Jon B • R&B MONEY Podcast • Episode 013

[Music] we are the authorities on all things ladies and gentlemen what's going on i am tank i'm jay valentine and this is the r b money podcast the authority on all things r b oh my god yeah yeah yeah i don't real i don't do my birdman hands too often i don't i don't i don't run together too often you know because you know i'm kind of legendary but when the legend the legendary gets deeper than my legendary man [Laughter] okay they don't know about this here this man said that you make some noise for mr johnson [Applause] first of all thank you thank you thank you you know what i mean thank you thank you so much i remember i remember back in the day listening to um one of my favorite artists of all time babyface yeah and i remember a record coming on and i'm like man baby facing out a little yeah added a little stink to his vocal yeah and they're like that's not babyface yes it is yeah that first moment we wanted we wanted to you know kind of play with the play with them a little bit they saw you that video that video girls was like [Music] all black women say yes he is yes he is um you've been killing for a long time man like what we like to do is we like to start at the very beginning yeah like you know from the first time you felt like or somebody told you that you had something you know i'm saying because these gifts i started early they started church and they started all these other places and so we want to we want to go down memory lane get get some real history on you and then we want to get into the the nuances of of the wins and the losses right you know what i'm saying as you continue to take this journey for sure so at the beginning when did when did you know or when did somebody tell you i think it was the eighth grade talent show talk about it eighth grade show at elliott junior high you know i'm performing you know first of all to be able to make it into the talent show to audition and you know to to get chosen to be okay you're good let's we want to see you made it so now here's your chance boom you're on stage you're performing in front of your friends for the first time all your friends kind of oh okay that's what's up you john's kind of can sing you know so it was the first time that i ever really had that that sense of fearlessness um on stage that this is what i do and i'm happy to share it with you guys but it's really not about what you think because i'm up here because i love this you know what i mean it was the first time ever getting to flex really you know yeah and so you have been singing though i have been singing and playing so i was programming all my songs on this you know this keyboard that basically was like a workstation you know and i could just record everything i had like a little four track so i was making demos fully like you know by the time i was in middle school high school well the end of uh my eighth grade years when i started really really produce yeah i was basically my my eighth grade year was when i started making my first demos fast yeah yeah so by ninth grade i was fully so who gets you the studio so my my pops loaned me the money to do it loaned it to you yeah he loaned he told me you're gonna pay me every single day okay okay at what age now so this was probably around well i was basically like every see i come from a family musicians okay so for like gifts you know every maybe three or four years they would say what do you you know what do you what are you into now as far as your music what are you what are you trying to do and i'd say i don't really want to do the drum set you know i might say it's too loud no you can't have a drum set in the house but he thought you know let me go ahead and take one step i hear you know he sees me trying to sound the chords out on the piano and trying to you know because my mom's a piano teacher so as i was always like watching her and just kind of i wanted to teach myself though so i was playing by ear and he saw that he said let me buy him his keyboard so he got me my first little casio guy you know that was how i kind of cut my teeth with playing you know you're in the house with a piano teacher but you don't want lessons didn't want lessons i wanted to you know i wanted to hear what i wanted to play because it wasn't i wasn't being taught like if i was going to study with somebody they weren't teaching me how to play the way i wanted to watch youtube so i was learning by listening to like you know jimmy james terry lewis and babyface and all i mean and the songs that they were writing with new edition and bobby brown and all this story playing these chords trying to figure out how to play him at least so yeah but um the you know the eighth grade you know making all those demos and playing it for my friends and getting their approval i think that was really what made me kind of go all out you know by ninth grade i really didn't want to do it on my own so i started forming these groups these r b groups i was like we i swear we were calling me bad before coming back i mean we had a black guy a filipino guy you know i was like the united nations yeah and it was it was got it was it was a blessed situation we were harmony you know it was um my first time really even having like a group of guys i went to church with you know if i you know found you know what the church vibes wasn't the gospel choir and getting into gospel choir in high school joining the gospel choir i think that's really what pushed me vocally yeah forward was um they were like all right you know john come out you know come out that throat get get into that chest showed me a lot about that you know that i've told you that you know um it's it's so much influence in this game you know that has taught me so much i'm a fan of this music i'm a study you know i study this music um with a with a passion and uh and a love for it you know it's a true love for for what i do for what others do it's it's no really getting it wrong it's just like certain stuff you love a little bit more than others you know i want to go back and touch on something you said when you said you know where we see jake jumped into not having the lessons oh yeah and because they weren't teaching you you know the music in a way that made you feel like you were learning the things you were hearing yeah right and so you know i was i was in the same boat where you know they would try to send me to this music teacher who was trying to have my hands resting on middle c and i'm like i'm like but y'all don't hear what chucky booker is doing right with today the teacher didn't know who to like you know you don't hear what the mississippi master just did with like you don't that's that's not in here right yeah right and and so with with teaching music at that point still being so structured and you having to come from a classical foundation you know i'm saying like i i love what's happening today like we have i'm actually teaching my son and my daughter they learned a piano but they're learning things that they want to learn nice right and so they're learning theory from you know the harry potter song or you know from the spider-man thing or in their their that's how they're learning their theory you know what i'm saying and so but when we were growing up nobody was teaching theory like that the songs that you heard nobody was saying well let me show you what that looks like on here because that would have been a that approach right there would have sent us into a completely different space yeah you know what i'm saying in understanding how to really like we can play yeah you know what i'm saying we have our ear and we can feel and all of those things but if we could score it oh yeah right do you know tim carman i've heard of that name tim carman is uh tim carman is nothing short of amazing he was eric clapton's md for the longest probably steal this yeah yeah but tim carman can feel it he can read it yeah and he can write it yeah it's amazing man he's a i mean and it's very it's rare that guys can do both yeah yeah right you know i i kind of strayed away from being taught stuff because i kind of i was um i had a really short attention span for for um for learning things i was much more of a hands-on type of person and let me you know i started my first chord was a fifth um and so i'll go probably like middle c or something like that you know in a g and just kind of combine those and kind of go all up and down you know probably i was five six years old when i was doing this and so combinations of different you know fifths you know and these were my first ways of being i was five years old and so they watched me and they said we can't show you how to do that that's something that we can't show you how to do improvisation is not something that you can really teach somebody it's like it's it's just it's like having the charisma as an actor as well you know like you can't be shown that i mean you can see somebody act and do a really great job and say yeah like that but in terms of being shown okay this is how you show charisma it's like it kind of comes from inside yes yeah yeah you see will it just looks brad pitted just right different i'm just saying you know it's a trip because no one showed me how to how to come from inside like that it was more i feel like um if that was a secret on how did they do that i wanted to reverse engineer how they they did it so my my whole thing was having templates for songs that were my favorite songs and trying to approach the music the same way like how did that okay let me find that chord now that i got that chord where does that sound come from i i got a sound that's similar now where's that bass sound on what's the snare that's the snare sound let me let me sample that snare you know it just you just kind of like you learn to i learned to try to really personify the people that i i admired so much and that's kind of the reason why we you know we went so hard why i went so hard with them showing the influence that babyface had for me on me because uh don't go don't go there yeah yeah yeah i mean that's what you you know you brought that up originally with me sounding just like him on that that uh that someone's a love record so that's that's really the main thing is to be able to come so far having so much admiration for the art but not only the art the people who are the the best at doing it at the you know at the time you're paying the most attention to them it's like that's your dream list of people that you want to get to and then you you make that move and it's not even that you think that it's not going to happen it's just a more like i gotta make that happen that's somebody i have to so what's the so what's that before you get to that place did you win the contest yeah i did win this is what's so yeah about when you said chuckie booker guess who was the the talent show judges pasadena's own troop the group true no way introduced by chucky booker [Music] yeah oh man so you know they were there they were i remember they all had white on and they're all sitting there and like i'm i'm performing in front of them i'm just like okay i'm feeling good right and it's like all right the winner of best vocal performance is jonathan that's correct so your first contest middle school yeah judged by true the legendary the legendary trick the best polish and we're from the you know same town saying it was really special to have that in in you know in my archive of memories you know as far as just something i could pull back every time i see steve russell you know i'm just like man come on you were the first one to really believe in me man you know what i mean so even before babyface i i appreciate you you know what i mean yeah so so now you have now you're making demos now you got groups you got a championship you got a championship like you're shaking and moving in terms of your development now when do you get that first look or that first call from you know this this place that's getting ready to become a major yeah how do you get to babyface like what are these steps i was i was um my senior year well you know i hadn't really i was recording and producing and building up my um my you know my my archives every all my music um and i was also producing local talent around the area so i had kind of built my name up in the industry in terms of being somebody who was you know up and coming and you know she got here this guy's got tracks you know what i mean he writes and produces his own stuff when he sings and so you know i was i was dropping my you know cd and cassette at the time off um at motown mca warner brothers and i had some interests brewing so you know you kind of get that buzz and ars get to talking and different people start get to talking so you kind of you hear from people um i had a guy who was helping me kind of walk my music around and i remember i was still in high school i was still in my senior year in high school and i was checking myself out of class because i was 18. so i was like all right i gotta go you know i'm officially you know an adult now so yeah so i i sign myself out of class and i go straight down to hollywood and i'm like i walk into this little hole in the wall office um because they told me you know they wanted to hear my music and um it was babyface but it wasn't the face it was actually his his new label that he was going to try to do with his wife called evans record group so yeah so they they heard it and it was a it was a rap i mean it was like as soon as he heard the music he he was like is that you and i was like yeah that's that's my voice you know that's that's i did all the music you know you know program the drums played the chords did the bass line arrange the backgrounds the whole thing is on me and he was just like he's like you're trying to be an artist and i was like no no no no no oh you didn't go in there to be an artist i i said i said not necessarily i was like i'm not trying to be famous i was like i just want to be a part of what you do can i be on you just want to be on the stags simmons i saw these names you know what i mean on the credits i was like i just want to be one of the team yeah listen kids there used to be this thing it's called credits album notes um i know you guys just download things now you don't know who the [ __ ] wrote right but we used to actually buy the cds and open them up yeah we look at the pictures we look whoever they were thinking like oh that's probably his girlfriend the way he said that right right wrote the songs yeah yeah producers and that's like for you to go in there and mention other amazing writers to him mm-hmm like that doesn't even really happen i was so excited to meet like people that i had had so much admiration for i met dwayne riggins from tony tony tony um in motown he was working as a nr at the time and i dropped my cd and stuff he was really into it i met benny medina you know yeah infamous in the industry of course um and he was really trying to sign me i mean you just mean all the legends so it was crazy it was it ended up being a bidding war between vinnie and and and uh sony epic and babyface well you know it was like his his label were epic but i knew you know my heart was with working with the people that i wanted i had always wanted to get with you know as far as not only just babyface but everyone that he has worked with like tony braxton i mean the list goes on so yeah my one of my first things he said put a list together everybody that you want to produce and like i want to see the list so i was like after seven new edition coming back all these people yeah tony braxton he literally put me in the studio within you know a year or two um with every single one of those groups and i was able to produce records for all those people no way yeah man tlc i mean that's incredible yeah it was really really uh i mean the first year of my of my career in 95 i had toured the entire world i went on a world tour i went to all the way southeast asia i went down to you know when europe all the you know you went with face i didn't go with face i went as a sony epic artist and they they wanted me to be international is this an artist before the record this piece is after this right after um someone else's love had come out and pretty girls the single okay let's go backwards yeah yeah right on what's the first record that you and face did together was that someone's left that was the first one first record actually the first song i believe was um pretty girl we recorded that first another hit um but it was it was just recorded first um and i i couldn't believe when you know i called him it's like i got something i i got in mind for you check it out and so he played over the phone and then he just started to sing the melody for me and he the lyrics he had the first verse and i was just like oh my god that's my song like yeah and it's the keyboard that i'm used to hearing you know on all these yeah and all the stuff yeah and so i'm just so hyped i'm like are you kidding me this is for me you know i was a big fan of kevin campbell too you know so like oh production yeah you know so his production was was all baby face at that time can't we talk big record i'm ready all that was was kenny so this kind of had that same that same swag to it you know um for me it was a really romantic sexy record but it was minimal there wasn't a lot to the track it was i was really surprised on how simple the track was you know almost remind me like prince the way the drums we had the drums was like like some little prince type [ __ ] but if anybody that knows face or kenny or baby face uh you know all of those things he's very heavily influenced by prince yeah he loves prince oh yeah red light special he loves prince he likes he loves prince record red light special that's what i was waiting when i was you know i watched kenny work with michael jackson so i seen that happen but i really and that was incredible no we're not we're not just going to be against it but yeah we're not going to jump over that though i never saw prince and babyface work together i would have been in okay okay but wait you were there during the michael jackson babyface sessions um actually i was living with kenny at at his house he had me move into his house when i first signed to him yeah i'm gonna show you the power of sony epic and you know we fly you on the leer jet out to new york and meet tommy mottola he was talking okay and so you know i'm i'm out there i'm just like wide-eyed so everybody's like did facebook when we get when we get back home you're gonna move in and um and so i was able to work with him on madonna i was working with him on uh michael jackson i mean it was crazy and then he's like and then you're gonna work with my brothers um after seven and i he's like there's like five or six songs i want to use of yours for them i was like five or six songs i was like are you kidding me wow yeah we we all became like brothers and kevon yeah my god shout out to kevvan kevin yeah kevin did me the greatest favor of all time when i first moved to l.a i was working with face as well yeah yeah early on and through damon thomas and you know what i mean and met kevin and kevin was one of my mother's favorite singers yeah yeah he could see caravan saying happy birthday for my mother i will never ever ever forget that that range oh my what i hate him and he don't miss you don't miss up there don't miss he cleans oh you you stop it with the range now huh you stopping right here oh man you can go you can go i can cheat i can stretch [Laughter] so all of this is in your first year it's crazy it was so crazy to experience so much grammy nomination it's right off someone to love and everything baby i'm a baby and i don't i don't know that this isn't normal the way i know it's not normal but it's like i didn't know how to process it all because it was all happening so fast so the main thing that i really knew that i wasn't gonna do was become hollywood and fake and be uh you know worried about fame and letting that control what i wanted my goals to be because i was still the musician still into the craft of songwriting and producing so even though they wanted me to be an artist and okay now we got we got this look we want you to put this on we want you to talk like you know we want not talk like this but we want you to speak with these people we want you to have this type of they put me with an interview coach and all this and you know yeah they used to be a whole thing yeah you have a whole thing yeah so etiquette and yeah yeah yeah you learn it all very fast and quickly you know and um it's just a lot to do at 18. you know i was only 18. 18. yeah so did you even finish your year at school or did you yeah or were you i was i saw did you get on the road so actually i was probably 19 to come to think of it because you're right i was um because this happened on the summer of after i graduated okay high school this is when it happened the summer it was crazy because my my pops told me he's like you know you know what colleges you've been thinking about i was like oh no i'm getting a record deal you know i'm not going to college and he's like i hope so because if if you're living here you're going to college if you don't get a record deal and it's like oh no don't worry so i came home after meeting kenny and tracy and i was like i got a record deal dad i'm not going to college and that was good was it an easier conversation because you came from a family of musicians you mean because that's a tough conversation for somebody yeah yeah because i mean honestly that is sort of like the nba for musicians you know what i mean you just got drafted into the nba exactly you know what i mean um scientists only had big through baby facing you got a real thing yeah it was it was a real deal and i mean it was an interesting thing because i did it on my own which felt really really good it felt very and which is really rare right yeah it was i mean it wasn't no high power manager i mean you're talking about the homie who just was with me for moral support walking in there with me you know what i mean we were working together but it wasn't like a you know he was still cutting his teeth in the business so i was like you know we're both trying to get on you know so yeah it's a beautiful beautiful time and uh i got to get to this i want to get to this nuance in the someone the love record such an important record because you know listening to this record as a baby face fanatic yeah you know as this song is happening i'm like man it sounds like it's like babyface customers uneven i just took all the bass out my voice sounds like baby face got some new yeah you know swag on him like what's he just you know what you know what he would do with me he would say whenever i try to thicken him up because i have a bunch of different tonalities i do with my voice and when i would try to go thicker with the singing he said no no just make it like make it real sweet like just make it sweeter you know what i mean i'll be like okay you know like easy and i'm just like okay so he left you to interpret what that meant what that did for me was bake it okay i'm gonna do show him how i do him because yeah it's like i was impressing the girls in high school so you know here's my chance now to show that you know i've um i've retained some of that sauce that you you know you showed me how to make you know what i mean yeah that's just show them a little bit of what what he already you know is about and i think that all of the great the great artists that have worked with babyface they all did that they had a piece tony toni 100 you know johnny gill was able to do that um and so to me i picked up on the the theme behind sort of his his swag yeah and babyface has a certain box sensitive it's a bop it's a certain bop to babyface yeah well when i very similar thing that prince had um in terms of his he um he almost spoke his his words before he's saying them i would yeah yeah i'm good yeah what you know and it's like yeah the beginning of it yeah yeah you you know what i mean yeah i'll be like okay give them the song oh yeah that's right that's my nation and it brings you it brings you in so what he did with me was when we did pretty girl he was like your lips you know what i mean like let's make that first line the the line that makes people want to bring the song yeah it taught me so much man it was like little things that i i didn't know that would be so effective that ended up being like defining factors and how i produce and from the way i stack my vocals and things like that to you know harmony and melodies and yeah it's just it's weird like i feel like we're related in some sense because i'm i've we both got you know sprinkled that's that that similar thing yeah yeah it's called the 100 percenter that's okay that's not many of you guys out there [Music] [Music] for me man influence-wise my gosh um so the first album first out first album bro what a smorgasbord of records kicking in the door yeah and what's crazy is that you know black people are really protective of r b music or of soul music and culture of the culture absolutely yeah sure yeah and it felt like to me at least from my standpoint you were welcomed with open arms amen because from record one i was like he got it yeah oh man thank you yeah and that's just not me like that's that's the culture it was it was it was an interesting time wasn't it because there wasn't a lot of of my template as an artist absolutely i mean there wasn't a lot of that going on at the time i mean we had george michaels we had pop popular versions of soulful esque kind of guys i think that the one person that makes me think so r b who who wasn't black was tina marie of course you know she was she's a staple in r b music and growing up hearing her really kind of sealed the deal for me in terms of like really realizing that music is music and if we love it we love it it doesn't matter you know you can love it and be whoever you are yeah and but it's about like how much you love it you know so i i loved it a whole lot did you did you face any resistance early on yeah you definitely i had some people tell me you should just produce and which is insa in a sense the reason why when i met babyface i wasn't going to come in oh i'm trying to be a you already in that yeah i was already been told i was already been programmed to to think oh no well you know white guys don't really sing r b and they don't really they don't look right doing it so it's like you know i mean i i had always been kind of you know been told oh you could sing for a white boy you know what i mean yes to me it was like it's kind of like that's a backhander it's like it's like being short and playing ball and like oh you could borrow for somebody's show right you're like okay thanks you know what i mean so um it was always sort of like this bashfulness that i had to lose that in order to be an artist you know but i think i is an interesting person to learn from babyface as far as an artist i don't really feel like i learned i think stylistically what i learned from him as an artist is incredible but i learned a different thing because he was so shy really and really when you talk about the mystery behind r b and how we we never really did interviews and we never was out there like like we are now like making man what's he secretive was he behind the scenes he never did and so i thought that's the way to be you know to be sort of a person of less words and don't really you know because he was very very um he was so smooth with his interviews smoke so smooth with his performances but when it came to um seeing him kind of out there and and doing the the walk of fame i didn't really see him doing that i saw him in the studio just grinding all the time so to me that was what it was about with the craft and the crap less of the you know the glitz and the glam but it was it i you know there's no denying that the two go together if you're going to be an artist you got to be out there you know what i mean so i learned my own way as far as those those ropes you know what i mean figuring out those those those streets you know um and how to maneuver on my own i think it was it wasn't until the second album though that i really had got my feet up you know so the first album was it just it was heavy just you and face yeah just him and i okay there was no other producers i produced 90 percent of that album of the first album yeah my first album that in itself sounds like crazy that's two songs in here i didn't produce 90 percent on the first album you didn't no i wrote i wrote all of my first album but they gave me the guys and i was like well my feeble tracks i mean buddy used to produce for dr dre i'm like yeah you know what yeah it's not a trip when you bring in your track and then it gets docked up and you know sauced up a bit well here's the crazy part right is that you know the kind of the defining moment for me as a producer was bringing in a little track that could and you know them not really hearing the song me deciding to sell it to dave hollister then them finally really listening to the song calling me back saying hey if you sell it to dave hollister we're going to kill you and then to them saying you know you're not really a producer you know you're you're you're a beat maker you're a track maker you're not really a producer so we're gonna send your song around to to all the major producers and let them reproduce and we're gonna get the best track for this song so all of the top producers that we had and a few that would even outside took a crack at reproducing my song yeah and none of it worked i i experienced something and what i learned is that it's not always the best track it's not always the best lyric it's not always the best melody and it may not even always be the best vocal but the marriage of all of those things yeah at that point in time are just magic they're just undeniable together and that was maybe i deserved yeah not my not my most you know extensive body of work like i wasn't in there like sequence and crazy and doing this it wasn't at the time you know what i mean it's like it was it i think that the simplicity is is also a beautiful absolutely you know what i mean absolutely because with all of the uh especially with the message that you were saying because it was a sad message you know what i mean it was a so it's like you're not gonna ain't no no no you know what i mean i'm so sad it was sad it felt sad it felt lonely at that time it was it was it was timberland it was oh yeah uh uh who else was a lot of sauce on these tracks a lot of a lot of like a lot of sauce on those tracks so you were doing something that was very simple very simple yeah bare bones yeah i was like and who was and who was what what what artist male artist was coming on something like i i i did wrong like my bad like this is i messed up you know now i deserve it i deserve it yeah to to to be in this way it was it was definitely a look in the mirror yes and i think it you know it's also very telling what has made r b so beautiful over the years as you know you've kept the foundation alive with songs like that in terms of like what r b has always offered that other styles of music of course necessarily offer is it a chance to really kind of reconcile with the whole idea of love you know what i mean and what does it represent in your life like not necessarily what it what it is in general but what does it mean to you yeah are you in love or do you want love or do you are you lonely you know all these questions come up with when you hear those records if everybody says that the 90s makes makes them feel some type of way because this music now is not really pressing on those same heart strings the same way absolutely you know what i mean so yeah but it's a beautiful thing to belong to that error like that you know for me we we wasn't afraid to be in our feelings as they say you know what i mean absolutely we weren't being called simps you know for uh wanting to take care of a woman that's right wanting to please a woman we weren't that that wasn't a derogatory it wasn't but it's so crazy though because even if you listen to where music is now and you listen to the most successful music right now which is hip-hop it's a lot of symphony and hip-hop hip-hop is is they either killing are they full-out simping they they didn't boss they didn't bought 57 000 birkin bags and didn't kill 20 people they'd be crying about you know is you still in love with me you know what i mean it's the it's the wildest thing because it's just i guess it just got styled different it got styled different because even you know everybody always goes back to like what's the street r b you got to make a street army and they go to jodeci and then you listen to those records and you're like this is really soft these guys are really soft they're dressed really tough but they're really soft right yeah we were so unapologetically in love loving yeah yeah yeah and it's true there's nothing soft about that there's nothing there's nothing about loving your woman like you know i was a grown man at 18 man i'm sorry but i was i was making grown man moves writing grown man lyrics at 18. yeah i knew what i wanted i was someone to love he was a pretty girl yes yes and it's like it's it's very players it's very it's very clear i can't take the credit for those jones but i'm just telling you man like paying attention to the guys that did it before me was those guys were older than me you know they had gone through some things that inspired them to write records like can you stand the rain you know in addition you know to hear that record is a defining moment for me because i remember was eighth grade and it was the summer of eighth grade and everyone's uh leaving we're all graduating going to different schools and this is you know after i finally get all my friends to watch me with the first time performing and everybody's believing in me yo man you're gonna kill you're gonna be famous man blah blah blah you should be on star search and we had to say goodbye so this record comes out can you [Music] i mean yo it was it was literally like tears of joy kind of a record like wow this is we got to grow up now oh damn like i guess we do that song is still yeah and the fact that it's you know partially sesame street too but whatever whatever i don't know if you i don't know if you guys ever noticed that but i you know [Music] wow but we on sesame street right now they know what they did they got to stop it right right right right yeah but yeah so you got rob first accessory yeah yeah that's right that's right so yeah i guess you know you're connecting the kids i think all of us have new additions but my first concert was new edition and when any heartbreak tour came i used to listen to that any heartbreak album every day and i begged my father to take me to the capitol center in dc to see no please take me to see new edition and bobby brown and alby sure was on there yeah yeah yeah well that's that famous guy wasn't wasn't very weird that's right and um and bobby got on stage and bobby was like bobby was mean yeah bobby was aggressive the creepers with the metal on the front yeah he was go like he was performing like for us he was performing like a dude that was from the dmv he was from everybody's neighborhood from everybody neighborhood like that's we we got from that we went crazy with bobby right and then the new edition of music starts i don't know if you know if you went to that tour but they had these stairs mm-hmm and the stairs had white smoke there were whites yeah they had white smoke that stage was so beautiful and they came walking up the back of the stairs and war and walking down those stairs and it was like that band and everything everything everything and they proceeded to change my life yeah and that's a middle school moment for you too yeah in middle school high school yet how how do you john you want me 47. okay so i'm 46. so i was a year but i be when it when did any heartbreak come out that was 88. damn anything heartbreak was idiot yeah that might have been a hey about that i think that was a middle school year yeah school moment for me yeah changed my life yeah dude out on the worst outfit you know what the trip tripped me out too was bbd came out right after that right mm-hmm and that was like when hip-hop and r b kind of fused the first time they were they were there because it wasn't it was the guys today or really bobby brown was well bobby brown they took it they took it in fully ran with it for him you know that rock hammer was writing them raps for him raccoon was writing the bobby brown raps yes nowhere that's who wrote his raps all the bobby brown raps were written by rakim wow yeah so you think ar you think you give credit to bobby brown as being the first r b in hip-hop yes collab yes yes the first drake yes but right right bobby brown is the first drake yes i mean you can give it to james brown obviously it starts with james james brown is the guy that was rapping very very early he could sing his ass off and do everything dance whatever sage you know there's something about the brown name in r brown yeah the brown name is pretty king bobby brown in my just my in my humble opinion i think bobby brown is the first bridge wow he's the first true bridge of hip-hop and r b yeah now because obviously james brown wasn't hip-hop right yeah they called it a form of rap or funk or whatever he was on but like bobby brown was a hip-hop r and b-r for sure yeah he was for sure everything about him was the streets for sure but then he was rapping but then he was singing like he he is he's the father in the first one i was really hosting probably i wonder what bobby was getting to host the club back then he was getting a bag yeah what is a bag back there right what is it the bag is a bag i'm just saying like just i mean bobby so what nine million records yeah she was dating wasn't it yeah yeah like everything he had him all right back then i don't know we got to add some of that yeah yeah you got to get bobby when you're your first album come out 95 95. so it was the walk through a thing where you got paid someone's illegal enough to to actually be in clubs so my first album my first album i was touring the world and legally couldn't be handed a drink in the club like i couldn't you know be in the club i could be there you're going to be drinking water i had to have a person from the sony you know like a chaperone yeah yeah this is a music business man we know what nobody really pay attention to that [ __ ] man you was you had a drink in the club oh for sure so you know i did but were you like were you doing after parties not a lot of that back then um you know what everybody you know we had that wasn't the thing we had the century club here in l.a that yeah yeah yeah but nobody you weren't getting called to just host no they would be they would be like you know hey come sing a couple songs tonight at the century club they'll pay you some money you know what i mean all right cool so it was only about singing with like some kind of performance yeah you know you go around and do like a little little couple songs or something like kind of like what what we do now but not as not as a real like club appearance like that back then it was more like you know at the end of the night you go get up on stage and do you know get up or wherever you go booth and sing on top of your record yeah yeah with the crowd and they you know they show love so that was that was awesome i met i remember being back in 95 in you know in the century club being with shaq and kobe and all those guys man you were absolutely yeah you know it was just me watching me watching kobe watching tupac you know come in there wilding out and knowing that you know knowing who he was and right seeing him out and all that because that you know that's a that's a great segment that's a great story great sweat you know i can't fully get the words out because from my knowledge to my knowledge you are the only r b artist with a tupac feature yeah i don't know like he may have actually done some other stuff to come out here that may have never come out maybe somebody's on death row that's what i was gonna say something that was on death row shout out to danny boy amazing artist amazing singer yeah yeah you had a tupac feature bro real feature it's so it's something that is so so you know amazing in my heart but it's at the same time it was a very sad thing to experience to know him as a person you know and to shake his hand and to be in the studio and have the camaraderie that we did and smoke together and drink together and talk about our relationships and our life you know and put that in the record because how old are you at this point and i'm you know probably 21 at that point wow 22 maybe so yeah he was really putting the uh once again someone was sprinkling that that magic on me and i was just like wow i can't believe this this is amazing you know because uh i was already a fan and i met him at this how do you want a video shoot he invited me down to that how do you wonder where where where are you how you want a video yeah how do you want it how does it feel yeah what is johnny j casey and jojo i remember it was uh swaying tech from you know yeah don't do this i met her when i was 18. at a big you know it was it was very interesting i met her nothing but love here in l.a and you know you you could talk for a little bit yeah i never got in that car service she tried to send me but you know yeah it was a crazy day man it's a crazy day i met him i met him we played him some beats he freestyled right there in front of me and i knew we was gonna do something i was like man we just if i get in the studio with him man so two weeks later he hit me up and it was at can-am studios he always worked at this one studio yeah yeah and um we actually had a room there years after yeah only we did the omarion only studio i ever seen who they had metal detectors before you got in and the security guard at the thing you don't need to leave the guns at the front in the safe like i was just like okay like yeah all right there's still bulletproof glass in there yeah i mean only place i've ever seen did you did you produce that one no that was johnny j god rest his soul man he's amazing producer producer he doesn't really get his props like he should you know what i mean right so that's why i make sure to always mention johnny j man you know he's and also ronnie king is part of that too there's a lot of great players on that that song johnny taylor because it has that live to me it reminded me of the marvin gaye record when i heard the track it reminded me of like the midnight love era when he was doing that sexual healing and it was like he had it sick you know that that the rim coming back you know it was it just it was so smooth to me it was interesting because i was so you know um amped to work with him i wanted him to you know i wanted to blast off on one of my songs on one of my tracks okay so i played him some songs and you know it was like all right cool then let me see what you have you know and then he played me that track and it was oh he plays you that record damn what i was talking about i mean i had all the gear ready to produce and i had npc in there and all the you know rats and all that yeah yeah damn all this equipment the track is ready let's go so we put that down on the reel from the that just the two track and um i start just vibing with him behind the board and all that and i'm just like like i started yeah immediately going with that melody he was the one to fill in the words yeah oh well it's all right baby because you because it's there in your eyes like he was like he went for army he went full on it and then when i forgot how the melody went because i was kind of going doing other things how'd i go how did my how the hell go again i was like i don't know man how'd it go again like girl this alright i was like okay i go in the booth lay the hook forget how the hook goes up this is how it goes man nah that ain't right girl it's all right yeah and then when i started doing too much diamond hey hey hey i i need you to feel this jump man like go back to the top and i just want you to feel it and then somebody will walk in the room and disturb the energy or something like that he would be like yo man sit down man you know that saying that that that is in there and that's john b in there like i just was like are you kidding me like he showed me like so much love y'all yeah like it was man i love it i love my brother yeah one time yeah what's up one time for two pieces yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yes yes big talk vocals remembering the hook singing the huh i can believe it though he was because he was that kind of passion it was passionate he was he he was like you want to hear after we got our song done he was like you want to hear something else i'm working on i was like cool let's let me check it out he takes me right over he's got the other room book right next door and he's in there uh and he already laid one verse of uh california to live and die in l.a and he's gonna just take his lyrics and he goes in there and he busts a second verse on on me and i'm like right in front of me he just does it and i was like did that just happen you just did that right now and he's like yeah man i was like then he goes he does another track and does it exactly the same to where it was like you know how when you double your vocals and you just you just stick it it's just exactly the same it sounds like one vocal yeah that's how his he doubles his vocals bro the pitch everything that was perfect yeah so yeah he there's nobody like tupac i still believe if he was a lie today the industry would be different like it would there would be no shifted way there was a lot of soul that he brought yeah a lot of um spirituality that he brought it didn't have to have a religion connected to it for it to be spiritual it was it was about a human thing and he's gonna test you to the core of who you are as a human by the things he says and the things that he stands for so if you don't like it that's okay but this is where he stands and this is where he's at so meet him over where he's at and you're gonna be transformed because ever since i met tupac i was transformed i was i think he put he put some stripes on on the side of me you know what i mean he fully decorated like soldier ready to go into the world and represent the culture and do everything i've i've been doing now for 27 years wow you know what i'm saying um so i'm just i'm so blessed man to have had that experience real i don't ever take it for granted that's crazy yeah that's crazy but we got the we got the dapple yeah yeah yeah yeah we did yeah oh man let me tell you this guy yeah how influential you are let me give you your flowers thank you because uh i'm telling you when i first met you i just thought what an incredibly humble guy who's a one-stop shop you know and i i relate to that you know what i mean i relate to someone who has a personal feeling that they can express themselves whether it be a beat maker or a lyricist or but you do it all you know so it was really it was really humbling for me to have you like what i was bringing to the table dig the track and dig everything you were like yo let me get on that and i was like bro like this is crazy so we did the song stronger stronger every day back in 2004 ended up being the title track of my album um basically that that that that was like represented the strength that i was trying to show at that time as an artist be resilient through whatever the industry was going to tell me what is whatever don't kill you make you stronger right so to have you assist me on that like that with lately the first single from the hour lately everybody heard that and it was so hip-hop and it was so who did that track was that that was done by brains that was brain yeah yeah the brain in the building all the time yeah this building i used to see you all the time up there with the with damon in there you know what i'm saying so i was like all right tank you know all right i'ma see you and then uh jerome you you you actually sold your truck to my manager at the time um you actually you let him take over the lease or something like that do you remember that was it hot when you said it was crazy it wasn't no it was a dope ass burgundy no it was a street truck for sure but it was joking yeah it was just it was like you have to call somebody yeah they'd come pick up i said what was he just doing some tricky times he had the burgundy job i was like i got this i got that custom painted yeah that's that was my cousin he gonna bring the car to you and then you just give him the payments okay okay okay that's what's happening questions yeah that's what's up yeah guy is cool you know what i mean so because you know that was my family and everything he was helping him out yeah yeah that was dope and and i hadn't even met you yet and then when we did we did uh lately and i heard you know the vocal you stack the vocals and you i mean you're it's that's his voice voice on the whole hook of lately i didn't even want to stack over him because he didn't want to i didn't want i wanted people to know like this yeah background like he's featuring on here with me basically you know and it was it just worked so well and then when babyface heard it he's like i gotta get on there i gotta help right the bridge let me get the bridge and so he put his backgrounds on the bridge so i got babyface face come on man if you're an rnb lover and you give up you gotta understand what that means like that is that's a that's a heavyweight moment for me um yeah so you're on two songs on that where did you where was it was was it an album release you had in hollywood for that i came through it was that yeah yeah yeah it was performing yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i remember that that's right yep that was a good time yeah man i mean you just you know it was it was it was easy you know what i'm saying it's like when you tap in with like-minded people yeah it's just it's just easy you use like it's like my cousin you know what i'm saying like we had like we had been doing it spiritually we had probably already been connected you know what i'm saying in an alternate universe just already prepping us for the moment you know in this space like it's the same way with with me and jay like it was just easy like but the voice your voice is there's no one like you man and i've heard people try to sound like you you know what i'm saying and right away i'm going down he's trying to sound like team you know and that's something when you have your own thing that you've put your stamp on you know singing yes sir uh babyface has got his own thing so when i tried to sound like him you knew i was trying to sound like babyface right i had to form my own style and and really well you didn't know you have a thing yeah i i you know by the time you got to that second album by the time you got to that second album that's why i asked about the first one yeah the second album i really found my legs but it's interesting because this is how it ties into tank is that moving on past the second album the third album still singing in that kind of thinner texture quality i hadn't really filled my voice out or played with the whole idea of taking it deeper into my um okay thickening out the tone a little bit instead of it being so thin high and breathy [Music] and then put vibrato behind it this is a whole other voice and i found that voice in my live show by singing out but when i heard him sing i said this guy he's because when i heard johnny gill for the first time it was a thick tone right yes he's one of my favorite all-time singles of all time but when i heard your voice i was like here's a thicker tone but this guy can really sing this guy can really like i mean he could sing mary had a little lamb and it'll be like he just you know his tonality is just so i know that you are the catalyst for artists like you are the number one influence for sam smith i mean number one influence for i mean for me i you're up there in my top five all-time favorite singers bro like honestly um when i when i heard you i started to try to play with that a little bit you know in terms of like let me because when we did uh we did lately um i i don't think i approached that with the same tonality that i did the other records and then started playing playing with it even more and you know you hear that album you're like okay john john's growing up a little bit yeah yeah yeah but i think that that's really cool when you you can find yourself and others or something that you relate to in others and that ends up being a strong point for you that's that's always been the gift of music really it's like you know knowing that we have other things to do other things to learn there's more to it than just where we're at right now i'm like somebody you know i'm still learning today like the young kids are teaching me too oh for sure the tracks and how we can innovate still and for sure change the syncopation yeah yeah there's a lot of the um you know the cultures that have always sort of done this kind of these kind of rhythms are now like the african and the latin and all that it's all immersion and now it's like it's all popular it's all like popular because that's what i was going to ask you too like you mentioned you said 27 years in it there's no way that you get that type of timing without growth so can you give us like just just the things that you've learned along the way or the things that you you know things that you practice that can help a new kid get into this industry see himself 30 years later 25 years later because this game throws you out absolutely you know if you allow it to yeah if you allow it to i think with so many tools now that we didn't have back in the day you could really put out stuff right but just because you could put it out doesn't mean that it necessarily is going to be of quality now what what makes quality right to me quality is all about what went into it like the ingredients you know i'm saying like to me you could make a ditty that just comes out um it's like a catchy tune or whatever and it just serves its purpose it's math it's massive but it doesn't really have like a meaning other than it just being like whatever it is there's records that stick around because the meaning and the ingredients that went into it like you know how i have my heart broken in my life you know all that goes into making songs right songwriting it's the reason why you believe me when i when i sing to you you know is because yeah no i've been through some things like some things didn't go right for me in my life relationships and things like that so that's why when you get it right in a song and that feeling is there and it's like it's recorded in time and that's me that represents the love i'm trying to have in my life and the relationship i'm trying to have when you get it right like that it's it's it's kind of like that's all that matters is leaving that behind is that that feeling so what i want to tell people is like you know believe in the feeling because that's where it all started what's that feeling you know so yeah you're not wrong because you want to just say turn up and get a little ditty done whether it's a song or catchy tune whatever that's fine great but just ask yourself what what stands the test of time like have you ever challenged what i want to ask a kid coming up is have you challenged yourself yet to do to be uncomfortable and put yourself in a situation that's so revealing and telling so truthful that you have nowhere to hide yourself like this is who i am i actually have a heart like you know yeah because i think it's so many of us that are kind of like in real like we're robots to this industry we're like i know what works so i'm going to do what works and this is the chico you hear what's on the radio and you just write the a version of it yeah and then there's a plug-in for everything to make you sound good so it's like you know i i got it you know you got a lot more tools yeah you mentioned that you know what i'm saying we got a lot more tools it's tricky these days we got a lot more tools to make it right but don't let that be the reason that your growth is stunted you know what i'm saying like dig in more like it's it's a reason to even let go more now and be like okay yeah you know what i mean so like just just i i really want to continue to let people know how i feel for real and i don't want to have to be daunted or or intimidated by an industry that's changing all the time because it's going to change in in a year two three years it's going to be totally different they're gonna be on some other thing and we're gonna have to catch up to that too or or not and just do how we whatever we want to do because i also feel like when you're good at something that's okay to just be good at something and just do that too yeah like there's not enough people i think believing in us i think we think we have to change with the times it's like no you it's cool to change with the time so it's also cool to have things that are vintage and that have that feel right and that you can survive being you yeah i mean it's it's it's really refreshing hearing silk sonic you know and hearing that that vintage sound come back because i've always been you know a fan of motown and the classic soul stuff too so to hear it be okay to kind of go down that amy winehouse road that mark ronson you know kind of brought back and stuff and the vintage recording and the old school spring reverbs and the lo-fi eq and all that that's that's a that's a fun way to write and i love that we can do that now because of people that take the chance to just be in their feelings and just do what they feel you know right it's a it's a very authentic place right although we although we share some of the same um we all share heartbreak right yeah which is you know could be the title of of the song heartbreak but your verse is going to be different from my verse my verse is going to be different from his verse but it's still under the umbrella of heartbreak but what that what that lets you know is that you know there's power in the your verse is going to be powerful because it's you it's your identity yeah you know what i mean i can't sing your verse or sing the words to your verse like you because i i didn't live your heartbreak i lived my heartbreak yeah yeah right and so the the the thing that they can't get from anybody else is your story your fingerprint your identity and the more you're true to that you know i'm saying and this is just to complement what you were saying the more you're true to that the longer you're going to be in it because the thing that you do they're only going to be able to get from you if you're true to you yes yes you know what i mean and so that's why it's like you know when you say i have a thing you know i'm saying like i'm like i'm like john you have a thing too though because you can always say why are you trying to be like john oh no no no no yeah you know what i will tell you you were like a trainer is to a guy who's trying to get buffer you know i'm saying like honestly vocally i mean it's a great way to put it because guys you know i mean i don't like to claim i mean it's the reason why it's called tank right yes all right a perfect name for you man you know the vocals represent that i think that's a perfect you know name for you bro because i mean your your voice is not nothing to play with you know what i'm saying and like i said you could sing anything man and it's nice to hear our grown men to be able to really in this day and age be able to really just bring emotion some of the melodic choices that you do though are just so original it's so authentic and it just it really presses forward what we can do with melody um i think there's a lot of innovation in the church in gospel for sure you'll hear a lot of people just on the the very front lines of of the most innovative uh melodies and and runs and all kinds of ways of vocalizing right to me you you're in that same era of like okay i wanna i wanna see what what he's doing because he never repeats himself and he always shows what else is in his wheelhouse of you know of of uh there's other guys like stokely as well you know what i mean you just look you look forward to hearing what they're gonna bring out because my secret ingredient yeah it's a secret ingredient this i didn't do on the last album here you go or or here's one that you know and blah blah blah you know here's you know and so i'm i'm telling you paying attention to all these these nuances and i'm just like wow this is this is wonderful it's just wonderful to have an influence like that and that's why i continue to appreciate babyface it's why uh you know you guys always get mentioned in everything i do it's like you know it's that's cool yeah it's it's really it's so thank you you yeah but if if if you had to have a a proudest moment in r b if you had to just pick one like let's i'm sure you have many but if you just had to pick one just for just for the sake of this show you know the moment that i was performing very recently i think it was 2018 um at the uh soul train awards when they allowed me to play someone to love and they don't know back to back and then i brought out donald jones and he did his thing killed it and um but that performance particularly was i just saw something in myself that had never really seen a maturity a a seasoned kind of veteran that had really kind of been waiting for that moment and here's the moment and there's so many artists i know that have so many of those moments they can look back look at this award show look at this show look at this i don't have that you know i'm saying my award shows have been very you know minimal so it's like when i got my my shot like that the other one was in 2013 i did it with bobby caldwell and that was an honor you know to be on stage with him someone who shares the same walk but very earlier you know yeah a lot a lot earlier and i think that was even it was very telling like getting back to what i said about white artists doing r b music wasn't really accepted yet so do you feel like hmm do you do you feel like to a certain degree your music was too r b to be fully like you know maybe moved into a pop space crosstalk which is the reason why i was no longer on epic records because they tried to put me with david foster and diane warren and do the song that was a bilingual song maybe we could get an international kind of more of an appeal type of thing it's a song called two or more you know i mean it was a beautiful record but it's not my wasn't one of my choices for the album i was i was over here doing records with nas and you know producing records with with uh with you know odb and just blaze and stuff so i i was in a totally different energy you know than than than than that so they tried to cross you off when they when they tried i said okay i'll go to the studio with david foster and diane warren but you know it's the kind of hang where it's like oh we gosh you're so black you know it's just like oh [ __ ] oh [ __ ] it's like that kind of hits you it's a guy yes i thought you were like a black guy at first i was like you work with earthworm and fire yeah you work with houston i did not expect you to be on that right like honestly that was a disappointment when i when i when i met dan diane warren and she said that to me i was like that's not that's not soulful like for to say that to someone it's just not so next time diane warren i see you you're probably gonna you'll be like yo i don't like that you told people about you should tweet about it that was that was that was what you said to twitter shout out to diana i'm on the wall it's like a quote of mine she's a soul food she's a super but you know you said that though you know and i kind of i was just kind of like oh okay but you just want to stay to stay true you wanted to stay true to me it's just the music you love that's it and i don't want people to like really bring that up anymore like the fact that i'm right like i that's something that actually is a very annoying thing when somebody makes that seem like that has anything to do with anything it's like let that go because now it's been 27 years of doing this like let's make music i have nothing to prove yeah anymore i already proved it so there's nothing to do anymore except to show people i still got it i still make music yeah my music now if you give it a chance it's just as good as it was back then if anything i think i'm doing it better just because i've learned so much and there's so much more to me as a as a as a man knowing what i want to say and how i want to say it now i can kind of like really lean into the curves and really yeah you know i'm i'm you know controlling the narrative you know and i always have been but i think that for a lot of times it was a lot of pressure to stay within this perimeter of what we felt was what they felt was um you know appropriate for someone of my my racial background right and i'll say did ultimately did you lose your deal off of that i went i went against the green working with tupac i went against the green worker with guru and i work with the people that i had admiration for i was like i knew who to go to whether it was a successful move like that's not commercial right that's like why don't you get with ll or something like that'd be cool too if l's down i'd do it but right now google's down and i'm a big gangstar fan so you know i know it doesn't mean anything for you for me to work with just blaze but just blaze is the hottest producer right now making all the you know the rockefeller stuff and and everything else so why not work with jessica yes you know what i'm saying the joe budden record with the jump off record i was like all all you know just all over that so i wanted to be in the studio with those guys and so if i had a budget i was going to spend the money the way i wanted to yeah i wasn't working with the people that they they didn't see the vision of me working with tripod quests you know on cool relax i had to show them this is this is how we're going to move ali shaheed mohammed bob powers like these guys they this is real hip hop they if people see that this is authentic they're not gonna question it's not gonna be about my race not gonna be about all that it's gonna be about the music so let's make good music man you know but i kind of had to show them because when i first turned into you know the are you still down with tupac and all that how are we gonna how do they oh my god they thought they don't know huh see they're they get mad at me now and they try to like tweet and be like on some like john that's not true we love they don't know we love are you still down there they love what it became you loved it with no shade thrown honestly this is just the way it happened when we turned that record in it wasn't nobody calling me talking about this is a hit when he died two weeks later god rest his soul so he passed two weeks later after the record comes out two weeks later bro the last thing my man said to me when i was leaving was he's like all right brother don't waste your time don't don't waste your talent now if you're not doing three songs a day you ain't really doing it so because i watched him literally right get down like that and it's just like okay man all right bro love you man and it was like three in the morning i'm driving from tarzana back to pasadena after drinking and smoking by myself i'm sitting here crying with the window down like because i'm so happy you know and so like to get that news when i was in the studio two weeks later that he got shot again i was like well he's gonna make it because he's tupac you know what i mean so he wasn't he and he was still on life support and uh yeah we just we just we had just such a all the air of wind just taken all out of everything i was doing sucked out of me you know what i mean so it was like now what so now the label's like oh let's put the tupac song out and i'm like no and so you know what i mean and all of a sudden no we believe in this product we think this is going to be a record so it was almost like a cool yet year of having that like and so it had to get leaked it was a it was a dj who out of atlanta i remember who played it without asking nope he's like no they gotta hear it and as soon as it got leaked it was just like it was all they took off well fine and they had to put it out but sugar wasn't giving up the rights to tupac so i had to go to feeny and uh feeny stuck up for me she's like no my son played me are you still down he loved that song and you know it was it was one of his favorite songs that he did because he didn't play me a lot of his music and he played me that song he was proud of that so she named his first album that she put out after his death are you still down it was like a compilation of a lot of records because that was the last song that he did so yeah man that was it to have that kind of like hit me like that it was a lot to in inherit that you know in terms of the burden that that would represent he wasn't there to vouch for me anymore i was like well putting out a song with brian you really record within the studio right right yeah you know where's tupac john you know it's like so it's like it's been a lot but it's nothing but an honor yeah great moments well we got some r b questions for you john uh you being in i think i need a refill hey listen you like it i like it i've never had that before that's like vanilla so i've always wanted to know this before you know before we can get to that what's the bee oh yeah yeah make me go country y'all nobody knows what the b stands for my last name is buck like the dollar bill okay yeah yeah okay let's cheat that's cheers my real name is johnny your real name is john yeah that's right the jazz vagina right yeah jonathan are you john i'm johnny johnny yeah i'm johnny you jonathan i'm jonathan yeah that's why it's j-o-n ah yeah makes sense makes sense okay now i'm back oh man it's so good to see you brother come on chief what you got for him back there where's your questions come on rb questions questions for this r b i'm in the zone right here he's a guy a guy he's a guy um top five favorite r b artist all the time all the time here you go okay um okay well let's say marvin gaye mm-hmm i love that stevie wonder you know michael jackson yes yes yes and i gotta i gotta mention uh stokely yeah i gotta say tank you know what i'm saying i gotta say hey that's that's that's you made giant bees top five bro yeah yeah you've been cooking yeah wow i mean i mean and the reason why i say top five is because this is sort of the order that i discovered well you know what i will say even before stokely though is johnny gill i mean it's it's a hard toss-up between stokely and johnny gilco yeah johnny gilles had a discovery very legendary career johnny gill i discovered first i'm not gonna lie before breaking my heart it was my mind yeah okay all right so that's that's a great list i i appreciate oh man come on now that's where like i said when i found my my tongue that's when i when i heard your voice brother this is what i mean so i gotta give you flowers top five r b songs oh okay well that's always been a hard question for me because there's a lot of errors of r d so i have to go back to my favorite era which is which is the early uh 80s and 90s era but like mid 80s i would say can you stand the rain it's probably my number one favorite rv song um never keeping secrets by babyface is one of the best written songs and produced songs like it's it's just such a great it's the one he wrote that's when i basically came into the do you know that that was my entrance to the music industry i got to play that little part no way that's you playing that no that's why was this possibly face but that was my first job for him was to play behind him in his band oh okay [Music] he got the soul train award that year for that song and you're in the band playing and he allowed me to play that that all right uh you know there was a there was a whole year of being part of his squad that i didn't wasn't you know it wasn't even john b i had jonathan b was my name at that point all my demos jonathan i still hadn't dropped the the you know half of my name yeah but yeah okay so let's get back in the ring can't say the rain never keeping secrets and this is just kind of off the head i said never keep the secrets because like i said that's the whole story of me cutting my teeth in the industry [Music] um breaking my heart uh the condition absolutely one of the greatest songs from the arrangement no there's no the music it's never going away it's like live band music when was that ever like other than earth wind and fire and and and stuff like that in terms of balance but it just like you know how reasons is like or yeah yeah yeah yeah he's just he's got that horn memorable yeah everything's you here as soon as you go oh yeah i mean everybody starts going crazy right yeah you're spilling drinks i mean exactly as soon as i do that pop up on something that's a call out they know right oh that's pretty brown yeah yeah that's up there big time i mean why not say my my mind because it is one of those we're not like it is one of the greatest written songs and talk about uh persona 5 what it feels like to be grown even though i was so young that's a very grown-up wrestler it's a very grown-up recording of that yeah it sounds yeah it's very direct rhythm the drums track on that is so too a and it was i won't say a lifesaver but it was the defining moment for johnny gill coming out of new edition oh yeah because rub you the right way we were gonna we were gonna accept it yeah it was johnny gill it wasn't right it was but it wasn't strong [Laughter] that was a hell of a struggle [Laughter] [Applause] okay alexander o'neal don't you do it sunshine sunshine sun touch me with her without my sunshine [Music] reaching out for my [Music] okay so let's do this let's make a let's make a let's make an r b voltron we just we just got a new nuance added to the rb voltron so this is what we're going to do it's it's vocals it's styling it's it's what do we call emotion emotion we got emotion now and performance we're gonna take these four things and build an artist we're gonna start with the vocals who are you taking the vocals from oh my god that's so hard um marvin gaye marvin gaye's vocals marvin gaye's fault is it it can be someone that's that's not living no no no no i think that's honestly my favorite vocal is because i think it was the subtleties of his swag it's just like michael jackson it was a very rhythmic person yes all that stuff along with all the the smoothest girl close your eyes very just yeah he's got so much texture to his voice but i think what made him so amazing was the rhythm behind it what marvin sold was this very similar thing but he was not as not as much of a an aggressive rhythm person as much as almost accompanying himself he's like an instrument yeah there were multiple songs in one i'm doing the guitar yeah yeah yeah it's like a guitar party absolutely you do the horns you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it'd just be like okay he's doing the horn parts and he's doing it yeah yeah so you'd hear a vocal on the left side absolutely then it's there it's almost like that's he was the first one to do that right right yeah i mean and now that's all over our music yeah yeah so whatever those equivalents one of my favorite things that you do that's one of my favorite things that you do i love your answer tracks i love your main vocal that you're doing but all these these these answers are flying good yes the flying stress it's the compliment because nobody sings like that i'm telling you man nobody sings like that bro when i first heard sam smith that i [Music] i got so many calls and tweets he doesn't he kind of went away from like a female now no they thought that that was my record everybody thought that oh tank got a new record out oh and i was like i do oh a couple of them and then when i heard the record i was like this oh yeah yeah see what did you say that he sent you a text that was like we taught we had talked on the other side man and that's i said man do you know who i recently made a main acquaintance to that was just huge i should have mentioned him because he's a huge influence as well as maxwell i met him very receptive at the ditty party in vegas and uh man it was a really special moment to just shake a hand and look a person in the eye and be like yo man you thank you and likewise it was this similar he's a fan of music he knows like as much as you as much as maxwell looks kind of like he's in his own world and kind of separated i mean because i mean i think for for me growing up maxwell was always like this mystical character you know what i'm saying like he had our oh he brushed his hand he had a mark's video he just brushed his teeth he was just singing something brushing his teeth and you're like who gets that off he was just in a different place [Music] you think that like he's just off into his own thing and doesn't need to worry about the rest of the world but he knows he's paying attention he's paying attention he's a fan of music you know what i'm saying that's what i appreciate about his producers i mean come on that shows a lot of taste on a lot of already okay so we got the vocals for marvin marvin gay marvel okay so now we need to get the styling what do you want your artist who do you want your artists to look like it's time to get fly oh yeah yeah it's time to get fly um i mean it's i mean wow all right let's say uh just because for me it's kind of like uh i kind of uh i stole a lot from what was it 1991 baby face tender tend to love it yeah yeah he's already right here you know kind of a little bit of that vibe and then the clean essence of like wearing kind of like cleaner kind of upscale clothing back then i loved i loved the deal style i love babies yeah that was very gq very gq yeah and it wasn't we weren't afraid when i saw him live he did three suit changes and his show and i thought it was very fitting it just it just worked how he did it was swag i was like that's how you do this oh yeah sorry it was a voicemail babyface tony braxton show god you know what i mean i'm sitting here oh that's a lot of records i'm watching tamara braxton little baby 16 year old tamara braxton seeing backgrounds for you know and i'm going wow okay this is i'm then i see her grow up to be this artist you know yeah yeah but i watched them that whole thing happened like from the very beginning i caught the end of um i caught i caught the uh riding the wave of breathe breathe again he was right in his [ __ ] i watched him make waiting to exhale oh come on man this is a champagne in here is in the next studio or has he poured it off he poured it off he poured all the champagne first yeah michael jackson madonna i watched him dude i mean i would you know i could i would watch some work with elder bars did you ask him what secretary was because that's not an actual occupation i know a secretary is but i don't know if a secretary secretary is an actual occupant course i would ask this secretary what the [ __ ] is a secretary you just got to make up your own words man you know i'm faced like a baby yeah very very early rnv gq from babyface vocals from marvin gaye where are you going to get your emotion from where you get your heart from well that's oh man i wish i would have because i'm gonna get bigger who's dropping down today come on man that's nobody i mean kenny's the greatest songwriter ever bro like i'm gonna give him all the props right now just because there's nobody else who can make you believe them with a love song sad uh happy i mean back i'm talking about in the 90s like there was in the late 80s i mean when you think about tenderoni you think about on our own bobby brown you think about can we talk oh my my mind can't we talk it's kevin campbell yeah boisteroman yeah yeah what's the matter i mean uh was it uh end of the road um like the finding moments in my life or growing up and having you know uh girlfriends and breaking up and having songs that were reconciliation songs getting back together to you know songs that were kind of uh just half playing in the background when you're at all that debate face it was it was how i cut my tail like as an r b guy there's nobody that i would want a song from emotion your point bro i remember being at the underdogs and um and babyface having this song that he recorded on this group we had a hellified singer in the group as yet no i'm not going to say bruce oh hellfire singer in the group who sang the hell out of the song this babyface song thing the hell out of it and it was like it was you know you know a bunch of twists and turns you know and athletics you know what i'm saying in the vocals oh yeah right it's like baby face like okay and then babyface sang the song not all the yeah acrobatics not all the twists and turns all the fields all all the fields all the fields it was like it's a great artist to pick for him oh my god it's like the way that you express yourself even when you speak bro it's like you you're very charismatic person so it's like there's there's a lot of uh emotion behind what you say because you're not afraid to say how you feel because you're able to express how you feel people get where you're coming from and they they receive that and that's that's a gift man because um that means anything that you say you know it's it's gonna turn that statement into something else it could be some the smallest little statement but um the way that you say it now all of a sudden is is what is makes it so special you know so i feel like we all have our own little fingerprint we can put on those those statements our own way we each have that uh you know but uh there's certain ones that just stick around like you can't get that you can't even watch that off the wall that fingerprint is there yeah it's because it's so it's just he just put the stuff he just puts the stuff on it [Laughter] so that's the right word so the fourth piece of the fourth piece is performance who are you taking the performance well i mean chris brown it's me [Music] i mean the most i think if there's going to be a michael jackson of ours you know of our in this era he is our michael jackson 100 you know i would give it to usher because he's been just as um resilient of an artist to be able to withstand the times and how everything's changed and he's changed with it and he's evolved another incredible influence on the usher as a singer and so yeah i mean voltron you got marvin yeah babyface babyface big face yeah kenny and babyface baby yeah right and chris brown lord jesus yeah that's a hell of a that's a hell of an i don't know i just can't think the look thing kind of shook me because i don't really know what an artist should look like but i just remember when i first started as as an artist um i was paying attention to the the slickness of what was happening at the time and i think it's really okay to get back to that y'all like let's get back to because in the 90s we were slick okay this is my friend to put on some nice clothes you know what i mean yeah the fabric feels that's what bad boy we should call them party shirts hearty shirts cause you put on a nice shirt to go yeah you couldn't get in the club with just anything oh you couldn't yeah no t-shirts allowed yeah yeah yeah yeah put on your [ __ ] yeah yeah sure all right we'll say put that [ __ ] on put that [ __ ] j house yes i got i got a special segment it's called i ain't saying no names will you tell us a story funny or [ __ ] up or both okay but the only rule you just don't say their names okay oh i could have done that with the diane warren i mean it put you out there um all right um do i want to expose right [Applause] it's your segment my brother oh oh man um you know it's it's always crazy because you go through the business and one one definitely thing that i learned in the business it's one thing to to be in the corporate side of the industry and to i grew up kind of backwards whereas like i got the most credible powerful manager from the very beginning as soon as i signed a babyface i was assigned to gallon and maury which was michael jackson's management firm incredible you know i'm saying so i got michael jackson on the same you know management firm yeah i mean managed by his manager it's like insane to start from that you know you said three names already right and then go go that's fine because i'm gonna i'm gonna traverse that's not who i am but one thing is for sure is that you know when you experience that first and then you no longer have that management and you move on to other managers and managers are they come in all kinds of different statuses they got the super powerful high-end managers who every label will answer their phone call and then you got guys who are on the come-up growing up in the music industry i didn't know who to be loyal to in terms of like you know do you stay corporate or do you just take people at face value and trust energies and vibes from people yeah so i was much more of a truster rather than a person that was just take your word okay this is who you need corporate blah blah blah i was much more of like in the streets like vibing with guys you know i'm saying so if i if i liked your energy i might work with you and you might not even have on your anybody on your roster you might just be a totally independent manager anyway i ended up working with some some guys during the time that i i met you for that project and um it it just really was not the move to make because what happens when you sometimes when you work with people who aren't established they use you as like like almost like the main thing to base off everything i mean i had light bills put in my name and and cars and [ __ ] things you know what i'm saying i found out about later on like what ten thousand dollar light bill why what is this i'm paying for this oh over here and this and that is you basically just a reason a check they're just getting a way to be able to make money and just living off you and not not really bringing anything to the table they'll be like oh such wants to get at you it's like all right cool do i need to pay you for that like you know what i mean like it's literally you just told me now i have to go do the work right so i have to pay you for that right all right so that's 20 right there you know off of whatever check that was to you for just giving me that phone call which is i guess it's fair but it's not to me it's like what what constitutes management what is management you know what i'm saying in terms of like what's the work that you're going to actually do to bring to the table what isn't already there right um because this is my table it's not our table this is my table yeah you're person sitting at my table so what are you going to put on we're eating food right now right this is my table we're eating dinner i'm having some food prepared what are you going to bring to the table that's the main thing because at the end of the day i paid for this meal to even happen we're sitting at this table with a reservation because i'm the one who had the reservation and i have to pay for the bill at the end of the night yeah so that's the thing when you learn all this backwards like i did with all the glitz and the glamour i mean i'm sitting right next to whitney houston at the grammys my first year with babyface you know for someone to love because we got nominated that's not a regular situation i learned backwards like so i had to go from that to being like okay you know you know uh not being invited to a lot of different award shows and wondering why and being like oh okay you know and just kind of playing the you know the back of the the scenes a little bit more you know i just kind of appreciate it but it was because of of guys like the guy i'm describing was just not in the industry but wanted to be but was willing to just live off of me and take what was coming to me you know to kind of keep me at bay and if you spend enough time dealing with people like that you're you're gonna fall off like you there's something that's gonna happen within you that will be not conducive for the industry the industry is gonna start saying stuff about you they're gonna talk about you there you know what i mean and so 2004 as i'm saying i'm stronger every day ironically enough was the beginning of an era that the industry for some reason wasn't feeling me they were like well that's cool where's baby you know i don't know what they were thinking but it definitely wasn't like our our song our song lately went hard um i had other records on that album that were dope as well i worked with kenny on that album but for some reason that album wasn't as welcomed as other as other albums of mine and i didn't know if it was the promotion i didn't know what it was i just but i i really now know that it was the management that i had involved the people that i had closest to me around me that were that made that whole so i almost lost my house um i mean it's it's no management is tough it's a it's a real miracle that i i still live where i live because of the fact that uh we were able to work everything out with with my uh my current business managers and stuff like that but it's it was a lot to have to to to bail myself out you know first like was the divorce of a high school sweetheart that i married you know like straight out of high school in china didn't want my life to change so i tried to marry her that was a bad deal so you know we got divorced and right after that you know it was like three years of being sort of in this limbo place where it was like because of these managers and i was just really i was mad at the music industry i was like i've already done i've already sold platinums what why do i have to keep proving myself like this i just want to celebrate the music now and do me you know but it was there's a lot of a lot of voices around me at that time kind of being like well they just i don't know i can't really get people to fight on this i can't you know i don't know if they're feeling it promoters don't really you know it's like what hold on man back up maybe it's as soon as i move those people out of the way they were like hey and and i will i will say the defining moment was when i met my wife um i had already known her for like 10 years before we were romantically involved but basically she was started off as a friend of mine and we kind of established ourselves you know more than that after after knowing each other like you know liking each other and flirting and all that but it was it was the one thing that it kind of i related to her so much i was like why don't you just try to get me some gigs like you tried you know she was like all right well cool and so we it was that kind of out of necessity because we were both so disenfranchised with management and the whole idea of giving so much power to someone yeah and then they can take it for granted do whatever steer you into essentially where you don't want to be um yeah so i was like man like let's just try this and we've been rocking together ever since and i mean we turned my brand around man we turned everything around i mean everything that we've done has been independent for the last 15 years wow it's been crazy i bet i've been able to stay afloat and uh more than a flow i mean i'm one of the hardest working men in the r b you're going to see johnny's name on that show beautiful beautiful tour we did at the city winery i was telling you yeah both love that venue and the fans just it's just such an incredible opportunity to reconnect with my fans you know the the kobe took us out for 18 months man wasn't gigging so it's just such a blessing we know i was like i got to get on the road i was like come on i got to get on this road man this is i was just i was really disappointed because i had just um done a record with my man donnell jones we got in the studio and we did the song i played him the record on on the road on the road and i played it to him he's like man i like that and i was like you do i was like let's cut this let's let's get it so he was so cool about it man he sent me the file right back i was like let's do this video he came shot the video with me man i was like honored man and it was really uh you know an honor for me to work with a legend like that yeah shout out to donald jones shout out to we need you on the podcast down there that's who you are this is where you want to be yeah this is this is where you want to harvey money this is what he he's one of us yeah that's what he does so that's why it was a huge blessing to have him come bless me on that track understand is the name of the record i wrote and produced it myself and uh we shot that video man it was like it felt real good like all right this is something new put this out and then cover it so it's like you know we had another song that we put out called priceless as well we did a video for that as well so check them out man if you haven't checked it out uh understand and priceless are available now but that kind of the whole covert thing kind of shut the album process down because it's like all right what do we do now you know what i ended up doing doing during the the uh the whole the panoramic yeah panoramic was uh i i did these online performances man which was was really cool i found a really cool venue downtown it was like a loft kind of energy with like dim lights we brought the you know we brought the crew with the cameras and we just it was a multi-camera setup so it was like it was it was shot well you know like moving cameras a little movement you know what i mean little panning and we had a little you know mock audience kind of just maybe 10 15 people show up um and we put that on and every every month i i got in touch with my fans i was like what do you want to hear this one you know and i always was going direct to consumer yeah so it was it was a great way to kind of test myself too like all right i haven't done this one in a long time let's break this one out from the first hour or whatever so yeah it was really really fun and um some of those songs that i actually dusted off you know dustin brought out of the craze i was like uh i was like man i was scared to sing this one because the range was back when i was 19. but boy it's like it's good to sing those songs you know and and bring those back and now some of them actually made it into my current set now so it's a fun time well brother john b champion uh mr bucks man that was like a game back in the day no whammies big bucks no whammies big r b bucks yeah um you uh one thing that you know one thing that i've always been impressed about you is you know along with your humility you're just extremely gracious cheers bro you're just extremely like you know it's always a smile and it's always like well at least we got water [Laughter] you're oh you like i'm i'm definitely the glass is half full like i'm definitely that but you're like you're like my mirror image and you're probably a step further than that i wish you could hear that my new creations that i have i'm about to put on yeah it's called waiting on you mm-hmm man you're like the number one influence for the song oh wow and you are the the person that is the reason why i felt like that it it there's only so many people i can say can reflect an emotion that's similar like this and i hope that's a it says how much you've affected me as an artist you know when you can relate to someone so much that it's like you don't have to try the the grown man john b has it's been around the tanks you know what i'm saying yeah and taking some notes and being like nah i'm you know when you look when you curl the weight and you you could be like bent over and kind of like no you put your yeah arm back yeah lift it and you just know you're gonna get that weight up right that's the way i'm approaching what i'm doing now it's a different confidence yeah as a grown man developed muscle develop muscle well without being physically yes you can't really compare that no i mean i'm you know but i will say i'm working on those things preserving those things you know he a part-time trainer too man [Music] i just randomly got bro i'm training john b it's a wrap to get a six-pack we're not one or two times man this thing won't do it you got the voice music yeah you got you got the persona you got it all man um we have been honored um yes sir we've been honored to spend a lot of time with you man we just we i don't even i don't even been counting how long yeah yeah this is got to talk you know and to tap into you know just hear about all of these awesome legendary artists that you just came in the game and just tackled like that's just that's not normal man it's not normal man it's a loop to you thank you bro you're you're still you're you're you're ever-growing career man we always see each other on the road and it's always love it's always a beverage always and and and i promise you man that is never going to change you don't even know what that means to me bro i'm running to you like this i had this opportunity to reconnect with you bro cause i mean we we got history yes sir we've been rocking together for some years now i remember when you first came out i was in london talking on radio like i'm i got this new single i'm about to you know because we had just worked it was right after not too long after your first first couple of singles yeah you worked and so you know they hadn't really gotten you yet over it in london yet they were on their way but it was just just starting to bubble i was like now tank is the future tank is the future that's crazy you know lately is about to be and you know we made it to the top four top it was a top five record in london a lot of people don't don't know that that was lately made it i went to trl mtv in england yeah to go talk about the video and the song and working with you and everything like that so sauce yeah i don't know who you get to hang out with you know what i'm saying and you know during your afternoons and just kick it with and get good information from man but if the rv money podcast me and my brother jay valentine we got the kick mr john b man please make some noise money

Channel: R&B Money Podcast

Views: 308,151

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Id: 8xt7qRfDdzU

Length: 114min 16sec (6856 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022