Kelis — “Milkshake”

So, you have to feel the same day as you.

Tamara is. This feeling can also be heard now. Tamara is a man. She is a soul for all life moments.

“You find them on Tamara's.com and on the outside.”

With the code Spotify 10, you get 10% of her soul on Tamara's.com. Perfect for you. And now for me. Tamara is.

But what I want to do is not to be a student. The master of the laptop is called SoftBand, the internet. It's a master's. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry, you can say that you're a hero. You're a master of the company, right?

But you don't understand. Exactly. It's just a challenge. Make you feel like a master. And if you work, you'll be able to do it. - That's right. - Save.

Like that. You're going to be a master. Now, let's try it out. (upbeat music) It is imperative.

“It is extremely important to me, personally,”

that you, personally, enjoy this clip of Collease, covering Nirvana's smells like teen spirit at the glass and very festival in the year 2000. Everything about this is perfect, including any inadvertent musical imperfections.

(upbeat music) Yeah, that bifped guitar cord right at the beginning, they're perfect. That's a little something called punk rock. It is June 2000.

And your glass and very festival headliners are, let's see here, Travis, David Bowie, Moby, the chemical brothers, the pet shop boys, nine inch nails, fat boy slim and Willie Nelson. It's set up.

A lot of dance music is the new rock and roll energy here, other than Willie Nelson. Forget all those guys, though. Here we have Collease, the Harlem native and Wiley, unclassifiable, mononomous,

ostensibly R&B oriented young pop star.

“Collease is dressed all in white and a blondie crop top.”

And she is pumping her fist maniacally, amidst a sea of delighted fans without stretched arms in the glass and buried dance tent. As her all black band launches into the roudiest and most vivacious Nirvana cover,

I've ever heard in my life. Dig the jittery double-time drum beats here. Dig the eerie glorious vocal harmony. It takes a simple two-note guitar riff

you've heard a billion times.

Burner and unfolds it into hundreds of ecstatic new dimensions. Wow, that is a super flora description, but screw it man, I'm excited. Let's get excited.

(upbeat music) ♪ I'll be on the streets ♪ ♪ Bring your friends away ♪ I dig that the crowd here is huge, but not dehumanizingly huge, right?

A lot of classic live, glass and berry footage, you get the giant waving flags. You get the infinite roiling sea of humanity. You get the sense that literally all of England is physically present.

Usually there's way too many people. And all those people look disconcertingly CGI-generated. Whereas here with colleagues, the crowd is robust and yet you can pick out individual, delighted, electrified people.

Bouncing around more or less by themselves. What I sense in this footage is individual lives changing permanently. And the most life altering factor here is Colleases Voice. The low end of Colleases Voice,

the rasping carving colossal depth of it. The way it can make the words, load up on guns, bring your friends.

Feel like an opening line you haven't heard a billion times

before. This smells like teen spirit cover is not the song that first made Collease Famous. It is not the song for which Collease will be most famous. This is not the musical genre.

Two which Collease is generally thought to belong. But where anybody else thinks Collease belongs is not of her business. In 1999, Collease released her debut album called Colleidoscope, praised in the enemy as quote,

"a futuristic, visionary, multi-layered work of R&B, funk, soul, and rap." Furnished with an inspirational psychedelic spirituality,

And quote, dude, if you think the times are cynical in 1999, you better brace yourself. This review also says, quote,

“"They're calling her the new Lauren Hill."”

She's better than that though. And quote, okay, hold on. Everyone calm down, rest assured in any event that Collease is majestically overboard and self assured. And she knows plenty of dirty words.

(singing in foreign language) A fun way to watch this video is just to focus on Collease's backup singers, the blissful swagger of her backup singers. It's like if you took the anarchist cheerleaders

from the original Smell's Light Teen Spirit video and let them sing this song. Collease is approaching the chorus. And the chorus is going to be quite loud and raucous and perfectly imperfect and absolutely glorious.

And there is a rich historical musical lineage to that uncategorizable gloriousness. Talking to the Guardian in 2014

“about the fresh new ostensibly R&B sound”

she debuted with in the late '90s, nearly 2000s.

Collease says, quote, "I was never an R&B artist."

People coined me one, but that's because, especially if you're in the States, if you're black and you sing, then you're R&B. And quote, "Well, allow her to retort." Collease in the year 2000, covering the hugest,

recent rock and roll song imaginable on the hugest concert stage imaginable, she is not so subtly making a statement about what else a black singer in the year 2000 might wish to be.

Collease is not so subtly making a statement about, you know, identity. (upbeat music) And so, if we're talking about the rich historical musical lineage of uncategorizable gloriousness

that eventually leads us to Collease, we might as well start with London punk rock legends x-ray specs. We might as well start with fabled iconic x-ray specs lead singer, polystyrene. Bellowing a punk rock song from 1978

literally called Identity.

Polystyrene, widely credited as the first woman of color

to lead a big, whoop capital P punk rock band. I dig the pink and yellow bow in polystyrene's hair tremendously. I dig polystyrene's braces tremendously. I dig tremendously the ferocious candy-coated

dissonance of polystyrene's whole vibe. A vibe best exemplified by the very famous first 10 seconds of x-ray specs is 1977 debut single, which if you'll recall is called O'Bondage Up Yours. ♪ Some people think little girl should be seen ♪

♪ I'm not hurt but I think ♪ ♪ I'm on edge of yours ♪ ♪ One day's right now ♪ (rock music) O'Bondage Up Yours x-climation point.

Polystyrene's braces really are tremendous. Her braces make her look infinitely more overboard and self-assured. For lots of people, for lots of young people, for lots of current young people.

Polystyrene is a revolutionary figure.

She is a complicated but undoubtedly life-changing figure. As explored in the 2022 documentary, Polystyrene, I am a cliche, co-directed by Paul Sung and Polystyrene's daughter, Celeste Bell. Talking to the New York Times in 2022 about that movie

and about getting into punk rock. Alley Logout, the lead singer of the great current New Orleans punk band's special interest. Alley says quote, "My original exploration with music in general was a sadness that I didn't see any black bodies occupying

that space. I remember very clearly seeing a picture of Polystyrene and her braces and being like, "What?" I felt the otherness that she encapsulated by just being fully herself.

Whenever I heard that song, O'Bondage Up Yours, I knew that it was the attitude that I have to present myself in every single day." End quote, "You know who else loves Polystyrene

“and talks about having her life changed by Polystyrene?”

This lady." Nena Cherry, born in Sweden, raised mostly in London,

stepped daughter of the Jazz Trumpet Great Dawn Cherry.

“Nena Cherry, she of the unfathomably phenomenal 1988 hit single”

Buffalo Stance. Some days that's my favorite sequence of six words and eight syllables in pop history. It's sweetness that I'm thinking of. The video's bright colors, the ferocious playfulness,

the anarchist cheerleader exuberance of Buffalo Stance. This is one of the best pop songs of the '80s, one of the best rap songs of the '80s. And one of the best punk songs of the '80s as well. You can hear Polystyrene in Buffalo Stance.

As clearly as you can hear, say salt and pepper. Talking to the New York Times in 2022 about Polystyrene,

“Nena Cherry says, quote, "Inside of hers is how I found my own voice.”

I also started listening to her when I was at a space in my life where

I knew who I was, but I didn't always know how to be who I was

or how to feel that great about it." Polywas and still is like medicine for me. And quote, "I got to hear the full chorus to Buffalo Stance. If only to make clear that the most police like line in this song is when Nena Cherry says, "So don't you get fresh with me.

It's a threat you can't refuse." I'll give you love, baby, not romance is a fantastic line too. And I knew who I was, but I didn't always know how to be who I was. Is a great way to sum up the perils of being a hard-to-classified black female pop star and/or R&B star and/or rock star in the '80s.

“Nena Cherry nonetheless found a path to modest start-up.”

She Lazarus had a tougher time with it. This is Goodbye Horses, another absurdly great single from 1988 by Diane Lucky, the New York City singer and cab driver best known as Q Lazarus, Tuzis and Lazarus. Perhaps you recognize Goodbye Horses from this song's inclusion

and multiple huge Jonathan Demi films. Most famously the silence of the lambs in 1991. This song's playing when, you know, the bad guys dancing around and whatnot in the dogs about to fall in the well.

Goodbye Horses should have been the first song.

In a decades-long varied, defiant, reliably unpredictable career. Goodbye Horses is a red, harsh, late '80s synth pop jam, but what strikes me most about it is the low end of Q Lazarus's voice. The silky carving colossal depth of it. He told me, a scene he could have sung anything

and been anybody. In fact, when the song Goodbye Horses couldn't get her a record deal, Q Lazarus moved from New York City to London and started a legit hard rock band. Listen to her sing the word "baby",

amidst righteous electric guitars, like nobody's ever thought to sing that word before. That song's called "Don't Let Go." And if heart or share or lead a forward had put this song out in the late '80s, you'd have seen the video on MTV three times an hour.

This song did not make Q Lazarus famous either, a last. Most people only heard any original non-goodby Horses Q Lazarus song

for the first time in 2025.

Upon the release of the very sad but pretty fantastic documentary, Goodbye Horses, the many lives of Q Lazarus. And in that movie, Q Lazarus says explicitly quote, "As far as the rock industry in the United States in New York,

they weren't ready for a black rock and roll singer." And quote, "You would think the rock industry would be ready and no better in the late '80s, given that Janet Jackson existed." [Music]

from her massive 1989 album "Rhythm Nation" 1814,

which sold 12 million copies worldwide in spawned seven top five singles

on the Billboard Hot 100. Black Cat is one of them.

“The rock video iconography is really important here.”

The fist pumping in the crowd in the blinding lights and the leather and the sweatiness. Yes, but more importantly, you get Janet Jackson doing the thing where she points down at her feet and her righteous, doodly guitarist kneels down in front of her,

and Janet, you know, lightly jirates. Meanwhile, black cat is Primo head bangers ball, shit. Let the rock industry in the United States tell Janet Jackson that America can't handle a black rock and roll singer. Let them tell Tina Turner that.

For your reference, while police is kicking ass at Glassenbury,

here's what Tina Turner is up to in the year 2000.

Ah, fascinating. Tina Turner is doing the same thing she's always doing. kicking ass, Tina's doing proud Mary yet again,

“and kicking ass yet again for an infinite”

roiling sea of humanity at Wembley Stadium. That's in London and literally all of England can fit into it. Here also you can see the lives of individual Tina Turner backup dancers changing permanently, such as their aerobic exuberance at getting to do proud Mary with Tina Turner.

In 2021, the ringer published a fantastic piece called Tina Turner in the all-too radical existence of the black woman rock star written by our friend, the musician, and former 60 songs producer, Devin Ronaldo. And Devin talks about how Tina Turner still doesn't fully get her due

as the queen of rock and roll. Tina spent years trying to convince record labels that she could make it as a rock singer that she wasn't just an R&B singer or a pop star. Tina Turner spent her whole career personifying rock

stardom every bit as much as Elvis Presley or Mick Jagger. To quote the great Bob Crisco, Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home, and quote Bob was talking about prints, but the point stands. Tina Turner had been confounding notions of genre

since the early '60s. And by the mid '90s, cutting-edge pop music has gotten even more splendidly confounding. Quick question for you. What genre is this?

[MUSIC PLAYING] Here we have Tricky, the mononymous rapper and producer and trip hot pioneer delivering a phenomenal cover of the phenomenal public enemy song Black Steel in the hour of chaos. On Tricky's 1995 debut album, Max and K.

And on lead vocals here, we've got Tricky's then partner

“and crucial collaborator, Martina Topley Bird,”

wrapping with ferocious anarchist cheerleader exuberance over righteous, doodly punk rock guitars. Also there's a giraffe here in the Black Steel video wandering around for what I assume our profound thematic philosophical reasons. Picture that giraffe giving a damn.

What genre is this? Better question. What genre does this song want to be? One option. When you hear '90s trip hot singer Martina Topley Bird,

channeling classic pummeling '80s Chuck D. over screeching '76 pistols type guitars is to describe this Black Steel cover as Afro punk.

Which, of course, is a sound that has existed basically forever.

Though the term Afro punk does not fully emerge until 2003. When filmmaker James Spooner debuts a documentary called Afro punk, interviewing dozens of young Black punk rockers who feel somewhat out of place, but are working hard to gradually feel less out of place.

Afro punk quickly becomes a whole movement becomes a Brooklyn music festival than a series of music festivals. And as with most entities with punk in the name, Afro punk gets a little less classically punk as it goes on. Then again, the whole point of the 2003 movie was to interrogate and redefine

what and who qualified as punk. In the documentary, Brooklyn singer songwriter named Tamar Khali says

Here's a 2005 Tamar Khali song called Boot

in which she expands on the question of who qualifies as punk.

“The most important line here is probably her eyes ain't blue.”

And Boot to my mind is a festival-sized rock song. An Afro punk festival-sized song, sure, but also potentially ideally a glassed and very sized, fist pumping blinding lights, sweaty leather, infinite roiling sea of humanity, type song.

Here, like this. Here we have the British hard rock band, Skunk Ananzi, led by the ferocious mononymous lead singer and songwriter known as Skinn.

“This song is from 1995, and it is called Week,”

and Skinn really bellows the hell out of it. This is glassed and burying 1999, and if you're watching, you may be get what I mean about glassed and burying way too many people. Plus, I'm not positive about this, but I suspect there's a giant raging bonfire in the middle of the crowd here, or maybe it's an English dude wielding a flame

thrower. I don't know, I am delighted that Skunk Ananzi can attract and command and electrify a crowd this absurdly huge, but I don't want to be around like 2%

that many people at one time, personally. Never mind that, though.

There is precedent stretching back decades to 70s punk to 60s rock, to the blues, spanning decades before that. There is a long, proud, defiant ongoing confounding, misunderstood, misidentified, intermittently appreciated, but never fully respected lineage of what you might call Afropunk, what you might call heavy or rnb, what you might simply call rock and roll, if your chowies say nasty, and somewhere in that

roiling crowd of musical pioneers, there is police. In 1999, debuting as a solo artist with a song

called Caught Out There. The song that first made her famous. The most important line here is

probably ahhh. I feel bad for whoever's record collection that is, that police is destroying

“in the Caught Out There video, though it would appear that he deserves it. That's what you get”

for getting fresh with her. Yes, Caught Out There. The delightfully and terrifyingly angry lead single, off-collises 1999 debut album Colitiscope. Wow, this person is bombastic and outrageously versatile and awesome. And furthermore, this person feels and sounds unprecedented. Despite decades of famous, important beloved, semi-well documented precedent. So maybe now let's finally let her sing the god damn chorus.

It is extremely important to me, personally, that you, personally, enjoy this video of police covering Nirvana's smells like teen spirit at the glass library festival in the year 2000 that you observe the crowd leaping up and down in ecstatic unison. Please observe that you can tell just from their respective outstretched hands that every individual life in that crowd is changing permanently. Please observe the lovely vocal

harmony as police and her backup singers sing the words "I feel stupid." Please observe the carving colossal depth of the low end of Colitis's voice as she sings the words "a mosquito." Please observe the way Colitis joyfully stares down the camera as she sings the words "my libido." Yeah. Please observe that at some point here, the super distorted electric guitar shorts out and disappears are the very least the guitar is now mostly inaudible.

Perhaps because the guitarist is crowd surfing now, or she's been raptured or something,

punkiest part of this whole thing.

“And suddenly, that's my favorite sequence of nine words and 17 syllables in pop history.”

A Milato and Elbino, a mosquito, my libido. Yeah, smells like teen spirit, of course,

is not the song that first made police famous. It is not the song for which

Colitis will be most famous. And as for that, as for the song for which police is most famous. Well, let's just say that outrageously, delightfully, and you might even say unprecedentedly, police contains multitudes. My name is Rob Harvela. This is the 37th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s call in the 2000s. And this week, we are discussing Milkshake. By Colis from her third album released in 2003 and called "Tasty." I have a vague and yet very

“strong and distinct memory of hearing this song for the first time and just thinking,”

what? It is one of the historically graded underappreciated feelings in pop music. When you first

hear something that leaves you legitimately flabbergasted. That is the word I have settled on. Flabbergasted. Add break. Hit the deck. It is your garden star club for the feeling. With action in quality and the smallest price in hand. To be free, Green Boots Dünger Granulat, only 1, 2 and 20, or Blumentop from the Hegelton Kunststoff. But 7 and 70 cents. In Decay now, all products are produced in our field and in the Action App.

Action, small price, great joy.

“Most of the time, for all of you to be free. Milkshake. 10,820 grams. For only 1,970.”

Or Dr. Etka Vitales-Musley. Up 516 grams. For only 2,220. All the. Yikes. I hardly recognize myself. This show has become so reliant on rambling, surprise, misdirection that the greatest possible surprise is when there's no misdirection at all and I just talk about what I'm supposed to be talking about. That's a good thing for the show. Right? That's a positive development. I assume. And now, here's a song by the

Grave Diggas. Here we have young police Rogers singing the hook on fairy tales. A 1997 song by the famed McCabra Rapp Supergroup The Grave Diggas. Fairy tales, one word, of tales with a Z. Cali's turned 18 years old in 1997. But she convincingly sings this chorus like she's old and grey and malevolent and stirring a giant boiling cauldron in a cottage in the woods. It's Cedra. Cali's is born in New York City on August 21st, 1979, and raised in Harlem.

Her father is a jazz musician and pentacostal minister. Her mother works in fashion. She has three sisters. Talking to New York Magazine in 2006, Cali says quote, "My mom was concerned that us four little black girls have a really well balanced life. She wanted us to be around people like us, but we also went to private school and travel all the time. Now I fit in most places because I've been most places." And quote, "up to an including glass library. Growing up,

Cali's plays violin and saxophone and sings in the girls' choir of Harlem and studies theater. And she starts an R&B trio called Blue. BLU. That's black ladies united. And she attends high school on the upper west side at the La Guardia High School of Music and Arts and Performing Arts. And yes, somewhere in there she sings the hook on a grave digger's song. In this song, fairy tales, it may not be the biggest, the brightest, the radio-friendlyest hook she will ever sing.

But it's the first calle's hook a lot of people heard. It's the first song featuring

calle's that a lot of people heard. Fortunately for both her and us, this is the second one. Now, did I internally debate whether or not to play you old dirty bastard rapping that part

necessary that I play you that part of the 1999 old dirty bastard hit got your money? No,

“it is not necessary necessarily. And yet I do feel compelled to say out loud. And not for the first”

time that my favorite sequence of 20 words and 25 syllables in pop music history is I don't have no trouble with you fucking me, but I have a little problem with you not fucking me. There was a time in my life when I thought about that line daily. It's more of a biennual thing for me now.

I'm busy or now that I was in my 30s, but I do still think about it. My second favorite part

of got your money is when old dirty bastard yells, sing it girls even though there's only one girl singing. It's the nuances, right? And yes, here we have police singular singing the hook on

“got your money with a begiling combination of warmth and isiness. There's a jump rope double Dutch”

sing song a taunting edge to her voice. Even when she literally sings the words don't you worry, you can't help but worry a little bit. Police is going places and you the begiled listener will

struggle to keep up with her as she openly mocks the futility of your efforts to keep up with her.

Got your money as of course produced by the Neptune's the ascendant Virginia Beach superstar production duo for L. Williams and Chad Hugo who's starting in the late 90s will proceed to generate many of the best songs on the radio and elsewhere for the next 5 10 15 20 plus years. The best Neptune's production is still take you home by bow wow. I checked more importantly for our purposes in 1999 the Neptune's produced the debut solar album from police in its entirety. It is

called kaleidoscope. It's most famous and influential song is called caught out there. Which if you'll recall is the song where kaleidoscope goes. It bears repeating. That chorus bears repeating. It bears repeating because the production on caught out there is vintage Neptune's the rubbery janky funk, the insidious hookingness, the decaying arcade blip, meteor shower, going boo, boo, in the background. But the scream is all kalease. The rage, the malevolence, the gargantuan charisma

is all kalease. You can imagine kalease singing really any of the huge just early 2000s and Neptune's songs. You can imagine kalease for example having a huge hit with hot in here instead of Nellie. No offense to Nellie. But you can't imagine Nellie doing caught out there. No offense. You can't imagine anyone other than kalease summoning this precise level of seductive ferocity. My favorite part of caught out there is her adlibs, the deadpan indignance of kaleases, adlibs.

“The most important and the most threatening words here are no, oh no, and man.”

It takes a very angry person to be this funny while being this angry. Years later, in 2006, on another excellent hit single called bossy, kalease will brag in the chorus about being the first girl to scream on a track. And that's arguably true, or at least it's arguably true, or if you're talking specifically about screaming on a mainstream pop song on an R&B oriented song. You know what popped into my head the other day? A red mid-90s alternative rock hit that just

struck me at a nowhere. Tracy Bonham, 1996. The song is called Mother Mother. The most important words

here, of course, are everything's fine. And this song also struck me at the time as both deliberately terrifying and deliberately very funny. So there's a great book from 2025 by the culture critic and Pulitzer Prize finalists Sophie Gilbert, a book called Girl On Girl, how pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves. She means roughly Khalees' generation. This most about

of pornography. But Sophie Gilbert writes a lot about the unpleasant transition from Riot Girl,

“the early '90s Pacific Northwest feminist ultra punk rock movements bikini kill and so forth,”

heavily influenced by polystyrene, by the way. The transition from Riot Girl to Girl Power, as preached by the Spice Girls, starting with our ginormous 1996 debut single "Wanna Be." Sophie writes, quote, "Women in music in the 1990s were angry and abrasive and

thrillingly powerful." And then, just like that, they were gone, replaced by Girls. The backlash

that banished them would reverberate across all forms of media, so relentlessly and persuasively that people of my generation would hardly think to notice what we'd lost." And quote, "So the '90s start with Riot Girl," with Courtney Love, with the Lannus Morse said, "And as we approach to the end of the '90s, you get the backlash via the Spice Girls, via Britney Spears. The Lilith Fair gives way to post Mickey Mouse Club team pop. Girl power

exists to sell you things, not to actually empower you." These are broad strokes, culture critically speaking, but it's both a dismaying and a convincing argument when Sophie Gilbert just lays it out like that. And I really dig the way police interrogates and complicates that argument. She is a turn of the century genre-flouting pop star who is undeniably angry and abrasive and thrillingly

powerful. Now, it might be a good time to mention that police did caught out there in the year

2000 on HBO's The Chris Rock Show, and she pulled out a pink gun halfway through the song. Oh, wow. Talking to the fader in 2020, Colleys says, quote, "I got in trouble because I pulled this gun on the Chris Rock Show. It was not a real gun, by the way. It was a pink rhinestone gun. I thought it was adorable." And quote, "We can say with confidence that caught out there is the screamiest song on the first police record on kaleidoscope. But even when she's not screaming,

Colleys finds ways to hold your complete attention, even while working with arguably the most famous and immediately recognizable production duo in pop music. This song is called "Good Stuff."

“And the most important words are, "Haaaah!" And this, once again, is manifestly a Neptune's”

operation. The slinkingness of the baseline, the bossiness of the tambourine, but the "Haaaah!" interrogates everything, complicates everything, elevates everything. I should note that the uncommonly fruitful musical partnership between the Neptune's and Colleys will end eventually quite acrimoniously. Too many adverbs, calm down, talking to the Guardian in 2020,

Colleys says that it took her years to realize that she didn't make any money off her first two albums,

both of which were produced entirely by the Neptune's. She says, quote, "I was told we were going to split the whole thing, 33, 33, 33, which we didn't do." And quote, "That's theoretically 33% of Farell Williams, 33% of Chad Hugo, and 33% to her." She says she was, quote, "Blatantly lied to and tricked." And she blames, quote, "The Neptune's and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff." And quote, Colleys says the Neptune's only response was, well, you sign the contract.

Generally, the Neptune's have not commented publicly about this. Also, as of 2024, the Neptune's are no longer together, Chad Hugo and Farell Williams are now estranged as well over what seems to be financial issues for what it's worth. So yeah, those are more complications to consider, more immediate harmony, but eventual acrimony to hear in Colleys' music from the very beginning. Meanwhile, I have to say that the winner of this Colleyscope record gets the more I love it.

This song's called "Mars." And it's about going there and colonizing it. As for the most

“important words here, I'm going with "Send Your Black As to Mars."”

I'm not 100% on what she says in the last line there, and it's really bothering me.

Colleys says, quote, "I remember sitting in my tiny box of an apartment in New York in Harlem on a 149th street, watching this show about trying to colonize Mars." And I was like, "That's crazy." And then we talked about what we wanted to write about, like, "Yo,

“I want to write about the show." They're trying to colonize Mars. What the hell is that about?”

I was a huge science fiction fan, and I always felt like they tried to write us out of the future.

They're trying to send everybody white to Mars. There goes the song. I open my show up with that song for years." And quote, "It's a great choice." That's a great opener. But my favorite song on the first Colleys record is called roller rink. I think it's about roller skating to distract yourself from the implications of the likely existence of UFOs. And I for one believe that we need more pop songs and R&B songs and punk songs and art rock songs

about UFOs. But even if there were thousands more UFO songs in the world, I don't think any of them would have a single line better than do you think you'd even know one if you saw one. Seriously, do you think you'd even know one if you saw one is a fantastic and

“honestly quite troubling question. So Colleys' first record has almost a choose your own adventure”

feel. You get screaming. You get rapping, including rapping from pre-fame push-a-t of the clips back when he was still calling himself terror. You get a song called mafia about loving a dude in the mafia. You get a song called suspended about floating in a black abyss. You get quiet storm type yearning and you get much louder and stormy or yearning. Plus, you know, pink firearms and UFOs and Mars. Both temperamentally and musically, this is all quite challenging to classify,

which is awesome if you're listening to this record, but less awesome if you're a befuddled record company, stewed trying to sell this record or a befuddled radio programmer trying to figure out where to play songs from this record. In 2020, the Fader asks Colleys, quote, "Did it sting at all when you were told your music wasn't black enough to get played on R&B

stations?" And quote, and Colleys says, quote, "I never felt like that made any sense. I always felt

like you're wrong. How is a white guy going to tell me what's black enough? First of all.

“Secondly, how is anybody going to tell me what's black enough for that record? You know what I mean?”

I had no identity issues. So the fact that someone felt like they're trying to put these things on me was appalling. So I think that all of my responses and my rebellion started to come after the fact. It came from that. It came from being constantly someone trying to tell me what I was and what I wasn't enough of." She knows who she is and she knows how to be who she is, even if nobody else can figure out who she is or what to do about it. England and really all of Europe figured it out

first. Europe usually does. The second Colleys album is called Wanderland. It is once again produced

entirely by the Neptune's and it comes out in 2001 in Europe but is shelved in the United States. And it's not officially released here until 2019. Our loss. This song is called "Mr. UFO Man." Specifically here, we are in treating a UFO flying alien to pass a long and urgent message to Jesus. I have several follow-up questions but I cannot ask them in 2001 because I cannot easily hear this song because Wanderland functionally does not exist in America. Outside of the

lead single which is called "Young Fresh and New" and is very explicitly about getting the hell out of

That's still the Neptune's. All right, orchestrating all that chaos except now the base is heavier

“and the decaying arcade bliped warm, warm, warm, meteor shower is heavier as well.”

Go listen to Wanderland, go listen to the second Colleys record sometime. Imagine a version of the

early 21st century that was ready for it. One more Wanderland song for now. This song is called "Perfect Day." We got some distinct punk rock energy here and I especially dig how in this universe anyway the words "Happy" and "Nasty" are interchangeable. If you got heavy into any R.D., the Neptune side project rock band that put out a great debut album called "In Search of" in 2001, "Perfect Day" might really do it for you.

“Colleys is arguably the best part of that NERD record, by the way. But yeah, in real-time,”

Colleys proves elusive. Everyone flips for caught out there in 1999, but her second album

gets absolutely unjustly buried and much of the world is denied the full Colleys experience. Until 2003, when suddenly this is happening, that part bears repeating. The first 10 seconds bear repeating. Put on milk shake on headphones sometime and press them tight against your ears and just focus. Really internalize the demonic ultra fuzz-down base that is threatening to go completely out of tune the whole time. The slashing guitar adjacent sound there.

“I can't tell if that's violently processed acoustic guitar or what. The minimal drums here,”

the Darbuka goblet drum, primarily a Middle Eastern instrument, and most importantly, the rug that really ties the whole song together, the Manjira clash symbols from the Indian subcontinent. The bell-like ding every 10 seconds or so makes the whole song. In 2015, during a long on-stage interview with Jason King of NPR, Farell explained that the real impetus for milk shake was a trip to Brazil. The influence of what he called Brazilian booty shaking music.

But Farell says, "Instead of doing like booty shaking music, I try to use some more Middle Eastern sounds and completely just twist it, my intentions, as much as I could so that I would just be like something that even in Brazil they would go, "Okay, we like the rhythm of this. We like the feeling of this, but this is from somewhere else." And that's somewhere else, ideally, is Mars.

We got a switch to the milkshake video for just a second. We got a switch to the milkshake video

if only for the part where police throws the extra cherry in the dudes milkshake in her necklace gleams, right when the mangeera symbol hits ding and the dude leans back. Just a preposterous music video. Cartoon slapstick lust. You know how at old cartoons when a cartoon wolf is sitting in a nightclub and a pretty lady appears on stage and the wolf makes protruding heart eyes and his tongue unfolds and becomes stairs. That's the vibe. Her milkshake brings all the boys to the art and

then once they're in the yard, the boy is just like absolutely ridiculous. This is the warrant cherry pie video from the cherry pie's perspective. If that's two gen acts of a reference for you, cherry pie, okay, fine. This is my humps by the black eyed peas, but more prestigious. Nevermind, have some pity for the boys in the yard. Okay, in a 2006 vulture profile of police, the great New York City cabaret singer Justin Vivian Bond says quote, "I've seen lots of

lip syncing to milkshake in clubs. milkshake is a big wink about the way you can reclaim your

"Mission accomplished."

And then there's the moment in the milkshake video where police goes into the kitchen of the

diner, right? And she bends over and clies removes from the oven. What I must sheepishly

“describe to you as a butt cake. A distinctly butt-shaped cake. I'm very sorry, but that's what she does”

and that's what that is. The butt cake is a great moment in musical history, in American history, in baking history. She gives you love, baby, not romance. And it's a great moment in rock and roll history, too. Speaking broadly, speaking expansively, speaking with a triumphant disregard for genre that exemplifies our greatest artists. Police sings, "Lubo is a way to end the same low-deep, husky voice, the same colossal carving depth, with which she sings the words, load up on guns,

bring your friends." Rockstardom is a state of mind. Popstardom is a state of mind. Punk Rock is a state of mind, and police is mind encapsulates simultaneously all of these

“states of mind, and many more states of mind besides. I'm going to stop now. I'm going to stop”

now for a few reasons. First reason. I just played the whole song, basically. Milk Shake is basically

those three parts repeating a bunch of times. That's not a complaint. I say that in admiration of the maximalism that milkshake generates via its minimalism, via its repetition. I'm also going to stop now because I don't want to talk about a lot of what happens personally to police from here. Milk Shake is a huge hit. It peaks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. It's easily her biggest hit ever, but this is going to be it for police in the Neptune's. The Neptune's

away produced five songs on Collease's third album, Tasty, and then that relationship implodes

“for good. It's years before Collease talks publicly about the contract she signed”

and about feeling ripped off by the Neptune's, but these wounds are always present and these wounds

don't ever heal. When Beyonce interpolates milk shake on a song called Energy from Beyonce's album Renaissance, Collease loudly objects to milkshake being used without her permission, but for real eventually publicly interjects to say that it's his decision because it's his song. Milk Shake is credited to for rail Williams and Chad Hugo. It's ugly. The music industry sucks sometimes. There's a Hunter S. Thompson quote you're probably familiar with, but if not,

it bears repeating quote. The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side and quote. On the Tasty album, Collease also does excellent work with Andre 3000, with Raphael Sidney, with Rock Wilder and with Dame Grease. Nas also shows up. Nas wraps on this album and Nas and Collease will later get married and later get divorced and Collease says that Nas

mentally and physically abused her and Nas denies these statements and that's also why I'm stopping. Now, milkshake is track three on this Tasty album. Here is track four. This song is called Keep It Down Part Two. It is produced and co-written by the super producer Dallas Austin and the drums and the electric guitars have a distinctly punk rock type snarl to them and Collease has doubled Dutch jump rope chanting about getting hit on after a

Beastie Boys concert. It's fantastic. When pitchfork reviewed this album, Tasty in 2004, pitchfork called Collease quote, one of the unluckyest women in pop and quote, because Collease doesn't get the number one hits that she deserves. She does not get the respect she deserves. She does not get the credit. She deserves. But the playful, the masterful, the unbothered lilt of her voice on this song as she considers getting with the kid who's hitting on her outside

the Beastie Boys show. Something in Collease's voice makes clear that Collease will triumph

electrifying. All the great rock stars do. We are so thrilled and relieved to be joined once again by Leslie Grace Streeter, columnist for the Baltimore Banner, memoirist, novelist, podcaster and dear friend of ours, her latest book, a novel is called Family and Other Calamities. Leslie, hello, thank you for being here once again. I am so excited to be back, like I said, I was telling you before we started recording that I have all these people. I have fans now who are fans of you.

“I think they're fans of yours, but yes, it's weekend we can talk about that later. But the people”

love you Leslie and we're all thrilled to talk to you again. Thank you. Okay, so as far as Collease is concerned, like did you get into her in the milkshake era or earlier? I feel like it makes

a big difference if you first get into her in this era, the verse is like caught out there,

for example, when did you first become aware of police? It was 1999 ish and I was at my on third, I was able to have exactly where I first heard her and my cousin, whose name was Kenobi Streeter, because my family's dope. That's dope. And the kitchen probably with an iPod or something, I don't remember what Walkman, Discman, something. 99. Okay, there's a few possibilities there. There's two possibilities and he says, "Do you know the song?" I said, "No, what song?" And he

shoves his earphones at me and it's, "I hate you so much right now." It's like, "Oh, all right." And then he goes, because he's a 19-year-old boy, 18-year-old boy, he goes, "She's crazy." That tracks. That

“tracks. Right. And then she's crazy. Sure. What did you think? Did you think she was crazy, Leslie?”

I thought she was just the right amount of right-to-slee crazy. You know, I'm from the 90s, so I, you are. Love a lot of angry lady chicks and I say that facetiously, everyone gets to be angry. Everyone else got to be angry. Why couldn't we? And I loved it. I loved it. And I will also say,

in these angry lady songs, it is always presented that there is a reason for them being angry.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Crazy. Out of the box. They're crazy because they got cheated on or, you know, there was a woman who would not go down on them and the dude and a theater and they felt some kind of way about that. You know, so there was always a reason. And I think that for men and guys like my cousin who were not used to having unbridled feminine rage directed at them or people like them as they were listening without a caveat of, oh, but she's crazy.

It was really, I thought she was great. I agree with you that I saw it immediately of like 90s alternative rock of the last more certainly. He said a Courtney love of garbage. Like she sounds police sounds on caught out there like she's headlining la la polusa like in 1994. Like did she

strike you as as much a rock star as a pop star in that moment? Absolutely. And here's the thing.

And I'm just, you know, I'm just say it. I we talk about how I feel about, you know, rock and pop criticism of the day of that day and so much of it. The system racist and didn't even realize it. So there were a lot of people who as recently as 2019 in a story and a guardian refer to her as an RMB singer, which I don't the accurate. And I think that because she looked like she looked people assumed and did not listen also because you know, it's so easy just to categorize people

“and the laziest way possible. And that's what they did. I think there's elements of rock and pop.”

There is some RMB. There's a lot of stuff that sounds like like milkshake reminds me of slave free by Britney Spears. I mean there's a little chic. There's a jingle jingle jingle jingle you know, world music, the whole situation. And she obviously has, she's the daughter of jazz musician. She has a lot of influences. The smokiness of her voice of folks jazz in some ways. I think that the problem with police, which honestly, he's not her problem. It's everyone else's problem is that

no one knew quite how to put her in a box because she was not to be put in a box. Right. I agree completely. You mentioned to me and I'm so glad that you did hit them up style the blue cantilever song from 2001. So this is a couple years after caught out there. And that's a huge hit too. And those songs are twisted in my mind now because like they're very, very angry right, right, justly and very, very funny as well. Like what did it mean for caught out there?

in addition to being furious. Well, you know, because you know me and my writing,

that's my kind of funny. Hit him up style. It's really sad in the the bridge. Like there goes, there goes the dreams we sold. Here is, you know, it's like, where's an understanding that she's not just going buck wild, you know, and hit up style. She's also nursing a broken heart and

“her anger. Yeah, she's in mourning of this relationship. But I think that these songs were clever.”

These songs were funny. And the way that they were written. Listen to caught out there and her adlips, you know, when she's like, I love those. You know, the kind of thing. And you imagine that she's both her friend and there is another friend that somebody's like in her head, the go, that's right, girl. Those songs, all of those songs felt authentic. They did not feel like they were written by a Swedish guy trying to write like an American girl. Sorry, Max Martin, but you know what I mean.

I do know you mean. Yeah, I mean, there was an authenticity. There was no Swedish person trying to phonetically learn this. This was real. This was, I was thinking of like Jane Childs, I want to fall in love, you know. Yeah, there we go. Even Billy Myers kissed the rain. I'm dating myself from all this stuff. But there is a passion that was aggressive to these songs. I mean, certainly literally like Jane Childs with the big like blonde Mohawk. And she's like in the video

“stop it. You're like, oh, what the heck does this? You know, but it was neat for that. And I think”

once again, it was too easy for people, men, people, critics, people to put these people in a box because it was uncomfortable. How righteous their their rage and their emotion was. Yeah, okay. So the early 90s, you have alternative rocky of riot girl. You know, and as we move through the 90s, then you get to the spice girls, right? In the mid to late 90s, riot girl becomes girl power. And there's an argument at least that like we lost, you know, the corny loves and the you ought to

know is like you don't see that as often from the late 90s on as teen pop kind of takes over as TRL takes over MTV. Did you have a sense at the time moving from the 90s to the early 2000s that we had lost, you know, some of that alt rock rage other than Kali, so other than blue can TRL, did you feel that loss in real time when you see it now looking back? For sure, after Lilith, right? And I just listen to Sarah McLaughlin on Amy Polars podcast and about the

reason that Lilith was existed because they refused to put two women at a time on the same bill. And then when they tried to use some time ago, they didn't it didn't sell because we don't need that anymore because somewhere in there, it became, it was all about the money. They figured out what they could sell. So Lilith happened and they go, oh, which is hippie chicks. I mean,

that's not true because I saw Missy Elliott for the first time on that bill. This was not just

as Sarah McLaughlin said white chick folk singers. There was a lot happening, but then you get to what's that 99. And then, you know, telling Jewel to take her top off and trying to attack on the Lewis, they're just like heavy metal was reaction to disco because it was too black and too

“gay. I think a lot of those stuff in the late '90s, early 2000s was reaction to women getting too”

much power, too much airplay, too much power. And so then they had to say, oh, look, it's girls, like in the southern brown Britney Spears, Elizabeth Britney Spears, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilar who, you know, also a lot of Lolita crap happening. It was really gross. But guys going, let's put this back in the box now, ladies. Let's pack it in the spice girls. Let's put this back in the box. Let's make it a product again. Let's make it a thing that we control and that was

very disappointing. Right. Which brings us to milkshake, I guess, which is 2003, which is police is biggest hit by far. And to me, like milkshake is about, you know, a song where you're laughing at the dudes who are objectifying you, right? Like you're turning their lust for you against them. Like empowering is a really dorky overused, like totally co-opted word. But like did it have

that quality for you when you first started? Rick and Lily, I've read in preparation. So I

was in my homework for this podcast a lot, and I remember some of it, but I'm sure that I wasn't misconstruing her statements that she felt it wasn't just about sexuality, it was about all of who you are. It's about me and the opus chick in the world and saying, I, this is my yard that I have created,

crafted this thing about me that is so powerful and so sexy and so smart and funny and dope

in myself that I teach you how to do it, but I'd have to charge because I'm just a master at this

“of a master at my thing. And I think that it was not necessarily, once again, because it's so easy”

to assume the cheapest, easiest thing about a song so you can categorize it and move on. And so I think that because yet goofy, the milkshake thing, I think it was easy, or it was a novelty or easy business message, just some silly thing that meant nothing and it meant everything. Right, because I do, it's, again, it's a very funny song milkshake is and I do think of it in the same breath is like my humps by the Black Eyed Peas, or maybe even more so like Fergi, like

London Bridge and all that when she went so low, that like these are very, very silly, broad, like body songs I guess is how I would describe them, but like they're very smart and they're very pointed at the same time. Like does the silliness detract from the pointedness or is the silliness

“part of what's so powerful about these songs now? I think you're powerful enough to be silly and”

others, I think this is a much better song than my home, so London Bridge and also there are great, yeah. And me, as perishable singer of Stacey Ferguson is that we're still a male gaze to her, yeah, that like you not feel and police, even though obviously she's singing about the male gaze, she's singing about it, but she's pulling it and a lot that her solo stuff, I mean the Duchess is a great album, but there's a lot of stuff and then unfortunately that brings me to

Harajuku Girls, which is just Ike, but it's that same... Yeah, Gwen, you know, had a journey, culture, as a girl power of thing, and I don't think there's, there's an edge to calleases work, even the silly stuff that I think is different than what Fergi was doing. I would agree with you,

that does sort of bring up the Neptune's of it all, right? You know, like the first two albums,

Clint does her entirely Neptune's milkshake is a Neptune song, but like this is the end of the line, because Clint, you know, as she'll talk about later in interviews, she got ripped off, you know, she was promised one-third of the money from these records these songs and she didn't get it,

“and like she's estranged, I think, permanently from the Neptune, and she's not even fully empowered,”

like financially on this song about how empowered she is, right? It's making sure it is, and does it make you hear milkshake differently to know, like sort of the ugliness of the behind the scenes thing, or does this song when you hear it still sort of stand alone in a part, you know, from the back story that's developed around it? I'm going to tell you, it makes me look at Ferrell in his popular Lego movie, you know, sentencing. Yeah. That's the minions, but yeah, okay,

okay. So you can move me about Ferrell, that's right. It's their biopic and it's Lego. I didn't see that. Did you see that? Did you see that? Yeah, there's a big buy-in on him, and I love all his minions stuff. I have a 12-year-old child, so obviously I'm, actually. But it makes you look at that in his sort of Zen master thing a lot different. We're literally, according to least, their response to her accusations were, well, you signed it. Right. And she had a very funny story

about being at a event. She knew he was going to be performing at, and she's sitting in the audience, and he can see her, and she sees him, and they see each other, and he's watching. Watch, because everyone knows they have beef, and he nods. And she said that it's meant to be that nod of, okay, we're cool. But she said, you stole my publishing, I'm like, yes, and she doesn't do that, but I wish he had, because that would have been fun. Right, it would have been. The other

thing you mentioned to me, I'm so glad you did. It was the girl's next door, the Playboy. Okay, well, it was a reality series about Hugh Heffner's girlfriend's plural. Three of them, I think, living in a Playboy mansion, and they're getting into wacky adventure. This is 2005 to 2010, and it's just an example of what was in the air in the mid 2000s at Colleys' peak. Like, just what ostensibly sexy pop culture was like, did you enjoy this show at the time,

Leslie, and do you enjoy it now? Absolutely, never, ever, ever. And here is what,

and I'll tell you what. God bless you. God bless you. Okay, I, I, okay. It's so gross. We talked

quality and stuff. So what the 2000s did was recreate it with this catch 22 that says,

"We're going to put the grossest get ever on TV. We're going to do girls gone wild, and the small, so millionaire, and all this stuff." Because you said you wanted to be empowered, right? Here you are, you have the chance to say that you're empowered, but you can't say, you don't like it, because if you don't like it, then you're prudent. You weren't telling the truth about lying to empowering yourself. So there were many what say the line is,

“you have to convince yourself that these hot, blonde, young girls could have anyone in the world”

and they went, "You have no soul to ask." Yeah, if that's what it wants you to do. So all this

of girls gone wild, all the, like, gross, explosive, like, you know, that's the reign of

Perez Hilton and putting the giz on Britney's mouth and everything. Yes. That stuff, which was just so disgusting, but as a woman, you had to put on your vondutch hat, your playboy hat, and go to a shop, and act like, and so we'll like that. That's why, if that's your gig, that's your gig, but it was very much shoved on people. Right. That this is what you have to do to be empowered, because you said you were like a man, you said you could

go in the boardroom, you said you could do all this, I know people who went to who scheduled their board meetings, or their staff meetings at strip clubs, knowing and lunch, knowing that their female counterparts were going to have to go. Right. And that's there. So this is what

“police is facing, and I think that there is not only a misunderstanding of, well, we'll”

understand a female sexuality, but it's punitive. It was punitive. It was like, we've now got you. We got you where we want you, and I think them, because she was launching into a culture that was set to misunderstand her, and so her getting through was even more of a triumph to me, because I think people got her weirdness. I think there was a weird girl thing about her, certainly like me a weird black girl, you know, that, you know, defied stereotypes or genres,

or whatever, I'm wearing a shirt that says unapologetically dope, either. I am very much myself. I forgot people can see me, high people. Hi, forget to. It's fine. I'll remind you if you need to remind me. There you go. Collise and Macy Gray, who, that's she told. She's here. And it Palm Beach party wants people like, is that Macy Gray? Much shorter than Macy Gray, but I was a black woman with big hair, and there's gray in my name, so people just kind of assumed

that I would be her. There was an odd duckness to those women, because they were so unapologetically

“themselves. And some people were not ready for that, but I think a lot of people were, which is”

life we're still talking about these people. Absolutely. And I think Collise was always aware of how

she was perceived as well. Like her next, one of her biggest hits after milkshake is bossy, of course, which is, of course, another historically, you know, overloaded word. You know, as she still ahead of her time, at that point, it's sort of understanding the way that she's perceived and sort of flinging it right back at us. This slur of bossy, you know, that she reclaims for herself. It's interesting. I don't know if you brought up where it's something I read,

talked about how Cheryl Sandberg of Lean and Fame at that time had, she wanted to be on the word bossy, because she was trying, things should be between the word, the way that the word boss is used. And men who, like, I'm in charge, I'm unequivocally the top person. I've earned the spot to bossy, which is cut sounds nitpicky and punitive and me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And so she wanted to eliminate that word, but I think it's a fine word, because I think it defines a feminine

power. It doesn't have to be nitpicky if you don't want it to be. It doesn't have to be, you know, I like a word. It doesn't have to be cutting or, you know, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That's not even a word. No, that's good. I know exactly what you mean. I mean, I'll let you want it to. So I, I am reluctant to remove entire words without that. It's an, and I loved Colleases. I love that song, and I love her as you said, reclaiming of it. That's because the word is

inherently feminine or used mostly to describe women and it's saying, but I can

big crazy hair. I think it's great. Yeah, and I agree with you, completely, and it's very important. Like Colleases weird. You know, even on her singles, but if you listen to a full Collease album, like there's a lot of space. There's a lot of like interstellar, let's go to Mars,

our aliens reel. Like there's a science fictional aspect to her. Like, and you never quite know

what she's, where she's going or what she's going to talk about next. Like, do you, do you view, as I do, like, that her unpredictability, you know, and the eclecticism of her albums, they make her hard to categorize, but that's her superpower, you know, that she can do any

“saying or talk about anything at any moment. And I love that. I think that sometimes people go,”

"I'm going to do this to go, are you?" And I think something with the "are you" is what will be accepted. Well, people get it, because you can do it or say, as it is a pair, often. Are you, really? You know, but from Collease's perspective, you know, I think she was in is truly

herself and had enough confidence. And once again, she was 19 when she started out, you know,

just like she was just a young person. Yes, all of the bravado, the watch me now, let me cook, as they say, and so I sound very old saying, "I'm sorry, my child's been listening to this pretty soon." But she did not ask permission. And I think that like, particularly going into and through and past the Neptune's era, it's like I got burned for working in collaboration with people,

“or having people tell me what they thought. So I'm not going to do that anymore. And it's okay”

for her to be kind of out there. Like people want to get busy, right? We're like, she's high all the time. Yeah, who isn't? Oh, what's this? I'm not. Yeah, right, but I know you mean, yes. Once again, women in a box, women in a box, people of color have a, and police refuse to go near the box. She's her own cylinder of space. She's not even, there's not even a door to be floats. She comes back. She's her own situation. Right. And so when I look at, you know,

streaming numbers don't mean everything, obviously. But like milkshake is her biggest song now, both chart-wise and streams, or whatever, given how eclectic, how wild her career has been, these albums that she's made since, the different people she's worked with, post-Neptunes, like does milkshake still the one song that best represents her is? That's still a suitable entry

“point to police. If that's the only song you know, or are you getting the full experience of her?”

I kind of, and I hate, you know, as a, a snobby person, I hate to say that the biggest hit is the thing that encapsulates an artist. But I think in many ways it does because she's at the height of her powers. Um, you know, when you're younger, then you go, that person's popular now, they sold out. The person is usually not mad about that, because they like how many people

enjoy money. You got you never hear. Bono, go ahead. Well, no, I have too much money. Here is my album

on your album. There you are in your album music. But I think that there's a, when we're younger, we think purity isn't about money and it's not, but it's also not about money, it's not not about success. And I listen, I heard a thing she said the other day that she said several years ago, where she said that she tries not to revisit her songs, but that she loves milkshake. That is, she doesn't like to dwell on it, but she is very happy for milkshake. She is very happy

that it was poppy and bouncy and it got in your head and it's a thing that stayed with you and made people happy. And it was very gracious, because you know, the, you know, the Mr. Jones of it all, um, there are four people. My biggest hit. Um, right, right, not her. And I get, but yeah, she doesn't seem to have a lot of great enough. So much has happened. You know, she was with Nauze or neighbor, pop and she alleged, you know, abuse and then she got married and then her husband

died, um, Mike Mora, who's a photographer. And now she and her kids the last day looked or in Kenya on a farm. And who about to farm? Yeah, that's the farm. The, in the cookbook, you know, like there's an entire culinary side line to her that's really fascinating. Once again, when you were an artist and you just say, because you know, there's a manager somewhere going, is this the right time to put out a cookbook? Or then an album about all food? Should we be

I would be crazy today and they'd go, you know what? We don't get it to go from major time

“to a black soul album Philadelphia with a band draw. What are we doing? It's like, this is what I'm”

doing. And I think obviously, Collis is not on that fame scale as Bowie, but I think she is singularly and people are going to go. I can't believe you're saying this. She is her own artist, just like Bowie was his own artist. She is the champion of her. In fact, this and she's just the

“funky chick and she does her own thing and I think it kind of falls where it does, you know?”

And I love that for her. Yeah. Last question for you, Leslie. Did Collis really date Bill Murray did I do this make this? And I wanted it to be true. It was not. So apparently they were, yeah, they were photographed and an event together and people were like, "Oh, are they dating?"

“Wow. And they weren't Bill Murray said, "Well, look, that would be a several steps down”

for her if she were dating me." I don't think she ever commented on it because, you know, woman of mystery, but no, they did not date. They just took a really cool picture together. They both looked great. I mean, it was like, I don't know these people. Their personal life doesn't matter to me at all, but it's fun. It's like that would have been fun. It wasn't. It would have been probably better off that it didn't happen, but it was fun to think about

in terms of dating. As always, Leslie, absolutely wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much

for being here and come back soon, please. I will. Let me know. I'll be here. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Leslie Grace Streeter. Thanks as always to our producers, Justin Sales, Olivia Creary, and Chris Sutton, additional production by Kevin Pooleur,

animations and graphics by Chris Calaton, an additional art by Matt James, special thanks as always

to Cole Kushner, and thanks to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to Milk Shake by police. We'll see you next week.