00:00Hey, hey, pass me that vapor. It's your girl, Lonnie Love. What's up, Essence Festival of
00:11Culture? Hello, everyone, and thank you to AT&T 5G for bringing us together to drop some gems and
00:19chat about Black music excellence with none other than Grammy-nominated R&B soul-stirring music
00:26artist, my man, Michael Kilgore. Come on in here, Michael. I'm at Essence. I made it. Oh, my goodness,
00:37Baba, I made it. Now, Michael, for people that are new to you, introduce yourself. Well, my name is
00:43Michael Kilgore. My debut album was A Man Born Black. It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award
00:50as well as a Grammy Award. I'm a soul R&B singer, and I am giddy with excitement to be here talking
00:57with you right now. Since this is Black Music Month, we're celebrating June. We're celebrating Pride.
01:04AT&T, Dream in Black celebrates this culture and the creators who shaped it, and you are one of those
01:10creators. This platform is a proud sponsor of Essence Festival. But I have a question for you.
01:16What does Dream in Black mean to you, Michael? Dream in Black means opening myself up to all the
01:24possibilities in the world as a Black person maneuvering through this world. I'm not limited
01:30in any way by the fact that I'm Black. It only amplifies everything that I dream, feel, and am.
01:38Definitely, because you did that with your debut album.
01:41Hey, you did it. I'm telling y'all. Thank you.
01:45Dream, his voice, your voice. It's like, where'd you get that voice?
01:50Your mama's singing like that? Your daddy? Who's singing like that?
01:51You know what? Actually, my mom and dad, neither of them sang. My grandmother was very musical. Not
01:57a singer either. But she loved music, so I was granny's baby, so I was doing whatever she wanted
02:03to do. But I tell people all the time, my siblings and my cousins are all tall, and I'm very short.
02:10So God was like, you can have some singing since you can't have the height.
02:15Well, thank goodness for that. You know, you're a wonderful artist, but you are also one of the
02:22first openly gay artists. And this being Pride Month, what does that mean to you as well as Black
02:29Music Month? Well, I feel like I'm a twofer. So not only do I get to celebrate Pride Month,
02:36but I get to celebrate Black Music Month. And it's, I mean, and now I'm kind of a threefer because
02:40this is our first year where we have Juneteenth as a nationally observed holiday. So you know,
02:47I'm cutting a fool right now. I'm acting crazy. I'm so happy. I'm over the moon. But it just,
02:52you know what? It makes me feel like it, it makes me feel happy to know that the first is out of the way.
02:57Well, because when we talk about AT&T, we talk about, you know, the five gems. And what are five
03:02aspects of life you think your fans connect with you while listening to a man born Black?
03:09Oh my goodness. Well, one gem is you can survive heartbreak. Another thing is real singing is
03:18still around. It ain't gone nowhere and it ain't going nowhere. The audacity to dream that something
03:25as small as myself and my amazing team at Effective Music can make it all the way to the
03:31Grammy stage. That's incredible. I think that artists, I mean, artists as well as people listening
03:37can feel that. Oh, the fourth thing is that love is still something that we sing about and we're not
03:46being ironic and we're not being, and we're not thinking about it as something that we can't have.
03:51Like it's something that we can't have and, and we can feel it. And the last thing is music that
03:57you feel from the, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, you know, and I wanted to
04:02create something that was on the same level of the music that I grew up with. I'm a lover of R&B from
04:08the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and up to today. Michael Kilgore, guarantee, I am feeling all of that,
04:16Michael. I am feeling it. And it's so important for us to celebrate our music. That's the reason
04:21why I'm so happy that Essence Festival, even though it's virtual this year, they decided to go virtual
04:27again to keep this going because it celebrates our music. It celebrates our culture and it's the
04:34essence of, you know, what we are about, you know, talking about essence, you know?
04:39Oh, I like how you did that. It is the essence of what we are. Come on, y'all, y'all, y'all keep
04:45bringing Lonnie back because she knows what she's doing. Well, you know what? Let's move on to the
04:50business side of the industry. Okay. Fast, reliable, and secure. Not only speaks to the power
04:57of AT&T 5G, but also the essence, get that, of the music industry. So let's fill in the blanks of
05:04the sentence for us. And I'm going to give you like three sentences. I'm going to have
05:09a blank and I want you to fill it in as it pertains to the music industry. Okay. It's
05:13like a little game. All right. In the music industry, you must be fast at blank. You must
05:21be fast at getting to the essence of the music. All right. Here's the next one. If you're not
05:28reliable, you will be blank. If you're not reliable, you will be forgotten about. All
05:37we want you to do is just show up. All we want you to do is bring yourself to it. And
05:41the thing is, it's like not just being there embodied, but be there all the way. You got
05:46one more. One more. Okay. Fans have to have a secure blank with their favorite artists.
05:53Fans have to have a secure connection. Come on, AT&T. You did that. You have to have a
05:58secure connection to your fans and to your artists because we want to know, and it goes
06:05back to trust. We want to know we can trust you. When you come out with your music, with
06:09your life, it's real. It's true. And I don't have to think twice about it. So yeah, that's
06:14what I think. I think I won now. I won. Did I win?
06:18I think you did. I think you did. Well, you know what? It was a game, but you, you killed
06:24it anyway, you know, and it shows how, you know, you can use technology to also relate
06:30to the music industry. And throughout the pandemic, we saw how valuable it was to have, you know,
06:37reliable connectivity. I mean, for us to be able, we, some of us hadn't seen our loved ones
06:42in, in years or months. And you know, that FaceTime, you know, the IG stories, I mean,
06:50thank goodness for my boy D nice, you know, reliability. And that's that 5G, you know,
06:58people that's that 5G baby. It's like right now it's 5G. I'm still in my house. You where
07:05you are. And it's the history, you know? So I really love that. I like how Essence has
07:15successfully re-imagined the festival for a virtual platform. Now, what trends do we share
07:22in Black music that you hope continues to stay?
07:25I think that connection kind of breeds a sense of shared humanity when we can see each other
07:31in our, in our joy, sometimes in our sorrow, but always in our togetherness, it lets people
07:38even on the outside of the party go, you know, I'm a part of that.
07:41Let me tell you something, Michael, you're going to definitely be on the Essence stage
07:45real soon, okay?
07:46I can't wait. I'm going to wear my good clothes. I'm going to wear my nice long wig for that one.
07:50Yay! Hey!
07:53AT&T 5G is known for being fast. Great for quick downloads of music and the history of your
07:58favorite artists. So, you know what? It's time for pop quiz, Michael! I'm going to give
08:04you a clue of a legendary singer that's performed at Essence, and I want you to name that singer.
08:10Are you ready?
08:11As ready as I'm going to be.
08:13Okay. This 2014 performer and purple legend would always make it rain in our hearts.
08:20Purple rain, purple rain. Come on, Prince.
08:24Oh, yeah. That was Prince. Okay. Here's another one, Michael. This 2007 Essence performer once
08:31told us that pretty hurts, but does that really matter when you're the most wanted female artist
08:38in Grammy history?
08:40It's Beyonce.
08:42Yeah!
08:42And that's, like, is there any other answer?
08:47She need to come back. When we go to, like, you know, a full capacity audience, we need Beyonce
08:54to come back. That's my wish. That's my dream. Okay.
08:57I can't wait to see her try to top Coachella. Like, but I know that for Essence, she's going
09:04to go even harder. So, I'm just like, I can't even wait. I can't wait. Come on back. Come
09:10on back.
09:11Dream in Black embodies a mindset where success can look like anything we can dream. And
09:18when you were nominated for your Grammy, you became the first openly gay artist to be
09:23nominated in that category. Tell me what that meant for you and what's next for you.
09:28It meant that a lot of things that I believed about what I could be and what I could do were
09:34not true. It opened me up to the possibilities of a life that I thought was for them. They get
09:43to have all that. I don't get to have that. And I didn't realize how much of that I was
09:47holding on to. So, what you can look forward to is for me to crack out of any kind of shell
09:56that you think I'm in.
09:57Okay, Michael. We're going to look out for you. And thank you so much for spending this
10:02time. And it was great catching up with you today. I love that.
10:05Well, you know, giggling and laughing with you is always a joy. So, I could do this all day.
10:10I mean, I could do this. I could do this every day on the, on the reel, if you want me to.
10:14Like, I could.
10:15We would definitely have you come on through, Michael.
10:20We are so excited. Myself, Lonnie Love, and Michael Kilgore for the Essence Festival this
10:25year. Thank you, ACVT 5G, for this amazing conversation. And be sure to catch even more
10:31gems and celebrate legends in the industry at this year's Black Music Honors, hosted by yours
10:37truly. Thanks, Michael. Enjoy.
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