WUWY INTERVIEW: SAINt JHN Talks His Eclectic Style To Personal Struggles, Music, Marriage Views, + More

SAINt JHN Talks His Eclectic Style To Personal Struggles, Music, Marriage Views, + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up this way up? For angela? Ye, and this
is exciting cuts for the first time saying John is
hanging out here with me?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yes, I am.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
It was a little blast Miths Earlier, you said you're
not from Brooklyn, are you? And I said, actually, yes,
I am. Where'd you thinkuy was from?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I wasn't super sure. I knew it was the East Coast, right,
because it's East Coast energy, but I was like, it
might not be Brooklyn. But sometimes people say that about me,
They think I'm from like London or something.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, I could see that.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think they just saying I'm flying.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, I could see, Well, you could be flying from Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Too, Nah, but it's a different thing.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
But you're very eclectic. I think what does that mean
When people say that. It means that you can't be
boxed into a certain category. So it's not like you have,
like a some people from Brooklyn you could tell, like
that person's from Brooklyn. But I think you have a
lot of different things and a lot of different sounds.
Even your style is not necessarily like I could tell

(00:56):
where you're from, right.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's not one dimensional. I always take that when somebody
says electic like, oh, that's a synonym for widow. You
call me a widow. I think you meant that. But
that's about to clarify it, because you could have people
could say, oh, you dynamic and carries the same energy.
Eclectics definitely sounds like widdow.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
No, because I think dynamic means more like energy wise.
I think eclectic is more style wise in my in
my head.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
That's how you interpret it.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, that's dynamic. We actually in my college at Wesley
and we had a house called the Eclectic House. Well,
you know what you might be right now.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I know you see, I know, I know what they're electic.
I know what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
You're dynamic, and I just want to say you're very dynamic,
right but even like your style of music, and I
know people are excited even watching you on Twitter and
seeing how you interact with people, it's very dynamic. Yeah
it is, you know, And how you call your albums
aren't albums. You said they're collections and you're very clear
on that. So just break that down though for people

(01:53):
who are listening and like we want to hear more dynamicism.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, for me, collection clarify as all the pieces that
go into them. So my art requires fashion, film, this
multi media. This sounds all the elements of design, So
to call it an album wouldn't characterize it or classified.
And the way that it encompasses all the other things,
all the mediums of art go into my art. I'm

(02:19):
in fashion week looking at production. I'm looking at fabrics
and production. I'm looking at the way their parents sound
with clothing. I'm thinking about that and how to incorporate
that in my song. I'm about I go home. I'm
back in the studio and I'm working, and I'm thinking, oh,
would this sound good with silk? It's crazy. I don't
know if other people are thinking about that, Okay, but
that's part of my process. So to encapsulate or encapsulate it,

(02:43):
calling it a collection is the right way to refer
to it. Like people that I really respect and really revere,
like fine artists, their bodies of are collections. Okay, Picasso's
making collections.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I could see. Maybe that's why I know you were
in the Book of Clarence, but it kind of reminds
me of James Samuel a little bit. Yeah too, that's
why they think you're British.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, you know, it's crazy James. That's my brother. I
love him with like family. We are family, so they
definitely give me that like, Yo, you're from London. I'm like,
I'll take it. It's alten in New York for me,
right right, because London definitely ain't nothing soft over there, and.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's definitely expensive, yeah, similar to New York for sure.
And so I want to talk about just so many
things because I've always wanted to have you up here.
First of all, you talk about fashion. It is fashion
week here in New York. Where would you say your
style of fashion was born Brooklyn? Brooklyn, Okay, for.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Sure, but it didn't state there. Wherever I'm from is
not why I ended up because I was always curious
about other things. I remember when I was in high school,
I was doing stupid shit like can I curse.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
My Yeah you did, yeah, bade.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was doing nonsense, what I would call nonsense now.
I remember taking it like a Louis Vuitton speedy you
know what I'm talking about. Yes, I had that in
high school, and I was I talked to people in
believing it was a mini carry on. I wasn't even
flying around nowhere.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
But how did you even have a Louis Batan.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Fake one too, hundred percent of fake one. I was
not up. I was furanessing. But they don't know no difference.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
You're right about that.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I'm in high school with how y'all know, y'all don't
know what this is. Oh.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I remember my first designer bag. That was way after
high school. Do you remember, like your first ever, because
that's a big deal when grown up in Brooklyn and
you get like your first design or something.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I held on to it for
a long time. I wish I still had it. It's
this Gucci black duffel, so it's black on black, so
the monogram is sort of embedded and you can't see
it from a distance, so if you were up close,
you realized it was cool. I had it. I got
it from the outlet too.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
I think we went to them Gucci outlets. Was no jo, No,
I've never been.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
What's the other one? I got busy at wood Berry.
I didn't even buy it too. A good friend of mine,
as girls, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
She boosted it.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Okay, she was scammy. She was scamming. She had a
good job. She was the first person I knew what
a good job.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
So wait, she bought it for you.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, she helped me out. She bought it for me,
saved my life.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
This is not the same girl that change the locks
on you.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Nah, that was my mom And okay, yeah nah moms. Wow,
she really did change the locks on me. I heard
my feelings. I still think about it now.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
But look, you did buy her a house. You paid
off a house.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
The crib.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's a beautiful thing. Let's go back to that. Why
did your mom change the locks on you? Because I've
always wanted to know. Shout out to Kira, who held
you down.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Back after caira man. Shout out to Kira. I closed
my eyes, all right, So I was in first of all,
the crib that she's in now, is that she turned
the change the locks on me? Is the crib that
I paid off. That's the full circle moment. So I
was living in Connecticut. I lived in Connecticut for like
three years after high school, right, and I was just

(05:47):
trying to figure out music and hustling, figure figure out
modeling all types of things, whatever the finanse was. I
was trying to make it work. And I was working
at this call center for this company. They sold this
product called Snuggie.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Oh, I love snuggies. Blanket, yeah with the arms. I'm
not gonna lie I had a snuggie.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I never even got one. I was working at the
call center. I never got one. I remember what I
was making until I was making seven twenty five an
hour man right, and we was living in New Haven.
But the call center was like forty five minutes outside
of New Haven, so I had to get on the
bus to get to the call center. I got off
of work at nine o'clock and the bus stop running

(06:26):
at eight thirty. So every night I was rolling the dice.
It was like, I praise somebody take me home because
I didn't know how it was going to go. They
don't get to make no friends at the call center.
You want a phone all day, you just taking calls,
finessing people like oh you want to yeah, get your
money back, or let me give you two snuggies instead
of your money back.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
So I was like flinging snuggies.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Slinging snuggies. So I got home one day and my
mom I looked clean. I always looked like I had
it together. My greatest asset was the way I presented myself.
So I remember getting home one day and it was
New Year's Eve and my momoud change the locks souse.
She thought I was getting money and not give on
her nunn Okay, I saw I'm making seven twenty five
an hour and I'm working twenty seven hours a week.

(07:06):
It was twenty seven to twenty eight. They only have
part time hours for me, so I'm struggling to figure
out how to get home at night after taxes is
probably one hundred and twenty dollars a week. And my mom,
because I looked clean and my skin was straight, she
was like, he's getting told. No, he getting to the bag.
And I'm like, but I can't explain that to a
Guyanese mother. She don't get it. She's just looking at
the aesthetic of it. So she changed the locks on

(07:28):
me on New Year's They broke my whole heart now
and died a pomeless for a little bit, and then
Kyra helped me down.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's a while. Did she just because she thought she
was getting to the money. But well, okay, let's flash
back to that, because as a woman, I always am like, okay,
but maybe sometimes history is what makes someone think that
because prior to that, right, were you a good kid
or were you doing things that made her feel like
my son is going down the wrong path.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I was like a half wicked kid, but I had
good intentions.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
He's so good at this, ladies, you hear this, Okay,
go ahead.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I had really good intentions because all of my brothers
would have They would the worst. They were on demon time,
so naturally that rubs off right. But everybody doing the
extreme wickedness like it wasn't going good for nobody. And
I was the younger brother, so I had to make
good decisions, better decisions. I'm like, oh, oh, that's not
gonna work if I go hustle. Look, it's like it's
six of y'all, everybody getting locked up, Uncle's getting locked up.

(08:23):
All this ain't Oh, this ain't no Tony Montana movie.
This ain't gonna work. One of us gotta do something different.
So I participated in some things and then other things.
I tried to be like way more smart, way more advanced,
because I just didn't think I was. I didn't have to. Look,
you know, we all know somebody in the street. Just
not confessing nothing. I'm just saying we all know somebody
from somewhere doing something super slimy and they're the luckiest personally,

(08:47):
playing nothing never happens. I wasn't that kid. I just
didn't have that lucks. It wasn't gonna go good for me.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
You had a different type of finesse to.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Different type of finesse. So nah, it wasn't like I
was up and I was getting money and I was thriving.
So I'm not sure what my mom thought. She just
a Guyanese parents where she's like, yo, you eighteen, you
an adult. You gotta paid bills.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I'm like, dog, how yeah, eighteen is still.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I'm like, you a child for a long time.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Eighteen especially guys. I feel like guys take a lot longer.
Like even I think about me and my brother. I
moved out, like eighteen seventeen, I'm gone. My brother was
still home, like I think to this day. Well, I
don't want to say this, but my mom still be
doing his laundry sometimes and were so growing. He's older
than me.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I'm shaking my head. I'm like, I ain't never really
had that, so I can't even relate. That sounds so
kind and nice.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Right, Well, and you also did live in Guyana part time, Okay,
so talk to me about Guyana I have a lot
of Guyanese friends. You know, I'm from Brooklyn too, so
Guyana is heavy in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
So half of my life, like half of my childhood,
I spent growing up in Guyana. So my first couple,
like my first couple months, I was in America. I
was born here because my mom wanted to stick it out,
have our papers. That was the whole play, right, The
whole family's Guyanese. All of the elders, so grandparents, aunts, uncles,
all the first generation were like me and my cousins.

(10:04):
And it was only half of us. So we got
here by the skin I teeth, right. So my mom
brought us here. She got three boys and one girl.
My pop makes up the other six. So there's ten
siblings because you know, in the Caribbean household, it don't
matter who gave birth to who.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
This is the whole family, your family.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, so there's all there's ten of us. But my
mom she made sure we came here and then she
sent us back because she ain't no money, right.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
But she got to come here, work, take care of you,
send money home.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah. So that was the place. So we would be
there for three years and then come back for three
years and then go back for three years, and then
come back for three years. And I'm not sure what
it was about the three year interval, but that's what
it took for her to save up enough money. She
was a nurse's aide at first. She started a cleaning company.
She was just figuring out her hustle and she was
a nurse's aid, working three shifts a day. I'm not

(10:52):
even sure how there's enough time to work three shifts
in one day, but that's what she was doing. So
when I was in Guyana, I would live sometime, I
would live with my pops. That happened really really early.
But then it was family friends. It was these four
women and helped raise me. Oh man, I don't get
to shot them out enough. Sheryl, Roxanne, Raizan, Lazan and Rabina,

(11:15):
and I was just a part of I didn't know
that they weren't my aunt so they want blood.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
It was like, that's amazing, you know when they say
it takes a village, and it's so nice how we
can all come together and do things like that, because
without them, who knows.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
I'd be somewhere stuck in the mud. For sure, I'd
be messed.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Up, you know. Hearing this whole story from you, What
do you think about what's happening now here? When we
think about immigration, when we think about how people are
this current administration, and maybe you know, certain people look
at people from other countries like, oh, we got to
send them back, get them out of here.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
How would this country have been built. We're built on immigrants,
the immigrants, all of us say, I.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Know who's from America, the Native Americans, and that's it.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
And outside of that, all of us have and in
some ways gentrified a land.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
No, no, I listen, I completely agree with you. I
actually my heart goes out to people who come here
and work really hard, because I think there is this
stigma that's being presented that it's like, Okay, you know,
these people are coming from other countries and they're taking advantage,
and they're raping and pillaging and stealing and doing all
these awful things. But I feel like immigrants are the

(12:26):
hardest work in people, and they want to be able
to pay their taxes and do things the right way,
and work and go to school and do all and
raise their families and feel safe and comfortable. But somehow
it's been presented in a whole different way depending on
the color of your skin.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's just good media or bad media, depending on what
side of the conon. Because that's always been a conversation.
When I was a kid, when my mom was a kid,
they didn't want they never wanted immigrants in this country,
although they took immigrant slave labor to build the whole country.
Now they feel like it's at a place where it's
a premium place to be, so they sort of discard

(13:02):
with or discard the rest of us. So I'm not
on the side of the coin that's voting for throwing
people away and sending him back to their country. I
think there's some dangerous things happening here. We got a
police immigration.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I think that we need to have laws right because
that's the other problem is that people can't agree on
how things should happen, and it's got to be a plan.
And that's the real problem is that there's no plan.
It takes forever. It takes a lot of money for
people to be able to stay here in this country,
and even people who want to do it the right way,
it could take years, sometimes over a decade for that
to happen.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
For sure, one of my closest friend, Rennie Penny, he
got his visa. He finally got his papers at thirty
five years old.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Wow, how long since he.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Was he'd been here since he was sixteen.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
See that's crazy, and people don't understand it. They're like,
these people aren't doing things the right way. They're trying,
they're trying.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, it's not simple, it's not effortless, and you can't
do it without an immense amount of resources. I mean,
you get this right, So imagine having to pay for
an immigrat lawyer when you could barely pay your rent.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Listen, and I had this woman on the show. She's
an author, she's from Haiti, and she told me the
most heartbreaking story about how she was working. She was
a nanny, she was doing all this stuff and her
immigration lawyer, she was paying him, meeting with him, and
he brought her to a room and raped her. And
she couldn't say anything because she was trying to get
her papers. This was her lawyer. The process had already started,

(14:26):
and she was like it was just a mattress and
you could tell this was something that he had done before.
So when I hear people talking about, oh, why aren't
they doing things the right way. People are trying and
they're trying their hardest, but it's not easy.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
There's nothing easy about becoming an American citizen. There's nothing
easy about it.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
And that's a test I can't even pass either. When
you see the question, I'm like, answer none of these questions.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
So I'm not voting for disparaging things that just throw
people back to the country they're front. Look, if you're
doing criminals, if you're being extreme and violating the land,
you got get out of it.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
You gotta go.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, even if you family. I've had a bunch of
my brothers get deported.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Oh wow, Diana, So this is not an unfamiliar conversation
for me, right, like you being a dirt back, I'll
get it all right, Cool, you're trying to get money. Cool, Cool,
it ain't work though, you got a slash.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
I know. Sorry, I know we were completely off charge
of what it is that we're talking about here. But
let's talk about this installation that you have now, because
you know it is festival season, you're doing Coachella.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, I'm finally doing Coachella.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
That's a look at the smile. That's a big deal.
So Where were you when you got that call? How
did that even happen?

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I probably was in Puerto Rico. I live in Puerto
Rico now, so I got the call.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
You live in Puerto Rico now?

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, yah, I live in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
In taxes, right, I'm not mad at that.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
This looks there's some benefits if you can get beaches,
taxes and just a better quality of life.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Than go for I love this. We're going to talk
more about that, but go ahead. Coachella.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
So I think I was in port. I think I
was probably in a living room. I got these Floridas
ceiling windows and make it look on make it feel
like I'm outside when I'm not outside, because I think
I'm an extroverted introvert, so I just want to look outside.
I don't I might not actually want to go. And
my agent was like, yo, I think we're getting Coachella.
It's happening, and you know, everything happens on time, even

(16:15):
when you feel like it's late. So in my mind,
I'm like, gang, what you mean? This can't be the
first time. But I was grateful for it. Nonetheless, because
I've done I've circled the son a bunch of times.
I've done shows and festivals and sold out tours in Australia, Europe,
even before I was torn in America, America every I've
done all the things that I'm excited by.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
But that was on a list, right, that's a vibe
right there. So festival season, So is that part of
Like why festival Season as the name of the collection.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I think it's just important for us to brush showler
is in being uncomfortable settings. Did a design for people
to feel more free, Like when you leave your house
with the intention to go see a show, it's different
when you're in an enclosed box versus you're in somewhere
where the space's mass and there's air and greenery around
you and people that you don't know who to enjoy
themselves and you can tell I wanted the nature of

(17:07):
that energy in the body of work that I'm presenting.
So this collection, when you listen to it, that's it's
called festival Season because it feels like you're at the
Saint John Festival. It actually sounds like you were just
listening to a.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Live a live show. A live show, yeah, a live performance.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
The whole thing is a set list. It starts like
I'm opening Coachella and it ends like I'm closing Wireless festival.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
That's going to listen. So they sent it to me yesterday,
so it's it's not a short album, so I haven't
had a chance to digest it, because I don't like
when people talk too much about music when you haven't
had a chance to really like live with it. But
what I did see is what is hold on the
name of the performance that you just did? Popping?

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Is that what I was? Yeah, yeah, I did.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
No.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Let's talk about this song for a second, because it
feels a little different for you, but it's still fun.
It's like it's got like a sexy red vibe. And
by the way, I do enjoy songs that are like
just fun like that and a little nasty. But it
was a risk for you, I feel like, which I

(18:16):
don't think that you're reverse to that, But talk to
me about that song.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's just an ignorant record. It's not in my mind,
actually not just in my mind. In my catalog of music,
I've touched this space a bunch of times. It's these
just saw my biggest records. So to be to be
gone for four years and come back and present this
like this is something you need to see. It's aggressive,
it's almost disruptive. So if you just wanted to hear

(18:41):
something melodic and something pleasant, it's not that. But that's okay.
Everything has its place. Take Keith, it you weren't crazy.
It's ignorant, but I'm always known for ignorant music. It's
part of that because that's part of my dynamic.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
That's what makes me, That's what makes it makes to
you because I feel like we all have that, we
have all sides right to be able to sit here
and have these more in depth conversations. But then when
you all got that fun ignorant side to us too.
Absolutely you know you're from Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, even the girls going to church be twerking.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
So it's just that Christian sex club.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Christian sex club.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
I mean, it all is kind of.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Like that lives in my space. I always dance on
the line. I dance on the line of is that okay,
did he go too far? Is it too far? What
does he mean? Do I believe in that? Is it exciting?

Speaker 1 (19:28):
You know? But like you said, it's been four years,
So did you have any type of like hesitation about
it or were you just like you just don't care.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
I do care. Be foolish to pretend like I don't care.
I spent a lot of time making art. I care enough.
I almost care too much, But I didn't want to
overproduce the results of it. For one, when you listen
to this entire body of work, all of it will
makes sense, okay, when you take things, when you take
things outside of context of you know, the whole sound beat,

(19:57):
the whole collection, you might itemize and be like, I
don't want that. I get why you don't want that.
If I just took a scene out of pulp fiction
and gave you no context to it, it just seems
like the guy's having a monologue about.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Nothing right right, Okay, But when.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
You watch the movie, you go, oh, he was called killer.
That's it. The entire cinema of this performance. Sonically, it
all reads well together, It all lives well together. It's
a live show.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Listen all right, Well, I'm gonna talk about some of
the songs that really stuck out to me. A fuck
me and Sad. I enjoyed that one. And you know,
I think relationship wise too, as you talk about how
there's these different sides to you relationship wise. I can't
figure out what it is that you want. So if

(20:48):
you had to say relationship wise, this is where you
see yourself, what would you say? Because you know you
had the song previously wedding day and it feels like
you want to be married and you wanted to last forever.
But then.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I don't know it just don't be working.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
So don't be working? Is it because of you?

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Or oh I got to be partially accountable. Maybe it's
because of me. Maybe maybe because I make bad picks.
I'm not really sure, but it got to be a
combination of things. If I keep picking bad then.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
That got to be on me, right m hmm okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So even look in all of my artwork, there's a
reoccurring theme. There's something in a visual art. I keep
putting me in a bride. There's always a woman in
a veil. I even did this for my video called Lust.
The song called Lust, I had four Chocolate Barbie brides
in the desert in white veils and white lingerie and

(21:37):
we were on a Nissan that I think Z six
three hundred or something like that. I remember the car.
I keep flirting with the idea because the fantasy in
my mind is to meet the type of woman it
would make me want to get married, not forced me
to marry her, but would be so exciting that me.
It would make me challenge something that it's not something
I believe in, because the idea of marriage just don't
work in twenty twenty five. It really doesn't work. The

(21:58):
sanctity of it, it's a beautiful concept, but the practicality
of it, living through it, it's really difficult and most
people can't survive it. So I flirt. I'm constantly am
flirting with the danger of Oh, I'm telling the truth
of the danger of I don't really believe in it's
because it don't work, But I like to be a
place where somebody makes me feel so compelled that I

(22:19):
want to try something that I know is disastrous.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Have you ever felt that even for a moment, because
I feel like I could see that there's been moments
when you're like, you've probably even said it.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Before, Oh, like I want to marry it, Yeah, you have,
I gotta say it. Let me say I want to
marry you. I'm trying to say to relive it in
my head, I wouldn't marry you. I want to marry you.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I don't know if I've ever even.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Said it, because it's to call someone wifey.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
You know, I used to hate that word.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, I don't really like that.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I hate that word wify. So I'm not really even sure.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
It reminds me of the song by next you being
my wife what we call like, you know, anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I don't think I've ever done that, but I've I've
had I've been in relationships where I would have married
the woman, but I wouldn't. I didn't believe in it,
so it wouldn't have been right either way. I would
have done it to honor the relationship. But I'm like,
that's dumb. That doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
So you think that maybe one day it would just
wouldn't be traditional because listen, being with somebody getting married,
I think now there's all different ways that people are
having relationships where it's like we're married, but X, Y
and Z, or maybe you have four brides.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
For the four brides that sound like that sound like
that could work?

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, you think you can handle that?

Speaker 2 (23:38):
You know what? People pretend like that's some easy thing.
That's not a small sport. Definitely not nah, that's a
big sport to manage four personalities keep everybody happy. I
would try. I try real hard.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Oh my gosh, I try real hard. I feel so
sorry for you. Would be so stressed.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Out, probably, but some days wouldn't be so stressful at all.
Some days would just be wonderful.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Now you said accountability on yourself, What do you think
about you? Because you know, sometimes people would say, a
guy made me this way, like everything was good. He
did this to me, he hurt me, And now this
is how I am and I'm acting so out of character.
I'm not like myself because of what you did to me.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
I don't blame nobody for me, not necessarily the things
that I just didn't learn, I really just didn't like
my mom didn't teach me anything about she thought I
was going to abuse it. I remember her being like,
I'm not telling y'all nothing about girls, nothing about how
to deal with women. I was kind of a miss.
I was a misstep, but she was just trying to
make sure that we didn't become more wicked. But what
she really did was she didn't give us information.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
I think that's a Caribbean thing too, Like because my
mom they definitely never had any talk with me about
anything when it came to relationships or you know, whoever
I was going to end up with. It's just not
a conversation. Not they just don't want you to do it.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Did they talk to you about sex though, No, my
mom definitely talked me about But did she tell you
about se put on that condom? I don't want no babies.
She was just keeping it a buck and I could
live with that. I was like, cool, you got a
bunch of boys. You got to figure out how.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
To do that because you could be bringing home all
kind of kid.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, it could go left. But she definitely just didn't
want to give me game on women. But and my
pops was just he's had a lot of women.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
So I had dad as your yeah, example of what
it is.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
My earliest superhero was a guy that just had a
ton of women around him. He wasn't treating them well
because he definitely was gone. It went left with my mom.
She was still in his life when he just had
a bunch of women. His mistress used to live a
couple blocks away, and everybody knew, we knew, my mom knew.
I guess this is wild. She might hear this and
be like, yo, you tell me, Oh, she might be at.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
It right, but that was normal that you're so right
about that. One of my friends is Jamaican and her
it was actually her husband had a whole other family
around the corner. She only found out because she followed
him one day. Oh my god, and he act like
he had a job, he was going to work, but
he was going to his other house around literally around
the corner. That's expensive too, Yeah, yeah, it is. You

(26:06):
got to really have it going on to really do
yo broke.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Maybe God's be broke having three families. I don't know how.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
They do it, Yeah, because one family is a lot,
a lot, And I could tell you have expensive taste already, So.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, and I'm gonna have I'd have my girl and
my kids being fly. I would end up being a
bum if I had multiple families, right, because.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
They care them first. Yeah, Now look back to fuck
being sad. You did say that you wish you were
still friends with your ex, but she don't mess with you?
Which ex are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
She's not going to get the credit, so I'm not
even gonna point it.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, why don't she talk to you at all? Anymore,
like why and what do you miss about that?

Speaker 2 (26:45):
I think we just had a really good relationship, like
our connection, our bond is people like we were friends first.
So in the last couple of relationships, I figured out
whole friendship has to be the thing that you prioritize.
Me it took a while to do that. Only you
meet somebody, you're just interested in them for the purposes
you're interested in them for so Yo, she's exciting, she's sexy,

(27:05):
he's sexy, whatever you like, like you know when it's
male or female. But you don't go into it with
the intention of, Yo, you cool. I just want to
be cool with you. You're attractive, I'm attracted, but that's not
the intention here. I just want to see if you're cool,
and we could hang out, we could play table tennis,
and we could.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Go table whatever it is, you know specific.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
And she was that. She was just a cool a
really cool person, like a really great friend. But then
when we introduced the relationship component friendship, it's just everything
went out the window. It just couldn't work. It wasn't sustainable.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you think you could be faithful.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Faithful? Nah, I'm saying that I'm looking around the room.
Monogamy is a heavy responsibility on everybody. Yes, it's heavy.
It's heavy. So for you to ask somebody to make
sure that you're there all and there you're all, and
they come to you to seek all of their needs

(28:09):
that they can't fulfill internally, all the things that external needs,
that's heavy. Most people aren't ready for that. They say
they are, but how could you when you get the
two am call? Yo, come on, you know what's up?
I melick.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Dan's getting married in a couple of months and he is.
I feel like he's going to be you know, I
feel like he's going to be faithful. Yeah, I'm not.
I mean I can't guarantee anything, but it definitely feels
like for them, they're each other's Are you just maybe
haven't found that yet? Like you said, well, you.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Know what, not the drag Dan into this because he's
got to go home to his woman and that would
be dangerous. She's lit them, I can Dan. How difficult
is it to go to one person for all of
the things you need, even when they're an exceptional human being?
How challenging is it? Really? Text? Because that becomes our expectation,
we really do expect the person that we love and

(29:00):
we trust and we're transparent with to somehow be able
to fulfill the things that we communicate to them that
we need right and they have their own life qualms, expectations, faults, Like,
how does that work for real?

Speaker 3 (29:13):
It's just a conversation.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
I feel like no one will ever be able to
fulfill everything anyone needs. No one will ever reach that
level of fulfillment period. So like for me with my fiance,
it was kind of just like, what are the most
important things in my life that I either can't do
by myself or don't want to do by myself? And

(29:39):
is this someone that I can see to be the
mother of my children? Is this someone that I can
trust to like lead me? Is it someone I can
trust to make important decisions under stressful situations? And yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
He converted his religion to get married, so he's Muslim
now wow? Yeah, sorry, Dan, Yeah, he's a big fan
of yours. Doesn't wanna let you know. He was very
excited you would coming.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
To the fire.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Fire questions, That's why That's why he was That's why
he has no problem answering these questions.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
But I'm also not going to answer questions behind the scenes,
and then people are watching the interview on everyone it's like,
what are the saying?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, no, of course he's a professional. Did you have
any questions before I finish? Before I continue?

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Now you keep doing your thing, okay, all right, So.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Christian Sex Club, since we just talked about religion and
your fashion, Like, I do have a sweatsuit that I
love that I've had for literally years.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
How's the fabric?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
It's amazing. When I tell you, I could wash it,
put it in a dryer, no problem. And every time
I wear it, people are like, where did you get
that from?

Speaker 2 (30:37):
How's the packaging that it arrived in.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I don't remember the packaging. I felt like maybe I
had the zipper bag.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, yeah, a tour It should have been even transparent.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
It was transparent black and it has like the oh.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
It says not a cult.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah so, and I love it like to this day
it's still in. It looks brand new like the day
that I got it. And you know, I'm big on quality.
I'm not the type. I don't like fast fashion.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Same yeah, same. I mean I do like a skin
tight something on somebody I like mm hm and I
usually ain't so expensive.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Right, right, But I don't want to well women, I
think get away with that.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Guys, don't it don't work.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
You can't have No. I don't want well made quality clothing,
strings hanging off of it.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Crazy. You got lint in your bed from the inside
of your terry cloth shirt or hoodie that you wearing,
you could tell.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
But even the name Christian sex club. Talk to me
about that because we just talked about religion. We just
talked about the two different like, you know, you're young
and you're yang, So was that ever something that like,
did you get any flack for that or did with people? No?

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Nope, I didn't get any flack. And saying that out
loud now, who knows what that's going to fight? Who
knows what's gonna come from that. But no, people never
took it as something that was sacrilegious because it doesn't
come from that place. Right. I'm too rooted in religion,
too real for me. In fact, the whole part Saint John,

(32:03):
Christian sex club, the Cross, these are all things that
I ran from. My mom pushed me into religion, forced
it upon us. She wasn't even going to the church.
She had us going to what. Yeah, she was on
that type energy. Yeah, Caribbean mom energy.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
I used to have to go to church with my
my grandfather all the time, and as soon as he
moved back to the West Indies, my mom stopped going
to church and my grandfather would write us letters every
week about how my mom was now like a you know,
just how he was upset about the path that she
took and we have to go to church, and he
became a missionary and everything.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
My mom is a minister.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Oh wow, okay, that's next level.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
So and my so, my grandmother and my mom they
both studied metaphysics and I guess they got their masters
in metaphysics. So that's their acting. Well, my grandmother passed now,
but my mom is carrying on a tradition and she's
a minister. So if she's not offended, and she knows
the intention of her child, she knows how she read me.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
And she's so proud of you.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I'm sure, super proud of me, super proud. I played
her festival season. I went to see her in Connecticut
for like Christmas. H yeah, Christmas, and I played it
for her in a car and some of it is
Volga for sure. So I'm like, oh man, how's Barbara
gonna deal with this? She wasn't tripping at all, she
ain't break a sweat. She actually was like, this is unbelievable.

(33:24):
Because my mom calls me my first name, which is Carlos.
N Yeah, well she says Carlos. So she was like, Carlos,
this is beautiful. She gave me the greatest compliment. I
don't play music for my mom, really I don't. It's
not something that's not a part of my practice.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
But does she come to shows?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
She has, because I've invited her, for sure, and she
comes and she's really proud, and she'd be she'll drip,
she'll be dripping in her own aesthetic. She won't look
like nobody else. And she I remember, she said, this
body of work is so incredible and refined and mature,

(34:03):
and she just kept saying things. And I only have
like two instances in my life when I played music.
For first time was when I sent her Brownskin.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Girl, because you knew she was gonna love that automatic.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Automatic, so she loved that. And then the second time
was another song. And I think this is the third,
this is the third or the second I.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Believe that Brownskin Girl, that's surreal. Like to have that
under your belt. That's something that I don't know who.
That's a rare accomplishment for anyone.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
It feels good.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yes, that's how I felt when I wrote it. That's
I felt just like that because my intention was so clear.
I'm not when I'm making music, I'm trying to be honest, right,
I'm just being honest with whatever the emotion is at
the time and the transparency of my feelings. But Brownskin
Girl had an intention. I knew what I was aiming
to do when I was making it. I don't often
do that, so to look at the target fire and

(34:57):
hit it. Because I was trying to make a song
that I thought about my future children. I was thinking
about a future daughter that I could have one day.
And if all I did was make songs and all
I did was leaving money, and all I did was
take cool pictures, and all I did was know some
people and make some movies, then I didn't do anything
intentionally for them or for her. So this was future daughter.
This is for you. I'm making this for you because

(35:19):
I want to sing this to you at night.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
I want you to know beautiful.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
That was my hope in my dream. So I don't
have the I don't have a kid yet. Yeah, but
that was my hope, and I didn't consider all the
people that would be singing it to their daughters. I
was making it for one that I would have.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
So wait till that happens. That's gonna be. I can't
wait till you do that.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh my gosh, that.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Clip with this music playing and you in the hospital.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
It's gonna blow my whole mind.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Having a daughter is also gonna change probably your whole
view on Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, I'll be I'm be softer, I'm be a sucker, right,
that's what happens. Guys would come.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Sucking you gotta get for you.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
They saw a review in the tapes and all the
terrible things they did.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
They're like, I don't want that karma to hit me
and my daughter goes because the one thing I will say,
as a man, you should want your daughter to be
with somebody like you.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yes, so you got little time to work on it.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
I think I'm a really good guy, you know what.
I don't know if most guys will say, if they're
really honest, they look in the mirror I'm like, no,
you look, this is just me talking about me. So
it sounds crazy either way. Taking however, the quality of
human being that I feel like I am when I
look in the mirror, I'm who I say I am.
And that's the most important thing to me. I'm who
I say I am. How many people you mean, they're

(36:35):
not who they say?

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Are you right? You know what you're getting?

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, I got some I got some things, I got fixed,
some patches I gotta patch up. But I'm who I
say I am. And I think that's remarkable, and.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
You feel like you're exactly where you need to be.
Because even thinking about how you got on the map
as far as being an artist, because we know you
were writing songs also, but getting on the map as
an artist and having a song like break through the
way it did, that's also something that's really I don't
know too many situations like that either, you know, just
with Roses and seeing how everything happened and transpire from

(37:11):
when you put it out and then years later to
have that be a song that's like a big hit.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
It was incredible confirmation for me. When I first put
out Roses, I was certain it was a hit record.
What's funny is that that's part of the Beyonce conversation too,
because initially I wrote Roses because I was trying to
get it to her and it just never landed, and
I was like, oh, I'm no, this is this is
a record. And I tell this to the other songwriters too.
I'm like, yo, somebody came up to the media other day,

(37:37):
like I was in Berlin, and they're like, y'all, I
got a hit record for you. First of all, I'm
not taking records from nobody.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Ecause then they gonna act like you stole this song.
I gave him the record. I ran up on him
in Berlin.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
I don't take nobody writes my songs. I write every
single thing I do. I co produce every single thing
that I make. I don't want nobody's ideas, not because
other people don't have good ideas, just because every word
I say. I want to be true to my story
in my belief system. I want to design a fabric
I live in.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Does that come from you having written songs for other
people and their interpretation of it maybe not being your
intention or where does that come from?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I think all my heroes were just independent, okay, and
I borrowed from that, and I just want to be
the author of my own destiny and all the language
and all the script that goes with it. That's always
been a course that I wanted to chart. So a
God comes to me and Berlin, he's like, I got
to hear record for you, and I tell him that.
I was like, it's a hit. He's like, yeah, I said,

(38:34):
and why are you trying to bring it to me?
Fam put it out. If it's what you say it is,
you don't need me. That's what I felt when I
made Roses. If it's what I say it is, I
don't care who doesn't want it. It's going And it
did that. So that was incredible confirmation for me. I've
seen my dreams come true and confirmation of my belief

(38:56):
multiple times in my life enough to know that I'm
not crazy. Other people just don't get it yet.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
What are another couple of examples where you've seen that happen.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
I've seen it happen in fashion when So Christian Sex Club,
I turned it from a thirty thousand dollars investment to
a multimillion dollar company that's huge, just independently and not
to I don't say it like no flex, I say
it like.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
That's a big deal.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
That's business acumen. Because I'm an art entrepreneur. I take
my ideas and I turn them into real things that
are tangible. So all I do is continue believing in
myself and I continue investing in my ideas and my thoughts.
Most people don't do that.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
You're right about that. People will have the best ideas,
but if you never execute an idea doesn't matter. And
then someone else does it, and you're like, I had
that idea, and now I see this person doing it.
And there's also people who are creative but also don't
like to deal with the business aspects of things. But
you are very involved in your own business side of things.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, I used to manage myself. I came from that
school of thought where I have to go in a
room and talk to people and learn the game.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
And then bigs But does big still manage you? So
how did that come? And that's for a while now,
So how did you even how were you able to
even give up that type of control being that you
manage yourself, And clearly a lot of what you do
business wise is you being independent doing your own thing.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
I wanted some When I first met Biggs. First of all,
it's Biggs. I'm wearing a Rockefeller cham.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
I see the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
All right, this is just part of my childhood dreams.
I get really excited think about it. A Brooklyn, this
is it. This is it. When I met him and
he was a fan of mine, which is trippy. He
was like, yo, bro, I'm a fan. Tata just put
me onto the music and we just started building a
really good relationship. And what I needed at the time,
and what I still need and require, is I just

(40:39):
needed somebody who's going to fight with me, not fight me,
fight someone else on behalf of the things that I need,
the belief systems that I have, the art that I
was making. I just needed somebody in a room that
could have a difficult conversation with other people. That's all
I wanted. I didn't need anybody with great resources. I
didn't need anybody who knew how to do this. Are

(41:00):
you willing to put your fists up for me?

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Right? Do the hard negotiation?

Speaker 2 (41:04):
That's it? And he was that.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
He was like, sometimes negotiating for yourself gets emotional too.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
It does.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
It's hard because it's like you know your value, and
it's hard to hear other people try to like place
something on it that you think is more valuable than that.
It's good to have somebody else do that because it
can get very heated in those conversations. When you're going
to bat for yourself and you know what you want
and then someone says something, you'd be like, you know what,
forget it? Fuck you.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
You need separation, Yeah, you do, because you're talking about yourself.
They say business isn't personal, but when you're a person
doing business, it's as personal as it possibly gets. So
you need a little bit of separation just so you
can communicate your needs and somebody else can. Someone else
can scream as someone without it coming back to you. Right,
you need a bat.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
I don't want to know what happened in that. I
just want to know we got to where we needed
to get to.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, he's great at that because he was a silent
partner for one hundred and thirty nine years, so he
knows how to be a polite bully.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
And Bigs ain't big no more either.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
This is this is six pack of bigs. It's a
sick faust. Bigs ain't big no more. You got me
adulged in this.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Now I want to talk also about because you are
Guyanese and you know the song Loneliness that's not a
new album that has a Caribbean feel to it all
the way, all the way. So tell me about, you know,
the process of making that song and how this came about.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
So we started it everything that I did from this
collection I made in Puerto Rico. Okay, So when I
was there, as I'm living there, I'm listening to reggaeton,
I'm listening to them bao, I'm listening to everything that's fast,
it makes you move, that makes you dance, and I've
never really been able to make people dance. That's like
one of my I gotta figure that out because I
think it's a skill. Right. So when I was making Loneliness,

(42:48):
I was like, this song is beautiful, but it didn't
have the drums and it didn't have the tempo yet.
I just made it just the chord. So it was
just a really pretty sad song, which I'm clearly good
at making sad songs because I'll be sad. But then
I called Mashall Montana That's the king. Me and Mishall
met a couple of years ago Road March in Trinity

(43:10):
and we've been meaning to work and I was like, bro,
I got a record. He's the King and I'm super
humble and we got a good relationship, and I'm like, bro,
would you would you do this? Would you get on
this record with me? The song is done. I just
needed him to do backgrounds. I just wanted him to
do ad libs and he was like absolutely, and.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
I was like, that's great.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Bro. Marshall was down straight to the top and I
was like, yo, the drums. He was like, I know
the drums ain't there. He's like, I'm gonna get it right.
So he worked with his guys to get the drums right.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
That's so dope.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
So it makes my heart warm. That's hometown hero for.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Me's I feel you on that. I met him at
the they had the Caribbean Awards and he was there.
I was like, this is amazing. He's in Brooklyn at
King's Theater, like crazy, yeah, crazy.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
So that song Loneliness is Soca. It sounds like Afro
Caribbean is really a Soca.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Record, right right. I feel it because when I heard it,
I was like, this feels like you at you know,
at a carnival or a road march.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
I can't wait to do it at carnival. He was like, Yo,
we gotta do this one a carnival. I said, we're
gonna win. We're gonna ren ruled March if we go.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
So wait, So you still have another collection after this, Yeah,
and you said they are both. This is coming out
February twenty first festival season, but then you have the
next collection dropping this year.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, it's called Fake Tears from a Pop Star.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Okay, Fake Tears from a Pop Star? What is that?

Speaker 2 (44:36):
So Festival Season and Fake Tastes from a Pop Star
a two halves from the same Apple Festival Season is animated.
It's extroverted, and Fake Tess from a Pop Star is introverted.
There's lots of moments on it when I'm reflecting on
things that are difficult for me to talk about. Okay,
you hear a lot of information, a lot of life reality.

(44:56):
It's probably me at my status and most vulnerable and
most open, and I try to be open and honest
in all of my music, and sometimes it's clouded by
the production, Like when you hear Festival Season. The production
is so dynamic that you don't realize there's moments that
are troubling me, that are things that are hurting me

(45:17):
because it's disguised by the drums in the sense right,
But on Fake Tears from a Pop Star, the title
of it in and of itself is I'll tell you
what it really derives from. I know that the place
that I've managed to walk myself into at this point
in my life means that even when I'm going through something,
it just seems performative to people. When I'm on that

(45:37):
stage and I'm giving my best self, my most hurt self,
my most honest self, my most difficult conversations happen when
I'm on that stage. Festival season is the stage, and
Fake Tears is the result of being on the stage
knowing that when I cry and they clap, it doesn't
solve my pain. And the applause that I get from tears,

(46:01):
they just think it's cool, he's performing. They don't know
that I go home and I got to deal with
myself and my realities are harsh, no matter what car
I drive, no matter where I live or how big
my windows are. Same kid from Brooklyn, the same kid
from East New York as found himself in a different
place in life, but his problems found him.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
It's kind of like you said, nobody wants to hear
these complaints from a rich Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, nobody wants to hear a rich and a good cry.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah. It doesn't seem free because especially not on social media.
Oh my god, as soon as somebody's having some issues,
they're like, well, what the they're famous, what do they
care to they have money, we don't want to hear
even like look at the fires in La right, I
saw people not having any type of empathy for people
who have literally lost their homes. Yo, you're rich by

(46:46):
another one, because you don't know what people's You know,
you might have a nice home, maybe that was your everything.
But just seeing that, I was like, we are in
a world where people don't be having no empathy for you.
If and when people see like a rich person, they
automatically think your life should be perfect.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, because well it looks like that. H from the
outside end. I was a super poor kid, just just
trying to hustle, trying to get it, so I might
have thought the same thing until experience taught me that
money doesn't it doesn't cure your pain. It doesn't make
anything go away. It illuminates everything. Just so if you
have all the resources you need and you finally have

(47:23):
access all the things that you want and you still
can't find peace, that's the scariest thing on the planet.
Because you were told that when you grow to a
place where things are better for you and the scenario
is better, you will feel better. Well that doesn't happen.
It destroys you because who are you supposed to run
to because you can't run away from yourself? Fake tis

(47:45):
from a pop stars that I can't run away from myself.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Wow, this is going to be amazing. And I know
I saw you responding to people that were like, are
you sure it's really coming out? So what's the rollout?
And people are asking questions like that, and you've even
for the first collection though you put out like I
think three singles yeah, yeah, ahead of time that people
had the opportunity to listen to. So I do think
that people sometimes feel like they like when people are

(48:11):
in pain and make music. Yeah, like audiences prefer that
for some reason.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
But they're not hoping you heal. They're not saying yo,
he's in pain. I wishing the best. I love this music.
Thank you for sharing. I hope you find peace. They're
like more pain, hurt more.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, they'll be like, oh, Mary makes the best music
when she's going through some heartbreak. I know this next
album's going to be hit. And it's like, Dan, you
don't want her to.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
You don't want to be happy. And you know, because
you trade your humanity for this type of success or
this type of visibility, you stop being human a minute.
You become something that someone celebrates. That happens right your
anonymity is out the window and you're no longer a person.
You no longer your mother's son, your sister's friend. You
just you just lit.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
How is Puerto Rico for you living there? And do
you feel like you get more privacy being in Puerto
Rico than you would in La or New York?

Speaker 2 (49:06):
I do? I do. I wanted peace. I wanted something
that felt like Diana. That's what I was chasing. I
needed the version of Guyana that I can still get
my business done because I was really close to the
rest of the planet. So I do a lot of
work in Europe and a lot of work in America.
In Puerto Rico, Sandwich right in the middle I could
get the Florida in two hours. I could get straight
to Barcelona and seven eight hours with a direct flight.

(49:29):
It's peaceful, it's simple. Nobody nobody cares about Saint John.
Nobody's looking for me, like, yo, that's the guy who
did Roses or brownskin girl.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
They don't care Jan right, Jan st Juan San Juan.
So do you speak Spanish at all? Now you're working
on it?

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, you're my accent through.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah. So how how is it though for you living there?
Because that is a different I mean, it's completely different
from every experience that you had.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, it's in some ways it might be the bravest
thing I've ever done. But I'm so accustomed to moving
because I'm looking for the life that I've dreamt of
in my head. So I'm cool to hunted. I don't
mind hunting it. Then, if I'm being really transparent, Puerto
Rico's racist. No one talks about that, and I've never
even said that out loud.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
You mean like colorism or in every variation. Yeah, we
hear a lot about that. I remember Amaro ln Neegta
I talked about the colorism and the Hispanic community, and
that's been a real thing the images you see on TV.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
It's loud, active and very present. Even when you think
of Latin artists, you don't think of nobody that don't
look whitish, Right, you're right, and that I'm like, that
ends up being that's an amplification of whatever's happening on
a small scale. Right. You look at the things that
represent the culture that we consume and you're like, oh,

(50:54):
this is Latin culture. Show me what it's about, give
me a demo of it. And you see a slide
show you don't see any you don't see people of
varying color. You start thinking only that exists, and only
that should be celebrated, because that's the only thing that
they're allowing to be celebrated.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Like in They're Telenovela, as they say, it's all like
white looking Puerto Ricans and Hispanic people on those same thing.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
In the musicianship, there's black artists. You never hear about them.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Right, And then that's always been an issue in some
of the reggae tone videos. It's like, where's all the
brownskin women in the videos?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
The afril athenas, Where where's the representation from them or
for them? It's just not present, and then when you
get there and you live in the land, that's when
you Yeah, I feel the absence of it, like they
almost look at you. I remember when I first got there,
I just didn't get it. I'm six three, my hair
looks like this. I'll be wearing my sleeves off, my
legs be out. I'm like, so it's kind of hard
to miss me. I'm kind of like an alien.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Right sleeves off, legs out here.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I am right here. I'm walking through the mall. I
remember walking through the mall one day and I've never
felt this before. And I've been around the world and
I've seen racism in different ways, and I remember nobody
looking at me, and I remember thinking, Okay, that's not
crazy that people aren't looking at me. But people would
go out of their way to not look in my direction.

(52:13):
And it took me a while of process. I was like,
what's going on here? I just didn't get it. I
couldn't because my brain does in default too. They don't
love me because of the color of my skin, because
my skin is beautiful, I'm glowing. I can't. Yeah, you
love that seems like you don't love yourself. So my
brain didn't compute it like that, and it took three
years before I could see the experience. I could gather

(52:35):
a bunch of a bunch of experiences, and I saw
that this is consistent. Like, oh, y'all, just don't y'all,
don't rake.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Looking at me. You purposely refused to you.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Don't acknowledge my humanity. And then when because I'm in
the capital, the capital of any country should tell you
a lot about the country, right, it tends to reflect
all of the small behaviors of that economy in the
capital and find no black people unless they tourists. I'm like, nah,
I can't How was that?

Speaker 1 (53:03):
That's wild?

Speaker 2 (53:04):
How was that? I gotta go to Bignon's, I gotta
go to Louisa. I'm in San Juan. Where's the people
of color? Everybody here white? So yeah, and I lived there.
So I imagine this conversation on make some people upset,
and hopefully it makes some people feel a little bit
more reflective.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, and think about you know, yea, the times that
we're in Boy, well, listen, I want to thank you
so much for coming, like this was an amazing conversation.
Dan's happy you even got Dan to open up. Oh man, No,
but I appreciate it because I know we took this
in a lot of different you know places, and this
could have went on and on and on. Oh, I
do want to actually one last thing because I wrote
down a little bit of notes the song anything can

(53:42):
happen where I know you've worked with Kanye and Mika
is on there. He addresses Kanye his support of Trump.
Sometimes people get on your records, not just you, but
like in general, and they talk about someone else. Is
that a decision to make? Like Ooh, I don't know
if I want to put this on my song because
we've heard this happen with other people, Like I know
he was gonna say something about this person, or what

(54:02):
did you think when you heard it?

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I thought it was cool. It's freedom and speak you
got to be It's is art. If you can't express
yourself in art, then where would you feel free enough
to even communicate your pains or truths. I thought it
was cool, Like that's how you really feel. He ain't
really say nothing offensive. He just said his perspective. He
ain't say nothing derogatory or degrading.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
It was just like we're thinking, like a lot of
us this.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
A line of thinking don't make sense for me. I
thought that was cool. But if somebody says something I
genuinely don't believe in and I got to stand behind
it on a piece of art, like I don't even
like the opinion that it exists, then I might have
to counsel myself, because I really don't want to limit
people from being able to tell the truth, but I
don't want them.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
To do it on myney, not on your Have you
ever had to be like, let me take this off,
let me I haven't. Okay, I haven't. Do you ever
have to send something back to someone and be like,
I don't know if I'm really feeling this verse? Can
you okay?

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Do it again? That's not the direction. I ain't do
it again?

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Is that hard to do?

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Oh? I just get on the phone and have an
artist artist conversation.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Okay, some people get offended. That's by no.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
I'll be like, look, so the way I was thinking
about this was melodic. You went rhythmic.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
That's nice. You're so good. You're dynamic.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
I'm dynamic.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Well. The first the second installation, a collection to Fake
Tears from a Pop Star, is going to be out
later this year. Right, that's a that's a promise. That's
a promise. Yeah, Okay, I don't want to have to
run his bag, no, because that would.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Be dissatisfied for me. I'd be dissatisfying. Okay, it's been
four years. People have been waiting for collection too, so
I'm clear that it needs to happen because musically, I
got to move on. Creatively, I have to keep going.
So if I've been here making fake tasts from a
pop star for four years, that means that the fact
that you and I having this conversation right now means

(55:53):
that I'm actually no longer creative.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Lea there, So that's donner. Is it done already?

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Okay, I'm in a future. I'm thinking about the collection great,
the two collections that come out after that. I'm almost
fashioning the way that I look at art, the way
designers release their collections a close. I'm looking at Fall
of twenty twenty six nice like I can't. I can't
live here in this moment for too long. I get stuck.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Well, festival season is for sure February twenty I heard
it February twenty first, and I'm gonna go back and
listen to it some more since I just got it.
But don't worry, I won't leak it out or nothing.
Cool And yeah, thank you so much. This was such
a pleasure to be able to sit and have this conversation.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
May you finally got the talk?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Finally? I know we've been working on this, but thank
you so much. Just two Brooklyn kids, you know, kicking.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
It Brooklyn kids. More to come, all right,