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[0:10] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Kelly Price is here, everybody. I have been listening, I wouldn't call it the midnight hour. I've been listening. Oh my god. And if I may have contributed at least three cents because I have streamed "As We Lay" over and over. You want vocals, y'all? That is vocal perfection. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. That's hysterical.

[0:41] Kelly Price: Thank you.

[0:43] Robert Bannon: Before we get started on your career and your voice and your technique, I just left. I'm in Newark, New Jersey with the New Jersey Arts Center, teaching acting the song with up-and-coming young singers who we listened to you in class today because we're talking about placement, we're talking about technique, and you want to know someone who has all the colors of the rainbow to their voice? You're looking at this one right here. But you're coming to Detroit.

[1:10] Kelly Price: My man is in Detroit.

[1:11] Robert Bannon: Really?

[1:12] Kelly Price: Oh, yes.

[1:14] Robert Bannon: You should come see me.

[1:15] Kelly Price: Are you that when I'm there?

[1:17] Robert Bannon: August 30th.

[1:18] Kelly Price: It's August 30th at the Aretha Franklin.

[1:20] Robert Bannon: The Aretha Franklin Amphitheater outside, grab yourself a ticket, Detroit. Have a night. It's a jazzy night with Miss Kelly Price. It's formerly Shane Park.

[1:28] Kelly Price: Formerly Shane Park.

[1:32] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[1:33] Kelly Price: Yes.

[1:33] Robert Bannon: So Detroit, come out, hear this voice in person. They always show up. And just, I mean, Detroit is always everything.

[1:42] Kelly Price: Always, always, always.

[1:44] Robert Bannon: Everything. And you're gonna bring a fun, good show for them. I am sure of it. Looking forward to it. You come from New York originally.

[1:51] Kelly Price: Oh, yes. Queens in the house.

[1:54] Robert Bannon: Queens in the house. When did the bug hit you? When did you, the bug hit you? Where you were like, I can sing?

[2:01] Kelly Price: Man, so true story. I did not find out that I could sing; I found out that everyone else didn't. And people kind of look at me strange when I say that, but I grew up in a house and in a family where everybody sang. Everybody played instruments. My grandmother, my mother, her sister, her brother, everybody that I was around on a day-to-day basis played instruments and sang music. So that was my life every day up until I went to school.

[2:29] Kelly Price: So when I got to school and they, you know, they start, they have nap time, they have story time, they have sing-along time, and sing-along time, I'm singing along with the song, and I'm looking around the room because I'm asking myself, like, don't they hear that they're not in the same key? I'm like four years old. Don't they hear it? They're not in the same key as the record. What are they doing? They're in a complete... who knew that a four-year-old knew what a key to a song was? But I didn't think of it as anything but language. So I often refer to music as my first language and English as my second.

[2:59] Robert Bannon: You know, it's so fascinating to me to talk to someone who is a singer in the way that you are, because I was with these kids today, and some of the boys, some of them, they're automatically optioning up, they're automatically falling into harmonies. They have no formal training. Some people just have that gift; they have the ear where they can hear it.

[3:15] Kelly Price: Yes, and I have to thank God for my gift. I thank God for my grandmother who He used to pass it down through the generations, and so yeah, it's weird as a kid. I could explain things and I would know what to do. I just didn't know how I knew.

[3:29] Robert Bannon: Ah, that's so... listen. Harmony's giving hives. I am a one-trick pony. If I'm not with the melody, don't hire me.

[3:38] Kelly Price: I'm gonna tell you something. The melody is very important; the melody holds it down. Nothing else makes sense without the melody.

[3:45] Robert Bannon: So you'd be surprised. And being a vocal coach and a vocal producer, even prior to coming out with my own music, I work with a lot of artists that are extremely talented, but when they get in a studio, they have to kind of be crafted to be disciplined; otherwise, they would just kind of be giving you everything all at one time. And I'm really, really, really a stickler for a good disciplined vocal. No matter how good you sing, you've got to have the discipline, you've got to give people the foundation, you've got to give them melody, you've got to give them context. They need to know what the words are. So before you go into, like, let them hear the words so that they can follow along. And so I've always been a stickler about that.

[4:23] Kelly Price: I think a lot of times you have singers who can really sing and they want you to hear everything it is that they can do. That's fine, not in one song, and definitely not all in the first chorus. 32 bars and we're done. We've given them all the done. Yeah, I've showed you everything I know. Why do we have to say?

[4:41] Robert Bannon: Well, what I was gonna say to you is you have sung with literally everyone. I mean, you go through a discography. If you're from the 90s, early 2000s, 2010 on, you've sung with them all down. And you have, and please excuse me for saying this as a compliment, you are some of the most beautiful, restrained vocals. And I think this goes, you give these colors and these beautiful moments, but you're not always hitting it out the park. You give texture and story.

[5:12] Kelly Price: Yes, it's important.

[5:14] Robert Bannon: It's important. I think it takes a very, very... so recently, I don't know if you know, I ran a background vocal competition online to look for new background singers for the 25th year in celebration of how I got started also as a background singer, which that worked out very well. I have some amazing new background singers. But with that, even with going through all of the steps and the things that I had them to do, I was very, very, very intense with them when it came down to just following the directions, doing what the song says, knowing when to lean in and give a little more, and knowing when to pull back and stay right inside of the pocket. One of the phrases I taught all of my contestants was "intellectual singer."

[5:56] Kelly Price: I love an intellectual singer. You can have every trick in your bag, but if you don't know how to place it, if you don't know about timing, if you are not aware on how to be disciplined, if you don't understand that a crescendo is just that, you work your way up to it. Like if you don't know those things, then you may have an absolute beautiful instrument, but you know, you can have a beautiful car, but if you don't know how to control it, it's just a nice car, you know, and eventually it's gonna get wrecked.

[6:27] Robert Bannon: That right, and you've seen so many amazing singers who don't know how to place it and don't know what they're doing, and it gets wrecked and so important.

[6:37] Kelly Price: Yeah, well, I know you've told the story a hundred million billion times, but if you don't mind, it's 1992. We're standing at Madison Square Garden. Kelly Price is singing. I don't know, she's singing faith, the faith, the faith with the, um, I will be a father figure, place little hand in mine.

[6:58] Robert Bannon: Yes, yeah, absolutely.

[6:59] Kelly Price: Learn all of that stuff in like two hours and hit the stage at eight o'clock. Hysterical.

[7:06] Robert Bannon: You're singing in the hallway, and this is literally like out of a Hollywood movie.

[7:09] Kelly Price: Yeah, yeah, we are. So the George, the George Michael story is I had a friend who was a musician trying to become a producer. I was around like young producers and stuff all the time. Church guys were musicians wanted to like produce whatever, and they were my friends. I would do their demos for them for free all the time. That parlayed into someone giving one of my friends a call to put together this group for George Michael, which parlayed into us getting the Mariah Carey gig a month later for the Grammys, and it was there that I was heard and then offered, you know, an opportunity that literally changed the trajectory of my life. So it was a divine moment, but it was also a morning sickness moment that couldn't have come at a better time.

I was 18, I was pregnant, I didn't have any place to live. I had just asked my grandparents if I could crash in their basement until I could figure out what the heck was going on with my life and sick as a dog. And in rehearsal, everybody's eating and I can't eat, so I'm at the piano, I'm singing, trying not to smell the pizza because it's gonna make me hurl, and Mariah and Trey Lorenz and Randy Hoffman and Tommy Mottola walked in the room while I was sitting at the piano singing, and the rest is history.

[8:21] Robert Bannon: As somebody who hears that story, how does you at 18 and your career from there, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about, you know, "Soul of a Woman" and "Mirror Mirror" and all of the hooks and all of the songs, how do you put, how do you, how does that, is it divine intervention? Is it fate? Like what do you lean on when you say, like, why me? How did this happen in that moment?

[8:48] Kelly Price: You know, it's so weird. When I was younger, writing came easy. I didn't start stressing about it until I wanted to do it for other people. Because, you know, in my mind, I'm like, you know, this might be good. It might sound good to me. My grandmother might like it. The church choir might like, you know, people at church might like it, but this is not that. So I was very, very regimented. I put myself on it, where when I first got started writing for other people, I would always go to the hook first, no matter what, and let the song build out from there. A lot of times in my earlier years with writing for other people, if I didn't get a chance to sit with the artist to talk with them, I would speak to their A&R, whoever their manager was, or whoever it was that gave me the call, so I can learn something about them and try to craft the song so that it's more personal.

[9:32] Kelly Price: Me as a singer-songwriter, I feel like I can sing anything and bring emotion into it because I have life experience to back it up. So as a writer, sometimes you have to be able to give someone, an artist in particular that does not write their own music, you want them to be able to translate it. You want them to be able to put it out there like they wrote it themselves. And the way that I found to do that was to learn something about them so I could put something in the song that actually would, when they hear it, it'll push them to give you the emotional connection as if they wrote the words themselves. So I was a lot more regimented back then.

[10:05] Kelly Price: I can honestly say that the songwriting is a muscle; it's muscle memory, right? So as I became more developed and got more comfortable and the anxiety died down, and I, you know, had proven that I could write for other people, I got really relaxed with it. And literally, I have to honestly say, songs sing themselves to me now, like literally. I have to 100% be prepared to stop what I'm doing because sometimes I'll hear a melody and it won't leave me alone. And I can't concentrate, I can't get anything done unless I stop and let it be born. So I keep devices all over the house. If I don't have my phone, I still have the little mini cassette dictophones, anything that I can grab. So if I hear a melody, I keep one in the bathroom.

There's one in just about every place in the house where I could end up. So if something comes to me, I can just record the idea. I keep something on the side of the bed. I've gotten up in the morning and had multiple song ideas on a recorder that I got up in the middle of the night and just kind of put down and laid back down. And so as I've gotten older, I feel like the gift has acclimated itself to me, or I've acclimated myself to it. And music tends to just sing. I tell myself the songs are born. Like I feel like I get them divinely, and I'm the portal that they come through.

[11:16] Kelly Price: I carry the song and then I give birth to it.

[11:18] Robert Bannon: Yeah, and a beautiful babies they are.

[11:23] Kelly Price: And I was reading, I try to do my research, and I was reading an interview you just did, and you were talking about in the 90s, with you know, from transitioning from background vocals to writing and the bad boy years in those in those years where I'm born in 1983. I'm from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Like I know, I know the 90s.

[11:42] Robert Bannon: You were here for it.

[11:42] Kelly Price: Yes.

[11:43] Robert Bannon: Oh my god, you were in high school.

[11:44] Kelly Price: What cutting up?

[11:45] Robert Bannon: And cutting.

[11:48] Kelly Price: Yeah, don't let this all fool you. I was I was singing and I was ready.

[11:51] Robert Bannon: Oh my god, you look like a baby.

[11:54] Kelly Price: So do you? You don't age ever.

[11:56] Robert Bannon: Um so what what you said in a recent interview, looking at the billboard charts, you and your friends and your co-writers and producers, and you would just be racking up the songs up the charts.

[12:08] Kelly Price: Yeah, yeah, it was the weirdest thing. I looked at it one day, and this is I go back to it. I'm shifting this wig, everybody nodding, bro. This is I'm not getting ready. You will not have me on social media with sliding wigs and whatnot. It's all right. Y'all know this ain't my hair. Um, anyway, I don't know. What the heck. It's doing its own thing right now. So um, no, I remember looking at the charts one day and realizing that my name was like on four or five songs in the top 10 as a songwriter. And I was like, Oh, what is that? What is that?

[12:40] Robert Bannon: Yeah, so no, it it it um wild, wild. It it took a lot. Like I think about that stuff now more. I completely completely did not really appreciate and understand the impact that I was uh having, not just on music, but as a culture, because hip hop shaped a culture. Um, and I was, you know, now looking back, I actually am comfortable enough to just kind of relax and and smell my own roses that I planted. Um planted in a lot of shit too. But it takes it takes doodle to to have beautiful roses. People understand fertilizer is boo-boo, fertilizer is boo-boo, but from the boo-boo comes something beautiful.

[13:18] Robert Bannon: So it sounds like life and how the songs are written too, right?

[13:21] Kelly Price: So, yeah.

[13:22] Robert Bannon: Yes. Well, if you if you don't know, if you've lived under a rock, I was talking to some friends about about you joining me on the show, and we were talking about more money, more problems, and being like, That's Kelly. I know Kelly Price from her this solo, this single, uh, this song.

[13:35] Kelly Price: Yeah, but that's Kelly Price, everyone. A lot of people didn't realize they didn't realize it.

[13:37] Robert Bannon: A lot of people thought it was either Mary or Faith.

[13:43] Kelly Price: That's what I get from a lot of people. That's that's Miss Kelly, and all of those songs. Don't stop while you're doing it, and do you know, and I'll do it. All of that, yes, Kelly Price. Yes, yes, yes.

[13:52] Robert Bannon: Um, the solo, what does it mean nowadays? Music is so different than and that time. And yeah, give it away practically for nothing. But you you are back in the day, the the the labels and all of that time when you go back to 1998 or those years, and you put out Soul of a Woman and these albums. What what was it like to be in the studio and to be able to, after working for so many other artists, to then take the reins and and be in charge of your own career in that way?

[14:22] Kelly Price: Um it is it and I say is as if it's present tense because I still honor it in that way. Um it is it is one of the most liberating things in the world to be a creator who was allowed to be creative. And I'll I'll say this because I don't think people really understand that in this music industry, when you sign to a label, especially back then, maybe a lot less now because a lot of people can find success independently with streaming and you know being online and that kind of thing. But especially back then when you signed a deal, they they ran everything, like literally. They would tell you who you're going to work with, the kinds of songs that they want you to sing. Um, you know, that they hire people for you.

You're not involved in that. My situation was very, very different in that, and it is actually the reason why I took the deal that I took. When the bidding war got started for me, after everybody was saying, no, no, no, no, no, she's too big, she's too big, you know, one person decided they wanted to put a deal on the table, and then everybody else is like, oh no, well, we can't let them have her. So then, of course, a bidding war starts, right? I went with the lowest deal on the table, and it's not the only reason why I went with it. So I I everybody knows that I ended up signing with T Neck Records, um, which was uh Ronald Isley's boutique label that he took to Polygram Island. And my real reason for signing with him, I had it, I had a deal on the table from Bad Boy, I had just declined something from Jive, I had something on the table from MCA.

All of this is happening at the same time. I opted to go with Ronald Isley, who had less money on the table than every other offer that I had, because he looked me in my face and he said to me, You've written hits for people, that voice is crazy. If you do for yourself what you've done for all of these other artists for what you've just done for me, because I met him writing and producing him. He said, You you're a winning combination. Like I wouldn't ask you to change. I don't care if you lose weight, I don't care if you get like he was the only person that said to me that what I was was good enough. And that's no slam to anybody else, because like I still have a really good relationship with Puffy, like all of these different people, but it's just where the industry was.

And when you're getting signed, it's an investment. So people want to know that they can get a return on their investment. They were all wrong, I'm happy to say. They felt like people would look at me and decide that it didn't matter how good I sang or how beautiful the words of my song were, I didn't look like Aliyah, I did not look like Tamiya, I did not look like Deborah, I did not look like Faith. These are all women that I came up around, and they were constantly thrown in my face. This is what people want. This is what people want. But mind you, I'm working with all of these people at the same time. Like I've written for it to me, I wrote for Shantae Moore. I, you know, I wrote for Faith Evans.

These are all people that I've worked with. And the same people who were hiring me to work with these artists were telling me, Yeah, it's too bad you'll never sell a record. So, I mean, you know, what do you do? They were the gatekeepers, they were the people that ran it. It wasn't like I could go around them. So I I 10 toes down and worked my behind off, and I became something that somebody could not say no to. I I would not let no be an answer. And and I did that through my work. Like they came back grabbing at me. And in the end, I went for the deal where I felt like I had the most uh faith and trust in my ability to get the job done because I did do it for other artists every single day.

Um, and and it it wasn't even that I didn't necessarily maybe want to change, I didn't want to feel like if I don't become a size eight, that you're not gonna put my record out. And he and Ronald never even he didn't care. Like Mr. Isley did not care. And so for me, that was the most important thing because I got to be authentically Kelly. And I'm so grateful that I did that instead of going in another direction. I fully believe that I wanted it bad enough that if I went with another label, I would have did what I needed to do to put my record out. If they would have told me to have surgery, if they would have told me what I would have did what I needed to do after signing to get my record out.

But I'm so glad that I went with my heart, and I'm so glad that I went with understanding that being able to uh be the captain of my own ship, my own pilot of my own plane, that that would be the best way for me to be presented to the world. And and I'm you know, I don't talk about it often, but I changed the tide of music. It looks really, really different right now. I I give all props to uh Martha Wash and women like that. When I came out, they did tell me do gospel or do house. I said no. If I can write RB, if I can write pop, why can't I sing it? And so I insisted on being an artist who represented for a different kind of woman. There are too many plus size women in the world of all cultures and all races for anybody to believe that a plus size woman is not sexy to somebody.

Every big girl I know got a man and 50 in her DMs. Come on. And so it changed the face. There became sensual, sexy, um, ladylike ingenue representation for for women who were not a size two with grace and style, and it was classy. I wasn't, you know, I it was just I just wanted to feel beautiful and do what I did and not be told that just because I wasn't a size two, that that you know that that was ugly. And it it changed, it changed the face of music. It literally changed. If you go back and look, and people can say, I'm I am taking credit for it. I absolutely am. Go back, look at the line in the sand. Everybody else was just doing whatever big clothes, dowdy clothes, big hair, uh, and and and respectfully I say drag queen makeup, big hair, because that's the way they dress big girls.

You know what I mean? I didn't want that. I I wanted polished, I wanted pristine. I wanted, you know, let it fit me. It's gonna be a lot more to fit with hell, let it fit me. Somebody's gonna look at it and love it, you know what I mean? And I fought for it. I fought for it. So when I look at when I look at a generation of plus size women who came behind me, some of them take it too far. Every generation has one that takes it too far. But I am very, very proud to know that I was a part of a movement that allowed women to feel beautiful in their own skin. And that was just as big of a deal to me as doing the music because it was my look that almost kept me from getting a deal. So that had to be a part of the story and the overcoming of it as well.

[20:23] Robert Bannon: And so now you got all of these, you got I'm sorry, Instagram models. You welcome. Cause I was like, we didn't have Instagram, but I that was me before you. I wasn't naked, but I'm just saying because I I I gave glam all the time. I don't care if I was 300 pounds or 200 pounds. I gave glam, I gave face, I gave hair, I gave shoes, I insisted on wearing hill. I was always in a six-inch pup on stage because I wanted people to see this big girl can strut in a heel. Like I, you know, it was a lot of proving points, but I proved them.

[20:52] Kelly Price: Yeah.

[20:53] Robert Bannon: And platinum, platinum selling, platinum selling albums.

[20:58] Kelly Price: Yes.

[20:59] Robert Bannon: And out of the 14 tracks on the whole piece, you the you wrote or co-wrote 13 of them, one being a gospel set, like that is not, you know, you wrote that album. That's just the voice. That's the writer, co-writer of that album, and over a million copies sold in that time.

[21:19] Kelly Price: Grown art folk R and B out radio. That and that's I don't understand about the image thing. I don't understand even in clothing. Like, if you make clothes, why wouldn't you want to make clothes for all people? Wouldn't you sell more?

[21:33] Robert Bannon: You would absolutely sell more.

[21:35] Kelly Price: I don't I don't I listen to your to your music a lot. If it's the Christmas album, the gospel album. I was gonna ask you, how do you marry your love? Obviously love and affinity for gospel music and and the the R and B and the pop popular music and hip hop culture. How do you how do you do it all?

[21:54] Kelly Price: Uh uh because they were never divorced, in my opinion. They have they've always been. I I have and that I have always wanted to be a 100% true representation of all that moves me musically. And I like I said, I owe it to my grandmother. Thank God he passed the gift down through my grandmother. I but classic classical music, I learned to love classical music as a result of my grandfather. I he used to take me riding with him to go visit, you know, the elderly when he he was my pastor, but he was also hospital chaplain. Sometimes I would ride with him to go to the hospital when he would pray with people and that kind of thing. And when we were in the car, I was young. He would put on classical music and it would relax him while he's driving in New York traffic and we're going to the hospital or whatever.

[22:35] Kelly Price: And when I was really young, it got on my nerves because I couldn't understand what they were saying. It just seemed like it was a lot of screaming, and then you know, you got all of these crescendos and decrescendos, and you got all these like it just sounded like drama, like Titanic music. Like, like you know what I mean? Like the Titanic, that's what it sounded like Titanic music, but like the soundtrack of it, like the all of it. But I learned to love it. I realized it took me a while, but then I realized I started to like it. So I am I feel like I'm a music milkshake. I love all forms of music. I can literally find beauty in any form of music. Heavy metal is not my choice to go to, but if you put something on, I'm gonna listen to it.

I'm gonna tell you what I love about the drums. I'm gonna tell you like I love music. Music lives in me, I live inside of music. And so I wanted to be able to present everything. I wanted to be able to do a gospel offering because I grew up singing in my grandfather's church. I wanted to be able to show that I had a pop side, which is why you know I wrote the last song on before we went to the gospel song on the like that was Mariah Carey inspired, like she was the queen of the ultimate beautiful pop ballad. And so, you know, you did it. Just I wanted to show everything R&B, hip hop, ballad, up tempo, gospel, pop, jazzy, whatever, however, however. So, when we see you in 25 years from the first album, your anniversary, when we see you on tour, these upcoming shows like Detroit and listen, Detroit, for example, like you singing, you bring this.

You if you're gonna sing with Twinkie and Karen and Jackie and Dorinda, you better sing down. Oh my god. So you Detroit, sing listen to that version of that song. How what can we expect from you when we come to celebrate 25 years of you and your solo this in these shows and these tours? What do you give us on stage as a last?

[24:30] Kelly Price: So at every show, whether it's like whether I'm headlining or not, I always try to make sure that in every concert I do, I give a piece of each stage of my career. So in every concert, I do give you a piece of "Mo Money Mo Problems," that kind of thing. "Feels So Good" by Mase. Like I have a whole medley of stuff that came before the Kelly Price stuff, you know? And it's a journey. It is literally, it's a 30-year journey in every show. And you know, we gotta cut it shorter depending on what my time is, but every concert, it is my goal to make sure that I walk you through every stage of my career. For "Soul 25," what I am working on right now, because it's 25 years this year, but I want to do a night, a night with Kelly Price.

And I want to, and for to celebrate "Soul of a Woman" 25, I want to perform every song from that album, front to back, because I've never done it. I've never done it. I want to be able to sing and do like live arrangements of every song from that first album and record it and film it and memorialize it in that way. I cannot believe it's been 25 years.

[25:42] Robert Bannon: Well, I'm here's my credit card number, Miss Price. Your music is when I'm telling you, like, no, I'm super excited about that. I'm super excited. Sing your love or take me to a dream. All of these songs that are in this go listen to the pull us up right now, wherever you listen to your music, pull it up and let's celebrate 25 years together this year. And the whole discography as we go into November and December and we could Christmas it up with Miss Kelly Price and we could listen to the gospel album on Sunday. Come on.

[26:13] Kelly Price: Yes, Chris, yeah, all of it, all of it. I always wanted there to be a little bit of something for everybody. And then going back to your original point, how I how do I marry the two? Like I never, to me, they were never divorced. They are my musical self is one being. I think people for their own comfort and for their, you know, their dogma or whatever it is that they have or what they choose to believe in or how they choose to believe, it makes better sense to them to separate the two and to say that I can only be one or the other. And I get that, you know, traditionalism, whatever, there's a reason why things change, whatever the case may be. I feel like Aretha Franklin did it, she did it successfully.

She did it beautifully, she did it integrally, and there was nothing phony about when she sang a hymn. When she sang it, she gave it her all, and if she felt the spirit, she gave you that too. But when she sang "Natural Woman," she gave you all of that. And when she sang "Respect," if she felt like we don't know, like maybe she went extra harder because maybe she was getting it, maybe she was at it with her boo that night. But when she gave you "Respect," if she had to drop you an F bomb in the middle of it, it didn't take away from the fact that when she sings "Precious Lord," you're gonna be laid under a pew somewhere, and she might be laying there right next to you. It's the full, it was the full Aretha Franklin experience.

She never eliminated any of the parts of herself because somebody else said that she had to be one or the other. If my musical gift came from God, whether I'm singing R&B or whether I'm singing gospel, it came from God. Period. Yes. Well period. So I don't separate them. I never had. I never have. Go listen to "Ain't No Way" and "Precious Lord" sung by Miss Kelly Price over here. They're out there. Go find them. Go, go.

[28:02] Robert Bannon: Before I let you go, and I don't mean to keep you so generous with your time.

[28:06] Kelly Price: No, we're good. I'm having a good time.

[28:08] Robert Bannon: I'm the I'm from Jersey. Okay. I'm born and raised here. So I have to ask. I have to ask.

[28:13] Kelly Price: Yes.

[28:14] Robert Bannon: My love is your love. The blue, the blue leather dress, the lounge in blue Miami Beach, the her coat in the ocean. Tell me what what's it like to step into a studio with the one and only Miss Whitney Houston.

[28:31] Kelly Price: Man, so the day we were this this is I love this story. And I'ma say it again because every time I tell a story, I'd be like, Ulysses, Pat, like, who do I need to talk to? Somebody, like, where's the footage? So we recorded, we recorded "Heartbreak Hotel" at Whitney's New Jersey estate. In Manhattan, yeah. Yes, yes. So on her estate, she had a guest house that is the size of a like a huge, regular big house, because there was, you know, there was the main house. And so in her guest house, there were bedrooms and a kitchen and that kind of thing, but she gutted out a part of the house and turned it into a complete like studio suite with everything. So when we recorded that day, we were out, we were out at um at the house, and she gave Faith the room.

Faith had a suite, an ensuite, I had an ensuite, she had one. You know, the photographers were there, the cameras were there, everybody's teams were there, our makeup people were there the whole night. So we all we went in, we got to the house, we went into our respective rooms, we got dressed, we did whatever. And when we came out, the cameras were on the entire time for every take. When Faith and I were singing background, the cameras were rolling when we were doing our parts, the cameras were rolling. Like at one point, Whitney was like, okay, so we got this faith. I need you to take the S in the booth, and I need some of them, baby. You know them harmonies that you be doing that just make me want to float on a cloud with some marshmallows and some shit like that.

And I'm just, and so like she was, she was she was one of the most generous people I've ever met in life, period, but absolutely in this business. She shared her stage, she did it graciously, um, and she stayed in my ear about making sure I never allowed myself to feel intimidated.

[30:15] Kelly Price: One thing I've this is probably a first for me to acknowledge this in an interview. I have made it a habit, it sounds crazy, throughout my life, to make myself small when I get into spaces where I feel like people are gonna be intimidated by me. I've done it my whole life. So to be an artist is kind of weird because you're the person that everybody's supposed to be looking at when you walk in the room. But as a kid growing up, um, um, and even as a young adult, I made it a habit to kind of do this as, you know, like just to not be in people's way and to not, you know, whatever the case may be. And I did that one time with her. I just kind of fell into old behavior. We were on the Rosie O'Donnell show, and we're going in, we're at rehearsal, it's all good, everything is great.

And the worst thing in the world that could have happened to me happened to me because I was out of my shell, and a person came to me and said to me, you know, we think it's really, really disrespectful that you're up here like doing all this line, you're doing they basically they told me I was doing too much, and it looked like I was trying to outsing Whitney on her own song or whatever. And it was someone from Arista. And so I felt all the like I fell back because my thing was that is absolutely not, you know, I'm a new artist, this is my first album. I'm like, I'm in love with this woman. I'm so gracious and grateful that she invited me to participate on the song with her. So I felt all the way back.

And so we're in rehearsal, we're running it over and over again with the band, Ricky Minor. And so, like Whitney realizes that something is different, right? And so she's singing and I'm singing, and I'm, and I did what I was asked to do. Like I pulled back, I took it down, I did whatever the case may be. And so she just kept looking at me like, you all right? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. We singing. What's wrong with you? I'm good. What's wrong with you? I'm like, no, I'm good. You know, I'm just I'm trying to save it for the show. She said, mm-mm. She stopped the rehearsal. She stopped the rehearsal. She said, What the hell is your problem? I was like, huh? What do you mean? She's like, why are you not singing?

And don't give me that, you're trying to save it for the show. Why are you not singing? I said, Well, no, it's I'm just, you know, I'm trying, she said, mm-mm, mm-mm. Something is off. And I told her, I said, well, someone from the label, you know, felt as if I was doing too much, whatever the case may be. I would definitely, I don't want to disrespect your situation. That's not it. She was like, who from the label told you you and I said, it doesn't matter, but I just don't, that I would never want you to think that I'm being disrespectful. That's not what I'm trying to do. When I tell you, Whitney Elizabeth Houston from New Jersey, from Nook, snapped. Snapped, shut down the rehearsal, and I wouldn't tell her who it was.

She kept saying, I want to know who who spoke to Miss Price in that manner. I want to know who told her that she's singing too much or singing too loud. And I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. So she she said, You're not gonna tell me. I said, No, like it's not, it's not that I'm not trying to make an issue. She was like, Somebody's gonna tell me. She was like, Did you see? And literally somebody gave it up. They told her who said it. She snapped. She told the person that they needed to leave, go back to the office. We don't need you here. She's my guest, and she's also an artist. How dare you disrespect her like that? Her job here is to sing. Why would you tell her to hold back? And then she looked at me, she was like, bitch, you better not ever.

That's the reason why I called. You don't have no voice like that, and then you sit on it. These don't know what they're talking about. They push paper. They sit behind desks. They don't know what it like she went off on me. But that's the relationship that we had. Like she would check me so much. And I tell people all the time, she was indeed my big sister in this business.

[33:48] Kelly Price: Whatever, what and she treated me like I was her little sister, like stuff that she had gotten into, different things. I'll never say everything that we shared in private conversations, but she had the drug conversation with me. She had the alcohol conversation with me. She had the other kinds of conversations with me too, about the other stuff that people don't talk about as readily and as freely in this business that you can get tripped up into. And she one another thing she always told me is don't ever make the mistake of thinking that these people are your friends. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's the president of the label, I don't, they are not your friends. You are a commodity, you are a bottom line.

When you are not making enough of a difference in their bottom line anymore, they don't care about you. And they can be nice, they can be all of those things, but the day that you believe that you are actually their friend is where it ends. It's the beginning of the end. And she told me that. And I never forgot it. So I can be friendly, I can be kind, I can work, I can get along with everything. But the one thing I do know is that when it's all said and done, if you got to choose between my family and your family, you're gonna pick yours. So I have to learn what I need to learn so I can make sure that I'm good in the end. And I would tell that to any upcoming artist. Know that that story makes me want to like that whole thing made, I mean, as a kid obsessed, like we all were with it.

That makes me want to boohoo cry. Because in our heads, as friends, and that's who we know that's that's exactly who she was. She gave her life to this business, her entire life. Her entire life. And we are forever grateful for the talent and the sacrifice she shared. People don't understand what the sacrifices you that you make as artists. It eats your soul. It really does. But it it but you go into it understanding that you are literally as a creative, you're giving a piece of your soul every time you record, every time you write. And when you get up on stage, you know, everybody's talking about energy, energy, energy. That didn't just get here. Energy has been a factor in life since the beginning of time.

When you get on a stage, you are feeling the energy of every person in that room. And it is, it's a thrill ride, it's like a drug. And it makes you feel like a superhuman, and you go further than you thought you could go, and you do more than you thought you could even do, even though you rehearse the hell out of it, you get on stage, and you know, for for Beyonce, you you become Sasha Fierce, right? She Beyonce knows she's talented, Beyonce knows she can dance, Beyonce knows she can sing the hell out of a record, but it it takes Sasha Fierce for her to get on stage and to hide whatever you know insecurity she may have within herself or whatever the case may be, and she puts on that suit and she wows the world.

Every artist has a Sasha Fierce, whether or not they acknowledge it. You know what I mean? It may not have a name, but we all have to develop a second skin so that we can get on the stage and be who we are no matter what's going on in our personal lives. I've been on stage singing when I had, you know, people on, you know, I was on a stage, I was on a stage in a rehearsal the night my sister died. You know what I mean? Like I was and and I couldn't get off the stage. I I was I was getting ready for a concert, could not get off the stage. I had to, when I got the news, I you know, I walked off the stage, I screamed and cried like a crazy woman. Um, you know, I I ended up cutting the rehearsal short, but I still had to sing the next day.

I literally still had to sing the next day. And I think if people thought about that, they might have just a little bit more compassion. I know sometimes artists can be a little bratty and we can seem a little whatever, but you know, if if they're 24 hours in the day, 23 hours and 30 minutes of it, we live for the public. That's that's the that's the reality of it.

[37:20] Robert Bannon: As a person, yeah. When people ask, I say my favorite interview is Luno. And now I'm gonna have to say my favorite interview is Miss Kelly Price and Luna. That is my sister. She's so crazy, she calls herself my sister wife. No, I swear to God, she's gonna get no, she's actually not gonna kill me for this. My husband is gonna be mad. But she literally, she's like, Okay, so when you and that fine delicious hubby of yours are ready to have a threesome, let me know. I'm like, Lou. Oh my god. That sounds like her. People may not know besides the music, besides the the the movie soundtracks and the television and the touring. You're a very charitable. You have worked and raised and donated a ton of money for breast cancer awareness for out there for causes near and dear to your heart. How is art and artistry and activism married in your mind?

[38:11] Kelly Price: You know, so it is again everything ties into my childhood and how I was raised. So my grandfather, again, I grew up in my grandfather's church. Um even before he was pastoring, but throughout his pastoring, he was also a missionary. Um, and he did mission work both uh here domestically and abroad. He went to uh Africa, he went to India, um, he opened up an orphanage in in India like decades ago. Like, so he's always been that type of a preacher. He was the what I like to call the neighborhood pastor in our area. Everybody knew Reverend Norman. Like literally, if you were in the neighborhood, like he always people would send their kids like to vacation Bible school and that kind of thing, even if they didn't come.

And a lot of times it's weird, and you may know this, you may not know it. A lot of times people don't realize that if you're not a member of a church, like if you want to get married or something like that, the church won't do it for you if you're not a member of the church, or if you don't have a relative who was a member of the church. My grandfather was that person that if someone had a death in the neighborhood, or if they wanted to have a church wedding for their daughter or their son or whomever, he would do that for the people in the neighborhood. He gave to the neighborhood. He took food to people's houses, he opened up the church one day a week. They could come in if they needed to find like clothes or you know, canned goods or whatever.

We were a small neighborhood church. We were by no means a mega church. When the church was at its fullest, with doors open and adding chairs in the middle aisle, I think you could probably get 150, maybe 200 people in the building. But we were a neighborhood church, and it was very much so family-oriented. One ate, we all ate. If we all, if one was hungry, we all went to bed with our stomachs groundless. So the at the earliest parts of my life, there was music, there was charity, there was faith, you know, there was uh um um involvement in the community, there was philanthropy, there were all of these things. He was also a chaplain. So I learned, I feel like some of the grace, the greatest non-tangible gifts I I learned and possessed as a kid.

And then, you know, being successful as an adult, you know, the other stuff, you can buy it. You can't buy in in you can't buy intellect, you can't buy integrity, you can't buy empathy, you can't buy, you know, having a kind heart. You can't buy those things. And those are things that I learned at at I feel like at the feet of my grandparents, whether it was charity or whatever, just being kind. And so all of those things to me go hand in hand. I feel like as much as I know that I feel like no one has the right to obligate anyone to do anything. I do believe that to whom much is given, much is required. And if you have the opportunity, so you don't have to be a doormat, you don't have to be an ATM machine.

But there's like you don't lose anything. I don't lose anything. I don't lose anything, you know, giving out of my abundance. Because when I didn't have it, I was given from what I didn't have, even if it was just an act of service. So, you know, that's just that's how I was raised. So to it's a part of life to me. It's not extracurricular. It goes hand in hand with everything that I do.

[41:07] Robert Bannon: Oh my goodness. I'm in, I'm I'm oh my, your husband is so lucky. Don't make me go back in the closet, Miss Price. My darius in Detroit, move over August 30th. Because now I have to come. Now I have to come to the show. You have to come and be my guest. I'm so serious. Please contact the office. Please come. Detroit's gonna be a lot of fun. I got family flying into no, it's funny that you pick that city. I have family flying into Detroit for this concert. Um, and yes, I do plan to reach out to the Clark family and all of them. Like that, like if they it's it's heck, yeah, like if they can come through, of course I want them to come through. But like, yeah, no, it's Detroit's gonna be fun. I'm gonna I'm gonna save my coin.

And one day when I'm ready to get married again, this is not the straight wedding. That was another check. Yes, yes, yes. He proposed, I'm making I'm happening, I'm making it happen. Where's my checkbook? Make it happen. Oh no, have you have you heard this song? Grammy nominated vocal. Have you heard it? You'll just melt. You'll make divorced angry people want to get married again, Miss Price.

[42:09] Kelly Price: Oh my God. Well, hopefully, second time or the third time or the 15th time, whatever it is, is a charm. You know what? If you first you don't succeed, I try again.

[42:20] Robert Bannon: There you go. They told us that in eleven, they told us that in preschool. We learned that lesson early. Listen, everyone, 25 years from the debut. You will be now when you're in the when you're in an elevator in the car, when you're in New York City and you're listening to Hot 97, Power 105, 937, whatever you're listening to, you hear the hooks, you hear the samples. It's Christmas and Mariah's on the radio. It's it's it's the quiet storm on BLS, and Miss Price is singing. You know where that where this voice comes from. It's from right here, right here. Everybody, we're celebrating you, your talent, and your your yeah, you can't even more beautiful as a voice and as a person. Your your soul, you are so beautiful.

[43:00] Kelly Price: Thank you. Thank you. This was so much fun. We have to so promise me, promise me. If if you come to Detroit, come please be my guest.

[43:09] Robert Bannon: I'm come, I'm I'm telling you, it's gonna be that I'm really glad that you said Detroit. Like, I got family members and stuff like that. We are gonna have such a good time in Detroit. Like, I'm super excited. I'm super excited. The band is gonna be with me. We are going to cut up. Do you hear me? I'm I'm ready. I am so there. You do not have ah, listen, look for the lookout because there's more shows, there's more music. There is go to follow Miss Kelly Price on Instagram. Follow uh go to the website, stay online, stay on top of everything that is yours. And I'll see you August 30th.

[43:46] Kelly Price: You will see me August 30th. Make sure, make sure, make sure. You got to come and sit, sit with my family. Sitting on my second. No, thank you. Come sit, yeah, absolutely. And then you've got to come backstage so we can say hi. I want to just give you a hug. I'm not trying to take your time because you love giving it up on the screen. We'll give a hug. We'll we'll hug on the 30th. Done. Pinky swear. Pinky swear promise. Are you kidding? And I want to and shout out to your Bailey because she is a sweetheart. And thank you for that for all that. Everything is so God bless her. She tolerates me.

[44:23] Kelly Price: Thank you so much for all. It was an honor. It was like I literally, I wanted, we've had Ricky Minor on the show. We've had, we've done the, we've done the, we've had the Jennifer Holidays, and we've had the all of, and I was like, I my favorite voice is this, is this all this velvet goodness is right here. So I just want to say it's an honor.

[44:42] Kelly Price: Thank you so much, Robert. I can't wait to see you in Detroit. I'm ready.