Teena Marie Stream this exclusive interview with Teena Marie
Stream: Windows Media Player Required.

MP3: First of all, let me just say it's an honor to talk to you. Teena Marie: Thank you. MP3: And I just wanted to say that Starchild is one of my favorites and definitely my favorite album cover of all time. Teena Marie: Well, thank you. MP3: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of that album, which was released 22 years ago, you have been around for a while, and I'm curious about how you feel the music industry and popular music has changed since you first started coming up in the early '80s. Teena Marie: Well, for a while I didn't like a lot of music that was on the radio. But I think it's getting a lot better now with the resurgence of artists like Alicia Keys and Keyshia Cole and Beyoncé and Rihanna and some young people that have really did their homework and are very, very talented in their own right. I didn't like the real degrading period that we went through, and I still don't like that part of the music industry. You know, where every song is about the VIP, but now it just seems...it seems to be getting better again, and I'm very happy about that. MP3: You're a singer, a songwriter, a producer, arranger--truly a multidimensional artist. And most of the singers that came after you were not as talented. What do you think about the fact that there are quite a few singers who do not produce or write their own songs? Teena Marie: I just think it's a blessing that I was able to have the gift of words and to be able to put them into music. I was given a great gift all the way around. I didn't ever have to really go out and look for songs, you know. That can be a problem, you know, if you are out looking for songs and you're not finding great ones. But I'm not adverse to recording other people's music either, you know.

Marvin Gaye wrote some incredible music while he was on this earth, but he also recorded other people's music, and I think that was why he was such an amazing artist, because he would record "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Ashford and Simpson and "Your Precious Love," but then he had the gift himself. You know, and I have done cover songs in my career, as well, if I found that my stuff wasn't what I felt was up to par. There is still great songs on the earth, and I look for those songs. MP3: Before we talk about Sapphire, I would like to know, were you in anyway surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to La Dona? Teena Marie: It was wonderful. I think we really, really, really knew we had a big hit with "Still in Love" from the first time I heard the track, because the track was sent to me from Mannie Fresh in Cash Money. I didn't know that it was an Al Green sample, so I really actually wrote with Al Green, but the track was really, really powerful, and I went into the studio and put my own lyrics and melody on it and recorded new guitars and did all the backgrounds and mixed it, went in the studio with the engineer and mixed it, and we knew it was going to be a hit. Sometimes you can just feel them. MP3: You mentioned Mannie Fresh and Cash Money. How did your relationship begin with both of them? Teena Marie: My album was actually almost done and a copy fell into the hands of Ronald Williams, who is the CEO of Cash Money, and they asked me to come to New Orleans to talk about a deal, and I was like...Cash Money, that's different, you know. What are we going to do, but they wanted to start a classic label and wanted me to head up that label, and they wanted me to just, they were like, "No we love this album, and we want to put it out the way it is, and we just want you to do what you do...you are not going to be on a hip-hop label, you are going to be on Cash Money Classic." So it worked out really, really well. Because I pretty much have complete autonomy on my own albums, and I do my thing and turn it in, and if they like it, we put it out. MP3: That's a beautiful relationship. So the Sapphire, first off, I'm wondering if you could just explain the title to us? Teena Marie: Well, Rick [James] had a song called "Sapphire" that was about black women. Black women's contribution historically in society. It talks about Cleopatra and Nefertiti and Barbara Jordan and Oprah Winfrey, and it is a really beautiful song. It's never come out--I hope it comes out when his album comes out, because it's an amazing song, and I would always tell him how much I love that song, because that song and another song that he did on the Throwing Down album called "My Love" were my favorite Rick James songs. And I would always say "Wow! Rick, I really, really hope that this could come out, because people really need to hear this from you--they need to hear this other side," and he would look at me and would say, "Well, you are my Sapphire, too." MP3: That's wonderful. Well, most folks know about your musical relationship with Rick James. How did his passing affect the writing and recording of Sapphire? Teena Marie: Well, I was in a sad place. Obviously, I mean, although I wasn't surprised by his death. I feel like the album helped me write my way out of some of my pain. A couple of the songs on the album are about him, the whole album is not about him, because somebody just said that they thought I wrote the album as a love letter to him, but its not..."Make It Hot For You" and "Romantica" were written about him. And, I also felt like some of the stuff, like especially "Make It Hot For You," I felt like he was writing with me--it really has a lot of his sound in it, and so I felt like I was kind of writing for two people. MP3: It must have been a very cathartic experience for you? Teena Marie: Oh! Yeah. MP3: Well, your daughter also appears on the album? Teena Marie: Yes. She's on the last song "Resilient." That song was written for the Hurricane Katrina, and all the proceeds for that song go to the Habitat of Humanity, which is the Wynton and Bradford Marsalis site, Harry Connick Jr. and my daughter is singing with me. MP3: Do you share a musical relationship with your daughter? Teena Marie: Oh! Yeah. We sit at the piano, and we sing, and I'm teaching her how to play a guitar, and she's very talented--she writes herself, and she's got great ideas, sometimes she gives me ideas.

She is amazing with harmonies, and sometime she goes "No mama, that's not the right harmony," and she'll give me a different note to sing. She's pretty amazing. MP3: Are you encouraging her to move into or to follow in your footsteps? Teena Marie: It's not something that I would have chose for her, but it seems that's what she wants to do--she's not ready yet. She said she doesn't want to do it for a couple more years, she just wants to be a kid, and I think that's great. I'm going to support her with whatever she does. MP3: Obviously you will have many words of wisdom to give her? Teena Marie: Yeah. I've had a lot of experiences in my own career that I can share with her. MP3: Probably some taken from the Brockhart initiative, which you were famously a part of? Teena Marie: Yeah, it wasn't something I set out to do though, it just happened to fall in my lap. The record company sued me, and I countersued and I won...everything just kind of happened that way. MP3: Smokey Robinson appears on the record? Teena Marie: Yes, he is my idol. MP3: Yeah! Many people's, and I understand that he acted as a bit of a mentor for you? Teena Marie: I feel like that's how I learned to write music, because I studied his music so much as a young girl, because I loved him so much. There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him. And so I really studied his music, and I really feel that that's what really taught me how to write music was his structure and cadence and his romantic love lyrics, and that's what I wanted to do in my life. So it was a great, great experience to be able to work, finally with him in the studio after all these years, because we have known each other for years. That's actually...the song "Cruise Control" is the next single. MP3: It's one of my favorites on the album. Teena Marie: Oh! Good, good. I'm glad to hear that, and everybody has been saying that today on these interviews that I have been doing. So that's a good sign. MP3: Yeah, it definitely has been the highlight for me. Teena Marie: That would have been my choice for the first single, I think. MP3: I was a little surprised that it wasn't the first single. Teena Marie: Yeah, I didn't want to pick it because I felt too close to the album. You know, they asked me what I wanted to come out with, and I was like, you know what, I have been through way too much in the last two years. You guys don't want me picking the single, but that probably would have been my choice, but it's going to be the second single, so that's great. MP3: What was the moment that you and Smokey decided that you would work on this track together? Teena Marie: Oh! You know what, I went to a concert in November with the Motown family. They were giving Esther Edwards, who was the sister of Berry Gordy, a lifetime achievement award. She has been keeping the museum, the Motown museum, going for the last 20 years. So they were giving her an extravagant event, and Smokey was performing at that, and I was sitting in the audience watching him, amazed like all these people, with his beautiful, beautiful voice and, of course, his many, many, many hits. I mean, there is so many hits. Not just for himself that he wrote but other people--Mary Wells, The Temps--I mean, I could just go on and on and on all the songs this man wrote. And I was listening to all the comments of all the women and stuff that were at the table and how everybody was just saying how fine he still is after all these years. I had my own comments that I was making, and all of a sudden I just said, yes, that Smokey got 2000 people on "Cruise Control" and right when I said that I went "Ooh..."and then I thought about "Cruising" and everything, and I was like OK, so as soon as I got home I wrote it, and I called Mr. Gordy, and Mr. Gordy called Smokey and told him to go to the studio and do it with me. And that's how it happened. MP3: You must have been beside yourself? Teena Marie: And God has created the piece that is at the beginning of it. I wrote that when I was 17 or 18, and that was in the time when everything that I wrote sounded just like Smokey Robinson. So I thought it would be a great introduction to "Cruise Control." And when he heard it, he was like "Ah! Yeah this is me," and I was like, it is you. MP3: Well, it was obviously just a shining moment in your career. So, I'm curious about the 10-year break, the hiatus that you took? Teena Marie: Well, I stopped because I wanted to raise my daughter, and I wanted to be hands-on in her life. I didn't want to be one of those industry moms that never does anything with their kids, and I wanted to take her to school and raise her myself, so I stopped for a while. MP3: And do you feel that that's had a positive effect on your career? Teena Marie: Oh! Yeah, I think so. You know, I'm at the point in my life where I don't really need any of this to validate who I am, and she validates me much more than anything that I have ever done, you know what I'm saying? It's just a whole different thing, and it's just that my life has been a blessing, and I thank god every day for the gifts that he has given me and for my daughter and to be able to watch her grow and be a part of her joys and her excitement and what she wants to do in life. MP3: Well, maybe one day we can look forward to an album by the two of you? Teena Marie: Well, I don't know about an album of duets, but we've recorded something else since we did that song. So we're still working on stuff. She has got like five or six tracks of her own. MP3: Like mother, like daughter. Well, thank you Teena. Teena Marie: Thank you.