00:00what's up essence it's your girl jasmine ramos and i'm the supervising producer of video here
00:05at essence today we are speaking with one of the originators of black girl magic miss stephanie
00:11mills and we're so excited to hear what she has to say about essence festival so the queen stephanie
00:17mills is here welcome back to black girl headquarters yes yes it's so great to have you
00:25here you are a legend okay and you've been doing this for so many years performing on the stage
00:31giving it your all so i just want to know from you how do you keep that high level of power of energy
00:37going i think because of my theater training and and i think it gives you the best discipline that
00:45there is that's how and just i get a lot of rest sleep is my best friend sleeping and exercising
00:52helps me to keep my voice strong and my body strong and that's what i've been doing over all
00:58all these years because entertaining is the only thing i've ever done i've never had a real job
01:03wow that's a blessing i know i've never worked anywhere else but in entertainment i love it
01:09you've always been into your passion that is a gift yes that's so good i'm so great to hear that all
01:16right so listen saturday night at essence festival is going to be sofu okay so we have
01:22janet jackson we got jasmine sullivan and we also got a tribute to paula bell okay that's major so i
01:29want to know from you how does it feel to be one of the r&b icons on the stage it's wonderful you know
01:36i've played uh essence before and i vowed never to play it again until i did the the main stage so i'm
01:43happy that i'm doing the main stage on saturday and you know i i'm all about girl power and in
01:50particular black women girl power so it feels wonderful that we're going to be there and and
01:55patty and i have been traveling all across the country doing shows with gladys knight so that's
02:00like my girl my home girl you know i grew up in the business with patty yes yes we love it of course with
02:07janet and my affiliation with the jackson family that's like family to me we're all a beautiful family
02:14and i'm so happy that you're going to be on the main stage that's so exciting and so much to look
02:19forward to uh so i want to talk to you a little bit about r b because you know so many times people
02:25say that r b is not like what it used to be we don't have that good baby making music anymore or that
02:31music that makes you feel good or the music that just talks about love you know and i know that you
02:37know a lot about that r b from back then when it was actually really good and good for our soul so with
02:43that being said i know you're also into social media um so why is it essential for us to keep r b
02:50alive and fight for it well because everybody copies off of us you know they want r b but they don't
02:58want it for me they want it from justin timberlake and adele and and those type of people but r b is
03:04alive and living every song rock pop whatever you want to call it comes from r b they learn it from us
03:12and then they take it and do it and the fact that most of our black stations now are owned by white
03:17corporate america and they play the same records over and over again they really don't allow new r b
03:25songs to come through and that's why you don't hear a lot of r b because they like rock and roll and pop
03:30we here at essence we talk about loving black women deeply that's very important to us yes about shining the
03:38light on black women sharing good uplifting stories about what we're doing and just having a platform
03:45for black women to shine the way that they deserve you know so i want to know from you um why is it so
03:52important as a black woman to love up on each other because we're all we have at the end of the day we all
03:59we have we come from a black mother we are black we should love on each other there should be no envy no
04:06jealousy because god gives each of us a gift and all we have to do is tap into our gift and just
04:12love on each other and support i support everybody on my page i love us um there's nothing like us
04:20you know i think that other women want to be like us with our huge lips and our brown skin and our big
04:26butts and everything else they all want us and you know they want our men but the men that they have
04:32the black women don't want anyway so do we have enough time to talk about that subject
04:41go on and preach
04:44they can have them but really i think we are beautiful and the kardashians
04:48really have capitalized on how we look so i mean we are beautiful and we have it naturally we don't have
04:55to go to the country we have it naturally and i think mary jacquard said it best at the billboard
05:01awards when she was honored and she said before you know ghetto fabulous was something that was looked
05:06down upon and now everybody want to be ghetto fabulous everybody want to be ghetto fabulous everybody
05:13so it's like hey we we have the pulse of what a real woman looks like and that's what they're trying
05:21to look like because if they were beautiful they wouldn't they wouldn't want to do it they wouldn't
05:25be at the doctor they spend millions of dollars at the doctor for what i gave us
05:35your cheekbones and how you finish shining they go get uh all kinds of things to make their skin
05:42shine like that and i would shine naturally yes and you look amazing i mean you look beautiful like age
05:48has not even passed or years have not passed i told you you are aging like fine wine and you're
05:54right about that because people will do whatever they can do and pay whatever they can pay to look
05:59like you you and me you know your skin is glowing it's just beautiful i'm happy about it yes all right
06:08so listen here you made your first appearance at essence festival in 2011 which is major like we
06:14touched on a little earlier but i want to know from you because you rock the house and you had
06:19everybody in the crowd going what are you looking forward to this year at essence festival i'm looking
06:24forward to rocking the house again and having a good time but and really i'm looking forward to coming
06:31back with my band because i love you know there's nothing like singing live i am going to be singing
06:36live but it'll be track live but uh i'd love to come back with my band i'm i'm excited about that but i'm
06:43excited about being there i'm going to be there the whole weekend and sergio hudson is dressing me and
06:49he will be there with me the whole weekend so i'm excited about that i love it i love it so your signature
06:55song never knew love like this before is one of the songs that brings light and joy and essence festival
07:03of culture this year is all about the black joy so tell me what brings you joy my son my son just
07:12turned 21 he's getting ready to work on his second book my school brings me joy a peace sleeping gives
07:19me joy good food i'm a little bit now but i love sweets i have to push myself away from the sweets
07:29simple things give me joy shopping i love i love purses i love shoes everything girl i'm a girly girl but
07:37really uh uh uh peace you know and happiness and i'm so glad that essence is doing the soul and the
07:45r&b because that's so important that is the pulse of our music you know when you think about michael
07:53jackson and the voice whitney houston and and and luther vandross you know and teddy pendergrass
07:59those great pioneers who are no longer with us their roots was r&b yes you know was r&b and the thing
08:07about it is we have to stick to our roots because even though we may go pop they still don't play our
08:14records first on pop radio we have to go back to black radio so that should tell people that r&b is the thing
08:23yeah it really is it really is and it brings us joy everlasting joy because i only listen to the
08:31oldie station i don't really listen to a lot of new music because i don't understand all that fast
08:37singing and all that i i still like the soul of of yesteryear i love it before you go i do have one
08:44more question then we're going to go into some drops but i want to know what was the inspiration
08:48behind that song never knew love like this before
09:06well you know that song was written and produced by reggie lucas and then to may who's no longer with
09:11us and to may passed away this year and they i was in the whiz still doing the whiz and i was
09:18recording my first album uh uh at night and i didn't want to sing about love because i was
09:2519 i was 18 going on 19 and i really didn't know about love so they would change some of the lyrics
09:31but the inspiration was just like how could have you ever had a love that you never thought you would
09:36get that is a fact i actually am in love now and i did not think that we would make it this far
09:42that's a love you've never knew before that's a fact and i say that in my show but it's it's just a
09:52wonderful wonderful song i think there's nothing better than love especially between a woman and a
09:58man or a woman and who you can't just who will love you know love is love and no one can tell you
10:05who to love and who not to love but i think love is just the answer for everything because there's a lot
10:09of hate going on in this world that's true we just have to love ourselves through it and the women
10:15are the nucleus we are the nucleus of of spreading i know that's right birth babies we're the nucleus
10:22it's like taking care of home we got to take care of each other we have to cover our black men we do
10:28hunted and and slaughtered every day so yeah up to us to to show love uh you are bringing me so much
10:36life i actually just had a baby as well and i feel like like a superpower because women are so
10:43incredible especially black women the fact that we can even like do so many different things and
10:48raise our children you know it's just like an amazing gift i think god gives us this strength
10:54and this superpower within us and we just become stronger and stronger as the years go by so i feel
11:00amazing to be a black woman and it brings me oh man i wouldn't want to be anything else for the black
11:06woman i don't care i just would not want to be anything else for the black woman
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