Mixed and Mastered
Mixed and Mastered is the podcast where the untold stories of the music industry come to life. Hosted by Jeffrey Sledge, a veteran music executive and former VP of A&R at Atlantic Records and Jive Records, each episode dives deep into the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of the people shaping the sound of today. From label executives and producers to artists, songwriters, and managers, Jeffrey brings you behind the scenes to meet the minds driving the industry forward. There’s a gap in the marketplace for these voices, and Mixed and Mastered is here to fill it—one conversation at a time. Because the best stories are told by those who lived them.
Mixed and Mastered
Grace Harry
This week, Jeffrey Sledge sits down with the incomparable Grace Harry—creative executive, joy strategist, and a true behind-the-scenes force in the music industry.
From her early days in Brooklyn to her evolution from chef to artist marketer to founder, Grace shares an unfiltered look at her career, her creative collaborations, and the personal growth that shaped it all. They swap wild stories from iconic photo shoots, reflect on the evolution of music marketing, and talk candidly about the pressures of working with high-profile artists.
More than a career retrospective, this episode dives into identity, joy, intimacy, and the deep emotional work behind the scenes of success.
This is Mixed and Mastered with Grace Harry.
Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio, and hosted by music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to the discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @MixedandMasteredPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://mixedandmasteredpod.buzzsprout.com/
This week on Mixed and Mastered, I'm talking with Grace Harry, former MCA Records, jive Records and Def Jam Records. Executive owner of Box Fresh Productions, artist manager and joy strategist. She's worked with Tribe Called Quest, usher, jay-z, kanye West and Questlove, guiding their careers and reshaping modern music. Now Grace helps creators reconnect with purpose and protect their joy. Grace is all about the work and the energy behind the artist. This is Mixed and Mastered with Grace Harry. Welcome to Mixed and Mastered, a podcast where the stories of the music industry come to life. I'm Jeffrey Sledge, bringing you real conversations with the people who have shaped the sound of music. We're pulling back the curtain on what it takes to make it in the music business. These are the stories you won't hear anywhere else, told by the people who live them. This is Mixed and Mastered Hello, mixed and Mastered with a longtime friend I haven't seen in a long time. I'm very happy to see her today. Grace Harry, how are you, grace?
Speaker 2:I am so good and I'm so happy to be here. Thank you, you look great. You look great, you look amazing. Thank you. Thank you, you have a glow about you. You always did, but you do even more now.
Speaker 1:Thank you, you look great.
Speaker 2:You look great, you look amazing. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:You have a glow about you. You always did, but you do even more now.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is so fun because it's so rare to be on someone you know. We've been in a business where you know people for a long time.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So I've been on so much podcasts with Toray and Angie and different people. Not Angie Angie's podcast, but she was on mine, which is exciting. But this is a whole other thing, because I can honestly say I have been in the music industry from the beginning, alongside you. That's a whole different conversation. It's a whole different energy.
Speaker 1:What I was noticing is, when I was researching for the show, I kept finding stuff from a certain point in your career, moving forward, like you know, with the book and and then and I was like, no, I want to talk about the stuff way before. So we're going to do that today. We're going to do that today, so let's start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Staten Island by accident. My mother was a teenager and she was I always the story somehow. I get it wrong every time according to my mother, but somehow she was visiting another pregnant person and got pregnant, got, went into labor there. So I was born in Staten Island Hospital and then raised in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:You're raised in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2:Have to quickly go to raise in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Very important, exactly, exactly. You know, I will say this before we move forward. I will always like I see you are very brooklyn to me and I don't know if anybody sees that I'm like, let's see brooklyn girl, but I think people have a stereotype of what they think a brooklyn girl is, whereas it's obviously very variations of a brooklyn girl. To me you are very Brooklyn and I think sometimes people kind of get confused. I'm like, if you know Brooklyn girls, then you just that's what they are.
Speaker 2:I also think that Brooklyn has, you know, if now that we're at the senior age, right, and we're the elders.
Speaker 2:I can see very much talking to different people from different cultures about what a Brooklyn girl is Like. I have some friends who have Russian Polish immigrant grandparents and that's a very at that time. You know what I mean. Or people who are from Brooklyn, people who moved to Brooklyn, people who've gentrified Brooklyn. So I think it's a confusion, with each generation, of what is the heart and soul of the place that makes you who you are yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me your first um what got you into music yes, I mean just as a kid, like what you're listening to it and what you know was your mom playing records at house. Or like what was it that got you? You know?
Speaker 2:so my parents were teenagers so there were always teenagers around. So I don't remember a house without music. It just never was a thing. And even to this day I literally make playlists for the shower and playlists for sleeping and playlists for when people are over and playlists for when I'm cooking. So I always remember music.
Speaker 2:But some of the early moments that really excited me about embodying music, living in music, making a career out of music which I had no idea what that even was a thing. But I remember my mother coming home with a Spinner's album and it was a double album and they were in perforation and you had to pierce them and make like a mobile and it blew my mind. Or the Grease album that was a double and it was. You know those things. Or early movies my mother we used to go to Brooklyn Law School had free movie nights so we could afford that. So we would go and see whatever was playing there and I remember seeing movies like Quadrophenia or Pink Floyd, the Wall, or movies that were the whiz, movies that were so embedded in the music was the movie.
Speaker 2:And those things just blew my mind, and so I've always loved that connection to there's something that you hear but there's an experience around hearing, and so that's where it got me. And then, years later, working as a chef, I was hanging out a lot in the music. In like that time, the music industry wasn't a music industry. If you were into music or arts of any kind, there was a place you hung out, so you would, as you know, you go to a Danceteria or a Mars or a Reggae Lounge or a Payday or you know these clubs. It was a range of people all who were into this concept. So I remember there was this guy named Dante Ross Not was.
Speaker 1:He's still a guy Good guy.
Speaker 2:A good friend, A good friend of all of ours. He was a waiter at this restaurant called Tortilla Flats and it was on Washington. You remember this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't remember he was the waiter there, but I remember the picture of Tortilla Flats Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And for some reason he still dated all my friends. My friend Jenna Hoffman was dating him for a moment. My friend Erica Kennedy was no, yeah, it was like he went through a million of my friends. And when he was dating Erica we went out one night, took a picture of the three of us me, erica and Leslie and he had it on his wall. And this group that he newly signed, de La Soul, was in there with a friend of theirs who wasn't signed yet, named Q-Tip.
Speaker 2:And then I went out to a party like a couple of days later and met Riddler and Russell with Dante and then met Paz and Q-Tip and Africa all together at once and we just became instant friends. And I used to date this guy named Eves, who's good friends with Dante, and so Dante told Tip oh no, she's not available. We had been broken up forever, but he was very like you know. So we were all hanging out and I just started spending a lot more time. You know, being a chef, my hours are a little different, so I could go out at night and not be up early.
Speaker 2:I think I was 17 at the time and I just started spending a lot of time with all of these people. I met Andre Harrell and all these different people and I learned that this collective that was forming the Native Tongues. They were different because they were taking from a background that was more suburban but they also were taking from a background that was closer to my actual background. And being a mixed person in the 70s was hard because everybody wanted you to decide. I remember it was like a big thing when you meet people, do you like rock or disco?
Speaker 2:And you had to choose no-transcript. I mean, I had no idea. And then doing the cover and and hanging out and being a part of all that in the first video and and then kind of, if you look at all those albums, they all ambiguously say thank you, grace gracie henry not because I did anything official, but because I was so a part of, like widening this musical opportunity for our voice and we're gonna go back okay go back a little bit so we're gonna.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, you bring up dante. He's on my list of people to get on this show. Um, he's a really good friend of mine.
Speaker 2:I'd be loving some Dante.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's funny because you know like this era you're talking about. He always says I was a really good-looking kid. I was a really good-looking kid. I was dating all the models. I was a really good-looking kid.
Speaker 2:He was. He was a really good-looking kid.
Speaker 1:He was, yeah, but he was like this downtown New York. It's interesting. Timothee Chalamet, who's obviously having a moment, I'm like that's Dante, that's Albie, that's a New York kid. But if you don't know New York kids, you won't understand that. He's not new, that's right, he's not new, and I don't say that to disrespect him because he's dope new, that's right, he's not new and I don't I don't say that as disrespect him Cause he's dope. I'm a fan of his work. I'm like that kid's been around since the sixties. You guys just didn't know, you know. But anyway, let's talk about the chef thing. I want to talk about that Cause I think that's very interesting.
Speaker 2:The last season. Yeah, I was 19.
Speaker 1:So tell me about how that happened.
Speaker 2:So my mother moved to Haiti when I was 17. Okay, and I freaked out and I was dating this kid. It's actually funny. I'm in the home right now of my good friend that I met in high school, when I was cutting school, to visit my boyfriend. She went to Stuyvesant, like he did, and his mother, sophia, was instrumental in my life. I was a skinhead. I was hanging out at CBGBs. I was just a mess. I was coming from Brooklyn to Manhattan by going into the subway vent and, like finding the path, I figured out which one they could open up. Right near CBGBs Cuckoo kit, jumping turnstiles, hanging out with a graffiti artist and train yards, like doing whatever you know yeah, and um, so I was.
Speaker 2:My mother was newly moved. Oh no, I don't think she moved yet. I think she hadn't moved yet, unless he be jeebies. I go and I meet alex and he seemed fine and then I went to his house. He lived on top of the quad theater on 13th street and I was obsessed with her his mother like I'd never met a woman like that. She was creative and interesting and she was a chef. So I started working with her and getting work all over the place. So it really came. You know, I knew how to cook from being a young person. Me and my mother were both just young people together and then I realized I could do that and my mother moved to Haiti. Finally, I dropped out of 10th grade because now I had to work and I had to pay bills. So I got an apartment on Thompson Street, between Spring and Prince. It was $210 a month.
Speaker 1:My grandmother had you got an apartment worth now, you bet. You wonder, oh my.
Speaker 2:God beyond. It was a mess. I had like a crack through the thing. Almost all the native tongues at one point have stayed there because I was between all the recording studios.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're right, there there were readers, or?
Speaker 2:yeah, daylar, everyone, moni stayed there for months. Everybody would come and stay there, wow. So when my mother moved and Alex and I broke up and I had to kind of figure things out, all I had really in my repertoire was cooking. So I started to give myself to every single catering company because I could work all the time and I started ghost chefing like some fancy person on the upper east side was going to do thanksgiving but wasn't going to really cook it.
Speaker 1:That became my thing, and then I met this woman. That was a thing. Oh yeah, people do. I didn't know that so much anymore.
Speaker 2:We're a little more honest about we. It's kind of cool to not know how to do shit, but in those days you like failed as a wife or as a like a society woman or whatever the hell was. So I'd often was hired to come in stealth life with like one assistant to prep and make a meal and then go out the back, go out the servants quarters and like let them do their thing, so when the I found a, so my name norma darden, who's a black woman, amazing, who started a catering company called spoon bread and and I started working with her a lot.
Speaker 2:So the Cosby show came to her and she was like I don't know, I can't do that. And so she insisted I go for the interview. And I just was like there's no way I'm going to get that job. There's no way. So I had to do a series of interviews and then I had to cook for the cast and the team and I got the job. It was amazing. It changed my life and still have great friends in my life Malcolm, jamal Warner's one, and just amazing opportunity.
Speaker 2:You were a kid, I was a kid but it was great because I knew I didn't want to cook anymore after that. It was very intense and so I walked around the set to figure out what else I could do with no education. And that got me to. I mean, I won't say it sounds rude, but it got me into an actual, proper job in the music industry.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what was your first job in the music industry?
Speaker 2:So I mean people would disagree. Q-tip has a different because he has lots of feelings about me being in the music industry at all. But I was asked at that time to.
Speaker 2:At the time I wanted to figure out how to just get in there and do some of the creative things that I did, but I didn't know even what an internship was so I called andre harrell and I asked him if he knew the person did publicity because, as I walked around and watched everyone's role in the cosby show, that seemed like something maybe I could do. And um, he introduced me this woman named paula batson who ran. You know, they were a JV. Uptown, records.
Speaker 2:So the head of publicity was Paula Batson, and so my first official job, even though I feel like I did a lot of stuff with you all and tried was an intern at MCA Records, wow, and Andre thought I was crazy. He's like you're going to give up. And I had my own catering company at the same time. Remember Caramu Catering? Yeah, I remember company at the same time. Remember caramu catering? Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, so I gave up all that.
Speaker 1:He was like you're crazy to do that. Yeah, because you know andre was on that fly shit. He's like, yeah, you would cause me, so like you, you fly. Yeah I could see him yeah, I, I know that's what he. That's how he talked. I could see him saying that, like what did you talk about this? He was disgusted.
Speaker 2:He was literally disgusted. Best decision I made one of the best decisions so you were interns in publicity at mca.
Speaker 1:Who and who did you uh? Who did you oversee at that point? Well, work with at that point who was my boss?
Speaker 2:no, you're an artist with artists yeah, so you know, mca at the time is massive. So I worked with everyone from Eric B and Rakim to Guy, to Bobby Brown, to Elton John, jodeci, mary J Blige Wow, because all of them used the publicity department. They didn't have a publicity department.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like a central thing. For the people who are listening that don't know. Mca eventually turned into Universal Music Group over the years. Eventually turned into Universal Music Group over the years. So understand that. That's the company that we're talking about and the size of the company that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was interesting because you know this boggles my mind. But nobody got a distribution company. I talked about this many times, but so all of them at one point. So Uni Distribution was distributed all of the MCA, uptown, everything. I remember a funny story once we had a little sexual issue in the office and we had to do a workshop and my particular workshop, Puffy and Heavy, were in the workshop because now Shelby Mead left, she went to Electra, so the shell became coordinator and I became an official assistant.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I moved all over from chef, but yeah, so I became a chef of the Cosby show. From that experience working with Norman Jean Darden at Spoonbread and learning how to cook through Sophia.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. So you became an assistant. So that was your first like kind of official on the books job at music. What did you? What did you think about it being this? You know, this new thing?
Speaker 2:Well, because I was I. I was this grace who just wanted to be wanted by anyone. I just would go above and beyond. So you know my catering background. All of a sudden, before I know it, I'm manning the, their first grammy party they're doing at the door and I started doing so many more things. I started doing, actually, they started sending me out to do press days for up-and uptown artists like Mary and Jodeci and Shy. It was on MCA. And I learned so much that when Barry called me and was, like what are you doing? Like wait, you're MC. Like what are you doing there? Why don't you come to publicity here? Like I don't, we have my God.
Speaker 1:I'm blanking Leslie Leslie. God bless her.
Speaker 2:So have my god, I'm blanking leslie, a lovely girl, just come, just so. I was like fine, and then miguel tried to offer me a job at columbia at the same time and barry was not having it, and so he was like, made up some tour manager position and the fucking first story puts me on this tribe and and souls of mission, that's all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still in touch.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously I still. I'm still talking to Ali sometimes and I'm still in touch with a couple of Souls guys too. I love that. Jay and Domino. Yeah, you know, just say what's up, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I love that I talked to Tip last a week ago.
Speaker 1:You haven't talked to him in a minute. I need to reach out.
Speaker 2:He's in a really good place.
Speaker 1:Good, good him some stuff, so I need to reach out to him.
Speaker 2:um, I miss that dude wait, so okay, so you come to jive and you're working with leslie uh doing publicity, and how do you like it? I?
Speaker 1:fucking hated it. You took the. I said how do you like it? Oh my god love her. She's a genius yes, she passed away. She's a great person but complicated so then he puts me with.
Speaker 2:He puts me a dual role with larry khan and that guy who ran verity a jazzy jordan?
Speaker 1:no, was it jazzy? Yes. Who passed away recently too? I did not know that. Yeah, he passed away.
Speaker 2:He passed away like last year, last year, oh, I'm so sorry so I, being spoiled, brat a jive because, barry, just I could do no wrong. And remember, I came in with, I came with an artist like kind of.
Speaker 4:I didn't know any of that then.
Speaker 2:So I was such a brat that I then they he said, okay, two shorts coming out, and I went and did a whole bunch of research and I was like, uh, this is going to be hard, but I was so about it and also loved, I love him you know how much I love him, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I was like I'm going to figure this out and I went and I went on the weekend and we didn't have internet, so I just did all this research and went to the library and looked at old records and I found a heavy metal magazine and then I found like all these old black light images of like women as astrology but like all busty and stuff, and I realized I couldn't put him with live women to start because he doesn't interact, really todd with them not that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1:In a weird way it's interesting because too short is. Has this, you know, pimpish, this pimp persona, and I'm not saying he doesn't, you know, like women and gay women, because he does, but it's not what you think. Like you said, it's not. It's not what you think he ain't like come here. It's not that at all. He's very respectful.
Speaker 2:It was confusing to me at first. I was like and then I went to visit him in the house, anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I decided I did my own thing and found an artist that I eventually brought to the art department to draw me too short and all these women as the astrology signs and make a special green vinyl, do those things. So I bring it to my two bosses and they were like this is terrible. I lost my shit. By the way, larry is love he's, you know julia is still my dear friend. He's in my life.
Speaker 2:It was amazing, but I was being a brat. Of course I go right to barry, and then barry loved it. So he was like who do you want to work for? And I was like janet kleinbaum in my mind. I was like she, so spoiled in there. But it was great because what I ended up doing was realizing that the hip hop world was being squished again. Because it's a conversation, right, it was born to be a revolutionary conversation in our communities with the tools we had, and now all of a sudden it's rising up to this incredible space where the record labels want to bring them in, but they're trying to apply their old tools.
Speaker 2:So I'm watching them want to make these videos and it was looking like hodgepodge because it'd be like someone creating a video and someone doing an album package and someone doing a single. And I said to one day. I said to barry, I was like you know, if you want to be a competitive brand, you got to do the way that the advertising agencies do it. Where you create a campaign, everything has to be the tenets of one campaign because otherwise it's confusing to a consumer If they're not being fed like who does this the best? You think of Diana Ross or Madonna? It's like Rihanna they are creating. Or Britney.
Speaker 2:When we got to that phase, like the album cycle, everything spoke that the font, what they ate, is it a popsicle versus an ice cream? Like the details. We're telling a story. We're telling a story for you to feel the music. And he really bought that hook, line and sinker and allowed me to just come up with what I wanted and even figure out the name of it. And then janet was like it had to. I wanted to call it something else, but she wanted to call it artist marketing.
Speaker 1:So I was like great, so great, so I started doing this. Do you remember?
Speaker 2:What did I want to? I bet Janet does Cause she mentioned the last time I talked to her Okay, I can't remember, but it was something more like cause. What it really was was how are we signing people and having A&R bring passionate people to us that they feel are stars, and then we're not even going to take their lead? And I'm not saying they knew what to do, but they at least knew what to do to make us feel a way to bring them in. So all I wanted to do was start from the beginning.
Speaker 2:And if it was a new artist and I did this throughout my entire career, all the way, jay-z, mariah, everyone where, when we had our first meeting, it was the first meeting of bringing you back to the beginning Like, why did you even want to be an artist? What did you feel, what it looked like the first time you saw yourself on the stage? What did you wear? Like, bring me who's your favorite artist, who's the first person who ever made you feel like you could do this? So I started doing that and doing that with, and starting with the A&R people and having them bring me in the studio when ready so that I could come back in the company and say you know, we, you and I this is kind of also what you and I did together, because you- naturally.
Speaker 2:Well, I was speaking to Aaliyah, whatever at the time, and their vision is this. So let's come back to them with how we're going to match that vision, not like I once saw a video for this group, aha, and it was so cool. So now let's pin it on R Kelly, like that's what was happening. Yeah, and so that was really. I hated it. No-transcript. Huge boobs and he was like this video is great and I was like ding, ding, ding, so literally I'd be in edits for years after and I'd be, like, put some tits up front so you can just get that out of the way.
Speaker 2:and then and I remember telling you that too oh my God.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:That fucking lyric I always ask this question a little later. I'm going to ask it again. But I always ask people like give me a crazy story. And I'm going to hedge this one because I know you remember we did a video excuse me, a photo shoot for Too Short. He had an album called you Nasty, you remember this, and you hired one girl who was an actual porn star and another girl who wasn't a porn star but was really pretty and, I guess, into women, and I didn't tell her boyfriend I don't know if you remember this and her boyfriend came to the set and you made them. You didn't make them, I'm sorry. Let me change that. We had them all stripped naked, including Too Short, and that was the photo on the album cover. Too Short has no clothes on and we have a pillow over itself because you couldn't see it.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be sexy again.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah, that was a crazy photo shoot. I'll tell you a story of what happened off camera. Yeah, that was a wild photo. I know what happened off camera, oh okay, but I remember the girl's boyfriend got pissed off and he left. He was like you better leave now. But she was like, no, I want to do this. And he left.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, what happened was it was the age of just backing up to that. I had just a bad experience recently with one of our a-list artists where all of a sudden everybody wanted these video models video vixens, whatever we called it at the time and I did a shoot and I had to negotiate and spend all this money on this girl and she was so much work and rude, mean and like it was treacherous, and so that same video the artist was upset. So we had a day one shoot. The next day I was like, let me go to strip club, Let me just check it out.
Speaker 2:So I went to strip club and I got bottle service. I sat in the front and I just started talking to a bunch of girls and I was like they were so chill and easy and already naked and not that I needed everyone to be naked, but I needed them to be naked, meaning that they weren't coming in with their artistic career and trying to fight and battle with what the artists want. They would actually be hired and do the thing and have a good attitude. So I really started to do that almost everywhere and even up until the end with Usher when he did that song, that Luke song I'm kidding. I was important to me that we've got actual strippers and not did some MTV video thing where we had some girls dance but like be in, like give back a little bit, and so it's always been my thing.
Speaker 2:And that comes with a complicated price, because often they're not the most therapized and they're not in communities with the most therapized, and we've had a lot of situations. Remember Akanele? Oh, I had a crazy Akanele. Oh, my god, don't even get me started.
Speaker 1:I'll let you tell that story, then we'll move on. You know he owns King of Diamonds. He owns a strip club now called King of Diamonds in Vegas.
Speaker 2:It's like a massive strip club you know, I've been there and I didn't even know that he owns that please do you talk to him.
Speaker 1:I'm about to talk to, somebody else talks to. I forget what someone else who still talks to them told me and I was like I can, let he owns that you know we have we got along so well, actually strangely remember we just yeah. Yeah, he was a nut job, but I liked him nut job.
Speaker 4:I loved him too and we'll be right back ready to launch your podcast. Merrick studios offers comprehensive services, from concept development and seamless production to strategic marketing and monetization. Let your story take the mic. Visit MerrickCreativecom slash studios and let's get to work.
Speaker 3:Master the art of lyricism with Pendulum Inc. The first school for rap. Learn elite techniques through immersive lessons, real world exercises and guidance from hip hop icons. This is where MCs sharpen their skills and glow boldly on the mic. Ready to level up, Visit PendulumInccom and start your journey today.
Speaker 4:And now back to our show, so wait.
Speaker 1:so you said when did you go after you left Jive?
Speaker 2:So remember we got a tip off wink wink not from Barry that they're about to sell, and because Jive was so cheap, I would go every year and drum up interest from other people so that I could have an offer to get a promotion every year.
Speaker 2:And so this I got a call from this lady. Fuck, I can't remember her name. I loved her and I loved working for her. She was a head of marketing. I can't remember her name. She left quickly after and then I'm having like a senior moment after that. What's his name? Anyway, no, she was at MCA Records.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay In LA, okay Okay.
Speaker 2:Now MCA is different, because now MCA is rolling up into, because it's universal. What's his name? French, who runs all of it Kidding. What's his name? French, who runs all of it Kitting? It's Nicky Kitting.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'm blanking, not Bronfman.
Speaker 2:No, french, I also really like him. Anyway, he's still the head of Universal. Oh, lucian Grinch. Thank you, lucian. What is wrong with me today? Lucian Love him. So he rolled it up, and so now Jimmy is essentially over Geffen and MCA.
Speaker 2:Yes, I remember that, so they want to keep the team, and now they have all these art departments. They're looking for someone to come and do what I have done and now kind of gets famous for, which is rolling art and video together and making one community and then looking at everyone they have and deciding like who's going?
Speaker 2:to be this new super team. Have and deciding like who's going to be this new super team. So they brought me in to look at the geffen and mca departments in art and video and run them as is until I can make an assessment of the situation okay and so I went and did that and loved it I loved it.
Speaker 2:And then I worked with those people that I'd known for years but never worked with, like now all of a sudden I'm working with roots and common and most deaf who I knew already but never worked with them and snoop and blink 182, and like the list goes on. Interesting artists, but it was a shit show. I'm working for jordan sheer and poly anthony poly anthony, wow. And I did this video for talib pauli, called get by, and we had I'm sorry I going to digress here, cause this is and so he says to me oh, we have this producer that did this, that did the track, who I want to be in the video, so create this video. I get to the train tracks on 125th I think, and we're going to shoot up there and this kid rolls up with like a suit on acting crazy Kanye, and we had this whole thing, we acting crazy kanye, and we had this whole thing. We got along, okay.
Speaker 2:Three weeks later, here comes rashid coming, kanye's gonna direct my videos. So we get into this whole conversation. First I think it was one was go, with cassie in it. Really cassie was in go. That was a whole nother conversation because she was dating ryan at the time, and and then the other one was Go and another one One was in Chicago and one was like on a set.
Speaker 2:So he comes up with this whole idea and it's great, but then he comes to set and wants to strike everything. So I tell him hell, no, that's not going down. This is not your budget, it's his budget. I had to beg and scrap for the budget I've got. It's not happening. So he called polly anthony and I called him immediately, was like don't ever call my parents again. I would never do that to you. If you have an issue, you hit me directly. I didn't give a fuck and we've been, we got on great from there, but it was just like the beginning days of all. That just brings me to like, oh, my early kanye, and then later on to work with him as an artist years later, but he definitely was feeling himself. Then he wanted Cassie, insisting we have Cassie. It was so hard to get her. I had to get, like, permission from Ryan. Then she crossed hands in the middle with someone else's girlfriend, so then that person got involved. I want to bring it up on here because I don't want to get involved.
Speaker 1:Okay, you don't have to mess, it was such it was so crazy, but yeah, I went there and I really loved it. Did you move to LA or were you still living in New York at this time?
Speaker 2:So I tried to move to LA for a short period of time because I was going to run the department both. And then I was newly. I was divorced. I was separated now for three years from my first husband, rene, and we were getting along great. But now I'm dating someone else, I'm going to get married, and so Renee freaked out and we went to court and I had to come back instantly and work, work both, and I tried to quit and just do my own thing. But they told me I could bring in a number two. So I hired this girl named Ciara Pardo. Amazing, she became my right hand. I trained her and she was really there and I would go every freaking Wednesday, had to fly to LA for the senior staff meeting, the marketing meeting, and then, come, the tsa knew me, it was every week I hope you got to keep the points.
Speaker 1:What oh you got to keep the points?
Speaker 2:I know of course I got a lot of points good and yeah, I left there. I started my own production company and, with bashley and anthony mandler and taj and all these people, was helping photographers and directors build their own careers so now, what year is this about?
Speaker 1:when you started the production company? You know, like a roundabout.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say like 2002. Yeah, Because, I ended up doing all this Island Def Jam Mercury had all these new artists that somehow found us. We were doing all these Rihanna and I was starting all these killers videos and that's how LA came to me about coming to IDJ later on. It must have been around 2002.
Speaker 1:I forget who I interviewed on here. I forget who it was. We talked about that era and how that era has spawned so much that's happening now. Those people like Avastie, who had Santos Playhouse and all the things she had going on as an example, and all the people that were in that place are now so big in like fashion, like I said, in movies and TV and obviously music and, you see, like Rihanna and Rocky, and like they were just kids like hanging out, and now they've become like these megastars.
Speaker 1:It's a very interesting place Megastars now they've become like these uh, mega stars. It's a very interesting place, mega stars, very interesting um era in new york city.
Speaker 2:It was great and I feel like it goes back to a lot of what I was saying earlier. It's that now music is so big which is wonderful, all kinds it's become so genre'd, whereas at that time in new york art was art. So if you were a basquiat, if you were a Basquiat, if you were, you know, a Futura, if?
Speaker 2:you were a Johnson, if you were a Jeff right, you were a graffiti artist or a breakdancer or any of these things. Everyone was in the same place, so it was easy to create. I remember once sneaking in as like a 13, some crazy to the mudroom and see this club and it was like Tribeca wasn't a thing, it was dangerous down there, it was all factories.
Speaker 1:I told people all the time Tribeca and the Meatpacking District were terrible, terrible places. It was horrible.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I saw Grace Jones in a jello wrestling. That's how it was down there at the time. There was payday hotel Amazon. You had to know someone to text you. It was like you couldn't advertise it. So I think it spawned a time because there's so much imagination, creativity all happening in pods where it was all done. It was baked the movie. Where you were in the club, there was this artist, someone's drawing on a napkin, someone's performing. Then you're going outside and someone's going to break dance. It was all happening around you.
Speaker 1:Like a Fab Five, freddy world. Everywhere you went, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It's everywhere you went. It's like somebody asked you to tomorrow I'm shooting a movie. Come by and you, like you go to a movie set and it's like it was just so much going on, like you said. But if you had to be in that circle, but if you were in that circle, it was so much happening in that circle and I remember um trying to convey that a lot of times at work and that they couldn't, they didn't understand what I was talking about. I'm like you just because if you didn't, you didn't really even think it was probably real. It's like because he's just bugging out, he don't really know what he's talking about, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. And then, years later, I'd be in a senior staff meeting and someone would be like well, this weekend I was in the streets and I was like the streets in Scarstown. The streets, what street? Because that's the point, no-transcript, You're not in the zeitgeist of what's making the sound, the art, the film. Have that thing.
Speaker 1:You managed Vashti. You said Anthony Mandel, I didn't manage them.
Speaker 2:I started a production company to build their careers and help them get jobs manage them.
Speaker 1:I started a production company to build their careers and help them. They were assigned to your production company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, box first pictures and then even when I went to island after mercury, I took vashti with me and ciara also and anthony mandler has gone on to be a huge director and you know it was really fun. I that's something that I love the most. My daughter and my son always complain like I met this person they're like your mom changed my life. Like that's sparking people and you and I share that like helping people figure out their passion yeah, I mean, that's a, that's my drug.
Speaker 2:I think that's why I got on with the native tongues early too, because that's all I wanted to do is like you and you, you and you make a thing, you make a thing, you do a thing, do a record together.
Speaker 1:He should, he should shoot the radio and yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me about, um, uh, going to def jam with la how that came about thank you because I've always wanted to say so.
Speaker 2:I am now having this production company. I'm loving it. I have a house in woodstock. I'm pretty much there thursday to monday if the kids are not in school driving them, I'm just. I'm being my perfect hippie self. I've got my garden. I'm like I'm good. I don't want to ever work at a record label again, right. So now we've done our third Rihanna video and like our second or third Killers video, so you're rolling, you're rolling, you're rolling. We're doing so well as a company.
Speaker 1:Which Rihanna videos did you do?
Speaker 2:Unfaithful, many unfaithful, many unfaithful is the first one that came up, but we did a bunch and um, I get this call from jeff, jeff. Uh, jeff burroughs, of course, jeff burroughs I was at la reed's house in the hamptons you know, la that sounds like girls. I don't know la reed because I don't go to white parties in chair like I pour my kids out by never being able to go to anything. So I don't't actually know.
Speaker 1:I'm picking radishes bro up in Wistock. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm at the PTA, I'm like, oh and at work, and you know me, I go to work 8 am. Yeah, I play my music and my team go in.
Speaker 1:I'm like leaving at the thing.
Speaker 2:So LA is like I need you on my team and I'm like that sounds amazing, but I'm not team available right now. I've got my production company Thank you very much, you're funding it very well. But if you want, I'm helping you find someone. And he was like not having it. So, like six of these calls later, I finally have a meeting with him. I try to convince him again. Like let me help you find someone. He's like no, I want you. And I explained. I explained.
Speaker 2:I was like well, here's how I work. Like I couldn't even come in for the role you want, which I think is the head of the art department. That's what he was offering at the time. I was like what I do is this and I explain what I do and I've trained a lot of people to do that now and I only work with people who can do everything. Like if I, when I went to mca geffen, like it was my thing that if you were in video or art, you had to learn at the end how to be a full creative director to do it all, because you weren't leaving my watch not being able to actually be viable in the world, because nowhere else is there not a cohesive, creative department at any other company. You know it's not. It's not.
Speaker 2:So he was like, yes, so I hit. So I had an attorney at the time, jennifer Justice, who I love, but I knew that I had to advocate for myself big in this moment. So I found out who Elaine's attorney was, which is Kenny Maisalis, and I reached out to Kenny Maisalis and I said this is what I'm trying to do. I want to make an offer. I want to put an offer on the table that's so obnoxious that they're going to say no, but yet not obviously so obnoxious. It's not somewhere in the realm of other deals. I don't want you to tell me anyone's deal, but guide me here. He said absolutely, and so I gave them this, this, this offer that I would take the job. If I roll the departments together, I get this much time off. I have like everything I wanted. And they said yes, everything. So I prayed and I was like, all right, god, I guess you're telling me what no pushback.
Speaker 2:Zero. This is probably the last year of these two. I have to say, you know, can I?
Speaker 1:tell you a quick story, please. I just uh boo acon's brother my good friend yeah, yeah, of course, he's a good, great, great dude he came by jive one day, just random.
Speaker 1:I don't even know why he was. I think he was dead because he was working with t-pain at the time. And he came by and we all just started. You know, we go, you start talking. It's like aiding the in the office and you know somebody walks in. Oh, he started talking and boo told me the exact same story he said when, when la wanted him to come to death jam and boo was like I'm just gonna ask him for like something crazy.
Speaker 1:And he said yes, and boo was like he said yes yeah, and if he wants you, he wants you and it's no, nothing's gonna stop him from getting you, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God nothing.
Speaker 2:And because I actually complained to Barry about this once. I was laughing. Jive is like working at Stanford or MIT, like we're efficient but we're not a scene, we're not cutthroat. Even when there's an issue, it's like a little issue. I walked in that first day. It was literally like the scene of the Mean Girls movie where they're all walking in Like it was nuts in there. I've never experienced Like if you weren't hot you wouldn't even be able to go in LA's office. Sometimes it was so fucked. My second, my first week, I get an email from someone that we both know.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to out them. This woman was marketing for Rockefeller at the time.
Speaker 2:Ok, ok, rockefeller at the time.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Send me an email. All caps she puts on the head of Def Jam, Jay-Z. The head of Def Jam, the chairman, LA, and Steve Bartels and me on this email about Jay's video. All caps, like trying to like shit on me, Like you don't understand and you think, and you, this DP, like she was tearing me a new asshole. And I remember sitting there week one like I should never have taken this job. Why the hell did I come here? And then I was like I'm gonna handle this way I handle things. So, instead of like I don't know the different, ways I could handle it.
Speaker 2:I was like, got it. I sent her back an email everyone on it thank you so much for your passion. I love a company that is so on fire for their artists that they'll send a very complicated word and I think in the future since your office is literally less than 100 feet from mine that you and I, as genius, creative women, can handle things in the future without our two presidents and a chairman in every email. I'm praying that. I'm praying that's something like that Crazy. At that moment. I'm praying, that's something like that Crazy. At that moment, I heard footsteps running to my door and Jay was like yo, I've never seen anyone.
Speaker 2:So it was hard, it was a lot, it was challenging. Like I come into life very kumbaya, you know like, yeah, I like working as a collective, I love everyone, and it was primed I'm not even shitting on her. It was a prime situation to like beat each other's throats Like it was set up to be fucked up and I lost a dear friend who took his life while I worked there and I it was literally the way it was handled that made him go where he's going Like I watched the demise of a human and other humans hand made him go where he's going. Like I watched the demise of a human and other humans hand. And when, when he took his life, I called in and said I think we need to address the company and was shut down Like he's weak. And after that I checked out and I was never going to be part of the company. How long were you there? Three and a half years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, wow, wow Well.
Speaker 2:Three and a half years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, wow, wow. Well, give me one spicy story about, besides the one you just told, which was great about you and the girl. Give me another spicy story about one of the artists or something I know you got a million of them.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I have so many.
Speaker 1:Whatever?
Speaker 2:For some reason this has come to mind, and if it's not spicy enough, I'll give you another one. But we used to have these mandatory things at our boss's house in the Hamptons and we had one now honoring an artist I think it was honoring Mariah and somebody whose name you mentioned earlier, who was not part of the label but was invited came to the party with trays of baked infused brownies baked infused brownies and I remember I was in the bathroom and I said to them be careful where you put that, because the caterers are here, they're going to put that into the thing, and my second husband my friends used to call wet blanket, and so I was having no fun and I was not going to partake in any of that anyway, because in those days I was really trying to be a good wife and so I didn't do anything and so I was just so tired of wet blanket.
Speaker 2:by that point I was like let's go home and we're going to drive home. I get calls three hours later from like Shakir, karen Kwok, like everyone, that apparently everyone ate these brownies. Not knowing artists were lying on the floor, according to Dave Massey, who I love, dave Massey, he said one artist, who remained nameless, was like in the fetal position, like's happening to me, people naked running down the road. And I was like, thank you, wet blanket, because of your boring ass, I didn't do any of these things.
Speaker 1:I didn't smoke, I didn't do anything, and now I'm going home to watch TV but there are so many spicy stories.
Speaker 2:I mean that place was so much fun. It was treacherous but fun, like, for example, every time Jermaine did a showcase we were in Atlanta. He's got that stripper thing set up in his room. Then we always have like a free meeting at the strip club and then we'd go somewhere else and it was just like always an adventure and everyone was fucking fun. I don't know why.
Speaker 1:I'm curs christian's place today everyone was so fun like when they were on the road. Artist, you guys had amazing.
Speaker 2:Your roster was insanity insane and I loved everyone. We had some people. Here's some fun stories. La at one point decides that every single person he's ever loved should get a new record deal. So now, all of a sudden I'm sitting in front of terry lewis and you know I have nothing but respect for anyone that comes up for me. So I've been prepped by la to tell him all these things that he has to do and I'm like luckily we love each other. But then three weeks later I get kenny baby face in front of me same thing. And then la is like tell kenny what he used to do to modernize all these things. And I'm just in there like, oh my god, and I had to like really have some crazy conversations with a fellow aries, kenny, which is not, we're not easy but also we just we love.
Speaker 2:We fell in love like I love him so much. But that whole process was so hard. Like I'd give a suggestion he'd get pissed, he'd call la, la would call me. He'd have to fake that he was upset that I have to go such a mess um things like that. All the time we were shooting the kingdom come video, jay-z's comeback. We were in monaco and then all of a sudden there was this crazy storm. We had to stay another two weeks and end up being just like day after day of, like Jay and his new girlfriend Bea and Trey Wap and Margo and Chaka Pilgrim and all of us like eating these, and Tata, who I'm obsessed with. And he did these amazing meals.
Speaker 2:Strategizing this video for days looking at this.
Speaker 4:In Monaco.
Speaker 2:In Monaco, like just amazing things and then really fun things, like I loved working with you know, like just some interesting younger artists that we had and doing the things that we did in our early days, which I think is what you and I are acclaimed to fame like it was very important to you and I that when artists came out that we represented where they were from, organically, authentically them, their people, why we signed them and I was able to kind of bring where I wasn't really able to do that so much in my mca geffen days.
Speaker 2:I was able to really come back to that for a lot of the rock nation roster and a lot of the new artists and there were so many a and r people there and they understood that when I got passionate I would go Like to digress. I had this project that Mos Def was putting out called the N Word, and he had no budget. So I stalked this huge photographer, peggy Sirota, and did this amazing. Just got Sue's rendezvous to do a video shoot set up for almost for free. So that passion now I'm known for. So it was fun having all these young A&R people from KP to Jermaine to I can keep going coming in like trying to sell me.
Speaker 2:Boo was an intern, not Sterling, but the A&R Ray Romulus, like all these young, super talented yeah creative people coming in, like wanting me to get their person, like sitting with them and really figuring out what. And even my first meeting with rihanna it was after sos and she started complaining that, like some people, remain nameless. We're not wanting her to wear red lipstick, not wanting her to be herself and we're putting her in a box.
Speaker 2:And I said to her one line I was like well, every superstar I've ever worked with, never listened to anyone but themselves, and the first project we did together was good girl, gone bad. So stuff, stuff like that, and like I was all for, like she kept saying Ellie's gonna fire you and I was like great, let's do this Like and we have so much fun like pushing the edges. And that brought me back to my childhood of like, blondie and you know, even like the Wow Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow. Lead singer Annabelle. Shor was so ahead of her time. But women who push the edges, and so it was so much fun to do that. Those kind of things. I could go on and on and on so what now which after?
Speaker 1:was that your last industry job?
Speaker 2:uh, def Jam correct so what had happened was this everyone was so obsessed with artists at that place that's the one thing we signed Janet Jackson and different people and Mariah and I ended up doing a lot of projects that weren't so fun and I was just starting to get tired, and my team now, because I was talking so much, it grew and I was now the EVP of creative marketing and digital and I really had no business doing marketing at all because I really didn't know it. I'm not good at that. You have to be a very detail-oriented person, but I could. Also. I hired karen veezy and some other people, but by that point, maybe I wasn't fucking the right people, so everything I did started to be bad. So now I'm in these marketing meetings where I'm getting slaughtered by la like it was brutal.
Speaker 2:I've heard about those meetings look literally like slaughtered, and so I was getting sick and tired of it. I'd had some complicated things where people had crossed the boundaries with me in ways that were not okay.
Speaker 2:So I was already pissed, and then my love Shakir was like battling a lot of stuff. The way he was being handled was disgusting. So when he took his life, I had some very strongly worded conversations and I was out and at the same time there was this artist who, whatever, but he brought in this kid, he'd signed and this kid was 14. His name was Justin Bieber. So, and he brought this manager, scooter Braun, and I wasn't going to just trick out money. This is not the 90s. Like I didn't operate that way. The way I operate with all new artists.
Speaker 2:as you know is, I'm going to take a tiny budget. I'm going to do some small things and see where we go. So I wanted to do a video and a photo shoot for Justin Bieber to see what he needed. Did he need training? Does he need whatever? And Usher was furious and was battling me about it, and I think Scooter was more open to kind of this, justin was signed to Usher at this time, correct? And signed now to Island Def Jam.
Speaker 1:Mercury To Def Jam. Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I think to Island actually Okay, to Island Mercury. But I think the Island actually Okay, the Island Mercury. But I ran the creative for all Island Def Jam and Mercury group Mm-hmm. When that whole thing happened I started working very closely with Scooter and Usher and Usher's career was not going so well at the time. It was post-Tamika. He made a lot of stances. He was a little bit ahead of his time in that now it is so cool to be about a relationship. Then it wasn't. He was a heartthrob. It was weird. He did that weird TRL thing and he kept asking me to help him and I was like I have a contract, I cannot be helping you. You know, and frankly I'm not a fan.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not. I know I like two songs. He I pod at the moment I had two songs on there love in the club and you got a bad. It was it. And but then when Shakir passed, I took, I said to him and CR, and I cause, cause, at one point Rihanna was blowing up and she really needed dedication and there was a lot of people who had the Chris lady thing where I only talked to the head, which I'm not about that. Talk to her as the best person. So I had mariah and jay and janet and kanye. It was a lot.
Speaker 2:At the same time, I think that's a lot so I introduced rihanna and ciara and there's a girl the girl who was doing the justin bieber stuff, um gabrielle schwartz, and I was like I think you two be the best rihanna team and put them together. So now me and ciara are going to form a company to work with Usher possibly Kanye in some conversations and Usher. So I started this little company, we started a company called Pyre and we started doing things with them, but I couldn't have imagined how much work that was going to be. So I was working with Lionel Rich maybe at the time and I met Randy who was his manager and he was bragging. He had another carve-out and I realized that what Janetta did with Usher at the time was try to bring his touring back to females and did the Fair Ladies Only tour.
Speaker 2:And that was wonderful in concept, but you know how touring is. So once you're a stadium or arena, if you go to theater, the promoters think you're theater. So I had this challenge now. So I brought Randy in and I was going to just kind of help, you know. And now brought Randy in and I was going to just kind of help, you know, and now there was some funny business happening. So I'm kind of like a girlfriend ish. So I was trying to just not be in the thick of it. And so Randy came in and that was fantastic, but it needed so much more. I just didn't know. I was so inexperienced I had no idea. I think not knowing really what management really needed was good for me at the time. And then I went into full management when Usher and Randy just imploded and that was hard, that was, and I I did a kick-ass job. I've told you I called Barry.
Speaker 2:Barry had always been a champion of mine and I called him about this opportunity and he shit all over my dream, like he's like no, you're not going to be a good manager, don't do this. And that fueled the shit out of me and I was like I'm gonna make this happen. And that changed his film business, got him in movies yeah the voice you know rearranged, helped him figure out how to start writing songs. Climax is the first song he really wrote the west and salon remy. And you know his style art philanthropy.
Speaker 1:Like I really worked the shit out of that for multiple years and really did a great, a great job at really reinventing him. Right so he would have stayed on that path previous to when you got involved. I don't. I doubt very seriously he'd be where he is now. I mean I'm not saying that from a vantage point.
Speaker 2:There were conceptual things that he had to change. You know humping the steering wheel. He hates when I talk about that and that's not bad. It's just that there's nothing in life that can stay the same. You know money is an issue. You know what People always wonder why Michael Jackson's hanging out with all these people in the least. But he didn't have a private business and you only can and I learned that from Lionel and the only way that you can have a private business is to have some pop things that someone wants a wedding or a thing and that sounds cheesy, but they're going to spend three million dollars alone for your fee for that and then that's going to afford you, when the grammys and the oscars and the superbowl is not paying a dime, you're not coming out of pocket.
Speaker 2:So I really wanted to build a real, an ecosystem that was sustainable forever. Um, so that, I consider, is my last label job, because it was horrible. I mean, I learned so much and I got to do some amazing fun ass shit around the world.
Speaker 4:I mean that I consider as my last label job because it was horrible.
Speaker 2:I mean I learned so much and I got to do some amazing fun ass shit around the world. I mean, you and I could have a whole talk. I got to do some wild ass shit, but it was just the hardest thing I've ever done including parenting. You know it's the family it was, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:It was a lot.
Speaker 2:And then I left there mentally, emotionally and physically broken and I was like I'm never going to do that again, I'm never going to neglect myself to that place in my life again, and I went on a journey of discovering myself for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And see how much, so much of the shit in the music industry that I thought was just par for the course was really terrible. Yeah, it is. It broke. A lot of us and you know you and I together we have so many adult friends have taken their life and I have a lot of friends who don't have that and I think there's a lot about what the music industry pushes, about your validity in the world based on these relationships, and I didn't have that part, but I definitely was so inside of all of it that I was a part of all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a lot, for so many people in the music industry, that becomes your personality, your personality, and it becomes who you are. Like I'm Jeffrey Sledge from Warner Brothers. I'm, you know, michael Thompson from Def Jam. It's like that becomes part of your name, almost when you're working and what you do. It's like if you say you lose a gig or something happens and you lose that, it's almost like people are like who am I? Because I'm not, I don't have my corporate card, I can't go to Monaco, I can't go to the video shoot, I can't go to a party at the Soul House. It becomes so ingrained into your life that when it's gone, people feel lost. People sacrifice families, people don't ever get married. A lot of women never have children because it's about the job first. And then you look up and it's like now I'm you know, no disrespect, I'm 55. And I have maybe some good money in the bank, but that's really it.
Speaker 4:And do you, because there's also this whole mentality like LA told us we had to look a certain way to be the C-suite.
Speaker 2:Like I had to wear heels, I had to look a certain way.
Speaker 4:I heard about that. People are spending money. I heard about that. People are spending money and also.
Speaker 2:I think too, it's like, thank God I had friends.
Speaker 2:Most of my friends to this day are friends I've had since I was a kid and you know amazing friends that I've amassed, like you, over the years, but we have a real bond of a real friendship. So many people think that you know, like Chase is your friend and maybe he is during the project, but if you're looking to call him after and you're, you're basing your value on that you're in trouble. You know it's funny you say that about women. When I first was in the music industry and I was at Jive, julia and I wanted to start a community for women who were starting out and I reached out to Polly Anthony, michelle Anthony, sylvia Rohn, a few people and I remember Sylvia saying all of them in different ways, but yeah, give up having a family, give up wanting to have a family. You got to really prove yourself as a woman and be 10 toes down and I was like, oh, I'm not going to make it in here.
Speaker 1:Then Cause I'm definitely having children.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely doing all these things.
Speaker 1:You're going to be a mom not just having children, but you're a mom Like. You're like a real mom.
Speaker 2:You have a kid and the child amazing. But what? That's what was being promoted to them exactly and that's what's trickling down to women.
Speaker 1:Now, like you're saying yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh, before we wrap, tell me a little about uh, joy strategist, you're, you're a joy strategist. Um, so tell me a little bit about that. It's how you came about, came to be, you've written a book.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:It's how you came about, came to be. You've written a book. Tell me about this phase of your life.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Well, first of all, I wrote a book. It's called the Joy Strategist. It's on Disney. I had a bidding war over the book. I didn't know that was even a possibility. The whole thing was surreal. But really it started for me years ago and, being a mother and having young parents, it gave me a wonderful opportunity to write this new script in a lot of ways Like, how do I want to parent? And I remember working with this life coach and she couldn't get me to get a lot of things about myself. And then she said you know what? The one area where you're doing the thing I want you to do is in parenting. And because no one can tell you anything about that, like there's no touching that and not that no one could tell me. I'm listening to people who older people have raised kids and I'm taking information, but no one is attacking my version of the way, the mastery of it, the way.
Speaker 2:I feel, and I realized that I wasn't doing that with myself, like I'd missed this amazing opportunity, alongside these children, to reinvent myself, to grow and expand past this pre-verbal story. I told myself when I was a baby, wanting to have love. Oh, you know what? They didn't pay attention when I did that cartwheel, but they really liked it when I made dinner, they really liked it when I brought the mail in. So I taught myself this hyper-vigilant caretaker person is love and just took that show on the road forever with partners, with co-workers, with everyone, and I'd never stopped to feel like what do I feel?
Speaker 2:I was getting divorced now the third time, happily, because I tried, I worked hard, hard, hard in all those relationships. But something's wrong here and I don't believe that anything is one-sided. There's nothing that anyone can do to you without some version of your permission and getting something out of it, even if it's horrible, you know. So I had to look at that part of myself that's not sitting here villainizing ushers being the downfall of my life, but like what did I sign up for? And it was sad what I saw. It was sad what I experienced for myself. And then I started talking about it with all my friends. No one could see it because we're all so committed to not seeing it. And so I really wrote this book for my own children, to talk about my kids right now. My daughter thinks I walk on water. She thinks I'm the best mom in the world.
Speaker 2:My son, he's got a lot of complaints, a lot, and I hear him and I hold both because they're both true, because that's his experience, that's her experience exactly and then I was like, oh, I've never allowed myself to have that experience of myself, so that was really important and it really helped me also shed spiritual egoism of wanting everyone to be a certain way or change. Remember, I used to try to fix everyone's office.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah oh, yeah, so now I just like.
Speaker 2:This is what worked for me and this is how I am, you know, know, I feel so good, I feel so alive, I feel so, but I've also the most under-resourced in my whole life. I'm the most like I'm not in a relationship. I mean, I'm in an intimate relationship but I'm not in a traditional marriage. But all of those things were making me move forward in a way of a life I built. That wasn't a true life for me. It was the life that I was supposed to build, based on the model of success that I thought was supposed to happen. And so now I do retreats and workshops. I do everything from couples work.
Speaker 2:I do a workshop called the Oracle of Oral, and it sounds really naughty and it's not really. It's more to understand that being intimate with anyone starts with using your voice and learning what you feel is good to you, what do you enjoy, and we can't even express that to each other. So how can we even be mad about someone not being an incredible partner or lover or whatever we're mad about? And then I do one called the Empire of Me, which is going back to Jeff Sledge from day one and saying let's redo this, let's start this from scratch. I started my process. I was swaddling myself, I started giving myself a bath during the pandemic and reading a book. Like I started just to go back and instead of wah, wah, wah about my parents, sort of to reintroduce the parenting to myself that I needed, and I went back and had a meal with each of my parents alone, like I'd never met them before and just tried to find the humanity and like where are we? Where do we? We relate?
Speaker 2:let me put down the story of what you didn't do 35 years ago realizing that everyone is an amateur parent the very first time everyone. So how can I approach this differently and not continue this family karma of my son hating me or my kids having an issue and they're just taking responsibility for that? So it's been fun, it's been hard. Pre-pandemic people laughed at me Joy, what yeah? Now people are like joy.
Speaker 1:I'm desperate for joy. I need it.
Speaker 2:I need it, but even more than that everyone's issue is our interpersonal relationship, so I've been doing a lot of joy work, more about intimacy than anything. Yeah, intimacy with yourself, honest with yourself, so it's been interesting.
Speaker 1:It's been interesting, ronnie. You know I tell people, I tell a lot of my friends now. You know, you see, you know pictures of your parents, you know at a party back in the day, or you know whatever a cookout, whatever it is, and I'm like yo, bro, like think about it, like now, now where we are now, we're probably like 15 to 20 years older than they were in this picture. They were kids, man, exactly, they were kids.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And I've thought about that a lot too. It's like they didn't know. They were like 20-something years old and they were trying to do this thing and, of course, making mistakes along the way because they didn't know, or a lot of them had bad examples. So you can't really like said, you can't be like, oh, my father did this and it's fucked up, my mother did this and she didn't. You know, they, she, they hopefully were trying the best they could and you know, they just didn't know. And now you look at them now it's like, oh yeah, they were like 23 in this picture and we always looked at them as old, but they were kids trying to figure it out, you know I also think that's important too.
Speaker 2:Like part of what I was saying of this, I was on the success model. We, till this day, live this, this idea of life, especially promoted by media, movies and things that were supposed to be on this happy trail. But actually the only true path to happiness is holding your shadow and your light at all times, and there's been a lot of things in my life that I'm not necessarily proud of. But I'm grateful because if I hadn't had that diamond moment like that forging or that cracking open, or that I wouldn't have the awareness to help me grow and expand, to really lean into the magic and joy I feel now. And so I've been really working to feel into things that feel amazing and things that don't feel amazing, and holding them both as magic.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, grace, this was fun.
Speaker 2:I know I talked your ear off. I'm like there's so much.
Speaker 1:You absolutely did not talk my ear off. You absolutely did not. You did what I wanted you to do. I wanted you to share your story. You didn't talk my ear off. We talked my ear off.
Speaker 2:We could do this for five hours I know, I was like oh, I just remember this story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but this was fun. I really had a good time.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Me too, I always love to see you.
Speaker 1:Always love you. You can catch Mixed and Mastered on Apple Podcasts, spotify, iheart or wherever you get your podcasts. Hit that follow button, leave a review and tell a friend I'm your host, jeffrey Sledge. Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios.
