QLS Classic: Mariah Carey Part 1

Revisiting Questlove Supreme's incredible two-part conversation with Mariah Carey. Taped in the middle of the night, this is one of the most open, honest, and incredible QLS conversations you will ever hear—and it happens to be with one of music's biggest superstars.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up Everybody?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is Sugar Steve from Quest Love Supreme as we
celebrate the holiday season. This felt like a worthy two
part classic revisit. Here is Mariah Carry. We recorded this
in the middle of the night, but it was worth it.
Mariah was promoting her book and she was an open
book to us. This is a really free and fun
conversation with one of the biggest superstars of music. Part

(00:26):
one originally air January thirteenth, twenty twenty one, but this
is timeless. Enjoy everybody and happy holidays and a healthy
new Year from Team Supreme and everybody at Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Ladies and gentlemen, Happy twenty twenty one. Let me just
start a preface that this intro might be twelve minutes,
but I'll cut to the chase. I consider all Quest
Left Supreian episodes to be top notch, some of my
favorite guests ever, but a few guests might shine a
little bit brighter. I won't even say the most, but

(01:11):
few of our guests on the shows signed just a
little bit brighter. As our fortune have it in twenty
twenty one, this particular episode will shine very bright. Notice
the holiday Christmas motifs I'm using. I will say that
for the last three decades, our guest has been Music
Royalty out the Gate, fifteen studio albums, seventy two singles,

(01:36):
over two.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hundred million records sold globally.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I will say that for of those records, orioh Daydream,
Music Box and Emancipation have sold one hundred million copies combined.
Just those four she is the best selling female artist globally.
And she practically, she literally owns Christmas her her ordal all. Yes,

(02:02):
Christmas is twelve months away, but still she owns Christmas.
Her All I Want for Christmas is the biggest selling
song in the world and all parts of the globe,
not even just the United States for the second time already.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
It is broken crazy records.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
It's the all time biggest selling streamed song. I didn't
even know that, at seventeen point two million for streams
in one day. It's the first single by a female
artist in history to be certified five times platinum in
the UK, which is not an.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Easy feed at all.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
She's the first artist to rank number one on the
chart for distinct decades, For distinct decades. She reached number
one this year, officially on the UK Singles charts, after
twenty six years a gap in between. It's the first
holiday song in history to be number one in the
US and the UK at the same time. So Fuck
White Christmas by bing Crossby Her Apple specials number one

(03:05):
and more than one hundred countries across the world. Her
book is a New York Times bestseller and number one
on Audible. I have to say I'll be here all
damn day, Ladies and gentlemen. How did we get the
one and only Mariah Carrey on quest of supreme Please welcome?

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Thank you? Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you
officially made it. We've arrived.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yes, we have made it.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
No, I listen, I've been stressing out about this because
I know that I am not queen of technology, nor
am I queen of musical technical moments of discussion.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Look we are we are. I swear.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
We are four nerds that just like music. Like, trust me,
I'm not going to okay, I do. Your first question
is okay, so you're Yamaha Dix seven patches on your
first album, right, like, please don't ask me those nerdy
stuff that you ask about, like keyword patches and all this.

Speaker 6 (04:08):
Oh thank god. I mean, you know, that's cool, that's it.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
She hates that as well. How how are you today?

Speaker 5 (04:17):
I'm good. I'm good. Actually it's we're having a little
celibratory moment. So you mentioned Christmas and I just want
to say this is totally off topic, but I'll just
say it anyway. So we had an incredibleness this year
and all the things, all the things, but because it's
COVID and I can't really I haven't gone anywhere in months,

(04:39):
almost a year, just at a paranoid about the whole thing.
And it's not paranoid, it's just being saved. But yeah,
so so here I am enjoying like my first little
party and cheers to you guys. So cheers you have
me flash as we talk. But I did want to

(05:01):
say thank you for having me, and yeah, I was
a little bit like, clearly I know Greg filling games
by expect.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Nice one.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
And by the way, I did hear when he when
you said, oh, the Mariah Carey Boys to men elevator
and he was like, well that's the Greg filling games
later and I'm like that's cool, but can they pay
me back? Like, can can they hit Battery give me
those millions of dollars back that I used to cost
to record it. I'm sorry real for them. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
It is how we need to keep it.

Speaker 7 (05:41):
This question of Supreme talk that sh No.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
It's nothing, it's nothing. It's just that. Really, I can't
even imagine how much money people used to spend in
on recording, you know, to record their albums or whatever
they recording in these major studios, Like just to be
in a big studio. I know how I felt, because

(06:05):
come on, just to be there, just to say I'm
at the Hit Factory on blah blah blah blah Street,
I'm at right Track, I'm at Quad, I'm at whatever.
But here I'm know for like I'm at Quad, but I'm.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Just wait, did you ever record a Quad?

Speaker 5 (06:20):
Of course I have.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yes, you went to Tupac Central.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
Wow, I lived at Tupac Central. Yes I did, and.

Speaker 6 (06:29):
We recorded there too. Couest love Supreme.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
I know that, but I would expect us to be there.

Speaker 6 (06:36):
It's funny.

Speaker 5 (06:36):
That's the same type of thing that goes on in
terms of people's perception of me, Like yeah, I went
to Quad. Yeah, I'm not gonna.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Say, I'm not saying that recording at uh something high
level like Sony or D and D studios is beneath you,
but yeah, even I would prefer to be at at
its time when Sony was a great studio record at
or Electric Lady as opposed to D and D or.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
You know, like Electric Lady. We love Electric Lady, of course,
and the history and the whole thing of it all,
and I need to be the give the utmost respect
to this. The history of it all is everything, and
we know the room and the way it sounds in
the rooms and the way they sound and everything. We'd
love that. But yes, the glitzy and glamorous new like

(07:31):
they're not new now, but like you know, the head
factories of the world give you a different type of thing.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
So can I ask now that you know, for the
last thirty years you've been recording at studios and they were,
you know, plentiful. In the last three decades now they're
almost like far and few between. I know Manhattan, there's
probably maybe seven left that are still up and running

(07:57):
and in good condition. Does that wear you little bit
that or have you adjusted already? Like have you made
music on your laptop yet. Have you you know Allah,
you know Kanye and jay Z making watch the thrown
in a hotel room in bathrooms, Like, have you adjusted
to that yet?

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Or I absolutely have and not because they did it.
I started doing this. I'm going to say probably the
Rainbow album. Actually I'm trying to think that far back. Yeah,
so that's ninety nine, but yeah, I started. So I

(08:37):
went to Randy Jackson, not of the Jackson five, but
Randy Jackson. Randy, Yeah, Randolphin and we love him, I said, Randy,
I love going other places I'm recording. So me and
my engineer, Brian Garton, we would go wherever. We would
just go. He would set up a room, even if
I literally sang in the bathroom, he would set up

(09:00):
a soundproof situation and we would run the wires at
that point through he would I didn't. I didn't run
the wires, but if he would, you know, figure it out,
and we would record that way. Because I wanted to be,
whether it's Puerto Rica, wherever I wanted to be from
my own peace of mind. And like Amir, we've talked
about this, where you're like, I don't want to be

(09:20):
in a comfortable environment. I like to feel like that criminess.
And I understand that too. I don't know that I'm
not speaking for you and saying exactly what you said,
but I think I'm on the same page as what
you were saying.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Oh, that's exactly what you were saying.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
Forward to studio, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
But I spent I feel I've spent enough years in
uncomfortable studios, starting from when I was eighteen years old,
sleeping in the floor, sleeping on the floor in the
little studio behind it in the back of the woodshed,
which I talk about in my book, but on the
floor sleeping there because I had no money to have
a real studio situation. So anyway, cut to ninety nine

(10:00):
and I started kind of like traveling in order to record.
Actually it happened right after the Butterfly album, which is
like the year before, because I was just trying to
figure out, like where can I do this, How can
I do this? And then I connected with my couple
different engineers I was working with and we figured it out.
So Randy Jackson back to that, he said, mn, man,

(10:21):
I have this studio that you would love and capri
and it's on top of a mountain and blah blah blah.
It was like please like anything you have. So I
ended up falling in love with this studio called Capri
Studios and another Italian word that I can't pronounce, but anyway,
I slept in a little room next to the live
room and I would actually recorded several songs there, and

(10:45):
then when we were doing the immense I did the
Chombracet album there and other places. Basically we just traveled.
It was a traveling studio, so it was you know,
pro tools and just a setup on his laptop and
then you know, making the room so it's not super
for Yeah, so we had all of that, like we

(11:06):
had we had all of that together, and then I
would just love it because honestly, like and this is
a total sidebar, and I'm sure you're going to edit
this however or maybe not. But one of the things
I learned early on from Luther when we did our
for our collaboration on Endless Love we make yes and

(11:26):
he was one of my all time favorite people and
tones like just vocal, just the texture, and he felt
that there was a similar type of this is what
he said to me, type of like when you hear
the harmonics sometimes within the breathy tone. And he was

(11:48):
telling me in order to preserve that with that haven't
always listened to and have gotten back into it now.
But he was like, you need to be in a
place like a very warm and humid climate in order
to preserve that. The desert la everywhere else is really
really bad for you. Just always remember, like if you
are in those places, make sure you have like humidification,

(12:11):
like all the humidifiers in the land, like you need
to have it. And I have that.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Go ahead, Okay, I have a question, Okay, okay, so secretly, yeah,
behind all of your backs and by all of you
or I'm talking about singers. I I quasi eye roll
because I always thought that that was psychosomatic. So let

(12:36):
me let me ask the question first, okay, is okay?

Speaker 3 (12:39):
So is that whole thing now? Just to give it
a little backstory, You're at the tonight show. Okay, when
Aretha Franklin was alive, she would only agreed to come
on this show if we killed all of the air
conditioning in thirty Rock. And the thing is, it's not
like one particular floor can control the.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Temperature. So if we turn off the air condition for
Aretha Franklin that affects like seven floors, which basically says
that we should modernize and update our temperature system. But
whenever Aretha comes, it would be a nightmare because then
it would be ninety eight degrees in this building and
they would have to turn off the air at two

(13:26):
in the morning the night before, and then her guy
would come in test it, and then she'd would you know,
she'd come in. So it's said that.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Her voice, her throat would closed or whatever and that
sort of thing. Is that really true?

Speaker 5 (13:43):
I believe it to be true, and particularly for Ritha. So, Amir,
you have me laughing because I know you read my
memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey shameless plug. But I'm
going to say it because we talk about Aretha and
when we were doing what was the devis Live? Yeah yeah, yeah,

(14:04):
so she and Ken Rlick, we love Ken r Lick. Yeah,
And knowing that if I say something negative, he's gonna
be pissed off of me like he always gets. But
you know, I'm just being I'm just keeping in one
hundred this is what.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Happened, Supreme, trust me.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
No, no, no, you're not. But he has a way
of hearing. So I love Ken, we love him. He
did my first Nagad show. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah,
we love Ken. So but here's what was happening. So
I was like, I'm in a pop culture spiral right now,
and I can't even believe this. So I'm sitting there
and you know, I already know because I just told

(14:42):
you about Luther and the recommendations like that was not
in front of any camera. That was not for any
reason other than he was like, preserve the tone, right.
He was like, just do these things. And I never
knew anything about the humidity blah blah blah. Anyway, so
when I first sang with Aretha that night, obviously I
was completely intimidated and flipping out and scared and everything else. Right,

(15:07):
So we're getting ready to go on the stage and
all of a sudden, there's this whole hoopla happening, and
I hear, you guys are are we just really pissed
off Ken? Ken Carl comes by and he's like, she's
not happy. I don't know what's going to go on.
I'm right just gonna say, you know, wait and see
what happens. Right, So I'm like, this is a big

(15:27):
moment in my career, Like it's right at the beginning
of Butterflies, all this and all that. But again, Wreatha
is the queen, so everybody's waiting. We were basically you're
all there in reverence. I know I was in reverence
of the queen. So so yeah, so I said, well
maybe because he said she always does this, she always
does this, and he's like, oh, I don't worry, she

(15:47):
always does this. And I'm like, okay, I go, can
I just maybe rehearse with her? Because I don't know
what this, what's gonna this is gonna be, So I
just just want to have a little moment so you know,
and also you want to be I had met her before,
and we had had, you know, our moments and great moments,
and but never this type of thing. So anyway, I
guess I'm not. I don't remember exactly how it happened,

(16:09):
but she ended up saying, okay, we can rehearse in
her tripper. So I walk into the trailer and she
goes Mariah, they're playing games and I'm not having the game. Yeah,
so we won't so we won't be rehearsing tonight and.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Saying with the frank, yeah that was a great How
long did it take you to nail that?

Speaker 5 (16:41):
No? Honest, So you know my friend Treyla Wrenz, right,
he was just saying yes, yeah, yes, Florence, South Carolina, Florence.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
He talked about fish sandwiches in all right, South Carolina.
He told me.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
He just texted me tonight. He's like, he's like, I
love him. He asked me about the fish. Sam. Yes,
we're all but anyways, so yes, Be and Trey always
you know, we Revere a lot of singers, and we
don't do it to be funny, like we're not impersonating,
and it's just you sort of embody them when you're

(17:23):
telling the story because this is how it happened.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
So you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
I kind of do impersonations on the side, not really,
but it's not an impersonation. It's just me telling exactly
how it happened. So anyway, back to the story, so
we won't be rehearsing tonight, and I'm like, so anyway,
we work where they got her. And here's one thing
that I always say, and this is not that musicians

(17:47):
don't know this or people like you guys who are
like professors of it all. But being that Big Jim Right,
the late Big Jim Right who we love, my former
musical director who passed the way I believe it's almost
three years ago now, but he was her musical director,

(18:07):
Miss Franklin's musical director as well, so he was just like,
this is prior to me working the Big Gym. I
don't even know how I got on this tension, but
he was just like, you know, she takes that queen
stuff very, very seriously. So it's a real thing. So
he would say, you know when it's she's such a
such a brilliant musician and her play her skills as

(18:29):
a piano player were insane and people don't even they
don't even realize that. So anyway, that's one of the
things that I revere her the most about, like that
musicality she had, and I wish people and I know
it's a female thing, and I know it's because her technical,
her vocals and her whole thing was so incredible and

(18:50):
the whole diva persona that they don't even they didn't
even look at it, like, look at this woman plays
the musician ship and obviously when you watch, like, I'm
trying to think, was it don't play that song or
the one where she did. She she's playing live and
it's the black and white video and you see her

(19:12):
playing from back in the day with the whole ensemble. Yeah,
you know what it is. But anyway, you see that
only in certain moments. Anyway, so they so cut too.
Deevi's live back again. So they got her a keyboard,
put it in her in her trailer and they're like, Okay,
you guys can go rehearse this right now. So she

(19:34):
had wanted to do dream Lover. We had a little
rehearsal I guess the day before or something, and then
she got out of there because it wasn't the air
conditioning situation wasn't right. So she was like, I really
liked what you did. I really like your sean Dreamlover.
I think that would be a wonderful way to go.
And I was just like, oh my god, she goes
dream Lover. Anyway, I was like, can we just do

(19:56):
Chain of Fools? Because I just couldn't. It was too
much from my heart to actually here were song and
try to do it. So anyway, tailor, she she played
the song she played, Uh, we figured out the key
and what we're gonna do and stuff, and we kind
of went back and literally five minutes or maybe maybe
ten and a couple of little moments. I never knew

(20:18):
she was an Aries. I'm an Ares. We're born two
days apart from each other, different years. But she I
said something she would like us. So a few more
typical larries. I she know Lemon Areas so, and you
know Diana ross Is in those few couple of days
of Billie Holidays, Sarah Vond there's a lot of these
divas that I grew up idol Shaka Khan and other

(20:41):
areas idolizing. And I found this out from Maretha Franklin.
I never even knew anyway. So we rehearsed a little
bit and and the thing is, there was a huge,
huge issue about the AC and she.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Goes like this.

Speaker 5 (20:54):
At one point, in front of like my whole crew,
she goes, what are these people doing that's making them
so hot? Why do we need it?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Why?

Speaker 5 (21:09):
And it just I was just like, Wow, it's really
real for her. And if you ever saw when she did,
I believe it was for Barack Obama. She did something
for the second term, and she was out of window
and it was cold and it was freezing, and she sang,
I don't remember what the song was. I believe it
might have been the Star slang, but I don't remember
the one of the inaugurations, like yeah, but she wasn't outside.

(21:33):
She she actually apologized on Larry King Live. She went
and she apologized because she had to. And by the way,
obviously it was more than fine. She just wasn't up
and down the scale doing a million whatever. It was great,
but she felt the need to tell people that the

(21:53):
cold air had foiled her. And I get it because
I know I've been that hell with that type of
thing and way worse. But the thing is that level
of like she knew that she wanted to actually in
her mind kill it, and that cold air was messing
with her. So you have to to me whatever somebody says,

(22:14):
like if you told me I can't play drums when
they don't have like a specific light shine, like it
is what it is like that was her thing, But
I do believe it's an actual it's an actually it's
a physical situation where the throat, the cords do tighten up.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
So let me ask because Uh, obviously you're you're world
famous for your active range.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
What is your active range? You're five to six?

Speaker 5 (22:41):
I don't know, and neither do you say one of
our favorites, it's going to happen. Here's the truth. You
would know better than me, Like I don't know. I've
told people know this, some people do, some people don't.
My mind. Other was sang with City Opera. She was,

(23:05):
you know, she had a wonderful and still does to
this day, range and beautiful depth of her voice. She
wasn't a color to a soprano at stuck a metsa soprano,
but she has this range. So she would look at
me with my little moments and be like, you're gonna

(23:25):
hurt yourself? What are you doing?

Speaker 4 (23:27):
Like what is this?

Speaker 5 (23:28):
What? I was the opposite, and so I, you know,
we have our issues and blah blah blah blah. But
I do appreciate the fact that she didn't force me
to try to become an opera singer because first of all,
I don't think I have that in me, And second
of all, because I respect that level of what that
takes to be that and to understand that and then

(23:49):
to interpret really like you have to really stick to
the composer and do exactly what it is. There's not
much room for, you know, impro conversation. Yeah. I love
feeling like you're channeling and doing whatever you want, particularly
with writing and melodies and having those flow through you.
So I would have been stifled had I had I

(24:11):
tried to do what she did, because I'm not that disciplined.
I'm just not that disciplined.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
So let me ask, because I know that your high
register is world famous. I know that in your your
Christmas special, especially with the Misty Copham portion.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
You're singing, You're you're singing.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
I don't know if it's Carol the bells or or
the Nutcracker.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
It's a shape, there's an there's an exact title.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
But the sugar plump fairies, yea, the sugar Okay, So
you're doing you're doing your your trademark what we call
the Mariah whistle. How how how long can you instantly
turn that on at any time of the day or
do you have to like seth Riggs work your muscle
before you can reach those levels? Like can you just

(25:06):
turn that on at any given moment of the day?
Twenty four hours.

Speaker 5 (25:10):
Uh, it depends, Like honestly, all of it depends, like
all the different ranges depend on sleep and humidity, mainly sleep,
but sometimes it's it's a weird thing. So I've kind
of studied it. And sometimes even if I'm completely hoarse,
the whisper as they call it, the whisper register is

(25:33):
even more strong and clear then if I'm not horse
because it's the it's the the upper register is sort
of like that was where it's just sort of like
when you're closing the vocal cords and it's the very
very tippy top of what you're using in terms of
those that upper upper register. But if I'm just sitting around, yeah,

(25:55):
I can access it. But when I'm on when I
feel like pressure, it's less accessible than when I'm just
sitting around the house, you know and just playing around
and singing. However, like when I'm under pressure, it's always
screwed up every part of my voice, so was screwed up.
I'm sitting there because my nervousness takes over and I
really am more of a quote unquote studio rat where

(26:17):
I love to play around with it, experiment, do whatever,
create it as part of the melody you know what
I mean, whether it's upper registered, lower mid, background vocals,
layering of background vocals, whatever, it is, all of that.
Even when I do the background vocals and the upper
register as a part. For me, that's my instrument. That's fun. Actually,

(26:39):
one time James Brown told me the only first and
only time I ever met him back in the days
at the American Music Awards, the first time I was
ever there, and they were, can I give you this
segue because everybody else, Yes, we believe.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
You're already my favorite guest on QS.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
No, no, no, I'm just like, this is how I talk.
We're back and forth with things. So I don't want
to be like.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
All over the place, you know, you know, like when
black people eat and they don't say nothing at Mama's
house because the food are good. Like this is ues
right now, Like we're not talking over you or anything.

Speaker 8 (27:15):
We're just like and these stories are our time capsules.
This is good too, you know, to remember this and
have these James Brown. Yes, let's talk about James Brown.

Speaker 5 (27:22):
Let's talk about James Brown. I don't know a mirror.
If you've got the message before. When I was playing, yeah,
I was, I was.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, Let's make Christmas mean something this year.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Which is one of my favorite Christmas songs, but it's
on my loop of Christmas music. We have that, and
we have Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto, and
then many other James Christmas quote unquote hits that I've
made Christmas hits in my household because I just played
the round and then we get stuck on the James
my phone. I'm like, I love you, James Brown, but
I need to hear like a little mixed street. And

(27:58):
so when I had never met James Brown, obviously, it
was my first year in the industry, and somebody said
to me, I'm in, I'm in my trailer. And this
is when I was very much sequestered under that sony
world of whatever. Yeah, yes, prior to singing thing and

(28:21):
all of that, but anyway, under that thing. And then
so I'm shocked that they even told me that James
Brown wanted to meet me. They're like, James Brown wants
to meet you. So that's a huge thing. So I want,
you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, okay, let
me go to his trail, let me do the respectful thing.
Let me walk in. See what it is. So I'm
sitting there and and we just meet and whatever, and

(28:43):
I'm just like shocking off, shocking off, and He's like,
I'm not gonna do an impersonation of him.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
But he was like this, I was waiting for that everyoneation.

Speaker 5 (28:57):
You guys can do it when I'll tell you the text.
But he was like, this is no surprise to me.
This is no surprise to me. This is basically the
success is no surprise to me. He's like, you use
your voice as an instrument. You use your voice as
an instrument. So that was a humongous compliment because I
know what he's talking about, because you can hear what
he does those like this, this screw. I'm not sure

(29:18):
how we how we categorize what he does with it
did with his voice. No, he knew that, Like, using
that upper register is a thing, whether you're doing it
as to accentuate something like he would do, or whether
you're doing it like you were talking about a mirror
with the car not the caroll the bells, the sugar
plung ferry. Yeah, did that as an acapella moment for

(29:42):
the album. Prior to this past year, which was just
a reissue of some Christmas songs, but I said, let
me do something new, and I did like that little
acapella acapella part with and the high parts on top
of that.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
What is your, uh, at least your warm up ritual?
Like as far as like, is it a lot of tea?
Is it a lot of Usually if I do shows
with other.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Guest or whatever, like, I'll look in their dress room
to see what their writer is, so I'll see like
Stevie Wonder's thing is, you know, two giant te's and
all these honey's and then Shaka Khan has a thing
where it's Aca Nation and whatever. Like what before live performances,
not before your studio stuff?

Speaker 1 (30:34):
What is your ritual?

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Can I just say that I used to have a ritual,
and I've been through many facets of that ritual. It
started when I was a background singer and I was
looking at what the other like the background singers that
I really looked up to, I e. Cindy, Myzell and
many other.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
You know, and Lisa and all their crew, the whole crew.

Speaker 5 (31:01):
But I really spent the most time around Cindy before
I even had a deal. And I talk about this
a record deal in my book I haven't even heard
from her, but I did a whole like basically like
almost a whole chapter about how much I revered her
just from looking at the credits when she would be
when she and Audrey Wheeler would do like a lot
of these background parts, and I could tell on like

(31:23):
many of these hop records where it clearly wasn't the
lead singer doing these parts, right, but it was with
these incredibly beautifully sacked backgrounds, and I was like, oh
my gosh, Cindy myself. So I wind up in a
session for TM Stevens. Right, I'm like eighteen years old.

(31:44):
I'm at this session. I know we just totally went
off topic again, but do you want to hear this story?

Speaker 4 (31:48):
The on topic go on? We want all the stories.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
That's my man.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
It's the topic is relevant because the question was about
my writer. But I'm telling you where I got this
thing from.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
So yeah, we are the Where the Rabbit Hole show?
So you're you're right on top of.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
Okay, cool. So so I'm at this This is prior
to anyone ever hearing of me. I had a dollar
a day. I had to choose between the subway and
the H and H bagels when I'm living uh yeah,
for real, and I'm on above. I was living above
you know where Rascals. You guys know where Rascals on
fourteenth Street is on the on the east side.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
No, but I know H and H Bagels and and
I hope you chose bagels over subway every time.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
Because when I lived, when I would go to the
H and H Fagels is when I lived closer to
the Upper west Side. So the H and H Bagels
that I used to go to was the one on
seventy ninth Street, right is that that was that where
that one is?

Speaker 1 (32:45):
I went to the one on the upper upper east side.

Speaker 5 (32:47):
I don't know it's gone, it's gone, it's not even there.
I know they got shut or whatever. But back then
that was my meal for the day. So it was
either way subway. And I used to work at this
place called Sports Broadway on seventy seven and so I
would take the subway back and forth. But anyway, I
had to decide whether it was walking or eating a bagel.

(33:08):
So that's why I was when I first came out
to the public as a singer. Anyway, back to the story,
So prior to all that, I was well, during that time,
I started getting background vocal gigs or whatever, and so
I wound up after being a huge fan of Cindy
as a background singer and a ranger, and whenever, I

(33:29):
wound up working doing a session for TM Stevens. And
I'm sitting there next to Cindy myself, so I'm like,
oh my gosh, this is Cindy, So mind you.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
I'm there.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
My shoes have holes in them. I'm in like one
little It probably looked like pretty much like this today
but a little bit different, but.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Anyway, like a million bucks, Okay, I get it.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
My stomach was rumbling. We're on the mic. She's hearing
my stomach rumbling. She's looking at my shoes and she's like,
you know, beautiful and perfect and everything, and she's like,
what you know, you got to get something to eat.
I'm like, yeah no. And then she just like we're
doing the thing, and I'm telling you I did not

(34:10):
have it together. She was such a professional in terms
of stacking vocals, getting it perfect. The next one has
to line up perfectly. You know, I'm figuring, I'm not
in the pocket. I'm all over the place. After that session,
I really like learned a lot and learned a lot
from her. But anyway, that was that first song with
Tim Stevens, and she was and Cindy was like, just

(34:30):
call me. And I talked about this in the book,
to just call me, you know, whenever, if you wantnother
you know, if you need anything. And I never want
to bother people. So I never ended up calling her.
Then I saw her for another session. She was like,
she said, why didn't you call me? I said, well,
I just I didn't know, you know. She's like, no,
You're supposed to call me. And I'm like, oh, okay,
I don't know the etiquette. I don't know why we

(34:52):
ended up working together over the years, but I will
say to answer the question and to circle all the
way back, I believe that back then it was the
maybe the Red Singer tea Celestial Seasonings tea.

Speaker 6 (35:06):
I love Red Zinger.

Speaker 5 (35:09):
With the Honey Honeybear and like a ton of the honey.
There was a ton like Debora Cooper and a lot
of other singers I was working with. They would do
Depra Cooper sang on a lot of the CNC Music
Factory stuff way back when. Okay, really nice person and anyway,
they used to do cayenne pepper. Do you ever hear

(35:31):
singing that do cayenne pepper to like clear.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
If you're sick. If you're sick, it gets it clears.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Like I know, Eric do use this cayne pepper a
lot in her that.

Speaker 5 (35:42):
Yeah, And I would respect that, you know, but I don't.
That doesn't help me. I need like I even drink
like tea with milk sometimes, like English breakfast.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
You drink milk. I thought, milk is wow.

Speaker 5 (35:56):
That sometimes for me it's a coating and and it's
different than the lemon stripping stuff, so I don't know,
it's really it's really whatever. And right now we're drinking
this and it's absolutely spectac yes.

Speaker 7 (36:09):
And that far I use cream cheese he to my
My go to would be for vocals out. Always tell
people my it saved me so many times. Coconut water
with pineapple juice.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
M hmm.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
That shit has saved me so many times. Cocaine water.
I don't like the taste of it, but that shit works.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
It's the coating and the pineapples really good too. I agree.
It's just I feel like you try all different things,
and I've been through ups and downs with it all. Honestly,
for me this whole year with COVID and everything, not
to sing for my supper and travel around and not
get the right sleep or you know, just be put
on this thing where there's a certain amount of stress

(36:54):
for me that takes away a lot of stuff. So
I'm just like emotionally like that's where I need to
be centered or whatever. But it's being off kind of
like taking off work has really helped my voice, I
think in a lot of ways, just being able to
have like stress free And so I'm just like saying
and everyone's like, oh, you got to get back in
the studio, like you got to get back to singing,

(37:15):
And I'm like.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
I know, do you feel like getting back into it?

Speaker 7 (37:19):
I know you just put out Caution, you know, in
twenty eighteen, but are you kind of feeling like it's
to drop some new shit?

Speaker 5 (37:25):
Yes, but honestly a different approach. And I don't even
want to go into what it is, because when I
did Caution, I loved some of the songs from Caution,
but I don't think I was at the place vocally
where I could be now. Also, it was rushed, not
that it was rushed and I look at my best,
most critically acclaimed album, and you know, I think that's

(37:48):
because the critics have changed and shifted since back in
the days, like believe it or not. If you look
at those things, it's the most favoric thing in the album.
But what I was going to say is that I
didn't have the time time I would normally take, and
I really wish I did have that time to do
a few more records on that album to just, you know,
fully have that expression. But what are you going to do?

(38:11):
Like it was a much more of like, oh, we
got to get her back and have people know she
put out a studio, and then they screwed that up
with the way they gave away these instant grats. Oh
we're going to do instant grats? Why just for this?

Speaker 4 (38:25):
What is what's the instant grat?

Speaker 5 (38:26):
What is that instant grat is when they give away
a song rather than have it be a part of
an album. So and I just learned about this two
years ago too, So like.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah, gangster bbd es Wait wait, I'm sorry man, that's yeah,
I'm sorry for that reference. Wait for record. I love
that song. I know they're trying to hide it like
a red hitad step child.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
But I'm sorry, I don't remember that.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
I remember.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Video. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was supposed to be
like their big comeback single. But because it kind of tanked,
then they try to act like we never did it, like.

Speaker 7 (39:07):
And then they came back with Above the Rim, and
it was like, yeah, y'all could have just rolled with Gangster,
right exactly.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yeah, but yeah, labels start putting out red carpet records
or red carpet singles just to announce and album's coming
out without putting it on the record or whatever.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Well, here's the thing, if you do for your actual fans, right,
because my the lamily, they don't care about getting an
instant grat. They just want to see the record do
well like and they want to music. So these stupid
instant grats and this is no shade to anybody. We know.
They didn't have to do it like that. So like

(39:45):
the instagrats here, let's get on instagrat. Then they got
on another Instagrat. So at that point, you're like three
singles in that you gave away for free, when you
could have just had a whole experience with your fans
like this here product that's what I'm saying. So it
just came like. That's why when you ask the question
about like caution and vocally, No, I mean I recorded

(40:07):
that at home as well. I walked back and forth
and basically I have my own little vocal booth. That's
a really cute vocal booth that they made for me.
I wouldn't name check the company, but right now I
can't remember the name. And we take it wherever and
it's really cute. It's black and pink and don't inside there.

Speaker 6 (40:25):
And we're obo.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
Yeah, my little booth. But I recorded most of all
of that album pretty much there. And what's the studio Henson?

Speaker 6 (40:38):
Yeah, you're the.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
World in right, Yeah, that's one of my favorite places.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Synchronicity and didn't record there too. We recorded, yeah, and
it's Michael Jackson room right where Michael like supposedly laid
on the floor and listened to those speakers. I don't know,
they tell many a story.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
No, no, No, he did record at Hintson, but I
gotta I don't know which project it was for, but yes,
most famous The Other World.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Was made there.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
Yes, and have that picture.

Speaker 7 (41:14):
Yeah, I think the thing you know when you talk
about caution, you know, you saying that you didn't feel
like you were vocally kind of where you want to be.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know.

Speaker 7 (41:22):
The reason I think that record was so well received,
and what I liked about it was that you were
It's very hard, you know for artists that you know,
if you know, have been in the game, you know
what I'm saying, as long as you have, and I
sold as many records. When they quote unquote come back,
they end up trying to just copy what the youngest
is doing and that ship up sound to corny, you

(41:43):
know what I mean. But I like the way that
you were able to kind of do you know, to
compete with what you know, the contemporary artists were doing,
but it still sounded like you. And that was the
thing I really liked about that record. It was it
was Mariah, but it was like, yeah, this is her
in this context, like you had the record with Dollar
and Gunna and you know what I'm saying, But it
was like, she's still doing Mariah. And I think that

(42:05):
you know, for your fans, you know, particular my generation,
we just you know, appreciated the way you came back
and was showing like yeah, I'm you know, I'm Mariah,
but I can still bang with you, motherfuckers.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
I'm not. This is And by the way, my fans
get really mad when I they think I shaved my
own albums or songs. That's not what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (42:29):
And I appreciate you saying those things about Caution the album,
because I really do like it as an album. But
I'm saying it to put it up against like and
this is not even a fair analogy, But like Butterfly,
I had all the time in the world I had.
I went in there and did what I wanted. I
worked in Florida, I worked in New York, I worked
wherever I wanted, and really put the time into it.

(42:53):
But with Caution, and with the way the record industry
is now, we don't have that luxury of time, like yeah,
like some people do.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
So do you believe in deadlines as in like okay,
well do you like plan the tour first? And okay,
I got to finish this album four months or is
the album done when you say it's done, then we
move on with the campaign. I don't know how it

(43:22):
is for Upper Echelne. Yeah, is it like if you agree,
like okay, we're going to tour the summer from May
to September.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Then I gotta have this record out by March. So
do you are you a deadline sticker no matter what?
Or is it like, this album's not coming out unless
I'm goosebump happy about it?

Speaker 5 (43:48):
Okay? So I would say that that's how it should be,
and that's and that's how it used to be. But
one also one thing that I do want to your
point about touring, I was never touring artist, and that
was a deliberate choice I think on behalf of certain
CEOs of Sony.

Speaker 9 (44:10):
Okay, because there was a conscious effort, and I have
no problem with this looking back at it, I'm very
grateful for it now on some levels, and on other
levels I'm like, I.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
Didn't get to kind of like, what's the thing called
when you cut your teeth and record?

Speaker 4 (44:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (44:30):
So I because what's the reason, Because what's the reason.
Why wouldn't they why wouldn't they want you to dour?

Speaker 5 (44:37):
Because it was more financially beneficial for me to continue
to make album after album after album. Yeah, to record.
So if you look at it, and then you look
at my first album through when I left, Wow, I
was still on Sony, but like through Rainbow, like I
just did, and Rainbow was because I wanted to get

(44:57):
off the label. So I just did that album in
three months. And I still love some of the songs.
But I did that like super fast because I was like,
I got to get the hell out of this toxic situation,
not because it's Sony, but because of the professional intertwinement
that was going on with that situation. Yeah, sing sing,
But but in the beginning, it was like, just make
the records, make the records, make records sing sing like

(45:20):
right right, you know all this stuff. And if I
didn't want to write, I would have. I'm sure life
would have been easier. But I have the need. I
love writing. To me, I'm a writer first and and
and I love being in the studio, but I never
The first tour I did was really aside from like
promo tours, from the very beginning with just the incredible

(45:43):
Richard T and you know Trey and Patrick McMillan and
the old.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Time Richard T was your touring keyboard player.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
Richard T played on song Vanishing from.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
My first album as in studio, yeah, I love okay
and that.

Speaker 5 (46:00):
Is the and then he was an incredibly, I mean
just mammoth in terms of his legendary status, and we did.
He did come out and do some shows with me,
and then it wasn't t obviously yeah, but these were
this is before there was like people filming. There were

(46:22):
people filming and that type of thing like he and
then I don't know if you ever saw this America,
the beautiful performance that I did for the NBA Playoffs.
I know nothing about sports, so I'm saying it wrong.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
But like my first first time that you debuted before
I went.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
On our senior Hall, which was my first like TV appearance.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yea, the entire world saw that.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
Every the NBA thing where if you look it up,
and it's not only my real fans know it, but
Richard T did the piano track. I went there with
a track to Detroit. I know nothing about sports whatever
in record respect him, Like, oh, those kids they said
I would not map tied nothing. They were watching those
jocks from the school they were watching. So I had

(47:09):
I had to do my own hair and makeup. I
had my one black dress. I walk in on the
thing and it's Richard T's piano track. You can find
it right now. I'm here and I found it on
the piano and we worked it out together. I sang
it with him prior to going there and performing it,
but we like did it together in terms of the arrangement.

(47:31):
And then I had his piano track and that was it,
and I had to go sing and nobody knew who
I was, and they introduced me ladies and gentlemen, uh
Columbia recording artists, Mariah carratter like and then but then
at the end of it, it's the Shining Sea and
the note, and it was like the most of it.
Who was the man? I love him. I don't even

(47:53):
want him to ever hear this and think I don't
remember his name, But I'm so bad with sports. The
announcer and you'll see it if you look it up,
and he's like lo Palace, Now, how's the Queen? And
the goosebumps will continue? And I talk about in the book,
but I didn't. I would love to name check him.
I'm just so bad with sports that I always forget.

Speaker 6 (48:12):
Marvin probably.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Probably mar Alt, Yes, I think.

Speaker 5 (48:18):
I know that's not his same, but he's famous. I
can't think of it now. But anyway, that was Richard
T and Richard t played a really big part in
that early part of development.

Speaker 7 (48:28):
That's that's impressive company because Richard T' is a legend.
I was going to ask, did you have to fight
to write your own material? Because that was something that
pop singers, you know, they damned they weren't permitted, you know,
to write their own stuff.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
So what was that like for you?

Speaker 5 (48:43):
Well, okay, so that was to me, that was the
one thing that I really held tight onto starting out
as like having my first demo. So my first demo
and some of these songs are not my favorite, and
I just I like the demos better. But I was
always writing songs from the time I was a little love,
I vote poetry, I heard melodies, I did all that.

(49:04):
But so when I got my after like working with
a few different people and I started working on my
first demo. By the time it got into Tommy Mottola's hands,
that demo had well, it ended up the demo ended
up being Vision of Love. The demo version some Day,

(49:25):
Alone in Love and ultimately vanishing like the original demo
had had at least had one number one song, which
ended up being some Day. But you know, that's like
my least favorite song. But I like the demo, I
hate the record.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
I told her. I told her this last night. Some
day might be inadvertently responsible for my career. Oh Chocolate, No, No, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (49:57):
No, I kind of well.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
No, Well, in short, uh, I was auditioning for Tarika,
and I went to New York to audition. I went
to audition for colleges to uh, Julliard.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
And the News School. And on the train ride home,
some girl thought that I was Chocolate playing the bucket drummer.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
That Chocolate ride had the bucket drummer on the Murra.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Video right, and also in Spike Lee's well you know,
he was also in Spike Lee's Levi's commercial, so she
thought I was the Levi's guy, when actually I was
the Motown Philly guy. So the next the next day,
Tarik is in my living room and after a commercial, uh,
we're watching Soul Train and when that Levi's commercial comes on,

(50:46):
Treik was like, yo, that girl thought he was the
Mariah Carey guy anyway, so we might as well.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Just do that. And then wow, four hours later, the
Roots are doing their first show on South Street. So yes,
thank you to Someday.

Speaker 5 (51:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (51:05):
I used to always tell people, y'all came first.

Speaker 7 (51:15):
All right, so you talk about those demos? How did
you cut those original demos? Because you if you was
couldn't afford, you know, to eat, How did you How
did you afford it? And how did you meet Walter?

Speaker 5 (51:26):
Walter came later. Walter was I met through Naught and
Michael Walden and I was doing a lot of production
for him in that I'm trying to think of the
name of the actual area and it's like in the
Bay Area kind of up in that San Francisco, but
beyond Thomas, I'm trying to think of the name of

(51:47):
the studio. You could, you could find out what it is.
But anyway, so Walter was working in that world, but
prior to that, way, prior to that, and also Randy
Jackson was around there. Like that's how I met everybody
that started his whole crew. Yet his whole crew, and
he had a lot of really great people, musicians, support system,

(52:08):
whole thing. But anyway, that's like when I first before
my first record, everybody was like, oh, she would go
work with an order now in order to answer the
question to preserve my ability or to ensure my like
just being able to be a writer and not to
be forced to do other people's songs. When I saw

(52:30):
my idea, like I said, I already had that demo
that had, you know, songs that people could look at
and go, oh, she's she wrote this, Okay, what I
worked with? At first, I met Gavin Christopher, who did
I'm coming wanstead up.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I've had I've had three legendary arguments with singers on
the internet, and Gavin Christopher is one of them.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
Sorry, I haven't seen him since way back then. I
haven't seen him since way back then. And he wasn't
even really like She's the next star, Da da da,
but he was cool enough to work with me and
blah blah blah. And then from him, because I was
in high school, I was like sixteen years old, So
then from him I met this guy named Ben Marca.
Lee's blah blah blah. It's all in the book. But

(53:14):
we worked in his dad's studio, which for the time
I was lucky to be at any studio. But it
was a small studio in the back of a woods shop.
And you know, they I guess they must have had
some money, because I surely didn't. They were like twenty
five twenty six, and I was a kid in high school,

(53:36):
so I was just happy to be there working and writing,
and then I would get up. I would stay there,
and then I would try to drive back to the island,
try to drive back to Long Island, which I hated
that whole experience, but whatever, I would wind up lost
in Brooklyn by myself. You know, it's no cell phone

(53:57):
people at cell phones.

Speaker 10 (54:00):
And GPS, and I was just like in this piece
of crap cutless Supreme from like whatever, nineteen eighty or something,
and I'm sitting there driving getting lost everywhere.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
But it was worth it because I would get there.
I would always be late to school. I would you know,
make my fake forged notes and get to school. But
really the reason I was late I could do my
mother's signature perfectly. The reason I was late is because
I was working in a studio. But that's so I
started working with Ben and we made this demo with
a lot of songs that we wrote. And this year
when we released the Rarities, there's a few of the

(54:33):
song well really one song that we wrote together called
here We Go Around Again, which back then I love
the demo. But when we went on to make the album,
they just tried to reinvent the Wheel because the demo
was better anyway. So I had these songs and people
felt that they could be hits. The label felt they
could be hits. So when I was signing my deal,
even though I signed it like the worst deal in

(54:54):
history because it was through that production company, the PA,
I don't know if it the worst deal in history
is pretty bad. But the one thing, thank god, I
didn't do was sell my publishing for five thousand dollars.
That was yeah, that was presenting me as an option.
So five thousand dollars sounded like five one hundred million

(55:15):
dollars to me at that point. And luckily I didn't
because I had seen a documentary on the Beatles and
their whole thing, okay, yeah, and what they gave away,
so I knew better than to do that. But when
I did sign my ideal, the one thing I said
to the lawyer because I knew I was kind of
giving away a lot, but you don't know, as a
broke kid that grew up with nothing, you don't know what.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
You don't have leverage to negotiate for anything better.

Speaker 5 (55:40):
Yeah, And plus I was too young to even be
signing my own record deal anyway, So I was like,
you know, and my mother didn't know. She came into
the room and just trying to help. You know, I'm
here as the guardian, but she didn't know. So I
just said to the lawyer, I said, the one thing
I want to make sure is that nobody can force
me to do somebody else's song, Like, I just have

(56:01):
to make sure that they can't force me to do that.
So even when they would direct me to work with
producers over the day that they wanted me to work
with for whatever Warren or No or.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
A name at the time, they.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
Didn't force me to work with any songwriters. They they
suggested that I work with be it Rett Lawrence or
not to Michael Walden or Rick Wake or whoever it was.
It was like, you know, work with these people because
we believe this is going to happen. But then the
ones that I loved the best were like the Richer
t Moment or do you know what I mean, Like

(56:41):
things where it was a collaborative musical experience and where
people of that statue were giving me as a kid,
as a young woman, which is really difficult, you know,
really difficult, particularly being female, to get any kind of
respect and all the obstacles, you know, just to be
able to be like, okay, I don't I'm not being

(57:03):
forced to work with writers. So that was one thing.
Nobody ever submitted songs to me, and if they did,
I didn't hear them. So that was one thing that
was grateful for you.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
Now I was going to ask it they ever.

Speaker 8 (57:13):
Did they ever ask that you write songs for some
of the other ladies coming through or anyone. No.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
At that point, I think it was like, you know what,
this is our we believe in this girl being me.
Let's get done. So it took like a year to
actually take what were demos and then the new songs
that I would write or do to be this finished product.
And there was a conscious effort like because I was
sitting like when is this going to be done? Like

(57:41):
you know, it's just like that, and they're like, it's
fine because we and there was a vision that it
would happen and begin in the nineties, not like before that.
So that whole year of figuring it out, I do
think it was a smart move to not have it
out until that decade began.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
I was going to ask, does when you were working
with Narada, does he always talk in that mystical voice? Yes, yeah,
any anytime Narda, anytime he talks to me, I always
feel like I'm being hypnotized at the moment.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
You know, he he's very said, you know what I mean,
Like he's.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Too saying I get scared Narada and Eric about your
two people, and I don't want to look in the
eye for more than five seconds.

Speaker 5 (58:28):
So as well.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yeah, Eric Erica has a very hypnotic quality that will
have you wearing crosy pants in about a year or so.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
Stop that he's an artist and she's sensitive. Word.

Speaker 7 (58:45):
I was gonna ask what was working with Walter a fantasy?
Like what was he like in the studio? I always
admire like one of my favorite, my favorite songs of
yours is Can't Let Go, And I just thought that
that's just that sound that you and him had together.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
It was just a very pop like super clean and
you know, just just the sine that he would have
on those records.

Speaker 7 (59:09):
Like when I heard God this the Bruno Mars record
the Vasati on the Floor, I was like, Yo, this
is him doing Walter.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
Yeah, I mean yeah, but but nah, I just want
to know what was he like in the studio, because
he's not someone i've you know, really read or know
much about.

Speaker 5 (59:26):
Okay, well, first of all, thank you. We can't let
go that. Walter was a great writing partner. I would
always try to sneer thing more and they can't let
go direction because because it was a little bit slightly

(59:51):
more R and B than black other things translation black,
so slightly more than that more there. But you know,
we could also do these big sweeping things like till
the End of Time, which only like the Lambs would know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Yeah it was it was the next the last song
going your first album, the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
End of Time.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
Yeah, that part, that was when I got to really
express myself on the outros, on the on the you know,
doing the background vocal parts, like doing those arranging that stuff.
But I really liked working with him in that way.
There were some uh, incestuous situations where let's just call
it the record company and the publishing situations where I

(01:00:45):
don't want to get into this various specifics. This is
not I don't have to say it, but really it
was too how do you call it? It was? It
was a bit incestuous because people were like, how do
I say it, oh loood? Was it? Was?

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
It like the label had a piece of Walter so
like baby.

Speaker 5 (01:01:08):
I wouldn't want to go saying that because I don't
know for sure, but I'm just saying certain people in
my life had that other connection and so was extremely talented.
But some but for the most part, when I'm coming
up with melodies and I'm singing it to somebody like hey,
can you play this? That happened on several songs, and

(01:01:29):
then we would take it to another place because I
won't think of if someone plays accord, I'll be like no,
like I hear it in my head and then I'm like,
that's not it. I don't know how to articulate it.
I'm not there going can you really inverted? Like I
don't know how to say that. I just know how
to hear it. So so I'll be hearing something and
until somebody gets it where I'm hearing it, I'll be

(01:01:50):
like no, no, no, no, and then we get there
and then from there he and I I will say
I had a really good flow with putting stuff together.
So it's no shade towards him. I wish him well whatever,
but I will say, like you know that was a
that was a moment in time, and I'm very thankful
for it. And also talking about people that have been
great writers writing partners with me, Big Jim Wright with

(01:02:13):
Fly like a Bird and Circles and all those songs
for me. Me also James Poyser. Now everybody says it's
poisoning that we actual pronunciation of his name, and I

(01:02:33):
don't understand it, but I love him and so when
we I love working with incredibly talented musicians because when
I can sing back and forth to them and we
can figure things out together and then we can go
to another place, that's something that I feel is a gift.
When I'm sitting there coming up with stuff by myself,

(01:02:53):
I love it, but I know that I need to
articulate it to somebody to put it down unless I'm playing,
which is the worst thing ever, although sometimes it's turned
out to be to my own benefit because I don't
know the rules, so I don't have to follow them.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
So besides big joy question, can I just say I
love working with James Poyser?

Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
James, I said.

Speaker 6 (01:03:17):
Poiser, Okay, his name, Mariah, say his name.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
I'm just saying, I said, James Poyser because everybody else
goes it, says Poisoner, and then they and make me
feel like I'm a stupid one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
It's pains. I created James Poisoner Twitter account just a computer.

Speaker 7 (01:03:40):
The real the real secret is James Poyser is just
Nelson George's side project.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
No comment, no comment. But When Christmas Comes, which we
wrote together, is one of my favorite Christmas songs and
I really have I really feel like it's a much
more look we love. All I want for Christmas is you,
and I thank the Good Lord above. I really sat
there coming up with a like And then when I

(01:04:10):
did sing that to walderhat and he's been on record
as saying it, why are you trying to do scales
as a song?

Speaker 8 (01:04:15):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:04:16):
Why is that? Why would you want to do that?
Like he didn't hearly as a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
How long did it take to record that?

Speaker 5 (01:04:23):
Which fire? No the song?

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
I have a theory about mega songs. Every mega song
that's larger than life take seconds to do. So like
how long did it take to write, not executing record,
but just to write the general song that we know?

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
So the idea, So there was an idea do a
Christmas album and at that point, at twenty two or whatever,
I was like Lily little early and then I said, Okay,
well I love Christmas. I always have, you know, let
me think about it. So you you know, I was
sitting in this house in the Hillsdale, New York as

(01:05:03):
I came at hills Jail, and just started thinking like,
what are the what are the things that I loved
as a kid with Christmas songs? And what are all
the things that made me feel christmasly even amidst the
bleakness of my childhood. So I started sitting there and
there was this keyboard. I believe it was some sort
of some sort of really really cheap like CASSIEO keyboard

(01:05:24):
or something. And again I'm I'm not playing. I just
write a lot. So I was in there and I'm like,
I just started channeling and trying to figure out how
to play it. So by the time I brought it
to Walter, I had done everything but the bridge. Oh
lots of USh shining, you know, because I honestly couldn't

(01:05:47):
probably do that transition like as a as a keyboard player,
which I'm still not. But so we did that part
and then we brought it back to the oh, so
I would say the writing my part. I had the
lyrics done except for the bridge. I had everything done
really quick, like it was just immediate, you know. It's
it's like with Hero. I had a They explained the

(01:06:09):
song that I'm sorry the movie there was a movie
by Dustin with Dustinhoff and whatever. Tommy Mitella came in, Hey,
Luther's doing a song for this movie. They want you
to write this song for Glorias to Find. You know.
It's about a guy that says people on a plane.
That's pretty much what I heard, right, And I was
never alone at that point in my life, and I'm
pretty much I rarely still am. But anytime I would

(01:06:32):
walk to the bathroom and I wouldn't be followed by
somebody's goons or whatever, I would walk in. I had
two minutes. I go in there and I'm and I
start hearing that, and then here comes along like the
melody and the piano part, right, and so then I
walked back and like, well this is how it goes. No, no, no, no,

(01:06:52):
carry me on, right. So I'm like I'm like all excited,
like just write this, dude, this dude. And then I'm
like I'm like, so, wait, who do they want this for?
They wanted for Glorias to right, and Tommy's standing there
and he's like, I think you need to keep this
one for yourself. So it was a similar thing with
All I Want for Christmas is You, except that I
was by myself in the room at first, and then

(01:07:14):
wrote those lyrics down and then went and sang it
to Walter and we finished it from there. But the
actual recording of the record took a while, and it
was a collaboration, and you know, I'm not taking anything
away from him, but there was a concerted effort to
make it feel like a classic, which I've noticed people
have adapted that type of.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Yeah, I like the phil Spector, I love the phil
spectrnes of it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
But I would like to note that, you know, when
I woke up this morning to prepare for this interview,
I was listening to it. All I Want for Christmas
is You is probably the happiest song with the most
minor note keys in it. Like there's so much dark
chords and minor chords in the song, but.

Speaker 5 (01:08:03):
Like because people don't expect it to go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
There exactly, like it's it's it's a very unlikely because
usually Christmas is associated with I mean, every Christmas song
practically has like happy chords, happy major chords. And I'm
trying to figure out how did this song manage to

(01:08:28):
jump over the pack, because it's it's there's so many
chromatic and dark chords in it that are more blues
based or black, you know, like black chords, yet it
works and I'm trying, like that's a hard thing to
achieve because you know, I know that most pop hits

(01:08:52):
have some sort of major chord element that feels inviting.
And not to say that blues chords don't work and
aren't successful, like you know, there's plenty of them out there,
but usually in Christmas songs it's like that, like as
far as like structuring the song where they're back and
forth and sort of you know, conflict as in to

(01:09:17):
how bright the song should be as opposed to how
it came out, because it's it's an achievement that is
such blues based. But still I don't know if I'm
saying it the right way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
I know what you mean.

Speaker 5 (01:09:33):
And it's interesting because Mark Shaman, when we the incredible
Mark Shaman or Kestel Genius, who I worked with.

Speaker 7 (01:09:40):
Starting on he wrote the South Park movie. That's like
my favorite thing he's ever done.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Yeah, I love him and he is.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
The most irreverent, just hilarious person and super talented and everything.
But when we first got together, he was like, don't
think I didn't hear. I just want to know, like
you know that little that was hot? Yeah, but I
do hope think I didn't hear that. So so here's
the thing, because like I said before, I don't know

(01:10:09):
the rules. I don't follow the rules. I just know
what I hear, and specifically on that one, it was
just like like I don't know, I just heard it,
you know what I mean, I didn't do it like here,
I am trying to be bloozy here, I am trying
to I don't know. And I think that's why Walter

(01:10:34):
was like, well why and that he said in that interview,
which I don't know. I'm sure it can be geguiled,
but you know, it was like these scales and she's
trying to this. I wasn't trying to do anything like that.
I don't even know how to break it down and
explain that. I just know that that's what I heard,
and I heard it with the with you know, the lyrics,
and then wrote them down. But it was very specific

(01:10:54):
to me, and I recorded it on my little tape
recorder that I had that you know, the mini tape
recorder and you just help it kind smaller than an
iPhone but like thicker, and so I had that and
I recorded it on there, and I don't know, like
I agree the when it gets poppy is the oh
name made? You know what I mean? Like that part's

(01:11:19):
poppy because the backgrounds were such incredible singers, and because
the way we range it, like you're fine with the
poppiness of at that point, the whole thing, unless we're
getting analytical about it, is pop. But you're right those
changes came from me because I didn't know any better.
I didn't know, Oh, let me just make this like
oh and happy and festive and we won't darker. Course,

(01:11:42):
But like in the book, I talk about how my
Christmas is as a kid, I always wanted them to
be perfect. I always wanted them to do great, and
I have these ex family members who really destroyed every year.
So I think when writing the song just by myself
in the room, not dissimilar to where I'm at right
now looking at the Christmas tree by myself, just thinking

(01:12:03):
about stuff, kind of feeling whatever's happening in the air.
And I do feel like when you're writing, if it's
a real, if it's a connected moment, you are channeling,
you know, And I know that's that's we know that,
but not everybody understands that. I'm not saying with some
genius revelation, but that's what happened. So it was just like,
this is what I'm hearing, you know, and this is

(01:12:24):
what I think would be good. I never was like,
oh and then blah blah blah, you're so now we're
going to break the Spotify record.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
So I've learned ever since I've gotten to know you,
I know that there's a term called Mariah hours, which
ladies and gentlemen out there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
This is the one of the first episodes that we've taped,
the only the only most of our episodes are done.

Speaker 8 (01:12:55):
And I'm sorry and listen not to not to be
your daddy, but even when we did Quincy Jones, Oh Jesus.

Speaker 6 (01:13:04):
Christ, it was out of respect.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Yeah, Quincy was just was in this late like right now,
it's it's two in the morning, where we are but.

Speaker 7 (01:13:19):
Hoologizing. Nah, it's all good. We on COVID time anyway.
Ain't nobody sleeping? Yeah, I got a new job. What
what I want to have?

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
You always kept Mariah, like when do you wake up?
When do you wake up in the morning, Like what
is your daily routine? Because I know like three in
the morning is sort of like you're twelve in the afternoon.

Speaker 5 (01:13:42):
Yeah, you're right, And I don't have. I don't have
when I'm working, which when I say working, I need tramo,
not in a studio. When I'm in the studio, you know,
And the best place for me to be in the
studio is wherever feels the best. So, like we said,
Cakree the Bahamas, wherever, it's just on the schedule of

(01:14:04):
when now I'm not I don't mean writing. If there's
like a whole like what I would love to do again,
there's a whole bunch of writers get together. We're in
a place, we work at a respectable hour whatever that
is for everybody, a little the better, But you know,
we all get together. We come up with stuff. If
we're doing that like I did that on this song
called Subtle Invitation in the Bahamas, we're working at Compass

(01:14:25):
Points Studios, and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
You know one of them still around.

Speaker 5 (01:14:29):
I don't know this is back. This is early mid
two thousands of the Chambre.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Compass Point world famous. We're Sli and Robbie and Grace Jones.

Speaker 5 (01:14:39):
Everybody record Club Tom Tom Club, and I.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
Believe anybody on island records like practically recorded down there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
So continue.

Speaker 5 (01:14:49):
So you're there, and you know whatever you're working on,
whatever the time schedule is. And now what I've realized
with recording vocals, so that's the only thing for writing,
but recording vocals, I just have to get up and
luckily my engineer is cool enough to be like, okay,
we're working on MC time. Okay we do. I drink coffee,
like give me two hours, lea, you know, heads up,

(01:15:09):
I'll get my two three hours. You know, we'll do
a thing where it's like not before ten, so we
know that usually means midnight, but you know, we know
it's not gonna be more tense. So he sleeps, I sleep,
and we just get up when my voice is ready
to work. But in terms of like Mariah hours, this
started for me when I was six years old because

(01:15:31):
my house felt very unstable and there was always like
teenage people and whatever happening, you know, freaking seances, whatever
the hell was going on was happening, and it felt unsafe,
and so I would lay in bed and kind of
be scared and I wouldn't be able to sleep. So
over the years, it just became like I stayed up

(01:15:52):
because I had to develop this kind of like person
in charge, like here's my reflexes, like in case something
has to happen, this mechanism, yeah, defend, I'm the grown
up in this scenario, like something may happen and I'm
going to be awake to handle it. So that started
as like a six year old kid, and it's all
detailed in the memoir. But yes, that's what happened. The

(01:16:14):
reason I say that is because I'm not explaining it
as eloquently as I would like for people to hear
it and to understand, you know what I mean. But
answer the question.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
You know, I'm going to get on that next because
I didn't even start with the book yet.

Speaker 8 (01:16:27):
But but wait, can I ask about the time things
that she did mention the time, because I mean, You've
been mentioned in the book a little bit, but in
the book you do talk about like your whole concept
of time and acknowledging and whatnot, and not to go
over it because, like you said, it's in the book,
but I was curious. I was, like, the one thing
you didn't mention was when you developed this concept of

(01:16:48):
not acknowledging time. It reminded me of something my grandmother
used to say, because people would always ask her how
old she was, and she would say, I'm too too
old to be young, too young to be old, and
that's it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:56):
Don't ask me anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:16:57):
But oh.

Speaker 8 (01:17:00):
But but that being said, like when did that concept
to you start developing? Like I don't need to acknowledge
this time thing at all.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
Let's just I turned when I when I was eighteen,
prior to getting my record deal. Right, Yeah, I had
a I guess it's a boyfriend. It wasn't really like
that deep of a thing. There was no actual whatever.
La la la lah. You'll you'll get to know. I'm
very prudish. I'm very prudish. People don't know, but I

(01:17:28):
don't talk about certain things. That's just how I am.
But you know, and then that's really as a response
to like people I saw growing up that were the
opposite that were very promiscuous, that had all these situations
going on, and I just never wanted to be like them.
But anyway, so when I so, when I was eighteen,
I cried and my boyfriend, you know, god lesson for

(01:17:49):
tolerating my prudences. But he was like, why are you crying?
And I'm like, because I didn't. I don't have a
record deal yet, like this is supposed to be happening.
When I was, well, what is going on? And I
didn't understand it? And I was I was so my
work ethic was insane. People don't understand. Yes, you can
be borned, Yes you can be born with whatever the

(01:18:11):
look is or whatever it is. But if you don't
have that work ethic, unless you have somebody that shines
down upon you from above and does all the work
for you, it's really not most likely not going to
happen because you just have to have that Like, I'm
going to do this regardless. I believe in it and

(01:18:33):
I know it is going to happen. So in terms
of like doing it, when I was young, like I was,
I just had this thing where, oh my gosh, like
this is supposed to be happening. This is a young
person's industry, like and this is me as a kid
knowing this. So I'm very thankful though that it didn't
happen when I was much younger, like that, I that
I didn't get those Broadways show things I wanted to

(01:18:54):
be in as a ten year old because I was
quote too tall. But we know, we know someone it was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
You, you see, that was like one of their excuses.

Speaker 5 (01:19:08):
That was from Annie. Let's face it.

Speaker 6 (01:19:10):
We know I wasn't Oh no, you wasn't sorry boo no,
not life for real?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
No, no too dall.

Speaker 5 (01:19:24):
But I but I realized, like in retrospect, like I mean,
I'm not putting myself in this category in terms of
talent of God getting talent, but when you look at
Michael Jackson and you look at how he really never
had a childhood, like and then he became this hugely
you can't even call it what it was. But I mean, like,

(01:19:44):
I was just thankful at least I had somewhat of
a childhood dysfunctional as it was, that wasn't a famous
person's childhood, because I feel like that really screws people
up beyond repair sometimes. But in terms of like how
did it make me feel? To just not acknowledge time.
I just decided, you know, anniversaries, no birthdays is what

(01:20:07):
it is. Keep a pushing. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Okay, so Mariot, I guess I should say. I was
about to say, I guess that's to start with. But
it's ninety minutes into it. So our good friend Eleana
Diaz of Rock Nation former Fallon Night now she's probably
going to be president in ten years, sent me a

(01:20:32):
box with your book in it, and it came with
tissues and I was like, okay, that's interesting. What am
I supposed to cry when I read this book? Whatever?

Speaker 5 (01:20:45):
And so.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
I took the book home, and this is like prime COVID,
where like one of the one thing I stuck to
was my promise to read more books, Like I just
stopped reading books pre like March twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Maybe I did like one of.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Two books a year, and this year I'm like, okay,
I'm gonna just run everything dust off, you know, sixteen
books whatever. So you know, I said, all right, let
me let me read the first three chapter, see if
I'm gonna learn anything about it about her, And you know,
about chapter three, I was like, wow, okay, just engaged,

(01:21:24):
and I'm let me, let me see what the next
three year into. So when I got to the fifth chapter,
I crept in your DMS and I was like, yo,
you you write a good book. And the thing that
in Laya actually texted me this last night she said,

(01:21:46):
and I sent you what she said, uh Liyah said
that the way that Mariah describes food is making me hungry.
And I was like, yo, And I showed Layah my
first text to you, which is basically I was like, yo,
I've written two books about food, and no one has

(01:22:07):
described Ritz crackers.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
So eloquently that you have.

Speaker 5 (01:22:14):
And then.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
And then I was like, all right, well I had
to take this like long trip to Philadelphia, and I
was like, all right, let me get the audiobook listen
to it in the car, and hearing you narrate this
audio book was almost like your own podcast. And I
was like, well, now I got to start at the
beginning again. And I had to say that this was

(01:22:38):
for me like sleeper Surprise of the Year, Like this
book has humanized you in a way I didn't think
it was possible, not that I thought that you were
subhuman or supern like most most Black people, especially black
achieving people. They're either like, you know, on the high
level of you know, credit to their race and they're superhuman,

(01:22:59):
or there's up human blake.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
We're never like, we're never neutral. And I love the
fact that this book puts you as a black person
in a space where black people are rarely allowed to
bleep be which is human.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
First of all, I would like to know, because most
most memoirs are autobiographies, I don't trust them. That's why,
like oral history is better because you at least get
a taste of everyone's opinion. But what made you want
to be so transparent and blatantly honest in this book?

(01:23:36):
Because that's what I wasn't expecting.

Speaker 5 (01:23:39):
Well, I've been wanting to write this book for years,
like I think, first of all, I just wanted when
I when I first so I had the opportunity to
work with a very big like probably the biggest publishing
house that there is, when I was pregnant, Right, that's
what I wanted to write the book. I'm like here,

(01:24:01):
I am, I can't go anywhere. It's basically like COVID,
but it's not COVID. But you're pregnant with twins and
you're on bedrest and and I was like, all this
all my life, Oh my life. I wanted to, you know,
write this, write my book, write my story. So I
so I wanted to do it at that point. And
I really had this great relationship, very just beginning on

(01:24:25):
a relationship, but I felt a kinship with Mikayla Angela Davis,
who I wanted to work on the book with right
and then this publishing house, the person at the top,
she was the editor in chief, and she said, I
don't want you to collaborate with anybody because I believe
that your voice is going to transcend. You know, you
need to have it be your voice. I'll be your

(01:24:46):
editor and you just do it. And I was like,
you know what, that's huge, and I thank you for
believing in me on that in that way. But I
really want to work with Mikayla. And so I didn't
do the book at point, but I started just putting together,
like some of the stories and whatever.

Speaker 8 (01:25:03):
Can you just tell us I'm sorry, I don't mean
to apolog you, but can you just tell people because
I'm a big fan of hers, but can you tell
everybody why you were so adamant about Mikayla.

Speaker 5 (01:25:11):
Well we okay, So Michaela Angela Davis is a brilliant
writer and she we first met when I did The Essence,
my my first and only Essence magazine cover, which ended
up myself just to make that happen at that point,
because there were so many quote unquote issues with my

(01:25:35):
image and how black women would perceive me and how,
you know, could it happen and is this gonna happen
and whatever, And it was a really important thing for
it to happen for me because being black and of
mixed race, there's always been this, you know, the stigma
that that white people have. But then there's this thing,

(01:25:57):
this thing where the lightness is perceived as privilege, privilege.
But really, if you were put in the situations that
I was put in as a kid, where you're only
in white neighborhoods and this is nothing, they can't help it.
You're put in this situation where you're not you're not
dark enough to scare them into not saying anything, or

(01:26:18):
even remind them, oh, let me not say this because
it might offend this person because they're strictly looking at
it like that. But then when they're all around you,
like I talk about it in the book. Whatever you do.
I think it's important that people hear it in the
way that it's described in the book, because to just
flippantly talk about it, it's why people were like, Oh,

(01:26:40):
what did you take so long? And know you're embracing
your blackness, and like there was never a non embracing that.
What did you expect to do?

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
I can't.

Speaker 5 (01:26:49):
I can't tattoo it on my fore I guess I
could have. I mean, maybe I should have. I don't
really want to attach it on my forehead, but you know, like.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
You have the vision to collaborate with old dirty bastard.
That's the black move ever.

Speaker 8 (01:27:01):
But it was an interesting question as you listen to
your story in the book, though, because that's what I
kept thinking to myself as I listened to you talk
about how like your dad and you didn't really talk
about that kind of stuff that much as I know
about like your mom didn't talk about that stuff that much.
And it's getting to know you and understanding that, like
this has been an interesting journey for you in that
way of that side of your life.

Speaker 6 (01:27:22):
So I always wondered as I was listening, I was like, so,
I wonder what was that moment.

Speaker 8 (01:27:27):
Because I haven't gotten to it yet in the book
where you were like maybe it was then the Bronx
cousins or whatever, when you were like, this is me.

Speaker 6 (01:27:35):
I'm proud. I see it, you know, and there's a
pride there.

Speaker 5 (01:27:40):
Yeah, what happened was there was never a lack of
I see it, I'm proud. It was always you take
a child, you don't explain to them how to understand
who they are. Right, you have a bour family with
a black father and a white mother who was from
the whitest place where the KKK born in Springfield, Illinois,

(01:28:04):
and you have her family that had disowned her. Well,
her family didn't even know she married my father. Only
her mother knew, so she didn't tell anybody. And that
imagine how you feel like because of who my father is,
and ultimately that means because of who and what I am,

(01:28:27):
and my siblings who went on to talk to whatever,
because of what we are, we are considered sub human
to them, so we don't exist and they don't even
know that we exist. Actually, because that's how big of
a that's how big of a thing it was that
my mother did this. So it was the ultimate sin
against her whiteness to her family and to her world.

(01:28:49):
So to be honest with you, like she was very
into civil rights, according as the story go, and she
Martha doctor King before all these things, but which I
heard more about that from her than I really heard
from my father, because I feel like my father was
always trying to in his own way assimilate understand who
he was and what he went through because he was

(01:29:12):
very like he you know he was. He just didn't
really feel like he fit in it in any place either.
So we never had a conversations till he was on
his deathbed. But back to the thing about the book
and why I felt I wanted to write with MICHAELA
was because we had these conversations in a way that
I never had a conversation with another, certainly not a

(01:29:34):
writer previously, and we connected on that level, and we
couldn't get into every detail. How can you talk? How
can you encapsulate a lifetime of experiences in a twenty
minute interview with the magazine where the editor is going
to then give you what they wanted to look like?
How they what's the angled? You know? What I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
Is Mikayla is she mixed race as well.

Speaker 5 (01:30:00):
I'm down the line, but she's you know, her family's black.
She lights them, She's very Mikaela Angela David.

Speaker 4 (01:30:06):
You know what I mean, like she yeah, yeah, I mean,
I got it.

Speaker 5 (01:30:09):
It's a different struggle when you're placed in an environment
that you don't belong in, so you're you're like fish
out of water and with people saying stuff around you
that they would neverver say, and you have to figure
out you have to figure out how do I handle this,
how do I how do I come back this, how

(01:30:31):
do I exist? How do I survive? Without anybody giving
you the talk, without anybody you know, and so.

Speaker 4 (01:30:39):
There was never a discussion about racing your house.

Speaker 7 (01:30:41):
There was never no one ever set you down and
was like, you know, listen, you are a black girl
and this is what that entails.

Speaker 4 (01:30:48):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:30:49):
No, No, it was your intucial and that's what you
tell everybody. I'm like, but we don't know what that means.

Speaker 4 (01:30:57):
What is that mean?

Speaker 5 (01:30:59):
They don't know what this means. That's why, Yes, my
cousins were always like when they were my cousins from
the Bronx CC and Chris who we love, you know,
on the few occasions when I'll be at my grandfather's
house in Queen's and the kids would be like, that's
not your cousin. She's white, and they would stick up
for me and they would be like, no, she's not white,
this is our cousin. She's black. She's our cousin. Like
that was the only time there was like that unified,

(01:31:21):
like we got you type of a thing, you know.
But it was difficult because there's also the thing about
money and not having money. So I think if it
was like a family unit where the parent don't forget
my parents divorce when I was like three or four
years old, So there's that, and there's my father living
in the neighborhood and me and my mother living in

(01:31:42):
like fourteen different places without the siblings, without anybody else
to connect to say we got you, like no matter
what these other people are saying. And again they didn't
know how to interpret it. They also it was considered
their biggest insult to say to someone it's your father black,
like this was they would say behind my back and

(01:32:05):
then ultimately took my face when you you know, in
a different way, when you read the book, did you.

Speaker 8 (01:32:10):
Ever play again with that little girl? Becky that ran
crying when she saw your dad. Did you guys ever
meet again?

Speaker 6 (01:32:18):
No, m.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
There was a girl named Becky and I'm sure she
was white. So what your name? Becky saw your dad
started running?

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
Oh I believe that Becky knows who Mariah Carey is.

Speaker 5 (01:32:31):
Right. Yeah, I'm sure that incident really impacted upon her,
Like it was literally she had never seen a black
person in her life before. So yeah, so when we're
in this lily white neighborhood that my mother chose to
live in, and then this was my friend and there
were no questions asked like what are this and that

(01:32:52):
I think that's before my hair retext heurized. So I'm
still really and you know, we go to my dad
house and I talk about it in the book obviously,
but she just was frozen and then she just broke
down and then my mother like escorted her. For some reason,
my mother knew to like linger. My mother escorted her

(01:33:12):
out and it was just like I'll never forget it.
I'm sure she probably remembers it, but maybe she blocked
it out.

Speaker 7 (01:33:20):
I don't know, Darling, how much control or well, well,
from from the context of what you said earlier, So
you had like really no control. But you know, when
you're when you first signed to Columbia, who or how
did you decide or what role did you play in

(01:33:43):
your imaging in your package because they marketed you very
much as you know, like just the pop kind of girl,
and like, you.

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
Know, they kind of just marked you as a white woman,
not us. You know, we could look at you and
we knew you know what I'm saying, Like we was
like I hear what y'all saying.

Speaker 6 (01:34:04):
But you know, like so like we knew something smells familiar.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
Yeah, yeah, I see, I see them curls, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:34:13):
I see?

Speaker 1 (01:34:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:34:14):
So yeah, what was what took us through that process?

Speaker 7 (01:34:17):
Like just kind of your identity being formed for you
in a way that maybe you didn't have any say
so over I would.

Speaker 5 (01:34:24):
Say that the marketing is its own thing. If you
look at the actual first album cover in the back
of the first album cover, my first album cover, Marine Kerry. Right, Yeah,
what you have time to display my blackness differently? Just
tell me, like visually it.

Speaker 6 (01:34:45):
Was just your face because it was just your face
in black and white.

Speaker 5 (01:34:48):
Yes, it was my natural hair, you know, additional curls
put in it and then the black cover it curvature
and stuff like that. Like I'm just trying to asked, like,
how do you think that I could have made it
more clear other than telling people that my father was
black my mother? How how could we have unless it

(01:35:09):
was should I have adapted a different hairstyle? Should it be?

Speaker 6 (01:35:15):
No, that's that's deep. No, you're right, you're right. No,
you're right, that's.

Speaker 7 (01:35:19):
Deep, And then asking that question, I wasn't like it
wasn't a blaming of you or anything like that. I
was just it was just something that like we all
just kind of notice it's a conversation.

Speaker 6 (01:35:29):
Yeah, because people did, but you you're right, Like I
was just me.

Speaker 5 (01:35:33):
No, I was me honestly. It wasn't even like on
that album cover, I had like straight hair and blue
contacts and you know, none of that, Like it's the
same nose. It's the seem like you I can't help.
But I talked about in the book, I don't have
an upper lift that you know they told me. The
black people would be like, oh, your lip is too small,

(01:35:54):
but white people were like, your lip is really full,
and I'm like yeah, but you know, honestly, I think
the marketing. Marketing wise, they definitely skewed it pop. They
definitely wanted adult, temporary pop. There's no question in my mind.
But at that point, how the hell do I know
the different charts? I don't know. I mean, by the way,

(01:36:15):
Vision of Love was number one on the quote unquote
R and B charts before the pop charts, So I
often refer to that because that makes me feel a
sense of right.

Speaker 8 (01:36:25):
But there wasn't like a black music department at that point,
with black music department thing a thing, or it wasn't even.

Speaker 5 (01:36:30):
At your point. They really skewed me away from that.
But I did work with the Black Music Department, and
that was when Rodriguez was running Oh Ruben.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
Ladies and gentlemen and lambs. That concludes part one of
our special two part terview with the one in the
for Ria Carrey. Make sure you come back from part
two of the Question of Supreme special with the one
to know Riah Carry all right, see Oven, Hey, this

(01:37:11):
is Sugar Steed.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
QLs and let us know what you think and who
should be next to sit down with us.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
Don't forget to subscribe.

Speaker 4 (01:37:23):
To our podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
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