MALE SPEAKER: Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure
to bring a phenomenal talent, an amazing talent, and a
beautiful talent, Margot B.
[MUSIC -- Margot B, "Cool"]
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC --
MARGOT B, "Complete"]
[APPLAUSE]
MARGOT B: Thank you guys.
Enjoy the rest of the show.
RYAN: Hello Margot.
MARGOT B: Hi Ryan.
RYAN: Thanks for being here tonight.
I'm really excited to have you.
MARGOT B: Thanks for having me.
This is fun to be at Google.
RYAN: Yeah, totally.
So just wanted to talk to you a little bit about your
background and a little bit about your music.
And then we'll get started.
So could you tell people about you that might not know who
you are, about your music, your background.
MARGOT B: Sure.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I come from a very eclectic family, my mother who is
Russian, German and my father, originally from Jamaica, and
moved to the United States when he was 16.
So he has an interesting story.
And then they met in college and produced
me, which is great.
I'm thankful.
And I've lived in New York for five years, working
independently as a singer, songwriter and working as a
songwriter for other artists and
touring with other artists.
I just finished Rent off Broadway.
It just closed in September.
And doing other shows in the meantime but
getting back to my music.
So it's exciting.
RYAN: Cool.
If you could quickly summarize your experience with Rent, how
would you say that?
Or what would you say?
MARGOT B: Life changing.
It was something that I will always remember.
And I never expected it to be so hard to say goodbye.
But that family is such a huge family.
Rent was such an unbelievable show that totally changed the
face of musical theater for Rock and everything and
changing the way that it's sung and the way that it just
looks to everyone.
And as a kid, I grew up with that show.
So it's kind of weird to be doing book reports when you
were younger and then be in the show and sitting with the
director and the writer's father and being invited over
to the family dinners.
And it was life changing.
RYAN: Cool.
Yeah, I was lucky enough to get to see you.
MARGOT B: Yeah, we had a lot of fun jumping around and
swinging from the rafters.
RYAN: Yeah, you did very well.
MARGOT B: Thanks.
RYAN: Very good.
So let me ask you a little bit about Black History Month and
what it means to you.
MARGOT B: Sure.
RYAN: We're here to celebrate that tonight.
So just a little bit, maybe, more about your heritage and
how you've celebrated over the years.
I heard you wrote a tribute to Martin Luther King when you
were 13 that still is kind of relevant.
MARGOT B: I did.
RYAN: So I think it's really cool that you're here tonight.
MARGOT B: It was really funny, just to kind of touch on that
story a little bit.
My mother and I were driving to Philadelphia
for a beauty pageant.
Because I really wanted to be a part of everything that they
were a part of.
Because they were doing a lot of fund raising and a lot of
volunteer work.
And I thought that's awesome.
I get to do that all the time?
That sounds like a great idea.
I want to win this thing.
So I went to Philly with my mom.
And when we were in the car, I just got bored.
And I used to write poems and songs every once in awhile.
But she suggested that we just write a song.
And she asked me, what's really important.
And it happened to be Black History Month.
And I was like, why don't we write it about Doctor Martin
Luther King Junior.
And she was like, that sounds like a great idea.
So we sat down.
Well, obviously she was driving.
But I sat down and just tried to brainstorm a little bit.
And she helped me kind of think and figure out my
thoughts and process it and kind of put it into song form.
And now it's played in every state in the US on his
birthday, which is really exciting.
And we did a whole video.
And I incorporated my high school.
And we got out for the day, which was really cool as a kid
to kind of play hooky for a day in school and shoot my
music video.
And then that played along with the song.
And that kind of gave me, like, a little bit of a claim.
But it was all for the right reasons.
And it was just because it meant a lot to me.
And coming from such eclectic background with my ethnicity,
and my family, and religion, and everything, it was just
really important to me to put out that message and know that
it's still really relevant though it doesn't seem like
things are so restricted now.
We've come very far.
But I think that we still have many, many moons to go before
the face of color is kind of extinct.
But it was really exciting for me to kind of add to a little
piece of the puzzle as best as I could.
RYAN: Yeah, I think that's incredible.
It's really commendable.
I know when I was playing hooky, I was shooting monsters
on video games.
MARGOT B: I might have done that on the side, maybe.
RYAN: So I think it's really good to have you because your
background is so different.
And you appreciate Black History Month.
And also you give back.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about you've
volunteered a lot.
And you did a lot for Katrina in Pittsburgh.
And I just wanted to see what you've done and what
you're doing now.
MARGOT B: Yeah, volunteering has just always been something
that my heart has drawn to.
We did a Katrina benefit concert in one of the biggest
arenas in Pittsburgh, which granted me a key to the city
from the mayor of Pittsburgh, which was really cool.
And I was 15.
So that was really nice.
The Red Cross collaborated with us.
And my mom and dad and brother helped me put it together.
And it was really exciting.
We had huge names put it all together in Pittsburgh.
And we had thousands of people there.
It was huge.
And we raised a lot of money for the benefit.
Since I was in Rent, I had the opportunity to collaborate
with Friends In Deed, which was what Rent was based off of
and written because of the support groups
dealing with AIDS.
And I dealt a lot with their main headquarters out of Soho.
And it was really--
it was actually around the same time that my grandmother
passed, so it was really near and dear to my heart.
And now they've opened up their doors to not only AIDS
survivors or people that have lost friends or family and, or
family with the AIDS virus but to also cancer survivors and
people that were lost.
So I had the opportunity to do that.
And I do the AIDS Walk every year.
And I just started with City Harvest, which is a great
organization out of Brooklyn.
It's a bit of a truck.
But it's really worth it.
We recently were there because of the theater and Broadway
community as well I was invited, which was amazing.
I've had a lot of great experiences.
We packed patches of potatoes, and oranges, and pears.
And then they go out to families in need.
And we packed over a ton.
So each sack full of pear or whatever it is feeds a family.
So that was really nice to know that we fed over a couple
hundred families within a couple hours.
And it was fun and exciting.
And I just had the opportunity to be invited to a Women Who
Care event hosted by Loreen Arbus.
And it is based off of the UCP Foundation, which is the
United Cerebral Palsy Foundation.
So I'm excited to get on board with them.
But all of these organizations are really important to me.
So I'm just trying to find new ones.
RYAN: Yeah, you're staying connected and getting involved
with the community.
MARGOT B: Yeah, you got to get involved or
else nothing changes.
RYAN: Cool.
So let's switch gears a little bit, talk about music.
What's next for you?
And then we'll get going.
MARGOT B: Well, I'm pumped to get back on the music train.
I've been writing a lot and collaborating with a lot of
different producers, and writers, and musicians, and
just trying to open my mind to as many possibilities as I
possibly can.
I've come across a lot of talented people within my
short term of a career.
And I just keep opening more and more doors.
And I don't know how it's happening.
But I'm really blessed.
So I'm back in the studio writing and hopefully busting
out so new stuff.
And you can definitely check me around the city.
Because I am booking shows everywhere around
the city right now.
And I just can't wait to get back on stage just with my
group and do my thing.
And I hope people like it.
RYAN: Cool.
Well I'm sure they will.
Margot, if anyone could do anything, it's Margo.
She puts her mind to something and it happens.
MARGOT B: Thank you.
That's really nice.
RYAN: So thanks for being here.
We're really looking forward to having you here.
MARGOT B: Thanks.
RYAN: And good luck with everything.
MARGOT B: Thank you.