00:00And Scott said he wanted to do an album about, do something about love.
00:04And we started talking about, you know, what traditionally is a romantic comedy,
00:09guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back, and how we could sort of tell that story.
00:13And then Scott said he'd been working on a song and he let us hear the song.
00:17And then I was like, we have to call Netflix.
00:20They have to come in.
00:21And like, when you heard it, you were like, we knew, we got chills.
00:25We knew we had something special.
00:30How you doing today, Kenya?
00:37Put it up, bro.
00:38Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Essence.
00:43Well, for my first question, my man, can you let me know how the collaboration between you and Scott came about?
00:50My daughter, who never asked me for anything, was like, she was, she went to the school called Harvard-Westlake,
00:56which was like kind of like a well-to-do, like sort of predominantly white school in that way.
01:01And she was the head of the BSU.
01:02And she was like, do you think you could get Cuddy to come speak to my BSU?
01:07And I was like, I'm going to ask Cuddy that.
01:09And she was like, never asked me anything.
01:11And I was like, you know what, I'll ask.
01:12I expect it to be a pretty quick, no, I'm busy.
01:15And he was unbelievably sweet and nice and did it.
01:19And there's usually, you know, 15, 20, 30 people, those things.
01:24It was thousands, 15, the whole school came.
01:27And I was like, hold on, what?
01:28They had to like move it into the gym.
01:30And the kids, you know what I'm saying, predominantly white kids, you know, were just hanging on every one of his words.
01:35And I was like, hold on, what's going on?
01:37Like, I knew Cuddy's music.
01:38I knew who Cuddy was.
01:39But they, he has had such an effect on the youth.
01:43Like, kids were crying.
01:45Kids were talking about how he affected their life.
01:47And I started, like, really realizing, like, he sort of created his own lane.
01:51You know what I'm saying?
01:52Like, a lot of emo rap, which is kind of not the way to do it.
01:54But, like, talking about mental health, talking about depression, talking about love, talking about loss, and doing it in the way that he did.
02:02Like, you know, singing and rapping now is sort of like a thing.
02:06Like, he was definitely amongst the pioneers of that, you know, versions of that, you know what I'm saying?
02:11And I feel like just him being the most realistic version, an honest version, and self-deprecating version of himself really, I think, attracted a lot of people.
02:21So we were determined to do some things together.
02:24We were going to do this as live action.
02:25And Mike Moon and Elizabeth Porter, like, really fought for us and convinced us, like, this would be an amazing animated project.
02:34We talked about how music and animation can live forever.
02:37And we started thinking about some of our favorite projects, from heavy metal to Moana to, you know, all these things that they can just, you know, live on.
02:45And Scott said he wanted to do an album about, do something about love.
02:50And we started talking about, you know, what traditionally is a romantic comedy, guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back, and how we could sort of tell that story.
03:00And then Scott said he'd been working on a song, and he let us hear the song.
03:03And then I was like, we have to call Netflix.
03:06They have to come in.
03:07And, like, when you heard it, you were like, we knew, we got chills.
03:11We knew we had something special.
03:13And from that point, we started building the team.
03:17You know, we got, we started looking at animators, some of the best in the world.
03:21We brought in Maurice Williams and Ian Edelman, who were friends.
03:25And we worked together to, you know, help show run and, to show run and kind of, like, build the story around this music and work with Cuddy.
03:32We brought in Fletch, who was part of the, he's going to be married to myself, this was part of the Spider-Verse team.
03:37But we feel like he has created something far beyond, you know, the same things Phil and Chris did on their team.
03:43I think that we did something equally, if not distinctively different, that has never been seen before.
03:51We made New York a character in a way that New York has never been seen as a character.
03:55You know, Dennis and Karina, Scott's business partners, help us wrangle Scott and to make this, you know, Cuddy has always been someone that was, you know, cutting edge ahead of the thing.
04:08Cuddy brought, helped us bring in Virgil and, you know, rest in love forever, Virgil.
04:13Like, but we didn't know what was going on at the time, but he lent his gifts to us to make something that was, stands as, like, a part of his legacy and an homage to him and his work and to the culture.
04:26We got, you know, Gabe Hofer's our music supervisor.
04:29We got amazing, one of some of the most amazing casts, I think, in this sort of genre ever.
04:34From Laura Harrier to Vanessa Hudgens and Jessica and Timothee Chalamet, Holly Calkin and, you know, people, Ty Dolla $ign, you know what I'm saying?
04:44And I think we just got an amazing group of people to come.
04:47Tiana Taylor, it feels so real at, of the moment.
04:52And at the same time, I think it's a universal, lasting story.
04:57And so that was, all this kind of came together and it's the most collaborative thing I've ever done.
05:02And it made me want to get into, do more animation, do more things that I feel like I can work with people I love and good people.
05:08And it just has been, it's been a learning experience for me.
05:12And it's also been one of the things that I'm really, really, I'm afraid to ever say I like things.
05:17Because I feel like when you say you like things, that's when it goes wrong.
05:20But I really, really do like this.
05:22And I hope that other people do, too.
05:25Well, thank you, Kenya.
05:26I appreciate your time, my brother.
05:27I'm looking forward to everything and good luck on everything, man.
05:30Good luck to you, bro.
05:32Good luck to you.
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