The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Fred Hammond Part 2

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

The second half of the 2022 interview with Fred Hammond. The Roots' James Poyser joined Team Supreme as they interviewed their first Gospel artist — others would follow in time. This conversation is spirited, fun, and informative. Enjoy as part of our 2026 Black Music Month fleet of Classics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We've taken this month seriously. It's our chance to celebrate Black music, documented something. history and recognize the impact it continues to have on our culture around the world. Throughout June, we'll be bringing you an episode every day. My team and I have gone back through the archives and pulled together conversation, stories, and moments that help tell a bigger story about black music and the people who shaped it. We also got four brand new Quest Love Show episodes coming your way, spotlighting artists,

thinkers, innovators, cultural shifters, revolutionaries from across the the spectrum of black music, past, present, and future. Thanks for spending your part of June with us. Happy Black Music Month. All right. Yo, what up? Spontiilo. Last week, we got it to part one of our interview with Fred Hammond.

And y'all heard that one. Get ready for part two. We go even deeper and it's even better. Questlove Supremes in the house, y'all. Yep. I asked you initially, and then we got sidetracked. But can you just briefly talk about what? the gospel circuit is like in, remember I told you the whole thing like, okay, you're touring with the

winans. What is, what is a working musician making with the winans in 1980, 81? Just keep it funky radio. Hotel conditions like, yeah, right. Are y'all in one hotel and the wine is in another one? 18BG? Oh, we're the same hotel. Is there, is there a writer? I just want to know, like, what a working musician makes in the gospel circuit, like, are you playing just churches? Is it banquet halls? Is it theaters?

Like, take me through, all right, you get me a gig drumming with the, with the winans. Explain to me the whole process. Okay, so the wine is when they came out, their record, they had a great manager. They had a couple great managers. Derek Dirtson was one of them. A couple of other people. And they had riders, you know, down to just like a, because these managers managed, secular acts. So they had writers. And we were doing mainly theaters. And back at that time, they had this

thing called The World's Greatest Gospel Show, James Cleveland, Mighty Clouds. And they were doing arenas. They were doing literal arenas like Cobal Hall or something. And so we did a lot of big, big dates. When we did a church, we felt like, you know, it was beneath us. You know, even if the church was big, because we were used to not doing churches. The winters had a thing that they said, we don't want to play churches because we don't want to alienate. Some people don't want to come to church, and we want everybody to hear our music.

So we did a lot of theaters, you know, did a lot of theaters, Beacon Theater. We did Radio City. We did a lot of things. So they had a writer. We all stayed in the hotel. We traveled by Greyhound Bus and Van. Every now and then we would,

we would fly. But we traveled, we didn't have no problem loading up in a 16 passenger, you know, and heading down the road, you know. So that was the case. But here's, let's talk about the money. Thank you.

It got strange. It got really weird. It got weird. I started off making, because I knew they were charging like 3,500, the night. Then they were moving up $4,000 night. They were moving up the ranks.

And we started off making $250 a night. And we was like, man, this is great money. Well, somebody told them, like, you know, as you guys make more money, the band is going to make less money. And they took that wrong. So when they went up to $4,500, we went down to $1.75. They went out. When they went up to $5,000, we went down to like $100.

It got down to $50 a night Because they were like, hey, hey, you know, Where else y'all gonna play? Well, who else you're gonna play for? We don't, we don't only kind of game in town, you know, and we literally got down to $50 a night. And I was on welfare. I was literally collecting unemployment

and having to go out of town. So I go to Oakland. I have to stop off at the unemployment office. I go into KFC right next to the unemployment office. Say, hey, y'all looking for anybody? Y'all got applications. They say, no, we ain't hiring. And I go in the, in the office.

I will look for a job. I look for a job. And they said, okay, cool. I signed a little thing. I go back home. I collect my $50 from the winters. Three nights. I got a buck 50.

Plus, that wasn't per die. That your per diem was in your pay. So I would end up going home. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, wow. It was kind of, it was, it was, it was, it was a thing, you know. How did you let it get that bad? Why did, why did you guys let it get to that point?

That was just a standard, yo. I mean, I'm just curious as like, you didn't nobody ever say anything like, you know, okay, now's 100. That's what y'all's tripping. No, no, no. My drummer, my, my, my, one of my best friends in the group at the time, his name was Sandy Loveley. He was a great drummer.

And he just got to a point and said, man, I can't go out for this. Yeah. I got to get a job. and give me a job at Chrysler. And we had meetings like, guys, can we get more money? And they were at a place where they were so hot, they were like, if you don't want to play, you know, somebody comes in. And that was just the way it was.

And they weren't mean. They were just called themselves being business people. And I stayed as long as I physically could. I was making, I literally, man, was on welfare and playing. And I just hung in there. I never forget, we went to California for a month. And I had to pay for my own food. Every now and then they pay for our food, you know, come on and sit on down.

But they only had a few gigs. We probably had seven gigs out there. So 50 times seven is what it was. And I had to eat. So when I went home, I probably went home literally with like $180 in my pocket. That's a love often. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But my thing was I loved it so much.

Right. And I thought at being young and gubernable, I'm like, well, this is how it goes. I'm not leaving. This is the best place for me. So it's not going to be about money. I didn't realize I was learning it's not about money. When you do this, you've got to have a passion. So that's what it was.

Another question I always wanted to know. I grew up in a, you know, a household with at least 3,000 records. I'm very, very, very familiar with the life. label. So I know about the history of Ralph Carmichael and whatnot. Could you explain for our listeners to me too, because I know very little, like was light a Detroit label and like why were, why was that the go-to? Was that the Motown of gospel labels back then? It was. Andre Crouch made light record. Ralph Carmichael. Andre Crouch were really good friends.

And Ralph invested in Andre's earliest music, you know. And then Andre just blew it up, man, and just, that's what did it. That's what did it. Andre Crouch built light records. And then the winers went at that same time. Andre had a little something and they had to kind of part ways. Andre went to Warner Brothers, you know, from there. And so the winings ran light records.

and light records was a major, major force. But it was from L.A. They lived, they were out in Pasadena and somewhere out there and, you know, out there. That's where Light Records was. The Hawkins, too. The Hawkins were in the Bay Area. And they were on Light. Yeah, their first record.

And all of their records were on Light Records. Yeah. Light was the major lay what that point. Word Records hadn't even come into play yet. You know, Light was the thing. And then Ralph, he, retired and gave his reins over to another guy. And that's when commission came in.

And we salvaged because we were making money for light records. You know, we was really turning some records over. Okay, so now that we're there, can you please tell me just the average creative, at least for the I'm going on and go tell us like your first two records, can you tell me what the creative process is for making those albums? as in who's the alpha that makes the decisions who how do you guys especially i mean there's six of you or seven of you six of you like is it really democratic or is it just like what you say goes or what like what's the as fonte would say sort of the division of labor in in creating these

records um man i was good and i've always been good at delegating you know i understood it so I broke the group up into two pieces because the singers, Carl Mitchell and Keith, they weren't really, Mitchell was, he was kind of key and learning the music side. But I had a very funk background. So I would divide it up into, here's the singers, this is what we do. And then it was Michael Brooks and myself, me and Mike. Mike was the keyboard player. And he was the songwriter. So we would take his songs. He would say, this is this, this, this, this, this. and then we would add the flare to, we put the swag on. Mitchell and I would put the swag on. And it was never about me, you know, running the show. We were just glad that Mike Brooks was such a good songwriter. He was phenomenal. All of them songs back then basically came from him.

We didn't even know anything about songwriter. He was teaching us. But we took his songs and we made them as good as they could be. So, you know, we just, we understood that level. So I was really a producer from that angle. Mike was the writer, arranger, and producer. So we worked well together. You know, we never saw anything different from Jimmy and Terry

or from babyface in L.A. So we just took it that, you know, you work together. You know, whatever you feel, how you feel about that? He said, oh, I like that. I say, well, I like what you're doing. So we just did that and it worked, you know what I mean? That's what's up. What was the, in terms of stacking your, recording your background vocals, what was that process like?

John Yash, a good friend of mine, great, great engineer. He ended up getting fired off our first record. There's a lot of firing going on in the commission. Hey, y'all was getting people out of there, because. That boys weren't playing. I've never heard the word fire so much. So here's what we were doing. We heard a different sound from,

what everybody else heard when it comes to background. So we took and we stacked, you know, each part, you know, four, four and four. And our backgrounds were more Clark sisters. One of the songs that we learned, our first song, we learned. And when you say, real quick, just when you say 4-4-4, are each one of y'all, like four of y'all singing the same part and y'all are tracking each. Four of us were singing, we sing two tracks because it was 24 track at that time. So you really had to manage.

you just. Uh-huh. So we were seeing the bottom, then we'd sing the middle, then sometimes Mitchell, Carl, and I would sing the top, or just Carl, and Mitchell would sing the top. So we had six tracks of vocals, but we had intricate parts because we were always concentrating on the Clark sisters. Our first song we ever learned in my mother's living room was,

Lord, give us a praying spirit, praying spirit. Lord help me to say, yeah, yeah. When we sang that and learned that, man, we ran out like we ran a gram. We jumped out to half off the porch. We learned it, so we said, this is how our vocals are going to be. So now we're singing this song,

if we ever need Lord before, surely we're name and we're singing it. And surely we need, surely we need him. And when we did that part, we were amazed. But the engineer said, no, you can't have the vocals up that loud. They need to be back here. I said, but they don't sound good back there. We want them up louder because it's like background leads.

And we had a thing because nobody was doing it that way. So finally, he put him where he wanted him. And we just said, okay, cool. I went into the stage manager, I mean, the studio manager, I told her, I said, you know, we need to get our masters. She said, you leave? I said, yeah. And she said, why?

I said, I didn't want to get him, you know, fired. I want, you know, he said, well, we think our voices sound better up here. He said, who's paying for this? Is he paying for this or are you paying for you paying? And I said, we are. She said, you better grow a pair. I'm going to teach you how to be a man. Is your record.

Next week you came back. It was a different engineer there. And he turned it up where we wanted, and the commission sound was perfect. I love that. The very next album, though, we went back with John, and he got it. And he was out of the assignment.

Brother, Brother Hammond, can you explain the influence and what makes the Clark sisters their sound or their blend? Like, what makes it so special than anyone's form of background blending or whatnot. Twinkie. Fun word. Twinkie Clark. At that time,

Twinkie Clark. Twinkie was Stevie to us. How she played, when she sat down and how she played, how she arranged her harmonies and what she did. It was just amazing. And so you have Karen and Durinda.

And you had Denise at that time and Jackie. And Twinkie was giving out these crazy parts and these crazy chords. And it was blowing us all away. It was amazing. If you go back and listen to it, the recordings weren't that great productionalized and sonically. You know, it was a lot of mistakes that kept going. But if you listen to the heart of Twinkie Clark's arranging. It was just with like that praying spirit, that is an amazing song. That was our North Star to say, we want to make people feel like this about our

record. Because at that time, we didn't want to sound like the Wyandons because they were kind of straight ahead, you know, four tops, temptations, you know, they were that. They were. We wanted to be different. They were that. It's time. Time to make a change. Yes.

Go back to, go back to, go back to the question it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just, just straight harmony on down. So to you, to you, that was regular, just regular flat, like, Harmony 101? It was 101. It was 101. My parents lived for that record. So I'm growing up thinking that the Wynans are the epicenter of, you know, and the absolute force of gospel singing.

But for you, that was just normalized and the Clark sisters were top shelf. It was as far as being creative, the Clark sisters were top shelf. As far as the blend, the Wynan brothers, there was a blend like no other because they were family. So we took the polished of the Wynens and we took the creativity of the Clark Sisters. And that's what commissioned. So if the Wynans, commission and Clark sisters got together, then they produced us. You know what I'm saying? So that's what you hear.

But it was about Twinkie. Twinkie was beast. She was a beast. She was amazing. And that's where we got it from. 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.

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Oh Javier, Ticharito-Randes And together with IHard Radio, we're going to make the ordinary, extraordinary. Stay close. It is a carac. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So, okay, actually, I want to direct this to James, because here's a deal. Again, when I, you know, at the top of the show, I explained that when I was in high school, it was almost like a gang experience.

And I'm at Performing Arts School, and you got like one cat, like Kurt Rose. and winkles into Frank Zappa, so you got to learn his language. But then like Chris McBride and Joey D. Francisco are heavy jazz cats. You got to listen to like anything on Blue Note. And then of course, you know, my partner, Tariga, is hip-hop and whatnot. And so there's the fourth category of cats who only lived for commission. And so, you know, like I, even though we didn't go to the same school together, like little John Roberts, uh, as a drummer was how I knew commission. Because the thing is, you know, like, I'm thinking like with my legacy of who my dad was and whatnot, I'm finally like in a high school situation, which I could play like all city jazz band

and all that stuff. So I'm thinking like the red carpet is just ready for me and like, you know, for me to get my thing on. And little John Roberts, he's way younger than I was. Like he's like three, four years younger. You know, this. this little, you know, eighth grade run is playing like an adult. And I'm like, wait, what? And he's, little Johns let me know, like, like, I, what, you don't know about commission? And I'm realizing, you know, because again, I was team Prince. That's, that's who I, that's who I chose at, you know, Prince the time and all that stuff.

I wasn't hip to commission. And yet all my peers, like all those first generation monster cats were, just like taking every word as like bond. So for you, for you, James, like how much of their work like was influential to you coming up in your dad's church and whatnot? Oh my, see, I grew up in my father was a bishop and a Jamaican bishop, which means that we couldn't do nothing. as my dad said,

you can't do this, you can't do that. Wait, you're trying to tell him, he had to sneak to listen to the commission? No, no, no, no, no, no. Those are the only records

that I could listen to. You know, I grew up, you know, the records that were in the house were, the Anj Crouch and the Hawkins and so forth. And so listen to that, but when commission came, it was like,

this is something new. All my musician buddies at the time, that grew up in the church were like, yo, have you, you checked us out the very beginning of, I'm going on. It was like, what is that? So it was like we had something, we had something cool to listen to, you know what I mean? Something that was y'all's. Yeah, something that was us.

Yeah. Explain to me, what year did gospel stop really let itself go of like the gospel quartet? Like when did gospel really let go? Because even now I collect, like I love collecting gospel records that will take that one secular song and turn it into a gospel song like Shalimar's second time around or, you know, there's a whispers and the beat goes on gospel version. There's a lovely day that's gospelized. You know, there's always that one token song where they like take a secular song and do it. but the rest of the stuff is like old time gospel.

At what point in the gospel world, do you not have to feel shame that you're making people dance and not playing the regular gospel time, old time gospel. You brought the sunshine maybe, right? I mean, Clark sisters, yeah, caught the sunshine. It caused a lot of controversy. I mean, that was a master blasted jamming. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's the first time in which. Which like, I mean, if you go back to Edward Hawkins, though, oh, happy day, too. You know what I mean? So. Yeah. Even then, like, that's still gospel to me. But, like, what's the point where, like, you know, where you, if you take the vocals away,

it could be a secular song. Like, at what point does that happen? It really took hold with BB and C C's first I-O-U-Mea. Yes, I got it. I was thinking that, but I didn't want to say it out loud. Thank you, Fred. I was thinking, baby, and see. That's when it really took hold because people didn't know if there was a love song album.

Yes. You know, and that's when it got popular to actually sing music. Steve Thomas was the, was the producer at that time. He was a white girl with a lot of soul. Oh, yeah, Keith Thomas. And Heaven. He did a lot of Vanessa Williams stuff too. Yeah, yeah.

But that's when it really kicked in. So when you're playing in church, are there any elders ever giving you side eye? Yes. Like, because even my, like, I'm not, I didn't, I didn't come from the church per se, but I played drums in my church occasionally. So like, you know, in 86, 87, you know, I might put a little bit of top billing into whatever we're doing or play like a run d and C break beat or whatever. And occasionally, like an older uncle would give me that look.

like I know what you're doing. You know, like how you know? Older people didn't know. When the kids start doing the walk, then they're like, oh, you're playing secondly. You don't do that, like uplift. So are you at all ever getting like side eyes, if you start referencing a popular bass line,

if you start doing not just knee-deep or something like in your music? Man, we caught the blues with that, man. We caught the blues with that. We were getting, man, we got picketed. We got picketed at a show. Wait, I wasn't expecting that. Commission. We were doing a, we were doing a convention in Kentucky, I believe,

Cincinnati or Kentucky. And, man, there was, they said, man, we don't want to, we don't want to bum you out. But there's a whole bunch of people, about 20 to 30 people out in the front, and they got picket signs saying, this music is going to send you to hell. Oh, yeah.

What? And I never forgot. I never forgot. It was like a scene out of a movie driving up. All of a sudden, we in slow motion, you hear some strings playing, and you see these people, hey, hey, devil's music, devil's music. And we just sitting there and like, what are you doing?

But it was still a line of young people waiting to get in. And when we got inside, we played like never before. We weren't really rebellious. We were kind of hurt because we didn't see that like that, but we played anyway. And the kids came in there and they had a great time. And we did have a lot of elders and people say, I don't understand it. Like one pastor was totally against us.

And the only reason he stopped being totally against us is that another pastor had a son that was on drugs that was getting clean because he was listening to our music. He would come to church. He said, I don't know what them boys is doing. But I tell you this, if they can get him to do his job, I ain't mad at it. And it started changing some people around. but it took a long time. Man, people was picking in us because we had on blue jeans.

We were the first group to ever wear blue jeans on a record. So we was like new edition, and people just thought people wouldn't buy a record just because of what we had on that first happened. They wouldn't even buy it. What? Yeah. Y'all think the church is keeping,

is catching up yet with the young folks? How y'all feel like? Oh, no, they're in now. They in. Okay. Everybody ain't in, though. That's why I was asking. You want to track music and churches.

I go to the Potter's house. I go to Bishop James in the Potter's house. Okay. So we have dance ministries. We have youth ministries. And they could do whatever it is. As long as it's not sexual looking, they can do any dance.

They can woe. They can do whatever they want to do to anything because he encourages, man, this is current. This is what we're doing. There's nothing wrong. We better offer them something. Yes. Somebody else is going to offer them something.

I want to give her something because the poll is going to offer or something. So, you know, let's be smart about young people. And they're with it now. But coming up, man, Eric Robertson is one of my best friends. Yes, I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, I was going to ask you, Jinnati Tenors. Yes, indeed. So E, I never forget, they told me they said they brought him down to Papados,

and they said he had a special guest for his birthday. And they brought me in the room. He literally started crying. And we stayed friends every since. But he told the story that really blessed me. he said he hated gospel music because it was he didn't like it. And his mother said, you got to listen to it.

But she was praying for something. So one day he was downstairs ironing his clothes. And his mother put our record on the on the arbor. And he saw that we had clothes like he did. And he looked at it. And he played it. He said, I literally started crying. He said, because you guys, you said it.

You guys made it cool. to do gospel. And that's when it flipped. He and I talk about to this day, that's my guy. Yeah, now Eric's my man. That's big pro for me. Coming soon to Quest Love Supreme.

You hear me here? Yeah, we need to get it. I'm mind-blown. I wasn't expecting the picketing. I thought, like, you guys broke through the other side and everyone was with it. So it's basically like the black foot loose. Like, I was like, yeah, for me.

I was about I say it's always a chick with a skirt underneath. knees ready to pick it. You know what I'm saying? Black foot loose. Well, I also want to know, has there ever been musically speaking,

how long would you guys rehearse and you know, was there ever a pressure to top yourselves as far as your musicality? Because, you know, again, some of these songs are straight-a-hit funk songs, but then, like, you guys will get

on your return to forever, you know, crazy, arrangements at the end thing. And, you know, so how, how, how, what's the, what's the regimen for like practicing and coming up with new ideas and whatnot? There was a point in time when we were doing the first several set of records when our budgets were really, really small. What we would do was put 20 hours of practice time in a basement to every four hours

of studio time because we didn't have a lot. money. So when you get in the studio, you can knock it out. We're knocking it out. And then we was putting fines in place. We didn't have no money, but we was putting fines in place, you know, if you miss a, if you, because you had to do a take, you got one take because we was like, no, we're going to be do this in one take.

If you messed it up, man, that was a $5 fine, you know. And so the next one, we would honestly, but we were on it, man, because we would, and we loved rehearsing. We didn't really have no jobs. So we loved rehearsing, man. We just saw ourselves in a bit of better place. So we would either be in Michael Brooks's basement, and we were learning.

That's where I brought in Phil Collins. You know, if you go listen to hide the word on the second album, okay, but the drummer, I listened to Level 42, and I listened to Phil Collins in them. And my drummer was crazy about Phil Collins. So we said, we're going to put this one part in there that Phil does, his tops. All right.

So it said, when it looks like everything to do you bra boom, and did you think it's standing

he would go past the one. So he'd go blah, and instead of going right, instead of going to the one, he would go

and say, watch, I'm going to do this. Boop and do, do, do, do,

boom, and we went into a thing, but we, he would do something, then I would do something. Or Mark King would do this right here. Boom, boom, boom. And this wouldn't ever do. Well, let's do

this right here. We were blessed to experiment with music and still keep a pocket. That was the beauty of commission, man. That's what I love. Wow. Wow. You mentioned level 42. I was about to say, what's his name's bass playing? Mark King. Mark King. Yes.

Yes. Amazing. I definitely see that. Yeah. Arrow, he He wanted to ask you, well, wanted you tell the story of recording, writing and recording, writing and recording, running back to you.

Oh, man. It was funny. Because that's actually, he just came up about three years ago as a sore spot. Really? Just came up in a sore spot. Yeah. It was supposed to be in a little movie thing

we was talking about doing. And I won't blow people's cover, but I'll just tell you what happened. Okay. We were in there and this record, we had an artist named Derek Franklin, you know, and I was going to give this song to him. And they said, well, no, why don't you keep it? So I said to Keith, I said, because it's my personal testimony. And I said, Keith, man, why don't you sing this song?

Because we always wanted to make sure everybody felt more comfortable. You know, like, I don't want to seem like I'm doing everything. So I wrote this song, you know, and I said, Keith, would you do it? Keith is more straight lace of all of us. He was very much the straight lace guy, you know, very cool. But he went out there in these streets like we was. We was out there. And he said, man, I'm not real comfortable with doing that song.

I said, well, I'll go do the demo of it. And you guys kind of listen to it. So what we would do is out the person was sing the lead. Then we'd go start making up background parts. So I went in there and I sang the song. And I'm looking at the guys in there. and they're just kind of sitting like this, you know. And so I'm singing the parts, I'm singing the parts.

And finally, I look in there after I finish, and I put the headphones down. And nobody's, you know, not saying, man, great songs. They're just sitting there. And so I walked from the microphone to the studio, 10 feet, going past double doors. And when I got in there, everybody was looking at me like this. And I was, I didn't know.

what to expect. So I just sat down and one of the guys said, good job, man, good job. And I said, okay, cool. So I'm listening to the playback. And I turned around to the guys. I said, so guys, let's start putting some backgrounds to it. Let's put some backgrounds to it. And the guy said, I don't think you should put no backgrounds. Now here's the, here's the, here's the dirt. Here's a little dirt. One of the guys, when I was coming from the vocal booth to the room said, So y'all just let him do a solo on this record. Oh, man. And when I got in there, everybody was off guard.

So that was the look. That was the look. And so the rest of the guys told me this literally three years ago. Wow. And I always thought. They just told me this three years ago. Wow. And so when I walked in the room,

I walked in and the person said hey man you should just go ahead and do it yourself and I said no man I don't want nobody thinking I'm trying to do no solo and nothing like that they said man now you're good the guys were trying to process

what they just dealt with so they sat there and what you hear is the demo is the actual song itself today wow Wow. Man. We were still here to think.

We were still regular dudes. We were still people with insecurities. We were people, we were guys, boys trying to be raising, trying to turn into men. We had idiosyncrasies. We had group issues. So when I see something like The Temptation Story, which was one of my favorite movies of all time, you know, I feel that pain. When I see that five heartbeats, I feel that pain. When I see the Jackson's, I see a new edition, man, we all went through that.

It's nothing different in gospel. People have desires and this, that and another. We just didn't cuss each other a fight. But, man, it was still the same drama. You know what I mean? And that was one of them moments. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart.

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The Chicharito. And together with IHA Radio, we're going to make the ordinary, extraordinary. Stay close. It is a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Well, James and I are from the Tri-State area. So the gospel station I always listened to.

My parents went full Christian on me like around mid-80s. And there was a station called WZZB, of which, you know, you can hear some whining's, but then it would be like the people that day. Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith or, you know, Leslie D.R. Yeah, all those groups, Twyla Paris. like were you guys ever accepted in the sort of white mainstream contemporary Christian set or were you guys strictly just like on your side of the fence or you know was there mixing you know what they have not only festivals or churches would invite you guys or like

brilliant question we did have a few churches so if we did 30 gigs a year you know know, two of them would be a white church or a big white festival, you know, a big white festival. The guy that brought Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith to town, his name was Art. He would try to get us in events because he was just a really good friend in him and Derek Dersen. Derek was trying to cross us over to let people see what we did. But we didn't do a lot of them, but we had enough, you know, festivals. Festivals were big back then.

So we were going to stage, you know, right before Petra or right. before, you know, Striper, you know. Would you try to kill him? Would you try to kill him? Yeah, we was doing that thing. I saw a picture the other day. Somebody sent me something. I'm probably posted in a day or so where we were doing the monument.

It was called. I forgot what it was called, but it was a big Freedom Fest, and it's one of the largest white festivals around, and they brought us there. It looks like the crowd is sitting on us, Because we were singing, that's when Marvin Satt was in the group. He had just got in the group. But the reality was it was 118 degrees and people were falling out. They told everybody, sit down for every group,

no matter who it was because people were falling out and they was taking people away. And it had to be like the mall was filled. So it probably was about 30,000 people on the law. You know, so, you know, I just saw that the other day and I'm probably posted in a day or so. But yeah, we had a decent fair, but we basically stayed on our side defense. I want to get to his last album with commission, at least to see what the difference is in starting the band 10 years ago in 84, 85, and what prompted to the initial split from the group in in 94 with matters of the heart.

Could you just talk about that time period? The first record after the split was number seven. That was the first record. Okay. What ended up happening was Michael Brooks ended up getting a really good deal with Polygram, Raina Bundy and Polygram in New York. And she made him her staff producer. And, you know, he was kind of an R&R director.

And he was still with us, but he was really, really, really busy doing that. And he reached out to Keith and say, hey, man, we'll do a solo record on you. And Benson Records passed on Keith's solo deal. They gave him an option to do it. They said, no, we invested in commission. We don't think you should be doing that. Well, we had something in our contract that said, first write a refusal. If you pass, it's it. Well, Keith went on the head and signed with Brooks under his production company with Raina, Polygram. and it's called election records was the name of the record company. They ended up, Benson got really mad. Benson records got really mad.

So they came to me and said, he can't stay in this group if this is going to happen. Y'all need to get them out and this and so the record company basically made a split and said, well, man, you can't be a part of us if you're going to do that. And so him and Mike went their way. So now the whole record from number six, and then matters of the heart is all in my hands to produce. And I brought Mitchell on because that was my boy.

And Mitchell had an amazing sound. He understood, you know, flavor. He understood he had a flavor to it. So that I'm learning. That's Mitchell and Parks, but that's our groove behind it. But that's their pin. You know, ordinary just won't do, Mitchell and Parks. Some of the greatest songs, they had, they just had that thing, but we had the music

behind it. So number seven, you know, I brought. in my boy Bernard Wright. We did King of Glory. We did, I can't live without you. And Bernard. Is this the Yon by saying? Who do you love?

Yes, yes. He stayed with me, hung out with me, and me and him was like that. And he, so if you listen to King of Glory, you'll hear me and Bernard, you know, and then you listen to I can't live without you. You hear me and Bernard. My first solo record, I came to Jesus with the fly-binder, me and Bernard. Grace for me every day, me and Bernard. And then Bernard Witten got his record deal from another record company, and he moved on.

So that was what that was. So our sound, I was able to take the funk that was always in me and drive it and said, this is what we're going to do. And then we got to, we got a little bit more polished because we were, we got to matters of the heart, and we wanted to sound a little older. So then I got with my boy, Chuckie Booker, and we did, you know, love is the way. and we did, you can always come home with Run DMC.

And we just, we experimented with great music. So we had CCM sound, we had that funk, Chuckie Booker sound, and then we had that commission funk in the middle of there. So that was kind of how that was birthed. Yeah. And that was my last record.

That was my last record. And then after that, that was when you did Radicals for Christ. Radical for Christ. It was my last record. And we had another split at that point in time. And I thought I was going to get rid of the other guys. It wasn't going to be me.

You know, I'm being good with the record company. And, you know, it's what it is. Which one of you is going? I'm not leaving. You know, I've already proven myself. I'm the golden child. They love the records. It's selling.

And we had a meeting one time. And they said this. They brought a lot of different things that wasn't true. And we sat down with a pastor. And I'm like, okay, one of you, somebody leaving. It ain't going to be me. We hear, no, I'm not moving.

And somebody read, I won't say which one it was. He said, read the bottom line. And he said, because the pastor said, I don't see anything wrong here. There's nothing out of order. The receipts are in place. Everything that you guys are saying, I don't see it. What's the bottom line?

And he said, we do not believe God called Fred to be the leader of our group. And it took all the air out of me because I picked, I handpicked the guy that was reading. What? And I sat back in my chair and I went through all the emotions right there. And then I told, I said, give me a week. And I went back to my little spot, my little studio. And I went to everywhere in the Bible in the New Testament that talked about belief. Okay.

And the main scripture was, Jesus was in his own town preaching to his own people and they said who does this guy think he is? Don't we know his sisters in them? Who do you think? Wait to get all this knowledge from?

And he said, he marveled at their unbelief and then this was the thing that made me give it up. He said, many mighty miracles he could not do because of their unbelief. And I closed the Bible. I said, I can get these guys 10 Grammys.

They all have Rose Royces, and they won't believe it's me. So I'm out. And I just handed everything on. I said, y'all can have it. And I went into a wilderness. I did not know what I was going to do. I went into a depression.

We sang one more year. And then I had to figure out what I was going to do. And this is 94. 3.94. 3.94. And that's when I heard start a choir. And I was like, now I'm going to keep it 100. You know, and I don't, you know, I got to keep it careful because I don't

canceled. You know, I didn't care for choirs for the persona that it carried at the time. And that's that's all I'm going to tell you. I understand. I'm a dude, you know, and I didn't, I didn't care for it, you know, I didn't care for what people looked at choirs. And I saw Kirk on a show, and I saw David Man, I saw Big Dalin, my boy, Dalyan, I saw, and it was with it. And so then I knew John Pee-key, so I started listening to John. And John, I was thugging. I knew John. Me, I helped him get his first deal. And so I started listening. I started listening to show up like for four months straight. And I'm hearing this hard driving thing. And I'm like, I can do this. I can do this. So I was friends with Billy Steele. So I paid attention to sounds of blackness. Because at that point in time, Jimmy and Terry just killed the game with Sounds of Blackness. So I'm seeing this transformation. And I'm going into it. And I'm going into it. And I'm. Finally, I've come up with RFC, I said, this is going to be our flavor. We're going to do this.

We're going to do praise and worship. And nobody knew what praise and worship was at that time. Praise and worship is just how you say the lyrics you're saying. So when people are saying, I've been down, and I'm going to get back up. They were singing where they were in life. They were singing, baby, get needed a pair of shoes, even got a light built, because this is my problem. I'm going to turn over the Lord.

He'll work it out. but I started lifting the Lord up so I'm doing this beat and I got my MPC and I got all my cards and I'm load the samples up and I'm doing this one beat boom

boom boom boom and I stop the sample and you know how an MPC the sample would go over it was a state play yeah right Bosh to do

do shot to do do hit it again just Buh Buh Bish

to do shot to do Glory to be joy, glory to glory. And that's how it started. Wow. It changed it to a whole thing. You know, so I just took praise and worship that white people were doing,

brought it over to the black church. And I told, I tell white people, it says, you guys cook string beans and it still has snap in it. We don't like that. We like our stuff to be. It needs to be wilted, turkey leg in there, and it needs to have not a nutrient around. I was just going to say that, that's a nutrient, not it. You know, cooked all the life out of that.

I don't want to taste a ribo. I don't want to taste a rival. Oh, man. I don't want to taste a lot of calcium. I don't know of that fiber. None of that. This shouldn't be no good. So that's what my praise of worship was.

It was, we just took their stuff that was neat. And we just put some turkey leg in there. Happy Pride Months, 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 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. I heart radio. I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football. It's 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 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.

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I've gone through breast cancer and it 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. Because their new star is Javier Tchorito Hernandez. 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.

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It was such an education, especially in watching with you and Kirk doing verses together. Yeah. And going through, you know, going through your history, how does it feel where now, like, contemporary secular acts, be a Diddy, Snoop Dog, did a gospel record? Like, how does it feel to be embraced by that community to whom that, you know, maybe 10, 20 years ago, I think maybe the most radical thing I saw 30, 40 years ago was maybe like Maurice White singing with a gospel act. But, you know, now it's very commonplace. Like, how does it feel to get embraced by the world? Respect feels good.

Respect just feels good. And that's all we ever wanted was respect, you know, to be treated like we're real musicians. We're not church musicians. We're real musicians who made a choice to sing church stuff. And now that's what it is. So I can look at you. I can look at the roots. I can pay attention.

I watch, you know, you guys. I remember when you guys went on and got the gig. We all talked about it. That was stuff about that we talked about. I paid attention to the sound that came out of Philadelphia, music, soul child. Now we just embrace each other because, you know, at the end of the day, each, every one of us on here, our brothers and sisters, we're a family of music first. What we talk about, but there's hip-hop gospel, that's just something.

we choose to have a conversation about. But first and foremost, we all have the passion of the beat, the drum, the bass, the keys, the sound, the lyric. And now we can have those conversations with each other. And we respect them. Like I said, my brother, we're in here right now, preparing for Ricky, Bobby, Rod, Johnny, and Mike. We're preparing for them right now.

All of our gear is getting ready to go out. And when I go and see them, I love them. And we just, we hug up, we dab up, and we just respect each other. You know what I mean? I really can't wait for this. For me, this education is important because, you know, James, James can attest to this, especially in the last two years, I've been, like, really catching up on a lot of things that I missed. It wasn't able to, you know, like the quarantine period that we're now is a slow down period

where, you know, we get time to ourselves and really I get to catch up on books and things and music that I otherwise wouldn't have caught up for him because I'm working so much. And I was, you know, when my ears said that you wanted to do Quest Love Supreme, I was, you know, I was like, thank God because I didn't want to be the only person in life who listened to crash cuts more than I've listened to phenomenon. You know? That's my man cut. Man, that's my birthday. Hallelujah. Today my birthday. So I thank you for this, man.

You know, I truly thank you. Almost in closing, I just want to know, well, in the aftermath of the pandemic, how has your life changed and how has the circuit, at least your life and music changed since March of 2020? Because he's about to go on tour, allegedly. Yeah, we're about to do Hezekiah, who was one of my best but good friends, we're hitting the road.

Hezachia, Marvin Sapp, myself, Israel Houghton, hitting the road in March. Festival of the praise tour. But you know what, man? It's weird because streaming has killed us. Streaming. Really?

Has it? The church? I mean, here's the thing. Our people are just starting to get on streaming this year. Right. They're just starting to. Oh.

Oh, COVID. No, no, no. He's saying the, oh, yeah. Yeah, because of COVID. That's why they have to catch up. They don't have a choice. So they couldn't go nowhere. Right.

But listening. So on their refrigerators, on their computers, listening, they discovered Pandora. They discovered Spotify. Yeah, they have. You know what I'm saying? So they're listening. Now, here's the thing.

It's kind of a cruel joke, and it's not God's fault. But it feels like a cruel joke. because I still have so much music in me to create. But there's no real outlet. I just did a record, man. I just did a record with this, was this company called Venice.

And I put it out, it's called Sunday Morning Fred. And it's on Apple Music right now. And it's one of the leading black streaming records out there. And I'm not on a major label. But it's not saying nothing because I'm streaming like seven, thousand like 36,000 copies of streams a week on this new record

and that's not really that good it's not really financially yeah it's like man I put a lot of money into it to to make it happen and so on my Facebook page I got a whole I got the whole concert I got the whole concert I did it in my warehouse and it's a throwback of old for it's pages of life for it it's that vibe And a man, gospel is in a tunnel because R&B died.

And I tell everybody that. When R&B died, I'm talking about LTD. I'm talking about time. I'm talking about Anita and Luther. When we could listen to them, we were, what made commission happen is because you can listen to something like you said. Man, your father said you can listen to them. them and we gave you the time. We gave you some prints. We gave you these people because we had

something to lean on. Well, now those people are gone. That music is gone. It's nothing new coming out. And therefore, and gospel has gone back to traditional or to Maverick. Maverick is the white version of Black gospel. What is that? Maverick City. Maverick City is the new praise and worship. It's the hottest praise and worship company out there live. And when I tell you, they got some amazing artists.

But what it is is a lot of the young people now have gone over there and they've taken the sound of black music and they've made it less black. How are you even doing it? You have to go research it. Okay. It's people like Chandler Moore. I mean, I'll tell you, this guy's amazing. But what they're doing is they're creating a new space for these guys to write and to do their thing.

So I can't be mad at it. I'm never going to be mad at somebody doing their thing. Maverick is the hottest thing going. Maverick City. But I can do Maverick because I'm too soft. I don't have that thing. And, man, check it out. Check it out.

So you're saying right now, there's really not, there's really not a space for you to be creative and release product. And have it be monetarily worth it. So would you, Fronte, would you say the disorder where you were in like 2003, like trying to figure out? Kind of where do we fit in? Are you saying this is where you were in 2003, like when you started a little brother and try to figure out? I mean, now, I would assume now in 2022, 20 years later, the lame that you're in is rather lucrative. Absolutely, yeah. Now it makes sense.

But at the time, it was just whatever. The beauty of what I did that a lot of my counterparts didn't do back in the commission days is I really felt God told me to just keep putting music out, even though I wasn't in the best record company position, even though they were making the money and I wasn't. I kept hearing him say, just keep putting music out, keep putting it out. And my guys were saying rightfully, I'm not going to let them pimp me. I'm out the game. Before you pimp me, I'm going to leave. But I kept making the music. Now, my catalog is what it is.

Spotify, I did 22 million streams this year. That's Spotify alone. Pandora plus this, plus that. And my catalog is burning through like crazy. So people want to keep me where they met me, though. That's what that's what I want you to evolve. They don't want you to evolve. They're like, I've reached at Frankie Bailey status.

I reach baby state status. I'll reach Stephen Sanders. All right. Yo, I'm going to make, yo, I'm going to make, I will make a suggestion. I'm putting this out, this on QLS. I'm saying this needs to happen. Because I think, I think I see a lane for you, brother Fred, if I may, if I may. Okay, listen, this is the same thing that, you know, that Rick James did.

Like, when you have the, the veteran act being produced by the younger producer. So Rick James, when he produced, the. temptations. Yeah. Amir when he produced Al Green. I think your next project. James Boyer to. No.

Oh, yeah. James. James was right. James and Amir. Absolutely. My fault. My fault, James. My fault, Jay.

I know what you meant, my dad. Yeah, both of y'all. We all did Al Green. I think your next project, Fred, I think you should be produced by Devin Morrison. Oh. Oh.

Like when I'm talking about, I don't know if you know him, I don't know if you know him, but Devin Morrison is a singer. He's a singer producer out of, he's from out of Florida, but he's based in, I think, L.A. now. Devin is, when I tell you a student of commission, when I found out you were coming on the show, I reached out to him. I was like, Devin, like, I know commission, but like, I'm not a church dude, so I need to know. You know what I mean? He made me a playlist of, like, his favorite jokes. He was like, all right, this is what you need. these are the joints these are the producers

like he knows your whole thing and send a joint to me yeah I'll see you the playlist and when I listen to the playlist I was like oh my god this is Devon's DNA like this is he is a student and a student of your music and loves you bro like I

make it happen Fonte like for real for real that's the beauty of it to work with my newest these young cats I love working with him you know I love working with him so I'm down man I will only

you all up, straight up and down. Like that needs to happen. Y'all-Oh, I'm so excited. A QLS magic. It happens sometimes. Wait, James, is there anything of the points that we missed?

Right, right. We are the heathens over here, so you know. Man, it's just so much music. I just got to tell you how much of an influence you've had on my life musically, and I just want to thank you for that. I don't know if you remember, we met my brother Marvin McQuitty, introduced us when you came

to Philly. This is yours back. Rest in peace. Yeah. But just, I just got to say thank you, man. Thank you for the music.

Thank you for who you are. Straight up and now, for real. For real. I appreciate you all. And I, this night was special to me. I have not done a Zoom

this long. I see you wiping head. Like, I know, right? How much time? Now, listen. I would have been checked out the whole long time ago because I'd be, okay, we just talked about everything else. But when you get into the history and you get into the music ecology of it all, man, you guys are amazing tonight.

It was amazing quest, man. You don't understand. I really am a fan. And I am a fan. Brother, I thank you and I receive that. Thank you so much for doing this for us. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

No, for real. Yo, real quick, Fred, do I have permission? Can I get your number from Arrow? And I'll link, y'all. I'll leave your Devina. Okay, I'll do that. You're here for me to know. I don't mess with people when I go places.

If they don't really recognize me, I'm the kind of person that are staying with my family and I'm cool. You know, because sometimes you meet a star and they don't know you today. They know you tomorrow. They know you when you ain't in front of people. And I don't know other people. You and I met one time. Oh, no. So we were, no, no, no, it went back.

It went back. It was the Grammys. We was at the Grammys. And I was behind you. It was in L.A. and I was behind you. And somebody was kind of, they were, they were, like, messing with your tickets or something, you know, and it was you and your mom. Y'all were together. And so I said, hey, hey, bro, you good.

And you turned around and said, hold on a second, man. And so the girl I was with, she's like, don't bother. I said, I think he's having some problems up there. And I said, I believe in him enough to try one more time. You got free and I got free. I walked up to you and I said, hey, man, I just want to tell you I'm a fan. My name is Fred Hammett. And man, you embraced me with the biggest hug.

Oh, he lost his shit when you said to his thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You said the name. He was right. Brother. He embraced me with it. It was always like, snap. Oh, yeah, okay, my.

I was scared. I'm scared where he said, and he said, this is my mom, and we hugged and this is another. We talked and I introduced you to the person I was with. And, man, that made my day because I didn't really walk up to a whole bunch of people that night. I'm not that dude to walk up. Oh, there go so-and-so. Yo, ho!

What's up, man? Y'all. I would love to see that, though. You don't know me. I don't know you. I know that's right. But, man, you were too close. We were in the tunnel.

on our way, you were too close for me not to say something. Here's Quest Love, man. I'm like, man, let me just talk to my man for a minute. It was nervous that first one. It was like a big willow tree was growing over because shade was starting to come. Brother, I didn't get you on site, but definitely your name holds holy because if there's anyone who made me go in the basement and rehearse endlessly to keep up with the cats that was listening to commission.

It was you. Thank you. You know, I give credit to my dad, like my dad making me go in the basement and rehearse, but, you know, that was from like 8 to 13. But definitely once I got to high school, you were definitely the spark that really, really brought my musicianship out, brother, and I thank you for that. Thank you. I'll say this and I'll be done.

Okay. You guys, when you do stuff like this, you add validity to who we are. as gospel artists. You guys did something, and y'all mentioned my name in the middle of one of these two, three-hour shows. And my people listened to it. And they, my guy sent me,

about five people said me, yo, man, Chris Love said your name. They talked about you, and they marked the spot. Go to this spot, and you can hear it. And I did it. And I sat there, and man, it brought a smile to my face. It's not like somebody sent me something.

They said, I said, oh, yeah. When they sent it to me, wanted to just know because of how I feel about you, how I feel about your group, how I feel about your accomplishments and everything that you guys are doing. I just wanted to hear that. And it was validation to me. It's a respect. And you guys had such nice things to say. And whoever the guest was on that time, they were talking nice about it as well. So I just want to tell you, man, when you guys do this to us, it's a blessing, man. Trust me. We're listening. Thank you so much. Thank you.

We're going to keep doing it. Alia, Sugar Steve. Yeah, I'm about to win that in an A, NAA. Come on, come on, come on. Come on. You don't even know what it is. Come on. The A's are important.

They're the most important. They're the most important. In particular, and, unpaid Bill and our special guest, James Ford is. James Ford is soon to come as a Questlove Supreme guest. I was about to say, we're going to have a James Ford's episode soon. Oh, yeah. Sure.

Yeah, you. Brother Hammond, thank you so much for doing this for us, and we appreciate it. This is Questlove, Questlove Supreme. We will see you on the next go round. Thank you. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio,

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