Esperanza Spalding
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
A secret society? Anything that we need to know about? I mean, if there is, I'm not in it. As far as I know. As far as...
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
To me, it sounds like, mm-hmm, that's, yeah, that's them, you know. I mean, by them, I mean Milton and me.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Have a great rest of your year and life. Thank you.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Apparently, the way he heard about me is Herbie Hancock told him.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Wild. I was like, what's a universe? What dream have I stumbled into? Yeah, Herbie apparently told him, hey, there's this girl who plays bass and sings and composes and she wants to meet you. And then I heard about him for the first time on Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
It was like this force that was so powerful, wrapped its arms around my bone marrow and was like, you're always going to be a part of this sound and this sound is always going to be a part of you. It just became this luminous letter in my musical DNA, you know. Yeah, that's how I first encountered him.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Well, the grace and patience that he extended to me, this young little something something who had this idea, had this song, which I really struggled to finish the lyrics on that. And I couldn't finish them until I think the night before Christmas.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
So really, he received the lyrics the day we got into the studio. And that is like a really unfair position to put him in on that. And I could tell he was frustrated and unhappy and concerned. Like, you know, he wouldn't have a chance to really like rap his songs. his mind and his heart and his pronunciation practice around those lyrics.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And what I really appreciated is he let me know, like he didn't hide the fact he was frustrated and still brought loving kindness. Yeah. and generosity and joy and his full self, you know, to that recording session. And that I feel is a very rare combination. That integrity and that care of like, I'm going to let you know how this affected me because it affected me in an unpleasant way.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And I'm not going to take that out on you. I'm here to do the beautiful thing. So let's do it. And that's a really particular way to get to know somebody that they're frustrated with you, you know. Yeah. And it's like, oh, we went through that part of our friendship, you know, already. We got it out the way.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
I love this question. Yeah. This is hard to speak directly to, but there's fury, there's terror, there's grief inside of all that beauty. And we don't have to wonder what that terror and grief and fury is about. It's about centuries of profound brutality exacted on black peoples in that country, in the country's United States.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And as much as we love the beautiful grooves and the melodies and the energy, there's a force in that music that maybe your brain doesn't know the history of what happened in Brazil. But something in you knows I'm somehow involved in that. Somehow this is also about me. And I don't mean that in like a I want to destroy you. It's about you. But it's asking that we really...
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Feel the truth, you know, feel something of the truth of what happened there that is still reverberating through the lives of black people. And it's still reverberating through the lives of non-black people because the, you know, it's a system that everyone becomes involved and complicit in to this day. So all that to say.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
As glorious and wondrous as João Gilberto and Carlos Jobim are, period, I also can witness the discrepancy or the disparity between a more European presenting, at least let's say that, representation of Brazilian music compared to Black cultural Afro-Brazilian music.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Say it. Yes, yes, yes. I love that. Nobody has uplifted that yet. I appreciate it.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
I really love that. What we wanted to convey was really this love. It's pretty simple. It's love. It's that magical embrace and sense of support and accompanying presence of love.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
We both feel very tuned into the way that music can deliver that, you know, really efficiently and really comprehensively. So my job coming in was to create these environments for Milton's voice and for me and for the palpable love, that vibrant love that we have for each other, for this world, for the music, would just easefully be conveyed.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And when you speak about the diasporic connection, I think about the often, I think, under-addressed connection between Brazil and, let's say, the United States. There are very, very similar social-political contexts
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
inside of which these diasporic beings are creating the medicine they need, are creating the sacred sanctuaries that they need to just endure, to invigorate themselves, remind themselves, empower themselves, to strategize their liberation in untenable circumstances. and create the kind of joy that helps you envision other possibilities.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And all of those factors, you could say, exist inside of Brazilian music in its history, Black Brazilian music in its history specifically, and the music of African-ancestored people in the United States.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
He had this phrase, oh my God, it's like one of the best things I've ever heard. Well, I only heard him say it once, but I have repeated it many times, so it's become a phrase of his.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
A natural one. I love you uplifting that. It's like a very broad age range on the album. And it's really because that's how our music communities work. You know, that's, I hope how all of our communities work that, that,
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
I take this honor to heart so sincerely, and I'll do my damnedest to make a whole lot of great music for all of you.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
we're in touch with and connected to and familiar with so many different ages of people and whatever the question of the task or the need is at hand, we can kind of scan and reach out in multiple directions, you know, and whoever ends up being assembled to respond to the question or need at hand, we'll kind of represent all the diff, we'll be like a representative swath of the community at large.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Yeah, I have been using the word mentor a lot as like a sign of respect. And I was talking with my friend Harmony Holiday, who's a fantastic poet and author and journalist. And she was talking about how she doesn't like to use the word mentor because the elders in her life are her friends. Hmm.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And she says, you know, I think of mentor like they owe me something or like, you know, their affiliation with me is going to somehow lift my name or, you know, it endorses what I'm doing. She's like, I like to think of the people that I know who are elders as my friends and I'm beholden to them the way that I would be beholden to a friend.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
And ultimately, that's the intergenerational conversation we're having. It's just like, let's be good friends to each other and share the warmth and beauty of that reality in practice.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Well, first of all, I feel Wayne's influence and presence in this record by the sheer fact that I agreed to do it. He had this phrase, oh my God, it's like one of the best things I've ever heard. Well, I only heard him say it once, but I have repeated it many times. So it's become a phrase of his. He said, the trick is you have to throw yourself into the ocean even if you can't swim.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Otherwise, you have to be shoved in even though you can swim.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
You know what I'm saying? It is so deep. And he would always say, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Always encouraging you to go for broke. That is a sentiment or an approach or a philosophy of life that has really been nurtured and developed in me through my knowing of Wayne, my relationship to Wayne. And so there it is.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
I think Otubro. I think that really sounds like, oh yeah, yeah, that's Milton letting Esperanza have her way with his song.
It's Been a Minute
The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
Even the way that we came to the arrangement in the studio together and the play between Milton's voice and my voice and the outro, this like endless outro.