Groove Is In The Heart

and the Lady Miss Kier

They say never meet your idols. A saying of unlimited interpretations. Mine, in this case, involves a date with Lady Miss Kier. Well, sort of...

I had met Todd Edwards through a colleague and was attending his DJ set at the Museum of Natural History. In my company a woman several years my junior I had met through work before we both left our company- I was quite taken with her and, through the veil of my insecurities, determined to impress in any way I could. A design grad and fashionista, she showed up in garb so immaculate we would soon catch the attention of one Lady Miss Kier at the foot of the stage. We posed for some photos with her, which I heard impressed my date's style-savvy mother. In the shuffle, I was given—or asked (who can remember) —for Lady Miss Kier’s number.

Texting with her was a bizarre mix of genuine connection and conspiratorial political quips that would later bring down upon her the wrath of the internet. We managed to get together for lunch, at my offering, in downtown Brooklyn. My fledgling music career—stalled at the time—left me hungry for direction from an elder stateswoman like her.

In addition to a retrospective of unparalleled accomplishments, she spoke to me of broken dreams, shards of relationships with former colleagues and collaborators, shortcomings of financial navigation of an industry few manage to bend toward profitability. She spoke of the core childhood neglect of her mother, who never really saw her. Confusions of youth. The all-too-common creative cancer of resentment between band members, egos swelling to fill the room, paralyzing you in place like airbags. The short-circuiting of a follow-up to her breakout success. Years of treading water in the pool of her supportive fanbase.

There was priceless business wisdom— in an industry of constricting purse strings, she told me what advances truly mean: Artists focus on the dollar amount on paper, envisioning the irresponsible pre-tax splurge (cha ching), when its real value is a metric of commitment—a 250k+ advance is a wedding ring. It speaks volumes about the security artists can expect, how much support their work can expect, how hard the label will work to recoup, how long the carpet will roll out. A turning point for me was becoming involved- and uninvolved- with a label which declined the basics of clearing a sample for a song they themselves had subsidized from production to release. She helped me see, and to measure, a underlying dearth of confidence that, with emotions sidelined, my work saw not as an insult to ego, but simply a mismatch of goals.

Looking up from a floor stare of nostalgia, she drifted back to the present, like Forrest to his bus stop bench. After her introspection - intimidating in its precision, she looked at me, and into me. What she told me charted my course for the next decade: She urged me to pursue and to value the non-musical work she wished she had: be a student of psychology, work on your life, strengthen your relationships, push through obstacles to love, intimacy, capacity for commitment, find your friends within your family, find your family within your friends. Don’t look back in anger. Be good to each other. There might as well have been a soft, pensive orchestral swell underneath her words; drowning out the foley of cheap plates clattering and metal chairs scuffing linoleum in that run-down middle eastern restaurant in the middle of the most bustling area of downtown Brooklyn.

Post-check, we funneled out and stood by the subway. It was then I realized, despite being at least 30 years her junior, beneath the surface of her invitation to accompany her to an event that evening, we were walking towards somebody’s bedroom. I thanked her deeply for her wisdom and departed.

We kept in touch once in a while through subsequent months and years, during which time her unconventional political and personal beliefs came to a head on social media platforms, creating a swirl of criticism. She had dropped our occasionally text-based contact with me around this time. At some point, I expressed my thanks for her guidance in a message to Todd, should he have any direct line to her.

Meeting an idol, who humanizes themselves before you, guides you, and provides a much-needed North Star to your life, only to see them run out of town (in a manner of speaking) is an unforgettable sonnet in the folio of my young life. I thought of her each time I opened or closed a book cover on the way to the multiple scholarships and diplomas she inspired. My recurring nightmares of a downslide in my obsessive GPA felt like letting her down, waking up a relief; the oath to Lady Kier was kept.

At a time of fashionable divisiveness, the internet may have focused on her eccentric hangovers from a complicated childhood and professional relationships that are none of my business, but none of that was present in the graceful decency she showed the lost soul who bought her lunch and prompted her for the wisdom and comfort I’ve shared with you here.

I don’t know what any of this means, and I’m not prepared, nor interested, in controlling your takeaways (if any). I can tell you what it left me with: the perspective, if not faith, that there are more untracked extraordinary kindnesses taking place between people day to day than there are revelations of how imperfect, regrettable, or inexcusable parts their values, lives, or pasts may be.

This song- this vinyl record that has followed me around since childhood- toted here and there in a courier bag by a hair gelled younger me, vertically sandwiched in a dust collecting stack in my apartment through years of depression and soul searching. Years of neglect stacked- turned out to be the steppingstone for this profound transformative experience. For this reason, in addition to being an undeniable banger of pure goofball retro joy to every audience I've had the pleasure of spinning it for, it is one of my favorite records.