Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - D-Nice

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Talented multi-hyphenate DJ D-Nice reflects on his humble upbringing in the Bronx, from sleeping on a couch and a motel desk to becoming a world-renowned DJ. D-Nice also discusses the pain and beauty he discovered in himself and others during the pandemic. Additionally, we hear how he found grace in his mother’s cabbage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I didn't really eat my mother's food growing up because we didn't live together. I think that was a moment for me of being empathetic towards my own mom because you never know what someone else's experience was and my mom just wanted to feed me. Welcome to your mom's kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris. The kitchen is the emotional heartbeat of our home. So many important things happen there.

Meals, memories, laughter, and sometimes tough stuff. All of its simmers inside us forever and shapes who we become in interesting and sometimes tough stuff. All of its simmers inside us forever and shapes who we become in interesting and sometimes surprising ways. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ In today's episode, I get to spend time with one of my favorite people. I really love this dude.

I'm talking about the legendary DJ called Deneis. Deneis stays on the road, spinning records all over the world for the biggest parties and the brightest names. Oprah, Quincy, the Obama's, the Kennedy Center. He was recently the official D.J. for the Oscars, and here's the thing. Throughout his life, during the struggle years, back in the Bronx, when he was still called Derek Jones,

and in the full flourish of his success at this point, the kitchen has always been a space that fosters growth and community, a place that wards off loneliness, a place where he could sit at the kitchen counter and create a virtual party for hundreds of thousands of housebound people during the beginning of COVID who all tuned into Club Quarantine on his Instagram account. We're celebrating each other all over the world. This is what we do.

Man, this is a global party. Let's go. I was one of those people dancing in my kitchen with my entire family and watching in awe as hundreds and then thousands and then hundreds of thousands of people joined his nightly club quarantine sessions on Instagram live back in 2020, back at the beginning of the COVID lockdown,

including celebrities like Diddy, Carrie Washington, Rihanna, even Michelle Obama. Oh my gosh, Michelle Obama's in here. [♪ music playing in background, music playing in background, his journey to success wasn't all rainbows and butterflies, though like many of us, he's had periods of struggle and doubt. So we were thrilled that we could grab him for an hour to spend time with us in the studio

and look back at his incredible journey. It started in a tenement in the Bronx, where he lived with his grandmother and several relatives in a tiny apartment where he slept on the couch. [♪ Music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music playing in the background, music tenement apartment that we lived in in the Bronx. It was a tiny kitchen, very old, top of a fifth floor walk up building. So you were in good shape. I was definitely in good shape.

Looking back, now that you said that, my grandmother at the time was like 70 and she wasn't in the best of health. You know, like whenever she did get out, which she didn't get out much, my grandmother was older, the apartment didn't even belong to her. It was my cousin's apartment. And my cousin was, she was roughly around 19 or 20, so one bedroom apartment, probably no larger than 400 square feet. And my grandmother and I, well, great grandmother, rather,

she and I slept in a living room and my cousin and her boyfriend and their son slept in the bedroom and we did that for years. Hold me then. Yeah, so it was like between 13 and 16. Because they got my first apartment at 17. So in that kitchen, tell me what happened. First describe it in detail.

Man, it did tell. What did it look like? Did it have a window? Did it have a window? Did it have a radio? No radio, no window. It was a narrow kitchen. I mean, it wasn't very big. It was probably the size of like most people's bathrooms,

you know, in a city bathrooms. Tiny, very tiny. We didn't have a dishwasher. I do remember that. We didn't have a washing machine. And they remember back there and people used to have washing machines in the kitchens. And they'd plug into the sink.

Yeah, plugged into the sink. No, I mean, it was just tiny. I do remember the wood. It was like a dark kind of cherry wood in there. But no matter how large or small it was, being in that house always felt like love. And I know we're supposed to talk about food and everything here, or a moment that happened in that kitchen.

My moment is so significant. I kept trying to think about, do I want to share a recipe? Because I love cooking growing up. But there was one thing that happened in that kitchen that totally changed my life. What was that one thing? So my cousin's boyfriend was a security guard at the men's shelter in the Bronx. It's called Franklin's men's shelter. So, you know, back then, I was probably around 14 years old. I thought I was cooking. I was really just warming up. I remember the exact dish. I was warming up some corn, beef hash and made some rice. Corn, beef hash with a little piece of the potato in it.

Yes. And the little can that they had tracked open one of those, warmed it up because he asked me to bring him some food to the shelter for lunch. Oh, he asked you to bring him his lunch, okay? Yes, he asked me to bring some. So, you know, I made the corn befash, I really heated it up, made some rice, some corn on the side.

I don't know why I thought corn goes with corn befash, but whatever. It wasn't the cupboard. But yeah, you know, and I made this food, and I remember walking the food to the shelter, and it was roughly like three miles away. And because of that trip, that's how I met the DJ, DJ Scott LaRoc,

who started putting out productions, and that's how I met Cameron Swan. He lived in the shelter. Scott LaRoc was a social worker at the the shelter and my cousin was a security guard there and then my cousin introduced me to Scott and that's literally how I got into the music business. Why I said it's so significant is when I shared this story with Dave Chappelle about two years ago, he said, man, did you hear what you just said?

And I was like, yeah, Matt Scott in to shelter. He's like, no, no. He said, you walked three miles with food to feed your future. So that's why that kitchen is important to me. And that one particular dish will always be something that I remember. And you were just improvising. Yes. So when you set up your own apartment, were you trying to create safe haven for yourself when you came home?

You know, at 17, that's a young and tender age to be hanging your hat in your own apartment. So I'm actually visualizing that apartment and all I wanted was shelter. My first apartment, just remember, in my teen years, I slept in a living room. So this is my first time having my own place

in my own bedroom. And it was an apartment in Harlem. What street was like on Edgecomb Avenue, 150 eighth street, I still remember it because my aunt lived upstairs and I took the apartment below. I had no money for bed. I only had enough money for like two months of rent. I remember the bedroom because they had old carpet that back in the day they used to glue the carpet

to the hardwood floor. And like I said, this is a apartment in the hood. So they just ripped the carpet. So it still had pieces of like the carpet still all over the place, you know, and staples in the floor. But it didn't matter because it was my apartment. You know, I slept on coats for a good maybe two or three months

till I was finally able to afford my bed. And this is why you were making records. People are dancing to you. Your records are being spun on dance floors across the country. Hip hop wasn't making a lot of money back then. I was only able to get that apartment because it was off of my first album budget. But like I said, those are the days

that define who I am. I love that I slept on coach because when I go home and I get into my bed, there are times I'm not making this up that I literally walk to the wall and just put my hand on the wall and touch the wall of my house. And what are you doing when you do that? I'm like, man, I can't believe this is mine.

That's real. The kitchen that you described for us in the Bronx, you said it was small, didn't have a window, very narrow, but it was full of. What do you do to create a space in your kitchen now? So you capture some of it. Because I imagine your kitchen now is bigger, it's fancier, it has a lot of stuff

that you could only probably dream of when you were back in the Bronx. But how do you make sure that it has that most important ingredient, that it's a place of comfort and love and the right kind of nourishment? So the way my place is, I do love the idea of having like the kitchen be that central place.

I like a big open space because I don't even sit at a dining room table. I'm literally at the kitchen counter, even when I eat dinner because that's just what I love. And even going back to my younger days and what that kitchen was like, I can't say that I want to emulate that kitchen because it was so much smaller, but there was nothing bad. I mean, that's just the way life was back then and it was beautiful. What were the early days of hip-hop like? Could you imagine that it was going to become what it became this global force? You know, I enjoyed what we were doing, but just to be honest, even with, you know, having gold records, we're still just barely making it.

We're young. I mean, I was more so just excited because I was just a young kid who had never seen the world the way that I did by the time I started making music. I hadn't even been on a plane. My first time getting on a plane was when we were doing a show in Rochester.

And that was a moment that changed everything for me, like just being above the clouds. And even to this day, I still look out the window. I'm still that little kid and enjoying this journey. That trip to Rochester was interesting, though. I think I read about that trip because that was a one way trip. That was not a round trip ticket, right? That's not a round trip ticket at all. What happened? Man, so here's the full story. I didn't want to write about it on there. It was a little too much. But the full story was DJ Scott LaRocque booked us a show in Rochester.

It was our first show. South Bronx was kind of a local hit in New York. We didn't have like national distribution. So we had to do these little promo shows to get out. And he booked us a one-way ticket because we were supposed to get the money from the promoter to get back home. And instead of getting us a room, the promoter had to stand at his mother's house and his mom was

super religious. She didn't have a problem with us. The problem she had was that Scott LaRocke brought his girlfriend and the promoter's mom. No, she was not having that. So she couldn't ask the young lady to leave. So she kicked us out Oh, so the young lady got to stay with her. You all have to go find sleepless We were she was able to stay in the house and we had no money. We had no credit cards nothing back then So we ended up breaking into a motel We broke into the room Scott LaRocke slept on the bed. Careless slept on the floor.

I slept on the desk and we had to leave before housekeeping came. So we stayed there for a few hours. You got the desk? I got the desk. I'm sorry. You pulled the shorts off. Have you ever seen a floor in the motel?

Yeah. Maybe the desk was a better choice. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I can't complete this place. So like those early days of hip hop, you know, yes, we do stay in nice places now. But the early days were those were like the real struggle days, but those were the days that build character. Like we built fond memories because of them. I see you smile. And when you talk about it, yeah, no, I remember it. You know, I'm just happy

to have these memories because there were tons of ebbs and flows like in my entire life, you know, it wasn't always good. I'm in a very, very good space right now, but that only happened because I stayed the course. And I always tried to do things that made the most sense, things that were, well, one I always start with being kind to people, always being willing to help is like a big thing for me. Who was your compass? Who was the voice that you heard in your head that helped you make the right choices? I don't think it was one person. I'll stop by saying the Cosby Show really helped me out. Really? The Cosby Show in a different world because I was always influenced when I was younger by television. Just about the idea of having family.

I have a big family, but we're all not that close. So when you see these shows that kind of depicted like black people living a certain kind of way, when you're like this young kid in the inner city and you're trying to, you know, you want a better life, you kind of look to those visuals, and that's what I did. So my inspiration came from the Cosby Show, different world, and there was this other show

called the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Oh, I remember that. With Robin Leach. Yes, he would take you all over the world and you would see these beautiful fancy homes. So I think about that show probably like once or twice a week when I'm on the road. Because it just reminds me of like being this young person,

saying, man, one day I want to see the world, one day I want to stay in the best hotels, one day I want to be able to take my family on vacation. Here we are 30 years later, I'm able to do that, and I'm able to do it in the righteous way, then take advantage of anyone. I do nothing illegal. I mean, nothing.

I, you know, I won't even take a towel from a hotel room like I don't do anything. You also had some tough lessons early in life. So book it down productions. Let me get the timeline, Ryan. You produced, was it your first release in 1987? Was that right? Our first full length recording was in 1987.

Yeah, and that wound up being just a few months or about a year before. Before Scott's passing. Yeah. Um, yes, Scott passed in 87. Yeah, that was a tough time, you know. I just recently started talking about the incident. Yeah, and I find my ass what happened and how did it impact you? Yeah, so I was still living in the same neighborhood and some of the guys in the neighborhood, we're a little jealous, but we're all kids. I didn't know any, I didn't even have a first girlfriend until after I had a record.

I wasn't that type of kid, but because of jealousy, a group of guys came up to me and said, hey, I know you're trying to talk to my girl. I was like 16. That's not even the vibe I was on. And one of the guys pulled the gun out, hit me in the face with the gun and then they all ran off. So the first person I called was DJ Scott LaRocke because he was like my big brother. And he said, hey, I'm going to come over there.

We should find them and just talk it out. I literally remember his words. He said, we're about to blow up and we don't want that kind of energy. We went over to the same neighborhood, but we went over to the projects where all of this incident happened. This was supposed to be a friendly conversation. And we ended up seeing a couple of the guys. Not that was a part of that incident, but people from the neighborhood like, all right, you know, just let them know. We just came to talk and make sure everything was cool.

And then they had an altercation. So then when I look back at it, it may have been a peaceful mission that we were on, but that incident didn't look like peace, you know, and we were in the hood and those kids were, they went into the bushes, they went onto the roof. It was a straight ambush and started shooting at us. And Scott, he was the only person that was shot twice in his head. And that was a memory that I will never forget. I had to see that.

So when you talk about choices, I literally can be in a situation and see something happen that doesn't feel good and then I know I have to leave, you know, because I'll follow my instincts and unfortunately it's because of something that I learned early on. How did you get past that? Who said that I'm past it?

How'd you keep going? I keep going because this is a man who introduced me to something that changed my life. So I keep going because this is a man who introduced me to something that changed my life. So I keep going because what I'm doing has been impactful. And I'm not just talking about a club quarantine, I'm talking about from making records to producing to leaving a music business and starting

a creative services agency and producing websites and doing online marketing, these were all the things that I learned from him. So when I keep going, that means that his memory is going. The legacy continues. That is a pain that I don't think you can ever just lose. It sounds like he was the one who pushed you, try something new, because sometimes we're afraid

to do that, right? Yes. You don't want to try something new because I might fail or I might not be good at it. Let me master this over here in the corner before I try it out. From what I understand, it sounds like he was the one who was always pushing you to try new things. Yes. And what's interesting is when I look back, we didn't have that long of a relationship.

I met him when I was 15. We were all friends for about a year and a half. So a person that I had known for a year and a half of my life has had this tremendous impact, just on me personally, you know, and to me it's important to be that DJ Scott LaRocke to some of the kids. Thank you for telling a story

because someone will hear that and understand that they can be that person. Yes. And someone else's life. And now it's time to share our Makersmart custom cocktail recipe, inspired by today's guests, the DJ Dean Nice. This special segment is presented by Maker's Mark. While creating the Maker's Mark cocktail inspired by D-NICE, we wanted to draw from his Bronx roots.

This cocktail called the Bronx High Hat, named after D's signature headwear, represents some of the traditional flavors and vibrancy of the culture in the Bronx. The Bronx High Hat honors the boroughs diverse and lively energy. It's a verb. The many mixes of cultures and culinary influences that make it the iconic place that it is. This cocktail blends the warmth of bourbon with the zesty and sweet twist.

All of the ingredients come together to create a perfect and unique harmony that's worth exploring. So let's get into how you can make the Bronx High Hat for yourself. Here's what you're going to need. Two parts, Makers Mark Bourbon. One part fresh lemon juice. One half part honey syrup. That's equal parts honey and hot water stirred to combine. You can make this ahead of time.

One half part spiced peach lachor or peach snops will also work. Two dashes of aromatic bitters, ice cubes lemon twist for garnish. Here's how to make it. In a cocktail shaker, combine maker's mark bourbon, fresh lemon juice, that honey syrup, spiced peach lacour, or

peach snops, and aromatic bitters. Add ice cubes to the shaker and shake it vigorously until it's thoroughly chilled. Then strain the mixture into a glass, garnish it with a lemon twist, and there you go. That makes a Bronx High Hat. Cheers to our guests for inspiring us to take a trip to the Bronx through this cocktail I know you're going to enjoy this one. And thanks D for always keeping us dancing on the dance floor. Thank you so much to Makers Mark for sponsoring this custom cocktail recipe produced by ACAST Creative. No other bourbon works in this recipe quite like Makers Mark.

The full flavored bourbon connects with the big energy of the Bronx and the big energy in this cocktail, the aroma of sweet oak, vanilla, bright fruit, and wheat prevail in the nose. It has that undertone of spice, a little bit of nutmeg. The finish is smooth with a pleasant, soft spice

and clean finish. Really pushing this cocktail to the next level. You're gonna like this one. Makers Mark makes their bourbon carefully, so please enjoy it that way. Makers Mark Kentucky Strait bourbon whiskey, 45% alcohol by volume. Copyright 2023 Makers Mark Distillery Incorporated,

Loretto Kentucky. If you'd like to make this recipe yourself, and I hope you do, check out my Instagram at Michel underscore underscore Norris to get the full breakdown that's two underscores. That's Michel M.I.C.E.L.E. underscore underscore Norris and O.R.R.I.S. You're listening to the audible original original at your mom's kitchen. Like what you're hearing, the next episode is available now, exclusively from Audible. You can listen to new episodes on Audible two weeks before you can hear them anywhere

else. Now you know we have to talk about club quarantine. CQ all day. And because this is a show called your mama's kitchen, I was delighted to discover that this started in your kitchen. Yes. Starting in the kitchen. You were at the counter.

Yes. On the island. You had your deck out on the island. What happened that night? Was it March 20th, 2020? Well, March 20th and the 21st, those were the two days that the world discovered it. Okay.

But technically it started on... Tinkering a little bit ahead of that. Yes, yes. On March 17th is when it started. So wait, club quarantine started in your kitchen. Club quarantine started in my kitchen. It's so crazy because the story of CQ is so beautiful. Had I stayed in New York City, there's no club quarantine. Why? Because part of it was the end of November

2018, I decided, man, I'll be 49 years old and I never really lived as an adult in another state. I need a little bit of change. I was single. I was like, nothing's keeping me tethered to New York. By the time November hit, I was like, what am I doing? Like, I'm not enjoying New York right now. I love New York City, but I'm not enjoying my experience and I need some change. I called the moving company. I'm making this up. I had found an apartment on like an app and it was like, well, I live in downtown New York, I'm gonna get this apartment in downtown Los Angeles. So I found this beautiful apartment

across the street from the Staples Center. So I was happy, I got my new apartment, but I didn't realize the downtown LA was totally different than downtown New York City. Not the same thing. No, not the same thing. So, you fast-forward, by the time I moved in, it was 2019. I spent all of my time in reverse.

Now, I'm always back in New York. So, I never made my house, my apartment, rather, in Los Angeles home. So, I didn't have, it wasn't, you never unpacked, you never felt home. No, I had boxes in the other spare bedroom. I mean, the entire room was just boxes. I had never unpacked.

I didn't have art on the walls. So when you fast forward to a year later when COVID happened, I didn't have family in LA. So I was isolated alone. And you were still in that apartment? I was still in that apartment. I was in that apartment in a building that was just packed with people

who didn't respect what was going on. No one was wearing a mask and I was like, I'm not going outside because from what we were reading then, COVID was killing people my age, you know, like if you were 50 and above and you called COVID, that was rap. At least that's what the perception was. And you know, I was extremely sad because I wanted to be with my family, but like I said, I was in LA and my apartment was just sad. So when I went into that kitchen

and I had never used Instagram live, like never, I opened up my laptop, turned on Instagram live, put my phone on the computer, saw 200 people in there and I'm like, oh, that's my friend, Chuck Bonne, oh, what's up Chuck? Oh, remember we used to be in the club?

And Brucey B, you know, this DJ would play this song and I would type in, don't look any further, didn't this Edwards, and I'd just play it. And then they were all pretending to be in a club. There's nothing to do with the rest of the world. This was literally like our New York friends seeing each other and pretending to be in this club. And by the time that day ended,

I was like, man, I had 287 people in here, this is dope. So I went from being sad to about the end of the day, I was smiling, I was like, oh, this is great. And then the next day, I did it again. And I learned that you could split the screen. I called Big Daddy Kane, I called Dougie Fresh, I called Albi Sure, I called Bun B, Dave Chappelle. I was like, man, they got this feature

where you can split the screen. Won't you come on, I had 200 people in here and inspire them. And then John Legend came on, my numbers spiked. So it went from 280 to, it was like 7,000 people in there. I didn't even have turntables at home. I went and bought a controller. I made it to this place called guitar center.

I made it there 30 minutes before they close because that's when the full lockdown was happening. That was right around when everything shut down. That was when everything was shutting down. March 20th had I not gone. There is no club quarantine. I wouldn't have been DJing. So crazy how this all worked. We had 20,000 people in there and I saw one comment. A woman said, my gosh, D. NICE has everyone in here. The only people missing are the Obama's. And that never left my hand. I was like, man, I got some of this. One of the Obama's. And that never left my head. And I was like, man, I got some of my outfits.

One of the Obama's to come into this party. How do you convince someone to come into a party that doesn't really exist? But it's just on your phone, but for some reason, it felt real. And then that next day, thank goodness someone got the word. Some of how she did get the word. So did Kale, so did Oprah, so did.

Yes, so did Oprah, so did Ellen. I mean, the important part for me was when all of that happened, there was this part of me that felt so much peace because I noted this thing, I get sorry. It's okay, it's okay. I noted this thing started with love. And it was supposed to always feel like love. Supposed to always be able to pour into people.

So when those names came in, that was inspiring the world. Like, y'all, we're still here together. So when I think about that, that moment isn't just about club quarantine. That is about that little kid that was sleeping on that sofa that walked into that men's shelter in the Bronx with some food that changed his life. I know that that's where that part of it started and it started with love and it should always be full of love when I do these things. So sorry for tearing up.

That's all right. Never apologize for that. Never apologize for allowing your emotions to flow. Because I still thought about that. You're a kid, you know? Fair enough. Fair enough. I think you gave people what they needed that night.

People were feeling alone. We were afraid and we were locked down alone. Some of us truly alone. Some of us with our families, a lot of people were actually alone. They were like you alone in an apartment and you allowed people to feel together and to dance and to realize that they were dancing with people half a world away and to be silly for a minute. Yes, I showed it all. I could have gone to see my kids. It's not like we couldn't fly. It's not like I didn't earn enough to get myself to wherever I needed to be.

I could have done that. I didn't do it because I felt like, you know, people are watching. And how are you telling them to stay safe and to stay at home and you're running around doing things? Like I hadn't seen at that point, like by the time I finally got to see my daughter, my youngest four months had passed. You know, like I'd never even not been with my kids. I was with them every week. So that was hard for me, but I understood the importance of what was happening.

You know, you tell people to stay safe. Man, you gotta walk it too. You recently wrote an Instagram post that was beautiful and vulnerable and very honest. It was a letter to your younger self. Yes, yes. What was going on there? That was a tough one for me because my mom stays with me

and I got someone from my family at center to picture of me when I was roughly around six or seven years old. And my mom was excited to come over like, look, I got this picture of you and then I saw the picture and it took me back to that time. Then that time was a difficult one because my great-grandmother, she was sick at the time and the doctor told her,

from what I remember, that the stress of New York City was killing her. And her son lived out in Colorado. She didn't want to go to Colorado without us three grandkids. So when I saw that picture, it took me back. It was taken in Denver. I remember the car. And I was looking at what what I was wearing. And I was just broke down because clearly I wasn't wearing my clothes, you know, the shoes were too big. My cousin's shoes were too big and we didn't have like fond memories from that time.

There was some mistreatment by family. I just don't talk about it because I try to leave things in the past, you know, and I looked at that kid and I just saw, I mean, it was me, you know, and I was like, man, to go from that kid to the life that I have now, that's why I wrote the letter to my younger self because I always stayed on the path. I was always inspired. I always wanted more.

Were you writing that letter also? You're writing to a younger version of yourself, but were you also in some ways trying to be a beacon for some other person that might be going through something similar to just say it will be okay. 100% not even just for other people, but also for myself in this day, because sometimes the weight of what happened with CQ can be heavy. For example, walk down the street every day

and then everyone thanks you and they share their stories. Well, you're just pouring that into me. Like so like now I'm taking on that weight and like listening to them, which are beautiful stories, but then they make me a little sad sometimes, you know, like when you know that someone, when someone actually tells you I wanted to kill myself, and you save my life. But then it's not just that person, it's another person. And then I have to constantly remind them,

the reason why I'm vulnerable is because not that I ever felt suicidal and I've never had that feeling in my life. But depression is real. Sometimes you can't recognize it. And I'm telling you, like, what I was feeling in the beginning of COVID was I was feeling really depressed that you could have this life.

You can live a life, make it music, losing it. Start all over again, lost it again, rebuilt it, was able to send my kids to school, able to have a nice place. And then the world stops. You can plan for that. None of us, you know, no matter how much you saved, none of us truly planned for her to go on for years. Years, man, you work hard and then your world stops. You're at a point in your life where you're telling your story. You're writing a book, a nice life.

Yeah. It sounds like it's important for you to do that not as an exercise in ego, but really as an exercise in survival, really. Survival, faith, patience, kindness, everything that happened in my life has been other people being kind and seeing something. But what I learned from that process was, as a black man, it's okay to be vulnerable and to be able to tell people when you hurt, because I internalized all of this growing up because I didn't know how to be vulnerable. That wasn't something that I saw growing up in the inner city and the Bronx. You weren't out there crying and tearing up.

No, you weren't showing that side. You weren't out there crying and tearing up. No, you weren't showing that side. You weren't showing it. And sitting in front of that phone every day, for two years straight, I know the world reopened after two years, but really for two years straight, being vulnerable, being fun, being silly, smiling, laughing.

Here are sometimes when I would play a set, though I would have to step off because it was so emotional to me and I would tear up. To me, that's the story. That's the only way to get to the story was to allow myself to be unafraid to share these emotions, to even experience the emotion because we weren't really taught to do that.

Now where I'm from, you know. So you gave yourself permission now. Yes. Oh, I have permission. We'll have permission to do that also. Yes. Going back, you know, when you think about it, seeing that picture was part of it.

It was like, man, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to tell that part of the story, you know, about that young kid. But like, now I'm proud of that kid. That's why I pinned that post to myself. Like I said, not just to inspire other young kids, but when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling like, well, man, this is so beautiful. You pinned it, because you might need to go back

and look at it again. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a recipe that you would reach for something that means a lot to you, something that perhaps tastes like home? Man, why don't do that much cooking anymore, so,

but if I had something that makes me feel like home, it's very interesting like when I return home now, I didn't grow up living with my mother, right? So when I return home the other day, my kitchen smelled like just like food. I wasn't used to that because I- She lives with you now. She lives with me now.

And I mean the entire house because it's just open space. So if you cook something in the kitchen, it's everywhere. And I'm like, my God, this place smells like food. And my mom, I'm like, she's open to door, like scandals and then when I went upstairs, I thought about it and I was like, man, I'm complaining about something that's actually so beautiful that my mom is here to make food

in a house that I own. I didn't have a house when I was younger and I'm complaining to food only because I spend so much time in hotel rooms that I was trying to keep my house like it was a hotel. I don't, I don't, in the hotel rooms. Right. You want to just smell like lilacs or candles or something, not like fried onions.

Not like fried onion and cabbage. But then when I went downstairs and I opened up one of the pots and my mom was making cabbage. And I realized that I didn't really eat my mother's food growing up because we didn't live together. I think that was a moment for me of being empathetic towards my own mom because you never know what someone else's experience was and my mom just wanted to feed me. In that very moment, like that really hit me because I looked at my mom and then I just gave a hug

and thanked her for cooking and ate some of her cabbage. But just looking at this like part of cabbage, it's probably something I'm gonna remember because it was a moment for me of like, wow, wait a minute, my mom is still here. People are losing their moms and their parents and my mom is here and all she wanted to do was cook some food for me.

You think she'd give us that recipe for that cabbage? I mean, I don't know what she put in it. Would you mind asking her? We could share with you. I can definitely ask her. You know what? I'll ask her. We'll share it with our listeners.

And I'll share it with you. We love to talk about kitchens. And I love that club quarantine started in your kitchen. Yes. But I want to talk to you about what else happens in your kitchen, too, because you're a devoted father. Yes. You wake up early, very early, to make sure

that you have a moment with your little girl, even though she's in a different time zone. During the quarantine, that's what I would do. I would wake up, speak with her before she would go to school. And I'll say this, when we were finally reunited. I give her the credit too, because I lived in California. Her mom was living in Michigan. We all in the same state, city, now, 10 minutes apart. But then during COVID, Dylan, she really wanted to be with me. So we had to wake up every morning at like 4.30 in the morning. I'm sorry, 3.30 in the morning to start getting ready to do virtual school because she

was still being virtually schooled in Michigan, but because she wanted to be in California with me, I would have to wake up at 3.30. You get me some coffee, get her something to eat so she could be prepared to learn. And then she would do virtual schooling from 7.45 a.m. until noon and we did that every day for about seven or eight months. I'm tired just listening to you talk about that. Yes, every single day and I was still DJing. I would go into kitchen cook breakfast, get lunch ready, sometimes we would order lunch but then I would go into my studio and then back on club quarantine

and playing music for people. But my kid, not even just my kid, all of these kids, they were all troopers. Yeah, yeah, that was hard. It was hard. That was really hard. It was hard. I've seen you with your girls.

Yes, because I... You are the pinnacle of a doting father. And I love it. And we love that about you. I try to pour into them. It's funny because my oldest daughter is, she's 26, and she called me the other day, and she was like, Dad, Dylan's in my makeup, in my room.

I was like, Ashley, you're 26. You're about to get married. When it's just gonna become like the spirit of everyone in my house. Like, what, I'm supposed to always have a way. They never go away. Like, I need a guest bedroom now. But no, they just they don't go away. They just come back with spouses, partners, dogs and babies.

But no, I love being a dad, you know, and it's one of the things that keeps me going, you know, I love being a dad, you know, and it's one of the things that keeps me going, you know. I love music, obviously, music is totally like a major part of my life, but being a father is so important. I have love talking to you. This was great. Thank you so much. Much love to you.

Love you. The kitchens all throughout D. NICE's life paint a beautiful picture of his journey. From that small galley kitchen in the Bronx where he made the cornbuff hash concoction that wound up altering the course of his life, to the kitchen and his downtown LA apartment where he came up with the idea for club quarantine. The kitchen consistently provided a place for Deneies to foster his own dreams and ambitions. And as you heard, he went to some tough places for this conversation. He reached back to memories that he's kept locked away, and I'm grateful that he's willing

to do that. I'm grateful that he was willing to talk about the importance of mental health and the practice of empathy. Notice how I use the word practice there. Just like yoga or learning how to play the piano or throw a football or cook a perfect dish. The more you practice, the better you get. An empathy is something worth working on for all of us. Now, D.N.I.S didn't have access to his mom's cabbage recipe, so rather than simply gifting a recipe to you this week, we're also going to give one to D. Nice.

We did some searching and found one that we think might be a little something like what is mom used to make and that we hope will bring him comforting memories of love and family today. You can find that on our website at your mom's kitchen.com and I'll post it on Instagram as well. Finally, when we heard D. Nys say he loves to cook, we also learned that he just purchased a brand new Dutch oven. There's one little problem.

He doesn't know what to make in it. So I promise that I would send him my killer recipe for chili. It's a perfect way to break in a Dutch oven. And we thought maybe some of you might want to send him recipes for that new Dutch oven as well. Send those recipes our way and we'll make sure that he gets them. It's a small way of saying thank you to D. Nice for cooking up so much joy for all of

us during the long COVID lockdown. Special thanks this week and hats on to Crystal Carson, Melissa Bear with say what media and clean cuts in Washington, D.C. I'm Michele Nora, Sabah Glorious Day, and come back soon for another episode of Your Mama's Kitchen. Thanks so much for listening, be Bountiful, see you soon. This has been a higher ground and audible original, produced by higher ground studios. Producers for your mom's kitchen are Natalie Rin and Sonia Tan, sound design and engineering from Andrew Epen and Roy Baum.

Production support from Angel Carreras and Julia Murray. Higher ground audios editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camilla Thertacus. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukde Mohan, Dan Firman and Michelle Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Zola Masheriki, Nick DiAngelo and Ann Heperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Special thanks to Joe Paulson, Melissa Bear, and Angela Paluso. Head of Audible Studios, Zola Masheriki,

Chief Content Officer, Rachel Guiazza. Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Sound recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Higher Ground you