Music

For over 14 years, Sway in the Morning with Heather B and Tracy G has remained a singular fixture in popular culture. Hosted by Sway Calloway, Heather B. Gardner and Tracy Garraud, the SiriusXM radio show has broadcast candid interviews with almost all of today’s biggest icons. According to Sway and Heather, who sat down with Billboard for a lengthy interview, the key to this hospitality is keeping an open mind around artistic expression. Whether it be rappers, actors, Olympic athletes or tech giants, the hosts take serious pride in being able to feature people from all walks of life.

This openness stems from both hosts’ experiences as recording artists. Sway released a handful of independent albums throughout the 1990s including, most notably, Concrete Jungle with King Tech, which led to Sway’s first radio gig. Heather B, meanwhile, starred in the debut season of MTV’s The Real World: New York before releasing the albums Takin’ Mine and Eternal Affairs in 1996 and 2002, respectively. Their backgrounds have helped the two hosts understand how important it is for creatives to be able to step into a welcoming space.

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“We have Dr. Ian Smith that comes on the show once a month and talks about ways to better your life, but then you might flip it around and have Robert Glasper come and do a jam session that Rapsody will come and rock on,” Sway tells Billboard. “I’m always an artist. The way we do radio is through artistry. It’s not just the science of radio.”

This underscoring of creative freedom has helped the radio program blossom into a cultural touchstone, with unforgettable moments like Kanye West’s infamous 2013 “How Sway?” interview. Now, Sway and Heather will help bring the show from its New York home over to California, anchoring it in Los Angeles to help spotlight West Coast creatives.

Billboard spoke with Heather and Sway about the show’s history, their move to L.A., and a few of their favorite interviews.

Sway, looking back on your career, what has kept you motivated to stay in radio for this long?

Sway: Curiosity, for one, keeps me here. I’m always curious about up-and-coming talent. Whether it’s comedians, actors, artists, people who work in tech, coders. Having a platform where we can be able to speak their voice and get them heard in places where they normally won’t be heard. For me, that’s phenomenal. The show reaches Canada [and] people call in from the West Indies. We had a caller who was listening from France! I’ve never in all my years had this kind of reach, and with it, we’re able to introduce people to a lot of new things in their lives. So coming to L.A. and being from the West Coast, it’s bringing things full circle.

Why did you guys decide now was the time to move the show out to Los Angeles?

Sway: The L.A. fires to me represented a change — a pivot in the environment. I wanted to help rebuild and expand the cultural scene in L.A, to create a platform for artists from L.A. I’m from the West Coast, I have a home in the valley in Tarzana. I did L.A. radio for 10 years in the ’90s and we were able to do a lot of groundbreaking things with my partner King Tech and the World Famous Wake Up Show. Through that show Eminem was discovered, you know what I mean? Through that show, Wu-Tang Clan was discovered, Nas. A lot of big artists go through mainstream radio because we had a syndicated show on that show. So you fast forward to 2025, it’s the same variables, but now we have a bigger platform with a bigger brand. We have a bigger voice, and more resources to do a similar thing. So we came out here to shake it up.

Heather: I think it was necessary. Sometimes, it’s very hard to explain to other people the feelings that you get. It was just a gut instinct. It’s time to elevate, it’s time to move forward, to do the unexpected. Something that people didn’t see coming.

Can you speak more about how you guys have stayed in sync all these years? What has kept your partnership going so strong?

Heather: Don’t even start! So part of it is, you’re usually supposed to have a working relationship, but on the weekends he forced his way into my home with dinners. Then dinners turned into lunch and dinners and now out in L.A., since we live really close to each other, it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is bonded by food!

Sway: And, and! On one hand, you have Heather B., who was really the first person from our culture to ever be on a mainstream platform consistently like MTV or Real World. Hip-hop culture hadn’t seen anything like that, our community hadn’t seen anything like that! Meanwhile, we’re already family because of the culture, but now we both got a chance to be on this mainstream platform and because of that it gave us global visibility. We have this all accumulated on this one show, so every day you get such a broad audience that we’re talking to and it allows us to share our experiences. I think Heather B. has one of the most powerful voices in radio. It’s real, it’s transparent, it’s rooted in experience and my voice is as well. So we were able to take our reach that we gained and encapsulate it into this show because of the experience.

With that being said, how are you guys feeling about the state of media right now? With everyone making podcasts and TikToks, how important is that experience when it comes to standing above the noise?

Heather: I think what people underestimate all the time is your story. Why are you trying to tell somebody else’s story? Why are you trying to add on to someone else’s experience? I think because of social media and a lot of things, people are always trying to alter their story and alter their experience [and] feel like it needs to be bigger. Just tell your story! And sometimes know when to shut up. If you don’t have anything else to say, give yourself a breath, step back, and just listen because it may be an opportunity for you to learn. That’s what experience has taught me.

Sway: It also teaches you to embrace change. You might have an actor like Bill Murray come on the show. Now, Bill Murray will come on our show and wonder, “What the heck do they know about me?” And they turn around and realize that our experience that you talked about has filled us with knowledge in areas that most people may not have. We found [Bill Murray] dancing in between breaks because he was having such a good time because we know how to talk about his career and keep him current.

With are some of your favorite interviews from over the years?

Heather: So part of my hustle when I was figuring things out was, I ran a catering business out of my home. I used to cook for Tyler Perry, and a full-circle moment happened on the show when he came in. I told him I used to cook for his place and he remembered the food! In the interim, I had done an independent film, and he saw the independent film. It was called B-Boy Blues. [He] saw the film, forgot that I used to cook for him, and I was the same girl from the Sway in the Morning show. Reached out to the director and said, “I wanna work with this woman.” The director sent it to me and he ended up casting me for a season of Sistas. That was a full-circle moment for me I was just blown away by.

Sway: We had The Rock on the show when he was promoting Black Adam. And I’m sitting here really trying to give him the best journalistic approach to this interview because we got layers to our skill set, right? And somebody like The Rock, you gotta really step it up. I’m trying to bring it, trying to find that thread. I’m being all formal with the guy, and he breaks formality with me! He says, “Sway, man. I gotta thank you. There was a time in the ‘90s when I used to come to the Bay Area and you used to put me on radio when nobody else would. You talked to me and you gave me a break when nobody else would. I’ll never forget that, so it’s great that this moment has come full circle. I am who I am and here you are again, giving me opportunity.” So that’s one of the highlights.

Halle Berry was another one — she came on our show and I had the chance to tell her how she’s been a cultural tentpole for our community over these different eras, and she broke out in tears. So to have Halle Berry be that emotional and make that kind of connection with her doing a radio interview, that became one of my favorite moments. [And] I would say, Chadwick Boseman. When Chadwick came just before his untimely passing to promote Black Panther, nobody really knew what he was going through. The whole cast was there and we made him comfortable enough to have a conversation in that interview, and he too got emotional. When that happens, it’s just confirmation that there’s a real human connection being made that supersedes the headlines or whatever metrics you may grow from that conversation. That’s our prerogative. We try to rise above that. When Will Smith came by with Martin, that was special.

Heather: That was special because, they don’t always get the acknowledgment, but we grew up and idolized both Will and Martin for different reasons. To see these two giants come together and do the Bad Boys franchise. That was a moment for me.

What about some of the more challenging interviews? What have you learned when it comes to handling conflict live on the air?

Sway: It takes two people to make it a conversation. So regardless of where that guest may be, I know where I’m at. So if I don’t participate in a confrontation then it can’t be confrontational. But you learn to take the emotion out of it, [and] don’t take it personally. A lot of people be in front of the camera acting. A lot of people be inauthentic in trying to make a moment. We’ve had a lot of people try to make a moment.

Heather: This is where the partnership of it all comes in. So he usually has to tell me to calm down, so we can even it out. I’m always like, “Say something, Sway!” You know? [laughs] So we learn from each other, and I think a lot of times I have to remember, “What would Sway do?” I don’t think he ever thinks, “What would Heather do?” ‘Cause he knows what I would do.

Sway: I had to stop her from punching a few dudes. I’m not even joking.