IRL Take Aways: Teyana Taylor

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andie Martinez in Real life podcast. This episode and conversation
is powered by a DUSA. Hi guys, we are back baby.
It is another edition of Edgie Martinez IRL Takeaways. These
are the episodes where we These are audio only episodes
where we discuss our past interviews and so our last
interview was with Tiana Taylor. I'm here with my show producer, Brittany. Brittany,

(00:24):
what can you say about Tianna Taylor?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Like many of you, I was introduced to Tiana a
super sweet sixteen and then she just never left my
site after that.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
I know it's great, but she said, she was like,
you grew up right in front of me. I grew
up right in front of you. That wasn't just for me,
that was like all of us, like the whole industry
and world kind of watched her as that young girl
then evolved and have all these amazing moments in her
career and this moment that she's having now with this
new movie she's in. She just actually hit the carpet
at met Gala. She was eating Chick fil A at

(00:55):
met Gala. You know, she's just a kind of an
it girl. She always has been where people just want
to watch her and see what she does, and she's
entertaining and talented and all those things, but I feel
like I got to know her in a different way.
And even knowing her all these years and even interviewing
her these years, I don't ever feel like I got
to know her and the way we got to know
her on this episode. I think I feel like almost too,

(01:17):
that she got to know herself a little bit in
this episode, like in real time.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
She was definitely unpacking in real time with you, sitting
down talking about things that she's never even probably even
talked to herself about in full.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
We did ask her right after the interview how she
felt about it. Here's what she said, Ooh, I feel
a slew of emotions, but I think I hit on
a lot of things that needed to be shared for
maybe other people who has been through what I've been through. Yeah,

(01:50):
so she was okay with sharing, But even then I
could feel like she was I don't want to say
freaked out, but a little like, oh what did I
just say? Or what do we just talk about? Like
I felt like she felt a little vulnerable. What do you
always call that? Vulnerability? Hangover stole that right from Brene Brown.
That's a real thing she talks about, which I feel like,
sometimes you know, you gotta be vulnerable. We know this

(02:12):
and it helps. That's how you share your story. Other
people learn from your story. But sometimes after you feel
like a little naked. I feel like she felt like that.
I wanted to hug her after the interview. I'm like,
I wanted her to be like, it's okay. So if
we're talking about our takeaways from the episode. For me, well,
number one, I'd never heard about her father before, right,

(02:36):
And so she opened up about her dad and her
stepfather and having that type of trauma, and it then
becoming like abandonment issues for her. And then afterwards I
was told that she really actually never talks about her
that ever. I don't think she planned to talk about
it either. I think it just came up when we
were talking about the hurt that she felt in her career.
She felt like she wasn't protected. She said, I feel

(02:58):
like I had abandonment issues. And then I asked about
where they came from. And here's what she said about that,
what is the abandonment issues from? Because your family is around.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
But my mom was a single parent. My biological pops
was in jail like thirteen fourteen, here's my life thirteen.
He was something like that. And so even with that,
you know, before my mom found true love and happiness,

(03:33):
was just both loved bow money and that's who bo is.
But like before you know, bout really came around and
we got super duper close. You got to think about it,
like coming from that not really having a dad, and
then you know, another figure in my life wound up
getting murdered, you know, the closest thing. And that's why

(03:56):
my pops, my pops are still locked up. So I
had to be part of about like eleven twelve, my
mom's uh at the time was murdered, and that she
just took me down, you know what I'm saying. So
my biological pops coming out of jail, us trying to
build a wayship, we just kept clashing. We were clashing

(04:18):
because it's like you got out thinking you was about
to like tell me how this ship run. And it's like, bro,
you've been like for dumb long. You don't even know
how to work the steering wheel, like you you fee
what I'm saying, yn't even know how to work the
gap that chair what the fuck is you talk about?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You call him dad or were not first name?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
But the crazy what about it is I wanted that
figure so bad that, yes, when he first got out,
I was excited to say dad until he got me
fucked up a little bit, you feel me. So then
it was just like being signed, getting signed to to
a man. You know, it was like a figure to me,

(04:55):
you know what I'm saying, Like, oh my god, Like
you know, I looked at these people like figure, you
know what I'm saying. Whether it was as a as
a dad or as a brother, it didn't matter. So
it was like you didn't see me when you didn't
hear me, you didn't protect me. You just kind of
just like fed.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Me to the wolves. That's heavy stuff, any I mean, listen,
Daddy issues come up all the time in this podcast,
so that's when people tap into that it is not
something that is like just a throwaway that's like the
core of people's trauma a lot of times, the core
of people's you know, like abandoned issues things like that.
So the fact that she talked about it this day,

(05:34):
I think was like the main point of like her vulnerability,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
In the movie, she plays her a mother who she
says it's her first like serious role. The movie is
called one thousand and one if you haven't seen it,
she's out.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
So good in it.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
It's her first serious role. And she says that a
lot of the trauma that her character experiences in the
film forced her to take a look at the trauma
in her own life.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
She came to that concluded, Yeah, so she's probably thinking
about it and doing that work. And then this interview
happened and she kind of just opened up about her
dad and her stepfather and having all that trauma and
having the abandonment issues that would then lead her to
feel unprotected in this crazy music business that she stepped into.
And now, mind you, she's fifteen years old and signed
to Pharrell and looking at him as like a father figure.

(06:22):
And I could tell that she was scared to talk
about this because, you know how like the blogs and
just the way social media treats stories. I could tell
that she didn't want this to land on Pharrell's lap
in a way that was disrespectful. I could tell that
she was concerned about, you know, how he would receive. However,
her words came back so She was very careful about

(06:42):
how she said it. She made sure to say how
grateful she was for Pharrell, and she talked about the
conversation that the two of them had and how therapeutic
it was. Let's share some of that.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Actually, no matter how I felt when when I was younger,
like none of these doors would ever open if it
wasn't for Pete. So one thing about me is I
just know how to give thanks, you know what I'm
saying to the people who has blessed me. So it's
like with him, it's why I hold him on such
a high postsuit because I didn't I didn't have a dad,

(07:18):
you know what I'm saying. And he enjoyed me bragging
about him, like, you know, calling him dad because maybe
something that he wanted, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
He wanted he wanted.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Kids at the time really bad, and maybe he was
in whatever space he was in, but it was clearly
the emotional space for the both of us. And it's
just I don't know. My mom always told me to
be grounded and just be thankful for people that are
blessings to me. So it's just like even it is
mad if I was hurt I was a mom, so

(07:52):
I had learned patience, I learned grace, I learned you know.
So it's just like I was really hitting him up
to just like saying thank you, you know what I'm saying,
for everything, because also knowing him as well as I
know him, it wasn't the thing that you did on purpose.
You didn't purposely not protect me, you know what I'm saying.
It might have been a thing where like you like,
you know, he's so gentle, you know, and just kind

(08:15):
of just like let everybody push him off the way.
And I guess for me, that fifteen year old, that
girl just needed you to fight a little harder, you
know what I'm saying, needed you to maybe push even
if you didn't have the strength to. I just needed
you to push for me more. I love that.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
She says that she had the conversation with Farrell at
a high point in her career. She had just gotten
what she calls the biggest moment in her career. She
was in the Fade video for Kanye So good. She's
she's getting new opportunities, brand deal.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Hot Girl, let her She's popping trending topics, trending topics,
popping she killed that video. Everybody's like ooh, ooh, Tiana Tianna.
And then she's like, look, Pharrell, like I want to
talk to you about a few things, like I'm super
grateful for you. You know, I felt disappointed in this
whatever that she didn't share the d tells of what
the conversation was, but I could tell it was like
healing and and you know, both of them. I hope

(09:07):
Pharrell got wind of this and in the way that
it was meant to be delivered, you know, because I
saw some of the blogs pick it up and the
wording of the captions wasn't exactly true to the full
picture of what she was saying. It was like, you know,
Tiana Taylor has uh. It felt like she wasn't protected
when she was signed to Pharrell. And then the headline
stops right there, But that's not really the story. The

(09:29):
story is that this fifteen year old girl sign signed
to this superstar and she had daddy issues, abandonment issues,
and she signed to him thinking this person's going to
protect me as a young girl, and didn't always feel
like that, but she had so much respect for him,
so much love for him. She admits that she doesn't
know maybe some of the challenges that he was going

(09:49):
through at the time in terms of how he was
carrying her. There's just a lot of respect there and
a lot of love there, and a lot of care
even how she was telling the story. And I just
hope that it is sent to Pharrell that way, because
it's a shame when you're trying to get something out
and then you know, they pick it apart a little bit.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
I hope he sees that and this and this pushes
Kanye to have that next closing.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Because she did. She did say that in the in
the in the conversation that her and Kanye still have
one But what I loved is what she said. She
said she hasn't spoke to Kanye yet. She said a
conversation needs to be had. She's also very I feel
very disappointed on how her being on good music wound up,
you know, uh being, But again, she was careful. She

(10:36):
didn't want this to become like a headline on a
blog where she's like bashing him, So she did say
she wanted to have a conversation at some point. But
I did like that she said that she's already accepted
an apology. Sometimes you have to accept apologies that you
never know, that was a bar, that was a bar.
Just display that little part right there in this life.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Just be willing and ready to accept apologies that you've
never gotten, you know. And I think that that's where
I am. And like even just down with the conversations,
Like I know, I want to have a conversation, but
I've accepted the apology a long.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Time ago before you even get it.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yes, yes, And that's why I'm able to blossom and
I'm able to continue to move gracefully and I'm able
to be blessed and have a great relationship with God.
You know what I'm saying, continue to have a great heart,
and to continue to walk on my path and just
understand and take things for what it is.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's how you be free. Because sometimes if you hang
your freedom on somebody else's ability to be self aware
and apologize and all those things, you'd be waiting for
the rest of your life. So sometimes you have to
just be self aware enough for everyone and accept apologies
that you haven't got. That's real closure, right there. Whoof
I hope she gets it, though, I hope they get

(11:51):
to a point. I mean, I don't know where Kanye is.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
In the world, and I don't know if it's I
don't know if I'm hopeful for that really unfortunately. Yeah, yeah,
and I don't see that happening for her. So I'm
glad that she's she got it already. Yeah, she's making.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
It for herself. She got that already. I thought. Another
interesting part of this, well, two things. Two of my
takeaways that I'll always remember from this conversation. One because
she is a tough cookie. She is the egg yeah
egg line. I like that because even her coming in,
I was like, Oh, I wonder what we're going to
talk about, because she's so like, you know, she's tough
and she's guarded, and she's like she's not this like

(12:26):
sophomoshy girl that talks about all her feelings all the time.
So I was like, it's gonna be interesting to see
how this conversation goes. But she's like, Yo, I actually
am not that tough. Here's a clip of that.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
But that's another thing that I do kind of feel
like is maybe a little bit misunderstood. I'm actually just
really an egg. I look hard and you just kind
of tap me on the table a few times. I'm
just yoke.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's me, you know, and I love that about you.
So but then when I tell you I see you today,
I see that. Yeah, it doesn't make me.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Say that very just beautiful judge. Yeah, I've been judged
of like people just thinking like she aggressive, she hard,
so I know she probably over there, and it's just
like I've been judged with that when people probably think
that I was doing or probably think I said or
what was easy to believe. And it's like, I'm actually
like a fucking ball of marshmallows, you.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Know what I'm saying. Like I'm most people are.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
You know what I'm saying, but forced to be in
a survival mode, you know what I'm saying, just just
being a black woman navigating life.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
But aren't we all like that? Am I an egge?
Am I an age too?

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Not?

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Really, I'm like a boiled egg. Say that. I'm like,
you gotta peel and peel, and you gotta peel because
I'm not trying to let you know. No, you won't know,
you won't. But I'm not a hard boiled egg. I'm
like a soft boiled egg. It's in there because if
you get in there, you can kill me, you could
take me down, but I've definitely got some shells of

(13:58):
protection on top of me. But I love that analogy.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Because I feel like that's all really at the end
of the day, all of that is just us protecting
ourselves from getting hurt, disappointed, you know, embarrassed, all the
things that make us feel vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
He knows one hell of a job of keeping it
behind the curtains, though, because you really don't ever sign.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
I didn't know she's saying it. You're like like an egg,
no idea, You're like a ball of marsh. She said, marshmallows, marshmallows, Tiana.
But I get it. So a lot of people are
like that anyway, So I like that part. And I
also one of the other takeaways was I don't know.
We were talking about the ups and downs of her

(14:42):
career and the roller coaster ride that she's been on,
where she like, you know, you're fifteen, you signed the parrella,
you're at the peak, and then nothing happens. Then you
know this, you signed to good music, and fade comes
out and everybody's like, yo, she's fire, and then nothing
happens and you have all these false starts. But it's
very hard to get excited. You know, if somebody comes

(15:03):
knocks on your door and goes, oh, you've always wanted
to be a writer. Here, this book publisher is going
to give you a deal, and you're like, oh my god,
my dream come true. Right, and then the publisher never
puts your book out like and so if that happens
to you a couple of times in your life, you
can feel it's almost like scorned. Yeah, like you don't
want to get excited, she said, she doesn't. She's not

(15:25):
easily impressed. Yeah, she used the word impressed. But I
take that as like, you don't like, it's not you're not. Yeah,
I'm not impressed. I'm not excited. I'm not I'm not
even allowing myself to be fully happy because I don't
believe in it until I see it all the way.
And I'm definitely like that. Good or bad, I don't know.
I don't know. I'm aware that I'm like that. I

(15:46):
don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm aware
due to so many years in this business and things.
People make promises all the time. They know it. People
sometimes know what you want and they will make you
feel feed you what they think you need and think
you want to hear it, and it doesn't really land
in a the end result being that, and so then

(16:09):
you you build up a skin and you become cautious.
So I think to some point it's probably it's just
a protection mechanism, but I think no, But there is
a sadness to it, right because then you're not sure.
You can't really be happy when something and how do
you know if the next time is the time?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
If it keeps happening to you.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's like that little kid one says that from a
broken home and they're like, your dad's gonna pick you
up on Saturday. Three, take you to this Take I
went somewhere. I always go back to daddy issues. Your
dad's gonna pick you up and take you to the park.
And the kid gets his baseball glove out and the
dad doesn't show. After the fourth time that the dad
does this, you're like, Okay, I'll see you when you

(16:51):
get here. You're not going to be like you're come
in great.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Definitely.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
You get you get burnt, and you get heart a
little hard and thick skinned, and you learn to protect
yourself from getting excited about things that don't come to fruition.
So I think it's kind of like a I definitely
went a little dark with it, but you do understand
what I'm saying. But then where's the joy do you
allow yourself then? Just like right now in this moment,

(17:14):
in this movie, the way her her role was being perceived,
even what's next for her, she's doing stuff now with
I mean, she's created, direct thing, directing all types of
cool stuff. Like, I hope she's allowing the space to
be happy in it in the moment, because I think
that's the answer, right, even if it's like something you

(17:36):
dream about happened happening doesn't happen all the way, I
hope you can be happy and fully enjoy all the
beautiful little steps that are happening in between. Does that
make sense? Absolutely enjoying the journey? Yeah, I hope she's
enjoying this moment. She's that one hell of a journey.
Though this year even has been great for even just
this year alone, I hope she's enjoying it. I hope

(17:57):
she's not being too bottled up and to protect where
she's not allowing that in.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
I know we're getting positive, like we're but something that
really hit me in the interview when you're about to
go dark.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, because I just felt it.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Man, Like, you know, I'm young, I'm trying to cultivate
what my career is going to look like with producing,
and you know, what's going to be the what's the
right next step for me?

Speaker 1 (18:22):
And women empowerment. She has this part where she's like,
it's a fluke.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
I'm starting to think it's not real talking about how
she came into the industry and Beyonce, you know, it
was such a light for her, and then everything after that.
She didn't have the best experienced experiences with women, and
I think I could say for a lot of women
my age in any.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Line of work, like.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
It's not always a positive result.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
After the brunch, after the women's history empowerment brunch, there's
no good looks after that. It's or you bump into
people who are more seasoned than you, who maybe don't
want to help you because they're threatened, or just a
number of things. So it's it is hard to find

(19:16):
genuine people who want to help you with nothing in return.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
I love that what she decided to take away was
I'm gonna take this example that Beyonce gave me, and
I'm gonna lean on that, and I'm gonna know that exists.
I'm gonna know women supporting me in an honest and
true way exists. And I'm gonna hang on to the
fact that I've had that experience with Beyonce as opposed
to letting all the other experiences kind of like make

(19:43):
me feel away about everyone. Thank you, Tianna, because I
was going down. You were absolutely you have good women
around you were talking about.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
No, I do shout out to Angie, shout out to me,
shout out to shoot But but but when I'm trying
to network even laterally, this is one of my favoriteies
of quotes.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
We've talked about this other day.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Sometimes it's hard to find.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
You gotta sift through a lot of peers, your peers, women, peers, through.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
A lot of bs to get that good, genuine gen Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
But that's yeah, Yes, that's just what it is. Like,
That's just life. It's like friendships. You can't go befriend.
If you walk into a room of two hundred people,
the percentage of people that you will genuinely connect with
and genuinely conform form some type of real friendship or
kindred kind of it's slim. So why would you think

(20:35):
that is like bigger than that in any other space.
I mean, women should support each other obviously, but I
think find your tribe, find the three or four that
you can rely on, that you could call, that could
point you in a direction, and then you're good. You
don't need a hundred of them. You don't need fifty,
you don't even need twenty of them. You need two
or three solid ones that you can rely on and

(20:56):
to be your Beyonce. Find your Beyonces. Good good luck,
good luck everybody. That's the end of the takeaways today.
Our takeaway is, go find you a Beyonce in your life.
Find you that one person that lets you hang on
to the hope that that good energy and that good
supportive nature does exist. It is out there. And thank
you to Tianna for a great episode. Thank you for

(21:18):
trusting us, thank you for just you know, leaning into
your vulnerable and just open side. And I think people
resonated with it by the comments and stuff. You guys
seem to love this conversation from her. I know her fans.
I saw a lot of her comments from her fans,
and so We thank you guys for watching. If you
haven't seen the full interview, you can do that now.
It's on my YouTube page, Edgie Martinez IRL. Please make
sure you subscribe. And that's it. We're in a zone now.

(21:41):
Next week we got a new episode dropping on Wednesday,
also somebody very interesting and exciting to talk to. And
then the week after that we'll do a takeaway that one.
And that's how the Rollout's gonna go from now on, right, Brittany, Bam,
bam bam. Thank you guys for listening.