QLS Classic: Danyel Smith

0:00Speaker 1:Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's up, y'all?

0:07Speaker 2:This is Questlove with another classic episode of QLS back in 2022. We spoke with one of the great reporters and authors in music, Daniel Smith. Team Supreme and I got to hear Daniel's story. Coming up in the Bay Area to running the show at Vibe and pinning some of really incredible books there.

0:26Speaker 1:We talked about the Arrested Development story, which.

0:29Speaker 2:Has always stayed with me, as well as her experiences covering Whitney Houston and Tupac. Daniel came to promote her latest book at the time called Shine Bright, a very personal history of black women in pop. I highly recommend checking out that book.

0:43Speaker 1:All right.

0:44Speaker 2:It's really great. And of course, check out this episode. Enjoy Daniel Smith on Questlove Supreme Classic.

1:04Speaker 1:How are you guys?

1:05Speaker 2:Steve, I realized in the last five episodes, you hardly said a word.

1:09Speaker 1:Are you okay? Yes.

1:18Speaker 3:There you go.

1:18Speaker 4:All right.

1:20Speaker 1:Fonte, you're in a purple room now. All right. My fault. It's still the after effects of your studio.

1:25Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

1:26Speaker 5:I just, you know, I feel like I give y'all a little ring light decor today.

1:31Speaker 4:A little YouTube makeup artist vibe.

1:34Speaker 1:I got you. I got you.

1:36Speaker 3:What's the tip we're getting today, sir?

1:38Speaker 4:Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner.

1:41Speaker 3:Oh, okay.

1:46Speaker 2:And Aliyah, how's it going with you?

1:48Speaker 3:Oh, it's going good. I'm on an island somewhere hoping my Wi-Fi don't shit on y'all.

1:52Speaker 4:Hey.

1:53Speaker 1:Nice. On vacation. Good to hear.

1:55Speaker 3:Yeah, a little pre-op vacation.

1:56Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, now I can introduce our guest.

2:00Speaker 2:Our guest today is, of course, she's an award-winning author, novelist, journalist, magazine editor from the Yeh area.

2:13Speaker 1:The Yeh area.

2:14Speaker 2:I don't even know if people in the Bay Area call it the Yeh area, but... I'm going on a limb and calling it the yay era.

2:21Speaker 1:Like North Cackalacky.

2:22Speaker 4:No one calls it North Cackalacky. Yeah, no one calls it that that lives here.

2:25Speaker 1:Except for the Roots when they're on stage.

2:30Speaker 2:I will say that I got to know and subsequently feared this woman when she was the first black editor-in-chief at the much-loved Vibe magazine starting in 1994.

2:48Speaker 1:I believe you replaced Alan Light, correct?

2:51Speaker 6:I did, in fact.

2:53Speaker 1:Yeah.

2:54Speaker 6:I did, in fact, replace Alan.

2:55Speaker 2:If ever you guys wondered why is Amir obsessed with journalists more than he's obsessed with his fellow peers in the music business, I will honestly tell you it starts with this woman. Because I only realized the power of the pen when it came from our guest today.

3:18Speaker 1:She's released an awesome book.

3:22Speaker 2:And if you're a fan of the show and if you're a fan of just inside speak of a music genre that you know and love, but things that you might not have known, I highly recommend you get Shine Bright, A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop, where literally not only does she reveal her awesomely kind of adventurous journey and life with her family coming up from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and of course, living all over and navigating through music. But she even manages to break down and share stories of just intricate stories of artists that you love, but you really don't know about, like from the Dixie Cups to the Shirelles to.

4:14Speaker 1:Shit. I didn't even know Leontine Price was related to Dionne Warwick, right? Dionne Warwick and, you know, Sissy and Whitney Houston.

4:21Speaker 2:And, you know, just drawing the parallels of how they, you know, those four generations between Leontyne Price and Sissy Houston and Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston and what they've done in breaking barriers for just basically progressing forward. But not to mention, you know, Diana Ross, name it, Gladys Knight, Donna Summer, Merlin McCoo even. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest Love Supreme, Daniel Smith.

4:49Speaker 1:Thank you.

4:49Speaker 4:Hey.

4:50Speaker 1:Wow. How are you?

4:52Speaker 7:Oh, oh, oh, oh.

4:53Speaker 6:I mean, I'm doing good because I'm over here with y'all. So it feels, it just feels really good and really special.

5:00Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you.

5:00Speaker 4:Thank you.

5:01Speaker 1:Where are you speaking to us right now? From where are you?

5:05Speaker 6:From my home in Southern California, specifically in Venice, California.

5:09Speaker 7:Hey.

5:10Speaker 1:Wow. Nice.

5:11Speaker 4:Okay.

5:12Speaker 1:I didn't know. See, I didn't know if you were.

5:14Speaker 2:An East Coaster or West Coaster?

5:16Speaker 6:I mean, I feel pretty equally both over the course of my life at this point. I mean, I think I did 23 years on the East Coast between most of it in Manhattan, most of it in Brooklyn, some of it in Manhattan, some of it in Washington, D.C., but I'm back home in the great country of California, so it's good to be here.

5:38Speaker 1:Good to have you.

5:39Speaker 2:Okay, so the thing is, your Shine Bright book, it's almost like jeopardy where your shine bright book, in my opinion, is almost like an episode of quest love Supreme without us asking the questions, you know? So it's almost like if I were to go, well, no, literally she, you know, it's a cheat sheet. It's a good cheat sheet, especially in the first chapter, um, where you're breaking down your journey. Um, It's almost like I feel like it's a disservice to even recap that. So I kind of want to take a different route with this episode than I would normally do if you were a recording artist. And well, you know, one, I want to just ask the obvious. Why did you feel the need to construct this book and tell these stories?

6:35Speaker 1:Why did you feel the.

6:35Speaker 2:Need to sort of construct the story in the manner that you did? And why was it so long overdue?

6:44Speaker 6:Well, let me answer the second question first. Why was it so long overdue? It's a combination of, on my part, timing combination. Add to that a lot of second-guessing myself. Add to that a little bit of fear. And add to that I hadn't quite figured out the best way to tell it. I just hadn't. I had to get to that place. I had to get really strong, I think. A way that I hadn't felt probably, I don't know, in a half a decade by the time I finished Shine Bright. So it's all my fault. It's not my editor's fault. It's not anybody I interviewed. It's not their fault.

7:33Speaker 6:It's my fault.

7:34Speaker 3:Just.

7:35Speaker 6:being uncharacteristically slow and missing of deadlines.

7:39Speaker 1:So this took you 10 years?

7:41Speaker 6:Oh, let me tell you something. If my husband was here, he would say it took me eight. I feel like I've been writing it since I was eight years old, but I think technically it took me six years.

7:54Speaker 3:All right.

7:55Speaker 1:You're speaking of your husband, the beloved Elliot Wilson.

7:58Speaker 7:YN.

7:58Speaker 1:Yeah.

7:59Speaker 4:YN in the house.

8:00Speaker 1:17 years. 17 years.

8:02Speaker 4:Woo!

8:05Speaker 1:That's awesome.

8:06Speaker 3:In hip hop, that is it.

8:08Speaker 6:Right?

8:09Speaker 4:Like straight up and down.

8:10Speaker 7:I don't know.

8:11Speaker 6:I don't know. But yeah, so it took me too long. I'm not going to lie. But, you know, the timing was right. The reason why I wanted to do it is, you know, long story short, when Whitney Houston died in 2012, which she shouldn't have, but when she did die in 2012, you know, people approached me and said, could you just write a bio of her really quickly? And, you know, let's go heavy on the drugs. Let's go heavy on the bad marriage.

8:35Speaker 1:You know, I was just like, no. They would tell you that?

8:38Speaker 6:Yes.

8:39Speaker 7:What?

8:39Speaker 3:In a sentence. In one sentence. Yes.

8:42Speaker 7:What?

8:42Speaker 1:Oh, my God. Like, what?

8:43Speaker 6:Like, drugs, Bobby. Like, let's go. How fast can you get it done? And I was like, I'll have it to you on the 12th if never. Like, I'm not doing that. So I came back to some folks with an idea about doing a history of black women in pop. I sold that. And I was never finishing that. And then I left that publisher and I went back home, so to speak to Chris Jackson at one world, Chris Jackson published my, I have two novels from the early two thousands, more like wrestling and bliss that Chris Jackson published.

9:17Speaker 6:And so I wanted to go back home with him one, cause he's a genius and two, because I trust him deeply. And he just said, you know, eventually he said, you're going to have to put yourself in the book. I'm eternally grateful to him for saying that. Um, And then I spoke to my sister, who's so much a part of Shine Bright. And my sister was like, are you asking me if you could tell my story? She was basically like, B-I-T-C-H, you should have been told it. So then we were off to the races.

9:44Speaker 1:You know, at the top of.

9:47Speaker 2:The introduction, you know, I was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that I loved and feared you.

9:56Speaker 1:Only because I realized... I.

10:00Speaker 2:Mean, for starters, you know, with the source, with Vibe, and at least the first wave of late 80s, early 90s journalism being sort of in a serious form and not just like, and this is not to take away from Cynthia Horner or Black Pete or Steve Ivory or those guys, but you know, there really hasn't been black critical writing. And although I've seen it with rock journalism, like, I've never seen a takedown article or anything of that level from the black side of things. And, you know, you ran it very tight. Like, your version of Vibe magazine, which I guess is 94. When did you leave Vibe?

10:45Speaker 6:I started as... Music editor in 94. I was there in 96. Went back to school for a year in 97. Came back, got promoted to be the first black and first woman editor-in-chief of Vibe in 97. I left in 99. Then I came back in 06 and was editor-in-chief of Vibe again, 06, 07, 08.

11:06Speaker 1:Two years.

11:07Speaker 3:Every time.

11:08Speaker 1:I would say that, you know, your era was way different. I noticed immediately change.

11:15Speaker 2:Your era from, say, Alan Light's period, I guess the Tretch issue was, what, 91, I believe?

11:25Speaker 6:92.

11:25Speaker 1:Yeah, 92 to 94.

11:28Speaker 2:And not to say that, you know, because I'm friends with Alan, like, I'm not saying it was light in the ass, but I definitely saw a noticeable difference between both those issues. And that said, I don't know, in my mind, and I think this is often.

11:44Speaker 1:of.

11:44Speaker 2:How the world will see black women as, you know, we always use these words like strong, you will use fierce and all those sort of colloquialisms to describe them. And so I was a bit taken aback, you know, at how vulnerable you got, especially in the first chapter, speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like, you know, cause it was kind of like, whoa, like, You don't see a human side. Well, I mean, journalists often don't insert themselves or that sort of thing. So I was really just, I was, I was pleasantly surprised of how you weaved your life in music. Like I love those type of things, whereas not that I'm just.

12:30Speaker 1:Learning a lesson of the artist, but I'm also learning.

12:32Speaker 2:The effect that it had on you because your writing career also had an effect on artists as well.

12:40Speaker 6:I learned a lot from Alan. Alan first, Gave me my first album review when he was editing the review section at Rolling Stone. That was my first Rolling Stone.

12:52Speaker 1:What was your first album?

12:54Speaker 6:It was In Vogue, the second album.

12:57Speaker 1:Funky Divas?

12:57Speaker 6:Yes.

12:58Speaker 4:Funky Divas?

12:58Speaker 1:You gave it two stars. Yeah, I did it.

13:00Speaker 6:I did it.

13:01Speaker 1:I didn't.

13:02Speaker 6:Come on. I was a big homer at that time. If I'm not still just a big old homer.

13:08Speaker 1:Come on, man.

13:09Speaker 6:You know they were going to call me to do Ambo.

13:10Speaker 2:Come on.

13:13Speaker 1:Two stars for real?

13:14Speaker 6:That's real life, Daniel? Don't listen to him here.

13:16Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you something, Daniel. You can't debate me on this. When I tell you in the order of... A cat like Fonte will study MCs, study production, whatever.

13:29Speaker 1:I don't know. I study record reviews. I study... I love that.

13:36Speaker 2:Like, I study the people that determine whether or not an album is going to have shelf life or not. I very much... No, here's the thing, though. I actually agreed with you. I didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that. And to be fair... Did I give it two stars? Well, I was going to say, to be fair, you don't determine how many stars it gets.

13:55Speaker 6:I don't.

13:55Speaker 1:The publication... They do. The publishing agent gets it.

13:59Speaker 6:And by the way, that's always the case. That was the case at The Source, too. And that was the case at Vibe when we used to give our little red light, green light, yellow light or whatever.

14:06Speaker 1:We used to do at Vibe. The music editor determines it. But yeah, I remember.

14:11Speaker 3:Anybody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that, right? I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

14:14Speaker 1:I'm a fan. Hold on.

14:15Speaker 3:I'm listening to what y'all saying.

14:16Speaker 7:Hold on.

14:16Speaker 1:I'm a fan.

14:17Speaker 7:What you're saying is the person who wrote that whole review doesn't have anything to do with those stars. So how do they come up with them stars?

14:26Speaker 6:The music editor.

14:27Speaker 1:The music editor will determine.

14:29Speaker 3:Yes.

14:30Speaker 7:So it's not even based on what you wrote. It's just based on what the music editor thinks.

14:33Speaker 6:No, it's kind of based on what you wrote and it's based on whatever their taste is also.

14:38Speaker 2:But, okay, so since you're kind of doing this in the 90s and I will say that, you know, post KRS-One... PM Dornish confrontation levels.

14:49Speaker 1:I mean, you worked at Vibe.

14:51Speaker 7:I did.

14:51Speaker 2:And you worked at Vibe during one of the most dangerous issues of all time.

14:55Speaker 6:I did.

14:56Speaker 1:Which is the death row issue.

14:58Speaker 2:Wouldn't your music editors at least want to give you warning if they're going to give it a less than savory.

15:05Speaker 1:Rating?

15:06Speaker 6:I could never answer that question except for on a case-by-case basis, honestly. As you said, it was a very wild time. And when you say, you know, I worked at Vibe during the most dangerous time during the death row issue, I mean, I really honestly have to look at the dates. One, because I blocked so much of that trauma out.

15:25Speaker 1:Of my head. Oh, I remember everything.

15:30Speaker 6:I'm sorry. Because what I think people tend to forget, at least with me, is that especially with regard to death row and Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity emcee for me he's actually a good friend of mine from Oakland and so I recused myself from a lot of the coverage of Tupac almost until after he passed it was such a complex time at that time such a time when I always say the vibe called upon the strongest part of me and that it got it it got it it got it and it did wear me out which is why you know your music editor for two years at least talking about me I'm music editor for two years, and then I get a fellowship and I go to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted out for a while. You know, I wanted out for a while. And while I was gone, while I was in Chicago or in Evanston, both Biggie and Tupac were murdered while I was not even working at Vine. I ended up writing the obituary for Biggie for the Village Voice, but I wasn't even working at that time. I was trying to... And then I came back in 97, everybody had died. And I put Kirk Franklin on the cover because he was number one with the Stomp remix. And

16:48Speaker 6:I felt like that was the second line. I felt like we had been mourning for a while. We had thought that hip hop was going to die. We thought that everything that the mainstream had said about it was going to be true, that it was just a fad. It wasn't real. We was all going to kill each other. And then, you know, you began to feel it rising from its ashes. You know, you got to remember, like, that's when Miseducation came out. Really, Lauryn Hill doesn't get the credit she deserves for helping bring hip-hop back to life after the death of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.

17:20Speaker 6:And then you add Kirk Franklin and Salt. They don't also get the credit, either one of them, for helping bring hip-hop back to life. And that was actually my first cover as editor-in-chief of Vibe was Kirk Franklin and the Family. That's how I came back in 97. And believe me, my publishers and the business people were like, this is soft cover. It's never going to sell. It's not going to sell. It's not going to sell. And I wasn't really that person that was always bragging about like, I know what the streets is feeling. I was not always that girl. I'm very much a pop girl. Pop is in the title of my Shine Bright. But it's like I didn't know what the hell was going on.

17:58Speaker 6:And I knew that there's no way that a song was going on. to number one R & B, I believe top ten pop for the Stomp remix, and it wasn't having a major impact on the culture. I also knew that because gospel never gets the credit that it's due for, it's impact on culture, period. And there had never been a gospel artist on the cover of Vibe, that the gospel fans, the church folks, were going to go out and buy two and three issues, and they did. And they did.

18:32Speaker 1:Aren't people more or less investing in the Vibe brand?

18:35Speaker 2:Like, I'm going to buy a new Vibe.

18:37Speaker 1:No matter what.

18:38Speaker 3:Whoever's on the cover, yeah.

18:40Speaker 1:That's not true.

18:41Speaker 6:That's not true. There are issues of Vibe that did not sell.

18:46Speaker 1:Really?

18:48Speaker 6:There's a thing like this. You have a subscriber base, right? That's your small money, but that's your loyalists. They keep up paying that $ 13. 99 a year, $ 12. 99 a year.

19:00Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what's keeping the lights on.

19:02Speaker 6:That's keeping the lights on. But the money money is at the newsstand back when the newsstand mattered. Because that's $ 253 a pop. Whether you're buying it at Vons, Safeway, Key Food, Barnes & Noble back in the day, Walden Books or whatever, that's where the money was. And that's an impulse buy. And that's what I was judged on. That's what any editor-in-chief really is judged on at the end of the day.

19:30Speaker 1:Period.

19:31Speaker 6:End of story.

19:32Speaker 7:So to imply anything different would kind of lessen the work that you put into figuring out.

19:37Speaker 3:Who you was going to put on this cover and the content.

19:39Speaker 6:No, you don't even know. It was science. And the thing about me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I took Billboard into consideration because I had been R & B editor at Billboard.

19:49Speaker 1:Did you really? uh nelson when he left or no.

19:52Speaker 6:It's janine mcadams that i replaced janine mcadams oh wow yes janine's between us so yeah no i i was a person that always took billboard into consideration because i worked at billboard And because even before I worked at Billboard, I studied Billboard like a maniac, which is why I got the job at Billboard. But it's like, no, I was the one that was like, if it's bubbling under, it deserves this. If it's doing this on the charts, if it's number eight with a bullet on blah, blah chart, then it deserves this. Now, people always wanted to argue with me, and we had the best arguments in the world at VOD. But I was the one who always took Billboard into consideration. Not everybody's like that.

20:32Speaker 1:Wow.

20:33Speaker 6:I think, by the way, can I just say this too? I think it's so... crazy that i just learned right now that y'all thought every issue of five sold when i got to vibe as no no no no.

20:43Speaker 7:We didn't think that i thought that oh no I thought you were just asking the question, I thought you were asking the question, Amir, like, was it the brand that sold?

20:52Speaker 2:I mean, it's just that, like, the circle I hang out with, it's vibe and the source was, like, a religion.

20:58Speaker 4:Nah, straight up.

20:59Speaker 6:Thank God for y'all.

21:00Speaker 4:But we were the ones keeping the lights on, though. We weren't the impulse buys.

21:03Speaker 3:Right, it's just like podcasts. It's just, like, music, right? Come on, we want new podcasts.

21:09Speaker 2:Okay, so can I ask you this? Because I didn't know this. First of all, what is expected for Vibe in terms of going platinum? Like, How many issues have to sell for whoever the higher ups are at the publishers to say, hey, they're doing well?

21:28Speaker 6:It depends on the year. It depends on the year. Because magazines are pretty much gone now for all intents and purposes. There's not really a newsstand that you can depend on. But let's just say at the height of things, it's always a percentage. It's not an exact number. So at the height of vibe, you just never really want to be below 50%. 50,000?

21:56Speaker 4:Oh, percent.

21:59Speaker 1:Okay.

21:59Speaker 6:50%. And you figure your circulation. The height of circulation for me, man, I got vibe up to, I don't know, 800,000, 900,000. So you want to sell through at 50 plus percent. Now, that's high. But I have an ego. That's B +. The best-selling issue of Vibe in history is the Master P issue. Make them say, uh.

22:24Speaker 4:Wait, what?

22:27Speaker 6:I hate to blow y'all up.

22:28Speaker 1:No, I can't.

22:29Speaker 4:That makes sense.

22:30Speaker 6:I hate to.

22:31Speaker 3:Because now the South is buying. That's exactly what it is.

22:36Speaker 6:That's exactly what it is.

22:38Speaker 2:I would have put my publishing and my cribs... I could have sworn that that Death Row issue was the greatest-selling issue of all time.

22:47Speaker 6:The thing about the Make Them Say It was a perfect cover.

22:52Speaker 1:Wow.

22:53Speaker 6:It was everybody. It was Mia X. It was Mystical. It was everybody.

22:57Speaker 1:No limit.

22:59Speaker 6:And we had a tank in it. We had a tank.

23:03Speaker 1:I remember.

23:03Speaker 6:And everybody had on camo. And so basically the whole cover was green and shades of black and white. But we did what's known as a fifth color in the magazine business, which means basically a fluorescent or a glitter. And we made the orange fluorescent.

23:27Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember the orange.

23:28Speaker 6:That episode left off.

23:30Speaker 1:I remember.

23:31Speaker 4:It left off.

23:32Speaker 6:And I'm not going to say how many issues P bought, but... Because the world would never know. The world would never know. But it was huge. And you got to remember, too, Master P has a huge contingency of fans in the Bay Area, too. Out from Richmond.

23:47Speaker 1:That's where he started.

23:48Speaker 4:So he was all over.

23:49Speaker 6:Yeah. So it was that's really the biggest selling issue. I would never say the lowest issue because it's people that we all know and love. But it would surprise you. I would never say.

23:57Speaker 1:Come on, you got to.

23:58Speaker 6:Y'all going to have to get that someplace else, man.

24:01Speaker 1:It's 20 years ago.

24:02Speaker 4:It's 20 years.

24:03Speaker 6:It feel like yesterday to me, though. I feel like I'm on my way to an editorial meeting right now. Y'all ain't going to get me out here like this.

24:11Speaker 1:Ah, damn it. Now I'm going to go.

24:12Speaker 2:I literally have all my issues in the room. Now I'm going to go back to see it. If I text you, you got to verify it.

24:18Speaker 1:I will. I will.

24:19Speaker 6:But I can't because it's like it's mean, man. And it doesn't necessarily sometimes even have to do with the person.

24:25Speaker 1:It's timing.

24:26Speaker 6:It could be the photography. It could be anything. It just doesn't necessarily. It could be the truck was late, man.

24:33Speaker 1:Oh, please tell me what it was.

24:34Speaker 6:No, you're going to get it from me. And you talk about you fear me. You see how easy. I'm scary. I'm scary. Like, I can't say that. That's so mean. What if I just said yes?

24:46Speaker 1:It's not mean, Spirit. It's facts and business.

24:49Speaker 6:This particular emcee has the lowest selling issue in the history of IVE. That's hardcore.

24:54Speaker 2:It must be Jay-Z.

25:00Speaker 6:It's definitely not Jay. I will say they're from the South, though, just to show you how things change.

25:06Speaker 7:Is it somebody who still has a career? Are they considered a legend still?

25:10Speaker 6:Do they have a career in rapping, or do they just have a career?

25:13Speaker 3:Do they have a career?

25:14Speaker 7:Period.

25:14Speaker 4:They have a career.

25:17Speaker 6:But they don't necessarily have a career in rapping still.

25:19Speaker 1:Okay.

25:20Speaker 7:All right.

25:20Speaker 1:Got it.

25:21Speaker 2:Anyway, so I do want to know, what was the first, or at least national... Well, you said that Rolling Stone was the very first time that your work appeared in.

25:33Speaker 6:A national magazine? I would say no, that's not the case. I would say the first time I had a national story was in Spin Magazine. There was a column there called Dreaming America. Yep. That was my first national... That was my first national thing, and I always remember that I couldn't believe I was getting paid a dollar a word.

25:55Speaker 1:Was that standard, or was that like.

25:58Speaker 6:That was standard for mainstream. People don't even get that now. And it's like, I was... No. Listen, you used to be able to make a living as a writer. It's very difficult to do so now. Even in the Bay Area, I was getting 10, 15, 20 cent a word. If I wrote a 1,500-word piece, I was getting... $ 150. And Craig Marks, he's actually the music editor of the LA Times right now. Craig was music editor of Spin back then. And when he said it was a dollar a word and 800 words, I just remember thinking, so that's pretty much rent in Oakland back then. And I felt like back then, and I felt like I could stay in this.

26:46Speaker 6:I could stay in this. But yeah, I think my first one was about Yo-Yo.

26:52Speaker 1:Okay. Yes.

26:54Speaker 6:Black Pearl forever. I wrote about DJ Quick for Spin, who's also a favorite still. And then it was out of those Spin clips and a couple of things I did for the Village Voice that brought me to the notice of Alan Light and Anthony Day Curtis at Rolling Stone.

27:11Speaker 7:And then....

27:13Speaker 6:I was only really R & B editor at Billboard for like six or eight months, something to outline in Shine Bright. But then Vibe launched, and Alan had gone over there as music editor. And when he was promoted to editor-in-chief, because Jonathan Van Meter left, then Alan asked me to come over as music editor. And it was a wild two years in that job.

27:36Speaker 7:I always thought Spin was the weird cousin to Vibe magazine. I always thought they were weirdly related, like they had some kind of similar... ownership or something like that.

27:43Speaker 6:I mean at the beginning we didn't but then like in the i guess late 90s 2000s yeah we were owned by the same company and we were in the same building.

27:52Speaker 2:What was the company vibe ventures oh so okay they owned their own.

27:59Speaker 6:Vibe ventures owned vibe and spin and blaze at that time too Ah, Blaze.

28:06Speaker 4:Man, I forgot about Blaze.

28:08Speaker 1:I remember that.

28:08Speaker 3:What was their focus, y'all?

28:09Speaker 1:What was their thing?

28:10Speaker 4:The Blaze battle. It was mainly just primarily hip-hop, but I remember Blaze.

28:13Speaker 1:Blaze was like pre-complex. Yes, it was. Really with good journalism, though.

28:17Speaker 7:It was.

28:18Speaker 6:Jesse Washington was the editor-in-chief. I was the editorial director. Jesse Washington is actually at ESPN's The Undefeated now.

28:26Speaker 1:Okay.

28:28Speaker 2:We had our Illmatic rating moment with Blaze at ESPN. Things Fall Apart got a perfect five rating there in the Jay-Z issue.

28:37Speaker 3:Amir be monitoring these reviews.

28:39Speaker 6:He's about that life.

28:42Speaker 1:I'm not that way now.

28:44Speaker 6:It does my heart good, though. It does my heart good to know that somebody of your stature and talent and genius is paying attention like that because we really tried. We weren't up there fooling around. We were about passion, but we were about rigor. We were about facts, and we were about deep and strong opinions. We were about design, photography. We were about fashion, style, all of it. And so the fact that you, being you, were paying attention that hard, honestly, it does my heart good. And anybody that listens to this that used to work at Bob the Source XXL, any of it, Rap She, all of it.

29:23Speaker 1:Rap She.

29:24Speaker 7:Honey.

29:28Speaker 6:I mean, I could take it to ego trip. I could take it to one nut network. I could take it to, uh, I can keep going. Um, the fact that any of us that worked in the spaces were being paid attention to that our work was being monitored or enjoyed or even it matters a lot.

29:46Speaker 2:To us look alright so the deal is I think in that Prince issue it was if you guys remember the Prince um vibe issue the Prince vibe cover issue yes um there's a write-up for Zingalamaduni that single-handedly, like, if you want to know the beginning of Questlove's micromanaged era of, like, I must write all the liner notes, I must.

30:20Speaker 1:Do all the interviews, I must... Like, no article ever scared me more.

30:25Speaker 2:And the thing is that, you know, now I live in an era where You know, I mean, you know, I read the New York Times now and just read like this year, everyone's celebrating the fact that New York Times gave like Eleven Madison a two star review, which is like shockers. Or, you know, I mean, there's been like sort of like crazy reviews like Miles Davis is on the corner for Downbeat magazine, like throughout history. You know, it's different now because in the Internet, I sort of feel like. artists write for each other, like, hey, check this out. You know, that sort of thing, like when they're really going to go. But to me, when I read your Arrested Development, Zingalama Dooney feature, to me, that was like, it was literally like watching the Apocalypse Now documentary.

31:14Speaker 7:Or....

31:17Speaker 2:Amir is also known for good hyperbolic quotes.

31:21Speaker 1:No, but it was.

31:24Speaker 2:It wasn't even, you didn't even have to do anything. You didn't, it wasn't a takedown from your point of view. Like literally speech was kind of sleep at the wheel and the entire band decided they're going to do a mutiny in this article. And at that point I realized like, oh man, a career could be made or, or, or deaded in one fell swoop with just one article.

31:52Speaker 3:It's a turning.

31:53Speaker 6:Point for me. Okay, so I guess long story short, it's like I didn't even work at Vibe at that point. I was functioning as a freelance writer. But I had a reputation in the business for being on point, on time, and thorough. And more than that, I had written a piece for a magazine that doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for years called Request Magazine that you used to be able to get at Tower Records.

32:21Speaker 1:Okay.

32:22Speaker 4:Yes, I love Request.

32:23Speaker 6:It is a great magazine. And if you count that as national, which I don't always just because it was given away for free at Tower and you didn't pay for it. But that was probably really my first national look was in request. So I did a cover story on Arrested Development when they launched.

32:40Speaker 1:Okay. Okay.

32:41Speaker 6:So it was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee. You know what I mean? You're talking about all of that. I fell in love with them, man. I fell in love with them. They fell in love with me. It was a cover story. And this was back before I had been in the business long enough to realize it's not always wise to fall in love with groups, and it's not always wise to allow groups to fall in love with you. I didn't know. I was a child. I was in my early 20s, mid-20s, something like that.

33:12Speaker 6:I didn't know. You live and learn. So then when their second album was coming out, it was EMI.

33:19Speaker 1:Am I right?

33:19Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey, you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want to go back and talk to Speech and everybody in the group? Yes, definitely. I was freelancing, too. It was just like, it sounds exciting. You're going to send me to Atlanta. So I went down there, and my first conversation was with Speech, as it should be. And I have a lot of respect for him. But you could tell from the moment that I got in the car with him that things weren't okay with the group.

33:55Speaker 6:And it seemed like something he didn't want to get into detail about. But, you know, as a reporter, I have my instincts. I have my feelings. And so when I began to talk to the other members of the group.

34:08Speaker 1:And you were allowed to?

34:09Speaker 6:Yes. This was a different time, y'all. There was no internet.

34:12Speaker 1:I will never let Kamal do an interview.

34:14Speaker 6:Oh, no.

34:17Speaker 4:Ain't no evidence. Come on, knows that shit.

34:24Speaker 6:And what's so wild, though, it was like, at a certain point, I wasn't even going to people to talk to them. People were coming to me.

34:34Speaker 1:Yeah.

34:36Speaker 6:Listen, I remember that group so well, man. And it's heartbreaking to me because there's such a, like, the music isn't necessarily always so, like, wildly optimistic, but it's just like, I've been around public enemy. Those are my guys. They're not the most optimistic group of brothers, you know what I mean? They're not like, but the, but, but, but the group of rest of development, they came back, they were taking us back to the South. Like they were reminding.

35:03Speaker 1:Us of our roots.

35:06Speaker 6:Everything was like, you know, the blood in the, in the dirt. Like we was all in there, the red clay, like we was all in it. Like everybody from the Northeast used to go back South in the summertime. Like, All of that feeling was there. But then, you know, I remember that DJ's name was.

35:19Speaker 1:Headliner, right?

35:21Speaker 7:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

35:22Speaker 1:He set it off.

35:23Speaker 6:Dion Fares.

35:24Speaker 4:I was going to ask you about Dion. Yeah, it was Dion Fares.

35:27Speaker 3:It's coming back. It's coming back. It's coming back. All right, okay.

35:30Speaker 6:And, you know, things just weren't going well. It's so hard. And I know Questlove knows this. It's hard to keep a band together. Anybody who watched the Metallica documentary knows that.

35:40Speaker 3:Shit, yo. And it's like.

35:42Speaker 6:It's hard to keep a band together.

35:44Speaker 1:Look at my lawsuits.

35:45Speaker 6:You could ask the Supremes.

35:48Speaker 1:Anybody.

35:49Speaker 6:The Commodores. It's hard to keep a band together. Yes. And everybody was mad. And everybody's talking into the tape recorder.

35:58Speaker 1:And they let her know. I went, if you remember Ursula Smith, who was my publicist at the time.

36:06Speaker 6:At Set to Run.

36:07Speaker 1:At Set to Run. No, no, no, no. She left Set to Run and started her own. I forget. Her and Amy Mars had their own thing.

36:16Speaker 2:And I came in the following Monday, like, shaking in my boots because I was just like, oh, man, like, they're done with.

36:24Speaker 1:They're over with. And if they're that easy to get, like, what does that mean for us? No, but.

36:32Speaker 2:And Ursula, like, the amount of talking me off the ledge for, like, two days straight. Because I don't know, in my mind, I just felt like Arrested Development had reached the mountaintop.

36:44Speaker 1:They reached the mountaintop back. They had.

36:46Speaker 2:Yeah, that De La tribe, like a lot of those acts couldn't get to.

36:50Speaker 7:But they didn't come up together though, right? Like, did they come up together like that?

36:53Speaker 1:All of their? Yeah, I mean, 91.

36:55Speaker 6:Arrested Development had what a lot of other groups like that didn't, which was speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come with mad ambition. Some people just want to make a record. get it out there some other people have mad ambition and speech had that it was a very difficult piece to write a very difficult piece to publish it was fact check it went through the lawyers it went through all of that and it was very difficult to publish and yes the publicist was wildly mad at me some in the group were wildly mad at me some in the group were so happy and grateful to me some were very grateful to me some were grateful to me But I just want to say, well, it just basically outlined that the group was not happy and was probably not going to stay together.

37:43Speaker 4:Gotcha.

37:43Speaker 1:Okay. Check it out. Fonte, I don't know. Have you read Maurice White's autobiography?

37:49Speaker 4:I have not yet.

37:50Speaker 2:I mean, it's kind of the structure where... Wait, we just recently did an interview with someone.

37:57Speaker 1:Cameo.

37:57Speaker 2:I think it was Larry Blackman. Larry Blackman said it was a democracy... what do you call it, dictatorship? It was like a democracy dictatorship where I guess it's the, I think it's the idea of, hey, we're a community, we're all these things, but really, I mean, the decision falls on one person, that person's speech.

38:25Speaker 6:Same about Bon Jovi, a lot of groups like that.

38:27Speaker 3:Earth, Wind & Fire too, right?

38:29Speaker 2:So that's why I was saying with the Earth, Wind & Fire book, Um, no, not even that. I mean, Maurice white, I mean, uh, Philip Bailey went into heavy with, Oh, okay. Maurice is sort of the estate of earth, wood and fire. We're just people for hire. And as, as I'm certain that, you know, Fonte, you know, absolutely. As an artist about being blue collar, like often we get in this game because we, you know, we see these slow motion hype William shots and it's like, ah, we get our Bentley moment and it never happens that way. And it's just that this time Headliner was just mad about his money, mad about like the situations, but it was very much like, you know, the rest of the band was explaining how unsatisfied they were with the situation that they were in.

39:27Speaker 6:But I could see how it could have, an effect on you as it had an effect on a lot of people, that piece, because one, it said that Vibe was going to do stuff like that. That's the first thing.

39:39Speaker 1:Black people have never seen something to that level.

39:42Speaker 6:No, because this is the thing. Because the media that is considered to be ours... Right. Ebony essence, you know, going back to the to the to the black newspapers that came out of Reconstruction all the way up to the 50s and through the civil rights movement and everything else. Like the reason that these things came to be is because we were treated so unfairly by the mainstream media or we were just erased or not even considered. You know, you would talk about music in a certain town and you would just talk about all the white artists and never talk about the black artists. Or you would talk about all the male artists and not talk about the women artists. So it's like Vibe existed in a space of like, well, of course, this is going to always be a place of celebration. But the thing that I always did learn from Quincy Jones is that Vibe was to be a place of celebration and interrogation. That no one would trust us on the celebration if we didn't also do the interrogation. And so I felt supported by...

40:47Speaker 6:Quincy by Allen, in doing that. And honestly, it was a very difficult piece for me to write, for the magazine to publish. And also, it set the industry back on its heels a bit. That it's like, we love Vibe, but you just don't know.

41:09Speaker 1:You just don't know.

41:11Speaker 2:Yeah.

41:13Speaker 6:And so to some, that was great. because it meant that we weren't like a pamphlet, or we weren't just like, it meant that we were more.

41:24Speaker 1:Yes.

41:24Speaker 6:You got to remember one of the first pieces, and Bob, I think it's in the Tretch issue, right? The test issue in which Tretch was on the cover, and there's a big piece by the great Scott Poulsen Bryan in that piece. And the headline is one for all time about Sean Combs. The headline is, this is not a puff piece. Right. So many meanings. So many meanings. And so we were always on that, even with all the death row stuff. People were like, are you guys contributing to it? But are we reporting as any other culture would report on its culture? And is that also new and different for the black and multicultural audience of Vibe to hear and see? So it was very hard.

42:22Speaker 7:For most Black women, at some point, you feel that protector moment where you're like, you know, do you have to fight that protector moment and go with more your journalistic mind? Or does that not even ever come into your head? There's this, and it's funny because I was like, I wonder if she writes in this. I haven't gotten to that point if you write about this in Shine Bright. But I was like, you know, that protector moment. moment where you go, this could maybe hurt this feeling, you know, so maybe I won't do that. Did you ever have that moment?

42:50Speaker 6:I have that moment every day of my career.

42:52Speaker 3:Okay. Okay. I could tell by looking at your face. I was like, am I saying something foreign? I don't know.

42:58Speaker 6:Okay. Every, every, every day of my career. And especially as editor in chief of vibe, it's, um, it's even different as being editor of billboard.

43:09Speaker 3:Talk about that.

43:10Speaker 4:Why?

43:10Speaker 6:It's a trade magazine. It's all genres. I got to know about what's going on in country, classical, adult contemporary, bubbling under. I got to know about what's going on everywhere, what's going on with pop singles, pop albums. I got to know R & B this, R & B that. I got to know what's going on in Latin music. I got to know what's going on globally. I got to know what's going on everywhere and make decisions based on all of that. But when you're at Vibe, you're covering black culture for a multicultural For a black and multicultural audience, it's not even used to being covered all the time with rigor and passion. It's like, even like in history, if you look at Ebony, at the very beginnings of Ebony, it's like James Baldwin and everybody's in there.

43:51Speaker 6:It's a different situation. But then, to me, due to pressures from the community, it just became more and more like you can always expect good and proper news from Ebony.

44:03Speaker 2:Until that Cosby issue.

44:05Speaker 1:Well.

44:07Speaker 2:No no hats off to Kiarna for that yes that's the first time that I've ever seen.

44:10Speaker 6:And Kiarna's from what generation the hip hop generation yes exactly yes and so that's what I'm saying it just it's hard you know it's hard when I can think of even small things like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for the cover of Vibe that's my first Vibe cover.

44:27Speaker 2:Yo I remember that issue that's a great issue man.

44:30Speaker 6:My mom drove me to his house in Venice he was going through it and also that movie wasn't good Which one was it? It was Demolition Man.

44:39Speaker 4:Demolition Man.

44:39Speaker 1:The blonde hair. I remember that issue.

44:44Speaker 6:It was a hot mess. And the movie, the film was, but Wesley himself wasn't and never has been. So to me, he's one of the more underrated actors in the history of cinema. He's so good. I'm not saying he's made all the proper moves and all of that, but my thing is, how do you How do you say that? But then, like, how do you say.

45:09Speaker 1:Frame it in a way that's not... How do you say that?

45:13Speaker 6:And that's the work for me. That's the work in Shine Bright for me. Like, how do I talk about Whitney Houston's mom? Sure.

45:23Speaker 1:You handled that awesomely, by the way.

45:25Speaker 6:Oh, thank you. Who, to me, is just, like, she's so important to the history of American public. She literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind Elvis Presley. She literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, everybody. And it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for all of this big pop. And she trained Whitney at the same time she just didn't accept her. daughter for who she was.

45:49Speaker 7:Yo, and can I just say on that note, it's so funny you say that because as we're going through all these different lenses and filters for people these days, when it comes to the music business, I find it harder and harder to apply those filters if you really want the true story about things or you really want to talk to people. We've had these moments where even talking to me and Amir and Jake, we'll talk about.

46:13Speaker 3:People and we'll be like, Yes, they were significant.

46:15Speaker 6:They are historical.

46:16Speaker 7:These conversations should be had. However, but this little thing had happened. And so I'm so curious, Danielle, how you navigate that. Because even in a situation like, I can't even say names because you feel guilty, but no man who was doing business in the 60s, 70s, and 80s is fucking straightforward, has no shit with them, basically.

46:39Speaker 3:There's no man. There's no man. So how do you navigate that? That's crazy. It's just.

46:44Speaker 1:Well, I don't think cancel culture was a thing then. You know what I mean?

46:51Speaker 7:Right.

46:52Speaker 3:As much as it is now.

46:53Speaker 6:Yeah.

46:53Speaker 3:I guess that's why journalists get paid less and less. They can hardly write.

46:57Speaker 7:Right.

46:58Speaker 6:Well, it's also because artists have so many other avenues in which to tell their story. It used to be that the only place that you had to go.

47:06Speaker 4:Nah, they go on IG Live, nah.

47:07Speaker 6:Yeah, you just go on IG Live. You can go right to your Twitter feed, your IG feed. And some of that, I have to say, I am not mad at. Like, I miss.

47:22Speaker 1:Even if it's to the detriment of your.

47:24Speaker 6:Do I miss it?

47:25Speaker 3:Yes.

47:25Speaker 6:Do I miss being like, you have to go through vibe. Essentially, you got to go through me and my cohort.

47:32Speaker 2:Yeah.

47:32Speaker 6:Right. Right? So do you miss that feeling of like, oh my God, yeah, this is, we're vibe. Yeah, of course. But, you know, to... To everything there.

47:41Speaker 1:Is a season.

47:43Speaker 6:We were needed for that at that time. We were desperately needed. But I can just give you an example. So I'm doing this, just picture me doing a talking head moment for a Michael Jackson documentary.

47:59Speaker 3:Okay, thank you.

47:59Speaker 1:Come on.

48:00Speaker 6:Yes. And so, no, and not even to get into the complexities of Michael's situation, but just to say this, just to talk about the Internet part of it. So the person that's directing or asking me the question says, don't you just find the internet to be totally overwhelming and ridiculous? Like, you can just put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search bar and then like 8 million pictures come back about Michael Jackson, 12 million stories, headlines, everything in the world is just so overwhelming and terrible.

48:33Speaker 6:Isn't that just cheapening Michael's legacy? This, that, and the third. And I was like, Now, actually, I don't because, see, I grew up a Michael Jackson fan, and I couldn't find anything about Michael Jackson. When I'm 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, and all I wanted to know about was Michael Jackson, if I didn't have Cynthia Horner's Write-On magazine, what really would I have?

48:57Speaker 1:Right.

48:59Speaker 6:I was insatiable. When you're a 13-year-old as a fan, oh, my God, I was insatiable, and I couldn't find anything. And I told him, I said, so I actually feel flush, man, with joy that I can put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search and just see every million, even if the news is bad, even if the news is ugly. I would rather that than to have to be searching and thirsty to know something about my favorite one so that's why.

49:29Speaker 2:Can I ask a question I was going to ask you what was the hardest issue for you to execute However, I wanted to take a wild guess.

49:42Speaker 1:How hard was that Michael Jackson issue to put together?

49:46Speaker 6:Of course, you know better than me. What year was that?

49:48Speaker 1:Was I there?

49:49Speaker 7:95.

49:49Speaker 2:Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe magazine, dressed very uncharacteristically. He was dressed in, I think, a Kadada had dressed him in Tommy.

49:57Speaker 3:Tommy Hilfiger.

49:58Speaker 4:Hilfiger.

50:00Speaker 1:Wait, you don't remember this, Fante?

50:02Speaker 4:I don't remember. He had a Kangol on?

50:03Speaker 3:He got a Kangol on.

50:04Speaker 1:Google Vibe Michael Jackson cover.

50:06Speaker 6:I remember it. I remember it. Wait a minute. Let me take me into my memory. Whoever just looked it up, what are the cover lines on there? Read them.

50:15Speaker 7:Michael Makes History, The King of Pop Strikes a Pose, Easy Ease, Final Days, Notorious B.I.G., Smokers, Smokes Cali, Enter the Wu-Tang Clan with.

50:26Speaker 3:Oh, I can't read the name. Something... Oh, well, Bones Malone. Bones Malone.

50:31Speaker 1:That was 95.

50:33Speaker 6:Barely have any memory of that except for Easy Ease.

50:36Speaker 1:Damn, that's a flex. That's a flex. Like, oh, Michael Jackson, I don't remember that shit. What do you remember about Eazy-E?

50:41Speaker 4:What do you remember about the Eazy interview?

50:43Speaker 6:This is Eazy.

50:44Speaker 4:Well, this is post-E. He had died.

50:46Speaker 1:Final days.

50:48Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I remember about that particular issue. Because not only probably because I'm a music editor, I just remember that, well, one, I just remember that it was... Remember, I'm from the Bay Area, so I've been knowing about and dealing with AIDS probably in a closer proximity than a lot of people. It was very entwined in our lives. And so, I don't know. The tragedy of that, man. And I will say this. I'm not even the biggest Eazy-E fan. But just as a human being, man, it was just too much. And also the way hip-hop was dealing with it was crazy. Yeah.

51:31Speaker 6:And that's what I really remember most about that. And I also remember just not liking the cover image or the design, which is rare for me, which is rare because it doesn't really even look to me like a classic vibe cover, which we were very meticulous about on most issues. But you also got to believe, too, again, I don't know even if I was in those conversations, but I do know this. If Michael Jackson was involved, then Michael Jackson had probably had a final say on what the cover looked like. Because you understand, too, in that era, Quincy Jones had a lot more to do with the day-to-day than he did by the time I became properly editor-in-chief.

52:13Speaker 1:I don't know.

52:13Speaker 2:I just was always just under the impression, like, okay, he started this magazine, and I'll see y'all later.

52:20Speaker 1:Oh, no. But he was day-to-day. No, he was not day-to-day, but.

52:23Speaker 6:He was like, if it had something to do with something that Quincy had something to do with, then Mr. Jones was involved. Absolutely. I don't know if I talk about it in Shine Bright, but my first experience, so I did Kirk Franklin, and then let me not get my dates mixed up, but I feel like I was called to the phone and I was told that Quincy was on the phone with Joe Jackson because it was. It was Janet had an album coming out. And so we needed to get that together. And, and I was on the phone with Quincy and, and he has, they've known each other since the dawn of time. And I was a sitting editor in chief and I was just like, why am I even.

53:14Speaker 3:On the call?

53:15Speaker 6:Hello. And there was just, yeah, just hash and stuff out. And then I was like, um, They asked me, like, who should the writer be? They asked. I think Joe asked Quincy that. And then Quincy finally said, Danielle, like, this is your moment. Like, speak up. Like, this is your area or whatever.

53:38Speaker 1:Oh, the velvet robe cover.

53:39Speaker 7:Yes.

53:40Speaker 6:And I was like, well, you know, I think it should be me. And they were like. Joe was like, really?

53:49Speaker 1:Why?

53:50Speaker 6:And I said simple reasons. I said because... I saw her perform at the Circle Star Theater at San Carlos, California when I was eight years old for my birthday. So I probably had the longest relationship with her out of anybody here but y'all. And then also we're both really pretty much the same age. We're both really black California girls at the end of the day. And, I mean, we could go through the catalog thus far. We could go back to Dream Street if you want to. We could do what you want to do. And so that's when Joe said, well, it seemed like you should be the person then.

54:24Speaker 1:Wow.

54:25Speaker 6:I mean, I probably, my voice was a little bit more shaky back in those times. Let me not act like I was coming with all the full confidence, but it's just when Quincy Jones shoots you the Rondo pass, it's like you better just act like Kevin Garnett.

54:39Speaker 1:Be prepared.

54:41Speaker 2:So for Shine Bright, what was probably the most surprising revelation in constructing this? And also, was there anyone that you had to leave on the side of the road that you wanted to include.

54:56Speaker 6:The most crazy thing to me about Shine Bright is just how much music comes out of segregated times.

55:03Speaker 3:Oh my God.

55:04Speaker 6:It just never would just cease to amaze me. And you keep thinking that as the decades go by that it's going to be different and then it just isn't. I mean, even if it's like somebody from younger than me who got bussed. You know what I mean? And from a segregated situation. And I think people don't just talk about that enough. Like everyone just acts like we're just all out here going to school together and, you know, being friends together. And and out of that comes multi out of that multicultural stew comes this amazing thing called pop. Well, no, absolutely not. So that was. the fact that it just kept coming up and I was just got to be very nosy about it too. I wanted to know the details of, and I'm like, so you're on the back of the bus. What's going on?

55:55Speaker 1:Yeah.

55:56Speaker 3:When you were talking to the Dixie Cubs at one time, it seemed like one of the.

55:58Speaker 7:Sisters was like, okay, Danielle, let me just answer all your questions.

56:03Speaker 6:No, but they got, they really, at first they were like mad at me. And then they really had to say, you really don't know though.

56:11Speaker 7:Because the fact that you dropped after that was something that I didn't know.

56:15Speaker 3:You said the thing about the screen. The screen.

56:17Speaker 1:Yeah. I thought it was a metaphor. I didn't know.

56:19Speaker 6:It was a real screen. Like an actual real hard screen. With peg holes. Like it had pegs on it. And then there were holes in the back of each seat. And you could just move it and just put the screen up in the pegs. And they made the black person do it.

56:37Speaker 2:So basically, there's a part in telling the Dixie Cup story, which their single was Going to the Chapel.

56:42Speaker 6:Big single.

56:43Speaker 1:Number one single. Right. So I guess you could say the real first reign of... I don't want to say some corny black girl. No. I mean, they bumped.

56:56Speaker 6:Let Me Do. They bumped Let Me Do out of number one.

56:59Speaker 1:The Dixie Cups is.

57:01Speaker 2:going to the chapel, you know, they're the first black group to, to, to hit number one. And so she starts with them and they're telling a story about just segregation and busing and whatnot.

57:12Speaker 1:And the fact that.

57:13Speaker 2:Customers and bus, uh, riders would often tell, and I'm saying tell very lightly, uh, black people to move to the back of the bus and.

57:24Speaker 1:They were put a I guess there was a disposable screen that you could put.

57:30Speaker 3:Up to divide.

57:30Speaker 6:Yes, a movable screen.

57:32Speaker 1:A movable screen to divide.

57:34Speaker 3:It should have been at the same regulated place.

57:37Speaker 6:I always thought that's no. OK, so this is the thing. That is what I thought. I always thought. And this is how you know that segregation never really gets discussed in detail. And I am committed always to not talking about black people or black women in summary, but in detail, because this is my thing. I always imagined that the bus was kind of split into like two, like into thirds and that the white people had the first two thirds. And then the black people had the area like from the back door of the bus on.

58:09Speaker 1:Right, right.

58:10Speaker 6:But see, no, this is what's crazy. They moved the goalposts. Essentially the more white people that got on, the smaller the black area would get because this screen was movable and And I asked Rosalie Hawkins and Barbara Hawkins, I was like, so would it be the driver or the people? And she said, whichever. And then I said, would they ask you nicely or were they.

58:42Speaker 7:Mean?

58:43Speaker 6:And this was in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I told her, I said to her, I know I'm asking stupid questions, but I literally don't know. And she said, well, then I will tell you. The way they asked depended on the way they woke up that morning. And I said, we don't know how segregation really was functioning.

59:06Speaker 3:It wasn't separate but equal. It was really.

59:10Speaker 6:Going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings when black people were allowed and stuff. It was really, there's a thing I write about my grandmother telling me one time, my God, and we all know about these black nights.

59:25Speaker 1:I'm here. We do.

59:27Speaker 6:The way my grandmother was just like, oh my God, you know how conceited you are as a girl when you're like 19 or 20 and you think you're cute. And you're really in the mirror and you really get that mascara right. This is before lashes. And you're really, the pre-lash era. And you're really with your Maybelline getting right and your grandmother's irritating you because your top is too tight and your skirt is too short. So my grandmother's really giving me that look like, so where are we going? And I was like, I'm going to this spot, grandma.

59:57Speaker 6:It's like Thursday nights or Tuesday nights or whatever it was. And she was like, oh, OK, where is it? I said, grandma, it's just at this cool spot, like all the black people in Oakland get together. It's really weird. It's organic. It's just like we all just hang out there. And it's just so cool. It's like a lounge and drinks. It's amazing. She said, OK, where is it? And I told her the place. She said, oh, I know that place. Because my grandmother was born and raised in Oakland. And I said, Grandma, you could not know the place. Like, you're 100, I'm 20.

1:00:33Speaker 1:Like, stop, Grandma.

1:00:35Speaker 6:I love you, but no. And she said, Ma'am, listen, we used to go to that place. And if it wasn't that place, it was owned by the same people. And the thing is, we went there because that was the only night that we were allowed to go to that club. It was like Tuesday nights. So we all had to get up to go to work in the morning on Wednesday. So we just had to go on Tuesday and on Friday and Saturday when that's a normal time for people to party. It was only white people that were allowed in there. So that's why she's like, yes, that's why it's organic.

1:01:11Speaker 3:Organically on a Tuesday.

1:01:13Speaker 6:That is black night. And so my grandma, I was like, I couldn't even have a good time at the set anymore.

1:01:21Speaker 7:More.

1:01:22Speaker 6:I'm like, I'm living.

1:01:24Speaker 3:What? You blew my mind with that because I was like, that's nationwide.

1:01:28Speaker 6:There's always a Black night. It's always on a weeknight. It's always on a weeknight. Black night is always on a weeknight.

1:01:35Speaker 1:You're right about that. And yeah, when.

1:01:40Speaker 6:I love writing about, I love writing about, like I said, specifics. And I like writing about culture. And I like writing about something. Ann Powers, who's the head of music at NPR. Ann was music editor at SF Weekly, and I became music editor at SF Weekly, San Francisco Weekly, right after Ann. Ann really handheld me into that job. And something that Ann taught me was, this is back in 1991, 1992. She said, no one's writing about, people are writing about hip-hop as a music. No one's writing about the scene and what the scene is like. And I was enraptured by that, and I still am. I still am. I take notes in my head, on a pad, or on my notes app. When I'm out, just because the scene matters, it matters. It's culture. And that Tuesday night thing is the scene.

1:02:35Speaker 2:So in your history, what will you say is your three definitive pieces of work?

1:02:42Speaker 6:One of the most important pieces to me and one that continually gets Good Notice from People is the piece that I wrote as the forward to the collection of essays about Tupac Shakur that Vi put together in a book called Tupac Shakur. And you can find it at just Google New York Times, Daniel Smith, Tupac Shakur. And it's about a 4,500 word piece that basically just takes his career and life into consideration. And so that is one for me. The second one is from much later in my career, six years ago, I think now. I wrote a piece for ESPN, the magazine about Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at Super Bowl. I just really felt like, and my editor really felt like, and in fairness, ESPN really felt like it hadn't really been written about at the intersection of culture, sport, and just like American history.

1:03:38Speaker 6:I put so much work into that Whitney Houston piece and it paid off. It won awards. It's really a, One of my favorite pieces probably that I ever wrote. And, you know, I think I'm very smart in that piece.

1:03:55Speaker 1:Can you give a summary of that? Because I'm curious.

1:03:57Speaker 6:It's just very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country on her back because war had just been declared. This was in the pre-security era and Super Bowl was a soft target. So I wrote about everything. I wrote about what was going on with the war. I wrote about what was going on with the NFL commissioner. I wrote about her pre-recording the song. I wrote about the, I covered her, her performance in a second by seconds way. I covered every single second of her performance. And that's what I wanted for my conclusion. And that's what we had.

1:04:29Speaker 6:And I just talk about her at the end, just, you know, with the, with the, with the, what do they call it? The, the, the fighter pilots or whatever, the jet planes or whatever, the military planes going over her head and, Really, to me, I was trying to say how inappropriate it is. But the way she sings free is so important to me, how she owned that word in the Star-Spangled Banner. So many singers run from that word or they shorten that lyric. And Whitney put a whole curly Q at the end of it. She went up higher than she even normally goes. She went up into Mariah territory at that moment. She stood there in an at-ease kind of stance. She was in a sweatsuit.

1:05:15Speaker 6:When do you see Whitney Houston in a sweatsuit?

1:05:18Speaker 7:Right.

1:05:18Speaker 4:She had a tracksuit on.

1:05:20Speaker 1:And a headband.

1:05:20Speaker 6:Yes, and she had a headband and some Nike Cortezes. I was like, who is that lady?

1:05:25Speaker 2:To me, you're 95 Kel's piece.

1:05:33Speaker 6:See, that's blocked, though.

1:05:36Speaker 1:I blocked that. But you're like the one that literally broke the story out.

1:05:39Speaker 6:Yes, we did. It was a team effort, but we did, yes.

1:05:42Speaker 1:Okay, I didn't know it was a team effort.

1:05:43Speaker 6:The team effort comes in. I'm on the road with Daniel Lixenberg. We're chasing him down. But the reporting of.

1:05:50Speaker 1:Who's that?

1:05:51Speaker 6:Daniel Lixenberg is the photographer that shot him for the cover. The cover, it is. And I'm happy you brought that up, honestly, because... Thank you. Because really the headline is for all time, the sex, the soul, the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage superstar Leah. And the thing that made it what it was, was the fact that Dana got the shot. I got the story and Robert was so awful that day. And we didn't even know what we didn't know at that time. And so, so me and Dana are on the road. This is Alan sending me and Dana Luxembourg on the road. Dana shot so many great shots of Lil' Kim, Tupac Shakur. But, So our goal is we got to get the story and we need him to speak. And also, I got to report. I got to find his teacher.

1:06:42Speaker 6:I got to find, you know, I got to interview all types of people. He his bodyguard let me and we were at the what was it? What was it called? The arena in Philly back then, the spectrum or the spectrum, the spectrum. So I'm in the bowels of the spectrum. it wasn't Fuzzy, but it was another radio DJ that when I saw him, it wasn't Fuzzy, but it was somebody that reminds me of Fuzzy. And they were standing on stage in Soundcheck that we had snuck into. And I told him my situation and he was like, you can have my backstage pass. I'll never, like, I don't know.

1:07:16Speaker 3:If that was Cosmic Cam, he looked like Fuzzy from the back.

1:07:18Speaker 1:Yes, right.

1:07:19Speaker 6:And I was like, man, you're making my whole life.

1:07:22Speaker 2:You were doing the story and you weren't, officially traveling with the camp?

1:07:29Speaker 6:Not at all. We got on Amtrak from New York to Philly.

1:07:34Speaker 7:And they weren't super welcoming.

1:07:36Speaker 6:No, there were literally signs up backstage at the Spectrum that said, if you see anybody from Vibe here, escort them off the premises.

1:07:47Speaker 1:Wow.

1:07:48Speaker 6:And so we were like, wow. We just felt like public enemy number one because we had a story on the, this was my thing when I was at Vibe, music editor, editor-in-chief if you said you were going to do it, I'm holding you to your word. Like I really believed that. And it was very childish almost the way I would really hold on to that. Like I would, my thing was very much like you promised. And I know a person could be like, your word is your word.

1:08:14Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:08:14Speaker 6:But I know somebody could easily be like, my fingers are crossed when I said it. Like that's how, but that's how, that's how serious I was about it though. I was just very like, no, they promised that they're going to be held to that. And so I, Jive and Mr. Kelly had promised we were doing this cover story. And then because the Aaliyah stuff broke, then they said no. So my thing is, no. Then we're going to find you and we are going to get the story. I'm going to come to Philly and I'm going to figure something out. If I have to interview everybody in Philly, how do you feel about this concert and this situation?

1:08:50Speaker 6:I'm going to do it. If Dana has to shoot you with a telephoto lens from the back of the stadium, then that's what we're going to do. But the thing is, he let us in because... of Dana. Dana was a beautiful woman, white woman from South Africa, and very just low-key with it, very, very, not like giving you sex, not giving you sexy, but just giving you like, frankly.

1:09:17Speaker 1:Disarming.

1:09:18Speaker 6:Disarming. So Robert said she could come in.

1:09:22Speaker 3:That's fucked up because you fucking beautiful.

1:09:25Speaker 6:Right?

1:09:26Speaker 1:All right.

1:09:26Speaker 6:Listen, listen. I appreciate that.

1:09:28Speaker 3:That's all right.

1:09:29Speaker 6:But listen, so then Dana said, because we were really gang gang, Dana said, okay, but I'm not coming in without Danielle.

1:09:39Speaker 7:Damn.

1:09:40Speaker 4:Wow.

1:09:41Speaker 6:So then Robert said, if you, because he knew I was. I had covered him before. I had been in London with him, all types of stuff on junkets as people used to do back.

1:09:52Speaker 3:In those days.

1:09:53Speaker 6:So he said, you can come in, but you can't write anything down. He said with a pen.

1:10:01Speaker 3:Okay. Okay.

1:10:03Speaker 6:But see, I had a pencil. So it's like, man, listen, it was so crazy. I can't even tell you how crazy that was. But what I'm saying, why it was such a team effort. aside from the fact that I had Alan advising me, that Dana had George Pitts, the photo director, advising her, because we didn't know what to do. Also, you guys got to remember, we were kids. I was 28. I was a child. Like, I mean, I was young in the game, but was just on it. And so while Alan was advising me and George Pitts, who's gone now, God bless the dead, was advising Dana. Then Carter Harris and Rob Kenner and the whole Vibe team was back there trying to find that mayor's certificate. That was the goal that was set. And we refused not to meet that challenge.

1:11:02Speaker 1:Wow.

1:11:02Speaker 3:How do you do that?

1:11:04Speaker 4:How do you do that in 95?

1:11:04Speaker 3:Let me tell you something.

1:11:07Speaker 6:It was work. And we had contacts. We were reporters.

1:11:13Speaker 2:Um.

1:11:14Speaker 6:We knew people who knew people who knew people. I mean, we were the ones that reported the fact that how Aaliyah climbed out of the window and got with the bodyguards and they got on a private plane down to Florida. Like, this is because we know people who know people.

1:11:29Speaker 7:Yes.

1:11:30Speaker 1:You guys had to be Googled.

1:11:32Speaker 6:We had to be. And so Carter and them found that marriage certificate and we ran it. And that's also another one of those to go back, Questa, what you were talking about with Arrested Development. That was another time when people said, oh, Vibe is serious. Because you got to understand, I remember to see one of the higher ups at Vibe calling me either on that issue or the next time we put him on the cover when we had even more evidence about his doings. I remember just putting it on speaker and just allowing people to walk into my office, hearing that man call me every type of B-I-T-C-H, low life, W-H-O-R-E, Vi being fish rap, Vi being, I was leading. Who is this? This is like someone very high up at Jive Records.

1:12:22Speaker 3:Does he still have a job? Does he still have a job? Does he still have a job?

1:12:24Speaker 7:Yes, he does.

1:12:26Speaker 6:So I'm just saying, and then I remember too that Robert was saying he was going to sue Vi. He was going on, I guess it was Hot 97 saying that. And I went on the radio because they were like, well, do you want to respond? This is how the internet used to work in the pre-internet era. And I was like, I'll take that date. And I went up there and they were like, well, are you concerned that you guys are going to get sued? And Robert Kelly said he's going to put Bob out of business. And I said what was in true. I used to feel so confident in our, which people don't have anymore in journalism. I used to feel confident in our reporting. I used to feel confident in our fact-checking. And I used to feel confident in the fact that every single solitary page of Vibe magazine went by lawyers before it went to press every single month that I was ever working there as music editor or editor-in-chief. So my thing was I was able to say on the radio, I think that he's just profiling. As we used to say in Oakland, he's just side-busting. Because if he wanted to sue, then he would.

1:13:31Speaker 3:Right.

1:13:32Speaker 6:But he would have to prove, one, that we were wrong, and two, that we had malicious intent, and we have neither.

1:13:38Speaker 5:So when you run that piece about him doing all the abuse and just all the fuck shit, how do you then reconcile when it's time to review his next album?

1:13:48Speaker 6:So I was there for two stories, two cover stories of R.

1:13:54Speaker 1:Kelly.

1:13:56Speaker 6:And I mean, the short answer is I don't know. What we actually did, I would have to look at the timeline. But if I had to guess, I would say that the discussion went like this, and this is purely me guessing. The record is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything. And so we have to cover it. I'm not saying that that is what happened, but just knowing how things tended to happen when I was there, that sounds like the way a conversation might have gone.

1:14:31Speaker 7:Do you think that's how it should in 2022 with all the lenses, is that how the conversations should still go?

1:14:38Speaker 6:I think once a person is convicted of something, then the conversation changes. Because a thing too particular to the Black community is this. There's so many times when Black people are accused of things that they did not do. There's so many times in history where people are Black people was getting canceled before canceling was a word because of things that they did. I mean, things that they didn't do. And so we also had to walk a very fine line of like, well, what do we know?

1:15:15Speaker 6:What is legally? I remember there was a whole thing at Vibe that happens at all places of reputable places of journalism is that you can't just go around saying that someone was murdered. before there is a conviction to that point, you have to say that they were killed.

1:15:34Speaker 4:Killed, yeah.

1:15:35Speaker 6:Murder is a legal term. It's a legal term.

1:15:40Speaker 1:So you would have to say Tupac is killed? You couldn't say that it was a murder?

1:15:45Speaker 6:You could not until.

1:15:46Speaker 1:Well, I'm being hypothetical when I ask that.

1:15:48Speaker 6:Yes, but yes.

1:15:50Speaker 3:Yes.

1:15:51Speaker 6:And I do believe if you go back, you will see that. I remember that being struck out of many a piece. That he was not murdered until someone had been convicted of having murdered him.

1:16:04Speaker 2:In your, I guess in your tenure there, who were some of the writers that you helped usher into the game? People that kind of started off As interns who are now like.

1:16:25Speaker 1:Oh, man, listen.

1:16:27Speaker 3:Look at your phone. Look at your phone.

1:16:28Speaker 7:I know.

1:16:29Speaker 6:First of all, let me just say this. I don't know who all I ushered in, but I do know that I've worked with some amazing people. I mean, when I got there, you know, Alan and Jonathan Van Meter had already hired people like Joan Morgan, who's Dr. Joan Morgan now.

1:16:47Speaker 1:Yes.

1:16:47Speaker 6:Scott Poulsen-Brien, who's Dr. Scott Poulsen-Brien now.

1:16:50Speaker 1:Wow.

1:16:51Speaker 6:People like that.

1:16:53Speaker 7:Okay.

1:16:53Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:16:55Speaker 6:And then when I got there, I mean, Karen Renee Good, Marable.

1:17:01Speaker 2:I was going to say Karen Good was just starting out, like writing record reviews.

1:17:06Speaker 6:She was.

1:17:07Speaker 1:You gave her Baduism as a lead review. Yes, I did.

1:17:10Speaker 6:I mean, Karen and I are girlfriends. Karen was in my wedding. We're girlfriends like that. So obviously Karen Good, Marable, who writes a lot now, so much beautiful stuff for the Oxford American. But also Sasha Jenkins. Jeff Mal.

1:17:25Speaker 1:You gave Raquel Cepeda her start, I think.

1:17:29Speaker 6:Yeah, I always got to be careful talking about who I get a start to.

1:17:32Speaker 7:Right.

1:17:32Speaker 1:Okay, not their start.

1:17:33Speaker 6:Yes, but no, Raquel Cepeda definitely is a genius, and she wrote for Vibe when I was there. And also, I met Elliot Wilson, my husband, and I signed him his first Vibe record review also.

1:17:46Speaker 5:What was his first Vibe record review?

1:17:49Speaker 1:Do you remember?

1:17:50Speaker 6:No, but he does.

1:17:51Speaker 3:He does.

1:17:54Speaker 6:But that was way before we started dating. I was actually married. Elliot's my second husband, in case people don't know.

1:17:59Speaker 3:No, really didn't. How long was your first one?

1:18:02Speaker 6:Short and sweet.

1:18:03Speaker 2:Nice.

1:18:04Speaker 6:How old were you? I got married at like 22. Oh, very old.

1:18:08Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, that was short and sweet.

1:18:10Speaker 1:Is it hard when.

1:18:11Speaker 2:Well, I mean, at one point, both of you were editor-in-chiefs of competing.

1:18:17Speaker 1:We were.

1:18:17Speaker 7:So....

1:18:19Speaker 2:Because you guys were married and your editor in chief of competing, not Hatfield McCoy level.

1:18:27Speaker 6:It was competition.

1:18:29Speaker 1:It was.

1:18:30Speaker 6:Yeah.

1:18:30Speaker 1:So how does that work? Like, how do you find love?

1:18:34Speaker 2:What's separation of church and state when both of you are fishing for like the same story?

1:18:39Speaker 6:Well, we had a history of it already. Elliot went to become when we were back when we were just colleagues, um, Elliot stopped writing for Vibe and he went on to become music editor of the school. right so i was feeling competitive at that time before we ever were dating so but i had to respect the skill.

1:19:02Speaker 3:Set and sounds like that's one of y'all love languages.

1:19:07Speaker 6:Yeah and then when i was a When I was in grad school, by this time he was editor-in-chief of XXL, and this was around the time when we started dating, I had to respect it. Like, that's when he put Afeni on the cover, and that was just such a courageous moment. Like, I could only, I wasn't even, like, we weren't even in each other's phones. I didn't even know if we had phones back then. But I just remember saying to people, like, I know he had to fight to get that done. I know what that fight must have been like, and I respected it. So then when we got married, I was in grad school still.

1:19:41Speaker 6:And it's like nine, ten months after we were married where I went back to Vibe. And we went into it really very willy-nilly. We thought it was going to be very easy to manage the situation. And after our first issues, I don't know if people know my husband, but he's not known for his calmness.

1:20:07Speaker 5:No, not at all.

1:20:10Speaker 6:Not at all. He's such a sweetheart, but he's just not really known for taking things lightly. He's a very passionate individual.

1:20:18Speaker 1:You calmed him down.

1:20:20Speaker 2:I will say the Elliot now is way more calm, and I actually credit that to you.

1:20:26Speaker 1:That's funny. Because just his nerdy ego trip. Yeah. Days of, yeah.

1:20:33Speaker 6:Yeah, those are my guys though, all of them 201. But it's like, but no, so we really, after the first issue, it just was bad, like the way things went down.

1:20:45Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:20:47Speaker 6:And so, and also you have to understand that we had staffs of people that, Elliot had a whole staff of people that already believed in him. And I was a brand new second time editor-in-chief of Vibe that wanted a staff to believe in me. So we had to establish some, as we called them back then, some rules and regulations and some terms and conditions.

1:21:09Speaker 3:Come on now, you got to give us a couple. I got to know.

1:21:12Speaker 6:Well, I mean, if I'm honest, the main one was just that you could not discuss in any way at home anything that was going on with the issue at work. You could say somebody was getting on your nerves or whatever. I don't know why they don't have Coca-Cola's in the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't, you couldn't come home and say like, I'm really trying to get this covered with a, B or C. No.

1:21:39Speaker 1:Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.

1:21:40Speaker 2:Let me ask only because again, like you and him are to me, the most courageous power couple journalism only because both of you had your feet in the fire again at a time in which, and I, I, I'm using more hyperbole when I say dangerous. I'll say more like exciting times, but I'll also say serious times.

1:22:06Speaker 6:Very serious.

1:22:07Speaker 2:Like you, you were, you were definitely around during like the, what they would call the danger era of rap, the East and West thing. But, you know, for also him as, as a wife, were you concerned about his situation at the source? Because he too was sort of, in a weird pickled situation the benzino.

1:22:30Speaker 6:Era yeah i mean he was at xxl at that time but yeah.

1:22:34Speaker 2:Right and like was there just any just general worry for safety coming from your end like okay don't don't write that op-ed because you know good and well that this is gonna or for you it's just like church and state we're never talking about what our work is and bringing it into the.

1:22:54Speaker 6:Home When Elliot was going through the most terrible stuff, we were not dating.

1:22:59Speaker 1:We weren't. Okay, I get it.

1:23:00Speaker 6:Yeah, we weren't. We started dating at, I think, the end of 03, but let me not put too fine a point on it because Elliot was away in the streets at the time when we were dating.

1:23:13Speaker 2:Just for our listeners, Elliot was at XXL right during the height of I guess the Eminem versus Benzino wars.

1:23:22Speaker 1:And it would get very serious.

1:23:26Speaker 6:Very serious. As I said, at that time when he was going through the very worst of it, we weren't dating. I knew him at, I knew him as a, as a colleague. And, you know, there's a certain scene of, of writers and such in New York at that time, black writers and stuff where we all kind of knew each other would see each other out and that kind of thing. And, I always knew Elliot. Like I said, he used to write for me when I was music editor at Vibe and he was always supportive of me.

1:23:52Speaker 6:I remember when my book came out in 03, my first novel, he came into, cause he was balling. He came into Barnes and Noble and brought like 15 books and he was just, you know, he was that type of dude. But even from afar and through my friends on the scene and people who were publicists and other writers, I mean, they would say that Elliot was going through it. You know, people, People that saw him. I mean, these are his stories to tell, but people that saw him more than I did. And I also know just now being his wife for these many years, you know, the health issues and stuff that came out of that era, like it's, you know, stuff that he still manages to this day. So, I mean, he's a brave dude though, but none of us are like super human, you know, and there was some real scary stuff that we all went through. Some of it is in Shine Bright. We're just, threats were made. I remember my mom coming to see me in New York from California. She really did, but she did a couple of times. She was at the office and I was just going about the business of my day. Then she said, so is this how it always is? I was like, what? It was a different era.

1:25:06Speaker 6:She was like, just the way you're talking to people. I said, how am I talking to people? She's like, just cursing and stuff. And I was like, am I cursing? He's like, yes, you're cursing a lot on the phone to people. And I was like, that's because people are trying to back out of the things that they said they were going to do. That's because of this. That's because of that. And my mother said, OK, but like, are you running a staff or are you running a gang? Like, what's going on? But see, the thing is, yeah, but see, because the thing is, we it was you. I mean, I was only there for about five more months. because we were scared. And also, you guys understand how invested we were in Vibe's success, how much responsibility we felt to the community and to ourselves and just the music and to hip-hop culture. We were obsessed. There's not a better word for it. I would say this about just most everybody on the staff, down to the receptionists.

1:26:07Speaker 3:It had to be a lot of pressure because y'all were at the top of that food chain.

1:26:11Speaker 6:Yeah, and people were attacking us physically. People were getting guns pulled on them in the studio over record reviews and stuff. And so it's like, yeah.

1:26:26Speaker 1:Would you change anything?

1:26:28Speaker 6:I would change everything up here.

1:26:30Speaker 3:No, I don't believe that.

1:26:33Speaker 6:Not everything, but you know what? If I just, as I said, we were all, we were young, man.

1:26:39Speaker 1:I get it.

1:26:41Speaker 6:Think about your, I call them my baby cousins and stuff. I think about my baby cousins that are like 25 years old right now. They come over and ask me the most ridiculous stuff. And I'm like, aren't you grown? And they're like, no. And I'm like, I was a whole like.

1:26:56Speaker 3:I thought that was.

1:26:57Speaker 7:Right.

1:26:57Speaker 6:I was a whole R & B editor at Billboard at your age, man.

1:27:01Speaker 7:Yeah.

1:27:01Speaker 3:What?

1:27:03Speaker 6:Like, I was editing Havelock Nelson when I was, like, 25.

1:27:07Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:27:08Speaker 3:Well, that's not fair to put that on.

1:27:11Speaker 5:No, their age, like, a 24, you know, and 95, and a 24 in 2022 are two completely different things.

1:27:17Speaker 6:It's very different. It's very different. Oh, my God. I'm not saying I wasn't mature, but I'm just saying I was still, I didn't have a lot of, I was learning how to manage on the job. And then all of a sudden you tell me, you come into my office and say, I was at the studio. And such and such didn't like the review, and I told them I didn't know what to say to that, and then they just pulled out a gun. Now, I'm not going to act like I'm not from East Oakland, because I am.

1:27:46Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. That's a loaded statement.

1:27:50Speaker 6:Well, it's loaded from a native.

1:27:52Speaker 7:Yeah.

1:27:53Speaker 4:I feel you.

1:27:54Speaker 3:But that still shouldn't be normalized.

1:27:56Speaker 6:It's not normalized, but in the late 1980s, In Oakland, in East Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland too.

1:28:05Speaker 3:In your office. And I'm talking about when we do the story.

1:28:07Speaker 1:No, no, no.

1:28:08Speaker 6:But I'm saying that, you know, you just kind of had to be about it in East Oakland. And so did I bring some of that being about it to the offices of I probably did. I probably did.

1:28:24Speaker 2:When you are running a ship like that, is there pressure? that you felt that your male contemporaries wouldn't have had to have gone through?

1:28:35Speaker 7:Yes.

1:28:36Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait, Time out. It's hip hop. Are you fucking kidding?

1:28:39Speaker 3:These motherfuckers don't even talk.

1:28:40Speaker 1:No, but time out. Was Alan and Jonathan a screamer? Were they screamers? No, not at all.

1:28:45Speaker 6:Not at all.

1:28:45Speaker 1:Hip hop. I almost think Alan's like, not passive aggressive, but like.

1:28:50Speaker 6:No, Alan's just a very soft-spoken dude.

1:28:53Speaker 7:Right.

1:28:53Speaker 6:But also people deal with white men differently than they deal with black women in positions of power. And as much as I'm saying that, you know, I brought some of my East Oakland-ness to the editor-in-chief's chair, I'm also sitting front row in Milan at, you know, the Jill Sanders show and things like that and trying to give all of that energy before I even knew how to give that kind of energy. But if you're asking me, Was it hard because I was a black woman? Absolutely.

1:29:27Speaker 6:And this is the thing. I'm not guessing because I know the men that ran other magazines and that ran Vibe after me. And I know what their experiences were like as compared to my experiences. I know how much money they made as compared to how much money I made. I know all of these things. Also, just because I'm nosy and I'm a reporter. So it's like, was it harder for me? Yes. Were there times when it was easier for me? Maybe, but not enough.

1:30:01Speaker 4:It didn't balance out the hard shit.

1:30:03Speaker 1:No, not.

1:30:05Speaker 2:As an artist, I wanted to study who the gatekeepers of reviews and words were. I'm still making records, but the time when I was making product.

1:30:16Speaker 1:But for you, do you have hope?

1:30:21Speaker 2:For what counts for journalism today. Because I will say that there's like a level of thoroughness that is kind of lost.

1:30:30Speaker 1:And there's also just technique. And I'm not saying that it's a lost art.

1:30:35Speaker 2:Like there's definitely some writers that I feel like are super smart and super insightful. But for the most part, I think now it's like the Wild Wild West where just, you know, there's just people that aren't that knowledgeable about their subjects. They run on Wikipedia real quick or run to your old articles and add to it. Do you feel like your era of the NBA or the new era of the NBA can hold a candle to your era of it?

1:31:08Speaker 6:It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. For the most part, if there's differences in quality, it's not the fault of the writer.

1:31:19Speaker 1:It's also what they have to write about.

1:31:21Speaker 6:No, it's the fact that there's no budgets for anything. If you're writing right now for 20 cents a word, how much are you putting into it? I was writing for 20 cents a word when I was in my early 20s. I turn stuff down now because I'm just like, it's just not worth it for me to do that because I'm not even contributing to my household well on what you're trying to pay me. And so then you have kids who aren't getting fact-checked. You have kids that That aren't not even kids, but adults who aren't being edited by people that no one understand the culture and who they themselves are being paid well enough to put their heart and soul into the work. You have people that are only doing email interviews because no one wants to pay somebody's cab fare across town, let alone a plane trip. I remember when I sent Michael Gonzalez, another great writer from.

1:32:14Speaker 1:The vibe era.

1:32:15Speaker 7:Oh, yeah.

1:32:15Speaker 3:Shout out to Michael Gonzalez.

1:32:17Speaker 6:Gonzo Mike at Twitter. I remember Barry White had an album coming out that was the Practice What You Preach album. And they were like, well, I wanted this story. I just wanted this story. I wanted this story. I think I was music editor at the time. And they were like, well, we can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. But if you want to send somebody to Brussels right now, then we can do it. I went to my boss, whoever it was at the time, and told him the situation. They said, well, buy him a ticket to Brussels. And they went. And it's a great, great story from Michael. And the headline is Blackberry Jam.

1:32:54Speaker 6:And it's an amazing story and amazing photographs. And it's like, where is that going to happen? Now, that's not the fault of the writer. That's the thing that's heartbreaking to me. One of the great things about me going to ESPN was because ESPN has budget issues. As I said, they sent me to Qatar to do Simone Biles. When is that happening? They can afford to take care of people like Justin Timsley, like David Dennis, like Soraya. Yeah, like, you know, like so that people can make a living and have a life. There's not even that many places right now where you can go where that's okay. So when I say I have hope, I do believe that the pendulum is going to swing back, but it's going to take some foot stomping and maybe even some swinging on the part Of the journalists themselves. That's when I say, yes.

1:33:42Speaker 6:I don't know what a general strike is called for.

1:33:45Speaker 3:I don't know.

1:33:46Speaker 6:But something got to give.

1:33:48Speaker 3:Okay.

1:33:48Speaker 1:Are you going to write any more fictional novels?

1:33:53Speaker 3:Yes.

1:33:53Speaker 6:I love fiction. My MFA is in fiction. I may. God willing. And life is long. I may. But I will admit that the things that I'm thinking about with regard to fiction now would probably be more scripts maybe than novels. Um, yeah, it's what I'm into right now and thinking about how to maybe even look at my first two novels and how those things might turn into things that exist in other spaces, whether that's audio, whether that's, you know, filmic or whatever. So those are the kinds of things, um, that I'm thinking about a lot, trying to learn about, uh, taking a page out of your book, sir.

1:34:28Speaker 6:Just trying to look at what can happen.

1:34:30Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:34:31Speaker 6:What can happen in documentary spaces and things like that.

1:34:34Speaker 2:Um, I'm, I'm actually, uh, you know, um, I guess by the time this airs, we'll already made an announcement. Like, I'm a fraidy cat in terms of I never make an announcement until the project is finished.

1:34:48Speaker 7:Okay.

1:34:48Speaker 1:And then it comes.

1:34:50Speaker 2:But probably the biggest secret I've been keeping under my hat for the last two years is I, too, have written a fictional book. And I will assume that this will come out by next week.

1:35:03Speaker 1:Next week?

1:35:03Speaker 6:Next week.

1:35:05Speaker 1:I've been a junkie of time travel. And one of my favorite writers, a.

1:35:11Speaker 2:Gentleman named S.A. Cosby, who he's written many a New York Times bestseller. So he and I sort of became friends over the pandemic. And I guess, you know, taking a break from doing the movie, I would DJ. But then taking a break from DJing, I would journal and wrote my other music book.

1:35:32Speaker 1:This is so good.

1:35:34Speaker 2:My fourth pivot was I always wanted to write kind of the books that I didn't get to read as a kid.

1:35:43Speaker 6:And are those books like Black People Traveling in Time? Or is that what it is?

1:35:48Speaker 1:Yeah, it's two kids. It's middle school books. So it's two kids that are.

1:35:52Speaker 4:It's a YA novel.

1:35:54Speaker 1:Yeah, it's two kids that are.

1:35:57Speaker 6:I love to hear it.

1:35:58Speaker 1:I love to hear it. A grown up boy. They're both 14 and 15 and.

1:36:03Speaker 2:The girl, she's like a science wizard, and she invents a time travel device, and he gets the bright idea to try to save one of his groups that he admired from breaking up, and the butterfly effect of that.

1:36:17Speaker 6:Oh, this sounds really good. That's like, I remember I used to read all those Madeline Lingo books, like Wrinkle in Time and all that. All the time, those folks were white in the book. I loved the books, but I didn't see myself in them.

1:36:29Speaker 2:Yeah, I kept that one under wraps only because, like, again... I have like nine projects on the back burner and maybe only four of them will actually make it to fruition.

1:36:43Speaker 1:And the other five sort of fall at the wayside. Then I got to figure out what to do with it.

1:36:46Speaker 6:But this sounds really exciting. It sounds so exciting.

1:36:49Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm excited.

1:36:51Speaker 5:I want to ask you, Daniel, before we break up. So were you editor in Vibe? Was this like 98, 99? Were you still there at that time?

1:36:59Speaker 6:I was there from 97 to 99.

1:37:01Speaker 4:9799.

1:37:02Speaker 1:Okay.

1:37:03Speaker 4:There was a review. Um, it was the lead review, uh, for the, for the revolutions, uh, record review section. That was a four heroes, two pages album.

1:37:13Speaker 5:Um, I don't know if you even remember this, uh, but, um, it was the lead review and that was just, um, if you, you were there, uh, I just want to thank you for that, man.

1:37:25Speaker 1:That was the craziest lead review ever.

1:37:27Speaker 6:Who wrote it?

1:37:28Speaker 7:Ever.

1:37:29Speaker 4:God, don't get me to lie. Uh, Don't get me lying. I'll have to look it up.

1:37:34Speaker 6:I don't recall it off the rip, but I wish I did because you guys are making me feel like I should go back and find it.

1:37:40Speaker 5:Yeah, that review just opened me up. I mean, I never would have found that album had I not saw that. That's how you heard about Four Heroes? Yeah, that was my first time ever hearing about reading that review.

1:37:50Speaker 1:That's crazy.

1:37:50Speaker 4:I mean, you've been living in London for years, so it was whatever to you.

1:37:54Speaker 3:No, the.

1:37:57Speaker 2:They're the reason why I did the German bass thing at the end of You Got Me. Yeah, when Four Hero got that lead review, even I was like, oh, god damn, like, finally.

1:38:05Speaker 6:Did Greg Tate write?

1:38:07Speaker 1:Hmm. I bet you any money in money, it was probably Greg. I bet you.

1:38:11Speaker 6:It sounds like it. That's one of the honors of my life, too, is editing Greg, but at that time, I was editor-in-chief, so I wouldn't have been editing him one-on-one, but the way it used to work at Vibe was the writer filed to their editor, and then that piece then would go from they go back and forth with it and then that would go to what was called the top editor which was the senior editor and then the senior editor would get it right and then it would go on page and usually then the editor-in-chief would read it at that point and then it would go from approval by the editor-in-chief to fact-checking to make sure every fact was correct and then after fact-checking It would go to copy editing to make sure every period in common, everything was in the right place. And then at that time, it would go to photo. And then after, it would go to photo and design. And then at that point, it would go to production and be made into a real page. And that's when I say, when you talk about budgets, you're talking about paying every single person at every single stage. And that just doesn't exist anymore.

1:39:09Speaker 1:Wait, you just hit me. I forgot. I believe if you were there in 90, were you there in 99? A part of it. You guys actually let me write my own vibe feature. That sounds right.

1:39:20Speaker 6:That sounds right.

1:39:20Speaker 3:Oh, when you were naked?

1:39:22Speaker 4:The naked John.

1:39:23Speaker 1:No, not the naked John.

1:39:24Speaker 6:That was such a moment. It would be like Chris Rock is guest editing. I think that was almost my last.

1:39:30Speaker 3:That was cool too.

1:39:31Speaker 6:Yeah, I feel like that was my second to last issue. And then maybe there was the Jay cover where he has his hands in front of him like this in a white suit. But that was kind of the end of my first editor-in-chief era.

1:39:46Speaker 2:The J-Lo, the very first J-Lo cover in 99.

1:39:51Speaker 6:I don't think I was there for that, though.

1:39:53Speaker 2:You guys didn't send a writer over, so literally I just had to diary touring Europe.

1:39:58Speaker 6:That sounds like an amazing thing, though.

1:40:01Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.

1:40:01Speaker 2:No, it's definitely one of the, probably the second major features I wrote.

1:40:06Speaker 1:Like, I enjoyed it. All right, my last question, because you are from Oakland.

1:40:11Speaker 7:I am.

1:40:12Speaker 2:But to be of age in Oakland at the time when the first generation of hip hop was coming out, are there any notable, like for you, moments of growing up in Oakland that you can share as far as like the culture of it in terms of shows that you saw when you were younger, that sort of thing?

1:40:34Speaker 1:Because it's such a musical town.

1:40:35Speaker 6:I mean, I don't know if I have how many Oakland tales I have. I can just tell you that.

1:40:41Speaker 1:Your best one.

1:40:42Speaker 6:What do i have i mean i told you i saw the jackson five nearby in san carlos at the circle star theater and it's like i i don't know like let's just pass by the childhood stuff and get back to me moving to the bay area as a college student at uc berkeley so now you have to understand too that the bay area is a huge touring stop i mean you know this and so i'm seeing anybody from a flock of seagulls to frankie beverly and mace to ziggy marley I'm seeing all of that. And then when I decide I'm really going to become a writer, then it's like MC Hammer's blowing up, En Vogue's blowing up, Too Short's blowing up, Tony, Tony, Tony's blowing up. And these are just the folks that En Vogue, Timex Social Club, these are just the folks that got famous. We're not even talking about Paris is blowing up. We're not even talking about Kate Cloud and the crew. You know what I'm saying? We're not talking about MC Ant. We're not talking about What about Conscious Daughters? Conscious Daughters. Yeah, don't forget about the crew.

1:41:37Speaker 3:Conscious Daughters.

1:41:38Speaker 6:The crew, like Boots and the crew was right there. Like we were all coming up together. And then when the tour happened, the tour that I was out a lot on, the Public Enemy tour with Heavy D and the Boys, Queen Latifah and the Safari Sisters.

1:41:55Speaker 2:The Black Planet tour with Digital Underground had those masks on.

1:41:59Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:41:59Speaker 3:Yes.

1:42:01Speaker 6:One of the best hip-hop tours in history. Kid N Play, depending on the date, it would be MC Breed. Depending on the date, it would be Luke Skywalker, 2 Live Group. Depending on the place, it would be Sir Mix-A-Lot. Trouble T-Roy died on that tour. Just like those... Tupac was on that tour, Dancing Background 4, Digital. Those moments and the way that Oakland hip-hop will coalesce around. Obviously, Chuck D. I don't even know how I can explain it. It's just...

1:42:31Speaker 6:And then I'd be in the studio sometimes at Digital because those are my guys. And I was dating a road manager back then, all the wild stuff we was doing. And shout out to Neil Sluice Johnson, who's an amazing guy. Still we're friends to this day. You know, we'd be in the studio in Marin County or in Richmond and be like, you know, gold records from like Platinum Records from like Huey Lewis and the News and Journey and Frankie Beverly Mays and The Whispers and all Pointer Sisters.

1:42:58Speaker 6:And all this great stuff, Tower of Power from Oakland History. And it's like, we felt like we were in the righteous space, man. It felt good. And honestly, it still feels good.

1:43:09Speaker 2:I had to get it out. Daniel, I thank you very much. I know we had a few false starts in trying to do this, but thank you.

1:43:16Speaker 5:I was going to say, Mark Weingarten wrote that four-year-old review.

1:43:21Speaker 6:He wrote that review that you're talking about? I remember Mark, yes.

1:43:25Speaker 1:Okay.

1:43:25Speaker 4:But I just wanted to thank you for that.

1:43:28Speaker 6:Oh, well, of course. We are happy to be of service. We really are. And we really were. And like I said, all of us that work there over the time, I'm not saying we didn't have our bad times, but if you are a part of Vibe XXL, The Source, any of those big magazines, even Essence Latina, all those King.

1:43:47Speaker 3:Essence Latina, wow.

1:43:48Speaker 6:Yeah. You know, King Magazine, Slam, all that stuff. It's like it's a certain fraternity slash sorority that we're all in.

1:43:56Speaker 7:And.

1:43:57Speaker 6:everything wasn't perfect. We didn't do everything right, but we are most, most of us pretty proud of the stuff that we did there. And if it wasn't for that, would there be shine right? No. Would there be black girls on book? No, not at all. Not at all.

1:44:09Speaker 1:So, yeah, again, I really want to thank you.

1:44:11Speaker 2:And yeah, I highly recommend to our audience who religiously listens to our podcast. Um, you definitely want to get the book, uh, get the hard copy and actually, you know, the audio book where, uh, I've just never heard someone so emotionally.

1:44:29Speaker 1:Gripped into. Oh, wow.

1:44:31Speaker 3:Yeah.

1:44:31Speaker 2:Because, no, no, the days I couldn't read it, I would drive to it. And, you know, there's a few times we had to break down and catch some tears for a second.

1:44:38Speaker 1:And that, to me, that's an awesome level of vulnerability. And I really love the book.

1:44:45Speaker 2:And it sets a lot of light on a lot of unsung heroes that we didn't know.

1:44:51Speaker 1:So thank you very much, Daniel. I appreciate it.

1:44:54Speaker 6:Thank you all. Thank you, Quest, so much. It's an honor. And thank you, everybody on this team. It's amazing to see and meet everybody.

1:45:01Speaker 1:All right.

1:45:01Speaker 2:On behalf of Laia and Fonticolo and Sugar Steve, you still there?

1:45:05Speaker 1:Thank you, Danielle. Yeah, thank you, Danielle. There you go. The journalism episodes are my favorite. Unpaid Bill is back. Whatever you said, you're on mute right now. I'll speak for him. He said, give me a baby. All right. Great, great.

1:45:18Speaker 7:All right.

1:45:18Speaker 1:This is Questlove, and we'll see you on the next Go Round. Thank you very much. What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

1:45:41Speaker 2:For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.