this week on "our world with black enterprise," we're on location in new york city for an exclusive interview with the legendary quincy jones. that's what's going on in "our world" starting now. captions made possible by the u.s. department of education and central city productions, inc. ♪ we are the world we are the world ♪ >> his life's works have taken him to new heights. as a world-renowned musician, tv and film producer, director and executive, philanthropist, he is

unstoppable. >> quincy jones and michael jackson! >> nominated for 79 grammys, jones has taken home 27. he was also just honored at the tribecca film festival for a career spanning 06 years. jones has discovered and worked with some of the biggest stars of all time. i recently sat down with quincy jones to talk about his legacy. you've had a career that spans over six decades now. you've played with everybody, done just about everything. how did you get here? >> i don't know. as they say in chinese, step by step. that's what you do, just one step at a time. and you couldn't -- nobody in the world could predict what happened to my life. i couldn't have predicted of what happened, to work with every idol i ever had from 14, billie holiday, ray charles and i came up together, 14 to 16, and cab calloway, bassie, duke,

ray charles, frank sinatra, michael jackson. >> that's the whole 20th century. >> ludacris. snoop dogg. everybody. >> maybe that is everybody. >> incredible, man. but it's a blessing, you know, and i receive it very graciously. i really do, because it's a blessing, to get the whole dinner. >> yeah. when you got into the music business or you began as an artist, you know, playing the trumpet, right? >> mm-hmm. >> how did you get your first big break? >> i wanted to be a gangster until i was 12. chicago. and my dad was a master carpenter in chicago in the depression. 5 million black people, and he was a carpenter for the most serious on the planet, the jones boys. chicago. >> no joke. >> i got my medals. switchblade here. 7 years old, ice pick. please. >> what got you out of the gang

life and into music? >> no, no, my father was busy all the time, and my mother was put in a mental home, so he was never home to look out after us. so he was working and all. and he was working with these guys. and capone found out that they made -- they started a racket in the first black businesses, the five and dimestores. and they made $100 million one year in the '30s, and that's, like, a billion dollars, you know. and he freaked out. he underestimated them, and he ran them out of chicago to mexico. and the next day my father came and got my brother and i out of the barbershop, put us on a bus with him and went to the northwest. >> seattle. >> yeah. thank god. and still gangsters, right, so doing everything, burning down dance halls and drinking, and the stories and everything, man.

and we broke into an army one week and we heard they had this -- this lemon meringue pie and ice cream so, we broke in, ate up all that and got tired and full and had pie fights. >> inside the place you broke into. you're still in there. >> yeah. pie fights. and we were in the business of breaking into rooms separately, you know, and i broke into this supervisor's room. i had a piano there and almost closed the door. thank god something above said go back to the door,diot, and i bent over to that piano, and i knew when i hit it that would be the rest of my life. every drop of blood and cell in my body stayed that. i stayed after school, played two weeks. tried pick horn, french horn, trombones, tried to be up front with majorettes. i really wanted to play trumpet

and finally got there. >> to span that range, everything from jazz to symphony orchestras. was that something that somebody mentored you? >> no, no, no. in a way, ray did because in seattle during the '40s you had to play every big man from julius reddings, bar mitzvahs and strippers in the black clubs and rhythm and blues. you played everything, man. souza, baby souza. i played the prettiest composition piece on the planet. copeland, leonard bernstein. i studied in paris for five years. hooked it up. she aid only 12 notes, if you learned what everybody did with them, you know, until they send 13, you'll be okay. and no genre ever bothered me, big band, bee bop, hip-hop, due

won, not a problem. >> hard to go anywhere without finding your imprint, television, music. >> a long time, man. >> did you imagine this? >> no. >> did you imagine playing the trumpet would lead to this? >> absolutely not. art linkletter used to live next door to me before he died. he used to say all the time, quincy, if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans. we have nothing to do with it. the identity. and i've always believed that music is terminals for a higher power. i can feel it going through you. i get curious about it, guys get all these egos, you know. but the ego is the higher power coming through you. and i believe that. you go to your creativity with humility and your successful grace. >> we'll be right back. >> would you consider doing a

record with me and basie? i said, man, are you crazy? is the pope a catholic? two days later, worked with him the rest of his life.

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even your upper stomach, are signs you're having a heart attack. don't make excuses. make the call to 9-1-1 immediately. learn more at womenshealth.gov/heartattack. quincy jones is the quintessential genius. >> he's so loving and so cool and so deep, you know, i'm sure everybody that's met him ever has said that. just the coolest person in the worrell. >> everything he does has a mind

towards progress. social progress. cultural progress. making change. and i think that's really the greatest gift he's given to the world. >> welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." we're here with the legend, quincy jones. not only are you a legend, mr. jones, but you have had a whole career filled with working with other legends. i want to run a few names down. let me know what it was like working with them. i have to start with ray charles. >> well, ray was like my brother, you know, from another mother. they rey came into town. he had sight until he was 6, you know. he had chickenpox and scratched his eyes and went to a house to live there and when he got that, he was blind. he was like a hundred years older than me because i was living at home, i was 14, and he had his own apartment, two pair of shoes, two suits, two

girlfriends, he had a record player and everything, you know. and ray was very independent. his mother taught him to not be, like, with the canes and the dogs and all that stuff. independence, you know. and ray was -- go shopping on his own, whatever, man, streets, cross the lights. i never could figure out how he did that. the only time he ever got blind was when the pretty girls were around. he'd start bumping into them. he does the same thing today. bumps them all the time. >> put him out there. >> get all blind, man. >> funny. >> you meet my girlfriend? no. hand's down here. beautiful, though. we had the time of our lives, man. >> what about frank sinatra? >> oh, please. that's another brother. and we -- i was working in paris, running a record company, understudying, and one day i came in and they said the office called from monaco and they want mr. sinatra to bring the house

band down with penny clark and all those guys. and so, we took them down. we played with frank for grace kelly, cary grant, all those people. and he said good job, kid. cuckoo. never saw him again. and four years later, i get a call from hawaii, joe, it's francis. i'm in hawaii directing a film. and i just heard the record you did with basie. it's a waltz. da, da, da. and he said i'd like the way you did it. put it in 4/4 for basie. he said, that's what i want to do. would you consider doing a record with me and basie? i said, man, are you crazy?

is the pope a catholic? that was in hawaii two days later and worked with him the rest of his life. >> one more past you. michael jackson. i can't not talk about michael jackson. you had -- >> well, what is there to say? in the music, man. ♪ thriller >> started on the wiz and he said i'm going to do an album on this. can you help me sign a producer? singing "ease on down the road" with diana. we thought we'd get him a song. finally got the song, "you can't win" with the crows, you know. >> yeah. >> scarecrow. i started watching him after that and seeing how focused he was. you know, everybody's dialogue, all of the songs, the steps, is choreography, everything, and he was so on the case. i was trying to find stuff in

him that hadn't been exposed with the jackson 5, awe oyou kn. i was at the oscars one year and he was singing then a love song but a love song to a rat. i had turned the song around "she's out of my life" that a friend of mine wrote when his wife left him. i was saving it for sinatra and said i'm going to give this to michael. michael sang it and every take he did, he cried. but that was on the record, though. just took him into a new world. >> that included "off the wall," "thriller," "bad," three of the most successful in history. did you all imagine that? >> month. naturally going for the throat, but records two, six, and 11. i don't want to be number two. >> right. >> addicted to number one. >> we'll be right back. >> ending up always making up

stuff and hiding behind the aka, you know. >> right, right. the beef between you and kanye west? >> i was living. bro. where's your car? [ jake sighs ] it's ok. ♪ like a good neighbor, state farm is there ♪ oh hey jake! my car got jacked. i got it. ladies! [ chuckles ] guess you're walking. you got those figures for me yet? ♪ like a good neighbor, state farm is there ♪ with an intern! nice work. casual wednesdays! casual wednesdays! [ both laugh ] what?! [ male announcer ] state farm agents are there when you need them.

my name's reggie. just recently, my wife and i took in her sister's children.

now, we already had 4, so i went from becoming a family man to a man with a bigger family. and you can't eat love, so i don't know how i'm going to feed them tonight. how was that, reg? i think i look more like denzel. that's cold, man. announcer: play a role in ending hunger. visit feedingamerica.org/hunger and find your local food bank. [ male announcer ] want to pump up your gas mileage? come to meineke for our free fuel-efficiency check and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. there's no way. it's legacy. i'm thankful to be here and i'm honored to be here as i always tell people i'm trying to be the

next. if i was ever going to try and be the next, his blueprint and his work speak for itself. >> one of the greatest icons that we have living in the united states. he's influence on music, his influence on culture, his influence on world peace. he's just -- he's quincy. >> one of the things you've done and really made a pathway for other people behind you is you've taught us to own our own stuff, whether it's copyrights, negatives, your films. >> right. >> you own your own stuff. >> a copyright. a negative or a master, if you don't, you're not in the business at all. the value is in the ownership of those things, the recordings or the footage or copyrights, songs. >> how did you know to do that? >> well, i learned it early. in new york, they take you out

quick, man. >> yeah. >> like senatery said, you make it here, you make it anywhere. you take that pass. i'd go on a record date and i'd sign the contract that said you can say anything you want. you're only getting 1%, you know. and i'd sign it, they'd put somebody else's name as a writer and they'd publish it. they owned 75% of the songs before i walked out the door. >> oh, my god. >> i thought, we're not going to have that. that's some plantation stuff, you know. >> for sure. >> it took me a few years because everybody was going through that back then. that's the way it was. >> yeah. >> and they'd probably have it in the '50s and all. >> if you think about the next generation of artists, who are some of the folk who you see as carrying the torch? who do you see the next -- the big people? >> well, we hare at ayn amazing

crossroads right now. we're at the end of the recording industry as we know it. that hurts me a lot. all over the world. 90% to 95 perspi perspire si, d cds. the kids just take it. >> do b recording studios? >> no. >> what's going to happen? >> we're going to have to reinvent it. that's what's going to happen. have to reinvent it. i can't believe it. i'm looking at it coming strait at me, but most of the people in the business act like nothing's wrong. >> right. house is on fire and -- >> they're living a hundred miles away. their solutions are -- and you can't look at everything like a big problem. it's a puzzle. we're going to do a deal with the new president of china, his wife, and hopefully he will be a protector of intellectual property. so little by little we'll get there. >> you could turn on television, listen to the ""sanford and

son"" theme song, open a magazine which you helped found. >> will smith, we started him. >> you put oprah and will smith on the map. >> "fresh prince" was our show, our production. "color purple." >> what's the key for you having such wide reach and longevity? >> i don't know, man, but god gives it to you, i'm not going to send it back. no. it's about, you know, orchestration, number one, vision, too. you have to drive car. but i could see it down the street. valerie simpson, i saw her before motown had a sign, singing back when she was 19, you know. the guys did that to me. they lifted me up and put me on the show, the sidney poitiers. great director. and automatically that hand was out there and it automatically comes out. mandela says quincy, come over,

i'd like you to co-host the new thing with me in botswana, profile some stuff on south africa and promise to build 100 homes with habitat for humanity over there. i brought five gangbangers with me from l.a., from south central to south africa, and it's amazing that ten days we turned around they saw the essence of south africa, all this stuff, mandela. and all these kids now are executives at big organizations and they help kids stay out of jail. >> what's the next big thing for quincy jones? >> we're leaving here, kanye west is going to the film festival with us. >> kanye west? >> yeah. kanye just signed with us. >> maybe month or two ago there was a little mini controversy on you. >> internet always got some stuff. there are people that don't have a life, man. they're sitting down there with their pants on the ground making

up stuff and hiding behind an aka. >> nothing to do with the beef between you and kanye west. >> we dope have any beef now. we don't have any beef. >> what do you think about kanye? >> they make up stuff. >> what do you think about kanye as an artist and producer? >> all of them. >> you were talking before -- >> $200,000, $300,000 a year, brazil, everywhere. >> corona! corona! >> what you did, man. a lot of rest there. >> more rest than you want. >> i love it, man. i'm a road rat. i've been on the road since i was 13, nightclubs and stuff like that. is if you don't go away, you don't have to make a comeback. >> i like that. we'll be right back.

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he inspires you because he's great. greatness inspires everybody. once you're in the studio and you have been produced by him, he understands that touch. you could be on 300 takes. he'll say this is the most incredible thing that happens on earth, baby. i don't know if it can happen again. one more. oh, my god. the heavens just opened it up. doesn't get flier than that.

one more. 200 takes, but he makes you feel good about every one of them. >> that wraps it up for us here on "our world with black enterprise." visit us on the web at blackenterprise.com/ourworld and fan us on facebook and follow us on twitter. thanks for watching. see you next week. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com