. Yes.

All right, listen up. The Jonas Brothers here. Our podcast is called Hey Jonas. We're here, since everyone has a podcast, we want it to as well. And we've had some incredible guests so far. And now our good friend, Nile Horn, is joining the show. How's it going, boys? Hey, Niall.

It's the same thing with Slow Hands. Slow Hands is not about anything else, really, is it? You know, or taste so good can't be about food. You do the same, Nick, with some of the stuff that you've done. You too, Joe. Drop what you're doing and listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to you listen to. to your podcasts.

Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day, I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions, ever since I was born. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real, and genuine. Just honest conversations about what it means to be alive.

I'm Javier Tornandez, and listen to Learning to Be Human on IHart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.