[music]

Kate Hinds: Welcome back to All Of It. I'm Kate Hinds, in for Alison Stewart today. Later this hour, we are going to talk about sidewalk etiquette, so get ready to call in to share pedestrian behaviors that make your blood boil, as well as positive tips and best practices you have to navigate the walkability of New York City. That's coming up later this hour, but let's get things started right now with musician Judith Hill.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Runaway Train]

Kate Hinds: That song is called Runaway Train, and it comes from Judith Hill's new album Letters from a Black Widow. As you can tell, she is a powerhouse vocalist. You may know her from her work with performers like Prince, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder. She was also featured in the fantastic 2013 documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom, which won a Grammy. We will hear more of her chops in a little bit, but on this album, she brings way more than just a stunning voice.

Judith Hill also wrote and produced the whole album. You won't be surprised to learn that she grew up in a musical family. She wrote her first song at the age of four, and even to this day, her parents back her up in her band. Letters from a Black Widow is out now, and Judith Hill joins us for a Listening Party. Judith Hill, welcome to WNYC.

Judith Hill: Thanks for having me.

Kate Hinds: We're thrilled that you're here. You wrote on Instagram when this album was released that it, "Took a while for me to get to a place where I can share these parts of myself." When did it become clear to you that making a personal album like this, laying yourself bare through your songwriting, could actually help you heal in some way?

Judith Hill: Well, music is my language, and it's been the way I express myself. For a really long time, it was hard for me to write this material in music because it was so deep and personal and painful, but once I did, I really felt like that was the beginning of my healing process because something broke when I was able to give voice to this pain in me that had been festering for so long. This album gave it a place to live, a safe place to live through my art.

Kate Hinds: Now that the album's been put out in the world, how have you been feeling the past few days? Has anything surprised you? Any feedback you've gotten?

Judith Hill: It's been really special to share this music with so many people that appreciate it and feel connected to and appreciate the vulnerability. I've had people share stories about their lives and feel like some of the material has resonated with them and their story, so I feel really grateful to have been able to share it. Of course, it's always a risk when you're this vulnerable, but I find that generally speaking, people out in the world are really empathetic people and they really appreciate that.

Kate Hinds: This is your album. I mean, you don't just sing on it. You wrote and produced it. You play piano, guitar, bass, you sing, you composed all the songs. How were you thinking about the sound when you sat down to really put this whole album together?

Judith Hill: Well, I'm somebody who has grown up in so many disciplines of music, and I've been a sponge, everything from jazz, rock, blues, soul, funk, classical. For me these are all genuine parts of myself, and I really wanted this record to be an integration of sound, which is my identity. Which is so many different things all put together. When I was thinking about the sound of this record, I wanted to really allow that all of these different influences show up in the music as well.

Kate Hinds: It feels like a lot of the songs really range through different styles, and we'll play more in just a few minutes, but you've said in other interviews that you like to begin a track with the bass. What does a good bass line do?

Judith Hill: [chuckles] Well, the bass is exciting for me when it comes to the funk and groove bass music because it really carries the groove for me, and I love a good bass line. My dad is a bass player, so I grew up listening to bass lines, like every day [chuckles], so for me, it's a real fun thing to create bass lines.

Kate Hinds: It's your formative years listening to bass line, and they're also strings throughout the album. Why did you want to create a more orchestral style sound for Letters from a Black Widow?

Judith Hill: Well, there's a lot of theater in the music. It's storytelling done in a more theatrical way, and I really loved in bringing in the strings to create more depth and more of the epicness of it because of the material. I've always loved strings as a I grew actually to have a degree in music composition when I orchestrated, and that's what I did in my major in college, so bringing in that has always been special for me, and I was able to do that in this record.

Kate Hinds: I want to talk a little bit about the title track and Black Widow, the concept of a Black Widow. You've referenced this and you've spoken about this, but you were labeled a Black Widow after the deaths of Michael Jackson and Prince, who were your mentors and collaborators, and that really comes through in your writing. The title song is very raw and painful. How has that experience informed this whole album and this specific song and made you want to really confront it?

Judith Hill: Yes, I think confronting it was my step of courage to myself, and it gave myself permission to speak on it because for so long I was being trolled and tormented online and being called the Black Widow, and it really hurt me and it took me into a depression, so for me to finally give it a voice and the voice come from me was the powerful thing that changed just my relationship to it and gave me a path to healing. Confronting it also helped me bring my power back. I was able to just unmute, give myself the unmute button.

Kate Hinds: Let's listen to a bit of it now. Here's Black Widow from Judith Hill.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Black Widow]

Kate Hinds: Judith, I'm wondering what it's like to perform that song live.

Judith Hill: Well, the first time I did it in New York, I cried on stage. It was really an emotional experience to perform that live. It is a theater piece, so when you perform it live, there's acting, and it's kind of a different experience. The more and more I do it, I'm looking forward to really finding that space with it, but it's a very powerful thing to be able to reenact the experience on live. The song is emotional. It has swells, it has climaxes, and so it's a very powerful thing.

Kate Hinds: How does the audience respond?

Judith Hill: I think they're deeply moved by it. I've gotten always responses about how that song has really impacted them. They can feel it, and they understand it. They've been very supportive. They've been a very safe place performing. It's really my second time performing. It was the night before last night in LA we did our album release and that was my second time performing it, and the crowd was very supportive.

Kate Hinds: This album feels like it's a bit of a new direction for you. What was something that you did differently in the creative process compared to some of your past albums that you think really worked?

Judith Hill: Well, I mean, I think just from the beginning the conception of this album. I will say it's almost like a concept album. I started with the song one of the bad ones, which sets the stage for addressing in the Black Widow that comes several songs later in the scenes of the album, but really it sets up the stage for me, taking the listeners on a journey through some darker things, addressing shame, addressing the shadow. That's different from the other albums because it's darker material, and I've always shied away from darker material because I've always felt like it was going to be too heavy for people, but I feel like this was something I really needed to do.

I also feel like it's something that brings a depth and it's for listeners. I think it's also a very powerful experience for them to experience funk and soul music in a more darker context. Funk music and soul music is usually like-- and especially funk music is more associated with dancing and partying. To allow this darker subject matter to be integrated in the music that is funk driven and is soul driven, I think it's a very powerful thing.

Kate Hinds: It's really powerful. From the start, I love that the album opens with a ballad and then immediately moves into music that just starts slapping. There's a lot of guitar on this album. You're self-taught on the instrument. You began first playing it, I think in 2016, which is amazing to me. What do you think you can get creatively out of the guitar that you can't get out of, say a piano?

Judith Hill: My whole life prior to that, those years in 2016, I was a piano player and I wrote mainly from the piano, which is my first instrument. I love that the piano does provide a rich, harmonic context, but the guitar really was the first time that it allows me to find the angst in the blues and the scream that is really a big part of my artistic expression as a vocalist. I'm a blues singer predominantly, so the guitar is just like a great compliment.

It is like my second voice that allows me to really express more funk and express more blues, and really allows me to have a second voice that I could really go back and forth with, with my voice.

Kate Hinds: On Black Widow, there's a section of it where you play a guitar solo, and I just wanted to play a little clip of that right now. Let's listen.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Black Widow]

Kate Hinds: Basically everyone in the control room is playing air guitar right now, and [chuckles] Judith, you absolutely shredded. How do you know when you have nailed a guitar solo?

Judith Hill: I think, first and foremost, it's always about the energy and the spirit of it. It can be imperfect, if it's screaming. In this particular solo, it is about the guttural depths of your soul crying out in agony type of thing, that's what I wanted. I think that it's the character, is the spirit of your voice, your soul that makes me feel like, okay, that's the solo, that's the one that's speaking to me.

Kate Hinds: You're well known for working with Prince. He produced your first album and the two of you were really close collaborators. What was something you learned from working with him and watching him that you felt you could only learn from working with Prince?

Judith Hill: Well, from a musical standpoint, there's so many gems I took away. One of them being really creating music that works well live, like when you're piecing together a song, thinking about the live show. That's something I really started to understand working with him and just overall understanding what it means to be autonomous as a artist. Before I was very reliant upon the system and I was following the rules of the system, but he really taught me what it really looks like to create your own vision and to follow your roadmap, and that's what provides longevity.

For me, I think that's why I can continue doing what I'm doing, is just sticking true to my own-- really moving to my own beat of my own drum, and just forging the way, forging my own path.

Kate Hinds: A lot of what I hear, what comes through on this album is you stepping into your power and wrapping your arms around who you are and really owning it. I wanted to play a song that symbolizes that for me. It's called Flame. Let's Listen.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Flame]

Kate Hinds: The way that lyric, "Give me chaos and give me pain, but you can never kill my flame," makes this a real anthem. It's just like a moment, and it reminds me of a lyric in the song Runaway Train that we played at the start of the conversation where you say, "You made me choose the life of a musician, or you and I can't let go of the groove." You are really clear in your songwriting about who you are and who you want to be.

Judith Hill: Yes, for sure.

Kate Hinds: How did you get there? What was your secret? [chuckles]

Judith Hill: Well, it is really the pain in the struggles of all of my chapters and finally coming to a place where you just feel like nothing can stop me now. I've been down to the bottom of it and I'm here still a survivor, and also finding there's so much reward and beauty in being a servant of music on this planet. It is a big sacrifice. It's not a real glamorous life, but it's something that I feel like stands the test of time, and it provides a type of message and a type of energy that really does help some people that need it.

I feel like for me, I do it for myself and for the people out there, and I feel like it's a higher calling. It's my calling. It's a spiritual calling. When you know that, when you know it is a spiritual calling, it is a purpose like that. It makes it hard for somebody to destroy you or for discouragement to get the best of you because you know you're doing something that transcends the social constructs and norms of the definitions of success and chasing after the carrot. You're really doing something a little bit more and that gives you the fire.

Kate Hinds: I want to play the song Touch now. Can you tell us what it's about?

Judith Hill: Yes. This is a song about grief and about losing someone, and really we go through so many different stages of griefs, but the one is missing how that person's embrace feels. The touch of their hand, just their touch. I just realized how important touch is, and I wrote this song towards the end of the pandemic, so it was also when we were isolated and I was really feeling like, wow, touch is a huge part of the human experience.

Touch is about losing someone. For me, it was death, but it could also be the loss of a relationship. Whenever you've lost someone, the one thing that does really come, the strongest loss is the touch.

Kate Hinds: Yes. Let's listen to Touch. It's from Judith Hill, from her album Letters from a Black Widow.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Touch] [MUSIC - Judith Hill: Touch]

Kate Hinds: Do I hear a gospel influence?

Judith Hill: Always. Yes. Gospel is always my center foundation.

Kate Hinds: There was an organ playing on that, right?

Judith Hill: Yes.

Kate Hinds: Who was playing the organ?

Judith Hill: That's my mom playing the organ. She's an incredible pianist, organist. She's in my band and she's just a force.

Kate Hinds: What's it like playing with your parents?

Judith Hill: It's really special experience. They're just incredible musicians, and I think as a family, it's a very special thing to bring a family unit to the music. I think people appreciate seeing it because it's where--

Kate Hinds: You have such a beautiful voice. It has power and range. Of course, it was highlighted in the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom. How do you think about your voice as an instrument?

Judith Hill: I think of my voice as really a vehicle of emotion. There's always a lot of emotion in my voice and I always lead with that because I've been inspired by singers like the Clark Sisters and Aretha Franklin. People that just really move there. Gospel singers, a lot of them they really just move your spirit. I think for me, that's the way I like to sing. As a blues singer, I like the fluidity of the phrase, not being forced into one thing, but to be able to really paint colors with my voice. I see it as like a canvas where you could paint colors. It's definitely all about the emotion for me.

Kate Hinds: When did you first know that your voice was something special?

Judith Hill: I struggled with it a lot as a kid. When I first started singing, I really didn't like my voice because I knew what I wanted to sound like, and I wasn't sounding like that. It took years for me to continue singing to a place where I'm like, "Okay, I can deal with this. I can work with this." The more I sing, the closer I got to, "Okay, cool. Now I feel like I'm able to express myself." It took a journey with singing of being first really very self-critical, and then I would say in my later years, maybe started in junior high is when I started to really feel like, "Okay, I'm using my voice and I'm liking what I'm hearing."

Kate Hinds: How were you trained? Were you trained?

Judith Hill: I wasn't. I just sang. Sang along with records and sang along to church and choirs and school and stuff like that.

Kate Hinds: We talked a little bit about your parents earlier, and I wanted to play a little bit from a song on the album that is dedicated to your mom and grandmother. It's called, and I took college French, but forgive me, Dame de la Lumière. Before we listen to it, can you tell me a little bit more about your mother and grandmother, and what you want people who are listening to know about them?

Judith Hill: Yes. They're just really incredibly powerful women in my family. My grandmother, she raised so many children and she was just always this really peaceful woman that I could go into her room and she would just tell me stories about life, and just always had a calm, no matter how chaotic life was. My mom also being just the definition of a survivor to me. She's stage four cancer survivor. She's still battling it, but against all odds, she's just an overcomer and she just travels around the world performing music. She has that fighter mentality of like, she's not afraid. She's told herself in the universe that she's going to be here. I think seeing my mom like that really gives me inspiration of what it means to really be a strong woman.

Kate Hinds: All right. This is Dame de la Lumière from Judith Hill.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: Dame de la Lumière]

Verse one was my grandma

Her name was Georgia Mae

I love to sit in her room as she told stories ‘bout life in the south

Her skin was smooth as butter but I know she fought many wars

She’s like a queen in a pavilion looking down from a billion stars in the sky

Verse two in my mama

And her name is Michiko

She had big dreams and left her life in Tokyo

She turned all the flames into roses

A survivor and she won’t quit

She’s standing taller than a mountain with

All the other

Dame de la Lumière

Strong and bright

Diamond shining in the night

All the women in the fight

I can feel their love and light

Bad times make strong women

Bad times make strong women

Bad times make strong women

Kate Hinds: Bad times make strong women. What does that mean to you and what made you put that in this song?

Judith Hill: Yes. For me, it was coming out of a hard time in my life and seeing other women coming at hard times. I was like, "Wow, we're still here and we're much stronger than what we thought we were. Nothing can really take us down." For me, it was the anthemic statement of the universe or whatever can dish out whatever, but we're going to be strong and it's actually just going to make us stronger. Women are so strong. We know how to really handle pain and also find the strength. I think that for me that was just a statement of just triumph and victory.

Kate Hinds: I had this experience when I was listening to Runaway Train and it reminded me of the scene in What's Love Got to Do with It, the Tina Turner biopic when Angela Bassett slaps the desk in the courtroom after her divorce is final, and she's like, "I got my name." That's what it feels like. You got your name, you survived, you are you, Judith Hill. It's amazing. It's a wonderful thing to feel. Now you're on tour and you're headed off to Norway soon to play a European tour. Any chance you'll be coming through New York?

Judith Hill: We were just in New York about three weeks ago. Yes. We'll come back later on in the year, but we did our first premier of this album in New York. We will definitely come back. We'll circle back.

Kate Hinds: I hope when you come back you'll play for us in the WNYC studios. It would be-

Judith Hill: Oh yes, sure.

Kate Hinds: -an honor. I've been speaking with Judith Hill. Her album is called Letters from a Black Widow. Let's go out on one more song. This is called, You Got It Kid.

[MUSIC - Judith Hill: You Got It Kid]

 

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