TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Kindred the Family Soul's official site
• Kindred the Family Soul on Hidden Beach Records
• Bio on Kindred the Family Soul

E-mail a friend

Tavis: Aja Graydon and Fatin Dantzler are the talented husband and wife duo behind the group Kindred the Family Soul. As if raising three kids of their own weren't enough, they've just released their second CD called "In This Life Together." From the new disk, here we have some of the video for 'Where Would I Be.'

Tavis: Very nice. Fatin, Aja, nice to have you both here.

Aja Graydon: Well, thank you.

Fatin Dantzler: It's a pleasure to be here.

Tavis: Pleasure to have you. So, I know folks who are struggling to raise, like, one baby, (laugh) let alone three babies.

Dantzler: Yeah, baby.

Tavis: And ya'll raising kids and doing CD's. So, like, (laugh) where do ya'll find time to do this? Kids go to sleep; ya'll leave the house and go to the studio or something?

Graydon: No, no, we've had our children in the studio with us. This album was done, my daughter had just been born, and just pulled the car seat with us, and she hung out.

Dantzler: That's what you gotta do, man. Ain't got no blueprints. You just make it happen each day.

Tavis: Speaking of family, one of the things that I love about the music that Kindred does is that there is a message in there that is affirming. There is a message in there that is empowering. So it's not just good stuff, but it's affirming, as well. Now, that doesn't mean that music has to have a socially redemptive message for it to be considered good stuff.

I've said many times, Marvin Gaye sang 'What's Going On,' but he also sang 'Let's Get It On.' So everything ain't gotta have a redemptive message for it to be good music. But it seems to me, though, that that's part of what you all attempt to do, to put a message in there. How do you balance out putting a message in there and not being preachy, but at the same time making it hip?

Graydon: Well, I think it's easy for us because we're just talking about our lives. And life goes about like that. You have some days where you really feel centered, where you know where you're going, you know what you want to do. And then you have other days where you just don't know what to do. And I think a lot of the songs really reflect that.

The diversity of living everyday life, and the reality of being in a marriage and being in a family. So there are some redemptive messages, but at the same time, too, it's very relatable to people. People really see themselves in our music, and that's probably one of the things we've heard the most, is how'd ya'll know what's going on in my living room? (Laugh) I really wanted to say that, and ya'll said it for me. So.

Tavis: I guess that's the good side. The upside, Fatin, is that your music is relatable. To couples, to parents. You all talk about what's happening in your lives, as already been stated. That's the upside. I guess the question is whether or not there's a downside to being so open, so transparent, putting all your business out there in your music. What's the downside to that?

Dantzler: Well, I guess the downside, so much so, is that right now, the music is more about having fun and partying and things of that nature, and it rarely lends an opportunity to messages that are really sincere and honest and just coming from the heart. And so therefore, that puts us at a disadvantage and makes us stand out and makes us look a little bit like a sore thumb, to a certain degree.

And so that's something that we're constantly trying to build on and let people know that even though that it is serious music, or that it has a message behind it, that it is still something that you can relax to. Something that you can have fun with, and something that you can listen to at any time, and anybody can listen to the music. I think that it's relatable.

Tavis: Is there a personal downside to it?

Graydon: (unintelligible)

Tavis: Some of us guard your - I try to guard my privacy, what little I have left, with everything I have in me. And you all are doing the exact opposite. You ain't guarding nothing. You're just like, here's what we go through. You put it out there.

Graydon: Well, I think that we became, we entered into the public eye this way. So it's not as if we have anything to worry about. But I think just being open and personal about it really is more of a protection for us. It's more of a way that we don't have to live up to something that we're not. So it makes it a lot easier for us. It's just like, oh, well, yeah, well, I'll talk about that I have three children, or I talk about they I might argue with my husband.

Or that we have to hide to have sex from our kids, I'm sorry, whatever. (Laugh) Whatever. It's just like to us, it's kind of like, yeah, oh well, that's us. That way, we don't have to do videos under a waterfall and act like it's running through the poppies, and pose on a beach somewhere and act like that's our marriage. That's not our marriage. So why would we even put that out there?

Tavis: Speaking of why put that out there, what makes you think, then, that when you put that out there, to Fatin's point earlier, given what is getting airplay today, what makes you think then, where do you get this audacity that if we write something like this that is real, something that is relatable, all these words that have come up so far, that is the sum total of our experience, what makes you think that radio cares about that, or will give something like that airplay, when you're writing it?

Graydon: We don't know. But the thing is, you can't think about that.

Dantzler: You can't worry about that.

Graydon: We actually are getting quite a bit of support at radio.

Tavis: Indeed you are, yeah.

Graydon: And it's surprising, but at the same time, too, why should it be? We just don't write like that. We really don't. We don't know what we're gonna write about. We bring about what we feel. And so, it's important that, it's only become a movement in the sense for us, because it's just meant so much to people after we expressed it.

But for us, it was just a natural thing. If you're gonna write a song, why should I come up with a fabricated story when I could just talk about what comes naturally to me? So, the audacity just comes in being, I guess, brave enough to be yourself. If anything, it's just like oh well, if you like it, you like it. If you don't like it, sorry.

Dantzler: You won't.

Tavis: So Fatin, what came first? The collaboration or the marriage?

Dantzler: The collaboration, for the most part, came first. I think that we built as friends. We started working together on music here and there, and we just started to develop a relationship that was more than the music. And slowly but surely, that took precedence over the music. And then we let go of the music for a minute and decided to come together as a collective. Bigger, better, and stronger.

Tavis: So, how do you balance this out? Again, I started this show, this conversation with a bit of a joke, but it really ain't funny. I suspect there are a lot of folk watching right now who really do, as we all do, have to balance things in our lives every single day. And you are honest about this, in terms of writing about it in your music.

But at a practical level, how do you balance being a wife and a husband and a father and a mother and a recording artist? How do you balance all that? 'Cause people struggle with that every day.

Graydon: Well, I just think that I married into....

Dantzler: We struggle with it every day.

Tavis: Yeah.

Graydon: For me, we both married into families that are very family-oriented. So the number one thing that helps us is our family. Our families collectively have kept our children, have nurtured us, have counseled us on our own marriage, who have been there in ways that you cannot even imagine. So for us, we have a wonderful family that supports us outside of our immediate family, which is us and our children.

And they told us up. They are our support. So, much love to the Knox's, the Graydons, the Grants and the Dantzlers and the Sullimans. (Laugh)

Dantzler: Also, I really think there's a protection from God, but I think that it's just the intentions. That we always try to do things with the right intentions, and we set out every day to try to accomplish something that we know may be impossible in some ways, but we want to do it. We wanna do it right. And we want our children to grow up with love.

We want them to grow up with understanding. We want them to grow up and be cultured, we want them to grow up and have better things than what we were able to have in our lives, and be able to give to them. You know what I mean? We wanna give back to our community, and wanna give back to society.

And we just have all these intentions. And we may not be able to, like I say, fulfill all of those things, but at the core of it is the true, sincere, honest intention to do the right thing that most times it comes together. And that's the blessing. So that really is the blessing.

Tavis: Speaking of community, what are ya'll drinking in the water in Philadelphia? 'Cause every other day ya'll are breaking a new group. And some of the best stuff out there today comes out of Philly.

Dantzler: Yeah, well, first and foremost, I guess, is really just that we have that tradition and that legacy, Mr. Gamble Huff and Tom Bell, and all of the those great producers and writers, that sound of Philadelphia is everywhere, you know what I mean. That's first and foremost. And some of the other people who have gone on to do such great big things in the city, it just really fuels and energizes everybody.

And it's not just the music. It's the people who work in the stores and the people who work in the community. It's the sports teams. Everybody does everything with so much passion and so much love that they wanna be recognized, and they wanna do their best. And I think that it comes out in the shows, and it's just good.

Tavis: Actually, there were a lot of people waiting for this CD, yours truly included, after that first one, which was such a banging CD. A lot of folk were waiting for this. How did you approach doing this one? And I ask that because that sophomore jinx gets a lot of people on that second project. So, when you enter into working on that second project, are you trying to give the audience a little bit of what they got on the first one?

'Cause you know what they responded to now. The jury is in. We know what they responded to on the first CD, but you don't wanna replicate the first CD, 'cause you wanna, I assume as artists, grow. And say we can do a little something different, it ain't gotta all sound the same. So how did you balance that out on this CD?

Graydon: I think we tried to be true to the writing. 'Cause I think that's the thread that kind of pulls everything together. We worked with new producers; we worked with some producers who this was their first time doing a major project. So I think that we just tried to pull everything together through the subject matters and the writing and the sentiment throughout the album.

And I think that that pulled all the newer aspects and some of the older aspects of things we've done before, as well as things that we did that were new, and made it all kind of come together. I feel like that's how we balanced it. We just kind of closed ourselves in a room and just wrote, and just kept writing songs, and just kept writing, writing, writing, writing, writing.

Tavis: Well, I'm glad they went in the room. I'm glad they came out. (Laugh) And so will you be glad that they came out. The new CD, from Kindred the Family Soul, "In This Life Together." Nice to have you both on the program.

Graydon: Thank you.

Dantzler: Pleasure to be here.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International, check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.