Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Real quick, if you’re new here, welcome to The TrevBeats Show. Make sure you subscribe if you want to stick around. And for the regulars, if you ever feel compelled to throw some extra support our way, check out the membership options next to the subscribe button. It’s strictly for those who want to help us do more, but your viewership is already supporting us. Now back to the show. Today, my guest is a fellow drummer, producer, and absolute powerhouse who has taken the internet and the music industry by storm. She has shared the stage with icons like Beyoncé, Fifth Harmony, and Willow Smith, but she is also a standalone artist building an incredible brand. You know her, and you love her groove. Please welcome Pocket Queen. Pocket Queen: Hey. Hello. How are you doing? Trevor: I am good. Pocket Queen: I’ve got some tea. I’m in a beautiful house, and I am just zenning out. Trevor: Come on. That balance is very important. First of all, thank you very much for coming. We’ve known each other for a long time. I’d imagine probably shortly after you got out of Berklee, after you graduated. That’s probably when we met, yes? Pocket Queen: I believe so. I was definitely a young whippersnapper for sure. I was out here. Trevor: We have a mutual bass player friend, my bro, Joe Cleveland. We were at a gathering at a studio. I think it was a holiday party, and people were sitting in. You were playing drums. I said, “Hey Joe, who’s playing drums?” He said, “That’s Taylor.” I said, “Bro, listen to the hi-hat. The hi-hat is something different.” He was like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I know what I’m talking about. This is different.” And then look what happened. We got The Pocket Queen. You went hard. You developed a whole brand. I’m watching you on commercials. It’s bananas. It’s amazing. Pocket Queen: I feel like continuously, as the years go by, God has shown me a new level every single year, or every leg of this journey, of what it can mean to be a musician and what it can mean to be a drummer. All of the things you’re saying — commercials and all of that — it wasn’t something I was really aspiring for. It just happened. I’m really blown away. Trevor: You put the work in. And ladies and gentlemen, let’s go back. Let’s not forget the foundation: you can play drums. You’re not just out here surviving off a viral moment doing a hundred takes. You actually can play drums. That’s the difference. It’s not a hype thing. It’s an actual pocket, real thing. What I didn’t know, and what I found out in my research, is that you came up in New Orleans. Is that correct? Pocket Queen: I did. New Orleans, Louisiana. Trevor: Being in New Orleans, you’re surrounded constantly by rhythm. It’s all through the culture. How did that DNA of New Orleans find its way into your playing and influence you? Pocket Queen: Fun fact: I don’t know if you’re familiar with Alvin Ford Jr. Trevor: Sure. Pocket Queen: His father was a musical director at the church my family used to attend back when I used to wear polka-dot dresses and ruffle socks. I would be beating on the back of a hymnal book watching Alvin Ford Jr. play drums. His father was the one who gave me the opportunity and switched us out. I played my first songs at that church. Most of that hi-hat stuff you were talking about, I picked up from him. That little under-sweep thing I do, all of that, is very much where I learned it from. It was the roots of me having a foundation in the church. There’s something about that environment that automatically brings your musicality to a different level — understanding composition, understanding the framework of songs, and how they work. Trevor: The dynamics too. Literal dynamics sometimes. In modern gospel playing, maybe there’s a little bit to be desired, but as far as the dynamics of a song and the emotion of music, church and jazz to me are the greatest ways to learn foundational music skills. Once you get good in those two genres, you can pretty much do anything else. So you go through school, and then you decide to go to Berklee. How did that transition happen? Pocket Queen: In high school, I wasn’t even really sure I wanted to be a drummer because I had my own limited thinking of what drumming would lead me to. I thought, “That means I’ll just be on tour, and I don’t want to tour.” I always knew that. But then I decided to go to Berklee because I had this hunger to learn about production and songwriting. I knew that was a contemporary music school that had the tools for me to learn anything I wanted to learn. That’s really why I applied to Berklee. I had all the plans in the world to stop playing drums after I graduated. Trevor: That’s interesting. That happens. We are the only people that outsiders struggle to understand can also be songwriters or producers. You can be a DJ and people understand it. “Oh, you DJ? You want to produce now? I get it.” But when you’re a drummer, it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t know you could do music. I thought you just played drums.” That stigma is so strange. I’m glad we have a generation of people pushing through it. Questlove did it big. Stanley Randolph is winning Grammys with Durand Bernarr. I’ve had my two cents. You’re doing your thing. Anderson .Paak — drummers are musicians. Drums are just another instrument. I’m glad you’re pushing through that because that stigma almost caused you to stop doing it. Pocket Queen: Even if you really think about it, some of the greatest producers started out on the drums. It’s one of the foundational instruments of music. I love it because it gives you room to appreciate everything happening in the band. When I’m playing, there’s a lot of analysis going on — not just of my part, but everything: the chords, the parts I can accent, the whole arrangement. It makes all the sense in the world that some of the best composers and producers are also foundationally drummers. Trevor: Absolutely. Narada Michael Walden is another big one. There’s no “How Will I Know” without Narada Michael Walden, and he played with Mahavishnu. He’s a real one. And Chaka herself is a drummer. It’s all in her writing. The way it’s rhythmic, the syncopation — obviously a drummer. Pocket Queen: That record is one of my foundational records. I used to practice that whole record every day. Trevor: That Chaka Khan “We Can Work It Out” record is genius. If you don’t know it, listen to it. Arif Mardin put together an incredible cast — Bernard Purdie, Dizzy, George Duke, Herbie, Greg Phillinganes, Anthony Jackson. It’s a genius record that falls through the cracks. So now I know you came up with the right information. You built your moniker around the pocket at a time when everything was moving toward chops, chops, chops. For listeners who might just be music fans and not musicians, how do you define what it feels like to truly be in the pocket? What is the pocket? Pocket Queen: There’s really no feeling like it when you’re locked in with a band and a groove. What I’d like to clarify is that people often believe pocket is just about the metronome, being in sync, quantized, and in time. It’s so much more than that. It’s the way the music breathes. It’s the whole feel of why you move a certain way to a song. For people who are not musicians, I try to explain that pocket is a universal term. In football, people talk about being in the pocket. It has to do with being in the right place at the right time. That’s what I try to explain it as: being in sync, being in motion, fitting in the right place at the right time. Trevor: That makes sense. That ties into a core philosophy we talk about a lot on this show: serve the song. You have chops. You have plenty of technical ability at your disposal. How do you balance showcasing that with locking into the groove and doing what’s right for the song? How do you mentally avoid overplaying? Pocket Queen: For me, the song or the composition really informs the type of chop that’s needed. I don’t usually have the instinct to chop unless the song is calling for it in the moment, or it needs an acceleration of energy. There needs to be a burst or something that adds to the moment. Otherwise, it’s not something you’re going to catch me doing for no reason. It’s literally a tool to me. It’s something you pull out when you need to, and then you put it back. It’s not the main thing. The melody is the main thing. The song is the main thing. That informs everything else. Trevor: Hold on. You said the melody and the song. Say that one more time. Pocket Queen: The melody. The song. Trevor: Yes. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes it feels like a drum solo that happens to have some words being sung. I see session people posting sessions, and I’m like, “You’re playing all that on a record?” In my day, and still in the circles I run in, we’re trying to make records. Pocket Queen: I used to laugh back in the day at Berklee. We would invite a bass player to these sheds, and I would feel so sorry for them because nobody knew what they were doing. You couldn’t even hear the bass player. Everybody was just doing everything, and I’m like, “We’re just trying to have some sort of musical thing going on here as an excuse to chop back and forth.” Trevor: I didn’t really come up in church, so I came up more on the jazz side. I didn’t really come up with the shed vibe. I may have been to one or two in my life, and one of them was documented — myself, Nisan Stewart, Jamie Gamble, Gordon Campbell, all these people in Nisan’s church basement in the ’90s. I do like that steel-sharpening-steel mentality, but sometimes it becomes less about steel sharpening steel and more like a horse race. Who’s going to be the fastest today? There’s something to be said about it, but it can also go too far. Let’s talk about production. As drummers, I firmly believe in something I call the 360 principle — expanding beyond the drum throne. If you play drums, you can be a writer, you can record, you can produce, you can do all the other things. How has taking control of your own production and the things you’re creating changed the trajectory of your career? You’re not just in the side-person mentality anymore. Pocket Queen: I think it has given people a better idea of my creativity. It has brought up the leverage in a lot of different situations. It has given me more of a voice, more of a calling card, and made a clearer distinction of what I specialize in and who I am. I noticed a definite shift in my career after releasing my first EP. The landscape got completely different. The brand deals got different. The brand gets stronger the more identity you have out there surrounding who you are and what you’re capable of — even investing in the look and the visuals. Trevor: You were someone who broke through virally in the modern age of social media. You were one of the pioneers of translating real drumming — elite-level drumming — into engaging social media that even non-drummers could understand and want to watch. What was the turning point where you realized your online videos could not only be helpful for drummers but could literally become the business? Pocket Queen: Ever since the first video took off, I always had this hope of being able to change how companies looked at musicians, including drum companies and music companies. I wanted to broaden the landscape beyond, “Oh, you’re a drummer, so you’ll get a drum endorsement and a stick endorsement, and you’ll be happy with that.” I used to think, if Michael Jordan can be on a Wheaties box, why can’t a drummer build a brand that strong? It was always a subconscious idea to really reach for the stars with what I was trying to break through as. That was even part of the method behind the type of content I posted. I wanted something with universal appeal — family-friendly, nostalgic songs that were personal to me and that I loved. It just so happened that they resonated with other people too. When I think of social media, I look at it as a social gathering place. My videos are a place where people gather and exchange information with each other. I create a platform for that to happen on many different levels. Once you’re doing that, there’s an ability to cross over and break into many different fields. Also, with me being a woman and a woman of color, at the time that was more rare to see. People talked about my natural hair, the smile, and all of that. Those are universal things people connect with beyond just the music. So I knew early on it was something that could potentially break through to more than just drummers. Trevor: And as far as standing on being a woman of color, there still aren’t that many. You can count on one hand: Cindy Blackman, Sheila E., Camille Gainer, yourself, Terri Lyne Carrington, and a few others. It’s not a huge amount. You had to overcome things to be courageous enough to do that. I’m so happy you did, because it broke things down. People were like, “We love this lady. We love her content.” It was dope to see that happen from the beginning. Pocket Queen: Thank you. I’m so grateful for that. There are people like you who have been watching me for decades now, and I don’t take that for granted. The people who have ridden with me through this whole ride and are still riding. Trevor: That engagement is beautiful to see. I’ve been dialing in my social media world and learning quite a bit about it this last year. I already had a career before social media started, and people my age initially pushed it back like, “We don’t need that.” I got out of that mindset years ago, but then I started saying, “I really want to understand what’s happening behind the scenes.” At first, people think of it like a record. A lot of people think records come out and become the biggest record in the world simply because people like them. That has never been the case. Everything was planned. You were funneled into the record being successful. There’s definitely something to learn to be successful on social media. When you mix that with actual foundation, real talent, and being affable, you get me turning on the TV and seeing you in a commercial. Now, you have toured. You’ve shared the stage with huge names, especially Beyoncé. What was the biggest lesson you took away from being at that top tier? Pocket Queen: That experience really fit into the idea of me becoming an artist because she taught me intentionality. When you’re behind the scenes and you see all of the people in place who make sure she looks a certain way and that the audience feels a certain way during a certain moment, I realized, “Oh, she planned that. So that means I can plan this.” I could really have a vision for what I want people to feel. Even when it comes to my content, that was something I implemented early on. I wanted it to be a moment, so I planned for the moment. I wanted to make the whole feeling happen. It became very exciting to tap into visual artistry the way she did. Every artist I’ve worked with taught me something about artistry. Beyoncé, Willow, Harry Styles — they all taught me important elements that need to be there for the audience to feel like they’re a part of your journey, rather than just witnessing it. Trevor: Willow Smith is another person we’ve all been able to follow, and I’m really proud of where she went. She really went into it. It’s not a game. She learned. She got a foundation. I respect her and the chances she has taken. That’s another example of getting the foundation right, and then the other stuff follows. Pocket Queen: I still have to scratch my head sometimes when I’m counting. She is so free with her artistic journey, and it still inspires me. When she dropped Coping Mechanism, which was complete rock, I was blown away. What people don’t know about me yet is that I am a rockhead. When she dropped that album, I looked up who produced it. His name is Chris Greatti. I sent him a message and said, “Y’all are doing something different right now, and I want in.” That’s how the whole thing happened — me playing drums on the last album and then touring with her. It came out of being inspired by what she was doing. It’s been amazing to watch her grow and see where she’s going because she’s limitless at this point. Trevor: That whole album and those songs — y’all had a real thing going on. Since we are drummers and we have a lot of drum followers, let’s talk gear for a second. What are you playing right now? What companies are you rocking with? Pocket Queen: Currently, I’m rocking with Tama on the drum front. I’m playing a bubinga birch Starclassic kit. It is my favorite kit in the whole entire world, and it’s gold chrome. I love gold. I’m also playing Vater — my own signature stick is out with them, and that is also gold. For cymbals, I’m playing Paiste Masters Series. And Evans drumheads. Trevor: There’s usually a link between Evans and Tama. I only talk gear with select friends. I have a friend named Wayne “Doc” Matthews — he goes by Waves now — and we talk about gear. We have discussions about Remo, Evans, and the whole thing. Of course, I’m on the Evans side. But it’s all about taste. If you know how to tune drums, you know how to play drums, and you have a decent set of drums, I don’t think anybody in the world is going to listen to a record and tell you exactly what drumheads were used. Same with cymbals or drums. The talk we do is cool and fun, but nobody’s that good. Gear conversation is personal, and it’s okay to like different things. We don’t have to beat someone up because they don’t like what we like. Pocket Queen: I’m going to be real with everybody watching: I can’t tune Remo heads. There’s a whole science to things I don’t understand. I need a drum tech. Trevor: It’s a thing. Now, I usually do a segment called “the elephant in the room,” where we talk about AI. But I don’t think that conversation is as far-fetched as it was when I started this show. I think we’re going to say RIP to the elephant. The elephant is gone. AI is not going anywhere. It’s part of the workflow. What’s your take on AI in music and beyond music? Pocket Queen: Similarly to what you said, throughout history there have been advances in technology that initially made people afraid. We’re two drummers still sitting here today who have made careers despite drum machines and all of these other things. We found new mediums to break through and make people interested in learning the craft and learning drums. I feel like it’s the same thing with AI. Of course, there’s a way to abuse it, like with anything. We just hope people don’t abuse it. But it can be an amazing tool if you let it be. I’m not an avid Suno user or supporter, but I have recently been onboarded to Moises, which is something I use a lot. I’ve used it for content in the past — stripping drums from songs and turning different parts up in the mix. People would ask me how I got the mix to sound that way, and it was because I had more control over the mixing stems Moises gave me. That’s a way I’ve found AI beneficial — not in a generative way, but as a tool that makes the workflow less tedious. Trevor: Shout out to Moises. I’ve been using them since the beginning too. It’s really helpful, especially when you’re trying to learn things. I’ve used it in many ways. You said not in a generative way, and I get that. But people rant about AI in comments, and it’s like, “Dude, you’re using it on the device you’re making the comment with.” It’s everywhere. We have to realize it’s not going anywhere. I don’t think it’s going to replace us. It’s good at taking what has been done and synthesizing it. But it can’t do the next thing, and it can’t do anything in the moment. For that reason, I think we’re always going to be safe. Pocket Queen: Especially if you know music. I’m an optimist at heart. I hope AI creates a scenario where it forces people to really do their homework to the point where a machine can’t come up with the ideas you’re coming up with. It forces you to be more creative. I’ve listened to some things Suno has done, and I’m like, “That kind of sounds like a pop record.” It sounds like something that could be on the radio. But that also creates a normalcy to that kind of quality and sound, and it almost sounds generic. I think it will bring down the value of that type of music, and it will become more valuable when you run into someone who is really pushing boundaries. I hope it brings back a different level of musicianship and live entertainment. Trevor: To me, the most nefarious use case is pure prompting. I think the real issue with generative AI is the vocal side. That’s the biggest infringement issue. On the music side, we’ve already existed for years with sampling, plugins, libraries, loops, Apple Loops, Splice, Output Arcade, and all these pre-made stems and musical bits used in production. If we take out the process, generative AI on the music side may even be a little better than that because you can put something into it and let it synthesize and manipulate something you created. With other tools, we’re often just dragging what someone else did into our work. With something like Suno, you can put in an idea, beatbox, hum a melody, or play a drum loop, and it can do something with what you put in. I understand the concerns. Vocal infringement — trying to sound like somebody — is a no-go. Taking a whole record and just prompting it is a no-go. But I think the balance is going to happen naturally over the years. Pocket Queen: I think everyone’s fear is the intellectual property piece and the money aspect. Even with Splice, the people who put up those loop packs at least know they’re being used, and I hope they were paid something upfront. With Suno and AI, the scary part is that it seems like this endless library of ideas and intellectual property, but it’s not verified who or where it came from, and no one is getting money. If they figure out a way to pay people, I think fewer people will have a problem. Trevor: You’re right. I’ve done business with Splice. I have two packs, and everything is on the level. The business has actually been really good. What you just said may be the biggest part of the whole thing. I think that’s the reason there is a fight at all. The people who hold all these masters are thinking, “We’d have to pay everybody.” It’s not about preserving the integrity. It’s about the money. We’ve seen lawsuits turn into partnerships. It’s like the lawsuits are to stall while the business gets done. We’ll see what happens because this is changing every day. AI platforms are changing weekly. Everybody is competing. Pocket Queen: I’m seeing commercials on TV that challenge me to look really closely because they’re using AI now. Some commercials are all AI. There are no real people. Trevor: There was an episode of Black Mirror with Salma Hayek about name and likeness being stolen and used with AI. Fast-forward a few years later, and I’m at the movies all the time with my wife. We see that Nicole Kidman AMC thing taking different turns with the script, and you can see it’s being altered. AI is literally everywhere right now. Pocket Queen: It makes business tricky. I think about what that licensing deal must be like — if your likeness can be manipulated by AI, does the contract renew? That’s where it gets weird. But really, we want our money. Run the bread. Trevor: Speaking of that, between producing, playing, and building your brand, you have a lot going on. What are some of the next things we can expect from The Pocket Queen? Pocket Queen: I’m working on my debut album, and I’m really excited about it. It is mainly just me. I don’t have any features. I’m producing the whole thing and songwriting the whole thing. For me, this album is more about my story than the brand I’ve created. Over time, the brand has transformed — gold, regal, different themes — but this is just me. It’s the weird musician part of me that I have held back all these years after being told by labels, “That’s a little too complex,” or “That’s a little too much. The general public won’t get that.” This is me saying, “Forget that,” and being fearless with sharing myself. That’s the main thing I’m working on. There are a few other partnerships and possible live performances coming, but the main thing I’m doing — and even why I’m hiding out — is working on this album. Trevor: Are you going to put it out yourself, or are you aligned with a label? What’s your plan for distribution? That trajectory is changing too. Pocket Queen: I plan on putting out the first three singles independently. My desire is to stay independent, but we’ll see how that goes. With distribution deals, publishing deals, and all the deals, I’ve run into people telling me to do the same thing I’m already doing, only with a little cash upfront. I don’t really see the purpose in that, but I’m open to someone changing my perspective. For now, independent. Trevor: As a person who has done a lot of deals, not as an artist per se but from other sides, the real deal is that the word “deal” is often another word for “loan” with crazy terms. And those terms come with control. They come with the ability to stop a career, shelve someone, and kill their momentum in their greatest years. Right now, with this whole Drake situation potentially, no one knows what his deal really is. We know he had a deal with Universal, but we don’t know the details. If he ends up going with a private equity company, as stories suggest, that may be the beginning of a whole new way to look at how record labels are valued or needed. If the biggest artist at a label says, “I don’t need you anymore,” that gives millions of creatives a battery in their back. You have a massive network. You’re a household name. If you do a project, I don’t see somebody else making it more popping than it will already be off what you created. I’ll support you and repost when you put it out. That’s what we need to do for each other so we don’t have to deal with these big corporations like that. Pocket Queen: One hundred percent. That’s the challenging part about this time. I talk all the time about how much I love the story of Motown — how it started with a group of individuals in proximity who had the same vision. But we’re living in a social media era where everybody is isolated and has their own thing they’re trying to do. Instead of people coming together on one accord, everybody is doing the same thing separately. That’s an interesting dynamic, and I hope to be part of something that reflects that Motown kind of time period. Trevor: Taylor, I know you have a lot going on, and I know you’re busy. I appreciate you sitting with us today. Before we get out of here, what would you say to the next musician — maybe a drummer, maybe not — who has something they want to portray or put out to the world and is a fan of what Pocket Queen did? What should they do to make it successful? Pocket Queen: Be authentic. That’s important. And be intentional. Keep those things at the forefront of your mind. Authenticity has been a very big part of this entire journey. Whether I went one way or another, whether it was portraying an alter ego or anything else, it was still very much me. I was being myself. If you feel deeply about it and give other people the opportunity to connect with it, that matters. Be intentional and be yourself. Trevor: Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a pleasure sitting here talking with the very knowledgeable and articulate Miss Taylor Gordon, also known as The Pocket Queen. I’m so happy you were able to make it. We’ll be looking forward to everything you have coming. Everybody, make sure you follow her on socials. Where can they find you? Pocket Queen: It’s @ThePocketQueen on pretty much everything. Trevor: Go follow her. Stay tuned, subscribe where you need to subscribe, and wait for those new releases. Check out all the many videos she has out now, and you will definitely become a fan of The Pocket Queen. Thanks again for coming and hanging with us. I look forward to talking with you again soon. Pocket Queen: Talk soon, Trevor. Peace. Trevor: Peace.