You’ve done a lot of incredible music over your career. And you continue to fight the good fight. Given all the years that you’ve put in and the quality of the work, do you ever get bothered or frustrated that the industry tends to overlook you?

I think I used to, but I think I’ve had an awakening. By their standards, I don’t really expect them to get me, no offense. And I feel alright with that. I just try to do the best that I can do and be a good person. The music is what’s important to me. I was just reading “The Souls of Black Folk” and I can’t really do anything about how others perceive me. They have their own standards and I’ve gotta create my own. Mine is just to get my ideas out and when I make a record, I feel good. I feel like I did a good job and then I move on to the next thing. There has always been and there will always be Black rock music. It’s all Black music. That’s what was lost in what Miles Davis was trying to do in the ’70s and ’80s. Like when he recorded the Cyndi Lauper tunes, a couple of the more pop culture songs.

Like that D-Train song, “Something’s On Your Mind”—

Right, and I feel like, “Why not?” His statement was, “It’s all Black music.” And he kept trying to say, “I can play whatever I want to. It all comes from jazz and the blues and everything.” It’s become so categorized, you’re thinking more about the categories than you are the quality. And I don’t want to be, like, a “great Black artist” or a “Black female singer” or I made “great Black music.” I just wanna make music and be all right with that and seen for that.

In what ways do you feel that you’re different as a person and an artist than from your first record?

I have the ability to develop my ideas a lot more. I’m getting a lot more fluid in my bass playing and my programming. I just feel like I’m growing as a musician. The first record (PLANTATION LULLABIES) just skimmed the surface. The second record (PEACE BEYOND PASSION), I kind of opened up a lot more of the influences I have. I wanted the first record to be like a Headhunters record. Like hip-hop meets Headhunters. The second record was into my Steely Dan rock, rock thing. The third one (BITTER) is more like a Ben Harper and Tracy Chapman and Richie Havens and Chris Whitley and Jimi Hendrix. It was just expressing how that music influenced me. This record is just a culmination of all those things. But at the same time it’s also a critique of myself. I’m tired of people saying, “BITTER wasn’t Black radio music.” And I’m like, who the fuck are you to tell me that? White people telling me it’s not a “Black record.” Fuck you! I listen to Master P to Sheryl Crow to Led Zeppelin to Living Colour to electronica. I listen to everything. It’s all music. That’s the beauty of music. I’m not gonna limit myself to be some cookie cutout artist. This record questions and critiques that.

The first two records you worked with David Gamson; third record, Craig Street. Now you looked in house and worked with Cato, your guitar player. What motivated you to bring it so close to home?

Well, everyone was saying, “Do it yourself,” and I don’t really believe in that. I think there are a few artists who can produce themselves, very few. I ain’t one of ’em. (Laughs) Everyone needs a guru. Everyone needs a guide. Not someone to do it for you, but a guide on the journey. Cato has been in the band for the last four or five years. And he’s seen those songs build from the live stuff. Plus he and I have so many of the same records. We like so much of the same music and he could just see what I was trying to get to. He was able to let me do what I wanted to do and help me bring it all together and hone it into something that made a complete statement. When I’m in the studio, I just like to play. I write. I don’t wanna be a producer at all. I wanna have amazing ideas. I wanna write stuff and create incredible bass lines and that’s all I wanna do. So it’s great when you have somebody there who’s like, “Okay, cool, but let’s get this all together and see how we can make a different picture.”

COOKIE sounds like a very observational record. Where BITTER was very internalized, COOKIE sounded like you had a lot of things that you had to get off your chest.

Yeah, they’re just stories. They’re just talkin’ stories, man. I’ve got a little studio in my basement and I just start writing and then all of a sudden I start to see a picture and I hear the picture. It becomes like a movie in my head and I can see it and I know what I wanna write about. I just write about what I’m feeling and experiencing. I know it sounds crazy, but I just love concept records. Like those Pink Floyd records, The Wall and the early Funkadelic stuff. That’s just where I come from. And the Prince records were little experiences, a part of his life like chapters in his memoirs. I had the sequence of this record before it was done and it only went through maybe two changes.

You worked with a bunch of different people who come from the same kind of energy. Talib Kweli, Caron Wheeler, Lalah Hathaway—

The record company wanted me to get all the popular people who had selling quotas and marketability. And I asked all of ’em and for various reasons and things, it never happened. Spiritually, this worked for the better. I got to work with people whom I love and admire and who I think are some of the best fuckin’ singers out there. I don’t mean to be arrogant, but Lalah Hathaway can sing! Like, for real! She may not be selling a million records but there’s no way whoever’s gonna hear this record is gonna tell me she can’t sing her ass off.
    I got Angela Davis, Countee Cullen, Gil Scott-Heron, you know? I got Michael Hampton from Funkadelic. It’s like, they’re not “marketable” or people don’t know about ’em, but that’s what I’m trying to tell people. Don’t worry about what his name is. Did you dig what he was playing? You don’t have to know what they look like, it’s funky, ain’t it? (Laughs)

They’ve already done the remix to the first single, “Pocketbook,” featuring Tweet and Redman—

Yeah, which I love. I love Rockwilder. Man, he’s so funky. It’s like an obtuse groove, but he’s one of the few interesting cats. I’m really feeling him. So for the mainstream, for my record company, “Pocketbook” is the first song that’s comin’ out.
    I’m releasing the single I wanted over the Internet, “Earth,” which is totally inspired by Stevie Wonder.

Aw, no man. I’m trying to persuade them. I think I’ve got the “Jay Leno Show;” I’ve got another TV show. I wanna play a different song on every show, not just like “the single” (laughs).
    I don’t go out to promote my records. I’m really like a kid. “I get to go out and play music? Cool!” (Laughs). I just wanna go out with my band. Like I did a show at Tonic (experimental music club in New York) and we’re just experimenting and trying to see where we’re gonna go. I can do a remix, it can be on the radio, but I’m not gonna change who I am. When you come see me live, I’m still gonna be doing all the stuff that I do. That is trying to grow, create. I play improvisational hip-hop, R&B, jazz, funk music. That’s the bottom line. And I’m cool with that (laughs). And I’ve already kind of moved on. There’s some other records I wanna make. I’m tryin’ to make a jazz record. I’m tryin’ to make a power trio record. I’m just tryin’ to make music.
    I know where I came from and I wanna sleep well at night. Because pretty soon, I’ll be, like, 67 years old and all that matters is the people I have in my life who love me and just who I am as a person.