Starting Your Legal Career with Harbottle & Lewis

You are listening to I Am Refocused Radio with your host, Shemaya Reed. This show is designed to inspire you to live your purpose and regain your focus. And now, here's your host, Shemaya Reed. Looking back to our unrefocus radio once again, we are here today. And man, we have amazing show line of for y'all. We have a Monty Roberts. He is an internationally recognized DJ and a war-winning music professor and a passionate historian of R&B and Black music culture. He has a book that you need to check out. It's the quiet storm. And you know history, you know R&B groups, you know power and passion of all that great stuff. Well, guess what? He's the guy that we need to be talking to. Because we know all about the temptations, we know about TLC, we know about Destiny's Child, we've got a run out of breath, we know who's going to get this locked down and load it for us. So first of all, I know I can probably spend another five minutes on your resume, but I just got cut to the chase and get you in the show. How you doing, Monty, man? How you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you very much for having me. Yes, sir. And you also have a website. If people want to check out the book, it's the quietstormbook.com. And you want to make sure you get a copy today is out and ready for you all. So first of all, so let's kind of go out in the background to set the tone. This was a book that is loaded with a lot of facts and a lot of stories, but you really kind of did a lot of research as well. So what was the process like as well as the author kind of spilling the beans, if you will? Yeah, I did the research. It was my thesis at Berkeley College of Music for my Master's Read and Music Business. And so I did the research. It took us about four and a half years to kind of start to finish releasing the book. I think the first thing that we did, and I had a lot of my students because I'm also a business professor at Cal State University of Fullerton. So during the pandemic, a lot of my students we kind of broke it up into decades. We researched the top groups per decade based on kind of four criteria. Record sales, Grammy nominations, Grammy wins, notable performances, and then Billboard Hot 100 hits. And it's the big charts, not the R&B charts, but the main charts. So we used that. We created our own algorithm. And that's how I was able to kind of calculate the top 10 or 11 groups per decade starting in the 1950s to the 2000s. Well, first put you into studying a deeper history behind R&B and Black Music culture because we all know, some of the biggest songs are definitely something that is going to have some nice service bias in there. So what drew you into this deeper history behind the stories of you? Yeah, well, as a DJ, you know, I love to play my R&B music in general, specifically groups as well as single artists. I love a good slow jam, good ballet, growing up. I will listen to the Quiet Storm Radio format, both in DC, WHUR, and then whatever city I move to. And as I was deciding between the two subjects, I wanted to study for right thesis. One subject was why they no longer any saxophone solos on kind of popular music. That was one subject. And then this was the second subject. What happened to all the R&B groups, the Black R&B groups? I decided to go with this one because I didn't want to go down a Kenny G. Rabbit Hole. And so this one just really resonated. And I looked up, and I was like, you know, they have disappeared. Let's see why. Let's see if we have some definite reasons. And as I got into it, I was more and more encouraged by what the research said, but also discouraged because it's just like a moment in time that I'm not sure we're going to get back. When you think about group play, I say earlier, Temptations, Destiny's Child, the Isle of Brothers, I got put them in there as well. What do you think made them so powerful in their time? Because I would say they all had one little time to execute. And they from outside look at that, you can argue that they had perfect timing. What were your insight on that part? I would say I'm glad you mentioned the Isle of Brothers because they are, I love to cite this fact that the only group in history to have Billboard Hot 100 hits in every decade starting in the 50s all the way to the 2000s. And that has yet to be done again. I doubt it will be done again. Never say never, but they're in rare air. I think that couple reasons first, like a lot of the groups started in the church started in the same city. And so and they started together as like kids young adults or kids and they grew up together. So you have many groups like I love to cite a jodicy, they kind of started in the church. Now there was two kind of separate groups that joined together, but they started in the church and grew up together. And you know the supreme they kind of started together in like the Detroit area came up together boys to men. They were in high school together. I mean they tell the story very well and Philly. So you have these groups that are starting together in either school, whether it be middle school or high school or college like shy, which kind of came around towards the end or in a high school, the end of college. And they grew up together or they started in the church and they meet each other and they go from the church and they start very regionally, whether it be TLC Atlanta, Dusty's Child in Houston, boys, men in Philly, you know, shy and DC or Detroit, which is a factory in its own. They grew up together that allowed them to stay together longer and to really grow from their city or region internationally. Must be in this and I'll refocus radio and talk until I spills for guests today at Monte Roberts, make sure you go get copy the book that we're talking about the quiet storm book dot com again that's the quiet storm book dot com. And that's question is a lot of people when they think about R&B groups, they often focus only on the hits, but just like any other great story, there are some behind the scene moments of some struggles in these groups that adversities that they had a face. And that sometimes doesn't get told because we always focus in zoom in on their fan base and all the hits that they've done, but behind the curtains, there's some real life stories. So how did that play role in your research and understand them as a human as well? Yeah, well, part of the book, we talk about the rise of each group and then maybe their fault if they fell or they kind of dropped out or stopped singing, there's some groups that are still around doing well. And probably the most common themes in terms of why group would break up would be drug use, but really it's money, the money issues, they had record disputes with their record labels, which leads into a whole other discussion about just the music education for groups of artists, that was probably the most common reason why groups with fall part, it was always come down to like, you know, share of revenue, ownership rights. I mean, back in the day, the groups were just coming and singing the songs, they didn't have any songwriting, Chris, they didn't own the publishing. As we get closer to our current era, some groups were smart about it and own their work and own their publishing or at least were able to get back a portion of it. But that was a big issue and then drug use just that really tore apart some groups too. But really, I think the number one issue based on my research is just lack of education in terms of how to protect their assets, which is the music and just groups, you know, just not feeling like specific members not feeling they were getting their fair share. We think about cultural impact that these groups have had over time. I mean, good music, great music is always timeless, but we use them in on social change and we think about community, we think about identity. I'll have these artists help influence some of these movements to shed light to important things that are going on in the community. I like to kind of bring two groups up when this topic comes up, obviously the impressions, which were in the mid 60s, they had a couple songs that really spoke to the civil rights movement, whether it be keep on pushing or people get ready and then slide in the family stone towards the end of the civil rights in the late 60s, early 70s, like everyday people. So you back in the 50s and 60s, even the Isis brothers had the song fight the power, like that was back in the 50s or 60s, groups were more involved in the speakout about, you know, issues, whether it be racial, cultural, demographic issues. As you get to the 70s, really the 80s and 90s, then nowadays, you know, groups are a little bit more protective of their brands, they don't want to say too much, they're a little bit less outspoken, now hip-hop, that's different, they're definitely talking about it, but R&B groups, nowadays they don't really cover that too much. Now we still think about love and issues within the family and hard-breaking things like that, which are important to talk about, in terms of social issues, groups are like the 50s, 60s and early 70s, we're really focused on speaking about that in terms of some of their music. And further into the discussion and culture impact, they also help shape fashion and deaths in how we kind of look at those things, because when school year back in day, I know I was growing up, we always, I mean, I know about you, but I remember we had our brand new outfits ready for first day of school, always looking fresh, and a lot of those outfits were inspired by some of the most powerful slurpees in the times in those areas. So how has that helped shape over the years the fashion and dancing and all that jazz? Oh, I mean, it's at the forefront for sure, like me growing up, we wanted to look like new addition, you know, all the people in new addition, that's kind of my time, then you have after that, you have other groups like Jagged Edge, Guy, just you know, you wanted to look, they would bring the fashion to us, we knew it was hot, we would see what they were wearing, we tried to emulate that, the females, you know, you could start with the Supremes, they were probably one of the earlier groups that really stood out with their fashion, their choice of outfits, and then they just continues on through like, you know, even a group like Climax, you know, in the 80s, we were like, "Oh, what are you doing?" Climax, you know, in the 80s, you know, they had, they were very, very different in terms of fashion, but people loved what they were wearing, you get to the 90s, you have to wear them. the SWV, TLC of course, with the baggy jeans and all the outfits like that, then Destiny Shell came towards the end of the decade. So absolutely, always at the forefront in terms of fashion, always. And you had something there with the baggy jeans. That was popping to 2000. So with that, that's a good transition, segue, and talking about why did R&B Group start to disappear on the Billboard charts after the mid 2000s, if that's correct. There's so many factors. The factors I focused on, obviously, we had the music recession. So labels just saw how much groups were causing them, whether it be a combination of choreography, makeup, you have to track down four or five people, background singers, all sorts of things, whereas we were really entering into that era of singular artists, singular with internet. We have YouTube, it's one person talking to the camera. That's one factor. The Telecommunications Act of '96 was supposed to diversify radio. We ended up having three main companies, biop radio stations, town square media, Iheart radio media, and QMIS media. They went to a playlisting format. So it really, really limited the newer groups that could get on the airwaves. That's kind of unheard. People don't talk about the lab, but that had really, really an unforeseen negative effect. Then you had the emergence of hip-hop, EDM music. And so radio formats changed to be focused more on that. Lesson R&B music, lesson R&B groups singing about love and everything. It just went away. The record stores. If you remember back in the day, we used to go to record stores for the meet and greets, usually on Saturdays, new songs would come out on Tuesdays. Well, I think at its peak, like we had early 2000s, in the United States, there was 9,100 record stores in the country. By the time we get to 2023, there's less than 2000. So that really affected the communities where R&B groups would really get a lot of promotion, a lot of media. So that's another reason. Another thing is that growing up, from the 50s through the mid 2000s, you had these four main magazines that would be the primary earned media for R&B groups. Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Vi. Now none of those Essence is the only one that releases tangible magazines now. And it's an accordally basis. Ebony, Vi, Jet have all gone away. They have some digital versions, but it's definitely not the same. At its peak, you had 8,100 people that were monthly or weekly subscribers to these magazines. So you're consistently seeing these groups and magazines on the covers. Interviews, earned media where they don't really have to pay for it. Because that goes away, unless people are fighting out about it, and I will say maybe do the digital divide, but also R&B groups, R&B music. The culture behind it was a little late in adjusting to kind of the internet and embrace the internet and really promoting and everything. And so that actually calls an imperfect storm. All those reasons, I think I covered all the reasons because it's all in the book. But those are the main reasons why it kind of went away. I go into statistics. I go into some chronology timelines in the book. It just explains kind of how this all built up. Once Destiny's Child went solo, mid-2000s, it kind of falls off really quick and you will rarely see an R&B group in the Billboard Top 50 Top 100, maybe Top 20 Flow is probably the most recent one who is nominated for a Grammy, but it's definitely changed. And I'll say one more thing. In the mid-90s, I think there was a week in July 1997 where 14 of the Top 20 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 charts were R&B groups. If you fast forward 10 years, 2007, 12 of the Top 20 songs were now hip-hop artists. So that shows you the quick flip. 10 years it really changed. So those are all the reasons why. If I can throw this in there, I remember in mid-2000s, you've seen a lot of R&B groups collab with hip-hop rappers. So as a K, I listen to all of our viewers on that because that was pretty unique. You've seen a lot of collaborations with rappers who always have a rap, have a R&B hook or some R&B singers. So was that a strategy with the artists themselves or was that something in combination with their managers and labels? That was a good strategy just to kind of spread in their audience and grow their audience. Because if you remember, back in the day, hip-hop wanted nobody singing on the track. So they wanted to be like, "All hip-hop, no R&B." Then it kind of switched. I think really one of the breakthroughs was when Method Man and Mary G. Blige had the do-a-you-all-I-need, which Grammy was a Grammy win, that really kind of helped. Then you started to see like a shantae was singing a lot of hooks for a lot of hip-hop songs. And yeah, a lot of other songs that were hip-hop based. I remember, let's get married. Yeah, R&B MC and Jagged Edge together. So that was pretty different. If you go back in the day, you think like walk this way was R&B MC and Aerosmith. That was kind of like a clue, but it took a while to catch up. And then you started here like more and more to the mid-90s, early 2000s. And then it just continued to take off. But it became more acceptable for an R&B group to sing a hook on a hip-hop song. But you see, it was a mainly hip-hop song. And the R&B group was singing the hook. It wasn't reversed. So they kind of took a back seat. But it became more acceptable. It became promoted. That was beneficial to R&B groups. And real quick, Subway, and thinking about the influence that R&B groups still have on music today because a hip-hop debut is like sampling. Are those samples coming from his songs back in the day and a lot of those hits songs sometimes bring to those groups? Absolutely. Like the Izzy Brothers, one of the most sample groups in history. Still, they still get sample. And now you look at like, let's say Kendrick Lamar, his award-winning song, "A Little Luthor." He's sampling a Luthor Vandross song. Like most people think that's original. A lot of young kids do. I'm like, no, no, no, let's listen to where he's getting this from. And so you have groups that get sampled all the time, particularly like groups from the funk era, like the 70s and 80s, like they get sampled all the time. And really, based on all the interviews I've listened to, I listen to like thousands and thousands of hours, you know. The current hip-hop artists are paying tribute to the R&B groups of the day by sampling them. And hopefully, if these R&B groups own their publishing, they have the songwriting credits, they can earn some additional money based on the samples and they can get their credits. So that's why the education issue keeps coming back. Because if you're going to get sampled, you hopefully own the publishing and the songwriting so you can get some money. But yeah, samples, like I have a section for each group. My favorite three samples from current songs from each group. And you'll just see, and there's playlists, you'll just see some of the songs that are current that are hits that you wouldn't realize have been sampled from R&B groups. Of course, we know the popper ones, like I used to use it with, it was a good day sample, footsteps in the dark, I believe, from the IZ Brothers. Like that's a classic sample. And that's one of the best songs ever. So yeah, like sampling just plays a big role and it keeps R&B groups kind of beneath the surface, but still relevant because people are not realized what they're listening to. But once again, this is our refocus radio and talking to our guests today, a Monday Roberts go to the website and get a capitalist book, thequitestormbook.com. Again, that's thequitebookstorm.com. Another question to have for you is, let's kind of zoom into today's types. There's a lot of social media platforms that artists are using to push their music and their careers. TikTok has been like one of the hottest things right now that you've seen artists trying to build their career. And think about streaming and the penit distribution, worse, so, ways that you're seeing these tools being made easier or maybe harder for R&B groups to succeed in today's time. And today's time is a little different. I would say we look at streaming like you have the diesel, you'll have Apple music, title, Spotify. I personally think in many experts who are streaming is more marketing. Most artists and most groups won't make a lot of money off streaming. It's very, very small, but you can get your music out there. You can get on play and get your music out there. Where you really groups, single artists really have to focus is you want to grow your community, your platform, as they say. You want to make sure you have a fan to artist platform where you're building community, whether it be on a patron, a discord, even using even for your releases. You want to grow, it seems basic, but you want to be growing your email list so you can email your fans directly, grow super fans. We love our social media platforms, but as we witness, back in the air of my space, my space went away. TikTok went away for 12, 14 hours. I can go in tomorrow. So I really caution artists to solely focus on the social media platforms. It's good also, but you want to try to own, you know, that's part of own media, own your audience. And then I think using the platforms, there's some new ones coming out, but going on tour, really important. But really, the focus is you want to grow your audience, the email list, the touring, the video, your direct fan to artist platforms. So you can follow, I like to teach my artist the 1000 True Fans method. And if you can get 1000 True Fans to spend $100 when you're a year, that gives you $100,000, then you grow from there and you just go to where your fans are. I think that's really important now. especially as there's even more noise out there. The more you can grow your audience and make it small on intimate and still grow, the better, in my opinion. When you looked through it up the fastest lens, you mentioned early interview working with students on this. What are some the insights that your students were able to realize that they probably didn't before the research? They had no idea just how the history of R&B and general and groups, they had no idea that a lot of the music that they were listening to or they loved were remakes from R&B groups singing that song in the past. Sampling is what really blew their mind. It just didn't understand the depth and the breadth of how much samples from R&B groups played into the current hits that they were loving. Those are the three things that just completely blew their mind. The last question before we sign off is, when you think about the future of R&B and if R&B groups come back, make it come back, I mean, before I ask that question real quick, what do you think about some of the recent re-euling groups that are taking place? I think there is some going on in Michigan. That's my Neku-Wu's, my mom and dad's side of the family. Do you think about some of the re-eulings that are happening right now? I love them all. It's funny you mentioned that. I'm going to go see Key Sweat and Joe tonight, like R&B Legends. I think reunion groups are good. Our legacy groups continue to tour and do well. You can still see the Izzy Brothers on tour. He has boys, two men, new addition and Tony Braxton going on a worldwide tour this year, phenomenal. I think we had the Shaka Khan, Paddy Label. I'm forgetting other true artists, but you'll see all these R&B Legends going on tour. I love it. Keep it coming. I think it only does well. They still can, they can still put on a show. I remember I saw Charlie Wilson from the gap in. I saw him at a concert a couple of years ago, better than any new artist I've seen in decades. He was phenomenal. They still could perform. I'm just going to get them on more stages and even bigger stages if possible. I'm glad I asked that because it ties perfectly my last question. Just for the young next generation of R&B artists and R&B groups, if they make a comeback, do you think that is something that young people might be inspired by and start forming R&B groups again and be inspired by these legends and kind of say, hey, maybe it's our turn to take the next level and see what we can do, be inspired by the ones who came before us. I hope so. I think there's nothing like being at a live show and seeing three or four people harmonize perfectly together consistently for the entire show. Absolutely. I know a lot of people and myself are a little concerned like we don't think that R&B groups can come back, new groups can come back and fill the funnel, so to speak. We have to look at the genre like K-pop. Now K-pop is big and the groups are doing well. What are they doing that we, when I say we, I'm saying R&B groups, R&B artists, what are they doing well that we can adopt and follow and emulate because they are copying in terms of when they look at their music, their videos, their style, their copying R&B groups from past. You look at a BTS video, their act, just like new addition. You look at Blackpink, it's just like TLC. So their emulating copying was done the past. What can we copy from them to bring it forward? In terms of groups, I think we might see a reverse. We'll see artists like her, Asissa, maybe Alila James, former group, like a super group. Back in the day you had L.S.G. with Laverte, Keith Sweat and Gil, or TGT with Tank, Genuine and Tyrese. They lasted maybe an album cycle and that was it. But I think you'll see that kind of coming back where you have people like a jazzman, Sullivan, she might part with someone like a Kalani, just different combinations of current R&B stars that were joined together as a group, Symmetry and Silk Sonic and produce one, two, maybe three albums hopefully going tour together. I think Vespa will see moving forward. I hope so because there are lots of talent and I think they can work together once they get through kind of all the contractor issues. So I think it'll be in reverse. Whereas before we have a group and then you have the Singular stars break out, now you might have Singular stars that will join together to make a group, do a couple albums and do their solo things and back and forth. And I hope I think that'll be most effective in our current era of music. And not to throw a curveball, but with all that said and not knowing if there's anything to exist already. But would you like to see some of the old school R&B groups kind of mentor these artists to help them, coach them to form a strategy to make these groups because I feel like this thing by what you just said, I can sell our stadiums easily. Yeah. I would hope that they would mentor, but when you're mentoring someone, you have to have kind of two willing parties. Obviously you'll be willing to mentor, but we want the younger artists to be open to listen, to be able to take the feedback and not take it personally and apply the feedback or be open to the mentoring. So if there are two willing parties, I think it can be an amazing success. Absolutely. Once again, you can get copied as booked as head over to the website, thequietstormbook.com, been talked to our guest today, Amani Roberts. Like always, man, to you. Well, before we sign off, is there anything that you have for our audience, any resources or any other things that you want us to know about that they can not just keep in the taps on you, but understand what might be coming future from your neck of the woods? Yeah. If there's any artists or musicians that are listening and want to talk more, you know, that's what I do. I coach and work with musicians and groups on how to kind of monetize, make the best business decisions possible. So you can go to my website, amaniexperience.com/call, leave a note there. I'll get on a free call and talk about how I can help you kind of earn more money, make better business decisions as a musician, and just continue to support the book, share it with the friend in the next year, because I just celebrated my year anniversary. I will be putting out a trivia game based on the book. So I'm working on that now. And those are kind of the my two big projects for the year. Well, I'd always want to say to you, sir. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.