FLO on Baby This Is Keke Palmer podcast

    by Patel Aminata: Keke Palmer

    FLO sat down with Keke Palmer on the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast and reflected on their early career. Their words: "A lot of our journey in the beginning was us fighting for what we think is right."

    Transcript (en)

    When you think about your debut single that came out in 2022, were you guys 100% unanimous on that being? Yes. We were. Y'all knew. We had to tell the label. Yeah. The label wasn't short. Why don't we always in a tattoo with that? We had to fight. Oh, yeah. We were making PowerPoints. Oh, my gosh. You guys. So, wait. No. We need that corporate process. You know, because the fans see the creative process, but they don't know that our girls have to also be CEOs. Exactly. In order to be an artist in this game, you have to have the PowerPoint. I can't tell you how many times I've slaved over a deck trying to put all my insights together and why this is the correct move to make with me so tell me the process of like being like putting your packaging together or getting your stuff together where you were confident and having to get the label to sign off and believe like what were the steps you made a presentation yeah yeah i mean we had been making music for like two years up until we even put a song out and there was this one so awkward ladies with me and it was cute it was cute like it was a fine song but I think that they wanted us to like get to Carboard Box Carboard Box everyone knew was a big song Carboard Box they didn't want us to kick the door down they were like it's too early to put that song out but we were like no we need to come out the gates hello yes girls let's go the powerpoint actually had like a whole EP yeah it was the end one song yeah oh my god it's definitely good because all the hard conversations are only for our benefit. So I feel like we understand those type of conversations. Yeah, it used to be difficult. Yeah. You don't want to hurt about your feelings, you know? Yeah, but I think there was definitely a period where people kind of avoided us in a way or avoided having big conversations with us because we didn take them very well but like we were a little well i saying we no it we can we can join you but i think it was hard thank you renee yes i think we were young but also we didn't really have a lot of people that we respected their opinions and like now we're out it's it's like because who are you You don't have the credentials. But, you know, like, you know, I feel like a lot of our journey in the beginning was us fighting for, like, what we think is right. We were fighting for our lives. Oh, my gosh. You know, it's hard being, maybe I'm throwing out a guess, too. It's probably hard being the youngest person in the room and being like, we got our hands on the poles. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like we knew what we were talking about. Yeah. Even though we were, like, completely inexperienced. But we knew. We knew. Because we know girl groups as well. And I think a lot of people in labels, like, they hadn't worked with a girl group. Yes. We haven't had a girl group. Do you know what I mean? Oh, my gosh. I love that, you guys. Because that's really, like, and it's hard to be like, damn, you have to think about that. But we have to tell people, like, when somebody wants to be a pop star, when somebody wants to be an artist, like, you also have to be a business person. You must know what you're working with and how to actually properly distribute your money. And like you said, PEE, know what money actually is going to make money come back in. A lot of times you think it's like we need more music videos. It's like actually you need more shows. Or it's like we need more X, Y, and Z. Actually you need more about, you know? So it's like, I just love that because you save yourself so much time and so much people coming after you for the money you didn't give them back. Yeah.