Bilal

32:17I don't know. But it also seems like people really at a, well, yes and no, maybe musically at least, except, like I think about how a Thundercat has like, it seems like the fact that a critical mass of people can accept that level of talent is a good sign to me. You know what I mean? and so it does feel like we're in an era of people really recognizing musically at least like superb supreme talent yeah you know even the back like i don't know whatever not to get controversial but the backlash against drake or whatever you know it's like yeah i like some music but that's okay but it is also in some way a positive sign you know and there's not a lot of positive uh things you know there's not a lot of things pointing towards a positive future so much necessarily always but that feels like one of those things where you're like oh it's like a cool bellwether for what could could be you know yeah i i think that is though you know that uh for a minute there i thought all of society could be programmed to like one thing and then that was it you know but that did like uh put in my head that yeah well you know the people can't speak you know and people uh like a variety of things and they should have that um lead way in the marketplace to like a variety of things instead of just this is what's dope and anything outside of that's not dope you know i think that's i don't know if that's only in america though you think?

33:58Well, it seems like outside of America, people have always been a little more open, you know? I don't know, right? And I think that's just a marketing thing. Definitely think it's a marketing thing. I think people, including Americans, think Americans are stupid. Even Americans. I think we market ourselves like we're idiots, you know what I mean? Like, we can't make decisions, you know? Like, we find boxes for things because we're fucking idiots. Because it's a marketplace. Everything is a marketplace. Everything is to be sold. You just got to find the right marketing pitch. I can pick up a piece of dirt off the floor.

34:37And if I got that gift of gab, I'm going to make some money. Yes, yes. It was funny. I put out an interview with Daryl Hall and they got a bunch of pickups. I asked him, it's interesting to me when I listen, I wasn't around when Holland Oates was hitting in the late 70s and 80s or when the Doobie Brothers were, but I listen to that stuff now and you're like, this is clearly just white dudes that loved R &B. I don't just make it R &B. And when I was talking to Michael McDonald once, he was like, yeah, Warner Brothers didn't know what to do with us because we were white dudes, so they wanted to market us to rock radio, but rock radio didn't want to play us because we sounded like R &B, like black dudes.

35:17But Warner couldn't get it in their head to play us on black radio. But finally, some black radio promoter at Warner was like, this has got to go to black radio. Black radio started playing it. But then the labels just started calling it adult contemporary or soft rock or whatever AOR album-oriented rock. They would have these phrases for it. So I was asking Devo about that. He's like, yeah, well, fuck you out, rock. like they you know they trying to like and you're like I kind of see his point like here's a dude he just loves Philly dude Philly dude I know he he kept it raw he kept it raw you know he just loves R &B before God has to get you know label Yacht Rock or whatever you know and I felt his pain you know like yeah man that's the way I felt about Neo Solo fuck what is that like it's just a marketing term like I felt like we was just cats that loved hip-hop but found those 70s uh instruments from the that were used from those records that we were sampling and was like well let's just use those instruments yeah instead of sampling let's just pull out of roads right instead of getting sued on every instead of not making no money from the track because it's they're taking all of the publishing like let's make up our own loops you know yeah and use those instruments or try to figure out how the how they recorded it to get that sound i thought that's what we were doing but it still had it had the integrity of soul music so it still had that soul in it yeah so why say it reminds you of soul you know that's a good call yeah it did have the to your point it had the feeling of what you know whether it's like a and something like a soul man, like what it was like, you felt when you heard the term soul man, you feel like that's a standup brother who's gonna, you know what I mean?

37:11Whatever. They have that, like these are people really serious about their, what they do, like it's no joke. So I had that, but yeah, to just call it Neo Soul and then for that to become like a thing of you guys just making derivative music, like that's crazy. I think this label's own music sucks because it just keeps you in a box. It keeps the listener in a box. And then it forces the artist into a box because they want to still try and make money. And they think that that audience wants to hear whatever's in that box. So they don't want to go out of that box. So it just... Everything in that box, if it gets played out, nobody wants to hear it no more.

37:59The whole box gets just thrown out. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how we got it but that brings me back to what I was gonna say which is that this album is cool because it sounds in a lot of ways like almost like what would have been like the natural progression for you like maybe like your third album if your second album hadn't gotten shoved but it also is very in so many ways also like out of the box for for what we think of as a Bilal record like like this like Sunshine which is is like I don't think I've ever heard anything like that from you and it's incredible you know yeah well like i said i don't know i mean when i go into the studio i'm just making stuff that i like that feels good and you know that i'm i'm challenging myself yeah i call them beautiful mistakes especially with this album we was just doing a bunch of accidents or in the studio like doing something and then out of nowhere like something it'll fall on the keyboard or like the darts will be playing and kick the kick a chord and something like whoa but what was that like erase everything but keep that part now let's start from there you know that's amazing and from that it would turn into something else it was like just a bunch of adventures that kind of happened by accident, just like this little inquisitive kids, you know.

39:30After this last break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Balaw. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Oocla Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity, even in times of high demand.

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42:40That's where BetterHelp comes in. They've been helping people find their therapy match for over a decade. Because of their quality therapists that work according to a strict code of conduct, they have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp.com slash broken. That's betterhelp.com slash broken. Who are you in the studio with on this album? On this album, I worked with, you know, Robert, Robert Glasper on, on a track.

43:22I worked with my core, my core people that I've been playing with in my band for years, Tony Whitfield. And Simon. I don't know. I don't know. I always forget Simon's a producer's name, so he's going to smash me over the head. Flannify. Flannify. Okay. But incredible. This is all young musician. He's a guitarist. And guitarist, phenomenal producer. I work with Kareem Riggins amazing Ant-Man Wonder is also an awesome producer from Philly I think he's out here in LA now and Chariq Khan who's a producer in Brooklyn he's just all my friends really I forget Simon's last name but he plays in Hiatus Coyote.

44:29Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Marvin. Simon Marvin. Simon, if you watch this dude, I love you, man. I just don't know anybody's last names. Sorry. And was a lot of the writing done in studio or did you have a lot going in? On some of the songs I would write alone, but I also worked with my two writer friends, Hezekiah. He's an emcee from Philly and an emcee from Philly under the name Chemist. He's really dope. Hezekiah's been working with me as far as lyrics go from maybe since all the way back to my second album, Airtight's Revenge. From Airtight's Revenge all the way up till now, I produced and wrote a lot of that out of Philly.

45:27And my old collaborator that I used to work with in that second album, Steve McKee. Steve's studio was right. Steve McKee and Hezekiah had their studios kind of in the same building. So I would just hang out at everybody's face and we would call heads to come up just to hang. And then, you know, like I said, when I'm in the studio and everybody's in the room, I ask everybody to be involved. Yeah. If my wife came to the studio, I would ask her to be involved somehow. Like my wife has written lyrics, written lyrics to some songs. Like I'll write some stuff and be like, this sounds stupid. What would you think?

46:16Because my wife is a good writer. But she writes like, really writes like essays and books and stuff like that. But I ask anybody. So now if I don't have anybody to bounce stuff off, I make collages. and um that's how i uh the latter part of the record i just started getting really uh into these collages how are you making these collages how do how do they start how do they sound uh well it's like a word collage so i'll write something down and if i'm not really like sure of what it is, I'll put it aside and I'll start writing something else that don't have nothing to do with it. Just without the music on.

47:12And I'll just start writing, writing, writing. And then I'll take the other paper that I was trying to write lyrics to. And you were writing to the music to that one. And I'll cut it up with some scissors. Just cut it up, cut it up. And then I'll take the other page that I was just writing random stuff on. I'll cut that up and I'll just paste them all together. Like lines? Full lines? Mm-hmm. But I'll cut it down and I'll just you know, paste them back together. And you just kind of move them around until... I got that idea from Donald Fagan. Like I was reading an article Donald Fagan said that's how he wrote his lyrics in Big Black Cow.

47:53I was like, what? I'm gonna do that. And it worked. That's crazy. No wonder Silly Dan's lyrics are. It kind of makes sense, though. Their lyrics kind of make sense, but don't. A hundred percent. Sometimes I just feel like I know those guys are geniuses. Sometimes I'm like, I must be stupid. I kind of get where he's going, a hundred percent. See it? Yeah, man. I want to sit down with Ghostface and ask him, because I feel like he's doing the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Ghostface might get it. Ghostface is on that level. He's the best, man. Yeah. well earlier you were saying like early on in your career you felt very much like dictated to in a sense very much like in like like you couldn't maybe you were hemmed in and unable to make a decision on decisions for yourself um or maybe i'm extrapolating too far um yes and no you know i felt like um it started off as you know we want you to just get in here do something different do something crazy but then when they're like wow that's too crazy we need to figure out how to like bring it in the real it ends you know this is then this is like interscope as a interscope or like i wasn't signed direct to interscope so it was like a production i was under like a production company so it was kind of Who are you under?

49:23It was a production company called Moyo Music. So it was like three people. They were James and Tumay's sons. No way. Yeah. And so these cats that I respected their musicianship. Yeah. But it was just, I don't think they were telling me, like, we need to dumb you down and make you pop. They were just like, this is so out. How are we going to sell this, man? Is there a version of your first album that is a little, like are there versions of those songs or other songs that are a little more? Yeah, there's lots of songs. We did so many songs. I do so many songs for records. And then I just sit back like, what of this is a record, you know?

50:11Wow. Especially for that first record. It was, we did so many songs, worked with so many people. Wow. I did like four songs with Dilla. On the first album? Yeah, but we only chose one. And then when I went to do my second album, I came to the label to have Dilla do the whole album. So before Dilla passed, we were working. I was at his house. We did like six songs. In Detroit? Mm-hmm. And then he moved out to L.A. It was like, got to be like six unfinished tunes. Wow. So the version that got leaked wasn't necessarily like the sequence. Those songs that got leaked were like the songs that I produced.

51:06So that wasn't like the album as it was going to come out, the way that it goes. It was just whoever was working with the people that were mixing the album, they just bootleg some of the stuff, like the unfinished mixes.

51:24Because Dilla mixed all his stuff itself. Like I said, he had started getting sick, so we just went in and started mixing the songs that I had produced, and those were the ones that got leaked. so Sorrow Tears and Blood was that you and Dilla? no that was just me that was just you okay because somewhere online someone said that was Dilla and I was I always no no no I produced that but I had I was bringing in a lot of different people like to kind of be a part of it like Zap Mama

52:01Common came and he rapped on on the last half of it but it was it was for Sorrow's Tears and Blood project. They were doing a Fela Cootie project. That wasn't even for my second album. Really? Around that time, that's what had happened. I convinced the label to allow me to produce six songs by myself and then let J. Dilla come in and produce six songs. And then we would make an album. And they were in on that? They were in on it until they heard what I was doing.

52:40did they hear the stuff that was leaked that's when they leaked it what didn't they like about it they didn't like it but then when it got leaked ironically they came back and was like this stuff's amazing i was like what yeah it is amazing it's like incredible what was jimmy ivy in like oh man that's hilarious jimmy didn't know what to think about it he was just like this is not r &b so then i was like well what's r &b then jimmy so you'll be like okay okay you want to play that game let's get dr dre in here so dr j was like this ain't there this ain't r &b it's a hybrid i know exactly what it is so sign to me and i was okay how do I do this in the midst of that I guess somebody that I you know I don't want to out anyone but when they heard that people that they thought would say it sucked was like actually I could do something with this it got bullied so someone blocked you from signing to Dre I don't think somebody blocked me from signing to Dre.

53:58I just think once I started working the project with Dre, the music that I had already worked on got leaked, I guess, in an effort to have me just start from scratch. You know what I mean? Damn. That's the way it came to me. It was like, oh, everything's leaked, so I guess we got to start from the top. And I was like, what? but theoretically you could have started from the top when you said fuck that yeah i mean i tried man but i was just i felt like i was doing a whole new album i just kind of lost what i where i was at what was happening yeah yeah yeah you know and in the in the middle of that like the business side just went into a stalemate i think the um the production label that i was under kind of changed um homes they went to another label so it was just a bunch of label stuff started happening and at the same time that the record was bootleg so it was just everything was up in the air yeah dre must have loved you though i imagine right yeah yeah yeah i still i still talk to dre every now and then yeah so you guys make music still um I don't know what Dre's doing, but I know maybe one day still.

55:23I love Dre. I love everything he's doing. And I think the last time I saw him, I went into the studio to hang out with Anderson Pack, and he came through, and we was just hanging. Yeah. So. When you went into the studio with him to do the stuff on First Born, Second, I guess you would have been in high school when The Chronic came out, or close to, was that like in your um or did you kind of some some some people on these coasts i feel like missed that a bit you know when i was in high school i knew of the chronic because my my brother was big in hip-hop but when i was in high school i was kind of like a jazz snob like i was like nah man you know only thing that i really like was like oh that's kind of hip is like Tribe Called Quest because I knew the jazz samples, you know.

56:15I was kind of a brute. But by the time I got to the second chronic, I was already in college, you know. I was loving it. So by the time I got to the studio, I was full on, like, ecstatic. Yeah, somebody with Dr. Dre. And it's crazy, you know, they always say, You really want something to happen, you write it down. And I literally wrote down all the people that I wanted to work with. And I worked with all of them. Wow. And so that was crazy. It was in there. I was just like, this is magic. This is magic. Go. And I felt at home because Scott Storch was there. And Scott Storch from Philly. Oh, it's a Philly guy.

57:04Another Philly guy. Right. Of course. So we was just in there high-fiving. It was awesome. Damn. I mean, did he, had he heard of you by that point? Like Scott or did he know you from Philly? Yeah, I knew Scott from Philly. Gee, that's crazy. Mm-hmm. So it was, it was great. That's amazing. Mm-hmm. Questlove tells a great story about how sometimes came to be in the Glasshouse record or live session. I don't know how you want to frame that, which is an incredible, I mean, it's streaming. so people should listen to that and watch it on YouTube. It's phenomenal. So well done. Well, I mean, directed well, performed well.

57:45Everything, that's an incredible piece. Thank you. But Questlove tells this pretty funny story about how sometimes it came to be. Oh, yeah. Can you tell that from your perspective?

57:59Well, by the time I had came to the studio, they were kind of like already joking around, playing. playing the record. And the way Amir and James produced, it's kind of like just one big jam session. So they were just in there laughing, joking, and I came in, just got on the mic and just started freestyling over top their banter. They were poking fun at Common for missing out on the role maybe to most deaf, Yasin Bey. Yeah. And... You know, it was just a bunch of laughing and joking coming up, you know. and different switch-ups in the music they would do as jokes.

58:45They'll play a ton of different shapes, and then at the end they'll be like, all right, you pick from that, and then we'll come back and make it a whole track. But when I heard them, I didn't know it was a joke. I just went right in there and started singing along, and they were like, hey, what is this? It's working. and some of the freestyle I changed some of the lyrics but most of sometimes was just right off sometimes I wish I wasn't me sometimes I wish I was drug free I was just I thought I was just going in with the banter back you know so yeah that's incredible it's like a freestyle song it's insane because Questlove says it's at the end of his story he says it's where he's like y 'all were mixing up Umi Says to make fun of Common with Bills, Bills, Bills, I think from Destiny's Child because it was the Carmen movie that Beyonce started.

59:41But at the end of that, he says, yeah, it was one take. The core of it, most of it. It's insane. And then I just went back in and put backgrounds, vocals on there. And then just like some of the lyrics, I changed some of the lyrics. But like I said, most of it was just that. Was it much longer and you guys had to trim it down? Yeah. Yeah, it was like, man, it was almost like eight minutes of just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and then going into other stuff. But it didn't have a bass on it. It was just Amir playing drums and James on the keyboards. And then later on, they had Pino Paladino come in, and that was one tape.

1:00:27Pino didn't even Pino didn't even know what was going on it was just like alright in two in two more bars we'll go it's gonna go to another it's gonna go to another chord ready go

1:00:43and it kept everything I loved it as on the spot as it could get as far as the music go that's an amazing story man that's an amazing story yeah I love it I love it when it's like that, you know, that it's just the music just comes out of you. When I was working with Dilla, a lot of the music happened the same way. Really? Yeah, we did a song. I did a song with Guru on his Jazz Mataz album. On volume one of that, right? Yeah, right. And me and Guru went out to Detroit and Dilla was just in the studio. it was quiet just like this and he was just like and we was like so where's the music he was like oh I was waiting for y 'all to get here let me put something together

1:01:39he did that whole everything he just walked around collected like 20 vinyls and just all while we were talking and he's rolling blood on the vinyl just like yeah so we oh man seen a minute and then he would just keep like one headphone on and the whole time it's just quiet and we just in there he got games so we playing games and stuff and he's just like and then like literally i think that beat took him like not even 10 minutes because he would just boom next record 10 minutes and then he just turned that beat up just like that and he's like whoa and i was like yo that's a lie you you you had this beat made this was just a perform like come on he's like nah were there beats he took longer to make like were there i know every time i worked with him he made it from nothing even the drum sound he was never struggling with anything like oh I got this thing I don't know what to do with nah even when he was like not feeling well it was the same his creativity didn't go nowhere I thought the last time I worked with him he messed my head up the most because we were having a problem with some of the samples.

1:03:15One of the ANRs from the label had came with me that time. We were talking about some of the stuff and clearing the samples and he was like, what? I'll replay all this. And he programmed all of the moves in the crib. Replayed everything. What? And I was like, what? I didn't know you didn't know how to play bass. What the hell is going on? And he said, I don't know how to play it. Did he actually know or had he just listened enough that he knew? He said he didn't know, but I was like, yo, you playing that. You killing it. He was like, I just know how to find the sounds that I want.

1:04:07Damn, man, that's amazing. And the crazy thing was the label had flew James Poyser out the next day to kind of replay the stuff that he sampled. And me and James was in there like, what is going on? Like, how did you? James was like, I'm out. I'm leaving. I'm leaving here. Just chilling. That's crazy. Because we thought James was like the man at programming the Moogs. Yeah. Dylan just kind of was like... Wow. Got the exact sounds like from... You know, on the move, it's just that one noise. He blew my mind. Jesus. That's wild. And did it just as fast as he would do chopping the beat. I was done.

1:05:04That's really wild. I want to go back to the idea. Early on, you were talking about your, what was your high school teacher's name? Mr. King. Mr. King. You were talking about how he also introduced you to the idea of dynamics in music, essentially. And that's so present in your music. And you do a version of Since I've Been Loving You by Zeppelin. Oh, yeah. That's like, that song's always floored me because again, the dynamics where they go up and down with that song and then the version you do and there was one you did at like a Roots Jam or something you do since I've been loving you into everything in its right place.

1:05:44It's unbelievable. I sent it to Kirk this morning because I was like, dude, y 'all are ridiculous, man. Oh, yeah. You guys are ridiculous, man. That's the cool thing about the Roots. They encompass so many styles of music. Yeah. I was always inspired by them. Like I said, coming up in Philly, I would search out the Amir jam sessions. Because he would have these impromptu jam sessions around the city. And I would just try and find them. And ironically, that's where I met some of the cool musicians that I know to this day. I was just always, I think, drawn to that. And I always tried to keep that element.

1:06:38I always saw what The Roots was doing as kind of the blueprint of what I wanted to do. I felt like it was the gateway to push what I had absorbed from college and jazz and how to like fuse that in to, you know, the popular culture, I would say. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely, yeah. I felt like they really were doing it, man. It was just inspiring to this day. Yeah, man, I got to put in a request that you and Kurt do a project together, man. There's also another video. I can't find it anymore, man. but I ripped it. So somewhere, I have it in my hard drive, somewhere, you guys on Fallon, when it was still the Late Show, doing the Roots on the Other Side, about 10 years or so ago.

1:07:35Oh, yeah, with the strings. With the strings, but there's a bit at the end where you and Cap and Kurt just go like, or just trading back and forth and I've never seen anything like it. It's like chills. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's cool. And there's musicians, for me, that can set up that environment where you feel like, wow, I can jump off this cliff and I'll be fine. Yes. Yeah. And then nobody's going, no, don't jump. Do you find it hard to find musicians? Because, I mean, you are a guy. You just strike me as a guy. just from listening to you and seeing you, it's like, I feel like you'll go further off the cliff than anybody.

1:08:25You know what I mean? Is it hard for you to find people that like - I'm like the Lenny Bruce of - Yeah, for the young heads, yeah. They won't get that reference. But yes, you're the Lenny Bruce of - Of R &B. You're getting arrested on stage for - Taking it too far, man. I don't know. I mean, that's, like I said, that's the jazz thing. and then it's also the punk rock thing, you know? Bad Brains is like my favorite, one of my favorite groups of all time. And I mentioned my boy Chuck Treese because he used to play drums in the Bad Brains and he's like my OG. I met Chuck at Amir's house, but then we got really close when we were roommates in D 'Angelo's band.

1:09:15Wow. You were in D 'Angelo's band? For Summer. Then I got fired. What'd you get fired for? I couldn't. I was just a horrible background singer, man. I've seen you sing backgrounds. But I was like so into what everybody else was doing. I kept missing my parts. It wasn't that I couldn't sing the parts, but it's like I'm mirrors on drums. Roy Hart goes on in the trumpet section. I got D 'Angelo's playing keys. And this is like me right out of high school. I'm just looking around at everybody. Oh, my God. This is so bad. And then I look and D 'Angelo's giving me the death stare like, you missed your note again.

1:10:03And I'm like, oh. Yo. He was like, yeah. Who fires you out of D 'Angelo's band? How does that work? D 'Angelo fired me, man. But it was very friendly. He said, you need to go get a record to him.

1:10:25He said, you too much about the music, man. You're looking at everything. You're not doing your job, brother.

1:10:36So much about the music, you're fucking on my music. That's crazy. Did you process it as like a blow or you're just like, nah, you're probably right, man. No. Oh, I was, I took it as, wow, you think I could get a record?

1:10:56Hell yeah. Is that how you knew Kedar, Mossenberg? I met Kedar, yeah, from that process because I started putting together a demo. With the guy from, with the drummer from the Spindor, which I never, I gotta say, I never knew that. yeah we went to the same college the drummer from the spin doctors Aaron Colmas two two princes spin doctors yeah we produced on your first record and everything ironically we went to the same college and uh we were playing in the same dive bar jazz band um uh like three in the morning at this place called Sidewalk Cafe.

1:11:47And me and Rob were having a hard time staying woke to make the gig. So Aaron was like, yo, just come to my house. And I got some instruments there. We could kind of like jam until the gig. We go there. He lives in a man, like a straight up like, I'm like, what do you do, man? He's so rich. because I didn't know anything about the spin doctors. And then he was like, dude, I'm about, he didn't even tell us until like, I don't think he ever told me. I just kind of found out about that myself. He didn't have like records on the wall. No, it was just like a regular house, but he had a ill studio. Wow.

1:12:31Just like, wow. Like how you got all this stuff? I wrote a lot of my first songs on my first album at his crib. Like When Will You Call, Queen of Sanity, Love Palms, all of those songs. Oh, that's the sequence, right? That's in sequence on the album, too. Those are great songs, man. And he's playing drums on those? yep except he's playing drums on all of those except for queen insanity because i'm here i'm here did a uh i'm here move i was just like let me try something and i think uh i you know i was just like wow we kept we kept a lot of the the integrity of it but that was the only one that we kind of re-recorded.

1:13:34But everything else, it was just like it was. I think it was another tune too. We had did some, like I said, I did a whole record alone at Aaron's. Wow. And then we just picked some of those and shopped it to for late, you know. You guys still cool? Yeah, we're still cool. I just haven't spoken to them in a while. But yeah. Aaron, we had a whole album. I thought it was kind of like a rock album, almost on like, not rock, it was like kind of rock, kind of Jamiroquai-ish. Okay. But, yeah. I was going to ask, I mean, we sped past Zeppelin, but like, the way you, I mean, like, the way you do a Zeppelin song, man, like, that's really, it's really, first of all, a lot of the, any cover I've really heard of yours, whether it is Star Wars, Chosen Blood, or can't hide love or high and dry or since I've been loving you it's like you definitely bring something to us I want to ask you more about just what you the way you might interpret a song but have you ever thought about like it's it's I can't think of anyone who can do a Zeppelin song justice the way that you did on that like have you ever thought about just forming a rock band like putting a band like I mean and I guess your second album is a little is very rock influenced.

1:15:00We were hard rock. I think the band, everybody in my band thinks they're rock. Musicians anyway. But yeah, I was sort of making, my kids ask me that too. My son asks me, why don't you make another type of band when y 'all do, but I'm just like, what I do is I try to shove everything into one into one burrito. Yeah, yeah. But, um... It's just so fun to hear you do that genre because it's like... Yeah, there's a... I would love to go full on into that genre into the jazz world, too, you know? Like, a lot of people don't even know that I sing jazz. You would like to do, like, a straight-up, like a...

1:15:49I used to, but then I'm like, what the hell is jazz now? It's... It's a lot of things. It's what I'm doing. Yeah, it is kind of what you're doing now. So I don't know. Rock would be cool though. Yeah. Is there a party that wants to... The amount of time between this record and your last record, it's almost the amount of time between... Yeah, it was a while. The first and second album. Mm-hmm. Is there a party that is happy to just put stuff out every so often? Is there a party that wants to... It sounds like you have a lot of stuff too. Yeah, no, dude. It sounds like you could be releasing regularly.

1:16:25not to I could put out I could put out an album every two years I could why are you depriving us I got so much music why are you depriving us I don't know I mean I just wanted to be done right you know I've been doing putting music out and not satisfied with the way I put it out that I'm just like man I wanted to be done the right way you know with this album I put my own money into it to make sure I kind of like did it how I was envisioning it and make it kind of work but I don't want to go broke you know what I'm saying definitely not but it's a good album though if that's sure I insisted on it it almost feels like the most um even including the one that I guess that got leads but that's not fair because that wasn't really what it was intended to be but it does feel like the most cohesive project in a sense you know where it's like it just feels like there's a through line and you could just start right back at one.

1:17:26Like, you could just loop it. And it feels like it's like a circle. It just doesn't stop, you know? It has that real complete feel to it, you know? Yeah, I mean, this record was definitely a labor of love, you know? A lot of it was done in my own, like, personal studio and just wasn't a label thought of, I'm doing this so I can kind of, because the label, like, signed me to do it. It was just something I was doing. And then I was like, I want this to come out. Let me go fish for somebody to help me. You know what I'm saying? But I don't want to do that no more, man. I feel like I put together good projects and I just have to find a good home for it, you know, so that I can just put it out.

1:18:16But like I said, I got mad shit, dude. Mad shit. man we got i want yeah i mean i hope you put it out it just has to be it has to be right and that's the way i feel like because i put a lot into stuff yeah you know um can i i mean i won't keep you here forever but can i ask you about morocco oh yeah i would love that's one what's one of my number one destinations to go to man i love morocco the people are very um it's almost like a competition like i'll go to my wife's uh aunt's house and then she'll find out her sister i went you know her the other i don't find out that i went there and then it's like oh yeah and then i'm in my mind i'm like we go in there we're going to her house and she's gonna really so what did you eat over there well now you're gonna have this it's like everything is great if you're a visitor because everybody's like, you have never had hospitality like this.

1:19:17He come to my house. I'm going to give you the best. So I'm like rating everybody's mentee. It doesn't sound too different from just like a black family in America. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like, hey, you went to that auntie's house? Why are you like, oh, okay. You came in and didn't come and visit me, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, oh, man, you know, like I can't visit no one, you know? And then they feed you and feed you and feed you. And then you're like, I'm done. And if you don't know how to say this one word, you have to learn this word or else your stomach will bust open and you'll just die in somebody's dinner table.

1:19:52You have to learn this word called Safi. Safi. Safi. That means enough. Okay. Enough. Because they will just keep feeding you and feeding you. No, no, no. More. More. More. More. More. More. More. More. More. Wow. And, yeah. Wow. And the awesome thing about it, I didn't gain no weight, and I ate so much food. I felt like I was getting stronger. That's when I knew, like, something's up with the food here. Yeah. Because I was eating late at night. Oh, man. Just some of these leftovers. Bro, that's my dream. I might move there. I was eating late at night. last night feeling guilty like come on i gotta move and the scenery you know i got into painting out there like really into painting because of just so so much scenery and you had never done that really before i always kept like a sketchbook but i never like set up a easel it was just like i'm gonna paint like i'm gonna make a painting i always had like painter friends so i watched them and how they put, and it was always similar to me the way I put my songs together, just like a bunch of collages.

1:21:18And so that was like my approach to my paintings. And now I think that's kind of what changed on this last album because I approached it just like I was doing those paintings, like just throwing shit against the wall and see what sticks you know or waiting around for something random to happen that we didn't know how we did it and then now like that's the art you know now let's see what we can do around that and i think i learned that from from the painting that's incredible yeah um and are you living in morocco morocco or like kind of like off and on My family still has property out there, and I'm actually on my way back out there in July.

1:22:14So the plan is to live here and Morocco. It's really cool, man. I heard Hendrix back in the day used to go to Morocco a lot. I swear. There's so many mountains and waterfalls. Morocco is, I think, the only place in Africa where they have all of the seasons. Really? There's like a winter with snow out there. Well, you go up these mountains and there's snow up there. Wow. And what's the music like out there? Incredible. I got into this, it's this transient music that they play called Ganawha. I've heard of it. um ganawa music is uh music based off of this um instrument called the gembri which is they make it out of the the actual throat of the of a goat like and it's a base and they make it from the um the skin of the throat and um they use the strings the intestines because they they have this thing where if they they slaughter an animal they have to you have to use the of the the entirety of the animal so they do other things with like they'll make if after they eat all of the meat they'll use the skin they'll use the bones they you know nothing goes away so they've made this instrument in um gana was basically kind of birthed out of the slave trade the islamic slave trade um the sub-saharan slave trade a lot of the uh slaves came together and the way they would remember their heritage or where they came from is they would make they through these songs they would create from the this gimby but when i tell you it was like i was at a pentecostal church dude I didn't know what nobody was saying but cats they're singing songs about Allah but it's like we're at a Pentecostal church cats is passing out they little cats getting laid hands on they sacrificing chickens wow it's like a full on southern Baptist church and I was just in there like wow like I feel like a little boy again and they start these seances, I call them, at like five in the afternoon, and then it's over at five in the morning.

1:24:52And I mean just this, it's like a trance. Like you go into this music, and it's like you leave this planet. And I'm actually going out there in July to play with a Ganawha band. That's amazing. Like a band from out there? Mm-hmm. And you're going to sing? Mm-hmm. I don't know what I'm going to sing, but it's going to be awesome. You know? Is it a live thing or are you going to record? Live, yeah. At the festival. They have a Ganawha festival. They have lots of festivals, music festivals. Man. And Hendrix, that's where Hendrix would go. He would go to those festivals. Man. But it's this, I really can't describe it other than it's like, it feels like Delta Blues mixed with reggae.

1:25:42Wow. I'm excited to check that out. That part of Africa, it just seems like. Incredible. Like I would, I would try to record them, but they don't let you. Like if they see your phone, they'll be like, oh, like I pulled it out at one of the, and everything stopped. I felt like I was like I'm sorry I'm sorry I just had to get some of this groove I had to get some of this groove down man sacrifice you that you'd be out there with the chickens man I was like no but we had them come we had them come to my my house and they I have a rooftop we built a tent on a roof and they played the whole thing on the roof oh shit did you record that yeah yeah they couldn't tell me no I was like y 'all know I can record now you're out there you're in Morocco you're like you're like Alan Lomax in Morocco or some shit man oh man they called me the Americani

1:26:43you never throw more America as a black man than going to another country like fuck I guess I am god damn yeah but it really really good people beautiful people that's great man well shit man I'll come check you out there with these groups that's how they're doing yeah man fortunately I'll have to miss you in LA but I'll catch you in Morocco hey thank you for thanks for taking all the time man I really appreciate it thanks for having me man it was a cool conversation in the episode description you'll find a link to a playlist of some of our favorite songs and features from Bilal be sure to check out youtube.com slash broken record podcast to see all of our video interviews and be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod.

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