Stew’s new album Making It is, in part, about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend and songwriting partner, Heidi Rodewald.
The two musicians, who still work together professionally, dated each other for years. They collaborated on songs for their band The Negro Problem, as well as on orchestrations for Passing Strange, their semi-autobiographical Broadway musical about a young African-American trying to understand himself while traveling around Europe. But during Passing Strange‘s initial run in Berkeley, Calif., Stew and Rodewald broke up.
“At first we thought there was no way [our professional relationship] was going to be able to continue,” Stew tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “But you start to realize — as artists and collaborators — there’s a different kind of love. There’s a romantic love, and then there’s an art love, a collaborator love … that is really just as strong as romance.”
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