SB: How did you end up incorporating the theme of Good Times into “Gotcha Love?”
E: The piano reminded me of it and I just went with it. After I recorded it, my friend pointed it out to me, though, like, “You know you’re singing Good Times, right? ‘Good Times!’” And I was like, "Oh s**t! It wasn’t intentionally at all. Yeah. I watch it. I love it. Maybe it was stuck in the back of my brain. It just felt right. And that song is so warm, almost like a hug, and Good Times reminds me of feeling like you’re at home with your family. It just felt right.
SB: The album ends on the song “All That Matters,” which I feel should be the wedding song of 2015.
E: Come on let’s keep pushing that!
SB: I will definitely push it to anyone I know getting married this year. How close are you to your “All That Matters” in life?
E: Um… I don’t know. I want to say I’m a quarter way through the album. Eventually, but not today. I generally have a five-year goal, but you know, God has other plans. He’ll be like, “Oh word! You want it in five years. Here you go! Too-morrow!”
- Advertisement -SB: Ha!
E: So, if it does, it does, but my main goal is being happy and getting to a point where I can wake up every morning and I’m not so anxious about too many things. Where I don’t feel pressured about things. I just want to get to the point where I’m 1000 percent free. And if I get to 99/1000 percent, just ten percent, I’ll be happy. And if it happens while I’m in my “All That Matters,” great! You know, but, I can’t call it.
- Advertisement -SB: So you’re somewhere between “Silly Girls” and “Gotcha Love?”
E: Somewhere around there! Isn’t that so weird. And that’s the point of the album. I wanted people to have a touchstone. It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to feel every single one of these ways in some capacity. And just be human. We ain’t all gotta be married and we ain’t all gotta be pissed off.
- Advertisement -SB: What did you learn about yourself while recording this album?
E: That I am capable of following my gut to the hilt. I never thought I was before and would question that. And it’s a series of things I did in the past four years that landed me here. Realizing that is a pretty awesome place to be in. I’m proud of myself in that aspect.
- Advertisement -SB: Anything else?
E: That I am a nice person. The industry, not to pass the blame, but being in music you have to be mean, but nice. Pushy, but laid back. You have to be all these different things and that causes conflict in humans, period. You can’t be positive and negative at the same exact damn time. It makes you feel like you’re crazy. What kind of person wants to do this? I’ve learned who I am and it’s perfectly fine to put context to my behavior versus just calling myself evil or good. Sometimes it’s gray.
- Advertisement -SB: In the past, you’ve talked about not being one genre of music or one type of artist. However, I think that it’s hard to be more than one thing in the music industry.
E: Nobody wants to buy an album from people who do one type of music, from people who do one genre. I’ve never done one genre. Every album I’ve put out has been a mix of genres. I don’t understand how an R&B artist will have a dance record and people get upset. We’re musicians, artists, that gets boring. I don’t listen to one style of music; why should I record one style of music?F**k you. I’m lucky. I’ve done it all my life, so I get a certain pass. I can’t give that energy. It’s a stupid debate to me.
- Advertisement -SB: A lot of the music you hear now is a fusion of genres.
E: You see other artists who have gone out and done different music. Take Kanye on the Yeezus album. He’s done an array of records. They’re not all hip hop. He just happened to rap on them or half-sing. On that album there’s a song called “Black Skinhead.” Now that record is from a British artist, Gary Glitter, from the '80s. That exact beat was glam rock. That isn’t hip hop, that’s not R&B, that’s not even pop. And he rapped over it. And people call it rap or R&B and whatever they want to classify 'Ye. What’s the issue? If it’s good that’s all that matters. And that song, by the way, is f**king awesome. Quit vilifying people. Let an artist be an artist.
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