00:00Welcome back to Essence Live. Joining me now in studio, I have the talented, beautiful songstress, Tweet. How are you?
00:09I'm great. How are you?
00:10I'm fabulous. I'm so excited that you're here.
00:12And welcome to Essence Live.
00:14Thanks for having me. I love it.
00:16Thank you for being here. There's so much that I want to cover with you.
00:19So first, I mean, this might be an obvious question that you're starting to get quite a bit.
00:23Before there was Twitter, there was Tweet. So I have to ask you, where did your name come from?
00:27Well, my dad gave me that nickname when I was little.
00:29So I've always been Tweet. I don't think I heard my real name, Charlene, unless I was in trouble or something like that.
00:36And now once Twitter came about, were you like, wait, hold on. Maybe I should have trademarked that.
00:41Yeah, you know what? I think I almost sometimes want to kick myself in the head because we had that conversation, Mona Scott and I, who was managing me at the time,
00:50and we were going to trademark it to that extent. But, you know, we didn't. We'll get back to it is what the conversation was, and we missed out on it.
00:58Has Mona reached out to you since then and said, told you so.
01:01No, no. No.
01:03Told you so. No.
01:05And before we start to talk about the new album, I kind of want to take a step back.
01:08I've been brushing up on my Tweet knowledge, and I read quite a bit that you were in a girls' group prior to connecting with Missy Elliott.
01:15But you had kind of a dark period there between leaving the group and before Missy made the phone call.
01:21Can you share a little bit about that?
01:23Well, Missy and I have known each other since around 94.
01:26Okay.
01:27And when I was in the girl group, Sugar, she was in Sister, and we all were together.
01:30Okay.
01:31Like, Devonte from Jodeci had created, he wanted to recreate Motown, so he had a whole collection of artists, which was Sister, Missy, Sugar, myself, Magoo, Timberland, Genuine, Playa.
01:43Oh, wow.
01:44And then we went to a group called The Basement Crew.
01:46And at that time, we had spent years trying to come out as a group, you know, and all that stuff.
01:51But it didn't work.
01:52Missy left to become who she is now.
01:54Right.
01:55And I stayed with the group, and we went through a lot of stuff of re-recording our album from time to time.
02:00I had a daughter, you know, and I couldn't really support her.
02:04So that was the beginning of my depression, you know, coming home and not being able to do stuff for her.
02:09That you wanted to do.
02:10Yeah, that I wanted to do.
02:12So, but then when the call came from Missy, you know, it was Heaven Sent, you know, and I'm here, you know.
02:18So she played a big role.
02:20So what did you take away from that experience in terms of, I guess, about perseverance or continuing to move forward?
02:25Did it kind of tell you something like, you know what, maybe the universe intervenes just at the right time?
02:29It does, because actually at the moment Missy called was the day I was contemplating doing something crazy, you know what I mean?
02:37Which we, sometimes when we go through stuff, we think I wasn't going to go through with it, but them thoughts come.
02:43Right.
02:44Like maybe if I do this, you know.
02:45That's scary enough.
02:46Yeah, scary.
02:47Yeah, yeah.
02:48So for sure it was Heaven Sent and the universe, you know, did what it, you know.
02:53So it was at the right time.
02:54And so how did you make the transition then from working with Missy on her album and contributing vocals and creative support, if you will, to your own first album?
03:03Well, at that time, Missy flew me out to L.A. to do the vocals and I was upstairs in a room and playing the guitar.
03:10And I played Motel and I was just by myself and she was hiding on the steps or whatever, listening.
03:15She didn't know at the time that I could play the guitar.
03:17Oh.
03:18So she came up, she was like, what were you doing?
03:20I was like, I was playing some of my songs.
03:22She was like, you have some more songs?
03:24Because she knew I could write and all that stuff.
03:26And I played her like smoking cigarettes and Motel.
03:30And she was like, oh, we're going to take you to Sylvia Rome, Elektra, and I got a deal right.
03:36Like I wasn't expecting to go out to L.A. to get a deal at all.
03:40To me, your sound is like you can listen to it in the club, but at the same time you can listen to it like sitting at home or in the car and you really start to think.
03:47Thinking.
03:48And you start thinking.
03:49And then we have all these hits from you and then all of a sudden you take a hiatus.
03:53What led to that?
03:54Well, in 2005, the second album, Miss Me Again, at that time, Elektra merged with Atlantic.
04:01And so Sylvia Rome wasn't there anymore.
04:04None of the team that built, you know, helped me put out Southern Hummingbird wasn't there.
04:09So it was kind of a lack of support.
04:13Okay.
04:14That you needed.
04:15Yeah.
04:16Or maybe that she had clicked with, that energy.
04:17Nothing like the first album.
04:18Nothing what Sylvia Rome was giving me.
04:21So I decided to take time off, you know.
04:23And at that time, not only was the music not going right, the music business, but my personal life wasn't going good.
04:29I wasn't really happy.
04:30You know, my love life, my boyfriend that had a baby on me, you know, things just wasn't right.
04:35Yeah.
04:36Mm-hmm.
04:37So, you know, everything hit the fan, as they would say.
04:39Right, right.
04:40So I decided, you know, let me just get myself together.
04:42And God, if this is really what I'm supposed to do, I know where to come back around, you know.
04:46Right.
04:47So that's what I had to get myself together.
04:48And during that break, what are your thoughts on kind of the present state of R&B music?
04:53Because it's changed.
04:54It's changed a lot.
04:55It's changed a lot.
04:56The sounds changed a little bit.
04:57People aren't necessarily putting out full bodies of work anymore.
04:59So what are your thoughts on that?
05:00And I think in music right now, we need to go back to the basics.
05:04Musicianship.
05:05Real instruments and not so much just...
05:08Pushing the button.
05:09Yeah.
05:10Like, let's get back to that.
05:11And I think that's what's happened.
05:12We lost the soul of it.
05:14The soul of music, the musicianship is missing.
05:16So hence the new album, Charlene.
05:18Charlene, yeah.
05:19And that's going to be out top of 2016?
05:21January 22, 2016.
05:23You know it.
05:24And that's your birthday, isn't it?
05:25The day after.
05:26The day after.
05:27I've been doing my Google, girl.
05:28I've been doing my Google.
05:29I was like, hold on.
05:30That's a really awesome birthday present to give yourself.
05:32Yes, it is, right?
05:33And I read that a lot of the inspiration from the album came from your journals and from your writing.
05:37So tell me a little bit about what we will hear.
05:39Any guest artists?
05:40At this point, I just want to give them Charlene because I've been gone so long.
05:44And fans just want me.
05:46So this album is just going to be me.
05:48And it's, again, pages out of my diary.
05:51So you'll know what I've been going through.
05:53Love, lost, love, all of that.
05:55And do you work with Missy on this album?
05:56Yes.
05:57Missy has a song on there.
05:58It's called Somebody Else Will.
05:59And it talks about if you don't love me, somebody else will.
06:02Okay.
06:03And that's what it is.
06:04That's going out to my boyfriend, my ex.
06:06Message.
06:07I always like to send messages to us.
06:09Message.
06:10Right.
06:11Great.
06:12I have no behavior.
06:13Right.
06:14And are you working with Timbaland at all on this particular album?
06:17Not this album.
06:18Now, I have to ask you, because he's such a large part of Empire, do you follow Empire at
06:23all?
06:24Yes, yes, yes.
06:25Do you think we might see you there?
06:26Because you have some acting credits on your resume.
06:28I know.
06:29If they would have me, I would love to.
06:31Yes.
06:32Why not?
06:33And, of course, you're going to have to come back to Essence Live and perform some of
06:35those tracks and songs for us.
06:36Yes, I will.
06:37Thank you so very much for taking the time to sit and chat with us here on Essence Live.
06:40You have to come back.
06:41I will.
06:42Please do not be a stranger.
06:43I will not.
06:44And, of course, keep your eyes open and peeled, Essence.com, for that new tweet album,
06:48Charlene, coming out January 22nd, 2016.
06:50Don't go anywhere.
06:51More Essence Live.
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