ROB LEWIS: How’s everything man? Good to see you man.
PRODUCER: It’s good. How are you?
RL: Alright - so where do I go? What do you want me to -
PRODUCER: Yeah, so we’ll put you on this host mic right here.
RL: All good.
PRODUCER: Cool cool.
RL: Check.
RL: Number 1. I don't want to end up in the world alone. So as a man, I've had to make choices to just get my shit together.
Number 2. I'm scared of heights, and always have been.
Number 3. I am really scared of social media.
Number 4. This is for all humanity, but I am really scared of uh how using our pinky to be a stabilizer for our heavy phone calls and how we continue to just look down at our mobiles and surely in 50 years we're going to start having humpbacks man. I mean I'm just scared of this evolution of what's going to happen like, is the pinky going to extend the digit in a hundred years? Like I, you know extend, you know who knows but I'm scared about that.
Number 5. I'm scared of something happening to my hands as a piano player and a lover.
Number 6. I'm scared that the evolution of music and the music industry is going the wrong way. Look at Drake man. Drake came in and changed the whole way R&B songs are written, and now everything is, maybe I got three notes in my whole melody, da da da da, Just simple melody as opposed to like what R&B was, where it was like you know, hey my da da da. If you’re that dude, bye.
Number 7. I'm genuinely scared that in this lifetime I won't reach my full potential. You know I'm close. I'm not going to lie, if I died today, it's been a real cool run. It's been great. It's been really good, um but I got so much more I want to do and so much more that I feel like I have to do because I got kids. I got to leave them some, you know they got to name a auditorium after me one day. You know what I’m saying. Like I ain't saying I need a street named after me but there’s gonna be a Rob Lewis auditorium somewhere, you know what I’m saying, so I gotta work that hard. But you know, you get used to the thought that you have time. My sister died in 2005. She died at 38, congestive heart failure. Uh, it was sudden. She died on Mother's Day, um you know I was just, and I was at a great point in life, career wise, I was just, I was coming from the Kentucky Derby with Patti LaBelle and was flying in New York to do David Letterman with Fantasia. You know and in between that, at the airport, I got a call that my sister had, didn't wake up, as my mom said it.
Number 8. I'm afraid of deep water. Thank God for Planet Earth man, and like it’s straight up man because now I can see with somebody like David Attenborough narrating it. I can see the majesty of the world. But I have no desire to like go snorkeling.
Number 9. I am scared of being a black father in today's America. Remember when kids used to want to be firemen and cops? Bet they don't want that shit no more.
Number 10. I'm not necessarily afraid of Trump, but I'm afraid of his impact. I mean nothing that he's done has been punished. Why wouldn't that make the average person feel like they could do things and it can go unpunished as well?
PRODUCER: You have this con - I feel like you have this constant theme throughout a lot of them of like, we’re de-evolving. You know what I mean, it’s like we got better, the music industry got better, America was better, and then
RL: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I mean you know and look, I, you know I'm no expert at shit but uh, if we had to look at it, um it's always been darkness that brought light. You know, out of the Dark Ages came the Renaissance. You know, so uh, I hope there’s a Renaissance on the horizon for us but fuck yeah, no question. No question we're in the dark ages.
My name is Rob Lewis and those are ten things that scare me.