I have to start this story off correctly. A few folks know, most don’t…. But uhhh, Carmen Rodgers threatened me via text message on some Suge Knight shit almost a year to the DAY that I’m writing this. …Well, not quite to that extreme, but I did fear for my life…. Ok, well… I kinda didn’t. ALL I’m saying is, don’t let her innocent looks fool you… She’ll cut’cho ass for an album credit!! The exchange went something like this… AND it was completely outta the blue.
Carmen: “Oohhh. If I’m not on your record… ooooohhhhhh!!!!!! lol”
Me: “I’m getting feature threats?!!?!! LMAO …Don’t worry, We’re working to find something that is right for YOU.”
Carmen: “Hahaha!! Feature Threats!! Thanks for thinking of me… I’d love to be a part of your work…anytime YOU’RE ready.”
Scary, right?…angry ass Carmen. Gonna threaten me, laugh about it, and then be all sweet just ONE text later? As I said, I feared for my life, man…….. kinda. As a result of this exchange, we got her in the studio ASAP. Hahahaha (Now I’ll probably start receiving ‘threatening’ texts from others in order to be on a next project… Lawd.) Carmen got in the studio with Phonte in North Carolina in December and recorded the hook for “Show Me The Way”… This was definitely one of those joints that when I heard just her part, I said to myself… “Oh, we’ve got one on our hands.” Everything about it just WORKED. From the catchiness of “Tell me what am I to dooooo, when it feels like I am looooosing yoooooooou…”, to when she brought the harmonies in on, “show me the way back baaaaaby…” I still let out an enthusiastic “Whoooooo!!!!!!!” about every third time I hear those harmonies too, just for the record. Good shit Suge Rodgers!!
Now, after hearing the way that Anthony David got up on the …just visiting three album and absolutely BODIED the “Playing Your Game, Baby” joint by channeling Barry White in every way possible, it was pretty much automatic… I HAD to have him feature on the new album whenever it was time to get in the studio with it. When creating the instrumental for the song, I was definitely pulling influences from some of that early/mid 70’s “Motown Sound” (see also: “Greatest Weapon Of All-Time”). When studying that sound as a whole and the producers who were putting that music together, to me it was usually comprised of many simplistic layers of instrumentation that usually formed one beautiful piece of music. It was fun, driving, upbeat, and easy for masses of people to digest once written to. That was my main inspiration behind incorporating the heavy snare drum and the wah-wah guitar lick throughout the majority of the song. I updated it some by utilizing my trusty Moog Minitaur synth bassline on it rather than recording a bass guitar line – I figured that the synth would add a nice contrast to it stylistically.
Phonte got a hold of the instrumental and let it sit for a minute until Carmen arrived in NC to record. He then wrote the hook for her and got with my homeboy from the D, Scorpion of Windimoto (some of y’all may remember him for his jive talking abilities at the beginning and ending of “This Could Be The Night”) to complete the writing for the rest of the song. He then recorded a reference to send over to Anthony David to check out. The way that A.D. completely made this joint his own was DOPE to hear. I can remember sitting at my desktop with the volume almost all the way up (I was still critiquing so TOO loud meant I may miss something) and hearing Ant go in from the first note!! As soon as you hear him sing, “Myyyy, myyyyyyy, mah, myyyyyyyyy, myyyyyyyyyyyy” you know EXACTLY who it is. Even if you don’t, he was sure to place his stamp throughout the duration of the song. For example, the staccato feel of the vocals at the top of the second verse, “..That. Won. Ders. If. I’ll. Everrrrrrr” or the accents placed on “OUrrrrLOveWOntEVer be saaaaaaaaa…” during the second pre-hook. It always feels good as a producer when the vocalist not only brings their A-game to your material, but also allows their total character to shine on the song. To me, it’s a sign that they enjoy and more importantly trust your music enough to be themselves on it. The way that Anthony and Carmen bounced off of each other and truly complemented one another just added another beautiful layering to the music that cannot be written or manipulated in a Pro Tools session. Now let’s see if I can get the two of them on stage to perform it live while on tour… Atlanta perhaps? *rubs chin*
I’ma tell you som’n straight outta the gate… See Smeet (Sy Smith) and I were happy as hell to have even arrived in Atlanta on our correct flight being as though we almost missed our 3pm plane leaving from LaGuardia in NYC…………….. *sigh* I took a cab, she was picked up late, etc., etc., Long story. But once we DID land at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, I was informed that all of the tables for our show the next night were sold out. Now that’s the type of news you like to receive upon arrival to a city that you’re about to play. We got off the plane, rented our cars and rolled the hell out. I dropped my stuff off in my newly checked in hotel room and then stepped right back out so that I could hit up Moods Music in Little Five Points to go and holla at my man and owner of the store, Darryl Harris. Walked up in that mug and saw that +FE Music was a bit deep in there, which is what I like to see… I got caught up a little bit on my CD collection (I am STILL way behind on newer stuff), which I knew would happen because I can never go into Moods without dropping all my damn money in that place…
+FE Music… Stocked up in Moods Music
After leaving Moods, my only focus was to take my hungry ass on a mission to find the nearest Zaxby’s. Normally when I’m traveling in the south, I’ll make it a point to hit up either Waffle House or Zaxby’s. Now, for those of y’all who aren’t familiar with Zaxby’s and their Chicken Finger Plate, this used to be my CRACK while in college at Western Kentucky Univ., the joint changes lives man. Funny thing was, when I finally tracked one down, ordered my usual and sat down to eat… I got to about the third chicken finger, started stalling a bit and thought to myself, “How in the HELL did I used to eat so much of this back then?!??!!!” 33 is NOT the new 21. My body is smarter and has been spoiled with better food… It now has an unhealthy food quota. Honestly, I was just ready to go to sleep after that. Instead, I stopped off at Kroger to grab a few SmartWaters on the way to rehearsal to meet up with Sy, guitarist Brandon Thomas, and drummer Quinton Robinson. We ran through the entire set, Brandon and I linked up on chords and the entire crew synced up changes, breaks, vamps, etc…. Even after ending rehearsal at midnight, I still deemed it necessary to keep going and meet some friends at Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles spot directly up the street from my hotel on Peachtree…. and I did have the sweet potato cheesecake, which was damn RIDICULOUS (I ate it entirely too quickly to take a picture of it…. Sorry).
I decided that I would use the day of the show to finally catch up on some much needed REST. My plan was, well… to do absolutely NOTHING until soundcheck. But first, I found a Jimmy John’s that was relatively close to the hotel and as I walked in, I encountered a man already inside the store attempting to purchase 24 bottled waters, ok that’s already weird………BEST of all, trying to “negotiate” a wholesale price for them. From what I understand, I think they have places like Costco and Sam’s Club for that… No negotiations required. Anyway, I got my food and took it back to the room…………. And fell out for some hours.
Soundcheck was at 6pm, so I headed up the way to Apache and met up with Sy who was already in front of the venue ready to go. Oddly enough, the soundman was there about 10 minutes later (I say oddly enough because this rarely happens). So wait… The soundman was on time? The weather was excellent? AND the chef who was already there let us know where we could park for free and for how long?……Atlanta seemed to be treating us pretty well so far. We went in, set up, did our line check real quick and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show. While back in the room, I began receiving texts saying that there was a nice sized line out in front of the venue waiting to get in… that was GREAT news. PLUS, the fact that we knew that we had a nice surprise set up for the show…. The brotha Anthony David was set to perform our version of Barry White’s “Playing Your Game, Baby” (from …just visiting three). This was gonna be dope for a couple of reasons: 1. AD and I had not met face-to-face yet. We had worked together, conversed on the phone a few times, reached out to each other via text… but never met in person. 2. We had never performed this song live before in ANY city. The crazy thing is, we weren’t even gonna do the joint!! I hit up AD a couple weeks prior to the show to see if he was gonna be in town so we could get up for a drink or meet up in the studio or something. I was just happy that we were gonna be in the same city at the same time for ONCE. But the Monday before the show he sent me a text… “Wait, did you want me to do the cover at your show?” …And I basically told him not to worry about it because I hadn’t asked kats to learn it and I wasn’t gonna ask him to perform it if the joint wasn’t ready. But AD asked me for the song parts and talked about lining them up in Abelton Live and performing it that way. So I was thinking… “Oh damn, he WANTS to do the joint!!” Sheeeeeeiiiit, in THAT case…!! I hopped on de text to Sy and was like, “Ayo, what’s up with Anthony David doing the Barry White joint for Saturday?” ………..Sy: “HELL to the YEAH!” ….And there it was. I hit Brandon up and sent him the song to learn and we were then good to go for the show…
Once we ended the set and finished on up, Apache Café applauded loudly and gave us a helluva standing ovation, which in most cases is always a little crazy to take in because it’s an ultimate show of appreciation after a performance and I’ll never forget it. We came off stage and I got to kick it with one of my homeboys that I grew up with from 2nd grade on, also DJ Jon Doe of Prophetix, Carmen Rodgers who came through after the show to see us, and I finally got to meet a kat who I have been communicating with off and on for damn near 11 years, Count Bass-D. And he introduced me to Dionne Farris who was also at the show… DOPE. Kats chatted it up until it was damn near time for the spot to close down… We walked out of Apache Café in full agreement that this was not only our BEST show, but our SMOOTHEST show in terms of travel, soundcheck, treatment by the staff at the venue, accommodations, performance, etc… UNTIL…………..
I got to my rental car that I parked in a small side parking lot for $3.50 and damn if that mug didn’t have a BOOT on it. Maaaaan, I have NEVER had a boot on a car before… So immediately got pissed because I PAID FOR PARKING via Parkmobile. Now, Parkmobile is an app you can download on your phone for free and it allows you to set up an account where you can pay for parking via your credit card. I actually love the app because it keeps you from having to keep a ton of change in your car for meters, but that night… somebody was on some BS. Sy was waiting in her car for me and I hopped in her passenger seat and called the 800 number that was stuck on my window, gave them the information they needed and they said the person who booted the car would be dispatched immediately – He’ll be there in about 20 minutes. Sheeeeeeiiiiiit. I hung the phone up and dude was pulling up.
I got outta Sy’s car and said, “Y’all don’t honor Parkmobile payments?!”
He said, “Is that how you paid?… Man, don’t tell me you just paid it like a half hour ago!”
Me: “Nah man, I paid at like 9:30p!”
I proceeded to show him a text AND an email that I received with the date, time and license plate no. proving that I paid the parking fee. Dude saw this and took the boot off. I made sure I was good to go without paying anything and I got in the car and headed back to the hotel… The adventures of life on the road are never-ending, I swear… but even that situation was resolved extremely quickly. So thank you Atlanta for a helluva night on May 5th…!!!
Lead Vocal by Anthony David
All Instruments by Zo!
Trumpet by Stan Graham
Trombone by Andrew Kleindienst
Saxophone by Matt Douglas
Produced by Zo! and Phonte for Chapter 3hree, Verse 5ive Music, LLC/The Foreign Exchange Music, LLC
Recorded and Mixed by Zo! at East Wing Studios, Silver Spring, MD and by Phonte at The Peanut Gallery, Raleigh, NC
Additional Recording and Mixing by Chris Boerner at The Burlap Palace, Raleigh, NC
Mastering by Soiree Records
Cover Photography by Keith Estep of Keith Estep Photography
…just visiting three: THE ORIGINALS
01. Black Cow
Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen
Originally Performed by Steely Dan
From the Album “Aja” (ABC, 1977)
02. Let It Go
Written by John Lang, Richard Page, and Steve George
Originally Performed by Pages
From the Album “Pages” (Epic, 1978)
03. Driving
Written by Ben Watt
Originally Performed by Everything But The Girl
From the Album “The Language Of Life” (Atlantic, 1990)
04. Marzipan
Written and Originally Performed by Eric Tagg
From the Album “Dreamwalkin'” (EMI, 1982)
05. Everything She Wants
Written by George Michael
Originally Performed by Wham!
From the Album “Make It Big” (CBS, 1985)
06. Same Ole Love
Written by Marilyn McLeod and Darryl K. Roberts
Originally Performed by Anita Baker
From the Album “Rapture” (Elektra, 1986)
07. Playing Your Game, Baby
Written and Originally Performed by Barry White
From the Album “Barry White Sings For Someone You Love” (20th Century, 1977)
