Q Parker

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa with the latest with Lauren LaRosa on Black Effect. And I cannot wait to see you guys at the fourth annual Black Effect podcast festival. We are coming back to Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, April 25th at Pullman Yards. And it's hosted by me alongside DJ Envy and Charlotte Mayne the God. We got Drink Chance with Noriega and DJ Effing. We got Keep Your Positive Sweetie with my girl, Crystal Renee Hastlet. We got Reality with the King with my guide and my brother, Carlos King. Y'all know he does reality commentary like nobody can. Now we also have Don't Call Me Right Girl, the podcast. I love Mona and Club 520 podcast along with the Grits and Eggs podcast. So this lineup, stacked baby. You're also going to want to check out the panels that we have lined up to feature and Kevin on stage, Tika Sumter and John Hope Bryant, just to name a few. Of course, it's way bigger than the podcast. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with Black Own Businesses, plus the food truck court to keep you fed while you visit us. Okay. Listen, you don't want to miss this. Tap in and grab your ticket now at blackeffect.com slash podcast festival. We are the authorities on all things R&B. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jay Valentine and this is the R&B Money podcast. And today I got R&B Royalty on this thing with me. My brother, hey man, listen, he has sold a lot of records. You know, he's been in a group. He's been solo. He's part of the married R&B fellas. I'm going to ask a lot of questions about that. How you be married in this R&B thing is, you know, it's getting tricky. But you know, only you. Only you. You know, I mean, maybe Cupid shot him down. I don't know, man. It's probably the pieces in cream, man. We about to get into it. My brother, y'all brother, Q Parker is here today. What's up, y'all? What up? What up? What up, man? My good brother. Hey man, I know this guy a long time, man. I know this guy a long time. I'm the fan of what you've done, man, and what you've been a part of and what you're doing solo. All of it, man. I remember meeting you, I think, the first time. I think I met you at the NBA Entertainment League. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we met on Music At First. We didn't meet on Music At First. We met at the Entertainment League, but we need to bring that back, y'all. Man, you know, some homies have reached out to me over the years, bro. And I'm like, yeah, I got to figure out how to make it worth it. To, yeah. Yeah. But it was so much fun. It's a lift. Duh, I would fly out here just to play the game and then go back home. Yeah. A lot of people would. A lot of people were winning town. Obviously, you have it in LA because a lot of people live in LA. But, you know, that that league, man, I met you in that league. I met Michael B. Jordan in that league. I met Amari Hardwood. I'm talking about all my like guys that are still my friends to this day. I'm trying to think of Robbie Jones. Yep. Oh, man, bro. Like it was so many. I think I make. No, I already know Kevin Hart, but he played in it too. Yeah. And obviously I know Jamie, but man, it was it was beef. It was so much. It was so much fun. It was a fast. It was competitive though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you play when Will Ferrell was in it? Yes, bro. Yeah. I couldn't focus. I couldn't focus when we played against Will Ferrell because every time I looked at him, he gave me a look and I start laughing. I'm like, he can't be serious. But you know, like, like, like as entertainers, a lot of us have athletic background. Yeah. Play ball in school. And so we always have that edge. And, you know, athletes want to be artists, artists love and respect athletes. And so it was like the perfect setup for for guys like myself. You obviously take it was it was just super competitive, man. And that's why I would fly out here. Sunday morning, play the game and fly back to LA. Now you want them cast that will come in with the duffel bag or the roller bag. I'm gonna call the fresh off the plane. Exactly. Yes. And I think people don't understand the type of competitiveness that even artists have. Yeah. You know, and I'm not I'm not all the way sure some of the newer artists have that same competitive drive. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah. See, I see when when I came in the game, it was so much traffic. Yeah. Think about early nineties. There were so many groups out. Mm hmm. You had to be competitive because it was like if I got one shot, regardless of who in the way, I got to go get it. Yeah. And so you think about 112, Jagged, Drew Hill, Nex, Black Street, Jodacy, Boyce, the men, Lada, like, and you didn't even start naming the girl groups. You feel me? Right. You got. So you had that. So it bode well for me being an athlete because I came into the group with that edge. Like, yo, when you across from me, you the competitor, right? We can go hang out all day afterwards. But when it's time to get down, it's time to get down. Let's get into that. Let's get into that, man. Take me back to the beginning, man. Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah. Yeah. Atlanta, Georgia. Because everybody not really from there. It's a it's a lot of y'all have one of those. No, no, and I'm not saying that. And I'm not saying that in a in a in a bad way. I'm just saying y'all are a hub. Atlanta is a hub and everybody's not actually born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. They might come to Atlanta and be, you know, an AT alien after a minute. Yeah. We always say after about seven to eight years, it gets your ATL card. Okay. Oh, so there's a card. Yeah, it's a car. Okay. That's a car. Okay. I'm gonna start. Hey, man, he got you got your ATL card. Yeah. If they can show you that they've been there for about eight years or so, then they can they can then claim it. So yeah, man, take take me back to to look you and how you pronounce your full name, Rosie Quenis. Quenis. Come on. Look at me. Good job, man. Good job. Give me some shickers. When I saw that, I said, whoa, boy, I don't think I know how to pronounce this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna take my shot because I'm from not just like him. You did it. You did it. But yeah, I'll take you back. I would say middle school. Okay. I met Duran in a middle school honor choir where they would take a couple of kids from each elementary school and put them together to make one choir. So that was in the fifth grade. So Duran and I became really good friends. It just so happened, man, that my parents moved into the neighborhood that Mike Slim and Duran was already living in. Oh, they were living in the same neighborhood. Yeah. Talk about how God worked and how it was it was meant. And so seventh grade, I then started to go to the same middle school as Mike Slim and Duran. And so while I'm there, I'm just I was always a overachiever. Like I was super smart, athletic, saying I was in all the clubs. So I was just always just active. And I would see them at that time, they were they were already a group. Mike Slim Duran and they had two other guys. Okay, they were already a group. And so I would see them all the time, singing, doing all the talent shows. And then they would be in the choir called the show choir, which could seem like the popular radio songs versus the chorus. We're just seeing the classical type of stuff, right? And so once we graduated from middle school, went to high school, they were still doing their thing. I was I was excelling over here doing other things. And one day, Mike comes to me in chorus class and say, hey, yo, we need a new member because the older two guys graduated and decided to go to college. Okay. And back then it went, it was okay to have three guys in the group, but it wasn't like the thing because you couldn't really like do the harmony boys and men of Jersey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or take six commission. Man, listen, you know, and so Mike says to me one day, sitting next to me, yo, we need a new member. And me being who I was at that time. And I kind of like shoved them off because realistically, I really didn't have the time you think about school after school, I'm playing four sports all year basketball track tennis. Right. Then I'm Spanish club, I'm SGA, challenge program. I'm doing all of that right now. I'm the youngest though. Okay. All right. I'm about to say yeah. Yeah, I'm the youngest. My mama told me like, you never got to work as long as you make good grades and stay active. Right. So one, two of us, my first job and only job that I've ever had in my life. I mean, what she names you, Cornice, that was gonna be tough for you to get a job. They could be like, Quenus. Right, right, right, right. He might, he might while I'll slap somebody up in this. Listen, to my knowledge, there's only three of us, my dad, me and my son. So you, Quenus, Junior. So no, my son is the junior. Okay. Because I have a middle name. My dad doesn't have a middle name. My mom didn't have a middle name. So it's Quenus OG. Okay. I'm senior and then Q Junior is the junior. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I never, because it's, my mom was, my mom was black and Chinese and in the Asian culture, a lot of people don't have middle names. This is the first time I've ever heard of a black man that had a middle name. Yeah. My dad is just Quenus Parker. Yeah. And so I'm Quenus Daymon Parker and then my son is- Oh, you got the full hood. Quenus Daymon Parker. Yeah. Yeah, you Daymon too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. You were supposed to sell all these R&B records. Amen. Yeah. All right. And so, and so when the guys graduate, I finally one day was just like, all right. But how can I juggle this? How can I juggle? Yeah. Because they were rehearsed after school. But they've already graduated. No, no, no. So Slim is the oldest. Okay. The two guys, the older guys- Oh, they graduated. Yes. Okay. So now Slim is a senior. I'm a junior. Mike and Duran are sophomores. Okay. Right? I audition, get in the group. So now the official Q Mike Slim and Duran is a group. Okay. They kicked me out the group because I'm trying to decide, do I go to rehearsal? You'll go see my girlfriend. Oh, you got a girlfriend? You got a girlfriend? I'm trying to wait for my mom to get home. So I can get the whip. Go see my girlfriend across town. You use the actors. So they's like, Q, like, what's really happening? Are you either going to be in the group or you going to be a playboy? And so when they finally hit me, J, I said, you know what? All right. Because no matter what I did in all those other areas, music has always been just in me. Something you came back to. Yeah. I would see them in high school sometimes. And you know how high school is in the courtyard. You got the jocks over here. You got the, as they call them, the studious people. You got the singers. You got, right? And so I could always go into either one of those because I was just that active in school. Right? And so one day I'm over with the, with my athlete buddies and the football team. And I'm seeing them saying, oh, Mary, don't you weak? Just to thrill them. And I said, they, they going in. And I'm so no, they're like, man, that's really what my heart is at. Like, I love my, my, my dudes and football and all that. I got the letterman jacket on and all that, but. But the school is stopping to watch them. Oh my God. Yeah, I'm sure they stopping. Yeah. Cause you, you can put a singer, a doctor, lawyer, athlete. They can't, they can't stand no one. It just, it's just something about singing. And so it was that day, man, that I said, okay, you know what? I'm going to commit to it. And once we locked in, man, we locked in and just became what you are. And what year and I, this senior year it is. So when, when everything started really, really clicking, I was a senior, Slim had graduated. He was attending more house. I was a senior, Mike and Duran were juniors. We signed the record deal and. Don't go to record deal yet. Don't go to record deal. We're going to get there. Okay. Okay. So once we officially started performing over around the city, kind of getting the buzz. Yeah. Where people were starting to know our name as Forte at the time. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's crazy. Y'all name was Forte cause in my neighborhood and back in first go, we had a rapper named rapper Forte. That's why we had to change the name. We changed the name because of rapping. Well, that's my OG. Yeah. We changed the name because of rapping for a take. And then Motown had a girl group called for something. They was for something and puffers like, well, you say don't go to the record deal yet. But yeah. Okay. So as Forte, you're moving around Atlanta. Yeah. When do you all meet Kay Wells? All right. So this is, this is how crazy it is. Right. So before I joined 112, I was in a group with Wingo from Jagged Edge. So me, Wingo. Man, come on. No, I'm telling you. Come on, dawg. Nah. Me, Wingo and two other guys. All right. And one of the guys is now my attorney cause he was a music guy. He's my attorney. Shout out to Chuck Douglas. Shout out to Chuck Douglas. He's singing attorney. Shit. All right. Okay. But that's just how the culture in Atlanta was. For sure. And so that group obviously didn't work out. Right. What was your question? You said? When this Kay Wells come in the picture. Got you. Wingo tells, here's another name for you, Courtney Seales. All right. Absolutely. Know who Courtney Seales is. So Wingo and Courtney live in the same neighborhood. Courtney is kind of like Kevin Wells assistant. And Kay Wells is now working for Dallas Austin. Roddy records. And Kay's responsibility and role is to go out and find talent, bring it back to Dallas. Which he is amazing. Which he is the best at. If you've come up through the suckering region. Yes. And Kevin Wells wasn't a part of it. You might not have been that good. Shout out to Kay Wells, man. Kay Wells is one of the, if not the greatest talent finder, manager on the planet. And when I tell you man, like the way he just whipped us in shape. But I'm going to get to that. So Wingo tells Courtney, hey, there's these guys that we've been hearing about. They winning all the talent shows. You got to come to West Lake High School to see these guys sing. We was winning so much Jada, they wouldn't even let us compete no more. We was like the special guest because we would just win. Right. Right. Wingo brings Courtney to the talent show. Courtney introduces himself and say, hey, I want to take y'all to Kevin. He takes us to Kevin. We audition for Kevin. Kevin falls in love with us. And then Kevin assigns us to Tim and Bob. My gosh. Yeah. And that's when the journey of 112. So Tim and Bob is already connected before the deal. Yeah. Tim and Bob and y'all are already connected. Yeah. Because Tim and Bob were signed as producers to Dallas. And so all of the early studio isms, learning our way around the studio, we got to get that to Tim and Bob, man, because they took the teenagers in us and helped us cultivate our sound, helped us build the confidence. Because this is one thing to sing live, but then to make it too articulated in the studio is a totally different, right? And so, man, Tim and Bob, they really took us under their wings. And our hope was to sign to Dallas. We wanted to... No, it makes sense. Yeah. Exactly. So we signed like a 90 day agreement with Dallas. With Dallas. To just develop us. And that was Kevin's job. Get these guys ready in 90 days. Right. And then we'll assess it at that time. Yeah, because he probably would have to take it to the parent company. Exactly. Because at the time, it was rowdy through Airstah. Airstah, yeah. Airstah, yeah. Okay. And so for 90 days, I mean, it was like clockwork. Go to school, go to rehearsal. And we would be at that at dark all night, all day in the sea room just rehearsing. Duran on the keys. We just sing around, just singing everything from commission, Jodes, you know, wine and take six boys to men. Silk, you name it. We just, we're getting ready for this 90 day ending period. Well, the 90 days come and Dallas decides that he has interest in another group that he went to see in, I think it was somewhere in Alabama. Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah, it was a three member group. They were called Flavor. I'll never forget. And three member ain't it. And he like, man, the three members is what I was looking for. But bro, we knew that they couldn't see us, man. Right. It was really tough for anybody because you think about it. 112, the culture of 112 and the blend of 112 is commission, wine and take six boys to men, Jodes, then you blend in our own sauce. Yeah. As we were getting more and more into just our stuff, right? So, man, nobody can see us. You can see us from writing because one of the reasons why we were so attractive because we was writing original songs. Right. And we were singing original songs. So the 90 days came when Dallas decided to go another route. So he passed. He passed on us. Okay. So Jermaine passed on us. Teddy Riley passed on us. LaFace passed on us. So who's taking y'all to all these places now? Kevin. So Kevin's like, listen, I'm still rolling with y'all. Yeah. I mean, because he had invested so much into us, man. Like, I mean, dressing us, giving us money, we getting this car and we going. Like he's now become like the father figure to the group. Every day just making sure we where we need to be. Nah, seeing this this way. Nah, y'all got to be cool. Don't wear that no more. Wear your pants like this. Don't do this. Don't have your pants so tight. Loosen them up. Get loose. Showmanship. Like he just bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop every day. And so after everybody passed on us, he says to us, tonight I'm taking y'all to this club. One of my homies from New York is coming in town and we're going to audition. I don't know how the audition is going to go, but just be ready. And I believe that's when we first started to embrace. If you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. Hell yeah. Because we had a bag of eight joints in our pocket ready. The drop of a dime to my trip. We going. No music, whatever. We going. And so he takes us to club 112. We see Puffy coming out of the club and Puffy's on some walk with me. So we basically like singing as we're walking to his car. He ain't got time to stop. He ain't got time to stop. And Deron got a little Cassio keyboard. Ready to put it on the back of somebody's trunk. Like he really like kind of walking, playing at the same time. And whatever we did, man, I think, I think we saying commission or somebody, it was enough to stop him to say, this ain't the place for this. I'm going to come back in Atlanta in two weeks. And I'm going to try to really, really audition like in the studio. So he came back two weeks after that. At that time he was executive producing ushers. Can you get with that whole album? Right. And he came down with faith. We met at Doppler Studios in Atlanta and that's what we saying. I mean, we threw at him everything we had because this was like, if all these people passed on us, we don't know who else. Where else we going to go? Right. Man, and that day I'll never forget usher was like really, really young. But I remember faith looking at Puffy and said, yo, if you don't sign these boys, you crazy. And so that's why I love faith, man. She still like my sister to this day because she stepped us. I believe he heard what he needed to hear. Right. But that is something else too when your artist, somebody already signed somebody, he's probably looking at like faith is top to top. If she love these boys. Yeah. Yeah, man. And about two or three weeks later, man, we became the fifth artist on Bad Boy. Wow. Yeah. Quick. Quick. Two weeks. Two weeks. So do y'all stay, when this happens, do y'all stay in Atlanta or do we bring y'all up to New York? So here's the crazy thing, J. Now, at the time, I got a full scholars, full rise scholarship at the Clemson University. I got you. You got all the other stuff going on. Right. You said to where? Clemson. To Clemson. Yeah. All right. Okay. So you do one. Okay. I get it. And at this time, I will be the first person in my entire family to go to a D1 university. Okay. All right. Graduate with honors, 3.6, the mayor's award, governor's award. I'm like all over the place. We signed the deal. I graduated in June. You know around August is when you got to start registering for school. Everybody's in my neighborhood. What position did you play? Receiver. You're a receiver? Yeah. I'm a receiver. But my scholarship was a partial, three partures that made a full rise. So partial music, partial academic and partial athletic. Right. So. This is great. August. You and Tink really are the same nigga. But this is great. So August comes around and everybody in my neighborhood, you see them pack up. They cars and they driving. My mom and dad looking like, what's happening? And I'm like, we just signed the record deal. So you see the college or this once in a lifetime opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. On the tail end of that, J, my mom and dad church of God in Christ. So that's a whole another beast that I'm trying to make sense of my family looking at me like you're singing this devil's music. And I'm like, you know, I'm not a church family. Like you're supposed to be singing gospel. Then I got this record deal. Then I'm passing up the scholarship. And so from June, July, August, this 95 June, July, August, September, October, November, December, seven months. I'm at home waiting because you know, in this game is hurry up and wait. Right. It's, if we're going to start, we're going to fly y'all up to New York after the summer. Yeah. Then it's, all right. Then December come, we're going to start top of the year. So December comes around and all I'm doing is telling my mom and dad, like, we got a record deal. Like the record is, is for real. Like mine is for real. My dad looking at me like, Hey, yo, what's really happening? Because you haven't moved out the house. He's still staying with your parents. I still stay with my parents. Still. So what was the, was it any events? No, at the time. Well, no, no, no, let me, let me go back. Yes, there wasn't advance. I'm sorry. It wasn't advanced. I think by the time everybody got what they needed to get, I think we all probably got like $6,000. You can't move out. Nope. No. Can't go too far with $6,000. Okay. So once I, you know, bless my mom and did a few things. You had to give something to the church. Had to give the tides. Had to tie the church. Yeah. You're singing the devil's music. You better give it a taste. Thank you, man. So December goals, January. This is night. Now this is 90. Now you're 96. We're in 96. Yeah. January, February. I'll never forget four days before my birthday, March 20th. We fly from Atlanta to New York, March 20th of 1996. We go there, the five of us. Q, Mike Slim, Deron and Courtney. Happy belated birthday to you. Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it. Yeah. We fly to New York and every day we just go in every day. And then in August of 96, only you comes up. So it took a year? Yeah. During that time, is there any more events that comes in? No. So you always get this per diem. So you already get some per diem, though? Per diem. 245 a week. And we get it every Thursday. And by Saturday, we looking at each other like, how much you got? It's gone. We're going left. It's gone. We're going down to the village. Yeah. We splurging. You ain't splurging too much, but you doing a little. 19 years old, you know? And we live in Manhattan in an apartment about the size of this. Yeah. All five of us. He said August. August of 96. But the blessing in our story, man, is the record came out the blocks. Oh, yeah. Fire. No. It wasn't no games to be playing when that record dropped. We was able to now start getting 2,500 for a show. Oh, you had Melee on the road. Oh, yeah. We ain't play. Cause the record was just so, the record was so crazy. And then man, here comes our first obstacle. Because the original is going crazy on the East Coast. So we, we're good. Yeah. We're all up and down the East Coast. But then here comes the remix. The remix. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the West Coast grabs a hold of that remix. I mean, like it was gum and cheese going crazy. But at the time it's the East Coast West Coast. Yep. And so Puffy says to the whole label, no bad boy artist goes to the West Coast. And damn, show don't go to LA. But as you know, if the West Coast is spinning your record, you got to go. You got to go. Yeah. And against his wishes, we had to go chase our record. And I don't know, Jay, if we hadn't made that decision, if our career would have gone in the way that it, that it went. But man, we would have to come out here with arm security. It was real, dawg. And it's so interesting, right? Because it obviously being in the R&B space, it had nothing to do with y'all. But it's also probably what was a covering over y'all too. It's just like, all right, man, it ain't got nothing to do with this shit, man. But it was so, it was so heavy, man, that the communities started to really pick on to that. Like we would be, we would be in the West Coast, man. And you know, like, I remember this one time, man, we would, our thing was we, we fly into a city. We go to the mall with the flyers. Yeah. Try to get some girls to pass out the flies, get them to come to the show. And we were in, I think, Seattle, Washington one time. Same setup. Go to the mall. So it's two girls following behind us. Now it's 12, now it's 20, now it's 40. Now it's like a full mob of people. One 12 was in the mall, they got this shit. But then it come to hood dudes. Man, about 20 of them jokers showed up, bruh. And we now, like, backed up into the food court with the mall security barricading us. Cause they like West Side, we'll kill y'all. And we just looking like... In Seattle. Yeah. Which has done to do with LA or New York. Yeah, it was so, it was real. Like we'd be performing and something like that would get on the mic and be like, Sugar Night in the building, we'd be like, well, show's over. It's crazy just for me, right, being in the Bay, we just, we were outsiders to it. Like we understood it and obviously we were connected to it through Tupac, cause Tupac had his time in the Bay. But I don't think it was like, we didn't look at it that way. At least, and I'm in high school at the time. I don't remember nobody in my class being like, we don't listen to 112 cause 112 is the sign. 112 got jams, nigga. Have you heard this album? Yeah, man. Because that's something else, bruh, I wanted to tell you. And I mean, I'm sure you've heard it and if you haven't, in my opinion, your self-titled debut album is one of the greatest R&B albums topped the bottom. Wow. In my opinion, especially as a debut. Yeah, yeah. Let's start with the interludes. Yeah. Which I know you know y'all were known for. That was like a thing with 112. Yeah. Bro, y'all interludes were great songs. Sexy you, why? Yeah. Like, bro, y'all started that album off with Now That We're Done. Which already is kind of wild because of the title you would think it would be at the end of the album. But y'all kicked the album off with that. What is the mindset when y'all going in and y'all sitting down with the label, y'all sitting down with the producers, y'all sitting down with Puff and y'all have this conversation of like, alright, this is what this is about to sound like and feel like. Do you remember that time? I don't think we even knew at the time, Jay, because all we wanted to do was just sing. Okay. We didn't fully understand the business. We didn't really know the nuances. We just wanted to get in the studio, get around the piano and just croon and just sing and perform. That was it. And so when you think about that first album, that's just what it was. It's 19 songs on an album, but man, we probably recorded back then. You do 60, 70 songs here. We recorded so many songs, but we had people like Tim and Bob holding our hand. We had Arnold Hennings. We had Skeeter and Stevie J. And then we had access to all the hitmen at the time. So we were covered immensely. But a lot of what we did were the ideas of ours because again, I'm gonna say, man, we always had the cheat code in Derran Jones. Man. Because as a musician in the... That's why I think Jodicy, they had the cheat code because you got Devante. 112 had Derran, man, who the intricacies of our harmonies would be so crazy because he would play them first and be like, cute is your note. They sure know. They sure know. Might this show note. He would play the chords and we'd be like, but once we put it together, that's why nobody can really duplicate our harmonies because... Y'all had a real life duck in the groove from Five Harbys. Right. Yes. This is not how I played it. That's not how I played it. And that was him. I already know. I've never even met him. Let one of us sing the... He pissed. He pissed. Yo, he is. Listen, I hope you see this, Derran. Yeah. In my opinion, bro, you are musical genius. Absolutely. You are absolute musical genius. I would love for you to come sit down on this chair and have this conversation, bro, because what 112 did to music, in my opinion, was a very special thing. It really showed that you can make... Because it was a turn. It was a turn happening, but y'all was still making Love Song. Yeah. In a time where it was starting to get real aggressive. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's why I asked, I didn't know if y'all was purposely sticking to that script of like, no, we're about to make these Love Songs. And y'all were... It was boys to men, but it was still Jodis. Absolutely. And I think that was... That's what... It was a mixture. It helped us cut through because we were, like you said, we were buttoned up enough to go home to the song of Mama. But it was super hip hop. But we would still... I think y'all got something, Mr. Chicks. And that's the... Maze, beat, like... And that's the brilliance of Puff Man because I believe had we just stuck to what we wanted to do, we would have just been some balladeers all the way across the board. Got it. And how would that have made us different from Jagged Edge? How would that have made us different from Drew Hill and Next? But I think the thing that would always separate us from those groups that were in our era is the hip hop element that Puff brought. Puff used to always tell us, if I can't play it in the tunnel, it won't be a single. But he didn't fully understand the R&B nuances of harmony and structure and all of this. And we had no clue about hip hop. Again, we fought church boys. Damn, they never listened to rap unless it was LL, Kujae, I Need Love or like some, you know, some smooth rap. Right? All y'all is from church. Oh. I mean, not just church, but like all y'all Kojik. So I'm Kojik, Duran Methodist, Slim was non-denominational. Yeah. Like, yeah. It's heavy. And Baptist, yeah. So Kojik Baptist Methodist and non-denomination. But again, all just church boys who mommas wouldn't let us really listen to secular music. And so when we signed that bad boy, we have no clue about why it got hit so hard, why it got hit, why it had snare so hard and why. But the brilliance of Puffy was like, I'm going to give y'all these hard banging hip hop beats, tracks, compositions. And then y'all just figured out. Yeah. So J, if you can imagine, he would give us a four minute song of an eight bar loop. Right? Yeah. So imagine. There. For four minutes. That's all you got. Four minutes. And we would have to use our own instruments to make it musical. That's why you got the, all the backgrounds and all that. Because we had to be creative and make it comfortable for us. Because we didn't just like just the hip hop stuff. Right. We had to make it musical. And that's why I would put angelic churchy chords and stuff on top of the band. And that I believe is what ushered in this whole hip hop and R&B. And so when you talk about the definition of hip hop and R&B, you got to mention bad boy, but you got to mention 112 because it don't get no more grimey than white lines of it's over now. Right. And we put in the bridge and all these harmony and all that stuff. And the way we was interchanging the lead parts and he coming off the tail end of this guy, he passing to this guy, Alley-oop and this guy, two part harmony, then four part harmony. Man. It really didn't make sense, but it made all the sense. Right? Yeah. It's almost like the Jodesy coming talk to me. Yeah. To me, you guys are the continuation of that. That's dope. Yeah. You know? It was still clean in the style of voice to man. So to me, when I saw y'all, it was just always like, oh, they're both. Yeah. It wasn't like, oh yeah, what side are they on? Yeah. And you know, a lot of us had to choose. That was intentional, man, because when you look at the nuances of 112, 112 was, it was almost designed to be a super group. We wasn't going to have one somebody and then the rest of them. Yeah. In order for you to be in the group, you had to be able to stand on your own anyway. Yeah, all four y'all can stand. Right? And so when you think about the nuances, you got Q Parker, who is smooth, real melodic. You got Slim, who has the distinct divorce out of the group. You got Deron, who could just do damn it anything. And then you got Mike, who got this heavy soul. And so within those four elements is Jodeci, Poistumen, After Seven, the Whispers, Temptations. It was nothing we could not do because we all had different elements. But when you brought those shits together, bro. That was special. I mean, y'all come out the gate. What's the first album? Double platinum? Yeah. Out the gate. When that happens, starting to get some bridge yet? Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. We had the pleasure of that first album going on tour with Q Sweat and Bone Thugs and Hermione. How'd it go out with Q Sweat? Went on that tour first album, then the end of the first album, once we got around the Cupid, come see me in Cupid, we toured with the Ossley Brothers. Come see me in Cupid, bro. After Only You. Yeah. Oh yeah, y'all whooping. Y'all whooping ass, man. I mean, we were out of 365 days out of year, we was probably on the road 300. And I'm talking about... And how old are you at this point? At this time I'm 20. You just turned 20? Just turned 20. And I'm talking about from the Ruda to the Tuda, J. We doing the backyard barbecues, we doing Madison's Gweregaard and Tude. I tell you, it's all the time. Tupelo, Mississippi. Come on. You ain't know RV Singers. Absolutely. You've been with Tupelo. Yes. I've been with Tupelo for a long time and I was like, yep, yep, they love RV out here. Man, we was doing it. We weren't turning down nothing, bro. What's the first thing you buy? First thing I... That you felt like you was like, okay, I got to get that. For myself or just period? Just period. My mom wanted a fur coat. So I had to buy my mother a fur coat. You got one in New York? Yeah. When I got my mama her fur coat, I got it out of New York. Out of New York. Yeah. You know, New York had all the leather, crazy, the rain goes and all of that. So that's the first thing she like, baby, give me a fur coat. Yeah. She wore it to church. Yeah. Oh my God. Man. My son in 112. Yeah. And then I think after that, the next biggest purchase, again, we're still young, right? We're 20. I'm 20. Mike and Duran are 19. Slim 21. Okay. I got a BMW, man, and bought these four. These? 328 drop top. Everybody bought one. Everybody bought one. Oh, the same color, different color. I had black, Slim had red, Duran had white, and Mike had cranberry. So, man, we would go through the AU center like, Elm and Clark. Oh, yeah. Because y'all still college. Oh my God. Oh, yeah, we're cooking. What they call it the CAU, right? That's what they do, yeah. The AU center. AU center, yeah. AU center, okay. The CAU is Clark. Yeah. Yeah, okay. The AU center. Yeah, I ain't went to no damn college. Yeah, I don't know. And I tell you, man, and it was just, we were just so proud because being from Atlanta, but signing to a New York based record company, people were trying to get confused like we were from New York. But we were just like, nah, man, we just signed to, no, we're from the A. So every time we got an opportunity, and we lived in New York for four years. So the first two albums, we lived in New York. Okay. Did y'all ever have the moment with some of the people who passed up on y'all? Where they like, damn, man, I didn't really see it. I don't think they will ever verbalize that. But as we were achieving the things that we were achieving, I'm sure they had one of those moments. And maybe not because Jermaine ended up signing Jagged, which they and made a career. Yeah, Legends. And used to be in a group with one of them. That's just even crazy. And Wingo still one of my best friends. Still to this day. And then LaFace started to have, you know, TIP and all the things that they did. Dallas was doing TLC and Usher and Monica. So I'm sure. I'm sure everybody was still having success, but it's still, it's something about seeing somebody like, damn, like when you let get away. I got a couple of those. Yeah, yeah. Now that I passed on, really, but just that, for me, and maybe you didn't even know this in when you as you're auditioning for people, for me, it was one of those things where I knew I didn't have the time. And I've always prided myself on never getting in the way. I never want to get in the way of anybody's blessings or their destiny. That's quite just because I need to be a part of it. Yeah. And there are a lot of people in this business that are professional, getting in the fucking way. Getting the way is. Get your ass out of the way. Yeah, yeah. I was very, I've always been very mindful of that. And I'll tell you, listen, I won't, I'll wait till their episodes where we can have the conversation. But where I've had, I've told a couple of artists, like, I know you're going to be a superstar. Mm hmm. I can't give you what you need. Yeah. I don't have the bandwidth. I don't have the time. I got some other shit that I'm doing, but I will help. Whatever capacity that I can, but I can't come on and do your project with you. Yeah. Because I knew I would have been in the way. And I never want to be that guy. I never wanted to be a conversation where somebody says, yeah, man, man, I wasted two years with J. Valentine. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. I will let you out your deal or whatever it is. Yeah. Because I just never want to be in the way of somebody's blessings. And I feel like that's why I've been blessed. Yeah. Now, I mean, I think it's dope to be honest with artists because you literally have their life, their aspirations, their dreams in your hands. They're looking to you to make a way. Absolutely. In a sense. And so the fact that you're able to be honest on the front end, I think that's man, that's admirable, man. And that's dope. As DMX will say, stop being greedy. Stop being greedy, man. We can't have everything. Yes. You know what I'm saying? We can't. It's just how the world works. Let's get it to now second album. Yeah. Are y'all having any form of sophomore jinx? Any of those things entering your mind? What's the process now? Because, you know, if you look at the two covers of the album, you see all these niggas got some money now. They grew up a little bit. You can see it. You can see the transition between those two album covers like, oh, we're niggas now. Yeah. Second album, again, we're still in the mindset that we just want to sing. Yeah. We want to be the best. And we want to let Drew Hill and Jagged Edge know that they can't see us. Because everybody, now that they have their albums out by now too. Oh yeah. Okay. So now the competition is fully kicking up. My petition is my petition. Y'all were the first, like, of y'all core time, right? Of y'all era? Yes. One, two of them drew was kind of like a couple of months apart. And then Jagged came the next year. And I think next came in 97 too. Okay. But at that time, we were like... Y'all saw them. Oh yeah. Oh no, we see you. And we're now doing shows together. So it's like, I better come with it. So y'all having some 5RB moments? Is it to... You know? Okay. They singing that way. Okay. Oh yeah. I gotta take my shirt off. Oh, I got a slide. We stand in the wind looking like... Okay. All right. Yeah. But man, the one thing we always knew, J, was you may get us in some areas that we haven't yet developed at that time. But the one thing you was not going to do, bro, you was not going to out sing us. That's what you wasn't going to do. And we let either one of us loose on whoever you got. How were the back stages? Was everybody cool or did y'all have some tension? Was it a little bit of tension? I don't think it was real, real tension. It was just competition. Yeah. You know, the industry tried to make this 112 jagged-ass thing, but... But then it was really y'all homies too. It's really good. Yeah, that's a whole nothing that people didn't realize. Yeah. You know, anything that looks similar, have similar aesthetics, they want to pit it against each other. But nah, man. Back stages were always cool, but we just knew when the lights came on, you competition. Yeah. And we're going to do our best to try to shit on you as I know you're going to do for us as well. But the second album was just, we still in the mindset of we just want to sing, we want to make good music. Now we got the luxury of all the hitmen now at our disposal. Deron and I and the group were still creating our own stuff. And so we come out the box with Leslie Brathwaite, the great mixing engineer. He comes up with this Luther sample and we come out the box with Love Me with Mace. Then it didn't really do, it didn't really like, because we're coming off of Cupid, which was the last one off of album number one. Love Me comes, it has marginal success. It ain't just like, damn. It might have been residue from the last album, right? But then, bro, we came with Anywhere. Yeah. Anywhere was like, now that's the niggas right there. Yeah. That's the ones. So what was the little Zane? Where did that come from? That was Kevin. Okay. Kevin had discovered Lil Zane and obviously now he's a part of the family. And so in the way that Puffy always did Bad Boy, which was if one artist is already established, you introduce the new one. And so with Kevin's family, Lil Zane was the new guy. And so now use 112 to introduce Lil Zane. Yeah, and Zane is a star. Yeah, man. No, it's crap. When he popped on the screen, I'm like, ah, man, whoever the little nigga is, he cooking. Z2 Hot Stop. Yeah. Cooking. Cooking. Speaking of like the y'all in hip hop too though, right? Because I want to make sure we don't graze over that too because y'all had a real connection with Biggie. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, man. Like a lot of people can't say that as far as, you know, because his life was cut short, but he was such a great artist. And y'all were like his R&B go to. Anytime I'm talking about Big, I like to take my time because he was like the big brother of the label. And by us being the little brothers, we were the younger, we were the youngins on the label. Everybody just took a liking to us in like a protective type of angle when it came to 112. But big specifically, man, it's like if he didn't have no brothers, we became his brothers because as a new artist, we ain't got a lot of money. And I just told you we had to put them. Anytime we went in the studio, he would be like, y'all eat. He go $100. Every time, like give all us a pillow, all us a $100. And at that time, $100 to an 18 year old is like, oh, nigga, we got it. Something as simple as he would be in studio A, we'd be in studio C in the midi room. And by us being from Atlanta, sometimes we want to call our girlfriends or our moms or whatever. And his studio session would have the open line, right? Because whatever his budget was. The open line, open budget. We didn't have that. So he'd be like, if y'all ever want to make some phone call, man, so we'd be in the phone boning for hours on his, like, that's what big brothers do. I got you. We from Atlanta, so we didn't have like big coats. And so when we moved to Atlanta, I mean, we moved to New York in 96. That's when New York has this 96 blizzard. Right? Got free. Blizzard of 96 means snow up here. We never seen them much snow. But we come up here with no coats. So big would be like, yo, take them down to the village and get them some coats, get them some boots. As though. Stuff like that, man, that, but all that I remember most that always stays with me. Even after he rhymed on only you, I never forget this funny story. We was in the studio, we're finishing the recording the rest of the album and big is in the kitchen, in the kitchenette area. So Kevin says, hey, big is out in the lobby. Go say thank you for blazing and blessing the song. Because I'm in the booth, Mike is over here or Derran. So maybe Mike went out first and says, big man. I think you appreciate that. Big says, I bet shortly after that Slim finishes what he do. Slim goes out there. By the time I go out that big, it's like, hey, yo, I'm not sitting through all this. Get all y'all out here one time. Say what y'all got to say and let's keep it moving. Like he would just do stuff like that. Like, I'm not rock with the fourth thing. Nah, man. Or even like Puff would be like on our next like, yo, it got to sound better. We got to do this. Do this. Do this. Try to micromanage us and big will come in the studio and be like, yo Puff, you sign these boys because they dope. Right. Leave them alone. Let them cook. Like just stuff like that, man, that, yeah, those are the moments that I hold real, real close. Yeah. I mean, you got classic, bro. Sky's the limit, bro. That's my joint, though. Who knew as a teenager, you know, like I tell my son and I tell, and I will eventually tell my grandchildren, your dad or your grandfather will always be mentioned when you talk about the legacy of hip hop and R&B. Yeah. Because you can't tell the story without mentioning the reign of bad boy. And you can't tell the bad boy story without talking about Biggie, nor 112. And so in any museum where they talk about the legacy of hip hop and R&B, your dad and your granddad will always be a part of it. And dude, that's special, man, because we didn't get in it for that. We got in it because we just wanted to sing. Yeah. And out of, because at that time, Jay, it's a group at every corner, like a liquor store. But for us to be identified, impact the culture, impact the history of the industry the way that we have, to have the catalog that we have from just these four boys, man, in our hood. Right. And now, looked at as legacy artists, icons, OGs, you know, I'm officially the aunt now, to the new, to the new, man. You look good. I mean, it is what it is. I just celebrated 50 years. Yeah, man. Congratulations. That's a real milestone. Yeah, man. Well, but again, to talk about 30 years in this game and have the catalog, the records that have impacted culture and impacted relationships and lives and I couldn't have scripted it any better, man. Yeah. Did you ever have moments where you had to, in a sense, pinch yourself as y'all going through it and you know, and you going around the world, you traveling, everybody singing your songs in all these places. Did you ever have those moments, man, where you just like, damn, this is crazy. Couple of times, man. The Grammys on stage were sting. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, traveling all across the world and there being a huge language barrier. But they can sing your songs. They can sing your songs. Me, bro, from the hood that I'm from. Right. Right. Man. It was supposed to go to Clemson. Yeah. Here's the other question though, that, you know, I think you're probably the first person I've asked this. While you're waiting for that first album, first single to drop, are you like, man, I should have just went to my ass to Clemson. Absolutely. There were many times I thought that, but the beauty of it was the time the register had already passed. So now my scholarship is void. Yeah. Had there been a way for me to get it back, that weight probably would have had me because at the time my parents were looking at me like, you got to do something. Get up, get out and get something. Goody mom. Right. You got to get up, you got to do something. And again, I never had a job. Right. And so my, especially my dad is looking at me like, man, you're not going to be sorry, you're not going to be lazy, you're not just going to be in this house and you ain't contributing, you don't have a job. So this record here didn't mean nothing to them? No. No. Because at the time, at the time, they know I'm going to rehearsal every day. They know I'm staying out all the time tonight. They know I'm performing. They know this stuff, but they don't have no point of reference. Right. This ain't something that just happens where we're from. So until it's a thing, I think my parents probably didn't realize it was a thing until they actually heard the song on the radio in Atlanta on V103 or somewhere. Yeah. Moving to New York, it's still just like, all right, you in New York, y'all better take care of my baby. Don't let that happen to him. Right. That's great, bro. Like y'all, y'all path and story, it's so relatable to what this music business was. Yeah. Right. And the experiences of having to move out of the nest, just going somewhere with the homies. And I mean, like when we interviewed KC, it's very similar, right? Like for homies, brothers, loved ones who just hop in the car and get down there. You know what I mean? And you have these moments where you're trying to figure out if it's worth it. And then when you actually reach that point where it is worth it. And one thing leads to the next. Y'all story though is crazy because once only you comes out, it was not stopped. Usually it's like, oh yeah, did we? We had to figure out this. This wasn't really going where it was supposed to. It just kept going up. It was continuous for y'all. It kept going up. Yeah. Like y'all got platinum records, Grammys, all of this shit, man. Like let's get back to the hits. Get anywhere. Y'all get back. It's back cracking. Yeah. Y'all went through an album that wasn't as successful. How did that transition happen for y'all and how did y'all? Because y'all pop back after that. Yeah. So after anywhere, crazy. Then we come with Love You Like I Did, which was just a dope R&B record. But it was the third single on the project and I just think the label just was ready for us to go back in. And so Love You Like I Did, although has become a fan favorite, didn't really get the radio push in the marketing, the promotion, then the other records. Especially because Love Me had been front loaded with, that was the first single. And then when it had marginal success, anywhere just brought everything back to life. And at that point now, the budget is kind of like, we may have a phase one, but it's going to have to just show us that it needs a phase two and phase three. And by the time it got through phase one, it was just kind of like, all right, let's go back in. But as they say in the old church, my mind, here comes part three. Part three, we decided, hey, we want to do something different. We want to just flip the whole script. And if you remember one 12 prior to part three, we were just balladiers, we were croners, we weren't really dancing, didn't have choreography or any of that. Part three, we decided that we're going to put one 12 on his feet because we were fans of New Edition. We were fans of all the groups that had choreography and stuff. And during the part three recording, we went to Nashville to get away from family and wives and children and all that just to go and focus. Went to Nashville for three months. And for those three months, man, we just went in the lab, just creating, creating, creating, creating. We come up with probably half of the album and then go to New York and play it for Puffy. He loves it. Then he starts to incorporate the hitman. And then that kind of became the formula. We would come up with 40% of the record of the album and then he would add his... Because now Tim and Bob is not. No, Tim and Bob is not in the picture any longer. And I think that was a group's decision because at that point, we wanted to now really fly solo. We felt like we had all the components with Deron Benard, in-house producer. We are writers and creators and then we could just kind of get people to kind of come in sporadically to just add some sauce to it. And so we go back to Atlanta and for six months, man, we turned our two left feet that we all had into being able to move. Who's the choreographer y'all hired? And this time it's Divine Stevens. Come on, Divine. Divine the great, man. The divine, Aljumar, AJ. Yeah, Aljumar's my guy. Big shout out to all the crew, man. And man, when I say they whipped us in shape and so we come out of the box, it's over now. They don't get no grime here, they're in white lines and Deron produced that. And now y'all have another writing partner with y'all. You got Poobare now. Well, no, I'm going to go back. Poobare came around album two. Okay, okay. He was introduced to us because he's Courtney's cousin. Okay, all right. He was also in a group. It's Atlanta. It's Atlanta. So Poobare came along and he co-wrote with us anywhere. Right. Right. Right. A couple of other records on Room 112. Then we get to part three. We do probably 60% of part three. So of the records that were released on part three from It's Over Now, Dance With Me. What is it on that? It's over now. A lot of those records... No, because Peaches and Cream is not on that album. Yes. But we didn't produce Peaches and Cream. We just wrote Peaches and Creams. And Jason Poobare co-wrote on Peaches and Cream along with Al Jammal. And so we go back to New York. And when we in New York, we already have Dance With Me. We got It's Over Now, we got Play-A, we got Sweet Love, we got all of those are what we created in Nashville. Puffy comes and says, hey, now let me throw my sauce on that. And Mario came with the track to Peaches and Cream. Just bananas. Yes. Bananas. We go in the studio, write it. Puffy comes in and says, yo, is Peaches and Cream, is that even hot? He said it just like that, yo, is that even hot? We like, yo, get out. Let us finish. And man, it just, we wanted to keep... We were always trying to solidify our connection to Atlanta. Right. George Peach. George Peach, yeah, absolutely. And man, so we come out with It's Over Now, our very first number one, Billboard number one, crazy. Come from It's Over Now to Peaches and Cream. Outta here. Outta here. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Then follow that with Dance With Me. Did y'all ever do your own headline tour? No. I was wondering about that because I'm like, I don't remember a 112 tour. Nope. Why was that? Man. Y'all just always jumped on other... You were always supporting. Support. Yeah. With those type of record sales though. Yeah. The first two albums is both double platinum, right? Yep. First, second and third. All double platinum albums. Yep. Wow. Never headline the tour. Never headline the tour. All them hit records. Yeah. That is... Duh. Yeah. I'm not like... I didn't realize that till we're talking about it right now. I'm like, because I always know when tours are going out, I never remember there being a 112 tour. What's crazy, Jay, is I don't think that era... Just think about it. None of us headline the tour from our era. Not us, not Jagged, Drew Hale, Next, Silk. None of us... There's a lot of records being sold too. None of us headlined. Right. Crazy, right? With all those records. Yeah, that's crazy. Now that you say that. And then y'all go through the phase of people sampling y'all records. The fact that Turn To Me On is literally... Yeah. All my love. Word for word, all my love. Like he's starting to... Shout out to Kevin Luthor. The flip was so crazy. That dance hall flip to Turn To Me On of All My Love is insane. And that's the thing. I'm always trying to teach my... Like I do a summer camp, a music and entertainment summer camp. This would be my 10th year doing it. Congratulations. Thanks, man. But I'm always, through my foundation, I'm always trying to tell the next generation ownership is the name of the game. Because a record like Turn Me On, global. Global. Right? But we get the publishing from it because of him sampling, interpolating our song. Right? And when you just do the money trail. Right. Which then eventually turns into Chris Brown's record questions. That's it. That now becomes a third life. So, man, again, Cornice Parker from the hood. Yeah. Yeah. Daymon. Yeah, Daymon. Daymon, exactly. Daymon. So you say have I pitched myself? I'm constantly doing that, man, because... I'm constantly doing that, man, because I couldn't script it. Are you four people sampling y'all music? How are you with that? Sample away. Because everybody's different, right? Right. Sample away. Anytime. And you're so right because one of the objectives now that I know the game, the way that I know it is to get to a point to have records that starts to get second and third and fourth lives, right? Yeah. You want to create music that a whole new generation can discover and find some value in what you created to be a part of what they create. And so here we are celebrating 30 years and, man, I'm getting emails almost every day. Approve this, approve this. Yeah. And I approve all of them because you just know... I approve all of them. Oh, yeah. Go. Have at it. I approve all of them, man, because especially nowadays with stuff going viral and you just never know, a 17-year-old can discover Cupid, which is 30 years old. For sure. I'm wondering when that's going to happen. Somebody got to do Cupid for sure. I'm somebody going to watch this and be like, yeah, you know what? Q said he's going to clear. I'll clear everything. How do you go into writing Keisha Cole's I Should Have Cheated? So, there was a time where Duran and I became a production writing combo. And Duran, man, was getting sought after, man, by everybody. Oh, for sure. By everybody, man. He had created a catalog that was just crazy. So he started getting these opportunities to record for, produce for a pink and in sync and everybody. I had become a studio rat just like him, too. And so on a random day, I would just be like, yo, let's just go, let's just get some studio time. He had a studio at his house. I had one in my house. Let's just go and just start creating records. And we recorded Should Have Cheated on Nivea first. We knew it was a smash. But for whatever reason, man, she didn't take the record. And then Manny comes to Duran. Like, yo, we're closing up on this Keisha Cole's album and let me know what you got. We played on the record. He loved it. What's crazy about that whole journey was, I think they went with the heavy names first. They went with Kanye and Alicia Keys, and we just kept telling Manny, like, yo, this is the record. This is the record. This is the record. Duran finally got to Should Have Cheated, man, and it opened her up to come back with Love and all that other stuff, man. But yeah, Duran and I, we just became studio rats, man. And so we just started writing and producing for different artists. At that point, was it already starting to tell off with the group? Yeah. Yeah. Because we were all now at that time starting to explore individuality. Right. At that time, it's like, this is, where did that album come out? 01 maybe? Or something like that? Well, Should Have Cheated? I mean, Keisha's album? No. Keisha's album was maybe like, 05. 05 or something like that? Yeah, I think that was, yeah. Yeah, 05 is a Hot and Wet album for 112. That yeah, at that point, it's starting to, the boats are starting to loose a little bit. And so now we're giving each other time to explore your individuality. And one of the things that Duran and I wanted to do was just create. If you don't mind me asking, where does it start to break down? I think, man, so there's certain things that are inevitable when you're dealing with a group, especially when you start so young. Because when you start young, everyone has a mindset of togetherness, unity. It's kind of like a we. We want the record deal. We want success. We want blah, blah, blah, blah, because at the time there are no other things that are a priority. Everybody's still in school. Nobody has children. Nobody's married. So the requirements or the demands of the group are always the priority. But then once you start getting a little older, money is starting to be made, different priorities. Cats start having children. Cats get married. Now the we has to be negotiated almost because we can't just go to the studio and be there all night because somebody got to get up and go take school drop off. Somebody got to now consider family and marriage. Somebody got to now consider other things that might be a priority. And I think, man, we didn't manage that realization as best as we could. That we were going to grow up. Yeah. That we were going to grow up. And there's still a way to still get to the finish line, even though you may only push 20%, he may push 40%. But at the end of the day, we're still going to get to the 100%. So I think we didn't manage that well. I think we kept the mindset as even as we were getting older that everybody should contribute equally because up until that point, everybody carried their own load and did it well. 25, 25, 25, 25. That's how the group was always. The moment we started to kind of separate, that's when you start to hear the records working as solid. The unity wasn't as put together as it always was. And now we're older, different priorities, different living in different places now. So just, hey, we just get together and so easy no more. Yeah. We just stayed as a group. We didn't manage the growing up part as best as we could have. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. And it's something I want to just put a light on because people don't always understand and people always have that question. I won't even say they have that question more so than they have an opinion of why groups don't work or why groups break up eventually. Because I won't even say they don't work because y'all think it's so means. The records, a gang of hit records, so you absolutely worked and it absolutely was successful and is successful. But people always, the average fan, because I still look at myself as a fan. The average fan is just like, well, I want to see that. And why isn't it that? And they don't understand all the things that go into that and into keeping that as a unit. And that's why I wanted to ask you, at what point or how did you see it? You know what I mean? So now once you figure out, okay, the group is disbanding. What's your mindset toward your solo music? Because obviously I know y'all are writing and producing, but is it clicking to you like, I still want to sing my own songs now? So people don't believe this when I say it. I never really saw myself as a solo artist because when you look at the aesthetics of 112, from a lead perspective, I felt like I was the last one to really, really get it and identify. Like when I joined the group, Slim already knew who Slim was. Jerome was already, he knew what vocal he could do. Mike knew he was just super soulful, blah, blah, blah. But I was just still trying to figure out what space cannot occupy. And so initially I was like, I ain't got all the confidence that they have as a lead vocalist, so I'm just going to dive into all the backgrounds. And so- Is that why 112 sounds, is your voice as kind of the root note to all the backgrounds? I would just go in and do all the harmonies. I became the voice of, so like when people say the identity of 112, if they want to give Slim the voice, then Q is the foundation. Because all of the bedding and all of the coloring was my voice just laying in the background and stuff. I never really had the confidence to really be like, I'm good enough to just do a solo record. But because I still love to create, I would just go down to my studio, I would get tracks from other producers and stuff, and I would just write, write, write, write, write. And then every so often you get one of them ones like, ooh, I don't know who can sing this one. Let me just get this one over here. And man, I had put like eight records to the side. And then in 2005, we put out Pleasure and Pain album that you already know on it and What If. And then there was this dormant period from maybe old eight. And in 2012, I was like, all right, I'm just going to spend some time on my own instrument. And I could tell you, man, that was the first time I really fell in love with just what my instrument can do. And all of the nuances and levels, because this was this was this was having the first time I didn't have to share the song. I didn't have to just do my note or do my first verse, pass it on to somebody else. And I didn't realize that I could, I even had the talent to do that because I was never called upon to do that. Like in 112, we all knew our roles. My role was to soft, smooth. I was a setup guy. When Durrani and the take it home, take it to church, might gonna take be soulful and slim gonna dance. And so when it came time to do those parts of songs, I wasn't even really comfortable because I was never called on to do those type of things. And so going in the studio by myself, I had to really learn how to sing the bridge, how to take it there, how to take it home, how to peel it back in, how to add lead without doing too much, how to really show that I got the tools, but not really doing too much. I didn't want to over sing. So I had to really spend a whole lot of time. And so in 2012, I was like, all right, I'm confident enough now where I can do a whole album by myself. And that's when I released the manual. Yeah. But then y'all still went back and made one more album. Came back in 16 and did Q-Mice, Lemon, Durrani, which is what I think is one of the dopest 112 albums top to bottom. Is that a bad boy album or no? That's an E1 independent. Y'all were independent by this time. E1, yeah. Okay. In 2017, 2016, 2018, one of those. So you guys, the last bad boy album is Pleasure and Pain. So Pleasure and Pain was a bad boy, Def Jam. Hot and Wet was the bad boy, Def Jam collaboration. Pleasure and Pain was full of Def Jam because we left bad boy and went to Def Jam. Right to Def Jam. Okay. And then from that point on. They were just independent. Full independence. Yup. Your path into the independent gang. Yeah. How's it been for you? Because everybody's experience is different. I love it, man. You love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. For you, what is the greatest things about having your independence as an established artist? Because it's very different. Yeah. And people always talk about, oh, you know, I'm going to be independent. I'm going to be, it's a lot harder. Man. When you're just kicking it off independent. Other than when you already have a fan base, you already have people who are looking for your music. And maybe your dollars go a little bit further because you already may know some people, you may know some program directors and, you know. For me, Jay, I've always been a politician. Like the guys would always laugh because there was like, every city we go to, Q going to get the program director's number. He going to have to promote us now. He's already doing that. He's going to have this person. So I get at any time, hit the, hit the promote and be like, yo, appreciate you for having us last night. Looking forward to coming back next time. Yeah. Going to radio station. I get the program director's number. I would know the birthday. Send them, hey, sending you love. Don't want none. Just saying what's up. And so I just did that. The human element. Just did that. And so when you talk about having a leg up, the leg up was two fold. Yeah. Because I'm coming from 112. But also I've maintained some of my best friends in the industry now are 20 plus year relationship just because, like you said, they just the human aspect of just standing, contain, ain't bought records. It's just being just a human being. And so when I decided to go on this independent journey, all I did was just reached out to my friends and say, Hey, this is what I'm getting ready to do. I'd love to send you something. Right. Now my job was to just make sure it was something that I could stand on. Make sure it was hot. Right. I didn't want my friends to be feel like, Damn, Q. Yeah. All right. That's the worst thing you can do is put your friends in that tough spot. Yeah. Because they don't really want to tell you. They don't want to tell you, man. They got to. Yeah. But it's been great, man, because I have an amazing team. My company Paramount Collective Ventures, I partnered with my main manager, Dora Whitley. And I have managing partners, Gina Miller and Azin Rashid, all who are industry vets 20 plus years. And so when I decided to go on this independent journey, I just remembered sitting in the major labels when we would have our label meeting. Yeah. And around the table would be head of marketing, head of videos, head of promotions, head of radio, this, this, this, this. And so as an independent artist, I said, yo, I need to imitate that. I need to mirror that. Yeah. And so as an independent artist, I just started to put people in the places that I knew I needed. I know I need radio. I know I need marketing. Now I know I need social media management. I need a relationship with the DSPs. And so yes, we're independent, but we're operating like an independent label because we have all of those label heads at the table. So now my independence ain't just a Q Parker lift. Right. We are lifting it. What about the lift of finance? Yeah. Right. Well, now you're like, okay, this, this is affecting this could or could affect my livelihood. Yeah. If I go for two singles or three singles, right? And now you got to do the, is the juice worth the squeeze? Yeah. I have always been a person, man. I'm going to believe in myself. You got to have that kind of edge being an athlete. Give me the ball. I'll take the last shot. Give it to me. Clear it out. I got it. Win, lose or draw with me. And that's how I've always been. And so the blessing in my journey is I have an extensive catalog. And so royalties are always coming. Yeah. The residual income is always coming. And I've done a great job with different investments here and there. And so when I decided to invest in myself, I'm a fully independent artist. And so everything you see has been funded by me. Yeah. And I'll take, I'll take the chance, man, because the one thing I know is radio will always be a part of my movement because as the owner of the records, if the record is successful, that's part of me getting a return on my investment. Right. Because the mechanicals of the record being played on radio is going to give me some of what I've invested. Yeah. If I put money into PR, if I put money in the social media, more eyes are going to be introduced to me, which in turn could turn into promoters calling and saying, yo, I want to book you Parker. Yeah. So investing in myself has never been the issue. I'm just blessed and I'm just grateful that, A, I have a wife and a family who understands that this independence is different than being on a major because they've witnessed me being on a major for so many years. You know, my wife just always say, just don't let me come home and the light switch don't work. She walking out and doing that. Don't let me turn that knob. Yeah. Yeah. Don't come out. Yeah, that's real. And so long as we have that understanding, and fortunately for me, man, we've done some amazing records. They've responded well on radio. They've done well on the Billboard charts. And I'm still striving, man. I'm going to get a number one record. Yeah. Yeah. With the evolution of romance. Evolution of romance. Yes, sir. Yeah. So I ask those questions, man, because I just like to give the information. Yeah. And sometimes it's different depending on, you know, the artist, the level of the artist and the understanding of what you are putting at risk at times. Yeah. If I've been an independent artist, like you said, I got a wife and a family. Yeah, man. But I also have an understanding wife and a family. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because in this journey that we're all on to do music and to do music as a career and be successful in it, we have to have the support of our households got to with us. Got to. As we make these decisions of, because sometimes, you know, you could have had a wife who said to you, hey, baby, we need that record deal. I need you to go get this advance. Yeah. We can go do something with that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Instead of, you know, I'm a wait on the back end with you. Yeah. And that's not always the conversation. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's been it's been an amazing journey. You know, this it's been 12 years from 2012 to 2024 of me releasing individual music. And this last this, this evolution of romance, campaign and movement that I've been on. It's been two years. And it's been two of the best years of my musical career because I have the freedom to move the way that I want to move. I still enjoy getting on the road. Me and I think we get on the road and we go to radio. We go in the stations. We go, we do the meet and greets. We do the inch can say inch doors on the mobile. We kissing every baby shaking every hand. And it's just amazing when we walk into the radio stations, program directors and the on air personalities are just shocked that somebody might find value in coming into the stations. But again, that to me is equivalent to me getting the number and staying in contact. Right. It's the little things like that most artists of my caliber wouldn't want to do. They don't see the value in that. But I feel like, yeah, you know me and there's a history with me and my group. But I look at it like I'm a new I'm breaking a new artist. I'm breaking myself as a new artist. And so I'm going to do all the things that I was taught on how to do it when you're breaking the record. Right. And it's been it's been it's been doing well, man. This is Q Park on one on six and I want to shout out to DJ. I'm doing all the drops. I'm doing all the drops. I'm asking them before I leave. Can I do some drops for you? Right. Oh, you want to do drops? Absolutely. Yeah. That's dope. We're doing all of that. How many how many are how many shows are you doing a year now? Around about like you still doing it? Are you on the road a lot? So, you know, there are levels to this independence game. Right. OK. And part of me, you know, I see all the R&B explosion tools and all of that. Yeah. And so I'm always just telling, you know, my crew of Q Parker fans, you know, when you see a show come to your town, you know, hit them up, say, y'all want to see Q Parker this than the third. But the other part of me is say, it says, I'm an independent artist. I don't got to wait on a promoter. I can put on my own shows because again, it's all about ownership. I'm not waiting for a promoter to find value in having Q Parker on their bill with 13 other artists where I could just create an intimate setting on myself, rent the venue myself. I got the door. I get the bar. I get all of that. Yeah. And I got an intimate 250. I love that kind of thing. Building my own fan base. And, you know, to all the promoters out there, if you don't see value, it's all good. You will eventually, but until then. So you're doing that now in multiple cities. We just like, yo, let me find my own venue. Yeah. I'm pulling up and popping out. Yeah. I go and find a black owned venue in the city, work out a situation with them. 150 cap, 200 cap. Yeah. As I'm just building the foundation of this present day Q Parker. So I can identify where the Q Parker fan is and just continue to just build on it. So I would love to be on the big shows with all, you know, my peers and stuff, but I just can't wait on it. Right. You got to start out promoters out there. That's that part was for you. Do your drop. The romance dealer, baby. Put some romance on these shows. Not for real. For real. No, the other part that I wanted to tell you too, man, is I'm always happy to see you, bro, because you're preserved. Wow. Right. Like I, I just dealt man, our counterparts who don't pay attention to how we have to show up. Man. I'm like, man, come on, man. This is what we're paid to do. I'm glad you say that. I'm glad you said that because we know better. Because everybody from our nineties era, we know the value that was put on presentation. Yes. It's one thing to have these records, but if you're not, if you can't visually promote the song that you're singing, right? There's a disconnect. I remember when we did, when we, right? I said, I told Tank, I said, this is kind of a one on one for you. Because as we go down the line of who could, you know, because we're writers first, we're writers and producers. I mean, he's more of an artist. I was a writer producer in my mind first, more so than the artist. So I always look at songs and go, who else could have sang this? And I heard artists that I, that I mean, I saw artists in my head that I'm like, OK, vocally, now who could have pulled it off visually? And now the list gets smaller and smaller. Yeah. And it's because once again, that brother has preserved himself. Yeah. So you can't sing certain type of records. Can't. If you're not going to show up a certain way, you can't. And that's why I say to you, bro, like, man, this as a brother, I'm proud of you. That you take this shit serious to say, no, no, no, I got to show up a certain way. I got to be fly. You know what I'm saying? If I want to take my shirt off, I can. Please don't get it. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. Like this is R&B music, bro. And. I always say we signed the syllabus that said. We was going to do this, this, this, this. It didn't have an age limit on it. Right. So as long as long as I want as long as I seen the song anywhere, I got to be able to present anywhere visually and do, you know, shout out to K. Wells, man, because he drilled that into us. I don't know if I just pay more attention to it, but health and wellness. That's just a part of who I am. And so every year I want to define what 50 look like. I want to define what 60 look like. Right. I don't want to be the average 70 year old. Yeah. Nah, nah. And with the type of music that I sing, I'm all about romance. And so I can't be singing and pushing romance if I'm not presenting romance. Amen. Yeah, I heard him. Can't do it. Yeah, I heard him, especially these younger artists. Man, take care of yourself, man. Please. Please. Take care of yourself. I mean, you got them haircut. OK. Man, get a haircut. And then also you don't have to succumb to the lifestyle. Because if a career of longevity is what you want, you can't do the things that everybody else is doing. Right. It's a reason why Steph Curry makes more than he misses because he practice more than everybody else. He don't go out. Kobe didn't go out when everybody was hanging out. He perfected his craft. And so again, you don't have to do the things. And I just never have understood this. How as a vocalist, alcohol, smoking. Right. This. Right. Who like, and again, nothing against it because you make the decision how you. It's going to affect you. But it is going to affect you. And so when people say, damn, you sound better the day than you did. Yeah, because I choose the things in my life that preserve the instrument that I need to survive. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, that's real. That's one of the reasons why I don't sing no more, because I be bullshitting sometimes. Like I don't do nothing that you said, but I like to play basketball and scream and be cussing and argue with people and shit. No funny, funny story, bro. So, you know, they just have verses. And Tank called me. He said, I saw you yelling on the internet. I said, man, why are you on my page bothering me? Leave me alone. He said, you know, you got to sing with me, nigga. Yeah. He said, verses is on one of the days you hoop on. He said, don't go to the run. Don't go to the run that day. Just just do that for me, champ. Come on, chief. Don't just don't go to the run that day. I said, you know what, Tank? You right. Yeah. Stay my ass home. I ain't going to go to the run. And when I went out there, I was serious and I sang my part. I was on that stage for 45 seconds, singing my notes the way that they are on the motherfucking song. Yeah. I was not playing no games. I was like, listen, I got to come out here and Tank said, I can't be bullshitting. Yeah. But usually I be, man, I be yelling and screaming and shit. Did I come in here? I be laughing and joke. But no, you have to preserve yourself. You got to protect your instrument. It's funny, I was at soundcheck, I was telling Mona that. Because you know Mona manages Tyrese now. Man, she was like, oh, so this must mean we getting the album out of you and you. But I said, Mona, I don't want to do the things. I ain't going to even lie to you. We ain't going to go down that road because all this preparation. Come on, Jay. I don't want to do this every day. I want to come out every two years. And who's on verses this time? Do I got to sing with them? OK, I'm going to pop out. Yeah, I pop out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But once again, I also, I don't like getting in the way. There are so many artists and so many greats, young and old and in between, that really want this thing, man. Yeah. I'd rather interview y'all. Yeah. Now, if I want to have fun and drop a song here and there, I'll do it for the love. Yeah. But just playing around and not because I just know how I am. I know what I come from. I know what my daddy raised. He wasn't playing no game. My daddy was on. Brook Payne was our choreographer. You know what I'm saying? Like, Seth Riggs was our vocal coach. Yeah. Joe Jackson signed us first. So for me, I look at music. I look at the process different. I'm not playing when if I'm going to really get involved with it. You know what I'm saying? And if I'm going to still be in a mode where I can't fully focus on that, I'm going to stay to the side and let my brothers who really are after this thing that really want to go after it. I'm not getting in the way because once again at radio, there's only so many slots. So many slots on that DSP. There's only so many songs on those playlists. I ain't getting in the way of people, man. Like, you know, I'm going to be here to support. Yeah. And that's why I wanted you to come on here, man, because seeing you, seeing your path, watching you as a fan, then becoming your friend, becoming your brother in this game. Bro, I'm really proud of you. Man, I appreciate it. As a counterpart, like and how you've handled yourself, how you've done your business and how you've presented. It's always positive. It's always clean. It's always fly. You know what I mean? I said, listen, man, I see what you're doing, man. I don't think the cameras might not catch the pull. I mean, I mean, the yellow Balenciaga with the with the with the products and the credit. Yeah, man. Yeah. This is what we signed up for. Yes, sir. We signed up for that. Yes, sir. So, you know, I always, I always think about, I heard this story that MJ said, Michael Jordan said, he the Michael Kobe said it. One of them, he said, the reason I show up every game is because that night might be somebody's first and only time that they'll get to see me. And I would hate for that one time for me to be on some bullshit and don't give them the Kobe, Brian, D Michael Jordan. Yeah. And that's just how I approach every every time I go out, every time I have an opportunity to sing, every time I do an interview. This may be somebody's first time getting a full scope of Q Parker. Yeah. What is it that I want them to walk away with? So that's why I got a sound a certain way. It's got to be presented a certain way. My angle got to be a certain way. I ain't man, I'm representing not only me, but I got grandchildren now, man. And so that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, grand babies, dog. Three of them. Yeah. And it's the best. Yeah. I was I was telling me before we started filming, I can't wait. I can't wait till I can say that. That means we've really done something right. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's when we really done something right when we can say that legacy. Yeah. When you have that. So what's next? What's next, man? So I'm just on this romance journey. I'm doing a romance volume series. Volume one is available now. Yeah. I'm going in and do what? What's the single? Oh, the current single now is called Put It On. Yeah. Produced by... Even when you got nothing though, you still put it on. Still put it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Still put it on. And again, it's just... You know, I grew up watching The Soul Barbers, man. And so everything about me is I'm a hope for romantic. Yeah. And I believe that in all the music that is available, especially to the women, romance sometimes get lost in the soul. Yeah. Now, we were talking about that, man. Just in even your wordplay in it. Yeah. Right? Because obviously I'm a lyric guy. Yeah. Right? Like, yeah, you got a record called Three Some, but it's a different type of record. Yeah. Other than what people would expect. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Absolutely. So for me, I love the evolution of it. Yeah. I love that you're making grown man music for adults. And you're a married man, which is very different in R&B music. Yeah. Been married a long time in this game. 24 years. Congratulations, man. Thanks, man. Congratulations. Yeah. So again, it's just for me, every time I show up, every time I open my mouth, every time I present anything, it's going to have a romance all over it. So I'm going in to record volume two. And I'm committed to this romance volume series for at least four or five volumes. OK. So about three, three, four years or so, I'm committed to it. So. And so you're looking at it like, listen, I'm making music until I can't no more. Absolutely. I love that, bro. I love that. I might make me some music. Man, listen. I said something as a teenager. I said some as a teenager. And I don't even know if Puffy knew what he was doing. But I caught it. And it's been something that I've kept with me. The very first time you heard 112, you heard Q Parker's voice first. Right? But you also heard, I thought I told you that we won't stop. And so I can't stop. Yeah. Now that's great, man. Hey, what we got, man? We got something for him, man. You know what I mean? We're out to get into this very talented musical thing segment of our show, man. We'll play us a little something to take something in, man. Top five. Yeah. You're top five. Top five. You're top five. Come on. Are we being singers? Are we being songs? And he's wild. We've got to know before you go. You're on the show. Everybody wanna know who you're top five. Yes. No. Top five. You're top five. Top five. OK. All right. So we have that part of the show, man. Will you tell us your top five R&B singers and your top five R&B songs? All right. Top five R&B singers ever, right? Who? Just, OK. Ever, whenever. OK. However, would the top five R&B singers, for me, is Stevie Wonder. OK. Marvin Gaye. Yeah. Babyface. Can I put groups in there? OK. You cute parka dog. OK, OK. Luther Vandross. Love Luther, man. He was in a group? No. What group was Luther in, man? Yeah, right. And then the last one, the last one, I'm gonna say Usher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, man, since you're here, for you. OK. Groups. Groups. Vocal groups. Oh, 112 all day. OK. OK. In the top. Can't nobody see 112, but... 112, then Jodeci Boyce-Tamen, Jagged Edge, and number five. I'm gonna go back a little bit just to be respectful. I'm gonna say the temptations. Come on. Come on. Slash Jackson 5. Slash in there? Yeah, I'm slashing. Slashing there? Yeah. Well, you don't got no new addition in there. You know what? You know what? It's yours though. Oh! So, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have to explain. OK, OK. You don't even let you want to. I just, I have to, I have to be in categories for me. OK, OK. Right? Now, if we're talking about success and how you define that, then obviously new addition is the top of the chain because not only have they been successful, but all the groups that came from them, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, that's just crazy. It's different. But, you know, when you talk about what I love, and I'm a singer-singer, like I'm a singer, I like singing, singing, singing. That's why I choose the way that I chose. Absolutely. All right. Now, what's your top five R&B song? Top five R&B songs, Babyface, Soon As I Get Home. Amazing record. Man, I'm going to slash them to Whoppa Pill. OK, that's up to you. I'm going to say Jagged Edge, Gotta Be. Man, that song is incredible. OK, so then, as they have that song out, you in 112, like, shit. Oh, man. I wish I was in Jagged this week. So, man. I'm calling the guys like, do y'all... Yo, here it is. Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heated. Yeah. Overjoyed. Mm-hmm. Stevie Wonder. Sexual Healing. Marvin Gaye. Gotta have some Marvin in there. Yeah. And then, I'm going to go with... I'm going to go with Whitney Houston, man. I will always love you. Amazing record. Yeah. Amazing record. OK, OK. So, let's go with your top five. Now, we're going to go to the Voltron. OK. Where you build your ultimate R&B singer. She give us the vocals, the performance, the performance style, the clothes, the drip, that style, and then who got the passion. Wow. OK. We're going to start with vocals first. Who's your lead singer? Ooh. My lead singer. You're building the greatest R&B singer of all time. It could be male and female, makes it don't matter, either. My... Marvin going to be the vocals. OK. Yeah. Because I'm creating a crew. So, we're going to say something to them. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to have some different type of feeling to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Might have a beanie on. All right. OK. All right, all right, all right. Performance style when they hit the stage. It's got to be Mac. Say I'm going to slash. Come on, give me, give me some slash. OK, I'm going to slash. I'm going to say Usher, Usher, Mike, Chris Brown. That's three slashes. Usually, it's slashes here and here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slash. You're slashing now. Slash. That Usher, Chris Brown and Michael Jackson as a performer is insanity. Yeah. But we rolling. OK. The style, the drip. Who putting that shit on? B Brown. Bobby Brown. This is with the sling? I'm going Bobby Brown. With the gumby or what we doing? Yeah. That Bobby? That's the high right, low left Bobby. Yeah. Yeah. OK, OK, OK. He got the style. Now, who got the passion? Passion. Who mean it? Wow. Who got the people in there, Fane crying, passing out? Teddy P. Teddy P. That's why I still wear a little necklaces because Teddy P, man. Teddy P, a bunch of little necklaces, man. Hey, I don't got no chest hair though. I got the little necklaces. I got the little necklaces. One out of two. I got choker. Yeah, one out of two, man. You know what I mean? Open the shirt a little bit, show a little bit of necklace. You know what I mean? Teddy P. OK, that's a different type of passion. And for you, who would you want to be in a group with? If this artist that you created, this artist you've made up, who was the artist you look like? Damn, I could have been in a group with such and such. Damn, Jay. I knew I was going to throw you off with that. How many in the group? Just one artist. Me and somebody else. How could have been in a group with such and such? That's not 112. Nick. Q Parker and Jasmine Sullivan. That would be crazy, bro. You and Jasmine in a group together would be crazy. I love it. I love it, man. Jasmine, get at me. Let's do a song. Let's do a record. He's still doing drops. Hey, exactly. Sydney told you come over here and do these goddamn drops. I already know. Because he be trying, well, Sydney be trying to work me and I'm not even an artist. He like, Jay, you know you got to walk the carpet. I said, nope, I'm just going to sneak in the side door and I'll be in the venue by time it starts. Yeah. Yeah. What else we got for a room? I think we got something else cooked up, man. What else we got, baby? Room, what we got? Come on. I said no names. Hey. I said no names. I said no names. This is what I'm going to church make up. I said no names. I said no names. I said no names. I said no names. I said no names. We got to call the church figures. We'll hear what you did. Don't say she. Now we're at the most important part of the show. Okay. Will you tell us the story. Funny or fucked up. Or funny and fucked up. Only rule to the game. Keep Parker, can't say no, no, no. Okay, I got it. You got one? Yep. I got one. I love this. I love it. All right. So this was early on in 112th career. Mm-hmm. We wanted a song from this artist, this producer, songwriter, so bad. We all flew out to the city that they lived in, went to his house for an audition. When we got there, we'd never been around anything so plush and just so nice. Like, oh my God, look at this. Yeah, he was rich. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. This leather feel different. Can I touch that? No, don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. I hear my mom, don't touch that. You slap your O in. Listen. White carpet. Mm-hmm. Okay, I don't know why people do that. Didn't take our shoes off. Man. Meshed up the person's carpet. Man. Was it like the low carpet or like the- No, it was the plush. The plush. It was the plush carpet. We shined there really been nowhere. So y'all don't know. Okay, we don't know. We don't know to take your shoes off before you. No, so we just- And I believe that because we messed up the carpet, we didn't get a song from this particular person. Fuck you. God. But what I can say is because we didn't get that song, it inspired us to channel that person to go and create our own song, which then became one of our biggest songs. Who do y'all think it is? I don't know who I think it is. Don't DM me. I ain't gonna tell y'all who I think it is. I think I know who got white carpet up to here. Carpet is big as tall grass. Man, it was plush. It was plush. It was plush. I mean, I probably would have wanted to take my shoes off so I can really feel how plush it was. But I just didn't know no better, man. Man, that's like the first time I got it one of the homies Rose Royce. Because I don't have a Rose Royce. But one of the homies got a Rose Royce, right? And I was like, oh, wait, is this? Man, I'm taking, you know what? So I can feel what the Rose Royce, this mink feel like in this Rose Royce. That's what I would have did at the White House or wherever to hear y'all was at. I mean, it was already in awe. So probably somebody said taking shoes off, but we probably didn't even hear it. Did y'all even get a chance to hear some music? No, no, no. Just y'all just came in there and fucked up his carpet. We just went in there and messed. I don't even remember auditioning. I just remember the answer was no. Soon as y'all got there pretty much. Man, yeah. So you got some records for us. We didn't get a song from this person. We didn't get a song. So I don't know. We did it. But again, you know, and yo, getting a song from this person at the time. They was on a roll. Right. I'm talking about back to back to back to back to back to back to back. Yeah. Now, when the when the when the producers get they they time to really. Yeah. 10 records straight. Everybody got one. Everybody get one. Yeah. Man. Yeah. Yeah. Now that that's incredible, bro. Listen. Yo, Journey, like I said earlier, man is is inspiring. Appreciate that because the other part about is that for the time I've known you, you've always been the same. Yeah. Always been a good dude. Always been gracious. Always positive. Like I said, man, and and to see that in this industry where it's not expected at all times, you know. So for me, I always like to celebrate that when there are people that I meet personally that I can say that about man. And you know, I appreciate our brotherhood. Man, I appreciate you pulling out. Well, I do. Yeah. Appreciate you, man. Yes, sir. Always been consistent. Always been the same no matter where I see you, man. So and like you said, that that is rare, especially in this game, man, cause Cassey look at you like they don't know you and yeah, I think we doing too much. Man, you've always been consistent and I appreciate that too. Yeah. Absolutely man. My God. Well, listen, I'm Jay Valentine. Q Parker. And this is the R&B Money Podcast. We appreciate y'all tuning in for us. Y'all make sure y'all get all the music. Y'all make sure y'all talk to them promoters. Keep my brother out here cracking and working. And if y'all need drops, he said he said he was doing it. Come on. All the DJs. We doing it all. Y'all gotta play that record too though. See y'all next week. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.