Category: Juicy Talk

Juicy Peach: So the name Phoenix Williams is that your author name? How did that come about?

Aiyla: That is my author name. It is not my real name but I wish it was my real name because it sounds nice. It came from a really good friend of mine, we were talking one night and I was telling him about some things that I wanted to make changes on and he was like you’re just like a phoenix re-inventing yourself.  So that’s where that came from. 

 Juicy Peach: When did you first get the idea to write your first book?

 Aiyla: When I was in college I had a blog and I used to put a lot of poetry on there so when I left school I came back home and I was trying to figure out what the heck I want to do with my life. I woke up on 4/20 (giggles) I am not a smoker by the way, well not that kind of smoker. So yeah I woke up that day and I called my best friend and I was telling her that I think I have enough poems to make a coffee table book. She was like girl you should go on and do it. So I put all the poems together in a book and I realized I didn’t have enough to publish an actual book so I thought maybe if I added in some short stories I could make it long enough. So I added in the short stories and it ended up being my first book “Running” which has all short stories and no poems. Everyone who read it liked the short stories better than they liked the poems.

 Juicy Peach: Are any of these short stories based off true events?

 Aiyla: Everybody asks me that. With any author I would say that you probably draw from personal experience. Everybody’s been in love, everybody that I know have had sex people have done things that they aren’t necessarily are proud of. I would say in that sense yeah there were true emotions behind every story whether or not some of these stories are actually real I will not say (giggles) only because there are other people involved in those stories. I would say I have some real life experiences from this myself.

 Juicy Peach: What are your views on sex?

 Aiyla: It’s a great thing. Here’s the problem that I have with some people, some people are very prude and saying things like “sex is a bad thing” and blah blah blah.. but we all got here because two people got together and made you. So obviously sex is a good thing otherwise you would not be here and I find the who protest the loudest has the most freakiest shit in their closet.

Juicy Peach: I do have to be honest reading your books will make someone feel some type of way cause that’s how I felt lol Do you get turned on while writing or rereading your material?

 Aiyla: When I reread it and I feel myself getting turned on them I’m like this will be a good book. I have a lot of stories that I’ve written that I have not put out only because it doesn’t have that effect. If I can’t imagine myself in that situation and feel some kind of way about it and I don’t wanna be one of the characters or do the characters then it’s not going inside the book.

 Juicy Peach: I’m a witness of how everyone at our job loved your books including me but what is the overall feedback that you are receiving from your books?

 Aiyla: I’ve received nothing but good feed back. There are a few that said some things that at first I took personally but I realized that this industry is not made for heart. If you’re trying to be a writer you can’t always wear your heart on your sleeves because reading is objective. What I write you may not like it and what you write I may not like it so most of the feedback that I have received has been really really good and I was really honestly surprised because I wasn’t expecting anybody besides my two best friends to complete the book. I didn’t think that anybody would read it at all.

Juicy Peach: Will there be a book tour soon? How are you reaching out to your fans?

 Aiyla: I’m trying to schedule a book tour soon. Many people don’t know that I am a single parent so trying to schedule a book tour is very difficult when I have to make sure he gets to school. So most of the time I reach out to my fans and I travel to try to see them when school is out so summer break spring break and winter break because I want to make sure that I’m here for him. So my number one job is to be here for him.  I do have a few things planned for the summer. Once I get something definite than I will go ahead and post it. I have a facebook and a twitter. I don’t have an Instagram yet only because I’m extremely cheap and don’t want to buy a new phone but I feel like that’s probably going to have to change soon. I definitely will be trying in October to go to the black book festival down in Houston. It’s a lot of different things going on in Chicago for writers, there’s book week and Publishers Role going on. So I will definitely try to make more of an effort to reach out but I am available through email but for as seeing me face to face I want to come out and do that soon.

 Juicy Peach: What things are you currently working on?

 Aiyla: I’m working on a few different things if you read Red Door you’re probably very upset with me because I left it on such an extreme cliff hanger. But I think I’m known for that leaving you hanging for more. I do that because I like to make books. I like to make you guys read them so I leave you hanging. But “Red Door 2” is going to be coming out soon. Lady Bird Chronicles 2 and I know that everybody has been waiting for. Every time I see people they ask me what’s happening with the Lady Bird Chronicles that will be coming out in August. I have another book that I’m working on called the “Common Set” it’s another book with short stories. It’s a different view it’s not like my regular work like lets all get naked ( laughter) it’s completely different and that will be coming out hopefully in April and I just finished my 6^th book called “Chocolate Orgasm” I love that book it’s like some of my favorite short stories in that book and it just came out a couple of weeks ago.

 Juicy Peach: Anything you want your fans to know about you?

 Aiyla: I’m a very shy person so going out and meeting my fans is very difficult.  And I know it doesn’t seem like it but I wanna do it but I’m very scared. But I’m going to make that happen soon. I would love for my fans who have been rocking with me since “Running” to get together and we discuss the book and what you want from me. I think that most authors don’t take the time to see what the fans want to hear they just assume but I really want to know it. So I want to set up something with the girls from the previous job to come together so you guys can let me know what you want to hear from me because I really am open for feedback.

Have you ever sat down with someone and within 10 seconds you knew you were in the presence of greatness? Well that’s exactly how I felt while interviewing New Orleans native David Augustine Jr. better known as Dee-1! During our exclusive All Star Weekend interview he let me know how he went from being a middle school school teacher to signing a deal with RCA Records & touring with Lupe Fiasco! Hands down one of the most humble, talented intellectual men in the game and ladies a cutie. Be sure to check out the interview to see what soul+swagXnew orleans= Dee-1 is all about and be sure to download his latest mixtape Psalms of David II
WWW.DEE1music.com

 

-Gorgeous Grape

On Valentine’s Day the Juicy Expressions Staff covered the Celebrity Sweat Bowl-A-Thon, an event to raise money for the Boys and Girls Clubs of New Orleans. There we had the opportunity to interview 2Chainz, ex NBA Legend Darryl Dawkins, Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks, and the humble talented Dee-1 rapper from New Orleans. There was a lot of great entertainment. Please check out http://www.csweat.com/ to find out more information on celebrity sweat.

Follow Billy Blanks on twitter @Thebillyblanks

Darryl Dawkins is a retired professional basketball player who played for numerous NBA teams the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, Utah Jazz, and Detroit Pistons. Dawkins is know for shattering the back boards and leaving the crowd’s mouth wide open. Darryl  was really down to earth and it was a pleasure interviewing him! He lived up to his nickname “Chocolate Thunder” because he was full of personality.

 

Follow Darryl Dawkins on twitter @Thunderdunk53

 

2 chainz was happy to give back to charity! It was nice vibing with him until next time! Follow 2Chainz on Instagram @hairweavekiller and on twitter @2chainz

-Juicy Peach

Juicy Peach: When did you first start your clothing line Materialistic Enspiration? Where did the name come from? I noticed you use E instead of I for inspiration.

Rod: I started it 3 years ago, I started with the I love head tshirts. That shirt sold out in like a week. It was like a promo shirt it didn’t have nothing to do with the name. The name comes from growing up, my momma kept me in high end designer clothes so basically I became materialistic and when I got my first job all I was doing was working to buy clothes. Buying shoes, clothes, that’s basically being materialistic. By me being a shorty I was inspired to become materialistic.  I’m tired of spending 300, 400 on clothes and shoes I was like I’m gone make my own. So that’s where I got the name. And at the end of the day all you got is yourself so that’s why I changed the I to an E and it’s me.

Juicy Peach: What is your vision for everything in 2014?

Rod: 2014 I’m taking off like for real this time.  I started it 3 years ago, I was making the money but I was spending it doing other stuff like paying bills. But this year I got a couple investors and I’m building a team. So it ain’t just me it’s us.

Juicy Peach: Why is there not a website available is there one coming soon?

Rod: Yeah it’s a website coming soon but for now it’s just local. Cause I ain’t really into the shipping thing to heavy. I don’t like when packages get lost. So for right now I’m going to keep it local.

Juicy Peach: What inspires you the most?

Rod: Just seeing people fresh, just good fashion not this fufu shit going on around here. Just real people who’s been doing it. People that enjoy being fly and know how to dress up. FLY SHIT ONLY! Your woman could wear cheap leggings or whatever and look good in them but for men it’s different. You can have on a white tee but every man think they clean if they have a pocket full of money but that white tee ain’t gone do it. You gotta dress it up a lil bit and now days you don’t see too many men in white tees everybody into fashion now. I also made a quote “Fashion is going to outshine violence one day” cause it is. Everybody’s getting into fashion, everybody have a clothing line out/ t-shirt line or want to have one. If you look around you will see this expanding and we need that.

Juicy Peach: Are you the only designer for your line?

Rod: Yeah I am, I have friends that have ideas and I just put them on paper and bring it to life in front of them so they can see it. But for future references whoever hear this If you have an idea and I rock with it we could make something happen and put some money into it.

Juicy Peach: What group are you trying to appeal to most with Materialistic Enspiration?

Rod: Everybody has a little bit of Materialistic Enspiration inside of them. I don’t know one person who doesn’t enjoy checking out at that cash register. That’s just real talk.

Juicy Peach: What is your favorite clothing line that you rock besides your own?

Rod: Nike, Jordan, but on the high end I like Gucci, Louis, Fendi , the Main Oak Street, Mabel’s, for women Tory Burch, it’s a lot of them out there.

  Juicy Peach: I really like the West Side gear that you have, what significance does the west side of Chicago plays into your life?

Rod: This is where I was born and raised at. This is home. Everybody say that the west side small or they say it’s a small world but the west side ain’t small it’s just smaller than the south side. Everybody know everybody cause its all love out west. Out west is solid its more universal people out here. You can go any where you want to go out west but out south you can’t leave your block. I’m not dissing the south side but I just don’t rock with the south side like that. I love Chicago but I love the west side.

Juicy Peach: Who are your biggest supporters?

Rod: Family and friends right now. There isn’t just one person cause everybody rock with me. I ain’t never got a complaint about nothing. Quality merchandise = Quality Customers and that’s quality business.

On January 15th I had the opportunity to interview Ryan and Tenelle personally and here’s what they had to say..

Juicy Peach: What does freedom mean to you?

Tenelle: The ability to live as you chose.

Ryan: Being mentally free and able to do what you choose.

Juicy Peach: Where does your inspiration as artists come from?

Tenelle: I feel like with the experiences that we’ve had in the past few years and the fact that we can become an artist is more real to me. It has always been a dream of mine but now I’ve seen more, I’ve experienced more in life. And I feel like just more prepared to be what we would like to be.

Ryan: To add to that the inspiration for me would be the ability to kind of do what I want. I’m inspired by the fact of wanting to live out my dreams. Like my dreams are my inspiration and my motivation and they keep me going. Just that motivation to continue on to make our dreams come true is a big inspiration.

Juicy Peach:I know that you guys like Kanye, Drake, Jay-z, Wayne, and Lupe but who is the artist that you admire the most? 

Tenelle: kanye

 Ryan: Pharell

Juicy Peach: How has your bond grew since the 2^nd or 3^rd grade?

Tenelle: it’s basically the same we’re brothers. We went to the same schools every school that he’s been to I’ve been to. I’ve been with him since day 1 so now we kind of in the real world for the first time as adults. And we gearing up to chase our next task and that’s becoming a main stream artist or a national artist or whatever you want to call it. Getting rich getting this bread and doing what we like to do.  Having fun and taking our family lives to the next level so they can enjoy their lives more. And escaping this hell hole we live in called north Saint Louis. But aint nothing really changed from us we the same people to each other we just been growing, days have gone by but that’s about it.

Juicy Peach: Who are you looking forward to collaborating with?

Ryan: I don’t know if I’m looking forward to collaborating with anybody. Right now I’m more so looking forward to the world hearing our music than us collaborating with somebody. Some of my musical idols I’m looking forward to them hearing my music versus than just a group of people that I’m looking to collaborating with right now.

Tenelle: I agree with what he said right now we just trying to get our foot in the door period. A lot of collaborations for me I would like to just come organically I wouldn’t try to force it just because I like so and so. If I knew them and if I could meet them and I hear them on something it would just have to come about. It’s more of a see what happens kind of thing. You might have someone who u think you may wanted to work with and they may suck or when you meet them they may not be the person you thought they were. But I would like to work with some producers I really like hit boy and overdose a lot and a lot of young artist that we would collaborate with and make some tight music with.

Juicy Peach: That’s deep a lot of people are always looking to collaborate with somebody for example like Wayne just to get on. That’s dope that ya’ll are really standing on your own.  So that’s definitely what’s up.

Juicy Peach: So let’s talk about your single Family which is now being sold on iTunes I actually copped it so I have it on my phone. How does it feel to know that people from all areas support yall?

Tenelle: It’s a great feeling. We got a chance this past summer to go open up for Wale in New York. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent your life in St. Louis but here it’s like we always knew we were tight ourselves but everybody just knew us as who we were before we rapped so I don’t know if they just don’t wanna take you seriously or whatever but here we never got the reaction that we got like we did in New York. People were treating us like we were God’s gift to earth after we got done with our set. It’s a great feeling to know that people are listening. We have people who like our music in the UK and just all different types of places and it’s really special because it shows you how much hip-hop has grown.  It’s not based off what areas you’re from or nothing like that. We are evolving as a culture. So that’s a good feeling for me.

Juicy Peach: Speaking on the chorus of Family “I’m trying to do this for my family got a plan A I ain’t got no plan B. “Ryan what is your ultimate vision for yourself that you can’t see being altered?

Ryan: I want to be an influence to people the way that people influence me. I want to be an influence for people to do what they want to do. Hopefully I can influence people in a way that my music can make them have a good day. Or my music can inspire them to get through issues with their families and they can look to me as a positive influence. You don’t necessarily have to meet somebody for them to be a positive influence on you. Growing up in St. Louis I was into music and basketball we didn’t have a NBA team and celebrities weren’t coming through here so I had to be influenced by those people from a far. So hopefully if I can’t come in contact with some people physically I can just be an influence to them and they can do what they want to do.

 

Juicy Peach:Tenelle In your verse on Family you stated “Stay loyal to the people you start your grind with.” Who has been down with you since you’ve started your Souls of Liberty grind besides Ryan?

 Tenelle: My family just in general outside of me, special friends and family. Since our career started I feel like it’s been me, Ryan, and maybe my homeboy c he’s a dope artist you should check him out. Ryan’s cousin Kevin been down since day 1 and my cousin lil Dave he’s been down since day 1. Our peer group and our circle of friends for the most part have been real supportive since day 1. But then it’s been people also that are close to me on a personal level who we just now winning over because maybe they never thought it were realistic for us to be doing something on a big scale. A lot of people may love you but also at the same time they are like” Well make sure you finish school because you never know…..” They didn’t have unyielding faith and now we’re starting to get them to the point where they believe.  People are starting to see the potential that we always saw in ourselves. But my cousins and my close friends gave me the reassurance that I was tight and that I could do it.

Juicy Peach: What is the meaning behind the album title 10,000 hours?

 Tenelle: 10,000 hours is a theory that was made by this man named Malcolm Gladwell where he says deliberate practice for 10,000 hours will master your craft. I came across it on YouTube. He has a book called Outliers that’s really popular in American Culture and I ended up reading that after I found about it. But I’ve always randomly heard the saying 10,000 hours and I came across a basketball YouTube series randomly about two kids who weren’t prototypical basketball players but they were trying to work hard to reach their goals and putting 10,000 hours in it and see what happen. They were documenting their workouts in the gym and running bleachers. Doing all the things that they could possibly do to fulfil their potential and it kind of related to us because I felt like we have put that time in but we have to continue to work hard. This album for us is not just any album, it’s us finally reaching our potential or working through to the point where we finally mastered our craft and we’ve been working towards it slowly over time throughout the course of our life but now we finally made it there. We put the work in and we feel like we deserve it. We didn’t deserve it any other time because we didn’t put enough work in. If you’re not on its nobody else fault it goes back to what you’re doing. And this time I think we got it all together because we mastered it.

Juicy Peach: I know that you guys just recently shot your video for your new single Future Millionaires which is dropping Friday so what is the first thing that you would do when you receive a million dollars?

Ryan: Invest it! Invest it in what I don’t know but I don’t think I would spend it on anything. I feel like I’m a long way from a million dollars so I feel like I would do something more exciting with my first 100,000 dollars like the first million dollars I feel like I would just be afraid that I wouldn’t get it again so to be safe I would save my million so I would always have a million dollars.

Tenelle: I would definitely take care of my momma, do something hella tight for her that she hasn’t been able to do. She hasn’t been able to travel or do anything that she wanted to do so I would try to do something great for her for holding me down all this time. And for my aunt and other people that’s special for me. But outside of that I would do like Ryan and start thinking of ways to use that money to make some more. Like how I’m gone make this next million and how I’m going to make it to a billion. Basically invest it in different things maybe like real-estate ventures, pay some stuff off for my mama and I would pay off my student loans so uncle Sam can get the f*** off me real quick. And after that just grind and put it back into the stuff that we love to do.

Juicy Peach: If you could give one piece of advice to the opposite of sex what would that be?

 Tenelle: I would let them know that they’re beautiful and to communicate. Don’t hold your tongue if you feel a certain way make sure the man you’re involved with know that. Men can’t read minds. Most of the time all of the issues I had were because either the women were not extremely secure with their selves or they expect you to know what’s gone make them happy. So make sure you always have the lines of communication open and if you feel a certain way don’t keep it in and expect for anybody to know.

Ryan: I would tell the opposite sex to stay patient. I feel like a lot of girls see they friends getting married especially our age and they want to do it also. So I would tell them to stay patient even if they have a partner stay patient with their partner because men don’t get the best hints and majority of the time. Just stay patient and work with him.

 Tenelle: I wanna add on to my answer. If you getting dogged…DON’T LET NO BODY DOG YOU. As I grew up I’ve watched a lot of women in my family personally just be with men that they don’t need to be with at all and a lot of girls feel like they can make a man better. You can’t just do a makeover of somebody. Like if he’s and idiot and you take him in he not gone get smarter and get his degree. You can’t do that it’s not pimp my ride. A lot of girls need to know when to keyshia Cole the situation and let it go and move on.

 

Follow @SoulsofLiberty on Instagram and Twitter. Also like their page on Facebook and subscribe to their YouTube channel SBI films.