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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable, with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:08] Robert Bannon: Well, everybody, growing up and graduating high school in 2001, in New Jersey, across the river from New York, where our next guest was, there's nobody had a smoother vocal. If you look it up, if you read articles, if you look at all different magazines and stuff, nobody has smoother vocals than our next guest. Chart-topping, Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling superstars. Not 30 years, Case. 30 years!

[0:32] Robert Bannon: 30 years. That's a long time. Case, welcome to the show.

[0:36] Case: Thank you, man. Thank you for having me.

[0:38] Robert Bannon: I'm a fan. I love real singing. I love microphone on. I love real music.

[0:44] Case: Me too.

[0:45] Robert Bannon: And this is what you do.

[0:46] Case: Thank you.

[0:47] Robert Bannon: How does it feel to think 30 years, you're celebrating it at the incredible, iconic Yoshi's out in the West Coast? 30 years.

[0:55] Case: Yeah, it actually feels crazy just to even say 30 years. I remember doing interviews when I first started. They'd be like, well, where do you see yourself in 10 years, 20 years, 30? I'm like, I can't even think that far ahead. And here we are. So that part is weird.

[1:10] Robert Bannon: August 9th is the show. August 9th, you can go to Yoshis.com. You can get your tickets. There's meet and greet tickets. You're bringing your band. This is no track. He's coming to sing.

[1:19] Case: Yeah, we're getting down. We're getting down.

[1:21] Robert Bannon: So what is a live show like in the year 2026? What can we expect to hear you sing? What is on your heart? What's your message for everybody?

[1:29] Case: The message is always love. The message is always love. The message is timeless music. If I'm still working on the set list, still making some adjustments, but it's going to be, you know, the hits that you want to hear, some of the deep cuts that you want to hear. So we have some fun when I'm performing on stage. I like to have fun. So for me, it kind of feels like we had a cookout and I just decided to get up and sing. So it's a fun.

[1:51] Robert Bannon: Look, Case, I'm not, you may be shocked to know this, but I'm a white man. Okay. But I want to let you know, but back in the day, if you need help, I remember this ain't your typical every day, one night thing. Hey, it's a physical. I'm ready for you to come in the hood. You need me to, you need me to lay down the verse. I got you.

[2:08] Case: Hey, I might need you. Hold on. I might need you.

[2:10] Robert Bannon: I got you. I'll be ready. I might not be able to clap on rhythm, but I got it. I got it.

[2:15] Case: We keep the clap part out. We keep the claps out.

[2:19] Robert Bannon: When you came and hit on the scene, when you're looking back in the 90s and you have been known for a lot of movie soundtracks, a lot of collaborations, what does it feel like to grow up in New York? You did some group work, you were trying to find your way and then you're doing background vocals for people. And then all of a sudden it hits. Is it scary? Is it exciting? What's it like for that moment?

[2:42] Case: It only all of a sudden hits for y'all. For me, I had been trying for about seven years. And so I had, I was doing demos in my, because I grew, I was born and raised in New York. I lived in the Bronx. I lived in Brooklyn. But then we moved to Mount Vernon is when everything changed because at that time Mount Vernon was a hotbed of, you had Heavy D and the Boys, you had Al B. Shaw. So it was just P-Rock and C.O. Swoosh. So it was a hotbed. And when I moved there, that's when it went from being a dream of mine to make music because I'm seeing them right in front of me. So now it's real to me. Because before I was like, I want to be this, but I couldn't have told you in a million years how I was going to go about that.

So then when I moved there and I was around people and I started learning, I got to know him and Al took me under his wing and he would show me, teach me how to write songs and just different stuff. I just sit in the studio and just soak it up, laying on the floor under the boy, just soaking it up. So.

[3:38] Robert Bannon: Shout out to Al B. Shaw, icon.

[3:40] Case: Yeah, that's big bro. Yeah, that's my big brother right there.

[3:42] Robert Bannon: I call him Uncle Al because Auntie Lunell is my girl.

[3:46] Case: Right, right, that's what people do.

[3:48] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[3:49] Case: So for you, the story is told that you had a song written by Faith Evans. Did you do a demo? How did it get to Def Jam? How did it happen?

[3:58] Case: I was signed to Sport, Rock and Entertainment and they were trying to figure out where they were going to put me. Lior at Def Jam said he was looking for an R&B singer that had an edge to it, like kind of like his words, like if BMX or Jay-Z or whoever could sing. So that's what he was looking for. Faith, my manager, Misa, at the time, she got Faith to demo for me. She wrote it and demoed it. And they sent the song into Def Jam when they were trying to see if they wanted to sign me or not. And Russell heard it. He was like, yeah, I'm signing him right now. So what's crazy about that is LL Cool J is the first artist that Russell ever personally signed to Def Jam. And I'm the last.

[4:39] Robert Bannon: Wow, that's crazy. And the rest is truly history. You know, when I was looking at all your albums, a lot of songs have been written by some of the most famous songwriters, especially at that time. And then a lot of songs are written by you. How does that work behind the scenes where you're singing someone's song or you're like, I wrote this and I want this is my song and it ends up on the record?

[4:58] Case: Well, I think that for the most part, you have to go with the best song is what I try to do. You can't go by, well, I need a certain amount that I wrote. So for me, I just go with the best song. If somebody else wrote it and I could feel it, let's go. If I could add to it, let's go. But I mean, it's really about the best song for me. We're going to find the link below to go to his website and to follow him on Instagram and all of the music, wherever the music, the old stuff, the new stuff, the stuff to come, everything follow, listen to it, stream it. Go get your tickets while we're talking. Go right now to Yoshi.com. This show is going to sell out in two minutes. So when, when the soundtracks came, when someone like Foxy and someone like Mary and someone like, you know, the Nutty Professor and your, your song gets put on there.

What's it like for you to, you've collaborated with a lot of, I was joking about the Ja Rule song. You know, I was talking about, you know, there's a lot of duets. There's a lot of songs that you were singing the hook or that you're doing. How does that go? How do you feel about that as a singer? Do you like singing the hook? Do you like collaborating?

[5:53] Case: I like it. It depends. For instance, there's a, this one, a lot of people don't know about, but Jordan was in the studio doing Let's Ride. So he had the song, but he needed the chorus to be arranged. So I went in, that's me singing the backgrounds and I arranged it and I went down there and knocked it out. So I thought this stuff was fun because it's not just my stuff. So now I'm going into his creative process and then I'm trying to fit into that. So that's actually kind of fun. I love, I love the behind the scenes of it all.

[6:20] Robert Bannon: You got, I just picture nineties, early two thousands and to today in the studio, figuring it out and then making music that changed the course of, you know, there's babies out here to your music. There's, there's weddings, first dances, there's, there's first dates and moments to your, to your music. When you meet people like the meet and greet that's going to happen at Yoshi's and they tell you these stories, it has to be very fulfilling that your stories, they, they, they are a time in someone's life that really matters to them.

[6:47] Case: And you know what? And that, that part makes me feel extra good because when you're making it, you don't know if it's going to be a hit or not. All you're trying to make is something that you feel and you hope that somebody else feels it. And when people come into me and they like tell me stories and stuff like that, like sometimes I'm like blown away, but I'm like, it's definitely a blessing to be able to do it. I love to do it at the same time to help other people. If you took a, like a song, like happily ever after, which you, you co-wrote that song, there was, you know, your music video has someone who went on to have quite the career herself. And that's Beyonce, Beyonce's in the video. How does a song like that come to you for you? What is your process to write? Are you singing into your phone, writing on the, on a napkin in a restaurant? How did, how does it work for you?

[7:25] Case: It depends. That song was almost all the way written. And so I just added what I added in the studio on the fly. But a lot of times we'll be in the studio and I had a beat that Salon Remy sent me. He was like, I'm sending it to you now. So I'm in the studio working on something else. And he put it on and he sent it to me that they put it on as soon as it came up, I'm like turn the mic on it. Cause I immediately heard the chorus and I heard all of the background harmonies that belonged in. Went in, got on the mic and I was like, like hurrying through it to get it just to get the idea down. And then when it's time to do the verse, my brain was like, yeah, I don't have that no more. But that came right away.

So it depends. Like sometime I may be, I just realized the other day that I got hundreds of voice notes on my phone that I always forget to go back to. So most of the time I'll do it like in the studio. Um, the most ideas come to me when I'm listening to music and playing PS5.

[8:20] Case: That's when it's always been like that. Yeah. But back when I used to play Sega Genesis in like 1992, that's when the best ideas come to me and I'd be listening to music at the same time.

[8:30] Robert Bannon: You know, it's such a gift because I can't write anything. Nothing comes to my mind, but you'd be sitting down back in 1993 playing, I don't know, Sonic the Hedgehog and making hit records. That's the way that that's amazing.

[8:39] Case: Yeah. That's that's when they come to me the best. Like I got some music going and I'm playing the game and the game is autopilot. I don't even realize I'm really getting ideas. So if you see him playing video games, don't mess with him because he's got his songs coming out.

[8:56] Robert Bannon: So when you have a song like Take Missing You, for example, Missing You, number one hit record charted all around the world, millions of records sold, all of that. Grammy nominations for the song. There's a barbershop or hair salon or somewhere in the world. That song is playing on the radio somewhere every second of everywhere. George Benson covered that song. I saw that recently. I saw that recently. What's it like when you see something like George Benson's like that? That melody, that lyric, that song is my song.

[9:27] Case: Yeah, that's just dope. That's dope to me because like I said, it validates that you did something right. You know, I mean, for somebody like that to cover it, I'm like, hey, let's go. I'm sure that's kind of like you're going to hear it in concert.

[9:36] Robert Bannon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely I definitely heard that years ago. I was like, I never even knew this.

[9:48] Case: See, and you're going to sing it. And your voice is when did you realize you had a voice? Did someone tell you? Did you want to always sing?

[9:53] Case: Now I've always wanted to sing. My dad was a singer. So my grandmother used to make us do concerts for company. A bunch of pictures of my phone when I was like two years old, three, four with a microphone performing for company in the living room. So that's all I've ever wanted. She had me all my cousins, too. We all had to perform. We all had to know all of Ray Charles, all of James Brown. When she said, go find something to sing, you better go find something to sing.

[10:20] Robert Bannon: Yeah, I saw I saw a DVD. She's new to my dad. I saw a DVD of a cookout from 1985. And my grandmother, she's telling my dad, go find something to sing. And they made him sing like two songs. And like, so it's just not it was just a normal thing. A family could be the toughest crowd. They could be the toughest critics.

[10:40] Case: Oh, she definitely was the toughest crowd. Yeah, she definitely was the toughest crowd. But I mean, it didn't hurt.

[10:43] Robert Bannon: So for you now, you got this show coming out. Are we going to see more? I hope to see more live shows around the country. Maybe we'll hit the road, do some more dates in the coming years.

[10:54] Case: I've been doing them nonstop. I just got a total 112 in total that ended in March. But I've been doing shows nonstop. I got one Saturday, Wednesday, and then I got one that Friday, then Yoshi. So I'm always on the road. It's always posted.

[11:11] Robert Bannon: All right. So we got to follow you follow you on social media. So you're always out here out and about and singing. What's I've always I've been so jealous of people. Faith was here. Kelly Price with you are you're on her album. She was just here the other day. And her concert was incredible here. I'm in Detroit. We're ready to come to Detroit case. Come on back.

[11:28] Case: I'm in Detroit. I was there on Valentine's Day.

[11:32] Robert Bannon: I know I saw it. Why wasn't I there?

[11:34] Case: Next Valentine's Day? Well, you'll be back. And I was in Oakland. I did Oakland on my birthday. This this past year.

[11:39] Robert Bannon: See? Okay. I was in Oakland on my birthday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there.

[11:45] Robert Bannon: So when you get up there and people start to sing your song songs that have been with them, you hear them. You don't even sometimes have to even sing into the mic. The audience is taking over there.

[11:52] Case: Yeah, they say.

[11:53] Robert Bannon: Yeah. But that feels good. That means that you create a memory. So that's what it's about. But you don't want. Well, I speak for me. I never wanted to make music to where it's the biggest hit ever. I did in 10 years. It's like a pina colada song or something like that. Yeah, it was a huge hit. But it's not many people going back 30 years to it doesn't represent the thing in their lives that that music. There are some people I agree, but it is a certain song that the biggest hits, but they don't they don't have the same power. And I never wanted to do that because I just that's not what I came up on.

[12:28] Case: Yeah. These songs will be here and be sung and like the best man I can be will be at a wedding in 50 years from now. People are going to be walking down the aisle.

[12:39] Robert Bannon: Yeah, they are. They are going to be. And you're going to be singing them around this country for as long as as we'll absolutely have you to be. So if you haven't bought a ticket, you're going to be in the neighborhood or we're going to follow case you're going to follow case so that you can see case when he's on the road, no matter where you're going to be. Do you get home? You're not in New York no more. Where do you live now?

[12:53] Case: No, I live in New York in 2001. Atlanta.

[12:59] Robert Bannon: Yeah. And they don't come at you with the Pittsburgh Steelers hat and cup. I got the Falcons. I know. I know the Falcons. We got six Super Bowls. So they don't really go mess with me. He comes with the receipts, the rings and the Super Bowl wins.

[13:12] Case: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[13:20] Robert Bannon: So and Atlanta has been good. That's like the spot for music.

[13:26] Case: Yeah, yeah. And that's where it's at.

[13:30] Robert Bannon: Yeah. So you know where it's going to be at on the coming up in no time at all. It's going to be right there. I can't wait. August 9th. Yoshi's get meet and greet tickets. You can get your picture. You can say, hey, you can talk about with case, have a memory. Then him and his band are rolling through two shows, a seven o'clock and a nine o'clock show. It is the perfect date that you're looking for a date. You want to have a good date. You want to have a second date. Come on down. You're going to come. This is it. This is the way you're going to get you right. I mean, you'd be right. He's going to make sure that your date ends. Well, get the case.

[13:50] Case: Yeah, I got you again. Now, I'm not saying who she's going to think of when the date's over. It might not be you, but she'll be happy.

[13:59] Robert Bannon: That's not his fault. Yeah. Yeah. Take it. I come. Yeah. Thank you so much for the music, the memories, the talent and that voice, that voice, that voice, that voice.

[14:10] Case: Much love. Thanks for being here.

[14:10] Robert Bannon: Thank you, man. God bless.