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Michelle Obama is launching a new video podcast with her brother Craig Robinson, with a live episode set to be recorded at South By Southwest this week.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama is reentering the podcast genre with a new show and her brother as co-host. On Monday, Higher Ground announced the debut of IMO (short for In My Opinion). Higher Ground is the media company formed by Mrs. Obama and her husband, former President Barack Obama. The former First Lady will host with her older brother, basketball executive Craig Robinson. It’s the first video format podcast for the media group, in sync with the current standard of podcasts released today.
The first episode features the siblings reflecting on the surroundings of the apartment that they were filming in and contrasting it to the modest home in their hometown of Chicago, Illinois, where they both shared a bedroom. The conversation between the two sees them discuss certain challenges they’ve faced, with Robinson reflecting on what he’s learned after divorce, and the former First Lady discussing her initial reluctance about her husband’s presidential run. They also shared fond memories of their parents – their father, Frasier Robinson III, passed away in 1991, and their mother, Marian Robinson, passed away last May. The second episode boasts a celebrity guest – actress, producer, and writer Issa Rae. She and the hosts talk about maintaining adult friendships.
There are also several light-hearted moments through the released episodes, with Michelle Obama revealing that she’s just now getting back to driving after years of being driven by the Secret Service. Future guests on the show include actors Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer, along with director Tyler Perry and others who’ve appeared on The Michelle Obama Podcast, which was released on Spotify in 2020. Each episode is slated to be an hour in duration.
IMO is releasing both episodes to the public on Wednesday (March 12) and will record a live episode at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas, on Thursday (March 13). The show’s episodes will be produced with Audible, which is owned by Amazon. Sponsors of the show include Pine-Sol, Theraflu, and Rivian.
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R. Kelly is currently serving 30 years behind bars due to his explosive sexual abuse and human trafficking case, where he was convicted on nine counts. Largely mum during his prison stay. R. Kelly was a surprise guest for an inmate-focused podcast, saying at one point that singing was a “beautiful disease.”
As seen on TMZ, R. Kelly was a surprise guest for the Inmate Tea with A&P podcast, hosted by April Smith and Patricia Dillard. The podcast is centered on prison reforms and gives inmates a platform to “advocate for criminal justice reform and the humane treatment of inmates, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, by raising awareness of the injustices within the judicial and prison systems,” according to their website bio.
The hosts were slated to speak with another inmate at the FCI Butner Medium I in North Carolina but caught wind that the R&B singer and songwriter was housed there. While Kelly didn’t explicitly speak about his case, he did showcase his vocal ability and even shared that he’s written over two dozen albums.
At one point, Kelly referred to singing as “a beautiful disease that’s incurable” and pledged to always lean into that craft as long as he’s able. In a follow-up TMZ post, Smith and Dillard defended their choice to feature R. Kelly on their broadcast, seemingly elated by the big name-grab for their show. Despite Kelly’s infamous reputation, the pair told the outlet that they were able to separate Kelly from the heinous crimes attached to his name and have received backlash for running the interview.
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Gabrielle Union spoke about the comments she received after revealing the 50/50 financial split she has with her husband Dwayne Wade in an interview.
Being open about her marriage took a turn for Gabrielle Union, as she revealed the backlash she received for detailing a financial agreement between her and her husband Dwayne Wade. During her appearance on the recent episode of the Balanced Black Girl podcast this week, Union spoke about how the comments she received left her taken aback. “I famously said, 50/50 or bust, right? And I meant that financially, spiritually, and emotionally,” Union said on the episode that aired Tuesday (March 4). “It’s a trauma response… and 50/50 is, ‘I’m not going to be vulnerable enough to trust you with 100% of anything. Not my heart, not my cash.’”
Union called the comments “wild” and “aggressive.” She first spoke of the arrangement during an interview on the Idea Generation podcast last year, which led to an outcry from social media users who pointed to Wade having a larger net worth as a former NBA star. Wade’s estimated net worth is $170 from his playing career with the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers. Union’s estimated net worth is estimated at $40 million.
The actress explained to the host, Les Allred, that she had to step out of being “fiercely independent” in order to give up control in that manner, citing her being abused sexually at the age of 19 and being “diagnosed with PTSD” in the aftermath as the foundation for being “hyper-focused on efficiency and time,” which she didn’t want to impact her marriage with Wade. “It’s being vulnerable enough to be open enough to know that I’m OK. I’m OK as his wife,” the Bring It On star explained. “He’s OK as my husband. I’m OK in this family. I’m OK in this home. I deserve it… and so, I’m trying to expand my heart, expand all of the notions of what vulnerability can look like.”
Wade defended his wife while appearing on the Club Shay Shay podcast last June. “I have 20 to 50 responsibilities, and my wife has 20 to 50 responsibilities, and when I say that, that means she has her mother, she has her sisters, she has her dad, so she has a lot of things she’s responsible for,” he stated. “She pays 100% of that and you know what I do? I pay 100% of my life.”
Check out the interview above.
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Ye aka Kanye West revealed that he has autism, claiming he was misdiagnosed as being bipolar during a recent interview.
In the latest episode of Justin LaBoy’s The Download podcast, Kanye West said that he has autism, a conclusion he came to with the aid of his wife, Bianca Censori. “I went to this doctor … My wife took me to do that because she said, ‘Something about your personality doesn’t feel like it’s bipolar, I’ve seen bipolar before.’ And I’ve come to find that it’s really a case of autism that I have,” he said.
West said that the diagnosis helped him get a better understanding of his behavioral outbursts, like sporting a “Make America Great Again” cap in 2018 and supporting Donald Trump, allegedly. “Autism takes you to a Rain Man thing,” West said, explaining that it was on purpose. “‘I’ma wear this Trump hat because I like Trump in general.’ And then when people tell you to not do it, you just get on that one point. And that’s my problem.”
The “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” rapper was candid about how those in his inner circle have had difficulty dealing with his periods of erratic behavior, citing his relationship with his friend and former manager Don C. “It’s been so hard on him because he loves me. It’s so difficult for them, because this is like a grown man – you can’t take control of his bank account, you can’t control what I’m saying on Twitter.” He added, “But a lot of what was sending me into the episodes — and it’s hard … [is] the constant feeling of not being in control, spun me out of control.” West also spoke about not taking his bipolar disorder medication, and working with his mental health to make music, saying of any potential episode that he does “watch for it beforehand” “It’s finding stuff that doesn’t block the creativity, obviously that’s what I bring to the world,” he said. “It’s worth the ramp-up, as long as y’all get the creativity.”
West also talked about his upcoming Bully album, which he says will be released on June 15, the same day as his daughter North’s birthday. He also revealed that he’s reconciled with producer Mike Dean, who worked with him on all his albums up to the last Vultures albums before they fell out.
Check out the entire interview above.
What started out as something Howie Mandel thought would be a funny bit for his Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast last month quickly devolved into a super-tense, awkward moment the America’s Got Talent host is now expressing regret for. “I want to apologize,” Mandel said on this week’s episode of the pod he hosts with his daughter, Jackelyn Schultz.
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“I feel horrible and I’m sorry, Bill. I’m sorry, Billy. I only tried to do something good,” Mandel added. Mandel noted that he has not heard a “peep” from his longtime friend and fellow comedian Bill Burr since the Jan. 21 episode in which he blindsided him by bringing on Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan for an episode he called “Family Reunion with Bill Burr & Billy Corgan.”
Back in November, Corgan said he told Mandel that his step mom informed him years ago that Burr “might be” one of the children that Corgan’s late father “sired in his days being a traveling musician.” Corgan also recalled that his dad once mentioned that he had a half-brother who was close to his age named Bill; Corgan is 57, Burr is 56.
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As soon as Corgan came out to join the pod, Burr was immediately on edge, which the rocker sensed, saying, “he didn’t tell you? He told me you were totally cool with me coming.” Clearly peeved at Mandel, Burr hissed, “that’s what he does.” Sensing the awkwardness, Corgan offered to leave, but Burr said it was fine, going on to refer to his dad as a “piece of s–t with two kids this close together [and] he named them the same f–king name.”
Burr then said he appreciated Corgan’s music, but that he would “prefer if you just kind of… not [tell] these f–king stories.” The tension continued to mount as Corgan explained that Mandel made it seem as if Burr would be okay with repeating the story he’d originally told Howie in private and then having the men meet on-air.
“He always does that. Because that’s the thing,” Burr said angrily of the comedian he’d earlier praised as one of his inspirations and a longtime friend. “He’s bringing it here, not because he’s trying to heal the bulls–t that we went through growing up. He’s getting here just for the f–king ratings.”
Mandel eventually left the room and the Bills traded stories about the man they both described as their dad as Burr continued to mock Mandel’s IMDb credits mercilessly. “At least we’re not on some f–king awful network show judging plate spinners or whatever the f–k Howie’s career has become,” Burr said of Mandel’s gig co-hosting AGT.
Burr — whose beloved stand-up act is often filled with his irate annoyance, and rage, about what he thinks is the idiotic, inexplicable behavior of others — eventually told Mandel that he still loved him, “even though you did this,” wondering what his friend expected to happen. “Are we going to play catch? We’re both in our 50s,” Burr seethed, with both bald performers agreeing on one thing: that Mandel (also famously bald) is “a d–k.”
Once Corgan had assured him that it was all Mandel’s idea, Burr admitted he was not upset with the Pumpkins singer/guitarist and that he just didn’t like that their first meeting was the result of subterfuge. The two then had a funny exchange about possibly hanging out after the taping, with Burr immediately taking a dig at Corgan’s vegan diet after Corgan said he assumed Burr was a meat-eater. “I can have a cup of coffee while you eat your f–king Brussels sprouts,” Burr spat.
On this week’s pod, Mandel said he texted Burr to congratulate him on a good episode, but has not heard back from his friend since. “The next thing I see is… headlines,” Mandel said while posting a series of news reports about Burr’s anger over the incident. Burr went on the Rich Eisen pod shortly after and referred to Mandel as a “Hollywood whore” for the stunt. “I legitimately thought I was doing something nice, I swear to you,” Mandel said this week. “I thought it was funny.”
Watch Mandel’s mea culpa and a snippet of the original podcast below.
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OG 2 Low, a rapper who reportedly has ties with Rap-A-Lot Records, was a guest on a recent podcast discussing the finer points of his career, which dates back to the 1990s. During the chat, OG 2 Low is seen in a clip adjusting his fireman in his pocket, which suddenly goes off and narrowly misses the rapper’s leg while sparking a flurry of comments online.
As reported by Chron, OG 2 Low sat down with the One on One Wit Mike D podcast, also known as the Tha Dirty 3rd podcast, hosted by Mike D of the Screwed Up Click and one-third of the Southside Playaz group.
In a clip posted by @CollinRugg over the weekend, OG 2 Low, 45, is seen on the set of One on One Wit Mike D fumbling around in his pants when viewers suddenly hear a loud pop and a pained look on OG’s face. Mike D asks if anyone was shot while the podcast producer is heard in the background with some light commentary. Taking the moment in stride, Mike D took a quick pause and resumed the chat with OG 2 Low, who did appear to be okay despite blasting a hole in the left thigh portion of his jeans.
The video, which has been viewed over 2 million times and clipped by other content creators and outlets, is continuing to make its rounds with some saying the moment reminded them of the time former NFL star Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg while carrying a gun in his pants. Others online preached about gun safety while others just went in for the jokes.
We’ve got a few reactions below, avoiding those that bordered on racist with some tough guy gun owners acting like they’re John Wick online and using it as an excuse to dump on the perceived intelligence of rappers.
NEW: Rapper 2 Low accidentally fires his gun while reaching his hand in his pocket during an interview, finishes the episode anyway
The incident happened during the 1 on 1 With Mike D podcast.
After taking a quick break, the two continued their highly intellectual conversation. pic.twitter.com/UeGlOw2hFH
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 4, 2025
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J. Cole has announced a new podcast series edited from conversations he had with his right hand Ibrahim Hamad and flimmaker Scott Lazer that will tell his story while also including unreleased music.
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The North Carolina rapper and businessman took to Instagram to make the announcement with a trailer and a lengthy caption attached. “It’s hard to write a caption to describe what this is,” he began. “I really don’t even know what to call it. We settled on calling it an ‘audio series’ but to me it plays like a movie in the form of a conversation. First, me and Ib spent mad days talking to Scott, recapping the whole journey up to present day. Front to back. It was new, it was fun, it was emotional and more than anything, it was therapeutic.”
Adding, “After that Scott took the conversation and did his thing with it… then it was time to listen back. When I heard it with fresh ears, I was glued to the story as if it was somebody else’s. At times I could feel my adrenaline rush when hearing about the ups and the many downs and how it all played out in the end.”
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He then continued on about how the process gave him a renewed perspective, writing, “I got so much clarity from it, and I understood more than ever the power of having a dream, the power of fueling that dream with strong vision, the magic that happens when we stay in alignment with God, and the darkness that can come in the times that we don’t.”
Cole then talked about his reclusiveness over the years when it came to interviews and social media. “As the years of my career grew I found myself much more hesitant to share details of my life with the world,” he admitted. “Even as I type this, I feel the last little bit of resistance. ‘You sure you want to do this?’ But if I was a younger version of myself, I know that I would get so much fuel from hearing this from somebody that went for theirs and ‘made it.’ For that reason, I think it’s worth sharing.”
Finally, he said he hopes this new audio series will inspire people to continue chasing the things that they’re passionate about. “So, if you rocked with me at any point so far on my journey, I hope this will give you even more perspective and fill in a lot of blanks,” Cole wrote. “If you have your own dream in life that you hope to achieve, in any field, I hope that this will feed your spirit, giving you confidence to believe in that dream and the encouragement to push through the tough times. To go for it even when you may be afraid to.”
Season 1 of Inevitable will be available starting today (Nov. 18) at 6 p.m. ET. You can find the series here.
Worl Boss is finally free — and now the Jamaican musical and cultural icon is getting the podcast treatment.
Worl Boss: The Vybz Kartel Story, an eight-part podcast series from SALT, Big Wave More Fire and Gulfstream Studios, is set to debut on Dec. 16, 2024. Created by Tahir Garcia and Sam Griesemer and executive produced by Nick Panama and Max Musina, the audio series will explore the life, career and influence of the dancehall icon.
“There’s so many incredible stories that exist within dancehall and reggae music and the culture here in Jamaica, and so many of them don’t get shared with the public. The only time you hear these stories is if you’re lucky,” Garcia, who also narrates the series, tells Billboard. “We took a step back, two or three years ago, and decided that we wanted this space to be able to tell the story properly. Obviously, podcasting has become this huge thing. But one thing that’s missing, especially in Jamaican culture, is this concept of [podcasts] being scripted. There’s so much more that can be brought to it with sound design and actually sitting down and editing interviews to tell the narrative in a way that captures everything and really preserved the essence of [Vybz Kartel’s] story.”
The new podcast series is told entirely by Jamaican voices and will exclusively feature interviews with important figures within Kartel’s circle, including the first female member of Kartel’s Portmore Empire crew Lisa Hyper, Kartel’s former DJ Creep Chromatic and famed musician Wayne Marshall. These key players will also be joined by Winford Williams — host of On Stage TV, the longest-runnning dancehall interview series — as well as essayist Carolyn Cooper, author and professor Donna Hope, and Milk and Jay Will, two important collaborators on Teacha’s Pet, Kartel’s reality show.
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Earlier this summer (July 31), just over a week before Jamaica’s Independence Day (Aug. 6), Kartel regained his freedom after the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that he and his co-accused — Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St. John — will not face a new trial for the 2011 murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams. Although he was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison after a historic 64-day trial back in 2014, Kartel (and his co-accused) have always denied their involvement in Williams’ death.
“We have a lot of assets and we spoke to people at the source, including his camp, people in and around his orbit, fans and musicians. We did a pretty extensive job covering all the bases,” says Panama. “We have a lot of voices that are going to be represented and using that as a way to help breakthrough and create the world around the story is part of how we’ll successfully bring this to market. We’ve got some really great partners in the audio space that we’ll be announcing soon, and I think they’ll help amplify this project even more.”
Known for hits such as “Fever” and his Spice-assisted “Romping Shop,” Vybz Kartel’s raunchy music and slick wordplay have soundtracked multiple generations of dancehall listeners, and Garcia promises the new series will be for everyone: from first-time listeners to lifelong fans. “If this is your first introduction [to Vybz Kartel], it’s supposed to be just as impactful as it would be to someone who’s listened to him forever.”
In addition to his music and efforts to support Jamaica, Kartel’s legal woes have also become a major part of his legacy — one that Worl Boss does not shy away from. “Everything gets addressed and talked about. We just don’t dwell on that. It’s a part of the journey, but it doesn’t define the character,” explains Garcia, who also tells Billboard that, “the hardest part was getting people who are close to [Kartel] to speak freely — especially while he was still incarcerated — because nobody wanted to do anything that could potentially incriminate [him or themselves]. Everyone was very, very cautious about agreeing to do it, and what put them at ease was us not focusing on the mess.”
Although there are currently no additional details about the podcast’s distribution, Panama stresses that the podcast series is just one part of the story they hope to tell. “The second [part] is a documentary series and feature film that are in development with arguably one of the biggest Jamaican directors, and UTA’s representing the project,” he reveals. “That will probably be more of a late 2024 thing, but the reason we did those together is because the story is so dynamic. Dancehall is such a small genre from a small country that has an enormously outsized impact globally. To have a revered yet controversial figure at the heart of that with Vybz [Kartel] is such a fascinating character and cultural study.”
Since his release, Kartel has remained outside partying and enjoying his freedom ahead of a massive “Freedom Street” concert at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica, on Dec. 31 — his first performance in 13 years. Production and filming for Worl Boss began before Kartel regain his freedom, but now “there’s a third act to his story,” Panama muses. “He wasted no time walking out of prison and getting his entrepreneurial and music endeavors back up and running and continuing to build his mythology.”
From February’s box office-topping Bob Marley: One Love biopic to Worl Boss, Jamaica has remained at the forefront of global popular culture throughout 2024. For his part, Garcia hopes this new podcast series is the beginning of several projects chronicling and preserving Caribbean culture and music history. “That’s one of the things we spoke about very early on in this process, what does the next step within this space look like?” he says. “Once [Worl Boss] starts rolling out, hopefully it reshapes what people think is possible, and that’s going to be even more exciting.”
In 2010, Damien Shields, then 22, was reloading the official Michael Jackson website repeatedly from his home in Australia, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the heavily hyped unreleased track “Breaking News.” When it arrived, he was disappointed — then angry. He believed that the King of Pop, who died June 25, 2009, wasn’t singing on the song. It was an imposter. “I was outraged, the same as thousands of other fans,” Shields says. “But unlike those other fans, I wanted to do something about it.”
That moment led to a 14-year, DIY investigative journalism project, involving expensive trips to interview Jackson’s nephew Taryll Jackson in Los Angeles and scour the archives of the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. Originally intended to be a book, Shields’ new, 12-part podcast, Faking Michael, which is available on major podcast platforms, is the “untold story of the biggest fraud in music,” he says.
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The “true-crime podcast,” as Shields calls it, was inspired by NPR’s Serial and makes a methodical case that two producers and Jackson friends, Eddie Cascio and James Porte, faked the vocals on “Breaking News,” “Monster” and “Keep Your Head Up” and hoodwinked Jackson’s estate and longtime label Sony Music. In 2010, the estate made a deal potentially worth $250 million with Sony for 10 albums, including deluxe reissues of previous Jackson albums and new and unreleased material. Shields argues, however, that the estate was under pressure to provide new tracks and made a deal with Cascio and Porte, whom Shields accuses of employing an imposter singer named Jason Malachi.
According to Faking Michael, when superproducer Teddy Riley and Taryll began postproduction on the tracks in August 2010, Taryll concluded his late uncle’s vocals weren’t on the songs and complained on social media. The podcast also reports that the estate asked producers for their expert opinions but ignored their feedback and released the tracks anyway in December 2010.
Damien Shields
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After fans filed a class-action suit against the estate and Sony, the parties settled in an undisclosed agreement in 2022. Earlier, the label had pulled the three disputed tracks from the 2010 album Michael. A Sony representative declined to comment, and a rep for Jackson’s estate did not respond to requests for comment; an attorney who represented Cascio and Porte in the suit did not respond to requests for comment. But Shields, now 36, discussed Faking Michael by Zoom from Australia.
What should listeners take away from your podcast?
This is art forgery.
How did you fund all this research?
It’s self-funded. When I started taking this seriously and traveling overseas, it was very difficult. I was working a minimum wage-type job at a marketing firm and didn’t have any money. I would save up, then go on a trip, do my research and come back totally broke, then save up and do it all again. In 2017, I left my job to work on this full time. To fund that, I started driving ride-share. One of the interviews I did was with Teddy Riley’s manager, Lawanda [Lane]. [According to the podcast, Riley, who had worked with Jackson, received $50,000 per track for Michael, including the Cascio-Porte material.] I’d been trying to get Lawanda for 11 years. She texted me at two in the morning Australian time: “Hey, Damien, I’m ready to talk.” I said, “Now?” She said, “I can be ready in 10 minutes.” So I switched off my ride-share app, drove home and interviewed her for four-and-a-half hours. That’s one of the cornerstone interviews.
The podcast suggests Sony and the estate made the deal with Cascio and Porte because they were desperate to release unheard Jackson music immediately after his death. How did they fall for this?
There were stipulations in the deal that you will release X amount of songs on Y amount of projects over Z amount of years. When the estate was coming into the problem with the vocals and people were telling them, “Well, this is not Michael,” they had to weigh that with “What implication would there be of releasing it anyway?” compared to the implication of breaking the contract.
Why do you think the estate was so desperate for unreleased Jackson material during this period?
The material Michael worked on in the final years of his life — he didn’t really do anything [with it]. He worked with [singer] Akon for two or three years, and he did a verse and some ad-libs on a duet. He worked with [producer] RedOne for two years. RedOne thinks he had one song that could possibly be released, but it would have to be “We Are the World” style, with multiple artists, because he didn’t have enough with Michael. [The estate] wanted final-year songs [from 2009]. They couldn’t do it, because there weren’t final-year songs. And the Cascio tracks were [allegedly] final-year songs.
You air snippets of recorded music, including songs that appeared on Michael and unreleased studio recordings. Did you have to clear them with the estate and Sony?
A lot of the material Cascio and Porte turned over to Sony leaked online in the spring of 2015. [It’s unclear who was responsible for the leak.] The source materials were out there on the internet. You’ve got to let listeners hear it, but you’ve got to respect fair-use copyright guidelines. [The recordings are] only used when I’m talking about something to prove my case. Ethics are at the top of my list.
And you don’t want Jackson estate co-executor John Branca coming after you.
I hope that John Branca will appreciate this. As much as it makes the estate look foolish, it does demonstrate that they were the victim of fraud. The estate should be listening to this and going, “We have to contact the authorities.”
Have you heard from Cascio or Porte or anyone from the estate or Sony?
No. We haven’t had any blowback or pushback from people who are depicted in it. Even though we are talking about something that I consider to be the greatest fraud in music history, I made a very conscious effort to not attack anyone’s character. The actions speak for themselves.
What’s next?
I want to get a good night’s sleep!
To say that Colin Hay‘s musical career has been a long and winding road would be an understatement. In just over a decade, the Scottish-born musician went from an unknown musician playing folk clubs in Melbourne, Australia, to fronting early ‘80s hitmakers Men at Work, to languishing in Los Angeles after his solo record deal fell through.
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The “Down Under” and “Who Can It Be Now?” singer discovered that the fame from being part of a multi-platinum band didn’t easily transfer to a solo career. Men at Work broke up after — or during, depending on how you look at it — the recording of their 1985 album, Two Hearts. Hay regrouped and released solo albums for Columbia Records (1987’s Looking for Jack) and MCA Records (1990’s Wayfaring Sons). Disappointing sales caused MCA Records to drop Hay, leaving him without a record label, a manager or a booking agent. “No one was interested really in anything that I was doing,” he tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast.
People began to take notice of his solo work — slowly. In 1992, Hay was asked to play at a new Los Angeles venue, Largo, by its owner, Mark Flannigan. Hay took to the stage with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a body of work from three Men at Work albums and two solo albums. The shows were a hit with local audiences, and Hay became a frequent guest. “Largo was really instrumental” in building the next phase of his career, Hay says. “It’s like a home, really, where I could just be myself and play whatever I wanted to.”
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Nearly 40 years old at the time, Hay says he knew record labels weren’t interested in him despite having Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits in 1982 (“Who Can It be Now?”) and 1983 (“Down Under”) and an album, Business as Usual, that spent 15 weeks atop the Billboard 200 albums chart. So, Hay decided to set about finding his own audience and take the one-man show honed at Largo on the road. It was a big adjustment for a musician whose previous band dominated radio and MTV in the early ‘80s and won a best new artist Grammy in 1983. “Thirty years ago, there was hardly anyone there,” he says of those early solo shows. “There might be 30 people, 40 people. Not so very long before that I had been playing to, like, 150,000 people.”
Those early solo shows were a valuable step in creating a second career as a solo singer-songwriter. Initially facing small crowds of 30 or 40 people, Hay discovered that he had a knack for storytelling that captured the audience’s attention between songs. “I think people were a little embarrassed for me in the audience,” he says in a Scottish accent softened by his upbringing in Australia. “I could see this kind of quizzical look in their face, like, ‘Why is he doing this?’ And so I just started to talk to people because they were just there, you know? And so I just started to talk to them and tell them what had happened to me. And as I did that, I noticed that people leaned in a bit closer.”
A big break came in 2002 when Hay was featured in an episode of the television show Scrubs. Through a mutual friend, Hay met Zach Braff when the actor landed the starring role. “He said, ‘I’ll see if I can get some of your songs on the TV show,’” Hay recalls. “I didn’t think anything of it.” But Braff made good on his pledge by taking Hay’s music to show creator Bill Lawrence, who ended up writing an episode called “My Overkill” in which Hay performs the 1983 Men at Work hit “Overkill.” “That was very … that was a huge thing for me, especially playing live,” says Hay. “It had a big impact in terms of my live audiences, people who discovered me through watching that show.”
A year later, Hay was performing in Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, a gig he held intermittently over the years and consistently since 2018. Hay was introduced to The Beatles as a child by his father, the owner of a music store in his native Scotland. After a decade rebuilding his career as a solo artist, Hay was sharing a stage with the Beatles’ drummer. “When you turn around you think, ‘Wow, I’m playing with Ringo!” Hay exclaims. “’He was in the f–king Beatles!’”
More than three decades later, Hay continues to entertain audiences with his solo acoustic shows filled with anecdotes and wry humor. The venues have grown considerably from sparsely filled clubs to crowded small theaters and performing arts centers. He also tours under the name Men at Work, although he is the lone original member. His vast catalog of solo albums haven’t been commercial successes, Hay points out, constant touring has been the key building his shows from 30 or 40 people in the early ’90s to 1,000 or so a night today.
“The success that I’ve really managed to achieve has just been through going out and playing live. So it’s a valuable thing for me. And also, I kind of treasure the audiences in a way because — people say that a lot — but really they kind of saved me in many ways. Because even when I first started to go out and play live in the early ’90s, people could sense my kind of slight sense of desperation about what the f–k is going on. And they would just encourage me [to] just keep going.”
Hay has indeed kept going. Nearly 50 years after Hay began to play at folks clubs in Melbourne, he says he’s in his natural state as a traveling, guitar-toting troubadour. “All I’m doing is trying to make sense of the time that I’ve got left and enjoy myself as much as I can — and also to hopefully give people a good night out,” Hay says. “I think that’s kind of a useful thing to do.”
To listen to the entire interview with Colin Hay, hit play on the embedded Spotify player, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Everand, Podbean or wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts.