Citizen Cope
Jun 11, 2020
EP 43 - Citizen Cope
Today is a very special guest that people probably know much better as Citizen Cope. But his real name is Clarence Greenwood. He’s a musician. He writes his own stuff. But you'll also understand maybe the root of where his music came from. At the beginning of the interview, we talked about what his mom made him do to get his allowance, to do certain things or get away with certain things or buy certain things, which is really foreshadowing his whole life of becoming a writer and poet. We talked about the business of music, about privacy. We talked about the difficulties of the industry. We talk about labelling. How society is just so busy labeling everything. He doesn't really have a music genre. Never really has identified or cared about what it was called that he played, whether it was “pop” or “rock” or “soul”. It just doesn't matter to him. He's just a purist at heart with his music. And we got into spirituality. We got into talking about guys like Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts, these amazing philosophers that have led him down a really positive path mentally to get to a better place and to retrain his brain to think more positively. And I can tell you, he does. He has turned really difficult experiences in his life, like his father passing and abuse as a young boy. He actually could barely even list the bad things that came from it. He really just had only good to say about it, which is an amazing transformation as a human being. So we had a good time today. He finally has come out with another album. It's been seven years. It’s called "Heroin and Helicopters". Fascinating. And it starts out with a song called "Duck Confit", which I realized he's also a foodie. So it all makes sense. So please enjoy this show with the wonderful Clarence.
Background:
Citizen Cope is both a person (singer/songwriter Clarence Greenwood) and an acoustic-driven band. Born in Memphis and raised in Washington, D.C., Greenwood is the leader of the group, and he steers the band's soulful sound by serving as keyboardist, guitarist, lead singer, DJ, songwriter, and producer.
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