Tag Archives: The Foreign Exchange

SoulBounce.com Gives End of the Year Props to ‘…just visiting three’

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SoulBounce.com just unveiled its “Hot 16: SoulBounce’s Best Albums of 2011” which gave ‘end of the year’ props to my …just visiting three EP as well as my brother Phonte’s Charity Starts At Home… one of my favorite people IN music Deborah Bond’s Madam Palindrome album… and the family affair album and DVD that featured +FE’s entire live collective The Foreign Exchange’s Dear Friends: An Evening With The Foreign Exchange.

Source: SoulBounce

We may live in a singles-driven, pick-what-songs-you-want-from-the-menu world now, but there’s nothing like buying an album and letting it play straight through. No skips. No pressing stop to listen to something else. Just letting it ride out and getting lost in the groove. That’s the sign of a good album, and 2011 had its fair share. That’s why narrowing down all of the albums that we had in heavy rotation at SBHQ was quite a task, but we whittled our collective favorites down to a Hot 16 to present SoulBounce’s Best Albums of 2011. We started out the year anticipating many of them, but a few snuck in to surprise us with just how undeniably great they were. We have high expectations for another banner year for progressive urban music ahead, but not before looking back on the exceptional year that was and our Hot 16 plus a long list of albums that deserve honorable mentions. Be sure to come back tomorrow to find out which one of these albums will receive our Album of the Year nod during our annual SoulBounce Honors. Read the full article

                                                                              

…just visiting three can ALSO be found twice on the “Hot 16: SoulBounce’s Best Songs of 2011” for “Playing Your Game, Baby” featuring Anthony David and “Marzipan” featuring Eric Roberson and Phonte. It also makes an appearance on the ‘Honorable Mention’ list for “Everything She Wants” featuring Phonte.

Source: SoulBounce

Oh 2011, where, oh where, did you go? It seems like just yesterday that we here at SBHQ were lamenting the slow start to the year and hoping that the remainder would make up for it. Well, we definitely weren’t disappointed with the vast majority of what we heard. These past 12 months have brought us new music from old faves and a slew of new faves to join them, and our list of SoulBunce’s Best Songs of 2011 reflects that. If you’ve been following SoulBounce this year, then some of these selections should be no-brainers, but there are few surprises to be had. 

In the past, each editor has posted their own year-end top 10 list of songs, but in an effort to streamline the process the staff of SoulBounce has combined all of our eclectic tastes together into one Hot 16. We may or may not have had a Love & Hip Hop style brawl to narrow this list down to just 16 songs, but not to worry because a list of honorable mentions is included as well. Without further delay, see what tunes made our Best Songs of 2011, and stay tuned for SoulBounce Honors 2011 where we’ll crown one of these as Song of the Year. Read the full article

Studio Campfire Stories: “Playing Your Game, Baby” (feat. Anthony David)

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Music is pretty funny….. Scratch that. Music is hilarious – Particularly when it comes to its creation. I’d like to consider myself a free thinker when it comes to making music mostly because it eliminates any boundaries, but also because music can be so unpredictable… ALL the time. Being that this is the last SCS for …just visiting three, it’s only right that this one is probably the most interesting. So with that being said, I will begin the story by saying that “Playing Your Game, Baby” was chosen and re-created for none other than one of my favorite emcees of all-time (in my “Top 5” EASILY)… Tariq Trotter a/k/a Black Thought. Rewind back to 2009 when Phonte was working with The Roots on the How I Got Over album… He gave me a call after the work was finished and told me how big of a fan Black Thought was of our Zo! & Tigallo Love the 80’s album AND said that he was wanting to get on something in the future… I damn near dropped the phone. All I could manage to do or say was the brilliant, “WORD?!” But yeah, I was ready to run laps around Maryland… YES, the state. So, about a year or so later at the Roots Picnic in June of 2010, I was there with The Foreign Exchange relaxing, taking part in some good food and helluva jokes before going on stage to perform. Well, the next you know, Black Thought walked up to our table. We met and talked just a little bit after Phonte introduced everybody and after telling him that I was a huge fan he said, “I’ve gotta get up on one of your joints…”  *insert silence here* I was pretty proud of myself at the way I played it off… Because I FELT like saying, “OH SHIT! LET’S WORK TOMORROW THEN!!” …..But, I didn’t. We exchanged info and kept it moving…………. And I was hyped up about it, hell I can’t lie. Been listening to this brotha since ’93/’94 I had a right to be…!! Since SunStorm was already completed and manufactured by that time, the question then became, “Ok, HOW should we work? What would be the best situation?” 

Fast forward to the top of 2011….. …just visiting three was in the middle of production and Phonte put Black Thought’s name out there as someone we should work with on the album. BET! Let’s do that!! Phonte hit him up, he said he was down… It was looking great. The only issue was…. What the hell song are we gonna have him sing?!?!!! A month went by……….. Two months………. We would go back to the conversation every now and then to see if there were ANY new ideas. There were a couple of joints in mind including one by uhh…. J.B. (not James Brown). Finally, a week or so after that conversation.. Phonte and I got back on the phone to decide once and for all what Tariq would be singing. Once again, I went to my trusty laptop and started scrolling through my iTunes selections. To be honest with you, I cannot remember who suggested Barry White… But I do remember picking the song “Playing Your Game, Baby” out directly from my iTunes library. From that, Phonte gave me the, “I’m wit that” and we moved forward in sending it and the lyrics through to Thought… In the meantime, I went in the studio to attempt to recreate this damn masterpiece of a song. Let me tell y’all something… The bond that me and “Playing Your Game, Baby” have formed over the years going all the way back to my days as a child is unbreakable. When Black Moon sampled it for the “I Got Cha Opin (Remix)” in ’94, I LOVED the joint. I even felt it when Ill Al Skratch used it for “Where My Homiez?” It’s just something about the big orchestration over that simplistic GROOVE. And one thing that I never realized until Anthony David and I talked about it later on was how simple Barry’s writing and vocals were. There was ONE vocal track, no adlibs, no harmonies… Not saying that this formula works all the time, but for this song it was a perfect compliment to what was going on musically.

Being that this song is another one of my personal favorites, I took great pride in wanting to do it correctly and do it some justice. I knew that the first things I thought about when someone talks about “Playing Your Game, Baby” are how crispy and pronounced the drums are and that simple but nasty and well-placed bassline. So that’s what I recorded first… I made sure the drums that I programmed were close to the original and I played the hi-hat out live. Once that was laid, I grabbed the bass guitar and and recorded it keeping it close to the original but adding a couple of my own licks here and there. The rhodes piece followed and then…. The strings. Man, man, MAN. That was a piece that would make or break the song. If the strings weren’t right, I would have scrapped the entire song without hesitation. BUT, they actually met my own skeptic ass approval and that particular draft was sent over to Black Thought to record to. Soon after we sent the music off, the horns were added. When I heard those horns on the track for the first time, I damn near turned my own computer over. They sounded GREAT!!! Now, we ran into trouble at this point because the brotha Tariq Trotter is BUSY AS ALL HELL. I don’t know if the dude ever stops going… He’s on constantly on the road and appearing on the Jimmy Fallon Show with The Roots, in the studio recording, popping up at spots performing internationally…. With that type of schedule, I was patient and understanding. If he couldn’t record it, not a problem at all – There will be time to work on something else in the future, I was definitely sure of that. But as we inched closer to the end of production for the album and its deadline, we had to figure something out. Who out here is gonna sing…. No, no, no… who out here is gonna SAING Barry White?! I mentioned Anthony David one time… Phonte and I talked about it briefly and let it sit for about a week or more. Finally, Phonte hit up A.D. and put him on alert… “Ayo, we may need you to come through and knock this Barry White joint out for the new album, you down to do it just in case?” He said he was down… So the music and the lyrics were sent to him. If I remember correctly, I think he was on the road doing some shows on the East Coast when he received the files. He said that once he got back home, he’d take care of it. Aaaaand just a few days later, I had an email with a file labeled “Playing Your Game AD Vox” ready to be downloaded. I damn near jumped outta my seat because these vocals were the LAST things needed for the album. I downloaded it and quickly played it in iTunes… I wasn’t patient enough to listen through the minute and a half long instrumental piece in the beginning, I scrolled right to the vocals and waited………… As SOON as I heard that first bar I said to myself… but outloud, “Maaaaan THIS dude is WHYLIN!” Ok, ok, ok…. He’s got the verse part down. NOW, let’s see what it’s lookin’ like when this hook comes in when Barry raises his voice and really let’s the girl know what’s on his mind…. *the hook comes and I hear Anthony David say* “Ya PLAYIN’ A GAAAAAME!!! IT’S SO PLAAAAAIN!!” And then the END of the hook when he hit the, “Nobody but YOOOOOUUUUUUUU AAAAAND MEEEEEEEE!!” ….Maaaaaaaaaaan, you would have thought a Detroit team had won a World Championship the way I was acting after hearing that – because without even hearing the rest of the song, I knew he had nailed it. To have come through in such a huge way, the respect I already HAD for the brotha tripled… And to this day, he and I have never even met face-to-face. Crazy, right?

I think with this song being one of the more familiar selections on the album along with the fact that it vamped out a little longer at the end musically, it was the perfect closing track. As I said at the beginning, music is totally unpredictable, but I’m extremely happy with how things turned out in the long run as I couldn’t have asked for better performances. I can’t wait to get up with everyone again for the next album….


Studio Campfire Stories: “Same Ole Love” (feat. Jeanne Jolly)

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Some of you may remember the good ole days when I taught music to Special Ed. High School kids (up until the school shut down completely at the top of August). Well, the most difficult part about maintaining a “9 to 5” and being a working musician is being able to keep some crazy late night hours. There were times that I would be getting off of a red eye flight from the west coast or getting off of an overnight MegaBus/BoltBus ride from a gig in NYC and then driving directly to work… This particular morning was no different. I don’t remember exactly how late I was up the previous night, but I do remember one thing… I. Was. TIRED. During the spring semester in 2011, second period was my planning period. So as soon as my first period class left the room, I would look VERY forward to my 50 solid minutes of peace and quiet before my rowdy ass third period class came in. But just as I was settling in to some silence… My cell phone started ringing – It was Phonte with an epiphany…

Phonte: “Ayo man… We need to remake “Same Ole Love”…. with JEANNE JOLLY and flip it into a COUNTRY song.”

Me: *thinking… humming the song to myself* “………..Hell yeah!”

P: “Cuz if you break it all the way down, “Same Ole Love” ain’t nothing but a country song anyway.”

M: “I say, let’s run it…”


I actually had “Same Ole Love” on the computer in my classroom and decided to learn the chords and changes as soon as we got off the phone. From learning the music, I was able to then hear my own drum pattern overtop of the hooks. I then walked over to the drumset in the classroom and practiced that particular pattern until it was time for my third period class to come in… Matter of fact, I practiced that pattern more than a few times because I wanted to be the one to record them and I wanted them to be laid with the same groove and swing that I had in my head.

One of the great things about this remake is not only Jeanne’s performance, but the fact that since she has been on the road with The Foreign Exchange and been pulled into various studio sessions covering several genres of music, she has ignored being a good “Country singer” and has begun to build a solid reputation as a being a dope SINGER… Period. We knew that creating this song for Jeanne and putting it on the album would be a wild card move, without question. Sometimes it is difficult to get listeners to think outside the box, especially with a song that a lot of folks connected and grew up with…. We could already see the tweets and the comments coming…. “Wait a minute, a white country singer redoing a joint by ANITA?!”  ….”I KNOW she ain’t doin’ no Anita Baker song!” No problem… We had a plan. First, we weren’t sure if Jeanne was familiar with the original version or not… Either way, we made it a point to keep Anita’s version away from her simply because Anita has such a distinct tone and sound and we didn’t want it to influence our version at all – plus I was confident that it would help our version stand out a little bit more. So after recording just the piano part to a click track or a metronome… Phonte laid down reference vocals for Jeanne to listen to before she actually went in to record it herself. I even put the piano/click track on my phone so that I could practice the drum pattern on the kit WITH the recorded music playing during my down time in the classroom…. At that point it was just a matter of figuring out when we were going to record the joint in full.

I just so happened to be in North Carolina at Phonte’s spot for what ended up being a few days in April, I was on Spring Break from teaching. Ironically enough, the majority of “Same Ole Love” was recorded the day after Phonte and I recorded our now infamous parody of Mark Morrison’s “Return Of the Mack.” My greedy ass was actually going to work on a Cookout burger while Jeanne came on through the house so she and Phonte could record vocals. In the meantime, I was waiting on a call from +FE frequent collaborator and live band guitarist, Chris Boerner so that I could take a trip to his house and record the drums. I mean, I had taken along one of my favorite snare drums on the plane and everything for this! I ended up getting the call and left the vocal session to head over to Boerner’s spot to set up for my first live drum recording session… On a full kit, that is. It was a quick set-up, no issues at all…. Levels were adjusted, a few drum mic tweaks here and there, then it was time. I played the kit and actually got the drums sounding the way I wanted them to sound on only the second take… Damn near surprised mySELF! Chris dumped the drum tracks on my flash drive and I took them AND the vocal tracks home with me the following day to plug into the open session in my studio. After putting them all together, I recorded the bass guitar track and some additional percussion instruments in order to make the song bounce a little bit more. After I sent the joint to Phonte, he had Boerner add some acoustic guitar… RHYTHM acoustic guitar that really added some more movement to the end hook and dammit… Allyn Love came in and “made the song cry” with that pedal steel guitar. When I heard those final two elements, I was rewinding things MORE than a few times. I was even influenced to add the string line at the end to give the song more of a finalé. Pedal steel guitar? Jeanne singing Anita and sounding GREAT? Kats were proud of this one simply because we felt as though we were breaking a couple of rules and pulled it off successfully… It almost makes me anxious to shatter some more

Download …just visiting three for FREE…. Here.

Studio Campfire Stories: “Marzipan” (feat. Eric Roberson & Phonte)

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There are two key characteristics that are common when Phonte and I get into very involved music conversations… 1. They are never planned. It’s never formally announced, “Ayo man, we’ve gotta get up and talk about some music.” …Nope. It just happens. 2. The conversation usually lasts for a few hours. Kats are usually sitting at our computers going through iTunes like, “Hol’lup… Have you heard THIS shit though?! …. NAH but WAIT!! Remember that Timbaland remix joint from so and so that was on the such and such soundtrack?!?” Yeah… 2-4 hours of this – Sending music back and forth and putting each other on to new joints. Well, about three years ago during one of these conversations Phonte put me up on this song called “Marzipan” by a kat named Eric Tagg who I looked up immediately and found out that he was most known for his work with guitarist Lee Ritenhour (“Is It You”). I can specifically remember how hyped Phonte was about the joint… and this was looong before we even talked about possibly covering it. I’m actually glad it happened that way, because it gave me a chance to just enjoy the song and let it sink into my memory for a couple of years before I began to really study it. I even ended up picking up Eric Tagg’s entire Dreamwalkin’ album just because of the one song… I had to hear more of his work. 

Fast-forward to January 2011… Phonte threw the song out there as an idea for …just visiting three – this was no surprise to me at all. Funny enough, the FIRST thing that came to mind was the famous Cosby Show “CHALLLLLOOOONNGE!!” scene because knowing how the song went, I understood that the chords and the off-count of the verses were NOT straightforward at all… I knew from the jump that I would definitely have my work cut out for me. The good thing is, I enjoy challenges. So I figured that if I sat with the song long enough in “study mode” everything would fall into place. Well…. that’s KINDA what happened. It took me getting frustrated with the verse chord progression, shutting the song down…. coming back to it, and cussing out Eric Tagg and his engineer because the keys were tucked so well in the mix in that there were spots in the song where I couldn’t even hear specific chords. BUT… I FINALLY figured it out. That was by far the toughest part of the song to cover. Once those chords were figured out, I damn near felt in the clear. So finally, late January during a day that school was canceled because of heavy snow and ice, I turned the studio on in the morning and ended up recording the full instrumental by lunch time. I was hyped up because I had just purchased a new snare drum a week or two prior and wanted to utilize it for this particular recording session. To be honest, it was the new snare’s sound that helped shape and mold the direction and recreation of this song… I’m not really sure how I can explain that, but I’ll try my best. If you understand the abilities and the full working potential of a NEW instrument, not only will your ideas be enhanced, but production doors will fly open for you. Picking up that new piece of equipment and demoing it during the recording process allowed me to take another risk or two with my drum playing that I probably wouldn’t have been pleased with otherwise. This is why I usually have NO problem with investing in studio equipment. More sounds = more ideas = more risks being taken in the studio.

Another interesting part about recording a cover is finding the correct vocalist for the song. We were looking for a male vocalist  who could match the feel and the tone of the original joint. With Eric Tagg singing in a naturally higher register with a warm tone, there was only ONE kat who was even mentioned or thought about for this piece… Eric Roberson. Phonte who at the time had just finished recording a joint for Erro’s upcoming album Mr. Nice Guy, reached back out to him for my album. From what I remember, it didn’t take him long at ALL to turn the vocals around. But in the meantime, Phonte took the time to the hooks down, which gave the song new life in itself so when I finally heard Erro’s vocals on it, my instrumental sounded like a totally different joint. I hit Phonte up like, “Ayo… This is IT.” Just for good measure, instead of duplicating the guitar/synth solos in the original song, we decided to change it up just a bit and run guitar/trumpet solos back-to-back. Frequent +FE collaborator and live band guitarist Chris Boerner was called on once again to perform the guitar solo, which he took full advantage of by showing no mercy in the eight bars of space he was allotted. Mr. Johnny-On-the-Spot himself, trumpeter Stan Graham who can also be found on “Take Off the Blues,” “If I Could Tell You No,” and “Flight of the Blackbyrd” competed the solo package by adding his own melodic stamp, which opened up the feeling of the song even further. It’s amazing just how much appreciation you gain for certain pieces of music once you try to recreate it… “Marzipan” was a perfect example. I can’t listen to this song without completely reliving its creative process…

Studio Campfire Stories: “Let It Go” (feat. Nicholas Ryan Gant)

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I can remember being reintroduced to the original song by Pages back in the summer of 2009 when Questlove tweeted it one day saying that he currently had the joint on repeat. From there, hell… I had it on repeat. The joint is yet ANOTHER reason why I could give a damn about a “genre.” Because if you look at a picture of Pages, there’s no way you would think that they created the many soul-infused gems that they did. But I remember tweeting Questlove back and my man DJ Brainchild catching what I wrote and letting me know to check their albums out as well… So I ended up grabbing three of their albums including their self-titled joint that was released in 1978. Fast forward to 2011 to yet another phone conversation between Phonte and I where we were discussing song ideas… “Let It Go” came up. My first response came in the form of words spoken by the legendary Negro Physician, Dr. Dre, “HEY-ELL yeeeah.” 

As a listener, I felt it was gonna be VERY important to try and recapture the warmth of that 70’s recorded instrumentation from the original record. I could tell that the updating was going to begin with the drums… So once again, I started recording and programming the drums first, along with a live hi-hat and a cabasa pattern that mimicked the “Zimba-Ku” drum break. Once I heard the drums fully recorded, I couldn’t WAIT to lay the rest of the song. (I actually video recorded myself laying down the live bass on the record, which I’ll be sure to post later on…) The keys were the hardest to pick up on because I couldn’t hear them too well in certain places, Pages’ mix had those chords tucked real well in some spots. The FUN parts were the synth solos, particularly in the middle of the song where it breaks down… there are a few layering techniques I used to manipulate it sonically to where it is now. It was one of those solos where if I messed up while recording it, I wasn’t mad because it was fun as hell to play anyway!

Of course once the music was finished, we had to figure out who was going to sing in this high ass register provided to us by the Pages brothers… especially those hooks! At first we thought of two vocalists, one to sing the verses and the other to sing the hooks… but one of the vocalists we were going to ask to do it was on extended vocal rest. To make sure he remained healthy and continued to improve, Phonte brought up Nicholas Ryan Gant. Now, I met Nicholas right around the time I moved out to Maryland in 2006 as he was singing background for Muhsinah. The thing is, I didn’t realize how extremely vocally talented he was until maybe last year when he came on stage with us as The Foreign Exchange was performing “Maybe She’ll Dream Of Me” in NYC at BB King’s in October. Man look…. I don’t even think Nicholas understands how talented Nicholas is. He was killin’ on stage… We exchanged numbers very soon after that impromptu performance. lol Needless to say, when Phonte brought him up… I was all for it. He sent Nicholas the music and we waited…. In the meantime, Phonte hit me up with the “check your email” text… UH oh. I checked the joint…. and Tay has laid some background vocals on it, now the song is slowly starting to come to life. The part that was getting me was “Let cha!! …Love GO!!”  ……”Whoa-whooooa …whoaaaaawhooaaoooooo!!” I was like, “YO!! This shit is CRAZY!” With all that going on, I still wasn’t quite prepared for what was sent to me about one week later. When I finally got the demoed full vocal version from Nicholas,  I was sitting in my classroom at the end of the school day and was forced to grab some student headphones to plug into my phone just so I was able listen right then and there. When I heard all of what was going on vocally, my only response was, “The hell is this kat DOING?! …..DAMN!! (followed by an additional array of colorful curse words and phrases)” The harmonies were on point, the dude’s runs were precise and not overdone and the original was still in tact. I called Phonte after about three listens and didn’t say much at all.  Phonte responds to me by saying, “Man, he bodied that shit…” Uhh… Yeah, I agree. I actually sat in the studio and soloed a couple parts of his vocals so I could appreciate all of what he did to the song. There’s actually one vocal part that I didn’t even catch until later… The top of the third verse, listen closely to what happens… “There’s no need to explaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaaaain…” Nicholas takes the word “explain” and proceeds to drop the note  three times… I didn’t catch it for a month. It may not be a big deal to him or to other kats who can “saing”… But I tried it (while alone, of course), and I sounded like an idiot…. The brotha is talented and I’m glad he got down and did his thing on the album as there aren’t many who can do what he does. 


Sidenote: This was the first song completed for the album…


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“Laughing At Your Plans” (from Dear Friends: An Evening With The Foreign Exchange)

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Clip taken from the upcoming live acoustic CD/DVD “Dear Friends: An Evening With The Foreign Exchange”, available June 28 2011 on +FE Music. Directed and edited by John Elliot Gray.

Source: Parallellogram · Directed by John Elliott Gray

Recorded and filmed live at SoundPure Studios in Durham NC on February 20 2011

Phonte: Vocals – Nicolay: Acoustic guitar – Jeanne Jolly: Vocals – Sy Smith: vocals – Zo!: grand piano – Chris Boerner: Acoustic guitar – Kush El-Amin: Acoustic bass guitar – Tim Scott Jr.: Drums

The Foreign Exchange 2011 ‘Authenticity’ April/May Tour Schedule

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Looks like kats will be back on that road in the next couple of months. Check the schedule and see if we’re coming to your area…


Friday, April 22 – Falls Church, VA – State Theatre
Thursday, May 5 – Chicago – Double Door
Friday, May 6 – Indianapolis – Athenaeum Theatre
Saturday, May 7 – Cleveland – The Grog Shop
Sunday, May 8 – Detroit – Magic Stick
Tuesday, May 10 – Lexington – Cosmic Charlie’s
Thursday, May 12 – Columbus, OH – Scarlet & Grey
Thursday, May 19 – Philadelphia – World Cafe Live
Friday, May 20 – Pittsburgh – August Wilson Center
Saturday, May 21 – Baltimore – 8X10
Sunday, May 22 – Richmond, VA – Alley Katz

The Foreign Exchange in Europe: Day 5 – Köln

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I’ll be completely honest, I was mad as hell when my cell phone alarm went off to wake me up in the morning because in true “Zo! on the FE European Tour” fashion, I only got 2 or 3 hours of sleep and fell asleep laughing at random nignorance on YouTube. Why?… Because the wi-fi was free of course! Anyway, I started the day off with a breakfast of repeat champions – A croissant and apple juice (taken from the venue’s backstage area the night before) which looked like what I called a “grown man’s juice box.” For the record, every croissant I had in France was absolutely ridiculous. I was looking to see if there was some jelly or something…Didn’t need it, those joints melted when eaten.

We finally got on the road around noon for the four-hour drive to Köln. Now anyone who knows me understands that I have somewhat of an obsession with all things food, so you may be able to imagine how excited I was to discover the fact that Schweppes made other flavors of pop (<– Midwest shiff) outside of ginger ale. At our first stop, I picked up a salad and a LEMON flavored Schweppes and damn if it didn’t taste delicious!! Little things make my day, so please just bare with me.

Our SECOND stop on the road landed us somewhere in Belgium. When we pulled up, the rest stop didn’t even look like it was open for business. There were a few cars scattered here and there throughout the parking area and more trash than actual trash cans. Once we walked up to the place, the doors slid open automatically and there were a few people already sitting down enjoying a meal. Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at what was on the menu in the spot… while there wasn’t too much of a menu, they did have a very interesting variety of food choices spread out in the display case… Including grizzly. 

I wasn’t feeling daring enough to take a risk on such a wide variety of mystery meat, so I went over to the vending machine and bought a Kit Kat, which seemed pretty safe to me…. Until I bit into it. I think it had been in the vending machine since the “…Break me offa piece of that Kit Kat bar” commercials… The joint tasted like chocolate covered wood chips. But I ate it anyway… Hell, what can I say I was hungry. We got back on the road and it was amazing to me to cross the border into Germany and see the language on the signs change instantly from French to German in the matter of a few… meters. We don’t get to see things like that crossing from Maryland into Virginia… I mean, the driving may get a little worse, but no primary language change. lol And when I lived in Michigan, we used to have to go through a series of personal questions and show off 28 qualifying credentials before getting to cross the border and seeing something different in Canada. So to simply drive into a different country uninterrupted was a different experience for me.

Pulling up to the venue (Bahnhof Ehrenfeld), we were all looking pretty confused… “Is this it? Is this the place?” It must be… This is where the navigation system directed us to and GPS is always correct and accurate, right?…………….. (no) The GPS was actually correct this time and we were able to walk right into the spot and begin to soundcheck, which took all of about an hour and a half… we were there for a minute. At this point, all I wanted was some food and some wi-fi. I was in luck… Soon after soundchecking, the promoter took us to our green room area, which was across the street from the venue itself… hmmm, now this is different. A green room across the street from the venue? I was told that not only did they have free wi-fi, but they were planning to feed us pretty well for dinner. I’m ON IT!! Kats got into the green room and started plugging in laptops, connecting the net to their phones like some damn fiends… That lasted until they brought that food out – Turkey schnitzel (I was on the net by this time and Googled it so I was completely aware of what I was about to show no mercy on LOL), rice, curry sauce, and potatoes with roasted tomatoes, onions, etc… Maaaaaaan, look. This was the best meal we’ve had on the trip, PERIOD. I would have taken a picture of the food, but I wasn’t even THINKING about it at the time, I wanted to eat immediately. And dammit, Germany came through on the food. I partook in a second……. and a third helping of this wonderful food, I just couldn’t let it go to waste as it looked so lonely in the serving trays. At that point, it was time to turn around and check-in to the hotel where we had about an hour to get ready before having to roll right back to the venue.

We walked into the venue and the entire crowd of people was waiting in the bar area of the place rather than by the stage. I remember thinking, “Damn.. that’s different.” Once we arrived backstage, the people began to file into the main stage area. The one thing that stands out to me about the stage was that it was much higher than normal, but once again when the music started… the height of the stage and the language barrier didn’t really matter too much at all. This was also The Foreign Exchange’s first show in Germany so it didn’t take the crowd long to get into what we were playing. Plus, it was the fourth show on the tour so by this time we were so locked in musically that our comfort levels allowed us to become much more loose on stage. At one time, I thought I was about to pass out laughing as Phonte introduced the crowd to one of the crew’s inside jokes…comedy in its purest form. Germany rocked with us though and there was a group of kats who stood right up front in the middle that knew damn near ALL of the words. They were with us all the way to “Maybe She’ll Dream of Me” when the damn house sound went out COMPLETELY. Not good after a 90-minute soundcheck huh?… It finally kicked back in after about the first verse… :-/ The show concluded with the crowd calling us to come back out for an encore and of course us going into the crowd to greet everyone who came out. Germany showed a ton of love and made it known to me that they were very grateful to have us there performing. And to prove how small this world is – I even ran into a dude who played college baseball at Vanderbilt almost the same time I was in school and we played against each other from 1997 – 2000. We started reminiscing on the WKU vs. Vandy matchup, the stadiums, and I made SURE to bring up the fact that I hit a grand slam off of them to contribute to our victory over them when we played them at home my sophomore year. lol Great times in Germany…

Photo by Jumana Mensah


Now, onto some rest and relaxation in Amsterdam!!

The Foreign Exchange in Europe: Day 4 – Paris

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I was completely unable to get any type of sleep on the Jr. twin beds at the Backstage Hotel, so I ended up waking up at about 6am and just staying up to take advantage of the lovely free wi-fi provided by the hotel. I went down to the lobby area to put some breakfast together, which was cool because if you were “with the band” you were allowed to just go into the kitchen and help ya damn self straight outta the refrigerator. Talk about making yourself feel at home… Lobby call was not too long after that, so I gathered my bags and carried them down the hotel’s steep, narrow ass steps and grabbed a seat in the lobby to wait. Now allow me to explain something real quick… when traveling with nine people at a time with luggage, it is ALWAYS an adventure. “Say it with me one time” © Dilla… Ad-ven-ture. And today was no exception…

The rental car place in Amsterdam would not allow us to rent a second car due to some credit card issue. Ok, cool… Let’s get someone else out whose card matched their driver’s license information or whatever the problem is so we can all roll out. NO, not that easy. We went through this process with a couple different people before finally being able to find someone whose information agreed with their system. Let’s keep in mind that the rental spot was 25 minutes away from the hotel. So every time we had to try a new person’s card, there was another 25-minute commute involved each way AND the place closed at 1pm… See? Adventurous. Anyway, we were finally able to get our hands on the two cars and were Paris-bound at about 2pm, which means we should make it to the city at around 6/6:30pm, hit sound check, check in to the hotel, play the show, right? …Now what word did I ask you to remember earlier?
Once again, due to my lack of sleeping in the kid sized bed at the hotel, I was pretty much DONE in the car ride to Paris. I woke up when we stopped for food, but other than that it was pretty much a wrap for me in the front seat of that car. This means that the majority of the drive was nonexistent… But I do know this, the last time I woke up, the clock read 7:45pm and we were in some THICK traffic. I’m talking about the opening scene of Office Space-type of traffic. It was then that I finally realized, “Oh shit… I’m in Paris!” I immediately pulled my camera out and started snapping pictures from the car. I wasn’t sure what time the show was, but I thought we were still in pretty good shape despite the fact that we lost a couple of hours as a direct result of the city’s bumper-to-bumper issues. This wasn’t the case either. We were gonna have to get into serious rush mode as soon as the car came to a complete stop… Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of this until the car came to a complete stop. lol
Upon our arrival, I could see the line of people waiting to get into the venue. The good thing was they looked pretty excited to see us pull up. But we had to take everything we had into the spot because the traffic set us so far back time-wise that we were only allotted enough time to do a quick line check, change clothes, and play the show. So we rushed through a soundcheck, changed clothes (I snacked on a croissant or two backstage in the meantime, which were the BEST I’ve ever had in my life… LAWD!!), and were prepared to hit the stage…
Now when I tell y’all that the Paris crowd was hype as hell…. MAN. From start to finish, they were READY for a show and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever played in front of a crowd that enthusiastic before. They were into it from the minute we set foot on the stage… Dancing, screaming, chanting, yelling our names out all during the show… It was beyond crazy. At one point in the show, they had a “Sy Smeet!! Sy Smeet!! Sy Smeet!!” chant going (That’s my horrible attempt at a French accent saying “Sy Smith” for those of you who may be a bit lost there). Despite being pressed for time, the crowd hung with us through every single song.. and they partied. We were called back out after the show for an encore and we gave them “Crazy You” off of the …just visiting too album just so they could have their fair share of some “Sy Smeet.” But then, they were even more excited when we walked back out into the crowd after the show to greet everyone. It was an excellent feeling once again to be a witness to those whose lives you have touched with music, there aren’t any words to describe what I was feeling while talking with the Paris crowd.
While the show was an absolute success, what is the word that we cannot escape while on the road? Ahhh, yes… of course – Adventure. Someone told us that the hotel was “only 150 meters” from the venue. Of course after hearing that and the fact that there was no parking available around the hotel, we all decided to walk it on over to the hotel. Maaaaan, about a mile and a half later with luggage and a steady rain in our faces, we finally made it to our destination! At least the hotel had free wi-fi once we got there, along with room keys that were attached to damn door handles. What a night… Well, no sleep tonight and it’s off to Germany!

The Foreign Exchange In Europe: Day 3 – Amsterdam

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Still on a high from the the first London show, I was damn near about to stay up all night until we were to meet up in the lobby and get ready to hit the train from London to our next stop… Amsterdam. I did actually end up falling asleep, but only for a couple of hours. Woke back up, threw my things in the suitcase and prepared myself for a train ride. I wasn’t aware that we were to catch a second train in Brussels, which was no problem, but the connection was made interesting because there was about a ten minute window between trains. We were given fair warning while we traveled on the first train, so as soon as the ride was complete, we knew we needed to hop up, unload luggage for nine and hurry up to that second train. And this is exactly what happened… We were all by the luggage racks before the train even came to a complete stop. Once it halted, we opened that door, two people stepped outside to receive bags as a few of us stayed inside to pass them down. After making sure everyone’s bag was accounted for, the pace went from leisurely walk to swiftwalk/powerjog. As we walked up, the train was about 2 minutes away from it’s equivalent to “All Aboard!” call. Thank GOD our first train arrived approximately 7 minutes early, or else we would have been a bit short. But we made it and all was good… well, kinda. We got our seats and because of my lack of sleep the night before, I was knocked OUT. When I woke up, everyone who was sitting near me was gone. I saw no Phonte, I saw no Ab… and my heart skipped about three beats and lack of sleep turned into the absence of logic, “These kats LEFT me in Europe!” But then I looked up and happened to see Nicolay and figured that I was still good to go… but I was still kind of curious as to why kats just got up and left their seats like that. Fatigue overtook my curiosity at the time, and I fell right back to sleep. I woke up again and found that we weren’t in Amsterdam yet, but I do remember smelling something a little funny. I looked around a little bit, didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and laid my head back for more sleep. Finally, upon making it to our destination, the only thing I wanted to do was put something in my stomach. So I grabbed a quick sandwich, chips, and Vitamin Water at the station before we caught a couple of cabs to the venue, Paradiso. While waiting for the two cabs, Phonte and Ab started telling me why they changed their seats so abruptly.

“Maaaan, you were OUT on that train so you didn’t even see what happened!”

I’m standing there in suspense, like… “Can y’all please tell me what the hell happened on that train ride?”

“Man, this girl hurled on the train! She threw up on herself AND her friend!”

Oh damn… I KNEW something smelled like vomit, but I was so tired that as long as none was touching me I was good in my seat with my sleep. Needless to say, I didn’t feel too far out of the loop by missing someone throwing up on the train… So thank goodness for catching up on sleep.


I heard before the show that Paradiso was a large venue, and kats weren’t lying. We had a TON of space on that stage to maneuver and I’m not exactly sure how many people the place holds, but I could tell that it was significantly bigger than Cargo. It actually kind of reminded me somewhat of NYC’s Highline Ballroom.

Photo by Sarah Jane Van Beek


Once the show began, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Amsterdam crowd. They were definitely there in numbers, but it took them a second to warm up. But once they did, I saw a ton of people dancing around and having a great time. It’s always interesting to me when I see kats who speak a different language able to recite lyrics to a song WORD FOR WORD. I LOVE that. I was checking for it all night long because up until then I had never seen it happen first hand – further proof that music is the universal language. Holland partied with us, sang with us, and even laughed with us when we improvised on stage (i.e. the Gospel-influenced “Pay My Bills” joint). And the people were friendly as hell when I came back out to greet – including a kat who approached me and said that he traveled from Italy to see the show. Dude was all smiles and so excited. The fact that he didn’t speak or understand too much English made it even more of an experience for me. Our music and performance had just made his night and what a helluva thing to be able to do. To bring that much joy to someone that you can barely communicate with?! Music is POWERFUL. I also had the pleasure of meeting Nicolay’s family who came out there about 20 deep, including his mother, father, siblings and cousins… very good people. I was also able to get up with a good friend of mine who I used to teach with in D.C. who now lives in Amsterdam. Now that was a good feeling to be able to meet up six time zones away from home. Bottom line: The Amsterdam show was a WIN.


Of course the “Post-Game Meal” was in order after the show. So our homegirl Pay pointed us in the right direction through the square where there was a spot called Wok To Walk. Maaaaan, you talk about a damn food victory?! Phonte, Ab, and myself picked that menu up and ordered with enthusiasm in our voices (Ab had already visited the spot already, so kats were thoroughly excited about the place already). When dude called our first names individually to come up and get our plates, kats hit the George Jefferson speedwalk while waving one hand behind us to get this food. Wok To Walk officially provided me with my first satisfying meal of the European Tour.


From there we retreated back to our hotel… The Backstage Hotel. With a name like that, it was pretty obvious that they catered to bands, artists, etc. The place was dope design-wise. It had a ton of different old show promotion posters up, guitars on the walls… Even the rooms were furnished with road-ready travel case material. It was kinda crazy. And free wi-fi too?! This has is too good to be true!! Well, it was… Once again, I was in a bed that didn’t fit my body. Matter of fact, it was smaller than the London hotel bed. I was so afraid that I would fall off of the damn bed and get stuck in BETWEEN the two beds. Luckily that didn’t happen though… Up late again until we’re off to the next city.