The Questlove Show - Questlove Supreme: Corinne Bailey Rae

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

This Questlove Supreme interview defies the typical order of things. Questlove and Team Supreme ask Corinne Bailey Rae about the inspiration, iconography, and real-life events that inspired her refreshing and recent Black Rainbows concept album. Then, the conversation heads backward through the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter's discography, dynamic musical journey, and Leeds upbringing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I got you, everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft.

And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm yours, Questlove. And with me, of course, is the ever-present team Supreme. Fonticlo, what's up, man? What's happening? What's happening? Yeah, I was about to say, you got to tell me, What's the after effect of the host little brother documentary with you?

It's been a lot, man. I think the first week it came out, like when we first put it out during Black Friday, I had one of my homies hit me and was like, yo, man, I haven't talked to my sister in three years. And I'm going to give her a call after watching this. So it's been stuff like that. Like, it hasn't even been a lot of music shit. It's been people just been hit me just talking about. out personal shit personal shit like yo i'm a man's like yo i'm about to start my own business now i've

been bullshit and this you know it's been a lot so it's been open up a lot of conversations that uh i think we're um yeah it was it was kind of overwhelming at first just to to kind of be getting all that at one time you know i mean but uh but people really enjoyed and they see the the spirit of what we made and you know the love and care what we made it and so i'm just happy that people are enjoying it man Yeah, I was going to say that we're kind of at the end of the stretch, like where we must turn a record in somewhere. And it's sort of like kind of after watching the documentary, I was like, hey, do we have to give this to a major label? Listen, come on. Can we?

Dude, come on. Come on. Come on. He preaches this forever. I was going to say that we're seriously trying to. I think we're considering, you know, taking the training wills off and see if we can do this for Delth. I mean, technically, yes, we owe Def Jam another record, but it's also like, it's been 10 years and there's a whole other administration there. So, you know, it's not like, I think they're crying like, damn it, Ruthieos.

Right. Yeah. When we were last there working on how I got over, there was an executive in the studio with us. and he was talking shit about us thinking that Tariq was like one of the staff at Electric Lady Studios I didn't even read out of me I don't know what they look like I don't know the album

I'm just fucking hearing shit man Tariq's like yo I'm in this studio with you he was oh I'm sorry I thought oh damn I thought he worked here so yeah y'all don't need at this point y'all an institution man I love to see it that'll be dope yeah so I'll say that you definitely

planned it to see that to see if we could and do this on our own. Bill, what's up, man? Yeah. How's it going? All of our lives, like, I'm great. I was just thinking about what I learned from the Little Brother documentary is do whatever the fuck you want and be really good at it. Like, that's the best piece of advice.

Like, don't succumb to anybody else's wants, just do you and be true to your art. Like, no shit. And I, we all make art here, but like to be that true to it and like honest about it is really cool. And that's what I learned amongst other things about other certain people. I that's what I learned from the little brother documentary that's what I loved it I would love to say that you're um at like your jMI jazz recording offices steve but that's how that's how official it looks right now so i don't know what's going on like you got your own merch now your own bags like oh you saw that yeah

we're doing well jim i recordings dot com so yeah little jazz label here in yo steve i want to tell you too bro i bought uh i finally broke down and bought a turn table and um i listened to like all like the records that you've given bro they sound amazing man like they sound amazing like they sound great on vinyl um so now y'all are doing a great job bro this shit is the shit is dope the record sounds sounds really great thank you so much i'll send you uh i'll fill you in on what you don't have yeah yeah for sure i mean i i'll send me the link i you know it takes he makes house calls he came to hoboken and delivered me records that happens damn that ass i'll just show them meanwhile steven i live in the same building i find myself uh stealing my own product anyway so let's get to it

i will say i i love a good transformation story the artistic metamorphoses or uh what we call uh departure albums i've even i've even taught about departure albums at n yu for a few semesters for those not to the term, you know, departure album is basically like the one album in your canon that doesn't sound like what you represented when you first came in the door. I mean, there's some legit metamorphosis

artists like Prince grow eventually. I guess the most famous departure album would be right, going on. Well, no, I was going to say Sergeant Peppers was the very first one because the Beatles wanted to kill the Beatles or the idea of the mop tops and teeny boppers and never tour again and then that backfired.

and actually made them more famous and then caused them to implode. But even that was inspired by a departure record, which I guess you could say pet sounds by the Beach Boys is that. But I mean, there's millions of them. There's Secret Life of Plants. Yeah, Secret Life of Plants, right, going on, Kid A, Grace Land. Raid Light. Yeah.

Oh, Rave Light. Uh-huh. Actually, was he Tren Hoping? Was that really a little? I mean, you know. But it was it was a departure from what came before I say that right right she wasn't pop okay you right but I mean well Awaken my love 808 and heart breaks for hip-hop Paul's midnight vultures back there you go yeah Bits is brood dirty mind so it's all there did the roots have a departure album what phrenology or something

it's hard to say I mean phrenology wasn't more uh an excuse to do something different than And I realized like how slow I was listening to roots come alive and like shit was like slow. But also doing the roots come alive like I was at my physical heaviest at like 400 plus pounds. And I had lost weight for phrenology and then suddenly I felt like I wanted to be more energetic. So and then it became like let's just do what we're not supposed to do. So it's sort of a departure record. but time will tell if I was just, you know, not willing to face the keep the things fall apart thing alive. I don't know.

But I will say that our guest today has been a longtime favorite of mine since her 2006 debut. And shortly thereafter, I was fortunate enough to, I guess a year later, work with her on Al Green's Laydown album. And then a year after that, we worked on her sophomore. album to see and you know kind of thought I had to completely figure it out and um nothing prepared me for her fourth record I'll just say that that much um quick back story I guess uh our guest and I reconnected in the summer of uh 2023 she gave me a copy of the record she did it so casually that two days went by before I ever remembered that oh I had the record let me peep and see what's up and

I was kind of gobsmack. And again, I'm trying to avoid typical Questlove hyperbole when it comes to my excitement for something. But, you know, it's been a minute that I've listened to a complete album on repeat over again by an artist not named Salt. And I will just say that there's a lot to unpack here. Normally I want to go through the whole, you know, journey of an artist's life, but I'm so obsessed with this record. I have so many questions. I might have to do this interview backwards. But yeah, for me, Black Rainbows is one of my favorite records of the year.

And I'm really, really excited to have a conversation with our guest today. Corinne Belli Ray on Questlove Supreme. Welcome. Hey, how you doing? Thanks so much. Thanks for that introduction. Wait, let me see. Oh, God.

Okay, 12 minutes. We're not bad. Normally, I don't even get to the guest. Until 27 minutes. All right. And it's time to go. Thank you very much, Corinne. Thank you.

So right now, you are in, you're in Connecticut right now, correct? Right now, I'm in New York. So I may or may not be getting up to Connecticut today. It depends. There's loads of snow on the road. So I always try and make a show. I'm happy to be there. And if only 20 people come, then we're still going to have a good time.

But we'll see what the venue says. I hate cancel shows. it's so disappointing you know I hate to be a fan and have the council show and I've been to so many shows where nobody else could make it you know then you feel like you're the lucky for hundred people who brave the storm or whatever so yeah hopefully we'll be up there to me and when someone cancels on you okay I'm let me get out my feelings anyway yeah hey one artist cancel on people well first of all I'm curious for this particular tour how many musicians are you with because This album is so sprawling in terms of its, I mean, you literally cover every damn near every genre of music.

And, you know, my obsession with it was how is she going to pull this off live? What is the makeup of the band that you're with on tour? The lineup is there's just six of us in the band. So there is Melanie Charles who's singing and she's playing flute and she's playing percussion. and I'm singing and playing guitar, electric guitar and some percussion stuff. Aaron Burnett is playing tenor saxophone. Kyle Bolden is playing electric guitar, who I absolutely love. I've wanted to work with him for a long time.

He plays with Stevie Wonder, and we're lucky that Stevie's in the studio right now. So I just like entice Kyle. So yeah, so he's kind of like three people. You know, he plays just one guitar. He showed me his guitar the other day. It falls in half and packs and. a backpack you know like some guitarist really it has to be this and it has to be this wood that's maple and cherry and seasoned and he's just like it folds and half he puts it in his backpack he's

playing one guitar for the whole show the string you know it falls forward and the strings everything it's a portable guitar that he's playing right now and he can cover he's playing like whaling electric guitar he's playing like really pretty so curt's mayfield and he just does it all it's just in his fingers you know so he's amazing and then i'm playing with stephen brown he's my long time collaborator and he has a massive set up so he has a few keyboards he's playing bass sometimes with the with organ pedals it has underneath the underneath the keyboard he's playing basically his feet a lot of times or sometimes he's playing synth bass sometimes he's playing electric base look at new york transit queen he gets up from the keyboard and he has a whole row on top

of um we've taken spring tanks and we've taken peddle We've taken modular synths. So everything that he's doing on stage, sort of all of the sends from the stage are going into that rig so that he can affect it in real time so that he can, you know, if we're singing and we wanted to get like trippy and transcendent, he can put in his delays and reverbs and backwards things and octavisers and then that's going out to front of house.

So yeah, we just put it all on a plane yesterday. I think our over, oversize or whatever, you know, when you have to pay over it, it was like, that's, was like thousand dollars or something like well we can't leave any of this shit behind you know such as like boxes and boxes and stuff but it's worth it because I like to be able to make this six more expansive sound yeah you know I'm also known for completely wild outtakes and um of which I don't want to get cancelled so I'll I'll say the majority of them behind but I will say the safest one of my wild outtakes was I

think maybe this way was ideally the album I thought I was making with electric circus where you know where you want to show a wide range of styles but not appear to be too you know over eager or enthusiastic with it like it just sounds natural and then you know by the third listen I realize that like you're literally covering you're covering so much territory like you've you go from literally from this uh you know some shit goes completely hardcore to you know then you go afro futurist then you do this 90s riot girls throwback thing and then like with uh the last song before the throne like it's almost like like you transported back to an alice coltrane kind of outtake and the thing was like I was hoping the song was going to be 17 minutes like an Alice Coltrane song and then it cuts off. I'm like, what the fuck?

That was one of my favorite ones on the album, too. That's a hard-ass thing. That's a hard way to close the album. Yeah, it's goddamn. And it's, can you tell me just from soup to nuts how you put it together? Because in my mind, it's so, every song is so unique. I think if making it in real time, I wouldn't know how you would seem it as cohesive. but yet together it feels cohesive.

Can you just describe to us the process of that? I'm glad that it feels like one thing and it felt like one thing to me because it was all driven by this obsession and it was driven by this obsession with this building. I had been on a friend's board. It was like a Pinterest board that she had. She's called Jamala Johns and she's kind of a art curator.

I think in the early days of Pinterest, it wasn't just like, this is a cute hairstyle. But some people were using it like a magazine, you know, so they were using, they would put up a picture and then they were just write tons and tons. And she had this board called artists and their creatives and their workplaces. So she had Kara Walker arranging her silhouette. So she had Picasso painting with light. And she had this photograph of this artist, this black artist, contemporary artist, this man.

And they were sort of staring out of the frame with this peaceful, so bold expression. And behind him was this weird. contemporary art that I didn't understand, you know, a pile of bricks on the floor, this shaggy goat, instead of legs, it had these spindles and it was going around on a circular track. And then there was a big shop for a big sign for a shop, Harold's chicken shop in Chicago with like a chef chasing after a chicken with a meat cleaver. And he was just looking out, he was represented by white cube and he was looking at the frame like, yeah, this is my art, you know. And I thought, who is this? I don't know contemporary art. Who is this man

specifically who's this black one who's not working in figurative art right it's not paintings of people it's not drawings of people it's not photographs it's this stuff and i found out it was called theaster gates and then when i did some research i found out that part of his practice is um saving these buildings on the south side of chicago you know he lives in the south side of chicago he's watched many buildings just get torn down by the city you know on the stony island where this building is used to have big theatres, you know, really important theatres for black music. And just over the years, they've been torn down one by one. So, I mean, Chicago's architectural masterpieces.

But then when you get to the south side, there's these holes, there's these gaps. And it's a kind of erasure of the history of the place and of the presence, the black presence in the place. And so he saw this bank. It's a hundred-year-old bank. And they've been slated for demolition for a long time. was going to be pulled down by the city. The basement was underwater, but it's this beautiful bank with these columns outside,

and it's like a big square sort of Greco-Roman building on Stony Island. And he decided he was going to save it. And so he bought it for $1 from the government, and he saved $4 million by selling his own art to transform this bank. So it doesn't have art in anymore. It doesn't have any money in. He's saved it by filling it with art archives and historical archives. archives. So it has 26,000 books that were given to the Johnson Publishing Company, submitted

to the Johnson Publishing Company, Who Made Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine, the EGro Digest. So from 1943, you know, if you wrote a book in anything to do with black space, architecture, politics, dance, entertainment, recipe books, yearbooks, if you wrote PhDs and you wanted the Johnsons to review it and include it in their publication, you would send it to the Johnson So 26,000 of these books, you know, some of them we know and they're familiar, some of them super rare books. It's got those. It's got all the Frankie Knuckles records in. So when Frankie Nichols passed away, his entire record collection was given to the Stony Island Arts Bank.

And it also has upstairs on the second floor these problematic objects from America's past, the Mamie Jars, the postcards depicting racial violence, newspaper articles, since the 1800s, advertising, copy, signage, objects for the home, ephemera, photographs that were collected by this black and Chinese banker called Ed Williams, who would go to these yard sales and flea markets and see these objects and think, you know, who wants, who's collecting these things, who wants to continue to have these things in the home? So he would buy them to take them out of circulation and put them in boxes in his house.

And once he had amassed 40,000 of these objects, his kids were like, Dad, can we get, it's kind of intense to be around this stuff. Can we get this out of the house? So he gave it, he donated it to the Rebuild Foundation. So the arts bank is contemporary art on the walls, it has exhibitions, then it's these historic objects, the Frankie Knuckles, it's all the slides from the University of Chicago, the glass slides from when people give talk. So, you know, all of history that had been photographed for the University of Chicago, and then these 26,000 books. So when I saw the work that Theaster was doing, I thought, I want to get in that bank. I just want to be there. I just want to look around. And we managed to connect with him.

I was on tour. He came to the show. He met up with me afterwards, and I was just like, ah, I'm so excited to meet you because you're a visual artist, because you also have a band called the Black Months of Mississippi, because you're a ceramicist, which I love ceramics because he trained in Japan and because he's collecting these objects

and because he's saving all these buildings in the south side of Chicago. So he has a social practice. I just, I was really excited to meet him and I said, I really wish we should come to the bank, but I'm leaving town at like 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. And he said, I'm also leaving town tomorrow because I'm going to President Obama's 50th birthday party. And I was like, oh, okay, this is, this is who this guy is. So we opened the bank early for us and I went to it. And once I open those doors, I've just sort of blown away by the building, the size of the building, the library, the double height cube, the just the amount of stuff, you know, every single drawer you open. It's like songs from slavery times, newspapers, curling newspapers from 1840s, print adverts from 30s, tins of beauty products, you know, just stuff and stuff in every corner and every, just the arrangement of it. And the artist said, oh, you know, you have to do a show in here.

And straight away, I sort of flashed on the music that I had made to this point and felt like this is a new vessel, nothing that I have made sort of fits in this space. It's a different kind of response that's needed. But then when I left, all I could think about was the things that I'd seen. You know, he had this sculpture in the corner and when I said, oh, who did that? And he said, it's one of mine. and it looked like it'd been made from wood that had maybe had the paint stripped off.

There was a certain amount of violence to it. And I said, oh, you know, what is it? And he said, it's a sculpture I made. It's from the floorboards from an abandoned police station in Chicago. And as soon as he said that, he immediately was thinking about the floorboards, what have the floorboard seen?

You know, so often in history, the objects are the witnesses to what's happened. They're the things that can't speak, but they're the things that see everything. The floor in the police station, the telephone in the police station, the car, the rearview mirror.

They are the things that really are holding the truth. And so when I was on tour, you know, I mean, my head was in the tour, but at the same time I'd be lying on my tour bus bed and I'd be just writing poems about things that I'd seen. You know, I wrote this poem called You Who Have Wought These Floors in Fear. I was thinking about this floor book.

it was after the death of Sandra Bland. So I was thinking about, you know, who knows truth? In some cases, it's a person. In some cases that person is unwilling to express what has really happened in the situation. But all the physical objects they know. And I just thought, I want to get back to that bank. I want to open more drawers. I want to touch more stuff.

And every time I touched something, I felt like it was, it's old stuff, but it's fizzing with a kind of contemporary real life things happening in the molecule's story. So really with the writing of the record, you know, I went back for a two-week residency. We stayed in the south side of Chicago. I mean, I'm from the UK, but you guys know Chicago has its huge challenges, you know. Oh, we know. Yeah. So that was an eye opener, you know, we didn't have a car there and we said, oh, we're just, you know, we're staying so nearby.

We'll just walk around. They're like, oh, no. You can't walk around. You can't walk around. So we walked to the place where we hide the car. And on a bus shelter, there was an advert for what you could do if you needed to give up your child in the first 30 days of its life. You know, it was a list of things. It said, all you need to do is wrap it in a clean towel.

It has to be in the first 30 days of its life. You could take it to a fire station or you could drop it at this particular school or that particular hospital. you can give information or you can have no questions asked. And it was particularly poignant that it was at bus shelter because of course that's where so many children that couldn't be looked after have been left by parents that couldn't look after the children. So, you know, just sort of walking, I thought,

this is what this area, this is what this area is. And I thought about the importance of a building like this, which talks about the history of, the area and just about the history of the people and how the situation is as it is now and it hasn't always been the way it is and it won't always be the way it is but how art is a place of it's a new space it's a physical space it's a place where people have the opportunity to imagine something different so i was ever two weeks i wrote some songs there i was i was home i was back and forth i mean this record was sort of seven years coming together you know so sometimes i was

making music in the place we set up a studio and one of the buildings next to the bank and all the songs on the record are inspired by particular objects in the bank or groups of objects or events in the bank and that to me was my sort of golden thread when i was making it and then to me whatever the style was it didn't matter it just whatever the music was it just kind of bounced off the object so it's all about the objects and the tight remit was it it has to be in response to these objects. And it just became my obsession.

I felt like everywhere I looked, there was a story or a photo or something about Chicago, something about the South Side. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me,

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

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

and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, This is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023,

former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice. and so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones.

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

This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by.

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

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

On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

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

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

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest, the director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else.

If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. What comes to you first? Do the words come first or does the music come first? Because there's some songs in which he will follow me with his eyes in which like specifically melodically and your words are depending on whatever chords being played. And it's not a circular song that it's looping.

It's just kind of going linear into and it morphs into a whole another song by the end of it. So like what comes first for you? Like are the words hitting you first? and then you find music to it, or does the music come first? I think in that situation, and he will follow you with his eyes, I had found this tin of a beauty product. It was by this company called Valmore, and it was set up in Chicago in 1926. And all the illustrations I found to be really beautiful, really elegant,

and they were done by this artist, his black artist called Charles Dawson, who was a very, you know, well-known artist in this time. and they were elegant and they were beautiful and there was also all this romance surrounding Valmore you know the copy of in the adverts so if you saw an advert for Valmore it might say things like his eyes will follow you across the room or the perfume it the perfumes were called things like follow me boy or look me over everything everything had this romance and this glamour so i was kind of interested as what's this beauty you know what's his company and i found out that it was sold door to door.

You know, so like Avon, they were knocking the door with this big basket of stuff. And I found that it was targeted mostly at black men and women. Of course, the era, I'm looking for the products. There's lots of perfumes. There's lots of moisturisers and shampoos and stuff. But there's a lot of hair straightening products, skin lightning products, you know, white rose, cold cream and, you know, work straight away. The adverts to say things like, don't you want to help yourself to love and happiness,

you know, all of this. this is just away from you if you don't just take if you take your skin a few shades lighter. That's why you either ran at the end. Okay. Yeah. I was going to say because upon first listening, I was like, I was like, wow, this might be her best vocal performance because. And then the second time, I was like, oh, maybe she's singing in the character. And then I realized by the end, I mean, I don't know if it's more of an angry rant or more just a defiant thing about it. I realized that that must be the story.

I didn't know the history behind the song, but I love the way that you sing in character in the beginning. Yeah, I wanted to get into that sort of 50s space and I was thinking about 50s, medicated domestic femininity in America. Okay, so it's like, you've got all the things you meant to need. You've got your vacuum cleaner and you've got your washing machine. You've got your refrigerator. So as a woman, your life is not difficult anymore.

you know you've got these appliances and you shouldn't complain and you're in the home and if things feel difficult there's always a tablet you can take from the doctors just to take the edge of things and then but then you know imagining someone coming to your door with these products there's a kind of femininity is already this narrow and then for black women it's it's even more narrow because the beauty is white aligned at this point you know so you've got to do all the women's stuff and then you've got to do the stuff to make your natural self augmented to be accepted. And so in the first half of the song, the person is definitely under the spell of Almore. I wrote that song in the bank and I just played it on guitar.

You know, I sort of do my best on my guitar. Like I'm not a trained guitarist, but I wanted to make it sort of, you know, 50s and dreamlike, like those kind of chords that would be in, you know, those movies that start with a cars winding around the side of a mountain or whatever open top car and it's like there's a glamour and and then halfway through I wanted to have this kind of sonic arresting you know when I first wrote that that was just like me playing one string dumb dumb dumb you know my plum red lipstick my black hair kinking my black skin gleaming you know wanted it to be as you say sort of defiant you know I don't it says at the end I don't

want to leave myself behind vanishing into a girl I don't recognize and I and when after you know because the record took me a long time so one time I was listening to vocal and I thought I could bring more character into this you know as thinking of like her as a kit you know with her incredible diction and poise and the movement of the words and everything so dramatic and elegant it's in controlled and I want to bring some in So in my excitement, I was making a quiet sleep playlist the day that the album came out. And so not even thinking about it, I just rushed that on the list. At first, it went to sleep.

It was like, what the hell, Amir? And I was like, huh? And I was like, oh, I forgot that sometimes CODA is. And because, you know, in my mind, when you're listening to it, I'm thinking like, okay, might have a new ID track and that's the next song. I didn't realize it was the same song until that person told me, like, dog, you woke us up in the middle of the night. Like, it was, it wasn't that.

It wasn't what you thought. Yeah, it's the worst record for DJs. But I always think my stuff's a bit like that anyway, sort of like it's bumpy. Like you're just getting into one thing and then there's another thing. And I don't know if that's my background. It's like I. was a classically trained violinist. And then I was in an indie band when I was 15.

That was a music that I loved. You know, I had grown up with soul music, but indie was like my thing that I found, you know, Rukasol and L7 and belly and I liked, I guess I liked, you know, women in that music. I like seeing women play guitars and I don't know, they weren't shaving their armpits or they weren't having to wear a certain thing.

They're just wearing t-shirts and a jeans and they're just doing the thing. And there was a lot of freedom in that. Of course, I understand it. A lot of your albums are also confessional diaries because of lost love and what you've gone through in mourning and all that stuff. But would you say that this album is more closer to your creative heart than say what your debut director was? Yes. I think this is really close to my creative heart. And the irony is that I thought it was always a side project, you know, when I made it. I was like, it's not going to be my name's not going to be on it.

It's an independent record. It's not going to be a major label. You're trying to pull them a riot. weren't you. I get it. No, Mariah has sort of, do you know the history of the chick record? No, I mean, and not until you mentioned it the other day, but I still, I mean, I haven't heard that record. You sent me some pictures and I thought, wow, she looks different. But yeah, I think she's amazing. Yeah, Mariah did the same thing. Like she was this recording her real record, but just to have some fun, she would, you know, play around,

fuck around, doing dinner breaks and all that stuff. And then they had enough material to make a record but it was always just supposed to be like a joke amongst the band makes and you know and i still maintain that that's maria carry's best record because she doesn't care about the the outward gaze of of critics and the record label and keep keeping the machinery going because all you know all the time artists tell me like especially like in the first 10 years of my career it was like man y'all, y'all like, and at first I was like a little insulted. He's like, yeah, man, because y'all could just do any old shit and your label never drop y'all. Like, I was like, what was that supposed to mean?

He's like, well, you know, like, you know, like, you don't care about hit singles and making money in being successful. I'm like, motherfucker. I was like, no, I just don't know what an effective hook is. I feel like I'm doing too much inside baseball, but you got to let me. know what was your inspiration behind earthlings because I'm I'm obsessive with Afrofuturism and all that stuff and like I am too you know I feel my dad had funk you know like P-Funk records when I was a little and a parliament record and I'd look on the back and see these weird cartoons you know of like the the women in

the booby tops and the booty shorts and this and there was all these stuff about space and I remember just thinking like what is this and definitely when I was a teenager I just sort of thought I sort of thought of thought of it as kind of a bit silly or escapist and it was only when I got into my well probably you know 10 15 years ago that the penny dropped you know and the expansive thing of if someone wants a pigeon hole as being from here you have to be within the system of what it means to be black in America and like SunRrah the only way to explain it is to say actually I'm not from here or you think I'm from here or you think I'm like that no I'm not even from this planet you know

And I loved that when I went back to that music, the idea that there's another space, an alternative space that lives outside of capitalism and white supremacy and that this band is from there and they're going to take you there and all you have to do is get on board the mothership. And so the philosophy of it, which I had missed, because I was too busy just sort of enjoying the groove of the music, you know, that was right there. I mean, there's a really good Afrofuturistic film showing in the bank when I was there and, you know, I was tying all these things together.

But the main thing was the inspiration behind that was these different searches for utopia that I read about in the bank, you know. There was a conversation bouncing back as and forwards between the black thinkers from, I guess, the, you know, 1810s onwards. The classic two positions, you could call it a Martin Luther King versus early Malcolm X, know, integrationist versus separatist position, you know, we find ourselves to be here outside of Africa in this country, in these places which are intolerant of us. What do we do? Do we find allies and make a new community? Do we become part of everyone? Are we all each other's brothers and sisters,

like a Martin Luther King position? Or is there, do we recognize the aggression, and turn inwards and turn away from the place where we find ourselves to be. And whether it's a Marcus Garvey going back to Africa, or whether it's a more of a spiritual separatist community where you're still in America, but you have your own commune and you have your own rules and laws. Or whether it's a community that's exclusive in terms of who you socialize with. So I would see these ideas going back and forth in the bank all the way through history. people trying to work it out. How do we live now outside of Africa in this place which is not

entirely welcoming? And so I thought a lot about these utopias that have been attempted, you know, that all black towns of the West and those of them that were successful and those of those that weren't successful or were like a greenwood that was eventually fire bombed, you know, the first incidence of fire bombing on American soil. So I thought about those like, what is it to yearn for utopia? Try for perfection. It always, it always. will fail and yet that's the direction that's what all communities are looking for peace love freedom you know as blown away by mrs johnson using the ebony fashion fair and the black panthers would say to a why are you bringing it clothes you know this is a bourgeois thing you're

you're bringing clothes from france to put on the back of black models to parade around the town halls and the and the city halls for local black maids to see like what you're doing and shoot apart from fact they were raising millions of dollars for the historical black universities and colleges. Mrs. Johns was saying it's important for people to see themselves reflected on this catwalk. It's important for women to see this elegance, see this dream, see this art, see this creativity. It's like what do we want on the other side of the struggle? Struggle's meant to end at some point. And then you're meant to be, you know, eating pineapple in the sun, digging your garden to live,

and finding work, but also time to enjoy yourself. You know, that's the world we're trying to build. We're not constantly so much in a struggle that we're imagining it will never end. And so I guess the song earthlings is about a non-human person sort of looking in on us and seeing how easy it would be to reset our world, which of course is a super naive position. But that was the position that I took from looking at these attempts at utopia, sort of the effort, the attempt, the hope, the audacity,

of it is the only place to start well i'm i'm curious to how the outside of america like the british press has received this record and you know i think it's it's really curious that you and interesting that you chose chicago as your base creative hub you know i think if anything even americans and myself i might be guilty of this as well it's like there's so much to talk about Chicago. Like right now, you know, the hashtag, what about Chicago is a, it's a kind of go-to right-wing.

Yeah, term of, of, you know, they're so violent and uncultured over there that most people I know are definitely afraid to even visit Chicago, just because of what they heard, you know, propaganda-wise. But is there not any place in the UK that has their own,

rich cultural stories that you could have pulled from because I find it very interesting that that you had to come you know 5,000 miles across the pound you know to find this wealth of inspiration I think it's a really good point I think the holders of archive is a really interesting thing in America versus the UK so I'd say American history and archive seems to be I mean you have obviously the Smithsonian which is a reasonably new museum that holds all this black history and archive. But it seems like a lot of black archive in this country is held by private individuals or private foundations that have come from corporations.

America is still in its move of, you know, you've got the Mellon Foundation, you've got the Ford Foundation, organisations that made lots of wealth through capitalism that are now sort of giving back. and it shows their brains and it sort of legitimizes them to a certain extent and it shows that they are invested in people's history and holding history. I think in the UK that period certainly happened during the Industrial Revolution where we had massively wealthy industrialists in the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s and they then invested in people in art, you know, they made their own

towns that have fair comparatively fair places and safe places for workers but then the state took over in looking after history and archive which is probably the right place for these things if the state is interested but at the moment the the conservative government that we have now which is more of a right wing government and there just hasn't been the investment in in black stories and black archive so there are black archives that aren't open to the public and that you would need maybe a research, a qualification or sort of invitation to go and look at. But also so much of the work is not valued or lost. I mean, I think specifically of the wind rush incident that happened a few years ago

where people like my dad's generation, the black people in England are either from Africa and have come in the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years or their Caribbean. and they were invited by the government after the Second World War because so many men had died. So the UK needed people on the trains, people on the buses. They needed women in the hospitals as nurses. So an invitation went out to the colonies. They're still owned by Britain, like St. Kitts, where my dad's from.

You know, please come and help the motherland. And these people felt like England was their home. You know, my dad knew more about the counties and rivers of England. know, then he even knew about St Kitts. It was, it was taught, this information was taught in tandem. So all the Carabbeans came. And a lot of them came as children, you know, that had that passport.

And you would think the government's held records on who was in the country and who wasn't. But a few years ago, there was this big scandal where Caribbean were leaving their country that they'd lived in for 50 years, 60 years, moved for a family wedding, trying to get back in the country. And the UK said, sorry, we don't have any record. of you. Wow. And it turned out they just lost all these people's passports. People had come to UK's children. So you've got people who are trying to get cancer care and they say, oh, you're not

registered to live here. They say, I've lived here for 50 years. I've been married here. I've raised my children. I've got grandchildren in the UK. They say, sorry, you have to go back to Jamaica. So I think the UK government is not good at holding even the citizenship and passports of these black people. They just lost. There was just no other explanation. It was just like, sorry. we lost your passports, but I don't think there was even a wide public apology. So I think in terms of the black stories, I think they live in literature. You know, I live in Leeds with People Tree Press. That's the biggest publisher of Caribbean literature outside the Caribbean.

So I know these Caribbean stories. I think what I felt in encountering the bank was just, this is me with my own lens and my own prejudices as a woman. from the UK as someone who has African heritage from my dad's Caribbean side, but also, you know, my mum is white as well, like all these, I was just arriving as myself, viewing all this historical stuff. So the record is definitely not me trying to tell an American story. It's just me responding to all this stuff. Like, this is what the stuff did to me. That's what the record is, rather than I'm now some kind of, you know, historian or journalist on the American story.

oh no look just to hear an artist with a point of view is fucking refreshing refreshing because what we doing with now what the fuck what the fuck man well i want to ask you you've collaborated with uh and frequently collaborated with very good friends my parents and Amber Strouda. What is it like collaborating with them? How do y'all start sending ideas? What is it like? I got introduced to Paris and Amber through Esperanza Spaulding. I was working on my third record. And, you know, speaking of record companies, my third record was the one with all the pressure on. I was like, first record, big success. So grateful. My second album was a kind of response to that. You know, everybody was saying, oh, you used to be in an indie band, but you've made this pop soul. record and I thought, right, I'm going to play more guitar on this record. But also, you know,

halfway through that record, I lost my husband. And so there was this big break. And when I started again, I made the record that, you know, the label would say you've made the record you needed to make. But it wasn't full of, you know, smash hit, Sunshine songs. And so the third record I really felt from the label was like, okay, right, let's get back in it. You're just a sort of sleeping giant, you know, like you've got this, you've had this big. You've had this big. big hits, these, and this is the record where you're going to sort of come back. And so that was really, really difficult for me. And I was working one time in Los Angeles with a very, very well-known producer and artist,

who of course I wouldn't know. And he was very busy. Oh, no, please. He was working with several artists at the same time, which sometimes people do, right? So it's like, oh, hi, thanks for coming. Right, let's work on this song for 40. minutes and then like yeah if you got some ideas you you call like Jerome Jerome is my assistant right he's going to be in the room with you I'm going down the

whole because you know five other people are in the studio complex and I'm just like sprinkling my sort of genius hit power everywhere so I don't know mirror I just I wish I had that ability to sort of perform under that kind of set up but I just don't so it's like the inspiration just kind of left me and I the session and i can't remember how i saw restaurants that we met up and i was like she's like how's it going with superstar producer that everyone else has had massive hits with and i said oh it's going terribly you know it makes you feel like you're you're the one that's kind of flunking you know they're the they're the superstar and you're the one and she just said have you met these guys

and she brought out the cd of the ep kings and king yes sir and i said someone just played me this two days ago it's so amazing she said i loved them i went to school school with them. You should work with them. She picks my phone. You should work with them tonight. I'm calling them right now. You should go. We'll go around tonight. And she picked up the phone. She's like, hey, Paris, you know, with Korean. I was like, I don't know if they, I don't know if they ever heard of me. And they knew me. And we went over to the house. And I just instantly loved them because aside from being the musical genus is that they are, they just have this like still, well, you know them. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Still calm, beautiful presence. And we just sat.

and we just had a jam as sprangso was playing bass paris was playing keyboards for me and ambor singing and i just thought i've sort of found a harbour here you know this is so different to being in the room with all these dudes you know like i've been told they're a songwriter but they're just tapping out the beats like where's your tune like tell me when your track your tracks finished i can put my superstar beats to it and i'll be like i don't have any we're just starting from scratch i thought you know i was kind of naive going into those those settings um so it was just a dream to work with them and worked together with them on my third record and then yeah for this one i would just drift in so red red horse came about at their place you know um paris is just a like an amazing producer you know

what she hears and the lines and the weaves and the denseness of the production you know the amount of tracks and all the things that's going on and one thing feeding another and all all the lines. So it's just kind of like a dream space. And we just got this beat going and press was playing forward. I was playing bass, synth bass. I had my, I remember I had my little baby. I just had a baby and she was strapped onto me and it was like playing. So it felt really kind of like it was working, you know, it's like, here I am. And my kids asleep and I'm doing this song. And then yeah, the Red Horse came out of that where because I had read so much of the bank and so much was in my head, I found it really easy.

to what came out was was the tales of the things that I'd read about or I'd seen a photograph I'd seen this photograph of this young black girl who was going west with a white family and I couldn't work out what she was doing she was 10 11 12 and it turned out I mean she was an enslaved girl but she was going to be the nanny for this baby and I sort of thinking you know who's looking after this child this black child in the you know going to this west town in the west that's been newly established and what's going to happen to her when they don't need her anymore and you know i couldn't find any more information in this book and so i just imagine for her a stranger riding into town on a red horse but but it all it sort of came out

when i was there because they just make this amazing dream space so yeah i mean i love i love working with parisatran i was really happy to see y'all clevering a win is a win Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

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Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct? I doctored the test ones.

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

This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

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

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. I want to know more about your childhood and your upbringing. Where were you born? I was born in Leeds, and that's where I still live. So Leeds is 200 miles north of London. and it's 200 miles south of Edinburgh, like at the bottom of our street where we live, there's an old way post and it says, you know, London this way, 200 miles, you know, Edinburgh,

this way. So you're right on the border? We're right between, yeah, the capital of Scotland and the capital of England. So as much as I feel, you know, I feel myself to, you know, be English, but the north is really different to the south. It's not as wealthy. It's more, it was industrial but then the industry sort of went away so there's that kind of a feeling i mean leeds is a big university town you know scots i think more than 100,000 students between the different universities so it's a big place where people come to learn lots of thinkers come but then lots of people leave at the end of it right because they're like they go to london they go they go somewhere

else where the jobs are so it's a creative pace but sometimes it's hard to get things going because There's not necessarily, people don't necessarily come and stay. They kind of pass through. Well, you have three siblings, correct? Yeah, there's three of us. Yeah, there's two sisters. So my sister, my middle sister works in politics and she works in social justice. And then my youngest sister acts. And then, yeah, then there's been two. So what, do you describe the household? Like how were your parents artistically inclined or musically inclined or anything? I think my mom really liked. singing. My mum used to sing around the house all the time. And she would sing at church.

And then my dad collected music. So that was his thing. He had just sort of piles of records. He was really fastidious. There was a really good record shop in these called jumbo records that would import US records. So my parents would go there all the time. They met on the dance floor, you know, when they were teenagers and my dad's family is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean. But yeah, he's a big collector of music. And so I think sometimes I would just look through these 45s, you know, they were just in paper, they didn't have any covers. So you could just maybe get a bit of an idea from the name on the label,

but mostly you had to actually put the record on, you know, and just like put the needle on. And so he had his pile. And then I had my pile out of his pile of things I like to listen to that I kind of kept separately so I'd know what it was. and you know I just I grew up with music definitely and but then I got into music at school but neither of my parents played instruments and I started playing violin at school and I really really love that and at first I found it easy I mean later on I found it really hard because I do find

reading music really hard but I liked the thing of listening and picking up stuff I really liked being in orchestras you know we I was often the only person of color in the whole orchestra that was or at ballet or whatever it was but I think our parents and especially my mum just encourage us to do express our express ourselves things so we did you know we did do ballet we did play instruments we did go to watch concerts and went to theatre when we could I mean my mom was cleaning houses when I was younger and then she started um she started working with kids from school from the school that was at um you know reading to them and the the lessons of kids who were struggling. Then she did some qualifications so that she could

be a learning mentor in the school. And my dad, my dad kind of, first he had a shop, kind of picture framing and candles and clocks shut up. But he was always, you know, he's got a big math sprain, which is the opposite of my brain. So he would teach, there was a school for kids who didn't get on well at school and it was mostly black and Asian children in England. That's like India. Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and black children. And that was in the sort of concentration of black area, chapel town, where his family came. So he would teach these kids, you know, he'd teach some maths,

mostly maths, a bit of English. So all the boys and girls in our school that were maybe had a reputation of being more sort of tough, or like they didn't get on with the teachers. They didn't get on with the teachers. The game, get on with the teachers at our school, they would know me because my dad would teach them maths, you know, and they'd be like, Mr. Bailey, he's so strict. Yeah. So it was, I liked growing up there.

It had a big Caribbean community leads. I mean, it still does. So I would be, I guess I grew up between these two worlds. Where we lived was a white area and a big Jewish area as well. My high school was a big Jewish high school. Lots of them, the Jewish teachers and children. So when it was Jewish holidays, like a third of the kids wouldn't be there. So our calendar was kind of worked around the Jewish holidays.

And then my grandparents lived in the Caribbean area of Leeds. So I would always be like between these two worlds. Do I fit in these worlds? I do. I do fit in them, but I feel different. You know, in both places, I feel a bit of different. You know, it's like I'm black, but I'm sort of not black in this. same way my cousins are. And then I'm definitely not white, but I am my mum's daughter. You know,

so it's always just like finding identity. And I think, I think that's what I'm really pulled towards, I don't know, indie sort of, you know, riot girl, like all of that stuff, you know, feeling like I feel like an outsider. I have something to say. I am underweight. I'm riding to school on a bike, balancing my violin. I'm a nerd, but I'm also not from a wealthy background. So I'm fitting in, you know, like a lot of my peers might not be going to play in the orchestra or reading Jane Austen and, you know, Charlotte Bronte. But at the same time, that's just what I'm doing.

So, yeah, I felt like an outsider, I guess. Were you born in the early 80s, I believe? I was born in 1979. Okay. So who did you gravitate towards musically? Who was the first, like, moment of? I mean, I guess Michael Jackson was the biggest thing in our world. That's the age that I am.

Yeah, you couldn't avoid him. And so I remember there was a concert in Leeds. We used to live near this park called Rante Park. And it was a big park that used to have concerts. So like Madonna played there or, you know, but Michael Jackson played there. And I remember it was like a sort of pilgrimage to go to this concert. like we couldn't afford tickets for the concert but i remember it was um it was a bank holiday in august that we went to the concert oh the bad tour yeah i mean michael jackson's stuff was so

interesting because obviously there was the music itself then there was all the mystery around the man but remember how they used to film the concerts is i feel like nearly half of the concert wasn't showing him it was showing the audience the audience going crazy yeah so it was just showing these people having these responses to him and i remember I remember feeling that feeling that they had this kind of like melting sort of spiritual feeling. I mean, I think the music has what that music is doing in sort of jazz and harmony, because I'm not trained, I just don't understand what it's doing, but it still does the same thing to my brain. Or it's like, I don't know what's happening here and this, this thing is transitioning into this thing and there's this lushness and then there's this tension and then it goes away. So his music had that complex or beauty, but it was being absorbed by all of us, including, you know, five-year-olds, 10-year-olds.

And so I think, I mean, aside from, of course, all the separate things about Michael Jackson, which we learn about in that time when those issues weren't swirling, I just, yeah, Michael Jackson's music was kind of the pinnacle. But I grew up with Stevie Wonder as well because it's what my parents liked. I really like Secret Life of Plants. That was the record I remember having. I remember touching the braille. I remember the sort of weirdness and mystery of it and the way the synth sounded and the photograph of him inside and the way you could see, you know, you could see his eyes.

So I sort of loved Stevie. I thought, oh, like I just felt in my heart like I want to meet Stevie. I'm sure that all kids feel that right. So but then when I did get to meet him, I was like, this is like my dream that I had. And here I, you know, I wrote Stevie Wonder, a letter and as a teenager saying about how much I love I never dreamed you'd leave. I'm trying to. I never dreamed you'd leave in summer.

I remember writing his passionate letter about it. And then I thought, why am I writing my letter? I should be writing it in Braille. And you know, I never got around to send me. I was going to say he learned braille just to. Yeah, yeah, he is a, you know, he obviously reads Braille. There's a funny story where, you know, producer Narda Michael Walton.

He produced Whitney Houston's, uh, I want to, how well I know and I want to dance with somebody and he also did like starships. Like nothing's going to stop us now. Like he was like Clive Davis's go to guy, but he tells this story that he was so inspired after seeing Stevie do fingertips when he was a kid. Somewhere in the mid 60s

was a kind of a solar eclipse. in which, you know, they warned parents do not let your child look in the sun or else you're going to go blind. And, you know, they were giving out free glasses and you're supposed to wear glasses all day and whatever. And Nardo is like, if I take these glasses off, then I too can be a genius like Stevie Wonder. Oh, God, you just be blind. Yeah. He told me about the first time he got in trouble with his mom. Like, she said, like, you know, like, you know, like, punish him.

him. But yeah, he wanted to be blind like Stevie Wonder so that he could be a genius. Do you remember the first concert that you went to? The first concert I went to. I mean, I think I didn't go to concerts when I was little because, like I say, well, my parents got divorced. So, you know, we didn't have a car. We, we didn't have a telephone. We didn't. My mom was clean houses. Then she worked at the school. So we didn't have spare money at all. You know, we used to get our clothes in a bin liner. from unless it was Christmas or birthdays, but we used to get a close from people from church, you know, with their names still so did, you know. Right.

Yeah, I love this. Like if they had trainers, we always had the trainers, the Knicks, not the Nikes and all of that sort of stuff, you know. Right. But so we didn't, we didn't go to gigs when we were little, but I remember I probably went to something like, I probably will have gone to the cockpit, which was a sort of indie venue. and I would have gone to see a band, like some small bands like Shed Seven or the Charlottons, the band called the Charlottons that I really like. Oh. I've definitely got to see.

I've heard the Charlton's. Yeah. You saw them. Yeah. You saw them. I mean, I think they're still, yeah, they've been going a little while, but obviously, no, they're still going ahead. But yeah, I remember seeing a band called Canicki, which had a female lead singer, and I remember seeing Belly. who I thought were amazing.

So yeah, just to, but so before I'd gone to gigs, I was doing gigs, you know, like it was, it's just a thing because it was the 90s and everybody I knew was at a band. And I was, I had, I was part of this church group and we had a youth leader who was called Simon Hall and he was really into music. He was kind of like a like a music snob, you know. So one time I turned up at church and he's like, here's a guitar. and I was just, you know, couldn't believe it. And so I had to pay him back like 10 pounds every month, you know, like I'd say, I've got my seven pounds. I'm like, oh, thank you.

And, you know, sometimes he'd just say, oh, just buy me a pizza, you know, because and, but I might, you know, I managed to pay him back and he is, you know, is still a dear friend of mine, but that, that was really great. And I used to play my guitar through the stereo because I didn't have an amp. And but I just loved, I loved learning songs. I sort of would learn songs wrong. I liked to learn if I'd be. I liked Bjork.

you know so I'd try and learn a Bjork song but it's not quite get the chords right but then I had some chords I liked and then I could write a different song over and I liked that time of music for especially for women it was really confessional I loved Juliana Hatfield and she had this song called my sister the song was like I hate my sister she's such a bitch she acts like she doesn't even know that I exist but I'd give her anything to let her know I care but I'm only talking to myself because she's not there I remember thinking You can write a song about that. You can write a song about how you feel about your siblings.

You can write a song about your walk to school. You can write a song about how a boy laughed at your hair. You know, so it's just it was different to pop music, which was more like universal. Everyone's included, you know, big messages. And this was just the everyday. And that was my entry into songwriting because I thought, oh, you can write about anything. Hey, are you aware of Nandy Bushell? So she's she's a kid from the UK.

She is notable when she was like six or seven years old, playing the drums on Instagram. Since then, I think I've seen a play. One time we were supporting Lenny Kravitz and she came on the sound check and she played. I didn't know she was from the UK and I didn't remember a name, but I've seen her. She's played with Dave Grohl, right?

Dave Grohl and Lenny Kress. Yeah, it's scary for her now. So she's entering her teens now. and already like you know first it was just the drums and singing but then now she's like on her saxophone kick like she plays saxophone now and keyboards like it's the way that she's developing like it's it's really interesting to see like who kind of rises to the occasion like when they start off as I'm not saying novelty but like when you're six and seven like your parents is sort of like being backstage parents and

that sort of thing and i was kind of wondering like okay will she keep at it you know at at nine ten and eleven now that she's getting up there like she's her chops are like she's not right relying on the novelty of like hey you know cute black girl from the uk and i can play drums a little like she's really kicking ass and getting more into songwriting and that sort of thing it's such a It's such a rapid pace that, you know, it's mind-blowing to me. I just wanted to know if you were aware of her. How did you start the band and were you guys at all like seriously trying to pursue a record deal? Was it just like, hey, we're a local band?

We really were trying to get somewhere. I think I was very serious when I was a kid and also the band that I'd seen Kincky, they were only teenagers when they got signed. They got signed out of high school. So I just kind of thought like, it is possible. It was possible for it to happen. And so my band was my best friend who was called Jennifer Pugh. And me and her used to play violins together.

So we used to make these tapes together of like, I don't know, she's singing or I'm singing. We're made up a story or like a keyboard thing about, made a song about monsters. You know, like when you're 10 or whatever. And then that just kind of kept going. And so when I started guitar, she started guitar. She got really good. So she was a lead guitarist, you know, she had proper lessons. And then we had a friend who was just a badass and she has called Joanne Wilson.

She played bass and she had she'd learned a bit of flute. She'd learned a bit of piano. She didn't really know the bass. So we used to have to teach her like, you know, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, you know. But she just picked it up and she just looked the part. And it was those days, you know, we can smoke indoors and like so she had just like have a cigarette and she had this bleach blonde hair. She was like a regular real life bad girl.

And then my boyfriend at the time played drums. He was two years older than me and he was in a band. And I remember one time his band were playing at this pub called Joseph's Well. I know it was the Duchess. It was the Duchess. And that was famous to us because Nirvana had played there. So we're like, the Duchess. And that was in those days you could go to a pub even though you were underage.

As long as you didn't drink, you could be there. So you could be there at sort of 16, 17. as long as you didn't go anywhere near the bar and he called me and he said our support act is not can't can't do our show next week do you guys want to play and we're like you know we've got three songs we have to get together and write you know three more songs so we can so we can be the support band and but i just loved it and i remember being on stage i love the transition of like you write the songs in your bedroom you're practicing someone's living room you take the equipment with you on on the bus, you walk into the pub, you know, for us it was like three girls and we're all

kind of like petite with our instruments. So we just know, these guys and then, but then you get on stage and then and the music was, you know, as distorted guitars. And I loved the fact that people weren't expecting it of us. That's one thing I loved. But I also really loved just being there and thinking, oh, you know, I had this idea in my room and now here I am. playing it on stage and you know when you first do shows like that it's your parents and your friends parents and everyone's saying oh that was lovely and then I remember the first time we did a gig where a person I didn't know came up to me and they were like oh that was there and I thought like whose dad is this but it was no one's dad it was just a guy and I really liked when you

would play in a pub and people would be drinking at the bar and then they just like look over and then one by one you know they would come into the room and then by the end there'd be more people there then started and I just really liked the feeling of it, the excitement, the fear of it. And so I just carried on and yeah, we really wanted to make it. We had a deal offered from Roadrunner Records who were a metal label, but we were going to get first indie signing and the manager that we had at a time ended up in prison because he was kind of like a dodgy tax guy and he was the son of a very, very well-known music manager. But anyway, he took us out for lunch to a fancy hotel.

You know, we'd never, we hadn't eaten places like that. He paid for the dinner. And it was all going really well. But our bass player, who was the, you know, the cool girl in the band, she got pregnant. And I remember telling him, I was like, you know, Joanne's pregnant. But that's great, right? Because we'll be able to be on stage. She'll have a bump.

A big S.B. And then so. I remember the next time we tried to call the phone he didn't answer the phone and then the next time we tried to call he didn't answer the phone then the next time we tried to call this before email or anything you know so you've got a phone you're man's a ghosted you yeah that was the end I like never saw him again oh he's crying now and he yeah well I saw I saw they was like literally went to prison he's in prison oh my bad I forgot that part he's a prison you don't know yeah but um he I mean that's not why I didn't answer the phone I think

he just the idea of like a pregnant team bass player wasn't as cool as it was to us right then I had to go back to university I was in my second year and I had to go into the third year kind of like tail between my legs I've been like yes you know we're on our way you know I had to come back and pick up all the bits of literature that no one wanted to do you know medieval literature and and um but I finished my course and then I waitress and then I worked on the jewelry counter at this fancy department store just kind of waiting to see what happened with my band. And in the meantime, we got another manager

and he was like, you're writing all the songs, you are standing out, why did you come to London and write some songs with these different people and just sort of see what happens. And I felt really divided because it was all my best friends, you know, at the time, but my best friend who had a baby, she'd left and we had a different person, then the drummer had left, we got a different drummer,

so it wasn't really the same band. It wasn't the same anymore. And I just thought, yeah, I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this. And those songs became the songs that I had for my first record. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying.

Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected.

They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian, Michael Marangini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never. mess with her friends either.

We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he did. serves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Everyone, I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big

Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging

your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, joins the sports. Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar.

This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. So what was that first year like to just come out the box and instantly? I almost feel like it's harder to top the charts in the UK than it is America. Like I know for everyone making it in America is the dream, but I'm way more impressed because I feel like the hurdles are harder and higher

to even make some sort of dent or impression in the UK. Because I almost feel like if you're hitting the UK, you can work forever because they're not as disposable as we are in the States. Like, I know right now, like, whose old boy with one eye, Fonte? Old boy with one eye. With one eye. Yeah. Like, even when Fetty Watt was supposed to be the second coming of something?

And I just found out he's in jail. Like, I didn't even know. Yeah. Yeah, he had the two records. He had the trap queen. and yeah like, yeah, because you're like one of... I mean, at a moment in which I felt like he was going to be at least a second or third album or fourth, you know what I mean, that sort of thing.

But to me, like, your album top the charts in the UK, what was that feeling like for you? It was such a surprise. I remember getting a phone call. I was in Switzerland because I guess Europe's so small, right? So you do your bit of promotion in the UK. then you go to France, then you go to Italy, then you go to Spain, then you go to Germany, then you go to Holland, then you can do all that in about two weeks because it's so small.

And so I remember being in Switzerland's, I got a phone call and I said like, the album's gone to number one. And I just was like, what? You know, I just, because I still didn't know anybody knew about me. And it was, of course, in the days when you had to physically go to a record shop and buy a record. So I just was like, how has this happened? but I had got a lot of support from the BBC really early on. So in 2005, I had put out like a star as a just an EP. It was like a limited edition EP. But the BBC had kind of picked up on it.

And they'd put me on this TV show. It was called Later with Jules Holland. Oh, yeah. And I remember. We just played with Jules last week. Yeah, yeah, really. Yeah. So good.

We just did one a few weeks ago. But, I mean, he's such a big supporter of music. And it's a fully live show. it's five or six pounds in a round and you just watch everyone do their thing you'll get one or two goes at it I remember I was doing the showcase in London and maybe the first Thursday

100 people came and then the second Thursday like 200 people came and the third Thursday like people couldn't get in and then the fourth Thursday I'd done Jules Holland like earlier on in the day before I went to it

so it felt like it'd really gone from nobody knows about me to like I just got to play on the first ever TV show you know I remember once getting into a hotel room and I put on the radio through the TV and like a star was playing and I was looking at it thinking is my CD player plugged in to hear and then I realized it's on the radio the actual radio someone else is playing it so it was just new to me and then everything was so fast like oh Stevie Wonder's on the phone what like oh we're playing a show show in America, oh, Prince has come to the show. Like, you've just met Mary J. Blige, and she has heard of you.

You know, it's just like, oh, I went to read out the nominations and the Grammys, and I thought, this is amazing. I'm getting to read out the nominations. And then Justin Timberlake was saying, you know, song of the record of the year and put your records on. I was like, what? You know, to me, the nominations were the Grammys. Like, it was, that was the biggest excitement.

for me is just like hearing my name read out in a few categories, you know. So so yeah, it was. Answer one question for me. I don't, I don't want to interrupt you, but since you mentioned that, I got to ask. So since you were on the Joni letters,

do you receive an actual Grammy? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I get it. See, there's, there's so much goalpost moving when it comes to who can get one, who can't get one.

Yeah. Because I'm associated with. a few records that are albums of the year, but I find out in some categories, like, especially with hip hop and soul, because there's so many collaborators and sample credits and all that stuff. They don't want to make those trophies. Yeah, they'll just give you a little certificate saying you participated. But then I'll notice like on in classical and country and pop.

In the main categories, like everyone gets like you're an official Grammy winner where mine is sort of like I get a trophy award like yeah I participate in voodoo here here's my thing you know yeah no so I always wanted to know well you should you should redress that man I got my own other battles to deal with so no but I do feel like when artists win album of the year and their respective categories like we too should get awards as well so yeah yeah but I always want to know in the main category do you you get an award or do you not get an award okay yeah yeah i remember her be saying if we win i wouldn't you to come up on stage but in the moment i didn't go up i just like i've contributed

one song to this this is herby's thing and he had such he had a lot to say right he had a speech prepared in his pocket you know yeah don't don't dismiss that you that was your moment you know just in wrapping up for me like i feel like this album is the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist yet or like how do you take this further because i i feel like there's no turning like you've done to open the door that can't be closed now so like what is your what is your next plan musically at least that's a really good question i mean definitely my engagement with that building and those histories definitely doesn't stop you know i really want to write an essay about the erasure of black childhood that i saw in the objects in the arts bank

because it's a kind of strategic, you know, wide-ranging kind of assault on childhood, you know, hundreds of years long, but, you know, it's 200 years of evidence in the, in the arts bank, in terms of black children being depicted as not fully innocent, they're sexualized, they're seen as labor, you know, people who labor. It's like black childhood doesn't exist for the black children in the objects, in the Ed Williams collection. And then right next to the Arts Bank is the Tamia Rice Pavilion, which is going to be torn down,

and Timira Rice's mother came to Theaster and asked whether that could have its place next to the bank so that Tamir Rice Pavilion is there. And, you know, I think a lot about the connection between what is it for a police officer to not perceive someone as a child to think of them as a dangerous adult instead of seeing them as a child playing with a toy because they've been swimming in this culture, lifelong culture that extends back generations of not affording black children the same

space, innocent, joy, freedom as as other children. You know, how does it, one thing is cartoons and stories and silly picture books and, you know, illustrations in the black sambo and and postcards saying all these coons look alike. But the real world effect is, you know, it's death for some young people. And so I definitely want to make some sort of, I want to do some sort of work around that. But at the same time, I know there's people who are more gifted in that area. You know, I'm just reading Christina Sharpe's book. You know, there's some towering academics in that world.

But at the same time, there's all this collection of, stuff that I'm interested in. So yeah, I mean, I need to find a way to make some sort of commentary in that. But yeah, for me, musically, I just feel like I came from a place at my third album feeling like I am a failed pop star who has sort squandered their chips at the, you know, the roulette table of music, you know, you had all this and you could have. And my third record was that, you know, it's me just playing what songs to. music executives, you know, eight men in a room and having them say, I just don't think that's the first single, you know, and thinking, okay.

And after a while, I didn't need them to be in the room at all because they were just in my head. Everything I started, I thought, what's the point of even finishing this song? It's not an international mega smash, you know? It's not uptown funk. So why am I even going to finish it? To now feeling like I am an artist, an artist's job is to exemplify freedom. I, this is my work. This is what I love to do.

It's what I've always loved to do. This is what I'll always do. That is the position I feel like I'm in. Are you pleased with the response that you're getting about the record? I'm overjoyed with the response, definitely, because I feel, I mean, I don't read it, but I've got someone who's telling me, you know,

it's a good response. And I live between fuckpicks, And did you see what Pittsburgh said? And to me, you know, sometimes they get it right. I mean, even when they're dissing me, they get it right. But sometimes they get it right. Yeah, what's been the difference? We were talking about labels earlier now that you're with 30 tigers

and kind of doing it independently. What is that like now? What is the difference between, you know, being in the labels? Yeah. Put a number before an animal. Right. Yeah, it's a good record. I think Dr. Seuss, I think.

But yeah, I loved that label straight away when I met them. I mean, I made the record independently. I made it with my own means, and I made it with, you know, from our studio. And that gave me all this freedom. One, I thought if it's a side project, two, there was no one saying, where's the hits or when is it finished, which was really important, because I also realized I don't respond well to that kind of pressure either. And my first record had sort of been made like that.

that I made it in a basement of an art studio with someone that I got to know as a friend you know so and then we walked it into labels and we walked it to Sony and they were like ooh and then we walked it to Universal and they were you know so it's like I felt and I feel like whatever I do in the future I'm gonna make that record and see who likes it because why would you want to work with people who don't like it and it's so hard you know my third record it was so hard feeling like I was just disappointing people at every turn, you know. And at that point, people are getting sacked if you don't make the right record.

Right, right. People are losing the jobs and the people you've known for 10 years and you know, they're kids. And so you feel a lot of responsibility. But it's so weird being an artist, how you can feel trapped by the things that you made. You know, it doesn't make any sense, does it? But I think you can make something and then it makes you this corridor and then you think, well, I have to go down that. You know, that. the way that I was able to feel free on this was thinking it's not a

Corinne Bailey Ray record but that that's just me so you know it was only when the the artist you know he's a he's a brilliant graph writer he writes and makes amazing things for skateboard the skateboard magazine is where I saw his work okay only when he sent me the cover and I saw my name the first thing I thought was like I have I got to tell him not to put my name on it is meant to say black rainbows right and then I saw my name I thought there's something about not seeing it as a font. I think sometimes when you see your name as a font, it becomes a sort of brand that somehow like tears away from you and becomes a separate thing. And it's like, oh, it's not in that

font. It's just freehand, but it's me. And I thought, yeah, I never want to be boxed in again by my perception of what I think other people's perception of me, which, which of course is too, is too circular anyway. So yeah, definitely sort of can't go back. And then now I'm just trying to work out what to do next. Tour-wise, how many weeks are you doing in the States? We did five weeks in September. Then we went to Europe and did six weeks.

Oh, no, it wasn't six weeks. It was back four. And then we've come back now and we've done some West Coast dates. And then we've got our Blue Note shows. And then we're coming back in June and do some US dates as well. And I'm playing in Australia. And I'm playing, you know, it's like it's, that's a good thing. You know, just getting to play all over the world.

It's a dream to me, you know. I'm not playing to 20,000 people. I'm playing to 2,000 people, but they're scattered all over the world, and I'm happy to get on a plane and go to them, you know. One last question I wanted to ask, Corinne, I was always curious about your recording process for the C. You mentioned earlier that, you know, that was when your husband had died. And so from what I read, part of it was recorded prior,

then the other half was recorded after. How did you make it through that process? I was going to say it happened. I think it happened when we were recording Black Lily. That's right. We had done some work. We did a take. And then, yeah, and we had done this great jam with James Poyser.

And it was like, oh, all this feels really good. And I'm happy in this really happy place. And Jason was playing with Mark Ronson. And it was just things were looking so good for us. And then, you know, I think in life. and then it i just remember the session stopped and at first i was like well i guess you didn't like where we were going with it i had no clue and then they explained to me what happened i can't remember i think something something might have happened while we were on while we were there

but then yeah this all happened in the in the march in 2008 and and then i guess after that i just sort of stopped making music it it kind of felt like the end of my life and i was 29 and you know when you're 29 you sort of think you're old you know you know because you're nearly 30 and 30 is the end of your life right so I thought well you know I've had this great life and I've done this I've had all this great you know I've really enjoyed my music stuff that when you have an intense period sometimes that 18 months feels more expansive than it really is so it felt like I've done a few years of this and then yeah I just thought okay that's the end of my life and then and they also it was so painful I kind of couldn't imagine

39, 49, 59, 59, 69, I was just about, how could I sort of carry on with this amount of physical pain? And then I guess, you know, anyone who's experienced grief, it's just like slowly, slowly, slowly. It's like the sound being sort of turned back up again and you find little moments or you find interest or you find, you see, I remember being in New York

and seeing this couple and she was pregnant and had a little baby and I remember sort of thinking, oh, like I had a little pal. for that like oh in my future I want to be a parent I remember feeling that and that was a little sort of crack of hope and then you know I'd sit at the piano and just get like two chords I'm like I want to finish that so there were just little bits of things but it's a really really really really long time you know I am and when I was touring the sea I was still very much in my a sort of widowhood.

And so, I mean, it was useful to play the songs, but it was really difficult to play them as well. And also it attracted to me a lot of people who were grieving too, which was very beautiful, but also had its own weight to it. You know, I remember meeting a couple after a show and they taught they had lost a child before it was born, and they wanted to talk to me about that, and they even wanted to show me photographs.

And I remember sort of thinking, I am not sort of qualified for right right this is probably on my pay grade here I am in this space which is I'm standing on the stage talking about loss and not many people are saying that at this moment and so it was just I'd meet people in the street they say I lost my brother I lost my mother I lost my partner people would write me letters I lost my husband and I just I felt in my heart was so open and bleeding in that time, you know, just like the naivety that you can have, if you haven't experienced loss, you sort of walk around the world, like, yeah, I'm kind of in control

my life and, you know, and like, I just got to manifest this and, and you just don't realize how everything can change in a moment. So I guess when I came through that grief, the place I arrived at was total gratitude at being alive. And, you know, and then I had my children. And then I felt very differently about my life. I thought, I really wanted to live. you know, I want to make it, you know, I want to make it, I want to survive for them. So every day that I wake up, I'm like an old person, you know, when you talk to an 80-year-old and they say, you say, how are you? And they say, well, I woke up today. You know, they say that. It's like, that's what I am like, here I am.

I'm awake. You know, I'm here. Like, I just feel this massive gratitude and massive joy all the time because I have been so low to the point where I felt I don't want this life I don't want my life and now I really really want it really want it so I'm really grateful and definitely play music help me to articulate those thoughts well I thank you for sharing that and again I love no I fucking love your album and I you know anyone listening now just please like give your support like this This is really, really a great record. And repeat listens over and over again.

And, you know, I can't wait to see this live. I'm gonna see you this week when you come to Blue Note. Of course, this will be on the air way after the fact. So if Corinne is in town, then you need to support her. But thank you for doing this for us and I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for having this. I really appreciate it. Thanks everybody.

For sure. This is Questlove and thank you. Once again, Ms. We're ready for joining us, and we'll see you guys on the next go round of Questlove Supreme. All right. Quest Love 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. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

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