Take Five: Host Gia Peppers Talks R&B And Amazon Music’s Game Changer
Host and entertainment journalist Gia Peppers is regarded as one of this generation’s most influential talents. The Washington D.C. native is best known for her contributing work on The Today Show, her radio show, More Than That With Gia Peppers, her interview series, Give You The Game, and for being part of the popularly candid Black Girl Podcast. Furthermore, she’s an avid R&B lover, all of which led her to be tapped as the host of Amazon Music’s R&B Rotation.
“R&B is the first genre of music I fell in love with,” Peppers wrote in a statement while basking in the joy of her announcement. “I am honored to take fellow music fans on a journey through some of the biggest songs we are all singing at the top of our lungs—whether we can sing or not. R&B is seeing a deeply creative and necessary resurgence, with super talented artists and fans who acknowledge the importance of music that makes you feel something. I’m so ready to be a part of the Amazon Music team, and grateful to be a part of telling stories of some of my favorite artists and songs in R&B.”
Over a lively Zoom chat, VIBE caught up with the groovin’ Virgo about blazing her own trail in the spirit of Beyoncé, her new gig, the future of Black Girl Pod and her love for R&B.
First things first, when did you fall in love with R&B?
Gia Peppers: Oh my gosh. We about to do the Brown Sugar question.
You know we are!
Ooh, that’s a good question. I feel like I inherited a love of music from the time I was born, because my dad used to sing to us ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ by Stevie Wonder. Soul music, R&B music, Motown, like all of it. It was the first place where Black people could feel seen and heard and find a way to connect in a world that literally was like, “Y’all don’t matter.” Right? I think that music is so much more to us because it’s one of the things that we always have. It’s the battery in our back. It’s the reason why we can connect more deeply than we even understand. So, for me, my dad’s musical ear is brilliant. I love that I inherited his love for Stevie and Marvin Gaye, Earth, Wind and Fire, James Brown and all the people that he used to play. But I think my first album where I really, really fell in love with R&B had to be The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. No, definitely Brandy first because [of] “The Boy Is Mine.”
Classic.
Brandy represented so much of what I wanted to be as a young Black girl that I fell in love with her, from “Best Friend” to “Baby” and then “The Boy is Mine” just solidified my love. The vocalists of the late ‘90s, early 2000s—that’s where I really fell in love with R&B. So to kind of be aligned with this station when we are seeing such a renaissance and such a renewed passion for music is just a full circle moment that I’m so grateful to be a part of.
Speaking of Black female vocalists, Jazmine Sullivan. In her GRAMMY acceptance speech, she mentioned how Heaux Tales was made for Black women, as a safe space for us to feel seen and understood. So, how do you feel about that album?
Jazmine Sullivan is one of the most important vocalists of our time. Especially between Jazmine and H.E.R., I feel when we look back in 20, 30 years, those will be the songs that are still permeating our records, all the records that are still streaming. Their music is going to be the ones that we throw on at the cookout. That we’ll be like, “Oh, y’all don’t know nothing about this.” Their music is going to cut through the test of time. I’m so happy, because I remember when Jazmine said she wanted to quit music and she was literally not singing, not creating. I’m thankful for whatever breaks she had to take to come into this lane, because this album was so soulful, but it was honest, vulnerable and it was a reflection of what happens when Black women own the parts of ourselves that people try to shame out of us.
How would you say that hosting R&B Rotation is different from hosting More Than That?
This project is different, because I get to dive into music again. I get to fall in love with music again. I get to do research on where the artist’s head is at. I get to break down what the song sounds like, who produced it. Like I get to fall in love with, and be a fan of R&B again, and that’s a job. I was the girl that was buying J-14 and Word Up! magazines, trying to see what B2K was doing. I was the girl that was like, when they would do the little breakouts like Destiny Child’s, “day in the life,” I would be like, “Oh my goodness, that’s so crazy, I do the same thing.” I was always looking for something that represented me. And now that I get to kind of guide people through these different moves that the artist may be going through. Stories that help you listen to the song from a different perspective. That’s my favorite part of it. It’s different because I don’t get to talk. We get to be fans of the music and take the fan experience to another level by guiding people through these different songs and the meanings and the moments behind them.
I love that. I feel like this R&B doesn’t get talked about enough in a personal way or just doesn’t get the type of love the Hip-Hop gets.
There wouldn’t be Hip-Hop without R&B though. I don’t think people remembered when rap first came out, people was like, “This is whack. Like, what’s y’all doing? Why y’all talking on tracks? You can’t sing, sit down.” All of Hip-Hop has to thank R&B for even making space for Black people to be taken seriously in the music industry. So we need spaces that talk solely about R&B and soul, because that is the basis and the foundation of everything we see and how Hip-Hop took it to a whole other level. Don’t get me wrong, Hip-Hop is incredible, but we wouldn’t be here without R&B.
Period. How did the partnership with Amazon Music come about?
Amazon hired the right people with Tim Henshaw, who’s the head of R&B and Hip-Hop over there. What I love about Amazon Music is that Amazon is literally its own world. So, the team of incredible black women at R&B also produce the Hip-Hop station and they reached out to me and was like, “Hey, would you be interested in hosting something that’s just about R&B?” And I was like, “Is the sky blue? Absolutely.” We went through a series of talks, but they just loved my perspective and where I wanted to take it. Because of my experience in this industry, I can see immediately through the BS. How can we have Lucky Daye, Silk Sonic, Ari Lennox, H.E.R, and Jazmine, and all these incredible people making so much impact, but not have a place where their music can be celebrated?
That’s what R&B Rotation is about. It’s about celebrating the new class of R&B vocalists, innovators, creatives that are here and not going anywhere and making music that actually has something to say. Making music that is the new soundtrack of our lives that we have in Alex Isley, who is literally carrying on the torch of The Isley Brothers. Why are we not talking about it? We get to big up the artists of today who people claim and now I think people finally realize R&B ain’t dead and ain’t going nowhere. And so that’s what we are here to, you know, amplify these, these artists deserve a space. Let’s give them the space. And that’s why when I got the project to my table, I said, oh, I want to be a part of this, because I totally agree. R&B isn’t dead, and these artists are killing the game and we’re just seeing the beginning of so many of their careers.
While we’re here, what’s up with Black Girl Podcast?
Black Girl Podcast has been doing podcasting for four years straight without breaks. And so during the pandemic, when we kept recording every day, we loved it. We really, really were there for each other in unprecedented horrible times, but also it did kind of take a lot out of us, right? We very much are still coming back, just trying to figure out how to come back, because we’re not Black girls anymore. We started when we were like 25 and now we’re [in our thirties]. And so we’re like, “Okay, how do we come back with more intention?” But also like, we have been doing this for four years with no breaks. And so I think what had happened was, we really had to be like, “Yo, who are we outside of this?” We need time to go a hundred percent on all of our different dreams, because while our dreams are absolutely intertwined, there are some dreams that we have to go get on our own. So we’re trying to figure out how we do this in a way that is representative of the women we are now, and how we make sure that we are more ourselves in this and not just becoming one voice, We all have five very different opinions about life, which is what makes the show great. And so we know how much it matters. We hear y’all, we see the tweets. I personally will never let it fizzle, and we ain’t going to do that.
Catch Gia Peppers on R&B Rotation available via Prime, Unlimited via Mobile, Fire TV, web and any Alexa-enabled device.
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