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RYAN LOREN: Hello, Margo.
MARGOT B: Hi, Ryan.
RYAN LOREN: 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 LOREN: Yeah, totally.
So I 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 can 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 LOREN: 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 family dinners.
And it was life changing.
RYAN LOREN: Cool.
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 LOREN: You did very well.
It was pretty good.
So let me ask you a little bit about Black History Month
and what it means to you.
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--
MARGOT B: I did.
RYAN LOREN: --that still is relevant.
So I think it's really cool that you're here tonight.
MARGOT B: It was really funny-- just
to 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 a while.
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 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
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 think and figure out my thoughts
and process it and 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 play hooky for a day in school
and shoot my music video.
And then that played along with the song.
And that gave me a little bit of acclaim.
But it was all for the right reasons.
And it was just because it meant a lot to me.
And coming from such an 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 extinct.
But it was really exciting for me
to add to a little piece of the puzzle as best as I could.
RYAN LOREN: Yeah.
No, 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 LOREN: 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 is 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 collabed 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've had the opportunity
to collab 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 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
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 trek.
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 Cares 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 LOREN: Yeah.
No, you're staying connected and getting
involved with the community.
I think that's great.
MARGOT B: Yeah.
You've got to get involved or else nothing changes.
RYAN LOREN: 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 collabing
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.
And so I'm back in the studio writing
and, hopefully, busting out some new stuff.
And you can definitely check me around the city,
because I'm 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 LOREN: Cool.
Well, I'm sure they will.
Margot-- if anyone could do anything, it's Margot.
She puts her mind to something, and it happens.
So thanks for being here.
MARGOT B: Thank you.
That's very nice.
RYAN LOREN: We're really looking forward to having you here.
And good luck with everything.
MARGOT B: Thank you.
RYAN LOREN: All right.