When you work together, do you tend to find yourselves falling into certain roles? How do you balance each other out?
Sam: As far as the songwriting goes, I tend to gravitate more towards the music. That's not every song, but most of the songs Ruby would do the words to it and I'd do the music. There are cases when I have a lyrical idea and we'll come to the table with an idea already. In some of the songs, we start from scratch. Musically speaking, it's a little mixed. Business speaking, part of what I'd do is dealing with people, watching our backs and making sure we're going to make something out of this. Obviously, there's the artistic side but I really do enjoy the business side of things, too.
Ruby: I tend to be momma bear in a lot of ways. We're protective of each other, you know. I tend to have that maternal side – just wanting to make sure we eat good things when we're on the road. We both deal with the songs; that's not something that's exclusive to me. I tend to be momma bear whether onstage and in our travels. When we're writing together, I'm going to be cooking something [laughing].
Some people consider you to be an odd couple, since Ruby was born in Ghana, many miles from Sam's hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. What does your professional relationship say about the universal power of music?
Ruby: It's something we want people to understand. None of us are as different as we are, especially right now in our country. It's really important to draw from our similarities as opposed to defending ourselves against each other based on our differences. If you spend time focusing on all the negative things that separate us, you'll totally miss the things that pull you together. In any relationship, you have to do that – even if you're the same skin color. There are struggles all across the board. When you find things that bind, you'll find that we're not as different as you think. Musically, we do that because we play to different crowds and audiences across the board.
Sam: I'd like to say, too, the music business puts a lot of acts together for certain purposes, whether it's marketing or whatever. As our story starts to come out, I hope people see that we're not a novelty act. We weren't put together by people trying to make a statement with an interracial duo. There were no intentions like that. It's the real thing. Like you said, we come from totally different backgrounds but music brought us together and that's the message. We're not that different.
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