JOHNSON: But my mom wrote a lot of his music, and he never gave her credit for it. MARTIN: Your father is blues musician Syl Johnson. They only associate me with my dad, who's obviously a blues artist - blues and R&B artist for years. JOHNSON: My mom was a singer, and a lot of people don't know that. MARTIN: Well, how - do you mind? What brought you all to that point? JOHNSON: Maybe I shouldn't have listened. And I just want you to say, you're enough the way you are. And I'm mad at you because you increase those feelings in me when I fight them every day.
And I'm pissed about it because I don't want to be this way or feel this way. JOHNSON: I'm happy and - I'm unhappy, and I'm sad.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "IYANLA: FIX MY LIFE") MARTIN: All right, well, I'm going to play that. Would it hurt you for me to play it? Would it be - how would you feel about my playing it? You know, Syleena, I don't know if it's - I hope it's not painful to bring it up, but your relationship with your mom, apparently, was strained to the point where you and your mom both agreed to appear on the OWN Network's TV show, "Iyanla: Fix My Life" to see if you could kind of bring some repair to that. And I think that one of the reasons that people who follow you both will be happy about that is that you've both been through some things. MARTIN: One of the things I think that will please a lot of your fans is that there is this kind of happy factor in the work. JOHNSON: I don't know, just the way it makes me feel is just - I don't know. JOHNSON: It's so happy, and it's just dope. JOHNSON: Because, like, the vocal arrangement is so cool. MARTIN: Syleena, you were saying this is one of your favorites. JOHNSON: No, this one is really my favorite. And I don't mean that in a trivial way - like, happiness is hard won. MARTIN: The whole album does have that kind of happy feel, if I can say it that way. JOHNSON: It was a play date for grown-ups. MARTIN: It's like a play date for grown-ups. Oh, and we can do this, and we can jump off that building, and then we can fly. I mean, it was just so funny how everything came about because, you know, we were like two kids - you know how, like, when two kids come together and they just - they can imagine the most outlandish, probably will never see the light of day type stuff, but you believe in it so much, you know. It wasn't nine days consecutively, but ultimately - 'cause we just had to take some days off.
SOULCHILD: Yeah, I mean, just to be fair, for, you know, for reality's sake 'cause I'm all about being real. And it just went from there and we literally stayed in the studio, I mean, slept there. And I was like, well, let's call it "9INE," and then we can do it in nine days. And then it was like, yeah, and let's do - and he was like, well, let's just do nine songs. We were both like, let's just do a duet reggae album, you know. And because we're both so busy and we're both doing a whole bunch of stuff, including our solo projects. JOHNSON: So then we just started talking, and then we started talking about how we were inspired by the compilations project to do a reggae album. So then we came to the studio to do the duet and we hadn't seen each other in what - 5, 6 years? We were supposed to both, individually, do, like, a solo song with a producer named Kemar McGregor for his reggae compilation CD and because we were in contact with Kemar, and Kemar was like, oh, Musiq's doing a record, and he told Musiq the same, we were like, oh, then we should do a duet. MARTIN: Syleena, we are told this actually came together quite spontaneously and now - and we're used to this idea of collaborations requiring months of phone calls and checking of schedules with people, but that did not - with your people and his people - but that didn't happen in this case? Tell us how it did happen. SYLEENA JOHNSON: Thank you for having us. Welcome, thank you so much for joining us. And they are both with us now to talk more about it. MARTIN: That was "Bring Me Down" from the new album titled "9INE." That's a new calibration between R&B heavyweights Musiq Soulchild and Syleena Johnson. Switching gears now, take two highly accomplished musicians, two friends with a love of reggae, put them in the studio for nine days, what do you get? Let's listen.