Is it important for you to have always a click?
It's important for me to have people around with great energy.
You know, because it's one thing to have a click and it's one thing to have a click that's good for you.
You know, coming from where I come from usually your click, you know, y'all was getting into some crazy stuff.
But my click nowadays is all about, you know, amazing energy and uplifting one another.
I find that if you, you know, if you surround yourself with people that have good energy, that energy is transferable.
You know, if you surround yourself with people with negativity, you'll feel that same thing.
We wanted to meet you because when I listen to your music and I listen to what you say,
there is a part that you always put in the way you talk is the importance of the culture
and what are you doing for the kids in your city?
I grew up in Petersburg, Virginia, which is a very small town.
Born in 1984?
Yeah, 1984, November 28th. I just had 30 last year.
Happy birthday.
Thank you. It was about five months ago.
I don't need no more 30 birthdays. I have about eight of them.
They're too late.
Right.
So coming up in Petersburg, Virginia, you know, it was a lot of deprivation.
There's a lot of things that I didn't have access to.
You know, I didn't have playstations or Xboxes or any of that stuff.
We didn't even have cable, you know.
But I didn't realize that I was poor.
You know, I was surrounded by love.
And, you know, as I looked around and as you grow up, you start to understand things a little differently than when you were a child.
And I started to understand that where I was from was not the greatest place to attain success.
You know, from the schooling systems to just the way we were viewed by being from where I was from.
But, you know, this phrase lives with me that just because you're surrounded by mediocrity doesn't mean you have to be that.
And I kind of just put that thought process to real life.
And, you know, what we're doing now in my home city is we support single mothers in education very highly.
Because my mother was a single mother.
If it wasn't for my mother, I wouldn't have this thought process.
I wouldn't thought anything could happen being from Petersburg, Virginia.
There is something crazy about you.
You know, when I listen to your song on the club, they say, oh, do you know this artistry song?
You're like, do you know how much halibut we did?
Right.
And is it because you've been working a long time to do all this album before to have this worldwide success
that you know what does it mean to have success?
That's exactly why.
Now, whereas, though, I kind of took my career by the horns.
Like, this is what I want to do musically.
This is what I want to do image-wise.
This is what I want to do marketing-wise.
And having the struggle and having to fight for what it is that I believe in as far as the music that I make,
as far as the way I want to be perceived, not having instantaneous success, you know, that drives you.
And I think it all comes back even more so to where I'm from.
You know, I've been fighting since I was a young boy to prove my point.
You know what I mean?
I was always considered underdog just based on where I was from in my town.
So it's nothing new to me to have to work hard.
And having to work hard definitely makes me appreciate it so much more.
Is all this show business stuff and record label and success,
is it done from somebody who comes from where do you come from?
I think the initial shock when you're a young man coming into the music industry
is that you don't know much about politics and about, you know, schmoozing
and figuring out who you have to finesse and who you can keep a real with.
You know, because there are those lines.
And, you know, at the beginning of my career I was very much frustrated
and I wouldn't care anything about any of that.
And as I learned, you know, music is a business.
It's multi-million dollar, billion dollar business, you know.
That's a blessing to be a part of.
There can be something very special if you use, if you're tactful,
if you're thoughtful, if you're intelligent, as well as creative.
When we look at your Instagram, it's not only an artist's Instagram,
you always push other people.
Like you post this lady doing violin.
Or talent in different stuff.
Is it important for you to give back some strange to other people?
You know, there's so much talent out there
and there's so many people that are touched by the music I make.
So many people that follow my movement.
So when I found a way to create a marketing plan that involves
and includes the fan base, it's that much more fun.
Because we were posting these slow motion videos to promote my new singles.
Just funny stuff in slow motion.
All different type of emotions you feel from watching different things in slow motion.
And then we started the contest.
We started the contest where as though the fans could submit their own things
and it's just amazing what these people are doing.
So, you know, they find themselves on my page and they're being recognized
and people are following them and loving them for what they do as well.
So it feels good to be able to give that energy back to the people.
You did one with Nicki Minaj?
Yeah.
With hashtag S?
Yeah.
Slow motion.
I thought I was moving like...
You like that boy?
I like all of them.
Yeah, that was a good answer.
Tell me, she's one of your best friends?
No, I wouldn't say that.
We're great colleagues in the music business.
I've known Nicki about 10 years.
And we speak here and there.
And, you know, I check up on her by text in the beginning of our career
because we both kind of started stepping into another level of popularity and music at the same time.
She's reaching something that no female MC did before.
She went to MC to pop star, you know.
Back then it was Marilyn Monroe.
Right now it's Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj.
That's awesome, man.
How do you leave this transformation of the American society?
The lines are blurred.
You know, you have people in white America and all over the world who dream to be like these two girls
no matter what their parents listen to or no matter what they're taught.
You can't teach a young girl that no matter her color not to want to be like Beyoncé
because Beyoncé is everything.
Because Beyoncé dances her ass off.
She works her ass off.
She sings her ass off.
She's a great woman.
The same with Nicki.
You see, she's transcended the culture from lyricism to creativity to the stunts she pulls with clothes sometimes.
She's very, very thought out.
And they work the hardest.
I saw this interview with Larry King and you and Larry King was asking you about how much you were beautiful to him.
I was like, okay, something happened in America, you know.
Right.
There's something going on.
I think back then James Brown was singing, black is beautiful.
Right.
And right now Larry King is asking you how beautiful you are.
Well, next, how does a sex symbol?
I love that.
That's you, Larry.
That's you, baby.
And that's a beautiful thing.
In the same token, you know, you see a lot of things in America going on that what happened in the 60s.
So I won't say that we're, we've done a 180, whereas though everything's all right and everybody perceives everybody is beautiful.
Because there's still some hate that lies that we're trying to figure out, but love overpowers hate.
And once we, once we figure that out, you know, continue to continue to demonstrate that.
You got Larry King calling black beautiful.
He's been doing, he's been Larry King for 60 something years, you know what I mean?
And this is something that is awesome to see him interviewing the people that he is and just realizing that pop culture is not only a color anymore.
Pop culture was popular.
And before, you know, people was putting R&B outside the pop music.
It was different, you know.
Like right now, Miley Cyrus is doing R&B.
Right, but it's, it's considered pop because she's Miley Cyrus.
So it's not considered R&B.
Same with Sam Smith, same with Adele, same with Ed Sheeran.
They are doing R&B, but it's considered pop.
Yeah, but Mariah J. Blige or Black Street or actually did bigger, biggest hits?
Right, yeah.
In the 90s, in the 90s, and if you go even further back, Luther Van Dros had the number one record on the charts
and he could sell out Madison Square Garden four nights straight.
The problem I have with music nowadays is depending on the color of his skin, the music that you make is then put in a genre.
So it still matters the color of the skin?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because if I make a song called What's Best for You, that's a great R&B record.
It lives on the urban, dark contemporary charts.
It won't play on the mainstream, you know, and it's a smash there, but because radio is now not controlled by the DJs.
It's not controlled by feeling.
It's controlled by analytics.
It's controlled by people in positions of power that have the ability to change this, but they're scared.
Music is led by fear in a lot of ways and that's why the internet has the ability to do such incredible things because the internet doesn't lie.
Because when you give music to the people, they're going to tell you what they like.
But if you force feed them something and you tell them that this is what you should like, then that's going to happen too.
But it's interesting because I've had a million different types of records, but the records that achieve the most success are party records.
You know, records that will exist inside the club, which are the easiest records for me to make, the easiest records for me to forget, the easiest records for me to dispose of.
They're disposable songs to me.
And not to discredit myself and the music I make because I think it's relevant because it speaks to the time and what's happening.
It's just a popularity battle in a lot of cases and I think it's even still very political.
And the scary thing about it is you've got to walk fine lines to figure out what it is you do, where it is you fit.
Because I think as artists we all want to attain pop success.
As a brand, as a business, you want your business to be the biggest.
It can be no matter how humble you are, no matter how underground you are, we all want that success.
We all want that money too.
I'll let nobody tell you they don't want the money.
That's why you said that you're always a student in this business?
I'm always a student in this business and I'm always a student in life.
What is the greatest thing that you learned in the business these two years?
The greatest thing I've learned in the business? Ah, man.
Never get high on your own supply?
That's a good one.
I think you've got to get high on your own supply a little bit or you don't know how it tastes.
If you're cooking in there, you're going to smell it, you're going to get a little high.
You're going to know it's good for the customer.
But I'll say your relationships in business and in life are the most important.
Keep your relationships strong.
Here in Paris, when we are looking at the industry and how it's going in the US,
we have this TV show called Empire.
Do you watch it?
I watched four episodes.
The tour started and I wasn't able to catch up on the rest of it.
I think it's an interesting television show.
Can you explain to me why is it so addictive?
Because we know that everything is wrong.
I think it's addictive because it's the first show and some people love it to death
and some people praise it and in the same sentence they'll call it corny.
I think it's addictive because it's the first show on the biggest channel
giving you a piece of hip hop culture.
It's a television channel that has no shows like this.
It's a television channel that hasn't been known to do anything as bold and black.
She's the biggest success.
It proves that hip hop culture is pop.
No matter how many blurred lines are what people try to direct us to,
hip hop culture is what pop is.
I think people are addicted to the drama within it.
All the extras they put on top of it is very extravagant.
Lucius' office, I haven't seen an office like that in the music industry.
Jay-Z's office is nice and it ain't that.
You feel me?
I think it's so over the top that people are like, wow.
My favorite, I think Taraji does an amazing job.
I think she's the draw, she's the reason I watched it every week.
And I think it's an awesome show.
I think it'll only get better with this being the first season.
Could you be one of the extras in the next Empire season?
I don't know if it'll be an extra.
Okay, right sir.
We're going to sing with the world extra.
No, I'm French.
No, I know.
Could you go and sing with Lucius and Jamal and Akim?
I mean, you know, we can work something out.
I think it's a great show.
It's very interesting, the dynamic.
I think the writers do a great job given the most crazy situations.
Everything is crazy in that show.
I give kudos to the writers for going so far with it.
Being bold, not being scared and afraid of what people would think.
Because this could have been a big success or it could have been an even bigger failure.
And I think that's true with anything, anybody does.
Fear is the thing that kind of keeps everything in balance.
Fear, a little nerves.
I would like to talk about a song which is for me one of the best titles ever.
Which is I Invented Sex.
Girl you gon' think, girl you gon' think, girl you gon' think, girl you gon' think, girl you gon' think, you gon' think I invented sex.
Yeah.
Tell me how.
Well, the title is I Invented Sex, but the actual verbiage in the song is you gon' think I Invented Sex.
Which is too long of a title and not as impactful when it meets the eye.
The song is just suggesting that the evening will be so amazing.
Sparks will fly and you'll think I Invented Sex.
And this was a very much career-defining moment in my career, this song.
And it's very interesting because this song was leaked.
I still don't know to this day who actually leaked the record, but the leak of the record was actually one of the most beneficial things to my career.
You'll never guess that I was asked to rewrite the song.
I was asked to rewrite the chorus.
Me?
Yeah.
I won't say who asked me to do it because that's corny.
But I was asked to rewrite the chorus.
I had actually done it.
I actually recorded it.
I tried three different versions of a couple different things, but when the song was leaked, it started exploding up the charts without it.
So another song that leaked was Say I.
Which was the biggest record in my career at the time.
With Invented Sex being the most career-defining record and Say I being the battery behind that record's back.
It's just blowing up in the clubs.
It was just a moment in my career where because of records being leaked and the people speaking up and saying that we love this and records rising up the charts.
Because at the same time these records were growing, I was being asked to change them and these records were actually being questioned if they were hit.
So if they were the type of records I needed to be doing.
I was a hit.
Yeah, it's a big fucking hit.
Can you tell me about R. Kelly?
What you want to know?
No, I think that there is so many to know about him, but you know, he went on stage with you.
Can you tell me about R. Kelly?
This is actually the first time I'm speaking about that on camera.
There's so many different emotions for me, you know, being on stage with R. Kelly.
I perform with Jay-Z.
Because anybody that really knows me knows that Jay-Z and R. Kelly are my two biggest influences and I would say the modern age of music.
And my growing up being a teenager, listening to music, I idolized them both.
So the BP3 tour, every night I would sing Never Change with Jay-Z.
I would sing that as well.
And that would just be like every moment, night, it would be like time froze.
So here we are five years later after all that R. Kelly and I have been through.
And he's performing on stage and I'm just watching him and I'm actually singing backgrounds at some point.
And we hadn't spoke before he got on stage.
I hadn't talked to R. Kelly in months.
I saw him one time at a club in LA and we talked a couple times after that.
There were even talks of a tour at one point this time last year that we couldn't, the first time I said that too.
We couldn't really come to terms on making it happen.
So with all of this going on in my mind, you know, and R. Kelly being my favorite singer ever, I know probably every R. Kelly song.
And being able to see and perform.
Like the first time I ever saw him perform was at Michael Jordan's 50th birthday party.
And I didn't feel like, because R. Kelly, he didn't like me at that point.
Because I said some things that he didn't care to hear.
And even after apologizing, you know, I understood that.
But being able to see him do the songs that I love the most and, you know, after he was done performing he came over and hugged me.
And it just felt full circle.
Like I felt awesome.
And my momma was there to see it and she got pictures and she came backstage going crazy.
I got the pictures. I got the pictures. It's awesome.
It's a great moment, man.
Like I was genuinely happy in that moment just to be there and for him to bury the hatch, you know what I'm saying?
And did you talk after the show?
After the show, I had so much family back there.
Like Atlanta was crazy. Like after you left the stage, the hallways were literally cluttered with celebrities.
You know, in your career, you've worked with a lot of producers, like it makers.
Which is the most impressive that you've seen?
The most impressive producer I've ever seen is the first producer I've met.
Troy Till.
Who gave you this famous CD with a lot of songs.
Which was by Michael Jackson and didn't tell you what it was inside.
No, he wouldn't tell me who the singers were.
I loved rap.
Like my mother listened to a lot of different music, like a lot of different soul music.
But we didn't have like a CD player or anything, so she played the radio.
So I would know the songs that came on the radio.
I wouldn't really know the artists.
And I was a young boy, you know.
Young, hard-headed, fighting in school.
I get good grades, but always in trouble.
Just get my ass whooped by my mama and my daddy.
And when Troy gave me this music, like I was big in the rap.
I listened to JZ all the time, Biggie.
And I would know all the R&B songs that came on the radio, but I never viewed myself as a singer.
Until, you know, I was pushed that direction by my family.
And once Troy gave me this, he gave me this CD with so many...
It was a series of CDs.
Once he gave it to me, I'd just start studying music in a different light
and paying attention to different things.
And I've seen Troy do amazing things musically.
And because he's helped mold me into who I am musically, he's a piece of me musically.
So I'd definitely say he's probably the most genius I've seen in the studio.
What is the artist that, at this age, impressed you the most?
Was it Earth, Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael?
I gravitated a lot towards Mama Gay.
I loved everybody.
I loved Prince for his ability to be able to sing these deep, dark, low, baritone notes
and these high notes and just give so much...
Like, his songs were very visual, very abstract.
Stevie Wonder, his range, I can sing full voice way up there to be able to play the piano, play the drums
and see these lyrics, sing about these things you've never seen.
But Mama Gay just struck a chord with me because like his songs,
like you could tell they weren't just songs he wrote.
I think music in that time was so much more about what you feel than what success you'll have.
I applaud people like Kendrick and J. Cole, people that go against the grain of what's expected.
Because it's scary.
Back then it was scary. I'm sure it was scary for somebody like Mama Gay.
Even now it's more scary because everything is so such a facade.
People generate towards what's trendy versus what's real.
What would be the future? They're all talking about the future.
The beautiful thing about the future is nobody knows.
But what I think the future, I think music is coming back to is being real.
Because radio I think still plays such a huge part in superstardom.
I think labels as well.
There may be independent artists that are very successful, but there are.
There's no independent artist that's an international superstar you need to label.
I think that's one thing that has the possibility to change.
And I think radio has to take the power back and not only play the records that are expected to be huge from huge artists.
I think you have to listen to what it is that the fans are telling you.
Is it a clue for the next move of your career?
No. Next move of my career, baby. I'm on this tour right now. I go back to America.
You should invite Prince of Stevie Wonder on your next album.
I performed one time with Stevie Wonder. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.
He sang at Vinny's Sex.
Yeah, he did.
Stevie Wonder said, I am Vinny's Sex. I got 10 kids. I'm trying to start a basketball team. That's what he told me.
The first word Stevie Wonder ever said to me was he in Vinny's Sex.
I said, Stevie Wonder, I'm trading. He said, I know who you are, boy. You say you're in Vinny's Sex. I am Vinny's Sex.
That's crazy.
Yeah, it's a tough story, right?
Last question. Every time I watch interviews with you, people are asking you, like, how is it to be beautiful?
People never ask me that. Do you have a...
How is it to be you?
Thank you very much.
We are beautiful, baby.
Thank you.
Thank you.
