Lydia Asrat

This week on The R&B Money Podcast, Tank and J Valentine welcome the multi-hyphenate Lydia Asrat. From her early beginnings in the Bay Area to her rise as a force in the music industry, Lydia shares her inspiring journey of perseverance and passion.

Growing up in an Ethiopian household, Lydia's love for music was evident from a young age. She recounts the pivotal moments that shaped her path, from declining a life-changing opportunity at 14 to navigating her way through college at LMU while pursuing her dreams.

Lydia takes us behind the scenes of her internships and work with high-profile artists, sharing the invaluable lessons she learned along the way. She also emphasizes the importance of representation and empowering the next generation of Black women in the music industry, drawing inspiration from mentors like Ethiopia Habtemariam.

Tank and J Valentine celebrate Lydia's achievements and the impact she continues to make in the industry. They also take a moment to recognize the countless Black women who have paved the way and continue to be the backbone of the music business. Lydia Asrat is Now on The R&B Money Podcast!

 

Extended Episodes on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/RnBMoneyPodcast

Follow The Podcast:

Tank: @therealtank  

J Valentine: @JValentine

Podcast: @RnbMoneyPodcast

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
R and B money.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
We are.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Thanks take valoti. We are the authority on all things
R and B. Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank
and this is the Army Money podcorst the authority on
all things R and B. Uh. Today we're getting down

(00:28):
the business, standing on it. What we're doing. We're standing
on business today. Take a special breed. You had to
have been in this ship a long motherfucker time, a
lengthy tenure early early, the amounts of experience to be
this type of individual, to be this kind of a person,

(00:49):
to have this type.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Of represented to write it and all right, huh.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
So many things come in the form of lead. The
many dialects.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Yes, you are low key look Ethiopian. And people have
asked me in my community if you're Ethiopian because they
know I know you really, They're like, he's off shot.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I should do it. I should should I should do
I should do it? Twenty three and meter you should
and see what's going on.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
I could see it.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
You might find out.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
So she's your one, know man, That's that's why I
always look at you.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Where you find out some ship.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
To do, Let's just see what happens. I can get
a dolphin by something. You know what I'm saying. You
can really tap into the culture and some things happening
over there.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
I know there are, but you do look it?

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Okay, what what is? What is? What is the look?
What is? What is? What am I giving?

Speaker 4 (01:54):
What you're giving is it's the proportions of our face.
I don't know if you guys have I know, you
know because you from the bad You've seen a lot
of Ethiopians in all East Africans, but we have a
he does a lot, so you should know it. Just
I think we just have a distinctive look, like eyes
are set, our noses are set. I think that's mostly

(02:16):
it's mostly right here, but yours kind of looks like
like you look like a couple of my cousins.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Give you a name because the rail doesn't sound.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Very well yeah, I know, but the rails, I mean
that's what your mom picked or your dad.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Sole Ethiopian.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
You do. It would be like ted Ross. Ted Ross.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Wasn't it wasn't that the Weekends name and it was
in that TV show he was like the club promoter
wild Nigga remember that.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
But like the number one Ethiopian singers name is Teddy.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Opro Teddy He's huge.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Put his song at the end of her concert when
she went to Ethiopia, and it went it was for
our New Year's and she like played it after she
was done and had her dancers dance with everybody crazy.
They said it was shaking the stadium.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Ship nuts. I was there to be always tapping in.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yeah, that was twenty eleven. Friend.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
We always find ourselves in cool room, whether it be
some some fitness equivent around some papers to be signed,
and we always.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
We always are, We always are outside in some capacity.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, And I think, you know, I think it's just
very very very vital and important to have this conversation,
your conversation, you know, so people can understand not just
the ins and outs, but there's a different level of
in and out being a woman of color in this space, a.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
Woman in general and woman period, and then a woman
of color, yeah, and then a young and then you know,
young just like.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
We're gonna get it thirty thirty.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I'm just saying so funny.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
I ain't, I ain't, I ain't been listen God is good.
I Yeah, yeah, I had a four focus. You had
to be focused in that motherfucker to.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
You know, I was in the Camra that was my
car I had.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I literally had a four Folk. I was pulling up
to Underdog Studio with a four focus.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Really oh yeah, driving from Corona, had so many jokes.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
I was literally driving from Corena so many.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
At least the gas was good because he had already
had applying the album out.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
So yeah, you know what I mean, It's just business.
Sometimes you sunk up the money.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Now I had a house.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Okay, you were doing it the right way because I
know a lot of people who have the car and
don't have the house.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, he wasn't doing it. I was on fumes. I was.
It wasn't fully furnished, a lot of a lot of chili.
Did they come back? Did they come back and get it?
Eventually somebody came and got it, as if the house

(05:40):
was going anywhere. Did they come back and get it?
Here's what's crazy, as as I'm losing the house. Uh,
the realtor who sold me the house the house out
from under me at the short cell.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
Price, not praying on your downfall.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Absolutely wow, wow, played well.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
They got the commission and they got it back.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
The kind of bought it with his money.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yeah they did, but look at you now.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
I couldn't be mad because I needed it off my books.
Please please take this motherfucker. I'm doing bad. That was divorced.
Just a tough time. Anyway, back to you, Okay, what.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
A great space you're in now, shout out to you.
God is good. Right, Oh, let's start sermoning.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
You. Just don't stop working. That's true, That's really all
it is.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
That really is what it is though. Yeah, that's like
my life story. Just don't stop.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Because downfall, I mean not downfalls, but knockdowns are inevitable.
It's life in any fight, it's inevitable. What are you
going to do after that? I'm going to act like
I didn't just fall.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, until i'm up again.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I'm going, I promise you, you're gonna think I'm still
doing something. In the middle of me doing absolutely nothing.
When I was waiting outside them clubs, waiting for Jamie
Fox to cup so I could get in, I was
dancing in front of the club. Were coming in a minute. Yeah,
I'm just waiting on Jamie because you know, he got

(07:29):
he got all of you, all the stuff with him,
So i'mna I'm gonna come in he come in, his
bouncers was like, you're not coming in same bounces that
used to do security for me.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
And that's that's when it's full circle.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
That's that's that is then just that's the entertainment industry
industry in anshell.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
And it's like and it feels that that that is
what low key makes all this stuff, Like Okay, I
could do it again, Yeah you can do it again.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
What do you want to do right there? When the
bouncer that used to work for you says, no, no,
you can't not right now, it's gonna be one hundred
hundred of person.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Most people would just go under the couch, and.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I still had to get in there, you go, I
still had to get in there. Look a crook. I'll wait.
How far are you Jamie?

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (08:22):
We about forty minutes A were finishing up. If okay,
I was going.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
Playing out the time right? Better time? Why did you
leave before he told you he was on the way.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
That's your fault because Jamie is always late.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Then you should have known that.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, ok, the thirst was real clear, j you chasing
the crack and again, absolutely I gotta have it.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
I would have just went to where there was eating.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
No, there's a chance that I would have missed him
right listen, because he comes. Because Jamie is one of
those guys like if you don't walk in with.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Him, it's over. Well, no, that's everyone, good luck, that's
not everyone. That's mostly everyone.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Mostly if we go to the door and get I know, y'all, I.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Know y'all, y'all do I remember when we were in Vegas
so training Wars last year.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm not going for my people not getting in.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
That's true. But if it's live on a Sunday night,
I'm going to get you.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
You will.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
We're going to go find Mike. You guys, Mike, I
need you, baby.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Come on, you guys will.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
But yeah, you know the industry. The industry won't.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Or or you standing outside for the forty minutes dance
on my tank.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Bro, you know you know we in here and bro,
there was no.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Holes on your phone that she replied to or just
walk there standing next to one of them.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
I said that I'll be out to get you. Hey,
that's funny and ship right there though.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
That's the way I'm talking to him. Yeah, we together?

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Are we coming? Lydia? You guys, let's go back to
the beginning.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Oh, okay, why not we have time we do.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Let's go to the bay, Let's go to.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
Where we reside.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Give me the bay, give me the early beginnings of
you finding your way into this okay? And why so?

Speaker 4 (10:22):
I am Ethiopian clearly, and I always just since I
can remember, my parents said, since I was like two
or three, since I could stand, I just watched Whitney
Houston on TV. Like there's videos home videos of just
me watching and like trying to dance like her and
just humming shit. And it's like, I've loved music since then.

(10:45):
I don't remember a time where I didn't love music.
So I was like, cool, bet in my head, I'm
doing music. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm
doing music as like a six, seven, eight year old
until I started to be like I can hold a no,
I can kind of singing, Okay. So then I got
into elementary school and I would sing in the choirs
and be the vocalist. Also, I went to all white

(11:08):
school from K through eight. Me and my sister and
two other boys who were brothers were the only black
people in the school. Private school.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Oh, y'all had a little money amen.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
We were blessed. My father came from me the opia
and started a business that did well. Pops did that,
and so he was like, oh, yeah, you're going to
be a doctor or a lawyer. Lawyer, you know that's
the two, especially in the African household. Doctor lawyer. Now
they've thrown an engineer in there. I heard.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
I heard.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Engineers now a thing, which was cool. That's there wasn't
my ship. So I was like, okay, So now I
was always being picked to sing at these and do
all that, and I was like, cool, this is what
I want to do. To the point where my dad
was like a church he still is. My dad loved
my dad and my mom, but my dad heavily involved

(12:10):
in church, like on the board, vice president, treasurer all that.
So we were going to church every Sunday to the
point and like the bishop of all of our whole
situation community would come over every Sunday have dinner with
us and stuff. And one night we were driving him
home and he goes, Lydia, what do you want to be?

(12:34):
My dad almost literally stopped the car and looked back
at me like, don't you dear say you want to
be a singer, and I was like, I want to
be music. And he literally started doing the Sign of
the Cross and started no the bishop and like praying

(12:55):
and my dad was like she has to know, you know,
and like doing the whole sign of the Cross, and
I'm like, what did I do? Like what's wrong with
being in music? Like I don't understand, and it it
just you know, they're old fashioned and it just like
in any church music was like the devil's work. You're
not supposed to be unless you singing for God. And
I didn't say I wanted to be singing in the church.

(13:17):
I just said I wanted to be in music. So
my dad dropped him off and he was like, what's
with you? Why would you say that? And I was
like I don't know, Like that's what I want to do,
you know. And he's like that's really hard and you know,
just make sure you stay in your own path. And
I was like okay, but I didn't. I was the
old I'm the oldest, Like I was doing what I
wanted to do, but I also played volleyball and sports,

(13:39):
and my dad was like, maybe you'll just stick on that.
Not to say my dad didn't believe my dreams because
he did. I love him, but he just is like,
how first off, I am an African man with a hard,
heavy accent. I don't know nothing about that. What are like,
who are you looking up to? And that was my
biggest thing.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Especially is the past Ethiopian as well? Yes, also the
church is.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
The church is a completely Ethiopian church, Ethiopian Orthodox, and
it's called Madonnia Lem and it's like very very like
a huge affluent church in Oakland. But he was not.
He came from Ethiopia too, so he's like one of
the hires of like all of the diocese and all

(14:19):
that stuff. And I'm probably butchering the names of all
this stuff, but he's like one of that. Like we
don't have a pope, but he's like one of those
highest ones. So I said it to like imagine like
somebody writing underneath the pope not knowing, and I just
was like, I don't know, I don't know what to
tell you. This is my thing to the point where

(14:40):
like my dad would be like, Okay, you can't listen
to bad songs and stuff. And my grandpa knew I
loved music, so he would like get me be too.
I will never forget B two K B two K
Pandemonium album. Listen. That's the only thing I wanted. He
got it. I have my Walkman. You guys remember the Walkman.
So one day I was feeling it. I think my
dad was like what is she listening to? Because he

(15:02):
was like, call my name. I didn't answer, and he's like,
what are you listening to? And I was like, oh shit, nothing.
He was like, let's go in the car, give me
the CD.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Literally, that's exactly what he pressed playing.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
The first thing is all the sexy ladies around the world,
around the world. He said, come on, all I want
to do is see that sexy body go bump, bump, bump.
And my dad turned to me with the most discussed discussed.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
I'm like, twelve, I would do the same thing.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
He was like, what is he saying? He said, what
is he saying? I was like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
I just like the beat.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
He said, okay, I'll get you. So I'll get you
a full album with just beats and took it out
and broke the whole album, like broke the CD in
front of me. I cried. He was like, where are
your boxes? I was like, I don't know, I hate them.
My mom came in. She was like, leave her alone.
My mom was the only one championing, like this your
grandfather and my grandpa. My mom called my grandpa. It

(16:11):
was her dad too. Told him next day she said,
chuck into your pillow.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
When you go home. You got her, another one got me.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
I was bumping off my way home as soon as
I saw my dad came turned it down.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Hate it.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
It was that the whole time, and then until I
started to go. I went finally to high school, BIS
pulled out and I was like niggas.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
It was niggas everywhere it was.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
It was just people who looked like me. And I
was like, oh my god, to the point where my
grade started pumpinging like. My dad had to sit me down.
He was like, I'm gonna put you in a in
the public school. You go on the skyline. Keep talking
around me.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
He didn't want to see him from from Bishop down
the skyline, you really would have been turned on top
of that hill.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
But I didn't know Bishop O'Dell here.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
I didn't know, but he knew you already went to school.
You have friends, so if I take you out, it's
gonna be a problem. Keep playing around, and I was
like okay, okay, okay, but it was just like, oh
my god, I just have people who look like me,
like girls, boys, everything. They were fine. I was having
crushes on Sean and Connor, you know what I mean,
like not knowing, and so I went there and then

(17:28):
I joined choir there too, but I also was playing
volleyball like year round, and that's when it was it
was over. My dad was like, okay, it's she's gonna
do whatever she wants to do because at that point
I had posters of all these people on my wall.
Now he used to take them off. That was done.
He found out me and my mom. My mom drove

(17:49):
me like three hours away to Modesto. I think it
was for this Like I don't know who it was.
I might have been in La Reid or somebody like
that was throwing audition and like went there. My mom
had me do it with not telling my dad.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, now he knows, and I know what she wants
you talking about.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
I know what you're talking about. It was I think
it was through Hitco, but it was she Kis Stewart
because he was from Oakland and he had did, he
had done a few auditions back home, and.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
It was like you need to come to LA and
stay here for like.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Pretty sure that's what that was.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
I think it was because maybe what fifteen sixteen years
ago or maybe.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, I'm thirty one now, so it was like I
was like fourteen fifteen and they picked me.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
And mom was like, shit, I don't know what's wanted
to do now. Your dad don't know about this, and
it was like you have to you have to send
your kid away kind of and my mom was like,
I don't know. You want to own now? And I'm like, girl,
what you mean, Like what how are we going? She
was like I don't know, you know, And he was

(19:02):
like over my dead body, over my dead body.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
So you get picked and I don't.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
I declined, Wow, yeah again.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah you cried again.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
I was so hurt because I was like he just
ruined my life. He just ruled my life because I
didn't even know exactly, Like I didn't know if I
want to be a songwriter. I don't know if I
wanted to be in front of it. I don't know
if I wanted to be a manager. I didn't know
if I I always loved A and R though, like
picking and hearing different things and putting a song together,
so I knew that was something I loved. But I

(19:36):
sang too, so it's like, do I want to be that?

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Do?

Speaker 4 (19:39):
I don't know? And I was like, but you just
took it all away from me. We used to watch
Making the Band and Dannity Kane in Day twenty six
as a family, so it's like the one chance I
had to be in that. But I think that's what
scared him, because he was like, look at that right right,
run down, You're gonna run down and get cheesecake. Oh
he don't know, you know, but anyways, you know, like

(20:00):
it just so he said no, and I was like,
I hate it here. I hate it here, I hate
it here, Like this is terrible, And I know now.
I knew later too, when I went to college.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
He was just trying to protect me, you know, in
terms of the only way he knew how right, right,
because you know, he knows nothing about it. A lot
of us are first generation this, yeah, so all he
knows is what you just said to making the band
and going to get cheesecake fifty miles away, right, And

(20:34):
I'm not letting my daughter go through that and not
your mind. I'll kill somebody over there exactly.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
And then I can't even do You're not in the
same city as me, so I can't run up and no,
you're not doing it. You're not doing it. So our
compromise was I'll give you piano lessons, and I was like, okay, man,
that's that's.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's gonna help the crab.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
No, I never got the piano lessons. He got okay
because he was like, you find the person. Every person
I find, he'd be like, I don't want them in
my house.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Possible. Wow, I like what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
And no games, it's just like I feel you. I
feel you. You know, you're just trying to protect me. Doctor, lawyer, lawyer.
And my sister is like the smartest person I know,
and like had she got accept to Harvard, she got
she went to Stanford. She picked Stanford when Stanford is dead? Yeah,

(21:32):
she picked do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (21:33):
And I'm like, hey, and what cow did you go to?

Speaker 4 (21:36):
I went toll you okay, I went to Loyhill, mamou.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
So you found your way to la though, You're like.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
Oh, I knew. I was like cool. So if you're
not gonna let me as soon as I turned eighteen,
I'm out of here. I'm out of here. I knew it.
I didn't even care what school I got into. I
wanted to go to USC I got. I think I
got accepted, like second semester or something, and he exd
that out because he's like, so you're gonna take a
semester off and just be in LA No. I was like, okay,
I'll go to l ME. I don't care. I'm out.

(22:02):
I'm out, And I went with my cousin's fake ID.
So the first as soon as I stepped there, I
was already in the clubs, I met like, I met
Brandon Moore, do you know be more YG's manager as
a I think I was like nineteen and he was so.
He was somebody who was like, so, like you want

(22:23):
to be in this okay? Cool? Like I was trying.
I saw the clubs as a networking place. I was like,
this is how I can get closer to these artists
or these managers or these A and rs or whatever. Cool.
I'm going in there. I don't even drink, so I'm
not getting drunk. Y'all all can think everyone else is drunk.
But now I get to talk to you, and you're
not going to be like, who's this person? So I

(22:45):
knew people are a little more vocal when they're drunk,
a little more.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know, they give you more information, sometimes information you
don't want.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, use it.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
It's sober as sober as hell. So I I yeah,
I finished out high school. I had a great I
had such a great time in the Bay. But also
the Bay is such a melting pot of music, Like
people were going dumb and the high food movement was
a thing. Mac dre keep the Sneak, like all of
these all of these men. It was mostly men. But

(23:18):
also shout out to Keisha because Keisha Cole was doing
her thing, and there was there was there was other
women who were doing things for Oakland too. But it
was such a melting pot of like we're creating our
own culture. And I was like, this is so dope.
We have our own sound. How can we make it
even bigger? Like when you're from the Bay, I feel

(23:50):
like everyone knows like we repped the Bay, Like yeah,
we from Oakland, like or the Babe in general, but
like you rep it. So I came to La and
I was like, I'm just I'm just this girl from
the Bay and I know music. They were like, okay,
what do you do?

Speaker 1 (24:07):
It's like I got LMUT got it down.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
There, and then it was such a like not black
school that it's like girl, and I'm like, I do.
But then I got my internship at Warner Brothers.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
How do you get that? Though?

Speaker 4 (24:26):
LMU shout out to LMU. They had a great They
had this online. You had to do the work. So
they had a whole system, a whole portal for like
internships and jobs, part time jobs while you're there. So
I worked a full time job, not full time, but
I worked a full time that you could do while
you were in school because I was a full time student.

(24:47):
And then I was like I need an internship. I
need to somehow because I worked on campus. And so
I was like, how do I do this? Because the
way that set it up is like there's this amount
of money that you could get if you work on campus,
but if you don't work on campus, they don't give
it to you, and now it's like harder for you
to do it. So I was like, okay, So I'm
scrolling through and one of my Actually, one of my

(25:09):
good friends, Chloe, hits me and she's like, girl, there's
this internship for Warner brother Records on here. And I
was like, where I've been looking. It was like one
hundred and fifty pages shit, and there'd be like one
hundred on each page and you and their words. They're
not pictures or anything, so it's like homework. You're like, no,
I don't want to be Deloitte. No, I'm not an engineer.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
No.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
And there was nothing to really like search through. You
just had to search through it yourself because you're it
was back in the day. So she was like here
and sends me the link. Fill it out. Literally the
next week I got a response, went there, did an interview.
They were like we're picking a few people, bl blah

(25:50):
blah blah, and I was like, oh my god, please
mind you. Lmu is in Westchester, Warner Brothers is in Burbank.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Mm hmm. That dry like he was interscoping. You had
to go right to you can go to.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
Santa Monica hour and change, and I have no money.
I have no money, So I'm like, okay, that one
that one time was cute. I could afford it. They
called me They're like, we're picking you. You got it.
I remember exactly where I was. I was leaving the
Westfield Mall, fox Hills, Fox. I was leaving fox Hills.

(26:28):
That was our spot, left fox Hills. Got the call.
I was ecstatic, you're starting next week. It's like, okay, great,
this is amazing. And then I was like do you
get paid? They're like, you got college credit?

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Girl?

Speaker 4 (26:41):
I was like, because you know, they get paid now,
paid internships.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
They paid intern you.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
Can sue them if you don't get paid like a
full job.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
It is different. Yes, it's different.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
It's different now they get fully paid.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
So you know what, Yes, it's better.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
Now it's good and I'm happy for the kids, but
it was it was rough for us because I still
had to do my job. So now I'm in my
accounselor's office, like, how do I change my schedule around?
I moved all my classes to Tuesdays and Thursdays so
that I could go into WBR, which is Warner Brothers Monday.
Once it Friday.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Wow, but well, how are you getting there driving?

Speaker 4 (27:18):
You had a car though I had a car. I
had my little black camera called her Cocoa.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
But you didn't have much money.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
I didn't have no money. I didn't have no money
to the war where it was like my friends would
be like, it's my birthday, can you come to the paper.
My brother I was like, y'all all going pitching ten
dollars for this megabus for me to come back, because
if not, I don't know what to tell y'all. My
money is for my food and that's about it.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Food, That's it.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
And even though yes, my parents.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Are living on campus, I was living on a camp.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
They were paying helping me pay for my college. So
they were like, got it. Girl also was playing volleyball,
but like, no, you got it?

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Oh do you keep saying volleyball? You were playing volleyball?

Speaker 4 (27:56):
I played volleyball. I was a little barro. You see
how you coming from me? I'm five to three.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
No, No, I'm just listen. I know volleyball.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
My daughter plays volleyball febro.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
So I'm just saying, like I was good. You gotta
be good. I was great to be five three and
playing college volleyball. You got to be exceptional.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Well that didn't last that long, right, I get it. Yeah,
but even it was like freshman year.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
But even to make the team like to say, I
played volleyball like I've watched those girls. I've been to
the tryouts and I'm like this, Oh there's levels and
that's just in high school.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
In high school, that's what I'm saying. I played two
teams like I was playing year round volleyball. That was
my but I loved it like club, so you know
their club. I played club. Club was more important than.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Absolutely no the ever trying to get Zoey's club or
the thing that she was going to play in the Again,
the practices are likes west Lake area. The games are
in Orange County Riverside every weekend.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
Yeah, or even what my practices were in Pleasanton in
Dublin because he knows how far.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
And that.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
But my dad, Amen, but my dad every what time
your game's at seven and blah blah blah and aar
and half away, I'll car pull all the girls like
he was about that. He was about that at every game.
You did that wrong? He was you worried about this
too much? Like he did not play. My sister was
really good at soccer two.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Anything to get you off the bump she was chasing.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
That was.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
I went to that.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
That was another thing we were there thick my cousins
there's like, you know, you see Kardashian. He's like, oh,
there's a lot of them. Our family. There's like twelve
first cousins and we're all girls and we're all the same,
like around the same age, and.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
We used to do everything.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
What so my uncle, I'm telling all his business. Sorry uncle,
he part he's in it. I'll just say he's part
or somehow into the parking and Oracle arena.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
So he of course he is.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Of course he is.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
You guys, you guys own all the parking around the world.

Speaker 4 (30:37):
Yes, so he was. He was whenever we needed to
go to a show. What and he got us the
front row at the It was the Bow Wow and
Chris brown Win. Oh yeah, I'll never forget that. It
was the one where you remember when Chris was on
the thing and it like lifted y'all might not remember.
That was a core memory for me. It was on

(30:58):
It was like a thing that lifted up and he's
like hanging off and doing the dances on the hanging thing.
Y'all remember that.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
I had to see it.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I don't think we felt take you down feel the
same way, probably not about it.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
But I was gonna say, I'll take you down.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
It was gonna take you down, me and my cousins.
Thank god my dad didn't go. He would have grabbed
all of us by our hair and took us out.
We were screaming like crazy.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Front. It was theirs in the front. Yeah, my crew,
y'all whole show.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
And we would have said right back because we need.
And it was our aunts. It was like our aunts
and our and my mom and all the and they
loved it. They were if they would have picked us
to go up, they would have let them because the
mom's be cool. It's the dads, the dad's. Like one
time I brought a man home and all the dads
lined up like this at a at a graduation party

(31:58):
to talk to him.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Who who is this nigga?

Speaker 4 (32:01):
That's crazy?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
He wasn't my boyfriend. Listen, I can't wait for those days,
see y'all not. I can't wait. My daughter thinks it's
gonna be sweet. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
He gonna he's gonna he gonna all right, No, you.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
Too nice, you're nice thing. You're not gonna be mean, you.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Know, I'm not, no, I mean. But when it's time
for his baby girl, we're gonna act up. Yeah, like
young man, you know this is like forty right, this
is what it is. They don't face paint on like
it's gonna you know with this than I mean, listen, man, y'all,

(32:50):
that's not nice. We're not supposed to be nice.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
My mom and all of them were crying in the back.
Though they think the ship is so funny, they were
tears were falling because I was like mom. He didn't
say word him in the car. He asked him, like,
how you doing? My dad just he looked forward. I
was like, Dad, he said, how are you doing? He's like, who.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Own business? Stand on it?

Speaker 4 (33:11):
My little brother in the back, he's like, you're a
football player. What do you do?

Speaker 1 (33:16):
He making it worse. Don't talk to him. He's invisible,
so you now, what do you do? What are you doing?

Speaker 4 (33:28):
In Warner Brothers, I was in marketing the first the
first internship because you know, it's per semester. So my
first semester I was in marketing and it was like
my eyes were finally glued open because I never seen
in my head. I'm like, I'm gonna go in there.
They're gonna love me, and I'm gonna play them. Either's

(33:49):
some music I'm gonna happen to sing, or I'm gonna
do something. They're gonna give me everything, like a record deal,
or they're gonna give me a job as an A
and R or you know, like the most not happening
shit is what's gonna happen? And I get there and
it was like, can you go get us a coffee?
And I'm like, oh, right right, can you go? Can
you can you research this? Can you put this in

(34:11):
some notes? Can you go print a hundred copies of
this for the can you take these notes in this?
In this meeting? I was like, oh, we do not
make it.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
One are the projects that you remember, like off the
off the top, like that you got into as soon
as you got there, like that they may have had that.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
You was like, oh, ship, okay, I get to somewhere.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Notes for the first semester, no one nothing, no.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Because the man I was underneath shout out to you're cool.
I'm not even gonna say your name. But he was
just not my time. We were not connected musically.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
You know, they just sounds like yeah, fuck you, you're cool.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
You know he was cool. He just was like a
white boy who like rock music and stuff. And it's like,
I'm I was listening to Brandy and Jill Scott and
Usher Like that wasn't I was like, what the who where?
So now me being you know, Magglin and husband, I
was like, who in this building do I need to
go under for the next semester? So now I start

(35:12):
meeting the people and no one black was on my
immediate team, so like I was like, where are the
black people at? Where are the people who look like
me at? And that's when I started researching too, just
in general, who's somebody that I really could look up to?
And that's when I learned all about Ethiopia. Wow, and
Ethiopia was like this force in my life. I've told

(35:34):
her this so she knows now, But I was like,
you were my mentor without being my mentor, because number one,
you are a woman in this space who's doing some
shit that none of us has seen a woman do. Right,
you are a black woman in the space doing some
shit no black woman has ever done. Or Sylvia Ron
and you you know what I mean, Like, there's there's
a few that I can name. I'm missing something, but

(35:56):
there's a few I can name, but an Ethiopian woman,
and your name's Ethiopia.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah, you.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Walking in saying and that's why, that's why I've made
my Instagram. It was open because I wanted you to
know I'm Ethiopian and I'm doing this. There's not a
lot of us I speaking.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
When you walk back there, when you walk back, was
like I know, she's like, she's like, it's her Instagram.
I said, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
I saw you followed me, took you long enough.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
I didn't even know that was your girl. Just kidding.
I know better. I did better.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
I'm just kidding. You know. I'm playing with you. I
love tell her, Yeah, that's my girl. But that's why
I did that, because it was like I want I'm
so proud of my culture and I'm so proud to
just be where I'm from and to experience everything. And
I've been to fourteen times. Oh okay, so I'm tapped

(36:58):
in and I was like, yo, she's doing this. And
then I started reading. I was like, she's been doing
this since she was a kid. Because I was like,
I'm doing well. I'm in the record space place, record
label place as a teenager. Nah, you in there as
a college student girl. She was in there was she

(37:19):
barely in high school? Yeah, fourteen, And I was like, oh,
I'm late. I'm like, I'm super late. My dad, I
knew it, you know what I mean, triggered, triggered I
could have. I was right there. I don't blame him anymore.
I love it very much. But it was that because

(37:39):
I was like, I knew I wanted to, but for
her to be doing that, and then I just went
on a deep dive read everything about her, read every
move she made, and I was like, Wow, I cannot
wait to hopefully meet this woman because she has changed
my whole mental of this now. And I was like, Okay,
I need to go fine to people who look let
me around here. And I did, and I started interning

(38:04):
in publicity after that with Felicia Fann. Shout out to Felicia,
who I didn't even understand, was such a force because
I'm a nineteen year old college student who knows nothing
about the music industry for real, and she was like
a force to be recommend. That's when I was able

(38:26):
to be like, I can name the people that I
started working with. That was amazing because she was working
with Jason Derulo. She was working with all the Ovo
camp because they had the distribution deal we had MMG
right is that yeah? MMG is Rick Crosses, Yeah that
we had that, So Meek and all them over there
will at what I'm like, Andrew Day, Yes, and she

(38:52):
put me on that project very closely. So I got
to meet Andrew and like she really see and Andrew
is the most talented, sweetest person in the world. Shout
out to her. But I just and I've just seen
her recently at the Beyonce premiere, which was amazing. But
she was someone I got to like, really work on closely.
Like I remember Fee was like, I don't care if

(39:13):
you're an intern or not, go make a one sheet
for this. And I'm like, what is a one sheet?
And her assistant at the time was like girl look
girl like and I was like, okay, cool, this is
the challenge. This is what I wanted. I'm not getting coffee,
you know what I mean. So I'm over here making
researching what is a one sheet? Looking at others, going

(39:34):
to people who in the building that I was friends with,
looking at theirs, put put it together and I'm like, okay, cool,
send it off and she's like, you did a good job,
and I'm like, cool, okay, you know, and then she's like,
now let's talk about this Jason Derulo situation. And that
was when that song wiggled. Do y'all remember what's snoop?

(39:56):
We ran that whole campaign, and now it's like, okay,
y'all need to sign in and y'all need to make
a whole type of you know, fans situation activation get
them excited. So now we're making this and me and
my one friend Sophia and one of my really dear,
dear friends. She's still in the music industry. She and
me are over here trying to put this together because

(40:18):
the A and R for Jason is her boss and
she's an intern. So now we're doing the project together
and we're learning at the same time how to do
this and put this all together, and we're coming and
presenting to them. They're like, you guys are doing great jobs.
So it's like finally we were getting like this experience
that you cannot get unless you do it. Like I

(40:38):
can't teach you how to do it in a class
because it's not a teachable thing.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
It's a go do it, go do it.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
And we were like okay, you know, and that after
that it was just that like I stuck and we
were getting it, and like there's moments of course where
they came in and they helped us and taught us.
But being able and I always say this internships and
being able to to really learn from people who are
doing it and if they let you be a part
of it and don't keep you out of arms distance

(41:07):
is where the no money could take you. Because that's
something that I learned, and I learned be fearless, go
in there and be like here here it is like
I ask questions. If I can't get an answer, oh well,
like just try and figure it out. And we did
that and it was it was like the most rewarding

(41:28):
experience because I felt like I learned every avenue of
the record label side without having to be in everything
because every as you guys know, every single department is
dependent on one another. You can't do publicity without talking
to the marketing person without talking to the anar person
because of that, the song that's coming out or we

(41:50):
did it so instead of us being in the back
and just not really getting to know what we were doing,
we were right next to them in these meetings. I'm
writing the notes. Oh okay, so this is this is how,
this is how you plan a timeline out for an
album roll out.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Hmm, this one did.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
And then from us, it's like, which one didn't do well?
Which one did do well? I'm now going back on
my notes. Why, oh we did this differently, We spent
this more on this one we did, and all those
things were factored. That information is priceless. And even knowing

(42:30):
I was sitting in meetings with the CEOs and I
didn't even know, you know, I was just sitting next
to my boss taking her notes and everything, but learning
and hearing and then even her speaking out and saying
what she needs to say and making sure her she
wasn't muted at all. Was important for me to see
because we're usually told, y'all complain too much. Black women

(42:53):
do this, y'all, y'all to bossy y'all. And it was
none of that. It was being assertive. It was being
this is how if y'all need me to do this job,
I need this and I'm not budgeting because I'm not
going to do the job half assed and y'all gonna
blame me. So if y'all want me to do a
B and C to get the results of A B

(43:14):
and C, I need a B and C. And if
y'all don't, then we got it. And that's all me.
That's because you said no. And I was like, yeah,
because we ain't doing shit unless no. I was like,
I highlighted that. I highlighted that, you know, and it

(43:35):
it just everything organization, all that it mattered, and I
was able, like to go to places it wasn't. I
saw how other interns were doing it. I also was
in another internship at the same company and got a
completely different experience. So for me then now it's like, hey,
don't come in the office today, and I'm like, oh,

(43:56):
you know. First off, my pockets was like, yes, where's
the shoe. It's in Culver City, fifteen minutes beautiful, praise God,
you know. And it's like, yeah, get there early, make
sure Jason's there, We have a call with blah blah
blah blah blah blahlaughter, make sure this person's there. Make
sure this person's there, and then and that all these
papers are printed out, and it was just like cool,

(44:17):
So I did that and now I get to peek
in and see rehearsal. Oh, okay, this is how it is.
What's that?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Who's that guy?

Speaker 4 (44:25):
And then you know, I became friends with other people
in the camp. They're like, that's the music director. Oh,
there's a music director. He's directing music. Isn't the music
already made? Like people don't know what a music director is. Well,
I'm like, what are you talking about? The producer? And
she's like no, girl, And I'm like she's like no.
When you do live instruments and you do real like shows,

(44:46):
you get somebody. You guys know what a music director is.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
But for people who don't.

Speaker 4 (44:51):
You get shows. When you get shows, you have the
music directors come in and they make live renditions of
your songs and there's the that's why you got those
big moments where people are dancers and they have the
big like boom boone moments and they're doing all that
And I was like.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Oh, that was a movie you just did. I saw
him he was bump bump and it was like Peter
and yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
I was in my boy bag at that era. It
was like boy band or like Jon. He was like
a boy band by himself. He wasn't want band. He
could do it all.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
I'm like, now you've be making like dessert and ship
while he dancing and ship on the on the TikTok
made a trade and out.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
That's great, gas station's great.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Tapped into that.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
A billion dollars or something like that out to you, Jason,
he's somewhere the nicest guy to nicest guy. But so okay,
So you you learning everything all the ins and outs
of the music business in your internship.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
How long were you a intern to.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
Two and a half or two years?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
So you put it in. Oh yeah, you got an education.
Oh yeah, a full college education.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
And I was going there more than I was going
to school still Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I made all
my classes Tuesday and Thursday. The most hellish days were
Tuesday and Thursday. From seven am. I graduated with a
three point five GPS.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Why not? Why not? Pops wasn't having would get this?

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Also, I had like grants and scholarships that if my
had before, I would use it. So I had no choice.
I would sleep in my roommate. Onere of my best friends, Talia,
she's still we still live, she still live with me,
and she would be like, girl, did you come home?
And I was like no. She was like okay, because
I was a communications major after I switched out of science,

(46:52):
and it would be like twenty five page papers. Yeah,
so it would be doing all that and then or
doing all Warner stuff and then coming and just sitting
there writing for hours.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Oh yeah, yes, oh yeah, yeah, yes, you'd have loved
this new technology back then.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
The way we talk about all my friends, we'd be
like the way we could have.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
But they don't learn.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
And that's the difference, right, because they don't learn, and
it's can we can we skip the steps? Absolutely, those
steps can be skipped, but there is a different exercise
to take in the stairs. True, you get on that elevator,
you ain't gonna lose no weight on that elevator if
you're not gonna you know what the steps, No, bro,

(47:39):
you gotta take the steps.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Ai writes the paper and you read it. Ship, Let's go,
let's go to let's go.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
This is We are songwriters here, and this is not
to be taken lightly. Like I like to call us
also magicians because we literally grab things out of nowhere
and create what we hope to become magic. What to

(48:24):
write a song is not easy and you know, it's
not for the faint at heart because also it is
subjective true one person may love it and twenty may
hate it and it could still figure out a way
to be a hit, or vice versa where twenty people

(48:44):
love it, the one person hates it and then they
don't help push the button and you never get to
hear record right, Like, no, this is real, Like this
songwriting thing man, and this music is man. I try
to tell people all the time, like you really won't
do this. We'll do this no matter how talented you are,
no matter how any of these things are. A lot

(49:04):
of ship has to align.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
What's on bosses wall just trained. Hard work beats talent
that doesn't work. Yeah, that ship is so real, it's real,
and talent beats work that doesn't like, you know, vice versa.
So it's like if you are super talented but you're
not working a lot of people, there's a lot of those.

(49:29):
There's also a lot of people who work their asses
off and they don't have that much talent. But guess
what they in front, they're killing, they're killing, we're buying
tickets to go see.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
It's just is what it is.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
So with you was thishere when you were back home
and he was singing Orthodox Church.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Viual choir. Were you writing songs then?

Speaker 4 (49:56):
Mm hmmm, I have songs you bump too.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
No, I didn't. No, I have.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
I'll never play it for you guys. But I had
a song that I wrote with my cousin and my uncle,
one of my uncles. I don't know if he's really
my uncle, but you know how that goes. Yeah, he
like my mom said my uncle. You know, you started
asking a question. She's like, Mom, who's brother. She was like,
he's your uncle and I was like, okay, but love

(50:25):
him to death. He's amazing. He is actually an artist,
but like a guitar player music is they have a
whole side of just instrumental, like jazzy, like feel good music.
And he was one of those guys who did really well.
And so he had a studio in his house up

(50:45):
the street from my house. So me and my cousin
a couple of times be like, hey, can we use
your studio? And he's like, yeah, come on, I didn't
even know, Like that's so crazy to think about that.
We were really fourteen and fifteen in his studio talking
about can you turn me down a little bit. I
don't even know what.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Somebody said it before.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Yeah, like I have one ear off. He was like,
why is one ear off? And I was like, I
don't know. He was like put it back, and I
was like, you know, my cousin's rapping and I was singing,
and like we were so excited to go show our
parents after and like my mom was like all the

(51:26):
aunts were like living it up and it was. It
was just a time. So we did that a lot.
So I was writing, but I didn't know it wasn't
I should. I wish I don't know where it is.
I wish I could go find it, but somebody got it.
I think my cousin does still. But it was it
was funny. It was we were in there writing because

(51:47):
who's writing it for us?

Speaker 1 (51:48):
We were writing.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
I don't know what I was talking about.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Was it serious to you or you were just having fun?

Speaker 4 (51:52):
You were just oh, I was done that serious.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Her moment was coming.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
Bro it was serious in the fact, like if I'm if,
I don't know if anybody's gonna hear this or not,
but like I'm trying to make the best song I
could make. Yeah, And like I used to also write poetry,
which is literally the poetry is literally music without like instruments.
So I think that's what helped me to poetry class

(52:19):
in high school and like all that. So it was
like therapeutic for me too to just write things out
and like all that works. Oh, wordplay, that's cool, Like
well somebody get that. Maybe they don't, but that's still cool,
you know. Like so that's where I really At my
uncle's house in Oakland Hills, we would write outside by

(52:42):
his pool, just write on a piece of paper too.
Wasn't no phone or nothing. We were writing, yeah, and
I'd be like, song, what does that sound like? Okay,
you wrap your part, okay, and I'm gonna come in
right here. No, that doesn't work. It doesn't work like
that was it was, and he was trying it too.
So we were just going back and forth. And I mean,
if we had those those pageant moms or like pageant

(53:03):
type of parents who were like, I ain't got nothing
else to lose, you gonna be it and grabbed us
and took us, I don't know we would, you know,
because we were we had that in us that we
wanted to do that. But we also were very much
like you need to finish school and do all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
So so like a long this journey. As you're speaking
on it, like we get to the song writing, but
how do you because you're doing so many other things.
You're role managing, you're managing and your intern and so
who says or who's like you're right? And then you're like, oh,
you know, and then it's like.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
I was not saying anything.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
I was just in the studio.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
And then it was like when you're playing the song
and you're in there and you're singing something for me
to be like, hey, you can we mark that one?

Speaker 1 (53:53):
That's it?

Speaker 4 (53:54):
That's the one.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Yeah, don't lose that tape because you're you know, you
know too.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
You guys are in there spinning out melodies and spinning
out things that you're like, I could do a better one.
I could do a better one. No, we're out here
hearing it.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
You got it.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
That's the one. Let her do it though, or let
him do it though. Let them continue, But that one
right there special, My hair's my hair stood up? Yeah,
you know what I mean? Okay, cool, retake that part again.
Mm hmmm, do it this way? That one, the one
you did it like that when you weren't thinking about
that's a form of being useful. But it's also that

(54:31):
ears no, like that's a hard thing to know too
and to be right, because someone can say that and
then you'd be like, this ship is crash.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
I stay looking at nigga sideways, like first we didn't
ask you hysterical, Let's start there.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
That's the thing too, though, wo.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Man is blurring out.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
But no, to have to have good taste and to
end timing and time and you know, because you may
be called upon for something that you might might be ready,
you don't get it. You can't help you know what
I mean, And that like you said it, it's team effort.
It's team effort.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
More than one person benefits off of the hit.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Oh yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
And I think that's a that's been a at times
tough part for people to deal with with when they
talk about certain artists right where they're like this artist
ain't that good, or this artist is trash, or what
they own is blop up up up up, and people
don't realize all of.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
The extended people who benefit.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
Yep, when that's certain artists from from the hood that
fresh out of the pin or fresh out of wherever,
catches that hit record and now has figured out.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
A way to make a way for four or five people.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Connected to them to eat sometime to become millionaires, which
can ultimately lead to someone else. And it's a trickle
up effect more so than it's a trickle down effect,
you know, where as far as the success is concerned.
And to me, that is that's something that I always
look at, even when I'm just looking at you know,

(56:18):
the type of music.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
And you know, I don't like everything.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
We none of us do, none of us like everything,
but we have to we have to look at what
these songs do for families, for friends. You're giving an
extra word here and there or a line or this
and that and helping to become a hit record. And
now it's like, okay, well you know, now that's your platinum,
double platinum. So at first she was making five granted

(56:44):
show or ten granted show. Now you're making a hundred.
Now you're making two fifty.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
And for some people that takes decades. Some people never happened,
never happens. Some people what happens in a year takes time.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Takes time.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
And think if you stopped whoa who would have thought,
you know. But that's the reason why I'm so adamant now,
especially what you said, the trickle up effect, because like
I said, Ethiopia was somebody who was monumental for me
to be in this position because I was like, there's
not many of us to look up too. But if

(57:21):
I can be a change in that, and I can
hire black women or women in general, and I can
have my kids kids. I don't having kids, but when
I do and somebody else's and your kids kids and
your kids to look up and be like, there's a
brown girl who does that, who looks like me, I
can do it too. We don't know because even right now,

(57:41):
besides the big names and managers, there's no women big
name that's as big as any of these, like Scooter
Brons in them. There's just not that's not as famous
or known. You know, there's nothing that like a little
kid who doesn't know much is going to be like
there are women managers and especially black women. You have
to do your research and you want to be in

(58:02):
that field. But for us to know that I can
help with the trickle up and be a part of
a general there's so many women who are doing the
Ebony Ward. She's one of them. Like Heather Lowry, she
has the femin Forward program that I've been a part
of for two years now that I love and like
my mentee named Shi, She's one of the most amazing
women that I've ever met. Kind just like I would

(58:27):
want her to be a part of my team. I
don't know for whatever she could be. Whatever manager, you
could be, a tour manager, you could be. I just
want you around me because I felt protected with her,
I felt seen with her. So for me to know
that I can help her be in this space and
then she can go help four more girls and then
it now grows and grows and grows. That's the reason
why I'm in this shit. That's the reason why I'm like, Damn,

(58:51):
some days it's hard, some days it's really hard, but
I'm like, just keep like, remember what we're doing this for. Like,
there's not many girls, especially who look like me or
any of us who are out here doing what we're
doing that represent for a group that really can do
it well too and killing it. But where's the representation.

(59:15):
Where's someone who's like rallying us on so that these
little girls can feel like they're empowered and do it too,
because I'm not gonna lie to you. When I was
door dashing, I was like, yo, I might have to
not being music. I don't know, Like this is tough.
I'm gonna do it, but it's tough, you know what
I'm saying. And how many other people can you look

(59:39):
and I can count on my hand, but the women
who do and who have empowered and like all of
the women who are doing a great job is something
to really applaud and be like, we're making a change.
And I hope there's at least one or two girls
who can be like I want to be like her
and I can do it because she did it. Because
that's all. That's a feat. That is a feat that

(01:00:01):
I'm going to go to sleep and be happy about,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
And that's why it's so important or what's so important
for you to be here, because we wanted to give
you this platform, you know, to tell your story, to
talk about, you know, being a young girl in this
thing initially starting off and becoming a powerful woman and
the steps that you took and the people that inspired

(01:00:25):
you in the bumps and bruises of it, you know
what I mean, Like I've known you for a while,
didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
You were door dashing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Oh you know what I'm saying, like I hit like,
you know, we just but someone watching this who may
be door dashing. Now, don't stop, you know what I mean, Like,
keep going after your dream, keep pushing like there are
people who have been in your shoes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
That you're looking up to and thinking that got it. No,
we worked, We could have stopped, you know, but it's
really just staying true and true to it and true
to yourself is another one killing it? Yeah, with Ali
killing it like yeah, yeah, there's there's there's I'm so

(01:01:09):
I'm so happy that I can even start to name
off people like this because I remember when I first
saw I was like how many how many people are there?

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Like in this that are women, especially from the from
the management stage our side, you know, like people don't
realize that Ethiopia was a manager exactly, you know what
I mean. And she was part of the management team
for Carrie, for Sierra, you know what I mean. Women
like Lakeisha Orange, you know what I mean, who's a
primary way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Like just.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Shout them out. I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yeah, yeah, you know, like and for us as we've
been in this business. Yeah, we've been in this business
and seeing so many women do so many great things.
And for us, listen, we're putting it out there. You
are invited to come on this podcast like this is
a this is a real thing, Like we want to
have real discussions, like yes, are we going to have

(01:02:00):
our artists?

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
For sure, We're going to have artists. We're going to
have producers, writers, managers, publicists, stylists, stylist you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Like we are serious about people learning that it takes
more than just the front people to keep this thing going.
We don't have this podcast without Jacob Ruben Bowl, you
know what I mean, Like, we don't we don't have
this thing without our team, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Like, so we understand that and and and we're not
in the place we're at without an Ethiopia. People don't
know how.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Much our Juliet Jones, our Joy Brown, our Grace Janes,
like these are people who have played.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
A very important part of our careers, you know what
I mean, Like who really helped us, who really guided us,
and you know, have been very important to us.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
So you know, from from from all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
You're the beginning of that for us of coming on
to the shelter and having this conversation because sometimes, and
let's be honest, the women of the industry aren't as
open to having these conversations on these type of public forums.

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
And I get why, well, yeah, I mean I get why.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
You know, they're there's you know, there are people who
don't want y'all to talk y'all. Ship. We want you
all to talk y'all, all of it, heavy, all of it.
You know what I mean, come on tap with the plumber,
motist la Zulu lawyers. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
I mean, this is this is a real thing that
we really appreciate the women in this industry and it's
and it's so many of y'all that listen as y'all
come to my head, I will say it, but I'm
sorry if I'm forgetting absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Like this, this this thing, man is powered.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
By black women the backbone of it and pushing us
to it and helping us with it. And we want
to be that platform for y'all, and we want to
include y'all because a lot of time people be like, oh,
y'all be having too many y'all don't have enough women
on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
We invite all the women. They gotta want to come.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
You know, it's to give back.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
So she got over there, champ, so you're starting up.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
There, Oh gosh, beautiful. Why asked my dad for pianis
he's taunting me? Please taka as raight you talk to

(01:05:05):
me because you know I can't do that and I
wanted to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
He wouldn't let them in the house. Lydia work with
some great people. You are great within your own right.
But all the sounds you've heard songs and artist you've

(01:05:32):
artist you've seen who's your Oh god, top five, you're
top five? Mm hmm, top five?

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
You better your top five?

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
R and B.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Anything all let me song? Wow? We all then know
you got the soul we got to know. We are
tell us your.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Yeah, you're.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
He's going on.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
So extra, so extra, just so extra.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Sounds so good, don't you.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
I wish?

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Lydia. Yeah, you're excluding five, excluding no R and B singers,
exclude no one. You can't know. You gotta tell the truth,

(01:07:11):
Tell the truth. It was your face and.

Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
Singers Top five like vocal five R B.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
What else they're gonna do?

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
So just their voice.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
They're gonna rap better sang, No, who sing that song?
Who's singing?

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
Okay, well number one, no particular order, but number one
for sure Whitney Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
The voice, Yeah, I mean is a the in front
of that the.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
Like I told you, I was watching her when I
didn't even talk. Jasmine, Yeah, where you're going, Okay, I
have to ship it's, you know, real singing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
If those two you know sang yeah, you know real thing.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
Brandy, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
You have to.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
So those for sure. I don't care what people say.
I'm saying it because I've heard her sing with my
own ears. Beyonce, what do you talk people like?

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
People? What do you do with these people? With these
these who are these stupid listen? I wouldn't let them
in my house. They can come in, damn Mine.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
She's a popping singer, period, is one of the most popping,
the greatest of all, greatest.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
Okay, want to time, and I'm just going to keep
it old school because that's how Mariah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yeah season yeah, oh my god, Mariah Christian.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
Those are my top five for sure. Those are also
besides Jasmine because we're kind of closer in age, who
I literally grew up on listening with me Brandy, Brandy
is Brandy is the book of libs and choices. Like
people are, oh, she's so no her choices people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Don't just placement. Yeah, it's just just a session. They
hit that note right there, right in the transition to
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Like, yeah, she's a technician.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Yeah, she's surgical.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
Yeah yeah, but even and me like, same way, her
choice is surgical. And then you have Mariah Worre's like
this feeling too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Mariah was able to dance into in this in this
belt whisper space that only Ariana Grande has been able to.
Yeah to mimic.

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
I definitely kept it to my back in the days
because I didn't want to have to even deal with
all that because there's so many more.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Oh yeah, there's so many aliens.

Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
Now, especially in our generation. But I just kept it
to what I grew up on for the most or
I just had to throw Jasmine because Jasmine takes me
to church, just just.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Just shouting for fantasia, Lord Jesus, that's what it is. Fantastic,
that's that's what that's what you say after fantastic didn't
say whatever your Jesus.

Speaker 4 (01:10:22):
Woman in music event, I mean women in entertainment or Hollywood.
She she was getting an award and she went up
there and she just said, Glory be to Jesus, but
started singing him. When I tell you she got it, everyone,

(01:10:42):
it was like tear eyed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
You start showing, you start showing. She got something different.
We she's anointed, anointed.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
So yeah, that's my top five singers. And I've been
here before. So I feel like you're gonna say, what
is it the superhero super you speak?

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Sorry, we're managing right now on the camera. Yeah, we
manage it right now. Too fast. You're trying to manage something,
all right, My bad drives. This is the R and
B post, your top five R and B songs. Missed

(01:11:26):
that on the sip.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
He didn't give me a sheep.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
Yeah. Probably in your email. Your email, you said you've
been here.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
You you put a manager's little up on me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
You see what he did. You said, you said, you said, wow, wow,
guys to be girlfriend, not pandemonium. No, gossip is one
of my favorites.

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
Oh my god, Wow, dangerously in love.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Mmm, way to kick it off.

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
Thank you. I was looking a little shakey.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
No, no for that. We're gonna give you an edit.
We're gonna edit it. It don't look like you take
so long. I'm lying, you know, I'm lying.

Speaker 4 (01:12:17):
In love with another man.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Hmmm.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Women don't make songs like that all the time. Mm
hmcause that's a very true thing. They be thinking that
niggas only feel that way.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
It's not the truth.

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
This is just me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
I don't know why, but Angel in Disguise was something
that really do you guys remember that one.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Don't do this, don't ever ever Angel Disguise with Joe
on the backgrounds when you ever, don't play.

Speaker 4 (01:12:50):
Next song for me superstar m h.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Mmmm. Very love, very love that record, fair record, love
that record.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
And I actually I take back Angel the Disguised because
that was a great one.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
You started this whole debate, I know, and now you
about to take the song back.

Speaker 4 (01:13:10):
No, no, no, because that song is still great.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Full Moon, that's your one.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Oh my god, full Moon is one of my favorite
songs of all time, Mike City City all time? I
think is that how many is that?

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
You took one back, but I mean you can still
keep Andrew Disguise in if you would like to, and
Full More because they're both amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
Every one more just just we can get It's gonna
sound like I'm saying this because I'm on this podcast,
but that song actually took me. I couldn't stop playing
it to the point my mom knows every word.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
When your mom knows every word, and I.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Just saw it because it's right in front of my face.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
That was my screen tour. Come on, Mama and aunties.
He was out of control.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
Say take it down to because that was really That
was a song that really did. But yeah, you were
you're very much.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
That was one. You're R and B voltron. You're a
super R and B artist. Who you're getting the vocal from,
who you're getting the performance style from, who you're getting
the styling from, and who are you getting the passion
of the artists? Okay, let's start with the vocal.

Speaker 4 (01:14:33):
Who's a vocal U for that, I'm gonna choose Beyonce's voice.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
She's like a Beyonce's voice. I'm choosing.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
I'm choosing Whitneys. I'm choosing Whitney's. I'm choosing. I'm choosing
whitneys I'm choosing Whitneyes because Whitney is like a mixture
of mouth. Yeah, she can get so ful and she
can also she could do both. Okay, sweet, it's Whitney Houston.
It's Whitney Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
It's Whitney Houston.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
It's Whitney Houston. I don't know why I even on that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
I thought, that's who you're going to pick. Whitney performance
style on stage. Wow, Yeah, I like it. Yes, I argue,
nobody's beating her on stage.

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
That's what That's why I was like, I can use
her for something else, like what you're doing Whitney Whitney, Beyonce.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Styling Rihanna. Oh you you just out of control? Ye wor.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
Yeah, manager.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
Like it. I like it. The face when you know
you're cooking. The passion of the artists Janet mm hmm,
she sweated out.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
You're gonna feel every emotion.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
She sweated out. I seem to do it to this day,
to this day.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Yeah, she's made men just fall over. The passion is
her eyes when she's staring at Woo, like should I
look away?

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
You're looking at who are you looking at? Right? Well, Lydia,
your family, Yeah, we are beyond proud. We got your back. Absolutely.
The support is through the roof.

Speaker 4 (01:16:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Whatever you need us for it is. It is done.
That being said, thank you for coming. I appreciate it.
I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:39):
I feel like we went way past.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
It's just information.

Speaker 4 (01:16:43):
It was just we started before we even started.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Yeah, we was already gone. It's another forty minutes, but
it's just you know, this information, like we said, it's
just needed. Yeah, it's needed, these stories and these examples. Yeah,
we need it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
So it doesn't you know, it doesn't stop here, No,
it starts here.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
It does.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
And then there there will be thirty forty more lydias
because hundreds because of this, I.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
Hope so, and we'll all be here rolling them on.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
Believe believe it. Batteries for everybody for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you guy for having me
come on, man, I appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
All Money's take. This is the Army Money podcast authority
on all things R and B BS bitness. You still
do business today.

Speaker 4 (01:17:41):
We did?

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
Maybe I need to media Money.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
R and B Money is a production of the Black
Affect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show.
And you can connect with us on social media at
j Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode,

(01:18:19):
subscribe to YouTube dot com, Forward, slash r and b
Money