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love her. She’s fabulous. The first time I saw Destiny’s Child, I said “Why is she with them?” She was the one that stood out! I think it was a show at the Apollo, and there was no comparison between her and the rest of them. She looks good, she can dance, she can sing. Case closed.

Interviewer: How do you feel about contemporary R&B production?

MJ: The other day, somebody asked me in person the other day, I was talking about how the producer produces records now, and he’ll do a track and he plays everything on the keyboards, and the girl will come in and sing “I went to the store”. And he’ll put it in key: “I went to the store.” Maybe extend it: “IIIIII, went to the store”. And then he’ll double it up: “I went to the store, went to the store, went to the store, went to the store”, then he’ll put it in background, “the store, the store, the store, I went I went I went I went I went I went to the store the store the store the store” Case closed! There!

That’s the way it is now. The other thing is. I love horns, live horns. And it just aggravates the daylights out of me to hear phony horns on a record. I call them the “deebeedeebeedees”.

Interviewer: [Switching topics for a sec,’] I think there are a lot of people who don’t understand the business of music.

MJ: They don’t. They get so caught up in the glitz and glamour and what they put in your face. You get caught up in the drugs. I never did drugs. I’m a logical person. If it doesn’t make sense to me, then I don’t do it. That happened to a lot of people before me. I remember meeting Ray Charles and thinking to myself “How does a blind man shoot up?” Someone had to find the vein. They talk about the rappers. I’m against the rap songs that beat up on folks, but I respect the rap community. I respect the Jay-Zs and the Diddys because they are doing things that other folks aren’t thinking about doing. Get yourself a hit record and put out a clothing line. However, we got a few folks out now in R&B that aren’t even singing or screaming. If it wasn’t for these producers, some of these folks wouldn’t make it. Some of them go on tour and don’t even know their own song and it pisses me off. I can name five artists that have hit songs out right now and can’t tell you which one is which one because they all sound the same.

Interviewer: Do you feel like you have created that entire genre and made it comfortable for people to even talk about things like oral sex and getting pleasure?

MJ: You evidently must have missed my song where I said “He MUST have Millie on his breath” *whistles* [Laughs]

Interviewer: LOL! Well do you feel that you are responsible for that movement?

MJ: I hope I didn’t. You know you listen to it now and I just…*sigh* When I did it, it was mostly tongue and cheek. Now, they are serious! You listen to the music and they are like “Yo..we gon do this“, and I’m like “No..we not!” LOL. Due to the fact that I got away with it might have paved a way for some of the BS that is coming out now. But it was a joke to me. I was serious but I wasn’t serious. It isn’t the same as it was before. Like when I created the symphony. At that point, I had said everything that could have been said on the radio except for the “F” word.

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Source: thecouchsessions.com; welovedc.com

And that is why we love Millie! I would be lying to y’all if I said that I didn’t feel Millie’s same frustration. The soul music scene of today has been cluttered with a ton of artists who have simply not, in the words of Iyanla Vanzant, ‘done their work.’ I think many of the mainstream artists of today need to attend artist development classes, just like Berry Gordy made Motown artists do back in the day. That way they would see just how high that hill is they have to climb before they can ever be considered as great of an artist as legends like Millie, Stevie, and many more from back in the day were.

We cannot thank Millie enough for being so honest and forthcoming with her opinions about this. She is truly a breathe of fresh air in this ever-growing population of politically correct entertainers.