K-Ci Hailey Of Jodeci Talks Father MC, His Bobby Womack Remake & The Viral Tom Joyner Video

K-Ci Hailey recently appeared on the “R&B Money” podcast and gave some history on Father MC’s “Treat Them Like They Want To Be Treated,” Bobby Womack’s “If You Think You’re Lonely Now,” & the viral “Tom Joyner Morning Show” performance.

..I think, if I’m not mistaken… I think, were we the first group that ever did, like, collabs with rappers?… Or… were we?…

Now Father MC was the first one, after Father MC, I never heard nobody, not in our era, if we did, I don’t know, but, as far as our era, I think we were the first ones, Father MC was the first thing.

…Andre knew what he was doing. This is how I’m gonna introduce my group, like that, and once again they sent us to the studio to do it.

…Once again, got me and JoJo in the studio, let us hear “Treat Um,” and, ah, it sounded good, but it wasn’t churchy enough.

…Nobody wasn’t doing that, so we put that church in there, that was it.

K-Ci Hailey credits Andre Harrell for introducing them to the world by having them sing background vocals in the Father MC “Treat Them Like They Want To Be Treated” video.

Watch Father MC’s “Treat Them How They Wanna Be Treated” video below:

K-Ci Hailey also credits Andre Harrell for suggesting that he remakes Bobby Womacks’ song “If You Think You’re Lonely Now.”

I was chilling at home one night, man, and, um, Dre called me.

Dre called me. Lucky enough I was like only a few blocks away from the studio.

Because I had a condo, you know, I wasn’t staying at my house, I was staying at my condo in the city.

Anyway, he called me, he said, ‘Yo, what you doing?’ I said, ‘Um, Dre it’s 12 o’clock man, what’s going on?’ He said, ‘I need you to come around to the studio’ He said, ‘You in the city?… Yeah, I’m in the city. I need you to come around to the studio man, and do this song. Um, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” by Bobby Womack, you know that?… Yeah, I know it.

I heard my momma dem, I heard my daddy dem, you know, I done heard it around the house a few times, what’s up?…’

I already liked it because I like that song. ‘I need you to come around the corner and do that, I said, ‘Man, come on Dre, man… Just get around here man.’

So when I got around there, I was blessed because before I got to the studio, Mr. Womack himself, himself had did a reference, for me… I’m dead up!

He did a reference for me, man. So, mind now it’s 12 o’clock I said, ‘You want me to, um, sing like that… this hard, right?… He said, ‘Yeah, you can do it.’ I listened to the, um, I listened to the reference. I said, ‘What did he have?’ I said, ‘When he, when he sang that hard what was on his rider? What did he have?’ You know what I’m saying?… He said, ‘Yo, he ordered a 5th of Gin, a six-pack of Heineken… Give me a 5th of Gin, a six-pack of Heineken.’

I already had my cigarettes. I got that Gin in me, LET’S GO!!!… Knock that out! That’s how that went.

Watch K-Ci’s, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” video below:

J. Valentine, who is one of the co-hosts of the podcast questioned K-Ci about when him and his brother JoJo went viral singing live on Tom Joyner, and K-Ci responded:

What they did not tell us was… check it out man, they told us man, they told us like, um, ‘Number one, everybody had on headphones in there, right?… So what we heard, what we heard… And what y’all heard… Ah, man!… Somebody in there was, like, ‘I got they a**!’ Raw and uncut, raw and uncut, no effects, just waking up, I don’t even care if they woke up, I don’t care, it’s early!… I’m in my quartet mode, I’m in my quartet voice, ready! They didn’t give a damn!

Buddy, when I saw it, when I saw it… It’s my first time talking about that sh*t.

‘WHEN I SAW IT… MY A**!… MY A**! I was like, ‘Wooahh!… I didn’t see that coming. It is what it is… Oh, that’s how we living… Oh, that’s how we talking.’

…You can laugh when you’re a legend. You can laugh at stuff like that.

Tank, who has also been on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” agreed with K-Ci that when he performed on the show, they also put a feed in his ear that the audience could not hear.

It appears that the sound engineer on the show during that time only played the audio in the performers’ headsets, which made their performance seem acapella to the audience.

The K-Ci and JoJo performance on the Tom Joyner show received a lot of negative feedback from fans.

Watch K-Ci and JoJo’s full performance on the Tom Joyner show below:

Watch the clip of the K-Ci Hailey interview from the “R&B Money” podcast below:

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