transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:05] Kayak gets my flight, hotel and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

Speaker 2:
[00:12] Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

Speaker 1:
[00:15] Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak, and get your trip right.

Speaker 3:
[00:28] Bad advice?

Speaker 1:
[00:29] You talking to me? Kayak, got that right.

Speaker 4:
[00:34] Barbra Streisand. She cloned her dogs.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] And bragged about it. I've heard that she has a little mall in the basement of her mansion, because she likes malls.

Speaker 4:
[00:46] That's a star.

Speaker 2:
[00:47] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[00:47] That's a star. Welcome to Pop Syllabus. I'm your host, Christiana Mbakwe Medina. Today we're going to try something a bit different. If you follow me on Substack, you know I have this overarching theory about stars versus celebrities versus famous people. And I think very few people are all three. Let me read you through my personal definition. Being a star is the raw material. It's the talent. Being famous is an outcome. And you actually don't need talent to become famous. Finally, there's being a celebrity. A celebrity is a choice. It's an ideological decision. It requires a famous person who is willing to lean into humanity's primal impulse for idolatry. You offer yourself up. Magazine exclusives, pap strolls, engineering stories with your publicist. You know what I mean. OK, so there are stars, famous people and celebrities. Very few people are all three. And today I have a friend called Sam Sanders, who I think is great as a journalist and a pop culture theorist as well. And I thought, let me bring him on so we can play the game together. Let me know what you think. Sam Sanders, welcome to Pop Syllabus.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] It's so good to be here.

Speaker 4:
[01:49] Oh, my God.

Speaker 2:
[01:50] Happy to make the drive.

Speaker 4:
[01:51] You are one of my favorite thinkers, journalists, hosts, a brilliant mind, and a lot of people don't know this, a pop culture expert.

Speaker 2:
[02:00] I'm trying. I think in large part because, as you know, I've told you this, growing up very churchy, pop culture was forbidden, which meant I thought it out even more. I was the biggest student of it because I couldn't have it.

Speaker 4:
[02:11] What were you seeking out?

Speaker 2:
[02:13] Oh, my God. I think I was really obsessed with the ways the divas of our early to mid 90s moment were so fully embodied. You watch some of those old Janet videos, those old Madonna videos, they were fully sensual, realized human beings.

Speaker 4:
[02:32] Completely embodied.

Speaker 2:
[02:33] That felt great.

Speaker 4:
[02:34] Present. Who was your diva? Top three.

Speaker 2:
[02:37] Okay. I'm going to do three gold medals.

Speaker 4:
[02:41] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[02:42] If I'm thinking just swag, persona, charisma, the full visual, it's always Janet.

Speaker 4:
[02:50] Oh, we're doing ranking. So Janet's.

Speaker 2:
[02:52] She's just for that. And then I'm like, if I'm thinking for vocals, then I'm going to have to say 90s Mariah Carey.

Speaker 4:
[02:59] Over Whitney?

Speaker 2:
[03:00] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[03:01] Why?

Speaker 2:
[03:02] Mariah Maintain.

Speaker 4:
[03:03] I'm a lamb.

Speaker 2:
[03:04] Mariah Maintain. Whitney had four or five good years before the drugs began to affect her voice. And if you listen closely to a lot of the stuff that she was doing by the late 90s, you can hear the erratic energy and frenetic energy of the cocaine.

Speaker 4:
[03:19] I love the late 90s. You had like shoot, doodoop, waitin to exhale era. And then in the 2000s, she had Heartbeat Hotel. I'm not sure about that.

Speaker 2:
[03:28] Her vocal range had greatly diminished by that point. Her melisma had changed and become more erratic. And all of the behind the scenes stories that you hear about her, even on the set of The Preacher's Wife, which was like mid 90s post-Bodyguard.

Speaker 4:
[03:42] It was live. That was a common preacher life.

Speaker 2:
[03:44] But also she was battling cocaine the whole time.

Speaker 4:
[03:46] And sounded amazing.

Speaker 2:
[03:48] See, I think as great as she sounded, Whitney Houston's vocals from that first album, Shaved Head Whitney, doing Joy, Joy, Joy, would have been even three times as magical. This is the thing, we were getting Whitney, even in spite of the drugs, was still great. But that early, early stuff, you can hear a vocal purity that the drugs took away.

Speaker 4:
[04:13] The purity, I agree with you. But I think in terms of vocally telling a story, because of the church in her, no one could tell a story like Whitney.

Speaker 2:
[04:23] Did you watch her South Africa concert?

Speaker 4:
[04:26] Which one is that one?

Speaker 2:
[04:27] After Mandela was free, becomes president, he has this big liberation concert that Whitney leads in front of tens of thousands of South Africans. She's wearing a turban for one of the things.

Speaker 4:
[04:37] I think I've seen clips from the show.

Speaker 2:
[04:40] It's sweaty Whitney, it's erratic Whitney, but it's also just Whitney who is so good at commanding a stage. It's like I'm seeing the drug start to affect her. I was like, I'm seeing it happen. But she's still such a master of a stage. She works a stage.

Speaker 4:
[05:00] I felt like Whitney to me has always been like, in terms of telling the story, just flawless. I always felt that Mariah Carey was technically perhaps the better singer. Just in terms of just the octave range, how she could slide up and down. She was incredible. But I felt Whitney in a different way. I felt later Mariah era. Because I feel like Fly Like A Bird is one of her best vocal performances and stuff she does in circles. She's had different eras, but I don't know. I think Whitney always had a bit of an inch ahead of Mariah for me. But I am a lamb. I love both of them.

Speaker 2:
[05:32] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[05:32] Okay, so for you, it's Janet.

Speaker 2:
[05:34] Visuals, Janet. Vocals, Mariah. What's the third category that we want to put up there? And we're just talking about women right now.

Speaker 4:
[05:40] Yeah. The divas, the 90s divas.

Speaker 2:
[05:43] You know what? I know. No.

Speaker 4:
[05:49] Oh, who?

Speaker 2:
[05:50] The thing about Madonna is she has four or five really great songs. The rest are trash.

Speaker 4:
[05:55] No way.

Speaker 2:
[05:55] You go back and hear some of those early, she's just like, what are you singing, girl?

Speaker 4:
[05:59] Okay, but it's going to go on.

Speaker 2:
[06:00] But my last top three for the 90s, it's probably a second vocal champion. Celine Dion did that thing.

Speaker 4:
[06:08] Okay. Yeah. I got honorary Jamaican.

Speaker 2:
[06:10] Celine Dion. Are you going to be in the video? So I ended up going to see Celine Dion when she was doing her Vegas residency. She's funny.

Speaker 4:
[06:20] She's always been funny.

Speaker 2:
[06:21] She does a lot of banjo-

Speaker 4:
[06:22] She's funny in English. It's like English as a second language.

Speaker 2:
[06:25] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[06:25] And her humor in English is so funny to me. Yeah, she's very silly.

Speaker 2:
[06:28] I like how silly she is and the power of love, which isn't even her song. It's a cover. You hear that.

Speaker 4:
[06:36] Chills. So for me, the thing about Celine, and Celine has my heart because like all divas, she has deep tragedy.

Speaker 2:
[06:44] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[06:45] Like it's such a sad story.

Speaker 2:
[06:47] She's literally becoming a statue right now.

Speaker 4:
[06:49] Yes, she's becoming a statue. But she's still so joyful. And there is that thing of like, oh my God, you've always kind of been this cage bird like in a big family and then-

Speaker 2:
[06:58] And Renee, who discovered her at like 14, then married her?

Speaker 4:
[07:01] Marries her and then you get the children and then Renee dies and your brother dies and then you get ill. And so she has like all the pathos that you expect of a diva. The tragedy without it being like Whitney level tragedy where you're like, oh my God. Like you can't even look at what happened to Whitney in the end. Where Celine is just like, she's like a myth. She's like a mythological diva in that sense. I do have love for Celine, but what I...

Speaker 2:
[07:26] Who do we forget? Who else would be up in there?

Speaker 4:
[07:29] I mean, I have a whole ranking of divas who I think should have been divas. And so the Canadian girls like Deborah Cox and Tamir.

Speaker 2:
[07:39] See, like I think on a good day, Deborah Cox could probably out belt Mariah and Whitney.

Speaker 4:
[07:46] Shantay Moore too.

Speaker 2:
[07:47] Oh, Shantay's got a man.

Speaker 4:
[07:49] Yeah, yeah, she's got her whistle register in this game, right? So there's a whole crop of divas who should have, if maybe they existed in the streaming era because music became a bit more democratized. But I think you've said the main ones, like, I don't think I'm missing. Of course, you've got the old school, like your Aretha's, your Patti's, they're already there. And then subsequently, we haven't really got any divas, which is what I don't like about pop culture.

Speaker 2:
[08:16] Well, because I think now we have, and we can get into this, I think we, there was a certain level of requirement to be on that level. You had to do something really good. You had to either sing or dance or write good stuff.

Speaker 4:
[08:32] Or play an instrument.

Speaker 2:
[08:33] Exactly. And now we have Addison Rae. What is her excellence?

Speaker 4:
[08:40] Or Sabrina Carpenter.

Speaker 2:
[08:42] Sabrina's funny. Sabrina can be funny, but I think that...

Speaker 4:
[08:45] I mean, then be a comedian. That's like for like... That's like Bette Midler tradition. That's a different tradition where you can sing, you can act, you can be funny. And you kind of do it.

Speaker 2:
[08:54] That's Cabaret.

Speaker 4:
[08:55] Right, that's Cabaret. I'm talking about divas.

Speaker 2:
[08:57] But here's the thing with Sabrina Carpenter. When you go back to those old school videos of her singing to her iPhone camera back in the day before she got discovered, she was singing down on Black R&B.

Speaker 4:
[09:05] Well, that's Renee.

Speaker 2:
[09:07] Renee Rap can do that too.

Speaker 4:
[09:08] Renee Rap, she's got it. What's the other one, the Swedish girl? I wouldn't quite call her a diva.

Speaker 2:
[09:13] Zara Larsson.

Speaker 4:
[09:14] Zara Larsson. She can sing, right? But to me, to be a diva, the voice has to be there, right? So you have to have the craft. And it's either you learn it in the church or you learn it at stage school. Those are two kind of grooming grounds.

Speaker 2:
[09:28] If you can't do that level of singing, you can go the Janet route and still be a diva. No one's giving Janet Jackson medals for her vocals, but she hit those steps.

Speaker 4:
[09:36] Also, great songs.

Speaker 2:
[09:38] Well, she worked with the same production duo for like 25 years. Yeah, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis. Who came out of the Prince Machine in Minneapolis.

Speaker 4:
[09:45] And could play instruments, very musical. But look, this is the thing, because I don't need all my divas to bow.

Speaker 2:
[09:51] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4:
[09:52] Because I have a thing for Norah Jones, even though I know she's not a diva in the traditional sense, but there's something about her voice. Liz Wright, there's a certain type of jazz singer that I'm really into, right?

Speaker 2:
[10:00] So like a Kareem Bailey Rae?

Speaker 4:
[10:01] Yes, yes, yes. Don't be screaming, is that the point? You don't have to scream. You can have a very soft timbre about you. But I need you to have, it needs to be together, like so succinct. It needs to be cohesive and brilliant. And I feel, I find Janet very cohesive.

Speaker 2:
[10:16] And Janet was doing visual art in those videos that truly stands the test of time. One of my favorite pieces of visuals ever is her video, Forgot Till It's Gone.

Speaker 4:
[10:27] Oh, oh yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[10:28] She's set in a South African speakeasy juke joint pre the end of apartheid.

Speaker 4:
[10:34] Jennifer Lopez is in that video.

Speaker 2:
[10:35] No, she's in That's the Way Love Goes.

Speaker 4:
[10:37] Oh, That's the Way Love Goes, okay. Also a classic, right? Yeah, I thought of a classic.

Speaker 2:
[10:40] And like that is what I, that's kind of what I miss the most in this moment. I feel like music videos as a language of their own and as an art form that stands on their own. When have we felt that since Lady Gaga doing her thing?

Speaker 4:
[10:55] I think Beyoncé is still trying to keep that.

Speaker 2:
[10:58] What are the videos?

Speaker 4:
[10:59] Well, she said, you are the visuals, baby. No, but pre act one, act two, she was someone that I felt was trying to keep the music video alive. But Janet is someone I reference all the time because her Busta Rhymes, her video with Busta Rhymes, her video with Michael Jackson.

Speaker 2:
[11:15] Scream was such a good video.

Speaker 4:
[11:16] Technology. They were really thinking about infusing art and the art of the music video with a lot of technology.

Speaker 2:
[11:22] And a plot line. I remember the video for Go Deep. It's like a house party gone wild. And you're like, oh, there's a plot here. I used to watch music videos and they were forbidden in my house for hours.

Speaker 4:
[11:33] Sam, you tell them because the people at home may not know.

Speaker 2:
[11:36] Yeah. So I was raised Pentecostal. Very churchy, like black church, speaking in tongues, full band, loud, dancing, falling out. And the biggest rule for the way to be as a Pentecostal was that you had to be separate from the world. In the world, is it anything that's not of the world? So anything not Christian, we didn't do. So we weren't supposed to listen to secular music. We weren't supposed to go to the movies. We weren't supposed to go to school dances. And so my mother, though, so that was forbidden, but she would also always make exceptions for us to watch stuff that she just considered black excellence. So we couldn't watch The Simpsons, but we could watch them live in color. Look at those black folks. They're looking good. How churchy was your churchy?

Speaker 4:
[12:22] Oh, super churchy.

Speaker 2:
[12:23] You were a pastors kid, right?

Speaker 4:
[12:24] I'm a PK. I think, so yeah, pop culture completely prohibited. And I think that's probably the connection here. You're kind of seduced by the forbidden, right?

Speaker 2:
[12:35] And you become a scholar of it.

Speaker 4:
[12:37] I had to study it because every people, they were consuming it via osmosis. It was in their house. But my parents were playing Bible tapes and watching like Maurice Sorello videos. They were just like in a completely, it was a very bizarre childhood. I was a subculture because I was like black British within a subculture, because I was like Nigerian Ibo within a subculture because we were also churchy. So I was like rung, I would say below, but deep into a world that was very different from mainstream England. And so for me, because it was so forbidden and not allowed, I was drawn to it. But the other thing was that also my parents were very intellectually curious, so they let me read. So I was allowed to read a lot and I played the keys. Were you playing in church? Yeah, I was playing in church.

Speaker 2:
[13:20] Girl, let's start a band. I was playing saxophone.

Speaker 4:
[13:23] Give me an E flat. Hey, okay. So I played in church. And so if you want to be a good musician and a good church musician, you actually have to listen to everything. You know, like it got to a point where-

Speaker 2:
[13:34] We used to sneak in D'Angelo riffs into the church music.

Speaker 4:
[13:36] Of course, always. We'd always do that stuff. And so it was like then, because I had to be a student of it, and then I end up working in television, so you're actually creating it. And so I'm kind of like, it made me turn me into not just a scholar and commentator, but someone that will actually want to make it too. Yes, totally. Because I'm just like- And this is what the church gets right, about so-called devil's music or devil's television. It's very powerful.

Speaker 2:
[14:04] Sure is.

Speaker 4:
[14:04] The church actually do recognize that this stuff changed people's lives. It's a formal doctrine. Like it's a thought of some sort of, not theology, because it's not the study of God, but it's like, it's idols, like people. Well, Swifties, and these are churches, like Swifties and the Beehive and the Monsters.

Speaker 2:
[14:21] In the 90s, these pastors had a point.

Speaker 4:
[14:23] Those lyrics were bad. They were bad.

Speaker 2:
[14:25] They were raunchy, bad and mean to women.

Speaker 4:
[14:27] And I look at the images of Britney Spears at 17 years old from that Rolling Stone cover. And I'm like, the right-wing people were right. This was pornography. This is child pornography.

Speaker 2:
[14:38] And you know what's crazy? Have you read? So we are talking the day before the new Robin album comes out.

Speaker 4:
[14:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:44] There's a great profile of Robin in the New Yorker this week, written by Gia Tolentino.

Speaker 4:
[14:49] Genius, another genius. Another great genius.

Speaker 2:
[14:51] She talks all about how, before Jive Records settled on Britney Spears being Britney Spears, they wanted to make Robin that first. And Robin said, I ain't doing that.

Speaker 4:
[15:00] Are you serious? Is Robin older than Britney? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:03] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[15:03] So that's probably why she could say, you know what? No. But you look at those images and you're like, oh, you know, I thought they were just being super churchy when they said this is demonic. You're like, this is a 17-year-old girl with her teddy bears in a bra.

Speaker 2:
[15:16] And she was 15 or 16 in the first video.

Speaker 4:
[15:19] Yes. I think she was 16 in the first video when she's dressed as a schoolgirl. It's like a pornographic trope for that video, right? And so you then, they get a bit extreme with it because then it got very, I grew up in the church when it was a real conspiracy about the Illuminati and this stuff. Everyone sold their soul to the devil. You know what it is. So they went off into the deep end, but the core point about pop culture consumption, shaping your reality, shaping how you feel about yourself, how you engage with the world, they were completely accurate.

Speaker 2:
[15:48] And we can look now and say, in hindsight, that wasn't good for Britney Spears.

Speaker 4:
[15:53] It wasn't good for Britney Spears.

Speaker 2:
[15:54] And Sophie Gilbert gets to this really well in her book Girl on Girl, because you look at the start of the 90s, you have Janet and Madonna as paragons of feminine, sexual, and they're fully embodied adults. And by the end of that decade, you end up with Britney Spears, not her own fault.

Speaker 4:
[16:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[16:11] They're supposed to be sexy, baby.

Speaker 4:
[16:13] Yeah, yeah. It's very grim. And then you think about the girls growing up looking at Britney Spears, how we treated Britney Spears. And it wasn't just Britney Spears, it was kind of the Lindsay Lohan and the Amanda Bynes. And all of these pop culture girlies who were abused, followed by the paparazzi, hypersexualized, even without their consent, the upskirting, the photographs. It's like insane, man. And so now I'm like, the older you get, the more you kind of see your parents' perspective. Now I completely get why there were parents who saw Britney Spears' video. I was like, you can't watch that.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] I get it. It also makes me respect. And I always think that history doesn't look back enough on Janet. We do with Madonna, and we respect her for what she did. And she was out there doing the work. Really great AIDS activist. Great on that. But Janet and Madonna always maintained their personhood, their womanhood, and they were in charge of them. I love that.

Speaker 4:
[17:14] Yeah, they had agency.

Speaker 2:
[17:16] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[17:16] They were really, do you know what is? There was none of that self abandonment that you see with other pops, the younger pop stars. And I think it's because they just didn't know themselves. They were children.

Speaker 2:
[17:28] Yeah, well, and also we forget, Janet was doing a Vegas residency when she was seven years old. Because when she was a kid, the Jackson Five was already doing their thing. And the Jackson Five had a Vegas show when Michael was still a kid. And for one or two songs, they would bring out Janet to vamp it up for a little bit. She was rocking a Vegas stage at seven. And that could have really screwed her up.

Speaker 4:
[17:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:53] But she kept it together and she managed to enter adulthood, seeming like she was fully in charge of her.

Speaker 4:
[17:58] You know, see, this is the problem. Because when you say she kept it together and it worked out, sometimes I'm like, maybe Joe Jackson wasn't that bad. Maybe you need a little bit of suffering for the greatness. Because we got Michael and we got Janet. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[18:12] But listen, he like drill sergeant with those kids. When I interviewed Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis many, many years ago to talk about just Janet, they both were like, it's really hard to overstate how much the music was just in those children's bones. Wow. He said, either Jimmy or Terry, he said when they first began to record with Janet, they noticed that even her breathing in between notes and words was on the beat. She even breathes on the beat. Joe did something.

Speaker 4:
[18:41] I need to be a little bit like Joe.

Speaker 2:
[18:44] Are you trying to have performing children?

Speaker 4:
[18:46] Not performing children. Because it's something I've been resting with, is these very brilliant children, and oftentimes it's a parent-

Speaker 2:
[18:53] One parent must be crazy.

Speaker 4:
[18:55] Who spots and is like, you're the Neo. You're the one. They can look at the line up of kids and they're like, that's the Neo.

Speaker 2:
[19:01] The Williams sisters had it with their dad, Beyoncé had it with her dad. There has to be one crazy stage parent.

Speaker 4:
[19:07] And he's like, you know what, we're going to make it happen. And they believe. And there's always a point of departure, right, where the child turns to the parent and says, I have to do this on my own. I have to fire my parent. But you always get that kind of crazy parent, like the stage mom or the stage dad, who says, you're the Neo, you're the one, and I am going to make you great, because I see it in you. And without that, do you get Michael Jackson? Probably not.

Speaker 2:
[19:37] I was good enough at music as a kid. Came to me naturally. I began playing the saxophone really, really young. And my parents' whole approach to everything my brother and I did was like, whatever you're good at, that you want to do, we'll get you there and pay for it. But it's not our job, it's your job.

Speaker 4:
[19:53] It's a push yourself.

Speaker 2:
[19:54] They never even helped us with homework. Wow. My aunt would help us until middle school. Then my mother said, enough. They're on their own.

Speaker 4:
[20:01] So you were self-directed.

Speaker 2:
[20:03] And I think that that meant that I was not going to be a star because there was no crazy stage parent. But I entered the adult world and was just incredibly self-sufficient.

Speaker 4:
[20:12] That's interesting. But you mentioned the word star, which is like a great segue for the game I brought you on to play today.

Speaker 2:
[20:18] I know. We've been going all over the place. Sorry about that.

Speaker 4:
[20:20] So for those of you who read the Pop Syllabus sub stack, Sam is very familiar with this overarching theory I have about the pop culture arena that we have stars, we have celebrities, we have famous people.

Speaker 2:
[20:33] I love this.

Speaker 4:
[20:33] Very few people are all three. Yes. A star is the genesis. Wow. What you just have naturally, it's just in you, it's in your bones. Yes. A celebrity is leaning into perceived style and whether it's there or not.

Speaker 2:
[20:45] They know how to work the system.

Speaker 4:
[20:46] It's getting a publicist. It's calling the paps. It's leaking your stories. It's just like all, sometimes it's cultivating an old Hollywood mystique. Celebrity is a different thing. Now, a famous person, you can be famous and not a star or a celebrity, right?

Speaker 2:
[20:58] You just do something big.

Speaker 4:
[20:59] You just do something. You can invent something.

Speaker 2:
[21:00] Every Olympian for a little bit.

Speaker 4:
[21:02] Elon Musk is a famous person. You can be famous because you, you know, Dr. Fauci was momentarily famous, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, we liked him. Not everyone liked him. I know. And so they are very distinct categories. And in my theory, which has become hugely contested, you can see the comments people argue with me all the time. The magic happens when you have all three at the same time. And coming from South London, I grew up in Brixton. I saw stars all the time. There was this woman in my neighborhood we call her Pinky and she always wore pink. Pink hair, pink eyebrows, pink outfit, pink shoes. She was a star. You couldn't help but look at her. There was another man who had these long dreadlocks and he would sell tapes and he had a stick and he'd cuss white people and sing. He was a star. Okay, so I grew up seeing stars all the time, but they weren't necessarily celebrities and they weren't necessarily famous. And to me, the magic happens when you get the trifecta, which is very rare.

Speaker 2:
[21:56] It's very rare. In the same way, I used to think about this a lot with pop stars. What you want in a perfect pop star is for them to be able to sing really well, dance really well, and write great songs for themselves. No pop star can do all three. Name one.

Speaker 4:
[22:13] Beyoncé.

Speaker 2:
[22:15] I would question the song right in.

Speaker 4:
[22:17] You said it, not me. Sing really well, dance really well.

Speaker 2:
[22:22] And make songs that just stand the test of frigging time. Prince was close, but the dancing that Prince did was never too choreographed.

Speaker 4:
[22:30] He was just moving. And the songs were always, I think, because Prince was not as concerned with commercial appeal in the way MJ was, he didn't care about the typical structure, and he wasn't there to write pop songs. He wanted albums, you know what I mean? Even though the songs were brilliant, but they weren't radio-friendly.

Speaker 2:
[22:48] And for me, with the dancing of Prince, it was never choreographed and repeated. It was a different dance move every time he was on the stage, which I like. So Michael had it going on with the singing and the dancing, but when you listen to the songs that Michael wrote himself, they're weird.

Speaker 4:
[23:06] Yeah, he was, I think, you know how-

Speaker 2:
[23:08] His best songs, Quincy did it with him.

Speaker 4:
[23:10] I was saying, he was Quincy's muse. He needed Quincy.

Speaker 2:
[23:13] And then Jimmy Jam, not Jimmy Jam, Teddy Riley's muse.

Speaker 4:
[23:17] Yeah, yeah, he needs a muse. But all of these, it's the same way that I think Brandy needs Rodney Jerkings. And you always get these partnerships. So like Ryan Coogler and MBJ, you know there's these creative partnerships that are really important for certain artists.

Speaker 2:
[23:31] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[23:31] And Michael needed Quincy. Yeah. I'm trying to think about a pop star that has all three.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] I think the last time we had it was in this just like, I think the era of celebrities who were good enough to do variety shows. Like you watch those old Cher videos. She's doing everything.

Speaker 4:
[23:48] Like a Gregory Hines. You remember the tap dance? Yes. But he was at Sing Dance.

Speaker 2:
[23:53] Yeah. Was he writing? I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[23:55] Was he writing? I don't know. I'm trying to think. You can sing, dance and write. It has to be a Broadway girlie.

Speaker 2:
[24:06] Yeah. We'll keep thinking on this.

Speaker 4:
[24:08] Okay. We'll keep thinking on this. Anyway, we're going to play this game.

Speaker 2:
[24:11] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[24:11] And these are the rules. You pick a name. We have to discuss. We both discuss.

Speaker 2:
[24:16] I want to write down so I can refer to it. And the categories and the definitions, just so I don't mess it up. So, star.

Speaker 4:
[24:23] Star.

Speaker 2:
[24:23] And they are?

Speaker 4:
[24:25] That's je ne sais quoi. You just have it. They've just got that thing, right?

Speaker 2:
[24:28] The charisma.

Speaker 4:
[24:29] The charisma.

Speaker 2:
[24:30] I wish you could see me trying to write je ne sais quoi. What's the next one?

Speaker 4:
[24:36] A celebrity.

Speaker 2:
[24:37] Celebrity.

Speaker 4:
[24:37] Which is like the active cultivation of-

Speaker 2:
[24:39] No, not cultivated. Kardashian energy.

Speaker 4:
[24:42] You see? This is why you're here. This is why you're here. The Kardashian-ification of it all. And then a famous person, which is like Daniel Day-Lewis is a famous person.

Speaker 2:
[24:52] Yeah. Your talent just got you recognition.

Speaker 4:
[24:55] Your accomplishment has meant that the world knows who you are. And sometimes it's just like you talked about being briefly famous, an Olympic athlete, or like there was that case, I can't remember what it was, in France, when that man climbed up a burning building and saved a child. You know, it's just like you have a moment where everyone knows who you are.

Speaker 2:
[25:10] Audrey McDonald. She's famous. She just does the work.

Speaker 4:
[25:15] She's famous. And I think...

Speaker 2:
[25:17] I also feel like when it's just famous, it's more genre-specific notoriety. All the Broadway girlies know exactly who Audrey McDonald is, but if you aren't into Broadway, you might not know.

Speaker 4:
[25:29] Exactly. And so sometimes there's like a chess, you know, like the chess, I don't know who the chess grandmaster is. Or like, I think a lot of tennis athletes fall into that category. People are like, oh, they won the slam in this year. And I'm like, I've never heard of that person. So yeah, that's the game.

Speaker 2:
[25:43] I like this. So, okay, so then now I'm thinking-

Speaker 4:
[25:45] I love that you have questions.

Speaker 2:
[25:47] I do. Well, now I'm trying to think of like a-

Speaker 4:
[25:48] Such a journalist.

Speaker 2:
[25:49] A test example case.

Speaker 4:
[25:50] Okay, let's do a test case.

Speaker 2:
[25:51] Beyoncé is such a great star through which to look at all of these things because she's been omnipresent for decades now.

Speaker 4:
[25:57] I've answered this question. I know how I feel about Beyoncé.

Speaker 2:
[26:01] She has the talent enough to be famous. She and her team know how to cultivate a certain mystique and mystery that keeps her a celebrity. I don't think she- She's actually really introverted, so I'm not sure I see star in her. She can do it when she needs to.

Speaker 4:
[26:19] She can switch it.

Speaker 2:
[26:19] But I think Beyoncé at her most comfortable is not talking to us.

Speaker 4:
[26:23] Okay. So this is why I do think she's a star. And I don't know if this is like an urban legend, but there's that story about Marilyn Monroe with a journalist walking somewhere. She's like in New York. She's talking. She was like, I know how to be Mimajine. And she was like, do you want to watch me become Marilyn Monroe? And the journalist was like, okay. And she changes her posture. She just did it. And then she- And people are going, Marilyn, Marilyn. I don't know if this story is showing up, but the story is that she switches it on. Yes. She's not the fiercest. And they were like, Marilyn, that to me is a star. Okay. Because I think a star is somebody that knows how to switch it on and off, knows how to command a stage. Because I have a friend who's an actor, a very, very good actor, and his definition of a great actor is somebody that knows how to hold the camera and do it on cue. And he's like, very few people can actually do it. He's like, that's incredibly hard to hold the camera and do it on cue. Those are the best actors, right? And I think that's something to do, the stardom of being able to do it on cue, because that's when you've really harnessed your stardom. And that's why I say Beyoncé is a star. I think Beyoncé can walk into this room and disguise herself, and then she can become Beyoncé in a way that most people aren't in touch with themselves enough to do that. And I think that's just like an innate gift. It's God given. It's just you have it, either you have it or you don't. And that's why I do believe she's a star. And I believe that's why Matthew.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 4:
[28:11] It was like you.

Speaker 2:
[28:12] You got it.

Speaker 4:
[28:13] You go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Okay. Okay. Okay. No. Sabrina Carpenter.

Speaker 4:
[28:23] Oh, I will write it. A famous person, not a star. I don't think she's a celebrity.

Speaker 2:
[28:34] I think that any celebrity that goes through the Disney kid machine has a certain capacity at performing celebrity. They just know the machine and showbiz. And I think that maybe she knows how to do that because all the Disney kids just get the biz.

Speaker 4:
[28:53] Yeah, that's why.

Speaker 2:
[28:54] I think that what has been most confusing about Sabrina Carpenter is that the way she's used her celebrity to become who she is, I'm not sure it's the best expression of her singing voice. I mentioned earlier, there's these old videos of her in her bedroom singing to YouTube, singing R&B.

Speaker 4:
[29:14] Yeah, she can sing. She can sing.

Speaker 2:
[29:17] And then you listen to this latest album, especially, and it all sounds like AI. It sounds like AI pop. Her voice has been processed and synthesized to the point where it feels robotic. She's also doing this thing that we mentioned earlier, just performing Sexy Baby.

Speaker 4:
[29:31] Yeah, I don't like it.

Speaker 2:
[29:32] In a way that I think, and listen, I'm a man saying that, I can never tell her how to present or how to look, but I am not sure that that persona matches her vocal jobs, and I'm not even sure that we hear her real voice.

Speaker 4:
[29:45] Yeah, I was-

Speaker 2:
[29:46] That said, I love short and sweet.

Speaker 4:
[29:48] Yeah, I like short and sweet. I like the more country-inspired tracks on there, when she kind of tells her stories.

Speaker 2:
[29:53] Well, she almost wants to be Dolly sometimes.

Speaker 4:
[29:54] Yeah, yeah. I like that type of thing.

Speaker 2:
[29:56] And Dolly, all three.

Speaker 4:
[29:58] All three. Come on. Duh. I think Espresso is a really funny, smart record.

Speaker 2:
[30:03] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[30:03] But the reason I, maybe I'm probably wrong in the celebrity piece, is because she doesn't seem, I don't see her getting papped all the time, I don't see her falling out. I don't know, but maybe I am not as attuned to the part of her that is doing the celebrity game.

Speaker 2:
[30:17] Here's where I think she shows celebrity. Have you seen those clips of, I guess the last tour, tour before, she would have another celebrity come on stage and she'd sing sexy to them and then she would arrest them.

Speaker 4:
[30:29] Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:
[30:29] And she arrested Marcella from SNL. And it was a whole thing because he was playing, what is this character with the heavy accent on SNL?

Speaker 4:
[30:36] I can't remember.

Speaker 2:
[30:37] That. But like that whole thing, she and her team know how to like associate with other celebrities to raise your celebrity game.

Speaker 4:
[30:45] Okay. We'll say so she's a celebrity. She's a famous person. Is she a star?

Speaker 2:
[30:50] I think if she leans into that actual singing down voice, she could be.

Speaker 4:
[30:56] Okay. You got to root to see. She's two out of three. She's two out of three.

Speaker 2:
[31:00] I'm looking again. Okay. Star?

Speaker 4:
[31:02] No.

Speaker 2:
[31:03] Celebrity?

Speaker 4:
[31:04] Yes. Famous.

Speaker 2:
[31:05] Famous. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[31:06] She's famous.

Speaker 2:
[31:07] Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[31:07] So two.

Speaker 2:
[31:08] All right.

Speaker 4:
[31:08] Let's see who I got. Oh, Wendy Williams.

Speaker 2:
[31:13] First, I got to say, I feel so sorry for that woman. She has gone through it.

Speaker 4:
[31:17] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[31:18] And when we think about, when I think of interviewers who have set the stage for all interviewers who come after them, there's Oprah and there's Wendy Williams.

Speaker 4:
[31:29] There's Wendy.

Speaker 2:
[31:30] She's so good at it.

Speaker 4:
[31:31] Wendy is a star. I don't know if you guys at home listening, if you ever get the chance, look up archival footage of her when she used to be a radio DJ.

Speaker 2:
[31:40] Her radio stuff is amazing.

Speaker 4:
[31:42] In New Jersey when she's in her early 20s and she's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[31:46] And she could go for hours.

Speaker 4:
[31:47] Yeah, she's got this gorgeous hair, these beautiful eyes, and she's so Jersey. She's a star. Wendy's a star. She was a celebrity in the real tabloid sense.

Speaker 2:
[31:59] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[31:59] Because of the drug addiction, the crazy marriages, how the show ended. Now, famous person is interesting. I think she's famous in terms of the notoriety, but I don't actually think she's recognized as famous for the thing that she's really good at, which is black Barbara Walters.

Speaker 2:
[32:17] Yes. She would get people to say anything. And she would get people who hated her, to still come and talk to her. Have you heard the clip of Whitney Houston calling her and kept trying to go off?

Speaker 4:
[32:26] Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. I used to listen to it.

Speaker 2:
[32:30] Yeah. But that speaks to the skill of an interviewer. I'm going to talk shit about you. You're going to hate me, but I'm so good. You're still going to call me.

Speaker 4:
[32:37] You're going to phone me up and be like, how did? Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:
[32:40] Yeah. Incredible. Incredible.

Speaker 4:
[32:41] We love Wendy. I don't know. I just wanted to get back.

Speaker 2:
[32:43] I hope she's okay. I couldn't watch the doc.

Speaker 4:
[32:46] I watched the doc and I cried. I don't know. I love her. I love her version of Miss. How you do it?

Speaker 2:
[32:52] Yes, it's so good.

Speaker 4:
[32:54] But yeah, I'd say she's two out of three because her fame didn't necessarily translate into the thing that she actually did. People just saw her as a messy person rather than like a brilliant.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] She's definitely a star though. She has the charisma.

Speaker 4:
[33:05] She's a star.

Speaker 2:
[33:05] Has the charisma.

Speaker 4:
[33:06] Okay, your turn.

Speaker 2:
[33:07] Okay. I want to get Zendaya because I...

Speaker 4:
[33:17] Here's it, here's it.

Speaker 2:
[33:18] Zendaya.

Speaker 4:
[33:18] Oh my god, this is getting witchy. You manifested, oh my god. What's your take? Zendaya, I believe Zendaya is a star. There's just something about her, you know? And I think it's... The way she, I don't want to say plays small, because that's not the right way to put it. She has a very quiet presence to her. Like even when she does the red carpet, and it's a very theatrical thing.

Speaker 2:
[33:46] She doesn't say too much.

Speaker 4:
[33:47] She doesn't say much. She kind of just glides on the red carpet. The outfit does the talking. Lore gives us all a dirty look, who we love. And then it's just like, she's just...

Speaker 2:
[33:56] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[33:57] And that is very powerful. I think she's a celebrity in terms of the old Hollywood mystique.

Speaker 2:
[34:03] She has the mystique.

Speaker 4:
[34:04] She has the mystique.

Speaker 2:
[34:05] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[34:05] And the way she kind of breadcrumbs. So...

Speaker 2:
[34:07] Like she apparently got married, and how Roach told us.

Speaker 4:
[34:10] Her stylist told us. And then she shows up on the red carpet, and she's wearing something old. So now we're waiting for something new, and something borrowed, and something blue. But she's not craven to the point that she's calling the paparazzi to... When she's getting rid of her rubbish, and doing the papstrol. But I think she understands celebrity in the old Hollywood sense, which is like you say very little, and you kind of telegraph this message. And I think she's a famous person. She's one of the most famous actresses in the world.

Speaker 2:
[34:40] And she has a certain level of professional restraint that is refreshing. She doesn't do too many projects. And most of the ones that she chooses to take on, she's just going to be pretty good in them. There was that one movie that she did with John David Washington that was just trash.

Speaker 4:
[34:55] That black and white one. I think everyone just pretends they didn't have it. Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[34:59] But the rest of the stuff, I'm just like, yeah, I'll hit.

Speaker 4:
[35:01] She also has that thing that's child stars that survive have, which is they learn to be very careful.

Speaker 2:
[35:09] Oh yeah, she doesn't slip.

Speaker 4:
[35:10] She's very, very careful. Even how she physically comports herself, she's just very careful. And I'm like, oh, you've been in this business for a really long time, you really want it. You're grateful that you don't have the entitlement, but she's always on. When she's in the pub, I don't know how she is in her personal life, but she's always on in a very smart way. You're never gonna get her on video, cutting someone out.

Speaker 2:
[35:34] And I think, and this is not part of the rubric, but I think what makes a celebrity really lovable is the ways in which their face can emote and be big. And I always think that the perfect movie star face is Julia Roberts' face, because it's massive. So it can emote everything.

Speaker 4:
[35:50] You want my Julia Roberts conspiracy.

Speaker 2:
[35:52] I do, first.

Speaker 4:
[35:53] I think she's passe blanc, but then... This is fun, but go on, go on.

Speaker 2:
[35:57] But when I think about Julia Roberts' big, almost hoarse laugh, when Zendaya laughs, it reminds me of that.

Speaker 4:
[36:03] Yeah, she has that.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] Her laugh is big.

Speaker 4:
[36:04] Yeah, the eyes and the smile. And I can't remember who you mentioned, but you were talking about Whitney's vocal purity. There's like a purity to them. Not that they have pure lives, but there's something about their spirits that you're like, oh, they seem kind. You don't know if they are kind, but you're like, they seem kind. I want to root for this person. And it's like, the girl next door.

Speaker 2:
[36:24] More on Julia Roberts, speaking of girl next door, you have more thoughts.

Speaker 4:
[36:26] Yeah, my friends always laugh at me because every six months, I start my conspiracy that Julia Roberts is really black.

Speaker 2:
[36:34] You know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Julia paid for her delivery.

Speaker 4:
[36:38] And then I'm like-

Speaker 2:
[36:38] Yes, because, fun fact for those who don't know, when Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta, were trying to send their kids to acting classes in the South, which was segregated, they couldn't get their kids in, Julia Roberts' family had an acting school and they took in those children.

Speaker 4:
[36:56] I wonder why they took in those children, huh? I wonder why they- She got a real good curl. I'm like, the curls and the lips and the cheeks. I'm like, guys, that's my conspiracy, that she's passing but doesn't know it.

Speaker 2:
[37:09] Anyway. I just rewatched Pretty Woman a few weeks ago. There will never be a better movie star.

Speaker 4:
[37:16] We watched Hook because of my kids. We were introducing them all the classics and she was such a great Tinkerbell.

Speaker 2:
[37:22] Yeah. My best friend's wedding.

Speaker 4:
[37:23] Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[37:26] I could do an hour on Julie.

Speaker 4:
[37:26] Mind you, she's the most profoundly unlikable character in that film. She's a felon. And you're rooting for her.

Speaker 2:
[37:33] Also, she was messy in real life. I forget which film it was, but she basically leaves her man and one of the camera guys, she convinces him to leave his woman.

Speaker 4:
[37:43] Oh, that's a star.

Speaker 2:
[37:44] And then she ends up wearing a T-shirt that's mocking the name of the woman the camera guy left.

Speaker 4:
[37:49] Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[37:50] She's messy.

Speaker 4:
[37:51] She's messy. I love her.

Speaker 2:
[37:52] I love her.

Speaker 4:
[37:53] Okay, my girl. Let me see. Let me see. Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[37:55] I'm so glad we got Zendaya.

Speaker 4:
[37:56] Oh, I know. You manifested it. I'm nervous. What is this? Oh, she's in the new chapel running. Off to you, Sam.

Speaker 2:
[38:08] I want to breathe deeply.

Speaker 4:
[38:09] Okay. Is she a star?

Speaker 2:
[38:11] And preface this by saying, I don't know how I feel about chapel being famous or a star or a celebrity, but I do know how I feel about the people around her. They're not protecting her. They are not serving her.

Speaker 4:
[38:26] Tell me more.

Speaker 2:
[38:27] She has had so many situations of just continuing to speak when silence would serve you so much better.

Speaker 4:
[38:36] She should be Zendaya.

Speaker 2:
[38:37] Yes. And whenever I see her pop up in the news again, I'm like, where's her publicist? Where's her manager? Where's her team?

Speaker 4:
[38:43] Where's the lawyer? Where's the agent?

Speaker 2:
[38:45] Someone needs to just say, yeah, chapel, you're right. Give us the phone.

Speaker 4:
[38:49] But do you think they, she doesn't seem like somebody you can tell what to do.

Speaker 2:
[38:52] I've heard she's run through a few management teams.

Speaker 4:
[38:54] Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:56] But okay, I will say this. That debut album is phenomenal. Casual is one of the most visceral breakup love songs I've heard in many years. And she can fricking sing. So the skill and the talent is there. We cannot deny it. You even watch those old videos of her like busking in Central Park.

Speaker 4:
[39:18] She's good.

Speaker 2:
[39:19] Girlfriend has it.

Speaker 4:
[39:20] I think she's a star.

Speaker 2:
[39:21] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[39:22] Do I find her likable? No, but you don't have to be likable to be a star. That's what people forget. You just have to make me want to look.

Speaker 2:
[39:29] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[39:30] That's an element of sometimes it's the likability factor like Zendaya. Sometimes it's like Chappell is like, you're so annoying, but what did you do this week?

Speaker 2:
[39:36] She's not good at being a celebrity. She continually screws up the one-on-one of celebrities.

Speaker 4:
[39:42] She does, but I think if the paparazzi stopped following her, she would be so annoyed.

Speaker 2:
[39:48] Oh, for sure.

Speaker 4:
[39:49] I think they are in this dysfunctional loop. The paps, because people forget this about celebrities. The paparazzi, they know these guys' names because they see them so much. It's like a select group of guys who do it as their day job. Think about it like the doorman in a building or a security guard somewhere. It's Joe. Hey, Joe. Rihanna's really good with like, she'll banter with the paps.

Speaker 2:
[40:10] She is all three of them.

Speaker 4:
[40:10] She's all three and then some, right? But she'll be like, how you doing? How's your wife? Good to see you. There are some celebs who are really good at doing that banter and they've been doing it for so long. Chappell, I think, is still getting used to it. She's also very young. I don't know how she's like 20.

Speaker 2:
[40:24] No, she's not. She's in her 20s. She's in her mid-20s.

Speaker 4:
[40:26] She's in her mid-20s.

Speaker 2:
[40:27] We let white women be very young for a very long time.

Speaker 4:
[40:29] I mean, but the frontal lobe doesn't come in until you're like, I don't know what they're saying.

Speaker 2:
[40:33] And this is a thing that we have to remember about a lot of these stars, especially when they get famous very young. Often that means they don't even finish high school the same way that we do.

Speaker 4:
[40:41] Yeah. Arrested development.

Speaker 2:
[40:43] Yes. These are not book-learned individuals. They're clearly genius in some respects.

Speaker 4:
[40:47] They're creative geniuses.

Speaker 2:
[40:48] But they didn't major in fine arts.

Speaker 4:
[40:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:53] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[40:53] And the other thing is like, I, and this is like my bigger theory on fame, having like really good friends who've become famous very suddenly or been famous for a long time, becoming famous is a deeply traumatic event. And they say about like significant traumas that sometimes you stay the age of that trauma.

Speaker 2:
[41:12] Yep. Taylor Swift is still 15.

Speaker 4:
[41:14] Frozen in time, right? And so like it's a deep trauma. And it's very hard to relate to everyone in their world. And the people that love you most don't understand you. People think fame changes people. It doesn't actually change people, it changes everybody around them, right? So it's a very dehumanizing experience. It's like, you know, extreme wealth, extreme poverty, very dehumanizing. Fame, very dehumanizing, right? So there's this element of like, if you become famous at 17, you will meet a 50-year-old who has a lot of the traits and the impulses of a 17-year-old. And so I think some of that is, when I say chapel is young, I mean like it's that, and then you get the money and it's a lot.

Speaker 2:
[41:54] And you end up, because I've seen some of these stars and they're moving around sets and such. There are always, every second of their day, 10 people just around. And they're all on a payroll. And you don't know what they're doing. And the star might not know either. But they know in the back of their head, they gotta keep working to pay these people.

Speaker 4:
[42:17] I wouldn't say who told me this story, but they did a meeting once and they said in the meeting, they were like, I pay you, I pay you, I pay you, I pay you. And I feel like none of you look out for me. And that's a moment that people have when you're just like, oh, this is just their job and this is my life. So there's like the paranoia in it. And so I think there's a lot of that. They're happening with her, so I do give her grace. But to what you were saying earlier, that we let white women be children, we infantilize them for a really long time. To your point, it's just like, girl, grow up.

Speaker 2:
[42:48] Taylor Swift still writes about prom.

Speaker 4:
[42:50] Yeah, she does. The Swifties are in my comments right now because of our Swiftie-nomics episode, so I don't even want to address her. But it's just like, I think she's, Chappell's a star. I think she's a reluctant celebrity. I think she has a complicated relationship with celebrity, which makes it even more entertaining. Yes. You know, cause it's just like, did your security guard shout at the kid or did they not shout at the kid? It's just like, she gets in all of this stuff. And I think she's also a famous person. Cause she's like the Gen Z girl of the moment.

Speaker 2:
[43:17] I am going to give her this though. She will say Palestine. I sure appreciate that. Our biggest pop stars used to protest. Used to be involved in activism.

Speaker 4:
[43:25] Yeah, I have a theory about this.

Speaker 2:
[43:27] Please tell me. I think it's media consolidation. These companies are so big. They don't, they, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4:
[43:32] I think that, I do think it's media consolidation. I think in terms of getting, weighing into electoral politics, like being partisan, they realize there's no benefit.

Speaker 2:
[43:42] See, but this is the thing, because I think back to stars like Madonna and Stevie Wonder. Madonna at the height of the AIDS crisis, she talked about it on stage and gave out condoms. And was there with Queer Man going through this and would say its name, right? Beyoncé Made Renaissance, an album that is queer, and that is informed by queer blackness and informed by many people who came up at the height of the epidemic, dedicated to her uncle Johnny who died of AIDS. Have you ever heard Beyoncé say AIDS?

Speaker 4:
[44:12] I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[44:14] Yeah. Or like, I think about Stevie Wonder. He got arrested. There's a really great shot of Stevie Wonder in a fur coat and sunglasses getting arrested for protest. And I want to say it was about apartheid. He wrote his rendition of Happy Birthday to lobby for MLK Day to become a national holiday. This man put his neck out on the line and did it his entire career. I don't know what happened, but the stars don't do it anymore. And then they'll nod at it. They will nod at it symbolically. Like Kendrick Lamar's Halftime Show performance, nodded towards...

Speaker 4:
[44:47] They traffic some of it in. They traffic in the iconography, right? But they won't necessarily make avert statements. And if they do, it's careful.

Speaker 2:
[44:57] It's so careful. Which is why I love someone like Jill Scott even more, because she recently at Essence Fest performed a version of the national anthem in which she chains all the lyrics to be an indictment of America and the way it treats black people. Dude, use the words.

Speaker 4:
[45:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:13] Use the words.

Speaker 4:
[45:15] So I get what you're saying. I think, A, there's too much money. Now, there's way more money now. The rates now are crazy. The amount they could lose by doing that.

Speaker 2:
[45:26] But also, don't they have enough?

Speaker 4:
[45:28] Across the living room, no, you never have enough. They never have enough. No, they don't.

Speaker 2:
[45:32] Beyoncé is a billionaire.

Speaker 4:
[45:34] No, but I'm just talking about the class of celebrity that maybe can afford to fly first class, is working rich. It's like, I don't have family money, live in LA, having a team. I mean, Sydney Sweeney spoke about this and people got really annoyed. But what she was talking about, she was talking about the fact like, I don't come from family money. I pay my agent this, my lawyer this, my manager this, my business manager this.

Speaker 2:
[45:55] And there's some arrangements where like, 30 to 40% of your gross might go to other people.

Speaker 4:
[46:00] Go to other people and then she's like, and then I'm left to this and I have to keep working because a starter house in LA is $1.5 million, right? And people are like, oh, you still make, and I'm like-

Speaker 2:
[46:10] And she can't live around everybody else.

Speaker 4:
[46:11] No. And so they're talking about the business, the actual business of celebrity, especially now when there's not as many TV shows, there's not as many endorsements, digital is in flux. These are nervous people, right? And it's not even like having enough. They're just not as wealthy as you think they are, right? That's for sure. So a lot of them are like, I'm afraid to speak because just like you, I'll lose my job. So there's that element of it all. I think the other side of it is just like some of them don't know what to say. They don't know that. I actually really respect them when like, guys, I don't have to do my research. They can't talk about this in like nuanced terms. And I resent for them the expectation that these should be the people to educate us about what's going on in the world.

Speaker 2:
[46:55] And I think that so much of that pressure to have celebrities say the thing is a result of our electoral politics not having actually worked for us in 15 years. We have had several election cycles now where the party that gets the most votes across the country doesn't get the Congress or the White House. We are watching a war play out that not even Republicans want. And so when you feel like you have no political agency with actual politicians, I suppose it makes what Timothy Chalamet says about opera even more important.

Speaker 4:
[47:29] And I'm personally, I don't want Timothy Chalamet weighing in about Israel-Palestine. I actually think it's a broken system if our pop culture icons are like where the civic discourse is happening. And I get it. I think it's beautiful if that's what you believe and that's what you want to do. But I don't want to be sharp and dribble because that's what they said.

Speaker 2:
[47:51] For sure.

Speaker 4:
[47:51] I'm not of that. But then sometimes I'm like, when you're around these people, you're like, they don't know what they do.

Speaker 2:
[47:58] But then I look at other stars, like Bruce Springsteen is still showing up.

Speaker 4:
[48:02] But some of those guys are the, that is who they are. That's who they are.

Speaker 2:
[48:05] And I'm like, even Prince, people forget he was-

Speaker 4:
[48:09] Neutral aid. All of that stuff.

Speaker 2:
[48:11] Neutral aid.

Speaker 4:
[48:11] But some of these people, that's who they are. So even if they weren't performing, they would be like on the street protesting, they would be canvassing in the way they are. They're like, how can I make my part of the world better? I just think some of these people, and some of them are actually really informed and very nuanced and have a point of view, but what if they reach a conclusion that you don't like? Like, cause there's people that have come up, celebrities have come out and they said, I'm pro-Israel. And because that's what they feel. And it hasn't gone well for them. Do you know what I mean? And so it's just like, then you tell those people to shut out. And so then I'm like, you actually don't want celebrities to speak out unless it's what you believe. And that's why I'm like, don't let them speak at all. Because it's only if it aligns with your point of view, because then you go and go Gaudot's comments, you see her comment section, right? And so it's just like...

Speaker 2:
[49:02] It's hard, but here's the thing.

Speaker 4:
[49:03] They don't want to get into that because they're like, there's no winning in the way.

Speaker 2:
[49:06] Here's why I fixate so much on Kendrick and Beyoncé. Because I think both of them wrap themselves in the imagery of black activism. And that is what confuses me.

Speaker 4:
[49:17] Yeah, it's all iconography. It's trafficking. I mean, Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance, still one of my favorite.

Speaker 2:
[49:23] So good. Top seven. That's like the Black Panther.

Speaker 4:
[49:26] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[49:27] What do the Black Panthers do?

Speaker 4:
[49:29] Right. Exactly. And so it's just like you pull it in. And she's done that with like, you're about cosmology and like, like the Orishas. You see it in her work. She traffics in a lot of things. Are these things she's practices? Are these things she believes?

Speaker 2:
[49:43] Well, and like that is also the mark of a great diva. Medina was the same way in this like, reverse white world. She just, she would suck up every marginal culture that felt new and fresh and then make it mainstream. That is a skill.

Speaker 4:
[49:59] That's a skill.

Speaker 2:
[50:00] That's a skill.

Speaker 4:
[50:01] I just, I, because I'm with you, I used to be like, I used to get so upset because I'm somebody that like, I have very strong opinions. And I'd get upset when like, I felt my icons weren't saying what I wanted them to say. But then I realized, and this is what you learn about pop culture. Especially like, in the pop syllabus world, the people that listen to pop syllabus and read it, they're all over the political spectrum. They're diverse racially and gender sexuality. They probably wouldn't get on in real life, but they all love pop culture. And so their actual fans and their consumers, you'd be surprised how they vote. And so they're just like, you know what? I just, I'm gonna wash my hands. Let's get back to the celebrities. All right, let's get back to pop culture.

Speaker 2:
[50:40] I thought this was true, I thought this was true.

Speaker 6:
[50:42] No one goes to Hanks for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza, Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work.

Speaker 2:
[51:13] All right. I want, who do I want?

Speaker 4:
[51:15] Don't manifest.

Speaker 2:
[51:16] I manifest.

Speaker 4:
[51:16] Just let it flow.

Speaker 2:
[51:20] I'm scared. Who is it? Kamala Harris.

Speaker 4:
[51:23] Oh.

Speaker 2:
[51:24] Kamala Harris. I want to put some respect on her name. She went through it. We all would have been better off if she was in that White House right now. So whatever we say after this, utmost respect. But yeah, what's your take?

Speaker 4:
[51:39] I don't think she's a star. I think Trump's a star.

Speaker 2:
[51:43] He's such a star. It hurts.

Speaker 4:
[51:44] Unfortunately, he's so funny. He's so funny, right?

Speaker 2:
[51:46] This is what I hate to say. It's funny.

Speaker 4:
[51:49] Like Obama's a star too, right? You know, they have that stuff. And that's what I say about being a star. It's not necessary likeability.

Speaker 2:
[51:58] But can a woman politician ever be a star? We don't let women politicians be that.

Speaker 4:
[52:01] I think Margaret Thatcher was a star.

Speaker 2:
[52:04] Oh, I think Ann Richards was too. She's a Texas governor from back in the 90s.

Speaker 4:
[52:07] Yeah, I think that you get plenty. I think Hillary's a star. She was just a star, unfortunately, that had a husband who was a bigger star. You get what I'm talking about? Hillary's a star. That's why I think people were like, what you're responding to is like, her stardom rubs you the wrong way. And that was the sexism of it all. It was just like, how dare you? Because she owns her stardom, like in the suits and she knows who she is. But I don't think she's a star.

Speaker 2:
[52:32] I have found myself, you know, I used to cover politics, covered the national election. I don't cover politics anymore. But when I want to put on that political reporter hat, I do and I can, it feels good. And one thing I always noticed with Kamala Harris was that, and this was even things that people who worked with her and for her would say, really hard to get her nailed down to what she really fundamentally believes.

Speaker 4:
[53:03] I've heard that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:04] And I think a lot of times, and this is a deficiency of our American political system, it's all about who you like and the visuals, and performing celebrity and stardom. People want to look at someone like a politician or a president, and be able to say, we're the right or wrong, here's their nut graph, here's their elevator pitch, here's their mission statement. It's that, no one ever got there with Kamala Harris.

Speaker 4:
[53:33] Yeah, because I think, and I'm kind of expounding on my theory of stardom here, there's something about stardom that is clarity.

Speaker 2:
[53:40] Yes, there's a clarity. Beyoncé is this, Donald Trump is this.

Speaker 4:
[53:45] Obama is this, Chappell Rowan is this. Kamala Harris? If there's no clarity, you can't, because people, you have to be just legible to people, right?

Speaker 2:
[53:55] But I even feel guilty.

Speaker 4:
[53:58] Don't feel guilty.

Speaker 2:
[53:58] I'm having this conversation because some of those questions around her and who and what she was led to what we have now, because that guy's in the White House. And I'm like, oh snap, was my job in the run up to the election just to only be a booster?

Speaker 4:
[54:14] No, I think the other guy, part of what makes him a star, right, is that he is what he is, whether you like it or not. There's no confusion, whatever point of the political spectrum you are on about what he means and what he says and what he believes. There's no confusion. And that's the thing about a star, people just need to instantly feel it. You know, it's a very, I don't know, it's kind of weird, she's not got a role, it's just primordial.

Speaker 2:
[54:43] It's the anointing.

Speaker 5:
[54:44] It's the anointing, but I don't know what type of oil Trump has, I don't know about this.

Speaker 2:
[54:49] Snake oil. Snake oil.

Speaker 4:
[54:52] But like, it's just like, it's just that thing, that thing, that thing, as Lauryn Hill would say. And so it's just like, you either have it or you don't. And as I keep saying, doesn't mean you like it, doesn't mean you enjoy it, but you have to keep watching. And I don't think people thought they had to keep watching her. And so for me, I never felt like she was starting. I think, you know, and people always get upset when I speak about her, you know, the amount of messages I get. I think one of her curses was that she was very beautiful. Right. So like, say more. It was the reason that got her in the room, like being a palatable face of blackness, like skin woman, you know, beautiful, straight hair. But then beauty means people take women less seriously. So I think there was part of that. And I think she's always, she was always playing down her beauty. And there was part of her that was, she was just performing like, don't look at me. I mean, Obama got in trouble by saying that she was like the most beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[55:43] But that was a boneheaded comment.

Speaker 4:
[55:44] Yeah, but yeah.

Speaker 2:
[55:46] Yeah, but totally.

Speaker 4:
[55:47] I think that's an element of that. But then I also think that the palatability in how she looked was why she got as far as she did. Does Stacey Abrams become VP? If we're talking about qualified and gifted and DMV, there's a debate to be had about colorism and aesthetics.

Speaker 2:
[56:10] And then you compare it just to the men that we allow to be politicians. Most of the men politicians are ugly.

Speaker 4:
[56:17] Yeah. They just have to be tall. I think they're all over. And the short person that never lasted, Nixon. Like I think it's just like, they just say you have to be... They've done all of these studies about like, there's an average height of a politician. Most people have been elected are over six foot. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[56:33] I'm about six four, right?

Speaker 4:
[56:34] Yeah, yeah. He's tall. I'm the most handsome man.

Speaker 2:
[56:37] He sure is. He's aging well.

Speaker 4:
[56:39] He's aging well. But yeah, I think she's a very complicated one. And this is what I tell people about. And I think this is where pop culture relates to politics. Like stardom is not about qualifications.

Speaker 2:
[56:54] Say that again.

Speaker 4:
[56:55] Doesn't matter if you're qualified.

Speaker 2:
[56:56] Say that again.

Speaker 4:
[56:57] Stardom can mean that you can actually jump the hoop.

Speaker 2:
[57:00] Oh yes.

Speaker 4:
[57:00] And you become known for not doing anything.

Speaker 2:
[57:03] We know this because we both grew up in black churches and every black church worth its salt had at least three women who could out sing the best-selling divas of today.

Speaker 4:
[57:14] Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
[57:15] Every church had them. But it's like, do you have all of the things in the right formula to be that kind of star?

Speaker 4:
[57:21] Are you the star? And it's like, yeah, cause if it's about vocal prowess, like I could walk down to a Baptist church and I can find somebody that can sing Sabrina Carpenter down. Exactly. But it's never been, it's not about that, right? And so it's about people responding to her. So I don't think she's a star. I don't think she's a celebrity. I think she's a famous person.

Speaker 2:
[57:41] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[57:42] I think she's a famous person.

Speaker 2:
[57:42] What do you think Kamala Harris thinks she is of the three?

Speaker 4:
[57:45] Ooh, that's a great question. That is a, wow, you should be a journalist. Um, I think she, I think she feels like an imposter.

Speaker 2:
[57:59] Oh, that breaks my heart.

Speaker 4:
[58:00] Not in a bad way.

Speaker 2:
[58:01] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[58:02] I think people give her less credit for like her, like she's a hustler. Like she's, she's like, she was trying to ting, like, but I think that lack of clarity was, she never wanted to show us what she really believed, what she really thought, what she really, she was always playing to, like, no one really knows what she believed. And I think she was always playing to the crowd in a way. So I don't think she, I think she knows she's not clear with the world. So I think there's a Camilla that people know in their private life and know what her politics really are and how she would have behaved if she had become president. But I don't think we'll ever know, you know? And I think that's, and the sexism and the racism, that's what people were responding to. Oh, I love this one. Barbra Streisand.

Speaker 2:
[58:48] I want to go back to your read. I think she's all three.

Speaker 4:
[58:53] Yeah, she's all three. She's all three. She's all three. She cloned her dogs.

Speaker 2:
[58:59] And bragged about it. I've heard that she has like a little mall in the basement of her mansion because she likes malls.

Speaker 4:
[59:07] That's a star.

Speaker 2:
[59:08] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[59:08] That's a star. Your turn.

Speaker 2:
[59:10] Okay. Yeah. No argument there.

Speaker 4:
[59:12] She's all three. So easy.

Speaker 2:
[59:13] So easy. So easy. We're going to do both of these.

Speaker 4:
[59:22] Okay, let's go.

Speaker 2:
[59:23] It's Will Smith and Miley Cyrus, which one first?

Speaker 4:
[59:27] Let's do Will.

Speaker 2:
[59:28] Okay, I want to hear your Will theory, because I have a Will theory.

Speaker 4:
[59:32] Oh no, I want to hear your Will theory first.

Speaker 2:
[59:34] I think Will and the Slap was the culmination of having to be America's happy magical Negro for 25 years.

Speaker 4:
[59:46] Tell me more.

Speaker 2:
[59:47] I think at every turn, even when he was a rapper, he was presenting a clean, sanitized, palatable version of black man. Even when he was rapping, he was like, I don't curse, this is family friendly. It's all safe. He was never really tapping into the full spectrum of adult emotion. We wanted him to be happy. Think about him in movies like The Legend of Bagger Vans. He was a magical Negro. And I think all of that suppression.

Speaker 4:
[60:20] Independence Day. Yes. He saves the day.

Speaker 2:
[60:23] He saves us and he's only happy go lucky. And I think having to...

Speaker 4:
[60:27] The pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 2:
[60:28] Thank you. And that, having to be that and having everyone in white Hollywood and black Hollywood, basically say that you're like the great black hope. He was the king of the summer box office for years. That weighs on you. And I think that the slap was not about Chris Rock. I think it was about all of that.

Speaker 4:
[60:50] And you think he did the slap to assert his masculinity?

Speaker 2:
[60:54] No, I think he wasn't even... I don't even think the synapses were firing altogether.

Speaker 4:
[61:00] It was all subterranean.

Speaker 2:
[61:01] There you go.

Speaker 4:
[61:01] It was just...

Speaker 2:
[61:02] Because I know, and I've had moments in my career where I've had to say, if I stay in this role, I'll just be performing what you think I need to be as a queer person, as a black person, as a Texan, as a Christian. Black creatives always have this struggle because the thing that gets you notoriety might be very different from the thing that is really you. And I think more than a lot of other stars in the last several decades, that struggle was really real for Will Smith.

Speaker 4:
[61:39] And this is not even a pushback, because part of me feels like Will always cultivated that image. Like I don't think that burden was like thrust upon Will. I feel like he felt like he has all this kind of like new age spirituality, like I manifest, I can't fail, I'm intentional. I just always felt like he felt I have to, he presented his life a certain way. For sure. He says, I've got this beautiful blended family, I've got these talented kids, and I've got this wonderful wife, and I'm a family man. I don't think people were craving that from him because who's his contemporary?

Speaker 2:
[62:18] But they sopped it up.

Speaker 4:
[62:19] They did, but his contemporary is like Tom Cruise, has always been very interesting and prickly. I think it's obviously the Scientology that made people feel like, oh, he's weird, but Tom Cruise has just been Tom Cruise, right? Yeah. Just rode his own wave. It always felt that Will was leaning into the family image more than perhaps we demanded it. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[62:38] I think because he's black.

Speaker 4:
[62:40] Yes, that's true.

Speaker 2:
[62:41] I think there was a pressure on a black man like Will Smith, that a white guy like Tom Cruise would never feel.

Speaker 4:
[62:48] Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2:
[62:49] Now, that said, Tom has had his fair share of insanity. That's, I mean, we could talk about that for a while. But yeah, I don't know. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Will Smith. I'm not sure I need to, but I do.

Speaker 4:
[63:04] So first of all, I think he's all three.

Speaker 2:
[63:06] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[63:09] Just the rare trifecta and kind of effortless lead, doesn't he?

Speaker 2:
[63:15] Also, part of what makes you all three is when you can make something that is actually bad and everyone still loves it.

Speaker 4:
[63:21] Like Wild Wild West? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[63:23] Or Hitch. What a great movie.

Speaker 4:
[63:25] No.

Speaker 2:
[63:26] Or some of those albums. Not great music.

Speaker 4:
[63:28] Yes, but also the thing about him and maybe this is me, I love a striver and Will wants it so much.

Speaker 2:
[63:37] It's palpable.

Speaker 4:
[63:38] You're like, whatever his wound is, it's so clear and he's like, like me, like me, love me, love me. You can tell that he's grappling with the fact his marriage has failed because the Jada was like, we weren't even married. Why are you up there slapping someone calling me your wife? And I still can't figure out what the slap meant and why he did it. I think you have a really compelling theory and I'm going to go home and think about it.

Speaker 2:
[64:04] And I also wanted to be challenged.

Speaker 4:
[64:06] No, no, no, but I think it's not an angle I thought about before. Knowing people that have had hair loss and alopecia, but that's especially for black women, that's traumatizing. So I do as much as it may have been an ego-driven act. He's seen Jada behind the scenes grapple with losing her hair in a way.

Speaker 2:
[64:24] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[64:25] I think he must have, what made me sad is that he always wanted the Oscar.

Speaker 2:
[64:30] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[64:30] It was like the culmination of his career. He finally, it was like finally good job, Will, and it's forever tainted.

Speaker 2:
[64:39] He can't even go back.

Speaker 4:
[64:40] They banned him, which is ridiculous.

Speaker 2:
[64:42] Insane.

Speaker 4:
[64:43] Come on. They banned him for 10 years. When I look at it and I look back at how our community has responded, interesting, I talk to my friends all the time, you would think that Chris slapped Will.

Speaker 2:
[65:01] What the slap revealed is that most of us don't actually like Chris Rock that much.

Speaker 4:
[65:06] We're like, yeah, but who hasn't slapped someone? One of my friends was like, we're Africans, sometimes we give someone a dirty slap. I'm like, hi guys. My friends were like, that happens, we slap sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[65:16] When I saw it happen, the first words out of my mouth were, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Speaker 4:
[65:24] I felt really sorry for Chris in that moment, the humiliation. It made me sad, the whole thing made me sad. But I think the way the, he still gets mobbed in the street, going to Instagram comments like, crazy engagement, we love you. And it just showed me that he is one of the few people that's a Tri Vector that is still beloved. There's very few people that we've mentioned today that can have this level of affection. And it's actually impacted how people have fallen on this Jada versus Will thing that has emerged and everyone in this team will. But you know, he's such a star, and so many of your best memories. And so he's one of the very few, that's all three.

Speaker 2:
[66:03] Miley Cyrus.

Speaker 4:
[66:05] Miley, this is an interesting thing. If you told me like Hannah Montana, the Clime era, she never gave Neppo baby because a kid has talent.

Speaker 2:
[66:14] She works.

Speaker 4:
[66:15] She works, so she never gave Neppo baby. But she's someone that has grown into a star. And there's very few people that do that. And I'm like, has she grown into a star? Because she saw her father and she's like, you know, it's something to like the kitchen table talk of just like being around the business and you learn things. And she's just somebody that it's been the last five years. I've been like, oh, she's good.

Speaker 2:
[66:39] I like her.

Speaker 4:
[66:40] I like her. She's funny. She's self-aware.

Speaker 2:
[66:42] She's centered. But here's my biggest note on everything Miley Cyrus has done since becoming an adult star. I think for years, and let me get a little churchy here. She has been running from her calling.

Speaker 4:
[66:55] And what's that?

Speaker 2:
[66:56] A fucking country album.

Speaker 4:
[66:58] Make a country album. You're right. You're right.

Speaker 2:
[67:01] She's done everything except make a country album.

Speaker 4:
[67:03] The song she did with Beyoncé.

Speaker 2:
[67:04] We all loved it.

Speaker 4:
[67:06] The vocal, the rasp. Come on.

Speaker 2:
[67:08] Imagine the power that a country album from Miley Cyrus would have.

Speaker 4:
[67:14] She doesn't want to do it. She's running from home.

Speaker 2:
[67:16] She's running from home and let me tell you something.

Speaker 4:
[67:18] Come on home, Miley.

Speaker 2:
[67:19] Come on home, prodigal daughter.

Speaker 4:
[67:21] But doesn't that speak to her stardom that she's not even doing the genre, her voice and sensibilities are actually built to do, and she's still crushing it.

Speaker 2:
[67:29] That's it. I tried with the last album because I always try with her album, because I believe in her voice. She's running from the songs that she needs to actually be singing.

Speaker 4:
[67:36] But I've always preferred Demi Lovato's voice on the records, Demi does. Like when of that generation of like kind of a child star. Miley's never been an album girl for me, but I watched the live show. She kind of like Pink. Pink is in the air doing all of the acrobats.

Speaker 2:
[67:53] Also Pink has been writing the same song now for 15 years.

Speaker 4:
[67:55] Yeah. I mean, she's just making so much money. But it's just like, I watch the show, I enjoy them as a performer, that they're belting, they're running about, the voice is great, but I don't necessarily need to listen to the whole record. That's how I feel about Miley.

Speaker 2:
[68:09] Imagine a Miley country record. Immediately, she's able to bring all of the best in country to her studio. She's going to get Willie Nelson, she's going to get Dolly Parton, she's the best producers, the best writers.

Speaker 4:
[68:24] Yeah, she knows all of that.

Speaker 2:
[68:24] She knows it all. And imagine Miley Cyrus saying, I'm going to take over the Grand Old Opry for a few months, and my show will be queer-friendly and POC-friendly, and we'll do it. And you can't kick me out, because I'm so country. Imagine what she could do.

Speaker 4:
[68:40] I just think that, and this is the thing, and this is why I love country, I listen to a lot of country music, because it's one of the few genres where they're still doing storytelling.

Speaker 2:
[68:51] And like, they take lyrics seriously.

Speaker 4:
[68:52] They take lyrics.

Speaker 2:
[68:53] They really do.

Speaker 4:
[68:54] It's like, I actually was the Dixie Chicks that got me into country music.

Speaker 2:
[68:58] My podcast friend, I interview her as much as I can, Tressie McMillan Cotton.

Speaker 4:
[69:04] Oh, we love Tressie.

Speaker 2:
[69:05] She says that we don't have Taylor Swift without the Dixie Chicks being canceled.

Speaker 4:
[69:09] Wow. See, Tressie. She's it.

Speaker 2:
[69:11] I want to hear you and her conversation.

Speaker 4:
[69:13] I know. I need to bring her on. But it was the Dixie Chicks that got me into it, and I just love the storytelling because it's all about like, it's really sad, like alcoholics. You know how it goes. And the thing is with Miley, I don't know how she channels that because there's an element of country, because country is like white hip hop. It's not white, but you know what I mean. Where it's just like, it's really, it's much better when you're poor.

Speaker 2:
[69:33] Yes. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[69:35] It's like, especially like the bluegrass, it's like much better when you're just talking about like, you're working your stupid job at the gas station. Someone comes in and they want a coffee and then you run away with this guy and you both shoot yourselves, the end. But so I'm just like, maybe that's why she doesn't want to, it won't feel authentic in terms of what she's singing about. But I don't know, I could be wrong. So Miley is a star. Is she a celebrity?

Speaker 2:
[69:59] I really think she's all three.

Speaker 4:
[70:00] She is all three.

Speaker 2:
[70:01] Because we really still care about her. I have not rocked a Miley song hard since Flowers, and that was years ago at this point. And I still am obsessed with her.

Speaker 4:
[70:10] And she still does like, I think Met Gala, she'll be there. She likes all the big things. Like if Miley's, you're like, where's Miley Cyrus?

Speaker 2:
[70:17] She's such a star that black people just forgot about the whole twerking phase.

Speaker 4:
[70:21] What twerking phase? Exactly. Exactly. Sam, thank you so much.

Speaker 3:
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