Speaker 1: What's Love.
Speaker 2: Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3: Let's go Supremo sup Suprema roll call, Sugreema su Supremo.
Speaker 1: Role called Suprema.
Speaker 3: Suprema roll call Suprema.
Speaker 1: Because I'm roll call. Yeah, it's time to gym. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nasty girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dance, dance, dance roll.
Speaker 3: So Supremo role called Supremo Supremo role call.
Speaker 2: My name is Fante.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I handle my bez.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My favorite horror movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah call Suprema Suprema roll my name is Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love to dance. Yeah, I just need a choreographer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you give me a chance.
Speaker 6: Supremo roll call, Suprima Supremo roll call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to say yeah, yeah, whoa, yeah Freema.
Speaker 6: Some Supremo roll call, Suprema some some Supremo roll call.
Speaker 7: It's like em yeah, y'all know, I'm hYP Yeah, George
Speaker 7: is here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talk all night.
Speaker 6: Supremo Supremo roll call, Supremo Supremo roll call is Faison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm here to say yeah, I got some news.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Supprima Supremo, Suprema Subpremo.
Speaker 2: Roll You get pissed when someone else's.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 2: Basically I thought mine was funny.
Speaker 1: I think you did well every time you guys were
Speaker 1: expecting me to, uh have.
Speaker 2: A roll call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, be prepared for your radio show. Yes, you know, no,
Speaker 1: I think of different freestyles, freestyle.
Speaker 9: Freestyle is and freestyle. Yes, this course loves Supreme And
Speaker 9: we are in person. We aren't live, but we can
Speaker 9: pretend it's live, but we are in person, uh, in
Speaker 9: this very tight room. Every episode there's there's a little
Speaker 9: more nuance added to the scenery.
Speaker 1: Feels like between two ferns.
Speaker 2: If anybody knows that, it definitely has between two ferns
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 9: So, yeah, we're in New York City right now. There's
Speaker 9: our logo and I guess a twenty fourteen version of me.
Speaker 9: I don't look like that in the minute. But uh no,
Speaker 9: we have teams Supreme unpaid Bill. I forgot what's your
Speaker 9: new name? Brand new Bill? No, No, you're it was
Speaker 9: just Bill.
Speaker 1: You're just a Bill natural Bill.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we should take a poll on our social media.
Speaker 9: It's a good idea, yeah, because I'll tell you because
Speaker 9: right now your name is not that exciting on Instagram
Speaker 9: or I think you want it that way? Do you
Speaker 9: want civilian Bill Sherman.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, Sherman. Bill, just thank lying. And you
Speaker 2: know who screams show vote this guy absolutely because he's
Speaker 2: just my Bill.
Speaker 9: Or I thought marvelous. Don't mess with milk, right exactly?
Speaker 9: All right, sugar, how's it going?
Speaker 2: It's good, man, it's good.
Speaker 1: I like this couch arrangement.
Speaker 2: I was. I'm sure.
Speaker 7: I was like, is this four?
Speaker 2: We got time?
Speaker 7: We got space, you know, like men can sit together
Speaker 7: like this. This is nice.
Speaker 2: We all got we can man spreads, we got space.
Speaker 1: We're good. How's it going, path? I got my brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters with me.
Speaker 9: You know, yes, we're family. I got where you're going
Speaker 9: with that. Tiolo, cool man, Welcome to New York. Yeah, man,
Speaker 9: how's it going? What's going on now? Like now that
Speaker 9: the documentary is complete, and you know, you guys are musically, uh,
Speaker 9: sort of churning them out, or at least I assume
Speaker 9: that you're turning more out. I hope that you're turning
Speaker 9: more out, Like.
Speaker 4: What's what's the plans for the summer, for the summer,
Speaker 4: so we actually do Mayler watch.
Speaker 2: The Little Brother Story is out now on YouTube. It
Speaker 2: out just working.
Speaker 4: More music is coming on the f E side, I'm producing, arranging,
Speaker 4: doing stuff, sessame Street.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm working man.
Speaker 7: You know I followed the example, yes, diversify.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to get out of it. So I
Speaker 1: ain't going as hard as you going.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: It's like a Merre like Stage fifteen cerentification, like he's
Speaker 7: been there, done that, and now it is back to
Speaker 7: the hood again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trapped. I'm coming back home.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Oh, I'm good.
Speaker 7: I'm trying not to just quote the Wiz all day.
Speaker 9: I feel like, more than anything, this is the episode
Speaker 9: that for the last and why can I not commit
Speaker 9: to how many years we've been acting?
Speaker 2: Eight eight.
Speaker 7: Granddaddy Podcast.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I feel like for the last eight years, this
Speaker 9: is the episode you've been hoping, wishing, praying and dying for.
Speaker 9: So I will say that our guest today has helped introduced,
Speaker 9: what I've like to say, the to the post modern generation,
Speaker 9: those that needed visuals to sort of navigate them through records,
Speaker 9: eve the first generation of video watches or whatever, but
Speaker 9: or even television show performances. Our guest today helped introduce
Speaker 9: a postmodern generation to a level class through movement and choreography.
Speaker 1: Sort of in that tradition of his peers.
Speaker 9: Be it Charlie Atkins, Jeffrey Holder, Harold Nichols, Michael Peters,
Speaker 9: there's Lester Wilson.
Speaker 2: It might be forgetting the name or two. Frankie Manning,
Speaker 2: Debbie Allen.
Speaker 9: We can't forget Debbie Allen was in Fatima Robinson even modern, Yes.
Speaker 2: At all that, Yes, exactly in a sense, I'm doing
Speaker 2: your build up.
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is some flowers you get, but more than that,
Speaker 9: like our guest is Emmy Award winning choreographer.
Speaker 2: Way, Oh, I'm sorry, Tony, but wait for person.
Speaker 1: Were you nominated?
Speaker 2: Form nominated? But Josephine Bank Okay.
Speaker 9: By the way, Lynn and Grace Gracie given their regards
Speaker 9: to you, Lynn Windfield and Grace.
Speaker 7: Was like, uncle, that's a good suggestion because they needed Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're friends of the show and they're they're excited
Speaker 1: you're doing this as well. They gave their regards.
Speaker 9: But more than that, our guest today, uh I got
Speaker 9: excited of course because of his association with The Whiz,
Speaker 9: which of course is getting a new lease on on
Speaker 9: Broadway with the Amber Ruffin's production of it, and a
Speaker 9: friend of the show Wayne Brady as the Whiz, and
Speaker 9: as Fonte said, yeah, the Whiz was a horror movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, listen, the Wiz is.
Speaker 1: A horror movie, a metaphysical horror movie.
Speaker 2: You know. Interesting and even will hold nails rolled back
Speaker 2: even now the subway scene, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 9: But more than that, man, just the idea of theatrics
Speaker 9: in concerts, especially when it comes to the work of Earth,
Speaker 9: Wind and Fire. Our guest today helped sort of facilitate
Speaker 9: a vision that turned that group from just an eleven
Speaker 9: piece soul review into this modern theatrical presentation. And we've
Speaker 9: been dying to pick your brain for a long time.
Speaker 9: And I'm glad you're here. Welcome George Faison two. Yes, yes,
Speaker 9: So can you tell me about your You grew up
Speaker 9: in d C. Yeah, your formative years in d C.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 2: Well, DC at that time was a divide It's city.
Speaker 2: There was you know, the racism. I think it still is. Oh,
Speaker 2: it very much is that same thing. But we had
Speaker 2: a life. We had the Howard Theater where our universe surrounded.
Speaker 2: And for a lot of cities you have your black theater,
Speaker 2: the Howard Theaty. We had a lot of R and
Speaker 2: B starting with Roy Hamilton, and on and on and on,
Speaker 2: Gladys Knight, Jewel Box Review, Arn Baker and Edda James,
Speaker 2: you name it. They were. This is not the sophistication
Speaker 2: that you would see at Motown. We were still growing,
Speaker 2: but we at least we were out there. We could
Speaker 2: see the people and they brought us another kind of glamour.
Speaker 2: And it is the magic of our people that makes
Speaker 2: us do that, and that propels you through that. So
Speaker 2: if you are growing up without people knowing who you
Speaker 2: are are, you get tired of the labels and the
Speaker 2: stereotypes and you get busy with what can I do
Speaker 2: about that? And education and letting them know who you
Speaker 2: are because we love these people, you know, our mama's
Speaker 2: and daddy's biscuits and so forth. And I grew up.
Speaker 2: My father was in the awning business, and he put
Speaker 2: up ladders. I don't know, it's a metaphor for something
Speaker 2: in a sense, awnings on on the side of the buildings.
Speaker 2: So so I had I had to learn his business,
Speaker 2: you know. So I'm you know, I can go up
Speaker 2: two or three stories on a ladder that you push up. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I learned that my father taught me that, but
Speaker 2: it was his business. And thank god I had a father.
Speaker 2: I had a father as long as I lived in
Speaker 2: DC until I left his house. So and you know,
Speaker 2: you have the discipline and all of that, and you
Speaker 2: go to school and you learn things and so forth.
Speaker 2: And then we had TV, you know, early TV, probably
Speaker 2: one of the first families to have the TV on
Speaker 2: the block. And we saw all of these things and
Speaker 2: explain to me.
Speaker 9: So the thing is is that, Okay, So me being
Speaker 9: born in the seventies and especially like the year I
Speaker 9: was born, like most people or historians will say, like
Speaker 9: sixty eight is the Mason Dixon line of pre civil
Speaker 9: rights and post civil rights period. So I came of
Speaker 9: age in which if you even had anything close to
Speaker 9: a passion for the arts, there were institutions.
Speaker 1: That you could go to, Like there was a school
Speaker 1: in which you can come teach your kids ballet or
Speaker 1: tap dance or acting and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: For you.
Speaker 9: Though, if your formative years are in the late fifties
Speaker 9: and early sixties, as far as like preteen and all
Speaker 9: that stuff, what was the environment like, Like was art
Speaker 9: something that we took seriously or survival?
Speaker 1: Get a job, get money, or pursue your death.
Speaker 2: Well what I chose. Nobody at that particular time thought
Speaker 2: that was going to be the way you were going
Speaker 2: to be a doctor, a teacher or something. You're going
Speaker 2: to go survival. You have to have a little happiness.
Speaker 2: You have to have a little joy to survive, to
Speaker 2: have something that you're going to be reaching for. So
Speaker 2: you look left or right on your graduation day in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. What you know are You're never going
Speaker 2: to see these people again? And what are you going
Speaker 2: to do that day that you even walk out out
Speaker 2: of the school or down those streets. You walk down
Speaker 2: those streets as somebody else like an adult, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do? You're going to go to college?
Speaker 2: Can you afford college? What you know? You got to
Speaker 2: break those barriers too. Well, at fifteen I had started
Speaker 2: going to Howard University, not going in school, but in
Speaker 2: their departments that were like developing. There was no dance department,
Speaker 2: so Mary Rose Allen started the dance department in the gym,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And I would go every
Speaker 2: day at three o'clock or something and change my clothes
Speaker 2: and go down there and meet Caroly and Tate, who
Speaker 2: you don't know about, but she had worked with the
Speaker 2: choreographer Donnie Michale, who I would later meet when I
Speaker 2: came to New York. Owen Dodson was the head of
Speaker 2: the drama department and he brought James Barmin myself blues
Speaker 2: for mister Charlie at Howard University when he was still
Speaker 2: working on that I saw in nineteen sixty four. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were friends. They were friends. No, but everybody, I mean, ROBERTA.
Speaker 2: Flack was there, Donnie Athaway, Tony Morrison. It was in
Speaker 2: that bunch rightssance, you know, so who else was there?
Speaker 2: I was fifteen fifteen.
Speaker 7: Why did you not even know to.
Speaker 2: Go to that particular time when we were trying to
Speaker 2: get educated that you went on school trips. So we
Speaker 2: went to Howard University.
Speaker 7: From Dunbar, not just the fires right because his high
Speaker 7: school that he went to was close to Howard anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, Dunbar was the first African American high school in
Speaker 2: right m Street High and everybody went there. Charles Drew
Speaker 2: also was who created the plasma, was a graduate of.
Speaker 9: Of that.
Speaker 2: But right, all of that.
Speaker 7: But you were dancing back then, so you were dancing Oh.
Speaker 2: No, we were know, you were dancing at home. What
Speaker 2: are you talking about? You had forty fives and all
Speaker 2: of that. They played pecina cards, drank and they had
Speaker 2: we had a life, right, Okay, we did have a life.
Speaker 2: They did everything, you know. And also it was the migration.
Speaker 2: I saw people that were living in the alleys in garages,
Speaker 2: you understand what I mean, because they couldn't do They
Speaker 2: didn't have a house, they didn't have anything. And they
Speaker 2: took that shelter and moved on all the way across
Speaker 2: the country, you know, they until they found a place
Speaker 2: that they were going to settle in. That the Wilkerson
Speaker 2: book Warmth, Right, So I loved that book so much.
Speaker 2: I started, you know, like when I came to the
Speaker 2: last ten pages, I was turning a page because I
Speaker 2: did not want it to end.
Speaker 4: Because it's called The Warmth of other Sons. It's about
Speaker 4: like the great Migration.
Speaker 2: And how people, you know, they picked up and they
Speaker 2: and they moved. That's how I guess my father, my mother,
Speaker 2: their families and so forth got to d c.
Speaker 7: Carolina, where North Carolina from.
Speaker 2: You're in North Carolina d all day and then they
Speaker 2: went on to other other cities. What city in North Carolina?
Speaker 4: Well Wallace, Wow, yeah, that's going just headed towards Womanton
Speaker 4: from me, I mean Raleigh.
Speaker 2: So it's like going back right and there's a face
Speaker 2: on North Carolina. There's all of that, and that's how
Speaker 2: pass you know. So it's like you find yourself in
Speaker 2: an environment when you when you are, when you grow up,
Speaker 2: What am I going to do? Okay, you see the
Speaker 2: white on one side of town and you go back
Speaker 2: to wherever you're going. Everything is full. I mean you're
Speaker 2: not missing anything. I'm not missing anything. But you see,
Speaker 2: you're drawn to art, art, draws, art, It doesn't you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't claim just one person. I mean it's open.
Speaker 2: It's universal, you know, and you can you can go
Speaker 2: and grow through all. And I was just curious, so
Speaker 2: I would wander to the other side of town. I
Speaker 2: would read the papers, auditions and so forth. But Howard
Speaker 2: was mecca. But you know, the musicians we had, you know,
Speaker 2: everybody was there. So I didn't miss that. But the
Speaker 2: caveat in our growing up to be whoever we're going
Speaker 2: to be, we were intersegregated with black people within. Yes,
Speaker 2: if you didn't pass the paper bag tests. No, this
Speaker 2: is what Jack and Jills went up the hill, but
Speaker 2: this was harder. Oh shit, damn. And you didn't get
Speaker 2: get over until James Brown say it loud, okay.
Speaker 9: Wows the seed that was planet for dancing?
Speaker 1: Because I'm certain that, no, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't start with dancing. What did you start? I
Speaker 2: started with music and art and all of that, pictures
Speaker 2: and things. The stars that I really love were Fred
Speaker 2: Astaire and Gene Kelly and all of that. Nothing really
Speaker 2: happened till I saw Norma Miller and Frankie Manning in
Speaker 2: Hells of Popping, you know, doing that lind crazy Lindy
Speaker 2: that they were doing, yeah, and so forth. But I
Speaker 2: didn't do I didn't meet all of them until I
Speaker 2: came after I had been in New York and we
Speaker 2: were but Mama Lou Parks and all of that dance history.
Speaker 2: You know. I was there making up dances, you know,
Speaker 2: not even thinking trying to turn in the hall was
Speaker 2: like thirty six inches wide, walked down right, And I
Speaker 2: taught myself how to pirouette in the hall so you
Speaker 2: don't hit the what thank you don't hit the walls?
Speaker 2: How straight can you be? So that was, you know,
Speaker 2: and think I was learning like that. And then somebody
Speaker 2: came up and said, oh, there's gonna be an audition.
Speaker 2: What is an audition? They say, you have to do
Speaker 2: this audition, go sing and dance and act, and you
Speaker 2: get into a play. So I said, okay, I'm going.
Speaker 2: This guy was a senior and everything, so I trusted
Speaker 2: that and I went through the whole audition and I
Speaker 2: hadn't ever been And so I come bouncing out, we
Speaker 2: got a job. We got a job, you know, like
Speaker 2: and so we're gonna start rehearsal and so and so
Speaker 2: I'm telling them all the business. He says, I didn't
Speaker 2: get it. Oh wow, sorry, but that was the beginning
Speaker 2: and end of that friendship. You know. So you're gonna
Speaker 2: you're gonna go alone, folks. You can take as big
Speaker 2: a crowd as you want. It's just gonna be on you.
Speaker 1: So what was the audition process like the back then?
Speaker 1: What was the process?
Speaker 2: Well, they gave us steps and you had to do them. Boone,
Speaker 2: you had to go up the scale. If you couldn't sing,
Speaker 2: you had sang Happy Birthday. And if you and you
Speaker 2: read a little bit, oh they're not gonna get a
Speaker 2: speaking part.
Speaker 1: So so when you go to an audition.
Speaker 9: Now, when I watch movies or whatever, and you know art,
Speaker 9: the arts are never accurate when showing it how it
Speaker 9: really is. But for the dancing part of it, when
Speaker 9: I see like when they do five six seven, you're
Speaker 9: going to fuss and nothing and they pick it up instantly.
Speaker 2: They were moving like that. Well no, no, no, but
Speaker 2: they weren't moving like wait, mine, let's get go back. Okay,
Speaker 2: they were not moving like that. You add the spice.
Speaker 2: A pot of beret is still a pot of beret
Speaker 2: unless you turn it into something. A pair of wet
Speaker 2: is a pair of unless you can turn it into something.
Speaker 2: I was. I didn't have any any training until I
Speaker 2: heard some some guys talking about well gleisada and no,
Speaker 2: but that that's movement and you have to learn that language.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, I gotta get that. I didn't even
Speaker 2: know what our best but I got that job. I
Speaker 2: had not heard and so forth. So but I would
Speaker 2: do it. I would do it. You look and you
Speaker 2: do your IQ? Is how good are IQ?
Speaker 1: You're a musician that plays my ear?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 9: Now is it not respected? But like from those that
Speaker 9: did train at the blah blah blah institute. Are they
Speaker 9: looking down on you?
Speaker 1: Are they?
Speaker 2: Well, you have to conform to all that, because that's
Speaker 2: that's what it is. It's just like a musician playing
Speaker 2: notes and and all of that. And I had played
Speaker 2: the french horn and the trumpet in uh, you know,
Speaker 2: while you grow up, and that's what we had in
Speaker 2: school to do. So I was trying that sang in
Speaker 2: the glee club saying, you know, did all of the
Speaker 2: things that I really liked, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And do you remember I was hanging awnings with my
Speaker 2: father and hanging out the third window, putting them on
Speaker 2: the mansions that were out in Silver Spring and Spring
Speaker 2: Valley and all of those other neighborhoods, and ducking down
Speaker 2: in the seat if I was riding through through uh
Speaker 2: the neighborhood because.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't want anybody to see me with
Speaker 2: my father with the lattice, you know, up there, and
Speaker 2: I was doing but it was work, and it was
Speaker 2: his work.
Speaker 1: What does your mother do?
Speaker 2: You mess with us? Okay? Gotcha?
Speaker 7: So and raised us and the middle class family in a.
Speaker 2: Sense, Yes, yes, I think you if you would take
Speaker 2: it like that and we had dinner every day together
Speaker 2: and free day. So yes, ain't required you just you know,
Speaker 2: have it anyway. I got that part.
Speaker 7: He was the part the part.
Speaker 2: I became the lead dancer for Kiss Me Kate, Wow.
Speaker 2: And guess where we did it. We did it at
Speaker 2: Howard University, at the newly built Cramptonia that had not that,
Speaker 2: you know, and then the new Magical and you know,
Speaker 2: but I don't know in your dreams you have every part.
Speaker 2: You know, dreams don't you know, aren't segregated in a sense.
Speaker 2: You dance through this, you feel that and so forth.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just real life and then that you
Speaker 2: have to deal with and how you interpret that and
Speaker 2: how you take that and uh, how do you survive
Speaker 2: that to go on and have a career. I never
Speaker 2: have not done anything but work with my father and
Speaker 2: been in the theater. Nothing And who can say that
Speaker 2: at that time?
Speaker 7: All right, just that his life was the same he
Speaker 7: has not all the way through.
Speaker 2: I had a you know, I had a theater job,
Speaker 2: you know, so I became the first dancer and led this.
Speaker 2: I'm like one of two maybe people. No, they had
Speaker 2: three black characters. Queenie, Joe and me I was I
Speaker 2: was a dancer, and I let the dancers out there.
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody at hours. So I met all
Speaker 2: those guys, the Howard players, Doug cut Froat, best players
Speaker 2: in the world. They went and majored in bedwid and
Speaker 2: oh no, they were wild, wild, wild well, and they
Speaker 2: were going to school and so forth. Beget But let
Speaker 2: me tell you, getting through that level of discrimination among
Speaker 2: your own people was a part of that, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. That was a part of that. Because
Speaker 2: so my mother was very light skin and my father
Speaker 2: was black, you know what I mean. So it's like
Speaker 2: here we are, you know what I mean. So here
Speaker 2: we here we are. And they raised us best they could,
Speaker 2: you know, as well as they did the best they could,
Speaker 2: as well as they did Christmas and Easter, and you
Speaker 2: did all of the traditional things. You got clothes, new clothes,
Speaker 2: and you went to church and and so forth. And
Speaker 2: so I just stepped out there, Howard when you got that,
Speaker 2: I was in high school, so it was, you know,
Speaker 2: I did all of this before I was in I
Speaker 2: was like in the tenth grade when I got that
Speaker 2: gate with the atsity, right, I met Jesse Dorman. She
Speaker 2: was fifteen, right, But I had never heard a voice
Speaker 2: like that. You know, we went on a trip to this.
Speaker 2: It was scary. She opened her mouth and we had
Speaker 2: not never heard a sound like that come from anybody, anybody.
Speaker 2: And then you know all of the other people, ROBERTA.
Speaker 2: Flack on Capitol Hill, you know, singing it, mister Henry's
Speaker 2: and doing.
Speaker 7: All of that, just tripping as you we still in
Speaker 7: high school when all this was happening, and you're still
Speaker 7: at Howard.
Speaker 2: Right, And I went there, they allowed me to go
Speaker 2: there and so forth, and you know, I, you know,
Speaker 2: work with Ted Shine. I did Zoo's Story with him,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, the plays and things like that.
Speaker 9: Was Howard the first institution that let you study your craft.
Speaker 9: And like, at what point are you choosing dance and movements?
Speaker 2: I think it all kind of meld together that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was kind of looking at dance. I was still fifteen.
Speaker 2: I hadn't graduated, so it was like I still had
Speaker 2: to go, you know through that point.
Speaker 7: That's what we're saying. So like, Howard, did you say
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be No?
Speaker 2: I was. I know, I wandered at to Howard, but
Speaker 2: I'd never been into the Baynas department. I was over
Speaker 2: there with Mary Rose Allen in the gym.
Speaker 7: But you ended up at serving Howard right, yes, so
Speaker 7: what was your major then?
Speaker 2: That was drama?
Speaker 7: So no dance still so I'm a you are Howard.
Speaker 2: No, no dance, but I'm dancing.
Speaker 7: But you're dancing but not okay. But when you graduated,
Speaker 7: you graduate.
Speaker 2: No, and the Lewis Johnson another choreographer from that era.
Speaker 2: He's the only black dancer in that Damn Yankees movie.
Speaker 2: If you if you look at Damn Yankees with back
Speaker 2: in the days, the movie no you can see, you
Speaker 2: can see, you can see, you know. But he was that.
Speaker 2: But he grew up in Washington at the Jones and
Speaker 2: Haywood School and that was where Cheeta Rivera came out
Speaker 2: of Sylvester Campbell, who danced in Europe. He was able
Speaker 2: to dance the Prince in Swan Lake and all of
Speaker 2: that in Europe, and they trained those kind of dancers.
Speaker 2: I did not go to that school. Where would you
Speaker 2: say the epicenter of the great were is this? It's
Speaker 2: no Kennedy Center, There is no any of that. And
Speaker 2: in that I opened Kennedy Center with a couple of pieces.
Speaker 2: But that was when I was you know old. I've
Speaker 2: done workshops there, done you know, just everywhere, you know,
Speaker 2: everywhere that was right. But you could read in the
Speaker 2: paper where there were certain auditions you had to go to,
Speaker 2: and you had to go to, you know, out of
Speaker 2: out of ou sphere. You know. The people that were
Speaker 2: going to those houses were maids and cooks and and
Speaker 2: so forth. They are working in that neighborhood. But I'm
Speaker 2: saying that the whatever institution. I did liturgical dance with
Speaker 2: Mary Craig Hill, who was at the Johnson and where
Speaker 2: Johnson worshiped, So I started, you know, I'm dance for
Speaker 2: all of that. Son's still d c And I worked
Speaker 2: at the at My summer jobs were the library, Congress
Speaker 2: in I h and all of all of that, right,
Speaker 2: And I didn't want to, you know, you don't want
Speaker 2: to work. But Louis Johnson came to Howard. He puts
Speaker 2: something on. We did one of those, one of the musicals,
Speaker 2: and I asked him to call me if there are
Speaker 2: any or just diishes, because I wanted to be out
Speaker 2: of New York.
Speaker 1: Someone's putting a production on.
Speaker 9: Is it just assume that all the students at Howard,
Speaker 9: are season enough to do that, like and I'm thinking
Speaker 9: of production, heights, pacing, staging.
Speaker 2: But Howard and that the finance department was advanced to
Speaker 2: that point. They had great teachers and you could get
Speaker 2: a real full, well rounded, you know, theater experience going
Speaker 2: to Howard because later on they were Debbie and Felicia,
Speaker 2: all of them, all of them will have passed through
Speaker 2: those doors. And the teachers progressed the stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: they made costumes. They did. The first production I saw
Speaker 2: there was Medea in Africa, so it had that African flavor,
Speaker 2: but here it was still media, you know, and and
Speaker 2: the legend and and all of that, and so you
Speaker 2: got a feeling and the kids and the actors were
Speaker 2: studied that and and strive for that. The rigor was
Speaker 2: really hard, you know how you still got have to
Speaker 2: be the best, you know, and if you're a fool
Speaker 2: of enough like me. So when I went to New York,
Speaker 2: I auditioned, you know, for Arthur Mitchell, and they were
Speaker 2: going to go to Africa for the Festival of Two
Speaker 2: Worlds in Senegal, and I was like step I made
Speaker 2: that audition. I got into that company. But the first
Speaker 2: day of rehearsal. I saw Paula Kelly, I saw No,
Speaker 2: I'm chilled. I get chills right now. I saw Paula Kelly,
Speaker 2: you know, beyond the dances I saw in Alvin's company
Speaker 2: down there, who were excellent. I saw Judis Jamison down there,
Speaker 2: Miguel Goadro Takako Asakawa, all of and dancing works by
Speaker 2: Talli Beattie and all of That's what really inspired me
Speaker 2: to want to go. So I get the job. So
Speaker 2: it's like I see the all of these guys. Then
Speaker 2: you got Tommy Johnson, the the uh they did a
Speaker 2: nightclub act dancing with along with Sandy Macpheerson and uh another.
Speaker 7: Day New York is such a beautiful danccene back then,
Speaker 7: like that's just.
Speaker 2: You know, sexy and all of that. No, she danced,
Speaker 2: Paula Kelly danced at MoMA with Gene Kelly and some
Speaker 2: other dances, and we would watch so intensely. The choreographers
Speaker 2: were on, you know, on TV doing specials with Duke
Speaker 2: Ellington and so forth, and they were absolutely the best.
Speaker 2: Claude Thompson, Jimi Rogers, who had been you know in
Speaker 2: West Side Story and all of that. And you had
Speaker 2: to fight to be on the front line. You know,
Speaker 2: they give you know you lines, live live, you know,
Speaker 2: so sometimes you be hiding because so difficult.
Speaker 1: But that was specific with fighting on the front line.
Speaker 2: What do you mean like trying to get to the
Speaker 2: front line, trying to be in the first chair, trying
Speaker 2: to be first trumpet dance? How does one achieve that
Speaker 2: you own all of your stuff? So when I got
Speaker 2: into I see all these stallions and thorough breds walk
Speaker 2: into the into the room. I'm like, I'm not having
Speaker 2: we haven't even started dancing. I'm looking at these human
Speaker 2: beings that are poised ready and had danced all of
Speaker 2: the stuff of Catherine Dummom, had danced to Tylly Beatty,
Speaker 2: had danced Donny McHale and you know the whole you know,
Speaker 2: all of that that works. I'm looking at these gods
Speaker 2: and goddesses, you know, like that, so I know which
Speaker 2: leg is the best.
Speaker 10: So I go to.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 9: So you're telling me in your first two decades ten years,
Speaker 9: there was not an ally sort of institution or.
Speaker 2: No, he was struggling. Everybody didn't love it. We got
Speaker 2: thrown out of restaurants and and and denied, uh that
Speaker 2: we were a black dance company. I was on the
Speaker 2: road when they killed King and we still had the
Speaker 2: dance and we did Revelations or any of those those pieces.
Speaker 2: It was it.
Speaker 1: But I mean, for as far as training is concerned,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: On the job training, if you're lucky and I took it,
Speaker 2: that's the rigor can you do it? You know, you
Speaker 2: know your body is rebelling because you're you're trying to
Speaker 2: stand in fifth and fourth and pirouette and you're trying
Speaker 2: to do all of that clearly and cleanly because you're
Speaker 2: judged by that every time you step.
Speaker 7: At these auditions?
Speaker 2: Is it like?
Speaker 7: So? Is it like Michael Peters there and are you?
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for putting me with Michael.
Speaker 7: He's younger, he's older, older, he's get out you look,
Speaker 7: you're younger than all the other one. So it's weird,
Speaker 7: right because you're younger.
Speaker 2: I was born right in the middle of all of them.
Speaker 7: So like James is eighty, okay, so she's older than you.
Speaker 2: All of them are older of them okay, okay, So
Speaker 2: they were all older, Debbie Allen, Michael Peters and all
Speaker 2: of them came later. She was in her they were babies.
Speaker 2: It was in my company. I gave Alicia the job
Speaker 2: of being a munchkin and the wiz and she was
Speaker 2: two times two time telling the award wedding actress. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's when she said she was a bunchkin and she
Speaker 2: did it.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, But for you, at any point, are you
Speaker 9: looking at the major institutions like are you even looking
Speaker 9: at like auditioning for White Valley companies or are they even.
Speaker 2: Looking at us? Alvin Ailey was my goal. That was
Speaker 2: the hardest dancing you could possibly do. What it was,
Speaker 2: that was the top.
Speaker 7: Alvin Ellen been doing his things sixty okay, because I'm
Speaker 7: trying to put everybody's.
Speaker 2: Eighty sixty years now eighty.
Speaker 7: But when you get to New York Alvin Aley company,
Speaker 7: Alvin Ali is right, this.
Speaker 2: Is the first ten years. That's the first ten years,
Speaker 2: and then I left, and then from graduating from high
Speaker 2: school to nineteen seventy five, it's ten years. I won
Speaker 2: the Tony then wow, going through it like that. But
Speaker 2: my first job Broadway show was Don't Bother Me. I
Speaker 2: can't cope.
Speaker 7: But what is that even about?
Speaker 2: I don't don't bother me, I can't cope. That's Vanette
Speaker 2: Carol and Mickey Grant, then Bradfast and the Bradford Singers
Speaker 2: and and all of that. I hadn't read those reviews
Speaker 2: until maybe a couple of years ago. Okay, right now,
Speaker 2: I'm with you.
Speaker 1: You were in Parly before that.
Speaker 2: Oh and I was when I left Aley in seventy
Speaker 2: I opened and Little as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how did you get that audition in well, Louis.
Speaker 2: You know, like this frustration of trying to be a
Speaker 2: leader and guide people and so forth, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of came to a head when we were working with
Speaker 2: Hugh Maseequila with and Maseequila Langage with Alvin Ailey. That
Speaker 2: was a piece that Alvin did. It's the piece I
Speaker 2: left on. I left in sixty nine and seventy. Uh.
Speaker 2: I opened with Pearly but that was my last season
Speaker 2: and I danced like Stephen beego role. But I had
Speaker 2: read about all of this. You know, news is going around.
Speaker 2: Where are you getting your inspiration from the people? You
Speaker 2: know what I mean? So it's you know when they say,
Speaker 2: oh I'm gonna remake the wisdom and remake it, don't
Speaker 2: fuck around with it, remake it. You know what I mean,
Speaker 2: don't play every You are different people. You are living
Speaker 2: in this century, in this decade. This is your time.
Speaker 2: And then you know, and that was what you know.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting up here, I wondry how old is everybody
Speaker 2: in this room? We can do that fifty three, I'm
Speaker 2: forty three. Minute, I'm forty five.
Speaker 1: Meet for a six for six minus twenty I am
Speaker 1: seventy eight.
Speaker 7: Okay, wow, okay.
Speaker 2: So it's like all of that. So I've lived this
Speaker 2: life in real time, So all of the changes. I
Speaker 2: saw all of them get shot and murdered because I
Speaker 2: live right there in DC, you know, and they would
Speaker 2: that was in a row d C was something is
Speaker 2: Margaret Mitchell. And I'm saying, this is the background I'm
Speaker 2: growing up in that trying to go to Howard. You know,
Speaker 2: they're they're drafting people for the Vietnam War. The people,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a time. It was a time.
Speaker 9: Who were your contemporaries around this time? Like who else
Speaker 9: I was young I didn't know, but not you, Like
Speaker 9: who else of newt was in your circle? As far
Speaker 9: as like legendary dancers that we might have heard of,
Speaker 9: That was.
Speaker 2: Who you were hanging with the new children, the last
Speaker 2: new children, you know, Eleo Palmari. But Eleo was a choreographer,
Speaker 2: a great choreographer too. When all those people in I was,
Speaker 2: I was trailing the Aley company. See I was born
Speaker 2: in between. There was nothing behind me, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, There was nothing behind me, so I had
Speaker 2: to keep moving forward. So that's how you know, And
Speaker 2: then I would be leading people they weren't going, Where
Speaker 2: were they going? Scooped up Debbie Allen's and all of them,
Speaker 2: Michael Peters and all He was my roommate with Ailey.
Speaker 9: Before nineteen seventy five comes and your thirtieth comes, What
Speaker 9: was your end game, your your dream or your destination
Speaker 9: that you wanted to.
Speaker 2: I was, you know, I started as a dancer and
Speaker 2: then I started dance, you know, dancing between shows at Pearlely,
Speaker 2: you know, working out a few things. I had gone
Speaker 2: to Africa and uh to all of those countries with
Speaker 2: Aley doing sixty seven. Was in Israel six days after
Speaker 2: the Sixth Day War, all of that, what's happening, and
Speaker 2: we were teaching people.
Speaker 7: Think you didn't look at it like that, you didn't
Speaker 7: look at like you know, in twenty years, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: be I want.
Speaker 2: To do this. That was no, but that was like
Speaker 2: ten years after that, and then I left Ailey. And
Speaker 2: how many years did you do Aley three? And how
Speaker 2: that started in sixty seven sixty three?
Speaker 9: Would you say that's probably the most difficult, rigorous training
Speaker 9: that you've done.
Speaker 2: No, it was before that because I didn't you know,
Speaker 2: when I first went, I didn't tell you that the
Speaker 2: Arthur Metrial Company was back disbanded because we didn't go.
Speaker 2: And since Alvin was I meant to meet Alvin, he
Speaker 2: was already in Europe, so the State Department decided to
Speaker 2: send him to Senegal because it was easier for them.
Speaker 2: And also then I was left on the street. I
Speaker 2: couldn't and didn't want to go back. You can't go
Speaker 2: back home, not to DC, not to not to face
Speaker 2: those people, and not the how it plays. Oh no,
Speaker 2: it day and night of ridicule. I had already appeared
Speaker 2: in the Jet magazine with Lauren VI and the Apple
Speaker 2: and all of the papers. How can My mother was saying, oh,
Speaker 2: the Star is boring. So I had all of that,
Speaker 2: so I couldn't go back to d C. So you know,
Speaker 2: you buckled down, and that's where the rigor really happened
Speaker 2: with all of those choreographers that were at the wide
Speaker 2: That's Thelma Hill, Charles Moore, Jimmy Truett, Pepsi Bethel, all
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the impact that going to Africa
Speaker 1: for the first time had on you.
Speaker 2: I found out how small I was, how infantastically small
Speaker 2: we are and nothing. And because I was nothing, I
Speaker 2: had to do something about that. We flew over the
Speaker 2: Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro a couple of times. You know, in
Speaker 2: the plane you could look down look in the crater,
Speaker 2: you know, Victoria Falls. I'm talking about going all the
Speaker 2: way to Madagascar. So I didn't even know that I
Speaker 2: had been there until I saw Walt Disney and the
Speaker 2: Lema that's where it was, Madagascar, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And there they were, you know, crawling around and we
Speaker 2: did that. And then they had like a stina like
Speaker 2: this long and I mean twelve inches long, I mean
Speaker 2: big as a lobster. I was right, Oh, delicious and food.
Speaker 2: And then you know on the banks in Tanzania, that's
Speaker 2: a star salam on the banks, they had a a campfire.
Speaker 2: They've built a huge campfire and the natives were dancing. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm oh, I can dance with them. But you know,
Speaker 2: there's a rhythm I discovered, you know, how it's circular.
Speaker 2: You don't know how long it is, but you begin
Speaker 2: to recognize when you jump into it, how the cycle
Speaker 2: ultimately comes back around, and how you recognize that what
Speaker 2: is that? What is that? You know, poly rhythm? It
Speaker 2: has to do with understanding that the rhythm.
Speaker 10: And so did you bring that all of that into
Speaker 10: your dance once you were finished.
Speaker 2: With that trip? Well, my first ballet is in the
Speaker 2: in the Smithsonian, the Gazelle, because I had seen them, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had seen them, you know, in in the camp.
Speaker 2: What is that the on the reserve, on the reserve,
Speaker 2: you know, going down a hill and they and they
Speaker 2: moved in like almost a chain kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: that's where I got the movement for the for the
Speaker 2: gazelle and so forth. And so that became the prelude
Speaker 2: to a ballet that I later did called Slaves. It
Speaker 2: was h the hunters become the hunted, and so the
Speaker 2: so the mass I were out hunting and they captured
Speaker 2: gazelle and we took it back to the village and
Speaker 2: so forth. And then you hear shots in the in
Speaker 2: the distance, I DESI.
Speaker 7: Are the ones that do the leak to right right straight?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So did you use any.
Speaker 2: No, No, I had taken.
Speaker 9: Having dealt with choreographers in the post nineties, you know,
Speaker 9: oftentimes they'll come to the site where musicians are and
Speaker 9: they'll record it. Now, you know, people just take out
Speaker 9: their phones and record whatever. But how are you able
Speaker 9: to thoroughly absorb the pieces that you have to choreograph
Speaker 9: if there isn't a walk man or an iPhone or
Speaker 9: some sort of device that tells you what the music is.
Speaker 9: Because I know people that just listen to music and see,
Speaker 9: all right, where does it take me?
Speaker 2: Take them? Where were you see? I worked with Yousef
Speaker 2: Latif and all of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but th band's not set up in your living
Speaker 1: room playing live.
Speaker 2: But we used to have radio, and that was w
Speaker 2: b LS and and w l i B and all
Speaker 2: those jazz stations that played all of these artists that
Speaker 2: didn't get any kind of stations and all of that.
Speaker 2: That music was epic enough for me to set the
Speaker 2: drama to it.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: But because but we have to take the lead from
Speaker 2: what you're playing it. You know the music is kind
Speaker 2: of first as far as that and what you not
Speaker 2: what you were thinking of. But what universally is that
Speaker 2: you give it a name, you give it, you give
Speaker 2: you know you've done something. You're composer. You know you
Speaker 2: start with the.
Speaker 1: Were there cassettes out back then? Like how are you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 9: It doesn't listen back and forth, rewind, listen to that
Speaker 9: part when this change comes in.
Speaker 2: Some in some uh, in some instances, you could buy
Speaker 2: we had colony, We had all of those things where
Speaker 2: you would you were working with vinyls. See I'm from that.
Speaker 2: I can get that music. All of those artists were
Speaker 2: on those labels, and most of the artists I worked
Speaker 2: with had that music. They weren't an earth Wind and fire.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna put fantasy on that. And in the
Speaker 2: show what No. But that's that's choreographable. That is music.
Speaker 2: You can not everything. Can you put a dance? So
Speaker 2: this is not TikTok, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's not that.
Speaker 9: I just want to know generally, when someone asks you
Speaker 9: to put a piece together for them, what's your creative
Speaker 9: process in figuring out what it.
Speaker 1: Is that you want them to do.
Speaker 2: It's what they said, I did as Simon, and that's
Speaker 2: all romantic. They had mics with chords and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: so I had to grab the cord. I had to
Speaker 2: wrap them up in those loving embraces and unwrap them too,
Speaker 2: so you didn't notice that.
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm not very theatrical.
Speaker 2: No, but I'm saying no and falling in their arms
Speaker 2: and they are groaning and doing all that that stuff.
Speaker 9: Yeah, before, But what I'm saying is, before you get
Speaker 9: to that place, I'm certain that you have to sit
Speaker 9: with the music and absorb it.
Speaker 2: Remember I studied the French horn and the trumpet. I
Speaker 2: could count. I could read music too, So it's not
Speaker 2: they come they don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: They danced right through the bridge or they don't even
Speaker 2: recognize the bridge as some sort of release or anything
Speaker 2: like that. And then you're coming up to another chords
Speaker 2: and then they'll start their routine over again. But that's
Speaker 2: another level of where what you're trying to express you know,
Speaker 2: and and and you learned it in that shorthand when
Speaker 2: you do those little rock and roll records, you know
Speaker 2: like you got you know, you got the intro, you
Speaker 2: got the verse first second chorus bridge, you know, verse,
Speaker 2: bridge and out. That's a form, that is technique.
Speaker 10: How did all this experience and knowledge funnel into what
Speaker 10: you did with the Wiz.
Speaker 2: Well, I had everything. I went to different lands. That's
Speaker 2: a that's a great question. I went to write thank you. No,
Speaker 2: you had munch You had Munchkin lands. They had to
Speaker 2: be you had dancing crows. I thought the Glady's Night
Speaker 2: and the Pips. Right ah okay, now everybody breathe. I
Speaker 2: had to hook it onto something. Jesus, you know you
Speaker 2: understand what I mean. And that's why it lives today.
Speaker 9: At the time, when Charlie Smalls is approaching you about
Speaker 9: his redoing of the Wizard of Oz, are you thinking
Speaker 9: like you're crazy, this will never.
Speaker 2: Fly or no? But I imagine myself in everything that
Speaker 2: I saw that you grew up with. Anybody grew up
Speaker 2: the Filipinos, Chinese, that any anybody.
Speaker 7: So this is what you saw, what you saw the
Speaker 7: Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 2: Yes, we loved you. Julie Gland was ours. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know that. It was like yeah, right, and all
Speaker 2: those other scary monsters were out there scary you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? It was right isn't that America DoD
Speaker 2: I own that.
Speaker 7: You remember those first creative moments of the Whiz like that, like, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: We were going through it together and I changed it
Speaker 2: every night until it got right.
Speaker 1: Wait what they brought me?
Speaker 2: They tried to bring the dances? They got mad. They
Speaker 2: had a meeting with me. What you don't look good
Speaker 2: or you don't sound good? You fucked up that goddamn
Speaker 2: that solo that you was supposed to and you acting
Speaker 2: like you're being the boss of the conductor. You would
Speaker 2: call him on that. That wasn't right. Let's go back.
Speaker 7: So who's in the room? Can you set the scene?
Speaker 7: Because I mean, I know.
Speaker 2: Nobody's in the room, Me and the dances. This is
Speaker 2: in air. Where does the music come? It's in the air?
Speaker 2: Come on?
Speaker 7: Did you have to also tell Charlie that when it
Speaker 7: came to some of the songs or.
Speaker 2: It did that, it didn't work. Yes. Yes, that's why
Speaker 2: I'm still collecting royalties.
Speaker 7: Right because you actually added to one of the songs.
Speaker 2: On the Whiz. Right. No, he said what he thought
Speaker 2: was gonna pass for Emerald City. I said, no, I
Speaker 2: can't do this. Sounds like a dirge we're coming into
Speaker 2: sparkling Emerald City, so I had to be And then
Speaker 2: a pop of fans and the ladies in Chaffan and
Speaker 2: moving like and moving like that. Come on, we're in
Speaker 2: Emerald City. Storytelling, storytelling, that's why they can't get by it.
Speaker 7: And George were you you were involved in the play
Speaker 7: and the movie, Diana Ross, Okay, so then can you
Speaker 7: tell people because people don't realize too that, like there
Speaker 7: was differences between the stage and the movie.
Speaker 2: They had no tornado.
Speaker 7: She was that was the woman, that's the the tattoo.
Speaker 1: This is what I have.
Speaker 7: This is the tornado that.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a tornado.
Speaker 2: That's a tornado. Let me tell you how that came about.
Speaker 2: We wasn't really satisfied with where he was going and
Speaker 2: I needed something that would really do the terror of
Speaker 2: the tornado. So you know, we started out the Doom Doom.
Speaker 2: We were through a lot of tapes, you know, you
Speaker 2: know Harold Wheeler, Yeah, how a Wheeler was? I went
Speaker 2: to was at Howard with and he was the uh,
Speaker 2: he was the orchestrator, right, and they didn't know I
Speaker 2: had this younger guy that Timothy Graff and read who
Speaker 2: actually did the dance arrangements. They said, well we have
Speaker 2: I said, I want this guy. So I was taking
Speaker 2: on all of that because they had all it all played.
Speaker 2: Charlie Coleman was going to be the conductor and uh
Speaker 2: her Wheeler was going to be They said, oh no,
Speaker 2: I got my man here. I didn't know that you
Speaker 2: couldn't do that or I was I was cross sea
Speaker 2: boundary sorry, and he is an unknown. And we got
Speaker 2: in there and we did the tornado, you know, like
Speaker 2: I come in I don't even remember from the side
Speaker 2: after the girls with the umbrellas and the I stirred
Speaker 2: it up with the guides, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, and he floated
Speaker 2: some the eerie kind of music over that, and then
Speaker 2: there we were in a storm.
Speaker 7: So wait, do you feel like because most of us
Speaker 7: most people have not seen the production that you put
Speaker 7: together in that way, right, the Stephanie Mills original production,
Speaker 7: So most people have seen the movie with so do
Speaker 7: you feel like the choreography.
Speaker 2: But that was Mondanye, That's not magic.
Speaker 7: So you're saying, so it had even influenced.
Speaker 2: We're gonna Roll down Linoleum, all night, yellownolium. What were
Speaker 2: we gonna do? No, we had the guides. Those guys
Speaker 2: became the yellow brick rop so I could dance all
Speaker 2: over the stage and they had to follow it. And
Speaker 2: the audience said, and we had those big afro yellow
Speaker 2: afros and the tails that were you know, So.
Speaker 7: How did y'all do the scene in the play, like,
Speaker 7: for instance, it was so large in the movie when
Speaker 7: they did they went to Emerald City. And of course
Speaker 7: the whole red gold, green, gold, gold and red that
Speaker 7: was a part of the play as well. No, no, no,
Speaker 7: That's what I'm trying to figure out because I saw
Speaker 7: it at the very young girl, I was so little.
Speaker 1: So well, you saw the eighty revival version.
Speaker 7: I saw the Stephanie Mills, right, she.
Speaker 2: Came back in eighty one eighty two.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's when I probably saw it, right.
Speaker 1: So I saw the seventy seven.
Speaker 7: No, I forget, So I'm trying.
Speaker 2: To remember that's what you were in Emerald City.
Speaker 10: Wait, she has a whiz tattoo on her shoulders silver.
Speaker 7: Yeah, my wins tattoo is because Charlie wrote these songs.
Speaker 7: Any songs still translated to the if.
Speaker 9: We remember in the much talked about but extremely defunct
Speaker 9: Quincy Jones episode when he started introducing us to the
Speaker 9: Alpha whatever one am thing, someone told Sidney like, dude,
Speaker 9: you don't have a big dance number for Emerald City,
Speaker 9: and so they had to That was that whole gold,
Speaker 9: red yellow thing was a last minute addition.
Speaker 2: To and that didn't you didn't have an Emerald City
Speaker 2: and we were just in green and it had to
Speaker 2: be fierce and it had to be sparkling, and that's
Speaker 2: why it's just magical, you know, to start with, and
Speaker 2: you needed something like that. Charlie came through a dirge
Speaker 2: of some some sort. We were we were collaborating you
Speaker 2: and so what I mean, So I had to win
Speaker 2: him over to that and he had to see that,
Speaker 2: and it had to change all of that. And then
Speaker 2: they had characters, you know, they were snooty and all
Speaker 2: of that, and Jeffrey put all kinds of things and
Speaker 2: then he put traps. I mean, getting back to Broadway
Speaker 2: was a bitch. No, we were forty second Street for real.
Speaker 2: The Blackbird version of forty second Street is the wiz.
Speaker 2: You know, traps in costumes and shit, I don't understand traps. No,
Speaker 2: my if my leg has to go up higher? Why no,
Speaker 2: I I discovered I did sure lock discovering. I had
Speaker 2: to have all of that taken out of those causs
Speaker 2: I was like, why aren't they moving like in a
Speaker 2: certain way?
Speaker 7: Jeffrey Holder beef is this is this? How this happens?
Speaker 2: That's what? No, But that's that was the business. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: they no, I'm standing my ground. But see I had
Speaker 2: been a dancer in front of them. Everybody sold it
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 7: It's like, who were you to tell me what?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I had cut it before he could come
Speaker 2: back and ought. I only gauge in everything. I can
Speaker 2: only gauge everything by applause, how loud. The applause was
Speaker 2: not that hitting the note, just got to hit the note.
Speaker 2: But I'm talking about the dancing.
Speaker 9: So are we basically hearing that There was a sort
Speaker 9: of battle of the control between him and Jeffrey in terms.
Speaker 2: Of the producer didn't want to put all the power
Speaker 2: in one person's hands.
Speaker 7: And I'm computed about Jeffrey Holder's role in that way
Speaker 7: because Jeffrey Holder at the time, what was his role?
Speaker 2: Jeffrey walked out on the first day of rehearsal because
Speaker 2: he wasn't going to be the director choreography, so he
Speaker 2: was just he was. He did the costumes. We went
Speaker 2: out on the road. Jeffrey Holder, you know, is there
Speaker 2: another one? Oh no, the colon.
Speaker 9: Here's the thing I knew of Jeffrey Holder as an
Speaker 9: actor because I saw Annie first and my mom was like, he.
Speaker 2: Was from Trinidad. He did Baron Sandy, you know, the
Speaker 2: island guy half white, half black. You know, he was
Speaker 2: in one of the Double seven movie. He was, he
Speaker 2: was an character. But that was his acting side. Oh no,
Speaker 2: he did dance. He did great pieces like Doogler for
Speaker 2: for the Dancer of Harlem and his own company. He
Speaker 2: did Prodigal Prince was which was about the painter and
Speaker 2: I and I was, why.
Speaker 7: Are you doing comes and you're doing choreography because.
Speaker 2: The guy hired me after they saw Sweet Odors in
Speaker 2: the park in delacort and they came up to me
Speaker 2: and asked me what I do this this piece called
Speaker 2: the Wiz and it was the black version of the
Speaker 2: Wizard of Oz and so forth and so on, and
Speaker 2: I said, when you get the money, call me and
Speaker 2: that part. And because I had a dance company. And
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was going to do that. I
Speaker 2: didn't know it was going to be you know, but
Speaker 2: I put my best foot forward. I did the best
Speaker 2: that I could for the piece. I was serving the piece.
Speaker 2: It's not like that. But you say you come in
Speaker 2: with them, they come in with a microphone. It takes more.
Speaker 2: You got to go to books, You got to do
Speaker 2: some research, you got to do all of that.
Speaker 7: How was it teaching Stephanie to dance?
Speaker 2: You could dance. She was a kid fifteen years old, right.
Speaker 2: And hint in Battle was a trained ballet dancer that
Speaker 2: I found on the street at eighty fifth Street.
Speaker 1: And Hint Battle was the scarecrow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a scarecrow. He just died not too
Speaker 2: a couple weeks after Cheetah. Cheetah died too, right, So
Speaker 2: all of that went on. So Jeffrey wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be the director in Gilbert Moses who did ain't supposed
Speaker 2: to die a natural death and worked for nec Negro
Speaker 2: Ensemble Company. What's going to be the director? Jeffrey walked out,
Speaker 2: I'll see you in Baltimore and he came with the
Speaker 2: costumes and all of that, and that was a nightmare
Speaker 2: because you know, we hadn't nobody had tried on anything.
Speaker 2: And then he made the yellow brick road again with
Speaker 2: trying to make the road, you know, And so the
Speaker 2: tails were like dragging the floor, and I'm saying, how
Speaker 2: could you let fifteen dollars a yard silk and like
Speaker 2: that dragged the fort I'm feeling like that, that's not
Speaker 2: gonna last eight shows. And then I have to put
Speaker 2: another step in there to keep the tails out. So
Speaker 2: I had them put it over their arm and carry
Speaker 2: like that and cut them the excess off. And that's
Speaker 2: how we got that costume, just like we cut the
Speaker 2: first costume.
Speaker 9: So with all the hoopla or the Wiz and of
Speaker 9: course I can't even convey to our audience how much
Speaker 9: of a force. I mean, the Wiz was the Wizzes
Speaker 9: run in nineteen seventy five to seventy seven, the first
Speaker 9: two year period. I mean to me, maybe the whole
Speaker 9: hoopla over Hamilton, like you couldn't get tickets, none of
Speaker 9: that stuff. Maybe for this generation, if you had an
Speaker 9: opportunity to see Beyonce's homecoming in the flesh, that's what
Speaker 9: it was like to see the Whiz back in the
Speaker 9: mid seventies when it and yeah, we saw twice as
Speaker 9: like even I mean I barely remember it was like
Speaker 9: five or six, but I still just remember everyone's reaction
Speaker 9: to it, and it was nothing like I've ever seen before,
Speaker 9: with all the hoopla, with all the celebrities.
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 9: I think Michael Jackson came to see it, like at
Speaker 9: least six times, I believe where he said in an
Speaker 9: interview he kept coming night after night after night at
Speaker 9: the night to see it. How did it feel to
Speaker 9: see something at that magnitude really hit the hard. Yeah,
Speaker 9: the target and all the subsequent Tony's and all the
Speaker 9: accohlop It.
Speaker 2: Was really unbelievable to have, you know that happen to
Speaker 2: experience all that. But also it's a personal journey too
Speaker 2: because we all land. And I remember a stage manager saying,
Speaker 2: you know, to me, when all of this turmoil was
Speaker 2: going on, just do your job, Just do your piece.
Speaker 2: And that's what I did, and did it the best
Speaker 2: I could. I know some people didn't like it because
Speaker 2: I changed it, and you had to change the arrangement too,
Speaker 2: and the copyists were sitting in the hotel room copying it.
Speaker 9: That's why I was asking the question about music and choreography,
Speaker 9: like if.
Speaker 2: You have to change something right, but we were making
Speaker 2: this up, okay, you know, and then you tell how
Speaker 2: Wheeler that okay, it's so many bars, say sixty four
Speaker 2: bars or thirty two or in the increments, so that
Speaker 2: we could keep track of what with technique, it's all
Speaker 2: down to that, not what you hear and what you feel.
Speaker 2: You know all of that, you make all of that.
Speaker 9: So this obviously leads to you getting a lot more
Speaker 9: work with the professional musicians. So who was your first
Speaker 9: client in terms of like, hey, can you stage our
Speaker 9: hill like Simpson?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 7: They the video to all of them like solid this
Speaker 7: is like.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: Okay for thirty years.
Speaker 2: I keep telling could you just give me a royalty?
Speaker 2: We need So when they're like looking at each other
Speaker 2: and then from each other and.
Speaker 11: Told them how to do that, that's you, right, and
Speaker 11: you know that groaning one where they're like hang on, yes.
Speaker 12: Yes, yeah, right righting, And I told you to walk
Speaker 12: over here and do this and the audience is going to.
Speaker 2: Oh the audience when crazy? And I said no, and
Speaker 2: then you go over here. See I didn't think like
Speaker 2: that took I just thought that was their natural chemistry.
Speaker 1: His husband.
Speaker 2: That's how it was supposed to be, and that's how
Speaker 2: it was supposed to look with earth wind the fire,
Speaker 2: I'm not you don't change.
Speaker 1: You used what the person has. So when do you
Speaker 1: enter the earth wind and fire spear? What year? Oh God?
Speaker 1: So you're here for.
Speaker 2: All in all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw phil the Philadelphia show in which.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tubes, the tubes came down.
Speaker 1: One of them couldn't get out of the tube and Filliladelphia.
Speaker 2: Then all ten of them on the front line wanted
Speaker 2: we had one trick where they all came out in
Speaker 2: suits that you suits, and they all wanted them to
Speaker 2: rip off and disappear, and there they were. I know
Speaker 2: we had that trick.
Speaker 1: So how did you work?
Speaker 2: He's like, but if you know, but if it you know,
Speaker 2: you got dates and things to make. And if it
Speaker 2: doesn't work, you know, we got him there, but it's here.
Speaker 2: All nine of them want to go up in the pyramids.
Speaker 2: In the pyramid, then the pyramid takes off and then
Speaker 2: it explodes and they're not there.
Speaker 1: And then verdein.
Speaker 2: No Verdine. It is really enthusiastic, and yes he has
Speaker 2: a spirit.
Speaker 1: Three times in this interviewer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we owe he said, we owe him here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you.
Speaker 2: Working with Doug Henning and or Copperfield who was first?
Speaker 9: Dug Hanning or Doug Henning? Okay, so Copperfield was his apprentice, No,
Speaker 9: just separate. Okay, so Henning was first.
Speaker 2: And because that were different tricks. Yeah, but this is
Speaker 2: like unheard of magical.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Dave.
Speaker 9: Got their start the magicians, oh my okay, yeah, like
Speaker 9: Maurice White was not playing.
Speaker 1: Been with me.
Speaker 9: So basically, Maurice wanted to figure out how to really
Speaker 9: introduce metaphysics to the black audience, make them believe in magic.
Speaker 9: So but literally that's how the Jackson is, like they
Speaker 9: would be in the audience like taking notes, we want
Speaker 9: to levitating.
Speaker 1: It started with Verdein was floating first.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding? I didn't realize all that. Yes, well
Speaker 2: you were there.
Speaker 1: You helped facility ate it.
Speaker 2: I know, Richard giving me information. I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 2: know they were.
Speaker 9: Marius's whole plan was through the music and through the
Speaker 9: presentation to introduce metaphysics, and he figured magic tricks are
Speaker 9: a sure fire away, like you know, like that sort of.
Speaker 7: Thing, and it worked, so he sounded like a puppet man.
Speaker 9: First Verdein started levitating in the air and all that stuff,
Speaker 9: and then then.
Speaker 2: I saw them after after I didn't work on that show, okay,
Speaker 2: because they had it was sparse, but I worked on
Speaker 2: all of the subsequents.
Speaker 9: Well, you worked on the first show that they stepped
Speaker 9: their game up and did his presentation?
Speaker 1: And how long did you stay with them?
Speaker 2: Weeks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in the project. The project.
Speaker 2: I went on tour. We went to Egypt, we went
Speaker 2: to Paris. Wow, we went to We played with Notcimento
Speaker 2: in Brazil. Right, all of that?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 11: Wow?
Speaker 4: What are some of your favorite dances like or styles
Speaker 4: of dance like tango.
Speaker 2: Or all of you know, I did the Josephine Baker's
Speaker 2: story with them, but you know, it takes a lottle.
Speaker 2: It takes a little bit of time. You got to
Speaker 2: have all the time to learn them.
Speaker 7: Real, you know, like what's your most fun Like did
Speaker 7: you have really had a good time doing?
Speaker 1: Like if you go out to a club and your
Speaker 1: song come on, what are you doing?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 2: What am I doing? I'm doing what the people are doing?
Speaker 2: Oh no, I can clear the floor? Oh no? Still know?
Speaker 2: When I went to Brazil. You know, you go to
Speaker 2: you know the club. I work with Fannie Mickey down
Speaker 2: there in uh Colombia. She had the International Theater down
Speaker 2: there and I did it. I did a stint with them.
Speaker 2: But then they would go out to the clubs at
Speaker 2: night and people are just dancing, and then they some
Speaker 2: of the club the people are playing salsa clubs, he
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. I just jumped in there with them,
Speaker 2: and then then the crowd happened. Yeah, you know when
Speaker 2: you're doing it, when we are doing it, we're not
Speaker 2: showing off. When we are doing it and you love
Speaker 2: it and you're in it and you can feel it,
Speaker 2: ain't nothing like it.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to the Latin Quarter?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, the original, not when the rappers was there.
Speaker 9: No for for a lot of us that are into
Speaker 9: that have the knowledge of at least my knowledge of
Speaker 9: this really came because I'm an MTV generation person, So
Speaker 9: watching those Michael Jackson Michael.
Speaker 1: Peters videos, then I was like, oh, choreograph.
Speaker 9: And then you know, I realized like, Okay, this is
Speaker 9: a Gene Kelly reference or Freda Staire reference or whatever.
Speaker 2: But what was your feeling towards that whole?
Speaker 1: Like early eighties rush for now, everybody wants choreography and
Speaker 1: their videos and all.
Speaker 2: If you remember, Michael Jackson was the first one to
Speaker 2: have that. So that left Stevie, Maurice and all of
Speaker 2: them feeling left out. See, MTV was not creative for you. Okay.
Speaker 2: You got to remember that Michael Jackson broke that color line. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you know that's how we weren't. So you gotta
Speaker 2: you know, embrace all of that. So, yes, and that
Speaker 2: sparked a whole lot of it stepped everybody's game up,
Speaker 2: you know, to want to you know, do that or
Speaker 2: to be recognized that MTV was all over that was
Speaker 2: around the world, all over the world.
Speaker 1: But for you, like, did you see it as like
Speaker 1: finally the world's opening up?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, I was different. I did something else.
Speaker 2: I worked with the artists. It's what they do. It's
Speaker 2: what you do, Marie. No, I'd be we still be,
Speaker 2: you know, working on a combination that I could give Maurice. No,
Speaker 2: they had their own sexiness, they had their own moves.
Speaker 2: You just work on that. So if their own grooves,
Speaker 2: you work on that person and yeah, I fight that
Speaker 2: and then you could use his sexiness, you know, serpentine
Speaker 2: fire and all of that, and then the music then
Speaker 2: it's the Phoenix horn. I mean, I have never in
Speaker 2: my life heard anything as great as and the rhythms
Speaker 2: that they were, you know, playing that was it was magic.
Speaker 2: It was just like you know a Wretha Franklin here
Speaker 2: and her singing or all of that, if you took
Speaker 2: them separate and apart. Phil Collins tried to take them
Speaker 2: up them on we know, I know, so you know
Speaker 2: that was all all of that, but uh no, but
Speaker 2: that's what he was doing. And then he was already
Speaker 2: a fantastic drummer, you know, from Ramsey Lewis and so.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think that the great thing was
Speaker 2: that I had. I had Miles Davis. See I started
Speaker 2: with Miles when I'm one of my first you care,
Speaker 2: how do you do my diffusion? When he with Joe's
Speaker 2: Avenue all of that, when they were breaking into the
Speaker 2: the corner, you know, like you gotta and you gotta
Speaker 2: find your way in there. You know. I did a
Speaker 2: piece not with Miles on stage, but I did a
Speaker 2: piece that I used his music in which I in
Speaker 2: which I did uh poppy, you know the drug you
Speaker 2: know and then and that was the street and so
Speaker 2: I became I became the character you personified, personified it
Speaker 2: with my with his with his music. Now I like
Speaker 2: to really do it and then get one of these
Speaker 2: hip hop freaks to really know. But I but I
Speaker 2: need you need to get all of that, all of that,
Speaker 2: because they're thinking that they're feeling that, but they don't
Speaker 2: have a narrative.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I really wish you and I wish you and
Speaker 7: like Fatima knew each other because who knew that y'all
Speaker 7: had such parallel stories and the fact that y'all are
Speaker 7: both kind of y'all self taught.
Speaker 2: Like y'all know you know I've gone to school albert A. Well, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about way.
Speaker 7: Back before when you started in DC. That's what I
Speaker 7: was talking right, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what But you got to continue to know
Speaker 2: the school.
Speaker 7: Yes, well, then maybe you and Fatima to me later
Speaker 7: for each other. Y'all know each other? Okay?
Speaker 2: Good? Right? Good?
Speaker 1: You know she know everybody?
Speaker 9: So before we wrap, could you tell me what it
Speaker 9: was like to choreograph the inauguration of ninety one of
Speaker 9: the Clinton White House.
Speaker 2: I'm a director and a choreographer. That was all history,
Speaker 2: and what I had to do was bring all that
Speaker 2: together to bring a through line. So there was a
Speaker 2: there was either a Dorothy height that went through all
Speaker 2: of them. I'm talking about from the women not being
Speaker 2: able to speak in nineteen sixty three all the way
Speaker 2: they're still struggling. You know, when you look at it now,
Speaker 2: you know it was that story and that all of
Speaker 2: that takes over even now. So whatever struggle they had,
Speaker 2: it was integration. It was so forth and then the
Speaker 2: men fighting, you know, Wilkins fighting a stokely Carmichael over
Speaker 2: what they were going to do. All of that is
Speaker 2: part of that, you know. So all I have to
Speaker 2: do is just follow that trail. And then you know,
Speaker 2: we used to substitute. You know, whenever you did a
Speaker 2: white person, you had a white mask or something like that. No,
Speaker 2: take off the masks. Everybody's going to do their part. No. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We had songs about protests and then we don't want
Speaker 2: them in here. We had the flag when the flag
Speaker 2: you know, I have three big Confederate flags, and they
Speaker 2: sang that song in front of them.
Speaker 9: You know, you know how y'all reacted, And that's what
Speaker 9: I was wanted, and you're a provocateur, did it right?
Speaker 2: And then this had to be the sheriff that sang
Speaker 2: the song, so you know, you got what it was.
Speaker 2: The struggle, the confrontation, all of that, and then we
Speaker 2: could have those moments we shall overcome and all of
Speaker 2: those other things. But why were we singing all of that?
Speaker 2: Why were we why were we doing that? There was
Speaker 2: a purpose and there was a purpose for that show,
Speaker 2: you know, So what are we doing? You know, like
Speaker 2: I think that we'll we'll find ourselves, you know, you
Speaker 2: know where we should be if we stop denying the truth,
Speaker 2: you know, and sharing the truth. Okay, all of these
Speaker 2: are periods that we are going through then, you know.
Speaker 2: And what we're going through right now, the reintroduction, this
Speaker 2: is what is this? This is a retelling of something
Speaker 2: that we had overcome, that we had we had been
Speaker 2: passed all it. We still have to come together. We
Speaker 2: still have to share all of these wonderful things that
Speaker 2: we have, you know what I mean, the technology and
Speaker 2: so forth. Our kids are sitting over there with computers
Speaker 2: that can't work, but there is so much let's beyond
Speaker 2: that that you know, other people can teach you. We
Speaker 2: are there, you know, I did. I have a piece
Speaker 2: that I'm doing with Ai, and I have Gandhi telling
Speaker 2: his story. But I have Cutter and all of the techniques,
Speaker 2: you know, the dance techniques opposing it. The British attacked
Speaker 2: dancing and the other people are doing cutter and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I want to go there. That's where we are,
Speaker 2: you know, And we're vamping right now. Why are we
Speaker 2: going back to the whiz especially? No, no, you're not
Speaker 2: gonna have a memory over there. I don't know how
Speaker 2: we get we were.
Speaker 9: I mean part of the human experiences looking ahead and
Speaker 9: occasionally looking at.
Speaker 2: This is fifty years ago. Just have.
Speaker 1: I have some memories.
Speaker 7: I would like a nice documentary at some point though,
Speaker 7: like between the original play and the movie. I think
Speaker 7: that would be dope. If I missed that.
Speaker 2: Already, you haven't missed that. That's what That's what you
Speaker 2: could do.
Speaker 7: That's what another thing on the back of I done.
Speaker 2: Done done. I was there with the with the first movie.
Speaker 7: In that crowd they used to dance on that stage.
Speaker 2: You were in Harlem, really that you that's what that's
Speaker 2: when they were doing it.
Speaker 9: Equal opportunity, you know that all of that wait, you
Speaker 9: were in the park as a spectator because there were
Speaker 9: dance troops there that we had to drop out cut
Speaker 9: out the film.
Speaker 1: But so I thought you were about to tell me
Speaker 1: that you were one of the dancers.
Speaker 7: I was like, God on the stage, you are.
Speaker 9: A burst of energy and education and history, and I
Speaker 9: thank you for doing our podcast with us.
Speaker 2: We're going to do all this. Wow, it's amazing.
Speaker 9: Actually I was going to play the fanfare theme because
Speaker 9: is the way you were speaking about our history and everything.
Speaker 9: It just felt like I needed diploma after that. But yeah,
Speaker 9: on behalf of Unpaid Bill and uh Sugar Steve and
Speaker 9: pont Diegelo and Laya. But thank you brother Faison for
Speaker 9: doing this for us, and we appreciate you and your
Speaker 9: art and this Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve.
Speaker 10: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast
Speaker 10: is hosted by a mere Quest Love Thompson, Liya Saint
Speaker 10: Clair Ponte Coleman, Sugar Steve Mandel and Unpaid Bill Sherman.
Speaker 10: The executive producers are a mere Quest of Thompson, Sean
Speaker 10: g and Brian Calhoun, produced by Britney Benjamin Jake Payne
Speaker 10: and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for
Speaker 10: iHeart by Noel Brown. What's Love Supreme is a production
Speaker 10: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 10: Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.