Madonna: bitch got mad flow

Madonna talks about Missy Elliot, Her past records, her rapping, whether she plans to celebrate her 20th anniversary in music & so much more!

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Madonna: ["American Life"] was like a trip down memory lane, looking back at everything I've accomplished and all the things I once valued and all the things that were important to me. What is my perspective now? I've fought for so many things, I've tried so hard to be number one and to stay on top, to look good, to be the best. And I realized that a lot of things that last and the things that matter are none of those things.

This country is amazing, it's not like any other country, in that you can come from nowhere and have nothing and become the president of the United States, or do the things that I've accomplished, which I feel incredibly blessed to have done, and I'm sure I couldn't have done it anywhere else. That said, I feel like America has changed over the years and that a lot of our values seem to be materially oriented and so superficial. And we all seem to be obsessed with fame just for the sake of fame, no matter what — sell your soul to the devil if that's what it takes. And we're also completely obsessed with the way we look. And I bought into a lot of that, so a lot of the record, especially the first three songs are just like, "What was I thinking?"

"What was she thinking?" is how some listeners have reacted to the rap break in "American Life," a funny and self-deprecating rhyme. Just how did MC Ciccone come up with the idea?

Madonna: Basically, we had recorded the whole song and we had this instrumental thing at the end and Mirwais [Ahmadzai, producer] was like, "You know what, you have to go and do a rap." And I was like, "Get out of here, I don't rap." And he was like, "Yeah you do. Just go in there, just do it." He totally encouraged me. I had nothing planned, nothing written, and he just told me to do stream-of-consciousness, whatever I was thinking. Because I was always drinking soy lattes in the studio, and I drive my Mini Cooper to the studio, I was just like, "OK, let me just talk about the things that I like." So I went and it was just total improv and obviously it was sloppy at first, but I got out all my thoughts and then I wrote everything down that I said and then I perfected the timing of it. So it was totally spontaneous.

Among those who gave her rap the thumbs up was Missy Elliott, who even provided one of the many remixes of "American Life," due in stores the week after the album, on April 29.

Madonna: Oh, it's the best. I've always been a huge fan of [Missy] and I've been waiting for the right song to ask her to do a remix and she did the most amazing job and I love her! She raps on it, too.

Still, one of the world's richest, most celebrated women declaring that riches and fame and power and "stuff" are unimportant? Some will scoff, of course. But that's OK, Madonna says — she knows of what she speaks.

Madonna: Who better to say those things don't matter than somebody who's experienced them? [People may say], "How can you say they don't matter? How can you say that money won't bring you happiness if you don't have a lot of money? How can you say that fame and fortune are not a guarantee for happiness and joy and fulfillment in your life?" You have to have that experience to know. 'Cause you have all those things, I've had all those things, and I've had nothing but chaos around me. So I'm just sharing what I know with the world. 'Cause I do think that we've become completely consumed with being rich and famous, our society has. And I just want to tell people, take it from me, I have all those things and none of them ever brought me one minute of happiness.

John Norris: So as I understand it, the first three tracks are a trilogy, in a sense. Thematically, you're addressing those things that you're putting behind you.

Madonna: Well, I think they're an extension of "American Life." They're examining things I valued and things I found myself worrying about, caring too much about, and realizing that those things aren't important and wanting to get out from underneath that cloud, the world of illusion.

Madonna: Yeah, the entertainment business, so to speak. Hollywood is not the only place it happens, it's kind of a metaphor for what Hollywood now means to us. It's like the world of tinsel, glamour and make-believe.

Norris: There are other tracks on the album where you seem to deal with things that really do matter. And there's a track where you seem to be as open as you've ever been about the relationship with your parents ("Mother and Father"). All that stuff was something that you didn't seem to be that comfortable dealing with in the past.

Madonna: It's funny, because as you say, the beginning of the record is kind of clearing away what isn't important. And once you clear the cobwebs away you can see things that do matter and are important with a fresh pair of eyes and approach them without fear. A lot of times you go through life looking for distractions to cover up pain, when what you should really do is face the pain and then you don't need the distraction.

Without a doubt, a major factor in Madonna's emotional housecleaning and newfound clarity has been kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism, which she first embraced in the mid-'90s. Her interest in it seems to have only increased — other members of her family now study it as well, including husband Guy Ritchie, and there was kabbalistic imagery in last year's "Die Another Day" video.

Norris: What is the single biggest change in your life over the past few years? Is it marriage, is it children, is it kabbalah?

Madonna: Well, it's all of those things. Obviously studying kabbalah has changed my whole outlook on life, so it's affected me as a parent, it's affected me as a wife and as a friend. All of those things.

[Kabbalah is] several things. One is that we are all connected. That you and a person that lives on the other side of the world is an extension of me. And that feeling things like envy or jealousy or hostility or any of the negative things that we all feel for each other as human beings is like hating yourself. And that conscience is everything and that the power of your thoughts and the power of your words determine your environment, the things that you draw to you. When I say in "American Life," "I'm not a Christian and I'm not a Jew," it's the idea that I don't want to be identified with any sort of religious thought, because to say that I'm black or I'm white or I'm Catholic or I'm Jewish is to think in a fragmented way. And because we think in fragmented ways, we have wars, we don't see each other as extensions of ourselves, as humanity. So that's the biggest concept I think.

Norris: Too many times it's the differences we focus on, and that's what creates conflict. And it's the allegiance you feel to a nationality or an ethnicity or a religion that ...

Madonna: ... Or I'm a New Yorker, I'm an American, I'm a this, I'm a that. You stay over in your box, and I'll stay over in mine. It's what keeps us all in this fragmented way and that's why we're all enemies and that's why nobody is talking to each other, that's why there's so much suffering.

Norris: Is your daily life quite a bit different from what it was before Lola was born in 1995?

Madonna: It's hugely different from even a year ago. Absolutely. Huge.

Norris: Is family the focus and then everything else takes its place?

Madonna: My family, my work, my spiritual life. I mean, I love watching movies and doing silly, frivolous things, but I find I have much less time for those things.

Presumably less time for reminiscing, as well — if she ever did much of that. Despite the fact that 2003 marks two decades in the game for Madonna, and more importantly, two decades of relevance, she's never been one for nostalgia. I've long wondered why it is that she has always seemed so singularly uninterested in the past.

Madonna: My own past? I'm just one of those people who likes to keep everything moving this way [points forward]. Although I didn't particularly do that with writing this record, did I? I see early incarnations of myself as a less evolved version of what I am now, and I don't want to go backwards. I don't want to hold onto an unevolved version of myself.

Norris: So does it make it hard to find something interesting or worthwhile in what you created 10, 12, 15 years ago in your art?

Madonna: I can look back and see things I've done, pick and choose things, and say, "Yeah, that's interesting." But honestly, I don't spend much time doing that because I've got too much to say now and too much to do now.

Norris: So if you could snap your fingers and make, say, everything pre-Ray of Light disappear, would you?

Madonna: No, absolutely not. I don't want to make my past disappear, but I want to learn from history and move on.

Norris: Will there be any celebration or any marking of your 20 years in the music business?

Madonna: This momentous occasion? I haven't actually thought about it to tell you the truth.

Norris: If the record is any indication, you seem to be in a reflective mood. But more on a personal level.

Madonna: Should I have a reflective party? Everybody can just come and we can sit down and we don't have to talk to each other, we can just think! Let's have a séance.

On that spiritual note, rather than American Life, Madonna considered naming her latest album Ein Sof, a kabbalistic term meaning "without end," "limitless," or, as the final song on the record suggests, "continuous," "like a circle."

Norris: One of my favorite tracks is the last one, "Easy Ride."

Madonna: Which it so hasn't been.

Norris: But you say you don't want it to be an easy ride.

Madonna: And every time I listen to that track I think, "You so didn't get it, OK?"

Norris: And it talks about coming full circle. Do you think you have?

Madonna: Yeah, and I like the imagery of a circle anyway, because there's no beginning and no ending. And to me it represents immortality and that is the essence of art.

Norris: And you're not going to, say, five years from now, be refuting what you said today about life and what is important?