Speaker 1: Question. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, Suprema subprema, role call, subprema, subprema, roll call, subdrema, subprema,
Speaker 1: role called, subprema subprema roll call. What's Love Supreme? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The podcast chant Yeah here with Don Lewis. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not asking about cramps. Suprema role call, subprema role call.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar, sweet as a muffin. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I ain't puffing. Yeah, round Grandma makes stuffing suprema roll call, suma,
Speaker 1: suprema role call. My name's boss Bill. Yeah, keep keep
Speaker 1: keeping on. Yeah. In the words, it's where it is
Speaker 1: keeping there is in this song. Roll call sure, role call.
Speaker 1: My name is Dawn. You can call me j Lisa,
Speaker 1: you can call me slma. Just call men health there
Speaker 1: right now, call call call, roll call Wow. And I'm
Speaker 1: flying your background vocals into every role call we can.
Speaker 1: You You outdid Charlie Wilson q TIP trying to go
Speaker 1: rogue on the ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another soon
Speaker 1: to be classic episode of q LS. I'm your host.
Speaker 1: Quest Love with Me Today is the legendary Sugar Steve. Hey,
Speaker 1: I upgraded you to lege day. Appreciate that. Yeah, figure,
Speaker 1: gonna update my resume right now, my bio and put
Speaker 1: legendary at the top. You're the legendary Sugar Steve. You
Speaker 1: know the songs for everything Sugar already, Hunt Hunted. Do
Speaker 1: we have to pay for the archies? Yeah? I don't know. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: they're all gone. We got the boss bosses, Boss Bill, Yeah,
Speaker 1: will you marry? Maybe I'm only kidding, don't you know?
Speaker 1: I was thinking about all right, so, do we have
Speaker 1: a theme for two negligent fathers who walk out on
Speaker 1: their kids going out for cigarettes for hide out in
Speaker 1: the world smoking cigarettes. They promise they'd be back, but
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if it's quiet again. Uh,
Speaker 1: if it's a rather quieter on here, Uh, it's because
Speaker 1: has also taken up smoking cigarettes, and she went out
Speaker 1: and said she'll be back momentarily, So we'll trust that
Speaker 1: she will be back. Next episode, Ladies and Gentlemen, Today,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, should be a rather amazing episode.
Speaker 1: Um our guests, is a renaissance woman. You know, some
Speaker 1: we always hear the term like a renaissance man or whatever,
Speaker 1: but I'd rarely hear women described in the same sort
Speaker 1: of superlatives if if you will, I will say she's multifaceted,
Speaker 1: multi talented pretty much as a singer, songwriter, as an actress,
Speaker 1: be at whatever medium of stage, television, movies, um. With
Speaker 1: a gazillion impressive credit to boot, I will personally say
Speaker 1: that she's probably part of the most life changing ensemble
Speaker 1: for me personally speaking of her work on a different world,
Speaker 1: ask Jalisa Vincent, which I could say single handedly inspired
Speaker 1: me not even to go to college, but to be
Speaker 1: more intelligent, Like that's how I can you know? That's
Speaker 1: and I'm saying in the most uh, non eloquent way
Speaker 1: possible because Steve is looking at me, like, who are
Speaker 1: you right now? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questlow
Speaker 1: Supreme Don Lewis, Hey, everybody, Wow, I don't truly humbled.
Speaker 1: What a dutiful thing to say. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I wasn't looking at you funny. I'm I'm taking it
Speaker 1: in usually no you you give me. I'm wondering how
Speaker 1: you know the last name of the character on the show,
Speaker 1: like usually remember the first name Jelisa Jlisa Vincent, Taylor,
Speaker 1: Oh say there you go, that's okay. How many names
Speaker 1: did you have? You know what? What you have to
Speaker 1: understand is, I know it's it's weird that having binged
Speaker 1: it in probably a ten day period the entire series, UM,
Speaker 1: I can't have time on my hands. Um when I'll know,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to get my hair braided, traveling
Speaker 1: whatnot in the jacuzzi, yes, yes, and at the local
Speaker 1: wide not in my house because I can't afford one yet.
Speaker 1: I will say that, yeah, the the show was definitely
Speaker 1: way ahead of its time as far as like subject
Speaker 1: matter and things that are still relevant today and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But most importantly, I think that when it first came on,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't think I had aspirations or even
Speaker 1: new I was college material or that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So seeing that on television, UM, for me probably more
Speaker 1: life changing than seeing The Cosby Show. So and I
Speaker 1: know that you guys don't get enough praise for that,
Speaker 1: so appreciate that. That's my fan worship, So thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I did watch a Different World, But uh,
Speaker 1: in reading up on it, it seems like that show
Speaker 1: is created almost specifically to to to talk about issues
Speaker 1: that weren't being talked about on the Cosby Show. More
Speaker 1: more so than just like a vehicle for Lisa Bone
Speaker 1: or spin off. It was. It was not so much
Speaker 1: um comparatively to The Cosby Show, but just what wasn't
Speaker 1: being talked about today and what particularly young people were
Speaker 1: dealing with and faced with. You know, when you go
Speaker 1: from the shelter of your parents home out into the
Speaker 1: real world, all of a sudden, so many things start
Speaker 1: smacking you in the face that nobody necessarily taught you
Speaker 1: how to deal with. Yet it's there and in your life,
Speaker 1: in your in your relationships, all of it. And they
Speaker 1: wanted to keep it authentic to what we were dealing
Speaker 1: with at the time. And uh, like you, I went
Speaker 1: to college and had just graduated just a couple of
Speaker 1: years before. But it wasn't until I started doing a
Speaker 1: different word old that it clicked for me what an
Speaker 1: HBCU was because we had those commercials of mind is
Speaker 1: a terrible thing to waste with a person of color,
Speaker 1: and you think, well, that makes sense, everybody should get
Speaker 1: into edged education. I didn't put two and two together
Speaker 1: that that was talking about a specific grouping of schools
Speaker 1: of higher learning for people of color, for af African Americans,
Speaker 1: so even those of us who were in the show.
Speaker 1: We're learning lessons while we were doing the show. And
Speaker 1: my name, I had never heard the name Jelisa before,
Speaker 1: but I was actually named after the wife of one
Speaker 1: of Mr Cosby's best friends, Jelisa Hazard. And my last name, Vincent,
Speaker 1: was the last name of one of our stage managers,
Speaker 1: Chuck Vincent. I was wondered about that. Yeah, Chuck, Chuck Vincent's.
Speaker 1: He was naming people after every everybody. Sindbad was named
Speaker 1: after Walt Hazard, coach Walter Oaks. Yeah, people all named
Speaker 1: after some after people. And there was there's an episode
Speaker 1: where Ron mentioned Dad Monfort by name and he was
Speaker 1: like a producer on the Shingad was one of our
Speaker 1: executive producer his first season and that was one of
Speaker 1: the um first the pioneers of writing for traditionally white
Speaker 1: shows when he wrote on Mash. He wrote for several
Speaker 1: different shows and was the executive producer. So we we
Speaker 1: miss him, miss him dealing. Yeah, Dad was a trailblazer.
Speaker 1: So where were you? Where were you born? Are you
Speaker 1: corner raised? Bed Style? We moved six times but always
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. So when from bed styde Park Slope back
Speaker 1: to bed Sty to Crown Heights and ultimately Flatbush about
Speaker 1: five blocks from Brooklyn College. Um, what was your Brooklyn experience?
Speaker 1: I always ask when whenever Brooklyn Knights come on the show,
Speaker 1: and I asked, are they, you know, surprised at how
Speaker 1: it's transformed since then? Like, oh, yeah, when I was
Speaker 1: coming up in Brooklyn, the neighbors I had now are
Speaker 1: not the neighbors I had then. Let that way, No,
Speaker 1: Martin right now, while I'm here working, I'm up in Harlem,
Speaker 1: and Harlem would it used to be either? I went
Speaker 1: to high school in home. I went that was when
Speaker 1: music and Art was up on a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: fifth Street and Convent, So that was where I went
Speaker 1: went to high school. From the last stop the junction
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn all the way to a hundred thirty fifth
Speaker 1: Street in Harlem. That's about an hour and twenty minutes
Speaker 1: for me to get to school every day. Wake up,
Speaker 1: I don't even remember. I don't know if I was
Speaker 1: awake when I woke up. I just knew I got
Speaker 1: on the train. No, I got on the number. Okay,
Speaker 1: they switched the numbers because the three and the four
Speaker 1: used to go to Flatbush and the two and the
Speaker 1: five used to go to New Lots and Utica. So
Speaker 1: it took me like fourteen fifteen years to even be
Speaker 1: willing to ride this subway again once. Once I moved
Speaker 1: to California and I knew, I knew where I was going, child,
Speaker 1: those trains took me in all kinds of wrong directions.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is happening right now? When did
Speaker 1: the two start going to Flatbush? When did that happen?
Speaker 1: But no? So yeah, about an hour twenty minutes every
Speaker 1: day to get up to high school. So that was
Speaker 1: when music and art and performing arts were in two separate,
Speaker 1: separate buildings. Music and art was where you did vocal music,
Speaker 1: progressive instrumentals like the jazz band. UM. Photographic and portrait arts,
Speaker 1: you know, visual arts and performing arts was down in
Speaker 1: Times Square and that was where you had traditional dance training.
Speaker 1: UM was on a thing around forty six Street or
Speaker 1: some something like that. So this the LaGuardia School a
Speaker 1: fame fame. So about two years after my graduation, class
Speaker 1: was when they put everybody in one building and now
Speaker 1: that's the building that's in Lincoln Center. So Brooklyn was
Speaker 1: very different, UM, humble, honest, grounded, you know, challenging, I
Speaker 1: was bullied a lot when I was a kid, but
Speaker 1: I was also popular. I was I was bullied because
Speaker 1: I was popular, if that makes sense. So you never
Speaker 1: had the I'm gonna get my brother. Oh yeah I did,
Speaker 1: and I had I'm the only girl and I have
Speaker 1: three brothers, and yeah, they could torment me all they wanted,
Speaker 1: but no one could mess with their little little sis sister.
Speaker 1: So everybody, no, I'm third, I'm third, too older. And
Speaker 1: one younger who thinks he's older. I'm sorry. I called
Speaker 1: your grandma. I'm not sorry. Sorry, you're not sorry. So
Speaker 1: was it a creative household and musical house? I'm the
Speaker 1: only one. I'm the only one. One of my older
Speaker 1: brothers ultimately got it into music, and then he started
Speaker 1: a family, so he got a regular nine to five job.
Speaker 1: He was a paralegal. Um now he's an I t
Speaker 1: and now he recently retired. So now he plays bass
Speaker 1: in a in a trio whenever they feel like it's
Speaker 1: on on week weekends and clubs and stuff. But my
Speaker 1: oldest brother, UM grew to be a fireman, so he's
Speaker 1: a firefighter. Now he works as a fire marshal and
Speaker 1: head security for a building on Park Avenue, and my
Speaker 1: younger brother went into loss. He has his own law firm.
Speaker 1: And then there's me singing and dancing and stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: was it was it encouraged or was it just it
Speaker 1: was in courage because again, like like I said, I
Speaker 1: had three brothers and my family is from South America,
Speaker 1: so very different traditional values of what is appropriate for
Speaker 1: a young girl to do and for a young boy
Speaker 1: to do. But at the same time I wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to do anything unless my brothers took me. Were your
Speaker 1: first generation born, first generation American citizen, yes, and your
Speaker 1: parents are Guyanese South South America, Guyana, So they came
Speaker 1: up and my mom one day, I was seven, very tall,
Speaker 1: athletic because I was playing handball. That's what you did
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. You played handball, stickball, skellies in the industry.
Speaker 1: Skellies in the Indus. Kellies is a stool. It's street pool,
Speaker 1: but you play it with with bottle tops and you
Speaker 1: pluck it. The amount of times I got in trouble
Speaker 1: for stealing milk caps my grandmom's milk, grow a ball
Speaker 1: at or something, try and flip it. You would take
Speaker 1: the milk caps and felling tracks or a quarter to
Speaker 1: give us some more weight. Yes, yeah, I would go
Speaker 1: to the street first. I would take your spoons, which
Speaker 1: is a no no. Go out in the street, find
Speaker 1: a grease spot and then dig for tar of the
Speaker 1: street and put it inside the caps. And then we
Speaker 1: scrubbed the cap on sidewalks and go smooth. Freeze it
Speaker 1: at night and you just dream. Put in a freezer
Speaker 1: and then you dream. So think of a milk cap
Speaker 1: with t like a hockey puck. Hockey puck. This is
Speaker 1: why there's no black hockey players. They're all playing. So
Speaker 1: what you do is you draw this big board and
Speaker 1: there were numbers strategically placed around the board, and you
Speaker 1: shoot your your cap from number to number in sequential order.
Speaker 1: This is a very cultural difference. We had marbles, no
Speaker 1: marbles and Brooklyn they kill small children, they swallow them
Speaker 1: and die. Okay, couldn't afford. Yes, you're right, so you
Speaker 1: shoot them around the board. And the thing was when
Speaker 1: it rained, that's when parents got really pissed because we
Speaker 1: had parquet floors in our house. So we took that
Speaker 1: same chalk and would draw Skelly's boards indoors and on
Speaker 1: my mom's parquet floors. We would draw our Skelly boards.
Speaker 1: Well I'm here, oh I ran, I'm faster than my mom.
Speaker 1: She only caught me half. Can I tell you it
Speaker 1: is my dream man, just between night and like like
Speaker 1: I mean, me and my cousin would dream at night
Speaker 1: like your ways to get the Sean Riley family like
Speaker 1: to knock there. They had the best caps ever, it like,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't get the milk tops with the stickers
Speaker 1: on them because then that would not give you tracks.
Speaker 1: And yes, yo, man, it was an art to play.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic. Between speaking in South America, there's there's
Speaker 1: a you know, there's a tag tournament in South America,
Speaker 1: like for real, like think of those like what are
Speaker 1: those shows where like Ultimate Warrior like that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they have it for tag. For tag, they imagine
Speaker 1: like a playground where literally like a guy's chasing you
Speaker 1: and you gotta like jump over a monkey bar and
Speaker 1: you know there's like obstacles. They're like you might get
Speaker 1: your head knocked off. But so coming home from fifth grade, okay,
Speaker 1: I want that right exactly, running home to fifth grade,
Speaker 1: I want that for Skelly, like you just pay alright.
Speaker 1: So we played stick that's where you shave half the ball.
Speaker 1: No stickball, you take you and you use it as
Speaker 1: a bat. And remember the pink spalding balls to balls.
Speaker 1: That was the ball that you would use and you
Speaker 1: would pop it or punch ball, because if you couldn't
Speaker 1: afford a stick, you would take the ball punch it.
Speaker 1: You would take the ball and punch it and you
Speaker 1: would run run the basis. So we were very creative children,
Speaker 1: thank you. We would. We didn't need expensive things like marble.
Speaker 1: So you would play with the pink ball. See we
Speaker 1: would take a razor and then yeah, gets see little
Speaker 1: children in my neighborhood weren't allowed to play with razors. Well,
Speaker 1: we would have to make it. We would cut it
Speaker 1: in half. In Philadelphia, you played stickball with half I guess.
Speaker 1: So you wouldn't bring a window. Oh we didn't care,
Speaker 1: so you would have to. You would throw half of
Speaker 1: a tennis ball or half of a one of those
Speaker 1: pink bouncy and then play stickball that way. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can just make the set. We ain't even get
Speaker 1: in then, which you ever play king ball? Know? What's
Speaker 1: king king ball? Kingball is like all right, if you
Speaker 1: have a sidewalk. It's it's sort of like, uh, you
Speaker 1: need four people to play it, and each person gets
Speaker 1: a designated square of a sidewalk. Think of like tennis
Speaker 1: with a basketball, So the goal is not to hit
Speaker 1: the boundary of the sidewalk. It's a long explo sounds
Speaker 1: like it. I feel like I need to be eight
Speaker 1: years old to understand what it's all thing. Okay, wait, okay.
Speaker 1: Two more favorite games as a kid? Hot Water low water?
Speaker 1: Did you play hot water lower You use a rope
Speaker 1: and you laid on the ground and you take a
Speaker 1: turn stepping over. Then still, after everybody goes, you raise
Speaker 1: it a little high and then and then you start
Speaker 1: and then it becomes like the high jump in then
Speaker 1: one concrete not safe, and then the other. What's your
Speaker 1: version of the well? I was just that just sounds
Speaker 1: like the reverse of limbo limbo limbo exactly exactly, because
Speaker 1: your Caribbean roots catch a girl, freaking girl, anything else
Speaker 1: that's called something else, that's the child molestation. Alright, one
Speaker 1: more game. How about hot peas and butter. I've heard
Speaker 1: this referred to you in every rap song, but never
Speaker 1: knew what butter is. You would take a belt and
Speaker 1: you would hide it somewhere okay, and you were the
Speaker 1: person who was it in control of hiding it. Then
Speaker 1: everyone else had to go and try to find the belt.
Speaker 1: And so if people were anywhere near where you hit,
Speaker 1: you go hot hot hot, if they went away cold cold, cold,
Speaker 1: So you would yell after the belt was hit hot,
Speaker 1: peas and butter, come and get use up, and then
Speaker 1: people would go looking for it and reverse. But come
Speaker 1: and get yourself. And then people would go and be
Speaker 1: looking for the belt. And whoever found the belt, you
Speaker 1: tried to keep it hit and then you would run
Speaker 1: and hit everybody with Ye I wasn't I was not
Speaker 1: playing that game, and then you had to run and
Speaker 1: not get hit with them. That don't sound fun, sounds
Speaker 1: like my child. It was hilarious, like me trying to
Speaker 1: hide a belt from somebody. I do that three weeks
Speaker 1: before every report. So what do you all? Right? So
Speaker 1: what do you play those games anymore? You're so multifaceted
Speaker 1: with your talent? What do you consider yourself is at
Speaker 1: least at fourteen fifteen when you're developing your talent? Are
Speaker 1: you a singer? Are you a poet? Are you an actress?
Speaker 1: Are you dancer like I was all of it. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I was. I was singing. I started singing at four,
Speaker 1: I was lead singer in a band at fourteen. Um
Speaker 1: I had my about four or five poems published in
Speaker 1: a compilation book of young writers. By the time I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, I was dancing on the stage of Carnegie
Speaker 1: Hall in Brooklyn Academy and Music by time I was nine.
Speaker 1: So I was, I was all of this. I never
Speaker 1: considered that I had to choose what I believed in.
Speaker 1: What the environment I was raised in, uh was that
Speaker 1: you had to maximize everything. It was called being a
Speaker 1: trip triple threat. You had to sing, dance, and act
Speaker 1: in order to be viable in the business. And you
Speaker 1: asked me, was it encouraged? You know, going back to
Speaker 1: how we got into childhood? Game was my mother looked
Speaker 1: at me. I was seven years old, really tall, really fit,
Speaker 1: playing all these games with all these boys and everybody
Speaker 1: in the street. She realized, you know what, I have
Speaker 1: to get my child out of the middle of all
Speaker 1: of these boys and give her something that she can
Speaker 1: do on her own. And my mom had a really
Speaker 1: great friend and Mrs Green, who had a daughter who
Speaker 1: was about five six years older than I was, who
Speaker 1: was dancing. So she took me to a dance recital
Speaker 1: at the Academy of Music and I say, Ma, I
Speaker 1: want to do that. She said, are you sure? I
Speaker 1: said yes, So she enrolled me a dance class. And
Speaker 1: I was riding the bus from my house which was
Speaker 1: in on mid Where were we at that time. We
Speaker 1: were on Midwood Street in Crown Heights at that time,
Speaker 1: and I had to walk three blocks over to the
Speaker 1: bus on New York Avenue get on the bus. At
Speaker 1: a certain times, I could ride to the next stop
Speaker 1: where this young lady would get on the bus with
Speaker 1: me and we would ride down to Pacific Street and
Speaker 1: Saratoga to miss E Lane Christians Dance Studio. And I
Speaker 1: did that once a week until I was fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: It was on Pacific right near Sarah Saratoga, So at
Speaker 1: that young age, I was on the city bus going
Speaker 1: to them from dance classes. So that was kind of
Speaker 1: how that started for me, was my mom wanted to
Speaker 1: encourage me to have my own thing that took me
Speaker 1: out of the middle of being around all those boys
Speaker 1: all of the time. Do you find, sorry, Mary, do
Speaker 1: you find that that whole way of thought is sort
Speaker 1: of gone. Where the triple threat thing because it seems
Speaker 1: like so many of of our of the people in
Speaker 1: the past who have who were an entertainment um, we're
Speaker 1: triple threats. And it's is that is that still a
Speaker 1: prevalent way of of looking at things? You know? I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's a prevalent way of looking at things.
Speaker 1: What I have learned is that the way the business
Speaker 1: continues to evolve, the powers that be, the them or
Speaker 1: the they are more comfortable putting you into a box.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of people who you see
Speaker 1: starring on television as actors are really incredible singers or dancers,
Speaker 1: and you you you learned when they get the opportunity
Speaker 1: that they have all these other gifts. But because of
Speaker 1: the way the industry is now, they kind of say, well,
Speaker 1: if we want a dramatic lead, we need to hire
Speaker 1: this person. If we want to comedically, we need to
Speaker 1: hire this person. So you don't necessarily get to know
Speaker 1: what other p people do. But no, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a requirement like it used to be. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, oh you google and stuff only because your
Speaker 1: story is very similar to Prodigy mom deeps. I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out if whether or not that was
Speaker 1: his grandmother's dance studio. Oh, okay, but it wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: Well wait, I still don't know, because now I almost
Speaker 1: feel like it is the stories to who used to
Speaker 1: be a big dancer at the Cotton Club. She danced
Speaker 1: with Bill rob Robinson and you know all of that.
Speaker 1: So that was her legacy and she passed on us.
Speaker 1: And we were there all day on Saturday doing jazz,
Speaker 1: tap ballet, African dance. And on Saturday mornings you could
Speaker 1: always count on at least two thirds of the students
Speaker 1: running into the kitchen where the TV was to watch Soldier.
Speaker 1: So that's the dance part. So how did you How
Speaker 1: did you start with the singing and the act The
Speaker 1: singing I started at four, Uh, I just saying what
Speaker 1: I used to love musical movies. I still do music.
Speaker 1: And they were mused. There were movies that would come
Speaker 1: on every year, like The Wizard of Oz, March of
Speaker 1: the Wooden Soldiers, it was, you know, stormy Weather. There
Speaker 1: were different movies that would come on. You could count
Speaker 1: on it at certain times of the year. So I
Speaker 1: would sing along. I knew all the songs, I knew
Speaker 1: all the dances. I knew all of it there in
Speaker 1: my living room. And uh, my mom used to teach.
Speaker 1: She was a sussustitute teacher at an elementary school not
Speaker 1: far from from the house. So after kindergarten, I would
Speaker 1: go and sit at the school in a way for
Speaker 1: my mom to be done before I could go home.
Speaker 1: And they were doing their their spring concert pageant and
Speaker 1: I asked if I could be in it, and all
Speaker 1: the teachers knew I could sing. I was young, I
Speaker 1: was cute. It was four going on five, and they said, yes,
Speaker 1: you can be in the concert. And I worked on
Speaker 1: the song getting to know You from from the King,
Speaker 1: and I with hand gester exactly, you're saying it better
Speaker 1: than I did Pully. But then we got to the
Speaker 1: concert and I was amazing. I have to admit. I
Speaker 1: was phenomenal in the rehearsals. And I got on stage
Speaker 1: and saw other people and still on stage and froze.
Speaker 1: It's like there are people here watching me. And I
Speaker 1: got the first few words out and I stood there
Speaker 1: and the teacher was belown me, trying to remind me
Speaker 1: to move my side. I painfully got through it, and
Speaker 1: then they said okay, alright, great, and then they sat
Speaker 1: down and then I started crying. It's like, I can
Speaker 1: do it better. Please let me look. Just sit down,
Speaker 1: a little girl, Just sit sit down. And so I
Speaker 1: taught myself to never be that frightened again. That was
Speaker 1: the first and last time I'd ever scared myself so
Speaker 1: much that I couldn't do what I was really desiring
Speaker 1: to do. Their photos. This is highly unusual because normally
Speaker 1: there's I guess the good word is uh, light encouragement.
Speaker 1: The bad word is sort of like Joe Jackson esque,
Speaker 1: like there's always a drill sergeant. But this is this
Speaker 1: is a highly unusual to hear that confidence coming from
Speaker 1: someone under the age of ten, that it isn't enforced
Speaker 1: from No, my mom wasn't. That was not my mom.
Speaker 1: My mom was like just they had of trouble. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta go to work. They out of trouble. I
Speaker 1: gotta go to work. And uh my brothers were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's real cute, but we we need to need her
Speaker 1: now to play handball. Don't we need you to run
Speaker 1: the fourth leg in the relay? I was like, don okay,
Speaker 1: that's great. To get off your toe to toe shoes
Speaker 1: and coming over here and run this race because this
Speaker 1: boy don't believe you. You can beat them. And I
Speaker 1: got five dollars on you. It's pretty fast. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: ran track too. So you graduated high school? What? What age?
Speaker 1: What youre? I was sixteen when I graduated from high school.
Speaker 1: You got skipped. I got skipped twice. I was in
Speaker 1: the first grade for about six months and went right
Speaker 1: to second grade, and um then I never went to
Speaker 1: eighth grade. I went from seventh grade to ninth grade.
Speaker 1: She's like the best of every artist we ever had.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So I graduated high school at sixteen, like
Speaker 1: I said, going to school up in Harlem, and had
Speaker 1: already been singing in bands and clubs and such, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, young and cute. But I knew I wanted
Speaker 1: to do this as a career, and I also knew
Speaker 1: I wanted to get out of New York. My mom
Speaker 1: and I had a really contententious relationship at the time.
Speaker 1: You know, she's from a different country with different values
Speaker 1: and understanding of how things are supposed to be done.
Speaker 1: And again, like I said, there were beliefs of what
Speaker 1: was appropriate for a girl and what was appropriate for
Speaker 1: a boy and boys rule in those South American cultures,
Speaker 1: and so in her eyes, you should have been getting
Speaker 1: ready for her husband, housewife. You know never got that speech.
Speaker 1: I never never got. Yeah, very very My family is
Speaker 1: Seventh day Adventist. Yeah wait a minute, it's not adding up. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: there you go. So there's more to the story. There's
Speaker 1: more to this, I am there you go. No, Well,
Speaker 1: we had devotions at home every day. My mom had
Speaker 1: us read the Bible, read scripture. Um, yeah, seeing hymns
Speaker 1: when when we could. Because okay, see you get into
Speaker 1: a whole other part of the story. The reality is
Speaker 1: my going to dance class every Saturday was a real
Speaker 1: issue for the family. It caused real problems. Um, My mom,
Speaker 1: like I said, saw it as a way to help
Speaker 1: save and encourage and empower me. My family would tell
Speaker 1: my mom and tell me even when I was small,
Speaker 1: they're going the extended family, not not my brother's not.
Speaker 1: You know. The truth is is that you are sending
Speaker 1: this child straight to hell by not having her in church, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and sending her into the demons pit. This entertainment stuff
Speaker 1: is where the devil lives. Etcetera, etcetera. How do you
Speaker 1: tell that to a seven year old child? But they
Speaker 1: managed um along the way. Uh, Like I said, my
Speaker 1: mom really reinforced in us that we have what we
Speaker 1: have by the grace of God, and that it is
Speaker 1: a blessing, it is not a curse. I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do what I do if it wasn't a
Speaker 1: gift from God. So look at it that way, and
Speaker 1: please shut out the other noise. And ultimately, as we grew,
Speaker 1: um the family stop saying certain things. But you know,
Speaker 1: you couldn't ignore or forget really the riff that was caused,
Speaker 1: in the pain that that was caused. But you know,
Speaker 1: everybody grows, you learn, you love, you forgive, and you
Speaker 1: realize that there are good things that come out of whatever,
Speaker 1: as long as that's what you're intent is. I was
Speaker 1: just gonna say, not even that harp on it, but
Speaker 1: I was just like, That's why I was so amazed.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, I've never heard of
Speaker 1: a situation in which, especially with a black household, in
Speaker 1: which like religion or some sort of obstacle is sort
Speaker 1: of thrown in your path of you finding your talent.
Speaker 1: There were a few. Okay, So the guys in Take six,
Speaker 1: who we ultimately became really great friends, we used to
Speaker 1: be able to share those kinds of stories because their
Speaker 1: adventist Also what you didn't know that, Yes, the guys
Speaker 1: in Take six were discipline with their you know, so
Speaker 1: we were able to talk about that because our upbringing
Speaker 1: stories were very, very similar. But you know, but now
Speaker 1: that we are where we are, we use our platform
Speaker 1: to inspire, empower to be a blessing at least, you
Speaker 1: hope so to others. You know, in a way that
Speaker 1: I may not have been received had I not taken
Speaker 1: this journey, you know what I mean to be so
Speaker 1: young as a graduate of high school. However was it
Speaker 1: to adjust to adult life? Do you know what? I
Speaker 1: got thrown into the deep end because I left New
Speaker 1: York and went to school down at the University of
Speaker 1: Miami in Miami at sixteen, and the university almost did
Speaker 1: not accept me because I was so young. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I had a grandmother who helped raise us. Actually we
Speaker 1: lived with my grandmother for almost two years when we
Speaker 1: were younger. That's a whole other story how we ended
Speaker 1: up there. Uh, but to go to college, my mom
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to send me. My dad would have been
Speaker 1: able to help, but he chose not to. Um He's like,
Speaker 1: you're you're too young, You're gonna go get pregnant and
Speaker 1: all of that. And I was like, but you know,
Speaker 1: you haven't lived in our house since I was seven man,
Speaker 1: so whatever. So I got another aunt to co sign
Speaker 1: for a student loan for me, and I packed my
Speaker 1: stuff and I left and they turned around and go,
Speaker 1: wait she really left? I said, yeah, I told you
Speaker 1: I was leaving. I'm going. So I went to college.
Speaker 1: Um so between student loans, college works, work study was
Speaker 1: how I paid for school. And uh, so I got
Speaker 1: there and now I'm responsible to pay back alone. I'm
Speaker 1: responsible to pay for my tuition, my room and board
Speaker 1: as well as you know, get through my classes. And
Speaker 1: as a performance major. I went as a voice made major,
Speaker 1: so in music and art. I was singing opera, so
Speaker 1: I was classically trained for many years. I played cello
Speaker 1: for almost seven years. He didn't have that on good
Speaker 1: What did you miss? I played cello for about seven
Speaker 1: years and uh, saying operas And when I went to
Speaker 1: U have M when they advised you for your major,
Speaker 1: that was back in the day when you had cards,
Speaker 1: and they would write, and you have to take this classes,
Speaker 1: and you get a signature from your departpartment head to
Speaker 1: authorize you to go and register for these classes. They
Speaker 1: wrote a bunch of classes I had already taken in
Speaker 1: high school, like music theory and sight singing and all
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. So I refused to take them again.
Speaker 1: So when I left her, don't judge me. Why no, man, Look,
Speaker 1: this is money. The college is expensive colleges. But this
Speaker 1: is this is what I did. When I left her office,
Speaker 1: I said thank you very much. And it wasn't my fault.
Speaker 1: She wrote it in pencil. I just happened to have
Speaker 1: a race in my back. So because I'm a good student,
Speaker 1: I came to school prepared, so I took my race prepared. No,
Speaker 1: so I raised half of what she gave me, like
Speaker 1: music theory one on one, in sight rancim shot not
Speaker 1: taking that. I'm not taking that, and I wrote in
Speaker 1: dance classes, I wrote in acting classes, and I made
Speaker 1: my own curriculum my pencil and I made my own curriculum.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's more like it, because that
Speaker 1: was what I was already accustomed to doing going to
Speaker 1: dance class regularly, well not entirely. About two two and
Speaker 1: a half months into school, I got called into the
Speaker 1: dean's office like Clint like. I called to the dean's
Speaker 1: office and she said, okay, we were concerned about admitting
Speaker 1: you in the first place, and this is going to
Speaker 1: be your one and only warning. I said, what said
Speaker 1: we're about to say and send you home? I said,
Speaker 1: well why, They said, because you're not going to classes.
Speaker 1: We can't have that, young lady, Dada, da dada. I said, well,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm going to my class and I'm going
Speaker 1: to my classes. I'm pulling a four point of g
Speaker 1: p A. I don't understand the problem. Well, you haven't
Speaker 1: been to this class, this class, this class, and this class.
Speaker 1: I'm not in that class. I'm in this class, this class,
Speaker 1: this class. And say, well, who told you to do that?
Speaker 1: When nobody told me to do it is my money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take the class. I want my friend pencil.
Speaker 1: You know, I've loved empowered at sixteen years old. So
Speaker 1: she made me sitting. So she made me sitting for
Speaker 1: a minute and then call me back in the office
Speaker 1: and said, okay, young lady, you had no way of
Speaker 1: knowing this, but the School of Music and the School
Speaker 1: of Fine Arts had been in conversations for like a
Speaker 1: couple of years about starting a new degree program for
Speaker 1: people like you. So would you be interested in being
Speaker 1: the guinea pig for this new degree program? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: what would I have to do? Just basically what you
Speaker 1: already doing? Like oh, they had to respect it. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, okay, then all right, so what happens now?
Speaker 1: Can I Can I go? She goes, oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, you need to prepare. You have four days
Speaker 1: to prepare for an audition. I said, audition for what
Speaker 1: she said, so we can officially start this this degree program.
Speaker 1: So I had to do a forty five minute jury
Speaker 1: for the entire faculty of the School of Music and
Speaker 1: the School of Fine Arts. I had to choreograph a dance.
Speaker 1: I had to do a comedic and a dramatic monologue.
Speaker 1: I had to do arias in French an Italian. I
Speaker 1: had to do a Broadway show tune. I had to
Speaker 1: do a jazz tune. Um. There was one other thing
Speaker 1: I can't remember what I had to do. Yeah, took
Speaker 1: forty five minutes one day. All of it. I had
Speaker 1: four days to to prepare. Well, they's stacking to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. But what ended up
Speaker 1: resulting out of that was after the jury, they were
Speaker 1: now officially a to start this degree program. So I'm
Speaker 1: the founder and first graduate of the musical theater degree
Speaker 1: program at the university. They no, no, and even after
Speaker 1: even and after a few years they conveniently forget to
Speaker 1: mention that I had anything to do with it. Every
Speaker 1: now and then it comes up or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that year that's been going thirty plus
Speaker 1: years strong. Through the School of Music, They've graduated Tony Winners,
Speaker 1: Grammy Winners, Oscar Winners, um. And then the last four
Speaker 1: or five years they've transferred from the School of Music
Speaker 1: to the School of Fine Uts, Fine Arts and now
Speaker 1: has the degree pro program. I was gonna ask in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn growing up, Yes, Um, were there any other notable
Speaker 1: Brooklyn nights that we would know now that you to
Speaker 1: school with or like our next door neighbor, uh, Dwayne
Speaker 1: what we call him Dwayne because his first name was Ralph.
Speaker 1: Uh ended up being young Michael one good times. L Carter.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, ye I saw him three months ago, Yeah,
Speaker 1: three months ago, and he was our next next torn neighbor.
Speaker 1: Other than that now, not not in my neighborhood, not
Speaker 1: while I was there, So not the neighborhood kids weren't
Speaker 1: even like like mine didn't We're playing stick and scan.
Speaker 1: They didn't care. Oh but you know what I recently
Speaker 1: found out. Um, a year or two ago, I was
Speaker 1: doing This is Us, like one of my favorite shows
Speaker 1: on television. And when I got there, I was so
Speaker 1: excited to be I was happy to be there. And
Speaker 1: the cast was like, oh my god, look who's on
Speaker 1: our show? Can you take creatures with us? And I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: because I was gonna have to take pictures with you guys.
Speaker 1: So we're taking pictures and Susan Collecki Watson, who plays
Speaker 1: the sister the wife on the show Ramball's wife. Isn't
Speaker 1: she fantastic? She she hangs around because she was actually
Speaker 1: finished before I was called in to work, so she
Speaker 1: hung around to meet me. So we're taking selfies and
Speaker 1: we're exchanging numbers and once we can send each other
Speaker 1: the pictures that we take and we're sitting in my
Speaker 1: trailer like talking for half an hour, so she finally leaves.
Speaker 1: I get called to to the set and I call
Speaker 1: a couple of friends of mine. They say, and I
Speaker 1: told him what what the day was like, and they said,
Speaker 1: Susan is my great friend and d and do La
Speaker 1: Hill was like, that's my great friend, etcetera, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: so I called her back. I said, I didn't know
Speaker 1: you knew Dolt and she says, yes, he's a great friend.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, great. She called me back two
Speaker 1: minutes later she said, okay, look, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be weird or anything, but I sent the picture that
Speaker 1: we took to my family and my brother text me
Speaker 1: back and said, you know that as our cousin, right.
Speaker 1: What I said, I'm sorry what she said? Yes, she said,
Speaker 1: do you have aunt so and So? I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I've never heard that name before. She said, well,
Speaker 1: your aunt's so and so married my uncle so and
Speaker 1: so and they live in Trinidad and this and that.
Speaker 1: What's what that in the world? So I called my mom. Mom,
Speaker 1: we have an answer. Yes, that's my first cousin. Shall
Speaker 1: married a mon from Tennadash and never call him back again.
Speaker 1: But this is nothing, just nothing, this, and that. So
Speaker 1: I call her back and said, oh my gosh, we're
Speaker 1: like second cousins. First, it's hilarious, and we keep talking.
Speaker 1: Come to find out that she's from Brooklyn, grew up
Speaker 1: within a mile of where I grew up in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and still has family placed there. Now, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: And honestly, you just answered another question from me always.
Speaker 1: You know, you had a very convincing island accident that
Speaker 1: you tried on a different world once. And now I
Speaker 1: was like, she's really good because that's where my family
Speaker 1: and I didn't know that at the time. Yes, so I,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, I was first generation America. My mom
Speaker 1: was the oldest of eight, so one at a time.
Speaker 1: She sponsored his siblings and her parents to come up
Speaker 1: to this date. So now when all of our cousins,
Speaker 1: when all of the cousins gets get together, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, all of us have acced your accents. Oh man,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all of us have accents and
Speaker 1: we're talking like our parents and such. Is really very
Speaker 1: very funny. I see. So, by at least by twenty
Speaker 1: did you have like focus? Okay, I want to be
Speaker 1: a singer. Yeah, I was already doing it. But I
Speaker 1: mean it's like you did everything at once. I was
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out what has the edge? What
Speaker 1: has the edge? Probably music, singing, singing and writing more
Speaker 1: than anything, because that's what I was booking jobs as.
Speaker 1: So what was your first? Well? You usually on the show,
Speaker 1: I asked about your first Well, first of all, who
Speaker 1: do you Who's your hero, your idol? You're you're when
Speaker 1: as far as your craft is concerned, who do you
Speaker 1: look up to? Wow? Um? I actually had a few,
Speaker 1: actually had a few. Judy Garland was one early on.
Speaker 1: It was amazing to me the power and passion in
Speaker 1: her voice and when I would watch her movies. Again,
Speaker 1: Remember I used to watch a lot of old movies
Speaker 1: like Take Me to St. Louis and The Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz and all that kind of stuff, and we weren't
Speaker 1: in a lot of those movies. We often had little,
Speaker 1: small segments. So Lena Horne was a big influence to me.
Speaker 1: The Nicholas Brothers were a huge influence to me. As
Speaker 1: I got older, it was people like Gladys Knight and
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder, Elton John. You remember the first record you
Speaker 1: ever purchased? No, I don't. I remember the first ones,
Speaker 1: one of the first ones that my brother's purchased that
Speaker 1: I used to like to play all the Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they bought him. I just played them. Um it was
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones and I remember it was go time
Speaker 1: is on my side, Yes it is. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what they were saying, but it was just a
Speaker 1: funky line to me that they were into the Stones.
Speaker 1: And Smokey Robinson. I remember those two being the first
Speaker 1: record that I would pla a lot, And Smokey's record
Speaker 1: that they had was if there's a smile on my face,
Speaker 1: it's only that trying to fool the pole. But when
Speaker 1: it comes down to tear, tear tears. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: those those songs and songs like um, grazing in the
Speaker 1: grasses a glass maybe Ken you did all those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. You never knew what the really I could
Speaker 1: dig a dig digause she could dig dig, They can
Speaker 1: dig and thing be your first concert, uh, the one
Speaker 1: that I botched? Yeah, and uh, thank you for reminding
Speaker 1: me of that, like a moment of that very first concert. No.
Speaker 1: I remember my very first Broadway show. It was The
Speaker 1: Whiz and it was Stephanie Mills and by the time
Speaker 1: she got to be a lion, I was a puddle.
Speaker 1: She was absolutely phenomenal. I couldn't believe all of this
Speaker 1: sound and all of this talent as a dancer, as
Speaker 1: an actress was coming out of this little, tiny person.
Speaker 1: And I looked that my grandmother and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's why I want to do that. I want to
Speaker 1: do that. And to quite frankly, you know, over the years,
Speaker 1: some of your idols become your friends and your colleagues,
Speaker 1: which to me just kind of really blows my mind.
Speaker 1: The fact that when I met Gladys Knight and Lena Horn,
Speaker 1: they knew my name, you know, Lena, Lena. I just
Speaker 1: did there crying and people there, there's pictures the you
Speaker 1: were on the show. I remember when she was on
Speaker 1: the show. She she did a guest spot, but I
Speaker 1: met her a few years before she got to do it.
Speaker 1: It was at the opening night of Fences, and everybody
Speaker 1: was crowding her, wanting to take her picture, wanting an autograph.
Speaker 1: And I stood there like waiting my turn, like frozen.
Speaker 1: And she looked and to everybody, wait, stop, excuse me,
Speaker 1: excuse me, you come here, And I walked over to
Speaker 1: her and she grabbed me by the face and said, baby,
Speaker 1: you want that show? I want you. I said, still
Speaker 1: show and she says that show. She says, y'all are
Speaker 1: doing such a beautiful thing. Your name is Dawn, right,
Speaker 1: And tears just started coming down my face and she said,
Speaker 1: you keep doing what you were doing. I'm so proud
Speaker 1: of you. And I could I really couldn't even speak,
Speaker 1: and uh, fortunately somebody got a photo of us standing
Speaker 1: there with this like huge grin on my face and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy because you never think that they know you're
Speaker 1: alive or anything. Why would you, But it's like you
Speaker 1: people heard. People like her just inspired me to do
Speaker 1: what it is I do now. And when you get
Speaker 1: to know them and learn what they survived through and
Speaker 1: what they over over overcame and what mattered to them
Speaker 1: and how they used their voice and they did it
Speaker 1: with grace and with power and with determination, it really
Speaker 1: I could not have asked for better examples like her
Speaker 1: and Gladys was like my auntie now and Natalie Cole
Speaker 1: and Nancy Williams Wilson and Stevie as well, and uh,
Speaker 1: to teach you how to do this thing with with
Speaker 1: grace and with appreciation, because it could really take you
Speaker 1: in a whole other space. If you're not careful, you
Speaker 1: start to think it's all about you. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Sugar Steve Show. So Steve, when you first met me, Um,
Speaker 1: did you go back to New York after you graduated? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, it was my habit that going back and going.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I was bullied a lot in elementary school,
Speaker 1: and my teachers were just such blessings and encouragement to
Speaker 1: me that when I graduated from elementary school, and I
Speaker 1: gotta give a shout out to Barbara Ames and Karen
Speaker 1: Fogler to the most amazing teachers anyone could ever have.
Speaker 1: They still come to everything I do today, to to
Speaker 1: this day, since elementary school, since first grade, and Um,
Speaker 1: Barbara Aims was actually one of the teachers. Barbara and
Speaker 1: Karen were teachers of Lynn Manuel Miranda as well, and
Speaker 1: he credits both of them as well as depositing into
Speaker 1: his life to inspire him to do what he does.
Speaker 1: So all of you teachers out there, mad love, mad love,
Speaker 1: mad love. I know you know situations or tents or
Speaker 1: can be in some schools these these days, but I
Speaker 1: so appreciate you much love for all that you do
Speaker 1: for inspiring and educating us and caring for us beyond beyond.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so when I graduated and went to junior high,
Speaker 1: I would come back to the elementary school just to
Speaker 1: visit them and say hi. I would do Christmas concerts
Speaker 1: and the faculty lounge, and then I would talk to
Speaker 1: the kids and say, I used to sit right there
Speaker 1: in this class, and don't be a bully, and if
Speaker 1: anything happens to you, tell your t teacher because they
Speaker 1: really want to help. And they go, okay, okay, what's
Speaker 1: junior high school? Like? Okay, great? Then I went to
Speaker 1: high school and I go back to my junior high
Speaker 1: in elementary school, and this became my habit. When I
Speaker 1: went to college, I came back. That was my habit.
Speaker 1: Then after college, now I'm releasing records and doing shows
Speaker 1: off and on Broadway. Then I book a TV show.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in California. So when I get an opportunity,
Speaker 1: I come back home, and so is my habit. I
Speaker 1: went back to my school. I went back to music
Speaker 1: and art. The difference was I used to do it
Speaker 1: because it made me feel good and stay connected and grounded.
Speaker 1: This time, I walked in the lobby of the school.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, it's Julisa, and kids came
Speaker 1: from everywhere and they swarmed me in the lobby. They
Speaker 1: had to get security and the police to escort me
Speaker 1: to the principal's office. Then they made an announcement, we
Speaker 1: need you to please get out of the hallways, go
Speaker 1: back to your class. Miss Louis will come and see you,
Speaker 1: but you need to go back to your classes. So
Speaker 1: they had an extended day of school that day, and
Speaker 1: I literally to every every class and answer questions because
Speaker 1: in the place like music and art, I'm living the
Speaker 1: dream that everybody in that school has. So that's what
Speaker 1: made a mental shift for me that I actually had
Speaker 1: something to offer, that it wasn't just about me, but
Speaker 1: that I could hopefully answer some questions and be a
Speaker 1: support or an encouragement to somebody else. See, you've achieved
Speaker 1: something that I just recently got to get a taste of.
Speaker 1: Because early in my career, like they would have me
Speaker 1: come and speak to schools or whatever, but I would
Speaker 1: get like questions, like you over there, yeah, so do
Speaker 1: you know like real famous people? Do you know Andre
Speaker 1: three thousand. Yeah, do you know Ericabato? Yeah, I produced
Speaker 1: a first record. You did what? And literally so it's
Speaker 1: like kids are so cool. I hated. I hated until
Speaker 1: until my school. Well, first of all, I had to
Speaker 1: raise money for them, like I gave him a whole grip.
Speaker 1: I raised money for them, and then like they threw
Speaker 1: like me and Tarika, you know, the Roots day or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then I felt like semi validated, like oh, welcome back.
Speaker 1: But it came at a price. But I always that
Speaker 1: whole like go back to school and speech to this
Speaker 1: students they love you and like kids like no, they
Speaker 1: just want to know if I know Little Wayne, Like
Speaker 1: all the questions are hilarious. Well, I just got connected
Speaker 1: with a group of U of M students recently, literally
Speaker 1: as yesterday on Monday, the U of M. There's the
Speaker 1: seniors from the drama department. We're up here doing a
Speaker 1: performance a showcase you know, for I guess casting directors
Speaker 1: and etcetera. Because they're about to go into the world
Speaker 1: and want to do this profession fessionally. So I got
Speaker 1: uh invited to go to the showcase. So I went,
Speaker 1: and I've gone back to the U A couple of
Speaker 1: times over the years and done master classes and things
Speaker 1: like like that. So I went and saw it. So
Speaker 1: I was asking while they were in New York if
Speaker 1: they were going to go see any shows, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna try. But I learned ultimately that
Speaker 1: the kids had to buy their own tickets for whatever
Speaker 1: Broadway show they wanted to see. And we all know
Speaker 1: these tickets are not inexpensive. They are not. So um.
Speaker 1: I got together with our company manager and since I
Speaker 1: got into this motivational empowerment thing, I've been doing it
Speaker 1: now for what forty years. When I learned it was
Speaker 1: called motivational speaking. But about four years ago I started
Speaker 1: my own nonprofit organization, the New Day Foundation, So Dawn, see,
Speaker 1: I actually brought materials for you. So that's what I
Speaker 1: found foundation does. We do programs all year round for
Speaker 1: teen boys teen girls. Sometimes we do events with them together. Annually.
Speaker 1: We have a financial literacy and technology conference that's about
Speaker 1: the whole day, seven hours long. We give about scholarships
Speaker 1: and new computers. Well, what we did on behalf of
Speaker 1: the Foundation this time was we bought tickets for all
Speaker 1: of the seniors to come and see Tina yesterday nice.
Speaker 1: So they came and saw Tina, and then after the show,
Speaker 1: I met with them and we had kind of a
Speaker 1: talk back for about an hour and a half where
Speaker 1: I was telling them about the journey and answering questions.
Speaker 1: That's so cool incident, by the way, that that was
Speaker 1: probably one of the best surprises I had. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was thinking my mother to see Teena just for
Speaker 1: like Chris, but I didn't bother to even like look
Speaker 1: at the plate lettle to see if there's anybody I knew, whatnot.
Speaker 1: And you came out and it was such a slow
Speaker 1: like wait a minute, like it was a great thing
Speaker 1: to see you want doing that? Wow, man, I want.
Speaker 1: I want to get to your professional career. But I
Speaker 1: know that you know, you made music in New York
Speaker 1: before you started acting, and I know that you've had
Speaker 1: to interact it with I. I want to know what
Speaker 1: eighties we pounding the pavement? She was there? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not asking about Latin Corner this pastor. But I'm
Speaker 1: saying that what was pursuing a music career in the
Speaker 1: first half of the eighties in New York, Like you
Speaker 1: know what it was? It was tricky, it was real tricky. Um,
Speaker 1: you know we have a me too movement and all
Speaker 1: that stuff going on on now, and you hear all
Speaker 1: kinds of things. Yeah, I know, I'm so a few perfect.
Speaker 1: You found that, you bastard? Where did you find it?
Speaker 1: I have my I have my resources the government. What
Speaker 1: we are referring to is Bill has in his hot
Speaker 1: little hands a copy of my very first single, and
Speaker 1: it's an LP and it was on Dalmatian Records, an
Speaker 1: independent Right Record Late label, and the song was called
Speaker 1: Funky Thing t N j n G. Did you name? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I wrote it and no, no, no, I mean Funky Thing.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Dalmatian Records. No, that was the name
Speaker 1: of the Right Record Late label. Um, I was actually okay,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, So you gotta get down. We had to
Speaker 1: come on now y'all know nothing about this. And first
Speaker 1: name basis just come on, d A W N N
Speaker 1: record w W and w ends double come on. So
Speaker 1: wh uh. Two guys Um Kenny and Charlie, Charlie Earnest
Speaker 1: Kenny Pollock and Charlie Earnest Kenny I went to college with.
Speaker 1: And the story behind this is that we were called
Speaker 1: in to play for a jazz violinist. It was his
Speaker 1: session and he was having trouble setting up his his violin,
Speaker 1: equing it, etcetera. So Kenny and Charlie just went into
Speaker 1: this groove and they just started playing and I just
Speaker 1: started singing all of that. Every single word was freestyle.
Speaker 1: It was just me singing. We were just singing. I
Speaker 1: was just singing, making up lyrics as I was flowing.
Speaker 1: And there we went. And when the when the violinist
Speaker 1: was finally ready, the engineer said, before we start, I
Speaker 1: want you all to come in here in the booth
Speaker 1: and we're like, okay, so I don't want you to
Speaker 1: listen to something, and he pushed play and that was
Speaker 1: what you heard and we were like what we were Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's slide, that's funny, that's funky. And he signed me
Speaker 1: right there. So we went back and then actually recorded.
Speaker 1: Never happened. You're like the walking uh sonification of stepping
Speaker 1: out on faith. It was well praised that it was.
Speaker 1: It was great and it was so much fun. It
Speaker 1: was I mean, I was just saying, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was saying. We were just going four, so
Speaker 1: I was what, Yeah, so were you pursuing a recording? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I would do the rounds with with my demo
Speaker 1: tapes and uh performing at different um showcases like for
Speaker 1: Capitol Records and CBS, etcetera. And charted. This song charted
Speaker 1: on Billboard at money Mr Nelson, Nelson George Billboard Magazine.
Speaker 1: We came in at twenty. There was another song that
Speaker 1: I did called from the Bottom Up and I was
Speaker 1: a little I was a little feisty young lady, and
Speaker 1: you were not gonna find it because I tried to
Speaker 1: find it my brother, my mother because my brother played
Speaker 1: bass on it, and I was like, dude, do you
Speaker 1: have a copy of that song? And he hasn't responded,
Speaker 1: so I know I do, but it's it's back on
Speaker 1: my computer and in my dat collection back in But
Speaker 1: from the Bottom Up I sang at the Apollo for
Speaker 1: Amateur Night and one Amateur Night that Wee Can had
Speaker 1: to come back the next week as a special special
Speaker 1: guest for Amateur Night. And from the Bottom Up was
Speaker 1: another song I sang when Shalamar was looking for someone
Speaker 1: to replace Jody Watley and they had a competition at
Speaker 1: Leviticus and I was an office tempt in the World
Speaker 1: Trades at the time, and I heard it on w
Speaker 1: b LS that they were having a competition at Leviticus.
Speaker 1: So I called my job. I said, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get a tempt for the tempt because I ain't
Speaker 1: coming to day. And they knew what I wanted to
Speaker 1: aspire to, and they said, don gold and go on
Speaker 1: and get them going. Do you do your best? So
Speaker 1: I went and we were at Leviticus. I had my cassette,
Speaker 1: my little track in my hand, played it from the
Speaker 1: bottom up and uh, I sang that. And ultimately, long
Speaker 1: story short, that was when I met Howard Hewitt and
Speaker 1: Mickey Free and we have been friends ever since. I
Speaker 1: won for New York. It was like an early version
Speaker 1: of Star Search. So women from all around the country,
Speaker 1: from l A, Chicago, Atlanta, we all met in l
Speaker 1: A at Circus Circus and we had the competition there
Speaker 1: and we performed in de Lisa Davis was noted as
Speaker 1: the winner, and the audience went wild, like no New York,
Speaker 1: New York, New York. So did Griffy. Did Griffey says, okay, no, no,
Speaker 1: calm down, come to we're gonna start. Did Griffy, I'm sorry? Why?
Speaker 1: Why wait? Where's my I'm sorry the stories we've heard.
Speaker 1: We could do a whole and that was sold our records.
Speaker 1: So they said, now we're going to start a new
Speaker 1: girl group with the girl from New York, the girl
Speaker 1: from Texas and the girlfriend I want to say Chicago.
Speaker 1: And later we learned so he was like, that's all right,
Speaker 1: I got my own deal. I don't have to be
Speaker 1: part of someone else's deal. And we so we started
Speaker 1: calling the label Crickets Crickets. That's when you learned that
Speaker 1: it was just a publicity stuff, do it? So yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that was what I wanted to do. Um was be
Speaker 1: a recording artist or star on Broadway, all of that.
Speaker 1: So TV was the one thing I was not pursuing
Speaker 1: during that time period. I know, this is the time
Speaker 1: for like Leroy Burgess or Kashif or good friends. Yes, Kaus,
Speaker 1: she was a friend Luther. I I got got to know.
Speaker 1: I knew everybody in his band. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a Luther girl so bad. Brenda White, who would always
Speaker 1: sing the bottom Um was taking a leave for I
Speaker 1: forget what the reason was, but she's like doing Luther
Speaker 1: Loves You. They're having auditions. You should come an audition.
Speaker 1: So it's me. Brenda was there, Lesate, Lisa Ficier Paulette
Speaker 1: was there, and Luther was there. And so we're singing
Speaker 1: and I knew all the choreography. Stop, stopped to Love,
Speaker 1: then go on the road. I was crushing it, and
Speaker 1: then it was done. Lutheran came put his arm around me,
Speaker 1: his baby. You know I love you, right? I said yeah.
Speaker 1: He said, but I need a little more finesse and
Speaker 1: a little less soul trained. I was mortified, mortified, And
Speaker 1: a month later I booked a different world. So I
Speaker 1: was like by Luther, girl by and the no. But
Speaker 1: then once I booked the show, he says, you know
Speaker 1: you're only money, right? I said why? He said, because
Speaker 1: if I had hired you, you you wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to do that show. So thank you very much. You welcome.
Speaker 1: So he's cool people. So a different world. How does
Speaker 1: this wind up in your lap? I don't know that
Speaker 1: why I'm up in my lap? Or I chased it down? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was doing the national tour of a Broadway show
Speaker 1: called The Tap Dance Kid with one of my idols,
Speaker 1: Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas and do lay Hill, who
Speaker 1: was ten at the time, who is now grown to
Speaker 1: be this incredible man and talented. Yes, he was our
Speaker 1: our kid. Yes, well, Alfonso was on Broadway. Sebion stayed
Speaker 1: in New York on Broadway. Dole came with us out
Speaker 1: on the road. So there was never told me there
Speaker 1: was an amazing, amazing, amazing tap dancer. Alright, he really,
Speaker 1: he really is. He's a phenomenal taper. So we were
Speaker 1: all tapping, singing, dancing. So I had a principal role
Speaker 1: in that show. Well, the people who cast that show,
Speaker 1: it was called Hughes Moss Casting. There you go, There
Speaker 1: you go. They also cast The Cosby Show. So while
Speaker 1: we were on the road, I heard they were going
Speaker 1: to be doing a spin off of The Cosby Show.
Speaker 1: So I started calling the office to ask if I
Speaker 1: could audition, and they were like, no, we want everyone
Speaker 1: to be Lisa's age. I said, well, everybody can't be
Speaker 1: a freshman. Somebody's gotta be a sophomore or a junior.
Speaker 1: And we're only just like two three years apart in
Speaker 1: the age. Um, So begging, begging, begging, Okay, the tour ends,
Speaker 1: I'm still begging and they say no, Dawn, no, So
Speaker 1: I begged for like three months like okay, fine, and
Speaker 1: now that we're off the road, I'm sending out my
Speaker 1: head shot and resumes, Okay, I've been doing a Broadway show,
Speaker 1: this show that I should be able to get an agent. Crickets.
Speaker 1: No one returned to call. No nothing, nothing, nothing. Out
Speaker 1: of the blue, one day, Hughes Moss calls me back
Speaker 1: and says, Okay, are you still interested in auditioning? Can
Speaker 1: you come in tomorrow? Say yeah, absolutely. An hour after
Speaker 1: they call me, the musical director for the Cosby Show,
Speaker 1: Still Gardner, he calls me and says, I got got
Speaker 1: your number off of this cassette. It was one of
Speaker 1: my demo tapes of my singing and songwriting that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Robbin Downs, had given him a year before.
Speaker 1: So he says, would you be interested in working with
Speaker 1: me on the theme song for this new soul And
Speaker 1: I said, uh, okay, yeah, sure, what is it? So
Speaker 1: he told me this is what the totally unconnected He said,
Speaker 1: this is um, this is the concept of the show.
Speaker 1: Lead Lisa Bonet is going off to college. We want
Speaker 1: the song to say something along the lines of, you know,
Speaker 1: experiencing life. The show was called Stepping Up to Step
Speaker 1: out that was the original original title, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: this was on a Wednesday, and we're gonna be in
Speaker 1: the studio on Friday recording it. I said, okay, so
Speaker 1: do you want to meet tomorrow, you know, to hear
Speaker 1: what I come up with? Says no, if you're the
Speaker 1: person that wrote these things, and if you're singing, you
Speaker 1: can do what I need done. So I'll see you Friday. Okay.
Speaker 1: So now I thought people were messing with me. No
Speaker 1: I did. I thought my friends were messing with me
Speaker 1: at this point. So I called Hughes Moss back and say,
Speaker 1: did you just call me? They said, yes, is there
Speaker 1: a problem? Can you so? No? No, no, no, I'll
Speaker 1: be there. And sure enough, a couple of hours later,
Speaker 1: a messenger came to my door with a cassette of
Speaker 1: this is the music that we're thinking of of using
Speaker 1: go right. So I was tripping, to say the least.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, okay, this this is big. This is
Speaker 1: really big. And one of the classes I had to
Speaker 1: take as a musical theater degree major was this Business
Speaker 1: of Music. It was that big, thick textbook that was
Speaker 1: written by Bill Feyman and Andy Kraslass. There you go
Speaker 1: there you go. So I'm like, okay, I need I
Speaker 1: need somebody to help me with this. So again, just
Speaker 1: out of college. So I opened the book and noticed
Speaker 1: that they had an office here in New York. So
Speaker 1: I got the Yellow Pages Yellow, I got the Yellow
Speaker 1: Pages them up, yes, and they get delivered to the house,
Speaker 1: and you go, why are you sending me? So I
Speaker 1: look him up. I call them and I say, Hi,
Speaker 1: you don't know me, but I just got this amazing
Speaker 1: opportunity placed in my lap. And I'm sure I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing something that I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to do. Do you have para legals? Do you
Speaker 1: have free legal service? Because I don't have any money.
Speaker 1: And they said, well, please come into our office tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it. It's okay. So I went to
Speaker 1: my audition. They said, thank you for coming, goodbye. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I leave and I go to the lawyer's office
Speaker 1: and I explained to them what happened. They said, okay,
Speaker 1: we will be happy to help you. I said, okay, no, stop,
Speaker 1: you missed the part right said, I don't have any money.
Speaker 1: I need. I can't afford you guys. They said, no,
Speaker 1: We're very impressed that you want to do this and
Speaker 1: do it the right way, so we are offering to
Speaker 1: help you free of charge. All we want to see
Speaker 1: is you be protected and when the opportunity comes, you'll
Speaker 1: be willing to help somebody else. I sat in their
Speaker 1: office and I cried, I'm sorry. So they negotiated my
Speaker 1: whole contract. Uh. They negotiated that I get writer's royalties,
Speaker 1: which was unheard of for me as basically an unknown
Speaker 1: writer at the time, royalties and screen credit. So when
Speaker 1: we were negotiating, when they were negotiating with Carcy Warner,
Speaker 1: that's when we learned that Will the Gardener has a
Speaker 1: deal with Mr Cosbie that Mr Kazbi gets pent of
Speaker 1: whatever he does. And my lawyers said, well, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Mr Kazmi can have fift of Mr Gardners and this happens,
Speaker 1: and they signed off. A whole new thing I can imagine.
Speaker 1: So I went in the studio the next day. I
Speaker 1: record the song. The song had a rap in the
Speaker 1: middle of it. I was flowing, I was singing, I
Speaker 1: was doing all the background vocals, etcetera. That arrangement came later,
Speaker 1: but the song, the lyrics, the melody, everything stayed and
Speaker 1: the show was still called No Step Step to Step
Speaker 1: Out was the original title, right, So then, uh, I
Speaker 1: get a call on Monday. No, I get a call
Speaker 1: on Friday while I'm in the studio that they want
Speaker 1: me to have a call back for this role on Monday.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay. I mean, they were so dismissive
Speaker 1: in the audition, I wasn't expecting to ever hear from
Speaker 1: them a in. So I go in Monday, and I
Speaker 1: kid you not, I'm the only person in the room.
Speaker 1: I did not recognize Jually was in the room. People
Speaker 1: I've seen in magazines, people's size too, with light skin
Speaker 1: and green eyes and long hair, and and me. And
Speaker 1: I'm looking around the room. Okay, I know her, her her,
Speaker 1: and okay. So it's like you know, and you count
Speaker 1: yourself out mentally. But I was like, well, I'm here
Speaker 1: and they called me to come back, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go and do my thing and wherever it falls,
Speaker 1: that's where it false. I went in, I did my
Speaker 1: thing again and they said, okay, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for coming back. I said, no problem. So I left
Speaker 1: and went to dance class and I danced out for
Speaker 1: like another five hours. I came out of the dance studio.
Speaker 1: Someone screens my name from across the street. We have
Speaker 1: been looking for you all afternoon. Where's your agent? And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, no one ever called me back? I never.
Speaker 1: I don't have an agent. You have to fly to
Speaker 1: l A on Wednesday to meet with the studio, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I like, so okay. So I called a friend who
Speaker 1: called a friend who has an agent that said she
Speaker 1: would negotiate my contract and all have to do is
Speaker 1: pay her salary. I had to. I just pay her
Speaker 1: a salary. She doesn't get commission, she doesn't get any
Speaker 1: that because she didn't do my deal. So I paid her.
Speaker 1: She negotiated my contract. It was a suck sucking contract,
Speaker 1: but at least I had one. And I got on
Speaker 1: a plane. Never flown first class before. It was pan
Speaker 1: am first. But I had a menu and a tablecloth
Speaker 1: and food and advertisers. It's like, this is the food
Speaker 1: to l A. They put me up in like one
Speaker 1: of those top suites at the Sheridan Universal that had
Speaker 1: like almost a panoramic view of the value. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is this life that I am? What is happening
Speaker 1: right now? So I went to the audition. The car
Speaker 1: came and got me, took me to the studio and
Speaker 1: there were these young ladies there waiting to be seen,
Speaker 1: and so it was three of us and they're sitting well,
Speaker 1: this is my seventh call back at My agent told
Speaker 1: me that by this time they have to offer it
Speaker 1: to me, and I know they're calling in some girl
Speaker 1: from from New York and then no, I know, she
Speaker 1: thinks she all of that, and I'm the only one
Speaker 1: sitting there and say, wow, they were like trying to
Speaker 1: get in my head. They were not nice. That's real,
Speaker 1: this is real. I see it portrayed on television. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was not nice. Try to get in my head.
Speaker 1: And it's like, wow, wow, you know I'm sitting right here,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, fine, whatever whatever it's. I go into
Speaker 1: to the room and the producers like, how is the flight?
Speaker 1: Are you? Okay? Did did you see your contracts? And so? Fine? Fine.
Speaker 1: So I'm walking out after reading the sides, and I'm
Speaker 1: leaving and the girls are sitting there and the young
Speaker 1: lady that walks me and says, okay, the cars downstairs
Speaker 1: waiting for you, your contracts are there. Everything should be
Speaker 1: in order to sign the paperwork in the car. I'll
Speaker 1: be back to pick you up this afternoon. Okay, miss
Speaker 1: miss miss lewis all right, you're good? You need anything else? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm fine. And the girls are sitting there
Speaker 1: like so I looked over to them and said good
Speaker 1: luck and left and left, and then that afternoon this
Speaker 1: car comes and gets me. I now go to the studio.
Speaker 1: So now the room is full of people who decide
Speaker 1: whether or not you get hired. And if do you
Speaker 1: remember the actress Renee Watson John okay, Renee was also
Speaker 1: auditioning to play the dorm mother. So Renee saw me
Speaker 1: sitting there like rolling my sides up in my hand,
Speaker 1: and I'm nervous and like lines and my lines. And
Speaker 1: then one of the exact producers comes out and says,
Speaker 1: take your hair out of your face. I'll say okay.
Speaker 1: So I pulled it back out of my face, and
Speaker 1: Vernee says, are you okay? I said, I'm just you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm fine. She says, come at me. She
Speaker 1: took me in the hallway, she had me breathe and relax,
Speaker 1: and she said, if you want, I'll run lines with
Speaker 1: you come on. Just let's let's go on. And she
Speaker 1: sat there and ran lines with me until I cooled
Speaker 1: out and chilled out, and then I went in the room,
Speaker 1: I did my thing, and I came out and I
Speaker 1: hugged her, and she and I have been friends ever since.
Speaker 1: When both of us booked the pilot, she let me
Speaker 1: stay at her house until I found an apartment. She's
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful I will never I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Lessons like that and opportunities teach you to be a
Speaker 1: decent human being. So forne God bless you. I'd love
Speaker 1: you forever. So they flew back to New York and
Speaker 1: they used Moss cos me and said, Mr Cosby, uh
Speaker 1: is the last interview that you have, and so we
Speaker 1: want you to book this job. So come into our
Speaker 1: office tomorrow morning and we're gonna put you in the
Speaker 1: right outfit and then then we're gonna go. And that
Speaker 1: was when the Cosby Show was shooting in Brooklyn, like
Speaker 1: not even fifteen minutes from my house. So I stayed
Speaker 1: up all night trying to put outfits together, and got
Speaker 1: on the subway from last stopping Flap Bush to Midtown
Speaker 1: on forty six, wherever their office was with this huge
Speaker 1: bundle of clothes that I carried on the subway. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I walk into their office and they go, perfect,
Speaker 1: what you're wearing is perfect. I was like, for real,
Speaker 1: all really really right now really? So then I had
Speaker 1: to take my big bundle of clothes that we got
Speaker 1: to a car and drove back then my crib to
Speaker 1: go and meet with Mr Kazby. So we're sitting in
Speaker 1: his dressing room. He's on the phone at his table
Speaker 1: over there, and Um, myself and Tom Warner, Marcy Carcy
Speaker 1: Um and the Hughes, Moss, Julie Hughes and Barry are
Speaker 1: sitting there, and so he rattles over here to chair.
Speaker 1: They had wheels. He waddles over and so I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I got my side. I was nervous, wrong, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna reading Mr Corle Okay, all right, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna do this audition. And they said, well, Bill,
Speaker 1: before we get started, what did you think of the song?
Speaker 1: Now mine, this is all within the same week and
Speaker 1: a half, Bill, what did you think of the song? Oh?
Speaker 1: I love the song. The song is perfect in the
Speaker 1: girl's voice is the Oh that's perfect. She's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 1: The words are perfect. Everything is perfect. And I sat
Speaker 1: there like and I raised I literally raised my hand.
Speaker 1: I kid you not. And they said, yes, well, i
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you for the song. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you liked the songs. What are you talking about.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm I'm the girl, I'm the who wrote it.
Speaker 1: I'm the one you're listening to singing. And they look
Speaker 1: at me like what and Bill just started he just
Speaker 1: started laughing, and uh. They were like, he says, wait, stop,
Speaker 1: that's you singing. I said, yeah, that's that's do. And
Speaker 1: I did that last Friday and this was like Wednesday
Speaker 1: for Thursday of the of the next the next day,
Speaker 1: and he's like, all right, okay, And then they started
Speaker 1: talking about what they're gonna do to my hair. You
Speaker 1: see the way she's dressed right now, that's perfect. I
Speaker 1: love that we're gonna do this to her hair and
Speaker 1: this and that. So I'm sitting it like ten minutes
Speaker 1: goes by, and I raised my hand again. They said yes.
Speaker 1: What I said, does this mean I have a job?
Speaker 1: Does this mean I have a job? And they said yes.
Speaker 1: So they said, could just wait in the hallway for
Speaker 1: a minute. I'm like, what is happening right now? What
Speaker 1: is happening? So Mr Warner comes out and I'm in
Speaker 1: the hallway like leaning up against the wall. My eyes
Speaker 1: are big, and how you scream and nothing comes out
Speaker 1: your math? And he says, do you need anything? I said, well,
Speaker 1: can I use your phone? Please? I have to call mom.
Speaker 1: I gotta go. So he took me into his office
Speaker 1: and sat me down. That was when you had to
Speaker 1: push nine to get an outside line. Yes, so he
Speaker 1: let me call. Oh remember what was it? The Watts
Speaker 1: lines when you get a little code to die along
Speaker 1: distance for free whatever. So I said, well, before you
Speaker 1: go this, I don't want to be crazy sound or anything,
Speaker 1: but would you pray with me? And he said I'd
Speaker 1: be happy to. So we prayed together in his office,
Speaker 1: gave God thanks, and he left. He said, just whatever
Speaker 1: you need to take as long as you want. So
Speaker 1: I called my mom. My mom was an ore technician,
Speaker 1: which means she assisted surgeon sur surgeons in the operating room.
Speaker 1: So I called. They said, well, your mom is in search.
Speaker 1: As I said, you have to get her out now.
Speaker 1: You have to have to speak to her right now.
Speaker 1: So my Mom comes to the phone, thinking I'm like
Speaker 1: bleeding or dying somewhere, and just what is it? What
Speaker 1: is I said, my god, the job. She says, what
Speaker 1: she's like, girl, I'm gonna kill you. What I was like?
Speaker 1: I said, I got the job. I went to She says,
Speaker 1: with with with Mr Crosby she could never say Cosby
Speaker 1: with Mr Crosby. I said, yes, she's all Jesus, yes,
Speaker 1: Jesus or a lot of mer cank your all DD?
Speaker 1: She called me D did he your father? And neither
Speaker 1: one of us were any good. After that, we were
Speaker 1: just crying on the phone and it was it was,
Speaker 1: It was great. And two days later I was back
Speaker 1: on the plane in l A shooting the pilot. Wait,
Speaker 1: you had to move, No, we shot to shoot the pilot.
Speaker 1: So I was just gonna get picked or whatever. And
Speaker 1: at that point, after shooting the pilot and seeing the
Speaker 1: female influence and them deciding that since it wasn't my show,
Speaker 1: it was too much to have me sing the theme song.
Speaker 1: You know you can't write it, sing it and this
Speaker 1: is somebody else's show. Okay, fine, they had Al Green
Speaker 1: come in and sing it, and that was when they
Speaker 1: we flipped the name to a different world. So I
Speaker 1: rewrote just that line instead of stepping up the step out.
Speaker 1: It was different world green. What was that like? Because
Speaker 1: it was me? No, it was amazing. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I absolutely could not believe that. I was like, no, no,
Speaker 1: it goes like this, and he was open and receptive.
Speaker 1: Now he was open and receptive. And that was where
Speaker 1: I met Rochelle Farrell and then fidmont So singing backgrounds
Speaker 1: on that version. It was me, Rochelle and Lynn music. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: it had more that like honky tonk feel to the
Speaker 1: so it's closer to what Phoebe ended up releasing. So
Speaker 1: once it became clear this was really female driven, they
Speaker 1: took out Al's vocal and Phoebe came in and recorded,
Speaker 1: I wasn't in that. Oh, I wasn't in that because
Speaker 1: I was I was filming by then. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: doing that, because we did that in Brooklyn too. No no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, that was Elsa Gundo. You know. They
Speaker 1: didn't believe I knew how to jump double it. Just
Speaker 1: if you find somebody who can really turn, I can,
Speaker 1: I can throw throw down. So I said, not only
Speaker 1: will I throw out, I'm gonna do it in pumps.
Speaker 1: Y'all ain't ready, You ain't ready, y'all ain't ready, y'all
Speaker 1: ain't ready. Is there a version? Is there a version
Speaker 1: of the al Green version around? I have it. I
Speaker 1: have to stepping up to step out. Yes, I have
Speaker 1: stepping up to step out. I have the Algreen version.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't there when a Rea did it. So
Speaker 1: their their concept was like The Cosby Show kind of
Speaker 1: revamp their music, and they were going to revamp it
Speaker 1: every season. But once is saying that they were not good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's such a frozen moment where I was waiting for
Speaker 1: the honky Tonk thing and yes, wait what the hell
Speaker 1: is this? Yes? And oh man, this is without a
Speaker 1: VCR back then. So yes, I had to wait seven
Speaker 1: days to record it next week and then the final
Speaker 1: season boys too, men re read it right? Yeah, shooting
Speaker 1: that show of course, with with the level where the
Speaker 1: Cosby Show was, I mean, did you feel that you
Speaker 1: were doing something important or historical that was going to
Speaker 1: touch a bunch of kids lives that you know? When
Speaker 1: when I can only speak from myself, when we started
Speaker 1: the show, like any actor, young actor, you're happy to
Speaker 1: have a job, and you know the quality of the
Speaker 1: show that you're coming off of, because the Cosby Show
Speaker 1: was just such a high quality show and so many
Speaker 1: people were regardless of what nationality you were or age
Speaker 1: group you were, you had and you had a special
Speaker 1: place in your heart for that show. So we knew
Speaker 1: some of that was going to be coming over as
Speaker 1: far as legacy building and changing lives and influencing generations. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I knew that our first season was
Speaker 1: typical sitcom and that was because of the person that
Speaker 1: was the show, who was the who directed it, and
Speaker 1: well we had different directors first see season, but our
Speaker 1: ex executive producer was and and Beats and who had
Speaker 1: come off of Square Pegs and um, etcetera. So we
Speaker 1: were how people. There was no difference because we basically
Speaker 1: did square Pig scripts. But did you feel like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, this will fly away? We were. We thought
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous. We thought the scripts were ridiculous, and literally,
Speaker 1: I'm very serious, we did revamped Square Pegs scripts. Like
Speaker 1: when we first started working the show was myself, Jasmine, myself,
Speaker 1: Lisa and Marissa to Tomy. When the new management came in,
Speaker 1: that was when the Whitley Gilbert character was added, the
Speaker 1: Dwyane Wayne character, Etcet. Well, they we reshot the pilot, right,
Speaker 1: They weren't in the pilot, but we reshot stuff so
Speaker 1: that they would be included from beginning because he's the
Speaker 1: first person you see right on the Well, the pilot
Speaker 1: was like, it wasn't eight six, No, we shot at
Speaker 1: the pilot in eighty five, but it was eventually it
Speaker 1: was eventually aired as a finale of the first season, right,
Speaker 1: because no, it was eventually aired as the first episode.
Speaker 1: It was even ementually aired as the first episode pilot
Speaker 1: where Dwayne talks to the camera fourth wall like yeah,
Speaker 1: but there was another episode that that came before that,
Speaker 1: because like Vernet is in it as a dorm, correct
Speaker 1: and white and they so yeah, um, so that's what
Speaker 1: we were doing, and miss miss Beats brought in those
Speaker 1: other characters, so we re shot stuff to include them
Speaker 1: once for when the show actually began airing. Was there
Speaker 1: panic in the air once you realized that Lisa wasn't
Speaker 1: going to come back for season two? How comfortable do
Speaker 1: you have to be before you're like, this job is real? Uh,
Speaker 1: let me be you know, I never got that type
Speaker 1: of my money. No, I'm I'm because I had already
Speaker 1: been working for so long. Show start, shows end, nothing
Speaker 1: is forever, so you know different people. You buy cards,
Speaker 1: you buy houses like I ain't buying nothing because they
Speaker 1: could tell us tomorrow. And the way they fire folks
Speaker 1: around here. If if Lisa can go, guess what, they
Speaker 1: can let you go to you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You we would come to work some days and not
Speaker 1: know who was going to be at work. It was
Speaker 1: like that, but by this point you could probably afford
Speaker 1: your on Marvel's right, Yes, but but but I was
Speaker 1: so far past Marvels. But how it's so past Marvels
Speaker 1: by then? Yes? Yes, but it's that was hilarious. You
Speaker 1: didn't you didn't have what is there a moment where
Speaker 1: it's sort of like okay, uh I made it, or
Speaker 1: you're still like, yes, I'm telling you. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say not comfort. You knew you had a job, and
Speaker 1: you were if you were wise, you would be aware
Speaker 1: that this could change at any moment. So you go
Speaker 1: to work and you do your gig. And I watched
Speaker 1: the show go from featuring three people to featuring fourteen
Speaker 1: people in just four years. You know, All these other
Speaker 1: characters got added, you know, from you know to from
Speaker 1: Creeze character to Sean Charnelle's character, you know, everybody. All
Speaker 1: these people kept getting at it, and they were Every
Speaker 1: storyline was pretty much focused on Dwyane, Wayne and Whitley.
Speaker 1: So you add more people, that means there's less and
Speaker 1: less for everyone else to do. So that was when
Speaker 1: I started digging deeper into Okay, what else am I
Speaker 1: going to do? And that was how I ended up
Speaker 1: working with Quincy Jones and the Handle's Messiah Sofa Celebration.
Speaker 1: That was how I won the Grammy. In writing and
Speaker 1: producing for other people and doing my own stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: I got into animation. You know, I know Korea is
Speaker 1: known a lot for animation, but I've been doing a yeah,
Speaker 1: so right now, I think I do like six seven
Speaker 1: different series. Now, how hard is it to navigate in
Speaker 1: that world because voiceover, Um, it really depends you. The
Speaker 1: directors and studios like to work with who they know
Speaker 1: can deliver. So once you're in the circle, you work
Speaker 1: a bit more and people just request you directly. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a little harder to break into, but it's not impossible,
Speaker 1: especially because there were so many projects available now. When
Speaker 1: I first started, my first animated series was produced by
Speaker 1: Suzanne to Pass Susander Pass. It was Kidn't Play, Kidn't
Speaker 1: Played card cartoon. I played the younger sister. I was
Speaker 1: the younger sisister on the show. And I remember that,
Speaker 1: there you go. I was the younger sister on that show.
Speaker 1: And then Suzanne got the opportunity to produce a Christmas
Speaker 1: special with with boys two men doing guest spot voices.
Speaker 1: Uh called cool like that. So I did voices for
Speaker 1: that and I played a seven year old boy and
Speaker 1: that that show. And again this was all freelance. Didn't
Speaker 1: have an agent, so I would get called to do
Speaker 1: things here and there. Because I was the new voice
Speaker 1: in in town. I was on the TV show. People
Speaker 1: knew who I was. I was able to create different
Speaker 1: characters with my voice of different ages and male or
Speaker 1: female and uh so I finally decided to get an agent.
Speaker 1: And that was when I got an agent, and they
Speaker 1: allowed me to freelance as well. I assume the term
Speaker 1: that can deliver means that you can knock it out. Well,
Speaker 1: you knock it out and you understand what they're asking
Speaker 1: you to do. And because you're not on camera. You
Speaker 1: have to be able to sell and convince something just
Speaker 1: with your with your voice. So you have to turn
Speaker 1: into a seven year old turn into seven year old
Speaker 1: boy and yeah, and it has to be believable when
Speaker 1: when you listen back to it. So since then, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so what is your arrange like as far
Speaker 1: as your I know Creed has an arrange of she
Speaker 1: could sound like a freaking zoid or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Like I do all of that. I do video games
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat, I've done Yeah, Storm and the x X Men.
Speaker 1: I do lots of different video games. I do Um
Speaker 1: Simpson Simpson's calls me and to do all kinds of
Speaker 1: extraneous voices like the last three years I record to
Speaker 1: Simpsons last week. I have another one next week. I
Speaker 1: did the series Apple and Onion where I played Patty
Speaker 1: the Meat, the Meat Patty Boss. Uh Start. CBS is
Speaker 1: coming out with with a new animated series, Star Trek
Speaker 1: Lower Decks Um the captain on Star Trek Lower Dam.
Speaker 1: I'm really not going to ask you about cramps now. No. No,
Speaker 1: I also do. We're in the world as Carbon san
Speaker 1: Diego for Netflix. I'm the voice of the Cheap and
Speaker 1: when we just released our interactive series games. I do
Speaker 1: the voice of the chief in that. UM, don't forget
Speaker 1: Futurama now Futurama Tramla Barbara. In Futurama, I'm Granny Mixed
Speaker 1: Stuffins and Doc Mixed Stuffins and who is the voice
Speaker 1: of actual Uh. To be honest with you, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know the young lady Lady's name because
Speaker 1: usually when I get called in the studio was just me,
Speaker 1: and you meet people, you don't meet people. So I
Speaker 1: I apologize. I was stuck in the elevator with her
Speaker 1: once and when I told I had never heard of
Speaker 1: Doc mic Stuffins in my life. So when I got
Speaker 1: out the elevator go to the airport, one of my managers,
Speaker 1: she's like, I mean, even though she's of age, she's
Speaker 1: eternally thirteen years old. So I cavilly said that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in the elevator with whoever plays Dot Mix Stuffins,
Speaker 1: and she, like zarre like lost her mind. Yeah they
Speaker 1: do do. Yeah, it's it's it's a trip. Shows like
Speaker 1: Spirit shows like Sophia of the First UM. Another one
Speaker 1: I did way back in the day was Sea Bear
Speaker 1: in Jamal with tone tone loke. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: did like three or four voices in that show. I
Speaker 1: played the grandmother who kind of almost didn't have any
Speaker 1: teeth in her in her mouth, and it was just
Speaker 1: so much fun and the and the kids teacher Miss Fine.
Speaker 1: Another one where the little bear wanted to get a job.
Speaker 1: I was an old, old Jewish man in the factory
Speaker 1: where he worked. So no, we had a lot maybe
Speaker 1: I know. Watch his name. His name was Fingo. You're basic.
Speaker 1: Too much time? Time is money work? Fuck Foster to
Speaker 1: hear it, Doris, have never closed on you or I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say, I gotta ask. Has one role ever gotten
Speaker 1: away that like either to a to another commitment or
Speaker 1: something that you had a chance to go forward that
Speaker 1: you weren't able to. Yeah, I wanted to do Tina
Speaker 1: Turner and What's love got to do with it? And
Speaker 1: they got some allknown chick named Angela Bassett to do it.
Speaker 1: She was she was phenomenal name angel Bassett. She'll never
Speaker 1: go anywhere, She'll never I mean, she's she's just the
Speaker 1: coolest people. One of my dear friends in a you
Speaker 1: know I got well. Speaking of which, let me let
Speaker 1: me lead it to this where you are now at
Speaker 1: the Tina Turner Um play. The sort of the the
Speaker 1: quasi violatal relationship between her mother and her in Matt
Speaker 1: play was that that was intense. Is she executive producer
Speaker 1: of the plate like? Is she a part of the production?
Speaker 1: Miss Turner? Yes, yes, from the from the beginning. She
Speaker 1: handpicked all of the songs that are in the show,
Speaker 1: all of the songs or songs that she record at
Speaker 1: one time or none other. Um. The way that they're
Speaker 1: placed in the show is not necessarily chronological when they
Speaker 1: were released, but there their placed strategically to help tell
Speaker 1: the story. Only asked because this was way more intense
Speaker 1: than what's love got to do with it? At least
Speaker 1: the relationship between the two and I wanted to know, Well,
Speaker 1: it goes into a bit more detail of the life.
Speaker 1: You know. Some people, you know, think that if you've
Speaker 1: seen that movie, then then you've seen the most right,
Speaker 1: But that's that's not the case at all. And in
Speaker 1: playing Zelma her mother, my mother's name is Zelma Bullock.
Speaker 1: Her name was originally Anime Bullock before got changed to Tina.
Speaker 1: Tina Turner. It was important to me to come and
Speaker 1: do this particular role just because it was so real
Speaker 1: for me in my my life, because that was the
Speaker 1: life that I lived, I watched. I was raised in
Speaker 1: the house with domestic violence. Um my mom had to
Speaker 1: get out in order to save herself and put herself
Speaker 1: in a better position to save us. Um. My dad
Speaker 1: was a policeman. He was head of the Department of
Speaker 1: Homicide in Brooklyn when I was small, and so when
Speaker 1: my mom would go to report the violence, the cops
Speaker 1: would basically tell her that if you would just do
Speaker 1: what he told you, he wouldn't have to hit you.
Speaker 1: Kind of a thing that you don't get involved in. Yeah, exactly. So,
Speaker 1: so my mom left us and we ended up being
Speaker 1: taken by my grandmother that I mentioned for a cup
Speaker 1: couple of years until my mom was able to come
Speaker 1: back and get us. So that was how he went
Speaker 1: from bed styed to park Slope, back to bed sty
Speaker 1: when my mom came back and got us. Um. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: my dad learned to make better choices in his in
Speaker 1: his life and UH grateful for that, especially you know,
Speaker 1: before he passed passed. That's the way, so we were
Speaker 1: able to you know, heal certain things. But again, my
Speaker 1: relationship with my my mom, her mom, like Zelma tells
Speaker 1: Tina at one point, you need to go back to
Speaker 1: him because who do you think he helped make you?
Speaker 1: And what my mom was told was who do you
Speaker 1: think is going to take you? With four kids? What
Speaker 1: person is going to want you? Even though understanding what
Speaker 1: that violence, say situate wtion was. So it was a
Speaker 1: very different time. People didn't get divorced. You knew that
Speaker 1: there were other kids somewhere across town, or other girlfriends
Speaker 1: or whatever, and but you dealt with it. So people
Speaker 1: like Zelma, like my mother, like my grandmother, who was
Speaker 1: strong enough to love themselves enough to make a different choice,
Speaker 1: especially during that time, I just have nothing but love
Speaker 1: for it's not a popular choice, and looking at it
Speaker 1: by today's standards, you can judge in point thing as well.
Speaker 1: I would never leave my kids. And it was a
Speaker 1: very different time. And until you're in that position, I
Speaker 1: know some people who really should believe, you know, domestic
Speaker 1: violence shouldn't be tolerated, whether it's male to female or
Speaker 1: female to male, because there's some violent women out there
Speaker 1: with you know, men being really physically and emotionally damaged
Speaker 1: in these relationships. So you know, you can't help hope
Speaker 1: your kids unless you save yourself, and that was what
Speaker 1: happened in our family. So in my portrayal of Zelma,
Speaker 1: it was important to me that you see her as
Speaker 1: a human being who had to make different choices. You
Speaker 1: may or may not agree with them. Their relationship was
Speaker 1: always very complicated and damaged. Um, but hopefully you can
Speaker 1: see a human being there and both of them. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you sometimes repeat generational realities because in order to become
Speaker 1: the tin attorney that we knew, she ended up having
Speaker 1: to leave her kids to basically be raised by you know,
Speaker 1: her sister and her mother, and you know, in order
Speaker 1: for her to be who she is. But it ultimately
Speaker 1: is a story of not just surviving, but thriving, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. In spite of so, I'm really
Speaker 1: honored to be thank you so much. I brought you
Speaker 1: a gift. Actually, thank you, you brought me. I'm unrolling
Speaker 1: a scroll. This was something that I made for the
Speaker 1: entire company for opening gift. So it is a playbill
Speaker 1: version of you made this for your cast. I made
Speaker 1: this for the professional man, and this is the entire company,
Speaker 1: each one of us. And uh so, yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: that's the creative team. That's the Bullock family. Tina, that's
Speaker 1: our director. That's me, that's young the little girl that
Speaker 1: plays Anime Bullock. That's the young woman that was playing uh,
Speaker 1: the older version of our daughter alive. She's she's not
Speaker 1: there anymore. This is the woman Mary Luke lu Creek
Speaker 1: Taylor who plays Gg the grandmother. That's David Jennings who
Speaker 1: plays Richard Bullock. Um. And then those are the guys
Speaker 1: in the ensemble, and that's everybody. Well, thank you for this.
Speaker 1: I will cherish this, he says. Did you notice that
Speaker 1: I will cherish this? This is er, This is really
Speaker 1: on good paper, papers like weather. Yeah, that's beautiful. So
Speaker 1: I would like to think that at least hearing the
Speaker 1: narrative and sort of the the linear motion that your
Speaker 1: life is taken, you're stepping out in confidence and not
Speaker 1: saying that everything was done without you being nervous or
Speaker 1: I can't do this. But I kind of feel like
Speaker 1: the common denominator is like everything that you've have tempted
Speaker 1: to attempted to do, you did without a second thought
Speaker 1: or a voice in your head that says you can't
Speaker 1: do this, and you know, so what but from you
Speaker 1: doing that at an early age till even now still
Speaker 1: working where no one has this narrative that I've heard,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing this show for three years now practically,
Speaker 1: like what is that? Because I feel like that's what's it.
Speaker 1: I feel like you have a confidence or stepping down
Speaker 1: on faith in terms of just doors open for you,
Speaker 1: you know, yes and and no, yes, doors open. When
Speaker 1: I saw you, uh at Mr Bebelafante's birthday celebration and
Speaker 1: you told me that you wanted me to be on
Speaker 1: your show, that just really blessed my spirit. Because you
Speaker 1: don't know who sees you, you don't know who cares.
Speaker 1: You know who you pursue in life and they either
Speaker 1: respond or you don't. Like me trying to chase down
Speaker 1: an agent for months and nobody being willing to call back.
Speaker 1: There are still people that I try to approach now
Speaker 1: that you would hope would be supportive or encouraging, who
Speaker 1: are not necessarily because they have other people to answer
Speaker 1: to the politics, the you know whatever, Like yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it. I want to come and do
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon, I want to do the show, I want
Speaker 1: to do the view, I want to do all these
Speaker 1: things Um, and for whatever reason it will it won't happen,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, those are shows that I did
Speaker 1: back in the day when I was on Hang with
Speaker 1: Mr Cooper or some other TV show. But now that
Speaker 1: I'm here in New York, you know, my own home hometown.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm on Broadway big stage, doing good work
Speaker 1: with great peat people. You want to do things, and
Speaker 1: as you know, in our in our business, the next
Speaker 1: gig is almost predicated on the previous gig, like what
Speaker 1: did what did you do? How did you maximize it,
Speaker 1: did anybody care? Etcetera, etcetera, And then that's how the
Speaker 1: next gig happens. And things like staying relevant, staying present,
Speaker 1: staying marketable are what makes those kinds of things happen.
Speaker 1: So you do the best to do your best to
Speaker 1: do that. So I just want to tell you how
Speaker 1: much I appreciate being here. And um, you know, I
Speaker 1: had no idea that my journey meant even what it
Speaker 1: means to you, but for us to be able to
Speaker 1: sit here and and talk about it and exchange some
Speaker 1: of the things that we even have in common, skellies,
Speaker 1: I mean, who knew. Whew, I'm sting tournament, Yes, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. All those kinds of things matter,
Speaker 1: and it sometimes gets frustrating when the journey feels stifled.
Speaker 1: But like you said, I'm walking on faith because I
Speaker 1: was told at seven that where I was pursuing was
Speaker 1: going to take me on a downward spiral, that was
Speaker 1: gonna be my spiritual demise, my physical demise, all of that.
Speaker 1: And God has proven me that that is just not true,
Speaker 1: that that's just not his journey for me. So any
Speaker 1: step I want to take, if I feel empowered and
Speaker 1: if I feel like, Okay, He's given me everything I
Speaker 1: need to succeed here, that I'm gonna give it a
Speaker 1: shot and let it be someone else's choice to say no,
Speaker 1: she's too tall, because I'm as tall as I'm as
Speaker 1: I am, I'm as brown as I am, I'm as
Speaker 1: whatever as I am. But if I believe I have
Speaker 1: something to offer, then that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1: I wish like he was here, like like she we
Speaker 1: should tell like it was very upset that she couldn't
Speaker 1: be here today. She really really wanted to. I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to meeting her. She's been very kind. Well,
Speaker 1: we thank you very much for doing us you've got
Speaker 1: to come back and tell us some Latin quarter stories.
Speaker 1: There's always stories. There's plenty, plenty stories to tell. So
Speaker 1: on behalf of Boss, Bill and Sugar, Steve, Laya, Fon
Speaker 1: Tikolo and I'm Paid Bill. Thank you Don Lewis for
Speaker 1: being here today and we will see you in the
Speaker 1: next go round. Of course, Love Supreme Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 1: was the production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.