The new album has gotten the NPR: “First Listen” treatment, meaning you can stream and listen to it worry-free more than a week before its official release. So run it from front-to-back!! …Co-Produced by, Yours Truly!!
Tag Archives: The Foreign Exchange
Studio Campfire Stories: ‘Tales From The Land Of Milk And Honey’ Edition – “Asking For A Friend”
This song right here? “Asking For A Friend”??! As some of you may know by now, this was the first single released from the upcoming The Foreign Exchange album Tales From The Land Of Milk And Honey this past Monday night.
BUT….
Let me explain to y’all how there almost wasn’t even an album to begin with………
No, for real.
Making music is unpredictable. SO unpredictable that this entire project began with a very brief conversation Nicolay and I had during soundcheck before The Foreign Exchange’s New Year’s Eve show in Durham, NC on December 31, 2012 about possibly getting up to do some studio work. Up to that point, Phonte and I had worked closely on music dating back to the end of 2005 and I had worked with Sy Smith and Jeanne Jolly (who both toured with us at the time), but I still hadn’t stepped into the studio with Nic yet. I mean, he and I had played numerous shows together and we have done work on the same songs before by trading files, but never had we been in the same studio, at the same time, creating while trading ideas. Now, on paper it made sense… Two producers/multi-instrumentalists who both compose from scratch without aiming their final product at any genre in particular…. But what folks don’t understand is that the idea of a “perfect” collaboration can be tough when it comes down to its actual execution. For example, when I create music, I do it solo. Nobody just hanging around, no 20 people in the studio while I’m working, no “yes” men or hype men there to gas up every single note, chord, or new sound I play…. Absolutely, alone. Same with Nic. So, the idea of simply working together with another producer who creates in almost the same fashion presented itself to be somewhat of a challenge in our minds – I think because, creatively we didn’t want to step on toes. But with the May 2013 release of my solo album, ManMade and the September release of +FE’s Love In Flying Colors under our belts, we finally decided to give it a try and locked in a time to get to work. By the time we finally got up in February 2014, it was waaaay overdue. I loaded my car with some equipment, grabbed my small carry-on suitcase and hopped on 95 South for the six-hour drive from Silver Spring, MD to Wilmington, NC. I was anxious to get some new music done and to be honest, neither of us knew what to expect. On the drive down, several thoughts ran through my head…..
The hell will this music sound like?!
How will our sounds mesh together? Will they compliment or clash?
Will it sound more like a Nicolay track? ….Or will it sound more like something I did?
Let me explain one thing about art….. If you overthink it, you kill it. He and I knew not to discuss these things beforehand and I’m glad we didn’t because once I arrived at Nic’s studio, instincts took over and we just let the music happen. Three to four days later, we walked outta there with seven brand new instrumentals. Upon leaving, the only question I had while driving back home was, “Why didn’t we do this shit SOONER?!?!?!!” To me, the craziest part was the fact that the music sounded like Nicolay …AND it sounded like me – the two styles merged and the sound was literally split down the middle. With these seven new ones in the chamber, we then talked about working toward completing a “Nicolay & Zo! EP” containing some music with vocals and maybe a couple of instrumentals in there. I spoke publicly about the EP throughout 2014, we even discussed touring options once it was released and everything….
Fast forward to the top of 2015 when Phonte started recording to some of the music along with Carmen Rodgers, Tamisha Waden, Shana Tucker and Carlitta Durand… Once the music started to take shape around the new vocals that were recorded, we decided to focus on creating a “crew” album rather than just a Nic & Zo! EP… An +FE Music “compilation” project, basically. Sounded like an excellent idea to me… But, It also sounded like Nic and I needed to get back to work on some more music so that we could have a full album’s worth of material to pull from. After coordinating schedules again, on March 31, 2015, that’s exactly what we began to do. I drove back down to NC for round TWO of marathon studio sessions in Wilmington.
The second time was a bit different mainly because we knew what to expect from each other from the jump…. At this point, all we needed to do was open up a “New Session” on Pro Tools and go in. Once I arrived, we set up quickly and jumped right into something brand new. I can’t remember why we specifically decided to knock out a House track that night for that very first song, but I DO remember being hyped up about it being as though I had never worked on one before…. Hell, I had never even PLAYED on one.
Nicolay sat down and began to program the drum track. In the final version, listen to the way the intro for “Asking For A Friend” comes in piece by piece. It’s perfect because that’s damn near how I heard him make the drums. First, was the four-to-the-floor kick with the open hi-hats, then, the toms…. percussion pieces, the snare ….and finally the claps to round it all out. As he was getting everything together drum-wise, I sat down on the Rhodes just to see what would happen and the very first thing that came out was the melody line you hear (right as Phonte’s vocals begin in the final version)… I then hopped on one of my favorite weapons in the studio, the Moog Little Phatty keyboard to work the bassline out until finding something that we both agreed with and from there it was back to the Rhodes to knock out the chord progression for what was to become the hook. Once the hook progression came THAT’S when things seemed to tie together, musically. By this time, Nic had the drums KNOCKING along with all of the intricacies placed and polished. Once we layered that hook up nicely with synths and strings, we added a fully extended vamp out and called it a night. While sipping coffee at damn near midnight we ran the song on repeat, satisfied with the new ‘nod’ to old school house music we had just created – Shit felt like a party in there. Meanwhile, two hours west in Raleigh, NC… Phonte and Carmen were getting ready to set up shop in the studio as well. With two spots running simultaneously for three to four days, we KNEW there was gonna be something special to coming out of this. So we sent the music to them to hear and write to if that’s what they felt, etc. Honestly, I really just wanted to hear their initial responses…
The next day, when Nic and I got back in the studio… Phonte had already called excited about this new record…… BUT, with the music that we already had for the album, he was thinking that it may have been too “hard” of a house record to include in the album batch. No problem… Hell, I knew we would use it somewhere down the line, the joint jammed too hard. We then moved on to start creating the next piece, which we would also send to Phonte and Carmen along with a third joint later on at the end of that day. In total, we ended up creating and sending 5 or 6 new ones to Raleigh, NC that week. ….But they kept going back to listen to that first one.
Once we wrapped, I drove back to Maryland on that Friday, April 3rd …and I’ll be damned if on APRIL 6TH, Nic and I didn’t receive an email from Phonte with the subject title “Asking For A Friend” that read……
“This shit went from “maybe it’s too hard” to “this could be the first single” REAL QUICK.”
I KNEW he couldn’t turn away from that joint!! I clicked the attachment and listened to the long introduction while nodding hard as hell….
“Work….Work….Work…..Work………..”
Heeeeell yeah… I was completely locked in wondering what would happen next once the verse started. Then the vocals came in …..and when them vocals came in??!?! ….WHEN THE VOCALS CAME IN?!?!?
My response: “Yoooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!”
The last time I responded like that to some vocals Phonte sent over to me, it was our “Africa” remake. I got him on the phone immediately and said, “You were on your Rockwell ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ shit with this one…” He explained that it was more of a Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime” feel, which works completely because this is meant to be a FUN joint, so be fearless and go ALL the way in. We went from talking about the song itself, to this brand new collection of music we were now sitting on. He told me that after talking with Nic, the project went from an +FE Music compilation….. to an +FE ALBUM, to which I responded, “Hell yeah… RUNNIT!” I got hyped up not only because I felt the collection of music was CRAZY, but also because I knew I had production credit on all of it right along with Nicolay and Phonte – a first for an +FE project. …..To make it even better, y’all get to hear the stories behind it all.
The Foreign Exchange – Tales From The Land Of Milk And Honey | 08.21.15 on +FE Music
2014 in Pictures
2014 was a year I spent on the ROAD. Shall I even attempt to list all of the cities?! ….Hell, why not. This year I hit up Amsterdam, Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham (Alabama and United Kingdom), Boston, Brooklyn, Cape Town, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Cologne, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Durham, Fresno, Houston, Johannesburg, Kansas City, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland, Paris, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, Rotterdam, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Ana, Seattle, St. Louis and right down the street…. Washington D.C.
I got to hear music that I worked on every single week on Adult Swim’s animated series, Black Dynamite, saw myself on TV one day and decided to make a change by dropping off 35 lbs in the first few months of the year, traveled and saw some of the world with The Foreign Exchange and solo with Carmen Rodgers, started working on an EP with 1/2 of +FE, Nicolay, rocked an NPR Tiny Desk with +FE, began scoring a documentary, began a storytelling series, “Studio Campfire Stories: LIVE” that started on the right foot with a sold out show in Atlanta, and released one of the more talked about videos of the year (in my eyes anyway haha)..
Here’s to a helluva 2015 and much love to everyone riding with me throughout this musical journey… *raises glass of brown likkuh* Cheers!!
Carmen and Erro saingin’ in …..”Harmonism”
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
In Sacramento
Rockin’ in NOLA | Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
Back on stage with Sy Smith in DC
‘We Are On The Move’ in Jo’Burg
With Frank McComb in Alexandria, VA
Ran into Robin S. on the plane from Amsterdam to Atlanta
Photo by Ćrís Mércádó
In Seattle
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
Crew photo in Paris
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
Me and Jeanne Jolly at The Howard Theatre in DC
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
We Are On The Move
Nashville!
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
The Charlotte crowd
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
With Sy Smith and Joi in LA
Poppin’ through your IG
Black Van landing in South Africa
Detroit vs. The Eiffel Tower
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Taking Pictures of Cape Town
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Riding through Soweto
Me and Phonte in San Diego
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
Rockin’ Pittsburgh
Rockin’ Boston |Photo by Dart Adams
Studio Campfire Stories in Atlanta… Sold Out Show!
Posing with the worst tasting chips I have EVER eaten
In Vegas
Chicago!
Visiting Zana at Spectacles in Detroit
Me and Carmen Rodgers
After our Paris Show
Rockin’ in NYC
Black Van In Paris
Carmen rockin’ her Zo! tee
Yep, I’m ready to smash this stage too, Carmen Rodgers…
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Tiny Desk featuring +FE
Normal IG picture…
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
With Algebra Blessett
San Francisco crowd shot
Seattle crowd shot
in Jo’burg | Photo by Ernest Sefolo
Me and Nicolay setting up to take a crowd pic in LA | Photo by Nick Baglio
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
Love to the Brooklyn crowd | Photo by Nick Baglio
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Photo by Omni StudioPhotography
In the studio with Carlitta Durand
Clowning in Nashville
+FE on Fox5 News in Vegas
With Dam-Funk and 14KT in LA
Photo by Molex Photography
Rockin’ Minneapolis, MN
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Cape Town
Landing in London
Tiny Desk with +FE
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Riding the train in Paris
StL crowd | Photo by Nick Baglio
Photo by Jon Crisp
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Photo by Abby O. Photography
With Carmen Rodgers and Sy Smith after our show in LA
Pictures after the show
With Waajeed in Detroit
Encore at the +FE show • Magic Stick in Detroit, MI (05.09.14)
Me and Algebra in London
Sacramento crowd shot
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Some ink in Minneapolis, MN
Not so normal IG picture…
Photo by Dominique Easton for KÏNGDØM Photography
Photo by Abby O. Photography
Streets of London
NOLA | Photo by Nikki at Infinite Ink
With Monica Blaire in Alexandria, VA
Sacramento
Black Dynamite – Season 2 Premieres tonight @ 10:30p ET/PT ….and I made music for it.
Back in November 2011, while on the road with The Foreign Exchange, we were in Nashville and I was sitting in one of the vans waiting to drive some of the crew to the venue for our show at BB King’s that night. I received a call from a friend of mine who I consider family, Fatin Horton. He reached out to me to see if I had the time and would be interested in playing/recording music for the new, upcoming season of Black Dynamite – The Animated Series……. As a huge fan of the movie already (and later the first season of the animated series), I probably looked at my phone with an expression similar to Russell Westbrook…
HELL YEAH I was interested!!
Now of course, this wouldn’t be music that you would find on any of my releases… For example, you’re not gonna hear “Count To Five” during a fight scene between Black Dynamite and some sinister villain where they try to kill each other. We were set to work on all new compositions that fit the show’s theme – 70’s Black films. Once again, as a fan of all of those movies whether they were good, terrible, or good and terrible, the idea of making that type of music while putting my own spin on it only sweetened the deal. I knew that creating the music would be challenging… not because I would be playing all of the instruments on it, but because once we started working on pieces that were to be scene-specific to the episodes I knew I was gonna be kept on my toes… and I WAS. I have always been the first one to admit that guitar is my weakest instrument, but after working on this batch of music, I have become a lot more confident in my guitar playing as the majority of the work required heavy amounts of the instrument – Chords, lines, rhythm, wah-wah, etc. Come to think of it, working on Black Dynamite music is quietly what inspired me to do “Show Me The Way” from the ManMade album.
When Fatin and I first got together in the studio back in June of 2012, we set up what was to become a series of “studio marathons.” The plan = Basically, he would come up to the studio to create for three days straight. Typically from about 10a – 6p and again from 9p until. The first time around we knocked out about 7 “cues” or 30-90 second pieces to be used within an episode as background music to set or emphasize a mood or current theme. The second time we got up we finished 13 cues, almost double the total from the first studio session. To me, that was a clear cut sign that a working groove had been established. The first couple of sessions were dope because I was told to work strictly off of inspiration. Fatin would set up shop in the studio, pull out old records, chop um up and say something like, “I need it to match this mood of this record…,” “Make the organ a little darker…” or, “Add a higher octave string line to this part…” It was crazy to be creating “70’s Black film” pieces in 2012/2013, but I felt honored because hell, in a lot of those movies the MUSIC was the highlight and played just as large of a role as the film’s leading actor. So the pride I took in the work was through the roof.
Now, the reality of it all didn’t really hit me until I started hearing drafts of some of the show’s cast singing over my music. To hear Tommy Davidson and Kym Whitley do their thing on some stuff I had just sent in was kinda bugged out and a nice “WELP, this is real” moment for me, to say the least. Then, once we got really heavy into episode and scene-specific music, that’s when my brother Phonte came in crushing the vocal work. Guitarist/engineer and The Hot @ Nights member, Chris Boerner would receive the final products for mixing and mastering purposes…. 150+ cues and eight episodes later, we have our contribution to Black Dynamite, Season 2. And I know that I have been telling a few of you about this for over two years now… Well, today is the day!!! You can catch the show tonight at 10:30p ET/PT. I’ll actually be live tweeting and pointing out my contributions because… 1. I’m hyped as shit about it, 2. This is a first for me, and 3. See #1.
Tonight…
Black Dynamite – Season Two
premieres on Adult Swim @ 10:30p ET/PT
Studio Campfire Stories: The Foreign Exchange “Listen To The Rain”
Last year, I wrapped up everything ManMade around February/March 2013. During that same time, The Foreign Exchange was working on the music for Love In Flying Colors and I hadn’t yet gotten an expected call to work on anything for their album yet. Why is this important? Here’s a small bit of +FE trivia that most don’t know… I have the only outside production credits on the last three +FE albums – Leave It All Behind (“If She Breaks Your Heart”), Authenticity (“Fight For Love”), and Love in Flyi…Well… Just keep reading. Sometime in April or May, Phonte gave me a call telling me that he had a song idea for the new +FE album… I remember telling him, “I’ve been waiting on this call – I’m down.” Since I was scheduled to be in Raleigh, NC at the end of May for a video shoot, we figured that would be the best time to sit down, put our ideas together and see what we could come up with.
On May 25, 2013, I made my way down I-95S to shoot the first video from ManMade, which had just been released four days prior. We were to gather the crew in Downtown Raleigh and shoot a playful spin on an old school Sesame Street performance for the song “Count To Five” with director and frequent +FE Music collaborator, Kenneth Price. Come to think of it, this was the first time that Gwen Bunn and I actually met in person… at the damn video shoot for the song we had already worked together on! It’s kinda crazy how routinely that happens now…. Anyway, we shot the video in a few hours and afterward everyone got together to grab some food from a burger spot not too far from our filming location. Some folks went home, the rest of us headed over to Phonte’s spot where the movie ‘Campaign’ was running and jokes were on ten. Once everybody cleared out, Phonte and I hit the studio at about 2:30 in the morning and he told me that he had a melody in his head already with a few words here and there and needed the music to follow. This was no thing… We had utilized the same “sit down at the piano” formula when we worked on the title track from ManMade almost a year prior, “Fight For Love”, and “If I Could Tell You Know” from the SunStorm album. Like “ManMade”, it was the hook that we started with. When I go back and listen to the demo recordings we did of the song on my phone, chronologically we did the hook first (looped it twice), then there’s a recording of the verse, which we also looped twice. I distinctively remember wanting to accentuate that ‘break’ toward the beginning of the verse where he sings, “All alone (*break*) agaaaaaain….” …just to add a bit of personality to the music. The usage of breaks and “white space” is something that you don’t hear too often in many slower tempo songs and the more we worked through the verse, the more distinctive I made the break. The same with the chord climb up during the hook when he sings, “…….down out-siiiiiide…” by playing a different chord for each syllable, adding more of accents in the music. The last thing we worked on was the song’s ending. We wanted to close this one a with descending chord progression, which would set it apart from our previous “written at the piano” joints. The final demo recording starts off with my countdown into Phonte snapping his fingers for tempo while humming the melody of the hook then going right into the ending… And to be honest, I have listened to these demos about 5 times a piece while writing this story. To hear this song again with only piano and a reference melody is really kinda crazy.
By the time I returned home to Maryland the following evening, Phonte had completely finished writing to the song and sent me a text saying, “The title of that jam we did is called, “Listen To The Rain.” Lemme know when you lay THAT…” …No thing at all. The next day, I sat in the studio and recorded a main piano part, layered with a rhodes, and also played the bass live on it …all to a finger snap (that same finger snap can be heard throughout the majority of the first two minutes of the song). I sent the music on through to Phonte along with the, “Check that Gmail” text…… He then hit me the next day with the SAME text. When I checked, he had laid his vocals down and Chris Boerner had recorded a third chord layering by recording his acoustic guitar, which added some nice texture with the subtle fret noises and string plucking. So here we are with the main portion of the song completed just a couple days away from when we started……. But here’s where it gets good. Phonte told me that they had hit up my dude, Detroit’s own Pirahnahead to do string arrangement on it…
*drops phone*
Now, I’ve known Pirahnahead for a good 10-11 years and he was a monster back THEN so I couldn’t have even imagined what some damn strings would sound like over that music. So, when I received the song back a month later……. WITH STRINGS?!?! LOOK man…. I had all TYPES of goosebumps running up my arms. The shit was just beautiful…. I can remember listening to it about 5 or 6 times in a row and THEN listening to the isolated strings track a few times in a row afterward. Maaaaaaan, make you wanna shed that good single “Denzel in ‘Glory‘” thug tear!! Then, I received the final version with Nicolay’s drums on the song that put the song into another gear by taking it from an acoustic singer/songwriter mode to something you could break your neck to… All the way through an extended hook where Phonte calls out “…and my backgrounds sing, and my backgrounds siiiiing…” (that’s Jeanne Jolly assisting him on the background vocals too, by the way) right into that ending that we worked on at the piano. An excellent climax to a dope song.
With The Foreign Exchange on FOX 5 Vegas
I walked back into the Gibson Showroom at FOX 5 Vegas almost a year to the day that I performed on there solo and for my documentary. This time around, I was on keys for the crew… The Foreign Exchange performing “Right After Midnight” from their Love In Flying Colors album. Y’all enjoy this one… And shouts to Phonte for rockin’ the Zo! shirt…
Click the picture below to watch the performance….
Personnel:
Phonte (of The Foreign Exchange) – Lead Vocal
Nicolay (of The Foreign Exchange) – Keyboards
Zo! – Keyboards
Darion Alexander – Moog Bass
Chris Boerner – Guitar
Nick Baglio – Drums
Carmen Rodgers – Vocals
Tamisha Waden – Vocals
On Keys For The Foreign Exchange’s Tiny Desk Concert via NPR
May 2, 2014, prior to hitting the stage and playing to a sold out Howard Theatre in Washington D.C., The Foreign Exchange and I stopped off at the NPR building at performed a Tiny Desk Concert for some of the good folks at NPR Music… I really like how this joint came out and I’m glad that it’s finally up for you all to enjoy… Click the photo to watch.
Personnel:
Phonte – Vocals
Nicolay – Acoustic Guitar
Zo! – Keys
Boogie – Percussion
Welcome Home!! …Sincerely, The Michigan State Police.
May 9, 2014 was no different than any other day that I get prepared to go back home to Detroit to play a show…. While I normally start to feel pumped up for a show soon after soundcheck …when I know i’m going home to play?!?! I’m hyped up ALL DAY. It’s the “big game” for me… HOME. A melting pot of family, folks who I used to play baseball with, grew up with, those who have been in my corner from day one ……….and a few folks who may have no idea who the hell I am, but they scream loud as shit just because I’m rocking an olde English “D” on my hat. But since I moved to Maryland in 2006, every single time I go back home to play, it’s an outpouring of LOVE. And everyone who knows me is well aware of why I get so amped up when Detroit is on the schedule.
We were coming off of a hyped up crowd in Cleveland the night before and a 10-hour drive from Boston just two nights prior, so the actual 2 1/2 hour drive to Detroit was kind of an afterthought. Turnpike, to 280, 75N… We’re there. Simple, right? ….Well, the Turnpike was simple, as was I-280… We merged onto 75 North and coasted into Michigan. As many times as I have driven into MI via I-75, I can usually calculate pretty accurately how much time I have left to drive and at this point, I was getting even more hyped up because we were making great time. Word up… Get to the hotel, check in real quick, iron my clothes, hit the shower and be ready to roll out to soundcheck…………………
Until I looked in my rear view mirror
Normally, I’m pretty good at spotting the cops while on the freeway…. But this state trooper literally came from nowhere. I was in the far left lane and he was following behind me. I glanced down at my speedometer for a quick second and saw that I wasn’t speeding, thankfully… So I did what 98% of folks do when a cop gets behind them on the freeway…….. I changed lanes to the right so that he can pass by me and leave me the hell alone – and he did that. The state trooper rolled by me at a fairly high rate of speed, but kept it moving, no problem………… But I’m no idiot. I kept an eye on his patrol car just as a precaution. Plus, I didn’t know why he sped past me like he did – something didn’t feel right. I even told everyone in the van that I was gonna have to watch dude simply because I know that cops need zero excuse – they’ll pull you over and formulate a reason while they walk up to your car. As I continued driving, in the distance I could see the state trooper pull off of the right side of the freeway and set his car up as if to catch people speeding. Once again, no problem…. I wasn’t breaking the speed limit or any other law for that matter. But what folks fail to understand is that sometimes all you have to do is pass a cop in your car and it’s over for you ……and your record.
So, you know when you pass through a neighborhood you haven’t been in before and the older brothers sitting on the porch follow your car down the street with their eyes trying to figure out who you are and why you’re there? Well, when we passed the state trooper, I could see that his eyes were LOCKED in on our van exactly like that…. and then he merged back into traffic. As soon as I saw this, I announced to the van…..
“Maaaan, he’s gonna pull us over.”
Here’s the scene…. I was driving, Phonte was in the front passenger seat, Carmen Rodgers and bass player, Darion Alexander were sitting in the back. Four Black folks in a van with out of state plates (the plates on the rental van were Illinois)………. traveling. That’s it, that’s all. But sometimes, that’s all you need. Because when I looked up in my rear view mirror again, who do you think was there?…… AGAIN. So, again….. I changed lanes to the right and happened to pull behind a big rig. The trooper remained in my blind spot for about a half mile or so, in which I imagined he was running the plates. Then he also changed lanes to the right to follow me. By this time I was doing about 65 in a 70 and I told the crew, “If I change lanes again and he follows me, he’s gonna pull us over.”
I changed lanes to the right again…. He followed, again……
Lights went on.
Maaaaaaan FUCK!!!
I pulled off the road immediately.
The trooper walked up to Phonte’s window and while asking for license and registration proceeded to tell me that the reason he pulled me over was because I was “following too closely behind that truck.” Remember the big rig I pulled behind the second time he was in my rear view mirror? ….Yeah. THAT one. I was quickly reassured how bullshit this claim was when he said…
“Get out of the car and sit in the patrol car, please”
Hold up, go sit in the cop car for following too closely behind a damn truck? So, I got out, went up to the rear passenger side of the patrol car and went to open the door and the officer said, “No! The FRONT seat!” Go sit in the front seat, huh? I was thinking to myself, ‘NOTHING good can come out of this scenario.’ The trooper also got in the car and while running my ID and Phonte’s ID proceeded to ask me question after question…..after question…. after fucking question. Some questions he repeated to see if I would give him a different answer. Man, I had nothing to hide… We were just trying to get to our hotel and if the interrogation lasted any longer………… soundcheck… hell….. the SHOW.
Is this your van? No, it’s a rental.
Where are you going? To our hotel, we’re part of a band.
You have a show? Yes.
Where at? The Magic Stick.
Is that in Detroit? Yes.
What’s the name of your band? The Foreign Exchange.
You ever been to Michigan before? Yes, I’m from here.
First time playing here? No. (why would it be my first time playing in my HOME STATE?)
Where are you playing? (for the second time) The Magic Stick
In Detroit? (again) Yes.
**Looks at my license** How long have you lived in Maryland? Since 2006.
Is everybody in the van from North Carolina? No.
What does everybody do in the band? There’s two vocalists and a bassist in the van with me.
How long have you been in Maryland? (for the second time) Since 2006.
At this point I was thinking… He is just REALLY fucking terrible at asking questions. Notice how none of these questions have anything to do with what he claimed he pulled me over for.
Then the tone shifted as he began asking what he really wanted to ask me from the jump…..
You have any weapons in the van? No.
Guns? Knives? No.
Any contraband? No.
Do you have any crack in the van? *record scratch* No.
Wait…..
Did he just ask me if I had CRACK in the van??!?!?!
CRACK?!!?!
Do you have any cocaine in the van? No.
Morphine? No.
Pills? No.
Marijuana? No.
What all do you have in the van? Luggage, a keyboard, a bass, and food.
Do you have an arrest record? No.
You ever gotten a ticket before? Yes, for speeding in January of last year.
Real quick… And may be I’m wrong simply because I’ve never transported drugs before, but uhhh… What trafficker transports drugs while driving four deep in a rental van with out-of-state plates on it?! Then again, four Black folks in a van with out-of-state plates on it traveling through Monroe, MI is usually four too many, so… But anyway, he then says….
“Ok, well I’m gonna let you go… Just wait here.”
I didn’t believe dude. He got out of the car, walked over to our passenger side and instructed Phonte to get out of the van. He then cross-referenced all of my answers by asking him similar questions while standing on the side of the freeway. Even after ALL of our answers matched up he asked Phonte if he could search the van. He then went to go get Darion and Carmen’s IDs. When I saw that shit, that’s when I thought to myself…. We may now miss this show because of this dude. He’s trying to find ANYTHING HE CAN right now. All I pictured was us sitting on the side of I-75N for hours with all of our shit out on the road being run through. He came back in to the patrol car, handed me everybody’s IDs and just like that….. he let us go, finally. The entire ordeal lasted about 30-45 minutes. To anyone who has ever had a cop harass you before, there’s always a few minutes of silence in the aftermath where you’re just kinda sitting there like, “What the fuck just happened?! …And WHY?” Never in the history of anything has being questioned by the police for absolutely nothing made anyone’s day better. Needless to say, I was PISSED and could not get into the right frame of mind to perform until we were actually announced on stage… It helped that the show was sold out and crazy as hell, particularly since my family and friends were all in attendance, but MAN. This has become our reality though – traveling between cities in a van, usually with an out-of-state license plate… I guess this qualifies us as suspects. We were followed behind and had a cop ride up on the side of us for about 2 or 3 miles when we drove to Memphis a couple weeks ago. I also thought we were gonna get pulled over during the final TEN minutes of our 12-hour drive from Denver to damn Brownwood, TX. The cop hit a U-turn and followed us loosely for about a mile before turning off. That would NOT have been a good situation at 12:30a.
So, officers…. If you happen to spot our van riding through your town four deep en route to the next city, there’s no need for alarm…
We’re just touring.
Encore at the +FE show • Magic Stick in Detroit, MI (05.09.14)
+FE @ The Metro in Chicago (Video Clip)
So, Saturday night during the performance of “We Are On The Move”… Phonte and I decided to pay a bit of impromptu tribute to one of the greatest live routines of all-time. Shouts to @rtst on IG for capturing this “acting uppedness” on stage…