Valerie Simpson: ...and got a recording contract!
Nickolas Ashford: The Sugar Bar has definitely become a gateway, if you're good. Somebody is going to be sitting in the audience and hear you and offer you something.
What propelled you to make such an opportunity available to other artists?
Nickolas Ashford: It didn't start out that way. It started out just like a family thing. We were so close to Dr. Maya Angelou that we enjoy sitting around talking so much that we had bought a place on the West Side that had an empty bottom floor. I said, 'Let's start a restaurant so we can sit around and talk and eat.' I think people expected to hear music there. That's when the complication came in. So we finally started putting music in and it started to happen after that.
Where do you see yourself headed now? You're working on a score now with this particular project. Are there any other things you're interested in pursuing?
Nickolas Ashford: It's still the music; it's all about the music. We kind of like take that day by day wherever that leads us. The music has been our guide. With God's help inside of us, that has led us and attracted whatever we get to us. Tomorrow, the future, we can't see. Nobody knows, but you try to make good choices for the future. And that's how we go about it, basically. More good music, you know?
When you look at your career, what do you consider to be the best choice the two of you made in terms of furthering your career?
Valerie Simpson: Hooking up! [laughing] It was the best deal we ever made.
Nickolas Ashford: It hasn't been work. It's been fun [laughing].
For more information on Ashford & Simpson, visit their official MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/ashfordandsimpson
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